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  • Why my next apartment will be in a secure building.

    written by

    james

    I spent almost 4 years in Ottawa, on the third floor of a three-story building you couldn’t get into without buzzing in, or having a key for the front door–this on top of the key you had for your apartment. Jessica’s building in Rochester takes it a step further, needing a key to get into the building, a key to get onto your floor, and a key to get into your apartment. This building in Petawawa? You have a key to get into your apartment. Well, actually you have two, but who’s counting? And this building gets something the other two I mentioned don’t seem to get–or at least, they get very rarely if at all. Folks coming around marketting their own electricity initiatives.

    I get an average of one of these people knocking on my door on a weekly basis. And, of course, not being able to know who’s there until I open the door, I take a chance it might not be someone trying to sell me something. And every time I’ve done so, it’s been any number of situations from people who’d just like to see my hydro bill, to people who just want to tell me about the green initiatives their particular company/organization/what have you is offering. To one offer I’ve received asking if I’d be interested in locking in my hydro and/or gas prices for 5 years. And every time, my response is the same–I point at the door leading out of the building, with a polite suggestion that they go that way.

    I received a grand total of one such offer while living in Ottawa. And they were stupid enough to try pitching that offer to me over the intercom system the building has. They, of course, got hung up on. I don’t have that option here, so to get rid of them, they first have to be effectively standing on my doorstep. I swear, just as soon as I can twist a governmental arm far enough back that it decides it’d be in its best interest to increase disability payments–or just as soon as I can get myself hired again, whichever comes first, my next move will be back to a secure building. Ideally I’d much rather see that type of marketting made illegal, but since that’s not very likely to happen, I’ll take my secure building. Besides, there’s something to be said for having a little warning when you’re getting company–welcome or not. Gives me time to hide my porn magazines. Er, wait, I didn’t say that.

    ,

  • Maple Leafs 4, Bruins 3.

    written by

    james

    Well now, would you look at that. A win, and a rare one at that. Even more so seeing as it’s in overtime. I’d pretty much accepted they’d forgotten how to do that, and then last night, they proved me wrong. Now if I could just work up the energy to smile about it. Unfortunately, it’s still a meaningless win–and probably the only one we’ll see this week.

    Last time

    We might have threatened at one point to win our last game versus the Bruins. Only problem? We didn’t. Rather, we kind of tried to make it look like we were going to, and then promptly fell apart. Kind of like we did last night, giving up the lead for all but the last goal. Well, I guess what goes down must come up. Still, is it next season yet?

  • In which James changes it up, and very nearly breaks things.

    written by

    james

    One of these days, I’ll remind myself I meant last month to remind myself to pick a theme and stay with it. It won’t be today, though. I decided I like the 3-column approach much better, particularly so far as my plans for the site go. Mostly, I’m not cramming everything over on the right hand side, which makes my life just slightly easier. Of course, there’s yet to be a theme created that I haven’t had to slightly modify to meet my tastes. That goes just as well for this one. And, in the process, the blog very nearly went completely sideways–thus further solidifying the fact I should not be messing with PHP, particularly on no sleep. Much as I shouldn’t be blogging on no sleep–I’ve managed to require use of the backspace key roughly a dozen times so far, but that hasn’t stopped me either. Fortunately, WordPress is very good about warning me when I’m about this close to completely and totally screwing things up. And its documentation is plenty good enough that, if I do manage to screw things up entirely too wrongly, unscrewing them isn’t too difficult either. Now, if they just had a similar solution to my ability to screw up posting. Oh well, can’t have it all. Now, perhaps I should consider correcting this no sleep thing. I’ve broken the blog enough for one night.

    ,

  • Because you just can’t say no to free stuff.

    written by

    james

    Well, I can’t, anyway. I get emails from Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, to do with everything from the results of the last game to major trading/other such news relating to my team. Yes, even though the said team couldn’t play their way out of a game with a 25 nothing lead lately. Occasionally, those emails contain free stuff. This free thinggy came from Sirius Canada. Ordinarily, I can’t aford to go throwing money away on something I may or may not like, so this was halfway decent timing on their part. So now, I have 2 weeks to play around with it and see if it’s something I might want to contemplate paying for, should I come up with the money to do so. And now, because I’m good like that, so do you. If you’ve wanted to give their online version a try and didn’t want to pay for it, just fill out this form and enter promo code “leafs” if it isn’t already entered for you. Then, they’ll email you a password and you’ll have two weeks to play. So far, I’m undecided. After two weeks, we shall see.

  • Flyers 3, Maple Leafs 1.

    written by

    james

    Sigh. Again. We did almost tolerably well. Until the third period. Again. A minute and 16 apart, they managed to throw two behind us–that sunk us. Not that we weren’t sunk before that, but that pretty much guaranteed we weren’t going to be surprised. I used to look forward to the next time we won. Now, I’m just looking forward to the end of the season.

    Last time

    We shut them out in January. Then went back to sucking. Then came the multidirectional trade. And then, more sucking. Now? We’re in the league’s basement and closing in on the last game of the season. On the bright side, baseball starts up in a month. The bluejays can’t do much worse… can they?

  • My solution for this national anthem thing.

    written by

    james

    For about 48 hours after the government of Canada’s throne speech, a whole crap ton of people–yes, including me–were up in arms over consideration being given, after this long with it being exactly the way it is with no uproar from anyone whatsoever, to change a part of Canada’s national anthem to make it more gender neutral. Instead of just rewriting that part of the anthem, and then later on rewriting the parts to do with everything from religion to the fact it’s not some peoples’ native land, I have a perhaps not unoriginal solution. Replace the whole thing with this video. Why? Well, it’s simple. Anne Murry is Canadian. Hockey is Canadian. The song itself is Canadian. It salutes Canada’s national symbol–the maple leaf–and doesn’t offend anyone. Or, if it does, no one’s cried about it yet. And the song is just plain awesome. It doesn’t hurt that it was sung in Maple Leaf Gardens, either, but you know.

    A little background on the video: in 1999, Maple Leaf Gardens was officially closed down, and the Toronto Maple Leafs moved to what is now their new home, the air Canada center. Before the last game at the Gardens–a game in which they lost rather badly, there was quite the tribute going on in honour of it. This song, performed before what I believe–my memory fails me at the moment–was a packed house, pretty much sent the message that regardless to where the team plays, or what else ends up changing around them, the team’s still the same. And, they’re still toronto’s team. And, surprise surprise, they’re still not going to be any closer to winning the cup–because they’re still Toronto’s team, damn them.

    In other words, minus the hockey references, just like this country. It’s changed a hell of a lot in 20 years, nevermind since 1867–when the original song, not this particular version, was written. But it’s still Canada, and we’ll still call it home. Even if we wouldn’t recognise parts of it from the way things were growing up. This song is Canada, plain and simple. crack open a beer, and let’s kick ass Canadian style. The maple leaf forever, damn right. Now, have a video.

    ,

  • A weekend well spent, I dare say.

    written by

    james

    Things have a nasty little habbit of happening here on 30 seconds’ notice. That kind of happened on Friday. Mom was in a fair bit of pain, and ended up going to Ottawa to get herself checked out Friday morning. There’s speculation that it may or may not be something similar to what she was dealing with in January. If it is, it’s nowhere near as severe so it can be left to either heal on its own or be delt with in a month or two if it’s not getting any better or worse. That left us free yesterday, and her particularly pain free, to spend some quality time with my nephew.

    His parents were in Ottawa for their own reasons–I suspect it had a lot to do with a shopping trip and a stop off at the casino, so he belonged to us for the day. He’s almost 6 months old now, and you might argue he looks more like a 9-month-old or older. Already he’s fitting into clothes etc for up to 12 months in some cases. So yeah, spending time with him pretty much took care of the majority of the day. And, yes, was exhausting as hell–but I’ll take it.

    It of course meant today was an easy day, with the only thing worth going out for being a trip to the Santa Fe Restaurant for supper–if you’re in the Pembroke area and do not stop in to this restaurant, you’re ripping yourself off. Just sayin’. They do everything from prime rib to Italian to yes, Mexican. Costs a little more than most places, but you’ll probably not be ordering dessert. Or breakfast the next morning. I’ve been home for 2 hours and I’m still stuffed.

    There will be nephew pictures posted up here at some point. Most likely, later tonight. As for right now, there’s a hockey game on, caffinated things in the fridge, optionally alcoholic things to be put in said caffinated things, and a laptop that still needs to be tweeked just a little tiny bit. And I need to explode. Excuse me while I go do that.

    , ,

  • Maple Leafs 2, Senators 1.

    written by

    james

    It was a hell of a close game. Sens draw first blood, Leafs somehow manage to come back, lots of people having face first meetings with the boards. Or, in some cases, the opposing team’s fists. And still, even though it was Ottawa, and even though we won–in a shootout on a Kessel goal no less, I don’t feel the excitement I want to feel. Or, even, should feel. There’s maybe 16 games left in the season, at the outside. We’re dead last in the conference, and flirting with dead last in the league. And the game was that tight against a team who’s got half its roster on the sidelines with the flue. And we still played hell not losing. The game had everything an Ontario rivalry could and should have. And I can only shrug.

    Last time

    I was more excited at the beginning of February, when we shut them out 5 nothing. We’d just landed the trade for Phaneuf, and it looked like we might be staring at a slightly different–more charged up–team. Or maybe they were just fooling us. I can go either way. Right now, though? I’m leaning more towards they were just fooling us. Don’t get too excited, Leafs nation. They’re not done making you sweat yet.

  • Convergys is getting more city help than we did.

    written by

    james

    In 2008, the majority of employees at Dell’s Ottawa call center got their walking papers. In June of 2009, the rest of them followed suit. And here in March of 2010, Convergys gets ready to feel the pinch. I wrote about it before, when I first read about it. Now, though, it looks like we’ll be seeing a pretty significant change from business as usual when a door closes in the faces of several hundred employees.

    Ottawa City council passed a motion just days after the cuts were announced, urging city staff to enter talks to see what might be done to keep the jobs here.

    A few days later, a conference call between city people, the Contact Centre Association of Ottawa and provincial and federal bureaucrats was held. It was decided that they needed to find out more information from the company about the skill level of their staff.

    Well now. The city never offered to get involved when Dell closed, nevermind the provincial or federal governments. Although to be fair, it doesn’t sound like Ottawa center management has altogether much faith in its front-line agents in the first place, so perhaps that’s the difference.

    Paul Carr, operations manager for Convergys in Ottawa, tells CTV “close to 200 people have already left Convergys. Six hundred are still here and about 200 will still be working here after the cuts.”

    Carr actually expected more would have left already, but people in the contact centre say these are not the most highly-trained people and so job options are rather limited..

    Now now, that wasn’t very nice, Convergys staffers. Even if it might be true–hey, I’ve seen the results of some of Convergys’s training; I get to say that. Besides, it’s my blog.

    Good to know the city’s finally thinking about doing something though to at least compensate folks for, or help them to deal with, the layoffs. How why didn’t that start happening two years ago? Anyone know?

    ,

  • Popular posts (February, 2010_.

    written by

    james

    Slightly more activity than is usual snuck up on the blog in February. Not that there was a whole lot of activity here to begin with, so there’s your comparison. Here’s what folks have found interesting when they came my way.

    • February was olympic month this year, and the resulting metal haull was kicked off in style by miss Jennifer Heil. There’s confirmation now we won’t be seeing her in future olympics. Hell of a way to go.
    • This blog, and nearly everything else public-facing I’ve got my hands in, is hosted by DreamHost. Every so often, they’ll pull a very minor oopsy that leaves me kind of scratching my head. Or, in some cases, scoring a discount. Hey, not my fault I already bought what they were advertising.
    • Everywhere you turn nowadays, seems something either made by or hosted by Google’s cropping up. First search, then email, then their own IM service, their own answer to MS Office online, their answer to Map Quest, you name it. I made a crack or two about Google being pretty much all over the place. And, almost as though they were just proving me right, they went out and bought Aardvark–a realtime search engine I’ve been known to use that actually forwards your questions onto other users who might have an answer. Hey, Google, I’m still sorry about that. Seriously.
    • Skipping back to the olympics, because we do that, our record breaking amount of gold metals was contributed to by Maelle Ricker. I wrote about it a few minutes after it happened. And she’s still a popular–well, as popular as can be expected for a blog this size–search term.
    • I live in either a very tiny city or a very large small town, depending on how you look at it. I still had no idea exactly how tiny, or how slow, we were–until I learned there are actually still places here–big places here–that don’t have DSL yet. Or cable. That they’re still stuck with dialup or nothing. That… scares me. Still.

    Fortunately, the month of technical issues has also come to a very conclusive end with the month of February. Although, there’s still the pesky little issue of a laptop that doesn’t quite work the way it should. But, can’t have everything. There’s your look at what we did have in the month of February. I’d say hopefully March ends up a litle better, but I know better. STill, I’l keep blogging. Interested? Keep reading.

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