Dang!

I just got "blessed" with almost twice my normal voting numbers. I was quietly minding my own business, voting ot disparate subjects, and actually being nice (I'm in a good mood tonight) to everything except song lyrics. I still can't stand that stuff unless it's extremely intelligently written and pipe linked. Sorry about that if it's important to you.

Anyway, I keep an eye on how many votes I have left, and see it creeping down until it says "You have 1 vote left today". With a sense of contentment I go to the latest write-up of the latest person to cool one of my write-ups, read it, and because it is great, decide to give it an up vote.

I cannot describe the sense of surprise I got as I pressed the "vote" button, waited for the screen to refresh and read "You have 19 votes left today."

Desperate to get rid of this new lot of unwanted goodness I go to today's day log, and there's nothing there! Am i the last man on earth? The mind boggles...


Update: Don't node when drunk. I really mean that, don't. Having sobered up this morning I realized exactly what happened. The server time just passed midnight as I was voting, and subsequently my vote count was reset. And of course there were no write-ups in the day log. I could ask to get this write-up removed, but I'm leaving it as a reminder to myself and a warning to others:

Don't node when drunk

On being fat

One night a couple of years ago, I was standing in a taxi queue outside Nottingham town hall after a heavy drinking session when two scantily clad women tried to push in front of myself and my friends. As our taxi arrived the two women tried a crafty manoeuvre to jump into the taxi before us. I'd seen it coming and blocked the way while my friends got into the taxi. Then something unexpected happened. One of the girls grabbed me by the arm, spun me around and yelled, "move your ass fatty!" I was in shock .I'd never been called fat before. Subconsciously I must've been thinking about it for a while - I'd put on weight in the first year of university mainly by drinking a lot of beer and eating a lot of bread and pasta (sorry Dr. Atkiens, I won't eat carbs again). I was certainly no porker - I'd been a thin-to-athletic build since my early teens - but now I did have love handles and a bit of a belly. The thing is - how did I let myself get like this? It's beyond me.

Hmmm..? What's all this got to do with this node you ask? Well, lately I've put on a bit more weight (sigh) and I'm not dealing with it too well. I tried the Dr. Atkiens diet last year and to my surprise I actually lost quite a bit of weight. Not surprisingly I put most of it back on over Christmas but I'm about to do it again. Why? Because being overweight sucks - not only does il ruin your self confidence (or dent it), but it also makes you physically uncomfortable.

Lets deal with the self conscious part shall we. Every day we're shown thousands of images of beautiful thin people either on TV, on your PC or in magazines. We're constantly bombarded with them. This helps reinforce the norm - and helps you remember you're not part of that happy-shiny-thin -people norm! When most people get dressed, they choose something they feel comfortable in. For me, choosing clothes is all about making me feel comfortable, but I know that everything I own will still make me look overweight. Usually I wear a dark t-shirt which helps conceal the shadows of my curves. Of course it doesn't really, but if I believe it does for long enough, I can start to feel comfortable. But don't think by comfortable I mean like you usually do. I mean not thinking about my weight every minute, every second - every time I bend over or stand up (feel those rolls of fat press together) - every time I sit on a seat - every time I run for a train, a bus or a taxi. You think I'm exaggerating? This is what it's like to be over weight and self conscious my friend. Oh, and don't even think about eating in public!

But that's not the whole story - being overweight is damn uncomfortable. The top of your trousers digging in to the underneath of your belly is a particularly unpleasant feeling. Combined with always being a few degrees hotter them everyone else (the extra insulation?), this makes you sweat. And when you already feel uncomfortable - trying not to show it - you sweat even more. Couple this with the fact that you don't want to be looked at so you walk quicker than most, you're sweating quite a bit and breathing like you've got a cactus shoved down your throat. It's a horrible feeling close to a panic attack.

To some of you reading this it probably all sounds unbelievable or just plain crazy. For others though, like me, this is our way of life. And before you start with that ''eat less" or "don't eat so much junk" crap, let me tell you that I rarely eat more than two meals a day. I don't have overly large portions, and I don't eat lots of junk food. My problem, it seems, is that I don't get enough exercise. My job is very demanding but doesn't require me to leave my desk - I'm a coder so I'm pretty much sat at my desk from 9am to 5pm (curse my profession). And, as the Dr. Atkiens diet has proven, I have a particularly bad metabolism and perhaps an allergy to wheat.

The worst part by far is the opposite sex. It is, at the end of the day, them who make you uncomfortable. I mean (usually) that's who you're out to impress, isn't it. If you're above a certain size (I'm thinking anyone who's got anything more than a little bump for a stomach) then you're gonna find it hard to make any impression. Shame, because most of the guys who're described as "cuddly" (not by me! lol) are actually pretty nice guys. I can think of one guy who's a bit "chubby" but he's cool - couldn't fault him - but he's been single for years. Crying shame. But anyway, my rant (damn I abuse these daylogs! :) must come to an end (as I write the last part of this two days after I started it!).

A few days of genitalia and blood

(No one ever said I want to be a stocker when I grow up part IV)

Yesterday and today have led to the greatest epiphany of my life. Well, not the greatest, but… …well it’s actually not that great. I’ve finally come to realize why my life is a stale excuse of existence. The main cause to scapegoat = The Sparkle Market.

Who wants to hear me whine some more?

For those of you who’ve been reading these sorry, pathetic writeups portraying my greatest anguish and demise, you’ll know that last week’s posting was rather disgusting. Well hold on to your hats (if you’re wearing one).

Sunday was a day to remember. It will be forever scorched onto the permanent memory of my mind. 6:00 rolls around, that means it’s break time for me. I grab a delicious can of Beefaroni, a plastic bowl, some damp salt packets and head to the break room. I prepare the delicacy I’ve purchased for myself and then proceed to sit down to enjoy it. As soon as I take three bites, I notice the large, rusted double doors to the break room swing open and a lady strolls in. I get a good look at her but she doesn’t see me. She’s late forties early fifties, her face is worn, tattered and wrinkling from the unforgiving sun. Her hair is nappy, frizzy and unmanaged. Her clothes aren’t the greatest either, a pair of cutoff sweatpants for shorts which are way too small for her and a t-shirt, which is also too small. As she begins to get closer, I notice her hand is peculiarly placed in her groin area. She still doesn’t see me. She gets even nearer and I see she’s touching herself… no, not touching, rubbing, feeling, kneading her vagina. Whoops, she spots me. She stops and stares. I can see her synapses firing trying to figure out what to do. Should she not say anything, should she explain? A smile creeps over her face, she slaps her knee and begins to laugh stating, “Wow, I really need to go the bathroom, where’s it at?” I drop my spoon and point down the cluttered corridor where the ladies room is located. She thanks me and makes her way to the toilet, all the while fondling herself. I calmly placed my napkin in my dish and chucked it into the trash… another two dollars down the drain. Later I see her pay for her groceries and I feel a sense of sympathy for the poor girl who takes her money.

Ironically, Later that evening a fellow coworker informed me that he had a pimple on his penis and it was killing him. He asked me if I could relate. I just stared for a moment and walked away. What do I do to deserve this treatment? Anyone?

Today was just as eventful and disgusting. I was in the middle of cutting open a bag of potatoes with a razorblade when I cut my finger real horror-show with the instrument. I promptly began to bleed and bleed profusely. So I wrap my wound up with paper towels bound with tape and start to go about my work again. Eventually the bleeding stops and I take the paper towels off and replace them with a band-aid. Later in the day the same coworker who told me about his “acne problem” told me he was running short on money. Jokingly I said he should eat the bloody paper towels I had on my laceration for ten dollars. Sure as the mold that grows on our produce, he went and got the paper towels out of the trash and stuffed them in his mouth. After almost vomiting twice, he decided he’d eat half of them for five bucks. He did and I felt so appalled I paid him to make him stop. I told him to take that five bucks buy a bottle of aspirin and take the whole thing.

Honestly, if anyone doesn’t believe me that these things happen, I have plenty of witnesses and would gladly give you the address of the store so you could stop in some time.

Just because it's disgusting doesn't mean it's not adequate writing...

Check it out now, funk soul brother...

TheBigSexy: check this out..... www.tribusrocks.com
ianah0: not bad. you are getting somewhere.
TheBigSexy: i'm liking it.... just need to redo the header now.
ianah0: the garage door on the left has great texture.
ianah0: you should animate it though...so you guys disappear and reappear and all sorts of crazy effects happen.
TheBigSexy: it was a really cool backdrop
TheBigSexy: ooh... hadn't thought about that yet.
TheBigSexy: i'm thinking about making the header transparent.
TheBigSexy: just show the text and images

Ninjas are the answer...

ianah0: yeah..and then ninjas could come out of the alley and whack you guys or something.
TheBigSexy: whoa....
TheBigSexy: we whack the ninjas...
ianah0: and trent reznor and I could sneak out and shoot at you with our invisible guns.
TheBigSexy: dude, i'm hurt
ianah0: and then hot ass chicks parachute in and try to save you guys...
TheBigSexy: you wouldn't shoota at me would you
ianah0: in the ensuing struggle Trent and I undress all the babes.
TheBigSexy: ok. now i'm liking the story
ianah0: then...we settle our differences and Trent and I take the chicks back to our lair.

Whip it, whip it good...

ianah0: the invisible guns won't really hurt yaknow.
TheBigSexy: halt right there.
TheBigSexy: what's this about you guys taking the chicks....
ianah0: dude...it's Trent Reznor.
TheBigSexy: we're the ones who are famous.
TheBigSexy: yeah. but
ianah0: TRENT MUTHERFUCKING REZNOR!
TheBigSexy: so..... I AM THE BIG SEXY
ianah0: okay...two of the babes stay for you...but they are dominatrixes! on your knees!
TheBigSexy: i can live with that

Warning Sign...

TheBigSexy: ;}
ianah0: then the cops show up.
ianah0: complaining about the noise
TheBigSexy: dude, that's not cool
ianah0: so you guys all run down the alley to get away just like the Monkeys or some shit.
ianah0: damn. I should be in hollywood.
TheBigSexy: i'm not so sure.
ianah0: well...there could be like scooby doo music when you guys are running away instead.
TheBigSexy: cool
ianah0: and then later on...there can be a scene where you guys are sharing cells in prison.
ianah0: and then...everything blanks out and there is all this noise and screaming and crying and gnashing of teeth.
TheBigSexy: whoa
TheBigSexy: hold it right there

Hail to the Thief...

ianah0: and then George W.Bush shows up.
TheBigSexy: no jail violation scenes. my contract won't allow it
ianah0: that's why it blanks out.
TheBigSexy: oh, i see...
TheBigSexy: wait a min.
TheBigSexy: but the impression is still there
TheBigSexy: my ass is sore just thinking about it

Fuck the system. Fuck the system...

ianah0: then George is trying to recruit you guys for a secret mission kinda like the Dirty Dozen...except...he calls you guys the Dirty Sanchez Four....
TheBigSexy: hmmm
ianah0: about this time....Trent and I crash in and chloroform Georgie...and set you guys free.
ianah0: and then cut to an outdoor concert...you guys are all up there playing...
TheBigSexy: so when do i get to play hero
TheBigSexy: that's cool.
ianah0: and Georgie is hanging from a crane...by his underwear.
ianah0: and Trent and I are shooting at George with our invisible guns...and he is plinking back and forth over the audience.
ianah0: then everything fades out...
ianah0: roll credits.
TheBigSexy: hmmm. ok.. i have a few problems with the movie. but overall. i like it.
ianah0: well...it's no Phantom of the Amusement park. but it beats the hell out of the Magical Mystery Tour.


Hey...I can direct a video for your band too. Just /msg me. muHAHAHAHAHA!

all the weird shit happens to me. . .

what i mean to say is, i came home from school, passed the fuck out, got repeatedly elbowed by my irreplacable ferret-faced fiend, and then woke up to a horrendous and unmusical pounding on my door.

oh, shit, kids. it's the fan club.

i love my fan club, i love them dearly. i keep waiting for the day, tho, when untoward things are said about us. it's hard to be surrounded by highschool boys without someone taking a dim view of it. great guys, tho, really...even if they do tend toward obnoxious immorality.

anyway, that was loud. now i must go pretend to be large and badass for the benefit of a pregnant friend who wants to go to a party that might turn ugly...

***This w/u was originally under the title My Roommate was the Devil, but it was biffed right back to the drawing board in order to prevent the spread of "Bad Roommate"/GTKY type nodes. I respectfully resubmit this to the daylog for April 29, 2003. Oh, and just for the sake of pure dayloggery, I got this wicked new toothpaste today! It's "Colgate Herbal White", in "Fresh Mint" flavour, with Lemon, Eucalyptus, and Melissa extracts! This stuff is really good - anyone who wouldn't want to kiss me after I brush my teeth with it must be insane!

My roommate of 2002-03 was a real doozie. We moved into our apartment in August '02, and things were cool. Sure, he partied a lot, but it was generally in other places, and I'm enough into the groove of being a student that I didn' t let his activities get in the way. We hung out together a fair bit, he was a pretty cool guy. Then everything changed. I noticed he was around the house less and less in January. Then, at the tail end of the month, I was at home alone one day when a knock came on the door. It was the superintendent with an EVICTION NOTICE. Needless to say, I was taken aback. I got ahold of my roommate to let him know about this, and when I told him, he freaked out. Lost it. He started caterwauling like he was about to be brought to the gallows. The first thing he said was: "WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?" I repeated myself, and he replied "Oh no....OH NOOOOOOO!!! NO! NO! NO!". Then the next thing he said was "Are they gonna tell our parents?" (We had to have our folks cosign because we're students - clearly, 50% of us NEEDED IT, as you're about to find out). I indicated that, yes, the cosignators would probably have to be notified, and he once again went off into a spiel of incoherent babble. I let him go shit in his diapers (actually, I found out later that he threw up when he got off the phone with me) and found the landlady. I asked her what was up with the eviction notice and she said:

"Well, you guys didn't pay your rent, of course!"
I said: "Are you fucking kidding me?"
She said: "No, didn't you get the late payment/bounced cheque notices I sent up to you?"
I said: "No ... no, I didn't know anything about them, I didn't know there'd been any at all..." (Here, I was thinking about my roommate's reaction and alarm bells were starting to go off in my head)
She said "Well, don't panic, if you get this straightened out, it'll all be okay"
I said: "Thank you!" (Well, what were you expecting?)

I phoned my roommate back, and told him what the deal was. I also told him that there'd been two late rent notices slipped under our door and asked him if he'd *happened* to pick them up. He denied any knowledge of any notices. Then he told me that there'd been a "bank error" with the account (our joint account, which is necessary for us to have a single rent cheque - which is required by the rental agency), and that he'd mistakenly believed there to be a surplus of cash in the account. He told me it'd be fixed. That satisified me, because up until that point, I'd had a fair degree of trust in the guy. So, the money got taken care of. He paid up with a new cheque (covered by his long-suffering mother), and everything was gravy. Then I decided, just on a hunch, to go have a look at the bank account's activity for the month of January (and the tail end of December).

I bet you're just DYING to find out what happens next, right?

Okay, I'll tell you! Here's what the bank printout told me: that he had a) not put in his rent for January (I'm assuming he spent it), and b) spent all of my rent. All of it. Actually, because the cheque bounced and we were now in overdraft, our account was about 40 bucks in the hole. I came home with the printout in my hands, and confronted him.

I said: "You spent all the rent money, you stole from me".
He said: Man, I'm so sorry, I totally messed up, I don't know what was wrong with me."
I said: "Look, you just turned 19," (I'm almost 24), "I know what it's like to be out boozing it up and partying; it's your second year, you haven't quite straightened out yet after being on your own. Just use this as a lesson, okay?"
He said: "Thank you so much for forgiving me, I'll never be that stupid again."

This took place in the last 3 days of January

It seemed as though everything had been sorted out and it was time to put February's rent in. I came home from work on the night of January 31st and asked my roommate if he'd put his rent in yet. He said that he hadn't, but he'd go do it in a bit. I figured that was fair enough. Then, after an hour, when he hadn't put the rent in, I asked him again. This went back and forth for a while. Finally, I said "Go put your fucking rent in, right now!". He said "Okay, sorry", and left the apartment with his girlfriend. Ten minutes or so later, he came back and said it'd been taken care of. I thanked him, and told him it was better that he'd gotten it out of the way.

But WAIT! There's MORE!

About two weeks later, I got this answering machine message:

"Hi Matthew, this is Denise from the Rental Office - you told me to immediately get in touch with you if anything else happened with the rent. I'm just letting you know that the cheque's bounced again. Get in touch with me, okay?"

Still being the forgiving and innocent sort, I chalked it up to my roommate's tardiness in putting the rent in combined with bank processes. Nevertheless, I was pissed off, found where he was hanging out, told him to take care of it, and hung up on him. Then, again, I went and got a bank printout on a hunch. He'd done the exact same frigging thing! I made my way to one of his friend's houses - where he usually hung out - and laid in wait. I told his friends what was happening, and they were all agog; he hadn't told them anything about it at all. Furthermore, they told me that they hadn't even seen him in the last week or so. So we started on the hunt for him; finally, we found him at his girlfriend's house, where he was hiding out. The phone conversation that ensued was pretty savage on my part, but the turning point was this:

Me: "You've been fucking stealing from me again!"
Him: "Yeah, I know ... why else do you think I've been ducking you all week?"
Me (after almost choking): Y...w....because you're a fucking coward, that's why!"
Him: "Fuck you, man. You can't call me that!"

Yep, there you have it. I could've beaten him up; I could've sold or destroyed all of his possessions. Instead, I did something way worse: I called his parents. I had to close down our rent account, get the cheques I'd written cancelled, and his mother wrote up the cheques for the rest of his rent. He finally moved out in early April - and since he's still on the lease, the rent that his mother paid has not been refunded. In other words, I'm not living in a two bedroom place for the price of one. On the downside, when he moved out, he gave away all of the livingroom furniture which he'd brought with him, despite the fact that he was moving from Halifax back to Vancouver to live with his mom and pop. I think it was because he still owed a lot of people money and he was trying in some way to pay them back. He also tried to skip out on $250.00 in phone bills and about $100.00 in power bills, but I got ahold of his parents again and deaded that before it got any further.

The Moral of the Story

  1. Avoid getting a joint account with anyone you don't intimately know and trust
  2. Don't become roommates with someone who's still working out their college freshman boo-yas
  3. Forgive, forget, but don't be stupid

The bottom line here is: I sincerely hope that the next person I'm roommates with is married to me.

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