Daily Affirmation:

1. Because of the repeated shots to the same spot on my heavy bag, and the unique position of the dent between the two halves of the logo on each side that was facing me, my heavy bag looked like Admiral Ackbar staring up at me.

2. The book I've been waiting for arrived

3. Leafs win big!

Daily Affirmation:

1. I came up with one really good custom license plate idea

2. Heard a funny story about the lengths you have to go to, to find a place to sleep, when you are living away from home for work

3. Exchanged fun text messages with an old friend I don't talk to often enough

4. Hot showers and sleeping bags

Daily Affirmation:

1. Knowing that, no matter what might befall me, there's someone that's got my back, and will say so

2. Apple pie for lunch

3. The January picture of Marilyn Monroe on the old calendar I found in a drawer

4. Sincere thanks from a friend for rendering assistance

Motoring
What's your price for flight
In finding mister right
You'll be alright tonight

People throw rocks at things that shine.

I'm a loser baby,
so why don't you kill me?

This was hilarious!

Die Hard Mash-Up

I got a car, I've got some gas
oh let's get out of here
get out of here fast
everyone's confused
so I stay in my room
if I go I don't want
to go alone

I hope you get this message
or you're not home
I could be there in
10 minutes or so
I got my things
we'll make it up as we go along
with you I could never be alone

I'm awake, and trying
While you're sleeping like a babe
Beside him
I'm on the ledge while you're so
God damn polite and composed

But you,
You're not allowed.

You're uninvited.

I have decided that I don't like European ice hockey. I find all the ads on every free surface very distracting and irritating.

Am I the only one that doesn't give a FUCK about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher?

Or Kim FUCKING Kardashian?

I mean, ya gotta grow man. Don't you ever want anything more for yourself? I know this poor hapless son of a bitch does. I look into his sorry doe eyes and I just, I see a man crying out. He's crying out, "When Lord? When the fuck can your servant ditch this foul-mouthed little chucklehead to whom I am a constant victim of his folly, so much so that it prevents him from ever getting to kiss a girl! Fuck! When, Lord when? WHENS GONNA BE MY TIME?

It'll give you hope,
and steal your soul,
All in the very same moment.

The Daily Affirmation:

This is what made me happy today.






And frankly, it was better than an orgasm.

Damn, Damn, Damn,
What I'd do to have you
Here, Here, Here
I wish you were here

Things That Piss Me Off:

People who, in the year 2011, are still splitting files up into 700 MB increments, like you might want to archive them to CDs.

ARRGGGHHHH!!!!!

Things That Piss Me Off:

I scanned a sheet that I got from my doctor. I want to have it in my GMail, which I check all the time, so I can have it handy to read. So I decide to email it to myself from my Yahoo account, so it shows up properly in my Gmail Inbox.

Keep in mind, I'm emailing from myself, to myself.

Stupid Yahoo makes me enter a damn CAPTCHA (interpret the garbled letters/numbers from an image and type into a text box underneath) to prove that my email (including a large attachment) isn't spam.

GAWD!!!

Note to Future Self:

Small or Mini Blizzard only, lest you blow three days worth of calories on 5 minutes of ice cream.

The Daily Affirmation:

The textbook perfect 8 iron I hit on the fourth hole at Outlook today that turned into my second par of the day.

Which one of these unconventional rap songs do you like better?

Anne Hathaway


Natalie Portman

Note: Natasha Staniszewski was the Daily Affirmation of Saturday.

Daily Affirmation (Sunday):

Getting a new recipe in Cafe World.

I feel compelled to write about this.

I ordered two Cokes tonight at the soccer centre bar. Two identical, completely the same, no difference between them at all Cokes. She charged me $5.25.

WHAT!?!

How in the FUCK do you get a total of $5.25 for two identical drinks?

A) Why in the HELL would you charge something odd for a drink like a Coke, that wasn't a multiple of $0.25? Because it would have to be to get a total of $5.25. That's just absurd.

B) Its not even mathematically possible to charge a price for a drink that ends in an odd number without half-cents.

C) Did you really think I wasn't going to notice this absurdity?

She was an ass clown. I was not impressed. End of story.

Next time don't be so god damn obvious.

The Daily Affirmation:

Natasha Staniszewski doing the Saturday sports round-up in a bright white shirt in high definition.

The Daily Affirmation:

Getting to play a second soccer game, after a rather lacklustre opportunity against the special olympics team, felt very good tonight.

Can you relate?

Every damn day

Blog Song Of The Day:

Night Ranger - Sister Christian

Something that everyone can like:

Game On

I just want to see you
When you're all alone
I just want to catch you if I can
I just want to be there
When the morning light explodes
On your face it radiates
I can't escape
I love you 'till the end

Good bye Simone. Rest in peace. I love you.

Rider Game Day Photos

Here is a gruesome photographic update on my toe injury of a few weeks ago:

I just watched a commercial for mixed drinks in a bottle. The closing comment was "without the hassle"

Is mixing a drink that much hassle? Honestly, it takes about 15 seconds. If you want a drink and don't have 15 seconds, isn't your concern a little larger?

And love is evil
Spell it backwards I'll show you

Daily Affirmation:

I don't have to look very far for the daily affirmation today.

THE GROUND POUNDERS WON THEIR FIRST GAME!!!!

Blog Song Of The Day:

The Offspring - Want You Bad

Blog Question Of the Day:

Can the acting be good if the directing sucks?

The latest of my injuries:

The Daily Affirmation:

Today's highlight was lunch with my Mom, sister and niece. It was nice to see family in the middle of the day.

Bonus points to Emma who sat on my knee and giggled at me.

The Daily Affirmation:

Eurotrip is on cable this afternoon. The movie is not very good. However, this song is right at the beginning and it never ceases to make me smile/laugh.

Scotty Doesn't Know

I take it back. I think I am witty.

I know I wrote it, and you should belly laugh at your own jokes. But that post from a month an a half ago, about how Miley Cyrus sounds like Ricky from the Trailer Park Boys, just cracked me up.

Daily Affirmation (Part 2):

I'd like to be witty. I think that'd make me happy.

I love reading celebrity news. These people that write are more bitter and pissy than I could ever be on my grumpiest day. It does my soul good to read them slash apart stupid celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, like you or I might cut up bread. I just laugh my ass off and for a few moments I actually feel a little joy in my heart.

I have to be honest. I do not like the hats the LA Angels are wearing in tonight's ball game (June 3 vs the Yankees). My Mom made the comment that they look like Civil War soldier hats and I kinda have to agree. But my additional commentary to that would be, they just plain look stupid.

The Daily Affirmation:


Bad Meets Evil - Lighters

Here's my idea for the day:

Cafe World takes way too long to play. I've got like 30 stoves now, and that's a lot of clicking and messing around just to play a game. They always have incentives and special game features, which invariably involve going through a bunch of tasks to get some nominally useful new thing.

What about doing something useful? Cafe World takes too long to play. I have to click 15 stoves 4 times each to make a batch of something. They have these "Super Stoves" where I can one-click them and it automatically makes for dishes. How about you make a game feature that I can do a quest and the result is, I can combine my regular stoves into a Super Stove and save myself a haystack worth of effort.

Note to future self:

Remember to specifically mention every item that you want on your breakfast sandwich at McDonalds. Then confirm the order by having them repeat it to you. Obviously McDonalds drive-thru staff are too stupid to make inferences.

I ordered a "sausage biscuit" this morning. Who knew that was actually a discrete sandwich and you have to put "egg" in your description or else you don't get one. Who does that? Why would I not want the egg on a breakfast sandwich? Isn't the egg the defining part of a breakfast sandwich? And why wasn't there any cheese?

Oh yeah, she screwed up my McGriddle too. I asked for bacon and she gave me sausage.

So what's the deal? Go as fast as you can manage with your budget car on Highway 11? No one's going to do any police work?

I'm watching Facebook for the past few days and there's all these posts about radar traps inside of Saskatoon. So what exactly are we protecting people from? People going 65 in a 50? Really, how dangerous is that?

I'm driving down Highway 11 tonight, and I'm going a healthy clip. Its not 100 mph but I'm moving steadily. People are passing me like I'm a picket fence. And its cheap crappy cars, like Kia's and Hyundai's. What, they've given up on life, so they buy a $12,000 car and drive it until something stops them on a dime. I don't get it.

Maybe I'm just a pansy now. It makes no sense to me.

This just in!

Michael Ignatieff is NOT going to take a GST hike off the table.

You know, in case you hadn't heard.

That is all.

You know who Miley Cyrus reminds me of, when she's speaking unscripted?

Ricky from the Trailer Park Boys.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing......Only I will remain.

This is quite possibly the greatest SAVE in the history of music:

Friday

Today . . . I let an ant live.

I haven't written in her in awhile. its not that I didn't have anything to say. There's always a ton of little things that come up in life, but I just never get motivated by them enough to write about it when I get home. Maybe I'm just becoming jaded like everyone else.

But I have two examples from this morning. And surprisingly, I am motivated to write.

Are people becoming more stupid? It seems to me like this might be true. I was only out for an hour but the cluelessness of people absolutely stunned me.

I'm in McDonalds to get breakfast. I like McDonalds breakfast . . . sue me. There are three clerks. Therefore there should be three lines, right? Well there was, until these two braying cows wandered right through the whole process, set it down roughly in the middle and proceeded to make base camp. They're wandering around in circles, wondering what to order, where their kids are, what table they should sit at, all the while completely screwing up the lines and turning the whole situation into a disaster. its times like that my eyes just go dark because I feel like smacking someone.

Then I'm coming home and I have to make a left turn onto Warman Road from 51st Street. This intersection has temporarily become famous because as you no doubt know by now, a plane crashed there last night. (Friday April 1) Its all well and fine for you looky-loos to drive through this intersection or stop at the Extra Foods to look at the plane. But this is my neighbourhood. I live here. Just one street north of the accident is the one I live on. So I HAVE to take this intersection.

As you'd guess, there's about a hundred jackalopes just milling around, looking at the airplane. I really don't care about that part. There's a semi-large plane crashed on the side of the road. Its interesting. What PISSES ME OFF is that I'm trying to make a left turn here, which is a pretty treacherous endeavour, as witnessed by the red light cameras they installed a couple of years ago. So I'm trying to make a left on a yellow line, and this RETARD decides that he needs to get a better look at the plane, and he makes a swooping right, right in front of the red Dodge pickup in front of me that is leading the left turn procession. So now its a full red, and Captain Ass Goblin is STILL making is wide right, because he's looking at the god damn plane instead of driving. So the whole intersection is tied up while this putrid pit stain satisfies his curiousity.

Its times like these I remember a quote from a good friend:

"Do you ever have one of those days when you just feel like mowing down the whole crowd?"

Going to the grocery store can be so amusing.

I needed a few things. I wasn't going to die without them or anything but its on my way home so I stopped at Extra Foods.

I thought, I'll buy 500 mL of milk, since I only use it for cereal and I'm only having that two more times this week. Why waste it by getting too much and having it spoil.

I stop at the milk aisle and start surveying the milk to find the one I want. I don't normally pay much attention to the expiry date on milk. I just grab one and go. But I was scrutinizing it closely because I didn't want to intend to get milk, and end up with cream. Since all the cartons were the same size.

The date on the milk, all of the 500 mL milk, was MAR 7. I thought to myself, wasn't that yesterday?

Yup, today's March 8th.

This fairly competently describes my attempts at dating:

Fish

Blog Question Of The Day:

Why is it that in movies and TV, the guy can be about three days unshaven and it looks all cool and edgy, but if a regular guy (like me) does that, I just look like a hobo?

I am impressed by a girl that can use the word 'transcendence' in a sentence.

Update from the world of the lonely:

I changed my dating site profile last night. (Let's all scrap the spirited discussion of whether dating sites are worthwhile, dangerous or outright stupid. We all have our opinions, and I agree with them all (most)) The situation is the way it is, not without trying the more traditional way that didn't work.

I wrote what I thought was a pretty honest, to the point without being abrupt blurb about who I was, and what i wasn't interested in/looking for. The key was to go with honesty. Even if it came out a tad more rough than if I'd paid a speech writer to pretty it up for me.

Count in so far?

Any guesses??

Its two actually. Which greatly trumps the zero I was getting with the old text.

Next step - I need better photos. This has been a Facebook complaint of mine as well. I always seem to be the guy taking the picture, not the guy who's in the picture. Plus I tend to have this appearance on my face like I just had a three-digit rectal exam, and that's a hard sell to use for attracting a lady. Anyone have any 'quote' nice pictures of me they could share?

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Blog Dating Question Of The Day:

Are you allowed to pick up clerks in London Drugs or is that considered impolite?

Blog Question Of The Day:

Should I buy a blue hockey helmet?

Memo

TO: Drake
FROM: Grant

The square root of 69 is actually 8.30662386291807

Blog Question Of The Day:

Do they count crack whores when they do a census?

I have a new theme song. I think it accurately sums up my current situation.

Matthew Good - Haven't Slept In Years

I don't want to take what you can give
I would rather starve than eat your breast
All the things that others want for me
Can't buy what I want because it's free

I ain't s'posed to be just fun
Oh, to live and die, let it be done.
I figure I'll be damned - all alone like I began

I hear the ticking of the clock
I'm lying here the room's pitch dark
I wonder where you are tonight
No answer on the telephone

And the night goes by so very slow
Oh I hope that it won't end though
Alone

Till now I always got by on my own
I never really cared until I met you
And now it chills me to the bone
How do I get you alone

You dont know how long I have wanted
to touch your lips and hold you tight
You don't know how long I have waited
and I was going to tell you tonight
But the secret is still my own
and my love for you is still unknown
Alone

I love the Chinese!

My hot tub went down at the beginning of December. I had a power outage and when I tried to re-start it when I got home, I found that it wasn't moving water into the tub during heating. Eventually I disassembled the control unit (after getting GREAT instructions from this nice lady from China) and found out the circulating pump wasn't spinning the impellor. I turned it on, and watched the rotor and nothing was spinning.

Result? I needed a new circulator motor.

The lady from China referred me to a 'US Parts Super Store' What a waste of god damn time that was. They had no replacement parts for what i wanted. From them, my only option was to buy a WHOLE NEW control unit, basically replacing the whole damn hot tub.

I finally got someone from work to unhook the existing pump/heater unit from the control module just before Christmas. (Thanks Tom) I took it to some hot tub dealers here in Saskatoon to find someone that could sell me a replacement circulator pump. They basically treated me like I'd just asked for a plutonium core for a restricted weapon and would sure like it if I left their store as quickly as possible. It was extremely frustrating.

So I went back to my contact at Mspa, back in good ol' China. I explained what I'd been through, and asked if they could sell me one straight from the factory. Only a few hours later she gets back to me, says she'll look into it. Not another hour after that she sends me another email saying that she may have one for me, IN CANADA!

Emailing the woman in China was at least 17x more useful than talking to live people in Saskatchewan. I love the Chinese!!

Girls of the world!

Please try wearing more yellow. In most of the examples I've seen lately, it looks fabulous!!

My new favorite phrase is 'low yield nuclear weapon'

Just as soon as I join this club, I'm making this my theme song:

The Lonely Island

Happiness is . . .

Being finished the bulk of your Christmas shopping early.

Happiness is . . .

Finally seeing something good coming to one who waited.

I paint a picture of the days gone by
When love went blind and you would make me see
I'd stare a lifetime into your eyes
So that I knew you were there for me
Time after time you were there for me

Happiness is . . .

when your lips are cracked and dry, like the middle of a desert, and you find a chap stick you didn't know you had.

A man lies in his bed in a room with no door
He waits, hoping for a presence or something, anything to enter
After spending half his life searching
He still felt as blank as the ceiling at which he stared
He is alive, but feels absolutely nothing, so is he?

When he was six, he believed that the moon overhead followed him
By nine, he deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact, no trade-backs
So this is what it's like to be an adult?
If he only knew now what he knew then

Lying sideways atop crumpled sheets and no covers
He decides to dream...Dream up a new self...For himself

cease to resist, giving my goodbye
drive my car into the ocean
you'll think i'm dead, but i sail away

Okay, I just watched ANOTHER interview with Jennifer Love Hewitt where she talks about vajazzling.

So, I have a question. And I'm not even being stupid about this. I'd actually like to know. (Jen, if you read this please email me at telk26@gmail.com with the answer)

Once you've vajazzled it, does that sort of require that you go sans underwear?

I don't mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can't feed on the powerless
When my cup's already overfilled,
But it's on the table
The fire is cooking
And they're farming babies
While slaves are working
Blood is on the table
And the mouths are choking
But I'm growing hungry

I wish I was a sailor with someone who waited for me
I wish I was as fortunate as fortunate as me
I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good
I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro's hood

The A-Team

Well, that was just a lot of fun!

It was a nice contrast between movies. The last one was kind of head-strong and cerebral. This one was Just silly, stupid fun. I never watched the A-Team when it was a TV show. I saw it of course, but I didn't go out of my way to watch it, although I knew the premise.

This was a good movie. Not Oscar quality good but the time went by fast and I liked the story. There was gun fights and explosions, strange plot twists and some rather idiotic characters. The whole Lynch thing was starting to get old. But you can't fight instinct. When it was over and the good guys won (did they?) you were smiling.

4/5

Numb

I can't like this. It would be too personally painful to say that I liked this movie.

Do I think its a decent portrayal of what its like to be that guy? Absolutely. I wouldn't have picked Matthew Perry to play a depersonalized person because you can't take him serious, even when you're supposed to take his serious. But there's a lot there that makes sense.

I thought it played out like a TV movie, so it suffers in that regard from a lack of production value, bad editing and stilted directing. But I liked what they tried to do.

I just can't like the movie. It made me uncomfortable about my life.

2/5

Inception

Holy cow did that blow me away! Its hard to even compare the shows I watched before that, to that movie. They aren't even in the same class.

It was a smart show. I liked how it was subtle and nuanced, without being annoyingly cryptic. It opened kinda strange, and you didn't exactly know what was going on. But when you get the reveal at the end its one of thos 'a ha' moments that you only good when a movie is great at storytelling.

I'm not going to give any of it way by describing the plot. You probably know the basics from the commercials this summer. Its about people going into dreams. But its a lot more complex than that however they don't make it impossible to stay with it. It does take some mental note taking to keep track of where everyone is, but its not difficult to do. But the pay-off is great.

This was awesome!

5/5

Get Him To The Greek

Wow, another one exactly like the first. Didn't like it, didn't not like it.

It felt a little uneven. I know it was /supposed/ to be over the top, with the drinking, the drugs, the girls, the excess but it seemed really forced. Which of course was the point because at the end the rock star admits that he's unhappy. But they didn't sell it well enough at the front end to make it work at the back. Jonah Hill was way too subdued, compared to his talent, and it almost seemed like he was playing a dramatic role.

P.S. There was too many things going into, and out of, his ass. Which could have been funny but it seemed like violation.

3/5

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

I neither loved nor hated this movie.

It started really poorly. At the beginning I was considering turning it off. It picked up when he fought the first ex. But it never really gained any momentum and ended on a kind of limp note.

3/5

I just blew a pea out my nose.

Know it sounds funny but I just can't stand the pain
Girl I'm leaving you tomorrow
Seems to me girl you know I've done all I can
You see I begged, stole and I borrowed

I wanna be high
Soo high
I wanna be free to know the things I do are right
I wanna be free
Just me

I don't think she cheated. Its possible to solve without any more clues. She did it incredibly fast but its not impossible.

Wheel Of Fortune Puzzler

I am hereby making the recommendation that the next semi-obscure song from the 80's that Glee should cover is:

Bitches Ain't Shit - Doctor Dre

Okay, new rule!

Extra Foods and once again earned my enmity. Now as it turns out it didn't matter. My salad turned out awesome regardless of the fiasco with Extra Foods. So I don't feel cheated. But its the same story as before.

I go to Extra Food tonight. I'm coming back from my dry needling appointment. I'm behind, because the doctor was behind, but that's not the story. I dash into Extra Food just before 9:00. I want to do a quick in-out and go home to eat. I'm hungry like balls.

I pick up this bag salad and it occurs to me, "I was going to have something with mushrooms in it". Mushrooms can go with salad so I start looking around the store for the canned mushrooms.

Do you think I could find the bloody things in Extra Foods? No!!! They were nowhere to be seen. I checked the obvious places. I checked the un-obvious places. I checked any row that had cans in it. I could not find the mushrooms.

So I gave up.

New Rule! All canned goods, regardless of what they are, will all be in ONE aisle. No exceptions. The caviar can be next to the kidney beans. That way, at least if I know its in a CAN, I'll know what aisle to be in.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Do I want to go see Down With Webster next week at the Odeon Event Centre?

Why I Hate McDonalds
by Grant Guenther

I got up early this morning. I had thought about it the night before. I had a plan.  I was at the mall by 9:30. The whole thing started off well.  I stopped at the bank to get cash first. Its been awhile since I got dollar bills and occasionally it comes in handy.  

Next on my list was Safeway. I was going to go to Extra Foods but I changed my mind. I like the steak at Extra Foods better, thus my choice. However the Safeway lot was next to empty and that NEVER happens, so I changed my plan.

I didn't clean up before I left. I wasn't a complete pig. I'd had a shower the night before and I did brush my teeth. But I looked in the mirror before I left and did specifically comment that I definitely needed a shave. But this was just a quick trip and I wasn't trying to impress anyone so I let it slide.

Wouldn't you know my luck? I got the cutest chick working at Safeway as my teller.  She was in a costume. I think she was supposed to be Raggedy Ann or Alice in Wonderland. I wasn't entirely sure. It was a blue dress with a white smock-like front and she had red and white striped socks on. I totally would have started a conversation about it except I looked like a dirty hobo and she might have called the cops on me. Plus she always looks half-scared on the best of days.

It was still early when i left Safeway. It was only 10:00 so I decided 'I'm gonna get a McGriddle'.  

I go to McDonalds and as expected, it looks like a nursing home.  A full 90% of the people there were on social security.

I waited a brief time in line and get to order my McGriddle.  I look at the board "2.59/sandwich, $3.99/meal"  I don't want to pig out on McDonald's because I'll just feel gross.  How about get the meal, and it'll still come in under $5. i get the meal and she gives me the total.  

$5.03.  

Come on!

It has to be because I ordered a Coke.  She asks me, what do you want to drink?  I think about it for a second.  I don't like coffee.  I could get tea but its too much hassle getting the sugar in it.  Forgot about hot chocolate.  I could get orange juice or apple juice.  My juice at home is better.  I'll just get the Coke I wanted with it all along.

So instead of $3.99 for the 'meal' it was actually $4.79.  Just because of the damn Coke.  If its not $3.99 including drink, don't pretend like it is! You know, I wouldn't have noticed or cared, if it had just come in under $5.  But I had zero change with me, because this was /supposed/ to cost less than $5.  So I ended up leaving with enough change in my pocket to make my pants sag to my knees.

I'm having trouble writing lately. No, it's not that I'm lacking topics. Plenty of things are on my mind, as one minute passes into the next. Plenty is probably an understatement. A hummingbird flapping its wings would do well to keep up to the constantly changing litany of thoughts that pass through my cranial membrane.

The problem with writing is that I get about 3/4 of the way through a rant about something, and it becomes vividly clear to me that the cause and remedy to any and everything I want to rail on about in the world, is in my head. The architect of my misfortune and my misery are none other than myself.

I have to break this cycle. Which is proving harder than I thought to do. There is a self-perpetuating series that always takes any event or occurrence, breaks it down into its base parts, and saves only the uncomfortable or misfortunate bits and scatters all the rest to the winds. I'm doing this every time. All the time. I'm starting to see this in myself, now that I'm looking. But the observation alone is not sufficient to solve the problem.

How about we use an example?

"Are you bringing a guest to the Christmas party?"

This does not just SEEM like an innocuous question. It IS an innocuous question. No one passes any judgement based on the answer. There are no truths revealed by responding to this query. It is JUST a question. She meant nothing by it, and probably forgot about my answer by the time she exited my door.

On the other hand, I found this question annoying, invasive and offensive. Let's just let that sink in by including a more or less useless sentence here. I was annoyed that she asked me that. I found the question invasive because I didn't want to answer it. And I frankly am not sure why it was offensive.

My point is, no one cares. Except I care. And I shouldn't because it doesn't matter for any reason. But the reaction is so visceral and immediate that I throw up my guard and am instantly aggressive. Which of course means that I'm bitterly remorseful about ten minutes later. The whole cycle repeats again the next time and I never get out of this lock-step between anger and remorse.

I know why this one question bothers me. The girl asking it is one I've fantasized about being the answer to it. She doesn't say yes when I feebly attempt to ask. Thus I feel toothless and infirm when I have to go over this again with the same girl.

Not that this answers the whole issue fully, because I hate the question anyway. It reminds me, in a vivid way that is impossible to ignore, that I'm not succeeding at something I've made a priority.

I am beginning to see the reasons why this is always a failure. I'm not doing this right. The only thing people see of me are traits that are undesirable. I'm aggressive and angry about almost anything that doesn't go according to my plan. I'm oafish and stupid when I'm not rigidly paying attention. And I'm so cerebral that these constant and continuing failures make me perpetually remorseful and crestfallen. Thus I'm giving out nothing that anyone has any reason to want to return kindly.

This is not however, the answer to changing my fate. This is only step one. I have itemized that my behaviour, and my mental outlook, is the cause of my misfortune. I fail because I set myself up to fail, with my negative thoughts and my unpleasant attitude. It is step two that is the difficult one. I analyzed it quickly enough to figure out what the cause was. But I'm not so certain about the answer.

I'm trying. I'm paying attention to my own thoughts, but more importantly to my voice. Typically I am quick to deride something. I will use some epithet or curse at it/them full of venom. I'll never get rid of it but if I can at least tone it down, or even teach myself not to lash out like that, then maybe there is hope. But the greater answer is to not jump to react, because it only leads me to turn all my insults and fury back on myself. If I can stop reflecting everything mean and awful I say about everything else into my own view of my self-worth, then maybe I have a hope of being seen for less of a monster than I am.

I miss you already... I miss you always
I miss you already... I miss you all day
This is how I feel...

Like anyone would be
I am flattered by your fascination with me

Like any hotblooded human
I have simply wanted an object to crave

But you
You're not allowed
You're uninvited
An unfortunate slight

Blog Question Of The Day:

What happens if you put a crayon drawing through an auto-feed photocopier?

Today I invented the word 'assholian'

This clip is just vicious. I love it!



Closer

It's finally official. I am pissed off enough about this that I'm going to write about it.

Why does everyone ignore me? I don't get it. Perhaps I'm missing some critical aspect of my own behaviour or attitude. Someone is going to have to answer that for me, because from my perspective I'm not doing anything that justifies this behaviour.

There are numerous examples, most of which I'm going to leave out so as to not make this post about any one person. But the infuriating pattern keeps happening and I've about reached my limit with it.

The hard part about reaching your limit with people ignoring you, is that your alternative is to just ignore them. Its a piss-poor option because, if people ignoring you is pissing you off, then obviously you want their attention and ignoring them is a lousy direction to take.

Why am I being ignored? This is the answerless question that haunts me at night when I should be sleeping. What am I doing that makes it so difficult to:

- answer my email
- return my phone call
- leave a salutation when you cease the conversation

All of these things have occurred, and to my extreme exasperation, have been especially prevalent this week.

You send out an email, which specifically requests a response, and the reply is complete, stone-dead silence. Nothing. Not even a 'no thank you'. Just flat up ignore.

You call someone, again specifically requesting a response, and the result is unnerving dead air. I actually asked for a service, and wanted to compensate, and again it was just another pattern of not being worthy of even a, I'm too busy. Why?

And my personal favourite is querying someone about an issue, and leaving a statement out there to be answered, and that's just the end of the discourse. Not an, I don't know. Not a, no thanks. Not even a, have a good day. Just empty, pregnant silence.

Maybe I'm just an enormous prick. I don't think it would be a stretch to think I might be a tad on the needy side. But why is the pattern repeated that I just get nothing back for my effort? Am I just disliked that much that everyone prefers to walk away over having something to do with me?

This is an effort in self discovery for me. I want to understand why I'm not reaching my goals in life. I'm not a terribly social person. I have identified this as a limitation. But constantly having my attempts to engage people, and being met with the stone wall, is not teaching me anything. In fact its making me ragingly angry and on the verge of becoming a militant asshole to everyone. If you thought I was a prick now, you should see what I could do if I'm committed.

I guess, at the end of the this, I'm asking for advice. Being ignored does not feel very good and I'd like it to stop. But clearly I'm exhibiting some kind of personality flaw that makes it easier for people to walk away than to say good bye. So what is it? Enlighten me!

It has been a weird week.

I feel a bunch of things. Which in and of itself is weird, because you’re not really supposed to notice yourself feeling things. It’s just supposed to be happen.

I could lie and say I knew it was coming. If I tried to do that, you’d see right through me like a white shirt in a wet t-shirt contest. I didn’t see it coming, although maybe I should have.

Tuesday opened my eyes. It is not a lie to say I thought about the moment when it would happen. Because it would have been foolish to think I could go through the rest of my life without it happening. That’s what I wanted though.

I set up my trade show booth on Tuesday, with my direct competitor across the aisle from me. That direct competitor being my former employer. To say I have conflicted feelings about my former employer would be an understatement in the highest regard. It is unlikely that I will resolve the struggle within me about how it came to pass that I went from there to here.

There is a part of me, a very large part of me in fact, that wishes I could just hate him. That would be the easy way to deal with my emotions. Just let it be a smoldering, unquenched fire that burns in my belly. At least if I knew that’s what I felt then I could make a peace with it. But that isn’t true, so I don’t get the comfort.

While I knew beforehand that my direct competitor was going to be across the aisle from me, I was not prepared for the reality of the man who was my former employer, standing within that opposing booth. I hadn’t steeled myself for that. So when I saw him walking towards me, from the massive glass wall that framed the end of the trade show floor, my stomach gave a Herculean lurch that I almost wish hadn’t remained contained.

It was weird. Just plain, damn weird. I would like to use the word surreal, but that doesn’t really apply here. It just happened, and then it was gone. Which brings me to my earlier point about hating. At least if I just hated the man, then I’d have that with which I would have to live. But I don’t. I’ve tried to hate. I’ve tried hard. But I can’t hold it. It just won’t fit.

I’ve forgiven him. It would be easier to live my life if I didn’t but I’ve already done that. Which leaves me with the question why. But at the end of the day I don’t even need to know that. When he was standing there in front of me, smiling that open, free from pretension smile, I couldn’t help but admit that I’d let go any animosity about what happened.

Which moves us to Friday. On this august occasion I would be attending my very first Blades game as a patron, and not an employee in the building.

It was just plain, damn weird.
If I had to make an analogy that would explain what it felt like, I think it would be something like this:

Imagine what it would be like to be a baboon that was born into captivity. Your whole life you were in the cage, knew the cage, and never imagined you would ever be free of that cage. Then one day, when you didn’t expect it, after years and years on the inside, you were taken by the hand, led outside the walls, then left on your own. Imagine the shock and the wonder of being outside the bars. Imagine the sense of loneliness of not having those bars are your friend. It was like they kept you from your desire now, when it was before that it was supposed to be inhibiting.

It would have been surreal, if I hadn’t known all along that it was the truth. It hard to pretend it’s a dream (nightmare) when you’ve already pinched yourself to be sure its true.

So I walked around the building in the middle of an intermission. Not because I had to take something somewhere, but because the event was paused and I needed something to do. It kind of felt forced too. Like we all wanted it to be fun, but our real hope was that somehow we’d be let passed the steel bike rack and back to our home.

The velvet robe (steel bike rack) seems to change everything. When you’re on the inside, its like you’re part of something. It breaks down walls that otherwise exist. It changes the landscape.

The Blades won 3-2. I watched the game and cheered, enjoying the experience. But at the same time my heart lamented for something that was lost. I won’t feel the same about Credit Union Center anymore. I won’t call it regret. The real feeling will be somewhere between a lament and a longing.

Good bye old friend. Though we’ll still see each other from time to time, the bitter sting of a divorce will forever taint my heart.

Blog Song Of The Day:

Be Cool Yolanda - We No Speak Americano