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04/24/2003
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i'm not insane, i insulate
please shock, i don't see at all as real
i'm the cellophane, i'm not so tame
Tonight, Ry and I went to take care of our
new place, which we're moving into in like a week. A damn week
is all I have left in my house where I've lived for the last 20
years. I can't believe it. Tomorrow I'm working on the place with
Ry, and measuring it out, and bringing stuff from my house over.
Lots of hardcore tricky stuff needs to be done. We also went to
the casino, where I ended down 10 bucks over the night, but I
did get 4 free diet cokes, and a wonderful new nicotine aroma
(at least a 20 dollar value).
I'm growing total Deaner facial hair, at
least until I can get a solid job interview. I'll have a pic in
a couple days.. for it will r0x0r j00r b0x0rs d00d. Oh yes, and
Miss hotness chats up mayhem like nobody else. The intrigue, it
grows...
Don't tell anybody this, but work on the
VMU interface for CatanDC is going well. Lots more to do, but
it looks like I can get it done if I can get a couple of free
evenings here and there.
My back has been feeling so bad since Monday.
Thank you Aspirin + Molson for your wonderful drug interactions.
Also, thank you Starbucks for keeping me up til' fricken' 3:15
in the morning.. SUMATRA RULES.
Listening To : Limblifter
- Cellophane
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04/21/2003
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Just got back from the video store, returned
Fubar and Doom Generation. Gee I love Rose McGowan, but some of
the acting in that flick is so ... almost Ed Wood quality. Although
I think that may have been the goal. And seeing Parker Posey chase
them all around with a ninja sword is totally worth watching that
movie.
Mom made such a nice dinner tonight, I fell
asleep at like 6:30... didn't wake up again until 9:00... I love
being done school.
I also met a hottie on Lavalife.
We ended up chatting 'til very late last night (thus the need
for an evening nap). I hope we have lots more thought provoking
conversations, and maybe more.
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04/17/2003
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This is the twilight of my youth.
I defended my MSc. thesis yesterday and it went really well, excellent
comments were given by the examiners, and I have a very few corrections
to do, and then I'm out of university. Today held some major realizations
for me. Today is a day known on the University of Calgary campus
as Bermuda Shorts Day. Traditionally for my group of friends and
I, we went all out when we were undergrads. We all got older and
wiser and lamer as we progressed into our Master's degrees (those
of us who did), and BSD's haven't been the same. I decided that
because this BSD would be my last, I would try and recapture that
experience of getting tanked, hanging out and cruising campus
for trouble. It wasn't the same, and no matter where I looked
I couldn't see the place for me in all the happenings. No mech
barbecue. No hot tub on the lawn. Couldn't get into the beer gardens.
Nothing. I went for lunch with Ryan, and Rob and Ingrid came to
join us. We watched the bands play from the grad lounge, like
patrons of a zoo watching animals behind glass. I wanted to be
in the zoo, but my place was as an observer rather than a participant.
I was so disappointed and felt so old and lame.
The lesson I've learned is this,
you have to enjoy youthful fun and foolishness while you're young,
because you can't go back to the way things were once you've grown
up. I don't fit in as a 24 year old where I once did as an 18
year old, and this is hard to take at times but it's the truth.
This may not come as a surprise to you, but it came as a surprise
to me. I still feel like an 18 year old kid inside. I am happy
with the memories I made with my friends during my undergrad,
just as I'm happy with the times we've shared during the last
few years that I've been a grad student. But I've come to realize
for myself that that feeling is just a memory, and it can't be
recaptured, it's just something that has to be appreciated for
what it was.
You can even still get tanked,
still have fun and still do all the same things you did when you
were 18, but it will never be the same for you as when you were
18. The feeling can be fun, the people around you can be just
as awesome but it will never feel exactly the same. Instead of
clinging to the old things that used to make you feel good, I
think you have to find new things as you grow older, because some
of these things just aren't appropriate for you when you've grown
older. If you're young, go and enjoy those things to the fullest
(while being somewhat careful of course :D) because they won't
always be available to you. So that's my "coming of age"
sentiment at the moment.
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04/02/2003
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A
long time ago we used to be friends, but I haven't thought of
you lately at all,
If ever again a greeting I send to you, short and sweet to the
soul I intend.
So this is what I get for drinking
a uberlarge coffee at 9:00 at night. So this is basically a
recap of this last month when instead of blogging I've been
writing a computer (or rather, Dreamcast) game that no doubt
some of you have heard of from the Catan-DC link on my toolbar.
My girl got sick. We haven't talked a lot. I'm not sure if she's
my girl anymore, or if she's just too busy to talk to me. Whatever,
this is my frustration. I nearly had a heart attack because
my grades transcript shows me being 0.5 courses behind my degree
requirements, I was undercredited for my reading class I took
in the first year of my program. My thesis is done and circulated
to the defense committee, and I'm looking for a job. Send me
info on good design/petroleum engg jobs in Calgary, if you have
a lead you'd like to share. I'm applying all over the place.
I had a big fight with my parents and I'm moving out. I have
an apartment set up with my best friend, and I'm moving in May
1st. I quit playing Street Fighter (I'm playing 1 more time,
at my good friend Kevin's goodbye party, and then never again.),
and managed to lose my temper and probably isolate a good chunk
of my friends in the scene. I've been hanging out with my favorite
ex-girlfriend a lot though, which has been very cool and has
made me feel a little better about all the stuff going on. The
Dandy Warhols are releasing a new album which is looking to
be the awesomest thing to hit the scene in a long time.
Oh yeah, and a war happend,
or rather started. And I have a friend that I hate to fight
with who really seems to enjoy egging me on. As the Strokes
say, "we're not enemies, we just disagree". I have
more to say but I will begin with the fact that any disputing
opinions will be proved right or wrong with history, and I certainly
hope the best for both the Iraqi and American peoples in the
end. Loss of life is a tragedy in any case, although it is sometimes
a sacrifice made for the greater good. This war in Iraq is a
reality we all have to face now. Drawing conclusions as to its
ultimate effect now is simply throwing stones for the sake of
throwing stones.
The core of ultra-leftist and
anti-American arguments seems (to me at least) to stem from
an intense bitterness that these people can't seem to detach
themselves from. To me it seems that people are not so much
unhappy with the war itself (Saddam is a brutal leader, and
his people are undeniably oppressed) but with the surrounding
American agenda of secured oil production. My opinion is that
some people so vehemently despise American hegemony (and the
globalism which accompanies it) that they will go to extreme
lengths to criticize any pro-American agenda. This attitude
is contrarian at its core, and can't be simply resolved in the
context of social opinions.
These are my thoughts for critics
of American oil production. Undeniably, the U.S. is the center
of a cultural hegemony! Get over it, you can't stop it's effects!
It's too late for that! It's a reality that must be dealt with,
and no single person (and arguably, not even a large scale cultural
movement) can alter its course at this point. For American civilization
to satisfy the demands of ultra-leftists (stop violations of
sovereignty, rollback globalization, etc.), civilization would
need to be turned back 200 years, and everyone would have to
go back to being subsistance farmers. How do I get this result?
I'm gonna wax James Burke on you here for a bit so bear with
me. The wealth and products that go into the average "first
worlder"'s consumption comes from globalization and heavy
industrialization, and the first step in these things is, you
guessed it, oil.
Why do we need oil? Because without oil, a modern culture and
economy can't function. Oil is used to make, among things, gasoline.
Gasoline (which is made of a mixture of octanes, hexanes and
heptanes, along with other things) happens to be one of a very
select group of fuels which (get out your University Chemistry
textbook):
- are liquid
in the normal atmpospheric temperature (-30C to 40C) and pressure
(STP) range
-
have a high
enough activation energy to not explode accidentally, but
low enough to be activated practically
-
release enough
energy to be chemically efficient
-
are relatively
mechanically stable (don't react catastrophically in accidental
circumstances, ie Hydrogen)
-
are easily vaporized
Without gasoline, we don't have
cars (for shipping or people transit). The industry behind cars
is hopelessly devoted to this configuration, so society is essentially
married to the concept of fossil fuel powered vehicles until a
significantly more practical solution is developed (which it hasn't).
Without cars, people can't get places fast enough and conveniently
enough to live in the size of cities (geographically, not-population
based. Calgary takes up approximately 1200 square kilometers by
my estimate, and only has about a million people living here)
that we do. No large cities means heavy industry can't function
as it currently does. Workers need to be able to get to work,
and still have a place to live, but how many people want to live
within walking distance of a steel mill or power plant? The design
of our cities was specifically made to isolate industrial spaces
from residential spaces. Cities are not an easily rearranged thing,
so all of a sudden our infrastructure is screwed up.
So no workers means no heavy industry. No heavy industry means
no more products (manufactured food, clothing, furnature, houses,
electronics or anything else). And without our manufactured goods,
guess what, we'll have to provide for ourselves! You can't work
as a specialist, technologist, or entertainer and still grow your
own food and make your own clothes etc.! Guess what this job description
sounds like.. that's right, a farmer!
We aren't ready to get rid of gasoline
yet. First world civilization is dependant on oil. This goes out
to the protesters out there who think they're so smart and hip
for wearing mass-produced t-shirts spouting "no blood for
oil". When you made that t-shirt from cotton you picked,
spun, dyed and customized yourself, all the while eating food
you grew yourself, and walked to the rally from your house you
built yourself, then you can proceed to criticize those who make
civilization work, because you don't need civilization as it exists.
Until then you're just another bandwagon jumping consumer who's
hungry for attention. If you really want to be useful, go to school
and try solving the practical problems (like the fuel problem),
which may not be as fun or glamorous as protesting every day,
but it's a hell of a lot more constructive.
My favorite leftist comment
of the week comes from Moby, of all people, who said on his
website "i hope (even
more fervently and because i'm concerned for the welfare of
the united states and the rest of the world) that george w.
bush will be roundly and soundly defeated in the next election."
These are reasonable words, not outrageous gongbanging like
I've been reading and hearing all over the place (equating Bush
to Hitler, for example). Have you ever been to a concentration
camp? I've been to a little place called Dachau. They have places
just like it functioning in North Korea right now.
I don't know of any in the U.S.. Point made.
Listening To : The Dandy
Warhols - We Used to Be Friends
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