Every other post.
…as I quote the 16 year old girl on St-Laurent boulevard. I say “Ok,” and keep walking on. She rips the headphones off of my head, they drop on the ground (breaking), and I stand there looking at her. She walks off and gives me the finger.
Her friend looked embarassed. I put the phones back together, they work. Guess she was bored. That’s my fun of the day. *sigh*
This last Saturday was a milestone for me. I moved into my own apartment. No roommates – just me. With the acquiring of a solid post-university job, along with my own apartment, I’ve progressed from the status of poor student/youth to being my own man.
At the end of this month I’ll be attending the seventeenth iteration of DEFCON. I’m excited; I haven’t been to a hacker convention since HOPE, nearly three years ago now. I’ll make sure to report back with photos!
That brings me to the next topic: ConfCon. Organized by PhreakerD7 and ThoughtPhreaker, ConfCon is going to present talks on a variety of telephony subjects. It’ll all take place over an interconnected network of conference calls, allowing you to join in by simply picking up your phone.
ConfCon is free and takes place this July 25th.
In other news, HWHQ‘s forums were irreperably damaged by spammers. HWHQ is home to the fantastic podcast GameRadio, hosted by C4 & Kobar. The database was corrupted, and unfortunately, despite C4’s best efforts, a backup was not able to be restored. Thank you spammers – not only do you fill my email, cellular phone, and instant messaging accounts with garbage, but you also killed a great forum.
I’ve started to record an audio book of Rice Tea. You can download it here for free. The aim was originally to do a chapter a day, but it’s been very hard for me to keep up lately. I’ve started a second job, and layoffs at my old job have increased my stress level by quite a bit. I’m now doing the work of three people, which is both highly stressful and frustrating.
Back to Rice Tea, the production of the audio book has been very beneficial to me. I didn’t realize to what point some of the dialog was bad – I literally laughed out loud in some bits. I haven’t had the chance to read over the whole thing like this, so it’s been nice. I’m thinking of making a film out of it. What inspired me was seeing the great film Primer, which was done on a $6,000 budget. If they can do it, I can do it.
I’ve been reading a few books as of late. One is “The Rebel Sell” by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter. The book is a critique of the notion of counterculture as it is applied in the mainstream, and why its actually all just part of the ever ambiguous “system.” The other book I’ve been going through is called “Inside the Machine”, by Jon Stokes and published by the ever-excellent No Starch Press. This last one is an introduction to microprocessors and computer architecture. It’s target audience is the average enthusiast, and the author does his best to make sure that you understand the concepts at hand.
I’ve also gone on a book buying binge, and have purchased within the last month: Applied Cryptography; Secrets & Lies; Mathematics: In Content, Methods & Meaning; An Introduction to Environmental and Applied Geophysics; Learning SQL; The Filmmaker’s Handbook and Spook Country.
In other news, I’m almost 24 now. The last few years have just flown by, and that’s making me panicked a bit. It seems like just yesterday I was at HOPE – and yet that was three years ago. I used to think that I needed to accomplish more to justify the time that went by. I don’t know if that’s so true anymore. What I do know is that I’ve been too passive lately. I need to do something. I can’t let this year slip between my fingers.
I’m 23 and I’ve never had a girlfriend. As a consequence, most of my family thinks I’m gay. I’ve had the “it’s okay if you are and we will still love you” speech more times than I care to count. Which is great. It means they love me.
But the thing is, this celibacy isn’t by choice. It just so happens that I’ve been rejected by every single person I’ve ever asked out. No exceptions. That’s how it was like in high school, then in university, and now in the real world. I’ve never known what it is like to be loved by someone other than my mom.
I don’t know what the problem is. I like to think I’m normal. It’s not like I go on a date and then start talking about a collection of cut fingernails I’ve been saving. No – I’m decent looking, handle myself well in social situations, I’m polite and have interests beyond the standard fare.
I’ve been told that my problem is that I’m too nice. That girls like guys with an edge. That girls only start looking for the nice ones later in life. I don’t know what to make of that. Whatever my problem is, for it is my problem, I’m beginning to give up. One can only be rejected so many times.