When Work Swallows You Up

Where have I been? Why, with the excep­tion of that bit about Arnold men­tion­ing BC in his appear­ance at Meet the Press last Sun­day, have I been so silent? It’s noth­ing very excit­ing. I’ve been work­ing, head down, pretty much every day for about 3 weeks. Aside from going to the Van­cou­ver User Expe­ri­ence (VanUE) meet­ing on Tues­day night — and not even stay­ing for the after party, as I had to get back home and to bed in order to get up before 6 AM the next morn­ing, and I knew that if I didn’t get enough sleep, I’d have got­ten sick again—I’ve kept to bed, com­puter and client site (this past week).

I’m finally look­ing at a day off tomor­row, and all of the weather fore­casts are for a day like today, full of rain. Pam has class for most of the day, so I think I’m going to do some­thing I haven’t done in a long time; I’m going to go to an after­noon mati­nee. I don’t even know what I’m going to see, but the prospect of pop­corn in a nice warm movie the­atre tak­ing in a lit­tle bit of enter­tain­ment on a rainy day sounds awfully good to me.

I’ve checked the local the­atre list­ings, and am not sure what I’m going to see, but I can tell you it won’t be a big, depress­ing movie or a love story, and it cer­tainly won’t be any­thing that in any remote way reminds me of Infor­ma­tion Archi­tec­ture, Pro­to­typ­ing or User Testing.

Except for bit­tor­rent, I haven’t watched all that many movies. Why do I resort to bit­tor­rent?  There is no Net­flix here in Canada, and I’ve heard many peo­ple tell me that the equiv­a­lent, Zip.ca  is not very good. There is also no stream­ing of movies over TiVo here and unlike the Amer­i­can ver­sion of the store, there are no stream­ing movies on Amazon.ca either.  Even the iTunes store doesn’t the vari­ety of movies for Cana­dian accounts as it does in the Amer­i­can store, so the AppleTV is not as use­ful either (unless you buy gift­cards on the other side of the bor­der and load up an Amer­i­can account). So CRTC or who­ever is respon­si­ble for our Cin­e­matic Rights Time Warp, don’t you real­ize that you’ve actu­ally forced me into bit­tor­rent­ing movies, because there is really no con­ve­nient, reasonably-priced alter­na­tive? Video rental stores are kind of a pain (and seem so…20^th cen­tury), and I’m not really inter­ested in buy­ing DVDs (and cer­tainly haven’t popped for a Blu-Ray player).

On the sub­ject is Video Rentals, I couldn’t resist shar­ing this lit­tle nod to Abbott and Costello by Chris Gavaler, that I saw a while ago:

Who’s on First?

By Chris Gavaler

(A CUSTOMER steps up to a video-store counter with a stack of videos.)
CASHIER: Hi. Did you find every­thing you wanted?
CUSTOMER: (Hand­ing over mem­ber­ship card.) Yes, thanks. (Pause.) When is this one due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Yeah, when’s it due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Yes. The Day After Tomor­row.
CASHIER: Right.
CUSTOMER: Right. When’s it due back?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: I mean the movie. The Day After Tomor­row. When is it due?
CASHIER: Oh! I get it. That’s funny. You thought I meant-right, OK. It’s due the day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: The Day After Tomor­row is due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: Exactly.
CUSTOMER: And Before Sun­set?
CASHIER: Any­time before 10.
CUSTOMER: Is it the same as The Day After Tomor­row?
CASHIER: We close the same time every day. Ten o’clock.
CUSTOMER: But what day is the video due?
CASHIER: The Day After Tomor­row?
CUSTOMER: Why are you ask­ing me?
CASHIER: The Day After Tomor­row is due the day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: I know, but what about Before Sun­set?
CASHIER: Any­time before clos­ing.
CUSTOMER: But what day?
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Before Sun­set?
CASHIER: You can bring it then if you want to, but we’re open till 10.
CUSTOMER: The movie! Before Sun­set. When is Before Sun­set due?
CASHIER: Oh! We did it again, didn’t we? Isn’t that just like that … what’s that sketch called? Any­way. Sorry. Before Sun­set is due the day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: Thank you. (Pause.) Is that the same for the oth­ers?
CASHIER: You’re not rent­ing The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: Why not?
CASHIER: I don’t know. You can if you want to.
CUSTOMER: Well, I would like to rent the oth­ers, please.
CASHIER: I’ll check the com­puter.
CUSTOMER: For what?
CASHIER: The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: What’s in front of you?
CASHIER: (Look­ing through stack.) Well, we have The Day After Tomor­row and Before Sun­set. Then Seven, After Hours, 48 Hours, Ten, and Before Sun­rise. Hey, that’s funny, “before sunrise”-we could have got­ten con­fused about that too, huh?
CUSTOMER: Yeah. Could you ring them up, please?
CASHIER: So you don’t want The Oth­ers?
CUSTOMER: I want all of them.
CASHIER: But not The Oth­ers?
CUSTOMER: I want every­thing sit­ting right there in front of you.
CASHIER: OK, I’ll ring them up. (Pause.) I’m sorry, but your account lim­its you to six rentals.
CUSTOMER: Oh, OK, I won’t rent Ten.
CASHIER: Excuse me?
CUSTOMER: Get rid of Ten.
CASHIER: You have seven here.
CUSTOMER: I still want to rent Seven.
CASHIER: You’re not allowed to.
CUSTOMER: Why can’t I rent Seven?
CASHIER: Because it’s over the limit.
CUSTOMER: Right, but I want Seven. Get rid of Ten.
CASHIER: (Pause.) That would leave neg­a­tive three.
CUSTOMER: Excuse me?
CASHIER: You know what? We’ll just let it slide this time.
CUSTOMER: Thank you. (Pause.) Is that one due back the day after tomor­row, too?
CASHIER: Yes, you have 48 hours.
CUSTOMER: But is it due with the oth­ers?
CASHIER: You don’t have The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: What did you just ring up?
CASHIER: You want me to read these to you again?
CUSTOMER: No, just tell me when they’re due.
CASHIER: The day after tomor­row.
CUSTOMER: But what about the oth­ers?
CASHIER: You don’t have The Oth­ers.
CUSTOMER: Is 48 Hours due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: Yes, by 10 o’clock.
CUSTOMER: Is Ten due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: Yes, by 10 o’clock.
CUSTOMER: What about After Hours?
CASHIER: There’s a late fee.
CUSTOMER: For what?
CASHIER: If you return after hours.
CUSTOMER: The day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: All of them.
CUSTOMER: So it’s due the day after tomor­row?
CASHIER: By 10.
CUSTOMER: What about Seven?
CASHIER: You can bring it then if you want to, but we’re open till 10.
CUSTOMER: The movie! The movie! When is the movie Seven due?
CASHIER: (Hold­ing up each video one at a time.) Seven is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. The Day After Tomor­row is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. Before Sun­set is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. 48 Hours is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. After Hours is due at 10 the day after tomor­row. And Ten is due at 10 the day after tomor­row
CUSTOMER: Thank you! (Notic­ing the last video after a long pause.) But what about Before Sun­rise?
CASHIER: (Pause.) We’re not open before sun­rise.
(CUSTOMER gives up and walks out.)

On the other hand, the movie the­atres here are really nice, and I’m look­ing for­ward to that.

On Sun­day, the sun is sup­posed to come out, but alas, I will have to be get­ting back to work, and hope­fully won’t be too far behind from hav­ing taken a few hours off.