Mel & I went to Playland on Saturday for the Ebay company picnic, and she and her friend/coworker Moneca braved the Dropzone. I totally forgot to bring the camera, but another Ebayer brought a nice digital video camera and caught it, though he lost them for the big drop portion.
Archive for the 'Personal' Category
15
Sep
Mel at DropZone
14
Jul
We live in the future!
A few weeks ago someone linked this Youtube video in a forum I’m on at pretty much exactly the same time that I was wondering what I should do for Mel for our upcoming six year anniversary.
This sparked my terrible memory — Mel has wanted a Roomba for ages. We’re both very messy, we both hate cleaning up. The Roomba is perfect for us.
So I looked around for the right model and place to buy and picked up a 5th Generation Roomba from RobotShop.ca. It arrived today and rather than hide it away until Sunday (our official anniversary) I presented it to her when she got home from work. I wish I’d set up the camera to take a video of her joy.
We’ve got the Roomba charging up right now, but had it do a little cleaning early on just to see it in action. Loki wasn’t afraid of it at all – just a little weirded out. He had no problems going up and checking it out.
Here he is hanging out with his new buddy. We haven’t decided on a name yet. Rosie is a little too obvious, right?
Update: Uh, ok, so Toren doesn’t know what a Roomba is, and I didn’t explain. I forget that you’re not all tech-geeks like me.
The Roomba is a Robotic Vacuum Cleaner! It can either clean on a schedule (when you’re out of the house, for example) or started manually. It wanders around your house, learning the walls and even stairwells with its built-in sensors.
It’s so small that it fits under our couches and during its first cleaning of our house it pushed all of Loki’s toys out from under them.
Here’s the official video for the model we got:
29
Feb
For Jess
I went to play at the weekly River Rock Casino’s Texas Hold’Em tournament last night. It’s only my second time playing at a casino tournament and I felt like I played really well up until I got into a weird mindset after coming back strong from being short-stacked and made a terrible play that knocked me out of the game. When the hand was done I literally looked up and thought out loud “Why the heck did I do that?” Andy Zieger thinks I was still in “desperation mode” from the short stack mode and hadn’t turned off into a more careful style of play, and I think he’s right. Oh well, lesson learned.
Other than that huge mistake, I played very well and stood up against some really experienced players and their attempts to bully me at the table. I bullied them right back a few times and I think I got some respect — at least until my final bonehead play.
Oh, and as I was waiting around for the tourney to get started, Roberto Luongo walked in and paid his entry fee. I never got to play at his table, but he outlasted me. The guy who knocked me out was his friend (not a hockey player, trust me) and they had arrived together. It’s a bit surreal to go “Hey, isn’t that guy one of the best goalies in the world? Oh yeah, that is him!”
24
Sep
Win Some, Lose Some
Mel and I finished first and second respectively in our weekly poker game tonight, pulling in a nice pot. We said our goodbyes and left to go to our car…
to find it had been sideswiped by some asshole fleeing the police. He ditched his car about 30 feet from ours and the cops were there already and had his passenger cuffed on the street by the car. They informed me they caught him a few blocks away.
I got an incident number, so it should all be covered by this jerk’s insurance. The damage didn’t seem too bad — the front driver side fender was dented and scratched, the side mirror had been hit, and the tire rim had a chip out of it. Rather than risk a blowout we called roadside assistance and had them come out and put my donut on.
Updated with photos!
Update 2: Took it in to the Kirmac to get it the damage appraised and they told me the control arm on the car was damaged and he wouldn’t let me drive it home so we’re now driving a rental. Our insurance covers $900 worth of rental costs so it’s all good — we’ve got a car that’s driveable and ours will be fixed.
31
May
Mornings
Guh.
I feel like garbage today, and it’s all Glen’s fault. Glen is one of our downstairs tenants (Mel’s brother Al is the other) and he called for a cab this morning but forgot (for the second time) to tell them he was at the back/downstairs door.
And when I say “this morning” I mean at about 5:45, which for me is smack dab in the middle of my sleep cycle. The doorbell rang and I had to go check on it. Once I’m up, I’m up and I need to take some time to unwind before I can sleep again. It took me almost two hours before I could nod off. Even though I slept in a bit to make up for it, it feels like I haven’t really slept at all.
Guh.
Dave had the initial idea, but I’ve expanded on it. If you’ve seen any kind of commercials lately you must be aware that Spider-Man 3 starts Friday. Here’s the plan, which will mean we can go see it without many others who should go to a special hell – they tend to go to the evening shows.
On Saturday, May 5th, a big group of us — everyone’s welcome — goes to see Spider-man 3 at Silvercity Metropolis at the 3:30 matinee. We can meet at the theatre, or you can gather up at our place earlier and walk over together. I’m thinking we should go fairly early to get tickets and then maybe grab something to eat before it starts. Let’s say we leave here at 2?
After the movie, we all head over to our place — we’re only two blocks away — for our housewarming. Bring your own beverages, we’ll have munchies and fire up the Karoke Revolution Party and Guitar Hero 2. If the weather’s good we might even throw some stuff on the bbq.
Of course, this offer is only open to people I *know*, so random blog readers can stay off my property, wishing they could have so much fun.
The newly on-the-market Jim dropped by early before poker night on Sunday and we took a walk around Metrotown in the afternoon. Jim’s fashion sense is stuck back when both of us were single (and fashion stupid). Thankfully Mel watches “What Not To Wear” and I’ve learned a ton at the sideline.
Jim’s clothes didn’t fit, were worn wrong (nobody tucks in t-shirts!) and the colours were wrong for him (the new Thickets shirt is great, but it got lost with his skin tone). So we went looking for something better for him. We started out with the basics: Some nice fitted t-shirts and a good pair of jeans. After trying on the first pair I realized that Jim has the opposite body problem I do. I’m average height, but have a tall torso and short legs. Jim’s only slightly taller than me, but he has very long legs and a short torso. His shirt-tucking was just making it look worse — almost like a Florida retiree with his pants up to his chest!
I don’t have a photo, but I like to think it was a great success. We got him a great pair of jeans that looked really good on him, three good tees (red, black, and a faded blue “ringer” shirt) as well as a black button-up short sleeve to wear over top of the red or blue.
07
Mar
Surreal Mall
I walked to Metropolis at Metrotown (which every just called “Metrotown” — their marketing guys should get with the program) on Sunday with my iPod and new in-ear headphones. These headphones cancel outside noise so all you hear is the music.
As I got close to the mall, Led Zepplin’s “No Quarter” started up:
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The song was barely registering and I walked to the mall on autopilot. Right at 47 seconds in the mall’s automatic doors opened up and I entered and the drums came in and the music swelled. My mind unconsciously tried to reconcile this musical change with my concurrent change of venue and just couldn’t, and it took a few seconds before I became conscious of it myself, and I couldn’t help but just continue walking and enjoy it.
I don’t do drugs, but I imagine that walk through the mall was akin to being on ecstasy. I walked through the mall with a slight grin on my face and felt out of phase with the regular shoppers. The grin didn’t go away even after I had to talk the headphones off to talk to clerks to make a few purchases. That one surreal moment really did make my day — I was in a good mood the whole rest of it.
Especially afterwards when I played Texas Hold’Em at Rob & Jess’ place and took first place for the first time since we started playing! Maybe I should give John Paul Jones a cut of my winnings.
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