October 19-22, 2001 — Leaving as soon as I get paid

So. I've decided to give up the Internet.

Well. Kind of. It occurred to me on Friday that the Internet had become my television. I would read senseless articles and just wander about accumulating useless bits of information for hours on end until my mind was too numb to allow me to actually get anything done.

So no more of that. Sites like Slashdot and Plastic and Salon are now officially cut off. I'm not sure if I would continue to read Suck if I could, but that's a decision made for me by the economics of online content, and it makes for one less thing to think about.

Exempt from my boycott are weblogs by Hey Mercedes and Neil Gaiman, Buddyhead, and any site that I actually work on or visit for valid, work-related purposes. Community sites like Makeoutclub will have a strict 30-minute limit per day.

At this point you are invited to join in on any of the many pools that will likely form to bet on how long this boycott will last. If there were somewhere nearby for me to play pinball, I'd be a lot less skeptical of my chances...

So then. October 19-22. I can't even remember what day of the week October 19 was. But the Windows98 Date/Time Properties control panel seems to think that it was a Friday, so we'll go with that.

Friday. I honestly don't remember what I did on Friday. I remember not wearing any boxer shorts for the first half of the day because I wanted to wash every pair. It was a cold day to introduce myself into the world of underwear-free living, and I don't think I want to give that another go anytime soon.

But I'm mostly done my laundry now. And my room smells a bit less of detergent.

I did absolutely nothing on Friday night, but I didn't fall to sleep until 6:00 am, two hours or so after going to bed.

Johnston set the fire alarm off twice on Saturday morning, so I only ended up sleeping until a bit before noon. Which wasn't really such a horrible thing, as it turned out that we were leaving for Oshawa on the 3:13 pm train, and I'd've slept until then given half the chance.

We met up with Brian in Oshawa and went to ValueVillage and to the Oshawa mall. I bought a copy of the latest New Order CD (at long last). Then we went to a restaurant and ate far too much food. Then we went to Brad's house.

The party itself was entertaining enough. Johnston and I played many games of table soccer (or "foosball," apparently), backgammon, and pool. An older fellow came up to me and asked me if I "was one of those 'emo' kids." I said yes and tried to come off as the most stereotypically "emo" person that I possibly could. I'm told that I probably failed his cool test. Pretentious indie rock kids are starting to bother me a little bit. I think I'll just start telling people that I'm a raver again.

We didn't get back to Toronto until the middle of the afternoon on Sunday. I called home and had a shower and got more or less up-to-date on my correspondence and then went to the Death Cab for Cutie show.

I met up with Jeff and Amy and Andrew and Elaine at the show. Amy gave me a piece of bubble gum that tasted really good (and of strawberries) but not for very long. We sat by the hot nuts dispenser until the show started. Jeff made quite a scene when a girl finally made the mistake of purchasing hot nuts with us sitting nearby.

It was a fun enough show. The Horseshoe is probably the nicest place that I've seen bands in Toronto, and I'm looking forward to seeing Cuff The Duke play there on Saturday.

After I went to sleep on Sunday night, I slept until almost 3:00 pm today. I think that I'm finally caught up now.

I spent the day cleaning my room, mostly. And getting together all the mail that I have to send out tomorrow. I owe a bunch of people stickers and CDs and whatnot. I'd be horrible at running a record label or anything else that requires the slightest amount of organization to keep together.

But yes. There's now room on my couch to sit down, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone until I've bought something to cover it up with. And I went through a lot of boxes and envelopes full of notes and receipts and invoices in an effort to clear out the ones that I didn't think I needed anymore. Things are getting cleaner.

Three days into my (admittedly partial) Internet boycott, I'm feeling a lot more productive than I did last week. I think that starting my days before the sun is on its way down might help things all the more, as I'm starting to get annoyed with working in the dark.

My mind is doing a good job of pretending that nothing that was bothering me last week ever happened, which is probably a fairly negative thing, but it keeps me from spending the entire day in bed.

I should probably go to sleep reasonably early tonight, though, if I want to switch to a sleeping pattern that doesn't have me starting my day with a sunset...