senatorhung's pad
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
ramblings of an information troubleshooter
it's hard to even want to try
Monday, 25APR2005:well, blogging *while* sick just wasn't on my agenda. and boy, have i been sick. started feeling a bit woozy late wednesday evening and when this continued thru thursday morning, i decided to stay away from the office until the afternoon. hauled myself there for a meeting, but then had to jam on the rest of my plans for the evening, including a museum board meeting and a shift as a tax clinic volunteer, so that i could crawl into bed.
my only consolation that day was the chance to listen to neil gaiman's cd, 'speaking in tongues', so i got my fill of fairy tales and spooky tales. neil's voice carried me thru the evening as i drifted in and out of consciousness.
the rest of the weekend pretty much followed this pattern: get up; stumble to the loo; expel fluids; intake fluids; lie down. repeat every hour or so on friday, every couple of hours on saturday and maybe every four hours on sunday. i know this is just karma for staying out all hours last weekend, but it was still a huge drag
kewl events that i missed out on - friday had the 'arctic wisdom' event to celebrate earth day, out on the sea ice outside of apex, featuring celebrities like salma hayek and jake gyllenhall. apparently they also hobnobbed with the locals at the discovery hotel restaurant at supper and took in a fashion show at the frob.
also on friday, i missed lena evic's cd release party at the legion, and the variety of artists that came out to help her showcase northern music. at the astro, both 'kung fu hustle' and 'sin city' opened, and i could only toss and turn in bed.
saturday, i fooled myself into thinking that i had gotten over the hump and so forced myself over to todd's for his poker tourney. well, i did ok for about 3 hours, and then went from being chip leader to first out in less than a round. a textbook example of going on tilt, christian and i both bet hard off the flop, so i figured that we both had top pair and that my kicker was higher.
i didn't even slow down to consider that his kicker might pair up with another card on the board, or even make up a set. but it was like the hand doing the betting wasn't even connected to my brain and soon enough i had wiped myself out. ah well, so ends my lossless streak for 2005. will have to start a new winning streak next time when i'm more healthy.
so, saturday-sunday was more suffering, with a throbbing headache and endlessly parched throat. i finally broke down and started imbibing tap water by the jug (i usually boil all my drinking water and chill it - it seems to taste better somehow). so lesson to future sick self - watch out for dehydration !!
sunday morning, i had to cancel out on a planned shooting for a mockumentary. i won't be surprised if they don't bother calling back, but seeing as i was still breaking out into the sweats every once in awhile, i thought it best to stay put. managed to get some actual REM sleep in the afternoon (warm sunshine seemed to help) and then called a taxi to take me up to bella's birthday party. enjoyed the feast, but when malcolm and olivia made their exit, david and i followed them as they offered us lifts to our respective abodes.
*whew* now that leaves today. simply being able to breathe normally for a few hours at a stretch felt like heaven. i stayed in bed until early evening when john called to remind me that he was hosting a dinner party to celebrate his birthday. i begged off, given that i had woken with a headache, but once i had a shower and nibbled a bit on some leftovers, i felt sturdy enough to drop by. we played the 'name game' and malcolm successfully stared down all would-be challengers for his title.
comic shipment / order highlights
Tuesday, 26APR2005:the best reads from my latest shipment of comics were 'oddly normal' and 'ray'. 'oddly normal' by otis frampton tells the tale of a young girl who is of mixed heritage - fairy tale witch crossed with a normal human with the surname of ... 'normal'. on her latest birthday, fed up with the continued cluelessness of her parents, she makes a wish and discovers why one should be careful when making wishes.
'ray', meanwhile, features a young lady who assists others with medical emergencies, seeking to make things better. she has come to this role due to her own personal tragedy. while a youngster, she belonged to an orphanage where the kids were raised simply to become organ donors, and she lost her original eyes. a kind samaritan spirited her away and replaced her eyes with 'bionic' ones, such that she can see thru just about anything. the artwork is very nice and each little story seems to be building the larger story along. i'm looking forward to the next volume of this graphic novel series.
spent most of tuesday evening after getting home from work plowing thru the comic order catalogue for june while my pc was occupied with burning mixes for the 'burn it' mix exchange.
highlights of items that i ordered that are scheduled to ship in june include:
- hellboy: the island - the first new mignola-drawn and written hellboy story since he got sidetracked into helping out with that hollywood movie
- avigon: gods and demons - an extended version of one of my favourite tales about a clockwork girl
- valerian volume 1 - a reprint of a european graphic novel cited as one of the inspirations for 'the fifth element'
- northwest passage #1 - a comic using the historical hinterlands of canada as a backdrop for its stories
broomball, kung-fu and mix-making
Wednesday, 27APR2005:broomball chronicle: well, carine showed up to see who would show up, but when no one other than alastair, martha and myself appeared, she left. us diehards decided the hard part of getting out of the house was already accomplished, so we might as well hit the ice.
putting one person in net, the other two tried to pass around / deke out the goalie to score. alastair demonstrated a wickedly hard shot, but was most successful at lifting the ball around the goalie into the net. martha practiced handling the ball beside the net while i tried to work on placing shots in specific parts of the net to improve my accuracy.
jumped into the shower and then scooted up to the astro to take in 'kung-fu hustle', the latest riotous flurry of hong-kong pop culture goodness. stephen chow again combined slapstick, kung-fu homages and tiny smatterings of a love story to whip up another tasty concoction that had me laughing uproariously along. no accounting for taste :)
it's raining mixes on me - 1 from sue, 3 from cabell, 3 from flwb and 2 from mixxer - it's like every day is my birthday !
anyway, the last thing i did this evening was to finish printing off cd covers for the burn it ! mix trade and package them all up to mail tomorrow morning. the recipients for these batches of discs reside in maine, arizona (2), texas, indiana, new york and iqaluit.
you turn me inside out
Friday, 29APR2005:'downfall' was indeed a downer. there were still a few moments that were worth watching, but many times i found myself shifting uncomfortably.
while the movie 'schindler's list' at least had a few sympathetic characters, 'downfall' either had patsies, clueless quislings or just plain evil people. the only character that i had any empathy for, was the doctor who stayed to help citizens at a local hospital. he was held out as a noble, rational exception, but then you sit back and realize that he was an SS doctor. not a whole lot to work with there.
sin city ...
Thursday, 28APR2005:ROCKED !!
my favourite 'a-ha' moment was realizing that frank miller had cast himself as a priest :)
i just want to sit alone and contemplate my fate
Saturday, 30APR2005:slept in until the early afternoon and then puttered around until broomball.
broomball chronicle:
team white: mark, colette, me
team black: gavin, brock, alastair
team black had the early advantage, with gavin and brock providing a whirlwind of goals and alastair backstopping effectively. slowly, tho, as team black got a bit tired, team white members were able to exploit a few opportunities to get at least one goal each, and if we didn't end up exactly even at the buzzer, it was fairly close.
took a shower and then wandered over to the nav for karaoke. greg, carine and john swung by to keep me company for a bit while i polished off supper from the nav restaurant (special chop suey). then, when they left to check out the francophone centre, i slid over to the back table to hang out with douglas, harvey, judith, ian and david, who was in full mohawk glory.
unfortunately, brad was not in attendance due to feeling a bit under the weather, so we were treated to a few new singers. some of the songs that i hadn't heard for a while included juice newton's 'angel of the morning', 'babe' by styx and 'just the way you are' by billy joel.
from there, david and i checked out the francophone centre and caught the tail end of a showing of IBC's 'super shamou' - very kewl. we then chatted with malcolm as he wrapped up his show, but were unable to convince him to join us in heading to the legion.
the legion was pretty quiet, with a bunch of people still checking out an '80's bash at the cadet hall. i tried to play a round of pool with greg, but wasn't able to win the table. when the place finally started hopping just after midnight, i was feeling like a bit of a jackass and decided that it was best to head home if i didn't feel like socializing.
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