THE MAACA DAILY NEWS! Your daily read about YOU,the members!

[R.A.B.]

Thank you Warlock and everyone else who posts in this thread, it makes for an interesting record as the years go by.

Just as "Tales of Pinball Adventures" - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10989&hilit=tales+o ... adventures
&
RAB's mostly Philosophical repair thread - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14426
&
What did you do in the hobby today - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2511&hilit=did+you+do+today

along with many more shorter threads that have ran strong on an idea, place or event, they are worth revisiting. Or just use the search box or advanced search to dig up something you remember. Some other threads are pretty short and funny and smart and totally dumb as well, the whole MAACA tamale in a way. They all remain records of sorts, places to revisit occasionally if you want to get a perspective on the process we are all living as the world changes and as we get older and crankier. Hopefully you will see an evolution in yourself and others, or maybe none at all, anyways, at worst it brings back some candy like memories and often much more to chew on.

All this to say that I am making a conscious effort to post in the next thread idea I have come up with - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25875

As Scott and I discussed last week, good writing takes an awful lot of editing and work, even then I feel that I only come close to good writing one time out of ten posts. I am however my toughest critic, and that is OK. So I know that I have to put my energy & efforts somewhere else than the Daily News for now to bring up my post writing "batting" average. The new thread I want to share is big in my mind and soul and I realized that in a deep way last Saturday working on the road and at North Star for 12 hours plus. I saw and felt so much and writing that down is complicated, it was overwhelming. Yet I want to commit to getting this shit down for as long as I can stand it and by the same token share some of it in hopes that it will spark some of you to get "out there" and express yourselves more if you can, and more importantly, make a difference in a world that seems bent on conformity paving the way to obscene profit as some kind of end all, and I guess it is, - the end of the human spirit and imagination.

I hope you folks are going to keep posting in the Daily News as a start to exploring the world of expression via writing about whatever you deem important/fun/smart/silly/informative to share. This is an epic thread with so many possibilities, so treat it as a local community newspaper if you remember what those were meant to do. The difference with a thread like this as opposed to a real local rag is that the readers are geographically often distant from one another, and that changes the concept of "local", or at least its' definition. On the flipside, I think it helps to promote and allow a wider variety of concepts and perspectives flowing, and this will demand responsibility on your part. So keep judgement to a minimum and replace it with curiosity as often as you can. Because we age one inevitably gets more and more set in our ways and we need to work much more at staying interested in living with new ideas, pains and worries. Stay light and young and silly and funny at best when you get in trouble here or elsewhere.

Later,

R.A.B.

[Sparky]

This sums up my day.

[mrmikeman]

Hope today is better for ya Ian!

[Sparky]

Adjusted hydraulic systems while laying down in the snow at -23C, not counting windchill, with no gloves (can't manipulate tuning tools with gloves). All because a factory decided to ship machines at the wrong specs. No work clothes (as the company states that I am not supposed to turn wrenches). I ruined my shirt and jacket due to getting oil and grease on them.

Got yelled at by parts people, because a parts depot decided to ship parts poorly packed.

Got yelled at by service people, because a tech department in the US decided to leave early for holidays. So, I answered everything.

Got yelled at by sales people, as they couldn't register their sales in our portal, as it is down, and the IT guy is not there (see previous statement). So, I had to manually do it.

Got yelled at by my wife as the Christmas lights aren't up yet. This weekend. Too fucking cold now.

My portable drive crapped out. I yelled at it.

My son got the flu, 103F. Just before Christmas.

The phone is ringing every 3 minutes, due to no one working except me.

Gotta go buy a fucking turkey and all the food for XMas, as I am hosting 48 people.

Uncle.

[Sparky]

Please disregard the previous message. I just played one game of Rolling Stones. And I rolled it on ball 2.

All is right in the world... because... pinball.

[Azatotht]

Please disregard the previous message. I just played one game of Rolling Stones. And I rolled it on ball 2.

All is right in the world... because... pinball.

LOL I have to get back to playing pinball... I might clean the boxes on top during the holidays

[cait001]

I want to give a shout-out to all the techs out there. In the last year my job life has really ramped up and my time for coin-op and repairs has withered to nothing. And the workload shows no signs of diminishing for at least a year.
I am so grateful to the people out there willing to take on my projects and try and bring them back to life. And normally that'd be enough to say about the pinball techs, but right now I have dispersed obscure coin-op machines to get fixed to three different people who were willing to take on the challenge. We're not talking about a basic shop job here.
one person is working on redoing a purely mechanical 1934 World's Series
one person is working on a 1970s Japanese Arrangeball machine, taking on some of the earliest solid-state board tech in Japanese coin-op.
one person is working on a 1960s German gambling machine!

I won't name names, but give a shout if you want to. I have been good at the hunting and coordination to bring these international odd machines to Ottawa, but I am floored by the enthusiasm and support of the people in this hobby willing to take these coin-op machines in and try and get them running again so they might be shared at future OPGS shows.

Revisiting this post to say that things have not improved at work, but I'm still super excited about the enthusiasm and hard work being done in the pinball community.
A new purely mechanical pinball project will be leaving my basement shortly for another member to work on and I'm very excited about it.

Shout out to JF, sylvain, sparky, xylog, semicolin, and all the other techs that help make the magic happen!

[Sparky]

9152kms... That's how much I drove in the month of January for work. You make resolutions every new year, only to break them. I promised myself that I would slow down a bit. I have had my new work truck for 2.5 months and it has 18000kms on it. Poor thing. LOL

I write this and I am still not close to home. Steady Brook, NL to be exact. Working 14hr days and still seemingly not seeing the end of it. But then again, isn't work just another never-ending process? Does that make working ridiculous hours kind of pointless?

Possibly.

Even though I FaceTime my family every night, I still blatantly lie to myself when I say that I do it all for them. I am my father's son. A father who still works like crazy at 74 years of age. We are stupid, stubborn Irishmen that don't know when to quit. But hopefully my brain will win the race against my body, on who will give out first. Stubbornness VS physical breakdown. It's a tight race folks!!! Watch for the photo-finish! LOL

I kid... but not much. 5-year plan. When I started this job, which I still love even though it may not seem like it, most have said that no one really passes the 5-year mark. They give out. There is one exception in the US as one guy has been doing it for 12 years... but he covers a small territory (Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri ... no bigger than southern Ontario). he has 22 dealers... I cover Canada and have 51 dealers. Fuck.

Ok, ok... they did split my territory, but the guy doing western Canada is lazier than my 10-year-old bulldog. I end up doing most of his work... but I digress.

5-year plan. I am 3.25 years in. But my boss is retiring in the next year. Goddamn. what's going to happen? So scary... yet exciting. The unknown.

But through it all, I try to enjoy the little things more:

- buying a neglected yet rare piece of pinball and having a friend get the boards working. Hard work done!
- Regaining my supremacy on Heisenberg's High Speed after he had to erase my high score, only to have me set it again
- Hitting the high score on DaveW's High Speed II
- Waiting for Stern to make a High Speed 3. LOL (... but would be cool, no?)
- anticipating the next Borderland meeting.

... which is at my place. Oh shit... more to get done. LOL

...an never-ending process.

[R.A.B.]

Even though I FaceTime my family every night, I still blatantly lie to myself when I say that I do it all for them. I am my father's son. A father who still works like crazy at 74 years of age. We are stupid, stubborn Irishmen that don't know when to quit. But hopefully my brain will win the race against my body, on who will give out first. Stubbornness VS physical breakdown. It's a tight race folks!!! Watch for the photo-finish! LOL

I kid... but not much. 5-year plan. When I started this job, which I still love even though it may not seem like it, most have said that no one really passes the 5-year mark.

Sorry for reducing your great post Ian, but I think there are at least 3 important points that speak to me (and maybe others) in the quote I extracted.

1) the ideas of the past about family and sacrifice have changed, more parents are going crazy in more ways than before, the old roles are broken. The latter could be good in a few cases, but our education and upbringings can not keep up with the times changing as fast as they do, so we often scramble to adapt, and/or compromise and often trip up. Metaphorically, we may break our bones trying to adapt, or more safely just limp along to the end of our lives.

2) Some of us have found some solace in being married to our work. It is a safe place in a way, but deadly much later in life. We look for a place where we are hopefully in charge. Being married to our work until we collapse is a sign of a truth we have found as valid in a way, something that we can hang on to until death or senility without having to explain why. It is a good excuse to stay busy and be productive, but for many of us it is much more complicated than that.

3) 5 year plan - the best of anything we do is the beginning, I still believe that. The routine always settles in usually at year three of doing the same things and dulls the lives of those who are still alive and want to break new ground. These people are just not ready to settle, and as you said, our minds or our bodies will end up waving the finish line flag when it is time for our kind.

Hugs,

Rob

[Guard]

Played my first full 3 game hockey tournament in a looooong time. Fake hip held up wonderfully.......now to lose some fat before next winter.

Edit: and now I have 10 days off. Let's play some pinball.

[Sparky]

I spent over an hour trying to write this post. Either the words don't come out, or my computer freezes, or the site freezes. Just great. Anyhoo, I know I am in a good spot. I have a roof over my head. A good family. Good friends. Food on the table. But the post was about a general lie. I tell my kids that working hard and being respectful and helpful gives you an advantage in life and work. I found out a lesson today.

It's all complete bullshit.

I spent the better part of the morning working on building training sessions and scheduling web-based training for my dealers while the other guy that does my job out west has done jack shit over the last year., but that is another discussion. Worked on that shit yesterday until 1am.

And I still got laid off today at 3pm.

I was given the choice to either cancel my trainings, or still do them, but unpaid. The good guy side in me won again and I will not let my dealers down and still train them, but the slacker still has his job and still pretends to work. I "may" still work one week out of two according to management.

I keep thinking about RAB's "The Man" speeches. I get it now. Even working 80hrs a week and travelling like a madman for 4 years did nothing. The company decided they couldn't ride the wave with me for a month or two.

So... 2 weeks of giving trainings, but sitting tight on my situation. I have to think things over. I am not announcing my yearly pinball-retirement yet, but this may be it. Remains to be seen.

So much for being "essential".

Hoping for better days for everyone.

[Guard]

Never forget "they" will replace you before your dead body hits the floor. F$%k helping them....they showed you their true colours and they aren't pretty.

[Sparky]

Well, I decided to make an executive decision. They have confirmed to me that I am under "rolling layoffs". So, next week, I am off, but I had training sessions scheduled.

Well, I CANCELLED everything. They want me off? I am OFF! LOL

Scheduled for next week? Utter pinball fuckery!!! I will clean up my shop a bit, work on World Series, finish up projects, etc...

The switch is OFF!! Making the best of it.

[Sparky]

Well, as predicted, "The Man" is crumbling under the weight of my work. They even called me at home today because they knew I wouldn't answer my cell. The problem though is that by having 2 teens in the house (especially Emma), the phone doesn't even ring half a ring before one picks up. So, before I had the chance to yell out "don't answer", she handed me the phone.

It was our office manager (who is a temp... yet still works full time), asking me if I wanted to stop my RRSP payments.... yeah right. The company matches what I put in. So if I stop, they are again off the hook for more money. I literally told her that I didn't trust the company anymore and to leave it as-is.

More money when (not if) I leave.

And on top of that, I told my sales manager about not having anything taken over by the guy in the west. He is even more pissed off than I am. And add the fact that the US tech support department has issued a complaint against me for not answering the phone (cuz my management failed to advise them that they laid me off temporarily). Come to find out that they are all still working. Lovely.

I do appreciate the time they are laying me off. Gives me time to think.

Big mistake for them. Gives me time to organize. Not to their advantage. Time gives me clarity and perspective.

[Guard]

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/three-correc ... -1.4898332 Sigh. More to follow I think

[Fifty]

Well, as predicted, "The Man" is crumbling under the weight of my work. They even called me at home today because they knew I wouldn't answer my cell. The problem though is that by having 2 teens in the house (especially Emma), the phone doesn't even ring half a ring before one picks up. So, before I had the chance to yell out "don't answer", she handed me the phone.

It was our office manager (who is a temp... yet still works full time), asking me if I wanted to stop my RRSP payments.... yeah right. The company matches what I put in. So if I stop, they are again off the hook for more money. I literally told her that I didn't trust the company anymore and to leave it as-is.

More money when (not if) I leave.

And on top of that, I told my sales manager about not having anything taken over by the guy in the west. He is even more pissed off than I am. And add the fact that the US tech support department has issued a complaint against me for not answering the phone (cuz my management failed to advise them that they laid me off temporarily). Come to find out that they are all still working. Lovely.

I do appreciate the time they are laying me off. Gives me time to think.

Big mistake for them. Gives me time to organize. Not to their advantage. Time gives me clarity and perspective.

It'll be interesting to see if they start begging you to come back. There are two sayings I remember when shit like this happens. The first is;

"You don't know what you have until it is gone."

The second is one my Dad taught me and it's a little more crass;

"It's not who you know, it's who you blow".

While thinking of these sayings I decided to Google them (yes, I was careful) and this one also came up and I thought it was appropriate;

"If I cut you off, chances are, you handed me the scissors"

Best of luck man, as you said, use this time to clear your head and gain some perspective. I've been fairly lucky through this whole mess. My employer has reduced everyone to a 4 day week (32 hours) to avoid layoffs. I am working 2 days from home, 2 days from the shop. It's pretty much what I've dreamed of doing since going full time.

[R.A.B.]

Hit me on this sunny Monday morning, a strange thing to admit, but here goes.

I have done next to nothing pinball related in the past month or so and it feels pretty good. If I have to be precise, I stopped fixing anything pinball related on the 24th of March and since then have mailed a couple of parts orders from my personal stock, cleaned up my tool boxes and put together a couple of pinball porn photo albums from a shoebox of old photos. Mostly of Pinball Expo in '88 & '89 and of my collection from the late 80's and early 90's and the pinball store I had in Ville Lasalle back in 1992. Then around that time I counted 103 machines stored in two basements and said that's enough non-sense, got a job as the a route tech for Reflex Amusements and put aside the home service and collecting thing until I was hired at Laniel Automatic on February 8th 1998. By October of that year I was setting up a Parts & Service dept at a newly opened Laniel Automatic branch office in Mississauga. Found pictures of that as well and stuck them in the albums to make sure I never forget how nutty that all was.

Now the industry is almost dead, even more so with this COVID-19 thing. Who knows who in the coin operated business will survive in its aftermath and have the resources or the balls to start up again. And as the business of coin operated amusement machines tries to reinvent itself via the next generation of operators, P1AG, barcades, FECs, route techs and home techs, on line parts stores, the handful of operators who haven't given up their livelihoods yet and the collector/enthusiast market, hell I think I want to make it to the end of the line while riding that train. It surely has been colourful spending this last month or so looking back in order to look ahead with more depth of perspective.

The time to jump back in may be a long while off I reckon.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=26238

"What a long strange trip its been...." The Grateful Dead

[R.A.B.]

This may be a good place for updates on how most of us are feeling after more than (in most cases) a month of being away from paid employment and/or being at home.

Personally, about two days ago I began to feel that things were shifting as I observed my environment, maybe it was because I was taking in more info and opinions than I should be which resulted in my slowly beginning to feel a bit "bughouse". This larger and slightly careless intake of information from various sources is difficult to digest despite the daily walks and talks with neighbours, so I reduced my info intake to the Guardian and Health Canada and stopped listening to people who are scared. This is not a time to hide, and this is not a time to go out into the world thinking you are invincible.

Today is going to get up to 20 degrees and that is going to change things again during the daily walks. There may be more smiles and people wearing less layers and looking like they want to feel life's warmer side, but there is still that distant look when people walk by which I make a point to challenge with a big warm smile and sometimes a hello. There will be no dancing in the streets this summer, but there will certainly be some warmth and yearnings for life to continue cautiously. There is no stopping it.

[Sparky]

This may be a good place for updates on how most of us are feeling after more than (in most cases) a month of being away from paid employment and/or being at home.

At peace. Serene.

More time to enjoy things... but I do miss friends.

This whole thing puts I to perspective what is important in life. And I am thankful every day for the life lesson. It took a virus and the new world order taking over to steer me off the dark path.

[R.A.B.]

More time to enjoy things... but I do miss friends.

Yeah, I miss all night bull sessions with like minded friends along with a few off the wall characters thrown in so as to keep things hopping. Just talking around a kitchen table sipping scotch and yelling the occasional obscenity is really something I miss. Honestly, I did try to do this alone, but it doesn't quite feel right.

There are so many things to a lifetime, but the one thing this pandemic has made difficult to deal with is the lack of the close knit social side of existence which energizes a good bunch of us and usually encourages one to thrive on. There will certainly be a change of approach and attitude when we once again come together, differently this time moving forward, always forward. I don't think this distance thing is a great problem as long as it doesn't last over a year or so. We will need a renaissance to go with the huge unpredictable economic changes looming, so we need a fix to getting this bug under our thumbs. I am sure that we will see something like the roaring 20's erupt again within the next 5 years or so, I just hope I can still manage the moves by then.

Personally, I have been digging into the past too much I think, I am down to the decades of journals entries and written words, I can only review and sort them out for an hour each day, too emotionally & intellectually loaded to deal with without letting my present moods take a beating, not always in a bad way, but in a "too much to acknowledge in order to move forward" sort of way. The amount of events we live in a lifetime are enormous, especially when you have triggers to revive them through your memory. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone here, but I do believe we can only deal with so much of that at a time, everyone has boundaries and thresholds that become evident just before the "bughouse" stage.

"Ok now", I sometimes say to myself, "that's enough for today." There are boundaries here. especially in this time of reflection and review. I feel it in a most powerful way. It is good and it is bad and everything else in between, but it would be best to just step back slowly, away from that threshold for now.

[Sparky]

Been digging into the past too much, down to the decades of journals entries and written words, I can only review and sort them out for an hour each day, too emotionally loaded to deal with without letting my present moods take a beating, not in a bad way, but in a "too much to acknowledge" in order to move forward sort of way. The amount of events we live in a lifetime are enormous, especially when you have triggers to revive them through your memory. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone here, but I do believe we can only deal with so much of that at a time, everyone one has boundaries and thresholds.

"We all have a past, Watson. They are the shadows that define our every sunny day." - Sherlock Holmes


Vladimir says hi.

[R.A.B.]

Personally, I have been digging into the past too much I think, I am down to the decades of journals entries and written words, I can only review and sort them out for an hour each day, too emotionally & intellectually loaded to deal with without letting my present moods take a beating, not always in a bad way, but in a "too much to acknowledge in order to move forward" sort of way. The amount of events we live in a lifetime are enormous, especially when you have triggers to revive them through your memory. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone here, but I do believe we can only deal with so much of that at a time, everyone has boundaries and thresholds.

"We all have a past, Watson. They are the shadows that define our every sunny day." - Sherlock Holmes


Vladimir says hi.

Thanks Ian, I sort of forgot about Vladimir, - that ghostly bastard of a man.

I will have a couple of drinks with him later tonight in order to get him talking, I have rum and cranberry juice in stock, that should do it. Possibly I can get another part of his interpretation of the events that took place in the past 100 years of the Crane Building.

Later alligator.

[R.A.B.]

Once in a while you read something that expresses what you were thinking, and does it so well that you do not even attempt to write anything more or comment about the idea. That is a good reason as any for me to stay quiet about this extra-ordinary time.

Well, that's what happened to me yesterday as I was taking in more info and perspectives than I should be exposed to in the face of this pandemic. As I said earlier I have tried to limit my information intake in order to not get depressed or just plain god-dam angry at the stupidity of our species and some dangerous individuals who do not agree with how things are unfolding and want to explain civilization to you solely via the tenacity of their beliefs. Truth is on the move again, things are changing real fast and many people are starting to go off the rails, and with many more to come I'm afraid.

For those who can read more than a paragraph at a time without wondering off to get a snack, have yourself a five minute think session. The article in the link below starts off a little too "touchy/feely" for may tastes, but does an amazing job at explaining how we got here and why it is difficult to deal with what we need to do via isolation in order to get this bug under our thumbs. It also clearly exposes how we may come out of this in good shape providing we can maintain a wider understanding of how things have & will continue to change radically in and through and after this great strife. (The latter not being an exercise for the unimaginative and the dumb) Suffice to say that this article is written with a more thoughtful & less individualistic American perspective than the one spewing off from their leader. What an embarrassment to be stuck represented by that sociopath to the rest of the civilized world.

Last week I had my pool table cloth supplier call me on my cell to let me know that he is working from home (Chicago) and can ship whatever Alouette may need in billiard supplies and also to see how things were going. We have become good friends over the years, so we got talking. He laced into Trump like I have never heard anyone do before. Not all Americans are loud mouth proud and righteous dummies, but man sometimes I wonder how what De Niro calls "a fake president" could have come about ? Oh wait, I do know how, it is a pretty neat trick.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/arch ... ic/611350/

[Sparky]

Yes, things will be different. And I do agree that we must be imaginative and find new ways to truly connect. But this being said, I also firmly believe that hard times tend to create rifts, and one side usually loses in time.

I do see a lot of good people do things differently, acknowledging that the "old" ways were not the best, and that this tragic turn of events has given people a new perspective of things, acting as a catalyst to make them change things. This has happened to me. I no longer crave working crazy hours to please "the man", trading precious and priceless family and friend time for the few extra scraps of a percentage of a raise in salary.

Good people connect remotely now. We call our relatives to see how they are doing. We pay more attention. We relish driveway-discussions. We talk with our neighbors. We help each other out. It's all good. The sense of community has had a resurgence. This group will survive AND thrive.

But then I often see the "other" side. Like the woman that has been driving around my town for the last month. This woman drives around ALL the streets in her Audi SUV, and screams out through a megaphone out of her sunroof when she sees people walking in the street, screaming to go home and practice distancing... even though it is a family living in the same house that is walking around. Some people have come out "damaged" by this whole thing. As if they have always been a bit on the cray-cray side, but this pandemic pushed them all the way to full blown batshit crazy.

I also see the people clinging to the old ways. We see it a lot in the US... people refusing to follow basic social distancing and lashing out, stating that their basic freedom rights have been violated, when it is far from the case. Misinformation is scary at times. But I again respect their opinions.
But there are many like the crazy Audi-lady. They refuse to think about anything and anyone but themselves. Some scream about crazy theories about microchipping people, and that by doing so, their freedom of privacy is violated.... yet they walk around with smartphones and post everything on Facebook. LOL If they only knew that Big Brother has been around for a while now. The microchip isn't in their bodies, but they happily carry it around willfully. LOL

But I get it.... the change has been sudden and brutal. Change sucks. But if you will permit me an over-the-top analogy, it could be homo-sapiens VS neanderthals. One evolves, one clings to the old negative ways.... and that one disappeared in time. It's not that one is better than the other. It's just that they had different ways of doing things.

OK... so.... what does that mean for the hobby?

Well... the thought does scare me that the recent resurgence of arcades could be a blip in the radar. I sincerely hope it isn't. I remember the early 90's when no one went to arcades anymore. The first hit happened in the 80's but amplified in time. Consoles and on-line gaming took over.

But... I guess that makes me an arcade Neanderthal. And I am ok with that.

[R.A.B.]

As the days go by - don't let them go on their way without any influence. They have no interest in you, must take interest in them somehow.

"Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground" - Talking Heads ofcourse

Gonna be a future anyway. May not be pretty, but there will be one regardless.

For now -

No routine is able to exist for very long in a vacuum without turning on itself. We need to bust out again and again in order to remain vibrant and not become stunned or bughouse. Lots of us are becoming stunned these days and we may not all come out of that fully/completely any time soon. Some people like it, it may be reassuring. Lucky bastards in a way.

Got to watch what is in our "intake" valves more carefully in these times, (info, food, drink, smoke, chemicals, sugar etc.) and when we let crap flow in more easily, we can't have that same productivity output quality that was once a major part of many routines. Kinda of a luxury not to work, but what a paradox to those who are still healthy & active. It is like retiring before you are washed up, retirement is the "goodie" we are told/sold as being the big rock candy mountain we should all desire and plan for, this is often bullshit unless you decide that you are truly finished contributing, alot of us never are.

Social distancing leads to increased screen time, which leads to decreased sleep, which leads to increased frustration, mostly because of an overload of information which often is useless in bettering our real lives. This overabundance of screen time (TV, computer, phone, ipad, even the weather channel) leads to increased snacking and so it goes. Not a good path. As one of my favorite philosophical bloggers put it recently (and from which this writing is inspired and borrowed) - "No matter how hard you train, you can't build much muscle out of Lucky Charms."

Sleep has been laced with dreams of being around others and doing stupid things, like running down the street dodging people by a fraction of an inch, pissing in laundry baskets instead of the toilet, dancing with naked women and chasing shopping carts full of potted plants and casual looking cats. I am often slow to get up and looking for ways to fill the empty days once 11AM rolls around, after having accomplished my morning routines. I try to find something positive to fill the voids. Trying to accomplish the latter without being around others to the same extent as when I was working at jobs and my output was steady is now proving difficult because I see no meaning in doing more things just for myself. And even in all that work I use to do fixing pinball machines for people to play, it is just starting to look so stupid & useless from this difficult context. Meanings are changing while importance is shifting.

When it comes time for bed, usually around 10pm, I am full of piss and vinegar from the day's empty promises. Yet as much as I want to be unconscious and get away from myself and this viral reality for a while, I still dream of what I would be doing if the world hadn't gotten bit by this bug. So many of these dreams are laced with a twisted vision of what I see around me. I have more time than ever but my output has taken a big step down. A downshift, simple things have become huge accomplishments. Going out for food is like going out hunting and navigating the obstacles and threats to then make it back to the cave unscaved. Cleaning my place and putting things in order is now overrated and silly, while disinfecting is making my eyes tear as I realize that classifying the past is now more or less lock stock and barrel until retirement. I am allowed to forget about the past because it is just piled up neatly behind me in a cabinet and if I need to remember or access something for reference sake, there is no real struggle to be had. Case in point, my friend JamesSchid asked for an accurate date when Drapeau had the by-law banning pinball in Montreal on the books when he was first elected mayor. I remembered a Montreal Gazette article a high school friend turned journalist had written, a full page feature on pinball and my small business back in May 1990 (yes, 30 years ago). She had done her background research at the archives & at the municipal library from the actual source documents (no www then) so she likely got the straight dope. Now in this age of spewing information and misinformation being posted so easily, we couldn't not get a straight answer on the web as to the actual date of the by-laws back in the 50's. Maybe it is buried deeper on the web, or not up there yet, regardless, the info came out of my time capsule cabinet in under two minutes.

Planning a new business venture or project is also tricky these days because we don't know what the future holds and what will have changed in all sorts of sectors, not just rental properties/space or real estate. Lots of things are becoming obsolete as we dig ourselves deeper into this hole and many things/values we banked on will likely no longer be valid in the next reality that looms. Even what we previously believed to be the tasty ingredients in making up a good life have shifted again and we are learning that there is only so much miserable ease healthy human beings can take. A world without what we have come to know and believe to be privileged moments may also be around the corner and most inflexible beings do not take well to having their realities and routines busted up. Some get violent and volatile if things change too suddenly and especially when they feel like the ground is shifting and may give out under them. That is when they start believing that they have nothing to lose, and that usually ends up meaning - nothing left to protect at the very end.

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

OK, done for this morning. I will post a scanned section from that Montreal Gazette feature story from 30 years ago which details the approximate dates for the by laws when I have finished my morning routine.

Have a nice day.