Play Golf, Be Saved

With the summer holidays coming up, finding good clean fun for the entire God-fearing Canadian family to do can be difficult.

Fortunately, we can always look to our neighbours to the South to realign our moral compasses. So without further ado, I give you (or they give us) Golgotha Mini-Golf.

Three white crosses loom near the parking lot and mark the final hole; to get there, determined players putt their way through the hazards and miracles of the Good Book. After renting a club and ball in the gift shop, eager Golgotha fans line up at hole #1, The Book of Genesis. The first nine holes are inspired by the Old Testament: Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Moses parting the Red Sea, Daniel and the Lion.

My only question is: if you get a Hole in One, will they reward you with holes in five?

I would've gone to visit this site if for no other reason to see if they would let me in sporting my pentacle.

Unfortunately, as of September 2002, the site seemed closed an in a gradual state of deterioration. It seems that the Saved and Unsaved have found other ways to spend their time.

Drat.

I'm going to miss my window

I'm on the final month of my current contract, and thus far, I've got nothing else lined up to take over. But I'm not too worried about it: that's the life of the contractor: Really Busy, Really Not, Really Busy.

I had originally planned to take some time off during the summer and visit Halifax, but I think I'm going to focus on spending some more time in Quebec city visiting the folks, the family, and the friends.

Not only do I get to spend some time with my parents and enjoy their lakeside cottage priviledges, it'll also give me some time to make Documentia business contacts in the area. If there's one place in Quebec that needs English writers, it's Quebec city.

Gotta keep hustling. Gotta keep bustling.

The Word Blues

I'm in MS-Word and I'm trying to insert a Section break (Next Page). I select Insert > Break, select Section type: Next Page, and click OK.

But instead of inserting the break I clearly asked for, I get a Section break (Continuous). I try repeatedly to insert what I want, and it consistently doesn't deliver. I then try to access the header/footer of the new section, but Word refuses to let me proceed beyond Section 3.

Argh. Stupid, frigging, piece of !@$#@#$%@#.

When I think that Billzebub Gatecifer wants us to pay a monthly/yearly subscription for this crappy piece of software, it just makes me want to spit, curse the unholy skies, or write an angry letter to my Member of Parliment.

Or could it be that Mercury is in Retrograde again? Figures.

Winding Down, Speeding Up

Things are winding down at the contract I'm working on right now and I'm on my final month. I'm bidding on a contract for another client, but I'll be hearing if I get that one any day now.

If I don't get it, I'll be pounding the pavement again looking for more work. The market is getting better, inch by inch, and more opportunities are cropping up every day.

The problem is that the competition is still quite fierce. There are still lots of lay-offies looking for the next table scrap and they're willing to take virtually any offer to get off the pogey.

It's an employer's market nowadays, making it tough to get the renumeration that I deserve at my current career level. A headhunter friend of mine showed me the contracting rates for the last two years (with an internationally known computer firm). The hourly rate has dropped by $15 from 2002 to 2003 for the same position.

That's partly because of the suffering market and that's partly because employers know that people are more desperate to work.

A few years ago, I would easily refuse to work for rates that did not meet my standards. Contracts abounded, so if I turned down one, another would turn up soon enough. But now I'm finding that I need to bite the bullet and accept lower rates in exchange for Money Now instead of Money Much Later.

Fortunately, there's still hope. According to my headhunter contact, the firms are realizing that they really are getting what they pay for when they gouge their service suppliers.

It's just a question of doing what we can, being creative, being persistent, and holding out until the market improves.

Staying positive, keeping an eye out. Who knows? If I keep with it, I may be able to achieve that Publishing House dream I had ever so long ago.

The ONE time I don't stay until the end...

Please tell me the guys at Dork Tower are kidding...



If not, that'll be me in the final frame. Argh.

Here there be spoilers

When I went to play Domaine a few weeks ago, the owner of the place stated right at the beginning "I have not seen The Matrix, so if anyone mentions anything about the Matrix in my presence, I will take all their life tags and kick their sorry ass off the site! No saving throws!"

I've been thinking about the Matrix movie and a few of the teaser secrets that were thrown in, so I would like to present my theories and put them up for discussion (the Pawprint whore that I am).

Therefore, don't read my Matrix Theories if you've not seen the movie, nor should you read the comments (if I get any).

You've been warned.

Odd Thoughts

The fact that necrophilia exists doesn't bother me as much as the fact that it happened so much that the medical community had to come up with a name for it. Why couldn't it have been that one isolated case back in 1947?

This is the kind of week I'm having. We need more sun, less rain.

Matrix Beloated

Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the new Matrix movie, but it didn't wow me like the first one did. Then again, how could it? There was no real mind-boggler this time (except for one that I'm theorizing about, but I won't spoil it here for you).

But I'm still chuckling over what Scott had to say about Ubisoft being the server host for the new Matrix Online game (May 15th, 2003). Good one Scott!

The Scammer Returns!

I haven't seen him yet, but an acquaintence of mine mentionned that my Favorite Scammer is back in town.

I haven't seen him for over a year now, so I had hoped that he either scammed the wrong person or straightened up and flew straight. So much for the positive hopeful outlook.

By an odd coincidence, my friend had discovered my blog and the Scammer post a day after she had been scammed. She thanked me for setting her straight, but too little, too late.

Apparently, Scamboy has now staked out his territory down on Crescent and Ste. Catherine street and is claiming to be stranded in Montreal from Ireland, that the airport lost his luggage, and could you please spare a bit of money so he could spend the night at the YMCA instead of on the street?

My friend completely fell for his story and gave him a few dollars. Her boyfriend was almost considering going to the bank to pull out more funds, so convincing is his performance.

I'm going to have to start bringing my digicam so I can get a photo.

Montreal has some professional panhandlers on these streets and there are a few interesting rumours going on about their lives.

The guy who begs down in front of the Pharmaprix apparently owns a bar in Laval. The One-Armed Man who squats in front of the Paramount theatre has been spotted several times with a cell phone. The White-Bearded guy with the bags on his feet who is often sleeping in front of Ogilvys is rumoured to own a pad in the Plateau.

With stories like these, and scammers like that, it makes it increasingly difficult not to become cynical and uncompassionate in this city. How are we supposed to want to help our fellow humans in need when you have miscreants like these feeding off our natural generousity?

Although it drives Drew crazy, I still feed expired meters whenever I have a spare quarter (giving the guy an extra 10 minutes). But even that act has been modified lately: if the car looks too expensive and too new, I'll feed the meter of the cheaper car with the rust.

I'm fighting it as best I can, but the Cynical City Blues are gnawing their way through.

Is blogging on the way out?

As is happening at Blork's blog and noticed by Blork, the visits to this blog have dropped considerably in the past month or so (by over a dozen). Are people discovering the outdoors or is the blog phase moving on?

Truth to tell, my recent blog entries have lost a certain pizzazz. I'm finding it more and more difficult to write meaningful entries.

Or maybe I'm focussing too much on the details. I don't think I'll be giving up on the blog just yet, but there's something niggling at me from the collective subconscious.

Or maybe the blog just needs a new coat of paint.