Work sweet work..

So I am 2 days in to my new job in Oshawa. And I will be at this job until the end of October.. So an opportunity to get to know a new town (about 60 km away), find some new places along the way, and 'improve' my driving. I am doing 120km+ a day on the 401 now. I fear for the road users back home when i start undertaking on the hard shoulder at 130 (thats kmh not mph!) to try and slalom in and out of traffic. Oh well, i'm here now, so might as well settle in as a local. Everyone else is doing it.

Hired a Dodge Neon to drive about. Like every other car i've driven since i got here, it has the obligatory deep holes for takeaway coffee cups. And the adverts positively encourage you to use them. While you're driving too. There is an advert running (for Moores trousers) where a guy spills his coffee down his trousers while he's driving. In the UK, thats 60 quid and 3 points. (if youre caught i guess!) In Canada, thats 'accidents will happen. Luckily Moores sells pants from $39...' I have so far resisted the urge to drive and drink coffee at the same time. But you can see why people can do it here, I mean, when you dont have to change gear or anything else, what else can you do with your spare hand - and yes, I am assuming that all people just drive one handed! Personally, i find that playing rock music loudly, 'singing' to it, and using aforementioned spare hand for drumming on the outside of the drivers door works too! My challenge is to pass this habit on to some locals. I am learning their habits at the same time. This mornings habit? Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut for breakfast. Mmmmm.

Work for me at the moment is the authorisation of price changes in shops. How dull? Well possibly. But the idea is this. Imagine the guy working at HMV's counter can override the bar code, and sell you the cd for a quid? How can you make sure (if you own the business) that it doesnt happen, and your workers dont fleece you? Well, i dont know, clearly! Thats computers job! But i am testing the processes to make sure they work and that we can report that price files are safe and secure.

Part of today involved waiting for a faxed confirmation from another location of the people that had access to the price systems. (The department I am in at the moment is the one responsible for receiving and dealing with all price queries - hence the link with the testing) I got a shout to say the fax had arrived. The first line was hand written - 'You people can ""ck your price increases, we'll sell them for what we want'. Nice. The guy even wrote ""ck rather than some similar equivalent, presumably to spare my feelings! Not sure whether thats going on my audit file yet, or in a collection for future careers advice to aspiring accountants... in fact I'm not sure whether it was for me at all! Hey, I'm an auditor, i've come to expect the abuse!

Plenty of interesting place names on route.. Oshawa, Durham, Pickering, Ajax.... i may do a blog on the history of some of the names here, purely for educational purposes you understand!

In a further random can size finding, it turns out Pepsi co are 355ml here, while Coke are 341. Again, no idea why. Carton orange juice from the supermarket comes in 1.89 litre cartons. All v random. OK, the prize fund is now $5. (Or a Toronto souvenir!) Anyone got any clues?

And just to leave you thinking, rather than bored, a question for you. Inspired by one of the visitors to this site, who has managed to use the word 'sangria' so often that if you type it in to search engines, her blog comes up. Thats pretty impressive! Possibly even an improvement on the German presentation i gave in March. When i typed 'Nordrheinwestfalen' (thats the state in Germany I used to live in) into google, the first hit was "Koln call girls - Geile Schlampen". I think 'call girls' makes it clear, Geile Schlampen just provides emphasis.

So whats the most random hit/site you've found on your searches?...