PERS - Useless post

I'm drowning in a mind process that I can't seem to shake off. I feel pretty miserable. Could be the lack of sleep from the night before. Could be the way tonight ended for me.

Methinks I'll have a horrible sleep.

Maybe I'll forget about all of this tomorrow and feel better.

At least I hope so.

PERS - Yesterday: Part Two

(The yesterday title is kind of out of date, let's just say this was February 24th that this all took place.)

My initial plan was to go home and relax after getting the rest of the day off.

Instead, Rashmi called me no later than an hour after I got home. She asked if I wanted to go for coffee. I agreed.

We went to Starbucks and I ordered something white-chocolate related. We talked over our beverages, Rashmi's no doubt got extremely cold by the time she was finished with it. There was a lot of boyfriend news she had to talk about, and the Tazo Chai latte had to wait.

Next up was a lot of clothing/shoes browsing. I had a strange feeling that I just had to have a new pair of shoes...that subsided after an hour. Nothing was purchased. But I did find out more about her boyfriend.

While we were leaving the mall, Rashmi asked me where Dimitri's (a fabu greek restaurant located in the tannery of F'ton) was. I thought it was a rather out-of-the-blue question, but she was leading to going out for dinner. I agreed.

We arrived at Dimitri's, and as we sat waiting for the waitress to come by and take our orders, I noticed a familiar face across our section. It was Miramichi's MLA Michael "Tanker" Malley. I don't know the origin of his nickname, but it probably has much to do with his hefty and big-boned body type. Rashmi kept looking in his direction uncomfortably, waiting for the moment to say "Hi" and move on with her life. That opportunity came, but led to something extremely unwanted.

He came over to our table and interrupted Rashmi as she was about to tell me something extremely urgent pertaining to her boyfriend. He then rambled for close to 30 minutes as he stood over our table. I made the disastrous mistake of telling him I am from Miramichi.

"I'm the MLA for Miramichi, but I'm YOUR MLA" he kept blurting out. "I'm trying to protect the lives of our children, and your children's children" he droned. He went on about the Hospital controversy that happened last year, and how he was just trying to do his best.

Neither Rashmi or I really have a deep emotional attachment to Miramichi aside from our families being there, so this speech was lost on both of us and a complete waste of time on his part. I wanted to eat, and there was no way the waitress was going to be able to get close to our table with our MLA dominating the space around us.

The worst of all this was when he reached over and grabbed the candle on the table, preaching, "You should be lighting this candle so that you can see your honey across from you. This way you can see the light bouncing off her eyes," to which I replied "I'm gay you half-wit, maybe you could help remedy the overwhelming homophobia in that goddamn town you work for and speak so fondly of." All replying in the comfort and silence of my own mind, of course.

Eventually he left. I regained my appetite after having lost it when I heard the term "honey". Rashmi and I were quick to converse about the situation once he left, then we ordered, talked about Rashmi's boyfriend a little more, ate, spoke again of Rashmi's boyfriend, paid the bill, mentioned that funny thing about Rashmi's boyfriend, and left.

As we were walking downtown, Rashmi asked me how I feel about houseguests. "Well, they're in a house, and they are guests of it."

"Oh, you know what I mean!" she retorted, making it clear she wanted to stay the night. I agreed.

We watched the "legalized gay marriage" Simpsons episode. Almost immediately afterwards, Chris made an appearance. It was the first Rashmi-Chris encounter, and all went well. Rashmi told Chris that I reminded of her of Stanford Blatch from Sex and the City, which is something I've heard from her before, and wildly denied. The common denominator between Stanford and I? NOTHING. Oh wait, he's a gay character. STILL NOTHING.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, involving "ER" and "The Daily Show" viewage. As I was falling asleep, Rashmi mentioned a few final boyfriend facts, and then she fell unconscious midway through the last point.

What a long story, and yet, no proper ending...

*Ahem*...well.

Uhh...yeah.

P.S. I know you never read my blog, Rashmi, but if you're reading this, you've just started. Just thought I'd clarify that I'm just trying to be funny here, I was never annoyed by your boyfriend conversations. You know me better than most people, and you know that I wouldn't be bothered by such a thing. Although I will stand by my point that I have NOTHING in common with Stanford Blatch. Cue smiley face emoticon.

P.P.S. While I have your attention, START A BLOG! You know you want to.

POP MUSIC - Intermission

Daft Punk : Human After All : Commence Discovery

(Click the Union Jack symbol at the bottm to access English)

PERS - Yesterday: Part One

Thursday became somewhat of a wish coming true.

A couple entries ago I was bitching about my job, how I felt like I was getting nowhere in it, and how I wanted a day off work.

Well, yesterday practically became that day.

I started out as I normally do. I arrived at work and wrote the entry you can see previous to this one. About 5 minutes before my shift began, my supervisor asked me to see her once I logged into my phone.

When 10am hit, I soon found myself in an office where a co-worker and I were asked to put up labels for every workstation in the center. These labels had everything to do with the team seating arrangement I had also been bitching about for so long. While this little project was enforcing something I was so strongly against, it also meant time off the phone. Let me tell you, it can be much more relaxing to work with the machine than to rage against it.

Much to my surprise this assignment lasted three hours! We were posting, creating, and printing labels all morning. Right before we were completed, came one of our greatest surprises: A Chrisco hamper showed up at our door, weeks before Christmas!

"I'll never shop at the Dollarama for my groceries ever again! Thank you insane Santa-inspired-frock wearin' British catlady!"

...

Sorry, that was a fictional tangent that went way out of hand. Actually, our surprise was in the form of being able to go home early. I didn't have to take one phone call, and I couldn't have been more ecstatic.

That was the work portion of my day... Next entry: The non-work portion!

POP MUSIC - We are Daft Punk after all

When I first opened my ears to a sneak peek of Daft Punk's new album, Human After All, my first thought was "Holy cow, this is repetitious and cheap."

My second thought was "I waited over 3 years for THIS?"

After simmering in the juices of this upcoming album, I came to the realization that repetition with mild variation is the essence of Daft Punk. It's their bread and butter. For me to insult their work on being repetitious would be like telling the good people of Cottenelle that their new Cashmere toilet paper feels like sandpaper to the ass.

Ok, maybe that's a horrible and unrelated comparison, but at least I understand my point.

Yes, Discovery was an amazing album, but in all truth, it was built as a concept album on Aphex Twin ideals; most tracks had two or more variations on the same tune, or at least two completely separate styles in the same song. Homework was very repetitious, and Thomas Bangalter (1/2 of Daft Punk) looped his way through the soundtrack to Irreversible.

With this out of the way, I've grown to enjoy a few of the songs, even if they've been overtaken by vocoder work and obnoxious distorted guitar noises.

Be happy: you can replace that noise in your head that keeps going "Around the world, around the world! Around the world, around the world!" with "Human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human, human...after all!"

PERS - To add insult to injury...

...I just caught a glimpse of a morbidly obese (and regularly smelly) man's ass crack as he was slumping on a chair using the telephone.

Just one more reason why you could argue that there is no God.

As if the movie Gummo wasn't enough to successfully close the books on all religions' dieties.

PERS - Low Fuel

This is going to be one of those crazy-sounding "in the moment" entries where I'm going to be venting, and probably will feel better at the end of it.

As I take calls here at work, I feel like I'm slowly losing my mind. The only thoughts that have me hanging by a thread are my intentions to go back to school in 2006. And even then, I still don't know if I really want to do that, and if it would be in my best interests. I'm a debt nazi, and the idea of going an additional 10k+ in the red is a little upsetting, but it isn't nearly as upsetting as an entire lifetime of answering phones and being treated like a voice recording.

Lately I've only been living for being sent home early from work. Lately it hasn't been happening. I'm convinced that, since I switched supervisors, I have no chance of getting promoted or even recognized for the work I put into my job. I've been stressing myself out over talk time, booking ratio, etc. etc. for months and now I just feel like none of that matters.

The night shifts Chris recently acquired prevents us from seeing each other as much as we were able to in the past, which doesn't help my mindset at this point.

I just want things to turn in my favour, just once this week. Like being sent home early at the beginning of my shift one day this week.

Man, that would be nice.

PERS - I Heart Hearts

In honour of "Show More Love Than Usual"/"Waves of Horrid Lonely Depression" day, I thought I'd take the time to write a new blog entry!

I suppose I should keep within the subject matter, although Chris has said most of what I could say about my own plans for this evening. (Although it is quite tempting to just dive in and order the "Whole Pig on Cupid's Arrow" special at Ponderosa for only $149.99.)

What more of a fitting time than now for Chris to have started his new job where I work, and thus, able to participate in a wild office romance. I feel like a soap opera star who'll always been known as "Chip" and never be known as a serious movie actor.

Yup, I have no idea what I mean by that, but it sounded interesting at the time.

I am so hungry right now that if that Ponderosa special actually existed, I'd probably get it.

Happy Love/Depression day!

POP TECH - Animality!

Sorry for being such a ranting lunatic lately.

Time to balance out my blog karma.

It's hard for cats to not be cute.

A certain Fatboy Slim video will further prove my point.

It's also hard to not be impressed by this bird.

PERS - The yolk in the Cadbury egg is never the right colour.

A new policy at work is really testing my ability to shut up and deal with the inevitable.

I am now forced to sit in a row with all the employees that are under my new supervisor. The employees themselves are not the faulty gear of this machine. I was just getting comfortable with the people I used to sit around. Being the anti-social type, this is not an easy task for me. Also, since we're now canned sardines in this section, it will be difficult to find a place to work, with a properly-working computer... EVERY DAY. This was not an issue before when I was able to place myself in a corner with an abundance of computers to choose from.

Yesterday, being the first day of this transition, was particularly trying on my brain, and no doubt has set the mood for the rest of my employment there. I walked up and down the row - as though I were looking for my head - trying to find a pod. I walked to the supervisor desk, explaining to her my dilemma. She was quick to point me in the direction of an open pod... a pod that had an unbelievable amount of personal things in it. It was apparent that who ever sits there ALWAYS sits there.

Working in this pod stressed me out way beyond what you'd expect. It felt like I was in someone's bedroom. There were birthday cards, on-the-job recognition cards, a tissue box, and other knick-knacks strewn about. A hairbrush, mirror with family pictures, and a mysteriously open diary would have completed the look.

What makes this just a little more annoying is the fact that out of all the teams, we're currently the ONLY one doing this team seating nonsense.

All in all, it's only making me want to leave work early (which I've done for the last two days) and loath my job.

Who knows, this may be a good thing in the end... OCAD's a-callin' my name! (I think I just heard the sound of Chris's ears perking upward)

I could be the guy to teach the wonderful folks at Cadbury that an egg yolk is yellow-orange, not red-orange.

POP TECH - A Post that's unrelated to my shower.

My inbox in the last week or two has been seriously assaulted by Bebo.com, a site that compiles all the people you know into a contact list. It also claims to update your contact list whenever someone changes their contact info.

Did I sign up for this yet? Hell no. I refuse to.

But almost every day I've been getting an email from at least one person on my MSN messenger list - whether they sent it themselves or not - wanting me to sign up to this POS excuse to beat me down with advertising and product offers.

Their privacy policy is rather shady. While it states in one part of the policy that they will not add your email to an unsolicited email list, it also buffers itself by stating the following:

"You agree that we may use your personal information to contact you and deliver information to you that, in some cases, are targeted to your interests, such as targeted banner advertisements, administrative notices, product offerings, and communications relevant to your use of the Site. By accepting the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, you expressly agree to receive this information. You may make changes to your email notification preferences at any time."

Does the term "Product offerings" that are "targeted to your interests" not scream "SPAM" to you? I not only screams, it chuckles at its subtlety.

Why would you need ANOTHER service to hold all your contact information, as well as the contact information of all your buddies? If they change their information - which seems to be the big seller of Bebo where they will automatically change it for you - wouldn't your buddies tell you this if they REALLY were your buddies?

Of course they would. That is why this Bebo.com BS is nothing but an email-grab so they can cash in on your stupidity.

And if I still watched Street Cents (and if it's even still on-air) this website would be Fit for the Pit.

...I can't believe I just said that.

PERS - Hallelujah!

Well I just got out of the shower and I was sitting in my room thinking tha..

Wait a minute... That means that MY SHOWER IS DONE! Woohoo!

Like the pyramid tombs of Egypt, it is a mystery just how exactly they constructed such a beautiful design. And like the pyramids, it took just as long to build the fucking shower. Oh and the "beautiful design" comment? I was being sarcastic. Sure, it's better than the moldy, much shittier tile slash paper mache they had on the wall, but it shouldn't have taken a lifetime to complete.

I guess I should be greatful that I am now able to take a shower at my own house, but complaining is just too much fun.

I'm gonna get back to watching American Idol now.

See ya!

PERS - Cheating on his diet is keeping him alive

Well, I'm still not able to shower, but I was able to take a bath.

In reference to my previous entry regarding bathing, I think I've proved my theory on cleanliness in that I don't feel very refreshed.

Why is it that when I was a child, a bath was all that I needed?

Oh, right: Because I didn't care how I looked and/or smelled in public.

Sometimes I wish I had more id than ego in me.

And yes, you are correct in saying the title has nothing to do with my entry.

Will I apologize? Sorry, I won't.