Warren Shea - World of Warren

Archive for the ‘My Life’ Category

Foggy Dew + TFC game

Saturday, March 26th, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Went to a bar, Foggy Dew, last night with my friends. Had some good chatting, some interesting conversations.

Had a Stella, a Black Velvet (a beer cocktail made from stout beer, often Guinness, and white, sparkling wine, traditionally champagne), and a 1L stein of Hacker Pschorr. Afterwards, I had a sparkling wine…so that’s about 4-5 drinks. Less than Bier Market night but I find my tolerance is much worse when I’m at bars or alone than when I’m at a club. I think that’s always been the case…I’m much better with alcohol when I’m on the dance floor than when it’s quiet and I’m sitting still…

We had some interesting discussions last night, my friends and I. Not quite the deep talk I wanted but some of the conversations were eye openers. It started off with one of my friends asking if it was okay to hit on a girl while she has a boyfriend. Out of the 6 guys there yesterday night, 2 of them had personal experience not only being interested in taken girls (which happens quite frequently I’m sure) but succeeding in breaking up the relationships. Well…one was successful, one was….ultimately successful, after a long, long period of time. Note that I call it “successful” in the sense that my friends had accomplished the goal they set out to do: replace the girl’s existing boyfriend. My friend who was asking the question also asked “wouldn’t you feel guilty if you broke them up?”. While I can see his reasoning, I imagine that the primary goal would be to break the couple up and while you may feel guilty, you wouldn’t feel guilty enough that it would prevent you from doing it. I mean, if I were to break a couple up…and I can think of an instance where I almost did, I either wouldn’t do it, or would do it and wouldn’t feel guilty. I mean, in the situation specific to me, the girl would fight with her boyfriend, break up and get back together repeatedly….she was a great girl and I, despite not knowing anything about the guy, deemed him unworthy of her and felt she could do better….(…with me).

Side story on that…I would talk to his girl a lot, see her for lunch during my co-op term (we worked at different places, but they were right across the street from each other). Anyways, we would trade emails back and forth…and eventually one day, her boyfriend read her emails (not cool)…and then got all jealous and they fought and almost broke up. Some more stuff happened…in the end, it would be her deciding, for the sake of her relationship, that my part in her life would be done. Eventually, the two of us continued to be friends and after the relationship I had worked to destroy…eventually fell apart, as I knew it would. And I would talk to her after and she would tell me how happy she was that she wasn’t with that guy anymore. Anyways, I must say that I was probably a really big factor of why they broke up. And I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty. She’s happily married now, I talk to her like, once a year…but she’s doing well.

Anyways, back to the point…if someone were interested in a taken girl, the intention of doing an improper, but fair deed exists. “All’s fair in love and war”. But the intention is understood, regardless of how guilty you may feel, if you actively pursue this intention, then you are indeed committing a foul act.

I also pointed out that while someone might be interested in a girl, it is completely up to the girl to determine what happens. She could ignore the person infatuated with her and stay loyal to her boyfriend, she could play around with both and determine who to be with, or she could leave her boyfriend for the new guy. In scenario two and three (which occurred with my two friends), while successfully “winning” the girl, I noted that immediately after she has been “won”, she depreciates in value. This is because her trust is no longer spotless and her loyalty is in question for all subsequent relationships.

Anyways…both those relationships, in which my friends broke couples up, didn’t last. 1 year and 3 years. However, one of my other friend’s relationship in which he did that is still going strong at 2 years…

Hm, I just noticed that in all 3 of these situations, let’s say 4 including my own, it was the guy that went after the taken girl. Do girls ever go after taken guys? I would assume it’s less likely based on personal statistics. Guys are more…I dunno, I think in at least 3 of these cases, the guy just didn’t care about the boyfriend of the girl they were interested in. The girl is the only focus, the only goal, the only prize. Not that women are objects!. Just kidding, they totally are. And moments after reading this, all my female readers kick me in the balls.

Anyways.

Got a bit side tracked. Let’s see…after going to the bar, we went to my friend’s loft. I was the last one to leave, staying until just after midnight…I cabbed home, close to puking…but I was okay…I guess. I immediately crawled into bed, I wasn’t in the mood for drunken blogging or even staying awake a moment longer. My head was pounding and I definitely could have puked if I tried. But I was resisting. The point of yesterday night, in my eyes, was actually to drink so much that I’d puke. When I was at my friend’s place, telling them I’d never puked before, like 3 or 4 of them shot up with wide eyes in disbelief. I felt…like a drunken puke virgin. How embarrassing. Anyways…it wouldn’t be fun if you TRIED to puke because that’d be too easy. No, the next time I want to drunken puke, I’ll have to earn it. So I crawled into bed…the alcoholic effects yesterday night were some I haven’t had in a while and don’t usually get anymore. See, when I drink, I get hot. Like, I get red, my skin gets warm. VERY warm. It’s somewhat like a fever, in which my skin is hot but the feeling I have is cold. Very cold. So I was shivering, with double blankets as I slept last night…I fell asleep immediately but woke up very often to…use the restroom. I had already woken up 3 times in the middle of the night so when I woke up the 4th, I looked at the time…it was 4:30am. “That’s it?” I thought. Anyways, I woke up again at 6….this time drinking quite a bit of water before I went back to sleep. The shivers were almost gone but my head was pounding. Woke up again at 8:30…and 9:10…but then slept well, headacheless til 11:30am, when I woke up to get ready for the TFC game. I was really worried that I’d be too hung over or sick or messed up to go to the game. I would hate to bail 2.5 hours before it started.

Eventually, I got myself ready. While I didn’t drink during the game (I was still trying to sober up a bit), I had 1 foot long hot dog, and 1 foot long smoked chili hot dog (cheese, sour cream, and chili). My co-workers (as I got the TFC tickets through work) shouted that “Warren likes to eat big wieners!” as we were sitting around, in the spectators. I didn’t deny it, as I totally inhaled the hot dog. It was very good. And juicy. I just wrote all that to give my co-worker, who reads this blog, a laugh :)

A video of how close my seats were

I took some pictures, but they turned out really weird/ugly. Maybe it was the sun that was out? It’s like the soccer game from a radioactive, apocalyptic future!

Anyways…off to try to do something productive.

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness, Friends, Love, My Life, Past | 6 Comments »

blank

Friday, March 25th, 2011 at 12:15 am

I have been sitting in front of WordPress for ~~half an hour~~ ~~45 minutes~~ ~~about an hour~~ an hour and a half now.

Writing and erasing.

My mind is racing but the words aren’t coming out. Well, they are…but they’re delicate words. Words I can’t share with everybody. So after I write, I erase. And repeat. And repeat.

There are things I want to say…but can’t. I’ve felt bottled up all week. Is “I have emotional blue balls” an expression cuz if not, I’d like to coin it.

Oh fuck, I looked it up on urban dictionary and it’s already got a definition. emotional blueballs. God dammit. At least I still have “Ninja Update”.

I’m really looking for a deep talk. And I have no where to go to or anyone to talk to. When was the last time I had a deep talk? When was the last time I talked about anything real?

I want to hear something I don’t hear everyday. I’m tired of talking about movies. And the weather. And my plans for the weekend. And work. I need something that will challenge my morals, something that is disagreeable (but not religion or politics), something that doesn’t have a right answer. I want to hear about a new relationship or problems that a couple might be having. When all my friends are married or getting married, when all my friends work regularly, when all my friends have lives as dull as mine, when all my friends answer “good” to the question “how’s it going?”, then where can I get my drama? And no, I’m not looking for a dramatic show. No matter how korean and how “it will make me cry” it is.

I need a change. I need to either go out driving alone (it’s too cold to walk around) for a bit or I need to get piss ass drunk with my friends and ignore the problem. Regardless, tomorrow I’m gonna do one of those two things. Maybe both if I get to the kinda drunk that makes me a better driver. ;)

God damn that emotional blueballs definition. Did that ever happen to me? I don’t think so…but the memories of almost emotional blueballs stings a bit. I wish I hadn’t read it…now I’m just angry.

Okay. I’m frustrated. No more writing.

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I hope none of the friends I’m seeing tomorrow read this post…”insulting” is not a trait I’d like to have. Well, I mean, unintentional insulting. Intentional insulting is fine…it doesn’t make many friends but it can be hella funny.

Also, I won’t drink and drive. Regardless of how awesome a driver I will become.

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness | 2 Comments »

Daily Randomness

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 at 1:37 am

At lunch, 2 guys and a girl were infront of me, in line to order food. I was looking at the girl’s legs thinking that she was really thin. Like, the jeans looked painted on. And then I looked up at her face and it was a guy. And I was very, very disturbed. *shudder*

I had salmon teriyaki for all 3 meals today. I really like it and it’s healthier than many other things. Anyways, I don’t know how long I’ll really enjoy this dish.. I’m just getting a bit sick of chicken salad and turkey breast sub.

I had 3 Coke Zeros today. Each was 222mL. I drank 666mL of Coke Zero. I am feeling quite devilish.

When I walk home at night….I’m scared that someone from behind is going to rob me or stab me. I’m a bit paranoid that way. So whenever I see a shadow behind me, I tense up, and get ready to defend myself. It’s not a terrible thing…I’d rather be prepared than unprepared, regardless of how unlikely that might be. I’ve been like that as long as I can remember but I’m less scared when there are more people around. But tonight, as I walked home at midnight, I was a bit….uneasy.

I think one of my best, and most interesting skills is being able to pick up on subtle pauses and nuances that people unintentionally do. In some scenarios, I’m quite accurate in understanding something noticeable based on something generally unnoticed. Like a detective…like House…or Batman! It’s how I have my sixth sense in driving. When I walk around other people, I’m generally observant. I used to observe the people around me like I observe people driving around me….but I’ve found that it’s not quite as interesting anymore as people are more prone to do random things now. Stop suddenly to text. Change direction or walk in an inefficient path. I can’t read random chaos! But, as I’ve started to notice, I’m becoming more aware when a guy is checking out another girl. Now, I’ve had quite a bit of practice myself, often trying to do it in a subtle way…so I understand the male mind quite well. So when I’m around people, for example, on the subway or walking to work, I tend to start noticing as other males glance at attractive females. Some are obvious, doing a head turn or tilt or eyebrow raise or something like that….and some do quick glances….where they don’t move at all, but their eyes change direction or dart around. I dunno, it’s just what I’ve been trying to visually pay attention to as I walk around, among a sea of strangers. I’ve got my music but I need to visually challenge myself or try to observe things…and this is the best I can come up with for now. I’m quite pleased when I catch someone do a subtle glance. Or when I catch people glancing at Z.

Firefox 4 came out today. It does a nice, but inconsistent with other browsers, javascript alert. The background overlays and it’s like there’s a div in the middle. I’ve got my FireFTP and my FireBug so I’m quite happy. I’m noticing my Error Console doesn’t seem to work that well though…that could be a pretty important problem as I’ve come to rely on that thing. I’ve found submission to forms, or javascript to run slightly slower. Not sure why, or if that was maybe just my terribad code…I’ll have to observe this more.

It’s been 3 days since I blogged…when I don’t blog for that long, I get really antsy…like I need to write something, fast. Even if it’s a garbage post like this. I dunno, I can go a day without thinking about it now (I couldn’t go a day w/o blogging a year ago tho). But I start to get antsy by 2 days and by 3, I feel like I haven’t written in a week. Maybe time just passes really slowly for me cuz my life is terribly uninteresting. I’ve spent 3 of the last 8 nights working til almost midnight. I went to a basketball game on Friday and worked on Sunday as well…my life is just being dominated by work lately, as I knew it would.

I really wanna spend more time with my Mac, with Link and his musical inadequacy (cuz I can’t play that ocarina to save my life), with ASP.NET 4.0, and with my EPIC SITE. Those are the 4 things I want to do an unfortunately, haven’t touched them much at all.

I’ve been zoning out to music a lot more lately…I’ve been thinking about some things in my life, where i was last year at this time and the months that followed…trying to remember what I had done or how I would have changed it. The things I wish I did. Or didn’t do. Last year was an important year for me…I saw shades of gray that never existed before, I questioned things in my life I had previously just accepted. My life is in such a different place now…but is it better? I don’t know…well, better in many things. But possibly not better in a few key ones. And those few might be the most important ones. Sorry, this paragraph is especially and intentionally vague. Sometimes I just wish I could write what I want to write. But…everyone has their secrets…

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness, My Life | 2 Comments »

Good weekend…

Sunday, March 20th, 2011 at 11:39 pm

Friday’s basketball game was fun, Raptors won and we got free pizza. Score.

Regarding Project Y:
I just finished up after starting today at 7pm. I said I was gonna work on it all weekend but I ended up finishing the bulk of it on Friday in like, 4 hours. It’s mostly done except this paging system that I have to do manually….THAT…should be interesting. Thinking over how to dev it in my head already…my “what to think about as I try to sleep” thinking. Doing that also tends to lead to a dream where I’ve solved the problem in my dream, using completely unrealistic methods that do not apply to real world logic. It’s a nice feeling to wake up and try to remember what dream Warren did or how dream Warren accomplished these goals that still trouble me. It’s a rare feeling when I wake up to those kinda dreams…I kind of relish them.

Anyways, I shoulda spent more time this weekend on Project 3. I’ll need to work late the next few days to catch that up.

My weekend was spent mostly playing Hard Corps: Uprising on the PS3 (already released on the XBOX a while ago). It’s basically Contra. 2D 3rd person side-scrolling shooter with weapon power ups. It’s hard. But not impossible. Takes practice to play well and a lot of practice to beat the regular game. I’m not sure if I have the time to practice and be good enough for that. Also, you need a good partner…which, unfortunately, I don’t have. I can only think of one person off the top of my head who’s good enough at these type of games to play w/ me and he’s out of the country…I tried playing online with someone of equal skill but while it didn’t lag for him (he hosted the game), it lagged for me….caused some unnecessary deaths. Next time, I’ll host the game.

Anyways…I really gotta work my ass off again this week. Sorta looking forward to it though…I’ve really been listening to my music a lot lately….and I’ve really been enjoying it and feeling the words. Like, you can listen to a song a hundred times but you might not get it, you listen to the chorus, the tune…but you only know the words well, not perfect. When you really…understand them all….it’s more interesting. Songs I’ve liked no longer seem to be relevant to my tastes, the opposite is true as well. Also, songs that didn’t really apply to me in my past are more relevant now. Y’know? Just….listening to old stuff but it seems new again. I love it.

Glad to say that my life is finally getting the peace that it had before, months ago. The doctor appointments are less frequent, issues are generally more or less resolved. Some other…life problems seem to be resolved for the moment as well. Everything that was giving me stress, making my blood boil, bothering me….it all seems to be gone. My life is just the way I like it: drama that exists only in my head and created by me. Topic of another post…but I enjoy drama when it’s created by myself and within my control. And I enjoy getting rid of drama that’s out of my control…but I don’t enjoy that kind of drama. Does that make sense? Basically, when my life is going really well, I create my own problems….for fun. And life is going well right now….so I wonder what I’ll come up with :D

I felt like I hadn’t blogged in days and days…but it’s only been 3. I just wanted to write a bit I guess….

Off to bed, need to wake up early tomorrow :(

Posted in All Posts, Daily Randomness, My Life | No Comments »

<in Orcish> Werk Werk!

Friday, March 18th, 2011 at 1:48 am

So the senior developer that works with me has gone on vacation this week so I’m helping out with 3 of his tasks.

And while the timelines are tight (one week) and as of today (Thursday), I’ve only fully completed 1 of them, I gotta say that I’m having more fun working than I have in months. I can’t disclose the nature of the projects for obvious reasons…but 2 of the 3 of them involve learning something new or building something interesting. And the third project, the one that doesn’t involve learning something new…likely won’t get done by the end of this week :D

Anyways, one of them, let’s call it Project X, involves
1. Developing in a better language than I’m used to.
2. Developing on a different browser and platform.
It’s just…different. Challenging but within my reach.
The best part is that I can apply the things I’ve learned in Project X to warrenshea.com. So I may do that in the near future. Again, I can’t tell you what I’m doing yet….be patient, I’ll reveal it in a matter of time.

So on Sunday-Monday, I worked from 2am-6am. That was brutal and pretty much messed up my day. Good thing for Overtime Pay :) Well, technically I slept from 6am-noon so I missed a few hours in the morning. But ah well, I made it up that night (had to do some testing from 5pm-7pm).
Tuesday – Worked from 9:30am-10:30pm on Project X (13 hours)
Wednesday – Worked from 9:30am-Midnight on Project X (15.5 hours)
Thursday – Worked from 9:30am-4:30pm on Project X, went to Richmond Hill to have dinner with my family (parents, niece, nephew, bro, etc.), came back, worked AND FINISHED Project X! WAHOO!
Friday (tomorrow) – Work on Project Y from 9:30am-5pm, go to a basketball game (Raptors VS Wizards), maybe go to a birthday dinner after, and then come home and hopefully work on Project Y
Saturday – Possible Birthday party (another one), possible Toronto Comicon. If I don’t do that, I’ll be working on Project Y.
Sunday – Project Y.

So Project Y involves (from a technical standpoint)
Taking a Querystring from the URL
Loading a server generated XML via a JSP (see next point) but using the Querystring from the URL (thus, using AJAX to generate the XML as it needs to be after page load)
The JSP loads the XML from a cross-domain XML (this must be done so that my page can access the XML and prevent the cross-domain issue)
Anyways, eventually I end up with the XML, unique to the querystring.
I parse it, output the content to the page. I need to create a paging system manually (I’m using only HTML and JavaScript here, no server side languages).
And done!

Well, as I wrote that out, it doesn’t seem hard at all. Time consuming, but fun. Not doing standard HTML/CSS/JavaScript….using AJAX, XML, Querystrings (in JavaScript)…it’s interesting.

Anyways, that’s Project Y. Sounds easy, the (not hardest but) time consuming part will be outputting the XML into the page…I did the same thing here: [Redacted] a couple years ago…that was fun. God, there’s SO MUCH JAVASCRIPT on that page. browserDetection functions because I didn’t know jQuery at the time. JavaScript AJAX calls because I didn’t know jQuery at the time. Multiple XMLs, JSON….I had months to do that thing. Project Y has 3 days. So I’m gonna work my arse off partly because of the responsibility I feel that I need to deliver to the senior developer, but mostly because I simply can’t wait to do this. Not sure how much I’ll learn but it certainly sounds fun. 2 days to do it is pretty tight, especially considering it’s the weekend and I might do other stuff on Saturday….but I’m always up for a developing challenge.

I swear, if I didn’t have to work the next day, I would have pulled all nighters doing what I was doing this week. I loved it so much. Coding all night, just me, my music, my text editor and my focused, enthusiastic, eager mind. It’s not everyday I’m so excited to do work after all…I may as well milk it.

Anyways, off to bed. Based on the amount of sleep I’m gonna get tonight…I predict being very tired for the Raptor game tomorrow. Stupid me. Seriously.