pulling weeds

Everything written here is true.

Only three years ago, I reluctantly began smoking marijuana. I was always curious, but my curiosity was always overridden by my personal values. As a kid, I placed great value in the strength of the human mind, and vowed never to poison my own with such meaningless things as alcohol and drugs.

As time passed, and I befriended more and more cannabis users, my curiosity grew. I did some research and found many sources claiming the drug to be largely benign, even when compared to its legal cousins, alcohol and tobacco. At the time, most of my nearby friends were users (though as far as I knew, none of my oldest friends were).

The first time I smoked was in no way memorable, yet I remember it clearly. I inhaled a few small breaths, waited a couple hours, and felt nothing. I had been warned beforehand that it might not work the first time, but the experience left me in doubt. I had left my comfort zone, overcome my misgivings, broken the law, and I still didn't know what the big deal was. The second session was much more satisfying.

I was slow to take up the new vice. The first time I bought weed, it sat peacefully in my closet for two weeks. It was months later before I bought my first pipe, and perhaps a year before I could confidently roll a joint.

Getting high in those early days was different than it is now. I would feel nothing for the first five to ten minutes, and then I would feel a cooling sensation on my nose and/or tongue. Mucus would form heavily in my throat, and I remember worrying that I might suffocate on it. It would take me as long as twenty minutes to feel any euphoric effects, which would then linger for hours. Now, however, the effects come almost immediately, and are much shorter lived.

I smoke lots of weed these days. In some ways, I know myself better when I'm high. I recognize my problems, my values, my strengths and my weaknesses. When I'm high, I know what I need to do to improve my life, but naturally, I do nothing. When I'm sober, my thoughts dwell on the simple task of getting high again. As a result, my life has become a paradoxical cycle in which I smoke weed so that I can think more clearly about giving it up.

I have become emotionally dependent on marijuana. I might burn as many as six joints on a bad day. If I have it, I will smoke it until it's gone. Once I run out, I will start drawing money from more important applications, including rent, bill payments and even food, in order to buy weed. And that is exactly what I would have done tonight, had I not taken the time to write this email instead.

Twenty four hours ago, I ran out. There's cash in my wallet, and a loud voice in my head screaming at me to get back to my routine. But I don't intend to. As of now, I quit.

toothpaste

Is it just me, or is toothpaste packaging getting smaller?

Just the other day, I almost walked up to the cashier with a toothpaste tube that couldn't have been longer than five inches. Even the one I ended up buying was smaller than the empty one.

What's up with that?

~Poison Hemlock
Battles, "Atlas"


P.S. What the fuck has happened to my life?

a sad story with no ending.

I almost never go to Superstore, since I only shop for one, and an average store is every bit "super" enough to accommodate me. Case in point: the Superstore in my neighbourhood doesn't seem to stock long-grain white rice in a bag smaller than 8kg.

What's more, purchaising plastic bags so that I may put my groceries in them myself is an ass-backwards arrangement. Charging people for plastic bags is exactly the kind of environmental initiative I would expect from a national mega-conglomerate like Westfair Foods: half-assed, money-grubbing, ultimately insignificant. The store itself has a massive carbon footprint, compunded by the four-lane gas bar, the underground parkade, and the thousands of daily customers, nearly all of whom must drive in order to haul their bulk groceries home with them.

Today I discovered that monosodium glutamate, the Dreaded MSG, the evil food additive that every health freak has nightmares about, can be found in the Asian Food aisle at Superstore. It comes in a bag and looks very inedible. Until now, I had assumed it was the sort of ingredient that called for a government licence and a degree in chemistry.

I looked briefly for men's flip-flops, but found nothing above a size 8. That is not a man's flip-flop. In other words, even with all its grandstanding, its enormous, ugly building, its competative prices and its tremendous selection of consumer goods, Superstore was largely useless to me on this particular visit.

The sad story begins now. I was on my way back from this disappointing visit to the largest eyesore in the neighbourhood, and as I'm walking up the alley, I spot something fluttering around in my peripheral vision. It was a small hawk, maybe a foot long, brown, with a black and white bands on its tail. It had tried to fly away from me (I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise) but it seemed to be injured.

I like birds, and hawks are always extra cool. I wanted to help this one. So I hurried home and looked up the number for animal control. I called to tell them about it, and was told by the nice lady on the phone that animal control doesn't handle injured birds, and that I would have to call the SPCA. And, incidentally, that the SPCA was closed.

I called the number anyway, and was directed by their voicemail service to call the emergency line. The woman who answered informed me that the SPCA "doesn't pick up injured birds unless they're in a box," and asked me if I'd be willing to go out and capture the hawk.

I said, "No."

I am not a trained bird handler. And my immunizations are about a decade out of date. I am neither compassionate nor stupid enough to go chasing after a frightened wild animal with nothing but a worn-out oven mitt to protect myself with. So, since the professionals don't seem interested, that hawk is on its own. Hopefully it hasn't fluttered into traffic yet.

This is where the story's ending would normally be. I suppose if I'd gone out to capture the bird, I would write here about my triumph and/or my grevious injuries.

Games, Games, Sweet Antiquated Games

Counterstrike!

I've never really had a gaming PC before. That is to say, when games like Half-life and Warcraft 3 (and present-day examples like Doom 3 and Bioshock) came out, I was nowhere close to being able to run them. The machine I'm using right now... well I guess a 2.5GHz Celeron isn't so bad. About eight months back, I put a "new" Radeon 9250 video card in there, and upgraded the RAM to a dazzling 512Mb. So now I can run Windows XP without too many problems.

But Counterstrike is where it's at, and I can run it with much less than I've got. I play with, or more often, against Mindesyn, and I would say I'm able to kill him about one in four times, on a good day. He's quite good, and I'm a rather horrible shot. That said, when it comes down to melee combat, things become a little more even. ;)

I never played System Shock 2, because at the time I was running a Pentium 75 with no video hardware at all. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about the game, so I'm doing my best to find it. Getting my hands on the disc is only half the battle... I'll still have to figure out how to get it to run on this machine. As always, Google and eBay are my faithful companions on this exciting journey.

I guess the only other "video game" that will get a mention in this entry is the PartyPoker.net client software, where-in I made a recent, horrifying discovery; I can only win a sit-and-go if I'm fuckin' stoned. Sober, I never place higher than fifth. Figure THAT one out.

Also, I flopped a straight flush the other day. Won 9,100 chips with it. Pretty stoked about that.

***

.....look, I'm going to have to find ways to make these entries more interesting. The fact is that I don't have a very interesting life. I work a shitty job. I skipped a staff party this weekend because there was a thunderstorm.

It doesn't much matter, anyway, because nobody's reading these. Or if you are, don't you fucking dare outbid me on SS2 you bastards.

~G
;p

Hello.

Well, hi. In case you can't tell, I'm new around here.

I plan to get the profile and all that set up soon...er or later. Until then, here's everything you need to know about me, in a brief bullet list:
*I like Mexican food;
*I smoke way too much pot;
*I hate pop music with a furious passion; and finally,
*Poison Hemlock is not my real name.

You should also check out my friend Mindesyn's Blog. He tends to be a great deal less boring than myself.

P.S. I realize that my avatar is a picture of Bob Ross. While this isn't necessarily bad, I assure you that it will be changed if and when a reasonable alternative can be procured. Thank you all for your concern regarding this matter.

BLOG TEsT

The following is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System:

...

During an emergency, this system will be pretty damn useless. You are advised not to rely on it.