Now, for your viewing confusion, I present a list of things overheard this past weekend while at Sci-Fi On The Rock. There are no points of reference, no clarification and no explanation for anything said. It can all be taken Out of CONtext.

To quote a friend of mine; “Names have been kept the same to reflect the strange…”

Here comes the storm again.

****Tap Tap... Tap Tap****

We're back to this again are we? All I asked for was a little light next to the microphone switch that's on when the microphone is on, and off when it's off. Is that really so hard to do? Look where, ahead? There's nothing there but a big lit up sign that says On The Air... wait... Dammit!

For the future of Science!

**Yes, yes I’m going to tell them now. No! I’m not changing my mind about this, it has to be done for the greater good! (echo: the greater good) Now cut that out! I swear if you eggheads spent as much time actually doing work around here as you do watching movies, I’d have a studio setup that worked flawlessly and this light would be reliable! What? It’s on? Dammit not again! **

A storm's a comin'

What have you guys been doing? This place is a mess, where's the damn switch in here? You've all been throwing parties while I'm gone, but can't clean up? Peanut brittle, candycorn, panties, ... a traffic cone? Really? Where did that come from? Hey the light works now? Wait.. Dammit!

Personally Identified

January 18th, 2017

Gather round one and all as I regale you with a textual re enactment of a strange little happening, once again at *hotel*

The cast for tonight’s dramatization are as follows;

The character of Steve (Me), played by yours truly
The character of Person One (P1), played by Random Person
The character of Person Two (P2), played by Other Random Person

Person one approaches the ATM, presumably to withdraw some funds. They insert their card and look perplexed as they read the screen.

P1: “It’s asking for my personal number, what’s that?”

P2: “Have you got numbers on your accounts?”

P1: “I dunno, what’s a personal number?”

P2: “What’s it asking?”

P1: “It wants a personal number. I know my PIN but what’s a personal number?”

Me: “PIN stands for Personal Identification Number, it’s asking for your PIN.”

P1 & P2: “Oh.”

Me: “....”

-FIN-

I'm back! Did you miss me?

Friends, Romans, Test Subjects, lend me your ears.... Ow! Who threw that? What was... wait was that actually your ear? How did you? Detachable? That's equal parts gross and amazing... can it re-attach? Get the lab boys working on that! There's money to be made here I'm sure of it!

I am a victim

I never thought I'd type that title.

I've never been arrogant enough or foolish enough to believe that it would never happen to me. In my 37 years on this earth, I've worked a few jobs where it could have happened, pushing a Dickie Dee Ice Cream cart around Mount Pearl, working in a gas station, working in a little corner store. Never ever did it happen, and now it has.

A Postal Odyssey

Thursday, February 18th, 2016

Went to my wonderful Community Mailbox this morning to find I couldn't get my mail. Two of the three keys don't fit the lock for some reason and the third key, although it fits, will not turn in the lock. No give at all, no wiggle, the lock is seized.

Opened a ticket with Canada Post, they advised that a fix could take till Tuesday.

Friday, February 19th, 2016

Update from Canada Post!

They resolved my trouble ticket. But instead of fixing my mailbox, they replaced the lock for my landlord's mailbox!

According to their computers, my mailbox is listed as Module 2, Compartment 16 (my landlord), when in fact since they put the gods damned things in, my mail has gone to Module 3, Compartment 1.

I have the envelope my keys came in that says Module 3, Compartment 1, I've gone to it every couple of days and taken out mail that has my name and address on it. Despite that, the guy on the phone tried to tell me I'm wrong.

The ticket has now been reopened (they closed it without updating me, despite the email saying I'd be contacted) and I might be able to get mail by next Wednesday now instead of Tuesday.

After getting off the phone with "Andrew" I got an email to update me and confirm the ticket was closed. So I called back and spoke with "Chris" who could see that what I had said on my first call was correct, I was using the right mailbox and that we'd need to get it fixed.

He put me on hold and then told me he'd need to transfer me to a local agent who could get this addressed and the lock changed. He transferred me to "Nancy" who saw the problem and said that for some reason in one system I'm in the right mailbox and in another I'm assigned to the wrong one. It was 7:00pm on Friday so no one could fix it then. But she'd call me on Monday.

Monday, February 22nd, 2016

Canada Post update.

No callback from "Nancy" at the local office.

So I called this morning to check on my ticket and was told their entire computer system was down and the call centre agent couldn't access anything. I've been in a call centre in that situation, so nothing against the agent. Then she says, call back after 5pm.

Now that's brilliant, call after 5pm when no one can possibly do anything for my issue cause everyone local has gone home. So I have to call tomorrow.

Second to that, I had a package delivered today and according to the tracking information, it's waiting for me in the Community Mailbox parcel locker.

So my package is secured and the key to the parcel locker is safe in my mailbox, that I have no access to because the key doesn't work.

The comedy of errors continues...

I think tomorrow that I'll just camp out in front of the mailbox waiting for the mail carrier so I can get my mail.

Also that package contains 2 batteries for my camera, so help me if they are ruined because of spending days in a sub zero mailbox, I'm holding Canada Post responsible for their replacement.

Lousy Mythical Adversaries

*tap  tap* *tap tap*

Yes I’m tapping the mic again, your stupid light isn’t working, it’s just blinking on and off and on and off… what? That means it’s working? What kind of moron makes a blinking light? It’s either ‘on’ for working or ‘off’ for not working, simple as that. Wait, so that means everyone can hear … dammit not again!

Post Sci-Fi On The Rock

Well here we are, one week removed from the biggest celebration of all things geeky and nerdy that St. John’s has ever seen. I’m talking of course about Sci-Fi On The Rock. Man what a time. It gets bigger and better every year and continuously blows my mind. I’m happy to be a cog in the wheel that makes this festival possible every year, and I’m grateful to the people I work with on the organizing committee for all the help we give each other in getting things done.

Quest for $10,000 Part 10

Contestant's Log, Stardate; -308758.33

Well here it is. Day 14 of the HitsFM $10,000.00 TShirt contest.

With it comes my antepenultimate blog post about the contest, cause well, it'll be over. Why antepenultimate you might ask? What the hell does that even mean? Stop using big words Steve! Well, simply, it means this is the third last post about the contest. I still have another entry to make tomorrow morning, as I've been doing with all these posts. Then after the winner (fingers crossed me) is announced, I'll be making a last entry with pictures and such from the finale on Monday afternoon

Quest for $10,000 Part 6

Contestants Log, Stardate; -308769.35

Here I am in the morning of Day 10 of the HitsFM $10,000 TShirt contest. Still going strong after what was a pretty uneventful Day 9. Still no sign of the so called TShirt Police, though I did roam the city today since I was off. If they find me, they find me, if they don't then I'm sure I'll see them all on Monday the 31st at the finale.

Quest for $10,000 Part 5

Contestant's Log, Stardate; -308772.31

Well here it is, Day 9! Woo! The shirt is still in great shape and smells faintly of Irish Spring. Not funky in the least. This despite what was a most energetic end to Day 8.

We had snow! I know, not that uncommon an occurrence here in Newfoundland, but the main thing of note is that myself, along with a lot of other contestants out there had to shovel/snowblow/clear our driveways while sporting the ever popular Ten Grand TShirt.

I write stuff

I ever mention I'm an author? I may have. Well, I have a new story out now in a new book of collected stories from Ink'd Well Comics called Fearsome Fables II. My story is A Midsummer's Nightmare. The entire book is awesome and so are the many artists and authors who contributed to the collection. You should check it out and maybe buy a physical or digital copy. All proceeds go to the Free The Children Charity.

Description: http://www.inkdwellcomics.com/page_fearsome_fables_2.html
Buy Physical Copy: http://www.inkdwellcomics.com/page_physical.html
Buy Digital Copy: http://www.inkdwellcomics.com/page_digital.html

Then there's last year's Fearsome Fables I

Description: http://www.inkdwellcomics.com/page_fearsome_fables.html
Buy Physical Copy: http://www.inkdwellcomics.com/page_physical.html
Buy Digital Copy: http://www.inkdwellcomics.com/page_digital.html 

Then there are my contributions to Anthologies with Engen Books

Sci- Fi From The Rock (Digital Copy Only): http://www.engenbooks.com/pay_scififromtherock.htm
More Sci-Fi From The Rock: http://www.engenbooks.com/pay_morescififromtherock.htm
Sci-Fi From The Rock Returns: http://www.engenbooks.com/pay_scififromtherockreturns.htm

So yeah, I've done a fair bit and I'm working on doing more. Currently I'm working on a book for NaNoWriMo and it's going pretty well. When I can get off my lazy ass and finish other things, I'm looking forward to getting my own stand alone book out for sale. Stay tuned!

- Later.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! To NaNo I will go

So last year I tried the NaNoWriMo challenge for the first time. It went pretty good for the first 8 days of November, then came my birthday. After a night or two of celebrations I fell behind on my writing and my word count and I never caught up again. Overall I loved the challenge and I saved my work so that I can come back to it later. I never finished NaNoWriMo but I enjoyed the challenge and the work that I did.

Customer Disservice

This story started last week with the entry I made about upgrading my connection from normal DSL service to Aliant’s FireOp service.  Getting nerdy for a min, it means in increase in my service from 7Megabits Download / 512 Kilobits Upload to 15 Megabits Down/Up.  A really, really nice increase for the service.  So I get off work at 8am yesterday and come home and make sure that the house is ready for the install and the tech won’t have any access issues.  My landlord even temporarily pulled back the siding on the house for access to where another cable comes into my apartment so the tech just needs to slide the FibreOP wire in alongside it.  So far, so good.  Then the fun began.