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...]

looking back - part ii.1

alright, we're down to this week. i can handle four days in brief, right?

---sunday night? this part's a little confused:

bad boys (viking) -> starship troopers (sgt. zim) -> john dies at the end (dr. albert marconi). i guess i've gotta see that last one, i'm glad i've read the book.

gd and i had a fight about one of her pet peeves. we had another major one last night. it's amazing how worked up we can both get and yet still end up resolving things in a way that we're both happy. we're both intense but we both stay rational in spite of our emotions, and we both keep finding ourselves surprised by the results.

---monday:

waking up at 5am with a pinched nerve making my butt hurt.

taking gd to the clinic, accidentally pantsing her in the waiting room.

having coffee with godmother at atwater market, joined by gd. we all agree on the fact that us looking for another apartment before i start working is a bad idea, but that my moving in to gd's apartment is a good one. godmother was shocked when gd sat down on a bench she'd thought was higher and yelled "omg, i just swallowed my vagina!". by the time she found another way to express the sensation it was too late, and after saying goodbye we found ourselves giggling uncontrollably.

we did some shopping and while i did the dishes we discovered that we both love shpongle. awesome!

i accompanied gd to studiotec where she trained with one of her bosses and his boyfriend. there was a woman waiting for her turn who kept saying "i don't think i can handle that", looking at me and laughing as if i would obviously agree with her. i don't know what kind of support she expected, if you're too unadventurous to try something new then i have no respect for you. i wanted to ask her how long she'd been merely surviving but i bit my tongue and did my best to ignore her.

i was tired and gd's quick shopping took too long for me. suddenly it was 5pm and i'd done precious little, it was too late to pay l'artère and i went home to knock items off my task list before another team meeting.

you know when you're trying to make an online payment and you worry that at some point something's going to go wrong? well, my payment to revenu québec crashed my browser as i clicked "submit". i'd have to wait two days to make sure that it hadn't gone through before trying again...

i lost time on the couch, got up to write character sketches for mti, packed perishables to take to gd then rushed out late for the team meeting. it was a good meeting. there was an awkward moment where someone was discussing hallucinations and i was worried i was the only person who could talk about hallucinogens positively, but then the moment was broken as two of the others shared their opinions on the subject. we'll be fine.

on the way to the metro with rabbit and her boyfriend they convinced me that fisher king is a good choice.

i ate junk-food for supper, then went to bed.

---tuesday:

after a mixed bag of dreams i awoke with gd at 5am to a nightmare situation. i may have mentioned before that the working conditions of a stylist in montreal are pretty close to those of a sweatshop, and she was sick and they don't get sick leave. a lot of what she described made me angry, and we argued back and forth until eventually she agreed to call her boss and explain that she couldn't get there.

apparently, she made him feel so shitty about his no-illness policy that he didn't want to speak about it, so she got a day off and the morning was perfect* after that.

* well, it could have been better if she wasn't sick, but it was as perfect as could be aside from that.

i was slow on tuesday morning, trying to knock off more items from my list. obviously, being in a hurry to print something at the ups store *demands* being held back by old ladies who can't handle credit cards and are so useless they have to have their pin codes written on their cards.

i was shocked by how expensive printing a single black and white page was. i think the girls behind the counter were offended by my expression.

on the metro, an old, creepy guy playing games on an ipad complimented me on my bugs bunny shirt.

as i left the metro, i was feeling strong, suddenly energized and walking tall. i met with an ex-co-worker for coffee on a nice side of mont royal i'd never been before. i was shocked to learned how he'd been fired - they'd called him in for a project meeting, so he had to ride his bike through horrific weather for most of an hour, only to surprise him by letting him go. that's ugly, until tuesday he still had no idea why they fired him and i explained to him the political climate and why his actual work had nothing to do with it. i also offered to give him a reference whenever he wants, he's a professional and a pleasure to work with.

i returned to l'artère to pay the big bill, and mindlessly occupied myself with another case solved until i got home. i then tried to help my mother with her phone. i then renamed myself.

i skipped the first kickboxing class in order to get something done. i carried my microwave to gd's in my hands.
of course, the only person to offer her seat on the metro would be an older, larger woman :/
and of course it would start raining as i stepped outside. fortunately it was a only a few drops before i got home and the skies opened.

i had excess frustration to train off, and walked out of the gym after an hour feeling good about a dude stealing some of my taekwondo moves and me almost getting my left wheel kick sorted out. i wasn't feeling good about the fact that it's sweaty season again, nor that my breathing was strained again. although i suspect that that might have been caused by my starting to get sick.

how nice to be rained on when carrying groceries with a flash drive and a charger in my pockets. i'm so glad gd had left an awkward little umbrella at my apartment...

dinner: an incredible mix of steamed veggies, a regular salad and quinoa. this steaming thing is great! and cooking with blue pilots project - flight for everyone just made the whole day better.

[continued...]

supertongue montreal introduction - part ii

[... continued]

we picked up lunch at la panthère verte, then walked up to the mountain. we didn't get very far, but we did get to enjoy a bit of a trail, the larping and an incredible hippie stage at the tams. the vegan brownie we'd picked up earlier was orgasmic, and distracted me from my sore feet.

we arrived at l'artère just in time for the workshop, the sound man was watching r.a. the rugged man - definition of a rap flow which i think is cool. the workshop was primarily for two kids horseman brought along, but halogen and rabbit's boyfriend participated too. it was kinda fun, and we got one kid to overcome some serious shyness which made it all worth it.

we needed fifteen paying guests in order to break even, we had almost forty who'd promised to come. of those, only about four or five actually arrived, so instead of fundraising we lost a lot of cash. apparently the choice of location was a mistake; it would have been nice had someone mentioned that BEFORE we proceeded.

#$@%.

it was a fun evening regardless, we used randomly generated scores and everyone had a good time. i disappointed myself by going up with a piece that i hadn't prepared on a microphone we were all struggling with after having had half a beer on top of my exhaustion. i could and should have done better.

a particularly amusing moment: we'd arranged the slam so that every poet would get six minutes to divide between the two rounds however they chose, and the pretentious guy decided to use all six minutes on his first piece. AND HE WENT OVER. so for his turn, our host decided that all the other poets would go up and slam for the 46 seconds he owed us. genius :)

a few of us discussed my choice of a pseudonym, and fisher king was proposed. i initially rejected it, and so they just called me by my surname. that felt strange.

on our way back to gd's to pick up supertongue's gear i asked her why she'd declined to participate in the workshop. it turns out she doesn't take criticism well, and instead of making or ignoring the corrections i'd sent her she'd just given up. that sucked.

we didn't really have time for dinner, i accompanied her to the bus and let her convince me to leave her in the line and take myself to bed. we'd survived a crazy three days and our next mission is finding her a job in montreal so that she can move to a place with a bit of soul.

on the offensive - part iii

[... continued]

---i posted an ad for my apartment in the morning, with gd's guidance for the french translation, and contacted the office to hear that they'd finally sent off my permit application. at least i'm finally waiting on the people i *should* be waiting on...

i met up with rabbit at midi 6, had lunch before moving to a nearby coffee shop while we planned and schemed. i've got a good sense of what's been happening and i've pushed her to be a little less compromising on her role as captain. we talked plans for sunday's slam and then merch ideas into the ground.

the "god shot" espresso was interesting, but i won't be drinking it again.

we did a little bit of poetry crit, and then rabbit had to leave - just as gd was returning from studiotec.

...

someone had suggested to gd that she might be pregnant. she's certain she's not, but neither of us would be unhappy if that was the case. that's a great place to be, i think :)

...

hannibal is a good series, and i think so even though i'm not invested. it's dark and sneaky, most of the characters are pretty convincing and in general it's fun to watch and think about.

i posted pre-boxing, then hurried out to make the class on time. warming up felt like being in a sauna, and i worked as hard as i could but halfway through my arms started failing. we ended the class with a really tough session on the bags and conditioning... it was all i could do to muster enough strength to finish the conditioning, and i was so weak and dizzy that i sat in a corner nibbling on a clif bar until i could get up without wobbling.

i did a quick shopping run, washed some dishes and had the full salad alone for the first time in a long time. i returned to gd's and vegged out in front of loads more hannibal, and then we went to bed.

---yesterday:

what's up with the sexism here? is it just more noticeable than elsewhere? gd was telling me an aggravating story about a stupid taxi driver she'd encountered, and i was as upset with her for not reporting him as i was with him for being an asshole.

i ran into a friend from the gym on the metro, and she convinced me to copy my ad from kijiji to craigslist if i want to find a replacement quickly. so that's what i did when i got home... instead of getting some sleep, which i needed because i was still pretty tired. also in lieu of sleep was my running off to print flyers and take them to l'artère. on the way i'd manage to wash my feet with rain water... flip-flops. not so good for my arches, not so good for keeping my feet clean, and not so good for keeping dry.

i had a tasty but not-so-protein-y lunch while trying to clean up my netbook, finding a whole bunch of things that i need to expose gd to before trashing. i stepped out into a gorgeous, sunny afternoon to meet up with vector and introduce him to my comics. some of the introduction was simple, some of it difficult, but he's suggested a little rewrite to the beginning that makes a whole lot of sense, and he's really excited to be a part of the project. even if i just end up with him, things are looking up!

after a couple of hours with him, i went home and chatted to my mother. after settling on a plan to keep me afloat while i wait for my permit to be authorized, she made a comment about wanting to switch back to blackberry because her iphone's emailing is screwed up and i decided to give her some support.

$%#@!!!

she's had a very frustrating time with her iphone because the professional idiots providing tech support for her isp are utterly incompetent. their antiquated mail servers are incompatible with iphones, and so i helped her configure her gmail account so that she can use it and still keep her old email address. setting up gmail for that wasn't a problem, but connecting her phone to her gmail account?

firstly, an alert saying "network error" is NOT the same as one saying "device not authorized, use https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha". i would love to find all those responsible for that special little gem, grab each one by the collar and slap them silly.

secondly, iphone's inability to allow gmail users to send using aliases is stunningly backward and primitive. we only found this workaround today, and between skype screen sharing and talking my mother through each iphone step the process of setting up her email has been a long, drawn-out and rage-inducing nightmare. it might have taken five minutes if i had her phone and passwords in hand, but at the end of the day i want *her* to be able to do this shit herself and iphone, famous for its simplicity and ease-of-use, has failed abysmally.

so we've taken a break and we're going to try again tomorrow or something. in the meanwhile, at least she can receive and reply to emails correctly. that's something.

[continued...]

signing, writing, seeing

tuesday:

i ran out to print, sign and scan a form to get the ball rolling... finally! after two weeks of silence. today i signed another couple of forms and if i'm not mistaken the lawyers are going to be taking it from here. so that's very cool. in the meanwhile i'm going to put as much of my expenses on my credit card instead of my debit card, because my bank account is getting down to the wire and i should, theoretically, have received my first paycheck in time to not be in trouble...

i sat down at starbucks with my coffee, opened my kindle and grimaced at the low battery warning it flashed me. fortunately, it held until i was done.

when i came home i drafted a poem in response to high school shootings, which is looking pretty good so far, had that fight i posted about and went off to the gym.

so i guess i'm no longer really doing mma as such... just boxing, kickboxing and muay-thai. and yoga. i need to do yoga. the kickboxing class was pretty good, though i saw stars for a lot of it and scored myself nasty bump on my knee. at least i have someone to buy my head protector now that i'm no longer sparring.

i prepped a salad and took it to gd, where we had the talk i posted. we watched an episode or two of community before going to bed; i'd forgotten just how insanely brilliant the first season is! it's definitely worth re-watching.

---yesterday:

it was early when gd's alarm went off, it was cold outside, and raining, and cars were driving past the bedroom window. i can't tell you how wonderfully cosy i was under the blankets and how little i wanted to get out of bed :(
it didn't help that my butt was hurting again.

it's still hurting.

i wanted something i could turn my brain off to, and steve byrne: champion was almost it. only it was so offensively stupid and ugly that i couldn't make it through twenty minutes. i might have smiled a couple of times, that was about as funny as he got. i chased that with tekken, and got my ass kicked for a while before i had to leave to meet rabbit.

i headed to l'artère, and spent the next hour or two talking, criticizing or organizing. we finally figured out the logistics of the slam we're going to run and arranged the resources we need to get the job done properly :)

we visited a friend of rabbit's for a spell, then went to a vocal workshop she'd invited me to. the workshop was interesting and fun, i learned a lot and i was very glad for monday's singing lesson because it seriously helped :)

i stopped at harvey's for a burger on my way to gd's, and arrived in time to catch an interesting film, la marque des anges - miserere. i've heard the name gérard depardieu, but this is the first time i've actually paid attention to him as an actor. i can see why he's a thing.

i suffered a bit from rls for a short while, but it fortunately didn't last too long and i got to bed at a reasonable hour.

---today:

we had a nice, slow morning. i had an argument about #YesAllWomen which i'll discuss in its own post. gd was upset because she's trying to contact bureaucrats who don't answer their phones... i explained to her that this is not a local problem, but an international one :S

i was exhausted and we napped a bit, that bit not being nearly long enough. we ended up running late, one of the reasons being that i needed a quick trim before dressing nicely to sign the papers. it *is* nice having one's own stylist!

i dressed nicely, and it was so warm that i returned sweaty after about ten minutes in total. i can't wait to get there, figure out the dress code and buy summer-comfortable clothes. the code they described was remarkably unclear.

i started watching growing op and stopped after about fifteen minutes of "meh", then watched two episodes of chobits. chobits is cute, but weird. i don't know how i feel about it but i might watch a few more until i see where it's heading.

---google's prototype car? good job, google. good job!

if you don't want to waste time and money on business / management literature, read this instead.

poetry in motion

gd arrived just as i finished posting last night, and we discussed the issue with pulse. it's abso-bloody-lutely wonderful to be able to talk things out properly! we'd both been uncomfortable since our earlier discussion and we're both feeling good about things now. i made dinner while we talked, and once that was ready we sat down to watch in pursuit of happyness.

what a horrible movie! no, i mean it's a great movie, and a horrible, horrible story. i realize it's essentially a true story, but a lot of gardner's decisions were painful to watch.

---today:

we seriously overslept but the sleep was soooo good... unfortunately, the first act of the morning was blowing my nose and apparently tearing tissue in my nostril. it's really hurting :(

i arrived a bit late for my appointment with clam. it's an immigrant organization that's government run, but has a definitive refugee feel to it. as in, it feels like it's run by refugees, for refugees. i wasn't comfortable with the fact that they took all of my personal info to open a file for me just to answer a couple of questions. and those answers were not answered satisfactorily: i called up the immigration lawyer afterwards to double check and she explained to me why i'd been steered wrong.

later i'd receive an email from the recruitment agency with a suggestion along the same lines as clam's... but i just got off the phone with immigration canada (after a half-hour on hold) and they told me that what the lawyer said was correct. oh, man.

so i've asked the recruitment agency to inform the employer that there might be a delay and we'll see what happens.

---i'm less concerned about that than before before i got some good news - i passed the final interviews on tuesday! that's no guarantee of a job offer, but it's clearly positive and i'll hear back from them in a week. which should be more than enough time to figure out if this dream job is happening or not.

---i went to cafe l'artère to meet with rabbit, and we spent an unpressured few hours talking, criticizing and collaborating. some of the moments we shared were surreal; a couple of works she recited put me were literally stunning. i got some very interesting feedback, and what we walked out with might well be good for the finals in two weeks!

warm chills

i woke up this morning to a flood of positivity!

the first were messages from pulse, tuesday's date after whom i cancelled all the others i'd had lined up for the week. we've had multiple conversations going on at any time since before we even met and in person it was actually a psychological effort to not try to cover everything possible in the short time that we were physically together. we have plans for a romantic valentine's day date and i'm strangely comfortable with the fact that i've already been introduced to friends and been invited to ottawa with them.

airplane and i talked a lot when i was in cape town about a project he wants to do that he'd like me to write for. the project will only really begin in a few months but for a couple of weeks now i've had an idea rolling around that i shared with him yesterday morning. he was so inspired that this morning he shared a first draft image concept and it's so good it gave me chills! he was my first pick for illustrator and he puts the ones i've worked with so far to shame... the thing is that the underlying premise is very similar to the one i'm already working on (it's inspired by shakespeare), even if the mechanics are completely different; i'm praying that once his work is out he'll be convinced to invest time in mine. either way, this one is going to be a lot of fun!

...

i received a call back from the french class friend, they've received my resume but the permit wait time might be a problem. have i mentioned before that the bureaucracy here is not helping resolve the skills shortage? aota actually contacted me earlier to tell me i'm wrong, but i called the number she gave me and there's an automated message that specifically states what i thought :/

...

i'm still doing the running-nose-man a bit, but i'm definitely much better than i was this last week. it was a rough week!

---the poetry on sunday inspired me to scribble the quebec immigration song and my first throw poetry collective lie as i entered the metro. after minimum tweaking i'm already quite satisfied with the results :)

while going through those i decided that a poem i wrote a few months ago is also ready to be posted. it's been a good week for poetry :)

---monday:

vfmp made a great dinner, gave some of my poetry pretty constructive criticism (his english minor totally qualifies him) amd we played a couple of great games of fluxx before his boyfriend got home and we resumed watching house of cards. it's still fantastic, but watching the downward spiral of one of the characters is utterly unnerving and disturbing. the only downer of the evening was enjoying an amazing smoothie that vfmp's boyfriend made and dripping a purple drop near the top of my white hoodie :(

---tuesday:

my running-nose-man was already not as severe as before but still tough. i focused on french all day with nine inch nails in the background, and for the first time became certain that the caretaker - who i wrote a nice enough reference for - was fired, and lied to me to get the reference. so much for describing him as honest! though it's what i believed when i wrote it, if anyone does contact me about him now i'm not sure what i'll say.

---the date: i was not at all confident about this one, a combination of her style of questioning that seemed overly exuberant and her profile pictures that were attractive but left room for doubt. well, one look at her in real life and the latter worry fell away, and about two minutes with her and it became evident that i can drop "overly" from the former - she's just full of positive energy! and it's balanced by a sharp and highly-educated mind. it was really awkward being introduced to close family friends even before we'd got drinks in our hands, but i guess that's what happens when you agree to go to a performance where the singer's practically family! it was fancy ghetto, and while i barely understood what they were singing the music was excellent and the overall experience was pretty powerful! and pulse can do simultaneous translation, which is bloody impressive.

the performance was shorter than anyone expected, so we spent a while afterwards talking and we all like each other so that was cool. we then went looking for a good place for dinner / drinks, ending up at l'artère but deciding it wasn't quite right (it was empty, and their options weren't enticing) and moving along to the first bar we found. it was a real dive, but it didn't matter as we sat chatting and nursing whiskeys while the clock hands jealously kept spinning until it was time to head home.

i've gotten used to ending dates disappointed, and to be facing a beautiful girl saying the words i was thinking was actually a bit of a shock. in spite of the fact that my nose and chest weren't 100% - i must have been discrete enough in keeping that under control, i guess :P

---wednesday:

i focused on french all day, watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary on the habs and doing a lot of duolingo.

i went to the gym for boxing, but the coach abandoned us so after warming up and shadowboxing for a while i hit the punching bags and did a lot of good work. there's a fifteen year old kid who's been training with us for a few weeks and he's full of shit, he talks a lot and has very little work ethic. what's funny is that everyone in the gym takes turns babysitting him, and last night a few of us were entertaining ourselves for a while as we forced him to do proper push-ups and sit-ups and i introduced him to full pull-ups.
"you mean to tell me you can't do one single pull up, pyle?"

my shins were tender when i was done kicking the bags, but then i haven't actually used them in a while...

i got through most of downtown abbey's special: behind the drama before realizing that i was bored, so i switched to her. thank you, spike jonze, thank you! it's a great movie, and it reminded me of ruby sparks in a lot of ways.

i spent some time going through a list of songs pulse had compiled for me on grooveshark - i'd forgotten about grooveshark - and put together a modern-day mix-tape in response which appears to have been well-received :)

and then the day was over.

---linkage:

kenichi ebina: i'm pretty sure i've never seen this before. it's amazing! so this is what dancing to dubstep should be like...

52 amusing activist pick-up lines

facebook fraud: i think it's time somebody created a proper alternative to facebook. one that doesn't manipulate how we view each others' posts!

dallas sportscaster's response to michael sam coming out as gay: well said, sir, well said.

unemployment benefits

the true benefits of being unemployed? i had a bunch of things i needed to do today and i got them all done, with so little stress that i found plenty of opportunities to doze and i could take my time with lunch.

i woke up early-ish (9am) to move my dental appointment to a far more convenient time, then (hopefully) finished with the insurance cancellation that i began earlier. i took a deep breath and left the apartment, heading for the hospital.

there's something surreal about walking through a crowded hospital listening to tool's 10000 days album.

registering for the blood tests took far less time than previously, but the wait between registering and being called up was insanely long. i read a lot, i dozed a lot, and the latter was scary because they were calling the numbers in seemingly random order so i could totally have missed mine and never known... it was also difficult to avoid as the voice calling the numbers was so pleasant it made for a perfect lullaby...

the actual extraction took seconds, not minutes, and i went straight from there to my bank to sort something out. the wait was short and the teller informed me that my timing was spot-on :)
from there i headed to l'artère to see what their new vegan offerings were like. not a particularly impressive list, though what they did have was tasty. after a fair amount of time reading, eating and drinking coffee i made my way home.

stopping at walmart on the way to check out their laptops. i was quite disappointed, and decided to try the neighbourhood pc / security store before shopping online from best buy or future shop. it's a good thing i decided to take the metro (it's cold and windy) because it was just as i passed through the turnstyle that i registered that i'd left my book at the walmart while sorting out my tuque, gloves and pockets... so i had to hurry back, pick it up and then leave again :P

the store experience was pretty weird: i walked in, asked about laptops, gave my specs, and was asked if second-hand was okay. it took me less than two minutes to check it out and decide it was right, and i quickly paid and left carrying a decidedly inexpensive laptop that's got more than enough power for my needs. awesome!

i've been setting it up since i returned, it's pretty much done except for an annoying microphone issue, and then i'll be heading off to muay thai. big day!

lucky 13

ah! the perfect snooze once again. it makes it very difficult to get out of bed.

my day began with an exciting email: it looks like we have a real buyer for our apartment ^_^

i sorted out an onboarding issue on the weekend so that it wouldn't mess up my morning, but walked in to find a new it guy... surprise! he didn't make a bad first impression, but aside from the onboarding distraction he walks around with a cloud of halitosis :/

---"why wasn't i invited to the meeting?" i asked myself as i walked past a pow-wow that really needed my input. it was one of a number of things on my mind when i sat down with megaman to discuss the office discomfort. what he told me was very surprising, and while i didn't agree with all of it i certainly can see things from his and darn's point of view.

first, it's good to know that darn's issue with me isn't personal, and even though megaman understands what i've been dealing with on a managerial level he cannot justify my lack of direct, tangible contribution to the project. if i have to prove myself, and it's by neglecting my other responsibilities, then that's what i'll do. the cards are all on the table and while i'm upset that the two of them didn't think to explain the situation previously i'm happy to report that their behaviour following our discussion was professional and even comforting.

even darn came by at the end of the day - after 10pm - and we had a respectful and frank conversation which put everything in line. there are some big issues that concern me, in particular with newk'd, and i don't know how to proceed and i think i might've handled him badly in the afternoon. the insight into the office politics that are slowly developing wasn't enjoyable either - we're relying on moonlighter and competing with him simultaneously :(

at the end of the day i have to get *my* shit together vis-a-vis the current project and i'll be damned if i let that slip.

i didn't leave until i'd made serious progress, and i walked out enthusiastic and confident after almost exactly thirteen hours in the office, most of which were spent sitting down in front of my monitor. i'd forgotten what that feels like, and my legs had apparently forgotten too 'cause they were pretty stiff and sore.

thirteen is pg's favourite number, and after a couple of years with her i've pretty much adopted it.

---no more vegan at l'artère?? i ordered what i thought was couscous, and a chicken pie arrived. i knew it was chicken because i looked at the board and realized that i'd read the salad section instead of the meal section when ordering the meal of the day. i figured it was my bad and decided to eat it, but was upset when i took a bite and tasted cheese.

i went up to the counter to ask if it was cheese, which wasn't listed on the board, and the waitress said no. i returned, wondering suspiciously as i slowly raised another piece to my lips... what is it, if not cheese?

the chef jumped out from behind a pillar to inform me that he'd overheard my conversation with the waitress and that she'd misunderstood. he said that in french, actually, so i had to ask him to repeat it, but he then offered to replace the pie and he did so with gusto. gusto being the couscous i hadn't ordered. so i had a salad with my salad, enjoyed the coffee, and listened to the chef explain that the vegan menu isn't gone, it's just being overhauled. overall he made a good case for returning soon to find out how that goes.

---good on you, boulder! sounds like a good fight for a green economy, and there's time for us all to pitch in a little.

colin stokes discusses education in culture and is nothing short of inspirational. give the man a few minutes of your time.