Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

So my friends, looks like I'm gonna be on The Zone. August 15th between 10 and 11 PM

Here's the details:

http://www.thezone.fm/?zone=events#28hourdj


I was just down at the station today and it's all sweetly confirmed. I gotta come up with a 30 second advertisement for... Well, anything I want. Any suggestions?

Anyways you can probably join me down at Mayfair on the 15th and we'll have a blast

Enjoi!

It's hilarious, and I can't stop watching it.



My favourite part is with Ozzie in the background, seemingly clapping randomly and making rather odd noises. If this entertains you as much as it does I, then go to YouTube and search "shreds" and look at anything music-related. Some guy over-dubbs it with rather crappy shredding. None are as hilarious as this though.

I found it...

It's not as terrifying as I remember it, but realize I was maybe one or two years old. Go ahead, watch.

Greedy Humpty Dumpty

In the recent Coffee News:

"The well-known Children's verse might have been about an egg, but it was more likely referring to a 15th century novleman who fell from grace with the king, British monarch Richard III. In the 1600's, a drink of ale and brandy was called a "Humpty Dumpty"

This brought back quite the disturbing memory I have about said egg. When I was little, I had a VHS of Disney cartoons, and one that was included was this animation on him. Except he was posed as some sort of king who became quite obsessive about the sun. He figured it was made of gold instead of boiling hot lava etc etc.

Like anyone who puts all his... Eggs... in one basket (ha ha ha), Lord Dumpty decided to build a wall, or more like a stairway, to the sun. On completing this task singlehandedly, he strikes the sun with a pick axe which causes a thundery lava bolt to strike him down to his poached death.

Here's why things got nightmareish. As is common to animation of the time, everything was exaggerated. Facial features were huge, arm movements were monsterous, and more importantly his death was literally traumatizing to my young eyes. My God... I can still remember him falling off that wall, spinning and screaming the entire way down, with the look of approaching death on his face.

There was other stuff on the VHS that I actually liked, so it was actually quite common for me to watch it over and over, like any other young kid likes watching the same movie over and over, or reading the same bed time story, stuff like that. Every time I watched it, I watched in pure horror, unable to take my eyes off the screen. It was practically masochism.

To conclude, I forgot all about that crazy egg bastard and his maniacal screamings of, "GOOOOOLD! I NEEEEEED MORE GOOOOOOOLLLLLDDDDDDD!!!!" or something like that. Until today that is. Now I've got to see if I can find the video on YouTube or something like that, so I can re-live the horror one last time, and introduce you all to it.

I found a LJ group called 'Dear Stupid' at

http://community.livejournal.com/dear_stupid/

I'm not hotlinking it.

Anyways, I've read through it, and it's inspired me. Mainly to reflect on myself. Because with my ego, what else would I reflect on? Haha... Cookies on dowels...

So anyways, here I am reflecting, and wondering, "Should I sign up for this group? What would I say? What crazy shit do I have to complain about?"

Obviously there's only three things, and they're rather lame. Here we go...

Dear Mom,

Stop killing my cool. I know life is stressful, it's cool to vent, but could you find another way rather than giving off "The world is ending" vibes? Actually I must congrats you on how you handled quitting your job, that was way cool. Going in the middle of the night, packing your stuff, and leaving a letter on your desk? That's admirable. When the cars got broken in to, you over-reacted. Nothing was stolen, but you made me come home when I was enjoying a rare afternoon downtown with Jus. We need those times and we were not needed at home. Reasonable, it was the day after you quit your job, but you affected me in the wrong way. Thankyou for cooling down faster than normal though.

Sincerely,
Your son.


Dear old people,

Stop sucking. Just because you go to bed at 7:00 doesn't mean I'm a terrible person for calling. Everyone else has dinner at 6:00 and they appreciate my calls to be afterwards, as you and they have all asked for me to call anyways. Too bad for you, I'm not going to call you back to get you that promotion you really wanted. I hope the Kelowna ISR's call you and accidentally break your account like they always do. Kelowna ISR's mostly suck, or a majority of them suck.

Sincerely,
Someone younger, better looking, and who has more potential. Bite me.


Dear Kelowna ISR's

My job relies heavily on the notes you and others make in people's accounts. If you can't put a simple description in to your interactions with customers, then... Uh... Suck a dick. Quit your job and become a prostitute in Heath Ledger's 'Candy' style. You know, in a park toilet.

Yours in business,
The Victoria ISR's... And everyone else for that matter. Seriously, I took a poll.



C'est fin. Wow, the anger can just roll, eh? Anyways, I realized something. At one point in time I would have had bucketloads to go to that group. Nowadays my biggest problem is people I don't know. I can't even get angry at my mom as much anymore. Life is getting so much better. In fact, reading what other people write makes me feel worse.

I always put on these mental scenarios with every story I read. Like, what would I do if I was in their position. Because honestly these people are mostly just too scared or socially reserved to give these people they complain about what they deserve. However as all things are, it's their lives and they can do it as socially polite as they want. It's just too bad.

On a completely random note, I saw the ghost in my rear view mirror again. I don't get it, I can never understand what it's actually coming from. It's creepy, especially at night.

Anyways, I'm going to get back to sleep. If I can sleep after seeing Cloverfield... Creepy.

To break my monk-like silence, I have two things. First off, I have an iPod Touch. Wee me. Secondly, I saw a rather hilarious woman on TV today. On channel 11, which here is the Shaw TV channel, there was a short piece on how BC is planning on making it illegal to smoke around hospitals for the 2010 Olympic Games. This is apparently a huge issue.

Remembering that I'm pro-choice, and I don't mind what people choose to do with their lives, I really shouldn't care less. However the time smoking does bother me is when I have to smell it. So the idea that people have to leave the area I may have to be in on an occasion of illness is rather appealing.

The clip went on to explain how some nurses are annoyed that their "Relaxing smoke break" will no longer be relaxing anymore if they have to walk a block away in the cold to have a smoke. Reasonable, I'd hate to walk a block just to get a glass of water, or something I feel is neccesary to relax while working hard. I'm glad water isn't stinky.

The part that really gets me though, and trust me I do not see her as a representitive of the smoker community, but she said " You know, they actually say that if you smoke then you heal faster. Because it is your way of getting out." Riiiiiiiiight. Get out in to the fresh air... And have a smoke... Fresh air, smoke.

Anyways to wrap this up, I've typed this entire thing on my iTouch. As far as things go, I can type at about 30WPM. It's also rather intuitive on my spelling mistakes and corrects them as I go. Definitely NOT meant for more than a short e-mail, but if you need to do something long then it works. Ok, Steve out.

So it's just a day and a bit left.

There's a lot of stuff to pack. However, not as much as I originally thought. I figured I'd be taking a truckload of stuff, and when it all comes down to being in my suitcase, it all fits quite nicely. Who woulda thunk it. I'm taking a lot of clothes, indeed, but I really don't have a wide selection! I think I have about two weeks worth of clothes, and I just cycle inbetween them all. Kind of sad, yet realistic.

Speaking about clothes, I have to have a ton of 'fancy' clothing for a cruise in July. For two weeks, I'll (possibly) be teaching dance on a cruise to Bermuda. However the dress style is rather strict, so unfortunately I'll have to conform. I have no idea what kind of clothing the passengers are allowed to wear, but for myself I have to have tuxes, 'country club wear', in which I'll pretty much translate in to my own style. Next thing I'll be talking through my teeth about yaghts and cruises and all those rich things.

No joke, I went to a rich person party and all they talked about was yaghting. It was sickening. Not that I hate yaghts, I like boats. It's the fact their conversation never changed.

"Oh yes, we'll be taking our yaght down to Washington this weekend to meet up with the Hesleys, then we'll head down to the Caribbeans for a few weeks to experience foreign culture. How delightful. Haw haw haw. More champagne? Yaght yaght yaght blah blah blah."

I'm so glad people asked me what I do. I told them I was investing in to stocks and money markets and living on the interest. Half true! Quarter true... Well, it'd be a quarter true if I actually lived off the interest. But this was of course before I worked at Shaw.

Anyways, I'm going to get back to cleaning up here, my uncle might be living in my room for a short period of time while I'm gone. He's coming in from Toronto and needs a place to stay. Of course, I won't be using my room so why not?!

As the title says, I'm emotionally exhausted. Mainly because what I've been doing to prepare for Australia, or lack thereof.

Today I spent a lot of time making sure my dog was ok from an infection, that I could have money in Australia, that I could find a flight back, and worrying that the people I got my visa from might be frauds. On top of that, a lot more worrying. It's definitely not fun, to a point where I really just don't want to work.

Instead I want to sit at home, play video games, and wait. I'm having trouble sitting here and doing my job because I'm feeling quite distracted. But when I get right down to it, why am I such a wreck?

Realistically, I'm about to embark on one of the most important trips of my life. I should be happy and excited and doing my job to the best because I won't see Shaw for a while, and having fun with calling people. Unfortunately I'm too overtaken with other emotions, that I can't concentrate on getting in to selling stuff.

Honestly I'm quite excited about this, but I'm worried something's going to go wrong, and it'll be my fault. I'm not worried about money, I'm worried about getting there, and more specifically, getting back. It's driving me nuts, and I just wanna chill for the next 4 days. Damn waiting.

There's something interesting about my job. I'm working on Thanksgiving, yet... Voluntarily. My boss isn't here, there's a skeleton crew going on, and I'm eating a sandwich. In fact, it's 30 minutes in to work and I still haven't made a single call. Ahhh, I love my job.

I have no idea how anyone's reaction is going to be with me calling them today. Specifically I have quite a few callbacks, who requested I call them back today. So, if they don't like it then it's their fault. However everyone else, potential sales, might not be so happy today. I'll have to see.

I better get to work about now. I figure I'll wander around, go to the bathroom, and get back here when I feel like it. I love my job.

I show up to Shaw today with everything running happy in my day, when DISASTER strikes. I sit at the desk, type my log in, and I get this message.

"This account has been blocked. please contact your system administrator"

Perfect. So I tried again. Same result. Shit.

It's not the end of the world, I still had another account to log in to, but all my call backs and probable sales of the day were gone. I couldn't get to my Outlook, and I was even waiting for an important e-mail. All unaccessable.

So I spent today doing cold calling, and only made three sales. I could have made more. I hate this. Mike had his most awesome day yet, he's gotten 9 sales today, and is working on getting a 10th still. I don't want him to beat my record because I'm competitive.

Anyways, I'm going to go eat ice cream when I get home, maybe even head out tonight but I don't know. I'll possibly just hang out at home for tonight. So yes, this is the end for tonight. Until next time...

I noticed a habit I've picked up while working at Shaw. Mainly while walking around corners. I slow down.

See, all the corners are sharp, you can't see around them, and sometimes will have three directions that people come from. So, you're more than likely to hit someone if not careful. On top of that, the hallways are thin, maybe one and a quarter people wide. That's pretty thin. So that, on top of sharp corners, and the business atmosphere of everyone lost in thought, it's dangerous.

So, to counter this, I've started slowing down before corners, as if I just hit a wall of slo-mo space. I'll be flying down the hallway and as soon as a corner comes up, my foot lifts off the ground eagerly, and then suddenly slows to a crawl. Still in motion, it eventually finds the ground and I speed up to regular time.

It reminds me of the book, Dune. Fighters could wear personal energy shields that reflected any sharp attack. However the couter to it was, during a strike with a weapon, to actually slow down your lunging arm. That way the weapon would slowly move through the energy shield as opposed to bouncing off.

In conclusion, every corner is an exciting adventure. I slow down my movements to wait for someone to come flying in to view, so I can passively dodge them and keep moving to my destination. Nine times out of ten my destination is the bathroom.

An hour left till I go home, sweet deal.

Webcams are awesome. Routers, not so much. Mainly because routers will change your IP address, which is annoying. Anyways.

There's a new guy at work, Greg. He's good, just made his first sale yesterday. There's another new guy coming in on Monday, who apparently lives with Greg. Our little area's going to get busy. Competition...

I like competition, indeed. Although I don't like the idea of there being too many guys. That means when we get a list of people who have asked to be called for a service, there'll be less to go around. Not lucrative for me at all. Oh well.

I've also called up my investment agency to get some cash out from my savings. Fortunately over the time I've let the cash sit, it's all interest that I'll be withdrawling. I need a bit for Australia, and a bit to buy a new camcorder. A sweeeeet camcorder at that. I'm thinking of renting it out to friends and making that cash back. It's all money.

Even though I need to take out cash, I have been saving up my paycheques as much as I can. I'll still only have $2,500 for the trip. And I don't think that's very safe. And I want to be able to spend a bit. You know, indulge. I'm bringing back souveniers, maybe a panda ;-)

Silly Steve.

Only two and a half weeks left. This is going to be the most intense trip I've ever had. I mean that in a good way. I'd call any trip I've taken to Alberta as intense, in the sun's intense rays beating down on the car while the next town is still three hours away, and no stops inbetween. I don't like Alberta for those memories.

Anyways, I'm back to work. I have a ton of callbacks. Moneymoneymooooney...

Ahh my double-double. I'm at Shaw right now, and I'm definitely not drinking a Tim Hortons coffee. Or even a knock off. It's MY double-double. Double the tea bags, double the sugar lumps. Gets me going for sales.

Today has been interesting. To start, I'm one day off finishing at ConTech. Mike decided he's not going to be there tomorrow, so he finished today. Lucky bastard. Mainly he's got a show going until 2:00AM tonight so he figured it's pointless to try to get in. Bastard.

So while working at ConTech today, I had a flash back of the car wash. Mainly when it was new car, buttons, spray, send. New car, buttons, spray, send. On and on. Except today it was, new matt, wire, button, place. New matt, wire, button, place. For 8 hours. So about the 6th hour, I hit an anxiety attack. I was freaking out, I needed to get out of there, but the worst part is that it was all contained in my head. Anyone else might have noticed my expression, but otherwise I sat there, buttoned, wired, and placed.

It really goes to show my control over my emotions. Yet, I have no control OF them.

Repitition like that kills me. Also on top of that the lack of sleep, the lack of food, the lack of living... It was a recipe of suck. So I sat there, working. Eventually 3:30 rolled around and I was able to walk out and let the breeze of the highway cool me down. And I mentioned it to Mike, which just talking to someone about feeling like crap is always nice.

I would like to mention this now, but as much of him being just a colleague, he would make a good friend. He's simple yet intelligent. And he makes good music.

Anyways by the time I got to Shaw, and learned there was a new guy (I love new guys!), I felt much better. Justine always helps me feel great about myself too. So I'll sleep well tonight, and probably go through something similar again tomorrow. Except this time I'll just run around laughing insanely or something. Then play tricks on the new guy later.

Alright, I'm done. Time for more calls.

So the hard part of business has been taken care of today. To start, I talked to Express yesterday, let them know I'm gone on the 15th. Then today I told ConTech that I can't stay any longer than Friday because I'm a wimp who needs his off time, and I told my Shaw boss that I'm disappearing for 15 days. He's chill with it. Sweet.

So everything's set up, I can run away for a while in October. Sweet.

During my time at ConTech, I've become a frustrated employee. Mainly, communication within the lower levels is crap. For example on today; I was told to box the Scat Matts I've been fabricating. Every 20 minutes or so, someone would come up and point out something I was doing wrong. Now, the thing is, I wasn't really told how to do it in the first place because the person who did tell me was quite vauge because HE wasn't too sure either. So it goes like this.

"Uhhh Steve, could you have the folded end at the other side of the insert? And if you did that with any of the other boxes there could you fix that?"

"Hey I don't think we're using those instruction manuals anymore, those are the international ones when we need the American manuals put in."

"You know what, those aren't the right promotion inserts, we need you to put these ones in instead."

"Hey when you pack the product, could you face them this way? And put the sign on this side of the product instead."

"Oh, you've got the boxes upsideown. see the way this box is produced leaves a tab on one side, which is pretty much the only way we know which end is up."

"Are you using the 0207's? Apparently those have been coming back as defective, could you use the 0707's instead?"

Etc etc...

So I told them I was leaving. The response I got from the bossman was he was confused why Express would put me on two jobs. SIMPLE: You told us it was for two weeks, not five. Bastard. I'm trying to make money here.

So now I sit at Shaw, making sale after easy sale. No boxes, no re-boxing, no standing. Yay. Bobby knows I'm going, he knows I'm coming back, and we're possibly getting newbies soon. I get to train them. BUAHAHAHAHAHA

I actually really enjoy training people on what I know. It's not the superiority, it's more like, confirming my own knowledge and sharing it so others can prosper. I want to see them do well, and possibly become someone I can compete against. Because I know I trained them to do what they do. It's satisfying.

On a completely random note, I found out how to upload pictures to my phone. I've never been able to do that before. Oh the wonders of bluetooth. Guess who I have as my wallpaper. Another evil laugh eminates from my lungs. You are in a dungeon, it is cold and damp. You feel a breeze pass by your head, faint and warm. The directions you can go are north and east.

>

First off let's start off with a hilarious video. I think I already showed it to you, Jus, so enjoy again. Possibly while not waiting forever for it to load.



Now that the topic of zombies is out of the way...

I spent another day at work pondering stuff. This time though, whenever I had a spark of something interesting come up, I decided to make a note of it. Now I shall present to you all of the pondered things of today, in as much sensical order as possible.

Let's start with the primary thing on my mind, the October trip. Mainly, waiting. Of course there's 31 days left. However that's not what's on my mind, it's waiting that I've been thinking about.

I can't remember if I've talked about this before, so I'm going to make you suffer over it again if I have. Mainly, I'm used to waiting. I used to sit by the front window when I was young, waiting for a friend to show up. You know, on those play dates or whatever. I think I'd wait for hours and hours, examining every vehicle which passed by, wondering if that was the right vehicle.

My dad was occasionally on time. I used to wait an hour or two after he said he'd pick me up, or if he told us to get in the car because we were leaving soon, then 45 minutes later he'd join us. More importantly he'd never call to say he was late. I think that's where I got my lack of time from. Coming to terms with the idea that when my dad says 8:00, he means 9:30. Unreasonable? Not as far as I'm concerned emotionally. In other words, I'm sorry to everyone who I've ever been late for constantly.

Unfortunately at ConTech I was pulled aside because I've been late in a few ways. I show up at 7:35 when I'm supposed to start at 7:30, but that's because it's a 30 minute drive out there. I also usually add on an extra 5 to 10 minutes on my lunches and breaks. Apparently even the office staff had been noticing. No shit though, I'm working 13 hours a day. "No-one asked you to take two jobs Steve." I know, but I thought I could do it.

While on one of my extended breaks, I read something interesting in Popular Science. Apparently a guy designed a machine that turns any junk, cement, steel, plastic, paper, feces... All in to re-usable gasses and liquids. The secret ingredient? Plasma. 40 year old technology runs this machine which takes as much energy to start as the spark from a tazer, produces 160 megawatts of power from turbines off the exhaust, and only requires 40 megawatts to run. Also, the gasses are things like hydrogen, oxygen, and the liquid is a form of glass.

In other words, a machine that takes all our trash, can eat 30,000 tons of trash a day, power a small city, and produces a gas that can power our cars. All with 40 year old technology. Definitely look it up, there is a few drawbacks, mainly the gas can become toxic under the wrong conditions, and the glass-like substance could potentially poison underground water within minutes of touching the ground. It's all in moderation I guess...

Also in the same magazine, I read about a digital video camera. It costs $17,000, and is considered film quality. Hmmm, I could afford that. Wait, no, no. Go for the cheaper model, $3,500. God, I have a lot of money and the wrong things to spend it on. If I spend $17,000 on anything it'll be a new computer. Yes, $17,000 for a quad processor 2.5Ghz Mac tower and all the trimmings. Drool.

Ok, I'm going to work now. I'm 13 minutes over starting and I haven't called anyone. Weee!

I've realized I have the need to write on LiveJournal a lot lately. Maybe it's the fact that I come to Shaw now, and the last thing on my mind is work. Instead, I am filled with all the things I've thought of over the day of doing menial tasks at ConTech.

To start, I was put on the press today. Specifically, a rather large cutting machine. It presses shapes out of vinyl. Unfortunately there's no stars, moons, or rainbows. Just rectangles. Specifically for the cat mats.

However there's something special about this machine, or actually, what's behind it. The vinyl rolls are set up on a makeshift stand which allows me to feed the vinyl in to the machine more easily than if it were a pile on the floor. Problem is, this vinyl creates a LOT of static electricity.

On this makeshift rig, to avoid electric shocks, there's a grounding mechanism. Or, a spring that points closely to the roll. I'm gonna take a photo tomorrow. But the point being, it doesn't come in direct contact with the vinyl roll. Instead, it hovers about an inch and a half away. Mainly because hooking up any wire to a spinning roll would eventually twist and snap.

So whenever the vinyl roll gains a charge, there's a static arc from the vinyl roll to the spring. It's actually quite bright, and often. Every time I make the slightest pull on the vinyl roll, I hear the snapping happen about five times a second. I figure with that amount of consistancy, I'll be able to grab a pretty decent photo. Eventually.

I've been told that when that spring wasn't there, the charge used to build up hardcore. As in, eventually it would create an arc between the roll and the stand, which is a distance of 6 inches. Considering the only arcs I've seen are between my finger and a conductive object half an inch away, that sounds cool.

There's 32 days until I leave for Australia, just as a reminder.

I had a fun run-in with a packers tape handle thingy which I cannot remember the name of. You know those box tapers that have the tape on a reel and a jagged edge to rip off the tape with? I cut my thumb on it. Fortunately it was so fast and strong I didn't feel it at first.

Specifically, it was my nail on the left thumb. Cut it to about half way down and peeled it back. Ow. Fortunately I kept composure, walked to the bathroom, and got Mike to help me put a band-aid on. Not fun.

Moving on to fun! I got my paycheque including commission today. And for my one week of work I made $699.68. I like getting paid on a weekly basis. Unfortunately this 'two week' job I've taken in the morning has been suggested I stay to the end of September. I'll see how I feel at the end of next week. I do have a life, remembering. Yesterday I only had an hour at max between anything. So wake up at 6:00, off to work at 7:00. Get off work at 3:30, get back to work at 4:30. Get home at 9:30, sleep at 10:30. Repeat. Fun.

So let's get off the topic of no fun-ness. On the topic of fun, snowboarding season is coming up again. I've already talked to Tanya about getting a condo up at Mt.Washington again, but she want's to go April... When the snow is shit. Hopefully she won't be going on a vacation in Febuary so we can plan it for then. Of course, I might not be here so I'm keeping all plans quite loose.

However most importantly, is that last year we decided together that there wasn't going to be her dad again. Because unfortunately him and her uncle made the experience less than enjoyable. So when I mentioned getting a condo up there again, she responded with, "Oh yea, I've already been talking to my dad about it." I freaked.

Fortunately now at least I've gotten her agreeing to the idea that her dad and now her mom can be staying in their own condo, seperate from us. However knowing Tanya, she's going to spend every day at her dad's condo (If she doesn't get convinced that they should just stay with us anways), and drag everyone with her so it'll suck again. I need some other friends who snowboard and are willing to grab a condo for a weekend. Anyone?

In the meantime, here I sit at work. I so appreciate the time I have off now. Toodalooo!