Themeless Randoms

Looks like Bowser’s looser minions are finally taking a stand at the workplace…

After going away camping for the second time this summer (this time only for 2 nights), and coming home to 895 new items waiting for me in Google Reader, I’ve started wondering if I really need to give a flying one about all these important things that have been going on since I last sat in front of the computer.

It also makes me think about the time that I’ve probably wasted wading through all of these on a daily basis. I think that I’ve probably not noticed that I have that many posts fly by me on a daily basis because I take them on numerous times a day, and don’t get a realistic count of the time I’m wasting and the clutter that I’m causing.

My downfall in the past was coming across a site that had a post or theme that was interesting to me. If I saw the familiar little RSS icon in my firefox bar, I’d subscribe to it, and file it into my categorized folder system and then just read away. This snowballed and now I’m seeing that I’m a slave to RSS feeds and need to cut the crap.

My plan of attack is to evaluate my feeds as the posts come in. I thought about just hacking away right now, but instead I’ll take the time to actually read every single thing that comes in for a while, and make an educated choice in what gets cut and what stays in my list. Two that I know will stay are Lifehacker and the local news updates for my local paper. Other than that its fair game on the other hundred or so feeds that are dragging my productivity down. In about a weeks time I’ll post an update to discuss my methods and results in my assault on my RSS list.

I guess the stars, sun, moons, planets, and whatever else could be lined up, were lined up on Monday this week when I made a trip to Best Buy to pick up a pair of Shure earphones. After finding the earphones I decided to take a lap of the store to see if there was anything else that turned my crank. I headed over to the video game section, and was blown away to see about 9 Nintendo Wii boxes sitting there!

My first reaction was, “I’m totally getting this thing,” but then after adding up the cost etc, I started thinking that if I’m going to blow that kind of cash, that I should just get a PS3 instead since it doubles as a blu-ray player, and that’s something that I’ll eventually need.

I decided that I may need a little consultation on the purchase, so I spoke with the girlfriend who just about flipped when I told her that it was in stock. Obviously she wanted it, so I went and grabbed one, along with another Wiimote, Nunchuck, and some component cables (which turned out to be shit… word of advice, buy the Nintendo ones instead of the $20 cheaper knockoffs… they are garbage).

Before leaving the store I mentioned the purchase to a buddy who told me to grab one for him as well. He said that finding a Wii in a store is like finding diamonds, and demanded that I pick one up for him. We were wondering if they would enforce the one per customer rule at the cash register, but the fat little dude with red curly hair didn’t seem to care at all. 2 Wii’s in hand, I walked out a happy customer.

So far I’ve got to say that this thing is a blast. I picked up Mario Kart and that thing is a good time… the online games are pretty tough as there are apparently secrets about the game that I’ve yet to discover, but in time kiddies, in time. I also picked up Wii Fit, but haven’t opened it up yet. Maybe I’ll give it a rip today and get my yoga on.

The girlfriend thought that I was crazy for wanting to go camping by myself, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get away from everyone and everything for 5 days, and no better place than Banff, Alberta. I originally wanted to go to Bow Valley Campground, but it was full, so I continued into Banff. I’m glad I did as the convenience of a town less than 5km from the campsite was definately nice.

Tunnel Mountain campground is definately a nice place, where you aren’t side by side with other campers. Thats one advantage of being a tent camper in Banff is that the campground is much nicer… I rode my bike through the part that allows trailers, and its like parking along the highway. WAY nicer in a tent. Also, someone must of told the mosquitos to beat it this year as there was nothing but squirrels, birds, deer, and bears in the park. Saw 3/4, but no bears…

I went on a few sweet bike rides while in Banff, and the above map shows my favourite one. I started out in tunnel mountain, down into the townsite, around Bow Falls, out to the Trans Canada Highway, and then back up the other side of tunnel mountain. The ride back up that hill was absolute murder, but it still made for an awesome 19k bike ride. This was also the first time that I’d been on a bike in the mountains, and due to the obvious altitude difference I got wasted much quicker than I would at home. I can now see why athletes train at those elevations to better prepare their bodies for competition.

Anyway, here are some of the pics that I snapped while out in Banff:

So aparently when you go away from Thursday morning at 8am to Monday afternoon at 3pm, 919 interesting things happen in the world? I don’t believe it, but thats what Google Reader told me when I opened it up a few seconds ago.

I can take a guess that there are going to be heaps of posts about the new iPhone 3G in there, and I’m wondering if there is a way to filter them out somehow. I know that its probably the biggest cell phone launch ever, but do I really need to see a picture of the first guy at every store around the world? Not at all…

On an average day if I have to plow through 50-60 new posts I kind of breeze through them, but I really dont know what to do with this 919 that is staring me in the face… I’m tempted to just click “mark all as read” for all feeds, and pretend that this whole weekend, other than my awesome camping trip, didn’t exist (at least in the RSS universe).

This is kind of a neat feeling. Today I paid off my 2006 VW Jetta, almost exactly one year after I bought it. Kind of a neat feeling to have paid off my first brand new car in such a short amount of time, and also to know that I made the right decision to switch from a gas guzzling truck with a 350 in it to a smaller car that seems to run forever on 55 liters of diesel.

To celebrate I attached the bike rack that I bought almost 2 months ago, and threw my bike on it. Didn’t go for a ride on the bike, but instead just drove up and down the highway a few times to see if the rack would actually work with my car and bike without blowing off or scratching the car. Now that I know that everything is fine, I’m gonna take my bike camping with me this coming weekend to do a little mountain trail riding… in my 100% paid off car! woooooooo!

I headed down to Mountain Equipment Co-op today and got absolutely hosed on some new camping equipment. Not hosed in that I was buying garbage, but hosed in that I spent way more than I planned. I guess that’ll happen when you head into a cool store like that with all kinds of gear and gadgets that you need.

The one thing that I did head into the store knowing that I’d buy is the tent on the right called the MEC Funhouse 4 Tent. I chose this tent not based on its looks or usefullness, but rather for the endless pun possibilities based on its name. Why the hell is it called a funhouse? Is Pee-Wee Herman going to come screaming and yelling when someone says the magic word? God I hope not.

Anyway, I left MEC with a new tent, tent footer, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, pot set, camping pillow, and a bunch more stuff that I can’t remember right now, all to a tune of just under $800. Holy sheep shit! When I originally thought I was going to get a tent I was expecting somewhere in the $200 range… Funny how things went sideways once I got there, but whatever I got some good stuff, and it’ll make for a fun camping season.

Last week I said, “This is the fakest bitch act I’ve seen in all my reality TV watching. I hope you are second-next to go… You’d be next on my wish list, but Cathy is slightly more annoying than you.”

Looks like I somewhat got my wish as my #2 choice got the boot from I Survived a Japanese Game show. Olga tried to hang in there up to the last minute, trying to wheel and deal with the other players, but ultimately she went to the elimination round and lost.

Anyway, this episode was quite entertaining. The Pachinko parlour was quite entertaining, and I kind of felt sorry for Donnell and Meaghan having to clean the tiny little balls. I really dont think that thats an actual job, but still it made for good punishment.

Mary handing out the tissue was a real job though, as people handing that stuff out are everywhere. I remember when I was in Japan I’d usually loathe those guys trying to shove pack after pack of tissue on you, but it must have been karma as when I really needed some, I couldn’t find a tissue person anywhere!