"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true."
- Robert Wilensky

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
- Oscar Wilde

Exciting Intro

Additional Verbiage

Days of Yore

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2005
January
February A B

2004
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November A B
December

Res Ipsa Loquitur
A Life Misanthrophilic
Curriculum Vitae
Photobooth Resolution
Saga Dialect
Tea Set

Mes Amis
A for Adventure
Unisexpocky

March 23, 2005

Even laterer
Just got home from a fantastic show down at the Railway Club. That place has never let me down; I'm almost afraid to go back, but I know I will. If'n you happen to hear of a band called "The Prints" coming to your neck of the woods, check them out. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Again with the later
Ok. One tobacco conundrum resolved. I gave the pack to my neighbour downstairs. Take that, temptation! In celebration, I hit the photobooth. Otherwise this has been a most unproductive day.
Oh, and my stove has been repaired. I can eat again. Witness the power of the letter written to the landlord.

Again with the earlier
Experienced a catastrophic failure of will last night - I somehow managed to convince myself not only to go out and buy a bottle of rum, but a pack of smokes as well. I'm so very angry with myself this morning. The worst part of it is, I know that I told myself that one or both of the two would "help me with my writing", but in truth I accomplished a big fat nothing last night.
I don't know how anyone else's mind works, but that's how it goes with me. I have a conscious and very lucid argument with myself whenever addiction tempts me. On one side, there is my (what I have always liked to describe as 'iron-clad') will, which is meant to defend and uphold the decisions I have made; on the other, logic and reason. I know it sounds crazy, but my aptitude for rational argument has always favoured the Devil's side of things. One would think that the ability to reason and think things through logically would be defending conscious choice against irrational temptation and desire, but I'm afraid this is not the case.
I'll bring every weapon to bear against me, I'll pick apart my arguments with surgical precision, and I'll come at myself from every side until my will is left cowering like a child muttering a endless litany of nos.
I'll even try to pull a fast one on me - I'll tell myself that I just need to take a walk, get some fresh air and it all will pass. The subsequent walk then becomes a running battle to not turn into the nearest corner store or pub - if I lose focus, temptation will enlist my subconscious and I'll find myself walking home with a bottle in hand and a smoke in my mouth.
At this very moment, I'm fighting the battle. It sounds a little bit like this:

I: I want a smoke.
ME: No.
I: C'mon. There's almost a whole pack in this very apartment.
I: No way. No smoking.
ME: So what's gonna happen to the pack? Are we just gonna waste it? We can't afford to be throwing money away these days.
I: I know. Jesus Christ!
ME: C'mon. Why are you keeping them if you're not going to smoke them? Might as well just get it over with.
I: No. I wrapped them up in plastic and duct tape and put them in the freezer so I wouldn't have to keep seeing them around the apartment.
ME: Right. So you're saving them for later.
I: No, I just...
ME: Want to smoke.
I: No! Goddamnit! I quit smoking!
ME: Could've fooled me. By the way, the ashtray needs cleaning.
I: (grits teeth) ...
ME: You're even writing about it - doesn't that just exacerbate things? Think about it: they're probably not all that cold yet. Have one, put them back.
I: What AM I going to do with them?
ME: Exactly. Besides, it's not like anyone has to know. Let's use them up - sparingly, mind you - and then you can start fresh. No smokes, no temptation, right?
I: Right.
ME: Ok. Get up, go to the fridge...
I: What the...? Fuck! NO! No no no. Deep breath, sip of coffee, focus. I. Quit. Smoking.
ME: Fine. You win. Let's have a drink to celebrate...

Just as an aside, that was actually very hard to write. I mean physically difficult: my mouth is dry, I'm feeling twitchy and every other thought is about that little box in the back of the freezer. Although I hate to consciously waste things, I realize that I'm going to have to destroy them. I'm just not ready to look at the pack yet. This is the battle that I fight every waking moment of every day. It's fucking ridiculous.

March 21, 2005

Later
It is at that. Stove still on the fritz, eye still swollen. I am feeling less dour than I was this morning; but I am having trouble deriving any satisfaction from Soma FM at the moment. I've been spasmodically flipping between stations for a good half-hour now. Funny thing is, there's one station that has been playing the same track the whole time - I swear, you show me an atmospheric DJ, and I'll show you a no-talent hack with a synthesizer.
Hum. That paragraph sure took a turn for the vitriolic, didn't it? I could've sworn I wasn't in Cynical Mode, but there you have it. Ah, well. Let's wrap this up with a list of the points I've been meaning to mention over the last couple of days:

• Whistling for cabs is not only pointless, but also kind of funny.
• The Prince of Wales is paid one daffodil annually as rent for the unattended lands of Scilly. No foolin'.
• "Female" crash test dummies have nipples.
• Of local interest: The elderly woman who works at Helen's Diner is not named Helen. Her name is Isabelle.
• I think the Seven Deadly Sins are in need of revision, and that 'Being an Asshole' should be included in their number.
• As should 'SUV Ownership', but I guess that's basically the same thing.
• Jesus Was Way Cool.
• Too much St. Patrick's Day is the same as not enough.
• I actually used vexillology in a sentence. And it came up naturally, no less.
• This.

Earlier
It's 8:30 in the morning and I've been up for an hour already. Ugh. I'm really not sure what to do with myself at this hour anymore. I caught myself making a move for the shower, but then realized that my old 7:30 routine no longer applies. I then caught a glance of myself in the mirror and noticed my lower right eyelid is discoloured and swollen. Great. What the hell has happened to my wonderful constitution?
I'm falling apart these days - although it's hard to say whether I've deteriorated further physically or mentally. Looking at my calendar, it has been twenty-six weeks now that I've been unemployed (not counting those three weeks in November/December during which I was moving several metric tons of detritus), tying my previous record. This vexes me. Even more troubling is that I can't figure out what I'm doing 'wrong' - for lack of a better word at this early hour - or what it is that I can do to change things.
It's back to the "I'm in a rut" discussion from over a year ago; allow me a brief flashback:

All dull work-related things aside; how am I otherwise? Fine, I guess. Alive, but not really living; awake, but not really aware; alone, but not really lonely - I've hit a wall, landed in a rut, found a vacant box on skid row. As my good friend Chris put it: I have become frozen in an icicle of misguided complacency - and have been for some time now. It's almost frightnening how easy it is to just let yourself slip away from the world and cease to make any significant contribution. How simple to set up the routine and calibrate your energy expenditure to just carry you through the day - nothing set aside for the evenings, no battery power stored up for the late night brain, no extra juice to jump-start the passion lying quiet in my heart.

Sound familiar? A full year has passed, and I remain the same. How is this possible? I think it might be time to consider the very real possibility that I am in need of help. Good thing I live alone and am slowly becoming more of a recluse - that's a surefire way of turning my life around, right?

You know what? This is the wrong way to start the week, let alone the day. Time to hit the showers. Then I'll try to figure out what to do for breakfast - a decision complicated by the fact that my landlord stopped by to fix my oven and subsequently broke my stove. I haven't been able to cook for two days now. I wonder if that's got anything to do with my mood?

March 17, 2005 - St. Patrick's Day

I'll spare you the ordeal of trying to read my attempts to recreate an Irish brogue in writing. There's just no call for that sort of thing on such a fine day. It's 3:30, I'm already listening to the Pogues and enjoying the first of what I presume to be a great many green beverages. I may only be two pints Irish, but those two get the better of me at least once a year... or whenever there's a fife playing. I just can't resist.

Just got back from a follow-up visit to the dermatologist - remember that strange rash that led to my getting an AIDS test last month? The good news is I have neither AIDS nor psoriasis (which the good doctor had feared), just a slight fungal infection that somehow found its way into my bloodstream... which sounds much worse than it actually is. The bad news is my prescription (a mere 30 tablets) set me back $93... a blow to the pocketbook I can ill afford, especially today!
My sister pointed out that one really can't put a price on one's health; so the $1200 I spent on having my wisdom teeth taken care of and the $150 or so I've spent on getting my skin sorted out represent a sound investment. Fair enough, I suppose. It still feels like I'm throwing money away, however.

Oh, yeah. Mouse over the blue words for a definition. I just learned that trick. No more external links to Luciferous Logolepsy or The Phrontisery for me! And since we're on the topic of links, I've finally added links to friends' pages to the sidebar. I've been very lax in this regard for quite some time. If I've forgotten you, please let me know.

March 15, 2005

Man, a year ago today I could've been describing the way I feel today. I find that rather unsettling.

But that's not what I was intending to babble on about. Rather I have stumbled upon a most serendipitous find - or at least a lucky one - that refers to the quote at the top of this very page. Your very own infinite number of monkeys.
Kind of fun; I managed to get 23 sequential matching characters for a line from Othello. Then I noticed that many (if not most) of the 21 or 22-character matches were identical to the ones on their 'high scores' page. Obviously not much of a randomizing algorithm. Ah, well. I suppose there's only so much you can do with numbers.

Actually, that's about all I have to babble about that. Sorry if I made you think there was a whole bunch more to come. No such luck. I have, however (in the last couple of hours since the above bit of semi-coherency), managed to complete this, this and this.
I find it very interesting that the times I am unable to express myself in English, I can always turn to writing code. Almost a sobering thought: a logolept like myself being unable to bend a language to my will. I guess it would be fair to say that HTML is just a different sort of language (heck, it's even got 'language' as part of the acronym), but I've always considered it to be closer to digital alchemy.
It's not turning lead into gold, to be sure; more like transforming thought into electron flow. The process is fascinating, once you start thinking about it:

1. Have an idea
2. Transform the idea into language
3. Type the idea into a computer
4. Run this typed-in idea through a compiler (a kind of 21st century Rosetta stone, if you will)
5. Mix the resultant very long list of 1s and 0s with a liberal amount of Boolean logic
6. Watch the little electrons zip around the globe
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 in reverse order (and maybe a little sideways, too)
8. Read the language displayed on the screen
9. Transform the language into idea
10. Have an idea

Grossly oversimplified, but that's the idea. Were you to expand upon the details, you'd have enough for a book: From Thought to Electron and Back Again.
You know, it's far too late in the day - or far too early in the morning - for this kind of nonsense. I'm going to bed.

March 14, 2005

This is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

March 10, 2005

You know what I hate? Having a great idea that vanishes the second I plop myself in front of the keyboard. I've just spent ten minutes staring blankly at the screen trying to remember what I'd come up with a mere five minutes before. There must be some sort of amnesia-inducing cloud between my desk and the bathroom. If my life were a Star Trek episode, you can bet it'd have something to do with those damn tachyon fields.
This sort of thing troubles me somewhat. I hate forgetting things; it makes me feel like (a) I'm getting older and (b) I'm getting dumber. Despite my attempts to keep my brain in shape during the last few months, I'm starting to wonder if my brain is slightly emaciated. I certainly don't feel sharp most of the time.

"Tell me, tell me
What have I done wrong?
Ain't nothing go right with me
Must be I've been smoking too long."
  - Nick Drake, Been Smoking Too Long

Funny that despite all the steps I'm taking towards a healthier lifestyle (quitting smoking, laying off the bottle, getting lots of exercise), I either feel the same or worse than I did when drinking and smoking all the time. Doesn't make sense to me. A friend told me the other day that she'd read a report that stated there was no significant benefit to abstaining from tobacco and alcohol. While a 'clean' individual might squeeze a couple more years out of their body, their quality of life is likely to be considerably diminished. Disease or hereditary illness are far more likely to get you in the end.
Luckily for me, my reasons for quitting are purely financial, and that's a win-win situation. It's a third of the way through the month, and I'm only at 8% of my average monthly expenditures. My budget is loving me for the first time in years.
I have a question, though. What exactly do teetotalers do for fun? I'm going out of my mind here. There are only so many movies a person can watch in a day; if my coffee consumption increases any more, I run the risk of my heart exploding; I don't watch TV and I can't afford a membership to the gym. It might sound strange to some, but booze and smokes are a great way to pass the time - one tends to meet more people, too. Granted, I have more free time than your average individual, but I'm finding the evenings the hardest part of the day.

Been letting the photobooth thing slide a bit as well. Whoops.

March 7, 2005

Well, one thing's for sure: I can no longer honestly blame drinking for a decrease in my prolificity. In the week since deciding to take a brief hiatus from the bottle, I have sat down to write but once. Once. Perhaps this is part of the withdrawal process, or (more optimistically) the recovery process - who's to say? One thing is for sure, however. It sure is a heck of a lot cheaper. Which, in my particular instance of vocational dysfunctionality, is a very good thing.
I have found quite a number of half-formed ideas written on several scraps of paper lying about the apartment; some of which I remember jotting down, others, well... it's definitely my handwriting. One of my favourites, despite its somber tone:

Broken like a hammer
On an uncaring anvil

I dunno - I just like the idea. The hammer does all the beating, yet it is the anvil that emerges unscathed. Makes me think of catalysts, if the mixing of the metaphors doesn't shut down your logical thought processes. A very close second:

That says "Asian Brown Cloud" if you can't decipher my chickenscratch. I'm pretty sure it refers to the two-mile-high column of smog floating over southern Asia that was big news back in 2002. It is of course still there, but now it's old news, so nobody cares.

March 2, 2005

I've been meaning to get this up for the last little while: irrefutable evidence that yes, I am a geek. To wit: my real-life AD&D statistics. Oh, yes.

• STR: 11
• INT: 15
• WIS: 15
• DEX: 17
• CON: 15
• CHA: 17
• ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good
• CLASS: Ranger / Fighter

I've got to say that I don't necessarily agree with the system for determining intelligence - it's based solely on how much formal education a person has. There are a lot of dumb people with PhDs out there, you know. Oh, I suppose there are a bunch of you out there who aren't familiar with this whole system, huh?
Consider yourselves fortunate. This particular brand of knowledge just wastes synaptic connections in your brain. Seriously. It's been almost 20 years since I've played Dungeons & Dragons, yet I still remember what all my base modifiers would be for these stats.

Ok. After several hours of slogging through HTML tags and old versions of my resume, I have come up with this. Now it is important to remember that this latest project is still nascent and that I've only used rough drafts of old resumes to piece it together. I still have a list of things to add, modify, or expand upon; I just wanted to get it out there while it was still fresh in my mind.