Tuesday, November 29, 2005

A Brit of Light Reading

I miss reading. I really do. Time was, I'd spend much more time with a book in my hand than with a video game controller. I used to spend my lunch breaks at school reading outside while pacing a slow square around the playground. Hell, much to the concern of my mother, I was known to walk down the side of the highway with my nose in a book on occasion (I'd just like to say that, for the record, I had an almost preternatural sense of things around me while I was reading, even if I wasn't consciously aware of everything). When I look at the shelves that ring my bedroom wall (set a couple of feet from the ceiling) and see all of the novels on them (I don't have an exact count, but, judging from previous counts of certain subsections, I'd estimate something in the 500 range), I am sometimes staggered by the volume that I somehow found time to read during my childhood. And yet these days I can count the number of books I've read in the last couple of years on one hand (with the admittedly notable exception of my re-read of the 19-volume epic, Star Wars: The New Jedi Order during my 6-month vacation from everything). And I think that I've suffered because of it.

My reading first really began to slow down during the later stages of high school, for various reasons that kept me quite busy, and it never really recovered. The irony is that one of the major reasons was the amount of time that I spent playing video games, which I credit for teaching me to read in the first place (in-game text and an early love affair with Nintendo Power magazine, which I still collect to this day without having missed a single issue). I generally blame this lack of reading for the stagnation of my vocabulary (my vocabulary hasn't really grown since late junior high, and may even have shrunk slightly, while everyone else's continued to grow), the lack of growth in my writing ability (again, same story-- no real improvement since junior high), and I sometimes wonder if it could have had some effect on my work/study ethic as well, which took a long slow turn for the worse between junior high and the end of my degree program.

Of course, all of this hasn't stopped me from buying books. Although I've shown remarkable restraint when compared with my anime and video game purchasing habits (I've pretty much sworn off Star Trek novels altogether, with a couple of exceptions), I still have a pile of some 30-odd books sitting in my closet in the Chapters bags that they came in. I can't imagine when I'll ever find time to read them all if I continue at my current pace, so I recently decided to do something about it.

I've always had two major impediments to reading, and addressing them is key if I'm to make in dent in my book pile. The first is that, like pretty much everything else that I enjoy, I like my books in marathon sessions, and I don't have the time for that these days. And when I say marathon sessions, I mean something on the order of 18 hours straight every day until it's done (with meal breaks), not the pussy few hours spent on the couch that some people call a marathon. This has become even more important in recent years, since, for reasons that I fear to explore, my memory is awful these days, and keeping a handle on myriad places, characters, and events necessitates constant exposure to the narrative and setting. The second problem is that I don't like people to know what I'm reading. I don't know why, and it doesn't matter what it is that I happen to be reading, I just don't want people to know.

Yesterday, however, I found a temporary solution to both problems. The one place that I do have free time that's not begging to be filled is during my breaks at work, so I brought a couple of books to work with me. Normally, two 15-minute and one 1-hour session a day wouldn't work for me, but, while it's still not ideal, the books in question lend themselves more to short bursts of activity than my usual fare. Also, they're both black hardcovers with removable jackets, so, after having left said jackets at home, they both make for impressively ponderous black tomes, free of identification (provided that I rest the spine on the palm of my hand), which is ideal.

As for the identity of the books in question, they are two Discworld novels, penned by Terry Pratchett. Discworld is a long series of variably connected novels in a persistent fantasy setting, falling into the subgenre that I like to call "British Humour" (which is pretty much like normal "Humour", except more clever/dry, and much funnier). Although his stories are often connected to the many other Discworld novels, they generally stand well enough on their own that I needn't concern myself with a forgotten face or two, and, since they're less serious than my usual fare, they better lend themselves to brief sessions. The only real problem I have left now is controlling my laughter at my desk.

[Note: I added a section to my sidebar today linking to various friends' blogs. This is in part to thank a couple of other people for similarly linking me, and also to prevent future conversations (I've had several to date) along the lines of "Timmy has a blog!? I didn't know that!" Enjoy the massive influx of surfers that a link from my site will generate. Think I'm joking? I presently link to Gamespot, Penny-Arcade, and Dinosaur Comics, and they all get huge traffic. QED.]

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Got 360?

Well, for anyone who's interested, which I suspect is noone, since even I am fairly indifferent: the XBox 360 launched yesterday to engineered mayhem due to possibly intentional shortages causing demand to exceed supply all over the continent. The next generation of gaming has begun. Its launch lineup is generally agreed to be middling at best, and personally there's not a single game in it I even want to so much as play, but I've seen one up and running at the EB a couple of times recently and I've got to say-- it looks very nice. Only time will tell if I'm able to resist the urge to buy one (it's a weak urge presently, fueled only by promises of Bioware games to come, but it's there).

Anyway, there are lots of horror stories floating around about the launch, including grossly inflated resales and an armed robbery, but my favorite is this one:

"On Tuesday, GameSpot staffers witnessed even more chaotic scenes at the local Target in Colma, on the peninsula south of San Francisco. There, a lone security guard spent most of the night shooing an increasingly unruly crowd away from the parking lot. The situation nearly spun out of control around 7 a.m., when the guard left his post for five minutes, prompting a mass influx of would-be customers eager to receive vouchers good for a 360. When he returned, the security guard's attempts to get the 100-plus-person crowd to form a line were rebuffed until the arrival of police and a California National Guardsman around 8 a.m. A trio of veteran GameSpotters witnessed the Guardsman quickly take control of the situation and move to the head of the line--where he promptly turned around and asked for a 360 voucher himself. The Guardsman then promptly fled the scene, voucher in hand, leaving police, Target employees, and a visibly agitated crowd to fend for themselves."

I love people.

Monday, November 21, 2005

A Decided Lack of Diligence

Well, this is possibly the longest break between posts I've allowed since this blog's inception (I'm too lazy to check), not to mention that the previous post was pretty lacklustre. Before starting work, I had planned to update on the weekends, but a week of work quickly reminded me how precious free time is, so I instead decided that I'd update during my lunch hour once or twice a week. The problem is that my longer posts generally take more than an hour to write, and I have other things that I occasionally like to do during my lunch break. Like eating lunch, for instance. So, I'm not sure where that leaves me. I suspect that I'll just have to get used to being a little less verbose, and a little better at resisting the lure of websudoku during my breaks.

However, I do have one other problem, and that's finding topics to write about. I've yet to really encounter writer's block, but I've noticed that since I started working I'm having more trouble with it. Which is funny, since up until now I spent most days without even leaving the house, which one would think would limit potential topics. Unfortunately, though, it also severely cuts down on my video game time, and, as some of you may have noticed, I like to talk about video games on occasion. :-) I could of course talk about work, but after reading through reams of HR propaganda cautioning against posting privileged information and/or slander using government systems, I'm not particularly inclined to take the chance that I might say something that I shouldn't.

In any case, I've got some time to think about it, as I doubt I'll be doing much posting over the next couple of weeks, since my body's still getting used to getting up in the morning, and I got less than 4 hours of sleep every night last week save Friday because I just can't seem to convince myself to go to sleep at a decent hour. Hopefully all the fatigue will help fuel a particularly bitter rant. Until then.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Anger in Stereo

You should all be ashamed of yourselves. And this after the climax of Monday's second episode was possibly the funniest thing I'd ever seen. When the show comes together like that it makes Seinfeld look like crap.

Also, I hate SquareEnix now. Looks like I can finally swear off Final Fantasy once and for all.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

SMART Boards are Neat-O

They've got a cool toy in the training room here, and I want one. A SMART board is an electronic white board. We had a white board at my last job that could be scanned and printed, but, while I found that to be pretty cool at the time, this blows it out of the water. Various features can vary from board to board, and they can be front or rear projection, but the set-up we have here is a PC connected to a ceiling-mounted projector that projects onto the SMART board, which in turn sends signals back to the PC. The projection is of the PC's desktop, and it is interactive in several different ways. First, you can touch it anywhere to trigger a mouse click, grab and drags things around, and so forth, so you don't have to sit down at the PC to manipulate it in that respect (although your finger isn't quite as pointy as the mouse pointer, so it's not quite as accurate).

Secondly, and most importantly, there are a set of slots across the bottom of it containing 4 coloured markers and an eraser. You can run a drawing surface program and then use these objects to draw on it (signal is sent to PC, which draws it on the screen, and then sends that image back to the projector). The markers are all felt-tipped, so even though they're not doing any actual drawing, they sound and feel like actual white board markers. The eraser is big and has a circular surface, and you just rub it across and the PC wipes that sections of the image away. The surface of the board itself is a bit pixellated when you get up close, so it feels much like drawing on an etch-a-sketch. The SMART board can tell what item you're touching it with because of magnets in the item trays. So, if you feel like confusing someone, you can put the red marker in the blue tray and have it draw blue on the screen. Anyway, it's very fun to use, and I want one. I think they're under $1500, so if anyone feels compelled to buy one for me, go right ahead. :-)

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

How Long Until Retirement?

My regularly scheduled post was supposed to be yesterday, but they kept me pretty busy here through the day, and after I got home I was tired (thanks to 3 or so hours of sleep the night before) and I fell asleep on the couch while reading through reams of HR material. By the time I woke up, my TV shows had started, and my entire television schedule is pretty much concentrated on Monday and Tuesday these days (everyone should be watching Arrested Development [which was hilarious this week], My Name Is Earl, The Office, and Boston Legal), so I was busy the rest of the night (I intended to try and go to bed a little earlier last night, but it turned into 2AM. I suck.). It's a good thing that my first week is only 3 days-- the lack of sleep should nicely serve to turn me around to a normal sleep schedule for next week (or as normal as I ever get, anyway). In any case, I may have to re-think my update schedule now that my life is busier and more organized (I'm thinking every Friday, or, failing that, every Tuesday and Friday).

As for the job itself, things seem pretty good so far. I have yet to do any actual work, since yesterday and the first half of today have been devoted to orientation and training (and it looks like the rest of today and all of tomorrow will be as well), but I think that I'm going to enjoy it here. That being said, I do have some issues. Although a food count downstairs might sound convenient, that place is a madhouse at lunch, and given my hatred of crowds I think that I'll be bringing my own lunch most of the time. I could walk elsewhere, but I really don't know downtown at all-- I'd probably be lucky to find my way back to King's Place. And the parking. Oh, the parking. See, I knew that I'd have to pay to park at the parking garage, but I didn't expect to pay out the ass. It cost me $12 on the day. That's highway robbery. It's like I'm working 1/2 hour less every day. For $12, I should be able to step out of my car and ride a conveyor belt directly to my desk. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do for the long term, but for today and tomorrow I'm catching a lift with my father on his way to and from work.

Anyway, my lunch break's over, so I'm going to cut this short. Later.

Friday, November 04, 2005

It's About Damn Time

Well, the letter of offer has yet to make it to my mailbox, so it's not really official yet, but, after a nearly 6-month extended vacation, I am now gainfully employed as a programmer/analyst by the New Brunswick Department of Transportation. The people seem nice, the pay is good (not as high as I thought I might get, but still higher than the 35k-40k/annum that I'd been asking for during all of my interviews), I get typical government benefits and holidays, there's a food court downstairs (I'm on the 4th floor of King's Place), and I don't have to wear a tie. I actually don't mind formal wear (in fact, I kind of like looking professional on occasion, and I wear it well), however, most of my existing formal wear is 5-6 years old, so it's all faded and worn, and I'm pleased that I don't have to buy a new wardrobe this weekend as I thought might be necessary. I'm not looking forward to working downtown, though. Work starts at 8:15, and, with driving and parking, I'll probably have to leave home by 7:45 to get there on time. I realize that that's not THAT early, but it's earlier than I'm accustomed to, and, with how slow I am getting ready in the morning, I'll probably have to get up at 6:45, which is going to make me fairly tired since, starting this coming Monday, The Colbert Report will be on until 1AM Monday through Thursday night.

As far as parking itself goes, apparently the two most popular options are to pay to park in the adjacent parking garage, which generally involves parking on the 4th-6th floor of the garage, since the bottom ones are mostly reserved and/or taken by early birds, taking the stairs down to the ground floor, then walking next door to King's Place and taking the elevator back up to the 4th floor. The other option, and the one I suspect I'll take, barring particularly inclement weather, is to park at the Centennial Building (using a free parking pass) and walk to King's Place. It's not very far, and I could use the exercise. I don't have a parking pass yet, though, so it looks like I'll be parking in the garage until I do. At least this time I know where the stairs are, so I won't be forced to wait until there's noone around and run up and down the ramps *sheepish grin*. I start Tuesday, so wish my luck.

[Note: I originally titled this post "So Begins the Rest of my Life", but I've never been the reflective/philosophical sort, and I think everyone will agree that the present title is better suited to me. :-) Also, I'd just like to state that I'm proud at how short I managed to make this post. I think it's my shortest in some time, although I won't know for sure until I post it and get a look at it.]