As a proud Canadian citizen I must say that I was absolutely appalled by the actions of some of the 22,000 or so fans at the Palace at Auburn Hills last night. For those who are not aware, these Detroit Piston fans openly booed during the playing of O' Canada at the beginning of the Raptors/Pistons matchup in the NBA Playoffs.

I completely understand the booing of a team or player, especially in the playoffs, but to boo the national anthem of a country is absolutely appalling. These actions are incredibly offensive to all Canadians, and simply show the lack of respect and class that many Americans have. I can't help but wonder the complete media outcry that would occur in the USA if the Raptors fans were to boo the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. And now I hope that this happens in Game 3 of the series in order to bring light to this issue.

Now I understand that the majority of Americans would not even consider partaking in such an action but there are a select few who have absolutely no respect for Canada, or any other country for that matter. Actions like the alleged defacement of the Canadian flag in the dressing room of the US Olympic Woman's hockey team simply prove this fact time after time. If this is the way they treat their friends, I feel really sorry for their enemies.

So this puerto rican friend of mine tells me about FPS called Ethnic Cleansing, and I'm thinking it's got to be a parody right? Nobody is freak enough to think this is a cool idea for a game. Ignorance is bliss I guess.

Anyway, so my friend (let's call him Fig) got the info from a mutual friend of ours who happens to be an East Indian Muslim. Fig found the game very disturbing, because the only hispanics seemed to be Mexicans, no Ricans... according to him "that's fucked up", yes, he has issues.

I'm of the opinion that for FPS games, we should prolly stick to killing people of all races, or nazis, 'cause killing nazis for sport has to be ok, right?

I am bored. I am reading books on Software development (The Mythical Man-Month, Peopleware, Steve McConell’s Rapid Application development, Kent Beck’s Extreme programming) and watching TV. And during "working hours", sitting here in Hammersmith, looking at all the posted vacancies (doesn't take long) before heading over to E2 to pass the time. I’m not addicted to E2, I’ll cut down the minute I have something better to do.

Yesterday (sunday) I was in Greenwich park with A--. It is one of the nicer parks in London – full of sun, flowers and people. The hill has the fragmentary ruins of an old Roman temple, and it is indeed a good spot for a pagan shrine. Great views of the certical temples of Mammon rising from Canary Wharf. These are the modern equivalents of Cathedrals - our defining works of monumental architecture.

Tonight I go to interview for a position that is out of the way and not well paid. I hope to use it as a bargaining chip to persuade other companies to pay me more for a better position. Or as a fallback, or as a source of income.

Thursday lifted my spirits. mkb mentioned that he would be in London on the weekend of the 18th and would like to meet the local noders. I’ve been keen to meet the locals too, and before I knew it I had all the details on my homenode. It all came together with astonishing rapidity. What fun!

Aside from that, I am still bored. I am not as stressed as I have been in previous similar situations. Maybe I've leared stoicism and not worrying. Maybe I just don't give a toss anymore. Maybe I know that things could be worse, because I have experienced them as such. Well, whatever, I will push on and through.

Another day wondering why I feel like this and even now it breaks me down. I’m happy, if only for a moment. I predict it will not last very long, but pray that I will remain like this. If all I can do is moan to no one on some distant plane of server-based text, then why bother trying to fix myself? It can’t possibly be as bad as I make out. And, the clock ticks. Break me now fool, take me down for I know no pain. I can take it, and have been taking it for over a year now. Just one more button left to push, and the hatch will break, my insides will spill, and I will smile my bloody smile in their faces. I swear to my possibly non-existent god that if just one of them so much as proposes the situation or makes even a vague reference to it, I will crack.

Crack.

Like a fucking egg. God.

Still, she is beautiful. Fairytale princess bullshit. I cried tonight for her.

I hate being cryptic, I’m just to embarrassed to write otherwise.

So another grey Monday and here I am work, toiling away, answering stupid people's questions and solving their problems.... Argh why do they keep calling in. And of course its always "well I've haven't made any changes so it must be something you have done...." And then you find out that they weren't connected to the Internet and were wondering why they couldn't get their email.... Excuse me sir, can you fill out this id10t form for me.

Let's see what else is going on in my life... not much a pretty boring weekend. Sat around and watched the Nascar race yesterday, Sunday and Saturday spent time with parents for birthday. So all in all it was quite a boring time.

Meet Lara:

Pit    Pit    Pit    Pit
   Pat   Pat   Pat   Pat

(she's my new kitty kat)
                                            Leap!!
                                    ...                        !!!
                    Climb                                    !
                Climb                                          ! 
            Climb                                                !       
        Climb                                                Fall!!
    Climb
Climb                                                Ouch-->Runrunrunrunrunrun

Meow Meow Meow Meow
                    1 o'clock 2 o'clock 3 o'clock
Meow Meow Meow Meow  
                    All day, and at night...


    MEOW!


... and then she sleeps, dear sweet Lara . Hello Kitty!
This was originally posted under I think I'm going mad. Care to come with me? before that node got nuked, with the suggestion that it be daylogged instead, so here it is:

Sometimes life just sucks. Sometimes for days. Weeks. Months even. (No, this isn't a suicide node; I'm too stubborn to give up on everything.) I have an essay due tomorrow on a Sylvia Plath poem that I actually kinda like, but have no desire to analyze. Literary analysis fucking sucks. When the fuck will this be useful in any of my intended majors/hobbies/professions? Mathematician? Nope. Engineer (of any kind)? Nope. Today my monitor decided to distort the image slightly vertically. It's only one or two pixels' distortion, but I notice it enough for it to disturb me. And the closest NEC came to including vertical distortion controls was rotation, which doesn't fix this one. A friend of mine is going to prom with the girl I like. Damnit. Most of the rest of my friends just got back from 3 days at Disney World on a class field trip that, for some fucking reason, I decided not to go on. A friend at my old high school is going to prom with the only girl up there I still talk to (technically, instant message with). Damnit again. My circadian rhythm's fucked up. It's still stuck on nocturnal mode from spring break. And that ended two weeks ago. I still haven't figured out how to get rid of that annoying static, pops, etc. that Windoze XP apparently does to every mp3 on my hard drive. It's even worse with oggs. All 8.64GB combined. Now I know what my parents mean by something sounds like a scratched record. WinMX's WPNP servers quit responding to my box again. Time to restart that connection. At least Earthlink hasn't wanted a third IP reset in 24 hours...yet. My watch just beeped. Great....it's midnight and I have my interview for IB Art Research tomorrow. Just. Fucking. Great. 86 hours until I leave for the Mu Alpha Theta state competition. It was great when I went the last two years. But Grenelefe went bellyup (undoubtedly because of the general drop in tourism and all other travel-related activities after a certain tuesday), which means it's at Disney World this year. Well, almost. It's in a non-Disney hotel on Disney property. And we won't have time to visit the parks, although they're nearby. Great....all the expenses and distractions of Disney, none of the joys. Oh, and the badminton coach at my school won't let anyone from badminton go to math state because they might make the GMACs. Nevermind that that includes our second-best calculus person and two of our best statistics people. Not like she gives a fuck. Ten days from now is my first IB exam. I have four more of those, plus two AP exams. Why the fuck did I do IB? Did it get me into CalTech? Hell fucking no. Did it get me into MIT? Hell fucking no again. When we moved two years ago, why the fuck did I say I wanted to continue IB? I would have been just as happy (probably moreso) had we moved to the middle of nowhere. With my dad in the nuclear industry and the general public's feeling of NIMBY towards these cement behemoths (that's a rant for another node), it would have been easy. I would have been able to maintain a 4.0, or pretty damn close, in anything short of a full AP courseload. I would have gotten into Georgia Tech just as easily because of connections from summer engineering workshops. I might even have gotten into MIT and/or CalTech because they cannot discriminate against opportunities and courseloads I would not have had (If it sounds like I'd be playing the system, you're damn right I would be). My mom has come in thrice while I wrote the above to remind me to work on that damn essay. Between semester and my last report card, my grades have slowly taken the express route to the crapper. I have a C in IB Calculus. This is from someone who was his middle school's math wiz. Look where I am now. I have a C in IB German. This isn't all that surprising, considering I've learned more about German from my history teacher (an American (a graduate of my high school in fact) who used to teach German) than from my German teacher (a Vietnam vet originally from Heidelberg who has also taught English, Spanish, and History). I have a D in IB English IV. This one was my own fucking fault, aside from the fact that I (comparatively) suck at it. It would have helped if I had done any of the homework and maybe even read the books we did. Moby's "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" is too happy for me. Nice try, Winamp. Try something closer to Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" next time. Make that 4 interruptions from mom. Yes, I'm only writing at all on that essay when you bug me, but I'll never tell you that. Sometimes all that keeps me going is adrenaline, caffeine, testosterone, and Cinnamon Altoids. The 2nd and 4th are my ceremonial chemicals of choice. I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to caffeine. Great....now I'm an addict to something, too. No, winamp, i do not want Blood, Sweat, & Tears. Try Type O Negative instead. Smashing Pumpkins is too upbeat. Radiohead's almost. Wallflowers sound good right about now. Aside from the fact that it's what I was at every school dance I've ever gone to. I've never had a date. I've been rejected both times I asked. The first resulted in me playing cards through my middle school's 8th grade farewell dance. Wallflowers' "Sleepwalker" is too happy. Never thought I'd say that. 3 Doors Down's "Loser". Perfect. The second girl is still a friend. She's also the girl that a friend of mine here is taking to prom. Damnit again. Of course, the guy's a friend, he had the guts to ask. When I asked her out a couple years ago, I did it online, which she later said most girls take as an insult. Over the next several weeks, well, the rest of the schoolyear, I tried to find the courage to ask her over the phone, but would always chicken out, saying I called for no reason. The guy also has more major stuff going against him than I do. English isn't his first language. The computer I'm on now cost as much for me to build from saved allowance, birthday, and holiday money as his family's annual income is. The only reason he's going to UPenn and not FIU is because he got a full scholarship to UPenn. And I'm in my bedroom with more electronic gadgets than most people my age probably own, and I'm wallowing in self pity. Maybe it's fitting that I'm supposed to be analyzing a Sylvia Plath poem right now. If I believed in such things, I'd say fate has a nasty habit of biting me in the ass. Often just for dramatic fucking irony. I've given up on winamp's shuffler selections. Abandoned Pools "The Remedy". Make that 6 interruptions from mom. Black Sabbath "Paranoid". Bush "40 Miles from the Sun". All the depressed songs are too short. And I'm too busy noding and procrastinating about that English essay to make a playlist of the songs I've mentioned. I don't even see why I'm worried about this essay. It just needs to be five paragraphs of crap that sounds coherent. Must be that last 8-letter word. All it'll earn in the intern's gradebook is a checkmark, and maybe a 5-word note on top in red ink. Whether it's my 4-page essay on overclocking (to be noded soon) or 2 pages of bullshit, it will be a checkmark. Scheisse. This was assigned by the real teacher. That means it might actually get graded. Cold "No One". My m500 crashes my computer hard every time I try to hotsync since I installed XP Pro. It worked fine under 2000 SP2. The joys of proprietary software. I need to learn Linux. I rarely do anything more than walk past my Linux box. It's my old computer, and the stupidly designed recovery software wouldn't work with the computer's replacement CD-ROM drive. Cranberries "Shattered". Did I already say that one? Don't know; don't care. My old computer was completely unusable with 95 corrupted and apparently unrecoverable. So I installed the free version of Mandrake 8.1. Now I just need to learn the damn thing. My glasses are dirty. From the look of them, eyebrow grease and eyebrow dandruff. Yes, eyebrow dandruff. Yet another interruption from mom. The last 5 times she's tried to motivate me. Crease "Frustration". All she's succeeded in motivating me to do is continue this node. I bet I sound like the aforementioned Black Sabbath song. Ozzy's pretty damn close to how I feel. "All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy. Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify." "I can't see the things that make true happiness. I must be blind. Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry." "You hear these words telling you now of my state". Crease is right. "Life is the slowest form of suicide." I'm not interested in speeding that up. As I said, I'm too stubborn. I also don't want suicide on the installment plan. That tends to be much too quick with asthmatics such as myself. Pirated media now officially accounts for over half my used hard drive space on this machine. Cult "Painted on my Heart". Dammit, now I'm turning into a romantic. Geeks aren't supposed to be romantics. Guys generally aren't supposed to be either. I've never liked senseless stereotyping, with the exception of this. I need to shave, too. I've got what feels like about four days' stubble on my face. The weather here's too fucking monotonous. Adema "The Way You Like It". Must have missed that one earlier. Miami'd be great to visit, but after 3 years, I want actual seasons back. And I don't mean just wet vs. dry, either. I already get that. I mean actual significant temperature variation on an annual cycle. Not the 3-7 days between October and March where we get a cold snap into the fifties. Here, everyone complains about the cold and is wearing multiple layers whenever it drops below 70°F. They think I'm crazy for wearing my usual outfit of cargo pants and a t-shirt. Default "Wasting My Time". Depeche Mode "Blasphemous Rumours". Yet Another Interruption From Mom (YAIFM). Garbage "Only Happy When It Rains". "Pour your misery down on me." I don't have an apple. I don't like fruit anyway. All I've got in front of me is A&W Cream Soda. Vanilla-flavored equivalent to Mountain Dew. I don't even get a caffeine buzz anymore. Gin Blossoms "Hey Jealousy". Miami, actually all of Florida, but Miami in particular, is too damn flat. The highest nonstructural point in South Florida is the landfill, Mt. Trashmore. Yes, that's its name. Yes, it's artificial. And yes, it is that gigantic mound you see between the Florida Turnpike and I-95 somewhere in Broward county. Grave Digger "2000 Light Years from Home". Doesn't really fit with the rest of the songs, aside from that I feel that far from what I call home. If it doesn't have mountains or at least hills, it's not home. If it doesn't have clay for indigenous soil, it's not home. YAIFM. Gravity Kills "Down". This essay is shaping up to be the worst essay I've turned in in a long time. Last interruption, mom threatened me with disconnection from the internet for a week if I didn't show significant progress on the essay. I guess I should get off my self-pitying ass and get that essay done. After I find myself a straight-jacket.....

Of course, as an IB student, I'm obligatorily insane.
so that's it....

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