theMediaman.com

October and November at Livewire are usually psycho-busy, but this year has been really hectic. Yet more client-not-giving-content-until-last-minute type Hell, but I always come out on the other end proud of what I’ve accomplished… and sometimes post-humously blush as I remember the new swear words I had invented.

Well, the team is on their way to the show in the USA. I might get more calls for quick changes, but it’s usually pretty quiet at this point in the office. So, I’m catching up on a little R&D… okay, so I’ve been browsing through the Thawte Cryptochallenges.

The first place prize is a Sony digital camcorder, so I’m certainly going to try the 7th Challenge. I’ve already placed on the winners’ board for Lunchhour Challenges V and XV (and the only two I’ve even tried, frankly). The latter Challenge I did in 45 minutes while simultaneously putting out a fire for InvestorED.ca. Click here and here, then search the page for ‘theMediaman’. (hee hee… “Future Speilberg”)

This weekend was a good one. My Film Special Effect class had a “Field Trip”. We got our hands on one of the shops on campus for a Saturday. From there we learned about a lot of the basic to intermediate tools. We even got the chance to do some MIG welding. I really enjoyed it after the fact, but during the welding my heart kept racing. I couldn’t help but remember all of the pain from those 40 Watt solder irons that I’ve burned myself on over the years. It was sort of like weening a fear of snakes from garter snakes, then being asked to hug a python.

Still, I came home with two seperate chunks of scrap metal that USED to be four. We also rigged a wire and lifted a guy about six feet off the ground using the same aircraft wire that they use in movies. In typical “Shop Class” format, we also used a number of power tools to build a tool box - sort of like this style, but not as large in scale.

After the class, I TTC’d over to the new apartment of Simone’s sister, Sabrina. She’s taken a standard, small, plain-but-dirty-as-hell apartment and cleaned it up, organized everything, and made a tasty dinner to boot! Quite an accomplishment for only 4 weeks in that place.

Sunday was mostly about goofing off. However, I carved a pumpkin, bought candy, and handed it out for the first time in many, many years. I doubt I’ve done it more than once since I left for Waterloo in ‘95. It was a lot of fun, although I got greedy and was handing out three chocolate bars and/or Twizzlers packages at a time. I couldn’t help myself. Didn’t matter though, because Simone had made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies earlier in the day, so I was pleasantly sick to my stomach from eating too many of those ,^_^

I’m not sure what was the best costume, nor the cutest. There were a lot. The one that made me laugh the hardest was a little Japanese boy in a cute Godzilla-type outfit.

Final note before I sign off another entry - one of my favourite web toons has a History of the World Part 1 and Part 2 currently posted. mmmm… pie. Part 3 is coming, and should eventually be posted here.