December 2005 Archives

As has become the tradition for me new years eve the last few years, I am heading out in a few minutes to the latest, and rumored last, Back 2 the Future show, put on by Crown Productions. Back 2 the Future this year is the third show, and I have had the pleasure of working security for all of them, as well as several other Crown Productions shows. I hope that this one will be just as good as every other one I have worked on, and I hope to see many of the people who have become almost friends through all the past shows.

Unfortunately, my plan to get back to my former home and clean up the stuff I had no choice but to leave behind failed. I am angry about this, because I had planned to go there yesterday with the help of a friend who had offered his help, but then who had never shown up. This was rather aggravating, as I got next to nothing done in the big picture, and as the person was not available today either, I didn't even go back. I know the landlord is probably pissed off at me., but if the caretaker has a decent contract with him, he'll at least have made a little extra cash, and he has plenty of family to help him clean the place out. And that is that. I am moved. Back home. /sigh

Whew. I thought at one point it would never be done, but I am done moving all my worldly possessions to my parents. There is a lot of cleaning that needs to be done between now and the end of the month, but the majority, the biggest part of all of this, is pretty much done. There is a lot of garbage at the old place that needs to be taken care of, and some heavy duty cleaning I need to do, but with almost 3 days to get it done, I should have it done with plenty of time to go before the party I am working security at on New Years Eve, the third Back 2 the Future show by Crown Productions. I have worked all three B2TF shows with the one coming this weekend, and look forward to some fun times, even if I am not into the music.

I am sitting here, most of my apartment packed up, waiting for the next arrival for pickup for more stuff. It's hard for me to put my entire life into such a small number of boxes relatively. I have found myself thinking back to other times where I have had to do such things, and I remember all the things I have lost over the years. When I went out to Lethbridge, I left all my most precious items with a friend, who later tossed them into a dumpster. My cap and diploma were in there, a lot of pictures and all of my poems were lost in that instance. Yes, I am/was a poet, or at least I thought I was. I have since come to my senses. I hope this instance of packing up my life has a better result, but I have no idea in all honesty. Back to the grind, though. See ya on the other side.

I am in the middle of a move back to my parents. I apologize if this impacts on the content I produce, both here and on the podcast. I also will not be doing my radio shows on MMO Radio, as I am too busy packing my life into boxes. I also have several posts in draft that I haven't had a chance to write yet. I will be sure to get to that asap. See you soon.

It is always interesting to see the Recording industry come face to face with a person in the legal system they cannot buy, pressure, or harm in any way. It was recently reported that the record labels Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music Group have come under investigation by Elliott Spitzer, the Attorney General for the State of New York, over the pricing of downloaded music through stores like iTunes. Steve Jobs of Apple, which runs the iTunes Music Store, has in the past criticized the record labels of greed that will kill the idea and benefit of online music purchases, instead of piracy.

At first I saw this investigation as a good thing from the consumer stand point, I am no longer entirely sure. The investigation is over possible collusion and price fixing between the 4 big labels. However, when I thought for a time on the possible remedies to this situation, only one became very clear, that being the desire of the labels to have staggered pricing, both higher and lower than the current typical price of $0.99 a track. I will definitely keep an eye on this story.

I apologize now for the forthcoming rant. I know I just spoke yesterday of being thankful for what we have, not angry about what we do not. I must say I did get what is surely the most interesting and unique Christmas gift I have ever received. Nearly guaranteed eviction. That's right, wrapped in a shiny bow and all, my employer has ensured I will be getting an eviction notice form my landlord due to the fact I am no longer making enough per month to pay my rent. Indeed, their policy is one that does not guarantee part time employees any hours, so I could easily get none, and hell, it's possible this post alone might get me there. However, as I do not know what I did, or who I pissed off to get to the point I am at now, I am not sure I really give a damn anymore. I am left with no doubt that I am being punished, but again, I have no idea why. All I know is that in the week between Christmas and New Years, I am packing and moving back to my parents place. Joy to the world!

Hey everyone. I know I gave you a Christmas greetings podcast, but as it is Christmas now, at least here in North America, I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. This time of year, it is easy to get downtrodden if we don't get what we want, or life turns out not to be like we had planned or expected. The important thing is to remember that many of us are more fortunate then a lot of other people in the world. Larry McIntosh of Peak of the Market, a company that sells Manitoba grown vegetables, has a recording out that points out that we aren't so badly off if we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and friends to care about. The last line, and I hope I get this right, goes something like 'if you can give thanks for what you have, you are fortunate because you are one of the few who do, out of the many who can'. A good thought to think on, I think.

Received from Larry McIntosh himself, look below for his exact words in the christmas greeting.

Sadly, life got in the way, so I haven't been able to get you the podcasts I wanted and planned to do this week. I can honestly say I don't know when I will be able to. Again, my apologies. I do have a podcast of my Christmas greetings up for you all to listen to. I hope to have an episode out between now and the new year, but I can't honestly say I would recommend expecting it. Have a good Christmas everyone, and see you soon.

Episode 6 is up and ready for download everyone! It's not everything I had hoped for, sadly, as I just wanted to get something out today as i promised. A lot of awesome content was left out, but you do have the group discussion I had with the Shadow Walkers a couple of weeks back, so hopefully it gives you some good content overall. I hope to soon have another such sit down, with eventual regularly scheduled ones, weekly or bi monthly, covering the latest news. The Show notes are here, and I will give links as soon as time allows on the various topics I discussed. Enjoy, and see you soon for another episode of CGP.

I am working as quickly as I can to put together episode number 6 of the Canadian Geek Podcast. I am not sure when it will be out, but I hope to have it out for you all by tomorrow night sometime. It is looking like a good podcast, and probably a long one. I have a half hour group discussion, and at least an hour of other content for this podcast, if not more. The group conversation was awesome for me, so when you hear it, tell me what you think of the segment. I am considering taking that segment off into another podcast all it's own, so I am eager for feedback.

Time Magazine and Time for Kids Magazine have released their respective people of the year. Time for Kids named JK Rowling, author of the harry Potter books and the wealthiest woman in Britain, credited with bringing kids back to books and showing them that kids can affect the world, was named Person of the Year for Time for Kids. Bill and Melinda Gates, as well as Bono, were named Time Magazines Persons of the year for their charitable and humanitarian efforts, and also named former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton as "Partners of the Year" for their humanitarian efforts after the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, and the unlikely friendship that developed from that work. Congratulations to all the winners.

I find myself, interestingly, writing the words I will say on the next episode of the podcast, and find that I am choked up at the thought of never seeing Leo McGarry on the West Wing after the episode that apparently just taped, that of the vice presidential election. I was just beginning to be impacted by TV when I began watching LA Law, the NBC legal drama that aired in the late 80's and early 90's. When John Spencer joined the cast in 1990, it was a memorable character I saw. When, about 10 years later, I saw the same person on West Wing when I began watching, a year or two into the series, a grin broke across my face, and it was like seeing an old friend again.

When his character on the West Wing suffered a heart attack, I was sure this was the producers way of slowly taking him off the air, and I was saddened. I like the character of Leo, he was the one person who had a chance of standing up to the President and not getting sent packing. I am saddened equally by the loss the TV show will face, as Leo was part of the current election plot, running as the vice president, and just beginning to take a major role in the campaign. I know me, for one, I will miss seeing John Spencer, and like it was with John Ritter, who also died mid season into a show that brought him back to the spotlight, it will be sad to see the last episode. John Spencer dies Friday of a heart attack, which unlike Leo McGarry, his character, he did not survive.

Ok, so many of you are, I expect, wondering by now "Where's episode 6??" Well, I'll tell you the reason it's not up. I had planned to move to a Tuesday podcast about 2 podcasts ago, but I could never get it done and ready for you all in time, not if I wanted to be happy with what I had uploaded. I wasn't kidding when I said it takes days to produce a 1-1.5 hour podcast. I was rushing so much, that episode 5 was released with a few bad mistakes, things I should have caught. So I decided to make the time between episode 5 and 6 a little longer, over a full week, and thus Episode 6 will be out on Tuesday sometime. I am beginning work on it now, and will put as much time and effort into it as is necessary to pt t a good podcast.

I had a really good show yesterday on MMO Radio. I had a lot of listeners, enjoyed the music I played, and I hope bumped us on the shoutcast rankings. I love it when I can play music people like, and bring smiles to faces. I even got away with a little country music without too many angry cries of pain. Tonight I have my talk show, Know Your Role(Partying with the Paladin is my Tuesday show) and I hope it is as good. Alas, it will likely be the same old, where the numbers are awesome until I begin talking, then they drop. I am planning to do some contests, we'll see what they are, but I hope to regain the former glory I had on my old station.

It's interesting to me, that I am nearly done Physio in less time than it took to get into physio in the first place. I was put on the list for physio back in May or June of 2005, and didn't get a call from them until sometime in September or October. I didn't get in until, what feels like, 4 or 5 weeks ago. And now I am nearly done. I am told that it'll be 2-3 more appointments, and then I will be done with the visits to the rehab hospital. I can only hope I have the patience and willingness to keep up with the exercises and stretches over the long haul.

While my personal podcast, Canadian Geek Podcast, hasn't taken off all that well, I am considering adding a second to my repertoire. The new podcast would be a little like Twit, wherein it would be a group of geeks talking about technology. The idea is that the big names, Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, and the rest aren't the only ones who have opinions on technology. This would be your typical geek's view of the latest in game and technology news. Not sure if it will work out, but it will be worth the effort anyway. Let me know your thoughts on such a podcast, and if you want in on the action.

I had hoped to avoid this, hoped that this wouldn't become a problem, but unfortunately neither hope seems to have panned out. While walking around at work today, without any cause I could name, and in a time period where they were offering me more hours, my right knee, the opposite of the one I dislocated, began to hurt every so often. Taking it for the odd pains I usually get, I tried to ignore the pain. Alas, it didn't like my ignorance, and proceeded to become a whole lot worse.

Within 10 minutes it had progressed to a great pain every step. My extra hours looked to be near their end before they'd begun. I struggled through the night, doing as much as I could, trying to test the limits of my mobility, but by 8:30, only an hour and a half into the extra time, it was over, they called it on account of immobility, and I went to sit in the lunch room for the half hour I had to wait for my ride home. I really, really hope this isn't a new pattern, cause if so, I am not gonna like this.

Episode 5 of the Canadian Geek Podcast is done and ready for you to download the episode! Check out the show notes, and rest assured the links and news sources will be filled in as quickly as can be. Be sure to tune in next week for another Canadian Geek Podcast!!!

This has grown to aggravation. I have found that my own voice is so bad, that it is taking days to record even a short podcast. I had set out, after my show today on MMO Radio, to record my entire hour podcast, or at the least a short one. Sadly, I have gotten a bit of the words typed out, and even less of the recorded content done and it's almost midnight. My first podcast was recorded in a couple of hours and posted as such. Admittedly, I hadn't put much thought into it, just planning to record my thoughts as they came. After listening to that first podcast, I found too much I wanted to improve on, and now I record each part in segments, then edit to remove all the umm and err, and all of the stuff my mic picks up that I don't want in the podcast. Sadly, this end up causing more problems and a longer process than I would like. Sadly, episode 5 will not be out tonight.

Well, the last 168 hours of my life are hours I would happily forget. Let's see if I can simplify this. One week ago, walking home from work, I slipped on ice a few feet from home, and fell on my right side, hurting my hip and arm, though not so badly I could not walk or anything. Thankfully I had the next 4 days off work, so I was good for getting better. This post describes my Friday, which pushed my next work day until today. Today while I was at work, about 2 hours in, I was grabbing some supplies from the back storage area of the store. Sadly, this are is heavily cluttered, and when I had finished grabbing everything, I was trying to maneuver my way through the stuff int he way, and tripped, falling on my face, and banging my knee and, I think, my wrist. Yeah. I could happily just forget the last week. Any masters of Obliviate out there? Damn, I thought not.

I have made 2 Frappr maps, one for my Radio show, and one for my Podcast. I was thinking of making one for my blog, but as I have very little belief that I have many readers, I felt I would see how the other two things fared first. So feel free to go ahead and put your name on the Frappr maps for Know Your Role, and/or CGP, and let me know where you all live. I am interested to see how many put pins in, and how wide spread you all are.

Change is in the air. It's to the tune of sirens. I woke up this morning with a very bad pain in my chest, and it only got worse when I began to try to make it go away, assuming it might be a cramp or gas. I called my mother, who I knew would be at work, and in the few words I could get out, she decided a call to 911 was best. I sat down, and waited for the ambulance. The first to arrive was a fire truck, due to the merger between the Fire and Paramedic services, and they did the preliminary checks going through the various things it could be, trying to eliminate the various generic possibilities.

The Paramedics arrived, and they proceeded to repeat what the fire people did, plus gave me oxygen and checked with their machines to see if maybe it was my heart. Thankfully, by now the horrible pain was gone, though there was still enough pain to be quite unpleasant. They decided it was best to go to the hospital to find out what was wrong, and I proceeded to walk out to the ambulance, and go to the Vic, the same hospital I went to for my knee. In the ride there, which felt a lot longer then my knee though I am sure it was shorter, I had the chance to do a lot of thinking. My first thought was of the fact this was very likely connected to my weight.

After mulling that over for what felt like at least a half hour, I moved on to the financial impact of this. I was supposed to be working this afternoon, and that would heavily impact my ability to pay my rent. Trying to think up ways around eviction took up the rest of the ride. We got to the hospital, and I waited to be admitted. Once int he room, I waited more for the doctor, though I was admittedly thankful I was not one of those stuck in a hallway. There were several. I felt a little bad getting a room before them. Once the doctor saw me, about an hour into my visit, he asked the normal stuff, family history and all that, then said that since they could find no identifiable reason for my pain, he would order blood tests.

After more waiting, in which time my parents arrived after having left their respective works, a nurse came to take 2 vials of blood. After more time, the doctor came back and said that it all came back fine, and that the only thing he could think of was gall stones. He said that he would recommend acid reducers int he hopes to avoid having to do an ultrasound, but he said that if it happens again, he could probably get one the same day. On the ride home, my mother reminded me, for the 3rd time since she got to the hospital, that I need to lose wait, and there to be no excuses. I simply reminded her this had already passed through my head, and I was not willing to let this become a further problem. Thankfully, the financial thing is taken care of since I have sick time available at work, and it will cover my lost hours.

The episode is up, I need to go to bed, show notes to come. The show notes are up and ready to read. For those not yet having downloaded Episode 4, I covered the upcoming Canadian election, new news on the Sony BMG controversy, smashmyxbox.com, and large capacity burnable disks. Enjoy!