inbetween

On Friday afternoon, I was having a beer with some friends atop the Sticky Wicket. Guess who called. No really. Guess.

Auntie Roberta, dying daddies sister. Totally at random.

"Where were you?" she asked.
"huh?" I wonder out loud.
"Weren't you supposed to meet your father today? I thought that, after all we went through last week..." and she starts to trail off into the distance. The ambient noise around us was unbearable, so I left the bar and stood on the street to talk to her.

She accused me of some pretty nasty things, like fornicating on her front steps, leaving nasty notes and (my personal favourite) projecting gay porn through her curtains. I wish I could make stuff like this up, but I've never been that creative.

"And it was just so hurtful, what you did to me last night Michael."
"But I wasn't anywhere near you, or your house. I don't know where you live."
"But it was just so mean and painful. I was doing so well too, it had been four days since I'd gone to group therapy.
"But I didn't do it. Did you see me there? I don't think you did."

She didn't. She did see two men fornicating on her front stairs (or at least she thinks she did.) She asked them to leave (so she says) and then they left nasty notes, asking to meet my father (duwah?) at Taco-Bell.

The entire phone call was just so irrational and wierd and "haven't been to group in four days" that I just couldn't deal with it. What is she smoking? I think this is just more evidence that she really is crazy/bipolar/insane/in-need-of-more-shock-therapy.

The next day, I got into a fight with my mother about wether or not I was angry at her. I wasn't, but she was certain that I was. Rather than ask m, she just plainly decided I was.

At least Sunday was relaxing. Beach, wine, Klezmer music, and more wine, and a very short-changed bill later, I was feeling very relaxed.

Stupid family.

Why aren't monkeys and monks more alike?

Discuss.

ABCNEWS.com : How Much Does a Hurricane Weigh?

Clouds are big and wet
In Springtime they go bye bye
In winter so big.

Dunno what's going on with my life, but something is odd. Very odd lately.

On Tuesday, the Pride Office got two very strange collect calls from some nut-job in the USA. He claimed to be the Chair of the Vancouver Pride Association. Then claimed to be a friend of mine, then claimed that he had been beaten and robbed and that I had agreed to give him money. Thankfully, the people in the office didn't give him my phone number. After they hung up on him the second time, he called the Women's Centre claiming to be me, again with the story of being beaten, robbed and needing money. Good thing I know the people who run the place, 'cause they knew it wasn't me.

And just a few hours ago, we got a phone call at the house

Note to self: make the home phone number unlisted or change the damn thing

*69

Glayds and Bertha Lynn, (574) 295-5987, 408 Ash Cir, Elkhart, IN 46517

That must be it, right? Right?

Yesterday (ignore the date on this entry. The server clock is off by a few hours) was the first day of classes. I only missed one! That's a very good sign.

I actually missed it because I agreed to work at SUBtext again. Working there is always fun now that I'm not the big kahuna. I go to the store, I put in a few hours, and I leave. Very relaxing, very fun. And on Tuesday, I got to close the store with Ryan. I like being a counter person when I don't really work there.

And I've had a few classes since. They seem interesting, although one prof is just such a nerd that she kept walking into the projector screen cord and not noticing. And she got chalk on her face in the first five minutes of class. I kept giggling.

Party plans are going well. I've got a band booked for it, but no drag queens yet. Aparently, most drag queens don't do drag anymore. I wonder just how desperate the situation will get. Must have a drag show. Booked the lighting and sound and all that today. Tomorrow I'll tackle food for the shindig.

Very exciting.

Georgia Nicols' weekly for September 7 Aquarius (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18) You're in a lucky position now and for the next year. Expect gifts, inheritances, scholarships, bursaries, loans, extended credit, mortgages and the use of other people's possessions. You are here and it is now -- the right place at the right time. (This is good - you've got lots of work ahead.) Although you're super favoured, this week something excessive looms in the picture. You might be expecting too much; you might be giving away too much. There could be a conflict between what you expect and what you receive. You might want to spend or borrow too much money. (Don't byte off more than you can view.)

It was a fun week, even with all the crazy insanity (as opposed to non-crazy insanity? I should stop with the killing of the brain cells) and the working and the school and the more working.

The party I'm planning is a "Welcome Back to School Queers!" sort of thing. The names we've had for it so far are "Homohop" (like a sock hop, but with sexy socks), "Enjoy your orientation" and "The Big Gay Bash!" (that was my idea, but I couldn't even suggest it seriously.

Yesterday I didn't even get dressed. I sat here and listened to the thunder and rain. It was very relaxing. And fun.

So what does next week bring? I've got homework due in a fourth year computer science class. I've got five chapters of abstract algebra to read. I'm going to try and get a job updating some websites. Oh, and the UVic Pride stuff too, a meeting and more party planning.

Thank you, dear reader. This has been a very wandering, meandering little write up with no actual purpose. I hope you enjoyed. Now post a comment please.

My head hurts. I'm confused and hungry and grumpy and in a mood and writing run on sentences. Damn I hate it when I write run on sentences.

I just sent this email to a friend of mine, after reading an email reminding me that his party is tomorrow. Stupid me, not writing down the correct date for something. I feel the need to share my confusion and excuse the run on sentence.

I'm sorry I missed...

Wait a second, no I didn't. You confused me! Yeesh. I went to the restaurant today, thinking that it was today (and today is today, it just today isn't tomorrow yet which will forever be a source of confusion...) and saw that nobody was there and thought I had missed your party. (I was a little late too. tee hee...)

Right, now that that is all worked out, and I know that I'm just going crazy, everything will be back to normal. Well, everything will be back to normal tomorrow. I hope.

My head hurts from all this. I'm going to sleep and when I wake up it better be better then.

Michael

Some interesting projects for the Hypermedia class that I might want to do.

1. Write your own adventure - like a choose your own adventure, but with multiple authors and the ability for random people to add new parts to the adventure.

2. Horoscope to SMS - a nifty little program to get the horoscope from Georgia Nicols website and send it to me by SMS.

I'm too addicted to my phone and SMS. I don't like that.

3. OED to SMS - send an email by sms to a predetermined email address. The email contains one word. Have a program check the email, look up the word in the OED and SMS the result back to the phone.

4. Java Whiteboard - Just like a regular white board, done with a simple applet that sends the graphics out around the net and renders things nicely. Maybe even build an IM thingy into it.

That would require java. Icky. Bad.

5. meh. there is no five.

[update]OED: Oxford English Dictionary

I've set up a new film reviews blog: Bashing Hollywood.

So far, one film. One horrendous, spectacularly trite, Catholic Church bashing film.

More to come, I promise.

Wired News: Disney Animates Dalí's Flick

There isn't really much that I see in the world that would be better on DVD. I don't really care what the director of the movie thought. I don't care about the special features either. The special features are still in their infancy and just don't impress me much on DVDs that I have seen.

The "deleted scenes" idea does seem intriguing though. I remember watching Fantasia on DVD with Robbie-Ru and just being fascinated by the one scene that was deleted, a cartoon set to Clar De Lune (sorry for the spelling, if it's wrong). I remember thinking that it seemed to balance out the "you cannot fast-forward here" stupidity, and all that.

Now mix Salvidor Dali and Disney. But do it back when the mouse had some real creativity, and artistic courage. Then give me a DVD player so I can watch a Disney and Dali joint venture.

Georgia Nicols - Daily Horoscope

Aquarius (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18)
Your gonads are in overdrive. It's a bit frustrating if you're not in a meaningful overnight relationship. You definitely want to play. Ironically, you can use this energy to do research or improve yourself in some way. You can also channel this energy for creative purposes. (Like how to get out of boring projects.)

And now I really wish I was getting horoscopes delivered to my cell phone every day. Perhaps that'll be the next big project I take on...

So, what should the caption for this photo be? Try to avoid the truly obvious reference, if you can. I'll start.

"Oh no, time to do my nails again."

I've finally done it. No going back now. Can't even get my deposit back. They even tell me that she's on her way here and I can finally see her in two weeks. I've been wanting one for so long, and I can finally rid myself of the one I built myself.

I wonder if she will like me. My last one and I have gotten along so well, it will be bad to see her go, but it really is time for a new one. A portable one.

I'm so excited, I might just burst. I can't wait to see her.

(and praise jebuz for the educational discount)

My email has been giving me problems lately. It all started when I was trying out different operating systems that didn't really like each other. Moving the email files back and forth took it's toll on the little bastards, and I wound up with lots of copies of the same exact email sitting in my in box.

Well, then Perl to the rescue.

Note to anybody out there listening. It isn't PERL. It sure as hell isn't P.E.R.L. Perl is the language, perl is the program that compiles and interprets the language. Stop writing PERL.

For those of you playing along at home, here's the code:

Already, she has arrived, and and she has that new computer smell.

I am a little dissapointed. There were no drivers to twiddle with, no settings to adjust, no dips needing switching, and no security problems to fix.

This "It isn't a pc" thing is a little odd. She works. No effort on my part to get her going or (seemingly) to keep her going. Very cool, very nice. Very exciting.

Of course, now that I have no fancy adjustments and stuff to make to turn the computer into something really useful, I have no excuse for not getting things done.

"I'm in love."

Jacob was breathless. His voice had that a slight nervousness that Damian had never heard before. Still, he wasn't going to let this opportunity slip.

"Oh dear."

Damian had been in love with Jacob since they met seven years ago. Ever since their first night together, Damian knew they would grow old together. He was always confident that someday, somehow Jacob would come to realize the inevitable truth.

"This is a good thing!"

"This is the third good thing you've had this week. You sound like Martha Stewart. A Big homo Martha."

"Fine. Be that way, you stupid bitchy homo. I'm not telling you."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to belittle yet another passing fancy. What's his name?"

And it began again, Damian hoping, pleading with the universe. "Say my name, say my name, say my name!" Thoughts of drag shows long gone by danced through his mind. Deloris Fuh-Loris hadn't performed in three years, and she wouldn't be coming back. In moments of stress, his mind always returned to the stage, the spot lights, and the audience. Deloris Fuh-Loris always loved the audience, and they loved her.

"Have you even been listening? You look like you're day dreaming again. Damn."

"Sorry, I was wondering if the new man would mind you lying naked, next to me, in my bed."

"Charlie doesn't know yet."

"He doesn't know you love him? Or doesn't he know that you've been making love to me almost every night for seven years?"

The Pride Collective has a new practicum student. She is really excited and has tonnes of energy.

Note to self: Don't be hyperbolic. Einstein (and google) say that a (metric) tonne of energy is 8.98755179 × 10¹⁹ Joules That's really a lot of energy. I don't think anyone actually has that much energy... unless that person perhaps weights a metric tonne, but that's a lot.

I just wish we had more ideas for her. And for our new workstudy (we'll be hiring on Monday, I think) and the other volunteers, five different volunteers, all gung-ho to help out.

What do I do? I don't know what needs to be done. I've suggested to everyone that asks that they could try coming up with new and innovative ideas. They can take an old/existing idea and try to make it their own. Some have, but most are still so new with the office, that they don't know where to begin.

Neither do I, and that is the problem.

Now we need to come up with new, creative ideas. We need to help our volunteers (and our employee, in a few days) to develop those ideas. I don't plan on doing the actual work, but this is all about the meta-work. How do you figure out how the place works? All things considered, I think that having lots of volunteers (a good thing. Make no mistake, I like having volunteers) will require a lot of time to get the volunteer base rolling. I imagine that once they get going with some ideas, they will have a nice momentum and keep developing new ideas.

I hope I remember to show them the gratitude they deserve.

I love my laptop. Her name is athena (lowercase on purpose) because she really is a goddess. A marvel of style, substance and utter design beauty.

Then again, Mac OS X is a lot of eye candy. It is more than I want really. I see a computer as a tool, and don't really need the drop shadows on the windows, the fading title bars, or the sappy feel.