Holy crap that took long enough.

I finally upgraded to MT 4.21, I'm definitely going to have to put in a few more hours (with some help) to get this all sorted out correctly, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

I shake Cutty Ranks hand, WOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well all, but one, of my predictions for the iPhone 3G came to pass. It still boggles my mind why they would not improve upon the camera (i.e. the one that only works well in broad daylight and with stationary objects). I expected to at least see a flash, but Apple in their wisdom said, "Meh."

GPS was a given, and the subsequent geotagging of photos. I thought they would do something about the volume on the ringer & speakerphone, and they did. However they're not fooling anyone with the "new" price—fuck 2-year contracts, fuck them hard with a medieval morning star.

I guess I want to share with you, my dwindling readers, my own iPhone experience:

First off, it's the bomb phone, I have never in all my days used such a fricking handy device. PDA? Collecting dust. Archos? You treated me well, even if you weighed a metric ton. RAZR? It's my backup in case I ever need to send my iPhone in for repair.

Second, BUY A CASE. You need it, trust me on this, I'm not playing around here—this is serious, BUY A BLOODY CASE. The first time you get a "ding" on its shiny exterior you'll lose all grip of reality. You forget it's "just a phone" because it looks so damn sexy, so keep it that way, buy a fucking case. I'm on my 3rd (in my quest for the "perfect" case), it's the Slider from Incase, which looks the best of anything I've seen but is cheaply made; I got a crack within days (just from regular use, not even a drop!).

Third, get your apps. You need to install, in this order:

- BossTool (move those fonts!)
- SummerBoard (oooh, pretty skins)
- Afp (browse your files from your Mac)
- MobileScrobbler (Last.fm, duh!)
- BossPrefs (one-stop for all your prefs)
- DropCopy (to transfer files between other DropCopy devices,
  i.e. other iPhones)
- Converter (a must-have app)
- ToDoList (why was this missing from the default apps?)
- VoiceNotes (same as above, why!?)
- iBlacklist (for anyone in Trinidad, add +2222222222 to the
  blacklist and avoid the ANNOYING text message we
  get after receiving and checking voicemail)
- iWoman (what? wait, how'd that get in there...)

Criticisms of the device: Crippled bluetooth, this isn't new to phones, but still sad. Of course if any manufacturer had a better reason to do it it's Apple; they want to protect all that lovely iTunes content you spent your hard-earned cash on—not so much the MP3s you downloaded off Soulseek. Aluminum back (2G version) dents very easily, and then your sexy-factor is fucked. No landscape mode for SMS, Notes or Mail; why the heck do you have an accelerometer if you're not going to use it for the most typing-intensive apps? Retarded. Photos, I can't have multiple albums? Really? Fuck you. And finally, craptacular camera.

And now I shall hit "Publish" and hope I can format this properly sometime before 2009.

Lost.

I have (had?) this great direction I want my life to go in, but each day it seems harder and harder to keep moving in that direction.

It's like I'm hurtling towards earth on some botched re-entry, a ball of flames with no visibility, and debris from my own vessel threatening to rip me apart. Basically (I'm beginning to hate that word...) it's damn near impossible to stay on course.

Yeah, too many movies.

Every night I wish I could somehow transport my thoughts directly to this page, because I simply don't have enough time to juggle all the different areas of my life. In trying to keep myself sane, writing here got sacrificed, but then... maybe writing here was doing a better job at keeping me sane than all the rest.

Sometimes I think I'm just not built to handle too many simultaneous request, my max_user connections needs to be set to like 5 for any given 24-hour period (oo! geek reference).

I need to fucking upgrade my Movable Type already, I need to re-design this fucking page, re-learn Flash, re-learn practically everything because I'm so outdated it's disgusting.

I need to get some work done so I'm approaching "ahead of the game" tomorrow, because I've got so many projects they're coming outta my nose.

And with that... adiós.

That was a big fricking quake. I felt the whole damn house move beneath my feet, and the water in the pool went all perfect storm... unreal.

So the results were expected, all except the total lack of seats won by the COP. I expected them to win at least 1 seat. I'll need to look out for the EBC's final numbers to see exactly what went on, and by what margins they lost.

I've got a lot to say about this. First off, if you didn't vote, shut the fuck up. Yesterday I saw an alarming number of people going about their business with nary a drop of ink in sight. One can argue that they simply hadn't voted yet, but when said people are leisurely strolling around Valpark or Bhagwansingh's, chances are voting wasn't high on their list of priorities for the day. Even more (downright) disgusting were the tables of people stuffing their face at Trotters, well after all polls were closed, with you guessed it... maybe a splatter of Alfredo sauce on their finger, but certainly no electoral ink.

I hate it even more that it seems (to me) a large number of PNM voters who did not vote are content to call into radio and TV stations alike spewing the same mindless rhetoric, "Great is the PNM, the PNM shall prevail!" or, "Long live the PNM!" I'm sad to say I even have friends of that persuasion.

Fuck the bloody PNM, fuck ANY party for that matter, how about supporting policies you believe in, and people that you believe can best carry out those policies, instead of backing a party because yuh mamie & tantie is PNM or yuh feel Bas is yuh "uncle"?

I still can't stand that Gillian Lucky lost the St. Joseph seat. If it's one constituency I paid attention to it was my own; I looked at all the promotional material from the candidates, as well as the Manifestos & "1st 100 Days" declarations from all the parties, and Lucky was hands down (to me again) the best candidate. Whether she like men or not (and really... who cares), that woman would've done great things for St. Joseph. You know what the incumbent candidate put as his top achievement for being in office for 5 years? "Renovated 1 school." 1 school? 5 years? And you voting HE back? Bloody insanity.

And all these God DAMN UNC-A supporters who were just waiting to use COP as a scapegoat for their failures, go buy some intelligence nah, at least maybe you'll be able to put forth some better arguments; See if "uncle" Jack could sponsor yuh. Instead of blaming the COP for splitting the vote, why don't you examine what YOUR party did to cause a mass exodus of voters from the UNC? The COP didn't steal your votes, your party gave them away; there's a MONUMENTAL difference.

Also, for once and all, please, COP took votes away from the PNM (Diego Martin anyone?) and won votes from the undecided population, so don't go using creative Mathematics and adding COP to UNC-A's votes in order to determine how the vote was "split". And even if you do PNM would still have clearly won the election. Can we never revisit this again? Thanks.

I am just happy the special majority they required to introduce constitutional changes was not met; that at least leaves me some consolation. Although I hear talks of re-counts in Fyzabad and Mayaro that worry me. Funny they're not calling for a re-count in Cumuto/Manzanilla, which was won (according to the Express) by 337 votes. If you're going to re-count close constituencies, re-count them ALL.

The smug tone of the PNM and bitterness of UNC-A supporters are saddening, just read the comments.

As I sat in front of the TV this early morning hearing the final speeches from the losers and eventual winner, the manner in which the speakers carried about themselves--with dignity, or the lack thereof--really begs commentary. Winston Dookeran congratulated all comers, and with great humility left the podium, I believe Manning himself acted with the dignity due his office and held back from rubbing salt in the wounds of his competitors... Kamla and Basdeo however, oh boy. What a disgusting show they put on, in one breath they talked about freedom but in the other condemned the people who voted for the COP... what? Didn't those people exercise their constitutional freedom to vote for a party of their choice? Panday then directly laid the blame of all future murders, rapes and kidnappings squarely on our (COP) shoulders.

The respect and admiration I once held for Panday, for a man that once sat with me as a young boy and gave of his time out of genuine good-heartedness, is all but gone. What I see before me is a hollowed out carcass that once stood for something, now filed with bile and venom. I honestly think a UNC-A victory would've been worse for this country given the cobbled-together nature of the current UNC.

If anyone caught the film "An Unreasonable Man" the comparisons between Nader and the COP party--and more importantly the criticisms laid against them--are startlingly similar. This story has been told before, penned and published. Will the PNM bungle things like the Republicans have, will the UNC--or UNCOP--thus re-emerge as the clear choice in the 2012 elections? Heh, who the hell knows. Right now, a day after the elections with the true futures of the UNC-A and the COP so foggy, it's impossible to say.

What I can say is, we've got 5 more years of the PNM, and for better or worse they are my government. They are going to be the key to true change over this period, and it's up to the voters (as they're the only ones who in my opinion care) to hold them to the promise of change. As my illustrious godfather said on the radio today, "Give them 6 months and see what they do." I think I will. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that for all their missteps they get more right than wrong. It's our country at stake after all.

If Facebook allowed for more than 30 characters I would say: Justin is disappointed but not ready to call it quits yet. However, if he hears one more UNC-A supporter cry down COP for splitting the votes, or another PNM-ite spew out the mindless rhetoric of, "Great is the PNM, the PNM shall prevail!" he's gonna hurt somebody.

Note: The official EBC statistics are not yet available to me, therefore some of these numbers and subsequent conclusions are subject to change.

Happiness is...

I used to have a stuffed banana that just said, "HAPPINESS IS". It always boggled my mind, I mean, is happiness a banana? Was it trying to tell me that happiness cannot be defined, and if you tried to you'd eventually come up with a banana? Did its open-endedness mean that it's what you make it? Can a stuffed banana really be that deep?

If you ask me today, and even if you asked me on the worst days, my answer would always be the same: Christel

Happiness is loving, and being loved back. In a nutshell, or *ahem*, in a banana.

It's looking at someone, and feeling so much love well up in you that your eyes get glassy. Knowing that you've found that person.

Jesus, it's a great feeling, at once petrifying--because the notion of losing this person through some unfair twist of fate would demolish you--and exhilarating, because you've done it, you've found them.

Mind you though, the flip-side is a veritable sea of anguish...

Now, all I've got to do is find my damn banana.

Can you tell it's midnight? Feels like 3AM.

27. Twenty-freakin-seven. You know, 26 was a stretch, but as you turn the final corner to 27 you can't help but feel it's all down-hill from here. You're not a witty twenty-something anymore, you're just washed up. An unaccomplished, "had the spark of greatness" failure. Or maybe... I set the bar too high for myself. Maybe not. Either way, right now all I feel that can save me down the stretch is a healthy dose of hemlock right after I squeeze the last bit of quirky talent from my addled brain into something truly worth seeing or reading. Feh. Happy birthday to me.