August 18-19, 2000 — Greg the Jerk, part two

No one has called me that in awhile. But I think it applies.

Anyways, there were some (by which I mean, one) complaints at the shortness of yesterday's entry, so we'll start with yesterday and move toward today.

I barely stayed at work at all; just long enough to quickly finish up a project and teach a co-worker how it worked. I left early so I could go record and clothes shopping at Value Village, and so I could go to Chapters to pick up birthday presents for my dad (I was birthday shopping for the entire family, as no one else had bought him anything yet). I started at Value Village, hoping to find some anti-drug or anti-alcohol shirts. No luck. I ended up buying some environmental shirts that seemed kinda funny and a yodelling record for Pat and I to play during the radio show.

At Chapters, I got my dad a couple of DVDs and a book about Roman warfare (entitled "Roman Warfare").

I had to pick Pat up at home for the radio show, so I figured I'd get a sandwhich at Quizno's to eat on the way. Bad idea. It was impossible to eat except at red lights, and naturally there were few red lights on the one day I'd've actually been alright with hitting a few.

Eventually we got to CKCU, with plenty of time before our show. We were talking to the guy with the show before us about records, and he seemed keen on impressing us. Then we showed him our horseracing record, and he said he knew some guys who had people call in to bet on horses and then played races. We said we'd done that in Tuesday, and he said he meant us. It was a bit odd, since he seemed to imply he was on a first-name basis with the people (being us) who had done the horseraces on Tuesday.

The show, as I said in yesterday's half-journal, went well. And nothing else interesting happened on Friday.

Today, I woke up late, which felt rather nice. My parents had already left to go to the Ottawa Ex (we got free admission and ride passes from work as part of the annual picnic), but my dad had left a note saying he was pleased with my gift choices. He hadn't opened the DVDs yet, but I opened the Aliens DVD and watched all the special feature clips anyway.

I didn't really get much work done today, which means I'll really have to go all-out tomorrow. The new online service I have to finish coding for work goes online on Monday night, so I can't really put this off too long. But I can until tomorrow, so I'll be sleeping nicely tonight.

I had to drive my sister to Christina Riley's house once again (which Nathan seems to have been aware of before me, which I found kind of odd, but whatever), so I brought along Matt's sketchbooks to drop off at the McCracken household on my way home. Matt wasn't home, so I gave them to Andrew, who showed me all his Seattle stuff and the pictures from Mitch's party. For the first time I got to see a candle inserted into someones ass (only in a photograph, but nonetheless); a life-defining moment, to be sure.

Andrew and Matt were headed to Johnston's house prior to the evening's party-addled festivities, so I went along to avoid being completely antisocial. And it ended up being very much worth it, since Johnny, of candle-up-the-ass fame, visited to use the washroom and to follow behind the party-going kids. He arrived in a van with a bunch of other people I'd never met before, and with Leanne and Mel, who I had met before. Leanne stayed in the van, and while Mel got out, I didn't think she'd recognize me, so I didn't say hello. I feel like a bit of an ass for not having said hi to Leanne though, but I ended up leaving shortly after they'd arrived and I thought she was talking to Mel as I walked by the van, so at the time it seemed more polite not to interrupt. Nathan was hollering something to me about giving my sister a shout-out for him, so I was kind if distracted, too. But in retrospect, I feel like I was a bit rude. I'm a jerk, in any case.

After leaving, I played Saves the Day at high volumes all the way home, and saw a police car with someone pulled over for speeding on Bankfield (the road between Manotick and Richmond) for the first time ever. I always speed by at 120km/h, so I'm lucky it wasn't me.

And now, I'm busily trying to use the program Alex burned for me to get my CD-R working. It's not, though. It seems that my CD-ROM only send audio data at 0.4 speed, despite being a 24 speed drive. This means I'm stuck buffering everything before I can burn it. If you're not all that into the whole CD burner thing, trust me when I tell you that this is a huge waste of time, and that I need a new CD-ROM drive.

And on this exciting note, I'm going to bed.