Feng-Shui

I wrote an ungodly amount of blog posts in November. Part of that was because of my own inability to work on my novel (9 pages in thirty days isn't productive). Shit's not Feng Shui, but I'm going to move furniture around a little. I'm still maintaining my crazy posting schedule here, once a day + memes + videos. But not more than one piece a day. Unless I'm reviwing stuff also. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I'm aiming to go back down to 50-60 something posts a month. 80 is too much and came to fuel up my problem.

Like right now, I'm not going to do the Broke & Bookish top 10, because I've already done it. If anybody's looking for me, I'm working on the novel and doing an occasional Twitter post.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here (It's About Facebook)

I've always advocated Facebook. Since a training partner convinced me to use it somewhere in 2006-2007, I've always been a big user. I used it for work, for gaming, for the proverbial reunion with people from your past and the haunting from people from your past you wish stayed gone. Social media were never really a phenomenon before Facebook and it's safe to assume they would lose a considerable amount of speed if it disappeared tomorrow. The modern world would change if Facebook disappears.

The love-hate relationship I have with Mark Zuckerberg's monster baby is not new, but it took a really personal turn not long ago. Before last September I always had high spirits (or almost). Unfortunately for me, I have discovered this Fall that I am prone to mortal emotions such as depression and angst (maybe I should read Fight Club again?) These are two emotions that Facebook does not want. There's no way to expose vulnerability without sounding A)like a cry-baby B)like a drama queen C) like a weirdo or D)all of the above. Here's how a typical status update goes for a depressed guy.

Depressed - I don't feel well. Would like to spend a whole week in a dark room where nothing happens. Peace and quiet, you know?

Work Colleague - You're gonna flake our "after-work beer" AGAIN?

Concerned friend - I'll call you.

Old classmate - Emo.

Depressed - ...

Old high school crush - You should come back in town and let the rays of the sun heal your wounds.

Depressed - The sun is pretty good here. But you know? Peace, quiet, darkness. I'm not sure the beach is what I want.

Old high school crush - Don't get all snippy, I'm just trying to help.

Old Classmate Turned Pyramid Salesman - You should try Master Merdhod home yoga class kit, follow this link @ http...

Our poor depressed status updater cannot win. If he angers the old high school crush, he's going to get a private message. If he deflects the colleague, he's going to get a phone call. An email if he answers something to the old classmate. Your Facebook page is supposed to be your personal space, a digital proof of your presence in the world. Twitter is based on messages exchange, but on Facebook, you occupy a space and therefore it's a lot more personal. If you're depressed, you can make people know in one sentence instead of disappearing completely, committing suicide or crashing at your friend's house in drunken tears.

But it's not what it is in reality. What it is, it's a breach in your privacy by your social ring. It's an eye looking at you when you don't want. If you're dumb enough like me and use it for work purpose, you can also never really close it. Facebook is self-sufficient at finding ways to stay in your life. Of course I exaggerate here. I still have enough preservation instinct to shut if off and not falling in those gaming traps (I said I gamed a little, but I'm not actively doing that). I still believe there's no way to "win" at Facebook. The only way to "win" at it is to spend as much time away from it as possible and win at life.

Because this is what Facebook really is. Your mediated life. You can read it, people can read it, you feel like you matter. But you can also sit down and chat with your friends, play games and not do anything productive for a long time. Your life will disappear in scrambled text. So in the end, you and your friends who spent a gazillion hours on Facebook will all "Like" the pages of those people who spend time outside doing things. Maybe it's the first step I have to take to feel a little better. Stop going on Facebook so much. I'll try Twitter as my Nicorette. You can't play games, you can't chat and you don't have a million apps to put on your page.

Segments

Josie and I have been juggling with the idea of cancelling cable for almost a year now. We don't watch television much, but we never had the balls to call and pull the plug. This week, we suscribed to Netflix through my new and awesome Playstation 3 and realized that it was a pretty viable alternative. Cut the cable, put a little more bandwith instead and here you go. The provider is happy and you have a video store in your house. At a ridiculous monthly fee. I'm not a fan of regular fees on my credit card, but this is actually making me save money, as long as the bandwith usage stays reasonable.

I'm finally reading Tom Wolfe. He's indeed a very talented narrator and a by-the-book journalist. Maybe one of the finest we ever had. But I'm having trouble with his set of rules which I think serve him in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Wolfe writes at the first person in the true new journalism fashion (which he claims to have invented), but he plays the role of the anthropological observer to Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Wolfe creates distance with them, which makes them look like a bunch of savages with chaotic structure. The worst part is that you can't say his method is dishonest, because he reports the fact and only the facts. But I do question his motivations. A hundred pages in so far.

Posted my entry for the Quebec Writers Federation's mentorship program. I had to print and mail five copies of a ten pages sample, which happens to be my first chapter. It's a good feeling to read yourself on a printed page. Part of what makes writing so difficult to me is that blinding white pages...and the internet that's one click away. Everything looks so bad when you read it in a Word processor. I found myself thinking my stuff was pretty decent if I looked at it on a page. I will get news of my application in January. Judging by how I never even have form rejection for my submission to their online journal, I'm not expecting much. I did email Lori Schubert about it though. I don't mind rejection but I mind silence. Plus, my Fitzgeraldesque wall of rejection slips could use more paper.

Mad Men Diaries, Part 02

Season 1, Episode 10

*If you didn't watch season one, I guess you shouldn't read*


My heart is a conquered planet. Mad Men is a worthy successor to The Wire in my heart, because it's so different. The first felt like being repeatedly punched in the liver by Manny Pacquiao as Mad Men is more like getting ball sacked by Ric Flair. It's another kind of entertaining. It's a show about desire and identity. Don Draper isn't really Don Draper, but he's not Dick Whitman either. He's not really anybody, didn't have any family (in the proper sense of the term) so he can be whoever he wants. And he quite succeeds.

Matthew Weiner and his team are dissecting here, the myth of the self-made man. The lonesome, dark and nihilistic man in a suit becomes so strong an stoic because he lacked something very basic: love. He became somebody else strong enough to be worthy of love and admiration and walled himself up in this unflinching figure, this silent soldier that nobody can hurt. It's quite the beauty to pull the strings, episode by episode and get under the shell of Draper.

Another great character is Roger Sterling, the jaded, alcoholic and self-destructive senior associate. His life is crowned with success but he hurling himself from party to party, from women to women, looking for what's beyond material success. He's a tragic figure, someone I can understand now that I'm tasting the everyday grind of professional life. Possessions can't numb his existential despair and he found refuge in alcohol and women.

Draper and Sterling are by far the most interesting characters. They are the two strongest and yet the two most evidently vulnerable. Pete Campbell is also interesting, but I don't relate to him as much as the first two. I guess Donald Maass was right when he said that it's exactly why main protagonists need to be the strongest characters in fiction. Mad Men is amazing and if you're a writer, there's this little extra for you.

Moive Review : Snuff: A Documentary About Killing On Camera (2008)

Country:

USA

Recognizable Faces:

None. Just people who knows about snuff movies.

Directed By:

Paul Von Stoetzel



A snuff movie is a film where somebody is killed on camera for the sole purpose of monetary profit. It can be sexual, cathartic or pretty much whatever the client is into. Also, snuff movies are a myth. According to Snopes, there's no evidence of an actual copy of a snuff film ever existed. So making a documentary on them is a little problematic. Because documentaries are suppose to document reality, at least in the academic definition of the term.

So what is there to this movie? A lot of terrible hearsays and stories for sure. One about a Russian dude named Dmitri Kuznetsov, who supposedly smuggles some snuff pedophilia (can it get any sicker?). No copies of his movies have been ever found and the taped conversations he had were suspicious at best (a discussion with an Italian buyer who calls his movies fake and disappointing), so Kuznetsov is still free right now. There's another story, told by the same guy, named Mark Rosen. He allegedly saw a snuff movie in the Philippines in the seventies where a girl gets her throat slit during the act. Riveting testimony it is, but it's also just a testimony. That's as far as documenting snuff movies as Von Stoetzel's film goes.

For a good fifty to sixty minutes (out of an overall seventy-five), Snuff: A Documentary About Killing On Camera dissects the perception of snuff phenomenon in the mass media. About how some completely fictitious movies like Snuff or Cannibal Holocaust were perceived as the real deal and how their directors ran into troubles. Von Stoetzel also examines the angles of serial killers filming themselves and soldiers war tapes. Both none of them ARE snuff. They're pretty violent, but they have nothing to do with what the movie wants to talk about.

So Snuff: A Documentary About Killing On Camera is not exactly a documentary in itself. But it sure tries its best shot and sparks a lot of debates in its trail. With the proliferation of violent videos on the internet, it's hard to believe snuff movies didn't exist or haven't already existed. The question is, what's the best angle to talk about it? Reality clearly fails expose snuff movies. Fiction on snuff like 8MM and Tesis were also far from convincing. You can't talk about myths and anchor your claims in reality. So what do we have left? Paul Von Stoetzel doesn't succeeds at documenting snuff, but you can hardly blame him for giving it his best shot.

SCORE: 62%

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Under The Bridge

It's been a very peaceful Sunday and there's one peaceful song I can't get out of my head. I'm sure you all know it, it's a great song that proved it could beat time and trends. Too bad the band never lived up to it.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Under The Bridge

Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in, the city of angels
Lonely as I am, together we cry

I drive on her streets 'cause she's my companion
I walk through her hills 'cause she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds and she kisses the windy
Well, I never worry, now that is a lie

I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love, take me all the way
I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love, take me all the way, yeah, yeah, yeah

It's hard to believe that there's nobody out there
It's hard to believe that I'm all alone
(From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/red-hot-chili-peppers-lyrics/under-the-bridge-lyrics.html)
Atleast I have her love, the city, she loves me
Lonely as I am, together we cry

I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love, take me all the way
I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day
But take me to the place I love, take me all the way, yeah yeah yeah

Oh, no, no, no, yeah yeah
Love me, I say, yeah yeah

One time

Under the bridge downtown
Is where I drew some blood
Under the bridge downtown
I could not get enough

Under the bridge downtown
Forgot about my love
Under the bridge downtown
I gave my life away

Yeah yeah yeah
Oh, no, no, no, yeah yeah


Where I stay

The Joys Of The Barber Shop (Just Another Rant On Some Weird Dude)

One thing I keep reading in writing manuals is how good fiction writers are good observers. I'm not, I'm way too entrenched in my own imaginary and all, I would be a perfect candidate to fall into a manhole. The barber shop is a place where I have to fortunately stay grounded. My barber is one of those old school men who are charismatic enough to channel a whole room into conversation. The most awesome part is that he's a 34 years old Lebanese guy named Ron. His hair is to gelled up it looks square and made out of plastic. His tan and his goatee are just two shades of the same color. And did I mention the gold chains? He just happens to approach his work in a very old school fashion and this is exactly why I love going there. It's one of those male moments where I get to bond with people I really don't fucking know. It's an amnesty zone for privacy. I try to go on Saturdays because it's busy and I get at least an hour of different people before it's my turn.

Yesterday there was this strange guy getting a haircut, he was Ontarian (Quebecers always find Ontarian people weird and vice-versa. It goes with that whole values duality). Like a good barber he is, he sparks up the conversation with a very general question: "Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?". Surprisingly enough the guy says: "It's all done, I went to the States last week, I went crazy". That got me off my iPhone game for a second. The guy was big, strong, but fairly overweight. He wore dress/urban clothes and had a Leonardo Di Caprio circa-Romeo & Juliet haircut. Maybe same age or younger than me. Quite the number. Then he says: "I bought five watches, Kenneth Cole. Three for myself". Too much information for me to stay put:

"Why three for yourself, if I may ask?"

"I paid them forty bucks each. At that price, it would have been stupid not to".

Ron agreed.

"Well yeah, but why three? You need only one to give you time, you have some relatives in another time zone?"

"No man, a black one for home, a red one for dress and a white one for work".

"You wear a different watch for work?"

I guess I stayed very polite throughout (Hah! Call that barber shop ethics), because he kept answering my questions like I was his retarded little brother.

"Yeah man, I work in finance you know? You need to look good to inspire client's trust and all"

I nodded and went back to my block puzzle game. Call me a little boy at heart, but I don't care about my appearance to that point. I mean, does the client really cares if you're wearing a white or a black watch? Personally, the more exuberant the watch, the more I'm turned away from a man. I've been raised in that grey zone in between old school values and new school psychology and I like my watch to give time,that's it. I try to show flare with other things than my possessions. Does that make me judgmental or old school?

Ian McEwan Interview Bundle

Here are two cool interviews about my latest discovery Ian McEwan. In the first one he's discussing the science in Solar (which I think is kind of missing the book's point) and in the second one, he's talking about his late friend John Updike. It's mind blowing to hear a talented writers describe another. In just a little over four minutes, I wanted to read John Updike, have him as a friend or better, have him over for a beer. McEwans draws such a tender and wholesome portrait, it's hard to resist this author who's been many times called a very difficult person. Enjoy!

The "Are You Well Read" Test

This is the new blog meme thing. I first found it at Dan's Sanguine Musing's blog, but this is the complete list without double entries. Apparently the average books read on this list is six. My score? Twenty-Four. I'm very glad to be under fifty. To be quite frank, that list has suspicious names on it like Terry Pratchett and J.K Rowling. I'm very glad that my experience of literature differs from the institutionalized prescriptions. May that list never be complete.


1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling

23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving

29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck

30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson

32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson

37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute

38. Persuasion, Jane Austen

39. Dune, Frank Herbert

40. Emma, Jane Austen

41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl

57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome

58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer

60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden

63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

74. Matilda, Roald Dahl

75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding

76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt

77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson

87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

89. Magician, Raymond E Feist

90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac

91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo

92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

95. Katherine, Anya Seton

96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

A Free Class On Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49

Yale University and Professor Amy Hungerford were kind enough to put on YouTube this somewhat enlightening class she gave on Thomas Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49, which I have finished and reviewed this week. As I am willing to trust her interpretation (she spent much more time around the novel than me), she has failed to convince me that Pynchon matters. Maybe he has a great relevance in the History of Literature, but The Crying Of Lot 49 is a problematic metafictional novel. Also, Prof. Hungerford achieved to convince me that Academic Literature is garbage.

So if I'm following Prof. Hungerford, "The Crying..." is pretty much what I'm against in novels: self-involvement, empty meaning and incoherent structure. I can see how Wallace was inspired by Pynchon when I think about "The Broom..." but I fail to see how this is more than mimetic. Wallace has this oath of sincerity and truthfulness he took to the reader and never deviates from. What I get from Pynchon is another "recluse genius" vibe, who validates themselves by being cryptic and locking people out. Many of the conclusions drawn by Prof. Hungerford is that there's no conclusion, that the message is in the form and in its questionning (Have you heard that? Marshall MacLuhan just turned over in his grave). Watch it if you're very curious about Pynchon. It's a nice series ran by Yale about "The American Novel since 1945", which is pretty much what I read. There's a nice video about Blood Meridian.

Friday's People Thread: Outside Words

Let's play a game. See, I have a confession to make. The reason why I speak so little about my daily job is that I'm scared to let it become me. I'm afraid to become Microsoft Word issues, bitchy clients and a recurring back ache from all those hours in a chair. I'm also scared to become heavy discussions about Wallace, Rollins, Lehane and all the others, but that's why you read me for right? For now I just try to keep literature inside my eighteen inches screen.

But let's leave it completely out today. Let's play a game where you have to name your three main centers of interest. Anything literature or cinema are forbidden (but other arts are OK), your family also (pertinent, but too easy) and your job also (duh!). Everything else, you can talk about it. I'm curious to see what kind of person you all are beside boos. I will gladly start.

Mixed Martial Arts

I've been involved with the MMA scene for seven years now. First as a student, then as a fighter, now as a coach/promoter. The sport sure took tremendous steam since 2003 and the game has become mainstream and there's a number of issues tied to that. Issues that are mainly in tight shirts, on steroids and sporting a mo/faux hawk. And tribal tattoos. I still love the sport and I still help all those who do it for the right reasons. I'm awfully selfless when it comes to mixed martial arts. I should do it a little more for me, so it wouldn't be such a ball buster sometimes.

Video Games

This is my escapism. My mind is focused when I read or when I watch movies, but sitting back and kill bad guys, that I can do without thinking too much. Since Josie offered me a brand new console for my birthday I've been diving back into gaming with great pleasure. I have yet to do a gaming marathon, but it's coming. I prefer third person shooting games and platformers (think Mario or Sonic), but I can dig most genres when done properly. It's something I grew up with and it's there to stay. They are a hobby, but I have to confess I write quite a bit about them on Hooked Gamers.

Dogs

Dogs have turned from a simple interest into a passion when Josie and I got Scarlett. I like them more than most animals because I relate to them more (they are my totem animal) and because of their lack of duplicity. In a little over a year I have learned a lot about breeds and their behavior from the dog park and from the internet. When you see many dogs every day you realize most of their reputations are overdone, bordering urban legends.

And you, what are your passions?

Book Review : Ian McEwan - Solar (2010)

Country: United Kingdom

Genre: Satire

Pages: 304



My first audiobook and boy, will I ever keep fond memories. I "read" Solar while walking Scarlett for the last week and discovered a smart and mature writers, who developed a style and a discourse of his own. I associated his name with the contrived face of James McAvoy in the adaptation of Atonement and tried to stay the hell away from him for almost ten years. After going through Solar, I admit, it was a mistake.

McEwan's latest offering is a satirical novel about climate change. That's a weird tone to take. An ecological disaster is ultimately what's going to kill us all, so to take a mocking angle on it? That is exactly how McEwan puts his novel above the others. Michael Beard is a brilliant, serious physicist that won the Nobel prize in his youth and he's given a special opportunity, save the world from that abstract calamity that is global warming. But as much as Beard is a respected figure in intellectual circles, he also has a life outside work and it's all over the place. The novel takes place over a nine years period where he: divorces with his fifth wife, accidentally gets somebody killed, frames another for murder, gets his girlfriend pregnant. A lot of activity for that eminent scientist in his fifties.

I liked Solar so much because it's tackling two very important and passionating issues and it does it with style. First of all, Michael Beard is a prime example of those people for whom knowledge is all. It's power, it's money and it ends up being themselves, which causes terrible problem when time to function outside an intellectual circle. Beard literally cannot function when his intellectual power isn't adequate to the situation. He's trapped by who he always wanted to become, he reached a point of "non-return" like many other intellectuals.

Also, Solar discusses the frail nature of knowledge and truth. Let's quote for example a fictional objective fact: "The sun will explode in 20 years". It's alarming news, but in order to get people alarmed, it has to go through so many deforming subjective layers, it's never going to reach it's destination. First of all, it has to go through the scientist who asks himself: "Will my career go forward if I announce that? Will I get my grant, knowing all is going to end"? Then is has to go through journalists, who have to decide if it's a good story or if it's worth it to alarm people and create chaos. The government also and other scientist who will try to gain person momentum by refuting the statement. The truth is object to human nature and it's a terrifying aspect put forward by Solar.

The great achievement of Ian McEwan in this novel is to have used the satirical tone to his advantage, to put his points forward. Trapping himself in drama would have obfuscated his discourse with an empty story that would have taken way too much space. With the satirical approach, he makes Michael Beard a rhetorical example and removes credibility from the "state of knowledge". It puts a perspective on the notion of emergency and drama. McEwan is a brilliant mind and a capable writer. Solar delighted me.

The David Foster Wallace Archives

It's been finally made public. The University Of Texas in Austin has recently made the acquisition of 20 000 items of his drafts, letter and personal papers. The transaction has been done somewhere around August if I remember well, but it just been made available to public (they had to sort out the mess first I guess) and Newsweek were the first courageous to take a look at them. They have written a very touching article about it I invite you all to read.

Did you know he wrote his first story for school, when he was only nine years old? The story is narrated by a tea kettle and the first words he's ever written are: "Ouch! Listen I come to you for advice. This flame is real hot but I love my job". Isn't it eerie? He burned out doing what he loved the most. Tragically, it's something very appealing about him. There's a level of complete passion and involvement in his work that most of us will never reach. But reading his first literary words made me realize something. Childhood is important. Like, very important. Growing up to eighteen years old, whatever you're going to experience is going to make you who you are. It's easy to dismiss things like bullying and emotional outbursts of children, but most people (me included are modeled by the child they were). At nine years old, David Foster Wallace was already scared of burning out. What happened there? He probably got patted in the back and told he has a lot of imagination.

Literary Blog Hop Part Quatre: What Can Turn A Novel Into A Classic?

The Hop is getting better and better every week. For those who don't know what the Literary Blog Hop is, visit this link and join the madness. The question this week is: "What makes a contemporary novel a classic? Discuss a book which you think fits the category of ‘modern classics’ and explain why."

If there's anything I would call myself an expert at, it's contemporary fiction, so here are my two cents. Whether you like it or not, people in a hundred years will still read the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. I'm not completely convinced about Palahniuk's relevance, I'm very hit and miss about his fiction, but Fight Club is one of my top 3 favorite novels ever and it's only been written in 1996. There are many reasons for that.

I think that staying power behind a novel comes from addressing a problem of its time. I might piss off many female readers here, but I am convinced of my point. Society changed extremely fast since the fifties. For the better. Females emancipated and stormed the work market. The classic icon of the male purveyor who comes home at night in a suit and reads the paper is not valid anymore. Once again, I think it's a great thing, that stereotype was retarded and bound to disappear. But you can't move things that much without putting everything out of places. Males in the nineties (and still today, hence the ever-staying actuality of the novel) feel useless and vulnerable with no strong image to hold on to. Television tries to convince them they'll be rock stars of Hollywood actors, but when the television is off, there's a huge void, a gap.

Fight Club courageously addresses the issue of male existential dread. Even more so, it proposes a solution. The disciples of Tyler Durden organize into a clandestine society and try to change things, to shake the values of a society which makes them who they are and who they loathe. And it all starts at the Fight Club. There is no bigger affirmation of life than to fight. People who never did it think it's a pulsion of death, but they are wrong. By hitting another person in a consensual fight (not in an aggression, of course), by making marks on his face, it's to keep saying "I exist, I exist". You never forget those you fought with.

That's where Fight Club takes its power. It puts the finger on an unnamed problem of its time. Everybody affected by the problem can relate. Fight Club changed my life as it did for millions of other young men. In a preface, Palahniuk said that 3000 young men around the world legally changed their name to Tyler Durden. There's meaning behind that name. Power, boldness and will to change your life around. It named a disease. It's a 216 pages name that takes form of a story, but when you name a disease, you also identify its functions and its limits. During its time a novel gains power by addressing problems and keeps its place in time by chronicling an era. History is never history until it's passed. Before that, it's a social issue.

Fight Club is bold, courageous and honest. For that reason, it touched the lives of millions of people. It also made a blue print for novelist on how to write "game changers". Those novels who dare to attack reality with fiction.

Book Review : Thomas Pynchon - The Crying Of Lot 49 (1964)

Country: USA

Genre: Literary/Postmodern

Page: 178


Have you ever dosed off at the wheel? You know what panicky feeling when you wake up off the road? The whole world around you is shaking and you're heading right into a tree, but you can't help trying to remember what was that dream that you were having? I stayed bathing into this feeling for the near-200 pages that lasted The Crying Of Lot 49. It's not a bad thing in itself that a novel inspires such strong feelings, but whenever a novel is too dense and locks me out, I can't help but to feel dumb. And I hate to feel dumb, like many of you, I suspect. My introduction to Pynchon has officially missed the highway.

The thing with The Crying Of Lot 49 is that it's trying to pile of a mountain of things in such a small space. The first sentence only is a paragraph long and expresses four or five different ideas and refers to things that will happen later in the novel. As I expected, there's a tremendous difference between what is said and what is meant. The story is pretty compelling in an over-the-top, slapstick way, but doesn't make a lot of sense if you don't dig under. It's about Oedipia Maas (what a great name!) who becomes the testament executor of her ex-boyfriend and happens (I'm still not even sure how) to stumble upon a two hundred years old conflict in between to mail distribution companies Thurn Und Taxis (who actually existed) and Trystero, who appear to be extinct, but actually form an underground society. If you're a casual reader that just loves to fly away in a good story, your road stops here. And it's not very good.

If you're interested in a bit of literary muscle work, the fun begins. With Pynchon, you have to always second guess everything. That's as close to an "intellectual sport" as you will experience. There are actually two school of thoughts about The Crying Of Lot 49 (since Pynchon is somewhat of a mysterious character, it was never fully discussed). Those who though it was postmodern and those who thought it made fun of postmodern. I find myself in the latter category. I think some of the mysteries Pynchon tried to create are actually unsolvable. It's that whole "empty signifier" rhetoric. It can mean a thousand things so really, it means nothing to a fully objective reader (I think I'm as close as it gets). My favorite is being "The Courier Tragedy", the stage play created around Trystero's demise. As it clearly makes fun of metafiction, it's easy to try and put meaning on it as I'm not sure it goes beyond comedy.

I finished "The Crying..." with the deep, unsatisfying feeling that I have been duped. I wanted to read it again, but at the same time I'm angry at myself and at the writer for running into a brick wall so hard. I'm going to put it down for a little while and think it over. Maybe listen to an audiobook and get a different perspective.

SCORE: None. And this novel makes me reconsider the pertinence of scoring my reviews. If it's what Pynchon brought me, that's already a lot.

Zero Punctuation - Call Of Duty: Black Ops

Yahtzee and overhyped products don't make a good mix. Let's enjoy the show.

Say Hello To My Little Friend...

This is a hipstamatic portrait of my dog Scarlett. We call her Scarlett, BooBoo (because she loves running away with lunches) or Lil' Clown (because of the nose) The reason why she looks so cute here is that she's looking at the peanut butter toast I'm eating while I take a picture. I'm not too big on animal blogging, but I thought I'd take a minute to tell you how awesome she is.

First of all, Scarlett is the smallest boxer ever. She's not a miniature boxer, she's just small. You know that person in your high school prom year who never made it past five feet? That's her. Another awesome trait is that she doesn't bark, she communicates with sighs. She has an hungry sigh, a tired sigh, an excited sigh and the most awesome, an annoyed sigh. Sometimes she yawns and smacks her lips to conjugate.

I unconditionally like dogs, because they're so 100% about everything. If they hate you, they're going to try to claw your face. If they love you, they'll sprawl over you and ask to rob their belly. If they're hungry they will stare at your food like at a religious artifact. They have an important role in my fiction. Whenever you see a dog in my story, he's most likely to see the bigger picture before any humans do. However complex is the thing to say, look at the dogs and they'll give you the simplified version.

Top 10 Books That Will Ruin Your Day

You know what? I don't read Christmas books. I also don't watch Christmas movies (except for Scrooged) or Christmas T.V shows special episode. Better yet, I work this year on Christmas. So I'm not happy. Here are ten book that will make you miserable.

1-120 Days Of Sodom by Marquis de Sade: Great book if you're ever interested in the different uses of feces to get off.

2-Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce: Everything's been said. If you get out of this one alive, better yet, enlightened. I give you a blog award. But you have to explain it to me.

3-Far From Medina by Assia Djebar: One of the most painful reads ever (for school, of course). It's supposed to be about women in Islam and it's just a very pretentious book written for the academy.

4-The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago: Apparently, you need to be a Fernando Pessoa scholar to understand this book. Josie is the biggest Pessoa fan and still couldn't make it through the first chapter. Another academy-aimed book.

5-Veronika Decides To Die by Paolo Coelho: If you ever feel not qualified enough to take decisions for yourself, you might find this book helpful.If you're a normal person, it will give your mind gonorrhea.

6-Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: Great book, but it's going to pummel you with information so hard you're going to need an IV and a 24/7 paramedic to finish it.

7-Hygiene And The Assassin by Amelie Nothomb: It wants to be feminist, but it's just...it's just a very bad story about a girl with emotional problems.

8-Ice People by René Barjavel: Starts good, great even. Then it's like watching a train run through an elementary school. It's a masturbatory tale of greater insignificance.

9-La Révolution Des Fourmis by Bernard Werber: "The Revolution Of The Ants". So bad it was never translated. The first two ants books were great, but this one has been written for pedophiles. I never forgave him this book.

10-In Search Of Lost Time by Marcel Proust: For every point of literary cred you get reading this book, you also get a brain aneurysm and and months of counselling. It's not worth it. Technique can only be that interesting before the boring memories drive you insane.

Planning My Back To The Classics 2011 Challenge

Sarah from Sarah Reads Too Much is hosting a Back To The Classics Challenge for 2011l. Everyone is getting ready and planning their reading strategies, so here's mine. For once, I refuse to be the late one.

A Banned Book: Beloved by Toni Morrison (I pussied out of this one many times, it's now or never)

A Book with a Wartime Setting: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut (hah! I pulled your collective pants down)

Pulitzer Prize winner/runner up: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (predictable, I know)

Children's or Young Adult Classic: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (what?)

19th Century Classic: Bouvard & Pecuchet by Gustave Flaubert (this one was hard to chose)

20th Century Classic: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (this one wasn't)

A Book you think should be a 21st Century Classic: A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (just reading the back sleeve made me sad)

A re-read from High School/College: Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger (I went to school in french, but I will pretend I didn't)

A lot of overdue readings I keep pushing back. It's going to be a more challenging task than I would have thought.

Gutter Cleaning And New Additions

The most sagacious of you might have noticed, things changed a little today. I'm always looking to improve my blog for my small but fortunately growing audience. I cleaned up a few dead links and obvious references to sites that don't help or don't need my help. All you have now in the links section are interesting art projects, writing opportunities and helpful links. I put the sites and magazines I wrote for in a different section, which I hope will grow with time. It's a good way to put the focus on what I do beside writing a novel.

I pulled a few links from the blogroll also and put in those I discovered while browsing and participating to diverse blog activities. It's a section that is bound to grow too. Here are the four new additions, which I invite you to check out:

The Blue Bookcase
Literary Musings
Psycho-Noir
What Read Red

Oh and then there's that widget thingie also. I think it's cute and it's an honest invitation to read. Don't you?

Quiet Hallways (Controlled Drifting)

When I moved to the city, eight years ago, my parents had one big concern. That I would die somehow. Cities have a strange reputation with quiet townsfolk. They are lands of moral perdition and the image of someone dying in the street with people passing by and ignoring the problem is like a recurring nightmare. Go from town to town, from house to house, into the groceries stores where everybody knows each other and you'll hear that story. A relative of someone they knew died and the city while people passed by and did nothing to help.

I have always chalked it off as a "peek-a-boo" scare, fueled by ignorance. I'm growing older and am spending obscene amounts of time in the subway, going for one point to another and I reevaluate my opinions. We tune out a huge part of our lives. I don't think it's something specific to cities, but it's sure a bigger problem where there's a heavy affluence of people. We all cope the way we can with the discomfort of public transport. We listen to music, play hand held video games, sleep, read the papers or like I do, a book. If you like in an economic center of your country, try to think about how you got to work today. You're so used to that road, it's memorized down in the core of your being, so every morning when you take it, you try to get your mind away from it and make your experience renewable. There could be a dead person somewhere in my subway station, but if it doesn't scream or stink, there's a good chance I won't notice.

But you can't reduce social irresponsibility to boredom. The other day, I walked into a metro station and found a beggar, crashed out of his wheelchair, face first against the steel platform of the escalator. People passed him by as if they didn't see him. Yeah he stinks, he might have lice, but he's still a human being in need of help. It's very easy to pass him by and say: "Well, he can't stay like that forever, somebody's bound to help him". But in all truth, it's not the case. If you think like that, everybody else will. I didn't help him directly, but I know how the subway system works. There are cops patrolling every station (maybe not every one, but this was a big one, Jean-Talon, where two lines crosses). I warned the metro clerk, who warned the cops, who I lead to him. The man was able to get assistance and nobody got lice. I arrived home fifteen minutes late, but who cares?

For quiet, proud and responsible people, boredom is the end of the line. The entertainment industry is selling you ways to forget about your existence. Buy and Die. It's never so apparent to me than on the subway, where people stuff themselves in the train with druggy, sheepish look. They try to reduce this living and breathing chaos into a nice, small and quiet hallway. And so am I, sometimes.

Famous Writers Day Jobs

I'm going through a period of emotional turmoil regarding my professional life. I wake up at night asking myself questions such as: "Why don't I write for SPIN yet?" and "Why does Rolling Stone keeps rejecting my brilliant essays"? In search for a little solace (pun!) regarding my current situation, I have made a research on famous writers and their day jobs. Turns out that not every writer had an awesome life of adventure like Hemingway. Here's a comprehensive list that will hopefully blow some wind in your back as it did for me.


Dashiell Hammett was a goddamn Pinkerton! OK, it's not helping...next!

Nathaniel Hawthorne worked as a weighter and gauger in Boston's Custom House. He was the guy with the scale when the pirates sailed in with gold.

Dan Brown (yep, Mr. Da Vinci Code himself) went through the hell of teaching English in high school. He was probably taken in pity by many as "that poor teacher with those novelist hopes"

Nicholas Sparks, Mr. Notebook has been turned down by the publishing world, so he waited tables to finance his dream of writing. I'm somewhat touched and have a new feeling of respect for the guy.

William Faulkner was a postmaster! How awesome is that? In between solving packaging issues, he found the time to write As I Lay Dying, The Sound And The Fury and Sanctuary.

Harlan Ellison did any dirty job that would allow him a little peace and quiet at night to write his own stuff. He was even a door to door salesman at some point! Ugh!

Anthony Trollope stamped your letters at the post office. No one knew the funny bearded guy woke up every morning at 5 to work on thick novels that could kick your ass.

Dennis Lehane, before A Drink Before The War was a delivery boy. He failed at journalism and English teaching so he took every possible job that would finance his goal.

Zero Punctuation - Amnesia: The Dark Descent

It's one of the two ZP's that were published while I was in Argentina. I take the time to re-post it on my own, because it's funny, it's good insight on a game (and a whole genre) and I would have felt bad to leave it out!

Mad Men Diaries, Part 01

Josie and I finished watching The Wire last summer. You can't finish a series like that and hop directly to another. The Wire was so good, we had to mourn for a time afterwards, because we knew there would be no more fresh episodes this glorious audiovisual achievement in fiction. I took forever before starting The Wire. Hell, I almost even refused to watch it. The premisce seemed to abstract and theoretical anyway."The different facets of Baltimore", who could have though it could be so damn gripping.

So while browsing for a new series, I kept that in mind. What could be the broadest, most abstract premise that kept the regular viewers and the critics delighted. Mad Men's "how publicity changed America, back in the sixties" was abstract enough for me. Yesterday evening, Josie, Scarlett and I locked ourselves in our hovel with the three first episodes and I have to say I was very pleased. I'm a few episodes it, but I can tell you already there's a few things Mad Men does very well.

First of all, it's not confused. It's a reflective look at the sixties and it knows exactly it's supposed to denote the structural change in the way Americans think. Unlike garbage like Pleasantville, Mad Men isn't judging anyone and it replaces the reflective kitsch humor by a serious and honest analysis. Part of the reason why it's not confused is that its not trying to spare anybody's sensitivity. Mad Men shows America like it was in the sixties. Tormented, changing, but also extremely sexist. And it shows. A few times, I heard Josie whisper to herself: "Oh God, bunch of macho assholes" while shaking her fist at the screen. It's sign of a message that hits the spot. When you want to discuss an issue, the best way is always to charge it like a Humvee through a brick wall. The sexist of Mad Men got under my skin and I loved it.

As the sexist is a nice touch "of the era", the reflexive aspect is also very well crafted. You see women suffering from their condition, men like Don Draper, who, while being totally swaggerful, are very progressive for their time (and also awfully quiet about their assumed progressiveness). Writer Matthew Weiner goes under the bed sheets of uneasy weddings and displays exactly what he wants to talk about - an America that is ready for major changes. I'm going to love that show. If reality television had any positive impact on Occidental society, it's that it forced writers to get out of their comfort zone and try their luck with new, bulky fiction, like The Wire and Mad Men. It made crap shows like E.R irrelevant. Mad Men is quality entertainment.

My Sunday's Outrage

I wrote a post last August about the eyes of writers. Real writers, with artistic and visceral conviction behind their words all share that same gaze of boiling frustration and despair. It's normal. The more you get into writing, the more you understand that your absolute will never be. In that regard, James Frey isn't a writer.

I struggle to find him any artistic interest at all.

Can somebody tell me why the fuck does this guy still gets publishing deals? And why does anyone would still lend him any credibility after what he pulled? Now that he lied in A Million Little Pieces and gave L.A a "literary treament" in Bright Shiny Morning (I'm pretty sure James Ellroy shook his fist in anger, he wants to write the next Twilight. How does one write the next Twilight? It's like I would tell you: "I'll start playing guitar to record the next Master Of Puppets"

Twilight was a lonely mother's wet dream and Master Of Puppets was a drug and booze fueled bold and original composition. You can't write "the next Twilight". I'm pretty sure when Hunter S. Thompson wrote Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, he didn't tell people "I'm writing the next Death In The Afternoon". James Frey doesn't want to write, he wants to be rich and famous. He tried writing a fake memoir and it almost worked (without the internet,I'm pretty sure it would've). He tried literary fiction and failed...and now he wants to write YA fiction? Does this guy have any respect for anything?

Apparently not.

When he was working on A Million Little Pieces, Frey told us, he wanted to write in the tradition of Tropic of Cancer, “A Season in Hell,” and Paris Spleen—transgressive works by transgressive authors. As he pointed out, heavy hitters never write like the established writers of their own time. Hemingway used short, declarative sentences; Miller wrote about sexuality in the first-person present tense; Mailer blurred the line between fact and fiction. These men created their own styles. Frey said Mailer even told him, right before he died, “You’re the next one of us.”

I don't know if any of you ever read Mailer, but I did. Mailer wrote novels whether of not they were fiction was pretty clear. Tropic Of Cancer also happens to be the only Henry Miller novel I have ever read...and...it's not like anything else you know. Especially not a James Frey fake memoir. The "fictional" parts are pretty easy to identify as they are things no one sane enough to write a book would ever do. I just can't stand those shameless con artist that don't want anything but money and fame. They claim they are famous so they can be more famous and in this case, Frey argues his position by name dropping some of my favorite writers.

Fuck this guy. Fuck everything that he stands for and fuck his books. He would write anything to rob you of your hard earned money.

Book Review : Chuck Klosterman - Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs (2003)

Country: USA

Genre: Non-Fiction/Essays

Pages: 246



Chuck Klosterman is an aging hipster. He's also way too smart to bow down to the dogmas of irony worshipper. That makes for an interesting intellectal dynamic. Originally from North Dakota, he emigrated to the city in his twenties and was quickly hired by major publications like The New York Times Magazine, Spin and The Washington Post. Chuck Klosterman writes essays. He's also passionate by the American pop culture he bathes in. Therefore, he's interesting to me.

Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs tackles subjects as diverse as love, The Sims, MTV's The Real World, Billy Joel and Tom Cruise. Klosterman is one of those honest people that measures the influence of mass media and entertainment on our everyday lives. "This Is Emo", the first essay in this collection notes the difficulties that Hollywood's representation of love cause with real relationships. It's a touching and accurate portrait. It's also one of the best essays of the whole book. What Klosterman does best is to draw meaning from common, daily experiences and from our exposition to mass media entertainment. Too bad he's not doing it all the time.

Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs suffers from a low middle. His essays about Kelloggs and Star Wars compare concepts that have nothing to do with each other, but maybe mark the beginning and the end of an era. Sometimes, Klosterman stretches his ideas so far, that he over simplifies points and even commits blatant reasoning mistakes. Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back and Wynona Rider in Reality Bites don't make a similar choice and don't embody Generation X, except maybe for highlighting its beginning and its end.

Most essays go from vaguely interesting to extremely smart. There are maybe two or three essays that doesn't make any sense, but throughout most of the anthology, he keeps his little nagging, judgmental, hipster tone where he looks at pop culture from a pedestal he never really justifies. It's a zesting read, maybe not as good as the works of David Foster Wallace, but the aim is different and the provocative tone of Klosterman will spark much needed debates. Interesting character, interesting thinking, when he doesn't give into easy-hip comparisons.

Chuck Klosterman On Break Room Live

I'm going to review Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs very soon. Tomorrow, if I have time or maybe Monday. Meanwhile, here are two clips of Klosterman, on a show called Break Room Live where he discusses Twitter and the death of Michael Jackson. These two videos show what I like and dislike about him. He's has an obvious talent at analyzing the metamorphosis media imposes on the everyday life and a rather refreshing honesty on that subject, but he's also pretty immature and inconsequential some times. He sure is a very interesting and pertinent intellectual figure. Enjoy the videos.

Guns N' Roses - November Rain

I grew up thinking rock n' roll was really cool. It's obviously not the case anymore (or is it that the definition of rock n' roll has changed?). Guns N' Roses are often called hard rock and hair metal now, which doesn't make sense to me. They play rock n' roll the way it's meant to be played. I'm sorry if you're Nickelback fans, they are to rock was pepsi is to tequila. I watched November Rain for the first time I was nine years old and it left a strong impression on me. Never in my young life I was before confronted to rock n' roll epic drama. Not even rock n' roll drama. I was too young when Poison released "Every Rose Has Its Thorns" and Bon Jovi their "Runaway". Here it is in all its decadent glory.

Guns N' Roses - November Rain

When I look into your eyes I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you, don't you know I feel the same? yeah
Nothin' lasts forever and we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain

We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain, ooh yeah
But lovers always come and lovers always go
An' no one's really sure who's lettin' go today, walking away

And if we take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head just knowin' that you were mine, all mine
So if you want to love me then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin' in the cold November rain

Do you need some time on your own?
Do you need some time all alone?
Everybody needs some time on their own
Don't you know you need some time all alone?

I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal the broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you?

Sometimes I need some time on my own
Sometimes I need some time all alone
Everybody needs some time on their own
Don't you know you need some time all alone

And when your fears subside and shadows still remain, oh yeah
I know that you can love me when there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness we still can find a way
Nothin' lasts forever even cold November rain

Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one, you're not the only one

Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one, you're not the only one

Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one, you're not the only one

Don't ya think that you need somebody?
Don't ya think that you need someone?
Everybody needs somebody

Friday's People Thread - The Real World Life

EDIT: I have reached my 15 000 unique visitors goal for 2010. Anything more will be a simple bonus. Thank you all! I'm staring down at 2011 with a number in mind - 50 000. I haven't made up my mind yet as whether it's realistic or not.

I'll take for granted we're all writers here. Or readers. Or people that are really enthusiastic about books and writers and all that. I'm sure you know what I mean. But when we leave our computer screen, we're not just very smart text boxes anymore. I'm interested, what is your normal week day like. Here's mine.


6:00 AM - Wake Up

6:05 AM - Get Up

6:10 AM - Leave the house with Scarlett so she can let nature flow and trot a little bit.

6:25 AM - Go back home because it's freezing.

6:30 AM - Eat breakfast while answering my emails (Mr. Efficiency here).

6:40 AM - Trying to have a relationship with Josie.

7:00 AM - Leave for work.

7:30 AM - Arrive at work.

7:40 AM - Sip coffee while my computer loads.

8:00 AM - Put my headphone in and start working

8:01 AM - Open up Dead End Follies.

10:00 AM - Open up my Google Reader after blogging like a maniac (in-between calls)

10:30 AM - Coffee No.2

10:45 AM - Read and comment on all your amazing blogs (in-between calls)

13:00 AM - Dinner, and I start writing

14:00 AM - Write (In-between calls)

16:00 AM - Gas Out (Mentally speaking)

17:00 AM - Leave work crawling.

18:00 AM - Arrive at the gym

18:05 AM - Sit down with the boys for a chat (the greatest way to sooth me out)

19:00 AM - Start wrestling

20:30 AM - Stop wrestling

20:45 AM - Go home in the metro while trying to read.

21:30 AM - Hit home

21:45 AM - Try to have a relationship with Josie

21:50 AM - She falls asleep

22:00 AM - Trying to get a little gaming going

22:10 AM - I fall asleep


That's a work day. My week-end schedule is a lot more cozy and contains a lot more Josie, Scarlett and a lot more writing too. I would go as far as saying I live on week-ends. That's pretty much how a week day goes. It's not like that all the time. We slow down training sometimes to be with each other, but it's a typical day.