No, really. I can feel a bad flu coming on. Just in time for the weekend too. Sore throat, coughing etc. If I were you, I’d stay away from me for a couple of days (heh heh heh - I know some of you will disobey that direct order…)

I came across this page the other day, thought I should pass it along - it’s The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés. Kinda like the Evil Overlord’s list of things to do/not to do when trying to take over the world. Both pretty entertaining pieces of work.

I spent a good portion of this morning working on the Intranet project, which just goes to show that I’m a glutton for punishment. I’m appreciative of the power that the Lotus Notes/Domino architecture has, but it’s so awkwardly encapsulated within an awful development environment that it drives me nutty. Oh well, I guess at least the project is almost done (for now) The problem is that I’ve suddenly become the expert on Notes/Domino development, so next time they’ll come to me first :P I guess it could be worse, I could have no valuable knowledge at all…

Ooooh I almost forgot the zinger of the day. I was reading the CIPS email/spam that arrives far too regularly. There was a classic quote in it:

One way to increae the awareness of professionalism is to get involved in projects that benefit the public.

Another way would be to use a spell checker :) Normally I wouldn’t give a typo like that any attention, but the irony was a little too thick in this case.

Simpsons quote: “The kneebone’s connected to the… something. The something’s connected to the… red thing. The red thing’s connected to my wrist watch. …Uh oh.” - Dr. Nick - the king of professionalism

Other than the title of today’s entry, I will make only one mention of the new star trek series “Enterprise” They’ve gotta lose that theme song. I’m not a huge trekkie or anything, but I did watch the pilot of the show, and almost turned it off when I heard that theme song. Come on, are they hoping that the theme will make it onto radio playlists?

Enough talk about that though.

The CEO of Potash Corp (where I work) held the second “Business Meeting” with employees - this one was open to all employees whose last names start with I thru N (to keep the group smallish) Pretty interesting stuff, and I’m glad that I signed up to attend it. Mr. Doyle spoke about the industry, where it’s been, and where it’s headed, and where PCS fits into the whole scheme.

Near the end of the meeting, the corporate Intranet (which I’ve had a large role in building) was talked up pretty good, of course we’ll see how it goes once we put the system online for the employees to use :) No pressure at all…

Simpsons quote of the day: “We must move forward… not backwards, not to the side, not forwards, but always whirling, whirling, whirling towards freedom!” - Kang

Erin and I watched The Mummy last night. It was an ok movie, though it had me scratching my head pretty early on. If you haven’t seen it, you might want to skip to the next paragraph. Anyways, first off, the priest (Imhotep) didn’t seem to be an evil guy when they mummified him. So, they cursed him to become very evil? I’m not sure I follow that logic. Plus, they include all kinds of invincibility and special powers in case he’s ever resurrected. How is this a curse? I’m sorry, but if I’m really upset at a guy for killing my pharaoh, I’m just going to have him tortured to death, and buried in pieces (aren’t I violent?). Wasn’t mummification supposed to be a privilege? Still, if you suspend the disbelief, it wasn’t a bad movie.

I also watched The Sopranos again last night. I missed last weeks episode, but I managed to catch this weeks. I’m not sure what it is that keeps me coming back for more, but it is certainly entertaining. I think it’s because the characters are so believable or something. I might have to borrow Dave’s DVD boxed set of the first season at some point.

I’ve gone out for lunch every day this week so far, and there’s no end in sight. I far prefer bringing my lunch, but at least I’ve got the option go out for lunch (there sure are lots of restaurants downtown).

Well, here it is, 1:00, and this has been sitting open since this morning, so I guess I should slap a Simpsons quote on this entry and be done with it:

“Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals… except the weasel.” - Homer

I’ve played a bit with the colours (for those of you who didn’t notice :) If you don’t like it, let me know, and I’ll keep monkeying.

Erin called me at work yesterday to tell me that the 5100 had erased all the shows that we had stored on it. Yes, that means that 4 episodes of Sledgehammer are gone the way of the dodo - I hadn’t taped them yet. Serves me right I guess, because I knew that this was a possibility. The US version of the 5100 (the EchoStar PVR501) had similar problems when software updates came down the pipe, but supposedly they’ve had that problem fixed for several months now.

Oh well, I guess certain people will have to wait longer to see Sledgehammer…It’s funny though, because when Erin called, the ExpressVu Customer service rep. told her that she was the third person to call with that problem. Someone else called later in the day, and got told that they were the only person to call with that problem, and therefore must have accidentally deleted the programs themselves…Good ole CSR stories.

I watched a bit of Monday Night Football last night. Its pretty laughable how bad the Redskins played on offence. Defensively they weren’t doing too badly, but they were on the field way too long, and they finally ran out of steam. Full credit to Green Bay though, cause they played a good game, and deserved to win it.

Simpsons quote of the day: “I wanna shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I wanna explore the world! I wanna watch TV in a different time zone! I wanna visit strange, exotic malls! I’m sick of eating hoagies! I want a grinder, a sub, a foot-long hero! I want to LIVE, Marge! Won’t you let me live? Won’t you, please?!” - Homer

I went to the jewelers and picked my wedding band up today at lunch. It sure is shiny compared to when I took it in on Thursday to get it sized. I’m quite surprised at how shiny it is actually. Anyways, the long and short of it is that I’m wearing my wedding band again, so I can’t cruise the bars and pick up chicks anymore (just kidding).

On my way to the bank, I walked past the bronze bust of Ghandi, with a quote on it. I’ll take a picture of it and post it in the near future. There’s another quote attributed to Ghandi that I find quite appropriate: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that way the whole world would be blind and toothless”

Anyways, one quick link, then I’ll be done with my terrorism rantings until something new develops: Noam Chomsky says what I’ve been thinking, and he’s lucky that they’re not burning him at the stake for being a non-patriot…

Simpsons quote of the day: “You know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society.” - Moe

Erin’s wisdom teeth extraction went smoothly yesterday, and now she’s busy recovering. She was a bit groggy/loopy when I picked her up from the oral surgeon’s office, but that’s to be expected when you’ve been drugged to unconsciousness. She seems to be doing fine at any rate.

I remember how much it sucked to not be able to eat real food while in recovery, so I feel bad that I can’t come up with any good suggestions for what she can eat - there’s a limit to how much blendered frozen fruit a person can eat/drink.

On to more serious matters. I caught parts of the Presidential address last night, and was left somewhat bewildered. What GW says is “We will fight to punish those nations that harbour and support terrorists” but what I hear is “We will fight to punish those people who live in nations that harbour and support terrorists” There’s a pretty big distinction there, as quite often the governments in these countries are not representative of the populace. I think that individuals will be punished for the acts of other individuals. I live in Canada, and if for some reason Jean Chretien decided to harbour a known terrorist, I fail to see how that should get me bombed - even if I voted him into office. Surely we’re not expected to tar an entire nation with a brush that large? Now is the time for cooler heads to prevail. Surely GW and his advisers understand that the course of action that they are undertaking is exactly what the terrorists must have expected. Escalation only serves the terrorists agenda, not peace.

On that note, I’ll stop writing for today.

Simpson’s quote: “Fat Tony is a cancer on this fair city! He is the cancer and I am the… uh… what cures cancer?” - Chief Wiggum