In October of 2000 I was working at a dotcom. It was me, 12 computers, 12 phones and a whole lot of conference call webcasting. It’s what eventually got me over to Boston a couple years later, and then back home a while after that. The way it all started, as some liked to say, was with shoelaces and bubble gum. The system was rickety, duct tape was often involved, and I would soon realize that the Burger King on Main Street, near 2nd didn’t serve breakfast at 4:45am, just dinner.

I got into the whole deal through some old friends that I’ve known since I was 8 years old. We kept in touch until my mid-teens then we didn’t see each other for a while. After couple years passed, one of them happened upon me online, recognizing my handle on Audiogalaxy (this was before the days of Napster and Kazaa). We then did a little catching up. They talked about this online broadcasting project that they’d just begun, I signed on and the rest is my geek history.

Currently, one of them is doing contract work over at Telus. John met me after work today and we Skytrained out to Joyce (since we’re cheap and only wanted to pay the 1 zone fare at the time) then walked over to ‘The Boot’ [GVRD].

‘The Boot’ is rather intimidating. Sitting atop the hill on the corner of Kingsway and Boundary is the multi-googo-mega Telus Corp. We went inside and got a tour of his new workspace – basically the encoding centre. Man, encoding centres have come a LONG way since my days of duct tape, Real Media editor and gentner switches.

I almost had to stop John from drooling over all the audio equipment (and the on-site fitness club), man we gotta get him a job soon.

From there we headed over to Lynn Valley to catch the game, since it was Pay Per View and the guys have the whole pre-paid package deal. Boy, it was well worth the money tonight… well okay the 3rd period was well worth it.

The following is a photo tour of our afternoon and of things I was comfortable snapping shots of in ‘The Boot’ before we vacated the premises.

We felt the love

Where some of the magic happens

“That’s not good enough! We want MORE asbestos! MORE asbestos!”

HOT

The escape route

Alternate escape route

The reward

Everyone is back on the line for Episode 8. Talk of booze, fights on the ice, and JJ becoming our very own Canucks.com fan blogger all keep us chatting this week.

Although the water is still murky in Vancouver, the Canucks’ play has made everything a little brighter. After a dismal beating last week, our boys come back with two victories since the last episode.

Alanah is back online with the gang as we discuss our recent wins. J.J. recaps his experience at the game vs St Louis on Friday night and Dave gives us his perspective, after attending the Chicago match last night.

Record as of this podcast: 10-10-1 (3rd in the Northwest Division)

The quick little defenseman catching our attention, our fearless Captain almost getting a hat trick and Kesler’s right hook all lifted our spirits. With 3 more games this week, and no shortage of shots on goal, we know the Canucks have the potential to kick some serious butt.

Run Time: 26:20
The Crazy Canucks Podcast, Episode 8

While looking over a new theme that we’ve been working on for a while, John and I got into a heated debate over fonts. Yes, our household is just THAT geeky.

I flashed a screenshot of the theme-in-progress to my co-worker, Chris who said there’s a part of it that reminds him of “that little tank game”, he then proceeded to demonstrate with his fingers, the movements of the tank and tag on some sound effects “eeeee oooooo crrhhgggglllhhhhhh!” I totally knew what he was talking about.

Way back when, my brother, sister and I used to have two games on our computer. One was with two gorillas on top of skyscrapers and you had to adjust velocity and angle, then toss a banana at the other person’s gorilla. Any banana that missed, left a crater and the cityscape would vanish around you, while battling. They also had a version of it on Intellivision [wiki]. Quality gaming, I know.

Another, was Tank Wars – the game Chris was getting at. All the computer-run tanks were named after dictators and warriors, Atilla, Musollini, Adolf, etc. To play a much-updated version of Tank Wars, visit a site that lives up to its reputation, AddictingGames.com.

Chris also says I should be a “Verdana sales rep” since I can sell anyone on it [previous post about fonts yes, I have a previous post about fonts].

Update: Found a forum post about the gorilla game, “Apes”. Someone actually re-created it, sweeeeet.

Georgia street was closed for most of today because of the Santa Claus Parade. I headed out to start my shift at work and arrived about 45 minutes later. Normally, it takes about 10 minutes to get to work if I take a bus and 20 if I walk.

The #5 Robson bus is usually pretty efficient, but today it had to take many detours – it turned right on Thurlow and went all the way down to Beach Ave. Crossed over Burrard and turned left up Seymour where it met up with its proper route. 30 minutes later and I’m off the bus, wondering why the heck I didn’t just WALK.

Along Robson there were people handing out popcorn at the Bell store, Starbucks was handing out free samples of gingerbread lattes and every street was packed with either parade goers, shoppers, and football fans. Everyone who just wanted to get out on a sunny afternoon – knowing that the rains will come again.

It being Grey Cup Sunday, we take a slight pause from being Canuck fans and remember that we’ve also got a pretty kick ass football team around here. (See John’s CFL post if you are unfamiliar with our ‘Mutant Form of Football’). Being the heavy favourites and league dominators this year, our boys came out on top. Now it’s time to plan another parade route, which will cause another crazy day of traffic downtown.

The Canucks face off tonight in Pay Per View action vs Chicago. Even though Alex Burrows will probably be broken-hearted, with his Alouettes losing today, they should be able to steamroll over the hawks with some of that momentum from Friday night.

As for me? 4 more hours of work to go…

This whole “don’t drink the water” thing is Metroblogging gold.

You still shouldn’t be brushing your teeth with the water or drinking it but seriously, you CAN wash your hands. We were out Friday night and 3 women in the ladies room with me got right out of the stall, headed to the paper towels and left. Um, I’d rather take my chances with the tap water + soap then uh… that. That’s just wrong [mbv].

This is something BIG happening to the city and even though it’s about a major public health risk, there’s so much to blog about. From news reports to peoples’ crazy behaviors. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to blog about the BC Lions winning the Grey Cup – but who cares about football anyway?

We’re doing okay here on day 3 without water, the dishes are stacking up [audihertz], we had to go grab some more bottled water but man the skies cleared today and the fresh air, sunshine and snowy mountain views just lifted our spirits. Even though I was out in New West serving tea on my only day off in two weeks, it was worth it.

We get to have a nice night at home tonight. We have beer in the fridge and leftovers from Flying Wedge. Mercy me that’s good pizza!

The Canucks won last night and even though I work from 3pm to 11pm tomorrow – hopefully I’ll still be able to catch the game on the radio. It’s another Pay Per View so I think John will be headed to our friends’ house in Lynn Valley for some munchies and male bonding.

I’m SO looking forward to this short week coming up – nothing to do except work for 3 days, plan a massive Thanksgiving dinner with my husband and hit the stores south of the border during some quality sister time with Jenny.

I started Christmas shopping already, got something for the in-laws and hopefully we’ll get a parcel down to the family soon. I can’t wait to have Christmas in Kansas City or Iowa, I’m sure John can’t either. Until then, we’ll enjoy the holidays up here with my family. My Oma’s health is failing lately, we have to get out and see her although I’m sure she’ll bounce back soon. She was all boisterous the other night watching the hockey game, “Oh those lousy Canucks!” She’s the Canucks’ number one 85 year old fan – it’s tough love, really.