I’m proud of my mother. As previously mentioned, for Christmas I gave her my three year old iBook. She now doesn’t need to borrow my father’s Windows box to do computery stuff.
And she is doing well. She still doesn’t grasp some basic concepts, and I do get the occasional question. But she is using it every day.
Before I left I introduced her to iChat, and now she can speak to me over the internet to ask questions. I think this is the best present I’ve given her.
Speaking of Macs, I got into a discussion with over the Christmas break. He decreed that the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ads were offensive to Windows users. They were negative ads, and those never work, except in politics.
Canticle is better at debating than I am, so I have learned not to argue with him, but do my best to hold my opinion until I have time to mull over his points. Frequently he is right.
I did an experiment. I showed my father, a Windows user for at least twenty years, some of the ads.
Verdict: Funny and not offensive.

Okay, I need to vent a bit, and this is a convenient forum.
First, a confession. I played far too much Civilization IV in the past two days. During this brief time, I have formed an opinion that I would like to share.
Diplomacy still doesn’t work in Civilization.
As near as I can tell it has never worked properly.
I’ve heard people say that it is better and that there is nothing you can’t trade. But the problem is that there are some things that aren’t tradable. The human still isn’t on equal footing with the computer opponents.
Let me give you an example. In the current game I am bordered by the Incans. We’ve had our disagreements, including a small war long ago, but nothing major. (Well not major for me. They lost a town so it might mean more to them.) The Incans don’t like me, and I am fine with that. I understand. So they have closed off their borders so that I can’t just move through them. Fair enough.
The Aztecs live on a different continent far away. They have declared war on me, because they thought I was puny. (An apt observation because I never have a large standing army, preferring to get scientifically way ahead of everyone and then build troops when war happens.) Initially they went around the Incans and smote a couple of towns. Now, they apparently have an open border agreement with the Incans. So instead they pile their troops on the Incan border, where I can’t attack them without causing the Incans to declare war on me. Then they unleash a wave on my towns.
I would like to tell the Incans that I am upset by this. Theoretically I could, in the diplomacy options, ask them to cancel their open border agreement with my enemies, or I will declare war. But they don’t even allow that option; they have disabled it as unthinkable. So I can’t even give them a good reason why I am declaring war on them.
That is what annoys me the most. They can disable a negotiable point, but I can’t. So the French feel free to come bug me whenever they feel like it and ask me to stop trading with the Germans. The Germans have been great neighbors who have been at peace with me for thousands of years. They even share our religion of Confucianism. Breaking a trading agreement with them is unthinkable.
But the French are able to ask for it, and then get huffy when I don’t bow down to their demands. The French live across an ocean, and the Germans are on my front door. Who would you rather have on good terms. The French opinion of me goes down and I’m sure they are talking behind my back to the Japanese. And now there is no way I could possibly convince them to attack our mutual enemy, the Aztecs.
Is this how George Bush feels?
Freedom fries anyone?

So, technically I should be out enjoying a New Year’s Eve party. But I wasn’t invited anywhere. And I still don’t enjoy drinking, so I know I’m not really going to have fun at a bar.
A wise man told me today that the New Year’s Eve parties you see on television never happen in real life. Good advice.
Instead, I’ve been nobly distracted by a new computer game: Civilization IV. I haven’t played a computer game in a long time and it is a nice feeling. Especially with a god game where I get to find enemy empires and show them the error of their ways in opposing the greater Roman empire. (Maybe I’ll enforce Confucianism on them too? That’ll learn ’em.)
I’ll probably regret my choice to stay home in the coming days. But for now, full steam ahead.

I went to the museum yesterday with a new friend. They had an exhibit of historical Edmonton buildings all made out of Lego. How can that be anything but cool? And they were very well done. The dome on the legislature building looked as curved as you can get when you are dealing with little blocks. But was best were the small touches. Like a drunk waiter hiding in the corner of the Hotel Macdonald. The gothic character peering down from the bell tower. The large rabbit peering out of the woods around the High Level Bridge. All in all, very well done. There were a few other anomalies; They had a construction site, and I swear that the bulldozer was a Lego kit that I had long ago.
After that we checked out the rest of the museum. It was the first time I had ever been there. Voyage of discovery. I found the aboriginal section depressing. There was quite a lot of it, and I think they want people to leave there feeling poorly. Here are these great and nobel savages. Look what the evil white man has done to them. (And yet, I’ve been led to believe that the natives weren’t all that pleasant to each other long before Europeans showed up.)
I wish Canadian history could focus on something else.
The rest of the exhibits were more science based. Lots of rocks. Lots of birds. Lots of bugs.

I have Scandinavian heritage. So my family traditionally celebrates on Christmas eve. This is the first time we’ve had a tree in the new house, and it showed.
Our second tradition is that we use a live tree. (It follows from the third tradition. We’ll come to that soon.) Since there was a large wind storm, a lot of trees blew down in the parks around here. So my parents helped themselves to one. So we’ve got a huge tree. It’s only the top of the one that fell, but it is the tallest we’ve ever had. Fortunately, this place has a vaulted ceiling, and could probably accommodate an even larger one. Unfortunately it is a vindictive tree. It is oozing sap. The sticky kind that soap and water can’t take off.
Our third tradition is that we use candles on the tree. No electric lights, but honest candles. Fire hazard? Of course, but we are careful. A bucket of water is kept close at hand, and it has never been needed. However, the new house is more particular than we are used to. The fire alarms on the second floor started going off every ten minutes. They are not battery operated, and are too high off the ground to reach, so there was no way to turn them off. We eventually found that having the ceiling fans going could keep them off. But my dog is now practically hiding under a bed. He doesn’t trust the quacking duck chew toy I gave him anymore. He blames it for the screeching.

This Christmas with the family is rather strange in respect to presents. It’s almost un-Christmasy.
My sister is still stuck in the nether regions of Florida (popularly known as Miami.) So it is not a true family holiday. But we are still giving presents.
The ones I’m giving to my parents are… selfish. I did not go out and spend money for them. I’m giving them old stuff of mine that I no longer need. In my defense they are still better than what they have.
I’m giving my mother my old iBook. It’s three years old, and she doesn’t have a computer of her own. Plus, it’s a Mac, the perfect computer for Mommies and Daddies. My father always hogs the all-powerful Windows laptop he has, which is frankly too large for a normal human being. And my mother is not going to be stressing its capabilities.
I’m giving my father a digital camera. It’s just slightly over a year old, and much further in technology than the five year old one that he has been happy with.
I also picked up some duty-free loot when I left Jamaica, so I am not a completely heartless son. The thing is, that we’ve almost all admitted what presents we are giving each other. No surprises.
I know one present that they are giving me because, due to their having a PO Box instead of an address, it was shipped directly to my place. I felt the need to “test it out” to make sure it worked. And, truthfully, it made it one of the best car trips from Edmonton to Calgary. It was an FM transmitter for my iPod. So I was not at the mercy of the radio stations and could listen to good songs for the three hours on the road. It made the trip so much better.
Now I’ve wrapped it back in the box, given it back to them, and admitted what I did.

“William, don’t leave. If you do I’ll be the only visible minority.”
“Well there’s still Ellen. She’s short.”
“That just makes her less visible.”
Names changed to protect the innocent.

I was quite the social butterfly today.
Work was a joke. Well, there was work, but in the afternoon, we didn’t. There was a Christmas lunch. Then a Christmas Pictionary tournament. Then a Christmas leave-early. That was party #1.
Then, in the early evening, I went to what is called a “Friday Feast” put on by friends of friends. Good time. I took charge of the gingerbread house construction. Someone had already baked the pieces. I put it together, and got the abode stable. With help from an excellent mortarer who worked well in the subject of frosting. Then I stepped back and let other people decorate. (Gummy bears looking out the windows. Green candy representing a convincing Christmas tree on the side.) I also designed and made the traces for a gingerbread castle. I would have liked to have seen it made, but there was another party to get to.
Cameron’s house warming party was #3. Mostly co-workers, so I knew everyone. There was a hockey game going on, that didn’t interest me. But he has a very nice place. The windows are huge. You can see everything outside from anywhere in the place. And they overlook a busy intersection, so there is always something to watch. And listen to, unfortunately. It will probably be a problem in summer.

I just came back from Salsa lessons. I would have stayed later, but some yahoo at my company decided it would be a good idea to have a meeting at the crack of dawn. Almost literally.
I haven’t been to a lesson in several months. With my acting class over though, my Tuesdays have freed up enough that I can remedy the situation.
They are fun, and a pleasant excuse to keep your hands on a pretty woman for extended periods of time. And you get hot and sweaty. How can you go wrong? (Well, not that hot and sweaty.)
Interestingly, I was dancing with a lovely woman today. She was the spitting image of another woman I met in Jamaica. Except quite a bit shorter. I might have been distracted by the volume of tattoos on their bodies, and that’s why I think they look alike. Similar spread. And their names? Both mythical figures starting with the letter “A”.

On Thursday, I was at my improv class. Last one.
A couple of people were going to an RFT party afterwards. And I will admit, I was jealous. Theatre people are the coolest to hang around, and I don’t often run into them at social settings. But I hadn’t been invited, so I just privately yearned.
The next day I was on my computer, getting around to cleaning up my email. I had fallen behind because of my vacation. (Is there anything you can’t blame on a vacation.) Then I find one from the second day of my trip. It had the invitation to the party in question.
D’oh!

This has been a weird weekend.
I keep thinking I haven’t done much, and really I have done lots.
Firstly, I thought I hadn’t been productive much, but I finally got around to updating my finances, and getting pictures from my vacation sent to appropriate parties. Neither task is done, but a good chunk of them is.
Next, I thought I hadn’t been goofing off properly and getting out. But I’ve done something every day. Friday night I attended the theatre. Saturday I played RPGs and then was at the bar until one in the morning.
Today has been a bad day for goofing off though. I slept through my alarm, so I didn’t go running. And the plan to do Karaoke tonight looks like it has been cancelled. I’ll make up for it by watching a movie tonight. And I think I’ll try doing a salsa lesson on Tuesday.

It must be hell to be an obsessive-compulsive during an election. You go out to vote, place your ballot in the box, and then spend the rest of the day compulsively obsessing over whether you actually put the X in the correct box you wanted it in.

I was feeling content about the Alberta leadership election. I wasn’t a member of the Conservatives so I didn’t have to pay attention. I could let someone else do my thinking for me. It’s a pleasant thought.
Then I made the mistake of thinking.
This ended up with me buying a membership in the Conservative party.
<rant>
In Alberta, nobody’s vote counts.
No matter how much you try, the Conservative party will win. And because this is a forgone conclusion, no political party cares about the voters here. The Conservatives don’t need to do squat, because they know they will win every riding. Other parties don’t even bother to pander because they won’t change the voters minds.
And because of the riding system, your vote especially doesn’t count. On a provincial level, the mindless sheep that are the electorate will vote your riding into conservative hands. On a federal level, at least you know that your vote will give about two bucks into the party of your choice, but your riding will still be conservative. Anyone who tells themselves otherwise is simply deluding themselves.
And, even if through some miracle, some other party gets power in Alberta, will they even know how to run. No other party has any experience in running this province. So, do you honestly think they will do a good job.
You might as well not vote. That thought scares me.
</rant>
So, I joined the conservative party. This is the only way I can see to actually have a say in matters. This vote is a simple majority. No riding system to skew the results. Whoever wins this vote will immediately become premier for at least two years. And probably for a lot longer, because he will win the next provincial election.
This is in fact the only chance I have to select the premier.

I’ve been thinking of taking alcohol in a medicinal capacity. If I drink, maybe I’ll loosen up and have more fun at bars. Maybe I can get a psychiatrist to prescribe something for me…
Anyway, The Bank was having a one year anniversary. Due to being in the right place at the right time, I had a pass to go there. Drinks would only cost a buck each.
So, I decided to experiment and actually drink alcohol. (Why I didn’t do this three weeks ago when drinks in Jamaica were free is beyond me.) The bartender recommended a Cosmopolitan to start off with. Then I tried some house Martini (I want to call it a Drop Dead, but I know that wasn’t it.)
Conclusion?
I didn’t loosen up. Might as well stay sober.

Today, I celebrated Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving. I’m Canadian, but my father and sister are American. So it seemed right to celebrate it. (Really, the reason was that I had a spare turkey I wanted out of the freezer.) I invited some friends over and had a party of it.
There were proposals to make it as American as possible. But we didn’t get into arguments and recriminations like a proper American family. We also didn’t get around to stealing land.
🙂
It went well. I think I have gotten the proper skill set to handle a large bird. Although the sauce was a little too salty. I’ll have to work on that.
Despite being pumped full of Tryptophan I decided to go to the theatre. I’m not running tomorrow (due to the don’t-run-in-weather-colder-than-minus-twenty rule) so I thought I would go to the theatre and take in a Chimprov. If I had spent five minutes thinking about it, I would have realized that it was the last Saturday of the month, so instead Oh Susanna was playing instead.
I hadn’t seen it for several years, and I was there anyway, so I decided to attend.
There is a reason I hadn’t seen it for so long. It still wasn’t good. They still ply the audience with free alcohol to get their laughs. And I don’t like to drink, so I’m not one of the happy drunks.

I’ve been trying to transcribe my handwritten journal entries into my computer since I came back. And since LiveJournal gets snuffy if you post entries out of order, I haven’t been allowed to post anything. So I’ve been writing entries into the computer to be posted after the earlier.
Now I’m done. Everything is up, and I can move on to other stuff.
Like going through the 1200 pictures I’ve taken and getting them to the people who want copies.

Today, instead of work, or better yet, in lieu of work, I went to the launch of Windows Vista. I went to the developer seminars.
It was held at the Shaw conference center. I parked for free next to Diamond Park in the valley. Then I climbed the stairs to downtown, made my way to the conference center, where I promptly took the inside stairs down to the base of the valley again.
I could have planned that better.
I can’t say it was interesting, but I did learn some things.
I don’t think the OS is ready for primetime. I mean, the presenters seemed to be in mortal fear of rebooting their computers when something went wrong. Maybe they get fired if they reboot because it shows how slow the OS is. One of presenters found that the clipboard service had died, so he couldn’t copy/paste anymore. Rather than reboot, he went to a fair amount of trouble to manually type the code in.
One of the more amusing moments was when the developer was describing Windows gadgets. He accidentally called them widgets.
It was actually creepy how much of the new version of Windows was stealing from the Mac.
The Microsoft Office was also covered a lot. Microsoft seems to want people to develop their applications so that they use Office. Which I suppose is a good way to require people to buy that bloatware.
Office’s new document type is supposedly an open standard that uses XML. But I don’t really believe them. They did enough so that they could get a checkmark that says they are an open standard. But look closely and you’ll see it is so complicated and hard to follow, that only Microsoft will be able to support it.
Must be nice to be a monopoly.

My new laptop arrived today. Woot!
It is nice. It is fast. Importantly, it has a larger hard drive. My biggest problems with the last one was that I was running out of space. After taking 4gb of pictures I needed space to organize them. Now I can do that. I got the 15″ model. I saw the 17″ model, and while I could afford it, I took one look and said “That’s too big”
But not everything is shiny and happy. It is a MacBook Pro. Which means it uses an Intel chip instead of the PowerPC chip we’ve come to know and love for the past decade. Now, for most people, it shouldn’t matter if FritoLay made the chip, as long as the operating system is the same.
But Apple has decided (and with good reason) not to coddle people. Any software that isn’t for Mac OS X is being deprecated. So there are old games that I will no longer be able to play. Not that I play many games. The other thing is that I found a new tool that solved a problem I had with dates in pictures, but I discovered it doesn’t work on Intel.
I still have the old laptop so I can use that, but it is an inconvenience.

I moved the birthday party to Friday. I got an adequate number of people to show up. We went to dinner at the Sawmill.
Afterwards, I went with a different friend to Diamonds. It is the gentleman’s club that is next door to the Sawmill. It was my first real time at a stripper bar. I can’t say that it was the greatest experience.
They did provide the advertised product. There were pretty women that undressed themselves on stage. But I just got back from Hedo, so it wasn’t that exciting. And the company isn’t the greatest. There are lots of drunk men who spend most of the time staring up at the stage.
And passing gas. Every so often an unpleasant stink wafted through.
But I wanted the full experience, so I paid for a private dance. Which was also a disappointment. I had seen better in Jamaica. Plus you are not allowed to touch anything.
I can totally understand that rule. It makes sense. You don’t want the ladies to feel threatened. But they dance close to you, and make it look like they want you to touch. So, it’s a big tease.
However, if I were allowed to touch, would I want to? Think about it. Do you want to touch something that a dozen other drunk, stinky, horny, guys touched a bit before. I don’t know where that stuff has been.

Today is my birthday. It hasn’t been going that well.
I had planned to get myself a new MacBook Pro. My current computer is exactly three years old so it is time for a new one. So I went across the street to Westworld Computers. Where I was told that the one I wanted wasn’t in yet. I solved the problem by ordering the computer online, but it does mean that I won’t get it for some time.
There was a plan to go out to dinner tonight with a bunch of people. But there is a hockey game on so it was hard to get them organized. I ended up canceling. We’ll try again tomorrow.
However, I went to my improv class. They were a lot more supportive there. We went out for cake afterwards.

I still ache
While on vacation I noticed a defect in my camera. If I zoomed out to maximum, a black smudge would slowly grow on the right side of the screen. It would also appear in pictures as well. It wasn’t enough to ruin pictures, but it was a problem.
Unfortunately, Best Buy only has a fourteen day return policy on cameras. I couldn’t do anything about it at the time because I was in the wrong country. Still, I went there today, five days after the expiry, to see what could be done.
They didn’t bat an eye. I was close enough that they hauled a new camera out and let me have that instead.
I’m giving them extra credit for this.

I’m back to a snowstorm. When I got to my car there was a huge dump of snow on it. Thank goodness I wasn’t still in my Jamaica clothes.
Right now I’m dealing with a lack of sleep and aching muscles. The water skiing did more to me than I thought. Gripping anything is painful. Typing isn’t a walk in the park either.
Now I have to figure out it if I have the energy to go for a run tomorrow.

I’m in the air now. I slept a bit on the bus so I’m fairly alert.

I grabbed a bunch of duty-free stuff in the airport. But looking at it, none of it is for me.

I got rum as a souvenir. Another bottle as a gift. Some woman stuff as a specifically requested product. And Blue Mountain coffee. It’s advertised as the best in the world, and 007 only drinks it. But then he’s a fictional person. Still, I figure it’s a good souvenir for my co-workers. And I got a small bag to impress people who come to visit.

Hope customs likes me.

Good action scenes. But very light on plot.

I tried water-skiing this morning. I got a lesson. I realized that I won’t be able to use any skill I gained, but life is an experience.

The longest I was able to go for was four seconds. I was apparently a good student. They like it if you point out what you did wrong every time you fail.

Four seconds is good.

I would have tried longer, but my arms got tired. Now they ache.

I have to be out of my room in half an hour so I better finish off my packing.

I have a love/hate relationship with Mike from Toronto. I love that he moved out, but I hate how it was done.

Last night was fun. I ate at the Pastafari restaurant with the last people in the group. Good times, okay meal.

I spent most of the day with them. I briefly tried going to the nude pool, but I got bored there. Unless you’re aggressive, or a voyeur, it doesn’t hold an attraction.

I did explore a bit and found a way to get to the roof of my building. It was almost completely dark up there. Better than anywhere else on the resort. And you could see all the stars, right down to the heavenly glow of the milky way.

At around midnight, the last remnants of the group hit the disco. There we put on a show for the others. Apparently it went well, because a lady in red PVC, a masseuse from Toronto, made it quite clear she like my butt. And after a lot of touchy-feely she introduced me to her husband.

This resort confuses me.

Later she said she was going to the nude pool and hoped I would join her. Tempting. But I lingered with my group. When they wanted to go stargazing I directed them to my spot.

After awhile I left them and went to see the woman. I don’t think I wanted anything to happen. I am desperate, but not that desperate. Still, it’s nice to be wanted. She was happy to see me, even though she was in the arms of some other guy (not her husband).

I stayed awhile, but I don’t like to watch and the pool does feel dirty. So I went back to my stargazing friends. At around 3:30 we drifted away. I wandered around a bit more and found the aforementioned woman in the arms of her husband while her new friend was going full bore on her.

I went to pack. Spent 45 minutes in a hammock and then went to bed.

This morning, Mike from Toronto came to me. I found out later that when he left my room, the resort got mixed up and, according to the computers, I had actually been the one to move.

Mike told me he had received a phone message for me Saturday night. He was hazy enough on the details to make it the worst message ever. “Hi. This is (girl’s name forgotten). I’m at the main bar now. I’m heading to my room and I hope you’ll join me.”

So all the juicy details are there except missing a name. And 48 hours late. It’s a nice compliment, but I almost wish I hadn’t heard it. Now I get to leave Hedonism with regrets. And it wasn’t even my fault.

I hope this hasn’t hurt any woman’s feelings.

Actually, let me mention my roommate.

When I woke up this morning, I saw that no one had slept in the other bed. And come to think of it, I don’t see any other luggage around.

I didn’t have time to ponder because I had scuba diving to do. But later I found out that he had left to go to another room. Because his safe didn’t work he didn’t feel secure and forced the resort to give him another room.

The batteries had been moved because he had planned to use a mini-fridge he had brought along. He needed an outlet that wouldn’t cause people to trip over it in the middle of the night.

There is a delightful girl here. She’s from Montreal and has their adorable French accent. Her boyfriend is also pretty cool. She is rightfully devoted to him.

I saw her waiting at the bar and joined her. She was waiting for her boyfriend before going to the Pastafari restaurant. She was also fairly drunk, so she was downing water.

While having a nice conversation I felt her hand on my leg. I thought that was strange. She doesn’t seem the type to be unfaithful. Maybe it’s not her hand but her dress hanging loose.

I look down and I’ve got a huge cockroach sauntering up my calf.

I am so tired. I have to go to sleep now. A semi-decent hour. Revolting.

I have a new roommate now. Mike from Toronto. I am concerned. He turned the A/C to a very cool temperature. And I have noticed my battery charger has completely switched outlets. Why?

If I didn’t have Mike, life would be even better. A nice girl in our group was screwed by a “cad”. So she has no room for tomorrow night. If Mike wasn’t here, I could have a lovely female roommate.

If she doesn’t find something, I’ll still offer my bed. I plan to stay up late and possibly sleep in a hammock tomorrow anyway.