RuffBlog

THE STATUS 'PO

I've you've been within five feet of me this week you probably know my double-whammy of sob stories.

My debit card and PIN were cloned/scammed/hacked/frauded/whatever, my account is overdrafted by $1000, and locked pending the super-pleasant fraud investigation. It's such a fucking hassle, but I'll admit with a little pressure RBC eventually came through, advancing me seed money for my week of Outgames debauchery.

Surprisingly coming in a close second in my woeful week, my company lost their main contract and I'm facing a layoff mid-month.

It's an awkward feeling... I never meant to embark on a career as a travel agent... so I'm not sure how I feel about suddenly having to find another job...

but I'm good at it, and perhaps due to my fetish-like fondness for all things complex and chaotic, really enjoy it.... so much so that I'm aligning my paths to combine design, travel, and business... my explanatory scenario generally reads "eventually, I want to be the guy who designs the identity for an airline, or spearheads the design revamp of a hotel chain..."

in the meantime, I've got some more time to put in being a Sabre-geek.

at first, it was really scary watching experienced colleagues pulling up fares... it's this odd physical-mental human-computer twitching... you describe to sabre what you want (be it a passenger record or a list of flight options), wait for a response, do a split-second analysis of what has been presented to you, and repeat the twitching transactions again and again, all the while maintaining chipper and efficient conversation with the client.

anyway, stuff is happening. more to come...

i don't mind walking. but i want to buy new shoes.

i've noticed it parked outside a few times, but today i made the effort to price it out...

mercedes s500. my landlord drives a hundred thousand dollar car.

i'd say he's a nice old man who's worked hard and deserves it. but then again....

last fall i leased an apartment two blocks from school. at first, i was so proud of my pseudo-investment, convinced all the time saved by eliminating a commute would leave me more time to study, create, and generally be happy.

the landlord owns half the neighborhood. and it's full of students.

everyday as i retrieve letters from my mailbox addressed to myriad people i've never met, i keep realizing nobody stays. nobody renews their lease. everybody realizes they've been had.

and they leave. and the rent goes up another twenty bucks. some new naive student moves in, paying more rent for a studio than most families pay for a mortgage on a real house.

i was planning to stay another year. but then i started noticing how other people are living. and the rents they're paying.

and i feel like a sucker. i don't know the landlord's name. but i paid for his fucking mercedes.

general update

grand prix weekend. sounds chaotic. air choking. people overwhelming. glossy dirty metal machines moving too quickly. gawking at poor stupid people gawking at rich stupid people.

i wasn't meant to be here.

combustion.

flesh. fiction. scars. scabs. wounds. healing. picking them open just to change. i know, it's irrational.

rationality. ritalin. respiration. repetition. reasons for everything.

red bull. beer. metamucil. nothing goes down smooth. enough.

all the lonely people. heros nowhere to be found.

drunk. thirsty. brothers. fools.

summer has arrived.

loss.of.control

i suppose i've been aware of it for a few days now...

i lost my remote.

i didn't get to hold it in my hand for all that long... but i still miss it.

i realize it probably hasn't gone all that far away...

it might even find its way back to me...

it did a pretty good job at turning things on...

and now, without it, i can still turn those things on...

but it's just a lot harder.

and less fun.

Technorati Tags: analogy, apple, ipod, remote

graffiti, filtered through ocd...

i saw this in ottawa last weekend and snapped a picture... explaining to the folks around it it was my name... scrambled up.

only now, a week later, when i offload the pic from my phone, do i actually notice it spells (unscrambled) the word abort.

anyway... bedtime.

Technorati Tags: graffiti, ocd, ottawa, tabor, urban

i envy....

white. and apple. and everything.

I was checking out www.calatrava.com this morning, and really spent a moment thinking about... white. and apple. and everything.

I've felt for a long time that, since apple is so entrenched in design culture, its prevalence in the daily experience of the designer must significantly impact their products. whiteness. lightness. cold yet quiet.

Now consider rapid-prototyping. I've never even held a piece of "it" in my hands, yet I recognize its significance... that off-white fragility. like coral. preciousness and possibility.

Since I just (sort of) finished a year studying ceramics, I can't tell if this is really an observation, or merely a new experience... but I think porcelain, and even unbisqued stoneware, are about to explode in popularity. we're going to start seeing more ceramic casings for electronics, as our enthusiasm for gadgets starts to tarnish as we recognize their emptiness, their inability to sustain our satisfactions.

If we have to compare the ipod/porcelain/whiteness moment, we should probably go back and consider the jet age, when bolting sheets of aluminum together produced intriguing new forms... strong without weight, mass without density.

I would just like to point out...

There is a donut in the middle of Quebec. You heard it here first.

yes... i'm painfully wasting too much time on google video... an ad for a diet pill from 1982.

an ad for a diet pill from 1982.