First Post (27FEB2005)
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senatorhung's pad
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
fortnight distillation
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Tuesday, 15MAY2007:
i finally sent away my 2006 tax returns
this morning. there was no real urgency
since i was getting money back and all of
it is budgeted for my annual rrsp contribution
anyway. i got back on thursday after spending
a week down in ottawa at the CALL conference.
i did my usual gorging on movies and foods,
among them 'spider-man', sushi (takara),
shish kabob (saffron), vietnamese, east
indian, western sandwiches (zak's), late-nite
pasta rampages (fat tuesday) and 'lucky you'.
however, i also spent quite a bit of time
at the internet cafe trying to acquire
enough frequent player points to collect
on my first deposit bonus on pokerstars.
i managed to get the $50 top-up on my last
day in the south, but i must say that much
of the rest of the conference turned into
a sleep-deprived blur as a result. i do
fondly recall the sun blazing down the back
of my black jeans during the mountie ride -
the best part was getting to talk to one of
the riders after the performance.
before i left for my trip, i was somehow
persuaded to let a friend housesit while i
was away. of course, this meant that i
stayed up all nite wednesday tidying and
cleaning up a pad that hadn't seen such
attention in many moons. when i was done,
it felt a little bit strange not to have to
detour around countless piles of 'i'll get
to that soon'. i was also a bit blinded
by the brightness of my shower in the
morning, as i had gotten used to the
soothing mint-coloured tones compliments
of months of copper build-up. at least
i didn't have anything stinky in the
fridge to throw out !
hmm, i guess i forgot to mention the final
broomball award that dan presented for
best broomballblog - a fierce competition
between myself and john (that goon). alas,
quantity beat quality and i ended up with
the trophy.
oh, and the tix for the white stripes
concert on june 27th *still* haven't gone
on sale yet (pout) ??
managing expectations
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Sunday, 20MAY2007:
first of all, apologies to anyone who got
a weird error page while trying to access
this site late last week. my calgary
ISP is in the process of shutting down
and somehow my site got caught up in that.
they've made arrangements with another ISP
to take over their customer accounts, so
i'm hoping that i'll be able to continue
on as 209.115.175.51.
i got hit up by an environics pollster on
thursday evening and i was unpleasantly
surprised by how negative my responses
were. while never stated, it was obvious
to me that the poll was sponsored by the
federal government. one nice thing was
that the poll was specifically targeted
towards northerners to determine their
feelings on policies related to the north:
cost of living; the environment; arctic
sovereignty; heath care; employment; the
justice system; and taxes.
unfortunately for the poll-taker, most of
my responses were negative when queried
about my satisfaction level with these
policies, both on the federal front as well
as the territorial. the most hilarious
aspect was the number of questions about
which types of t.v. programs i preferred
to watch, which, since i don't have a t.v.,
were a series of surreal responses. talk
about a clueless web-averse bureaucracy
that is flailing about trying to garner
support for its policies.
the next day, however, i met up with a
3-week newcomer to town. while he
acknowledged that there were challenges
in the territory, he felt that a more
healthy attitude would be to focus on
the things that i have some control over,
and not worry about the things that i
don't. obviously, there are still some
things that i like about living here or
else i would have fled long ago.
plenty of people coast thru life without
caring about what goes on around them,
just going thru the motions and collecting
their paychecks, spending the evenings
in front of the tube and weekends at
the bar. where do i get this sense that
i have to be involved in anything that
i care about ? maybe the solution to
my ongoing sense of burnout is not a
change of scenery with all the disruption
that would entail, but just to focus on
doing things that make me happy and
ruthlessly dropping anything that doesn't
give me some satisfaction. that would
also definitely free up some more
reflection time in my dayplanner.
homely at home
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Tuesday, 29MAY2007:
so i'm typing this in at 4 a.m. - yes, i
know i have to go to work tomorrow (groan).
however, sometimes when the creative muse
calls, you are compelled to follow where
she leads. in this case, i managed to
finalize my latest mix and i've uploaded
it to aotm. it's called
'homing
in on a heart'. i'm going to actually
post this note when i wake up after a few
hours of shuteye since i'm still waiting
for the upload of
zipped
tracks to finish.
i had planned to attend a LAN party on
saturday afternoon, but wires got crossed
and i showed up to an empty arena. turns
out they had changed venues and didn't
realize that i wasn't in the loop. ah well,
i just caught up on a couple rounds of
'titans of steel' on my own.
i also sat down to read my copy of
'different
ugliness, different madness' by marc
malès that i had picked out from
the shelves during my last visit to my
calgary comic store.
WOW. i had
to put the book down partly thru, not
because of disgust, but because i wanted
to savour what i had read to that point.
at only 128 pages, i knew that i could
quickly zoom thru the tale, but the story
of two mixed-up people finding comfort in
each other was riveting. on top of that,
the black and white artwork was a gorgeous
mix of euro-comic art and american settings
of the 1930's.
when i finally turned the last page, the
desire to go back to the beginning and
re-read it immediately was almost
overwhelming. with all of the foreshadowing
and flashbacks incorporated into the panels,
this book definitely would reward multiple
readings. even just a quick glance back at
the early pages showed sequences which had
acquired increased significance in the
shapes of faces or the facial expressions.
i'll put it aside for a few days and then
come back to it once the glow of the first
reading has faded a little bit. anyway,
if any of these has piqued your curiosity,
here's the
amazon
link.
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