Ok, I have the annual playoff pool up and running, I haven’t caught up on all the picks yet, but you can find it at: 2007 NHL Playoff Pool - or the link on the sidebar.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.” - Homer

I’ve had the Ghostbusters themesong stuck in my head all day.

There are worse songs that could get stuck in there, but I thought I’d share anyway.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Don’t mess with the dead, boy, they have eerie powers.” - Homer

I got a call from Shaw Cable Wednesday night. Erin answered the phone, and it was a telemarketer telling us about this fabulous offer that Shaw is willing to give us. He started off with “Are you busy” to which Erin replied “Yeah, I’m kind of busy.” Were this a legitimate business phone call, he would likely have said: “Can I call you back later?” Instead, his response was “Sure sounds like you’re busy.” and then he launched into his schpiel. After he explained to Erin the offer, she said she wasn’t interested, and he wasn’t satisfied with that. She told him again, then handed me the phone.

I was busy trying to get supper into the kids, so I didn’t really pay much attention to what Erin was saying on the phone - in fact I had no idea why she was handing me the phone.

So then the guy goes into his routine again, and I tell him we’re not interested. He doesn’t take no for an answer, so I tell him again. Apparently his skull is very thick from all the punches to the head he’s received from irate callers tracking him down on his off time, because he still persists. So I pull out the old “Please put me on your do not call list.” This line gets rid of most telemarketers, usually with a polite “Ok, sorry to have bothered you.”

This guy, though, he just got mad. He sputtered something about “But, this is your cable company!” I repeated myself, and he seemed unwilling to let it go. Eventually I hung up the phone, but I could still hear him spouting crap as I took the phone away from my ear to find the power button.

So, I was mad. The guy treated me like a complete moron, and tried to use high pressure sales tactics on me. That dog won’t hunt. I immediately called Shaw up to complain. The woman at the customer service desk was polite and helpful, but the whole situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve been a shaw customer for significantly more than a decade now, and with one bad interaction, this guy just about ended the whole revenue stream for them. I’m still mad at how poorly he treated both Erin and me. Grrrr.

Someone needs to update the sales training manuals, because I don’t know of a single person who responds positively to those techniques. There are all sorts of other subtle techniques that work, and don’t piss off the potential customer in the process - I guess I’m just surprised that the old “foot in the door” approach would be taught by anyone with half a brain and any experience selling.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh look at me! I’m making people happy! I’m the magical man from Happyland, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane!” - Homer

Yesterday was Julia’s second birthday. It’s unbelievable to me how much things have changed in the last two years. I remember William singing the Julia song just after she was born - he was only slightly older than she is now…

We got Julia a couple of Playmobil people for her birthday and a “lift the flap” book. William got her a Little People boat/bath toy. She got a couple of nice dresses from her grandparents and great-grandparents as well. I think William was more excited for her to open her presents than she was.

Anyway, there’s not much new to report beyond that. It’s raining right now, and threatening to turn into snow. Hopefully it stays above freezing, so the roads don’t get too icy. It’s supposed to cool off later in the week, but hopefully most of the snow will be gone by then.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Bart: “Hey Homer, where’s your present?”
Homer: “D’oh! I mean… D’oh-n’t worry son, I forgot to get you a present. But I swear on my father’s grave . . .”
Grandpa Simpson: “Hey!”

As Erin mentioned, we got the kids a pair of fish on Sunday. So far so good - they like watching the fish, and taking care of the fish. And they haven’t gone fishing yet.

On the advice of my dental hygenist, we picked up a sonicare toothbrush on the weekend. After letting it charge, last night was the first usage of it. It’s a strange feeling at first, but it seems to do a pretty good job. I’ve only heard good things about them, and so far I’m inclined to agree with the common consensus. Of course, I’ve only used it twice at this point, so we’re nowhere near done with the warmup period.

Despite the fact that I find myself posting here less and less frequently, I think I’m going to change the software that this site is running on. It might take a while for me to get my template moved over though. Maybe before I do that, I should work on the upcoming playoff draft. At one point I was going to do up some software to simplify my life, but I never got around to it.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “We want Chilly Willy!” - Barney

Julia has hit that stage where she wants to be just like her big brother. She mimics him at almost everything, and really enjoys doing whatever he’s doing. Her latest is that she wants to use the computer just like William does, and she wants to play Lego Star Wars just like him too. She’s not really capable of doing either of those things yet, but she really has fun trying.

Last night, the three of us were playing with blocks. I’d set up a pyramid of blocks, mainly for Julia to knock down, but instead she decided she wanted to help build it taller. Small problem - I’d used all of the alphabet blocks within reach. Without batting an eyelash, she grabbed one of the blocks from the bottom and put it on top. The resulting cascade of one side of the pyramid elicited an “Oh no.” but then she went and grabbed the next one along the bottom and put it on top too. She’s actually quite good at stacking blocks into towers. We had one tower that reached 15 or 16 blocks before it fell over, with William, Julia and I all contributing.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “And there’s a note. It says: Look in the tunk. He must mean trunk.” - Lisa

As of Tuesday night, my PSP has been hacked to allow me to run homebrew applications - ie. software that doesn’t have the official blessing of Sony. The primary push behind it was that I wanted to watch videos that take advantage of the full resolution of the screen. Sony put some artificial limits on the playback of “user” videos (as contrasted with UMD purchased videos etc.) to about 60% of the pixels on the screen, and the hacked firmware that I’ve got installed removes those bogus limits. It makes a pretty noticeable difference. The files are bigger too though, so it’s a tradeoff. Anyway, I was pretty excited to get it working.

I took next week off, so you can expect more silence from this website. Not that that’s anything unusual around here lately.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Look at his eyes! He’s trying to hypnotize me — but not in that good Las Vegas way.” - Homer Simpson