reminders of why we should move back to canada...

the day seemed to start off so promisingly. I was going to head downtown with some friends for a flash mob, the "seattle freeze"... seattle's own take on this... vancouver and portland were also doing them today, and I'm sure most other metropolitan areas had their own too.

the facebook page for the vancouver event had well over 200 people confirmed. seattle had barely fifty. if I had to guess how many people showed up for the seattle freeze, I'd say maybe 75 at most, seven were just our group. I dunno if we just had a poor locale, or not enough people, or what... but there didn't seem to be the same kind of confusion caused as the original new york freeze. I heard a couple security guards complaining that they didn't know what was going on, but otherwise didn't notice much reaction at all. I guess I'll have to wait for the video to see if there was any reaction I missed.

on our way home, we tried to catch a bus. the bus stop we were at was backed up, there were four buses trying to stop there, ours being the fourth. and rather than waiting until it got to the actual stop, the driver opened the doors half a block away, and some people ran down to get on. then the fucker didn't stop AT the bus stop. we missed the bus, and then had to walk three blocks and wait another ten minutes to catch the other bus that goes to ballard. it's bad enough there are only two buses that go from downtown to our neighborhood (not exactly a tiny borough, mind you), but then those buses can't even manage to stop when and where they're supposed to.

so between a half-assed flash mob that assuredly pales in comparison to vancouver's turnout, to the horrendous transit getting home from said failure, it just has me wondering what again what I'm actually missing by not living in vancouver.

I'm predicting will be back in canadaland within a couple years, basically as soon as I can get my debt paid down and save up a nest egg for a place we can't afford. that's the one area that vancouver might actually suck worse than seattle, we'd definitely never be able to afford a house or condo up there. but at least we could move out to the burbs up there and still have reliable transit into the city. FSM bless the skytrain...

"...except for that whole keating five thing."

I normally don't stoop to the level of politics, but this is just too stupid.

john mccain got a little too cozy with a female lobbyist awhile back. she's not bad looking for an older lady, especially to a guy who can't lift his arms. no one is saying for certain that he porked her, they've both denied a "romantic" relationship (which, as he's married, to me means "it was strictly sex, no wooing"), but I can't wait to see how this turns out.

slick willy harpoons a whale and it's a scandal. he nearly got impeached over it, because that obviously had everything to do with shady business dealings from his past. it seemed pretty obvious to damn near everyone that the lewinsky thing was purely for pleasure. what mccain did was for profit. so how is what he did any better than what clinton did? well, I guess since mccain is a republican, the GOP will probaby throw him a damn ticket tape parade for nailing a WOMAN... how long has it been since they had any sort of heterosexual sex scandal?

his communications director, jill hazelbaker, released this statement: "It is a shame that the New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election. Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career."

so how do we interpret this? it's obviously a lie if she's trying to say the guy is an honest dood. the "never violated the principles that have guided his career" bit is interesting tho... I guess if you consider that he's ALWAYS been a complete and utter douchebag, this move would just be par for the course and thus consistent with his "principles"... the guy has shown himself to be a huckster and a fraud his entire career, why should this be any different? he has pretty much "violated the public trust" any chance he could to make a dime.

I hate politics.

paul owes me $9.75.

after weeks of cajoling, I finally went to see no country for old men.

miyuki and I decided to have our belated valentine's date tonight, we went out for dinner and a movie.

I can sum up the movie in one word:

meh.

the acting was good. the cinematography was good. the story was utter shite. I feel like I've wasted $19.50 on admission when we could have just netflixed the damn thing for next to nothing. what an utterly pointless movie.

that wouldn't have even made my top ten movies for 2007. and I think I only saw about twelve moves from 2007.

paul, I'm not listening to your recommendations again for a looooong time.

I'm going to follow paul's advice...

I'm going to quit my job and follow my dream... I love marlins baseball, and I love grotesque displays of man-flesh... it's perfect.

today will be a good day...

how could it not, with this soundtrack to start my day?

new order - blue monday
the buggles - video killed the radio star
a-ha - take on me
wham! - wake me up when you go-go
the cure - boys don't cry
soft cell - tainted love
emf - unbelievable
murray head - one night in bangkok


FSM bless c-89. the only songs this list is missing are falco, nena and baltimora... and I'm sure they're in the post.

speak of the fucking devil, here's tarzan boy!

eighteen kinds of suck.

something has got to change, and soon.

I was in bed at 6pm last night. I just couldn't cope with the day anymore. I had a truly brutal day at work, which I had half expected... what with leaving early friday to take miyuki to homey security, I knew there was a lot left undone. I just didn't know HOW bad it was going to be.

I had fifteen emails waiting for me. by 9am, I had seven voice mails. I had to drive to bellevue to help a large customer sort through a botched delivery we made. I had people harassing me all day with really stupid "favours" (hey, my buddy wants a sink, can you hook him up with the 'brother' discount?) I'm trying to coordinate a two million dollar condo job, and several other six figure jobs, dealing with a warehouse that doesn't give a shit about picking material properly or delivering it on time, appeasing customers with preposterous expectations, and I'm supposed to drop everything to help your BUDDY find a hundred dollar sink for his house? call a fucking showroom.

my job normally isn't that difficult. there are some challenges, sure, but it's all easily handled. it's been my attitude lately. and not just with work. paul pointed out my blood lust for minor insults and petty sleights is out of proportion to reality.

I stopped using the testosterone months ago because miyuki pointed out I had "teh rage"... when she had to physically restrain me from smashing the guitar hero controller out of frustration, I figured she had a point.

but my temperament hasn't improved much. we started going to the gym 3-4 times a week, but have tailed off recently. it's been over a week since we've gone. the motivation just isn't there, it's been too easy to find other excuses not to go. at first I wanted to go, and made the effort to make sure we went whenever we could. now I just don't give a shit.

this isn't a new thing. for years I've been lamenting to doctors about the various symptoms... feeling run down all the time, not being social, not having patience for those around me, contempt for everyone around me, etc. several times they've tried to send me off the therapists and whatnot. I went a couple times in college. I tried taking zoloft for a couple days in my early 20s, and ended up with such horrible migraines that I swore I'd never take "happy pills" again. now the idea of therapy just seems like too much trouble and expense. and I don't like the side effects of medication... seems like best case scenario, you get a lobotomy in pill form, cutting out the lows AND the highs.

I really don't think I'm depressed. for the most part I'm happy, sarcastic, and pretty easy to please. it's just that I also succumb to easily to pressures around me. I've always argued that "ignorance is bliss" has an equal and opposite corollary... and there have been many times I have wished I could have been a member of the idiot masses, oblivious to all the shit around me. but I'm not. it's too easy to recognise all the horrible things wrong with the world, all of the ways people are stupid and selfish and make everything worse for everyone else. the idea that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.

I've wondered if I could ever just find religion and forget about all the bad stuff, I'd be happy. it seems to easy for everyone around me. they just ignore the bad stuff and pretend good stuff exists. but then again, these people are supremely entertained by reality television and don't believe in global warming, so do I REALLY want to have to dumb myself down that much to be happy? is that even being alive anymore?

I hate politics.

I'm normally not a very political person. this is mostly due to my cynicism and understanding that my fellow human beings are, more often than not, complete morons. so I try not to care too much, apathy saves me many frustrations and much heartbreak. I still don't know how paul does it. it's like he never saw spaceballs: "evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb."

I seem to recall being blamed last presidential election, by either paul or toby (possibly both) that I JINXED the election by saying dubya would get reelected. he pulled it off once, he'd likely pull it off again. because I had the cynicism to believe the system would fail, and that either through trickery (ie, karl rove) or stupidity (ie, the south and midwest) the republicans would win a second term, somehow the fact that they pulled it off was MY fault.

so this weekend, we're down in the shitty vancouver, otherwise known as vanloser, visiting my family. and since I'm a bit of an annoying asshole, even to my family, politics have come up a few times.

my family is weird. for the most part, we're a fairly liberal lot. most of my family votes democrat, my dad votes republican out of spite (to "cancel one of us out"), and I generally vote as far left as I can. I was so proud to vote for the gay ex-hippie socialist in 2000, and was actually ashamed that I voted for kerry in 2004 (because paul had me believing that washington would be MUCH closer than it was). I had fully expected to vote for kucinich this go around, knowing full well he'd be long gone by the time I got a shot. I had actually hoped to write in for mrs kucinich 'cos she's hot, but as a brit she's not even eligible.

but in talking to my family, I'm downright frightened. my mom said today she'd be happy to vote for hillary, but if it came down to obama or mccain, she'd have to vote for maccain.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

when I pressed on this a bit, I found out she doesn't trust obama. she's worried he's secretly a muslim. and secretly a terrorist. and his devious plan is to get into office and then destroy america.

my mom is normally a rational person. this is completely dumbfounding. I'm still in shock.

later on, we went to visit HER mother. in talking to nana, she said much the same thing. she spewed all the typical republican bullshit about how he's a muslim and a terrorist and doesn't salute the flag and was sworn in a koran and all that. it's horseshit. but this is the same place whose county's GOP posted an article outlining all of that shit. and everyone here believed it. nana tells me one of her friends printed something out, and it said right on the printout that it was CONFIRMED by who knows what! I really don't like the fact that my family has gone from rational people to dumbshits who will believe anything they're told, throwing reason out the window for knee-jerk hysteria. the worst part was, when nana said he was secretly a muslim, I asked her why that would even matter if it were true. she equates "muslim" with "terrorist"... she didn't realise there are enarly as many muslims as christians, that most muslims don't want to kill anyone, and that they both worship the same fucking god. again, a normally rational, intelligent, liberal person. what the hell is wrong with this country?

I've since printed off a whole slew of "propaganda" (ie, the truth) dispelling all of this shit, showing what a total douche mccain is, and how hillary in any other election would be considered a conservative... my mom read it, and has at least decided now that if it came down to obama and mccain, she just wouldn't vote. but she still doesn't like obama. I doubt nana will change her mind either. my dad said he'd read it, and told me he's "more open-minded than I give him credit for"... I doubt it. he'll read it, scoff and say it's all bullshit. this is the same guy who refuses to watch an inconvenient truth because it wasn't real. he voted for washington's ridiculous $30 car tabs initiative because he just bought a new truck and didn't want to pay $500 to license it. he doesn't vote for schools because his kids are grown (his grandchildren aren't), doesn't vote for transit because he never takes the bus and doesn't vote for health care because he already has it. he refused to vote for gore OR kerry because he "doesn't like clinton"... he also thinks bill clinton was the worst president ever, despite having witnessed first hand the presidencies of dubya, reagan and nixon. he doesn't actually watch fox news, so I don't know how he comes up with this shit...

this kind of idiocy has me jumping on the obama bandwagon. I know I'll be disappointed. best case scenario, he's jimmy carter version 2.0. he gets to office with dreams and ideals and a plan for a better future, and he's kicked out four years later having accomplished nothing. worst case scenario? he gets into office, some asshole assassinates him and we really do end up with obamelot, and he goes down in history next to JFK as a great american martyr, having accomplished little and leaving us all with a tainted view of the past, wondering what might have been.

somewhere in between those two is hillary winning, 'cos I really gotta believe that losing an election isn't nearly as abd as losing your life. hell, even mccain winning is probably better than a martyred obama. I just REALLY hope he's got good security. and a good bulletproof vest. too many fuckos out there have too many reasons to hate him. he's black. his dad's a muslim. they think HE'S a muslim. he wants to change the system. he's liberal.

I'm really disappointed in my family. and I'm beginning to agree with miyuki that it's horrible to come down here to visit... we really don't belong here.

reason # 4,057 humanity deserves extinction

one of the worst parts of our current living situation is the laundry room. there are 38 apartments in our building, and three sets of washers and dryers in the laundry room to service all of them. we don't have assigned times for laundry, so it's basically first come, first serve.

a wash cycle lasts about 25 minutes. a dry cycle takes 55 minutes. I have this down to an art form. I set a timer as soon as I get back to my apartment so I know when the cycle will be over and can head down to change things out. I usually catch the washer as it's spinning down, and the dryer as it's in cool down.

I was doing three loads of laundry tonight. I never liked to use ALL of the machines, because that's a douchebag move. I'll use two and leave the other one for someone else. if I'm there first, I don't feel using two is wrong. it's that classic precedent of "snooze v lose"... tonight, the other one was already being used, so when I moved my two loads to the dryer, I started my third load in one of the recently emptied washers. I didn't check on it right away, because I knew all three dryers would be used for at LEAST forty minutes, if not more. I checked after 45, and saw the third dryer wasn't going to free up anytime soon, so I went back to watching hockey (fucking maple leaves, btw).

after the timer beeped, I went down to catch the first dryer starting its cool down cycle, and the other one shortly behind. my third load, a bunch of towels, was sitting on top of one of the dryers, soaking wet.

our laundry room is a fucking sty. I don't even like to think about what sorts of shit is coating every surface down there. and now coating my wet towels that I used to dry off after getting clean in the shower.

there is no possible way this asshole could have possibly expected to get both of his loads of wash into a dryer at the same time. at the very least, I'd have one of the dryers myself, and the other set had a load of wash in both machines, so it'd likely be tied up.

why on fucking earth would someone pull wet clothes out in this situation? the person who did this is a grade A asshole. there is no other possible explanation for their actions. I hope they die a slow, painful death. I hope I get to witness it. I hope I get to kick them in the nuts right before they die, so their final breath is a gasp of pain before they expire.

I actually pulled my laundry out of the dryer early. I'm going to finish drying it on our rack in the apartment. there was too great a risk I'd actually run into this fucker if I left the towels until the end of their cycle. and if I did bump into this person down there, I would likely end up in jail, because I would have gotten very violent.

I don't like the fact that I'm getting MORE disillusioned with humanity as I get older. I'm supposed to mellow with age. to shrug things off, to appreciate the happy things more. that's not the case. it's just building up exponentially, the bitterness and the hatred for my fellow man. every time someone does something considerate or selfless, six other people do something horrible to cancel it out and then some.

where is this fucking comet I was promised?

you can never go back again.

warning: massive nerd content.

I started playing teh magic again. miyuki got a nice necklace for valentine's day (ordered from england early so it'd be here in time), so I got magic cards (also early, because we're horrible people that don't celebrate holidays properly). I've spent over a hundred dollars on cards in the past three weeks. enough to put together what I thought were a few decent decks.

boy, was I wrong.

things have changed a lot since I last played. first of all, in high school, my friends and I had missed the ridiculously powerful cards already... we came in during revised, when wizards of the coast had already purged the ridiculous cards. sure, the purged cards still existed, but they were really expensive due to scarcity, and weren't "legal" anyway. we made due with what we had. we all spent roughly the same amount of money, from the same core set(s), and generally had a good time. the only advantages or disadvantages we had was our own ingenuity. it was an otherwise even playing field.

the expansion sets wotc came out with, the less interested I became. the expansion sets were very gimmicky, and complicated, and annoying. turns out they've only gotten worse since.

last friday, I went to play with my friend tony and some of his friends. I got raped. hard. these were people that had been playing non-stop for ten plus years. they had tens of thousands of cards. they were using cards I'd never heard of and combinations I never thought possible. really cheap, lame combinations. "if I have 200 life, I automatically win. here's something that gives me fifty life every turn". "I have an artifact that gives this effect. I can combine it with this other card to give me really annoying creature INFINITE toughness. or I can give myself INFINITE life." that sort of shit. I didn't have much fun.

tonight, I went to a "magic meetup" on queen anne... generally a half dozen people or so get together, supposedly all levels of skill represented. wrong. I got raped 100x worse than I did friday. at least friday there were a couple people who were normal. and to be fair, nobody friday night was a dick.

tonight, I was reminded why I hated expansion sets. they're all built on themes. and the themes are pretty much unstoppable unless you're playing a different theme from the same expansion. I was destroyed in under five minutes four different times by people playing with these theme decks. "this card creates tokens." "this card makes all of my creatures/tokens better." "this card makes you lose cards every time I create a token." before I knew it, I was overwhelmed with fucking TOKENS that were all causing me to hemorrhage cards at a ridiculous pace. the one time I thought I was going to get close to winning, the other guy played an eight year old, long banned card that destroyed EVERYTHING: creatures, artifacts, land, etc. I never drew another land card. I lost because of this. if I would have kept my land, I could have beat him.

that was the problem I was having... 98% of my cards are from one core set. the core set doesn't include any gimmicky cards, they're all straightforward, basic shit. everyone else I played against was either using older cards, which were either cheaper or improved versions of what I had, or were outright banned because they were so ridiculously powerful (sol ring, fork, channel, etc), or they were using these expansion killer combinations I had no hope of countering. soldier deck. merfolk deck. cleric deck. every card they played compounded the effect of another card. a card that on its own would have been a simple creature, not very powerful and easily destroyed, very quickly becomes unstoppable.

I was there for three hours. there was one game that was going on the entire time I was there, I don't even know when it started. when I left, one guy had 304 life, the other guy had 79. you start with 20. the idea is to reduce the other guy to zero. one of them had a 90-something power creature on the table, I think it was originally a 6/6. he just kept sacrificing tokens to it to make it bigger. that game had at least a dozen DICE on the table, counting different tokens and shit like that. card games should not require dice. hell, the guy with 304 life was using three d10 dice to keep track of his life total. I use a d20. why? because I start with 20 life, and it's supposed to go down.

I know I wasn't the only person there that was frustrated. I guess it was the highest turnout they've ever had (eleven people) and there were other newbies (to that group, I was the only true newbie there). I kept hearing terminology I've never heard before... I'm pretty sure "standard" means the current set of legal cards. I have no idea what "aggro" means, but it was in regards to a deck that was all over the place and ridiculously powerful... it could mean "aggregate" or it could mean "aggressive" or something else entirely. there were several other words I can't even remember. lots of the annoying cards had rules I'd never heard of... morph. echo. there were a bunch of others. gone are the days of having just summon, enchant, instant and sorcery... now everything has like six rules or types attached to it. it's really confusing.

I really doubt I'll ever go back to that group. these were people that played in tournaments and have probably never had sexual relations with another human being. they took the game way too seriously. after I got beat badly twice, I resigned to just watching for awhile. a latecomer showed up and asked if I'd like to play. I explained my situation, I hadn't played in ten years and didn't have very good cards. no worries, he says, he'll go easy on me...

yeah, I was about ready to punch him in the throat. he was playing one of those token counter/stacking creatures from hell types. after I was visibly pissed at him for the first game, he said he'd try a different deck that should be more fair, and then proceeded to do the same thing with a different deck with all the same types of cards.

now, I don't go around beating up three year olds. I'm pretty sure I could. they're usually quite small and not very smart. I don't do it because it's not very fun after the first few minutes. what's the point? they can't put up a fight. I don't understand what compels someone to want to do the magic equivalent of beating up a toddler... especially after the first game and seeing I was clearly not playing in the same league, or even on the same planet. I really did want to hurt that guy. I'm pretty sure that's why I'm sitting here hammering away on my keyboard two hours after I should have been in bed.

I really do want to play this fucking game again, but I want to play it under a closed set of parameters. I want to play in a fun way, not an uber-competitive way. I want to play on a more or less even playing field. and I don't want to have anything to do with those annoying fucking expansion cards. I want to win my share of the games, but feel like I earned the win and that any given game could go either way. I basically want to play as if it was 1994 again, with my friends from when I was seventeen. back when it was fun. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to recreate those circumstances. I think I have a few people I can play with, and I'm hoping it doesn't get out of hand, but I really doubt it will ever be the same.

times like this make me realise I'm NEVER going to be happy with anything along these lines. this make me angry, and makes me want to lash out at the world. and it makes me really not like myself. right now I really DO want to kick the shit out of a three year old, just so I can feel like I'm good at something, and got something accomplished.

I really do want to feel like I'm good at something. I'm not athletic, I'm not artistic, I'm no good at games, I'm generally just not motivated to do anything.

there's nothing quite as humiliating as being "outclassed" by a bunch of twenty- and thirty-something virgins who still live with their parents. the fact that I actually showed up and stooped to their level is the worst part. of COURSE they're going to beat me, that's all they do with their. but why did I LET them? I have the common sense to not walk into an astrophysics conference and throw down over quantum theory with anyone there, so what made me think I could hold my own against people whose sole existence is this pathetic game, when they've spent thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of hours on it since I last even looked at it?

so yeah, some stuff happened...

eventful weekend. I learned a lot about myself and those around me.

perhaps most importantly, it's really bad for me to drink thirteen cans of pabst in a single sitting. I'm 36 hours removed from the incident and still concerned that if I sneeze I may violently and spontaneously crap my pants. I still think it was probably worth it, but I won't be going on a binge like that a few months.

I also got my come-uppance from paul for years of abuse. he dare-aoked tori amos "cornflake girl" for me to sing. not only is that about the single most retarded song ever written (lyrically speaking), it's also nigh-impossible to sing (definitely would never knock tori's vocal skillz). he watched me suffer and murder the song with great relish. so much was the torture (for everyone else in the room as well), that I got my revenge not once, not twice, but three times. first, a cock-punch was in order. and despite being ten beers in and barely landing a glancing blow, he seemed to be in a lot of pain. the best revenge was served swedish... he thought he was getting up to sing INXS, only to find he was stuck with dancing queen. I bailed him out with our second gay duet of the night (he already had made me duet "breakfast at tiffany's" with him). his suffering wasn't nearly bad enough yet tho, so when kj duke offered me a second dare-aoke, I had to go with "total eclipse of the heart" and AGAIN helped him out (this time backing vocals only). it was the hat trick of gay karaoke duets. paul is proud that he won that round. I will concede he did, but next time he's going to REALLY pay. saturday night I gave him karaoke GOLD, he gave me karaoke equivalent to gargling 151 proof rum. I'll find something suitably evil for him to sing next time. kj duke was looking for someone to sing der kommissar in german...

other highlights of the night including "kiss me deadly" which, unfortunately, was done so late that only about eight people were left to enjoy. I never got around to "lola" by the kinks... I was able to get through a rendition of GnR's version of "live and let die"... fastball's "the way" fell surprisingly flat. miyuki had already left before my tom jones, so she didn't hear me serenade her with "she's a lady"... "don't stop believin'" went as well as could be expected, since I already had no voice by that point thanks to the aforementioned tori.

I'm trying to decide which song was best on the night... alex did a VERY poignant rendition of "my humps" alanis-style... but christine pretty much NAILED "cabaret" in a truly amazing way. I posted video on facebook of brendan's cover of "with a little help from my friends" complete with joe cocker-esque tweaking... but the camera work was REALLY shoddy 'cos I was quite drunk. I think the shaky-cam just adds to the tweaking, personally.

the truly big news of the night was graeme dropping the bombshell that he knocked up his wife. this was a bit of a shock as they had been firmly in the "non-breeder" camp for as long as I've known them (nearly ten years now). I am now deathly afraid that the "biological clock" isn't just some stupid myth like jesus or the female orgasm, but is actually quite real. I am brazenly forecasting a baby boom amongst clubhousers and expect at least two more pregnancies by 2010. I have my theories of who will succumb to parenthood first, but will keep them to myself. personally, I find this to be a much bigger deal than toby's conversion to teh jesus. finding religion isn't as big a commitment, because if necessary, it's pretty easily lost again. found children are a tad bit harder to lose a few years down the road if you change your mind again. I wish all the best to grae and bean, but for the love of all that is holy, don't go giving miyuki any damn ideas...

sunday wasn't as exciting. high point was setting a record at teh chineefoo, a bill of $111.80 for fourteen people. we were there over two hours and for the first time ever left a sizable amount of food still on the table. they had fancy new menus, but otherwise everything was pretty much the same. I think I've overdone the curry chicken chow mein. it doesn't seem as good anymore. but I REALLY liked the black bean beef chow foon, so all is well.

we got home at a reasonable hour, and I checked the stupidbowl score just in time to see I was in line to collect $40 from the pool at work, with only a minute left in the game. then with 51 seconds left, the giants scored, the patriots lost and so did I. stupid patriots. can't even hold a retarded quarterback in check when the game was on the line? I thought they were supposed to be perfect?

I went to bed too late last night (ie, the usual 10pm), so I'm REALLY tired after only getting six hours of sleep the night before. my throat really hurts. I would have just called in sick, but I have shit to do today that couldn't wait until tomorrow.

so of course, I'm blogging instead.