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www.Ardant.net

A day in an old interactive month.

These are my archived blogs.

Blog Archive: [ 2000: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D ]
[ 2001: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D ]
[ 2002: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D ]
[ 2003: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
[ 2004: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D ]


August 19, 2001

12:37

Post Canwon

(more)

I'm sitting here, in my room, relishing in the after-glow of CanWon, now that 12 Shads have left my premises.

One still remains. I am pleased to have with me today, Aaron, my roommate from Shad, to be the first ever special guest. Aaron, take it away. Aaron's views do not necessarily reflect the views of the site or my stuffed penguin.

Aaron: Unlike at last year's redeye bonanza, I slept this year - but my writings are now interrupted by the code monster known as Gordon. Apparently, I don't have artistic license here. In fact, the grammar Gestapo sitting next to me has a few tricks up his sleeve. For example, I am only allowed one space after each period. Seeing as Gordon is a poor student with very little money for

Gordon, forcibly stealing back the keyboard from Aaron: Alright, Aaron, thanks for that, now more about CanWon.

Aaron: Yes, my righteous bundle of web economy! To start my story I must begin in the future... one year from now to be exact. Apparently, in the fast-paced futuristic world of 2002 there will be some strange new technology known only as "planning". Gordon is currently filing the patent for this monstrosity.

Gordon: Alright, Aaron, sorry yet again for not arranging to have someone meeting you at the airport. I mean, giving you instructions over the phone on how to get to downtown Toronto

Aaron, interrupting: Instructions? Oh yes, back when your Internet actually worked, we were on the phone, and you looked up transit information on the Internet. (Gordon, in passing: I was actually at work)

Conversation-within-a-conversation:
G: "Well, you can take the airport express to Yorkdale, that would be fairly simple."
A: "Is it a big bus with 'Express' printed on the side?"
G: "Yes, why?"
A: "It just left."

To add to my string of bitterness, I had to travel on a packed TTC bus through the mean ghettos of Toronto. Good thing I was wearing gang-neutral colours. (Gordon, in passing: And looking like a tourist.)

But enough of buses. The real "meat and potatoes" of the trip began once I had arrived at Union Station and met up with Mike E and Katie Hood. After much meandering, we found our way to Eaton centre, where we realized dinner was at 6:45PM and not 6:00PM.

Gordon, interrupting with a scowl on his face: Going to the Eatons Centre, forgetting that he was supposed to meet me at Union Station

Aaron, counter-interrupting: We only forgot about Gordon after a payphone and Katie Hood's cell phone failed to connect. Besides, we had the drug washroom to deal with.

Gordon, reading confuzzledly: Had... the... drug... washroom... What?!

Aaron, matter-of-factly: The drug washroom. Mike E exited the washroom with one of his usual smirks. He told me to "check it out", and to see if I could notice anything unusual. I walk in, and three men give me a glance before returning to standing at the urinal, the sink, and the hand dryer. After washing my hands, I exit.

Sub-convo:
M: So...
A: It's a washroom. Shouldn't I be covered in septic tank backup or something by now?
M: Were there people in there?
A: Yes.
M: Did they move? At all?

I quickly decided that I would never ever use a public washroom in Toronto again.

The dinner itself was at Mr. Greenjeans, a fine Toronto establishment with sweet waiters who flirt with Shads for tips (Gordon demonstrates: "The iced tea is unsweetened but you two are sweet enough." *gag*). After a fully satisfying dinner and some chocolate shopping, we all retreated to Gordon's for an evening of, well, Mafia.

Gordon, taking over the computer, finally, getting annoyed with Aaron's tapping his keyboard in rhythmn to Winamp: Alright, alright, so we all slept, or didn't sleep, playing Mafia and playing with Sam's juggling balls. Well, yeah, something along those lines. I was rudely awoken by Karen the next morning (Aaron: At 9, 2 hours after everyone else was awake) and we went to CanWon. CanWon was CanWon. Yeah. Umm... I think that's all, what do you think, Aaron?

Aaron, trying to remember that this blog is about what actually happened this weekend and not childish bickering, but failing: The next installment of this saga would have to manifest itself as the epic tale of the CanWon dinner, at Jack Astor's. Through Sam's hobnobbery, we managed to land a 15-person table in 15 minutes, on a Saturday night. Jack Astor's is a swinging joint. The tables are covered in paper and all the tables have crayons. A few casual games of TicTacToe turned into a grudge match shoddily disguised as "Ghost", which I handily won. Few sights are more frightening than four Shads arguing over whether damping is a word, which I still insist it is not. After a frightening incident involving table dancing and a trash-talking DJ/barkeep, we made it back to Gordon's house, where a 1987 Shad told us ways to schmooze with celebrities.

Gordon, upset that he crashed his planes playing "Air Traffic Controller" while waiting for Aaron: I have no recollection of last night. Really, I don't. I was sitting there, playing with Sam's balls and talking. And then later showing people the video for our speedbump. Then the next thing I knew, I woke up in my bed. That's CanWon for you.

Thus concludes another successful CanWon. Hopefully next year, someone will plan, plan, plan.

Aaron: Link my site, damn you!

Gordon: See you soon!

 

August 22, 2001

22:19

The Workterm Diary: Day 83

(more)

I started reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again. I sit on the subway every day and read it for a good hour. It's a comfortable read. Atleast I spend the time reading instead of worrying about my hair, or how I look, or what I have to do at the office.

Let's face it, my workterm is winding down. Just like that, it's over, and it's back to school for me. The end has approached so quickly I've almost forgotten about my work term report. So now instead of worrying about securing one hundred and five Solaris servers to corporate standards, I have to worry about producing a twenty page work report. And occasionally I still worry about my hair.

And now I'm worrying about ardant.net. Because most likely no one will see this post for a while, as I'm without an internet connection again.

Allow me to insert my rant about tech support. I'm too frustrated to type it out again. I've spent more time with Rogers tech support (it's no longer Shaw, it's now a bona fide monopoly that even Microsoft would be proud of) than I have reading The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And that's a really bad thing, because I really like that book.

Rogers has the worst customer support in the world. I've called eight times in the last week. And I've gotten bounced around, different answers, passed around, and my problems still haven't been resolved. The most recent call to Rogers got my problem escalated to some TAC. TAC?? What on earth is that? Technical Advisory Committee? Technical Administration Crap? The Aromatic Cheese?

If you're wondering why I sound so grim, it's because I'm without my internet connection. I realized, sad as it is, that I have nothing to do (except read THHGTTG) without the internet. And THHGTTG is slowly running out of pages for me to read. I'm afraid that without the internet and without THHGTTG, I'll turn into some ravenous raving bugblatter beast who's really lost their towel.

If I finish reading THHGTTG, my next support call with be Marvin-the-depressed-robot-style:
Support: Thank you for choosing Rogers, Paul speaking.
Ardant: I didn't choose Rogers, you bloody moron, it's called a monopoly. Spell it out. M-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t. I need someone to talk to.
Support: Huh?
Ardant: I'm depressed. I don't have an internet connection and I need someone to talk to.
Support: Well, don't you know anyone?
Ardant: Well, I figured that since I have nothing else to do and my internet doesn't work, I'd call you up and see what's new. I've got a Netscape window open and I'm getting tired of surfing my locally hosted webpages, it's depressing. So, how's it going, Pauly-boy?

The Talking Acolytic Chimps better hope they get my connection up soon.

[Ed Note: I'm not really that pathetic. I'm just exaggerating for the sake of making this blog interesting. MY friends were deeply insulted to read this. Well, that can't be helped. ]

Carpe Diem. Seize the day.

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