Death and oblivion

This is a somewhat different entry than my norm, but the mood struck.

Last night Holly and I went to see a movie called Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. I'll cover it in a later entry. I was about a third of the way through the novel when I watched the movie. Over the last while, I've been thinking a lot about the story and somehow that thinking led me to thinking about death. That sparked a memory from when I was younger, when I'd sometimes lie in bed imagining what death was like. I always imagined it as a sort of total oblivion, with the exception that I was conscious enough to perceive being in the sheer and utter oblivion. That would be upsetting enough, but what made it worse was thinking about how much I'd miss certain things. (Now, remember I was a kid at the time and was in part growing up in front of the TV.) So it ended up that those certain things I'd miss happened to be shows like I Love Lucy and The A-Team. It wasn't all TV shows; I'd miss my family and friends, too, of course. But it was the TV shows that seemed to strike the most, because as a kid you take for granted that your family will just always be there. Yep, oblivion = no more TV.

That is all.

Claim update

At least the process has been fairly painless so far. I called in a Hit & Run claim to ICBC, then another one to my private insurance. After an assessment appointment this morning (in which I was in and out before my actual appointment time!), I have a written estimate for $764.59 to repair and repaint the bumper, replace the grill moulding, replace the license plate frame, etc. ICBC has a $750(!!) Hit & Run deductible. Luckily my private insurance 'only' has a $300 deductible, so I'm going to be out $300 because some punk decided to back into my car and leave like a bastard. Gotta love that... Anyway, I'm contemplating doing a tint job at the same time, since my car's going to be in the shop for a couple days anyway, according to the ICBC estimate.

The ICBC Claim Centre I went to is pretty funky. You drive up a ramp to a giant garage door, which opens automatically. You then pull in to the stop light and wait for reception. The inside of the building is relatively long and narrow with a really high ceiling. There's a straight through lane, with about ten slanted-parking-style stations where an adjuster will look at your car. Each one also has an interview room if more information is needed. When you're done, you pull out and head down the through lane to the exit, which is another giant garage door. Pull up, it opens, and off you go down the exit ramp.

That is all.

Scum of the Earth

I encountered the handiwork of one member of the Scum of the Earth last night. Some bastard backed up ONTO my front bumper and didn't leave any information. Now there are pretty bad scrapes (paint gone, polyurethane bumper exposed and scraped) across most of the top edge and surface of the bumper. The front surface was scuffed and scratched from the license plate being forced into it. The bumper's going to need repair and repainting. Also, the grill is scuffed and scratched and will need repair/replacement. F**king hit and runs! I'm about 90% certain about when it happened and which vehicle perpetrated it. The bastard vehicle was an older (late-80's, early 90's), light-colour SUV. Possibly an Isuzu Rodeo. It was parked in the surrounding neighbourhoods of Reynolds Secondary School late last night (~11pm).

I don't expect anything, but if anybody happens to know anything about the incident, please contact me. You can leave me a comment if you don't have my contact information or check my profile for my MSN contact. I just want it repaired. If The Right Thing can be done and the person that did it can come forward and cover the repair (insurance or otherwise), I'll be happy. As it stands now, I'm going to be paying for this out of pocket; whether it be for the whole job or for the insurance deductible. Grrr...

Anybody know a good bodyshop?

**Edit: When I said "an Isuzu Rodeo", I meant "an Isuzu Trooper". Wrong SUV from Isuzu.

That is all.

Tee hee!

Recent search hit: sara's boobs.

That is all.

Spring cometh

So spring officially begins at 5:09pm PDT today. And as Tennyson once wrote, "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."^† Or porn and sex, as the case may be. I was checking out my search keywords, as has become a hobby of mine, and March has turned up some interesting searches so far. I've had eight searches involving 'porn', one search for 'hooker hangouts vancouver', and one search for 'how much would you pay for a hooker'. Indeed. Surprisingly, I haven't had any Sara-related ('lesbian polyamourism') searches recently.

Other less sex-related searches include eleven that are related to my Canada Post shipping rant, two related to burnt electronics, and many swirlies. I also had one search for 'sleemans bear buy uk'. I can only assume they meant 'beer'. Otherwise, did you know that Sleeman's sold bears?

^†From the poem Locksley Hall.

That is all.

Dumbasses strike again

*** The following are opinions. Some of them may be considered 'harsh', but you have to remember that these are just opinions. Everybody has them and if you don't like it, well that's your opinion and you're welcome to it. ***

I saw an item on the news this morning about the dregs of society. Well, not quite. It was an item about a 'protest' (the reason for the quotes will be apparent later) in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside last night. Basically, a group of idiots, looking to be mostly in their mid-twenties as far as I could tell, rallied together in an 'anti-police protest'. Most of them had covered their faces. It wasn't so much a protest as an excuse to commit vandalism, property crime, and assault. As they rallied at the starting point, Global TV cameramen tried to get closer and get more information. They were told, in no uncertain terms, that they were "not welcome here". The mob (because that's really what it became) ended up marching the streets, knocking over newspaper and mail boxes, blocking off streets with these and other barricades, etc. At one point, they assaulted one of the cameramen, knocking his camera to the ground. Three arrests were made during the night. In one incident, some 'protesters' were screaming "police brutality". It's not police brutality when there's one officer holding a 'protester', trying to restrain him, while four other 'protesters' surround them, despite how many times you say it is. You can find more details from this article: Rally in Vancouver turns violent.

Now, these people are just dumbasses wasting precious air, food, and space; they serve no useful purpose in society at all. If you're going to rally and protest, at least have a real reason, not just to be public nuisances. I'd like to see them try that in certain other countries; they'd be imprisoned or dead before they left their original rally point... which in this case, may not be the worst thing. I'm not condoning them, or saying I would want to live in one, but dictatorships and military states do have some benefits. Of course, the negatives far outweigh these, but there are benefits. I'm going to leave it at that before I end up with a twenty page rant.


And now on a completely different and lighter note, some quotes from bash.org:
http://www.bash.org/?736694
http://www.bash.org/?736781
http://www.bash.org/?736794

That is all.

s/[Yy][Oo][Uu]/A very small regex/

Warning! Geekery ensues! You have been warned.

Regular Expressions (regexes) are so powerful and geeky. They have a certain beauty of their own that is hard to describe. I actually get a little excited after I've written a particularly complicated regex and see it work as intended. I'll sometimes run it twice just to watch it again.

I was reminded of a T-shirt that simply says 'Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script'. I think I could use one with an equivalent saying for regexes, but written as a regex. Something like: s/[Yy][Oo][Uu]/A very small regex/
That needs a little work, but the gist of it is there.

That is all.

Delivery, my ass!

Saturday morning, my DVD player arrived at the Richmond sortation plant and the tracking page was finally updated. Monday morning it was out for delivery. If I hadn't forgotten about Canada Post's annoying policy of attempting delivery for two days before sending it to the Post Office for pickup, I would have had it last night. But no, they have that double delivery attempt policy, which annoys the crap out of me. I'm never home during the day, as I, like many others, work during the day. So attempted deliveries always remain unfulfilled. As a result, I have to wait an extra day for the package to be (hopefully) available for pickup tonight. I suppose I could have my packages delivered to the Post Office for immediate pickup, as opposed to delivered to my door, which is an option. But then that requires special shipping instructions when I order things, which can introduce shipping delays, assuming the company even gives you that option.

Refreshing the tracking page, I can see that my DVD player is out for delivery again. I have my fingers crossed that they stick a delivery notice on my door and send my package to the Post Office at the end of the day.

That is all.

Tracking, my ass!

Is it just me, or is Canada Post's package tracking useless? On Friday, I ordered a portable DVD player, which was shipped on Monday from Mississauga, Ontario as an Expedited Parcel. According to shipping standards, that means there'll be an attempted delivery this coming Monday and I should have it in my hands Monday night.

On to the tracking rant. I've used Purolator many times before, and their tracking system is pretty nice. It's updated all the time; everytime the package is scanned. In the simple case of shipping from Vancouver (which I've done often), I'll have updates saying:
- shipping details have been entered into the computers,
- it's been received at the warehouse,
- it's being sorted,
- it's in transit to Victoria,
- it's at the depot,
- it's on the truck for delivery,
- delivery failed because I wasn't home,
- it's back at the depot,
- it's ready for pickup, and finally
- it's been picked up and here is the signature.
That sounds really verbose, and possibly overkill, but many of those messages are combined, as they happen almost simultaneously. All of this is updated nearly realtime, so there's only a few minutes delay between the actual action and the tracking page being updated. It's perfect for someone as impatient as I am when I'm waiting for a new toy (or toys) to play with.

Now compare that to Canada Post's tracking. The package was shipped Monday. Surprisingly, Monday night the tracking page was updated with two events:
- 'shipping details electronically submitted' at 16:26, and
- 'item accepted and entered into sortation plant' at 20:26.
Four hours apart and only one update, as both events showed up at the same time. It's now Thursday. Have there been any more updates? Of course not. If this was Purolator, I would have been notified that my package had made its way through their sorting, left the depot, and was in transit... possibily passing through one or more depots along the way. Grrrr. At the bottom of the page, they even have a note saying

Please note that this is the most up to date information available in our system. Our telephone agents have access to the same information presented here.

Not a very useful system.

Anyway, from previous experience, I'm going to guess that I will eventually get all my updates... AFTER I already have my package. Last time, once I had my package, I checked the tracking and it had something like half a dozen more events. Half of these events were related to attempted deliveries and me picking up the package. The other half were events dating back SEVERAL DAYS, updating that the package had left their depot, was in transit, had arrived at various depots, etc, etc. Sound familiar? Sound like stuff that would be useful for tracking? Sound like stuff Purolator updates you with all the time? Sound like stuff that's no longer relevant since I have my package? Exactly. Stupid Canada Post.

I want my DVD player.

That is all.