Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Les Paul Died today.

ThinFast is leaving for a couple years, and this makes me very sad. She was my favorite work-friend-who-is-a-girl-but-only-in-a-totally-platonic-way-honey-i-swear. I'm sure there is a word for that in German. She refers to me as her "work husband".

Ironman, my brother-from-another-mother, having cast his eyes longingly to the West for many years now, has finally caved, and weighs anchor for that halcyon coast in a little bit. Gone forever. How fucked up is that?

These are the types of events that could make me cry, if I weren't already an emotional cripple. As it is, I’m feeling pretty hard-done-by at the moment.

Wife (whose charity and patience I can never hope to deserve) keeps trying to get me to talk about my feelings.

Which, perversely, is hard to do without making everything somehow worse.

Obélix, recent hauptmann to my obergefreiter, has also been very supportive during these trying times, asking me how I feel, gifting me with desserts, trying to fondle my buttocks, "do [I] need a hug?", etc. Like his fictional namesake, he is enthusiastic, sensitive, fiercely loyal, energetic, and sometimes a bit soup-au-lait. A really good guy, in general, though a little naive. For example, he thinks he’s sneaky. Thinks I don’t know that he reads this blog (hah! piégé, mon ami!).

Obélix has a healthy appetite for good food. He eats the way the rest of us wish we could. So it was almost painful to watch him try to negotiate our communal platters of Ethiopian food last night, when we hit the town for a last hurrah, to wish ThinFast bon voyage (and for God’s sake, a speedy return, please!). Poor guy.

Well, I thought the food was great. After getting our hands dirty at the restaurant, we hit up Pang Pang Karaoke with about ten other people, and all crooned at each other until our throats were raw.

Surprise of the evening: SoftServe, who you’ve never heard of, but who’s been with PerpetualStartup since that ill-advised foray into the sleazy world of Precious Metals Redistribution. This guy has a voice like velvet, drizzled with honey, rolled into a fine cigar, and smoked with 12-year-old port. We were all suitably impressed. Still waters indeed.

Anyways, so that’s basically it. Pretty down in the dumps. But on the up side, Wife is once again knocked-up. That's right, I've been busy manufacturing replacements for all those bastards who are leaving.

Screw you guys!

Also, Directrix will be returning to PerpetualStartup in September (probably), so that'll be another friendly face.

P.S.: It has come to the attention of the editorial board that there has been a recent precipitous decline in the quantity and quality of intellectual content in this blog. So, next time I'll try and give you something educational. We'll start easy, maybe some Cantor Set Theory or something.

Blessed Miscreancy, That Abides No Demarcation

Where am I, you ask? That this call to action should awake me from my slumber and renew the vital juices of my pallid, hunkering muse; this is your wish, is it?

I picture this deviceful anthropomorphism as a sort of shriveled salamander, crouching blind by some bio-luminescent underground lake, awaiting only the siren call of Yog-Sothoth to manifest a magnificent rebirth. No sound penetrates the Stygian darkness. No light falls on these unseeing eyes. It is the long, dark twilight of the soul.

Alright Boxer, you win. I'll blog something, I guess.

But hey, enough about me! How have you been? Google Analytics still periodically deposits a tangy and pungent digital turd in my inbox, so I know someone's reading this stuff. And to you I say: thanks for not giving up.

Here's a run-down of some random stuff that's been going on:

• Brother's completed his transformation and emerged from his Chrysalis a full-fledged American (or landed immigrant, or migrant worker, or something. I can't really get my head around the legal details). The whole family recently trucked off to Jersey for the foreseeable future, which is kind of sad. Son has been clamoring for his cousins ever since.


• Speaking of Son, he's turned Six! It puts me in mind of not-too-long-ago, when Six Years Old was the sort of unofficial demarcation between baby and childhood. Put away childish things, boy. You are of two worlds, now. Not man, not child, but some curious alloy, and subject to all the many challenges, and not very many of the rewards, of both your constituent metals. Here are some pictures of Brother and I, at a similarly tender age.


• That ridiculous Gold Buying thing is over and done with, but I'm not really allowed to talk about it.


• ThinFast has announced her departure from PerpetualStartup for the sunny shores of (ugh) Toronto. Her reasons are her own, but we are all very sad to see her go.


• Many other interesting things happened, but their respective statutes of limitations have expired, so I will light on them but briefly: IronMan and Goldylocks had a beautiful baby boy. The family and I visited The Boxer's farm and milked the chickens (turns out Son has a little crush on BigKid. His eyes still light up whenever I mention her!). Winter finally ended, and the rainy season began, with no end in sight. We've pulled Son out of his English/French/Greek school in favor of one that won't cause him heart palpitations every time we mention it.

...Meh, and that's about it for now. But wait! Big things coming.

Big, HUGE things!

Le Bilan

O, for the joys of higher education. Wife stopped by Son's school today to pick up The Report Card, and arrived home in tears after talking with the teachers, who feel he needs to be "evaluated" by an Ergotherapist.

Evaluated? (Visions of hot lights and uncomfortable probes danced in my head.) Ergotherapist? What the hell, they want to make him more ergonomic? Improve his posture? Does he have carpal tunnel syndrome or something?

I took a look at The Report Card, and obviously it was time for a Long Talk. I put on my Serious Face and called Son to the Big Bed. (You can tell I was serious by the copious use of capitalization.)

Gone are the days of grading by percentages, letters, numbers, shapes, happy faces, mysterious odors, or anything resembling your old school rating systems, though our particular school does provide a fairly simple "1 to 4" rating, except for the final grade, which is "Tuna to Chartreuse". So simple, even a parent can understand it.

1 is good, and 4 is bad.

I tried to explain to Son the difference between English, French and Greek, as The Report Card indicated he seems to get them mixed up.

"Think of all the words you know. There are a lot of them. They buzz around in your head like flies. Some of the flies are red, and those are the words you use with Mommy and Daddy. English. Some are Yellow, and those are the words you use with Mme Lianne. French. Some are Blue, and those are the words you use with Yaya. Greek."

Then we tried to think of some "Blue" words, and some "Yellow" words. In the end, I think I just confused him more. I've been a little leery of trying out metaphors on him ever since I explained to him that his conscience was a little voice in his head that always told him right from wrong, and that he should listen to his little voice.

And then he went around telling everyone he heard voices in his head, telling him to do things...

Another thing that caught my eye: Son has missed 13 days of school this semester. I often bust Wife's (figurative) balls about keeping him home from school on the slightest pretext, so it's nice to have actual, shocking statistics to back up my arguments. He missed fully 25% of his school days this semester. I cocked an eyebrow at Wife, but did not belabour the point. Discretion is the better part of continued survival, after all.

I don't think I missed 13 days of school between grades one and eleven.

Maybe it's time to think about outsourcing this parenting thing.

My own performance evaluation is coming up at work (or so they've been telling me for the last three months), and I do not anticipate superior results.

Imagine an architect. He's gone to school, got his Master's degree, apprenticed to all the greats in his field, built stunning edifices of surpassing elegance. Now the firm has been handed a contract to design and build the 2012 Olympic soccer stadium in London. This is his big chance. This is where he gets to make a name for himself.

"No," say the powers-that-be. "We will hire an overpaid, unskilled consultant for this job. Your responsibility will be to sharpen his pencils."

After a sufficient period of drunken mourning, the architect thinks "Oh well, at least I have all my other projects".

"Think again," say the powers. "This stadium project is too important. we want you to transfer all of your projects to other architects and focus one-hundred-percent on sharpening those pencils."

And every morning, the head of the firm says "These stadium plans are terrible! Make those pencils sharper, dammit!"

PerpetualStartup has some sort of scheme going on where you buy a Valentine's card for a co-worker, and the profits go to charity. I got one for ThinFast, Queen of HR, whose brainchild this is, because I think she needs cheering up.

ThinFast gave a seminar today on Leadership. This was similar to the "Situational Leadership" seminar of last year, and the "Leadership in Action" seminar. Since so much of the material had already been covered, this one only took three hours. I took copious notes, against the possibility that I might be given the opportunity to, you know, actually lead someone at some point.

So far, in my brief experience as manager, I've had my entire team laid off, my product line closed down, and new employees fired out from under me by Obelix. I used to be a software developer, then I was a manger, then I was a developer again. And now I sharpen pencils. Perhaps I may yet aspire to be a leader of pencil sharpeners, a fisher of men, with a destiny ouside the ken of mere mortals. But I doubt it. I'm thirty-five, and I sharpen pencils.

IronMan recently returned from a trip out west with a gift for me of a cubic metre of hot-smoked wild pacific sockeye salmon, hand-smoked by the official smokemeister of an indian reservation. Artisanal style. Delicious. Like a heavenly marriage of sushi and cigarettes. Two of my favorite things!

Hole in One!

Huh. Yeah, it's been a while, and it's likely to be another while, or maybe even two. So here's the bullet points - the highlights, if you will - of my Awesome Rise To Power (as foretold in revelations, movie rights optioned to Universal):

- Wife is pregnant. Which is AWESOME. Well, it's awesome for me, but she's going through hell. Hospitals and everything. So I guess it kind of blows. I'm conflicted.
- Yesterday was my 35th birthday, and it sucked. I worked an eighteen hour day and got no presents. Was supposed to do breakfast with The Boxer, but it didn't pan out due to unreasonable amounts of snow.
- Ironman moved to the West wing of PerpetualStartup, and now I work for Obelix. So far, so (mostly) good, but the workload is killing me.
- I haven't started my xmas shopping. And yes, I use "xmas" in the ironic sense, intended to piss off Christians (or "Xtians", as I like to refer to them). Spread the holiday cheer.

These are the dark times, the calm before the storm, the darkest before the dawn. I am become death, destroyer of morale, a horseman of the apocalypse.

But, like, on a bike. Horses are expensive, apparantly.

...but delicious.

Speaking of delicious, Ironman treated me to a birthday risotto at Bueno Notte this noon. Yum.

And that's the nutshell. I know I'm forgetting something (natch), but whatever. It can wait until next fiscal quarter, when the terms of my release dictate I must once again blog what passes for my thoughts, fodder for the brave brave souls of Homeland Security surveillance units everywhere.

The question for you to ponder over the course of these arctic frigid freezing windblown arid icy killing months of perpetual darkness: Zombies vs. Vampires. If a zombie bites a vampire, the vampire will turn into a Zombie Vampire. But if a vampire bites a zombie, the zombie will turn into a Vampire Zombie. In the end, no one wins, and everyone is twice as hungry as before. This is a maquette of the futility of war.

You're welcome.

And so, in the spirit of the holidays, I bid you a cheery Kwanza, and a happy new year. Wait... Is that mistletoe?




....hey, where are you going?

I Don't Mean Maybe

Well, it has finally come to pass, as foretold in Revelations. Ironman and Goldilocks have had IronBoy. No names or details on this blog, other than that it's a boy. Of course all of our love goes out to them, and I hope everything goes smoothly.

In case you missed it, The Directrix also popped one off a short while back, and she and her little family are doing well.

It really almost amounts to peer-pressure, doesn't it? All these babies?

Son starts "big boy school" (Kindergarten) on Monday. Big yellow bus and everything. I'm, like, all choked up about it. I may be too emotionally distraught to maintain my usual, clockwork-like blogging schedule. Try to contain yourselves.

Strong Juju

It started out innocently enough. Ironman got a new Indian cookbook. And it snowballed into a delicious couple of unpronounceable dishes that we scarfed along with The Directrix, Boxer, BigKid and K. Awesome.

At some point, during a moment of uncontrollable laughter, I tooted. Not a long, smelly, epic fart by any means, but noticeable. Sad to say, that was pretty much the apex of my erudition for the evening. Epic wit, charm, style and grace, these I possess in abundance, and they were as useless as prayer.

Grocery shopping in Ironman's neighborhood is like a little slice of heaven. The most amazing butcher's shop I've ever seen. The best patisseries, the best fromageries. When Directrix arrived, we were in the tastefully appointed kitchen, chopping herbs, each with a glass of wine, occasionally nibbling some camembert on baguette, and - get this - James Blunt playing on the radio.

"Holy crap. This is gayer than a handful of rainbows", she said. Somehow we hadn't realized. So I took off my apron, we broke out the beer, and put on some AC/DC, and wrestled some bears in an attempt to restore our temporarily misplaced masculinity. And later I farted, which helped a lot.

I suppose, now that it's public knowledge, I can share the happy news. Ironman's lovely wife Goldylocks is preggers. Also the Directrix is harboring a stowaway of her own, so you would have expected a lot of talk about pregnancy and diapers and swollen ankles and whatnot, but aside from a moment or two of pensive silence as we tried to guess the Directrix's current (impressive) bra size, the conversation was surprisingly free of such predictable fare, which I guess is one reason I enjoy hanging out with this type of riffraff. Thoroughly unpredictable.

By way of unpredictability (lit "non sequitur"), a bible quote:

God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Numbers 23:22 (KJV)

How's that for marketing? "Your God: Strong as a fucking UNICORN."

Come to think of it, I would not be a bit surprised if they actually have unicorn meat at that butcher, nestled between the fois gras and the bison loin. It was that incredible. I never wanted to leave.

Bucking The Hum

Ironman doubts my commitment. He thinks I can't do it. He thinks I'll bail, or lose interest, and in his defense, he has solid historical evidence to back up his claim.

To you, Ironman, I say: Suck it.

Knife Goes In, Guts Come Out

One problem with writing on the internet, is that it's easy to fall into the trap of writing for yourself, and forgetting that anyone can read this crap. Including your wife, your co-workers, your boss, or your priest.

So here's a thing that I feel like I need to write down, but I have to be careful how I do it.

Earlier this week, during casual conversation with Ironman, I mentioned some trifling work-related concerns. Little by little, the conversation became less casual, the concerns less trifling.

I was basically asking for advice from someone who's natural (almost supernatural) people skills and raw management "talent" are tempered with a sort of "Muppet Babies" innocence, and basically eclipse my own amazing awesomeness. Like a sparkling diamond in a dark, depressing sea of vomit, Ironman stands out as, well, something of a niftiness, managerially.

Lest you think I embellish just because he happens to know where I blog, let me assure you that the bar is set relatively low in this regard. The majority of managers with whom I've had the pleasure of working might not inaccurately be referred to as "a hooting band of blinkering cockslots", to paraphrase Oscar Wilde.

At any rate, the upshot of the entire conversation was that, as usual, the problem is me. This stinging truth was delivered by diplomatic hammer, and as I lay on the ground, groping about for my missing testicles, I vowed to do a better job.

Of course, two days later, this promise exploded into festive confetti when I commiserated on the subject of the "bureaucracy" with my lackey. This was an unfortunate choice of words, and the hammer, this time, was less diplomatic. The phone, accursed instrument of Beelzebub, rang.

"If the delicate subtext of our earlier conversation has slipped you by, then allow me to hold your head under the putrescent waters of knowledge," began Ironman (paraphrasing here), and the thing just got better from there. My end of the phone conversation went something like "Yes. Yes. I understand. Yes. Yes." The message was clear. Be careful what you say.

Perhaps I'm a masochist, but I'm hoping for a "be careful what you blog" message. Perhaps this time I'll be able to take a few days off and claim workman's compensation.

Ironman knows I kid. "Just kidding, boss!"

Seriously. Great guy.

In the interests of Changing the Subject:

Son, having recovered from pneumonia, promptly contracted an ear infection. Once he'd finished his antibiotics, instantly broke out in hives, an allergic reaction to penicillin. While at the pediatrician's office (for the fifth time in as many weeks), Son managed to accidentally give the doc a good swift kick in the gnarbles.

This produced in me a strange mixture of emotions that I can only describe as embarrassment, cringing sympathetic pain, regret, and of course, hilarity.

Why is it that all of humanity finds a boot in the nads -- someone else's nads -- so goddamn funny? No other sort of pain or misfortune is witnessed with as much suppressed mirth as having your balls kicked so hard you could wear them for a hat.

Is there some deeper universal bond that joins us all in our appreciation of this phenomena? Some common thread that cuts across cultures? Can it be used to bring peace to the Middle East, as opposed to fodder for America's Funniest Home Videos?

These are the kinds of deep questions that keep me awake at night. Perhaps I should kick Lackey in the nuts, in the interests of improved professional communications.

Spoiler Alert:

Well, I saw this. Which made me think of this:

Which reminded me of something I forgot to mention. FTC insider trading regulations prohibit me from telling you this, but what the hell. Osaka Seafood Concern, the Japanese company that owns a controlling interest in PerpetualStartup, where I work, is undergoing a leveraged management buyout of it's publicly traded stock.

So, I dunno, go buy some stock or something.

Spooky

Today's office Halloween party was a huge success. Ironman and I ended up wearing the same costume. I lost the coin toss, so he's the gynecologist, and I'm the proctologist.


The winner for "Best Costume" was this guy. I don't know what he's supposed to be, but anyone who can wear a washing machine all day is not someone you want to mess with:


Though for my money, JimmyFallon could give him a run for his money, as "blue tooth", some sort of denim "deliverance" absurdity that offered something new and disturbing on each fresh viewing:


Best Departmental costume theme went to the Accounting department's gang of crime-fighting nuns:


Also, there was a cult of insect-worshipers, complete with photocopied tracts espousing their theology. Virgin sacrifices and satanic orgies? Sign me up!


Directrix represented, with a contribution in the baked goods department:


Everyone loved her muffins.

And of course, no work got done, so for once, the rest of the company was in line with my personal philosophy. But did I get a prize? No.

And hey. Honorable Mention for this guy:

Lost In Translation

On our way back up to work from coffee today, Ironman and I were forced to circumnavigate an inconveniently parked Canada Post truck. Ironman was vocal in his condemnation of the mailman's parking skills. I suggested we should write an angry letter.

A ridiculous conversation followed: how, exactly, would one address a letter destined for the actual postal service? I proposed (probably incorrectly), that you could probably just leave the address off entirely, and assume that it would find its way. During the short elevator ride, we were unable to satisfactorily resolve this thorny dilemma. Ironman, to me: "You should blog about it".

And here we are.

There's something "meta" about addressing a correspondence to the very entity responsible for the delivery of said correspondence. From one point of view, it's as simple as tipping the paperboy, acknowledging the existence of the physical machinery responsible for the abstract concept of "delivery". From another, it's one example of a self-referential meta-psychosymbolism that informs all human language and thought. And guess which of these points of view we will be discussing?

It's pretty widely accepted that language plays a pivotal role in the healthy neurophysiological development of the human brain, particularly in childhood. Stories about children raised by dogs, or abandoned to their own devices from the age of three, never fail to include a chapter on the shocking underdevelopment of various essential brain functions. Language teaches us to think, and vice-versa. But only to a point.

We use language to describe things, and in so doing, create our own personal symbolic dictionaries for dealing with concepts. Semantically, the word "rock" is not a rock, nor does it describe or refer to a particular physical rock. It triggers instead a chain of recursive psycho-symbolic dereferentiation that eventually unravels into a semantic symbol of "rock"-ness. And that mental image somehow stands in for all the rocks in the universe, or at least those we can perceive.

It is almost ridiculously simple for the human mind to construct a psycho-semantic representation of concepts like "infinity", or "everything". I mean, you can't actually conceive of all the physical objects, or actions, or concepts that fall under the umbrella of "everything", at least not as easily as "rock". But language, and the semantic associations it invokes and informs, is crucial to our ability to describe the concept that describes the indescribable.

Everything is basically meta data, describing other meta data, along an inferential chain of semantic associations, that end in a sort of shorthand notation for the world around us. In computer languages, this chain is finite, ending with "machine-language" instructions that interact with the actual, physical hardware of the machine. This simplicity is sacrificed in the human brain, in favor of the capability for higher thought.

Rather than a "chain", think of an infinitely branching "tree" of associations. While your brain is busy translating the word "rock" into the mental symbol it's meant to represent, it will apply the semantic value of the word, the pragmatic value of the context in which the word is used, the syntax, or structure of the inter-relation of other symbols used in the context, and a bunch of other stuff I barely understand. And through the application of all of these contextual signifiers, will prune the tree for the possible meanings of "rock" into the one symbol that makes sense.

When this mechanism breaks, as in Aphasia or some other cognitive disorder, it basically breaks language. A stroke victim, unable to communicate, may or may not still be able to understand "rock". May or may not lose the capability for abstract thought, the very capability that was created using the scaffolding of language.

If it's possible to address our mailman's callous disregard for parking etiquette by writing a letter to Canada Post, then it follows that we can fix a broken mind by communicating with it. This can be tricky, like arson at the Fire Department, when the part of your brain responsible for communication is the part that's broken. Imagine the effectiveness, in this scenario, of a language based on smell, or temperature, or light.

It does not follow that it's possible to break a healthy mind by withholding meaningful communication, though it would be fun to try.

And now I'm bored of this (I can only imagine how you must feel), so in conclusion,

Dear Canada Post,
Please don't park on my fucking sidewalk.
Sincerely,
A concerned citizen.

Blue Skies and Brittle Smiles

So here we are, in the throes of Indian Native-American Summer. Neither lazy autumn, nor fully a return to the halcyon summer, and about as far from the bitter, frozen, whistling wasteland of a Montreal winter as it's possible to get. It's warm enough for shorts and sandals, but I've decided to spare you the sight of my winter-pallid legs, and hobbit-hairy toes. You can thank me later.

Much discussion of late, with IronMan (among others) on the art of small-h-happiness, the merits of trees over forests, and What, O What, Does It All Mean, Really? Heady stuff indeed, but the final syrupy essence is that: a) you can't just wait for happiness to happen. b) Big-H-Happiness, the meaning of life, the one thing that will just complete your existence here on Earth? That doesn't exist. So c) You have to cobble it together out of smaller pieces.

Big-H-Happiness is Enlightenment is Nirvana is Truth is Beauty is Meaning is God is The Soul. This is the thing those little monks in the orange robes spend their not-inconsiderable lifespans pondering. Once in a thousand years, a "living Buddha" achieves perfect enlightenment, and let's face it, you're not him.

Small-h-happiness is Autumn colors (or in Boxer's case, shoveling your sidewalk. Freak), is hugging your child, is finishing a Sudoku, is watching cartoons, is riding bikes, is dinner with friends, is making love. These small joys are pretty much within reach for all of us, and they add up to... Something. Probably something pretty good.

Our consumerist society teaches us from a young age that rarity equals value. Gold is worth much more than salt, by reason of its rarity. We are taught that "common" things, commodities, have little or no unit value. And so it's perhaps made a little easier to commoditize the small-h, and to always be looking for the magic bullet of enlightenment. And of course I, prey to all the foibles of the human condition, fall for this trap every time.

We are so busy looking for the forest, that we fail to see the trees. So obsessed with the Big Picture, that we ignore the magic of those tiny pixels of which it is composed. Eyes always on the horizon, we trip on the the artifacts of our missed opportunities. Searching for le mot juste, we write a bunch of crap and overstate our case.

Any conversation on this topic with IronMan usually ends with a half-joking resolution to Lower Expectations. "If you're not satisfied, lower your expectations until you are". Then we laugh. But there's many a true word spoken in jest. Narrow the scope. Lower Expectations. Don't look over there, look right here. Stop waiting.

Today we talked a bit about Boxer (yes, Leila, we talk about you when you're not around. Aren't you appalled?). How the hell does she do it? She's always so damn happy (or at least she fakes it convincingly). Boxer smiles, even when she's crying, which is tough to pull off.

Not that I cry.

You know, being a guy and all.

Behold This, Biatch

Keats says "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know". Keats, in many ways, was a genius. In many other ways his stuff is utter, utter shite. The same can be said of most of us. Literary deconstructionists and philosopher pedants like myself will try to put one over on you by suggesting that The Truth Can Sometimes Be Harsh And Disturbing, So How Is That Beautiful, eh Smart Guy?

By way of riposte, allow me to arm you, not with any real ammunition, but something that makes a loud noise and bright light, enough to distract these assailants while you escape via carefully pre-planted neologism. Just as there is no Objective Beauty, there is no Absolute Truth. While it's quite the leap to suggest that this mere coincidence implies equality, at least in this, they are equal abstracts, convenient placeholders for whatever the hell it is we were just talking about.

Ooh Look! Something shiny!

I spent a thoroughly delightful evening in the company of the League of Overachievers last night, "swilling wine with willing swine", as it were, and came away with that warm, fuzzy, light-hearted feeling that has been all too rare lately. Boxer, IronMan and Directrix were all there, along with Boxer's Big Kid (probationary League intern). Of course I dazzled with my usual charm, wit, charisma and bonhomie (or at least drank enough wine to convince myself of my own charm, wit and charisma. The bonhomie, I still maintain, was genuine).

Of such an intensity was the awesomeness, that at times I cried tears of joy, and where my tears fell, tiny white flowers blossomed. Until around 2:00 AM, when I cried tears of intense peptic discomfort as all the wine I had downed wreaked it's tanniny revenge.

So, for lack of a feast, my brain has baked us a couple of Welsh rarebits:

1. Clichés should be avoided like the plague.
2. Speed Dating vs. Carbon Dating: Discuss.
3. The trick with Midget Porn is to watch it on a really big TV. Then it's just like regular porn.
4. Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary? ("Oh no", you will say, astute reader, "I'm not falling for that one. Everyone knows there's no such thing as a dictionary!")
5. Yes, I sometimes have stubble. Does it make you want to kiss me any less? No? Then what's the problem?
6. I wonder if they have Methadone clinics, but for boobs? I'm totally addicted to boobs.

Next time: Stay tuned, victim! Is that...doggerel?

Probably not, actually.

Stop and Smell the Leaves

Buried in the warm, loamy compost of complacency, I've neglected you. But Boxer has awakened me from my blogging interregnum, and reminded me of my never-sleeping duties.

The air conditioner still has it's place in my bedroom window, more as a monument to wishful thinking than pragmatism, but even I, with my limitless powers of persuasion, can only lie to myself for so long, and one day soon I'll break down and admit it: Summer is over. In the meanwhile, don't tell me. I want to let myself down easy.

This was the end of my first week back at work after a longish two-week vacation. Family and I spent three fantastic days in Niagara falls, feeding belugas and swimming with dolphins and discovering new phobias (heights) and obsessions (water slides) and whatnot. A thoroughly enjoyable (and, when solitary, boring) vacation that saw me return to work refreshed, bright-eyed, and ready to re-commit my life to the furthering of corporate objectives, etc, etc.

Son absolutely loved, went ape shit for the water park / resort that we stayed at, while in Niagara falls. Oh yes, there will be pictures, fear not.

Last night saw the launch of an exciting new product pilot here at work, so I was at the office from about midnight to four a.m., along with a handful of other people. During this time slot, we pulled in a whopping seven dollars in revenue, most of which I found between the cushions of the couch I was sitting on. So yeah. Time well spent.

I've a feeling the twofour of red bull, heaps of pizza and junk food, not to mention my expense report for parking, will burn through that windfall rather quickly.

When I was leaving, a planned Hydro power outage left me stuck in the elevator between the first and second floors, along with IronMan. I called upstairs to Lipstick and Tortoise, who wisely took the stairs. Five minutes later, the power was back on (wehter because Lipstick pulled in some favors at Hydro HQ, or by blind luck, I won't ask). This is one of those stories that is more humorous in memory than in life.

All the recent frantic scrambling and layoffs, trying to suck the last of the blood from the stone that is our chosen market, has resulted in various initiatives to strike out into new product lines. Memo to the chiefs: may I suggest Organ-legging? Panhandling?

And now, as the week, and the season, draw to a whimpering end, and I must close one eye to prevent double vision due to exhaustion, it may be time for another vacation.

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus

All My Friends Are "Work Friends"

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."
-- C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)

You're on my list, Lewis. I don't care if you're dead. I'll find you.

Cognitive Dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling you get when you try to hold two contradictory thoughts or beliefs in your head. I would imagine this is the type of thing that Church-going physicists are good at dealing with.

Have you ever visited a friend or relative at their place of work? It's like they're a completely different person. "This can't possibly be the same guy that was telling fart jokes at last night's poker game", you'll say to yourself, as you observe your drinking buddy, the one who wore the goat's head during Frosh Week, efficiently direct his team in the pursuit of Operational Excellence.

"I need those numbers on my desk by Thursday," he'll say.
"If we can't assess that risk, then we need to reexamine their value proposition," he'll say.
"If the delivery date slides, that revenue goes to next quarter. That's unacceptable," he'll say.

"Pull my finger," he'll say.

Psychologically, there is no immediately apparent way to reconcile these conflicting images of your friend/spouse/parent. In the heat of the moment, cognitive dissonance will force you to consider them as two separate people, one an efficient manager of operational "flow", the other a drunken practical joker / mother of two / yoga instructor / whatever. This is a postponement of analysis. Basically, your brain is saying "I can't process this right now, I'll deal with it later."

The scary thing is that other people think of you this way.

I have previously mentioned that buddy Ironman will be assuming responsibilities that could broadly be considered "boss-like" vis-a-vis myself. This scenario falls nicely into the category of psychological states that Cognitive Dissonance seems purpose-built to handle. This has even been unintentionally illustrated right here in this blog by my constant reference to him under two different names; Ironman and Boss Jr, a handy device that I think I'll continue to make use of.

Conclusion: I will continue to refer to him as Ironman when discussing him as a friend, and Boss Jr. when discussing him as a superior, and continue to think of him as two separate people.

Can you believe I've never undergone therapy of any kind?

Back in the day, during those brief periods of bachelorhood between long-term relationships, on those rare occasions when a woman would tell me I was cute, or (more rarely) "good-looking", I would usually offer one of two canned responses:

1) Well, my mother thinks so. (laughs all around, no one gets hurt).
2) Prove it.

HaikuBoxer, that paragon of wisdom and charm, has recently sent me zero-or-more flattering emails, responding to something or other I wrote herein. Neither of the above responses seems appropriate...

Next: Doggerel!

"The Man"

So the Liberal budget will pass, as we more or less knew it must. the PQ, who cannot be seen to actually agree with the liberals on anything (since they're the opposition), must instead abstain from the vote in sufficient numbers to allow the Liberals to push the budget through. Public gets tax breaks and a bit of education & health spending. Not enough to make any difference, mind you, just enough that neither party needs to accept responsibility for the decline of Quebec health care.

And we may need every penny, if assholes like this continue to mock Darwin. America is so busy locking out the terrorists, they've forgotten to lock in their Typhoid Maries. Here's one case where the almost total lack of air circulation on your average trans-Atlantic passenger jet may have come in handy - slowing the spread of a deadly airborne disease.

There are one or two interesting personal developments at what passes for my place of employment. Boss, having called me into his office this morning and asked me to shut the door, peppered me with a rapid-fire breakdown of several changes that will be coming down the pipe in the days and weeks to come. I won't bore you with all of it, but weighed collectively, the scales seem to tip slightly to the right. Which, if I understand correctly, means six more months of winter.

To the extent any reader of this drivel is capable of giving a shit, let me explain what I do in as vague a manner as possible (to avoid professional and legal repercussions). I work at Company. Company produces digital content for a specific medium. You may already have purchased one or more of our products without even realizing it (unless you're a crotchety old bugger with no interest in this medium, like me).

At Company, I work in the technical department, developing application servers and publishing systems and distribution platforms and revenue-sharing systems and statistical reporting tools, and all manner of Java tchotchkes that appear amazingly, stunningly boring to the uninitiated. Actually, it's not too bad. And I'm moving up in the world, apparently.

Viz.: One of the changes announced to me today was not so much a change as a clarification. It seems "dev team leader" is not a per-project appointment, but an actual job title, and so a person I had previously assumed to be a co-worker actually reports to me. This has supposedly always been the case and I was simply unaware of it until now.

Rest assured, I will make up for lost time. My dictatorial rule will be decisive and merciless.

Ironman

Let me pause before going further, and introduce Ironman. No less deserving of praise than The Boxer (whom I have described elsewhere as something of an amazement), Ironman's a bud, a co-worker, a prince among men. We often enjoy a café-allongé avec lait (It's not as gay as it sounds) at the local Portuguese pastry shop, where we speak of many things (fools and kings), a lot of which will get us sent straight to hell. His sense of humor dovetails nicely with my own, and when we blather, no shortage of lowbrow bon-mots are born. His employees love him, and are planning a monument in his image, to be cast in bronze and erected in the center of his feifdom (the QA and Porting departments here at Company).

One important change is that Ironman who, while technically much higher than myself on the corporate ladder, was not in my direct chain-of-command (and therefore was fair game vis-a-vis the occasional water cooler, "working hard, or hardly working"-type conversation) now assumes responsibility for activities with which I am more than tangentially involved.

This is not so much a promotion for him as it is a reallocation of responsibilities. No one's getting a raise, no one's getting a title change. And for once I'm okay with that.

Ironman, you will now be known as "Boss Jr". How do I feel about this? TBD, as they say.

It is a recurring theme in my parental neuroses that Wife and I are not "active" enough. This sedentary lifestyle of ours, I intermittently obsess, is affecting Son's development. We are setting a bad example. We are creating a Couch Potato. So an announcement on the radio this morning twiddled my knobs sufficiently that I may actually follow up: This Saturday, at Centennial park in Beaconsfield, some sporting goods store will be sponsoring an educational Kayaking "experience" for the whole family.

Whether said experience involves any actual kayaking, or is more "multimedia" in nature, remains to be seen, but wouldn't that be a cool outing for a four-year-old? Kayaking? I can tell you, it'd be pretty cool for a thirty-three-year old. Maybe Son and I will sneak out of the house and give it a go. Wife will absolutely plotz.

Remember that one whitewater rafting day-trip we did Honey? Where you spent the day in the hot tub while I whooped joyfully down the foaming and turbulent Rivière Rouge? It'll be just like that, only more polluted water, and I'll have our child with us in an easily-capsizable kayak! You'll love it!

Maybe we'll just wash the car or something instead.

Unless it rains.