Well, there goes my whole goal to be a better blogger.  I have neglected you for over week.  I have to say I am sorry.  Unfortunately, I just haven’t been well and when that happens I just have no desire to really talk (or write) to anyone.  It’s not all bad news though - something kept me busy that was awesome!  My friend Nik, who I have known 31 of the 32 years of my life, got married last weekend!!!  It was an amazing time and I was lucky enough to be a groomsman for this event.  The bride and groom really made life easy on us by having things planned out pretty well…and by having plenty of food and booze around for us.  Being a groomsman is tough when you have a date.  Thankfully I have nobody at that level in my world so I took my roommate.  He played along by wearing his kilt!  It certainly made the first “couples” dance interesting!  If that wasn’t gay enough, I also had to kiss a dude.  That’s right.  Not just a peck.  A full on kiss.  This was the result of one of the rules for the reception.  In order to get the bride and groom to kiss, you have to plant one on somebody and then they will follow suit.  The MC for the evening, another close friend, seized this opportunity.  With everyone watching him, assuming he would go kiss his girlfriend, he walked across the head table stage and gave me a solid snog!  Oh yeah.  Hey, at least I got some action!  So, it was an amazing event.  I don’t want to throw up any pictures to protect the privacy of my friends.  Besides, I hear it can cost millions to get exclusive photo publishing rights for weddings.  Since then I have just been laying low, trying to get better.  I have been slowly recovering which is probably why I am writing this post!  Good sign I guess.  Today is going to be a day to catch up on some work and relax.  I plan to watch a movie with a friend and get to bed at a reasonable hour.  Why?  Tomorrow I am going to BeerFest in Toronto - which is right near my house!  I expect my Sunday to be a little messy.  As is tradition, here is a comic that has nothing to do about anything.

Hello all.  I feel like I need to apologize pretty much every post!  Why?  Because the quantity of my posting has decreased to ridiculous proportions.  I am hoping to turn that around starting today.  The problem is that I have had pretty much a million things going on every single day.  Work has kept me insanely busy, both day and night.  I have just settled into my new place in Toronto and I finally have everything setup properly.  I won’t lie - I have also been spending much time just going out and enjoying my new location!  One of the best parts about being down here is not having to drive.  When I lived just outside the city, I pretty much accepted having to drive to accomplish anything from going out with friends to renting movies.  Now, I accomplish all of that by either walking or by taking public transit.  There is a bus that runs right by my house about every 5 minutes.  It takes about 8 minutes to get to the train station.  From there, I can get anywhere.  On top of that there are also two streetcar lines for me to take.  So many options!  So, I hope to increase my blogging schedule now that I have cleared some things off my plate.  You are my people.  I need you in my life!  Here is a comic that has nothing to do with anything - but it does contain a joke I often use.

This is my first post since my bday party.  I invited pretty much the entire internet to come out and celebrate with me.  If you showed up…well…I don’t remember!  I lost track of about 50% of the night.  I know that I am still alive.  This post proves that.  After that it is time to slow it down a little bit and try to get more rest in.  I will let you know how that goes.  Today I did manage to knock a HUGE thing off of my to-do list.  I passed my DZ driver’s license test.  This means I can drive a big truck with air brakes…like…oh…say a fire truck!  This is pretty much the last requirement I needed in order to be able to apply to any department.  Some departments want you to have your DZ before applying.  Although it didn’t hurt me so far, it would have prevented me from applying in July to Toronto Fire.  Thankfully, I can now say I meet all the requirements!  Now I actually have an evening to relax and catch up on my video games and reading.  As you should expect by now - here is a comic that has nothing to do about anything I just talked about.  Although, it is an interesting statement about traditional gender roles when raising children.

Holy crap this week has been insane!  Work has had me busier than I have ever been in my life.  Combine that with a heavy work out schedule and the fact that I am trying to maintain a social life and you get a guy who pretty much hasn’t slept in a week.  My project was supposed to run over the weekend, but that got pushed back.  So, I am free all weekend!  I am so pumped about this because today is going to be my Bday party.  I turned 32 on Thursday and I am meeting up with some friends tonight downtown Toronto to have too much to drink and get into some shenanigans.  One of the problems with planning any form of party like this is that you always get some people bitching about the location.  This is the one night where I really wont care about anybody else not liking the location.  I enjoy it.  There are plenty of good beers to drink. Lastly, it’s my damn bday!!!  Besides, I can pretty much guarantee that it will be fun.  I plan to drink until I can’t feel feelings.  Most of my readers are in the States, but if you happen to be in Toronto and want to come out and say hi, feel free to come to Bier Markt King West.  I will be the ridiculously handsome brown guy who is passed out on the floor.  As per usual, here is a comic that has nothing to do with anything.

I have been a bad blogger!  I went the week without really giving you much to see.  I wish I could say my life has been crazy interesting, but it really hasn’t.  I have been very busy with work and…well…that’s about it.  Between that and hanging out with friends I really don’t do too much.  I guess I do have one thing that I am really excited about: working from home.  Now, back in my previous career (before going back to school) I was able to work from home fairly often.  I knew my job well and found myself more productive as a result of not having to commute.  Now, I am a guy who likes to have a presence at the office.  Spending 3 hours a day in my car has kind of made me hit my limit.  I finally worked from home one day this week and it was everything I dreamed it would be.  No commute.  Eating lunch on my couch.  Sending emails without pants on.  Working from home took a bit of planning though.  I have a desktop computer at the office and I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring that thing home with me.  Remember how I geeked out one night and installed Windows 7 on a partition of my hard drive via BootCamp?  Well, there was a purpose to that.  I installed Shrew Soft VPN client so I could tunnel into the office network.  After that it was just a matter of hooking myself up with VisionApp so I could connect to all my servers via RDP and I was good to go!  One thing was missing though - dual monitors!  Apple charges an ass-hammering $34 for a display adapter that will let me hook my laptop up to the DVI port of a monitor.  I call bullshit!  Enter my favourite website for cables and adapters - Monoprice.com!  The same damn thing is on sale for about $8.  Even with shipping I only spent $11.  Massive savings!  Even more impressive, as a friend and I recently discovered, are the savings if you need a wall mount for your flat screen TV.  Check it out, you will shit yourself with glee!  So that takes me right up to the weekend.  I have a couple of Bday parties and a charity hockey game so my schedule is nice and full.  Since I do try to always add some value for your visit, here is a comic that has nothing to do with anything.

Thank god Friday is here!  This has been my first week back in reality and I am desperate for the weekend.  I need to make this clear - I love my new job!  My co-workers are awesome and the work itself is fun.  It has just been tough adjusting to a normal schedule.  I have also been very busy with my social life.  Big problem, I know!  I need some “Mike” time.  A day that I dedicate to relaxing.  Maybe next week.  Tonight I had a hockey game.  Hockey has been a frustrating experience for quite a while.  I was never great at it.  As a younger man, my greatest skill came with my ability to hit people in open ice.  I would consider that a skill as it takes some serious timing.  Before I took a couple of years off, I was the kind of guy who scored goals.  I knew that if I got the puck that there was a good chance it was going in the net.  I was so confident in my abilities.  These days I have crawled into some kind of shell that I just can’t bust out of.  I seem to get more hesitant with each game.  I am so screwed up that my body just freaks out when I am near the puck.  I know I need to just slow things down and take the puck and take my time and look for opportunities.  Knowing and doing and very different things.  Amazing what confidence can do!  I have it in all other aspects of my life.  None on the ice anymore.  I am thinking I should get drunk before my next game.  I am always a little more ballsy when I have had a few.  Let’s see what happens!  Happy Friday everyone.  If you are in Canada then I know what you will be watching tonight  As usual, here is an SMBC comic that has nothing to do with anything.

One day in and I already miss life as a bum.  For the first time since December of 2008, I am back in the ranks of the working class.  I actually had an excellent day at the office.  Everyone was very nice and it seems like it will be a fun group to be around.  I will get to satisfy my geeky nature while I continue to pursue my ultimate goal of being a firefighter.  It really is the perfect situation.  Hell, my new boss even bought me lunch today!  Not bad at all.  Everything was great right up until 5:30 when I left the office.  In case you don’t live in Toronto, we got hit with a bit of a snow storm.  This wasn’t exactly unexpected, it was on pretty much every weather report you could find.  Somehow this managed to cripple the commute home.  my hour long drive took 2.5 hours to get home!  I needed over an hour and a half just to get to the highway.  On my drive I saw people in ditches, people who had smashed into each other and people who almost ran over pedestrians.  Seriously, we live in freakin’ Canada.  This is freakin’ February.  Why the fuck are we so unprepared for this?!?!?!  It’s snow.  You have seen it before!  Make your dumb ass familiar with it’s properties and it’s affect on your vehicle.  This will come up again in the near future.  Unless you have the memory retention of an eggplant this knowledge will be applicable repeatedly.  Just a tip from your favorite smart-ass!  Now, as is tradition, a web comic that has nothing to do with anything I just talked about.  This is just about how awesome engineers are.  Enjoy!

I haven’t posted an SMBC comic on here in a while.  So, I was able to go through quite a few to pick one I really liked.  I figured you would get a kick out of this one.  This week has been a little crazy for me.  Even though I am done school I still have some major exams coming up.  Tomorrow I write 4 different tests.  It is pretty much a summary of everything I have learned this past year.  I enjoy a challenge so I have yet to really start studying!  I have been putting it off for a lot of days now.  I really am a master at procrastination.  When I have to study I find that absolutely any other activity is fun.  Yesterday I found laundry and cleaning the floors to be an absolute blast!  Today I have about 5 guys coming over and hopefully they will kick my ass into gear.  My only break from studying today will be to feed those animals when they get here.  As a result of my schedule, I probably won’t post anything tomorrow.  I will let you all know how it went on Friday.

Here is that SMBC comic…

wow, it really feels strange to write 2010 on the title of this post.  I am sure it will take me a while to get over the habit of ‘09.  My New Years was a relaxing little gathering at a friends place.  That didn’t stop me from knocking back enough beer and bubbly to kill a horse.  At 3am I took a cab to another location and honestly felt like I was traveling through a post-apocalyptic war zone!  Hoards of people were on the street trying desperately to get into the cab.  Twice we had people jump on the hood of the car trying to get the attention of the driver.  We finally avoided all the zombies and I got to my destination.  New Years day was a day of recovery.  I did manage to get in a weight workout and a run.  Well, it was 3/4 of a run.  I walked the last KM because I was out of gas.  The evening was spent with an amazing dinner of butter chicken and naan.  I tried to have a couple pints but threw in the towel after only one.  I am 31 years old dammit.  I need some downtime!  I think the rest of this weekend is going to be very chill.  I am also fairly confident I am coming down with one helluva cold.  I hope everyone out there is enjoying these last few days before we all go back to reality.  Well…not me…I have never been anywhere close to reality.  Here is a comic that, as usual, has nothing to do with anything!

As I write the title to that post I find myself a little shocked.  Christmas is almost here!  Not only that, the year is almost done.  2009 definitely had a fast pace.  I am officially done all my classes for school.  What I am not done is one last essay I am supposed to mail in.  It’s due today.  Once I pick a topic I will be set!  This last weekend we had the informal party with my grad class.  We got some hotel rooms and some drinks.  I honestly don’t remember much else.  Great times…I think!  I spent Sunday laying in bed watching TV.  We were so lazy we ordered in for both lunch and dinner.  That kind of laziness takes a very special kind of tired.  My bathroom renovation is pretty much complete.  The shower looks amazing.  I will post some pics of that later.  Now I just need to wipe down absolutely everything in my room because of all the dust.  How do I wipe down stucco walls…or a fabric couch?  I continue to read “Watership Down” and I really don’t ever remember it.  It seems like something everyone read back in school.  I had no idea rabbits lead such interesting, spiritual lives.  Do other animals have books like this?  I am also reading “Pride & Prejudice & Zombies” and what the bible says is true: Zombies are awesome.  As is my trend with these ramblings, I like to leave you with a comic that has nothing to do with anything.  Enjoy your Tuesday everybody!