The Sour Grapes Line

Has this ever happened to you:

You spot, quite by accident, an ad, or the front page of a newspaper, maybe even a poster somewhere with someone you know (or once knew) in it. They have just won some sort of award or have a principal role in a low-budget film or appear in an ad. You see it somewhere or someone you know mentions it to you and it just comes out of nowhere.

There are all sorts of reactions a person could have to this sort of thing, ranging from pleasure or even pride ("I knew him!") to slight bemusement to indifference, but then you cross a certain line into negativity. I call it the "Sour Grapes Line". This is a bitter line. And sour, I guess.

This is when you suddenly feel bad. Maybe you see this person's success as somehow underscoring your own failure (or perceived failure), maybe it's just a person you didn't like and you wanted to be the one THEY spotted in the entertainment section of the newspaper. Maybe they were mean to you a long time ago and mean people don't deserve success, right? Right? Right? Right? (you tend to ask a lot of people this question. You also tend to get left alone at parties a lot)

I don't handle this sort of thing well. In fact, I handle it badly. It's like suddenly swallowing a ball of lead. My stomach just drops and everything in the world seems like it's 5 feet further away from me. I brood and brood and bad memories just come flooding back, and I try to distract myself but as soon as I stop I remember what it was that put me in such a bad mood in the first place.

This is one of the many things I hate about myself, just so you know. Of course, I'm not proud of all this. I should wish for success for others and lord help me I TRY to be positive (this has been my struggle over the past year), but old habits die hard. I am very unskilled at letting shit go. It hold me back enormously in so many ways I can't even begin to describe.

Someday, maybe once I've known you for five or six years and we both happen to be very very drunk, I'll tell you about it.

Parental Visit 2000

My parents are visiting from Edmonton. We're having a pretty good time, seeing the city, goin' to Costco (it's like Disneyland). They are enjoying my cats.

On the job front: no, not yet.

My parents LENT me a hefty sum to pay for October's rent and bills, which sucks, of course. To think I would still need my parents' help at my age. Fuck, who would have thought my SISTER would end up as the successful one?

I find I often think of things to blogabout (not a typo; "blogabout" is a new word which I invented just now when I typed it on purposes)...sorry, that should be "about which to blog" (whoops, there goes my new word) but when I finally get to my computer I have lost the inclination. Blogclination? Anyways, that will TOTALLY change once I get my Asus EEE...

I want to make a comic

I was supposed to make a comic strip with a friend of mine, who insisted that they wanted to make a funny product and be successful and bla bla bla but when it came to actually putting in the work, they vanished. This happened twice.

So, screw them, I'm going to make my own comic. Unfortunately, this means I will need to develop some sort of artistic ability, which won't happen short of a miracle or genie wish. Welllllllll...I'll think of something...

Have you seen QI yet?

This is my favourite show. QI, short for "Quite Interesting", is a show in England hosted by the infinitely wonderful Stephen Fry. The format is of a panel show and you learn AMAZING things and laugh your ass off.

I'm not going to tell you any more, just you go and YouTube it. Quite frankly, I think it's one of the best things ever to be aired in the history of Television. You'll see.

I woke up at 6 PM today

I didn't mean for it to happen. I went to sleep last night at about 3 AM, got up at 6:30 AM to feed the cats, went back to bed at 7:30 AM.

I think I woke up at 11 AM, had breakfast...mooched around...then I went back to bed. Oh lord. When I woke up it was 6.

Not a productive day.

I want a new computer!

Last night, a friend and I went to the Dell website and built my fantasy computer.

It cost $9000!?

Another friend told me that computers don't normally cost that much, but I think he's jealous. Of my fantasy computer.

In happier news, somebody posted Tumbletown Tales on YouTube, and those Eureka! physics cartoons that taught me high school physics when I was in grade 3. Awesome.

I realize I have nothing of value to post. Whoops!

SATURDAY NITE!

So of course, I'm home. I don't know a lot of people in this city yet, so that's my excuse, but let's face it, I was never Mr. Party-pants.

This week: I delivered a few resumes in person to a couple of video game companies in the city (wouldn't it be AWESOME...) and made a cake. It was one of those cake mix double-fudge jobbies. It is amazing how a cake mix with super-moist deluxe dream cakener supreme deluxe on the box could taste so terrible. It was all I could do to choke it down.

Today, I made a bunch of ground beef, put it into spaghetti sauce and made several days' worth of spaghetti meals. This one turned out better.

I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow...

I KNOW!

Send me a person, place, thing, and or genre. I'll write something involving those things.

By the way, these energy drinks are DELICIOUS. Some of them taste like Tahiti Treat. Anyone remember Tahiti Treat?

It's hard!

It's hard to write something every day! Especially if you're unemployed and your life is at a near-standstill. I have a lot of opinions about things, but they are shared by most decent, clear-thinking individuals, so there's no point in posting those.

I live in what's considered to be a "first-world" country, there's plenty of food and water, manageable disease and no major disasters (knock on wood). I myself am in good health and EXTREMELY well-fed.

I guess I shouldn't complain.

OMG SOMEBODY POSTED A COMMENT OMG ICBI PROOT SLORPZZORR!

I don't believe it, but some wonderful person has actually posted a positive comment on my blog! I HAVE A COMMENT ON MY BLOG. Calm down, calm...down. People read other peoples' blogs every day, why not yours? Your blog isn't any less valid than those of others, right? You can't react like this every time you receive a comment. GOD you're stupid.

Anyways, thank you! I am TOTALLY going to post another entry now! I mean, other than this.

Unemploy'd!

I lost my job recently. It was a crap job, but it sure paid the bills. Nevertheless, this is my BIG CHANCE!

Your chance for what, I hear you asking, eerily. Why, my chance to find a job I actually like, says I to your disembodied voice.

I've been living in the quite frankly awesome fricken city for a year now. I love Vancouver, but getting settled into a life has been an ordeal wrapped in a trial, covered in tests. Shitty jobs, ker-AZAY bosses, conniving co-workers, a tight job market, and here's little me, small town Joe trying to make it in the big city. Go, Gordon! Don't give up, Gordon!

I have been searching for about three weeks, to no avail. I'm not giving up yet, though. One of the things I wanted to do more of now that I live in this city is write. Being a colossally lazy bastard, however, I have decided to start a blog to force myself to write every day, in the mistaken belief that people will be checking my blog regularly or at all.

Well, here goes. Whoops, my quesadilla is ready. God, I'm fat.