Well, here I am again. Attempt number 36, or 84, or 3 or something... at blogging. I don't really know why I continue to try these things.

I mean, here is what happens every time I start blogging:

1. Goto http://www.movabletype.org, and download the latest release of Movable Type - which, by the way is an incredible piece of software. I am a little upset at the limitations of the Free version these days, but what the hell. If I decide to actually stick it out this time, I'll send them a check (or, you know, fill out one of those credit card forms).
2. Install the above MT release on my webserver.
3. Configure the templates to suit my needs.
4. Make a couple of blog entires.
5. Abandon my blog.

So, in an attempt to keep it around this time, we will be going in very slow baby steps. I have not decided on a name for the site/blog, and as such there is no domain. I expect to get zero visitors here for the time being, so, that's obviously not what I'm going for at the time being.

I am going to start off by making slow, minimal modifications to the stock templates offered by Movable Type, until I am happy with what I've got. So don't expect a great interface any time soon.... but, since I'm not going to have any visitors for a while, that's not that big of a deal, now is it?

Anyway, that's the first entry!

Get FireFox!

After five long and luxurious days off from my job, I am back at work once again. Five days a week, eight hours a day, forty hours a week. Monday to Friday. Doesn't everything seem wrong with this picture? I sure think so. You know, even though I did some work for a family member on almost all of my days off, being out of the office has provided me with some great time of reflection.

I have come up with a system to do away with the regular Monday through Friday, Eight to Five day. It won't cost the employee or employer very much at all... Well, that, I guess, entirely depends on the wealth of the company, but that has nothing to do with me, now does it?

Anyway... here is my system. Let's use a pretend company here, we'll call them "Awesome Employer, Inc.". Awesome Employer, Inc. has a small staff, only five full time employees. They work in the computer service industry, and their employees are uneducated, so they only make $12.00/hr. All of these employees work 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday, Eight to Five with an hour lunch break.

So, Awesome Employer, Inc.'s employees are putting in a total of 200 hours a week, for a total of $2400.00 gross pay. Not bad, not bad. (For the record, this is about $125,000 a year.) So, Awesome Employer, Inc. has decided that they love their employees and that they overwork them, so they want to cut their hours, but keep the gross pay the same. Awesome, I want to work for Awesome Employer, Inc.

So what needs to be done, to keep these 5 employees at $480 a week, is this:

Hire seven new people, cut the weekly shift to sixteen hours, and increase the wage to $30.00/hr. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? I sure think so.

I mean, really. Here is what it comes down to: You now have twelve employees (this also has the benefit of making your firm appear to be larger.), at sixteen hours a week. So Awesome Employer, Inc. still has 200 hours of work coming in every week (it's actually 192, but the extra eight hours provided way too much extra work for me). Problem #1 solved. Now, you increase everyone's wage by $18 to $30.00/hr. Now, here is where most employer's would become wary. Your total weekly payroll jumps to $5760 per week (or just about $300,000 per year). Since Awesome Employer, Inc. is a very rich company, they don't care and decide to pay up. Imagine the employee moral! It would be unprecedented! If I ever become a rich company owner, this is exactly what I'll do.

So, let's say your employer isn't as great as Awesome Employer, Inc.. What do you do now? Easy, accept a pay cut. I figured if I was working for $480 a week at forty hours a week, I wouldn't be too upset with $400 a week over sixteen hours. So, we drop our new wage from $30.00/hr to $25.00/hr. This cuts an amazing $960 a week (almost $50,000 a year! That should get their hopes up.) from the employer's payroll, and drops the final weekly amount to $4800 (or just over $250,000 a year). Wow! How could a good employer not take this opportunity. And as an employee only working 16 hours a week, making up that $80 a week is as easy as getting a part time job for another couple of hours at McDonald's or something. Who cares?

So, now that I've solved that problem... next week, how to get the boss to institute a new "Free Hourly Massage" policy, or maybe even how to get a masseuse to be on-call at your desk all day, and have it written off as an expense.

Alright, so it is almost time to park the summer car. My 1987 Mazda RX-7 Turbo II. Unfortunately, when living in a place as far north as I - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - there comes a time to park the moderate-horsepower, rear wheel drive vehicles for about six months. It is now the 24th of October, and we have not had snow yet (don't worry, I'm knocking on wood). So, I am going to assume that early November, the snow will fly and I will be forced to put the car down for the winter.

This is kind of a blessing in disguise, as my car is in need of quite a bit of repair. Since purchasing the car on July 17, 2005 (I will do a good full history of my car at a later date), I have done the following repairs on my car:

• Replaced alternator with a newly rebuilt unit.
• Had starter rebuilt.
• Replaced power streering pulley, and belt.
• Replace Driver Side power window switch.
• Re-wired my Fuel Cut Defender.

There has been some minor maintenance like Oil Changes, etc. that I've done, but they don't count. Now, here is a list of things I need to do over the winter, in no particular order.

• Replace turbo. I have the turbo, so I just need to actually do it.
• Fix exhaust leak. Pretty sure I need a new manifold. If so, I will have my new one polished before replacing.
• Replace passenger side power window switch.
• Fix odd idle. Not sure what is wrong here, could be a number of things. This one is kinda scary.
• Replace Pulsation Damper. I think it might be gone, as I had a small engine fire. So I'm doing this as preventative.
• Fix gauge lights. They went when my starter did. Tough to drive at night without a speedometer.
• Find a hub for my Nardi steering wheel.
• Send fuel injectors off to RC Engineering to be cleaned, balanced, blueprinted, etc.
• Replace spark plugs and wires.
• Replace all fluids.
• Replace all fuses.
• Replace air intake (maybe build a Cold Air box, and go for a true CAI)
• Get a new shift knob... my current one will NOT stay on. Will most likely just go with a short shifter/knob combo.

So there is a partial list of things that need to be done over the winter. This does not include any aftermarket stuff (well, the Nardi hub is aftermarket... but my current momo wheel is almost as old as the car, and the leather is GONE. I mean, when it gets remotely wet, black stuff rubs off on my hands, so this needs to be fixed ASAP.) The aftermarket list will come soon.

The above list is not 100% complete. I will update this list in a new entry once I get a chance to really look at the car, after it is parked.

Unbelievable. I just finished replacing (well, rebuilding) the starter last Wednesday. Today, I am driving down the freeway, and I try to decelerate. Doesn't work, keeps accelerating as soon as I let off the gas. Wow, that was pretty scary.

Stupid thottle cable is stuck open. One more to add to the list. Will have to fix this tomorrow. Oh well, that's all for now.

So, I've recently jumped back into programming. I really haven't opened Visual Basic since, oh, 1999 or 2000, so, admittedly I am a bit rusty.

Now, before I get jumped on by anyone for programming in VB, I don't much care. It is a hobby, not a profession, and I can do whatever I want in my hobbies.

So, in early September I cracked open Visual Basic 6.0, and begun work on "Auto Maintenance" (obviously a working title). I worked on it for a couple of weeks before bailing VB6.0, and turning to Visual Basic 2005 Beta 2.

Now, here is where the fun comes in. I cannot convert my VB6 code for writing to a database to VB.NET code for the life of me. For the past three weeks, I have been unsuccessful. Grrrrr. Honestly, I have never been more frustrated with a computer in my life. There is no reason something so simple in VB6 should be so difficult in VB.NET. It is unacceptable.

So, I'll keep trying. Just needed to vent a bit.

Sometime in September... for some reason I want to think very early in September, maybe even late August... I purchased a Nardi steering wheel from eBay. I had asked the infinitely wise members of the RX-7 Club where to purchase a hub. One of the "elder" members, RETed (Ted of FC3SPro.com - an excellent FC RX-7 resource) mentioned that it should fit my existing momo hub.

It didn't. So, I put my old one back on, and continued to look for a Nardi hub. Well, the other day I had asked again if anyone knew where to find a Nardi hub. Ted did something amazing. He replied to my question asking for my mailing address. Saying that since he gave me bad advice, saying that it would fit my momo hub, he will send me a hub for free. Unbelievable. Seriously, over a month ago he had given me some "bad advice" (his words) that was truly, completely inconsequential. And out of nowhere, he offers me, someone he has never met, this product for free.

Completely unnecessary! So, I offer to pay for shipping. Actually I said "please, let me at least reimburse you for shipping" (from Hawaii to Canada). Nope. He flat out refused to give me his PayPal address.

All I can say, is I am in awe of Ted! Great guy! Make sure to visit FC3Spro.com.

Well, since I'm writing for myself these days, I guess this is even more of a pointless entry. Oh well.

I think it's almost time to start bringing people to my site. Wow, I need a domain name ASAP. On top of that, I need to finish the layout of all the pages. Watch for that in the next couple of days, followed shortly by a definite name, and a domain name.

Woot!

Get Firefox!

I'm not usually much of a horror movie viewer. Actually, I generally try to stay away as much as possible. I'm not sure why. It's not that I dislike being scared, as a matter of fact I find it to be quite a rush.

However, I hate movies that falsely scare you... "jumpy" movies so to say. Movies that need to have unexpected things jump at you on screen to get you to move in your screen.

Last night, I watched House of Wax with four friends.

I should give you some background before getting into this movie. The only place I ever saw advertisements for this movie, was on MuchMusic. Based on that alone, I wasn't expecting much. To further my low expectations, every ad I saw featured Paris Hilton. I have no idea what the marketing team on this movie were thinking.

Second, the cast - although featuring a lot of big(ger) names like Elisha Cuthbert, Paris Hilton, Chad Michael Murray - appeared to be assembled as a kind-of, uhm, "fun project" or something. I don't know, I just didn't take the cast seriously before watching the movie.

So, anyway, I have never experienced a movie-viewing like I did last night. All five of us were screaming at the TV, engrossed in deep conversations about the movie, while the movie was going on. Trying to help out the "heroes", and getting mad at them, then cheering them. What an awesome experience!

While the movie starts out rather poorly, as is to be expected for any movie where Paris Hilton opens her mouth... don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Paris Hilton, I just don't think she can act. Overall the acting in the opening 15-20 minutes is horrible.

However, that picks up quite a bit once Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray take over. And wow, what a thrill ride from here on out.

This movie does a lot of things I never thought I would see in a movie, so I don't want to say what they were. You know when you are watching a movie and you say "why don't they ever do this in a movie?"... well, chances are they do it in House of Wax.

According to IMDb, the movie made $32,000,000 at the box office on a budget of $30,000,000. For this, I think the entire marketing team should be blacklisted from Hollywood. Also, the director should be sent back to doing music videos or whatever he was doing before this for hiring Paris Hilton, who, quite obviously, did not have to audition for her part.

Watch this movie!!!! 5/5 (for a horror, that has never happened before).

So... I've done it. I've officially sold out I suppose. I went shopping today... to, the GAP. It wasn't my decision... was Lana's. Besides the point, I actaully like the clothes I got.

A nice green/dark green sweater, and some tighter jeans. Woot. Only $100 CDN total too. Not too bad.

First time shopping at a prep store, wasn't too bad.

Happy Halloween! Well, not so much really. I work until 8:00pm tonight, which really sucks. I'm going to miss a good majority of the goings-on tonight. On top of that, I have not really come to a conclusion of what I'm going to do tonight.

I wouldn't mind hanging out at home for a bit, handing out candy and seeing all the kid's costumes. But after that, no idea. Might head out to the bar, and catch some kind of a Halloween party. Maybe there will be a house party? Not sure.

Halloween sure has changed from when I was a kid. I remember going trick or treating for hours, then heading out to a City sponsored party, or haunted house, or something. Halloween was fun. Now I get dressed up, hand out candy, and go to a party.

I wish I was ten years old again.