Monday, April 26, 2010

The Deadly Sins and You. How to Avoid Bad Things by Sinning.

Sloth has been my buddy for a while, it's one of my favourites. As people may know, I like beer. Beer=Yum. My lack of self control regarding consumption has always been balanced by my laziness. Many a time I've been sitting around and my mental process go something like this:

"Wow, I could really go for a beer/cookie/pie right now!"
"Hmm, I'd have get up / get dressed and go out to get it ... and it's blocks away."
"What is that friend Sloth? Yeah, you're right. I really don't want it that badly."

High-five to sloth. "You da sin baby!"

Unfortunately I have a corner store a block away, that is pretty close. They don't sell pies (thankfully!) but they do sell beer. The next bit is a bit geeky, you've been warned.

Back when I used to play Warcraft in a raiding guild the raids often started late and there were AFK (Away From Keyboard) times when we weren't doing anything. I started to drink beer while raiding. I attempted to use the beer drinking to motivate my fellow guild mates: the longer we wait the more beer I drink and a drunk healer means you die more often. That didn't seem to work. Then the bad moment arrived when I realized I could get to the corner store and back in the time it took for some people to go AFK and go to the bathroom.

My good buddy Sloth couldn't compete with that kind of access. Whenever I thought a beer would be nice I could get one. I often think a beer would be nice, you can all see this isn't good.

So with Sloth not pulling his weight, I've had to call upon Pride to step up. Beer=calories=belly. Pride seems to be holding up pretty well. Pride has staying power since it "... is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise." Wikipedia.

Yes, yes, I know there is a theory that I could only drink one but I don't have that sort of self control. Put a bunch of cookies in the house and they're gone. What I like, I consume. Essentially, that's Pride battling against Gluttony. I'm sure that would make a great grudge match, oh wait .. they've come close to doing that already.

Greed also dropped by last weekend to help me. We've been meaning to stack our washer drier to save some space in the garage. We've been meaning to do it for around four years, Sloth and I were hanging; "We'll get to it eventually". We also wanted to put a wash tub out there as well. Kat called up a plumbing place to come in and give us a quote on stacking the washer/dryer and installing a wash tub. Since they didn't know how hard it would be to install the drain for wash tub they gave us a price range: $600 - $1,000. Stacking the washer/dryer was $250 of that. Greed and I decided that was a ludicrous price and we weren't going to pay it. A tape measure and a phone call to a friend later, it was stacked.

Envy and I have never gotten along very well. Yes I'd like more stuff, oh, wait, I don't want more stuff. Yes that guy has a nicer car than me ... hmm, don't care about that either. Every time I covet something I realize I could probably get it if I worked hard enough / lied enough / saved enough /stepped on enough people and I'm too damn lazy for that. Envy isn't really that great a motivator.

I would work with Wrath but he's so demanding. Get angry about this, pissed off about that, rant, yell, scream. It's exhausting.

So Sloth, even though you let me down on the beer front you are still my BSF (Best Sin Forever)! What's that? You saw me with Lust? We were just getting a coffee and talking. I swear!

On a completely unrelated note I saw a Delorean on the way home from work today. Caught a brief look at the back end while I was accelerating into traffic and glanced back to see the hood. That is all you really need to recognize one. A quick search to get the right spelling and it turns out they are still selling them!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Things Change.

Kat and I've have dropped cable for a new entertainment provider, we've moved to satellite, Direct T.V. to be precise. Should be cheaper for the first year, but come the second year it'll be the same price as we were paying. I've found the only way to get cheap prices from companies is to go through their contractual period, then threaten to leave. It's sad to think that what I'm being told by companies is that they love me as a payer, but not enough to give me the cheapest deal. Essentially you have to be the squeaky wheel, or they take you for granted. Two years from now I'll be dropping Direct T.V. for somebody else who is willing to give me a cheaper deal.

I watched my first soccer game in high definition (HD), it looks impressive. I sure hope the World Cup is in HD this summer.

As some of you know, I have had all kinds of issues with my iMac in terms of over heating. I am now the proud owner of a custom laptop for gaming purposes. It comes with Windows 7 and other fun stuff like a fingerprint reader and all kinds of extra hardware like 2GB of video RAM. I've found Windows 7 not as easy to understand as OS X for Mac, which is odd. Over 10 years of working with Windows and I'm still looking around trying to find information that I found in a shorter time as a new Mac user. Games sure look pretty though. Games look *really* pretty. I'm working my way through the PC games that I couldn't play for the last couple years.

Mass Effect=Very good.
Dragon Age, Origins=Very, very good.
Plants vs. Zombies=Hilarious and good.

Kat was making fun of me because I bought a big powerful gaming machine and I'm playing something downloaded from Popcap games (Plants vs. Zombies). It's fun.

Or cat decided to piss on the couch last week, a couple days later I find she's pissed on the ottoman as well. So now our living room smells like cat pee. That is one of the worst things. After a first application of Natures's Miracle the smell was still there and we were thinking we may have to replace the cushions. Of course our couch is made by some obscure manufacturer in Montreal and the store who sold it to us isn't around any more. I had a heck of time even finding it mentioned on the 'net.

A bucket of Nature's Miracle and a steam cleaner and the couch is happily back to being clean again. I like the couch, I don't want to replace it. The feline is sitting in the back room looking quite happy with herself about *something*. I hate that cat some times.

On a happy note I talked to my orthopedic surgeon on Monday and I'm cleared to get back to road riding and surfing. I'll be organizing Friday morning surfing at work, I've decided to try and invite as many people as possible. As much as I love being in the ocean in the morning, it is peaceful, I have issues getting up that early and in the cold water. The more people I invite the better chance I will get out of bed assuming somebody else will show up. Motivating myself is difficult, assuming that somebody else is showing up will motivate me enough.

I know everyone is wondering how my various email incarnations are doing around the world:
- The Irish me was enjoying going to the greyhound park to watch some races (booking from Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium)
- The Las Vegas me is heading off to Eddies wedding (I got their plane ticket reminder). Yay Eddie!