almost...there...

today is almost over, at least as far as the negatives go.
i've got my follow up appointment with the doctor at 2:45, and then a pleasant dinner with friends on the (very) west (other) island.
between that, i'm looking to be kicking it with my old bud crayton in ndg somewheres.
i've also got to schedule another interview for the inside position at the montreal office...
to be honest, this will make the third viable candidate for the position...
it doesn't rain unless it pours, huh?

forgot my lunch in montreal, which means i'll be eating out before my doctor's appointment...
ciao all,
c

boring, sydney. boring.

as i just asked my good friend, i wonder when i'll actually get back to actual writing. for a while there, i was building up a decent head of steam as far as decent poetry is concerned, and even managed to put some mileage behind a long-ish short story or decent short novel before life got in the way and derailed my progress...
he told me i'd get back into it when i was no longer under uber-stress. great. that means never.

my trip to the orient is booked and i'm just waiting to get my chinese visa'd passport back from the embassy. i'm looking forward to earning my chops out at the factories as well as spending some time in Hong Kong (think bladerunner's blue-ish always drizzling back alley mysterious locations and you'll get it), but overall the greatest appeal that the trip holds for me is the guaranteed 2 week break from the craziness here.

whine whine whine...regretably (sp?) i seem to default to complain mode. my approach tends to see that positive things are self-evident and require no acknowledgement, whereas negative nuggets absolutely must be pointed out and lamented...

look for enough shit and you're certain to find it.

i've got to start doing that whole glass is half full thang again, as i wasn't always quite so jaded, y'know.
wow, there's apparently a clearance sale on apostrophies.

i just got off a wonderfully frustrating little conversation with my office in montreal. either i am a stand alone head and shoulders above the rest genius, or i am indeed surrounded by astounding knuckle-draggers.

it's incredible, really.

i am also developing a rather healthy resentment towards others. bring it, fuckers.

i brought my coat

and it's tuesday. lucky that.
yesterday, the week began with a BANG. ah, sweet sweet unresolveable conflicts.
i mitigated a potential disaster on my cell phone while at the car dealer yesterday morning, then drove up to Hell and did what needs doing in order to keep him alive, followed by a return to montreal to prepare for the Meeting of Death with the customer. I was able to reschedule the meeting for late yesterday afternoon and proceeded to drive it in the direction i wanted. i kicked an aweful lot of ass yesterday, and i have to console myself with the fact that i'm doing it for me (it's my company, after all) and NOT for the benefit of the peons...
dinner was tasty, but i was absolutely exhausted and crawled to bed soon after.
Bab5 will resume shortly. i promise.
as far as today goes, it will be a much more relaxing 'me' day. i'm up in Hell this morning, but i'm splitting at lunchtime to go conduct an interview at 1:30, followed by an afternoon of work-dodging to recuperate.
we shall see.
i wish i could squeeze in one last round of golf, but it doesn't look likely.

KERAPZORS

yup. friday.
you know what i get to look forward to?
painting.

the fireplace lost its cherry last night, and gave me a nice little blister in the process. note to self: buy longer tongs.

my brain hurts.

hopefully this morning i did my last damage control picard manouever for a while...otherwise, it's time for DEATH.

sooooooooooo sleepy.
maybe i'll split early and go nap. not like i'm going to play any golf today...

omfg, what a bad day

wow, am i getting tired of losing my temper. i wonder how many people really understand how close to a non-pitying-but-very-violent meltdown i am...

doom3 tonight! doom3 tonight!

FUCK THE WHOLE GOD-DAMNED WORLD AND EVERY PEASANT THAT INFESTS IT!



http%3a%2f%2fwww%2edrydipstick%2ecom%2fy2kdipstick%2ehtml

skip down to the "Peak Oil" part and use your imagination. it is going to be a very bad day when it dawns on the Great Unwashed just how short-sighted they are being...so, the Bab5 trek continues. I would love to see Garibaldi wipe the floor with that long-haired poof teep. what? you don't feel like helping us? ok. out the airlock you go, and we don't feel like lending you spacesuits. ta ta.when garibaldi made the iron fist in a velvet glove, i think my heart may have been moved a little.oh, and we heard G'Kar's We Are One speech. damned Xtien! had i heard that first, i would most DEFINITELY have used it myself...oh, doom3 TONIIIIIGHT! oh yeah.i've got a mega-meeting this morning, and it would have been nice if my inside-sales girl could have actually decided to show up early. yes, i know that she stays in late every evening and even takes home work, but there are certain 'important occasions' such as this that merit a small amount of punctuality.after the meeting, i get to go up to the industrial mecca of mirabel and deal with the usual.oh, i cannot wait.

ready, steady, go!

here's the new week, it's come out of the gate with a bang folks! it's pulling ahead by a length already, round she goes...
the weekend was replete with the fun. i have NEVER had so much fun playing a video game before as i did with star wars battlefront at marc's netfest. i can't WAIT until i can build that gaming system over the holidays. who knows, i may just acquire one of them ASUS taiwanese laptops at the ridiculous prices available in China in the interim...

oh, and yesterday i cooked the greatest sauce i've had in a loooong time. sausages and meatballs were involved, and please forgive the phallic reference therein.

today i have to run to the bank and pay another installment in the Big O fund, unt zen run over to chinatown to book my ticket and make my visa application.

i'll ask clayton if he wants to tag along for the company on the chinatown romp.

oh, bab5 will continue tonight. i have been so utterly remiss in my viewing that i'm sure to lose my loyal reader soon if i don't post updates.

last thing we saw was the 1st episode of season 5, where sheridan gets inaugurated. garibaldi continues to ROCK...

oooooooh, i'm drained

the energy vampire has sucked me dry. i've got little to no fuel today with which to drive the engine of non-killing. there are a number of penny-ante problems cropping up within the typical work day that i am just incapable of dealing with at the moment. they are typically trivial issues that should be killed at the source, but of course they are instead fanned into raging infernos before being deposited squarely in my lap. one of these days i will have to sit down and have a little chat with the colleagues. the kind of chat wherein everybody leaves it with an excellent and admirable understanding that while the company is indeed mine, that does not mean that they are entitled to simply pass off whatever they are too, ah, "busy" to handle onto one of the few people who they know has that 'buck stops here' t-shirt on. i'm going to get that donald trump doll and put it on my desk. y'know, the one with the string in the back that, when pulled, makes him say "you're fired!".
it'll be sweet.

oh, and i'm going to probably book my trip to the orient tomorrow. i'm leaving on Nov 14 and coming back Nov 25 or thereabouts. the ticket is open ended for 6 months. who knows. i may instead just send for Ali and wait out the six months. let them try to find me.

actually, i'm rather looking forward to the trip. as much as i would have adored to have Ali along for a great asian romp, it would have been a powerful distraction from the work i must accomplish while out there. instead, i can look at the rather impressive positive side to this: i will be ALONE and for all intents and purposes UNREACHABLE for a solid 11 days. well, at least 48 hours of those 11 days, which will be spent in an economy seat on a plane...

so tired.

ooh, funny stuff

go to altavista.babelfish.com and type up the lyrics to a popular song that you like. then, translate it to a language you don't know. then, translate it back to english and have fun! Thanks, Alan!

Case in point number 1 (Night Train, by GNR, from english to russian and back again):

Train of night
to roll up as commodity composition.
To fly as aircraft.
To live as the brain of space one is more than time tonight.
Good I'.m west strutter of free flight,
one fat mother,
obtained trunk rattlesnake under my handle.
Said I'.m average machine,
vypivayushch gasoline, and honey you can make my motor to break into a run.
Good I'.ve obtained one chance to the left,
I'.m the ninth tomcat of life, I obtained dog doggie'.s as smile.
I obtained that cocktail molotov with the match went,
I smoke my to cigarette with the type.

Case in point number 2 (Highway to Hell, AC/DC from English to Chinese and back again.)

Highway to hell.
Survives easily.
Survival freedom.
The season ticket in one-way rides.
Request not any.
Leaves behind me is.
Adopts all in mine stride.
Don' T needs the reason.
Don' T needs the ryhme.
Ain' T any I rather have not been able to do.
Gets down.
Party time.
Friend of mine in there also is.
I' M in highway to hell


HEE HEE HEE!
now that's fun. g'head. play with it at your leisure.
I smoke my cigarette with the type now.
ahaahahahahaha!!!!

oh wednesday my wednesday

Shaun of the Dead is a great movie. actually, watching non-hollywood flics remind me that not all cinema is sewage these days. Queen Latifah? For the love of God, man. Ben Stupid? Matt Stupid? Sheesh.

tonight? doom3. ooooooh yeah.
today? the resisting of the sweet sweet killing urge.
this afternoon? y'know, GOLF!!! :D

saturday promises to be a very fun day for yours truly:
netfest at noon (wh40k and star wars. what more could you possibly want?) and then a surprise birthday dinner for my uncle Nino at 7:00...
Ali will be spending the afternoon doing her best martha stewart (pre-felony) impression at home...
can't wait for tonight...
oh, and i promise bab5 will recommence shortly.
damned life. getting all in the way and shit.

too many radishes

in my lunch today.

so what's going on these days? work is, well, work. no real change there. daily crises whose solutions are not very apparent. it's not like being faced with a large rock that needs to be moved up to the top of a hill. it's more like being fairly certain there's a rock, and it probably needs to be moved up to the top of the hill, but first the ownership of the hill has to be clarified and the makeup of the rock has to be determined.
doom3 tomorrow night. YAYZORS!
shaun of the dead tonight (hopefully).

i'm to organize my trip to taiwan/hong kong/china this week, as it looks to be happening nov 14.
what visas, vaccines, etc are required?

oh, i have a working copy of wh40k dawn of war on my system and it is good. so very good.

well, off to the stupids.
carlo

wow! cool!

so i tracked down an ooooooooold friend of mine at last. we used to be inseparable back in the day, and things kind of just grew stagnant over the years since I moved to Toronto. now that i'm back (for a few years actually) and settled, my mind started wandering towards the past, as it is ought to do...
i came to realize that i hadn't heard from what was once my closest bestest friend in an awefully long time, and that isn't right, so off i went on an internet search. after much clicking and swearing, i came across a potential and there ya have it. hopefully, we can meet over coffee later today. awesome!
my only concern is that when i last saw him, i was pharmaceutically enhanced, and while i've dabbled twice since i officially decided to stop messing with the stuff, i am certainly not the same person i was back then.
i no longer hang out in that, um, Sopranos life, although i must admit the one thing i actually miss from that was the "mr. de masi's" i would get walking into various restaurants. what i miss about that was the strange looks i'd get from whoever was with me when we walked in. oh, if they're in the same restaurant as me i still get drinks sent over and send over one or two myself, but we so seldom go to those restaurants (ali and i) that it just doesn't happen much...
i got my close friend's birthday dinner tonight, which i anticipate to be fun. i've got a morning of painting followed by an afternoon party/bloodbowl tourney at paul's, which i anticipate to be fun also. which reminds me: i have to check the schedule and itinerary with Paul...
too bad cray ton will be missing both tonight and tomorrow. harem beckons, and all that...

oh, my doctor wants to see me again in 3 weeks. happy happy joy joy.

ah, computers

It would seem that the post i published yesterday lost itself in hyperspace. damned shadows!
well, i've got my physical this afternoon, and i am NOT looking forward to it. y'know, ignorance is bliss.

bab5 season 5 is waiting for me at home, but tonight is to be filled with Survivor, and then the movie In The Beginning...

oh, and we have to find time in the near future to go see Shaun of the Dead.

what a concept! i love it!

sleeeeeeeeeeeepy.

ps: doom3 last night. aahhhhhhhh. those insectoid baby thingies are mighty frightening. yeesh.
*shudder*

now _that_ was fun!

downloaded (finally! stupid wireless connection!!!) the warhammer 40k demo last night. oooooh, it's gonna be a good game. if it wasn't for the just-received welcome tax (thank you, montreal) i would rush out and buy it immediately. as it is, i'm going to have to wait a couple of weeks.
ooooooooh, it's good.
good, i tell you.

doctor's appointment tomorrow at 4:00. i wonder what he's going to tell me...
"y'know, you should try to relax more."
how very original. haven't heard that one before.
y'know, this is pretty much par for the course for people in my position/situation. the only difference is that i'm a loud, talkative, open bastards when in reality i should be MUCH more reserved about what's actually in my brain.
now i'm even publishing thoughts that would not get uttered before. yup. definitely going in the wrong direction as far as that's concerned...

well, on to the *sob* last season

deconstruction of falling stars was an AWESOME exercise in revisionist (read: ALL) history. i adored the flash forwards, and would have really enjoyed a 100-200 hour exposition of life right at the end before the sun went nova.
sooooo cooooool.
Garibaldi has been officially shifted over into the cool category, especially after his hologram pulled a slick manouver on that odd holodeck operator.
also, i was envious of sheridan when he got the opportunity to give that cool tyrant speech.

well, despite my best hopes, the Bastards are in the finals. it's not over yet. in fact, it's going to be as long a season as was absolutely possible. how fitting.

hello nausea my old friend...i wonder what my body is trying to tell me here...

i NEED a break. urgently. that much is certain.
we shall see...

I did it myyyyyyy waaaaaay

which, of course, meant the maximum of frustration possible...

i've got a night of prep work (friday) for a day of painting (saturday). We prep just fine, and then decide to go out for a drink at the pub (i must drink on fridays. it's the law). of course, it's now 4:00 am, and the room is still spinning. needless to say, painting for 8 hours with a hangover is not cool. i'm not 17 anymore, which means that even yesterday i still had the occasional wave of nauseous fun fun...

don't misunderstand the above to think that i yarped. no no. even though my body was speaking only one message to me, the message of vomit, i refused to answer. i hate yarping. i'm sure that down that path lies evil.

speaking of evil, i'ma gonna watch bab5 tonight while waiting for that ever-so-important call from the far east, and hope that Olaf accounts well for himself with my boys...

speaking once again of evil, i have a great large hope that doom3 occurs this week, as it bypassed last week in deference to actual life. pshaw.

life.

overrated.

dang. stress is starting to have tangible physical effects now. what does it mean when every once in a while your heart just sorta flutters? it feels kind of like a butterfly/anxiety/adrenaline jolt. and no, my arm doesn't hurt and i'm not short of breath. if anything, i'm full of rage.

eeks

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2004/09/legalizing_tort.html

worth reading. y'know, i tend to be more of an old testament kind of guy, but i also believe in doing my own laundry. if you're going to break some guy's kneecaps just because you (ever so justifiably) hate him, at least do it yourself...

mind you, if the message here is an attempt to speak to those sub-human degenerates in a language they clearly understand very well, so be it. i tend to be more of the Pax Romana school of thought anyway, as most of you know. if you hurt one of mine, i will make damned sure that the price you pay so far exceeds what you got out of it in the first place, that it will discourage that behaviour in the future. even if it doesn't discourage it, at a 1,000 to 1 ratio, you'll run out of true believers long before i run out of fellow Romans.

perhaps the solution is really two-fold. show these vile, repulsive slugs of humanity the brighter side of western life and demonstrate its accessibility to them, while making it exceedingly dangerous and fraught with strife for them to continue on their self-absorbed crusades of insanity. perhaps some of the less brain-dead among them will at some point develop a vague, almost sentient glimmer of understanding that cooperation and understanding/tolerance will cause less of them to live like starving nomadic neanderthals with AK-47s and cause less of their 'holy clerics' to feel the need to explode with a maximum of witnesses present, which would inevitably result in another of their villages to cease to exist in return, etc etc...
instead, maybe buy the occasional pair of levis, learn to stop using the word infidel like it's a license to kill, and sit at a diplomatic negotiations table or two...

then again, this is just my heart's reaction to beheadings and car bombs. i'm sure those high-and-mightys in office have uber brains churning out solutions so advanced they're in a different language. so advanced that neither side can even read the language yet. that's how advanced, compadre. trust in them.

gosh i'm tired

that was a good game to watch last night, and as usual nuffle decided the victor. still, it was very entertaining.
not nearly as entertaining as watching Bush twitch, stumble, contradict himself, and slip back into his texan vernacular under stress.
what's particularly amusing in a dread-filled sort of way, is how he will still get people to vote for him. consider that his performace last night was the end product of a total spare-no-expense preparation and that he was absolutely at his most equipped and polished, and allow yourself to be filled with dread. remember, he has access to THE BUTTON, folks. The Button. it's a damn shame that a country as powerful and influential as the USA can actually subject itself semi-willingly to such utter buffoonery...and in so doing drag the rest of the world's economy along for the ride.

tonight beginneth the painting. no diversions until sunday, malheureusement...

haven't had a comment to my posts in a while, though for all i know these words drift unnoticed through cyberspace, kinda like how George Dubbya's thoughts drift unnoticed through his brain...

YEE-HAW! (i swear, at some points last night i fully expected him to just totally revert. what a complete idiot. how in God's name can he be permitted to even own a driver's license???)