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.