May 23, 2007

V-Fest, in Facebook Updates:

May 14
Gerald is router shopping. 12:09pm

May 15
Gerald is PAing at V-Fest. 10:22am

May 16
Gerald is back from the orthodontist. 11:19am
Gerald is still PAing at V-Fest. 7:33pm

May 17
Gerald is continuing to PA at VFest... now with pirate socks! 10:05am

May 18
Gerald is PAing... now with Tony Seaver! 9:36am

May 19
Gerald is PAing in the rain. 9:06am
Gerald is displeased with himself. 10:51pm

May 20
Gerald is PAing... doors in an hour! 12:06pm
Gerald is working with and/or basking in the presence of the main stage manager from Coachella. 6:28pm
Gerald is post-Guinness. 11:09pm

May 21
Gerald is overslept and grumpy. 9:06am
Gerald is testing wireless connections on T-Bird's upper field. 12:50pm
Gerald is fixing phone lines. 2:22pm
Gerald is eating a Spongebob popsicle, having fixed phone lines. 4:20pm
Gerald is le tired; show's over and now it's beginnings of teardown time. 10:33pm

Yesterday
Gerald is still at T-Bird; V-fest is all done but for the shouting. 10:56am

Today
Gerald is still tired after 14 hours of sleep. 1:51pm

---
It was a good first gig to have; I learned a lot and I can't say enough good things about a large number of people. As well, I think it's something I want to do more of... here's hoping.

April 25, 2007

so it's laundry day and I'm home alone.

thusly, I am sans pants. Don't judge, you know you'd either do it in my shoes or have done it already.

In any case, I saw the mail truck, and thought, "oh! I should go get the mail."
And promptly ran upstairs to grab my keys and head out.

I was literally one foot out the door before I remembered I wasn't wearing pants.
Faced with the decision to either put pants on or leave it until later, I opted to leave it; I remain pants- and mailless.

Whee!

April 16, 2007

last night

um. wow.
last night was more than a little ridiculous.

I got out of the house on the pretenses that I had a date with a girl; her name was Sara, she was in Forestry, we weren't really sure if we wanted this to go anywhere so we'd give dinner a shot and then I was going to go out with the gang and then crash at Gav's.
What was actually going down was that I was heading to Costa's, changing, going out for the ACF Staff Dinner, and then we were going out after that.

of course, what happens after then doesn't reaaaalllly matter, and so I will relay a couple conversations I had:

Read More...

April 13, 2007

eesh, or possibly hoo-ah

Looking back on four previous years of post-Fair-posts, it's interesting (to me, mostly) to remember my frame of mind when writing what I did, and also to reflect on what's ended up sticking from the past four.

Also, I've now worked five Fairs. Jesus.
All five have been on or heavily involved with ProdComm.
Two were spent on Upper Plaza (on a stage that no longer exists.)
One was backstage, running PMO.
Two were up in Control.
All five have had me wanting to be down on the field taking care of things as they occurred at some point during the day.

Two (point five; the year I did PMO I took some Control stuff off of Ari's hands) have been on Exec.
Three have been without my parent's knowledge or consent, which boggles my mind; why is it okay to spend the day drinking and the next day hung over and playing video games (as was this year's excuse) but to run the show and help with takedown (ie, what I was actually doing) is verboten? Whatever.

In any case, a list of ten conversations I had either on the day of, on the field, or in pre-Fair meetings and such:

  1. "Corbett to Control."
    "Go for Control."
    "I found a newt."
    "Like, a salamander newt newt?"
    "That's affirmative."
    "I, uh... wow."


It's these silly one-off one liners and awful trash talking that I tend to take away from this; the experience and the relationships and the conversations re: being weirded out when Graham hugs you are also valuable, but it's the fact that I can walk up to about two thirds of the staff and drop "I heard what you said." and bring on endless fits of giggling is great.

It also occurs to me that I didn't touch on how awesome the staff is, the fact that I have nicknamed Virginia's little sister Balls (nickname and callsign.), matching aviators for A-Team that were then adopted by roughly half the girls on staff, the fact that John Hallen now knows my name, a first year that makes me look like a rank amateur when it comes to unflappability, and the fact that I apparently terrify people without meaning to.

Come find me, people; these stories require in-person transmissions.

Read More...

April 05, 2007

point form

- didn't get little sister's job. Dunno if it was because I don't know ASP or I wasn't gay enough.
- shoe store sucks. manager had boxes dropped on her, was concussed. now that I think about it, it's a hugely unsafe workplace and I want out.
- ACF is about to take over. My parents either don't know, or haven't let on that they do. I'm either a spectacular liar, my parents are really that oblivious, or they're even better liars than I am.
- I wrote a safety plan. A full blown fucking safety plan, and yet I still can't tell them.
- Asking people what they want is a bad idea.

March 31, 2007

argh and/or bah.

you know it's not going to end well when your day starts off with putting contacts in backwards.

    anyway, a to-do:
  • finish safety plan

  • draft design for client

  • put up sample work for Little Sister's

  • get done in time to go out

somehow I doubt the last one is going to work out.
bah.

March 30, 2007

the more things change...

...the more they stay the same.
This marks four years of blogging, of ups and downs recorded for some sort of posterity, and as much as I think sometimes that it's pointless and indulgent and wholly unnecessary, I've continued regardless and there're no signs of stopping -- maybe it is a good idea.

funnily, my problems remain pretty much the same: parents don't like me doing Fair, my sister drives me mad, I hate the bus, and I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.
there are new twists, but at the core, it makes me wonder if I have changed as much from my seventeen-year-old self as I like to think I have.

Anyway: onwards to Year Five. I hope it's better than Year Four was, because I really don't want to think about the alternative.

PS: leave a comment re: your favorite/most memorable post. I'm curious to see what you all say.

March 25, 2007

mwa-ha!

so I installed movable type... now, do I want to move all this content over there, or should I make it some sort of design-thoughts-only workblog?

March 18, 2007

open letter

Dear Movable Type,

I will install you, and then I will use you, and you will be the backbone of my website. There is no point in resisting with your silly 500 Errors - I will upload in your finicky ASCII-not-binary mode, and I will run your CGI scripts to ensure that my provider has the necessary perl scripts and then you will fall to me. There will be pwnage.

Simmering discontent,
Gerald


Addendum: one CHMOD, and that shit fell faster than Rome to the m-effing Vandals.
Post-Addendum: the cavalry seems to have arrived, in the form of a hash that doesn't match up. Not hash like the drug, but hash as in a code encoded from the contents of a file so that you know you've got the right file.

March 16, 2007

bah

Dad's here, standing behind me cleaning out his desk (for the third time this week; how he manages to accumulate so much that he seems to be throwing more out than ever doing anything is beyond me but that's a story for another time.)

unfortunately this means I can't work on the ACF Safety Plan, nor on the slightly more intensive ACF Disaster Plan that the Fire and Rescue guy (who, in retrospect, looked an awful lot like Horn-Rimmed-Glasses Man from Heroes) asked me for, and instead, I am going to go downstairs and play Wii when I'd rather not (shock!).

Also, this means that I have to carry the drafts around fairly carefully, as Corbett (badly) drew a penis on the cover page, with a little speech bubble that reads, "I'm Dicky!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm far from mad at Corbett, nor do I hate having to do the Safety/Disaster Plans (and along the same lines, the Comm Protocol) but that I'd like to be able to show my parents and work... publically and to say "I'm going to an All-Heads Meeting" and not "I'm going for coffee."

It's a lot of important work and that I have to do it so furtively is enraging, and I hate that I've become such a good liar as a result.

Anyway, time to go and do nothing when I should be doing something.

Fuck.

March 04, 2007

trial the second

after this chat:
me: i think i want to go for an almost 1700s-map feel
Spencer: that would be neat
with a squid consuming a ship
me: with sort of a parchment tone to the backgrounds, sIFR'd fonts that look like they came out of an actual press, and yeah, menacing-ass squid.

I freehanded another attempt in flash:

Read More...

March 02, 2007

for nicki

this is what I was talking about - the jpg makes it crappy but the concept remains.

Read More...

you's a ho

well, I'm a ho, actually.
a consumer ho.

having received my Source payout, I went and bought the following things:
- two domains (archteuthidae.ca and giant-squid.ca; nothing is up on either of them)
- an iPod shuffle (blue, named Humboldt, using a gift card and some cash)
- Sasquatch tickets (jesus!)

...now, to get my (X)HTML on...

February 25, 2007

I've told the story of Graham's birthday cake a couple of times, but I lost the image that I had the Dairy Queen people put on it for him.

after some rather strange Google searching, I found it again - it's called "Bad Day on the High Sea" and it's by an artist named Brandon Bird.

take a look - it's pretty awesome.

February 24, 2007

buh-wha?!

only today did my dad notice that I have two pairs of glasses.

are they really that similar?

February 21, 2007

what goes around, etc

some of you may remember this post in which I experiment with... Bluetooth headsets (sorry, couldn't resist) and where I decided that I had no real need or want for one.

A couple weeks ago, my brother received a free headset from Telus, decided he liked it better than the one he had, and now I am the mostly puzzled owner of a RAZR-styled headset. I don't know if I'll put it to any actual use, but at least now I can out-douchebag anyone I want!

...I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing, though.

February 19, 2007

unsent.

I almost called last night.
Almost reached out, out from the witching hour and into your pale dawn, the opposite of a drunk dial; intoxicated exuberance replaced by sobriety and just-add-water sadness.

Certainly unexpected, after a day spent with Rob's grace and my chemicals (see also: M83) all smiles and silly jokes, peering at ridiculous knives and fondling a 5D before returning to simply relax.

Later, though, the injustice struck and I lay in bed, unable to sleep, stuck on the edge of a sadness that needed to be felt or ignored before anything else could happen and I numbly picked a selection of gut-punch songs on the iPod, reached for headphones and saw the phone, thought of you.

Decided against it in the end, as a disservice to my fledgling strength and your careful solitude - though your dependable cadence and audible gesticulations would have been a lift, they could just as easily have been a crutch.

In the end, it didn't matter; the raincloud passed, I watched Looney Tunes until I fell asleep, and now this is nothing more than memories committed to the Internet; a lesson for future and an offering to Google.

February 14, 2007

new sidebar link

so I've been reading Achewood, a mildly surreal webcomic about talking cats who drink a lot. Now that I've finished plowing through the archives, I've added it to the sidebar, and you should check it out.

I went to pick a favorite one to put up as an example and ended up reading the archives for twenty minutes, so it's all good!

February 10, 2007

of mice and men...

what was supposed to be a fairly straightforward evening of drinking followed by hanging out on friday was anything but, and here's a point form post before I go pass the fuck out.

- whiskey + smash bros in MASS with lougheed
- Red Knight
- people I knew at Red Knight: Joel, Huff, Jen+Dave, Lana,
- meeting of new kids
- science boy
- running into of highschool folk
- an event at the Cheeze shutting down on time
- back to MASS to grab things before heading to Jordie's goodbye thing
- Alex pukes. A lot.
- me and Lois play smash bros, chat while alex sleeps it off.
- at 12, give up and leave them
- Brickhouse
- Lynley!
- interesting discussions (re: industrial design, I hate musicians, etc.)
- taxicab chicanery

February 07, 2007

molehills, mountains, etc.

I still can't figure out what I want and while I've been taking some time off and doing more school and also some attempts at figuring out, my lack of job and apparent "antisocial and attitude problems" (read: I'm either not home or not watching TV with the rest of the family because my CSI threshold is lower than everyone else) have led my dad to contemplate kicking me out of the house.

...and then everyone wonders why I'm never home.

February 03, 2007

face update:

what's new in my mouth, you ask?

    well:
  • there's a tooth coming out
  • I have to go for a consultation regarding my jaw
  • my dentist thinks I'm in for more intense surgery than I was planning
  • flossing continues to be a huge pain
  • the dental assistants think it's nine kinds of funny to suggest I get ridiculously colored ones
  • If I have a short time between appointments, I just might.
  • or one I just thought of: going yellow and purple come Fair time.

actually it's a terrible idea and there's no way I'm going to get anything but the neutral ones, but I thought you'd all enjoy the mental image.

thunderstruck'd

I'm not entirely sure what to write about last night; I got hammered and behaved appallingly, to some degree - I drunk dialed Rob and probably offended Neil and had quite an interesting chat with Dan.

that said, it was probably the best thing I could have done; it's been a long time coming and I think it'll help me break out of this weird, mildly complacent rut I've been in.

Also also: it's mildly alarming that I can be "oh god why did I drink that last beer goddamnit will someone stop the world from spinning" drunk and yet still tell the tour guide story about the Nitobe Gardens, down to the imported maples, and the fact that he's on the 50,000 yen note. I may have forgotten about how it's supposed to be like the Milky Way, but it's alright because we were being quiet.

Also3: I met Tim's roommate - we didn't talk much, and he definitely didn't set off anything on Ye Olde Radar.

Also4: I'm pretty sure I made a capillary action joke at Foreplay (where I won no sex toys, and I GOT ID'D AT THE CHEEZE WHAT THE HELL.)

January 31, 2007

5HR: January 31

Five in Heavy Rotation - those songs that temporarily put themselves on repeat, demanding to be heard and leaving just enough of themselves bouncing around to require one (or more) repeats.

Today's edition includes (and will be up for download later):

Wintersleep - Insomnia
Guillemots - Trains to Brazil
Man Man - Van Helsing Boombox
Broken Social Scene - I'm Still Your Fag
Swan Lake - All Fires

in other news, I hate my computer and am thinking about building a new one.
*grumble*


cellular shenanigans

I really need to start adding pictures to my phone listings; I almost called Claudia (of Ubyssey/Joblink fame) instead of Claudia (ACF Exec) yesterday intending to either discuss or leave a lengthy voicemail regarding the lineup.

Failing that, I should just add tags like the above... now that I think about it the idea has some promise.

January 30, 2007

like a monkey with a miniature cymbal

first staff meeting last night for XVI.

we watched the video from 11 and I recognized half the people (Graham with purple hair! Spencer on front gate! Ollie!) and then introduced the fair and our positions and whatnot.

...ye gods I feel old.

also I missed 24 and am torrenting it now but if anyone says anything, heads will roll.

January 27, 2007

testing testing

I can't quite figure out what it takes to make my Recently Updated box update - it's running a feed from my last.fm profile but it's not working exactly as expected. I thought it would be all but live but I'm guessing that it only rereads the feed when I publish a new post, which is sort of lame.

January 25, 2007

all systems blue

so blogger has a new backend, and in the name of science, I thought I'd give it a shot and see what the big deal was.

I'd already had the chance to play around with it to some degree when designing Elections Insider and I didn't really like what I saw; it took the previous notion of "design your page, and then inject our code" and replaced it with "ground-up solution! hoo-ah!" which makes some things easier, but makes most personalization harder, especially with the weird live colour preview system which isn't documented and requires a little bit of reverse-engineering if you want to add any variables of your own.

It did keep a copy of the (admittedly stale) scrapheap design so I can switch back if I want, but for the time being I'll probably keep poking at the thing and reporting back.

January 24, 2007

life lesson #13483

there's much debate re: Joanna Newsom, most notably where Warren Ellis referred to her as a yowling autistic playing the harp with a brick and then got chewed out for it. as well as Ys' place on multiple year-end list and heck, Emily making it fairly high up Pitchfork's 100 Songs of the Year.

...damnit I lost my point.

oh, wait, here it is: I like it. It's not immediate, and it's not something I would put and leave on repeat (like, say, the Guillemots' Trains to Brazil) but it works for me and I found myself captivated earlier by the following verses:

Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Thoough all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in december
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember

That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee

And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee


in closing: give things a shot, no matter what your favorite tastemonger may say. who knows what'll happen

January 21, 2007

just a box in a cage

I can't help but wonder if I've used this post title before.

anyway: I'm not writing much, and I've been wondering as to whether I want to keep this whole shebang, but I've noticed that all hiatuses and rather long bursts of non-activity tend to lead to more promises to post more, and then more hiatuses.

Maybe I'm just a sporadic writer, or I fell out of whatever mindset is necessary to catalog and/or monologue about whatever my day included.

That said, I do like having an outlet (although I don't really like how the blog looks at the moment and will eventually get around to fixing it.)

also: is it weird of me to consider setting up a domain just so that I don't have a bog-standard gmail address? I mean, not exclusively but more along the lines of including it in the 'pro' column on the mental pro/con chart.

January 12, 2007

sidenote to Sarah:

the pens were a good idea.

how not to lead.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stephanie Ryan <auspresident@xxxxx.xxx>
Date: Jan 12, 2007 1:57 PM
Subject: [aus-list] A Simple Threat From Your President
To: aus-list@xxx.xxx.ca

Next week better be the best Arts Week ever.
If it's not I will kill you... all.
Remember Whistler, I will actually kill you.
--
Stephanie Ryan
Arts Undergraduate Society President
e. auspresident@xxxxx.xxx
c. xxx-xxx-xxx

January 01, 2007

fuck you, 2006!

standard year end meme follows: go forth

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Kissed a guy, came out, worked full-time, bought a console within a month of launch, had psychological counselling, used anti-depressants, had an RRSP.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No and yes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Clearly no, because I can't remember any.
[In retrospect, Tara did but I can't say we're close anymore (sadly)]

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
The US.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
To move out.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I can't be arsed.
Fair, birthday, wisdom teeth out, braces in, missing Spencer leaving, moving in, first night in own. fucking. bed., counselling, work, WUF, day one on drugs, Thompson Rivers, spelling bee, etc.

would I like to forget the summer? yes. will I? probably not.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Being control, walking away, letting myself be helped.

9. What was your biggest failure?
There were a lot.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Wii.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
They know who they are.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
They know who they are, too.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Braces, mortgage, tuition, etc.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Seeing people, Debutante Ball.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
Another Radio Song - Okkervil River

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Sadder.
b) thinner or fatter? Maybe a few pounds fatter.
c) richer or poorer? Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Admitting.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Commute, meetings.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
At home.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Yes. No. I'm confused.
Hold me?

22. How many one-night stands?
None.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Battlestar Galactica.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nobody new.

25. What was the best book you read?
The Elements of Typographic Style.

Close runners up include the Virgin Suicides, and How to Be A Domestic Goddess

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Pipettes, or the Hold Steady, I guess.

or Sufjan. Hard to say.

27. What did you want and get?
Material stuff, space, etc.

28. What did you want and not get?
Material stuff, freedom.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
The Science of Sleep

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
21, and nothing, due to exams.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Stable neurochemistry.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
I like sweaters.

33. What kept you sane?
Effexor, 150mg, once a day.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Uh, most all of the cast of Battlestar Galactica.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
gay marriage reopening, Quebec-as-nation, etc. I wasn't stirred a whole lot, in retrospect.

36. Who did you miss?
Most everyone. Living in Surrey and working in Langley makes it hard to see people.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
uh, Luc and Jules from work, Ben King, and Julie Patrick.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006:
everyone falls; it's the getting up that defines you.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
The Dismemberment Plan - Gyroscope: If he spins fast enough then maybe the broken pieces of his heart will stay together / but any gyroscope can spin forever, yeah / happiness is such hard work, and it gets harder every day /and it can kill you, but no one wants to be that tacky about it, yea / if you spin fast enough than maybe the broken pieces of your heart will stay together /but some things I’ve seen lately make me doubt it.

.

breakdown to follow, but for now:

so much hangover. SO MUCH HANGOVER. I'm pretty sure I drank nough for, like, three last night.