I’ve tweaked the stylesheet used here (by both my personal pages, and the main Inferno Enterprises site) a bit.

I’ve been noticing recently that all of the books I read have the first line of each paragraph indented and that, all text is justified. Previously, I’d been been following the indenting but having everything left-aligned – so that the right margin was “jagged”. I’ve now made everything justified in order to more closely follow the regular literature layout.

One thing I’m not implementing, however, is the lack of space between paragraphs. In book form, this doesn’t bother me. But when looking at the text on my monitor, it scans much more easily if there’s a space between paragraphs. (If you were unlucky enough to have checked this site during the 30 second period when I was experimenting with paragraph spacing – you would know why I left things as they are now!)

I just got “the phone call” telling me that I’ve been offered a job I was recently interviewed for. I’ll be doing technical phone support for Microsoft business networking issues via Volt, a consulting company that hires some of their personnel. (Although I’ll be working in one of the Microsoft buildings in Mississauga.)

Although I’ve made some money over the past 2 years, thanks to my consulting income from Inferno Enterprises, it hasn’t been nearly enough to stop the slow haemorrhaging of finances due to regular bills and lack of bank account funds. One credit card is pretty much empty, and the other is well on its way. But, even though the pay from this job is only half what I used to make, and the commute is going to be rather less than pleasant, it will still manage to stop the patient from dying. I can take comfort in the fact that all of the things I did do to make money over the past two years (including the donations and loans from family) have had enough of a delaying effect to put “the end” off just long enough for me to find that required organ that gets me off the transplant list at the 11th hour.

It’s going to be pretty hellish to now recover from all of the debt that’s been incurred, and there may be some other lifestyle changes that we’ll have to make in order to accomplish this (such as selling our car and either going without or getting one that doesn’t cost as much) but that can all be worked out later. The important thing is that this will enable us to actually keep living in the place that we love, with a roof over our heads.

It looks like it’s going to be a Merry Christmas after all!

I’m sure you’ve been there. You’re on a train and, as it pulls in to your stop, the announcer says, “This train is out of service. All passengers must leave the train.”

Have you ever wondered what happens if you don’t leave the train? Where it goes, or what the people who are on it do when they get there (or are enroute to there)?

“You know, Joe? I could really use a break. How about you?”

“Okay, let’s put ‘er out of service…there. Now, you grab the cards, I’ll get the bottle and glasses and – hey, look! Somebody who didn’t get off. Just in time for my medical finals too.”

Somehow, I really doubt that’s what happens. But these things always do go through my head.

I’ve spent the last several days coming up with my own phpBB modification so that Private Messages can be encrypted and sent to other board members – then decrypted by the recipient, so long as they provide the same encryption key that was originally used.

This exercise was fun, tiring, and frustrating all at the same time. While I certainly know more now about the board software (and the use of encryption via PHP) than I did before, I’m still not completely enlightened. Some of what I did was, effectively, trial and error – involving sticking code in certain places until things ended up working.

Frankly, I’m surprised that nobody’s come up with such a mod before. Despite the trouble it gave me (as a first time coder of this sort of thing) the basic idea is really quite simple.

I’m now busy documenting the changes I made so that I can submit it as an “official” mod to the appropriate places. (If only I could make some money off of this…)

Here’s an excerpt from a news article that I just read:

“A computer expert accused of killing, dismembering and eating another man who allegedly agreed to the arrangement over the Internet went on trial for murder Wednesday at a court in central Germany.”

I’m not sure which aspect of this is more disturbing – the fact that somebody committed this act, or the fact that somebody actually (supposedly) wanted them to.

It gives a whole new meaning to online ordering. I wonder if the victim actually “delivered” himself to the customer’s door – and if he took Interac…

Later: I obviously didn’t read the article carefully enough. The killer went to the victim’s house. Also, it was the killer who placed an online ad for anybody willing to be killed and eaten, and the victim who replied. But it’s still disturbing. Any which way you slice it. (I’d better stop now.)

So, now it’s being reported that cigarettes are going up by .75c a pack after all. As opposed to my recent journal entry here where I said otherwise.

I know I didn’t hear this wrong – the news that night reported a decrease (not an increase) in taxes on tobacco. I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens tomorrow…

Michelle found this in our weekly paper and posted it to our bulletin board. I coudn’t resist adding an entry for it.

Go to Google, and type in (include the quotes) “weapons of mass destruction”. You can now either click on the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, or just pick the first link that comes up.

Who knows how long this will actually be in the top spot, but what you’ll be looking for is what appears to be an error page. But, if you read it carefully, you’ll see that it’s really an error at all. It’s pretty funny.

If the above doesn’t work (or you want to cheat) you can go to the site directly.

So, two nights ago I saw a news story saying that the price of a carton of cigarettes (in Ontario anyway) was going to increase from roughly $50 to $75. Then, just last night, I heard that the new federal government was planning on making statements about things that they’d be doing – among these was reducing the tax on tobacco.

Call me crazy, but this just doesn’t make much sense overall. What’s the point of decreasing tobacco taxes if there’s going to be such a big hike anyway? I doubt anybody will really care if the tax is less – because, in the end, it won’t make one bit of difference. Plus, given Health Canada’s definitive stance against smoking – what is the new government playing at? If anything, taxes should be increased to discourage the practice. (Then again, government decisions are seldom rational. Perhaps the cut is a result of some kind of campaign promise made to the tobacco industry for helping the new people gain power. Or – is that too cynical?)

Last night’s Survivor was pretty depressing. I think that a lot of people liked Rupert better than any other contestant so far – I know that I did. He was just such a great guy. It was a sad night when he got kicked out because of the mechinations of that arrogant jerk, Jon. (Who I feel like slapping every time he gives that stupid grin indicating that he’s managed to pull off another maneuver that just screws up somebody else. At least Burton had the decency to not grin in glee when Rupert walked away.)

Yes, it’s a game. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be played with at least some degree of honestly and integrity. There’s more than one way to play a game – and if winning it comes at the cost of certain moral values, then it’s not worth it. The most depressing part of the whole thing was that Lillian lied to Rupert (the one person who’d been nicer to her than anybody else) and blithely went along with the other peoples’ plan. As if she’s not just being duped herself. Some people just don’t have much common sense.

With him off the show, the level of fun went down dramatically. Now, just like this year’s Big Brother which ended up with a final between the two most hated contestants, victory here will only by pyrrhic. (Unless Sandra, who’s the only decent player left now as far as I’m concerned, manages to pull it off. But I put almost zero faith in that outcome. Most likely, she’ll be the next to go.)

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the ratings dip at least a little bit now as disinterested viewers tune out.

Just last night I set up an online discussion board for the owners of our condominium. It will be interesting to see what kind of participation / interest comes out of this. I’m hoping that it will become a good place to “hang out” for people to talk about topical issue, but I’m not going to predict that. (Too often, this sort of thing has just fizzled out on me.)