Grazing Rites

I know I normally only review movies I’ve seen in theatres, in fact I still need to review Up In The Air (which was awesome), but I consider this something of a public service.

Couples Retreat sucks.

There I said it; now don’t waste your time on it.

Seriously, it has like 2 funny lines.

Those 2 jokes do nothing to combat the army of unfunny penis jokes awaiting you if you dare brave this dog. It doesn’t even have MST3K potential – it just sucks. I have no specific complaints about the acting; it’s all a failure of premise, plot, and dialogue…basically every component of writing.

When the movie started I thought to myself “if this thing sucks then I guess it was just a way to trick a movie studio into paying for some actors to take a vacation”. I think I was perhaps too kind in my suspicions.

And I’m not the only one who saw this as the turd burger it really is – Metacritic gave it 23% and Rotten Tomatoes gave it 12%. The generally agreed-upon opinion regarding the movie is “Despite a talented cast and some reliably pleasant interplay between Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, Couples Retreat leaves viewers stranded in an arid, mirthless comedy”.

Think about that, “mirthless comedy” – that means unfunny comedy. I submit the word “comedy” needs to be stricken as contradictory.

And now the really bad news – it was a commercial success! It made $168 million on a $60 million budget. This dog made Universal $108 million! Proof that advertising can overcome anything, including a horrible product.

Do not watch this movie. Don’t waste your time, money, shelf space, bandwidth, or disk space. Stay away.

Apparently my time spent online is causing me to ignore my family so for the foreseeable future I will be taking the methods of grey mode and applying it to my time spent online (and on the computer in general for that matter). For those of you who actually find my rambling interesting and are unhappy about this move you can maximize your now-limited bovine exposure by following my twitter feed here:
http://twitter.com/CoW_mAn

Yesterday Star Trek Online officially launched to the masses…1 million of them.

Now I don’t know what constitutes success in the world of MMOs (or MMORPG if you prefer) as this is my first but a million accounts on day one? Well, that has got to be some kind of success.

In fact it must be because during Open Beta and Head Start the servers kept crashing due to unanticipated demand. Apparently for an Open Beta for an MMO it is standard for only about 65% of the beta keys to be redeemed and then of that only something like 25% are expected to all be online at the same time, now Cryptic is tight-lipped on specific numbers as is normal for the industry but they did say that far more keys were redeemed than expected and the players stayed online for much longer than anticipated.

The game hasn’t even launched overseas yet, that happens Friday.

As of December 2008 World of Warcraft, the most successful MMO of all time (thus far) had 11.5 million monthly subscribers – around 2.5 million in North America. In April of 2008 it was estimated to have a 62% market share. So if 2.5 million in North America equates to 11.5 million worldwide then 1 million in North America for STO should equate to 4.6 million worldwide assuming the world follows the same trends but beyond that STO has no growth. I’m no expert but 4.6 million customers worldwide would seem to me to be a success; and assuming no market growth that would work out to a 25% market share. In 2008 “western” consumer spending on MMOs was $1.4 billion – assuming a market share of 25% that means $350 million in revenue in the “west” alone. To put that in perspective Star Trek: Nemesis made only $67 million (and made a profit) and the new Star Trek movie made $385 million.

Now I admit there’s a lot of assumptions and downright funny math involved in the previous paragraph but if I’m even in the right ballpark it’s rather interesting to consider. For one thing I’m on the ground floor of a big gaming trend. But far more importantly Cryptic would be downright stupid (Kevin O’Leary would call it criminal probably) not to continue to develop and add on to the project. And from the press releases I’ve seen and announcements on the message board they already have quite a bit in the pipeline including a Borg arc and Q sending you on a time travel mission. The only thing I really hope they add is a little bit more mission diversity. Right now the vast majority of missions is go somewhere and kill things either in space or on a planet. Occasionally you also have to scans things or talk to people along the way. On even rarer occasion all you have to do is talk or scan – an earlier post of mine lists some of these rare no-combat missions, a list I hope to update soon.

What I would like to branching missions – by that I mean you make decision either to say something diplomatically or do things in a certain order and that decision affects the outcome either by making the mission harder/easier, longer/shorter, or having an impact on the reward. Tactical Assault had one or two missions like that and that was on the DS for Pete’s sake. Thus far there’s only one mission I’ve encountered that comes close to that in Star Trek Online.

One thing they do fantastically is reference other Star Trek material – I’ve had to cross off three of my more obscure Andorian names because I encounter those characters in the game! Mackenzie Calhoun (from Peter David’s New Frontier novels) is on K-7! Anichent (from the DS9 novel re-launch) is on Memory Alpha! Miral Paris shows up all over the place. Even the mission titles often allude to episode titles. So the attention to detail is fantastic – I’m looking forward to whatever they do next.

So with Star Trek Online in Head Start I’m keen to make as much use of my time playing as possible. To facilitate this it is useful to know what shows are new and which are not so I can plan my time accordingly. Here’s this week’s breakdown.

24 - New
The Big Bang Theory - New
How I Met Your Mother - New
Castle - Repeat
Chuck - New but aired Sunday in Canada (suck it US)
FlashForward - Pushed back another 2 weeks to March 18th (SOBs)
V - Returns March 30th
Lie To Me - On Hiatus until Late Spring
Knight Rider - Still cancelled (SOBs)

That means tonight I only need to catch 2 hours of new TV. Excellent.

Oh, and yes there is a new episode of Human Target and while I admit the show is good, compelling, and features some great actors and guest stars I haven’t committed to it yet so I’ll probably just half-listen as I play STO.

Day 2 of Head Start was not the roaring success Day 1 was – over 5 hours of downtime really put a crimp in my leveling up plans. I ended the day at Lieutenant 10, so simple math would seem to suggest STO was only up about 43% as long on Day 2 as Day 1.

During Open Beta I understood the downtimes, it was Open Beta after all, but this is Head Start – we paid for this privilege and it’s becoming less and less of an incentive. I was so limited in my time to play I have nothing more to add – perhaps Day 3 will go a little better.

So after a day of playing Star Trek Online Head Start I sit at Lieutenant Level 7 and I’ve gathered a bit of information that might be helpful.

First during Open Beta I got a little confused about all the people I could hail. If you want to do things in order this is the order that you encounter the first 4 people that issue you orders:
1. Quinn
2. Sulu
3. Yanishev
4. Grall

Also if you want to know when to expect combat, here’s a list of all the early missions that don’t have any combat – for everything else expect a fight:
Scientific Mandate
Pico Patrol (not distress signal)
Beytan Patrol
Neutral Zone Diplomacy
Pellme Patrol

I know it’s a little silly but with Head Start less than a day away I thought I’d come up with a little blurb to put in the biography field for my character…

In 2155 after the destruction of the original Kumari Commander Shran was placed in charge of a group of scientists testing a new Andorian-designed transporter. Always being one to lead in battle Shran volunteered for one of the early tests but a bizarre and still not completely understood accident created a duplicate of Commander Shran and propelled that duplicate some 250 years into the future. Upon Shran’s arrival in 2405 and discovery by the Department Of Temporal Investigations he began an accelerated training program at Starfleet Academy, wanting to carve a different path than that of his illustrious progenitor. Upon graduation in 2409 the newly minted Ensign Shran, in a move proving the inherent irony of the cosmos, was assigned to the USS Kumari…

I know about the spending freeze rumours so I’m going to set economic policy aside for this.

The things I’m really hoping to see this State Of The Union are threefold.

First, I want to see some stern, direct, and simple instructions to congress on passing health care. Despite what conservative pundits and politicians would have you believe, the problems passing health care reform thus far can’t be laid at the President’s feet because he hasn’t been actively involved. The kids aren’t getting the job done so it’s time for the adult to put things on track.

Second, I want a firm and specific commitment to ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. There were some false starts over the last year but the State Of The Union is a new beginning of sorts. Move past the mixed messages on this subject from the last year and just kill this thing; if for no other reason than improving your military capacity at a time when it is seriously strained.

Lastly I want the president to declare war…on delay. You can stand up and say you will no longer accept Republican (or Lieberman) obstructionism after a year of attempts at bipartisanship without looking like you’re pointing fingers, playing the blame game, or not moving forward. Part of the role of president, particularly during the State Of The Union, is to identify the problems facing your country; if the Republicans have gotten between the country and its goals, then that needs to be identified. Kill the filibuster, make the obstructionists stand and talk for hours, or just call them out publicly but keep the minority from keeping the rest of the country hostage.

Bonus points for accelerating progress on Climate Change and the Return To Space of NASA.

So the Open Beta ends at 6pm on Tuesday – tomorrow – and then the Head Start begins on January 29th, the time has yet to be announced. The Open Beta and Head Start keys for people who pre-ordered are the same.

Apparently all the Head Start people need to do is launch the game on the 29th and the Head Start patch will download. This is welcome news to someone who lost over a day of Open Beta downloading the game. Seriously, it’s well over 7 GB.

So assuming Head Start begins early on the 29th and doesn’t require a complete fresh download I should get about 4 days worth of play before they let the riffraff in. However Monday February 1st is a write-off – between work and new TV I doubt I’ll have much time to play so it’ll be more like a 3 day Head Start for me.

I’ve definitely learnt a lot about the game during the Open Beta and I think I’ll do much better when the real thing launches. For one thing I plan to be a Security officer rather than an Engineer and my first Bridge Officer will be Science/Medical. Other than that most of my plans are likely to be the same.

I apparently misspelled the name of my vessel – I haven’t decided yet for certain but I’ll probably switch to the proper spelling of Kumari.

I’ll probably included Shran’s lesser known first name, Thy’lek, in my biography somewhere.

Female officers will be named…
-Talas (Security)
-Jhamel (Science)
-Tarah (Security)
-Talla (Science)

Male officers will be named…
-Shar (Engineer) – full name: Thirishar ch’Thane
-Thelev (Security)
-Telev (Security)
-Erib (Science)
-Ghee P’Trell (Science)
-Thelin (Science)
-Tholos (Any)
-Keval (Any)
-Shras (Any)
-Thon (any)
-Thoris (any)

I haven’t looked into Fleets and all that yet but if I were to form one it would be called The Andorian Mining Consortium. Our motto? “The Andorian Mining Consortium runs from no one.” Our mission statement? “To seek out new sources of Archerite and new civilizations to sell it to – to boldly mine where no one has mined before”. I’d suggest if you plan on playing STO that you seriously consider joining up…otherwise you could be missing out on a generous percentage!

(note this post is using information from the pre-patched Open Beta)

There are so many items with so many variables in Star Trek Online it can be hard to wrap your head around them so I’ve compiled a list of shields I encountered before my promotion to Lt. Commander which might be helpful to new players. I am separating the list into 2 categories, those you should not bother with if you have something better, and those the offer decent trade-offs. Bleed through seems constant at 10% and regeneration is units per every 6 seconds which also appears constant so I’ll only list the numbers that vary.

Don’t Bother With If You Have Something From The Next List

Standard
You start with this equipped
2,500 max
83 regeneration

Array I
Can be purchased at Requisition Earth Space Dock
2,625 max
88 regeneration

Decent Trade-Offs

Covariant I
Must be found
3,609 max (BEST)
66 regeneration

Covariant II
Must be found
3,438 Max
69 regeneration

Regenerative I
Must be found
1,969 max
109 regeneration (BEST)

Array II
Can be purchased at Requisition Earth Space Dock
2,750 max
92 regeneration

So if you want best maximum power then go for Covariant I, if you want fastest regeneration go for Regenerative I and if you want to balance between the two priorities then go for either Covariant II or Array II depending on which priority you trend more towards. Unfortunately unlike my previous post about selling things there is no clear best answer here. Personally I go for Covariant I and then boost power to defensive systems, transfer power to specific shields, and use a shield buff to compensate for the slower regeneration.

(note this post is using information from the pre-patched Open Beta)

Okay so you don’t get energy points naturally, you have to sell stuff to get them. The trick is that different people will buy your junk at different rates. So I took some time today to see where gives you the best rates. I used the batteries (Engine, Weapons, Shields, and Auxiliary all have the same values so it doesn’t matter which) and got some estimates from various sources at Earth Spacedock.

Inventory lists its value at 20, this is what people are willing to pay:

Requisition Stations/People – 10
Jenna Romaine & Commodities Broker & Replicator – 8
Ferengi – 6

If anyone finds a place that offers a better deal on this benchmark let me know.

With Stonehenge dates having recently been added that work with the theoretical dates of the trip it’s time to get serious about saving. That means extending grey mode operations until pretty much the day we leave.

After some admittedly very preliminary (read: half-assed) research it looks like the holy grail would be a round trip direct flight for less than $900 per person including all taxes and fees. Now when it comes to cheap flights I have no knowledge. I lucked out with Orlando but that was more about dogged determination and hard work than any experience, knowledge, and insider tricks. I can take care of the hotels just find, that’s my wheelhouse, but when it comes to flights I’m a novice deal hunter at best. I welcome any and all help and advice.

In my mind the God of great flight deals has to be Calvin – he’s tipped me off to FatWallet but frankly that site’s never done it for me. I’ve tried to wrap my head around it but the layout is counter-intuitive to my experience and the FAQs are enormous and dense. The runner-up in my books has to be Cora and she’s already been tasked with helping us out. I am of course grateful for any insight or assistance.

Let’s face facts, this is likely to be the most expense vacation I’ve ever paid for myself and I went pretty nuts on the last one.

The easiest ways to save money is to cut down on unnecessary indulgences – topping the list would be blu-rays, restaurants, and video games.

I still have some blu-rays from Boxing Week (thanks Burton for the gift card!) and I have a $5 certificate for Best Buy that I’ll use but after that I think I need to put a freeze on buying blu-rays. I’ll save demand for my birthday.

Restaurants are also pretty easy and thankfully Mindi can make a mean steak, pizza, or chicken anything to rival most places. Of course it’s not the traditional restaurants that are sneaky, it’s the places you don’t think of as restaurants like pizza delivery and fast food that get you. Pizza Mondays as we know them are currently in abeyance. It was a tough decision but the right one. I did break down and order pizza last night but Mindi had dental surgery and the kid asked so nicely. And I will order pizza for the premiere of the new season of 24 on the 17th but after that I’m locking it down. Maybe we’ll get frozen ones at the grocery store you heat up in the oven, which could be a cost effective compromise. I have a ban on McDonald’s right now so that helps on the fast food front and I’m making an effort to wash at least a sink full of dishes almost every day so the opportunity cost of fast food is higher. Knowing there’s a sink full of dirty dishes at home makes fast food seem much more appealing – this should cut into that significantly.

As for video games I still have a Final Fantasy I haven’t even touched yet and despite a huge backlog of WiiWare and Virtual Console games on my wish list I’m going to limit myself to Star Trek Online. I also have a host of Wii games I never finished including at least one I never even played once yet.

So all that combined with some money management tricks, re-tasking the swear jar (and increasing enforcement), tax rebate, and bottle runs towards vacation saving should hopefully make this thing doable in a sustainable way.

So I finally got a hold of the person responsible for that franchise location of Great Clips and it seems the employee in question has been fired. The fellow I spoke to expressed utter shock at her behaviour and discussed how she only worked one day a week anyways, apologized profusely, and said after this week she would no longer be working for him.

I can’t help but wonder if I got her fired. And even if I did, although I doubt my complaint alone would have been sufficient cause, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, she said a lot of horrible racist things and frankly wasn’t very good at her job to begin with. She didn’t listen to me, didn’t follow my instructions, and pretty much kicked me out of the chair without telling me she was done of giving me a chance to inspect her work. It’s quite common for them to at least ask if it’s short enough if not use a mirror to show you the back. She just ripped the cover off and pronounced me done. Even during the cut she was rough and jammed the trimmer into the back of my head repeatedly and painfully.

I suppose she may have already given her notice and let her performance and behaviour slide since she had mentally checked out but she’d cut my hair before and she wasn’t much better those previous times.

So honestly, even if I DID get her fired, I think it’s for the best. I defeated an incompetent racist; there are worse things to do with one’s time.

I had hoped that if I waited a bit then more dates would be added to the Stonehenge tours that actually let you touch the stones – dates that would work better with the London trip and sure enough the prophets have smiled upon us.

New dates added: The 16th, 19th, and 30th.

For my money I’d bet we’ll go on the 19th for the evening viewing.

Cost is £85 ($140.61 Canadian at today’s exchange rates) so start saving those pennies.

My family’s current dedicated savings for the trip is currently: $2.60

That’s care of Mindi and the swear jar, not bad for 10 days in the darkest days of grey mode. I know, it seems a ludicrously small amount but that sucker’s going to grow. With a little luck it will get a $1,300 shot in the arm come tax time for example and these are dedicated savings, money set aside solely for the trip. Usually I pay for trips out of pocket without dedicated saving.

So I would say the trip will definitely encompass the 18th to the 22nd as a bare minimum and the 19th is officially Stonehenge Day. A trip of that length booked on Expedia and staying at a hostel would cost $1350 per person based on double occupancy.

So adding that to the cost of Stonehenge we now have a personal savings goal of a minimum $1,490.61

It’s an arbitrary number really because I plan to stay in a proper, perhaps even nice, hotel but I also highly doubt Expedia is the cheapest option plus we may fly out of a nearby American city to hopefully further reduce costs but for some people it helps to have a specific goal.

It would be nice to stand in the middle of Stonehenge and be able to say to Mindi, Jon, and Josh (and whoever else wants to come) “look what I made happen”

Forget my entire previous post - apparently BBQ sauce prints it’s expiry date in a format completely backwards from every other way I’ve ever seen dates displayed anywhere.

I was wrong and apparently threw out perfectly good BBQ sauce.

Hell maybe I didn’t even have food poisoning. Perhaps I wasn’t really sick at all.

Those of you that follow me on Twitter or Facebook know that come New Year’s Eve I was stricken with a rather serious bout of food poisoning - so bad that even 4 days hence, I hadn’t fully recovered. Discovering the culprit had been a challenge - the list of suspects would make Agatha Christie proud.

Was it the Christmas Day leftovers? The carrots made that night? The microwave popcorn? The salt and vinegar popcorn topping? Something else? Cross-contamination?

The leftovers seemed fine; the popcorn had another several months before nearing expiry, the carrots fresh. Almost everyone had an alibi. The natural assumption was to just figure it was the leftovers.

Then the other night we have some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches just as I was starting to feel human again. As I ate, something started to turn my stomach hard and fast. And I kept smelling BBQ sauce. I mentioned this to Mindi but she said I was crazy.

Trying to ignore what my body was telling me I forced myself to continue eating as there was no logical reason to stop. I figured my stomach just wasn’t used to food but I continued to feel worse and I still kept smelling and tasting BBQ sauce despite there being no apparent reason. When I mentioned this again Mindi finally admitted to putting BBQ sauce in the soup.

I have no idea why she misled me. She was very careful to phrase her earlier responses so as not to actually lie - saying “you might be crazy” rather than an actual denial. She pointed this out when I tried to call her on it but when you’re sick with food poisoning it’s hard to care much for such semantic legal distinctions because you’re in agony.

Frankly I was upset beyond words. I was weak and vulnerable and in no mood for word games or experimenting with unusual new food combinations. Questions like “why mislead me?” and “who puts BBQ sauce in tomato soup?” and “why experiment with weird food combinations on someone who was just beginning to recover from food poisoning?” swam through my head as I laid down. I was just trying not to vomit, which I eventually ended up doing anyways but not nearly as severely as on New Year’s Eve.

But it did get me thinking.

Next time I was in the kitchen I checked the fridge and sure enough the BBQ sauce expired June 10th 2009, well over 6 months ago. I pointed this out and insisted on throwing the sauce out but even now she insists that wasn’t the cause.

It was the only expired food I consumed in the timeframe as she put the BBQ sauce on my cold turkey sandwich the night before I got sick (had it in the evening, vomiting started at 4am later that night). Why wouldn’t expired food be the prime suspect? It’s the only food you quantitatively know for certain we shouldn’t have consumed. Its math, math doesn’t lie.

Her argument was that we had used the sauce on leftover pulled pork the week prior and I didn’t get as sick from the tomato soup (I only threw up once from the soup versus the day-long yarf session from the cold turkey sandwich).

Okay, valid point on the pulled pork sandwich – why didn’t that make me sick? Did the sauce turn in the intervening week? Not terribly likely. Also, why didn’t soup make me as sick or worse given my weakened condition?

The next day it hit me. We had heated up the pulled pork sandwich and the soup was hot as well but the cold turkey sandwich was cold. Heat kills bacteria and other unpleasant baddies.

It seems an open and shut case to me.

Is it possible it was something else? Sure. For all I know I swallowed a fly while I was eating and it was so small I didn’t notice but is it terribly likely? No. I don’t think it meets the threshold of reasonable doubt. I think this evidence would be enough to convict OJ.

So serving as self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner, I sentence BBQ sauce to life imprisonment. The problem is we only have room in the jail for one thing. Last time I got sick it was undercooked perogies and, except for Hunky Bill’s, I haven’t had perogies ever since. So it looks like perogies gets parole and BBQ sauce gets the slammer. The real downside of this is that it takes one of my favorite Subway subs with it as well as ribs. Unfortunately it’s just an immutable law of my gastrointestinal system that I cannot stomach the last thing that made me yarf. Sadly something will come along one day and get BBQ sauce out of jail by making me yak but I’m going to do all I can to ensure that day never comes.

Thank you for sharing your comments about the service you recently received at the Great Clips salon. Our promise is to serve our customers with the highest level of quality, and we appreciate your feedback, which is critical to helping us keep this promise.

The GREAT CLIPS salon you visited is a franchise, and is independently owned. However, as the franchisor, our primary goal is to ensure good, consistent service at every location. We will contact the owner of the salon about your experience, and you can be assured they will appreciate your feedback and will be in touch with you very soon.

Please accept our apology for your inconvenience. We value your business and hope you will give us another try.

I went for a haircut yesterday and was rather annoyed at many of the comments a stylist made during my haircut. She made racist comments about Taiwanese people, complained at length about bad tippers, and kept calling my son a monster. Her comments upset my whole family as well as the other staff member present. I have been getting my hair cut exclusively at various Great Clips locations for over a decade now but this experience is making me rethink my loyalty. Racism, insults, and pressure to tip (although I always do tip) are just about the last things I want to experience while getting a haircut.

It’s easy to forget about your favorite TV shows after the holidays, having gone without for so long. Plus with the long shadow of the Olympics already starting to descend and interfere with some quality programs it gets even more complicated. Fear not gentle reader for I have your back.

Hustle begins…holy crap, Hustle begins TODAY!!!

Chuck returns for it’s third season with ‘Chuck Versus The Pink Slip’ on January 10th.

The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Castle all return January 11th.

Day 8 of 24 premieres January 17th. Don’t phone me that night.

FlashForward returns on March 4th after an intolerable break - this doesn’t leave Demetri much time to prevent his death!

V returns March 30th.

Lie to me is just a mess right now in terms of scheduling - according to the official website they’re either done for the season or just beginning the season depending on where you look…but only 10 episodes have aired thus far. Are they perhaps taking the name of the show a little too seriously? Besides it’s all text, there’s no microexpressions to read! The original order for season 2 was 13 episodes and on November 24th Fox extended that to full season order. What the hell?

Season 5 of Doctor Who is due this Spring.

Off Duty, the promised Bradley Whitford comedy series, is now filming according to IMDB.

Season 4 of Torchwood should be starting production sometime this month.

The 4th season of The Sarah Jane Adventures is in pre-production but has apparently not been officially greenlit yet.

Knight Rider and Enterprise remain cancelled…asshats.

With the New Year and my resolution upon us the proceeds from the swear jar from the first three-quarters of 2010 will go towards the London trip. As a result fines will be imposed a bit more consistently than they have of late.

Here’s a reminder of the various words and penalties…
F*ck $1
Sh*t $1
C*nt $1
D*mn $0.25

There is a large asteroid headed towards the earth named Apophis – now before you run out and drain your bank account to enjoy the end of days let me say that our best scientific minds say it isn’t going to hit us.

Its first flyby would be in 2029 and it would come within 30,000 km of Earth; scientists have completely ruled out the possibility of an impact on that pass.

However it will return again in 2036 and there is a small chance it may hit us then – specifically 1 in 250,000. Good odds I suppose.

Then it will return again in 2068 with a 1 in 330,000 chance of impact.

So it sounds like this thing will be pestering us over the next few decades.

Russia wants to do something about it. Specifically they want to send a spacecraft to adjust its trajectory. They’re inviting space agencies from around the globe to be a part of the project if they’re interested but NASA says that since the chance of impact is so low it’d be a crazy waste.

I think there are two reasons Russia’s got the right idea.

My first thought was it’s great we aren’t going to get hit in 2029 but what affect would a near miss have on our increasingly delicate ecosystem? To say nothing of tectonic plate stress and the potential for tsunamis and the like – I have a particular interest since I live in a coastal city…near a fault…in the ring of fire. The moon is ten times further away from us than this asteroid is going to pass and look at the effect it has on our tides and moods. Of course the moon is also over ten times larger than this asteroid but nevertheless I have my concerns even about a relative near miss.

Secondly, even if we don’t need to divert this particular asteroid on this particular occasion I think it’s a fantastic opportunity to develop and test the technology, science, physics, and engineering require to do such a thing so that we are better prepared for the day when we DO have to deflect something to save the planet. Plus, with apologies to Mr. Kennedy, we should do it because it is hard. We could learn and develop much in the attempt that could have useful applications here on earth and also in future space missions.

But I’ve watched and read enough science fiction to have one caveat – whatever is done needs to be done in such a way that even abject failure or malfunction would not make the situation worse. If a launch window nears and we can’t make that guarantee then cancel the mission but continue the work, refine everything so we can hit it on its second or third pass.

All that said I will say go Russia! Show that asteroid who’s boss! If nothing else you can recoup some costs on the movie rights.

So the last 2 years I’ve set 5 resolutions for myself each year and by-and-large I met them. A couple that were somewhat critical into getting my butt in gear for the improvement of my health – seeing an optometrist and a dentist – are particularly noteworthy.

So I’d say the last couple years I’ve done pretty good.

With that in mind I only have one resolution for 2010…

Get my ass to London for my 30th birthday.

Mindi got me thinking about London 2010 when she was looking at airfare and posting stuff on facebook so I started poking around as well, checking a few things out. It’s so early at this stage it’s difficult to know anything for certain with regards to costs but I think an important first step would be to figure out how many days the trip would be for.

I started off easy, if we went to Paris how long would I want to go for? Paris is pretty and the frenchies are actually pretty nice particularly if you at least attempt to throw some broken Canadian French at them however French waiters reputations are well earned, if we spent more than a full day (all “full days” essentially mean not including travel) in Paris I’d probably starve. I took a quick look to see if Paris has a Hard Rock Café – honestly I thought it a long shot since they hate the Eifel Tower so much I figure no way would Parisians tolerate an Hard Rock but nevertheless there it was – I may well take 3 meals a day there. But really Paris would be all about the Eifel Tower, the fountain across the bridge, and the Arc de Triumph and that’s about it so one full day should suffice nicely.

Next easiest was to consider Cardiff. Having been pleasantly surprised by the Hard Rock Café existing in Paris I thought I’d see if my luck held out and sure enough, there’s a Hard Rock Café in Cardiff. Oh, I would be sorely tempted to stock up on the merch there let me tell you. I can easily see a Hard Rock Café Cardiff shirt, jacket, and hat all quickly becoming my favorite casual attire. And let’s face facts, I want to go to Cardiff to see the Millennium Center and take in some funny accents so one full day there should suffice nicely as well.

Now on to the beast: London. So much to do, so much I’ve done, some things I’d love to see again, and others I could do without. I started off making a list of places to go and slowly a set of themes became apparent so I said to myself why not have themed days on the trip? After that it all sort of fell into place.

Here’s an alphabetical breakdown on locations, full days at each, themed days in London, and attractions for those days. Red text indicates it’s new to me.

London(6 Full Days)

Alton Towers Day

·         Alton Towers

Birthday

·         Eye Of London

·         Hard Rock Café

·         Piccadilly Circus

·         Trafalgar Square

Blackpool Day

·         Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Stonehenge Day

·         Stonehenge

Tourist Day

·         Big Ben

·         Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

·         Tower Bridge

·         Tower Of London

War Day

·         Cabinet War Rooms

·         HMS Belfast

·         Imperial War Museum

·         Winston Churchill’s Britain At War Experience

Paris      (1 Full Day)

·         Eifel Tower

·         Arc de Triumph

·         Hard Rock Café

Cardiff  (1 Full Day)

·         Millennium Center

·         Hard Rock Café

So the days add up to 8 full days not including transportation if we do London, Paris, and Cardiff.

Oh and it’s generally cheaper to fly in and out of London than the other 2 cities.

The vast majority of Boxing Day flyers have leaked by now and since I don’t really plan on spending much myself this year (last year I spent over $1,000 in Boxing Week, this year my absolute ceiling is $300 and that’s if I go pretty crazy – it’ll probably be more like $25 to $50) I don’t see the harm in sharing the deals I’ve found since I won’t be concerned about limited supply and competition. I’ll arrange them by what people are likely to be looking for this year.

Store Brand Blu-ray Player: $80 at Best Buy

Brand Name Blu-ray Player: $100 at Future Shop

Netbook: $250 all over the place (Staples, Walmart, Future Shop, and Best Buy)

Wii Sports Resort: $40 at Best Buy

Blu-rays: $5+ at Superstore and Walmart ($7+ at Future Shop and Best Buy)

You’ll notice there are no Boxing Day sales for New Super Mario Bros Wii. That’s because no one will have it in stock, it’s too awesome. ‘It gift’ ’09, I called it!

There are also some crazy deals on TVs out there but I see no reason to torture or second-guess myself by looking at those in depth, for those you’re on your own.

We probably won’t know what NCIX has in store for a little while yet, that’s probably the only potential game-changer left unless The Source pulls a rabbit out of it’s hat.

In a couple weeks I begin my 14th year with the company I currently work for; which is, among other things, a venue for an upcoming sporting event that shall not be named lest I end up in some CIA black site in Siberia.

I went in to work on the Sunday before Christmas because I had a lot of work to do to get ready for this event and my holidays plans were eating up the rest of my week so it just made sense. As I went for lunch I was taken by how deserted the site was. Having had a position with somewhat more standard hours the last few years it really was rare for me to see the site empty as it was. It reminded me of days gone by that I used to see it like this on a semi-regular basis. How the calm of the deserted site helped me to focus for the challenges ahead.

Before long the event will be here and it will likely become an absolute zoo but for the moment it felt as if I were the only one there. It seems so much more manageable like this, like it’s just waiting for what unique ideas you can bring to it to hopefully make it just a little bit better.

The site’s changed a lot during my years with the organization but compared to many other staff my years are few. At a company that’s been around for nearly a century with many current staff who have worked here for over 30 years my nearly 14 years pales by comparison and yet it tends to be shocking to people from outside the company that anyone would stay with one organization that long, much less someone at my age. In fact the day is swiftly approaching when I would have spent half my life here.

That’s staggering to contemplate, isn’t it? I haven’t done the math exactly but my rough estimates say that sometime in 2011 I’ll reach a point where I have spent half my life employed by this organization.

Whenever I talk to those people with 20, 25, 30, 35 or more years under their belt I always say that I hope to last that long and it’s true but in the moments of insanity and stress as well as those of boredom and monotony it’s easy to forget why. People come and go, some of them phenomenally awesome who change the course of your life, others are jerks. Time sees all of them go eventually. But the organization and what it stands for remains.

What does it stand for? Fun.

I’ve dedicated nearly 14 years of my life to fun.

Maybe not as noble as the Red Cross but still something one can take pride in.

And now the world is coming. To say the coming event has turned things upside down would, at this point, be overstating things but that could well change for the period of the event. Even now, just 54 days out, we’re not entirely sure what shape it will take in many respects.

But in the eye of the coming storm it will probably help for me to remember, in both the peaks and valleys, that when all is said and done it all comes back to this – one guy working on his own on the Sunday before Christmas to meet the new challenge.

I didn’t mention this when it first came out because for the longest time the only way to view the episode was by going through the forums and other convoluted steps but now it’s ready for all to see in an easy format:

http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/episode_baf02.html

So it appears that the tire estimate was off by a factor of 3…and change. So this recent set of repairs will end up totaling around $1,000. A $1,000 of unanticipated expense right before Christmas.

$1,000 – that’s half of what we paid for the car. I think with these repairs I have officially paid for this car twice now. We haven’t even had it a year. And it just seems totally expected that I’m supposed to pony up for this – I guess that’s just one of the secret rules of owning a car: you don’t get to say no and you don’t get to complain or joke about it. You don’t own the car, the car owns you and if you don’t want to make it any worse you’d best shut up and take it without question.

And as if that’s not enough I’m made to suffer for it. Saturday night about an hour after I had planned to go to bed I found out the tire estimate had doubled. I had trouble getting to sleep because I was worried about how I was going to make this all work out.

About 4 hours later I had to get up at 7am so we could go get these tires. I woke up exhausted with a splitting headache but I had no choice but to continue. The first place we went told us that the price hadn’t doubled but in fact tripled. I was barely functional at this point from the sleep deprivation and stress that I just didn’t care any more. This place didn’t have the tires we apparently wanted so we had to go to another location. The kid was keeping me busy elsewhere so I wasn’t part of that conversation.

The location we were sent to next didn’t open for another hour so we ended up spending 15 minutes huddling in the car for warmth in the snow waiting for this place to open after we drove over. It turns out they actually open 5 to 10 minutes early and a half dozen people seemed to know this and swept in at the last minute to get ahead of us in line while we were trying to stay warm in the car until the posted hours.

We had called the day before and they said just to come first thing in the morning and it would be taken care of in the afternoon but once we got to the front of the line the story changed and they said they were giving out appointments for Tuesday and we could have done it over the phone – a service that was not offered or even mentioned when we called. I’m still not certain why the whole family had to go on this adventure but my suggestion to the contrary did not go well.

We had told the kid that we’d go on the skytrain while the tires were being replaced so even though the tires weren’t getting done for a couple of days we still had to do that. I felt like death but the Bataan death march had just begun. We just missed the bus that would take us to the train so we had to wait in the freezing cold trying to keep the kid from running into traffic while we wait on Sunday bus service. We went downtown and did a little Christmas shopping and then went home. Getting on the bus to go home we got yelled at by the driver for not showing him our bus pass fast enough (he began yelling AS I was showing him the pass). Then he decided to skip our stop so we had to yell at him to get him to do his job.

Once home I had to watch the kid by myself for awhile as the snow had accumulated to the point at which we needed to shovel and salt. Once that was done with I finally permitted myself a painkiller for my throbbing head as they tend to knock me out. I nodded off 3 times shortly thereafter but within seconds the kid started yelling at the top of his lungs each time.

The headache was now officially upgraded to a migraine.

When the kid’s nap time finally rolled around I prayed that I would be permitted the same luxury and took another painkiller. I slept for a bit but didn’t feel much better so I asked to turn down the volume on the TV and turn off the Christmas tree. I mercifully fell back asleep but not for long. I woke up alone vomiting my guts out. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to put a bucket beside my bed before attempting my nap. My vomiting was so loud it woke the kid from his nap and he began saying to himself “its okay Julian” over and over. Great, I’d driven my son mad, fantastic.

I tried to accelerate the vomiting to get it over with as fast as possible so I could go tend to him. I cleaned up a little bit and went into his room to which he greeted me saying “yucky vomit”.

I had no idea he knew that word. Then he says “I know what you need” and comes over and gives me a hug. That was nice, just about the only nice part of the day really.

After searching all over for any sign of a note and finding nothing I grab my cell phone and try to track down where Mindi’s gone, it turns out she had resumed her Christmas shopping. She offers to bring me food so I ask for a cheeseburger. What feels like an eternity later as my head is still splitting and the kid’s yelling at the TV she comes back with my cheeseburger, which I get one bite into before I’m back to yarfing my guts out.

I think this car is trying to kill me, slowly.

Christmas is poorly timed, financially speaking, for our family.

It’s smack in the middle of grey mode – the period from October to January when my hours drastically drop at work and money becomes tight. This also extends until April somewhat as my hours slowly ramp up and I try to recover from the harshest parts of grey mode. I’ve spoken about this at length in the past so I won’t go into extreme detail here.

Although I suppose in a way it’s a good thing as it keeps my generosity in check – if Christmas happened in September everyone on my list would have gotten Wiis long ago. Don’t laugh; I got consoles for my mom and Burton in the past.

Anyways, this Christmas season is particularly challenging because we had some huge car issues crop up right at the end of November.  Since November 30th I’ve had to shell out over $600 on the car and we still need new tires – a minimum expense of another $130. Now about $40 of that was expected as part of regular oil change and other maintenance so we’re looking at about $690 of unbudgeted expense in the middle of grey mode.

What kind of Christmas could you give your family on $690? A pretty decent one I should think. How far would $690 go in day-to-day expenses like groceries?

Suffice to say we’ve had to tighten our belts with regards to entertainment and eating out but soon after we got our first repair estimate the question was put to me: “Does this mean we should cut back on Christmas?”

Well that’s a hell of a question. It’s pragmatic and practical, fiscally responsible – everything I am. And also completely wrong.

First I should clarify we’re not standing on the edge of an abyss here. I’ve got savings and investments; we have some measure of financial security. Worst case we don’t go to London for my 30th birthday but instead go to Orlando or Las Vegas. We’re not one of those families hit hard by the recession – we haven’t seen our hours go down, lost our jobs, or even had our benefits decrease. In fact the only thing the recession did was limit my raise and keep Mindi from getting hers. We may one day be in such a place where we have to choose between essentials (over my dead body) but that day is several years off barring severe unforeseen circumstances. But nevertheless there the question was. I generally try to do things in a financially sustainable way – do things we can afford that only temporarily dip into our savings. Suddenly things didn’t seem so sustainable. It’s not that uncommon a concern during grey mode but I always pull a rabbit out of my hat somewhere and we recover. But what if I’m starting to run out of rabbits?

Then I realized that the question I had to answer wasn’t “should be cut back on Christmas?” and I already had the answer to the real question.

There is a wartime story that may to some degree be apocryphal or distorted but it goes like this. During one of the darkest moments of World War II Winston Churchill was asked by a reporter if he would cut funding to the arts in order to fund the war effort to which he famously replied “my god man, what do you think we’re fighting FOR?”

I had my answer to that question.

“What do you think we’re fixing the car FOR?” I responded. No cut backs on Christmas. The whole reason in my mind for fixing the car, the heart of the matter or the motivation if you prefer, was to drive to my mom’s place for Christmas dinner. That’s why I was fixing the car, my family could get by on transit if they had to.

So we cut back on entertainment and eating out, busting open some old cans of soup and Chef Boyardee for dinner here and there and digging our way into the back of the pantry which frankly we need to do more often anyways. But there still seemed to be this specter of financial difficulty looming over us. My Christmas spirit is pretty robust and we continued putting up the tree and slowly sending out some Christmas cards and doing a little Christmas shopping here and there but we still seemed to be timing things carefully towards our pay days. Then today when I was doing some manual labour at work and listening to some Christmas songs I was reminded why I have rules about no cut backs at Christmas when an Amy Grant song came on my mp3 rotation…

“Let’s take a walk downtown
And go dream shopping in the mall
Kids can do the Santa thing
And photographs and all
You’ll get the biggest tree this year
And trim it to the top
And spend a whole lot more than what we got
But so what?”

This is why things like Christmas songs are important – they’re nice and remind us of good times in years past but they also remind you of what’s important.

Well, I’ve been reminded.

Worrying about money can wait for the New Year.

It’s like by having that mp3 it was a message embedded in my playlist from me of the past to keep me on the right path.

Christmas is about joy, generosity, and the incongruous viewing of Die Hard, not bitching about money.

Merry Christmas everyone.

See you in the checkout lines at the mall.

Clothes (4T or larger unless otherwise stated)

Hat

Light Jacket

Long Sleeve Shirts

Pants (3T)

Shoes (size 9)

Sweatshirt

Winter Boots (size 9)

Toys

Dora Toys

Kid’s Digital Camera

Plush Elmo

Puzzles

Thomas Night Light

Thomas Toys

DVDs (please include gift receipts in case of duplication)

Bob The Builder

Dora The Explorer

Thomas & Friends

Transformers G1 (not the movie)

Wubzzy

Other Stuff

Age-appropriate Transformers stuff

Area Rug

Bookshelf (no taller than 200cm/79inches, no wider than 128cm/50inches)

GPS Tracking Device

Kid’s Umbrella

Potty Training Books/DVDs

RESP Contribution

Twin/Single Bed Frame

Twin/Single Mattress

Gift Cards

Chapters

Community Centre (i.e. punch card for swimming at Canada Games)

Gap Kids/Old Navy

Please Mum

Sears

Superstore

Toys R Us

Wal-Mart

Please Do NOT Buy

Sunglasses

T-shirts

PJs

Toys that make noise

Large toys (we are short on space)

I’ve put a bit of thought into this list this season and I’ve removed some of the less practical items of lists past like luggage and camcorder. We have enough workable luggage really and it’s not like we’d use a camcorder very much if we had it – it would be almost exclusively for vacations really. I’m also downgrading my laptop entry to netbook.

This is will be my first Christmas since I bought our blu-ray player and HDTV so I’m hoping this will make gift giving easier since my blu-ray collection is still in its infancy (see yesterday’s blog post for a complete list).  Let me put it this way, if someone gave me $100 and told me I had to spend it on something for myself today I’d probably buy blu-rays. Now the list of blu-rays may seem long and yet incomplete. The Lethal Weapon series provides a useful example. Lethal Weapon 1 is not listed because I have it on DVD – I’m a little strange about upgrading my DVD collection to blu-ray, I’m not willing to spend my money on it or ask for it but if I get it as a gift I’ll be happy. Lethal Weapon 2 is listed. Lethal Weapon 3 and 4 are not listed because they do not appear to be out on blu-ray yet. For easy reference I exclusively used the Best Buy website for compiling my blu-ray wish list, titles are formatted to match their site. Their website isn’t perfect however – despite “The Rock” clearly saying “The Rock” on the cover Best Buy lists the English version as just “Rock” and the French version as “The Rock”. Also they don’t have the second season of TOS listed but I know they carry it. So don’t take this list as complete.

Now, on to my much-revised list…

Expensive ($100+)

Shaw HD Converter

Netbook

Pricey ($50-$100)

Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii – Used Okay)

Rock Band Guitar (Wii)

Value ($30-$50)

16 GB (or larger) SDHC Card (Class 6)

Wii Remote

Khakis (size 32×30 - no pleats, cuffs, or blue)

Electric Razor (flat head, NOT 3-round-head kind)

Star Trek Scene It?

Bookshelf (no taller than 182cm/72inches, no wider than 220cm/86inches)

Inexpensive ($30 or less)

Mouse (USB wired)

Keyboard (USB wired with Calculator button)

Mario Kart (DS – Used Okay)

Wii Points

Black Dress Socks

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS – Used Okay)

Long Sleeve Casual Shirt (no chest stripes)

Wii Classic Controller

10 lbs Free Weight

Pet Shop Boys Christmas

Don’t forget Gift Receipts, just in case J

Blu-Rays (alphabetically, prices range from $25 to $100)

24 - Season 7

Air Force One

Any Given Sunday

Blue Streak

Changing Lanes

Chuck: The Complete Second Season

Con Air

Crank: High Voltage

Dogma

Face/Off

Falling Down

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

How I Met Your Mother – Season 4

Ironman

Lethal Weapon 2

Lie To Me – Season 1

Next

Ocean’s Eleven

Ocean’s Thirteen

Rock

Rush Hour 3

Star Trek Original Series: Season 3

Terminator Salvation

The Dark Knight

The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3

Torchwood - Children Of Earth

Torchwood - The Complete First Season

Torchwood - The Complete Second Season

Tropic Thunder

Please Do NOT Buy

DVDs which are also available in Blu-Ray

Fragrance

Jeans

Star Trek Books (have them all)

Ties (don’t wear them, have tons)

T-Shirts (have more than I can store)

So with my December purchasing ban in full effect (I don’t buy non-consumables for myself in December except for Star Trek novels) here is the current list of blu-rays we own as a family. For fun guess which 2 I didn’t want to buy and guess which 1 I regret buying and would like to sell.

28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
88 Minutes
Chain Reaction
Chuck: The Complete First Season
Gran Torino
Hancock
I Am Legend
Live Free Or Die Hard
Mission: Impossible
Point Break
Reservoir Dogs
Righteous Kill
S.W.A.T.
Sex And The City
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series: Season 1
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The Simpsons Movie
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
The Transporter
Transporter 2
Transporter 3
Watchmen

I’ll be posting my Christmas Wish List soon that will highlight spefic blu-rays I’m rather keen on but if it’s not on this list and you know I’d like it then it’s fair game.