Pricematch yourself

The other week we were out shopping at zellers and the item we wanted one half open and they only had one left. Normally I wouldn't mind, but this was for a gift. We pulled out Laura's phone, checked bestbuy and lo and behold they were 30% cheaper. Sweet!

So we headed over to bestbuy, found the item and... the price wasn't the same as online. It was still cheaper than zellers, but now I felt like we were being ripped off. So we picked up the item, walked up to customer server and showed them the price online and they gave it to us for that price. Of course they didn't fix the price on the shelf, but what can you do.

As a warning to others that have access to "fancy phones", check the online price while you're there to price compare.

Battlestar ending

First point: I'm going to keep this post spoiler free. Please respect that in the comments too.

I finally finished season 4 of Battlestar Galactica the other night and I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. Questions I had were not answered, other things came full circle and were answered better than I had expected. I can't find the word to describe it, but I'm satisfied and dissatisfied all at the same time - like being stuffed from a buffet while still being hungry.

I almost feel like I need something along the lines of a book club - but instead of sitting around drinking coffee and eating cake in someone's living room I'd change it to beer and nachos at a pub.

Such a strange feeling.

Good Job at being a douchebag!

Sometimes things are not all happy happy joy joy biking to work. Sometimes the drivers do things that seem to have the sole purpose of just trying to piss me off. I don't swear at them, I don't bang on their cars.

I thank them and give a thumbs up. They just don't realize that it's because I think that they are douchebags.

Today a pickup was stopped beside a parked box truck. Traffic wasn't moving, but what I consider to be a biking lane beside the parked vehicles and the left lane was free and clear. As I was approaching this stopped truck in the left lane, the guy cranks the wheel and moves to the right. Not forward, just more to the right. So much so that I couldn't actually get by while riding, I had to stop and maneuver around his side mirror. I don't take up much room, so this was really close to the box truck. So I thanked the guy loudly, moved around his truck and turned back and made sure that I gave him a big thumbs up with an added "good job!" for good measure.

He won the Douchebag of the Day award, but I'm just not sure he knew it. He seems to be pretty dumb, so I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he would understand. Maybe I need stickers that I can slap onto the vehicle as I go by...

Rediscover the wonder of things

I find it funny when people look at how kids find everything new, fun, and wonderful and say "don't you wish you could see the world like that?". Well, why can't you? You can look at a cellphone as just a bunch of plastic junk that lets you talk to someone else, or you can look at it as something magical, where you can talk into a plastic box and communicate to anyone, anywhere in the world. Amazing.

You can discover the beauty of a spider web, and the frighteningly horribleness of the spider. You can be amazed at how the forest moves in the wind or how the water flows in a stream. Just because you are grown up and may understand a tiny, infinitesimal, fraction of a percent of the current knowledge does not mean that you cannot choose to see every snow fall or sunrise as a new and wonderful discovery.

You don't need to learn how to see the world this way, you can have to remember how. ;-)

First turkey

This Thanksgiving we hosted my in-laws so that Laura could be close enough to get into work if she was called. We cooked the turkey, made stuffing, did sweet potatoes, white potatoes, turnip, gravy, etc. The whole shebang. Laura had picked up a cook from frozen, already stuffed turkey and I was really thankful for that. I found that everything turned out really, really well - which is a good thing.

I think that I was pretty nervous about the meal. The night before I woke up at 1:30 when Laura got called, and I couldn't get back to sleep until 4:30 or 5. I was so, so tired, but luckily had a nap before everyone came over. The only thing that I regret is that I don't have any photographic evidence because our battery died for the camera.

What "Call" for doctors means to me

For different jobs people are sometimes "on call". It usually means that there is a pager they have to carry and if some emergency happens they have to respond to it. If it actually goes off, they try and resolve the issue before most people start their "work day". When their co-workers start the day, the person on call hands off the issue to them and goes to home to bed.

That's not what call means to me.

Now, take this with a grain of salt because I've only seen call from a 2nd hand experience. I've never worked what I'm going to describe.

First, there are 2 types of call: in-house call and home call. In house call means you stay at the hospital. You sleep in a room and are woken up at any time. Of course that assumes that you get a chance to sleep, which isn't necessarily the case. When Laura worked those shifts, she's start work around 7 am, work until 5 pm. Then "call" would start where they'd work from 7 pm until 8 am (only on a rotation or 2), or noon or 1 pm. Then you'd go home, try and get a nap, get up, eat dinner, and go to bed because you'd have to be back at work for 7 am. It seems to be some weird sleep deprivation experiment. From my understanding, some residency programs do 1 in 4 call - one "day" of call in every 4 - for 5+ years.

Now home call is much nicer. You still have the whole 7 am - 5 pm [1] idea, but you've got the chance to "go home". You can go home, see your family, eat at home, etc. If you're called in, you are supposed to be able to make it to the hospital in 20 minutes. If you get called, sometimes you can give orders over the phone, but more than often I have seen Laura go in.

You'd think that it might be worth the money though. I did a quick calculation for what the residents get paid for being on call - for those hours from 5 pm to noon-ish, it worked out to be about 2 $ / hour.

What's it like when your SO is on call? Trying to pick up some slack, make sure that their a hot meal available when needed, being flexible with your schedule. Sometimes it means dealing with someone who is so tired you have to keep repeating what you said 90 seconds ago.

Sometimes when talking to people they give a "I know what that's like!" and "when I was on call...". I don't actually think that they do know what it's like. I feel I only have a vague idea, and I'm front row. Sort of like how I am not going to say to a parent "I know what that's like!" because I've got no clue and babysitting or looking after someone else's kids isn't the same.

That's what call means to me.

[1] Think of 5 pm as a "guideline". Depending on the work, 5 pm can be more like 9 pm.

Emotion of music

I love soundtracks to movies. Music that's designed to convey the mood at a specific point in the story, not just to sell something or get to the top 40. Music to invoke emotion in the listener.

I've had the soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings movies playing in the background while I eat dinner and make dinner for tomorrow (mmm... second day sauce). Not paying any attention to what was going on, I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and I'm sure that something was in my eye. It was the part from the movie when they were in Lothlorien and the elves were singing a lament for Gandalf.

Without thinking about the movie, without any visual cues, solely based on the music I felt so, so sad. That was what I was supposed to feel at that point in the story, to try and understand the bitterness and loss the characters were going through.

Now that's awesome music.

Everything's better with lazer gun sounds

For my birthday I got Wii Sports Resort and an additional MotionPlus. It's fun and I've already spent too much time playing it. One of the things that I've enjoyed is the airplane game. Of course in a wii game you couldn't have a "gun" on a plane, so it's a "balloon popper" that shoots these balls that pop balloons. But the best part: it makes a "pew pew pew" sound as it fires. So. Much. Fun.

I think that just about anything would be more fun if it could make a "pew pew" sound.

Signed up

Something that I had been debating for a while and I've gone ahead with it. I've signed up to join the public service. I've been working for years in the gov't as a contractor, so I hope I have an idea what I'm getting into.

We'll see how it goes.

Execute order 66... and pick up some milk

It seems amazing to me the pace that things go from science fiction to products on the market. Telecommunications, medicine, our understanding of the universe, ... everything.

So when I watch something set in the "future", I wonder how long until we get there. In episode 3 of Star Wars when Order 66 is communicated to Commander Cody via a hand held holo projector, I wonder how long until I'll have access to my very own holo projector. Then my thoughts wonder to what something like that would be used for most of the time. Things along the lines of "pick up some milk on your way home" and "see you at soccer practice"

I giggle (inside) when I imagine the Emperor with his raspy voice saying "Remember to grap some take out on your way home, Commander"

Good times.