Hello. Sadly it looks like I am not coming back to T Bay for Christmas this year. I have fallen behind on my major Thesis/project and have to use the facilities here to work on it over the break. It is too bad, I was looking forward to going back and even ****** will be there this year.

If you need some ideas for me. Books, DVD, Clothes are always good. (I have a DVD player but not a single DVD yet.)  I am always listening to music and my headphones are getting pretty ragged. I like the big comfortable earmuff style best. A scanner would be good too, my old one broke a while ago. Maybe winter-like shoes. I am ideally a 9.5 but wear size 10s. I don’t know. I don’t expect much. I am managing all right. Try not to do any shopping on Friday, it is Buy Nothing Day.  I would be thrilled with anything below if you want specifics.

Book ideas: Life of pi – Yann Martel , The Contortionist’s Handbook – Craig Clevenger, Syrup – Maxx Barry, House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit – Daniel Quinn.

Movie Ideas: Ringu, Seven, Fight Club, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, High Fidelity, Rushmore, Pulp Fiction, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, Spirited Away, Akira, Garden State, Princess Mononoke, or pretty much any old horror movie would be good. Love, ******

Ahhh I’m a new man.  Thinking clearly, upbeat, re-energized. It was a wise decision to take the rest of the day off after my exam (it went ok). I slept, exercised… (various muscles), listened to some interesting new music. had a chocolate milk that I remembered to put in the fridge. It was cool and yummy. All in all, just a good destressifying evening. I was wishing badly for a massage though. I always forget to opt of the university health plan and save some badly needed funds. However, it covers 90% of the cost of medical therapeutic massage, I am very tempted to try and wrangle a prescription out of some sympathetic MD. I wouldn’t care the sex of my masseuse. Actually, I think I could probably even swing the other way if my man gave me a really good massage everyday. I pine for the day when I can afford them on a daily basis.

My father called tonight. He always starts off every call to me in an exaggerated deep voice, “J_____, this is your father.” I think he is trying to impersonate Darth Vader but doesn’t quite have the quote right (which is typical). Another favorite of his (especially around this time of year) is the sinister “Ho ho hooooo” in the evil robot santa voice from Futurama. It’s actually fairly funny, most of the family doesn’t get it though and it wears thin pretty quick. Anyway, they are demanding my Xmas wish list. They started pestering me about it in early November and I have been brushing them off for as long as possible. They always go overboard on Xmas. I thought they would slow with the amount of gifts once I hit 19 or 20 but it seems they have just kicked it into overdrive. They aren’t affluent by any stretch. My dad is a crew leader at the local paper mill and my mom is a low paid social worker who doesn’t do it for the money. Still they seem to latch on to Christmas as an opportunity to really bombard their two children with consumer goods. I wonder if they figured out that I ripped up my birthday cheque? Anyone who has been reading me for a while would probably correctly guess that this isn’t my favorite holiday. I really feel like I don’t need anything but I have to come up with a list of things that they can buy for me. There is a tiny fuzzy green creature in my brain who is whispering “ask for a laptopppp… ask for a laa” *Squish* I brought the godzilla foot of my mind’s eye down on it violently hard. Even though I know my parents can’t afford to buy me one, they would do it if I asked. My sister and I are superstars in their eyes and they would do anything they could for us. They may feel blessed to have two children that have risen well above the expectations for kids from my hometown but I hope they realize it is just a reflection of the excellent way they brought us up. I think growing up we all really appreciated the family dynamic we had, I’m certainly not going to be able to blame future failures on my childhood.

Ok, so any aid would be appreciated, I have to get this wish list e-mail off to them tomorrow. Maybe a list of excellent books you have read lately? Anything a cool counter-culture kid like me would enjoy? I don’t know… I have had a DVD player for almost a year now and I still don’t have a single DVD. I am going to ask for a can-opener (that will be promptly shipped to Korea). Maybe a pair of hockey skates (this would absolutely delight my dad. I broke his heart when I quit hockey in high school). I don’t know.. bah humbug.

At work. 12 hours until an exam. Just drank a chocolate milk that had been sitting in my bag for seven hours. It was warm and bacterial. So braindead.

Algorithm hell
Poison chocolate death knell
Bad haiku I yell

Burn out city. I feel like sleeping forever. Here are some Mango photos. Two as an adult and two as a kitten. He wasn’t as fat as he looks as an adult, he just grew to be a very large, very furry cat. I am glad I wasn’t the one who found him in the street.

2025 me: Unfortunately I don’t think I have any Mango pics anymore. These are broken links.

Big Mango 1
Big Mango 2
Little Mango 1
Little Mango 2

I read a story in the National Post (the main Canadian national newspaper) about a state prison in Indiana that allows criminals to adopt cats as a reward for good behaviour. It was a very interesting read and I tend to think it’s a good thing. It would probably foster empathy for other living creatures in the lonely prisoners. Two quotes rom the article I liked were “These guys are hard-core criminals. And when a cat comes up and rubs against them, you see the baby in them. They lose the hard shell and everybody’s a whole person again.” and “One burly prisoner nicknamed Bull cried the day he was transferred out of Indiana state prison. He could not take his cat of 15 years, Catrick, to the new facility.”

I am definitely a cat person. I have gotten really confrontational in the past when being cracked on because of this.. it was by my pizza boy connection if anyone read that post. He was implying I was feminine because I prefer cats.

Anyway, I really miss my cat, Mango. He was a beautiful orange medium to long haired cat with a big bushy white beard with extra large white paws. Since I knew getting a cat was a major commitment, picking him out was a time consuming, week long process of visiting pet stores all over the city and playing with and touching kittens. I wanted him because he was so enthusiastic at the pet store and gorgeous. I was cohabiting at the time and Mango had a clear preference for me over my girlfriend. I think it is because she was a little too rough with him and pursued him too much. Mango would let me rub his belly but would scratch and bite her if she tried. I think he appreciated my more laid back approach and gentle touch.

We had a little ritual at night, after I would shower and lie down he would come and hop onto my chest and knead it with his paws, purring loudly as I pet him (until the gf would get jealous and push him away). I’ve noticed cats in households with kids tend to withdraw and become introverted, probably because the kids provide much more attention than a cat wants. Mango maintained a very outgoing, excitable personality well into adulthood…… and then he was run over on a narrow street where everyone speeds. Now as a memorial to Mango, driving down this street I will go EXACTLY the speed limit when I am on it. Traffic backs up and I know everyone gets major road rage (it’s one lane) but I don’t care. It is a residential neighbourhood and Mango would approve.

2025 me here: I think there was probably a picture of Mango and me here. He was a great cat.

Wokeup at 1:30pm today, the normal time for a Saturday since I work Friday nights. I actually should sleep longer but I seem to be incapable of it on the weekends. Sooner or later my body will just shut down and sleep for 10-12 hours, morning classes be damned. I was in a really weird mood last night. I kept stepping out of the moment in a daze to ponder… anything. A little bit of what I was thinking of cameout in my post yesterday. I also thought about my dysfunctional relationship, the chaos my academic life is in, an arrogant asshole I have to deal with sometimes, Xangans, the ticking of the clock behind me, the cool feel of the ugly maroon leather on my uncomfortable chair. Then I would think “this is so surreal, everything is so hazy right now. I am not going to remember anything from tonight later” The thing is I remember it vividly. It is when I am in the moment that time flies by and memories formed are blurred. I can see myself so clearly sitting alone at 5am in that dark conference room underneath a powerless chandelier with my cold water bottle in my lap looking out the back doors into the soft rain falling on the courtyard, just gazing out and savouring the moment and my bittersweet thoughts.

I had trouble choosing music this morning. This odd mood lingers. It took me a while before I could find something I could stand. I settled on the new Stars album. It is a decent fit.

I have to expunge a little bit of darkness tonight. It is welling up inside. I can feel it flowing through my soft tissues. It is metallic and sickly sweet.

We’re headed for a crash. Global catastrophe. Why can’t any of you see it? Why is there so much individual intelligence but collectively we behave like lemmings? Maybe it’s because you are all wrapped up in your own little lives selfishly trying to grab an extra large piece of the pie. You can’t be bothered to think outside your own little personal monkeysphere and notice the flames. Your brain isn’t capable of caring for the hundreds of millions of people that starve to death every year. You either can’t see the long term consequences of your piggish actions or you just don’t care you selfish fuck.

After the crash I’m going to head north. The soil on the Canadian shield isn’t great but it’s home. Potatoes grow fairly well there. Hunting and fishing is excellent. My father and I have enough woodcraft to get by. Things are going to get ugly in the city when the food starts to run out. After the initial few years of chaos things will get better. Maybe then people will remember that the economy is a creation of ours, it works for us, not the other way around. That void you feel can’t be filled at the shopping mall.

I was unsuccessful in my goal… the darkness is still there. All I did was get righteous and vent. I would have done it more eloquently if I wasn’t dog tired.

Have you ever come home and seen six messages on your answering machine… and then you start listening to them and realize they’re all from the same person… and as you go through them, they get nastier and scarier in tone? I didn’t think this kind of thing happened in real life, let alone mine. If she ever comes over again I am hiding my steak knife.

I’m tired and going to bed. Here are some dancing bananas…. some of them on the end are being naughty. Their favorite tracks on my drop down menu are “Hanayo – Joe Le Taxi” and “!!! – Me and Guiliani Down by the Schoolyard.

2025 me here: I just spent thirty minutes at the dancing banana archive to restore these things.

 

 

The quality level category of todays post: shit. I am going through a manic phase right now. I have all this nervous energy. I am stuck at home doing laundry and this is my outlet. I think the DSMV 4 or whatever release it is on now doesn’t specify a mania disorder, only bipolar disorder or category two depression which specifies mania followed by depression. I think their attitude is even if you only seem to get manic phases, you will eventually get the depression at some point. My prof kept stressing that disorders are only disorders if they prevent regular life function. I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore. (BTW: I have enough psychology courses to minor in it. That’s what happens when you are in undergraduate for seven years. It feels like I’ve taken everything. I am not proud of this in the slightest. Abnormal Psychology was the fun one.)

Laundry Day = a ton of updates on Xanga.

I am going to yell at whoever took my clothes out of the washing machine 2 minutes before I got there if I catch them taking out my clothes that are now in the dryer. I know there is exactly 20 minutes left in the cycle because I am timing on my stopwatch. I will be up there a minute or two before it finishes and if someone is taking my clothes out before they are done…….. HULK SMASH…. well maybe just a dirty look and some attitude. I am annoyed my freshly washed clothes were left on the table just because I was 2 minutes late. grrrr. I know their wash cycle is going to finish 20 minutes before my dryer….

Was such a mistake to pick up my phone tonight. I promised to call back. Damnit.

Procrastinating… I successfully did this without cheating…. and I did this three times under four seconds. Don’t believe me? I’ve got the screen shots to back it up. My skills are jedi like.

It takes me way too long to get going in the morning if I check this page. I should stop (I just wrote “I am going to” and backspaced it) and limit it to later in the day. I can’t help it, I enjoy my little ritual of putting on good music (today it was Fountains of Wayne) having my breakfast and coffee and checking the pages I’ve subscribed to. I should learn just to head straight for the shower and check after I get some work done…

Ate a lot of pizza today. FREE PIZZA! Pizza boys are good friends to have. Especially ones from “Pizza Pizza”. At this particular franchise they have a “40 minutes or it’s free” policy. They also have a satisfaction guaranteed policy. As a by-product of these policies they tend to get all the cheap ass customers who try to scam free food (this includes a lot of University students). Anyway, whenever this guy has an order that a customer refused to pay for and he is in the area, he knocks on my door and voila! Free pizza. It actually gets ridiculous sometimes the amount I get. Sometimes I throw a fair amount of it out. My freezer just isn’t that big. He brings me the left over slices in the counter machine at the end of the day when he knows I’m at work sometimes too (around 4am). Besides this very cool benefit, Pizza boys have the *best* stories. Especially when they deliver in the University area. I am not sure how much of it to believe but man… if random sexual encounters are your thing, then this is the career for you. He really does put up with a lot of bullshit though. You can just imagine what it’s like dealing with drunk students. My slice preparation: I reheat and then dump a bunch of BBQ sauce on it Soooo Yummy!! mmmmmm. BBQ sauce on pizza is amazing.

Things are eerily quiet on the situation I’m going to have to deal with eventually. *sigh* In 8 days…

2025 me here: Looks like the quiz link in this post is dead. There were some other broken link images in this post that are missing too. Also redid a “what molecule are you quiz?” for fun: “You’re Teflon! Most things don’t bother you, in fact they roll right off your back. You are tough but also useful, and people know they can depend on you. You are a mighty chain of carbon atoms completely surrounded by fluorine atoms, which is pretty solid.” Lame. Water was better.

Ok, I’m breaking down and putting a quizilla quiz up. As a former Bio student I found this one irresistible. It was on Sarahndipidee‘s site (watch out, she’s an enzyme) who got it from w00tstock’s site who probably got it somewhere else too.

You are water. You’re not really organic; you’re neither acidic nor basic, yet you’re an acid and a base at the same time. You’re strong willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready to flow. So while you often seem worthless, without you, everything would just not work. People should definitely drink more of you every day.

Which Biological Molecule Are You?

Apparently water listens to depressing alternative or indie rock, and is concerned about the overburdening of the ecosystem. I resent that appearing worthless line.

Looks like an eclectic post day. Check this out though, it is beyond awesome: David_Suzuki Clips Look at the hair in clip three!! HAHAHahaa! If I had time I would watch all of these. I love this man.

Oh baby! I just heard a wicked track. By Atmosphere, a remake of a teenage favorite; White Zombie’s – More Human Than Human. That just made my day! Added that one and three others to my player.

A private post I wrote earlier, I have nothing better in me right now so I will just make it public. I don’t even know if it’s true, I was just thinking and exploring my situation a little.

I have breaking points. They aren’t soft declining borders, they are sharply defined cliffs. I can be pushed to a certain point and everything will be fine. There won’t be any warning signs, if there are they will be very subtle. Then one small nudge will cause something to snap inside of me and everything will change. The response doesn’t have to be rage, it can be indifference. A large enough slight or a consecutive sequence of small slights up to my magical spot will trigger an internally satisfying dropping of you out of my consciousness like a rock off of a cliff. I think this is probably fairly abnormal. I don’t know. This response was triggered in me last week. I know I am tearing a young woman up inside through the reception of her pained email. If this was a power struggle it would be clear I won. I don’t look at it like that though, I don’t want to hear her plead and beg for reconcile, I just don’t want to hear from her. Does she deserve my icy wrath? Hard to say… I am not capable of being objective right now and am barely thinking of her. When the response is rage…. I know in those extremely rare situations I am capable of throwing everything away because there is no ego, it is all id, and the id is visceral and doesn’t care about consequences. I do know that I have an enormous pool of patience. Seemingly endless…. keep pushing me though…. I don’t even know when I’ll cross over… Stress definitely brings my thresholds down.

It’s coming. Nov 26th. (The last Friday of November)

2025 me here: Looks like there were more old photos here that are missing now.

I was drinking from the happy cup today. It didn’t seem to help much. *end scene*

After that little bit of stupidness… What a total rollercoaster day. I went from really low, to methamphetamine level high (caffeine, power bar and hardcore techno aided.) then back down again. My already volatile situation was exasperated by a female in my life who definitely has an undiagnosed case of borderline personality disorder. I am tired of picking up the phone just to hang it up. Everything is in total chaos right now. Strangely, I am kind of enjoying it. I am like heat shock protein 27. I thrive when the system becomes stressed.  (I was trying hard to think of a good metaphor or simile for “I thrive under the harshest conditions” but that, sadly was my best.)

I am strong and powerful. I see through your false presence, I see clearly and deeply into your heart with ease. You are filled with insecure greed and self-doubt. You are dying. I am alive and strong and you will not strike me down. I am superior and will fight for the truth. Look down on me, I feel no need to acknowledge your insignificant artificial smugness. When I am roused I am a entity so powerful I can change this world with my will alone. What I know would shatter all the schemas in your mind and leave you sobbing like a child. I will wake the hypocrites, I will lead the revolution. I will destroy your religion and show you that your god is dead. I will not weaken and I will not stop.

This culture is sick.

I’ve adapted to it though. We all have. The human brain is marvelous. I am going through life constantly stimulating it with a steady stream of electronic sensory input. TV and computer screens. Music. Video Games. We are a very small step from cutting out all actual flesh and blood person to person interaction. I could pull it off. After graduation, coding as a job from home. grocery deliveries, electronic banking, Internet and telephone for social satisfaction, porn for sexual gratification. It would be sick but I would adapt. You would too. It feels good to have my TV cable unhooked. Tearing and breaking my connection to the Internet would be a lot more painful. I am a Computer Science student.. I could do it though…. maybe.

I tore up the $300 birthday cheque my parents mailed me a few weeks ago. Everytime I glanced at my table where it lay I internally debated cashing it. I could have bought new clothes with it, new gadgets, more meaningless crap to fill my life. It felt intensely satisfying tearing it up. I am surviving on my own. My body is younger and stronger than my dads. That cheque represented labour he had done. They may not realize that there is an extra $300 in their account but I am glad there is. They have given me enough. I need to get my act together and put myself in a position to help them. My dad grew up on a northern lake. I think it is his secret dream to get that cabin back……