Trick or Treat! Tonight's the night. Happy Hallowe'en to all my wonderful readers out there. If you indeed celebrate in this pagan holiday I hope you have a spooktacularly fun evening. I plan on handing out goodies to the kids that come to my door tonight. I may even try to take some photos of them. And depending how much time I have I may even get my witch outfit on for the night. D and Aliya spent some time yesterday decorating our foyer and carving the pumpkins so I think we're ready for the hoards of candy seekers. The weather is calling for a few clouds this evening and mild temperatures so we may have a bumper crop of ghouls at the door. We even bought the yucky molasses kisses candy for those people who insist on trick-or-treating with babes-in-arms or in strollers. I mean, really! You know who the candy is for in those cases. Why wouldn't they just buy a bag of candy for themselves - a baby isn't going to get much out of the event.

Hallowe'en is for the little kids (the ambulatory ones) but when we were teens (probably around 14 or 15) we would go out in lame-o half-hearted costumes, get a bit of candy and hang out in a nearby graveyard - a true test of courage I guess ;) The fun was in trying to scare the crap out of each other. And yes, some of us egged houses (not me! not me!). Mostly harmless fun in the days when people still gave out apples, caramel, candy and natural and there was not so much worry about the possibilities of tainted candy. Does that even really happen or is that an urban myth I wonder.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the suger buzz later tonight and the sore tummies tomorrow as the kids partake in an orgy of candy excess. Thankfully it's only once a year.

Google maps are certainly spawning some interesting uses. gVisit is an interesting little tool to see visually where your visitors hail from, and just today I found frappr via Asterisk and what a cool idea.
From their FAQ:

"Frappr is an online tool that lets you map out the zip code where you live, work, vacation, or anything else! You can then share your unique URL with friends and find out where the rest of them live and work in relation to everyone else."

The Moncton Open ran this weekend and I competed in the Open Foil division. I managed to come in 8th in the overall open event (mixed men and women) and 1st in the Women's Foil event. Not a bad start to the season. I was a little disappointed in my placing in the Open, however, I recognize that in addition to needing a higher skill level I tend to beat myself up mentally when I'm in the Open super pool (a pool of the top 8 fencers). There are some very skilled fencers in this pool and I always feel like an imposter there, even though I had earned my right to be in that pool by being undefeated in the first round of pools and victorious in the direct eliminations to the top 8 fencers. As soon as I get in the top 8 pool I'm filled with doubt. This is something I have to overcome. And I had a great breakthrough this time. Even though I was pretty much defeated in my first 5 matches, I pulled myself together enough to push out all thoughts except being in the moment for my next competitor, concentrating hard on figuring out his game and won the match 5-1. My final competitor was a very skilled fencer who consistently comes either 1st or 2nd in the Atlantic Fencing League, but again I pulled it together and gave him a very tough match, he won 4-2, not with the full 5 points and worked for every point against me. So I ended the event in 8th place but I think the breakthrough was by far the most important gain for me. This year my goal is not only to be in the top 8 consistently but to increase my placing. 6th and 5th are within reach and maybe with a little luck, even 3rd could be possible.

Ahh - the spammers are getting creative it seems. This afternoon when I was cleaning out my email spambox I noticed the subjects seemed to be trying to tell me something. How bizarre. It's almost like it were some sort of secret code meant for some weird intrigue --
"When flying? Tonight. No porb[sic] sky? Mail order dose.
I wonder what it means. Well it was interesting - for about 5 minutes, then I tossed it into the trash. (After taking the obligatory screen shot of course).

I recently finishing reading this book and really, really enjoyed it. This is not a book on economics per se but rather a series of theories based on observations that are rationalized using economic analysis. I majored in Economics in university so I found the theories interesting and the rationalizations fascinating. Some of the theories are bold at the very least, controversial without question (ie: free choice for abortion correlates to a reduction in crime rate) and yet the rationalization is sensible. It's not a difficult read at all, being aimed at the mass market the authors are careful to keep the jargon to a minimum and their explanations are easily followed. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who was interested in seeing the world from a slightly different point of view. For if nothing else the reader comes away from this book with a healthy skepticism of "facts" and "expert opinion" that is rampant in the media today.

Another year older, hopefully a bit more wiser. Birthdays ceased being even remotely interesting once I was past my teens, but the anticipation of a gooey, store-bought, lard ass cake makes my day complete. It's also Canadian Thanksgiving (which we celebrated yesterday at my sister's house) so two evenings of celebration - ahh gotta love the weekends of excess.

My birthday always hits around the Thanksgiving weekend, so that may well be the reason it's pretty much my favorite holiday (more than Christmas? yes, maybe even more than Christmas). Canadian Thanksgiving is about food and family. (Probably too much food as we often end up in a turkey coma with groaning tummies pushing back from the table.) But I like the family gathering at my house to feast on turkey and trimmings while the aroma of the meal permeates the house. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, squash, pumpkin pie...mouth watering. And it doesn't have the frenzy and the sharply anti-climactic feeling of "it's over" that Christmas seems to have.

Well, Friday is a good day - sometimes better than most. I came home today to be greeted by D handing me a glass of wine with a big grin on his face - he had just gotten a new job offer! Yay! I knew something would come up and of course it did. So he's very excited to be beginning his new techie role as am I because no matter what he says I know how deeply it bothers him being out of work.

And there are new beginnings for me too as my past position with UNB morphs into a new position with a new team. Change is sometimes hard but it can also be good. It certainly keeps one from becoming complacent. I'm a pathological optimist so I'll always try to see the good in things, but the realignment of our organization can only be seen as good and step in the right direction if our focus is to be client-centric services, solutions and strategies.

Well, the hard drive arrived this afternoon so things are moving forward at least. I expect I'll be bringing in some tools tomorrow and doing the swap. And loading all the software back on *sigh*. Oh it could've been worse - much worse. Like 2 years ago when the hard drive on my primary work system crashed. Then at least I was able to salvage some current work but the rest of the stuff was toast. And was there a backup system in place? - no. Not until about 10 days later did it finally get in place. Aaarrrgh. That was much worse but again - you just have to realize that these things happen and go forward. Now my primary system gets backed up...all the time!

We just got back from the movie A History of Violence. It was (no surprise) ... pretty violent.
We first get a peek at the picture of an idyllic family. Maybe too idyllic. It doesn't seem real that any family is that perfectly harmonious, at least not these days (or maybe I'm too jaded). But this serves perfectly as the sugar coating to the strange and distasteful layer beneath that slowly comes to light as the story unfolds. It's the story of a man trying to keep his family safe as violence circles around them spiralling inwards, demanding attention.
Thematically the movie speaks to a person's history as what defines them (you can't run from your past), and how violence begets violence. Well acted and well written, the visuals are at once both gripping and disturbing.
Here's a funny thing though, as the credits are rolling the end music comes in and it's very reminiscint of music from the Lord of the Rings -- Howard Shore giving the nod to Viggo perhaps?
★★★★☆
4 stars out of 5