Ah, September the 4th. The holiday known as Labour Day up in Canada.

I made the mistake of coming in to work today. I have a big meeting tomorrow that I have to prepare for. But outside my office window a parade is going on. Yes, an actual parade. The unions are parading in celebration. Celebrating what? I don't know. Labour I guess. Celebrating cushy union jobs for life.

The music is nice though. Steel bands. Singers. Thousands and thousands of people marching. I think an hour of this might convert me to their cause.

I've been having a blast with my XBox 360. As you may recall, I bought one a few weeks ago and have been having a great time with it. I've mostly used it to play games - from Need for Speed Most Wanted, to Tiger Woods 06. And I have been enjoying the XBox Live Arcade a lot too - purchased a couple of games from there.

A little while ago I installed Windows Media Center on one of my PC's - mostly because the XP Pro key I have didn't work. I have stacks of official Microsoft XP Pro CD's and no working keys. But Media Center PC has been just as good - even better. Media Center is XP with a PLUS.

Media Center kind-of integrates with the 360. Well, actually, it is supposed to be full integration. My XBox 360 is a media center pc for my living room television. But MCE only runs Windows Media WMV file fornats. Since all of my videos are more compressed than that (DivX mostly), I haven't been able to play streaming videos on my XBox.

Until today.

Today is the day I found VLC360. VLC360 is an ingenious little app that converts DivX and other movie types to Windows Media format ON THE FLY. So, as far as my XBox is concerned, I am playing WMV files. But the files are stored on my computer in DivX or xvid. It's amazing really. The person who came up with this idea and was able to implement it so nicely is a genious, no doubt about it.

If you have an XBox 360, and you have a Media Center PC, get this app. I have a REAL media center now. Wow!

OK, so the prosecutors in Colorado proved me wrong.

I was absolutely sure that they had some other evidence. After investigating this guy for several months, and having him under surveillance in Thailand, they finally decided they had enough to put him away for life. Investigate first, arrest second, right?

Uh, wrong.

Prosecutors decided to take a gamble. Like the "glove" from the OJ Simpson case - "If it don't fit, you must acquit." Sometimes you take a gamble and win, and sometimes you lose.

So, they will attempt to convict this guy on "possessing child porn" from 5 years ago. But prosecutors in California think he might have served most of the jail time already. So he'll be a free man in a matter of weeks.

Oh well. This case will probably never be solved. Another in a long line of unsolved murders.

It's not even 9pm, and I am home. Surprising, because we did a rather large "production deployment" tonight at 4pm, and that usually means an two to three hours of running around, followed by a couple of hours of stabilization.

Not this time. Things seem to have worked right out of the gate. I stuck around a few extra hours just in case (and have to prepare for another deployment tomorrow), but it was mostly unnecessary. 

I give full credit to the QA department (particularly this one tester) who tested the crap out of the code before it went live. She found all the interesting defects, and I had them fixed a couple of weeks ago.

I love it when that happens. I think my company finally has its development process exactly right.

I decided to check on my Lulu account, because it's been a while since I've been there. And wouldn't you know it, I sold 4 copies of my e-Book, "How to Solve Sudoku". Holy smokes!

To those 4 people who shelled out $0.95 for a 9-page PDF file... thank you. Thank you so much.

I really have to get back into my content-creation mode. I've been slacking off creating new books, web sites, and trying out business ideas. My "Back to School" resolution for September - get back to non-work work.

I'm been feeling awful for the past week. My allergies have flared up a lot earlier than usual, and I've been fighting a mild cold as well. Today I have a headache that comes and goes. Right now it's here. Perhaps my health is in tune with the weather - it has been rainy and overcast the last couple of days, and a lot colder than it was a couple of weeks ago.

Summer is over, I guess.

Summer went by so fast this year. I guess it does every year, but still - time is flying.

It seems like only a little while ago my wife and I were in France, walking down the Champs d'Elyses... And that was April! Four months have passed since then!

I need a change of scene. I don't know what it is yet, or what form it's going to take, but I need to shake things up. Same old office, same old condo, same old clothes, same old car. Or maybe I just need a nap...

I work in the service industry, although I am not dealing with the general public. I have clients, and I am always conscious of the fact that even though I work in the same office with someone, they are still my client. I act differently than if I was a coworker. If there is a problem, I always stay late to fix it even if it's not technically my responsibility and my clients notice that and appreciate it.

That's why I hate receiving lousy service from store or restaurant employees. It makes no sense to me. I don't know why the store doesn't watch for this behavior and try to correct it.

Today I was buying lunch - a burger and fries at Burger King. I ordered a large fries instead of the medium, because the burger I ordered is normally a bit small. When I got to the counter where you pick up your food, they had given me a medium fries. "Is that a large?" I say. And the woman behind the counter quietly dumps the medium fries out and gets me a large.

She was smileless and expressionless... Not a single syllable crossed her lips the entire time she interacted with me.

And all she needed to do was smile and say "Sorry about that." Or "Whoops! Good thing you noticed!" or something similar. She needed to ACKNOWLEDGE HER MISTAKE.

What's so hard about that? I didn't need a full formal apology. I didn't need her to prostrate herself in front of me. I didn't need a free meal or for her to commit Hara-kiri.

Some restaurants do it right. One time I was in McD's and I had to wait a little bit for my burger. The cashier threw in a free Apple Pie without me even asking for it - "Sorry it took so long. Here's a free Apple Pie." I was just standing there being patient - it didn't even feel like that long. But I remember that experience.

And as for Burger King not giving me what I ordered - and then not even acknowledging their mistake.... I will remember that too.