Liam Motherfuckin McKenna

The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope

2007-01-13T16:41:00.000-05:00

I'm one for apologies. I've been remiss in my posting. Just be happy I clung to my keyboard long enough to remember this place. I would like to take this time to thank Granite for keeping the torch burning all this time without any real support.

Here's a synopsis of some no-longer-current events:

My Birthday was 95% good, 5% pure shit. I woke up to the news that Ben wouldn't be joining the festivities due to an unplanned family Christmas in Goderich or Grand Bend or somewhere. Wolfgang came over later and helped me clean the shed up so that I could use it.

I don't recall what happened next.

Then I sat down to dinner with family and friends. Food was eaten, gifts were given, fudge icing was spilled on every available surface.

Then we got down to business. The party got into swing as more and more people arrived. One of them was Ben, who had either provided my father with a clever ruse, or had simply confused him on the phone that morning. In either case, he gave me porn. Porn that I have yet to watch, actually, but that's part of another rant.

He also brought a shotglass chessboard, which he and Wolfgang proceeded to make good use of. I am proud to announce that Wolfgang has never been more intoxicated than he was after he stood up from that game. I would have indulged in a friendly round of Blake-feeds-it-to-me-over-the-chessboard, but I figured I needed to stay standing longer than 10:30 that night.

That turned out to be a good idea. There were two major causes for this:

The first is pretty much par for the course of life: Basically everything with a vagina at that party had too much to drink. 'Nuff said really. Just make up your own stupidity at that point.

Number two was just that. Remember when I said that 5% of my party was shit? I wasn't being metaphorical. An old friend of mine thought that it would be a good idea to take one of my sister's friends for a walk around the garden. If for "garden" you read "back yard" and for "take one of my sister's friends for a walk around" you read "remind the world where statutory rape laws came from in". Once I caught wind of this, I, assisted by the Bizz himself, moved swiftly to intercept the parties involved. Everyone was fully clothed (not totally surprising given the somewhat lacklustre effort that winter put out for us that evening), and I managed to call them back from the far end of the yard without any trouble. Yeah, the far end. The one where the dogs shit. In fact, I said to them "Get out of there, that's where the dogs shit". And even with those thoughts in my head, I didn't think to myself, "Self, why don't we just quickly check people's shoes before you let them back into the studio?"

5 minutes later I was busy clearing everyone out of the building. It was unglamourous. I lost my temper more than once with inebriated guests who just didn't seem to get it. I was left with Ben and the Bizz. Oh, and the Metro. But instead of helping, he decided to play Midol on the front porch with a segment of reason number one.

I owe a lot to my boys. Without complaint they tidied the shed, swept the floor, isolated the shit, and then mopped and disinfected the floor. Our final task was cleaning and disinfecting the mess of patch-cords, extension cords, and adapters that had littered the floor of one side of the shed.

We finished up at about 3:30, if memory serves. I still had some demented drive to salvage the evening in my head at that point, so I invited them both to stick around for a rousing viewing of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. This only involved carting my parents' new widescreen TV out to the shed, followed by the various components of my computer I needed to connect to it, but apparently this was too much for the Bizz, who decided it was time to go home and be assaulted by his father.

Ben and I stood in the shed. The computer was booted, VLC was displaying the opening frame of the movie on pause through the beautiful television. I looked at him. He looked at me.

"I'm hungry. Let's go to Sobey's"

We got down to viewing the film at 5. Gorged on pre-made pasta and pepsi, Ben managed half an hour of consciousness before passing out. I actually couldn't wake him up, so I killed the movie and went to bed myself.

New years came only a few days later. I spent most of those days working in the last of my obligatory 10 jams per year with Red Desperado Approach.

The Braj hosted a good party. I was feeling a little ill, so I didn't manage to make an appearance until about 11:30. Luckily things were just getting started. Numerous people showed up, including Wolfgang and his woman. Jen was back from Europe passing out on the couch from jet-lag. I got drunk on vodka and vodka freezies. I took a glass of champagne at midnight and then got Jen to drink hers fast and switch with me so as to escape abuse from the Braj.

Things started to lose momentum there, so we called Carl to see what was up.

Now, let me be clear here in case there's any covert blog snooping going on here:

We didn't receive any answer and Captain Carl certainly did not host a delicious plump-breasted New Year's Eve party.

There just happens also to be a gap in my recollection from around 2:30am until when Calder, Jen, and I entered our quarter of the city at around 6:00.

Anyway, I was really happy not to have to work on the 1st.

And now for something completely different:

Some time ago, Emily posted a little homegrown survey. Basically, the idea is that you load up your total music library and set it to random. Fill in one song per category, in order. In spite of its embarrassing lack of graphics or any other easy ways to snag my attention, it stuck in the back of my head, and I resolved to put it into my next available post. So here goes nothing:

Opening Credits:
James Brown - Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)

Waking Up:
DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump

First Day at School:
Bush - Mouth

Falling in Love:
The Cardigans - Been It

Fight Song:
Jamiroquai - Use the Force

Breaking Up:
Beastie Boys - Electrify

Prom:
DJ Shadow - Triplicate Something Happened

Life:
Bombay the Hard Way - Uptown Bollywood Nights

Mental Breakdown:
Beastie Boys - Alive

Driving:
Bush - History (Dub Pistols Mix)

Flashback:
The Cardigans - Your New Cuckoo

Getting Back Together:
Rage Against the Machine - Without a Face (Live)

Wedding:
Beastie Boys - Remote Control

Birth of Child:
James Brown - It's a Man's Man's World

Funeral Song:
Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade

End Credits:
DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump [Alternate Take Without Overdubs][Alternate Take]

Pretty nifty, hunh? I swear that none of that was contrived. Winamp was already open and playing, and when I got to this part of the blog I just waited for the next song to open and started going. It took a while, but it all went down eventually.

In other news, I have a job.

It's basically the same job I've always had. At the same place. There are repeated carrots dropped in front of me of new and interesting things happening at this job, but as yet they have come to nought. I don't even have a pigeon-hole in the office yet, let alone a voicemail box, or official email address. I just spend more time there doing less interesting things than I was doing before. And probably making the same amount (although I haven't been classless enough to ask). That last bit is particularly galling, given that I've been stepping pretty deeply into the shoes of my former boss who was a full-time salaried employee making considerably more per week than I ever have.

I thought about boring you with the details, but then realized that I don't have the energy to recall them. The most interesting thing I've done so far is get unexpectedly angry with a co-worker. She told me that she'd just found out that she had a half-sister her dad never told her about. Then she told me that she didn't ever want to meet her. I didn't cope with that well. Also, I threw up at work today.

That's all I needed to get across at this juncture.

Tally pip pip pip pip pip

2006-12-21T07:58:00.000-05:00

marriedtothesea.com

See you tomorrow, people.

But there's More Drunks that there are Good Doctors, so I Guess I'd Better have Another Round...

2006-12-17T13:09:00.000-05:00

Binks posted a link to a really neat article on another blog, which reminded me that I have all of these links that I've bookmarked while thinking "I should put that in my next post".

So, from my now quite lengthy bookmark list, I present "Things that I thought you might like. Because I liked them"
(Note, I don't come up with these on my own. Clearly StumbleUpon is at fault here)

(Note #2, after reviewing the bookmarks, there are enough that I might as well categorize them)

Webcomics:

Soysauce. Ever wondered what its like to be a Chinese-American cartoonist? Neither have I, but the chapter I've linked to discusses his amusing love for white girls.

Internet Predators is just a single comic strip that panders to my favourite niche of humour. For more substantial pandering to this niche, check out Alien Loves Predator.

While not strictly a webcomic, the Darkhorse "Browse by Title" page is really helpful if you're sitting up late at night wondering how close you came to collecting every Aliens comic ever produced when you were a kid.

Is this a real Calvin and Hobbes strip? I hope not...

Ever wanted to give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome by clicking page by page through possibly thousands of different manga fansubs? Well now you can!

The Comics I check every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (regardless of whether or not they update on those days):

-PA and CAD don't deserve links

-Sam and Fuzzy is probably my favourite webcomic

-Ben turned me on to MegaTokyo

-Questionable Content is generally amusing with its copious references to sex, computers, and popular music. Really, the condescending Indie attitude with which many things are presented is its only drawback

-Dinsaur Comics was the source of that amusing CBC report on "Internet" that I posted a week or so ago (Now long removed from YouTube by the CBC).

-Married to the Sea. Old-School webcomickry at its best. Another which probably doesn't need a link from me, but there are those among my readership who have probably not heard of it or seen someone else link an image from it.

-Red Meat. It's strange, I just started reading it last week.

-Rob and Elliot. Another Ben recommendation. Nuff Said.

-Piled Higher and Deeper. A webcomic about being a grad student. It's really only funny because I'm dropping out of university...

Next up, a more generalized category of "funny images" that didn't qualify as webcomics by any stretch of the imagination:

-Robot Gallery. I thought it was cool...

-Heaven is where...

-It's a fucking lemon.

-This picture's hilarity score (in LOLrandums) gets a serious increase due to having someone in it who looks scarily like me. And he's also the one striking the biggest pose.

-I just thought that this was really cool.

-Apparently this list changes every day. Or more often. I don't really know. There's definitely some funny shit going on in there though.

-Nostalgia....

-Some sort of street art... I dunno. Maybe my friends in Arts can give some more background on it.

VIDEOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-My favourite

-This is seriously one of the best videos I've ever seen

-I wish I did shit like this in Com-Tech

-Arawareru. Hard to type, easy to watch.

-Don't do this at home.

-The funniest internet-related video I've ever seen

-Ben wanted me to write a post about Jesus Camp. Unfortunately, Jesus Camp is sad not funny. This is really funny. It loops over and over though, so stop it once you've finished watching... unless you want to watch it again.

-I've heard about people doing this before, but its funny to see profs get their high-and-mighty shit ruined.

-I don't watch a lot of daytime television. Is it always like this?

Last but not least, everything else:

-YOUR MOM!!!!!!!ROFLMAO

-This is not a paid endorsement. For this store.

-Thanksgiving was a long time ago. But just pretend that this is topical and funny.

-With only minimal intelligence, you can move from the screen that I'm linking to into the greatest scrolling text adventure ever created

-Just click on her for a new one. You could spend days doing this.

-Here's a little something to get my guests ready for the upcoming festivities on the 26th and 27th

-Yeah, bitch! Type in your own URL and see how you compare!

-If you miss one question, you'll be sent back to the very start. So be careful.

-In spite of this game kicking extreme ass, you don't actually get a "memorial banner" when you beat it. Just be warned.

-Here you go children (and maybe parents) of the 80s.

-And finally, the last entry on my bookmarks that was worth reprinting here: Some insight in post-secondary level grading for those who aren't there yet, or have lost the experience in the mists of time. Be sure to read the comments as well.

So, now I can delete a solid number of my bookmarks. And maybe continue studying for the exam I'm writing tomorrow.

Toodles, kids

My Favourite Situations, are Always Sticky Kinds, I'll be the First to Cast Stones, I don’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

2006-12-15T16:07:00.000-05:00

Nothing like a little Danko Jones to pull me out of a week-long downturn in mood.

Basically, between the last time I posted and yesterday afternoon I didn't leave my house. I migrated between my bedroom and the living room, developing a method for turning our loveseat into a passable lounge chair in the process.

It as interesting in a morbid sort of way. Every day I just felt a little worse, a little less interested in things. By Wednesday of this week it took me most of the day to psyche myself up to go and buy groceries (having eaten every other possible item before even bothering to try).

There were various things compounding the problem. The most major one is that I basically live alone now. Every day I wake up around 10 to the sound of my roommates leaving to go to the library to study. The porker usually leaves within an hour after that. I usually spend this time malingering in bed listening to music.

Then I am alone in my house for the rest of the day. I study, I fiddle around on internet, I eat, and I watch MTV. My existence is pitiful. Around 6:30 or 7 the porker usually returns from work. I am pretty much always eating dinner watching MTV at this time. We have the same mechanical conversation where I ask him how work was, and then he goes down to his room. Shortly after that I usually go down to mine to study more, use internet (I may have said this before, but FF2.0 doesn't think internet is a word) more, and then read a little and go to bed. Until I ran out of reading material. Then I just went to bed. My roommates generally come home at around midnight and go straight up the stairs to bed.

Also, now that I don't have class I am basically the undisputed winner of all "I can go to bed later than you" contests with the porker. Still listening to sports highlights at 1:30 after a lengthy session of porking your girlfriend? No problem. Just let me cue up this 2 hour movie in VLC. I'll be sure to bumble around, take a piss, and trip over some grocery bags in the dark before I hit the sack.

Of course, I'm sure that that hasn't been going over too well with the man, so he mustered his cunning and found a new way to get even: On Wednesday morning I was awakened at 9:30, not by the sounds of Tito Puente issuing forth from my stereo, but by the sounds of vigourous porking through my wall.

Well played, porker, well played. I hope that you enjoy this uproarously loud Rage Against the Machine that's mysteriously begun pouring from my computer speakers. I've made sure to set the subwoofer at max.

Anyway, the only breaks were my aforementioned trip to the grocery store on Wednesday and a little get-together with Blake and Dan Monday afternoon. Blake had told me to meet him at the HMV in the plaza by our schools and I called Dan to see if he'd like to come along. Dan was in an exam at the time, but he had his phone set to vibrate, so I managed to annoy him very thoroughly for about 5 minutes before I hung up and decided to call him back in half an hour. At that point he was on his way to McDonalds to celebrate completing another exam unscathed. I told him to meet Blake and I when he was through.

It was a good time all in all. Blake and Dan bought things at HMV, I bought things at Sugar Mountain, we all went to McDonalds because Dan had mentioned it. Then we all went to Blake's and had meals in his cafeteria. After that we vegged out at my place for an hour or two. We watched this really funny video that someone showed Dan on internet, but I'm not going to link to it. It was that funny.

After that Dan drove Blake home and I slipped back into solitude.

My shopping trip on Wednesday was boring and uneventful. I had to spend several hours convincing myself that there was nothing for me to eat for dinner. Then I tried hard to think of what I would buy, as this would likely be my last shopping trip before the end of the term. After that, I wandered aimlessly around the store getting my groceries in no particular order. However, I did finally muster enough motivation to write a blurb about my apartment in order to sublet it. I posted said blurb on my school's website and hoped that someone would notice it.

The next day (Thursday) I had an exam, and was able to interact with people again. I've actually seen more of my roommates at the two exams I've had so far than any other time in between.

After the exam I went out with Tyler, Julie, Willis, another guy from my program named Jimmy, and Julie's smokin hot roommate. You know the one. We got dinner at East Side Marios and I told Julie that I'd pay her bill as I still owed her from the Chinese food incident in "Liam plays it cool with the females part 1". This was actually part of my cunning plan to get her drunk at dinner so that she'd come out with Willis and I afterwards instead of studying calculus with Jimmy. If she came, Tyler might come instead of going home to bed, and the smokin hot roommate might just hop along as well.

Unfortunately, as dinner progressed, it became apparent that the smokin roommate not only had an exam this (Friday) moring, but she also got light headed and nearly passed out in the bathroom for reasons which went unexplained to me. I did still get Julie drunk though.

After that I managed to keep our fracturing group together by suggesting we all go to Willis' place and cut my beard off. That's right. Several flaming shots of Sambuca later we were doing just that.

That's right folks. It's gone. Dead and gone. I haven't seen my neck in a year, and I'm happy to report that it hasn't defected to another country or anything in the intervening time. Any smokin hot females reading this right now, feel free to drop on by and inspect it for yourself. And by "inspect it" I mean "make sweet monkey love" and by "for yourself" I mean "in my freshly cleaned apartment". Yeah, I am still listening to Danko Jones. And yeah, I really did just clean my apartment.

So, after the spectacle of my face was revealed to our little group of adventurers, it looked like things were going to splinter off again. Tyler and Jimmy were looking to get home, the roommate looked like she might be in trouble if she didn't get to bed (alone) soon, and one of Willis' roommates had made fun of Julie for being drunk and surly, so now she didn't want to go out.

I played my last card.

...

The room stood silent for a number of seconds.

Most of them didn't believe me. I had to restate, and look strongly into people's eyes. I still didn't manage to convince anyone else to come out with Willis and I though, and everyone left soon after.

Willis and I talked about it. Eventually we branched off into general discussions of life, politics, etc. We were both a little drunk so we got pretty heated up over a few differences in opinion. It was a great time.

One of his roommates drove us out to The Duke of Wellington pub to start the night. The Duke is a great place to sit down and enjoy a drink. The table had a large TV with sports highlights on one side, and a great view of the live band on the other. I was the only person sitting on one side of the table. 3 screwdrivers later (piled on the 3 at dinner and the shots I'd had at Willis'), Willis and I packed up and rolled out. We walked almost a block, pausing only to urinate across the street from a cop-shop, to The Silver Spur.

The Spur is a place that I... would never ever go to sober if given a choice. If you couldn't tell from the name, the Spur is a hick bar. Or rather, a place where hick students and "hicks" get together in the middle of a bustling city to get hammed and start fights. However, this night it was rather amusingly filled with kids from my program all getting hammed and... singing karaoke. It's worth noting that I entered the bar quite a few steps behind Willis, my ID having been scrutinized harder by the bouncer than it ever was when I had a beard. No one from my program recognized me.

Willis saw a bunch of his friends (regulars, not the interlopers grinding in front of the karaoke stage) and we stood with them for a while. My Yngwie Malmsteen cap carved a good conversational niche for me, and I think that I did pretty well in spite of the fact that I really know nothing of guitar in general or of 80s shredders in particular. I bought a round for Willis and myself and settled in for a long haul. An hour later all of his friends had gone home, and we left shortly thereafter.

And by "left" I mean "went to another bar called The Fox and the Fiddle".

The Fox (seeing a trend?) is another reasonably decent sit-down pub sort of place. It's named like a pub, and sort of looks like a pub, but there are definitely some bar genes in its family tree somewhere. At any rate, I'd been there once before, and the live music was quite impressive. We stumbled in about 15 minutes before last call and sat down to see what the entertainment was like.

5 minutes before last call we made our exit. Two guys with guitars don't meet my taste at the best of times. When I'm drunk I get this uncontrollable urge to jam. I wasn't really interested in hearing lots of good classic rock songs without any drums behind them. Fuck acoustic music. Play it all you want to your girlfriend at home, but keep it out public places.

Anyway, that was the peak of the evening. We walked back up King St. talking boisterously. We stopped for subs, and then cut through side streets and backyards back to Willis' place. We were halfway through an episode of Fresh Prince on YTV when I heard my bed faintly calling my name over the night breeze. I bid Willis a good night and went on my way.

I breached my front door at about 3:30, attempting to make as little noise as possible on the way downstairs to my room. I performed my nightly pre-bed email check, and found that I'd already gotten 3 responses for my sublet posting. One of them mentioned that he had also left me a voicemail, so of course I clomped back up to the mail floor to listen to it.

After replying to two of the inquiries I hit the sack.

I woke up today at 12:30 to the sound of someone in the house beside me playing loud rap. I felt that not responding to this challenge might foster the wrong impression in my neighbour, so I booted my computer and set up a counter-bombardment. One of the guys I'd responded to earlier that night had already emailed me back again asking to view the house around 6:15 today. So I spent the afternoon cleaning my room and then the staircase down to it. Seriously, it's so clean right now that I could bring girls here. You know. If there were any who felt like dropping by.

So that's that really. The dude didn't show up to look at my apartment. I'm gonna have to email him about that, because I was really excited about it.

Oh yeah. Here's the big news:

The astute among my readership may have noticed that I neglected to mention what my "last card" was in the story above, cleverly replacing it with "..."

I've told a few of you already, so this won't come as a surprise to too many people reading this, but it's time to make it official and make sure that everyone's on the same page.

What do I and this toolbox have in common?

We're both college dropouts. I'm finishing off this term at my school and then I'm tendering my withdrawal. I'll be in Stratford living at home and working where I always work. I don't see that changing for a year-ish. I might very well come back here after, but right now I'm sick of feeling like I'm trapped at school with no other alternatives.

That's that basically. If anyone's jonesing for a place to live in Waterloo from May to August, drop me a line.

For Those About to Rock, We Salute You

2006-12-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again.

I've been up for 1.5 hours and I've already had 2 large bowel movements.

The reckoning begins at 12:30.

There is a respite until next Thursday, another until the following Monday, and then a day of rest before a double-shot on Wednesday and Thursday.

It's somewhat heartening to contemplate that by noon on the 21st this will all be behind me.

But to lighten the mood, can you put these images in the correct order?

1)

2)

3)

4)

Well, one more trip to the bathroom and then I'll finish reviewing my notes. Good luck to all in my position, and I'll see you on the other side.

On You didn't Know? I've got the Flow, I can Sing, Rap, Dance at just One Show

2006-12-06T19:06:00.001-05:00

I've never embedded a YouTube video before, and the process for doing so is so arcane as to almost stop me from trying.

I visited Dinosaur Comics for the first time in a long time today, and they were showing this little piece of CanCon.

It's absolutely awsome, and that's really all that there is to it.

Enjoy:

I'm Gonna Bust my Shoes, I'm Gonna Bust my Socks, I'm Gonna Spread my Word from Standing on this Box

2006-12-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

So, here's the latest:

I, after the Great Hard-Drive Disaster of 2006, have been limping along listening to nothing but Sublime and DJ Shadow, mostly because I was too lazy to find anything else. Yesterday I decided to agressively reacquire my collection of Beastie Boys music. It's kind of like falling in love again, except instead of draining my wallet and my energy, I just get to rock out to some serious doody-rhymes.

Of course, this was greatly helped by my discovery of DJ Green Lantern's Beastie Boys Remix album New York State of Mind. Find it, listen to it. That's basically all you need. If you're up to the challenge, go through his site and find the sample tracks for a listen. It's all done in flash, though, so I can't give a link. It's in the "store" section and this album is the one on the bottom left, the cover is all black and white. His remix of "Hold it Now Hit it" did it for me, and the rest of the album doesn't disappoint.

This renaissance of B-Boy grandeur got me on a quest for more interesting tidbits of theirs that I don't possess. I didn't get too far, but I have a target in my sights, and it has grabbed my fancy so that I even stuck it in as my new tagline at the top of the blog. Def Before Dishonor (silly american spelling...) is quite rare, apparently. I've found a copy on Ebay, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about acquiring it. Anyone who wants to help me with that (or give their favourite bearded friend a very special birthday present) please email me.

Def Before Dishonour is an excellent segue into my next important topic: Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew, check them out. I recommend scrolling down and watching the video for "Black Beard's Treasure". I predict this sort of music becoming a leading factor in my life when I move back to Stratford in January and get to spend more time with Carl.

Oh yeah, I'm moving back to Stratford in January for anyone who didn't know. I think I've mentioned that my first co-op term is coming up and that I'll be spending it at the same place I worked last summer. And the summer before that. And that. And the one before that. But this time I've been hired into a new position created just for little old me. I had a meeting with the CEO last Friday and she basically told me that my duties are just going to be general bitch-work for every department, with, probably, a focus on my own former department. Of course, she failed to let me know during the meeting that the only reason I'd be spending a lot of time in my old department was that she fired my old boss the night before! That's right. In no way shape or form have I been hired to replace my boss, but that's what it looks like, and I'm planning on making the most of that to all the people that I need to work with. I'm pretty sure that I even convinced the CEO to give me his old desk, so it'll be awsome.

On another note entirely, I received some strangely preceptive comments on my last full-length post from one Sharmin Chaltra. Aside from being named after a questionably soft brand of toilet paper the man seems to be alright. However, I know from long experience that interesting people don't just happen upon my blog (even if I am the first hit for a Google of my name...), and so, having just been lambasted by Binks for my lack of credible Googling skillz, I decided that I would try and determine who this person was. I picked his profile apart for anything really interesting. I decided that the photo was my best bet. It looked faintly familiar, but I couldn't remember where from. I thought that it might have been a movie, but which one in particular still eludes me to this day. The I noticed that the picture was linked from a Myspace profile. This was my big break. The address was:

http://myspace-173.vo.llnwd.net/00523/37/10/523780173_m.jpg

A search for the entire address was useless since nothing came up, ditto for portions of the address past the .net part.

So I Googled http://myspace-173.vo.llnwd.net/ and sifted through the results until I reached the 43rd page, where I found the photo leering back at me. Of couse, my work was far from over. The guys profile was restricted and I don't have a Myspace account with which t view it, but this is it, for anyone who's so inclined.

I ended up working from the Google page. The first thing I found was that his address was myspace.com/coleisme I don't know anyone named Cole, so this was slightly annoying. However, I felt that if I could read his profile, I might glean some more information. So, you know how Google gives you about 2 sentences of whatever it finds on a page? Yeah, I copy/pasted those sentences back into Google and read the sentences after them for a while. Nothing too interesting emerged. I was busy devouring a list of his favourite books

when

This came up in the first hit instead of his Myspace page. It's a Flickr page, and apparently our friend was too lazy to write a different profile for it than for his Myspace page. I'll save you the trouble of looking through it: This was, apparently, my elusive quarry. Now, the title of the picture is "Cole is sick in Mccleod Ganj", not knowing what Mcleod ganj was, I assumed (much like a certain high-school principal) that it was something to do with drugs. So, as a way to find out where the man was, I googled the name of the business behind him in the photograph. That took me to some promotional journal about Mclead ganj. I was having issues connecting, so I used Google's html version of the page to read it. I learned that a) Mcleod ganj is a city in India, which gave me an idea.

I'm a pretty arrogant person. I'm not gonna lie. It galled me slightly that this guy had walked into my blog and left his perceptive commentary without even bothering to acknowledge who he was or how he'd found me.

My response was tempered and crafted to provide the ultimate rebuke to his unspoken challenge. It was aimed at the centre of the mysterious cloud which covered him. Read it yourself. As far as I was concerned it was a sublimely casual way of letting him know that I knew just about everything about him, in spite of his attempts to keep it from me. It was a veritable cruise missile of cool employed as the first-strike option in a shock-and-awe campaign.

Which failed to hit, apparently. If you bothered to look at the comments you'll know that he denied ever going near the ganj which, given my photographic evidence to the contrary, hinted pretty strongly that it wasn't him. He went on to mention that he'd found me through Blake, when Blake had offered unsolicited opinions on one of his older blogs. Now, he names Blake as Jesus, which he hasn't gone by for some time, and the blog that he says Blake commented on, Car Full of Cash, no longer exists (although it certainly seems to have influenced the name of his current one). Is he telling the truth? You, my readers, may be the judge.

In any case, he's got a blog. It just seems to be the ramblings of another english student somewhere in the world. I've linked to it because the subject material has caught my fancy for now. I haven't left any comments because I'm uncomfortable giving literary advice to people I don't know. However, I doubt that Blake has any compunctions about it, and neither should you, dear reader.

Two more items of business before I sign off:

One: What the fuck happened to Jen? Can anyone read her blog anymore? Have I been excluded for a reason?

Two: My birthday is coming soon. Clear your schedules for the afternoon/evening of the 27th, and probably the morning and afternoon of the 28th if you want to be able to recover properly. While I don't have anything special planned for this year, I am excited to announce that I'll be hosting in conjunction with the lovely M-TOD, as her birthday falls the day before mine.

The format should be pretty much the same as many years past:

-I wake up late and curse having already missed half of my birthday

-I put the telephonic word out and engage in general merry-making throughout the afternoon

-I kick everyone except my really special friends out and eat dinner with them and my family. This dinner will hopefully be the traditional greasy mound of A&W burgers on the family china

-Prezzies follow. These are not required from anyone who doesn't share a really significant portion of my chromosomes. If you really want to buy me something, get booze and we can share it. And by "booze" I mean high-quality vodka, otherwise you're on your own

-At this point I reestablish contact with everyone that I kicked out as well as greeting new faces invited purely for the party itself and the drunken festivities begin. With any luck, we all get smashed, no one throws up, and Carl doesn't try to steal my party like he did last year... Or maybe that was 2 years ago. I can't remember. There's a good chance that he did it both times

The nitty grits:

-Don't invite anyone who I don't know. Don't let it be known that I'm having a party and tell all of your friends to come. I have enough friends to make things cozy at my place, I don't need any more. M-TOD's friends are the obvious exception. Also, my siblings are all of partying age, and I'd expect them to bring a friend or two to keep them company. Although I know most of their friends anyway so it's kind of a moot point

- Don't touch anything. The party will most likely be in my shed. The shed will probably be full of breakable objects. I will do my best to have these packed away, but they will still be there. Don't open any boxes, crates, etc. If you find something interesting, put it down and don't think about it. If I find you playing with my stuff while I'm drunk you'll be lucky to escape with a harsh mocking

-If you insist on drinking enough to make yourself throw up, I'm planning on providing a set of buckets/ garbage pails in my backyard for you to employ. No one is going to be passing out in my bathroom, so bear that in mind before you incapacitate yourself. You might want to employ a buddy system or something so that you don't freeze to death in my backyard

-On that note, I'm going to ask males to pee outside somewhere in my backyard. I'm trying not to annoy my folks by having a constant stream of drunken revellers running in and out of my house from the bathroom, so let the ladies use it. If you need to take a dump, kick yourself in the ass and remind yourself to go before you come next time. Also, don't pee on the path from my house to my shed. a) No one wants to walk on your piss, b) you'll make it icy and dangerous, and drunkards are notorious for not having the greatest balance

-I don't have plans for anyone to stay at my house. Exceptions can be made for people who live out of town and/or are too drunk to drive home. However I have limited room, so that will stay the exception and not the rule. Also, be sure to keep in mind that there will be:

-No fornication of any kind of my property. Keep it above the belt, and try to leave the drama at home. This is not a suggestion.

If we all try and follow these rules, everything should go swimmingly.

Time for dinner. Three cheers for peanut butter and jelly.

Edit:
It appears that the-person-who-is-not-Sharmin-Chaltra's Myspace page has become unlocked, as I can now see it easily. I discovered this as I checeked all of my links for this post. Apparently this person has his own blog, and you can check it here. However, since i really don't know the guy I haven't left any comments, and I won't be linking to him. He seems like a pretentious indie freakshow anyway.

This is the Song that Doesn't End, Yes it Goes On and On my Friends

2006-11-29T13:32:00.000-05:00

Two small but important pieces of info:

1) I forgot all about my amazing adventure with Danger on Saturday night. I may post about it in future, although if Danger wants to I certainly won't stop him.

2) I have stumbled onto one of the most interesting webcomics I've ever seen. It's called Slow Wave and every week the guy draws up a cartoon based on somebody's dream. I gather that people email then to him and he picks his favourite. Given my demographic, this is probably a good place to start. Enjoy.

Oh she Makes my Body Ache and you Know I Live for More, I won't Flake or Perpetrate, I won't Front no Funky Whore

2006-11-28T14:25:00.000-05:00

First, and most importantly:

Dan, learn your place at my heel. You have been retroactively removed from the links one day early due to your eagerness to point out my mistake from last month.

Carl, traditionally, Colonial Marines can expect a rescue 17 days after being declared overdue. In your case, you're being removed from the links 11 days after being declared a lazy ass.

Victor: Take a break from the GW for five minutes and try to find your way back onto my links.

Everyone else is safe for now. As always, parties who have mended their postless ways are asked to leave a comment here so that I know to welcome you back into the loving arms of the greater good.

A couple of other quickies to flesh out the post a little:

I'm so proud of where I come from. Here's the latest reason why:

So, Calder has a new band these days, the Darling Buds of May. And my sister decided for her entrepreneurship class that she'd organize a concert with a bunch of local bands. So, having drawn up a poster for said concert, she and her friends decided they should put it up at the high-school they go to. To be put up, it needed to pass under the sharp eye of the head administrator, who shall be known as the central scrutinizer from this point forth.

He took in the poster, and called them back for a follow-up the next day, where he promptly announced that the poster looked fine, but that "Darling Buds of May" would need to be removed, as it was clearly a brash reference to marijuana. Here's a chance for a little reader interaction: without finishing this story, go to the comments and leave an honest answer as to whether or not drugs were the first thing you thought of when you read Darling Buds of May. Then come back up here and finish reading.

Seriously, go.

So, my sister calmly explained to the central scrutinizer that, in fact, it was a quote from a rather famous Shakespearean sonnet. You know, the one that starts with "shall I compare thee to a summer's day"? Like, the most famous love-poem in the English language, maybe? Ringing any bells, scrutinizer?

Apparently not. He upheld his decision on the grounds that people would still think that it was a reference to weed. Did anyone else just groan out loud at the thought of young minds under this person's power? I mean, the actual truth of what was happening didn't even matter to the man. The fact that people (of little taste, class, or education) might conceivably interpret it as a drug-related message was more important than the fact that this would be a total misinterpretation of the message itself. In an institution of "education", the administration is making important decisions based on public ignorance. I am so glad that that man was only in charge for the last year I was there...

Liam plays it cool with the females Ep.1:

So, I may or may not have mentioned that there is this really hot girl who lives with one of my friends. Smokin hot. Blake can attest to this (She was the girl who said hi to me right before the express bus showed up the day we went to see DJ Shadow, thus destroying any chance of conversation. I believe I referred to her as a "hot broadski" at the time).

Anyway, my friend was trying to invite a bunch of people over to watch a movie and eat Chinese last night. I thought this to be an excellent plan, and committed myself to the endeavour. By 5 o'clock everyone but me had dropped out of the plan. So it was going to be me, my friend, and my friend's smokin hot roommate.

We get to my friend's house, and there she is. I attempt "idle chat", asking her what kind of chinese food she likes. She replies with a rapt, almost sexually pssionate, list of three of four items, culminating in "really well steamed vegetables". I couldn't top that. Not ever. I divulged that I really know nothing of Chinese food, and was saved by my friend yelling for me from her room.

A short time later, we were all in the roommate's room and I was supposed to be ordering the food. I did so, and then my friend and I loitered in this girl's room while she did something on the computer. Idle chat kicked in again, "What are you doing?"

"Finding references for the paintings I'm using in my essay," I look at a computer screen full of pictures and words, I manage to pick out a naked woman amongst the colours of one. They are all old-looking paintings.

"Oh yeah? What's the essay on?"

"Rape in art."

Oh. Cool... This girl is a fine arts student at Laurier, FYI. And by that I mean a fine arts... oh nevermind...

So, I had a choice here. I could let that slide. Clearly I know nothing of rape in art, and likely she doesn't want to explain it all to me. My other choice is to bullshit a little bit and hope that I can come off looking like I know more about art than I do, and also being able to express interest in her essay without making her give me a lecture on it. Yup, all those wheels in my head were turning pretty fast at this point.

So, I don't think I really need to mention which choice I made. The only thing now was to think of an appropriate piece of bullshit to work with. My options, however, were quite limited. Well, completely limited if you must know. The only rape in art I'd ever heard of was Lucretia. Not that I really knew anything about it. It was Roman and I was hoping that that made it old enough to get me started on a road down famous rapes in history.

"Cool, so you've Lucretia in there somewhere?"

A glimmer of interest in her eye. Had I made it? Was she seeing something behind the beard?

"Well yes, but there's plenty before that," Damn, "Like, blah blah blah, something about someone getting raped by a swan"

"Right on."

Bullshit terminated, due to inefficacy.

The rest of the evening was pretty decent, although not from the "hitting on my friend's roommate" angle. The food arrived eventually. We decided to watch a movie from a box of tapes that the hot roommate's mom had given her. She picked out one that she said she'd wanted to watch, but had been too afraid to do so alone.

Well, that was good. Stereotypes throw me another bone! I actually thought it was a decent film. And by decent, I mean totally hilarious in a laughing-at-you-not-with-you sort of way. I think it was called Red Riding Hood but I can't find it through Google, so I don't know for sure. It was about a girl of 12 years whose mother moves to Rome with her, hooks up with some young man, and then skips town with him, giving the girl the keys to their penthouse appartment and a credit card. What happens? Rampant sex and drug addiction? Does she befriend a group of street children and selflessly and heart-warmingly rehabilitate them back into society? Nope. She becomes a night-stalking vigilante. Fuck yeah. With dialogue almost as stirring as that which I'd been engaging in myself not so long before.

So, unfortunately, it wasn't scary at all. Which sort of negated the "not watching it alone" aspect of my plans (not that I was sitting beside her anyway, given that they have 3 couches in their living room). Then she left 2/3 of the way through to finish her essay.

The quest continues...

I Want You to Meet the Baddest Motherfucker in Town

2006-11-25T15:05:00.000-05:00

So, a small but very important update, here:

First, I happend to Stumble onto this last night after I wrote the last post. I definately deserves some serious recognition.

And second, fuck this guy, guess who's back on top of the Google dog-pile?

There's Something I Should Tell You, Before I Take Your Blindfold Off

2006-11-24T23:45:00.000-05:00

Week from Hell #2: Complete.

This week proceeded pretty much as I predicted it would two posts ago. I received another happy blow to the testicles in the form of a calculus midterm on Monday, worked into the wee hours writing a lab on Tuesday, worked into the wee hours summarizing psychology articles on Wednesday, cut class on Thursday and worked into the wee hours to a) finish summarizing the articles and then write analyses (This is a real word. Apparently I just pwn the shit out of FF2.0 at the english language) of them and b) write up a chem lab report and start an informal chem lab report. Today I finished the chem labs, actually went and performed the second of the labs, and then came home to do nothing for as long as I wanted.

Out of it all, the psych articles were the absolute worst. The assignment was to read these 5 articles, and for each write a half-page summary and a half-page analysis. Now, I know that that sounds easy. I thought it was going to be easy. I mean, together that's one page per article, or 500 words single-spaced. I've written almost half that much already. I've made severe fun of people for complaining about something like this. However, I would like to think that the circumstances here were a little skewed. Take, for example, the assignment itself: a single piece of paper with very little written instruction on it. Basically the only thing I can remember from it was that the instructor used the word incisive. I think I can say that that is the single most interesting word that any teacher (prof or otherwise) has ever used in any of my assignments. It is also the only reason that there isn't a small object, slightly reminiscent of a pineapple, sitting in the assignment drop-box labeled "Research Assignment, Liam N.V.G. McKenna, Pull Pin to View Articles".

Returning to the point, the only thing I can remember is that he used the word incisive. There was no real instruction or clarification as to what was required. Just a summary (simple enough) and an analysis (not so simple). So I attempted to clear out the rust choking my critical thinking and writing centres, and sat down to work.

After a quick review of the assigned articles, I came to an immediate conclusion. I was not fucked, per se, but I would need to institute some pretty radical measures. The first was to read the articles not in the order they had been assigned, but in reverse. Here's why: Article #5, #4, and #3 were all 8 pages in length. Article #2, a somewhat wordy 20 pages. Article #1 40 bleeding pages, or, for those of you keeping score, just less than the other 4 articles put together. So, yeah, I decided that I'd save that one for last.

After that I read a lot and typed some. I summarized 5, 4, and 3, and attempted to gain a foothold on 2. However, by that point I was far too tired to be up to challenge. I broke the article down into major sections and went to bed. I woke up 6 hours later and got back to it. Well. I got up 6 hours later, got up again 45 minutes after that, peed, and then got back to it. I finished summarizing number 2, by summarizing my sections, picking the best sentence from those summaries, and cobbling them all together. I sat, coldly, in the bulky shadow of number 1. I told it to get fucked and went ahead and summarized the other 4, this time starting with 2 (which was fresh in my head) and working forwards. Now might also be the proper time to mention that article #2 was the worst fucking thing I've ever read in my life. Picture someone who prints 14 pages of english, and in those 14 pages manages to reference over 80 other articles, and still manages to say nothing. It was absolutely terrible. However, I might just have to thank it for providing me with more than enough material for a damning analysis so hot that I had to disconnect my graphics card and type blindly lest it melt that and my monitor into nothingness. The other three weren't really interesting, so I won't get into them.

Here are some other newsworthy events:

You asked for it, and here it is: The Porker Revisited.

Here's a slice of domestic tension for you: Having just capped off the events in last weeks discussion of my roommate's silly antics, we arrive at last Friday. This may not sound like it has anything to do with my roommate, but I fucking love gyros. Wolfgang got me to eat some the last time we hung out, and I was thoroughly impressed. So, last Friday I saw a sign at the plaza beside my campus advertising 2 gyros for $6. I went there at lunch with my friend Willis, and we intended nothing short of thorough enjoyment of some good food. May I add that this deal was 2 for 6$ tax included, and that it was only available to UW students and RIM employees. That's right, fuck you pricks. Needless to say, I was excited.

We walked into the store and got in line. I wouldn't have guessed it before that day, but apparently there are a lot of people in Waterloo with good taste. However, disappointment was about to strike me like a glass bottle full of AIDS virus to the face. They didn't take credit. It was a cash only deal, and let's just say that I haven't actually entered a bank to get cash from since the start of September. Anyway, it takes me a few seconds to realize it, but fate is not through with me. Right in front of me in line is the porker. We exchange pleasantries. He makes no mention of how he bravely sent his porkee up to quiet my partying roomates the night before.

Then he begins his moving his mouth, releasing sounds, starting a train of thought which will end up causing me extreme frustration. This is pretty much a verbatim quote: "Oh yeah, um I'm going home for the weekend, but [the porkee]'s house is really loud so she's, like, gonna be sleeping at our place while I'm not there". This doesn't really interest me. It would have been nice to have a floor of the house to myself all weekend, but sovereign sway over the laundry machines is a sweet nectar I'm happy to sample another time.

"Oh yeah. But, like, I don't wanna give her my keys," [klaxons begin ringing], "because I want to be able to use them myself when I get back on Monday."

Awsome, fuckin awsome. Tell me, porker, is she going to teleport through the walls or go Victor Tooms all over our house?

So what was his brilliant plan? Not leave the door to our house unlocked all weekend, thank god. However, he did propose leaving the back door unlocked all weekend, since the back door leads to a tunnel, which leads to another door. By unlocking our door and giving her to key to door #2, he could keep the key to our door and use it to get in the front on Monday. Anyway, even though I was disinclined to acquiesce to his request, I did anyway. Then I went home several hours later, told my other roommates, and they went down to the basement and locked the door. The logic being that if the porkee showed up at a reasonable hour she could get in the front door anyway.

She did show up at a pretty reasonable hour on Saturday. Saturday was a really good day. One of my roommate's mom, aunt, and cousin showed up and we all went shopping. Well, they shopped. I flirted with the cousin and idly picked up a small number of groceries to justify having come along. Then the faj dropped by that afternoon and I actually went shopping. He also told me that he was going to buy me some new pants, and that he wasn't taking no for an answer.

This is a bit of a touchy subject between me and my family. Basically, I don't own any good looking clothes. I have some shirts that can look good as long as they're paired with good pants, but I don't have any good pants at all to speak of. In fact, since I got to school in September I've just been trading off between a pair of blue jeans and my ragged army pants. I used to have a pretty nice pair of ModRobes, which were black and therefore pretty good for dressy occasions, but Carl lost them. Last May. Numerous promises were made at the time to find/replace them. Nothing has come of this. So, whenever I come home for a weekend, I'm wearing the same things that I'm always wearing. The trouble is, I usually only come home for important events like birthdays, thanksgiving, etc. So, at about 4:30-5:00pm, usually on Sunday, a heated argument will erupt between my parents and myself as to why I hate my family so much as to never dress appropiately for special occasions. I usually attempt to counter this by saying the the braj, Calder, and Siobhan all wear the same things that they normally wear, and that they just happen to wear nicer things than me. Except for Calder, but he's special.

Anyway, there is also a slightly longer history involving my mother trying to make me wear pants tight enough to shame most skinny punk dolts. So, whenever the rents try to give me pants, they're usually things that will never ever grace my supple flesh.

However, the faj simply wanted to see me clothed, and we bummed around Conestoga Mall until we found what was probably the best option: Two pairs (there was a sale on) of "Bens" from Bluenotes. As I said, not quite up to my usual standards, but still the best on offer. As well, they make me look more metro, so I can wear them whenever I see the braj and want to get compliments. Oh yeah, and my waist-size has increased by an inch. I was originally seriously worried that I wasn't going to find any pants that didn't want to wrap my testicles in their death-grip, until a clerk couldn't find a pair in my size, and gave me one size up. The change of just one inch around my waist was incrdible, and that pretty much sealed the deal.

So, I get home with these pants and throw them in the washing machine in order to be able to wear them as soon as possible. I sit down at the computer and get down to some good old fashioned time-wasting. At this point my earlier plot-line involving the porkee comes into play. She came over while I was engrossed with my pixelated (FF2.0 suggests "pix elated") delights, and didn't even say hi to me. She went straight to the porker's room, dropped her stuff, and proceeded to clean the entire basement (except my room). It was unbelievable. She started with his room, laid out the bathroom in record time, and proceeded to sweep and vacuum the floors of the hallways and laundry room. Then she did his laundry. I was alerted of this by the sound of the washing machine running, even though I was sure that my clothes must have been done. Wow, I thought to myself, she's really nice moving my laundry along for me without even asking...

Nope. She left it in a wet pile on top of the washing machine. No joke. I'm sitting less than 10 feet away with my door open, and she doesn't even ask if I want to move my shit to the dryer so that she can wash her bone-provider's soiled garments. This reassured my belief that most women are actually mildly retarded, but have been taught all their lives that they're smarter than me. Maybe someday I'll write a famous article about it.

The only other interesting thing I've done lately is Stumble onto this. If you're from the same place as me and feeling a little homesick, it might just help you out. My personal favourite is this one, which I might employ in that article I'm going to write.

Goodnight, folks.

We're Only Gonna Die for Our Arrogance

2006-11-18T22:21:00.000-05:00

What? Two posts in as many days? Inconceivable!

Before I begin, I'd just like to mention one thing: radiojazz Toolbar for Firefox. It's an add-on that gives you access to some ridiculous number of jazz internet radio stations in a toolbar in Firefox. As soon as Firefox is open, you have an effectively limitless supply of jazz available at the click of a drop-down menu.

And a bunch of other shit, too. Maybe they thought that they needed to put in a bunch of other random things (email checker, 3-day weather forecast) in order to justify taking up a whole toolbar. I dunno. I disabled all of it until I was left with the bare essentials, namely a drop-down menu full of stations and anything else that couldn't be disabled by me. Also, I have removed the toolbar space normally allocated to Bookmarks in FF, so having this new toolbar hasn't actually decreased the ammount of space which FF uses to, you know, show me the internet and stuff.

Now, I would have given this extension 10/10 on the awsome scale. Seriously. Except that... it doesn't seem to work all of the time. After playing all afternoon in my basement while I was out doing things, it stopped working for more than 10 minutes at a time this evening. Which kind of upset me. I thought that it might have just been the station I was tuned to, but before I could change it, I got curious about another button, a small circle right at the end of the drop-down menu. I clicked it, and it turned out to just harmlessly minimize the menu. I clicked it again, and the menu jumped back to its full size. Without the arrow to drop it down.

So, I don't know if it's just one station, or the entire extension that's gone sour, because I can't change stations. Download it at your peril. I can sort of give it the benefit of the doubt for now... I dunno how much longer that will last.

Now for the meat of my post:

I have done something(s) bad. I know you may find that shocking, but it's true. I'm sure that you'll be further surprised to discover that the exact way I managed to do said bad thing, was by shooting off my big inter-mouth. Please raise your extended jaws before you drool all over your keyboards.

Binks is an awsome guy. He's one of the many Stratford-Waterloo transplants who keep this little community running smoothly. If you click the link, you'll notice that he posts reasonably often, and I enjoy reading all of his work. I also enjoy commenting on his work. But don't bother to try and do that, because he doesn't allow comments on his posts anymore.

*cough*

I found this out just a little while ago, while reading the latest at Granite's blog. Read it. If you aren't a) Binks, b) Granite, or c) me, it'll go a long way to bringing you up to speed. It's all the background you need for this stage of the post.

So, you'll notice that Binks goes out of his way to be nice and not mention that the person he's talking about in his lengthy comment of explanation is me. That was quite big of him, and it has given me the chance to own up and take the blame for myself.

Now, to categorically explain what has happened (otherwise there's a chance this will come in at a decent word-count):

First, the PS3 post which no longer exists mentioned at the top of the comment:
Basically, there was some survey about PS3s from which Binks quoted a number of statistics, rounding them all off to the nearest 5%. Granite commented that that was misleading. Binks responded that he'd done it because it made it easier to read, and (more importantly) that the statistics all had some measure of error, usually in the range of 5%. Thus, the numbers Binks used were just as valid as the ones quoted in the study. Repeat. Ad nauseum. I actually missed the whole thing happen. I'd been busy having the hell week I posted about below, and just happened to find this post on Binks' page when I visited it. Seeing that the comments had reached into the mid-teens, I figured that there was some exciting debate going on. I was quite wrong.

I am the person whose "most stimulating comment was insulting". I won't deny that. I will even not take up a defense against Binks' accusation that it failed to possess "a decent attempt at being clever". However, the reason that I won't bother arguing those things is...

That I don't remember what I said. It was a 2-parter. Basically the thrust of it was "Please stop this ridiculous argument" which I attempted to deliver (apparently with a distinct lack of cleverness) in the package of an insult directed at both of the parties. What irks me most, is that I can remember what I said about Granite. I thought it was silly, and wouldn't be taken seriously. It was something about vegans not being attractive (Granite having just told me recently that his girlfriend had gotten a job at a vegan restaurant). But I can't remember what I said about Binks. Apparently it was above average on the "tasteless" scale.

So, Binks, I am sorry about that. Well, that's a lie. I am 99.99% very sorry about that. I am 0.01% very angry that I can't remember what my (apparently) awsome bombshell of an insult was (and, don't worry, there is no 5% shuffle room in those figures). But it's probably best that I don't know.

Now, as Binks said, the post doesn't show up anymore. So, if that had been the extent of my wrong-doing, you would be happily navigating away from this page right about now. But, it wasn't and so, hopefully, you aren't.

When Binks says that none of the comments on his posts are about the topics of the posts, he's right. At least for me. I've only commented 2 other times on Binks' blog recently.

The first was on this actually quite interesting post about finding out that someone is dead (Required reading. It's not that long). I read through it all, and remembered actually feeling the same way when I found out that DNA had bitten the dust. I was going to write a comment about how right he was, and that he'd really hit on an interesting idea.

But then. In the time it took to load the comments page (not that that was a long time. A split second, really) I remembered, "Binks said he only finished reading the Guide a few days ago... Didn't he steal one of my Douglas Adams books 3 years ago?". And then I had to write a comment about that, because the thought of Binks stealing one of my favourite books for months, and not even knowing who the author was was even more interesting and personal than the idea he'd shared in the post.

Also, we managed a bit of banter about it in the comments after that.

However, my most recent commentary (Required. Don't whine, it's not like there'll be a test. And the video is pretty funny), may have been what did it.

Now, in my defense, here is what I saw:

Binks found a pretty funny video and posted it. I mean, the guy shoots himself in the foot. It's classic. But then he proceeded to put forth a couple of opinions that I thought were completely wrong on more than one level. It seemed to be everyone against the poor cop with the limp, and I decided to weigh in on his side.

Now, I did weigh in rather heavily. I mean, this is what might have happened in a similar situation:

Binks and I are just sitting down to lunch at a restaurant. We order our meals (we both have the same thing), chat amiably, and then tuck in when the plates arrive. After a couple of bites, Binks looks out the window, turns to me and says, "It's a shame the weather's been so bad lately, eh Liam?"

At this point I look out the window, and allow at least 850 milliseconds for a confused look to register on my face. Then I overturn the table, meals and all, onto Binks, kick him in the shin, and then beat him vigorously about the face with a salt-shaker while saying, "I don't think I quite see where you're coming from there, Binks. It's been pretty good around here lately".

So, I'm sorry about that as well.

So, in conclusion, I am sorry x 2. Binks, please let people comment on your blog again. I will make a concerted effort to make my comments serious and impersonal. I stand by the factual worth of what I wrote in the comments for the Death and Foot Shooting posts, but I could have delivered them in a better way.

I am also additionally sorry that this has happened (as you said in your comment on Granite's post) during this of all the months of the year. Tonight is probably the last night for the next 6 days that I'm even going to be able to run through my links and see who's posted. The stress is high, and I didn't mean to contribute to yours, especially with something so pointless as passionate blog commentary.

I can't think of anything clever to end this with, so I'm sorry again.

Oooh, and I found an extension for FF that just opens a game of Minsweeper whenever you click on it. But I haven't played it yet, so I can't really comment on its worthiness.

She Said, You're Not the Only One, But You're the Best Liam (Pop Pop)

2006-11-17T17:51:00.000-05:00

First off,

Harry Potter

You scored 28% outgoingness, 75% intelligence, and 70% goodness!

You are the problemsolver of many situations. Love, however, doesn't seem to going your way at this time of life. It's time to put your intelect in the mix; you will be bettet appriciated.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 14% on outgoingness
You scored higher than 71% on intelligence
You scored higher than 71% on goodness

Link: The Which Movie Character Are You Test written by 5934 on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Now, if you're a fool like me, you'll take the test and find out your answer. However, it turns out that the site that hots that quiz also just happens to also have a small line of work in online dating. So you'll need to create a useraccount before you can view our answers. Its your choice whether or not you want to do that. I, having already decided that this quiz would be the lead into this post and having already answered all of the questions, felt that it was. However, I will warn you beforehand, unlike that site or any of Dean's Crew (through whom I found it) so that you can be more informed in your decision making.

Now, onto the good stuff.

I had a meeting with my Co-op advisor a few weeks ago. I'm sick of the bullshit being shovel-fed to me on a daily basis by the Uni's job matching service. So I told her that I've found my own job in Stratford, at the place I worked all summer. Which is true. I've had a job waiting for me there since August. The only thing is that I haven't talked to anyone from there since August either. Anyway, I take this lady through the details of the job as I'd heard them in August, she asked me if it would be full-time for the whole term. I lied and said yes. They won't even schedule me full-time, but since I'm going to working for almost all of the departments at the place, I might actually be pretty close. As for employing my for the whole term, I doubt that they'd want to do anything else.

So, she hooks me up. She says that there's a form online that I have to fill out and submit in order to have the place checked out and approved. No problem, I think to myself. The form's only 1.5 pages long. Then she goes into the job matching service and changes my status so that I can no longer apply to jobs through it, and can now submit the online forms for finding my own job.

I leave the place feeling good. When I get home, as a precautionary measure, I send out an email to my old CEO and immediate supervisor to bring them up to speed on what's happening, and ask them to a) clarify my job description a little for me, and b) take a look at the online form to make sure there's nothing special on it that I might have missed.

I sent that email Tuesday of last week. I have yet to receive a response. Wednesday of this week (over a week since I sent the first email) I sent another to the same people asking if they'd even gotten the first one. The CEO sent me a response within the day saying that even though she'd gotten the first one, she hadn't had a chance to meet with my supervisor yet and wouldn't be able to do that until next week. Oh well. I'm sure they didn't need that form anytime soon anyway...

School is hellish. Here's my schedule, from the top of this week:

Monday:
Calculus tutorial assignment (I've mentioned them before. Study the previous week's material, then head to the tutorial to write a finger-bitingly difficult assignment. The only reason they get finished is because they're open-book and you are allowed to work in groups). My MO for these is to spend the 4 hours between when my last class ends and the tutorial begins to get my shit together for the assignment.

Monday = write-off.

Tuesday:
I have 2 lab reports due on Wednesday, and 2 midterms on Thursday. I spend the whole night doing one of the lab reports. I take the chance that the other isn't actually due (we just need some of the results to continue the experiment this week). I get no studying in for the midterms.

Wednesday:
Morning: class.
Early afternoon: Attempt to get results ready for second lab.
Rest of afternoon: Hand in finished lab report, and head (without the needed answers) to my other lab. Manage to finish it anyway without them.

Evening: I discover the joys of cramming for an exam. Well, two exams. The first was scheduled for 8:30 Thursday morning and was for Biomechanics. The second was Organic Chemistry at 1:00. Orgo required significantly more study than biomech. I started at 7, taking a 15 minute break every 45 minutes. This worked surprisingly well, and I will probably employ it again in the future. I studied organic until about 12:30ish. I spent the next 2 hours working on biomech. It was at 2:30 that I realized two things: 1) that I needed quite seriously to go to bed, and 2) that biomech was actually a little harder than it looked. Not much, but enough to make me uneasy.

Thursday:
I get up, determined to feel good simply to be alive. This was also a good tactic, and I will probably try to do it for every exam I write in the future. It was very calming and grounding, which was what I needed most on little sleep (more on that in my next little topic) and no confidence.

Biomechanics was not as hard as I expected it to be. There is a chance that my performance on that exam was adequite.

After biomech, I went and bought a sandwich at Subway (I have no food, and was in no state to make it when I woke up anyway). Then I attempted to continue studying for orgo, which was 3 hours away.

It didn't work too well. No matter what anyone tells you (not that I'd expect them to tell you any differently) organic chemistry is fucking hard. It doesn't help that my prof (who I like) basically didn't teach the unit well at all. Here's how it went:

Prof: Here's a couple of chemicals. How do you think they'll react?

Student: [gives an explaination of through the methods he's just shown us]

Prof: ... Wrong.

This usually happens for one of two reasons. Either a):

Prof: You forgot to think about [insert totally random, seemingly unimportant tidbit from 2 lecutres ago]

Or b:

Prof: This is a whole new kind of chemical reaction we haven't learned about yet.

I wasn't a big fan of this teaching style. By teaching solely through examples for the whole unit, no two of which were ever the same, I didn't really get a feel for any steps I should take, or the order I should take them in in order to figure out how a reaction will proceed.

So, basically, this is a roundabout way of saying that I bombed the organic midterm, and not in a good way.

I did the obvious thing: Walked my roommate (who also bombed) back home so that she could not look crazy by bitching at me instead of to the sky about how much she hates school, stood in my house for 5 minutes, and then went all the way back to campus to meet Blake at KO for some stiff drinks and some catching up.

We met. We talked. We ordered drinks. We noticed that there was a table in KO that has a chessboard painted on the top.

Blake tore me a new one at chess. Half by invoking strange rules, half by being a member of the chess club. I won the first round, and Blake proceeded to drop bombs on me for the next 3.

Then we went and had dinner at Laurier and chatted amiably.

I went home, ploughed through some more Megatokyo archives, read a little bit of The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, and hit the sack.

At 9:00.

So, the logical among you are asking "Where did he get the Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy?"

I got it from Blake while I was at Laurier. He told me I needed reading material, and I realized he was right.

Those among you who don't care about unexplained plot details are probably asking yourselves, "Why did he go to bed at 9 o'clock." And probably also calling yourselves clever for thinking that this was an unexplained plot detail.

You are, of course, wrong. Probably on both counts, but most certainly on my early sleeping being unexplained. I mentioned that I hadn't been getting enough sleep half a page ago, I also said that I'd be elaborating at some point in the future of this post.

That point is just below this one:

I haven't had the chance to sleep well this week. Let's review:

Saturday night:
After a satisfying LAN gaming session with Granite and Danger, I stuck around my house waiting for some guys from Thuderdome to give me a call. They didn't. I hung around my house until 1 am when my Dad was on his way home and stopped to pick me up. We chatted all the way home, and more once we got there. I probably hit the sack around 2.

Sunday night:
During a very enjoyable birthday dinner for my father at McKenna Estates, he received a copy of the director's cut of Aliens on DVD (FF2.0 doesn't recognize DVD as a word...). Needless to say, we viewed it with much zest immediately after dinner. Unfortunately, due to it being sort of longer than the regular version, it didn't end until 12:30. Then I went to my room and read some of my childhood collection of Aliens inspired comic books. I don't really know when I hit the sack, but it was probably in the 1:30-2:30 range.

Monday night: Happy to be able to sleep after a tiring weekend, I crawled onto my mattress on the floor at 11:30. Only to have to listen to my roommate porking (FF2.0 spelling suggestions: poking, poring, corking, forking, working [too many of those are eerily appropriate]) his girlfriend. Now, don't get me wrong here. The man can pork his girlfriend in his own home. The act itself is nothing I can rightfully complain about. They do it all the time. There were really just 2 key differences here: The first, is that they normally get it out of the way before I go to bed. That way I just turn up my music, and continue surfing the internet, or whatever else I'm doing in the 10-11 o'clock timespot. This time, I don't know what was happening, but I heard them about 5 minutes after I shut my light off.

The second is a little more important. Normally I don't even hear them until they're getting ready for the end. Then a sound, much like a slab of fat being slapped against a wet rock, pervades the basement (This is the time that my music usually reaches its maximum volume for the evening). This happened at least 5 times on Monday night. I dunno, maybe they ate something funny. I'm pretty sure that they finished at 1:30.

Then the fucker turned on the TV to watch sports highlights for another hour.

About halfway through that, I heard an interesting snippet of conversation.

Him: [mumble mumble] chocolate

Her: Yeah. OK.

Him: Yeah. If you get chocolate, get milk too. Otherwise just go for a pizza.

I shit you not. The guy fucks his girlfriend's brains out, and then sends her to get him food. Now, I'm sure that they were both pretty hungry by this point. Not just because of their exertions, but also because they'd gotten pretty stoned before they went at it. Once again, I don't care that my roommate sparks up in our house. In fact, it barely smells in my room at all. For some reason, it actually stinks up the main floor of our house far more.

Anyway, so you hear the sound of her getting up and heading to the kitchen. He heads for the shower. Leaving the TV on.

I hear banging and clattering from the kitchen. This continues for an indefinite amount of time. I was so tired by this point that I was wishing I hadn't been born. Although (to blatantly steal from Douglas Adams) this was likely because I wasn't thinking straight. Otherwise I'd just wish that my roommate hadn't been born.

He comes out of the shower. She continues murdering my kitchen. Apparently she was making muffins. Anyway, just as I was getting attuned to the noise level.... she sets off the fucking smoke alarm. I couldn't god-damn well believe it. That also managed to wake up my other two roommates. Eventually everything stopped. I went to sleep. I can't really remember it though.

Tuesday night:
My roommate goes out at 7. He comes back at 1. Insert pathetic noises over background of sports highlights in television.

Wednesday night:
I get my revenge. I make sure to keep my music at an annoying level while studying until 2 am. I'm pretty sure that it worked. I dunno though.

Which brings us back in line with the original story at
Thursday night:
I decide to go to bed at 9. It was a wicked idea. I was seriously looking forward to 11 hours of sleep before getting up for class today (Friday). I did manage to drift off eventually. I was awoken at several points during the night, but I have no idea when they were because I don't have a clock (well, I do, it's in my stereo [which wakes me up in the morning] but it isn't visible at night). They were:

-roommate coming home

-roommate porking girlfriend

-other roommates and a few friends coming home from watching Borat

-other roommates noisily pre-drinking (incidentally, this happened late enough that my roommate [the porker] sent his girlfriend [the porkee, I guess] to tell them to be quiet. Luckily a full-scale incident was avoided as they were just on their way out to catch a cab to some bar)

and

-roommates and friends coming home trying to be quiet

I woke up feeling tired, so I can only assume that one or more of the above events happened late enough to make me that way.

And that has been life.

Oh, continuing our theme of "school is hellish", here's my schedule for the next week:

This weekend:
Study calculus. I don't have a tutorial assignment on Monday. I have a midterm. It's at the same time, for the same length of time, and features basically the same shit. Only its from all across this half of the term. Oh, and it's closed book and done individually. So, basically, harder than the normal ones without any of the benefits.

Monday:
Is really my busiest day. I'm just gonna be doing the class/ midterm thing.

Tuesday:
I have a massive lab (the one I didn't do Tuesday of this week) due on Wednesday.

Wednesday:
I have a massive set of papers due for psych on Thursday.

Thursday:
I have a chem lab report due on Friday when I start my lab. Said lab is informal, which means that there's a section of the lab manual that we fill out as the experiment is performed and then hand in at the end of class. Which means that you damn-well get as much done before class as you possibly can. So I'll also be doing that.

See You Space-Cowboy

But [he] Can Play That Guitar Like a Motherfuckin Riot

2006-11-07T19:55:00.000-05:00

This post is a sombre one, dedicated to the memory of that jazz guitarist, womanizer, and great prophet of our times: Blake Bilyea. The man hasn't been heard from in a week, and we can only presume the worst. I was getting a pita for lunch last Thursday when I caught the headline for the latest issue of The Cord (Laurier's inferiorly named school newspaper): Student in custody while other student's face being held together in hospital by staples. Or something. I'm not joking. I'm just going to assume that Blake is one of the kids being mentioned.

Let's break it down a little:

Blake hasn't posted since Halloween, and hasn't responded to commentary on that post.

Blake is never, never, on Gmail chat anymore.

Blake has so far neglected to respond to 2 personal emails within the past week.

To reinforce the gravity of what I'm talking about, here are some images recovered from a googling of "blake is dead" (quotes not used in Google):

I'm not gonna hold back, just looking at those is bringing tears to my eyes. I wrote about religion the other day, but now, with the death of one of my best friends on my mind, I'm forced to deal with my thoughts about the meaning of life all over again.

But that's private, so instead, it's time for a eulogy.

Blake Bilyea. Whenever I hear Backstage Girl by DJ Shadow, I think of the man. Blake will always be remembered for a variety of distinguished traits. Not just his steadfast commitment to having fellatio replace French as Canada's 2nd national language, or his groundbreaking application of the Herpes virus when modeling jazz guitar theory. I'm talking about Blake's lesser-known achievements. How about Blake's love for Canada's youth? No one could doubt that Blake cared deeply for many many children in his time. Sometimes even many children at once. The man had a lot of love to give, and damn me if he didn't give it like it was going out of style.

Let's not forget the old boy's musical achievements. The Bizz and I were members of many fine musical collaborations: Bush Pilot and the Fur Traders, BLT, and the as-yet-unnamed super surprise group all spring to mind. However, Blake's contributions to musical history in the 20th century are far more varied. While Blake's behind the scenes work on the frets for the Mars Volta's first album Deloused in the Comatorium is common knowledge among even low-level fans of the group, it is less well known that this work was done only as a favour to MV frontman Omar Alfredo Rodriguez-Lopez after Lopez paid for Blake's cab home one night, and as a way to finally stop Lopez from emailing him 15 times a day with questions about how to play his own songs.

However, it was Blake's contribution to the hip-hop community in the 1980s and early '90s that really marked his entrance to the musical scene. Later in their careers, groups such as the Run DMC, NWA, and Public Enemy have all recalled being inspired by Blake and enjoying early underground work with him. Although he never mentioned it publicly (and it could be argued that he never got the chance), Tupac Shakur also worked very closely with Blake shortly before his death, and the upcoming album Pac's Life will showcase a number of their unreleased pieces of work, which feature Shakur's rhymes (co-written with Bilyea) over Blake's polished beats and cuts. In their recent VH1 Hip-Hop Honours spot, the Beastie Boys credited Blake with the invention of the "doody" rhyme style which they use in almost all of their work. However, due to his firm beliefs about musical anonymity and the intrinsic poverty of the true artist, Blake never took royalties or recognition for any of this work.

Although I'd like to say that my grief is unique and unparalleled at the loss of this great man, I'd be lying. The fact is, my personal sorrows are but a drop in the bucket, a voice, loud on its own but quiet among thousands, reacting in outrage and disbelief that a star such as Blake's could shine so brightly, but for so short a time.

I am organizing a candlelight vigil tomorrow evening at the KO in Waterloo. I expect to have things underway no later than 10:30pm, and they probably won't last more than an hour. If anyone wants to come by and shed a few tears at the passing of this giant among men, you are welcome to do so.

Spring, a Dazzling Display of Flittering Flowers Over a Blue Sea, Beats Down

2006-11-05T11:39:00.000-05:00

So, want to know why I haven't posted in over a week?
This is why.

It has totally enslaved my life. I come home from school and I play until I go to bed. However, while that might sound like a serious problem, it is in fact a pretty clever strategy: My second round of midterms starts next Friday. If I don't have the campaign beaten soon, there's no hope of my being ready for said midterms. So that's why I've been playing like a demon. And, in fact, I was about to finish the campaign yesterday. I had swept the few remaining provinces on the campaign map under my jack-booted Tau hoof, and was assailing the final enemy stronghold. I was approximately 2/3 of the way through this mission when the game had its first ever error which caused it to close unexpectedly. It was replaced by a dialog box asking me to fill in any relevant details and send off an error report to the lovely folks at Relic Entertainment. So I put in "I was about to beat the damn campaign!" and clicked send. Then, of course, it couldn't establish a connection. Sure, Dawn of War,
[Edit: No idea what I wrote here, but it sure did disapear somehow...]
ur stronghold, and unless you really really suck, it's pretty hard to get beaten at your stronghold. It's a map designed specifically for you to defend exactly according to your race's special strengths. Now, I've only played as the Tau because, in the words of Ctrl-Alt-Del, I'm "totally gay for the Tau", and I'm good enough that no other species even came close to my stronghold. So, what, for me, might be the most interesting map in the game is the one that I've never played on.

However, blowing through every other stronghold (and regular province) in the game was pretty fun. I had to formulate a grand strategy at the start of the game, but before I could do that I had to understand a few key elements of it:

The Commander is similar to a hero in Warcraft III, in that you have the same one throughout the entire campaign. However, instead of gaining experience and leveling up, your commander meets certain conditions (conquer 5 enemy territories, win with 3:1 kill ratio, etc) and receives Wargear. Wargear is pretty equivalent to getting a new spell for your Warcraft Hero. The Commander's Wargear is either an upgraded weapon (My commander went from one plasma gun to a heavy plasma rifle, heavy flamer, and missile rack) or some sort of ability enhancer (New armour, jet pack, stealth field). By the time your commander has earned all its entire complement of Wargear, it's a force to be reckoned with.

Honour Guard units are special upgraded versions of your regular units that you can "win" by taking over other provinces. For me the first HG unit that I picked up was a squad of 5 Fire Warriors (the basic Tau foot-soldier) who'd had their max range, damage, and health all tweaked up nice and high. So high, in fact, that they could shoot farther than they could see on their own. If my commander was a screen-length ahead of these troopers on the field, he could still count on their cover-fire. Sound overpowered? You bet your ass. A player can have up to 12 honour guard units at a time. By the end of the campaign, basically all I had to do was rush the enemy base with my commander and honour guard, and the match would be finished in 10 minutes. The only exception to this rule were the strongholds, where I had to keep my forces back at my starting base for the first minute because the computer would always rush with a huge force.

Lastly, there were certain territories that granted special bonuses to the way the game was played. There was a territory which possessed a space-port, this allowed your army to attack anywhere on the planet (except strongholds) from anywhere else. There was a territory which gave you extra resources at the start of a mission, one which let you attack twice in one turn, and a couple of others which I can't remember right now.

So, back to my amazing over-arching strategy. Here's how the map looked at the start of the game:

Amazing, hunh?

Carl will be happy to know that the first victims of my new reign of terror were the Eldar. I considered them the most challenging as the Tau have a pretty limited selection of "detector" units. A detector is a unit which can see "stealthed" (invisible) units. Since all of the Eldar's buildings are, in fact, stealthed, it became pretty clear that I wanted to nip them in the bud. They certainly gave me one hell of a fight. In fact, I had to downgrade my campaign difficulty level from hard to normal due to their stubborn refusal to stop charging into my massed fire for long enough to reach their base. I've still got a game saved on the hard difficulty fighting the Eldar. There's no way that they'll breach my base, but the constant stream of their soldiers running towards me leaves me no time to regroup and take the fight to them. I've probably logged 8-10 hours of time on that one conflict alone.

Anyway, their stronghold was hard...ish. Not really that difficult because the game kept giving me new honour guard units whenever I would eliminate a section of the Eldar forces.

My next targets were the Necrons. However, situated as I was in the far north of the map, I decided to steam-roll the Space Marines on my way down. One of the Space Marine provinces that I gained had the space-port ability, so once I'd mopped up the rest of their territory, I went on a shopping spree for all of the other provinces with special abilities. These, coupled with my growing honour guard, were a major advantage to me in my game-play. Once I'd collected all of the special ability provinces, I shit-kicked the Necron stronghold, which eliminated their ability to attack for the rest of the game. All they could do was defend the other provinces still under their control.

From there I used to space-port to move to the west coast and sweep across the Ork terrirories. There was really nothing hard there. I can see why the Tau are always feeding it to the Orks in the real Warhammer 40,000 table-top game literature. From there, I began my assault on the forces of Chaos. They too didn't really present a challenge (my honour guard rush strategy was in full swing by this point, and the AIs didn't seem to have the resources to field very strong HGs to oppose mine). Until I got to their stronghold. Chaos gets very special mention for decimating my honour guard and my entire starting base with their initial rush. The only survivors were my commander, 2 squads of honour guard fire warriors (at somewhat less than full strength), and a single Barracks building. This building could only produce regular fire warriors, but not if I didn't have any access to resources. With just my three units, I retook a single strategic point, which allowed a very very slow trickle of resources to come into my hands. From there I rebuilt and conducted a slow campaign of guerilla warfrae across the entire map. I couldn't rebuild my base, and none of the units I had were even remotely useful in close-combat. It was slow going, but I'm very happy that I finished it off. Although there were definately come close calls, Chaos was overcome by the firm faith of my forces in the Greater Good.

This left the Imperial Guard, or, as I ended up thinking of them, my favourite opponents in the game. Why my favourite? A combination of 2 factors: 1) The Imp Guard had had it pretty rough for the whole game. They really couldn't catch a break, even with 2 of the special ability provinces under control for the first third of the campaign. 2) I could brutalize them easily. They were the race where I developed my honour-guard rush skills. Since they had almost no territory, their honour guard was pathetic. I could even usually rush them using regular forces. It was ridiculous.

So, finally, I'd pulled every other renegade province under my control. 24/25 of the world was mine. I rebuilt my honour guard (some of whom had passed on in more frantic battles), and maxed out the abilities granted me by the special ability provinces. I assaulted the Imp Guard stronghold, and it was glorious. Except for the part where Imp Guard are maybe one of (if not the) best races for defense in the game. So I had to take it slow. As I mentioned above, after slicing through about 2/3 of the objectives for that mission, my computer froze, my screen went blank, and up came my desktop with the error box. Insert look of horror and maniacal cursing here.

My last save-point was back fighting inch for blood-covered inch in the Chaos stronghold. I'm not eager to go all the way back through that again, so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do right now.

And that's been my life. Feel free to leave commentary below.

Ooooh, and, for some reason, the picture I drew of the campaign map isn't showing up in the preview for this post. So, if it doesn't show up on the actual page, I'll be a little unhappy. However, if you click on where the picture should be, you should be taken to a separate page where it is visible.

Guns Blazing Drums of Death

2006-10-28T13:06:00.000-04:00

So, before reading any more of this, you've got to get some background:
Most people reading here haven't been aware of the Belief-O-Matic and the swath of destruction it has cut through the 'sphere. This is mostly due to the fact that it has been contained within Dean's little slice of the pie. Basically, click the link and take the quiz now in order to know what I talk about for the next however long this takes.

So, you took the quiz? Interesting. Maybe. But clearly poorly written (more on that in a moment). Now, before we go any further, hopefully you were also tempted to find out just what Dean's slice of the pie is. They're all nice folks. CS Students at Fanshawe, I believe (FF2.0's suggestions for correcting the spelling of Fanshawe: Deanship, penmanship, peshawar's). It appears that Emily first found the B-O-M, posted it, and brought its vile menace to the rest of us. Dean dropped it next, followed by me (although I didn't end up posting it for reasons mentioned earlier [6th one down]), followed by a guy named Shane (who got "pie" in the above round of linkage). Out of all of us who've taken it, Shane was the only one who got a first-place score for anything close to a serious mainstream religion. He also mentioned that it was his actual religion. Now, no one has commented on that post, but apparently he took enough flak for it in RL that he wrote another entire post defending his religious freedom and basically fleshing out his beliefs a little.

He didn't allow commentary on it, which is a huge shame, because now I've had to go and write an entire post of my own to let him know that I think he's completely right, and even though I scored 100% on Unitarian Universalism (more on that in a moment as well) we agree on a whole lot of important things:

I don't believe in any sort of god, higher power, or shaping force in the world. But I don't yell it from the roof-tops either. I seriously don't care what other people believe. But if someone wants to come after me for my beliefs or prattle on aimlessly about theirs in some sort attempt to win me over, you can be damn sure they'll be getting both barrels.

"If you lived my life than you would believe". Undoubtedly true. Shane makes that point plainly, and doesn't fuck around with it. It's not like I've lived a life of hardship where I was forced to reject the idea of god, but I'm not stupid enough to think that my experiences haven't shaped my beliefs more than any other single thing.

The man unequivocally states that he's afraid of the person that he'd be without god in his life. I'd have to say the same... but sort of opposite.

But now the crux of the post: As I mentioned above, Shane and I don't really enjoy parading our beliefs, and really the best way to get them out of us is to either insult or otherwise challenge them. Usually I can use my biting sarcasm to make my opponents/detractors rethink their strategies and leave it at that. It's not like either of us could actually "win". But, Shane makes the point a little better: "don't you dare be ignorant enough to call what I believe in 'Stupid'". And he's perfectly correct. Here's the major shocker: I'm an atheist, there's no two ways about it. Agnosticism doesn't even come close to entering the argument (more on that later, too). But I can accept that my position will never be proven. Ever. Atheism (at least for me) is as much a faith-based position any other. So if you want to get up in my grill, go right ahead. Chances are that I'll make you a lot more angry than you can make me. Because I am unshakeably faithful in my beliefs, not that my beliefs are right or the best. So I'm just going to make fun of you until you stop.

So, there ends my little solidarity piece. Congratulations, Shane, your interesting posts have won you (and Emily and Pook) spots on my link list. It seems like I check your blogs every time I check Dean's anyway, so you can all enjoy your own little subgroup within my links to make it easier for me.

So, onto the miscellaneous "I'll get to this in a minute" things:

The Belief-O-Matic is a pretty severely flawed quiz, especially form an atheist perspective. Basically, if you want the machine to give you a 100% rating for "non theist", you've got to answer "No X because god does not exist. Or not sure. Or not important". Now, let's hold on a minute. First of all, being lumped in with agnostics (oh, their turn's coming), and people who... don't care? isn't exactly flattering. But, what rankles is that it also means that even though I have a serious stance on pretty much everything discussed in that quiz, the authors believe that my beliefs, which have been honed and rethought and clarified throughout the entirety of my spiritually conscious life, can all be simplified to "not important". So, no, go fuck yourself. There's no way that I can answer "not important" to every single question. That's idiotic. That being said, I did manage to say most of the time. But there were some questions that I couldn't. Example:

Question 9. Baptism (or initiation) Ceremonies
a) Required
b) Not Required
c) Not Applicable

What's the difference between not required and not applicable? The question was referencing whether or not baptism (or initiation) ceremonies were needed to attain salvation (or enlightenment, or whatever), and since I think that some sort of enlightenment or happiness is a desirable goal in life, I chose "not required". Because, clearly, that's what it is.

The underlying premise of this quiz is that to be a "non theist" you need to either have no morals and beliefs, or not care about them. And the section on non-theists reflects this. It's barely 4 sentences long. They could barely contain their information on the other 26 religions mentioned. I challenge anyone to find one that had less than a page of concentrated information. I will bravely assert here that I have morals as strong, or significantly stronger, than most of my "religious" friends. And I'll also say that I don't think it's a coincidence that my morals are forged from my own thoughts and experiences instead of dictated to me from someone else (or someone else's book).

I sit back in my chair and attempt to remember where I was going with this. Oh yeah, Unitarian Universalism.

UU managed to also get ahead of "non theism" in terms of the detailed information that was presented about it after the quiz. This information was divided into a number of interesting sections like "Belief in Diety", "Origin of Universe and Life", and "Why Evil?". Basically the answer in every category for UU is "anyone believes whatever they want. Some people believe the exact opposite of others, but that's OK". Wow, and I scored 100% for this church? No kidding. Imagine all of my answers managing to fall within the bounds of a church where anyone can say anything and have it become part of the official doctrine. What are the chances?

It makes me sick that this pathetic excuse for a belief system manages to get more attention as a serious way for people to live their lives than mine. It drives me up the wall.

Here's my theory: The B-O-M contains 27 seperate categories for one to score under. Of those, 10 are christian sects. That's 37%, and it outnumbers the number of different choices for a faith by a pretty significant margin: 2 for Buddhism and Judaism, and Islam rating only a single category. New-age sort of stuff also rates pretty high. But faith without a god only rates the category of "non theism". Personally, having sampled a lot of what's on offer in the non-theistic world, I'd say that we deserve a few categories of our own. But the B-O-M doesn't have the energy to give them, I guess. So it attempts to lump them all together, and ends up having nothing to say about them except:

Atheists do not believe in a god or deity. Atheists' beliefs are similar to those of the Secular Humanists but do not necessarily include the emphasis on humanity's ability to improve the human condition. Views on contemporary issues vary widely.

Agnostics are inclined to question the existence of supernatural being(s) or a force, e.g., the answer to whether or not God (or Deity) exists would be: "We do not and/or cannot know."

There. That's it. Luckily, this ties in nicely with my next point: Fucking agnostics.

Anyone who calls refers to themselves as an agnostic is either 12 years old, or an idiot. Especially if they want to be taken seriously. When the B-O-M questions say "[something]. Or Don't know. Or not important", they might as well lump the last two together and call it agnosticism. As I mentioned above, I don't think that anyone will ever prove God's existence one way or the other. Ooh, wait, does that make me an agnotic? No, because I have a belief on the matter anyway, because it's something that I care about, regardless of whether or not it has an conclusive answer. Agnostics don't care at all. They cheapen existence by choosing not to think about it. If theism and atheism are two sides of the "coin of faith", then agnostics live on the rim of the coin, at a right angle to the other two sides. Maybe they can invite the UUs over to talk about nothing. And when the coin starts to roll across... I dunno, the tabletop of reality, they'll all get crushed.

Good.

Fuck 'em.

I Responded with a Smirk, to Let Her Know we Could Work, no Matter what Time of Day of the Week it is

2006-10-25T18:41:00.000-04:00

So, I'm going to try and post a little each day instead of a lot every two weeks.

Today was magical. First: I got my OSAP papers today. That means that in one business week all my worries for this term will be solved. Drinks on me at KO the day I find my balance increased.

I couldn't believe it. It was totally hassle free. For one I just showed up, gave them my student card and health card, and got my papers. I took them down to the government representative, he got me to write a bunch of things on them, and then I left.

It was that easy.

Then, I continued my amazing trend of getting things without any work:

There is a table in the Student Life Centre. This is not uncommon. It appears that the SLC makes its money by whoring out these tables to the highest bidder. On any given day I'm as likely to be accosted by the Campus Crusade for Christ as I am to be hit on by a girl lecturing people about compulsive gambling. Every few months a woman sells fudge, but it's cash-only, so I've never bought any. Last year there were a couple of south american guys who would set up a table with all sort of cool stuff. One of them tried to strike up a conversation with me about the great latin jazz drummers, until he realized that I knew nothing about them.

Anyway, I was stumbling around the SLC last week looking for people who wanted to give me free things. And I found the next-best thing: People who wanted to give me a free water-bottle for applying for a MasterCard. So I did. And I walked away with the water-bottle. Now, that wasn't the only thing on offer. They had a large selection of T-shirts. But they were mostly sports teams and seriously, the water bottle clearly beats out any old shirt.

So today, I was walking through the SLC again, numb from a dearth of free things being offered to me. Then I saw it: The same company, hocking the same cards, at a different table. But now they were giving away backpacks. So I took the only normal course of action: I applied again. Also, having just come from the OSAP office, I had a detailed idea of my earnings for the year and my loan amount in my head, so my second application probably stands a better chance of being accepted anyway. And now I have a backpack that I can dedicate to transporting all the cables and odds/ends of my Computer around when I want to LAN up with people.

In other news, I've been watching some more anime: I got reasonably speedy torrents on Vampire Hunter D and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. The first is the original anime. This film is a year older than me. I'd like to say it was decent, but it was terrible. Anime has come a long way in 21 years. Bloodlust came out in 2000 and is a much better film in pretty much every way. Unfortunately, it finished before the original so I watched it first. It was a pretty massive disappointment. I won't bother getting into the plot for two reasons: 1) anyone who knows what I'm talking about has either seen it or has easy access to it 2) anyone else probably doesn't care.

So that's my story. A day full of scores, and nights full of vampire hunting.

This is Liam Motherfuckin "waiting for my Ruca (and my Ruca I mean "OSAP and credit cards")" Danger McKenna, signing off.

PS: A list of words which FireFox 2.0's automatic spell-checker has told me are wrong: OSAP, SLC, american, latin, Mastercard, anime, bloodlust, Ruca, and McKenna

And the Rain it, Raineth Every Day, Every Day...

2006-10-23T21:28:00.000-04:00

Just a quick couple of updates:

1) Carl has posted again, earning him a new and lustrous spot on my link-list.

2)As evidenced by the lyric above, it rains every day in Waterloo. I'd really just like to know if that's happening everywhere else (that matters) in Ontario right now. I really don't remember it raining all the time last year during these months.

3) I watched the last 5 episodes on Cowboy Bebop last night because I had nothing to do. It was awsome. But it also prompted me to return to the deep dark world of online quizzes...

Without Further Ado;

what's your cowboy bebop theme song?

Which Cowboy Bebop character are you?

Now get on em!

In the Twilight of a Time, There Emerges a Need for Man to Comprehend His Own Bitter Fate

2006-10-20T16:13:00.000-04:00

Finally Resigned to the Ineveitable beyond, He Searches the Ages, Desperate for Stories of Assurance, Redemption, and Hope

Such Tales Fill Page Upon Page With Enough Ink to Flood a Thousand Valleys, and Drown the Tallest Tree...

Desolate and Barren, Humanity is at a Crossroads,

the People have Retreated, Shuttering their Once Carefree Lives from Unseen Enemies which Seem to Plague Not Only the Physical Form...

but the Innermost Thought

Driven by Panic, Compelled by Dread, the Masses Begin to Devolve...

Choked with Suspicion and Fear, Voices do not Dare to Sing nor Fingers to Play. Imminent Defeat is All but Assured...

Word of Radical Acts, Disobedience, and Non-Compliance Spread Among the People, At First Fearful, then Defiant as the Legend Grows

Whispers Turn to Cries and the Cries into Screams

Now the Fire is Lit, Smouldering in the Belly of Humanity, It Cannot be Extinguished

For the Stories Endure

Messages, Dictations, Warnings....

Stories

Such as These:

Part 1a: Outsider Intro

Thanksgiving was decent. I enjoyed a great meal at my grandmother's house preceded and followed by nights of sweet LAN action at the Braj's. Basically that's all there was to it. There was a miniscule ammount of hanging out with Ellen and Blake.

There was also a hanging out with Eazy Motherfuckin E. However, our conversation in that regard was rather limited. It was less "hanging out" and more "me convoncing Eazy to get his act together". The particular act I was interested in was the "Going to Toronto to see DJ Shadow" matinee. My Favourite DJ Saviour had (has) recently released The Outsider, his latest studio album and was on tour promoting it. He was playing in the Big City that following Thursday (the 12th) and Eazy had purchased tickets for myself, tha biz, and Eazy's brother Will. We also had made plans by email with Will to stay at his place that night and have great times.

In fact, there was only one small problem (two if you count the fact that Ticketmaster hadn't sent Eazy the tickets yet): Eazy couldn't understand why arriving in TO at 7 for an 8 o'clock show made me worried.

Here's a synopsis of the conversation:

Him: High School is way too important for me to even miss a single day. I'll take the bus from Stratford to Toronto after school. I'll be there at 7.

Me: That leaves no time for anything to go wrong. It also leaves no time for dropping our stuff off at our brothers or finding dinner. Not to mention that the show is general admission, and the doors open at 8, so we'll be stuck at the back if we don't line up earlier.

Him: I'll look into it. I'll email you when I get it figured out.

That was Saturday night,

Sunday and Monday: No contact. Not a big deal, this is clearly because it was Thanksgiving and there was no school on Monday. No doubt he'll get on it on Tuesday and email me then.

Tuesday: No Contact.

Wednesday: No Conatct.

I realize that something is very wrong. I'm supposed to get on a bus for Toronto sometime during the next day. But I still don't know when I'm getting on, where I'm going when I get off, or if I even have tickets to get into the show I'm supposed to see.

I send Eazy an email expressing those concerns. To his credit he replies within 20 minutes and explains that due to massive spyware infestations, his computer wouldn't allow him to email me before. He explains that he no longer has any choice about missing the day of school due to a number of projects which are due, being completed in class, or being presented on Thusday. However, he has secured a ride to Kitchener which will allow him to catch a bus from there instead of from Stratford, cutting his Toronto ETA down to 6:30pm.

I debate. I ponder. I decide that Blake and I will go earlier, meet Will, drop off our things, and get into line at the venue. At 6:30, Will will get Eazy, drop him stuff off, and head over to the line, where they'll distribute our tickets and we'll all have a grand old time.

I issue an email to this effect to Eazy and to Will. In this email I include a precisely laid out schedule and my telephone number, with the instruction that they should email and leave voicemails for me in the event of an emergency/ change of plan.

By the end of the night Eazy has emailed me back again saying that that seems like a good idea, and that he's going to phone Will on Thursday morning before he goes to school to make sure he knows the plan.

Part 1b: Broken Levee Blues

Thursday came. I went to class, wrote a midterm, and went back home. No voice/emails form Eazy or Will. I called Blake and we firmed up our travel arrangements. I got to Blake's, and we went out to catch the city-bus which would take us to the terminal that the Greyhounds left from. Blake suggested one of the 4 (or more) regular busses which come past Laurier and eventually deposit patrons at the terminal. But I knew better. I decided that we would take the express bus. It comes every 15 minutes, and only makes 3 stops between Laurier and the terminal, giving it a 13 minute travel time between those points, which blows all the other busses out of the water. Except that it didn't come. We waited and waited, enough time passed for 2 express busses to have come and gone. Finally, just as Blake and I were walking to a different stop to get a regular bus, the express came and we boarded it.

We arrived and bought our tickets to Toronto with maybe 10 minutes to spare.

The bus ride was uneventful, but Blake let me read a Charles Bukowski novel called Pulp. I liked it very much. Coincidentally, it was the last thing Buk wrote. Apparently he died shortly after completeing it.

On a side-note: after spending my youth riding the train into Toronto, it's really neat to come in by bus. The train basically brings you in through the ghetto, while the bus takes you down by the water. There's lots of neat architecture around. I woke Blake up so that he could enjoy it, but he seemed less than impressed.

No one was waiting for us at the bus stop. This cramped my style a little bit. Blake said we should get a drink while we figured things out. Now, I didn't explicitly menion it earlier, but I have no idea where Will lives. None whatsoever. Nor do I know his phone number in Toronto. So there we were. It was 4:30, we were in Toronto, and we were all alone...

So, logically, we got down to business. First, we went outside and "looked for Will" (read "bought Street-Meat"). Then Blake suggested that we get a drink. Insisting that now wasn't the time for such frivolities, I used my credit card to check my voicemail. Or at least, I tried. Apparently when I try to check my voicemail from any phone that isn't my own, I need to enter my mailbox number on top of my PIN. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that number might be. So I was in the dark at that time as to whether or not Will had left me any illuminating messages.

Blake mentioned that a drink would be really good right then. I demured, and suggested he go to an ATM to get us some more operational funding. He did, and then suggested that we inject some of the cash into Toronto's flagging bus-terminal-alcohol-service industry, preferably on an R&C and a Screwdriver. However, I wasn't in the mood to squander operational funding before I knew what the operation was going to be.

I left him to call Ellen and leave her a voicemail detailing that we were in Toronto, alive, but totally unsupervised. I did a circuit of the terminal in a last-ditch search for Will. When I came back he wasn't at the payphones. He was in the bus terminal bar. I put on an angry face and pulled him out.

I was in favour of camping out the bus terminal until Will arrived. Presumeably he'd been delayed by something, and might still make an appearance. Luckily cooler (if still drinkless) heads prevailed, and Blake started us walking in the direction of Ryerson. The argument went thusly: Will wasn't there. Since I hadn't heard anything from him that morning, there was a good chance that a) he hadn't gotten the message or b) something had cropped up at the last second and he'd left a voice/email for me. So we needed to find a computer. By heading to the nearest centre of higher learning we increased dramatically our chances of finding a publicly accessable computer or someone we knew. As it happened, the latter occured.

"Hey, there's Davim Horsm*! Let's ask him for help!"

The man in question told us that he was just going to a class, but that we should meet him rght where we were now at 6 o'clock. Then he could take us to his residence room and let us get on the internet. Getting a computer was more important than getting a look into my voicemail at this point, since Vonage automatically sends me an email with the phone number of the caller if a person leaves a voicemail on my phone.

That left us with about 45 minutes to waste.

Now that we had a good objective in sight and we could safely say that we weren't going to need all of our money, I let Blake follow his nose to the nearest bar, The Ram in the Rye. Get it? It's the Ryerson campus bar, and much like Stratord Central, all their sports mascotts are rams (And here I was thinking that St. Mikes was so cheap copying all of our sports teams from the University of Waterloo). We had a drink. Then left. Blake had a cigarette, and we walked all over the Ryerson quadrangle thing looking half-heartedly for Ellen.

When the time came, Davim was waiting for us. However, we'd already decided on a different course of action. We thanked him for his gracious intent to assist us, and then parted ways. We went back to the bus terminal and were there by 6:20. In ten minutes, Eazy's bus should have been arriving. Even if he hadn't shown up to meet us, Will would be there to meet his brother. So we looked around. No Will. We waited anyway. If Will wasn't there, then Eazy must know how to get to his house.

We wait.

At 6:30 a bus pulls into the station. Eazy isn't on it. Luckily it's a bus from Niagra, so it's OK that he's not on it.

Ditto the next 4 busses, from Hamilton, 2 places in the North (because it was a different bus line), and somewhere else unimportant.

The Kitchener bus finally pulls in at 7. Eazy isn't on it. Needless to say, this made me slightly uncomfortable.

I made credit card call to my roommate and asked her if there were any new voicemails. There weren't any.

We called Ellen (just getting out of class) and left her a voicemail telling her to meet us in front of the ILLK, which is a studpidly named residence building at Ryerson.

I worked. We went to her house and consolidated our knowlege base. On the way there, much vitriol was exuded on my part, and Blake got sour and said that he didn't want to sleep at Will's any more. When we got there Blake dropped his bag on the floor and hungrily eyed the 1.5 litre bottle of wine on the counter.

None of of us knew Will's phone number, but Ellen knew people who knew, and we got on their case.

Finally, we were able to get the information and call Will. We got his address and toured. Halfway here Blake decided that he actually did want to stay at Will's.

"Liam, do you want co come bacl to Ellen's with my after the show so that I can get my bag"

"No. Try not being retarded next time. There's no way in hell I'm walking back through this ghetto until the light of dawn is on my face."

We arrived. Eazy was there (having gotten off of the bus at the Royal York Hotel instead of the bus terminal) and explained that the bus was so late because it had hit a pedestrian in Guelph.

Other mysteries were revealed: Will hadn't gotten my emails. Apparently the earlier exchange of email relating to sleeping at his house was done over his roommate's computer. He hadn't had access to it at all.

Blake, Eazy, and myself headed out the door. Will was playing a hunch that the venue was going to delay DJ Shadow's entry onto the stage in order to sell more drinks, and decided to stay at home and do some work for an hour.

Part 1c: You Made It

The show was amazing. I couldn't believe it. It was more than worth all the trouble we'd gone to to get there, although Will missed the first three songs because of his prediction about Kool Haus wanting to sell drinks. In fact, he would have missed almost half an hour more if Eazy hadn't gotten one of the bouncers to let him use his cell phone to call Will and get him moving. We stood at the back, and were blown away. That being said, In Tune and On Time (Dj Shadow's live CD) was better. Shadow used the "live" versions of tracks from In Tune in this set, instead of coming up with different takes on those songs, although there were new versions of other songs not covered on In Tune.

Part of the reason for this might have been that Shadow was trying to showcase his new material from The Outsider, which was much harder to cut up and remix live due to its inclusion of actual vocalists on many of the tracks.

My favourite highlight of the show:
Shadow talking about his dedication to his music in spite of lukewarm critical response to The Outsider: "I never played Dungeons and Dragons. I don't sit in my basement all day reading blogs..."

Yeah, DJ Shadow hates me. And here I am writing about how The Outsider, while totally listenable, just doesn't rub me the way his earlier work has. I'm not trying to bring the man down, he's a great musician and he can make any kind of music that he wants. It's like the Beastie Boys. To The Five Burroughs is not a good album. When set against the backdrop of Hello Nasty, one if forced to wonder what the Boys did for 6 years between the two.

Anyway, I have The Outsider playing right now, and anyone who's heard it knows that I stole my little intro and all of my chapter titles from the album. I like it. But I honestly don't know if I would actually buy it. The intro is amazing, and would go perfectly with any of his earlier work. And it is human nature to compare what comes today with what came yesterday. All in all, the album doesn't electrify me like his other work has. That's all I can really say.

Part 1d: 3 Freaks (Feat Will, Julian, and Yours Truly)

After the show Blake suckered Eazy into making the trip back through the ghetto warzone to Ellen's house to get his shit. Will and I trod back to his house to meet Julian. On the way we stopped at Mr. Tasty. This was possibly the greatest idea that has ever had a direct effect on my life, including procreation, sliced bread, and hexagonal war gaming. The food was unbelievable, and I'm pretty sure that they have free delivery. If you live in Toronto you have no excuse not to eat their food. The guys should sell meal plans to Universities. They'd make an absolute killing.

We went to Will's and Julian showed up with some bed-warmer. I was worried that I'd have to put up with her drivel in order for Julian to get laid, but she was actually really cool. They cracked open a 24 of Carling (or something), and eventually we walked back over to Mr. Tasty (yeah, it was that good). When we left the house we noticed that Julian had brought a huge old printer/fax machine thing with him from some garbage pile he found on his way to Will's. A hefty round of shit-kicking later, we got on the way. Repeat in reverse for coming back to Will's house, only this time Julian took a full garbage can and slammed it into the printer, showering the surroundings with garbage in the process. A decent time was had by all.

We kicked around for about another hour, and I'm not gonna lie, I was fuckin tired. Then Blake and Eazy finally came back to Will's. They were hammed already. Now, let me get some things straight:

1) I was tired. When I get tired, I want to sleep. I would go as far as to assert that that is a perfectly normal impulse.
2) Further, I had to write a chemistry lab report for 2:30 the following afternoon. I would have gladly sunk into the fray, and had emailed myself the portion of the lab which I had already written in order to be able to use it if I had any down-time in Toronto. However, without the internet I couldn't use Will's computer. My plan at that point was to be on a bus at 8:30 bound for Kitchener's beautiful Charles St. Terminal.
3) Will is in a very intensive drama program at a prestigeous Toronto college. Unlike those enrolled in regular Arts programs at institutions of higher learning, he has many hours of class every day. His next one was at 8:30 Friday morning.
4) It was probably around 2 or 3 already.

And yet, what ended up happening was:
-Blake and Eazy not giving a shit
-Will playing the devil's advocate by bitching about how early he had to be up one second and then getting Blake and Eazy more beers the next
- Me being a grumpy-puss, which degenerated into
- Rampant abuse of Blake, basically only coming from me and Julian

I'm not gonna lie, Blake, in his drunken stupour, took a whole lot of abuse. But to be fair, he wasn't exactly ingratiating himself with anyone at that point. There were Julian, Bed-Warmer, and myself all trying to sleep on the floor, Will alternating between the kitchen where Blake and Eazy were, the living room where me and the other sleepers were, and his room. Here's a helpful map to illustrate how hard that was for him:

So, yeah. It's not like we were getting a lot of sleep in with the drunken wonders right there beside us "in another room". So, then, Blake would get really angry and storm outside with eazy and smoke for 45 minutes, coming back in to be loud again when he was done. Newsflash: We can't go to sleep when you're outside, unless you want to sleep on the lawn!

And so, eventually, we all bedded down on Will's living room floor, Will included. But he brought out two alarm clocks first so that he would get up. He was sleeping in the middle of the room, so he placed the alarms in opposite corners so that he'd have to get up and move to turn them off. One went beside Julian and Co, while the other was supposed to go by me, but he couldn't find a plug. So really there was only one alarm.

And we slept. I actually didn't wake up at all until the alarm went off.

For 2 seconds.

Before Julian's arm shot out and silenced it.

Luckily, it still worked its magic on me. I sat up. No one else did. I considered my situation: Had the alarm gone off by accident? It was light outside, but maybe Will had set the alarm early... I could really use some more sleep.........

But, for better or for worse, I'm not that retarded. I looked over at Will and saw one of the funniest things I've ever seen: Eazy was sleeping beside him, but they weren't even. Eazy's face was at the level of Will's ass. It was turned towards Will's ass. And about 10 seconds after I began to observe this little scene, Eazy shifted in his sleep, and began shoving his face right into Will's ass. I nearly lost it laughing, and whispered to Julian to wake up and enjoy the moment. However, like Blake and the Toronto architecture, Julian just didn't appreciate my little attempt to share my experiences.

I sat on the floor and pondered. Will was clearly not awake. It was debateable as to whether or not he'd heard the alarm. I pondered what I should do for about 10 minutes in my sleepy state of mind. Eventually I stood, woke Will, woke Blake, and got on the road.

It was so cold. I couldn't believe it. I'd worn only a sweater (as opposed to my normal stylish sweater/bomber jacket combination) and my scarf and gloves in order not to be carrying around my jacket all over the show. However, that night I hadn't been cold at all. This was unbearable cold. It cut through my sweater as if it weren't there. It was unreal. I walked all the way to the bus terminal with Blake unable to contain my shivering frame. It was the same when we got off the bus in Kitchener. I had to borrow a sweater from Blake in order to make it home on the Yellow Bastard (which I'd stored in his room when we went to get the bus).

Then I went home, wrote my report, and went to my lab. I actually managed to perform it gracefully, without lighting myself or either of my lab partners in fire. Not even once.

But wait! That's not all! That's only the end of Part 1! Aren't you excited???

Part 2a: The boring part

Nothing interesting happens during this part....

That Saturday I recovered from my Thursday and Friday (I spent all day Friday awake instead of sleeping like Blake, Eazy, Julian, and the Bed-Warmer).

Sunday I pissed around all morning and then began studing for my biomechanics mid-term. I also put up a post appologising for my lack of posting, I expect nothing but kind sentiment and soothing reassurance from my readship.

Monday I went to class, went to tutorials, and then wrote a lab report for Physiology/ studied for biomechanics. And responded to snarky commentary on my latest post. Also, thanks to Ben's commentary over on the Blog'o Blake, I download a BitTorrent client and get to work on the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs. ETA for those has hovered around 24 days every day afterwards, given that I can only achieve a connection speed for that file of roughly 1Kb/s.

Tuesday I wrote the biomechanics midterm, went home, and finished the Physiology report/ began studying for the Organic Chemistry midterm. And responded to further acidic commentary from my loving friends.

Wednesday I went to class, handed in my Physiology lab, took a quiz in Biomechanics lab (not related to the midterm, the prof just didn't plan the class very well, and admitted to such in lecture the week before), went home, pissed around, and studied some more for Organic Chem. I also dropped some more commentary-based bombs on my detractors.

Thursday I went to class, wrote the last practice midterm for chem right before the actual midterm, took the midterm, and then went home.

Now for the good part.

Part 2b: I am the Dancing Queen

My initial plan was: Go home, shower, go to the bank to deposit some cheques, come home, piss around, go out to dinner, see sexual hynotist, get drunk at bar.

This got edited to go home, piss around, go out to dinner, see sexual hypnotist, stay sober at anoying dance bar.

In full:

I returned home from class feeling good. I'm pretty sure I kicked the Organic midterm right in the balls. It was awsome. I was actually really worried about it. The midterm was only an hour long, and in order to make sure that time wasn't an issue, it was only 20 questions. Multiple Choice. Each question was 1% of my final grade. I was scared out of my mind. However, the midterms from the last 5 years were all posted online with annotated answers, and I made good use of them. Luckily, the format was exactly the same, so I got a feel for what sorts of questions were going to be asked (when you only have 20 questions to test half a term's worth of material you need to stick 2 or 3 things into 1 question to cover them all) and what I'd need to be able to do to answer them. Luckily, one thing that I didn't need to do was spend $30 on a molecular modelling kit.

Organic chemistry looks into a lot of detail at the real shapes and configurations of molecules. Since the molecules are 3 dimensional, a lot of people buy small modelling kits to gain a better understanding of how the molecules look instead of writing out stupid 2-d representations of them. This allows them to answer questions faster, which theoretically allows them to succeed more easily. However, I didn't need one. Which was good news given that I didn't actually have $30 in cash lying around. The reason that I didn't need one? I dunno. Seriously, I'm just that good. It wasn't that hard for me to visualize the molecules interacting in my head, so I didn't have to waste any time piecing together little models.

Sidenote:I noticed that ability in myself for the first time during my Psychomotor Behaviour course last year. One day the prof put up a bunch of questions of the following format: you had 1 shape made up of cubes stuck together. Then she put up 6 other shapes and asked which one was a view of the original shape from a different angle. I answered every question correctly and I was the first or second person to have my hand up every time.

So, yeah, I killed Orgo. I think. We'll see next week.

Now, it was time to celebrate. I'd been invited out to a birthday celebration, and it was like the light at the end of Organic Chemistry all week long. The basic idea was:

- Gather at Julim*(the birthday girl)'s house in order to drop off my booze and the Yellow Bastard.
- Proceed to East Side Mario's and eat exhaustively large ammounts of free bread and salad before consuming exhaustive ammounts of whatever we ordered.
- Go back to Julie's and consume moderate ammounts of alcohol quickly in order to make it to the show on time
- Get to the show. It's at Laurier
- Enjoy show immensely
- Head to bar to finish the night in a cacophany of alcohol consumption and... dance

Everything went swimmingly up until I left the house. I biked all the way to Julim's, and got very sweaty on the way. I entered her house through the backyard and attempted to park the Yellow Bastard in her garage. Except that the backdoor of the garage is locked. So I had to climb over a fence, walk around her garage, go in the front, and discover that I'm on crack because the doorhandle isn't even close to locked, and opens immediately.

I got to the door, knocked, and told Julim I was sorry I was late. Then she told me that the reservation got pushed back by half an hour. Then I realized that I'd forgotten my liquior, and biked back home to get it.

Upon returning to Julim's I sat on the couch while she and her friends made themselves pretty. My chemistry lab partner from last year was there ahead of me. Something happened then which I always find amusing. It usually only happens when I'm sitting alone with a really big extrovert. There I was, watching Gilmore Girls or whatever tripe the W Network was showing, Brandom* peppering me with inane questions every 20 seconds. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy, he's awsome. We just didn't really have anything to talk about. "How was your summer?" "What classes are you taking?" "I get, like, 200 channels at home. I can't believe this TV" etc, etc, etc. Why do these people need to talk all the time?

We got to the restaurant. Our reservation was for 10, but we ended up having 15 show up. The wait staff loved us, but I'm assuming that it was the kitchen that got really passionate. Whatever. I didn't see any obvious spit in my food, and I really can't ask for anything more. Unfortunately, it did take a good hour to get the food ready. We'd planned on being at the show by 8:30 in order to get good spots in line. As 8:00 rolled around with no bill-paying in sight, I began to worry about my ability to pre-drink for this show.

I was right. I managed to get down a mug of vodka in Julim's kitchen while the girls changed to go to the show. Then we were off. Unfortunately, that mug didn't get very far in my belly, which already contained 4 loaves of bread, 4 bowls of salad, and half a rack of ribs (A big rack, I might add. I was told that I should split it with another person instead of ordering one for myself).

The lineup was terrible. We were there 45 minutes early (the doors opened late) and the line was already 2 stories below the actual event. Basically this part of the story involves a lot of waiting................

When we finally got into the place - Wait. I'm forgetting: We almost didn't get in. "WLUSU [We Love Underage Students Undressed] Guest Policies IN EFFECT" was printed boldly on the ticket. That means that there needs to be 1 Laurier student for every 2 Waterloo studens. And... um... we didn't have that. We were with 1 Laurier student (Julim's roommate) who said that we'd be fine and that she could sign us all in. Then we got to the door and the bouncers shat all over that one pretty quickly. Luckily I used my good looks and charm to get a random girl to sign me in. But it was touch and go for a while.

Anyway, once we got inside it was another 40 minutes before the show started (If only Will was here and he needed to do some homework). However, the show was absolutely awsome. Not as fun as Dj Shadow, but I don't think that the Shadow could get guys to eat whipped cream out of each other's asses onstage. I won't bore you with the details. Go see it yourself. The guy's name is Tony Lee, but I'm sure there are others in his line of work.

After that we hit the bar. Unfortunately, the classier (and believe me, if that term were used any more loosely it'd fall right off the damn page) one had a lineup around the side of the building. Instead we went to Fubar. Fubar is a place where the bartenders wear corsets. There are no lights that aren't black or strobing furiously. It costs $2 to get in, and you recieve a beautiful stamp on the unerside of your right wrist. The bar only takes cash. This = sobriety for the rest of the evening. Sobriety wouldn't be that much of a black mark, except that fully half of Fubar is one big dance floor. And, unfortunately, Liam "Dead Fish" McKenna is no longer listed in Waterloo's "100 people most excited to be dancing right now".

To make matters worse, our group had dwindled significantly. From the 15 at dinner and (which became a slightly different 15 at the show) to 7. There were Julim, Tylem*, Willim*, Willim's roommate Cartem*, Julim's roommate Jesm*, and her friend Sabrinm*. Everyone else seemed to be really into dancing, although Willim and Cartem seemed to gain strength by double fisting the whole time. It didn't help that by then I was so tired that the strobes were actually making me light-headed.

The only highlights from this dark time are me smoking Willim in the face about 10 times with the beak of my Yngwie Malmsteen hat and my tying with Jesm in an attempt to "bounce the lowest" on the floor. However, the number of compliments I recieved from men after that were slightly unsettling. And that's another thing! There were too many men touching my ass on that dancefloor. Most of them were trying to move me out of the way so that they could get by, but seriously! Stop touching my ass! The shittiest part is that while I was playing grab-ass with half the men in this bar, Jesm was making money. Or at least, some sleazy euro-trash guys were sticking it in her pockets. But come on! She got $20!

Oh, here's a final little image for you: Near the end of the night, Cartem offered me $100 to make out with this intensely fugly girl. I told him he could keep his money. About 30 seconds later, said girl was grinding with a guy right beside us. This was disgusting enough, but then his friend joined in from the opposite side. I quickly pointed this out to Willim and Cartem, and hilarity ensued. But on a serious note, the mental images I'm left with easily rank 9.85 collar pulls out of 10.

The place started dying down about 20 minutes after last call. We left and went to the Pita Factory. It's a pretty decent place, but I was stll too full from dinner to order anything. Tylem and I sit down at a table and wait for Julim, Willim, and Cartem. Jesm and Sabrinm were getting pizza and meeting us there.

Now, who walks into the restaurant but the euro-trash from Fubar! They walk in with some dude wearing a popped collar and shit-eater grin. But before I go any further, let me flesh out the euro-trash for you: One of them had a faux-hawk, and the other just had his hair tousled dramatically. They were both wearing bum-length beige trenchcoats, white shirts, dress pants, and dress shoes that were really cool in 1940 (you know, the ones with the outlandushly pointed toes that still look like men's shoes. Kind of like these). One pair was black, the other white. Whatever they were going for, I'm not saying they pulled it off, but they still managed to effectively convey what they were: Rich idiots who thought they looked cool when they stuffed money into girls' waistbands. They got into a fight about whose cell-phones were tougher, so they threw them around the store. Basically, I wouldnt have been unhappy seeing these guys get smashed up a little bit. One of them walked over with his phone in his hand. He offered it to us saying that it was broken. I was pretty interested, purely from the standpoint of cracking itopen and seeing what was inside. Jesm was also interested. She held out her hand and smiled (I haven't mentioned it, but Jesm is one hot broadski) the guy turned to her put his hand out, and then pulled it back with the practiced ease of a greasy asshole. At this point they had crossed the line from assholes to assholes that I probably would have called out there and then if I was Ben.

But I'm not Ben. Also, the guy went back to his friends after that. They only laughed for a few moments and then their attention went elsewhere. This is good, because a confrontation might have precipitated there and then, and really, even with Tylem, Willim, and Cartem, I definately would have been injured. That being said, they were the ones that took the heat off quickly. When I said he had the skill of a greased asshole I wasn't joking. They stopped just before someone would have been forced to call them on their bullshit, which probably means that, like many assholes (and especially those with money), they were really huge pussies, which might have played out in our favour.

A few minutes later, a guy pulled up in a cab, got out, and ordered a pita. The cab was idling outside waiting for him. As he walked in Julim said hello to him. Apparently his name was Mam* and he played for the men's Rugby team. He said hi back and went about his business at the checkout.

However, Euro trash #1 must have said something, because by the time I looked back, Max was rght in the guy's face explaining that he'd never done anything to him, so why was he saying shit? It began to look like they were inches from a fight. Mam was a pretty solid looking guy, and I felt that we owed him a little help. 3 on 4 was too much for those guys (even though, and I don't like to admit it, they had us seriously out-gunned), but they didn't seem to have as much of a problem with 3 on 1. Willim was blocking me into the booth, so I suggested that he go over to Mam and give him some assistance verbally. He (being pretty drunk at this point) obliged me. I slid to the edge of the booth and waited. Now, at this point, Willim and Mam were facing me with the douchebag-3 looking at them. I began to contemplate how best to pit my strengths (steel toes, brains, and the scrawny kid's lack of compunctions about fighting dirty) against their weaknesses (basically only that they weren't facing me). I didn't come up with much. A solid kick to the back of the knee would only help if we were running away, and any other useful targets were too high for me to reach. And there simply weren't any objects (blunt or not), aside from half-finished pitas, lying around for me to employ. I didn't fancy my chances with a sucker punch either, given that I've never punched anyone in my life.

And then it came, more yelling, followed by a resounding punch to the face from Euro to Mam. The adrenaline surged up, and then the two were being pushed apart, and Euro ran out the door. He actually beat it so fast that I thought he was going for a weapon stashed in a car somewhere in the parking lot. But he never came back. However, his friends stayed outside the front of the restaurant with a few other guys they seemed to know who happened to show up at the same time. Mam still had to get in his cab, so we weren't sure what was going to happen when he left. However, I had time to really think about it while Mam spent 15 minutes in the bathroom trying to figure out if the guy had broken his face.

When it was all said and done, Tylem and Julim walked him out to the cab. There was no trouble, and Euro #1 never came back.

We left the restaurant shortly thereafter. A debate ensued: Tylem and Willim mentioned that Euro had sucker punched Mam. Now, I didn't quite agree. They were both facing each other, Euro wound back, and punched Mam full force in the face. My basic argument was that Mam would have had to be blind not to see it coming, and I'd always thought that a sucker punch was employed when the person a) couldn't possibly see you (such as when you are behind them) or b) weren't looking (perhaps due to some distracttion). Tylem and Willim maintained that until they both stepped back and raised their fists, anything at all was "sucker".

We went back to Julim's. Tylem and Julim were waiting for everyone to go to away so that they could fuck like bunnies. Cartem and Jesm had been drawing closer and closer since the end of the Fubar experience, so I assumed that they were also waiting for an opportune moment to go away unnoticed. Willim probably had an equal chance of hooking up with Sabrinm or passing out on Julim's couch. All at once I had the highly oppressive feeling of being the seventh wheel, and beat a hasty retreat out of there.

Part 3: Don't worry, the end is near.

I woke up for class on Friday feeling like hell. It was actually painful to concentrate on taking notes in my classes. Comprehension was certainly out of the question. However, after being up for 5 hours I cou;dn't go back to sleep. I went over to Willim's and we jammed a couple of songs. I came home, heard a message from the faj, and phoned him back. I ended up talking to my mom for an hour, and then loafed around for the rest of the day. I started writing this post around 6. I saved the draft and went to bed around midnight.

Saturday morning:
As I try to kill off this monster, I take frequent breaks to check the BitTorrent, play Dawn of War, and Stumble around. The only worthwhile thing that any of those have produced this morning is this. And maybe this.

Later on my Dad came over and we went shopping. he also dropped off posters for his upcoming Guitarathon. It's 12 straight hours of awsome guitar music with confirmed appearances by Jay Holdsworth and Calder McKenna, as well as a rumoured few chords from Blake, along with 11 and-a-half other hours of mind-blowing guitar from all my Dad's friends and students. It's going down on Monday the 30th, and you're more than welcome to sleep on my floor if you feel like coming down! Just be sure to donate something. The Guitarathon is a fundraiser for the KW Symphony Orchestra, which is gonna go bankrupt if they don't raise some pretty steep funds by November. So come. Or I'll get angry.

So, yeah. I'm caught up now, I think. I also think that I'm gonna go to bed. I mighr even leave my computer on and see how Bit Torrent handles overnight.

Insert pithy sign-off here

Holy christ. This is 7200 words long...

*Names changed drastically to allow Blake to munch my scrotum

Don't Turn Your Head Away, Cause You C'aint Get Away, Your Mind is Lost Because Your Spirit has Been Led Astray

2006-10-15T22:08:00.000-04:00

Things are a malestrom of nonsense here. Nothing bad, but I just don't have to time for a ball busting post. And really, I have enough material for one. Just not the time. Maybe by the end of this week things will have cooled down enough.

In other news: M-TOD and Binks are back (finally), and Jordan (not Granite) has dropped off the blog-wagon for a second time. As always, leave a comment here if you want back on.

Back to my lab report...

When I Was Just a Baby, my Mama Told Me, "Son, Always be a Good Boy, Don't Ever Play With Guns,"

2006-10-06T13:18:00.002-04:00

So....

I'm convinced that my bicycle is trying to kill me. I'm afraid that the nickname I gave it last post just won't cover it anymore. King Gnarly is dead. Long live "That Yellow Bastard".

Here's the story:

This morning, I biked to school. I left early with my roommates. We had a midterm today in Exercise Physiology. Our ride to schoo takes us through a research park which only has roundabouts instead of proper intersections. It looks really cool and new. Except that no one in Waterloo understands how to use them. But that's a story for another day.

On this particular morning, I was bicycling along the bicycle lane, 5 fet behind one of my roommates, when I heard the loud grumble of a dump-truck gunning it up behind us. Followed by another. We pul into a roundabout and I veer as close to the right-hand side as I can to get away from the scary trucks. I turn my head to look for my other roommate. She hadn't ridden a bike since grade 3 before we made her start riding again this year, so she's a little shaky. I was worried that a) one of the dump truck might have blown her over or b) she would hve just stopped and waited for the trucks to go by. Nope she was just fine, about 60 feet behind me, just entering the roundabout. I trned back and saw something rushing towards me at great speed. A truck? A fock of seagulls? Another person on their way to school?

None of the above. It was the kerb. Now Yellow Bastard may not look lke much. And that's because he isn't much. If I impacted that kerb, I'd probably survive. However, my testicular fortitude would be greatly diminished (remember the end of my last post). So I swerved and attempted to stay on the road. It worked, for the first 1/3 of the swerve. Then the steering locked. I impacted the kerb at an angle. This is a dramatic recreation of the event.

It wasn't actually that brutal. I certainly did go flying over the handlebars at a decent clip (That Yellow Bastard's brakes don't really work either), but I got lucky for 3 reasons: 1) I misse the road and the sidewalk, I merely ploughed (and you can take that literally) into the grassy boulevard; 2) I finished my flight less than a foot in front of a telephone pole (as opposed to parts of me landing just past it); 3) I was garbed in both my leather bomber jacket and my leather "strangler"/"creepy rapist" gloves due to the crispness of the morning (I was also wearing the scarf that Nora's grandma made me, but it's not pertinent to my crash details). It wasn't all nice, though. That lawn was freshly mown, and my beautiful self was covered in clippings. So what happened? Well, the crash itself has left my memory, but you can be reasonably assured that I got up, grinning sheepishly, glasses hanging from my beard, and uttered something retarded like "haha, whoops"

There was someone walking to school 6 feet away from me. I remember seeing them standig there totally agape (or at least what I understood to be agape without my glasses. The face was more of a flesh-shaped lump with a big black spot covering the lower half). I'm pretty sure that I addressed my remark to this character. Then they turned around and left. Luckily no cars stopped to help me, otherwise I might have flared up and died of embarassment right there...

So then I was coming home from school. I'd parked my bike on the opposite side of the math building than usual for my calculus class. Thriling info, I know, but its important to know because that single event was the cause of my next velocipedic misfortune: It forced me to take a different route than normal back through campus to get to the research park (which led to the street outside the research park, which lead down a hill to my house, etc). This involved going through a walkway between two buildings, one of which was under construction (necessitating the walkway). The walkway was fairly broad, four or five people could walk abreast easily (and they were, slowly), and there was also a grassy patch on the right side which no one was walking on. I figured that it would be an easy choice to weave in and out of pedestrian traffic (which I love to do on campus anyway) and use the grass when I couldn't do anything else. Once I got closer, it became apparent that the grass was pretty much my only option (unless I wanted to get off of my bike and walk. pfft). So I sped up and just prior to entering the walkway I saw a really attractive girl from my program walking out of it. We exchanged smiles and nods and my mind filled with pleasant thoughts until about 1 second after I saw the dip in the ground coming at me.

Now, when I say dip, that's just what I mean. Not a trench, not a hole, a slight dip. The same sort of natural 1 or 2 inch rise or fall in the earth that one sees everywhere when not on asphalt. Just to recap: a slight drop in elevation, no more than 1 or 2 inches, grass covered, no different from the surrounding terrain. Totally harmless. However, once I struck it, things became quite different. I'll swear that the fucker was 8 inches deep. My front tire exploded into it. Exploded? With mud. I drove, full force, into a massive mud-puddle. If I hadn't hit it straight on, I probably would have been thrown from the saddle again. As it stood, I recieved a nice coating of mud halfway to my knee, 100% coverage of the underside of my bike, and an artistic dapling of spots all across the front of my shirt. However, I bit back my curses and pushed on before the ten other people I sprayed with mud had a chance to mob me.

So yeah. We can draw the conclusion that my bike is out for my blood. What's interesting, thought, is the momentary distraction by women that precedes each attack. It knows how I work.

In other news, some of you may have noticed that FORTITUDE has begun commenting here. click the link and enjoy.

Kiersten and MTOD, you've had than your month. Post again if you want back into our glorious organization.

You've Got an Organ Going There! No Wonder the Sound Has so Much Body

2006-10-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick-fix:

First, welcome back Eric. Although it seems that you were unaware of my little purge, you've managed to re-assert yourself in my clean, new, perfect world.

Also, Balek is making an abortive attempt to clean up his life. Again. Why don't you try quitting smoking or something?

Lastly, to add some poorly needed body to this post, a little conjecture:

And by conjecture, I mean a lesson in having an over-active imagination.

So, last night I was studying for my calculus tutorial at Tyler's place. The time came to go and get creamed by all those lttle numbers, and we walked out of the door. His house is sort of on a hill. It's built about 15 feet up from the level of the parking lot. There's a concrete stairway with a railing leading down to the parking lot and steeply angled grass on both sides. I, as usual, was riding my bike. I had locked it to the top of the railing as there are no convenient pipes or wrought iron jutting from the front of Tyler's house for me to use. I unlocked it and contemplated the annoying trip down to ground level. I could walk to bike down the stairs. Lots of bumps, no real enjoyment. I could walk it down the grass. Significant chance of falling and looking like a goof. It's that steep. I could carry the bike down the stairs. I already carried it up and wasn't looking to repeat the experience in reverse.

Then I had a great idea: Why not just release the bicycle down the hill? It made perfect sense in that first moment. I could let the bicycle ride itself down the hill, and (because it was such a shitty bike) it would undoubtably fall over and skid to a halt at the bottom of the hill.

But maybe (I thought) I should have more faith in the old thing. My mind was quickly filled with a far more interesting outcome: As the bicycle gains speed, it also gains stabillity. The bicycle could have, theoretically, shot down the hill, gaining a fairly respectable pace whe it hit the ground. It was at this point that my initial ideas were replaced: Instead of rolling onto its side the bicycle could, within reason, have kept going quite easily. It may have continued on it's course straight across the parking lot into the back of a car. If it weren't for the lock. Purely from a speculative viewpoint, the weight of my bicycle lock could pososibly have influenced the course of it's travel enough to make it turn in a slow graceful arc, missing the car by inches. Eventually it would turn bac towards the hill I had launched it from. If there wasn't another car in it's way. Luckily, as my mind traced a lazy line around the parking lot, it would have connected with the car at a right-angle to its side. Thus, the large, well-filled front wheel would make contact with the robust polymers of the rear-side pannel of the station wagon in question, but not any other part of the bicycle. Of course, being the caring individual that I am, I would have immediately run down the hill to check on the condition of the car. And not just because if this event which did not happen had happened to occur at the time of my imaginings, it would have been observed by another car-ful of people who were invisible to me until after the time when I would have launched the bike (had such an event ever occured).

After this train of thoughts (certainly not of events), I decided that my bicycle had finally proven itself worthy of a name. or rather that it was worthy f me using this Mountain Bike Name Generator to think of one for me. My first answer was "Hell on Wheels". I didn't think that that aptly described my bicycle, so I typed "Yellow Shit-eater" (The term that I usually use to denote my bicycle) into the machine and got "King Gnarly" back. I think that I can handle that.

I managed to pay little enough attention on the way to calculus tutorial that my bicycle unseated me and hit me in the nuts. Three times.

4 and 3 and 2 and 1 (What up?), and when I'm on the mic, the suckers run

2006-09-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

First of all: The reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Onto better things:

As of Tuesday afternoon, the axe which has hung dangerously above my head all summer was removed form it's position directly above the tender flesh of my neck, and replaced back above my head, falling at a slightly faster rate than before, but reduced in size by one quarter.

Confused (by my clever metaphor)?

So was I (but not by a metaphor) when I walked into my financial aid office with the Official Documents needed to finalize my OSAP application and got told that there was no way in hell that said documents would be processed in time for Friday. Friday the 29th. Friday the day I get kicked out of school if I don't get my finances arranged.

As I said. It was confusing. I had recieved an email the week before which explained that the Uni had picked up on my total lack of communication about just how I was going to fill their greedy outstretched hands this September. Of course this "lack of communication" was really a clever feint on my part (to make myself look like a disorganized fool) to draw attention away from the fact that my parents hadn;t done their taxes until the end of August, which had prevented me from finishing my OSAP application in any manner that could co-exist normally in a sectence which also included the word "timely".

In any case, the email also told me that if I was encountering delays with my financial aid, I should sort them out immediately. I did just that. I immediately sent an email reuesting the information I needed to finish my application. Surely with more than a week before my deadline, I would be able to get my application going enough that I could arrange my fees with Student Accounts. The next day I finished the application and submitted it. My first roadblock came at me then: the Official Documents I mentioned above needed to be printed off and submitted to my Financial Aid office as soon as possible. One was a form which stated that I have my permission to let the OSAP people collect my personal information and information from my tax returns. The second was the same, but for the rents.

Now, just digress with me for a moment: I am required to sign documents which allow OSAP to get all of my personal information and all of the information about my income for this year in order to allow my online application to proceed. Now, what did I put into my online application? All of my personal information and all of the information about my income for this year.

So why do they need my permission to go and get it themselves when I've already given it to them? Well, the obvious response is, "Because the government doesn't trust you not to lie cheat and steal every penny that you can from them". Which is fair. If I knew no one was going to check on it, I might just wiggle the numbers a bit in order to be sure I'd be maximizing my eligibility. But they are going to be checking. They're going to check every figure I've given them against the information being held in the CRA's chest of knowlege. So why make me waste my time filling in the bloody forms in the first place? Just go get it yourselves!

Anyway, I'm standing in the financial aid office replaying in my mind (for your benefit, not mine) the circumstances which got me there. I'm still at the part where I've only just recieved the PDF's of the important forms. My main problem is that the rents are in their town, and I'm in mine. It's not easy to get them to sign legal documents from that distance. So I had to email a copy of the PDF to my mother. No biggie. It seemed like a heftier challenge at the time.

Now I wait until Monday (This Monday, the day before this story is actually taking place, 3 days in the past at the time of this writing) For my faj to come into town and drop the form off at my house. Unfortunately, I was prevented from taking it to the Financial Aid office (or at least from waiting in line for 2 hours at the office) by the fact that 40% of my in-class week happens on Monday. The day grinds into gear with Exercise Physiology, works into Calculus, glides into Sport Psychology Tutorial (mandatory), which finishes at 2:30 giving me 2 hours to either study for my calculus totorial (which isn't really a tutorial, it's a mini-exam every week [most stressful 2 hours ever]) or wait in line at the Financial Aid office (allowing me to fail my calc tutorial). After calc I grab dinner and then shoot arows at things for a couple of hours before heading home to bed.

So I took the forms in on Tuesday after I finished class at 2:30. It didn't take 2 hours. It turned out that I'd missed the fact that there were 2 lines at the office door: One outrageously long one for people who (or whose parents) had had the foresight to apply for OSAP during the summer and who were picking it up now, and the other for general inquiries. I took the other. There were 5 people ahead of me. One of them was actually some clever bastard who jumped the big line and picked up his OSAP in about 1/10th of the time it would have normally taken him. I got to the front and handed over my forms. "oooh, a little late aren't we?" cackled the Financial Aid woman.

I took this in my stride. The Financial Aid ladies like all the students and genuinely want you to succeed at life (unlike the embittered she-devils in the Student Accounts office on the floor below). "Yeah, haha. I had a little trouble with my parents' tax information."

She takes the forms, begins stamping them, etc.

And that's where our story catches up the the beginning: "So, these are going to be processed in time for Friday, right?"

I'm casual, calm, just looking for reassurance. You see, I haven't quite been telling the story right. It's just a little more complicated (and be prepared to hear that over and over when dealing with the 3 seperate beaurocracies of OSAP, the Financial Aid office, and Student Accounts) than I said before.

We already know how the woman answers me, so let's skip to my explaination of how things are slightly more complex: Enter the Promissary Note. Some of you may emember my rambling about suckh a document from before, just in case you didn't care, here's a recap: A promissary note is a rather simple document which says "I can't pay you right now, but I'm good for $X from OSAP and as soon as that ship comes in, we'll be square". Or words to that effect. All that that note requires is a printout of my loan estimate from the OSAP website. Once I have that and I hand it in, the heat is off for as long as it takes for my loan to come through. To reference my metaphor, the Promissary Note makes the axe disappear completely, no matter how close it is to my neck.

So, obviously, I was aiming to have a PN signed by this Friday. There was but a single problem: OSAP wasn't going to show me an estimate of my loan until I'd handed in my Official Documents at the Financial Aid office. So when the woman told me that those documents wouldn't be processed for at least 2 weeks (1.5 weeks too late for my neck), I got... confused. A bit.

She sent me to talk to the fine ladies at Student Accounts. I encased my genitals in 6 inches of lead and a foot of reinforced concrete as a preemptive measure. It also made me look like I had a very large, if somewhat spherical, dick. However, the counter at the Financial Aid office was built for people over 7 feet tall to use comfortably, so nothing below my collarbone was visible to the employees on the other side.

I don't think that I need to get into the details of the opening rounds of our negotiations. I didn't have any cards, she had the card that says, "You Lose". I explained the entire situation and informed her that I really needed to stay in school. Now, when I tried a similar maneuver last winter, the ladies in Accounts nearly busted a gut laughing at me. That was when I told them that I had no way of paying them a sum which was less than 1/3 of the one I was telling them about now. But apparently the magnitude of the sum has an inverse relationship to the scorn of the Accounts lady. Eventually, the cynical, bitchy mask on her face fell off (and her face nearly cracked in half under the strain). I had passed a test: I had been deemed worthy to learn of a secret which no one tells you about until you are absolutely out of answers: I had to sign a contract.

I'm not getting kicked out of school. My OSAP application is processing away as we speak. I am under contractual agreement with the Uni to pay my outstanding sum by December, with a 5% "administration fee" for their trouble and an immediate payment of 1/4 of the balance owing. So, now I'm poorer than I was before. But I am still in school. Of course, this deal (and it says this right on the contract) is a one-time only thing, a get out of jail free card (It doesn't say that part). And I've already played it in the first term of my second year. Hopefully the next 3 go a little more smoothly.

In other news, I can currently only listen to DJ Shadow's Private Press, Kid Koala, and some of Calder's studd that I downloaded from MySpace. Please send me music. One or two songs at a time through email would be most beneficial.

I must leave you now. I've got a dryer full of clothes which need to be brought into my room, a set of pipes containing all the oxidane I'm going to need to clean myself, and some empty cupboards to fill.

The Long-Awaited Part 2. The Tri-City Trio Strikes Back!

2006-09-25T22:20:00.000-04:00

I told Blake and Jordan that we should take the damn sign, go back in, and stick it in front of our table until we got some fucking attention paid to us.

STOP!!! Dont read this if you haven't read part one! Silly!

So there we were. Three painfully sober young men on a Thursday night.

The fact that we were leaving my campus bar should have contradicted our massive, ungainly, slobbering sobriety. But, instead, the only contradiction was the one between the sign at the door saying "Please seat yourself, you will be served shortly" (or something) and the ammount of service we were recieving. Namely, about as much service as I'm likely to get from a 2 year-old child, one of whose parent's sprang from the same womb as this character.

This was where contention began. For "contention" read, "Blake pussing out and wanting to go home". Now, don't get me wrong, Blake was still very interested in a drunken evening, unfortunately he just wanted it to be alone in his room with a 40 of rum and 500mL of Coke.

Needless to say, Jordan and I were against this little idea. Blake then suggested we go to Wilf's. Only one problem there: The price of a drink at Wilf's is about as constant as the love of most of the women on it's dancefloor. For those of you who... take up more space with the same ammount of substance, that means that a) the price of said dirnk may or may not include a built-in tip for the server involved, and b) Laurier Girls <3 the Cock.

Luckily for humanity, I suggested a compromise: We would go to Molly Blooms in the plaza by mine and Jordan's school. So we walked. And walked. Walking from my house to Jordan's was one thing, but then walking accross campus and onto the far end of the plaza was another (oh, and I also nearly missed Molly's, just so everyone knows).

Things were back on track. We practically slid up to the door we were so smooth, so supple, so ready for a fucking drink. I was nearly assaulted with the door by a patron on their way out, but I made it through. But here is one gentle distinction, dear reader, between the Molly looms at my school, and the one in our fair metropolis back home: In this MB's, there'a a big fat man sitting just inside the front door (and there is a second front door after it so that you can't dodge him too easily) waiting to take you ID. Also, it's just a huge slobbering nonsensical party-house. basically like every other bar on campus, except that it gets to use "pub" in its name.

I strode in boldly and dug out my credentials. The man at the door was suitably amazed, as was he by Blake's. However, Jordan's left him desiring something more. Something like actual credentials. Jordan is 19, he does have a beard like mine, but he still needs photo ID to get into bars.

We left Molly Bloom's, and truthfully, before I even knew the resolution to our lovely story, I was really kinda glad. The only thing that ever made me want to go there was my desperatre need for a drink after anticipating one for so long.

So, there we were, cast adrift, walking slowly back along the plaza in the direction of Jordan's rez. I didnt know what we were doing, and I don't think Jordan or Blake did either. We'd been beaten by the man. First through the work (haha) of his jaded bar-keeps, and then through his pathetic prohibitionist throwback laws. Man.

And then it was there: It wasn't crowded, but it was roiling with conversation. It wasn't clean, but it was a good kind of not clean. The kind where there's old newspapers and burger grease lying around, instead of empty bottles and ejaculate. I stood outside, transfixed. We had found the end of our journey. For a moment I believed that God had finally decided to prove his existence to me, by putting me through trials and then leading me here.

After a while, the sources of my... transfiction became apparent to Blake and Jordan. I was torn: I wanted to go in, but I didn't want to make Jordan walk all the way home alone to get his ID. He said it was OK, and that he would bike back so that the journey wasn't very long.

We entered. The scene was thus: The bar was straight ahead, behind it stood a greying barman. He was talking to a couple of guys on the stools at the bar. There were only 4, so it was good that jordan wasn't with us yet. To the right were tables and chairs. The only booth was at the back, right beside the two empty stools. On the far right wall was a massive projection screen showing sports of some kind.

We moseyed on down to the bar. The barman, not to be out-cooled by us, calmly informed that if regulars came in and wanted our seats, we'd need to move. We told him that judging by our first impressions, we'd be regulars soon. Our verbal blade-crossing continued: He asked us what we wanted to drink. I paused. A brief reconoiter on the way in had produced a number of beer taps, a fridge full of other beer and coolers, and a (small) back wall covered mostly in scotch. Blake entered the breach first: a double rum and coke. Now that he'd opened the subject of mixed drinks, I called in a screwdriver for myself. The barman asked for ID. We rolled initiative, and jumped for our wallets.

"Don't bother, if you're reaching for it that fast it's either real or a good fake. Here you go, my name's Bill."

I looked beside me, Blake was grinning. I looked the other way and saw a bookshelf. A bar with a bookshelf. I reached for the nearest novel to see what it was. Can you guess? Can you fucking guess? It was Master and Commander.

Blake and I consumed a few more drinks, talked to Bill about ourselves (he's from Woodstock, and he knows the guy who owns the Book vault!!!!).

After a while, Blake went out for a smoke. I chatted to Bill and watched the Tv, sipping my drink. When I looked up again, Jordan was out there with Blake. I put down an order for 2 screwdrivers and another double R&C.

I don't think I need to say any more. I'll let Jordan handle the evening's conclusion.

Now the Time is Here, For Iron Man to Spread Fear, Vengeance from the Grave, Kills the People he Once Saved

2006-09-23T12:20:00.000-04:00

Bonus points to anyone who's going to come to my house with the album that I pulled those lyrics from and end my musical drought.

I was hoping to tell Part 2 of the amazing adventure I had with Blake and Jordan the other night. However since Blake moaned and whined about how he wanted to do part 1 (which was fine, really, I didn't care which part I did), and he hasn't done it yet, I can't.

So instead I'm going to insert some filler material.

I walked into calculus class yesterday with a smile on my face. The same ridiculous smile which had graced it for the past week, in fact. This is due largely to a new calculus initiative which I have pioneered with Tyler, his girlfriend Julie, and our other friend Ben (who shall be called Willis to avoid confusion and copyright issues on the name "Ben").

Here's how it went:

10.20: We finish our Exercise Physiology lecture and head out into the great unknown. Usually we eat lunch and see what's happening in the Student Life Centre (This week it was the poster sale. Earlier this week I picked up a Fear and Loathing poster for myself. You know the one. Or maybe you don't. If by "you" I mean a Google image search. Anyway, it's a rockin poster. You'll have to come to my house and see it some time).

11.00: We get bored. We still have about 18 minutes before we need to go to calculus, which is about 45 seconds away in the Math Castle. This is a blur for me. I honestly can't remember what we did. Probably just sat in the lounge and talked.

11.15: Boredom reaches critical levels. We decide to go early to calculus. Now, listen carefully: Going to calculus early goes against the "new initiative" mentioned above entirely. It is of prime importance that we show up for calculus only seconds before the section before us start to pack up and get out of their seats. We enter the Math Castle, turn the corner and go down the hallway towards our class. Right before we make the final turn to come down to the classroom door, sense returns to us and we stop. We retreat to a nearby stairwell to wait out the remaining minutes.

11.19: We walk back to calculus. We take our time, walking at an amiable pace. I take the lead, looking straight ahead, projecting calm and radiating quiet controlled purpose. This is essential for the seamless implementation of the initiative.

As we round the final corner, the clasroom is a scant 20 meters away. But lining the hallway on both sides are the keeners. They are the people (mostly asian, but that seems to be a bigger deal for Tyler and Willis than for me) who have been sitting in that hallway for at least half an hour, waiting for calculus to begin. They are also the people who casually assume the best seats in the class while the section before them is still [acking up and leaving the room.

You see, the keeners will usually go totally unchalenged in that regard, because class doesn't actually start until 11:30. This is why it is essential to come at 11:20, to have a hope of beating the keeners. But that's not all that you need. You have to be first in line. You see, the keeners have probably spent years showing up early and snagging the best spots. They know how much time they have, and they use it effectively. But by getting there ahead of the keeners, you can trot into the room and snag the best seats before they can get off the of the floor they've been sitting on the shuffle over to the doorway.

And that is why it's so important to be calm and collected as you walk down the hallway, past all of the keeners, right up to the classroom door, in order to get ahead of them. Once you're there, what are they going to say? "I'm sorry, I've been waiting to get into this lecture for 20 minutes. That seat in the first row right beside the centre aisle is mine, bitch-san!"

Of course, if they did, I'd just have to say something like "No". And then jog in, drop my bag onto the desk, and slip into the seat. Or hover over the person vacating the seat until I can jump onto it.

So, yeah. That's why I smile every time I go to calculus. And usually that feeling lasts all the way through the lecture. I sit within spitting distance of the prof, back straight, shoulders square, burning holes in the desk with my note-taking speed, trying not to laugh while he talks in his uproarously funny Indian accent. Tyler and Willis talk all class, usualy about how drunk Willis was the night before. Julie usually manages a mix between the 3 of us.

In other news, I've been hitting this up as a way to stave off musial malnutrition. You can find the whole deal here.

Also, some of you may have noticed the picture I put up. I thought it was nice. It came up on an image search for Maranatha. But what also came up was this. I think that if I had enough money I would definately invest in some of their product.

Keep you hands where I can see them.

Impenetrable, Incontestable, Indigestable Intelligence - Never Let a Computer Tell Me Shit!

2006-09-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

So, here's a quick snippet of life here at the Uni:

I have a biomechanics lab today. It runs from 2:30 to 4:20 every other week. On the weeks that I don't have biomechanics labs, I have exercise physiology labs from 2:30 to 5:30. For anyone who's majoring in arts: labs are mandatory. That means that if you're too sleepy to go, you fail.

So anyway, back-track to last night: I'm looking frantically through my room for my biomechanics lab manual. I'm pretty sure that I bought it, but I can't find any evidence of that, and my credit card history doesn't back it up either. So I give up. I bought my exercise physiology lab manual, but not the biomech one.

This morning was shitty. (To diverge totally from my actual story) I got up an hour early to make food. My Dad bought me a crock pot, and I've been making wicked stews with it. I fillit with beef, garlic and onion, potatoes, and carrots, and turn it on low and let it cook until 7 or 8 at night. Then I eat a huge bowl and pack the rest into the fridge. Hello lunch for the rest of the week. Anyway, after slaving over this stew preparation, I then made myself a lunch for today, and then defrosted some bread and made myself some sandwiches for breakfast. Then before I knew it, it was 9:14 and the roomies and I were scrambling for our bicycles to get to 9:30 class.

And in the scramble I left my lunch on the kitchen counter.

So, fast forward to 12:30: I've finished my classes for the day and I've got 2 hours before my lab. Prime chance to go to the bookstore and get my lab notes. Except that they don't have any. Now, this isn't actually that surprising. The bookstore doesn't actually care about getting books to students. They care about getting as much money as possible. So they hate getting shafted by buying too many books. So, I imagine that a number of years ago, in a cramped smoky boardroom at 2am, someone had an idea. Of course, this idea was motivated by the fact that no one was allowed to leave the room until an idea was had, and yet this one still had a slight glimmer of briliance.

"Here it is!"
said the dipshit
"It's really quite elegant. We don't want to lose money on a single book, right? And the profs are coming out with new editions every year or two, so we can't afford to just keep unsold books for next year, right?"

"Yeah, dipshit!" someone yells, "Thanks for pointing out the fucking obvious one more time."

"But wait, listen! We dont want to lose money on a single book, so all we need to do is stock so few books that we absolutely know they'll all sell!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, how many kids out of a given class are going to buy the book? 70, maybe 80%? And that's worst-case. So, let's only buy enough books for... say 60% of the number of enrolled students in any class! That way we're guaranteed to sell out during the first week of class, and anyone who wants a book after that can order it from our poorly staffed help desk!"

And such was the dark genesis of bookstore policy at my school. There are 15 checkout counters at the bookstore, and all through the first week of class they are busy from 8am to 5pm. There are 2 people at the help desk. Ever. I walked into the store to get my manual today, saw that ther were none, and then pushed my way back out of the store through the 150 people lined up at the help desk. No fucking way that I was killing mylunch-break for that nonsense.

Of course, not all those people were there to order books, I imagine that some of them were eager to actually start doing work in their courses, and were picking up books. And there lies my other favourite bookstore story: Last year, the bookstore ran out of notes for one of my classes. I did the usual thing and stood in line for half an hour to order one (I didn't mind. It was a break from standing in the lines at the Financial Aid office for 2+ hours). I gave them my phone number at school, my parents number in Stratford, and my email address. The perosn at the desk told me that they were expecting the notes in two days, but that I shold not, under any circumstances, bother coming back there to retrieve them until the bookstore staff had phoned me to say that the notes were in.

Two weeks later my prof actually asked me why I hadn't gotten the ntoes yet. I told her that the bookstore hadn't called me yet. She said that I should go and find out what was up. I told her that they said I shouldn't go back until they phoned, but she said that I'd better do it anyway.

Here's the conversation:

"Hi..."

"What?"

"I'm looking to pick up some course notes. I'm not sure if they're in yet-"

"Have we called you?"

"No... But I've been waiting a while."

"Yeah? how longs a while?"

"About 2 weeks..."

"Phh, that's nothing. I've got guys who've been waiting entire terms just to see their books"

I think that that was supposed to be a joke.

"Listen, asshole! I've got a midterm in that god-damn class tomorrow morning, and I'd like to have laid eyes on the fucking notes before that happens!"

A short trip to the rear of the store later, and my notes were firmly in my hands.

Back to the present...

I walk out of the bookstore and get my bike. One of my roomies is supposed to be in this lab with me anyway, so I can share her manual. I then experience the worst bike home known to man. I mean, the only virtue of the bike that I ride is that it's too shitty to be stolen. It's a 12-speed bike with a youth-sized frame. But only 4 of the speeds work. The top 4. So I spend a lot of time standing up on my bike. That's point #1.

#2: The Uni I go to is built on a very shallow gradient. It slopes from north down to south. It's no steeper than 5 or 6 degrees most of the time. I like directly north of my school. So every morning, the bike there is awsome. But the bike back is fucking terrible.

#3: I don't know if anyone was outside today, and maybe it was only like this in Waterloo, but there was a ridiculous Norht wind blowing today. So picture me huffing and puffing, standing up on the yellow fucking wonder-bike, going uphill the entire way, with a gale-force wind in my face. I was ready to die.

And the best part? I knew that I'd have to face it again after my lab. I seriously wouldn't have biked home if I hadn't left my damn lunch there.

But I digress. I biked back to school (and I swear to god that the wind had changed direction so that it was in my face again)and went to the building my lab was in (also my faculty building. Go figure). I was about 20 minutes early. I dunno why, but it's good that I was. I walked by the room (not planning to go in yet) and heard someone writing on the chalkboard. I peeked my head in and saw a reasonably attractive TA causing the noise. I gave her my name, and was about to launch into some questions about how important it was to have the manual, when she asked for my name again. I gave it again, and she flipped to a different attendance sheet.

"Oh, you're in section 108."

"Yeah, that's me. My [super special online University] account says the same thing. Section 108, this room, this time."

"Oh, sorry! Your lab isn't until next week."

"Hmm. Are you sure? I don't know why it wouldn't say that on my online schedule."

"Yeah, definately. Most courses have even number sections going in the first week, but we do odd numbered ones. That might be where the mix-up occured. I'd let you stay for this one, but there just isn't enough room to get you on the computer for what you need to do."

"Oh. Thanks. I'll see you in a week. Wait-"

And hopefully, my diligent readers, you were also thinking this

"I have another lab at this time next week."

"Oh. Well, if you email the lab coordinator she can squeeze you into another section."

"Great, thanks. See you later."

And I left. But then my mind began ticking away. First, let me get one thing straight: I absolutely was at the right lab (at least according to my [super special online University] account). So no, the plot doesn't resolve as easily as "hahah, I got my two labs mixed up, I'm so retared, ahahaha". But, I thought, if my [super special online University] account can fuck up once, maybe it can fuck up twice!

So I trotted up to one of my faculty computer labs on the second floor to see where my other lab was supposed to be. I mean, if I'd shown up at the right room adnthe right time, but the wrong week for my first lab, maybe if I checked the right room at the right time on the wrong week for my other lab, I'd discover that I was in the right place.

So I did. And the TA told me that I was in the right place at the right time on what was definately the wrong week.

So then I decided to leave. But first I went and checked the bookstore to see how the lineup was doing. Different idiots, same length. Then I biked home again.

So let's recap: I biked home at 1-ish and it fucking sucked. I went back at 2 and wasted 20 minutes of metabolism only to bike back with nothing to show for it.

I sent an email to the lab coordinator telling her my trouble. I thanked her in advance for her assistance. Boy, what a mistake that was. An hour later my roomie (the one who was in the same lab) came back home. She told me that I was definately supposed to be in that lab. The TA (the same bloody one) called my name 3 imes for attendance before someone gave her a description of me. Then she blushed, etc, etc. I check back into my email and find a terse message from the lab coordinator: I'm in the right section at the right time on the right week. No, I cannot be transferred into another section.

To cap it off! The TA sent me an email appologizing (barely) and recommending that I come to one of the labs tomorrow because "They will all be too full next week to accomodate you". The first lab cuts into the first half of my chemistry lecture tomorrow. The second lab starts directly after.

Decisions decisions.

I hope that that's enough of my boring life to keep you occupied.

DAN! Fucking call me! We need to get together!

I'm Gonna Get My Fasc On

2006-09-12T21:43:00.000-04:00

Yes, the above is a very clever clever pun on a Walmart ad campaign. You're welcome. I was originally going to have 2 different ways to weave that into my post, but I'm only going to do one. The one I'm dropping involved a conversation, which happened to touch on a pair of these, and which then turned into a perplexing argment about gay people. But I'm not interested in reprinting the nonsense that went on.

However, the second reason is the main one anyway. Following my title literally, I assume totalitarian control over my blog, and am going to institute sweeping new policies designed to bring things back to the glory days. So, here's what I see. All the problems in Blogopolis today are caused by one simple thing: Leechy bastards who love to comment, but never post for themselves. Here's my solution: Everyone who hasn't posted in at least a month can fuck off and die. Or do the next best thing: Get removed from my links page until they post again. Take a look. If you're not there, you'd better drop something. Your comments will be deleted unless they say something like, "My noble and sexually arousing ruler, please reinstate my holdings in your kingdom of paradise. See where I've posted something new about _____ ". My links list is too long. Why do I fill it with blogs that don't have any updates?

Further, to quell the nonsense before it begins, I'm going to explain why I haven't updated lately: I've been fucked so many ways it's unbelievable. I was planning on a massive post to ring in the new school year. Unfortunately, I didn't have internet until Thursday of last week, and I spent that day hooking up my phone and trying to get to Whitby the hang out with Nick (which is a whole adventure post unto itself). I go home on Sunday night, and began planning this post in my head.... and then my computer died.

Fucking died.

My hard-drive is gone, all my accumulated music and other less important things (like school-work from last year) have been obliterated. Luckily for the free world, I realized by late this afternoon that the lovely Wolfgang (notice he's not in my links anymore?) had issued me with a cool little CD. It's got an operating system on it called MiniPE. Well, MiniPE XT v2K5.09.03 to be exact. it runs from the drive, open up some sort of virtual (?) drive in my RAM, and looks surprisingly like Windows XP. Of course, since my "hard drive" is now only 300MB, I can't do too much. I spent half an hour trying to get it onto the internet. I couldn't do it. I got my roommate (yeah, our house got a 4th roommate! He's in 3rd year Computer Science) to take a look at it. He's on a Co-op term right now and he works for a networking company. He couldn't find anything wrong. It was then that I realized what an ass I had been.

After plugging in my ethernet cable, I smoothly accessed my much-neglected email and decided that god had given me enough warnings about getting my posts out in a timely fashion. Consider this little pruning of the links list my own piece of Divine Intervention. I'd post more but I've got to go to sleep.

For those interested, here's a list of people getting the chop (in order from top to bottom):

Carl, Ellen, Wolfgang, Caleb, Nora, Scott, Dan, Jordan, Eric, The Red Card Group (who will also be losing their unique section because... They don't really exist anymore), Binkle, and Josh.

I'm also going to take 5 minutes and a) change my link to Ben so that it goes to his new page, and b) put the people who are now in post-sec into my post-sec section.

Don't be offended, be motivated!

In 3's

2006-08-15T15:27:00.000-04:00

On wednesday I wrote a sarcastic note to a co-worker about her inability to take lane-ropes out the the pool properly. Nothing special, but I ended up drawing her diagrams about it and it took me about 1.5 pages and a reasonable ammount of wit. If only I'd known what would be meeting me every three days after that.

Saturday:

I couldn't get to sleep on Saturday. I woke up at 6:45 ready to kill. I got to work at 7:25. Being 5 mintues early usually pays off for me. But on Saturday no one is there to let me in if I show up early. It was cold. I was wearing shorts. The girl who was supposed to open the building for me was 20 minutes late. That's strike 1 for Front Desk.

She couldn't find the pool key. That'll be a strike for the dumbass Aquatics employee who closed the pool Friday night, having most likely taken it back to whatever farming community they were imported from by accident. I continue down to the pool armed with a maintainence key after instructing the front desker that I would be 20 minutes late opening the pool.

I get on deck and everything seems fine. I head into the basement to start backwashing and whatnot, and see that the makeup water has been turned off. This is the water the goes into the pool jets. No water in the jets means no clean water in the pool. A quick test confirms that the chlorine is hovering around 0 ppm. Strike 2, Friday night closer. I crank open the valve and turn to head deeper into the dungeon. But then I realize that there's still no water coming out. Did we forget to pay our bill? I run down to the numerous other taps and pipes in the basement. All are spewing water as per normal. I head back to the makeup water cistern and see that the tool who turned it off didn't just kill the valve on the pipe that the water comes from, they reached down beside the cistern and killed the valve on the pipe that feeds the pipe that the water comes from.

Flow was restored shortly.

I turn off the vacuum, get the backwash started, and fill the chlorine and acid slurries. All is well. I head upstairs and as I'm exiting the basement and passing the deep end, I notice a whole bunch of little brown smudges in the bottom of the deep end. Normally I would disregard it as dirt (the vacuum is self-propelled, and usually ends up propelling itself onto a floor drain every night before it's cleaned the whole pool), but given the chlorine situation, I decide it's better not to tempt fate. Even with no makeup water the pool still should have had some makeup water in it that morning. A big diffuse shit sitting on the bottom all night, however, would probably get rid of that and then some pretty handily. With 5 minutes to go until I was supposed to open the pool, I phone up to front desk and tell the girl that we're going to be closed until 10. The CDC has strict guidelines on how long to close for a fouling, and those guidelines are based on the chlorine level at the time the fouling is discovered. Once again, that means 0 in this case. This is strike 3 for last night's closing guard, and god-damn are they going to be out when I'm through with them.

I get out the skimmer and make to shovel some shit. Trouble is, it's breaking up into little shit-clouds as soon as I touch it. This worries me. For a solid fouling we use the CDC's guidelines. For a liquid fouling we close immediately and stay closed for a 16 hour minimum. I'm not sure what the difference is, so I phone my boss. At 8:20am on Saturday. He tells me 2 important things. 1) He reaffirms what I'd thought, that it looked a lot like sand washed back up from the filters. It's clouding behaviour was also consistent with sand. 2) That the difference between a solid and a liquid fouling is the presence of cryptosporidium in the stool. A solid fouling will never have crypto contamination, but no one wants to take a chance with a liquid one. However, given the lack of chlorine in the water he tells me that I was right to close the pool and that I should keep me eye on the chlorine levels.

Reasonably sure that I'm now dealing with a bunch of sand I take the skimmer and scrub it all off the bottom so that I don't have people telling me all day that there's shit all over the place.

Then

As I'm walking back to my chair to sit down and sleep for 1.5 hours

I decide to take the long way

And there in the shallow end

Is a huge log of shit. Pressed into the floor.

After cleaning that, I sit down to the task at hand. A vitriol-filled full-page note in the communications book. But before I can get to that, what do I see? A reply to my former note from it's intended mark. A reply stating that she has words for me that "cannot be wrote" and that the way she does the ropes is perfectly fine. I now add a few lines aimed back at her to the note forming in my head. Dark storms of caustic sarcasm brewed in my thoughts while the lighning of my wit flashed between them. I decided to pick on the easy target first. I informed lane-rope girl that I wouldn't have stayed late and used a page-and-a-half of the book if I thought her job on the ropes was peachy-keen. I then suggested that she learn her verb conjugations. Possibly by rote.

I went on to put down all of the slights that I had recieved that day, the whole thing just filling one entire page. Then I realized that I didn't have a fork to eat my lunch with.

Today (Tuesday):

I came in today feeling very tired, but not particularily iritable. The night-janitor was working the front desk. He hands me the key and says, "They left a nice one for you down there, eh?"

"Sorry?"

"Oh, no one called to tell you? They had a fouling and closed early. They left all the stuff from lessons in the pool."

"Oh. Awsome."

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Well, they hadn't left everything in the water. To be precise, they'd taken out all the toys and cleaned them (and then left them in a big pile by the deep end), and left me with a) a lane rope b) the shallow-deep divider rope and c) an 80-lb, 6x4x3 foot aluminum table.

The lane rope was no problem. It needed to stay in anyway for the lane-swim approaching fast at 7 o'clock. However, the shallow-deep divider rope was tied onto it. And the table was just going to be a pain in the ass. However, I used a shepherd's hook to untie the rope (fuck, yeah I've got skillz!) and to turn the table onto its end so that I could pull it out of the water. I'm awsome.

But now the real problem: I have no more spleen to empty into the communications book. Also, my last 2 notes are seperated by one page, which contained the reply to my first note and something else unimportant. No one has written anything new since my note about how shitty Saturday was. How can I go and write another note about my shitty life when no one has put any space between this and my last one? So I swallow my indignation. I resolve to just be angry for the rest of the day.

Several hours later (around 9:15) I call up to front desk for a pee break. The woman who normally given me breaks has the day off. I call up to my boss. He's not there. He won't be there all day. He broke his glasses the night before and can't go anywhere because he can't see anything.

So now I'm forced to wonder: What will be waiting for me on Friday? And on Monday after that? I'll have the Thursday after that off, and thank the bleeding lord.

'Cause who's going to listen to mother saying no, when we're all busy dancing to and fro!

2006-08-04T23:24:00.000-04:00

I have been playing this song since Ellen came to my house at 8:30. It's 11:22. I've spent the time reading Ian Rankin's second collection of short stories and burning DVDs for Ben.

I still haven't cut the lawn at the Y.

For those who found that little ditty too entertaining (which I'm going to assume is none because none of you know what it's from) I also found this. And by found (and this applies for both of them) I mean Stumbled Upon (Now work's with Internet Explorer. But you should still get Firefox anyway).

Here is how I spent my awsome day today:

1:45am, Carl drops me off. We were up late painting our latest additions. Actually, there's a funny story to be related first:

Just after we bought the Warhammer that night, Elyse needed to be taken home to... well, butt-fuck nowhere. It takes 40 minutes to get to her house driving not exactly the speed limit the whole way. So this means budgeting that 40 minutes to get there into our schedule. It was fine, we bought our shit, chilled at Carl's for about 20 minutes, and were on our way.

But we had to get gas.

And someone wanted McDonalds (so then we all got it).

And then Alex wanted to be taken home.

Goodbye 40 minutes. A call to Elyse's father enlisted nothing but calm tones and trusting commentary as Carl explained that we were leaving the city immediately and would be at his homestead in 20 minutes.

40 minutes later.

As we are pulling down her Long Country Driveway she says, "Now, if Rosco is outside, then we know my Dad is pissed."

Rosco being this, basically. Except 10 times larger and significantly more scary. Rosco is the only big dog I've met in a while that I'm genuinely afraid of. I've only met him once before and he always looked like he was about to jump onto me. He didn't, but it sure put me on edge, to the point that I slammed the door on him when we got into Elyse's house without asking her parents if they wanted him inside.

Anyway, so we pull up and sure enough, Elyse sees Rosco. I have more difficulty picking out black dogs at night, but I take her word for it. Rosco is silent right now, but I'm assuming he's not going to stay that way.

Now, I really want shotgun, and right now I'm sitting behind the driver's seat (sidenote: Elyse really needs to stop cheating at shotgun. Carl pays good lip-service to this fact, but he hasn't done anything about it). Being retarded, it doesn't occur to me to just crawl into shotgun once Elyse leaves. I tell her to get out as fast as she can so that I can race over to her side and get in before Rosco masticates one of my limbs.

We do this. I see Rosco immediately as I leave the car. He is about 50 feet away by the house looking expectantly at Elyse. If she hadn't also been out of the car I probably already would have been toast. I start walking calmly towards shotgun and Rosco starts barking and getting excited. I make a break for it and so does he. I get the door slammed right before he runs into said door I then triumphantly yell, "FUCK YOU, ROSCO! FUCK YOU, ROSCO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Which does nothing to calm the animal. In fact, it gets him so worked up that he starts chasing the car as we try to pull out of the Endlessly Long Country Driveway. And by "chasing the car" I mean "runing beside the driver's door jumping up and barking hysterically to the point where Carl considers pulling over". If we'd pulled over, the terrorists would have won. I spurred Carl on with more incredibly loud yells of "FUCKYOUROSCOFUCKYOUROSCOFUCKYOUROSCO!", Carl even joining in ocasionally.

Now that I've written it, that story basically puts my whole day today to shame. I slept in until noon, jammed at 1, discovered that they don't take credit at Boomers, and helped Eazy Motherfuckin E find a flower shop.

Oh, I found this site really funny. Kind of a random subject change, but there you go.

That is all.

The sound of a polka drifted from my neighbor's
and set my feet a-tapping oh!
Leva's mother had her eye on her daughter but
Leva she managed to fool her, you know.
'Cause who's going to listen to mother saying no
when we're all busy dancing to and fro!

Leva was smiling, the fiddle it was wailing
as people crowded round to wish her luck.
Everyone was hot but it didn't seem to bother
the handsome young man, the dashing buck.
'Cause who's going to mind a drop of sweat
when he's all busy dancing to and fro!

Leva's mother she shut herself away
in her own quiet room to hum a hymn.
Leaving our hero to have a spot of fun
in a neighbor's house when the lights are dim.
'Cause what does it matter what the old folks say
when you're all busy dancing to and fro!

When the music stopped then the real fun began
and that's when the laddie fooled around.
When he took her home, when the dancing was over
her mother angrily waiting they found.
But I said to her, Leva, now don't you weep
and we'll soon be dancing to and fro!

I said to her mother now stop that noise
or I won't be responsible for what I do.
If you go quietly and stay in your room
you won't get hurt while your daughter I woo.
'Cause this fine laddie is a wild sort of guy
when he's all busy dancing to and fro!

One thing I tell you is you won't trap me,
no, you won't find me an easy catch.
Travel to the east and travel to the west but
Leva and I are going to make a match.
'Cause this fine laddie ain't the bashful sort
when he's all busy dancing to and fro.

Pow! biatch

He called my Name and my Heart stood still, He said Liam go do my Will

2006-08-03T10:55:00.000-04:00

The more I think about my lost bike, the more pissed off I get.

So this morning, I did two things of note.

1) Liam is handy Part 2:
Not too interesting actually. I drilled some holes in the counter-top. The most exciting part there was that instead of having sparks fly out of the "wood", they were racing all over the inside of the drill. But, hey, I'm still here, so it can't have been anything too important. Then I took a counter-sinking bit and basically sat on the drill to get it to bite into the top. It looked OK. I proceeded to drill it into the ceiling, and mixed up some "PolyFilla" to repair the nmumerous damages I'd done to the plaster around the hole when I was there before.

After that, Geoff tried to get me to clean his eaves. But I couldn't. Mainly because the ladder was so shaky that I thought I was gonna die. Then I showed him how to use WordPad because he didn't know how to write anything down on him computer. I recieved $30 for my trouble and was on my way. Just as I left it began to rain lightly. No lawncutting for me today.

2) I checked out my ability to order Warhammer stuff online from their website. I'm hoping that Video Plus Books is able to get stuff for cheaper. Seriously, I looked into ordering the big rulebook all about my favourite race, the Tau, and that's $20. Then I realize that that means $20 US. Then I fill out all their nonsense, sign up for the site, and get to the final apge where it tells me that it's going to cost $20.53 for shipping. So, that's doubling the price of my order in American dollars just to get it online. I thought it was supposed to be easier to order it online. Maybe not. I'll have to compare prices the next time I'm at Video Plus.

So now I'm spending the day cleaning the basement and making copies of my DVDs for Ben. Fun Fun Fun.

You can run on for a long time, run on for a long time, run on for a long time...

Early in the Morning, Clock Says Half-Past One, I Have No Sunglasses as I Step into the Sun

2006-08-02T13:59:00.000-04:00

Man, I wish I hadn't used "It's all heat in this day and age" so few posts ago...

Here was today's weather forecast as reported by the Accuweather extension on my Firefox browser:
Well... Isn't Blogger.com being retarded today. There should be an image here, but I don't have the 30 minutes it's going to take to upload it.
Normally the image for the daily forecast is a little coud, or a sun, some sun and clouds, some rain, maybe a lightning bolt. Today's was a fucking thermometer exploding. I couldn't see it at first. I thought it was some sort of hellish demon, so I clicked on it and was taken directly to the Accuweather site, which replaced it with the word HOT in bold red letters on a background of diferent shades of red. It was ridiculous.

It was hot like this yesterday too, but I didn't notice. For all the complaining that the patrons do, the pool is a very cool place to be when the outside gets hot. We don't usually rise above 27C, which is uncomfortable when it's a high teens to low 20s day outside. But yesterday, even with 85% humidity on the deck, we stayed very cool, and I couldn't figure out what the fuss was about. Until I got outside. At 3pm it was still blazingly hot, and I biked over to my private lesson to teach outside. I was definately getting in the water.

After that I biked over to Carl's and found himself, Ellen (Why do I still link to you, oh post-less ones?), Blake, and Alex relaxing in front of the television and painting Warhammer 40K stuff. I tried to get into it, but ended up being engulfed by the massive feeling of overtiredness in that room. I was consumed, and fell onto the couch for at least an hour before I could move again. Then I, literally, sat up, cut out a couple of the parts for my next brilliant creations, and lay back down without even getting a brush or paints out.

I stuck around Carl's until 10. It was just way too air-conditioned for me to leave. Also, Tibby made me dinner.

However, upon walking onto the lawn and around the back of the house, I discovered my bicycle to be missing. The lock was there on the ground (I hadnt locked it up, it was down the side of Carl's house. CARL'S HOUSE, for god's sake) but the bike was nowhere to be found. This angered me a little bit, but there's nothing I can do. The thing that really pisses me off is that mine had to be the first bike stolen from Carl's, and that it had to be my new bike this summer. I haven't had that thing for 2 months, so I paid $150/month to be able to ride to work. I could have taken taxis all over the city (or paid almost a full month of rent, or eaten for a few months) for that price. Is it worth looking for? Maybe. It's nice enough that if it was picked up by some dumbass who didn't want to talk the rest of the way to where he was going, I might be able to find it at a pawnshop somewhere. However, given that it happened at Carl's, and that it must have happened in broad daylight (black bike near the rear of the house), it was probably a professional (god how pathetic do you have to be?) theft and it's now on it's way to London or Kitchener to be re-sold. Carl loaned me a bike, but I don't know when he's going to want it back.

Today I was awoken at 8:30 by my father breaking apart some wood. He thought it was going to rain, it's complicated... It was fucking loud, that's the point.

I got back up at 10:30, made myself kraft dinner, and went to work to mow the lawn at noon. Was that a dumb idea? Of course. But I'm supposed to mow it, and I have to do real work at the pool at 3, so I wanted to get it out of the way and have Thursday and Friday completely off. So I tried to mow the lawn. It's about a 3 hour job, so I figured it would time out perfectly. I was only there for an hour, and it was like hell on earth.

1) The mower is broken: The handle is coming loose, so it's murder to turn the thing, and almost as difficult to raise up the front and shake loose the grass buildup on the inside

2) I haven't mowed in 2 weeks. The maintainence lady is on holiday. She got me to mow it before she left, and then told me not to mow it the week after because she was sure it wouldn't need it. It did, and now it's been another whole week and it's a complete bitch to mow through. I'm probably going to use one-and-a-half tanks of gas on the mower, which will also be oh-so-fun. This also probably means that I'm looking at more like 4 hours of work.

3) I took 3 water breaks, stopped twice to talk with passers by, and was generously given 2 popsicles by a nice old lady who comes in for senior swim every day. I probably toook in about 3 litres of water in that hour, and I still couldn't handle it.

So I gave up. I'll probably get some more of it done tonight after work, but I doubt it'll be light long enough for me to finish, so I'll be coming back at it tomorrow after I finish being handy at Geoff's place.

For now, I must go guard camp swim. Oh yeah, something really funny happened yesterday at camp swim yesterday. I'll try and write about it tonight or tomorrow after I'm done lawning and handying.

Later. Drink lots of water. I still haven't pissed after drinking all of that.

My clan has been loving seagulls for generations, I can't prove it but I feel so lonely

2006-07-26T23:18:00.000-04:00

I decided that I needed to step up my lyrical contributions if I'm going to get through this lunacy with any shred of victory.

I didn't sleep well last night. I woke up at some ungodly hour and started daydreaming... at night. I was going to put "night dreaming", but it could get confusing trying to differentiate between night dreaming and real dreaming. Anyway, I must have had some sort of nightmare, possibly about work (I barely ever remember my dreams), and my body was all geared up with cold sweat and painfully awakened brain. It was ridiculous, but not in a humorous way. I spent the next hour (day, week, century?) playing through my mind the exact circumstances that would create a worst-case-possible rescue:

1) I was in the basement and couldn't see the situation unfold = zero preparation
2) The other guard on duty wasn't paying attention. For some reason Carolyn was the person in my mind, and she was talking on the phone. I'd like to take a moment to say that I like working with Carolyn a lot and that I don't think that that would ever happen.
3) The victim was a "special needs" patron. Possibly just because my brain was trying hard to find the absolute worst-case scenario, Arden's sister was who appeared in my head. She was spluttering, on the verge of going under as I emerged from the basement door.

The rescue itself didn't get too much play in my mind. I dove in, Pia carried her to the wall, and lifted her out myself.

But then my brain decided to fill in two blaring gaps in its story.
1) There's no way she'd be calm enough for me to bring her to the wall and lift. I'd need to Pia her down to the shallow end, probably disconnecting the deep-to-shallow divider rope as I went. I'd need to try and bring her out on the stairs, assuming that she wasn't hysterical and remembered me from our only meeting two days before.
2) There's no way she would have been at the pool alone. I played through a couple of really spectacular yelling matches with workers who showed up from the changeroom just in time to do nothing helpful. But, those people are trained better than that. Whoever was with her would have taken her through the changeroom and into the pool. So where were they now? Well, in a drowning situation, the number one thing that a victim will do is grab anything that comes near them and push it under in order to keep themselves afloat. Can you blame them? Of course not, they're dying for god's sake. If you aren't trained to avoid it, you're in pretty big trouble if a sinker latches on to you. But still, she's a young girl. Who would be weak enough to succumb so easily? Well, in worst-case terminology, her sister was the most likely choice. I played back again from when I came back from the basement: Would I be able to see Arden under the water, possibly already unconscious on the bottom? It would depend on how close they were to the wall and how deep the water was. Well, I went with the assumption that they were close enough to screen her from my view. But surely I would have seen her when I dove in to get her sister. Maybe. Depending on whether or not she'd traveled along the bottom to the point where I would have jumped over her and not seen because I was looking ahead. Could I have gone down and gotten Arden and carried them both to the shallow end? Not likely.

So here was the kicker: I'd have to stabilize her sister first, which would take about 2 minutes at the least. That reduced Arden's chances of survival significantly, especially given that I couldn't tell how long she'd been under already. But there was no way I could go for Arden first because her sister would be unconscious and in the same situation by the time I got her out of the water.

So that was how I spent the wee hours. And it wasn't like a dream that I could wake up from and say "Man, that was fucked" and forget about it. I was awake, all my perceptions slaved into imagining this situation, while my brain burned off the adrenaline or whatever was coursing around inside me. I'm now pretty wholly convinced that the worst possible feeling in the world is the one I had in my head then: My absolute best was required, I delivered, and still there was an unbearably high chance that it wouldn't be good enough. And that someone I cared about would die because of that.

But eventually I went back to sleep.
(and there ends the morbid part of today's salvo)
And then I awoke at 7:50 to The Hawk's morning show. A woman on the show informed me that I can save 10% on the cost of cooling my home this summer if I make sure that my air conditioner is properly shaded, and that I keep scrub and brush away from it.
As alluded to I went out shortly thereafter and was handy. I biked over to Geoff and Marie's house. They are a couple of my grandma's friends who like to drop by the pool for senior swim a few days every week. Geoff (and that's pronounced "joff" not "jeff" like Nutter) mentioned that he'd had some repairs done to their bathtub, but it had leaked and caused some damage to their kitchen ceiling. Clearly I was the choice for removing the damaged plaster and lathe and putting in a square piece of formica counter top into its place. This is on the ceiling, yes.

I got down to work. First I had to true up the hole so that it was square. That involved getting Geoff's "saber-saw" and going to town. After about 5 seconds I got a piece of plaster in my eye that I'm pretty sure I could have cobbled a garden path with. Then I got some safety glasses. It wasn't until after I was done that I considered how unfortunate it would have been to cut through the wires controlling the kitchen light fixtures while wielding said saw. Also, Geoff told me of how he built a 20-ft sailboat in his basement using only that saw and a 1/4-inch screwdriver. Cool, hunh?

After I cleaned out the hole and made it nice we went down to the basement to cut the counter-top into the right shape. I'd like to say that I wielded Geoff's circular saw with precision, but then I'd probably also have to announce that I no longer possessed any of the fingers on my left hand. Geoff cut it nicely while I held it down and frowned uncomfortably at the sparks issuing from the cuts he was making (although apparently people just make countertops out of anything. Woodchips, metal, even cement can all be in the mix...).

Once we took the piece up and tried it in the hole Geoff called it a day. We cleaned up the plaster debris and I got on my way with a promise to be back next Thursday (coincidentally the only free day I'm going to have out of the next 7).

So, to finish up, since I started with a little bit about my worst fears on the job, here's a sampling of what it's actually like to work at the pool:

Wednesday July 26/2006. Probably the most accident-prone day I've ever worked.

I started at 3:00, which was the time the pool is reserved for our in-house summer camp kids to come and swim. Myself and another guard named Shannon shared the excitement today. Justine managed to keep her hands clean the whole night. Anyway, within 15 minutes of the start, Shannon was dealing with a kid who got kicked in the face. She's gonna have a beautiful mark on her face. Next, she saw one kid hold another under the water. She claims it was an accident and that they were too young to know what was going on. Whatever. I would kicked 'em onto the curb.

And the god punished me for my wicked thoughts: Another kid thought it would be really cool to try and sneak up behind his friend while said friend was holding onto the wall and kicking as hard as possible. Needless to say, the marriage of 1st metatarsal to nasal bone was accomplished with ease. Blood. Everywhere. No tears, no broken friendship, just blood. On the floor, soaking into his trunks, all down his arms, all over his face, long dribbles down his chest, and all over my hands before we were through. "Do you have any dangerous blood-born diseases I should know about?"
"wud?"
"Let's just go get you cleaned up in the shower. Shannon, sanitize the deck for me."

And that was camp swim. At 4:30 lessons began. My first class is pre-school and has 4 kids, and they run the fucking gamut. One is a girl who's already passed all the pre-school levels, but can't move up into the next program stream until she's 6. One is a girl who is either an attention whore or a total brain-case. She whines and screams about having to do anything by herself, but as soon as I neglect the other kids and get beside her to help, she just does it on her own. The third is a boy I've taught before who is reasonably skilled, but gets distracted really easily by the other kids and just tends to follow anyone that starts to misbehave. And by "anyone" I mean kid #4 who is a total shit-disturber. The kid can't pay attention for more than 3 seconds, which means that he isn't with me long enough to find out what we're doing, which means that he doesn't ever do anything. But yesterday he went one step further. After a relatively minor swallowing of water (and trust me, I can say that with a certain degree of authority) he threw up. Luckily the size of his vomit was roughly about a tablespoon, and he had the good sense to do it into the gutter of the pool instead of onto me or into the main body of the water. Thus, I just sent my kids over to be watched by Shannon (yeah, we're a good team. Justine just kind of floats along. I'm surprised she didn't show up in the first part of my post) and cleaned up the mess with the help of the kid's mom. But I still have to fill out the relevant paperwork. And it turns out that there's no way to get out of closing the pool. The time we remain closed is dependant on the amount of chlorine in the water. In this case it was 2ppm. That meant 25 minutes closed, or basically the entire next lesson. That pissed off those parents as well as Shannon and Justine because they thought I'd been letting them swim in vomit (which isn't strictly true).

So, yeah, I'm kind of getting tired of work. I have to teach Aquafit tomorrow morning. Anyone who feels up to it should drop by at 9:30 for a fast-paced action ride into good health. Also there will be plenty of middle-age (and up) women around in bathing suits. Wipe the dribble from your chin and leave a nice comment.

It is Dark.............. But Also Not

2006-07-26T00:39:00.000-04:00

To satisfy the competition:

It has been 2 months to the day since I've last posted. No doubt the evil forces at the helm of the inter-web breathed a sigh of relief when they thought I'd given up and gotten a girlfriend. I can proudl annouce that today is the day that you thought that you almost stopped this filthy rag from coming up on the first page of Google results for the search "Liam McKenna" (although, as I write this it's sitting at page 4).

So... momentus events since I last posted:

- Some idiot child smashed porcelain into the pool where I work. I got to spend 3 very cool days power-washing every available surface while we were closed. I also got to crank DJ Shadow and Kid Koala while doing so.

- Carl turned 20. We played Risk.

- I flooded the pool basement during a power out. Well... I didn't flood it. My negligence flooded it. I fixed it quickly anyway...

- Red Desperado Approach had a show. I made $100 for an hour's work. It was a really good show. Afterwards, my relationship with Arden was catapulted from "loose acquiantance" back to "regular friend". I expect this trend will continue for a few months until we lose contact for another 8-10 years.

- Super Friends Camping happened. Ben is very sore that he wasn't invited. It was a bad thing to do, but it wasn't personal. We didn't think to invite you to Super Friends Breakfast, so you weren't included in the list for the camping. As an interesting aside, when I gave Arden the bare-bones details on the camping trip she asked who went and after I gave the names she said, "And Ben?". So there. We're terrible friends. But really, who really wanted to watch me cry like a little girl for 2 hours in front of a campfire? Also the rock-climbing was unexpectedly fun.

- Another boring shit-ass week at work happened. During that time the Raspberies lost shamefully to a couple of poseur asshole bands at our local Battle. It made me mad.

- This afternoon I hung out with Arden. I have never been inside her house before. Her mom gave me steak and her dad discused his newest business venture. Arden's sister is a sweetie. After that we went to Carl's (after much mishap and nonsense) and watched Munich. It was good: Ellen was confused, Carl knew everything because he'd seen it 100000000 times already, and Arden squinted with me at the back of the room to read the subtitles.

- I still have a beard.

Yours in good taste

It's All Heat in this Day and Age, I'll Raid Your Grave, Anything it Takes to Save the Day

2006-05-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

So, first and most importantly, my early childhood hero shot my later childhood hero on TV the other day. "What?" You ask.

Yes, Casey Jones shot House!!! On Television!!!

How amazing, hunh? Ben should be happy at least.

Well, I've been gone too long to possibly catch up on all the important things, so here's my amazing synopsis, entitled "Caught in the Grip of the City: Madness"

1) Playmakers! managed to entwine itself around most of my life for about a week back there. The show was very good, everyone should be proud. Well. Everyone except that god-damned brat who broke the tea set. Also, after telling my mom about all the sopping comments you people were leaving everywhere, she's taken her own little leap into the Blogosphere. I was supposed to post about that a week ago. Oh well. If you go there, make sure you start with this

2) My job was awsome. I say "was" because between my last post and now, it has come and gone. Some of you may remember my many fond summers in the underground chasm that is the YMCA pool here in St. Ratford. So, while going in there trolling for hours, my boss asked me if I wanted a new job to get some more hours. I agreed and he told me that I would be the first "Y-cop", an experimental elite unit with good speed and sight range, low attack and armour, but a very high intelligence score and an attack bonus against.... PEDOPHILES!

How cool? Tres cool. Of course, this was the Y's response to the recent "I'll give you jelly-beans if you get into my big unmarked van" thing at Anne Hathaway Public School. It was only a temporary position. The sweeping powers of the Y-cop are too great to invoke except in the most perilous of times. However, it's probably the best job I've ever had or will have. Monday to Friday I came in from 4 to 8 and walked around the Y. That was it. I could stop anyone, go anywhere, and I had a seriously pimp walkie-talkie. Of course, that got boring really fast, so I supplemented my duties with other tasks:

-Talking to the lifeguards, specifically Elyse, Jaymie, and Sarah Mick-Kay
-Playing games in the loft: sometimes Fusion Frenzy with the children, but mostly foosball and air hockey with the loft employees
-Picking on the maintainence people because I could never find any pedophiles, "We are missing an 11 and 15/16 inch by 18 inch vent cover in emergency stairwell 3" or "There is an ill-fitting ceiling tile above the door to the Men's changeroom" or "The lights at the elevator landing on the 4th floor are a) burnt out and b) full of dead bugs. Could these be related?"
-Doing bitch-work for the maintainence people because I kept finding things they weren't doing. The best example of this was when I spent half of my shift cutting the lawn instead of keeping law and order.
-Doing facility tours for new members without any training "Actually, not only do I have no idea what machines our Lifestyle Centre is equipped with, but I couldn't begin to tell you what a monthly or yearly membership costs"

But I did do useful work too. Once it became clear that the pedophiles weren't beating down the doors to the boys changeroom I also got to do other things like test all the emergency exits to see if the alarms would go off (A 50% success rate. Two were fine, the third wouldn't trigger the alarm because the sensor needed to be lubricated, and the fourth, while having a perfectly useful alarm, was rusted shut). It was after that day that I began publishing "Pedo-files", my report on the day's activities and my recomendations (never followed) for the problems I encountered. Also, since I floated between all the departments, I managed to find plenty of things that no one else did. I discovered (both on different occasions) that the doors to the roof and the pool had been left unlocked before any children did. For both circumstances, I am reasonably sure that no one else would have found them (especially the roof) before I did. And yet, yesterday I was told that my time as Y-cop is over. I really thought that that wasn't going to happen. I truly believed I was being useful enough to ensure my position. But apparently not. I had heard my boss was going to meet with the CEO about me soon, so I spent that day taking an itinerary of what I'd done to show how useful I was. I caught the CEO on her way out the door and asked if the meeting was going to be soon. They'd already had it. It was classic, "I heard that you and the boss were going to have a meeting about me...", "Yes, didn't he talk to you?". So there we had it. Of course he didn't talk to me. Is Sobey's still hiring?

3) May 24 weekend. It was a pretty good time. I got invited by Carl (Through Elyse, through someone else, through the person throwing the party) to a shindig in Mitch-hell on the Friday night. There were a few too many degrees of seperation for me to be comfortable, but then the above mentioned Ms. Mick-Kay told me I should come by anyway. It turned out that Blake, Alex, Nora, and Jordan were also coming. So it was a good time. Blake, Carl, and I stumbled out of a taxi at 4am and Blake and I hung our boots in the studio (note from Blake: the bier is a terrible bed). The saturday was spent loafing aruond until 5-ish when we toured into St Marys and picked up Nora and M-TOD. This was most exciting for me as I'd never actually met M-TOD before. It was refreshing to realize that Blake wasn't really that crazy after all. If she was older, I'd hit on her too. Why does St Mary's seem to harbour all the really cool girls? Nora and M-TOD both living there can't be some sort of mistake. Why does such a terrible place produce (or attract in Nora's case) such neat people? The world may never know.

That Sunday was another Carls party, and, amazingly, it was pretty awsome. I mean, an evening that starts with me and Carls making duct-tape sheaths for Bokens and baseball bats has to be good, right? Of course, I was a baby and wanted to go to bed by 3, so I got to sleep in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Oh yeah! I forgot! Another interesting thing:

4) Maggie asked me to prom. Maggie and I have some ancient history, so it was really out of left feild when she asked me. Of course, we were sitting in some strange man's house drinking his liquor while his kids slept above us, so "out of left feild" kind of describes the whole night. Anyway, at Carl's on that Sunday night (really Monday morning) Blake stole my prom date. Not really surprising, but there you have it. Given that I just linked to my last serious fiery debate about Blake's love-life, I'm not going to get into it. It was summed up pretty well in someone's car anyway:

Ellen: You can't please everyone all the time.
Liam: FUCK YOU! You can't steal my prom date and then ask me if it's OK! Go fuck yourself.

5) I pwn n00bs. Seriously. Monday night we played Starcraft at Brendan's over an improvised LAN. Basically, me and Shane killed everyone (much in the way that Blake and I would kill AI before). Then Yon Yonson and I gave out some hot dickings to Carl and Brendan. Then I had to go home and get up to open the pool. My alarm went off at 5:45am. I worked until 8pm. Then I went to Brendans and LANed again. I took on Carl and Brendan (at their insistence) and promised to "pwn them hard". And I did. But it took hours. Basically, I was pwning my way into every base expension I could find without a peep from Brendan or Carl. Things were going well. Then I heard "Nuclear Launch Deteccted". And panicked. I shouldn't have done that. I pulled my carrier fleet over to where the red light for the nuke was painted, but they had to cover about half the map to get there. In the meantime I tried to scramble my forces to find the Ghost causing the trouble. I couldn't find an observer to spot him though. So I fretted more. And then, just when I'd given up and moved all my forces away from the strike area, my carriers arrived. They all got nuked. That could have been the end of the game right there. It should have been. But Carl, being a nice guy, didn't move in. He never got another chance. This is what the map looked like:

The squares are self-explanatory and not important. The blurb of colour in the bottom right corner is actually a pretty good overview of what the last hour and a half of the game looked like. The white is Brendan who fortified his last island with hundreds of SAM sites against my (freshly constructed) carrier onslaught. I countered any ideas he might have been having about expanding back out of that island by building a 4-deep line of photon cannons with triple-redundant pylons. Then I waited for him to come out. I'd already won by score, and I suggested that he should sally his last forces honourably instead of making me come in and dispose of them as I'd already disposed of Carl. We argued. He whined about how he wanted to see if his base defense worked. I countered that wasting the lives of all my carriers was stupid and that he'd presumeably use the time it took me to rebuild them to come out and try to Yamato his way through a section of my photon wall. I ended up coming in. In the end I did, in fact, pwn them hard (while remembering that, by a fluke, Carl could have won the game in its infancy).

5) So that's it actually. I went to the Arts Gala last night. It was awsome. I showed up late with Jaymie, ate food for free, and got Espo to give me a medal. I was gonna go back to St. Mikes today to see M-TOD in the coffee house, but Blake didn't want to drive. So now I think I'm gonna go mow my lawn.

Furry Impetus

2006-05-01T12:07:00.000-04:00

So, apparently this week is International Spam Week for my gmail account. I have recieved 29 spam messages in 3 days, and that's 3 on the first and 3 on the last. I've never gotten spam at my gmail account before. So now I'm unhappy. A few of the bastards even got past the spam filter. I haven't opened any of them, so I don't know how they're written, but the subjects are all pretty awsome: "pomp contraction", "cozy pen pal", "snit Milky Way", "commiseration backlash", "duplex insult", "hand-me-down Marxism", "shovel wristwatch", "cameo ant", "life jacket emotive", "viewing pessimist", "preparedness apostle". All these and more sent to me by people whose names aren't really as interesting. Slapping random words together is more humerous than random names, I guess. But, yeah, so I guess that if you fill a spam email with random words to make it look like a real message it'll bypass the filters.

So, this is the part where I break down recent events that everyone who reads this has already participated in. But oh well. Actually, that's not true. Tank might be reading this and I suppose that he has no idea what goes on around these parts. He comments as manx_cat, and he's one of the guys I was going to live with next year. Tank has uber micro. There is no other way to describe his skillz. l337 fails completely to describe it.

Speaking of video games, I had my first real game of Starcraft last night. If you don't know anything about Starcraft, you're not going to understand this. Also, that was a joke link. I didn't buy a boat last night. If you need to follow a link to know what Starcraft is then you should probably work on that whole "head-in-ass" thing first.

Blake came over and we tried to get a LAN game going. At first it was impossible because Starcraft is so damned old it only supports IPX for LAN. Of course, I've known that since Wolfgang first loaned it to me. However, knowing that Starcraft was too popular to be beaten by something like that, I grabbed the latest patch (also the last I think) which has added a TCP/IP LAN feature. So then Blake took me to school. Kind of. First we had to get the game to set up properly. Blake put us on his favourite map, called Hunters, and set the gametype as team melee. I have no idea what that meant, but it didn't work. To make a long story short we went for melee, and had to team up in game. First we were against 4 AI, then 3, then 2. At that point we were able to get a toe-hold in the game. Blake mainly doing the fighting as the Zerg, me laying down photon cannons left, right and, most importantly, centre. As many of you may know, I don't actually have a lot of micro, so going the Carrier route was my only choice when it came to actually fighting with units.

We were against another zerg and a terran. After securing the centre of the map, I rained terror on the terrans from my 9 fully equipped and upgraded carriers. Those carriers sprang from the large collection of starports I'd built in the centre in a co-mingled base with Blake. As I went for the last base expansion the terrans had left, Blake sent down a huge force of hydrlisks to help me out. He'd already wiped out the zerg AI. Just before the last terran building fell, Blake announced that he had a "surprise" for me. By sheer luck and coincidence I'd already been imagining what that surprise might be. I managed to get the drop on him (only by about 2 seconds, but at least I wasn't sitting there wondering why my carriers were being destroyed by my ally).

Blake says that's the way Starcraft works. So then I wiped out his hydrlisks. Unfortunately, that was hardly the end of things. Of course I hadn't been paying attention to him, I'd been busy killing the terrans and defending all the choke point with my photon cannons. Unfortunately, he'd been busy filling his bases with the zerg equivalent to the barracks and mining minerals wherever he could find them. The result was a basically unending wave of hydrlisks. Also Blake began actualy targetting my carriers with the hydrlisks instead of letting them auto-attack the interceptors they were launching. The co-mingled base we built in the centre was quickly turning into a crater. Unfortunately that meant it was taking my starports with it. I had to rebuild my starports across the map, and by that point most of my original fleet had been wiped by the hydralisks.

However, I may have mentioned that I spent most of the game dropping photon cannons "like mad bombs" if you will. So it wasn't like Blake was at my front door. Yet. In any case, he managed to compeltely destroy my base expansions (the ones actually collecting gas and minerals) before turning his attention to my actual base. But by that time I had a few more carriers built and decided to take the fight to him. It was a good choice. As he was tearing down the photon cannons at my base, I was cutting, basically unimpeded, through his. It was a good time. Especially when... I found all of his Overlords sitting in a corner. That is what I considered to be the turning point of the game. Blake will tell you differently. He will say (and, in fact, did say shortly after I mopped up his Overlords and went after the rest of his bases) that he ran out of minerals. Which is a legitimate concern. But let's look at thing logically here: Just before I finish the terrans, Blake asks me "How much minerals do you have saved up?"

I respond with "About 5000."

"Really, man? I've got, like, 15,000."

So he ran out. I was building and maintaining the most expensive unit in the game, he was building hydralisks. He had 3 times as many minerals as me to begin with and the first thing he did was cut off my access to more minerals. He had his production centres up and running by the time we started fighting each other and I had to rebuild my starports before I could start the tortuously slow process of building new Carriers. And he ran out. Of course, then he was a bitch and made me chase him around the map to get the victory. I don't know where he kept getting his workers from, but they move a lot faster than Carriers do. He was really hoping I'd quit and let him have the default win. Not a fucking chance.

So that was the most important thing. Now on to the rest:

I might be geting a job. Elyse told me over the weekend that the Y is looking for a new day-shift lifeguard. I'm pretty sure that that's god telling me I'm awsome. With any luck I'll be adjusting to getting up at 6 every day within a week. If that doesn't happen I'm probably going to be stocking shelves at one of Stratford's man fine grocery stores.

Speaking of Elyse, we had the joint Elyse/Alex birthday bash at Carl's on Saturday. Now, let's all just take a breath and remember the last birthday bash we held at Carl's. However, that night, things were different. And if you don't believe me, you could just consult the sign above Carl's door, which reads:
Chez Leushuis: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
It's a cool sign. We (Me, Ellen, Ben, Carl, and Elyse... and Thomas, kinda) made it before the Leushuis parents gave us dinner and briefed us on the new rules around town:
1) Keep it in the basement. No exceptions. No one loiters on the main floor or the porches for any reason; smoking is to be done quickly and efficiently and ashtrays are to be employed. Ben was put in charge of enforcing that last part.
2) A strict head-count policy is going to be enforced. This means that a guest list, or at least an expected number, is provided for approval beforehand and it gets stuck to. No more random children showing up with their fiances.

So, before we even started the party, we got some wiggle-room in rule #2: Both Blake and Eazy-E were hoping to bring female companions along for the evening. This was OKed, and the more hilarious parts of the evening were set into motion.

So this is how the shit went down: I got drunk. That's the most important part. The Australian exchange student I admired at St Mike's the other day didn't come. It was sad, but my life went on. Drunkenly. Blake and his girlie showed up first. She's really nice, and I hope she comes back to Carl's. However, there was a little hiccup. Now, Blake and this girl aren't going out. Let's get this on the table now. However, let's get real here. He took her to the party. Why does anyone think he took her to the party? So that another guy could make out with her on the porch (in flagrant violation of rule #1)? Probably not. I don't even know the Australian girl's last name, but if she'd shown up and gotten pulled in by the seductive wiles of one of my friends, I wouldn't have been pleased, and frankly, it was a bitch move. Of course, no one could have helped the timing (remember what happened to Blake at the last birthday bash a la Carl?), and that only made it worse.

Of course, Blake's friend wasn't the only one contributing to the goings on that night. Even though debauchery is no longer in the mission statement of Chez Leushuis, Carl, Elyse, Nora, and Jordan were all trying to make up for it. So we didn't see a lot of them all night. And it kind of got me mad when I was trying to go to bed. You need to know the architecture of Carl's basement a bit: There's a central room where all the parting goes on. The carpet has soaked up so much beer that's it's probably home to yeast's Golden Age of civilization. Coming off that room are 1) Carl's bedroom, 2) the "Hockey Room", an unfinished room with a poured concrete floor, and 3) the cold storage room, from whence issues the beer to keep the carpet alive. So, I want to go to bed. It's 3am, Ellen, Ben, and Blake's girlie have left. Carl and Elyse are in his room and Nora and Jordan are in the hockey room. Blake, Alex, and I are in the central room. I want to sleep and they aren't disagreeing. But I'm a bit of a Prima Donna when I want my rest. I just finished group counselling on the porch, my head is full is cigarette smoke, and I just want to sleep. What I don't want to do is get woken up by a) moans of pleasure b) girls going to bed (they have to sleep in the guest room on the 2nd floor) c) people going out to smoke. Thus, I'm kind of concerned about getting everyone else on the way to dreamland. Of course, that's not how it happened. So I had to switch to plan B: put on Nora's bra and parade around like a retard until I've killed the mood for both couples and they'll finish up and go to bed. Of course, that's not exactly what happened either, but at least they went to another floor.

Oh yes, the other amusing sub-plot for that night: If I hadn't been so busy as the self-appointed fire department for the Bilyea's Girl Drama, I would have been busy enjoying myself with Eazy Motherfuckin E and his tag. She's also really nice. I also hope she comes back. But instead of making out with anyone, she got drunk and threw up for the first time. I didn't get to see that. But I did get to watch with amusement as she went through the whole "I hate myself, I'm not like this!" nonsense. Anyway, I tried to reassure her that everything would be fine, and it was nice, because that was probably the only time I've done that to a freshly vomit-covered girl and actually meant it.

Finally, Greenstock was on Friday. There's really nothing else to say except that a) that was where I met the Australian girl, and b) there are no good drummers left at St Mikes. I'm sure there's a really awsome drummer inside Danny somewhere, but his Dad is too big of a douchebag to let it come out.

So that's it. Also, anyone from Thunderdome reading this, welcome to my little piece of the interweb. From here I will discuss my growing micro and other exploits. Feel free to comment prolifically.

Also, a big warm welcome to Jen and as she brings a little more depth to our blogging gene-pool.

HEY! How is This for an Awsome Followup?

2006-04-20T23:12:00.000-04:00

I no longer have a house for next year.
To review: I find out that 5 guys in my basement are looking for a 6th guy to be in their house with them next year. Well. Kinda. They went as a group of 5 and found a house with 5 rooms. But the landlady also told them that if they found a 6th person to rent with them that there was another room which was somewhat smaller than the others (but no smaller than the room I currently inhabit) that she could also rent. There was some crazy 4th-tear Engineer calling them every day trying to get into the house. They were bitching about that which is how I found out about the room.
Anyway, so I call the woman about a month ago. she tells me she needs first and last and a $60 deposit for utilities for the last month. Total is $830. So, I've got like $250. I call the folks and explain the situation. I tell them I'll pay em back over the summer. I also call in my longstanding debt with Blake and take $100 off what my rents need to contribute. So, armed with my newfound cash-flow, I make a date to see the house with this lady for one week into the future. The time comes and she breaks it off the day of, right before I'm going to walk out there with a couple of the guys I'm rooming with. Fine, whatever.

Yeah, good thing she broke it off, because the next day my Dad lets it be known that the check he gave me... isn't useful anymore. So I delay calling this woman back until I can get things sorted out. She already offered to let me only pay the first month and the $60 and give her the rest in September. I'd declined then, but now I figured I'd try and take her up on it. But I needed 200 more dollars first.

I didn't get them until last weekend when I was in Stratford and remembered that I had a $200 check from the Uni sitting somewhere in my mom's office. Perfect. So I just called her last night, mainly because I forgot to all week. Here's how it went:

Me: Hey, I haven't called you in a while, I'm interested in getting the sixth room at your house on Erb st.

Her: Oh, you are the one who called a couple of weeks ago, yes?

Me: Yup

Her: Well, I'm sorry, I cannot give you the room.

Me: Oh. Um, why not?

Her: Well, you see, I only have a license for 5 rooms. I would like to give this room to you, but I must use it for storage because of the laws.

So yeah. That's it. She was actively soliciting people to rent that room, even though she didn't have a license for it. So look out for shady land ladies. Now I'm going to try and get a house with a couple of girls in my program. They are my only other friends who don't have houses yet. Wish me luck, I'll see most of you soon.

If You Wanna See Some Action, Gotta be the Centre of Atttraction OR Some Good News

2006-04-20T12:37:00.000-04:00

At least, it's good news for me. And probably for Carl, Ellen, and Ben at the very least:
My show tomorrow got cancelled!

Isn't that great? Not only does it give me more time to practice the songs I haven't played in two months (as well as the new ones they wrote while I was gone), but it gives everyone time to get home before we play. And I'm just going to assume that Ben forgot / didn't get time off of work.

So, I'm coming home tomorrow. You'd better be ready for a weekend of sloth, computer gaming, and anime viewing. And debates on my sexual oritentation if Blake manages to make an appearance.

Another Shameful Day

2006-04-18T15:31:00.000-04:00

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam.
Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

Fuckin Dutch

But I guess that shame is slightly abated by my NUCLEAR ROD!!!

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Seagoing Squid
Your Superpower is Vampirism
Your Weakness is Bacteria
Your Weapon is Your Nuclear Rod
Your Mode of Transportation is Skateboard

What's your Superhero Name?

Originality and Creativity Part 2: A Post Stolen from Eric's Usual Domain

2006-04-18T09:36:00.001-04:00

So, I had a dream this morning. That's not too interesting, I'm sure I have them all the time. So, before we proceed any further, this dream wasn't very long or very interesting, but it's the first dream I've remembered in quite a while.

So there was this guy, middle aged, going gray around the edges, kinda short, wearing a suit, standing... somewhere. There were a lot of brick walls about. We might have been in a small courtyard or something. Anyway, I've never seen this man in my life before, but you can be damn sure I knew he was one of my profs in this dream. The dream was an exercise in akwardness: I clearly wanted to talk to this prof, but I didn't really know him, couldn't think of what he lectured on, and was thus trying to think of a conversation topic. All of a sudden I notice that in my hands is one of the Playmakers! pitchers (It was the bronze one that goes with those cups that don't stand up right because they're bronze and the bottoms of them keep getting bent out of shape). However, this pitcher immediately reminded me that my mother had told me that this guy had something to do with hockey, and when I inspected it more closely, I noticed the NHL crest painted on its side. This encouraged me and I ran over with the pitcher, only to realize that not only do I know nothing about hockey, but I didn't actually know this guy's connection to it either. So then I was right beside him, holding this pitcher, saying something like, "So, you're into hockey?" and kind of displaying this pitcher that I was carrying to see if I could figure out what I was supposed to be talking about. It became akward, the only other thing I remember was saying something like "Well, like, my mom she... gets hold of my schedule a lot" or something equally retarded. Then my distended bladder woke me up and I drained it.

True story.

In other news, the rest of Easter weekend went pretty well. I went to my grandma's on Sunday and filled myself. The conversation eventually disintegrated into a huge argument about Native rights between all adults present, so I began clearing the table. Brendan said something like "You know, here I am in my 23rd year on the planet" and, of course, the only logical thing for me to do at that point was yell (well, sing tunelessly) "How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now!" as I walked back into the kitchen, which I managed to turn into a full rendition a little later.

Monday I Greyhounded it back here. I watched some episodes of Bleach, studied for my next exam, and went out for dinner at East Side's. Seriously, I hadn't eaten that much since... the day before. But before that, man it was a long time. We'd dispatched 9 loaves of garlic bread and 3 salads before our meals arrived. Our table was littered with half-empty pots of whipped butter. I seriously considered just continuing to eat bread and salad and getting my real food wrapped up to eat today. Then I came home and watched Weather Man, which was OK. Cage isn't my favourite actor, but the character seemed to suit him. Michael Cain was in it, but I thought he was a little weird. I still liked it though. Don't know why... I suppose I did like the ending a lot.

So yeah, then I went to bed. And dreamed. True story.

In the Spirit of Originality and Creativity

2006-04-17T15:20:00.000-04:00

I've stolen this wholesale from Binks.

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"So, you're a cannibal."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Cause We've Got the Guitar and the Crash of the Drums, Gonna Keep on Rockin Till the Morning Comes

2006-04-15T20:39:00.000-04:00

So, anatomy was a rape. And not in my favour. After it I didn't really feel like studying for another exam, so I didn't. I bummed around, watched some Bleach, and took a nap. Then I got up the next day and studied for psych, and then wrote it at 7:30. It seemed to go pretty well, but that's how I felt on the midterm and I only got 60.

And then I went home, said G'bye to a number of the guys I'm living with next year, played some RTS with the ones who were left, watched some more Bleach, and then realized that it was 1am, my Dad was coming to get me at 10, and I hadn't packed anything yet. So I got down to it. I packed all my dirty clothes, the snare drum I brought to school but never used, all my DVDs, and my books. Oh my books. I took a big cardboard box, put it in the middle of my floor, and filled it with books I bought for school. I filled it right full. And then I realized that I wouldn't be able to get it off the floor without the bottom falling out. So I got crafty. I pulled out all my dresser drawers and wedged my year's worth of campus newspapers between them to get rid of the gaps between the top of one drawer and the bottom of the next, as well as the gap between the bottom of the last one and the floor. I then took the xylophone that I'd had in my room and put it into its sturdy metal case, and placed the case on top of the shelves. Taking all the books out of the box and putting them on my bed, I put the box on top of the case. I then refilled it with books. And thus I solved two problems at once: Not only could I lift all the books by picking up the xylophone underneath them, but I would also not injure my back by deadlifting a 90 pound box of books from my floor. I finished up by setting my alarm for 9:30 so that I would be prepared for the faj. And then I went to bed. And a glorious bedding it was.

And then karma erased that glory by having my Dad wake me up with the phone at 9:28.

So, the rest of the day can be summarized in terms of back injuries. I failed to injure my back moving the books, due to my above cleverness. I failed to injure my back, at all, while setting up the big set in the driveway for Hamlet. I was able to injure myself while holding a grill over my garbage can and scraping grease off of it. And that's when Sailor called. Just as I was settling in for a relaxing evening at home, Sailor calls to inform me that he's back for the weekend, and his program is making him work all through the summer, before he gets back in a ship in September. So we need to hang out. But first he's going to some guy's house and he's going to call me. We get together; he fills himself with beer; we arm ourselves: 1 adjustable wrench, 1 pair long handled adjustable pliers, 1 pair wire cutters. By this point it's about 11:30. Sailor decides the best course of action is to walk across the city to places we've never hit up before. This idea got shot down pretty fast, specifically it got shot down when he started walking the wrong way. So, we walked around, grabbed some signs. It was cool. Our last conquest of the evening was a sign 10 feet off the ground. Sailor stood on my shoulders for 10 minutes while he worked on the last bolt. I now have large boot-tread shaped bruises on my shoulders. Of course, in order to see a sign 10 feet of the ground you need to make it pretty big. This one was about 2.5 feet squared. Unlike our other spoils for the evening, this one wasn't going to slide under my sweater like nobody cared. So we put Sailor's coat on it and carried it all the way back to his house. On the way we passed a number of midnight dog-walkers. We avoided the first one by ducking down a walkway, but the next came at us just as we turned a corner. The only thing to do was calmly walk by as if nothing out of the ordinary was occuring. To out credit, it worked just fine.

Today I woke up, savoured the agony coursing through my shoulders (not just from Sailor but from a jam with Julian I'd had that day as well), and took my sister to the bank to open a new account. I got back, and saw that Nora had phoned me. Did she want to hang out? Of course not. She wanted me to give her money to buy ice cream with Beth. And then, when I gave it to them, I left again. I jammed with Julian again, and by this point, I was ready for a quiet night in (walked to bank, walked back to get 2 pieces of ID, walked to bank again, walked home, walked to city hall to meet Nora, walked home, walked to Julian's, jammed like a mo-fo, walked home). Did I get it? Of course not, thanks to those fun-loving ALOR kids. I was down here writing this post, they were down here watching Land Before Time 2 and jamming, and there was an empty 26er of Wisers sitting on a table. See if you can connect the events properly.

Calder wants to say something, for all his fans:
alrighht ya'l l its old cowdu bob howdy caldur righht thur up in hur. I'd just like to say ya'll ares some good "ppl"up in hur/ listebn to nellyt furtato. shes the shit man,. and right bow im listening to three little indians. that is aloso the shit. stefan is chatting it up with my mother. thats kid of odd. well thanks for supportung me in my time of need. and byin gmy alunm n all. jammingh with liamn would probably ber more fun if i wasnt completly wasted. liams a "good man"as mr hiombach would say. well thanks for the time alnd remmeber to check out my Myspace thabnks yáll. ill tak to you later you idirty sex dog.

scotty says:
ok last time i check i was a woman but i woke up i was a man, and i got happy. getting happy is like pertending to word in class. its boering and it makes u feel kiinda sick in the heart. as you would love to just work in school but u cant infact sometimes u dont wanna. and i get it cuz i feel like i was a football player and thats not easy sometimes only when its easy r u really happy. which brings me to my next point theres only a few girls that can look good with no hair, most of the time they look weird. but the ones that can WOW!!! MY DOG IN NAMES ZERO. ok uumm AMBUSH!!!!! i dont like weezer. oh no holey cow! which means do u know who i hate train cops, i got arrrested by the train cops and their assholes ond its my dream to see a canada free of train and french people.

And Stefan has this for your viewing pleasure:
I am attracted to girls. My name is Stefan Anthony Watts Luciani, and I say hello to everyone who reades this. I had a few shots, so dont mind me. seriously. Anyways, I like my band a lot, (Ass-Loads of Raspberry) but lately, Ive been pretty turned off by our drummer. I think that he is getting extremely annoying latley, and Im find more and more things I dont like about him. Liam is rad (besides the fact he has a thing for my mom).
Loves, Slooooooooochhhhhh.

So there you go. Now I'm gonna head upstairs and watch TV.

PS, Carl, welcome to the club. Right now you're in tier one. The only way to get to tier 2 is if your mom also reads these blogs. I won't tell you how many people are cool enough to be in tier 2 right now, but it won't count for you unless your mom reads it regularily, not just that one time.

I'd Just Like to Continue to be Able to... Express Myself, as Best I Can, With this Instrument

2006-04-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

And I would like to be able to continue to...
Let what is inside of me
Which is, which comes from all the music that I hear
You know, I would like for that to come out
It's not like, it's not really me thats coming
The music's coming through me

I can say that there are a small number of times over the last 8 years that I have been able to live that quote. Often the feeling doesn't last for more than 5 or 6 bars, but there are times when I'm playing that I absolutely feel like music is just pouring out of me. Somehow I'm in synch with everyone else playing, and I just feel like something's taken over my whole body, like I'm not in control anymore. They came with the Outsiderz, jamming with Blake, or with the Footloose band when we would jam overtures. And a few of them have come along while plying with Red Desperado Approach, too.

So, with that rather obvious tie-in, I'll put down the less philosophical point of this post: Red Desperado Approach has a MySpace! How exiting is that? I am once again part of a band that has it's own website! geocoties.com/theoutsiderzca has long since returned to the dust from whence it came (although the Nit Frits are still up and running. Ben is probably the only person reading this for whom that retains any remote significance, but after reading it this morning, my biography there is actually a pretty amusing foreshadowing of what I do here now)

So, go check it out. We only have 2 songs up, but that's like half of what we're putting on the CD so, deal with it. And to finish with another quote, as Reebus would say:

Tell your friends.
Tell your parents.
Warn your fathers.
Hide your sisters!
On [April 21].
[Liam Mawfuckin McKenna] is back in town!

Because he's dropping-dropping-dropping science, dropping history, with a whole leap of style and intelligency

2006-04-11T16:32:00.000-04:00

Another day, another 9 o'clock exam.

Not too much more to say than that. This morning was anatomy lab, the first in my Amazing Three Exams in Three Days Festival of Fury!
Yeah, I know, it's not like I have it too bad, there are plenty of people who write 3 exams in 2 days (although 3 in 1 is something you can formally request to have changed), but these exams are fuckin hard. It's my two hardest exams one day apart and then psych stuck onto the end.

Tomorrow (at 9) is my actual anatomy exam. I have a feeling that it's going to be harder than the lab was today, not in the least because the lab exam revolved entirely around pictures (as if we'd cut the cadavers into lots of little chunks, brought them to the exam room, stuck pins into 96 randomly selected structures, and branded 5 possible choices for each into the surrounding tissue), and the lecture exam will revolove much more around memorized tables of the same information. But without the visual context, it becomes somewhat harder to recall the information.

As stated above, psych rounds off the Festival of Fury. And it'll be a cointoss whether or not I go out with a bang. Its not that psych was a terribly hard course, but my anatomy studying has ended up stealing the pitiful ammount of time I'd put aside for it. So... I haven't studied. Yet. Luckily psych isn't until 7:30pm on Thursday.

But then, I come home for the weekend. The faj will be pulling in sometime after midnight on Friday morning on his way back from TO. So I'll be indulging in some hangout time with Ben for his birthday and some jam-out time with Julian in preparation for our upcoming performance. Which is at Shenanigans. It's the new Wild Rose/Cactus Jack's. And, in keeping with the traditions established by the Outsiderz, Red Desperado Approach will be playing for free because it's out first time there. Of course, this will be my third time playing in that building (with the understanding that the next time we played there a cut of the profits would be ours), but since the ownership has also changed three times that apparently doesn't count for too much. But I will be curious to see if it's just the same bar with a different name or if the Shenanigans people have actually done anything with it.

In any case, on Friday the 21st of April, Julian, Mack-Loud, and I are going to be the coolest guys in Shenanigans. And that's got to be worth something. Also, if all goes well, we're gonna be selling a recording of 4 of you RDA favourites that we laid down at Central over the winter. So bring money for something other than booze. But, you know, buy lots of booze too. With the proportion of my friends who are actually 19 now and the fact that Shenanigans is interested in becoming a regular gig-scene, the possibility of getting asked back for another show is actually a real one.

Anyway, the CNS isn't going to learn itself. Everyone be good, and come to my show. You fuckers all still owe me from Footloose.

But wait, I need to relate my funny story for the day:

Preamble: So, Sunday night, I'm sitting at my desk trying to get force myself to study anatomy, when I hear this rustle at my doorknob. I already know it's Danger. Often I'll hear a rustle from directly behind me and turn round to see him rasing his hands above my head with makeshift piano wire between them. So this time I think I've caught him early. No, he's taping my door shut. I manage to catch him before its done. 3 times. The last time was around 12:30. Apparently after that he went down to the second floor and tried it on a bunch of them, and they got him to go to the building next to us and do it over there a bunch of times. His only successful door-taping was done in the other building, and unfortunately the owner of the door was in the washroom at the time.

Main Story: So, last night, I've disrobed to my boxers, turned off my comupter, unplugged my mouse, and slumped into bed. I turn of the light.
One one-thousad, two one-thousand, three one-thousand
The phone rings. It's Blake. We have an enjoyable conversation, and he tells me he needs to piss, and to turn on my computer and get on GoogleTalk with him. I get out of bed, turn on a lamp, plug in the mouse, and get the PC booting.
One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand
There is a loud knock on my door. It's probably Danger. The only reason he would knock is if he thinks he can simply kill me when I open the door. So I need to be crafty. I decide that the best course of action is to sneak up to the door, open it as quickly as possible, and not put on any clothes (aside from the boxers I have on currently) as a way to gain the initiative. I leave my hair down and actualy give my beard a quick comb so that it looks like an afro on my face.
I creep over and grab the handle. Whoosh! In less than an instant I am in a fighting stance, hair askew, standing directly in front of... an attrctive girl from the first floor!
cough
She's got a piece of canvas in her hands, on which she's painted a big goodbye card for our Don. She wants me to sign it. Well, it was embarassing enough, but then I couldn't think of anything to write (except "Beth, you're a huge fox"), and everyone else had written something, so I had to stand there for a while thnking, in my underwear, with this canvas and a silver Sharpie in my hands. It was rough.

Epilogue: Over dinner today (with a number of the guys I'm living with next year, Danger, and this girl) I was lambasted for my choice of food, which was a Philly Steak sandwich, a bottle of Nestea's finest, and a Wonderbar. It was remarked that I always eat chocolate bars with my meals. I calmly explain that they're an important part of a healthy diet. And the girl is like, "But you still work out anyway, right?" The whole table just kind of looks at her. "Um... No. I've never worked out a day in my life". Apparently, after my little gunshow last night she came off with a good impression. Needless to say this shocked the hell out of me (given that I've only gotten worse now that I've been eating choclate bars with every meal for 8 months). Of course, this is the girl who said I was one of the few people she knew who could pull off the beard. Also, she's Melissa Cossey. I mean, not literally, but I'm pretty sure that if they turned out to be twins seperated at birth, it would close the books on the whole nature/nurture thing. The only difference is that this girl is a natural blonde. However, she is attractive, and she does like a) my beard and b) my gunshow. She's got a boyfriend somewhere though. The good ones always do.

So. Come to my show!

Nano-Update

2006-04-08T15:07:00.000-04:00

I was thinking of putting this in my in the original post, but it goes better here, and since no one has pointed it out, the joke is still mine to be had:
For everyone who enjoyed this[Edit: it's still NSFW], take another sweet glance, and then check the bottom left corner.

Uber-Micro Update:

2006-04-07T23:16:00.000-04:00

So, about 10 minutes after I finish my post, I'm sitting around waiting for Wolfgang to call me (he's about half an hour late). The phone rings. "Finally!" I exclaim to myself as I reach for the phone.

Having taken a shower earlier in the day, in between seeing all that amazingness and posting about it, I was sitting around naked in my room. Cause, you know, I'm like that. So, back to the phone ringing:

I pick up the phone and yell, "I'M NAKED!!!!!!!" in order to make Wolfgang laugh. Its his mom. "Hello, Liam"
"Oh, ha-ha-hi Mrs Bakes"
"Hi, how are you, Liam?"
"Oh... Comfortable."
"Is Andrew there?"
"No, he's running late. I, uh, thought you were him calling me."
"Yes, well, when he gets there can you have him call me?"
"Of course, Mrs Bakes."
Holy akward, Batman. It turned out that she was giving him a ride home that night, so she called back like 5 times to check details with him. Every time she asked if we were clothed.

In conclusion: Wolfgang managed not only to be totally unable to figure out why BIOS refuses to see my drive, but he also managed to break my SATA 1 port off oy motherboard. So, I'm kinda dead in the water on that front. Oh, he also brought me a 20Gb dive with Win98 installed incase I feel like kicking it old-school on the gaming scene. But he didn't have time to install it before he left. So the number of non-functional hard drives in my computer now exceeds the number of functional ones by 200%, and the ammount of non-useable disc space in my computer exceeds useable disc space by 400%.

From Out of the Dark Came an Awsome Sound, Shouted "Cowabunga" as They Hit the Ground OR A Micro-Update

2006-04-07T16:48:00.000-04:00

So, let's start with Wednesday night: I'm busy studying my ass off for my chem final on Thursday morning. Then I think to myself "Liam, there's actually a certain ammount of pressure on you to perform on this exam".
"What do you mean, strange inner voice?"
"Just that after your piss-poor performance on the midterm you'll need to do well on the exam just to pass the course"
"Oh yeah, and after not doing any of the assignments that only makes my predicament more precarious."
So let's break it down, baby:
Midterm worth 25%: I got 14/30 = 46% = 11.66% of my total grade.
Assignments: 5 assignments worth 2% each. I have blatantly missed 4 of them. The deadline for the last hasn't passed yet, but I also haven't started it. So, nothing more to add. My grade in chemistry is still currently 11.66.
Final Exam worth 65%: OK, so this is going to be the deciding factor. I begin to realize that I'm going to need to do well just to pass the course. I subtract my 11.66% from the 65% that the exam is worth, and divide the answer by 65. That gives the average I need to get on the test to pass the course: 82.06%
Shit.
Now, at this point I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. I was seriously scared out of my mind. I downloaded the final assignment and began feverishly trying to complete it. I realized that there were too many holes in my knowlege to pull off an 80 on this exam. The exam only has 23 questions, which means I can only get 4 questions wrong and still pass. I am losing it. I head down to the basement and try to get some help on a few of the concepts that are causing me trouble. Luckily, while down there I get my head set straight: Dave (the guy who I RTS with non-stop) is in math. He calmly explains to me, without even looking at my calculations, that I have my head up my ass. Now, people like Dan and Josh, and maybe others too, will have noticed the major problem with my calculations as they read them back there. Others might not have, so I'll give you a second to take a looksee back at what I did and see if you can't figure it out now that you know there's a glaringly huge mistake. Still can't find it? Its an invalid assumption: The test is out of 65%. If I really needed to get and 80 on the test, what actual ammount of my grade would that account for? 65 x 0.8 = 52
So I was deluding myself. By subtracting my precious 11.66% from 65, instead of from 50, I was inflating what I needed to get on the exam by the 15% dfference between 65 and 50. I could pass the course having done nothing but the exam if I got an 80. So, recalculating, I needed a 58 to get 50 in the course. This took a serious ammount of strain off my mind, but I still would have liked to do better than 50. So, I still studied hard that night, and wrote hard Thursday morning. I know I passed the exam. I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass the course. but inbetween my other studying I'm still working on that last assignment (due on the 10th).

With the major stressor of Thursday over at 11:30am, I went back home to try and calm down. I bought a pasta lunch and went to my room. I watched the Cowboy Bebop movie. It is awsome shit. After watching the whole series not too long ago, getting this little fix was an awsome experience. Everyone: Go out and get the whole series. Then watch it. Then get the movie. And then watch that. You, and most likely your children, will thank me.

Afterwards I watched all of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid. It was good too, although if the ending for any closer to Evangelion I might have started cutting myself. Or masturbating to pictures of unconscious German girls in hospital beds. Either one. I finished up what was left of the day (not much) with some psych textbook reading. After thinking that I had completed an awsome day, I turned out the lights.

And couldn't get to sleep. I don't know why, but it just wasn't happening. So I got back up and read more psych. Then I got tired again and couldn't sleep. So I ended up turning off my alarm at 9 and going back to bed. I was awakened at 1 by a totally random visit from a guy I know. I'm really lucky he came by or I might not have gotten up until much later. So, after his surprise visit, I got down to the serious business of the day: doing the rounds on the net. The day starts with a check of my gmail account. Today I had an email from Wolfgang saying that he's coming to fix my computer today (FUCK YEAH, BABY!) and one from Granite telling my that I have been accepted into his elite cadre (Fuck yeah, bitching is good for something!). Following that, I sometimes check my hotmail account. But I usually don't because I never get email there. So then I go to my blog. If there've been any comments on my posts I get those forwareded to my gmail, so I find them and respond while I'm at my blog. Then I check everyone else's blogs. If you thought my link-list was there for your convenience, dear readers, you are sorely mistaken. It's there simply to allow me to see what everyone's been up to. So I do that (including checking up on Calders MySpace by going from ALOR to Rebus Nells to his page) and I write comments and whatnot, and then I decide whether or not I'm going to post something. I actually decided "no" today, but got overtaken by boredom and decided to anyway. However, today's "rounds" were very exciting. The rounds are a very ritualistic process. I go down the list in order every time, without fail. Every day starts with Ben and ends with Josh. And, about 1/4 of the way down, is Nick, the man who introduced me to Douglas Adams, wargaming, Civ2, the SCA, fencing, Firefly, Diablo, blogging (although Blake was the reason I got a blog) and many other amazing things. Every day I read his blog, but I always do it one day behind. This is in order to get all the awsomeness in at once, instead of having to read his multiple postings one at a time throughout the day. So today, I read Nicks posts from April 6th. And they are fucking awsome. I may have mentioned before that Nick is basically my source for world news these days. I didn't know about the whole Danish Cartoon thingy until Nick dropped a post about free-speech. So, here are the two item of "world news" (only in my own twisted perspective) that really made me happy today:

First: Nick posted a link to the (Not safe for work [or school]) Gatorade Conspiracy. If you read the whole thing and follow the link to Part 2, you get to the part of the post that absolutely made me friggin day. This is most definately NSFW (again, or school). Yup, best day of my life.

Next: This. It's totally safe for anything, except people who don't like anime. But luckily, if you don't like anime, you can just skip to 1:30 and watch from there. It has the credits to Bleach on the front of it, I just have no idea why. After the credits it gets into this totally cool... thing. That you just have to watch. If you have 15 minutes to spare, do it now. You won't ever regret it.

So that's been my day. I'm currently wating for Wolfgang to get here and service my computer. He's late.

Yeah. One more time. You know you love it.

And, OH GOD! I almost forgot Bravado's contibution for today. This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while.

One more time.

I'm Gonna be a Blue Collar Man OR Liam McKenna: Corporate Whore

2006-03-31T13:53:00.000-05:00

Give me a job
Give me Security
Give me a chance
To survive
I'm just a poor soul
In the unemployment line
My god I'm
Hardly alive
My mother and father
My wife and my friends
I see them laugh
In my face
But I've got the power
And I've got the will
I'm not a
Charity Case

So, I've done something amazing. Right now only Blake, Caleb, and Nick know about it. And while that constitutes quite a serious share of my readership, it's still worth telling the rest of you proles: I have applied for a real job. Yes, I know this is a shock, but don't worry. It's only one. And if I don't get in I can look forward to a life of poverty at the YMCA this summer.

Oh, the job, you say? Well, I have decided to follow in the footsteps of my man Caleb and move to London in order to pursue a job at [Company Name](Link removed. Clearly). Don't they look happy? I think I'm gonna be the guy on the left. But, yes, when you look into their eyes, you can see that all their left-wing dreams of making a living by teaching underprivileged children how to swim were foolish and for naught. They are corporate whores. They work hard, as I will work hard. They dress nicely, as I will dress nicely. They rot on the inside, as I may rot on the inside. How will I sleep at night? Well, first, as I've applied for an entry-level monolingual position, there's every chance I'll be sleeping at day and working at night. But mainly I'll be doing it, to quote PA, on a big pile of money.

Now, before I go any further, I'm going to have to stop and backtrack a little. I've probably offended, at least partially, a number of my readers. Not least among them Caleb himself, who's been working there for a while. Don't take it personally. Also, anyone from [Company Name] who's reading this while considering my application: your site stresses a "healthy work/life balance", and that's exactly what this blog provides for me. I communicate with my friends this way. So, don't you guys take it personally either. I don't work for you yet, but if I do, I'll never mention your name in this again if you don't want me to. Also, you don't know me: when I say this is a jumping off point for me into the world of "corporate whoredom", I mean it. It might be small potatoes to others, but for me, this is a big deal.

So, anyway, that being said, I am very excited to be doing this. For one thing, it's going to give me experience in actually living on my own this summer, as opposed to the fall when I move in with 5 other guys. I'm going to be making actual money for the first time instead of working for a charity that can't afford to pay me comeptitively or give me full time hours. This is the first time I'm going to have a real job. It's most exciting. Of course, most (all) of the money I make is going to be either owed to the Uni, spent on rent and food while going to Uni, or paid back to the folks who I might need to float me some more casholla to get the pump primed, as it were, in London. As I didn't really detail before, I had to borrow $500 already from the folks in order to give first, last, and utilities for last to my land-lady-to-be. The total was $830. Now, I had an apointment to see her booked last week, but when I realized that I didn't have enough money I had to call her back and reschedule. During that phonecall she told me it would be OK if I gave her first and the utilities and then gave her last in September, but, being rich only in my pride, I told her it would be fine if she gave me a week. Of course, when I told my father this he got mad at me. But now, now, now, that this has come into my life, we see how clever I really am. Having looked at the prices of summer sublets in London, a general price is $350/month for living a block away from Fanshawe ([Company Name] is practically across the street from Fanshawe). Now that I have the full $500 from my folks, I can give that to my land-lady and then use the money I have to get myself started in London. If I'd been a pussy and given in to her or my father I'd be asking my parents for more money now. How great I art.

So, the next thing everyone is asking: Why London? Well, it's [Company Name]’s only base of operations in Ontario for one thing (aside from Belleville. pfft). If I stay in Stratford, my career options include: kitchen and factory. Let's disect those options a little further.
Kitchen: Well, a full-time cocaine addiction will probably eat significantly into any savings I'd reap from living at home. Also, a survey of women who aren't servers says that grease burns aren't sexy. Also, cooks just spend all day yelling at each other and making each other look at their dongs. Seriously.
Factory: Much better paying than kitchen work and full-time is pretty much the only option. Problems: Cut-throat competition for spots among every other person my age, inlcuding the farm boys who can actually cut 40hrs/week of back-breaking manual labour plus overtime. I can't think of any of my friends who work or have worked at a factory without a family connection. It's funny, my house-mom was telling me the other day "When I was a kid, if I didn't like my job I went down the street and got another". Fuck.Ing.Je.Sus. Maybe we do need another global war.

So that's why London. It's the only job I've found that I think I can do well and get paid well for. Up until now those two things have never coexisted in the same sentence for me. Seriously, what else can I do well? Act? Drum? Play video games? Who is going to pay me to do those things in Stratford? I can't even play video games that well.

So yeah, next big question: Liam, I've tried (passively) to figure out what you do from reading [Company Name]'s website. But I can't figure it out. What the heck are you gonna be working at doing this summer? Well, I'm going to be some sort of telemarketer. Or something. The application (which I've purposely avoided discussing in detail... or at all) was very broad. Caleb does tech-support for HP. I'm hoping I can get a job on that side of the feild, rather than the "Hello, can I have all your money?" side. I a) don't think I'd be too good at that and b) probably wouldn't enjoy it anyway. So, yeah, [Company Name] is a professional outsourcing company. I kinda think that that's cool simply for the fact that I would have expected them to pack up and operate out of India, like all the cool telemarket / tech suport companies. But they haven't. Which is cool. Anyway, Blake also tells me that they're going to train me if I get a job, so the fact that I right now know very little about troubleshooting programs is apparently not important. This is an awsome job. I encourage all of you to think about moving to London and getting a big place with me. We'll be a little squad all to ourselves. Specifically, I'm gonna hit up Ellen: Come on. Are you really going to tell me that after a year in the "Big City" you're just gonna head back to Stratford and hang out with Steven? Not a chance. Come with me into the great unknown of corporate Canadia. London is better than Stratford.

So, in other news, what have I been doing with myself? Well, not a whole lot of anything. I plan on getting down into the grind on Monday, and not pulling out of it until the 21st. It's gonna be awsome. Don't expect a lot of posts. I'm not even gonna lie, I don't even remember this week. I'm going to go with the 3 most important things that have happened to me since I last posted.

1) Full Metal Panic. Yes, I finally managed to find someone I could DL it quickly from. I digested all 24 episodes in 2 days. My views on FMP are mixed. AS combat: very cool. Souske kicking ass at school: also high on the awsome scale. General humour throughout the show: very awsome. Really, while watching the show I had no complaints. It was only after I was done that they started surfacing. The plot is basically non-existant. There is a story, and that story has an arc. Kind of. But there are holes in the plot large enough to pilot the de Danann through.

2) I played PvP Age of Empires with the basement boys last night for the first time. It was 3 on 2 in my favour. And my team got our asses handed to us. It was sick. Against AI I am a terror. But fighting against people is hard. I've never seen people rip through the ages that fast. But here's a fun fact: I spawned in between my other two teammates. They both fought hard to keep their kingdoms, and I sent troops to support them. They were both overrun, but were able to set up other bases elsewhere. In the end both enemies crashed into my base simultaneously and I was rubbed out fast. I didn't have a chance to found a new base. One of my teammates' score outstripped mine at the end of the game by like 50%. But.... : I got the MVP medal for my team. I was happily surprised.

3) I was supposed to have the meeting with my landlady today (while writing the above paragraph I got a phonecall saying that she'd told one of the guys I'm renting with that she can't make it). So I decided it would be good to shower and launder. I decide to perform the latter first, but I only have the dough for one load. I pick two outfits (2 pants, 4 shirt, 4 boxers, 4 pair socks, 1 sweater) and head down to the basement, where the machines are. I set up the washer and go for lunch with the basement boys. I get back and put my shiat in the dryer. Then I go to the bank to withdraw all my cash (I figure I need to be prepared in case she asks for all my money instead of letting me get back into the deal I refused), and walk back home. That takes about 45 minutes. When I get back to the laundry room, I notice that someone else has started a load of washing. Whatever, not important. But I figure that my drying is almost finished so I loiter in the basement. No one wants to do anything, so I spend my time walking around the halls whistling "Barrett's Privateers". I also take a piss. I go back to the laundry room and continue sporadic whistling. A short while later the house-mom shows up. Now this isn't my house-mom. Due to budget cuts, staff shortages, etc, every house mom does 1 and 1/3 houses or something. So our house has my house-mom on floors 1, 2, and 3, while the basement gets another one. So, she walks in and says, "Oh, it was you!"
I find this initial remark surprising. However, she follows it up by whistling a small tune at me. Ah, understanding reddens my cheek. My whistling has not been to madame's taste? I'm rather confused that she would track me down to tell me this. I open my mouth to say as much but then she says, "Don't you know the machines aren't supposed to be used on Friday mornings? I need to wash my rags. Why don't you move them along when you're done with the machine?"
I barely nod assent when she drops two quarters on the machine and is gone. Weirdest thing to happen all week. The whole experience could not have taken more than 15 seconds.

So, that's all for today. I'm now going to spend the rest of my time looking for apartments in London. I've already tried 2, but the bastards haven't emailed me back one way or the other yet, so it's time to keep looking. And by "keep looking" I mean "watch and episode of Bullshit and then play Star Wars Battlefront". And then go out for dinner with the basement guys and convinvce them that RTS is the thing to do on a Friday night.

Make me an offer
That I can't refuse
Make me respectable,
Man
This is my last time
In the unemployment line
So like it or not,
I'll take those
Long night
Impossible odds
Keeping my back
To the wall
If it takes all that
To be just what I am
I'm gonna be a
Blue collar man

PS: I've wanted to be in a band that covers this song since the first time I heard it.

Well Barrett was Smashed Like a Bowl of Eggs, and the Maintruck Carried Off Both me Legs

2006-03-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

God. Damn. Them. All.

Well, well, where has the time gone? I find myself sitting in front of my computer at the end of the weekend trying to sum up everything that has happened. Well, nothing really happened during the week itself. So I'll start from Friday, where I went to class as per the normal and finished, as per the normal, at 10:30. But, as per the abnormal, I had something to do at 11. I was in a psych study. There is an opportunity to earn extra credit in my course by participating in studies, to the tune of 1% for each study (to a max of 5%). I scored my first percent just by filling out an exhaustive number of questionairres in order to make myself eligible for other studies. How cool is that? Unfortunately, most of my study offers came during the week of Footloose, which was pretty much a no-go for anything other than stress and things worth more than an optional 1%. However, 2 of the offers were simply for more questionairres online, which I was able to complete after Footloose was dealt with. Then, a couple of people went to the trouble of actually phoning me about labs happening this week. Score. I got myself booked for the aforementioned spot at 11 and for another at 3, which was the earliest they had. The lab was easy, and I got a chance to look around the psych building. Which was cool. The psych building is known for its totally random floorplan (which I can attest to, actually finding anything there is always a handful), but what's not so well known is an awsome little lounge in the middle of the first floor. Very cool architecture, scultpures hanging from the ceiling, racks of newspapers at hand. It was hexagonal and consisted of about 5 levels, all going down by steps into the floor below. But it was all broken up into little sections with recessed benches and things. A great little place. I took a load off there for a short while before going off to get some lunch.

I went back to my room and killed time before the next study. I was running out of hard drive space (again) and dropped some things onto DVD. Then I called my mother to relate some news to her about my latest money troubles. We ended up talking for a long while, during which I decided to fill some of my newly freed disc space with Star Wars Battlefront. I hadn't played it for a while, and having it in my posession began to stir fond memories. Then I also queued up a bunch of new dowloads. Like, a big bunch. It was stupid. Further, I began lecturing my mother on the benefits of VLC, and writing her an exhaustive email detailing how to download and install it so that she could watch my copy of Firefly (which I'd left at with her after Reading Week). I also began talking to Blake on Googletalk. So, while all these things were going on, I failed to realize/notice my newly freed gigbytes disappearing. After I'd said goodbye to my mother and finished the email, but while I was still talking to Blake, I noticed that only 98 glorious Mb were left on drive C. Now, this wouldn't have been a problem if the 5lb paperweight sitting inside my chassis (also known as a 300gig SATA drive) was in functional condition, but I won't rail about that any more. God knows it hasn't helped me any so far. So I sent a panicked "FUCKFUCKFUCKFUC" to Blake and a) started burning a new DVD and also uninstaled Battlefield 2 (Which I don't think I mentioned before has been working fine on my computer for about 2 weeks) and Cossacks 2 (which I haven't touched since early January) for short-term gains. I rewatched the first episode of Samurai Champloo a couple of times and skimmed through a couple of the other ones. Episode 7 was climing quickly, and had been busting into the 90s percentile-wise all day. I was getting antsy with expectation.

Around 6:30 I remembered that I had to call my landlady-to-be about rescheduling our meeting (which was the source of my monetary trouble not-quite-detailed above) for next week. I am very excited to be looking at my first real home. Residence was nice, but its grand comforts resemble life in a hotel rather than life in a house. I'm going to be moving in with 5 other guys from the basement of my building. It's going to be awsome. Friday night was basically an idea of what every night next September is going to be like: At around 8:30 we all LANed up some AOE2 action (I got smoked by the AI early on and didn't really have to energy to recover very much for the rest of the game. I just did cleanup where the other guys had gone before me). After that we made a caff-run and got suited up for the next round: N64 emulation with n00b sticks. Now, Urban Dictionary disagrees with me on the definition of this term, but for our purposes a n00b stick is a console game controller with a USB interface. I have no idea why such a product would exist except for use with emulators. But wow, did our n00b sticks suck balls. There were 2 good ones that one of our guys owned, but the other two wre borrowed from another guy down the hall, and boy were they shittier than anything. "Blame it on the stick" was my catch-phrase of the night. It was about 10:30 when I told the guys I needed to get to bed at a decent time because Blake was coming over sometime on Saturday. They presuaded me it would be prudent to play until midnight. Well, since there were 5 of us there, and only 4 slots in any N64 game, I sat out for the last game of the night: 20 rounds of Mario Party 2. I fell asleep about halfway through and went to bed. It was 2am. At some poine during the night I realized that I'd completely missed my 3 o'clock psych study.

At an unidentifiable time in the morning I was roused from my fitful slumber by the clamouring of my telephone. It was Blake. He was calling to tell me he was leaving Stratford soon. Awsome...click, snore. Seriously, how much more useless could that information have been to me?

Unidentifiable time #2: Blake is here. I hang up the phone and stumble into the hallway to wait for him to get to my building so I can let him on the floor. After doing so he informs me that its 10:30am.

A short time later: In a rush of energy my sinusses all clear at once and I am deposited, kicking and screaming, into full consciousness. I decide that clothes are probably a good idea. Blake and I head out to scope Laurier. And all its hot broadskis. Due to the absence of any sort of formal planning in this endeavour the trip ends up being a mix of adventure and boredom. After the journey to the Laurier campus we made our first big discovery of the day: the Directory. It's like a mall directory. Only for Laurier. And they have them all over the campus. It was to prove invaluable in our upcoming adventure. As well as the geographical informtion it imparted, other valuable secrets were unveiled:

They heart it, okay? Like, jesus. How did I end up at the place down the street?

We started with the music building (which was also, conveniently, the building directly ahead of us from where we were reading the directory). We walked in and encountered a somewhat bemusing sight: There were people. A lot of people. Certainly a lot for before noon on Saturday. They were lined up. And as we got to the line Blake commented that it reeked of wine. But it didn't. It reeked of wine corks. That particular mystery was never explained, nor that of what these people were lined up for, but god were there a lot of them. We walked along this lineup through the music building, down a corridor out of the music building and into the caffeteria behind it. It was surreal. But then it was gone. Blake noted that the cafeteria was too open, nice-looking, clean, and stocked with beautiful Laurier girls for his liking. We moved on. Upon exiting the place we bumped into a guided tour of the campus. "Just the thing," I thought to myself. "This is retarded," Blake thought out loud. We moved on. Since we weren't part of the guided tour we didn't get to look into any residences, but we did note that the exteriors were very house-like. We found another directory (the one which bore the message above) and consulted it as to the location of the English building. We traversed numerous back-alleys, small gardens, and concrete staircases before coming upon the back door of the bookstore. It was barred, as all too many good back doors are, to our entry. After entering the building from elsewhere we looped around, found a side door that was also locked, and finally came to the front door. And were immediately assaulted by enough Laurier swag to clothe the entire population of the third world (including jumpers for all their babies), and let them and their decendants take shots, drink coffee, stay dry in the rain, pack up their belongings, and temporary tattoo every available inch of exposed (or not) skin with impunity. Assuming they could afford it. Seriously, I was expecting purple and gold teeth to be on display somewhere in there. God help you if you were looking for a book. Blake noted that they sold Ian Rankin and turned towards the used CDs in disgust. I looked at the new Ian Rankin releases and noted, slightly unhappily, that none of them were new Rebus novels. We moved on.

Back outside we renewed our search for the English building. After stumbling around for a number of minutes we found a building that said English on it. We walked in, got 50 feet down the hallway, and saw the bookstore in foont of us. Well. That was kind of embarassing. But then, we found something even cooler: Recessed into this seemingly harmless building was an escalator. Fuck yeah. At my insistance we took the escalator up. Five stories. It was awsome, even though Blake refused to emulate my sexy poses while riding. While there I read an awsome article about feminists ruining feminism which was taped onto someone's door. Well, I thought it was awsome. I'm sure someone somewhere cumbusted a bra in fury. Hopefully while it was still on them.

We walked back down to the ground floor (seriously, who has a up escalator but no down?) and across a path to the library, where we took an elevator to the top floor. From there the only notable thing that happened was me being unable to see my own campus sitting directly in front of me. We left Laurier the way we came, and went into the reaches of downtown Waterloo. We headed off down King St. in search of a TD for Blake. I also suggested a nice Chinese place the was right across the street from the bank. On the way there Blake noticed the Long & McQuade and decided we needed to stop there as well. As we were about to walk into the bank we were assaulted by a man our age engaged in looking for loose change. Here's how the exchange went:
Dude, to Blake, "Do you have any loose change?"
Blake, truthfuly, "No, dude."
"Oh. Are you guys looking for a girlfriend?"
ummmm..... what? I kept my mouth shut but the quizzical look still leapt boldly onto my face. A pimp... panning for loose change. I wonder what Brendan would say about this guy's business plan.
Blake made some sort of mumled denial and we went into the bank, where Blake withdrew hoards of cash which was never destined to meet this man's hands. Although we did leave the bank by a different door than the one we entered from.

Shortly thereafter I remembered that I can't use chopsticks. Over half my food went into a doggie bag when we decided I'd wasted enough time. Blake messed his pants upon walking into Long & McQuade. They had a soundproof room full of guitars and amps. Blake went in and wordlessly challenged the skinny Indie kid across the room from us to a shredding battle. Or rather he misconstrued the fact that the kid was also playing a guitar as some sort of challenge to him. Whichever. Blake won. 20 minutes later we found the basement where they kept the drums. There were no soundproof rooms. I walked down the stairs and saw a gong sitting on the floor. I did the natural thing and tapped it with the toe of my boot, just as the guy working the floor came into view. It ended up not making any sound. Well, not one to be outdone by authority, and got down on one knee and flicked it. The response from such a small contact was very immense. It was an awsome sound. I stood, turned to face the guy who had been staring at me since he turned the corner. "Hey". "Hey. There used to be a mallot around here for that". "Yeah?" I turned away and looked at other things. he continued to some guy standing beside him, "Yeah there used to be", "haha, wonder why there isn't anymore?" his friend contributed. Yuck it up fuck-face. I considered suggesting that some retarded sales associate had moved it because he couldn't understand why anyone would want to try something out before they bought it, but Blake had just sat down at the electric drums and I didn't want have us thrown out just yet. So I wandered aimlessly through their pathetically small selection (featuring three different electric kits.... gah). I chilled in a really awsome drum throne with an adjustable lumbar support, and then jumped off of it when I glanced down and noticed that it was $250. We hadn't got 10 feet out into the street when someone ran out of the store after us. It was a guy we'd seen in the drum room. He solicited Blake to find out if he wanted drum-lessons. I mean, seriously, I've always thought Blake was a bit of a sucker, but I didn't realize everyone in Kitchener could see it too, and only after seeing him for 30 seconds.

So, we got back to my place (having only survived the lengthy journey back by the sheer volume of Blake's complaints about the distance) and, as was prophecied in my last post, I queued up some Samurai Champloo for his and my consumption. That was my plan for the rest of the day: watch Samurai Champloo until he had to go home (to work at 9am). He was pleased with the offering. Now that episode 7 was in my hands I set about watching the series with a vengeance. We'd cleared 10 episodes (or rather I'd cleared 10 episodes, Blake had fallen asleep about 3 or 4 in) when the phone rang. It was Ben and Justyn, they were in Cambridge (poor souls) and they decided to come by for a visit. The only trouble was that they didn't know how to get to my school. I opened up trusty GoogleEarth, and (10 minutes later) was unable to help them. I had to resort to the much less chic MapQuest at Justyn's behest (by this time they had pulled off the road and I was still trying to find where they were on the map). I set them on route to get here (and talked them through the whole trip util they were in the turning lane in front of my school), and told them to phone me when they got to my building so that I could let them in.
Half an hour later: "Dude, I didn't know I was supposed to call you."
"Oh, well, whatever, so you're at my building?"
"No... I don't know where it is. I'm in the parking lot. We've been waiting here for, like, half an hour."
So, never letting Ben be the telephone go-between for me and Justyn anymore.

We all got back to my room and took a load off. That's when we all remembered that my house is boring and there's nothing to do. That's when Justyn had his Great Idea for the day: McKenna were playing at some dirty pub in Milton that night. Oh... Who's Milton?

Twenty-three minuts later (Justyn put $2 in the meter, why leave right away and waste half of it?) we were on the road. However, my normal habit of calling Shotgun actually landed me with responsibilty. I navigated all the way to Milton, which was boring, so I won't get into it. Suffice to say I am a navigator of mediocre capabilities. But we did get to Milton. And we were there for at least 10 minutes before Justyn decided we were going to get Laura. I came with him to navigate some more while Ben and Blake stayed behind. And I can't blame them. The music was absoutely killer, and the waitress serving us was wearing a skirt shorter than her apron. She had a face like the sole of my boot, but as Benner reminded us, "Who cares about the mantle when you're poking the fire?"

So we went to Hamilton, I met Justyn's cat (Rocky), and we got Laura. Then we drove back. I indulged in more adult beverages and sang loudly with Ben while banging my empty glass on the table. The show was totally awsome, exactly as good as when I saw these guys back in Stratford. And I ogled the waitresses some more. And some more. And then we were done, and I was sleepy. I fell asleep on the drive back to Hamilton. But then we went to Laura's work for another drink (and a another rendition of Barrett's Privateers). I fell asleep with a vengeance on the drive back to Waterloo (at this point it was approximately 2:30 - 3:00am). I actually feel very bad about that, because I was in Shotgun again and Justyn had told Ben and Blake they could go to sleep in the back because they both had things to do in the morning. I didn't and I was supposed to be navigating with him. But I did wake up about 15 minutes before we made Kitchener. I managed to wake up and start firing directions to Justyn (he'd had the foresight to print off mapquest instructions for getting us there and bck). Trouble is, I missed one. And suddenly we were off the highway. In Kitchener. Where I don't know any of the streets. After we had driven about 3 minutes down this road I sheepishly admitted that there was a good chance that I had given him a wrong turn. He took it very well. However, in an attempt to salvage the situation we continued down the road a little further to see if I could recognise any of the streets. No luck. Once we got back on the highway everything was fine, though. When we got to the University and Justyn was driving up the road towards my building he took out an Alan key and unscrewed his gear-shift. "Watch this". Justyn throws on the binders, screams as loud as he can and waves the detached gear-shift in his hand. I thought it was hilarious. Blake and Ben... didn't.

And then I was home. I invited Justyn up to print off more Mapquests to get them back to the S-dot, but Blake told him he'd navigate. I don't know what happend then; I went to bed. But everyone please remember that Blake had to work at 9, and it was 4 when I got home. I don't know how Blake would describe his shift that Sunday, but I'm going to guess that "super-awsome-tastic" would not be his first choice. Of course, that's assuming that they made it home OK. Neither Blake nor Ben have posted anything since then, so god only knows.

I woke up in a searing torrent of sunlight at 8 o'clock. I considered suicde but then just did my usual "try really hard to pretend its still dark until noon" routine. I spent the day killing off Champloo. It was so awsome. I absolutely love that show. I got dressed for an hour in order to get my only meal of the day at around 7. I was going to get undressed and go back to bed around 9:30, when Danger knocked on my door and reminded me that I'd just missed the house meeting ever for our building. It's all about the timing, Danger. Tell me before I miss the meeting. Then I went and chilled with him for about 5 minutes. But I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I said adieu and walked back to my room. 5 seconds after I shut my door, the phone rings. I pick up, "Hello?" "AOE2, right now." "Guys I'm going to bed... No, wait. I'm opening AOE right now."
Then, just as the game is about to start, another phonecall. It's from a guy named Karl. He wants me to be in a psych study on monday morning. I agree, and one awsome game of AOE later my head hits the pillow.

Which brings us to today. Karl's study was the only thing that made me get out of bed for class. I'd cunningly scheduled it for 11, just after my last class today ends. It was probably the coolest study I've ever been in: He put a helmet on my head with little cameras that focussed on my eyes. His entire study is just filming people's eyes as they read little academic reports from Nature magazine from a sweet-looking LCD screen. The cameras were self-calibrating too. I'd have to focus on a dot on the screen and somehow the camera knew when it was in perfect focus on my eye. Maybe it could see the reflection or seomthing. It was wicked fuckin cool, though. Also, Karl told me that back in the day when people did these sorts of studies, they got perfectly fitted contact lenses with tiny arms reaching out from them to show where the eyes were pointing. He said it was like having long needles coming out of your eyes. And what was the best part of the study? I controlled the page-turning of the reading material with a n00b stick! In fact, it was the exact same model of n00b stock I'd used on Friday night. Too cool.

Well, that's all for now. If you're reading this, POST SOMETHING!

My Modus Operandi is Amalgam OR (scratch)(scratch)(back)(forward)(back)(forward)(scratch)(loop)(scratch)(loop)(scratch)

2006-03-23T12:55:00.000-05:00

So, it's official. I have a new anime mistress. It's been an affair of patience trying to get ahold of it, but god-damn has it been worth it. It started with Caleb making a reccomendation for me way back in my archives. I tried to follow it but got nowhere because the only person in posession of this holy grail of animation happened to be the man in charge of my entire DC++ hub. No slots available. Ever. So I waited. And I waited. One day Binkle told me that I could open DC++ temp files in any media player, so I looked through my huge temp folder to try and find things to throw away. I only had one episode of this masterpice, and I'm ashamed to say that I liked it, but didn't realize its full potential. At the time I was too budy trying to download Full Metal Panic (and also getting nowhere). Finally, I got Strong DC++ which got me back into downloading with a vengeance. I went back and tried to find all the series that I'd been recommended. Once again I focused mainly on FMP, but I also had this series queuing in the bakcground as well. Well, As of now I have all of FMP:Fumoffu, all but one episode of FMP:TSR, and still none of the original FMP. And I worry that I won't have it all by the time I leave school. But, yesterday, while I was also worrying about my ever shrinking hard drive (1.23Gb remaining as of 1:15 this afternoon. Wolfgang WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!?!), I noticed that this series had finished downloading compeltely! Well, not completely, I'm missing episodes 7 and 22 (which I'd DLed tranlated into French). But I loaded up the first one and got down to being totally fucking amazed. When Cowboy Bebop shot me in the face with its soundtrack I didn't think it could happen again so quickly. But I was dead wrong.

This is the first anime I've ever seen with an all hip-hop soundtrack, full of deft scratching and phat beets. The first episosde stole me in a way that no other series has yet, with its emphasis on telling the story in conjunction with said phat beets and awsome turn-table work. The transitions in this show are intense, often set perfectly with the soundtrack. If-If-If-If a scene starts with a soundcue like the start of this sentence then the start of the scene will also loop with it in between the end of the last scene and the start of the new one. It's awsome. The attention to detail between the soundtrack and the scene is amazing. It caught me, and held me tight until I'd burned through the first 6 episodes. Then I went and got dinner. At 9:30. Blake, if you're coming here on the weekend, we're watching this. A lot.

This is the face of my new love.

[Ed Note: Apparently there's more than one image that comes up when you enter the site. Just refresh until you get the shot of the girl's ass. That's what I meant... It was supposed to be funny...]

Minor Update:

2006-03-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

Since he hasn't psoted in so long, I'd forgotten that Caleb is now a happy participant in post-secondary education. He has been changed in my links to reflect his shiny new status.

"People Listen to Jazz for Fun, Dance to Jazz for Fun, Play Jazz... for Fun" OR What Will I do With my Thursdays Now?

2006-03-19T14:40:00.000-05:00

So, Footloose has been put into its grave. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Binkle for actually putting me on the trail of the damn thing, otherwise I would never have even known it existed. Also I'd like to thank personally all the friends who came out to see it:

(not bitter at all. In the words of Nora "My St. Paddy's day was good. So go fuck yourself" or something)

The Friday show ended up being the worst one I played, although whether or not that's because I was busy marinading in self-pity is debateable. The Conrad Grebel Student Council were the ones who actually fronted the cash for this little enterprise, and they also organized a pizza-party for Friday night. We trudged over, weary from our exertions, and found that the pizza hadn't arrived yet. We pulled together some couches and took a load off. A few minutes later I got my first experience with "money talks" attitude, which is a specialized form of snarky bullshit useable only by people who get to be in charge of things due to monetary contribution. Here's what happened: We were sitting on our couches, minding our own business, being too tired to do too much of anything (it's midnight again). There was a line forming away from us in anticipation of the pizza's arrival. At this point, a Grebel Student Council person came over and told us that we weren't doing enough mingling. This was a Grebel Student Council event and we needed to mingle more. We were being too cliquey. I came to eat free pizza and go to bed, not mingle with my gracious fucking benefactors (and the cast and band... who I've known for months and just spent5 hours with) and their ugly boy/girlfriends. So whatever. All we did was get up and stand by the big throng of people waiting for pizza. It was retarded. I came to a pizza party, not a PR event for Grebel.
(And just while we're here, I laugh every time I type "pizza-party". Could I seriously say somethig like, "Hey dude, I came for the fuckin pizza-party, alright?" and keep a straight face? I don't know. The term "pizza-party" holds connotations of funny hats and public-school portable classrooms for me. This was just a bunch of people in a caffeteria, but the event was billed as a pizza party, so that's what I'm calling it)
When the pizza arrived, the same bitch got back on her horse and explained the preferential rules for Grebel students in eating the pizza. Out of 11 members of the stage band, only 2 are Grebel students. I could only shake my head in the manner which I am right now as I reminisce. I ended up grabbing 2 slices instead of 1 and then, after some non-mingling with Ricardo (our 2nd guitar) I went back to see if I could get more. I found Student Council Girl interrogating some guy about how much he'd had already and calmly sidestepped them both and grabbed 2 more pieces.
Fuck authority.

The pizza was real real greasy. Perhaps that was the Student Council's secret weapon against cheaters like me. It had me feeling sick, a condition which was only exacerbated by everyone in the cast singing Seasons of Love at the top of their lungs. They had been doing this since we arrived. When it was finally over I realized that the Rent soundtrack was playing somewhere in the caff and that someone was resetting it to Seasons of Love every time it got more than 2 or 3 songs away (and they knew all the words to those songs too). At this point I was ready for bed. Another possible factor in this decision was my beard. I am reasonably sure (especially after the events of Saturday, which I will get to soon) that the stuff I put in it, Color Shots "Punk Pink", has had 2 effects on me:
1) I am a solvent abuser. The instructions on the can say that I should hold it 8-12 inches from the hair I'm spraying it in. Which would work if I was also trying to spray in on my mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and shirt as well. So I have to hold it closer. I'm lucky if I hold it an inch from my face. And what are the top 4 ingredients in this stuff? Denatured alcohol (not a big deal), butane, iso-butane, and propane. Yes, the 2nd and 3rd biggest ingredients are both butane. Iso-butane is just a specific kind of butane. And they're followed by propane, another abuseable solvent. Awsome. So yeah, I'm not really worried about that. I didn't feel stoned when I did it or anything, but I'm sure it was technically solvent abuse. I mean, I had to breathe when I was doing it, it took me like 15 minutes to put on 3 coats of the stuff so that it would actually show up.
2) There's a good chance I didn't feel stoned because that stuff made me feel like shit instead. Breathing the fumes from whatever else is in there (Benzoguanamine/Formaldehyde/Melamine Crosspolymer, etc) was terrible. I'm getting a headache thinking about it. Also it irritated my throat and nose which made me cough more during the shows.
So, thanks in part to that stuff, I took my leave of the pizza party. When I got home I washed out the beard (so that it wouldn't get in my pillow, but looking back on it I am damn happy that I washed it out all 3 nights) and hit the sack. I didn't sleep too well, but I was rested enough when I awoke at 8 the next morning.

The first memorable event of Saturday was a phonecall from Toronto. It's one thing for almost all of my friends to have a party without me instead of coming to my show, it's another to call and gloat about it the next morning. But since no one involved has deigned to comment on the post below this one I think that that's where I'll stop this.

So, on to Saturday. The call for the matinee was 12:15 and was ready and waiting in time. My family came out to that show and they liked it. I also played much better than on Friday night, but that might have had more to do with the fact that I tried to put on less beard paint. After the show I met up with the fam and we went for dinner. When I got in the van I noticed that the twins had managed to work in a trip to Value Village. Calder had picked up a couple of keyboards for $3 each. So, yes, we're talking about children's keyboards. The first one came with batteries but didn't really have any cool features. It had a switch that was supposed to alternate it between organ and piano, but it was broken. At this point we arrived at a William's and got out to have dinner. When we got back in Calder, after some mishaps putting in the batteries, resumed his melodic doodling on the larger keyboard. This one was much cooler. It had a drum machine built into the top of it as well as several prefab beats (of varying complexity), volume and tempo control, and around 20 different instruments to choose from. Whilst we were discovering the wonders of this keyboard in the back seat, my mother was deciding that she needed me to help carry things while she shopped at Michael's, The Arts & Tawdry Homeware Store. So, the five of us entered the store, Calder with the keyboard firmly clasped in his hand.

From the moment we entered I could tell it was hostile territory. My mother instructed me to find a table, and I took Calder and broke off on my search. We traversed the store: Me in my faded T-shirt, frayed jeans, worn-out boots, and pink beard; Calder in his grey winter coat, tight jeans, poofy hair, and a RAMS shirt which he'd added "tein" to with marker; and all around us the sweet melodies of all your Calder favourites coming from this little keyboard. It was awesome. We walked all over the store and eventually discovered 3 things: 1) There were no suitable tables. 2) My mother had decided to instead have my carry around an urn. 3) The ketboard had five preloaded songs. The fist of these songs, "Ten Little Indians", became our new theme for pacing the store. However, after a complete circuit of the premises we discovered that my mother was still nowhere near ready to leave. So I had a brilliant idea, which was this: Calder and I would retraverse the store, me with the urn over my shoulder "boom-box" style, Calder with the keyboard, busting "Ten Little Indians", in the same position, and find a good location for a secret base. We would operate out of this secret base until such as time as the rest of the fam were ready to leave, at which point they would be forced to discover our base in order to take us away. We walked. Past the paper and stationary section with the incredibly ditry waterfountain hidden at the back, past the children's play centre where 3 and 4 year-old children were hitting each other with safety scissors, past the same kid and his mom six times as our different paths through the store intertwined. Finally we came upon the fake forest and saw our opportunity: There was a corner where two shelf units met and formed an acute angle. Attendants had stored trees there which were too tall to sit on the shelf units. People had tended to buy trees from the middle of this section instead of the edges and a little glen had formed. Calder and I pounced. I entered first and set the urn down, he came in after me and laid the keyboard atop it. From there we lit a campfire, sipped our whiskey, and Calder serenaded the night while I dreamed. Of days gone by and days yet to come...

And then my parents and Siobhan came by and got us. They dropped me back at the theatre for the closing show. Which was also awesome. At the end there was a huge onstage backslapping session. It was nice. I got a blue rose. It stained my hands. After that we started the load-out. It was gruelling. I thought playmakers! ones were bad, but I never really appreciated the ammount of planning and coordination that goes into them... until all of it was absent. There were too many people acting independantly with too much stuff. Here's a case in point: By the time I had finished packing up the drum kit I used in the show, I realized that I had my own drums to worry about. I had a bass, snare, and hi-hat all without cases to worry about. But in the time I'd spent cleaning up the first kit someone had already taken my bass drum. I made sure the rest of it got into a van, and the piccolo snare rode in my lap. But when I got back to Grebel the bass drum was nowhere to be found. And that's how it stayed. Someone walked my unsheilded bass drum home in the snow, and I have no idea where the fuckin thing is. After the load-out there was a cast party at one of the actors' house. I told a couple of the actors who live in the same residence with me that I would share a cab with them after we'd all gone home and showered. Too bad the actors were done loading out in half an hour and it took us in the band significantly longer. I was feeling really really sick by the time I'd managed to stumble home from the load-out. I got back at around 20 to 1 and sat in my chair until 1 trying to muster the strength to undress and shower my beard off so I could go to bed. In that time I also tried twice to call Ricardo (of the false mingling above) and tell him that I couldn't go (because he'd also said we could go together after I'd mentioned that I had probably missed my ride with the actors). But he didn't answer his phone. So all was dejection and despair as I entered the shower.

And then I washed my beard off.

And I felt like a new man. I'm not even joking. I have no idea what that shit was doing to me, but once it was gone I absolutely had a new strength. I walked back to my room and began pulling out all my extreme winter clothes in order to walk over to this place: I was thinking rugby socks with sweat pants tucked into my boots; regular jeans over those so I didn't look retarded at the party; my "I like girls who like girls" shirt and my scarf wrapped around my neck and most of my face and a hoodie over those; My fur hat topped off the arangement along with my winter coat. I had followed that plan to waits level (socks and sweatpants) when Ricardo called. He too said that the shower had made a new man of him, and he had been showering when I tried to call him. He picked me up along with my mickey of stoly and we went to the party which turned out to be at........................... Barbara Murray's house! It was random, but still awsome. Apparently she rooms with the actor who was hosting the party. The party kicked ass. The music was terrible, but there were enough people, and enough alcohol, to keep my happy. I got really really trashed in the span of about 2 hours. I basically showed up, said some hellos, and cracked the Stoly open. Then I managed to probably make myself look like a complete redneck by drinking drinks others couldn't rather than have them poured down the drain. One of the cast members was getting drunk for the first time. I told him he was missing out and that I'd been doing it for 6 years. He looked at me like I said I'd been abused as a child. A while after that I performed the chivalrous act of picking a girl up off the floor and getting her to a bathroom. She was the stage manager and I know her from my program. When she was done vomiting she said she wanted to go home. I immediately volunteered to walk her, althought I belatedly realized that I a) didn't know the way too well and b) hadn't brought all of my extreme winter walking gear. Luckily I had some money and got her a cab.

And then it was 4 and Ricardo was driving home. I was stil severely drunk and got really worried and started yelling when he took a different way back. Luckily he decided not to kick me out of the car right there. I got home, took off my shoes and laid half sitting-up in my bed. I drifted off to sleep until I felt the urge to vomit. I went to the bathroom, but then sat on the john instead. I fell asleep there too. But was once again awoken by the urge to throw up. So I switched positions and let fly in a businesslike manner. I speculated casually for a few seconds about how easily and mechanical my work with the less enjoyable parts of getting drunk (the drinking part and the [not always necessary] vomiting part) has become. I wonder if that means I'm a good drinker or a budding alcoholic. I don't drink enough so I assume its just my mad skillz.

Then I slept until noon and started trying to write this. It's quarter to 12, school is tomorrow. Goodnight all.

The Inescapable Black Hole that is Toronto. Or Ellen's vagina.

2006-03-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

So, here's a quick recap on my week:
Monday (when I slept through Chem), I was in Footloose rehearsal from 4 until midnight. At which point we packed up and went over to another building to have notes. Until 1:30. About half the people there were asleep by the end. I felt tired... but not tired... I couldn't pin down the feeling.

Until Tuesday morning, when I realized that I was sick. Footloose has actually made me ill. Nothing else could this year. I came damn close before New Years, but even then I managed to keep it together, and that was in the dead of winter. So, since Tuesday was my "day off" from Footloose, I decided to really get down to battling the sickness. Trouble is, since Tuesday was my "day off" from Footloose, I also had to do all the homework that was piling up from all my "days on". So I bought two packages of those Halls Vitamin C things, and sat down to do my chem lab, due the next day. I skipped my psych class and I still didn't get it finished. I also didn't even think about watching House (although Ellen has already mentioned that it wasn't on TV or something). I probably could have gotten the report done if I wasn't sick, and I was doing my best popping those Halls. But it just turned into 1) write a couple of lines 2) space out and drink water 3) check email 4) rub eyes (which feel like they're going to bleed) 5)repeat form step 1. Late in the evening Blake and Wolfgang called. They were in the midst of some joyful noisemaking and were wondering when I was going to return the items of my kit I'd borrowed from Wolfgang. I told them they could pick them up themselves if they came to my show on Saturday night. But then I also explained that I wouldn't be able to hang out with them, and that they should come on Friday night and get drunk. We all agree that this is an excellent plan and that we'll be in touch. I had finished both packages of Halls (18 lozenges) when I went to bed at midnight.

I didn't even bother thinking about going to class on Wednesday morning. Seriously, I'm going to be up until at least midnight every night this week. There is no way I'm going to be able to get up and funciton at 7:30. Especially not without making myself even sicker. So I got up at 9 and set to work finishing my chem lab. But, of course, there are more complications: Since I don't have my chem lab done, It's probably going to take all the time I have to finish it. Even though it isn't due until 2:30 I have another lab at 12:30, and labs (unlike lectures) are not to be skipped. This is an issue for 2 reasons. 1) My first lab also has a very small pre-lab component for me to complete before getting there. 2) When I get to chem lab I am actually going to have to perform a new experiment. But the report for this experiment is informal, which means that I have to turn in a hand-written report when I finish the experiment. Of course the flip side of that is that I can't leave until I have it done... Otherwise I fail. Now that wouldn't be a problem, except that my lab ends at 5:30 and my rehearsal starts at... 5:30. Now if I'd known that in advance, I would have been able to plan for it. But the oringinal call was 6:15, so I figured I didn't need to worry. I only found out on monday night that we would be rolling it back, not giving me enough time to contact the lab coordinator and get herto switch me to another section for that week. So stress was rolling off of me in big stupid waves all the way through my lab. And even though I tried to rush, it actually took me past 5:30 to finish it. Oh, and this is probably a good time to mention that the reason the rehearsal start-time got rolled back was to transport my drums back to the theatre because they'd been needed elsewhere. The rehearsal itself went well. I was home (and in bed) by 11:30 if you can believe it.

Thursday, I felt sicker again. I went down to the caff and bought the last 2 packages of Halls Vitamin C. This time I read the label "Disolve one drop slowly in mouth. Maximum 2 per day". Gulp. Later on, Tyler Vivian was gracious enough to drive me out shopping for beard paint. The dress code for the pit band was supposed to be all black with one neon accent piece. I figured my beard was the obvious choice. However, they were out of green at Shoppers, so I went for pink instead. I spent the final few hours before the show reading Hellsing manga, which is more awsome than the series by about 150 million%. At 5:30 I began applying the paint. It comes in aerosol cans (CFC free, hurray Green team!), and I quickly realized that it was going to be like painting a wall. Well, actually, I didnt realize it quickly. I covered my beard in a huge pink layer of this stuff, and then watched in horror as it all dribbled off my face and onto my shirt (and my counter, and open dresser drawers [Am I smart enough to do this in the bathroom? Of course not]). I began working it into my beard, massaging with my fingers, until I had salvaged most of it. I looked in the mirror. My beard had the slightest, slightest tinge of pink. This was going to be like paining a wall. I'd just applied the undercoat. 2 coats later I was ready, and baby, it was something awsome. I astounded all my band-mates. The show was also something awsome. t went off basically without a hitch, and we all went out to a bar together afterwards. It as then that the cameras started rollingand the true glory of my beard became apparent. Apparently this beardpaint contains some sort of limited phosphorecent abiltity. It looked quite pink on its own, but under a camera flash it looked as if someone had taken a regular picture of me without a beard, then gotten a 4-year-old child drunk, opened the picture in Paint, and told them to draw a funny beard on me. It didn't even look real. I'm gonna try and post a picture later.

We all had some drinks (well, we all in the band. Actors were warned off something fierce), ate some nachos, and talked about how bad the Leafs were. Then most of the actors got bored and left. After that a few of uf stuck around. I wasn't sure I really wanted to get trashed, so I'd stopped drinking, and eventually the evening kind of lost momentum. I was in bed probably around 1, 1:30.

Today I got up at 9, and realized that I wasn't going to do anything all day. It was an awsome feeling. Blake called me and we talked about him and Wolfgang coming. We realized that we hadn't really figured out when they were going to arrive (my call is 6:15, but the show doesn't start until 8. So I wasn't sure what was gonna happen). I told him he needed to get in touch with Wolfgang at work and figure it out. After I hung up I checked my email. In my inbox was a comment form Wolfgang (in the post below this one) saying that he couldn't make it. This was bad. I called Blake, but he wasn't at home, he was at Alex's. I sent an email to both of them telling them to figure something out. A number of hours (and volumes of Hellsing) later, Blake called me back. He hadn't gotten the email so I told him what was going on, and that he really needed to talk to Wolfgang. He called me back a while later and told me that it was a no-go. That was the bad news. The good news? He was now free to go to Toronto with Alex. Something niggled about that. If he couldn't see me because he'd lost a rise to Waterloo, how was he getting to Toronto? "The bus", was his eager reply. "Oh" Makes perfect sense. But, I realized, "you know where the bus stops on the way to Toronto, right?".

For all those retarded, it's Kitchener. In fact, I had mentioned to Blake when he called on Tuesday that he and Wolfgang could take the bus here if Wolfgang couldn't get a car. It got shot down because Wolfgang would still be at work when the bus left anyway. But now, since Wolfgang couldn't get a car, Couldn't Blake take to bus here and see me? The Grehound 7902 will depart Starford at 4:20pm today, and will finish its run at the kitchener bus terminal at 5:15. 50 metres from where it stops, there is a placard labelled "University of Waterloo". It's where the 7C Grand River Transit bus takes people to my front door. Blake (and Alex?) could be here to meet me before my call, I could buy them dinner (tickets are expensive), and tell them to meet me after the show.

And this is what he told me "Dude, the prospect of getting laid tonight is too big". Oh. So, instead, Blake is going to walk 5 meters and stand under the placard that says "Toronto / Stabbing my Friends in the Back for Pussy". Now, before anyone thinks that I've blown that comment out of proportion, let's backtrack: We had planned to get drunk and watch my show tonight. That plan was still in effect until aroun 11am today. He is still coming to my city today and could easily still get to my place and continue our plan. Following that he could take a bus to Toronto on Saturday morning. They leave Kitchener hourly starting at 7:30 if he's that keen.

Of course, I didn't say anything. I believe I made a joke about a super orgy or something. After all, most of my friends are going to be in the same room tonight. It's just not going to one that I'm in as well. But seriously, my pity of going to be with Amanda and Alex tonight. Unless they hook up, in which case I can save all my pity for myself.

Remind me never to get a girlfriend.

Postscript: Blake just called. I am to try and contact Wolfgang to make sure he doesn't call Blake's house. He told his parents he's still coming here.

Another Day, Another Snooze in Chemistry

2006-03-13T12:17:00.000-05:00

I fell asleep in chem like nobody's business today. But it wasn't entirely my fault. I will resolutely blame Footloose for my shitty sleep habits. Why? Because they had me from 1pm to midnight yesterday. And they're gonna have me from 4 to midnight today, 6 to midnight Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and noon to midnight on saturday. Also with cast parties on Thursday and Saturday. And probably something on Friday, either with any of my friends who decide to show up (current count: 0) or any members of the band who are up for anything as we don't have to worry about ruining our voices by consuming large ammounts of alcohol. So, basically, I'm going to need about a week to recover from Footloose. It's gonna be terrible. Not the show. It'll be awsome, assumng that I can stay awake there. But I don't know how much partying they actually expect from me...

In other news: Ben is home! And, to celebrate his return from Barrie with all limbs intact, he's signed off on The Barrie Bastardization. You can read the first post of the rest of his life on his new page, and, if you haven't already, the last post on his old one.

I'm going to have a nap now.

For Nora, Mostly in Order to Make Her Angry

2006-03-11T17:08:00.000-05:00

Nora, I am writing this to inform you of recent events in my life, and to tie up some loose ends from a few of my past posts.
Footloose continues unabated. Today we loaded into Hagey Hall, the on-campus performance space. The schedule for today basically said "Meet at 10am, load in, have lunch, run a cue-to-cue, and have the band done by 'late afternoon'". So, we loaded in and were done by 11. It was awsome, the sun was out and we got to walk back and forth between the different buildings in the midst of unfolding spring. Then we set up the pit and sat aorund in the green room until someone told us we'd already been released for lunch. We got back at 1 and they weren't ready for us, so we went back to the green room to wait for them. We sat in the green room until 4 when they told us they weren't going to end up getting to us until after dinner. So I'm supposed to eat now and be back by 6. Fuckin Footloose...

Yesterday Andrew Bakes came over to my house. He was carrying 300 gigs of SATA goodness and a new printer under his arm. He also brought me a floppy drive. God knows why, but it was free so I don't really care. The only trouble is that my BIOS stubbornly refuses to recognise the beautiful new drive which has deflowered its buxom SATA1 port. Andrew left in disgust a short while later and continued on his way. He's probably railing Teo in Hamilton right now. I went down to the basement to see if any of those guys were up for some AOE2 action, and when I mentioned it they said I need to flash my BIOS. I have no idea what that means, but i'm just gonna assume that its not perverse. If anyone who reads this knows anything about that sort of stuff, drop any useful advice in the comments box.

So, that's it. Now, let's take a careful look back. If I hadn't addressed it to Nora specifically, would anyone be able to tell who it was for? Probably not. That's why I write this blog instead of writing emails. I could write emails to all my friends and copy/paste in all my silly anecdotes, but that would feel strange.

I have to go, I haven't actually eaten dinner yet and Footloose will soon be upon me.

Red Card Stuff

2006-03-11T16:43:00.000-05:00

Apparently the Red Card Group are really getting their shit together, so I've put them on the sidebar in their own section.

"If there's one thing worth fighting for, it's freedom!" OR Footloose: Subversive Tool of Libertarian Values

2006-03-09T15:20:00.000-05:00

Yes, my friends, it's shocking. Footloose, that fun loving all-American classic, is actually a subversive political tool designed by libertarian extremists in order to poison the thoughts of today's youth.

A small introduciton for those unfamiliar:
Libertarianism (from the rudimentary research and personal half-remembered conversations I'm basing this on) is a political ideology that can be summed up at its most basic with the phrase "Life, Liberty, Property". Libertarians advocate smaller governments and greater personal freedoms, and indeed see the two concepts as totally intertwined. Libertarianism also does not define itself along the traditional left vs right political spectrum. Instead, libertarians are very right-wing on economic issues (following another oft-quoted tennet "free markets, free people") while that same focus on individual rights and freedoms often puts them in traditional leftist territory on social issues. American libertarians will also tell you that they desire the return of America to the vision of its founders.
Footloose was a hit film in 80s which was quickly adapted into a Broadway musical, and many of the songs went on to become chart-topping singles. Anyone who has seen the film verison of Footloose will be surprised by its numerous differences from the stage adaption.

Footloose is a story concerned with liberty and freedom. It chronicles the struggles of Ren, a young man coming of age in small town America. In the particular small town in which the story takes place, Bomont, the liberties of the populace are routinely suspended and infringed upon. The town council maintains a stranglehold over the people and, with its close ties to the local clergy, enforces strict morality on the entire town. With their enforcers embedded in powerful positions on the police, in public institutions such as the schools, and within the citizenry at large, criticism of the council or its policies will be discovered and dealt with immediately. Indeed, privacy seems to be an outmoded concept in Bomont. Comments one teenage girl, "Think a naughty thought, and if you get caught, then boy you've got, a lot of trouble!"

Of course, when "official" means such as police harassment can not deter a detractor, the countil will easily switch tracks to less respectable methods. Throughout the course of Ren's struggles to change the opressive laws prevailing in Bomont he is subjected to such underhanded tactics as wrongful dismissal and vigilantism -- at the hands of several young men in ski masks.

The most sickening part of the council's iron-fisted rule is that the members themselves do not follow their own laws. The children of the local preacher routinely bypass the town curfew and engage in alcohol and substance abuse and underage sexual activity. In fact, this freewheeling lifestyle led to the death of one of the precher's children several years before the setting of the story. In a more disturbing example, Ren and his mother are subjected to physical and verbal abuse by his uncle. This goes unpunished and unremarked-upon, presumeably because of his uncle's seat on the council.

All these examples are given to illustrate a central point of libertarianism: that larger (and more powerful) government does not always make that government better. The implication is that it makes it worse. Libertarianism contends that government which is too powerful will only use that power to regulate its citizens beyond reasonable limits. It suggests that people need only to be left on their own in order to behave properly and that government's role is not to babysit or dictate how life should be lived to its citizens.

The fast-paced twisting plot will keep audience members in thrall throughout the whole show, and serve to make Ren's eventual victory all the more heart-warming. Even if you don't support dangerous and subversive anti-authoritarian movements you can still being your kids out for a good time! Although, due to the sensetive political nature of the production, you will need to give your full name, date of birth, permanent address, place of employment, and sexual orientation to the government representative at the door before you can enter to see the show.

This article is just a waste of time in order to make people come to my show. Since I've already got my fam in the bag and most of my friends wouldn't be swayed by a post about how cool Footloose is, I went for the only niche market left to me: Nick and, by extension, his family. So, anyone who actually knows anything about libertarianism (like Nick), be amused not offended and come to my show!

Tickets are $15, or $12 for students and seniors. The performances are next week, March 16, 17, and 18 at 8pm. There is also a matinee on the 18th at 2pm. I am encouraging anyone who wants to come and see me to try and come on Friday. Thursday and Saturday have excluive events for the cast and band afterwards, and we have been forbidden from bringing anyone, including significant others, who was not in the show. I would like to hang out with anyone who makes it down, so Friday is the night to try. Also, getting together beforehand is an idea.

If anyone wants me to buy a ticket for them in advance I will, but if you end up not coming I will still get that money from you. For anyone coming from Stratford, I can't offer any ideas on rides. My van is presumeably going to be full of people from my house. It would be great to see everyone though, so try and find some way to get here. Greyhound is cheap, and the busses from Stratford to Waterloo usually don't have any crazy people. Leave a comment or email me for any other info I've forgotten. If anyone wants/needs to stay over in my room they can.

Liam McKenna is fucking in heaven, fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in heaven

2006-03-08T21:45:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day, I didn't even have to use my AK.

But seriously, today rocked. At least, taken all together, the outcome was positive.

I accomplished some good things today, but also suffered a major setback: I actually mustered the testicles to pick up my chemistry midterm. I got 14/30. I'm not going to bother calculating a percentage on that right now.

However, that can be quickly forgotten. Today I did three amazing things to counteract that one. First, I managed to stay awake through my entire chemistry lecture. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it's the damndest thing. I wake up at 7:30, get to physiology by 8:30, and at 9:30 I'm in chem. At which point I invariably fall asleep someime during the 50 minutes I'm there. It's riciculous. But today I managed to keep my lids open and take notes the whole time.

Also, after an abortive attempt while I was doing my laundry on Monday, I managed to work for just about the rest of the day. From noon to 2:30 I banged off a report for my Kin 101 lab and from then to 5:00 I studied for my second physiology midterm. It was that which I had tried, with limited success, to do on Monday. I was quietly confident. After I recieved my chem mark today I can say that physiology midterm number one was my highest midterm mark. By 14%. In spite of the fact that I had missed a number of lectures pertaining to the marerial being covered, I was still feeling prepared. I'm sure you've encountered the feeling: There are some exams you've studied for as much as you could and still felt, somewhere in your gut, that you weren't ready for. Then there are ones like physiology midterm two where, in spite of a remarkable lack of physical evidence, I felt a strong confidence about eminating from that same place. It was a fundation on which I built my efforts, and without it I don't believe I could have accomplished amazing feat number three:

I wrote physiology midterm number two at 5:45. It was 51 multiple choice questions: 35 from all classes before reading week (including a, presumeably scarce, number from material covered in the first midterm), 15 from the 4 lectures after reading week, and one bonus question. When I entered the exam room, I was already riding on adrenaline. I have mastered the art of writing exams with no concern. By 2 or 3 hours beforehand there is little one can do to improve one's state of readiness, and worry only makes my hands shake (much sooner than the adrenaline). But this was one of the few exams I have been excited to write. And I set a personal best when I did so. I actually came close to one on the first midterm, finishing in just over half an hour. But this time I was done by 6:10, only 25 minutes from the start time (and that's going under the assumption that UW actually started an exam on time). So, we'll see in a week if the marks reflect my confidence. until then, I'm watching Gunslinger Girl, reading PA, listening to the Requiem for a Dream OST, and

fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in fucking in

A Smattering of News

2006-03-06T22:23:00.000-05:00

While I wait for Danger to get back from karate.

I've continued my adventures into "films I've wanted to see but never have":

American Beauty. All I remembered from the adds when this film was in theatres was a naked girl covered in rose petals, So I was loath to comment that I had acquired it when I posted about Requiem (and speaking of Requiem, go here, I am not responsible for any pants shat during your viewing) before I had actually seen it. This movie rocked. There's no two ways about it. The girl covered in petals was a mere distraction, and that's saying something.

Trainspotting. Another one that I just have never seen. I also got it in the original sheep-shagger dialects it was filmed in (which I understand is more difficult to do when actually purchasing the film). I'm not going to lie, I didn't get 100% of the words, but it absolutely rocked balls nevertheless. Also, my Don recently sent out a mass email to our whole building just full of general news and upcoming events. She always ends it with something like "you're all amazing beautiful shining stars of hope and brilliance. I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!1", but this time her very last line was "CHOOSE LIFE". I nearly left a big brown stain on my computer chair. (seriously, I need to see a doctor regarding these humour-related bowel problems)

The Revolution Will Not be Televised. This movie cried out to the lefty in me. This movie was filmed by an Irish crew making a documentary about Hugo Chavez. They were with him right when his government got overthrown for a few days in... 2003, I think. It's a great story about media manipulation and, if you take everything at face value, the lengths honest government has to go to oppose private interest. No matter what your opinion on Chavez is, the movie is interesting to see. The film-makers did appear to try and show the dichotomy between the rich and poor in Venezuela. It also ties in with a book my parents got me for Christmas called "It's the Crude, Dude", which had a chapter on Chavez (centered around his resurrection of OPEC rather than this incident) which incorporated many of the details in the film.

It started with Hellsing, and I thought it might have been a fluke. But it wasn't: Cowboy Bebop is not only an awsome anime, but the soundtrack (like so many other things) had my bowels in a state of hither-to unknown relaxation while my ears could scarely take in the... amazingocity. The series' ending is a bit of a downer, but it's still good.
*cough*Evangelion*cough*

Gunslinger Girl. I've only watched the first episode, and I'm already wary. The credits drew me in immediately: perfectly drawn 6-10 year-old children firing beautiful automatic weapons, what could be better (except an awsome soundtrack)? But, the title came up with a little caption "her body may be mechanical, but she is still an adolecent girl". Oh, damn. It's going to be about her trials trying to grow up while firing her beautiful weapons. The first episode supports that hypothesis, but I am still going to watch them all.

And that's it... Danger came by, I solidly whooped him 4/4 games of Halo. But anyone who knows him will know that that is only going to make him get a lot better quickly.

Oh, and to trace back, Cowboy Bebop has not 1, but five OSTs I'm procuring. Fuckin sweet.

"And it's 'Go, Boys, go!' They'll Time Your Every Breath" OR 53 God-Damned %

2006-03-03T11:39:00.000-05:00

No. The above is not an accurate representation of my grade on my anatomy mid-term test. Although I should probably wish it was. The above figure is an accurate representation of the number of students who failed my mid-term anatomy test. I have no idea where I rank among them, but I suspect my place is with the majority. And probably not in any sort of flattering position within that spectrum. However, all was not lost, and this leads to an extended, if reasonably pointless, story about my anatomy professor. From thence it will probably jump into a general rambling about school in general.

Dr. Ranney is a strange man. He is often insufferably stodgy, and by "often" I mean 99% of the time. He is also a passionate Creationist, and explained on the first day of lecture that after a lifetime of working with the human body he could come to no other conclusion. For 30 years he was the man to come to for anatomy; Indeed he is the founder of UW's School of Anatomy. He has often reminisced of the fact that he was given a 2-day interview, the purpose of which was actually to lure him in. He built the program from the ground up and made sure to include the use of cadavers in mandatory labs for anatomy students, a rarity in a university without a medical school. So, as I said, very stodgy, very uptight. He is 75 years old, and retired from teaching anatomy at UW a decade ago. A very unfortunate accident on the part of the man who replaced him caused Dr. Ranney to be asked to come back and teach this year. Every day he walks into the lecture hall in his winter jacket and greek fisherman's hat. He arrives in time to begin a regular lecture, except that no lecture with Dr. Ranney is ever regular because he can't figure out how to use powerpoint. So class is usually 5 or 10 minutes late starting. The powerpoints don't match the coursenotes usually, and I would always rather be sleeping than hearing Dr. Ranney lecture. I may have said it before, but, if it were not for the lab portion of anatomy class, I would probably have stopped going to lectures.

So it is always a bit of a surprise when Dr. Ranney does something un-stodgy and out of the ordinary. It's only happened twice. The first ocurred while viewing the anatomy of the vertibrae. He was asked what the popping sounds the spine makes during a chiropractic adjustment were. He gave the standard response: gas bubbles escaping, etc. I then expected a lecture from an old and distinguished MD about the dangers of chiropractic. I should have known better. Dr. Ranney loves chiropractors, and maintains that he has always done so. This does make sense as the man in charge of the anatomy lab sections, Hugh Scoggan, was head of the School of Anatomy at CMCC for a time.

The second unexpected thing Dr. Ranney did happened yesterday. Class was late starting as per usual, and he had also had trouble setting his microphone. He had presumeably made several attempts to quiet the class while adjusting the levels, but I didn't hear anything until I heard him yell something very tersely through the microphone. I can't remember it exactly, but it was to the effect of "Please stop chatting. You've all performed terribly on the mid-term and you've shamed me quite thoroughly". However, once that caught our attention he got control of his temper and began the lecture. He rushed us through it in order to talk to us more about the mid-term. He prefaced the talk by saying that his wife had suggested he give us the choice of good news or bad news. It was then that he dropped the 53% bomb. He explained that upon hearing the news himself he had first experienced a great ammount of disappointment in us. This was par for the course. However, he went on to explain that he immediately felt a great ammount of disappointment in himself as well. With that sentence he went from being a scolding parent unhapy with his children's failure, to a parent trying to explain to his children how he has fialed them. With heartbreaking convcition he led us through his appologies. He explained that he was mad at the faculty: apparently anyone taking anatomy but not in the Kin program was disallowed form taking the lab and Dr. Ranney announced his intention to denounce them as "greedy bastards" once he had compiled the proper statistical information by May. He went on to say that he had always been against teaching the course in first year, that he would be posting practice quizzes on the course website, that the final would be easier, and then he dropped the real bomb.

He had been listening to his favourite music (what great composer? Which classics from how long ago? Did he develop a taste for it while attaining his Fellowship across the pond?): Songs of the Revolution from Cuba. While so doing he had come to the conclusion that something needed to be done to help us. However, as he had explained to us in the past, he does not bell curve marks. So he decided to raise everyone's marks according to a sliding scale (which, for obvious reasons, he would not elaborate on). "Like the agrarian distribution of land in Cuba" he gave the most to the people at the bottom, but still gave something to those at the top. As it stands now, 9% of my class will recieve failing grades on the mid-term, and, after adjustment, only 8% of the class will recieve a grade above 80. Dr. Ranney is a strange man, but after laying himself bare in fornt of 300 people and taking on our failure as his own, I couldn't very well stand up and tell him I failed because I didn't study enough.

In other scholastic news, I have a new physiology teacher. He's Indian and has low blood-pressure. He also definately knows his shit when it comes to this course. There's only one problem: he's a little hard to understand. I would normally lambast him with a comment like "The fucker can't speak fucking english", but he can. He just has trouble with a few of the letters. For example, while teaching us the basic anatomy of the heart he eventually got talking about the valves. Trouble is, he can't say "v". It comes out sounding like "walls". I actually panicked and started flipping ahead in the notes to find the section on the heart-walls he had apparently jumped to.

Lastly, I have been feeling a little down about school lately. I don't look forward to classes, and although labs still hold my attention they are the minority of my week. I've been considering dropping my program once I finish this term. So, while I was in Psych on Tuesday night the lecture was on motivation. I only fell asleep once, during the start, when he was talking about Freud's ideas on motivation. I probably didn't miss much. I can guess that Freud believed people were motivated by sex and agression, and that getting either of those reinforced the behavior. Eventually we got onto the work of Deci. Deci was the last person on a list of several who improved a basic model for motivation which looks like this:

It starts with a person (who has needs, wants, desires), who initiates a behavior, which causes an outcome. It's about as simple as it can get. The other psychologists before him had added things to it, but Deci's major contribution was the idea of intrinsic and extrinsic value. His idea is that some behaviours are motivated by the intrinsic value that goes along with doing them, while others are motivated by the extrinsic value of some kind of reward at the end. Most are a mix of the two. His theory was brilliant because it explains things like children's play, which has no purpose or useufl outcome. But children do it all the time anyway. However, my prof was quick to mention that the focus, especially in education, is on extrinsic value these days. And it's true! All through grade school no one had a choice about what they did. I was continually encouraged to go for the As, and I did mainly because it was bloody easy, not because I was passionate about writing poetry or doing long division. I also got rewards: cash, praise from teachers and parents, and later additions/upgrades for my drum kit. Things changed a bit in high-school, but not much. We got to start picking our courses, but with University looming in the shadows the focus on grades was worse than before. Each year we got more freedom to choose our studies, but it was more than counterbalanced by the need to achieve as Uni got another step closer to reality. And really, can anyone say that they never took a course, or considered taking a course, because they were looking for an easy A?

In grade 12 (or 13 for most of us) we were finally ready. We'd picked our courses and we were applying to Universities. Finally we were getting to a place that would let us do whatever we wanted and learn about whatever we wanted. It was electrifying to be doing exactly what we wanted. But as soon as we arrived things got back to the status quo. University, at least for me, had all but lost its intrinsic value by the second week of this term. Once gain I need to aim for the top. I need to take another chemistry course this term because if I don't I can't be eligible for the Pre-Health Professions option. I've got 12 grand riding on this little adventure, and if I flunk out 3/4 of it's gonna start gaining interest not in my favour. God help me if I'd gotten a scholarship.

But, after thinking about it, I'm ready to get back into things. The thrill of learning has been lost to me for some time. I can still do it, but now I'm actually trying to remember why I bother.

So that's school. What else has Liam gotten up to since you last saw him? Some, but not a lot. On saturday I rented Ghost in the Shell 2 with Ben. It was decent. I've already commented about it on Ellen's blog, but allow me to retrace my thoughts: The original GITS movie (c 1995) kicked ass. It was a brilliantly animated mix of mind blowing violence and introspection on the nature of life, sentience, humanity, etc. Fucking brilliant. The voice acting was terrible. Fucking terrible. I honestly wondered at the time if the actors had perhaps been (much like ABBA) trained to speak the words phonetically, without any idea of their meanings. GITS2 has a) better animation and b) better and more violence. However, it is over twice the length of the original, and the intervening time is spent dwelling even more than the last one on the more esoteric qualities of the film, which are presented less forwardly. I don't enjoy watching movies where I feel that half of the reason it was made is shooting over my head. However, there was no voice acting. The movie is only available in Japanese, so subtitles are the way to go. I actually prefer subtitles in a lot of the anime I've watched. After watching the GITS Tv series with subtitles I found it almost impossible to stomach an episode in English that I saw on YTV at Carl's. However, in this movie, the subtitles were ridiculous. They had, apparently, decided to save money by doing the English subtitles and the English closed captioning together instead of seperately. The result was well translated dialogue punctuated by subtitles like "Singing in Japanese" and "Footsteps", which went a long way towards massacring my suspension of disbelief.

When I got back to school I was looking for Blood Brothers CDs on DC++ (McLeod loves them so I figured I'd give em a listen), and noticed that one of the people I was DLing from also had Requiem for a Dream, which has remained on the back-burner of things to see ever since Jenn did a monologue from it during her last season in Playmakers!. It finished very quickly, and, dear god, all I can say is never do drugs!!! If you haven't seen it, do so. If you have, I don't need to go on.

And I don't anyway.

IT'S HAMMER TIME!

2006-02-26T02:10:00.000-05:00

Go here right now. Read Maturation of Hip-hop chapter 1.