The team and I were enjoying the traditional long lunch when it happened. The monthly long lunch is a wonderful institution that serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it's a team-builder -- you get out and interact with your team-mates on a personal level. It's also a good way to break up the routine of the work week once in a blue moon (or is that blue noon?). Mostly it's a good way to avoid the office for an unreasonably long time, while you eat lunch and perhaps enjoy a beer. The only downside is that every minute spend enjoying the food must be made up for at the end of the day. Every minute of pleasure is paid for by an equal minute of pain.

So where was I? Oh yes. On this particular occasion, we splurged and went to the slightly-expensive-but-worth-it Cardero's at Coal Harbour. I was halfway through a chicken ravioli when Kurt Russell's chin entered the restaurant, followed shortly by Kurt himself. Some action heroes, like Schwarzenegger, enter a room chest-first. But Kurt's dominant feature is a jaw that's so impressively large, it's a wonder that he doesn't have stability problems when he walks.

The waiter seated him alone at a table for two by the window, and there he stayed without attracting any undue attention for the twenty minutes or so until we left the restaurant. And this made me wonder: is it common for well-known Hollywood actors to show up in public without being disturbed by fans? I'm fairly certain that Kurt couldn't go anywhere without being recognized. Why didn't anyone walk up and say "Hi, I enjoyed your performance in Vanilla Sky" or "Say, aren't you..." or at the very least "ohmygodohmygodohmygod"?

I've seen this before. A while back, Kevin Costner moseyed on past me in a food fair and stood in line at Starbuck's like anyone else. Some people noticed him, but left him alone.

Is this politeness? Or is this recognition that these people are like anyone else? Except, of course, for the fact that they're stinking rich. I think that most fans would like their favourite actors and actresses to feel comfortable. After all, these people live their lives hounded by the press and crazed fans -- maybe they deserve a little space.

Another possibility is that nobody really cares all that much.

I finished my pasta, we settled the bill, and walked out the door, half hoping that we'd run into Goldie on our way out.

Directly outside our window is a new constructions site, formerly a 7-Eleven, where they will be putting up a new condo development. I have to say, it was very satisfying to see that backhoe tearing apart the 7-Eleven. I wish I could see the same thing done to a McDonald's. It somehow resonates with a 30's socialist image (workers, rise and smash the capitalist oppressors!).

Well, it didn't gather a cheering mob, but it fuelled the watercooler conversation. Actually, the local cube-dwellers have taken to watching construction sites as a spectator sport. Yes, it occasionally gets that dull around here.

For example, there's an old, rotting house -- also visible from my window -- undergoing renovations. It's been the subject of intense debate because, after raising the house on jacks and inserting a new ground floor, they seem to be replacing every single beam and board in the structure. What, may I ask, is the point of renovating a house if you're going to basically rebuild it anyway? Don't tell me it's to preserve a heritage site. There's nothing left of the original house!

Back to the condo. A coworker of mine (let's call him Bob) has a certain obsession with construction cranes. Wherever there's a crane, Bob's there with a camera to catch them erecting the giant tower. He talks about them frequently. I once caught him photocopying the architectural plans for one after-hours. I hesitate to ponder the significance.

As for me, I watch the sites because they seem to take so many bits of things and bring them together to make something. The former site of the 7-Eleven is a big hole in the ground at the moment, but in only months, it will be a four-storey building -- homes for those who can afford it. But before then, it will serve as a blessed distraction from the daily geek work.

(By the way, should anyone happen to figure out where I work from my daily blogs, I should mention that the opinions expressed on this blog don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.)

I am astounded at how easily people will throw away their privacy. Once again, Vancouver police are asking for more surveillance cameras to monitor the streets, and once again, Vancouverites are more than willing to help the local Big Brother watch their every move -- all the name of security.

In a web poll that's currently in progress on Canada.com (yes, I go to that site too much), over 70% of respondants so far think it's a good idea to add more cameras. Are they on crack?

Hold on. No, they just want to keep any eye on those who are on crack. (Ooh, I'm off on a grade-A rant now.)

I think the real problem is that, in general, people don't think it will affect them personally. "The police only watch criminals," they might say. Or: "I'm not hiding anything... why should I worry?"

We should worry because, when police begin to collect information about your comings and goings, you should consider what the police think that your hiding.

Let me give you an example. You may have a daily routine: leave in the morning on a certain route; stop at the drug store; go to the corner store on the way back; and by your regular route, arrive back home. Perfectly innocent.

Then, one time, on impulse, you vary your route. You walk down a different street, and maybe stop at the other corner store instead. The police have this on record, and if it suited them, they might ask themselves why the different route? Maybe they were looking for a person who held up the corner store that day, and sure enough, here's someone who inexplicably varied their usual routine. You have just become a suspect.

Certainly, this might be an unusual scenario (I hope), but the consequence of surveillance is that innocent people will become aware that they are being watched and their actions recorded. Any time you leave the privacy of your home, you may be conscious of the camera and you may modify your behaviour accordingly. When the camera misses nothing, you may feel the need to suppress an urge to do something as simple as varying your route. Or saying hello to a neighbor. Or wearing something too colourful. Or spontaneously varying your route or visiting the park.

The scenario in which you become a suspect is hopefully rare, but the rest, I feel, is a certainty. Under those conditions, we will no longer be living in a free society; we will have given up too much.

I'm not big on dead-guy quotes, but here's one that I'd like to leave you with. In 1784, Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Once we lose essential liberty, it may be impossible to get it back.

()

Last night, my inner thespian got loose and terrorized a room full of people. For the first time in five years, I stood up in front of people -- albeit five people -- and performed a monologue.

And I enjoyed it.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that, at the end of long years of theatrical training and studies at the University of British Columbia, I have done nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in front of an audience. That is, unless you count that incident where I drank too much sake at a karaoke club and tried to demonstrate my abilities as a lounge singer. I really hope that doesn't count.

Not only have I not been on stage, but I also haven't hung a light, raised a flat, or built a riser. I haven't been backstage or on a catwalk, and the closest thing to a fly gallery I've seen was at a sushi stand in the West End.

I have been extremely negligent. While I've never claimed (or demonstrated) any strong acting abilities, it used to be the focus of my life, second only to beer.

So there I was, doing a monologue for the first time since graduation. The audience was a group called Ready or Not that meets weekly to be all artsy and stuff. You know -- actors, musicians, writers, et cetera -- all being wacky and trying out new material on real, live people. It's a wonderful idea. I think everyone should try it.

Call up a few friends. Find a song. Pick up that guitar. Choose a monologue. Scratch out some words on paper. Have fun and share some of that repressed creativity.

()

Reading an article on the Canada.com website, I discover that Vancouver police are working hard improving their undercover tactics. Their mission this time: to infiltrate local pubs and bars and count how many drinks you order.

I may be blowing their cover here, but you can recognize them as the ones taking notes on coasters and ordering round after round of Evian shots with their soft drinks.

Fridays at the office. At every company I've worked for, Fridays are always marked by some kind of social event, including one or more of: beer, movies, games, snacks, or on particularly wacky Fridays, a company meeting. I appreciate their effort in organizing these events, of course. And the intent is to make their employees happy, because a happy employee is a productive employee. Great! Please keep it up! But not on Friday!

For crying out loud! At the end of a long work week, I for one want to leave at 5:00 sharp and return to my real life. Oh, I like my co-workers -- they're great people. But I see them every single freakin' day, all day.

I've got my own ideas about how to make Fridays a little better. What if they passed around Irish coffees in the morning? That would help things along until noon, at least. Then free lunch at the pub (the one without the rats), which would take at least three hours. Then, around 3:00, the final hours would slip by with the help of the recreational drugs.

Well maybe not that last one. But you get the idea. Make Friday something to look forward to, and employees would give their all from Monday to Thursday. It's called building loyalty.

I suppose, however, that we should just be content that we still have a job, and that we didn't arrive on Friday to find that our security card no longer lets us into the building. Rumour has it that in corporate culture, generally Friday is the preferred day to give someone their walking papers. They're less likely to go postal, I suppose.

So. It's Friday, I'm still employed, and it's happy hour in the employee lounge. At 5:00, I shall have to say thank you, but I'm off to catch the bus.

According to an article on the BBC website, we may all get splattered by a really big asteroid on February 1, 2019. Don't panic just yet -- the calculations are "uncertain" and the asteroid may miss us by "several tens of millions of kilometres". All the same, I might take a little trip over to the next planet that day.

I've been told that writing a blog is proof that I'm self-absorbed. I can't remember who said that, but it certainly made me think.

Could it be true? I asked myself this question again and again, and even meditated on a photograph of myself for at least an hour longer than usual.

It must be true. Anyone who writes a weblog is completely egotistical. After all, how many blogs and personal journals are written about someone other than the author?

Furthermore, to write about anything is unforgivable. It's arrogance to believe that one's words are of enough value to be published.

And so, to the kind person who helped me understand the truth, thank you. Your point has been well-taken. From this point forward, I will remain completely silent on all subjects. And I strongly encourage all journalists, essayists, novelists, and especially autobiographers to do the same.

I have a weakness for greasy food. I try to stay away, but it calls out to me.

At about ten last night, the craving hit me. It occurred to me that nothing could be better than a Whopper Junior(tm) with a side of onion rings. Actually, it was a tie between that and Wendy's "hot 'n' juicy" bacon mushroom melt, which is known to induce cardiac arrest within five minutes of consumption. The onion rings were the tie-breaker -- there's a little extra MSG on the onion rings at Burger King, I suspect, which makes them irresistable to me.

Now before you cast your disapproving frowns in my direction, keep in mind that all I'd eaten all day was a small salad at lunch. I'd done my healthy thing, now I had to balance that goodness with pure, hot, dripping evil. And as the King is probably Satan's sous-chef (with Ronald as head chef, of course), I headed out to the BK drive-through.

After bellowing my order at the intercom, I found myself waiting for a few minutes while they tended to a difficult customer ahead of me in a black Mustang. For some reason, people in black Mustangs are always difficult customers.

Suddenly I noticed movement in my peripheral vision. No, it wasn't the DTs. A small, brown rat scampered along the curb on my right and disappeared into a shrubbery. Unusually bold, I thought.

Then it scampered back and disappeared from whence it came. Interesting. Then it scampered back again, followed by another one. And another. Presently, there were close to a dozen of varying sizes, darting single file into the shrubbery. Apparently the first was just scouting ahead.

In a drive-through lineup, rat-watching is excellent entertainment.

Finally, the doofus in the Mustang drove away. I exchanged my cash for the bag of grease and, as I pulled away, I had to wait for the queue of rats to scamper across my path and into the back of the Burger King. I guess it's true that a satisfied customer is a return customer. For minions of evil, rats are kind of cute, and I didn't want to crush any of them under my tires.

I hoped that the BK staff kept their doors closed at night. I really didn't want to discover anything unpleasant in my Whopper Junior. Like anything with rodent origins, specifically.

I'm sure the fine people at BK keep their establishment very clean, but all the same, I think I'll stay away from anything on the menu with bacon bits. Or shredded, unidentifiable meat products.

That kind of excludes most of the menu.

Next time I get the late-night munchies, I'll drop by the local pub instead. Oh, there are rats there too, but only four of them have been sighted at any one time.

()

With no shortage of self-generated hooplah, fooferah, and hullabaloo, Moses Znaimer's Citytv assembly line cranked out another clone of Toronto's trendy local broadcaster. Citytv was all over the Vancouver Sun, in the news on other stations, and even Gordon Campbell himself congratulated Cookie-cuttertv -- oops, I mean Citytv -- on it's arrival in Vancouver.

Vancouver Citytv, (formerly CKVU, VU13, UTV, Global, then CKVU again) certainly has undergone a transformation. They took away news anchor Russ Froese's desk and gave him a pair of hip new glasses. Say, that'll drag in the viewers, and maybe inspire other forty-somethings to buy glasses too.

Following the Toronto formula, Citytv has big new windows on their building and a Speaker's Corner video booth on the street. There's only one unfortunate problem... unlike the Toronto Citytv building, which is smack in the middle of a bustling city, the CKVU building is tucked away at West 2nd and Columbia -- basically in the middle of a near-empty warehouse district (but near the Clubhouse). Seriously -- this is a wasteland where the foot traffic is almost negligible.

But I'll stay glued to the television. Maybe someone else will lose their desk and the station will get so hip, they won't be able to fit through a doorway.

It's mid-morning, the vending machine coffee is stale, and the omnipresent shush of the air conditioning valiantly struggles to keep the fresh air out.

Under these conditions, I'm proving my true geek-ness. I'm spending my coffee break reading up on server-side includes. Others actually exit the building into the world of the real and breathe real air and think real thoughts.

Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal (thanks Will), remain glued to my chair. I'm as addicted to learning stupid server tricks as I am to coffee. Last week, I learned how to get a custom shortcut icon to appear on my website. This week it's the server-side includes. And next week?

Maybe next week I'll get a life.

I am such a geek. I'm geeking out like I've never geeked before.

I have a digital camera.

Ok, what I really wanted was one of those funky cell phones that take pictures too. I wanted to be walking down the street, talking on my phone, when alluvasudden... bam... I see some amazing thing that just has to be photographed. Click.

Two things, however, interfere with that little geek-dream:

1. I already own a cell phone.

2. It would likely be ludicrously expensive.

So I paid a visit to London Drugs on the way home from my errands today and picked up a funky little HP 120. No, it's not the best one there is, but what am I going to use it for? I ain't no art photog, that's for sure.

Next time I'll throw some pix on my blog for the entertainment of all. (Speaking of which, does anyone read this?)

()

Something was up. Something terrible.

I'm always on the lookout for conspiracies... we all should be, but as you probably know, THEY would rather have you sit placidly in your stall like penned calves whose only job is to get fattened for the kill.

But I won't be misled. I saw it when it happened.

On Friday, our usual coffee maker and urns vanished, to be replaced by a machine. A vending machine.

So far the coffee is free, but I have noticed the inconspicuous "Insert coins here" label next to a slot on the side. I'd be willing to bet on my pet gerbil's grave that within a month or so, we will be paying for coffee. Oh, at first it will be a nominal charge... say 25 cents... but after a while they'll quietly raise it to thirty. Then to fifty... and so on.

Before long, we will be signing away our paycheques to support our caffeine addiction.

Or is that too obvious? Have you seen Deep Space Nine? In that (unbearably awful) Star Trek spinoff, the Jem Haddar are a race of soldiers, genetically engineered to be vicious, cruel, and have a permanent addiction to a drug called tetracell white, which can only be provided by their masters. Obedience through addiction.

Free caffeine... as long as we're good employees.

I'm certain that Vancouver is obsessed with sushi. In the West End alone, there must be a couple dozen sushi places, ranging from high-priced Japanese restaurants to tiny hole-in-the-wall takeouts.

And the variety is stunning too: rolls with tuna, salmon (raw, smoked, or barbequed), avocado, tobiko (flying fish roe), crab (usually fake), prawn, sweet potato, chicken, beef, asperagus, cream cheese, uni (sea urchin), barbequed eel, salmon roe, inside-out rolls, regular maki, futomaki (big maki), cones, and the basic sashimi (just a tiny slab of raw fish). And I'm probably leaving out dozens of potential ingredients and variations in that list.

For me, I favour the simplicity of a few pieces of tuna sashimi.

My favourite restaurant is one that is far too conveniently located near my home. I've been there so often, I'm sure they're sick of seeing me walk in the door. It's the Clubhouse. It's bizarre. Placed in the middle of a warehouse an industrial zone, you wouldn't expect a restaurant like this to attract customers. Yet it's busy virtually every night.

Why?

Sushi obsession. Vancouverites will go to lengths to combine their favourite food with a casual atmosphere. No kitchy (or kichi) pseudo-Japanese decor, please. Sofas, draught beer, nachos, and raw fish. Lots of raw fish. Need raw... fish.

I think I'll take a trip to the fishing boats in Steveston, buy a fresh salmon, and eat it whole right there on the dock. Tourists will stare at me at I rip its belly open with my teeth and devour the innards, with slime and scales caked on my hands and face.

I won't need to chew, because the flesh will be nice and soft -- slithering easily down my throat after I dip it delicately in a bucket of soy sauce and wasabi.

The seagulls will gather around me. I'll have to fight them for the pleasure of popping the little eyes in my mouth and ripping the tender shreds of bloody pink meat from its head.

F***ing excellent!

Or maybe I'll just walk down the street to the takeout place.

Where's their sense of adventure?

Where's their sense of excitement?

Where's their company spirit?

Why won't anyone jump from an airplane with me?

Two weeks ago, I tried to organize a little skydiving trip with my fellow team members in software development. I've done it once before (albeit over ten years ago) and it was an amazing thrill. Something I'd definitely want to try again.

But the looks I got when I asked them if they'd like to go... you'd think I was asking them to commit suicide or something. It's not all that dangerous.

Granted, there are certain risks involved in throwing yourself from a perfectly serviceable airplane. But I, for one, have never met an unsuccessful skydiver.

My hours of struggling have paid off. The site is finally ready for my first blog entry.

What to write?

Hmm.

To be frank ("hello Frank"), I'm a little foggy on that. All I know is that I want a place to rant, and a blog (web log) seems like the perfect outlet. It's fast, convenient, and most of all, it's likely that no one will ever read this. So I don't have to worry about offending anyone.

Cheers.