So “Les Jeux du Québec” are happening right in my backyard.

You’d think that would be a good thing. You know, “olympic” games right near my house. Walking distance. A stone’s throw as the old folks say.

The red dot is LeSombre’s Castle, the blue dot is the tent of DOOM.
Google says it’s about 200m / 600ft between the dots.

The problem I have – because I’m old – is that the city, in its infinite wisdom, decided to make a special ByLaw allowing the coaches and volunteers (and most probably some athletes) to party until 2:00 am. To the excruciating sound of really really bad disco music cranked up all the way to twelve.

That’s two in the frakkin’ morning.

That’s twelve as in even higher than Spinal Tap’s eleven.

Every.

Single.

Frakkin’.

Night.

So I’m up until 2:30 every single frakkin’ night since last Thursday. Yesterday I went over there to ask the DJ when his little party would stop, and upon arriving on the site I was greeted by a city cop who informed me of said special bylaw. Apparently I was not the only one coming over to ask about the partying. The cop wished me courage, as it will continue until this Friday.

The biggest problem I have with this can be expressed with this handy Venn graph:

You’re laughing because it’s true. Also because you don’t live here.

So I’m thinking that since I can’t sleep, I’ll get myself a Vuvuzela and I’ll go encourage my mayor to revise his position on the ByLaw, from 11pm to 2 am until the end of the games.

Who’s with me?

Hello.

My name is LeSombre, and you might remember me from past posts on this here blog. It’s kinda hard to explain what’s been going on with me and the subsequent lack of posting, but since you all been extremely nice with me over the years, I feel I kinda owe you some sort of explanation.

So it’s like this.

If you look at my back catalog of posts, you’l probably figure out that I blog about the little things that make me laugh, cry, think, smile, yell, boil, pee my pants, go awwwwwww. And some other topics too.

Without going in many great details, let’s just say that the stuff that’s taking a lot of space in my life right now is not stuff that I really want to blog about. Life at Castle LeSombre is not all that it’s supposed to be, and work has entered a stage of suckiness like it never did before. Yes, LovelyWife reads my blog. Yes, my boss reads my blog. It wouldn’t be fair to them to read about the important stuff in my life via this blog - hence no new blog posts. I had to make sure that things were somewhat sorted out at home, and that my boss knew that I felt my professional life was/is in what I consider a very bad place at this point.

With that said, it is pretty hard for me to “bring the funny” about trivial stuff when I have so much serious and important stuff on my mind.

I was hoping that the job thing would be a temporary thing. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be.

I was hoping the home thing would be a temporary thing. I honestly have no clue what’s going on there.

So I’m at a crossroads. Once more. I don’t like pretending everything is all right, and I don’t want to blog about the stuff that’s wrong. The stuff that’s wrong takes 98% of my brain power right now, so that doesn’t leave a lot of space for anything else. But seriously, 2% of my brain power is still a lot of brain power.

So I’ll say this one last time: Work sucks and life at Castle LeSombre is not perfect. Now I’ll never blog about those things again.

Now that I got that out of the way, I’ll try to use the remaining 2% of my brain to entertain you. To entertain me.

So there you have it.

The show must go on.

To hold me closer or set me free
To trust completely or let it be
You don’t know my destiny
You can’t see what I can see

Hey – I wish I cared
Hey – I wish I cared

To love me truely or let me go
Inbetween I don’t want to know
This is how it has to be
No more us and no more we

Hey – I wish I cared
Hey – I wish I cared

Once again, on the station
See your face in a crowd
Comes again the sensation
You can’t hear yourself think
With their voices inside your head

Hey – I wish I cared

+++++

Now, if someone could explain the “On a tous un châlet au coeur” at 0:42, that would be lovely.

Today (Thursday) I got the results of my 360-degree feedback evaluation.

This is all part of the process that will make me a better manager.

I was going to copy a whole bunch of comments I got, particularly the ones that talk about things I have to make better to be a better manager, and then paste my self-assessment right below to show that I already know all that about myself, but I realize how pointless that would be. Being called an arrogant Know-It-All Prick Bastard would be a bad thing if it wasn’t the exact same thing I say about myself all the time.

Then again, that proves their point.

And mine.

Hey Mike: You’re an arrogant know-it-all prick bastard…

I know!

Damn if you do, damn if you don’t.

Somehow, I manage.

*Shrugs*

(I also watch the Office)

Looking back on the past few months, I notice a disturbing trend: I realize that I write less and less here.

At first I stopped blogging on weekends. To be honest, I’ve been not blogging weekends for quite some time now, way before I made it official. I’m sure you’ve seen the tag “Webless Weekends” on a few occasions. Nevertheless, I used to put content up on weekends, now I don’t anymore. I spend time with my family. I drink wine. I drink Scotch. I go see movies. I play with the kids. I bake.

I blog about none of these things.

Work is… weird. I never blog about work anymore, because really how subtle would it be to blog about good things while completely staying silent on other (less than stellar) occasions? It’s not that nothing good (or bad) is happening – it’s just really extreme.

So I blog about none of those things.

I’ve also stopped being a slave to the midnight rule. If you look back through the archives, you’ll see that until a few months ago, all my posts were published at midnight sharp. If you go back more you’ll see I used to publish at one minute past midnight – go figure.

Then there’s the Diptych Wednesday. I didn’t think taking pictures was going to be much easier than writing words, but I loved the idea of doing that because that was one more day that I wouldn’t have to put words on a page.

There’s also the whole “reply to comments” thing. I used to reply to comments religiously. Replying to comments is a big part of what I enjoy about blogging. Why am I not doing it anymore? Or really, doing it really late and in batch?

I semi-jokingly thought about skipping today’s post and then tomorrow posting a blank jpg with the title “Wordle of my Thursday post”. That would be two posts writing nothing and/or about writing nothing. Seriously, this has to stop. There’s only so much posting about not posting I can do before it becomes ridiculous.

Maybe it already is.

Now where’s my Batman & Joker .jpg?

This is kind of a rebirth edition. With pictures / graphics. Enjoy.

• The Phoenix: So Hilly decided to reinvent herself. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next. Just so you know, I’m totally stealing the Hilly Sundays and making them Mikey Sundays. I kid, I kid. I never blog on Sundays anymore.

• The Dark Phoenix: I’m thinking about this. Again. I already did this and that, so I’m thinking about making it official. Again. Feel free to gimme your thoughts, opinions and assvice.

• The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. So I completely missed the release of Gathering Storm, the 12th (and final) book in the Wheel of time series. Well, true to the Robert Jordan experience, the final book has now become a three book saga. So the ending is really a beginning. As it should be, I guess.

• Galaxies are Colliding: I look good in black.

In a slightly modified Call of Cthulhu tradition, I’ll keep the last two bullets for myself – the madness is here and I’m not going down without a fight.

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

So, it’s March break at The Abode.

That means I’m “babysitting” my kids and a friend’s kids today. w00t!

So here’s my plan:

Fill them up with espresso, and have them clean the whole house!

I’m taking back March Break bitches!

*Please don’t send Child Services to my house. The espresso pictures were staged – nobody touches my espresso! But they’ll still clean the house.

After a lot of time thinking about this, I think I came up with the most likely explanation for my super power.

I am not from your planet.

I think I must be from Uranus – I’ve been called or called myself an asshole more than on one occasion – or even further away from your sun. I think that would make sense since further away from the sun, or from any sun really, would explain my super power.

You wanna see what my super power is? It’s nothing too fancy, I just have some kind of ultra-vision.

But don’t take my word for it. Look at these:

Triptych? Not really.

When I look at these, I see two full trash cans and one overflowing recycling bin.

I know, it’s hard to believe. You probably see three empty containers up there right? I mean, that’s what LovelyWife and the Zadorable see when they look at these. That would explain why they keep putting things in the containers even when they overflow. That would also explain their weird flushing habit, but that might be another post. Sans pictures, of course.

What? What do you mean? Define “Bozo”?

I can prove you yet once more that I am an asshole. Thursday morning on the bus, this woman sitting behind me was reading. She kept hitting me on the back with her book – she was resting the top of her book on the top of the back of my seat. After a little while, I politely asked her to please stop touching me with her book and she made the face. You know the face that says “Shut the fuck up you moron”. So I did. When my stop came, I stood up and saw that she was reading Soul of the Fire, the fifth novel in the Sword of Truth series.  So I told her how the series ends. I made the face, and stepped off the bus.

* I’m giving full credit to Kapgar for the “TUA – Totally Unrelated Aside”, the inspiration behind the Aparté.

Oh yeah, it’s Monday all right.

This is “Disintegration” from Luke Chueng.

I gotta keep it together. I might kill someone before the day is over*. Stay tuned.

*Of course I won’t. But if I did, wouldn’t this be messed up?