Y2kk Update: Well, I just got back from my Chinese New Year festivities, the kind of which that has terrified me for years...

Now, the dragons are cool. Dragons are always fucking cool...

But the fucking Chinese lions that do all the fucking dancing?...

Fuck... they horrify me more than clowns ever have...

... they just keep on sending them in... fucking goddammit...

You know what they do, right? The lions, I mean...

They jiggle and prance and pounce around your zone like an oil baron predator, until you feed them your fucking money for good luck in the year. They're literally loan sharks holding you for ransom that way, bobbing their fucking fluttering eyes right in the mug of your face until you finally submit and fork over your hard earned cash... obviously, the more money you give, the more luck you're supposed to receive in the Chinese New Year...

My cousin actually had a decent joke, for perhaps the first time in God knows how long. I've always been fucking terrified of those fucking horseshit, lion shit dances, ever since I was small I recall... So tonight, my cousin started doing his own jig impression of me tonight, claiming that I'm going to be fucking mugged by one of these fucking lion things in an alleyway in the middle of the night...

And I dunno, just seeing a fat man like him bubble about to the beat of the lion dance war drums, imitating how I would be frantically checking left and right around the dark alleyways to the sound of the goddam music, until I got ransacked from a fucking lion up above?... Guess you had to be there. But meh, I laughed... whatever....

Where the fuck are my dragons when you need them?...

And yeah, my cousin was born in the same year as I was, so we're both going on to the age of 24 this year. And I guess most people know from Chinese buffets and shit like that, that your own fucking birth animal returns every twelve years or some shit like that...

Yeah, I'm from the year of the dog. You're in my house now, dawg...

I better have some fucking good luck this year, otherwise I'll be kicking ass and raising hell (or Helen). I mean, at least in 2005 I was able to get my first real job... Then again, I was paid fucking minimum wage for my goddam programming at first, got fucked over by a worker bee bitch in the meantime, and fucking couldn't complete university in four years time due to my design project partners bailing on me the year before...

The year of the dog is my fucking year, and I fucking expect better. I fucking hope that this is the year where I finally get my first secure, full time employee position. This will also be the year where ironically enough, two of my cousins, my brother and I are all graduating from fucking universities with degrees at once. And at least I'll finally get my fucking engineering iron ring, which is worth at least a pretty dime on the black market at least...

I hope my family situation improves this year, as my brother might get to return home for a while provided where his business work takes him. And my cousins are starting to settle down themselves, leaving more time to actually talk about shit other than their own friends, whom they've now essentially ditched in the past I'd wager...

The only real question is, what the fuck else does the year of the dog have in store for me? Will this finally be the year where I fucking get a fucking girlfriend, even though I basically got shut down by two and a half fucking women in the goddam past year?... although I ain't naming names or telling stories here, that's for sure...

The only real question is... will this be the year of the dawg?...

... or the year of the bitch?...

Will this please be the year where the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup, or the Toronto Raptors win the NBA Championship?... Considering both teams are sucking ass right now, I seriously doubt that either of them will make the playoffs, let alone get past the first bloody hell round. But at least Canada still has the fucking Winter Olympics to bide our sweet ass time for a sweet ass victory...

I just wonder if I'll ever get that full time position that I've been gunning for at work. I mean, while things are still decently rosy at work, the weight of politics is sort of... well?... starting to weigh on me, or whatever...

I work for three separate factions now, although mainly only two. And the thing is, while the two departments pretty much get along with each other on the outside, they really do seem to hate each other whenever the other side leaves and all facades come off... Of course, the thing is, I have loyalties to both sides of the camp. And whenever I seem to do one a favour, the other side definitely doesn't seem happy that a) I'm now doing less for them, or b) that I'm now helping some person that they obviously can't stand...

I'm also having a few other problems at work... as naturally, the morning that I sleep through my alarm clock is the morning that I fucking have a fucking important meeting at 9 am sharp...

I guess in the end, there was nothing really to worry about that shit, considering I called in and got my coworker to kind of cover for me by claiming I was taking a crap or some shit like that... Still, out of all mornings to sleep the fuck in, why the fuck did I choose that morning?...

I normally wake up around 7:20 am, and make the 7:35 am bus for the 7:58 am GO train to Toronto. Thing is, even though I woke up from my fucking alarm that morning, as soon as I checked my clock? It was suddenly fucking 7:40 am, and I was fucked... Sure, I took the next available bus that arrived at 7:50 am, but that bus of course always misses the train that I needed by five mere fucking minutes. And thus, I was forced to take the next best trip to Toronto arriving at 8:15 am, which I knew would get me into the city at least ten minutes later than I had to be...

Well, my coworker covered for me, and another worker was late as well, so nobody was really the wiser when it came to my morning shit (or lack thereof, considering I didn't get to shit in the morning and thus endured a 9 am to 2 pm meeting as a constipated asshole, really). Still, it was a fucking close call, and I'm fucking lucky that I didn't doze off long enough in the morning to miss that backup bus that I did manage to just catch... Hell, I could've been late in the morning any other morning and just worked it off at night, so why the fuck did I happen to sleep in the one fucking morning where I had a fucking important meeting of all days?...

I'm just scared right now that I'll fuck myself over for my next important meeting in the morning as well...

... fucking lion dance, lyin' hearted scared, really...

Well, at least from now on, I'll make sure to check my surroundings in fucking alleyways to the fucking sound of war-drum music...

But until then? Until I cross that bridge?... well, is there really anything else to say here, but to wish you all?...

... a God Speed, a Good Will Hunting, a God Bless Us, Everyone...

... and of course, a Happy Chinese New Year...

Afterall, it's my time. It's my time, dawg.

You're in my year now, bitch.

Y2kk Update: Well, I think it's rather obvious that I have no real stories to tell this week...

I mean, I personally think it's rather telling that the biggest news I've had in the fucking new year, is that I scraped my fucking hand on a fucking wall one morning, only for it to bleed non-stop for about the next eight hours of the goddam day... I have a fucking skin disorder that prevents my blood from clotting, especially when the fucking weather is Canadian Molson dry. And I've been too fucking dumbass to bring my medication to work in case something like this shit happened. So as a result, just one fucking tiny scrape on a wall had me holding fucking tissues over my hand for the entire fucking work day...

I must've looked like a fucking hypochrondriac moron...

... not a good story, though...

I suppose the only real story I have to tell, is the fact that as an obsessive, compulsive Toronto Raptors fan? I finally went to my first fucking ever basketball game at the Air Canada Centre... It was on Wednesday actually, the Toronto vs Orlando game that I seriously thought that Toronto would lose at the time, if only because they were tired from back-to-back games...

... it's nice to be proven wrong, once in a while...

The game was both fun and a disappointment at the same time, considering it was never really a contest. Although it sounds fucking mightily weird to actually state this, the Toronto Raptors absolutely decimated their opponents, being as high as 25 or more points over Orlando with only five or something minutes remaining in the fourth... Hell, the Raptors didn't even have to try this game. Chris Bosh was sitting on the bench with only fifteen minutes played or some shit like that, as the rest of the Raptors were shooting sixty-three fucking percent from the field, with like over 50% shooting from fucking three-point land. Why waste minutes on your star player then, when every player is suddenly a star?...

There were about six minutes left in the fucking game by the time the Raptors scored 100 pts to earn all our tickets a free slice of pizza at Pizza Pizzas in the GTA. Problem was, I had a fucking business meeting the next day, so I couldn't use my fucking ticket for fucking lunch... And I had completely forgotten about that shit by the time the end of the day rolled right on by, so I never really did get my free fucking slice of pizza. But it was the thought that counts, and I thank the Raptors for that...

It was kind of a boring game, considering there was absolutely no damn drama. That's not to say I was bored at all though, considering I was surprised as hell at just how clear as daylight the court was even in the fucking Sprite Zone, Upper Bowl section I was in... I'm a cheapass, and so is my brother. So we got the cheapest ass seats in the entire house, not that I'm complaining whatsoever...

Except for some bitch in front of me who either kept giving me stares for a) being overly critical of some of the players she seemed to like (eg: Mike James), or b) for spitting on her as I swore at the fucking Raptors with my fucking lungs, I loved those Sprite Zone seats. I could still tell which Raptor was which (according to their numbers and body shapes, at least), and the upper bowl gave a great overhead view of every single section of the court...

Plus, it's the Toronto Raptors... I'm the guy who doesn't even turn off the television when we're losing by thirty fucking points to Philadelphia, Golden State, or even fucking Detroit... Fuck, I'm the guy who's still doing fist pumps and cheering the Raptors on when they posterize Darko scrubs in fucking garbage time or some shit like that...

The Sprite Zone tickets were nice and all, but I knew we could do so much better that day. For some odd reason, the Orlando game we were at had the lowest damn attendance of the entire damn season (14,000), and there were a ton of open seats in the lower bowl section...

So what was a true hardcore Raptors fan supposed to do? I conned my brother into taking the risk of going down to the lower bowl at halftime... We searched around for a doorway that did not have a guard at the time, and when we finally found one? We had then moved from the fucking 318 Sprite Zone on high, all the way down to the fucking 113 zone or some shit like, between ten and fifteen rows from the actual goddam action itself... not half bad for halftime, really...

I could now actually see the sweat on the actual players' faces... not that I wanted to see that kind of shit, mind you...

... although the Raptors Dance Pak sure as hell are mesmerizing with their goddam gyrations from that distance, no doot and booty aboot it...

And yeah, it was a great day then. I got to revel in a fantastic Raptors home win, clapping and cheering and laughing my ass off when Toronto subbed in our own fucking human victory cigar, Loren Woods (who even got a fucking AND1 reverse layup at the end to truly embarrass the opposition to hell)... And I got fantastic seats in the end, considering I've checked them out and I now know that my our post-halftime positions were worth at least $120 or some shit like that...

... too bad I couldn't have had the fucking dance pak in certain positions as well for one hundred and twenty fucking dollars...

But sigh, I guess that's about the only story I have to share this week...

It was still a good week for me. It's just that?...

I dunno... sometimes, I just wish I had at least some of those kind of bold and zany stories to tell...

... which I don't think I will ever have, until I get a fucking bitch who will shit all over my dick...

... and then lick her own shit and eat it with her pussy...

... ah, yes... good times... if only...

Y2kk Update: The new year is finally here, and I'm not so sure if I'm happy about that...

2005 was the year where I got my first ever true, professional job. And to be honest, it was really something that I was surprised I ever got in the fucking first place...

Yeah, I suppose I did crawl and claw my way up from the bottom, taking on minimum wage and a fucking worker bee whore fucking me up, before finally managing to secure a placement on the current roster. But for the most part, I don't know how I passed the interview in the first place (knowing the competition I was up against), I don't know how I managed to keep my position knowing what gossip the worker bee bitch was spreading, and I still don't know how or why or whether this will all simply be a temporary position for me or not...

Work has become a place of comfort for me, really. While I've always enjoyed school to some degree, simply because I loved the bragging rights of constantly tittering on the edge of failure, and simply because I could fucking sleep in like dogshit every single morning if I wanted to, I must admit that my self-confidence has certainly been helped by the fact I'm making decent money at a decently hard working job... I can't help but be thankful for my situation, knowing that one of my friends who makes much less money than me is working all the way to midnight most nights for the goddam development job he hates, yet I'm allowed to get every third Friday off of work just by staying in the office for more than half an hour extra each day... which I would've done anyhew to try to finish the goddam work I have...

And there are pretty neat things happening at work to pass the time. I mean, sure I was disappointed that we didn't get out of work a bit sooner for New Year's Eve yesterday, considering I wanted to see a fucking movie and shit like that, but it was still nice to get out of work early in the first place... And the comfort zone of being quite experienced at this job already isn't so bad either. It's basically just a .NET-SQL Database Programmer position and I know my role, I know what I can do, and I can do it all at a reasonably leisurely pace, knowing that I'm the one now who can set the deadlines and timelines for going gold with projects...

I'm not quite my own boss just quite yet though. For two of my projects, I can make all the intermediate deadlines and programming decisions I want, but hard deadlines and shit like that still fall under the domain of the business units. Which is fine by me of course, considering every programmer needs clients, and all clients of mine for those two projects have definitely proven to be kind without all the political bullshit you get elsewhere...

For my main project though, I'm playing second fiddle to a nice guy from another branch. We talk and have become decent friends I think for the most part, but sometimes I find myself a little impatient at the fact that I do have to divert all decisions for the work we do to him...

I don't really mind the fact that everything I do pretty much has to go through him first, considering I'm still new at this job, and considering he has far more experience with the main project than I do. Still, it just kinda irks me at times how in meetings with the business planners, he always uses the word "I" rather than "we"... I can't really blame him though, considering most of the stuff he does talk about is the shit that he programmed mostly or entirely by himself, so he definitely does deserve credit for it. Still, he never once notices that I try my hardest to use the term "we", even for stuff he delegated to me to do?...

Small quibbles, though. He's a good guy, definitely friendly, and he hasn't made me work my ass off just quite yet. He's smart with the programming, and pretty solid when it comes to deciding deadlines. So besides the fact that I'm sort of letting him take the credit for things, I don't really have a problem...

I'm a bit scared at the fact though, that I am a bit perturbed in the first place that he's taking the credit. I've never cared about this shit when it came to school projects and such, so why am I suddenly so nervous now? Do I really care so much for moving up the corporate ladder? I sincerely hope not, considering I've never ever wanted to be a person with a lust or even a remote, real desire for power...

And, well.... Besides all those small office politics, there have been some decent things to tide me over for the new year...

My unit had a Secret Santa sort of thing, and I obviously had no clue what to fucking buy the woman that I drew out of the hat. She was sort of the one who hired me in the first place (well, one of the two, at least), so I wanted to get her something special... I just had no clue what, that's all...

So I did the crafty, wussy, bail-out thing and simply asked one of her friends at work what she wanted. I was told exactly the gift to get, exactly where to get it and exactly how much to fucking pay for it... My only decision left when I finally got to the store was how to fucking wrap the gift, and what fucking colour to get the girl...

... I fucked up on both accounts, naturally...

God, I suck at gift giving...

I had bought a Christmas card (which was a complete rip-off, mind you... should've went to the dollar store) and a gift bag for the present, but I completely fucking forgot to wrap it in a ribbon or gift paper wrapping or something else that would've remotely looked decent. Everyone else there had a nice presentation for their Secret Santa thing, and I definitely felt "dangerous underwrapped"... though at least I got a chuckle from the group for using that exact term, I think...

So the present was basically a yoga shawl, or as I prefer to call it, just a frickin' sheet of fucking fabric... Either way, the woman I presented this gift to was extremely surprised and impressed that I somehow knew that she wanted the shawl so damn bad. Sure, I had gotten her pink colour as a safety net, while she actually wanted the blue (and there were only fucking two colours there on sale... fucking 50/50, true and false chances...), but at least there was still the gift receipt in there for her to exchange... Either way, I was more impressed with how her other friends and colleagues at work were so damn impressed as well, that I of all people somehow managed to know exactly what she was wanting and thinking...

The thing is, when the time came when somebody asked me how I knew what to get this girl, I admitted in a soft way that I had help, but I didn't point out and give the credit to who I had asked for pointers in the first place... I kinda felt bad later, you know? I didn't technically take the credit for the perfect find, but I didn't give the credit to where it should have been duly noted (although it was probably obvious who it was, considering she was the only one amongst amongst that groupee who was not surprised... and I did kinda look over to her, but still...)...

So was this the same thing as my developer colleague is sort of doing to me? He does note at meetings that I'm doing good work, he does tell the managers that I'm hard working and definitely an asset (which I thank him for), but he also does take pretty much all the credit that he can for the project rather than attempt to share the wealth... Isn't that what I did with this whole Secret Santa thing? I chose to bask in the glory of the moment rather than yield the spotlight to someone else, even though she was the one who had all the knowledge and did all the real research, while I simply just bought the thing?...

Well, I tried to make it up later, by giving my inside source some chocolate as a Christmas gift, and by telling a couple others later when they asked about who really was the Secret, Secret Santa...

Either way though, I have guilt. I always have, and always will for these kinds of things...

I just can't take credit for shit that I absolutely know I don't deserve to... I just don't feel right in doing so...

This is why I would just crumble and fall in a real corporate environment. What use is a worker who never takes the credit?...

I still make the same, age old mistake that I made in university countless times, and the same damn mistake I made with that worker bee bitch back during the summer...

I always try to make friends... when that's not really what work or projects are for...

Then again, work shouldn't be for backstabbing and politics either... not in my honest opinion, at least...

But it's nice to know that in my own unit at least? All my colleagues are friendly enough to make me feel something inbetween the two...

The new year is finally here, and I'm still not so sure if I'm happy about that...

Because it all just sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn't it?...

... well, if 2005 wasn't really that damn bad... maybe 2006 won't be either?...

So here's hoping...

... and here's to the sixth bloody hell anniversary of this goddam download website of mine...