Yesterday was a very productive day. I’m not talking I got in a lot of programming productive, I’m not talking I reoganized my room and cleaned it productive, I’m not even talking I spent 10 hours jobhunting and got a job productive. I’m talking about making an impact on the whole damn planet productive.
(I actually type this post up yesterday when it was all still fresh but stupid Blogger—yeah you heard my Blogger, I know you’re watching Big Brother ;D—wiped out the whole thing when I pressed the wrong key and I lost it all. Since it was really late I was in no mood to retype the whole thing so I decided I’d just do it again today which truned out to be a good idea.)
First of all, I fixed a leak in the kitchen sink, I pulled out all the crap under the sink, cleaned it out, and killed the mold—by yelling at it and kicking it square in the n’uts. Next, my mother had asked for some help with her baked goods. She had made some "candies"—if you can use such a provincial and pedestrian term to label the things my mother makes—for some people and wanted some help preparing them. So I separated, cupped, and wrapped a few dozen of those things which has has yet to name. Finally I sorted, organized, and entered a bunch of tapes.
Next came a big part of the day. Last week, Rockstargames released Grand Theft Auto 2 for free as a download just in time for Christmas. It has been extremely difficult to get it but unlike almost everyone else in the world, I managed to get it yesterday. I wanted to help out but there’s a clause on the download page saying not to mirror it. After some study I decided that the block was their original intention but things have changed sufficiently since then that they would not doubt appreciate a little help, after all there’s plenty of mirrors of GTA1. I decided to help spread the copy I got to some people. I created a torrent and put in my eMule share. Before long I had a dozen people downloading it from me in eMule. Once it was sufficiently uploaded to those people, I pulled the plug. As for BitTorrent, I got a few bites and finished it up for them before pulling out. I checked today and found that they are already spreading on their own. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, I mean it IS the Internet. I’ve seen a couple of other sources that are just getting off the ground, but I guess I may be solely responsible for originally helping to releive the stress on R* servers and helping them spread this, especially since yesterday morning when I checked, the file was nowhere to be seen anywhere until after I let the cat out of the bag. I was a little worried about the clause but I figure, if they were harvesting email addresses, then they are in trouble and it’s not big deal since they are not getting any addresses anyway because it doesn’t work. If they are NOT harvesting, then I help to prevent, or rather reduce people’s initial reactions of gratitude from turning to resentment. I did it for Rockstargame’s own good as much as anyone else’s.
Later last night, I contributed a bunch of entries to TVTome; entries that I was particularly proud of for their astuteness. I was particularlly proud of one contribution. A person had asked in the forums about a song that was played in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. A second person also wanted to know, and I myself was anxious to find out since the song was really great. I had already tried to find out but came up empty. Seeing that others also wanted to know, I checked again and this time I got a hit. I found out that it is called Holla! by the Baha Men. I posted the answer in the forum for them and in the main page. I got a copy of the song but having a need to sing along—I love fast music—I looked for lyrics. Unfotunately, I found that there was not a single place on the whole Internet that contained the lyrics for the song. I resisted a bit but quickly gave in to temptation and took it upon myself to transcribe the lyrics. A surprisingly short time later I had the complete lyrics—although I still had a few little changes to make. I then submitted them to several places. Yes, if you find lyrics to Baha Men’s Holla!, then it’s 99.99999999999999999% likely that it’s mine. 😀
Today was also very productive. My mother needed a few things so we went to some places this afternoon. We looked everywhere for some Chia Cat Grass but could not find ANY Chia product anywhere, let alone the newer Cat Grass. Luckily we found a little planter of already grown cat grass at Loblaws. The best part of today however was that there were ads for two deep fryers. There was a Rival deep fryer at $40 and a Moulinex deep fryer at $40. Now you might say, go with the Moulinex, it’s a known name and you would normally be true. This time however is no different, in fact the Rival is regular price whereas the Moulinex is half price, it’s normally $80, the average price for a deep fryer ($80-$90). The choice was clear. There was however a little snag. At the register it rang up as $80. My mother pointed it out in the flyer to which the cashier pointed out the "1 Day Only Sale: Dec.26" header which was practically unreadable since it wasn’t even text, but rather a big graphic with the "1" so big and red that it blends into the background so that you cannot even see it. Dejected, we left to my surprise since my mother almost never gives up like that; I guess she must have been anxious to find the cat grass. Things turned around in the car though when I mentioned that the price tag on the shelf still says $40. We went back and checked. Sure enough the price tag that was affixed to the little plastic thing stuck on the shelf not only said "Moulinex deep fryer: 1/2 price: $40", but it also said "sale ends Dec.31". If that wasn’t great enough, there was another tag beneath, on the shelf itself that said the exact same thing. I was busting; we were right so much so that I wanted to really stick it to them—especially the cashier who had been so smug—and rub it in. We took the deep fryer to the customer service desk to be rung up, the woman there got $80, my mother took her to see the shelf, they came back and she rung it up for $40 but not before tearing both tags off of the shelf, a little peaved. If we had managed to get the deep fryer for $40 two days ago it would have been nice enough and we would have been happy, but knowing that we got such a great deal after the sale when we shouldn’t have, and that we were right, and that they were wrong, and that they practically cheated with their unreadable flyer, and that we conquered, it just made it so much more sweet.
I also learned something about myself. At the end of the day I was so happy that I figured out that it’s not what I’m doing specifically that makes me happy as long as I’m being productive, creative, and accomplishing something worthwhile.
Yes, a very productive two days. We got some things, I learned some things, I impacted the whole world.