September 29th, 2007

3:12PM
So last night I attended a James Bond themed Poker Night Party! It was a really good time, about 20 people from work showed up, all co-op obv. We had a really great time and I took a few dozen pics. I posted up 100mb worth maxxing out my new Flikr account monthly bandwidth. You can check it out here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14317220@N02/sets/72157602201790642/show/

5:31PM
So went out shopping to pick up a webcam and some dinner. I was going to grocery shop but its raining so that only leaves 1 hand to carry bags. While purchasing a webcam (this one) i also decided to pick up some speakers for the apartment so that i can stop killing my ears wearing the Precision Gaming headset all the time. So i grabbed these.

















I'm going to go back to eating my hot delicoius Shawarma Plate, or however you spell it :P from the Fallafel place down the street. Ciao!

September 24th, 2007

2:50PM
So, as a few of you may know last week i attended an Animated Short Film Festival, where they showed 66 Animated short clips in 2 parts. I only ended up staying for the first part which included the larger half of the shows. So I have a few favorites that I liked and I've tracked some of them down on the internet.

Remember that these things looks A LOT cooler on a huge big screen theater with awesome sound.

This one is called Code Hunters, by a group called Axis Animation. Its a pretty cool Short Film, done in this 3D cartoonish style. Everyone in the theater laughed at the bubble gum part.

http://www.axisanimation.com/ch_movie.htm

The opening film was one called "90 Degrees" by some french guy, it was pretty abstract but i liked it. Has a very cool look to it, the website is kinda hard to navigate but you can find it here. Takes a VERY long time to load but i would say its worth it... this one would definitely benefit if you could see it in its high def form.

http://90degrees.free.fr/accueil.html

This next one i thought was really cool! One of my favorites for sure. Take a look, you can download it directly from this link, its called Dynamo.

http://www.beam.tv/wkspace/wk_play_data_file.php/Dynamo.mov?qMXxPdtjRZ&action=open

Easily my favorite movie was Fat Chance — National Centre for Computer Animation it was absolutely hilaroius... I started laughing as soon as i saw the fat guy on the mororized scooter, and it only got better from there. Sadly I can't find a copy of it on the internet.. if i ever do though.. u guys need to see it! Its priceless. FOUND!

http://media3.bournemouth.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ncca/popup.pl?id=BA_2006_Major_005&add=0&mode=play&type=hidownload

And here is the last film to make my list, mostly because it made Amanda, a co-worker that came with us, cry. Everyone laughed at the "trial" though.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XhcWg4NiqN8

And thats it! Hope you can enjoy those! Till next time

COTD :: 001

Hello and welcome to Car Of The Day! I've been thinking about doing this for a while but haven't got around to it. It seems everyday i see a really unique car or something really exotic and today on the way home i saw TWO beauties parked next to each other so i thought id blast this off.












An Audi R8 parked next to a Ferrari F340 GT... its hard to even find a picture of these things on google.... hopefully next time ill have my camera on me!

September 20th, 2007

2:32PM
So i just got in from lunch at around 2:00, you have to excuse the small delay but it seems i slipped into a pleasurable coma for the last 30 minutes. You see we had yet another occasion, this time a "Team Lunch" fully paid for by BOBJ (Business Objects). Just 2 weeks ago I had a free lunch on the house 4 out of the 5 workdays.


So for lunch we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse. I had THE most deliciously cooked meat i have ever tasted. I don't know if anyone has ever been to a Brazilian buffet but you sit at your table while the servers come around with giant skewers of roasted meat. Everything from lamb, to pork, to beef, chicken, sausages you name it. So delicious, it would just melt in your mouth just deliciously rotisserie cooked.

Between the 5 of us that were drinking we also had 3 pitchers of awesome beer. So everyone was quite happy and satisfied leaving the table. Now u can understand why i slipped into a coma. Pleasantly fed with rare meats and fine beer.

I love my job.

September 13th, 2007

11:37PM
MY STUFF HAS ARRIVED!! It showed up earlier today but the unpacking and settling down took a while.

Guess what?! It worked when i turned it on. Good thing i brought the wireless card, turned out i need it, so i threw it in booted up and BAM im good to go. I'm really glad to be back on this workstation and have already made up for lost time using PS:CS2...

here is my demonstration... I have created a template on how to make these pretty quick let me know if you want one, just provide me with a pic and a color of choice. The pics dont need good resolution either.

lol winston

Tried playing counter strike earlier but apparently Steam farted today... the ONE day after me waiting for it for 3 weeks. So maybe i'll play tomorrow instead.

I finally decorated my room now that everything is in final position. Here's my setup:

The photo doesnt capture the awesome atmosphere, but meh.

I have a lot of catching up to do, so I'm gonna keep this post short. Just know that im an excited and i have my belongings. Tomorrow I'm gonna put up a long post about my trip to the world famous Vancouver Aquarium.

September 12th, 2007

2:12PM
Just thought that now that I'm done my orientation I could share with you a little bit more bout the company. I'll do it in a few segments mentioning things that i find are cool/relevant on days that I feel like.

In our orientation they showed us this Trailer/Video about the company and I thought it was pretty cool. Check it out:

http://www.businessobjects.com/global/flash/company/fiatlux/default.asp

Go there and click on the "This is our story" button and it'll stream the video for you.

2:26PM
After some research and a rumor we heard yesterday me and the guy that works next to me discovered the truth about the chairs we're sitting on.


It is the Mirra Task Chair by HermanMiller and comes in at $799 USD. Please realize that everyone of the 1600 people working here has this chair if not better.

The training room we were in yesterday had 50 Aeron Chairs that come in at $945 USD. Yikes!

2:41PM
I was just informed that the section of the honeycomb style desk that i work at alone costs $4000.

September 11th, 2007

11:36PM
You would not believe the evening i just had... I am going to skip certain parts of this evening for the sake of it being legal to publish online, lol.

Soo.. I just spent half of my night with a Russian supermodel by the name of Anastasia. This TRUE story gets much more unbelievable than that so i'll start at the beginning.

I got home from work today, it was a pretty tiring day because it was "orientation", so a day long meeting listening to lectures. So i walk into the apartment and i see in front of me this stunning blond bent over wearing practically nothing. Upon closer inspection *ahem* i notice a butter knife in her hand, I am slightly confused at this point but continue to walk into my place passing by her saying "hi im Peter, anything i can help you with?". I do a quick search of the key rack to realize that no one else is home.

At this point i can clearly see that shes struggling to get into Mariyam's room. *Mariyam is the 25 year old roommate*. I let her know that the door isn't locked, it just sticks so she has to push it really hard. After taking my advice she gets into the room fine... i decide to watch tv because i have NO IDEA what else to do.

Five min later she comes back out of the room, turns out Mariyam is passed out sleeping. We start chatting. I learn that her names Anastasia, shes 20 and recently *five years ago* moved from Russia. You could barely tell because she has almost no accent. I wish i had a picture to show u guys but i didn't think that whipping out my camera and photographing her seemed like the "appropriate" thing to do. She mentioned she wanted a website for herself and her modeling pics, so i might use that as an excuse to get some those shots from her.

Amoung other interesting facts about her, her father was KGB.. shes interested in becoming a P.I. and oh yea.. she just got kicked out of her ex bf's house, stole his car cause he got her beamer towed, and shes gonna be crashing at my apartment for the next couple nights. Among some of her other ex's, are the owner of THE KEG, all of them, whom she went out with tonight *ill get back to this in a second*. And I cant remember who exactly but one of the Vancouver Canucks.

Back to the keg thing, she went out partying tonight with some guys at a top class restaurant tonight with a bunch of *high class* people and asked me to come along. I had to cancel because i work tomorrow but she said i'd come out with her some other time. I'm a little intimidated... apparently shes used to having dinner with people like the Mayor of Vancouver and its normal for the chef to come out and her and her company order directly to him.

Jeez what else do i say? She changed her outfit several times as the evening progressed... what a weird evening this was... lol who would have expected this?!

Dream Log :: 002

Under Warranty
lol, this is gonna be a good one. I just hope i can keep up with it, it jumped around so fast i spent the first 15 min of the morning trying to piece it all together.

Starts off with me being rich. I'm either an actor of someone very successful and young, I'm currently living in a giant trailer, condo/bungalow. Its all set up with the most expensive furniture u can imagine and champagne everywhere etc. I have a friend there and we're talking about some then and then we decide to go out and buy a gf. Thats right "buy", and no we weren't looking for hookers.

So we get to this "store" and theres 5 girls up for sale, all beautiful, each in a different way. For some reason, i see them as the Sailor Scouts. I finally decided on one to take and it turns out shes a special deal cause i also get her friend for free, and the both of them come as a package. So now the other sailor scouts are jealous because i didn't pick them, and they really wanted to be with me. So is my friend who's there with me because he didn't get the awesome deal i did.

Now we're all back at my place the 2 girls and my friend and suddenly my dream experiences a crash, sorta like a blue screen on a computer and when everything reboots only myself and my friend are at my place. Now im angry cause i lost the girls, but luckily my friend tells me not to worry since they were under warranty and i get them again for free. *don't ask*

dream went on for a bit longer but the rest is really hazy...

Suddenly cut to this part, I'm in my old house. I'm naked. I completely forget the objective of what i was doing, but i remember there was a mission i was trying to accomplish. I start running around the house almost parkour style *still naked*, but all my motion is extended back to i form like this steak, it looks like a long snake moving around and im coming in and out of the windows even upstairs through the windows etc. I distinctly remember someone saying something about the house not being secure because i was able to scale it and crawl in through an open upstairs window.

Cut again. Still in the same house but now im sitting in front of three 17inch monitors, the two on the outside are of the same brand and the one in the middle isnt, why thats relevant i do not know but i remember it. I have the feeling that through all of this and the previous segment those girls are still around and im trying to impress them. I can't remember what im doing with the monitors but suddenly my nose is all plugged up, i try using a tissue but for some reason it doesnt work well for me.

So i grab laptop *a vista powerbook* in front of me and start using it to blow my nose on. i make sure i use every inch of it so that i get all the snot out. After the whole thing is covered my nose feels a bit better but i notice the laptop looks distinctly dirty, lol. So i take it to the sink and start washing it under the tap. I make sure its off so it doesn't get damaged? Now the laptop is soaked and for some reason wont dry up. I notice that its on and on standby and not actually off. So I press down the power button and instead it boots up, so im like CRAP and im trying to spot it from booting up. The way i figure water and running circuits is a bad idea... So I hold down the power button for 7 seconds, *Stupid Feature* and instead of turning off it loads into some strange screen and starts scrolling through like themes, wallpapers, screen savers and bootup screens. I was gonna freak out but luckily it was under warranty anyways.

Then i woke up.

September 8th, 2007

10:23PM
Coming back from grocery shopping today I saw something special.

this is a picture i took of an Enzo

Well... what did you expect? Its an Enzo. Do not be fooled by that black car in the photo... friggen thing FLEW by before i could even click down the camera... although u can still see a blur of red between the two blue posts in the picture... freakin car has to be so fast, lol

Dream Log :: 001

• So this is something I've been planning on doing for a while, mostly because people get a good chuckle out of it. Sometime near the end of last term I started narrating my dreams to people at breakfast... sorry lunch, and people loved it for the laughs.
• My Dreams are TRULY random, i am not this creative in real life. These will seem like they just come out of nowhere. This will also test the new NR system. So here goes!

You Are A Pirate!
So this dream begins with me being in some sort of elementary school, really big windows and about 5-6 stories tall. From what I can remember I was being chased by some random swat teams on the 5th floor. Theres a group of 4 of us and we blow out 4 windows and swing down 1 floor breaking out the corresponding windows on the 4th floor. So now we're each standing in a window sill and looking at us is a shocked class of what i would guess to be kindergardeners.

Then so as to NOT look suspicious music starts playing *its the "you are a pirate" song*, in case you haven't heard of it heres some of the lyrics:

Do what ya want cause a pirate is free
You arr a pirate!

and we start dancing this syncro dance in the 4 windows so its like a kids show. We're also suddenly wearing like peter-pan uniforms... The kids love it. The next thing you know the fire-alarm is going off and the kids are SCREAMING, total chaos and they're out of control. Now *for some reason* I'm the teacher of the class and I'm trying to get the kids out in an orderly fashion. Most of them shuffle out but there are like random kids in the bathrooms that refuse to come out.

Finally I've got the last kid and we're heading to the stairs, and like 1 set of stairs down it fills up with smoke and I'm thinking, oh we're finished... stupid kid. Then the dream is over, lol.

September 4th, 2007

1:10PM
This just in: I have a cell phone. Feel free to call me as i have unlimited incoming calls so I'll never pay if your calling me.

604-818-5057

It is just briefly after lunch and I have decided that since my computer wont be here for at least another week... i might as well do a recap on everything that happened last week *that i remember*

WEEKLY RECAP

Saturday

Packed my things and got to the airport, leaving wasn't much of a hassle. The flight was pretty smooth with the exception of the landing as it was mildly raining in Vancouver and so the clouds offered plenty of turbulence to help ease the pain of my head literally deflating. My seat was near the back of the plane, so naturally it took a while to get off when it was all done. Enough time it seems to even get bored enough to take this picture...


After getting off the plane i went in search of my luggage. A task that you would think would be easy... you would think... So when u get off at the Vancouver airport *at least with domestic flights* you get off directly into the airport... meaning you are NO WHERE NEAR your luggage. So after a 5 minute walk across the airport and down a shady set of stairs you have to re-enter the "secure" area of the airport where you can pick up your bags.


After that I proceeded to get a cab and headed for my new home. This is what i discovered when I walked in...

pretty sweet for $800 a month, and thats not all here's the view from my balcony.

Not bad i know, it also wraps around but ill save you from the panorama. After settling down a bit I unpacked my room and took a few photos.

Nice and cozy, but after all that unpacking and the really long extended morning, i was exuasted and went to sleep.

When I got up I was full of energy and decided to go out on a walk and explore downtown Vancouver. Here's the walkway between my building and the one right beside it.


Vancouver has a lot of construction going on. Several streets are completely dug out i would say 4-5 stories down and I've been told they're putting in a new "sky-train" track from the airport to downtown. Ironically the "sky-train" runs mostly underground from what I've seen. This photo shows a street hanging in mid air as it crosses one of the dug outs. It was kinda hard to get a good picture where it was deeper cause everything is fenced off for safety.


I would walk to an intersection, pick which direction looked the nicest/most interesting and then head there, eventually i made it to a lookout point type area where you could see the harbor. Its pretty cloudy/foggy and my camera can't catch half of it but it was a pretty stellar view.


I treked on some more and eventually got to the end of some sort of exhibition peir called "Canada Place" looked interesting inside but I didnt have time to be a tourist :P But i did manage some cool photos.

The clouds are creeping up and covering the mountain but the gas station in the water is neat!


I'll post some cool mountain shots later, but it's gotta be sunny first. That was it for saturday, after that walking i got pretty tired and the sun was already setting so i just went back home.

Sunday Morning

Turns out it gets really bright in my room in the mornings.


I guess that will be useful for getting up in the mornings though... So i went for another trek, this time across the bridge. First thing i noticed when i stepped outside was this sign.

Apparently they don't tolerate any shit in Vancouver, lol.

My goal was to find a grocery store, ultimately I failed. There was one thats right across the bridge but someone told me it was expensive to I left it as a last resort if my trip would be unsuccessful. I continued on and saw this Esso sign, something told me Arthur would want to see it, he would drive very slowly in Vancouver...


I'm told that this is relatively low price for gas here... good thing i don't have a car. I went into the "On The Run" and bought myself a map of Vancouver, its now on the wall in my bedroom.

After circling around town for a few hours more i did manage to locate some other grocery stores but they all seemed equally overpriced and "organic" so i kept holding out. Finally i gave up and decided I'd just go home and grab groceries at the place that i had been reserving as a last resort. I took this picture on the way back, i had after all walked a LONG walk uphill and the view was quite nice.


One block down from that location while waiting at the lights i witnessed a hit and run! A white GMC cargo van smoked a small Corolla and just took off. By the time i realized what had happened it was too late to snap a picture of the guys license plate. There were A LOT of really confused people at that intersection... everyone just stood there for like 30 seconds without moving.

I had finally made it to the grocery store, and found out it was CLOSED ON SUNDAYS! Man was i pissed, but i was also defeated from the 3-4 hours of walking in the noon sun. I went back to my apartment and called it a defeat.

Sunday Evening (round two)

I redoubled my efforts and decided to give it another try, this time heading out in teh opposite direction. Once again, primary objective: locate grocery store. This time after only about an hour of walking! SUCCESS!! Shopping for food turned out to be extra difficult, half because the store was half "organic" products and expensive fat-free alternative, and half because the stores here are loaded with brands of things I've never heard of. Here's my receipt!


And here's the goods:

My bad that they're both sideways... forgot to rotate them...

Pretty pricy, but i acquired all the essentials for one DELICIOUS sandwich! After making it home and a little bit of effort i created this:











Mmmm-mmmm good! That was pretty much it for the day...

The rest of the week went pretty good, I think I'll do a work summary post later on in the week but I dont feel like doing it now. Stay posted for it though.

Oh I bought a desk on this most recent weekend. Only paid $70 for it, really nice desk too. It's brand new but the guy that was selling it lives in the apartment and he's moving out cause of a new job offer.


Will keep posted, Make sure to comment!

3:57PM
Here's a tour of my place that i forgot to put up earlier.

September 3rd, 2007

5:24PM
Finally got a hold of my parents, turns out my stuff hasn't even been sent yet and has been sitting in the garage since I left. I am increadibly upset. The phone conversation didn't go well at all to be brief.