We replaced the cocaine with salmon, but Darren’s cocaine-fueled Canada Day BBQ and Fireworks Party was an excellent time. It was a fun way to cap off a random day of errands in the suburbs, and Darren is an awesome host who is generous with his BBQ and stellar cheesecake-making skills alike. The fireworks he arranged JUST FOR US were also fun:

the sideshow bob hair fireworks are my favourite

ooh ahh

.. and so on and so forth. We drove Gill home afterwards, which was interesting as she lives downtown. The streets were packed with leftover fireworks viewers, and we got to see the two coolest people in Vancouver hands down: a tall black guy dressed in white pants and a white vest, wearing white sunglasses, and carrying a Casio keyboard looking for all the world as though he stepped out of an 80’s synth video, and an old Native man walking with a cane with a portable amp around his waist, playing metal licks on an electric guitar on Granville Street. Both of these guys were completely fucking awesome, and I salute them. I wasn’t able to get a picture of 80’s guy, and here’s a really lousy picture of Metal Man:

rock on, metal man

I’m sure this stuff is perfectly normal in downtown Vancouver at midnight on a Friday, but I’m not a club kid or a douchebag so I’m never down there at this time. I want to go hang out some night and just people watch – maybe I’ll live blog Granville Street one night. It can only be an awesome idea to sit on a corner with an iPad watching everyone around me, right?

It looks like summer is here (likely for today only), and I have Secret Errands to run so I best be on my way. To the shower!

this building is so expensive they ran out of money for the final A

Well, now I’ve done it – I can’t wear pants. When I do, I just feel gross. I spent all of yesterday wearing Pants for Real (as opposed to Temporary Pants when the pizza is delivered or when I have to run downstairs for emergency Diet Coke), and I felt just awful all day – greasy and sloppy, like a gargantuan awknerd. I just wanted to go home and hide away all day and maybe take seven showers or so to get the non-existent greasy film off my person. I never feel like that when I’m not wearing pants, so the only logical – scientific, even – assumption to make here is that pants are evil and should never be worn.

It is good that I live in a temperate region – I can go the entire year without pants, if I choose. My legs might be occasionally cold, but it’s not like I’m in danger of vagina frostbite even in the depths of winter. If I had the patience to do a one-a-day style blog about my lack of pants, I would give it some serious thought. Alas, I just don’t care enough (and can’t imagine I’d find an audience of people willing to see the pants I’m not wearing each and every day) to put forth that kind of effort. Hell, I even skipped writing here yesterday. I am the WORST BLOGGER EVER.

Today was day three of our resumed mail service, and I have yet to receive any mail. I did get a package yesterday containing my new Docs but those were delivered by courier. The Delivery Challenge at work is tied 1-1, but that doesn’t do me any good this weekend – one of the packages contains part of Heather’s birthday present, which is this Sunday. I’m trying to feel empathy for Canada Post, but I deserve some kind of shiny medal for even trying to look past the “GIVE ME MY STUFF NOW” aspect to feel sorry for their $26/h salaries and horrible working conditions. I mean, really. I am so selfish sometimes.

I wish I wore t-shirts, because this is the greatest thing ever:

yes.

I am SEETHING with frustration and venereal disease – FUCKING INFOPATH! If I thought I hated SharePoint, it was NOTHING compared to the boiling rage and impotent disgust I have for this fucking program. I AM SO IMPOSSIBLY FRUSTRATED! It’s a good thing it’s International Caps Lock Day – I’m going to use that to my advantage.

Mail service resumed today, and I am HIGHLY (and irrationally) ANNOYED that I didn’t get any of the SEVEN MILLION things I am waiting for in the mail. I know there’s a huge backlog to work through and my stuff will get to me eventually, but patience and rationality are not my strong points – I want my STUFF. NOW. Waiting is making me EXTREMELY CRANKY.

There is a giant whiteboard in front of my desk that is covered in Things That Must Be Done Yesterday in very large letters and it is making me kind of nauseous.

TUESDAY WHINING!

The mail should resume tomorrow or later this week, and I am beyond glad – I can’t possibly win the More Things Delivered Than You contest at work if I’m not constantly getting mail. I have things to ship out, too, like porn and baby presents. I sure hope I don’t get those two packages mixed up. What a hilarious sitcom-esq scenario that would be!

I’m feeling kind of pithy today. I’ve mouthed off to famous people on Twitter, quoted Chumbawamba at another person’s deep thoughts, and am generally just prickly and full of brambles all over. I don’t think I got enough sleep last night, even though it seems I slept all weekend. Where is all my energy? I’m not just tired, I’m tired of everything. I think I need to make some sweeping changes in my lineup and other sports analogies.

I have a 4-day weekend coming up. This cannot get here soon enough.

I’ve earned the right to be this boring, damnit!

pretty little piece of lead

This will likely only be relevant to three people, but it amuses me greatly. I’ve always wanted to be a star!

It’s a screenshot of my account information in Game Center (add me, by the way – as you can see I don’t have very many friends), and it kind of looks like a really crappy movie poster. The thought of starring as Drunk Bettie in a movie about her life tickles me a great deal. It could be an art house classic!

Okay, time to go drink away my anger at the demo I just sat through.

I guess I’m feeling a little more petulant than peaceful – after whining to Gill about the overnight popularity of some local blogs written almost entirely in exclamation points and vapid fawning, she said:

If you were a TV show, would you rather be on HBO/AMC/Showtime or NBC/CBS/ABC?

That was pretty much exactly what I needed to hear. When it comes down to it, I KNOW what it takes to be popular online – but am I willing to be Two and a Half Men over True Blood? Full House instead of Six Feet Under? Everybody Loves Raymond or Rome? King of Queens or Oz?

The choice is easy. I’ll take gratuitous sex, violence, nudity and swearing over Charlie Sheen any day. You can keep on winning; I’ll keep being me. I may not ever get the exposure, but at least I have content I’m proud of and, if I’m really lucky, two sweaty naked dudes rubbing their cocks together in a prison bathroom.

Also, boobs. Never forget the boobs.

You know, I was so worried about the possibility of passing out yesterday that I completely forgot to mention two things I had swirling all up in my brain:

Thing One: My zombie face is so much better you can’t even tell I was ever undead. The light patches around my mouth are still there, but they’re likely only noticeable if I point them out (that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway) and the horrible scaly skin is gone. It was pretty much completely better within a day of using the Dire Creams the doctor prescribed, and I’m so pleased at how quickly they worked that I care not about the facial perils I may have delivered myself into. Hooray for not looking like I’m suffering from a wicked case of syphilis-induced leprosy! I am once again a pretty, pretty princess!

Thing Two: Things were pretty dark while I was figuring out the whole “k, crazy now” thing, but those who had my back had it good and I appreciate them with all my person. Ed (who actually unlocked his Twitter account so you sh0uld totally follow him), Gill, Heather .. yer the best. And double boob thanks to Gill, who’s been a very effective sounding board for the past week – I’m going to write a post about it later, but all the attention my riot posts got freaked me out a little and there was no one I could talk to (and no one wanting to talk to me) except Gill, and it meant a lot.

In the end, I didn’t pass out from the vertigo. I won’t be taking vitamins on an empty stomach anymore, either. It’s all a journey, right? I know more than I did yesterday, so the day is already a success.

I am tired – I was up until 2am reading. Ed is watching Game of Thrones, and I am reading it. We are racing. He’s on episode 6, and I am ever so slightly behind in book form .. but I will win. I can read far faster than he can watch TV, even without commercials. I AM SPEED READER!

I am .. not content, really, but at peace.

It’s been a week since I started my new medical routine, which is long enough to give me a pretty good idea of how it’s going. So, how’s it going?

With the exception of right now, I feel almost normal again. I could probably stand to be a little giddier, but I’m hoping the onset of summer will help with that. I haven’t stared at walls in a few days, and an entire week of outrage has shown me that I apparently still do have emotions. These are all good things!

Except for right now, though – right now all I want to do is  lie down in a dark room until everything stops spinning. I have an extreme case of the verts, and I don’t like it one bit. I’ve been taking a metric assload of vitamins each morning to offset the crazy pills I take each night, but today I took them on an empty stomach and now I am dizzy as fuck. I was actually worried about riding Lola into the office this morning because my eyeballs don’t seem to want to focus on things and everything is all wooshy –  I really hope it’s because of the empty stomach thing and not the flu. Hell, I’ll even take an accidental dosage of muscle relaxants stored in my vitamin jar over the flu.

I honestly feel like I’m 30 seconds or so away from passing out. I don’t know that I’ve ever truly fainted before, so hooray! A new experience! I am so dizzy.

Other things:

• Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of Quake, a game that will always be near and dear to my heart – I am where I am today because I started playing Q1
• I did an interview on CBC’s The Current yesterday (it’s why I was up at 03:30) – listen to me be dumb (and other people be smart) here
• This is what I would look like in clip art form:

my eyes are brown, though

• I’m gonna pass out now, k?