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095 - A Tale of Two Buses

There's this one space near my house where I can hear if a bus is coming, but I can't see it. And when I hear a bus, I better be running, because to make it to the bus stop, I need to cross a fairly busy road.

Yesterday, I was in just that predicament. And I ran. World record running. I could have bested a Jamaican sprinter. Granted, that sprinter is probably 73, had one too many rum and cokes, and is missing a toe due to an unfortunate fishing incident... but still, pretty fast. And the bus stopped! Good thing there is someone getting on at that stop, embarking on an adventure that very well might have changed his life.

I zip across one side of the northbound lanes, which thanks to a light that just changed a couple hundred metres away, has zero traffic. As I reach the island, the southbound traffic in both lanes actually stop for me just so that I can make it to the bus. If Ottawa drivers get a bad rap, certainly the rap-givers never saw that sight!

Just as I run right behind the bus and start to head for the door, I hear that all familiar engine churn. "he can't be serious!" Slowly, but just fast enough, he takes off. Those cars that stopped for me star honking to no avail. Seconds later, the bus, now in the far turning lane, stops at the red light - the one that allowed me to cross the street in the first place, where he waits over a minute before he can turn.

Waiting 4 seconds for me to board would have made no difference. Especially when he was already three minutes early.

If that wasn't enough, the bus I used to get home from work was eight minutes late arriving at the stop, the one just after the start of a route. Usually at night, the driver will leave a few minutes late just because there are few stops made, but not eight minutes.

OC Transpo claims that their "on time" percentage, the number of buses that are not early, but no more than five minutes late, is a whopping 58%. Their goal is to have 90% on time service. I'm not sure about the frequent buses I used to get between school and work, but certainly I would consider today to be a poor day for bus service. They really need to start using time points use synchronized onbaord clocks, set up more time points, and watch mirrors for people who are running! Especially if that same mysterious "they" want to justify the second (and a whopping one at that) fare increase in a year, both off the heels of the cold, cold winter '09 bus strike. Yep, I'm still displeased about that one.

Of course, I've had wonderful experiences. There are some remarkable drivers out there that go out of their way to just be nice to us poor public traniters... some even on those routes that I use all the time. I just didn't get them yesterday. Those are the drivers that should be coaching everyone else.

And on a completely unrelated note, here's why you don't give kids markers when they ask for them in your store (that doesn't sell markers). Especially not permanent ones:



No, I didn't give the marker.

094 - BenjaminWood.Net Newly Updated!

In between all the pain of recovering, drastically rearranged sleep schedule, and trying to stay comfortable, I have been able to update my website (www.benjaminwood.net). I had the idea over a year ago, what took so long was finding a reasonable design for the portfolio, as well as filling that portfolio.

It's become very tricky to make a personal website these days. Thanks to all the features of Youtube, Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook - and to a lesser extent delicious, reddit, linkedin, and dozens of other sites - there isn't a whole lot to do yourself. I guess, the ultimate would be to combine all these social networks into a coherent, useful site. But I'm sure such a feature already exists.

Part of this design was to change around this blog so that it fits better with the site as a whole. I did what I could, but I'm afraid any more changed would cause the template to explode!

So, I'll see what I can end up adding to the site. I imagine, however, that 99% of additions will be though the blog, twitter, and Flickr. I did make it easy to change the pictures throughout, so hopefully I'll change them and you'll be surprised!

093 - Revovery leads to... being productive?

I attended one class this week - the first class of the semester, as it turned out. And it was a busy one. It's almost overwhelming how much work there will be to do before April rolls around. But once it does, the question becomes, what to do then? Fortunately, I have well over a hundred days to figure that one out.

I did make a logo, though




I had surgery on Tuesday. Talk about a strange experience... One minute you're playing with the heart rate monitor in the operating room, trying to lower your heart-rate, the next a man walks in and plays with the IV unit... and the next you're struggling to make out one of any of the several clocks that adorn the recovery room. And your throat is beyond dry. And it hurts to move.

Then when you make it home, it's as if very little has even happened. "the pain's not too bad," you say, "it's been worse before!" And then you wake up the next day.

Pain killers have been a good friend ever since. But not one with whom I can laugh. That hurts too much.

And without the ability to do much, have I been watching movies or playing games? NO! I don't know where the time has gone, but I did make a logo!



And I gave CFFN Radio a bit of a new polish. The site needed it, and I don't know that I'm completely satisfied with it... but the organization's main website needs to be reworked. So there's opportunity there as well.

So to everyone who has enquired about my condition, I'm doing well. In some pain, and probably not yet ready to go out, even to check the mail... but I'm taking the opportunity to do a bunch of little things on my "to do" list. Like make logos.

092 - OC Transpo Strike Started a Year Ago

So the OC Transpo strike started a year ago. And looking back at it all, I still have these annoyed feelings about the fact that it happened, and they didn't really get anywhere, since the reason for it ending was originally on the table as a way to prevent it. And lately, I've been getting more and more annoyed with the service. I actually called and made a complaint about an issue, but that doesn't go far enough. Maybe I'll write them a letter old-person-style, stamps and all.

That first day of the strike wasn't unlike today - blizzardy. It felt like the first true day of winter - just in time for the Christmas season too! And only 9 more days until I'm done school for the year. Then a bit longer.

Then what? I do have some ideas, some of which (unfortunately) involve even more school. We'll see what grows to fruition.

Speaking of school, here's a sequence I worked on with my teammates for one of our final projects:

Dave, our model, is part of an ad campaign for Gillette's line of hair care products. We got a picture of him holding the bottle. While this was a start, it lacked what experts call "oomph". To fix this, I took a close-up picture of his hand holding the bottle, and with some Photoshop magic, made his picture come to life. Maybe I'll showcase all the ads next time.

And yes, I had a Wall-E cake for my birthday.

091 - The Green Bin Arrives!

What's that truck?



Oh, it's making deliveries!



Army of green bins, ready to Disembark!



Green Bin Get!

This is a story about how my garbage habbits got flip-turned upside down...

Actually, I never did watch Fresh Prince a whole lot, though everyone I knew did.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for me, but I think I'm passed the worst. Three days ago, I would have disagreed with that, and had started getting myself mentally ready to hear news of a need for surgery. Now, however, I'm thinking I can bypass such a procedure. Hopefully. I'll have to wait until Monday to go and find out for sure.

At the height of this ordeal, Halloween, I spent it in a half-inspired Mario costume, thanks to Club Nintendo's gift of an authentic-like Mario hat.

And a slight remix of said costume...

090 - OC Transpo gives me a headache

The conference room at NewCap radio, home of Hot899 and LiVE885, have very comfy chairs.I was there yesterday with my fellow group work team for a school project. It was a wonderful experience... I secretly wanted to see the actual offices and recording areas, though, possibly to make funny faces at John Moran while he's on the air. Or, you know, not.

I finally backed up my Disney photos to a dvd, so that I could finally delete them off my memory cards. I didn't want to risk losing them to technological snafus, even thought they are on two different hard drives. I did have a hard drive die on me, after all. But I bet losing all those pictures would give me a great reason to head back! Supposedly, Halloween is pretty fun 'round those parts, and then the next day, like magic, it's Christmas.

The other pictures, above, are various ones from the summer. Yes, I finally had breakfast at Cora's! It was quite delicious, and so big that it was worth my while to take the rest home.

Now I'm craving pancakes.

I read three OC Transpo-related articles today: One, Two, Three. I can't believe that deep into all these transit plans (that I personally think are taking far too long), the city never really got any formal approval from the NCC to expand on their land, especially given that the next leg of the transitway to be built kinda needs it. And the new bit that just opened to help save time and traffic actually uses up more time? Makes sense to me! And there won't be a Quickie at the new Baseline station. Silliness.

This city is so ineffective at getting anything done it scare me. Maybe everyone should go and learn how to make a plan and do research. I guess they should be in my classes!

089 - It's like walking into your bedroom only someone else's stuff is there. And they repainted.

Yesterday, I was at the mall when I was greeted by Mickey Mouse! I thought it was nice that Mickey was around the mall, especially since the store that replaced Disney had opened the day before. And that escalator that would take me there! It has been broken for a long time now. Just like The Bay with its broken door that doesn't open, Bayshore is kinda slow at fixing things. And then I eventually made it up and saw the new, open-for-business Ricki's. Walking in, I felt like it was familiar, but not. The pillars, now plain white, the ceiling, now way low, the wall bays now squarely recessed into space-maximizing walls... and a huge company logo where the projected screen once displayed Hannah Montana music videos and The Little mermaid singalongs. I'll have to go in and tell them to enjoy the scent of Subway bread and horrible fat vat smell when KFC cleans out their reserves. Oh, and that the place is haunted.

And pictured above is a guy who was rapping beside me.

088 - TV in 10 syllables

School + work + work is starting to get very crazy in those proportions. School + work + work + new tv season... I don't know how I'm still alive! I wonder if I can summarize what I think of the following shows in 10 syllables:

Heroes
Bryan Fuller put great things in motion.

How I Met Your Mother
Soft start to a funny season, I hope.

Castle
Less murder, more Beckett... ok for now.

Bored to Death
Have to see more to see where it will go.

Community
Strong pilot, funny could live, or could die.

Big Bang Theory
Oh no they didn't! Plus Star Trek spoilers!

Survivor
Season 19 started off pretty great.

I probably won't watch survivor anymore though because it gets boring after 2 eps. I'll need to watch Dollhouse everntually, too. Most of these shows I might have to just watch all at once in the winter, though, because school is going to be tonnns of work.

The Source, in my opinion, has the best mobile internet stick deal. You get the stick for $0 on a 1-year term. I wouldn't get a 2-year term (where it is everywhere else)... so I got it! We'll see how much I get to use it, probably lots because of all the downtime I seem to have when I'm going to work, or just after when I need to wait for the bus. Suddenly, the netbook just got a bit more valuable. However, The Source people told me they had the 21mbps stuck when the one I got was only 7.2mbps. Meanies.

084 - Netbooks and fanboys

I've had one problem since my first laptop died on me a number of months ago - my mom would have to use my newer laptop when she would want to access the internet. To help remedy this issue, I bought a new computer! I use the term "computer" lightly - I bought a netbook. It's small, it's loaded with Windows XP, and my left shift key is half the size it should be... \when \i type, \i keep not hitting it. However, the increased portability that I'll get from this 10" device will more than likely make up for the need to adapt to a new keyboard. Hopefully.

I've spent the last few days trying to get over some sort of cold. Helping me to do so is Heroes Season 3. I bought the dvd set this week, hoping to refresh my mind on what's happened in the last year. I found the show somewhat annoying to watch it week by week, but viewing a few episodes at a time is much more fulfilling. In re-watching, I can see why some had been complaining about the show, but in the best spirit of many fans of various things, I think their idea of what the show should be is so high that any practical reality for the show seems to disappoint. All kinds of media outlets have had "what Heroes should be/do to be awesome again" articles (ahem 1, 2) prove my point. And it's not limited to our primetime mutants. Take a look at Joseph Mallozzi's blog comments to see fans up in arms over a show that won't even air for another month, or any Nintendo community that has become pretty much anti-Nintendo.

J.J. Abrams and co. have a huge task ahead of them for the next Star Trek movie. That's all I gotta say.

Oh, and Disney is buying Marvel. Crazy ducks. There's even more purists (on either side) who can't sleep at the thought of Snow White befriending Wolverine. All I know is that I have a cool Wall-E lunch bag and it wouldn't hurt Disney to learn how to attract a male audience. Maybe then Pixar won't have to be the boy's section all by itself.