I managed to get out of jury duty. They picked my name out of a box and called me into line. When brought before the judge I told him that I was a skilled employee at a small business for which March was the busiest time of year. He asked what kind of business it was and I told him that we supplied regulatory compliance services for publicly traded companies. I told we had seven employees. He asked what it was about March that made it busy, and I told him that companies with fiscal year ends for December 31 were required to file annual reports this month.

At this point the rest of the jury candidate behind me (about 30 of them) began to snicker in the manner of "what the hell is this guy talking about?" Fortunately, I figured that a provincial court judge would be aware of the concept of regulatory compliance. We was kind enough to dismiss me, for which I was thankful, because I was told that this trial would last up to 10 days, an absence that I could not afford to take from work.

I have to admit that I felt quite the lump in my throat addressing that judge. Besides the obvious fact that the man in front of me represented justice incarnate, the aesthetics of the room made the judge look like a pontiff sitting on a high throne. The wall behind him a bevelled and sculpted in a way to bend the space of the entire room into him. That's intimidating stuff.

Posted at 12:00 AM

I went through an entire tube of caulk. I was still squeezing the trigger madly and screaming "NOOOOO" in slow motion as it became apparent that I had run out. Then I ran around sealing up cracks in the closet and the ceiling with masking tape. Then I started tightening up trim and panels with nails and screws. Then I went out and bought the second tube of caulk. Iain has already run through the full repertoire of "caulk" jokes.

Unfortunately, it remains evident that somehow, spiders will get into my house. I've seen two small spindly ones since the encounter with the giant one in Iain's bedroom. I failed suck it into oblivion with the vacuum cleaner as I screamed, "Is your spidey sense tingling now, you bastard?!?!" I'm fairly certain I've sealed him up inside the wall he crawled back into. But after making that kind of a statement, he'll inevitably show up somewhere else.

They must have a fleet of spider reconnaissance units. I mean, a house is a huge thing in spider scale. They must have scouts climbing over every inch of this house, looking for ways in, reporting back to the spider queen or whomever: "Good news, your majesty! We've found an entry point in grid 3248 by 7662." What's so great about being in here anyway? It's not like we have any bugs, so there's nothing to eat. If you ask me, they just like pissing us off. That way, they know that they still have some power over humanity. Jerks.

Posted at 12:00 AM

Since people actually read this blog, it's a useful tool for the following: all my greater-Vancouver friends are invited to our new place on this coming Saturday, February 26, for our official housewarming party. BYOB, etc. Call for directions and details.

Posted at 12:00 AM

Andrew managed to recover my post about the concept of anti-genius. I really liked how I managed to articulate my thoughts. It was erased the day I posted it, so I bet most of you missed it. It's pretty funny, if I say so myself. I suggest you have a quick boo.

Posted at 12:00 AM

So I just realized that a lot of people can't see certain images on the site because I store some of them in a directory called "banners" and certain nosy ad-blocking programs automatically prevent images with the word "banner" in their URLs from loading. Let's hear it for stupid software! They day we're successfully able to dumb down computing is the day we'll successfully be able to dumb down quantum mechanics.

Anyway, that's fixed now. So you should all be able to see the bitter valentines day cake on the main page here.

Posted at 12:00 AM

Happy Made-Up Commercial Romance Day!

Posted at 12:00 AM

You may have noticed my hitcounter reset, and a post disappeared. That's because someone hacked our server. They suck. REALLY. More on that later.

Right now, I pose you a question: Have any of you noticed how much doing the right thing inevitably sucks ass? Seriously, that whole "nice guys finish last" saying is dead on. It doesn't just apply to the fact that womanizing jerks get the girl more often than not. Doing the right thing involves painful consequences plenty of the time, and the only reward available at the end of the day is "a good feeling about yourself" or "having done this right thing", the latter of which is merely a description of the type of action you chose to take in the first place. So you're sitting around, probably with less than you started out with, feeling miserable about yourself. But don't worry, you did the right thing, and that is its own reward. Oh, shoot me.

Its trying to guide a friend between two ridiculously painful choices, knowing that encouraging either will inevitably cause them pain, even if it is "the right thing" to do. It's trying to stand up to someone you love when they're doing something in the relationship that's not right, only to have your attempt to resolve a kink in the friendship construed as an undeserved attack. You have to discuss things like adults, though, its "the right thing" to do.

Chris D. once told me I was the most honourable person he knew. A fact which I know he still maintains. It was something I rolled into my identity; occasionally suffering a bit in order to do "the right thing". It's days like this where I wonder if its worth it anymore. Our society isn't based on co-operation anymore, it's a floundering mass of humanity where it's everyone for themselves. These days, "doing the right thing" gets you trampled, and I'm sick of it. Perhaps a change of philosophy is in order.

Perhaps...

Posted at 12:00 AM

Going back to something I mentioned in yesterday's post: I referred to the mad anti-genius of Brannon Braga. This may be confusing to some of you, since the opposite of "genius" would seem to be "idiot". However, I don't think Brannon Braga is an idiot. That would imply someone who drags his knuckles along the ground behind him, occasionally lifting them to scratch his head and pop a dislodged tick into his mouth. It implies someone with little or no grasp of their only spoken language. On the contrary, I think Brannon is a pretty intelligent guy.

A genius, though, is someone who creates extraordinary things. Einstein, Mozart, Picasso, they were geniuses. Steve Jobs is a genius, because everything he touches seems to turn to gold. Someone once said that Steve Jobs could takes his own faeces, put them in a shiny white box, and it would immediately become the greatest product ever created. His very presence spawns great creation. Braga, on the other hand, seems to have the ability to whither everything around him. He comes up with amazingly complex and elaborate ideas to improve the genre of Star Trek which actually do the exact opposite with incredible precision. I think he could organize the paperwork on his office desk in such a way that would somehow cause the entire building to collapse. If Steve Jobs and Brannon Braga bumped into eachother on the street their collision would result in immediate mutual annihilation with a net energy release of E=mc².

As has been said, it takes a lot of effort to destroy a genre that has flourished for so long with a rabid, fanatic level of loyalty from its fans. That kind of precise, yet unintended destruction requires a certain kind of genius. Anti-genius.

Posted at 12:00 AM

It is a cause for celebration, to be sure. The bastard child of Gene Roddenberry's vision and the the mad anti-genius of Brannon Braga is dead. Yes, Star Trek: Enterprise has been cancelled. Surely, you already well know my opinions on the show. It's not that I don't love Star Trek, it's because I love it that I'm happy. I mean, when your dog gets to be old, sometimes its best to put him down. You look at the old fleabag and you can see that he's suffering: every joint arthritic; bowel movements painful and unpredictable; his senility causing him to snap at things that aren't there; no teeth. When it gets to that point, you do the decent, humane thing and have him put down. You don't pump him full of drugs, cybernetically enhance his limbs, or try to figure out ways to make him more dynamic and "X-treme".

Star Trek had a good life, and it will have a solemn burial in the backyard next to the hamsters and Battlestar Galactica. I'll be able to sit back and remember the good times nostalgically, assuming no one digs it up so that they can have their way with the corpse.

Posted at 12:00 AM