Forbidden Planet

Continuing my streak of posting nothing original and taking my cue from others, I once again borrow something from ice cream LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW: Ziglar on Selling, Guerrilla Marketing for the Writer, The Workbench Book, Sam's Teach Yourself HTML & XHTML in 24 Hours (what? Who can only read one book at a time?) FAVORITE BOARD GAME: Star Fleet Battles (but I haven't played in 15+ years) FAVORITE MAGAZINE: Computer Language (defunct for about 15 years) FAVORITE SMELLS: Soft and gentle smells of cleanliness and home: baby powder, after a thunderstorm, early morning crispness, baking, home cooking (not frying though) COMFORT FOOD: Anything tasty FAVORITE SOUNDS: Tania and Jason shouting "Daddy!" when I come home. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD: despondency WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING: ugh ... work ... FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE: ...

As promised yesterday, shamelessly appropriated this meme from ice cream : Seven things to do before I die: 1. produce a movie 2. visit Japan 3. have a place on a mountainside overlooking a lake 4. write a book or ten 5. be independently wealthy 6. live a good and full life 7. achieve success Seven things I cannot do: 1. dance 2. understand people 3. finish something before moving onto something else 4. respect timelines 5. let loose 6. be interested in pop culture 7. sing Seven things I admire about my sweetie 1. she is honest 2. she loves me 3. she is faithful 4. she is focussed 5. she is organized 6. she is patient 7. she is reliable and dependable Seven things I say most often 1. really? 2. Tania 3. Jason 4. Amor 5. curious / interesting 6. I don’t think so 7. You are wrong / mistaken Seven books I love 1. Master of the World (but it helps to read Robur the Conqueror first) 2. 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea (reading The Mysterious Island gives more insight on captain Nemo) 3. The...

Borrowed this one from Whirled Peas and will likely borrow another one tomorrow from Icecream . Four jobs I've had: Lawn mower Electronics Technician Software Engineer Senior Software Developer Four movies I can watch over and over: Forbidden Planet Van Helsing Aliens Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Four places I've lived: Montreal, Quebec Toronto, Ontario Williamstown, Ontario Ottawa, Ontario Four TV shows I love: Doctor Who Mythbusters SpongeBob SquarePants Jimmy Neutron (I assume it refers to currently in production TV shows – those are the only two I will actually go out of my way to try and watch) Four places I've been on vacation: Varaderro, Cuba Peru The Gaspe, Quebec New York City, NY Four websites I visit daily: Madville The Inquirer Google News Bloodshed Software Forum Four of my favorite foods: Bigos (Polish Hunter’s Stew) Kluski y roladę (Dumplings and Meatrolls) Thai Indian Four places I'd rather be right now: Sitting on the veranda of a house in the mou...

Well, for Christmas I got Strep Throat. It started shortly after dinner and was pretty bad by evening. Monday was brutal and since I wasn’t anywhere near getting better by Tuesday I went to see the doctor (which cost $160 – so much for universal healthcare access in Canada – Quebec does not recognize Ontario’s healthcare cards – so I pay now, get reimbursed later). The nurse who swabbed my throat stuck the swabs quite deeply and forcibly into my throat – advising me that if I gagged she would have to redo it. I didn’t think my throat could hurt more, but after the swabbing it did. Now I’m on penicillin. My throat still hurts, Some of the swelling has gone down, but not much of the pain has gone away. If I’m not better tomorrow, I will go see the doctor again – I was rather expecting most of the symptoms to disappear within 48 hours. I was also prescribed an analgesic (benzidamine) gargle to help with the pain. It has no effect. Also bought some over the counter Cepacol – it too has no ...

Also know as a Drunkard’s Walk , is a concept used in problem solving. Essentially, you cover an equal distance in a series of random directions. In other words, pick a random direction, and go, let us say, 10 feet. Repeat. Teeth and Claws Found out from a coworker at the annual Christmas party last Saturday that my boss of 5 years apparently has a temper. Something I have never personally observed – except for 1 or 2 instances when he looked displeased with me. I’ve always thought he was a pussycat. But, people I’ve worked with always seemed skittish and afraid of him. We use emacs as the editor at work. He set up the script file to provide key bindings and syntax highlighting . There is a bug in his syntax highlighting code, which causes text to be highlighted in large swaths of pink and gray – quite annoying and unusable. So I fixed it and provided him the fix (years ago) – he has never incorporated it. When I try to encourage coworkers to take my emacs customization file. They alw...

Last night I was reading Jay Conrad Levinson's "The Way of the Guerrilla - achieving success and balance as an entrepreneur in the 21st century" and he lists this as one of the top myths that people believe in. As he explains (I am paraphrasing reasonably accurately, because I left the book at home): Time is not money. Time is far more precious than money. If you run out of money, there are a myriad of ways you can generate more. If you run out of time, there is no way you can generate more. I certainly agree, it was nice to read someone who put it nice and succinctly though. Image grabbed from here .

For lack of anything coherent to say at the moment ... Your Eyes Should Be Hazel Your eyes reflect: Intellect and sensuality What's hidden behind your eyes: Subtle manipulation What Color Should Your Eyes Be? I think that is my actual eye colour. I have a fairly non-descript eye colour. If I wear green they look greenish and if I wear blue they look bluish.

Went to one of my favourite stores this morning and noticed that they had taken down almost all their Christmas displays and replaced them with Valentine’s Day displays. I want to hold your little hand If I can be so bold And be your right hand man 'til your hands get old - White Stripes , " Hypnotize " (Note: I haven't even finished with my Christmas cards yet - not to mention that all the Christmas shopping is still outstanding.) Grabbed the image from here .

I often find people simultaneously fascinating and unfathomable. They act and behave in ways that leave me perplexed, as though they disengage higher thought processes from normal everyday behavior. A good example can be found in the supermarket, where people just stop where they please seemingly without regard that (a) they are blocking the aisle, and (b) there are hundreds of other shoppers trying to get around. Then there are the people walking in front of you who suddenly stop for no apparent reason (maybe to check their purse? suddenly look up and get their bearings?) causing me to almost crash in to them. Don’t these people realize that the sidewalks are filled with pedestrians? The most recent example was this past weekend when Susana (Sofia’s cousin) suddenly took a swig from Tania’s bottle of water. When we met up with Susana I told her that Tania was sick. We were together for a few hours and Susana could hear Tania’s rich phlegmatic cough. But as we got out of the car and we...

I would love to find something that could instantly get me to put procrastination behind me. There are numerous reasons why I procrastinate, but I think it boils down to 3 core reasons: (1) Bleh. Putting off doing something I don’t want to do. (2) Mood. I’m waiting for that epiphany when everything clicks into place, the celestial spheres fall into alignment and I am supreme ruler of my domain. (3) Urgency. Or, rather, lack of. I find it difficult to feel a great sense of urgency for most things, most deadlines and timelines seem artificially arbitrary. I think it is waiting for the perfect time that is killing me (not literally). I can easily step back and see that I have accomplished much, but there is more I want to do. My greatest fear is not having achieved all that I was capable of achieving. Being comfortable is one problem. Struggling to eke out an existence is another. Caught between the two is me. Comfortable, but rather unfulfilled, but afraid of stepping out for fear of los...

No, I am not sick, but my son Jason is. He's had a cough that has been getting progressively worse and a bit of nasal congestion. Since there was no fever and no other obvious signs, we figured he would get over it. This past Monday, I took him to the see the doctor since it was clear things were getting worse and he was prescribed some antibiotics. On Wednesday, Sofia called and told me he had a fever and his cough was much worse. So I came home to Montreal and took him to the doctor again. This time the doctor prescribed a different antibiotic (this was the one I had initially inquired about - zithromax ). It seems to be helping him more than the cefprozil he was initially prescribed. I have taken today off as well, since Sofia is quite busy at work. Yesterday we played Spiderman (this is a very low bandwidth site, so you might get a "bandwidth exceeded" page instead) and Batman . He was Spiderman (since the costume fits him) and I was Batman (since the mask sort of f...

We all have expectations. Whether it is about our jobs, our friends, our families, our significant others, out kids (for those who have kids), where we’ll be at age 25, 30, 40, 55, etc … Expectations in themselves can be quite complicated and there are different types of expectations: expectations of status, expectations of wealth, expectations of behavior. Some expectations are disguised hopes. So what have been some of my expectations? I expected to be independently wealthy (by most standards I am wealthy. Using this comparator I score in the top 1% of richest people in the world whether I use my full salary – or 80%, because I work a 4 day week – sorry, exact scoring is classified ;-) The hourly rate calculation seems a bit skewed – it is using a 1440 hour work year – which is much shorter than mine. I expected to have a secluded laboratory / workshop in a forest hideaway (I am assembling a fairly nice workshop in the garage in Montreal though). But, those can also be considered dr...

There are a number of unique Canadianisms (you can look them up on the internet if you like), however, there are three I remember being pointed out to me by international students while I was in University: (1) We do not measure distance in kilometers or miles, we measure in minutes or hours (which means we are likely ask what mode of transportation you will be using). For example: “How far is it to Elgin and Queen?” “If you’re walking about an hour, if you’re taking the bus about 20 minutes, and if you’re driving about 10-15 minutes.” Toronto is about 5 hours from Ottawa (instead of 500 Km) and Montreal is about 2 hours from Ottawa. Vancouver is about 2 to 2-1/2 hours away (by plane) or 4 days (by train). (2) We talk about the weather a lot (only if the weather is interesting to talk about, otherwise we talk about old weather, “Remember the ice storm of ’99?” ;-) Not only that, but we have two TV stations (one English, the other French) dedicated to bringing you the weather 24 hour...

Two simple words, totaling three characters in the English language, which are used to self disclose and to self define oneself. I am hungry. I am honest. I am loyal. I am outgoing. Simple as those words are, they carry within them seeds of deception. If I say, “I am honest”, perhaps I have spoken truly. Perhaps I am expressing that “I wish I were honest”. Or, perhaps I am just lying to you. “I am” has a more special significance for me because it used to be the way I described myself. When people would ask me who I was, I would reply “I am” or “I am me” – which would usually get me a “What is that supposed to mean?” type of response (especially from guys). For some reason, I lost that sense of self a while back. While I now feel better, I don’t feel I have returned to the state of “I am”. I discussed this with Sofia a few months back after registering my surname as a domain name and setting up a webpage (which to this day only says something to the effect of “future home of my website...

Well, I didn't succeed with NaNoWriMo. I didn't progress to putting any more words to paper than the original 194 . Am I disappointed? No. I had no clear ideas, I had a cold early on, and I indulged in other activities. Take them as you want, either they are reasons or excuses (the glass is half full or half empty). I was thinking of doing a time travelling / unrequited love story. Basically, the protagonist falls in love with someone. The girl, while pleasant and polite, already has a beau she is crazy about, so cannot accept his advances. She dies. He is consumed with the anguish of regret that circumstances had not been different. Becomes a quantum physicist specializing in quantum entanglement . Realizes that quantum imprints are left behind (a fictitious specialization of entanglement which he pioneers), uses this to build at first a time viewer which allows him to voyeuristically view his love's life - including the point at which she died. He misleads those around hi...