gushue.net

Just some random amusing things on IRC while I was at work…

[00:03:18] (Eeyore) hi bones :)
[00:03:22] (@bones) hi!
[00:04:19] (Eeyore) how was your weekend?
[00:05:43] (@bones) good
[00:05:47] (@bones) how was yours
[00:07:21] (Eeyore) still in it. i worked the entire time
[00:07:25] (Eeyore) still working
[00:07:37] (Eeyore) but i get to sleep for 4 hours on te plane tomorrow out of here
[00:08:13] (Eeyore) i have to be at the bus at 7:45
[00:10:29] (@bones) where are you going
[00:11:43] (@pygmy) hell, I hope
[00:11:48] (@pygmy) I mean hi alt
[00:12:12] (Eeyore) hee hee
[00:12:15] (Eeyore) home
[00:12:21] (Eeyore) i'm at Kemess Mines
[00:14:10] (@bones) ah
[00:14:12] (@bones) in a mine
[00:14:23] (@bones) is everything in british columbia named like final fucking fantasy
[00:14:34] (@bones) or are you somewhere else
[01:55:26] (Eeyore) bones: i'm in b.c.
[01:55:39] (Eeyore) "natie" names here
[01:55:44] (Eeyore) erm
[01:55:51] (Eeyore) and there are a lot of native names here
[01:56:12] (Eeyore) the other site i work on is Tulsequah Chief
[02:07:48] (@bones) heh

And I just ordered myself a 1 TB hard drive and external USB2 drive enclosure. My plan is to store my music on there, so it’s portable. Leaving me with a 500 GB to use for other things on my desktop :)

I’ve been working a lot of overtime lately, but pretty much just for the extra cash for my holidays. I just finished night 16 in a row, of a total of 19. Thursday morning I’ll be on holidays for 16 days :)

And no, I’m not dead or anything. Just haven’t been posting much on any sites. Playing WoW mostly, posting on my guild’s forums, and chatting with friends on there. And quite a bit of Rock Band since getting it way back in January or whenever… have hardly touched Guitar Hero since. I can do well on most expert guitar songs, and most hard drum songs. Getting better on expert drums - the songs are either a lot of fun to play on expert, or insanely difficult.

Well that sucked, I had a short post written and then somehow lost it.

So I can have this in an easy to find spot, I’m making a list of some Xbox 360 games I’d like to get. Just as soon as my system is fixed (thanks to the flashing red ring of death).

• Guitar Hero 3 (have for the PS3 currently)
• Forza Motorsport 2 (came with the new 360)
• Mass Effect
• Call of Duty 4
• Project Gotham Racing 4
• Bioshock
• NHL 08
• Guitar Hero II

I had some others in mind, but those are at the top of my list.

Edit: I have a new Xbox 360 Elite now, I’ll get my old one fixed at some point.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for close to a couple of years now, I guess. Only one high level character, my level 70 hunter. All the way up to level 60, I was primarily Beast Mastery spec. Once I starting PvPing heavily, I switched to a mostly Survival build and really enjoyed that. A little while before the expansion came out, they changed the talent trees and that made it not quite as good anymore. Around then I was mostly taking a break anyway, because I was working crazy hours (I took maybe 5 days off out of 70-75 between Thanksgiving and Christmas) and never had a lot of free time. Once the expansion was out, it was time to level again. This time I went with a Marksmanship build. It was great. I’m about to change a few things that weren’t all that useful, now that I’ve been at level 70 for a while. So I’ll be going from this build (9/49/3) to this one (11/47/3). Not that much different.

I love it when I’m able to arrange extra time off without actually losing any days. This weekend coming up is my normal weekend off (Fri/Sat/Sun). I have Thursday off for the holiday. I have Wednesday off for my personal day (we get one paid day off a year). I would normally have Monday (tonight) off, but instead I’ll be working tonight and taking Tuesday off. That gives me six days off, almost like a week long vacation!

I haven’t found a decent theme that I’m happy with for Wordpress, I guess I’ll have to make my own one of these days. And finish moving my existing old pages to a dynamic WP format. Then I can just edit them online - which is actually something I had written to do myself previously, but it’s nice that this is built into WP. Maybe I might actually get around to writing some of the pages I had been thinking about, too.

I just switched over to Wordpress - my other pages are still around, the links are currently next to the blogroll links on the side. When I get the time I’ll move things around, change themes, etc.

My site is in need of a major overhaul anyway.

Well, maybe not back, but at least making this entry! :)

This year I’ve decided to finally start doing something about my (bad) financial situation. In the past, I’ve had a bunch of debts that I haven’t been very good about paying back. Hardly saving any money at all, even when I have plenty of extra cash after paying the necessary stuff. When I had credit cards back when I started university, I abused them for stuff I didn’t need and never paid more than the minimum amounts, if that (not surprisingly, both of them went to collections eventually). Fiddling with info on my student loan applications (not quite lying) to get as much as I could. And then wasting most of that on booze and other things you would when you’re 18-20 and in school with your friends.

So, I’ve been working and living at home for the last five years. And what do I have saved? Practically nothing at all. Well, now I do, but that’s pretty much all from the last few months. I received a decent sized bonus cheque at work yesterday, and I’m quite pleased that most of it went towards some bills that I’ve been putting off. Well, one wasn’t really a bill, but my web/email hosting renewal was there. Spent a little on myself, but nothing extravagant. It sure was tempting to get a nice home theatre system or big LCD television. But I resisted! :)

Now, I’m aiming to get an apartment of my own this summer, by August (or maybe even July). Of course, this will reduce the extra money I have, but I can deal with that. I wasn’t really spending a lot of it on anything useful anyway (I’m afraid to go back and check to see how much I spent at the liquor store between Thanksgiving and New Year’s last year). My plan is to really bump up the amount I’m putting into savings (ING Direct - ask me about the $13 bonus for new accounts referred by me, for each of us) until then. Which I’d use for basic furnishings that I don’t already have access to, security deposit, etc, plus having a chunk of money set aside for emergencies.

After I get a certain amount put aside for an emergency fund, I’m planning to start putting that much money into whatever debts I have to get them paid as quickly as possible. At this point though, I think it’s just my student loans that are left. One of which might never get paid. The smaller one I’d like to pay off. Then I can build up my emergency fund to something that could last 6-8 months if really necessary, and then start putting a lot more into RSPs and a little into another account for gifts to myself (stuff like a new tv, etc).

So yeah… a bit of a long and rambling entry there. Just typing as stuff came into my head. I’m pretty dedicated to this, I’m tired of being in debt and “broke” (well, spending/wasting every extra dollar I get at least).

Oh, I never did post any pictures of my custom poker chips. I’ll have to do that sometime. Another thing I’d like to do sometime is possibly switch over to Wordpress from Movable Type. A redesign of my web page couldn’t hurt either. I’ve been uninterested in playing World of Warcraft for the last 3-4 weeks, compared to before when I was playing it constantly. Gives me a little time to fiddle with things like that :)

Pygmy Surfer and Bones both suck. That is all.

Congratulations from a fellow (not directly related) Gushue to Brad Gushue and the rest of the men’s 2006 Canadian Olympic curling team on getting the gold!

I really haven’t been updating this at all lately. I’ll just quickly go through some of what happened since last summer…

I started taking three courses at SWGC in September, which was technically fulltime - the first time I’ve done so in quite a while. I ended up finishing the semester with a 79.3 average, which is pretty good considering I also work fulltime.

I stepped down as support manager at work, mostly due to school and lack of time to concentrate on that. They still haven’t filled the position, and probably won’t post it again until they can find someone else that wants the job and is competent.

I’ve gotten more poker chips and good playing cards (Copag, Kem, etc) over the months. I currently have an order for 1000 custom chips from a special offering with choices not normally available. That should be here in April sometime.

I’m taking this current semester off school. I just need a break - the last 6 or 7 months were quite hectic/busy/stressful/etc. I did well last term, and want to continue to do well. I think that if I kept up with this semester doing another three courses, my marks would suffer. I may drop back to just one or to classes in September, or I may do three again. I’m not sure yet.

Hopefully my next entry won’t be after such a long break :)

Yep, another week off for me. I don’t really have anything planned at all. Should be enjoyable just to have the time off at least. Especially after maybe… 105+ hours of work in the last two weeks.

The poker chips I’ve been babbling about in various places finally got here a few days ago, they’re really nice!

And now I’ll subject you all to pictures! Muhahah!

My camera has been annoying lately. And/or my batteries. Plus, the battery cover on my camera broke a while back, so it doesn’t really stay in place without holding onto it, or taping it in place. Which sucks.

The new job is going pretty good so far, I’m enjoying it much more than I expected. I was really nervous before I started, and even while thinking about applying (and before my interview). But there’s not much to it, really. And I guess I’m a bit more vocal/whatever now, should get better at that eventually, too.

Long hours though, at least I’m kept busy the whole time. There’s never enough time to finish everything you’d like to get done. Last week I think I had almost 44 hours, and about the same this week. That’s a ton of overtime. I’m afraid of the taxes…

Off tonight and tomorrow though, which is cool. I’ll get to play some poker tonight with the guys (need to have a regular Thursday night game, since I’ll always be off!). Too bad my clay poker chips from ASM won’t be here, I ordered them last Friday and mailed my payment on Monday. I doubt I’ll have them before next Thursday, but should have them before my vacation at least. I’ll be sure to post pictures and an update when I do get them.