Author: Jason Doucette

They finally released a report about the APEC protests that were held in BC 5 years ago. That was the big shocker of the time, when police used *gasp* pepper spray to control the crowds. The report said that the RCMP should apologize to the protesters, although they have no intention of doing that. I guess I can see why, I mean, it just seems so…quaint now. These days you can’t have an event without 80 or so arrests. I didn’t catch any of the fun on this one, but working next to the convention (for a big global corporation, yes) meant that I got to see some of the preparations. Many many barricades, and 9 12 foot rental vans filled with police, and that was the night before the event. A friend said she saw some of the footage of the police and the protesters “interacting”, and her not-very-left-wing father mumbled something about Rodney King…

I don’t know if they’re “theorems” or “postulates” or “corollaries” or what, but I’ve discovered two new basic truths to my existence: New receipts will arrive the day after you finish your income taxes, and if you work 7-3:30 and everyone else works 9:30-6, you work 7-6. I’m also challenging my truth that says “if you buy something it will go down in price“. I sold half of my shares as a ritual sacrifice to entice the market to kick me in the teeth by subsequently raising the price, not realizing that I still have several dollars worth of the stuff waiting to pounce. Speaking of ritual sacrifices, I went to a colleague’s birthday lunch today. It wasn’t a crabshack, it wasn’t an oyster bar, it was a crabshack and oyster bar. My, what vegan fun! Fortunately there was something on the menu that I could get with minimal modification, and the smell wasn’t really noticeable, which surprised me. Ending on an upbeat note, I find myself drawn to stuff like this. I can’t explain it.

The income tax people and those who would corrupt democracy have been thwarted, and I still have time to share the stuff I ripped off of other people’s weblogs. Sweet. VegBlog posted a link to a recent Politically Incorrect episode that had vegan ex-cattleman Howard Lyman debating… wait for it… Tom Green. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll make for some interesting stories. The transcript can be found here. Little Yellow Different posted a link to my next PS2 game (not really. Probably not really). I like these dance rhythm games because a) they’re really funny to watch with players on either end of the spectrum, and b) I was at a party once where someone was playing one of them on a PSX and he was having a hard time. I stole his lament as my rallying cry at work: “This is the stupidest game in the world! AND I’M LOSING!” Finally, um, I forgot… Erm, oh yeah, it was, er, hiding on me. MetaFilter has a link to this ninja page, which has music and facts like these: Ninjas are mammals. Ninjas fight ALL the time. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people. What’s not to like? Oh yeah, doing taxes.

2 am: Finally fall asleep

10 am: Wake up, have waffles

noon: Back to bed

Next five hours: Answer the phone, look at the clock in disgust, fall back asleep.

5 pm: Finally get up and get some stuff done. I don’t know if I’m just terminally lazy or if all the 6 am workouts finally broke me, but damn it, I’m chalking it up to an unwillingness to wear pants. Anyway, it makes a better story than “went to work” when people ask me about my weekend.

Consider this entry my version of In Passing – Angela just asked me to come look at her sausage. I can explain no further, but it’s pretty low on the list of things I thought I’d hear my vegan girlfriend say…

Slashdot ran the story about the meat grown in vats that I ran the other day on VP. Someone asked in the comments if a vegan could discuss their thoughts on “hydroponic meat”. Hey, I thought, I’m vegan, and I’ve even read the article already, which meant I had a shot at writing a decent post before the thread got flooded and I was lost in the crowd. Of course, I’m at work, and something came up, and I managed to submit my thoughts about 10 minutes after someone else wrote the reply that got modded up to 5. On the bright side, that someone was Erik Marcus, so if I’m gonna get passed by for someone else, at least that someone else knows what he’s talking about. Not that my comment was better – the Vegan Porn format has destroyed my ability to write in anything other than a sound bite style blurb, which doesn’t always advance an argument well. So yeah, I’m not trying to sound bitter, I’m just setting the stage. The point I wanted to make, the irony if you will, is that I actually had moderator privileges on Slashdot today. Just the funny convergence of being a moderator and reading a thread where I actually knew what I was talking about, seeing the same page as Erik Marcus at pretty close to the same time, and about 30 other things that happened today that I can’t really explain. It was exactly that kind of day.

Check out this kindness of strangers thing – running along the other day, near the end of my circuit and looking it, but still moving pretty fast, I burp up a bit of bile, which was not at all expected, burns like all hell, and it makes me stop suddenly and grab my upper chest area instinctively. Wouldn’t that alarm you if you were walking or driving by? Nobody batted an eye. I love my neighbourhood. I actually like my neighbourhood, but I’m a bit alarmed at the fact that there are fifteen McDonald’s within a kilometer of me. I thought the number was more like 5, but I tried their store locator thing on the web site, and yeah, fifteen. If the WTO ever comes to Toronto, my insurance premiums are gonna soar…

I saw a guy with tattoos on his scalp the other day. He still had all his hair, it was just buzzed really short so the tattoos could show through. I figure that’s pretty safe as long as the hair doesn’t go away. Then I thought I should get tattoos on my scalp, but I’d get one on the back of my head, just a bit above the neck line that says “I am bald”. Proactive acceptance. If that goes well, I might consider one along the top that says “no combover will save you”, in case I get amnesia like that Memento guy. Yes, I AM aware that that’s my second Memento reference lately. No need for a tattoo about that. The movie just inspired me, is all. It’s gotta be cheaper to just get tattoos than buy all those batteries for a PDA.

Angela bought some shampoo yesterday. I was going to buy some on the weekend, and I didn’t, and now she did, so she’s officially better than me. That’s not sarcasm or bitterness, it’s a fact. Responsible journalism, I think they call it. It’s a good thing I don’t have an archive to my posts, or else some day we’d be fighting, and I’d yell, “you think you’re better than me, don’t you?” and she’d yell back “you said it yourself, look at this link!”, and I’d be all “d’oh” and stuff, but then again, the issue’d be resolved. Just a thought. Oh, and as long as I’m getting things off of my chest, I thought “Rat Race” was pretty funny. The rest of this post was going to be a big rambling rant about shampoo and conditioner, but it was getting more and more witty-daily-newspaper-columnist drivelly with each word, so I stopped. I could have fixed it up by adding the word “orgasm” numerous times, because, hey, multiple orgasms don’t usually occur in daily newspaper columns, but by then the crap had been deleted: orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm orgasm. Yeah, that’s the stuff.

I’m surrounded by drunken St. Patrick’s Day drunks (who may have been drinking to the point of drunk) and Wrestlemaniacs converging for Wrestlemania seven hundred, some 1000 feet from my desk. One or both of the groups are making weird noises that travel down the herd. This is truly a night fit for manly men and some beasts, but I’m mostly huddled at work trying to figure out if I’m safer risking an attack of postality inside or getting subjected to some weird brogue outside. Yep, at work. I made it almost 3 months without this happening, but here I go, trying to finish a project that we’re still having design meetings on. I consoled myself with a new CD mix, thanks to some Audio Galaxy client for the Mac that I can’t remember the name of. It’s a somewhat workable combination of Cake, Jebediah, Moneen and Piebald. The sad part is, I actually own the CDs that have the tracks on them, I just can’t find them right now, but I’m really sure they exist. In other words, if I could prove that the CD was legal, I wouldn’t need the CD. Would “Schroedinger’s Mix” be an appropriate title? Here’s an idea: If the basic guideline is that you can share a CD as much as you want as long as it’s not played in two places at the same time, what about a P2P jukebox kind of thing where you can play music other people have ripped from their legally purchased CDs, but only one machine in the network can use a song license at any one time? Does this have to be at the CD level?