...and the first new thing I post is a meme. Random anecdote: Meme was the name of the girl that served me at Wendy's last time I went. I was so tempted to ask her how she pronounces her name.

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You know how sometimes people on your friends list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute. Since when were they working THERE? Since when were they dating HIM/HER? Since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.


Please copy the topics below, erase my answers and put yours in their place, and then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration. One-Word-Answers seldom help anyone out.

1. First name: Simon. Most people call me Simon, though there is the odd person that'll refer to me as Simon or, my personal favourite, Psi-Man.

2. Age: 26, though I'll be 27 in just under two months.

3. Location: Brampton, Ontario. It's kind of boring here. On the other hand, just about everyone with which I ever want to spend any time is stuck in Brampton right now, too. I'm still living in the same house I've lived in since before school, so I'm still with the parents. When I move out, which will hopefully be once I (supposedly) graduate next spring, I'm hoping to secure a room at 16 Higgins. From there, it'll be a total 24/7 nerdfest. I'm looking forward to it.

4. Occupation: I work for Sonitrol Security, a company that installs security monitoring panels at various commercial sites, hooks audio and motion sensors and video cameras and all sorts of good stuff into said panel, and waits for said panel to send us an alarm so we can call the cops on all kinds of bad guys. My role in the company right now is Central Station Operator, which sounds fancy, but it mostly boils down to sitting in front of a bunch of computers and waiting for shit to hit the fan.

Yes, I did say "my role in the company right now." I've entertained the idea of staying with the company and making my way up the proverbial ladder. I'd probably go insane if I were a Central Station Operator forever, but I might not mind being, say, a Central Station Supervisor or Manager. I think the furthest I could go--and I've definitely entertained the idea--is Security Technician, one of the guys that works regular hours to go all over the place to tweak and fix busted equipment. There are far worse things I could end up being. More on this later.

5. Partner: Elle Muir. Amusing anecdote: The first time people see her name, about half of them go, "That's her name? Really? That's an awesome name." And it kind of is.

Oh, right. Yes. As of Hallowe'en, so just over a month now, I have a girlfriend. Her name is awesome--Elle Muir. Yes, this is The Girl From The Internet, the same one about whom I had so many doubts before. I'm not saying they've dissipated entirely or at all, but for the time being, the relationship is fun and keeping me happy, so we'll see where it goes.

6. Kids: None (that I know about). However, I do have a couple awesome names lined up for them when they do come eventually.

7. Siblings: One brother, Matt, who is my senior by about 5.73 years. I always remember us being the best of buddies, but Matt claims he distinctly remembers a time when I was the antithesis of him having a good time. We're cool now, though, and we hang out and do nerdy things all the time.

8. Pets: Pandora, the family's 18-year-old cat. She's in relatively good health considering her age, though she gave me a scare a few months ago. Very glad she's gotten better since then.

9. 3 biggest things going on in my life:

A) School. Most people know my opinion on the subject by now. And considering I only go to campus once a week, one might argue that it's not that huge compared to other things on my plate. The fact remains, however, that it should be one of the highest priorities on said plate, and the fact that it really, really isn't weighs heavily on my sense of responsibility, self-discipline, and overall self-worth.

I said I'd talk more about the job thing earlier. I think it was about two years ago for that class that I owned because I fixed a publishing company's cost analysis spreadsheet that we had a guest speaker talk to the class. He was the Editor or Assistant Editor for a small publishing company in Toronto. And I will never forget one very important fact that he told us: Taking into account all the time he puts into his job, he earns less than minimum wage. "But I love my job," he said after.

I understand there's something to be said for genuinely enjoying what you do to earn a living. On the other hand, I'm not the type to be working 60+ hours each week to earn only $50,000 at the end of the year. As I told Jeff at Sonitrol, in the time it would take me to reach that coveted Editor position, I could instead keep working the security gig and be working less and making more by the end of that time span. As Jeff said, "That's sad." It is, but my values have changed a fair bit since I first hopped on the Honours BA train.

Moving on now.

B) Work. This actually does take up a lot of my time. I'm officially part-time, but I've been working full-time hours recently. This is great in that I have tons of money with which to pay off my MasterCard, but working so much means I'm not doing other things I should be doing, like homework. (Of course, I'm out with friends all the time, too, so that's not helping the homework situation, either.)

C) Elle. We try to see each other a couple times each week, but it's not always easy, considering we both have wildly varied work schedules.

10. Parents: Graeme and Heather. Both are doing well. Dad gets to work from home a lot, and he's got a regular Sunday night XBOX golf thing going on with his buddies. Both of these things are awesome. Mom stays at home and does menial chores-and-errands-type stuff, which, while important, isn't as spiffy as the babysitting gig she gave up. I used to worry about Dad going crazy and thought Mom was doing well for herself, but now it's the other way around.

11. Some of my closest friends are: the biggest nerds I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. They're also the type of people I can take out for beer and nachos and talk about all the crazy shit in life that actually matters.

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And that, as they say, is that.

mood: contemplative music: Mastodon - Crack The Skye

Because they're in Alex's and Pete's LJs.

You guys remember this meme?
Comment to this meme with the word 'words' and I will give you five words that make me think of you. Then post them in your LJ and say what they mean to you.

I actually wrote answers to the words given to me a while back--sometime before this post, so at least a month ago--but I've actually got them transcribed in a Word document now.

The following is more-or-less exactly what I wrote in my actual journal/diary. I've fixed a few glaring spelling and grammatical errors, but otherwise, this is it.

Enjoy.

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( words )

mood: contemplative music: Dethklok - I Tamper With The Evidence At The Murder Site of Odin

Weekly Check-In

I'm late with this one, but I'm still only one week behind. It's not a total loss. I was having trouble finding time to do this, but then I realized I have a Pocket PC with a Bluetooth keyboard that I bring with me to work every night. So.

( Weekly Check-In for Week 25: October 12 to 18 )

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In other news, Pandora seems to have abandoned her litter box entirely and taken to leaving her messes wherever she pleases in the basement. Thankfully, none of those places have yet been in my bedroom, but I suspect it's only a matter of time now...

Thing is, she'll be 18 in December. That's pretty damn old for a cat. She's still in pretty good health, but I fear this lack of respect for the litter box is a telling sign that her time is coming sooner than I'd like.

mood: sad music: Dethklock - Dethsupport

I've had some pretty bloody amazing dreams lately.

It must have been my birthday or something. I had my own car already, some nice yellow suped-up sporty thing. I was driving my dad around, trying to find my brother. I knocked on the door of a massive rickety, wooden, almost barn-like house. A midget answered the door.

"Is Matt here?"
"Sorry, you've got the wrong house."
"But I'm sure this is it. I just know it. Let me check the cafeteria downstairs. I know his order number."

Sure enough, the spiraling wooden staircase lead down right into a 60s-style diner. I asked the pretty lady in the seafoam green nurse's outfit if order 8422 (or was it 8266?) had already been picked up. It had! He is somewhere close!

"Very good, Simon. You have found me. Now, follow. I will show you... our destiny."

He led me a secret underground workshop area that contained...

Life-sized Mega Man X and Zero space shuttles made out of Lego.

I can't remember the last time I woke up this happy.

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The other dream I had the other night was also fantastic, but it involved Katie and I and details I dare not get into on LJ. Suffice it to say, I miss the things we did in that dream and the things in that dream we had yet to do.

mood: amused music: Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3

I need to leave for work in 10 minutes, so I'm-a do this as quick and dirty as I know how (which is probably not very quick and dirty at all):

( Weekly Check-In for Week 24: October 5 to 11 )

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In other news, I think I was hit on by a cougar last night, I have no idea where I stand with Elle at all, and I am listening to the new Muse again, which means I am coming down, slowly, from my Coheed and Cambria high.

And that's all for this week. I should have left six minutes ago.

mood: busy music: Muse - Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination)

Still stuck on my Coheed and Cambria bender. Still haven't listened to much of anything else ever since I picked them up weeks ago.

I burned copies of two of their albums for Jason. I heard from Katie that he doesn't expect to enjoy them. I kind of got that sense from him when I played a few of the tracks for him.

Thing is, I kind of expect to get that sort of reaction from just about everyone else I might play those tracks for. As Katie pointed out, it's so dramatic it borders on cheesy. And as Matt told me Rob said to him, he'd classify the band as hair metal since every song he's heard from them has been a power ballad, which, honestly, isn't far from the truth. And who really wants to listen to cheesy hair metal power ballads all the time?

I do. There's something about Coheed and Cambria's formula--the dramatic lyrics, the sound, the power-ballad-iness, everything--that seems to have connected with me at exactly the right moment. This song in particular really seems to sing out to me.

But while I've spend the past month and a bit becoming intimate with this music, I feel I've estranged myself from everything and everyone else. In fact, it seems that most of the things I love have been doing this to me lately--to the point where I start thinking that, sure, it's all well and good that I'm a monstrous Magic and Mega Man nutcase fanatic, but as much as I love them, what good are those things to me if it feels like they're choking me off from the rest of the world?

Bah. I probably just need to sleep better and actually get shit done. And, you know, stop overthinking shit like I always tend to do. Focus on the things I should be doing.

mood: drained music: Coheed and Cambria - The End Complete IV: The Road and The Damned

I didn't post this yesterday because Eric's stag party was exhausting.

Got a lap dance from the hottest girl at the Sundowner in one of my Mega Man shirts. Then, when we got back to the hotel, a stray drunk confronted us with nonsensical violence. I would have called the cops on him sooner, but me and my stupid Virgin phone couldn't get reception. You know it's time to switch to Rogers when...

Anyhow.

( Weekly Check-In for Week 22: September 21 to September 27 )

And that, as they say, is that. I have about six minutes before I need to be leaving to catch my bus. Good timing.

mood: busy music: Coheed and Cambria - The Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth

His name is Claudio Sanchez. He is the front man for Coheed and Cambria.

For those not in the know, this is why he is awesome:

He wrote an epic sci-fi story. Not sure exactly what it's about, but it involves parallel worlds or multiple realities or something, and includes characters named Claudio and The Writer. It's got the epic sci-fi-ness down, as well as, it seems, all kinds of meta-textual nonsense as well. That's the impression I have of the story, anyhow. Haven't really read it yet.

Which brings us to our next point. Claudio is working with a bunch of guys to produce this story of his in a series of comic books. Due to various production difficulties, I don't think the entire story is out there, yet, but rest assured that, once I learn that it is, I am totally purchasing it so I may know it inside and out.

In the meantime, I have the music of Coheed and Cambria, which, as a lot of you have heard the band are already aware, is this epic sci-fi story of Claudio's told through music. I've known this for a while, but listening to things a bit closer now, I'm starting to see how the bits and pieces fit together a little better, and now the full awesomeness of this feat has dawned on me.

Basically, in summary:
He's written an epic sci-fi, seemingly meta-textual story.
He's producing comics to tell this story.
He's got a band and an entire discography to tell this story as well.

Basically, he's done just about every major creative endeavor I've ever wanted to do. It's more than a little inspiring for me.

And, since I keep finding myself stuck in various ruts, I've been listening to Volumes I and II of Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV almost non-stop for weeks. And yes, in that time, I've gone from "none of the band's other stuff has really jumped out at me yet" to "Oh my god, this man is my new god."

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And now, to end this post on an amusing anecdote:

I bought Volumes I and II of Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV and ripped them. (The torrent versions I downloaded were botched for various reasons: skipping, censoring, missing entire instrumental tracks.) After ripping them, I tried moving some of the files from where they ripped into the mess of the rest of my collection. Wasn't working. In fact, I couldn't really do anything with the file, even delete it.

Finally, I read the error message Windows kept giving me. Something about the file name being too long. I've got Media Player set up to create the mp3 files with the album name, the track number, the artist, then the song name.

And for some reason I can't quite imagine, Windows just doesn't like the file name "Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 1- From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness-14-The Willing Well III- Apollo II- The Telling Truth.mp3."

But then I re-ripped those tracks, and everything is peachy now. Woo~.

mood: creative music: Coheed and Cambria - The Willing Well II: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness

Obviously, I've been failing at the whole "weekly" part of these check-ins.

The past four weeks have been kind of a blur. At times, I've been good at things, and at other times, not-so-much. I'm going a little lighter on myself on account of the fact that I've been spending a lot of my free time lately moving stuff into my new bedroom and getting all that crap organized--not nearly as much time as I should have been, but it's been a priority for quite some time now.

Anyhow. The down-and-dirty version of business.

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( Weekly Check-In for Weeks 18, 19, 20, and 21: August 24 to September 20 )

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I've a few other personal things I want to throw up here, but I don't want them to get lost or forgotten or overlooked by the details of this post. Double-posting FTW? It's fine to do it on LJ, right?

mood: okay music: Coheed and Cambria - Apollo I: The Writing Writer

After nearly six months of labouring over many of the same nit-picky word choices and the last few stanzas entirely, I finally buckled down and finished the lyrics for a song I was writing.

I could say a few things about them now, but I think it's best if I just let you read them and think what you will.

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( Circular Logic )

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If I wasn't curious about feedback, I wouldn't have posted this on LJ. Comments, critiques, anything--I'm ready to hear 'em.

After the secondary hard drive bombed on me so many times, I guess it was only a matter of time before my primary hard drive started taking a dive for the worst.

I have endured a slew of "Delayed Write Failed" error messages and countless failed disk checks to jump online and order yet another new hard drive. I would have much rather spent that $180 on not having to fix my PC yet again, but I'd rather have a working PC than all of the other fancy things for which I've been saving. It still sucks that I have to sink this much money into it--again--but at least I have the funds necessary.

Fucking Seagate.

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In other news:

I had a pretty spectacular date the other night, if it can be called such. I mean, we walked through Eldorado Park, had ice cream at Demetre's, went to The Putting Edge and then saw Inglorious Basterds together. I'm not sure what other date-like things we could have done to make it more of a date. Still, there's something to be said about officiality; neither of us have actually called it anything (beyond "Round 3"), so you can't really call it anything without risking calling it the wrong thing.

There's also the question of how interested I am in this girl. This is still up in the air.

I've also become more-or-less obsessed with this song. It's kind of sad, especially since none of the band's other stuff has really jumped out at me yet.

And yes, I still owe you all an update from last week. I will contemplate such things once my PC seems to be settling down or I can post from a PC that's not mine.

music: Coheed and Cambria - Welcome Home

I'm starting this at 1:47PM Sunday afternoon. I'm trying to get this done between putting baseboards down, showering, and working. I've got odds this won't be finished until after I get home after midnight, but damnit, I've got to get this done.

Again, I've been slacking in terms of, well, just about everything here. I've been exhausted, lonely, depressed, blah blah blah, et cetera. I don't mean to demerit my despair--it feels genuine, at least to me, but to be fair, I could be letting it get to me more than I should--but I'm not here to talk about that. Not right now.

So.

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( Weekly Check-In for Weeks 16 and 17: August 10 to 23 )

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I want to address the issue of, in layman's terms, why I've been sucking so hard at these lately, but it's late, I need to get up early, and I am physically sore from sitting and typing all night long. I'm glad I did it, though. I guess it's kind of like confessional that way (catharsis).

We'll see you again soon, LJ, hopefully before next Sunday.

mood: peaceful music: The Decemberists - Isn't It A Lovely Night?

I haven't been keeping up with my weekly check-ins recently. I've been stuck in this cycle of being busy and exhausted and lonely and despairing. I feel I've been having difficulty handling anything lately. It's another one of those cyclical ruts where I can't make heads or tails of causes or effects.

I've had moderate but below satisfactory progress with each of my goals. I'm down to 230ish, even though I haven't really exercised in almost a week now. I'm trying to create a formula in my banking spreadsheet to keep track of my various budgets, but since I don't have all the lumps ironed out yet, it's not easy to follow along with it. I've been keeping on top of my To-Do List, but I haven't made progress in this regard. I've got some reading and some writing done, but not nearly enough of either.

I've got all of this coming Monday free. With any luck, I'll be able to finally sit down and seriously contemplate what's keeping me from forwarding these goals and what I can do to start pushing them in the right direction again. It’s entirely a mental block issue, I’m almost certain of it, and I suspect a lot of it is to do with the fact that I’m not allotting myself nearly enough time for anything. Hopefully, come Monday, I’ll be able to have some kind of serious analysis of all this laid out.

mood: exhausted music: Daft Punk - Alive 2007 - Around The World / Harder Better Faster Stronger

Everyone is awesome for chipping in their $0.02 towards my goals. Knowing that others give a damn about my progress and success makes it a lot easier to give a damn about them myself. Thanks for keeping in touch, everyone.

Also, Daft Punk is really, really good. Like, "How the hell did it take me this long to realize this?" good.

mood: optimistic music: Daft Punk - Crescendolls

I've only got about 40 minutes before I'm supposed to be leaving for work this afternoon. I won't have time to over Patrick's comments the way I'd like to, but I should have time to go over what I remember to be the most important idea he communicated to me: I need to set up specific goal posts for each of my goals and measure the degrees of my successes by those posts.

So. Here we go.

( Weekly Check-In for Weeks 11 and 12: July 6 to 19 )

Gotta get packed up for work now.

mood: busy music: Queens of the Stone Age - Someone's In The Wolf

I went on a date Friday afternoon. At least, that's my interpretation of what it was supposed to be. It was with a girl named Elle I met through OKCupid. It went well in the sense that we talked and talked and talked until we looked at our watches and I went, "Holy crap, I need to be at work in three hours." It went not-so-well in the sense that she wasn't much at all how I expected her to be, and now I'm paranoid that I'm going to turn out like Chandler. On the plus side, though, it's kind of got me thinking about what, exactly, my priorities are right now. Will have to ponder this more, perhaps while I am working this evening.

My plans for Waterloo fell through. I was going to drive down to hang out with Steve for Saturday night, but the station wagon my parents were going to take camping broke down, leaving them stranded at home for the weekend instead, so they needed the car I was going to use for whatever. Turns out they didn't do anything, so I probably could have gone down anyway. Sigh.

On the upside, after my midnight shift last night, I decided that, since my Waterloo plans fell through, I could go to the Magic 2010 Release after all. So I went, despite the fact that I had already been up for 24 hours before the tournament even began. And I won. Woo! It's no surprise, really. It was a Sealed tournament, and I opened a bunch of fat fliers--plus two Acidic Slimes, one of which is shiny. That makes nine shiny Slimes for me now. Awesome.

And then I slept for 12 hours. Glorious.

Just got out of the shower. Time to get dressed, guitar it up for a bit, then meet Katie for lunch. I will bring you all a sort-of-regularly scheduled update when I return.

mood: blank music: Muse - Sober

But first, a note to self: I must steal more Stolen Babies:



Apparently this is three years old. It's new to me, and I love it. I like the other song I know by them better, but there's no useful video for it on YouTube. So.

Also, she is hot. But I suppose most metal front girls are. Le sigh.

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I'm late again. I'm sorry. Let's do this.

( Weekly Check-In for Week 10: June 29 to July 5 )

mood: contemplative music: Stolen Babies - Filistata

Is late, I know. I'm sorry.

I'm kind of rushing to get out the door and on my way to a party, so I'll rush through this and not give it the attention it deserves right now:

( Weekly Check-In for Week 9: June 22 to June 28 )

And now, beer and board games. Woo!

mood: busy music: Metallica - ...And Justice For All

"MICHAEL JACKSON AND FARRAH FAWCETT ARE DEAD!!"

And because it was Johno, my first thought was, "Oh, dude! Best zombie movie ever!"

But I was with Alex at the time, I showed her the message, and she said, "Yeah, it's true."

I come home and learn that, indeed, according to Wiki, they are actually dead.

Both on the same day, too. Bizarre.

Would it be too much to ask MJ to do one last dance for us?

mood: sad music: Michael Jackson - Thriller