MVM: One Day Late

It’s been ages since I made a Music Video Monday post, and it’s mostly been because I can’t remember to do it. I probably should have made my feature a Wednesday thing, but Music Video Wednesday just lacks the alliteration that MVM has.

Anyway, while listening to 80s radio on the computer last night, a song played that I hadn’t heard in years. It’s the theme from Electric Dreams, a movie from 1984 that (as a kid) I probably saw half a dozen times. It’s a preposterous story about a love triangle involving a nerd, a computer, and Princess Irulan Virginia Madsen. Electric Dreams was last released in North America on laserdisc - its only DVD release was in the UK - so clearly it’s not even at a cult classic level of reverence among movie watchers. Normally I won’t condone downloading movies, but it’s really the only way to watch it, unless you stumble across a VHS copy, and even then I doubt the condition of the tape would render it watchable. With a 5/10 rating on IMDB, perhaps it’s unwatchable for other reasons too.

So here is the music video for Together in Electric Dreams, with lyrics by Phil Oakley and music by 80s synth superstar Georgio Moroder.

That’s no Lady, That’s my Wife!

I’d like to introduce my ladyfriend’s blog to all four of you - she’s decided to be internet cool circa 2003 and has started up her own blog. This can only lead to one thing: she and I will start blogging about each other’s blog, making both of them kind of pointless. Except my blog has been pointless from the start. So there!

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum

Eleven months ago I started working at Vision Critical, on a six month contract. When that expired, I got another six month extension. As the end of that contract came near (meaning now, in case you’re having trouble following along at home) I started to dust off the ol’ portfolio, update the ol’ resume, and start up the ol’ networking in order to land myself a new gig. Well, this past Friday I was quite suddenly given permanent full-time employment status at VC, given a raise, and some company share options, effective immediately. Obviously the look-for-work duties have stopped.

I’ve come to realize a couple of things over the last two or three weeks. First, had my job at VC ended and I’d moved to something else, that would have put me at four different companies in the last four years; not really a career I can be proud of. Related to that is the realization that I should find more reasons to enjoy the job I’ve got rather than looking for greener grass on the other side of the fence, because that attitude is probably why I quit two of the last three jobs I’ve had. And almost every time, the grass was only green for about half a year before I started thinking it would be different somewhere else. History has shown me that, for the most part, the things that irk me about my line of work are not different anywhere else. I’ll still complain about outside influence and subjective opinion no matter where I am, because it’s inherent in graphic design. So essentially I’ve told myself to buck up and start looking for positives in my current situation rather than daydreaming about what’s essentially the Holy Grail (psst - it doesn’t exist). Besides, the job I have now is actually pretty decent compared to some of the previous places.

History’s also taught me that employment can’t be taken for granted either, though, so having an up to date resume and portfolio is still a good idea.

Speaking of history, work, and the Holy Grail, please enjoy this clip of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Party’s Over

The Olympics are gone. I’ll admit I got caught up in the hooplah for quite a while - it was basically impossible not to, especially when working downtown next to a major venue. Like Captain Kirk said in his final moments: it was fun.

So now what? Back to normal I guess. People will harp on about the lasting impression that Vancouver made around the world, but that harping is going to come mostly from people in Vancouver. Will people in Berlin, Seoul, Whitchita, Sao Paulo, or Perth be drawn to Vancouver any more now? Who knows. No one can guess at what the legacy of the Olympics will be, but this province and city blew its wad on the only big global event left, now that world expositions are so passé. So maybe it’ll be a boon, or a boondoggle. Can Whistler/Blackcomb get any more world-class skiing? Can the city sell any more million-dollar homes to the Chinese? Are people going to visit hoping to see Michael J. Fox greet them in a forest? Maybe a little.

What will I miss the most? The mascots.

A Long Time Ago, We Used to be Friends

I’m on Facebook but use it for hardly anything useful. I generally spend my time reading other people’s status updates, trying to come up with smartass comments for photos, and sometimes setting up social gatherings. On an average day I probably spend 5 minutes on Facebook.

Almost every one of my Facebook Friends has between 100 and 300 other Friends - it’s rare I see anyone with less than 100. It’s easy to amass Facebook Friends, since you end up with requests from people you went to high school with, or you worked with, or you once sat next to on a bus five years ago. I’ve made a mandate of keeping my list to under 100, though, because I’m a stone cold jerk.

You see, I don’t like having Facebook Friends that I haven’t talked to in a decade and who, until the advent of Facebook, I really didn’t care about. I’ll admit when I first signed up for Facebook, I went on a crusade to add all the hot girls from high school, just to see if they were still hot. But since then I’ve deleted all of them, and probably delete a good eight or ten people every six months. This is probably not proper Facebook Friendship etiquette, but seriously, I don’t want these near-strangers peeping in on my life, however unexciting it is, and I don’t really wonder what they’re up to (looking up ‘hotties’ is purely superficial). Sometimes I’m curious, sure, but I do equate Facebook Friendship with at least a tiny shred of real friendship. I think I’ve got a small but good bunch of friends, and most of the people on my Friend List are ones that I genuinely like, and like hanging out with, ‘in real life’.

Olympic Day

This past Thursday I booked a vacation day to head downtown with my ladyfriend and my cousin. The plan was to check out the various sponsor and national ‘houses’ (pavilions). We got into town just before noon, and entered the German Fan Fest tent right away, where my cousin and I enjoyed some bratwurst and sauerkraut. Aside from some $9 beer, that’s really all there was in this tent, and it would become a common theme for the rest of the day.

We walked to see the five-flamed cauldron, the day after organizers fixed the fence to give people at least a small gap to put their cameras through. From there, we headed up Granville Street to the library and LiveCity Downtown, home of the Made-by-Americans Canada House. The lineup here was about 40 minutes, and Canada House was pretty sad. We got to hold the olympic torch, but the rest of the tent was just interactive computer screens. The beer gardens were at least ‘bumpin’ as the kids say, and I can see that one could just park one’s ass there and down $7 beers while cheering on the athletes on the big screen TVs. But for a quick visit, the lineup really was not worthwhile.

After a break for food, we moved on to LiveCity Yaletown: a 10  minute lineup to get in, followed by two separate lineups of an hour each to the Coca-Cola and Panasonic sponsor houses, with no seating to be found anywhere (we sat on the floor of the Panasonic house for 2 minutes before being told we ‘weren’t allowed’ to sit). If we weren’t dead tired, Yaletown would have been worth staying at for the free nightly concerts/laser shows/fireworks, but we were dead tired and weren’t keen on standing around for another 2 hours before the good stuff started.

And, on a related note, on Friday a colleague and I snuck in to the Bell Ice Cube, another sponsor house, conveniently located just next to the building where we work. It’s another spot that featured hour-long lineups. Inside? A bunch of TVs, some free Bell crap, and a Bell phone store located in the back. I felt sorry for the people lined up.

So in all, downtown Vancouver right now is a fun place to be - if one avoid lineups and instead just mills about among the crowd. Everyone is happy, civilized, and just generally having a good time. Anything with a line is essentially not worthwhile, and I wish we’d not wasted so much of a day off standing in lines. Oh well. Go Team Germany!