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As you can see, the last entry for this blog was about half a year ago. Of course the standard answer is “I’ve been too busy… bla … bla … bla…” but the truth is I have TONS of drafts just waiting to be published.

Why not publish them? It’s because I edit them too much. You see, if something is published, it is out there FOREVER (Internet Archive, Google Cache). So I tend to scrutinize my words incessantly. Well, from now on I’m just going to write at least one post EVERY day. It will take some discipline, but I’ve made the decision that it’s one way to improve my writing, and I love writing (besides software development of course).

Recently, I’ve rediscovered something about myself. I’m a builder. I love to create things — either software, or sentences. Besides writing software, what I wanted to be ever since I was young was to be a writer. Of course, I wanted to be both, if possible! And of course it’s possible. I’ve been a voracious consumer of books, and a daily reader of countless blogs, too much passive activity. So I’m taking action now not to be passive, but active. Hey, I only did two edits or so to this post. I think that’s progress.

One fine Tuesday, I arrived at work to find this box on my desk:
Strange, this must have been a mistake or something. I inquired quite loudly to a co-worker, “What’s with this Gillete Fusion box?”. “It’s a gift”, was the reply. “Am I not shaving enough or something?”, I joked, and everyone laughed.

A colleague came over to me and explained that a rep from Gillette came the day before and, like Santa, gave everyone in the office a box of two Gillette Fusion razors each. I was working from home that day, thus I missed out on the fun. Apparently the rep said that he went to our website and saw all the pictures of unshaven programmers on it, and decided to give us these gifts. Right – nice ruse.

This was one upgrade that I didn’t need. I usually shave infrequently (usually twice a week), and one razor blade will usually last me a month – and oh, I have about 10 blades left from the Costco 16 pack I bought some time ago. Most of the time we have to deal with clients over the phone, so not being close shaven is ok. I held out using the Gillette Sensor and not upgrading to a Mach 3 – until I got one as a gift. Besides – Sensor blades cost the same as Mach 3 ones, so it didn’t make a difference if I upgraded.

The total cost of the package – 2 razors and 4 blades – would have cost (2 x $13.99 + 1 x $17.99)= $45.97 Canadian, without taxes. Pretty generous gift. But it doesn’t make economic sense to upgrade – a 4 pack of Fusion razors costs $17.99 Canadian, versus a 4 pack of Mach 3s at $11.49 each. Thats a 57% increase in expenditure for razors if I chose to go the Fusion route! Nice try, Gillette.

Maybe I should just keep a sharpened machete handy, and shave like Crocodile Dundee…

[another reason to be wary of Gillette, with the most silliest anti-shoplifting campaign ever… no wonder new version Gillette blades cannot be picked up off the shelves here in Canada and can only be bought near or behind the counter)

A couple of months ago I was in the computer department of a national chain, let’s say it rhymes with “Mondon Drugs” (haha) to buy some computer equipment. As I was browsing, an elderly couple came in and were talking to a sales person about getting a bigger LCD monitor than what they currently have, a 17″.

I was nearby and I couldn’t help overhear the rest of their conversation. The wife was talking to the clerk: apparently her husband had trouble seeing the small text on webpages and wanted to get a bigger monitor so he could see the text. The clerk had Firefox running on a demo computer and she proceeded to show the problem her husband was having, basically he couldn’t see the text clearly because it was too small. I figured, this clerk would surely know his stuff, and tell the couple that you can increase the default text size in the browser through the options, or just “ctrl+mousewheel-up” to increase the font size.

But no – the clerk proceeded to test webpages on a 19″ monitor so the husband could “test” whether the 19″ monitor was better for his eyes. Of course the text was “larger” (a 19″ LCD has the same number of pixels as a 17″, but the pixels are larger of course). I had a dilemma – should I step in and save this couple about four hundred plus dollars and show them how to increase the default text size (and interfere with the clerk’s sale) – or let them be. I chose the latter – I figured it was not my place to interfere with someone’s bread and butter (maybe he was on commission, who knows).

Well – two weeks ago I was in a similar situation, but this time there was no sale involved.

Continue reading ‘To interfere – or not’ »

Ruskin Park, a tiny space of land right in front of my house has been taken over by a film crew. There are trucks, trailers everywhere – including a couple of ambulances and police cars. I don’t know what movie they are filming, but they’ve been here for about a week (must be major), apparently filming at the Ruskin Dam which is about a couple of minutes walk from my place.

The police cars have the lettering “Burnaby Police” on the front doors, and are baby-blue in colour. We have a municipality here in BC that is called Burnaby, but I’ve never seen any municipality’s police cars in that colour before. So far, since I have lived here – this is the third time I’ve seen filming nearby. The first was “Taken”, a sci-fi mini-series I believe (I didn’t watch it). The second was a quick film (only a couple of days) that I did not know the name of – probably a local film, and the third is this new film. Before I moved here, a scene from the X-Files was shot here, which I think was the episode “Patient X” (Season 5) where a throng of people were moving across the top of Ruskin Dam (they kept the name of the location in the script). The Ruskin Dam is sure a magnet for filming I guess.

side note: The film “Lake Placid” was filmed on the top side of the dam, Hayward Lake.