3:30 in the morning is not all it’s cracked up to be. Early hurts my tummy!

The office is slowly starting to come to life, but when I arrived at 5 it was utterly deserted. I was a little spooked by that, as there should have been at least one guy working the night shift – turns out he was out grabbing a food, and showed up shortly after. Still, it was a little eerie. I should have brought protection.

I’m full of caffeine and TimBits (which could explain the belly ache), but my eyes are sandy and I really, really want to be in bed. I’m heading home as soon as the launch is stable, but when has any big rollout ever been successful on the first go? I may be here for years.

It’s so dark out there.

Ed and I are officially trying to buy a place. Believe it or not, we’ve given this a lot of thought – we’re tired of Aquaman and his never-ending crime spree, tired of our car being hit by Admiral Ackbar, tired of our neighbours (especially those jerks in #5). We seriously looked into moving elsewhere and continuing to rent, but the idea didn’t really appeal to us – we’d have to almost double the amount of rent we pay currently, and for what? At the end of the day, you’ve really got nothing.

Neither of us had given much thought to owning property before. We thought it was the unattainable dream; something fancy people did but certainly not happy little nerds like us. We honestly thought that we’d be cool with renting forever – it was cheap, we could live with the minor inconveniences, Drunk Bettie is always hilarious, and having Josh and Shan downstairs was all kinds of awesome.

Then all at once, our friends decided renting was lame and also that they hate living near us.

It seemed to happen in an instant, but over the course of a weekend all our friends had meetings and brokers and agreements and approvals for mortgages. This made Ed and I pause – if they could get a mortgage, couldn’t we? After all, we make similar amounts of chickens and we don’t have much debt. Rates are low, all the signage says – I don’t know what that means, but maybe we should look into this some more.

So, we did. We met with a sexy mortgage broker whom I have seen without pants, and he crunched some numbers but good. End result: Ed and I qualify for a hilariously high mortgage and now we can go out and buy a house (or a condo/townhouse, which is what we’re looking for – fuck lawns). Hooray!

Except now we need to come up with a down payment, and it somehow turned into a never-ending lecture about sacrifice and responsibility and how we are total failures as adults (which, duh, have you met me?) and I am so tired of it all I’m thinking about living in the car out of spite.

We don’t have $20,000 in twonies in my puggy bank. I know, I know – total failure as an adult – but it’s true. We DO have the money tucked away in RRSPs, though. Awesome! Let’s get started!

Yeah, because things are totally that easy for us.

For reasons we can’t quite track down, the RRSP is of the Locked-In variety and we can’t touch it until we retire. Sure, when we hit 55 and if we have a valid reason, we can take out SOME of it – but the rest stays put until you are 65. The only exception is made for people with terminal illnesses and/or if you are literally starving and going to be out on the street within 24 hours unless you can find some cash, neither of which apply to us. So, we’re boned. Boned!

We’re looking at other solutions, including the time-honoured act of begging mommy and daddy for a loan. I steeled myself with a shot of Drano and called my mother, which went about as well as can be expected – I am a horrible child and the reason that cancer exists and no one will ever love me and I am a complete and utter failure as a human being and ..  she’ll think about it. Ed asked his parents, which went a little better (although not without some agonizing discussions about our frivolous lifestyle) – but at the moment, we’re in limbo. We’re throwing all our extra cash into a Down Payment Fund and cutting back on as much as we can, but bills still need to be paid and we still need to eat. There isn’t really a hell of a lot we can cut out of our budget – regardless of what our parents think, we don’t actually live that extravagant a life. I’ve already cut back on my video games almost 90% from last year, we don’t drink, we buy our whores in Family Packs at Costco, I rarely buy new vehicles on a whim – what more can we do? Okay, we’ll eat out less. I’ll buy Mystery Meat instead of Grade A Beef. No more Sephora sprees, and it wouldn’t kill me to limit my champagne baths to once a month instead of weekly. All of these are good decisions, but none of it will help us get to $20K before the HST hits.

Normally there would be no sense of urgency about this, but there is. We’ve been in this situation once before, where we were thinking about buying – but at the time, $175000 for a townhouse seemed outrageous, and also I hated Calgary. A very short time later, that $175K property was selling for $380K – oops. There are four things driving us to buy sooner rather than later:

• Rates are really stinkin’ low and they can’t get much lower
• The Olympics could create a housing boom and we’d price ourselves out of the market
• The upcoming HST will increase the price of a new home by thousands
• If I have to pay to replace our car windows one more time I am going to snap and cut a bitch

I’m really stressed out about all of this, and we’re not even beyond the “curiously looking” stage. I’m also tired of hearing about sacrifice – it’s all about giving things up and forcing hardship upon yourselves to feel as though you’ve truly earned it, apparently. Except .. no one is looking at this through MY eyes. Sacrifice isn’t always giving up material goods or self-flagellation – in order for this whole “buying a house” thing to work, I have to give up something much more important to me:

*dramatic pause*

I am giving up MY FREEDOM.

I mean it. If I sign all the papers and commit to paying off a mortgage, I will officially no longer be allowed to run away. Even when things are going awesome with Ed (as they are now), I still harbor a secret desire to run away to exotic locations and see what lies over that hill. If we buy a place, I will be more married than ever before. I don’t see it as being “stuck”, since it’s something I want – but I certainly won’t be able to flee when the fancy strikes. As silly as it sounds, this is really important to me. I won’t be able to run away, and that’s the biggest sacrifice I can think of – but it doesn’t count, because it’s not a tangible thing.

Seriously though, how much do we suck for not having $20K sitting around? We are pathetic.

Building myself a fort out of couch cushions never sounded so good.

I had fully intended on writing a real update today – which is actually in progress and will be coming later – but several weird things happened between the time I left my house and I arrived at work, and they deserve an update of their own:

There was a hobo in the Stanley Park Causeway looking very much like he was telling the trees that if they liked it, they should have put a ring on it – I swear to god he was doing the Beyonce dance at the trees and raccoons, and it was fucked up.

An electric scooter, going north, leading a congregation of pissed off cars and busses: GET OFF THE ROAD, YOU JACKASS

I found Mystery Apple Juice in the elevator this morning, hidden in the crusty folds of the padding. It was a full can, too – if I didn’t kind of hate apple juice, I would have stolen it.

(this didn’t happen this morning, but it doesn’t deserve its own update) I think I might hate Kingdom Hearts 358/2. I’m 11 hours into it and haven’t the foggiest idea why I’m doing the stupid things I’m doing. I was really hoping it was going to be like the original Kingdom Hearts, with the Disney characters and levels based on Disney worlds. Instead, I am having serious ‘Nam flashbacks to Final Fantasy X. I had JUST forgiven Square Enix for that, based on the strength of last year’s The World Ends With You – the last thing I need is to be reminded of how much I HATED Final Fantasy X and how angry it made me. Even playing the hilarious side game of “Who Has the Stupidest Hair” isn’t doing anything for me. I haven’t touched my DS in a few days, so I’ll give it another chance before I toss it the yuck pile – but it’s going to have to do something pretty amazing to pull me from the brink of dissatisfaction.

On the upside, it’s giving me a wicked urge to play Kingdom Hearts again.

At first I was worried about being pegged a sociopath, but the more I think about it, the better it sounds. Perhaps if more people knew I was technically (as described by some random online quiz, that is) a sociopath, they would steer clear of sending me bitchy emails calling me out over their own misunderstandings. Wouldn’t that be super?

You are the Sociopath! As a result of your cold, calculating rationality, your introversion (and ability to keep quiet), your brutality, and your arrogance, you would make a very cunning serial killer. You are confident and capable of social interaction, but you prefer the silence of dead bodies to the loud, twittering nitwits you normally encounter in your daily life. You care very little for the feelings of others, possibly because you are not a very emotional person. You are also very calculating and intelligent, making you a perfect criminal mastermind. Also, you are a very arrogant person, tending to see yourself as better than others, providing you with a strong ability to perceive others as weak little animals, so tiny and small. You take great pleasure in the misery of others, and there is nothing sweeter to you than the sweet glory of using someone else’s shattered failure to project yourself to success. Except sugar. That just may be sweeter. In short, your personality defect is the fact that you could easily be a sociopath, because you are calculating, unemotional, brutal, and arrogant.

I could live with this.

the stray cat and i are done professionally

Last time I was this bored on a Saturday night, I ended up joining MySpace. I’ve since deleted my MySpace account, and don’t have any real interesting in creating a new one – so I joined OK Cupid, instead.

Now, I’m not looking to bone strangers in the sweaty confines of the Mazdabator’s vinyl seats – I’m just looking for people I might like to hang out with. This doesn’t seem to be appeasing Ed, who immediately assumed that I want to grind on top of people I don’t know. I checked off “married” and “looking for friends” – what more does he want? I’m *bored*! With great boredom comes at least an hour wasted filling out a profile that might scare the creepy people away!

Actually, I could use some perverts – it would be highly entertaining to get some creepy email. I really hoped I’d get some interesting responses to my Craigslist Missed Connections post, but only two people wrote to me in broken English, asking if I wanted to show them around. No, I don’t. I want to tell the guy in the elevator that I enjoyed his package, that’s it. I don’t understand this site at all – someone apparently gave me 4 or 5 stars. Is this a good thing? Do I want this? If this was Mario Kart, I’d be invincible now. Does OK Cupid = Mario Kart?

Today Shan and I attended a rehearsal for Thrill the World. It’s coming up fast – next Saturday – and it should be great. There was a HUGE turnout for the rehearsal, so it’s looking very likely that we’ll smash last year’s record of 69 zombies and raise a ton of cash for the Vancouver Food Bank. Even if you can’t come dance, you should come by and watch – it’ll be awesome.

Lastly, before I forget: I think I hate the Kingdom Hearts DS game. More on that later.

zombies in training!

The future is here at last – I’m having a pissy conversation with someone at work, conducted solely by screenshots.

Papa would be so proud!

Gillian (whom I miss dearly) just pointed out something awesome to me: I am the most relaxed person in the universe.

I have no stress. None! While others think of chillaxin’ as something they like to do during downtime, I think of it on par with oxygen – I don’t have to think about breathing, I just do it. Likewise, I don’t have to set aside some quiet time for myself: my entire life is a warm ocean breeze along a pure white beach dotted with palm trees, Diet Coke machines, and no pants.

CNN Money just released a list of the 10 Least Stressful Jobs, and I’m on the list not once but twice:

1. Education/Training Consultant
2. Physical Therapist
3. College Professor
4. Software Developer
5. Technical Writer
6. Telecommunications Network Engineer
7. Speech-Language Pathologist
8. Software Architect
9. Occupational Therapist
10. Civil Engineer

I have the 5th and 1st least stressful jobs available. YEAH! I am relaxed and fancy free! I’m so chill I take uppers just to get to baseline. I mainline hardcore drugs just to get above status quo. I cut myself just to feel. I bleed just to know I’m alive. I .. quote Goo Goo Dolls lyrics when no one’s looking. Sorry.

Seriously though, I laughed long and hard at that list – but then I thought about it. The majority of the stress I feel doesn’t actually come from the act of writing things technically, or training people to do things like tutu-wearing grizzly bears – my stress comes from the other things I do, like, like wrangling routers and creating highly detailed video game organizations in CRM for my own amusement during testing and dealing with irrational managers with god complexes. If I did nothing but my job description, I’d be stress free (and bored out of my mind). Where’s the fun in that? A little stress does a body good. It also makes me swear like an incontinent sailor, much to the amusement of those around me.

Now, last night? Last night I was stressed. I had to call my mother and ask if she’s thought about the huge favour I asked of her. She has, and the thoughts came in the form of screaming: it’s my fault that our car got broken into and that we don’t have thousands of dollars lying around all willy-nilly and that we’re not over the age of 55 and/or terminally ill. There was a lot of screaming and while she wasn’t exactly coherent, it is likely that I am also to blame for her car needing new tires, cataract surgery, the fact that she needs a new crown on her tooth, and property tax. All these things are my fault. Sorry.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that my mother just plain sucks.

I may be a terrible daughter, but she is fucking insane.

(post title is a line from “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which was Zoolander’s trigger to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia, which is my mother’s nationality: I love it when things go full circle)

howl at the moon

false creek, bein' all false

As much as I love sleeping in my own bed, I kind of miss not having a cat in my crotch for 7 hours straight. I miss you, leg room.

You’ve been a victim of Crime, and during the cleanup, someone finds a mysterious tiny plastic baggie filled with white powder. Do you:

• Leave it alone and call the police
• Pick it up and shake it
• Smell it
• Lick it
• Realize that licking it would be pretty silly, but be really really tempted because how the hell else are you supposed to know what it is
• Poke your finger into the bag and push the powder around, realizing a little too late that your hands are covered in cuts from the glass you just cleaned up
• Immediately assume you’ve been dosed, not quite realizing that you wouldn’t know dosed one way or another because you are as street as a newborn lamb

.. guess how many of the above I did?

As a fine how do you do, Ed and I started our morning with a hearty dose of Crime: someone smashed the Mazdabator’s front passenger window and made off with several broken pieces of equipment. There was nothing of value in there except for perhaps my (barely working) iPhone charger/FM transmitter, but the thief went through the whole car looking for valuables. Finding nothing, they opted to make one holy hell of a mess that Ed and I had to clean up before we could go to work this morning, making my attempt at being ON TIME for the 8:30 meeting a noble yet meaningless gesture.

All things considered, this could be a lot worse. Our car had been broken into twice in our “secure” underground parking in East Van, and even though we’re in the Ghetto of North Vancouver with the evil specter of Aquaman hanging over our heads, this is the first case of Smashy Smashy we’ve had. Other cars have been hit all around us, but we were relatively unscathed – until last night. I think it’s probably just a coincidence that they hit us literally 4 hours after we got home from vacation – in fact, the excess violence of the Smashy Smashy was probably due to our fucking up Aquaman’s schedule. I imagine it looked something like this:

fuck that guy

As you can see, he had scheduled Monday to break into our car but we were not home and that fucked up the entire week. Really, it’s our fault for being so inconsiderate. We really ought to take Aquaman’s busy schedule into mind before we go gallivanting off to exotic lands. We deserved the Smashy Smashy, and are lucky it wasn’t worse.

All brevity aside, this has been the worst fake Monday ever. There was mystery jizz in my hair, the car window was smashed, I’m probably addicted to smack now and as a result I’ll never be able to go into politics. Also, my pants are wet (don’t tell my coworkers) because I spent 45 minutes in the rain cleaning up broken glass (but my hair is delightfully curly) and my feet are cold. Still, there’s no sense in bitching about it – and maybe this extra shot of Crime is what it takes to get Operation: Help Us Out to the next level.

Poor Mazdabator, though!

Our car wasn’t the only one hit – Josh and Shan’s Delica had also been broken into, but for some reason their door was either unlocked or easily jimmied open so their windows were spared. The stereo was stolen and possibly some tools, and the aforementioned baggie of mystery powder left behind. We honestly have no idea what it is – I’ve never even seen coke let alone be able to ID it at a glance – and yeah, I probably shouldn’t have stuck my fingers in there. I was really looking forward to that life in politics, too.  The more I try to be good, the more scandals I find myself in – what’s next, an accidental homosexual encounter in a rest stop bathroom? AWESOME.

Seriously, that’d be awesome. Any takers?