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Warren Shea

Archive for August, 2013

…I’m still alive….

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 at 1:30 am

I apologize for the lack of blogging lately!

I won’t lie, I spent much of the last 3 weeks working. Working a lot (almost 14 hours a day…and a couple hours on the weekends)…it’s been really tough.
Was supposed to take 2 full weeks off work for vacation but work reasons made me have to cancel my vacation :(
Fortunately, I took yesterday and today (Tuesday) off to get a 4-day weekend :)
It’s been nice…I spent 7/8th of the time relaxing my ass off….spent the other 1/8 of tonight catching up on work emails so I’m okay for tomorrow. Probably have to work late tomorrow night :(
Didn’t do any coding or proactively working on work stuff during my days off like I wanted to…which is fine. Nothing wrong with relaxing, especially after such a tough 3 weeks.
I’ve been in my new role for 2.5 months – but I hope in 1.5 more months that things calm down. I can’t keep this up forever…

FanExpo
Didn’t end up going…and it’s okay. I’m up to date on both comics and toys, it’s hard to justify the admission price given that anything purchased would be impulse buys. That said, I’d like to go next year. It seems I go ever 2 years lately. 2010, 2012…and 2014? Also, going to go to Anime North next year…for sure! FanExpo’s been bothering me the last few years. When I went in my geek prime, admission was $20 and it was Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was Comics and Anime and that was it. Now it’s Comics, Anime (which are both considerably smaller), Sci-fi (acceptable), Horror (I’d pay not to see Horror), Gaming (would rather not have that here), and SPORTS. SPORTS NOW?! Now it’s just a general, broad convention. Still brings out the stars but it’s not at all what it used to be for me. BLEH.

Comics
Read Crimson (1-24), Revelations (1-6) and I’m reading Out There (1-18) right now. Going back through some of my Humberto Ramos comics..love his art. Never really read those comics – just bought them for the art.

Shows
Watching the series of Malcolm in the Middle at the moment. It’s such an awesome show, written so well! Won so many awards….but I don’t think it caught on that well. Very underrated :(
Breaking Bad….has been as epic as always. Last week’s episode was okay, more just set up. This week’s was great. With only 5 episodes left this season…I cannot predict what’s going to happen next. The writers, like, 10 of them, spent thousands of hours coming up with the best, most satisfying conclusion. I don’t think anyone can predict what’s gonna happen next.
IMDB rates Breaking Bad a 9.4/10.

Wow look at this list:
http://www.imdb.com/search/title?num_votes=5000,&sort=user_rating,desc&title_type=tv_series&ref_=nb_tv_3_srs
3: Game of Thrones (Need to watch)
4: Breaking Bad (Watching)
5: The Wire (I was supposed to watch this! I feel more inclined to watch it)
6: Sherlock (Watching)
8: Arrested Development (Never watched)
8: Sopranos (Never watched)
10: Firefly (Joss Whedon’s….show I never watched)
11: Dexter (….this show’s not worthy of #11 imo…maybe the first 3 seasons…and a couple of seasons after that but much of it’s crap)
12: Avatar: The Last Air Bender !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT?!?!?! THIS CARTOON IS RATED #12 of ALL SHOWS on IMDB. Not saying it doesn’t deserve it (it does, it’s a fantastic show), just saying I’m surprised and impressed. Technically, the best rated cartoon on IMDB :) That’s saying a lot!
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19: Seinfeld
20: Death Note
23: Batman TAS
25: Friends

….holy crap there are a lot of shows on this list I wanna watch.

Games
Spent a considerable number of hours playing 2003’s Initial D: Special Stage [PS2][JAP]. It’s still really fun :) Haven’t played my PS2 in years but playing this game is worth having it connected. I wanna play more :)

Expanded my house completely in Animal Crossing: New Leaf [3DS]. Been keeping track of the Stalk Market the last few weeks (have a Google Docs spreadsheet). Last week, I sold my turnips for 597 bells! About 6x more than I bought them for. The week before, 450 and the week before that, 207. At one point, I had 11 million bells but spent a lot of that buying turnips again as well as expanding my house. I expanded my house like, 6 times/days in a row.

Trying to get the 4 mannequins and also complete my costumes. Need to start impressing Gracie. Right now, I have the Samus costume but I want the Link and Mario/Luigi costumes. Currently, I’m dressed as a frog :)

Kotobishoujo
Sad this thing hasn’t been updated. I’m actually getting quite a bit of traffic lately. Every time a statue is released, my site get a spike in traffic. Kinda wanna start it up again but would rather do various figure reviews instead.

Movies
Totally missed out on movies once my job changed. Never saw Monster’s University, The Wolverine, Planes, or Despicable Me 2. *I* never saw The Wolverine! I should return my “Geek” card right now!

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That’s it for me I guess.
Going to Chicago and Milwaukee for work again during the week of Sept 12. It’s crazy, flight there and back, hotel, car rental, food…it’s like a free $1500~ trip…AND I get paid that week. I feel like I’m taking advantage but considering the personal sacrifice, I’m really not. Sadly, my Friday is all travel: 9-11 drive from Milwaukee to Midway Airport, 2pm flight and arrive in Toronto at 4:30. Basically 9-5:30 travelling. What a waste of time. I need to find a way to make it productive – maybe I can like, read or get an audio book. I bet a lot could be covered, listening to an audio book for 7.5 hours :)

Books I want to read
Game of Thrones
Harry Potter
The Hunger Games (Book 1 and maybe Book 2/3)
…..but I never read so even though I want to read them…it’ll probably never happen.
…..but I would listen to an Audio book of them :)

Okay, that’s enough for now :) Good night! I’ll try to write again soon!

Peter Principle

Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 at 12:48 am

Just started reading about this ‘Peter Principle’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle) and I’m BLOWN AWAY.

“Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence.” In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given increasing authority until they cannot continue to work competently.

There are incompetent people in every work place….are they there because they’re too good for the job below them, not good enough for the job they have?
It’s crazy – I understand that I too, will be incompetent at a job eventually. I just haven’t hit the point that I’m bad (or maybe, I’ve hit it and I don’t know). But it’ll come – there are people who will rise above me just as I’ve risen above others. Maybe I’m too new to the manager gig, but I already see that I can’t be a senior manager or director or managing director. There are certain skills I don’t have….for example: A quick-wit. I’m not a morning person. My interpersonal skills are…lacking. Not awful, but not great. My public speaking is mediocre. My stress coping skills aren’t the best. My hair is too spikey.

…is middle management the further I can go as the person I am?

….what’s better, being in a lower role and good at it or being in a high role and being bad at it? I don’t think I could personally accept being bad at a role, I’d rather take a lower role and excel at it.

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Solutions:

Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda and Cesare Garofalo used an agent-based modelling approach to simulate the promotion of employees and tested alternative strategies. Although counter-intuitive, they found that the best way to improve efficiency in an enterprise is to promote people randomly, or to shortlist the best and the worst performer in a given group, from which the person to be promoted is then selected randomly.[3] This work won the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in management science.

….WUH?!?!!? How does that work?!

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I have much to consider, this night….

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Correction: Breaking Bad

Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 at 12:15 am

My last post re: Breaking Bad was too early in my re-watching. In re-watching the show, I realize Skylar’s not innocent. The innocent ones are:
Hank / Marie / Walter Jr. / Holly / Jesse?!
I think morally, Jesse has always been a good guy. Just…makes some bad decisions.

So who kills Walter?
Do Hank and Jesse put aside their differences to kill Walter, just as Walter and Hector did to kill Gus?
Is it Hank?
Is it Jesse?
Where’s the poetic justice? In theory, Jesse’s the only one that could do it.

But…why so much emphasis on Hank?

Jesse’s like a background character this season, but you know…he’s up to something (plot wise).

SPOILER ALERT: S05E09
SPOILER ALERT: S05E09
SPOILER ALERT: S05E09
And…what’s with Walter and that Ricin? My guess is he’s wanted, but not hunted. Or maybe they think he’s dead. That would explain the big shock on his neighbour’s face.
So is he off to kill someone? To be honest, revenge was never Walter’s M.O. He’s always been about survival – so maybe he IS being hunted…while hunting. Wouldn’t be the first time…(ex. hunted by Gus Fring, hiding in his house – but that was all a plan to kill Gus…hunting when you think he’s being hunted).

Breaking Bad – I cannot predict you. And that’s why you’re the best show! <3

Know when to quit

Tuesday, August 13th, 2013 at 12:03 am

Was reading this post about high achievers. One of the rules I read for high achievers was knowing when to quit:

Know when to quit. Finally, high achievers are able to achieve so much because they know when to quit. They know when they need a break and they know when they need to step back for a week or two. High achievers understand that in order to continue achieving at such a high level, they need to take the time that they need to stay sane and mentally healthy.
Do not run yourself into the ground in the name of high achievement, cut yourself some slack from time to time.

I must say – I’ve really learned this in the last 2 months. That I work myself so hard on a daily basis, but I can tell when my body’s not in good shape – or rather, I feel myself getting sick. And I know to take a step back from it all…and relax. To simply rephrase the key point from above: “In order to continuously perform well, you need to know when to stop and rest”.

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I love my job. I love working so hard. But it’s killing me….until I say stop and it’s not. And then I regroup and it’s back to working hard again. It’s a cycle…and no doubt, I’m working so hard because I love what I’m doing. Because I can’t wait to see where my leadership and team go. I don’t know specifically where, but like my life, it’s all about being pointed in the right direction. The journey is more important than the destination. The milestones achieved along the way are just as, if not more important than the end goal.

…end goal?

To quote Hikaru no Go’s Honda’s teacher – “The road of a pro is long, and on top of that, it has no goal. You study your whole life.”

I think I have to change my mentality – there is no end goal. No final destination. The path never ends…(’til you die…but even then your children continue your path, in a way…).
I don’t know what I want my team to be in 2 or 5 years. I’ve never known that of myself, how can I know that for 15 people? But as long as they’re pointed in the right direction…

Revelation: Breaking Bad

Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 at 11:25 pm

In the beginning…
Walter is the protagonist.
Jesse is the protagonist.
Hank is a side character.

By the end…I think….
Walter is the antagonist.
Jesse is the protagonist.
Hank is the protagonist!

My prediction:
Walter Jr. and Skylar come out of this innocent, and rich.
Hank or Jesse kills Walter.
Marie wears purple.

…that is all. On S03E06 right now…..cuttin through the eps like BUTTUH.