Store Closing Everything MUST GO!!!

I hate to repeat myself but... sometimes there are titles that just seem to be too good to let go of. Dell will close it's Edmonton Call centre in the next 6 months with the loss of 900+ jobs. Dell, it appears, has run up against 2 problems, neither of which it had any real control over. One is the tight labour market in Alberta which has made it difficult to hire and retain employees. The other is the launch of Windows Vista or XP Millennium Edition which has made it difficult to sell PC's. Though to be fair to Vista the fact that computers bought 5 years ago still do 90% of the things a computer bought today do has made a new computer a tough sell. I know my next PC will be a Mac for ease of use and cuteness, besides if I want to play lots of games I'll just fork over 300$ and buy an XBox. But I guess that's life you get hired, you work, then the company/industry goes bust and you move on. Basically if I was one of the other Edmonton Call centres I'd back a truck up across the street from Dell and start taking in resumes. Good Luck to All from Dell It's sad to see the place close.

Store Closing Everything MUST GO!!!

I guess it's a bit of an interesting statement on consumerism when you feel a bit sad that a store, you never shopped in, and seldom visited , is closing. The store I mention is the Mounted Police Outpost which has occupied a small store front behind an elevator column at the far end of the West Edmonton Mall. It's not a swanky store or anything like that it just sells RCMP items like t-shirts and trinkets and has an interesting plush moose outside in uniform. The store, acording to the man behind the till has been there for 6 years and now it's lease is up. The mall has asked for a 40% increase in rent to continue the lease which ends up at 8000$ a month +10% of gross sales which is a sum that the store which gives it's profits to RCMP community policing efforts, could not afford. The store will close on the last day of January. It will likey be replaced by some vacuous chain store with no sense of pride and no sense of Canada. Whether i shopped there or not, I will miss the Mounted Police Outpost as it was a unique store in a mall that is becoming more mundane and same as every where else every day. I did do something different today though ... I decided to shop at the store and well being the thrifty consumer I am took advantage of the 50-90% off sales to buy some souvineer keychains and a t-shirt. Either way the store is closing but at least I can say I shopped there and I got a great deal. Oh and in case you're interested, the moose out front is for sale, for $500.

Telemarketers....

Now I know we all hate tele-marketers and their annoying interuptions, but overall I'm not too bad when it comes to getting a call. I'll listen politely then decline their offer and let them go. I don't have too much problem with them overall. But one particular company that uses a Demon dialer and a computer voice to send out calls is not one that I can stand. It's not cause they call me when i'm home I wish they would. It's cause they call me when i'm not home and leave part of a message on my answering machine. It's really annoying to come home and find a message only to realize it was left by a company that didn't leave their name or number. If they call when I'm home I'm so demanding a supervisor.

For being annoying and not leaving their name and number i give this company
0 Stars out of 5

House Hippo

Well all I can say is they really had my hopes up until they dashed them against the rocks of reality :-). Seriously .. who wouldn't want a house hippo it looks so cute. I especially liked the part with the little peanut butter footprints.
Of course the truth is that genetic engineering will likely one day bring us this type of thing. I do remember seeing a scientist on Larry King once saying he wanted to make HO (model train) scale cows so that you could have ones roaming around on your trainset.

The Great Flood vs Mega Flood

I just finished watching Perfect Disaster: Mega Flood on the Discovery Channel which lays out the problems and results of a flood due to storm surge hitting London. In the Docudrama the people in charge are portrayed as overconfident and almost bumbling as the water heads for London and the city floods before people are evacuated. In it's self this would just be pretty common for a docudrama except that before that i watched Paris 2010 the great flood. In both cases the cities do flood but the thing is that the leaders in Paris are portrayed as being prepared and ready for the disaster. Sure, things happen in Paris that they didn't predict but overall they're choice to react early and be honest with the public do result in people escaping and the city escaping serious damage. In London the story shows the over confident leaders being afraid to order an evacuation in case there is no need to evacuate. The 2 stories illustrate the problem in all disasters where there is a long lead time. Do you order the evacuation early and be hailed as a hero when there's 2 meters of water in the city, or do you order the evacuation and be called a scardy cat when the "flood" is nothing more than a trickle. Paris's choice to evacuate shows the correct decision but what if the flood hadn't happened and people spent a week in shelters for nothing??? In the end it's always the right choice to overreact and give the public an honest assessment that a flood/disaster is possible and that they should be prepared. While it's disruptive to send people out of harms way when in the end nothing happens it will eventually blow over. Nothing gets news coverage like bodies floating in the water.

Everybody's working for the weekend...

I guess the point of the song was to be working FOR the weekend. Not working ON the weekend. Though there are pluses and minuses to working the weekend shift. For the most part the crowd on the weekend are more relaxed and it's just a smoother day. But on the other hand it's just hard to get your head around working Saturday night. Though i guess someone has to be there, I know I get pretty whiny when I find out a store is closed on the weekend. While working on the weekend can be annoying It's really nice to get those days off in the middle of the week that you wouldn't normally get with a regular 9-5 job. As with every job it's a give and take some things are good and some things are annoying.

Overall i give weekend shifts 3.5 Stars out of 5. For the loss of social life but with bonus points for the chance to get out and visit goverment offices when they are actually open.

Night Shift in the winter

Ahhh the night shift.. i guess it's not really that bad in the winter.. realistically when you're working during the winter in the North you tend to go to work when it's dark and go home when it's dark. At least working the night shift you get to have some of the day for fun when it's light out. I'm not sure about the picture maybe that's just the way it feels during the winter like it's a long endless snowy path heading into the darkness. But it's nights for one more week after this. Then 2 weeks of Days.. so .. at least it's a consistent rotation.

To Start: How about a game

Well in the spirit of reviewing Wii video games. I'll start with a review of Battalion Wars 2. Now i never played Battalion Wars 1 but i hear it was pretty good. BW2 Makes good if sometimes confusing use of the Wiimote sometimes your ship or tank seems to be turning when you didn't want it to but over all it certainly makes a really good try at making the best uses of the motion controls and the aiming with the Wiimote. I can't really imagine trying to aim with an analog stick. The game itself is quite engaging and it's really fun to just spend allot of time blowing stuff up. Things do explode with quite satisfying bangs and showers of flame. The commentary provided by your commanders and the enemy in the game is quite humorous.. but can become a little annoying if you have to repeat a level a number of times. The biggest fault I could see in the game is it's lacking a 2 player co-op and battle mode on the same system necessitating the purchase of 2 copies of the game and 2 Wiis if you want to have your girlfriend join you in the game (provided of course you could convince her to play a game where all you do is make things explode). The wi-fi connection is pretty good the ability to play people not on your friends list also allows the possibility of fighting a real person even if none of your friends have the game yet.

Overall rating: 4 Stars out of 5