all the epochs

 i'm using astra, and it's great, but it's still.. just another model, making just another model mistakes if you don't guide it. the playbooks we've been building these past months shouldn't be thrown out the window just yet, though i suspect jev will trigger a large part of them to be rewritten. but i will say that i've had the privilege of working as a software engineer for a quarter century, and during that time i had the privilege of working on systems based on 70's tech, and to be able to experience two different epochs of computing history and then be able to experience this new one as well?

what a time to be alive!

perspective

 i'm loathe to put this in writing, but something about the last couple of weeks has made me more cognizant of the fact that we're getting older. gd's about to hit fifty, and i'm not that far behind. it's weird.

it's not terrible, it's not scary, it's just plain weird.

i'm not unhappy with my story so far - quite the contrary - in spite of how much anxiety i tend to experience on a good day and how messed up we both are health-wise. it's just that my story really hasn't gone in the direction i once thought it would, and i'm kinda hoping that the side projects i'm working on might help me shift things.

i honestly feel like they are already, even if just a little bit.

almost two year old me flying on a snow day

the following story is a retelling from my mother's version of events. i don't remember any of this, but the bit about what i was doing always leaves me cringing and mortified. there wasn't much anyone could do to stop this? i wasn't there, and it was apartheid south africa, but WTAF?!

on the 11th of september, 1981, it snowed in johannesburg. i was just shy of two years old, and was flying with my mother and my brother to johennesburg, with the flights all thrown into complete disarray due to the snow.

apparently, i was such a "busy" baby that the crew offered my brother the crew's jump seat so that he could enjoy some peace and quiet.

there was black family sitting in the seats in front of us. apparently, a large part of my "busy-ness" was standing up on the seat, and playing with their hair.

on the way off the airplane, someone approached my brother and told him "your little boy is really busy".

"that's my brother!"

vegan ice-cream soothes aches and pains

oh, man. my upper arms are sore, i think i may have strained them. i've trained twice this week, and both times i was tired before i even began. i've been careful about my caffeine intake, so i don't think that's the problem...

---wednesday:

i sat at starbucks and worked on my comics for an hour, making interesting and satisfying progress. i did some shopping and was on my way home when i passed a house where the dog was standing at the gate barking incessantly. there were neighbours around, and none of them were doing anything about it. i walked up to the gate and proffered my hand. i tried to make myself as non-threatening as possible, but the poor dog continued barking and slowly backed away until he disappeared around the corner, at which point i got up and left. if i'd been one of the neighbours that would have been the point at which i walked up to the front door and hit the buzzer with the same frequency as the barking.

*bzzz*
*bzzz*
*bzzz*
*bzzz*

until the owners came out, at which point i'd ask

"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"
"can you hear that?"

and then shout at them for neglecting their dog who's in obvious need of some attention. your dog is outing you as assholes. you should see to that..

---boxing was high powered in spite of my feeling weak. i bowed out of impact and beat the crap out of the bags instead - having to be careful with my neck does inspire a fair amount of frustration that needs release, i'll admit - and watched as the big dude from two weeks ago took weak-ass punches from some new guy. why a new guy is allowed into the advanced class is beyond me, but i called the big guy out for not telling his partner to go harder. while he manned up with a sheepish grin on his face, the assistant coach saw what was going on and walked over to demonstrate; i don't think he'll be messing around again anytime soon :P

one of the guys bought my sparring headgear, so that's done. at least someone's going to get use out of it, and the extra cash in my pocket certainly doesn't hurt.

---yesterday:

i awoke in the middle of the night with my neck at an unfortunately awkward angle, i got up to stretch it out and returned to bed with a strange, itchy little welt on my left bicep. i was half-asleep and decided to deal with it in the morning, by which time it had disappeared. what the hell am i supposed to do with that experience??

there were odd dreams, some about normal experiences, then an exhibition of augmented reality tech followed by standing in a line for a club playing "fringe" with the bouncer saying "i hope you guys like country music"; a bald black man put on a an amusing fake afro ruby-rod-style and then i woke up.

...

i accompanied gd on her first steps to getting her divorce formalized: she separated from her husband years ago and he's remarried since, but that's in a different country and none of her paperwork here has been filed...

[arguing about the weather with montrealers requires safe words]

we went to several places, and on a number of occasions i experienced the weirdest phenomenon: strangers walking straight towards me only to go around me at the last moment... when i wasn't standing in their way. what the hell is wrong with people?!

i had a meeting with vector scheduled, so gd joined me for yeh! (i took too much, but their sorbet is so good i handled it like a champ) and we milled around a book store for a little while. i find myself in book stores lamenting the senseless waste of paper and the immense stupidity of selling digital copies at similar prices. can we 2014, please?

vector and i had a good meeting, we went over what we'd already discussed and refined a couple of ideas. later he'd send me his sketches - the dude is talented! shit, if things with the present four illustrators don't work out i'm going to propose he works with me on my comics!

speaking of comics, i'm excited because airplane's finally ready to start scripting his own comic. this is going to be awesome ^_^

---i was thinking about the angry girl from last week's sexism arguments and something that gd suggested: it makes sense that she's a man-hater if she approaches every man with suspicion, brutal judgement and penis-shrivelling tactics. self-fulfilling prophecy, the only guys who would sleep with a girl like that are desperate or callous, regardless of whether she's physically attractive or not.

---the afternoon reminded me of a poem i once wrote about feedback. only it was very different.

kickboxing was decent, though i was sore and tired and at the end was dizzy and slightly nauseous. i learned that my shoulders are positioned badly when i kick and that my feet are badly aligned for anything other than side kicks. that's not good.

for the second night in a row i felt dehydrated after training. i was going to meet with the slam team but only rabbit and i were ready... we talked about it, and it seems that the team is in dire need of leadership; i'd happily take on the mantle if i wasn't the last in and therefore the most likely to rub everyone the wrong way. we're going to have to be tactful. not my strong suit.

...

rice dream's cocoa marble fudge just joined so delicious in making an unbelievably strong case for non-dairy desserts! they're not good substitutes for dairy ice-cream, they're better than. if you like ice-cream, you need to try these brands!

---we got a decent night's sleep last night, and i woke up with alter bridge - zero stuck in my head. i showed gd my high school yearbook photo, and found myself retelling the story of the only time i've ever classically bullied someone. who was a real bully himself, so i don't feel so bad about it.

two of us ran into him in the washroom, dragged him into a clean stall, grabbed his legs and dunked his head into the bowl - only bumping him once accidentally, and fortunately not too hard. i flushed once or twice, we laughed nervously in the face of the absurd, and escorted him back to his class. the top half of his body was soaked, but before the teacher could say anything i gave him a very serious look and said "please excuse him, sir, he's having a very bad day."
which did the trick, and the incident was never formally addressed.

ear-poppingly fast

my entire system is on holiday, which isn't particularly helpful right now but it's a result of enjoying an unbelievably good weekend. which began on friday. and will hopefully end by the time i've written this :)

---friday:

thursday night's sleep wasn't as bad as wednesday's, but it wasn't amazing either. i woke up approximately two minutes before my 5am alarm sounded, and i had to get my shit together quickly if i was going to take advantage of the amazing snowboarding conditions.

i totally got my shit together :)

i'd loaded my kindle with some really good discrete mathematics books, and used my time on the metro and the buses to pour through them when i wasn't getting a little bit of shuteye (the back half of the bus on the way there was filled with happily snoring people, it was really cozy).

what a ridiculously beautiful early morning! it was cold, but absolutely stunning.

the bus took the shorter route that i remembered from last season, which was nice but weird. [or maybe it's because i've only taken the early afternoon buses this season? hmmm...]

the entire length of my walk from the bus to the slopes i struggled to keep my earphone cables from pulling, and when i arrived i realized that i'd closed my inner jacket on top of it. d'oh!
then when i went through my gear to get ready, i discovered two other sets of spares that i'd packed for the previous times - i was wondering where my other socks and sports shirts had gone! d'oh!

some metrics that i wrote down before heading out:
up since 5, it's almost 10.
-16 celsius. 2 hour bus ride instead of the usual 3, plenty of snow and it's still all smooth (unless that's because it's icy, i remain optimistic).
enjoying my first coffee of the day, half of the two french conversations i've had so far made me out to be a complete asshat, and the other involved figuring out how to get sugar into my cup.

as i finished writing that i got milk inc - inside of me [hah! i've never seen or heard the full version before now] stuck in my head and that set the tone for the next few hours. which were awesome, my ankle handled switching just fine, the conditions were great and i really enjoyed myself.
the running nose i was sporting wasn't out of the ordinary, so that was good too.

when i returned to the cafeteria for lunch i was pleasantly surprised to find vegan friendly pasta options! their pasta stand is new, not overpriced and delicious, so my packed peanut butter sandwich (i'd consumed the hummus one as second breakfast) could be relegated to evening snack :)

---once upon a time i had a calculus exam on the sunday morning after infected mushroom and yahel were playing the ostrich farm near eilat (my first trance party in israel, i don't think i've told the story here and i probably should), so i took my books and kinda studied during the after-party on the beach.
on friday i was refreshing discrete maths on the slopes in preparation for a job interview. feels about right, like fifteen years have passed and nothing's changed!

except this time i think i might pass :P

---so the conditions before lunch were excellent, but they were nothing compared to those after lunch! a snowstorm hit, and the rest of the afternoon was absolutely perfect ^_^

except for my shitty ankle giving me trouble, but fortunately it was mostly okay and didn't interfere with what i was doing.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: SWITCHING
not exactly like a pro, but good enough to catch a little air with confidence. launching over a steep drop at high speed is an insane rush, and landing opposite makes it even crazier! so that was this season's goal - next season i'll be attempting properly stupid things in the snow park!

i do hope friday wasn't the end of this one, though. i want more...

---it was strange to be leaving for the bus while the sun was still up. it was a gorgeous, golden sunset, i picked up tea from mcdonald's and brilliantly burned my lips due to my impatience...

the discrete i went through on the bus back was a bit of a headache but i discovered that i do recall some fascinating shit from my first degree. i also napped a bit, which i desperately needed...

i got home, found two envelopes that looked like my french results, showered, scarfed down a frozen dinner and left to meet fp for a second date. for the first time this season i wore my iron fist sweater, which on the way there was too warm and on the way out not warm enough :P

we met at brutopia, which was far too loud so we walked to kafein. a bit of a dodgy dive but the electro was excellent and we had a great time.

---saturday:

we slept at her place, and it was early afternoon when i eventually went home. my sinuses had been griefing me on / off and my legs - omg, my legs were *so* sore after the snowboarding and i hadn't thought to stretch afterwards :(

the first thing i did was check my french results... nope, those are tax forms. dammit!
i caught up on comics for a bit, then decided i was too exhausted to think and tried to nap. but i wasn't tired enough to nap. i needed to go shopping before the fights so i took my netbook to starbucks on the way. i churned out a couple of exciting panels (it's weird how much effort can go into a single panel script for a translation work), quickly ate at subway when i realized i wouldn't have time to make dinner myself, shopped, chugged a protein shake (i don't dig subway's veggie patties) and then went to the sports bar.

across from me on the metro was a father holding an instruction manual trying to show his kid how to transform his optimus prime toy. i couldn't stop smiling, i wanted to take a photo but it didn't seem appropriate.

i arrived about forty minutes late and i was *still* the first there! there was general hockey madness going on, i missed most of the prelims and that included alex garcia who i really wanted to see. vfmp and his boyfriend (they seem to be good, so that's cool) joined me just after ufc 171 was underway.

overall, it was a really exciting night!

*** UFC 171 SPOILER ALERT ***
diego "the dream" sanchez was really entertaining! apparently he was suffering from food poisoning, i'm not sure if that explains his french stewart face as he entered the ring but the reason we were laughing was his pre-fight trash talk, the only thing missing was finger-snapping and when he was announced we all heard "the queen" instead of "the dream".
hendricks vs robbed lawler (you see what i did there?) was so exciting that i actually found myself yelling at the screen. that was some crazy, crazy shit!
*** END UFC 171 SPOILER ***

---sunday:

i enjoyed a decent night's sleep, i was supposed to get up early to join godmother for breakfast but it took me an hour of snoozing before i was able to drag myself out of bed. and then i missed the metro, and the bus... delaying everyone's breakfast and scoring myself a ten minute walk in the beautiful but icily cold and windy morning air.

breakfast was great, but ended on an awkward note because godmother was shocked that i'd even think of contacting the recruiter for my shitty interview to tell her that they could learn a thing or two from the company i'm currently interviewing for. by the time i got home i was ready to send her a message informing her that she was right, that is a bad idea.

i spoke to pg, who found your first snow hysterical and accepted my poetic license (the cookie thing never really happened). so that was cool :)

i entered a debugging nightmare, which wasted a lot of my afternoon. i think it's time to familiarize myself with eclipse's debugging tools as opposed to abusing the console.

i was contacted by a most intriguing girl from the dating site, who's so much so that i'd like to meet her regardless of romantic intentions. fp's now all up in my head-space but this girl seems like she could either blow me away or become a good friend. that's a weird thing to think based on a profile, a message and a phone conversation, but there you go...

i'd been thinking of fp with reservations, but a lot of those reservations melted away when she came over last night for dinner, invader zim and firefly.

---today:

it's 3.20pm, i've done nothing but post for the past couple of hours. i really need to grind now.

over my shoulder

being appreciated for my poetic efforts is, without doubt, one of the most intensely gratifying experiences. i made a comment the other day about having fans, but today began with an sms from vector saying "i just wanted to say that i was profoundly moved by that third piece you sent me. signs in the dead night."

i sat staring stupidly at my phone's screen with the biggest smile on my face, unsure of how to respond and even less sure how to take something like that.

on my way out of training i was talking to a couple of the guys i've become friendly with recently, and i mentioned slam poetry. after attempting to describe it i offered them a sample, which visibly shocked them; "that was inspiring, man", repeated one, and the other's apparently coming on sunday to see what else i've got.

shit, that feels good ^_^

---last night i went to vfmp's to watch house of cards but... that's wasn't on the cards. he and his boyfriend may or may not be breaking up, so we talked for a while and then watched an episode of parks and recreation before i had to leave. it was all rather depressing, and i tried to be as supportive and intelligent as i could but there really aren't rules to these things :(

...

i let my netbook linux upgrade before going to bed, which was a mistake as it took forever. i used the opportunity to continue critiquing my buddy's book. on the one hand, i have a lot of things to say, but on the other the quality overall is pretty good. at least i'm being entertained! and unlike other literature i don't fully approve of, i actually do have an opportunity to influence the final output. at least when it's done i won't be able to say "damn, didn't anyone proof-read this?!" because i'll know exactly what went into it :P

i slept alright, my back and neck notwithstanding - they weren't really bad, but they were annoying and i spent most of my day worrying that i was going to do something to put myself completely out of joint. i think boxing helped.
during a period of tired restlessness, i lay in bed thinking about the kind of crap i put up with as a student. one item stood out in particular.

---i played a lot of soccer as a kid. i was never very good, but i enjoyed it, mostly. even then, i understood the value of teamwork; perhaps that's where i learned it. playing a defender and always finding myself the only player between the opposing strikers and our goalkeeper because everyone else wanted to be a hero was supremely frustrating, but i never gave up. gods, i could fill chapters with soccer horror stories but two of my last experiences actually involved me scoring goals in school matches. the announcement from the first of them still haunts me.

it was an away game, and i somehow managed to take the ball across the field all the way to the opposing goals. i'd just crossed the penalty box line and found myself facing off against one of their defenders. unaware of any other options available to me, completely engrossed in the moment, i took the shot. it deflected off the defender's shin and sailed smoothly past their keeper and into the goal.

for the first time in my eight or nine years playing school and club soccer, i had scored a goal under match conditions. this was a fantastic moment, and was met with enthusiastic cheers! i was so excited! for once, i'd contributed in a noticeable way, as opposed to my usual thankless job in the background. let's not kid, nobody gives a shit about defenders.

friday morning, school assembly. the captain stands up to announce the results. i will never forgive him for this:
"and totalwaste scored an own-goal."

he was trying to play it down because he didn't like me, and rather than admit that i'd done something positive he went with my causing the other team to score an own-goal - intentionally or not, his statement did not include certain crucial details. unfortunately, not only is that absurdly petty but it's all the rest of the school would believe, and my victory turned sour as i became the subject of ridicule for being such a loser.

i'll also never forgive the sports master / coach for not correcting him. bastards.

---speaking of personal history, there was this girl in eighth grade when i was in my final year; i was good friends with one of her teachers and someone in class had caught her scribbling something about liking me. she wasn't one of the cool kids, and the next time i walked in to the class to say hello everyone got silly and tried to humiliate her by letting me know. her teacher and i took one look at each other and decided to play along; i made a point of flirting with her and that shut everyone up. even though she was too young for me, i didn't have to pretend too much 'cause she was a sweet girl and was definitely going to be good-looking given a couple more years :)

it embarrassed her at first, but a day or two later when i passed her in a corridor she'd visibly gone from zero to hero - we'd made her! and it stuck - i'm smiling widely now just thinking about it...

anyway, when i got onto facebook in 2007 and started reconnecting with all my school buddies, she was one of the first people i looked up. i had to know what she looked like! but i couldn't find her.

until today. someone connected with me on linkedin and i looked through their connections to see who else i'd know - and when i saw her name my heart skipped a beat. then i grinned, and nodded, because i was totally right.

---i spent most of the day dealing with my lack of attention span. seriously, i'm driving myself nuts - i can't focus on anything. the good news is that the project i'm working on is practically writing itself - the things i thought would be difficult? done. now i'm learning the ins and outs of leap's frames and hopefully i'll have an approach in mind soon.

before training i started on the second harry potter (in french). my kindle asked me to review the first, so i obliged... and afterwards saw that practically all the reviews on amazon are by people reading it to improve their french. no francophone readers? seriously? that's kinda odd.

training was alright, i finally met an illustrator i'd been told about and she's going to be in touch soon. i'm in two minds about linking to her webcomic (i'm still awkwardly in the closet regarding my blog's anonymity), but it had me laughing hysterically at her caricatures of the guys we train with (they're bloody accurate, i wonder if the guys themselves have authorized them) when i wasn't being amazed by how much we have in common!

i was chatting with one of the guys after training when the coach called me over to teach. so far he's been asking me to handle the first-timers, but this time he wanted to do that himself and have me take the rest of the class for fifteen minutes. that included guys who've been training longer than me... it started awkwardly, and a couple of them were convinced that i was teaching them something wrong: i explained my logic, and i felt light-bulbs turn on as they warmed up to me. by the end i was doing rounds and correcting, with one guy in bad french, even, and someone even approached me afterwards to ask me questions.

that all felt pretty good.

i rushed home to shower and go out to buy dinner, making it just in time, then put it together giggling to chris porter: ugly and angry which is brilliant. i ate watching a couple more episodes of freaks and geeks. it's bothering me that the series is going to end.
not cool, world, not cool.

---this article on quebec language policy is quite worrying. i really hope things don't devolve here...

full moon valentine

friday:

finding electric universe on grooveshark had me bouncing around my living room while doing french lessons, which must have been a treat for any neighbour who happened to look in the direction of my apartment. i did the valentine's day shopping i had to, picking up a single red rose as well and hoping that it wouldn't be damaged by the cold that was really hurting my fingers.

boxing:

one of the girls who'd told me i need to bring chocolate was ecstatic that i had, the other didn't show up. i almost gave her bar to another one, but then that girl turned out to be entirely undeserving. i was upset by the whole incident for quite a while after class :(

as for the class itself, my arms were still strained from the night before and the guy i was partnered with made me work really, really hard. i wasn't ungrateful, mind, but it was really tough! i'm rather pleased with my slipping, though.

i quickly showered and headed to resonance in the hope of finding a table for two. i arrived before pulse did to find that they had a band playing. there were three wind instruments and they were so bad and so loud it was unbelievable! valentine's dinner torture? i don't think so. i mean, these guys were aggressively bad, intentionally discordant, and they'd only just begun... fortunately i made this discovery in time (and i mean, we're talking seconds here) to get outside and hop on the bus pulse was arriving on. we tried all the indian restaurants near jean talon and parc but they were all closed or closing, and took a chance on p.m..

perfect! we enjoyed a wonderful dinner, it was delicious and i may have overeaten a little. on a different note, we were both quite conscious of the full moon :)

[whiskey sleepover]

---saturday:

i woke up in the morning happily unrested and in a fog of stupid. an hour's nap before going snowboarding didn't really help much, either, but spending the hours on the buses there and back slipping in and out of consciousness made enough of a difference.

the p.m. leftovers sorted me out three times during the day, that was very cool. even cold. i'm so lazy :P

i *just* made the bus to saint sauveur in time, which was intense! skittles made my walk from the village to the mountain that much more pleasurable, the weather wasn't beautiful but it was beautifully comfortable, and i was delighted when i arrived to discover that my choc / rum / coffee blend was perfect :)

i didn't stay on the slopes for very long, only a couple of hours, but the runs i did were so crazy and exhilarating that i felt dangerously high on adrenaline. by "dangerously", i mean that i was certain that i'd do something stupid, so when i saw that the lift clock said 6.05 i made a differently crazy decision to take the 6.40 bus back. i managed to change and pack up very quickly, and made the walk with a few minutes to spare to be entertained by a guy in his forties sitting in his car listening to classic epic house tracks.

my gods - a large proportion of the exceedingly groovy people i went clubbing with when i started out are now approaching or are in their forties... holy crap!

i got home, had a hot bath which i sorely needed and napped for another hour before jump-starting with the remains of my thermos. it had been a crazy weekend, and i was off to complete a hat trick with a psytrance party!


---sunday:

yang was there, aside from a dodgy introduction to someone that made us both sound stupid (instead of just him) - and reminded me very much of his father - we chatted amiably a few times and it was pleasant seeing him. i got about four or five hours of partying in before the cops showed up to shut us down... of those, there was one hour during which i thought that i was finally out of gas for the day because i could barely lift my legs. then the next dj came on and made it clear that it was the music that had been sucking, because we were all re-energized and out of control until the end!

i had so much fun! i so needed that! the only downer of the evening was my own thoughts about pulse, wondering if i was doing the "pushing" in the relationship and if i should back off a bit. i'd like to think that we're above those simple forces, but unfortunately that's not how these things work :(

the night buses to get home were actually quite convenient, though i let myself get distracted by skittles and an odd humming sound that the bus was making that could have been lifted from one of the tracks i'd heard earlier and i missed my stop. fortunately, i registered where i was before i'd gone too far, and i shambled back home against bitterly cold wind to a quick hot shower before falling into bed.

i slept well for about four hours, then it was on / off for a few more. i was finally woken by a women calling to find out if i was going snowboarding today - she called too late to catch the bus herself, and was disappointed that she hadn't known that i was going last week or yesterday. umm... when she hadn't gotten in touch before, and i'd given her my number before the end of last year? anyway, she sounds particularly unintelligent so i very patiently explained her options. maybe she'll join us next time we rent a car, but i don't really want to spend hours alone with her on a bus.

...

i have spent my day posting, doing a couple of french practice sessions, chatting, and eating healthy junk food while listening to music. i've been thinking about having lunch for over an hour now and just realized that i'm leaving for dinner soon, so so much for that idea.
in summary, i think it's safe to sat that this weekend has been totally awesome, and that i have enjoyed my finest valentine's day ever!

life is good ^_^

infinite rest - part ii

[... continued]

---yesterday:

the virtual breakup continued. i went to my brother's place for coffee with him and his elder son - the one i don't like - who in addition to appearing to have matured somewhat (which i would hope for from someone who's just made the dean's list when finishing his law degree) actually apologized for the shit he gave me during my matric year and admitted that i hadn't hurt him*.

* this was important for me. the only time i ever completely lost my rag with him i picked him up by his armpits and held him in the air against the wall until he agreed to leave off. he then convinced his little brother that i'd kicked him, and many years later this had turned into a "real" memory that he recalled when we saw each other.

---my brother took me to nü for breakfast, and later in the day i'd hear that my sister is feeling decidedly betrayed because we're spending time together. i'm conflicted, because on the one hand i know she's right and on the other, well, i don't know. i certainly don't trust my brother and i still think he's an asshole, but i'm also pretty sure that he simply doesn't know any better and i'm trying to figure out if i should be shutting him out, or if there could possibly be something worth rescuing. i really don't know if there's an answer, but he is my brother even if i have mixed feelings about him. the only thing i'm sure of is that i wouldn't invite him to my wedding if i got married, that sort of thing, but i'm not sure how that translates to one-on-one interactions if at all.

my sister's currently trying to get the rest of the family to stop attempting to reconcile them; i do feel that it's my duty to stand up for her regardless of my relationship with my brother, what he did to her and her family is totally unforgivable and the rest of our family needs to know not only that but also that he's still keeping inheritance money from our younger sister who's apparently been clean for a couple of years now and will never be capable of taking care of herself.
apparently he doesn't have a clue where she is or how she's doing, though. does that make it better or worse?

---i underwent an emergency beard trim with clippers, then picked up a bottle of rum and headed out to clifton for volleyball. the weather was strange, cloudy with a bit of sun peeking through, big rolling waves and a slight breeze that couldn't make up its mind as to where it wanted to go. the large group on the beach was comprised of a wide variety of people all connected through the years, who were only too welcoming when i arrived :)

in spite of the rum, which did make things a little more hardcore, i played really well despite not having seen a volleyball since 2008; the main difference from the last time being that here, instead of struggling to teach my team-mates about team-work, i was joining a bunch of people who understand the game and we were all having fun and playing decently.

the only bummer was a bit of knee-on-knee action when one of the sailors and i both went for the ball at the same time...

i went into the atlantic twice, and both times it really wasn't as tough as it's been the past few trips. i was concerned that maybe it was just an age thing, because i still fondly recall swimming out to the boats with hyperviper and staying immersed for ages, and the past few visits i've barely been able to walk three feet in without exiting in pain from the cold!
so that was a relieving experience :)

springer arrived with her family in tow, and even though we couldn't see the sun setting we all stayed way past it sitting in a big circle talking, even the threat of rain couldn't detract from the perfectly pleasant sea air and being surrounded by lights in the darkness.

when it eventually did start raining, we all packed up and hurried up the stairs back to our cars to mission off to dizzy's in camps bay. it wasn't just dark and raining, there were odd swirls of mist floating eerily across the road's surface. it was a surreal drive that i thoroughly enjoyed!

how odd running into my niece's new sister-in-law again! the cheeseless pizza was decent, the company was great and the pool was surprisingly decent. when we arrived the guy who had the table beat our first challenger in a way that made me sure that he was bad or that he was a hustler, and either way i wanted the next shot. i discovered that the latter was the case, i made him sweat visibly and was *so* close to winning... but i screwed up a critical shot near the end and gave the game away :(
the rest of the games were a lot of fun and by the time we left we really didn't care that we'd never had the table to ourselves.

i drove home just fine, but i was halfway back when i realized that not only might i fail a breathalyser test but that i'd left my driver's license at home. whoops! :$

---today:

the virtual breakup is now definitely done. this posting is done. i have found my clif builder bars, which my mother had tidied away - out of sight, out of mind, and now it's clear that i over-bought.

the weather is beautiful and i'm really looking forward to the weekend!

ushering in 2014 - the wedding

we drove to suikerbossie, the weather was beautiful aside from a bit of wind which would die down after the ceremony. my niece looked amazing, as did her mother and siblings, and everything seemed grand!

the ceremony itself was nice, and we made it almost to the end without a hitch! it would have been nice if my idiot ex-brother-in-law hadn't argued with the rabbi over whether the wine was kosher and it would have been much nicer if he hadn't bumped my niece out from under the canopy and started a men's-only dance after the glass was broken. usually, even at religious weddings in israel, the newly-weds stay under the canopy and all the guests have an opportunity to come and congratulate them.

next on the piss-off-everyone list was the divider on the dance floor. there was lots of traditional dancing - not my thing but my ex-brother-in-law dragged me into it anyway - but after ten frustrating minutes the divider came down and the band showed that they could play really good music too. much better!

their rendition of smokie - living next door to alice saw all of the groom's relatives on the dance floor singing along loudly, i don't know what that was about but it was most amusing. on a related note, i'm not 100% sure how i feel about him (did he really not recognize me without the beard?!) but his sisters are very cool and we got along well.

nobody knows who the bright spark is who invited my ex-brother-in-law to make a speech, but i'm pretty sure that they're sorry they did. the man got up and spent a long time slurring stupid and stupidly inappropriate things. he managed to properly offend a lot of people. that was followed by a speech by the groom's uncle which consisted of family in-jokes and non-sequiturs, none of which seemed to have anything to do with the bride or groom.

my sister's speech was good, though she did a substantial amount of shaming and i was horrified when she told a story of me and my niece that i felt wholly out-of-place:
my brother is three years older than his niece, and when we returned to live in south africa he obviously felt a bit displaced by her. one day we were in the kitchen and the two of them were in the lounge, and he jumped on the opportunity afforded him, chucking a pillow on her head and sitting on it. when we heard the commotion we rushed in on the scene... our father immediately rescued her, put the pillow on his head and promptly sat on it himself.
i was upset partially because introducing one's baby brother as an attempted murderer isn't cool and partially because the details were fudged to make a good story - i remember the incident well and i'm absolutely certain that i never intended to actually hurt her. make her suffer a little, sure, but not actually cause any harm.

the best part of her speech was her warning to the groom to treat his bride right: "if you don't, i'm going to hop on my broomstick and fly right over there..."
nice one, sis, nice one :)

there was no rum, but the food was excellent and the decidedly talented band managed to cover songs i don't like in a way that got me on the dance floor anyway. we all had fun, a little too much sun, and my (relatively) new brother-in-law and i entertained ourselves and others with general silliness until suddenly it was 4pm and everyone realized that it was time to begin the new year's celebrations.

[continued...]

ending 2013 - part i

it's now 2014: happy new year! i'm a bit behind on posting, and for an exceptionally good reason - this new year's saw me off the grid, it was insane and magical and a description of it, however vaguely rendered, is deserving of its own post. so as i sit here on this beautiful afternoon, a little too tired and sunburned sore (don't worry, i managed to be responsible and it's minor... and in odd places...) to be out enjoying the sun i'm going to catch up on the run-up to new year's. so without further ado, i present the tail end of 2013!

---after the travelling covered by my previous post, my internal rhythms were totally buggered and so i experienced no jet lag whatsoever! in fact, it startles me that i've been running so well on so little sleep - i've been feeling better than ever over the past week and i've managed not to enter any sort of sleep cycle. my body operates better when it doesn't know what's happening, it appears :)

the only contact i've had with french since i've landed has been demonstrating to french speakers here that i'm not ready to communicate. i desperately need to rectify this.

---friday:

dis-chem is an awesome store with extremely helpful and knowledgeable employees. within no time we had vegan protein powder, creatine and vitamins b12 and d, and all for less than protein powder costs back in canada :)

visiting my aunt:

1. the local single kiss on the cheek versus the montreal double? leads to awkwardness.

2. uncle puberty and biggles were on a roll, things got ridiculously funny and that was very welcoming :)

we returned home, i hurriedly dressed nicely for dinner and we were off.

dinner:

1. there were a lot of people, half of whom i hadn't met before and had trouble keeping track of. that's been a theme, actually, over the past week. what's terrible is that i've had trouble recalling people i met years ago when they remember me. awkward. and then trouble keeping track of people's names when i've spent hours on end with them. super awkward.

2. nobody told anyone that i'm vegan. whoops! good thing there was another vegan!

3. it was great seeing the people i care about! not on that list is my ex-brother-in-law. i'm very glad he didn't make more of an effort to talk to me. his sisters are nice enough, though, and i was pleased when my opinions on israel (which they asked for) were accepted without offense.

4. i almost didn't recognize my uncle, he's been struggling with cancer for years but it's the first time the effects have been so visible.

even though i was really tired, when i got home i checked for messages from sq and she'd sent me a way to find her online presence. this accidentally (using google to search instead of going directly to the page she's set up for work) led me to yelp reviews, and i figured that if she'd checked me out on facebook then i could do the same using yelp. lesson learned: yelp is a dangerous source for online stalking and should be avoided. the negative reviews are stacked towards the top and they can paint a pretty ugly picture - you have to be patient (fortunately, i was in spite of my exhaustion) if you want a balanced view. sq explained that yelp uses that as leverage to get small businesses to pay for better control. i think that's disgusting both because it's essentially blackmail and because that skews the reviews and is a corruption precisely of what yelp is supposed to be offering that nobody else does.

---saturday:

i slept amazingly well - surprising, right?? - and got up early to shave and go to the synagogue in honour of the wedding. as it's been years (probably about three or three and a half) since i last shaved with a razor, i posted a photo to facebook that my mum took. i was disappointed to see later that that photo received more likes than anything else i've posted in seven years on facebook! because it shows that most people do not share my taste in how i should look. i mean, i knew that already, but i didn't have actual evidence in hand :(

shaving wasn't a problem at all, but the days after i remembered one of the main reasons i don't like doing it. in-grown hairs and general skin irritation. nothing visible, but very annoying.
*sigh*
i'd laser my beard if i didn't enjoy having the potential to grow a solid beard. just in case, you know ;)

the synagogue experience was really weird. i was surprised at how many old faces and names i remember (in contrast to the rest of my week's experiences cited earlier), specifically of the choir members. it occurred to me that i sang in the choir almost exactly twenty years ago, and aside from one or two guys (like the choir master) who've since passed away half of the current members were already ancient then. also in the synagogue were a few guys there that i went to school with, too, but they're people i have even less connection to.

picking up my rental was a good excuse to leave early :P

---i'd reserved the cheapest class possible and got a little fiat for my troubles. it's a cool car, but there's something bizarre about constantly being complimented on how cute it is. it's a *car*, people, it's not even mine. i loved my opel kadett, and nobody ever said anything nice about that one :(
when i gave the agent a dirty look after discovering that the car had gp plates (gauteng province, notoriously shit drivers) he told me that everyone will think i'm from out of town and chill.

buddy, you've never driven in cape town, have you?? the hate you get when you drive with gp plates is palpable!

no matter, it's a stick shift and it's taught me something about my driving. i haven't enjoyed driving in many years, and i now understand why: firstly, because overseas everyone drives automatic and i've never liked not being in full control of the car. i like to DRIVE, man, i like to really drive. secondly, there are few places as enjoyable to drive as cape town simply because there's no grid and everything's on or around the mountains, so it's *interesting* to drive. when i drive over to camps bay side i feel like i'm on a rally course, and i drive accordingly ^_^
thirdly, i drove a lot in cape town in the two years before i left - far more than anywhere else - and knowing the layout and the local behaviour so well lends a level of confidence i don't think i'll ever have outside.

---my mother and i met up with godmother and yang at canal walk. i can get lost in canal walk because it's so big, i don't like malls or shopping in general and i couldn't find anything i liked that wasn't marked with american prices. wtf?! it's been two years since i was last here, i'm perpetually shocked that the rand has devalued so much. everything's still cheap by tourist standards, but by south african standards it's unbearable :(

anyway, my mom and i were both stressed and out-shopped by the end of the day. she doesn't like shopping either. that means we both left with nothing after all that, and we'd been in the busiest mall on the first day of post-christmas sales. ugh!

we headed off to jou ma se comedy club to celebrate shadowslight's birthday. in addition to it being a fun evening spent with nice people, they had a vegan meal on the menu that wasn't bad and the comedians were all really good. piet potgieter had us all in hysterics!

...

it's strange to find a breeze at 19 degrees chilly when i've gotten used to -15. it's all psychological, i'm telling you!

[continued...]

every south african has their madiba story

mine was from just before the elections after he was released and apartheid was officially over. he came to speak to our synagogue one morning, which was duly packed to bursting. fortunately my father's seat was conveniently located so i had a great view of the podium.

the man stood up and gave one of his speeches, which - unless you've somehow never heard one - you'll know was full of hope, wisdom and humour, in equally inspirational parts.

afterwards he went around the synagogue to chat personally with every single person who was interested.

i was thirteen years old; the man took one look at me and my father and bent down to shake me firmly by the hand.

"you... are a very bright boy," he told me, looking into my eyes with a big smile and a sense of gravity that only a man that great could possibly command.

...

such a little thing!

it's funny, but back in those days that was something i needed to hear, and it's something that got my father off my back for a little while. through all the incredible things that man achieved, and all the wonderful things he was prevented from achieving by people of lesser heart and mind, through those magical historical moments we shared with the entire world, *that* is the image of the man that will always be foremost in my mind.

...

oh, great. i'm properly in tears now.

rest in peace, nelson mandela. we wanted to believe that we were ready for one with a soul as beautiful as yours; may your legacy survive our cynical times like your faith survived the greatest hardships.

the porsche story

apparently i've never shared the porsche story on my blog! how shameful...

hido used to work in a restaurant, and the owner developed a giant crush on me. he was an attractive man and very sweet, but i'm not that way inclined... over a period of weeks and months he made his intentions extremely clear, sometimes in a funny way and sometimes crossing the line of sexual harassment. i was always there to see hido, though, not him, so i just let it slide. aside from inappropriate solicitations he was quite kind to me (and the food coming out of his kitchen was delicious), and he certainly wasn't threatening so no biggie.

one day, a gorgeous summer's sunday, a few of us were sitting at a table outside drinking and having a good time, all the while eyeballing a brand new (80km on the odometer) porsche carrera parked right outside with the top down. we'd been ogling it for ages when hido's boss came out to say hi...

... and saw what i'd been looking at. it was his new purchase...

"hey, totalwaste. you can HAVE the porsche.
...
IF you'll be my boyfriend"

let me tell you, for eighteen year-old me that was mind-blowing - the next five seconds were some of the toughest of my young adult life :(

"i'm sorry, man, i'm going to have to say no."
i think i was almost in tears.

...

my buddies all had a good laugh then, and i'm constantly surprised by how many straight guys i know who are horrified when i tell the story.

"you did what?! are you mad?!?? you should have taken the porsche!!!"

french beginners complete

after an odd dream about walking into a reunion nude (i wasn't embarrassed, but i couldn't figure out what had happened to my pants and i did feel obligated to find some) i then experienced serious in-dream deja-vu, as if i've already had this dream before:
aziz goes through the tunnels and is followed by a man with "child molester eyes", beats him up and is then arrested. the older guy in the group comes out and sees a red flag one of the other arrested men had thrown as a warning, hurries back locking the door behind him. eventually the authorities break through and enter, but the old guy sneaks out behind them as he had been hiding under a pile of dirt inside a giant metal wheel. some of us manage to run around the back of the buildings to warn the last group but it's too late. a meaningless hard-boiled egg fight ensues, i break a friend's nose with one and almost get hit by quite a few.

writing that down reminded me of something real i can relate it to...

we used to have play-fights outside the synagogue, my fellow primary school brats and i, and they involved picking up large hardened shells that had fallen off the trees and throwing them at each other. i was so gifted with accuracy that at some point the teams disbanded and it became everyone on me. for weeks on end i would arrive and immediately have to start running as whoever was around would chase me around the buildings until i'd eventually give up and run inside to hide. while outside i'd still be on top of things, though, dodging like a champ and returning fire that was consistently on the mark. this would upset everyone even more and make them target me even more, and i certainly wasn't having any fun.

the end of the berry wars took place at a weekend camp soon after we all entered the seventh grade after consolidating with the grade sixers from the other jewish primary schools. the campgrounds became a war zone one afternoon and this time i wasn't alone; one of the other team's leaders (one of the guys who used to chase me around the synagogue) and a bunch of his buddies climbed into a tall tree and were using the their altitude advantage and direct supply of ammunition to full advantage. unfortunately for them, i found myself in the little clearing below and sent up my little bullets so hard that i gave one of them a nose-bleed.

i was not counted a hero that day. strangely, since then i've never been able to throw anything even remotely close to a target.

...

i began the day planning my visit to london - i've now contacted four out of six or seven groups of people i'd like to see while there. considering the fact that i'd like to do london-ey things at the same time, that's going to be interesting... it's exciting to be making plans!

my tooth is really hurting me. anything that touches it sends painful electric shocks deep into the core of my brain :(
fortunately my next appointment is in the morning.

i finally did some studying for the french class exam, but my heart wasn't in it. since completing the poem i've been working on i've found myself more and more obsessed with it (getting the performance element just right, i'm going to film myself doing it soon). you can read it here.

i got a grade of 92 for the french exam and enough knowledge to continue alone, though godmother suggested i try the institution she went to. i was amused by our teacher's interest in checking out tristar - i think he wants to be friends :P
almost all of our out-of-class discussion was in french, and i gotta say i'm quite proud of myself!

i got home and was planning on hitting the gym but then suddenly didn't feel good. i decided to chill and watch lots of once upon a time instead.
*pats self on back*

selling out - part i

big news for the week:

1. the apartment sale has gone through, the keys have been handed over and all that's left are niggling details. awesome!

2. tensions in the office are low, either this whole mess was the right thing to stir up or i'm enjoying the calm before the storm. bottom line: right now i'm feeling more appreciated, i'm getting things done and i'm worrying less.

3. i've discovered a well of supportive friends in my hour of need - the need to learn french.

4. i feel like i'm at the end of being sick. i'm still tired, but that's probably because i just don't sleep enough.

---wednesday:

i started dinner late anyway, i didn't need ps3 to force me to upgrade in order to provide me some entertaining accompaniment. while waiting for that i installed the "voice translator" app on my phone, and i gotta tell you it is SERIOUSLY impressive!

...

lots of variety in my dreams. i woke up to a few bills that needed to be paid, not least of which being my rent. i apologized for being a day late and was told about the building manager's policy which is actually really considerate - not only do they not mind rent being a couple of days late, but they're only too happy to make allowances for families living on the edge of their salaries and who can only comfortably pay rent in installments.

i don't have any idea why, but wednesday was an alanis morisette day. it was chilled, but i was a bit cross-eyed by the end of it. during the day i spoke to a fellow gym-buddy and he informed me that he was just as sick and for just as long as i've been, and that whatever it is it's been properly making the rounds. yesterday i heard that newk'd's girlfriend was as bad as well...

arguing with megaman over tools: apparently one button when you begin a task and one when you complete it is too much for a software developer to manage. *facepalm*

i left the office when i was tired, bored and unable to connect to the internet (for work). just before i left i put in an order to a tel aviv florist and the site crashed as i pressed "submit order".

---i was quite surprised when they phoned me directly to ask what had happened - it must have been around or after midnight! when i finally got it right, i was shocked to see the order go through and receive confirmation without my actual payment. usually when one opts to pay with paypal one is linked through to a page that lets you log in and pay immediately; with these guys, they receive the order and then bill the sender's email address. in my case, i didn't want to pay with that paypal account!

i was complaining about the fact that paypal won't let me transfer funds between accounts when aota remarked that i could simply charge myself for goods or services. what?! brilliant. so that's what i did. which only serves to reinforce my opinion that limiting a paypal account to a single country and not allowing direct transfers is bloody backward.

i'm glad to report that pg received her flowers (thanking her for all her assistance with the sale) and was happy with them, but i was offended by her certainty that they were exclusively my mother's idea :(

---on the way home there were two other tristar members on the metro. i've been in the same car as the one guy before and he totally ignored me even though we take classes together; this time when i looked at him and smiled he raised his hand high to give me a thumbs-up. that was amusing, we continued to not look at each other and everything would have been fine if he hadn't stopped in the doorway as we walked out to shake me by the hand. we still had another train to catch together, and we still had nothing to say to each other.

my inner ear was hurting most of the day, and as i returned home i worried that i'd developed another infection... fortunately, that seems to have gone away.

wednesday was laundry day, and some bastard was hogging the machines :(
the day was vastly improved with soup godmother had sent me home with on monday - that woman's soups are insane.

after a how i met your mother binge i was too tired to make proper dinner so i just did a smoothie. it was a laziness thing, but i had to wash even more dishes afterwards so i'm not sure that was a good trade-off.

---i don't know what got me so nostalgic, but i found myself reliving (in my mind) a night at the gallery with protoplasm in the february of 2000; it was me celebrating completing my diplomas and celebrating three totally sober months by getting fantastically hammered. of all the weirdness of that night, the only thing i wasn't clear on was whether that was the night they'd set up tekken 3 on a projected screen above the dancefloor... i recall playing panda. and playing badly. i double-checked with protoplasm and it appears i'm not making things up :P

---thursday:

dreaming: a cross between a large canine and a prairie dog found its way into my lap. it was particularly vicious: i was face to face with the creature and could not let go of its neck for fear of being mauled. nobody would help, and the longer i held him the more aggressive he became.

the apartment sale:
finding out that the tenant missed a water bill from half a year ago wasn't as surprising as the fact that municipality let it slide until now. speaking of the municipality, why the heck would they lie?!?! i called them up and they told me they'd contact pg to get it all sorted by phone, then phoned her to tell her the only way to get anything done would be for me to send a fax.

seriously?

...

the day before i'd been describing a bad service experience and creeper suggested responding by sexually harassing them over the phone. on thursday i was explaining a system to someone and he overheard, overly-loudly asking "what's a cronjob? sounds dirty!"

...

i've been holding on to an idea about ebook sales for many years now and i'm always complaining that nobody's done it yet - i was discussing it with aota and she made a really insightful suggestion, bringing it into the realm of practicality without large investment and providing me with something very interesting to do if i do get fired :P

---although i've declared that i won't be managing the team anymore, nobody's said anything to the developers and i'm still being tasked with interviewing. i joined megaman in talking with an older guy applying for a job as senior developer. at first i thought he'd be replacing me... his resume was loaded and he talked a very big story, which made it all the more disappointing when he was presented with one of megaman's standard questions and he completely floundered. at first he couldn't handle the problem definition, and he followed through by demonstrating an incredible inability to think on his feet. wonderful for my ego, not so wonderful for our talent shortage.

the bit that really killed him, though? after his less-than-inspirational performance i asked him about his attitude towards comments.
"there are no comments in my code," he proudly proclaimed.

what a fool.

---thought for the week: it suddenly occurred to me that the way megaman behaves he could be on acid all the time. except that if he was he'd come across more intelligent.

i joined aota and newk'd for some hardcore shopping and dinner at her place with her daughter and newk'd's girlfriend. it was an enjoyable evening but i got home around midnight again.

---friday:

extremely complex dreaming. i woke up to a surprise, i'd be interviewing potential interns and the call would start before the time that i usually leave for work. that surprise turned out to be a bonus as i could chill and do my own things in the background; the other surprise wasn't as much fun. in all the excitement i'd completely forgotten that i have a driver's exam on monday!!! i'd be in slight panic mode until this morning.

favourite resume moments:
1. a candidate who described himself as "junior data ninja". he was rated "outstanding" by his previous employer - does that mean that nobody ever saw him in the office? or, as nystire suggested, that he can insta-kill a database?
2. a simple personal summary consisting of "i am the lion in shark tank". total winner!

[continued...]

the first step to recovery

after yesterday's confession, i put myself to bed. my mind was a maelstrom of thoughts that gradually untangled themselves into a vaguely coherent plan - a plan involving presenting the cto with an ultimatum: either i'm going to extract myself from the management mess and focus on actual software development and training unimpeded by the axis of stupid (megaman and darn), or i'm going to extract myself from the company entirely. i'm sure i'll phrase it more tactfully than that, but what i've said just about sums up what needs to happen in order for me to get back to being productive and happy.

...

i woke up feeling a little better physically and a lot better physiologically. aside from an unproductive yet pleasant visit to walmart (well, the walk there was pleasant), i watched most of sherlock season 2. it's rather engaging: from a wonderful take on irene adler to my favourite werewolf as the lead in "the hounds of baskerville"?? brilliant!

my favourite israeli singer / songwriter finally took my advice; he contacted me this morning to let me know he's put his album up on bandcamp ^_^ (it's free to try, check it out)

i just finished watching the first four parts of jimmy's end... it's interesting, sure, but i find it leaves me wanting.

---by grade two or three i'd made plenty of enemies. in addition to being an terrific victim, i knew how to antagonize bigger kids like a pro. i'd managed to really upset one of the kids a grade higher than me, and he'd been looking to smack me around for a while. how unfortunate for him that he walked in on me while i was standing at the urinal in the washroom! it was more blinding, nervous stupidity than malintent, the urinal was on a raised floor and as he threatened me i turned to face him... peeing on his leg in the process.

i expected a righteous beating, but instead he rushed out humiliated. i don't think he told anyone.

how very weird seeing the guy that kid grew up to be on linkedin and inviting him to connect.

hibernation or bust - part ii

[... continued]

today:

gaming night went on until 3am. in spite of my physical health i enjoyed the evening and i think it was worth it, but i really was feeling like shit. i got a ride to the night bus home and was waiting for it when yang called to tell me what an incredible party i'd be missing, and i was in such a bad way that i didn't even care. all i could think of was "am i really sick? has my training put me in real jeopardy?"

i had sinus and throat trouble sleeping and eventually took a tylenol, which led me to overheat and wonder if i was experiencing a breaking fever.

...

my morning (early afternoon) involved long chats with my mom and with dirk diggler, pg and the caretaker. i didn't have energy for anything so i sat down in front of tekken and the rest of orange is the new black, the finale of which is incredible. what an emotional roller-coaster! what superb writing!

...

what the hell am i eating? i neglected myself all day, so i ran out to the supermarket to get my shit together. i stopped by the pharmacy to give back a whole bunch of meds i no longer need.
"i read that i should return these things to the pharmacy for disposal, but i'm not sure how serious i should take it. is this a thing?"
"yes, sir. it's a thing."

this evening has now been successfully destroyed by my obsession with posting, and i'm now about to make dinner and do nothing some more.

---urchin finally got in touch with me a couple of days ago and i'm still floored: not only is her cancer now in remission, but she's been told that she can have kids if she wants and her on-off boyfriend appears to have figured himself out and they've moved in together. i am *so* pleased and pleasantly surprised ^_^

---someone introduced me to a wonderful little comic by kostas kiriakakis called a day at the park. i humbly beg you to read it, it's beautiful.

---phonebloks: take a look. once upon a time, about ten years ago, i pitched this EXACT idea to a couple of friends with money (i had none) and they were certain that the idea was doomed to fail. it's nice to be validated by the universe, but it would be even nicer if i'd be the one to capitalize on even half of the great ideas i've had. life and its priorities.

*sigh*

hibernation or bust - part i

well... damn. i haven't posted this whole time for a number of reasons, the prime one being that i've been feeling awful. i've been told that it's normal to be exhausted around this time, that it's a circadian rhythm thing because of the speed at which the seasons are changing. but i was sick. and then i trained. and that could have combined with a consistent lack of sleep (in part caused by last-minute apartment sale details) and motivation. whatever may be making me feel this way, i feel like i can self-diagnose with chronic fatigue syndrome and i hope that that's just the hypochondriac in me talking shit with a loud voice.

granted, i *do* feel a bit better now after a day of actual rest.

---tuesday:

it was a cold night and i needed the duvet, but i had a headache and i was exhausted and i suffered a long, uncomfortable night for not sorting that shit out. then my lawyer got me up early with urgent tasks. i really, really wanted to call in sick, but i'd be taking a long weekend off and i didn't feel that that was the right thing to do.

...

oh, human bodies. i scratched the back of my head and couldn't determine the damage. it's okay now (days later) but for a while i was worried about infections :(

---work: the cavalry arrived! a couple of executives came over to oversee operations; darn became super-enthusiastic and almost-cooperative in an attempt to impress them but there's a general sense that his little act is transparent even to the visitors.

i had a job to do on tuesday that would have been incredibly menial and time-consuming had notepad++ and its regex engine not come to the rescue. it's unusual for me to actually find regex helpful, so i was really stoked :)

little victories: the office provided a healthy, delicious lunch instead of the pizza that darn and megaman have been forcing on us, and everyone seemed pleased with the change! while we ate, my brain dropped through to the floor when i discovered that i'm managing a software developer who used to feature on the local pro-wrestling circuit. he has lots of funny stories to tell and explained a couple of fundamental things about the scene; it was fascinating!

the rest of the afternoon was kind of pleasant, but i was tired and feeling a bit chilly. i went home early enough for jiu-jitsu but napped instead, did some shopping and headed out to kickboxing. that was alright except for an odd moment when i managed to hit myself in the eye. my head was not in a good place :/

---SO! once upon a time i used to play a lot of tekken (3), and a week or so ago i found a cheap copy of tekken 6 on ebay. i bid, i won, and on tuesday my copy arrived in perfect nick and with a sweet note attached.

in the days since, i have been playing a fair amount. i am impressed that 6's timing is consistent with 3's, and the scenario mode is, surprisingly, a lot of fun!

---i had the presence of mind to sort out my duvet, i watched a bit of the adventures of tintin while eating, then crashed...

---wednesday:

... or not. there's nothing quite like getting out of bed at 1.30am to argue with a mortgage bank hotline agent. so much for catching up on sleep :(

i got up early to catch pg and then returned to bed - it was sooooo difficult to get out from under the duvet on a chilly morning! i still felt terrible when i got into the office, the only positive was a (non-vegan) muffin to go with my coffee that kind of made me feel better.

---oh, darn... you asshole. the previous afternoon i'd called a meeting with the entire dev team for fifteen minutes to ensure that everyone knew how to work with our build automation. after we all assembled and just as we were beginning, darn strolled up to cancel the meeting and let everyone know that he thought it was a waste of time. ignoring the fact that he didn't have the authority to do that, why couldn't he have said that at any time before the meeting took place? he really got under my skin. he made me so angry that even now while i'm recounting the incident i'm becoming agitated.

the awesome vegan pizza ordered for me for lunch would have tasted even better if not for that.

other fun parts of the day included fighting with the web developers because they don't respect our naming conventions (and they use "new" and "old", which is a pet peeve of mine), losing over an hour to a problem that had nothing to do with the code i was looking at, and being told "don't waste your time on the coke" right before having the can explode all over my white hoodie.

as i left for the extra-long jewish-holiday weekend, i had a quick chat with the cto that put me in better spirits. playing some more tekken when i got home completely the spiritual rescue, and i was ready to do the jewish thing.

---it was an absolutely perfect evening, and i met up with aota and her daughter and we entered the sukkah. there were some awkward religious moments, but overall it was a pleasant evening. a couple of the guys had been in cape town recently, one has trained at tristar, and one is trying to go vegan for political / ethical reasons. i wasn't bored.

but i'll be damned if a little bit of alcohol didn't put me in the mood to relive my origin story while recounting it to aota.

on my way home i finished reading kill shakespeare: what a clever and entertaining story! i do declare that shakespeare himself might have been proud of this one :)

---thursday:

i played tekken until i was ready to pass out. i actually got up at 7.30 and was already feeling a little better. it helped that one of the visiting execs sent me an email apologizing for not meeting with me before the holidays, it sounds like our appointment on monday might not be about me being out of favour.

...

how about that? it suddenly occurred to me that i'm celebrating sukkot (tabernacles) in quebec...

...

the first day of my extra-long weekend began with my putting pg in touch with my apartment's caretaker to try to pay the man. i cannot believe that i've been chasing after this guy for months to give him money. hopefully this story ended today, after much harassment he's promised that she'll get everything i need by the end of the day... which will essentially be on the day the contract is signed. talk about cutting things close :S

i replaced my headphones and had a quick subway lunch: falafel?!?! the employees are still having a hard time getting to grips with the different ways of pronouncing it. interestingly enough, it's apparently so successful that in one week they're far enough over their projections that they're running out of stock - vegans! changing the world one meal at a time :P

i did some serious shopping at walmart, the primary targets being a blender and frames for my comiccon art. i came away satisfied.

i played a little tekken and then hit the gym for a bit of sparring. fighting with reggae in the background was cool and weird at the same time. having said that, i was not having a good sparring day.

i returned home to do the laundry and unlock the tekken "arcade addict" achievement (ya think?!), and the dryer took such a long time i missed the wrestling class i wanted to go to.

...

question: how is a monster energy drink a "natural health product"? oh.

...

jiu-jitsu: one over-enthusiastic armbar can mess up a whole evening... the guy i was working with had a height advantage (he's much shorter than me) and just couldn't control himself. he really hurt me, and it's taken two days for my elbow to go from frustratingly sore to merely uncomfortable :/

i followed that up with another sparring session, only the guy i sparred with was far more competent and all i walked away with was a severely bruised ego. i mean, shit, random people came up to me afterwards to try to console me and that just made it worse :(

at least after training i had my first great smoothie experience: either i have a latent talent for blending, or it's really that easy to make something decent :D

if finished watching the adventures of tintin and decided that spielberg did an excellent job of it. it's just as much fun as the comics and captures the attitude of the artwork in spite of the obvious differences.

---friday:

another early wake-up to deal with the apartment sale. followed by a long discussion with aota caused by megaman making a fool of himself in an email. followed by a distinct inability to get out of bed. i needed a slow start to the day and orange is the new black's tenth episode ("bora bora bora") was a good option. it was so intense that i'm going to want to watch it again sometime...

the weather was nice and sunny, and i went shopping at the further supermarket. i shambled rather than walked. i returned - slowly - and made myself a lunch that could have been a dessert; it was healthy, yes, but it tasted so good!

after a little more tekken i headed off to starbucks to get some sketching done. i don't know why i can't be productive at home, i guess it's the distractions :$
anyway, i hammered out a decent page and returned to nap, play some more tekken and go to training.

now, i know that training while not feeling good isn't wise, but while i was exhausted i wouldn't feel any worse than that until later. so i can tell you that i am exceedingly glad that i went to box on friday night! our instructor wasn't around, but a couple of the guys were up for sparring. while i didn't exactly level up, i did manage to lose two levels of "cowardice" in the ring. confidence-wise, it totally made up for the previous night's little tragedy. hooray!

in fact, the first guy i sparred with confided in me that he could feel the difference each round :)

what started off as good post-training exhaustion soon became bad exhaustion, but i really wanted to play thunderstone with vfmp and co. i grabbed another subway falafel and a coke and headed on down.

[continued...]

soul-searching - part i

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

---thursday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

---friday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---saturday:

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

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

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

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

...

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

...

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

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

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

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

---sunday:

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

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

[continued...]

down with sickness

this morning darn informed me that i'm responsible for improving morale.
"oh. you mean i'm good cop and you're bad cop?"
"yeah."
i looked into his eyes and saw that he was soulless.

---my day didn't begin right because i got up early and exhausted to make up for the hours i'd take off later. the work day began with aota, she was stressed and i bothered her by asking for help with something she felt i should know and i walked away feeling guilty and irritated. the morning sped by and i headed off for my month and a half follow-up eye exam.

i skipped lunch because i had shit to do and was going to be losing hours anyway, so i arrived on time for my appointment but really hungry. i asked how long i'd have to wait and was told a couple of minutes. half an hour dragged on by, i got up and asked what was going on because by that stage i could've left, eaten something and returned instead of sitting burning time on an empty stomache. on the one hand i didn't want to be an ass, on the other i wanted them to know that they'd done me wrong. they told me another few minutes, which annoyed me even though this time it really was just a couple of minutes. then i went through the eye exam and my eyes couldn't focus at all when i was using both of them.

this is becoming a thing.

eventually the surgeon got to me and he told me that it all makes sense and that i should come right eventually. my next appointment is in four months. we'll see. to be fair, though, while i am having trouble with my sight it's so much better than before! i can see everything well but i just can't do detail in a hurry...

i returned to the office, wolfed down lunch and got sidetracked by a design review and an intern who'd built something on top of a major logic fail that i had to talk him through slowly just to explain where the problem was.

*sigh*

suddenly it was time to leave already and i'd barely achieved anything.

---i left for boxing and continued to bury myself in walter isaacson - steve jobs. it's as interesting and readable as everyone who pushed me to read it insisted, but it intrigues me that i see so much of myself in descriptions of his behaviour. not only in my underlying attitude to life but in the way i've always seen the world: my mother has always complained about my inability to see shades of grey. i'm definitely not as much of an asshole about it, though. at least i don't think i am...

---scrapper and i headed off to boxing. i forgot that he wouldn't be able to join the advanced class until we were already on our way and i felt bad about that. then we started warmup with the jump rope and i was failing and getting frustrated to the point where all the suck from the rest of the day focused into laser beams of anger and self-loathing that washed over me everytime i saw my reflection. and by self-loathing, i mean that "screw you!" look you might give yourself if you're staring at the mirror and seeing someone who looks just like you and is making you look bad.

the instructor walked in and when i asked the instructor if scrapper could join he responded in a way that made me feel small and stupid. for the rest of the class it was as if everything i did was pissing him off, i just couldn't get shit right and he was noticing it all. i felt like i was disappointing him as much as i was disappointing myself and my frustration levels kept rising. in restrospect, i think i actually did quite well but it doesn't matter.

he paired me up with a guy i'm friendly with but who's a beginner and doesn't really seem to be into training. a part of me felt that i was paired with him as a punishment. if it wasn't a punishment, i made it so by bringing my shit into things. i pushed him the same why i push everyone (and everyone pushes me, that's what training's all about) but he doesn't want to improve so we were both aggravated. the situation kinda improved, but then towards the end we did an uppercut drill. i got really annoyed with the way he was holding the pads, and then when it was his turn i got really annoyed with how he was hitting. it was only at the end that he pointed out how unfair this was and he was visibly upset; i realized he was right and i apologized profusely but you can't take stupid back.

fuck.

it was on that note that i left training. i'd gone to a dark place and i was seething all the way home. fortunately, talking it out with scrapper helped - it was about all sorts of things, obviously, not just a single day. it was about work and sacrifice and lessers of two evils, about expectations and outlooks and reality not being precisely what i need even though i'm aware of how ungrateful that may be considering that *knocks wood* things are going really well for me. sometimes i feel like i'm all the toys of the hundred-acre wood rolled into one.

---on a positive note my left leg is still tender and sore but it's definitely better.

...

this online dating thing is weird. according to match.com i'm missing out on all sorts of action by not subscribing, and the only way to find out if they're messing with me is to pay $20. FINE. but how come the other sites don't require cash up front?

second-hand nightmares

i suddenly remembered one of the weird dreams i had this morning. my forearms and hands were constructed in an alien fashion, human-shaped and fully functional but with a lot of gaps, kind of like a crustacean's exoskeleton but with less meat keeping everything together. i woke up soon after becoming frustrated by insects that were flying into the cavities i couldn't scrape them out of and being forced to bang my arms on corner surfaces to get rid of them as if emptying the contents of a tin of beans.

---our project manager (darn) was a bit shaken up this morning, and i had to get the whole story. we began with confusing excess political correctness, as he felt so uncomfortable saying "handicapped" that he used "special" instead. he proceeded to explain that he'd been travelling on the metro when a mixed group of mentally handicapped and blind people filled the car he was in. one of the mentally handicapped threw up on the floor right next to him, and he wanted to get out of there but didn't want to seem like an asshole. i think that it's perfectly alright to leave if you feel uncomfortable, but he felt guilty. someone working with the group came over with a towel and cleaned up so he felt a little better about it... but then they arrived at his station and began shuffling out.

he tried to quickly slip through a gap in the doorway, and as he stepped outside heard a sickening noise. he turned around to discover that he'd tripped up one of the guide dogs, and in turn caused a chain reaction that resulted in a whole group of the blind falling on the floor. they were all lying awkwardly, very confused, and he felt terrible and ashamed. while their helpers set about picking them up... he ran away as fast as his legs could carry him.

---today was a pretty good day, although there were a few incidents with the network. hopefully it'll all be over soon. we have a contractor helping us out with our backend, and i was embarrassed to show him a piece of code that moonlighter had written that was causing weirdness. i explained the fix and confirmed that we were ready to put that kind of thing behind us...

a very strange and sad incident occurred today: aota made a mistake and the cfo dressed her down disproportionately harshly. this is the man who called me out for my tone of voice when dealing with cam2's incompetence? apparently aota didn't say a word, and the cfo was so embarrassed when he calmed down that he left early.

i understand he's been stressed of late, but damn.

---my father was a complete bigot, totally racist and a hardcore homophobe. i once tried to convince him that i was coming out the closet with "dad, my boyfriend's nigerian so i'd appreciate it if you dialed back the racism a notch".
there was a moment of dead silence, absolutely ruined by my mother's laughter when she realized that i was talking shit.

...

okay, so maybe i didn't say it as cleverly as the way i just quoted it. either way, thanks, mom.

---israel brain gain? a representative tried to contact me and i checked out what appears to be their mission statement. if they want skilled israelis to return to the country, perhaps they ought to work on making the country an attractive place for smart people to live?

just saying.