Today was a mind-numbingly tiring day... transport didn't arrive to bring me home until well over half-an-hour past the time they gave me. After having a numbskull driver in the morning, one I've had and felt contempt for before, it didn't make the day feel any brighter.

At least I now officially have the package for my Investment account. Going against Bohemian form, I'm a stock trader now!

Man, I have to keep bug-fixing the layout!

Time for another change in my Blog's look. As with any jazz improv, I don't stop until I get it right.

Today I heard sad news: Gordon Solie, veteran of 40 years as a wrestling announcer, lost his battle with cancer this week. He was 71 years old.

As a lifelong wrestling fan, this hit me hard. Gordon Solie was most likely the best ring announcer of the 20th century, a man who could be a fan of the events yet still call a match in a way that made even a mediocre match seem better.

I gave him a tribute in my column on Fight City, posted it a few hours ago.

Meanwhile, I finished my zine for Comicopia today. My 10th anniversary zine is my longest to date in the APA, at 37 pages of material.

n'Sync the "Beatles of the 21st century"? THE BEATLES?!

Apparently, they had a show on one of the big morning shows today (Good Morning America or The Today Show), and the male host made that analogy.

I think John Lennon's spirit is howling in anger at this. The Beatles had magic in their music; n'Sync are a prefabricated group, their music and dance steps created by others. There's no comparison.

Eureka!

I've been making breakthroughs in my understanding of Flash. Instead of just adding frames when I need to change things, I'm making them keyframes. Granted, that'll mean nothing to people who don't know what any of that means...

Now, I have to learn to animate things, so the site won't seem so static.

This'll be my last Blog for today... I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow for work, so I have to get to bed soon.

I'm still trying to get my stuff together for that Flash website interface. I still have 24 weeks of my contract to go, so I have the time to try solving it - but it's still frustrating!

Miles' sake, learning Flash is challenging!

I've been trying to build an interface for the company website; I got the basic framework in place to switch between English and French menus. Getting the other menus in place though... THAT's been a challenge.

I just roasted with envy, reading San Diego ComiCon reports from members of Compuserve's Comics forum

Someday, I'll be able to attend that Con... hopefully. while some of the creators I hope to meet are still alive.

I returned to the CompuServe Science Fiction Literature forum today, where I've been a member of the IMPs (IMPatient to get published) since May. I haven't been feeling very writer-ly for a long time.

I mentioned my health causes without specifically naming them. One of the side-effects from MS is an irrational shame at admitting you have it. In this case, I just didn't want to use it as a convenient excuse for not getting work done.

Today was the first day I tried reducing my hours by a few. I'm still tired, but hopefully I'll be more able to work some tomorrow. I'm not sure at the moment, as the summer heat is still getting to me.

I started a rough framework of the agency site in Flash today. It's easy to start developping interfaces, but I can already see how it'll take me much time to master it.

I'm back in the office today. Bleary-eyed from a pay-per-view last night, had a friendly driver this morning, but he came aq half-hour after the time I was told, and didn't know the route to take. Not that I did.

I'm searching the web for various Flash resources and tutorials, taking a break to post this.

I've just redesigned this Blog from top to bottom. Hopefully it's more pleasant to read.

Of course, if you haven't been here before, or aren't reading this as I work, the point is moot.

Visiting other Blogs, it still seems to me that this one doesn't really look that good...

Expect a redesign very soon.

Earlier tonight (actually, yesterday, since it's now after midnight) I saw a program on A&E that was very thought provoking...

It was an episode of the Love Chronicles dealing with the concept of May-December romances, and couples where one spouse was many years older than the other.

Personally, I'm not looking for a mate much younger or older than I am, but the views expressed here were interesting. While I didn't find any of the younger brides/significant others attractive in the least, it gave reassurance that if I get to an advanced age and then find a companion much younger than I am, I won't be a freak. Turns out there may even be genetic reasons for it...

To quote Lionel Ritchie (boy, does that date me!) "Outrageous!".

I finished my story about an hour ago. Total page-count for two chapters was 12 pages. The final chapter I wrote in the space of the day.

I didn't intend to kill one of the principal characters... thing is, continuity and plot drove me down that path. Plus, the character himself didn't want me to change from this path.

Today, my creativity is running rampant like an out-of-control river.

Early today, I began writing the climactic chapter of In the Eye of the Storm, an original superheroic adventure I created for my comics APA, Comicopia over a year ago. As this'll be the 10th Anniversary special, I want to include both chapters 5 and 6, the climax of the story.

I've already written five pages of it today, and have the entire plot of the chapter mapped out in my head. Only fatigue right now has stopped me from continuing it.

If all works out though, I'll have it done by this evening.

I took my first steps into the domain of stock sharking today.

I have 12 shares of Yahoo! stock, but not having it in an account of some sort just made it paper, nothing more. Today, I went to the Bank of Montreal and created an InvestorLine account for six of my shares.

By early August my account will be fully activated. I hope the value is still growing by then!

Later today starts the Readaptation Center Tango for me. Soon, I'm off to see my Occupational Therapist and Dietician there.

At least I got a lot of writing done yesterday on my Comicopia APAzine last night. Writing for a deadline always helps to revitalize my creativity. The fact that I'm working on my 10th Anniversary issue too helps.

What an exhausting day... I only went out for about an hour-and-a-half - but the heat and the exertion wiped me out.

I ended up napping for an hour within minutes of getting home.

I've been up since 7:30 today. It's a day at home, and I was still up early. Worse, I actually woke up on reflex at 6:30.

Night Owls who start shaping to mornings aren't pleasant to see.

I was hoping to meet up with my friend LC tonight to go see the X-Men movie. Unfortunately, we never connected.

Just as well; I cashed this week's paycheque today. After paying debts, I won't have a lot left for the week.

Today was a wearying day. I only had 3 hours of work to do, 1:30 to 4:30pm - but my transit came half an hour late in the morning.

I brought in my own headset to work today, as the ones a co-worker had lent me, she took with her on vacation. Mine had too short a cable to really use. A shame, since I was trying to listen to Miles Davis' Greatest Hits.

I saw an ear specialist today. It only took him a few minutes to clear out what stuff was keeping me from hearing well on the left side of my head.

Of course, I was travelling long enough that I STILL felt the need to nap when I got home.

I just visited the discussion forums for Con*Cept, the Montreal science-fiction convention that I help run. No new messages in almost a week. More importantly, no one bothers to ever reply to my follow-ups on the situation of trying to get more accessibility installed in the hotel for this year. It almost feels like, since the majority of the con don't need it, they just don't care.

It's almost funny to check the message boards for LRHS, the high school I graduated from. You can really tell that people there don't know computers: their entire message is just a name - message body AND same for title!

I just fixed the time stamps for this Blog. Now they'll make more sense related to when I write them.

My Blog is now working properly, and more importantly I like the current design.

(Trust me, you wouldn't want to see my original...)

As of a current pay per view in another fantasy wrestling league I play in, Doug Christian and Johnny Thunder, as the tag-team Reunion, have won one of the tag team titles... and this on only their second match in that league. Not too shabby!

Tomorrow afternoon I see an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist about my ear problem. Hopefully, it'll all be fixed up tomorrow.

At least I could hear enough on my transport home today; the driver had Jazz music playing on a car CD-player. You gotta love that.

Here's what'll hopefully get this Blog working properly.

If you're reading this, it means I have things working - finally!

I'm now one step closer to getting this officially website enabled.

The Photoshop that they have at work was too different for me to follow, so I'll be making the logo here at home.

Does everyone in Anjou smoke?

At lunch from work, I saw a lady I found very attractive. As I left the restaurant, I saw that a) she was with someone elready - which already makes me think "next!" - and b) she was smoking.

It seems like virtually every adult I've seen in this suburb of Montreal smokes. In this, I don't follow the stereotype image of a Beatnik/ jazz-fan; being as how I'm alergic to the cigarrette smoke, it'll never happen.

I'm posting this from work right now.

I'm still woozy from my morning transport. It came to pick me up at 7:05am. Between the pay-per-view I saw last night at a friend's place, and the fact that I'm suffering insomnia right now, I didn't get a lot of sleep. I arrived here before 8am, when I started at 9; even an hour of chilling with breakfast at a nearby restaurant, getting my caffeine fix from tea, didn't help me wake up.

I was hoping to get my hours here reworked to help my energy levels, but unfortunately the director is on vacation for a few weeks. Damn.

Instead of reading my Flash 4 Bible book for work hours, I visited several of the Flash resource sites mentioned in the book.

My doctor found that my ear infection has cleared up, but I have a large waxy build-up in the ear that'll require me to see an Ear/Nose/Throat specialist to fix.

Joy. Bliss.

I just tried a new freeware office suite, 602.

Considering the bugs in the program and how they mess other software up, I think I'll pass.

I have to go get cleaned up to visit my doctor today. I've had an ear infection for a few weeks; makes it hard to appreciate music when you can't really hear it...

- mind you, the strange thing is that even though I wasn't able to hear much sound for over a week, I was still able to hear music. Very strange.

I just tried posting to the message forums (my FTP process to send these Blogs isn't working). For some reason, their forums keep stalling on me.

Man, this is annoying: my first attempt at posting thoughts yesterday, and it didn't work.

Tomorrow morning, I see my GP about this ear infection I've had the last few weeks. I can hear again in the left ear since this morning (I could for a brief while yesterday, but it passed quickly). I suspect my medication for MS helped to cause it; I'll talk more of my Betaseron adventure here as time goes on.

I worked at learning Flash 4 for my job today. As we've worked things out, I do a day-and-a-half at the office, and the week's other hours at home. I get the feeling that it'll be much harder to master Flash than it is to learn the basics... but it still blows my mind to realize that having this knowledge in my skill 'toolkit' will make me very much more marketable when my job contract's done.

I still have a ton of writing to do, both for Comicopia (the APA's 10th Anniversary in mid-August!), and my ring promo and strategy for a match in the AEWA fantasy wrestling league. My character there, Doug Christian, is their current world champion.