thundering blissful

March 13, 2008

the steep approach

I'm drawing again, which I think is a big deal; it was pretty much the first thing to go post-SNRI and between that and the photography/HTMLing, I feel a lot closer to myself. The diet, while occasionally difficult to moderate, has so far adjusted well to the white flour and sugar removals; next step is to up the leafy/dark green veggies which shouldn't be too hard, especially if I keep remembering to take lunch and not get stuck eating downtown, which (obv) is terrible for me, unless I go to the make-your-own stirfry place (and that's frankly just sort of disappointing.)

Work sucks; I won't deny it. I'm well liked and the job is easy, but I need to GTFO, or as Dan Savage would say, DTMFJ.

School... is okay. I've been avoiding it and I need to stop doing so.

I miss people.
I am seeing some folks and have also made new(ish) friends via the Ubyssey/new AUS kids/UBC Insiders, it's not at all the same; maybe I actually am turning into a curmudgeon.

Fuck it. Time for Smash Bros.

March 05, 2008

Project Unfuck

I wanted an easy way out; some sort of colossal "Unfuck My Head" that would basically set things up so I could knock them down again - no panicking, no nonstarter status, no endless feelings being trapped by myself.

I got the first one, at least. As for the others, I came to realize that there might be more to this than I thought at first. There's no telling without visiting a proper shrink and getting a proper diagnosis as to whether I am just an enormous underachiever or if it's ADHD or something equally buzzwordy and ridiculous.

It came with a healthy dose of side effect, both physically (metabolism down, weird cravings up) and mentally (weird things to sex drive, no creativity) and generally wreaked havoc, with the only upside being that I felt in control of myself, again.

So I stopped. Tapered down, and realized that I spent a year and a half on pills that were helpful, but not a cure-all (though they were explained to me as such) and also that I needed to do this the hard way.

...which brings us here.

This marks a beginning, I think, of several things. The first of which is the abandonment of the mild superstition I have of writing things down here, because then they don't happen. The second is a concerted effort to make shorter-term goals and deadlines that are within a longer-term framework; I tend to do one without the other, which curtails effectiveness.

Lose the gut. Get back down to a 32

Get back into school, kick its ass.

Derive sole income from web, photography, and concert production work

Restart sensible savings plan

Clear out personal debt

Get back money I am owed (by insurance, mostly)

Take meals to work

No more refined flour or sugar

Go to gym.

Finish off current distance ed classes, figure out next 9 credits thereafter

Put up portfolio site, get business cards made, finish pro bono projects

Move GTFO money into high-interest savings account

Write (and stick to) budget.

Get forms and receipts for sending off, send off.

wish me luck.

March 01, 2008

toes, dipping, waters, so on.

As Rob once pointed out, we default to talking about music now, when previously it would have been the weather; at least within the people I know (and like enough to regularly talk to). Accordingly, then, it would only make sense that I fall back on a music post as a reintroduction to the medium.

Thus: Five in Heavy Rotation - Post-Leap-Day edition.
It's five songs I've had on repeat, or I've been listening to in my head, or singing in the shower; heavy rotation doesn't always mean that it's in a form that is trackable via Last.fm. Here they are, and also a little bit about them.

Okkervil River Song - Okkervil River
Newest addition to my Okkervil River collection (surprising, I know) - I've listened to it six times in a day and will probably do so a couple more times until I know the words. I've heard it in podcasts, and once live, but it becomes something else when applied directly to the skull. It's a paean to unsustainable self-reliance (which a certain person has previously yelled at me over MSN about), lost love, and the importance of working towards dreams. Plus, it made me tear up a little the first time I heard it.

Racing Like a Pro - The National
For some reason, this album is tied tightly to my Murakami binge, and the weird alienation plus sub versus conscious mind motifs that the author loves carries through into this particular track. I love the palpable tension and the careful use of strings in the background. It's also a reminder to not settle, which was a New Year's resolution I made with Al, and probably the one I will end up keeping to more than the others.
Plus, for the longest time, I thought the chorus was "your mind is racing like a pronoun" which made no sense but appealed to me anyway.

Bitches in Tokyo - Stars
cross off all the ways I failed you
because I failed you
but I'm still in your blood
you're still on my blood.

[if you have to ask...]

Gouge Away - Mogwai (Pixies cover)
"Hey! You got Scottish post-rockers in my early-90s pre-grunge!" It's perfect; sludge and accents nailed to serious drums and Old Testament allusions.

Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down - Interpol
In Pattern Recognition, William Gibson writes about "psychological prophylaxis", or the act of restoring emotional normalcy by resuming daily tasks; it seems fitting that the act of reading the book (and listening to an album that I played while reading it the first of countless times) would act as a normalizer on my part.
Lately, though, this song makes me miss a trio of people, all of whom I have gone from functionally constant to now sporadic contact; two through circumstance and one through some sort of weird clean break on the other party's end.
At the end of the day, I guess there's nothing to do but wonder about ducks in faces at 240 knots and move on.

Downloads up here. It'll come down in two weeks.

I think, sometimes, I don't write because I don't want to augment future memories of this time; I'm not happy with a lot of things.

At the same time, it seems a bit like cutting off my nose to spite my face and ultimately having a record of mistakes made and lessons learned would only be useful in the longer term.

I guess I'm back, then.

February 17, 2008

blow me, 2007!

better late than never, I guess.
time to relapse.

anywhoo: standard year end meme follows:
1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Spent a full 12 months out of school, did only distance ed classes, got fired, temped, bought a DSLR, went to Sasquatch, went to a bunch of queer events, drank so much I blacked out, worked retail, bought a Mac.

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?
Yes.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
The US.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
to move forward with the five-year plan. It really was a lot of decompression.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I can't be arsed.
Fair, birthday, New Years, telling my parents about drugs, MBP Day One, Sasquatch, V-Fest, Okkervil River... the day we killed the fair.

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?
Tossup: 30D/MBP

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?
Music, restoration of sanity..

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Mistaken for Strangers - The National

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Saner.
b) thinner or fatter? Definitely fatter, working on it.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer.

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

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

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?
Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

honorable mentions: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Kimberly Elam's Grid Systems and Typographic Systems.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The National, Battles, The Twilight Sad, Grizzly Bear.

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?
No Country for Old Men.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
22: ACF Staff Dinner.

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... at least it did until I stopped taking them, started again, and then tapered down.

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?
I wasn't stirred a whole lot, in retrospect.

36. Who did you miss?
Most everyone. We seem to have grown up and apart.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Pretty much everyone at the Ubyssey but especially Brandon, Matt Hayles, Paul, and Kellan; Sean from temping @ Credential; Gary from Metafilter.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
This is worth fighting for.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
The National - Racing Like A Pro:
Your mind is racing like a pro, now
oh my god it doesn’t mean a lot to you
one time you were a glowing young ruffian
oh my god it was a million years ago

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:

"hey Gerald can you tie my tie for me? it doesn't look right."
"sure, Corbett, I'm on it."
"yes! I know a gay."
[Corbett dances]
"do you have an 'i know a gay' dance?"
"maybe."

[after Sarah's iron spilt water]
"Sarah! i wet your bed!"
"dammit you, didn't you do a test patch?"
"...I thought that was hair dye."
"wait, you're right."

"damnit, I hate this tie. I want a nice thick one like yours."
"don't we all."
"well, except for Sarah."
"that would explain why she puts up with you."
"actually, it's why she doesn't like me so much."

[while attempting to tie corbett's tie for him]
"okay, there's no other way for you to do this than to stand behind me and reach around."
"...you want a reach-around? stupid low mirrors make this difficult. I wonder if Sarah's room is going to be any better."
"well, let's find out. Sarah! Gerald and I are going into your room and he's going to give me a reach-around!"
"Don't wet the bed!"

"na-ked! na-ked! na-ked!"

"this jacket is so soft. I don't want to let you go!"
"makes two of us."
"no, seriously."
"I was being serious."

shortly after the above conversation, pretty much the entire room decided that they needed to stroke my jacket. It was... endearing and awkward, neatly rolled into one.

and this was all before we got to the macaroni grill; the rest of the evening is up on facebook, but here's a drink tally for posterity:

2 shots Jager
2 Liquid Cocaines
2 Mystery Citrus Tequila Shots
1 Glenfiddich 12-year old
1 Irish Car Bomb
1 Jack and Coke
1 Mystery Shot (Butterscotch Schnapps + Kahlua)

That I didn't die is a minor miracle.

Anyways, there's a Birthday the Second for all my peeps who aren't on ACF Staff (and those who want to get ridiculous again), starting at the Mongolian BBQ on Broadway and Macdonald on the 27th at 7pm and then moving either to Honey for Mod Club, the beach, or the King's Head for a joint thing with C. Anderson.
Knowing us, though, something entirely different will happen.

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:

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

"Costa to Control, radio check."
"Loud and clear, Costa."
"GET THAT NIGGERFAGGOT OUT OF HERE!!"
"Corbett to all staff: Red card!!"
sidenote: see here

"Hi Mom. Yeah, I'm having fun. No, I haven't had too much to drink. I've been getting lots of water. After this? Probably to Graham's; that guitar game of his is pretty fun. Yes, I'll call before bed."

Bock: "I'm Gerald. Blah blah blah I like men. Blah blah blah threats."
Gerald: "I'm Ian Bock. Blah blah blah I'm tall. Blah blah blah I quote Family Guy."
Gerald: "We may as well complete the trio. I'm Tyler. Blah blah blah I've absorbed Corbett's bitterness and Gerald's vulgarity."
Tyler: "Holy shit you're right! How did that happen?"
Gerald: "Osmosis."
Ian: "I can't get the gay that way, right?"
Gerald: "No, but we have shared drinks before..."
Ian: "Aw, fuck.

"Seriously, dude, what happened with this weather? What the hell did Tyler do?"
"I dunno... but I'm gonna cut their dick off when I find out."
"Uh... Corbett? Tyler's straight."
"Yeah, but it's fucking snowing in April. He must of gotten into some seriously kinky shit."
"Like what? Taking my humps too seriously and boning a camel?"

"What the fuck do you mean did I bone a camel? I've never fucking seen a camel in my life!"
"Look, T-Bone, all I'm saying is that it's snowing in April. I don't know what you got up to, but don't do it again."
"I. Didn't. Fuck. A Camel."

"What do you mean Corbett would break me? I'm bigger than he is!"
"Alright, Bock, let's put it this way. You're a husky; big and friendly and fun and probably good at pulling sleds in Alaska..."
"Yeah, definitely that last one."
"...but he's a badger, and if we were to say, stick you in a barrel as the metaphorical representation of your post-chloroform marriage, he's way more tenacious than you are and he has claws. And he's angry. Yeah, you're bigger but that doesn't matter to him."
"Well, now that you put it that way, I'm a little afraid of him."
"Understandable."

"You sir, are cruising for a defenestration."
"What does that even mean?"
"I will push you out the window."
"Oh. In that case, I'll be on the field from now on. Far away from windows."

"Get that niggerfaggot out of here!"
"Sarah. Jesus Christ, Sarah! What is wrong with you?! What if there were niggerfaggots around? How do you think they would feel? Seriously, you awful awful person."

"Die in a fire."

bonuses!

"I love when people conform to stereotypes."
"What do you mean?"
"Turns out that the media guy was talking shit about me to anyone who would listen... including my assistant. It's a fag move."
"Yeah. Wow. That's pretty bad; I mean... I can't say it but I agree with you."

"Breaker Breaker this is Sam Roberts to Control."
"Go for Control, Sam."
"Hey, just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work; you guys did a great job and I had an awesome time."
"It was a pleasure to have you, Sam; you rocked the crowd pretty hard and it was a solid set."
"Thanks, buddy. You take care. Over and out."
"That's a big 10-4, Sam."

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.

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.

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:

thoughts?

March 02, 2007

for nicki

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

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?

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.

December 06, 2006

note to self: make these bad boys:

A La Cuisine!: Macarons (IMBB 10)

it seems like things that aren't work are mostly: attempt to get hands on Wii. Fail miserably. Bake. Repeat.

on the upside, the stories are getting better, and at some point I'll be able to buy one of the fuckers.

oh, I'm working on drafts for a couple sites, too - it should be a pretty interesting December.

December 04, 2006

three things

- interview wednesday for a project management assistant position.
- my Frakkin Cylon shirt came.

November 25, 2006

trials and triibulations

was fifth in line for four Wiis this morning at Zellers
Future Shop, Best Buy, Toys R Us and Superstore were all out.

bleh.

November 18, 2006

five in heavy rotation:

I sort of thought about pitching this as a feature to Streethawk, but the simple fact of the matter is that I am too entangled in other things at the moment (baking, overtime, not-schooling-when-I-should-be, financial planning, cute boys at work, the redesign I keep going on about, etc) to really put enough into it to satisfy myself and by extension the editors.

That said, I'm going to put one up, because it seems like an easy way to ease back into writing, and though I am typing all day, I'm not writing and starting again is a good thing for me; halfassery here leads to fullassery in things that matter (shirts, photography, etc)

so here they are:
Herbert - Something Isn't Right
Despite the title, I think there's a lot right here; the interplay of the vocalists, the endless sound-collage that Herbert crams into every sonic nook, and the gently groovable beat have landed this song a large number of repeats. Also the line "cover up / it's an Allied slaughter" appeals to my mildly twisted war-joke sensibilities. I wonder if Herbert would find the squid cake funny...

Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
I didn't really like this song until I heard it live, and along with John Wayne Gacy, Jr., it's become stuck in my head on repeat. It's hard to pick out any one thing that really, really stands out because it's all quite nice. I think it's the bit near the end "though we have sparred, wrestled and raged / I can tell you I love him each day" which is reminiscent of the end of Stars' Your Ex Lover is Dead but not really. Now, if only it was a waltz.

Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates (I Might Be Wrong version)
The guy who sits next to me, who listens and enjoys to most everything I put on during the day, asked me for my opinion on Amnesiac. I commented that while it was interesting, I thought a lot of the songs got a lot better live, and he asked me to demonstrate, so I played this. I'd forgotten how much I liked LSP live, and live Radiohead in general, so this popped back into rotation.

Ellen Allien - Alles Sehen
Previously mentioned cubemate turned to me halfway through this song, incredulous: "was that R2D2? Awesome."
He's also a big fan of Push, "so this song consists entirely of the words 'push', 'kick', 'your', and 'ass'. I like that."
Berlinette is good music for mindless typing to, and paired with the above quotes, it goes on at least once every couple days.

Ellen Allien and Apparat - Metric
[thump] [thump] [waaaaaaaaaaow] [strings]
While I have to remember to turn the bass down before I play this one, or my cube becomes the stationary version of That Guy In The Civic At The Intersection, there's something about this track that just works, be it in the bass, the subtle tension, the gorgeous string bits, or in the robot-cycling-down whooshes and whirrs that also occupy the song.

the downloads'll go up later; I'm going to read for a bit and then call it in so I can get up bright and early to go pick up a Wii.

October 16, 2006

whee!

glarkware :: frakkin toaster -- NoN -- ships late nov

this doesn't get to me until november, but goddamn if I'm not excited now.

braces, day 90

I'm not actually keeping count or anything, merely noting via Wikipedia which day of the year July 18th was (199) and which one this is (289) and then doing the math.

that said: I can live with this. The only real problems are the speed at which I go through toothbrushes, flossing and financing, and those are relatively minimal and I can see the effects already.

In retrospect, I should've taken monthly photos, but it seems like that would be making a bigger deal out of it, and while I'm quite pleased that this is a large positive change, there's no use fetishizing it.

I am, however, approaching the point where my jaw misalignment is pretty apparent, and while that's progress of some sort, it's also moving closer to the infamous jaw surgery, which promises to be a) painful, b) expensive, and c) will mean I can't talk for roughly ten weeks.

I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, I suppose.

October 13, 2006

wrapped up in books

it's weird to realize that impulse-buying novels has become an avoidance mechanism and even stranger to make an effort to stop, but here I go.

the last six books for me to read are queued; three novels, what is apparently the best typography book written in a long time, the second of three photography books from Ansel Adams and then a re-read of Pattern Recognition, for nothing more than the flow of Gibson's sentences.

after that, I intend to move from almost solely consuming back into creation; I'm looking forward to getting my photographer's eye back. Also I find more practice helps my writing get better; both in terms of content and deliverance.

for now, I'm going to go finish Wind Waker and then shelve the Cube for a bit; while I admit to shifting gears rather abruptly, it's no excuse to leave things unfinished.

October 12, 2006

for posterity

me: "oh, fuck off. you're the one who was threatening to spoon me shortly after I met you."
corbett: "I didn't know you were going to like it!"
me: "well, fuck; neither did I."
corbett: "shut up and take the shot.
also, pour some beam into the slurpees."
me: "dude, it's 3 pm."
[pause]
"let's roll."

and that was how we kicked off one hell of a saturday at whistler.

October 11, 2006

triptych

the thing about posting lately is that I sit down and end up wanting to write three things in one, and in doing so end up doing nothing. I guess the most intuitive thing would be to write all three, so, uh, here goes. no neil-fu this post, and I'll explain that one later.

the thing about whistler for me is that none of the things that you're supposed to be doing, seeing, thinking about, or planning for are the ones that stick with you. This year's short themes for me were: bonding with Bock (things are cyclical; this was my year to watch over the puker and make sure he had water while he slept) and T-Whatever (Cosy/Rex/Bone/Bag/etley); coming back up to speed on ACF; quality time with Ryan; getting comfortable with my satellite-like status; and seeing Pringle again.

came back from whistler, passed out in the office (and didn't go home) then went out to sushi to see Jill, going from Old Man to young'un, and walking in to meet Paul to be introduced with "this is Gerald. we became friends after he puked on my feet." It was nice to reconnect on both ends, to remind myself of this transitory phase (within a transitory phase) and also to where I want to be in six months, as a motivation.

there's more to say here, and I'll get back to it later; for now I'm going to ogle cameras and create a savings plan to afford one.

September 04, 2006

half of everyone else moves around

my image host packed the fuck up and bailed on hosting with nary an email to their subscribers.

jerks.

I think it's time to retire this layout anyway, so it'll seem a little boring (okay, fine, really boring) until I throw down a new one.

still got your words and you got your friends

I am learning to be okay with things, and also to change the things that need changing before they become... problematic.

I am trying (and advising others, which seems strange at this junction) to move in the direction of happiness, be the happiness in the movement, journey, or endpoint (ideally all three).

I am attempting to be less paranthetical, and I don't think I can do it alone.

I am not going to school tomorrow, and I don't know how I feel about that.

I think things will only be as I let them be.

days of being mild

I am working full-time, doing data entry (interviewing people didn't pan out; I didn't really like it and I'd get headaches at least once a week.) and since I spend eight hours a day in front of a keyboard typing, doing more of it recreationally seems... counterintuitive, at best.

It's strange that no blog and no regular contact has made what interaction remains a little more intense; I am now a weekend warrior of some degree and cannot wait until this is no longer the case.

July 24, 2006

wow. just wow.

Oh, Destructo. ? Concerning The Platinum Bitch

we all need more art like this.

July 21, 2006

hired'd

I have a job, as of Monday.

One less thing to worry about.

July 18, 2006

braces: day one.

I have never been so aware of my teeth, mostly because they hurt like motherbitches.

gah.

July 16, 2006

trifecta'd

Al's party was fun, and included all sorts of mildly ridiculous things, like drunken baking, pancakes, and shots of whiskey toasted to being in the closet from our parents.

Also JD. So much JD.

Lots of awesome bizarro conversations were had, including this one (which was pretty up there but not the best, but I can't remember the other one so whatever.

Steve: "what's your next movie about, Al?"
Pat: "gay cowboys eating pudding."
me: "cowboys are on their way out, I think. Gay pirates, perhaps. What about gay ninja? You'd just show two hours of bamboo forest, because when ninja have a secret forbidden love, it stays secret."

in the vein of the post below:

I like the sound of "obfuscate.ca", partially because it'd make for neat email addresses, but it's counterintuitive.

followthrough: maybe.

Last night, I drunkenly proposed to Jackie that we start up some sort of webzine thing in the vein of McNorton's ill-fated (and badly color-schemed, if I'm going to be absolutely honest here) "Exit Pill" project thing.

I'm not sure where or when or why, but I like the idea of it, and maybe putting up some sort of actual personal website, with things that aren't a blog. Both'd give me a chance to stretch my design muscles and do some non-academic writing that isn't mired in navelgazing.

anyone else interested?
also: name suggestions are welcome.

July 12, 2006

let the judging begin

renewed my learners today; did the test in 6.1 minutes with a 93% score.

the weirdest bit was that I was eligible for tests immediately, and would be expected to stick to the first GLP rule set when I get my N (so I can have non-family passengers).

I never really bothered with my license because I lived in Vancouver and didn't really need to drive, and then I was in three car accidents and was uncomfortable in them (and still have some anxiety surrounding driving) but I'll be able to deal with them now, I think.

July 11, 2006

scam alert!

Canon EOS 5D 12.8MP Digital Camera (Body)

This is waaaay too good to be true, because the camera body retails for upwards of $4000. Keeping this in mind, I sent the seller a list of questions, and we'll see what the response is like (if there is one).

If this is legit though... holy shit.

[edit: it was taken down by the craigslist gang, so I guess someone called them on the scam. such is life: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.]

questions

- I assume it's used. What sort of condition is it in?
- What is included with the camera?
- is there any warranty? is it a Canadian market camera or an import?
- how many photos has it taken?
- is there any way for us to meet up so I can have a look at the camera?

all systems red

haven't said anything because there's not much to say.

no work.
no impending school.
nobody new.

just braces, jobhunt, and comics.

---
maybe a redesign soon.
maybe buying a camera.
we'll see.

July 07, 2006

guppy update. (gupdate?)

hrm.
it appears names really do have power, because Sherry, Nina, and Saunders (the guppies) are all dead. They had bits missing from their tails and thusly I suspect Jack and Aaron (the fighting fish) did it. Aaron tolerates Logan for some periods of time, but chases him around the bowl roughly one in every ten minutes.

...I need to get out more.

June 27, 2006

I'm not dead!

...I want to live!

haven't posted for a while due to work (90 hours! 6 days! one festival! I'm a professional now!) as well as Debutante Ball preparations and whatnot (ps send me your photos) and continuing the job hunt, but rest assured that the Coles Notes are slowly being compiled.

anyway: came home Saturday night to discover that my sister had bought four guppies to keep Jack and Aaron (my pet fighting fish who live in separate bowls) company. I didn't think this was a good idea, but decided to let it slide, probably because I was too tired to deal with it.
The guppies were put in, two to a bowl, yesterday, and seemed to have acclimatized as of last night. As of this morning, though, Jack and Aaron were chasing their respective guppies around the bowl, leading me to change their names from Mike and Palmer (for Aaron's guppies) to Sherry and Logan, and from Tony and Curtis (for Jack's guppies) to Nina and Saunders.

and yes, there is a theme.

June 09, 2006

five in heavy rotation

I haven't done one of these for a while, which means that most of you probably haven't either. It's really very simple: pick five songs you've been listening to a lot in the last week, and write a couple lines about them and/or how they reflect on the greater context of, well, you.

Here I go (in no order):

Okkervil River - Another Radio Song
I've written and rewritten this blurb four times, and no matter which way I approach it, I end up with a conclusion I'm thoroughly unsatisfied with. Give it a couple listens. Maybe it'll grab you the same way it did me. Who knows.

...and you will know us by the trail of dead - Heart in the Hand of the Matter
The odd one out. I'm not really sure what to make of it except maybe that the iPod likes it a lot and sneaks it into shuffle. Of course, anthromorphizing a piece of consumer electronics is a whole other barrel of monkeys.

Rogue Wave - 10:1
Infectious sunshine pop. Waking up to this (as I've been doing lately) is like punching morning doldrums in the face.

Calexico - Sunken Waltz
I don't know why, but if you write anything not classical in 3/4 time, I will put it on repeat, and probably add it to the running playlist on my iPod called "Waltzes." No idea, but I'm a total sucker for 'em. This is another one of those.

Barenaked Ladies - Too Little Too Late
"Be good
I would
If only I was understood"
[sigh]

all five can be downloaded here
it's a yousendit link, so it'll expire after 25 downloads or a week. I'll put it up again if necessary, so long as the requester puts up their own Five in Heavy Rotation.

cue the whitesnake

had two interviews last week, and just got the rejection email from the second one.

here I go again (on my own).

June 04, 2006

from earlier today

Jess: "who would possibly leave an 8-track player in a bush?"
Me: "squirrels. [pause]
squirrels with funk."

bah

looks like I lost another image host, so both the friends page and my images'll be down for a bit.

bleh.

May 30, 2006

test

I am typing this from a Macbook! this will be mine.

...precious...

globeandmail.com : Conservatives introduce fixed-date election bill

globeandmail.com : Conservatives introduce fixed-date election bill

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

May 24, 2006

(two point) five year plan

it occurs to me that one of those things that I intended to write about and never got around to was the result of my trip to the orthodontist in early April.

To get my teeth all correctly aligned and functioning turned out to be a three-part project; two of which I was expecting, and one that I wasn't.

The first was to pull five teeth; three wisdom, one molar, and one bicuspid (not six as I'd previously thought; I was looking at two halves of one tooth). That went... okay - I escaped nerve damage and infection, lost a bunch of weight, and have awesome/awful stories to tell about the small talk that was had between the hygienist and oral surgeon as they went about the whole process (I was conscious and on Valium.)

The second is braces. They're going to be painful and awkward. There may be headgear involved, and timeframe on that appears to be in the region of two to two and a half years. Given that my jaws are apparently very well constructed, I wouldn't be surprised if they took longer.

The third, and unexpected one, is that I need jaw surgery, to move my jaws back into alignment. It shouldn't require breaking them, but I haven't seen the maxillofacial surgeon yet and don't know if that prognosis'll change. That'll happen about a year after I get the braces in, and takes about two and a half months to recover from.

and that's what I get to look forward to.

May 15, 2006

what the kids are doing with their hands

rock-paper-scissors? old and busted.
cat-tinfoil-microwave? move on over.

Cowboy-Ninja-Bear is where it's now, apparently, at. The dude includes a nine-option variant, but that's just stupid.

May 14, 2006

crunching = good

I had chips yesterday!

whee!

May 11, 2006

no-crunch diet, day 7

Boost drinks (which I've been consuming when I've been away from home)
have this really weird aftertaste of creamed corn.

the worst part is that I've been drinking the "Mocha" flavor.

it's about as bad as you think.

May 06, 2006

novel thought

not necessarily a new one, but one about novels.

William Gibson, for all his "father of cyberpunk" cred, really, really likes exploring the interface between art and technology.

...I wonder how he feels about CSS.

May 05, 2006

good / bad / ugly

the good news: I have "jaws like cement"
the bad news: I had six teeth pulled yesterday. All of them had to be broken in the socket and removed piece by piece.
the ugly: I sneezed and it looks like someone got shot in our driveway.

___
I'm not going anywhere for the next few days.
Sorry, Spence. Have a safe trip and a good night.

May 03, 2006

test

just checking something out.

there will be more of these random posts that come and go; I'm testing things out, using the "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" method.

incidentally, it's a great way to test the doneness of pasta.

anyway:

test

I wonder if this'll work...

May 01, 2006

inadvertent hilarity

take one commercial for a super-soaker that now shoots "ooze" in addition to the usual Freudian overtones (commercial here (youtube).) and add Amazon's customer review system, seen here.

stir gently and enjoy.

April 29, 2006

wow.

that was a lot of drinking.
a lot a lot.
jesus.

also, I'm still amused that nobody told Dave about Gary.
I understand the rationale, and I appreciate that you care, but holy crap it was hi-larious to watch Dave piece things together (especially since we were playing Never Have I Ever)

also: I wrote a bunch of stuff in a post below about things that are exciting. If you want to know about them, ask me in person, because sometimes, it's better to leave stories off the internets.

April 23, 2006

posterity:

it's sort of strange to remember that the blog is more for and about me than it is about any real audience, and resultantly, I occasionally will throw down posts that are more markers for memories than intended for any real outside consumption.

I guess on the one hand, they're a peek inside my (mess of a) head, but at the same time, they're wildly incomplete, and I'm unlikely to flesh them out.

there'll be a couple backdated posts popping up here and there, but nothing too major; but if you find yourself poking through the archives and seeing a post you don't remember as being there, that's probably why.

April 17, 2006

filler.

I haven't written about anything lately, and the last two weeks have been packed full of exciting happenings, so here's an outline of what's coming, depending on how procrastinatory I feel.

things to talk about:
- last EA meeting
- production week
- tube fights
- day-of
- five things you didn't know about control
- post-fair radio
- safety meeting #1
- cleanup
- safety meeting #2
- staff dinner
- post-staff dinner happenings
- hanging with bock and andy

- birthday
- jess'
- dinner
- awards
- board games
- pancakes

April 11, 2006

whirlwind tour

there's a lot to write about, in terms of fair, and post-fair, and one certain post-fair happening, and news on the orthodontic front.

it'll come later.

birthday plans: I don't know what to do. so far, I've been invited to play board games with Jess and co, but Awards Night is also that night, and I'm not huge on taking a large posse to a house party that's not mine.

I propose a simple dinner at the Great Wall Mongolian BBQ on Broadway, before (or ideally between) drinking.

thoughts?

April 04, 2006

by the numbers:

2 hours to production week
3 days until fair
7 days until orthodontist consult
10 days until birthday (I'm thinking dinner before E7A Awards - suggestions?)
18 days until first exam
22 days until last exam
24 days until joblessness
30 days until wisdom teeth out

if I could kill people by willing it, I would have today.

additionally, light rain for friday.
godsdamnit.

April 01, 2006

last night was absurd.

what started out as the intention to play manhunt and then go to liver training before going to Tim's to sleep (and then wake up and go to MexiCali) turned into the following:
- Some sort of Engineering beer garden, in which I played a low of XvSF against Alex from SUS
- Liver Training, where I paid for things, but then my money was no good, and so I got loaded on free good beer.
- I don't know what it is with me and the 29 year old guys, but I accidentally sort of almost picked one up. But then it got weird, and Tim stepped in as a Federal Air Marshal (he enforces no-fly lists) but that didn't work out too well, and he ended up coming to the party Patricia said I needed to wingman for her at, where I also ran into:

- Jack, who was drunk-tired and falling asleep on Ollie's couch, nose-cast and all
- Duck, who was approximately the same as the last time I'd seen him.
- Meg from the Bay Optical, whom I didn't recognize right away, but both of us were aware that we knew each other from somewhere, and so there was that mildly awkward sort of staredown until she said "nice glasses" and it all clicked.
I felt sort of bad when I told her that she had picked the frames I was wearing, but I'd gotten a hugely better deal elsewhere ($423+tax down to $300 all-in) and so that was a-OK with her. Bizarre, I know.

got back to Tim's at 3:30, after catching the last N22 and walking from Dunbar and 41st, and promptly fell asleep.

ye gods, guys are ridiculous.

March 28, 2006

Pt

got my first platinum card offer in the mail today.
while I realize that it's the first of many and it's successors will undoubtedly plague my mailbox and torment my shredder, the first one should be a little bit special.

so I opened it before shredding it.

whee!

I think I may be addicted to string cheese.

March 26, 2006

nerd alert!

I just used the words "communicatory pincer movement" in a voicemail.

procrastin-- aw, fuck, I'm too lazy to remember the last half

never before have I not wanted to start a paper so hard that I've cleaned my bathroom (chemicals and all) instead of actually working on it.

now that everything's goddamn sparkly, I may as well get going.

in happier news, I'm writing a personality analysis of Batman, having been inspired by Gav working as much IR into his lit papers as possible.

March 25, 2006

I was definitely drunker than I thought last night, although looking back, I realize I was drinking double rum and diet cokes for most of the night, and it was probably the aspartame that masked the rum.

consequently, I had some fun and some... interesting conversations. The most notable was definitely the one where I decided that Tyler should be known henceforth as "Shuffleboard" for reasons I'm not entirely sure of.

the other one was a rambling one with Graham (not either of you that'll read this, oddly) about the importance of reminding people that they're important, and how he hadn't found that to be the case in previous endeavors which resultantly didn't go so well.

additionally, the UNA continues to blow my mind. I won't say more, so don't ask.

March 23, 2006

this isn't turning into a Wu-Tang blog, I swear.

now, for a contradictory statement and mildly ridiculous link: The GhostFace Killah Doll

I'm not sure whether I'm a larger fan of the fact that "Each collector will have a 1 in 500 chance to spend a day with Ghostface Killah himself" or that it carries a "# Gold Chalice with Swarovski crystals".

March 22, 2006

Blossom vs Wu

The Morning News - The Cast of Blossom vs. Wu-Tang Clan, by Pasha Malla

I'm not really sure what to say about this, except maybe that "bust you up in slow motion / burn your ass the DVD" is something that needs to be used more in daily life.

March 19, 2006

dispatch from the front

there's nothing like evacuation plans to make one into a raging pessimist.

March 18, 2006

paging dr jung

had a pair of strange dreams last night; more accurately, more than a pair but there's only two I sort of remember. I blame the green beer.

in the first, there was a Cylon invasion and I was a guerilla fighter, sneaking past enemy lines to blow up Tyllium refineries while simultaneously playing Capture the Flag with the other humans.

in the second, I broke the RAZR and had to go on a full-blown quest to get another one. There was a squire and everything. Bizarre times.

anyway, I'm off to pick up my glasses.
woo!

March 16, 2006

adventures in technology:

my brother's bluetooth headset (picture) arrived in the mail on Tuesday, but his bluetooth-enabled phone (picture) didn't get to him until last night, and so in the interval, I borrowed it to see what the fuss was and also to see if I wanted one. I think the idea of hands-free phone usage is interesting, and while the usage of the headset/phone combo was neat, I ended up looking like a total douche.

in conclusion, a small chart of pros and cons. It should be a table, but I never did figure out how to hand-code them and I'm not about to start.

Pros:
- handsfree operation
- no actual contact with phone required to place or receive calls.
- decent quality/noise reduction
- looking like the Borg

Cons:
- looking like a douche
- voice dial still has some bugs
- uncomfortable after a length of time
- looking like the Borg

I don't want one. I'm interested in what the next step is, though.

March 14, 2006

misc. points:

- I can't go to Electric Six tonight. Anyone want my ticket?
- new glasses get here Friday evening. I found a (not great) picture of the frames here. They were mostly covered by insurance and I'm getting a stupid deal, so I figured that going with nice frames would be worth it.
- I was offered a choice between a trip to Australia with my sister, or a big party, the kind of which I often make mad fun of. I haven't decided yet, but the fact that I'd be going to Australia with my sister makes me want to go with the party.
- The Battlestar Galactica season finale was crushing. Crushing.

March 11, 2006

disclosure:

you should know the following.

- I lost my glasses making out with a guy.
- I came to the conclusion that it was rather fun and that I'll probably do it again.
- Not with the same guy, though. That was a bad call.

addendum:
- I still like women. I'm not sure if I made that clear.

March 08, 2006

worrying statistic:

"Since U Been Gone" is #15 on my iTunes top played, having been played 34 times since I got my iPod.

February 25, 2006

posterity:

me: "so, guess what I learned to do yesterday!"
jordie: "I hope it's not sexual."
me: "unless port forwarding is some sort of new slang, it's not sexual."
both: [helpless giggling]

February 21, 2006

johari:

This Johari meme is interesting, but I think it could be better implemented by having the first user choose more things that they feel suits them and also by maybe having a section for traits that they don't feel apply.

anyway, give mine a shot: http://kevan.org/johari?name=heeeraldo

February 20, 2006

unpleasant first / phonephylactic

fell down the stairs yesterday, having slipped on a drawing my cousin "decorated" the stairs with. nothing broken, but I definitely felt it this morning, so if you're wondering why I'm not sitting, now you know.

also: I figured out how to get mp3 ringtones onto my phone¹, but have yet to find one that doesn't turn me into That Guy². Any suggestions?

1. I've joined the ranks of the RAZR'd.
2. y'know - That Guy; the one wearing the band's shirt to the show (or a Guinness shirt in an Irish-themed pub), or the one whose ringtone gets stuck in your head or the one who orders the ridiculous drink, doubling your wait time. The ones responsible for an unending stream of low-level annoyances. I don't want to be one.

February 04, 2006

my alarm clock is currently in a box somewhere, and so I've been using my iPod and a pair of speakers to wake myself up. Today, it was House of Jealous Lovers, which prompted a full-on pajamaclad dance party.

after a little hungover fumbling with slippers, I remembered that I hadn't plugged my phone in and so I went to retrieve it from my coat pocket.

...and found the trial packet of lube Jess had left in there.

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