v43.2: Fracking Friday

Howdy folks,

It's Friday!  Thankfully the gods have deemed us worthy and have allowed us to see another Friday.  If you are one of the fortunate ones to have their work week end today, I bid you a happy weekend.  If not, you can join the club with me.

Unfortunately for me, I will be working most of this weekend.  There have been a lot of things going on at work this week and as a result, I will be spending most of my weekend tied to my BlackBerry and laptop while I perform changes and monitor progress/emails.  I'm sure things will go well and come Monday all of the things I hoped to accomplish will be completed and running well.  I don't foresee any complications, but like anything in the IT industry, it can go bad real fast and end up spoiling your entire weekend.

This weekend also marks the season premier of Dexter.  I started watching Dexter after season 5 had ended.  I downloaded all of the episodes and watched them back-to-back all the way up to the end of Season 6.  If you're a Dexter fan, you're probably anticipating the season 7 premier as much as I am.  If you've never seen Dexter, I won't spoil it for you but suffice to say, it's going to be very interesting to see how this season is going to start.

-slurp-

As some of you know, Blizzard released the latest expansion to the World of Warcraft franchise this past week.  The expansion is called Mists of Pandaria and it introduces a whole new race (Pandas) to the world of Azeroth.  I wasn't really that hyped about this expansion as I was in the past ones, but I was still excited to check out some new content and see what new things were added to the game.  In typical pre-release fashion, Blizzard rolled out a bunch of the changes that were expansion independent a few weeks prior to the release date.  I was able to play around a bit with these new changes and I must say, they've done a great job.  The expansion came out Tuesday and I hadn't had a chance to login and check it out until last night (Thursday).  This marks the first time I have ever missed an expansion release; in fact, I didn't even think about it at all on Tuesday until after I got home from work and realized I couldn't login and play because I had a bunch of work to do and wasn't able to.

Last night I decided to take a bit of a break from work and ended up logging in and spending a couple of hours playing.  Blizzard introduced this new system called "Pet Battles" which is basically Pokemon using the non-combat pets you've collected over the last 7 years.  At first I was a bit sceptical about the system and how it was going to work, but after spending a few minutes learning the new interface and reading up on the FAQ, I found myself in-game going around and finding pets to kill and capture.  Basically it starts off with a quest (after you've learned how to do pet battles) which sends you away to defeat a pet.  A "pet" is simply a critter and you see them all over the place.  Some of these pets are flagged for pet battles and when you click on them, it starts the pet battle interface.  You can specify your "active" pet out of all of the pets you have and the turn-based fight will begin.  The fight ends when either your pet(s) or the other pet(s) are defeated/captured.  Yes, you can capture pets in this system and add them to your pet list.  If you come across a pet you don't already have, you can challenge it and fight it.  Once it's health is below 35%, you have an option to capture it.  In the beginning you will almost capture it every time on the first try, but later on it gets more difficult and it may take more tries to successfully capture the pet.  Pets are also of different quality (like gear); you have your common, uncommon, rare and epic type pets that are placed all over WoW.  Sometimes you may even go up against multiple pets which makes it a bit more challenging.  So far I've only ever had to fight 1 pet at a time, but I'm assuming that will change later on as my pets get higher level.

It's a fun system and very well deployed.  I can see wasting many hours of my game time playing with this feature in the near future.  If you're a World of Warcraft player, some of this will make sense to you; if not, I apologize :)

Well folks, it's time to get back to work and prepare for my work filled evening and weekend.  Remember to always ensure you look both ways before crossing the street and abide by the rules of pedestrianism (ooo, big word).  Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice.

Cheers,

Al

v39.1: Post Reunion Blues

Howdy folks,

-slurp-

What a weekend.  There is just something about family coming together to socialize and enjoy each others company that makes it special.  This past weekend was just such an occasion and if I could sum up the entire weekend into a single word, it would be "Epic".

-slurp-

While the actual event didn't begin until Saturday, a bunch of us showed up Friday to get things started early.  And in pure family fashion, as soon as there was word of alcohol and camp fires,  everyone who could make it out joined us.  I got to see a lot of family members I haven't seen in quite awhile including my cousin Brian who I haven't seen in 13 years.  I also got to see a good family friend who I haven't seen in almost just as long.  Needless to say, good times were had by all and I'm really glad I had the opportunity to go down and spend the weekend.  The weather, despite calling for rain on Saturday, was fantastic, hot and sunny all the way up to Sunday when it finally started to rain, just as I was getting ready to tear down the tent.  Let me just say that taking down tents isn't one of my favorite things to do and doing it in the rain makes it even less fun.  Thankfully we have plans to go camping again next week so hopefully the weather is nice and I'm able to dry the tent out.

-slurp-

Tradition: an inherited pattern of thought or action

As with most annual gathers, there are certain traditions that form.  Despite this only being the 2nd annual family reunion, I think we already have a tradition or two in the works.  Unfortunately one of the traditions is my fault and despite my strong objections, I did it again this year with some help from Juggs (thanks Juggs).  What is this mysterious tradition I'm avoiding?  Let me go back about a year when it all started.  As with most family gathers on my mother's side, we tend to drink quite a bit of alcohol and do some crazy fun stuff.  I was quite intoxicated and not of sane mind when my cousin Karl handed me his guitar he brought to the lake.  I had no idea what I was doing and was simply asked to play "something", anything at all.  I hesitantly took the guitar from his outstretched hand and strummed a few chords.  The sounds of the guitar filled me as it usually does when I play and I was taken by a desire to play something.  It was then that a certain song popped into my head and despite all my efforts, I couldn't shake it.  I strummed the first chord and that's how it came to be that on a warm Saturday night with the campfire as my spotlight with the Loons singing backup that I sang to my entire family, an Adam Sandler tune entitled "Medium Pace".  I played the guitar and sang the entire song, every word when I ended there was a brief moment of silence and then everyone clapped and cheered.  I felt like a star.

For those of you who know the song, I can feel your smiles already.  For those who don't, I have provided you with a video so you can give it a listen; this isn't safe for work folks so make sure you've got some privacy.



-slurp-

Now something like that isn't easily forgotten and that is why I had a feeling this year I would be roped into singing it again.  Of course it wasn't until my cousin Karl showed up that all my fears became true.  He stepped out of his truck and walked over to me with a big grin on his face; he knew I remembered and I could hear the words going through his head; Medium Pace!  So there I was again, one year later finding myself on a warm Saturday night with the camp fire as my spotlight, screaming out the lyrics of Medium Pace again.  Thankfully I had my buddy Juggs there to back me up and the two of us pulled the song off like champs.  I felt good.  I went over, sat down next my mother and she simply told me that would have been a song my grandfather would have really enjoyed.  I agreed.

-slurp-

Well folks, those are the highlights from my weekend.  I'm sure there are others but thanks to alcohol, too much sun and jagged lake rocks, I don't recall much else worth writing about.  I hope everyone had a great weekend and hope everyone has a great week.

Cheers,

Al

v38.1: Warm Rain

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

As the title suggests, it is raining here today.  Normally I don't use Musings over Coffee to discuss the weather but I felt it was significant enough to talk about since I've rarely seen rain this heavy before.  In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen it rain this hard since Alberta.

-slurp-

v38.0: Friday Checklist

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

- Mark Twain

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

Friday has finally arrived!  I have been looking forward to this day since Monday and despite only having a 4 day work week, I still feel as if I worked all 5 days.  There was something about this week that really made for a long week.  Perhaps the heat was a factor or perhaps it was just "one of those weeks".

-slurp-

v34.6: Time Flies

Good Morning folks,

-slurp-

I'm finding it difficult to believe it is already Monday.  This past weekend is a bit of a blur but at the same time, made up with good memories.  I've hosted a lot of LAN parties in the past but this was the first LAN party I hosted that nearly spanned a day and a half.

-slurp-

v29.2: PWSD

Good morning folks,

-slurp-

I'm suffering from PWSD this morning.  What is PWSD you ask?  Well before you go and Google it, let me tell you it isn't anything serious and I believe one in every one person suffers from this condition.

-slurp-