If I were ever to have children, I would inevitably mess with their heads with the likes of this, so it’s probably best I not go there.

[via Boing Boing, a few weeks ago]

I’ve spent the last thirty minutes trying to FTP to my site to upgrade my WordPress to 2.5, but my connection keeps getting dropped almost immediately after connecting. The closest I can get is through command line, but that also drops before I can do anything useful. The web interface, Plesk, only allows single file uploads, so that’s obviously not going to work either. It’s all rather frustrating.

This new version has built-in tag management, which is great. Ever since Flickr, I’ve been a huge fan of tags. It’s such a simple way to manage content. The new photo gallery tools are also interesting. I have very little storage with my hosting plan, so I just use Flickr for my photos, but it looks like a cool feature.

The most exciting part of this new version, however, is that they’ve finally stopped the visual editor from raping your HTML. This has haunted me in the past, so it great to see them address it. This, along with the new full screen editor, shows they’re trying to smooth out the writing process, which is something I’m glad they’re focusing on.

Here’s a preview of the new dashboard and photo management:

Tonight wasn’t a complete waste, though. I pulled out my new stock pot for the first time and made a huge batch of chili. After nine hours of what I can only imagine is some kind of black magic, my dinner was ready, and it was delicious. I used this recipe, and I’ll be making it again.

I stumbled upon this on YouTube just now and fell in love. It’s a demented short video from Looking For Group, a World of Warcraft based web comic, and it’s produced by Blind Ferret Entertainment. If The Little Mermaid was more like this, I think I would have enjoyed it a little more.

I had planned to spend a lot of time writing this week, but here I am sitting in the Vancouver airport, waiting for my 5:00 flight to Victoria, and I haven’t written a single word since my last post.

Last time I was in Kamloops, most of my friends were gone and I was there strictly for leisure, so I had a lot of downtime. With friends in town, and half the week dedicated to work, time flew by this trip, and I’m actually a little sorry to leave. I had a good time.

The weather was great in Kamloops, which was a pleasant surprise after walking through rain and looking up to grey skies all winter. I never realized how much my mood is affected by weather. I wouldn’t say I was depressed this winter, but I was just generally disinterested in everything around me. Now that we’re having the occasionally sunny day, I find myself going back to my hobbies and wanting to pick up new ones. It might have something to do with spending the winter in wet darkness rather than snow.

At least this trip home had a little excitement in it. When I first arrived at the airport, I walked into the washroom and someone was being yelled at for smoking. He ran out, and they just let him go. I wish I had known you’d only get a stern scolding in this situation back when I smoked. I might have chanced it.

After that, I sat down in a seat facing the tarmac. An aircraft taxied passed, and the air from its jet engines blew a big, metal carry-on luggage cart about fifteen feet into the air, smashing it against the window in front of me. Thankfully, the pane was laminated glass or something and the cart just bounced off of it. If it hadn’t, I may not have had all the proper body parts remaining to type out this post. It was cool in that life-flashing-before-your-eyes sort of way.

It was a refreshing trip away, at least. Maybe I’ll feel a little more energized now.

Hell must have frozen over - Vancouver airport finally has free wireless internet. It seems silly, this day and age, to be excited about free wireless, but it sure beats paying $10 dollars an hour for it.

My trip to Kamloops is going surprisingly well. My taxi driver was friendly and interesting, and the traffic was light. I bypassed the check-in line at the airport by using the self check-in machine. No one was in the security line, so I walked on through to my on-time flight. Arriving in Vancouver, I had a rice bowl and beer before chatting with a friend in town here on my cell.

I’m sure my good luck will run out any minute now. My next plane will probably go up in flames.

..not by me, of course. I’m no terrorist, friendly airport security people…

Tomorrow night I’ll be flying to Kamloops for work. I’ve extended the stay through Easter weekend, so I can have some time with my family and friends there.

Whenever I’m on a flight, I think of this song. I first heard it while watching Hackers back in 1995 and became obsessed with it. It’s played during the opening scene, when Dade Murphy is flying to New York, and it sets the mood perfectly. Hackers had a lot of cringe-worthy moments, especially for anyone with some knowledge in computing, but it had geeks that weren’t completely socially inept, interesting pop culture and technology references, Angelina Jolie, and great music, so I think that made up for it.

Orbital was a great UK electronica duo, unfortunately now defunct, and this is from their second album Orbital 2, released in 1993.

Amanda tagged me for a meme, and according to the universal rules of weblogging, I am hereby required to comply.

It’s a roadmap of your life, a milestone, memory or interesting fact for every year.

Age 0: Our hero is born.
Age 1: Our hero shows his genius at a young age, by teaching himself to use the potty. Rumours of him using that newly found quiet time to solve the New York Times crossword puzzles in pen are unconfirmed but likely true.
Age 2: Our hero is introduced to a new member of the family: Tigger (tee eye double grr err), a lazy orange cat with whom he will spend many an afternoon planning world domination and playing with string.
Age 3: Our hero moves into a new house, which will be his childhood home until he moves out on his own. Most of this year is spent waiting for games on his VIC-20 to load.
Age 4: Our hero is imbued with a love of fiction after his father reads The Hobbit to him.
Age 5: Our hero begins his schooling and foolishly believes the next twenty years of education will consist mainly of nap time, lunch time, play time, and art time. He also joins his first soccer team.
Age 6: Our hero is given a Nintendo and Paper Boy for his birthday. He someday dreams of being a paperboy himself.
Age 7: Our hero has to keep a journal in school. Little did he know that twenty years later he would be writing a public journal that was widely read by at least five people around the world.
Age 8: Our hero is suspended from school for the first time after flashing his entire class in a joke that wasn’t fully thought through.
Age 9: Our hero and his classmates are split into two groups in school: the wise owls, for the students with decent reading comprehension, and the ignorant lizards [possibly not the actual name - our hero’s memory is not very good], for the barely literate. In a very Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat moment, he luckily finds himself placed with the owls. This is a pivotal moment in our hero’s life, as it saved him from an early life of drug use and self hatred. It also taught him to hate those stupider than him. After meeting a computer geek friend within the wise owls, our hero spirals into a deep sea of geekdom from which he will never return.
Age 10: Our hero has his first acting gig: a baseball player in a school play who must continually hit foul balls until a song is finished, when he finally connects with a fastball for a home run. He had no speaking lines, but being greatly skilled in the art of mime, he still manages to steal the show.
Age 11: Our hero begins to play the clarinet in the school band, rocking out on Hot Cross Buns. This love lasts for but a short eight months.
Age 12: Our hero’s teacher requires the students to write a creative short story every week. He discovers that some find his stories to be humourous, decides to write a novel, and immediately begins procrastinating.
Age 13: Our hero begins high school, and when speaking his first word in front of his classmates to answer a teacher’s question, his voice breaks. This begins a long line of humiliating moments he will suffer during the next five years.
Age 14: Our hero’s French teacher tells his parents that he’s an ignorant idiot for lighting a match in class. Parents become outraged at the teacher for calling their son a name and completely forget to discipline him. Although scoring a victory at home, our hero is forced to spend the rest of that year’s French classes sitting in the desk at the very front of the room, past the teacher and tucked behind a television. He leaves this class knowing one phrase in French: est-ce que je peux aller à la toilette?
Age 15: An English teacher is somehow able to make grammar interesting, causing our hero to become a full-fledged grammar Nazi.
Age 16: Our hero decides he hates his Photography teacher, refuses to do any work, and receives his lowest grade ever: 1%. His teacher says to him, as he hands him his term review, “the only reason I gave you one percent is because the computers wouldn’t allow me to give you a zero.” Our hero feels strangely proud of this. School isn’t a main priority for our hero, as he is focusing most of his attention on the Discworld MUD, a massively multiplayer text-based game modeled after Terry Pratchett’s novels.
Age 17: Our hero’s English teacher is his Photography teacher from the previous year. This worries him deeply, as he feels he will be treated unfairly, but he finds the teacher to actually be a decent guy if you put in an effort. This makes our hero feel like a bit of a tool.
Age 18: Our hero enrolls in some random university courses and works in a few food stands around the city. He also spends too many late nights eating appetizers at Denny’s and becomes quite fat.
Age 19: After spending some time trying to decide whether to pursue an English/Philosophy degree or a Computer Science degree, our hero decides to choose the economically wise choice and begins his two year Computer Systems: Operations and Management diploma.
Age 20: Our hero finally moves out of his parent’s basement and works for eight months on Vancouver Island in a couple of technical support positions and a Java development position.
Age 21: Our hero returns to Kamloops to finish his diploma and work for a summer in a technical support position.
Age 22: Our hero begins his Bachelor of Technology and Applied Computer Science degree and works in yet another technical support position for four long months in Williams Lake.
Age 23: Our hero spends six fantastic months studying in Austria and traveling around Europe a tiny bit.
Age 24: Our hero graduates from his degree and moves to Victoria for a Java development position.
Age 25: Our hero frantically tries to think of something momentous to do before his next birthday, in case he has to write anything like this again.

Wow, that was actually a little more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Thanks Amanda, for forcing me to look at how pointless my life has been. I’m going to go sulk for a bit.

I tag anyone whose fancy has been tickled.

As a little experiment, I decided to keep a log of my eating habits for the week. I thought it would be interesting to see how much I actually spend and consume. Below I’ve listed everything I ate and drank last week, excluding water, and how much the purchased food cost.

Saturday

• Brunch: Two slices of French bread with a bit of dijon mustard and sweet mesquite turkey meat from the deli. Mixed-herb salad with crushed pecans, pickled beets, tomatoes, and a balsamic vinegar, olive oil dressing. A cup of V8 tropical juice.
• Snack: a bit of blue Stilton cheese with some sesame rice crackers.
• Drink: A slushie from the corner store. $1.50
• Dinner: A couple of small spring rolls with a spicy flank and steak Pho. $15
• Drinks: Three pints of Blue Buck pale ale from the pub. $10 My friend covered most of this for me, to cover a previous night out.

Sunday

• Brunch: Two slices of French bread with an egg salad spread on top (two semi-hard boiled eggs, a tablespoon of mayo, and some curry powder).
• Snack: a bit of blue Stilton cheese with some sesame rice crackers.
• Dinner: Spicy BBQ chicken breast, rice, Mixed-herb salad with crushed pecans, pickled beets, tomatoes, and a balsamic vinegar, olive oil dressing, and a slice of French bread to soak up the excess dressing. A cup of V8 berry juice.
• Grocery bill: $36

Monday

• Breakfast: Cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese. Glass of soy vanilla protein drink. Cup of coffee.
• Lunch: Leftover chicken, rice and salad.
• Drinks: Two cups of tea.
• Dinner: Chicken curry and rice. Glass of V8 berry juice.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese. Glass of soy vanilla protein drink. Cup of coffee.
• Lunch: Leftover curry and rice. Bottle of Coopers Sparkling Ale.
• Drinks: Two cups of tea.
• Dinner: Grilled jem salad with mango balsamic vinaigrette and pancetta crisps. Braised Lamb Shank with Yukon Gold mashed herb potatoes, roasted vegetables, and rosemary port demi-glace. Flourless almond chocolate cake with candied orange crème anglaise. Two glasses of Sumac Ridge Cabernet Merlot. $45

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese. Glass of soy vanilla protein drink. Cup of coffee.
• Lunch: Chicken chowmein, beef brocolli, sweet and sour pork, and won ton soup. $9.50
• Drinks: Two cups of tea.
• Dinner: Chow mein with fried tofu and zuchini. Couple of glasses of V8 berry juice.

Thursday

• Breakfast: Stale coffee cake muffin. $2.
• Lunch: Turkey club sandwich and a yogurt cup with fruit. $8
• Drinks: Three cups of tea.
• Snack: apple fritter
• Dinner: Spicy Baconator meal from Wendy’s. $10

Friday

• Breakfast: Slice of banana bread. $2.
• Snack: handful of smoked almonds and salted pecans.
• Lunch: Fish and chips with a pint of Hermann’s Dark Lager. $20
• Dinner: Chunk of filone with some garlic, bruschetta turkey.
• Grocery bill: $30

Conclusions
My total cost for the week was about $190, which is sadly fairly close to the normal. This means I’m probably spending somewhere between $600 and $800 a month on food, which does seem a little outrageous. I’m slowly moving towards packed lunches, which will help with the cost, as everything near my workplace is fairly expensive.

I do usually eat a little healthier than this. We have a special event happening in town, and many restaurants are offering three course meals at a discounted rate, which is what I had for dinner on Tuesday. On Thursday, I was just too lazy after rock climbing to make anything, so I ended up with the Baconator meal. Anything named Baconator has got to be all kinds of bad for you.

So, there you have it. Possibly not the most riveting reading, but I found it interesting to do. I may look at being a little more frugal in the future. Starting tomorrow. Right now I’m off to grab some Vietnamese.