20041031 
My face is broken. Well, not broken so much as bruised. Heavily. Along with my brain.
Search Engine: google.com
Search Words: "21st birthday" puked pictures
I really don't know what some people expect to find on this site, but they keep looking anyway.
It's bruised because it played a little blocking for me Friday night. Specifically, blocking the bottom of a steep set of stairs from slamming into the rest of my body. What a pal, that face of mine.
Search Engine: search.msn.es
Search Words: mexicosexual
You will find no mexicosexuals here, my friend.
So the face, well.. bruised, bloodied.. but all in one piece - albeit a slightly larger piece these days as we wait for the swelling to go down. I can't speak for me brain but I was told I was unconscious for going on three minutes.
Search Engine: google.com
Search Words: expired+milk+disadvantages
The disadvantages, my friend, is that it's gross. and makes you sick. Your welcome.
When I came to, I'm told, my first words were "Leave me alone, you assholes, I'm fine." A fine sight, I imagine, when my outift is thrown into the mix: white tights, white wife beater, pink tu-tu. Ambulances were already on the way at that point so I had to fend them off as well. I figured if I was doing financial calculations in my head about the downfalls of ambulance rides when one has no health insurance then I was probably okay.
Search Engine: search.msn.com
Search Words: erp for grocery
Huh?
A few days later, some restful self-medication of movies and couch-surfing under my belt, I feel almost better. Well, only time will find me there but for now, things seem to be on the mend. My face is ugly - a natural halloween costume on this natural halloween sunday. My knee is bruised and barely functioning. My wrist is swollen and sore. My finger is jammed, my neck is crinked, and.. well.. I'm just sorta worn out, but the path ahead seems clear enough.
Search Engine: search.yahoo.com
Search Words: what are the disadvantages of being a bank teller
Well, lousy pay, crap work, and lotsa money to look at that isn't yours, I'd say.
Things aren't always what they seem, some say. Sometimes, though, they are. Sometimes you're beaten pretty well, bed ridden, down for the count. Sometimes it just takes a few days to recover. Sometimes.
Human life is, at times, less resilient than we like to think. Human life can, at times, end abruptly at the bottom of a steep set of stairs. These points are good to keep in mind when considering what to wear out and about. Somehow, if I'd taken just the right turn or smacked my head just the right way, snapping my neck in the process and ending my life on the bottom of those stairs, somehow I figure that's the way life is gonna do me in someday. Lying crumpled on the floor in a ballerina costume, all dignity stripped away, friends and acquintances huddled around my body as it slowly goes cold.
I sould make sure to wear clean underwear more often. You never know when it'll be the last pair of clean underwear you'll ever wear.
20041029
Is this really necessary? I mean, it's sort of stupid. I don't get it. Does the gain really outweigh the cons if caught? I can't imagine so.. I just can't imagine so.
20041028
1. Avril Lavigne
2. Sleeping in after a good night's rest when it's completely unneeded, to the point that I make myself tired again.
3. Being really annoying.
4. Eaves dropping.
5. Procrastinating
6. Farting
7. Perfectionism
8. One beer too many..
9. Or two..
10. The OC.
20041025
When he opened the door the first time dust sprung forth in a cloud and the smell of old quickly enveloped him. The darkness inside was murky and he had trouble making anything out but with a few steps past the jam his pupils began to dilate.
"Wow," he thought to himself, "Lotta boxes here." He looked around the small aisle he was in and down at the cement floor with cobwebs and dust bunnies lounging around in the corners. All around him was cardboard, boxes of various sizes, big tv boxes, little shoe boxes, colored cardboard like the sort trendy dishware might come in, and even round boxes. "Can a box be round?" He didn't know so he kept moving deeper into the darkness, down the little alley bordered on both sides by a wall of boxes. Eventually he got far enough away from the door that he had to feel his way along, almost down onto his knees with his hands out in front of him waving back and forth slowly like an old radar dish.
He was glad when he found the flashlight. At first it startled him as he kicked it across the floor and a flash of seemingly-bright sun burst out at him like a stabbing knife. His eyes blinked in horror but already his mind had caught up and done the math. He felt around on the floor until he found it and, turning it on, he waved it around. It wasn't a good one, it wasn't bright or big, just a small plastic pen light. He could see maybe as far as 15 feet down the length of boxes stretching out in either direction and he could see that it was quite dinghy in here. The ceiling was low, with a single water pipe hanging down the center, a fire-extinguisher head every twenty feet or so. Other than that there were boxes. Lots of boxes. They weren't stacked directly upwards, exactly, more angled back from the aisle like the foot of a mountain. The ones closest to the bare floor he stood on were small to mid-sized, maybe as tall as his knee, but the farther back he could see, the higher they were piled, and the bigger they got. He wasn't exactly sure but in some spots very high up it seemed like he might see wall - real wall, not cardboard - but he couldn't be sure without climbing over a bunch of boxes.
He walked for awhile, flashing the light on briefly now and again to make sure he was staying in the middle of the path. The boxes seemed to change as he went along but if he concentrated really hard they all seemed the same. He wasn't sure if anything was changing, or not.
He stooped down to look at a small label on one of the boxes, shining the little pen light close down on it to concentrate the beam. It was white with blue lines on it, like an address label, and it had handwriting on it in black ink.
Pre-School, 1983 it read on the first line, then right below it East Corinth, ME.
"Ah, yes..." he thought. Pre-School. Vague memories floated back to him. A dreary-drizzle of a day, climbing up the steps to what he seemed to recall might be a curch. Nap time, with small mats and the lights dimmed down and him wide awake looking at the ceiling wondering who could come up with as ridiculus an idea as sleeping in the middle of the day.
He looked down at the box and touched it with his hand. When he pulled it away dark mishapen ovals were left where his finger tips had touched, bringing away the heavy layer of grey dust that coated the box. He reached down again and brushed the top off. Millions of tiny particles flew into the air, flipping over, turning around, swirling about, but almost before it began it was over and the dust settled back down around him. He pulled at the edge of one of the flaps and then, putting the pen light down, he used both hands to yank one flap out from beneath the other. He picked the pen light back up, held the box open with his other hand, and then he peeked inside.
Inside the box was a piece of blue material rolled up like a sleeping bag. It was sort of styrofoamy, but squishy too, like a thermarest for hiking. It had a waffle pattern along it's surface. He set the pen light down again and, in the dark, he muscled the roll out of the box. It was jammed in pretty tight and he had to pull hard but it worked it's way out and naturally started to unroll once it was free. He let go and grabbed for the light and by the time he pushed the little button on the clip the roll had turned itself into a small sleeping mat, no more than 4 feet long. He looked back in the box but it was empty.
He scratched his head and sat down on the blue mat, crossing his legs indian style. He looked back down the aisle towards the door, which at this distance looked like a small rectangle of glowing light. It was probably a mile away, he figured. He squished his fingers into the mat and rocked back and forth on his butt so he could jam his fingers under each cheek. He sat on his hands for a bit, enjoying the warmth, and he thought about pre-school again. It was over 20 years ago now but in some small ways it seemed like just yesterday. It was the year that the Return of the Jedi came out in theatres, he remembered. Along the long curve of road coming into the town of East Corinth was a small mint-green ranch house that he remembered going to quite a few times. A friend of his, from pre-school maybe, but he couldn't remember his name. He remembered the Star Wars toys and the bike..? Maybe an above-ground pool in the back. Or on the side? He couldn't be sure, but these weren't pre-school memories, not technically. He tried to concentrate better, thinking of the brown/tan rug in the church and the pull-out fake walls like in old grade-school gymnasiums. He tried to think about the toys in the corner - a kitchen-set, some ponies maybe, matchbox cars.. He wasn't sure about that, either.
Milk. A bulb went on somewhere inside his head. He remembered milk. It came in small 8 oz. cartons and they had it every day, like a ritual. Right before or after nap. Milk. This, he thought, was a sure thing. He grabbed for the box and rummaged around in it without the light. Something bounced. Something hit his hand. He grabbed at it and pulled it out and sure enough, a small carton of milk. He grabbed the pen light and read the label. He opened it up and smelt inside. It was slightly rank, like an old carton of milk would be if it was left in the recycling bin in the open air for a few days. It was old or faded or dusty, like the rest of this place. In fact - he looked down at what he was sitting on - the blue mat wasn't dirty either. He stopped, looking back at the door again, and he let the pen light go out. He sat in the dark, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of boxes and let things slowly sink in.
He touched some boxes around him, not so much afraid or wary anymore. These boxes, he now realized, they were his. He might not have physically packed them or stacked them up but they were his and he could do with them what he pleased. He leaned back, still sitting on the mat, and layed his arms out on two boxes at his sides like armrests. He unfolded his legs and stretched them out, kicking a few small boxes aside. He leaned his head back, laughed, and sighed.
When he was ready, he got up, rolled the blue mat back up, tossed the milk carton into the box labeled Pre-School, 1983, and shoved the roll back in as best he could. He tossed the box behind him, grabbed his pen light, and strolled off into the dark, counting a random number of steps ahead of him.
When he got there he stopped, turned to his left or his right - it didn't really matter at this point - and pointed the light at the first box that struck his interest. He pulled it down from the stack and proceeded to open it up.
20041024
You might perceive that the lack of posts recently is due to some heavy workloads on my end, what with it being midterm time and all.. but frankly, it just takes a lotta time watching baseball. Especially when your team is still playing in late October. Especially, especially when your team is in the World Series and they take game one after an offensive showdown ending 11-9.
So that's where I've been. Just wanted to calm everyone down. Make sure you're not too worried about me. I know how you get concerned and all.
And
AND
Today is a beautiful day. Balmy even. Late October and it's a balmy Sunday afternoon and the undefeated New England Patriots are playing the undefeated NY Jets at 4 pm EST and and AND the Red Sox get back to work tonight, at 7:30pm EST, directly after the Patriots wipe the field in green.
Today is a beautiful day.
20041021
And I probably don't gotta say it on a blog. If you don't know, the Red Sox just became the first team in the history of major league baseball to come back from a 0-3 deficit to win a seven game series. Ever.
Yanks? Eat a dick.
I'm not the most devote Red Sox fan during the season but when it comes to post season I'm as there as the next guy and don't you doubt I'm worried to the bone about the upcoming series. Don't you think I don't see the intensity of a Clemens vs. Red Sox duke out. Don't you think I'm not excited.
Fucking excited.
20041020
I loathe girls.
Love that movie though.
I'm going to the cliff room to get stinko.
20041019
But.. umm, I seem to have misplaced my instructions. They were right here just a minute ago. Something about just add water and .. and.. well, there was a second step but I've lost it now.
Anyhow, that's the kicker, ain't it? Can't climb out of the gutter if you don't know how. I think at some point there is a natural animalistic instinct just to climb, somehow, with little to no prior knowledge, but I think those are the desperate ones.. the reall desperate ones. And, really, that about explains a lotta the tweedles at the top if you ask me. I foot in their limo, and one in a gutter. One small tiny step away from sheer disaster. One falter and over you go, toppling down the mountain.
No one ever said there was a lotta room at the top.
Thing is, there is plenty of room down on the bottom, down in the thick of it where the backs are broken and the dirt is dug.. there's always room for one more. Like water flowing down hill.
And sure, you can give 'em stock incentive. You can give 'em raises and another 15 minute break. You can do whatever yah want but it'll only ensure that they work just hard enough to look like their working harder than the next guy and..
*poof*
It's all gone. 60, 70, 80 years down the drain with nary a blink of an eye and all for what? A job? A career? A family, house, and home? Security?
Security?! Come on.. you heard Bush, we can't trust no bodies, ain't no bodies gonna treat us with respect if'n we can't teach 'em some respect.
A ninny of a president but maybe's got something there: look out for yourself. Be proactive. Ain't no bodies else gonna bes doin it fer yah less'n the see in it somethin' for 'em.
knowhatimean?
Nah, it's alright.. I don't either. I'm just recovering from the scare with the boys (a-ok. tip top, 100%, I tried 'em out they work like new). And a nasty weekend of drinking (thursday night saturday night sunday night, more). And a heck of a robotics assignment.
And this damn itching feeling that nobody knows.. that nobody out there no matter how I might scream at them, nobody knows. Ain't good nor bad nor indifferent, just am, just here, just unknown.
I'd explain it all but I've been having a bad run of honesty lately and it's not treated me as well as it should. I'm just gonna stick with the vague thing for now and hope you manage.
Been here a few months and still, too lazy, buzy, tired, haven't found the time to go two blocks up - that's it, two blocks - and buy a guitar cord for my amp. Haven't had time to plug the stereo in or put my lamp up or even think, really.
Thinkings hard with all this information. It comes too fast now. Lightening speed without the thunder breaks - just the light zipping around - and I'm not talking the internet here, I'm talking the world. I'm talking about marching out there and joining the army of the world and fighting for your right to work and play, eat and sleep, breath and talk, always talk, always more information, always, sleeping, breathing and talking and always, always information. I'm talking about the need for speed - the bandwidth of your life - things, people, are getting more resolution.
If you're at the top, you suppose the information gets all the way up there? All of it? Every last drop? Do you think water dances uphill? Does a crow' caw at the crack of dawn in china cause a millionaire in California to croak on his morning cup? Is Madam Butterfly our Helga Hurricane?
Are you serious? It's fun to think about but the social fabric is just too pourous. It won't hold water. It'll hold a lot but it won't hold water all the way to the top of a mountain and back and because of that, you know who it is that's climbing up? You know who is sweating and baking in the sun and climbing, parched throat, with hunger in their eyes and dollar signs in their gut? You know who will inherit the world?
Only thing is they didn't tell you that the meak metamorphosis into the weak when they get there. Weak willed, weak stomachs, weak reasons for being at the top so it's that much easier when the next one comes along and kicks them off their thrown.
Testing. Practice. Training. Read, react, repeat. Like a big huge program slowly evolving itself.
People, my friends. I found the directions. It said just add water and people. Of course. My thinking on this had become so uptight. Yah, man, we duped ourselfs. In this day of oil and war it is still us - our own flesh, blood - we're the most important natural resource. We're the oil, we just can't see it..
Anyhow, had an argument about infrastructure the other day and just had to get that off my chest. Sorry.
Against your testicles. Don't succumb, little buddy! How are the boys doing, anyway?
No one has written me today. I read my own contribution to the litserv out of shear desire for something to read. I read some of your old posts. I have an almost frantic need for something this morning. We have a secret stash of snickers that is calling for me. I guess if someone was smoking nearby I'd take a puff.
I picked up a hitchhiker this morning. He's going to Santa Maria, about an hour an a half north of here. Just so happens that Tuesday is lab meeting, and someone that works here returns there right afterwards. His lucky day. The last hitchhiker I picked up was standing in the same spot, and had been there for five hours. Location, location, location my friends. Red lights are the key . . . on ramps are not. Anyway, his Honda 600 broke down yesterday, he slept next to the freeway, and has been hitching home without a red cent to his name. Has a paycheck waiting for him, he says. Something smells odd in the story, but he seemed harmless enough. I like picking people up, though I rarely do it. Usually in a rush, or have other people in the car, or am just wary of the look of them.
Actually, I'm going to check up on him before I send him home with my attractive coworker. Right?
Also, my muscles are fucking WEAK and FRAIL. Dude. All the work I put into them earlier this year? Whoosh. Poof. Gone. Benching 95 yesterday was an effort. Dude. I had 3 reps of 175 in June . . . But, after all, I think it's about the process, and I enjoy the muscle ache the next day.
20041015
20041014
Dude. I feel sick. In fact, I just forced some puke in the bathroom. I still feel like ass, so I think I could have forced more, but it's really unpleasant. I've never actually forced it before. Don't get me wrong. Nothing wrong with puking. I just like it to come naturally.
I called the girl this morning. Just to sum up . . . Call her twice last week. Recieve no callback for six days. Develop mild twitch. Not really excited about callback when it finally arrives, because it implicates so obviously that THE GAME is in play. Nevertheless, I call back an acceptable 3 days later. Ask what she's doing this weekend. Going to San Francisco. I say no problem. She says I'll call you next week, or you can call me. I reccomend that she call me, with a sincere chuckle. It was truly funny to me, given that I don't really know how aware of THE GAME she is. I, frankly, feel like we're just scrapping at this point. Not ultra-optimistic, though she still has more potential than anyone else these days.
I've been farting this whole time and feel a fuckload better. Maybe I shouldn't have forced the ol' sluice juice afterall. Alas.
Bought a killer costume for Haloween. Whole play on words thing. I'll post pictures when it arrives. Also circa the 31st, bought two tickets (optimism is just in my nature, I suppose) to a 3-D showing of The creature from the Black Lagoon, to which a comedic jazz orchestra will play and sing ala MS3K. Probably better not to go with the girl as I plan to get blitzed before hand. If this isn't an herb friendly media experience, I don't know what is.
Who reads this? Do any of the dogz? I think it would be appreciated by some, anyway. Alternately, maybe I'll just start writing for this and sending the email. That's legal, right?
Crap.
I wrote a long post last night. Really long. It involved me possibly loosing my testicle. It involved long waits in emergency rooms. It involved lots of run-away hypocondriac thoughts of testicular torsion.. it involved jelly on my balls.
Clearly blogger has eaten it. Fuckers. FUCKERS. I was feeling horrible about not posting and now, I feel even more horrible cause my testicle is fucking sore.. but now I feel even more horrible because when I got home from the emergency room at 2AM I sat down to write all of you a big long post about my experiences and it got eaten. All this even though I had an assignment due this morning, a class at 10AM, and I was supposed to be at the hospital again at 8AM.
Garbage.
I'd give you all advice right here about how you should always have health insurance but in the end you'll get screwed over somehow. I've had health insurance my entire life.. through my parents all the way through college and then through my job for the last three years. 13 days ago - THIRTEEN measly days ago - that insurance expired. Due to a loophole in the McGill University health insurance system I slipped through the cracks and was not automatically signed up for student health insurance like most people (due to the fact that I'm canadian but have no provincial health care cause I live in the states). So in the end, after 26 years of health coverage and not much more than a visit to the doctor for the flu here and there (and only then at the insistence of my parents) I am uncovered and... my testicle swells up, gets sore, and puts me in the emergency room.
Normally I wouldn't even go to the emergency room. In fact, the last time I went I was about 2 years old and I needed stiches from careening off of a footlocker into the corner of a brick, softening the blow with my head. I have a vague recollection of reaching up and feeling a big bloody dent in my head but, I digress. I hate the emergency room. Mostly cause I think 90% of "emergencies" aren't that at all. I wish people would just suffer a little more. It's good for them. Wait till the morning. Make an appointment. Cripes, and we wonder why health care is so expensive. Anyhow, I did some research on the internet and, being familiar with testicular torsion because my friend had it once, I thought it was a possible explaination for my woes. When I read this, though, I got a little worried:
"If caught within 6 hours a testicular torsion can be operated on and the testicle can be saved. Longer than that and the success rate falls drastically"
I'd been living with this pain for two days. I was petrified. I knew it was going to cost a lot to go to the emergency room and you all know I'm a cheap cheap bastard, but I had to do the math. What is a testicle worth? I know I got two, and like an old WWII bomber plane I could limp home on one engine if I had to but, come on.. I'm only 26.. do I want to be limping home for 40 or 50 years? In the end I placed the worth of my testicle at around $10,000. It's a lot of money but I figure the pleasure that one testicle gives me is worth more than that over my lifetime.. even if it is the right testicle (my left is my favourite one by far).
So in the end it was $420 for the hospital fee. Yes, that is right... out of pocket, $420. This is just to have the pleasure of sitting in their waiting room for 4 hours (there were all of 4 other people waiting for those 4 hours, by the way..). The doctor's fee is extra. Luckily my doctor (a cute asian chick who, if she'd been doing something other than poking at my sore testicle, would have been fairly appealing to me) was understanding of my insurance situation and "cut me a deal".. like the hospital is a flea market or something and we're hammering out a price. $50 in the end, not so bad for an ultrasound and getting to wear one of those cute hospital gowns (I do look so sexy in them). I figure they wasted three towels and two sheets in the ultrasound room, another in the emergency room, and a gown. The laundry cost alone.. god, I got a bargain.
After the ultrasound showed I was getting good blood flow to my boys and that there was not any testicular torsion the bargain started not to look so hot when they told me they wanted me to stay overnight for a proper ultrasound in the morning. Proper? Oh, you mean one by a real doctor, not a 3rd year resident. Fine fine, but I ain't staying over I told them. Uh uh. No way. $420 for a visit, I don't even want to know what an overnight stay is.. Plus, considering I live a 5 minute walk away from the hospital why bother?
In the end I skipped the visit this morning. The urologist left a message on my machine sounding urgent in that "Hey man, you're my cash cow" sort of way. I dunno, maybe I'll stop by and see him.. if he is lucky.
I think the weirdest part of the whole night was paying the doctor in cash in the hallway of the emergency room. Is this how you guys do things around here?!? She actually asked me "Do you have cash?". I was skeptical, but I didn't ask questions. She gave me a receipt so I figured she was scamming the system, even if she was cutting me a deal.
A deal?
What is this, a used car lot?
Oh well. I shouldn't complain. I still have both my testicles.
20041009
Sweet little write-up about last night's Red Sox game by Bambino's Curse, my favourite sports blogger.
I find it humourous that the term innernector, when typed into Google, results in, firstly, a suggestion:
Did you mean: internet
and secondly, only two search results both of which are this very site.
You'd have thunk it would be out there somewhere other than just here. I'm not the ONLY one in the world to be makin' up me own words like that. Come on.
The reason I bring this up is cause I saw a new version today, intermanet, over on rampantsmaats and I thought - how cool would it be to start up a list of funny smellings of internet?
Get it?
Got it?
So I tried, I wanted to see who says innernector and no one does. but me. damn. And I don't even know how you'd go about searching for those sorts of things. Which, which, WHICH brings me to my next point. Google, listen up. I know you're caching pages anyways.. we've been over this. So why not - why fucking not - why not let us search using regular expressions?
Regular Expressions (regex's for short) are, for those who don't know, the sort of things that let you type:
> dir *.txt
to get a directory listing of all .txt (text) files in a given location on your hard drive. or
>ls *.txt
if you're coming from the *nix world. Ha, see what I did there? I used the star, the asterix, to imply "anything". i.e. Linix, Unix, Minix, etc. Anything that "matches", that is.
Alright, so that's not exactly regular expressions, but it's the general idea. Using non-alphanumeric characters to specify patterns to match.
Now, regular expressions - while not recursive - are very powerful. You could do a lot with regex's and if google let you, it could be a much more powerful tool than it already is.
Course that would take a heck of a lot more processing power and it would be ass slow.. sure sure sure.
So? Solution! The reverse-suggestion. Somewhere, I would like to type in "Internet" and get back a list of all terms that, if they had been typed in, Google would have said:
Did you mean: internet
So, things like innernector. It'd be useful to me. No, really. I mean, how else am I going to add to the base of human creation if not to provide a list of silly internet misspellings?
Come on Google. Wise up.
It occurred to me that I could be all cool and neo-post-modern-classicism (yah, whatever) and do the whole lowercase thing in this here blog, thereby nullifying the need to remember not to case things, which, sure, it'd be easier, but then what - WHAT I tell you - what would I do to emphasis? How would I exclaim? Capitalism - not the kind Reagan was talking about - it's an artform. A real kick in the pants, WHEN you know what you're doing. Interestingly quizzical even if you don't.
So, half my i's are capitalized. Half my I's aren't. sometimes I capitalize the first word of a sentence and then again, Sometimes I don't. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it uniform? Is it proper? Is it? Well IS IT? No, probably not.
But, yet, regardless, today's slang is tomorrow's Emily Post so what-are-you-gonna-do, Huh?
Fuck it. That's what I say. Petition the Oxford English to include fuckit in the next edition as a real true word, derived from the slang of the slums of the sluffs of the world, derived from the very being - the soul if you will - of the beast of language, that ever evolving yet always uniform - no matter what you try to do, you're always there, always back at square one, back to the universal grammar - language of the thing.
Some "scientist" once told me that all language is equal. No one more expressive than the other. None write, nor wrong (joke) - anymore than the next. All made up of the same units, essentially, inside our leetle brains, all formed of the same molten rock pouring forth from between our ears as the earth's crust is built from the lava of mt st. h-to-the-e-l-en's and, you know, a few others of note.
So fuckit. Call it good. Drop the capital. say it like you mean it. And most of all, don't sweat the small stuff.
yah Dig?
But I task Mr. Write Write Write himself with the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge - write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Nov. 1st until the end of Nov. 30th. No small challenge, but, then again, he writes enough as it is. Just a small challenge. A dare. Whathaveyou. I doubt he'll bite but why not?
just for fun.
20041008
I might say it alot but it's worth repeating, Anti is sometimes my hero. I know most people, when asked who their hero is, say things like Batman, Superman, Rubberman (wait, no rubberman? Why did I think there was a rubberman?), or Clinton, but me.. I'll keep things simple, my hero is Antiheroism.
Why, you might ask? It is, of course, the next logical step in the conversation. Well I will tell you it is not, as some may think, because he smokes copious amounts of ganga, or that he loafs around his apartment and skateboards, or that he is a californian.. It IS, however, because he perserveres in an uncertain world. It IS because he trudges on in a unfair market. It IS because he takes his lickins and keeps on tickin. It's because Anti, my friends, is an everyman.
Perhaps when you think of an everyman you think of Joe Neighbour mowing his grass and washing his car but no, this is not the everyman. The everyman has wants, needs, desires. Te everyman is not plastic. The everyman loafs. The everyman, when the shit hits the fan, stands up to fight and puts on a good show. The everyman, my friends, pounds signs into the ground with a big hammer. The everyman drives a truck, gets dirty, and goes home smiling. The everyman deals with the filth of the earth on a daily basis and he still bounces back from the potentially mind-altering experience of seeing this species at it's worst.
But none of that, folks, NONE of that is why Anti is one of my living, breathing heros. It's cause he's true. For a stoner you'd think he might be a little absent minded or, maybe, unmotivated.. But he's not. When pressed about advice he gave me well over six months ago he corrected me. No no, I didn't say that. he told me when I misquoted him. I said this. And you know, he was dead on. My mistake. Beat out by a chronic. So he may sit on the couch a bit, but he's cranking out posts in rapid succession, too, which is more than I can say for myself or the rest of the ragged lot out there.
Anti is so true it hurts. Drinking his tecate and smoking his cigarettes and ordering out pizza, that's an everyman. Hanging out with the boys on a friday night down at the pier, or in some dive, or anywhere, really.. that's an everyman.
And you know, even heros run into some speed bumps every now and again, and that's okay. It means their human. Real. True. Makes me appreciate them that much more cause you know they didn't get it handed to them on a silver platter, spoon in their mouth. Makes you remember that they're down in it too.
Heros don't end in "Bush" or "Trump". Heros end in "Disestablishmentarian". For a true hero is one that fights, fights, fights against the system.
Not one to drool over baseball but I gots nothing here.. no NHL.. and NFL on Sunday's and Monday's only, what's a guy to do on a friday afternoon? Plus, it's the Red Sox. Who doesn't like a little wind-up, let-down for a stress reliever after a hard week? Who doesn't like to see their favourite team raise raise raise their hopes, only to dash them at the very last second?
Well, not me.. so I'm payin attention, see? Thing is, here in the land of milk and.. well, mostly milk - Quebec, I don't get the game on the TeeVee so I am resorting to mlb.com's GameDay which is a Macromedia flash interface that reports the game play by play along with stats, a pretty little picture of a baseball diamond and the runners on, where the hits have landed, etc, etc, etc. It's really a marvel of modern technology. For every lamo webpage flash intro out there that makes you ask WHAT the fuck did I download this flash plugin for?, there is a baseball game on GameDay that makes up for it. It's really the way baseball was meant to be enjoyed. Combine it with the live audio and you'd really be cruising but I don't gots me speakers hooked up cause I'm a wanker. Point is, it's great. Instead of watching a boring game and listening to annoying colour announcers (when they aren't dying in their sleep, that is) you get to have all the stats right in front of you, gazillions of numbers to appreciate, cute little pictures of the player's mug shots (oohh, i like.. they are sooo cute, aren't they?) and you can even see who is on deck, in the hole, warming up in the bullpen, and how many hot dogs the guy in seat 104 section EE has scarfed since the first inning. How about that, folks? How about that?
If that's not worth a look than I don't know what is. So I'm looking. Red Sox leading in the 5th five runs to one. Loookin good, looking good. I almost can't watch. As my friend Sam says, the more he watches, the worse they do. Maybe I should shut it off.
Bottom line, though, folks? Anti gets me mucho site hits. What a pal.
Important, though, folks? Really. Check out that spreadsheet. I'm serious. Learn to harness the power of compund interest. It's your friend. Even if for one dollar a day - the cost of a cup of coffee! And I'm not even asking you to give your money away, I'm asking you to make it work for you!
Cripes.
Kimberly is my new non-target. I figure I end up high at her house about once a week. Perhaps twice. She thinks I'm funny. I'm just going to slip into her room one of these evenings. We'll see how funny she thinks that is.
Guffaw.
You heard it here first, folks. Anti is dead. Okay, not HIM per se, but his blog. Bummer, man. That's a real bummer. BUT - he is chronically spastic like that so maybe he'll be back. If not, you can rest assured that anti is out there, somewhere, taking one heck of a six-foot-bong hit for the rest of us. I dunno about you, but that kinda makes me feel good.
20041007
My vaporizers have arrived! Hooray. It's happy times.
Dude. I really appreciate your post down there. I want to complainabout this chick thing so bad . . . but WTF. What am I complaining for? Really. What is the goal of complaining? The simulations of what I did wrong/what I will say to her if given the chance are racing through my head . . . but these are not helping meet any of my immediate goals.
It's so tempting though. And definitely one effect of this is to get feedback on ideas, and to ease the tension from feeling that I fucked it up myself.
When I'm bored at work I do some odd things sometime. Like write excel spreadsheets to do the darndest things. So much so they could have a show, hosted by cosby or someone, called Spreadsheets that do the Darndest Things. I imagine Fox wouldn't carry it, though.. when I say "darndest", I'm speaking relatively here.
Okay okay, to get to the point, I have a spreadsheet that I will share with you. The reason I am sharing it is because I had to install some software on my compsci account on the school's servers for a robotics class I am taking. The software is a linux-only package and must be compiled from scratch.. soooo, it being that I don't have a linux machine right now (I may try to install it on OS X in a bit, but I digress), I have to use the school's linux machines. BUT do they give me enough disk space to install this crap? Ohhh heck no. Nonsense. Anyhow, I figure the only way to get back at them is to use as much bandwidth as I can just to piss them off. No, it won't piss them off - I'm a drop in the bucket - but let's just pretend I have some sort of significance to them, mmkay?
So, bottom line? Go download my excel spreadsheet. It's a U.S. centric retirement savings spreadsheet. You enter your current age, how much you have in a 401k and IRA, how much you plan on saving over the years, how much you want to take out.. It'll show you what you need, when, and how much you'll get out. It's nifty, it's fun, and more importantly, it shows the power of compound interest - a power I think everyone should appreciate - especially my lamo friends who refuse to start saving, regardless of the fact that they are completely capable at this point.
Anyhow, the sheet has clear instructions at the top, it'll take you all of two minutes to get started, and it's fun to drool over all that money you MAY have some day.. so try it out here, mmkay?
Alright then. Any questions, just leave a comment.
What would be far more interesting is if I could somehow connect my brain to the innernector and my stream of thoughts would simply post out like a post out like some news-ticker and gosh, there'd be some reeeally interesting shit to see.. But as it is I get back from my walk, get back from that concert I just saw, get back from class, get back from wherever.. and it's all gone, just dried up like a creek bed in august. Bummer.
So, instead? Updates.
I've been waxing philosophically lately, which means I've been leaving out semi-important aspects of my real life for the sake of "interesting content" but we can see that is failing so... I dropped a class. I know, I feel horrible, you should to. First semester back at this school thing and I'm already bailing? Well, there are circumstances. Things like misprinted prerequisites. Things like absent-minded professors. Things like B_O_R_E boring content. Things like, *shudder*, multivariate matrix calculus. Ugh. So it'll cost me $25 to withdraw. So I'll be a little short on credits this semester. So what? I'll have more time to do well in my other classes (yah right), I'll have more time to do my part-time telecommuting work (yah right), and.. AND.. I'll have more time to drink.
Ahhh.. there we go. It took a whole semester to get down to it but now we come to the crux of the matter. Duder was bummed out about how hard he had to work. Duder didn't want to stay inside, paling in front of a CRT, when he could see all his friends playing outside. Duder, in the end, just wanted his free-time back.
Do I feel guilty? Once upon a time I might have felt a little guilty about such a decision, sure. This decision, however, has been made during a time of semi-adult maturity, a time when - stepping back - I can see the pros and the cons and, while the pro of being able to drink more is certainly a wonderful one, the pro of not failing a class in graduate school is - even in this feeble little drunken mind - a much larger one.
Go me.
In other news, we hate banks. More specifically, Canadian banks. Sure, maybe these northerner got a thing or two on us jackasses to the south (like, at least 50% of them don't like bush) but man, their banks are killer. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? I tried to explain to them today that when I deposit a U.S. Funds check into the ATM here in Montreal I eventually get a deposit error-correction statement in the mail crediting me with the correct currency exchange. No no no! they insisted, You can not deposit U.S. Funds in the ATM or the checks will just get sent back to you. Look, FUCKERS. I DID IT LAST WEEK. You DID NOT send the check back to me. I understand that these checks in my hand were sent back to me, but SOME were not sent back to me and were properly credited to my account. No, that is not possible Sir, they exclaim. EXCLAIM THIS bioootch.
Since, of course, banks generally hate each other, I am forced to write checks instead of performing simple ACH online transfers. As if checks were a MORE SECURE form of money transfer. As if. So the rigamoroll that I must run through in order to get MY money to a creditor here in Montreal (godforbid they accept a U.S. credit card) is as follows:
1. Transfer money from Money Market account to U.S. checking account
2. wait.
3. Write check from U.S. checking account and deposit in Canadian bank (through the teller, of course, which costs money to interact with, rather than the ATM that does not accept U.S. funded checks).
4. Wait for U.S. Funds check to clear.. The standard in this bastard city is 20 Days. TWENTY! As if it takes that long to get fund confirmation from Maine. If you're brave you can ask the bank who issued the check to fax your Canadian bank confirmation that the funds are indeed available, but no doubt the Canadian bank will lose the fax TWICE, thereby ensuring that it will take at least 10 days anyway.
5. Write Canadian check - which, of course, you must pay for beyond your 4 free starter checks. It would be swell if this step #5 was "use ATM/credit card" but the ATM cards up here are in fact for a silly little system called INTERAC *, which is just like a ATM/Credit Card except none of the niceties of a credit card (like being accepted as a credit card). In other words, I can not pay my cell phone bill over the phone with it.. I can buy a candy bar at the local dep (convience store), but I can't pay my goddamn cell phone bill.
Luckily I am so ROLLING in cash that I always have plenty in montreal, the US, and the Cayman Islands, that none of this is really ever too much of an issue. Mmhm, riiight.
* Kudos to Canada for having a system in place such as INTERAC well before debit cards were wide-spread in the states but CRIPES people. CRIPES.
20041006
I'm sorry, it's been a bore here lately. Lot's of whining and complaining, woe-is-me-isms. Lots of inner thinking that a) isn't original, b) gets me nowhere, and c) is boring. Did I mention boring?
I dunno, maybe it's entertaining to you but it's tedious to me. So why do I do it? Compulsion? Narcissism? Something..something.. there must be a reason.
Point is, I'm sick of it. Sick of me. Sick of being sick of looking at this blog and the cliche boredom of it all. I think I might take a break.
Read yet another blog about yet another person on drugs out there. Not narcotics but "fix me" drugs, like prozac or ritilin or whatever the kids are taking these days. It got me thinking. "Stop." I said to myself. "Just stop." So I did, it sounded like I had something to say to myself and, well, if you're gonna listen to anyone it might as well be ..
"Look, buddy, you're fine. You're not on drugs. You don't struggle to peel yourself out of bed in the morning - not to the point that you feel like honey at the bottom of a jar, anyway. You don't get so physically exhausted from the thought of moving as a mental reaction to your state. You don't hate everyone."
and so I thought about it briefly and I had to admit that,
"No, no I am not on drugs. No I don't need them to get out of bed in the morning. Yes, I can operate fairly well on a daily basis, even if my food intake is minimal or overabundant, even if I don't get enough water, even if I drink too much, I'm fairly even keeled. I've got a pretty smooth mood curve."
"Yes, you do. No complaints. This blog isn't what it is supposed to be. You're killing it. It's a bore."
"Yes, yes. I suppose it is."
"Okay then."
"okay."
And then I sneezed. And I got that tickle in my nose where you know it's not gonna be just one sneeze but a whole sneeze fest.. one where you can maybe even get to seven in a row, if you're lucky.. and we all know how lucky that would be.
And I sneezed, and I sneezed, and I sneezed.
I dunno, maybe I got to seven.
20041003
I was similarly bummed after my date with the girl on Thursday. Just very sad, not really understanding the cause, but feeling like it would pass pretty quickly.
And it did. Friday night was stellar, and last night was reasonably interesting. Reasonably interesting because I just didn't have the same level of excitement to meet so many people as Friday, and because the people I met weren't as interesting. Still remember EVERYONE'S name, though. And the fact that Rachel only did 3 years of high school. And that Daniel and Ben were in high school together in San Diego. And that Sean is from the Bay, as is Peter. This guy Peter is funny, and he never remembers my name. I have met him about seven times, and each time I greet him with a huge "Hey! Peter! What's up, man?" He has never once remembered. I let him off the hook each time because I know what it's like to forget. We smiled about it yesterday when, as we were talking, I told him that his parties were always fun even if people had a hard time with the name "Alex." He got it. He smiled.
Also, I feel as though I ran in to some powerfully uninteresting people last night. One guy was a NARC for real. Talking my ear off about nothing. I hate that. I hate it when people aren't making any sense, and talking in an intense style that makes it difficult to say, "OK, I'm done with you and I'm going to stand over there now."
It would be really interested to do prestige studies in Isla Vista. Who has status, how do they get it, and how stable is it? Is there a single system, or many? Surely many, but surely the high status people are recognized by all. And how much is related to controllable factors, such as knowing people, as opposed to mere physical attractiveness and/or wealth. Maybe relate it to my language change stuff.
So I'm a little bummed out. Am I aloud to say that on here? Will that be censored? Hmm.. lessee..
I don't feel well..
Nope, it's still there. Wow, they really do let you say whatever you want on this innernector. What a crazy idea. Whoda thunk it? Why? To what end? So I can sit around and complain about how I'm bummed out?
It's long and complicated and I can't barely figure it myself - the reason for being bummer out, that is - but I know it's there and I feel it and I'm almost close to using the big D word.
Depression.
Just a one day affair though, this isn't a long term flu or nothing. Just one of those 24-hour jobbies. I can tell. And when you can tell it's really not so bad.. you can just get right down in it and enjoy yourself. Like rolling around in the mud when you know you're already dirty. You can really get excited about it. Somehow, though, it's not as fun if you know you won't be able to get a shower for a long time. Endurance is never fun.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'd be fairly happy about things right now if it weren't for the fact that I got work to do, work I am avoiding, work that the depression is unmotivating me to do.
So I guess what I'm saying is I should go and try to do some work, eh?
20041001
Didn't think it would happen but it did, I finally reached a transcendental plane, I became (as the song says) comfortably numb.. The numb part, that would come in waves but never really stay around for too long, sort of like riding the pirate ship at your local amusement park, feeling weightless for that single instance in time, floating - not going up, not going down. But numbness as a pacifier, that takes a good chunk of time just down in it, surrounded by the soft walls of your mind where there ain't much feelin as long as you can't see out the windows. So last night when I made my final go at it I was not only not-surprised, but I was actually glad, when I found out how special she really was.
Special in a shortbus sort of way.
An 80 percenter that, for all intents and purposes, might as well have been a 20 percenter for all I cared. Sometimes even I slip up on a judgement call. Sometimes even I don't know what I'm looking at and maybe that's what the true tragedy is: seeing that muddy field across the fence for what it's not: glistening green golden grass.
So I try not to covet this grass too much, not so much cause I'm of any religious type one way or another, but because it's never really what it seems. The deeper you dig, the further you become from the real goal..
which today is numbness.
But sometimes you just can't help yourself. Sometimes you've been having dreams of that green grass so goddamn long you start seeing it with your eyes closed. Like a bad cartoon where the wolf sees the chicken walking down the road roasting on a spit, I have been known, on occasion, to see the green grass right in front of me even though I know how far.. far.. far away it is.
So last night when I sorta snapped out of it I became instantly numb. No more grass, no more want, no more feeling, just there.. smiling, drinking a beer lazily watching rugby on the plasma screen and wondering inside my head how it became so easy, just like that, in a split second.
Real Tragedies, however, are twisted stories of interwoven unfortunes so we can't imagine our hero happy for too long - even if "happy" is numb and unfeeling. Today, when I returned from class I was greeted by the *bleep* of a waiting voicemail - an Unkown - a message from far.. far.. far away. It was nice to hear and nice to be appreciated and nice to be thanked for the small gesture I worked so very hard for but in the back of my mind, way way back where the numbing cold hadn't quite reached, a thought was born, a question, a wonder,
is that grass really so green?
And like that the numbness, so warm and comfortable for almost a full 24 hours, was gone. Left me like the dew on an early morning - there one instant and gone the next, not so sure where it went or when it will be back and I had to listen, once more, to that quiet voice far off in the distance through wires and routers and off some hard drive somewhere through the airwaves and processed by a dsp and through a tiny speaker, out of my cellphone and into my ear, producing an ever so slight thump-bump, thump-bump, thump-bump. An increase in heart rate. A longing. A waste really, a waste of the highest order and here I was so luckily numb and here it was, come to crush my happy heart.
Self Reminders:
- Don't bother with cheese unless you're going to really go hog wild cause you can barely taste a thin slice of cheese on a sandwich anyway.
- Don't get a beer when you're not even thirsty and you don't even want a beer. This is key and must be renumerated often as it is easily forgotten yet terribly important.
- Don't hate the hateful just cause it's their way of doing things. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
- When in doubt, admit it (that's two-fold).
- Don't forget that there is hardship and then there is hardship and don't forget that working twelve hours a day is not so much a hardship as it is a nuisance.
- The first answer is not the truth and, unquestioned, will remain untrue. But even questioned, don't believe it.
- Ask and ye shall receive.. something, just not necessarily what you were asking for.
- Life isn't fair and measures to make it so just compound.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
