Something happened tonight that has caused my stomach to turn. It's rare that I get so emotionally upturned these days: the last few months have been devoid of any real emotion, or worthwhile reflection. Tonight, I was working on a project that was essentially a pilot for a new feature we're planning to roll out for use during the upcoming PAX trip to Seattle. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that it had me, with sleeves rolled up, diving back into Flash and Fireworks with a glorious resolve. Initially, I figured it was just going to be a little throw-away side project that I'd be doing just for my section of the site.

But it quickly escalated and two other collegaues quickly swooped in and trumped me, taking over the project and executing it at a level beyond that of my own. The two were, of course, doing their jobs: they're paid to do the design work and the programming, I'm not. That didn't change the fact that, with my personally-assigned project relieved from me, I felt a sense of internal embarassment, of shame. What I had once had the privelge of doing so often not too many years ago—rendering the layman useless and doing what I did best for those who couldnt—was done to me visciously, at least in my own mind. How horrifying. Have I made a mistake? Sitting idly by while others program and design makes me wonder about some of the decisions I've made. Maybe I've taken a wrong turn.

I'll spare you the long "work was my last redemption" speech, but I will say that now I can't help but find myself wondering about what regrets I may have both at present and in the future. And with my writing still in question—I still make tons of mistakes and rarely pitch a perfect piece nor win the adoration of peers or readers—I wonder what's left. Am I going to be able live with being "just a writer" and not even a noteworthy one? Am I just wasting words and time? I should've been a lumberjack.

I feel weird. In the last few days, I've developed a sudden yearning. For what, exactly, can't be quite clearly defined. Actually, that's a lie. I know exactly what I want. But I'm in a seemingly perpetual state of yearning now for reasons to utterly inconcievable to mention. My grandmother, Isaac Hayes, and Bernie Mac all died in the last two weeks—and countless others, too. The world has had enough pain for me to share my fruitless yearning. If there's one thing I hate more than anything else in the world, it's fruitless enterprise.

It has been a while since I last updated, so I figured I should probably spend some time filling you in on what's been going on: after all, that's what a blog is for. My grandmother passed away two weeks ago, and the family hurriedly made the trip to Windsor to go through the three-day mourn-a-thon in Windsor. Unlike most caucasian funerals, Italian ones tend to be long. The funeral procession involving the church and ultimately the cemetary took place on one day, but that followed a string of viewings and eating unbeknownst to outsiders. It was a grueling week, to be sure, but a rare chance for my grandmother's five daughters and nine grandsons to conviene.

Thankfully, it wasn't all tears and veal cutlets. Some of the family was put up in the beautiful Caesar's Casino (the big Windsor casino on the river) on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth floors. Though the weeather was scorching outside, those of us lucky enough to be there basked in some $200 a night bliss. Two of my cousines and I even managed to get in a little gambling, pooling about $50 each to play roulette for three and a half hours before finally busting out. Defeat was bitter, but it was a good taste: we definately got what we paid for with regard to highs and lows. It was an interesting diversion from the norm, and a much needed one at that.

I say much needed because life here in Mississauga has stagnated. If I wasn't already raring to leave this city (and perhaps country) immediately after graduating, I certianly am now—likely largely a result of the great Friendship Fued of 2008. Sadly, it looks like I may have picked the wrong side for having fun and going out even if it was the right side for not hating who I'm spending my time with every waking minute in their company. Outings have been few and far between, though a trip out with Heron for bacon-wrapped steak and another trip out with him and Heron for a day were enjoyable. Sad that I have to resort to my school friends for fun at home, though.

What few outings have taken place with old friends have been, for lack of a better word, shitty. To be fair, though, that's largely a result of nature rather than our own doing. Our long-awaited summer blockbuster Pineapple Express turned out to be a bust, which was an incredibly disappointment as Magic and I went to great length's to see the movie as it was meant to be seen. Strangely, Step Brothers—which I originally thought looked stupid as hell—ended up being the better of the two. Apparently a house of learned doctors on the planet bullshit in the galaxy of this sucks camel dicks is better for laughs.

Compiled with on-going financial woes born from my work's new corporate overlords, I find myself surprisingly disappointed with the way that my good run of luck has gone amuck. Now the only one thing I had going for me—steady and disposable income—is no longer there. How familiar. And with school done now, I have no excuses left: I'm just sitting around the house doing nothing after work and it's depressing me, which is factoring in to the aformentioned yearning. Now I'll just have to hunt for busy work. I've been tossing around the idea of redesigning the website while I have free time; I really like this particular design but I can't well steal it so I'm trying to come up with something similar but unique.

Anyway, that's all. School is just a few weeks away, then I'll get to return to another place which makes me miserable. But hey, at least the grass is a different, though equally unpleasant, colour.

Five years from now, they sit inside a cozy but nonetheless posh Chicago restraunt, in a ritzy uptown neighbourhood. The pair has just ordered a fairly expensive meal, including a vintage wine. He ordered for both of them. She, with her hair short, is wearing a clean cut black dress, not too short. He, a dark suit jacket and slacks with an dull orange shirt. Neither is clad in jewelery or otherwise unnecessary ornamentation.

"I want you to marry me," he said softly across the table with an sigh-like exhale as though it were a thought in passing.

"You know I would," she replied with the same seeming indifference to the thought. "You could have whisked me away a week after we met. But you've waited. And I've waited. Whenever you're ready, we'll go."

"But you know the problem."

"I do." With her words lingering in the air, she folded her napkin and put it down on the table.

"I don't believe in divorce. It's a hard topic to talk about, I know." Under his breath, he mutterd "thank God it wasn't pre-nups" before continuing. "But I can't walk into something unless I'm certain that you're certain."

Her once soft faced turned a momentary stern, "I respect that, but if you really loved me, and thought I really loved you, would it be something necessary to say?"

"You know how I feel. The divorce rates in this country—in your country—are ridiculous. How could people undertake marriage if they—"

Her sterness turned to anger. "My country? My country? Huh, listen to you. Who was it who abandoned 'his' country again to move here chasing some fleeting American dream instilled to him by so much media bullshit?"

He stopped his eyes from wandering and squared them on hers. "I've never felt at home here. From the first time I set foot here, I felt like a visitor. I was a visitor. But even now, now that I've done all this song and dance, I still feel an outsider." His arm swept across the table, motioning towards the "apparations of the crowd" that bussled themselves amongst their jobs and conversations, completely irrelevant. "Look around. Where do I fit in all this?"

"You don't. No one does."

"There was a man who once said that the writer is always an outcast. That's why he writes. He doesn't know how to be part of a scene, so he merely documents it and relays it like a scientist trying to understand results. But this isn't a subject you can quantify; these lab rats don't run the maze, and the maze itself is too complicated to possibly imagine." He lowered his own napkin.

"That's your problem," she grunted. "You're always stuck writing. Someone dies, you don't see a death, you see a story unfolding for characters that aren't real. When your parents died, it didn't even phase you. You proceeded with the funeral, set your brother well, and continued with your life as though nothing had changed. I've always wondered how you could be so damned cruel?"

To think this conversation had stemmed from a marriage proposal, he thought. What a great dialogue for a book this would be. He turned to her, reaching for her hand as it lay pressed upon the table.

She questioned, "Why haven't you proposed to me?"

"I just did," he said as he lowered his head.

She looked at him for a moment. In that second, she saw everything she hated in him. Everything that everyone hated in him. This was a man whom so many could have loved, who many did love. But he was a man who was so easy to hate. A striking, chilling realist. A defeatist. A pessimist. Here was a man who had every opporutunity for greatness but relinquished the chance at a moment's notice. All to just sit behind his Canadian pen with his American paper and jot scribbled, menial recollections of a life mispent. Here was a man who knew his own problems and did nothing to fix him. Here was a man that she had come to love in spite of these problems—something he would have never thought possible—only to lose her with his own stubbornness. Here was a man who had it all and lost it, without knowing he ever had it to begin with. Here was a man, alone.

As he looked up to face her, she was already gone. He was holding her napkin.

It was 10:30 PM pacific standard time. In a quaint theater dubbed the Orpheum in downtown Los Angeles, I stood: feet stuck to the floor, back hunched as I leaned on the chairback in front of me. A dull roar was all I heard. To the left of me, my editor and another writer from Kotaku. To the right of me and behind me, throngs of screaming fans barely audible over my own contemplation. And, before my eyes, The Who. For a moment, I stared blankly into the scenery that surrounded me before finally letting out what amounted to a brief "huh." I was watching a Who concert in an elite crowd of less than 2,000 people in downtown Los Angeles in the middle of my 23rd summer. On the stage, a band of legendary proprotions. Around me, the important bits of an entire industry. Huh.

This year's trip to E3 was interesting. I use the word "interesting" to define it because it was in some ways unprecedented and in other ways completely routine. As we stood in that concert, or the party prior to it talking to our peers at competing outlets who, at one point or another, were only an ASCII string representing a name and a modest 64 squared pixel display picture, it dawned on me that what I'm doing with my life right now is strange. Five years ago, the future of this suburban Canadian boy would have been one born and bred for a life of a lonely lower-middle class existence in a ho-hum job, taking care of my parents before they and then I die. And that boy would have been content, so long as he could have fueled the temproary illusion of happines born by capitalism with menial toy purchases. Now, the same boy was in a whole different world with a whole different person, living it up like a playboy industry-going hipster in a posh Los Angeles theater, getting paid to fuel a life of perpetual menial toy purchases. I suppose that's a turn for the better.

How's that for poetry? Hah, not very good, I know. My head is swimming with left-over remnants of the trip, stories that I still have to write, and all of the catch-up school work that I'm doing now for this last week of summer classes. All told, the trip went well. We got good coverage and we got there and back safe. Genuine surprises were coupled with disappointing no-shows to render the whole event a kind of neutral. But the non-show related things—the Rock Band part and the ridiculous hotel with a suite across from Peter Molyneux—were great. So, poetic reflection aside, it was a good show. These trips are strating to get easier and easier, even if the cost of this one happened to jump up by an order of magnitude. Such is the growing pains of a new system.

A couple of funny things happened while I was in LA, though, that I found amusing; things that I wouldn't have had a chance to share in any other format. First of all, I find it hilarious that I actually remember parts of LA. There were a few distinct parts of town where I knew my whereabouts from the last trip—especially with regard to LAX, which I managed to best from cab to counter in about five minutes. That's gotta be some kind of LAX record. Second of all, it turns out that Spencer from Siliconera is like our tag-team partner at these events: we always seem to bump into him and he always has some good stuff to say. Third, even with only two people, we put out a shit ton of coverage and hit pretty much everything: that's something a lot of our competitors just can't match. With a bigger team and better equipment next year, we're going to dominate the floor. Fourth, the Who promotors took our coverage of the event and used it on the band's official website. It also turns out I'm a much better video game player than I thought: enough multiplayer sessions with other writers ended with I the victor. I only wish I could have camped the Street Fighter IV booth to fell more foes. And, lastly, the second I move to the US I'm getting an iPhone with that unlimited $80 a month plan. No question. On-to-go Twitterific and iPhone games are a necessity.

Alas, now begins the waiting game. As much as I appreciate and truly enjoy the chance to get hands on with the toys I want for the end of the year, now comes the brutal waiting period wherein I feel as though everything should already be released. Seeing products with such polish at early stages of development really creates an inaccurate picture of how far a long a given product is: these are demos specifically created, like the rhetoric of a great speaker, to beguile and trick the recepient into seeing a perfected product. This hurt a lot more this year than it did last year, because there were generally many more games this year that I'm really looking forward to. Last year, Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, and Assasin's Creed were the big three: everything else was somewhat inconsequential. Sadly, those three actually got ecplipsed by the likes of Uncharted and Call of Duty 4 when push came to shove in the holiday season. This year, though, the list is far longer: Street Fighter 4, Too Human, EndWar, Resistance 2, Fable 2, Facebreaker, Chrono Trigger DS, Rag Doll Kung Fu, Castle Crashers, SOCOM Confrontation, Resistance PSP, Left 4 Dead, and countless more will demand my play-time later this year.

You know, looking back on how I thought this summer was going to pan out, I really didn't expect things to happen the way they did. Between this trip, which was such a weird mishmash of good and band, and the whole social Sauga situation, which has also been good and bad in different ways, it's a wonder how I can still try to predict the outcome of my life. I always find myself so certain of the way things are going to turn out that I often forget to reevaluate how they actually did turn out after they do. Sorry if that doesn't make any sense in writing, but it does in my head. My blogging skills aren't what they used to be.

Anyway, back to normal. With this trip done (pics are up on Facebook and on flickr, by the way), the summer is now coming to an end. My last week of school is upon me, after which I have two weeks to study up for my two exams. With that done, I'll be gearing up for the trip to Seattle and then the return to school in September. If all goes well, this summer should end smoothly. Hopefully it turns out like that. The way things have been going, though, it's hard to know what to expect.

Quick update. Here's a weird and pathetic thing that happened today. I saw a post about some celebrity getting harassed by LAX security and it made me worry that something bad was going to go down on my way out of LAX on Thursday night next week. Yup, I'm actually worried about it. How sad is that? Chalk that up to relative inexperience with travel, despite the fact that I've done some serious flying in the last year or so.

We fly out on Sunday night—my flight is at 4 PM, so I'll be leaving Mississauga around 1. My mom refuses to drive to the airport, so she's going to drop me off at the private airport where my dad works and he's going to cart me over. It's a pretty shambles operation. I'm more concerned about her driving home alone through Burnathrope and that ridiculous path than I would be about her taking the 427 and the QEW. I'm pretty anxious to get to LA; flying still makes me anxious, even though I consider myself an excellent flyer. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Most of this anxiety is born from Christmas-like excitement. No matter how battle-hardneded I get, there's still a part of me that's giddy about the trip. I suppose that's a good thing.

In other news, Magic, Russel, and I went out to the Cue the other day for a random adventure and managed to throw down a cool bill and a bit for some food, drinks, and pool. It was a rare occasion: social outings have diminished since The Happening, and it seems from Russel's account that Magic and I aren't alone in our ostracization—thus, it really isn't an ostracization anymore. This tickles me so. I'm glad to see other people around here have finally woken up and realized how stupid the whole situation was. Aside from that, I'm actually looking forward to coming home: I'm going to see a Blue Jays game with Marion two weeks after I get back, which should be a nice segue past my DE exams and into the PAX trip in late August before my final school semester.

Anyway, that's all for now. I've got to hit COD with Magic and relax. By the way, turning the volume down a bit and overlaying Chopin makes for an intense experience. Tomorrow I pack and study and then on Sunday I'm out of here. Next time I check in it'll be post-E3. Wish me luck.

PS: after years of my previous blueprint of dreamgirl from first year, I've now found a new Frank Caron girlfriend blueprint. The red-headed lead singer of Paramore in the video for Pressure. Please consult this YouTube video. I'm also currently obsessed with Katy Perry, but that's a different issue altogether.

After putting it off for so long, I've finally gone through and cleaned up the site, updated my archives, and done a pretty simple redesign. You'll notice that the site itself is incredibly simple right now. It's going to stay like that for at least a little while. In an attempt to get myself back into the Flash game, I'm going to start working on some Flash stuff more and HTML/CSS/AJAX stuff less: I think it'll be better for me to return to my Flash ways, as that's where I always had more interest. Right now the current header is more a placeholder ripped from a past version of Flog more than anything else. I'm still trying to come up with something more interesting. I have some ideas, though, so keep your eyes out for something interesting in the future.

I will say this, though. One thing I'm fascinated by at the moment is the use of layers and Flash together. One thing I've never been a big fan of is doing Flash-only web pages. I've never liked feeding too much text directly into a Flash file. The native handling for HTML and whatnot just isn't there. What I'm trying to do is devise tricks that will seamlessly blend HTML and Flash together. The principles are derived from the prominent Flash pop-up ads which clutter tons of pages now. These were designed to get around pesky pop-up blockers while adding more dynamic elements to a page that are not just eye-catching but literally unavoidable. I've done one such test on the current header. If you click the button far on the left, my old mascot will come from behind the nav and do a little dance. What's interesting about this is that the Flash file is actually above the HTML (so the rollover icon can hang down over the text) but with some clever CSS and masking, I can move elements above and below the CSS z-indexed layers at will. This is what I want to play with more, in the hopes of creating a seamless HTML-Flash fusion.

Other than that, not a whole lot is going on. We've got oruselves set up for the big trip in two weeks now, so really its just a matter of time before I get the first big trip of the summer out of the way. Our schedule is obscene: it's packed to the rim with some great stuff, and I'm genuinely excited to see some of the new games. On the top of my hit list is SOCOM: Confrontation, LittleBigPlanet, Harmonix's new game, UFC Undisputed 2009, and Fable 2. Hopefully this year's show will net even more hands on time than we had last year, but our schedule is so packed. I hope there's time for everything—especially considering the nuisance of a French test I have to do in LA on Tuesday.

Anyway, that's all I've got to say today. Quick update with regards to the website, work and school rolling along nicely. The summer will be over soon enough.

In an attempt to further Web 2.0 myself, I've hopped on Twitter. The simple networking service allows users to leave small 140 character max status updates that can be sent in via email, over SMS, or through the web. It's a neat little thing that much of the tech-savvy Americans and especially Californians are doing these days. In principle, it's a waste of time, but I like being able to snap a pic with my cellphone and have it online instantly. That gives my phone some additional value.

Sadly, now I spend my days following and being followed by other Twitters, carefully watching my follower count and trying to enrapture an audience. Of course, given my relatively obscurity and Canadian identity, this is proving futile. I kid, I'm not really paying attention to it. I'm having more fun trying to find new ways to access it. Right now I'm try to see if I can work something out in PHP that will send updates from my Xbox 360 voice feed directly to my Twitter.

In other news, long time egomaniac and captain of hypocrisy claimed the title of biggest bitch in the west today; that is to say, he's no longer speaking to me because I called out his "center of the universe" mentality that everyone else seems to be too afraid to say. Now that I'm public enemy number two, after the Polish Prince, he's happily returning to his unfulfilling life of basement-dwelling pot-partying, SB loveathons, underage skirt-chasing, unemployed ways. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours. High-school friendships are falling apart as professional interest and general growing-up are clashing with immaturity and a refusal to enter the real world, but thankfully it should be well behind me in just a few short months as I head to either Chicago or Toronto. Who knew that Nathan would wind up being the benchmark to follow.

With E3 on the horizon and school still lingering on, the summer has hit its mid-point with little fanfare. My excitement for travelling has been dulled quite a bit by some corporate struggles which have net us with unsolidified plans dangerously close to the show. I'm also apparently losing my touch, or so the commentors say. At times, I almost want to agree with them: I'm playing too many ports these days and it may be affecting my judgement. I never figured it possible to OD on games, but with all these tight deadlines, programming work on the side, grandparents on deathbeds, familial financial responsibility pep-talks, school, and tribulations on the social front at home, the days when I used to retire for an evening of fun gaming have drawn few.

Such is my life. Even in happiness, I'm miserable.

Today was a fantastic day. I'm incredibly tired, but I will attempt a lethargic retelling of what's going on. Things are going so well at the moment that I'm wary of what evil may be lurking in wait just waiting for the most inopportune moment to strike. Nevertheless, I'm soldiering foward happily. E3 plans are coming to fruition nicely as the schedule works itself out to a tee. School work is going swimmingly. Health is relatively good. All is pretty much well.

Magic and I had an adventure to downtown Toronto today in light of a last-second Microsoft Canada event. We quickly scooted to the city clad in fancy garb, whereupon we undertook a "Babe, Pig in the City" calibur adventure. It was a rare treat; one that I'm hoping will happen again soon. After a short train ride, a shorter subway ride, a Gihan cameo, and a long and sweaty streetcar pilgramage, we found ourselves in what can only be considered computer gaming Mecca. Over a dozen classic computers and games were on display at this "Evolution of Computer Gaming" event. We took a few pictures and got some good hands on time with a few things before succumbing to the MucMusic camera lights and ducking out. We then proceeded to get lost downtowon for a while before heading over to Shoppsy's for a cool drink.

Adding to the random adventure, I bumped into an old high-school friend while we were there. I used to have a crush on this girl, so it was good to see that she was doing well for herself—across the board. As I would later discuss with Magic, I tend to have a problem making awkward conversations with these "reunion" meetings. For a guy who talks and writes all day, and spends a considerable amount of time contemplating language, I sure can blubber out some idiocy when unprepared. Not helping matters was my realization that I'm beginning to grow tired of having to say that I'm still not done school. For all its benefits, co-op hurts in the long run. But, nevertheless, a reunion-like experience where I for once actually cared to maintain rather than burn a former bridge. That's a rarity when it comes to the typically aging and obsolete bridges built in Mississauga.

We ended up catching the train back just a while ago before returning home and pumping out some writing. I'm exhausted; I'm sure you can tell by the writing. But, I figured it was time for a positive post on this otherwise-dormant blog. So consider this the one obligatory postive post while things go well. You can be sure when this streak ceases I'll be back to true flogging form. For now, though, sleep. After all, an old Chinese proverb says "Wake note the sleeping lion."

So after a failed attempt at trying to suss out a good place to swim this summer, I decided that I would return to another old endeavor for my summer exercise. On Thursday of last week, I went out and hunted down a pair of size 12.5 rollerblades. My new babies, a nice pair of Rollerblade Lightening 7.0 2008, are the new treasure of my daily routine.

It's been quite a while since I've owned a pair of rollerblades, and as such I've been a little out of touch with what the standards are for blades these days. Compared to what I used to have, the Lightening's are a high-tech wonderland. Double velcro straps and a high ankle ski-buckle with ratchet tightening make the laces all but unnecessary. Getting the boots on tightely and comfortably is trivial now, which is a welcome change from the twenty minutes of tightening and adjusting I used to have to do in the old days.

With new blades afoot, as it were, I've now begun to integrate a good daily bout of skating into the routine. I have an old right-handed hockey stick and a tennis ball that I've been using as "entertainment" aids, but just the pure joy of skating has been motivation enough thus far. I forgot what it's like to skate. There's something so serene about gliding gently and swiftly across suburban ice. It's intoxicating. Now I just have to get my confidence back; it's been tentative going so far.

It doesn't matter how hard I try. It doesn't matter how good I feel. It doesn't matter how good things have been going. There's just nothing I can do to win my desires. It's a weird situation, to be sure. I feel as though I have a firm hold on financial survival and marketable skills—the more important part about surviving in this age. But whatever security I acquire, the comfort gained is lost in sport. As a hunter, I fail.

Prior to today, things were on a roll. I'd gotten paid and cleared my Visa, accrued enough coin to cover my final semester, acquired and beaten Metal Gear Solid 4, made some money and spent time with my ailing mother at a garage sale: things were going swimmingly. Of course, as is the usual, all of that was lost in a night on the town, as shallow and hollow jokes. Picking up the tab hurt in retrospect but was done so willingly. Yet even with this and my various personas, I felt disappointed with the night's performance. That's all it really is, after all: a performance. I long for the days when I'll be free from this facade with someone, I really do.

Russel wanted a partner to join him at Xcel Fitness. I saw some pretty bad stuff when I checked out the place on Red Flag Deals. But really, I want to take him up on the offer. Russel would actually go everyday, and he'd be a good partner to have. Whether or not that would solve my problems is hard to say. But I'm running out of ideas, and avenues for fake happiness.

So, for a moment, let's return to the flog postings of yore, when I routinely had readers and recieved countless emails from school mates and school officials alike. It's time for a drawn out Frank® diatribe. Let me begin by saying that I long for the days when I'll actually be able to go out to a bar and have someone else pick up the tab for once. I really do. My plans for tonight have been foiled by the fact that this almost never happens. Well that and the fact that Mississauga times are a sad state of affairs. I'd say I wish I could go back to Waterloo now, but that'd be a lie as it's hardly any better there.

Allow me to explain. There's currently a touch of turmoil amongst my core group of Mississauga friends. After a trip to Waterloo to see Andy, Magic and Eric have had a falling out. The story, as far as I understand, goes as follows. The three of them were all drunk and stoned out of their minds, as per usual—it wouldn't be a Saturday night without the former or a regular day without the latter. Magic freaked out on them in a drug-booze trip and punched Andy's little brother, after which he was exiled.

As a result, the two aren't on level ground. One is now in reform: he's quit drinking and smoking, cleaned up his act, and is gearing up to go back to school—or so he says. It's a routine we've heard many times before, and usually ends up being a false prophecy once a joint is passed around. And the other returns to what he was doing prior to my getting home when Magic wasn't around: smoking up in his basement, going out with his mom, racking up speeding tickets, taking handouts, and hanging out with Scott Brydon. Neither one of them is in good shape, and maybe they'd be better off going their seperate ways. Whatever happens, though, the present situation is a difficult one. Now going out is a pain, as the whole group can never conviene. Magic never wants to dress up to go anywhere, and Eric always has his new trusty sidekick—our friend's little annoying brother and reputable pot-head and drop-out himself—Scott.

Tonight's plans involved a trip to Shore 71, an up-scale lounge in Port Credit that I adore. The problem with the place for them is that it is up-scale. Eric likes it, but only because some girl from his school works there that he thinks he has a chance with but quite clearly doesn't. No one knows better than I that a waitress isn't flirting with you. Her black boyfriend made it abundantly clear, too. Worse yet, he wanted to bring Scott with him. Uh, no thanks. And of course Magic had no interest because it involved him wearing something besides sweat pants. The night was thusly ruined. There was no way I was going to pay for the luxury, literally, of enjoying the precense of Eric and Scott at a high-class place. I'm already fat. How much more social hinderance do I need?

To be honest, though, I wasn't really looking forward to it anyway—the reason for which brings us to today's main rant: I always pay. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mind taking the bill: I've done it countless times already since I got back from school at the end of April. The fact of the matter is that, thanks to my hard work, I'm better off than a lot of my friends. I've got steady work, lots of prospects once school finishes, and a relatively unlavish lifestyle. But the problem is that when my paying becomes a regular, and expected, occurance, I start to take a noticeable hit to the wallet: one that Eric seems to think will rectify itself in the end, but his practice of giving me a $20 "donation" as "squaring us away" on $70-$200 bills is the finest form of shennanigans.

Anyway, so yea. That's why tonight ended up being shit. My friends in Mississauga have stagnated in their pot-smoking ways and I've ended up on a different page. You know, the page where you actually try to grow up and be a man. It's funny. There's been one tangetal side effect to this whole debacle. I'm quickly learning that my long-lost love for a random spot of Mary Jane has been extinguished. Watching the worlds of those around me so fond of the green gold crumble into pieces is a better anti-drug commercial than anything the government or MADD could come up with. I've watched on as my Mississauga friends degrade into the kind of bottom-feeders fit for those commercials. They don't work. They don't go to school. They don't go out. They smoke, they complain, and they leech. Freeloaders, living in the lap of Lorne Park luxury.

Stranger still is that, wherever I go, I seem to find the same. Some of my other friends have slowly revealed themselves to be the same calibur of human, running drug dealing operations out of their houses so that they need not worry about playing games all day. It makes me feel guilty on two fronts: one that I continue to grind away on these useless and frivelous (though financially-responsible) time-sinks and two that I continue to run with similar and uninspired crowds. They laughed at me when I said I wanted to see a play or go to a jazz club. "Why go there when we could just go to the strip club? There's no tits at the jazz club, fag." When did I fall asleep and wake up in 1974 Small Town U.S.A., devoid of "high culture"?

And it's not even something I can escape at home, as my brother struggles through university without any consideration for the fact that his dope-head ways and exhibitionist enterprises on Facebook may hinder his chances of teaching later. No, he's too wrapped up in the "I'm an artist" regalia; caught up in conditional camradarie and frought with fleeting friendships. Worse yet, he's a scene kid now, reciting meaningless lyrics to the tune of an acoustic guitar, drinking the liberal-hippie bongwater handed down to him by his history professors as they grind away at their infinitely dull axes as a bitter-sweet pub swill. "More ale, wench," he mutters to barista, barkeep, and book-keep alike.

But, alas, who am I to judge? Maybe I'm just jealous. After all, I'm just another angry aged and again young man lost in his mind. Somewhere along the line I became introspective, self-obsessed, and jaded. That's about the only prestige I walk away with as I near the end of my education. And my aunt suggests that I forgo my intention to pass on convocation! Hah! It will make your father proud. How convienent that should happen only now, 25 years later. What of all the other hollow accomplishments? What happiness will that bring me but a standing ovation for wasted time, spoiled life, and dollars sent asunder into the fires of the education industry—the one industry where employees don't get paid, but pay. 20135651 is my name, the cliché goes. But how true it is. And the greatest irony of all is that the only time it all melts away is when I'm working. How's that for a capitalist social system at its finest? The rest of the time I spend frittering away at this or that, be it out in the social scene spending time and money or in some other pointless physical enterprise spending time and money, all the while I'm stuck in my anti-social mind.

You know, I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about religion. Whether as a result of all the religious diatribe I've been reading for my religious studies class on "Evil" thus far this semester or the dying faith of a cancerous president battling her simultaneous hate and need for her counter-religious adversary in the final season of Battlestar Galactica, the fact of the matter is that I've been brewing quite a bit on faith recently.

Why is the quest for money not a good way to spend one's life? Why is it that the spiritual world and the economic one are so mutually exclusive? Why is it a "waste" for me to spend this life trying to enjoy the most comfortable one I can? I never understood this. In one of my lectures, there's a quote that says "Total belief in any human institution is wrong." It's easy to see why the quote is spot-on. Be it religion, the economy, your company, your family, whatever, having total and utter belief makes you a tool of the system rather than a thoughtful and intelligent human being. To best understand this life, we need to appreciate everything about it: the good, the bad, the saint, and the sinner. To get the most out of life, we should play ever role. Doesn't that make sense? To claim that striving for financial independance is a fruitless endeavour makes no sense to me, and I'm not aestheist. Why would anyone willingly subject themself to a subpar life?

As an aspiring yuppie, money is my life-blood right now. My goal is to build a comfortable life for myself. My Darwinian instinct combined with my (however limited) life experience tells me that's the goal I should strive for. Once I've done that, subsequent goals—taking care of my parents and my loafter brother, seeking a mate and procreating (God I love the coldness of those terms), and so forth—will fall into place. But to a hardcore Christian, I'm a sinner: providing for my eventual family and living my life the best way I can is wrong. What kind of fucked up belief system doesn't evolve and take into account the reality of the environment?

I suppose that's why Creationism, and thus Christianity, Judaism, and the other white, power-based religions seems so stupid to me. I want to say that, if anything, I'm an Interventionalist. I believe that somewhere along the lines, something interviened with this planet to make it as fruitful as it is. Do I believe that only because science has yet to illuminate the few things that we don't know? Yea, probably. If science finds us another planet like ours, I'll throw my interventionalist belief out the window. I suppose the only reason I even believe at all is a by-product of being indoctrinated by catholic elementary school and by baby-boomer parents who didn't have the access to science and the world-view that I somehow adopted. Really, to look at any western religion and not see a system of control first and faith second if at all boggles my mind. How could people be so naive, so blind? America mocks the Jihad-delivering mongerers to the East for their ridiculously out-of-touch world views and extremist positions, but then subtely succumbs to a more traditional Christian power structure and faith driven plot just as siinister.

But I don't want to play Michael Moore or some other crazy left-wing bullshit. I'm politically agnostic, and an invidiualist by cultural poisoning. Give me the leader that best helps me and fuck the rest, as the unspoken motto goes. If there's a reason for me going to hell, though, it should be that I've killed or robbed or raped. Not because I'm just trying to survive. Life is about survival; not from death, which in inevitable, but to best use what life we have. And in this world I live in, this Western bubble, survival is fiscal and fiscal alone. I'm merely trying to adapt to my climate. Is that so wrong?

Phew. That was quite the stream of consciousness. I haven't reread it, but hey, who cares? It wouldn't be the flog of old if I didn't just write whatever and publish it. Oh, and I need new friends. It wouldn't be a return to the flog of old without mentioning that. Anyway, that's all I've got to vent about for now. I don't imagine another one of these coming for a while, so hit the archives if you need more ridiculous bullshit from some guy on the internet. And if you know me, well then you probably already bitched at me for this a long time before you ever hit this paragrah.

You know, I mentioned in passing when I got my new computer that I was returning to catch up on some PC gaming. I've got to say that, while I've been enjoying Mass Effect, Crysis, Company of Heroes, and Age of Conan, I'm really liking Steam more than the rest. I got myself set up with a pro-star Steam profile. It has all the functionality of the Xbox 360 that originally attracted me to the platform—integrated voice chat and messaging, friends lists, profile information, personalization options, a robust invite system, and even achievements—but in a way that's infinitely more usable. That's probably most due to the PC's input devices, but I just like the way Steam works. It's come a long way since the mandatory nuisance of yesteryore.

As a result of my new love for Steam, I've been playing a shit ton of games on Steam. Day of Defeat: Source was obviously my first pick, followed by Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2. TF2 is great, but CS:S has surprised me: this new breed of game mode called Deathmatch turns the game into a Quake-like shooter. It's actually a lot of fun. I've also begun delving into other titles I missed the first time thanks to Steam's excellent roster of titles. I picked up Beyond Good and Evil and I've been playing through that as well. It looks incredible on the PC for a game that's so old.

So, in short, I've been playing a shit-load of stuff. It's just so ironic that all of this is happening a week before the release of a game I've been waiting for some five years now. Oh Metal Gear Solid 4. Please to God let my PS3 be fixed and back up and running before June 12.

I turned down an invitation to a party tonight because of realism. I believe myself to be, by nature, a realist. I look at a situation, judge it realistically, and make a call based on that judgement. As far as I'm concerned, there are only three types of people in the world: optimistis, pessimists, and realists—of which I am the latter. Regardless of faith, belief, upbringing, heritage, or what have you, everyone falls into one of these three categories. To an optimist, a realist is often confused with a pessimist. This is where our story starts tonight.

Forgive the vague attributions. Two of my friends, both what I would consider optimists, were headed to a party tonight. In a sense, the details are irrelevant but I'll list them for the sake of filling out the story. Mutual friends of my friend and my friend's little brother were throwing a "party." Really, it was just a small get-together. My other friend was going with my friend and my friend's brother to the party. At that party were two things: one, a target girl for Friend A, and two, random skanks to fulfill the sexual desires of Friend B. At this party, there was nothing for me. As a realist, I'm aware of my own defiiciences and I knew from the outset that the only thing that I would be net from this situation, which clearly had goals for Friend A and Friend B, was uncomfortable idleness. As a result, I decided to go. Upon stating my decision to A and B, I was heckled for being a pessimist when, clearly, I was simply taking into account a rather natural and acceptable deficiency; in other words, I was being realistic.

Though I've had my fair share of encounters over the years, I've come to realize my own issues. I accept them and, to a certain and obviously ineffective extent, I deal with them. However, realizing and deciding not to act upon actions which contradict this deficiency is not pessism. It should be readily evident that this is an act of realism. I'm not shooting down the possibility of success. I'm acknowledging that there is no possibility. That's a realistic realization in my mind. Am I wrong?

I hate to wax ambiguous but I've no choice at the moment. We just finished having some drinks with an old friend from high school who's come up through McMaster University and is obviously taking a very different view of things. I've come to realize that my university experience was not prototypical in the slighest. If anything, my experience was the exception to the rule: I've walked away from university with a distinct pessimism about reality. I've no faith in the institition, nor any respect for it. Should I actually finish my degree as expected this fall and proceed to pursue writing as a profession, I will have committed a cous de tas on my education in its entirety. It will have proven a useless waste of $40,000—much to my parents dismay. Pessimism. I used the word. I guess that makes me a hypocrite. It's just so weird to see those around me—those like Anthony, Andy, Gihan, and more who walk forward with such unbridled optimism and idealism and hope—not suffering from the same dillemas that plague me every day. I feel as though I've for some reason come out of school with more problems than anyone: my time at Waterloo was not cathartic or productive or enjoyable. If these were supposed to be the best years of my life, I might as well relinquish any hope for actual happiness now. What did I do so wrong, I wonder.

And yet, I know the answer. I wasn't built for this. And I didn't have the will to fix my contrustion. If this is supposed to be survival of the fittest, I'm already extinct.

I've finally built my first-ever, long-awaited gaming rig. That's where I've been these last few days. After pricing all the pieces, doing some research, annoying my PC gaming friends, and generally learning a lot, I've built from scratch a pretty baddass rig. It scores a 5.4/5.9 on the current Windows Experience thing, meaning it's pretty well-built. And I did it all on a pretty decent budget too. I grabbed Davi from Waterloo, we scooted across the GTA to a few different places, and I came home with about $800 worth of new parts. All-in-all, I'm pretty happy. This will fill the PS3 void nicely as I'm now pimping some Age of Conan, TF2, and, soon, Company of Heroes and Crysis. It took a shit ton of time to get all my programs and stuff back in working order, but it looks to have been worth it. Now to catch up on some PC gaming.

This post is depressing. Back in the day, I used to write a lot of depressing posts: perhaps they weren't depressing to their readers, but they certainely were to their writer. However, this post is depressing for all the wrong reasons. Tonight, after almost a year of faithful service and over a year after it was manufactured, my 60 GB PlayStation 3 has died. It died as it lived: freezing during a game of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Over the past year, I've gone from a staunch Xbox 360 player to a revived Sony diehard. My PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable have easily sapped the most of my time despite the prescence of a DS, a Wii, and an Xbox 360 to compete with them. After going through five Xbox 360s, my PS3 had become my sanctuary from defect: it was a tall, ugly, but ever-vigilent console that I played with daily. Alas, it's died now, and I have to spend tomorrow juggling work, school, and an inevitable trip to EB wherein I'm probably not going to get either a new unit or a replacement 60 GB. And, of course, this all happens two days before the release of Haze, one of my most anticipated PS3-exclusive games. Good thing tomorrow is a holiday, so I'm doubly-screwed. What makes me most bitter about this whole thing is that gaming is supposed to be my getaway. Even with work now heavily influencing the once-hobby, curling up with a good game and escaping is still pivotal to my survival. To have that taken away—especially now, at a time when I think I need it most—is extremely depressing.

The other big problem that's going to crop up now is the same one that I have with my Xbox 360. I've lost trust in the PlayStation 3. It's no longer invincible: it is now mortal, like its competition. Whenever I'm playing a game and it freezes, whenever I find myself deep in an RPG dungeon long from a save point, I'm going to have that inner pain, that inner anxiety, that never quite knows when the system is going to break. It could be the day after I get it, it could be the day after that, it could be during a period where I'm trying to use it for work. I've now lost my peace-of-mind when playing the PS3.

All that's left now is the inevitable death of my Wii. It's not a question of if, but when.

So here's an interesting story. On Friday, Techcrunch reported that Ars Technica was purchased by Conde Nast, a major publishing house host to publications like The New Yorker, Wired, and more. Ars Technica will become a part of the Wired Digital network, putting it next to its popular contemproary Wired. The deal is estimated to be worth about $25 million, and all former staff will be staying on board in the transition.

Nothing official has been announced by the site, and I don't know anything other than what Techcrunch has reported. I've been working for Ars for over a year now. I love my job. I genuinely like the people that I work with; I greatly appreciate the excellent editing staff who helps me refine my writing. For something that I had, at one point, seen as a only good side-gig to make some money during school's waning years, the Ars gig has become something I wish I could continue to do indefinitely. And with school coming to an end this year, the potential is there for me to work my way into a position I didn't forsee as a possibility. Hopefully such an opportunity presents itself.

Should I manage to land a full-time job with Ars, I've been debating if it's worth moving to Chicago. Since I first left Mississauga for Waterloo, I've been under the impression that a move to the States is almost inevitable. I'm not really sure why. As a country, Canada is a better place to live—something that my parents, my schooling, and my culture have instilled into me more resolutely than whatever faith I was meant to maintain. But I've just always assumed that, come graduation, I would be packing up my consoles and my monitors and moving south.

A good chunk of the Ars staff lives in Chicago; that's the reason why said city would be a choice locale to move to, as I wouldn't end up completely stranded in a foreign country alone. However, there are other American cities that I've considered. Despite the obvious handicap of me not being a completely superficial or generally pretty individual, Los Angeles or San Francisco have also been tempting choices, if only because the majority of North American PR and media-related outlets operate there. That would make getting better coverage, more direct access to important people, and better relationships with companies a breeze. Lastly, New York has always been a tempting destination. Despite all the terrible things I've heard about the city being overpriced and stuffed to the rafters with detestability, there's something inescapably attractive about it. Perhaps its the Doug Stanhope intro to his "No Refunds" show that got me.

Come January 2009 a decision has to be made. Either I'm going to be working for Ars full-time or I'm going to be returning to the TDSB full-time. Those are the two current choices. The TDSB job is all-but-secured now; I've been holding off in anticipation of graduation to see what ends up happening. Unfortunately, both offers aren't yet on the table awaiting my approval and thus the decision isn't quite as easy to make in advance as it would be were the papers in front of me. If they were, though, I know in a second which I would take.

I was at a party last night; a bit of a high-school reunion at an all-too-familiar house. Like high-school Frank, who is by all accounts long dead, the killer kool-aid flowed, the jokes were rampant, the energy was high, the shennanigans were afoot, and the flirting and nick-name births were marked. It was a strange momentary return to a time long-lost, but not one that I would willingly return to again. I'm perpetually moving forward, always looking for that next big thing, that next big adventure. The only time I really blossom as an individual is when I'm thrust into a new situation, put somewhere new: I only flourish in the unfamiliar, where I quickly make a foothold and prosper. Taking the TDSB job would ensure that, potentailly forever, I wouldn't get a chance for that reset. That restart that I crave; that fresh, untouched page—code or otherwise. I've longed for a new high-school-to-university transition, and Chicago would give me that.

...I'll only be sorry if I can't travel the one.

Ricky Gervais isn't that funny. This dawned upon me the other day when I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV. You see, in the game there are stand-up comedy joints and in these joints you can take a date (or a friend), sit down, and actually watch a five minute routine. There are two comedians in the game, both of which are real, who prepared game-specific bits of their routines to include. Much hubbub was made about the inclusion of Ricky Gervais while almost none was made about the other, and in my opinion far superior, comedian. Gervais jokes (at least in the game) mostly revolve around making fun of cancer patients, making fun of AIDS patients, and making fun of fat people. None of his four or five set variants are at all entertaining, no matter how much the developers tried to make it seem so by adding an animated laugh-track in via the attending crowd.

Now, I have a long history as a comedy conessieur. Whether it be Dave Attell, Patton Oswald, Doug Stanhope, Emo Phillips, or some rootin'-tootin' nobody like Anthony Williams, I give all commedians a fair shake. And to be fair to Gervais, I quite like his shows: well, the American versions anyway. We all know that the American Office is in every way superior to the British one, both in terms of writing and in terms of acting. To you, this may just seem like I don't understand or appreciate the British sense of humour, but that's simply not true. I'm a huge fan of The IT Crowd amongst other shows. Gervais' bits just aren't that funny, regardless of the fact that he tells them as though he were Simon Cowell.

The other included comedian only punctuates this. Katt Williams, who I'd never heard of before unfortunately as I'm not up on my underground black comedians, does a far better job than Gervais and yet recieved almost no accolades. His bits are far more animated, scripted much better, and simply more funny. It's not so much in the style of the comedian as it is in the way that the two obviously worked with the motion-capturing and script-writing teams. It's clearly that Gervais' offering was more of a throw-away effort while Katt Williams put time and care into it—maybe just to brag to his friends, who knows, but in the end I find his bits to be way more enjoyable. I ended up watching a set of his after seeing him in the game and it was a bit of a rerun (the material, that is) but it still proved to be more enjoyable—and not just beacuse of the "n-word" jokes.

One year. One full year has passed since I last wasted my time posting on this blog. One full year. That's quite a long time, in one sense, and a trivial amount in another. I'm not quite sure if coming back is an entirely good idea. The original reason that I stopped blogging was because I'd gotten a job that involved writing and, when combined with the writing for school, by the end of the day I was all written out: I didn't have the energy or, more often, the time to write more. That hasn't changed. I still have school and work. If anything, the two are now far more dominant and demanding than they were a year ago today. And yet, I've found the drive to come and post here simply because life has returned to its old ways: I don't have a good person to confide in and expel my problems with. People want to give me their problems and I listen, but no one is willing to return the favour. So, with that, the blog has been reopened. I need to vent, and I need to do so in an unedited way. This—echoing my heartfelt sentiment in the empty chambers of the dark space of the internet—is the only constructive way I've found to do it in the last twenty or so years.

Technically, things should be looking up. The summer is beginning. A good, well-run semester is behind me. One last semester prior to graduation awaits. I've got money, I've got the material desires that I want, I've got pretty much everything I could want. However, not all is well. One thing I don't have is, as you may expect, a stranglehold on my old turf. This semester, the first truly at home since I left for school, is a unique one. Typically, when I came home for co-op jobs, I wouldn't really spend that much time with my old friends. I'd be gone for 12 hours every week day, and by the time I got home it was time to go to sleep more or less. The weekends were usually spent catching up on TV, movies, games, and other personal jobs that I couldn't do during the week. It's a tiring, but financially prosperous, way of life. Now I come home for the first time in ages with plenty of free time. My job only demands the first half of the day and is undertaken in the comfort of my own home: with a little more pay and full-time status, I have my dream job—or at least one of them. And in my autumn years of university, my courses have become an exercise in unconscious automation. I don't even really think about the courses or study: I just kick into gear and hand stuff in on time automagically. Thus, by all accounts, this should have been the recipe for a fantastic summer. One would have thought, anyway. Less than a month into my four month return-to-home "test case," I find myself completely disgusted with the future that I'm moving to permanently in December. Frankly, I'm scared. If this is what I have to look forward to, I think I'm going to have to move to Toronto.

The problem, of course, is that I've resumed "full-time" hang out status with my old high-school friends. Having spent the last four years entrapped by a mixture of the university elite, the university bottom-dwellers, and everything in between, I come home to find that my old friends have not changed at all. A good thing to some, I'm sure you say, but a bad thing for me. My friends are the typical home-town breed: none of them went to school, few of them graduated college, and even fewer of them have any sort of potential for the future. Their past times consist of fucking 16 year old girls, smoking weed in their parents' houses, and long walks on the beach. They are a cancer, and I a Capricorn. When I meet new people, I often get a remark along the lines of "how did you ever come to be friends with these people? They're nothing like you." It's true, and I ask myself the same question, always. In one sense, I'd probably more readily identify myself as a potential loner: the people I gravitate around are few in number, and are usually those who can sustain some type of contributive conversation. The "I" generation, with subtle hints of Americana, is exactly the kind of person I try to steer away from and yet I continously end up in their good graces—first at home with a good friend and at school with a better one. Perhaps it's because I have an uncanny ability to humor people and take interest in that which, in reality, doesn't interest me. That's part of what being a good social being is: you listen to other people and respond to what they say. Perhaps what I have to say is simply too uninteresting to listen to, who knows, but I can't help but feel that I'm not being given my fair share of humoring as I sit and listen to endless hours of podcasts and perpetual "here's why the world, Rogers, Microsoft, and so on is dumb except for me." I've found a mirrored person in two differnet people: one at home and one away.

But I digress. The point is that the two previous pillars of my hometown daily routine have both crumbled under the weight of time. One has become an egotistical harbringer of activity who is used to having everyone follow his command and quickly becomes indignant when the great Caesar is questioned and the other has become a sloth-like, ungroomed, festering mass of wasted potential and untimely decay. Were they this way before I left? Probably, but the stagnation over the years has surely amplified their state. As a result, I now find myself less and less likely to put up with the bullshit. Organizing an outing on a beautiful day to the beach has become an exercise in tedium, as for one the plans didn't originate from him and are thusly unacceptable and for the other the day only begins when the clock strikes midnight. When the two finally do unite, it's usually only in the pursuit of one of the three aforementioned Olympic sports. Any derivation from that is simply madness.

The biggest problem is that their tendencies has led to the destruction of some of my non-home related plans. For example, I was recently contacted by a person I'd met during a trip to San Francisco. We chatted quite exuberantly on the way home and I'd felt like we'd hit it off, both socially and potentially in a business sense as well. We ended up staying in contact and I was recently called out for a social gathering in Toronto. Extremely excited, I acted on impulse and informed the home-dwellers. However, as the time leading up to the event passed, I began to think of the potential reprecussions of a trip to a bar where I'm trying to be as likeable and sociable as possible with the lot of Sauga-scrum. I was reminded of the last time I tried to mix the two, at a product launch party for work. My decision became one to regret as I was harassed to overstep my bounds and try to bend the rules for his sake. I was, am, and will forever be embarassed by what I did that night, and I will forever regret making the decision to attend that party with a guest. I ultimately decided to call the recent event off temporarily as a direct nod to that past event. Now I'll have to head out there alone in the coming weeks.

Look, I'm not perfect: far from it. I don't claim to be. I know all of my problems and I know there's little I can do to fix some of them. But by understanding, acknowledging, and working against my problems, I'm capable of functioning in society. I can make new friends. I can go out without the absolute desire to get drunk, fuck some skank, and then going home to get high. I recognize when something isn't conducive to meeting social mores or advancing a business relationship. I think about the reprecussions to certain actions. And, most importantly, I actually care how other people are affected by what I do. That's one of the reasons why I reserve my bitching for specific people or, inevitably, specific mediums. This—blogging—is like punching a pillow. It's medicinal, but doesn't involve directly attacking someone. I've already seen that confronting these pillars of my home-life verbally, in person, is beyond their capabilities. They turtle up. They grow quiet. They take personal offence. They don't stop to think for a second that there may be something wrong. I'm just a douchebag. Yet when someone tells me that I should do X, Y, or Z, I do them.

The end result of all these home-town revelations is that there is now a subtle divide growing. The group was fine with the way things were regardless of how fundamentally flawed the social circle was. They were content because they knew if they rocked the boat at all, they wouldn't be able to find new friends and mount a new social offensive without each other. It's the case of the old married couple with kids: breaking apart would be too damanging to the whole to fix a problem with a part. My decision to forgoe such pathetic grasping has led me to become the outcast as a result, though. Over the last few weeks, I've tried to get them to acknowledge their problems but the result was simply two catty women bitching behind each others back but then reuniting as though nothing were different. Now, with the intention to make plans with the various other people I know and head out for new ones, I find myself in a position that should have been predicted and, to you, will seem obvious: I'm again alone. Plans are abandoned, alliances have been made, bridges burned. Perhaps not overtly, but at least from my perspective that's what's going on behind the scenes. The only recourse now is to return to school, graduate quickly, and then make the move that I've been dreaming of making for a while now. It's time for another fresh start. It's time to emulate the move from high-school to university. It's time for change.

When December comes, I'll have the choice between two jobs—two futures. Within six months of working full time, I plan to move out of my house and into the city—which city will depend on which job I take. Toronto or Chicago. Whatever the case may be, though, it will be a necessary move. I will take my toys, pack my boxes, and leave. It's the suburban dream, close to realization. But, as nice as it is to say, that's quite a ways away. The question now is what to do with my summer. Should I humor these people for the sake of not having to go to Toronto, Brampton, Milton, Georgetown, Rogue Hill, Ottawa, Guelph, and Waterloo just to see people? Should I just enjoy the solitude, exercising outside a few times a day while concentrating on school and work? These are the questions I now ask myself. Judging by a recent good-then-bad date that I had meant to take me away from the Sauga troubles, though, doing the former may just be inviting even more problems.

Such is my life: a blog entry and nothing more. I guess it's good to be home.

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