All the best things that have happened to me lately I'm unable to include here without them coming off like total bragging, so I will abstain.

Lately my mind has been on how I'm going to spend my vacation.. I know I definitely am taking some time off towards the end of May for Shibaricon in Chicago, and I was planning on following it up with a roadtrip through the southern US to some of the best water parks down there. Seems like the ride situation might not pan out now, so I'd either have to go east solo (I was thinking from Austin to Florida) or visit somewhere else entirely (ideas?) or just go to Chicago and spend the rest of my vacation Europe perhaps.

Also... Kali & I know how to do the ... JUNGLE BOOGIE...

I realized amidst the delightful haze of Bolano's "The Savage Detectives" on the metro that I hadn't mentioned my sugar shackin' adventures.

For those of you who aren't from Quebec, the sugar shack or "la cabane a sucre" is a giant log cabin type place near a grove of maple trees out in the middle of nowhere.

So you drive out there and have a massive meal in the springtime when the maple syrup is running from the trees. The meal includes pea soup, bread, ham, bacon, strange pickled things, pancakes, bread pudding, maple syrup, potatoes, and more and more and more food. Usually you get tanked as well and coat everything in the freshest and tastiest maple syrup that you'll ever eat in your life - fresh from the tree. Then they play old school lumberjack music and you dance around. It's pretty sweet. Imagine like turkey dinner full. It's especially fun if you go with a bus full of cute female university students.

A few questions:

1. If you'd just bought a bunch of smart drugs (nootropics) what kind of activity would you do to see how effective they were?

2. What's a book that's either had a significant impact on your life or "changed your life" ? What in it caused you to change? And should I read it? (if you say anything by Ayn Rand I'm totally going to punch you in the noune )

"Planktonic sea creatures rarely swim," said Craigor. "Like cuttlefish, they go with the flow. Until something nearby catches their attention. And then--dart! Another meal, another lover, another masterpiece."
- Rudy Rucker, Singularity

So I just crushed my old record for "most money ever spent on a concert ticket."

Goodbye 8 hours worth of pay, hello 1 concert ticket to see Leonard Cohen.

Point Form.

- Everyone should have the benefit of waking up one day and being utterly sick of all their own excuses

- Penicillin is my magic friend.

- I've been reading extensively again, esp. in the arena of personal finance / investments / mutual funds, etc. I'm enjoying the self-confidence that it's giving me in the area of money, which I've been almost willfully ignorant of since I was a teenager, it counting this young because I haven't lived with my parents since I was 16/17.

- I've finally started using the video features of my iPod - my commutes are now enlivened by BoingBoing TV and TED Talks podcasts.

- My career goals centers around experimental writer/filmmaker coupled with massage / hypnotherapist. I think. Keep in mind previous career goals of become a "famous hacker" (my career goal as a 14 year old) haven't quite panned out.

- I should be writing more. A lot more.

- I'm vaguely excited by the idea of maxing out my RRSP contributions and doing my taxes. (I fear my soul).

- I'm entirely uninterested in the classes I'm taking / concept of being back in school that I thought I was going to be totally riveted by. That said there are several non-university-type classes / training seminars I'm extremely interested in attending.

- I mourn the death of polaroid.

- I miss dinner parties and having a radio show.

- It's frustrating being over someone and then you hang out and they say this one certain thing and you're like whatthemotherfuckingfuck why are we not going out again? The people lately haven't been up to snuff. This is extra frustrating if it's after good sex, which could have possibly been great sex if I hadn't been sick & week at the time.

Time is running out. I have only about 5 years left... if it doesn't happen.. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Hoverboards HAVE to be invented in the next five years or I'm going to totally miss the boat. Come on Apple - you made my dreams come true with the iPod - make them come true again.

Otherwise I'm going to be like Fred Astaire falling off a skateboard, cool, but not part of the crew.

Hoverboard forever!

For me relationships are like hydra's heads - cut off one and three seem to pop up in its place.

I also don't seem to end up in long-term relationships, and I'm beginning to wonder why this is. While I do enjoy my dazzling exploits of Errol Flynnery, a deeper relationship would be nice, a partner in crime, someone willing to swashbuckle with on the high seas.

It's hard to find people up to the challenge.

Well so much for that.

What the fuck?

The best cure for hangover doldrums is meditation and getting in touch with your inner badassness.
They're impossible to do at once because they're diametric opposites, but you can cycle through 'em, because I'm vast, bitches, I contain multitudes.

First you go all a tabula rasa...

You're aware and centered.

Then you power-up with a quick invocation of King Mob to zip you into sweet sweet badassland. I even have the cut lip, oh yeah.