A Strange Journey

I had to update the title of the last one (thanks Marylin), and thought I would add my newest bit of… “creative genius”. Enjoy! I’m sure you will if you are “in” on the “inside joke”…

Well time for an update then I guess. The weekend was good. I went to the Festival of Friends with Marylin and other than the rain it was good. I got a covetted Jumbo Ear, which is like a fried pastry topped with sugar and jelly and other goop. On the way back to the palace we rode on one of those new-fangled HSR buses… pretty fancy! Jyoti stayed over Saturday and we went rock climbing Sunday afternoon. I had never gone, but it was most fun. We just went to an indoor place. Much more challenging than one would first assume, that’s for sure.
The lan party of last week was good. There were 5 players in total. We figured almost all the kinks out, from having cables long enough to the actual net work setup and so on. Next time it is done will be bigger, and should be most fun. We played Quake 2 and Unreal Tournament, plus I did a little Vice City Multiplayering and Stiggz and myself privately indulged in some San Andreas action, quickly beating the first essential missions. There was also a bit of data-tranfering happening. I got the first 11 eps of Clone High, which is a fantastic show I will be randomly quoting even more often now. Too bad they haven’t made any more eps. I could write my own I suppose, but it wouldn’t really be the same. I got the JFK voice almost down though.

On the nerdy research front, something I heard a tiny bit about when it happened and didn’t do the full diligent until yesterday. Last year there was a protest for the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership, an agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico to integrate all the individual countries’ services with each other) and there were multiple police officers disguised as “black bloc anarchist” protesters. They were wearing masks and one was carrying a rock. Masks at a protest is bad form, so they were at first asked to remove them and then attempts by one protest organizer were made to forcibly remove them, which was greeted from the “Cop-tester” with a hard shove. Eventually the organizer guy catches on that they are in fact cops, and calls them on it, louding asking if they are cops and what their badge numbers are and so on. The coptesters meekly make their way over to a line of cops in full riot gear, clearly exchange in some sort of dialogue and the three coptesters “break the line” and are then “arrested” and “lead away”.
A statement made by the police later said there were 4 protesters arrested, and they were quickly named by the protest organizers as they are known activists. So what about the three “arrested anarchists”? They disappeared, despite being lead to police vehicles on video. So the cops were accused of the obvious thing that happened, planted provocateurs, which they denied vehoumously citing they “do not engage in those sort of tactics.” The video below then surfaces on youtube, and they police admit they DID in fact have officers disguised as protesters there, but they were only there to make sure there was no real trouble and the protest was in fact peaceful.
This brings the obvious question… in the video, why was one of the coptesters not only clearly holding a rock, which could be construde as a weapon in this situation, but also violently shoving an unarmed protester? They police claims that one of the coptesters was “handed a rock by one of the real Black Bloc Anarchists (yaknow, the real bad guys) and was encouraged to throw it at the cops. The officers had a choice to make.” So instead of getting one of your hundreds of buddies there to arrest the big bad rock distributing anarchist, you just menacingly hold onto it, in front of peaceful protesters, one of which he decides to shove when his cover is about to be blown? The police claim to have indisputable video evidence of this, but don’t feel it would solve anything to release it. They say it exists, so I guess we will just have to trust the fact that they are not lying to us and they really do have this indisputable evidence they said they will not be releasing. Suppose the organizer was successfully provoked into actually punching the coptester who just shoved him? Who do you think the circle of riot cops would have ascended upon? Their rock-weilding buddy pretending to be one of the protesters, or the middle age guy in the suit? The fact the army of cops DID NOT step in when the coptester shoved the guy is suspicious enough! The cops are there to supposedly prevent this exact thing from happening, and it is right in front of them! If it was real they should have been immediately separated. The coptester lummox is like 3 times the size of the organizer. I bet each riot cop there was shown a picture of the coptesters and were told “these are our guys, leave them alone.”
…and here is the Youtube video.

So… got my new health card and drivers license yesterday and today respectively. Fun stuff. My health card picture is much better. The cards themselves were sort of different looking… all hi-tech and that sort. For some reason you STILL can’t use your health card as ID for alcohol or tobacco. That makes no sense at all. It is issused by the government, has a picture and date of birth, so what’s the problem? It has the exact same info and security features as a drivers license, which is accepted without problem. If you don’t drive you have to get an “Age of Majority card”, which also has the same look and security as a drivers’ license. What the deal?

So there was a riot in Montreal over an 18 year old being shot by police. Totally understandable. The police has been getting more and more out of control as of late. I never have trusted them, but I think more people are waking up. Any citizen can be detained / imprisoned for literally anything. If an obvious excuse isn’t available, they have the ever-dependable “suspicion of terrorism” charge. The defition of “terrorism” somewhere along the line has been redefined to “not immediately complying with government authority”. Jaywalker? Terrorist. Taking too long to surrender license after being pulled over? Terrorist. Asking why you are being asked to randomly produce identification? Terrorist. Questioning the official version of any event at any time? Terrorist. If no one of authority has to legitimize their actions, abuses of authority are going to be commonplace.

So… update on the wallet. Nothing! It’s long gone. I’ve been replacing my ID like a good diligent stooge.

I was hooked up proper with a laptop for Marylin’s mum. I had a look, but had to be quick as bidniss was being conducted in a Tim Hortons with none of the four of us purchasing anything at all. Everything checked out, so the transaction was made. Under 15 minutes easy. Thanks Joe!

I had told my friend Gary that I would download and burn somes movies for him, seeing as he has a new player but skeptical about buying new DVDs for their purchase price. Understandable. I do not know what the average DVD costs now, as all desired movies are downloaded and watched at my leisure. If I ever do buy “tangible media”, it is exclusively out of the bargain bin or used section. I will veto the rest of the store and immediately head for these sections. Why? I’m not cheap. I COULD purchase a complete set of The Oblongs for the disgusting $75 pricetag. I like the thriftiness of the used section. It’s like a garage sale. After rooting through it, if I find something I want, I hold it triumphantly in the air, then anncounce to whomever I am with at the time the “find of the century”. Anyway, so I gave Gary most of my VHS collection. I only kept B movies I knew were not out on DVD (some won’t ever be), some stuff I taped off TV eons ago that would be of interest to no one except me and the mysterious unlabelled tapes. You never know what those could be. I don’t even have a VCR anymore, but Gary does. Seeing as I promised free movies (downloaded burnt onto DVD) and my computer is unable to properly produce them now for some reason, I still kept my word. Free movies he was given, though not in a current format. Like he cares. I hope he enjoys them. He said he would give videos he didn’t use to family up north, who are, in his words, “staring at the walls”.

Randy Paulsch died the other day. He was a computer science professor who did “The Last Lecture” on television a couple times, which he wrote when he found out he wasn’t going to be around much longer. He asked himself what he wanted to tell future generations and so on, and it is quite an inspiring lecture. Search Youtube for The Last Lecture and I am sure it will be found.

I went to one of my brother’s shows last week. Bombshell is sounding better every time I see them live. Their website has also been updated. Check it out at www.bombshell.co.nr.

Weird going-ons with the coffee shop I frequent. It was closed Tuesday to shoot a movie or something, which is fine. That sort of thing happens. The next day the owner guy was acting funny. I went in at the same time I do every day, and the place was much more busy than usual. He says hi, I say hi, and he continues fixing the beverages he was working on. I’m standing there politely waiting, and someone else comes in and waits behind me. Some blonde woman. He says hi to her, then gives her a cup to get coffee. That’s funny, he was too busy to give me a cup, knowing I am on a break and having limited time. So she fills her coffee cup, pays and leaves. So I continue to wait… watching him steam milk and adding it to lattes, very careful to use the smallest available spoon and to take as long as humanly possible. Someone who was sitting at one of the tables stands and waits behind me, wanting to make another purchase. He asks her what she would like, she says she would like a slice of cake. He finishes putting milk on the lattes, then starts listing the kinds of cake they have. I’ve been waiting between 7 and 8 minutes by this point and am getting rather impatient. So he serves the cake, then goes back to the lattes. He has a cinnamon sprinkler now, and he’s ever so meticulously going about topping the lattes with it. A tiny shake, rotating the cup fifteen degrees, and repeat. I’m starting to get angry, not at the wait, the fact he’s doing every possible thing BUT serving me, which takes about three seconds. I try to be reasonable, but when people who line up behind me are getting served post-haste and I have to wait for him to top a fucking latte, that is not acceptable. I’m there every day. He was pulling a mind-game trying to get me to wait for him. The whole “This is my shop” bullshit. So when another regular comes in, I warn him I’ve been waiting about 10 minutes. As soon as the owner sees him, he says nothing and just gives him a coffee mug, as he drinks his coffee in the same seat every day. After that, I said “Enough of this” under my breath and walked the 15 steps to the next cafe, where I got coffee with a minimal wait and no bullshit. When he realized I left one of the waitresses I am friendly with told me he went off on a tangent, saying everyone is so impatient nowadays and so on. She tried to tell him that I was on a break, like every other day I’ve ever been there, but it fell upon deaf ears.
So today, I’m walking down the street to get a coffee, planning to go to his place (for some reason). I see the owner outside WATERING PLANTS. I turn the corner and see a half-dozen annoyed looking customers waiting around the counter. I wonder how long they were waiting. I didn’t find out, just went right to the other cafe. I was greeted by the friendly Portugese guy with the usual “Sup duuuuuuude” and an empty coffee cup plunked in front of me by the time I physically reached the counter. THAT is service. Not as good as the one place I used to frequent. One waitress used to see me coming down the street and have a coffee and croissant for me on the counter by the time I got there. That was awesome. Even if there was a lineup, my order was still there without fail. Why? Because they know how to run a business. I’m not saying this to be arrogant, but at a cafe you don’t make much money, and people can get whatever you are offering elsewhere. If they go to one place there is a reason, even if it is as simple as it being not “the other place”. I’m on a first name basis with everyone who has ever worked there since I started going. I spend quite a bit of my own money there, easily at least $30 a week, and even more when I pick up things for other people, which I frequently do. When I was waiting while the owner was doing everything conceivable except serve me, it made me feel as though he didn’t care about my business, so I chose not to give it to him. I got another coffee and forgot about it, until posting this. He didn’t. He mentioned it to other people, meaning he thought about it long after it happened. Why? I didn’t insult him, I’d never do that and he prolly doesn’t give fuck one about what I think of him anyway. He knows he could lose my business real pernament like. What does that mean? He might have to take the bus to work. You can’t just make up consistant business like that. I’m not saying I should get my ring kissed whenever I walk through the door, but at least the politeness of a regular customer.

The news tells us a poor sap was beheaded on a bus enroute to Winnipeg of all places. The media jumped all over it, all reporting the same thing nearly word for word without any new information. This makes me think. Since it was literally all that was reported yesterday, what else happened? What was this over reporting attempting to downplay or coverup?

I think this weekend should be good. I am going to the market with Marylin tomorrow. I haven’t done that in a couple weeks at least. Hopefully some LAN party action will happen later in the day, and it looks like everything should go according to plan. The rest of the weekend will be spent with Jyoti. We’re going climbing on Monday. Should be fun indeed.

That’s it for now. Tune in… later!

Jon Lovitz, comedian, movie, television and voice actor did something last year that is better than all these combined multiplied by a thousand.

Jon Lovitz beat up Andy Dick.

Yes, you read that right.

I never would have thought it before, but I guess Lovitz is quite the physical adversary. Not that it would take much to bring waify Andy Dick down. Much respect… he’s done the thing we all thought about at least once. Well done! I only found this out because of The Smoking Gun. Dick was arrested for “naughty touching” a 17 year old girl in public yesterday, and it mentioned about something of a repeat pattern. Previously not caring at all, I knew nothing of the criminal activities of Dick, so I consulted my friend Wikipedia. The list is extensive, and it mentioned the Lovitz/Dick incident in there. I reread it, then went about my way verifying it myself. It looks like it did indeed happen. Apparently Dick gave cocaine to the hosebag wife of the legendary late Phil Hartman, and six months later it was curtains for Mr and Mrs Hartman, real permanent like, when she went all murder-suicide. For shame. Lovitz claimed this is indirectly Dick’s fault for giving Mrs Hartman a shove off the wagon (giving her cocaine at a party), but it’s not like he blew it up her nose for six months. He’s still a total douche, and has deserved a solid asskicking. I just find it shocking Lovitz was the giver of the boots. He doesn’t seem like the type on TV.
I hope Dick actually does time for his latest crime. He’s got off with a series of wrist slapping for some pretty outrageous stuff. If he wasn’t “famous”, he would be drug addicted and homeless, or would have been sentenced to a long term jail term years and years ago. Situations like that I think “Man… all you have to do to get famous in Hollywood is be related to someone famous or be really really good at fellatio. Just look at Andy Dick!” Every character I’ve ever seen Dick do has been a clone of a previous one. His standup comedy is also deplorable, and just look at his mugshot!
EEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Lock his ass up and throw away the key.

So… new system is being planned. I am an AMD guy, as I find Intel restricting in their design architechture. I found a AM2 6400+ locally for a sweet $175. It’s going to be the priciest hardware in the mother. I a getting the PSU and motherboard used. Well the PSU is used, the mobo is open box but unused. Yay for having nerdy friends to sell me things they don’t need! At the same place I found the proc they have 2G is KIngston ValueRAM for $50. It’s DDR2 at 800MHz. I want to try and get some OCZ at 1066MHz, but that might break the budget. I might have to get a new video card, but I haven’t bought a new one in about three years, so it’s overdue. Still have the AGP 256M NVidea, which definitely does the job, but I want something with a little more OOMPH. I have a HD I can use, and of course have the server with plenty of room left. Right now I am using a SATA no name DVD burner, which is pretty bad actually. It’s only 6x, and won’t recognize anything I’ve tried to use but JVC. Since DVD burners are almost free now, I may as well indulge. It’s like getting a brand new car, but keeping an outdated tape player instead of a new deck because you want to save $40. A nice Plextor would be faaaaaaaaaaantastic… all fast and everything. Everything I need should cost in total just over three hundred dollars. Very Reasonable for the system I hope to produce.

I got my paycheque a day early. Zang! I enjoy getting money before I am actually supposed to have it. It makes me feel I am getting away with something, but that’s not the case at all.

The digital picture frame project is going well. I don’t know if I am going to finish it, as I forgot the laptop I planned to use had a blue vertical line going down one side from top to bottom. Stupid dead pixels. I probably will finish it to say I did it. The frame itself has yet to be attached, and the media drives as well as the keyboard have been removed. I can plug a keyboard and mouse into it if I need to. It also has Windows 2000 installed, which is taking a little too long to load for my likings.

Well the above is slightly out of date. I wrote it Thursday, and today is Tuesday. The weekend was for the most part absolutely fantastic, except for the unfortunateness of losing my wallet. It had my birth certificate, licenses, various cards and that sort. Fortunes from fortune cookies, a picture of my friend Candance and about $500 cash. The money isn’t the worst part… it’s the inconvenience I have to go through replacing everything. Try replacing something when you have no other identification to back up your claim as to who you are. Very difficult. I filled out a police report about it in case some bastard tries some sort of identity theft. That happened to my friend Gary and was a total headache for him. Whoever took his wallet had credit cards taken out in his name and so on. Most hassle. I don’t have any credit cards, so if there are any under my name, they ain’t mine! So for the next little while it’s bringing this copy of a police report to various places to replace the lost ID. After work I am going to get my bank card replaced, and tomorrow morning it’s on to the license/SIN card. Work gave me a 45% advance on my next paycheque, which was most good of them. They didn’t have to, nor was I really expecting it.

The weekend started with my youngest (and favourite) cousin Shaye staying the night. It went well, even though I was informed she was coming for the night one hour prior to her arrival. That is all part of how my family operates, planning everything at the last possible second. Like my dad having literally all day to mail something, but twiddles thumbs until 8:55PM and then goes into frantic mode because the post office is going to close in 5 minutes. When Shaye came we walked to Dairy Queen, got high and hung out. I think she enjoyed causing mass havock on the now-classic Vice City.

The rest and majority of the weekend was spent with the lovely Jyoti. She arrived at my building just as Shaye and her dad (my… uncle… I guess… long story) We went to the art gallery and saw the Geisha kimono feature, which was really cool. They had some new stuff in the second floor (free) gallery as well. One very interesting one was a real VW Van adorned with toys, making out individual scenes all over it. It must have taken ages to meticulously arrange thousands of figures just so. There was also another work we really liked. I don’t remember the title of it, but it displayed on a wall like a painting while consisting of various painted wood carvings attached to springs and motors, which would turn and move in various timed increments. I’m not doing it justice, you should really see it for yourself!

The loss of that cash is going to mean that the system replacement is going to take even longer now. Maybe the prices will come down a bit by then. That would be golly gee swell. Even better would be something better for the same I was willing to pay… or even less money!

On the DPF front, my friend Pat said he could likely make a proper looking picture shadowbox. That would look far better than some second hand frame I have to somehow jerryrig to the laptop. I do hope it works out.

Tonight will be (hopefully) getting at least a half decent start on the website I’ve been putting off for ages and ages. Must resist the temptation of Destroy All Humans. What a fun game. Wish me luck!

Well… at work right now. I got here a couple of hours late as I had bank-card-replacing business to attend to… then making the student loan payment. If all goes well in 4 days I will be 100% DEBT FREE! Now I can start saving up for a new computer, as the one I have is getting a little ridiculous. I might do a while tear down / format and see if that improves anything. Who knows. It’s getting old anyway, won’t support current processors and other nerdy delights.
So the weekend was fantastic actually. My cousin Keira (who is seeing one of the roommates) brought a friend of hers for me to meet and we hit things off pretty well. She’s into art and is intelligent conversation which is always a bonus. She also likes the marijuana and viddy games, which is fantastic. She’s also stunning, and has a name even harder to spell than mine. Aaaaand to top it off, she met my entire family already and didn’t run screaming. They came friday evening and my mother and sister were here when she and my cousin arrived. That was a little weird. I just meet her and after being introduced to me for the first time she’s introduced to my mum and sister, That’s fine, but totally unexpected. The next night they left for a party thrown by some Ancaster folk. I didn’t go but know the type that attended. That might have been a reason for not going. Or the anti-socialness. Actually, the main reason was I wasn’t invited. Even called the asshole who’s house it was at… nothing. Whatever. There she met my brother and dad as well as numberous Ancaster friends. Anyway, my cousin forgets her stash her and asks if she can come back and get it. This is round…. 12:30ish. For some reason I thought it was just my cousin and aunt coming, but Jyoti (my cousin’s friend’s name… prolly should have mentioned that) came too! I was excited to see her again, but understood that they had to leave right away and so one. Only they didn’t! Nono… seconds later outside my open window I hear my name and the two of them were on the lower balcony (fire escape). They wanted to come smoke a bowl instead of leaving right away as planned, so up they came. Twas a good decision for sure… I got an email from her today. I don’t know if she got mine though… there is no record of it being sent. I hate my virtual host (refer to previous blog post if you need to be filled in).

So my sister was at my place friday evening, which is cool. She was having issue with the now (thankfully) former-boyfriend and inceasant phoning, wanting to expain “his side” of his infidelity. There is one reason you do it… you WANT TO. It doesn’t “just happen”… there’s no “accidents” when it comes to that. You have an agenda in your head and you do it. Knowing that you were being cheated on is bad enough, but someone listing your faults as reasons and an explanation as to why these are acceptable actions is ludicris. Being intoxicated is also not an excuse. “Pleading drunk” to defend any sort of actions is just disgusting. Anyway, he’s gone. Fuck him. My sister is much better than him, and now everyone knows it! The very thing I suspected happening from day one did, and continued to. No more hearing proven things third hand and telling relevant parties and have it fall on deaf ears. No more of my friends asking me how I could let my sister go out with someone of that calibre, often offering services of bodily harm or humiliation to the subject in question. Unnecessary. It’s all over now, baby blue.

So I’ve been listening to The Poppy Family lately. It’s pretty good stuff I gotta say. The two people behind it were much better as a group than separate. That song “Seasons in the Sun”… ya know… we had joy we had fun, we had seasons in the sun. Yeah. Same guy as the Poppy Family, thought 10 - 15 years later. I bloody HATE that Seasons in the Sun song. Absolutely loathe it. The other one… the girl. Her stuff is not as bad, but still pretty terrible. Almost as bad as not doing the research to find out the names of who I am talking about! This also avoid lawsuits though.

I read something about the dad on ALF being caught in a crackhouse and filmed him and a friend having sex with homeless people they pick up off the streets for $100. Eeeewwwwwwwwwww. Why is this here? I don’t know. Noooo idea. I’m just spreading gossip now. Like Perez Hilton. I highly dislike Perez Hilton. I won’t say hate, because that’s what him and his army want. Then I get thousands of spam mails and comments. Feh. Seriously, why doesn’t he get a job… or contribute in some other way to society? Forcing celebrities out of the closet is ridiculous. We already assume 98% of Hollywood is gay anyway. He claims he will drag celebs out of the closet kicking a screaming if necessary. That guy from that boyband and the guy that used to play Doogie Howser were just the beginning. Doogie was kind of a surprise that he was gay. And then I moved on. The other guy it was kinda like that one kid in highschool. Everyone knows he’s gay but he keeps saying he’s not, then comes to the reunion with a Philipino slave boy wearing an evening gown, then privately confesses to everyone he’s gay, but not to tell anyone. The last person to figure out you are gay is YOUUUU!!!! And if that is the best this Perez person can do, so what? Two celebrities who had careers effectively over almost a decade ago. Well done! Who’s next on your “Out list”? I hear Liberace once went on vacation with another guy…. wait I might have just scooped him.

My point is, respect those who have public lives. Everyone has skeletons in their closets, the fact that music or movie stars do as well should be little surprise to anyone. If they deserve the kudos you give them on screen or stage, who cares what they do behind closed doors with concenting adults? Does it make them a less talented actor that they sleep with men? Are they now untalented because they put a processed plant product up their nose? Perez Hilton is doing what he does because he cannot DO anything else! He knows being gay, and dish about celebs. So he made a blog about… being gay and dishing about celebs. For some reason his ad-ladden, amateurish and horribly editted blog gets a lot of attention (while established, well done and professional blogs are ignored) and now he’s a millionaire.

He’s made quite a living from being a talentless bitch.

Perhaps I could learn something? I’ll just dye my hair pink, talk like a valleygirl and mainline ketamine and see where it takes me.

On a much more pleasant note, in 4 days I should be 100% debt free. Woo! After much headaches with he NSLS (National Student Loan Services) I think issues have been resolved, and doing research my ituation was hardly unique. Esentially they had been taking monthly payments out of my acct. I missed one, and they were supposed to take 2 the next month. They took one, but left one. That was the last one. The one I have been trying to pay back since November, but something always seems to fuck up when I let them set it up so they take they money out of the acct… typing in the acct number wrong, improper date, that sort of thing. I thought it was legit, but after a while I thought about it. It seems they are meaning to do this… but why? Why would they want me to owe them money longer than necessary? Because they make money off it of course! The interest is seven cents a day, no matter what you owe. That adds up. Talking more to the employees I think they became aware I was in the know of the scamola, and denied them access saying I would make them a payee on a bill paid from my acct. They did not like that. Total pain in the ass getting the proper info from them, then calling a seperate extention of it and them telling me the correct information. Then the research. Many many people in the same boat. Students want to pay off the loan, but the NSLS won’t take a final payment. Scans of returned cheques, screen captures of bank statements…. all indictating everything was fine and good until the last payment. Hopefully it is over now.

NSLS sort of reminds me of that PayPal scam. I’m surprised PayPal is still in business, and got started with their shoddy practice in the first place. I lost thirty dollars to them. They monitor your account, and when you have a nice chunk of change in there, they claim there was some sort of suspicious actions, and your account will have to be suspended. You can have money added to it, but withdrawls are not possible. Since PayPal is not a bank, they have no rules to follow over such actions other than the ones set by the company itself. The law also cannot help, as it is again, not a bank but a business. While a user’s account is suspended, the funds are depositted into a legitimate bank account in PayPal’s name. They claim this is for “safekeeping”, but it is really so they collect the interest on it. They also dictate their own exchange and interest rates, and as a private company are welcome to do so. From research, they seem to have no real complaints department. Emails go unanswered, phone calls wait in limbo for hours with unsatisfactory results. Oh, and if someone unauthorized access your account (ie- hacks in) PayPal holds the account-holder (YOU) responsible. You are on your own to prove you didn’t authorize everything, and will get NO HELP AT ALL from PayPal. A friend lost a substantial ammount of business revenue this way.

Woo… that was long. The work day is almost over so I am out of here for now. Be well.

A few things that annoy me:

When you’re walking and someone walking in the opposite direction almost bumps into you, so you turn to go around them, but they turn the same way. Repeat two or three times. If the other person normal, they will not make eye contact, because they are just as embarassed. If the other person is a total knob, they will ask “Do you wanna dance? Aaaaahahahahaha.”
Sure, if the dance is a new step I invented. It’s called “Push Over The Knob”. Another is called “Stomp the Knob’s Throat”… you get the idea. I hate it when people do that. Despise it. If I know the person, I will scream at them if they say that. “Do you wanna dance? Huh huh huh.” NO! GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!

Sometimes when you’re waiting to cross the road… waiting for ONE car… who decides to drive slower and slower as they get closer. The worst of the bunch will stop and look at you, then continue on their way. What are these bloke trying to prove? Why make it a point to stop and see a pedestrian, who likely scowls because you added an extra totally unneccesary obstacle to crossing the street? Hands at 10 and 2, look straight ahead, maintain a safe and constant speed.

People who shout at other people from moving cars. It doesn’t matter if it’s at someone you know, someone you want to randomly insult or inform a lady you find her attractive. It’s just silly. If it’s someone you know, call them. If it’s someone you want to randomly insult, grow up. If it’s an attractive female, they are MANY better ways to go about doing what you want to accomplish… whatever that is. Chances are it’s the fifth or sixth time in the last hour she got honked at followed by a “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey babbbbbyyyyyyyyyyyy!” No one has ever picked up a girl this way. Ever.

Fat cops. I don’t much like cops at all, but fat cops just piss me off. If we’re going to have any sort of authority, make them intimidating looking at least. I know I could drop half these out of shape bags of flesh with one good punch to the gut, then walk away casually. I think the next step is seeing them on those electric scooters. Why not? Everyone else in Hamilton seems to have one. Actually, I don’t mind fat cops, now that I reread that. It
will make it easier for me to get away if I do something illegal. Like jaywalking. Or that pesky marijuana habit I should be locked up like the criminal I am for. But seriously, if you wanted to rob a bank or something, would seeing out-of-shape tubs of lard with a badge day after day after day really deter you? No way. Most of them can’t take five steps without breaking sweat in July… make them run after someone and you may as well call the cardiac ward ahead of time.

Bait and switch. That’s when retailers advertise an item on special, but in actuality stock a similar item for a higher price. Notorious with computers and electronics. You see an ad online, race over to the store to get the latest and greatest model of whatever for the best price you’ve seen for it. Oh shucks, they just ran out (riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight). But you can get last year’s model for the same price. Sure it can’t do AS much, or AS fast, but it does the thing you want, and you’re already here and were willing to pay that price…. SUCKA! After a couple times this happens you learn to call the bastards first, but even that is getting a little insane.

The telephone. I hate the phone. Remembering numbers, holding it to your ear like an idiot, uncomfortable pauses, leaving messages. You used to be able to get ahold of someone on the phone without clearing your afternoon. Recorded messages, being on hold, TOUCH TONE TREES. I wish there was a secret code in every touch tone tree that when entered made the phone release some sort of nerve gas. I wonder if people would do their jobs more efficiently if there was the risk of being slathered in your own bodily fluids.

And finally, my virtual host. Nothing is worse than not getting service you pay for. You feel violated. Hence why the late update. I couldn’t log in. Some “techie” at the host replied to my email the second day it was down (they also guarentee 99.9% uptime) saying there was a hard drive crash. They had to buy and install the hard drive, then move everything over. That would have taken me twenty minutes, if I was taking my time. almost three days? Insane.

They also have the very bad habit of closing and deleting any support tickets on their ticket system. And someone different answered every email. So if it’s an ongoign problem, you have to keep and forward records of past communication yourself, because they do not keep track of it for obvious reasons. Their english in the emails is also terrible. I mean really bad. It took me ten minutes to try and decode one message I received. They seem to have a total lack of any sort of spellchecking software. The support team also has no clue how to use any sort of punctuation, so they skip it altogether. Their ’support’ is a block of hardly recognizable words with a name at the end. I would have called them, but they’re so professional they only do the phone thing in an emergency… and you have to request that they call you. If you try to get them to call you without it being an actual “emergency”, which I guess is whatever situation they decide falls under that category, they SUSPEND YOUR ACCOUNT. For trying to get help on the phone? What sort of company does this? When I had my old site there were no problems, now I get headaches from the retards all the time. The retards that this very blog is hosted on. The blog you are reading right now. I’m being vague purposely, as people who complain about them have unfortunate ‘accidents’… memberships deleted, DNS tampering. It’s funny to actually do the research I should have done before I got an account with them a second time. People complaining about them, then other people saying they are a great host, but those praise messages ALWAYS have an IP that links back right to their main site. They prolly have a handful of employees… like a PR group… making up anonymous accounts on forums to try to dispel or take the edge of some of the absolutely scathing things written about them. Sad, really. Instead of hiring people to correct obvious problems and deal with customers properly, they only care about their reputation on the internet and lie through their keys to make it look like they have some credibility. Their turnover rate is likely higher than that of the warehouse I used to work at.

Now that’s out of the way…. how are you? I’m good. Sitting like a diligent slave at the office. I did get a dollar an hour raise yesterday, so that’s alright. Makes the pill a little easier to swallow. I painted a bit as of late. I’m getting more used to the oils and how they operate. I’ve still received no instruction from anyone, though I have people to contact about that very thing. I also made Marylin a present. I’d post what it is, but I have yet to give it to her and she’s likely reading this right now. Come to think of it she’s probably the only person who reads this period. If that not the case, leave a comment, willya?

I’ve decided to challenge myself to make a digital picture frame. If you’re unaware of the concept, it’s an LCD screen housed in a frame that displays pictures. I know, you’re thinking “Hell, I could do that!” That’s exactly what I said to myself when I saw that one of my uncles bought my grandparents one. They included a memory card with pictures of all their 97 children. I saw that and thought “That must have been expensive. I bet I can make a better one for next to nothing.” So after some Kijijiing, I found a suitable laptop to sacrifice. An ancient IBM Thinkpad 365XD. The “XD” stands for “eXtra Deadly”, as it weighs about 12 pounds. I’m going to take out the battery, CDROM, sound output, floppy and whatever else is not absolutely needed and secure it into a wide picture frame with the screen in front. A modified version of Windows 95 will launch a slideshow program on startup when the frame is turned on. The program will then read the contents of a folder on my network, displaying a random image found within every two minutes. If I can find a PCMCIA wi-fi card, I won’t need to plug an ethernet cable in. I’m not too concerned with that to be honest… I could change it later on if I come across one. Eventually I’d also like to change the internal IDE hard drive (at a whopping ONE GIGABYTE) and replace it with a CF card. I saw an adapter that allows you to use a CF card like a regular IDE hard drive.

I have obtained an air conditioner. Thank god. It’s been a week or two since and I am NOT going back to not having one. The GM at work kindly lent me one designed for a server room that was going unused for years. The one drawback is because my bedroom floor is on a slight angle, the internal resivoir doesn’t work. The exhausted water flows out the side of the unit, and onto the floor. Luckily there is a valve override so I can have it lead from that to a bucket I need to empty three times a day. I have a reasonably strong fishtank pump (don’t ask) so I am going to try and jerryrig some sort of ’self-emptying system’ out the window when the bucket gets too full. I need to lead the hot air exhaust out the window anyway. Unfortunately I don’t have the right kind of window to set that up proper. I have a swing-open window and it’s much better with a latch raised window. The room’s not as cool as it should be as the open window takes a lot of the cool air out. I’ve tried remedying this by stuffing the curtains around it, but that is only so effective, and usually lets sunlight in the room. Sunlight is not good is a small room that heats up quickly.

I should be going to Toronto this weekend. I have a photo gig with an ‘alt model’. We’re doing a sort of faked abduction shoot, which will hopefully land in the pages of Bizarre magazine. I’d be my own hero if that happened.

The weekend after that I think my younger cousin is staying with me. That should be fun. She’s one of the smartest people I know. Seriously.

Alright… enough of this. I’ll be sure to update as the frame project continues.

That was the first sentence I spoke today… and it is true. George Carlin is dead. No more.
The man brought us “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television”, portrayed Rufus from the Bill and Ted movies, and also Mr Conductor on Shining Time Station. Richard “Ringo” Starsky replaced him, or Carlin replaced Ringo. Whatever.
He also had some damn entertaining and true political and social commentary. I also understand he wrote a few books.
It’s not that I have kept up to date with his career, he’s just the rare person that has never failed to dissapoint when you see them in the media. He always said something heartfelt or funny, often both. I think he’s the kind who never thought themselves as famous, and sort of didn’t know how to handle it. I can respect that.
An interesting Carlin-related link from the seven or so websites I frequent: his performance rider, courtesy (and unknowingly) of The Smoking Gun, a damn fantastic site if you sift through the bullshit.

So what else is new? Not too much. I have a meeting at 7PM about a website today. That should go fine.. I hope.
I got my taxes back and to my shock walked away with $400. Snot bad at all! They insist on giving you a debit card, instead of cash or cheque. You can get a money order, which of course you have to pay to cash. The overall process was worth it, though I think I may try and file it myself next year. All they did was take information from papers I gave them, and they file it with the government over the internet. This process is $50. I could cut out the middleman and keep my fifty bucks. That’s a new gig of ram, tons of painting supplies or part-way to a new camera accessory. Or further living in absolute sleazy luxury. That basically means not paying attention to how much / many narcotics consumed, and legitimizing purchasing takeout meals (or worse, getting delivery) and legitimizing it to myself by “not being in the mood to cook”. Very similar to exactly what I did last night. Marylin and myself indulged in some Wings Up action. Mighty fine chicken wings. They have a bunch of different flavours. I only had the medium before, and was honestly expecting hotter. Nothing. This time I got Thai, as that SOUNDS hot. It wasn’t. Mildly spicy at best. They were still good, just not very hot. Marylin got coconut curry flavoured. Those were cold… like cold to the touch. Not good. They also tasted lemony for some reason. Lemony! Uncalled for. Aaaaaaaand also not spicy! Next time will be the real difining visit, as I plan to get Jamaican Hot to see if it rivals the current champion: Fortinos Suicide. Ironic, that is exactly what I would do if I ever found myself working for Fortinos!
Anyway, good times ahead! With the (third) wedding of my uncle, the house and more importantly cars, will be available to my exclusive use whilst they are gone.

That’s it for now and there ain’t no more.

Not too much going on as of late really. I am working on project that I will post more about in due time. Worry not!

My computer is giving me headaches. It just started freezing due to a temperature error pretty much out of no where. At first I thought it was a virus, but after using two different scanners they both came out clean. Same with spyware. I thought the problem might be hardware related, so I opened up the patient. I found the rear exhaust fan was really gummed up and difficult to move. I took it out and replaced it with a liberated from elsewhere fan for the time being.I thought that might have been it, but still nothing. Next I took off the heatsink and reseated the processor, also to no avail. Same with removing some sketchy hand-me-down RAM I got. I then reapplied thermal paste, and kept a desktop fan blowing into the open computer case, and it still overheats. I have no idea what it could possibly be at this point. It’s quite annoying though. Plans have been hatched for a new system, though I would love to figure out what is plaguing this one. I still think it might be memory related for some reason. That would be preferred, as it is easily dealt with. A recent inquiry revealed that the current RAM price for my system (DDR, PC3200) at a nearby and trusted shop is around $40 a gig. That’s not bad. I could max it out over the next couple of months, but I’m not going to if the system keeps freezing obviously.

Alright, time to get the mighty MemTest86 going before I go to work.

So the last few days have been interesting. Thursday was good times all around. Some of the guys I used to work with at UPS came down for some chill time. It was most fun. The inside jokes flew like bullets at a mafia dinner party, and there was only a couple of casualties.
The evening started off with everyone meeting up at the Subway down the road from me and fellow party antendee China Joe. I aimed for the 6PM go-time, and was greeted by Chris (he doesn’t have an interesting nickname, but has a cool last name so it’s sort of unnecessary) and Big J, who’s now more "Lean and slightly taller than average J". Muthafucka lost like 100 lbs. He literally must have been eaten alive in Japan. Oh that’s where he’s moving to. Yes, moving. To Japan. That was the whole sort of reason for the gathering. He got a job teaching English in a school not far from Tokyo. I think. So after the Subway Rendez-Vous, we went to the Mason bar (Winkin Judge) on Augusta and ordered drinks had had planned to eat there. They didn’t seem to grasp the whole "Bring the customers the things that they order" concept, as there was no assistance offered with beverage retrieval. Just imagine how they would handle food. Prolly point to the back and say "The kitchen’s that way, grab an apron and PLEASE don’t hurt yourself." Pffff. Masons. The strictly "fried and cheesy" North American cuisine turned Joe off substantially as well.
After kiboshing the Masonic establishment, we walked down James Street and decided to get some Italian food. Thankfully, most of the EYEtalian places are the only ones that DON’T have primarily ginos on staff. A sign was seen with an inappropriately placed possessive apostrophe, and since it was one of those magnet signs, Big J took it upon himself to fix it. Just as he had tucked the offending punctuation out of sight, Joe pipes up and says "What are you doing? This is the place we’re eating!" Then the laughter.
Nothing to uproarious happened at dinner… Big J threw his fork across the place…. I don’t think anything else of note happened. The cannelloni was good. They had a really hot female in the back with some sort of job… the specifics to the job I know not… nor do I care.
We came back to The Palace for coffee and cannabis… my two favourite things. Big J was the only one to partake other than yours truly, but it’s all good. I made some coffee for Joe, Big J and myself and Chris had some mango juice. Mango!
It was getting later and we were quite noisy so out of consideration for the roomies I kicked everyone out, but we all ended up going back to Joe’s place. Chris and J’s cars were there… and I didn’t wanna be the odd man out. That happens often enough already.
We talked some more and shared youtube videos. I revealed the greatness that is the "GIRLY MAN" video. Big J loved it, as I much suspected he would. He showed us a great one involving a 400 foot fall, but I haven’t been able to find it since. There were three different videos. One was of the actual fall, another the victim was gobbled up by a dinosaur of all ridiculous things, and the last one he was blown up by a fighter jet. It was a damn good evening… and I wish one of us took some pictures.

My weird headaches, it has been discovered, are from a lack of caffine. The last time I had one I remember not having any coffee that day because of the heat, and yesterday was the same sort of affair.

About twenty minutes after having a cup I forgot I ever had a headache, and was my old discombobulated self. I’m thinking the best plan is to cut back ont he coffee, though not sharply. Not having it causing headaches is bad enough, but I’m pretty sure sooner or later my teeth with have little to no enamel. The cawfee and smoking are the only real health vices I have.

So it’s father’s day today. I have no idea what to get him. His gifts of the last several years are still in packages, which is fine… that’s the way he is. It does make it a little difficult to legitimize getting him something in my head though. I’ll find something he likes though. I remember getting my grandad something for Christmas… NOOOOooo idea what to get him, but it was the first year I decided I was getting everyone something. I was getting my dad something at the beer store, and saw a stein and hat combo dealie with Rickard’s Red emblazoned all over the products. Knowing it was grandad’s favourite brewer of the malties, I got it for him. He loves it. Still uses the mug all the time and I seen him wear the hat a few times. The look on his face told me I did well. My dad? Well he used to talk about Doctor Who being one of his favourite shows growing up, at some points expressing frustration that the "good old episodes" were no longer on TV. So I think it was his birthday, I got him a set of Doctor Who DVDs… a compilation of the first series. This was before all that NEW Doctor Who shit came out, so it was hard to find. I plunked down $70 for that set, and thought I did not baddish, until I was there the other day and the set is still factory sealed!

My good friend the Professor is over his health trama of recentness. He has some sort of condition affecting the liver/kidneys, and ballooned out to over 200lbs. It turns out he has no potassium in his body. Like ZERO. He has decided to eat a banana every day, but he finds them aaaaaaaaaaaaabsolutely disgusting. Something about the texture, not really the taste. He debated eating a steak before eating a banana… a bold move for someone who doesn’t eat meat. He has also quit drinking, which made the condition much much worse. 33 days of non-drinkage. Something maybe my dad would want to consider. He should, but that’s unlikely.

That’s all for now, bitches. Until next time.

Over the weekend, there was a half-consumed coffee cup noticed that had been there too long. There was a skin-like film on top of the coffee itself, and omitted a stench worse than death when poked. This got me to thinking… maybe I could journal the decay process of something. Since coffee was there, and I have stumbled upon it at various stages in the decay process, I decided I would use that.

The next day I purchased a cup of coffee from the one cafe I regular. After adding cream and sugar, I took a small sip or two for quality control. I then placed it near my place of employment, and if it was there on Monday, it would be a sign to continue. Monday came, and it was still there! Success!

I took the coffee to it’s new location… still exposed to the elements, but away from the local wildlife. I removed the lid and decided I would wait the afternoon to photograph it. In the meantime I thought of a name. Roffee. Rot + coffee = roffee. Clever? No, but it should do the job.

So, without further ado, the first of many pictures of The Roffee Chronicles.

 Behold! Day 01

The cream has soured. The sugar is attracting ants, who are having a party. The smell is nearly non-existent. I will wait. My patience will be rewarded.

I don’t know what to expect tomorrow. The experiment is still in the infancy phase.

If you’re interested in more ridiculous science, read about The Stinkymeat Project,  a sort of inspiration for this fun.