Saturday, July 19, 2003
Lately I've been so good about blogging everyday and now I'm doing the unthinkable: blogging on a Saturday. Melle's still a-snoozing, in an hour and a half I'm heading to the old folks' home for my first volunteer session. Funny to blog when I'm not sitting at my desk at work. There's a window here with a view of the lake and trees and it's a gorgeous day and -- hang on, what the fuck am I doing at a computer?
Friday, July 18, 2003
Well, I didn't do quite as good as Jack...
Battleground Analysis
Congratulations!
You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.
The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.
A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullets occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only two bullets and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!
Battleground Analysis
Congratulations!
You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.
The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and well thought out.
A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullets occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, because you bit only two bullets and avoided direct hits completely you still qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!
Got home yesterday around 6:30 after putting in an appearance at the gym. Didn't do too much, just worked up a sweat on that cross-country sort of treadmill thingy -- I don't think that's what it's really called -- where your legs go back and forth while your upper body remains motionless and your eyes are glued to one of 5 TVs hanging from the rafters. I was watching the one tuned to VH1, a show on bad celebrity hair. I didn’t have earphones with me so couldn’t listen and was too far away to clearly read the closed captioning that the staff thoughtfully turns on, but it looked like they were giving Christina Aguilera a hard time.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
I guess blogger gave away my old blog coz they figure I'm not using it anymore. True enough but still, kinda indecent. As soon as this new fake mikeg puts an email or comment up, help me blast him!
This new leaf thing is getting out of hand. I went and joined a gym. Well, rejoined actually -- I let my membership lapse last year so as to pursue a life as a happy fat bastard. But after boozing and eating to my heart's (and belly's) content in Montreal I find that I can barely fit into my clothes. The ramifications of being a fat bastard have started to sink in. So today after work I'll go and sweat away on a treadmill while watching TV in the manner of gymrats all across this fine country. As part of my membership (which is terrifically cheap thanks to the old corporate discount) I get two free sessions with a personal trainer - the first to measure how fat and out of shape I am, the second to start me on a regimen. I know how this works coz it happened the last time I joined: they try and convince you to fork out big bucks for a trainer and for special diet supplements and all that crap. I think not. My trainer's name is Onyx. I'm guessing that's an alias.
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Oh baby, can't wait to go home and prevent cancer!
I happened to glance at the old location of my blog, http://mikeg.blogspot.com. Someone else seems to have taken it over, as of July 14. What gives?
Tuesday, July 15, 2003
It's new leaf time. As in turning over one. I've decided to get off my lazy ass and do something vaguely worthwhile. This Saturday, I take the 48 bus down to Columbia City to begin volunteering at a day-care center for "frail elders and people with chronic illnesses." Some of you may know that in my last months in San Francisco, spent luxuriating on the dole, I dealt blackjack, called bingo, and played chess at the Jewish Home for the Aged. Well, now I'm doing something similar, though minus the Jews -- they all seem to be aging away on Mercer Island which is too far for me to trek.
Not sure what to expect but I'll find out Saturday. When I did this in SF I found it very satisfying. Dealing blackjack to senile old folks betting dimes was great. That's exactly how I hope to end up, still gambling to the bitter end. There was one guy in a wheelchair who'd had a stroke and had trouble talking. Something of a notorious character apparently, with a quick temper. He'd stare at his cards, blink slowly, then bang his gnarled hand down and grunt "It eeee" if he wanted a card. He played wildly, to the chagrin of the others, and the catty Jewish dames made snide remarks about him. When he won he'd laugh uproariously, or try to, his twisted mouth struggling to make the right shape so that his laughs came out as "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Simultaneously creepy and heart-warming somehow.
One day, as the game was breaking up, he cornered me and, grunting expressively, made me understand that he wanted to show me something in his room. I wheeled him into his small, sparse chamber. There were photos of his family and one of him as a man in his early 40s. He wore a suit and looked vaguely scholarly, quite different from the wild-eyed, twisted, grunting old wreck he was now. I can't remember now exactly what it is he showed me -- newspaper clippings, a statement from the patent office, an award -- but what it amounted to was that he was the guy who invented the red light behind the backboard in basketball that lights up when the horn sounds when someone scores a basket. I was suitably impressed.
Not sure what to expect but I'll find out Saturday. When I did this in SF I found it very satisfying. Dealing blackjack to senile old folks betting dimes was great. That's exactly how I hope to end up, still gambling to the bitter end. There was one guy in a wheelchair who'd had a stroke and had trouble talking. Something of a notorious character apparently, with a quick temper. He'd stare at his cards, blink slowly, then bang his gnarled hand down and grunt "It eeee" if he wanted a card. He played wildly, to the chagrin of the others, and the catty Jewish dames made snide remarks about him. When he won he'd laugh uproariously, or try to, his twisted mouth struggling to make the right shape so that his laughs came out as "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Simultaneously creepy and heart-warming somehow.
One day, as the game was breaking up, he cornered me and, grunting expressively, made me understand that he wanted to show me something in his room. I wheeled him into his small, sparse chamber. There were photos of his family and one of him as a man in his early 40s. He wore a suit and looked vaguely scholarly, quite different from the wild-eyed, twisted, grunting old wreck he was now. I can't remember now exactly what it is he showed me -- newspaper clippings, a statement from the patent office, an award -- but what it amounted to was that he was the guy who invented the red light behind the backboard in basketball that lights up when the horn sounds when someone scores a basket. I was suitably impressed.
Monday, July 14, 2003
Well this is what I get for not blogging for a month. Steel myself to plunge back in and they've gone and changed the interface. Damn Google. I guess it's all for the best, right? Okay, won't be a curmudgeon, won't hate change just coz I'm scared of unfamiliarity. Dip the toe, it's cold in there, now don't think and just dive...
Montreal was amazing -- hot days, hot nights, Boreale a-flowing. Siobhan and Terry, you were amazing hosts, going above and beyond. Ten years almost to the day since I left and it didn't take long to feel at home. Is there a better place to be in North America in July? I mean, really?
Saw 28 Days Later yesterday. Pretty good but it ain't no Omega Man. I found my mind wandering a bit during the second half. But then again, I had to piss so bad for the last half hour and I stayed in my seat so I guess I was compelled. Wasn't scary enough, though. Melle's right -- after reading the unbelievably harrowing life-during-plaguetime Blindness, 28DL seemed a bit tame.
Montreal was amazing -- hot days, hot nights, Boreale a-flowing. Siobhan and Terry, you were amazing hosts, going above and beyond. Ten years almost to the day since I left and it didn't take long to feel at home. Is there a better place to be in North America in July? I mean, really?
Saw 28 Days Later yesterday. Pretty good but it ain't no Omega Man. I found my mind wandering a bit during the second half. But then again, I had to piss so bad for the last half hour and I stayed in my seat so I guess I was compelled. Wasn't scary enough, though. Melle's right -- after reading the unbelievably harrowing life-during-plaguetime Blindness, 28DL seemed a bit tame.
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