Thursday, December 18, 2008

That Time of the Year Again

Now, when I was younger I thought it safe to blurt out the very open ended yet cliched seasonal slogan "It's that time of year again" and expected that it would ring the same nostalgic bell in everybody's brain and wallet that it's Christmas; but 10 years, 1 puberty stage and a Niagara Fall's worth of cold showers later and I realize that it could mean other, less pleasurable things, and end up ringing bells in other people's lives that would make faecal matter fly out of their back ends faster than the elf Santa caught groping Mrs. Claus.

Examples of such events would be child support collection date, annual couple's time at the state prison or the one time of the year the menstrual fairy visits that special girl with the very irregular cycle.

Fortunately none of those apply to me, but the one event that does is worse than all three of them put together, pressed down, shaken together, put in a shotgun and shot with it. This device of evil i'm talking about is exams. Funny thing about exams is that if you use chat speak, you could actually get the word "xams" out of "xmas", unfortunately that's about the only thing funny about them. To most they're the minor hindrance on the fun times. To me, they're like herpes - everybody has them, one form or another and they come out at least three time a year with minor breakouts in-between. You can apply all the cream you want before they arrive but as surely as the sun rises from the north, they come, and you MUST go through your time of pain, itchiness and unmitigated unattractiveness before they clear up and you feel comfortable around people again.

I'm not saying that exams are a bad idea (well actually, I am) but i'm sure there are other ways of proving that you know stuff. Take my ex girlfriend for example - we'd start off well enough on an argument but from the time she realises she's losing the hits the clutch and kicks in panic gear and goes on to babble on about ancient Mayans and why China didn't invent the steel pan and other sociological hob nobbery. Meanwhile I stand there, listening (strangely) and by the time she's done I give her the win and in my quiet time (post conflict) I reflect on just how knowledgeable she is about... that stuff and how perfectly right it sounds. While this fills my head, I totally forget the fact that that we were arguing about why it's wrong to randomly poke people in the rectum.

Which brings me to my proposal. Instead of stretching the fabric of human sanity by forcing us to regurgitate the integral of x divided by used toilet paper, give us a podium, a glass of water and let us ramble on before a panel of University professors who wear fuzzy sweaters and find everything terribly fascinating. If our yapping sounds like we could convince a crowd of natives to plant poisonous plants in their children's play area or use a hand grenade to knock out that shaky tooth or give their senior citizens nuclear powered Gundam suits, then let us proceed to the next semester. If not, and by not, I mean if a person sounds like they've sneezed out a chunk of brain while guzzling down a pint of Vat 19 on a Dentist's chair in the middle of a root canal, then give him the failing grade and tell him to come back when he's learned not to go to dentists ;).

Politicians do it, and look how far they've reached.

If you don't want to do it that way, then give us a check list containing all of the topics we've covered for that course and let us tick off the things that we're sure we know how to do. I promise we'll be honest :D. If we lie, then rest assured that our employers and our wives would teach us a lesson when we get older, get a job and something goes wrong at work and we don't know whether to integrate by second order or run like hell. Subsequently we lose the job and come home to find our belongings keeping the lawn furniture's company and a man named Ted with a rather hairy chest standing in our doorway with our wives wrapped around him like a hot towel. The metaphor of my life... sigh... Anyway!

We better find another way of testing our knowledge in our respective areas of study before I put the gun to my head and the hammer slams down on the only chamber with the live round in it.

Take me as an example of what human sanity looks like when it reaches its elastic limit - my first exam is on Monday and I have completely lost my compass of priority and where the toilet is. I spent the entire day stacking my DVD collection and peeing in shoes. This is the result of a pretty hard semester; a semester where my lecturers crammed so much work up my tailpipe that any thought I had of having fun had to tiptoe past my lecturer's laser pointer. My brain has completely shut down at a rather inconvenient time I must admit. Is this what genius is all about? I could do those things if I were selling blue crabs to tourists on Red square or vying to become the world's best scab collector. Mind you I don't want to stop pursuing my fancy-pants degree as a Computer Engineer to do either, but me and the other heathens in the world have the same worded question on our minds - there has to be another way (mine pertains to an alternative to exams, theirs pertains to avoiding partying with the guy downstairs).

Look, at the end of it all, exams are something that we have been faced with since the age of three or four (I don't know about you but my prep school had finals) and it hasn't harmed us till this day (except for the guy that jumped off of UWI or the dude that hung himself over CAPE. That wasn't a joke by the way). The point is we all have to do them and score really high, so that our "intellectual superiors" can sleep well at night knowing that their past postponements of suicide wasn't in vain. The only way to get through them is to develop discipline and work hard at it, and in the end we only turn out better and slightly more eccentric individuals with twitches, paranoia and/or other slight mental defects. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger, right?.

It still doesn't change the fact that finals and the concept of school are still worse ideas than a sleepover at Freddy Kruger's, though.

Good luck in exams everybody.

Trimming the Fat? Careful Where You Snip

Now we all know what Facebook is by now - a single point on the graph map of the internet where millions of people, with millions of friends while away hours of their day looking at statuses, relationship drama or the pics one of their so-called friends posted of them from the party the other night when they were drunk, stripped down to their underwear, defecating in wine glasses and straddling the lamp stand.

It's no doubt that www.facebook.com has become so popular that people are wondering why they're not making keyboards with just the w, ., f, a, c, e, b, o, k and m keys since navigating to that website is all that the computer's uses have been widdled down to over the past year. No need for quad core processors, 1gb graphics cards and X-fi speakers, give me a keyboard with 10 keys, a browser, a mouse and a pocket full of "I don't care about outside" and i'm set for all of my daily functions.

Now the main purpose of facebook was to keep in touch with people you already know - share pics, see what's going on in each other's lives and generally stay in the know with people in your network. But (I know you shouldn't start a sentence with but, but) as surely as zombies love brains, boys (and some men) love the p-word that i'm not allowed to say, and facebook is proving to be a sure means of bloaks potentially grabbing some of that thing that makes the world go round.

Chances are, that a male in a network of friends, some of whom might be female might have the luck of being the town whore like that guy from Nastaja's Calabria 2007 video or the town Haunch back like that guy from that animated film that I never saw. One way or another, they're going to get bored of the same old same old (whether it be "ease of access" or successive, unrelenting and hardcore rejection) and they're going to venture outside of their little group and start hunting sheep from another shepherd's flock; in other words, they add random pretty little things that they know nothing about, and the said pretty little things innocently accept the lustful friend request. You know the friend request is lustful because there's usually a bulge a little below the waist of the "+1 Friend" icon.

So now that your "target" has accepted the request it's time to put your game face on and play the waiting game. You log in to the site and pretend to be tending to your business while waiting for your "target" to come online. When she does, the conversation bit can begin. I don't need to go into the ass-crack of this process since i'm sure most of you know how it goes. The end result can be one of two things:

1. The convo went well and you eagerly await her next appearance online
2. The convo went horribly and you eagerly await her next appearance online to redeem yourself

No matter which, you leave your target on your friends list hoping and waiting for the day that you finally get some of that sweet stuff. Unfortunately for some, the day never comes.

As time passes and this process of trial and blue balls repeats, your friends list becomes a mixed bag of people that you know to a T, and others that you won't be able to identify in a crowd unless they have their profile picture taped to the part of their head where their face should be.

Get me wrong, not, strangers can end up on your friends list by other means such as mistaken identity (especially if you're one those tards that hid your profile info from search) or by pure peer pressure when a friend of a friend adds you. On that last point - why do they do that? Where does that compulsion to add you, a perfect stranger to them, come from? They always leave me with the difficult choice of unwillingly accepting, or rejecting and running the risk of having that person go back to the person I actually know and tell them that I'm a long streak of piss because I don't accept requests from "people". Knowing some of my friends, they might actually turn on me because I didn't accept their friend as a friend. Ridiculous, I know.

At any rate, at one time or another, there comes a point in every facebook-er's career when he must clean up that friends list and weed out the scraps. That time came for me today.

I realized that it's all dinner and strippers when you have to add people but when the deletion time rolls around, I deliberate on touching that "x" button more than deliberating whether or not to wear pants to leave the house on a morning. Deleting these "extended" friends tends to put a strain on friendships.

First off was the "failed attempts" group. Deleting them was easy for very obvious reasons. Next was the "mistaken identity" section, then came the "spoke to a few times, never really hit it off" set, then the "friend of a friend" section. The friend of a friend section was difficult because of the aforementioned complications of word getting around to my actual acquaintances. In some instances I said bollocks to that and hit the "x" harder than a white boy at a rave. In other cases, they remained there, the warts on my friends list's buttox. My success with "other ventures" remains hinged on their existence on my list.

The next category is a VERY touch and go one. One wrong deletion and it could mean some friendships that would end faster than a fight with a monkey. The category in statement is the *long inhale* "We went to school together, we weren't that close at school but you added me on facebook but we haven't really talked since then and now I have to delete you" group.

These are the people that you met already, be it through a friend or a glance and they added you on this crackbook or you, them. Since you added them you haven't really spoken to them or been very interested in their well being or recent activities even though they've probably been in every party you've been to over the past several months. You just don't really care about these people that much to have their life stories cluttering your activity feed. Come on, you have more interesting people's business to mind ;)

I really have to be careful when trimming the fat in this layer because I could be passing the shears next to a very vital organ and not know it. If you happen to be in this quandary, do as I do: label them as hot rocks and let them be. They're just occupying space, not spitting in your tea and passing it off as cream. Sooner or later, they might delete you and save you the headache.

I'm saying this because I once deleted someone from this category and in about three days time, they added me back with the personal message "Why did you delete me?" then there was this conversation as awkward and jerky as a virgin's first time. This convo lasted seven painful minutes, and I hope never to relive them ever again.

At the end of it all, my friends list is clean. Not spotless, but sanitised. Before it was as sludgy and black as the Beetham swamps, but at least now it has that dingy brown colour your water has when it now comes back. A much better state, I must admit.

So what was the purpose of this note? Well I'd say it was just something to bide my time until my next engagement, but I suppose it can be a lesson to you - yet another excuse for your conscience to kick in before you do something trivial. Use it as a yard stick fro cleaning out the old friends list of yours, ridding it of the vermin of unknown people (yes I called people vermin) and in the process having less chunks in your straw when sucking up all the juicy gossip on your activity feed.

Prepare for Payne

This entry contains spoilers about the Max Payne film currently in theaters. It's also a fanboy rant, so uninterested parties can stop reading right about... now!

Ok so in case you didn't know, I recently went to see the new Max Payne movie that Fox produced. Yes, I went - it was a Friday and I went all by myself. Just for the record it was a personal decision, and I won't appreciate anybody who saw me at the Cineplex last Friday (walking around like the grim reaper of fun) making fun of me.

All insecurities aside, let's get down to the marrow of the article and that is, how was it?

One word - PAYNEful! (Don't laugh) After the movie was finished I couldn't help but wonder if the opening line was aimed at the audience to prepare them for the hour and a half long gritty, grimey turd that was wrapped elegantly on the film reel instead of the actual movie. A prank portrayed by a masochistic joker who gets his willys off of PISSING ME OFF!

Let's start with the facts:

The movie was based off of the first installment of the Max Payne series. Us fanboys should know how this plays off, but for the wanks who haven't played it yet, buy the game or look for a synopsis somewhere. (Gotta love the lead-on haha)

First off, let's do a comparison as to how 'close' the movie characters were to their video game counterparts:

Michelle Payne (Max's Wife)
Game: About 5'5", 28-32, blonde, straight, short-cut hair. Gave birth to a girl
Movie: About 5''6", 28-32, brunette, long, wavy hair. Gave birth to a boy

Jim Bravura
Game: 5'10", 54-65, White, Spokesperson for AA
Movie: 5'7", 28-32, Black, Has rap career

Mona Sax
She was close

Max Payne
Game: 6'6", 38-42, White, Blissfully naive
Movie: 5'8", 35-40, White, Bit of a jerk

As if that wasn't enough, the story was the further from the game than a middle-aged mom in the suburbs.

Trivia:

Max, at the beginning of the first game, was a ranking DEA detective. He was not a recluse working in a cubby hole at the local police precinct filing papers in the "Cold Case" department. Though not the brightest of sunbeams, Max was never regarded as the "office weirdo" or "that guy". Though people knew he was two shakes short of a lamb's tail, he still had friends in his department and on the force.

Though Max (in the second game) called a sex hotline, he was never closely associated with Russian prostitutes. Nor, in either of the games was a suspect in a "whore murder" case. He seemed to have more sinister deeds on his criminal record, such as being wanted for blowing away an entire office building of mobsters by himself and shooting a lady cop in the chest. The police never chased Max for the alleged murder of a prostitute he kicked out of his apartment after not having sex with her.

Max also quit smoking just before leaving the office to go home on the same night his family was murdered. He NEVER took the Vlkyr drug!!!

Jack Lupino was a crazed drug user and mob boss. He did not hang out on rooftops stalking prostitutes and/or cutting people up with machetes. I would have quicker associated Frankie "The Bat" Niagara with that kind of scene. Though hatterly insane, Jack was not an axe murderer. He spent his days dispatching orders to mob whimps such as the Finito brothers and dining on the flesh of fallen angels.

Lt. Jim Bravura was a man on the downhill side of the age hill. He beat the bottle and became the spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous by the time the second game roller around. He was also Max's direct superior and was not an internal affairs officer and part time rapper. He worked in the same department as Max.

In the game, bullet time was supposed to simulate an exaggeration of how your body works on adrenaline i.e. the enemies moved slower while you moved at more or less normal speed. Bullet time was not a major slow-down that caused you to spend two minutes just pumping a shotgun, giving a guy enough time to squeeze three shots off at you.

At the end of the first game, Max shot Nicole Horne's chopper down. She died in the subsequent explosion - the game did not end with the murder of a fat sweaty guy in an overcoat.

Now these are all the things that were out of synch (that I can remember), but when the writers could get such basic things as the gender of Max's child right, I have to ask the question of whether or not anybody ever even played the game before putting posterior to paper to write the script.

Sheesh, now I know how you tossers felt after watching the Doom movie.

I say they should have let Fergle make his movie. I bet the folks at Fox feel like a gymnast that tries to show off with a fancy flip and lands awkwardly on his head. I feel like that ominous mother figure that stands over your bleeding body wagging a finger, after you impale yourself doing the same thing she ordered you not to do - You see, Fox? I told you you should have let Gibson have his film, now you're a few million dollars poorer, a few haters richer and your company review rating is as middle of the road as a confused deer on a night time highway.

Mr. Gibson, sir, I wish you all the best - show the internet what a real Max Payne movie is about.

A Mass Infection

Ugh... this bleeming virus. It's taking the whole country by storm, that's what it's doing. I mean, at first when I saw my mate at school all hunched over in the foetal position I just thought he was panzying out over the bad cafeteria pigeon he unknowingly consumed for lunch, but when he eventually uncurled and staggered out of school like an alcoholic in the desert sighting a Johnny Walker mirage I knew things were not as trivial as they seemed.

So anyway, the next day comes and falls right on my lap like a tarted out pole dancer, and I find myself in an air-conditioned class fighting off the sandman (ICT guys know who this is) and all his sleep devils as I try to untangle the knotted up slotch of indistinct words that crawl out his mouth in a volume that falls just under the human range of hearing. Yes, it's a task already, (trying to stay up and understand through this greuling two hour snooze fest) but throw in this new variable of unexplainable nasal cloggage and a higher than usual level of fatigue and you have yourself a recipe for stress that will clog the arteries of even the most avid of adrenaline junkies.

The first ten minutes of the class were well spent absorbing the material as all there was to do was plagiarize the note being scribbled on the whiteboard, but after that, the shit officially went pear-shaped. I could literally feel the mucus in my nose solidify exponentially with every turn of the internal AC fan. My head got heavy and my vision showed more motion trails than usual as my head bobbed on my neck in a helium balloon type fashion. The symptoms intensified until I was sprawled out on my desk like an exasperated rape victim. My classmates were concerned, caring and kind enough to take pictures of me in my derelict state to post on the expletive internet :S I dunno where the pics are right now, though. I suppose they'll surface sooner or later.

Anyway, with the sound of the last shutter click, I awoke to my lecturer (still babbling) and a subtle nuance of "when will it end?!!!" moaning. This room was no place for me to be, no sir! So I upped and stepped outside for some fresh air. The compound was as hot and desolate as ever with the commonplace decals and scenarios that make it a true UTT John D. campus - a few girls scampering here and there to avoid the ever horny testosterone-pumped beasts; a few guys sitting on a bench hoping to get a glimpse of a girl or two from the Fashion programme; one guy walking down the hall in some overly tight jeans with a look on his face that says "I'm metro, and not hetero". The sight just depressed me more and made me sink further down into the depths of un-wellness(?) so I decided to return to class.

As I cracked the door I saw the dingy light of misery peeking out from behind its hinges and as I opened it further, the boredom train slammed into me and relentlessly ran over my will to stay at school like a dog with it's paw stuck in the crack of the train-tracks. I didn't care at that point, my health and sanity seemed to be on their last leg - I had to leave school. Mark looked like he was about to pass out anyway...

Day 2

Congrats common cold, you finally have me where you want me - sweating and sprawled out on a bed like a Copa. employee. I feel terrible - nose clogged up; throat lined with mucus; hacking, hagging cough; sneezing fits - yeah, I got it bad. I didn't go to school today, yesterday or the day before but each day that came, passed me by as a man lost in a mountain of snat stained tissue paper. In my spare time though, I tired to narrow down the cause of my infection so that I might have a direction to point an infected finger at - Mikhail - no; mommy - highly likely; swimming in close proximity to that prostitute at Toco - that's the damn ticket! Yeah, I spent the day at Toco with my homie last Sunday and I got in social with this chick in the water. Further down into the chit-chat she said she was a whore... The cold that is now running rampant in my body had to have come from her, this might not even be the cold coming to think of it - might be a benign strand of AIDS that leaked out of her.... whatever (you know where I'm going with this).

At any rate, things weren't made any easier by the massive sunburn I got. At first it was the pain, now it's the look. Feeling the pain made me feel all manly and stuff, but looking at it makes me want to cry :( You see, it's reached the peeling stage and I've begun picking away at it. Unfortunately I did not wait until the whole things started flaking off so I could tear off big chunks of dead skin. No, I started picking away at myself like a tightly wrapped Christmas present and now I look like I was tried to the back of a chariot and dragged over a field the size of Russia... only the field is made up of broken glass and pitch. I look like I'm wearing the most skin-tight military camouflage uniform ever!!. At least my face looks ok. Then again, i'm thinking of systematically peeling the skin off so that i'll end up looking like This guy but:

  1. 1. My lighter complection isn't sky blue

  2. 2. With my luck, my skin won't peel in that manner

  3. 3. The ladies might not find that skin pattern attractive



Bollocks!

Anyway, back on topic.

I have the flu, not just me but a large portion of the youth population - it's an epidemic. From Diego Martin to St. Augustine and beyond, this flu is just screwing things up on an epic scale, and stomping a mud hole in everybody's fun plans. If you don't have it, don't get it. If you are F.L.U. negative, take steps to remain negative.

Proper sad, though - they can come up with a machine to clean the shit out your ass, but they can't come up with a cure for the common cold. Oh well, I guess they still need a viable means of getting people to use good old toilet paper :P

Some Follow-Up

Well i'm sure by now you all know very well about my public journal/diary over at www.diegodeviant.tk and how my daily hijinks bring a light of joy (intensity varies) to my multitude of readers... wait, you don't know about my journal? The screw off! What kind of a friend are you?! Ok i'm just kidding - the site, though well known isn't very well visited, at least by local readers anyway. All of my comments are usually in a language I can't understand, like Czeco...sla...van...i..an.
.ese or something. Anyway!

Now before your literary gland starts pumping the thick fluid of anticipation through every sacred orifice in your body, I regret to disappoint you by saying that this is not the follow-up to "The Hungry Pit". I'm sorry, but that is a dark and desolate chapter in my life that I no longer wish to revisit. It's gone and the offending individual mentioned in the piece is as dead to me as the road kill that lies oh so disturbingly before my neighbour's gate.

So this is going to be a progressive entry, one that answers the question of "what's next?" To get to that answer though, we'd have to deal with the obligatory pre-amble in the form of the question "What's going on now?".

So let's begin...

So what's new with me, you ask? Well for starters i'd say monotony is the order of the day -I wake up, look in the mirror, turn my head and gag, get ready for school, go to school, get back home, procrastinate then top the day off by falling asleep screaming into the night or counting the tiles on the ceiling while slipping slowly into the abyss of insanity. Yes, pretty monotonous indeed.

(Just kidding about the "topping my day off" part btw)

But aside from that though I can't complain at all, as a matter of fact i'd say i'm pretty darn blessed. I'm more spiritually centered than I have been in ages and life has found synchronicity with my brainwave pattern of "Tolerance for BS". Nothing bothers me much these days, or is it that I have become totally numb to the salt-laced gashes in my back that were manically and incessantly issued by the whip of life? Either way, I like this feeling of indestructible euphoria - Girlfriend wants to leave me? Go right ahead; Doggie just died? Was nice knowing you, Rover; Programme Leader barges in and tells me that I have to start over from my first year of Pre-University? Nothing like a clean slate! Walk in on your parents "doing the nasty"? Bleach in the eye makes the bad memories die :) It's like having a whip smart come-back line to every insult life spits at you from it's mouth, oozing with venom.

Hmmm...What else is on? Well, with the new direction my life has taken, i.e. following Christ, I have completely turned away from the party/clubbing scene. Now my nights are spent either chatting on the phone with a friend (female) or snuggled around the warm glow of my computer screen reading up on the latest news about the Google Android phone or simply enjoying a good movie with my mom. Sounds pretty damn sad, I know, but it beats pissing God off with a wild night of drinking, lewd bumping and grinding to degenerate music that (in some cases) ultimately leads to crazed debautched sex in a borrowed car, bedroom or bamboo patch. If you ask me I'd rather not wake up on a Thursday morning to witness Jesus maniacally tearing my name out of the book of life just because Zen was free with I.D. the previous night.

Needless to say with my turn away from the "hip" scene I have lost contact with the majority of my friends, but I still keep in touch with a select few who have inspired and/or encouraged me to keep along the straight and narrow. These are the ones you'll most likely find me hanging out with - a tight little unit whose existence spans a little over a half a decade, with bonds cast from the steel of Atlas' binding chains. The closest thing to brothers I've ever had at least.

Then there's the other set, by which I mean my "new" school friends. In this set I find a bottomless well of inspiration, joy and security. The colourful nature of the characters of this group makes rainbows sweat beads of jealousy. These are the people who must be described by the adjectives known only to the heavens. To think that so many people of such contrasting personalities can get along and unify so well is a modern marvel in itself, a spectacle that will forever disappear when we, the elements that comprise it, have passed and gone.

Afterthought: Was that last paragraph describing a group of guys? How gay!!

Moving on...

I've got a movie coming out - super awesome! Getting plenty of fan support but things on the back-end are a little bit serrated. The film's still coming out but, we just have to get some newly-formed issues ironed out first (More on that in another post).

School's just restarted, an event to which I respond with a resounding "ugh.." The vacation was so damn boring that I wished for school to re-open so that I could hang out with my friends, but I wish that hanging out with friends could have been the be-all and end-all of school. All this "work" business really puts a spoke the size of the Blade of Olympus in my wheel. I'd be much happier off getting my BSc in Piss Taking if you ask me - this kind of strain on the old brain later has you being regarded as a wired up kook whose grasp on sanity is looser than an old lady's undergarment. What good is a fancy degree if you're going to end up all cooped up in a looney bin two months after receiving it because your employer found you bashing your face on the keyboard at work singing Old Man River? Bollocks if you ask me!

So anyway what's this long gargle about? I have no idea. It's a rant, it's a rave, it's a piece of literature that'll jump smack the world off it's axis. No, it's none of those things - It's me doing something I like for a change, just letting the thoughts that hang precariously at the front of my brain trickle down my arm, onto the keyboard and onto the internet for your viewing (dis)pleasure.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Hungry Pit Pt. I

Well I initially wrote this to get over the crushed feelings I had when me and my last girlfriend broke up (old news, I know) But in lieu of another warm humanoid, I only have my keyboard and the blank willing receptacle of an Untitled MS Word document... Anyway, here it goes - my heartbreak on a page; a page now splashed with an ink so poisoned and dark that soaks deep into every fiber of paper to forever stain its countenance, never to be used again, never to be restored...

Life is like a forest, at it’s edge, the beginning, all that meets the eye is tall trees, the brilliant sun hovering above, a green carpet of grass spread along the floor, the sound of laughter – all jabs at your positive senses to lure you into that false sense of security that in turn leads you to dash into that forest head first, away from the barebones outside, to get lost in the thick bushel of promised happiness.

As you get deeper into this forest, this forest of life, you see just how ugly it can get sometimes. You begin to question yourself, ask yourself why you chose to walk this path and not the other that seems so green and crisp that parallels it. Some parts of this forest are dead, gutted with flames of fury and pain and all that’s left are the haunting whistles of the ghosts of grief, despair and heartbreak, the sound streams through the hollow branches of the cold bare trees. Their wails are a crescendo. You walk faster as your heart begins to beat that horror-predicting melody. As you pace through this patch of purgatory you try to re-assure yourself that these fiends won’t get you, they won’t be able to lay a hand on you; you’re superman – all lies.

I thought it couldn’t happen to me, I thought that if I closed my eyes to all the signs that it was coming, that it would pass without incident – I was wrong. The trouble with my method was that closing your eyes to something doesn’t make it go away; it just gives the situation a million different new angles to come at you from, and blinds you from further thorns in the track down your path of life.

Like a pendulum guillotine manufactured by pain to sever the ties of love, the ghost of heartbreak swoops down and courses through me – I feel dead on the inside, a cancer of frigidness crawls over my heart and freezes my core that once burned with hot passionate love for another. With the flames of love doused, I was blind to the rest of the road; I couldn’t find a way out, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything... I stumbled onto the open mouth of a pit.

My foot, desperately needing, thus expecting the semi-sweet surety of solid ground was just as blind as I was and gravity yanked at my ankles with needy vengeance. My cold, dark, shell of who I was fell… I fell… I fell forever. I tried to hold onto something, but protruding branches snapped with rehearsed repetition as I clutched onto them. Gravity had its plans for me and he was sure as hell bent on accomplishing them; he made sure that I got where he wanted to send me – all the way down to the bottom.

I crashed at the base of the pit, I heard a sharp shattering sound, it was my heart breaking – the impact so sudden and unexpected, my heart so firm and cold – all the variables were set for this to happen. No matter, the pain seemed to be just the same - unrelenting. No amount of anaesthetic can deliver me.

I clattered to my feet, clutching my chest, breathing heavily, thankful that I at least survived the fall. I look around – only thick billows darkness. The soil is damp, cold and sticky. Blood, old heart fragments and tears were the weak adhesive, the components of soil made from hell’s half-acre I suppose. I tried to have a look around, see if my unaided vision could pierce the darkness to find a way out – no such luck. So I sat there waiting for my rescue.

Months pass and I keep a diligent unblinking eye to the top of the pit, the only source of light in my own little personal hell. The lighting wasn’t all that great anyway- tinted in a kind of rainy-day gray and mostly attenuated by the time it reached the bottom. Regardless, still no rescue.

My eyelids grew heavy and my sight got dim and very soon, that unblinking eye began to renounce its title. It started to take long, slow blinks… my head dipped… my eyes remained closed. There I go again, closing my eyes to the situation, at least so I thought – the pit wouldn’t let me. Upon closing my eyes and dreaming of my deliverance, I hear broken echoes of my last love oscillating through my head – in one ear and out the next, leaving tracks as they come and go. I snap my eyes open to apparitions of her, telling me the things I least want to hear, I see her laughing, living life unaffected in any way; I see her playing, going on without me just fine; I see her heart reflecting another’s image; I see her in the arms of another no sooner than I was out the door. The imagery was too much to bear, each frame in this Romantic Tragedy film built toward a nasty, gut-wrenching end and I didn’t want to see it anymore.

By this time, the vacuum of my heart sucked away at my composure, I felt so weak and broken that I was forced to lie down on the carpet of hell’s making; on the corrosive compost of ceaseless sorrow. I still hear the echoes and see the images in my dreams and nightmares, but I can do nothing about it. Just then, I felt the creeping of a sweet salty badge of emotion cradling the rim of my eye and prancing across my face onto the ground… Then another… and another… the process recycled for three straight weeks until I was literally treading the water of a shallow pool created as a result of the hurt from emotional betrayal – the good thing about it was that I didn’t have to touch that disgusting, sticky rotting soil anymore.

I’ve been trading for a while, my face bobbing above the surface, my eyes still fixed upward. I grew tired of treading and I was beginning to go under, the pit was about to reclaim its prize. I thought this was the end for me, how ironic and twisted nursery rhyme– death by the summation of all my creations.

With my eyes squeezed shut I squeezed the last drop of determination out of my soul to meet my hand to make that last motion to keep my body afloat. To no avail. I began to sink.

Thoughts of hope drained from my head, I felt the waves of submission washing over my brain, but just before these insidious waves crashed at the back of my head I felt sleek soft fingers reaching out to me, taking my hand so softly… so gently. They knew just how to hold me so that I won’t fight back or resist- not that I could have, anyway.

They were angels, all angels sent by my Father to keep me alive just a little bit longer, to stay afloat for the summer. The light radiating from their eternally pretty faces was bright and welcomed, one of the few things in my life at that point that was any good, pure and without the tattoo of betrayal hidden anywhere inconspicuously.

They kept me afloat and they still are. Thanks to them I’m still breathing. Thanks to them I am still alive. Thanks to them, there is no longer a vacuous space where my old heart once resided. Thanks to them I have a new heart. Thanks to them I am not afraid to love again.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Finally... A Full Post!

Hello to all members of my little internet community - it sure has been a while since my last whole-hearted post. I know the last few posts have been a little... "basic" for lack of a worse word but it was just my feeble attempt to hold you over until things cooled down on my side of the keyboard, and I could once again make a full-length, detailed studded post.

Now, what's been keeping me away for so long was school. You see, I told you school would do nothing but hold you back from more important things ;) For the past few weeks I have been leaving home at 6, leaving school at 10 sometimes 11 in the night, waking up at 3 and doing it all over again. Not much time for the old deviant space, won't you agree? Anyway, the sacrifice was hardly worth it as I know for a fact that I shat all over at least two of my exams, one of which everybody else found was easy. That's the hard thing really, having no company in failure - you feel so old... and stupid... anyway, looks like i'm up for the repeater's class next semester... whoopee...

It wasn't all bad though, the late nights caused our creative juices to flow like a million ruptured dams. The waters of creativity found its way to the valleys between the mountains of our childhood senses, the senses that yearned for games and entertainment. We invented a game - a pretty dangerous, yet high octane and FUN game - avoid the traffic. Here's how it goes...

We walk on the side of Wrightson Rd. that hardly has pavement. We continue along this path until we see the concrete medians. Upon seeing them, we attempt to run across the road, hop over the medians and make it to the other side of the street before the container trucks catch up with one of us. What adds thrill is the fact that this is about 10:30 in the night, we're tired (meaning less alert) and the road is dark. I remember my friend JP nearly tripping over one of the concrete slabs once. His deep shriek of "what d ass" was heard over the looming roar of the approaching Heavy T traffic... aah the memories :) Coming to think of it, that game sounds kind of dangerous... I guess that's what they call University Dementia...

Anyway fast forward from that and I'll find myself in a dark cinema watching Contract Killers - the movie that was made by our own local talent. My opinion: the production quality was through the roof. High quality films and sound equipment were used, also the camera man and storyboard artist knew what they were doing - 10/10 in that department. the story - too complicated and convoluted for its own sake. Very hard to follow and from the little I understood, it had some plot holes or weak reasonings behind some of the decisions made - 3/10. The rest... well... let's just say that me and JP had to find our "own" route of entertainment by identifying unintended locale-oriented jokes. For example, whenever someone would make a phone call, we would assume by their expression if they were using bmobile or digicel. And if they were on the internet, we assumed that they were using dial-up, Blink of Flow depending on how quickly they got their information. Much fun indeed.

So now i'm here.. in my house... broke, hungry and bored. The fellas just called me and said that they want to have a look at street kings later, but i'm afraid my monetary reservoir is just about vacuous. In other words, i'm a broke nigger. I'm supposed to be getting some questionnaires filled out for some Spanish people but I have a feeling that they think i'm some kind of pack mule or something... I mean, the questionnaire is 78 questions long and you're going to make me stand in teh hot sun, tormenting another person for about 20 mins for $12 per questionnaire - bah! I'm done with the small money scraping - I want the big dollars and this school shit ain't cuttin it thus far... what choice do I have though? I'm from Diego Martin, and I have not a gun or a devious bone in my body. I'm the kind that might shoot someone and ask if they're OK... possibly even offer some medical assistance. Yeah, that sounds real criminal fo' sho'. Ugh...

Anyway, I have few more projects under my belt right now and it's just starting them that's the hard part - I have a website to design for the QRC Old Boys Association, my two movie and this damn questionnaire thing... wish me luck...

Monday, April 07, 2008

Bestr Rapper Alive

What? You en never heard of OG Loc? Best rapper alive, cuzz! When I grow up I wanna sound just like this :P

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Sunday, March 16, 2008

COD 4 Gun Sounds

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This is why I wanted t join the army - to make pretty music with lethal weapons :)
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Look Who's Back

Well i'm not going to beat around the bush with all the usual pleasantries and apologies as to why I haven't been posting, instead i'll take the vodka apporach and get straight to the point and probably bruise some throats while i'm at it (ok i'm just kidding about the last part).

Anyway today wasn't quite as I expected... as a matter of fact it wasn't as I expected at all. I expected to awake with a "Oh what a glorious day!" kind of attitude and go to sleep with a "fuck this shit" look slapped all over my Junior Sheppard before I pull the cover over me and let the sweet sounds of my inner demons wailing out in my sub conscience lull me to sleep. Instead, it was quite the opposite; and by opposite I mean complete freaking inverse.

I awoke this morning not at six but at three with a God-awful pain in my eye (usual migraine), so I staggered out of bed, drunk with pain and fatigue and slugged my way to my computer desk where I usually keep my stash of pain killers... or at least I thought that was what I did. I took one, forgetting that the tablet worked in a most pleasant, yet inconvenient way, they put you to sleep AND cure the pain. This kind of sleep, however, is not "Lunesta" kind - the pills have as much tranquilizing effect as a horse sedative. I knocked out for seven hours more, awaking (still in a spot of pain) at around 10 - much too late for my Engineering Science class - sat upright in my bed, cursed the clock and looked around at the previously orderly sanctuary that was my bedroom. Remember earlier in the entry I said that I thought that all I did was go to the desk and get the painkillers? Well apparently that was the last stop I made on my way of wanton destruction and mass obliteration. Apparently in my desperate search for relief, I cleared all the items off of my dressing table, ransacked a clothes hamper, tossed a few pillows, pulled off the sheet off of my sister's bed (?) and then went to the desk, where I made enough ruccus to wake my sister, mother, the neighbor, her mother and her dog. You can't blame me though, I was blind with agonizing pain...

So anyway, it was off to school... now this patch of info would have been the same except for a few strange feelings I've been having lately about my fellow school mates. Now by order of the optometrist, I have to wear shades or some other sort of light de-intensifying gear while I'm outside. Now that sounds good enough, but only if I could have gotten some sort of disclaimer to wear on my T-shirt for people to read so that they won't think i'm some sort of arrogant prick wearing "cool shades" and "strutting" all over the place th
inking i'm better than everybody else. Sounds cliched, but I feel everybody's eyes piercing my back whenever I walk by... it doesn't help that out school corridors are like a runway of some sort, with spectators on either side too (no, really that's how we lime at school)

Aerial view (the black dots are people, the captions are actual quotes from "liming dialog")


So now you see how the set-up is.

So I have to walk in this passageway, with my shades, with practical strangers on either side. Now I know it's not me being paranoid because whenever I walk by, the crowd gets silent and I see the girls' top lips curling upwards in that "I just smelt something nasty" kind of way. The fact that my eye wear doesn't look clinical doesn't help it either - they actually look like sun glasses that an arrogant "I'm better than you" kind of guy would don.

No matter, I know what they're for and it's just a coincidence that they look hottt ;)

Anyway that's all I have to say about school.

After school was something that i had on my agenda for the past few days - not something somebody would actually put on a an agenda, but it was there anyway and that is to break up with my girlfriend. Now I had a vision of how the whole scene would play out - I would call her outside, bring up the topic, she'd call me an asshole, i'd call her a long streak of piss, i'd go home, she'd go back in her house and do whatever it is the hell she was doing and i'd find my way to the transport terminal and phone the next chicken in line for the relationship slaughterhouse. Instead, things went
North and none of the events that I envisioned took place except for the first two events. The breakup was pretty clean and (in my case) about as painful as a shot from a rubber band - the reality hits you, you flinch a little and then turn around tell the guy that hit you to piss off. I thought it would have been a little gorier than how it went. More cussing and crying, less agreeing and shaking of hands.

But i'm not going to lie to you, my audience, or myself - I am going to miss certain things. Not the big things, but the little things that she never knew I observed and loved and stayed with me and will always throw me into a time vortex; a memory spasm; a light skip down the hall of mirrors of my past: The ring tone of her first cellular phone, the smell of the body cream that she rubs on when she's just had a shower, the look of her hair in the 5 o' clock sun, that look in her eyes when something's wrong or when she's unsure.

That long stretch of polluted roadway that they call Wrightson Rd. will always have the cleanliness of our memories to purify its air... the conversations, the arguments... everything... all of the good and the bad will forever stain that sidewalk, and the setting sun will only make these stains more vivid as it's orange rays skip along them, bringing them back to life with the kiss of nostalgia. Looking down that road as the sun retreats into the sea will never be the same for me again, for my eyes will never see the scenery for what it is, but for what it was and what it represented and what it will never be again.

These are little treasures, more valuable than any work of art or rare stone, that i'll keep in a little mahogany box, carved in an intricate design out of time, love, anger, blood, sweat, tears and everything else that went into that relationship. This box will wear the insignia of my heart and I'll take that box and keep it somewhere in my head, somewhere where it's dark and lonely so that the joy it keeps will illuminate my dark psyche, and I will be sad never more.

I am going to miss certain things, but with my sacrifice comes my freedom, and a different, less fragile, kind of happiness.

I'm surprised I'm not bitter though, I mean usually after watching a year and change of my time and energy go up in smoke, I'd be more than a little perturbed, but i suppose this is an example of what happens when you do everything in God's timing.

Plans for another girlfriend, i'd say they haven't been made yet... but until then I guess I can say a line that hasn't left my lips in quite a long time - "Ladies, he's single ;) " Hmm.. funny, those words meant alot more the last time I said it... :(

So I guess the real question is: what's next for the Deviant? I'm not quite ready fro Facebook to know my business yet, and it's much too late to call anyone, so I guess I can start by taking a shower, saying my prayers and going to bed. The i'm going to get up and do this again tomorrow - this should be interesting...

- One step at a time.



Saturday, March 01, 2008

I'm Back (Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, balh)

Hello loyal readers, yes after a long hiatus I am back once again with a new entry. Now I know usually i'd try to do the polite thing and fill you in on all that's been going on in a feeble attempt to make my life look more interesting than it is, but I think we'll skip that this time and move on to better things... Ok i'll just give you a summary: the past few weeks have been nothing but the same old, same old - a clean bill of health and a healthy debt of stress and depression to be paid. Well actually the stress and depression came in smaller doses this time, and the depression was more like a slight drizzle. Yes the "d" in girlfriend does have a purpose after all. Yeah, that's all, really. Riveting isn't it?

Oh and I relaise that my past few entris have been a bit "soft" and "not like Kevin at all" well i've got good news for you. I've adopted a new attitude when it comes to dealing with such issues. it's called "Bother this nonsense" or as the uncensored version of yhatzee's review puts it "Fuck this shit". Now really, do I really need to explain how this new frame of mind works? Come on now, you aren't that slow.

Anyway all i've been doing thus far is procrastinating studies, hanging out with the fellas from school and, oh yeah, working on the movie. No it's not dead and I mean that this time. The guys I got to work with me this time around are REALLY serious! They actually show up for rehearsals on time AND they don't gripe and moan as to when they can leave. If I mess this one up, the only one who'll be at fault here is me.

We just started recording some behind the scenes movies to add to the DVD so that people can see just how ridiculous we look and exactly how much hard work it is to put out into a movie. Either way thing's aren't going EXACTLY as planned, but they're still going. All I have to do now is find a decent balance between this and school and i'm golden.

As for my day yesterday, it wasn't bad at all. My reluctance to go to school to drop off an assignment put me dead center in the path of the fun train, and boy did it run me over good! After rehearsals for the move, we had an impromptu field trip to National Flour Mills. Mind you, I am not part of the Electrical Engineering class, but I found myself in the thick of things anyway. (Hell, a nigga needs something to do on a Friday afternoon). Now to say that the trip wasn't interesting at all would be a half-lie - we did get to have a bath in compressed air, a method that I think should be the new world standard. None of this "getting wet" business like traditional showering; bah! I shake a condescending flipper at you, you glitter of privative life, you soap and water!

So anyway after that we went back to the computer lab to run a game of Soldier of Fortune 2, Double Helix. Long story short, we kicked the arrogance soaked stuffing of pride out of the Electrical Class (ICT rules!!!) They were no match for my USAS automatic shotgun (hoo-hah!!).

Now usually after this we would run a game of basketball followed by some light sparring, but apparently the unusual loss by Electrical in the game of SOF somehow offset the gods of physical activity and their beams of hyperactivity missed the JDTI campus that afternoon. No bother, we always have a plan B

Our alternate activity for the afternoon was to go straight home, but not before making the women of the working class feel excruciatingly uncomfortable with their perfectly shaped breasts and buttoxes. I'll tell you, nothing looks better than a woman in an RBTT, TATIL or Clico uniform on a Friday evening. I don't know where they all come from, or how all of them look so good, but it appears that the algorithm that God used to place them was somehow lopsided as there is usually an office building full of terrifyingly sexy women. What are the odds of that? I felt like I lost a few inches in height as the constant swiveling of my neck ground away the last few ounces of synovial fluid I had cushioning the plates of my spine. No matter, getting shorter only brings me a few inches closer to be at eye level with their boobs, that way, they can't see me looking down at them :D

We also took a walk down the newly named Shit Street - the street where my friend JP saw a pile of actual human feces confidently sitting in the middle of the road some time on Carnival Monday (or Tuesday). We did, in fact, encounter another pile, with some of its members smeared all over the adjacent wall. We had a brief debate as to what kind of depraved a person would commit such an act, but it was cut short as we found that same person posted up in an adjacent crevice, looking rather anxious to commit the act again; this time using my friend JP's long curtain of a T-shirt as the canvas for his next feces masterpiece. In an attempt to prevent such a thing and save ourselves from becoming the dipping palettes, we just walked a little faster, not too fast though - the bright fluttering colours and young smiling faces might arouse him.

So let's take a trip skip down to City Gate where JP had to withdraw some cash. It's the end of the month and the ATMs are screaming with frustration. The lines are long and S'ing. After much searching and disappointment we eventually found one that wasn't so bad, except for the little clepto that tried to put his hand in my friend Jabari's bag. I mean, the evasive action that Jabari took would have been enough if only after the fact he guy didn't stop staring at him with that look in his eye - you know the look I'm talking about... After a minute or two of being subjected to that, I got the feeling that the guy wasn't exactly reaching for Jabari's bag... maybe a little lower, you know what I mean? But i didn't want to traumatize the bugger any more, any more action and I think the guy might have flipped his parity bit.

Pew!

The wait at the maxi terminal was fun. We had some laughs, but all that ended for me when I saw the same woman whose ass I was stalking walked right by me - her perfume, her hair, her everything... mmmmm....... I wish I was a little bit older, y'all...

Anyway, what conspired after that is just too funny and explicit for words. I really wish Mr. Farfan had is camera running.

So after I saw my friends off on a maxi, I proceeded to my platform - I myself had a ride to catch as I was planning on going to church (which starts at 7) and I was at the maxi stop watching ass at 6:15. Shameful, I know.

Anyway, we somehow managed to reach church just in time and the service was a good one indeed. The message was insanely appropriate. I said a little prayer for myself and another person who's too... nothing. I'll leave that description out for now. But yeah, I went to church for myself and that other person that night.

So that's all for me, really. Today we're supposed to have a voice-over session for segments of the movie where a radio transmission is going to come in. I have no idea how i'm going to engineer the synchronicity of the voice over and the actual shot or scene but I guess that's my food for thought for the rest of the week right there.

Oh look forward to seeing a format change sometime soon. I dunno, maybe i'll incorporate video or pictures in the entries and save the pure text format for writer's block style entries.. so... yeah... that's it...bye

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Intersting Video

Ugh! I promise you my dear readers that my blog will not become a festering cesspool for pop culture videos but my friend Ashvini sent this to me and even though it's a chain letter, I just feel compelled to share it (it's a personal choice people, I don't usually do this kind of thing) I have a strong feeling that it's the music that's making me feel this way. Aaaaaawwww maan!!!

Friday, February 01, 2008

How Amazing

Well would you look at that eh? Life is funny after all. I never thought that i'd ever find relation to any of those love songs on BET but low and behold... it has happened. I always considered anybody who finds a link in those kind of videos to be somewhat "ghetto" but it turns out I was just all wrong.

Anyway, for the past few weeks i've been trying to write a song to my girlfriend asking her about the way she's been acting and the feelings she's been having lately. Little did I know that a young black man from the U.S. of A. was already hard at work on it... 4 years ago.

I was astonished to see that somebody in an entirely different country could be going through what I'm going through now, but he went through it four years ago. history really is doomed to repeat itself.

Anyway, let em just wrap this up quick, i'm late for my networking class.

You know who you are, and this song is for you. Listen to the lyrics.




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Monday, January 28, 2008

Weekend Warrior

Till this day I'm not quite sure exactly what the slang in the title of my newest entry means, but I think that only a true warrior could have survived a weekend (and a week) like mine.

Before you start anticipating - No, I didn't go to AC 3+3 (6) nor did I go to UWI campus carnival and
survive many attempts at the snatching of my blingage. I call myself a warrior because I fought hard against aches of the heart and troubles of the mind and managed to hold it together for all three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and make it through a Monday and then some! ***pats himself on back***

Now I mean, there's probably somebody reading this entry and saying "I've done that too" but I assure you my friend - it was not like this


Now it all started on Friday, really when I broke up with my girlfriend; ok now that's not entirely true - I don't want to give myself the bragging rights nor do I wish to award those to her. Long and short of it was that she was crushing the nut juice out of me and I was frustrating the hell out of her so we both agreed to go our separate ways (that way nobody sounds cooler hehehehe :P.. but not for long :) A few hours, some offline messages and a telephone ceonversation later and we were back together... well, kind of. We're kind of in a spot now like where Keanu Reeves was at the beginning of the third Matrix. Maybe a pretty picture will explain:
Yeah, so as you can see from the little map I drew, we're kind of nowhere and I am just as clueless as you are about our status, but it's sort of a sweet spot. Now in the original post, I was going to describe exactly how painful the whole break up was but I think that anybody who's been in a long relationship would know the feeling. For the young ones out there, it's not nice - it's probably why you see your daddy drinking so much :'( that's what relationships cause, kids - alcohol, drug and spousal abuse. Stay in school and out of each other's pants. That kind of slackness is only for us adults :D

As if losing the one I loved (temporarily) wasn't enough, I had this PBL for Engineering Science to do - something about static and dynamic engineering systems. I couldn't really give a rats ass about what they were, but my lecturer was apparently very interested in finding out and she designated me (and the rest of work drones aka students) to do the research for her. Now that would have been fine and dandy except for the fact that searching for Static Engineering Systems would only bring up some Fortune "One Dollar" company. The process of research was not aided by the group conversation I had running in MSN Messenger - this guy was sending this set of links to trance music on YouTube. Though I know that listening to trance automatically puts you on the fag train, I couldn't resist the shiny blue links that the featureless green fat man kept pushing forward. MSN and PBL DO NOT go together, folks. Take it from me.

Eventually frustration kicked in and I resorted to whacking away at the keyboard, making up definitions and theories as I went along. I had a word cloud with items like "force", "displace", "work" and other physics related terms and I just plugged them in after words like "the" and "sum" and "sigma". The whole presentation didn't look to shabby... not too sure if it made sense but...

Another thing that happened was more on a personal scale, but for the sake of awkward silence and rapid downward scrolling, I'll still relate this incident:

Now I never liked doctors and I never liked being naked in front of other people - I always felt that awkward stare, their marveling at imperfection. But somehow, it was written in the cosmos somewhere that K. Sheppard was to frequent the place were nudity was not requested, but demanded upon every visit- The Doctor's Office.

Now, give me a fine doctor with long hair, a tight ass and who is evidently blessed in the chest and I'll go to the doctor's office in a tear-off outfit with a bottle of lube. But give me a medium height, grey, old, hairy, brown skinned man and I'll go to the office kicking and screaming and possibly with a concealed weapon. Unfortunately, my physician is the latter :'( My physician is very good at what he does, but boy do I hate to visit him. He has this thing with the removal of all clothes... I dunno. The last time I visited, I had an infection on my bicep and he asked me to take off my t-shirt and my vest just to look at it - whadafxup with that? I tell you, that man has some serious issues.

Just yesterday I went to see about a problem I as having with my knee - now I could have just as easily rolled up my left pant leg for easy access, and doing so did not even limit my range of natural motion, but he demanded that I be without pants. My mom was there with us, so I suppose nothing could have happened due to the presence of a witness.

So my pants are off, and what's worse is that I'm not wearing boxers, just plain old jockey shorts... and a long jersey... with socks. You have no idea how much I hate that combination of clothes. I don't wear jockey shorts and socks, or a jockey shorts and a jersey, something about the jersey makes it feel like a dress and something about the socks makes it feel like baby shoes... weird.
ANyway, that was my ensemble for the evening, but it didn't stop there my friend.

I could have just as well sat down on the edge of his sofa thing, but he insisted that I lie down. As to not run the risk of getting yelled at again, I just complied. I got the feeling that when he turned his back he was going to break out into a Barry White song, the lights would dim and then a disco-type heart would come down from the ceiling. I Didn't like the feeling at all.

So it's on to the examination and the bastard insists on passing his hand up and down my shin. It was all very uncomfortable. It was only after he placed his hand firmly on my thigh to "show me where the tendon is" that I had enough and resumed a sitting posture (much to his displeasure I assume). From the moment he left the office to get some paper, I jumped back into my pants so fast that I got some frickin' leg burn. A most unpleasant experience.

I'm sorry that I couldn't be as descriptive but believe it or not, I haven't gotten my glasses yet. I suppose mom would get around to buying them when i'm blind so that I can see that darkness clearer. But I think you get the basic drift of how me week was.

I'd say that doing work on top of heartache and escaping the clutches of "Dr. Love" would make me count as a warrior. Sure it didn't happen all in a weekend, but had it been so, I would have been on the 7 o' clock news in an orange jumpsuit.

I am really getting to old for this!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Hey everybody, what's up? Boy has the time between my last post and this one been interesting! You wouldn't believe - it's been like a roller coaster ride on Acid for my emotions...and my sanity. You know, nothing gets your goat more than a stubborn person. Long story short - relationships ARE depressing. I now see why so many married men hit the bottle; this first-hand look is very entertaining... stressful and sometimes enough to throw you into manic depression and psychosis... but entertaining none the less. If these kinds of things are what builds character, then mine is on the way to being extremely buff and grotesque lol. But who doesn't have it hard sometimes, right?

So what else has been up? Well I started production on the new movie - this time with some degree of order. The trick this time around is scheduling. We're working with human beings in their second year of university - all we need to do is find a balanced and prime time to schedule rehearsals and shooting without the actors feeling imposed upon. It's also not helping that time is against us seeing that exams are right around the corner. A project like this is supposed to be fun to work on, and that's the kind of atmosphere I want to create during the practice and shooting sessions. I really don't want to be a slave driver and make people stretch themselves too thin for the sake of a few "oooh's" and "aaah's".

The cast that I've chosen so far seems interested and willing enough, but that's only because they think that when they hold the prop guns that there will actually be muzzle fire, recoil and bullets flying. Little do they know that all they will be reacting to is my voice (ha ha!). I promise to put some of the raw and unedited footage up so that you could see just how ridiculous we all look when pretending to get shot and blown up.

You know, coming back to the issue of time, I think that I better write up a big disclaimer or a speech of some sort to make all of these thespians aware of exactly how much work a movie production is. I mean it's not much, but I think they underestimate the level of it just a tad.

Mind you, all of this is even before I got the official OK to start shooting at school. Yeah I posted up casting call notices, organized a shooting schedule, started taking stock footage and all even before I got the permission, why? Because I'm bad like that! Remember what I said about order? Well it was kind of true (he he) What made things worse is that I got a brochure today that outlines the stuff that only official clubs of the student guild are allowed to do - I did all of them, and needless to say, I am not a club. But I mean, what's the worst that could happen? They'll tell me no? Well fine then, go ahead, styful the creativity of the youth. My story even has a cool economic, political and military centered plot and everything so... meh!

Another hurdle was, and still is, is finding a girl to play a certain part in the movie. So far the one's I've asked all seem enthused, but not too fond of the idea of acting. If they aren't too fond of the idea now, then wait till they find out what they actually have to do - this will be a laugh! But if we don't get a girl to play the part then this will just be a sausage film. So if you need a little eye candy with your Minimum Pleasure and there isn't any - don't blame the director kiddies, blame yourselves... or at least the girls in the student body.

Well that's all for now, really. I'm not supposed to be on the PC for this long without my glasses which are still at the optometrist. There are plenty of other thoughts that I'd like to share with you, some observations about feminists and their inverse but my right eye is twitching like a nose on glass. If you didn't understand that last metaphor, then go and ask your parents if they "had fun" in the 80's. If they say yes, then ask them to explain. This is Deviant nation, not Parenting with Kevin.

Peace, bitches :P

Monday, January 07, 2008

SOmething Interesting for a Change

Well folks, it's the 7th of January. For most of you, it's just another working day, for me and the other students of our little island, it marks the beginning of a three month long orgy of pain; the first few seconds of the Wailing and the Gnashing of Teeth track on the Teen Life soundtrack CD.

Today was registration day for me, which meant no classes. I thought it was going to be another run-of-the-mill errand running day (photocopy this, sign this, fill out that) but I couldn't be more wrong... well actually I'm not that wrong seeing as there was indeed some paper pushing, but there were some rather interesting elements that got thrown into the mix to make sure that today ended with four eyes and a smile ;)

Ok the first order of business for the day was to go to the bank. I hate banks - I hate banks especially at lunch time when there are hardly any tellers, because they just need to eat at 12 in the afternoon. Can't they starve for a hour or two? For what its worth, standing in that winding line for about a hour gave me the opportunity to observe an assortment of some of our country's colourful characters:

The sludge the country's efficiency engine (old people) were ever present, armed to the dentures with pension cheques and bags of 1 cent pieces. There was the old playboy in the row across from me - short, wreaking of cologne and drowning in a sea of silver and gold chains and rings. He looks like one of those old fogees who'll be at the clubs hitting on all those young girls, cuz he's a "sweet man". Then there was the average Joe, like you (hopefully) and me who were thinking the exact same thing - why can't I just have my own personal teller monkey to do my deposits and withdrawals for me?... Oh, you weren't thinking that? Well that makes one of us the smarter one :p.

There was this one dude there with a ras - long ras, only bundled up in a honey comb shape in a bag or something on his head. The thing looked like re-inforced leggins or something. Anyway, not to be prejudice or anything, but he already looks like the kind of guy who got his funds from... I dunno... "moving the herb". Yeah he already looks suspicious enough just standing there and then he tries to do a good deed or something and attempts to re-attach the loose corner of the money specimen fact sheet that was stuck to the wall right next to him. My advice, buddy - you didn't unstick it, just leave it. The last thing you want is a buckshot round in your ass from that trigger happy security guard who's been eying you down for the past 15 mins. I'm sure his excuse could have been that he saw the rasta guy fiddling with the sheet and though he was trying to steal the money specimens, or some crap like that.

Anyway, I stood in line, like everyone else and paid my school fees - $25 that ridiculous school! I'm not complaining that the fees are small, but do you know how much of a waste of my time it is to stand in a friggin' line for 2 hours just to put a measly $25 into an account? It's ludacris!

While in the bank though, I spotted this awesomely sexy African goddess at the ATM. Smooth brown skin, legs, ass, boobs, the works. But prolonged visibility was an issue though - every time I tried to get a good look at her legs, this old biddy would put her stink, grotesque, overflowing crocus bag on the floor to the right of the woman's legs, thus obscuring my view. Then when the chick moves up, my line of sight was conveniently aligned with some Ricky Ricardo wannabe with his little goatee looking like pubic hair on a river otter's nut sack. I ended up looking like a crack head trying to get a good look inside a tinted limousine window - bobbing and weaving like crazy just to catch one last glimpse of her using the ATM. Damn... she's the kind of fine that you just have to sit back and smoke a joint while you think about her.

Moving on. So after the bank ordeal, I went to get my eyes tested. I had a feeling that I was going to need glasses, and I could have predicted the times in which I had to wear them - I was ready for anything, except that damn preliminary eye exam!

Shit! This woman made me sit with my face up against some contraption looking into a green light. She said that I should expect to feel some light puffs of air coming from the machine into my eye. I said ok and expected a gentle intermittent breeze, gliding across the thin layer of natural fluid in my eyes. What I got was The Terminator using a frickin' pneumatic sand blaster on my pupil - those "puffs of air" hurt like hell. With every puff, I felt my eye drying and deforming faster than I could blink. The worst part is that there wasn't any fixed interval before the next blast of air, so it's not like I could mentally prepare myself for it, she just shot me in the eye as soon as I stopped blinking and squirming.

Beats the last time though, that evil man gave me an injection in my eye and told me me not to blink.

So when the tests were over, I went in to see the actual optometrist. She's a VERY charming British lady. I had a mind to ask her if she was involved with anybody... but then I remembered that I was involved with someone, so that couldn't work... Oh well. She's very charming and nice and all that stuff, and she says cute things like "grand" when things are OK. She made me smile alot :)

Long and short of the story - my diagnosis: Apparently I do, in fact have an astigmatism in my right eye, but it isn't not something that came about recently. My eye was always shaped funny, but because I wasn't doing much intense work ( I went QRC, folks - who studies?) my left eye was able to compensate for my right eye's short comings, thus I seemed to see OK. But ever since puberty and the incessant calling of late-night adult entertainment, coupled with my prolonged use of the computer, my left eye said it was too much and couldn't compensate anymore, or at least on such a large scale. SO to make things easier on old lefty, my prescription is for my right eye and I should (not must) wear the glasses when I'm on the computer or studying late at night. It's not so bad, at least my face isn't bound behind them. I'll have to admit, when I hear that my glasses are to fix one eye only, I thought they were going to give me the monocle thing like the Pnaters Man, I got a little scared. As for outdoors, I always had very sensitive eyes, so the nice British lady said that I should wear shades when outside in right light. Look at that eh, I have a prescription to look cool, he he!

Now for the icing on the cake:

I don't want to gloat, but I went for my results of last semester's exams and.... I passed everything!
Now I'm not going to tell you my grades, that'll just kill the fun, but the important thing is that I don't have to repeat any subject! You know how happy I am right now? On Monday 17th December 2007 was the last time I ever saw the world "Aldehyde" or "Ketone" or "periodic", I'll have to work on the "table" part of it. (Maybe I'll just say desk from now on). Anyway, that's the last I'm seeing of Chemistry for a long-ass time! Woo Hoo!!!1! The Mathematics exam probably raped me, but at least it didn't give me Aids, I got a C+ in that. A whole two grades higher than I was expecting. Yeah but that's the only result I'm giving you. Take my word for it, I passed everything else, that's all you need to know XP

My time table seems ok for now, but it has a big "Subject to Ceange" note scribbled at the bottom. I like the new time table. I'm finishing school at 2 nearly every day, only 1 4 o' clock day. Not too shabby, I think.

So yeah, I'm pretty pleased with how today turned out. I need some visual aid, but say what, we get older we get less useful, eh? Part of life, sport. Suck it up!

Saturday, January 05, 2008

New: Search The Deviant

Ok it's a feature that's long overdue. Too often i've been receiving gripes about not being able to search for a specific article on the site... well, now you can!

There's a new search feature to the right of the page; it's not very pronounced (thanks to the template) so I put at the very top of the side panel list.

So enjoy searching the Deviant. Just don't report what you find to the police, m'kay?

Thursday, January 03, 2008

New Year, Old Me

Hey everybody, Happy New Year! Wow, it's the big '08 eh? Everybody's getting older these days.

I know I promised plenty of entries over this holiday season but shit came up... "shit came up" yeah believe it or not, that was the best excuse I could come up with. If there's anybody to blame though, you can blame this person:

Now for her protection, I have removed her face and replaced it with a smewhat less aesthetically pleasing version (courtesy MS Paint). I did this so that you people don't go hunting her down. Oh, and she's my girlfriend by the way, so It's my obligation to care for her health and safety (it's in the fine print, they always get you with the text too small to read).

Anyway, yeah she's been taking up all my time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing... its quite good actually, but that meant sacrificing the joy of stimulating the literary clitoris of my audience, and for this I am sorry.

SO anyway, what do I got for ya? Well Christmas came and left as quickly as a cat with a piece of stolen meat through a window. It wasn't alot to shout about, but at least I was alive and well to enjoy it for another year. My dad and grandmother aren't doing so well though, but its family policy that we don't discuss family members' health outside the family - yeah, we just Sicilian like that. Can you dig it? - but both of them are coming along famously.

New Year's Day was alright as well, I rang it in with the chick in the pic at the top - couldn't think of better way to do it :)... oh wait, church... (Forgive me Father for I have sinned).

Work on the movie is coming along splendidly - I have a big surprise for my audience when the film debuts. This surprise, however is going to generate lots of laughs during the filming of the sequences where it's featured. I'll BE SURE to post some vids and stills of the production while it's happening; kind of like that Payne and Redemption production blog. My cousin Kevin also popped by to show me a thing or two about the film making process, and the session was indeed beneficial. I must say I learned quite a bit - thanks cousin! The guy even saved me from throwing down 5G's on a shitty camera. People are indeed more useful that I thought lol.

Anyways that's my season in a nutshell. There's plenty more that I could say but it's more related to the film project and I really don't want to give too much away at this point.

I'll see you hopefully more often in this new year, but until next time I wish that God may richly bless you and your family and make this year even better than the last for you.

Thanks for reading, and the Diego Deviant is looking forward to spending another new year with the best audience in the world (I'm talking about you guys, so go ahead and feel bite up).

Stay frosty!