River Lee burst its bank and destroys wall at Grenville Place.

As many of you probably know by now, Ireland has experienced some of the worst flooding in 20 years. Cork was absolutely inundated with water. Some places managed to see over a metre (~3.2 feet) of water. Right up the way off of Grenville Place and next to Mercy Hospital the River Lee burst its banks and destroyed a good portion of the protective wall. I hadn’t realised this until about 10am on Friday. But this had already happened before 7.30am (high tide). Some of my friends noted that flooding had began near Dykde Parade and Victoria Cross by 11.30pm on Thursday.

Cork City fire brigade treks through Grattan Street.

There have been many post-flooding problems: many properties were damaged, collapse of the road at Sundays Well Road and Grenville Place, and the main water plant was severely damaged leaving over 80,000 residents without water. We are lucky that we both escaped the flood on North Mall and that still have drinkable water. I have had plenty of friends who have left town for home for the week. UCC’s buildings (including my own Br Connolly complex) have been significantly damaged. Hundreds of computers have been lost, water damage to the floors, walls, and other furniture, and possibly worse. The Glucksman Art Gallery lost a lot of art in its basement vaults.

On Friday I walked around town with Stefanie and Tim to survey the damage. We found that we kept having divert down streets because there was just too much standing water to walk through without boots. But, even at 11am there were streets with feet of water. We thought we could get through St Francis’s Church and then out to the front to Cross Street or Court Street, but that didn’t work so well. We found 4 feet of water. Luckily, the parish is elevated 5 feet! We had to walk back through right as Mass had started. Oops.

Stefanie and Tim ironically smiling in front of the floods.

Passing by businesses was surreal. The water stank in most businesses, but more formative is that so many businesses may not be able to pay for the damages and losses incurred from the flood. It would be very disheartening to see people lose jobs or businesses to close their doors. It would be such a massive loss to the community. We kept walking around and finally began to make our way toward UCC. I saw my school and was mortified really. But it was nice to see a guy rowing a boat down the street. We passed through the central part of the university and then toward the university housing. All of the buildings there were flooded and we watched a truck rescue the students from their buildings. That’s how bad it was. At that point, we headed back home. Took 45 minutes just to get back because we had to go one of the most circuitous routes. I think I ran into like 15 people I knew during that two-hour journey. Very odd day.

Just so you know, we are doing fine. We have electricity, drinkable water, and are managing just fine. The university has cancelled classes for the duration of the week.

[Video of the wrathful River Lee and the wall at Grenville Place broken and flooding. If you wish to see the other two videos, click Part 1 or Part 3 (also, this is another great video).]

[You can view the full album of the the flooding here.]

Hr ini hari yg penting…sudah dua thn usia perkahwinan chesu n en suami..thn lepas sekadar merayakan hari ini berdua…..lebih mengetahuiNya ada satu nyawa meraikan hari ini bersama-sama….thn ini terasa lebih maknanya dengan kehadiran nyawa baru kami, NAWAL…lengkap terasa perhubungan kami…lebih perisa nya…lebih lemak manisnya…ALHAMDULILLAH…sungguh2 aku bersyukur…terkenang pada mereka yg lama tempoh perkahwinan,tp belum dikurniakan cahaya mata…kami sgt beruntung…kami sgt bertuah…dan kami syukur atas anugerah yg satu ini…

Buat suami,cinta kasih sayang akan segalanya segar..bahkan didoakan agar sentiasa berkembang mekar…2 thn sudah..tp terlalu sedikit yg kita lalui dibandingkan dengan mama n babo..x gitu..justeru…perjalanan perhubungan ini masih jauh…jauhkan dr gelombang besar yg tak mampu kami tepis…akan tetapi,ku pohon agar ujian yg dtg nnt akan hanya mengukuhkan hubungan kami…perkenankan ya allah..

hotel green park

temerloh

9.30am

‘a birthday dedication’

my midnight rendervous

my dream come true..

i will be blue

if you are not true!

you are my cheeky tricks

better than playin’ pick-up-sticks

i will fall sick

if you burn me with a candle wick!

so no more wait

please, can i checkmate?

when can we go on a date?

cos’ i really cannot wait!

if i may say

you affect me like hay!

i promise not to keep you at bay

because this is your special day!

so, let me have my say

a guy with feet of clay..

that come what may

it’s you i’d love to lay!

sssshhhhh! hahahaha!

So, the past week was very hectic for me. I had to work for 12 hours on night shifts. That was something I hadn’t done on a regular basis ever… i.e. wake up on nights. I am not the type of guy who burns the midnight oil. I usually go to bed very early and also, absolutely need my compulsory 8 hours of sleep everyday otherwise I feel cranky. So, it was kind of new experience which was back breaking, neck breaking, ass breaking and you can now include any other anatomical part. Those of you who are thinking what’s the big rumpus about working at nights, I would like to tell them that mine was not some behind the desk job but involved a lot of running and climbing(no… there are no fancy elevators) inside a plant. Quite naturally, this kind of job makes a total hodge podge of the following day’s proceedings. All I had been getting was intermittent sleeps and blood shot eyes every time I looked myself in the mirror.

So, when I title the post as ‘It’s an ugly world’ it’s not because I had to work some gruelling job for six continuous days but because of a small incident that happened after I had finished my work on the 4th day that pissed me off albeit for a short period of time. There’s nothing that pisses me off like wrong accusation and this was one of those incidents.

But, before I tell you about the incident, I must tell one of the reasons I love Dexter is because of the soliloquies he has and I can relate to it coz I have them too as well. Sometimes, the soliloquies get more interesting than speaking to actual people. Those who know me personally can vouch for the lost look in me when I wander off to have a conversation with myself.

So, now back to the incident… so here I was standing after the 4th night’s job, waiting for the bus to hitch me back home when one of the guys from top management comes to me and says, ‘Have you been working here at all… I don’t see you in the field…where have you been going off to sleep?’ You can really recognise these ‘top-management’ guys from a distance. They are usually well-dressed (without an iota of dirt on them) pot-bellied gentlemen with arrogance sitting pretty on the top of their noses. And if you look closely enough they have ‘son-of-a-bitch’ imprinted right across their temple. The questions emanated a lot of voices inside me, mesh mashing with each other.

Inner voice 1: Are you talking to me?
Inner voice 2: Should you even be asking that question?
Inner voice 3: You are just screwing around with me, right?
Inner voice 4: Nah! Your sense of humor has long left you.
Inner voice 5: How could you see me in the field, you dim-witted fat-assed fuck face? I don’t work in the field, but 40,50, 60 meters above the field with icy cold winds slapping on my ass cheeks. But your clairvoyant self wouldn’t allow you to go that high would it?
Inner voice 6: Remember to piss on his car when you leave the job.

Anyways, before I could pick any of these suitable answers he left with a disgruntled look on his face. This brings me to the thought that how people are growing increasingly uglier around these days. Consider the situation when you are going alone on an empty street at night and feel the presence of the shadow following behind you. Instead of feeling reassured that here’s somebody to give you company, the first instinct that catches you is ‘Should you start running now?’ or ‘A while later’ all the while looking for something to attack with. This is truer for women. You just don’t see nicer people around. This culture of rat race ensures that you have colleagues rather than friends who are ever ready to back bite and pull you down the staircase.

I have a friend though who stands like a lamb among a pack of wolves. I sometimes wonder if she for real or am I watching one of those holier-than-thou characters from Ekta Kapoor productions. I don’t think I have seen any one nicer. She inspires me to be good and nice but then I meet these other mean clowns of the world and I am back to being the regular size asshole that I am. So, when I want to see why it is asinine to be nice, I watch one of my favourite movies where the angelic person gets ass whacked at the end. This quote from the movie however, never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

Mostly I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand?

Can you identify the movie?

Hello, everybody! Long time no blog D:
School has been so crazy and I’ve just been trying to enjoy everything and manage my time better–work hard, play hard.

I’ve left this as a draft since the 8th of November, lol. It was meant to be a catch up post, containing all of the exciting going-ons of October, as well as a little discussion of why I love November, but that’s going to have to wait.

But I’ve got a midterm next week, and then it’s FINALLY Thanksgiving break~!

This week is probably the busiest I’ve been socially, though I’ve been academically active, too
Aside from my regular grind of school, I went to see Cartel on Tuesday. Wednesday, I saw a play on campus with friends (“Sexual Selection: Darwin and Shakespeare Discuss Love”) and then we went to Min Sok Chon for some delicious Korean food. I went to an info session for Scandinavia to answer questions from students and tell people about my experience abroad (only 3 people showed up, and 2 of them are looking at Lund, and not Copes :[ ).
Friday, I’m finally going to a Bear Garden event on campus, attending the second part of a DVD workshop on lighting for photography, and going to a party where you have to come dressed as one (or any combo) of the 7 deadly sins.
And then I’m going to study the rest of the weekend for my midterm. *sigh*

Also, I got pinkeye (aka, conjunctivitis) last Saturday. Been wearing my glasses since Saturday, when I first suspected that something was wrong with my left eye. Told a few friends and have been pretty careful as not to touch my eye and spread the virus/infection. Funny thing, though, in my Chinese class, we learned the character for “fa,” meaning deliver. We had to come up with words/phrases we were familiar with. I came up with “fa yen,” which means infection, and the prof used “Ni de yenjing fa yen le” (meaning, your eye is infected) as an example. At that point, a few of my friends turned to look at me and we all started to chuckle.
It’s a nice change to be wearing my glasses, but it’s a little disconcerting not to be wearing contacts, since I’ve worn them almost every day for the past 7 years of my life.

I’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately.  I’ve also been doing endless paperwork, essays, and mental drifting.  And whoosh out of nowhere it’s almost fall break.  Speaking of fall – I am falling apart.  Anecdote: I went to the doctor today for an ear infection / I probably have strep.  Hours later I also develop pinkeye.  Now I get to go back to the doctor and do it all over again.  This semester has been bad for my health.  Break’s soon.  More comics as soon as I draw them.  More legitimate posts as soon as I write them.  Good luck readers.  Buh.

Drinking: Mint Medley

Listening to: Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

POST SCRIPT: I have recently completed (and surprisingly received high marks for) a piece entitled “LCC AG.Me” which is a referential odyssey of geneal autobiography and pseudo-comparison between Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems.  If that strikes your fancy, let me know – I’ll send along a copy.  Be warned: it gets silly.

listening to: journey – separate ways (yes, journey)
feeling: unsettled, happy

I love windy days. I hate windy days. Walking is a nightmare, and your hair gets in your face, and mouth, and scarves always attempt mutiny, and your eyes burn and your lips start to bleed. But then, these days – today – is the perfect day too. It goes hand in hand with a good dose of old school rock, it’s blatant and alive and aggressive and perfect. I am alive, being blown apart at the seams and scrabbling for purchase on the earth; and gravity is not as sovereign as I once thought.

Yesterday, the swing chair suicided off of the patio and crashed into one of our trees, (the wind’s doing) and today my mom and I went down to rescue it and put it somewhere safer. The sun sets so early these days, and it was getting cold, I could see winter in my peripheral vision, almost like its fingers were pulling back the fabric of the sky to scratch it and let in the ice. We came inside and slammed the deck door, the sharp and metallic smell of the air outside still heavy on our clothes (it’s like running your finger slowly over a knife’s edge, how it feels like outside right now, there’s no blood, but there will be soon), and put on the kettle.

I have had a difficult last few weeks – months, maybe? I don’t know. And the last few days I have been static and comatose, my own doing, and I hated it. Move me, God, I said. And he sent the wind.

There I am, waiting for the bus to pick me up and bring me to  class. I arrived early so I wouldn’t miss it. When the bus finally arrived I felt that I deserved to get on first, because I’ve been waiting in the cold the longest. But than this lady cut in line and quickly found a seat in the back where she didn’t had to sit next to a stranger.  So I followed her and decided to sit next to her, just to make things uncomfortable between us.

The whole ride the woman didn’t even look at me,  just staring at her shoes. I noticed how other people walked in the bus and tried to find a single seat and if that wasn’t available, they even preferred to stand through the whole ride. This got me thinking. I felt the urgent need to mess things up.

When I got on the train,  every four-person booth was occupied by one single person.  So I sat down next to someone, not opposite, not diagonally but directly next to him. This made him so uncomfortable that he actually got up and left the booth before the train even left the station.  Just because I violated the Law of Personal Space. I felt great and continued in doing so for an entire month. People reacted in many different ways and I was happier than a dwarf among midgets.

Near the end of April, I was almost done with changing the world. But the last time I did it, completely changed my life. I saw this beautiful drop dead gorgeous lady in red sitting there. I sat down next to her and we got to talking. Now I know what you’re thinking; you think I met “the one” and ran off and married her. Well it turned out differently. Turns out the woman had lice…which were now partying on my head. I had to shave of all of my hair, leaving me completely bold and awesomeless.  Marking day one of my depression.

Ugh. Midterms.

I missed a bunch of school thanks to swine flu, and am still trying to play catch up. Caught up in 3/5 courses at the moment, though I still have a massive essay due this friday, and frankly it needs work. Lots of it.

Life is hard doodz!

This was brought to my attention today, and while an interesting read in and of itself, something I ended up thinking a lot about was the following sentence:

all the characters did exactly what I had hoped they would do

Writing fiction is a strange experience. Characters, stories, are invented and thought up, and then writing begins. Maybe the author had an idea for this, had the plot envisioned, knew where s/he wanted the story to go…

And then halfway through, the actual story doesn’t look anything like the little fiction embryo the author thought up in the first place. Sometimes, the characters do what you hope they would, and sometimes, they don’t.

Ultimately, writing fiction is an organic experience, largely because you, the author, are giving this little world, these characters, life. And they take that life and run with it, and eventually, you stop, breathless, wondering how the hell that just happened.

None of it is real, in the way this chair I’m sitting on is real or this delicious turkey sandwich I’m eating is real. And yet they are alive, full of surprises, hopes, wants, dreams…

There’s a question I see thrown around a lot on (useless) “how to write fiction” style websites: what happens next? My elementary school teachers used this, too, as a way of getting the young budding authors to build a story line.

Well, what happens next?

The proper answer is, of course, you have no idea until you write it.

This is why I like fully fleshed out characters. I like characters that are multi-dimensional beings rather than just props. I like faults in characters almost to a fetishized state. With a well-written, well-fleshed out character, you never have to ask “what happens next?” You never have to stop and think “what would my character do in this situation?”

You have no idea what comes next, but your character knows what comes next. Your character knows itself better than you do, and it deals with situations in ways you could never even comprehend.

Ultimately, you aren’t in control of what your characters do. You may hope they act a certain way, respond to this situation just so to make it something worthy of being called art. But you don’t get the final say in the matter, your characters do.

My little paladin, Arkenheart, started off as a young, nubile, innocent little paladin that had no idea about the corruption inherent in the Blood Knight organization. Then… then I started writing. Just little stories here and there, and Arkenheart swiftly evolved into a brutally scarred woman who has watched her entire world burn over and over again, and all she could do was watch.

Girl got issues!

And so it goes. Euripedes started off as an extension of myself, but now, as a character, he has changed into a hyperviolent psychopath aware of the fourth wall with a burning desire to gain immortality.

Euripedes is by far the weirdest character I have ever worked with. That troll mage is aware of me (the real me) and is actively seeking ways to exploit his position “in the matrix”.

It’s… disturbing, to say the least. Imagine Deadpool, but where Deadpool is not only aware of his creator, but is actively seeking ways to kill him. And perhaps most terrifying of all, the jerk actually seems to have figured out how to do it.

But who knows? I didn’t even think this way no less than six months ago. But I’m young, things change, the way I think evolves, I become more cynical, and now I’ve discovered that, in regards of fiction, I am little more than a conduit for forces beyond my control.

This is all probably old hat to you more experienced writers, but for me, this is NEW and EXCITING. Or something.

So I’m doing Vegan Week this week with Michelle from Eating Journey and Katy from Silly Tater Tot – and I’ve already screwed up.  I woke up groggy, sat at the desk in my room to turn the desktop on, and found a Junior Mint sitting there in front of the keyboard.  I ate it.  I have no shame.  I thought, “ooh, how serendipitous – this little mint got left behind and is allll miiiiiine.”  Then a couple hours later I thought, “feck.”  Junior mints are most likely not vegan.  The moral of this little story is not “Katherine will eat anything she finds laying around” but “being vegan takes a lot of thought and careful planning.”

So what have I been up to lately?  This weekend I spent a lot of time with these fine folks (my BFF Deidra’s husband’s birthday was yesterday and we went out to dinner Friday night and had a coffee/dessert party Saturday):

…and grew a robot beard.  I took pictures in the grocery store and felt naughty, but how could you resist…

…a giant cardboard turkey?

…a Jabba the Hutt lemon?  (I know it’s not a lemon)

…turkey-shaped butter?

I waited an hour to recycle some old random electronics and scrap metal with mah momz…

…laughed at an internal dilemma I struggle with often, expressed so succinctly on this one sign…

…split an awesome beer with Mom…

…tried a product I didn’t like and actually poured out the rest once deciding it wasn’t worth it (go me! It tasted like bubble gum – WTF?)…

…found an albino pomegranate aril…

…took Maddy to the dog park and for a nice long walk…

…laughed at the hilariousness of my gigantic purse when compared to the size of a 60-lb dog…

…and loaded up on dairy since I knew I’d be kissing it goodbye this morning…

Already this morning I’ve made a discovery in that my usual flavored Quaker Instant Oatmeal contains milk ingredients.  I had a hunch it would, but it was still kind of a letdown.  However, I moved on and made some plain oatmeal (whole-er foods!) and added almond butter, a banana, flax, apple butter, and some syrup (which I should try to find a replacement for…the ingredients in that are kinda scary) .

(terrible picture courtesy of my about-to-die battery and my haste to take a pic while I still could)

So far (one meal in) this Vegan Week has provided the excuse for me to flip my products over and read the ingredients – something I knew I should be doing all along but have been in denial about.  I’m sitting here feeling deprived already thinking of the milk and cheese products I’ll be missing out on this week (I just had some yerba mate tea instead of my new habit/favorite, cocoa coffee), but I’m also hoping it’ll afford me some creativity and maybe even some more weight loss?

We’ll see.

Who else out there is doing this challenge or is already vegan?

[A short short, set in Cyprus.]

How to Come out Breathing

It’s a kind of game. I ask her if she remembers the day I took her to the zoo when she was little.

My daughter wraps a twist of hair around a forefinger. “Of course,” she says. If she didn’t have my face, I probably wouldn’t believe her. “My turn.” She frees her hand and stares off to where the waitress is slouching at the entrance.

I light my last cigarette. The smoke curls thick blue through my eyelashes. I watch her look down at the empty table; straighten her fork. We have been waiting almost an hour. I wonder if they sent someone out to catch the fish after we ordered.

“Okay,” she says. She has thought of something she wants to ask me. And though a small part of me is wary, what I’m thinking is: What does it matter that another person, another culture, raised her. How great can the distance between us be? Sitting across from her is like facing a mirror. And I’m feeling a thrill swell in my chest because – finally! – here we are. And we are talking. She clears her throat. “When you were in the war, before I was born …”

“Yes, mana mou?”

“Did you have to kill anyone?”

I take a sip of whiskey and put the glass down where my plate should be. “Yes.”

“What does it feel like to kill someone, papa?”

I don’t really remember. Will she believe this? 1974. You do remember: the mountains, the heat haze, the rocks. The day you left the others to sleep and went off on patrol alone. You were walking, thinking, and then the inevitable happened: you were face to face with a Turkish soldier. You both froze, wide eyed. Your mind spiralled. The world came to sudden standstill, as if astonished. And in that stretched-to-tearing moment there was just his huge, open eyes and his mouth. He was a boy, perhaps fourteen. You struggled to silence your incoherent thoughts. And then that line kicked in – either your mother cries or his mother cries – and you raised your rifle and pulled the trigger.

Mortified by the moment and what it had cost, you slumped to the ground alongside him. He was thin, and the soft down on his chin was patchy. You’d killed a child. He had a mother somewhere. You did not. You urged your heart to steel itself or stop; heard gunfire down in the valley; stared at a worm writhing in the dirt between your knees. You sat there a long time, imagining what would happen if your wife or your sister fell into the hands of the enemy. You pictured scenes of ransacked villages and atrocities that would later come true. You considered the men in distant rooms playing at politics, and everything you’d been pushed to do. The fury took hold of you, then. You took your gun in both hands and you raised yourself.

“Papa?”

And you smashed the butt into the still-staring face, setting all your rage behind the movement until you’d obliterated his eyes. Then you set to his body, breaking ribs. You slammed, punched, slapped, kicked, panted, spat, shook: you lost the details. You lost yourself in the things you did to that boy. You wore yourself out on him. And when you returned to camp, everything was different. Your life had been dirtied and to live it you had to blacken yourself. To slide in. To come out at the other end still breathing.

“Papa?”

“It’s not like anything, agapi mou. You don’t think about it.”

© Lenya Samanis.

25-man VoA forming up. I was on my paladin at the time, so I figure what the hey. Ret DPS isn’t exactly difficult (read: easy as crap) and I could use the Relentless gear, it would save me some honor farming. So I join in, do literally all of the summons myself (thanks guys), though thankfully I did at least have a dedicated clicker.

Gah, big advantage to 10 man raiding right there. Summoning is so easy when you have to deal with 8 people at absolute maximum.

Anyway, so in we go. Trash drops like nothing. We get to Koralon.

Our two tanks are Rhyokin (a well geared orc warrior with the title Gladiator) and Iliad (tauren DK, also well geared and also a Gladiator). Now, I respected both of these guys a great deal. They raid hard, they PvP hard, they seemed like pretty cool guys, overall. It’s also worth taking note of Nhiosis, a fantastic warlock with 85k lifetime kills.

If you bothered to armory them, you’ll notice they are all from the same guild.

First red flag goes up when the healers ask for healing assignments.

Rhyokin says: Iliad is MT, I’m OT

No, no, like who are we healers healing?

Rhyokin says: Iliad is MT, I’m OT

No… like, ok, I’m a disc priest, this guy’s a paladin, this other dude’s a resto shaman, and

Rhyokin says: Iliad is MT, I’m OT

No, ok, like who’s on the

Rhyokin says: Ok pulling!

And then he pulled.

And then he died during the very first Molten Fists.

And then he was all “WTF our healers suck.”

And behold, for the healers said “lol”.

Anyway, he demanded (and got) a battle rez.

But honestly, I have never seen such inept tanking of Koralon before.

Fire = bad. You can’t stand in fire. Alright, so, now the tank isn’t standing in fire. What about the melee DPS? Nope, they’re fine. Hey wait a minute, why aren’t any melee DPS hurting the boss?

I exaggerate a little. It was possible to DPS Koralon, it was just really, really hard, and there were lots of “attack from the side and pray it doesn’t count as the front” moments.

Relentless gear was handed out, and off we go to Emalon.

Rhyokin pulled.

Rhyokin died.

Iliad picked up everything.

Then the healers got there, and behold, for the healers said “wait what?”

First overcharge comes along. The add dies, but just barely in time.

Second overcharge. There isn’t nearly enough DPS on the add (only one death to nova of didn’t-you-guys-run-HoL-already) and it blows up, killing everyone.

Hamkins says: sry, i g2g, gl!

Nhiosis says: G2G!

Rhyokin says: G2g!

Iliad says: LATER SCRUBS! G2G!

Then they all left the raid.

Huh.

Ok, so. Yeah. There was a wipe on Emalon. More on that later.

But really, abandoning the raid right then and there? You drag a bunch of people together (Rhyokin was the raid leader) and effectively use them to give you the possibility of twinking you out with relentless gear?

I used to respect these people for being top-of-the-line PvPers.

What does it say about the old days when I just assume top PvPers aren’t complete cockmonkeys?

Anyway I put them all on ignore because really… I don’t have time to spend on cockmonkeys.

But god damn.

HOW do you wipe on Emalon?

Iliad says: That’s what happens when you don’t swap targets!

Words of wisdom, dearest cockmonkey.

So? You know what those incompetent farts that called themselves DPS says?

“Maybe we can tank the adds apart from the boss?”

“Yeah, it would make it easier to switch.”

Ok. Maybe I’m just an old fogey here, but I seem to remember there once was a time where, in order to call yourself DPS, you had to… I dunno, be vaguely competent at the job. Yeah, rose-tinted sunglasses.

But come ON. There are only five fucking targets in the room! You only need to attack one of them at a time! When you need to switch DPS, the add in question triples in size! There’s a huge fuckoff raid warning that says OVERCHARGE! IT EVEN HAS A SKULL OVER IT!

How… how do you even screw that up?!

“But I’m melee and my camera-”

Yeah bullshit. Bull shit. I’m calling you out here and now, you are an embarrassment to the label “DPS”. There is literally two mechanics on lengthy cooldowns you need to worry about. TWO. How the hell did you even get to 80 without being able to keep track of two things?

But I didn’t leave the raid. I typed off a snippy, sarcastic remark, ran back in, buffed up, and got ready for the next pull.

Cause I’m not a cockmonkey.

A douche, yeah, I’m a pompous douche. I admit that.

But…

God damn. IT HAS A SKULL OVER IT PEOPLE. DO NOT MAKE ME AGREE WITH THE COCKMONKEYS.

Then a ret paladin pulled the boss and bubble-hearthed, killing a bunch of people.

It wasn’t me, you goofs.

…

Stop looking at me like that.

IT WASN’T ME!

(I love y’all so much that I’m posting a sans-mascara, post-Shred, uber-unflattering photo of myself.)

Holy crap.  I’m weak.  I don’t blame my shins for checking out on me…if my thighs can barely lunge/squat fully more than two or three times, how was I expecting my lower legs to carry me through runs?  Day 1 of Jillian’s 30 Day Shred kicked my ass.  I was proud that I made it through ONE 30-second (circuit?) of jumping jacks without stopping (it happened toward the end, too).  I’m taking my victories where I can get them.  PS – I wasn’t wearing shoes.  That probably hindered my performance just a tad. 

When I was done, I collapsed on the couch.  Then I raised up slightly to reach the remote on the other side of the coffee table and was too weak to lift myself up.  I fell back down, laughed at myself, then started to cry.  I can’t believe how weak I am.  I have SO MUCH WEIGHT to carry around every single day – how can my muscles be this weak?  I felt better when I heard that Twitter friends had the same experience, though.  That sounds kinda twisted, feeling better knowing that other people cried from discouragement after their first day of The Shred, but you know what I mean.  It feels good knowing you’re not the only one struggling, and that’s what this whole crazy blog/Twitter journey is all about. 

Maddy exhibiting the lazy version of “Downward Dog.”

When we got done, we took the dogs out, and I literally almost fell down the stairs EXACTLY like Dennis did after his first spin class in Run, Fatboy, Run.  I rewound this scene like 80 times and guffawed each time as he sails down the stairs on his face.  I love when people fall on/get hit in the face in movies.  And if you haven’t seen this movie, do.  It’s really good!

Yeah, that was almost me.  My legs were like Jell-o.

PS again – don’t be an idiot (best said in a Dwight voice) and have chili and a beer within an hour or two of attempting The Shred, even if it was vegetarian bean chili and a Bud Light.  The workout made me want to puke, and dinner made me want to puke.  Poor decision, Katherine, but congrats on being a rockstar and keeping it all down.

Anywho, I actually CRAVED fruit tonight.  I got tangerines today at the store and really wanted one, so that was my dessert.  I ate clementines last winter like they were candy and heard today on Twitter that someone found some in the grocery store, so I looked when I went out but only found tangerines.  They were very “woody” – a high insoluble fiber-to-fruit ratio.  Nevertheless, it was very good and just what I wanted.  I might just have another.

To those who have done/are doing The Shred, how often do you do it?  How long did it take for you to feel results or be able to move to the next level?  I felt like such a wimp tonight, unable to fully do Level 1, but I know I’ll be able to soon enough if I keep at it.  I’m discouraged and know I come across as being hard on myself, but I’m eager to see results and move ahead.  I HATE feeling weak, so I want to fix this, ASAP.

I love punk rock. Honestly if you’ve noticed the connection between the genre and the great game of hockey, it probably isn’t much of surprise.  Both are niche entities with aggressive, passionate undertones. Those are things I can get behind.

A few years ago I had heard a lot about a band called Propagandhi and decided to take a chance on a CD of theirs I found in the “used” section of a local store. I played it until there was a hole in the disc. Any band that openly criticizes the ill-fated “laser pucks” are good in my book.

On their most recent release the Canadian band wrote a song confronting famed Hockey Night in Canada commentator, Don Cherry. Months after first hearing it, I listen to both Supporting Caste and “Dear Coach’s Corner” at least once a day. It is the perfect melding of punk rock and hockey, not to mention they’re right on point with the lyrical content. Don Cherry is a nationalistic, misogynistic dick.

Since that song has been released it seems that the hockey blogosphere and fans in general are talking about the band more. (Seriously, if you don’t see the link between punk and hockey, you’re insane.) It’s just something about that song that seems to hit the core of most fans. The lyrics even talk about a “spiritual connection” that two fans of the game can share even if they have differing opinions and that is something I’ve always noticed with hockey fans.

Imagine my joy when I came across a headline on Puck Daddy that made me audibly exclaim my excitement, “Five reasons punk band Propagandhi loves hockey.” One of my favorite bands talking about my favorite sport via one of my favorite features on my favorite hockey blog. Basically, it was a massive amount of favorites converging into the perfect storm of awesomeness. It was nice to see the band talk about their love of the game, not just because of who they are, but also just because I love to know why others love hockey.

So I figured I would finish off this post by just sharing the link to both the article mentioned above and another that was also linked to in the Puck Daddy article. Also, I thought I would leave a suggested listening list for those whom want to give Propagandhi a listen.

“Five reasons punk band Propagandhi loves hockey” [Puck Daddy]

“Interview with Propagandhi” [Silver Seven]

Suggested Listening (all songs can be found on their myspace, but watch the Dear Coach’s Corner video for lyrics):

Dear Coach’s Corner

A Speculative Fiction

Die Jugend Marschiert

Fuck The Border

How are you doing? Good?

Me? Not good. People around me are falling sick. People I care about. I am doing no good either. I’ve got a furuncle right on my asshole. It’s big and a constant pain in the ass. No respite. No matter which butt cheek you sit on its there. No matter which foot you are standing on, which way you choose to sleep…it’s constantly there. I’m sure many of you must have been through this kind of situation…well not exactly mine, but you get the point, right? And you begin to wonder what have you done to deserve this? Like there’s some logical reason behind your shit. No, there’s not. It’s like the saying- ‘shit happens’. Some try to link their good and shitty times to karma, a concept from Gita. That is basically whatever comes to you is the result of your deeds or karma which is basically bullshitting. Just because it is written in Gita, which has been given a sacrosanct façade as it is the word of ‘Lord’ Krishna, doesn’t mean it’s true. You can’t apply the theory of karma to everything around you. If you can, explain Shahrukh Khan to me. The rich and the powerful always show their middle finger to this theory. What I feel is everything happening around us is just random. No logical explanation can be provided coz there’s none. Chaos reigns in this world.

It’s not karma, just kismet.