Spaz Day '05

Today was just nuts.

It was all so retarded that it's not even worth it to go into detail, so I'll go into vagueness.

1) The auto-complete functions of two different email clients resulted in me sending emails to the wrong recipients. That's just silly.

2) The CD I burned that contained my group's first assignment was unrecognizable in Linux. I burned three more CD's using different settings, and all were unrecognizable.

Hmm ... a list of two items is hardly enough reason for the stress I felt. Item #1 was really more like two items, but still ... Let's get to padding this sucker!

3) The rear tire of the bicycle I just bought is a dud. Those bastards better replace it, even if I have to pay them to do it!

4) I finished almost all of my Stats homework. That's a good thing, though. Umm ...

5) I sold some stock yesterday, and today the stock's price went up a point. I sold a very small amount, though, so at best I could have paid for #3 if I'd sold today instead of yesterday ... yeah, this list of woe is woeful itself. What else could one expect on Spaz Day '05?

Several different kinds of "bite"

What we know at this point:

1) It's 3 am. I've been up since 1 am. Earlier today I told Colleen that I can't go to bed before midnight because I inevitably sleep for two or three hours and then wake up in the middle of the night. This evening I was v. tired at 11 pm so I thought, Why not see if it's still true? And sure enough -- up at 1. For two hours and counting. I did get some work done on the 370 GUI, but ...

2) It's been waaaay too long since I've worked with a GUI in NetBeans. And I have to have some shit slapped together by Thursday's meeting. Perhaps the Dirtbombs can help, because ...

3) At the Dirtbombs' website, leadman Mick Collins lists his drugs of choice as theobromine and Linux. Even though I'm not obsessed with Linux, finding this out about Mick has only intensified my schoolboy crush on him. But alas ...

4) The Dirtbombs are playing Edmonton and then Toronto. Or rather, they were to have played Edmonton on the 15th, and their next date is in Toronto on the 29th. That's fourteen days, any one of which they could have spent in Saskatoon. I suspect this same sort of heartbreak will re-occur because ...

5) If Dressy Bessy ever manages to update their tour dates page, their schedule will no doubt reveal a distinct lack of Saskatoonishness. But there's always the chance that ...

6) The Modey Lemon's new album, Curious City, will rock. And I will rock with it, just as soon as I win it on Ebay and receive it from England. Because really ...

7) What's the deal with English Ebayers having all the good rock stuff? Nation of Ulysses t-shirts (even if they're just homemade), Modey Lemon promo cd's, and ... er ... other stuff ... It's like England has some amazing rock and roll infrastructure that's already set up for everything underappreciated American bands have to offer. It's almost like England is the Halliburton of rock: they manage to get all the no-bid contracts. And not just that, but ...

8) The latest Arrested Development fucking killed, what with the trip to Orange County's "Wee Britain" neighborhood. The structure of the episode was unusual; instead of the fake "Next time on Arrested Development ... " there was a fake "Previously on Arrested Development ... " which seemed to coincide with the joke that the streets are reversed in Wee Britain. And thus ...

9) I have "For British eyes only ... " caught in my head. Come on ...

10) It's 3:42 am. I should be sleepy any day now ...

Oh, school ...

Why must you be scheduled so many times during the week? Why must your group project meetings be so increasingly heated and tense? Why must your lunch-time be so far away?

Actually, I think that last one applies to all of Saskatoon. I watched the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm last night, and all I want this morning is a Ted Danson: turkey, coleslaw, Russian dressing. There are no delicatessens here with overpriced, over-stuffed sandwiches. Or maybe there are, but they're all located in that mystical land known as "outside of walking distance". It's like the forbidden zone in Logan's Run.

Come to think of it, I don't think they had delis in Logan's Run. There are other similarities between Logan's Run and Saskatoon, but I've criticized this burg enough lately and so shall bite my tongue this morning.

I haven't had breakfast yet and already I'm looking forward to lunch. A fella's gotta have dreams, especially a fella as close to Carousel as I!

Umm ... I'm a big dork, aren't I?

Oops ...

I probably should have posted something in the four days since that last post, hey? Kind of a morbid image to leave off on, I guess. So hey, here are the pictures from last week's Rock Odyssey, or as I originally called it, "Saskatoon sucks a big bag of cocks, and if you disagree that means that you suck a big bag of cocks, too."

Yeah, it's kind of wordy, so you can see why I shortened it.

Anyway, on to the reason why I titled that post "[something] hand jive [or other]".

Bill Gates, you thoughtful bastard

I am largely unable to express my delight at learning that Microsoft Visio 2003 has downloadable crime scene templates. Prior to this discovery, I had difficulty imagining under what circumstances I would leave my overpriced apartment, now that I have two couches and two giant rasterized images on my walls.

Thanks to Microsoft Visio's crime scene templates, I can now visually depict how I envision vacating my apartment:

Morbid yes, but I like it, too!

And hey, Microsoft's version of my livingroom is really tidy. I appreciate it, Bill.

(OK, maybe the shotgun's a bit much, but if you'd seen the "numchuks" you'd know that they were wholly inadequate.)

Note: That sentence before the image is completely insane: " ... Visio ... visually ... envision ... " Sorry 'bout that.

Lies our parents told us

On the Something Awful forums, someone started a post titled "Retarded lies your parents told you as a child, but you believed".

When I was around 5 or 6, I was making jokes in the car when my dad told me that a policeman once gave him a ticket for telling jokes in the car. I stopped joking there and then!

Come on, I was a kid!

I was thinking of posting that story until I saw this one:

My mom told me the Ice Cream Truck was The Music Truck. And little boys had to get up and dance when they heard it or else the Music Man (who I pictured as a fat man with a big curly moustache in lederhosen) would come out and get you. He would turn you into a monkey and make you dance for the rest of your life.

I could never figure out why she was laughing so hard while I danced for my life!

I cannot wait to have kids and tell them this story. Hell, I can't wait for my friends to have kids so I can tell them this story.


Note: my dad's story about the little boy and the severed penis in the public washroom would be the most memorable lie I could post, but the thread was titled "Retarded lies ... ", not "Absolutely horrifying lies ... "

Thanks, pop!

You'll be screaming "No no no", and all they'll hear is "Who wants cake?"

Ugh. No more Nutella sandwiches after midnight.

Also, no more David Spade-hosted comedy shows.

And no more putting off shaving.

No more putting off haircuts, either.

While we're at it, no more putting off doing laundry in favour of watching Michael Moore movies.

I'm not saying, "No more Michael Moore movies," mind you. It's just that every time Bowling for Columbine is on, I forget that I've already seen it, and then it gets to the Dick Clark part and I'm like, Oh yeah, I didn't just dream this. For all its weighty subject matter, for me Bowling for Columbine is no more filling than custard. Odd, that.

No more joking about throwing flaming poo at people's houses, and more throwing flaming poo at people's houses.

No more leaving cd's and dvd's out of place. Today I found the cd which has Shirley Collins' "Space Girl" on it. I thought that'd been stolen years ago! No more attributing the loss of items to crime!

No more blogging tonight. I've got class or something tomorrow.

Come on, do the hand-jive -- now with mp3 goodness!

Update: click on the Meters link below for an mp3 of their song "Look-Ka Py Py"

For reasons best left unexplored, I had hoped to see some live punk-type music at a nearby venue. You can imagine my dismay upon arriving at said venue and seeing the hordes of 15-year-olds swarming the entrance!

(If you can't imagine my dismay, then do the following exercise: imagine something precious and beautiful, and then imagine 15-year-olds standing nearby. Sorta the same deal.)

(Similarly, you can imagine my relief that a friend claimed "prior plans" as a way of declining my invitation to the punk-rock show.)

I had an overpriced beer at La Casa Degli Ragazzi Con Quindici Anni, and then took off for destinations unknown.

"Destinations unknown" ended up being "Broadway". Ran into Colleen and DS2, and had a comical misunderstanding re: Me and You and Everyone We Know. Comical, I tell you!

After ditching the kids, I hit Amigo's -- no music yet. I hit Bud's -- no music yet. I hit the Roxy -- no music yet. I went back to Amigo's, then back to Bud's, then back to the Roxy. Somewhere in there I squeezed in a visit to Lydia's (no music yet) and two visits to the Yard & Flagon (no music ever). I'm pretty sure I had four or five beers in the course of these journeys.

Oh Christ, and now I remember that I filled up my home voicemail with random notes and non sequiturs because at some point I got the urge to chronicle my Odysseia Rockis but did not have my notepad in my jacket.

("Odysseia Rockis" is what I thought "Odyssey of Rock" would translate to in Latin. Reason #453 for me not to drink: exponentially poorer understanding of Latin vocabulary and declensions.)

Yes, I called my voicemail so many times that it eventually filled up, so I called Crystal/Maura/Rob's voicemail once. Dear Crystal/Maura/Rob: that ... wasn't me. I don't know who that was. Did you ever see that episode of Star Trek titled "Mirror Mirror"? Sure you did. (Don't lie; it's unbecoming.) So you'll understand that I didn't call your voicemail; it was either Shirtless Sulu or Goatee'd Spock.

I suspect it was also one of them that almost fell asleep watching Surface play at Amigo's, because I never would. The drummer for Surface was amazing; I even had to tell her so after the show. But the rest of the show? Underwhelming. And what kind of a name is "Surface"? I'll tell you what kind of name it is: the horrible kind. Kids these days demand multiple words, not to mention imagery and punnery. (I hate puns like Baby Jesus hates it when you masturbate, but if a band calls itself "The Death-Ray Davies", you gotta let 'em keep it.)

Where was I? Oh yeah -- I almost fell asleep during La Exhibicion De La Musica Rock, and then I walked home, and then I saw that I had improperly set the vcr, and thus the Meters (the fucking Meters!) playing Letterman is something that will exist only in TV Guide for me.

Did I tell you about this afternoon, when I walked home from the Safeway with 16 rolls of toilet paper under my arm and desperately needed to go to the bathroom? If I weren't so busy clenching at the time, I'm sure I could have figured out which kind of irony was involved; as it is, let's just be glad I'm good at distracting myself.

Who knew Vietnam was so depressing?

Some brilliant fellow posted an episode of China Beach in alt.binaries.multimedia, and having not seen an episode of that show since its original run 16 years ago, I had to download it.

What a excellent/terrible idea!

It's been half a lifetime, so I'd forgotten the two most important things about the show:

1) Dana Delany in a bathing suit ...



and 2) China Beach is the most damnably depressing show in existence.

Likeable characters live together and strive for happiness and are rebuffed, and then return home individually and are similarly thwarted for decades thereafter, only this time they're thwarted and alone. Nothing is ever resolved satisfactorily. Ideal romantic partners are kept apart by fear, inaction, and plain ol' circumstance. Ricki Lake appears in a couple of episodes and survives, while beloved characters are killed outright. The theme of the series seems to be that in life there is never resolution, merely continuation, and if you're unlucky enough to want something more than you can have, you'll forever want it and never get it, so just enjoy the friends you have while you have them because you won't have them forever.

I suppose I can draw shaky parallels between my own situation and the China Beach-ers', but any such connection would be of questionable benefit. In two years I am gone from here, and gone alone, headed for excitement and disappointment hundreds or thousands of miles away. The last thing I need is to be reminded that these years will be as heartbreaking in the future as they are joyous now.

Man, what a great show.

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a "That 70's Show" rerun

And thus I procrastinate for the first time this semester. It's pretty sweet. Screw you, second chapter of Programming in Prolog, I've got dinner to prepare. And eat. And reflect fondly upon shortly thereafter.

Wait, did I say it was pretty sweet? What I meant was "ridiculous"; it's a freakin' Prolog book. I should breeze through it!

likes(mary,john).
likes(mary,wine).
likes(john,mary).

|?- likes(john,wine).
no.

Now where's my dinner-y reward?!

"A potato."

Transporter 2 wasn't really "bad", per se. Oh, it wasn't good, either; don't get me wrong. It was just kind of ... nuts. It operated under its own sense of logic and a unique interpretation of physics. It was insane.

After the movie I wanted to say that it defied criticism or comparison because it was sui generis (you can't know how happy I was to find something was sui generis), but more thought revealed Transporter 2's kinship: it was like one of the recent James Bond movies. It's like there's a checklist: nothing made sense; the CGI was retarded and unnecessary; there was a villain whose evil plot was mostly silly; the supervillain's henchpersons sucked at their jobs, except for the supermodel with the "Death by Rabbit" tattoo on her inner thigh. However, Transporter 2 was better than Pierce Brosnan's Bond flicks for two reasons: fewer cheesy one-liners, and no Madonna.

Hurray for low-res camera phones!

I grabbed a still from Rude Boy and fed it through the Rasterbator and 98 sheets later the Clash are playing in my living room ...



(It's not quite so blurry in real life.)

It's pretty cool, though I am again reminded of my lack of paper-cutting skills. Ah well.

I ought to feel bad that it took 98 sheets of paper to accomplish (and that the bottom 14 sheets were trashed because they were just solid black), but come on: an almost-life-sized Joe Strummer is his own reward.

You know what I am saying is true!

Transporter 2sday

Today is Monday, which means that tomorrow is Transporter 2sday. I have difficulty expressing how excited I am for Transporter 2, mostly because it's the sort of "excitement" that comes over you when you think, "Maybe there's mail waiting for me at home!" or "Hey, lunch!" It's an oasis of change in the desert of the mundane. (The Dessert of the Mundane is something else entirely ... tiramisu, I think.) Considering that today there was no mail waiting for me at home, and lunch was largely underwhelming, the prospect of Transporter 2 rocking my ass like a hemorrhoid is looming large.

Do prospects loom? Probably not. Come to think of it, do prospects even do anything? I guess they just kinda sit there. Man, prospects are lame. Fuck prospects. If prospects were bad guys who left their guns in their other pants, the Transporter would grab an Ikea endtable and kick their asses.

Did I just use "WTF" in a post?

"WTF". Good Lord. What a catastrophe.

Well, maybe not a "catastrophe". I'm not even sure what a catastrophe is anymore. So many horrible things happen with such damnable regularity that words like "catastrophe" are constantly redefined, and I'm hesitant to use words like it because I never know when the next horrific redefinition will occur. Sometimes it seems like it's just around the corner, but mostly it's unexpected and that's when it happens and it's all the worse.

Like my date this afternoon, fr'instance. Bahaha. I kid. That was less a catastrophe than an apostasy.

Er, no, it wasn't that. I use words incorrectly just because I like them, and I need to stop that. Some words, though, I refuse to use just because I hate them. Yes, hate. "Whinging" is such a word. It's my understanding that "whinging" is just like "whining" but with an extra "g". Sorta like a purebred dog is like an SPCA dog, but you pay an extra g.

Well, maybe not like that, because purebred dogs may or may not be more stupid that SPCA dogs, whereas "whinging" is definitely more stupid than "whining". The activity may be the same, mind you, but the words ... the words ...

Pot roast? WTF?

Just now I remembered that I wrote about pot roast last night. That's just weird.

For the record: lust for pot roast is absent this morning.

Pot roast, why must you tease me so?

It's 2:13 am, so predictably I am dying for some pot roast. I'm not stoned, I've eaten well today, and I'm about to go to bed, but for some reason I've been craving pot roast for the last ten minutes. If I had a car I could cruise around town until I came to an all-night diner, but ... yeah, no car. If I were even less responsible with money I could take a cab to Denny's, assuming Denny's is open at this hour, and then I could treat the cabbie to some pot roast, too.

School school school school

Went to my first Software Engineering class today. Kind of terrifying. I need to join a group. Ideally I'd join a group with Colleen, but she's at a higher level than I am, and Colleen's friends from this summer are at a higher level than she is ... urgh. Based on the syllabus, there would appear to be little actual programming in the class, but Colleen is of the [probably correct] opinion that programming is so obviously a given that it needn't be explicit on the syllabus.

It's terrifying, but that just means I have to do the work. Can't not do the work.

I'm listening a WFMU podcast which features an interview with the Hound, a former FMU dj who lost his New Orleans home and business to the hurricane. It's heartbreaking.

School school school

Classes start tomorrow, and it's just annoying. Get with the school already, school! It's so weird to have free time now, knowing that this free time will be rationed to the point of non-existence in a matter of days or weeks. God I hope Statistics is manageable. I just gotta work, is all. I have to deny the existence of pleasure or stimulation in any field outside of computer science (or statistics). I have to be enthused and inspired by nothing other than coursework.

OK, yeah, that's a horrible idea. No, what I have to do is surround myself with dumb people outside of computer science, who will remind me of the fate that awaits if I fail.

How's that for an internal rhyme?

No, what I have to do is cut down on the nonsense, and cut up on the ... sense.

Yep, I think my mind has gone sufficiently mushy; I am now ready to have it molded into a sharp ... computing ... head.

Success: Reading. Listening. Questioning. Writing. Painting. Rasterbating. Putting aside thoughts of being forsaken by my friends just because they have lives and I need to recognize and appreciate that. Putting aside thoughts of being forsaken by the universe just because my residence is ... this place. Not worrying about employment, current or future. Resolving that whole "want to be in a relationship / want to leave this place behind when I'm done" conundrum. Laughing, always laughing. And doing my damned dishes! Holy crap, I gotta get on that.

The Rockin' Seven stand guard over my couch

Lessons learned:

1. I cannot be trusted with a paper-cutter
2. Don't wear a black shirt when going to cat-sit for Colleen
   
3. Judging by the amount of tape I bought, and the amount of tape I actually used, I'll have tape on hand for the next forty years
4. If you're looking for something boring to play in the background while you work, go with college football
   
5. Minor flaws are easily concealed by a low-res camera-phone
6. Rasterbator is awesome
   

For a guy with nothing to do, I've got too much to do

Last night I told Justin of my plan to make paintings for my livingroom. He suggested I check out the Rasterbator. I did, which may have been a mistake: now I want to paint and use the Rasterbator.

This afternoon I went to Michael's and picked up a three-pack of canvas panels, a set of starter acrylics, some brushes, and a palette. The cashier and another woman in line were impressed with the entire enterprise, but personally by this point I've passed from "impressed with myself" to "cognizant of the foolhardiness of it all".

While waiting for the bus I sketched some ideas for paintings, so at least I'll not suffer from painter's block.

I'll also not suffer from Rasterbator's block, as I've decided on two images:




(I like the rock and roll.)

Rasterbated, they come out to a total of 108 pages. I still want to look for a good screenshot of Joe Strummer from Rude Boy, but the London Calling picture is a solid back-up plan.

And there are still the five Walkmen waiting to be gutted and turned into iPod cases. Busy busy.

So it goes ...

Dove soap commercials advise us to "Always be radiant," and oh, I am. I'm also drunk. So if there's anything you wanna know, now's the time to ask.

I'm right here.

Fire away.

Anything you wanna know.

Defintion of "picayune" ...

Story of the Spanish Civil War ....

The name of the girl robot in "Small Wonder" ...

The name of the school the guys attended in "Young Ones" ...

The names of my nipples ...

Right here ... fire away ... no question too small, no gratuity too large, no bridge too far ...


Yeah, I'm just stalling because I don't know what movie I want to watch. I'm leaning towards an entry in the Hanzo the Razor series, but I may be too drunk to properly interpret subtitles.

Have I told you, Internet Audience, that I am in desperate need of wall covering for my livingroom? Perhaps I have. Last week I looked at contemporary paintings on Ebay, but was unable to find anything suitably pleasing (something Ab-Ex, or maybe barbarian women in chain-mail bikinis) for a palatable price. This afternoon it came to me: Dude ... (as I call myself in my head) ... Dude, you should just paint your own.

So I think I will. Tomorrow I'll just head down to Michael's, international purveyors of arts and crafts, and buy a stretched canvas and some paint and some paintbrushes, take them home, read on the internet how to "paint", and walla!: Art! I downloaded Cremaster 3 this morning, so a few hours spent studying that should teach me everything I need to know about making art. From the last time I saw it, I seem to remember something about wearing a blue kilt, dyeing my skin pink, and having a relationship with an enigmatic amputee. There was also something about old Cadillacs and proper dental care, but I'm already on top of those.

Of course, if the old math lemma is true, and "Stretched canvas > $20", then perhaps a return visit to Ebay is in order.

She's a cold mistress, Ebay is, but oh the pleasures she'll give ya if you ask her nice.