Whoosh

It's mighty windy today. I should've taken the kite out for a spin. Meri and I visited some friends of hers in the Eastern Townships on Sunday and I got to take the Delta for a spin.



Maybe the winds will still be strong tonight and I'll be able to test the night lights on my kite. Yep, there are people who fly their kites at night like The Midnight Squadron.

Second Guessing

Sometimes I get so frustrated with myself and I can't always hide it.

I was out last night to meet some friends for a wriiters meeting and I stopped by a Book Fair to pick up a couple of good deals. When I tried to pull the funds from my bank, I realized there were none left. The funds are starting to run out already.

Although Toast has warned me of the dangers of being a shut-in, I find myself with less and less energy to do anything. This coupled with the fact that when I leave the house, I tend to spend, it makes it very stressful on my general well-being.

So when I chat with people sometimes, my frustration with myself or my situation comes through when I don't mean it to, and I have to constantly say "No, I'm not mad at you. It's me... I'm frustrated with myself."

Of course, the damage is already done and the person at the other end of the line has already been hurt. I try to keep this stuff in check as much as I can, but it slips out every once in a while.

So then I start second guessing everything I say and do. Is my tone okay here? Am I acting too aggressive now? Will this action offend the person I'm talking to? Then I get frustrated with all the questions and drop them, wearing my true emotions on my sleeve. And the cycle starts again.

It's not that I'm not happy in general. I'm just tired of this non-life trend I'm going through right now. I feel stalled. I don't feel I'm accomplishing enough things with the free time I have and life is passing me by.

I know there are a few recently laid-off people reading this blog... Are you going through the same thing?

Local Toast is Exposed

So my CD is thiiiiis much closer to being distributed to the masses! I met with Toast yesterday at a Second Cup on Sherbrooke so we could talk about what images would appear on the cover of the CD. We then we retired to the Underground Lair of Toast (certainly not a "cave", right Marmalade?) not far away for further discussion. I'm hoping to have the complete package all together in the next couple of weeks. Yay!

As I was returning home from a writer's meeting last night, I ran into Jack, Claudette, and Judith, all storytellers and friends. They told me about a two-day festival taking place on August 17-18 in a park near Viau metro that will be raising funds for a children's charity. Apparently, there will be thousands of people in attendance to this shindig and my friends were all asked to perform as storytellers. Then Jack turned to me and asked if I'd be interested in telling a story or two, to which I eagerly nodded yes! Another storytelling gig!

I'm going to have to start putting together a storytelling CV and website if I'm going to start actively pursuing more gigs in the future. When I get my CD together, the first place I'll be applying is the Storytelling Festival hosted by the Toronto School of Storytelling. It's a very prestigious festival that brings in storytellers from all over Canada and the world. That woudl be a great feather in my cap.

What would really be great is to see the world one festival at a time, telling stories and hearing stories from all over. Maybe if I'm lucky, I could make it out to the Cape Clear Storytelling Festival in Ireland and visit my friend Toby, who makes a living out of being a storyteller.

Amazing. Wouldn't that be fun...

Ooooh... the water's cold!

Ick... I don't have a very hot blog! The last time I checked, I've only got a score of 2.6 on 10 (10 being very hot, 1 being very not).

This score probably stems from the fact that I'm not a chick, I don't talk about my sex life in detail, and I'm not sporting a giant set of gazongas at the top of the blog page. Sex sells, kiddies.

Oh well... I can live with such a low score. I still have you, my faithful readers! Right? Right?!? Bueller? Bueller?

Of course you are... never doubted it for a minute.... *nervous laughter*

Time flies

I can't believe it has been only a month since I got laid off from my last job at Dream Mechanics. It feels like it's been a few months at least.

Thankfully, the weather has been pleasant, but I find myself strangely trapped. Money is tight and, although I should be outside taking advantage of the bright skies, I don't venture out too far. When I leave the house, I tend to spend and money being what it is... So I stay trapped in the house so I can save money.

And what do I do in this house? Not a whole lot, I have to tell ya. I'm writing more at least, but I mostly tend to mope around from room to room. Some days, I make a list of the things I need to do and I got out and do them. Those are good days.
But when I look at the number of days I've been off and the amount I've accomplished... Yikes. I guess I just need to face the facts.

I'm lazy.

Mr. Blog International

Sure... I won the Pagan International Beauty Contest and was crowned the King of May, but is my blog pretty?

If I you find my blog to be hot, I promise I will rid the world of hate, anger, and that pesky spam that riddles our inboxes and annoy us so much, we just want to spit. Poo-poo on spam!

I hope you like my blog and it's an honor just to be nominated. Really it is. (snagged from Bevie)

Local Tourist

In honor of the Pope's visit to TO, Meri and I decided to visit the Ste. Joseph Oratory. I've driven passed the Oratory many times (I can even see the dome at the end of my street in NDG), but I had never actually visited it.

I highly recommend that you visit the Oratory if you've never seen it. The grounds are impeccable (they have a set of gardens with statues that represent the 12 stations of the Cross) and the architecture of the Oratory itself, both inside and outside, is stunning. And the gift shop is definitely worth a visit (see if you can find the Fuzzy Wisemen!).

Even if you are not Christianically-inclined, a visit to the Oratory is definitely worth your time. If nothing else, the general feeling about the place is one of peace and tranquility.

Lastest News: my story CD has been recorded! With the help of my friend Wen (of New Ends Studio) I recorded 4 of my favorite tales to a CD. The next step is to design a CD cover and label for it. I'll be talking to Toast about that.

If you'd like to have a copy, let me know and I'll reserve one for you. Ha... I never thought I'd hear myself saying something like that.

The Good and the Bad

Good: I've been offered a 2 month editing contract with Softimage that will start mid-August. Yay!

It probably won't be extended or transformed into anything else, but it's a definite foot-in-the-door. Sweet.

Bad: Toon Boom just laid off another set of people, including Peter, one of my writers. Some of the others have been with the company almost since its inception and know the most about the products they were coding. Anyone else feel like they're tossing the propeller away to keep the ship from sinking?

Good: I just finished recording the first two tracks of my storytelling CD (there should be 4 to 5 stories in all). I may sell copies of this CD to people, but I'll most likely be sending copies to festivals as a Demo to gain admission.

I'll also be giving a copy of the CD to a couple of musician friends of mine who are interested in putting my stories to music. That should be fun!

Bad: I was running to catch a bus to meet my friend Roxanne at the comedy festival last night. The bus had arrived and people were boarding. Just as I crossed the street and I was a mere five feet from the bus, holding my bus pass aloft to indicate I wanted to board, the bus driver slapped the doors shut in my face (I nearly ran face-first into the glass doors). Infuriated, I shouted at the driver as he pulled away and he smirked back at me, shrugging his shoulders.

And these bus drivers wonder why people get abusive with them. Bastard.

Good: We've got a recording date set for a recording of a radio drama version of the Sherlock Holmes classic: The Hound of the Baskervilles. I get to play Doc Watson! We'll probably be going to Kingston to record it, so I hope we get a bit of a chance to see the sights.

There's talk of airing this particular recording of the play on a local radio station in Kingston and maybe even the CBC! There's even talk about doing a live reading in full costume on television, but that's still just talk. I'll keep you posted.

Little naked gold statue... here I come! Shoud I start constructing the display case now?

I know you're out there...

I just joined yet another Blorg that is supposed to make it easier for people to find me (see the top of the Blorg section on left sidebar for a little squiggle face).

But first, I need to post the following pap. Call it a rite of passage.

Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, Canada, Montreal, Notre-Dame de Grace, Dave, Male, 31-35!

Half-Life Jokes

I survived another weekend at Domaine (more on that later), swinging my foam axe at Lizardmen and other dastardly creatures of the New World, and I was discussing the weekend with my buddies Arnot and Erik over some Rickard's Red and a game of Unreal (of which, they whooped my bum vigorously).

I had to admit I had never played Warcraft (gasp), but I am now intrigued and wonder what all the hoopla is about (I gotta upgrade my system (it's a P233)).

We then started talking about Half-Life and its mods CounterStrike and Team Fortress. Neither Arnot nor Erik had heard of TF, so I was explaining about the different character classes you can play to defend your own flag or capture the other teams flag.

Grand Poohbah: ... And then there's the Engineer class. You can build a sentry gun virtually anywhere and it will detect any enemy movement nearby.

Arnot: What happens?

GP: It lets fly with a whack of missles and bullets and BLAMMO: the enemy is reduced to a pile of goo. If the sentry gun gets damaged, you can just go over and fix it. Great fun. It's my fav class.

A: How many guns can you build?

GP: Just the one per Engineer.

A: How many Engineers can you have?

GP: There's a cap on how many of each class you can have.

A: Too bad. It would be great to have a team all made of Engineers.

GP: What would be the point of that? If one team was all Engineers, they wouldn't even care about the flag they'all supposed to be protecting. All they would do is talk about Star Trek.

Eng1: What about the new Star Trek? I kinda like Enterprise...

Eng2: You like that?!? It's an affront to Roddenberry's vision.

Eng5: And that theme song... Ick! I can see the title now: Enterprise: Where Big Hair Bands Have Never Sung Before.

Eng12: Ummm guys? The other team's making off with the flag...

Eng6: Who cares? He's probably a Star Wars geek... Beam this up buddy! (much snorting and guffaws) Hand me some of that Vanilla Coke...

I must come to terms with the fact that, on some levels, I'm just a gamer geek. Superman has kryptonite, Batman has gothic obsession, and the Grand Poohbah has a Gamer side to his personality.

"The Dark Poohbah Returns"... That sounds like a winner. Maybe I'll pitch to my buddies Moore, Miller, and Gaiman. Maybe this time, they'll lift that pesky restriction order and return my calls. And emails. And postcards.

Yeah... everything will be fine now, Mother....