manic for sure

i was a long day, most of it a bit unpleasant. in addition to our network going down repeatedly (making most of us quite useless and frustrated), imperieux and i being locked out of our office for over half an hour because of a "five minute" phone call, being asked by megaman if i ever went to school (i think he was trying to be funny, but it came across shockingly condescending) and experiencing an otherwise meaningless lunch fail that had most of the development team laughing at me (not with me), i was really tired both physically and mentally and the coffee didn't help at all.

oh, yes: and aota and i had to take newk'd aside an give him an official warning for repeated tardiness. not cool.

i did have a very positive conversation with the cto, though, and it looks like work and an external interest just combined in my favour.

---i was exhausted by the time i met with metro, and so my pitch really wasn't as enthusiastic as usual. even so, she seems as professional as she is interested, she's definitely more experienced than mason, and she'll be available to get on things in about two weeks. and we totally agree on attitude towards the project! very cool. i have a good feeling about this.

kickboxing:
i did see gg between classes, and i think i made things awkward. without actually saying anything, so i guess there's a good chance that i was just being awkward all by myself. in any event the training was solid.

after showering i began my mars one application. trippy! and now that i've read through the faq i know exactly what my video needs to look like. and that if their criteria are to be believed i actually stand a good chance!

...

i suddenly found myself bouncing up and down to the music, and i've been on a crazy high since.

...

i spent the following couple of hours playing with node.js. node.js is awesome.

---i discovered today that i'm not the only one enjoying the summer but missing the snowboarding.

complimentary

well, well, well. two good things happened today.

the first being a response from mason apologizing and explaining the issues. he doesn't want to stop, so i explained my attitude and invited him to meet with me either tomorrow or on the weekend to figure out how we'll proceed. interesting that i just received a link in the mail to an illustrator's description of his work that ties in with what's happening.

the second being a rather nice compliment from megaman. after explaining to him what i'd designed (and had an intern set up after a few tries) i could almost see the lightbulb flash. "that's sick shit," he said. i didn't expect those words to pop out, but they made me feel much better than anything "managerial" would have ^_^

on a similar note, i've been in montreal almost nine months already, and i'm beginning to receive solicitations from headhunters that are getting closer and closer to where i want to be :)

---after wearing myself out with interviews and spending half an hour managing from home, i headed out to the clinic. it was pouring with rain - it would pour with rain the entire day - so i hopped on a bus that took its time. facing a dumpy, garishly-dressed middle-aged woman who picked her nose constantly. i tried looking anywhere else, but try as i might out of the corner of my eye i kept catching her rolling whatever she found into little balls and dropping them on the floor.

the medical building is really badly signed, and when i finally found the offices i was seeking i was certain i was in the wrong place. inexplicably, the heating was on much higher than the rest of the building (and it wasn't cold outside!), and i had to wait two turns before i could ask where i'd gotten to. i made an appointment to see the dermatologist... in mid-july. crud. i guess i'll have to see a regular physician first if my paranoia doesn't go away or i discover that i really do have a problem.

---the longest part of the workday involved me actually falling asleep during an online demo because the guy presenting to us was marginally less interesting and engaging than watching paint peel. he droned on and on, and was so bad that his partner was riveting by comparison even though she was monotonous too.

i was concerned about all the "containerizing" that was going on. that sounds violent to me.

---i got home just in time to get ready for training. kickboxing was... tough. tough because i have so many technique issues that i need to correct, and tough because my left wrist is a bit buggered from a while back and every time i land a good shot it really hurts me, and tough because after yesterday's training my body wasn't responding well to the best of my intentions.

one of the amazonians (the one i accidentally violated) was quite friendly towards me this evening. after class she felt faint, and i was glad to have some experience to draw on so that i could be helpful...

---i must be a hypochondriac: those health issues i didn't want to talk about seem to be winding down, and the inexplicable tiredness seems to have gone away as soon as i started eating better, so now i'm stuck with ringworm fears? makes sense.

social sonnets

inspired by the social network, i went to bed envisioning a conspiracy theory involving mason running off with my ideas to pen the comic without me - possibly instigated by moonlighter. [dammit! why did i tell him his name?]

i hope i'm just being ridiculous, but either way i've just found myself losing sleep over it and that's not how successful projects begin.

my email:
Hi mason, I hope you're well.

It is with deepest regret that I send you this email. Your unwillingness to communicate with me after I have entrusted you with my discovery and my documents is both hurtful and not at all in the spirit of collaboration.

I cannot understand why you are doing this but this is something so important to me that I'm losing sleep over it. This is not how I envisioned embarking on such a wonderful, world-shaking and potentially lucrative project, and although I really like you and I love your illustration I cannot see how this could possibly work.

If you are interested in pursuing, at the very least you could discuss with me whatever concerns you may have. As I said before, the first part of the project is to figure out a process for collaboration.

If you are not interested, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know. I sincerely hope that that's not the case.

Yours faithfully,

totalwaste

ugh. now to try and sleep.

muay thai early

there was actual sunlight coming through my windows this morning, so waking up was considerably easier.

ringworm? it's been more than a couple of days and i don't see serious symptoms... yet. unless itching counts, but apparently it's supposed to be a thing within a couple of days. but it's still possible: with the way i sleep, if i do have an outbreak somewhere it'll be everywhere in short order. this worries me.

listening to eminem on the metro this morning: i find his lyrics pretty darn inspirational. not in terms of their content, but in terms of their ambition. he balances preaching, confessing and expressing so well when he's not pandering. i mean entertaining :P

comics: i sent nocence a message explaining my reservations and she seems to understand... let's see if it translates well to mason. otherwise he's not for us.

work: a long day of managing, finally getting around to the stuff from friday just before leaving early for muay thai. the cto basically finished it for me, so all i had to do was test, document and pass on. i'm not disappointed.

---i arrived at the muay thai class with no idea what to expect. people were warming up, then they weren't, there didn't appear to be an instructor. then suddenly everyone was running. for about twenty minutes. no different exercises, some of the guys would randomly do things like side-stepping and so i did a bit too. then the instructor magically appeared and was lining us up to begin to drill us with exercises that had us all - me, the first-timer, and the big, bad, experienced guys too - wheezing and sore and dripping with sweat.

the next hour was just crazy.

i walked out of there on a crazy high (assisted a little by the warm reception of my repeating one of moshe kasher's jokes about fighting) and went home to shower, quaff a protein shake*, walk to the cash machine with an energy drink and hurriedly return to boxing.

* sunwarrior's raw vegan shakes are pretty good. i liked them with water, soy and almond milk. i probably should drop my soy intake a little, and i thought almond milk would be a good replacement but at 1g protein per glass (versus 7g for soy) i'm quite disappointed.

boxing was quite relaxed compared to muay thai. i do have a long way to go before i level up to the advanced class, though.

---prism scares me. as i pointed out to someone today, there is a vast difference between my allowing google and facebook et. al. to use my personal information to provide me with better service and any government using that same information to spy on me. the secret war on personal freedom has been reported, and is now open war.

i'm finally considering doing the tor thing. i'm also wondering about moving all my data offshore. only, who can one trust to manage it, if not oneself? thanks, google, for not being evil. really. </sarcasm>

fine, nystire, you were right all along.

scribbles iv

i've just got in from a 6km zombie run, with karnivool between incidents and psychological background noise concerning the comics consuming me. i'm working with two people who i'm hoping that i can trust, and there are things going on that do not fit in with how i see this happening but in a sense it's already out of my hands. and i don't like that at all.

but i can't draw very well, so i need this to work. so i'll play the game, and pray that everything's going to be alright. the specific incident concerns nocence and i both talking to mason and not synchronizing, and apparently he feels i'm being pushy but nobody (including him) told me. either way, i don't think it's pushy to want to meet more than once a week or communicate via email or whatnot, and i think that considering that this whole project is my baby i have a certain right to be involved a bit more.

---saturday:

1. a long, late sleep that i really needed.

2. general tiredness in spite of aforementioned sleep.

3. on my way to best buy i stopped by source and the sales dude did an awful job of convincing me to get sony in-ear headphones (mdr-ex10lp if you care). i decided to go for them in spite of him. he asked if i wanted to purchase the extended warranty and as usual i said no, but when the other sales guy shook his head to indicate the stupidity of my decision i asked him why.
"what happened to your previous headphones?"
"the cable's fucked. as always happens."
"exactly. with this warranty, when it happens just come in a swap them out."
ooooooooooh.

why can't somebody design headphones that can't pull like that?!

anyway, the quality is so much better than anything i've used in years! i walked along the highway and could barely hear the vehicles passing, and the bass sounds good. it was dreamy ^_^

4. i stopped at starbucks for a large soy latte and some sketching time. i made some progress and was then joined by horseman. i showed him malice in wonderland (the trippy, totally nsfw animated short) by way of explaining what shakespeare's imagery does in my head, and when he got it he described something he'd been looking at in the same style. perhaps after the comics we'll make a short of all the crazy that isn't appropriate for them.

5. horseman joined me as i did some quick shopping on my way home, and was impressed by my fallout setup. even better - he has tekken 6. he's promised to bring it over sometime.

6. after playing a bit of fallout, i watched tom rhodes. he's pretty darn funny! and chased that with star trek iv before going to bed. meh. a couple of good lines, but not impressive.

---sunday:

1. a long chat with my toronto cousins.

2. lunch with godmother and yin and a couple of her friends who came over to see her. yin's looking okay, at least, although her legs are screwed :(

one of her friends is studying literature and we talked about a few things; what was really weird is that she's cute, but there's a definite shared look and mannerisms with the witch. it was like meeting the professor's younger self, and finding her at all attractive was a little creepy.

3. as i left the day became beautiful - for the first time in ages - and so i walked to the metro. on the way i stopped in at the health food store for a long chat about probiotics, and i was talked out of buying supplements as i'm not experiencing any issues. i took a couple of samples for different protein powders (and ordered a sample of another one), then returned home.

4. laundry. and using laundry as an excuse to watch star trek v. certainly better than the previous episode, although less fun and not particularly amazing. now that i think about it, perhaps i've been ruined by the space quest series...

5. the run. and posting this. and now it's late and i *must* make dinner and get some rest. *ahem* watch another movie.

---the one way mission to mars seems legit. and sounds like it'd be a great way for me to participate in our great escape! i do believe i have what it takes, and i've prepared a short speech for an application video.

but.

is it for real?
i mean, looking at some of the applications i'm not sure...

scribbles i

damn. i don't want to write posts anymore because i don't feel like i have the time. but i can't not, with my info ocd.

---wednesday:

1. birds singing, wrapped in sheets and re-dreaming [dreaming dreams i've dreamed before]

2. sleeping on the metro to tool - reflection

3. botswana demo crisis: again. how is it this man doesn't learn not to come to us with a malfunction just as everyone's leaving the day before a morning demo? this one averted by agreeing with megaman that we don't respond.

4. walking into jock's cubicle just in time to catch him saying "i hate you" to his phone and put it down. i couldn't get my hate poem out of my head for the next two days.

5. what on earth reminded me of spot the braincell? [this link is to a version slightly different to the one in my head, but that's because i memorized my brother's audio collection]

6. ringworm paranoia after the previous day's training: ever since my mma partner told me about it, i've been itching all over. i'm pretty sure it's psychosomatic, as i don't see any signs of anything. i've been looking to purchase rash guards, but i can't figure out what the right style is for me.

7. i spent the day knocking off items from my to-do list that have been accumulating over the past couple of months. it was incredibly cathartic!

8. mason made contact, apparently he'd lost his phone. later he sent me a draft for the cover, and it's good.

9. tracking my intake with fitday has helped me get into a routine; i'm now consuming a lot more calories and my protein intake's averaging double!

10. it's grand prix week, and a few of us agreed to meet up at crescent street to partake in the celebrations. i rushed laundry, shopped and snacked before heading out. i was falling asleep waiting for horseman to show up, but a good cup of coffee took care of that. before meeting up with the others the two of us walked around talking music and rapping: he's setting his digs up as a studio this summer and wants to get busy producing. i'm all in!

crescent street was still being set up, although it was filled with beautiful locals. we went to peel instead. my dinner, once again, was beer and fries (it's becoming a thing, and i like it). we all had a great time, and i was amused when jock's friend asked who i am and he didn't know how to respond.
"he's my... boss? he can't be my boss."
i am, but i'm glad that i don't set off the traditional "boss" flags. one's team should feel comfortable sharing everything, in my opinion, while still respecting one's authority.

two of us almost missed the last trains, but fortunately we ran quickly enough. i was quite tipsy; i spent the entire ride working on memorizing preacher.

radio silence

i can't tell you i'm not concerned that mason hasn't been in contact since an sms response last night. i wouldn't be that concerned if he hadn't told me that he'd start working on it today and would try to be in contact as much as possible. otherwise, i've been ridiculously excited about everything!

aota warned me against it, but i couldn't resist informing moonlighter that i found someone - he told me that he actually had an illustrator he thought would be good for me, but who's swamped with his own stuff at the moment. he was kind enough to offer to proof-read for us, and that's kind of useful coming from a comic publisher.

---yesterday i had trouble getting out of bed, today i managed to get up but i was completely exhausted. it was so bad i even found it difficult to get through my morning coffee.

positive work day: problem solving is my game, and it felt great to have the cto agree with my plan instead of stepping around me as he's been doing for the past couple of months. additionally, i finally managed to restore a critical system that he and moonlighter broke a while back. it actually felt strange to see it operational and correct, and heartwarming to get congratulatory and grateful emails from my team :P

---jock told a great story that i have to share:

a former employer of his, when faced with a stack of resumes will throw half of them out without even looking at them. because he doesn't want to employ anyone who's unlucky.

it makes sense, it's completely wrong, and i find it highly amusing.

---jiu-jitsu training was excellent, and would have been much better if my partner hadn't put the fear of ringworm into me. apparently it's a thing when wrestling. not cool.

i helped out with the previous kickboxing class by volunteering to even the class out for conditioning, continued with their cool-down exercises and went straight into the warm-up of the beginners' class. it was a good class, and the advantage of being the most experienced was being used for demonstrations and getting important personal corrections that might have been missed in the intensity of the advanced classes.

cooling yet warmer

the day began with a lot of snoozed alarms while the cool rain pattered along to my dreams.

monday pre-coffee mayhem lasted over an hour and a half, but i was calm and collected... or dispassionate... and eventually things started to make sense. i had one important job to do and nobody let me alone long enough to do it until 5pm, and by 5.15 i was out of there to meet with mason.

---a friend of megaman's started working today, and he's the guy i interviewed a while back and quite like. there was something really suspicious about seeing the two of them talking non-stop in megaman's office for ages. i know they're friends, but the sense that he's putting together a private team and an inside takeover is hard to shake.

---as a soldier i was once asked where my extra weight is hiding when i told a cook i was over 80kg in order to get an extra portion (i've maintained about 85kg since i started taekwondo in 2000-2001). i was talking to jock about weight today and he asked me the same question in the same tone; a short time later the right answer struck me:

it's in my ego. *my* soul weighs significantly more than the 21g everyone else carries around.

---i met up with nocence and mason at the metro and we sat down at a cool little coffee shop where mason proceeded to blow me away with his drawings and we discussed the details of how we're going to proceed.

we're beginning at the beginning, with the cover art (one of the most important aspects, funnily enough), the inscriptions (more interesting than you'd expect), and the first three panels. i can't tell you how excited i am to see this fantasy of mine taking its first steps! and it seems to me like he's pretty damn quick, and that i was right to think that collaborating on the design decisions would be optimal.

boxing was tough and fun tonight, i've been productive this evening and as i go to bed fitday reports that i'm actually net positive on calories and have consumed a greater than satisfactory quantity of protein today. and the clock reports that i'm going to bed a lot later than i should be. but i'm super-stoked so that's alright :)

weekend flash

back to the rest of thursday:

discovering that jock's "mixed" (i think "mulatto" isn't politically correct) was a bit of a surprise: he really does come across as the all-american (even though he's canadian) caucasian ideal. cool.

so, training was hardcore. i actually winded myself towards the end of the endurance / power training in the ring; my partner had already kicked me so hard during his turn that even with a giant pad between us it was the same as conditioning and i was hurting. the man's 49 and a tank, when he asked me my age he made me feel as if in reality our numbers were switched.

i don't think i'd agree to spar with him. not unless i level up a few more times. he told me, and he's right, that i need to learn to pace myself better.

instead of eating dinner, i went downtown to meet aota for drinks. we sat on a loud sidewalk nursing pints and fries, and aside from very loud drunks wandering out from the beer festival it was a cool evening.

nocence messaged me about a potential illustrator - i didn't want to get too excited, but it was certainly positive news :)

---friday:

i woke up feeling the previous evening: it was totally worth it. that *good* semi-hungover bright morning sunlight streaming in while slowly getting ready for work in a daze.

i had a very positive experience with amazon web services, not hurt by my demolishing a delicious vegan-friendly dessert aota had picked up from the bakery while i was working on them. the weather was fantastic, and my lunch break walk outside was highly enjoyable. i got all excited when i found a protein supplement called hemp pro 50, but learned very quickly that it's the foulest-tasting thing on the market! it tastes like licking a dirty handrail in a cowshed. i managed to get down half of it, and then spent the next hour trying to forget the taste.

happy hour: i read preacher to the group because jock's comments about lupe fiasco had inspired it, only megaman was there and i think he was shocked by my language. i usually don't curse in my poetry, but the voice in the poem isn't mine. only i didn't think to mention that.

newk'd, jock and i played pool for a while. really good pool, it was a lot of fun!

it was hot and i was sweaty when i got home, so i had a quick shower and couldn't figure out what i wanted to do. only, i knew that i wanted to be outside. so i put on my running shorts, strapped on my iphone and activated zombies, run! for the first time in ten months. my knee is still a little sensitive so i'm trying to improve my form. that's why i'm not going fast enough to be chased...

i watched the raid redemption (excellent! similar feel to dredd) and then got stuck into fitday. fitday freaked me out when it informed me that on average i'm consuming 1500 calories less than i should be. i don't know what made me think that posting that information on facebook was a good idea. it would take me until this morning to find a reliable source to make me feel like i'm doing alright.

---saturday:

urchin finally responded to my hails, and what she had to say blew me away. she's currently in the middle of a half a year of pretty severe cancer treatment and she's had nobody to talk to about it - she's even kept it a secret from her family. i kind of understand why, but oh my gods (O_o)
at least she's finally talking to me about it...

i didn't manage to stop thinking about that for most of the day, except during the two hours of magic that was to come. i met up with nocence at l'artere and we waited for mason, but due to a miscommunication he was waiting for us at cagibi. no matter, it was a short walk on a nice day. the introduction was comfortable and although my explanation was all over the place, he didn't just follow but actually participated in what became a discussion about where this is all going. he knows enough to follow what i'm doing, and his art style is detailed and dark which is absolutely perfect. we're meeting up tomorrow after work to see if we can produce something ^_^

i took a walk to fbdm (the montreal comic festival) stopping for a sandwich at la casa del popolo to try and get my head around the meeting that had taken place. i was so excited! but after i left i began to feel the oppressive heat and my stomache got irritable and my bag weighed down on me... even so, la fontaine park was a wonderful experience - it's my new favourite place in montreal! masses of all sorts of people doing such very different things, most just relaxing on towels as if it's a beach. very cool :)

the comics tent was too crowded for my state of discomfort and i returned home to crash on the couch, eventually waking up feeling like i had heatstroke. i definitely spent a lot longer in the sun than i'd intended... but i was feeling good, kind of, so i guess it was primarily dehydration which i sorted out quickly enough.

it was so hot that i had to shower twice, the second one being a shockingly cold one. hello, summer!

i watched star trek iii, which was a lot of fun, and then two hours of highlights from 2012's ufc fights.

by then it was very late. i'd done laundry and forgotten to replace my sheets, but now that it's summer and i've packed away the duvet that wasn't such a mission.

---sunday:

the thunderstorm that began the night before was still lingering in the morning, and that broke a few of the plans for the day. which worked out well, actually. i went to walmart to buy a fan, had lunch and slapped on sunscreen to return to fbdm. i was scheduled to meet with nocence and mason there, but when i arrived at the mont-royal metro station i received a message saying they weren't coming after all.

i didn't really feel like going alone, and nocence invited me to jean talon market to show me a couple of health stores she recommends. good call! i bought a whole box of clif builder bars and one of these. i probably won't buy those in bulk because they're not as good as the builders protein-wise, but my gods, it's an exquisitely delicious chocolate bar that's vegan and has a decent amount of protein in it. who needs mars bars or snickers?!

seriously, it's crazy good.

i went for another run when i got back home because i didn't have time to go to the gym as i'd planned, and i got back certain that my sunscreen had stopped working too early. i'm not burned, but i definitely got more colour than i wanted.

i headed to godmother's for dinner. it was perfect weather for a barbeque and to eat dinner outside! absolutely lovely. we ignored my uncle's bad behaviour and had a jolly good evening, the food was good and i ate *just* too much... and i've been invited to go over for cooking lessons if i can only figure out how to time such a thing.

when i left it was 9.15, twilight, and the weather had cooled down to "just right" - perfect for a stroll to the metro station. the walk was nothing short of grand! although... two cute girls rollerbladed past me and they looked like they were struggling. when i caught up to them a few minutes later (they'd stopped for a rest) i asked if they were beginners, and when they answered in the affirmative i explained to them that they need to bend their knees and lean forward: advice i give to anyone who doesn't do it. only, i think i should have sugar-coated it a little. like "you're doing well" or "you're looking good" before offering not-necessarily wanted advice. i hope they didn't feel as awkward about it afterwards as i did.

it's been a simple evening online, mostly posting this while being distracted by all sorts of other things (like fitday), and now i do believe it's high time that i get myself into bed.

a meeting of minds

my world is spinning: nocence found an illustrator who's talented and who's genuinely interested in working with us. and after two hours talking, i feel like we speak the same language.

we begin this week.

i am very, VERY excited.