stuff123

Winter’s recently have been a reminder to me that I don’t get out and do enough stuff for my own good. Back in the day I would go skiing or jog or even bicycle ride sometimes. You just had to dress properly. Most of the time the roads and sidewalks didn’t have that much snow on them.

Well the car wouldn’t start the other day and I had to go to the bank to sign some stuff for a retirement plan that I was transferring from another financial institution that only sends me an obligatory update once a year. The trip would be mostly down hill and I could take a cab back if I can find one. There aren’t too many in a town this size.

So I decide I’ll just dress for it and walk. It felt really good and I didn’t have to apologize to the sidewalks for pounding the stuffing out of them like I did when I jogged. I used to wear out a pair of good jogging shoes every two months. And my knees used to complain a lot because most of the time you had to run on concrete especially in the winter. I hated running on tracks. It was too easy to quit.

Jogging through a neighbourhood or park was much more interesting and you had to find your way back so I only resorted to walking when I needed to rest. Once sufficiently recovered you just started jogging again. It gives you time to think and relieves a lot of built up tension, not to mention all the cardiovascular benefits.

Well guess what walking does that too. And the old brain doesn’t take time off in a walk either. In fact I think it takes over. The only negative is that multi-focal glasses aren’t real good for a walk because you are changing your focus point so often. I actually felt off balance. Next time I think I’ll just put them in my pocket and see what happens.

And on the walk I met Striker, a 4-yr. old lab, who was just as interested in me as I was in her. Her master was really a nice person too. He was very pleasant and had no problem talking to strangers.

And I went to Alfonso’s garage to set up the repair of that stupid car sitting in the driveway. Went across to the bank and signed the papers and had a nice discussion about bank staffing with my advisor in the bank.

I learned that the bank is like a totally different business during the day when everybody in the branch wants to work those hours. Two staff members greeted me with smiles and another asked the gal sitting in the reception area if I was taken care of and tellers were joking with customers. I had been in this branch 2 nights before and was pretty much ignored and I felt like I was treated like a rag. So I won’t be going to the bank at night or on the weekends anymore.

And I walked another 8 or 9 blocks up and down some big hills, did some grocery shopping and turned back the way I came looking for a cab. None in sight. Might as well start walking and maybe one will appear.

And I passed a complete stranger who looked at me and smiled and said hello and I did the same. Still no cab to be found. No bus service in this town. Ah what the heck, I’ll just truck it all the way home.

Lesson learned today. Hills driven in a car are 10 times longer and 10 times steeper than what you feel while driving. I had to stop a few times and adjust the groceries and slow down the old ticker and breathing, but boy did it feel good when I got home.

I think I’m gonna’ go for a stroll in the old neighbourhood again. I just think I’m going to find a better route than that hill and maybe I’ll use the car to get me close and then walk the rest of the way.

It’s very much like the difference between walking a golf course and riding a cart. You become one with your surroundings. It’s a much better game.

Mick Dundee again?

Nope.

This is a story of what you can do if you buy carefully and look at quality and functionality as your first target and leave price further down the list. This particular kitchen tool is not that expensive, either.

If I could only have one kitchen knife, this would be it. I got it at Lee Valley which is a very unique retail outlet that also has an excellent mail order service via their website. The following link will get you started. One knife

Lee Valley sells a range of products that are all meant to be used by people that understand that quality, functionality and durability are what you need to get the job done but that you don’t necessarily have to take out a mortgage to do so. Their product range includes good stuff for woodworking, gardening and all kinds of hardware from cupboard door handles to screws and other hard to find useful hardware.

They don’t try to compete with the big box stores. They don’t sell much in the way of power tools or lawnmowers and most of the product has only one on display. You fill out an order form and take it to the counter where you are served by number. A friendly staff member will take your order and go back and hand pick each item and then show everything to you. If you have any questions they will do their best to help out. You take all the stuff and pay at the end of that counter.

The knife was something I saw on display in the store and decided to try. I also bought a unique sharpening tool that I also use on router bits, scissors and other knives like my Swiss army one. Its a two-sided folding contraption of diamond stuff that has 600x and 1200x grit to it. It is overkill, because it is superfine and ultrafine but I like it that way. It was twice the price of the knife, but I probably will only have to buy one in my lifetime.

The other thing that Lee Valley does is help you to do things better. As part of that web catalogue page for the Peasant Chef’s Knife, you will see a small link “instr” which is the instructions on how to take care of the knife and how to sharpen it.

The knife will never look that shiny again. The only thing that will is the edge because it takes an edge better than any other knife in my homemade knife block. I usually don’t sharpen it right away and start cutting away on one of my plastic cutting boards. A small tip. Knuckle your fingers under in the hand that is holding the stuff you are cutting or chopping and cut slightly away from that hand. Finger stew doesn’t go real far.

This knife will cut tomatoes & potatoes paper thin and is rigid enough to cut right through a rutabaga (waxed turnip). I sometimes make homemade oven-baked potato chips and this knife is essential in cutting them thin enough. Just go slowly and make your strokes deliberate.

As part of the after I-put-it-to-good-use-ceremony, I rinse the knife under cold water, get out the sharpener and sharpen it under running water and then wipe the knife with a paper towel to make sure that all the fine shavings are gone. Then it just goes back into it’s private slot in the big block. Sometimes the little paring knife gets to play but most of the time it’s this guy that does the work. Even cuts fresh baked bread.

I understand now what they meant when they coined the phrase “trusty knife”. It looks to me like it’s a lot lighter than Mick’s too.

It’s late January and I decide I might as well check Mafia Wars and figure out what to do with the next billion or two that will be waiting for me since I don’t go there very often. The game had become rather boring.

OK. Something’s different here. Seems to be more stuff and some stuff has gone away. This happens to be the Facebook version. I’ll check the MySpace version after I poke around a little.

Guess what folks. Zynga is listening to you. They are trying to upgrade the game to make it more interesting and more playable because it’s in the best interests of both parities—the designers and the players. While this isn’t version 2, it is an improvement—more like version 1.2 or 1.3. I have numerous PC games that are collecting dust because they are either no longer playable or just became too boring. Some collect dust because they became too complicated. Most of the air wars games required you to be as adept as a WWII flying ace in handling all the various controls. So you can also go to far.

Good on you Zynga for doing something to improve the game. I now have a reason to see what is after level 99 because I don’t just sign in and buy 5 casinos and leave. Here’s a few highlights that I’ve noticed so far. It will take a little more time to get some of the other stuff figured out but at least they have me interested in trying to find out what’s around that corner.

Speed Boat

They give you a reason to buy one now. In fact, I bought a second for a future job that will require two. The delivery truck is also in at least one job.

Loot Items

There are additional items that can only be earned in fights and new jobs that will require the use of loot items that were previously of little use. I still think there should be a way to sell excess loot items like you do in the Hammerfall store.

Critical Hit

It is a wild card that favours the underdog and makes fighting less predictable. Fights no longer result in the frustrating opponent too weak or dead result which just made us mad and wasted processing time.

Variety of Jobs

This has increased at most levels and the requirement for mafia size has been dropped in Facebook but not in MySpace. I think Facebook users are more vocal than MySpace. In my opinion, it is because Facebook is a much better social platform than MySpace and there is more interaction between users. The increase in options at all levels is what will prolong a games shelf life. It won’t replace the need for the next version but it will delay it.

I have to believe that Zynga is still fairly small and is trying to get into too many things all at once. That’s why some of the games are not performing as well as they would like and it almost seems like they have separate teams working on each game. The lessons learned in Mafia Wars can easily be transferred to other games and vice versa.

The best way to get new players in Mafia Wars is not in the game itself. It is to use Pirates and competitor’s games. I find it strange that they did not upgrade this in their latest changes.

At least the 501 crowd will have something new to do for a while instead of trying to find workarounds to make themselves look smaller so someone will let them play. They are nothing more than schoolyard bullies.

Playing games for me is more about finding out what is new and next. I get more out of the challenge of working toward the next level or game requirement. For some, they would rather get there quicker so the option to buy points and buy advanced weapons is there for you to do so. The game is still very playable if you choose not to take part in this system. It is the primary way that Zynga pays for the gas for the Ferraris and it is something that they need to do. The games would not grow if they don’t get funding.

Every game out there in Facebook does it. The games market is changing particularly for the PC. I think the days of buying a game at the store developed by Microsoft and others is quickly disappearing. The future is in the hands of developers like Zynga and its competitors.

You will ultimately decide who ends up being successful and who ends up in the gaming garbage dump. It’s the free enterprise system in action. No one is forcing you to play. They have to do something to make you come back.

And, for now, Zynga has done that with Mafia Wars in Facebook. What’s next, Zynga? That was only one “concrete overshoe” that you removed.

In Facebook, you see it all the time. People joining different groups about all kinds of different things. Thousands of people in each, attaching their name to various banners.

I have never been much on groups but I loved being part of a team. A lot of people will say that a team is also a group but there is a big difference between the two. Groups are intended to align people under a single banner and they spend a lot of time talking about the cause or goal. A team is similar but the difference is they work together to actually do something about it.

A group embodies the true meaning of one of my favourite sayings— “They are like old men and sex. They spend more time talking about it than doing it.”

A team adopts the genuine spirit of one of the best advertising slogans I can recall—Nike’s “Just Do It”

My personal memorable teams involved a few football teams that I played on and a group of young men in their first year of university living in a residence called Edwards Hall. Throughout the year, we banded together in numerous actions ranging from frosh week rebellion against our residence executive. We dropped them off in a farmer’s field (20 miles away or so) in the middle of the night to find their way back to the residence like they did to us.

We peppered a nearby men’s residence’s balcony with locally purchased eggs as retaliation for crimes against some of the hall members’ girlfriends. The opposition dumped garbage cans of water on innocent passers by from that same balcony. We had numerous house parties that made Animal House feel more like a home movie made about our time in Edwards Hall.

But a visit to one team in particular gave me another look at what makes a team as opposed to a group. It was in Montreal while visiting the Montreal Canadiens. I was based in Toronto and used to visit Maple Leaf Gardens 4 or 5 times a week to conduct the business of providing team sales support to the Maple Leafs, Toros and Marlboros on behalf of Cooper Sporting Goods.

The Leafs were more like a group. In fact, it was the only dressing room in North American hockey that I was not permitted to enter as per the owner’s instructions, Harold Ballard. The trainers were always very embarrassed by this, especially after knowing I had just left the numerous visitor’s dressing rooms throughout the building and also the Marlboros dressing room right across the hall.

The Canadiens dressing room in the old Forum was charged with energy. The time was somewhere in the middle of their 4 year run of winning the Stanley Cup. It may have been the first or second season but that isn’t important. You could sense the confidence and shared in all the good natured fun that took place. The status lines between so-called Superstar and front line players really didn’t exist. They were all quite talented, but it is how they worked and played together that made it obvious that they worked together mostly as one unit.

They had techniques that weren’t dissimilar to my university residence experience to deal with non team players. I watched two players drink from another players coke that was chilling in an ice bucket awaiting the return of the other player from his shower. Upon his return the bottle was magically full again and the smiles of getting even were on all the other players because they were all in on the prank.

It was hard to follow some of the conversations because they were switching back and forth between English and French as if they had developed some new language called Frenlish. Most often the sentence was punctuated with group laughter. I now understood the meaning of what a team does to stay loose. Team chemistry is very difficult to develop and is much easier to destroy. Harold Ballard was very good at the latter.

It struck me as quite strange that I had to leave the room to talk to their starting goalie and go into his small and private dressing room to talk to him about the new designs of equipment that his brother worked so closely with us to develop.

Yes it was the Dryden brothers, Ken and Dave. Ken was not much of a team player while Dave was almost the total opposite. I guess their future careers reflected that. Ken became a lawyer and Dave taught school and worked at different levels in the educational system. Ken was more comfortable behind the scenes while Dave was in the middle all the time.

Some years later, I was at a conference where Ken was the guest speaker. He talked about his book, The Game. It is a very good book about hockey. I don’t remember the finish of his speech. Someone nudged me when it was time to clap.