I guess I'm the last one on board with this post, so I might as well get going on it. New Years will be here before I know it, and then the year'll be over.
Anyway. This year was particularly humbling for me. Not all the members of my family have been on speaking terms with each other this past year. Lots of it is ideological, and one of my aunts in particular has trouble accepting points of view that, from her generation, would seem whorish and inappropriate. Her and I have butted heads in the past, and for years, I've thought she hated me (or at the very least, preferred to keep a proverbial wall up between us).
Well, this year, I got a Christmas gift from her that put me to the floor and left me there. She gave me a National Geographic historic portraiture book, which contains the absolute best of National Geographic's portraits since their founding in 1888. I don't think a lot of people know just how important books like these are to me. I've got instruction texts and manuals for shooting to a certain photographic standard, but all those are kept in a box and haven't seen the light of day since college. Instead, on my bookcase, I've got a collection of collections. Books full of wild and imaginative photography, each thicker than a phone book.
Each one is essentially both a lesson and a goal. Each one is essentially a great photographer from the past and present giving me something to try. Something to challenge. And at times, something to best. And this book was no different. I've lately been getting into portrait photography, and this book has shown just how far I've come, and yet, just how far I have left to go.
That's not to say that I will ever be of National Geographic material. As far as magazines go, they're the best and most respected, and while my photos might seem like quality to the layman, compared to the real deal, they still don't compare. As well, I'm shooting digital, while most of National Geographic's works are still shot on film.
Anyway. I received some new sweaters and jeans as well. I was also given a copy of Red Alert 3 for Christmas, and, pertaining to my earlier rant, everything I've said about EA still stands. This title wasn't so much a continuation of the Red Alert franchise as it was the final nail drilled steadfastly into its coffin. I understand EA's making an expansion for the game, but I really have to ask that, if the game itself isn't even fun to play, what's there to expand on?
This post was supposed to be a relatively happy one, and there I go again. Anyway, moving along. I also got a new wah pedal for my guitar, courtesy of my parents. I don't think my noisemaking attempts have endeared them to my attempts at learning the guitar, but I appreciate their support of it nonetheless. With all this gear, I'm thinking a trip to get the band together might be in order sometime soon. Possibly in the spring or summer. If memory serves, Ryan's getting married this summer, which might be prime time to get together and relax a bit before getting all gussied up.
What do you guys think?
p.s. - Robot Chicken is the pinnacle of skit humour. Unlike Family Guy which tires itself after about 20 minutes, Robot Chicken can play for hours without getting old. Am I right?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The bigger they are...
...the faster they downsize.
Want to know why EA's suddenly having a tough time of it? They're too big. That, and they think it's alright to penalize people who actually pay for their games.
Maybe if they spent less money on "managing" their "digital rights," and even less money on fucking sports titles, the company wouldn't be having to lay off their actual useful assets (namely their large collection of talented game developers).
What really got me was this little snippet from the article:
'"EA needs to stop investing in things that are speculative and don't have a proven business model," said Michael Pachter, a financial analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities who tracks the video game industry.'
Financial analyst? Tracks the video game industry? Newsflash: EA's in this boat precisely because they've only been sticking to titles with a proven business model. Dead Space was one of the first and original titles I've seen come out of those doors in the last five years. I don't want Command & Conquer 63. I don't want NHL 2012: Post Apocalypse Now Edition. I don't fucking want regurgitated and rehashed and revomited (revomited, is that even a word?) games.
Take a cue from the publishing industry. Unless you've got a real good thing going, they want new and fresh. Nobody wants to read what comes after the Lord of the Rings. Especially if it's not even written by the same fucking author as the original. -see that's a subtle reference to what happened to CnC after EA ate Westwood.
Also, the key to success in today's market is quite simple. Stop turning established franchises into MMORPG's. It won't work. Unless you're somehow going to create an entirely functional architecture from the ground up that not only competes with Goliath, but even surpasses it, it's not even worth the effort. It's like trying to tempt people away from their crack addiction by offering them sugar cubes.
The only silver lining I can see in the near future will be the sequel to Mass Effect. Not to sink my own ship, but those of you who played Mass Effect know what kind of ambitious shit they pulled to make that game work. Not all of it was appreciated by the media at large, but this is what happens when guys in suits mingle with paranoid schizophrenics. Suddenly there's all madness and everything's owned by two companies and the nuclear apocalypse follows shortly after.
In afterthought, why couldn't it be more like coke and pepsi? I've never, ever gone to enjoy a cold one and had the bottle let me only take five sips, in case I'm sharing with other people. I've never heard of Pepsi buying out smaller sodas and then promptly closing their doors as a tax write-off.
Anyway. For those of you who couldn't give two rats' asses about videogames, or the cretins like me that play them, allow me to fill in the evolutionary gap.
See, when shit in my world spills over into yours, guys like this pick it up and you suffer as a result. You've been warned.
Want to know why EA's suddenly having a tough time of it? They're too big. That, and they think it's alright to penalize people who actually pay for their games.
Maybe if they spent less money on "managing" their "digital rights," and even less money on fucking sports titles, the company wouldn't be having to lay off their actual useful assets (namely their large collection of talented game developers).
What really got me was this little snippet from the article:
'"EA needs to stop investing in things that are speculative and don't have a proven business model," said Michael Pachter, a financial analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities who tracks the video game industry.'
Financial analyst? Tracks the video game industry? Newsflash: EA's in this boat precisely because they've only been sticking to titles with a proven business model. Dead Space was one of the first and original titles I've seen come out of those doors in the last five years. I don't want Command & Conquer 63. I don't want NHL 2012: Post Apocalypse Now Edition. I don't fucking want regurgitated and rehashed and revomited (revomited, is that even a word?) games.
Take a cue from the publishing industry. Unless you've got a real good thing going, they want new and fresh. Nobody wants to read what comes after the Lord of the Rings. Especially if it's not even written by the same fucking author as the original. -see that's a subtle reference to what happened to CnC after EA ate Westwood.
Also, the key to success in today's market is quite simple. Stop turning established franchises into MMORPG's. It won't work. Unless you're somehow going to create an entirely functional architecture from the ground up that not only competes with Goliath, but even surpasses it, it's not even worth the effort. It's like trying to tempt people away from their crack addiction by offering them sugar cubes.
The only silver lining I can see in the near future will be the sequel to Mass Effect. Not to sink my own ship, but those of you who played Mass Effect know what kind of ambitious shit they pulled to make that game work. Not all of it was appreciated by the media at large, but this is what happens when guys in suits mingle with paranoid schizophrenics. Suddenly there's all madness and everything's owned by two companies and the nuclear apocalypse follows shortly after.
In afterthought, why couldn't it be more like coke and pepsi? I've never, ever gone to enjoy a cold one and had the bottle let me only take five sips, in case I'm sharing with other people. I've never heard of Pepsi buying out smaller sodas and then promptly closing their doors as a tax write-off.
Anyway. For those of you who couldn't give two rats' asses about videogames, or the cretins like me that play them, allow me to fill in the evolutionary gap.
See, when shit in my world spills over into yours, guys like this pick it up and you suffer as a result. You've been warned.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
How the hell?
It's been a strange, strange week. Nothing but snow, snow and ice. Ice and snow. And mail. God, if I never ever have to send another mail or package again, it will be too damn soon. Fuck the post office and fuck the union. What're they good for anyway, if only for losing things and overcharging?
Perhaps not overcharging, but it seems anything you put in that slot never sees the light of day again. I'm still waiting on a package, and like the prodigal son, I'm not expecting it to actually arrive, but I'm pretty sure there will be angels and trumpets when it finally gets here.
And as for this city, I'm fully prepared to spend tomorrow doing nothing but sleeping. I've had enough of this winter bullshit and people's inability to handle it. Most of all the city, which I pay taxes to, has decided that it's not worth their time to plow and sand the streets I have to travel to even leave my neighborhood. A menial rant, but an important one nonetheless, because it seems to happen every year.
On to federal politics. I was going to comment on the legitimacy of a coalition government, but it seems that particular vein has been cut off, and we might not face such a tenuous situation after all.
But nonetheless, ladies and gentlemen, there's nothing illegal about a coalition party running the country. A bit of back story on "Confidence." If the party voted in doesn't have it in the House, then the Governor General has options to either prorogue the government, call an election, or leave it to the Opposition to form a coalition to run the country until such time as an election is called, or until the coalition runs afoul of national confidence as well.
That said. Let me be clear. I don't support this coalition, because this coalition couldn't lead itself out of a paper bag, let alone an economic crunch. I don't support Harper either, because he's a conservative and political Conservatives are anathema to me.
Albeit. Come to think of it. Almost any kind of politician has become anathema lately. I can't decide whether that's a result of my newspaper experience, or simply because they're all trying so hard to pander to the degenerate suits that I've grown to abhor.
In any event.
Sleep. Yes.
Perhaps not overcharging, but it seems anything you put in that slot never sees the light of day again. I'm still waiting on a package, and like the prodigal son, I'm not expecting it to actually arrive, but I'm pretty sure there will be angels and trumpets when it finally gets here.
And as for this city, I'm fully prepared to spend tomorrow doing nothing but sleeping. I've had enough of this winter bullshit and people's inability to handle it. Most of all the city, which I pay taxes to, has decided that it's not worth their time to plow and sand the streets I have to travel to even leave my neighborhood. A menial rant, but an important one nonetheless, because it seems to happen every year.
On to federal politics. I was going to comment on the legitimacy of a coalition government, but it seems that particular vein has been cut off, and we might not face such a tenuous situation after all.
But nonetheless, ladies and gentlemen, there's nothing illegal about a coalition party running the country. A bit of back story on "Confidence." If the party voted in doesn't have it in the House, then the Governor General has options to either prorogue the government, call an election, or leave it to the Opposition to form a coalition to run the country until such time as an election is called, or until the coalition runs afoul of national confidence as well.
That said. Let me be clear. I don't support this coalition, because this coalition couldn't lead itself out of a paper bag, let alone an economic crunch. I don't support Harper either, because he's a conservative and political Conservatives are anathema to me.
Albeit. Come to think of it. Almost any kind of politician has become anathema lately. I can't decide whether that's a result of my newspaper experience, or simply because they're all trying so hard to pander to the degenerate suits that I've grown to abhor.
In any event.
Sleep. Yes.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Running 4 our lives
Left 4 Dead.
Just how awesome is this game? Fairly awesome. There's nothing better than teaming up with three of your best buddies and fighting your way through the zombie apocalypse. Or in a twist, being part of the Infected and fighting to claw, strangle, vomit, and trounce the Survivors to death.
I like it as a team game, as it quickly separates the team players from the rambos, and also quickly separates the rambos from their torsos.
I've been reading over the internet, and a lot of what I've read about the game was negative. It's too rushed, some people say. There's not enough guns, whine some others. In all honesty, these are such trivial things that I haven't even noticed. Anyone obsessing over their guns is playing the wrong game, as your best weapon is yourself, and the three other people with you. Honestly, as a team, with nothing but pistols, you could still give a handsome accounting of yourself on Expert difficulty.
Anyway, that's my little nerd-gasm for the moment.
In a completely unrelated topic, I feel the need for a political rant coming on. But I will save that for another entry, just largely because the sheer gravity of what I need to say can't be understated. Nor upstaged by a zombie apocalypse.
Just how awesome is this game? Fairly awesome. There's nothing better than teaming up with three of your best buddies and fighting your way through the zombie apocalypse. Or in a twist, being part of the Infected and fighting to claw, strangle, vomit, and trounce the Survivors to death.
I like it as a team game, as it quickly separates the team players from the rambos, and also quickly separates the rambos from their torsos.
I've been reading over the internet, and a lot of what I've read about the game was negative. It's too rushed, some people say. There's not enough guns, whine some others. In all honesty, these are such trivial things that I haven't even noticed. Anyone obsessing over their guns is playing the wrong game, as your best weapon is yourself, and the three other people with you. Honestly, as a team, with nothing but pistols, you could still give a handsome accounting of yourself on Expert difficulty.
Anyway, that's my little nerd-gasm for the moment.
In a completely unrelated topic, I feel the need for a political rant coming on. But I will save that for another entry, just largely because the sheer gravity of what I need to say can't be understated. Nor upstaged by a zombie apocalypse.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Snow Fortress
We got a huge dump of snow today, of the likes I haven't seen in years. Lately, it's been so dry and mild that "snow" is usually just an accumulation of dry, piddly little flakes that are just as easily dispatched with a broom as with a shovel.
Not today. It felt like Old Man Winter had taken his viagra and was proceeding to fuck a city of complacent drivers and idiot pedestrians. It's up to nearly a foot and a half, and even with all-wheel-drive, I was having a tough time negotiating side streets and boulevards, slipping one way and then digging in another.
In short, it was quite fun. If, you know, being in an out of control quarter ton SUV is the kind of thrill you enjoy.
Just looking out right now, it looks like the world's made out of orange sherbet. The streetlights give this whole city an orange glow that just permeates everything after it snows. Trees are transformed into orange clots that occasionally fidget as the heavy snow gets shifted around. Sometimes, an entire tree will divest itself of an entire payload. Often time with an unsuspecting passerby underneath. It's alright to laugh once, but not twice, as it's pretty much guaranteed that laughing to much at someone getting dumped on will ensure that the next tree you pass will take offense and douse your good mood.
Chain link fences have gone from transparent to opaque. Driving by a playground on the way home from work, I wondered if this is how the world would look in a nuclear winter, everything blanketed with thick white ash, and every fence and filter rendered into an end-up roll of congealed non-descript fluff.
Such thoughts are quick in passing though, as you cannot eat ash - or at least, not as easily as one can catch snow on their tongue. Ash, I imagine, would probably taste most horrible, and given the fact that that particular notion was of a nuclear apocalypse, I could only imagine that said ash would be mildly irradiated, and the last thing I'd wish on anyone would be a tongue tumour or throat cancer, or prehensile pseudopods, or whatever other bizarre malfunction the radiation would entice.
Anyway, my original thoughts for writing this have apparently gone for a ride on the tangent rollercoaster, and I'm going to stop now before any other rubbish shows up on this page.
Not today. It felt like Old Man Winter had taken his viagra and was proceeding to fuck a city of complacent drivers and idiot pedestrians. It's up to nearly a foot and a half, and even with all-wheel-drive, I was having a tough time negotiating side streets and boulevards, slipping one way and then digging in another.
In short, it was quite fun. If, you know, being in an out of control quarter ton SUV is the kind of thrill you enjoy.
Just looking out right now, it looks like the world's made out of orange sherbet. The streetlights give this whole city an orange glow that just permeates everything after it snows. Trees are transformed into orange clots that occasionally fidget as the heavy snow gets shifted around. Sometimes, an entire tree will divest itself of an entire payload. Often time with an unsuspecting passerby underneath. It's alright to laugh once, but not twice, as it's pretty much guaranteed that laughing to much at someone getting dumped on will ensure that the next tree you pass will take offense and douse your good mood.
Chain link fences have gone from transparent to opaque. Driving by a playground on the way home from work, I wondered if this is how the world would look in a nuclear winter, everything blanketed with thick white ash, and every fence and filter rendered into an end-up roll of congealed non-descript fluff.
Such thoughts are quick in passing though, as you cannot eat ash - or at least, not as easily as one can catch snow on their tongue. Ash, I imagine, would probably taste most horrible, and given the fact that that particular notion was of a nuclear apocalypse, I could only imagine that said ash would be mildly irradiated, and the last thing I'd wish on anyone would be a tongue tumour or throat cancer, or prehensile pseudopods, or whatever other bizarre malfunction the radiation would entice.
Anyway, my original thoughts for writing this have apparently gone for a ride on the tangent rollercoaster, and I'm going to stop now before any other rubbish shows up on this page.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Rage against the man
I'm watching what's going on in Ottawa right now with a mix of delicious irony, languid apathy, and just a little bit of excitement.
For those of you either A) Living under a rock, or B) On the other side of the border, Canada is undergoing a government crisis right now, where the ruling political party is under threat of a confidence vote.
A little bit of background on a confidence vote:
When a party is elected into power with a minority of the seats in the House of Commons, they are effectively held in check by the power of the other political parties, as combined, they hold more votes than the elected party in power.
Normally, this doesn't come into play, as each party typically squabbles like a bunch of idiot chickens at the scratch when it comes to agreeing on any political directive. That said, however, there are certain votes, called confidence votes, where members of each political party areexpected forced to vote how their entire party would vote, and if it turns out that enough opposition ballots are cast against the ruling party's motion (in this case, the budget), the ruling party is then forced to step down, due to a lack of confidence.
Typically, this means that the leading party steps down and calls another election. However. It is not unprecedented for two opposition parties to form a coalition to run the country in the stead of the party that won the election. The decision of which path to take typically comes from the Governor General - an unelected person representing the Queen in Canada.
So.
Currently, there is talk of an impending coalition between two of the country's opposition parties, with support of a third, separatist party. There's been a lot of talk about how undemocratic the process is, and how this whole mess is going to ruin our country, and probably send Quebec floating off to the moon, or something like that.
All I can say is, deal with it.
Even the worst possible case scenario isn't going to result in a national crisis, unless we let it.
The way I see it, this whole fiasco is the final precipitation from the massive number of voters who didn't vote in the last election. More than 40% of the country didn't even bother in the last election, and now there's an uproar over our democratic rights being quashed by a "back-door takeover."
I honestly think our democratic rights are already rather butchered at the hands of apathy. Even with the country being run by two unelected parties, headed by a resigned and reviled Prime Minister, and then propped by a separatist party, it would largely be business as usual for the rest of us.
And provided it's not, this might just be the thing to bite the ass of the 40% who didn't vote.
So.
I'm going to watch. And I'm going to wait. Either way, it should be interesting.
For those of you either A) Living under a rock, or B) On the other side of the border, Canada is undergoing a government crisis right now, where the ruling political party is under threat of a confidence vote.
A little bit of background on a confidence vote:
When a party is elected into power with a minority of the seats in the House of Commons, they are effectively held in check by the power of the other political parties, as combined, they hold more votes than the elected party in power.
Normally, this doesn't come into play, as each party typically squabbles like a bunch of idiot chickens at the scratch when it comes to agreeing on any political directive. That said, however, there are certain votes, called confidence votes, where members of each political party are
Typically, this means that the leading party steps down and calls another election. However. It is not unprecedented for two opposition parties to form a coalition to run the country in the stead of the party that won the election. The decision of which path to take typically comes from the Governor General - an unelected person representing the Queen in Canada.
So.
Currently, there is talk of an impending coalition between two of the country's opposition parties, with support of a third, separatist party. There's been a lot of talk about how undemocratic the process is, and how this whole mess is going to ruin our country, and probably send Quebec floating off to the moon, or something like that.
All I can say is, deal with it.
Even the worst possible case scenario isn't going to result in a national crisis, unless we let it.
The way I see it, this whole fiasco is the final precipitation from the massive number of voters who didn't vote in the last election. More than 40% of the country didn't even bother in the last election, and now there's an uproar over our democratic rights being quashed by a "back-door takeover."
I honestly think our democratic rights are already rather butchered at the hands of apathy. Even with the country being run by two unelected parties, headed by a resigned and reviled Prime Minister, and then propped by a separatist party, it would largely be business as usual for the rest of us.
And provided it's not, this might just be the thing to bite the ass of the 40% who didn't vote.
So.
I'm going to watch. And I'm going to wait. Either way, it should be interesting.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Dots per Inch
I'm all over the place today, and I can thank my new little electronic rodent for that. Yes, a new mouse. My old one crapped, and halfway through correcting a photo, it decided that the picture would look better with a big white smear through it.
As you can well imagine, when mice misbehave, they are taken out back and shot.
Well, no. I'm not that cruel. They get put downstairs as a spare for anyone that needs one. Even a malfunctioning - but functional - mouse is better than a dead one, so it's into the cupboard.
See that? That's a normal two paragraphs about a normal thing.
Lets talk about the future, shall we? I know I've often written about it as a great gaping maw, an infernal blazing furnace into which we insert our ambitions to be forged into reality. It's not quite that dramatic. Not now anyways.
I feel like I've woken up from kind of a slumber lately. I've been watching things, hearing things, and seeing things, but not really reacting. It all just gets absorbed and stored away. I can't imagine it being a malicious thing, but I guess I just needed an in-brain vacation.
I'm back now.
I guess while I was away from terrestrial thought, two friends of mine decided it would be a good idea to look at getting married. Correct me if I'm wrong, Trev and Trace, but if I didn't congratulate you two because I was out of the loop, I'm sorry, and I'm rectifying that shit here and now. If I didn't congratulate you two because it never actually happened, I'll go talk to a doctor about taking a permanent trip, so you guys don't have to put up with my lunacy.
I guess another friend of mine - who doesn't read this - left his girlfriend of two years. It was a strange and heartbreaking affair, made only stranger that now, two months later, they're back together again. I don't know how I feel about that, but I will say it's not warm fuzzy appreciation. Next couple to get into an unmarried fight in front of me is getting both their clocks cleaned by yours truly.
I guess the world's economy has collapsed. I've been slightly aware that work has been deader than usual, and the price of things has greatly come down. How this is bad for everyone, I'm still trying to process in my brain. From my understanding, a bunch of incredibly rich individuals and corporations have lost a lot of money on stupid gambles, and now they're trying to con and swindle the rest of us into footing the bills.
Well, not us per say, but the government - slash - governments, because I guess it's worldwide.
Somebody should tell that to the big-three automotive manufacturers in the US. Flying private jets to Washington to plead for handouts. Maybe you'd like your scraps on a gold platter too. And while you're eating, maybe you could design a car that's not a miserable piece of shit too. That's just my thought as a *cough* proud owner of a domestic car.
I almost said house car there. Akin to the feral house cat, the house car prowls in unused air ducts, stalking its elusive prey: the domesticated caravan. The house car has been listed as a critical species due to poaching and competition from non-native alley cars which were inadvertently brought to the mainland of North America on trade liners.
Back on topic.
So, economic decline. I'm seeing a lot of opportunity, but I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be out a lot of money as the markets tumble and crumble and mumble.
I have a feeling that we'll all be alright, and those who work hard, will only work harder to ensure they're taken care of. Either that, or now is a very good time to start dreaming. I know it sounds counterproductive, but a lot of forces that would be on your back for rising up have bigger fish to fry right now, so fly. Be free.
Or some other applicable rhetoric. In the words of the vortigaunts, "Be adequate."
Tomorrow is a long day. The plan is thus:
Currently, beside me, there is a large, blank slab of wall. Imposing. Bland. Boring.
After much consideration, and almost 70 8.5x11 prints, I will transform said wall into:
MASSIVE PHOTO COLLAGE.
Most of you will have a place there. The ones of you I've taken pictures of anyway. Those of you that I haven't, I haven't forgotten you. Not yet anyway. Though no guarantees once I'm over sixty.
And I suppose that bring me to my plans in the summer.
There is, in the back of my mind, a road map for a grand tour of our North American continent. I cannot decide whether to go north or south or west at this point, as I've already gone east, and I doubt they'd want to put up with my pasty, beefeating, angliphone ass for another week.
So the question is thus. Do I impose on BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA?
Do I thrust myself on the mighty US of A, HOME OF THE BRAVE AND LAND OF THE mostly FREE?
Or do I head elsewhere entirely?
Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.
As you can well imagine, when mice misbehave, they are taken out back and shot.
Well, no. I'm not that cruel. They get put downstairs as a spare for anyone that needs one. Even a malfunctioning - but functional - mouse is better than a dead one, so it's into the cupboard.
See that? That's a normal two paragraphs about a normal thing.
Lets talk about the future, shall we? I know I've often written about it as a great gaping maw, an infernal blazing furnace into which we insert our ambitions to be forged into reality. It's not quite that dramatic. Not now anyways.
I feel like I've woken up from kind of a slumber lately. I've been watching things, hearing things, and seeing things, but not really reacting. It all just gets absorbed and stored away. I can't imagine it being a malicious thing, but I guess I just needed an in-brain vacation.
I'm back now.
I guess while I was away from terrestrial thought, two friends of mine decided it would be a good idea to look at getting married. Correct me if I'm wrong, Trev and Trace, but if I didn't congratulate you two because I was out of the loop, I'm sorry, and I'm rectifying that shit here and now. If I didn't congratulate you two because it never actually happened, I'll go talk to a doctor about taking a permanent trip, so you guys don't have to put up with my lunacy.
I guess another friend of mine - who doesn't read this - left his girlfriend of two years. It was a strange and heartbreaking affair, made only stranger that now, two months later, they're back together again. I don't know how I feel about that, but I will say it's not warm fuzzy appreciation. Next couple to get into an unmarried fight in front of me is getting both their clocks cleaned by yours truly.
I guess the world's economy has collapsed. I've been slightly aware that work has been deader than usual, and the price of things has greatly come down. How this is bad for everyone, I'm still trying to process in my brain. From my understanding, a bunch of incredibly rich individuals and corporations have lost a lot of money on stupid gambles, and now they're trying to con and swindle the rest of us into footing the bills.
Well, not us per say, but the government - slash - governments, because I guess it's worldwide.
Somebody should tell that to the big-three automotive manufacturers in the US. Flying private jets to Washington to plead for handouts. Maybe you'd like your scraps on a gold platter too. And while you're eating, maybe you could design a car that's not a miserable piece of shit too. That's just my thought as a *cough* proud owner of a domestic car.
I almost said house car there. Akin to the feral house cat, the house car prowls in unused air ducts, stalking its elusive prey: the domesticated caravan. The house car has been listed as a critical species due to poaching and competition from non-native alley cars which were inadvertently brought to the mainland of North America on trade liners.
Back on topic.
So, economic decline. I'm seeing a lot of opportunity, but I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be out a lot of money as the markets tumble and crumble and mumble.
I have a feeling that we'll all be alright, and those who work hard, will only work harder to ensure they're taken care of. Either that, or now is a very good time to start dreaming. I know it sounds counterproductive, but a lot of forces that would be on your back for rising up have bigger fish to fry right now, so fly. Be free.
Or some other applicable rhetoric. In the words of the vortigaunts, "Be adequate."
Tomorrow is a long day. The plan is thus:
Currently, beside me, there is a large, blank slab of wall. Imposing. Bland. Boring.
After much consideration, and almost 70 8.5x11 prints, I will transform said wall into:
MASSIVE PHOTO COLLAGE.
Most of you will have a place there. The ones of you I've taken pictures of anyway. Those of you that I haven't, I haven't forgotten you. Not yet anyway. Though no guarantees once I'm over sixty.
And I suppose that bring me to my plans in the summer.
There is, in the back of my mind, a road map for a grand tour of our North American continent. I cannot decide whether to go north or south or west at this point, as I've already gone east, and I doubt they'd want to put up with my pasty, beefeating, angliphone ass for another week.
So the question is thus. Do I impose on BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA?
Do I thrust myself on the mighty US of A, HOME OF THE BRAVE AND LAND OF THE mostly FREE?
Or do I head elsewhere entirely?
Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
And I have yet no time
Between work and other engagements, I've been trying my best to keep up with the deluge of games coming out for the Christmas season. It's no mistake that companies do this every year - largely because their sales and PR departments are run by degenerate apes who tie in sales of everything to the Christmas season.
Games don't need a special season. They can sell whenever. But I get where they're coming from. Try telling that to a big-wig CEO who wants to see some black numbers for Q3, or whatever bullshit lingo they use for the Sales Season.
Anyway, off that rant, and onto the games I've been playing:
Fallout 3:
In all honesty, I was expecting... I don't know... more. I'd been playing STALKER up until the release of Fallout 3, and since I've never played the original or Fallout 2, I'm missing a lot of what happened in the universe prior. My largest problem could just be that fact. A lot of the content is delivered with a sly wink, like it's some inside joke, and I'm just not getting it. Sorry home-slice, but back in the day, I was more interested in piloting fighter-craft through solar and extrasolar mines.
It's been fun so far, don't get me wrong. But after playing STALKER, which despite bugs and horrible translations, still oozes atmosphere and made me jump more than once. After dropping a Super Mutant who was menacing me with a minigun with little more than a switchblade, I decided that perhaps this wasn't the game for me.
Dead Space:
Yes, I'm coming back to it, simply because I've now started my second play-through. Despite having grossly upgraded weapons and better suits now, the game still fucks with my head, convincing me that certain death is still around every corner. Honestly, you could put me in a goddamn mech with the hand of God as my weapon, and I'd still shake with fear at every long hallway and blind junction. It's just that good.
Fable 2:
One of my few titles for the X-box, Fable 2 was bizarrely addictive for about the first three days. I've played through as both good and evil, pure and corrupt, and I like the amount of work that's gone into realizing the world, and more importantly, its mechanics. In all honesty, if you wanted to, you could marry yourself to thirty different women (or men) and just spend the rest of the game trying to keep them all happy, while simultaneously trying to micro-manage your rapidly multiplying progeny.
Yes. You have kids. In the same game where you get bonus experience for scoring a headshot.
WoW: WOTLK
Yes, I choked and went and bought the new expansion, largely just so I could play as a Death Knight - a class that I was looking forward to playing way back when the game first came out. As you can probably imagine, I was very disappointed when I discovered that there were no Death Knights, but I'm pleased the situation has since been remedied.
On top of those titles, I've also been passing some time playing titles such as Braid, Castle Crashers, and of course, the ADHD Ritalin-fest that is Geometry Wars.
I know there's a lot of other titles still out there, but I'm pretty content with my platter thus far, and I will probably be so for well into the new year.
Cheers.
Games don't need a special season. They can sell whenever. But I get where they're coming from. Try telling that to a big-wig CEO who wants to see some black numbers for Q3, or whatever bullshit lingo they use for the Sales Season.
Anyway, off that rant, and onto the games I've been playing:
Fallout 3:
In all honesty, I was expecting... I don't know... more. I'd been playing STALKER up until the release of Fallout 3, and since I've never played the original or Fallout 2, I'm missing a lot of what happened in the universe prior. My largest problem could just be that fact. A lot of the content is delivered with a sly wink, like it's some inside joke, and I'm just not getting it. Sorry home-slice, but back in the day, I was more interested in piloting fighter-craft through solar and extrasolar mines.
It's been fun so far, don't get me wrong. But after playing STALKER, which despite bugs and horrible translations, still oozes atmosphere and made me jump more than once. After dropping a Super Mutant who was menacing me with a minigun with little more than a switchblade, I decided that perhaps this wasn't the game for me.
Dead Space:
Yes, I'm coming back to it, simply because I've now started my second play-through. Despite having grossly upgraded weapons and better suits now, the game still fucks with my head, convincing me that certain death is still around every corner. Honestly, you could put me in a goddamn mech with the hand of God as my weapon, and I'd still shake with fear at every long hallway and blind junction. It's just that good.
Fable 2:
One of my few titles for the X-box, Fable 2 was bizarrely addictive for about the first three days. I've played through as both good and evil, pure and corrupt, and I like the amount of work that's gone into realizing the world, and more importantly, its mechanics. In all honesty, if you wanted to, you could marry yourself to thirty different women (or men) and just spend the rest of the game trying to keep them all happy, while simultaneously trying to micro-manage your rapidly multiplying progeny.
Yes. You have kids. In the same game where you get bonus experience for scoring a headshot.
WoW: WOTLK
Yes, I choked and went and bought the new expansion, largely just so I could play as a Death Knight - a class that I was looking forward to playing way back when the game first came out. As you can probably imagine, I was very disappointed when I discovered that there were no Death Knights, but I'm pleased the situation has since been remedied.
On top of those titles, I've also been passing some time playing titles such as Braid, Castle Crashers, and of course, the ADHD Ritalin-fest that is Geometry Wars.
I know there's a lot of other titles still out there, but I'm pretty content with my platter thus far, and I will probably be so for well into the new year.
Cheers.
Monday, November 10, 2008
A Time
Snow crunches underfoot, and a kind of hush falls over the valley. Snow drifts lazily down, almost standing still in the air as each flake tumbles a wild, slow, sad dance to the ground.
"This is your favorite season?" she asks, almost sadly.
Looking out across this frozen, sleepy landscape, I nod slowly, breath hanging in the air. Beneath all the white, beneath the freezing blanket, the land sleeps. Trees and grass and wildflowers. They all sleep, beneath the curls of hoarfrost and the spinning flakes of winter's first deluge.
"It is," I reply, finally.
The sun is setting - though at this time of year, it barely even rises. Right now, it's little more than a smear of orange and pink across steely slate clouds. After nearly eight months under its baleful gaze, it's a relief to be able to look upon the burning orb and not have to wince.
Winter is going to be painfully short. It has been and it continues to become moreso. I remember as a child living under the oppression of eight months of snow, and in those cold, reclusive months, I learned to find the subtle beauty, the lonely solitude, that winter affords. It's a time for sleep and reflection.
And most of all, it's a time to be alone.
"This is your favorite season?" she asks, almost sadly.
Looking out across this frozen, sleepy landscape, I nod slowly, breath hanging in the air. Beneath all the white, beneath the freezing blanket, the land sleeps. Trees and grass and wildflowers. They all sleep, beneath the curls of hoarfrost and the spinning flakes of winter's first deluge.
"It is," I reply, finally.
The sun is setting - though at this time of year, it barely even rises. Right now, it's little more than a smear of orange and pink across steely slate clouds. After nearly eight months under its baleful gaze, it's a relief to be able to look upon the burning orb and not have to wince.
Winter is going to be painfully short. It has been and it continues to become moreso. I remember as a child living under the oppression of eight months of snow, and in those cold, reclusive months, I learned to find the subtle beauty, the lonely solitude, that winter affords. It's a time for sleep and reflection.
And most of all, it's a time to be alone.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Onwards, Upwards
It sounds like Barack Obama has won the election and become the 44th President of the United States of America.
Well, congratulations to him. I know a lot of people all over the world that are sleeping a little easier tonight.
On a completely unrelated note, I picked up two new games not long ago. Dead Space, and Fallout 3. Not to mention Fable 2 for the Xbox, which I've been playing and since have beaten.
Dead Space is by far the most intriguing title in my collection so far. It's a survival horror that's combined my favorite aspects of Aliens and Resident Evil into one title of sheer terror. I had to cease playing 15 minutes into the game, just out of sheer terror at the thought of having to walk back across a shadowy catwalk into - what I thought was - certain and gruesome death.
Dan, if there's one horrific game you get this year, I'd recommend Dead Space. The rest of you, I'd only recommend it if you enjoy playing in an atmosphere of unadultered terror and discomfort.
Well, congratulations to him. I know a lot of people all over the world that are sleeping a little easier tonight.
On a completely unrelated note, I picked up two new games not long ago. Dead Space, and Fallout 3. Not to mention Fable 2 for the Xbox, which I've been playing and since have beaten.
Dead Space is by far the most intriguing title in my collection so far. It's a survival horror that's combined my favorite aspects of Aliens and Resident Evil into one title of sheer terror. I had to cease playing 15 minutes into the game, just out of sheer terror at the thought of having to walk back across a shadowy catwalk into - what I thought was - certain and gruesome death.
Dan, if there's one horrific game you get this year, I'd recommend Dead Space. The rest of you, I'd only recommend it if you enjoy playing in an atmosphere of unadultered terror and discomfort.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Dismay
Hello, Stranger.
I've seen your face before, though what it hides, I no longer know. Nor want to know.
I make no claims to your predilection, your desires, or your needs. I have no interest in your ambitions or accomplishments. All you have that piques my interest, is a subtle ripple in my web.
You are animate in your examinations, and you have such vigour when you think you're right.
But imagine the future, that burning, bright end of times. And imagine yourself in it. Will you bask? Or will you burn? Are you assured in your position, or will you jostle, fight, and rave?
Do you see yourself there? Or are you like me, and see everyone else as they shall be, but our own lot, strangely missing?
What is it that you see, Stranger? And does it dismay you?
I've seen your face before, though what it hides, I no longer know. Nor want to know.
I make no claims to your predilection, your desires, or your needs. I have no interest in your ambitions or accomplishments. All you have that piques my interest, is a subtle ripple in my web.
You are animate in your examinations, and you have such vigour when you think you're right.
But imagine the future, that burning, bright end of times. And imagine yourself in it. Will you bask? Or will you burn? Are you assured in your position, or will you jostle, fight, and rave?
Do you see yourself there? Or are you like me, and see everyone else as they shall be, but our own lot, strangely missing?
What is it that you see, Stranger? And does it dismay you?
Monday, October 20, 2008
22
So I turned 22 today while sitting in the tech room at work.
By all accounts is was a fairly mediocre day, though I am happy to be home now.
I'm trying to think of the proper colloquialism for how I'm feeling right now.
"Man, my dogs are barking."
"Fuck, I'm fucking tired as fuck."
"Hair on a bobbin, old bunt. Hair on a bobbin."
By all accounts is was a fairly mediocre day, though I am happy to be home now.
I'm trying to think of the proper colloquialism for how I'm feeling right now.
"Hair on a bobbin, old bunt. Hair on a bobbin."
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Relief
There is, perhaps, nothing and no one that can reach me here.
There's but three things in this place.
There's the Sun, and it sits before me.
There's the Sea, and she sits beneath me.
There's the Sky, and he floats above me.
This is invariably where I end up, when I'm not paying attention, and I float away.
I sit, a tiny island adrift and between three grand and endless things. And upon my lap sits a book that writes, and sometimes I write in.
Many times, I will open it. Many times, I can feel my innards recoil at what I read.
Sometimes, I'm afraid to open the book. It's the lens through which reality is bent. There are times when I can make it seem straight and true. And others, it warps, grows wide, grows distorted.
Sometimes, I will sit and draw in the book. The lines never come together coherently, but then again, neither has anything we've ever made.
And there is, in this place, now four things. For when I leave, the book remains.
It grows ever longer, and in this place, it becomes as a feeling does - beginning small and spreading outwards.
It grows, basking in the sun. Bathing in the sea. Witnessing the sky.
And it is like me when I write in it. Asleep, but somewhere else.
There's but three things in this place.
There's the Sun, and it sits before me.
There's the Sea, and she sits beneath me.
There's the Sky, and he floats above me.
This is invariably where I end up, when I'm not paying attention, and I float away.
I sit, a tiny island adrift and between three grand and endless things. And upon my lap sits a book that writes, and sometimes I write in.
Many times, I will open it. Many times, I can feel my innards recoil at what I read.
Sometimes, I'm afraid to open the book. It's the lens through which reality is bent. There are times when I can make it seem straight and true. And others, it warps, grows wide, grows distorted.
Sometimes, I will sit and draw in the book. The lines never come together coherently, but then again, neither has anything we've ever made.
And there is, in this place, now four things. For when I leave, the book remains.
It grows ever longer, and in this place, it becomes as a feeling does - beginning small and spreading outwards.
It grows, basking in the sun. Bathing in the sea. Witnessing the sky.
And it is like me when I write in it. Asleep, but somewhere else.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Disappointment
I'm tired. And perhaps a little drunk, as I write this.
Maybe it's the only way I will write, when my inhibitions have fled, and all sense of my world has disappeared, and only the fundamental truths remain.
I'm disappointed by the way things have turned out. I've worked so hard with my goals. None of them have come to fruition. I have no idea where I'm going, and I have no idea who's going to be there when the final curtain-call comes, and I'm to fall on someone else, or never rise again.
I honestly think that I'll be alone when that dire call comes. I'd like to think I'm alright with that, and given a few hours sleep and the daylight, I probably will be. But right now, I'm not. I'm not alright with the fact that I can't count on anyone to be there when I need it. I'm not alright with the notion of self-confidence, when we're in a social society that's built around human interaction. Without it, there would be no relationships, no marriage. There'd be no love. Everything would be... just business as usual.
And this is, by and large, all I see. My eyes are crossed when nobody's looking, and I'll often zone out and just find myself in a different place. It's not a good place, nor a bad place. It's a place in my mind where I go when I'm just tired of reality, tired of everything people are putting up to avoid being realized. Avoid being revealed for the shallow husks that they really are.
I'd like to imagine it as a place where things are honest, but even then, it's not. It's just a place to pass the time. All the time it'll be until finally, I won't have to imagine that everyone's lying and I can honestly trust people again. It'll probably never happen, but even then I have no way of knowing.
I've tried very hard to become all that I've wanted to be. But in the end, I'm asking myself what the point was. I could be nice, or I could be rotten. The distinction is paper-thin, and really, nobody cares one way or the other, provided they get everything from me what they expected.
Perhaps that's it then. Perhaps what I'm looking for is someone like me. Someone who's looking for nothing. And eventually stumbles upon everything.
Maybe it's the only way I will write, when my inhibitions have fled, and all sense of my world has disappeared, and only the fundamental truths remain.
I'm disappointed by the way things have turned out. I've worked so hard with my goals. None of them have come to fruition. I have no idea where I'm going, and I have no idea who's going to be there when the final curtain-call comes, and I'm to fall on someone else, or never rise again.
I honestly think that I'll be alone when that dire call comes. I'd like to think I'm alright with that, and given a few hours sleep and the daylight, I probably will be. But right now, I'm not. I'm not alright with the fact that I can't count on anyone to be there when I need it. I'm not alright with the notion of self-confidence, when we're in a social society that's built around human interaction. Without it, there would be no relationships, no marriage. There'd be no love. Everything would be... just business as usual.
And this is, by and large, all I see. My eyes are crossed when nobody's looking, and I'll often zone out and just find myself in a different place. It's not a good place, nor a bad place. It's a place in my mind where I go when I'm just tired of reality, tired of everything people are putting up to avoid being realized. Avoid being revealed for the shallow husks that they really are.
I'd like to imagine it as a place where things are honest, but even then, it's not. It's just a place to pass the time. All the time it'll be until finally, I won't have to imagine that everyone's lying and I can honestly trust people again. It'll probably never happen, but even then I have no way of knowing.
I've tried very hard to become all that I've wanted to be. But in the end, I'm asking myself what the point was. I could be nice, or I could be rotten. The distinction is paper-thin, and really, nobody cares one way or the other, provided they get everything from me what they expected.
Perhaps that's it then. Perhaps what I'm looking for is someone like me. Someone who's looking for nothing. And eventually stumbles upon everything.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Please, a doctor or a bed; I care not which
I'm amazed by quackery.
But even moreso by individuals' willingness to buy into it wholesale.
Lord help me if I develop a serious medical situation and I'm left to be treated by the new-age homeopaths and "old-medicine specialists."
Very likely, I'd be stuffed with Thyme and bathed in authentic sea-salts, while simultaneously being pin-cushioned with wooden spikes to "release my body's healing energies."
Or worse yet, I'd be deemed a vessel for malignant possession, and subject to exorcism by a three-ring circus.
Given how most people have exactly zero understanding of how the body works, I'm extremely hesitant to use or endorse any means of naturopathic/homeopathic/old-medicine remedies. There's absolutely nothing magical about how the body functions and heals itself. We've been building our understanding of medicine for more than a millennia now, and for it all to be tossed on the wayside thanks to a miserable mistrust of doctors is, for lack of a better word, madness.
So, on the account to preempt any forthcoming medical advice, if you're not a doctor - and by that I mean a real doctor, not some loony-fuck in a white coat, kindly close your mouth and spare me this misery. If I'm ill, I'd like to see either a doctor, or a bed. I care not which, but nothing else either, if you please.
But even moreso by individuals' willingness to buy into it wholesale.
Lord help me if I develop a serious medical situation and I'm left to be treated by the new-age homeopaths and "old-medicine specialists."
Very likely, I'd be stuffed with Thyme and bathed in authentic sea-salts, while simultaneously being pin-cushioned with wooden spikes to "release my body's healing energies."
Or worse yet, I'd be deemed a vessel for malignant possession, and subject to exorcism by a three-ring circus.
Given how most people have exactly zero understanding of how the body works, I'm extremely hesitant to use or endorse any means of naturopathic/homeopathic/old-medicine remedies. There's absolutely nothing magical about how the body functions and heals itself. We've been building our understanding of medicine for more than a millennia now, and for it all to be tossed on the wayside thanks to a miserable mistrust of doctors is, for lack of a better word, madness.
So, on the account to preempt any forthcoming medical advice, if you're not a doctor - and by that I mean a real doctor, not some loony-fuck in a white coat, kindly close your mouth and spare me this misery. If I'm ill, I'd like to see either a doctor, or a bed. I care not which, but nothing else either, if you please.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
I am, Mr. President, I am
They had the presidential debate on the multitude of TV's we have at work. I seem to be falling ill, as the statements issuing from Obama and McCain came across as just a series of muddled monotones; their only differentiating features a change of pitch and reverb.
"Wah, wahwahwah, wah wah wah," says Obama.
"Waah. Wahwahwahwahwah, wah wah," replies McCain.
I scratch my head, which at this point feels like a fishbowl replete with carp.
"So, what do you think Geoff? Do I detect a rant coming on?" says one of my co-workers, winking slyly.
"I think... I think it's time for me to be going home," I reply, deflecting the notion. I could rant. I could fucking spit, but really. This isn't the time for my diatribes. I'd rather just say "Hey, I did my part. Whatever else happens, fuck it and see."
And then I will look on perplexed, as people begin manically fucking everything in sight. So it goes.
"Wah, wahwahwah, wah wah wah," says Obama.
"Waah. Wahwahwahwahwah, wah wah," replies McCain.
I scratch my head, which at this point feels like a fishbowl replete with carp.
"So, what do you think Geoff? Do I detect a rant coming on?" says one of my co-workers, winking slyly.
"I think... I think it's time for me to be going home," I reply, deflecting the notion. I could rant. I could fucking spit, but really. This isn't the time for my diatribes. I'd rather just say "Hey, I did my part. Whatever else happens, fuck it and see."
And then I will look on perplexed, as people begin manically fucking everything in sight. So it goes.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Giclée
You will love me, because I make you pretty pictures.
But you will hate me, because I never share any with you.
Share, share.
And fair's fair.
Give me something.
And I'll compare.
p.s. - I've decided that instead of restricting how many of my posts are visible, I'm going to utilize a door instead. If you don't like what you're reading, the door is there. Use it.
But you will hate me, because I never share any with you.
Share, share.
And fair's fair.
Give me something.
And I'll compare.
p.s. - I've decided that instead of restricting how many of my posts are visible, I'm going to utilize a door instead. If you don't like what you're reading, the door is there. Use it.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Melancholy
I've been hearing about it a lot lately.
I know too many people who've had dreams since they were a kid, and since that childhood, they've been told to set their goals to make their dreams into reality.
It's such a goddamn farce. It sickens me to see this happening. So many people are imagining the way things should be, and then they're forlorn because they're not. They thought it was as easy as going to work for 40 hours a week, and suddenly, everything would come together.
Nothing's ever so simple. I mean, I've walked down the same path. I went to start my career almost two years ago this day. I walked away from that career a year later, never to return. I had thrown away my life savings, my life at home, and eventually, my health, on some crazy gamble that I might be able to create something worthwhile through a sheer exertion of effort.
It wasn't so simple. But still nobody has the heart to tell that to the generations that are coming after us.
Our grandparents left us a world bereft of unity, our parents, one bereft of hope. Now we're stealing from our children a world with any meaning.
I can imagine that in 10 or 20 years time, the largest medical pandemic in North America will be a psychological one. It's not a stretch to say there's a whole generation of young adults right now who've just... given up.
And it's only going to get worse.
I know too many people who've had dreams since they were a kid, and since that childhood, they've been told to set their goals to make their dreams into reality.
It's such a goddamn farce. It sickens me to see this happening. So many people are imagining the way things should be, and then they're forlorn because they're not. They thought it was as easy as going to work for 40 hours a week, and suddenly, everything would come together.
Nothing's ever so simple. I mean, I've walked down the same path. I went to start my career almost two years ago this day. I walked away from that career a year later, never to return. I had thrown away my life savings, my life at home, and eventually, my health, on some crazy gamble that I might be able to create something worthwhile through a sheer exertion of effort.
It wasn't so simple. But still nobody has the heart to tell that to the generations that are coming after us.
Our grandparents left us a world bereft of unity, our parents, one bereft of hope. Now we're stealing from our children a world with any meaning.
I can imagine that in 10 or 20 years time, the largest medical pandemic in North America will be a psychological one. It's not a stretch to say there's a whole generation of young adults right now who've just... given up.
And it's only going to get worse.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Bite Marks
In case you've not noticed yet, I'm not you, nor do I want to be.
It's been a long week. And it's only Tuesday, bordering on Wednesday. Fancy that.
It's been a long week, largely because I've continually been shoved from one pigeon-hole to the next. Like a bad pair of shoes, or perhaps a poorly-advised orphan, I've been filling a lot of roles. I'm a jack-of-all-trades by nature, so I'm alright with that.
What I'm not alright with, however, is expectation. Not since I was a child have I held any high aspirations. I'm content to dabble and dribble and get my fingers into all sorts of pies. But I've never been ambitious, nor skilled, enough to be the master of any particular domain.
So you can imagine my frustration when said masters of their domains are crawling up my ass when I'm not meeting their high expectations. It's old hat, I know. But I feel the need to gripe on this particular evening because it's overly warm, and I'm bored.
I'm up to my eyeballs with people who see everything through themselves. We were constantly taught as kids to explore perspectives. It's not at all hard to imagine now that prejudices are rampant because, like every other lesson we were taught as kids, this one was conveniently discarded.
Drama, drama.
And so. I am not you.
It's been a long week. And it's only Tuesday, bordering on Wednesday. Fancy that.
It's been a long week, largely because I've continually been shoved from one pigeon-hole to the next. Like a bad pair of shoes, or perhaps a poorly-advised orphan, I've been filling a lot of roles. I'm a jack-of-all-trades by nature, so I'm alright with that.
What I'm not alright with, however, is expectation. Not since I was a child have I held any high aspirations. I'm content to dabble and dribble and get my fingers into all sorts of pies. But I've never been ambitious, nor skilled, enough to be the master of any particular domain.
So you can imagine my frustration when said masters of their domains are crawling up my ass when I'm not meeting their high expectations. It's old hat, I know. But I feel the need to gripe on this particular evening because it's overly warm, and I'm bored.
I'm up to my eyeballs with people who see everything through themselves. We were constantly taught as kids to explore perspectives. It's not at all hard to imagine now that prejudices are rampant because, like every other lesson we were taught as kids, this one was conveniently discarded.
Drama, drama.
And so. I am not you.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
You're Strange
It walks, it talks, it grins, it laughs.
It sings, it taunts, it cries, it sleeps.
But these are all just acts, subtle pulls of the puppeteers strings.
When one by one those tethers are cut,
The limbs come loose, and all the thoughts come undone.
It stares blankly, eyes left looking up at the sky.
Involuntarily paralyzed, left adrift in the rippling waves of time.
Cast adrift in the past, left churning over the waterfall of the black abyss;
The future.
Saw blades whine and the horrified screams waft lazily over. Slowly, slowly,
the lines grow taught.
First eyes, then hands, then feet.
A word is uttered, followed by another, and another.
Animation is returned and it stands, shakily at first.
Then more steady.
It is human, but not humane.
It hides, or doesn't exist.
Nobody knows. All that matters is the strings,
not what they're attached to.
Pretty noises and nice gestures and self-control.
Contrasted to silence and immobility.
Hesitation.
It sings, it taunts, it cries, it sleeps.
But these are all just acts, subtle pulls of the puppeteers strings.
When one by one those tethers are cut,
The limbs come loose, and all the thoughts come undone.
It stares blankly, eyes left looking up at the sky.
Involuntarily paralyzed, left adrift in the rippling waves of time.
Cast adrift in the past, left churning over the waterfall of the black abyss;
The future.
Saw blades whine and the horrified screams waft lazily over. Slowly, slowly,
the lines grow taught.
First eyes, then hands, then feet.
A word is uttered, followed by another, and another.
Animation is returned and it stands, shakily at first.
Then more steady.
It is human, but not humane.
It hides, or doesn't exist.
Nobody knows. All that matters is the strings,
not what they're attached to.
Pretty noises and nice gestures and self-control.
Contrasted to silence and immobility.
Hesitation.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Scotland's Shame
It's getting dark enough that I can go for walks before midnight and be under a veil of complete darkness.
In this city, all the streetlights are incandescent, which renders everything into a relief of orange monochrome in the middle of the night. When it's raining, the sparking orange and black pebbles on the street are four-dimensional, seemingly existing on the ground and in my eyes at the same time.
It's been a strange season. There's all the talk of CERN's Large Hadron Collider destroying the world on October 21st, which incidentally is the day after my birthday. A few friends of mine have suggested using that as a pickup line, but really, the world's been in a slow state of self-destruct for almost a century now. Trying to sleep with a girl on the pretense that it's all coming to a head tomorrow is... pretentious, at best. A bad pun at the worst.
Anyway. To abuse a scientific analogy, things have been crashing and grinding together lately. Violently. Beautifully. I can liken it to the cosmic fireworks of two asteroids or planets crashing together. Relationships have crashed and burned, and from their smoldering ashes, beautiful things grow. The economy is sinking like a one-flippered seal, and nobody seems to know how to fix it without spending massive amounts of taxpayer money.
So essentially, ladies and gentlemen like you and myself are paying for the fuck-ups of some of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world. When we've had time to settle from the shock, I wonder if everyone will be pissed off, or merely apathetic. It's not right, but really, whatever has been when it comes to our particular brand of market economics?
I know a lot of good people are going to be left twisting in the wind when this is all over, but what really stings is the people responsible won't be. And again, I ask myself, how is this different from any other time.
We've got an election coming up soon. I think I'm going to write the song titles from Mogwai's latest album over my ballot.
I vote for this CD. Because it's done more good things than any suit in government.
In this city, all the streetlights are incandescent, which renders everything into a relief of orange monochrome in the middle of the night. When it's raining, the sparking orange and black pebbles on the street are four-dimensional, seemingly existing on the ground and in my eyes at the same time.
It's been a strange season. There's all the talk of CERN's Large Hadron Collider destroying the world on October 21st, which incidentally is the day after my birthday. A few friends of mine have suggested using that as a pickup line, but really, the world's been in a slow state of self-destruct for almost a century now. Trying to sleep with a girl on the pretense that it's all coming to a head tomorrow is... pretentious, at best. A bad pun at the worst.
Anyway. To abuse a scientific analogy, things have been crashing and grinding together lately. Violently. Beautifully. I can liken it to the cosmic fireworks of two asteroids or planets crashing together. Relationships have crashed and burned, and from their smoldering ashes, beautiful things grow. The economy is sinking like a one-flippered seal, and nobody seems to know how to fix it without spending massive amounts of taxpayer money.
So essentially, ladies and gentlemen like you and myself are paying for the fuck-ups of some of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world. When we've had time to settle from the shock, I wonder if everyone will be pissed off, or merely apathetic. It's not right, but really, whatever has been when it comes to our particular brand of market economics?
I know a lot of good people are going to be left twisting in the wind when this is all over, but what really stings is the people responsible won't be. And again, I ask myself, how is this different from any other time.
We've got an election coming up soon. I think I'm going to write the song titles from Mogwai's latest album over my ballot.
I vote for this CD. Because it's done more good things than any suit in government.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Eight Legs
There's a spider crawling up my wall. And I won't lie, it's so warm in here tonight that I think I'm a little delirious.
Truth be told, my house is full of spiders. Given the plethora of pests that can infest a house, I think me and my family have accepted that we'll always have an abundance of the eight-legged variety. I don't have a problem with them. They avoid people, and they feast on all manner of other bugs that would normally piss me off by buzzing around my room in the middle of the night*.
Some people have a huge problem with spiders. I guess, when they see them, they imagine arachnids like Sydney Funnel Web spiders or Black Widows, with huge abdomens and sinister fangs. Or perhaps tarantulas, with their aggressive urticating hair and menacing appearance. I don't know. I find them quiet interesting.
They probably find us rather appalling. We're five-to-six feet of thundering flesh, bad attitude, and self-righteousness. Something as nasty as a spider shouldn't be allowed to exist - can't be allowed to exist.
Of course, to a spider, all it can think about it that it just exists. Death could come at any moment, either from starvation or predation. Humans are just one more grisly end - pancaked between a hard surface and whatever handy bludgeon the fleshy pink meatbags might be able to grasp.
It's probably not healthy that I can identify better with an eight-legged insectivore than with my fellow people. After working in retail for a while, I've found myself to be rather barbaric at times. I'm not bad, but I'm given to informal outbursts. I can't understand how people think - or why they think the ways they do. A lot of times, what people do is completely selfish and arrogant. I could write stories about how people behave, but given how popular those tales were, I'd rather just stick a wad of salt in my mouth and sing hallelujah.
Maybe I'm just being selfish and arrogant myself.
But really, I'm fast running out of things to be.
Because in this "enlightened" world, I'm nothing if not ignorant.
As a post-script, if you haven't already, take a look for The Hawk is Howling. I guess it was available in Eastern Canada about a week ago. The cunts at our local music shops have no excuse for not having it now.
*Edit: Knight? Jesus. I've watched too much Batman.
Truth be told, my house is full of spiders. Given the plethora of pests that can infest a house, I think me and my family have accepted that we'll always have an abundance of the eight-legged variety. I don't have a problem with them. They avoid people, and they feast on all manner of other bugs that would normally piss me off by buzzing around my room in the middle of the night*.
Some people have a huge problem with spiders. I guess, when they see them, they imagine arachnids like Sydney Funnel Web spiders or Black Widows, with huge abdomens and sinister fangs. Or perhaps tarantulas, with their aggressive urticating hair and menacing appearance. I don't know. I find them quiet interesting.
They probably find us rather appalling. We're five-to-six feet of thundering flesh, bad attitude, and self-righteousness. Something as nasty as a spider shouldn't be allowed to exist - can't be allowed to exist.
Of course, to a spider, all it can think about it that it just exists. Death could come at any moment, either from starvation or predation. Humans are just one more grisly end - pancaked between a hard surface and whatever handy bludgeon the fleshy pink meatbags might be able to grasp.
It's probably not healthy that I can identify better with an eight-legged insectivore than with my fellow people. After working in retail for a while, I've found myself to be rather barbaric at times. I'm not bad, but I'm given to informal outbursts. I can't understand how people think - or why they think the ways they do. A lot of times, what people do is completely selfish and arrogant. I could write stories about how people behave, but given how popular those tales were, I'd rather just stick a wad of salt in my mouth and sing hallelujah.
Maybe I'm just being selfish and arrogant myself.
But really, I'm fast running out of things to be.
Because in this "enlightened" world, I'm nothing if not ignorant.
As a post-script, if you haven't already, take a look for The Hawk is Howling. I guess it was available in Eastern Canada about a week ago. The cunts at our local music shops have no excuse for not having it now.
*Edit: Knight? Jesus. I've watched too much Batman.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
We shine brightly, or not at all: Part 2
September 11th. It's my sister's birthday.
It's also the only day of the year when Republicans can hook up, hit the streets, and get their paranoid on.
It's also the only day of the year when Republicans can hook up, hit the streets, and get their paranoid on.
Monday, September 08, 2008
We shine brightly, or not at all
I had a dream last night.
I wanted a hair cut, but nobody in town would do it. Everyone either didn't pick up their phone, or if it was a walk-in, I'd walk in and sit down, and they'd just stand there chewing gum and gossiping, practically ignoring me.
After a while, I just cut my own hair. It looked like shit, but I promised myself that I'd learn to do it better, since the whole world had gone to shit and everyone had become so apathetic that even when paid to work, they'd just sit around.
On waking up, I realized it was sad for two reason. One, under no circumstances would I cut my own hair, even up to and including the zombie apocalypse. And two, it was uncannily like real life, where every damn barber shop this side of the city has damn near closed its doors for the level of service they're giving. I mean, I even tip well, and it's still not enough for them to give a flying fuck.
Oh well. I'm fast learning to deal with the collapse of the service sector. I'm not afraid of doing things myself, and I'm not at all bothered by the sudden lack of professionalism in paid... professionals? Can they even be called that anymore?
Anyway. So, long story short. I woke up this morning in a lurch, and then reminded myself that I'm not a useless clod. In the event that everyone just fucks off and I'm left with kilometres of empty streets and blinking lights, I'll be alright.
Hell, I've been waiting for just such a day to bust out the camera.
I wanted a hair cut, but nobody in town would do it. Everyone either didn't pick up their phone, or if it was a walk-in, I'd walk in and sit down, and they'd just stand there chewing gum and gossiping, practically ignoring me.
After a while, I just cut my own hair. It looked like shit, but I promised myself that I'd learn to do it better, since the whole world had gone to shit and everyone had become so apathetic that even when paid to work, they'd just sit around.
On waking up, I realized it was sad for two reason. One, under no circumstances would I cut my own hair, even up to and including the zombie apocalypse. And two, it was uncannily like real life, where every damn barber shop this side of the city has damn near closed its doors for the level of service they're giving. I mean, I even tip well, and it's still not enough for them to give a flying fuck.
Oh well. I'm fast learning to deal with the collapse of the service sector. I'm not afraid of doing things myself, and I'm not at all bothered by the sudden lack of professionalism in paid... professionals? Can they even be called that anymore?
Anyway. So, long story short. I woke up this morning in a lurch, and then reminded myself that I'm not a useless clod. In the event that everyone just fucks off and I'm left with kilometres of empty streets and blinking lights, I'll be alright.
Hell, I've been waiting for just such a day to bust out the camera.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Monday, September 01, 2008
Can-do attitude
Well, it's all very well that we enjoy this life.
This life we got,
It's an all-you-can-eat buffet.
But what to do, when it all starts tasting,
like ash, like nothing?
What to do, when all the plates are dirty,
and the forks aren't clean,
and the wine's all muddy?
What are you going to say,
when this things strings start pulling,
the days are long,
and the the grins aren't showing?
It's a strange, strange thing to be starving at a feast, and silent in a crowd. It's a sad, sad thing, that we're loners in sardine cans.
This life we got,
It's an all-you-can-eat buffet.
But what to do, when it all starts tasting,
like ash, like nothing?
What to do, when all the plates are dirty,
and the forks aren't clean,
and the wine's all muddy?
What are you going to say,
when this things strings start pulling,
the days are long,
and the the grins aren't showing?
It's a strange, strange thing to be starving at a feast, and silent in a crowd. It's a sad, sad thing, that we're loners in sardine cans.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Break the Jinx
I'm amused by the way people think.
Or rather, how they don't. North American culture has seen to it that, no only do we not have to think, but doing so is to our detriment. We are instead told to act based on "how we feel." Instead of thinking things through, we're expected to make judgments based on what's coursing through us at an exact moment. Betrayal. Hurt. Revenge. On revenge alone, I'm very surprised we haven't wiped ourselves off the map, but hey. Even the best ordered systems have their exceptions, including the unthinking brain. Even once in a blue moon, the most moon-struck, oblivious individual will have a momentary epiphany, a singular notion not born of reaction or instruction - a genuine creative insight.
The problem lies in that such waves of unforeseen thought never happen all at the same time. Say, at election time. Or when there's just been a catastrophe. All people know is how they feel. And to be brutally blunt, feelings are just an exploitable resource for those who have none. Do you think our politicians, our bureaucrats, our leaders give a flying fuck about how we feel? Not really. They want to inspire us to something so that we'll vote for them and give them power. They'll do everything short of raising hell (and lets face it, some have even crossed that line) to ensure we get that vibe that brings the numbers to the polls.
And now, look at modern times. We've been so hamstrung by our feelings that we've just stopped. Miserable, isn't it? We're caught in the hypocracy of trying to live our lives without feeling, while at the same time, being utterly enslaved by them. When we're hurt, we yell. When we're stolen from, we get mad. No thinking involved. Knee-jerk.
I'm often depressed. I have no reason to be, but for now I'll chalk it up to the fact that I have to be dictated to by people who are living their lives in a primitive autopilot. They don't think about things, but rather just feel their way through life. Honestly, if I wanted to be a blind fish, snapping at whatever bugs comes down the stream, I would've hit reset long ago.
Or rather, how they don't. North American culture has seen to it that, no only do we not have to think, but doing so is to our detriment. We are instead told to act based on "how we feel." Instead of thinking things through, we're expected to make judgments based on what's coursing through us at an exact moment. Betrayal. Hurt. Revenge. On revenge alone, I'm very surprised we haven't wiped ourselves off the map, but hey. Even the best ordered systems have their exceptions, including the unthinking brain. Even once in a blue moon, the most moon-struck, oblivious individual will have a momentary epiphany, a singular notion not born of reaction or instruction - a genuine creative insight.
The problem lies in that such waves of unforeseen thought never happen all at the same time. Say, at election time. Or when there's just been a catastrophe. All people know is how they feel. And to be brutally blunt, feelings are just an exploitable resource for those who have none. Do you think our politicians, our bureaucrats, our leaders give a flying fuck about how we feel? Not really. They want to inspire us to something so that we'll vote for them and give them power. They'll do everything short of raising hell (and lets face it, some have even crossed that line) to ensure we get that vibe that brings the numbers to the polls.
And now, look at modern times. We've been so hamstrung by our feelings that we've just stopped. Miserable, isn't it? We're caught in the hypocracy of trying to live our lives without feeling, while at the same time, being utterly enslaved by them. When we're hurt, we yell. When we're stolen from, we get mad. No thinking involved. Knee-jerk.
I'm often depressed. I have no reason to be, but for now I'll chalk it up to the fact that I have to be dictated to by people who are living their lives in a primitive autopilot. They don't think about things, but rather just feel their way through life. Honestly, if I wanted to be a blind fish, snapping at whatever bugs comes down the stream, I would've hit reset long ago.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
I don't know
Well, this is my 666'th post. Don't know if anyone who reads this is superstitious, or more importantly, if anyone even reads this anymore.
I don't know if I'll be playing much WoW anymore. Of my handful of characters, all are dead - killed while minding my own business by level 70's who must've gotten bored with arenas and such.
As well, I've beaten Braid, GTA4, Mass Effect... and pretty much every other game in my possession.
So I think it's time for a hiatus from games, as there looks to be nothing good coming in the short term, and by the by, I think most of the people I play with or against online would be better served gouging their eyes out with pudding spoons.
But that's just me.
I would like to spend more time taking photos and printing them, but I've fast run out of material to photograph, and besides. It all seems so boring anyway.
All of it does. It just feels like my record's on repeat right now. My only saving grace is this: thank God nobody's listening.
I don't know if I'll be playing much WoW anymore. Of my handful of characters, all are dead - killed while minding my own business by level 70's who must've gotten bored with arenas and such.
As well, I've beaten Braid, GTA4, Mass Effect... and pretty much every other game in my possession.
So I think it's time for a hiatus from games, as there looks to be nothing good coming in the short term, and by the by, I think most of the people I play with or against online would be better served gouging their eyes out with pudding spoons.
But that's just me.
I would like to spend more time taking photos and printing them, but I've fast run out of material to photograph, and besides. It all seems so boring anyway.
All of it does. It just feels like my record's on repeat right now. My only saving grace is this: thank God nobody's listening.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Braid - Not just for hair
So, I sucked it up and spent $15 to download Braid, which is a much ballyhoo'd title for the Xbork 360.
Lately, I've been frustrated with most of the other titles available on the console. GTA IV, while awesome for the first two thirds, has succumbed to that which ruined its earlier predecessors - namely, missions that are beyond difficult, and the endless task of micromanaging your entourage of whiny bitches who constantly demand you take them out to places, pay for everything, and them drive them home afterwards.
Oh, also, they get pissy if you blow them off.
Anyway. Back to Braid. So. It's like Mario. In fact, you could call it a Mario spoof. Kind of. The whole thing is steeped in what seems to be a giant three-dimensional watercolour. There's apparently a back story which could be described as vague and melancholy, but ultimately adds flavour to the game, as it explains all the useful powers that you gain throughout the various levels.
Did I mention you can rewind time? It's insanely addicting just on the basis that it's so humble. It's not very intense, but you find yourself replaying a puzzle over and over so you can collect the coveted puzzle piece. Collect all the pieces and you put together a piece of art - which also unlocks... something. I don't know what, as I'm only about halfway through the game, but I figure it'll be something good. There's also humble tributes and spoofs to all manner of side-scrolling adventures throughout the game. There's even one that mocks the venerable Donkey Kong.
Anyway. For those of you with a 360, I recommend buying it. For fifteen dollars, you get a pretty good game. Part of the reason I bought it was because there's been a bunch of people complaining that $15 is too much for a Live Arcade title. If you ask me, it's just about right.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it appears I won't be showing my face in public for a week while I beat this.
Lately, I've been frustrated with most of the other titles available on the console. GTA IV, while awesome for the first two thirds, has succumbed to that which ruined its earlier predecessors - namely, missions that are beyond difficult, and the endless task of micromanaging your entourage of whiny bitches who constantly demand you take them out to places, pay for everything, and them drive them home afterwards.
Oh, also, they get pissy if you blow them off.
Anyway. Back to Braid. So. It's like Mario. In fact, you could call it a Mario spoof. Kind of. The whole thing is steeped in what seems to be a giant three-dimensional watercolour. There's apparently a back story which could be described as vague and melancholy, but ultimately adds flavour to the game, as it explains all the useful powers that you gain throughout the various levels.
Did I mention you can rewind time? It's insanely addicting just on the basis that it's so humble. It's not very intense, but you find yourself replaying a puzzle over and over so you can collect the coveted puzzle piece. Collect all the pieces and you put together a piece of art - which also unlocks... something. I don't know what, as I'm only about halfway through the game, but I figure it'll be something good. There's also humble tributes and spoofs to all manner of side-scrolling adventures throughout the game. There's even one that mocks the venerable Donkey Kong.
Anyway. For those of you with a 360, I recommend buying it. For fifteen dollars, you get a pretty good game. Part of the reason I bought it was because there's been a bunch of people complaining that $15 is too much for a Live Arcade title. If you ask me, it's just about right.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it appears I won't be showing my face in public for a week while I beat this.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Verde
A brief summation of my day off:
I'm sorry. I cannot do anything today. I am preoccupied with trying to find myself in space behind the ceiling.
I'm sorry. I cannot do anything today. I am preoccupied with trying to find myself in space behind the ceiling.
Everything you want, you got: hook, smoke, crater
I've been having a running discussion with a friend of mine for the last few days. I'd like to think that it's rather meaningless, and very much given to our first-world culture, but to me it resounds as true, regardless of how privileged we are or where we live.
We've discussed a few times how frustrating other human beings can be, and just how much more simplistic life would be if we all just stopped caring, and took a come-what-may attitude. Life would indeed be simplistic. Nothing would be a problem, but as I imagine it, we would each be stones in the bottom of a stream then. Time and change would swirl around us and pass us by, and we would be... stones. Mute. Unchangeable. Uncaring. Boring.
Mind me, I'm one to talk. I'm bothered by things on a geological scale, but when it comes down to my personal life, I can't be bothered by a lot of things. I think many will agree that I'm a lot short of considerate. But when you view things from the big picture, we're little more than ants, which could just as easily be crushed and forgotten. It's important to remember that, because ultimately, that's what we'll be if we don't get a few things in order.
Humankind has accomplished great feats of both engineering and compassion in the past. It has also committed untold horrors and atrocities, from something as simple and overlooked as murder, to the broad and shameless extermination of entire ethnic groups. A lot of people claim that humanity will force itself to extinction, along with a good portion of the Earth's ecosystem. I'm not so bold. I don't think humanity will go extinct. Not for a long time. We're a wily race, gifted with a brain that's a confusing mix of half-vestigal instinct, and a fuzzy kernel of disused, misused, and abused logic.
I think we will survive, if only to spite the folly of the ones we choose to lead. Whereas we are inert and ambition-less like stones, our leaders tend to be hungry, greedy individuals who are forever reaching, forever politicking. It's an endless spiral of poison and power, and within its coil, anything is possible - including a completely possibly scouring of the Earth with nuclear weapons.
We will survive a nuclear winter. Our faith in the ability for others to lead will not.
And this brings me inexorably to the point I've been trying to make for weeks. We're moving away from each other. To some, this is a sad, sad thing. To most, it's nothing. Not even worth note. I'm just saying that one day, we won't even associate ourselves with each other, out of that bitter aftertaste that it was our neighbor's vote that bought us the bomb that dropped on our heads.
We'll just be people. And we'll be just like stones. We don't dare move together, because the momentum would be dangerous.
And in time, we'll forget about all the good things we did once, and we'll sometimes read about all the bad things.
And it will all be dull and gray until the day some guy or girl builds a monument, and on it will read a very simple line:
Today I was here, but tomorrow I won't be. I desire to see something better, so I've left this here as a reminder to myself and to others that may come. We were all once here today, but not tomorrow.
We've discussed a few times how frustrating other human beings can be, and just how much more simplistic life would be if we all just stopped caring, and took a come-what-may attitude. Life would indeed be simplistic. Nothing would be a problem, but as I imagine it, we would each be stones in the bottom of a stream then. Time and change would swirl around us and pass us by, and we would be... stones. Mute. Unchangeable. Uncaring. Boring.
Mind me, I'm one to talk. I'm bothered by things on a geological scale, but when it comes down to my personal life, I can't be bothered by a lot of things. I think many will agree that I'm a lot short of considerate. But when you view things from the big picture, we're little more than ants, which could just as easily be crushed and forgotten. It's important to remember that, because ultimately, that's what we'll be if we don't get a few things in order.
Humankind has accomplished great feats of both engineering and compassion in the past. It has also committed untold horrors and atrocities, from something as simple and overlooked as murder, to the broad and shameless extermination of entire ethnic groups. A lot of people claim that humanity will force itself to extinction, along with a good portion of the Earth's ecosystem. I'm not so bold. I don't think humanity will go extinct. Not for a long time. We're a wily race, gifted with a brain that's a confusing mix of half-vestigal instinct, and a fuzzy kernel of disused, misused, and abused logic.
I think we will survive, if only to spite the folly of the ones we choose to lead. Whereas we are inert and ambition-less like stones, our leaders tend to be hungry, greedy individuals who are forever reaching, forever politicking. It's an endless spiral of poison and power, and within its coil, anything is possible - including a completely possibly scouring of the Earth with nuclear weapons.
We will survive a nuclear winter. Our faith in the ability for others to lead will not.
And this brings me inexorably to the point I've been trying to make for weeks. We're moving away from each other. To some, this is a sad, sad thing. To most, it's nothing. Not even worth note. I'm just saying that one day, we won't even associate ourselves with each other, out of that bitter aftertaste that it was our neighbor's vote that bought us the bomb that dropped on our heads.
We'll just be people. And we'll be just like stones. We don't dare move together, because the momentum would be dangerous.
And in time, we'll forget about all the good things we did once, and we'll sometimes read about all the bad things.
And it will all be dull and gray until the day some guy or girl builds a monument, and on it will read a very simple line:
Today I was here, but tomorrow I won't be. I desire to see something better, so I've left this here as a reminder to myself and to others that may come. We were all once here today, but not tomorrow.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Fuzz
Some days, I don't even know why I try saying anything at all.
I was going to try writing something tonight when I got home from work. You know, stir the creative juices.
Well. The juices have gone sour, so to speak. I think I'm just going to let this place fester for a bit before coming back. I'm just too disgusted.
I was going to try writing something tonight when I got home from work. You know, stir the creative juices.
Well. The juices have gone sour, so to speak. I think I'm just going to let this place fester for a bit before coming back. I'm just too disgusted.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Seabass
Humans are funny things.
I sometimes wonder if the all the white supremacists, the jingoists, and the elite nationalists ever think about their beliefs, about how organized hate is a massive maw that can only end up eating itself. When the world runs out of blacks, hispanics, asians, and all manner of undesireables, and the bloodlines are at last purified, what will be left? When the borders are closed and the walls built high enough that only "us" can live here, and not "them," what will we have?
I'm often locked up in my own head, and that's just one thing that passed me by today. What would really happen? Utopia or dystopia? Has anyone really figured it through all the way? It doesn't take a lot, and as a rule of thumb, any agenda that reaches its goals through the systematic displacement, destruction, or harm to another person or place is doomed to fail, as the populations of the world only accept good neighbors, and only tolerate bad ones for so long.
Some would see that as a reason to be an aggressor, to take things by force. Again, a failing notion, as the population of would-be tyrants, punks, and shit-disturbers in this world is vastly outnumbered by the number of people who care only enough to "thump 'yo ass back to the stone-age," and then carry on their lives as per normal.
Xenophobia is just about as bad. It irks me like it irks a lot of people that a difference of appearance, language, or belief is enough to warrant mistrust and hostility. It's an excuse, is what it is. An excuse born of laziness, because a lot of people are lazy. Too lazy to understand another group, another demographic, and instead just figure they're creepy and should stay away.
Of course, me ranting about this stuff is about as effective as the stuff I rant about. The next generation is going to be worse than the last, and if people's understanding of history and our common roots is any example, I can safely bet that we've got many more decades of ignorant folk banding together with pitchforks and fire to look forward to.
Reasoning this shit is giving me a headache. Perhaps an indication that I shouldn't be trying to reason it.
I sometimes wonder if the all the white supremacists, the jingoists, and the elite nationalists ever think about their beliefs, about how organized hate is a massive maw that can only end up eating itself. When the world runs out of blacks, hispanics, asians, and all manner of undesireables, and the bloodlines are at last purified, what will be left? When the borders are closed and the walls built high enough that only "us" can live here, and not "them," what will we have?
I'm often locked up in my own head, and that's just one thing that passed me by today. What would really happen? Utopia or dystopia? Has anyone really figured it through all the way? It doesn't take a lot, and as a rule of thumb, any agenda that reaches its goals through the systematic displacement, destruction, or harm to another person or place is doomed to fail, as the populations of the world only accept good neighbors, and only tolerate bad ones for so long.
Some would see that as a reason to be an aggressor, to take things by force. Again, a failing notion, as the population of would-be tyrants, punks, and shit-disturbers in this world is vastly outnumbered by the number of people who care only enough to "thump 'yo ass back to the stone-age," and then carry on their lives as per normal.
Xenophobia is just about as bad. It irks me like it irks a lot of people that a difference of appearance, language, or belief is enough to warrant mistrust and hostility. It's an excuse, is what it is. An excuse born of laziness, because a lot of people are lazy. Too lazy to understand another group, another demographic, and instead just figure they're creepy and should stay away.
Of course, me ranting about this stuff is about as effective as the stuff I rant about. The next generation is going to be worse than the last, and if people's understanding of history and our common roots is any example, I can safely bet that we've got many more decades of ignorant folk banding together with pitchforks and fire to look forward to.
Reasoning this shit is giving me a headache. Perhaps an indication that I shouldn't be trying to reason it.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
We flew overhead while you sat in bed, watching
A pleasant midnight dream where the sun comes up, a brilliant blue and white. The grasses are damp and almost as tall as my neck when I sit cross-legged, I feel like I'm a lopsided soccer ball floating on a sea of waving, drifting green.
As I stand up, the breeze shifts slightly. Chilly, but not cold enough to draw a shiver. It's an odd mix of the sun's warm, lambent rays, and the invisible eddies of the twilight air. I'm an old sack of bones in a weathered leather case, but even a rattling old sack like me remembers how to fly. Joints pop and fingers creak as I lift my arms, and suddenly I'm drifting like a frond on a river-bend.
And of course, as I drift, I dream of sleeping. Water lapping on shorelines, and - of course - that one feeling that permeates the universe. The feeling of being absolutely, completely, and utterly alone. And, for this short nap within a short nap, being absolutely alright with that.
Before I know it, I'm an arrow, cutting a path through the grass. The smell of green and damp is everywhere, and I can't feel my face, it's so cold. But I'm exhilarated. All I want to do is go faster and faster. In some sleep-groggy crease in my brain, I imagine that if I go fast enough, I'll break through into the real world, flight and all. Before too long its just a giant green and blue blur, hypnotizing in its beauty. Of course, before too long, it all becomes wearying, like I'm running but can't remember why. Somewhere, thunder claps, and I begin to spiral down, through the grass, through the dirt, through the very earth itself.
As I descend, it's night-time. I can see the lights below, still very distant. I can imagine which ones are yours, and which ones are mine. I'm curious, and I'd like to see each one up close. But not yet.
It's winter now, and before anything, I'm standing in the park. The sky is pink with biting frost, and even the snow on the ground would shiver if it could. I'm standing here trying to remember why I'm here. And then it's all very clear.
This was the beginning.
Another clap of thunder and then I'm awake. A gibbering of languages is in my head, before resolving itself to the sound of a desk fan, speaking self-importantly.
As I stand up, the breeze shifts slightly. Chilly, but not cold enough to draw a shiver. It's an odd mix of the sun's warm, lambent rays, and the invisible eddies of the twilight air. I'm an old sack of bones in a weathered leather case, but even a rattling old sack like me remembers how to fly. Joints pop and fingers creak as I lift my arms, and suddenly I'm drifting like a frond on a river-bend.
And of course, as I drift, I dream of sleeping. Water lapping on shorelines, and - of course - that one feeling that permeates the universe. The feeling of being absolutely, completely, and utterly alone. And, for this short nap within a short nap, being absolutely alright with that.
Before I know it, I'm an arrow, cutting a path through the grass. The smell of green and damp is everywhere, and I can't feel my face, it's so cold. But I'm exhilarated. All I want to do is go faster and faster. In some sleep-groggy crease in my brain, I imagine that if I go fast enough, I'll break through into the real world, flight and all. Before too long its just a giant green and blue blur, hypnotizing in its beauty. Of course, before too long, it all becomes wearying, like I'm running but can't remember why. Somewhere, thunder claps, and I begin to spiral down, through the grass, through the dirt, through the very earth itself.
As I descend, it's night-time. I can see the lights below, still very distant. I can imagine which ones are yours, and which ones are mine. I'm curious, and I'd like to see each one up close. But not yet.
It's winter now, and before anything, I'm standing in the park. The sky is pink with biting frost, and even the snow on the ground would shiver if it could. I'm standing here trying to remember why I'm here. And then it's all very clear.
This was the beginning.
Another clap of thunder and then I'm awake. A gibbering of languages is in my head, before resolving itself to the sound of a desk fan, speaking self-importantly.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Strangers spare no love
There's a decline coming. Did you know that? One bank has already closed, with rumors that numerous more are falling from the wings. While this one bank was nowhere near me, I'm not so stupid to think that the ripples from one will never reach my shores.
I've been considering going back to school, but in this province of oil and money and not much else, there really doesn't seem to be any opportunities for me, a prodigy of the written language and an anti-social intellectual. Courses are available, but I may as well throw my money in a hole for the return.
I've been looking out of province as well, and some results have been a bit more promising. I just don't know if I have the required means to make it happen. I've no love for student debt, and so far I've avoided it. I just want to make sure I get the right course, or else I'll very likely be stuck in limbo forever, with no funds to go back to school, and no documentation to secure a reasonable job.
That would mean I'd be freelancing for the rest of my life, and while exciting, I've had enough already with companies trying to negotiate contracts - as though I'm being frivolous with my charging, when indeed, this is how I'm making the bulk of my living. Given the difference between eating breakfast and not, I'm sorry, but I'd very much like to.
I've been considering going back to school, but in this province of oil and money and not much else, there really doesn't seem to be any opportunities for me, a prodigy of the written language and an anti-social intellectual. Courses are available, but I may as well throw my money in a hole for the return.
I've been looking out of province as well, and some results have been a bit more promising. I just don't know if I have the required means to make it happen. I've no love for student debt, and so far I've avoided it. I just want to make sure I get the right course, or else I'll very likely be stuck in limbo forever, with no funds to go back to school, and no documentation to secure a reasonable job.
That would mean I'd be freelancing for the rest of my life, and while exciting, I've had enough already with companies trying to negotiate contracts - as though I'm being frivolous with my charging, when indeed, this is how I'm making the bulk of my living. Given the difference between eating breakfast and not, I'm sorry, but I'd very much like to.
Friday, July 18, 2008
I am 1986
I can't really tell you. I can't whisper in your ear and explain what's been running through my head. It's a combination of not knowing what to say, and you not wanting to hear it when I finally say it.
I'm not well. Not in the head. Not in the heart. Unlike "normal" people, I can't go to a doctor and figure out what's wrong. Their solutions are theoretical at best. How can anyone, even a professional, know for sure what the problem is? How can I go through the rest of my life taking some pill I'm not sure is working? It's not like an infection. Despite what was said, it's not going to spread if you read it or hear it. It's not life threatening unless I make it so, and it's not chronic in the traditional sense that it's here forever. Some mornings, I wake up and it's gone like the mist. But that doesn't really matter because everyone will still treat me like I'm sick.
And some days it comes back unexpectedly. But I deal with it. I really don't have the option not to.
I'm never going to vouch for my illness. I'm never going to try and "raise awareness." I figure enough awareness has been raised in the last 10 years that people should know by now. Or at least, know better. I am who I am, and that's a very strange and complex thing. I am also what I am, which second to who I am, and is also very complex. The two things are linked, but are also very independent. No amount of willpower can change DNA, and likewise, no amount of genetics can determine the quality of a character.
Mental illness is funny like that. It's a separate condition from the personality, but it affects it, so many just assume that it's a mental phenomenon, and therefore, must be at the whim of the person affected. Few are willing to openly say so these days, but it's common-thought. Many still believe that mental illness is just in a person's head, and could go away if someone tried hard enough.
It's not that simple, but thanks for the support anyway. There are many times when I'm anxious. When I'm depressed. When I'm angry. Many times it's a perfectly natural passing phase, but I've got a history*.
*To be read with an ominous tone, foretelling of doom and misery.
Sometimes it's not just a passing phase. I'm prepared for that. Sometimes the fallout of that coping process ends up on this blog. Sometimes it ends up in a sketchbook beside my desk. Sometimes nothing happens. I just sleep on it for a couple of nights and wake up eventually feeling a bit more normal. Sometimes I talk to people about it, but that's a rare thing now, since it seems that people are still idiots when it comes to dealing with someone who's having a mental moment. I'm not suicidal. I've never been, and never will be. I'm also not homicidal. Likewise, I never will be. I'm anxious, I'm depressed and sometimes, I'm angry.
I'm also relatively intelligent (I can figure out how to get my foot out of my mouth on occasion), gainfully employed, and somewhat ambitious. I enjoy laughter, friends, no small amount of alcohol, and also traveling. I worry about my future and I think about past loves. I write and play instruments, and just generally try to make life a little bit better for people.
Just reading that last part, it'd be easy to believe that I'm a normal person. I'm not, but nor would I ask to be. I didn't ask to be depressed either, but as a very wise person (and no stranger to her own particularly harrowing hardships) once told me (since I can't remember the whole quote): "Write On." And there was something about adversity in there as well, but I can't remember, and I can't find the original post.
But tangent aside, it's been sound advice for years, and so I'll keep heeding it. Even if what I write doesn't always turn out.
I'm not well. Not in the head. Not in the heart. Unlike "normal" people, I can't go to a doctor and figure out what's wrong. Their solutions are theoretical at best. How can anyone, even a professional, know for sure what the problem is? How can I go through the rest of my life taking some pill I'm not sure is working? It's not like an infection. Despite what was said, it's not going to spread if you read it or hear it. It's not life threatening unless I make it so, and it's not chronic in the traditional sense that it's here forever. Some mornings, I wake up and it's gone like the mist. But that doesn't really matter because everyone will still treat me like I'm sick.
And some days it comes back unexpectedly. But I deal with it. I really don't have the option not to.
I'm never going to vouch for my illness. I'm never going to try and "raise awareness." I figure enough awareness has been raised in the last 10 years that people should know by now. Or at least, know better. I am who I am, and that's a very strange and complex thing. I am also what I am, which second to who I am, and is also very complex. The two things are linked, but are also very independent. No amount of willpower can change DNA, and likewise, no amount of genetics can determine the quality of a character.
Mental illness is funny like that. It's a separate condition from the personality, but it affects it, so many just assume that it's a mental phenomenon, and therefore, must be at the whim of the person affected. Few are willing to openly say so these days, but it's common-thought. Many still believe that mental illness is just in a person's head, and could go away if someone tried hard enough.
It's not that simple, but thanks for the support anyway. There are many times when I'm anxious. When I'm depressed. When I'm angry. Many times it's a perfectly natural passing phase, but I've got a history*.
*To be read with an ominous tone, foretelling of doom and misery.
Sometimes it's not just a passing phase. I'm prepared for that. Sometimes the fallout of that coping process ends up on this blog. Sometimes it ends up in a sketchbook beside my desk. Sometimes nothing happens. I just sleep on it for a couple of nights and wake up eventually feeling a bit more normal. Sometimes I talk to people about it, but that's a rare thing now, since it seems that people are still idiots when it comes to dealing with someone who's having a mental moment. I'm not suicidal. I've never been, and never will be. I'm also not homicidal. Likewise, I never will be. I'm anxious, I'm depressed and sometimes, I'm angry.
I'm also relatively intelligent (I can figure out how to get my foot out of my mouth on occasion), gainfully employed, and somewhat ambitious. I enjoy laughter, friends, no small amount of alcohol, and also traveling. I worry about my future and I think about past loves. I write and play instruments, and just generally try to make life a little bit better for people.
Just reading that last part, it'd be easy to believe that I'm a normal person. I'm not, but nor would I ask to be. I didn't ask to be depressed either, but as a very wise person (and no stranger to her own particularly harrowing hardships) once told me (since I can't remember the whole quote): "Write On." And there was something about adversity in there as well, but I can't remember, and I can't find the original post.
But tangent aside, it's been sound advice for years, and so I'll keep heeding it. Even if what I write doesn't always turn out.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Smile
Hey kids.
Just doing some renovations. Don't mind anything if you see some colours change or some broken pictures.
I may also be drafting some entries, and by that, I mean you will no longer be able to read some of them. It's alright. They were shit anyway.
ps - yes. This will be the first post on my blog that doesn't allow comments.
Just doing some renovations. Don't mind anything if you see some colours change or some broken pictures.
I may also be drafting some entries, and by that, I mean you will no longer be able to read some of them. It's alright. They were shit anyway.
ps - yes. This will be the first post on my blog that doesn't allow comments.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Oh those cheeky lads
I suppose I'm a little late in posting this, but in all honesty, none of this is even newsworthy anymore anyway.
I guess I'll say it right here. The pictures I shot didn't really turn out for one reason or another. Well, actually, I'm being polite. I had a lot of decent shots. But they were all marred by some fucking ham-brained idiot that couldn't keep herself in the seated position, about ten feet in front of us. All of my good pictures have a huge, blurry, crassly shaven head right in the middle that utterly ruins it. So thanks to you, random stranger. I sincerely hope that you had a bad case of hemorrhoids that kept you from sitting, or at least standing out of the way.
Otherwise, it was good to see the gang again, however brief the visit may have been. It is unfortunate that the camping side of things didn't work out. I wasn't really too keen on packing everything up, trucking it two hours out of the city, and then turning around and hauling back into the city for the show. The cost of gas is... prohibitive for such endeavors, hence why I was hoping to hit the road after the Mogwai concert. That way, I wouldn't be driving around in circles, burning all my gas and thus my money, which would be better spent on things like food and beer.
But anyway.
Humorous aside, we were standing for a while, waiting for the band, when some random chick just sidles up beside Dan and starts lighting up a cigarette. Took her about 15 seconds to realize - oh hey, I don't know these people. It was pretty funny. Slightly awkward, but still pretty funny.
Also, speaking of bands, when we got there, it was another London band up to play, not Mogwai as the original itinerary stated. I guess these guys went by the name of Wire, and Dan was mentioning they're pretty big overseas. I can't imagine how though. Listening to them, I'm given great (if perhaps false) hope that I might one day be able to make it big as a musician. If a band of three guitars can belt out the same three ill-tuned chords, over and over, with minute variations between songs, while simultaneously yelling unintelligibly into a microphone (and no, it wasn't just the accent), and still be considered anything even remotely reminiscent of music, then the horizon is indeed very bright, the water-mark, very very low.
Perhaps its not their fault. They are delivering a product, however unpalatable to me, and it is being consumed by... err... consumers.
But anyway. Mogwai was fucking awesome. And that's about all that needs to be said on the topic. We were sitting probably 20-30 feet from the stage, and I was still deaf by night's end.
And there you have it folks. A chop-bit synopsis of the Debacle of Awesomeness '08.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Heedless discourse
I suppose I should update with something other than hacked attempts at writing.
I really don't have a lot to report on. My new computer's been up for about a month, and so far, no signs of trouble. I'm not going to post a picture of it, because unlike Dan's machine, mine is rather non-descript. It's a black box with two tiny blue lights on the front. I think the technical term for it would be a "sleeper."
Seems fitting. Anyway, so I've also purchased a new wide-format printer as well. Not that anyone who reads this has seen a lot of what I print, but I figured, since I do make a few prints of my photos, I should probably kick it up a notch and get a full-pro printer.
The end result is a beast that now makes it's home on the other wall beside my desk. I've done a few test runs with it, and I did some prints for my brother's birthday, but otherwise, it remains untested. I'm thinking, if I bring my camera to the Mogwai show, I'll take some pictures and then print them. Maybe make something for the guys to take home with them.
I'm just hoping this pissing rain lets up before the show, or else I'm going to be fairly pissed.
Also, I'm amused by the fact that the "social" websites have become about as lively as mausoleums of late. Good job.
I really don't have a lot to report on. My new computer's been up for about a month, and so far, no signs of trouble. I'm not going to post a picture of it, because unlike Dan's machine, mine is rather non-descript. It's a black box with two tiny blue lights on the front. I think the technical term for it would be a "sleeper."
Seems fitting. Anyway, so I've also purchased a new wide-format printer as well. Not that anyone who reads this has seen a lot of what I print, but I figured, since I do make a few prints of my photos, I should probably kick it up a notch and get a full-pro printer.
The end result is a beast that now makes it's home on the other wall beside my desk. I've done a few test runs with it, and I did some prints for my brother's birthday, but otherwise, it remains untested. I'm thinking, if I bring my camera to the Mogwai show, I'll take some pictures and then print them. Maybe make something for the guys to take home with them.
I'm just hoping this pissing rain lets up before the show, or else I'm going to be fairly pissed.
Also, I'm amused by the fact that the "social" websites have become about as lively as mausoleums of late. Good job.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
See No Hear
For those that wonder the root of the human spirit. Its humble cause is heard early in life.
For those who wonder at our complaint, and the root of our stubborness,
listen carefully to the first sound a newborn babe makes.
Those who imagine the ideal person as obedient are fools.
That first birth cry is forever stuck in our throats.
And only silences on the dark day we die.
As long as life lasts, we are defiant.
We will scream and we will kick.
Against all odds should they dare.
And against ourselves should they not.
For those who wonder at our complaint, and the root of our stubborness,
listen carefully to the first sound a newborn babe makes.
Those who imagine the ideal person as obedient are fools.
That first birth cry is forever stuck in our throats.
And only silences on the dark day we die.
As long as life lasts, we are defiant.
We will scream and we will kick.
Against all odds should they dare.
And against ourselves should they not.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Disbelief
What happens when you give a pack of idiots rights and the ability to vote?
I'm deadly serious. What in the flying fuck did you think would happen?
Do you think people would vote for intelligent, well-balanced individuals? That they'd select the best and brightest to lead them?
Don't be absurd. When you have fucking idiots voting in droves, you get fucking idiots in power. Fucking idiots fear people who think. They fear technology. They fear moderation. They fear everything. So they vote for people who fear people who think. Who fear technology. Who fear moderation.
The only difference between our culture and tyranny is the matter of choice.
Under a despot, we don't have the choice to vote.
In democracy, we choose not to vote.
If you want to know the root of all this "elitist" bullshit, it's staring you in the face. The so-called "elite" is an educated working class goddamn tired of slack-jawed root vegetables who flunked out of elementary, having just as much, if not more, control over a country's direction as someone who's actually tried to contribute something to society besides bigotry, rhetoric, and belt-fed infants.
Jesus. And the worst part is that the small, fearful minds will always outnumber the number of cooler heads. So no matter what route is taken, it doesn't take a crystal ball to know we're fucked. Period.
Rant over.
I'm deadly serious. What in the flying fuck did you think would happen?
Do you think people would vote for intelligent, well-balanced individuals? That they'd select the best and brightest to lead them?
Don't be absurd. When you have fucking idiots voting in droves, you get fucking idiots in power. Fucking idiots fear people who think. They fear technology. They fear moderation. They fear everything. So they vote for people who fear people who think. Who fear technology. Who fear moderation.
The only difference between our culture and tyranny is the matter of choice.
Under a despot, we don't have the choice to vote.
In democracy, we choose not to vote.
If you want to know the root of all this "elitist" bullshit, it's staring you in the face. The so-called "elite" is an educated working class goddamn tired of slack-jawed root vegetables who flunked out of elementary, having just as much, if not more, control over a country's direction as someone who's actually tried to contribute something to society besides bigotry, rhetoric, and belt-fed infants.
Jesus. And the worst part is that the small, fearful minds will always outnumber the number of cooler heads. So no matter what route is taken, it doesn't take a crystal ball to know we're fucked. Period.
Rant over.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Hypnagogic anti-hero
It was in these lazy dog-days of summer that Phil felt the most alive. Something about the molten golden glow of the mid-summer sun made his dreams especially vivid. Given that his life was never anything to be excited about, Phil reveled in his subtle but active imagination.
In essence, Phil lead two lives as two different people. In the waking world, he was a dull and dreary young man who had no direction in life, no motivation, and nothing to show for his lack of effort.
In the sleeping world, Phil was a demi-god. A shaper of ways, and a being singularly capable of terrific wonders.
He recalled from one dream, being able to float as a lily might on water. The sensation was the same, the air lapping at his shoulders like the water might at the local pool. He spent hours paddling lazily through the air, as though it was an amber-coloured ocean laid out beneath the sun.
That morning he had awoken with a headache, and after taking a copious amount of painkillers, he attended his daily life. In a way, it was almost as dreamlike as sleep. Everything went by so slowly. Attempts at socializing often collapsed. Phil had a habit of staring blankly, unresponsive to even the most raucous attempts. At some points, he would already be asleep, though his eyes would be open. In his own mind, he imagined himself as a human being, and everyone else as aliens. Though they talked and moved convincingly enough, he knew they were fakes, and underneath their pale flesh, they were really horrible pock-marked monsters with gaping jaws, sharp teeth, and an endless hunger for absent-minded idiots.
In sleep, everything seemed more... harmonious. Phil could walk about, and hold conversations, and sometimes even form relationships with the inhabitants of his subconscious. He never asked anyone their names, but it seemed that he didn't need to. Everyone knew everyone else, and there wasn't any of the paranoia or drama so prevalent in the waking world.
There were times when things would just pull together and be so intimate that Phil would forget that the whole thing was just a thing in his head, not really real... but not necessarily fake either.
It was all a very pleasant duality until one day - as sad and unexpected plot twists often happen - Phil was at work and the unthinkable happened. Amidst harmlessly mopping a floor, Phil suffered a one-in-a-million brain aneurism that left him drooling helpless on the very floor he just finished cleaning to a mirror sheen, catapulted into a seemingly irrecoverable coma.
For nearly a month, Phil lay on a hospital bed. The doctors were confounded. He was indeed dreaming, his brain showed steadily increasing activity, and yet, he did not wake. Days, and then weeks passed, and still Phil lay, his lids closed, eyes fluttering rapidly beneath. He was visited regularly by his parents, who worried incessantly, although perhaps also vainly. He was also visited by old friends, classmates, and ex-girlfriends. Phil had never really had a real-world relationship that amounted to anything more than innocent hand-holding. But even so, despite his dumb demeanor, Phil was missed in the waking world, and it was to a great sigh of relief that he woke up one morning, even as the first leaves of fall began to drop from the trees.
Though his eyes were open, he wasn't the same. Though he never said much before, he said even less now. He moved as though he were a puppet lacking strings, his eyes always gazing flatly at an invisible horizon no-one could see.
One day, he simply started to speak, as though to no one in particular. Though it was perhaps madness in his words, nobody dared to stop him, as even the ramblings were preferable to the eerie silence of one who is alive in function only.
"I can remember... her arms around me. We were somewhere dark, and then somewhere light. The air was sweet, with a hint of ocean, and the ground itself was alive in loamy glory."
Had the technology been available to get into Phil's head, a casual viewer would've seen a fleeting vision of alien shorelines. Unknown, yet not unwelcoming. Grassy knolls rolled away beneath deep sapphire skies, lone clouds painted by the invisible brush of a perfectionist unseen, and yet constantly at work. And yet even as a view watched, the blue skies slowly faded to black. A dark tide swooping in like a midnight breeze to swallow up... two flickering lights travelling along the quickly disintegrating shoreline. They didn't know each other, but that hardly mattered. The last thing Phil felt before the sea-air melted to the interior of a sterile hospital room was the feeling of two living arms holding him firmly from behind, a soft breath heaving into the back of his shirt.
He thought he could even feel the cool dampness of tears soaking through, but even as his eyes righted themselves, he knew it was all just a dream.
In essence, Phil lead two lives as two different people. In the waking world, he was a dull and dreary young man who had no direction in life, no motivation, and nothing to show for his lack of effort.
In the sleeping world, Phil was a demi-god. A shaper of ways, and a being singularly capable of terrific wonders.
He recalled from one dream, being able to float as a lily might on water. The sensation was the same, the air lapping at his shoulders like the water might at the local pool. He spent hours paddling lazily through the air, as though it was an amber-coloured ocean laid out beneath the sun.
That morning he had awoken with a headache, and after taking a copious amount of painkillers, he attended his daily life. In a way, it was almost as dreamlike as sleep. Everything went by so slowly. Attempts at socializing often collapsed. Phil had a habit of staring blankly, unresponsive to even the most raucous attempts. At some points, he would already be asleep, though his eyes would be open. In his own mind, he imagined himself as a human being, and everyone else as aliens. Though they talked and moved convincingly enough, he knew they were fakes, and underneath their pale flesh, they were really horrible pock-marked monsters with gaping jaws, sharp teeth, and an endless hunger for absent-minded idiots.
In sleep, everything seemed more... harmonious. Phil could walk about, and hold conversations, and sometimes even form relationships with the inhabitants of his subconscious. He never asked anyone their names, but it seemed that he didn't need to. Everyone knew everyone else, and there wasn't any of the paranoia or drama so prevalent in the waking world.
There were times when things would just pull together and be so intimate that Phil would forget that the whole thing was just a thing in his head, not really real... but not necessarily fake either.
It was all a very pleasant duality until one day - as sad and unexpected plot twists often happen - Phil was at work and the unthinkable happened. Amidst harmlessly mopping a floor, Phil suffered a one-in-a-million brain aneurism that left him drooling helpless on the very floor he just finished cleaning to a mirror sheen, catapulted into a seemingly irrecoverable coma.
For nearly a month, Phil lay on a hospital bed. The doctors were confounded. He was indeed dreaming, his brain showed steadily increasing activity, and yet, he did not wake. Days, and then weeks passed, and still Phil lay, his lids closed, eyes fluttering rapidly beneath. He was visited regularly by his parents, who worried incessantly, although perhaps also vainly. He was also visited by old friends, classmates, and ex-girlfriends. Phil had never really had a real-world relationship that amounted to anything more than innocent hand-holding. But even so, despite his dumb demeanor, Phil was missed in the waking world, and it was to a great sigh of relief that he woke up one morning, even as the first leaves of fall began to drop from the trees.
Though his eyes were open, he wasn't the same. Though he never said much before, he said even less now. He moved as though he were a puppet lacking strings, his eyes always gazing flatly at an invisible horizon no-one could see.
One day, he simply started to speak, as though to no one in particular. Though it was perhaps madness in his words, nobody dared to stop him, as even the ramblings were preferable to the eerie silence of one who is alive in function only.
"I can remember... her arms around me. We were somewhere dark, and then somewhere light. The air was sweet, with a hint of ocean, and the ground itself was alive in loamy glory."
Had the technology been available to get into Phil's head, a casual viewer would've seen a fleeting vision of alien shorelines. Unknown, yet not unwelcoming. Grassy knolls rolled away beneath deep sapphire skies, lone clouds painted by the invisible brush of a perfectionist unseen, and yet constantly at work. And yet even as a view watched, the blue skies slowly faded to black. A dark tide swooping in like a midnight breeze to swallow up... two flickering lights travelling along the quickly disintegrating shoreline. They didn't know each other, but that hardly mattered. The last thing Phil felt before the sea-air melted to the interior of a sterile hospital room was the feeling of two living arms holding him firmly from behind, a soft breath heaving into the back of his shirt.
He thought he could even feel the cool dampness of tears soaking through, but even as his eyes righted themselves, he knew it was all just a dream.
Friday, May 02, 2008
I've always wanted a pony
The first steps are always the hardest.
Would you take the first step, knowing the journey you were about to embark on has a high chance of ending in disappointment and failure? Would you be the one to take that awful first stride into that twisted loop?
I would. Although perhaps not today.
It's a dangerous game, trying to prove oneself wrong.
In all times but this time, it's finally not a game.
Would you take the first step, knowing the journey you were about to embark on has a high chance of ending in disappointment and failure? Would you be the one to take that awful first stride into that twisted loop?
I would. Although perhaps not today.
It's a dangerous game, trying to prove oneself wrong.
In all times but this time, it's finally not a game.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Everything is normal when nothing's the same
It's been snowing non-stop for the last 72 hours. It's April. Such extensions of winter are not to be unexpected, and yet it's all kinds of news. The bitches complain that it should be sunny and warm and green this time of year, when we've had a winter that's been precisely that until recently.
As I stood out before driving in to work this morning, I couldn't help to think, finally... some normalcy in the seasons. I grew up with a lot of winter in my spring, like coffee with too much milk in it. I grew up knowing the biting north wind until the late days of May, and for years, that kind of chill touch has been lacking. The fact that it's back this year doesn't bother me. In fact, it's a welcome start to a region that, of late, has become little more than a semi-arid desertified wasteland.
Some might think this is heresy, but I politely remind them. I've lived here longer than most, and this land swims in my blood. The city you've built upon it doesn't change where you are, and what this place is.
If it's going to snow, it's going to fucking snow. Grab your shovel, grab your dicks, and get to work. Summer is a privelage earned, not a time arrived.
As I stood out before driving in to work this morning, I couldn't help to think, finally... some normalcy in the seasons. I grew up with a lot of winter in my spring, like coffee with too much milk in it. I grew up knowing the biting north wind until the late days of May, and for years, that kind of chill touch has been lacking. The fact that it's back this year doesn't bother me. In fact, it's a welcome start to a region that, of late, has become little more than a semi-arid desertified wasteland.
Some might think this is heresy, but I politely remind them. I've lived here longer than most, and this land swims in my blood. The city you've built upon it doesn't change where you are, and what this place is.
If it's going to snow, it's going to fucking snow. Grab your shovel, grab your dicks, and get to work. Summer is a privelage earned, not a time arrived.
Friday, April 18, 2008
But you'll only catch them by surprise if you creep too
Strangely enough, that's apple juice. Fresh pressed - albeit from the noise they made making it, it sounded like it was fresh mulched from a wood chipper.
It's the eternal argument between fresh vs. cheap. Bargain vs. quality. Art vs. function. Which is more important?
Or perhaps a more important thought - does it really matter?
At times, it almost seems like an extreme luxury to have things to bicker over. It's something I've never been really good at. Fighting over things. In my mind, if you want something so bad, you can have it. If it's a material thing, it'll turn to dust eventually, and if all you want is to be right, you can be.
I've written stories about people, both in news and in fiction, who fought for things. And then when they got them, they were disappointed. It's the path of pathos, of obsession. Want something bad enough and it becomes greater than it is. It's what drives the economy. Oil is such a cornerstone resource because it's become essentially the only option for maintaining or increasing our mobility - a cherished right, in our minds.
But enough about that crap. Lately I've been listening to music. A lot of music. One particular act that's caught my attention is a group verbosely called No-One-Wished-To-Settle-Here. They're out of Gdansk, Poland, and they possess a fairly eerie, melancholy sound. A lot of borrowed radio noise and scratchy guitar loops. Kind of like if somebody had rammed Mogwai and Skinny Puppy together in a supercollider.
And of course, there's always Dark Captain Light Captain, which if you haven't checked out yet, do it now.
Anyway, I've tried making this post into something coherent, and I've already failed miserably. So for now, I'll just sign off and pretend I've accomplished something today.
A step to somewhere
I suppose I should update. I've been gone a week, and really haven't said much of my trip.
It was, truth be told, fairly rainy, snowy, and not entirely co-operative. The weather, anyway. I did take some pictures, but I'm too tired to post them up right now. So maybe look for them in the coming days. Or don't, it's your choice.
Other than that, I really don't have a lot else to say. My French, as usual, is incredibly bad. Yes. No. Hello. Goodbye. What? Sorry. That's my vocabulary. Punctuated by a plethora of expletives.
Maybe the real trip was when I got home. It's only been two days, and in those two days, I've taken almost 2000 mg's of assorted painkillers. Not all at once, mind you, but still. That's a lot of shit. I'm considering seeing a doctor about it, but knowing them, they'd just prescribe me bigger pills for bigger doses. I get frequent headaches, that's no mystery. Most are weather related, but lately, it seems like a lot of them are having less and less to do with the weather and more and more with... nothing. Inexplicable.
Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll find a brain tumour that gives me psychic powers. Maybe.
A bit of good news would be a major uplift right now, but really, I don't know if I could care. I could be given three weeks to live, and from today, I don't even know if that would be enough to motivate me.
Lethargy, I think, is the medical term for it. Lethargy, and apathy. And they fix both with pills.
I'm torn. I've wanted to walk into a clinic to get some help for a while, but the stigmas, not to mention the fact that psychological medicine is still in its early infancy, have stayed my hand. I don't need people staring and judging, nor do I need to be prescribed a drug that might help, but might also further fuck up the problem, whatever it may be. It's like having a Russian engineer working on an engine. He kicks the engine. Sometimes it works, and the engine starts. But more often than not, he just breaks it more.
Do I really need to step in with this shit? Or should I just buck up and be a man and face my issues down with a gaze of steel and a stiff upper lip?
In all honesty, I've grown pretty tired of toughing shit out. It gets to a point where I start scaring myself with my ability to shrug things off. That, and sleeping for 12 hours and still feeling exhausted is just great. You know. Shit gets done.
I sometimes wonder if it's a mystery illness that's spreading. A kind of sociological illness that passes from one person to the next as a kind of reaction to the way we've been going. I look at current events, and I can't help but notice how heavy my eyelids get.
It's just too much sometimes, I think. And it's only the worse because I'm alone in it. Maybe that'll change. More than likely it won't.
It was, truth be told, fairly rainy, snowy, and not entirely co-operative. The weather, anyway. I did take some pictures, but I'm too tired to post them up right now. So maybe look for them in the coming days. Or don't, it's your choice.
Other than that, I really don't have a lot else to say. My French, as usual, is incredibly bad. Yes. No. Hello. Goodbye. What? Sorry. That's my vocabulary. Punctuated by a plethora of expletives.
Maybe the real trip was when I got home. It's only been two days, and in those two days, I've taken almost 2000 mg's of assorted painkillers. Not all at once, mind you, but still. That's a lot of shit. I'm considering seeing a doctor about it, but knowing them, they'd just prescribe me bigger pills for bigger doses. I get frequent headaches, that's no mystery. Most are weather related, but lately, it seems like a lot of them are having less and less to do with the weather and more and more with... nothing. Inexplicable.
Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll find a brain tumour that gives me psychic powers. Maybe.
A bit of good news would be a major uplift right now, but really, I don't know if I could care. I could be given three weeks to live, and from today, I don't even know if that would be enough to motivate me.
Lethargy, I think, is the medical term for it. Lethargy, and apathy. And they fix both with pills.
I'm torn. I've wanted to walk into a clinic to get some help for a while, but the stigmas, not to mention the fact that psychological medicine is still in its early infancy, have stayed my hand. I don't need people staring and judging, nor do I need to be prescribed a drug that might help, but might also further fuck up the problem, whatever it may be. It's like having a Russian engineer working on an engine. He kicks the engine. Sometimes it works, and the engine starts. But more often than not, he just breaks it more.
Do I really need to step in with this shit? Or should I just buck up and be a man and face my issues down with a gaze of steel and a stiff upper lip?
In all honesty, I've grown pretty tired of toughing shit out. It gets to a point where I start scaring myself with my ability to shrug things off. That, and sleeping for 12 hours and still feeling exhausted is just great. You know. Shit gets done.
I sometimes wonder if it's a mystery illness that's spreading. A kind of sociological illness that passes from one person to the next as a kind of reaction to the way we've been going. I look at current events, and I can't help but notice how heavy my eyelids get.
It's just too much sometimes, I think. And it's only the worse because I'm alone in it. Maybe that'll change. More than likely it won't.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Circles
Hold your tongue,
you're always 'round in circles,
it's just no good.
You're always 'round
You're always 'round in circles,
it's just no good.
I just stand,
come wait until tomorrow,
it's just too long.
Eyes go wide,
that see your fires extinguished,
that sing this song.
You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.
You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.
You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.
You should be strong.
-Dark Captain Light Captain
you're always 'round in circles,
it's just no good.
You're always 'round
You're always 'round in circles,
it's just no good.
I just stand,
come wait until tomorrow,
it's just too long.
Eyes go wide,
that see your fires extinguished,
that sing this song.
You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.
You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.
You should be strong,
but you're always 'round in circles.
You should be strong.
-Dark Captain Light Captain
Sunday, April 06, 2008
You called, and we answered
My hands worry over things, separate from the rest of me. That's all I am, a series of broken parts bolted together. I can't dance, because my legs only remember how to march. I can't draw, because my hands only remember how to tremble.
They sang a song across the world, across this tiny globe, and amidst our haze and melancholia, we answered. A low, droning, apathetic chord. Dripping with our own self-pity, we called back, like a rising tide. I was just one voice in that tide. I was just one drop. Back and forth, we rolled across the sea.
And I remembered, in this wandering thought, just how close we were. How heaven and Earth, were for that moment, separated by little more than a line drawn on an imaginary map. A legacy, I suppose, we embraced with our own tendency to draw lines where none existed before.
I heard God is an Angry God. I heard he also Loves. And how so I hear in divinity, it's very much a human. I have angry words for the Angry God. And I question love of the God who Loves. I ask as well, if his hands worry as mine do, or if that is merely a failing of mortals.
I heard there was hope for people. But they draw lines. Ever more lines. What is theirs. Their own. Each their own. Everything must be divided and divided yet again. I have heard that people are angry, and yet they also love. I imagine that there's yet another imaginary line between the two. One can love with just as much passion as one hates. And the two are just a blink apart.
And yet here I am. A drop on a tide that reverberates back and forth between both. Perhaps I'm a mark on an imaginary line. Perhaps I'm a border that will one day cease to be. Perhaps I'm between two things that forgot they're one and the same.
They sang a song across the world, across this tiny globe, and amidst our haze and melancholia, we answered. A low, droning, apathetic chord. Dripping with our own self-pity, we called back, like a rising tide. I was just one voice in that tide. I was just one drop. Back and forth, we rolled across the sea.
And I remembered, in this wandering thought, just how close we were. How heaven and Earth, were for that moment, separated by little more than a line drawn on an imaginary map. A legacy, I suppose, we embraced with our own tendency to draw lines where none existed before.
I heard God is an Angry God. I heard he also Loves. And how so I hear in divinity, it's very much a human. I have angry words for the Angry God. And I question love of the God who Loves. I ask as well, if his hands worry as mine do, or if that is merely a failing of mortals.
I heard there was hope for people. But they draw lines. Ever more lines. What is theirs. Their own. Each their own. Everything must be divided and divided yet again. I have heard that people are angry, and yet they also love. I imagine that there's yet another imaginary line between the two. One can love with just as much passion as one hates. And the two are just a blink apart.
And yet here I am. A drop on a tide that reverberates back and forth between both. Perhaps I'm a mark on an imaginary line. Perhaps I'm a border that will one day cease to be. Perhaps I'm between two things that forgot they're one and the same.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
A thousand strings, knots and ties
I just recently watched a movie called Strings. It was remarkably good, for what it was. Given the fact that the entire story is about and portrayed by string puppets, the world they created was incredibly fleshed out and lifelike.
The entire movie is shot at puppet level, with just a bit of prelude at the beginning showing how the puppeteers move the strings about to make the characters come alive. The strings - namesake of the movie - are really a very fundamental plot device. In the puppet world, the strings are analogous to life, with damage to various body parts corresponding to the severance of their related strings. The most important string - the head string - is responsible for life, and severing it effectively kills whomever it belonged to. If only most other movies could be this well developed, I might actually go back to watching them on a regular basis.
The epic quality of the puppeteering mixed with a solid story and excellent voice acting made this a movie I'll probably go back to watching at a later time. If you see it on a rental shelf, I highly recommend you pick it up. You won't be disappointed.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Lost Mail
Dear Dan,
I don't really know if this bothers you at all, but you're kind of a hero. I mean, more than once, I've opened my mouth to say something really important, something goddamn crucial, and nobody listens. Not a damn one. And yet you've got this awesome superpower that allows you say more in silence than I could ever try to put into stuttering, awkward speech.
Oh well. I think there was a poet once who spoke of the world as the struggle of gods and men. Some are destined for great things. Some are destined to die trying in futility. I have no idea which I'll be, and in the end, maybe it won't even matter.
In any event, my writing projects are coming along. At the front of my mind, I'm excited. At the back, I'm afraid. I'm always afraid that I'm attacking something too audacious, and in attempting to write something too grand, somebody will leap out and call me a fool. Someone always does. I don't know if you face the same problem, but I hardly doubt it'd bother you. I try not to let it bother me, but I'm nothing if not half anxiety. I think that's what killed me in the press, and now whenever I put pen to paper, so to speak, I just remember that year. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say you and the guys were about the only saving grace in that miserable, drunken stupor of a year. I don't think I ever got to properly thank you - all of you - for helping me keep my sanity during that time. Sanity, and maybe even a little hope.
Anyway. I've written and rewritten this entry about three times, trying very hard not to sound like I'm coming on to you. Consider this a written man-pat on the back. Now, let's go shoot/cut something.
-G
I don't really know if this bothers you at all, but you're kind of a hero. I mean, more than once, I've opened my mouth to say something really important, something goddamn crucial, and nobody listens. Not a damn one. And yet you've got this awesome superpower that allows you say more in silence than I could ever try to put into stuttering, awkward speech.
Oh well. I think there was a poet once who spoke of the world as the struggle of gods and men. Some are destined for great things. Some are destined to die trying in futility. I have no idea which I'll be, and in the end, maybe it won't even matter.
In any event, my writing projects are coming along. At the front of my mind, I'm excited. At the back, I'm afraid. I'm always afraid that I'm attacking something too audacious, and in attempting to write something too grand, somebody will leap out and call me a fool. Someone always does. I don't know if you face the same problem, but I hardly doubt it'd bother you. I try not to let it bother me, but I'm nothing if not half anxiety. I think that's what killed me in the press, and now whenever I put pen to paper, so to speak, I just remember that year. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say you and the guys were about the only saving grace in that miserable, drunken stupor of a year. I don't think I ever got to properly thank you - all of you - for helping me keep my sanity during that time. Sanity, and maybe even a little hope.
Anyway. I've written and rewritten this entry about three times, trying very hard not to sound like I'm coming on to you. Consider this a written man-pat on the back. Now, let's go shoot/cut something.
-G
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
An Unadorned Envelope
Dear Mélissa:
It's warm here. I think spring is on the way. While I was out walking the dog today, I thought about taking a picture to show you. All the grass and wild plants are bare now, they're practically seas of beige and brown, all rippling in the wind.
I understand there's a lot of snow in the East right now. It's going to be an inverse from my last trip. When I left last, this city was cold and dead, yet not quite tucked under winter's white blanket. Yours instead was just colouring up for the season, as if autumn was fashionably late. Late to bed, early to rise. So it goes.
I know things are probably pretty tense right now for you. It's kind of a strange time. But in the big picture, this is a blink of an eye. All these bad things, they'll pass, if we let them. I know it sounds strange coming from me. You imagine me a pessimist, but perhaps I'm a determined one. Or maybe I'm not one at all. That all depends where you're coming from. I've never been one for fancy imaginings of reality, but in the same breath, nothing is ever as hopeless as it seems.
I won't lie. I've seen a lot of wretched things. I've seen friends and lovers stab each other in the back. I don't know why. I don't know if I even really care why. We don't go anywhere by making excuses, and I've got none for them. I've witnessed, and I'm careful. So are you, although where I hide and lie quiet, you step forward with boldness and assertion. Subtlety and boldness. Opposite extremes.
Each of us has a power in our own right. Each of use has equal and opposite talents. As I sit here writing this, you probably have in your mind's eye your next painting, reality bending into colours on canvas, and yet its even better than reality, for our time is fleeting, but your art is not. It's a universal portrayal. My writing pales in comparison. Whereas yours can reach to even the most basic understanding, my art requires years of exposure to our language and culture, such as it is, to be understood. Is it art, when you have to be groomed to understand it? I prefer to think that answer is in the eye of the beholder. I write because I can, and because I must. There are those who say this is not art. Maybe they're right. I don't really care.
And you see, this is the root of whatever apathy you imagine in me. As life goes on, you learn to prune what doesn't matter, and focus only on what does. I think you know this. I think a lot of people know this. But even wise people get stuck in pits of circular thought every now and again. I know I do. Maybe one day you'll see it, and you'll be afraid. You might freak out. I don't blame you. I try real hard to keep this from people. That's just how I am.
But anyway. It won't be long now. We'll be sitting down and enjoying some sushi, and maybe a bit of tea. Hopefully, for once, it won't be fucking cold out when we go. Hopefully, things will work out sooner rather than later. I think those involved have had enough misery for now, and I wish I could help. But maybe it's best left out of my hands.
Faith. Faith in people. That's what I lack. But since I met you, it's been a tiny trickle. An exemption at first, and now it's a slowly trickling stream. Maybe one day, it'll feed into all of humanity, and purify what's been a poisoned well. It's a grace I'm not sure I'm worthy of. I'm not religious by any means, but there are times when the universe closes in and it just seems like I can feel it from end to end, and everything is really quite nice.
Anyway. I'm sure you're probably tired after reading all this. I will see you again soon.
Love,
-G
It's warm here. I think spring is on the way. While I was out walking the dog today, I thought about taking a picture to show you. All the grass and wild plants are bare now, they're practically seas of beige and brown, all rippling in the wind.
I understand there's a lot of snow in the East right now. It's going to be an inverse from my last trip. When I left last, this city was cold and dead, yet not quite tucked under winter's white blanket. Yours instead was just colouring up for the season, as if autumn was fashionably late. Late to bed, early to rise. So it goes.
I know things are probably pretty tense right now for you. It's kind of a strange time. But in the big picture, this is a blink of an eye. All these bad things, they'll pass, if we let them. I know it sounds strange coming from me. You imagine me a pessimist, but perhaps I'm a determined one. Or maybe I'm not one at all. That all depends where you're coming from. I've never been one for fancy imaginings of reality, but in the same breath, nothing is ever as hopeless as it seems.
I won't lie. I've seen a lot of wretched things. I've seen friends and lovers stab each other in the back. I don't know why. I don't know if I even really care why. We don't go anywhere by making excuses, and I've got none for them. I've witnessed, and I'm careful. So are you, although where I hide and lie quiet, you step forward with boldness and assertion. Subtlety and boldness. Opposite extremes.
Each of us has a power in our own right. Each of use has equal and opposite talents. As I sit here writing this, you probably have in your mind's eye your next painting, reality bending into colours on canvas, and yet its even better than reality, for our time is fleeting, but your art is not. It's a universal portrayal. My writing pales in comparison. Whereas yours can reach to even the most basic understanding, my art requires years of exposure to our language and culture, such as it is, to be understood. Is it art, when you have to be groomed to understand it? I prefer to think that answer is in the eye of the beholder. I write because I can, and because I must. There are those who say this is not art. Maybe they're right. I don't really care.
And you see, this is the root of whatever apathy you imagine in me. As life goes on, you learn to prune what doesn't matter, and focus only on what does. I think you know this. I think a lot of people know this. But even wise people get stuck in pits of circular thought every now and again. I know I do. Maybe one day you'll see it, and you'll be afraid. You might freak out. I don't blame you. I try real hard to keep this from people. That's just how I am.
But anyway. It won't be long now. We'll be sitting down and enjoying some sushi, and maybe a bit of tea. Hopefully, for once, it won't be fucking cold out when we go. Hopefully, things will work out sooner rather than later. I think those involved have had enough misery for now, and I wish I could help. But maybe it's best left out of my hands.
Faith. Faith in people. That's what I lack. But since I met you, it's been a tiny trickle. An exemption at first, and now it's a slowly trickling stream. Maybe one day, it'll feed into all of humanity, and purify what's been a poisoned well. It's a grace I'm not sure I'm worthy of. I'm not religious by any means, but there are times when the universe closes in and it just seems like I can feel it from end to end, and everything is really quite nice.
Anyway. I'm sure you're probably tired after reading all this. I will see you again soon.
Love,
-G
Monday, March 10, 2008
A handsome face, if but for the slips of the chisel
Despite all that we had tried, everything we had attempted, we lost. As I sit here, my thoughts turning inwards, the bathroom floor is growing warm. Perhaps even comfortable.
The empty medication bottle in front of me reminds me what I'm doing here. It's a little orange trench, emptied of its troops. They made one last brave charge, but they couldn't take any ground against this beast. This raging voice in my head. It started a few months ago. Unbidden whisperings. Uncontrollably violent urges. The doctors said it was a severe case of schizophrenia. That I was developing a second personality that was cutting me off from reality. They sold me up the creek, a lost cause.
This voice, this... interminable, bloodthirsty being, is not me. It's not who I am. It finds no root in my history or my thoughts, and yet it's still there. An ancient and violent god, trapped within the stubborn confines of a mortal's mind. A mind that's quickly crumbling.
I remember reading Jung. Reading the theories about our collective unconscious. This... thing could perhaps be a construct from such collective empathy. Not everything humanity has accumulated has been good, but even as I ponder it, the voice rages. Men. Women. Children. Villages. Cities. Countries. WORLDS. All fell to its indomitable rage, it's endless thirst for innocent blood.
All fell, except one. Whatever this thing is, it cries to be released, but I will hold, until there is nothing left of me. It can claim a thousand lives, but it will not have this one. I can't see out of one eye now. I don't know whether it's my head or the pills working. The voice is dulling slightly now. Maybe I was just crazy after all. Maybe.
But even now... so many pills, and the voice is still there. Reality is still here, pressing against my aching ribs. These... tears running down my face. God above, I'm afraid. Perhaps not of death, but of defeat. What horrors will this thing unleash, while I look on from behind my own eyes, terrified and helpless? Whose faces will swim through the red haze towards me, only to be grasped and broken?
Both my eyes are dark now. The voice seems subdued but yet still clear. Images now. I see images. Worlds engulfed with flames. Worlds upon worlds. Mountains of dead. Heaps of flesh and rivers of blood. By the rivers of hell, what is this thing that I harbour?
My arms and legs are going numb. Maybe this is death's embrace. Maybe this will be my victory of this monster. My end, and his eternal prison within a rotting corpse. Maybe...
Days pass. Weeks even. I'm dreaming now. Or perhaps remembering. A sweet kiss. A child. My child. I had a family. I had a life. Had.
I can feel my hands and my toes wiggle gingerly. I'm alive. I think. But something feels strange. I look about myself. Hospital attire. Fit for the dead. Hands and feet, twenty fingers and toes. A wretched itch on the back of my scalp. Reaching to scratch it, I pause. Stitches. The ragged feeling of not-yet-mended bone. The off-balance feeling of missing a piece of brain.
A doctor paces into the lab, and looks down at me languidly. No bed side manners. Not even a conversation.
"Tumour," he says nonchalantly.
I smile and nod, and turn over and go back to sleep.
The empty medication bottle in front of me reminds me what I'm doing here. It's a little orange trench, emptied of its troops. They made one last brave charge, but they couldn't take any ground against this beast. This raging voice in my head. It started a few months ago. Unbidden whisperings. Uncontrollably violent urges. The doctors said it was a severe case of schizophrenia. That I was developing a second personality that was cutting me off from reality. They sold me up the creek, a lost cause.
This voice, this... interminable, bloodthirsty being, is not me. It's not who I am. It finds no root in my history or my thoughts, and yet it's still there. An ancient and violent god, trapped within the stubborn confines of a mortal's mind. A mind that's quickly crumbling.
I remember reading Jung. Reading the theories about our collective unconscious. This... thing could perhaps be a construct from such collective empathy. Not everything humanity has accumulated has been good, but even as I ponder it, the voice rages. Men. Women. Children. Villages. Cities. Countries. WORLDS. All fell to its indomitable rage, it's endless thirst for innocent blood.
All fell, except one. Whatever this thing is, it cries to be released, but I will hold, until there is nothing left of me. It can claim a thousand lives, but it will not have this one. I can't see out of one eye now. I don't know whether it's my head or the pills working. The voice is dulling slightly now. Maybe I was just crazy after all. Maybe.
But even now... so many pills, and the voice is still there. Reality is still here, pressing against my aching ribs. These... tears running down my face. God above, I'm afraid. Perhaps not of death, but of defeat. What horrors will this thing unleash, while I look on from behind my own eyes, terrified and helpless? Whose faces will swim through the red haze towards me, only to be grasped and broken?
Both my eyes are dark now. The voice seems subdued but yet still clear. Images now. I see images. Worlds engulfed with flames. Worlds upon worlds. Mountains of dead. Heaps of flesh and rivers of blood. By the rivers of hell, what is this thing that I harbour?
My arms and legs are going numb. Maybe this is death's embrace. Maybe this will be my victory of this monster. My end, and his eternal prison within a rotting corpse. Maybe...
Days pass. Weeks even. I'm dreaming now. Or perhaps remembering. A sweet kiss. A child. My child. I had a family. I had a life. Had.
I can feel my hands and my toes wiggle gingerly. I'm alive. I think. But something feels strange. I look about myself. Hospital attire. Fit for the dead. Hands and feet, twenty fingers and toes. A wretched itch on the back of my scalp. Reaching to scratch it, I pause. Stitches. The ragged feeling of not-yet-mended bone. The off-balance feeling of missing a piece of brain.
A doctor paces into the lab, and looks down at me languidly. No bed side manners. Not even a conversation.
"Tumour," he says nonchalantly.
I smile and nod, and turn over and go back to sleep.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
387.5 km later
It's been an extremely strange series of days. I suppose I should work my way backwards through them so they make more sense.
Yesterday, Trevor and Tracy came to the city, I guess to see one of their friends off to Amsterdam. We hung out a bit in the evening, and it was pretty swell to see part of the gang again. Hopefully things weren't too awkward.
The day before, one of my best friends was admitted to hospital for an unknown reason. He and I work at the same place, so work was thrown into chaos. He's alright. Whatever affected him was short-lived and not harmful. My relief was palpable.
I've reorganized my room. Every time I change something, I walk in and think I'm in the wrong place. It doesn't have my telltale clutter anymore - although by comparison, most would call my clutter clean.
Anyway, I don't have a lot else to report. I'll be leaving for Montreal again in April. Expect photos, and perhaps a few stories about poutines and Montreal smoked meat.
The photo: the sunset drive, which we've all seen sometime.
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