less than minor disruptions

 so far today we've had two warnings of incoming attacks, one attack with a siren, and one without. but we got to go to south tel aviv, visit some furniture stores and find a couch we're excited about, order it, and learn that it *should* be here in time for pesach.

hopefully my mom will be too 🤞

gd wasn't feeling so good - it was pretty impressive that she managed to make the mission at all - so mr smear and i dropped her off at home, stopping for a siren warning and breakfast (we were both very hungry by that stage), and then took the (delayed due the war like all of them) bus to the apple store, where there regretfully informed me that gd's ipad is too old and too scratched to be worth much in trade :(

so i guess it's hail-mary time, we'll try to back it up and completely reset it in the hopes that we can ugrade its OS...

we had a very pleasant walk home, picking up liquor, running into an old colleague friend and his dog (abahd - a boy and his dog, referencing the movie he introduced me to when he learned i'm a fallout fan), and picking up a sorry-we're-at-war gift from my employer of half a kilo of ice cream for (theoretical) dinner tonight.

then, as promised - after a cup of coffee, of course - mr smear and i went into MMA mode and i taught him taekwondo side kicks. which he did surprisingly well for a first time!

he's also - in fits and bursts - getting used to the idea of discipline, shutting the fuck up and taking instructions whether he agrees with them or has something to say or not. and it's really help that the motivation to do the work is coming from him because he's fixated on losing weight and we don't want him dieting...

i'm developing a karate kid fantasy of teaching him to a point where i can take him to my old master and see him holding his own :)

we took turns showering, and then there was an unannounced attack - lots of booms but no sirens - and now we're busy making dinner plans. it seems like the challah-peño's going to be good tonight ^_^

and i'm listening to moby - for the nostalgia - and figuring out what to do with my brain.

the time cluster bomb

 today was weird. the deployment didn't go smoothly, but was ultimately successfully.

a religious family came downstairs to present us with mishloach manot, which i explained was very much appreciated, but as we've got a dairy allergy and we're vegan we simply can't accept. an hour or so later they knocked again, with a whole different arrangement, including baked goods with the ingredients handwritten.

so now i feel bad that we haven't reciprocated - we had no way - and we've had way too many sweets today.

also, mr smear's molar fell out.

he spent most of the day dressed up as harry potter, he did his own scar amazingly well, and was very disappointed that it wasn't a school day and there was no one to show his costume to but us :(

we literally walked around the block twice today for exercise.

i eventually managed to complete my investigation into whether my screw-up last week had any undetected impact, and spent an hour talking to a new coworker - both at my employer, and my client - about both of them and giving him the details i wish i'd had. i then followed that up with a complaint to the woman who brought us both in because he was also supposed to start both jobs on the same day, like i did, and that's messed up.

my most productive time today was spent on my phone control solution, which i've gotten to a point that i can start playing with the more interesting ideas.

thanks to AI.

the war goes on. it looks like however the next couple of weeks play out, we've essentially already won: the IRGC is effectively finished, the middle east has realigned itself. the attacks today were fewer and further between, but louder and scarier.

mr smear was a bit difficult today, on occasion, but also a lot easier to get through to (eventually). on the one hand, he's been cooped up, but on the other, he's refusing to leave the apartment to do anything social, and gd's sick and unavailable and i'm working and unavailable.

i'm tired. but also antsy. i barely have bandwidth for the stuff that needs brain, but distractions? i don't even register time passing.

the lesson

 today started off a bit shit, with a half-hour homework battle. on the one hand, it was exhausting. on the other hand, i managed to take it to a good place, and he was happy when he finally understood what to do.

he joined me in picking up a bunch of garfield books we ordered, and then continued on with me to work.

the work day was a bit rough, with the worst of it being the discovery - around 5pm - that the contractor's code i'd accepted in the morning had a pretty serious issue. i had to work on it before and after dinner, and i only got through the shit a short while ago.

otherwise, the tech ops guy invited us to join him on a mission to see the cosplayers at icon, which we all enjoyed, and mr smear and i both thoroughly enjoyed the bagels we picked up on the way back.

...

otherwise, mr smear's eye seems to be responding well to the meds, but gd's really having a hard time with her shoulder :(

jump

yesterday:

mma was fine, although on the way there mr smear did something rude and lost screen time, and then threw a wobbly because he didn't appreciate their being consequences :/

while there, i tried to do something functional but ended up spending most of the hour reading pete collins' pain & gain, which is finished this afternoon.

i saw and enjoyed the movie when it came out, but a few days ago came across a discussion about it in which it was said that the movie wasn't as faithful to the original story as it was made out to be.

that... was an understatement. what an unnerving, harrowing tale. also, a dramatic emotional rollercoaster, right until the very end. sometimes truth truly is stranger than fiction.

gd wasn't up for making dinner, so mr smear and i took a walk and enjoyed falafel and chips, picking up a vegan curry for gd along the way. it was a very nice evening out.

today:

i definitely slept better last night. i got up this morning, sat down with my coffee, and then saw a worrying message from sailor that he'd left a package for us out in the hallway in case he was fast asleep.

wtf?!

i scrambled to get my rollerblades on, and was just passing a grocery store when the sirens wailed and everyone ran for cover. there were a lot of loud explosions, and i found out afterwards that gd had been on the can at the time and that's a pretty awful time to have to get to the shelter :(

i arrived at the wrong address, but didn't get caught by the spider who'd webbed the gate, then went back down the road to the right address, and sat with sailor for a really nice macha tea and a serious conversation about where he is and (possibly) should be.

then we agreed to meet up at the icon festival, and i returned home for breakfast before mr smear and i made our way there. gd, unfortunately, wasn't able to join us - at first because she was hurting, but then because she took a muscle relaxant :(

the festival was full of cool things, but overall it wasn't an exciting experience. mr smear really wanted to do the LARPing sword-fighting thing, but after a short time he found it pretty boring. maybe it's just boring with me :P

we came back home, and spent the rest of the day reading, doing homework, and messing about. i think i've been spending a lot of the time over the course of the past few days wondering about what i'm doing, or not doing, and trying to make peace with relaxing and being useless. i think it's okay for me to rest and be useless. i don't believe it, but i think it. is that enough?

on the offensive - part ii

[... continued]

the woman working the metro counter was visibly in need of a verbal pat on the shoulder, the elderly woman ahead of me was driving her crazy. she's either demented or has never been in a metro station before... after i got through, she waddled back towards me from someone who couldn't help her.

"do you know how to get to the casino?" she asked, in french.
"not a clue," i responded. and proceeded to ponder casino ethics. only stupid people gamble, in my opinion. it's just not a past-time that makes any sense to me.

...

the plan had been to see godzilla, but neither gd nor i were up for it. we went to p.m. instead, where i found my stomache to be bigger than my eyes. it's kinda scary how much i ate, especially considering the belly ache after having eaten too much that afternoon.
we finished dinner at yeh! again; the insane crowds and impatience on grand prix saturday night were unsettling. shit, i hadn't even realized it was time for that yet!

i was so absolutely exhausted that i had difficulty maintaining balance, and we went to gd's where i shuffled into bed as soon as i could.

---sunday:

i woke up feeling marginally more human, and would incrementally feel better as my sudden sinusitis slowly went away. i spent the morning trying to repair gd's ubuntu installation and update mine while she gave private haircuts. she doesn't have a sound system in her cutting room so the telly was turned on eardrum-burstingly loud, i didn't even realize how bad it was until it hurt and i grabbed my netbook and ran to the bedroom. it wasn't even a case of turning the sound down: psychologically it was such a brutal experience that it would take a while before i was ready to go back in there :(

i couldn't fix her system - chrome displays in funny colours and flash doesn't work, so i eventually left flash uninstalled and told her to use firefox instead - but i at least sorted out mine. my netbook thought it was in israel and was unsuccessfully trying to update from middle eastern servers.

not that that should have been a problem :/

i did some work on my comic script, gd's brother arrived and we all went shopping. we had a good, cold-salad lunch and relaxed on her balcony for a while, and while she cut his hair i missioned to the pharmacy to pick something up for her. that way we wouldn't be stressed when we went to meet some friends of mine.

or so i thought.

---we were in good spirits as we arrived at berri-uqam, and were on our way out (approaching some police officers) arm in arm when some guy walking in the opposite direction closed in and shouldered gd as he passed. we stopped, shocked, and a few other people behind us stopped and stared as well; i thought he'd misjudged and simply not apologized, which in retrospect would be super weird for a canadian.
gd started saying something angrily, and i told her to let it go... which she did, and *then* told me that he'd actually hurt her.

*then* i was pissed, but by that time he'd disappeared around a corner. i spent the next while beating myself up over the incident and have been brooding on and off since. as we walked out i said to her, without really being convinced myself, that it might have been for the best. as the days have gone by, i've thought longer about the correct response and i can't decide between my first instinct - to run after him, hamstring him and drag him back by his ear to the police - and taking a "wonderfully nice guy" approach and trying to talk to the man.

either way, that shit's never gonna fly with me again.

---we met with my friends and did a serious ice cream and alcohol mission, twice each. at first i wasn't sure that we were all vibing, but an afternoon walking, drinking and sitting on a terrace quickly sorted that out.

weird note: mcauslan's griffon is not a proper griffon. i find that quite jarring.

gd and i came back to my place so i could shower and change, and we ended up having a long talk about the paranormal challenge. you see, she's apparently got a bit of a gift that i haven't mentioned because she's an obvious not-a-loony and she doesn't really talk about it. i'm not dismissive, but i am skeptical; i also believe that regardless of whether she's got second sight or not she's not irresponsible or harming anyone; i'm staying perched on the fence. what i have borne witness to is incredible sensitivity and intuition.
what we were discussing is how to go about setting up a scientifically valid test, if we get anywhere i'll be sure to share it here.
[otherwise, i'm not looking to argue with anyone about it. this is my journal, and i'm not interested in debating gd's powers or lack thereof. i am, however, happy to discuss possible, reasonable scientific methods to test for paranormal abilities and what would be considered a satisfactory demonstration.]

i had her in hysterics when i told her the story of my experience reporting a broken window while high in a charge office, i really need to remember to repeat that here sometime! it's been fifteen years, i guess i don't need to keep those days in the dark any more :P

we went back to her place, she put on hannibal and i sent lengthy criticism to supertongue on a draft of a slam poem of hers.

---monday:

it was a long night of weird dreams. i've heard from ric, who returned to south africa with his tail between his legs, and i'm extremely pleased to report that he's finally found a way to merge his i-was-pushed-into-law-by-my-parents profession with his desire to be a musician: he's created a record label and opened up a law firm specializing in music and the arts. i cannot begin to describe how proud i am of his progress! and how proud i am to have been a part of it.

[continued...]

on parole: sound check - part up

[... continued]

after all that, i still wasn't feeling good but i was definitely getting back in the saddle. i spoke to horseman and bnw, who'd called while i was mentally unfit to talk, and bnw had some fantastic news for me! she's finally feeling settled in her day job, and she's back to sketching. even better news is that her english has improved enough over the past six months that she's willing to *read* my script; which is terrific because i really shouldn't be drawing too much. anyway, we're meeting on the weekend and i'm really excited about that ^_^

---nuit blanche:

i didn't want to miss out on nuit blanche (i wanted to make up for last year's disaster), so i downloaded the guide app and made a list of possible attractions. when i arrived downtown i found myself hungry for the first time all day. the food court i was aiming at was closed, to i took the metro to p.m. and had myself a good dinner. horseman and a buddy of his arrived in the area just as i finished, we met up and walked to the museum of fine art.

the first piece we encountered was astonishing; it was hard to believe it was painted and the effects were as surreal and mind-blowing as the content. we walked through all the open exhibits, some of which were severely dull but some of which were stunning. and a good time was had by all :)

horseman's friend is also into hip-hop, though i'm never quite certain what it means when someone's introduced to me as an mc; regardless, he demonstrated some of his rhymes and they were pretty intense! when i offered a piece in response, however, he was humbled, which left me embarrassed. i think i'm pretty good, and it's certainly very cool and flattering to have fans, but his stuff was good in a very different way and the last thing i wanted was for him to clam up :(

i tried to explain to him that it takes all voices, i hope i got through to him.

---we arrived at the mccord museum for one of the poetry slam events, one of the guys running it was the guy who picked me to judge last month's collective slam. they were running an all-night workshop with recitals every hour, free tickets to the museum exhibits for anyone courageous enough to step up to the mic. i was in need of caffeine and the coffee stand wasn't ready, so we all did a quick second cup run and returned just in time to sign up.

i was nervous, getting up in front of a crowd of strangers. in retrospect, it might have been more appropriate for me to throw the quebec immigration song onto the fire, but i was saving it for next week so i went with advice because i felt it would give a good sense of the possible to the initiates.

i was surprised to be given seniority (first slot after the two organizers), i considered myself unproven as i kinda messed up online dating when the guy had first heard me. my breathing felt constricted and for the entire time my feet were rooted to the floor, but i kept my pace slow and focused and apparently i gave the best performance.

i cannot describe how validating that was! i was actually embarrassed when horseman and his buddy loudly praised me; i won't tell you the appreciation didn't add to my elation, but i did feel it a bit unfair to the others who had almost all done a good job of their first times!

overall, i was really impressed by the event and how much attention it garnered. and i was only there for half an hour. and the opportunity to practice before next week's slam was definitely needed!

---the main events around place des arts were beautiful, but we were all too tired to play. it was snowing and the main dance floor was just as decent as igloofest, there was a whole lot of crazy stuff to see and just a stroll through it all was an experience. the guys split just before we arrived at another slam event location, but it was too late anyway as they'd already closed their doors for the evening. i walked through to a kinetic art exhibit inside place des arts, it was fun but after a quick mill around i decided to call it a night.

a night in which i went from totally buggered to excellent! i got home, posted, and eventually got into bed around 6pm. i don't know what the hell took me so long, but i fell asleep so quickly that i only registered random dreams and waking up.

---i'm addicted to another case solved. there's a review here that i mostly agree with, but i think that they've done a terrific job of using freemium. paying for shit is attractive, but not paying for shit forces you to chill out, to take breaks and to develop different strategies for progressing. for example, i never waste "bought" tools on newspaper cases unless i'm definitely going to solve them, and there are "free" tools and abilities (like a once-per-turn sponge) that help with that. and if i need cash to purchase furniture or tools i will keep doing newspaper cases until i have enough. it's all gravy :)

i was holding a glass this morning and bumped it against a cupboard. it exploded, with shattered fragments littering the floor. i'm really glad my feet have toughened since leaving cape town. i'm going to be very careful when purchasing replacements to make sure that i get heavy glass, this is the second i've had to toss in as many weeks :/

i had a long chat with my mother, then headed to godmother's for coffee. the temperature was -8 but it was really beautiful and the day was lazy, relaxed and unstressed. that's the first time i've felt like that since leaving cape town!

i came home, made lunch and watched a couple more episodes of freaks and geeks. i've finally had a chance to catch up with SxS, which is good because i'm finally armed with useful information about my current status. now i'm going to read. i'm almost done with the first harry potter in french, and a friend has just sent me (and a couple of other people) a copy of his book to read before he submits it to his publisher.

t minus three days

i got up relatively early today, did some career research and sent a mail to pulse's connected friend, then went to pick up my jacket (which had just been cleaned, so it was too damp to wear immediately), find out about our building's parking and purchase tickets for friday night's boxing fights and the muay thai fights that the jolly moroccan is featuring in. i spent the next couple of hours reading before horseman came over, we talked for an hour or two and then i headed to the gym.

---a couple of weeks ago when i rented a car and parked it outside? i'm now familiar with the town of mont royal's by-laws, and i'm bloody lucky that i didn't get a ticket. turns out one needs a special permit to park in the street at night regardless of what the signs say, and during the day, unless otherwise authorized, a car can only remain parked on any street for four hours at a time. they explicitly state that as long as your car doesn't remain on the same block for more than four hours it's okay - that if you move your car back and forth every four hours you can stay all day. wtf?!

anyway, the good news is that obtaining authorization is as simple as calling in the car's details to them, so as soon as i have the car this saturday i'll make a phone call and then relax about parking until noon the following day. awesome. especially as it's "white night" and i probably won't be getting much sleep after i get back to the city ;)

---the muay thai class was taken by a substitute, and it was a really, really good class. by good i mean it was hellishly tough but productive in that we learned and practiced some ridiculously useful knee technique! the rounds really felt like they were going on forever, though, and for those of us who didn't flag or slow down it was a truly hardcore experience. later, when the substitute saw me leaving he commented on my good performance and that felt almost as good as finishing the last round had :)

the only bit that sucked was that i reset from a push kick badly and simultaneously felt and heard one of my toes crack. it's an ice night tonight :(

between classes i sat talking to one of the girls in french. everything was going smoothly until i mispronounced "comics" in a way that sounded like "designed penises"; everybody went into hysterics while i sat there, embarrassed, not understanding at all what was funny about it :$

i was paired up with one of the gym's veteran mma big boys for boxing, and that made for a very good class indeed! we worked well together and impact was just right for both of us :D

---i've added another previously unpublished poem to my memorized collection (that makes eight in total): your first snow. this one's inspired by pg's first snowboarding days and has been idling on my phone until now...

ushering in 2014 - the festival

[... continued]

getting to rezonance wasn't difficult at all, which was only a concern because the last time i went we got lost and ended up in a township. my cute little fiat rental wasn't happy at all with the farm roads, though, and i had to drive extremely slowly... good thing i hadn't forgotten my cds so i could at least sing along and enjoy the ride :)

i walked in carrying my tent and blanket expecting to run into my cousins immediately, but after a short mission i returned to the car to leave them behind and go hunting with my hands free. a good reason for not being able to find them? they weren't there! i thought we'd be doing the full family vibe but only two cousins were there at all, one leaving before the other arrived.

walking in past the third dance floor i heard a bit of george daniel, i'm almost sorry i didn't stay for more, he was amazing!

i found yang on the main dancefloor, we talked for a minute and then springer walked past. it was so cool to see her! she dragged me off to meet her mom and her fiancé, and a couple of minutes later i returned to where i'd met her and yang had already left, not to be seen again. in the minute or two that we had seen each other he'd managed to annoy me by boasting about the quantity of drugs he'd taken in a way that assured me that he'd done nothing at all and didn't realize that that was okay.
okay, then!
the next day one of my new friends would make a comment about how she can't understand how anyone could be stupid enough to leave before the last day, and i kept thinking of yang doing just that...

springer introduced me to her campsite and i set my tent up with them. the wind came up just as i began and subsided soon after i was done. of course :P

i finished just in time to catch the goldfish performance - brilliant! - and then we hit the dam for a swim. i sat on the bank because my boxers weren't appropriate for swimming :(

i was disappointed to find that there were precisely two options for vegan food at the festival, but fortunately the indian food was a very good option indeed. what was super weird was that the stuff they warned me was really hot and spicy wasn't a problem but what wasn't supposed to be spicy burned me :S

the night session didn't impress me too much, the dark psy and full-on were mixed and a lot of the music was loud and crazy but boring: no groove, no clean beats, boring. the few tracks that were good were really good, though, but not enough to keep me out there. i must have gone to bed around 11pm, which in retrospect was a sodding good idea :)

speaking of good ideas - my hippie feet! i've been given some grief about them, most notably by my mother who thinks that i should go for a pedicure, because they'd make a khoisan proud. they're rough and tough and made for stomping, even if they're not the sexiest feet around. i was very glad for them when i discovered an exposed piece of metal on the dance floor in the dark, not by walking on it but by stomping my foot down on it with full force. it hurt, and for a minute i was worried that i'd punctured my sole, but there was no damage done and everything was fine.
in fact, the worst thing to come out of the festival was a splinter in my left foot, i'm not sure if it's still there or not :P

i slept on the ground with a blanket and some clothing piled to make a pillow, and aside from waking up throughout the night to reconnect the tent cover which had been blown off by the wind i actually slept quite well. i woke up feeling rested and, surprisingly, with my body feeling aligned. nice!

i walked down to the dam for a wake-up swim, the water was lovely but drying off was extremely chilly, then headed to get some coffee. as i stood waiting for my order an old couple - and by old i mean somewhere in the range of 50s to 70s, it's hard to tell - stood next to me and were deliberating over their own order. when my coffee was presented to me the gentleman looked over and asked, quizzically, "green coffee?"
his wife (presumably) turned to me and made a calming motion with her hands. "it's the mushrooms," she said. "if you find liquid mushrooms, you really shouldn't take more than one or two drops."
i walked off with the silliest smile on my face!

the music from the second stage was waaaaaay better suited to mornings than that on the main one, so i took my coffee there. talisman was playing, he's a groovy old dude with amazing progressive and there must have been about ten or fifteen of us in total enjoying a perfect session!

when the stage shut down i returned to the tent where my neighbours were just waking up. i convinced them to join me in some rum, but i accidentally pulled out the southern comfort instead. should've labelled the bottles! i brushed my teeth, then returned to the main stage to hunt down tgtbt and her boyfriend. i knew where they were supposed to be but i couldn't find them! eventually i almost walked over them and laughed at them for thinking i'd see them if they were sitting down :P
tgtbt and i talked for a while and it was really cool to get some catch-up time :)

i picked up the bottle of southern comfort, put my boardies on beneath my shorts and hit the dance floor for some quality crazy time. it was getting hotter, too hot for spirits without ice - one of the guys i gave a sip to actually threw up - and eventually i gave up and returned the bottle to the tent. i'd developed heartburn myself, half a bottle of the stuff is apparently not a particularly healthy breakfast.

the vegan place made me a strawberry, banana and apple smoothie that was good, but had precisely one strawberry in it. i found that strange. when i went back for lunch and couldn't decide on quantity, i was called an emasculating name by a very pretty girl and told to take more. i told her i was fully confident in my masculinity and did not succumb to her taunting, and i'm glad because it actually would have been too much for me :P

the afternoon was absolutely wonderful. broken toy were excellent and gandalf finished the day with an amazing set, whoever was in between was good most of the time. there was a lot of mud to splash about in and everyone was having a jolly good time - though there were a few groups of people who weren't quite playing with the rest of us - and the only difficulty was trying to keep in the shade and not get too burned. i'm rather proud of myself for managing to limit the damage so well, big props to my mum for giving me a fantastically silly cowboy (cowgirl?) hat which helped a lot :D

i ran into one of my niece's new husband's sisters on the dancefloor, confirming my original suspicions of her being a bit of a hippie too ;)

my new friends (met through springer) were so much fun to party with and only to happy to share goodies, after the festival was officially over we all spent some time at the dam before heading back to the tents. the wind came up while everyone was striking camp and died down just as soon as the site was clear. of course :P

i stayed with them until i felt ready to drive safely back to cape town, and then a little longer because they'd arranged dinner, and the hours together were spent most joyfully.

after a beautiful, spiritual day and a half on the farm, i got in my car and drove back super-cautiously because cute cars and farm roads don't mix. days have passed, and i'm still feeling wonderful - may the new year bring us all light and love and continue in the vein in which it began!

packing up

on sunday night i watched ungrip at sq's behest. i have two things to say about it:

1. WOW. the implications are mind-bending!

2. the comments about the medical and pharmaceutical industries at the beginning demonstrate that this man knows very little about these fields and should keep his mouth shut about them. his opinions on the matter damage his credibility. there is incompetence in the industry, but everyone's working to reduce it - there's no malice and there's no conspiracy.
conventional medicine has been studying the placebo effect for years, it's not exclusively the domain of homeopathy. eating a plant-based diet, exercising properly and living in an earth-ship are all good things to do and they certainly reduce one's risk of disease dramatically, but it doesn't eliminate risk! there are genetic factors and environmental factors to contend with as well. and you might get run over by a bus.

---monday:

i tried to nap, but was too tired to really wake up. when i realized that i was sitting up and dreaming with my eyes open i put myself to bed instead.

...

it was a slow morning. i took a long walk to print the power of attorney forms, but google's printing services search failed and when i found the office it turned out to be for printing import / export. i was going to go to walmart when i remembered that i live next to a ups store, so i walked all the way back and then to there. it was cold, i was dressed warmly, my body temperature was all over the place.

the printing and the scanning were a pleasure, and i hurried back for online coffee with sq. that was the call when we agreed to go to burning man together. it must be!

i had some shopping to do, i wanted to do it at the rockland mall but stm has cancelled the 100 bus. what?! sod it, i thought, and took the metro downtown. i wasn't sure exactly where i needed to be, so instead of getting off at peel i got off at atwater and walked all the way. i entered the shop and it was christmas mayhem - i'm so proud of myself for not turning and fleeing! i found what i wanted without too much trouble (i was lucky to find assistance) and walked out feeling very brave indeed :)

i treated myself to sukiyaki lunch: how the hell do they consistently get their fast-food tofu so right?

i returned home and horseman came over for amazing tekken. there was a little trash talking, i put it down with my virtual fists.
we discussed taking pride in one's art:

1. you can't get up on stage, share your work with an audience and then say "i did it for myself". then why the hell did you get up on the stage?

2. if you're going to do something, you need to present it and present it properly. even if you know that you've got work to do to up your game. all you can do is make sure that your present work shows your best efforts, respect your audience and make sure that your following work improves upon it. don't be like phil fish who kept restarting fez every time he learned something new [i see now that he finally released it, so i just bought it. the guy deserves a break regardless! and it's on sale right now!]. or like the guys who took over the duke nukem franchise. it's better to put out what you have and then turn the improvements into a sequel. this holds as well for rhymes and painting as for games.

i headed downtown for pre-christmas drinks with the kickboxing crew. serendipity? the jolly moroccan trains in a gym across from where we were going, but had misunderstood and was on his way to another pub on the other side of town. i walked out of the station just as he was walking in and we walked to the right place together :)
vfmp joined us, but nobody else made it so until some girls the jolly moroccan had invited joined us we were three. it was a fun evening anyway, and the last round was on vfmp. he ordered rum for the table, and it's the first time he's had alcohol in years - i'm supposed to keep that a secret, which i find pretty funny.

---yesterday:

hours slipped by speaking to sq before going to bed. i woke up late - OH NOES! it was christmas eve and everything closes early, i rushed down to the natural store concerned that i'd have to travel without clif builder bars. and i was about to run out of vega one. what a relief to find them open! and to discover two new flavours to boot! i risked an entire box of crunchy peanut butter, but only took a single bar of vanilla almond. which turned out to be a mistake, because it's a great flavour :)

i got home, sq and i talked some more, and aota called me up to plan a jewish christmas dinner. those plans fell through later because her daughter had come home very sick and i'm not risking that one day before flying...

i went out for lunch and travel shopping, the approaching sunset was heart-achingly beautiful. i was thinking about this on the way back: i've been blessed to live in three great cities, cape town and montreal are so beautiful, and with tel aviv all three are filled with the beauty of arts and culture and nightlife that's exceptional for the countries they're located in.

when i got home i sorted out my mobile phone for england - bell's got pretty good deals - and talked for a while with my mum about what i need to pack and what i'll do when there. shit's getting real!

i watched most of the black power mixtape 1967 - 1975, and the footage and commentaries are incredible. i don't think i'd appreciate it as much if i hadn't learned so much american history during my studies.

in the evening, check-in opened and i hopped online and booked my seats. easy, british airways, well done! not so easy: i could download my boarding pass for montreal - london but the pass for johannesburg - cape town is unavailable. wtf?!

i spent a long time posting about the weekend, and was bombed by the time i was done. so i went to bed. now that i'm done posting this, i'm ready to pack. only a few hours to go, and then i'm on my way!

---the items that i've found interesting or absolutely mind-blowing over the past few days: warning! some of them are pretty damn emotional.

interesting:

companies caring about their employees... and succeeding

health:

cavities versus coronaries
ending the heart disease epidemic
fish and pregnancies (seriously, don't risk this!)

the voice of a child of the anti-vaccine movement

life imitating art:

if only guns shot flowers!

emotional:

wounda released into the wild
iconic lgbt moments of 2013
christmas from beyond the grave

mind-blowing:

goldfish - we come together has 3.5 million views? how have i never seen this?!
viktoriya yermolyeva - master of puppets. on a piano. holy shit!
does holland have talent? this 9 year-old girl gave me the shivers

soul-searching - part i

great scott!!! it's been an amazing weekend, and i've just brought it to a close by sending a fracking long email to the executives describing our situation and listing all of my complaints against megaman and darn. i have just officially and properly put my job on the line and the issues will either be resolved or i will be fired. and i'm totally okay with that. i guess i really did get into the spirit of "yom kippur" in the sense of soul-searching.

---thursday:

thursday began with perfect rain coupled with exhaustion; i didn't and couldn't get out of bed for far too many snoozes. the exhaustion didn't go away and was chased with a headache. i'm pretty sure i wasn't well.

that morning i received an email to say that my copy of tekken 6 had shipped, that afternoon horseman informed me that the online version is now free... i was upset until someone explained that that's only free on ps plus which i don't have.

in the evening i went on a date with a girl i met online. i waited for a few minutes outside the mont royal metro and enjoyed the general craziness. then a specific craziness joined me: a homeless guy sat down next to me and made awkward signals to passers-by that he wanted a cigarette, eventually some young punk came up to give him one but not without a political lecture. it was all in french so i only caught bits and pieces, but the whole ordeal was pretty surreal.

the date wasn't bad as far as dates go, though it was pretty clear from the beginning that we didn't share sexual chemistry. we sat for a long coffee and everything was amiable until we got on to the magic topic of the nature of reality. we spent the following hour arguing - sometimes positively and sometimes not - and eventually moved on. apparently we both enjoyed them evening overall, though, so i might've made a new friend.

i was completely wasted by the time i got home. so much so that i was in a zombie-state while making my mega-salad and thought it was tipping (i might have been hallucinating) so i tried to catch it: i upset the bowl and half the contents were on the floor. what a fantastic and refreshing moment that was :/

at least netflix returned the new season of community (in order this time), and trigun has become most entertaining.

---friday:

i walked into the office to hear about intrigue: megaman has been doing some extremely dodgy shit and appears to have been caught out. the consequences are not clear, but it's certainly an interesting time for him to be taking a vacation (not to mention doing so when we're in a crunch he's dictating).

i went for a massage even though my neck and back were feeling pretty good: apparently i was so tense for so long i got used to them being locked because the minute she started working on me they got all sensitive and whiny. it was nice to shut off my brain for a half an hour.

i bowed out on the pre-fast dinner aota had invited me to when i learned that it was at the rabbi's: i really, really didn't need to be made to feel all awkward about neither fasting nor going to synagogue. having said that, i still wanted to leave work at 4pm so as not to make the other jews look bad ;)

isn't it amazing that when you're in a hurry and you hit the supermarket for just one thing (literally) ALL the slow people come out? not only the self-service lane, but the express lane too with coupons and shit. *damn* it was frustrating...

... i got home, threw in laundry and completed the new season of community. turns out with the previous ordering i'd already seen the final episode. at least now i understand my confusion the first time :P
what a great season! they definitely restored it to its former glory.

i don't know why but twelve years (to the day!) later, i had a sudden flashback to the induction base and experienced elation that i may never have to see that place again.

it was warm and cozy on the metro and i almost fell asleep with the empty energy drink can in my hand.

---montreal comiccon! yeah, i totally geeked out this whole weekend and had a lot of fun. my con experience opened with a smooth entry and an excellent improv performance, i don't know what they call themselves but they used cards against humanity and hilarity ensued.

the qa with tahmoh penikett and james callis... even they were surprised when edward james olmos and michael hogan suddenly appeared on stage! they were all awesome and the audience had great questions and it was very touching ^_^

i sat in on a presentation about back to the future and was totally inspired. the personal story behind the to the future project is incredible and once i'd heard it i knew that i had to take a turn in the driver's seat. but not before fueling mr. compassion. those two people are very special indeed. i would get my turn the next morning and i gotta say... i'm pretty darn impressed and pleased and i enjoyed it just like a teenage me wouldn't have ;)

the night ended on a horrific note: cannibal diner. it was a decent b-movie gore-fest and the acting was not inappropriately bad, but the ending was a viewer's nightmare combo of shaky-cam first-person lost-in-the-dark footage that just... wouldn't... end.

anyway, totally worth getting the three-day pass! i was completely satisfied as i made my way home and sat down to clear my mental palate with another episode of orange is the new black. what a tough night.

---saturday:

in the morning: shit that was a lot of queue. i don't know why they told me to go through it even though i already had my pass and band, i only discovered the re-entry point later...

i started the day with horror, watching a series of shorts some of which were absolutely inspired and some of which were utter rubbish. a chance in hell fell in the first category, baby-sitting fell in the second.

discovery of the day: kill shakespeare. bloody, brilliant and fun, and available on comixology :)

the biggest deal of the day: simon bisley was signing autographs. simon bisley is responsible for the horned god artwork which combined with the script to become one of my biggest inspirations - he's one of the few artists that really excites me. i arrived at his booth and realized i didn't have anything for him to sign. so i headed over to bnw's booth and commissioned a version of one of simon's slaine's with my face. less than an hour later i returned to pick up the watercolor and go over to wait for him to return from a break. simon was super-cool and friendly and was really impressed by the work! he happily signed it and told me to pass on his approval ^_^

...

while a waited a man with the head of a bird walked past and indicated that he wanted a hug. i obliged, and felt just as weird and amused as everyone who witnessed it.

...

it's one thing to walk around inside a portable tardis, quite another to dress up as a tardis. especially if you're a sexy female, it inspires awful pickup lines like "omg! i totally want to travel into the future inside you!" :$ [no, of *course* i didn't actually say that out loud...]

i was going home first but the metro cut out at bonaventure, so i took it as a sign and stepped out to pick up a gift wine for the "breaking of the fast" dinner. rain threatened me and my painting and i felt stupid for not taking the plastic bag offered...

i watched another episode of orange is the new black and napped in front of ted talks. i'm very glad i woke up in time for jane mcgonigal. you should watch that one. really. right now.

i dressed up and headed out to a pleasant evening with a few awkward moments but ending with a deep anime / cyberpunk conversation with a young 'un who's looking for guidance. :D

---sunday:

yang woke me up at 5am as instructed to see if i was ready for a trance mission, but i was utterly bombed and there was no way i was getting out of bed. good thing, too, because later i'd have mortgage details to sort out.

one of the heroes of the north writers gave a presentation on the process of writing comics and it was fun to watch; it was nice to see that bnw and i are handling things in a similar way :)

[continued...]

profiling

this weekend has been all about anime, with a short break for mixed martial arts and a little bit of sightseeing and family. overall, it's been great!

---friday:

at 5am scrapper walked in, two hours earlier than expected. i wasn't in a state to greet so i'm glad i'd left him a note the night before.

in the morning i'd spent some time preparing for otakuthon by going through the schedule to highlight points of interest. they used the guidebook app which is really clever.

when switching trains on my way to work one kid sprinted across, not realizing that the other train would leave at least five minutes later. even so, the transport system is reliable and i don't feel that it's worth one's dignity to run.

---when i got into the office i spoke to megaman about my contract. i don't know what his deal is, this is the fourth time i've spoken to him about it and the third time that i've explained to him that the issues i originally had with it are non-issues and that we can proceed. it's weird dealing with a director who doesn't recall important details. in the afternoon i finally got a copy of it and we signed it: i'm finally officially working. and now i can get my options package :)
[now i just need to hang in another half a year until some of them vest]

---i walked in on darn giving the developers a hard time, and i'm annoyed that we didn't discuss it first. he's taking a hard line on the team and in one fell swoop he's flipped our culture. not necessarily for the worse - i won't say it's not good to have someone crack a whip - but i'm worried that the suddenness might over-stress the already stressed.

regardless, i think my role has been de-facto redefined and that's actually okay with me.

---ceh wanted to move because he claimed there were too many distractions on his side of the office, so i invited him to make the cubicle next to mine his. later he approached me and darn to complain that he couldn't work under those conditions, and we followed him while sharing puzzled looks as we suspected that he was hallucinating. it turned out he wasn't, but what was bothering him so much that he simply left the office was an intermittent and soft electrical snapping noise coming from the ceiling. he was shocked that it didn't bother me. we were shocked that it was distressing him.

---i went in for a massage, and about halfway through the massage therapist and i both registered that there were muscles in my back that when pressed were causing me to reflexively raise my legs. it was weird. anyway, it turned out that i needed that massage even more than i thought.

---i opened up thunderstone for happy hour and we had a good game. afterwards scrapper and i headed off to the convention. forget the videos, the stalls, the events, the panels, the videogames, and the karioke cafe. the biggest draw by far was the cosplay! it was unreal. literally. some of it was jaw-dropping, so ridiculously well-done that it seemed to distort reality! there were plenty more reasonable attempts that were clever or entertaining or both, some inappropriate or boring and some that were so bad and so wrong that we couldn't help but find them endearing.

we went to a panel entitled "the bad fanfiction panel: whathastobedone" that was, for me, quite disappointing. i was expecting it to be led by authorities who had something to offer and it was basically a handful of nobodies who weren't really good with talking to an audience. they didn't really share the horror stories, they just explained how much the horror stories had horrified them. such a tease! some of the readings were funny but they focused on "bad english" and not on "bad writing".

we focused more on a gorgeous jill valentine in the row in front of us. i was attracted even though she was vocally reminding me of annoying girls i've studied with.

i did walk away inspired to write some very specific fanfiction, and talking to scrapper about it had the two of us putting together a crazy crossover universe that works beautifully and would be so much fun to write! added to the list of things i really need / want to do. maybe it'll serve as a distraction from some of the others :P

---we got home really late and hadn't done shopping, so we ate at harvey's again. it's insane how slow those people are. i appreciate that it's not a bad burger at stupid o'clock in the morning, but still... they made us feel that if you want a reasonably good burger done reasonably quickly you'd do better to make it yourself.

i was exhausted but scrapper had been talking about a "dib shirt"... so i headed to vistaprint to put it together. between vistaprint and pixlr it really is fun and easy to put a good shirt together :)

---saturday:

i got very little sleep, i don't know why. i went downtown for a quick haircut and received very positive news about some offers on my apartment. after sending back instructions scrapper and i had lunch at subway and i picked up some good coffee before we headed back to the con.

we walked into the 404's improv, some of which was funny and some of which sucked. meh. we walked out of that and into an interesting-sounding panel covering academic enquiry into anime. the first panelist was interesting but the second spoke in french, which was unfortunately a deal-breaker. we walked in to a screening of fan parodies: some of it was unintelligible, some of it was cute and amusing and a couple of things we saw were absolute masterpieces, brilliant and hysterically funny. we had to skip the "masquerade pre-show" to reach the other side of town in time.

as the weekend progressed i felt less weird about ogling beautiful girls dressed up ultra-sexy. i (wishful thinkingly) feel like we're getting closer to a time when dressing that crazy will become normal...

---switching to fight night mode was awkward, but manageable. from giant herds of nerds to tough guys and mafiosos with real-worldly well-dressed women. it was a night of great fights, very few disappointments and some incredible action: all but one tristar fighter won, and seeing as we were there to support tristar we were pretty excited! it helped that we had excellent seats right near the octagon and could actually see what was going on without looking at the screens.

...

scrapper and i took great pleasure in coming up with inappropriate nicknames and entry music for fighters. like calling oneself "the hobbit" and stepping into the octagon to michael jackson - bad, for example.

---it was a surprisingly chilly night. we were tired. we went to a pizza place near saint laurent for "dinner" (i ate crappy fries) and then went home. as we walked in scrapper realized he'd lost my spare keys... serious bummer :(

---sunday:

a good night's sleep, but it only felt that way after i woke up early and went back to bed.

we left the final day of the con having arrived at the following conclusion: overall, the lesson learned this weekend was that buying tickets was a waste of cash as most of the fun can be had in the public areas where all the cosplayers congregate anyway.

we walked around the port for a bit and then headed up to the plateau. we walked through the tams and it's the first time i've seen it! it's really, really cool. i love how montrealers celebrate summer and just generally being in montreal :)

i may have gotten a bit too much sun. i went to godmother's for dinner, i joined yang for a long walking of the dog that included excellent sorbet from yeh, and yin drove me to the metro station and we said goodbye as she'll be returning to vancouver tomorrow morning.


---after a couple of conversations today i decided to try dating online. i spent ages setting up an account at match.com only to discover how expensive their subscriptions are and that you can't do much without them. jdate at least lets you make initial contact without paying them...

self-diagnostic

monday:

it's so nice to be doing piles of dishes... haven't experienced that in a while :/
i suddenly remembered that on sunday we'd seen august burns red, i guess that shows you how much of an impression they made. they were pretty good, to be fair, but yeah...

the all-hands calendar appointment was for 9am but i'd decided that the first meeting wasn't until later so i'd get in regular time. newk'd sent me an apology for being late before i was even dressed, and then i thought "damn, that was a bad idea" and rushed out. nobody seemed to care that i was half an hour late.

we interviewed one mr nervous loudwatch in the morning. there were four of us at the beginning, then everybody else suddenly disappeared leaving me alone with him. fine, i carried on, but then suddenly they all came back with executives in tow. if he'd been nervous before...
he seemed like a nice guy and gave the impression that he knew what he was talking about, but when we tried to do a technical evaluation it was a total disaster. when he did understand the questions he deftly demonstrated that he hadn't a clue what to do with them, and when hinted at he stood by his previous answers proudly.

we had a few long meetings and i had lunch with a couple of french speakers (they obliged me with english, mostly). later i was talking to moonlighter and the it guy and they stopped me and told me they'd only listen if i spoke in french. i made it through most of a pretty complicated sentence before i ran out of words, and they were well impressed :D

scrapper's phone is open for international calls but not for messages, which makes the call he made to me during a meeting pretty expensive, and the calls i made back later too. he hadn't taken my advice and had rocked up at the bus station expecting to be able to hop on for toronto, but they were all sold out until this morning. he hadn't taken the set of keys i gave him even though he's returning on friday...

*sigh*

we finished the workday with an extended happy hour with loads more alcohol and snacks than usual and everybody stayed for it. it was mostly enjoyable!

my favourite moment was after two beers when darn was telling us a story about a company he'd worked for that experimented with outsourcing.
"so... you're telling us your company went to india and found itself?"
everyone laughed or snickered, darn didn't get it and proceeded to explain what had happened as if i hadn't understood.

*sigh*

---tuesday:

that moment when you wake up from that short nap before dinner and it's 2.45am...

today was a day that made me confident in my self-diagnosis as manic-depressive. i woke up from almost twelve hours of sleep (on a weekday! i was truly broken) to find my apartment in disarray and no note:

who doesn't know the right way to put cutlery in the drying rack? to hang wet laundry? to recycle? to turn off lights? to lock the door? to clean the sink when he drops toothpaste? to refill the water filter? to remove unused hangars from the shower?

these are fairly unimportant things that i've gotten used to taking for granted since i moved into my own apartment and then lived with pg who's a neat freak.

i'm always reminded of my father screaming at my mother about how only a complete idiot can not know the right way to load toilet paper. i was a little kid and was horrified at how he was so abusive towards my mother over such a trivial thing, and i promised myself never to be that kind of asshole. so on the one hand, all this shit really bothers me and on the other, most of it isn't worth being upset about. so i'm actually less upset about them than i am about being upset by them.

also, it's only the stupid shit i'm annoyed about, otherwise having scrapper here is a pleasure and it would suck if he was in montreal an staying somewhere else. i really feel bad every time i make him feel bad for not doing things the way i expect.

---i arrived more than ten minutes late for today's set of meetings, which scored me a "we noticed" email. we enjoyed about five hours of back-to-back meetings during which i desperately needed to pee almost constantly. my bladder would only relax when i finally got to training, i don't know what the hell that was about. the creatine is supposed to make me retain water and i didn't have any more caffeine than usual...

the vegetarian lunches that were ordered for two of us came with pizza. that sucked.

our product manager asked everyone in the company to say why they come to work every day. most of the answers were insipid, so much so that i caused quite a stir when i stated that "i like to work on beautiful things that i can be proud of." i was actually embarrassed to be sitting around with such uninspired people.

the next thing that would bum me out would be the project manager (okay, i've referred to him enough that he needs a name - i'll call him "darn") informing me that the big boys all want a demo of the software that we haven't even received design approval for. to make that worse:
unless something's changed darn and i both report to megaman. we're supposed to be a team. everyone is constantly reminded that it's a small company and that any suggestions and concerns will be heard. megaman and darn made a decision that would cost us more to implement than the alternative and would limit our ability to follow the product manager's plan in addition to reducing the software's usability. i took darn aside and tried to explain this to him, and he was not only dismissive and offensively unwilling to listen but he treated me in a manner fit for a wayward subordinate.

that made my blood boil. it made me consider giving up and leaving. it made me feel a darkness well up inside me. i cannot abide incompetence, i absolutely abhor irrationality and i detest behaviour that runs counter to everyone's interests.

my impressions of darn so far include him having no sense of humour and having his head stuck deep inside megaman's arse. i now have zero confidence in him as a project manager.

that said, i can't stop thinking about the last round of interviews we've given; if i leave the company after only six months, that reflects badly on me. i still want to be there to try and keep things on track. now that i've been offered options it would be financially irresponsible of me to abandon ship before my first year is up.

i was so impressed and hopeful when megaman arrived, but i do believe that the honeymoon is over. now to just ride it out and see where it goes.

---on a different note, the product manager made a comment about using a pcmcia card and followed that with "this was way back when". yeah, well, there were kids at the table who've never heard of pcmcia cards, so that was a bit redundant :P

---i left the office late and filled with a burning desire to smash something. i arrived just in time for kickboxing but had forgotten my hand wraps... i worked light so it was okay. i was more concerned for my leg, the bump on my shin isn't going away. the horrific bruising is now "normal" in my mind. not even worth a funny photo.
the lesson was solid and i did really well, and it ended with us being offered the opportunity to buy tickets to good seats to see david l'oiseau fighting on saturday night. from the man himself, which was pretty cool, so i picked up two and we'll be there :)

on the way back i felt it - it's the beginning of the end of the shortest summer i've ever experienced. but it's not the suddenly earlier sunset nor the dropping temperature i could feel on the rainy breeze that really hit it home... it was receiving the invitation to renew my ski pass in the mail. YEE-HAH!!! ^_^

so i renewed my pass and i bought in to kite patch, a brilliant indigogo project to reduce mosquito-borne infections in africa. i chatted with a friend before buying into hot watch, which may be awesome but i'll wait to see if they actually deliver.

now it's way later than i should be getting to bed. so that's me for tonight.

heavy weekend part ii

machinehead was awesome. children of bodom was very cool. mastodon was so good they made my eyes cross. godsmack? holy shit that was intense!!

but the grand finale, if i can't use my voice tomorrow and i can't hear very much, i don't care. i just don't care!

ROB MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIE!!!!!

---1. there's something decidedly less intrusive about being patted down by pretty female security guards.

2. i didn't know sully erna had his tattoo removed, and without it or the chin tuft i was almost certain it wasn't actually him but a look-alike!

3. "o canada" didn't work so well when rob zombie tried to get the quebecois to sing something, but his cover of metallica - enter sandman is a much preferred / better known anthem and everyone chimed in.

4. coming through the tunnels of the berri uqam station en masse and all singing along at top volume to the musicians busking with pink floyd - another brick in the wall was really cool.

heavy weekend part i

friday:

i walked in to the office feeling good on friday, but apparently looking terrible.
"look at you, with bags under your eyes!"

the day was good and pretty relaxed, the only discomfort being an aggressive and condescending "figure it out yourself" when i asked him for advice on auto-remounting samba shares. if we weren't so desperate for server devs i'd have fired him then and there...

up until last week happy hour was drinks at l'artere, and last week's in the cafeteria playing pool was considered successful all round. this week we repeated it with board games - not everyone stuck around, but most did and it was a lot of fun! it also engaged a few of the usually shy and reserved devs. cls is usually really quiet and polite, and we all laughed when i put down a tile in carcasonne and he responded with "i hate you" and we could see that he was really enjoying himself :)

friday night boxing is usually a fantastic way to close the week, but with scrapper it was even more fun. the best part was impact / conditioning at the end, and that's very different when you're striking or being struck by a friend! i don't recall what it was, but something made me laugh soon after he started hitting me and once that started i was hard to stop :)

officially, that was how the weekend started. unofficially, it began on our way to an insanely delicious chinese dinner with the discovery that the sleeper couch had been hit by fleas and that scrapper was developing a rash and wasn't feeling well.

yang had sent me an invite to a party at the belmont, so we decided to check it out.

on the way we witnessed a guy play his flute at the police as an act of defiance, and walking past a statue on a street corner i "thought the buddha was a beggar, but i was wrong".

after saying hi to yang and meeting a cute and amusing friend of his who also got excited when she heard there was a trance party happening and that there was a chance we might hit it, scrapper felt so bad that he grabbed a taxi home. i stayed, and the drum 'n bass was delicious! i had a very good, very sweaty time.

---saturday:

i realized that i'd need to call it a night at some point and i wanted to check out the other party. i didn't see yang anywhere but his friend appeared right next to me, so when the music cooled a bit i asked her if she was up for the other party - whoops! i must have pressed her "creep" buttons because she rushed off with a disdainful and dismissive "maybe".

*sigh*

yang told me he'd only be leaving in an hour so i called it a night. i needed cash for the taxi home, promising myself that i'd learn the night bus routes.

inside the bank there were two homeless men sleeping right next to the atm, which is really not cool as there was plenty of space not close enough to completely surprise a potential victim :(

scrapper was sleeping so i didn't want to turn on the lights when i got back, and that meant tiptoeing and not eating :(

i'd somehow hurt my neck again, which really sucks. it didn't matter too much during the night because i fell dead asleep, but in spite of a long, physically demanding week and getting to bed at 3 / 4am i woke up around 8am :'(

it was from a dream of entering a naval base and finding my commander abusing a sexy soldier. i kicked his ass and he turned into a small dog; i was terrified he'd screw up my release with a court-martial but he knew his career would be destroyed. so i got the girl.

concerned about mixing caffeine and creatine (turns out it doesn't really matter, the tin's just paranoid), i elected to forgo the latter to coffee up for a call to the real estate agent.

i was very pleased to hear that within a week he already has buyers lined up, and at prices not too far from what we want! this is extremely good news ^_^

that made recovering from the short sleep a lot sweeter, and it was boosted when i found that scrapper was feeling much better and that the flea problem was restricted to the couch cover.

i finished another section of my mars one application (only the personal motivation letter remains), we handled the laundry* and then went to walmart to pick up spare bedclothes, towels and something for fleas. all the flea stuff (for pets) come with dire warnings and it's hard to believe it's okay for pets - we decided to try stuffing the couch cover in the tumbledryer and hope for the best.

* sadly, the laundry basket's handle has broken

instead of returning home we went to my office to drop off the shopping and print our heavy mtl tickets, taking the opportunity for a decent lunch and coffee at l'artere.

---heavy mtl:

every type of metal freak imaginable and in huge numbers. beautiful weather. great infrastructure (free drinking water available, port-a-urinals, loads of food, drink and ice-cream stands), excellent stage set-up.

we arrived at the end of steel panther; at first we thought they were just crass, but aside from their music being good they have a great sense of humour and i'm convinced that all their crap is intentionally ironic.

black label society is excellent, they didn't wow us but we enjoyed their music. except for the long guitar solos that made us feel like we were watching someone masturbating on stage.

when a day to remember came on i said that it would have been funny if they'd been wearing madonna or michael jackson shirts. i don't know what made me say that, because the early part of their show was pretty hard stuff with lots of growling and a sense of lostprophets. but then that transformed into a sense of blink 182 and their shit just got cheesy pop. big props to them on their showmanship, though, and the way they interacted with the crowd was excellent - they beat crowdsurfing spiderman with a crowdsurfing inflatable raft, and the free t-shirt bazooka was the shit.

danzig. danzig! he's awesome. his freakishly large monster guitarist dude made for a cute gimmick, but unfortunately we couldn't really hear him and he looked like he was having a lot of fun.

in spite of the bad taste left by avenged sevenfold's (talented, i'll admit) reduction of metal into teen pop, my overall impression from the day at heavy mtl was from megadeth.
the megadeth experience was as mind-blowing as it was bad for the eardrums ^_^
their visual setup turned everything they did into stunning art, the peak of which was their background to kingmaker.
in spite of my awkwardness about them they actually managed to bring out the devil horns in me };)

scrapper and i were discussing psychiatry on the way home: "diagnosing mental disorder with a list of symptoms is insane. oh, wait, i mean it's completely sane and totally crazy... which is normal".

in spite of an excellent day, the buzzing i left with wasn't confined to my ears: it entered my brain and i was exhausted, restless and in a snappy mood. we ate a quick dinner and then turned in early, certain we'd be up early again.

---i think i'm a bad host; i'm terribly ocd about order and tidiness, which i'd forgotten while living with pg and compared to her i'm a bit flippant myself. there're so many little things!
speaking of pg, some guy posted a comment on one of my pictures of her on facebook calling her a lush. i don't know if she's seen it and i don't know if i should say anything...

...

facebook: i don't understand why my macbook can't handle it anymore, it's weird, and i'm stuck using my phone for everything. which led to a security fail: i had two-stage authentication set up, facebook's sms'es weren't coming through, accessing through a browser doesn't give you the code generator and the access codes i was shown simply wouldn't work when i tried to set up the facebook app on my phone. the only way to install the app was to disable the two-step authentication. that's pretty dumb, facebook.

on a related note, my new iphone's battery life is so much better than my old one! it's so weird that i don't *have* to charge it every night.

---sunday:

i'm guessing the early wake-up is related to the amount of sunshine streaming through my windows. the big news for the morning is that someone has already made an offer for our apartment, so hopefully we'll sort that out soon and then i can find an apartment in montreal that's facing the right direction :P
the offer's good, not exactly what we wanted but if we hurry we might not need to pay capital gains tax on it...

i woke up from dreaming a successful dream, but once the story was over i realized that i was still wearing a skullcap that i'd put on at some point and was embarrassed to be seen as jewish. i don't know how i feel about that dream.

we stuffed the couch cover in the tumble-dryer and ran regular laundry alongside it, then i went to get a haircut. no haircuts on sundays - d'oh! - so i sat at starbucks for an opportunity to write most of this undisturbed, cashed a cheque and came on home to prep for another festival day and discuss the apartment offer with my mother. we have a plan, it feels like stars are aligning, i'm feeling positive.

now - time to rock!

closing monday

as a busy bachelor, buying fresh produce is a bitch, it's not cheap and it has a frustratingly sisyphean short shelf life. i've reached the conclusion that in addition to meal replacements and supplements, eating out every night is not only more convenient and satisfying, but financially responsible too.

or at least it would be if eating out was less complicated for vegans.

---today began with my purchasing two weekend passes for otakuthon for myself and scrapper. i can't wait ^_^

it looks like we're wresting control from the cto. it also looks like our network troubles aren't over yet. it looks like i need to go to bed early tonight.

i felt monday today, i took a contractor out for lunch and i'm not sure if i ate too much or if the punjab palace's food is as bad for me as it is delicious. this is the third time i've walked out of there in dire need of a siesta.

i've been given a galaxy phone for the week and promised a new (refurbished) iphone next week, but i'm not doing anything until i can figure out how to backup my contact data to gmail. the internets has advices.

a little yellow tablet from goa

i'm watching garbage warrior, and michael reynolds is a hero. we need more of him, and desperately! i wonder if i can find architects doing that sort of thing in israel... wanna make a positive change? watch the video, consider supporting sustainable housing. or better yet, get involved. (for a summary review, look here)

---
i slept well last night - i almost didn't get to sleep because i got stuck into reading a friend's thesis paper and it was riveting... i stopped myself because i knew i'd have to be up early. my nose was still gunked up, and i found the last three pseudo-ephedrine tablets that i bought in goa. their expiry date is 9/2011, so technically it's still good... the one i took was quite effective.

i bladed down to george to meet with wordsworth and urchin for breakfast and one hundred thousand poets for change debriefing. when wordsworth left urchin and i did some planning apropos the photography project i'm so excited about, and then it was time to return home. i finally got some work done - nyromodal is the only jquery lightbox solution that actually works. a deep sigh later, and since then i've been chilling. getting ready for a lot of driving this evening...

reflections upon aging prematurely - part ii

[... continued]

the most surreal experience: stepping out of our tent in the evening only to be confronted by a girl fleeing security, jumping over the fence and screaming her goodbyes to us, seemingly personally. in my hazy state i couldn't figure out if i was supposed to recognize her or not... they caught her, and we couldn't figure out afterwards if she was just someone who'd snuck into the festival or if she'd tried to escape from something outside of it.

i knew that from 2am things were going to go crazy, so i tried to rest after organic's set. not so easy when the bass makes your body bounce even when prone. at 1am the sound seemed to fade out; that was when the dj began playing with the surround and it was magnificent even from 200m away.

2am: get up and dig. the music was preposterously good the entire night, totally indifferent to human physiology's need to sleep. i couldn't stop stomping until the final set, and even though i'm not a big fan of minimal it was so well-integrated with the full-on... bottom line: happiness overload. so many people going so crazy... and all remarkably similar to the last one. time really does stop for doof.

so: hearing loss, sore legs and chafing. on the brighter side, i think i know what my hair's going to look like dreaded. pg and i struck camp, but i got struck down in the process. i was truly exhausted. the goodbyes were... awkward. i was incoherent, and said remarkably stupid things. swak. to make matters worse, i was in no state to drive so pg had to take the wheel... at least we had space for a hitch-hiker. i like being able to "pass it forward" :P

once home, we did some shopping and then went straight to bed.

---tuesday:

the technician arrived to set up the internet, and told us that to actually get it to work we'd have to call support and have them talk us through it. i called immediately while he and pg were still sorting out the paperwork, only to discover that there's no reasonable way to get hold of support.

fantastic.

when i told him this, he explained that he was aware of the difficulties and would help us, even though he usually charges for the assistance. WTF?!?!

anyway, so we have internet at home now. that meant that i could video-chat with my sister (w00t!) and work on my seminar paper. a good thing, too: that's all i did until 3am the next morning. the final grind was tough.

---wednesday:

so i went to bed, and then woke up an hour or two later feeling sick as a dog. my throat was scratchy (as it is right now, on-and-off painful), and soon after i was so cold that i dragged myself out of bed to heat up in a hot shower. then i tried passing out on the couch so that i wouldn't disturb pg.

the bus to campus: i was *dead*. literally falling over. printing out my paper and handing it in seemed like a dream at the time, and i haven't yet experienced the catharsis that should've accompanied the action. it's like i cannot absorb the fact that it's finally done.

we had a class on sound poetry which required two cups of coffee to get through, and i sat with co-conspirator to advise her on her paper before stretching out on the grass with a couple of classmates to rest and chat. then i took a bus to herzeliya so that i could help mmf drive cars back to tel aviv.

on entering herzeliya: the guy with the hummer? all i could think of was "tiny penis". that was in opposition to the middle-aged guy who came careening past on his skateboard, and is made of win. i feel embarrassed for people who need to satisfy their egos with suits and expensive cars.

mmf and i both talk with our hands. i accidentally swatted his iphone out of his, which was embarrassing and unpleasant :$

after spending some time at his place (i suck at reading to children, apparently) and discussing work and studies, he introduced me to iphone multi-tasking and laughed at my lack of familiarity with something so basic. why on earth would i ever double-tap the button??? that's not very intuitive, IMO.

on the way home i stopped by the hardware dude to discuss hardware and psychedelics, and when i got in i went straight to bed. i woke up for dinner and went to my apartment to pick up mail and my doof shirt (^_^), and have a drink with the girls who have invaded my apartment. i'm well pleased at both the condition its in and that they're enjoying it. that's all i asked :)

i came home to study for the midterm and get some sleep. sleeping well was a shock after the previous week :P

[continued...]