My discipline is breaking down. A truth I’ve learned through many painful lessons is that I am utterly incapable of working at home. Home is home and the place of food, sleep, sex, video games and movies. Hmmm, that’s an interesting chronology that just flowed out of my impaired consciousness. I wonder if it means anything. I don’t think so, I rarely watch movies or play video games anymore. Deadline panic is providing the impairment. I am having difficulty preventing my perspective from widening out from the tunnel vision that I so desperately need to maintain right now.

My life is full of ghosts. Some of them interact in a seemingly indirect way and some of them are openly aggressive. However, they all want me to fail. Sue is the cunning one. She won’t confront me openly and but she gets into my head. Constantly forming and revising her long term strategy to confound my efforts at every turn. Devious, diabolical Sue. Too good for straight up chasing, the constant thorn in my side.

I die by Inky’s nasty hands often too. He’s got those wild eyes. Crazy bastard. You never know what Inky’s gonna do. That mental instability makes him unpredictable and dangerous. Inky’s always sinking those grimy green teeth into my supple yellow flesh.

The angry red ghost, Blinky is an idiot. In his mindless rage he is utterly predictable and easy to confuse. My elegant dancing is no match for simple Blinky.

Pinky’s a determined chaser too, but likewise can’t handle my smooth moves. She’s the delicate lady of the bunch, not a thug like Blinky or Inky. She will chase but doesn’t have the stomach for the kill, she just wants to get ahead of you and get in your way. It’s always Sue though, cerebral Sue. Always in my next section, always one step ahead, blocking that next energizer while Blinky and Pinky pressure from behind.

I’m deleting Ms. Pacman right now. What a mistake installing that was this morning. I had a nap this evening and all I dreamed about was grids, ghosts and kinky pacman sex. Nothing got done. I’ll chalk today up to post thesis decompression and start work early, early tomorrow. And I will delete my pixelated temptress after a few more games.

Your Homicidal Rampage! by crash_and_burn
Your name:
Weapon of Choice:	Cigarette lighter
Your Favorite Target:	Hospital workers
Your Kill Count:	1,067,985,234
Your Battle Cry:	“Moo!”
Years You Spend in Jail:	44
How Much Money In Damages You Cause:	$284,056,710,428,038
Your Homocidal Insanity Level:: 83%
Quiz created with MemeGen!

I envision more of a GGUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARARRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. I got some great comments on my last post. I thought a post on hockey would bore everyone to death. Thank you.

Question: What was the Billboard number one song of 1966?
Answer: Sgt Barry Sadler – Ballad Of The Green Beret

So today in an effort to calm myself while I frantically tried to weave a connecting thread through the disjoint sections of my thesis, I listened to the top 100 hits of 1966. I was surprised to find a really cheesy, patriotic, lame song at the top of this great musical year. What was in the number two spot?  Diana Ross – You Cant Hurry Love. A supremely superior song. I can’t help but wonder if racism was in play to keep a black woman out of number one. I envision an old prejudiced grump with some power to wield ordering someone at Billboard, “Bump her out of the top spot! Here, put this patriotic ballad in as number one, do it for your country son. What are you? A pinko?” (I have no clue if anyone actually talked like this in 1966)

Have a look at what else Sgt Barry beat out:
#8, The Beatles – We Can Work It Out.
#18, The Rolling Stones – Paint It Black.
#25, Nancy Sinatra – These Boots are Made for Walking.
#34, Percy Sledge – When A Man Loves a Woman.
#37, The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations.
#43,  Stevie Wonder – Uptight Everything’s Alright.

The injustice continues all the way down. That lousy Green Beret song is incredibly horrible and it was number one. Number one! I don’t even know why I am pretending to be shocked. Musical crap always seems to float to the top.

Fighting soldiers from the sky,
Fearless men who jump and die.
Men who mean just what they say,
The brave men of the Green Beret

Ok, nevermind. With brilliant ryhmes like, “from the sky”, “jump and die”, I’m surprised it wasn’t number one in 1967 too. All right, I need to move on, nobody likes sarcasm. I’ve probably deeply offended someone. I apologize. Go U.S.A.

Worked on the thesis all day for the last time, it’s not great but good enough I suppose. I’m handing it in tomorrow on time. This calls for a single banana.

Not more because now I’m entering a tough stretch of presentations and assignments. However, I’ve felled the giant and the end is near.

My undergraduate thesis is due in two days.

I played hockey growing up. In the small city I’m from hockey is huge. One block west of my childhood home exists two outdoor rinks. One and a half blocks to the east are another two rinks. In Thunder Bay, outdoor (and indoor) hockey rinks are everywhere, and they are always in use. Before coming to London and exploring a few other cities a little, it was my misconception that this was the norm for Canada. At the NHL level Thunder Bay is probably over represented. Currently, Steve Rucchin, Anaheim’s captain is probably the most recognizable player. There are quite a few other less renown players too.

With the exception of one year, I didn’t play at the elite level, I played tier-two. Still, I was pretty good. I was one of only a handful of kids who attended hockey camp during the summers and as a result I probably developed more skill. I was always one of the best skaters on my team. I enjoyed playing the most during my first few years as a center, lots of fun and freedom. It got less fun when a coach converted me into a defenseman. Defenseman rarely score. Playing defense slowly and surely soured my love for league play. I didn’t complain much though. My reward was three consecutive “Most Sportsman Like Player” awards. At the NHL level that trophy is named the Lady Bing. You can’t really brag about perennially winning the Lady Bing.

I was undersized. (My dad was a short kid who grew a huge amount during late high school to a respectable 5’11. I followed a similar pattern, only making it to 5’10 though. I blame it on my horrible high school eating patterns.) Anyway, small is not good for defensemen. Height isn’t critical in hockey like in basketball but it helps with leverage. The few times I attempted to stand someone up at the blue line, I would usually just get run over.

In grade eight my defense partner was a huge overdeveloped gorilla man-child. A huge kid. He must have been close to six feet and 250 pounds. A total monster. He was slow as molasses too, the worst skater in existence. I remember how hilarious it was when he moved to hit someone, his target would cower in fear as this giant mass of humanity approached, but he took so long to actually get there and had so little momentum the hit was always so weak and pathetic. The coach’s logic of pairing me with him was that I could skate and would be able to get back quickly to cover for his fat lumbering ass. His not so secret weapon was an absolutely booming shot. So whenever I took a point shot (admittedly not my strong point) everyone would get pissed and chastise me because they wanted the monster taking all the shots. That was it, I wasn’t having fun any more. I quit in grade nine.

So I didn’t play for a year. I still played outdoor pickup games for fun though. In grade eleven I was somehow coerced into becoming an organizer for unofficial, unauthorized games. I would collect ten to fifteen dollars from 10 to 20 kids and then would rent ice for an hour at one of the city arenas. Any profit was gladly given to me for this task and dealing with the rink rats. Those informal high school games were a lot of fun. I haven’t played at all since coming to university, just a few sporadic recreational skates. Maybe if I find myself in a somewhat stable position this fall, I’ll look into finding a beer league to join. And I’m not playing defense.

Look, my esthetician, Peter made it on to CBC.

2025 me here: I have no idea what the hell I was referring too.

I ate six consecutive donuts upon awaking this late afternoon. Why six? Well in Ontario there is a peculiar tax rule that specifies that if you buy donuts individually they are taxed at 15% but if you buy six, then they are tax free. Tim Hortons also gives you a deal for a half dozen. So yeah, I buy six. All sour cream glazed today. It’s late and I’m still not hungry. Ever since I devoured them the thought of eating absolutely anything is sickening. This is my new diet idea. The six donut breakfast.

So there I was, in my now messy apartment still in pajamas at 5pm. Bloated with an incredible amount of sugar and fat, feeling pretty low. I’ve been knocked around so much this week. It rained tonight. I enjoyed the thirty-five minute walk to work. Usually I listen to audio books while I march. I finished a lecture series on existentialism this way. Lately it has been near middle east mythology. Today though, I just put on random music to sift through my jumbled, dark, brooding thoughts. In addition to academia, here are five current reasons for unhappiness (1) I stay with Merle because she represents a safety net. I don’t know if I love her. She will make the rest of my life miserable if I stay with her. It has to end soon. (2) I hate how lazy I am. (3)  I miss old friends and my dead cat. (4)  I’m not happy with the way things are headed. Things would be my life. (5) I miss playing hockey. I wish I never quit.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before but most of my classes are graduate level that I’ve been let into with special permission. If my thesis and marks were better I’d consider pleading my case for a masters degree. Stress is mounting now though. Surprise obstacles are popping up, I’m getting my ass kicked in wonderfully unexpected ways. I’m a little piece of coal being crushed in Christopher Reeve’s hand. Sometimes I revel in the adversity. I feel that no matter what and how much shit gets thrown at me, I’ll find a way to deal with it. A mental swagger that continues to get me into trouble.

A favorite movie of mine at about age six was Beyond Thunderdome. As a result my grandpa bestowed the nickname, Mad Max upon me. Sometimes he would throw in “from the Thunderbum” and I would fly into a six year old rage. Also, my favorite wrestler was Jake the Snake. From that comes another familial nickname that has had more stick.

This post is just like my thesis. A mess of poorly explained, incomplete and unconnected thoughts.

No one remembers The Simpson’s, Season two? Bart the Daredevil? Truck-A-Saurus? Well, when Homer jumped Springfield Gorge on Bart’s skateboard, he did yell, “I’m going to make it!” but he didn’t have quite enough momentum, fell short and bounced down the rocky slope in a painfully hilarious scene. (And to top it off with a comedy cherry, as his ambulance sped away, it crashed into a tree, the gurney fell out the back and Homer went down the slope again.)

Well ever since I posted that Homer on the skateboard picture I have been dealt a string of demoralizing blows, most but not all, school related. I’m not even going to write about it. I’m just exhausted and fried and not feeling good about anything right now. Just about the only positive thing going for me is that I’m not sick like half the people constantly sharing my airspace. (Coming soon: my sick post)

The other night I couldn’t bare to start that cockadoodie databases assignment at midnight so I relaxed a little in pajamas and my bowl chair watching TV. Misery came on and it was good. I had two glasses of red wine while I watched Annie Wilkes torture poor Paul Sheldon.

I wore green today, it took minimal effort so I decided to cooperate with society. It was an olive green T-Shirt underneath a forest green sweater with spiffy brown corduroy cargo pants. A fine simulation of a pine tree.

I’m tired of whiny indie rock. No patience exists for it right now. So I’ve been binging on dance techno and caffeine. I like Red Bull better than the Sobe’s Adrenaline Rush. Sobe’s is a buck cheaper though so it’s a tough call when I buy. They both have 80mg of caffeine and need to stop getting drunk by me. The below album had a remix of my favorite 80s song, Toto – Africa. I think that was the highlight of my whole lousy week. It wasn’t even anything special.

2025 me here: No idea what the song remix referred to above was. Maybe best of bootie? Were they making those back in 2005?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111

No. No. NoooooO!!!

Well, today was a futile exercise. I spent every waking hour furiously working on a databases assignment. And I just lost the whole fucking thing. Belgium man. Belgium. I had made so much progress. I had allocated this day for it and was determined to get it in. I had to get it in. There is so much else to do. Since it was databases it was mostly huge amounts of data massaging and number crunching and rearranging. I had created and modified twenty or so text files, set up perfectly with all the information I needed to work with. I had written myself help files and compiled command lists. Everything was going so well. During a break, I had even written what I thought was a pretty good Xanga post that was very different in tone than this sucky baby rant. dfgoai;jdgaoi;gjasr;ligjair;ljibv;ojd

So you’re probably saying to yourself, “Well serves him right for not saving,”, right? Well I did save. Repeatedly, compulsively, like crazy, a non stop gangsta party of data backup, an orgy fest of saving. The problem is that since I was in a computer lab on campus, I’m only allocated a certain amount of profile space for working on that computer. Since I was over my profile allocation when the machine spazzed, when it started back up it just deleted everything.

I trudged despondently up to the third floor computer science department help desk which they cutely call the Input/Output counter to see if I could recover my output. I brought the on duty Chinese grad student down with me to check out my blank frozen blue screen. He was most unhelpful but I think he was genuinely concerned. That made me feel a little better so I tried to elicit even more sympathy by saying things like, “That was about ten hours of work I lost.”, “It was due today and now I have nothing.”, “I’m so tired.”, “Hold me.”

I think I actually did make him feel terrible, he kept running his hands through his hair, and touching his face while he stammered and tried to throw out helpful information to console me. He said he felt very badly that he couldn’t solve my problem. He stuck around while I packed up and put my jacket on. He stood frozen in the hallway staring at me as I left. I have a feeling he’ll be thinking about it for the rest of his shift tonight anyway. I don’t feel guilty though. He’s not going to be the one staying up all night redoing something he just spent all day working on. It’s one thing to loaf around and procrastinate but it’s a whole other realm of dejection when you kill yourself all day for nothing.

It’s now the last 31 days of my 22 year scholastic career. April 15th at 5:00pm, mark it on the calendar, I’m done like dough. Today after I did some frightened progress assessment to see where
I’m at, I’ve decided things actually aren’t that bad. I just passed the halfway point on my thesis and I have nine more days to finish it up. Other assignments and obligations are going ok too. I’m going to make it!

Now that I’m starting to actually believe that I’ll make it through, the relief I’m getting a taste of is heavily tainted with melancholy. It’s stemming from the realization that I’ll finally be moving on. I haven’t been feeling great lately. Another cold, quiet Sunday evening spent mostly alone has amplified the effect. I talked with a friend for a while but it was empty, unfulfilling conversation.

On Saturday, I finished an anime series I’ve been gradually watching over the past few months, Kino’s Travels. I highly recommend it, it was beautiful and introspective, one of my favorites.

Eating soup in a computer lab on campus. It’s very delicious. Today’s Grad club special, carrot something. It looks like orangish-yellow porridge. Actually it looks like cat vomit. Not so delicious now. I bought it along with red Powerade and a stale donut. Brain dead and sluggish. Last night’s half-of-a-sleeping pill lingers. I’m eating in here and not in the bar because I feel and look like shit today. I’m wearing a big ugly, grey and beige sweater, my hair is a total haphazard mess and my stubble is at a very unflattering phase. Been eating terrible lately. I should fix that. It will fix my mood too I bet. Why do I feel like such a slug when I should be in a frenzy to meet deadlines? So far this post is sufficiently hum drum, matching my mood quite well. Maybe the cure to my funk is as simple as some caffeine and music. Curtis Mayfield wasn’t getting the job done earlier. I need something more upbeat. All right. Yawn yawn yawn. Twenty more minutes left on my self-allocated break. Let’s see. A Procrastination exercise, My top five movie moments that come to mind right now:

(1) Return Of The Living Dead. About 5 minutes in. Frank and Freddie are down in the basement of the medical supply warehouse and checking out the military canisters. Freddie says, “Hey Frank these don’t leak do they?” Frank retorts, “Hell no! These were made by the US army!” Then he slaps one, it starts leaking and that cool as hell 80s techno punk music comes on as the display case on the canister cracks and the zombie face starts melting and goes all liquidy and the scene follows the smoke and shit as it cycles through the building.

(2) The treetop scene from The Sword in the Stone where Merlin and the boy are chipmunks and are being harassed by the females. Or the moat scene where they’re fish and learning how to swim and there’s that huge pike. Or the wizard battle. That was a good movie.

(3) The conclusion of Seven.

(4) Another pretty obscure one from an 80s horror movie, House, a scene that has Norm from Cheers playing a fat neighbor of this writer who’s living in a haunted house while trying to write a book. The writer knows that at the same time every night this monster comes down his chimney to do bad stuff. So he invites Norm over for beers and aid under the guise of catching and killing a rabid raccoon that comes out of his chimney every night. So he sets a mildly drunk and skeptical Norm up with this giant harpoon and gives him safety glasses and they camp out in front of the chimney watching the clock tick down to monster time. Just take my word for it, it’s a good one. An excellent mix of suspense and comedy.

(5) High Fidelity. When the Zen guru played by Tim Robbins comes into the record store to tell John Cusak’s character to stop stalking him and his estranged girlfriend and the sequence of possible courses of action that are subsequently cycled through in his mind. Especially the last one where he’s helped out by Jack Black and the passivist, mellow employee to team up to beat the shit out of the guru. When the skinny guy rips the air conditioner out of the wall I totally lose it.