Platform 327

Another day of waking up way too early for no good reason. But hey, through the magic of DVD, I get to relive a long-forgotten tradition: Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Okay, maybe the tradition hasn’t been “forgotten” so much as “neglected.” Either way, what’s shown on TV on your average Saturday morning these days can’t compare to… Justice League! A friend of mine loaned me the first 2 seasons, and I’m in the middle of my 3rd time through the series. I may have to buy copies for myself. First, though, I have to get volume 2 of Pinky and the Brain.

This entry brought to you by Insomnia and the letter “B.” You can’t be bored without B.

If you’ve been reading any of my several blogs over the years (or have ever talked to me in person), you probably know I hate this time of year. The one-two punch of the New Year and my birthday make the first couple of months of the year the worst. I’m assuming you want to know what I’m thinking, otherwise you wouldn’t be wasting your life reading this blog, right? So here it is in a nutshell. “Happy New Year! I’m still alone. Happy birthday! I’m old… and still alone.” So yeah, that’s it. Every year I get closer to letting the insanity of isolation win, get five or six more cats and give up little things like clipping my toenails.

Damn, but I wish I had become a goth in high school and gotten all of this crap out of my system back then. Now all I can do is whine on my blog and go through the rest of my life like I know what I’m doing. Where the hell’s my cat?

This evening, the Wolfman came over to my house to play video games. I had my proverbial ass proverbially handed to me. I was doing okay at Rumble Roses but it was all downhill from there. In WWF War Zone, I only won one game, and that was only because it was a cage match and I ran like Scooby Doo. When the game moved to Soul Calibur II, that was the end of it. I used to rule at that game. I got beaten 20 games to 6.

That’s twice in one week that I’ve felt like a completely useless turd in my own home. I’ve really got to stop doing that. There’s a New Year’s resolution. I will only invite women I can impress or men I can humiliate in video games over to my house. Much better for the self esteem.

When you’re not drinking, the prospect for New Year’s Eve celebrations suck ass. Everything that doesn’t involve getting shitfaced or being in a room full of people who are getting shitfaced is overrun with screaming maniac children. Children or churchies. So far, not exactly a bumper crop of appealing options.

Y’know, they say that whatever you do on New Year’s Eve is what you’ll spend your time doing for the rest of the year, or some other such nonsense. Since it’s probably too late to book a New Year’s Eve hooker that isn’t a toothless Parkdale crack whore, maybe I’ll just stay home, do a little writing and try to get myself organized for the coming week. Maybe that’ll make the whole of next year more productive and organized. Or maybe it’ll just make me a big stick in the mud on New Year’s Eve. Either way, my beleaguered liver and easily-jangled nerves will thank me.

I now have a home network. Go me! Now my junky old computer can sit on the shelf with my good computer speakers plugged into it while it plays the songs loaded onto the hard drive of my spiffy new computer. Why? Well, why the hell not? If nothing else, I have a hollow sense of accomplishment to get me through the day.

For some stupid reason, I woke up at 7:00 and can’t get back to sleep. So I might as well post to LJ.

Yesterday was my holiday cooking for a girl that I mentioned earlier. I cooked a whole lot of food and I’ll have leftovers for the rest of the week. The dinner went well, but as for anything else, I’m still a little confused. The conversation was very good, however I received a few subtle “yes” signs and some very obvious “no” signs as far as “interest” goes, but then she mentioned something about the “next time” she comes over… so either she’s sending mixed signals or I am a very confused individual. Or maybe this is still a developing story. My money is on me being confused. Place your bets.

On another note, I checked out Apocalypto on Christmas Day. I’ll save you a movie review, because you’ve already heard enough about this film and have made up your mind as to whether or not you’re going to see it or not. I will, however, say that I believe I now understand why Mel Gibson has been a little floopy of late. For years, he’s been doing movies people would consider “violent,” but they’ve been cartoonesque action-movie violent with a sardonic sense of humour. With Apocalypto and that earlier movie you all know about, Gibson is reaching very deeply into the subtleties of real violence. Spending that much time so deeply immersed in the reality of the levels of suffering human beings can inflict on other human beings would be enough to strain anyone’s mind. Gibson should consider taking a break from bringing the dark moments of history to the big screen and do a romantic comedy or another Lethal Weapon movie, just to get his head together again.

Anyway, the last of the planned holiday festivities happen today. My parents are coming into town for a while to check out the ol’ Christmas lights around City Hall. The rest of the week is chill-o-rama. I’m looking forward to it. I just hope I can manage to get some sleep.

We get off work early tonight, but it ain’t early enough. I can’t sit here and concentrate on work. I have to get out of here!!

Week off! Woo-hoo!

Gotta get out!!!

Well, I ain’t a Torontoist. At least not yet. The editor apparently liked my stuff, but they’ve filled up all the new positions for this round of hiring. He did, however, invite me to email him next month to see if there were any spaces available. So we’ll see.

I know it’s a long shot, but I was wondering if anyone knew anybody with Leafs tickets for the February 27th game against Buffalo. I’ve got relatives coming over from Austria and they want to check out a game. Apparently Ticketmaster doesn’t have any tickets available until the day of the game, but I’d like to get them beforehand just to be sure the relatives won’t be disappointed when they here.

If you know anyone with 2 or 3 tickets for that game, perhaps season tickets they won’t be using that night, please get them in contact with me at david_j_widmann(at)yahoo(dot)ca.

Thanks, eh?

Yesterday, just a few hours before the application deadline, I applied to be a writer at Torontoist. I saw the ad before, but for some reason it just clicked in my brain yesterday to propose doing for them what I did for my old short-lived Second Life Magazine.

I got the notice today that I was on the short list of writers being considered. I’ve passed phase 2 of the process: I told them I was cool with working for $3 - $4 for each post on the site. I’ll keep y’all informed on what happens next.

Side note: “Y’all” is actually accepted by Firefox’s spell checker. “Flavour,” however, is not. I’m just saying.