Harry Potter is naked

I heard about this a while ago, but didn't think very much of it, as frankly, I don't think Daniel Radcliffe is much of an actor. Plus, I won't be in London to see it when it's in production, so why pay attention to something that I won't get to see.

That is until they released some pictures. Apparently, he's actually naked in most of the play. I thought of posting one of the nudie pictures, but that would be too frightening. However, you can see more here.

For those who have your mind in the gutter, no, you don't get to see his boy bits, but it's pretty obvious that he's nekkid. I'm certain that once this play starts, there will be nekkid pictures of Daniel Radcliffe all over the internet, boy bits and all.

The play also stars Richard Griffths, who plays Harry Potter's Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter films.

Evil Telus sells porn

Click!

Jane Eyre - Part 2

Just a reminder for those of you who are in the US and Canada, the second part of Jane Eyre is playing tomorrow night on PBS. This part's really steamy! Don't miss it!

(I love the pic, it's Jane Eyre with an attitude!)

Apparently, I'm a prostitute...

Someone sent me this, and even though it's meant to be humourous, there's more truth in it than i care to admit:

The truth about working in the IT industry

1. We work weird (night) shifts...
Just like prostitutes.

2. They pay you to make the client happy...
Just like a prostitute.

3. The client pays a lot of money, but your employer keeps almost every penny...
Just like a prostitute.

4. You are rewarded for fulfilling the client's dreams...
Just like a prostitute.

5. Your friends fall apart and you end up hanging out with people in the same profession as you...
Just like a prostitute.

6. When you have to meet the client you always have to be perfectly groomed...
Just like a prostitute.

7. But when you go back home it seems like you are coming back from hell...
Just like a prostitute.

8. The client always wants to pay less but expects incredible things from you...
Just like a prostitute.

9. When people ask you about your job, you have difficulties to explain it...
Just like a prostitute.

10. Everyday when you wake up, you say: "I'm not going to spent the rest of my life doing this."
Just like a prostitute ........

Sundry

This week has been very atypical for me. Here's a summary:

Work:

• Work drama has increased. Thank goodness the work drama isn't internal to the group, it's external, but we end up cleaning up their messes.
  
• I have two type of projects now: 1) Legitimate projects and 2) Stupid people's projects. Stupid people's projects are projects that we had to take on due to someone else's stupidity. But what this does is it pushes back the legitimate projects' timelines even more. And the stupid people's projects are multiplying faster than rabbits (see previous point)
  
• My team (me, my co-worker and our co-op student) wrote out a list of projects we had on the go or saw was going to happen in the foreseeable future. It was very, very long. I also added another item to said co-worker's list just before I left work yesterday. Bawhahahahah!
• I got raked over the coals by a PI (primary investigator) of a very large and important research centre. Well, the PI thinks that her research is very important (and it is, but no more important than anyone else's), and man, let me tell you it was a deer-looking-in-the-headlights moment. Afterwards, I was vastly amused by the whole thing, but she really asked me some pointed questions that I couldn't answer, or answer well. My other colleague, who was in the room with me and who is the one normally deals with her, said I did okay on my first try. I could tell at one point he was trying to help me out, but by then, I knew I was already being sucked in to accommodate her. And I was warned that she would do it to me too. Dammit.
  
• I got pulled into two ad-hoc meetings which means that 1) I won't get my normal job done (so much for time management!) and 2) they were both at the end of the day, and I had to be there, which in turn extended my work day and increased my stress level.
  

Me in general:

• I'm more stressed because of work, and I can't look forward to going home and decompress as there is the homework stress waiting for me at home
• I was sick with a slight cold, so I couldn't go to the gym. Hence, I feel like a fat blob right now, and it certainly didn't help my stress level any.
• I'm still going to see my chiropractor twice a week, so that also disrupts the normal patter of things. Plus I'm feeling guilty for cutting work so much and I have to work that around gym time and homework time

Some positive things:

• Our team at work is really getting overloaded (I'm not the only one), so my director's looking to hire someone temporarily to alleviate that load. Don't know if that will actually happen, but at least it's acknowledged.
• My manager has come up with a brilliant plan to hire another person to do a specific role, which will take some more pressure off me and my co-worker and let us do our jobs properly, whatever our jobs are (they need redefining). Also don't know if that will actually happen either.
• Work drama, even after almost two years, still seems to amuse me, so I at least don't hate my job.
  
• My cold is gone.
• I'm going to soak in a hot bath right now and forget about my life for about 5 mins.

Sigh

KOOKY: Sigh...

So my indeterminant months of hell has now spread to my colleague (well the one whom I work closest with anyways). It looks like we're going to have to re-write our job descriptions to match more what we actually do. I just hope this ends up reclassifying me to a higher position (I know, dream on!).

At least my manager is beginning to realize that we need to hire a third person for the team, something that I've recognized since day one, but was unable to qualify how or why. Whether or not it actually happens is another story, but a manager that's at least trying to make things better for us is already pretty good in my books. Especially with the way things work around here.

Now I'm trying to figure out what path I want my career to take. So many things to think about. So many other-people's-messes we have to fix.

Sigh.

I've been tagged!

There is a meme that's been going around the blogs, and I've been tagged twice, once by Anne, and once by Lexy.

The rules:
Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 5 facts about yourself. Then choose 5 people you want to tag and list their names. Then leave a comment on their blog letting them know they’ve been tagged.

So since I've been tagged twice, does that mean I have to do twice as much? =P

Anyways, here we go:

1. I can hyper-extend my arms at the elbows the wrong direction to the point where it looks like my arms are broken.
2. I'm a fanfiction junkie.
3. I can't stand the smell of coffee (feel for hubby who used to be an avid evil coffee drinker!)
4. I have an inherited genetic blood condition called thalassaemia. About the only thing it does is it makes me feel sleepy/tired all the time, and I don't have the greatest circulation.
   
5. I'm a sucker for British Costume Drama period pieces. Jane Austen is the obvious favourite, but I love others. Hubby has yet to sit through any one show/film straight through without falling asleep.

My five friends that I'm tagging (okay, it's only 3):
Moving Life Forward
Random Synapses
What's the "G" stand for?

Getting a promotion

I found this article a little while ago. I'm wondering who out there is a supervisor/manager type could respond to this. Is what Frank says true?

How about those in the work force? Have you tried any of the suggestions before?

I know that the context is for an IT employee, but I feel that the general idea could be extended to most fields.

Any and all comments welcomed (just please be polite).

KOOKY: Yikes!

So in 24 hours, my fortnight of hell has now become an indeterminant months of hell.

I may have to clean up someone else's mess. Bah.

Plus, I have a few other projects looming on the horizon that I have no idea how long it will take.

Plus, I have to save people from their own stupidity.

I hate to be vague, but any more details will get me fired! Wish me luck!

KOOKY: Fortnight of Hell

I'm going to be on and off of here the next couple of weeks, so you may or may not see me blog for a bit. Work's going to be hectic for a while, and I actually may not have time to do homework or go to the gym. I'm contemplating taking a couple days off after the hell period to actually get caught up with homework. *Sigh*. Worse is that I've done this before (take time off to do homework that is).

Plus, I'm still fighting my cold, so it's just not going to be a good time for me.

In any case, here's a clip from a Voyager episode, call "The Year of Hell". It's one of my favourite episodes. Hubby particularly likes this one, as he always points out, Janeway has this habit of wanting to self-destruct Voyager, only this time she does. Ha.

Excess Weight and Joints

I don't know how I got on Nutrition House's spam list, but I though this article was pretty interesting. It's about how much more pressure we put on our joints by just increasing our body weight.

They also give good preventative measures to avoid joint disease such as arthritis. One thing that I want to point out to my readers is that these things start to degrade earlier in life that you would expect, but it's only later on in life that you notice any symptoms, so it's better to establish preventative measures now to decrease the probability of getting it later on in life.

Even though I'm still relatively young (mid-30s), and I exercise regularly and try to eat healthy, I am starting to feel my age. My thing this year is to try to correct my physical ailments, ie: my neck, shoulder and upper back pains, then my flat feet. Hopefully this will help slow the aging process down.

Sunday mash-up

Today I stayed home instead of going to church. I have a slight cold that I've been fighting since Thursday, but I rarely get sick, so this is really dragging me down.

I've also pretty much ditched doing homework this weekend as I'm feeling so out of it, yet I managed to do laundry, wash dishes, and do my weekly balancing of books. I also hung out with my couples group last night where we ate way too many nachos and discussed charitable giving (the topic for the evening).

Later today will be a trip to the new downtown Costco so my mum can get her snow tires on her car. Irony is that I really don't think we're going to get any more snow. Typically, snow comes (if it comes) in the first part of January. The last snow dump we had a few days ago have all but disappeared, to be replaced by rain and warmer temperatures. However, I have a strange premonition that I will eat my words at some point, we've had such wacky weather so far.

The not doing homework thing over a weekend is not good for me as it ends up putting me further back behind schedule. But that's a rant for another day.

For those who are in the US and Canada, the 2006 BBC version of Jane Eyre is finally airing on PBS tonight! Yay! Okay, I know I've seen it already (thanks to the internet and evil, illegal downloading), but I'm still excited, can't wait to actually watch the thing on a 50" TV instead of bent over my work laptop.

Pictured above is Toby Stephens (my current Brit actor crush) as Mr. Rochester, best known for playing Gustav Graves in the Bond flick, Die Another Day, and Ruth Wilson as Jane Eyre. Miss Wilson is a relative newbie, but the two are amazing on the screen. I quite enjoyed this adaptation, the actors did a terrific job, and the visuals are quite stunning. One word of warning for those who are book purists, the adaptation does stray a little away from the book, especially in Part 3, which airs next week. But take it for what it is: an adaptation (and not a literal translation of the book).

Okay, I hear hubby just come back from the grocery store and he bought me drugs! Yay!

Comfort food

Chocolate ice cream always makes the world seem a bit better after you eat it. Mine was of the Bryer's freezer-burnt variety, but I certainly felt less depressed about my day. Hopefully this feeling will last through the weekend.

Wet Snow

One of the things that people who live outside of Vancouver think is that it hardly ever snows in the wintertime in Vancouver. On the whole, this is true. I remember winters where it never snowed. I also remember winters where we got two feet of snow.

This picture was taken while I was driving to work. It's the south-west corner of Queen Elizabeth Park. I'm sitting on 29th and Cambie, waiting for the light to change when I took the picture. It's about 7.45 am (and if I've gotten to this corner at this time of the day, I'm already running late!) You can't really tell, but it's snowing. And it's snowing my favourite snow: wet snow.

Wet snow is the worse because it ends up being a sloshy mess as soon as it hits the ground, but it's still cohesive enough to accumulate. And it's bloody heavy to shovel. Dry snow is much easer to shovel, and it makes for nice powdery snow. More often than not, we get wet snow.

The worse part is that it will dip just below zero tonight, so the wet snow now becomes ice. I will be driving on ice tomorrow. Hopefully they will salt. Then it will warm up to just above zero and everything will melt slightly. Then it will freeze again.

Thaw and freeze. Thaw and freeze. It's a vicious cycle. Thank goodness it's going to rain the rest of the week, and get rid of all this snow. This is typical Vancouver winter weather.

Usually by the end of January/beginning of February, it starts warming up slightly, and yes, I do see some daffodils poking up. I can't wait for this stupid weather to be over.

Human Sling Shot

Eeeek! Looks like fun though.

LG KE850

Apparently LG is coming out with a touch screen phone and it looks very similar to Apple's version. There unfortunately isn't any specs on the phone, so I don't know if has the same features as the iPhone.

I will say something that LG has that Apple doesn't have: a bigger market share. This phone will probably do better overseas than Apple's phone. I'm still not convinced that a touch screen phone will be very usable, but another bonus is that it's made by someone that already knows how to make cellphones. Experience must count for something.

And by the way, there have been rumors that Nokia is prototyping their own touch screen phone, called the Aeon. So it will be interesting to see what the playing field will look like a year from now. There apparently is suppose to be a Prada version of the LG phone coming out this April.

Check out the video (sorry, it's in French, but at least it demos what it's capable of. Anyone want to translate?).

Exercise with the Wii

If you didn't believe me before that one of the benefits of owning a Wii is actually losing weight, here's proof. This guy did an experiment where by he played Wii Sports for 30 minutes a day for six weeks, did nothing else outside of his regular routine, and lost 9 pounds! And to boot, he did this over the Christmas holidays. He even admitted to eating and drinking more than normal, cause well, that's what you do over Christmas. I'm actually quite impress that he tried to as scientific as possible to prove a point.

Now as impressive as this is, the real point here is that you must exercise to maintain a healthy weight. This man was by no means fat, and I wouldn't even have called him overweight in his "before" pictures. Also, to help lose weight, you need to start on a program and keep on it. We live in an instant gratification world, but losing weight takes time and dedication.

Travel insurance

This is a true story, and it happened to someone on Hitched. Click here for the story.

The moral is, never, never, NEVER leave the country without proper insurance, even if it's just a day trip down to the US. I've heard enough horror stories to know that you just don't do something that foolish.

Thinking that nothing will happen to you is reckless. The moment you set one toenail outside of the country, anything can happen to you. And without proper insurance, the thousands of dollars of medical bills, quite frankly, is the least of your worries.

KOOKY: Performance Review

Today is a good day. Not only did I get paid, but I had my performance review. My review was very favorable, but more importantly, I got a RAISE! And not just any ol' raise but a huge one!

Now I'm not going to try to explain the contract that our association has with UBC, and how people get salary increases, but I know that getting a 3% raise was already pretty good (by the way, I got more than that, but I won't say how much more as at least a couple of my colleagues read this blog); I certainly wasn't expecting to get that much. If you can decipher our salary grid and explain to me (yet again) how all this works, I still won't get it. The bottom line is that even if my manager wanted to give me gobs of money, he couldn't as it just doesn't work that way; he simply doesn't get the money from HR to do so.

In addition to the complex nature of the salaries, my manager and director couldn't even tell me what my new salary level would be because, they simply just don't know. The University and probably HR are still trying to figure out exactly how everything is suppose to work from the grievance settlement from last month, so our salary grid's suppose to shift, and I may get even more money. Maybe. It depends largely on where I sit on the scale, but on other thing too.

See, complicated.

My director did warn me that I may or may not (probably somewhat unlikely) see that sort of increase again, unless I move up the pay scale by getting a promotion or something similar. Again, the system doesn't work in favour of giving people large increases. But that's okay. It was already more than I had expected, so I'm okay with that.

When in an accident...

Today at lunch, one of the people I was sitting with works for the provincial automobile insurance corporation as an adjuster. In other words, he's the one processing the accident claim.

A good part of his job requires that he talk to the parties in the accident to ascertain what has happened. I'm certain he's heard about every cock-and-bull story about 100 times over as he's been doing this for many years. He's certainly picked up a knack for picking out people who are trying to lie their way out of a at-fault accident.

So while we were having lunch, I got some really good tips as to what to do when you're involved in an accident. And he actually recommended that you do them in this order:

1. Find a witness and get his/her name and phone number right away. Witnesses don't need to be around for the rest of the time, and you can certainly put them in contact with the insurance company later on. (However, a witness isn't necessary if you're at fault; you certainly don't need help digging your hole, ha).
2. Write down the other person(s) license plates. A quick way is to take pictures with a digital camera or a cell phone camera. This is a good idea especially if the police is involved. You will need this information as the insurance company typically don't get the police report, and to request one will take a long time. The insurance company can track the other person down much faster if you have a least a license plate number.
3. Make sure you write down the important information from the other people, and don't let someone write their information and give it to you. That person may give you bogus information. My friend has seen this happen to people, and they are usually out of luck if this happens.