that ring of confidence

Even Superman needs a break and I'm no Superman

Between school, work and freelancing I'm starting to feel a little bit tweekish [wp].  Being busy is of course good, since work and freelancing pays the bills, I'm starting to feel like I've been on the go for so long that I could just curl up right here and have a nice long nap.  I've had a fairly recent vacation [jks], but while Las Vegas was fun it certainly was not relaxing.

I just deleted two full paragraphs explaining why I felt so stressed out, including a large section on the ins and outs of my days off, but at the end of the day that doesn't matter.  What does is that I feel like I need to have a nap, or at least a nice comfortable spot in the store near the iPhone display where I can lay down and cry for awhile.

I need a staycation [wp]. 

What I really want to do is to get two days off in a row, and just disconnect.  I'd like to stick my iPhone in a drawer for two days, grab my iPod and just enjoy life without a telephone, email or anything else.  These days I try to go a day without using a phone and I inadvertently start a citywide manhunt for my lifeless bloated corpse.  I need to find a way to modularly unplug myself from life for awhile, without everything else falling apart.

Now excuse me, I need to go lay down and have a nice cry.

Vancouver bloggers in print

My most recent article appeared in The Georgia Straight today [tgs] in one of the paper's regular tech focused issues.  I'd mentioned this article awhile ago [jks] when I was talking about advertising on blogs, a subject I am still thinking over.  That part, the role of advertising on blogs, did not really get touched on with the exception of a few words during the interviews but it really did not fit into the article as a whole.

This is the first article that I've done for The Straight that's had a photo run with it.  That photo, which is to the right, was taken by the technology editor Stephen Hui and of the bloggers interviewed he went with a photo of Jeannette Ordas who blogs at Everybody Likes Sandwiches [els], a food blog that Lydia is into.

If you're in Vancouver then pick up a copy of the article on almost any street corner.  The paper's free so you've got no excuses.  If you're not in the lower mainland you'll find a link in the first sentence of this post that will take you right to it's online version.

So far the feedback has been mostly positive.  As always though these sorts of articles are by their very nature incomplete.  I'm sure there's a few dozen other worthy local bloggers around town who deserve a mention, and at least one reason that Vancouver is such a blog-centric city that I didn't touch on.

I'm not even supposed to be here today

Through a series of not particularly interesting occurances I ended up having both yesterday and today off this week. It was unintentionally perfect, since it was going to give me two whole days to work on the sizeable load of school work that I'd been given in my first two technical writing courses [jks]. They did not look particularly hard but rather time intensive, and one is even just a major copy and pasting job that requires pasting various recepies into a basic Word File for use in a cookbook that is going to be a class project.

Two days.  It seems easy enough, especially given the way I used to be able to crank out a 15,000 word essay in an evening back at Okanagan University College.  Yesterday I had a relaxed morning as Lydia got ready for her baking class, and then went for a walk with my mother who was taking Charlie for a walk.  Around three in the afternoon just as we were returning to my apartment Mirco called and asked me to work tomorrow... I mean today

Dante's plea/mantra in the movie Clerks "I'm not even supposed to be here today." is my rallying cry as I shuffle through the day with my school work half finished.  Once the rest of the staff arrives I'll make a sneaky exit out the backdoor, but until then I'm on the customer service frontlines.

I meet the future Prime Minister Stephen Harper

i realize that I've never really told my Stephen Harper story here so as Canada heads to the polls today to potentially re-elect Harper as our Prime Minister I figured now is as good a time as any.  It was in fact five years ago Thursday that all of this happened, so the timing is pretty appropriate.  We can call this an anniversary retelling of the story.

It was October 16th, 2003.  I was celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday and writing for The Phoenix at what was then Okanagan University College.  Jay-Z and Beyoncé were "Crazy In Love", Outkast was riding "Hey Ya!" for all it was worth [mo].  The American lead invasion and occupation of Iraq was only in it's seventh month, and the big debate in Canadian politics was whether or not we'd follow America into Iraq after standing by them for the invasion of Afghanistan.  The Liberals had stayed out of Iraq, and since the political landscape on the right was fragmented with the breakup of the old Progressive Conservative Party into the Conservatives and the Reform Party it looked like nothing was going to change.

In Kelowna The Phoenix as a news outlet had benefited from the breakup of the right because it had eventually lead us to having Stockwell Day as leader of the Reform Party and his George W. Bush-esque photo-ops and buffoonery were like mana from heaven for snarky student journalists.  The party's switch to Stephen Harper was a sad day for us, since he was a) not local (Day had his riding in Westbank/Summerland) and b) he was not an obviously complete fucking idiot.

There were no more homo-erotic press conferences on the shores of Lake Okanagan in a wetsuit.  There were no more hiring of criminals to spy on the other political parties.  There were no more defections of MPs.  There was no more fun.

How to survive my lull in blogging

looking at the incoming links over at Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv] I noticed one from The Province, one of the main newspapers here in Vancouver.  Taking a look at the incoming link I couldn't find anything, but when I did a site search for "Metroblogging" I came up with quite a few times where they've quoted from the Vancouver based blog.  Indeed these quotes go back at least since last year, and since I've never discovered it before today it suggests that we don't get much in the way of traffic from links off of the newspaper's site.

Now I'm pretty sure these quotes were just on the website, and not in the physical paper.

Subjects that I've been quoted on:

• About Robert Pickton [tp]
• About what the nicest McDonald's in the Lower Mainland is [tp]
• The Spice Girls in Vancouver [tp]

Meanwhile I've been blogging over at Metroblogging Vancouver, and a few of those are worth checking out. What should you be reading over there during my blogging lull here?  Well check these out:

• The Canucks win the Stanley Cup [mbv]
• "We Are All Canucks" more than just branding [mbv]
• The Vancouver Sun knows the internets [mbv]

Lastly I thought I'd repost links to my two articles in The Georgia Straight for those who may have missed it:

• Twitter [tgs]
• Location aware social services (Loopt & Brightkite) [tgs]

Stephen Colbert meets Spider-Man and I think I still work at Elfsar

if you watch enough of The Colbert Report you might know that host Stephen Colbert is a big fan of comic books. Not only does he have his own comic series, based on Tek Jansen the science fiction character he developed based on his TV personality and one assumes William Shatner crossed with James Bond, but he's had Marvel's Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada on the show several times. Most notable was the episode where Quesada gave Colbert Captain America's shield following the character's death. The shield still hangs on the wall of the show's set and can be regularly seen during the interview portions of the show.

Since Colbert's aborted attempt to run for President earlier this year Marvel has been putting Colbert '08 ads in their comics, just as throw away background gags on billboards or car bumper stickers, showing that at least in the Marvel Universe Colbert's still running. Now he's about to be guest staring in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man. What's America's favorite right-wing parody pundit going to be doing with Spider-Man? I have no idea, but I suppose I'll find out when the issue comes out.

Speaking of comics I haven't had a shift at the comic book store since July, and I keep feeling like I should ask if I even work there when I go in. I'm still getting the staff discount, so I guess I can't complain too much but a shift or two would be nice. It feels like that year or so that I worked part-time at The Capitol Theatre in Westbank, I'd work a shift every month or so and enjoy the free movies. Of course before that I'd put in a good five or six years of hard labour under the same manager at Kelowna's Uptown and Paramount Theatres, so it wasn't like this where I'd only had a few one off shifts.

Story found via Newsarama:

Marvel has announced that Stephen Colbert will join with Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #573 by Slott, Wait, Romita and Oliffe [From Stephen Colbert Joins Spider-Man in Amazing #573]

Another apology

i t feels like every post I make these days is a post asking for forgiveness after another long period of this blog laying fallow. Each and every entry seems like it's asking for forgiveness for the length of time since I've last blogged and promising to be more attentive to you, my dear readers.  Does it feel that way to you?

Again I've been writing for The Georgia Straight [tgs] and though I haven't been working as much this past week I've been travelling with Lydia.  We took a long weekend and went to Vancouver Island to visit Tofino and Victoria.  Lydia blogged about eating on the island [iatl] and I guess I don't have a whole lot to say beyond that, so I'll leave you with the link. 

One of the things we did do in Victoria was look at venues for the wedding.  We checked a few places, mostly heritage homes and none of them seemed to work for us.  They were either not the right type of place, required us to use their expensive in-house caterers or had the overall feel of a bingo hall.  After already mostly eliminating Kelowna from our list of cities to get married in, it seemed like we were crossing Victoria off the list as well.

I don't know how it came up, but talk turned to the Heritage Hall on Main Street in Vancouver [hh], and since I had been to Curtis's wedding there I sent him an email asking for a rough estimate on how much he paid.  His reply was surprisingly inexpensive and so we booked a viewing for Wednesday and after looking at it and talking to the woman in charge of rentals we've booked the hall for August 9th 2009.

Which is a huge relief, since now that we've got a date and location everything else can slot into that.  I guess the last really big thing is the caterers, and once that's sorted we're just having to deal with a few minor details like the flower arrangements for the tables and whether or not we're going to ask people to sit through speeches or a slide-show or possibly both.  Lydia's for neither and I'm for both.  I figure if we're feeding people the least they could do is pretend to care about us for half an hour, even if they'd rather be watching a rerun of The Office.

Kelowna day 1/2

Despite plans to leave fairly early yesterday, and thanks to my GPS device sending me through Burnaby first, Lydia and I didn't get to Kelowna until about eight last night.  The drive itself was good, especially since everyone on the road was going the other way as they returned to Vancouver at the end of their long-weekend.  It's one of the many reminders that while working Saturdays and Sundays does have its drawbacks, it generally means that anything we do is a little less crowded.

Chad, Doug and Ryan had all made plans to meet-up at Kelly 'O Bryan's which is a Kelowna institution.  Sadly by the time we got into town and tracked down my parents to let us into the house it was well past time to meet-up with them.  Instead we ended up on a late night run to the Boston Pizza that's next door to where I used to work.  It's a place that I used to eat at on a near daily basis, but now since the only ones I know of in Vancouver by Metrotown and somewhere on Broadway, I rarely get to.

Once at my parents' old house, they've bought a new one since the last time I was in town, we played with the dogs a bit.  Well past his bedtime Charlie, my mother's new puppy, ran around the yard like someone had been feeding him Sugar Smacks until he was put to bed.  After that Lydia and I fell asleep watching the 1 am rebroadcast of the Daily Show.

Now I just need to get over my block and actually start the word processing on this article.  It's the opening that's bothering me, and so far all I have is a fairly lame size joke.

Going straight

Back in October of last year I spoke at a Canadian University Press (CUP) conference up at Simon Fraser University hosted by their school paper The Peak.  I'd a long history with The Peak both through CUP and Campus Plus but also because when I'd visit Graham during my reading week I'd often do guest articles for the paper.  They had me in to speak about tech freelancing, which was ironic since it was nearing the end of when I was actually doing freelancing for the Kelowna based publications.

At the same time as my talk, which I'd like to think went well, Charlie Smith of The Georgia Straight [tgs] was also speaking, and we got to talk a little bit after the presentations.  He mentioned that they were looking at updating the Straight's tech coverage and gave me his card.  Of course at the time that was awesome news, and I promptly went around saying things like, "Oh yes I'll be writing for The Georgia Straight soon."

Because I'm a bit of an idiot who career-wise was getting a bit down about not really progressing.  The fact that I'd started my freelancing career at the biggest publication that I've yet to write for, IGN.com which at the time had over 8 million monthly readers, was making everything else seem a little anti-climatic.  The cocktail party explanation that I wrote for papers in Kelowna was getting old and blogging for free over at Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv] is fun but not as impressive as I'd hoped.

I kept persisting but eventually I gave up as I was not making it anywhere near the insides of the paper.  Until Stephen Hui who I knew from CUP, got a job there and then got put in charge of the yet to be revamped tech section and got in touch with me.  I sent him some articles, he seemed to think they didn't suck and this morning we met at Starbucks.

So I'm doing a few articles for The Straight, and that also doesn't suck.  This might be the equivalent of bragging it up at a party back in November, since it's going to be a bit before they actually come out, but I feel good about it. 

Let us celebrate 1,000 posts

You looking at blog post number 1,000 here at my personal site.  I've been doing this a long time, and not always as actively as I'd have liked but I finally made it to the four digit numbers.  If posts were money I'd be a thousand-aire.

Which is why I had hoped to have something more to post for you than some more footage of my trip to the Sub Pop 20th Birthday bash in Seattle.  However I just finished working a twelve hour shift today, and I just realized that during this swing of shifts I'm working twelve days in a row.  So you're going to have to get what you take.

Or something.

I did see the new Batman movie.  Post about that soon I'm sure.  Until then though enjoy the Flight of the Conchords.

The Completely Useless Guide to Being Poor While Living Rich

Over the last week or so I've been writing a guide to how to like a life of great wealth without spending much money. This guide would have taught you how to do things like go to see touring Broadway musicals without spending a dime. That sounds useful, but sadly the entire 200 page work can be boiled down to "get engaged to a woman whose roommate works at a radio station."

I was going to try selling the guide at local flea markets, but after the dismal sales of my first book [blrb] I decided that a 500 page book whose basic message didn't even take up half of the back of the jacket on the hard cover version was a bit cheeky.  I mean I'm not Deepak Chopra, I don't have the name recognition to pull that shit off.

What prompted my writing of the book was when Lydia's roommate Sarah got us free tickets to the Vancouver opening night of Spamalot [mbv].  It had been a play that I'd been interested in going to, but by the time it was announced that the touring company was coming to Vancouver I'd already moved out of the phase of my life where I could afford to pay for things and into the phase of my life where I eat rice and bulk chicken breasts.  The fact that the United Nations isn't delivering the rice from the back of trucks to my house is a small victory, I mean it's actually store bought.  So that's me for the win.

The other advice I have is know someone who works in the tourism industry.  Through the hostel Lydia got this wicked pass that gets her and a guest, typically me, into all sorts of tourist type spots.  On our weekend, which last week just happened to be Canada Day and the day after, we used the pass to take the False Creek Ferries three times, ride the Vancouver Trolley, go see the newborn baby Beluga at the Vancouver Aquarium and then go to Science World all for about four dollars each.

All of which is handy since I've got about $150 that I'm stretching until the 15th when I'm next paid.  The fact that the part time job is coming out to about one shift a month (June had two shifts and July brings zero), means that stretching a dollar is important.  Even more important now that for the second time in about a year I've had my wages cut at work. 

It's Euro 2008 today

While I'm at work Euro 2008 is going to be winding up as the final is played between Germany and Spain at 11 am Pacific Standard Time today.  It's German versus Spain, and hopefully it'll be a fine ending to a fine tournament.  A tournament that for the most part I did not get to see, because it was held largely during the afternoon when I'm working.

Ah well, I'll try to catch updates online if it's not busy.  For my blog posts on the Euros check out my football (soccer) blog The Vancouver Gunner [av].  Likely it'll be another slow Sunday, what with the weather being so very beautiful.  It's like Okanagan level hot outside even this early in the morning, so I hope the air-conditioning holds out all day otherwise I'm going to be drowning in my own sweat. 

Wake me when it's fall and we've all relaxed a little

I started work at Elfsar, the Yaletown comic book store, last month and was hoping that it would be a good source of additional income. I was also hoping that working there would break up work at the Rogers, the way that working at the theatre used to break up working at Rogers back in Kelowna. The trouble is because it's been slow, they just have no shifts for me. After two shifts this month, I'm not working there at all in July.

At least I've got my staff discount I guess.

Meanwhile the iPhone hasn't even arrived and I'm starting to get tired of it. Every day is a flood of people wanting to know things, which would be fine if Rogers told us anything. Today we weren't even allowed to tell people about the recently announced plans despite the fact that they were in the newspaper and on Rogers' site. I feel like we should just wear t-shirts that say, "We know even less than MonkeyJizz365 on Howard Forums, so don't bother asking."

Meanwhile the internet's turned into a festival of idiots over the Canadian iPhone plans. Why people expected them to be the same price as the AT&T plans in the US I'm not sure. Anyone who had spent about ten minutes looking at Canada's data rates could have guessed what the plans were going to be within about five dollars. The fact that they're better than any current data rates in the country isn't the issue, the issue is that they're not the best in the world. Or something. People just need to go back to high school and retake economics or business education, of course typing "iPhone FAIL" into their blog gets more hits.

And hey look, I'm not someone who defends Rogers blindly. They make mistakes, but for the most part they make fewer mistakes than Telus or Bell and the ones they make tend to be the classic big corporation mistakes that any company with several hundred employees make.

Telus for example sent Lydia a bill last week for over $1100, even though she hasn't had a phone with them since 2003. It seems that when she closed her home account to switch to Shaw they kept her account open, and kept charging her without sending her a bill until five years later they were about to send it to collections. Or something. They never actually told her why she owed this money, or even how much she owed since the amount kept changing every time she called them.

A few hours on hold later and she got them to delete that, thankfully.

Meanwhile my mother wanted me to delete a previous post mentioning the iPhone, scared that I'd be fired. It seems that some Rogers dealers are firing people for just that, and others are making their employees sign paper work saying that they can't say anything bad about the iPhone or they'll get the sack. The amount of money that people are imagining that Rogers is going to make off of this is turning everyone into fraking idiots. We weren't this concerned as a nation when we helped invade Afghanistan.

I loved my iPhone, that I now can't use or I'll be fired, and I'm sure I'll get a 3G one and love it even more but it's just a phone. It doesn't cure cancer. It doesn't make you good at playing Dr. Mario. It's super cool and the best phone I've ever used but it's just a phone.

I can't wait until summer is over and everyone relaxes a little.

At least Telus doesn't believe that I owe them money. Then I'd really need some Elfsar shifts.

iPhone in Canada: now with extra Jar Jar Binks

I was working at the Paramount Theatre in Kelowna when the first Star Wars prequel came out.  Everyone knew the movie was going to be big, and the question really was just how big was it going to be.  It had been decades since the original movies first came out, and it was expected that Lucas' return to a land far far away was going to blow everything out of the water.

The demands from Fox and Lucasfilm placed on individual theatres was ridiculous.  For example typically with advertising merchandise once the movie leaves the theatre all of the posters, buttons and what have you are up for grabs.  With Ep1 Lucasfilm wanted physical proof that all advertising materials had been destroyed.  The word was any theatre that failed to provide proof would risk not getting the film.

By the second and third prequel nobody really worried about those conditions.  Lucasarts had lost its clout, at least where Star Wars was concerned, because despite the strong box office numbers it Ep1 turned out to be just another movie. 

Over at Metroblogging Vancouver I've got an FAQ about the iPhone's upcoming arrival in Canada [mbv].  What struck me is that Rogers and Apple are being as controlling as Lucasfilm and Fox were over that wonderful piece of Jar Jar Binks film footage.  Anyone who helps a customer with a grey market iPhone (an unlocked iPhone from out of country) will be fired on the spot with no severance.  This includes existing Rogers customers with American iPhones whose money everyone has been fine taking up until now. 

Apart from the questionable legality of firing someone with no severance for helping out a customer they sold a service to a month ago, it would be interesting to see if anyone believed that was just cause, it's the sort of inane controlling attitude that brought us midi-chlorians [wp].

The sad thing is the iPhone is good, really good and Rogers and Apple have no reason to treat it like Jar Jar Binks shows up halfway through to crap on it.

The one where the show introduces the new comic book guy

After work yesterday I went to Elfsar for Free Comic Book Day [fcbd], the international day (well US and Canada) where retailers give away free comic books to help build a new readership.  By the time I got there, about twenty minutes before closing, most of the comics were picked over so if there was anything particularly good I'd already missed it.  The ones that I did get were mostly the ones that were based off of kids' cartoon shows and aimed squarely at the early readers.  Also I got an Archie book.

I start work there on Wednesday, so that I suppose was my last trip to the comic book store without officially being the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.  Though I'd generally like to think that I'm more the newer cooler comic book guy that they introduced last year named Milo [swp] (voiced by Jack Black). 

Back when I was still in contention for the job at the new Vancouver Apple Store as well as Elfsar, and debating a future where I had part-time jobs at both, Jeff Weston joked that between the two jobs I probably could not get more pretentious. 

It's been awhile since I've had a job that I'm actually looking forward to.  I'm sure after a few shifts it'll get just as boring as any other job that involves mostly filing things into alphabetical order (I assume) and manning a till but at least for now I'm optimistic about the new part-time job.  The bad news is that I've not really got a lot of free time this month to spend with Lydia or friends.  The good news is that hopefully I'll make some money to start saving for this wedding thing.

I'm nearly done these beer shots so it might be time to get back into school

Taking a look at any random month over the past year or so and you'll find entries like this one [jks] where I'm looking for work.  It has become the new looking for a girlfriend in the dramatic narrative that is my life, and like my pre-Lydia attempts at finding love my job hunt has resulted largely in disapointment and nights spent surfing the internet looking for porn... I mean jobs.

A bit over a month ago I felt like I'd finally gotten into a good position in the hunt.  I'd an interview with a local company looking for a technical writer, I had an interview lined up for a sales position with the new Apple Store and I had an interview lined up with the comic book store I shop at.  The Apple Store and the technical writing job were both oppertunities that I considered to be career stepping stones; positions that would lead to bigger and better things.  The comic book store seemed like it would be fun, and a way to help make some extra money to help pay for the wedding.

I got a part time job at the comic book store, which was not the full time position I'd hoped for but was a promising start.  The techincal writing job did not pan out, and the Apple Store turned me down after bringing me in for a group interview where they did not actually interview us but spent the entire time telling us why we should work for Apple.  By the end of the interview I'd gone from really wanting to work at the new store to really really wanting to work at the new store.  Sadly there was something in the way I watched the promotional video that informed them they did not want me.

Some days I just wish I were a sea otter

IMG_4207

It's been one of those weeks where being a sea otter would probably have been a lot cooler than being me.  I started off the week with an interview with a company that I've wanted to work for nearly my entire life and ended it not only not getting one of the 100+ jobs on offer, but also barely holding onto the job that I've got now.  Top that off with the fact that Lydia is gone for the next two weeks to Ontario, and things are certainly not coming up Me.

In a measured attempt not to get myself into any more trouble, or burn bridges or do anything silly, I'm keeping mum on things for a bit but I'll be offering some explanation soon.  Until then I can just wish that I were a sea otter, because let's face it that's gotta be a pretty sweet life.

Originally posted on jazzlawyer.vox.com

Money and the lack of money

That's right, I'm going to be on Robson Street in a Mexican wrestling mask challenging people to arm wrestle for money this summer the way things are going.  Between the pay-cut at work, and the upcoming wedding I'm quite a bit poor.  My second job at the comic book store [jks] has yet to start, and I'm pretty much broke.  You know the sort of broke that when I reach into my wallet a moth flies out and tries to eat the shirt off of my back.

It's time to start living frugally, which means that driving is a luxury and public transit is my new pimped out ride.  It means that an eight pound bag of rice is my new lunch, dinner and desert while breakfast is an old box of Safeway house brand Grain Os' that I've been trying to eat.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly I'm no longer eating at the food court while at work, and certainly not drinking Starbucks on a regular basis.  I'm even thinking of cancelling cable, and if it had not been for the return of The Office this week I would probably have been making the phone call very soon.

Meanwhile if any of you have a free weekend it would be most appreciated if you spent those free days sitting at your computer and clicking on my Google ads.

From film to digital: concert photography

I was taking pictures at the Bell X1 show that we went to at The Plaza last week [mbv], and I realized that it was the first time that I had been at a show with the powers of an official photographer since I've switched from film to digital.  Which says a lot both about how long it's gone since I've had a photographer's pass, and also how quickly the world has moved from film to digital.

I used to feel bad about how many photographic fuck ups I made while covering concerts, until I saw some professional photographers running through an easy dozen rolls of films per song.  The fact that I spent $50 on film and development might have hurt my wallet, but seeing what the rest of them use the fact that I could get a few great shots from that was a nice ego boost.

For the Bell X1 show I ran through about 500 shots easy, most of which spent about five minutes in iPhoto before getting deleted.  The bulk of those were either out of focus, blurry or just plain terrible.  Then I ran through those that were left and cut them down to just the best ones, the ones that if I had a page to fill I'd be happy using and those were the ones that made it to Flickr [fkr], which according ot Lydia was way too many.

The one legacy I have from the film era is a few photo albums of pictures in storage that need scanning in, so that I can get them onto Flickr.

Edit:  The first two pictures in the slide show above are actually from my film camera and were scanned in.  The rest were from various digital cameras including my two Canon Rebels, various cell phones and other smaller digital cameras.

I got a new job, sort of

Elfsar Collection
Originally uploaded by JNadiger.

If you've been reading the last few months you know that I've been looking for a new job the last few months.  Recently I've made progress on three jobs that I really was excited for, and I felt that I was in a good position to actually snare at least one of those.  In fact in my feverish dreams I was imagining a scenario where I had to choose between three great jobs.

Feverish dreams are best left to revenge and doubt.

After two interviews which I felt went really strongly I'm left with one offer of a part time job, one job where I haven't heard back despite assurances that the hiring was going to be done extremely quickly and one interview still looming in April. 

Though it was not quite the ideal situation I did take the offer of a part time job at Elfsar [es] a comic book store in Yaletown where I get my books every week.  It's a great store, and the pay is actually better than you're thinking it is right now in your mind.  Yes that number you're thinking, it's better than that.  The trouble is at part time I'm still staying with my current job, and the hourly part time rate is less than the full time rate.

Still with comic books the bulk of my monthly entertainment expenses the generous staff discount will be quite a savings.  Further the extra money is going to be handy what with the big wedding expenses looming down the road like a Jack Kirby Celestial [wp].  I always enjoyed my shifts at the Capitol Theatre in Westbank which I did while at university while working at the paper and Pacific Cellular.  It was not exactly a rest, but it was a nice reminder that work can be fun.  Hopefully Elfsar is a similar boost.

Plus hey, I've never had a real job where I can wear jeans and a t-shirt.  That'll some kind of wonderful.