dar_han

Well, some of you might have noticed that I've been offline for over 10 days now. The short explanation is that I seem to be out of a job again. Technically the company still exists, I'm still a member of it... but let's be honest. The last four months or so had been a bad instance of "work but little to no pay." Since last week, it's switched to "stay at home, there isn't even work anymore." They all say it's temporary, but heh... I'm sick tired of being only one of two to work my ass off to save a company that doesn't seem to want to live. I mean, if you're gonna make me work for months for a client, you'd better make sure they pay at the end, right? Apparently not.

Not that I'm bitter, heh. I haven't received more than 25 dollars in income this year. This is the third time in 12 months I see a job crashing in flames around me (fourth time in 15 months and fifth in 24 months, in case you're curious). Ever since my last paycheck back in Nov. 2008, I've been living off my savings, which are now only a third as large as they were back then. I guess that means I have a little more than six months to find a paying job again (unless something bad happens to my parents' jobs, in which case that delay will be much shorter)

In short, this has been a bad year. No income, unstable jobs, dwindling savings, near-zero artistic productivity, fluctuating mood, not to mention the country around me still suffering the aftermath of a coup d'état... Wish I could say I could look forward to seeing worksinreallife soon, but no. Barring either of us suddenly stumbling on large amounts of money, that's not happening whithin the next several months (at best!). Instead I'm struggling just to keep some form contact, to avoid losing probably the main reason why I haven't just given up yet.

P.S.: worksinreallife asked me if I could afford to get online without a job. The answer is: yes, for now. Seeing that I don't need to go to work on the other side of the city anymore, I can free enough money from my transportation budget to buy maybe two to four hours online each week. Not much, but I survived with the same amount between January and June after all. Except, I had twice more money back then.

I wish I could make money with some commisions too, but heh, even if I hadn't been in one hell of an artistic block, even if I could find eager (and reliable!) commissioners, it seems I'm not rich enough to afford money transfers to this crappy country anyway (ooooh, the irony, the freakin' irony!!!)...

[/rant mode off]

Number of times it rained since the beginning of the season: at least a dozen.
Number of times it rained while I was outside sans umbrella: at least three.

Number of times I brought an umbrella in case it started raining: at least a dozen.
Number of times it actually rained that day: zero. GUH.

I currently have loud music playing on my headphones because next room is a class about "what is love" according to ultra-conservative christian people. It's... painful.

Ah, would it have hurt someone to tell me that the cook was sick and thus couldn't provide lunch?

'Cause you know, I totally have lots of money available anytime, and restaurants abound in this neighborhood [/sarcasm]

Yeah, so it's over 2:30pm again and I haven't eaten anything besides that pair of half-sized menakely I had for breakfast. At least I had enough humor to mention yesterday's lunch being "over 26 hours late now," HAH!

Right now though, with nothing to do, nothing to eat and nobody to interact with anyway, I'm debating about packing up three hours early rather than wait for someone to "solve the problem."

Hungry makes me angry >.

So most of you only show up once in a while, fine.

So we're all paid per percentage of profits, less fine when said profits wouldn't feed a man for a month (and we're over a dozen, remember)

So one of you quit today, what the heck, I'll end up picking most of his work now.

But please, I'm the only one who's always here working, I'm the one who bothers coming everyday despite living at the other side of the city, I'm the one who lives off his savings rather than his spouse... just don't push it as far as forgetting to have lunch served when you're all away.

After years of trying to put a name on an annoying thing I've had for years. Well, there it is, I have a combination of tinnitus and hyperacusis.

My symptoms? A constant buzzing/hissing sound in my ears, all the time (though the intensity can vary). Then there's my hypersensibility to high-pitched noises people would overlook or else wouldn't hear at all.

Example 1: I can sometimes tell that the TV is on from a room away, even with the sound cut off. I feel something halfway between a buzz and a pressure in my ears around most TV sets.

Example 2: Back in France I couldn't put a foot inside the Val d'Europe mall without feeling discomfort leading to pain in my ears. No one else around me could hear the buzzing sound I was complaining about, I even got nicknamed Joan of Arc because I apparently heard things no one else did. But the buzzing and pain disappeared every time I stepped out of the mall, so I know it wasn't mere imagination.

Example 3: I just can't stand nightclubs and most parties. My ears kill me.

To lighten the mood after a really "meh" week, I surfed a bit and got on Bash.org. So here are the lessons I learnt there:

You don't know the true usefulness of capital letters until you have to write a phrase like "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse."

"I broke my G-String while fingering a minor" actually refers to an accident while trying to play Knock on Heaven's Door on a guitar.

If you've dumped a guy for another, do not attempt to piss off your ex by sending him pics of you and your new boyfriend in bed. Because, you know, your ex might now your parents' e-mail address.

Before bragging that your penis is so big, "it goes all the way from A to Z," please check the actual distance between A and Z on a keyboard (works for both QWERTY and AZERTY!)

If your teacher says in class that sperm is sweet, please do not attempt to correct him unless you're ready to deal with the implications on your part.

IRC is just multiplayer notepad.

If you're in a library, please do not attempt to move all the Bibles to the fiction section (no matter how attractive the idea might appear)

If you're getting paid soon, please beware of the typo: the "L" key is very close to the "P" one.

Right click is one thing every basic PC can do that only some Mac can.

If the wacky kind of Christian try to "save" you, just tell them you pressed Ctrl+S a few steps back so it's no big deal.

Your sister catches you jacking off, you're a pervert. You later stumble on her masturbating... you're still the pervert.

"Mixed martial arts... basically grown men dry-humping in missionary position."

Please do not mention "How did they make Padme's stomach still look big after the twins' birth?" and "Yoda went into hiding" in the same context. EVER. (Brain bleach anyone?)

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

Next time you're having a bad day, think of this... You're a siamese twin, your brother is gay and you're not. But you only got one arsehole.

Our dog, Ran Tan Plan, a nine-year-old half-GSD, died yesterday in the evening. He'd been sick for the last ten days and apparently was paralyzed for most of yesterday.

I feel a bit guilty - I should have noticed his illness earlier, and when I did, I should have tried harder to convince my parents to do something about him (being very tight on money, I couldn't do anything). A bit infuriating, too, considering that when he was younger they spent a lot of money just to have him survive - he'd been born the runt of the litter and spent the better part of his first two years at the vet's.

I miss him already, that klutzy stupid little thing.

Well, I saw that GI Joe movie yesterday... and couldn't help but try guessing the number of civilian casualties, especially in the Paris scenes. So we see a lot of cars blowing up or being crushed flat during the pursuit, everything implying that their occupants are still inside. That already puts the tally up to several dozens, eh?

And then the Eiffel Tower gets one of its legs eaten by nanobots and collapses. I've seen enough details to guess that all evacuation routes were instantly destroyed - I even saw one of the elevators fall from the first platform (so that's about a hundred people falling from about 75 meters/250 feet). Considering that everyone on the tower either was eaten by the nanobots or died in the collapse, that's several thousand dead by the end of the day.

Not bad for a movie based on kids' toys... (Transformers 2, I'm also looking at you and your 7,000 confirmed casualties)

Thought one:
I've just finished reading the first two books of the Fate of the Jedi series. The second one had me constantly trying not to giggle at the concept of a rainbowy Force. Yes I know it's been said before, but this one book keeps saying it again and again. Rainbows. Rainbows. Rainbows!!!!

Thought two:
Evening one, you see a mouse, so you lay a trap for it. Evening two, you see the mouse again, alive and well. Your trap's nowhere to be found. What are your conclusions?

Thought three:
With its shape, size, consistency and tendency to be served warm (but not hot), mofo akondro (banana dough) definitely reminds me of an almost fully erect... well... you know.
Bonus points: an insufficiently baked mofo akondro will shoot out a white warm gooey liquid when pressed/bitten.

Thought four:
I already mentioned it to worksinreallife but has someone checked the percentage of Cold Case episodes that dealt with homosexuality? One TV station broadcasts the show at the rate of three episodes a week, and I know I can't spend a week without seeing them deal with an LGBT-related case!

Last in line: the disowned gay son who was killed by his highly closeted brother over fears of being outed to their father. And before that, the girl who committed suicide because her fiancé's father discovered that she was physically a man. And before that, the self-made man killed by his former lover's mother because of his predatory sexual behavior... The list goes on!

Ugh. This morning and last evening could combine as being a really, really bd day. Nothing working and people not helping... I went from being seconds from punching a drunk guy in the nose, to getting into an argument with my mother without wanting to because I was still snappy from that encounter, to getting even more snappy today with all the things that just wouldn't work right.

What's gotten me completely miserable now though? worksinreallife seems to have gone to bed while I was disconnected (damn modem and ISP). I've been snappy even to him even if he'd done nothing and I couldn't even apologize for that or even wish him good night as I always do. wolfbrothersong said it'd be all right but heh...

I still feel miserable.

EDIT: Oh wait he's online again...

EDIT2: Whatever I did to deserve him probably wasn't enough <3
...
With such sudden mood changes, can you guess I'm STRESSED?

Countries allowing same-sex marriages on a nationwide basis :

Constitutional Monarchies : The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Norway, Sweden

Constitutional Democracies : South Africa

Just an observation, but I think there's a visible bias there (though I'm still puzzled at finding South Africa on the list. I mean, frickin' Africa? Wow, miracles do happen!)

Well, of course it had to start raining just as I was getting out of work. The only piece of me that managed to remain dry was... my socks, undies and any body parts covered by those. Surprisingly (and to my delight) my frantic attempts at saving the contents of my bag (that would be a sketchbook, several notebooks and an USB drive) was rather successful.

Knowing my luck, it stopped raining just as I reached home. To add to that too, when I reached my neighborhood there was a generalized power blackout... walking in the streets in almost total darkness is a, let's say, interesting experience (10 points for each avoided mud puddle, 5 points for each stream of muddy water, and 100 points for each of them freaking zebu-powered carts). Almost as a joke, light came back as soon as I reached the safer parts of the neighborhood.

Brought an umbrella today. Anyone wanna bet it won't rain?

Okay, this should have been posted yesterday but the guys at work didn't leave me a second to type anything.

Anyway... news from the week-end. The results for the Baccalauréat came in... and Nick, it seems, failed for the third time. For those who wonder, most of the time applying to university or equivalent schools require you to have your Bacc first. And most worthy jobs here require at least a Bacc+2 level (in clear, the equivalent of two successful consecutive years of university-level studies after the Bacc). Unless, of course, you intend to have one of these jobs where you have very little money, but it doesn't matter much because you haven't got a bit of free time (and energy) left to spend anything anyway.

Second piece of news from the week-end, the H.A.T. government's complete and utter humiliation before the U.N. General Assembly. Aw man, we're still laughing. It won't help us, it might not better our situation a single bit, but MAN was it funny. You got 1-UPed, guys. TWICE. Remember to bring lube next time - LOTS of it!

Oh, and last. I spent most of the week-end stuck with a migraine. Maybe it was something I ate, maybe it's the erratic sleep schedule, maybe it was knowing in advance about Nick's Bacc results and the inevitable parental head-grabbing that would follow. Aaaanyway I spent most of my non-migrained time reading whatever I recently downloaded. Meaning, everything ziabandito555 posted over on FurRag, plus Blue on Blue and The Argosiad by altivo. Fun and very relaxing, if a bit... incomplete *wink wink nudge nudge*

BEST BIRTHDAY I'VE HAD IN YEARS, but it's hard *burp* when *burp* half your family *burp* thought *burp* of having food *burp* as your birthday present *buuuuuurp*

Honestly though, a lunch and a mid-afternoon snack at work followed by two consecutive but separate dinners (one with Dad, one with Mom) left me more than full by the end of the day.

As of today, September 24th, 2009, I'm officially halfway to 50, or "a quarter century old", depending on who you ask.
Wooo-pee-woooo?

A MOUSE! A FRICKING MOUSE JUST GRAZED MY BARE RIGHT FOOT! And I thought I was just seeing shadows!!!

Anything with the words "pokémon" and "fanart" in the same phrase usually turns me off, but then I saw THIS. Hilarity ensued.

Sorry for worrying you on Ffriday. Turns out they were using rubber bullets so there were no casualties... Though their use of tear gas got them some flak again. Note to soldiers: Do not use tear gas grenades on protesters when there's a children's hospital downwind from them.
There was another round on saturday, which ended up with some broken things and several arrests. Then the protesters gave an ultimatum: next round, on September 20. I4m crossing fingers.