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Pet Peeves

I thought that I would consolidate all the posts I posted in the Playground. Nothing much else:

American spelling on official Canadian documents and Canadian advertisements.
People that leave the lights on in a room when they leave the room.
Spelling the word "through" as "thru".
The spelling of doughnut in Tim Hortons shops.
People who use the 12-hour clock and neglect to insert what time of day they are referring to. IE: not including AM or PM for times.
People who use the 24-hour clock and don't have a leading zero for times like 01:00.
American spelling of metre, centre, and theatre.
People who say they are going to the theatre when they mean going to a movie.
The way Nova Scotians tend to pronounce tour, tourism, and sure.
People who use wallpapers on their desktops that are not the same ratio as the screen and have it stretched. It annoys me to no end.
- Similarly, I hate seeing a tiled desktop too for some reason.
People who complain that people are going too slow even though the car ahead is doing the speed limit.
Drivers that seem want to run over pedestrians that are in the right of way. I've not experienced an attempted running over since moving to Nova Scotia but that taint is still there.
People who use the phrase "in conclusion" to conclude a paper, speech, or argument.
People who jangle their keys longer than they should when they're unlocking a door.
People who do not listen to a single word I say then later turn around and say I was right. Is it because I'm "inexperienced" as an adult or what?
- People who go out of their way to try to disprove something I've said. I'm human and fallible. I don't care that I was disproven. Get over it and grow up.
The use of the -yze ending over -yse in the words such as "paralyse" or "analyse".
People who think you must drink in order to have a good time and expect me to partake in such events.
The political correctness of certain holidays.
People who confuse luxury with necessity. I hate hearing people say that they need an item when they only really want it.
When my computer doesn't recognise my external hard drive in Windows Explorer but I'm able to listen to my music (which is on said drive). I have other stuff other than music on that thing. ><';
- I also hate it when Winamp doesn't find my music directory when I'm staring at it in Windows Explorer. Winfail.
People who think I'm asking a question because I have a slight Canadian raising in my speech.
People who point out that I say eh a lot when not in jest. Kind of a fine line thing there, but still.
People who think being depressed = suicidal.
The $2-15 price difference between the American listed price and the Canadian listed price on books. Especially last year when our dollars were about even currency.
This one was pretty much self-imposed but: I hate when I have to use someone else's computer 'cause it's keyboard layout is not the same as what I'm accustomed to.
The clicking noise in the scollwheel of this mouse. ARGH!
People who call me "sir". I know you're trying to be polite but I'm far too young to be called "sir".
People in clinics, shopping centres, etc, who ask me why I'm not at school during school hours. Um... I'm not 15 despite my looks.
- This point was especially bad just before summer when I was doing groceries with my mom and the guy at the register (who barely looked 16 himself) asked if my mom if she was finished getting me ready to go back to school. I was 19 at the time.
Not being able to think of a guitar riff to start writing a new song when I want to write a new song.
- Or when I think of something to work with when I'm nowhere near a pen and paper or guitar. This is usually when you can see me flailing with an air guitar.
Today's media.
The way that I'm always drawn into a political discussion when I don't want to talk it. Seriously, just because I'm keeping up to date doesn't necessarily mean I want to discuss it all the time.
I hate being the one to finish stuff in the fridge (like finishing the water in the water jug or downing the last milk bag). Maybe it's just me not liking to replace stuff when I'm finished with it. >.>

There probably could be more but as I said this is just to consolidate the postings.
B-Man

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Now playing: High on Fire - Death Is This Communion
via FoxyTunes

5/8/2009 8:38 PM | Add a comment | Read comments (2) | Permalink | Blog it

Greetings everyone, I thought I would take a moment to write a general update on how I am doing.

Short answer:
Well enough.

Long answer:
I've started attending a group that's aimed at building self-esteem a couple of weeks ago. I'd like to say that it's going well there, but it's only been a few weeks and I don't give myself much time for practise. Last week's theme was how to help make oneself assertive. It seemed like it was geared for me entirely. I have a rather difficult time with being assertive for things that need to be done for myself, as I cannot think for myself to save the life of me. I'm having a little bit of trouble with the practicality of this advice, though. I have a hard time thinking differently about assertiveness. I've long since thought of it as arrogance and selfishness when apparently the opposite is true. To be assertive is human, apparently, and I'm less than human with my passive nature. Or maybe I'm above human necessity? I honestly don't know how to interpret what was discussed last week.

I attended an orientation meeting with Team Works on Wednesday and I'm waiting for a call back with a case manager for career counselling. This is the second highlight of last week. I'm hoping that with the guidance at Team Works that I should be in work again rather quickly.

My laptop feels like it's on it's last leg of health as I'm having a hard time with keeping anything running on it. I have a hard time with watching anime of all things! The laptop's been running with only one operational fan on the CPU for about a month or so (probably going on two months now, as I check the date) and frankly I find it astounding that it's endured the abuse I've been giving it. I'm now down to only being able to run a few things and have to say no to running others (like WoW and Guitar Pro). I'm also noticing a bit of difficulty running Firefox with more than 3 tabs open now, even though I never use more than a total of 800 MB of RAM of the available 1.5 GB. Eh, I hope that I get my desktop soon. I've heard rumour that it should've been shipped on Friday when my sister finished work. Can only hope now can't we, eh?

On the mood front: I have been diagnosed with clinical depression but the doctor advised that because I do have a bit of a support net I wouldn't need meds. If I were actively suicidal, it would be a different story. But we've discussed why I'm not suicidal a couple of postings ago so I'll spare you the details again. The doctor also hinted that I exhibit a few traits of a social phobia. Go figure, eh.

Oh! I almost forgot! I've recently launched a bunch of my songs on YouTube. You can find them here. I would appreciate any comments or criticism for the songs. I also mirror them on the metalcore moshers board on Bookface, too.

Until the next blog,
B-Man

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Now playing: All That Remains - Vicious Betrayal
via FoxyTunes

5/2/2009 6:39 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

Inside the Mind of the B-Man: Understanding Mood Cycles and Social Habits

I figured that I would take this opportune time to explain a few things about my mood cycle and how I function socially. I'm sure that the greater majority of you know now that my father has recently come into contact with me again and that put me in a foul mood for a day and a bit but there are some that believe that the incident is related to my current mood when it has nothing to do with it. I'm going to use this blog posting to explain the inner functions of my moods.

In general my mood is usually neutral in a sense that I couldn't care what happens or why. There are certain triggers that'll push my mood into the negatives. Some of the triggers are prolonged social interaction, talks of alcohol, and being in the presence of alcohol. This explains why I tend to be by myself and continue to be reclusive as I do not want to expose myself to any of these factors. If I do happen to be social, I require a long period of being by myself in order to recuperate.

In social scenarios I tend to be by myself and only really partaking in conversation with one or two other people. I never feel comfortable with more than two other people. I feel that I never can be heard when there are three or more people in a group so I just don't bother to raise my voice to talk unless a conversational topic to addressed to me. It's all in the effort of preserving my contentness and any general good mood I may have.

I'm typically in a good mood when I am alone, listening to music, or not dealing with anything to do with everyday life. I know that distractionism isn't the greatest thing to be doing for extended periods of time, but if it works, it works.

I hope these blog posting give a little bit more insight into how I function 'cause there is no way in Hell I could communicate these thoughts in regular speech.

B-Man

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Now playing: Mastodon - Divinations
via FoxyTunes

4/14/2009 7:55 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

Inside the Mind of the B-Man: Understanding Pronunciations

I've been meaning to write this up for quite a while now, now that I am a little calmer and more settled in Halifax, as a sort of reflection and an attempt to figure out a few things. For as long as I can remember I've had problems with pronouncing a list of words and I sort of just associate that with my not starting to talk 'til four years old and being rather reclusive and introverted. I've often claimed in the past that my accent must come from Eastern Ontario with a mix of South-Central mixed in, but there are too many exceptions to the rule to categorise where I'm picking up this "accent". So I figured I would just write a list of "non-traditional" pronunciations I use and leave it for the jury to investigate and/or mock me with.

Bag - I tend to pronounce it closer to "behg" than "bahg"
Vague - Similarly to bag, but it's more common for me to say "vehg", especially when it's vaguely.
Bagel - I tend to pronounce it "bah-gehl" instead of "bay-gehl"
Envelope - "on-vel-ohp" instead of "en-vel-ohp"
Herb - "erb", never "herb"
Newfoundland - Not sure why I'm adding this, as it's a regional thing, but I say it "NEW-fin-lin" instead of "new-fin-LAND"
February - "fev-u-airy" rather than "feb-ru-ary"
Tuesday - "tyews-deh"
Kilometre - "kill-om-eht-er"
Schedule - "sked-joo-el"
Booths - "boovths"
Rivalry - "reyev-rel-ree" because that word is evil and I can never pronounce it to save my life. I can say rival properly, though ><

And now a side note on different pronunciations I've discovered in Nova Scotia.

Sure - Nova Scotians tend to say "shore" rather than "sure", especially in the phrase "for sure"
Tour and Tourism - Nova Scotians seem to prefer saying TORE and TORE-ism

There are probably more to list but I cannot recall any other different pronunciations at this time. If I can think of more I may update this.

'til later,
B-Man

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Now playing: All That Remains - We Stand
via FoxyTunes

4/5/2009 3:36 PM | Add a comment | Permalink | Blog it

WTB ∞ x [Positive Thoughts]

So this'll be my last post from St. Catharines probably for a very long time. As some of you may know from talking with me or even just hanging with me, I've pretty much hit rock bottom. Scratch that. I've hit rock bottom with enough velocity that there's a 10-kilometre blast radius and ground zero is just as deep, maybe deeper. Okay that may be a little far-fetched to believe as I'm still alive without any physical injury but that's how I'm feeling right now. I cannot continue to bottle up emotions any more. It's causing too much internal damage.

I'm writing this as I should be packing. You may ask why I'm packing. The answer: my parents are throwing me a life line and that line is leading toward Nova Scotia. I guess that I can effectively take the province code, NS, and replace it with 'New Start'. It probably is for the best, as in Ontario there seems to be no hope left. Everything seems to be wanting to escape the pull of the Centre of the Universe and the Robot's Lair. Well, some of us want to fight the Robot overlord rather than embrace his budget or governing policies. Employment in Ontario sucks as the recession is starting to hit. Seem like it's even harder than I could've predicted. Couldn't even land a job at freakin' Timmy's! I mean, come on! You wanted full-time midnights, I don't sleep 'til five in the morning, I have experience in the food industry. I seem like the natural choice to select, eh? Guess not.

Nova Scotia is truly a beautiful place (I mean Ontario is equally as beautiful, but a lot of people only know Ontario as Toronto). The climate is very similar to here in the Niagara Region but there's only one default temperature in Summer: gorgeous. Never really above 20 ºC and no real need to calculate the humidex... or so I am told. The air is overall a hell of a lot cleaner than here. That should be obvious as there's no steel companies smelting it up, no 401 (one of North America's busiest highways), and no all consuming Centre of the Universe. Gah! Sorry! Bad joke is still bad. Isn't that right, Mr. Roboto- erm, I mean Mr. Harper? Geeze, I hope that I don't feel the wrath of his heat vision for all of these pokes at him. *nervous laughter*

I'm just going to take a moment to focus on a serious mood that's been haunting me for a bit and I feel that I have to be honest about it. I have come close to contemplating on the quickest means to take my life. Now, before I continue any further, please do not leave comments like "OMG dundoeet!", please trust that I could never enact on something so ridiculously selfish. The first thing that goes through my head when I start to think like that is what you would do and how you would feel if I followed through. I want to be rid of my numbness, not spread it like a plague in passing. I don't think that I could bear that feeling at all, what ever may await after this. I wouldn't want to have that attached to the end of my name. Maybe I'm being selfish in wanting to live or maybe I honestly cannot think of myself and only think of how others feel, it's all up for me to decide with counsilling or for me to discover on my own. Who knows. Only time'll tell.

I guess this'll be sayonara St. Catharines. I'll be able to be contacted via Bookface, MSN, or AIM. Maybe even by e-mail, phone, or snail mail. Chances are that you are reading this on Bookface instead of signing on to MSN and seeing that I updated my Live Space. I won't hold that against you, though, as I'm rarely on MSN any more.

'til I settle a little bit in Nova Scotia,
B-Man

Here's to moving to the Playground.

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Now playing: Children of Bodom - Follow the Reaper
via FoxyTunes

2/17/2009 4:00 AM | Add a comment | Read comments (1) | Permalink | Blog it

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