Snow

It's like the fimbulvetr out there right now.

Snow and cold like I haven't seen for years. Snow and cold and wind and cloud, all swirling around like a tempest. I can't go out there without a heavy jacket anymore. It's too cold, too windy.

I'm tempted to take a picture, but I don't know how well my camera would do in the cold and wind. I don't want to get ice crystals in the body, as that would utterly destroy my camera. It's like Christmas, except... where's the warmth?

The shoppers are still out though. Nothing save their own demise can stop them from trying to find that "perfect gift." Death could be all about them, and they wouldn't care. As long as Sears is open for another couple of hours, nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters.

Fade Away

Silly moment for the day. My ginormous headphones are on, blasting Nine Inch Nails at maximum volume. I'm sitting here, in front of my glowing screen, tap-tapping like mad on the keyboard, furiously making no progress on my news article.

Only when the song ends do I realize that my mother is standing at the door, apparently telling me something important. I still can't hear her through the bullet-proof leather covers on my headphones. So I slowly remove them from their deathgrip on my head.

"...you know? Give it some thought, you could probably make it for three months."

I guess she finally read my Christmas list.

Is it any wonder that it looks less like a list of toys, and more an equipment manifest for a theoretical sound studio?

I'm still not an artist.

Yet.

Snap

So I was unwinding, settling down to play some guitar before I went to bed last night. It had been particularly warm the last few days, so my guitar was slightly out of tune, so I was correcting them. Nearing completion, I tweaked the last string ever so slightly, first up, then down, and *ktspoooin*.

The delicate metal string snapped just below the head of the guitar and whipped across my fingers like a slave-driver's flay. Two of my fingers were cut and bleeding, but it was the psychological ramifications that hurt more.

My prized guitar, infalliable through thick and thin for the last few months, had failed. Perhaps I had tuned it too much? Perhaps I should have gotten the setup done shortly after I had bought it? What do I do now? I can't play a guitar with just five strings, can I? Can I buy a pack of Electric Guitar strings and just graft a new string on with my other five? Or must the entire family be sacrificed to make room for a new batch of harmony?

My guitar is lying crippled, back on its cradle. The tiny sixth string is lying in two pieces beside my home computer.

My piano satiated my demand to create music, but I'm worried now. In this elitist society, appearing amateurish with my instrument of choice could spell disaster.

Advice?

If - Then Statement

A friend of mine told me there's no need for an excuse to be passionate.

I thought it was quite wise until I actually got wind of what kind of passion he was talking about. I was imagining feats of exceeding valour and nobility, like curing cancer or building a great monument.
Later I discovered, he meant fighting for the exclusive rights to female genitailia, and warding off other barbarous suitors from "my girl."

Laying claim to something that is not mine has never sat quite well with me. I'm single. I lay claim to no-one, and no-one has any claim over me, despite whatever petty notions they might have in their head. Sex is kind of a touchy issue for me, but I figure it will come of its own accord, pardon the pun. I'm not one to go around looking for booty, as I figure any girl looking for a purely physical relationship would be "resigning" herself to me, as there is no shortage of better looking - and much hornier - men to choose from. More experienced, less emotional, the works.

In any event, college seems to have become nothing but a hormone-crazed sex fest, with a few classes and education strewn over top. The fall seems to have that effect on people. They can't stand being single, so they'll begin dating people they hate for nothing more than the rabid make-up sex that inevitably follows every inane argument.

So what happens when two people who actually like each other meet?

I'm Sorry?

I don't seem to recall this happening in World of Warcraft.

I mean, there were a few intense quests, but I don't seem to recall there being an elite quest for rogues leaping from balconies. I think the parents should take a closer look. Leaping from balconies is a very common form of suicide (I know, I don't like it any better than you), and maybe the young lad just didn't have the will to live anymore.

Blaming a suicide on a videogame is a stretch to begin with. Blaming someone leaping from a balcony as influenced by a game that involves no such mandatory action is just plain loco. I would shrug, but the sheer absurdity of this lawsuit would probably cause me to break my shoulders.

It's the Blame Game, I guess. But I think they'll have trouble selling that one to anyone except money-hungry parents and bloodthristy lawyers.

Open Mouth

So there's nothing to say. I've caught myself this week, opening my mouth to say something. But no words come. I've got words to say, but they hesitate. The ears, they want to be heard, but they aren't ready to hear this. So this week, I've tried talking. I've tried saying what I've been thinking. Words are cheap weapons that are easily deflected. Words are a candy that aren't sweet enough to be eaten. Words are just words. Air that was too stale to breathe.

And yet when I listen, everyone's talking. Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone wants to be in the centre, everyone wants to be the voice that everyone listens to. It's all the same in the end. I've locked myself into a permanent deja vu now, as everything I've heard, I've heard before, and I've heard before. The sun rises and sets, and I've seen it all before...

Nothing I do is new, but I've never done it before. I put my feet where I've put my feet before, but I've never been there before. I don't say anything, but I've said it all before.

But perhaps there are some things that I have yet to speak about. Things I haven't seen or felt yet that will only come with more experience in life, and more understanding of myself, and what makes me different, and more importantly, what makes me the same.

A Fair Trade

My ethics for your happiness.
My morals for your freedom.
My talents for your skills.
My music for your charisma.
My thoughts for your desires.
My mind for your matter.
My soul for your business.
My life for yours.

Life's not fair. No deal.

Gonna watch Land of the Dead sometime tonight. Should be a good watch. And Lisa, you suckered me. I picked up Talkie Walkie today, only to discover it had icky fickle write protection on it!

Grrr. I hate record companies. The only way they can make their products piracy proof is by making it virtually useless for everyone.

Consumer

The heroic stereotype is to save the Earth.
Like my dreams, I destroy the worlds.
I'm not here to save the Earth.
I'm here to consume your world.

Inside the Skin

Cut beneath the skin and the pretty eyes.

Dive between the ribs, plunge through the heart. Tear through muscles and tendons. Swing off veins, and cut through the arteries. Blast through the flesh and blood, and find yourself.

What's left?

When every bone is broken, and every capillary bleeds like a broken heart, what is there? What part of a person is left when everything is wrecked and dying?

The most important part. The spirit; the mind. It cannot be harmed by an scalpal, or perforated by any bullet. It cannot be touched by any hand, nor cast out by any force, nor changed for anything else in the world. It cannot be bought, it cannot be sold, it cannot be gained, and it cannot be lost, so long as there is an awareness of itself.

It can however, be scarred and harmed. A single word can cut it as surely as a knife cuts fingers. Betrayal burns like oil, searing away at resolve. Doubt gnaws like an infant at it's own nails.

But through it all, determination and desire prevail. The two-piece kernel to the sprout of the mind.

So what then is the body? Is it a reflection of who we are? Is it perhaps just a vessel to carry ourselves in? Or is it more?

Blood from a Stone

Sometimes my work pulls too much from me, and it gets to the point where my hands metaphorically bleed. That is, my inspiration flees, my drive dies, and I just want to go to sleep.

Journalism, it could be said, would be like being a contest with a rock, and seeing who will bleed first. I've dealt with countless good people, who have made my life easier, and I will always think highly of them, and give them the favourable side of the quill. But for every one good, there are three obstinate, rude, or self-absorbed people.

I can understand retail, where you must try to sell these people something. But relying on them for the information to complete my work, it is the bane of my life at this point. I don't want to have to rely on people who hate me because of some stupid prejudice they got from watching too much television. I'm not interested in "the big scoop," I'm not interested in getting the celebrity's face, up close and personal. I'm only interested in what's happening, what's new, what's newsworthy.

On a sidenote, somebody hooked me up with some contemporary Radiohead. It's good stuff. I'll probably pick some of their CD's up when I go to pick up Air, and Gun for my Gamecube.

Western. Mmmm...

Those on the latest MSN are probably familiar with this illustration.


Yes. I actually do look like that right now.

Planetarian for a Day in the Heavens

You may have your speck of blue,
you may keep your realm of dust.
Space is the the realm where I dwell,
I ride about on the sun's warm gusts.

Amongst the clouds of Venus,
Through the deep red chasms of Mars.
To feel the warm rays of sunlight on my walls.
To walk along the night side of Charon's deepened halls.

Sedna was a distant dream,
a blood red pearl on the lace.
Oort's cloud only rains once,
I catch the drops on my brow.

Saturn dances with the Titan,
Her rings an open dress,
mythology rewritten by her timeless waltz,
Her song does not know death.

Sol, the lonely king of this sphere,
his glowing yellow raiment held low,
his partner long since gone,
he is now left all alone.

So live your little ant lives,
On your little ant world.
You don't know the world,
you don't know the space.

You couldn't learn to share,
You aren't even that aware,
I wonder, would you even care?
If you suddenly perished in a solar flare.

A Small Place for a Lost Mind

Illustrations are great, but nothing beats a hard photo. An illustration makes a point, where a picture makes it real.



The destruction I've seen, while it is no war, is still destruction nonetheless. Part of the apathy that people feel towards violence and harm, I believe, comes from their unwillingness to go out and see it for themselves. If it doesn't come to them, it's not real, just a fantasy played out for their amusement. Everyone believes it can't happen to them, as it's just part of that scripted routine played forth on the television.



The great thing about being out in the countryside, endless roads, endless sky, and endless silence. The nearest car is a million miles behind you, and the only thing you're aware of is the feeling of pavement under wheels, and air rushing through the vents. It's not a feeling of lawlessness, rather it's a feeling of freedom, if only for a moment.



They say Canadian winters are early, cold, and brutal. While I must agree that this is for the most part true, I beg to wonder if whoever says these things have met Canadian girls. Apparently, they're supposed to be easy, but mind the knife. It has a convenient means of finding the small of the back when you least expect it.

Or so I am told at least. I have and always will respect people based on their own merits, rather than their gender or class.

For some people have no merits, and I don't respect them at all.

Dancing on my Grave

Wow.

I mean, just wow.

I wonder sometimes if this job just hates me. Last minute news is news that just shouldn't be. Nothing says welcome home like an overloaded workload and a serious lack of effective social contact.

I think the female gender is waging a vendetta against me.

What hope hath one man against such odds?

What hope hath one man?

What hope?

Edit: And they hath beat me down again. To rise. And they hath beat me down again.
Illness knocks upon my door, and they hath beat me down again.
My throat be all swollen and sore, and they hath beat me down again.

How to say it

It's back. With a vengeance. That wheezing hack that I thought I was rid of. My lungs convulsed and writhed in pain today under a fresh onslaught of dry wheezing cough. Sometimes I wonder if its the case, that even my basic health is being denied me.

Someone even told me today that I need to lay off the smokes. It's ironic, because I have a violent aversion to cigarettes. It's great how people default to thinking that anything you're feeling is ultimately your own fault. How easy it is to point fingers when it's not yourself that you're pointing at.

I feel particularly bad this week as well. I feel like an atom bomb of truth and vileness, and nobody wants to get close enough to set me off. Nobody really wants to hear what I have to say deep down, and maybe its better that way. No, it is better that way. What I think is my own poison, but it allows me the patience and understanding to deal with any type of person. In a way, I can help everyone but myself.

And yet I'm still expected to sit here and sort through my issues, alone. And find some sort of resolution, alone.

The grief of trust made by people can only be mended by people.

I am not inspired by people saying maybe.

Like I wasn't even gone

I've returned home. Yep, back in the big city and ready to start attending classes again. I've practi-cummed all that I need to for this semester, and I'm one step closer to that diploma. However, contrary to my hopes, I still have not attained the bliss of wireless internet. Something funny is afoot in my laptop and my routers, as their behaviour can only be called chaotic and unexpected.

Well, my laptop is falling apart, from a software perspective. I'm taking it in to be re-imaged tommorrow, which means good-bye all info. I've backed a lot of it up onto my home computers, but I still think it's a terrible pain in the ass, and this could have all been prevented if such a series of unfortunate bungles had been avoided. For starters, Microsoft should never EVER make a shitty unstable piece of software into an integral part of their operating system. For example, Internet Explorer. IE should never have been made the integral network tool for Microsoft Windows. The fact that it is, meant that when it got corrupted, I lost all my network modification abilities, my abilities to add new network locations, and eventually, my ability to modify net content.

I work almost exclusively through Firefox now, but seemings as how I can't magically replace the shit with the fox in all its networking roles, I'm screwed.

Indeed, yes I've returned home. To the sound of 100 questions and a million words of nothing.
Less than 10 hours, and I already want to leave again.

Wireless Woes

Perhaps the biggest downside to a wireless internet connection, is that there isn't a convenient wire to hang yourself by when it malfunctions.

Sorry about my lack of posts recently. I've been wrestling with this sack of shit that I call the internet. There's nothing quite like having six wireless connections to choose from, and having none of them work. Shy of wracking up a long distance bill of over $100, this is the only means I have to keep in touch with people over great distances.

I'm also sad to hear that Ryan is deleting his blog. It might be irony, but we finally got some fucking potatoes, and now I won't need them anymore. Sorry buddy. If you're on MSN, give me a shout, and I'll see if I can WoW it up with ya. I seem to recall you oweing me a rematch duel sometime.

In other news, when was Halloween? I seemed to have missed it. Along with all the catwomen, french maids, witches, succubi, and plainly scantly clad women. Geeezus, I miss all the good things in life.