Some Ones and Zeros

This is post number 100 in my blog. A small milestone. It's more amazing I've actually kept this up since March;-)

Some more ones and zeros as well: Our department lottery pool won $1000 on the extra in friday's Super 7 draw. With 17 people that doesn't equal a lot of money each, but it's definitely better than a kick in the pants. My Vision Credit coworker is also in another pool and they got 6 of the 7 numbers and won around $3000 I believe. With only 7 in that pool he's doing pretty good.

I picked up Guitar Hero II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Hero_II and http://www.guitarherogame.com) for the PS2 on saturday while we were doing some shopping at Walmart. I don't know why I've waited so long to pick up the game as it is a lot of fun. The game comes with a guitar controller that's styled after a Gibson SG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_SG), a strap and some stickers. The idea behind the game is fairly simple. Five different colour notes scroll towards you on the screen and you have to hit the corresponding coloured notes on your guitar controller and "strum" the guitar at the appropriate time. Do it right and you'll be rocking out. Do it wrong and you'll here lots of annoying noise and the audience will start to boo.

So far I've played it mostly on easy which only uses three of the five "notes". On easy I've made it up to the "Furious Fretwork" section where I managed to make it through Anthrax's "Madhouse" but not without some mess ups. I did decide to start playing only on medium as of yesterday and that will keep me occupied for a while. My favorite songs to play so far are "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas, "Woman" by Wolfmother and "Cherry Pie" by Warrant.

Overall it's a very fun game and I've had trouble wiping the grin off my face when I play. Marla doesn't mind it either since she likes a lot of the songs on the game, which means I can play it with the volume turned up (which of course is needed when you're rocking out). One of the cool little features is using your "Star Power" by putting the guitar vertical and shaking it. Or if you're working through a faster section by just pressing the select button.

For a closing shot, this is the controller. The only difference is mine has a red body instead of the white.

I also purchased another game called Okami in which you play the part of a Japanese god in the body of a white wolf. I'll write about that one in a later post. Below is a screen shot of the character you play (Amaterasu).

First Curling Win!

WooHoo! We won our first curling game on friday 10-3. I figured we were off to a bad start being down 3 in the first end but it just clicked after that. I could attribute it to my early set up as lead, but that would be stretching it a bit. I made some good shots though if I do say so myself. The only time I messed up was when listening to my skip ;-) I saw where he wanted the rock and then when he signalled to do an in turn I was confused on how the rock was supposed to get where he wanted it. It was a mix up of course and he had meant for me to do an out turn. Again, I was doing what my skip told me to do =)

Other than that the weekend was a lazy one. I'm still not 100% but feeling better than I did on friday. Still have some aches and pains which I'm thinking is still that flu hanging on. We finally got around to watching Ice Age 2: the Meltdown on saturday night. It was quite entertaining... but then again Marla and I like watching the CGI animated movies., so it may not be in everyone's tastes.

The Nintendo Wii seems to be selling extremely well still. Toys R Us was getting a shipment in for Saturday and I had thought about seeing if I could pick one up. That changed however when I read on a local forum that there were already people in line up at 11:30 pm the night before. Two guys sold their spots in line for $400 each. Personally I would do that if I was there as well. Just wait a month or so and they will be readily available. The Playstation 3 is available if you know where to look as well. Perhaps when it takes a price cut I'll look at getting one.

I finished up Stephen King's latest paperback offering this weekend as well. Cell is an ok novel but felt a little short and almost incomplete. The idea behind the story is that a "pulse" is sent out over cell phones and any one using a cell phone has their brain "erased". Initially people are raving mad, killing and destroying anything they see. Eventually they evolve into something different. We're never told who initiated the "pulse" and the ending is almost a cliff hanger. It would have made a better short story in a collection than a novel by itself. If I had to compare it to another King story it would be The Long Walk, although that story is much better. Either way, it's a good read to pass a night or two if you're a Stephen King fan.

I'm still sick. I believe I may have a touch of bronchitis, but I'm not sure as I'm not coughing. Just some chest discomfort in my tracheal area and I can feel some mucus... Mmmmm... mucus. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to see if I can get some meds to get over this as it's been over two weeks now.

The basement work has come to a standstill as of late. I'm in the position where I don't really know what to do when it comes to building bulkheads and my father in law has been busy with other work. Our Christmas target isn't going to be met so I'm aiming for the end of January now.

Other than that I'm here at work this work for the late shift (9:30 to 6pm). Nothing really happens after 5 pm anywho so it's basically an hour to do productive work like write in this blog and listen to some music on my ipod.;-) The only thing that I don't like about it is that it's so quiet here in the office from about 4:50 to when I leave. I'm most likely one of two to four people here after 5 this week. It's not so bad since I only have to do it every 10 weeks.

Since I haven't posted up any video game pictures in a while, here's one from GT4 that I recently completed. The car is a Mercedes McLaren SLR. The real world car retails for around $450,000 US and has a top speed of 209 mph. If I ever won a large lottery I would definitely get one=) This picture had a motion blur added and the colour tone changed to a nice blue (well duh, you can see that right).

Ughhhh...

I haven't updated in a while due to fighting with the flu... or a nasty cold... or perhaps both. Last thursday night I woke up with an itchy throat and it's been downhill since. I'm feeling a little better today but still have some rough chest congestion going on. I can't remember being sick for so long in a long time.

So I've been taking Buckley's pills and downing some Buckley's Mixture (does one ever get used to swallowing that stuff?). Last night I bought some contac syrup and it seemed to help me sleep a lot better. I will be making an appointment with my doctor though as I think I may have a touch of bronchitis. I'm not sure what he can do for me, but it's better safe than sorry.

Insurance woes

So I've been in corrspondence with my insurance adjuster and offered logical proof that my story makes more sense than that of the gentleman I had the collision with but I have been told that they are not changing their decision. His words were that the onus of responsibility lies upon me under the highway traffic act. I didn't realize that I'm supposed to leave sufficient space when I'm in one lane and another driver is in a different lane. If that was the case then the whole idea of having two lanes with one as a passing lane makes no sense.

With that he told me my only option would be to take the other guy to small claims court. They would stand by the courts decision if they ruled in my favour. I did find out however that there is another option. It's an Independent Review by a retired judge. Basically I pay $25, make my case in written form to the judge and they make a decision based on my point of view and the file from MPI. If they uphold MPI's decision then I lose my $25, but if they change it I get my $25 back. What this also means is that if the judge chooses to not find me at fault I would get back my money for the deductible plus not have a $200 surcharge on my license.

If that doesn't work out then I still have the option of going to court. I then have to weigh the time needed to file a claim, take time off work, and the other time needed to prepare. I'm trying to be confident it won't come down to that and the logical proof that I can offer in the Independent Review will show that the other driver was at fault.

In other insurance news apparently MPI is looking at adding a premium to cars that are on the top 100 stolen list if they do not have an immobilizer installed. That's bunk if you ask me as I use the club 100% of the time on my car. That's more of a deterent than a blinking light if you ask me. That and the fact that the car goes from home to work and that's it. I have thought about getting one as they are free, but with the command start on the Neon it will cost me at least $75 to get the immobilizer set up to allow the command start to work.

On the running front... well, there hasn't been a running front for the last week. I've been dead tired and decided to take a week off. I'm going to start running again come sunday.

Video game madness

While making a trip to Walmart last night we noticed a handfull of young people sitting in lawn chairs and a tent set up. At first I didn't know what was going on but then I realized - Sony's Playstation 3 was going on sale today. It must have been nice for them as we received freezing rain last night.

Apparently there were some fights at other locations in Winnipeg involving people in line and one guy was beaten up and robbed outside a Walmart after he had picked up his Playstation 3. That last part is a little bit second hand knowledge and may not be 100% true. However in the US there was a shooting and confirmed robberies and fights in many different areas.

Why you ask? While many people would be waiting outside a story for a day or more to buy the PS3 for their own use, I suspect the majority were buying them to resell on ebay. A couple recent auctions ended with the PS3 fetching $9000.00 US or more. The selling price is $549 CDN for the lower end version and $649 for the high end version. That's a pretty good profit for a couple hours in the cold - or a quick robbery of someone who legitmately paid for a system.

You can also blame this "game" on Sony for not providing enough consoles at launch. Apparently 400,000 were allocated for North America and approximately 32,000 of those for Canada. Nintendo is not going to be playing the shortage game and estimates say there will be 10 Nintendo Wiis for every one PS3 at launch. I figure that if that number is correct there won't be any worries about a shortage of Nintendo systems and you won't have to camp out overnight to get one.

I've been contemplating as of late on whether or not to get a Nintendo Wii. Everytime I see videos of people playing (http://us.wii.com) I remember back to how excited I was when my parents bought me the original NES with Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. I keep telling Marla she would have fun playing the Wii with me (lol). It looks very user friendly and more focused on having fun that using overpowering graphics. The price is also a bit easier to swallow as well at $279. That would be cheaper than the original NES when it was released in Canada.

Yes, I refuse to let go of my childhood;-)

On another note I met my goal of walking/running 80 km in four weeks last night. I had slacked a bit on my goal but made up for it in the last week. Next run is planned for tomorrow and I'm aiming for 5k.

Mario gets robbed and football fever

First off, Mario Lopez was robbed of the "Dancing with the Stars" trophy. He was clearly a better dancer than Emmit Smith and sometimes I even felt like I was watching two pros as opposed to one pro and an actor. The judges seemed to pimp Emmit more anyway and never actually commented on his dancing a lot but instead focused on his smile and charisma. With Mario they were the other way arround, and any small mis-step was pounced on - especially by crotchety old Len.

Oh well, Mario is the champ in my mind and has set the bar for performances for the upcoming seasons.

The 94th annual Grey Cup is being played in Winnipeg this sunday. What does that mean for me? Staying the hell out of Winnipeg, that's what. Normally Sunday is our shopping day and it's crazy enough trying to get shopping done when a regular Bombers game is on. This weekend will be pointless. Oh well, we'll probably watch the game on TV in a nice warm house as opposed to freezing our butts off.

Little guy is home

I took a quick shot of the Neon last night. It looks a little better than in the last picture I posted.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

As you can see I've made some changes to my blog today. I upgraded the blog itself thanks to the crew at blogger which makes it easier to customize the templates. I believe this look is good for the blog.

I got my Neon back today. It's nice and sparkly with it's new parts and paint. I'll get some pictures up soon.

New Personal Best

Now that I have my Nike+ unit properly calibrated I can actually run and get a correct reading while doing so. The Nike+ unit is within a couple seconds +/- the treadmill's pace. I know running on a treadmill is not the same as outdoors, but since it's gotten colder and there is ice on the streets I'd rather mill it than risk slipping and falling or something.

Anywho, I set a new personal best mile tonight at a time of 9 minutes 14 seconds. I know that's not an amazing time, but for me it is =) My first run with the nike unit showed a pace of 7m31s per km. This latest run was 5m52s per km. That's a pretty good increase in the last two months.

I know I'm making progress since I can run at consistent 7mph on the treadmill without a problem whereas last year when we first got it 7 mph was my "burst" speed.

WooHoo for me! =)