No Business Naming Things

This is shaping up to be a winter without public transit.  If the union doesn’t vote No tomorrow I’ll eat my own head and after that I don’t see stuff moving - the city certainly isn’t eager to go back to the table.  I think it’s abundantly clear no one in city hall gives a damn about people who need this service to get by.  If this strike gets settled before spring time I will be very, very surprised.

I suspect we’ll have a car by then.  This disappoints me a very great deal.  This ineffectual collection of homes and businesses we call a city disappoints me even more.

Today was my first day at RIM and I thought it went very well.  I’m usually nervous the first day on a job but today I was just plain excited - I’m so stoked to see what the next few months bring.

In other news, this past vacation was really really nice.  My idea of a great vacation is sitting around the house playing video games and that’s just what I got this year.  I haven’t been very good at relaxing over Christmas break these past few years but I really managed to unwind and leave my worries at the door this time.

Finally… True Blood.  Wow, what an awful, tacky show.  We couldn’t stop watching it - we burned through the first season in a couple of days.  I can’t wait for more.

Rock Band. It is good. It could be better, however. For starters, the following:

• Queen. Any Queen will do. Lots of Queen would be better
• Flathead by the Fratellis
• the entirety of the Silversun Pickups album Carnavas
• Grinderman or some crunchier Nick Cave
• pre-Purge Bif Naked
• Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murpheys
• a best-of Talking Heads album
• Peruvian Skies by Dream Theatre - the drums in this are so fantastic
• The New Pornographers, particularly something with Neko on vocals. All For Swinging You Around comes to mind

I wonder if it wouldn’t be better if they could provide some tool that would allow artists to provide their own tracks. Really open the store up for any artist to participate, perhaps with some fee for vetting and classifying the track. This game has a lot of life in it - a lot more than the original Guitar Hero held for me at any rate - but I’m finding the selection of music a bit disappointing. As the difficulty increases the songs that are unlocked increasingly move towards the screaming metal affair which I just don’t have any use for.

Lexy and I decided to create a new Rock Band band today so that we might each try different instruments. A side project, if you will. In creating our band, we came up with what we felt was the perfect name.

The Muffin Tops.

However, the Rock Band language police declared that the name was unsatisfactory and we couldn’t use it in online play. Scrambling, we chose another name. This one, surprisingly, did pass the censors:

Meth, Guns, and Viagra.

Ahem.

For awhile there I was a successful vegetarian.  I don’t really LIKE meat so it wasn’t hard for me to do.  I just gave it up one day.  Of course, that period didn’t last forever, but today I’m regretting that.  As near as I can tell I came down with a case of salmonella from our turkey this year.  I’m not 100% sure - there could be other causes - but I don’t know what they’d be.

In other news, we went out and bought our Christmas present to ourselves.  We purchased a bedroom set as well as a new freezer-on-the-bottom Fisher Peykel fridge.  They were delivered today - I wish I could feel more excited about them but I’ve had my head in a pail for most of the day.

Clive Doucet has proved himself to be the only councilor in Ottawa worth a damn by speaking out against Mayor O’Brien - the rest of the city council remains mute while the poor and disadvantaged in their wards are harmed by the lack of affordable transit. Is the city totally at fault? Of course not, the union shares in the responsibility.  How could they not with that pitbull at the helm?  However, we didn’t vote for the union representatives - we voted a flock of lame ducks including O’Brien (and in my case Alex Cullen) who’ve yet to own up to their responsibility to us, the citizens of this city, to resolve this dispute.

I wish I could say Ottawa deserved better but we really don’t - we elected these people into office.  It seems like we got exactly what we deserve.   I sincerely hope the lot of them get tossed on their backsides the next time we go to the polls.

So, the acceptance of Tracey by Jack and Cthulhu isn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped.  I was excited initially because they interacted with minimal bile through a baby gate but since the gate has come down the situation has deteriorated.  At first Tracey would come upstairs and explore.  The boys would give her a bit of grief, but nothing serious.  Then there was a bad attack - most likely Jack - and since then Tracey has refused to come upstairs.  She’ll move between two bedrooms downstairs but that’s about it.  She spends most of her day under her favourite chair except for whatever time I spend downstairs with her.  There was another bad fight today over lunch (I’m working from home today) that let her really shaken.  Jack had her cornered in her favourite room and there was white fur all over the place.  I’ve calmed her down (she loves to snuggle under the blanket with me) but I worry about her quality of life.  She’s as sweet as they come and she doesn’t have a mean bone in her little body.  She doesn’t deserve this.

So, Ottawa transit drivers are on strike.  Normally I have the utmost sympathy and support for striking workers, but I just cant manage it this time.  Something feels different.  The strike isn’t even impacting me that severely.  I walk to work, and I’m a homebody to boot so I’m not REALLY missing the bus all that much.  All the same, I find myself angry with the union and its employees.  A good deal of this probably leads back to the antics of their union president who, by virtue of his media interviews, is a Mean Bastard.  I have a hard time believing he’s really as callous as he seems to be - after all, what is the likelyhood that the antichrist would spawn in Ottawa?

(Also, I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.7.  So far I’m liking the new admin interface although I wonder if it was really necessary - the old one wasn’t that bad.)

So, the CEOs of the big three automakers have changed their tune.  Instead of flying posh corporate jets while asking for a handout, they all drove hybrids to Washington.

Dare I hope… that they carpooled?

How great a road trip movie would THAT make?  Three CEOs, humbled and embarrassed, must travel across the USA together.  Along the way they meet new friends, have an adventure, and Doogie Howser steals their car.  In the end they make it to White Castle.

Someone, somewhere - please make this movie.

I was hoping to post this a little closer to the date but the cat has been let out of the bag.  I’ve decided to leave IBM for a position at RIM.  It wasn’t an easy decision to make but in the end I thought it was best for me.  I feel like I’ve gotten comfortable at IBM (and with Eclipse) and it’s time that I shook my life up a bit and tried something new.  I’m going to miss my co-workers at IBM - I’ve been blessed to work with such an amazing group of people for so long.  They’re truly some of the smartest people I’ve ever known and I wish them all the best.  Similarly, my time spent with the Eclipse community has allowed me to meet and befriend wonderful people the world over.  I’ve no doubt that the community will continue to thrive due to the efforts of these people.

My time at IBM working on Eclipse has been a wonderful opportunity for me and I’ve grown in many ways.  I’m truly greatful for the chance I’ve had.

My last day at IBM is January 2nd.  If anyone would like to stay in contact my email address is kim to the pookzilla dot com.  The old Eclipse blog will remain and may even see some new content - there’s no escaping Eclipse in this industry and I’m sure I’ll have a whole lot more to say about it from the client side. 

Thanks !