June 14-17, 2001 — With little faith in human goodness

I've managed to deny the truth for a long time now, to believe that the Internet would make a comeback and that it would not become a place so uninviting that I'd be able to kick my addiction to it without much effort at all. But then someone decided that pop-behind windows were a good idea while paying for the banner ads that kept my favourite Web sites alive was a bad idea.

This inverted logic in the Internet advertising community is completely mind-boggling. The theory seems to be that because not enough people are clicking banner advertisements, it would be a better idea to trick users into looking at the promotional material. For the longest time, we've had banner ads that look like operating system dialogue boxes that cause the user to curse the company the ads are representing once the user realizes they've been tricked. And now we get ads that are created under the window we're looking at only to draw a variety of expletives once spotted a few minutes later. Relationships based on four-letter words seem to be the new goal of Internet marketing. If those pop-behind ads ever manage to convince me to purchase an X10 camera, it will only be so that I can use it to film its own descent in all its wireless glory as it plummets from the highest building whose roof I can gain access to.

Well, I don't know about you, but I feel a bit better after that little rant. And I'd like to give you my word that antigreg will be forever free of pop-behind ads. Because, in the words of a wise man who has never, ever assaulted a police officer, "You've got to take the blong with the bling." And my annual revenue of $2 US is plenty of bling for me.

Inside jokes and complaints about the Internet aside, I'm not entirely sure why I can't sit myself down to write these a bit more often. It's been four days again this time, and I'm trying my best to write one every other day. And it's certainly not for a lack of things to write about, as I've so many things that I'm failing miserably at dealing with in any normal way.

The first song on Air's new CD contains the line, "We need to use envelope filters / To say how we feel," and I can definitely relate: sometimes it feels like I can't say anything personal unless I'm not saying it to anyone in particular. Writing a journal has become my only way to communicate honestly. That being the case, and with my rapidly disintegrating personal life constantly making me wonder about my capabilities as a human being, I would have thought that I'd be writing far more often. But here we are...

So then. Thursday I stayed home. Friday I went to work. Both days were nightmarishly warm. On Friday there was a smog warning in effect and it was well over thirty degrees (of the metric variety) outside. I went inline skating along the Rideau Canal anyway. I came back sweaty and light-headed. Then my meeting, my sole reason for going into the office on Friday, was canceled. So I left early to buy comic books.

There was a sale at one of the comic book stores on Bank Street. I bought two collections of The Sandman. Only two more to go and I'll have the entire series. I hate to think about how much I've spent...

On Saturday, I didn't do very much. I sat at home and read comic books, mostly. Brief Lives, the seventh Sandman collection, rates up there with anything that I've read, in any medium. Once I've bought the last two books and I've finished the series, I want to dedicate a couple of days to reading the entire series from start to finish. I get the feeling that I've missed a lot of things, and, well, it seems a good way to spend one of my first weekends as a refugee from the world of post-secondary education.

Saturday also brought rain and a bit of relief from the heat. During the thunderstorm, I realized that I had left my bike outside. I looked like I had just had a shower when I finally made my way back into the house after putting my bike into the shed. It was fun to be dripping rain onto the carpet again, and forgetting to put my bike away led me to think of the first short story that I ever wrote. About bikes. Talking bikes that were left out in the rain. And it made me wish I could think of something new to write about...

Sunday brought Father's Day. Surprisingly enough, I actually spent most of the day with my father: we played tennis, saw "Evolution," and, when my sister was done work, went out for a family dinner. Less surprisingly, I hadn't bought him a present. I had planned to buy him chocolates on Friday, and I did remember, but I was worried that they would melt on the bus ride home. I offered to pay for the movie, but he refused. I feel cheap.

That's basically all that you've missed. Comic books and rain and Father's Day. And a bit of wandering Richmond after the rain had stopped on Saturday night. I saw a few fireflies, but they would always make their getaway before I could sneak close enough to take a look. That I couldn't see them except when they lit up didn't make it very easy for me to sneak up on them. I'll make a point of scheduling future firefly chases for times when it isn't pitch-black out. Although it was worth the trip to walk through the forest in the dark, barely able to see where I was stepping, judging puddles by the moonlight (and mostly staying dry). Maybe I should just make a point of going for walks more often and not pay any attention to when.

I wrote all of the above at work with plans to add to and finish it when I arrived home. Then my sister told me that I was to drive her to her boyfriend's house in South Keys. I couldn't resist a trip to the South Keys location of Chapters afterward, and I ended up finding a copy of Nail Gaiman's American Gods on a cart behind the new releases section. Quite giddy and feeling like I just might have done something wrong, I took a copy from the cart and scurried to the front. I began to worry when the UPC didn't scan, but the fellow working the barcode scanner found another one on the security tag hidden behind the dust cover, and it scanned just fine. That said, you won't hear from me again until I've finished this book. I will be taking Wednesday off for the sole purpose of reading it, so you can probably expect me to be back on Wednesday night.

And yes, I might still be a little bit giddy. (It's good to get excited every now and again, I figure. Something to smile about.)