the rush - part iv

[... continued]
i tried to rest, introducing myself to siri and being rather impressed. i uploaded to soundcloud for the first time, then rushed off to meet vfmp and his boyfriend for the monkland street festival. we had a nice walk but i couldn't avoid the sun even with my sunscreen, my big floppy hat and my jumping from shade to shade. it was waaaay too hot.

vfmp and i headed to shaïka for good wraps and to trade bad father stories; we talked about blood donations and i think he's provided me more than enough fuel for a poetic rant. i then took a long trip to meet with someone before her performance in an attempt to sort out a connection, we shared ten minutes together that were totally off-topic and for a reason i'd rather not go into i ended up returning home without staying for so much as a minute. that was totally unprofessional and uncool of me.

i went back home, feeling remarkably shitty about what had happened, and waited for gd to come home to discuss it with her. i was expecting the worst, but while things definitely weren't great they were far better than i'd hoped for and i'm extremely grateful for that.

we enjoyed a peaceful evening, punctuated by an attempt to do something cool for the als ice bucket challenge which resulted in an amusing fail video instead.

just before heading to see the teenage mutant ninja turtles reboot gd started hurting and then my nerve started pinching, so we arrived at the theatre in less than the best of circumstances. the movie was fun, really fun, aside from a bit of shaky-cam-itis and a couple of weird plot decisions. i have to say that the credits, both opening and closing, were awesome and a lot of the shots were just incredible!
ignoring about half an hour of gd's back giving her trouble we had a really good time.

---yesterday:

going to bed at 2.30am after learning about smashwords' greatness: they really are fantastic! they are without a doubt the future of publishing ^_^

...

i woke up to some poetic inspiration, and i'm ridiculously pleased with myself about what came out of it. gd gave me a lesson in humility along with a painful french lesson, after which we enjoyed a blissfully relaxed sunday morning. we arrived at midi 6 famished, and their soy latte to go with my "herbivore" was precisely what i needed ^_^

i finally figured out how to get a naked domain to redirect - that really should be simpler - and we finished watching cheatin' before i hurried out to godmother's for coffee. it was a gorgeous afternoon, the raspberries were delicious and the fact that fudgee-o double stuf cookies are vegan just made a fantastic day even better. also, yang's finally taken a step in the right direction regarding his education, so that's a thing.

i took my slightly pinched nerve and tender jaw (discovered earlier) to my apartment to pick up a set of keys, two folding chairs and the mezuzot off my doors. i need to put them up here, and i need to acquire another one.

i needed the nap that i took when i got home, but i woke up to go shopping feeling like i was still dreaming and had overdone the sun and not napped nearly enough. microwave dinner, posting, and transforming into a being of pure discomfort were the order of the evening... i guess my day couldn't have been too good :P

gd was watching fringe: we need to hunt down whoever's responsible for mastering these shows and slap some sense into them. you shouldn't have to keep turning the volume up to hear speech and down to prevent hearing loss during action sequences.

---today:

i woke from long dream sequences to a morning of k's choice and more posting. i rushed out, soooo tired and still trying to avoid excess coffee. i made it until 11.15, at which point big junior showed up to delegate a documentation task. fortunately, that's the kind of thing i'm really comfortable doing with my brain off so i completed that quickly enough and returned to my grand plans.

i may have sweated a little when i realized that i was reorganizing the team's wiki docs without authorization :P

my junk food mission to the supermarket next door was successful - they have israeli vegan munchies! nice one :)

the shitty part of the day was my wasting other people's time with non-problems - i had the dumb, i thought my virtual machine's hard drive was taking up 80gb and we spent far too long trying to resize a disk that was actually only 20gb :$

i left feeling incredibly tired and slow. the experience with the laser hair clinic was surprisingly pleasant; the technician was cool, she totally got my intentions, the pain wasn't as bad* and the terrible smell of burning hair didn't last as long.

* it apparently eases the less hair you have

on my way home, i found that siri doesn't work without an internet connection. that's just silly. siri. silly. siri.

i spent the evening almost resting, watching safety not guaranteed with gd and then the first part of the battlestar galactica mini-series when she went to bed. omg, i can't believe it's still so incredibly good, and just how much more powerful it is when you know what's coming!

...

this last post brought to you by a thoroughly irresponsible disregard for my need to sleep. but my chapbook has a nice cover now (thanks, pixlr!) and i'm fairly certain i'm gonna crash in a couple of minutes.

the rush - part iii

[... continued]

---friday:

i woke up sleepy, gd had a migraine and the team was giving me a bit of a headache myself. i called up the laser hair clinic, and was annoyed by the receptionist's questioning of my judgement of whether or not i can tell if the line of my beard has changed in the manner i described. she then gave me a choice of seeing the same technician or a different one, when the latter would most obviously make things awkward and uncomfortable.

:S

i met up with the girlfriend of the guy who's taking over my lease; the presentation of their deposit and figuring out that we don't have any more paperwork to take care of took much longer than i would have anticipated. i can't say that i'm positively impressed by their inability to take more cash than my deposit is worth and return the change because their software won't allow it. that's just dumb.

in general friday was a disaster because i ran out of junk food. the only things in the vending machine were kind of alright, but nothing satisfying. although, in retrospect, i guess not much satisfies me when i'm spending all day staring at source code.

the success of the day was in killing bugs while trying to do other things. i was deadly tired and was trying to avoid another cup of coffee... suddenly it was 4.30pm and i was trying to keep focus with doof sounds when the manager pulled out the bottle of ouzo i'd brought and we all had a few sips. what timing!

i cleaned up a bit, chatted with my mother and left feeling relaxed and ready for a weekend!

the entry to the weekend would have been a little lighter had my walk home not been past an angry-looking asshole dragging his dog on a tight leash, and the aggression i felt reminded me of a drunk guy who'd awkwardly flirted with gd on wednesday night and upset both of us.

i love hurrying to wait twenty minutes... especially as i was exhausted, and desperate to shut my brain down. instead, i had a large cup of coffee and called gd (we hadn't had a chance to talk yet, so that was good), and when rabbit finally arrived we had a decidedly productive and positive poetry session.

it would have been that much more enjoyable had i not had to suppress my rage at finding some asshole's gum stuck to the TOP of my seat; and i'd only moved to that table to get away from the tinny noises from some kid's cellphone which were annoying the crap out of me. that's quite the generation i was loving just then.

i came home, poured myself a rum and we connected gd's apple tv to watch bill plympton's cheatin' on vimeo. i've been waiting to see it since i backed the kickstarter last february, and omg was it worth the wait! it's a wonderful movie, and if you're not sure why you should watch it then take a look at reel.

i ate too much ice cream. by the time i was ready to call it a night i'd been asleep at the wheel for a while and i was suffering a bad case of rls.

---saturday:

after a struggle to get up, i put on paul simon - graceland, grabbed a cup of coffee and got stuck into our team's indiegogo campaign. it's been the motivation i've needed to take my game to the next level. i think i mentioned that before but i'm too tired to check right now. i sent an email to vector explaining that i'm deeply disappointed and that we won't be continuing to work together - we'll be seeing each other on thursday at godmother's, i hope things will be cool with him.

it was a beautiful, sunny morning. i took my pants to the dry cleaner's but the woman shook her head sadly and refused. i did some shopping on my way back, and as i walked out the store i watched a tiny child doing the kiddies' drunken swagger to the exit, and as i turned around caught sight of someone searching amongst the cashiers. i managed to connect the two quickly enough that i didn't need to drop everything and launch myself after the little one, the thought of which made me uncomfortable primarily because i can't speak french well and communicating "danger" and "i'm not going to hurt you" are not even remotely accessible to me when i need them. the mortified look on the man's face tells me everything i need to know about how easily parents can fuck up regardless of whether or not they think they're immune.

[continued...]

the rush - part ii

[... continued]

it's monday morning and i have a busy schedule to prepare for... but i've got to finish at least some of this, and last night i felt absolutely horrible. i'm feeling much, much better now.

---wednesday:

at 5am i woke up and had a flash of inspiration - i had an idea a while back and with the tools that i've been exposed to at work i now have a good way to do it!

it was a nice morning but a dispassionate one. i spent it managing tricky fixes and realized late that i'd forgotten to put my lunch in the fridge. fortunately it was okay.

on wednesday i received a mandate to run loadtesting: i've been doing that since. i like breaking things "the right way".

my shoulder and neck began hurting. a man in the bathroom standing right behind me to take a drying towel raised his head to smile at me in the mirror, which was super-creepy. i had pre-performance nerves, but i had no time pressure as it was my first day since i started that i'd gotten enough hours done before 6pm; the power of a short lunch :)

i was on the metro already when i realized that i'd left the tripod at home. when i got to le dépanneur café i found a really dodgy substitute and for the first half of the evening i didn't trust it to hold, so i held on to the camera with my hand and it shook every time i cramped up :(

i was not impressed by my team. i'd asked them to record video using their phones so that we could get different angles, and they couldn't be bothered.

my performance wasn't fantastic, but it really wasn't bad. things were rather awkward though, because our host left rabbit out of the evening and we're all to new and inexperienced to know that we can and should be shouting "hey! what about rabbit?!" :$

kyra shaughnessy sang a few songs. she's AMAZING (and you can hear her for free). brandon wint and nasra adem's poetry was beautiful, too, though there were some pieces i just couldn't connect with.

the guy working le dépanneur café was entirely unwelcoming.

i made a note about "gd and i talking properly" but while i suspect that our conversation involved the nature of reality and the importance of written words and memories it's been too long to recall :/

we stretched a bit and i sent off some thank yous for the event and suddenly it was 2am...

at least google play music works on ipad!!! even if you do have to search through iphone apps to find it.

---thursday:

it was a good, slow morning. i was nominated for the ice bucket challenge.

i arrived at work late and felt slowed down. it bothered me that the cleaners were taking care of our little coffee / microwave room at lunchtime, their timing could have been better. i spent my extended lunch hour working to set up a new website for the throw poetry collective and connect all other services and things.

i was very busy with taking pride in my work; i came across something that was written badly (using sync functions in node is not a good idea) and spent ten minutes rewriting it... only to discover that the undesirable behaviour had side-effects that the previous developers were using and so fixing it broke everything.

#$!@.

oh gods, a guy one cubicle over was being a total douchebag about als awareness when one of the girls was talking about it. it was a struggle to keep my mouth shut.

kickboxing: a tough training session, my first holding my hands up muay thai-style and my biceps were burning. towards the end i developed a serious stitch that was prolonged and extremely painful.

i got home and learned that my mother's bank account has been emptied by hackers, and after we talked about it we're convinced it was an inside job between the bank, her mobile provider or both. it was a freakishly sophisticated attack and there really wasn't much she could have done to protect herself. except maybe use a bank that double-checks suspicious activity with as much fervor as it double-checks legitimate activity.

i was exhausted when i got home. i caught up with SxS, did some small things online (like completing the first volume of saga for gd) and went to bed just after discovering that my laser hair removal treatment wasn't done along the line *i* shaved. i'm going back this evening for a redo, i can't believe how dumb the technician is.

[continued...]

the rush - part i

it's been a busy, trying week. and a long, busy weekend. most of it's been spent focusing on my poetry, and taking my game to the next level. which means buying a domain name, and getting ready to publish a short collection of poetry. it all feels like a big deal.

---monday:

fighting the snooze. working hard. sending a wire transfer to pg for half the amount i owe her as a show of goodwill. not taking any steps toward transferring my lease because i didn't have the deposit yet.

i made good progress at work, but it's all very slow going. that's kind of the story of the week: i'm really fortunate that i'm not on any official project yet because that gives me time to deal with the ridiculous state of the software i'm working on. it's been a week of research and refactoring, in particular learning just how limited mobile html5 implementations are.

my first code review: overall, very positive, very nice. unfortunately, i managed to upset big junior a little; i was worried that our difference of opinion on coding style would become a thing but it hasn't.

i worked late, again, and at around 6.30pm officially signed off and logged my hours. i spent another fifteen minutes drinking coffee and perusing facebook with my headphones on, when suddenly i registered that my manager and boss were laughing at me for "working late". that didn't feel good, but it was all in good fun and i'm fairly certain they trust me.

boxing: high powered training with a beginner who's a fast learner. it's all about focus, relaxing, breathing, and it's amusing to me, "robocop", to be instructing someone else in these points.

the surprise of i-forgot-my-membership's-expiring right when i'm paying other big amounts? not so nice. fortunately, the next day i'd sort it out and working for my company gets me a 37% discount on a year's all-access pass. hopefully i'll get about two-thirds of what i paid back when i pass my probation period...

aaaand i've reached my credit limit. i've been on the edge the whole week, i *need* to get through to next week's paycheck...

i got home early-ish, had a good dinner and watched being human.

---tuesday:

so much to do, so little time...
garbage, dishes, and email (with some good news from pg about israeli social security). it was a beautiful morning, i left earlier than usual but still later than i'd like...

... gd had accidentally bought cookies that weren't vegan, so i spent the morning pushing them on my co-workers. that seemed to go down well :P

there's nothing like trying to give a software demo to a boardroom and having it fail, only to discover later that the software cannot be run on a machine that has a remote desktop connection. huh! what was cool was learning that microsoft has a remote desktop app for the iphone that works *really* well.

i keep forgetting to put sunscreen on when i leave the office, until i get outside and it's too late for me to go back up and come down again.
i decided i needed to start the credit check in spite of not having the deposit in hand, so i handed the building manager the notice of assignment and paid for the check. i was hungry when i hit the supermarket and found myself in an odd frenzy over rice crackers.

i'm getting comfortable practicing my poetry performance in public.

it was good timing for picking up allergy meds, but shitty timing for developing a sore throat when i had a performance scheduled for the following day. i worked hard until late, eventually giving up on mobile html5 implementations. the worst part of their failures is that they're bloody deliberate.

kickboxing: crazy class, feeling tough most of the time. badger brought me an hd video camera in lieu of coming to the show herself, and tried to record my technique as a demonstration but our instructor kept moving in front of the camera. she introduced me to all the features i'd need and showed me how to set up her decidedly nifty tripod, after which i returned home for another good dinner, loads of talking, and discovering the hard way that my computer and the hd camera are not willing to talk to one another.

[too tired to continue writing.]

[continued...]

drained - part iii

[... continued]

when i walked into the gym a guy i'm friendly with was behind the counter, and he's taken it upon himself to right the wrong that is me having ordered a custom shirt when i moved to the advanced mat in jiu-jitsu and still not having received it. it turns out that the other guys were all blowing me off, and that the order had been cancelled. he was kind enough to use his employee discount and give me four shirts instead of the money back; he used his discount again later when i paid for my new fighting shorts. i'm really pleased with all that.

kickboxing was good, but i was breathing even worse than on tuesday! that was crazy :(

i ran into mti, and explained to her that the reason nothing's happening with the comic is because... nothing's happening with the comic. i've told her i'm hunting for new illustrators, and i really hope i find someone soon :/

badger gave me a ride to the supermarket and i bought some emergency supplies, i came home and ate while watching steve jobs: one last thing. the biography was way more in-depth but it's nice to actually see the footage.

---friday:

it was my second day of stomache troubles. otherwise, i enjoyed a good, relaxed wake-up. completely obsessed with the razors edge, total earworm.

...

örmagörd, i'm like a little kid - i was rocking out while brushing my teeth and ended up with swipes of toothpaste on my chest :$


...

having left my umbrella at work, i was forced to use my poncho. i'm very glad i have that poncho.

i made some progress towards transferring my apartment lease, and bought myself a keyboard for work because the ones the it department provides suck. i sat with one of the guys cooperatively debugging and had a hard time keeping my eyes open because i was so tired. after we were done, he spent an hour introducing me to the magic of twilio.

i briefly spoke with my toronto cousin, had an awkward moment in the elevator when i realized that i'd responded to a stranger's "have a good weekend!" with a "thank you", and ended the week with some hard work. i practiced role models on the metro - which seems a bit creepy - and met up with gd at p.m. for way more sake than i was ready for and a delicious, delicious meal.

we headed over to côte-des-neiges to a russian restaurant for kgb's surprise birthday party. we drank a lot and danced a lot and the borscht was brilliant after i scooped out the blob of cream to the waiter's dismay and disgust.

gd and i had a wonderful time. our tipsy revelrie felt sooooo good and i was sooooo grateful that it was weeekend and sooooo grateful for how the week had played out, but i wasn't so excited about chasing it all with a blood donation the next morning.

i fell into bed, absolutely wasted.

---yesterday:

i woke up with cotton wool in my head and mouth. it was a perfect cool, rainy morning and i was warm and toasty and foggy and sleepy and the belly discomfort from the previous days was gone and i was sooooo comfortable and i was enjoying my dreams and there's nothing i wanted less than to drag myself away from all that.

but i did. i clambered out of bed, got ready as fast as i could (not very fast) and left a little late for the slam team meeting. i arrived there and was met with a silent, empty room. i fired off messages to the rest of the team and eventually one of the flatmates appeared and reminded me that our usual host is away for the weekend.

i thought about that on my way back to the metro. since i've been at work i've been so overwhelmed that everything *not* work has been on autopilot. i knew my teammate was away, but didn't connect that piece of information to whether or not we'd be meeting.

wow :/

at least there was time to do the shopping i needed to do. it was inconvenient to be walking around with both a sweater and a poncho, the latter going on and off every time i left or entered a building, but i picked up a decent iphone case, and i found a good pair of under armor shoes to replace the ones that screw up my feet.

i would've picked up a lightning cable from the apple store if it hadn't been so pricey. i picked up a knock-off from walmart later instead.

i had a quick lunch / snack at home, which would have included baba ganouj had that not been taken over by a very serious mould, chatted briefly with my mother while setting up twilio (and forgetting my password, which would drive me nuts later), hunted down all the rental assignment forms and rushed out to get them printed.

...

a girl begging in the metro was particularly aggressive.
"sorry," i shrugged.
she took a step closer.
"how about two dollars?"
"sorry," i said as i shook my head.
she took another step closer.
"one dollar"?
now she was way too close for comfort.
"why are you sorry?"
i stared back at her.
"why are you sorry?"
"because i'm not interested in giving you any money."
"you could have just said 'no'" she snarled as she stalked off.

and you could have not bothered a total stranger, and not harassed him for trying to be polite in an uncomfortable situation.

...

printing the assignment forms was quick and painless. i stopped in at walmart to buy the cable, and by the time i got to my apartment there wasn't time for coffee and i'd only had my first cup in the morning. the guy i'm assigning to rocked up a little late with his girlfriend. nice kids, but *damn* they took a long time to fill out the forms!
by the time i walked out it was 6.30 and i was running late for the 7.30 movie and was exhausted and hungry and feeling bad for making gd meet me at the cinema after she'd had a hard day at work.

i then had to wait a ridiculously long time for my meal in the food court. then i sat down and the people at the table next to me were watching videos on their phones at top volume. then gd walked in, suffering real back pain.

[furious part i]

we went to see the movie anyway, clearing things up a bit on the way in. we'd missed the first few minutes, but it didn't matter too much. guardians of the galaxy is GORGEOUS. total sensory overload, funny and fun and we'll definitely be seeing it again.

[furious part ii]

---today:

after sorting things out we went to bed exhausted, i dreamed insane dreams and woke up with a stuffed nose.

[furious part iii]

we took a while to clean up, literally and figuratively, i was introduced to the pixies and getting a bit more sleep was good. we went to midi 6 for a desperately needed lunch, then headed downtown to brave the crowds and pick up an ipad to replace gd's computer. i mentioned my new iphone and the amount it's improved my quality of life - gd's pc has been driving her nuts and it's so old and dysfunctional that there's really not much we can do with it.

by the time we returned home it was 5.30pm and we still had tons to do. the evening has been spent setting up the ipad and introducing gd to its wonders, posting, grocery shopping, doing laundry, eating wonderful home-made vegan pizzas (groundless beef and daiya cheese), being admitted to a lone soldier's veteran club, and wondering where the time has been going while my task list hasn't been getting any shorter. and now it's almost 1am.

DAMN. i needed a restful weekend :(

drained - part ii

[... continued]

l'artère sent me an email that was distinctly lacking in professionalism, asking (months down the line) if i had paid up my event bill... which i had. not impressed.

i did some stretching, then joined gd in watching premium rush, which just seemed like a sorry excuse to put together cycling and new york city. not exactly mind-blowing.

trying to get to bed early became falling asleep after 1am.

---wednesday:

it was a rainy morning but a good one nonetheless. having forgotten my lunch, i walked into the supermarket across the road where i'd ordered commensal meals the week before. i get that the manager can't speak english, but when i asked in french for him to speak slower it really grated my cheese when he simply repeated himself at the same speed. it took me an awkward moment to figure out more or less what he was saying.

for lunch i decided to try a little indian restaurant nearby called "pushap". seriously? i just found my new favourite indian restaurant, and it's right next to my office. which means it's right next to where i *used* to live.

godsdammit.

their thali is insane. and it's only $5!

...

in the afternoon i discovered that i'd been attempting to solve the wrong problem... i'd been given the impression that the feature i was implementing had worked once and been broken, when in fact it had never been implemented. that meant that i'd been working in the wrong problem space, and my efforts moved from backend to mobile frontend. mobile frontend is a nightmare, and what remained of my week was spent trying to get ios and android phones to use html5 the way the standard is defined: when apple and google have specifically gone against the standard, the documentation becomes utterly useless and trying to work off it is a solid waste of time :(

i was stupidly tired after work, it was too warm for a sweater and too rainy to be outside and i was too slow for la panthère verte where i managed to offend the girl trying to be helpful because she switched from english to french and i misunderstood that she was actually explaining what i'd asked her to :(

it was a great poetry evening, though, and the only thing that wasn't cool had to do with team politics. that's something that really shouldn't be a thing :(

...

i was so excited to come home and find my syndicate scanner iphone case! and so very, very disappointed to discover that the iphone 5c's volume buttons are incompatible with iphone 5 cases. what kind of a design decision is that?! it's so absurd, why would nobody mention the difference when selling 5/5s accessories?! fortunately, my letter to vistaprint's support was responded to with a full refund, and that did a good job of reducing my frustration and relieving me from my sense of ignorance.

...

hot coffee: you don't need to see more than half an hour to get a clear picture of how messed up things are and how bad it is that we all jumped on the "frivolous litigation" bandwagon. george w., you never cease to disappoint.

...

i wrote "unnecessary stress" but i haven't a clue what that was about.

---thursday:

dreams: day and night in a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, then festival fields with a three-ferrari grand prize and plenty more on display

it was cold and raining when we woke up and we were warm and cozy under the blankets. i finally cleared all the dishes and bought a couple of ac/dc albums: back in black (because i owned it) and the razors edge. i don't understand how it's possible that i've never heard the title song from the latter, because now that i have i understand why it's the title song. holy shit.

at the beginning of my lunch hour i walked in to the bell store where i got my phone intending to purchase a case with the store credit the salesman had promised me, but he wasn't there and the guy i dealt with gave me shit even before he looked up my information. he was a complete ass and i walked out in a bit of a rage. the perfect frame of mind to be calling my building manager in. those idiots couldn't grasp that i'm offering them a tenant and the money that goes with having a tenant in an apartment they're complaining is difficult to fill.

my code was fine but my machine was down. i noticed one of the guys playing counterstrike global: offensive, it looks just like i remember cs, and i guess that's the next gaming purchase...

i received a call from hema quebec, but because the french don't pronounce the "h" i thought the poor girl was saying "emma" and that made me make her repeat it for a while before giving up :/

after all that frustration, i figured out the html5 quirks and received a call back from the building manager to say that they were finally acquiescing to my (imo very reasonable) demands. i did some git wrangling until i finally tamed the beast and then took a bit of time out for myself.

[continued...]

drained - part i

örmagörd. i can't believe it's sunday after 6pm as i begin writing this, and i haven't had a chance to breathe the entire week nor the entire weekend. i've been super tired and busy and i really, really need a rest. to be clear, the weekend's chores are far from over :(

---sunday:

after saturday night's blogging, 1.30am to bed, followed by a good sleep. more blogging and chores - including trying and failing to take a good photo of me for the slam team's fundraising efforts. on our way to midi 6 for breakfast i remembered to take pieces of chalk, and i took *just* enough to cross out "A LIE" from
BEAUTY IS
A LIEand replace it with
BEAUTY IS
SUBJECTIVE
BLINDNESS
IS A CHOICE"
i felt much better after that.

midi 6 was great, and our second attempt to take a photo of me was a fantastic success!

my beard was all scratchy and called for an emergency shave. airplane sent me some work he's done recently and it's EPIC comic work! more blogging and chores, then suddenly not feeling good at all.

gd and i don't agree on the current ebola situation, and i'm siding with these people. the ad preceding the video was for dr pepper, though, with the doctor moving through a hospital treating patients with soda. that's messed up.

my mother surprised me by calling using facetime - it must've been about 3am her time, and she was testing it out. apparently she's more of an "early" adopter than i am :P

we watched some being human, i felt a bit better, the weekend ended.

---monday:

as opposed to a photo of me from the end of last year that garnered a lot of likes, the approval for my new profile picture has actually been flattering :)

i got up early, did a ton of dishes and buggered about with google play music and somehow left late in spite of my best intentions. i tweaked my latest poems, which i'm *really* pleased with, arrived at work and spent the morning focused.

arguing with my building manager: that awkward feeling when you're talking to someone who obviously didn't think about what they just said, it was incredibly stupid and you don't want to sound condescending because you need them to do you a favour :/

i booked a hotel room for gd and i for the cfsw! very cool, we got a king-sized bed for the same price as a regular discounted room :D

work: there's little more worrying than when shit SHOULDN'T work and it does. i began a big refactor, and i wrote down "constants fudging" but i don't remember why.

i rushed out in a hurry to meet gd and get to godmother's for dinner, which was absolutely delicious (in particular the veggie burgers). yang was there and we were all cool for the first time in a while. we went on a yeh! mission afterwards, then returned home to construct shelving that gd bought for our bathroom.

it's unbelievable how much difference it makes not having all sorts of shit around the sink.

---tuesday:

light rls during the night and too much internet time were followed by a garbage and dishes morning.

on my way into the building i ran into a friend of newk'd's who's just started working for my company.

the morning was filled with javascript closure binding issues - completely mental - and was *really* bad timing for me to install a version of our software that has a major bug in it that made testing my changes a nightmare.

it's amazing to me that when i walk out looking for privacy and quiet in order to be interviewed for a future job, i'm blasted by trucks, bells, horns and wind. the thing about the interview is that it's a personal connection that i tapped back in february and it took until now to score the phone call; i felt obligated to hear these guys out. and it's a really, really interesting opportunity, so i explained that i'm committed for the next while and that i'll be in touch when i'm ready.

it's nice to have options!

airplane suggested that i listen to the make comics podcast, and the first episode i downloaded basically told me not to work with the kind of people that i've been working with :S

the afternoon was spent dealing with closure binding and ogg vorbis oddities, and once i was done i *needed* kickboxing. the class was a killer, primarily because i was working through breathing difficulties (allergy season?), it was humid and i was dizzy and i ended up hurting my hand because my new gloves aren't good for pads and bags. so i need to sell those, now, and buy bag gloves. i'm not happy with that at all :(

badger and i continued our argument over israel / gaza, and the jolly moroccan joined in. it took a while for me to realize that he wasn't referring to israel's actions as criminal, rather it's existence. so that was the end of arguing with him. as far as i'm concerned, even though a lasting peace in the middle east is impossible, we can still ease the palestinian suffering. and i believe that israel's the only player that can do that, and that it should.

badger and i went on a loblaws mission, i was harassed by spiders (one in the car climbing down to my lap, and a couple on the way home). i'm not a fan of spiders.

[continued...]

out of the way

before i begin squishing my week into this tiny space, i'm going to dump a few things that have been on my mind. in no particular order.

---twilio is amazing. i've been given a good introduction by one of my co-workers and it's something that someone like me could really use!

open-source mobile windmills? we could use a couple of these. the timing's good too: climate change has become disturbingly apparent.

support for non-immigrant lone soldiers. i think i need to get in touch with these people and become a node in the network.

discovery's dishonesty during shark week is sensationally disappointing.

sierra games are making a comeback!!!

when it comes to medicine, this is why reasonably evidence-based should be a thing.

essentially, ibm is working on synthesizing a human brain. with incredibly cool results ^_^

edward snowden *is* a champion of american values.

google smart lenses. say no more.

"d" is for d...

so! democracy, huh? i'm thinking the big D is done. and not *just* for america, a country that continues to shove their ironic "freedom" down the world's throats.

the time for non-human government is upon us. tech that allows us to self-govern, or AI - i'm less concerned about AIs maybe going wrong than humans *guaranteed* to go wrong.

have i mentioned how important rights to internet access and privacy are?

RIP robin williams

your genius and inspiration will never die. you've played wonderful characters, but yours shone through.

operation protect edge do-it-yourself update

i mentioned bnw's husband's anti-zionist post on my wall, claiming israel is guilty of war crimes and is systematically exterminating arabs.

me: bnwh, i don't know where you copied this from but it's completely divorced from the reality of what's going on over there. i would appreciate if you kept anti-zionist / pro-hamas propaganda off my comment threads. facts and rational arguments are welcome, lies and deliberate blindness are not.

[...]

your sources are not legitimate. if you really care about what's going on over there i'll be happy to meet with you and explain where my point of view comes from.

observer: i just want to say that you need to be more accepting of other people's opinions. i am frankly appalled at the way that you have responded to bnwh's citation of un figures.
literally just typing in "gaza" and "un" results in devastating news stories from legitimate sources.
[one] headline reads "gaza 'will not be liveable by 2020' - un report"

i understand that this issue is deeply contentious because peoples' lives are at stake. however, it is simply asinine to post the israeli point of view and then to discount any opposing opinions. to say on a public forum, "your sources are not legitimate" is tantamount to saying "i am only speaking to be heard and not to listen."

whether you believe that is how you are communicating to the world is irrelevant. it is how i (and perhaps others) perceive your diction. it is incredulous to request that you have the opportunity to "explain where my point of view comes from" when you refuse to respond rationally to a counter-argument that is actually mainstream and internationally-accepted.

the problem is that almost everyone has been flooded by incredibly skewed media - the numbers are questionable, but they're also not the point. the facts on the ground are, and when you cite things that suggest that israel is on a mission to exterminate people, that israelis don't care about the palestinians or even that they're negligent, you're already completely off as far as facts are concerned. everyone's doing a bang-up job of demonizing the israelis and making them seem like bloodthirsty maniacs, which couldn't be further from the truth.

the disturbing nature of a propaganda war is that all of the "israel is bringing excessive force to bear on innocent palestinians" is nothing more than incitement to perpetuate the war, the innocent people who are getting hurt (a fair number of whom aren't really innocent, but that doesn't detract from the horror of the killing of those who are) are actually being hurt more by the moral outrage and the implicit support that it brings for the hamas. the constant referrals to "the occupation" which is a problem but which has nothing to do with the conflict is another technique used to label the israelis an "apartheid state", which it most certainly isn't, and which is actually quite offensive not just to israelis but to any south africans who have the slightest inkling of what apartheid is about and how israel is in fact the only country in the middle east wherein that kind of behaviour ISN'T tolerated.

what i'm planning on explaining to bnwh is where my authority to speak on the subject comes from, what its limitations are, and why the situation there is a bloody, ugly mess and what the options are or aren't going forward.

oh, and how filter bubbles work against us. all of us. i don't want to debate opinions, i want to debate facts. there are plenty of those to go around, but anti-zionist propaganda and willful lies have built up a notion of what's going on over there that's utterly divorced from reality. that's not a healthy debate to enter.

also, what you don't see is that my opinion is NOT blindly pro-israel. and i've refrained from posting anything other than that which i have solid sources for, or confidence in because i've experienced it (one way or another) myself. and i'm certainly not in the pro-netanyahu camp, i'm actually horrified that he's still in power and that he's been lying to everyone, including the israelis.
and if you'd like more details or a real debate i'd be happy to discuss everything with you, too. or anybody. but not on an online comment thread, because it takes more time to type and it's only ever a single side talking at once - this is the kind of story where if you're not asking critical questions or being asked them all the time, you've no clue what's going on. [these forums are] for cheap feel-good or feel-righteous posts and i'm doing my best to focus on the psychologically uncomfortable realities that anybody who really cares has to face.

in response to an angry post slamming bnwh: the reason everyone's repeating all this stuff is because they don't understand what's going on and that's not their fault. if you were flooded with bullshit from all sides you'd buy into it too. and if you become indignant and refuse to talk they're not going to hear anything else.

people don't get that they're being taken advantage of ideologically. they also don't get that there's a level of ugliness to human behaviour that they've been protected from their whole lives. don't be angry with those who've been fooled, be patient and understanding. we need people to understand what's really happening.

the following is the smartest thing i've seen since shit went crazy: i don't want to question your authority considering your personal experience with the region. you are also free to be comfortable with critiquing or discounting news sources that i have presented.

i figure that in order for this conversation to move forward in a meaningful way (and hopefully, congenially), i would like to ask what you consider to be a reliable source. you have mentioned the importance of facts. the interesting thing about reality is that it is exceptionally difficult to be certain of anything. facts are merely the things that we, as an increasingly international society, feel very certain about. and in order to feel certain, we equip our best and brightest with the tools and teachings that enable them to represent complex, changing environments as accurately as possible so that we, the public, can make informed decisions.

this is why i trust information from the un. from the washington post. the intercept. democracynow.org. etc. [at least two of which are notoriously anti-israel sources]

if i were citing foxnews, cnn, msnbc, sure, you would have a stronger argument. but, i have certainly invested time investigating and grading my news sources. you are welcome to do the same and i encourage you to do so as well (or wtv). however, if you are to consider my sources incredible, then i would request that you post what you consider to be credible sources, so that we may have a more transparent conversation. or not - you mentioned your disdain for online conversations. personally, i love them because of the capacity to reference the vast library that is the internet.

it's hard for me to suggest a news source because the reason i don't follow the news through regular outlets is that i've witnessed first hand how out of control media bias is - and that goes both ways. journalists and their employers are paid to sell stories, and honesty in reporting is difficult when so much of what they're producing is being fed to them by interested parties.

having said that, whichever news sources you follow you need to make sure you're balancing them because there's no such thing as objective reporting.

israeli news sources will give you an idea of how the israelis see things and why they're doing what they're doing:
http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.ynetnews.com/
http://www.jpost.com/
(the first one is the "left" newspaper, so i guess you'd view it as the most balanced)

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1045 and https://www.facebook.com/unwatch should give you an insight as to why you can't trust everything you hear out of gaza, and why un sources are not reliable at all.

for general middle east fun check out http://www.memritv.org/

bear in mind that there's also no such thing as objective reading, in this case you're reading with western values and you're ignoring or misreading the things that don't make sense to those values because you're not equipped with the cultural context to follow what's going on.

[...]

the spreading of these stories without knowing what's going on is only making it harder and harder for people to understand what's happening, and the long-term effects of these judgement calls are truly scary (see upsurge in antisemitism). what's happening over there right now is a nightmare and the external aggression is only making things worse for everyone involved, not better. dehumanizing either side of the fence is a recipe for disaster, and these are subjects that cannot be summarized neatly.

---finally: cnn on journalists' responsibility to provide context and lisa daftari making a distressingly good point about the global context.

fundamentalist atheism continued

in response to what i posted yesterday, a couple of friends made interesting comments. here's a bit more detail explaining my attitude:

i'll have to take back my non-quote, some people do come to the conclusion that the atheists are right. essentially, though, from a psychological point of view it's trading one kind of god for another; it's just that the new god isn't a vindictive, grumpy old man. which i won't argue isn't a good thing, just as long as you're not being mean and derisive to other people who're happy with what they have.

the discussion we're having is about the difference between the objective universe and the subjective. in the objective universe, according to our understanding at present the chances of there being a god are laughably small. but the subjective universes that each of us owns and operates? we can't escape ideology, and the functions that we attribute to god (create the universe, give meaning to existence, whatever) map to necessary parts of what generates our inner experience.

so whatever i believe performs those functions? good for me. and nobody's business unless i make it so. and judging people for their religious beliefs is exclusively the domain of the religious. the rest of us don't care as long as everyone behaves with agreeable moral / social values.

not so much resting or relaxing - part vi

[... continued]

giving bad project estimates means forcing bad choices. i sent my manager two estimates, the first a day to a week and the second a week to a month. i know i'm right about those estimates, but i knew he'd have to go for the quicker option which is going to prove a wasted effort whether it works or not :/

after a week of stressing i finally picked up my new visa, and was impressed by the activation experience. i called, keyed in the card details, and was done. no need to speak to anyone, no time wasted. :)

...

some days i think regex is a tool of the devil, and some days i really like it. friday was a day i was really grateful for it.
i left the office just in time to catch the metro (for the second day in a row), with my hours eerily precisely making thirty-five. i was done, exhausted, and i'm still wondering how i ever managed forty hour weeks. forty hour weeks suck!

gd and i had both been getting excited to go to a friend's rooftop barbeque, and we were on our way out the door when disaster struck in the form of her back giving out (agonizing pinched nerves, i don't know what expression works). she wanted me to go and i was torn between going and not leaving her alone, which resulted in a pseudo-fight which resulted* in a night in with takeout thai food that i must admit wasn't a bad alternative.

* i feel the need to clarify that there were no losing sides on this one

hunter x hunter's 2011 reboot is now on netflix, so we watched an episode. gd seemed to enjoy it, but the subtitles thing made it hard :(

so that was the end of a very long week.

---yesterday:

i woke up and shaved beneath my chin for what i hope is one of the last times ever. it was a stunning summer day and while the laser is pretty damned painful the process was quick and clean. and not too expensive, as just before i paid i realized that purchasing a year's worth of treatments is not nearly as much value for money as pre-paying the expected number of treatments. aside from an initial burn, i had no reactions and the lingering smell of burning hair was probably the worst part. at least the intense pain was quick.

slam team: another productive meeting, but time flew by and we were all hungry and tired after three hours of performing and critiquing. i was frustrated because my netbook is practically comatose and i had to use my phone for everything (at least my new phone's not a bad experience), and when i got home (in the late afternoon) i wasted time trying to boot from a flash drive to reinstall ubuntu (apparently impossible) and trying to synchronize a backup folder over dropbox instead of using said flash drive. i was just tired and in stupid-mode, and i was aggravated by the fact that saturday's supposed to be my gaming day and i got no me-time in at all.

i did give the osteopath's exercises a go, though. i feel that just walking properly is making more of a difference. money well spent either way.

i had a long chat with my mother and then with gd about her work and about converting her to judaism**, which reminded me that i really should install mezuzot here.

** perhaps i'll post about our attitudes some day.

gd and i then made the evening ours and headed off to the imax to watch lucy. and the circle is finally complete.

not so much resting or relaxing - part v

[... continued]

---thursday:

thursday was consistently crap, beginning with the electricity being cut when i was mid-shave. at least the water was still running, 'cause that would've been way worse. it was a beautiful morning that was properly soured by bnw's husband posting an ugly piece of anti-zionist propaganda on my wall, and what followed would only be (relatively) resolved much later and only yesterday did something positive come out of the whole thing. i don't need to convince you to love israel, i just need to convince you to avoid media bias and misinformation. more on that later, or some other time.

because my phone wasn't working i wasn't sure if the bank had called me to collect my card, so i went *again* and was disappointed *again*.

---on my way to work i bought a headset because i'd read up on my microphone problems. for the iphone 4 there's really not much you can do about it (i tried cleaning the various mics). i made a call i'd been needing to make, the headset worked perfectly for about five minutes and then *IT* stopped working. wtf?!?!

just then, just after i'd tried calling back three times and resetting with no luck, gd contacted me upset because [okay, i'm going to have to leave this out]. when i called her and she couldn't hear me and that made things worse i flew into a silent, seething rage. i furiously messaged her - messaging is NOT an appropriate medium for furious communications - and then told my boss i needed a couple of hours to get myself a new phone. i was originally going to head downtown to the apple store, but he sagely pointed out the bell office across the road.

score!

i walked in, silently suffered the salesman's manipulations and examined my options*. i finally walked out with a two year contract that costs $5 more (for an extra 2gb of data), a two year warranty that includes water damage (i've learned my lesson) and a shiny green iphone 5c.

* there weren't many, really. and i was a little annoyed about aota having taken a new phone with my current contract and leaving me with a refurb, but later i'd remember that the company was paying my phone bills so we're definitely square.

...

örmagörd: in the two days that i've had it, i've realized just how much poorer my quality of life was for the bad performance and utterly shite connectivity of my previous phone. perhaps naming it gir was looking for trouble? the new one is subject b.o.b. and his cover, which is on its way, is a scanner from the purchase menu :D

of course, as i called gd on my way back to the office it started raining. #$@!#$#@$%%!
and she was working, so she was annoyed because she thought it was a pocket dial.

i spoke to my mum quickly, and for that i needed the headset i'd bought in the morning so at least it wasn't a complete waste. i felt a little awkward when i remembered that i was using the corporate network for a personal call, but i don't know why that should bother me.

later, when i got home, i'd be intensely grateful that itunes restores backups so beautifully. it's an absolute blessing!

---i stayed really late to make up the hours, switching from phpstorm to enide because the former is incredibly annoying to use. the latter's just like any flavour of eclipse, only it can't perform a proper search through javascript code. i don't know how that got through, so now i don't know which ide to use and i'm fairly close to reverting to a combination of notepad++ and vi. that should tell you everything you need to know about the current state of tools available for software development.

...

i briefly logged in to crunchyroll when i got home. i love what they've got, even if their selection is rather limited, but it bothers me that they don't have dubbed versions available. i prefer subs myself, but for gd it's too much of a strain :(

i spent the night doing organizing things and finding and customizing images for my phone. its appearance is important to me. it looks really cool now and with the cover it's going to be magnificent!

---friday:

i woke up from crazy dreams. my notes from those dreams were: houseboat saving a book, making servants' lives difficult, conflict in israel over three celebrities posing together, mom pointing them out but i didn't understand

i woke up to see that protoplasm had been to a wolfmother concert. i'm pretty damned jealous. and my music collection's only getting larger as the salaried weeks go by :P
speaking of which, i've just discovered google play music, so gd and i can shared my itunes music library. AWESOME!
well played, google. well played.

[continued...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part iv

[... continued]

i stopped at la panthère verte on my way to meet the slam team, there was a long line all the way to the door and the woman in front of me took more than five minutes to place her damned order - was she high? or just stupid?

it was almost too hot and humid for poetry, but we had a productive evening and i was pleased to receive very positive feedback on my two new pieces! (cattle farming and role models)

afterwards i came home, hid myself away for the equivalent of meditation, jumped in the shower where i almost crapped myself when gd unwittingly recreated the famous scene from psycho. afterwards we had a short discussion about naivety and innocence regarding reading people, during which i finally managed to express myself properly on the subject and gd now understands that i'm not as blindly trusting as the impression i managed to give her.

these are important things.

...

another late night when i was already tired.

---tuesday:

tuesday is our new garbage day, which is less convenient than mondays. i updated the ads for subletting my apartment and even paid to bump one of them up. i just tried to do that again but i don't see the options any more. ui fails are so pathetically lame.

it was an all-good morning in spite of a few fails, like dropping a container of toothpicks and using cold water while a shower was in progress :P

on my way into work i stopped by the supermarket next door to ask them to bring in commensal meals. the cashier who called the manager was super awkward and between that and the otherwise stifling heat i ended up sweating profusely while the manager "sir"ed me and agreed to place an order. boy, was i glad to get outside!

tuesday was vacation management day; i've obtained clearance from the company and bought our tickets to the cfsw. hooray!

odd things about working with porn: sitting in a boardroom meeting and watching a presentation of new software with a video of a woman giving a blowjob playing on the giant screen.

i spent the first hour of my lunch hour organizing things with the collective and going out to buy lunch; the second hour eating the lunch and playing another case solved while waiting for the power to come back on. at least the microwaves were operational, even if all our computers went down. i'm not sure i agree with the priorities, but it's not really my problem.

there were achievements made during the afternoon but by 5pm i had sore eyes and desperately needed a nap room.

at 7pm i went to kickboxing for a really tough class. not only did i handle well, but our coach tweaked our kicks and they've significantly improved! also, my legs are definitely tougher after the last few weeks of abuse. i'm pleased :)

when badger arrived we argued about what's going on in israel - the argument was unpleasant but short, but someone else in the same room overheard what we were saying and stormed out in a huff. oops :$

i returned home to find gd not feeling well. i had commensal chilli for dinner and was halfway through when i realized that the 13g listed on the container is per serving, and there're *four* servings in each container. oh! i'm sure i was covered, then. who only eats a single serving, in that case?!

laundry, bed. not as late, but i had to be up early in the morning...

---wednesday:

oh, 5.30am, how i've missed you! and the pinched nerve that i hadn't felt on tuesday.

the osteopath hour was interesting, but i walked out of there with my nerve still pinching which wasn't what i expected. having said that, i walked out having learned that for years i've been walking with pathetically bad posture. it doesn't *look* like bad posture, but my lower abs are so underused that i compensate with my upper body and my neck is compensating for my upper back. so now that i'm aware of this i've spent the past few days walking around with my pelvis thrust forward and my shoulders back, and aside from feeling self-conscious about my "strut" my lower back pain's gone and my neck's relaxed.

huh.

i have exercises i'm supposed to be doing, but yesterday was the first time i actually had a moment to attempt them. i've gotta make this a habit...

...

i found heaven at 7.30am in a smelly gas station restroom.

as i walked out of the medical facility i felt a slight pressure in my bladder, and by the time i'd crossed the road i was having a full-scale peemergency. it's like the manipulations she did on me forced a system purge - i can't tell you how grateful i was for that gas station!

...

i was hoping to rest before work but there was no time. i needed to set up for "epost" for my paychecks and their forms are so frustrating that i ended up late for work.

suck.

it was a long day, i was mostly focused, and i was dead tired by the end of it. i was running almost exclusively on coffee fumes. i had some calls to make when i arrived home, and that was when i realized that my iphone's microphone was totally buggered :(

dinner was delicious, we watched the boondocks and i fell into a deep, deep sleep.

[continued...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part iii

[... continued]
on my way to meet wire for drinks i ran into vector, who convinced me that things were happening; i haven't heard from him since :/

wire and i sat for a while over beers, and he gave me the last of the cash i'd loaned him. it was more symbolic than anything, i'm really pleased that he's properly on his feet again! we enjoyed a stout called pretty bastard that's brewed in bromont and is pretty darned good.

i came home to indian takeout. i discovered that gd is definitely *not* into science fiction, so i guess battlestar galactica is just for me...

... we watched a few episodes of the boondocks and then went to bed.

---last sunday:

during a chat with my mother i learned that she's unhappy with her iphone, for very different reasons from those that i'm unhappy with mine for. i decided that when i get there in december i'd buy hers off her - these things are *expensive* for south africans...

after going through our feeds gd asserted that i have a responsibility to make a short video explaining the israel / gaza conflict. i guess i kind of do? but i need to invest a lot of energy into something like that, so the scribbling i've done since doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast :(
in the meanwhile, there's pat condell. his piece on hypocrisy over gaza does a fairly good job of covering the bases and its description contains a ton of links to important sources just in case you're not convinced of the veracity of his sentiments.

i went on a quick mission to popeye's for powder, gd and i visited aubut for some shopping, i wolfed down a leftover lunch and then we waited for bnw and her husband to arrive. we'd packed enough stuff to go camping, they arrived with an empty car.

the two hour drive there through the beautiful countryside with good music and plenty of munchies was nice. after we arrived, had beers and met up with another couple we all went on a pretty hike that included farm animals. we returned, waited for ages in line and eventually entered coaticook gorge.

bnw's attitude when we began irritated gd (and me too, but i ignored it) and she then did something that was childish and offensive that threatened to ruin our evening. i like bnw and her husband, they're good people and we share a lot of common interests, but i harbour no illusions about their maturity or reliability. i was really glad that afterwards everyone behaved well regardless and we enjoyed the walk immensely! the light show is incredible and the gorge is stunning with or without it.

we'd planned to leave at 11pm and i was shocked when i looked at my watch and saw that that's precisely when we left! the ride back was uncomfortable due to my suffering from rls, and gd's neck and butt weren't too comfortable either.

---monday:

i woke from a dream in which i'd been disguised as an ultra-orthodox jewish shipbuilder to escape a naval base but had been caught. it was a rainy monday morning and i was warm and cosy under the blanket, so getting up kinda sucked.

first fail of the day: showing the team lead something and having an alert pop up asking for my password. i clicked on it and typed away, and felt really stupid when he told me he could see my password: i looked up and saw that the keyboard focus had magically switched to a different app :$

an examination under the hood of javascript feels like stepping through the looking glass.

big junior and i received a mandate to redesign the streaming solution we're working on and a briefing on the political context in which we're operating. the design's been fun to produce and suggests exciting possibilities to come!

after a long day i found myself in the same metro car as one of our designers. he's a nice guy but riding with him was awkward and we were together for almost half an hour :/

[continued...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part ii

[... continued]

on my way back to work my phone was bugging out again. i could hear well but nobody could hear me. that's very, very frustrating; now i know how ghosts feel in stories.

at least my back was feeling better. i left with sasquatch and we talked all the way to lucien l'allier where i got off to walk to gd's friend's tattoo parlour / gallery for a vernissage. i arrived early, grabbed a mountain dew (i'm developing again, it's a thing) and chewed the fat with a couple of interesting people. the performance was decent, the music mostly beautiful.

vfmp joined just before the music started, gd arrived just as it finished. we all went to p.m. together, with gd embarrassing me a little on the way. some things are meant to stay private! anyway, dinner was delicious but after i'd been singing praise of p.m.'s vegan-friendly options, after we'd begun eating, i suddenly registered for the first time that my favourite tofu meal might have a light coating of egg around it. it was all awkwardly downhill from there.

of course we went to yeh! afterwards.

...

due to a peemergency, gd and i hurried home soon after that. we started watching a vlog of supertongue's and ended up arguing about whether or not her offensive religious views will be tolerated in our house (she's planning on coming over at the end of the month). she's become a fundamentalist atheist and what she has to say about other people's faiths is aggressive, absurd and uninformed.

it angers me when atheists extol the virtues of science without understanding that science has no basis from which to judge the subjective. you're not objective, anti-religious crusaders, you've just fallen into a different ideological trap. faith is healthy, religion is bad, and you need to leave people be if they're not interfering with you.

"wow! your logical arguments have convinced me that my god is a fantasy!" said no-one, ever.
there's no need to be a jerk. don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you.

---last saturday:

i got ten hours of sleep that i *really* needed. i dreamed anything from awkward family reunions to a cross between aliens, hannibal (from the tv series) and resident evil (our hostage was dressed as a power ranger).

i read the latest four posts of the last halloween, and it just put me right back on team abby! shit just got real.

i spent some time organizing slam poetry events. i'm now an official part of the collective and it's nice to be appreciated :)

having excitedly talked to gd about battlestar galactica, i bought the first part of the mini-series from psn. while it downloaded i played some good tekken and then some ffix; i didn't win the battle i'd been fighting quite like i wanted to but i'd attempted it so many times that i just rolled with it. while i played i lay in a way that stretched my back and i think that helped considerably.

the afternoon was overheated but good.

[continued...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part i

we just got back from watching lucy in imax. first: i will remember not to book seats just behind the central walkway, there's a rail behind the seats in front which cuts off the bottom of the screen. and it's a movie with subtitles, so we had to sit in a specific way the entire time. second: i can ignore the outdated premise of the mysteries of brain efficiency the same way i can suspend disbelief for the hulk or spiderman. third: PHENOMENALLY fun film! excellent execution. just excellent :)

...

and now let's go back in time a little...

---
thursday 31st:

hurrying to leave and instead getting caught up in a discussion about the nature of reality, truth / fact differentiation, how discourse interferes with communication and why science is necessary and good and the difference between good and bad science and good and bad scientists. the final examples included the use of placebo by trained medical practitioners versus the dangers of homeopathy.

...

moment that defined the day: this time it's the shoelace that comes loose when your hands are full and the wind starts driving cold rain into you

...

i developed a debugging stare, and very dry eyes from it. at some point big junior messaged me to inform me that friday mornings are bacon breakfast days, and he expressed interest in my veganism so he joined me as i grabbed a cup of coffee and i told him why and how i became vegan; he seemed to appreciate the idea and asked me for my training diet. i wonder if he'll try something.

i went to my apartment to take my keys, the tenants were really nice and everything was fantastic except for the bathroom. there were black marks on the toilet and sink and the former wouldn't flush properly; not good when i needed to give it to the next tenant the following day. fortunately the building manager took care of everything super-fast.

it bothers me that i changed the address for my wired subscription a while ago but they're still delivering it there :/

i left work at 7pm but only had 6.5 hours logged. gd and i enjoyed a lazy evening and went to p.m.: we ate far too much and still managed to waddle over to yeh! for dessert :$

i managed to get to bed early.

---friday 1st:

so it turned out that the muscle spasm from the morning before was my body's stupid way of protecting me from that damned pinched nerve again. i figured that out because my muscles had relaxed enough for my nerve to start pinching.

i updated my resume to resend it to a family friend. that took a while. at this point i'm so committed to my new employer that anything that comes out of this will be way down the line, but he's doing me a favour and i won't be impolite. who knows? maybe they'll be happy to wait.

it was a hurried and surprised "is it friday?!" and we were out of almond milk, so breakfast wasn't so great. i spent my morning listening to keny arkana (brilliant).

during the day i negotiated the price for my mouthguard. the guy who wanted it was a complete asshole from the get-go and i was entirely unsympathetic.

...

the two week review: smashing! they like me, i like them, and in particular big junior gave a good report on me when both our manager and i had been concerned that he'd see me as competition.

it has been suggested that i be a little more cautious with my interference. i need to stop giving people the impression that my suggestions require immediate action.

...

i spent the afternoon becoming an expert in ffmpeg-foo. i was so deep into my debugging that i almost missed the apartment handover!

on my way out i was acutely aware of the bright sun on my neck - a week before laser hair removal, and no sunscreen? not so smart.

the handover was a pleasure. august down, september and october to go.

[continued...]

not so much resting or relaxing - part NULL

saturday's supposed to be gaming day, but that doesn't seem to be on the cards for me. i'm *tired*, i don't have the energy to play doctor to a comatose netbook or do the exercises the osteopath gave me or knock items off my to-do list, i need to rest and i need to enjoy myself.

here's to caffeine and ocd instead. here's to going to see lucy instead. caffeine and ocd later, and i'll skip yoga tomorrow morning and actually get some rest.

i'm really trying

i just want to dump all the scribblings from the past week already, but my to-do list keeps piling up and i've been working hard and sleeping little.

mostly for good reasons, but today for shitty ones. at least i'm really coding again. it's been a long time.

protective edge media update

christian arabs have taken a stand, while while israel is accumulating more things to talk about.

after everything i've seen and heard over the past couple of weeks, that last article is the one that saddens me the most. i've lost faith ages ago, and i can only hope for all our sakes that i'm very, very wrong.