Those mother fucking fucks are pissing the fuck out of me!!! Oh sorry, did I just have another outburst? Damn, hate when that happens. FUCK! *ahem* Anyway, I guess I should rewind a little to last Sunday. The group for my HCI class in their infinite wisdom decided to convene for the final portion of our user testing project the night before it was due. Now I'm all for doing things last minute, the procrastinator that I am, but if you are going to procrastinate like that do it right and stay through until the end.

So basically we hung out in the computer lab, one of the guys brought in 2 of his roommates for the user test. We "recruited" a volunteer, one of the students from the lab and for our last test participant, one member of our group brought in a friend whom he was supposed to meet later to watch the final episode of Sex and the City. I could hear him appeasing his "friend" that they would indeed make it on time for the show. If I were one to jump to conclusions I would be led to believe that both he and his friend are gay, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just hesitant to label anyone who hasn't "un-closeted" themselves to me. Besides my "gaydar" is a bit rusty. Only the most flamingly flamboyant seem to set it off. Not that there's anything wrong with that. =p Oh and for the dude in my group, if by some freak accident of nature you happen upon this entry and you also happen to be not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that, I do offer my apologies. Like I said my "gaydar" is a bit rusty. So anyway, I kind of interjected into his phone convo and said, tell him to meet us in the lab, we need one more participant, so he did. His friend was pretty stylish, if you know what I mean. (no stereotypes explicitly implied). ;)

But I totally digress. Back to the issue at hand. If you are totally confused yet, allow me to explain a little more. We had to conduct a user test for a group project. We were testing the usability of the Nordstrom.com website, having the test participants do task on the site while we observed and timed the participant for each task. That's all well and good, but we also had to compile all of the results and turn in a report for class the next evening.

Guess who got stuck doing all that stuff? Actually, I kind of took a laissez-faire past 2 projects letting the guys in the group do whatever and I put in my minimal share of work. Naturally the portion of work I put in was of decent quality, but the end result was rather un-noteworthy. I believe we got a 17/20 in the last group project and a similar score in the project before.

I figure if I want a better score I should put my hand in the project more. So I had my fist all up in that motherfucker, metaphorically speaking of course. The "Sex and the City" dude and his guy friend dude took off, so did one of the other dude in my group. The last dude stayed in the lab, but had to work on something for another class. He agreed to put the results of the questionnaires in a table though, so that was cool.

Since the lab did not have a wireless network signal (which it should those damn cheap bastards) and I wanted to work on my own machine, I took my laptop and headed to the library where the signal was strong. There I stayed until 11:20pm compiling all the results into the report. I followed the objectives closely so we wouldn't get nailed on the points again. I sent the report off to my classmates via e-mail letting them know we still needed to complete the "findings and recommendations" section and the "executive summary" of the report, noting that anybody's contribution to these sections would be helpful. By the time I got home I was beat, but for some reason I could not sleep right away. Why? Because the damn monkey needed spankage. O.o Yeah, I tried to go to sleep, but I think the caffeine from the red bull I drank hours earlier was still swimming in my system or something. After I "relieved" myself, I slept like a baby.

The next morning I got up early, worried that I might have had to complete the final parts of the report on my own. I carried that worry to work with me and in the beginning I just got swamped all at once with work. The assistant supervisor had me running everywhere, mostly because the main supervisor is seemingly paranoid that he may lose his job and he is being kept out of the loop. The most logical conclusion would be simple misdirected communication, but oh no, it was a "this issue should have went to me" kind of deal for the big boss man, so everyone was jumping that morning.

Normally I don't mind scurrying around in a frantic pace on Monday morning, that is kind of par for the course, but for some reason I was particularly annoyed by all the redirections. They had me doing one thing that was supposedly important, then another thing came up which was supposedly more important so I had to drop the first thing, and while I was doing that other thing, "here's three more things for you to do while you are there".

At that point my mind was inundated with every curse known to the English vocabulary. "I can't believe this fucking ass clowns. They have their heads shoved so far up their fucking asses the can taste their breakfast one more time!" I was saying stuff like that to myself all day and I couldn't stop, hence the title of this entry. Had I vocalized my inner thoughts it would have been a legitimate case of stress-induced Tourette's Syndrome and I would have been likely thrown out on my ass at work. =p Seriously though, I hate it when I lose my cool. Cool is all I got. Without cool Derrick is no longer Derrick, he is just some dude swearing at everyone and haterizing the entire world. We can't have that now can we?

Anyway, instead of relaxing and taking a much needed nap-break, I spent my lunch break working on the final stuff for the report. Only one of the other guys in the group, The "Sex in the City" watching dude sent in a draft of the final pages via email. I added his stuff to mine and made a few revisions. I got the table of questionnaire results from that other dude that stayed behind in another email, and I basically did the rest. I revised and modified the initial test plan, compiled and summarized the results and did the majority of the findings and recommendations and the executive summary. I was all over that fucking report like PB&J on Toast. If this project winds up with a perfect score, it would be due largely to my efforts and my "put in just enough effort to get by" comrades are getting a largely free ride on that wave.

Still, my stress-induced Tourette's Syndrome leveled off when the completed and printed report complete with a table of contents and cover pages for each section was shoved into a report cover and tucked safely away in my backpack without me having to miss any class-time. There was just one slight problem. I was tired as hell with just enough cash to buy snack food, I had no fundage for a Red Bull purchase for the much needed caffeine boost. I was nodding off in class like no tomorrow. I fucking hate that. I prefer to absorb as much a possible during class so I don't have to waste precious time reviewing. By break time I caught a second-wind and was able to stay awake for the last half of class.

So anyway, today happens to be Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras, which means the last day of gluttony and drunken debauchery before tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, which to Catholics and most Christians means the beginning of Lent and thus it also means giving up a vice or indulgence for 40 days and 40 nights until Easter Sunday. To those who don't know, for the last two Lents I gave up sexual gratification. Since I haven't really got any in the past few years rendering the whole gesture moot, I also gave up self-pleasuring. Perhaps the most shocking part is that I had actually succeeded for 2 Lents in a row in resisting the urge to touch myself for both of the 40 day durations.

Just to make things clear, I'm not really a religious person. I don't go to Church and I think much of the ideals and concepts that most religions preach are totally archaic and devoid of philosophy, logic and reason. It is my opinion however that some religious ideals do have their merits and they do have their place. I believe, however that it is up to the individual to take those concepts to heart and not have it shoved down their throats and regurgitated like many religious institutions tend to do. The moment an person or institution requires or imposes something of somebody through obligation or fear of damnation they rob that person of his or her own free will and in essence they are robbing that person of the chance to be spiritual of his or her own volition.

With that said, I sacrificed the indulgence of self-pleasure as a way of getting in touch with myself spiritually. You could say I gave up the physical touching of myself in order to better touch myself spiritually and I would have to say that for the most part it worked. When you haven't pleasured yourself for days and weeks on end, everything else seems to intensify. Colors, tastes and scents become more vivid. Your body exudes sexual energy in a way that the simplest of touches become more pleasurable. Dreams become more frequent and profound and emotions are more flowing. If I'm not mistaken long term pre-sexual deprivation is one of the keys to a Tantric orgasm. Oh and the final release on the 40th night is nothing short of mind-blowing.

Here's the rub, I've already done the self-pleasure deprivation thing for 2 Lents in a row. I'm not sure if doing it again will help me to discover anything new about myself and with all the stress I'm going through lately I don't want to give up one of my best calming techniques lest I head straight into a nervous breakdown. Considering that, I'm at an almost complete loss for what to give up for Lent. I already gave up smoking for my New Year's Resolution and for health reasons. I could give up drinking, but it's not much of a challenge since I hardly go out and it's not like I sit at home and binge on booze.

I was thinking of fasting or maybe going vegetarian but the former is out of the question since I need the food to feed my brain to get my ass through school and my body needs to be fed to get my ass to work to pay for school other such expenses. The latter is kind of out of the question too as most of my food supply is meat based and I don't have the kind of budget nor the time to research a complete dietary change.

There is one indulgence that may prove more challenging to overcome than all the above. That is sloth, my tendency to procrastinate. It's difficult because so deeply ingrained in my nature that I am largely unaware that it is occurring until of course the last-minute. It's a challenge because it is not as discrete a concept as not touching myself or not indulging in food or drink.

I'll have to think about it some more, but for now I really must get to my assignment on hand. Thank you for reading through all my babble...