just passing through part ii

[... continued]

i met up with aota and we stopped for amazing chinese (where k-twang and his fiancée took me in 2010). we then arrived just in time for lorraine klaasen's miriam makeba tribute. which became a madiba tribute. aota "informed" me that he'd passed away, which shocked me because i hadn't heard anything. which makes sense, because he hadn't. either way it was a very moving performance and made me a bit homesick*. it was really nice to see so many people visibly captivated by makeba's music.

* i guess that's a part of why i finally got around to watching some of have you heard from johannesburg. it's well worth the $5, especially if you don't know much about apartheid.

we walked on to some bloody good blues by steve strongman, who made sure to let us know that he'd won a juno this year. the crowd was fantastic, loads of people dancing and good vibes all round.

i returned home on the metro with my laundry basket. that felt weird. i didn't want to work on a saturday night so i ignored the urgent emails in my inbox.

---sunday:

a peaceful start to the day. i caught the caretaker's wife and paid my rent early, did a quick shop at walmart which demanded a highway walk that was very pretty indeed. i learned about 1 dollar scans and i think i'll give them a try.

interested to hear what the headhunter has to offer, i spent some time updating my cv and answering her questions, then proceeded to fail to get the urgent work done (our systems are a mess at present and my macbook's not making anything easier) and upset the cto in the process. i was really upset about that before remembering that i don't need to stress about any of this. i've done my best and if it's not good enough then screw it, i'll walk.

so it became a $#@% everything day. i went to piknic electronik and thoroughly enjoyed the "guru" floor - pursuit grooves makes serious magic!

the moog floor just wasn't quite as fun as the previous week. the highlight was a cute girl trashed on e (but, like, classically, like we used to get once upon a time with the jaw exercises and everything) who was excited by my tattoo.

so i left early for an easy, early night watching ufc fights.

---monday:

another slow morning (oh, happy canada day!) started with ufc's gsp vs condit. WOW!

i tried to sort out my mouth guard. "boil and bite" my ass, three tries following the instructions (and a few youtube videos) and when i open my mouth the guard sticks to my lower teeth. fan#$@%!tastic >_<

---i've been wondering about this for weeks now: why do i make onomatopoeia-ic sounds when i strike? why can't i just hiss like a normal person? imagine me kicking you. now imagine me shouting "POW!" as i do it.

i do that every time.

---i spent my day getting into node.js. i've definitely got a handle on the basics, but there're some elusive concepts that i need to get my head around before i really get my teeth into it. like, for instance, the relationship between file names and objects.

i went over to horseman to play a board game with him and nocence. and teach them a bit about beat construction. the board game was cashflow, and it's more fun than monopoly :)

---scrapper sent me a link to rat park, it's very good indeed. please read it! it's not only well drawn but educational too.

happiness is a cool thunderstorm

wanna know how i know i want to live in montreal?

i arrived at piknic where the sun was shining, there was a cool breeze to counter the otherwise hot and humid day, the music was groovy and all the beautiful people (seriously, how are there so many??) were enjoying a perfect monday afternoon.

and then it started to cloud over. really fast. and suddenly there were drops of rain. MORE people came onto the dance floor! the more rain, the more excitement, shirts came off (one guy undressed to a mankini, it was hilarious) and the tempo increased with the bass. the crowd went nuts when it began to pour and when a rough wind came up there was a stream of defiant whoops until it backed off again, and there were crazy happy smiles all around when the lightning began.

we continued like that until, a long while later, the sun came out for a gorgeous sunset.

yes. that's how i know :)

---i've been out of food for two days, and the laundry was piling up. all the regular stores were closed today to celebrate saint jean-baptiste / quebec day, so i wasn't sure what to do. i headed to jean talon market, bought two boxes of clif builder bars (ordering vegan creatine along the way, that's an important supplement too) and had lunch with nocence, who's taking the language oppression thing really hard and is now seriously considering leaving quebec. i find it amusing that montreal takes enough pride in little italy to erect very pretty stonework and signs all over the place but doesn't appreciate them actually speaking italian.

i had a very leafy lunch because little italy doesn't do vegan, and it wasn't bad. then i returned home to struggle with laundry. at first i had to wait for ages to use the machine, and when i finally got my turn and my laundry was ready for the dryer i discovered that some old bat had been hoarding wet clothes and had taken it over. and today, there was only one dryer.

i guess it was a good excuse to rest and read a little.

as soon as that was done, i shaved and showered (i would've needed to shower anyway, it was so humid!) and headed to the piknic. priority one: find the girl from last night. failed in that, i think i saw her at one point but if it was her then she was making a point of not being anywhere near me. priority two: have a good time. that wasn't very hard ^_^

the only spoke in my wheel of ecstasy* was when some jerk stood right next to me and loudly shared with his friend just how much of a jerk he is over the music. as if that wasn't bad enough, he then made a really antisemitic remark and while a part of me wanted to respond another part kept saying "there's a time and a place". so i went somewhere else, and later when i saw him with his arm around some girl i felt very sorry for her.

* funny, some guy came up to ask me if i had any.

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...

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.

patriotic days

today was patriot's day, and i'm pretty happy that it made for a long weekend. i've just watched an episode of death note after experiencing a surprise breakthrough with my comics and thesis, and i'm definitely ready for bed so i'm going to try to get through this post as quickly as possible.

---sunday:

studying for the driver's (not that i'm worried, but it'd be nice to be fully confident) has made correcting my eyesight a little more urgent. so i've now contacted two clinics to see what they're about.

i had to wait days to register for my medical insurance website because they send your details in the mail, even though they're details you already have. it's very bureaucratic. i then waited a few days more because i never had the time or energy to log in and sort my shit out. until yesterday! i registered successfully, but then it wouldn't accept the password that i'd just entered and i'm now locked out of my account.

bastards!

i caught pg for a chat and i felt bad afterwards because she sounded miserable by the end of a call that was essentially me asking her to help me out with my apartment. fortunately the emails she sent today were more positive, i really don't want to antagonize her. [whoops! i totally forgot her birthday today. *sigh*]

i spent a fair amount of time studying french; i should be a daily thing but i never get that right :(

note to self: soft tofu is a menace and not worth the effort required to handle it. it's amazing how it can flop precisely where you don't want it to every single time.

i thought i was feeling better, but i woke up from a short nap feeling like death. in a trance i hurried to meet up with horseman. there was a guy in the metro planking at the end of the platform. a few people were staring and laughing, he didn't let up until the train came. i thought about strolling up beside him and joining him, wondering if a chain would form, but it was highly probable that he'd find my intrusion offensive.

the afternoon at cagibi was great, nocence joined us, and later we moved to her place to discuss poetry and hip-hop at length. aside from my suddenly beginning to feel horrible, on my way out nocence and i had a gross misunderstanding that was related to my being partially aspie.
"that's the sort of thing you have to tell people upfront if you want to collaborate with them!"
umm. maybe? it's not something i think about all the time.

the night was post-rain and cool, with cool city rain smells.

---today:

i woke up still feeling awful, but i went through the motions of doing laundry anyway. once i was done i checked to see if my clinic would be open (it was a holiday). they would! i headed down there to see a doctor because i've been feeling bad for almost two weeks. and those issues i went for last time still aren't resolved...

... so i arrived there and it was closed. closed, closed, closed. wtf?! i headed back to the metro and found myself on the train going in the wrong direction. i decided to go with it and head to the picnik electronik to pick up my season pass, stopping for food along the way.

i began to overheat and sweat bullets while the red cross dude spoke to me about donations; i started to worry that i had a fever. i guess i didn't? i introduced myself to chez geek, who do boardgame pick-ups every thursday evening, then walked into commensal. it was a little confusing at first, but overall i like the place and the food was decent and decently vegan. i had an issue with my "live" tea - some weird woo thing, i guess - which seemed to be infused with vigor every time i tried to unscrew the cap. i got the impression that it was trapped and trying to escape, and it took me most of ten minutes before i could get the cap off and drink it. by that time my hands were sticky with the short bursts that i didn't manage to catch :P

i entered the street illegally just as i noticed a policeman standing on the other side, and tried to pull off nonchalance as i continued to cross. no matter, he was about to jay-walk too :P

i've come to the conclusion that i get much more done with my comics over coffee in a coffee shop environment. i'm very excited about today's starbucks progress ^_^

i arrived early for the picnik without a picnic, and just sort of milled around for a while. i used the opportunity to send an introductory email to a great artist that nocence wants me to work with, and i hope it entices him to meet me!

the music was a bit crap at first, but it got progressively better. eventually i removed my shoes and got a bit dirty, i was surprised to recognize a girl from the last time (in 2010) and i saw yang for a couple of minutes before i disappeared. it was on my way out that aota's daughter's friend walked in with someone else; i didn't recognize her (she looked better than i remembered) and she said hi but didn't stop. which i found weird considering that aota had messaged me last night to say that she wanted to meet me there...

...

right, past time for bed. as usual.

a crocodile's enthusiasm

zomg - i got in from boxing feeling like an absolute BEAST! after expending all my energy and then some, i still felt like i could get in a ring and pull off some crazy shit. it might just be the ego boost from having proved to myself (even if nobody else was watching) that i'm totally ready for the advanced class. also, i'm not the only one who's noticed that i've gotten bigger over the last few weeks: both newk'd and our it guy commented on it this morning.

did i not mention feeling like arnold schwarzenegger in twins when he bursts his shirt sleeves? this is some good shit!

on another note, every time i come home after training i drink a glass of cold orange juice, and it's *SO* perfect that it's really distressing finishing it. every time.

---sunday:

i woke up yesterday morning from dreams involving navigating through a swamp across the backs of crocodiles. i wasn't feeling good - these issues i've been skirting around - and i used my suffering-and-can't-sleep time to do laundry.

i headed out to (finally) get myself clothing for summer, it was a beautiful day and i was dreading shopping. i was going to take godmother's advice and was on my way to old navy, but as i was passing by rockland mall anyway i decided to check out sport experts first. on my way i passed foot locker, and noticed a couple of pairs of shoes that seemed like possible fits.

sport experts: holy crap! i found pants that are *precisely* what i was looking for: slightly baggy, more or less respectable, good pockets and comfortable for sport and the office. SCORE!! a little expensive, but so's everything...

i couldn't find shorts that made me happy, though, and so instead of compromising i left and checked out foot locker. what the hell? they have shorts? their own brand of shorts? and they're AWESOME?! i bought two pairs, found a great pair of reasonably priced nike's - the first pair i tried looked good and fit perfectly - and i was done!

after such quick, slick shopping i rewarded myself by finding a decidedly good tofu meal at sukiyaki, stopped at walmart for a couple more training shirts and then had nothing to do but read and rest until meeting nocence and horseman.

on the way there i got a little lost in a cool area. i was struck by the thought that a smoker is just like a car whose rings are shot.

we walked a long way in the wrong direction to find coffee, then hit the park. after a little bit of meta i got into the meat of the subject, and i'm extremely pleased that after a couple of years studying with my advisor and contemplating the sonnets i actually have enough of a grasp not only of shakespeare's works, but of his life and the world in which he lived that i can go on and on for hours sharing details and infecting others with my enthusiasm. all aboard!

i think i got a little too much sun, and that's having used sunscreen :/

we carried on talking into the night, and i got home pretty late. i ate a lot more than i wanted because i have good food in the fridge that'll go bad if i don't. that's not cool :(

---monday:

it was a smooth monday morning. i was surprised to discover that buying a bag of vega smoothie powder is less value for money than getting a bunch of regular protein bars. i was also disappointed to find that only one of the frozen meals i like was available, and i don't want to eat the same shit every day :(

after a horror story in which i accidentally deployed a half-finished change to production and frantically searched for the backup to restore it, i took a break for lunch and finished what i was doing. while triple-checking before testing, i discovered that moonlighter had once again made changes directly to production without informing anyone or reflecting those changes in the svn. i called him up to make sure that i'd understood what happened correctly, and basically what i got from him was a big "f*** you".

i was so frustrated and i couldn't say anything to him, and all i wanted to do was see him in person and crack his jaw. he might have been partially responsible for my excess energy for training. i might have imagined his face while beating the crap outta the punching bag.

i worked late, and left as soon as the first test passed. it took me about half an hour to write the testing framework that i'd instructed cam2 to write, only this time i did it according to the specification and it didn't take two weeks to produce nothing.

*shakes head*

shit, i spent more time failing his reviews than i did writing the damned thing myself...

---i've never heard lupe fiasco before yesterday, and he's really, really good. immortal technique too.

weekend heat

friday:

strip search has totally broken the reality show format and remade it beautifully. friday's episode was so exciting and cathartic!
***SPOILER ALERT***
for those who've watched it: did anyone else enjoy the pun in "come from behind victory"? it would have been good if either of them had won…
***END SPOILER***

dress code! that's broken too. i was all stressed about it, but i decided that friday was the perfect day to test my colleagues. i wore a t-shirt and my 1999 mr. price specials (black baggy trainers with excess laces and pockets), and everybody was happy with it. none were as happy with it as i was!

ccl brought in vegan treats as a goodbye gift to the leaving interns, and they were delicious. but horrifically crumbly.

---i began the day with the cto, excitedly embarking on a rescue mission to restore the missing (and vital) segment of our codebase. that excitement was soon crushed, however, during an urgent meeting with megaman in which i was informed that our cto has once again taken on the role of an entire marketing division in selling (to a huge corporation) software that we don't have, under a deadline so outrageously unrealistic that all we can do is grind while praying for miracles.

---on thursday i convinced aota to seek medical help - she's been feeling awful ever since we returned from panama. on friday afternoon she returned from a battery of tests and informed us that she's been hit with hepatitis, which one specifically she didn't say. firstly, i'm really glad she listened to me. secondly, i'm kinda a little concerned that i might've been hit by the same thing - although i strongly suspect that that's not the case as my own health issues are unrelated and i've been feeling much better since i started training.

---back to work: my new primary assignment is to clean up moonlighter's mess while he focuses on something else...

at 4pm we upped and left for happy hour, and we walked out of the office into a perfect summer day, replete with crowds of smiling people dressed like they were off to the beach. it was wonderful! the drinks began awkwardly but as the guys relaxed they got more social. as i got up to leave (early, to get to training on time) i banged the back of my hand on something (the chair?) and it became rather tender. i worried about it until class began when i discovered that it made no difference.

i managed to get to the bank, and the teller explained to me that i qualify for an account upgrade. whoo hoo! i haven't been this financially stable in... ever.

---the boxing lesson was good, and tough as hell. the toughest part was my learning that i simply shouldn't train with girls. after the previous night's amazonian incident, i was set to sparring (body shots only) against a girl at least a head shorter than me and with large breasts: i literally couldn't see past them. so i was pretty much guessing for most of my shots, which seemed to be okay until she eventually stopped to glare at me and ask "are you aiming for my tits?!"
i explained that she was giving me too much credit, and was very embarrassed.

not only that, but she's much faster than i am so overall she beat the crap outta me.

i stayed behind to watch a couple of the guys sparring with full gear, and explained to them that i'm far from being ready to enter the ring. i'll go in when i have some idea of what to do with my feet and i've developed useful responses to strikes coming my way. at the moment i'm simply a reluctant sponge.

---on an arbitrary note, dilbert's translation to an animated series is surprisingly good.

---saturday:

i got up a bit later than intended, ate breakfast, slopped on some sunscreen and slapped on my blades, and headed to the office. it took less than an hour to get there and back without pushing too hard, and most of the route i picked turned out to have a bicycle lane! an unmarked bicycle lane on a long boulevard. very cool, montreal, very cool.

i finally got it together to return my snowboard today, and at 1.30pm i called to find out poubelle du ski's hours. today was their final day before closing down for the summer, and they'd be open until 2pm. so i'll have to return my equipment in august...

---i spent the afternoon reading, resting and shopping. it was on my way back that i began to stress about having dinner with my uncle. the man is so unpleasant, and i suddenly realized that i don't need that shit in my life. i suddenly found myself wondering how pg ever went back at all; i didn't want to go and i didn't want to tell godmother why not because that wouldn't be fair to her.

so my day went from awesome to ugly and stayed that way until i actually arrived. once i was there it was okay, and my uncle and i ignored each other for the most part. i get the feeling that the feeling's mutual... at one point he told me that i do stupid things, to which i unashamedly responded that he thinks everything i do is stupid, so whatever.

at least the worst-case scenario that'd been playing in my mind didn't happen, although i can't say that it's off the table. it's that point at which he performs like he did last week, and i let him know precisely what i think of him before getting up and leaving. i grew up with a father who made me feel like that, and life's too short to let jerks who don't matter make you feel like shit.

---after dinner i felt over-fed and drained so i promptly returned home. i've spoken to my mum and to a fellow poet (horseman) who wants to know what's got nocence so excited. as i've said to them both, i'm happy to share it with him but i'm not going to invite him to join us unless we can work together as a team. it's my project, and my project is to keep the work as close to shakespeare's vision as possible while making it as accessible as possible: this is a fine line to tread and it'll be all too easy for multiple cooks to spoil the broth.

weekend end

i met up with nocence and we spent a few hours discussing the comics, producing the comics and a whole bunch of other things. it was a glorious late afternoon when i left, and i had enough time to go shopping and return under another brilliant sunset; on the way there i almost signed up for a different cable service, but then realized that i don't really need fantastic speeds at this point and it would be a waste of time and money.

i parked myself in front of my wall to watch something from nothing, which is freakin' brilliant, and then watched the rest of good hair and an episode of futurama to close off my weekend.

i'm done. i'm tired. i'm ready for bed. i feel like i could sleep for a week.

missing shakespeare's birthday

well, it was will's birthday on tuesday. i didn't totally miss it because ryan north sent out a reminder; i guess i didn't totally not celebrate either as nocence sent me an enthusiastic update that included another potential illustrator. we'll be meeting shortly, i hope.

---the weather has been fantastic! perhaps i did exaggerate a little by leaving home wearing nothing over my shirt. i was still tired, i had too many priorities and distractions and the first of all of them was a decidedly brainless task that would take me most of the day to complete. and then i finished the day with a really bad stuff-up: i asked newk'd to do something that made him feel important, and then realized that i didn't have the authority to give him the assignment. that was a serious bummer.

mma: i made the group uneven so i joined a girl and the guy who thought i was welsh. turns out he's a software developer who'd rather be doing graphic design. hah! and it also turns out that having a girl catch you with a triangle choke isn't sexy at all.
the sexy kickboxing girl from the advanced class? there were *three* of them. all at least as tall as me, bigger than me in a muscular way and very good looking. i need to get myself into that class :P

and back to reality: i started the kickboxing class on a full tank of gas, and by gas i mean literal gas and by tank i mean belly. it was a very uncomfortable class indeed.

it turns out i'm not the only vegan in the class, and the two of us argued about allan savory: i thought i have a good idea and he doesn't. that's a disappointing read...

i was broken after training and i went to bed really late because i was searching for a clinic i could go to. and i went out to the bank to draw cash, once again discovering that it's nearly the end of the month (in banking terms) and i might have trouble drawing enough for the rent...

---wednesday:

an hour earlier is an hour tougher to wake up. i got most of the pre-clean tidy done, and walked out into an awesomely warm and shiny breezy day to be outside. montreal's finest was on display, which almost made up for such silly hours that would have been better spent in bed.

anyhow, i'd picked a good clinic and i only had to wait an hour or two to see a doctor! who was pleasant and pleasantly efficient. i walked out of there in five minutes with a prescription and an eased mind.

i was intrigued by the number of religious jews in the area around the clinic, and horrified to see one couple doing the israeli thing of pulling into a bus stop and sitting while a bus was trying to pick people up.
*sigh*

i mentioned david farland - nightingale recently: i'm more than halfway through, and it's great fun! even if it does go a little over-the-top sometimes, i have a thing about timing and some of the events are just a teensy bit too convenient. but it's mostly a very cool halfway point between a regular high school story and harry potter, only with actual references to harry potter.

i visited the pharmacy on my way home, ate lunch while watching an episode of how i met your mother, and went to the office to be absolutely exhausted while rolling my eyes over last-minute testing and many menial chores that simply refuse to take care of themselves. two coffees weren't enough. the spruce beer was atrocious and the aftertaste lasted longer than could be considered fair play.

i arrived home around 8pm, too late to even consider going to boxing, and parked myself in front of the wall (telly?) to finally catch up with how i met your mother.

i did think to send the cleaning lady a message to thank her, but then forgot on my way to the couch and felt bad for making her send me a message first. it was really nice to walk into a clean, fresh-smelling apartment! i was worried she'd expect to come in once a week, which would be expensive and unnecessary, but i think it's cool to keep it twice a month and she seems okay with the idea. that's a relief.

right - it's almost midnight, and neither lying on the couch nor posting is the same as sleeping :$