each one is drowning in draft-purgatory.

each is oppression.

“but, dude, it’s so convenient and you can just walk to work! how could you not love that?”

well, friend, picture yourself at work…sitting at your desk, reading your papers, organizing your paperclips and pushpins. now get up and walk out to the parking lot…and now live there. eat there. sleep there. poop there. then get up in the morning and walk into work.

see?

so i found a great place that i’m all jazzed about and now i can exhale b/c shit like that weighs on my brains.

afterwards, i celebrated by visiting The Press—a downtown-claremont-bar/restaurant recommended as much for their drinks as for their food. while sitting at the bar—enjoying a beverage and a vegetarian taco—i couldn’t help but hear the two people next to me discussing what they had just lived in their graduate seminar; i sat with one eye on my drink and an ear on their conversation.

they were overtly-obvious-philosophy-students, knee-deep in a discussion of existentialism and its history in 19th century europe. when one of them made a reference to religion, i chuckled too loudly for deference and caught their attention.

“i’m sorry“, i said, “i couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, sounds like interesting stuff.”

“are you familiar with hegel? have you read any of his stuff?”

“yeah, when i was in college…like 10 years ago. idealism is heavy but especially so from hegel…ya know, it’s just nice to hear people talk about things like this again.”

“again?” the curly-haired philosopher asked turning back to me.

“…let’s just say it’s nice to hear people not talking about jesus.”

with a quick glance to her partner, she replied back, “why would someone waste their time talking about jesus?”

“exactly.” i said, feeling immediately at home and ordering another.

so I wonder if douche-bag hummer owners are any closer to realizing their douche-baggery now that GM has killed the hummer brand? yeah, probably not.

what will we possibly be doing in 2014?

2014.

fuck, that sounds like science-fiction.

also fitting in this archives redux is that I mention how much Canada loves me…and tonight is the closing ceremonies of the Olympic games in CANADA! Spooooky!

~woooooooo~

ok whatever, it’s a good archive post:

Originally Published, February 28th, 2006

Stonebraker: i’m watching bill maher

Me: cool he’s awesome

Stonebraker: eh…he’s hit or miss for me

Me: you just like be unenthusiastic about anything i like

Stonebraker: no I’m just not a zealot

Me: of anything?

Stonebraker: of things you like

Me: haha

Stonebraker: cuz your a huge fanboy

Me: yeah here’s how our conversations go:
Me: dude xxxx is so rad! i love it!
Me: stone: yeah it’s good….well its not really that good…in fact it’s dumb

Stonebraker: ok here’s how it really goes…
Stonebraker: let’s say that product xxxx is all over the tech sites
Stonebraker: YOU: dude did you see xxxx its the best thing that has ever been or ever will be
Stonebraker: then, a day or so later xxxxx is discredited and i’m like: I told you so…heh

Me: i don’t care what you say, i’m not going to apologize for having passion…its part of my charm
Me: its why i’m adored by literally dozens of canadians

by my count, buster’s only afraid two things. 1) ironing boards & 2) thunder

before we left, we checked in with cruzer the cat who assured us that he’d keep an eye on shit while we out.

random shops selling random wares kept us busy for a while until the call of bottomless brunch beverages became too strong to resist.

before we left, i found a mirror and snapped one of the only few photos of myself in existence. one quick stop to the local thrift store revealed a cornucopia of random crap including an album i’ve been needing to pickup for my collection.

also, they still have porn available…but you’ve gotta be desperate enough to ask for it…and then look at porn in a thrift store.

at long last we had done enough non-drinking activities to justify stopping by for a quick (read: three-hour-long) drink.

so yeah a day that started with mimosas and fondue ended with mimosas and build-your-own-smores.

i love you, San Francisco.

so on saturday morning we took advantage of the san francisco sunshine and took the BART to Luna Park. during the course of the next 3 hours we devoured copious amount of food & bottomless beverages (pictured above). at some point towards the end of the Luna-Park-marathon, a group of girls adorned in “bachelorette party” team-sweatshirts arrived and when they informed us that they need “special photos” with me for their scavenger hunt, I obliged because I’m a gentleman. What resulted looked like something out of “the hangover” and you’ll be seeing those photos NEVER.

(you have to read it at 2x pace to get it…yeah.)

Sunday, 3, October, 2009: wake up before the alarm, time changed last night and the clock-gods have given me an extra hour to pack and hang out with BusterTheDog. Not sure I’ve ever spent a week away from him. That will be weird. Go over to my sister’s place and drop off Buster, he’s my best buddy.  We drive to Ontario Intl Airport.

During the drive my sister and I talk about life and career choices. She listens differently than anyone else I know. Talking with her feels like talking to myself but only with objectivity, rationality and intelligence.  Must remember to do this more often.

Get to the airport, ONT is barely awake with travellers. Stop at a place to grab a bite to eat. No booze, just food and water. Told the cute waitress I was a vegetarian and she brought me out a fruit platter suitable for someone with more resources than myself. I tip her 100% and wish that every airport-food-service-employee cared as much.

Board the plane.

Spend three hours at 30k feet while travelling to Dallas Fort Worth Intl.  The flight has WiFI and I can do whatever the deuce I want. Have a video chat with stonebraker and talk about how we lived long enough to see the future.  If flying 700 mph at 30,000 feet and having a video conversation isn’t the future then I don’t know what is. Land in DFW and attempt to navigate the maze of an airport. The place is too fuck big. Have to take a 10 minute shuttle ride to make my connector flight. Before I leave I stop by an airport bar that has been made up to look like an old time country saloon. Order two double whiskey’s. Pay $10 for WiFi. For the record, WiFi at 30k feet is free, but back on earth it costs ten bucks. Watch the locals cheer on their local NFL team as they beat up on my Seattle Seahawks. Fuckers.

Hop on board a smaller plane and spend an hour flying to New Orleans.

Arrive at 12:30am local time. The airport is barren. Follow the pack to luggage claim and board the shuttle to my hotel. Ride for 20mins through abject poverty. Church parking lots filled with homeless covered under sleeping bags, homes deserted with haunting Katrina-era spray paint on the doors.  3 found dead here, 2 here, none at another.  We drive into downtown. I find out where the money is being spent. Downtown looks whole and is “open for business”, almost surely on the backs of the poorest of the poor.  Unload my bag from the back of the shuttle, give the driver a five-dollar bill and a fist bump.

The hotel is beyond nice and I whisper a thank you to hotels.com for a sweet deal.  Check in. Scrub hands under steamy hot water. Apply ethanol gel liberally. Repeat steamy scrub. Collapse in bed.

The sheets are some sort heavy silk and I feel like I’m sleeping under a lead-xray apron. By the end of the week I won’t even notice.

It’s now Monday morning and I’m alive in New Orleans, LA.

jesus-god, I’ve walked to the dining car 3x and each time was like some sort of Survivor feat-of-strength.

so as you know, after an hour on the train, everyone in my car was krunked. I am not. That being said, I have had probs negotiating the car-to-car transition. I can only imagine that drunkenness makes this feat easier.

still…no one dies on Amtrak? I smell cover-up…and vodka.