June 2005 Archives

You just can't tell. Or maybe you can. I fixed all the calendars in the archives, so it displays the month calendar properly. I changed 'Seasons' to 'Galleries' because it makes so much more sense. I rewrote the short blurb about the show. I've been revalidating all the old entries. One. By. One. Sigh. I'm almost not sick.

I'm not taking the pills anymore. When I was taking them I had a dream that dooce was actually my aunt. And much hilarity did follow.

I apologize profusely for the last two entries. I forgot to tell people that they should keep me away from Movable Type when I'm on medication, especially if that medication causes me to degenerate into a blob that can only eat rainbow vanilla cake made by my sister and laugh at stuff in the dooce archives until my mother comes running across the house asking what's wrong. My house is big too; big like that run on sentence.

So instead of a regular entry, I'm going to let my brain recover and point you towards Xiaxue (again). It seems she was mistaken as another blogger who just posts nude photos and now she's milking it for all that it's worth. Maybe I'm being too harsh on her when I say it's karma coming back and biting her in the ass. I know if it was me, I might say the same things.

On second thought, please, please don't. The amount of pain I'm in right now is substantial. I went to the gym today to get my membership card and torture my body. Pushing yourself like crazy, while you have a neck full of swollen lymph nodes is not worth it, even if the weekend coming up happens to be Pride. It's not worth the suffering you'll go through afterwards.

It wasn't all bad though. Jeramie, the older, darker haired, taller and built like a personal trainer version of Jeremy was working again. Consider that boy ogled. I'm getting used to the machines there. That and the fact that I lift as much with my legs as my dad does; I think he's jealous. I was fine for the first bit of the workout too. Fine until my sinuses went absolutely nuts and I couldn't hear anything out of my right ear except for loud breathing. It felt like there was pressure in there, as if I was flying in an airplane. It's a sensation I'm getting used to having around, but it is by no means a fun sensation to have.

Aside from that, I spent most of the day converting and validating most of the site in XHTML 1.0 Strict. I decided to switch from Transitional to Strict, because I wanted to and because I wanted to. I don't actually remember what my reasoning was. The site already loads funny in IE, no point in worrying about the Strict DTD exploding IE's parser.

I also put all my new pens into my pencil case because I'm a loser like that. On top of arranging co-op interviews, doctors appointments, and studying for final exams, I now have to get to waterloo and tell them that they're not supposed to clear GER101 from my record because I want to pass that with flying colours, and that I can't enroll in courses and they're all going to be full soon which will leave them with a very angry Mike. We all know how angry Mike can be, so I like to think it's in their best interest to cooperate. The pens were just a way to stay sane about it all, and spend over $100 at Staples at the same time.

With that said, this entry is not going to be funny or any longer than it is. I'm sore, and I'm going to go back to reading the dooce archives even though they tend to leave me shaking in fits of laughter. I figured it was ok, because more often than not I hear "shaken, not stirred".

When I say "Almost Killer Weekend" I mean that in the most literal sense possible. The weekend was actually almost the death of me. Friday meant going to see Batman Begins with Adam. Man did that movie rock. I'm going to warn you right now: If you're not interested in Batman, or movie reviews, or hot villains, I suggest you just scroll down to the part where I start talking about Saturday.

First of all, I'd like to comment on the sheer number of people I saw at the movie. God, I'm so Oakville it's not even funny. By the time I had gotten to the line and told the guy behind the counter that he forgot to give me the $5 bill that was supposed to make up my $9.50, and had left me sitting with just two twoons and two quarters, I had seen more than enough people to fill a small to medium sized rant about people I don't want to see anymore. I moved on, like the fake trooper that I am. After buying pop corn, and being cut in front of by some two-cent Oakville whore with badly dyed blonde hair and one of the most hideous parasuco skirts that I have ever seen (most likely purchased by mommy - not that there's anything wrong with that, my mommy buys me clothes sometimes and I love her for it), I said a quick hello to Jeff using the standard "Hey, haven't I seen you on TV before?"

I'd like to take this opportunity to go into a little more detail about Jeff, who I almost called Dan in my pineapple-juice-and-antibiotics induced delirium. I'd also like to say that this pineapple-juice-and-antibiotics induced delirium has done so many horrible things to my body that I might just be able to use the word 'poop' more times in this one entry than can be found in all of dooce.com, and that's a lot of poop. Not that you need to know that. Jeff is the boy who goes to UWaterloo, and lived on the floor above mine in MKV. He was also the boy whose younger sister wound up being my 'Degrassi: The Next Generation Girlfriend' for all of our lovely filming experiences. However, now that I mention it I remember that I have in fact told this story before and there's no need for me to go over the awkwardness that was the "Hey that girls hot, I'd hit it" - "That's my sister" exchange. Nope, none at all. So I'll leave this subject letting you all know that Jeff's a great guy, with a wicked hot tub and pool (even if nature is invading his backyard, and street credibility means NOTHING in his hilly Burlington neighbourhood).

Can you tell what the medication is doing to me? I don't think I'm in any way, shape or form coherent sentences(this word was originally left out). Not that it's stopping me. Batman Begins was a fucking awesome movie. I suggest you go see them, and then read this review to understand why. I'm in no condition to comment on it, because it was brilliant when I wasn't on medication and now that I am it melts my brain so I can't read it over again for you. Sorry. I will comment on a part of this other review. It argues fair points for the most part, except for one. At the very bottom of the first page it argues that the CG part of Gotham City (The Narrows, Gotham's Projects) don't gel well with the Chicago parts of the city, arguing Gotham comes off as an afterthought. I think the reviewer is an uneducated banana (that's right, them's fightin' words) that doesn't know anything about Gotham, The Narrows, or Kowloon Walled City.

That's what was Kowloon Walled City. It was the most densely populated area in the world before it was torn down, and rose up into the hair like a thorn in Hong Kong’s skyline. It was the only Chinese Held area on Hong Kong, meaning the Mainland Chinese Police wouldn't touch it and the Hong Kong Police had no right to touch it. The Triads wound up controlling most of everything that went on in there. Now am I crazy, or does no one else see what seems to be blindly obvious parallels? It's not that hard to see the Kowloon in Gotham's Narrows. Now, if I could only find information on the train system I'd be a happy nerd.

The movie itself was really good. I saw upwards of 30 people I knew in the theatre. Literally. It was a little frightening. Cillian Murphy is a gorgeous man. I came to that conclusion after I realized I had degenerated into pre-pubescent girl like whimpering when he was on the screen.

I got home in time to get almost enough sleep for me to function Saturday at Wonderland. I woke up at 9:00 and phoned Mel to verify that Jess and Ben weren't coming, and wouldn't need rides. That meant I got to spend an extra 45 minutes in bed. I should have only spent 30, but I'm a greedy slut. Deal with it. I got up in time to shower, and find out my parents were no where to be found. The same parents who were supposed to provide me with the funds to purchase a seasons pass, and survive a day in the overpriced food stands that make up Wonderland. I still managed to make it to get Mel at a decent time.

When we were going over Britannia, Eugene called and said he'd be 30 minutes to get to Wonderland. Sketchy was what I was thinking, because I estimated we'd get there after about 35 minutes. It only took 15. So I'll leave you to make your assumptions about how fast I drive on the 407. Eugene was to call when he and his friend Chikai arrived, so Mel and I went off to find food. I won't get into my escapades at New York Fries, or the trouble we caused in line for Top Gun. I'll just say that I kicked Mel's ass at 'Name That Tune', and the day was enough fun to let me ignore the fact that my body was throbbing when we left at 6:00. It gave me enough time to shower and soak, and still get downtown in time for the hop. I have to say, I enjoyed this hop a lot. So there. Don't whine to me if you didn't have a good time, because (minus the molestation) I did.

I was even in a good mood when I got home and went to bed at 2:30, despite the long day and lack of sleep before hand. That is until I woke up at 7:00, chilled to the bone. When I say chilled to the bone, I mean it in the most literal sense. The pills I'm taking have screwed up my body temperature so that it will randomly fluctuate from really hot to really cold. Well that night I got really hot, to the point where I had soaked my blanket in sweat. I'm going to let you in on something that most people don't know because to know this you have to have slept with me. I'm a cold sleeper. Cold to the point where my feet could be used to cool most of Jamaica through the summer. Not that night. I soaked my blanket just in time for the air conditioning to come on, and freeze everything. To the point where my bones must have been ice. Not must have been ice, they were ice. I'm surprised I didn't wake anyone up with my involuntary moaning as I switched blankets on my bed and tried to defrost my legs. The condition has stayed much the same too. So if you're looking for a reason as to why this entry made little to no sense, there you have it.

In conclusion: Christian Fundamentalist College Students are HOT (and totally G-rated).

Your pictures are up.

You're going to have to wait a little longer for any updates. Holy shit do I feel like absolute crap. The lymph nodes on the back of my neck are throbbing because of people who wouldn't stop touching them. I spent a lot of last night trying not to throw up because the medication has sent me spinning into a world of pain and suffering. I woke up this morning in a sweatcovered haze of mumbling and throbbing then shooting the throbbing pain in my legs.

I didn't get my haircut today like I wanted to. It makes me sad. Once I realized that I was in no condition to go to the gym, my original plans for the day came crashing down. The lymph nodes along the back of my neck started to swell up the other day, and now they're the cause of much unwanted pain. Combined with the fact that I just went on more medicatation for post-mono blues, I decided to skip the gym in an attempt to be in wonderland-approved health tomorrow. The last thing I want to deal with is wonderland rides with piercings AND a sore neck.

I've noticed I haven't blogged in a while now. What the hell have I been doing? I finally signed up for my gym membership, which lead to a hard night of working out and two days of pain. A lot of sleeping on top of that. Not so much post-workout pain as much as it is 'post-mono body says why the fuck did you put me through that, I'm staging a coup' pain. That and I've slept for most of the last two days. So that's what I've been doing: appointments, star wars, and sleep.

I'm drinking pineapple juice for its sweetening effects. On my smile, you dirty people. I don't have much to say, which I find very odd especially considering I remember laughing at a large number of things today alone. So I'll go with what I do remember. Tom Cochrane is performing at Waterfront this year, replacing Oakville Favourite and Waterfront Veteran Jann Arden. The last story I heard involving Tom Cochrane took place at IR High. He was there, ready to give a speech somewhere when someone ran in and yelled 'Tom Cochrane's a fag' to which he responded by getting up and leaving, apparently insulted. I'd be insulted too; his fashion sense is clearly more similar to that of a lesbian.

So it's easy to assume that when he came up in conversation, Adam and I were quick to agree that everyone was going to see him for 'Life is a Highway' and that he was going to play it last: "Ok, you've sat through an hour of my concert, now I'll play the song you all came to hear." What a disaster it would be if he didn't play that song at all. Adam speculated that someone's house would be egged that night, and by someone we all knew he meant poor Tom Cochrane. My reply was as simple 'As if'; no one in Oakville would be so crude as to seek out someone's house to egg it after they didn't play their only good song at Waterfront. No, he wouldn't even make it off the stage. He'd be hit with so many Tim Horton's cups, that he might be able to sue Tim Horton's on the grounds that their coffee was also a weapon.

My parents couldn't have just made it easy, and taken me to chapters when I asked them to. Had they done that I would have had a nice book on Korea, another one on current issues, and one for tomorrow about photoshop to go with the rest of my compy related books. And of course, I couldn't go to the gym at 9:00 (a semi-regular time back at MKV), because it would be too much of a hassle. Well thank you. Now I'm suffering trying to stay sane, and not play the game that goes something along the lines of 'Which of these songs is most like being hit by a semi on the 401'. I'm trying oh so hard to remember that the moral of the story is: When your gay friend tells you he loves you, don't punch him in the face! Say thank you.

This is all you get today. Deal with it.

The Mike Haddad Show: Got Mike?

Michael Jackson was found not guilty, as shown on the lovely India Times care of Google News redirection. I told you in the beginning that he wasn't guilty. The mother was some sort of psychopath that suckered her kid into believing they were capable of screwing the pop king out of millions of dollars (pun slightly intended).

What does this all mean for me? It means I have 18 songs and 1.3 hours worth of celebrating to do with his 'Number Ones'. It's 73.1 MBs of Michael Jackson goodness.

This entry is simply because I know I should be posting an entry. In fact, I probably should have posted an entry yesterday. However I found myself to be preoccupied for most of the day. And what better way for a level 45/20 fantasy/sci-fi geek to spend his day than to bask in the combined geekery of Star Wars Episode II: Clone Wars, and read the latest White Dwarf during the slow, embarrassing scenes. Never mind the hotness that is Hayden Christensen, and the rumours in the rumour mill that put his name and bisexual in the same sentence; powerful enough to reduce a large number of teenage homos to incoherent mumbles and star wars quotes. That is until the theme song faded and I was reminded of the third episode. Thank god Jar Jar came to my rescue and saved me from the awkward scene afterwards complete with its hand holdage.

So I was left to question: How is it that eating watermelon can lead to the same water-in-nose sputtering as swimming in a pool? I think my body is trying to tell me something, considering the last few days have been spent feeling like I had been swimming all day; complete with sore eyes, tired muscles and the feel of chlorine on my skin - something I'm not even going to ask about. And this is what I was left to ponder as I sat through the dinner that my parents brought me back from the Keg, after my body decided that it preferred sleeping to eating at the point they wanted to leave. I can think of few things worse than the feeling of being told to eat a salad, steak, chicken breast, ribs and baked potato when all you want to do is wander around aimlessly for an hour or six.

Luckily Adam was available to save me after I had successfully shoved all but part of the steak and potato in my body. The remainder of the night and early morning was spent with Sean from AE wandering the ghetto streets of Hamilton without cellphones, and then back to Oakville to drive around as many streets as possible trying to fight the inevitable decision that would be made over which Tim Horton's we would have to visit since everything else was closed.

I think I've decided that right now if I was forced to choose one internet persona to be adopted by, I would beg for it to be dooce, despite the fact that I'm only up to 30 December, 2003 in her archives and the fact that her place of residence is Utah. After she had speculated that her unborn daughter might be installing firewire in the placenta I felt that myself and three computers (Jackie, Chris and Al; soon to hopefully be 6) would be perfectly at home in a place where the internet is browsed on iBooks in the washroom.

Today’s itinerary looks exceedingly entertaining. My mom decided that she's tired of me wasting most of my day inside, and even two days of landscaping help couldn't change her mind on the subject. So it looks like I'm out to take the car for an oil change, deliver a package to the post office, and clean out and reorganize the hamster cages. Somewhere in between I think I'm going to show up to the mall dressed like an AE poster child and beg for a job since co-op possibilities look to be non-existent. Which leaves me to wonder: who are these girls that Destiny’s Child sing off, and where can I get some.

I'm drunk. My head kinda hurts. Adam is taking advantage of Margaret Cho. But he's gay. This causes issues. But I'd do her.

mike² - dag, yo. says:
whos the boy in your picture
mike² - dag, yo. says:
and when can i do him?
miss fancy pants - It's Christmas! says:
the other prozac?!
mike² - dag, yo. says:
i mean meet him
miss fancy pants - It's Christmas! says:
that's a GIRL
mike² - dag, yo. says:
WHAT
miss fancy pants - It's Christmas! says:
LMAO
mike² - dag, yo. says:
THATS NOT COOL
miss fancy pants - It's Christmas! says:
LMFAO
mike² - dag, yo. says:
THATS NOT A GIRL
miss fancy pants - It's Christmas! says:
that's TOO FUNNY
miss fancy pants - It's Christmas! says:
YES IT IS
mike² - dag, yo. says:
the one in the stripes?

All-around SEXINESS I want to makeout with him for old times' sake on degrassi and have some of his babies: Michael Haddad!

I heart her for making my shitty day so much better, and not even doing it on purpose.

All the pictures have been recieved. I'd love to have them put up today, but that would require entering in all the bio information that has not yet been formated or entered, formating the bio information that has been entered, and resizing the solo pictures so that they work on both the bio page and on the main characters page. I think if anything, when's it done it will be a testament not only to the insane amount of work I'm willing to do for my ego but also to the fact that I am willing to do something involving people once and a while. So when I do get around to doing that, I'll be able to cross everything off of the list for Character Section aside from the Mike Stuff. I just wanted to let you know that from here on in, any delays can be blamed 100% on my laziness. Besides, it's so much easier to just read dooce.com instead.

The Seasons Section has been put on hold. Along with debating whether or not to add categories to the blog, I've been trying to figure out why I put this section up in the first place and to see if there's anything TV Show Inspired that I could replace it with.

The Show Section is still blank. That's the semi-bad news. The good news is that it's not actually supposed to be blank. There will infact be stuff to read up here; I just need to get around to it. The fact that the quest for a theme song isn't going so well might be a valid excuse for this. Or it might not be. To be honest, I don't care that much.

The Side Bar only needs a few things changed: The intro to the show (which will probably be done at the same time as the Show Section), and the extended disclaimer which will at least partially relinquish me of the guilt for hurt feelings.

In non-show related news, I'd just like to say a few things. I went shopping to Mapleview today. I've decided that Oakville Place could use a Gap and then I'd stop complaining. I wouldn't shop at the Gap but it would make me feel like we're at a real mall. The customer service at the American Eagle there is horrible. Aside from the one gino guy who looked really out of place, it was mainly a bunch of teenagers who stood around in the middle of the store and talked to each other about how they wanted to go shoe shopping. I still bought two pairs or shorts and two shirts. I'm not sure what that says about me. Actually I have some ideas, I'm just not sure if I like them or not.

We're finally doing our gardening, four summers later. My parents were all excited. Especially my dad, since his new 545 whatever came last night. Natasha's mother stopped driving it around in Quebec and decided to safely escort it to Mississauga BMW. Being the bright star that I am, I joined them on their trip to the garden center wearing mainly white shorts and a mainly white tshirt. I'm not that dirty right now, I swear.

Also, I posted this on livejournal but I figured that I would say it again because it's good to know. 'Friends Only' is not the same thing as 'Protected'. It also might not be a good idea to talk about people on your friends list and only put it to 'Friends Only'. Unless of course you can deal with it.

P.S. Eug, if you want to have blogs posted I might be able to make it happen.

This is what I did for you today:

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas. A small problem with my table (thead, tfoot, then tbody stupid), and a bunch of trouble with blockquotes vs MT text formatting, and links from othersites. Other than that, we're all good now.

There's a thread on the Something Awful forums about it by one of the kids.

Apparently they take pictures of fights at school. Weird.

Photojunkie won the award for Best Canadian Weblog in 2005. Now in previous entries about winners, I would review what I liked about their blog and their writing style. This one is different. As implied by its name, Photojunkie is a photoblog. They're pretty things; Josh runs one. Only this causes a slight problem. I'm not a photographer. I've only skimmed through chapthers of The Basic Book of Photography, with more focus on the chapters about taking a picture opposed to using a camera because let's be honest: I don't own an SLR.

So instead of a review of writing, which I can't do, here are the links to some pretty pictures that I liked.

Howard St. Shadows

Distillery Door

Eastern Ave. Bridge

Resting Biker

Plaine de Jeux

Reflection

Queen East

401 Night Lights

So doing my typical thing as I wasted time today I found myself at ljdrama.org, a site completely dedicated to drama all across LJ.

Up near the top was this nugget of joy. Not since the famous MMO cyber scanal avec Ceciliantas have I been so amused by something on the internet.

I can't even go into detail on this one. The comments are sitting at like 6 pages, most of them with long threads on seperate pages. The basic rundown is this. Girl makes fun of stuck up, asshole boy on her LJ. Boy's mother proceeds to harass girl and girl's friends leading to some ridiculous number of comments posted, and a whole lot of random bible passage spewing. If you can spare the hour it will probably take you to read it, I'd suggest you do so. This woman is crazy. Not only is she crazy, she pulled the typical "I'm going to get you arrested and sue" thing. Now, I've been on the interent long enough to know it doesn't work in most cases. Even when you post a picture of the person, it doesn't work. It can work, but it usually isn't worth the effort because it generally doesn't.

That said, I'm going to go back and read it. My post on photojunkie.com, winner of the Best Canadian Weblog 2005 Bloggie is probably going to suffer a little bit. Good thing it's mainly a photoblog.

So here's the first of my semi-official status reports on the site. As we all know the site was supposed to be completly ready (minus the video) on June 1st. Obviously it is not. Scheduling conflicts lead to delays. But that's ok. Here's where I stand on things.

Character Section
Solo pictures: I'm currently waiting on 6 of the solo pictures to be finished. After the pictures are finished, I need to resize them all so they fit properly in context with the rest of the character pages. Hopefully it won't take too much time to do.

Bio inputting: Kill me now. Five more cast bios to do, plus the revision to Kaman's bio, plus Jess' bio, plus my bio and Natasha's bio (which technically should count as cast bios, but they still need to be written so I seperated them). The inputting won't take much effort, it's just monotonous. Kaman's will be easy to revise because it's electronic so I just copy and past. Jess' bio was in the full form that I wanted everyone's to be in, before she took the sheet, emailed it to the wrong email address and left me with nothing. It shouldn't take long to do. Writing mine and Natasha's is going to be a pain.

Seperate Mike Stuff: Yes, I'm selfish. But it's my show, and this is how I do it.

PHP organization: Done. Woot.

Seasons Section
Info on layouts: I have the pictures of the old layouts. Right now, I haven't decided what I want to say about them. Maybe just how long they were up for, and what blog software I was using. I'll have to look around at other sites and see what they're doing.

Show Section
A lot: I wasn't joking. But I think I can revise the list.

Domain History: There's not much to write about when it comes to this domain. However, I'm planning to include a section about what I've entitled The Pilots, which is all the old blog stuff from Blogger, to pre-MT, to pre-show MT. That would give me a lot to talk about.

Sidebar
A lot: I wasn't joking again. I've added the SiteMeter thing. I added the Disclaimer at the bottom under Production. I added the warning at the top under Show talking about how I've still got a bit to go. I reorganized some of the pictures.

If I didn't spend so much time at dooce.com I'm sure I'd get more done.

Holy shit, this is the coolest thing ever. I'm not sure who's more jealous right now: Myself or Natasha. This is the entry pertaining to the event.

dooce is probably one of the funniest blogs I've ever read. It's no wonder that her site, and its tagline Not your average clenched-cheek sprint to the bathroom won a total of four Bloggies in 2005 (Best American Weblog, Best Tagline of a Weblog, Most Humourous Weblog, and Best Writing of a Weblog). I spent most of my free time today reading over her archives, which are hilarious. Let me tell you though, there are a lot of archives. She started all the way back in June 2001. I'm only on to February 2002, but there's already tons that I'd like to share with you because I thought it was funny. So without any further adieu:

November 1, 2001

The second instance of traffic malfeasance occurred on that terrible expanse of asphalt between Los Angeles and San Francisco known as I-5, 97 mph in a 55 mph zone. I was transporting two liberated, thirty-something women to Oakland, both of whom were so high on The Chronic that when the police officer knocked on the passenger window they mistook him for a pizza deliveryman. Greeting an officer of the law with “Yo wassup, dirty?�? proved to be a rather numskulled attempt to leverage my defense. I was lucky that the incident cost me only $280 in fines and not my license, birth certificate, or first-born child.

November 7, 2001

HISTORY OF THE WORLD:
• There was a beginning.
• Something here about stuff.
• Then Britney.

November 19, 2001

Five hours after sticking my hand up the frozen ass of a dead bird and 16 calls to my mother later who, might I point out, found it wickedly pleasurable when I discovered the turkey giblets and passed out face first into a bowl of minced garlic we had ourselves an astounding display of foodstuffs with the carbohydrate voltage of a nuclear reactor. Southern women instinctually know to fry everything in butter, and I fried everything in butter and then added more butter.

November 21, 2001

Three years ago my mother bought a house at the most southern point of the Salt Lake Valley, in a planned stucco development called “Arctic Tundra,�? written in Adobe Garamond italic at the neighborhood’s entrance. Her front porch is currently covered in three feet of snow, something the Salt Lake Olympic Committee considers a specific consequence to an entire state’s willingness to pay tithing. The Lord wants to make sure that Canadian skiers who smoke marijuana have plenty of powder on which to compete. Alas, I digress.

December 4, 2001

Unfortunately, while alcohol can encourage those muscles required for errand completion, she also tends to relax those key muscles required for decision making. Which is how I explain why we ended up with 600 red ball ornaments, 1200 Life Saver Spearmint Candy Canes, 17 rolls of Snoopy Does Christmas wrapping paper, and enough icicle lights to decorate the apartment so that it can be seen from the Moon.

December 14, 2002

I am supposed to write and tell you that I am sorry for calling you a “rude old crag�? in front of the ten people you so casually jumped in front of while waiting in line at Canter’s Deli last evening.

Those are some excerpts from her funnier entries; I suggest you read the whole entry each time. It's not to say that her blog isn't generally funny. It's actually the opposite. It has an almost constant flow, a perfect mix of sarcasm and wit. As Natasha said, "she is sooo human." That of course was refering to the fact that you can read her blogs, and get something out of it no matter who you are. Easy to relate to, or at least be amused by.

A lot of her entries about what life is like post-mormon family. It makes me wonder what I have to poke fun at in my life. Aside from recent rocky relations with my father, things are and always have been good for me. Maybe that's what my thing will be. How life has always been rather easy for me. That makes me sound spoilt. My family dynamics are interesting. How about the fact that at first glance we look extremely average, when really we're anything but that. How about how my family has always interacted more like the UN than a normal family. I'm not Nuclear Family Steve O-Longname.

I'm Mike Haddad and this is my show. This is how I do it.

I'd like to take this oppurtunity to take a break from updating, eat a sandwich (who the hell put jalapeno in havardi cheese), and say:

Indie music sucks.

Love,
Mike.

Ok not really, since I don't actually know any indie music.

As I contemplate the hot dream I had last night, and update sections of the site I remembered I need to know:

Who watched Undergrads?

So after falling upon The Bloggies in my internet wanderings, I've spent some time going over the winners. Right now I'm wrapping my mind around the enigma that is Xiaxue, the Best Asian Weblog for two years running now.

What makes this girl so special that she has wound up with an insane amount of hits. She's spawned a number of offsites, and is apparently so important that she needs a seperate blog just to house her FAQ. I've never even had a chance to see her Geocities Character Site because it's always been over the bandwidth limit. She has a photo site up, that is sure to get just as many hits as her blog. The only thing that confuses me about this is that she even admited in her FAQ that most of her pictures are photoshopped:

Well, that's pretty!

Oh really? Well, thank you. But do not give the credit of those looks to me! Give it to Adobe Photoshop. My pictures are all enhanced (and trust me, I am good at it), so minus 40% and you get the real thing. =D

At least she's honest? And she was right, she is good with Photoshop. Her other blogs include an FHM spoof, that is also hosted at Geocities and over the bandwidth limit; The Geeky Bits, which showcases her geeky bits (not to be confused with her naughty bits); and We Hate Xiaxue, a blog for people who hate her (that she contributes to).

I've been reading through her posts to try and capture her secret. Much like that rayna girl, she seems to be extremely sporadic in her entries. She is very firm in her beliefs about beauty (Simple And Stupid Life: Commentary on Divas), no matter how ironic or hypocritical it may seem.

I have to admit, I enjoyed her gmail invites giveaway. I was surprised when she gave one to #2. It just went to show that my initial judgement of her was completely off the mark. By this point I was already enjoying reading her blogs, as random as they could be. So it just goes to show that I'm way too judgemental. Although I have to admit, I find any comments about long 'doinks' hard to believe. Let's be honest, she lives in Singapore. Who's she trying to fool?

Some of her posts did spark interesting thoughts though. They reminded me of traits that I did not like to see in people. Why is it that some people can be completely oblivious to the feelings of their friends? Maybe people have just degenerated so far into stupidity that they don't actually know what the term friend is supposed to mean. A friend isn't someone who you use for your own benefit. Common courtesy is still supposed to apply. Maybe people have just forgotten what common courtesy implies. A friend isn't something you can just take off the shelf to use when you need something, and then ignore the rest of the time. If you're completely clueless about a "friend's" sensitive areas, then maybe you really aren't the friend you thought you were.

Ok, I need reader suggestions on the following things.

• A Show Theme Song
• A Show Catch Phrase

I need to fix the following things.

• The Show Section
• The Characters Section
• The Seasons Section
• The Side Bar
• The 'Preview Comments' Layouts
• Hopefully fix the way logging in redirects people

Here it is, in all its glory. Yay Natasha. It took a lot of work and I'm really happy with the way it turned out, despite all our difficulties – technical and otherwise. For those of you who don't know the story, I'll suffer through retelling it now.

After all of the energy put into planning it and getting the pictures taken separately so we could Photoshop them together (see why we wanted you there all at once), Photoshop went and died on us right after this version was saved. When it died, it took the files down with it. So all we had was this lovely jpeg. I'm still pleased with it.

From: "Natasha"
To: "Mike"
Bcc:
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:20:55 -0400

Dear Mike,

You Rock (in private)

Heart,
Natasha

I found "How To Blog", by Tony Pierce as I was randomly going through websites. I've noticed there a site up now such as Blogebrity and The Bloggies which give award and fame to certain bloggers. Sites like this turn me on and make me feel inadequate all at once.

But on to "How To Blog" and my thoughts and comments about it and it's relation to my site.

• 1. write every day.
  I agree. Even if it's something stupid, just write it. Although I'm extremely guilty of breaking this rule, I've been doing my best to work on it. As much as some people have complained that blogs are seperating us from each other, I'd like to hope that they're doing just the opposite. When I don't have a chance to call people, or even chat with them because of scheduling conflicts, it's nice to have a blog there so I can at least pretend that I'm interacting with them.
• 2. if you think youre a good writer, write twice a day.
  All the more to read, my dear.
• 3. dont be afraid to do anything. infact if youre afraid of something, do it. then do it again. and again.
  I'm guilty of breaking this rule sometimes too. Mainly because I broke rule number 5, but we'll get to that later. There have been a number of times where I meant to do something, and either didn't or forgot to. I can't tell you how much I've regret some of those things. (Ok, I can, and it's not very much, but it's the point that matters).
• 4. cuss like a sailor.
  Whatever makes you happy. I'm not a prude, and I can deal with a lot. If it crosses over to soemthing racist/sexist/homophobic/etc., then don't expect me to read for very long.
• 5. dont tell your mom, your work, your friends, the people you want to date, or the people you want to work for about your blog. if they find out and you'd rather they didnt read it, ask them nicely to grant you your privacy.
  Well, I broke this rule. I don't think I mind having my friends read it so much. Although it has occasionally interfered with what I'd like to blog about, I've managed to move on. Most of my friends already know that I'm extremely loud and opinionated. For some of them, that's why we're friends. Others will have to deal with it when they read it.
• 6. have comments. dont be upset if no one writes in your comments for a long time. eventually they'll write in there. if people start acting mean in your comments, ask them to stop, they probably will.
  I heart comments.
• 7. have an email address clearly displayed on your blog. sometimes people want to tell you that you rock in private.
  I broke this rule too I think, but only temporarily. The side bar is still being revamped and an email address is included in the contact section that will be added to both the side bar and a seperate page. I've never had someone email me to tell me I rock in private, but this most likely stems from two things. Most of my readers are already friends, and I don't think I had my email address up. Although I do need to look into sketchy hits from the statse that double what I have on my home network.
• 8. dont worry very much about the design of your blog. image is a fakeout.
  Practicality is more important than display. At the same time, I enjoy looking at the layouts of sites. This is seperate from the content of the site, since a lot of the over the top layouts that I've seen have extremely boring content, and it's not uncommon for a simple and clean layout to have extremely interesting content. This reminds me, I need to get a camcorder for the main page.
• 9. use Blogger. it's easy, it's free; and because they are owned by Google, your blog will get spidered better, you will show up in more search results, and more people will end up at your blog. besides, all the other blogging software & alternatives pretty much suck.
  I disagree with a number of things here. Blogger is good to start out with. In the end I found I prefered Livejounal, although I have to admit that Blogger is much easier to use for the most part. I was more attracted to it because of the comment system, which at the time was something that Blogger lacked. However, anyone who thinks that Blogger is a better alternative to Movable Type is crazy. Movable Type is owned by Six Apart (who also own Liverjounal), and is only about 1000 times better than Blogger. Wow, bad sentence structure.
• 10. use spellcheck unless youre completely totally keeping it real. but even then you might want to use it if you think you wrote something really good.
  This is probably a good piece of advice. I tend to ignore it because I'm comfortable with what spelling skills I have, and I don't worry about what I hope are common mistakes anyways.
• 11. say exactly what you want to say no matter what it looks like on the screen. then say something else. then keep going. and when youre done, re-read it, and edit it and hit publish and forget about it.
  This is an interesting piece of advice. I'm going to group it together with rule 10. Since I don't really do either, I can't comment on how well these work. It's something I'm going to have to look into though.
• 12. link like crazy. link anyone who links you, link your favorites, link your friends. dont be a prude. linking is what seperates bloggers from apes. and especially link if you're trying to prove a point and someone else said it first. it lends credibility even if youre full of shit.
  Links are fun. I need to link more. I hope people like to link me too.
• 13. if you havent written about sex, religion, and politics in a week youre probably playing it too safe, which means you probably fucked up on #5, in which case start a second blog and keep your big mouth shut about it this time.
  "Conservative Party of Canada", 31 May 2005. Baem. Opinions make blogs more interesting. Although that post is really a cop-out.
• 14. remember: nobody cares which N*Sync member you are, what State you are, which Party of Five kid you are, or which Weezer song you are. the second you put one of those things on your blog you need to delete your blog and try out for the marching band. similarilly, nobody gives a shit what the weather is like in your town, nobody wants you to change their cursor into a butterfly, nobody wants to vote on whether your blog is hot or not, and nobody gives a rat ass what song youre listening to. write something Real for you, about you, every day.
  I'm not sure how I feel about this point. While I know nobody cares who I am, I like to put a person behind the thoughts. At the same time I realize that it's the thoughts and not the person that is important in this case.
• 15. dont be afraid if you think something has been said before. it has. and better. big whoop. say it anyway using your own words as honestly as you can. just let it out.
  Isn't this what blogging was all about originally? Or just humanity period. I like the quote from Dead Like Me (since cancelled TV show), that basically said something along the lines of: That was the problem with humanity, we all think we're unique. But we're not. It's the same problems, over and over again with the same heartbreak. The only problem is each time it hurts like the first. I butchered the quote, but the intention was there.
• 16. get Site Meter and make it available for everyone to see. if you're embarrassed that not a lot of people are clicking over to your page, dont be embarrassed by the number, be embarrassed that you actually give a crap about hits to your gay blog. it really is just a blog. and hits really dont mean anything. you want Site Meter, though, to see who is linking you so you can thank them and so you can link them back. similarilly, use Technorati, but dont obsess. write.
  I have Technorati. I'm still learning how to use it. I claimed it by embedding something, but this hideous banner appeared on top of all my pop-upss in Movable Type that I didn't enjoy. I'm going to see what I can do about it though. I'm not sure it was that important, since Movable Type pings Technorati everytime I update anyways. Site Meter looks ugly though.
• 17. people like pictures. use them. save them to your own server. or use Blogger's free service. if you dont know how to do it, learn. also get a Buzznet account. several things will happen once you start blogging, one of them is you will learn new things. thats a good thing.
  I don't use Buzznet but I'm signing up for an account now, and we'll see how it works out. I know that the register page did NOT load in Opera 8 and that makes me sad. So far my pictures have just been hosted on my server while they sit around until they can be put into a gallery.
• 18. before you hit Save as Draft or Publish Post, select all and copy your masterpiece. you are using a computer and the internet, shit can happen. no need to lose a good post.
  Generally good advice. I've never had this problem. Probably because I'm not computer illiterate. Granted there's always the chance.
• 19. push the envelope in what youre writing about and how youre saying it. be more and more honest. get to the root of things. start at the root of things and get deeper. dig. think out loud. keep typing. keep going. eventually you'll find a little treasure chest. every time you blog this can happen if you let it.
  I like this one a lot. I'm going to have to try it out. Maybe something about liars.
• 20. change your style. mimic people. write beautiful lies. dream in public. kiss and tell. finger and tell. cry scream fight sing fuck and dont be afraid to be funny. the easiest thing to do is whine when you write. dont be lazy. audblog at least once a week.
  I've never audblog'd before, but I'm not sure I'd like it. I hate hearing my voice. You'll notice that I haven't been the voice that answers my voicemail in over a year. I'm going to get someone else to do it again soon, with someone very audible so it sounds like I have a secretary. As for the rest of it, I think I do most of it already anyways. Or at least I used to.
• 21. write open letters. make lists. call people out on their bullshit. lead by example. invent and reinvent yourself. start by writing about what happened to you today. for example today i told a hot girl how wonderfully hot she is.
  This one stuck out when I was reading it. call people on their bullshit. A large amount of shit might hit the fan (proverbial and regular type) if we all started doing that.
• 22. when in doubt review something. theres not enough reviews on blogs. review a movie you just saw, a tv show, a cd, a kiss you just got, a restaurant, a hike you just took, anything.
  Does this count? I've enjoyed it so far. I have a reply to a magazine article that was in Macleans that I planned on writing a rebuttle for, and also sending a comment to the magazine about.
• 23. constantly write about the town that you live in.
  That could get extremely boring. Thank god I go to school in Waterloo, and hang out in Toronto a lot. Which always made me wonder why we didn't do it more. It's not that far. I guess we're all just too cheap and lazy to do it.
• 24. out yourself. tell your secrets. you can always delete them later.
  Tee hee, out yourself. I find that amusing. But I try my best to not delete anything I post.
• 25. dont use your real name. dont write about your work unless you dont care about getting fired.
  Whoops. The site theme ruins this one, but I think I can deal with it.
• 26. dont be afraid to come across as an asswipe. own your asswipeness.
  Shit happens. Wipe it up.
• 27. nobody likes poems. dont put your poems on your blog. not even if theyre incredible. especially if theyre incredible. odds are theyre not incredible. bad poems are funny sometimes though, so fine, put your dumb poems on there. whatever.
  I really, really, really, really, really hate poems. So I give this point "Best Prize".
• 28. tell us about your friends.
  Whooo character bios. You can expect them to pop up in my entries too.
• 29. dont apologize about not blogging. nobody cares. just start blogging again.
  Laurence = Owned. Blog more you slut.
• 30. read tons of blogs and leave nice comments.
  I agree, and I'm working on it.
• if you're going to ripoff/mimic/be inspired by one blogger make it raymi, shes perfect.
  I'll get right on that. I wonder who she is.

His rules are good, you should follow them. His site won Best Article Or Essay About Blogs in the 2005 Bloggies. Now I just need to see if the rest of his site is any good.

Over the last two days I've had a lot of time to think about about friendship on a whole bunch of levels. For example, I was thinking about my first girlfriend who I had completely forgotten about until just now. You might notice I forget people a lot; it happens, get over it. We dated throughout the summer before grade 8, and up into the first months of grade 8. I remember when we started going out. We were at our street party and wound up rollerblading around at night. Keep in mind, at that age two of my favourite things were 'rollerblading' and 'night'. It's funny. Going back now, I think I'd have trouble identifying which house she lived in. In a way, it's not as bad as it sounds. The street parties were generally in the middle of the summer, and she moved before school started in September and I'm sure we had stopped 'dating' shortly afterwards.

Driving up to Waterloo provides for lots of thinking time. On the way up I busted out Avril, in all her two CD glory. Unfortunatly I lost a lot of what I had thought about during the day, and even more on the ride back. At one point I remember thinking about how as a country, we really should show more respect for the USA. I mean, let's be honest. If we ever did need to defend ourselves, we all know that it would probably be the USA that would do it. Unless they didn't do it from the get-go, in which case we would probably go to the UK.

I've never asked a lot of my friends. Actually, I've technically never 'asked anything' of them since this has mainly been subconcious up until recently. There are some things though, that I do ask of them and for the most part I think they've figured it out. That realization made me smile.

I had a bad dream while I was napping, and now I'm afraid to go back to bed. But I need to.

I'm still chugging away at the site. A lot of the changes, I'm going to be honest, you won't see. And those that you can see, you probably won't notice. The big thing I'm doing is reorganzing the PHP for the characters section, and changing the way the page will eventually be loaded and viewed. This is being done along with the inputing of all the bios (Wow, I wish I had made you guys type those things), and the editing and collecting of Photoshoot pictures.

Just something I'd like to touch on. This site requires logging in through Typekey to comment. If you're easily offended, then you might want to just skip this paragraph. The login requirement is to keep out spam. None of you managed this site; you had no idea how much spam showed up in my comments that I had to sort though. It's not hard to go to Typekey and sign up. I have no idea how so many of you can be having problems signing in either, but I have an idea what the problem probably is. Step one: Get a real browser. Ditch this IE shit. I use IE to autologin to one of my gmail accounts, and to check how horribly my sites load in IE (and trust me, sometimes it's pretty horribly). If you're not going to do that, try clearing your cookies or something. IE is probably having a fit trying to load everything if you use it as your main browser. Like I said though, a much simpler solution is downloading Firefox. It's a much more secure browser anyways.

Tomorrow I have to go to Waterloo to deal with my appeal. I wrote out my appeal in rough points. Now I'm going to write it out again in full, and have the lovely woman that's been helping me look over it. Hopefully I'll be able to meet with my professors too, so that I can get comments from them. I'm still all screwy with my sleep schedule. No more coffee or coffee-like beverages for me. I'm cutting myself off.

Now I just need to figure out plans for the weekend. Now, in no particular order, a list of things I want to buy for myself.

• DVDs
  • Queer As Folk Season 4
  • Dead Like Me Season 1
  • Undergrads Season 1
  • Star Wars Trilogy (Widescreen)
  • Star Wars Episode 1
  • Star Wars Episode 2
  • Star Wars Clone Wars
  • Oceans Eleven
  • Oceans Twelve
  • Pirates of the Caribbean
• CDs
  • Nelly Furtado: Whoa Nelly!
  • Nelly Furtado: Folklore
  • Black Eyed Peas: Monkey Business
  • Backstreet Boys: Backstreet's Back
  • Backstreet Boys: Greatest Hits
  • Backstreet Boys: Never Gone
• Room Stuff
  • Storage Cases
  • Bookcases
  • TV/Media table
  • Desk
  • Loveseat
• Comp Stuff
  • Samsung SyncMaster 912N Monitor
  • Apple Powerbook 17" w/ Final Cut
  • Replacement Power Supply for Jackie Chan
  • Replacement parts for adopted computer

Which reminds me. I need to name the computer I've adopted. She's probably going to be the one that stays at home in my room while I'm away at school. I'm probably going to have to reformat her, and clean up everything before she's good to go. What she really needs though is a name. Which was the purpose of bringing her up. So any and all suggestions are welcome. I was thinking a female singer.

I'd also like to take this oppurtunity to acknowledge the strange dreams that I had last night. The first dream I had involved schools. For whatever reason I treated it as Waterloo, even though it looked like the residences at Queen's, south by the lake. It was after they had accepted my appeal to get back into residence. I was getting ready to move in, and touring the residences again for whatever reason. Most likely because they were no longer UWaterloo residences, they were Queen's residences. It was like frosh week all over again. What had happened was I was wandered up the stairs through the crazy hallways of this one high-rise residence when I ran into a bunch of the dons. Something had happened, and they were moving me into a different room. So we walked down the hall to the room I was moved to. When I got inside, I realized it was just a plain residence room and I had a little break down. It's funny how your dreams will help you realize what you can and can't deal with. It was like Jess' room, where there were three of them in one room. I wouldn't have been able to deal with that. The guys were nice; Nerdy Softies. So I told the don that I wouldn't be able to deal with it. While he was arranging my move back, I bonded with the two softies. It was nice. Then randomly, my old roommates were in common room when I walked out. Long story short, I corrected them when they said we had bonded. We didn't really bond. We were friendly, but there was no strong roommate bond like everyone else had. I hope I get that if I get residence again.

My second dream involved Beast Wars. Yes, the CGI show from grade 5. Transformers. I was underground with the good guys (like hell if I remember their name), in some cavern thing similar to caverns in Goldeneye 64. They wound up fighting the Decepticons (were they the Autobots?). When we finally defeated the decepticons, they caverns started collapsing so we had to run out back to the ship. I remember it was upsetting because there were all these other passages that hadn't been explored. When we got back to the ship, I needed to be repaired. Only there was a catch; I wasn't a robot like them, I was a human in a robot suit, and I had this super cool Warhammer 40K Tau battleship that I had imagined up. It was landed beside the Autobots ship. While I was being repaired we got attacked by a bunch of Space Marines. The Autobots put up this perimeter shield that was inpenetrable, and then dropped it after I had armed all the rail-guns and other weapons on my ship (and there were a lot of them). Somebody remind me that I need to talk to Szlopiak about getting my Tau and learning to play again.

The third dream was shorter. It was about McMaster. I was at the Ivor Wynne center looking for people because I wanted to apply for a job with Mini-U, one of their summer camps. The only problem was that what I feared in consciousness had been true in my dream; the camps had already started and they had already hired and trained the councellors and instructors (even though the camps don't start until July 5th). It was weird. There was attitude from these two councellors as I walked up, and then this other one grabbed my hand so we could run off somewhere without being seen by the campers. It was really weird. I don't know if I could take the job for their Multimedia Instructor. It would be nice. I don't know if I would be able to be creative enough though.

And that's all for now folks.

I'd like to take this oppurtunity to say that, despite what you fools might think, our library isn't actually sinking. It may be a boring sugar cube, but the Dana Porter Library isn't sinking. Anyone who believes that should automatically be kicked out of their univeristy, no matter where they go, for being that stupid.

Oh ya, and we're still number one.

Before I forget, if anyone else wants to do a revised version of their bio stuff, just email it to me. People have already done it, and I have no problem if I get something in my email because it's easy to just copy and paste.

The pictures for the bio pages from the photoshoot will be up as soon as they're finished, and I have time to upload them. Older pictures will show up as soon as I figure out how to do a flash photo gallery. I'm probably just going to use a pre-coded one until I can write my own; it seems like the most logical thing to do right now.

The page aren't loading properly in IE (go figure). So you're going to have to deal with it for a little bit, or just upgrade to a better browser (Opera, Firefox and Netscape all work perfectly).

My 43 Things

Ok, so here's The Mike Haddad Show in all it's unfinished glory. I'd like to take this time to give a big thank you to everyone who cooperated with the photoshoot. I know it was annoying to take a day out to sit through all that, but I'm hoping that some of you had a little fun. I'd also like to say another big thank you to Natasha for taking all the time over the past few months to critique layout colour schemes, help me arrange the photoshoot, and then edit all the pictures.

Hopefully the pictures on the characters page will be completed soon. I knew I should have made everyone type their own bio parts, but instead I had them write everything out and now I'm regretting the extra work. Although some of them are really funny to read. The first thing that I need to do is get the navigation banner up. That way people can properly travel around the site. The titles under the picture should be links, so if you see any pages where they don't work properly (or even worse, the banner is missing) please let me know! The group shot on the couch should hopefully be added after that, and the intro movie has been scrapped (or at the very least postponed until a much later date).

Of course, the opening of olmsteadu.com, and reopening of eluamosnailo.com have been pushed back to a much later date. Especially considering the news I got from UWaterloo. My Incomplete Course approvals came in for ger101, math137 and cs134. Well, I already knew I had cs134, but it was nice to have the official letters for all three. Now I need to go back and fill out a 'Petition for Exception to Academic Regulations' for math136 and the old math137. If all goes to plan, I think I would end up being the equivalent of someone in 1B. Actually, not think, I would. I would just have two extra courses (ger101, japan112r). Which would make life easy to deal with again. Now I have to start studying again. That and fill out the form.

Yesterday when I woke up, for the first time in over a year I was wide awake at a decent hour (7:00AM). Granted, I did take a nap (complete with dream about hot trucker teen, and being an olympic roller skater) - but it was nice to be up for most of the day. I think it was the new extra-strength claritin I took. For once I could breathe enough to sleep. Cursed allergies.