Jimtac.com

Too much buzz goin’round these days… Last week we had the iPad in all it’s unibody fanciness. I [of course] will be getting one, though wether I spring for the 3G or just stick to the WiFi-only version really comes down to how much it’ll actually cost here in the land of the Canuck, and if we can get the same sweet “pay-as-you-go” 3G service as was shown off for the stateside crowd. At the moment I’m looking at the 32GB WiFi only, but if we get the 3G I’ll be rockin’ the 16 (or 32) w/ 3G…

This week it’s Google Buzz!!! All I’ll say is… Remember Google Wave??? Didn’t think so. If Twitter and Facebook weren’t so entrenched in the current collective internet consciousness this would be a bigger thing. I could see this become a widely used thing if it is completely open, and becomes fully interoperable with pretty much everything else out there. Which would drive people to use Google buzz as a single place to update their other social status updates, and I hope that eventually you can use “gBuzz” to update different social networks by checking off the networks that you want each status to go to. By having each status be selectable would allow for updates to be limited to 140 characters if you select Twitter (or other SMS rooted service), and if Twitter is deselected then it limits the length to the next shortest text limit.

The next buzz (or rather buzz-kill) is that even though it’s nice to have a job to keep me busy, I do find that it’s even more frustrating that I work for a company that’s an ISP, a Telco, and a Cable TV provider, which means that there are so many things that I just can’t discuss in a public forum, lest I be accused from within or without the company that I am acting as a mouthpiece of the company, and speaking on their behalf. BTW… I would never speak on behalf of my company [unless they decided to pay me tons of cash to do it, of course]. Throughout the 5 1/2 years that I was with TELUS I never spoke about the company, it’s business or anything related to the industry both for ethical, and for job-security [a.k.a legal] reasons. Why does this particularly frustrate me now, when it was simply par for the course before? Well to be honest, it’s because I see a company that preaches it’s open-ness with customers, but in the same breath attempts to force as closed an environment for it’s employees as possible.

On an aside… I think I may start posting about one of my favorite [non-tech] subjects: management faux-pas. It’s something that I avoided while working at TELUS because I was a manager there… But now I’m not a manager, so I feel like it’s less preachy, and just a bit whiny… we’ll see.

Until then,

Tim

Who’d have imagined that when I got a “real job”, I’d have be too busy to do just about anything… Just ask blizzard about my WoW account. I’ve fallen into the trap of New Year’s resolutions myself, which include everything from not bothering a certain person by trying to talk to them, to the perennial ‘get more exercise’ one that we all have, and so far so good.

One of my more odd resolutions is to actually play my Xbox360 rather than just let it remain as a shelf for a thin layer of dust. Luckily for my resolution Assassin’s Creed 2 came out, and I’m a sucker for this type of stealth assassination game. AC2 fixed just about everything that was a problem in AC1, with the exception of when you start to free run Ezio decides to go “full-retard”. I understand that this time around Ubisoft wanted to give more control to the player, but as you speed up, you really need to have some better pathing assistance. Oh, and those stupid box carrying morons that wander around and intentionally get in your path, have yet again made the top of my list of things that suck the fun from the game. So far I’ve put in WAAAAY too much time into the game, but it’s still VERY fun.

Unfortunately for my resolution is that I’ve bruised all the bones in my left wrist, and severely sprained my right one in a pretty nasty fall while walking through the parking lot at work… Not cool… It’s been over a week, and I’m still in an incredible amount of pain, which is not being helped by my ignoring the doctors advice, and am only wearing a fancy wrist brace on my left wrist, and (so I can do things) nothing on my right one. All I can say is, thank goodness for modern anti-inflammatory and pain-killing drugs, they may not stop the sharp pangs of pain from shooting up my arms, but it sure helps for all the times in between them.

Here’s hoping that your new year is a good one.

Tim

So it’s been nearly 2 weeks since I was laid off from my job. 2 very long weeks indeed. The thing about it is that I have been living with constant threats of losing my job for almost 2 years, so in a sense this is a bit of a relief. At the same time it’s really only today, (while in the office of the outplacement that my [former] employer paid for), that this is really starting to sink in and become real. Last night when I faxed in my paperwork it felt kind if heavy, but nothing like today.

I’m lucky to have great friends and family, of which I have seen both today. They really help in this time of transition.

While getting a “golden parachute”, is nice and all, I’d still rather have the job. Even when I was shoved in a corner, and given menial tasks to do, it was the people that made it worthwhile, and they are the real reason that this is harder than any othertime that I’ve had to look for a new job. It’s going to be really hard not to just drop off the face of the earth like I do every other time this happens. There are one or two that I couldn’t bear to lose.

I have no Ill will towards the new “administration” in the department. They’re just doing their job, and hey I’ve been there myself. Still it does kind of sting a bit.

What does this all mean??? Well for starters, it means more time on that time suck of a game: World of Warcraft, and more time spent with friends.. You know having a life outside work, something that has been a foriegn concept to me for the last five and a half years.

So here’s to bigger and better things, and to greener pastures.