April 3–12, 2002 — Don’t pretend you care

A couple weeks here, a few days there — you’re really not missing much when I stop posting for (relatively) long periods of time, as much as I hate to admit it. Take the summer — I wrote, what, three journal entries? I left out a lot of bitching about work and one slightly relevant experience that I probably could have covered in one particularly lengthy journal entry. But it would’ve been completely doable.

I feel the same about the last nine days (or thereabouts): I could split it into two entries and rant on and on about how much my hands hurt and about the customer at work who decided to eat his cup last Wednesday, but I pretty much covered those two topics in that one sentence. You just lost out on the build up; I’m saving us both time in the long run, as I figure it.

So let’s get caught up, then. Lots going on, and lots of excuses for not posting journal entries. Mostly, I’m still employed at a smoothie bar and I’m still working on punkottawa.com. Amy is going to start looking for temp jobs in a few weeks and has decided to take me along for a ride. I was going to object, but she commented that I might be able to find a job where I don’t have to deal with half-naked customers cleaning the floors with their shirts. Or with people who enjoy polystyrene cups for their nutritional content in addition to their beverage-chilling abilities.

On the web site front, I signed up for a new server for punkottawa.com today that I will be transferring all of my online projects over to in the next few weeks. This means a much faster server for antigreg, which is good because this one is embarrassingly slow most of the time.

And while we’re on the topic of antigreg, I guess I should mention that change is definitely coming, and I’m hoping to make the site a bit more worthwhile as the two-year anniversary creeps closer and closer. All the sections will eventually be back online, and new ones might even be created. I’m also seriously considering changing the way the site’s promoted a bit and no longer running a webcam for webcam portals. The webcam was always supposed to be a fairly minor component of the site, after all, and I’d much rather spend my time on other things.

I guess we’ll see.

...or maybe I won’t finish any of the new features that I hope to finish and I’ll end up just writing a normal journal entry on May 14 about how weird it is to think that I’ve been doing this for two years, trying to convince myself that I’d never posted any journal entries promising anything special to mark the occasion.

Last night I walked around the side streets in my neighbourhood for the first time since moving here. There are a lot of houses on the tops of hills with huge columns of stairs leading up to their front doors. I also found a staircase leading down to lower ground; standing at the top, I could see most of the way downtown. Then I walked down to the bottom and found a fairly bleak-looking street with commercial space for rent and the occasional office of a local Member of Parliament. There wasn’t much of a view at the bottom of the stairs, either.

While my parents were visiting for Easter, they commented that parts of St. Clair West look a bit rundown. I came very close to defending the street; I’ve started to become a bit attached to the area, and it felt like they were criticizing my home. Depressing as that is to admit at times.

Now that spring’s approaching, I definitely want to get to know the area where I live a bit better: I’m desperate for places to bike and to rollerblade. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything in the way of outdoor activities, and I’m starting to feel even less healthy than usual.

Soon enough I’ll be able to retire the spring-jacket-and-hoodie combo that I’ve worn all winter and stick with just one or the other. I think I’ll get back to counting down the days...