WULF DOES SANTA

Ever ridden a roller-coaster?
The train makes clickety clack noises, climbing up the gravity well, mass ratios and kinetic equations dance around the gravity constant. Charging up, then, once the top of the track is reached, silence. Just before everyone (sans Wulf natch) screams and the bucket of humanity hurdles down the track to embark on another ride.

Well, this is precisely the feeling I am experiencing right now. Only, for added excitement, I do not know whether there is a track on the down side of the coaster :) Hmmm... tell me more Wulf. Make youself more comfortable on the couch. Why this unreasonable fear of clowns? Huh? I did not mention any clowns. Unless of course we are talking of people who have wronged me in the past. Plotted their evil plans, nay more so inconvinient. For to call them evil would be to offend the good, mirror thing, do not think to much on it, it is quite apparent to anyone reading (all 2 of you) that I have not thought to much about what I have written ;)

The new year is going to bring changes, this I know. The last few days of this year are a fuse to a rocket that is going to push me forward. This I know.

A good start was an interview I had on Christmas eve. A sign I am getting old. Both the PM and the Talent were both younger than me. Usually, the decision makers are older. Even though it was a team leader role, I politely declined since it transpired that the role was hands on, working on a SOE rollout. This is the kind of a position I will be considering when the stocks of the cans of dogfoods start running low. I give it 2-3 months. In the meanwhile, the sights are set higher.
Interesting aspect of a psychology of an Interview. It is twice now that I have informed the interviewer that the offered role is not for me.
Yet in both instances I was informed that it was *I* who was 'unsuccessful'.
This was after I informed them that I was not interested.
No, I am sorry mate. It is *I* who have decided *YOU* were unsuccessful.
The interview process cuts both, *I* get to decide if I want to work for you lot; usurous,incompetent,disorganised,clearly inept and badly in need of my assistance. The Interviewer has a real problem letting go of their perceived control of the process.

Aaah... Control. My favourite word at the moment.
I have ordered a game from the US. The reason, this game comes out here sometime next year. Its available in the US for well over 4 weeks now. And it it cheaper. Naturally I have Ebayed it. Here is the 1st surprise. Even including the shipping, I paid $68. For a game that in Australia would cost $99.
Ok, I am happy to go with that high marigin. I have said this before, I buy locally when I can so that my neighbour has a job.

My second surprise really annoyed me. The game is regionalised. Allow me to explain this concept to you dear reader. You see, forget what you have heard about Global economy. It is all lies and propaganda. Forget all you have heard about competative markets, the bedrock of capitalism. All lies.

The idea of 'regionalised' media means that the CDs have little bits on them marking them as made for a region. This allows the vendor (SONY, may their corporate soul burn in the hell of insolvency as the insanely gigling users trample their grave) to charge $40-50 for the game in the US and $90 for the game here.
To put it in other words. You are being locked out from the competition/fair market by the virtue of monopoly. Luckily it looks like they have pissed off enough people that there is now a solution. Before you blanch that I being such a principled human being would stoop to thieving from a multi billion dollar multinational corporation, owning a mod chip is legal in Australia. I guess it is all a problem with translation. 'Customer Satisfaction' was mistranslated as 'Consumer hostile measures'.

There is a cosmic justice in play. I have been poignantly reminded of this at my Christmas dinner. You see the last few years my parents have been gravitating by choice towards having the Chrismas dinner at the local ethnic hangout. At their age, preparing a 12 course meal is a bit of a chore. The meal is perpared according to the old country tradition. Very old europe. And so it was, some time into the meal the Santa Claus was scheduled to make an appearance. Natrually, being the idiot that I am I have asked the chief voluneer 'Can I do something to help?', since the man was making the rounds apologising for a delay in one of the 12 courses.
The guy had one look at me and asked me to be the Santa Claus.
Living up to my motto 'Carpe Diem', and before any good sense brain cells that were not pleasantly floating on a sea of booze on their tiny white cell floating mattresses, sipping pina coladas had a chance to wake up and scream 'WTF R u doing dude!' I upped and dis-appeared behind the scenes to dress as the man in Coca-Cola colors.


Wulf, the man in red. Note the santa pants strapped onto the front of my trousers and the bursting jacket. Not often it can be said that; most Santas are scrawny weedy guys... at least compared to Wulf :)

Now, here is the funny part. After I have went to all the effort of being publicly humiliated in front of 200 people, there were no presents!
All the presents left under the tree were decorations, so fun time ensued as I was describing and speculating various empty boxes, blocks of wood and gift wrapped bricks. Sigh...

So... living proof not only that there is cosmic justice, but also she has a sense of humor (see the previous post).

LINK OF THE DAY

This is one of those, 'Why did no one think of this before?' ideas. A CD labeler that allows you to BURN the image on the other side of a CD in a CD burner!