March 2007 Archives

Remember this job? You may recall the whole saga of how it didn't work out. Well this story has a sequel.

The person who got me in the door at this company was a certain Immutable character, a former Yulblogger. Through his tireless efforts my name got the attention of his game director, who works on a different team. After the recommendations of not only him, but one of the directors I interviewed with as well as the VP of HR, I got a second interview with his director. As luck would have it, this week I am working nights to cover the people that are taking vacation this week, so I was free at 9 am on Tuesday.

Julien has come up with a great idea. Please join him in coming* up with your own Canadian porn titles. French is, of course, welcome*. I added my own over there, but here's another:

Box Lunch with Jan Dong. A little too obscure?

* The alternate spelling here is just too easy.

Speaking of the finite, I learned some sad news yesterday. Someone I knew personally has died. He was 29.

Back when I lived with roommates from 1998 until 2001, there were a number of people that would stop by regularly for various activities. They would smoke pot, play board games, video games or just hang out. I have had the good fortune (or good social choices) to have hung out with some of very bright people. Andrew was one of them. Being exceptionally bright and in computer science, he was almost a cliché nerd, but mainly in the more positive ways. He was always "on" in terms of wit and brainy banter. It was so intense you could almost see the electrical currents in his mind, sometimes causing him to "spaz" out very briefly. These spazzes would occur so quickly that if your attention weren't fully on him, you could miss it.

Andrew and his then-girlfriend left for Texas about 7 years ago for some research opportunity there. I have seen and communicated with him about twice since then, once in 2001 and another in 2002. Add to this that I have not been in touch with this group of friends in some time (I choose not to play certain online video games, so I don't hear from them it seems), and it becomes more understandable that I didn't know that he came down with brain cancer about a year and a half ago. He died last Sunday, March 4. I would never have known if I hadn't decided to get pizza for Rose and I and take an unusual route home.

Death is all around us. As I get older, I suppose it will come closer to me. I imagine a single scythe-wielding spectre looming huge in the world, swinging a scythe randomly. Everyone is inexorably drawn to it. Those struck with the scythe disappear. The older you get, the closer you are to the culling blade, and the faster it swings. I guess this is part of getting older, seeing vague acquaintances go, then distant relatives of people you know followed by your own acquaintances. Next, it will be my own relatives, friends and other loved ones. I bet his wife never thought about having to bury him this soon. Maybe I will start combing the obituaries like my parents do. I think I now understand why. The scythe is so much closer for them.

Despite some of your eccentricities, I liked you Andrew. I'm truly saddened to see you go. You would have been a great old man.

I have just decided that I do not want to live forever, not even a thousand years in the bloom of youth. I now know that I couldn't live forever with the loss of loved ones. There would be too much pain and regret; too many should'ves, but not enough dids.

I just called someone at work whose voice sounded vaguely like my mother's. In a few years she may be gone, and I will be left forever with an aching memory of her voice. I can't see feelings like that ever going away.

Have you really thought about the deaths of those closest to you? How does it feel? WHY does it hurt so much?

***

Love and death is the only things that make anyone do anything. If we had all the time in the world to do something, that's how much time it would take to do it. If no one loved another person enough to move them to action, then again, things would not get done.

***

That's me with a beer, an iPod (which I don't actually own) and longer hair.
via Vila and Martine. Go ahead, click on it.

I have to come up with ten more things? Fine.

1. It's right here.

2. I have an "enemy". I often fantasize about beating him up. This person actually exists, but there is no actual reason for me to dislike him the way I do.

3. Related to the last one, I have very recently discovered that occasionally I want to destroy certain powerful men. It's not a very nice characteristic; it's the type of thing that leads people to do horrific things to people just because they are better than they are. I can only truly think of two such people in recent memory. There was one from my childhood though. We later became pretty good friends for a time. He's a doctor in Toronto now.

I dreamt about being in a fight with three black men. I was in a warehouse/loading bay type place. It had machinery and a large garage-type door that had to be opened by some mechanism. It was like something out of The Machinist, but not as dark. As I was leaving (maybe to finish my shift), three black men approached me. They asked me where I was going, told me that I wasn't going anywhere, and then made some kind of clear threat. Unfortunately I don't remember what it was specifically; I get the impression that they wanted to rob me. I must have realized that I was in a dream right then, because I decided that I was going to do something I (not so) secretly have always wanted to do: kick the living shit out of someone. I threw the first punch and hit the first guy square in the mouth, but it was as if the air around my fist were caught in some kind of jelly. It was slow, yet it did the job almost as well as I wanted it to. Maybe even better. The three of them seemed quite taken aback that I would fight back the way I did.

I remember bodyslamming one of them, kicking another in the stomach, and nearly dislocating his jaw. The third man was untouched; he wisely did not approach. I didn't really exert much effort, though. Because of the "soupy air", it didn't seem like much damage was being done, but again, it was more than enough for these guys. Then the door opened. Outside was bright with the afternoon sun, and there was a menacing female silhouette. If it were a video game, this would be the boss character of that level. I never got to fight this boss, though. I woke up.