'blog

2008-10-10T03:54:00.002-04:00

Oh! I just figured out red shift. I always wondered how they knew what colour it was supposed to be, to determine how far red it had shifted and thus how fast it was moving. But I'm stupid, because there'd be the marker wavelengths for various elements to go by. Wacky stars.

In other science news, it's almost four in the morning. I actually turned my computer on for this, too.

2008-09-16T01:25:00.001-04:00

Boo!

2007-12-31T13:27:00.000-05:00

I'm in your city until the second. Call me at "all dude" or my pops at "cold jig".

2007-10-15T21:23:00.000-04:00

So you know what was in that thermos I was afraid to clean for probably six months? Clean water. Is what was in it.

(it had gone cold)

2007-09-26T10:51:00.000-04:00

If an album runs longer than forty-five minutes, it had better have a damn good reason and the rewards for my endurance had better hit hard and fast. This is not news. Why don't bands know this?

Discuss.

2007-09-24T00:46:00.000-04:00

Brendan, you should listen to the album "Neon Golden" by The Notwist. I've listened to it once and enjoyed it. Am I late?

Also "Challengers" is in the same boat. Don't expect Mass Romantic.

(A boat with "Neon Golden" and "Challengers" would be like Life of Pi if instead of a boy there was an ostrich and instead of a tiger there was an emu.)

2007-09-01T19:16:00.000-04:00

Jiayi, did I remember to thank you for introducing me to DeVotchKa?

2007-04-20T16:23:00.000-04:00

I wish I were playing honky-tonk piano in an incongruous situation right now.

2007-04-19T11:52:00.000-04:00

Essays! Action!

Updates are at the bottom.

Welcome to the blogospheric play-by-play of the great twenty-six hour essay marathon. The local time is 12:53 and conditions in here are room temperature with no wind. We're in the basement of the King's Library, the upstairs of which is stunning by the way folks, in the Joy-Morrison-Smith-supported study nook. (A shout-out to Joy's name for reminding me why I subject myself to this: a deep sense of inner Morrison-Smith).

The tasks at hand:
1: FYP research paper
About: Coltrane's A Love Supreme in the context of Boethius, Marsilio Ficino, and other writers on religious music.
Length: 2000-2500 words

2: FYP Paper Enlightenment II
About: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Length: 1000-1500 words

3: FYP Paper Contemporary I
About: Ludwig "crazy-eyes" Wittgenstein
Length: 1000-1500 words

What's done:
-thousands of words of notes, quotations, utterly inscrutable annotations ("iii. Primaciate c. divrev>sacdoc errs not, natres>phisci errs")
-1337 words on Coltrane. For real. (pwnx0rx)
-800 words on Wittgenstein.
-2 words on Kant, and they're not appropriate for publishing.

Pictures!
old crazy-eyes

Update 1:
Twenty-two hours and thirty-eight minutes to go. Not a word more, but I've pulled all the quotations I need for most of the Coltrane out of the text and typed them up. What's the name of the Mingus-influenced bassist who was known for playing up high, melodic-style?

Update 2:
T minus 16 hours 42 minutes and counting. Clocking 2464 on Coltrane, and I still need to fill in some fact paragraphs. I'm saving that, brainless as it is, for when I'm even more sleep-insensate. Did I mention I did this last night, too? I'm going for the champeenship. Re-reading Wittgenstein, I see nothing suggesting that a whit of thought went into what I have there, and the language seems bad even to my dull, lifeless eyes. Ottawa's up 3-0, and I'm really good at pacman. I don't think the bassist I'm thinking of is Charlie Haden - he was Ornette Coleman's, wasn't he? It's in one of my sources, in a throwaway paragraph, and there's no index. I could read it cover-to-cover to find it. How many years do you think it will be until I can read what I will write tonight without cringing? Here's a picture of meat glowing like its wedding day:

Update 3:
I'm about to play one of those "write without stopping" games for fifteen minutes of Kant, to break the pack-ice that's built up over too many nights failing to write this paper. Before I do, however, I would like to shout out to Jiayi for inadvertently introducing me to DeVotchKa. They are Something.

2007-03-27T15:34:00.001-04:00

2007-03-18T12:46:00.000-04:00

Top two things to read from the bottom of the list:

1. Emerson
2. still not Nietzsche

Block quote:

(What the almost imperceptibly shorter MacIvor man said yesterday.)

2007-03-10T13:24:00.000-05:00

essentiallyunremarkable's top several subject lines for asking-for-a-job-from-TD emails:

5. Fwd:fw: A holiday Angel for U (don't brea
4. Noli praeterire hoc!
3. I'm banking on banking.
2. re:formaldehyde teletypesetting
1. Application for Summer Employment

2007-02-27T23:43:00.000-05:00

Nepenthes naquiyuddinii (after the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Pro-Chancellor, Yang Amat Mulia Tunku Laxamana Tunku Dato' Seri Utama Naquiyuddin Ibni Tuanku Ja'afar) is a species of tropical pitcher plant. It is known only from Keningau-Kimanis Road and the foot of Mount Trus Madi, both in Sabah, Borneo. It grows at an elevation of 1400 to 1424 m in open secondary vegetation alongside Nepenthes zakriana and the closely related Nepenthes reinwardtiana. Adam and Hafiza (2006) state that the "two species exhibit many morphological differences and therefore they cannot be united into the same species".

---

Wow.

2007-01-31T12:46:00.000-05:00

There's a cracker box on my desk, but instead of wheat thins it's filled with shards of glass and some bigger. This is I think not a marketable concept, although I guess the free market will determine.

Let's trying again, I think I need to find a new favourite glass.

2007-01-26T17:34:00.000-05:00

Stuff's good.

2007-01-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

>From: "Me" <mlliekrai@gimal.com>
>To: "René Descartes" <renatus.cartesius1596@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: everything after meditation two
>Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:21:07 -0400
>
>
>Dear M. Descartes,
>
>Our concept of the infinite comes from a simple, abstract
>negation of finitude, a reality with which we are all
>familiar. Thus, our concept of the infinite has no more
>objective reality than the idea that was its cause.
>
>Please adjust your philosophies accordingly.
>
>Cheers.
>(my name)
>
>PS: The new foosball table's set up in the wardy- up for a
>couple games tonight?

2006-12-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

That's right, my friend! CLUMSY!

2006-12-15T23:42:00.000-05:00

Life is good now; thus, everything I've ever done has, ultimately, turned out well; thus, nothing I can ever do will be bad.

2006-12-12T11:09:00.000-05:00

(Found among the notes from my Erasmus essay)

The struggle for which I was born, with which I am engaged daily and shall ever be, is good hydration. Everything else is just there to keep it interesting.

2006-12-04T09:57:00.000-05:00

The inscription to Rabelais's Gargantua:

Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book,
Be not offended, whilst on it you look:
Denude yourselves of all depraved affection,
For it contains no badness, nor infection:
'Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth
Of any value, but in point of mirth;
Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind
Consume, I could no apter subject find;
One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;
Because to laugh is proper to the man.

And the author's prologue begins:

Most noble boozers, and you my very esteemed and poxy friends - for to you and you alone are my writings dedicated - when . . .

And then a book happens.
This is a dude born in the fifteenth century. A girl sitting in the row in front of me says that it's frat humour - "Jackass for the sixteenth century". I disagree.

This is a dude writing at the same time as Luther and Calvin and other tight-collared killjoys. Yes, it's filthy and gratuitous. Yes, it's silly. It's infantile.
The man is breaking away from the early modern context. Well, sure, he makes more shit jokes than Calvin, but he's also a humanist breath of fresh air. He undoes his collar, and loosens his belt, rearranges his codpiece, and damn well takes his infantile glee in the crude. It's an affirmation of the carnal, the silly - the side of the human utterly starved by the dudes we've been reading.

Like, he starts and ends his book with these protracted, romantic riddles that mean absolutely nothing, just to stick it to the scholarly. He mocks monks, scholars, philosophers, theologians, the church, the crown, language (ah the language), himself, and just about anything else you'd care to mention. He was censored, censured, and all sorts of mean nasty stuff, and he cuts a deliciously unheroic figure. It's the first text in ages that I've read all the way through, and done so willingly.
It's a fun time.

2006-11-03T01:24:00.000-05:00

Life is beautiful even when I have nothing worthwhile to say.

2006-09-28T22:31:00.000-04:00

Coloured bubbles.

Of everything that is happening in the world right now, this is the most exciting.

2006-09-24T23:35:00.000-04:00

There's going to be a new Tom Waits album. If you guys could at least feign excitement it would make me feel a lot better about googling it every day.

2006-09-18T03:00:00.000-04:00

It's almost four; I hand in an essay in five and a half hours. The topic is Genesis. The theme is that the creation of man in God's likeness, in the Hebrew creation epic, was not complete until the fall. The twist is that I'm treating God as one unsure of himself, his power, or precisely how this cause-and-effect thing will pan out.

I have a thesis, I have arguments, I don't think I lack the ability to write straight formal and, if I might flatter myself, stylish prose. And yet I find myself unable to escape the facetious.

"Having just set in motion the wondrous machinations of the universe, he who will be who he will be sets about determining precisely who he is."

What the hell, guys. This is what my brain is giving me.
I'm hoping that - having published that sentence here - I will be disinclined to hand it in as my opener, for fear the plagiarism fairy might find it unattributed on the internet and kill my family. Because right now, this is the sort of essay it looks like I'll be handing in. And I'd really rather just write a straight paper to the best of my ability.

If any of you read this before 9:30 Atlantic time, give me a call - number will be in my MSN name. You and me, we're going to talk essay.
Feel free to call also if you read it later, and I'll quote you some of the more mortifyingly smartass lines that I am certain I'll end up subjecting my profs to.

2006-09-13T00:12:00.000-04:00

So I had a fair bit of the Iliad to read tonight. I took a break to play a ten minute crummy little web game. Normally, it takes me about ten minutes to make it about sixty-some levels and then die and get back to my work.

But grey-eyed Athena guided my hand, and so for a span of two hours were cyborg livestock laid to waste. When I had done, the number of the level was four-hundred-forty-some.

Now it's after one in the morning and I have a couple books of the Iliad to go before I sleep. But I did sign the all-time high score as "Diomedes".

2006-09-10T21:37:00.000-04:00

An update:

Events continue to occur.

2006-08-29T01:21:00.000-04:00

So I've got this yawning gap in my musical tastes where rap and hip-hop are concerned. It would be easy to form a uniformly negative opinion of it from the consistently brainless uninspiring stuff from the radio, but if I were to judge rock from the crap they play on the radio (CBC excepted) I'd think the same thing. So just like I did a bit down for novels, I'm going to open this up for you people to dictate my tastes in rap and hip-hop. Beat poetry can come too, if it washes its hair.
You heard me - post some hip hop artists, or better yet artists and albums, that for one reason or another will blow my mind.

2006-08-28T18:28:00.000-04:00

A new political endorsement:

Kinky Friedman for governor;
Why the hell not?

2006-08-18T23:06:00.000-04:00

The Black Rider is a very fun album. Listening to it, you realize that it is actually quite an unpleasant sound. Which means that - by embracing ugly art - I am more fashionable than you.

2006-08-13T23:28:00.000-04:00

It's been almost six months without reading a novel - by no choice of mine, mainly I think because I read like thirty-two plays - and so I have decided that I am going to start reading novels again. I've already started, in fact, but I discovered that I don't know what authors I should be looking for, which makes sifting through the pulp a challenge. As such, I hereby seek literature recommendations, specifically for authors of novels. Bear in mind that even if I don't think it's good, I'll probably still enjoy it, becaue I'm weird like that.

2006-08-11T21:36:00.000-04:00

Iggy on Lebanon

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a government this lucid and intelligent? Can you imagine a standard political statement on this topic being anywhere near as, well, good? Now, we may not all agree entirely with him, but at least it's something we can disagree with, instead of the standard "clean up our get tough on street crime doesn't pay for the love of god bless america" crap. That's why, more and more, I'm thinking that this is the dude I want to lead the Liberals so that we can, eventually, have an intelligent prime minister. If we want to raise the level of political discourse, we really have to endorse the people that are already at that level.

(Here's looking at you, NDP - stop trading principle for marketing, and find a candidate with brains and boldness instead of the clean-paper-napkin vanilla pretty face.)

Comments?
(My comment checklist for this post is Brendan, Avian Democracy, Grrr'off, and at least one other TBD)

Beautiful Spam part II

2006-07-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

Bobbiev
to Mithilrana
Hide options 3:37 am(7 hours ago)
From: Bobbiev
To: Mithilrana
Date: Jul 26, 2006 3:37 AM
Subject: learning or better Sondra Rosen
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to Contacts list | Delete this message | Report phishing | Show original | Message text garbled?
Images are not displayed.
Display images below - Always display images from ELockhart6@cswnet.com
critterautopsy

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Attachment:
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31K View Download

Less colored years tweak

2006-07-23T08:35:00.000-04:00

DColew baby Sun, Jul 23, 2006 at 2:44 AM
To: Nishadhaf
Subject: Less colored years tweak

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2006-07-15T16:47:00.000-04:00

Webby

2006-07-07T02:30:00.000-04:00

And thank you Brand Power for standing up for the big guys.

2006-07-06T12:45:00.000-04:00

Budweiser's decision to sponsor the World Cup is utterly baffling. Nobody inside the United States cares about the World Cup, and nobody outside the United States will ever, ever drink Budweiser. Or at least not willingly.

It's not an image problem you have, Budweiser. It's a product problem. Admit it. It's the first step to recovery.

2006-06-27T14:09:00.000-04:00

I find a job, day several:
What? Youth Job Centre? Fairs? Like, a desperate frenzied carnival of employment? Man, a lot has changed since I was your age.

Perhaps I just misspelled my phone number on my resumé.

2006-06-15T21:09:00.000-04:00

I've had several unaccountably excellent days in a row. As in, great days for no particular reason. It's a really brilliant pattern to be setting.

2006-06-12T03:28:00.000-04:00

You see, Brendan, I'm going at this from both ends. Like most people, I have fairly conventional opinions on the fairly conventional issues, and - as I used to like to discuss, I acknowledge that these opinions are transient and illegitimate.

Like most people, I also have a set of of abstract universal convictions which should serve to inform my opinions on all the individual concrete issues. As I am a silly little teenager, these are probably still evolving. Now, my abstract universal convictions ("values", I suppose) probably differ from others' more, oddly enough, than my opinions on individual issues do. The point is that to work from your values to your stance on individual issues takes a lot of understanding I do not yet have and thought I have not yet put into it. So, until I have my own, I work with the dominant paradiggim. Can you para-diggit?

- - -

Example:
I have never been able to accept the common conviction that wrongdoers deserve to suffer for their misdeeds. This is a part of what most think of as 'justice'.

Think of someone who has caused hurt - against you, those you love, fictional even. Imagine them getting what's coming to them. As graphically as you want - nobody's watching.
What are you feeling? Now that's a feeling. That's justice. You could bottle that feeling and sell it. Bite the tourniquet harder - that's a feeling you could inject into your swollen straining blue veins. Just don't ever shake my hand.

That's your justice.

I'm essentially just anti-hurt. It's starting to look like the moral high ground is nothing but a better place to throw rocks from. I'm anti-hurt, and I don't care what caused the hurt except so far as it can be prevented.

- - -

Now how does that affect my opinion on, say, mandatory minimum sentencing? I'd have to know what our current policy is, I'd need to crunch some numbers on recidivism, on the deterrent power of minimums, on the efficacy of alternative sentences. I haven't done all that - others have, and they tell me that mandatory minimums don't prevent further crime, and only work as the sort of eye-for-eye justice I dislike and to appease antsy citizens. So I disagree with mandatory minimums.

How does that affect my opinion on carbon credit trading? The war in Afghanistan? Trade liberalisation?
I could make some guesses, but the point is that I have no real clue.

- - -

I suppose one reason I'm sort of eager to buy into the Ignatieff cult is that - even though some of our fundamental convictions seem wildly different - I imagine he might actually understand enough to build his opinions from those core convictons. Most politicians seem to make vague speeches about their core convictions and have their pollsters feed them positions on the individual issues.

- - -

Oh, obvious joke, by the way, Brendan:
You are amazed at how little people's opinions differ.
I found nothing amazing at all about how the opinions of little people differ.

- - -

Apologies about readability. That's 4AM speaking.

Liebniz'd

2006-06-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

I would have liked to have taken this opportunity to note for posterity that "teetotalitarian" was a word I invented. It was an awesome enough word that I liked to advertise this fact, and if it caught on that would have meant that I got into the Oxford. I hoped I had beaten everybody else to it. I also hoped nobody had invented it independently.

(Also covered is "teetotalitarianism", naturally.)

It's great because it has slipped into my natural lexicon. I use this word regularly. It is a very useful and usable word.

The reason I tell you this whole dreary story is because I Googled it today, and it turns out that many many people came up with it independently. I think I'll have to stop using it now.

2006-05-26T07:40:00.000-04:00

I've decided to save you guys some time by basically telling you what to expect from here.

About half of the time, you'll get meaningless one-line posts like "How about that, Antonio?"

About a third of the time, you'll get quotations from those with better things to say from me, like this one from Charlie Mingus:

"You haven’t been told before that you’re phonies. You’re here because jazz has publicity, jazz is popular…You like to associate yourself with this sort of thing. But it doesn’t make you a connoisseur of the art because you follow it around…A blind man can go to an exhibition of Picasso and Kline, and not even see their works, and comment behind dark glasses, ‘Wow! They’re the swingingest paintings ever, crazy!’ Well, so can you. You’ve got your dark glasses and clogged up ears."

And the last fraction of the time -sixteen-odd percent- you'll get meandering, pointless original posts, like this:

I've decided to save you guys some time by basically telling you what to expect from here.

About half of the time, you'll get meaningless one-line posts like "How about that, Antonio?"

About a third of the time, you'll get quotations from those with better things to say from me, like this one from Charlie Mingus:
"You haven’t been told before that you’re phonies. You’re here because jazz has publicity, jazz is popular…You like to associate yourself with this sort of thing. But it doesn’t make you a connoisseur of the art because you follow it around…A blind man can go to an exhibition of Picasso and Kline, and not even see their works, and comment behind dark glasses, ‘Wow! They’re the swingingest paintings ever, crazy!’ Well, so can you. You’ve got your dark glasses and clogged up ears."

And the last fraction of the time -sixteen aught percent- you'll get meandering, pointless original posts, like this:

So that about does it. Now you guys can take up Aikido or something instead.

2006-05-21T12:33:00.000-04:00

Well then.

2006-05-14T16:14:00.000-04:00

Let's see what the stars say:
Your Birthday Today

You will be left dumbfounded this evening when a man wearing nothing jumps out of your birthday cake, only to be followed seconds later by half a dozen police officers who, one by one, exit the triple-chocolate dessert in pursuit of the nude offender.

Note: I didn't make this up. These kids did.

2006-05-13T13:17:00.000-04:00

Well, there's that.

2006-05-04T22:16:00.000-04:00

Wherever you are, in the city, you can hear the hush of a tire on pavement. It is deafening.

2006-04-10T03:46:00.000-04:00

Have you ever read Richard II on the internet and then realized it was four in the morning? I have.

2006-04-09T22:43:00.000-04:00

Brands that do really well with me:
-President's Choice
-Google
-Michael Ignatieff
-Wikipedia

This isn't a comprehensive list.

So I'm really easy to market to. As long as you're really good at what you do, you're a tad not-conventional, and you can convince me you're not evil, you've basically won. If I feel that I'm superior for liking your brand, I will like your brand.

Well-meaning bunglers (political parties I like) and highly competent but possibly evil (Apple?) brands do decently.

2006-04-09T19:20:00.000-04:00

Achewood links expanded:
Explained
Main
Ray's Place
Ray's blog
Roast Beef's blog
Pat's blog
Téodor's blog
Philippe's blog
Cornelius' blog
Lyle's blog
Molly's blog
Onstad's blog
Nice Pete's blog
Little Nephew's blog
Emeril's blog

I didn't want you people to think it was limited to a single lonely place. By the way, Emeril's blog doubles as the hub of the world trashspotting community.

2006-04-05T00:20:00.000-04:00

(if I speak in parentheses I don't have to yell)

(tonight I heard a voicemail message from an excited woman in another time zone)

I keep expecting to receive a phone call from King's saying "I'm really sorry, there's been an error: the next name on the list was accepted. For you, actually, we drafted a special new form letter entitled 'Please stop wasting our time'. Good luck!"

(I apologize. excitement is unprofessional)

"these beefs are tender. and the exuberance?"
"insubstantial."

2006-03-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

Today, as I am wont to do (but all too frequently neglect to), I ate lunch. I ate lunch with several of the people I have been known to eat lunch with.

So, I was eating lunch with one of these people, and another arrives, and we joke about television or something, as we often do. We learn quietly that this latest arrival has just suffered the death of a family member. A pause, and people leave, and people arrive, and conversation continues. We acknowledge the sort of awkwardness that comes with a situation like that, and move on with a slightly different perspective.

Later on in the lunch hour, it comes out that the original person with whom I am lunching has a significantpersonal issue which this person plans to bring to a head tonight. A pause, and people leave, and people arrive, and conversation continues. I acknowledge the sort of awkardness that comes with situations like that, and I move on with a different perspective.

Suspend storyline;

I used to pride myself on being able to offer broad philosophies and insight and analysis in situations like that. I realized eventually that my insights and analyses weren't what people needed in situations like that.

Of course I am not talking about being aloof and intellectual when someone is sitting and crying and needing a hug. The situations weren't like that. They were simply people letting people know what was happening in their lives, at a time when what was happening wasn't particularly great.

I have come to terms with ( - a tired phrase; soft focus, strong music, sharp heel clicks - a strong early evening television woman comes to terms with loss or grief or failure) the fact that I'm not good at, well, that. The best I can do is keep silent and thoughtful, but I often substitute that for further self-absorbed observations that "I'm not good at, well, that." It doesn't help, it's not even terribly original or diverting, and it bespeaks a sort of character flaw that similarly written blogs have analysed in greater detail and simpler sentence structure.

Basically, I know the best thing I can do is sit silently and thoughtfully (the natural response) until a separate cue starts the conversation moving on.

People, I don't have a lack of sympathy. I just have a lack of ability.

Sidetrack; thank goodness, my peer froup is one that I think sort of takes all I've unnecessarily written for granted. Acts of sympathy aren't really expected, and the fact that they offer more awkwardness than help is universally acknowledged.

And as far as that sympathy goes, I think probably the best I can do there is merely have it: it's a lot less productive than even feigned sympathy from others.

Apologies for awkwardly overintellectualizing and then having the embarrassing and juvenile urge to publish. Overintellectual is basically where most things start and end with me. Well, that and music.

- - -

f'(blog)

I know (think) that my writing style is a tad overwrought and angular and obtuse. Angular like awkward, too many elbows; obtuse like the opposite of acute. My ideal is writing that is trim and precise and striking, gaining accuracy not from wordiness but words well-chosen and well-deployed to strike precisely how they are intended. The idea that you can get more effect from five words striking exactly the right effect than from three pages of directions and conditions outlining exactly what you're getting at.

I guess if you follow the quality I'm getting at to its extreme maximum, you get good poetry.

Unfortunately, I'm at the point where I'm not terribly good at that, and whenever I take a shot at it I feel that, not only does it swing-and-miss, but the attempt itself is sort of embarrassing. Frankly, I can do wordy well, and I hope that by working at that enough I can trim it down to greater precision and impact with less dead wood.

The upshot is that at this point, yes, my blog is practically unreadable (not unreadable; unenjoyable?) in its verbosity. Sorry. Hopefully it will get better.

Also, nine-tenths of what I write about, I feel I had made a better statement about before I had written. I suppose I publish out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and the hope that somewhere I might produce something worth more than what I assess it as.

- - -

And again, I write about myself.

- - -

Here's something I thought about today.

"Another recent report showed that over 99.8% of university faculty hold a doctorate degree, compared to a national average of 0.17%. Colleges have not responded to demands from the public that they take immediate action on establishing more representative hiring habits."
-Fake

Note: I read this in class, and then took out my music machine, set it to record, and laid it on the desk. It was a math class.

- - -

Don't spend pathos on this. Spend it on all the people who I self-consciously didn't.

- - -

Every relationship eventually has something that gums it up. I guess a good one manages to not care. If I consider a close relationship, I see a gumming-up obviously and clearly and easily and beforehand; thus, I don't have girlfriends.
Hey! Stop wasting pathos. I'm among the happiest (most content?) people I know. I have trouble caring.

- - -

Aw, man, this has become one of those long, whiny, posts. It also gives entirely the wrong impression on the whole, I think. Let's all pretend I've already taken it down, and leave it up for perusal. God willing, I'll fix it later.

2006-03-02T22:53:00.000-05:00

A play!

2006-02-24T01:57:00.000-05:00

Soon, I will try something different and engaging here, so stand by; now, thought, it is late and I am tired.

I will be sending, within the next few days, an application for special consideration* to King's for the Foundation Year Program. I've talked to their registrar, and they suggested I attach a cover letter, a full transcript, my psycho-educational assessment, reference letters from teachers, and a writing sample.

I've made progress with most of those, but I'm still kind of stumped about the writing sample. Because of time management and neurotic self-criticism, this becomes a really tough decision. I can't think of any academic essay I've written that I'm at all proud of; I might be able to tighten up a creative piece I've done at school; or I could take personal writing from this 'blog (or elsewhere). Some combination might work, but I also don't want to overwhelm them.

Do you, my readership**, have any suggestions for writing I could send them that would reflect well on me as a potential student in their program? I'm determined*** to get in; as far as I know, this is the nearest thing to my ideal program. I can send you a copy of any of the non-blog work I mentioned, but it's likely all stuff I've sent to all of you already to beg for peer-editing.

I also need to put together a cover letter, and I'm thinking a table of contents and a cover(explanation)**** for each section within might not be out of line. Seal it up all nice-like, put it in a fancy binder/folder/duotang, FedEx it for Monday, settle in for a painful wait.

So, to sum it up, I want you (yes, you) to help me get into the perfect university program. I want you to do this by thinking of something I've written decently enough to reflect decently upon me. If your collective intellect***** comes up with any other strategies to get me in, I want to hear about them.

While I've decided that that last paragraph sounds far too demanding, I've also decided it won't really affect your decision to help or not, and it reads decently.

Please,
Anonymous.

*because, due to the gifted-learning disabled-ADHD triple crown and personal things, my "marks do not reflect [my] academic potential".

**(reader)

***(desperate?)

****apology

*****can one person have a collective intellect?

2006-02-21T08:40:00.001-05:00

I'm at school, either literally inside a classroom or working on OPRO, for roughly fourteen hours a weekday, or seventy-eight hours a week. This doesn't surprise most of you, but it means that I literally have not done anything outside of school, including further university applications. It's interesting.

- - -

Picture Jeffree Star googling his own name, as he is wont to do.
Picture Jeffree Star's eyes lighting up as they see the number of hits.
Picture Jeffree Star reeling under waves of shock, disbelief, and anger.
Picture Jeffree Star convincing himself that they are talking about someone else.

Picture Jeffree Star, drunk and alone at two o'clock in the morning, closing his drapes and dressing up as a man.

Picture Jeffree Star cutting and pasting in MSpaint at 3:30 in the morning.

Picture Jeffree Star calling around on a Friday night with growing desperation, his brow furrowing as it becomes clear he will once again spend the night at home alone with a congealing pot of Mr. Noodles.

Picture Jeffree star becoming unduly frustrated as he fails to find the television remote, when in fact the source of his frustration is his growing need for a piss and a shower.

Picture Jeffree Star's sentences growing increasingly and obnoxiously long and circuitous, despite - as others may readily attest - the undeniable lack of a resultant increase in quality or other subjective merits.

- - -

Got to put together my spesh-con-app for King's. I've been trying to get up early to do this for several days. It looks like I'm failing to do so again today.

2006-02-13T00:25:00.000-05:00

Make the most powerful sock puppet in the world. Put it on your right hand. Congratulations! You are Dick Cheney!

You recently shot this man:

Reports suggest that, in fact, you were attempting to shoot this man:

This man was completely unharmed:

2006-02-08T07:31:00.000-05:00

One might have thought that somewhere like Sudbury would have had snow-clearing capacity sufficient to get me out of their God-forsaken city.

One would have thought wrong.

The next midsized thing:

2006-02-03T00:28:00.000-05:00

Disobedience, Civil (imaginary)

or, in other words,

Shit Disturbance

in a silly, ineffectual, neurotic paranoia sense.

Come on, it'll be fun. Here's one idea:

Alarmism:

The Justice department has set a precedent by requesting that Google divulge some of its retained data for a study on pornography.

The Patriot Act has set a precedent of mining seemingly safe data to identify possibly dangerous individuals by their actions.

Conspiracy Theory:

In a worst case scenario, it could be but a matter of time until these two precedents meet in an Orwellian orgy of civil rights violations.

SO,

To prepare for the possible, hopefully unlikely event that Google data is mined for Orwellian, Patriot Act purposes, we must create a data glut. We have to start making t-word incriminating searches from as many different IP addresses as possible. That way, when older sibling filters for dangerous searches, it will come up with enough dead ends that their scheme will be a failure.

At the very least, it will give us that fun, subversive rush that we shit-disturbing adolescent f*cks thrive on.

So, ladies and gentlemen, start using your computer, public computers, school computers, friends' computers, and anything else you can get your hand on to make searches like "sarin+gas+recipe", "NYC+water+supply", "due+process+guantanamo+bay", and "American Civil Liberties Union".

Man, I'm going to be a trendsetter among people with a tenuous grasp on reality, paranoia, and chronic boredom.

2006-01-31T22:35:00.000-05:00

Tom Lehrer!

2006-01-31T07:43:00.000-05:00

I've been having an incredibly hard time figuring out what I think of Michael Ignatieff, which is making it hard for me to tell you what you should think about Michael Ignatieff.

On one level, I am ecstatic that he has entered politics. He is exactly the type of person that there should be more of on Parliament Hill: highly educated, worldly, well-written and well-spoken, and intellectually brilliant. He is a humanist, anti-nationalist, and human rights advocate.

He is also very, very scary.

He is exactly the kind of leader we need, but a select few political positions - especially with regards to the war on terror - I find revolting. In ethics, he openly embraces "the lesser evil": can I justify embracing the lesser evil by supporting him for all that I like, and biting my lip over what I cannot accept?

The thing is, some of the differences are not in policy but in fundamental philosophy. As I read more of his works, I may post reflections and perhaps what pale flimsy attempts at rebuttal I can muster. I'm off to university in a matter of months to study what he is an expert in. However, he is my intellectual superior in reasoning, education, experience, and expression, just as he is to practically every other person in this country.

That is why, I think, I find him scary. Certainly, I disagree with some positions of just about every politician (or person) who walks this beauteous earth. The political manifestation of Michael Ignatieff's views, though, would be taking this country in a new direction that I am not entirely comfortable with. Further, he has the intellectual and verbal prowess to defend his views and perhaps convince a party or a parliament or a nation to go along with him.

Frankly, though, I'm romanticising this far too much. He is a first-time MP, and an ex-professor; until he sweeps to power gloriously amidst plagues of locusts and a 70% chance of scattered blood showers by midday, I have no business attributing antichrist qualities to him.

2006-01-27T23:01:00.000-05:00

Lenscrafters offers an unconditional happiness guarantee.

I'm really glad somebody's finally figured it all out.

2006-01-26T17:54:00.000-05:00

Some sort of an act of clarity:

(For riding [x]):
A vote for (third place party [x]) is a vote for (first place party [x]).

Note: logical fallacy.

2006-01-24T21:00:00.000-05:00

An open letter to Simon Gurofsky:

So, uh, did you really vote Communist? Like, actually?

2006-01-24T20:34:00.000-05:00

Oh, so also, I got accepted into Carleton today for Philosophy. I have a conditional fallback.

I actually knew that before I put up that last post, but I didn't want the two things to mutually dull their lustre by sharing a post.

2006-01-24T15:48:00.000-05:00

So I was reading some platforms the other day, specifically, the bit about foreign policy. You may remember that the seven billion people who don't live in Canada are sort of a pet cause of mine.

I won't tell you which one, but the party we just gave a minority government too had this to say:

"[We will] advance Canada’s interests through foreign aid . . ."

That's it. They will "advance our interests" through foreign aid. Hell, when that moral wasteland of a government down south talks about Iraq, they have the common decency to at least pretend they're there because they care about the people of Iraq. We know that they're simply "advancing their interests", but it's not polite to say it out loud.

Our new PM? Fuck pretending to care about people who don't have a vote. If we do help the world, it won't be from some dumb sissy pretence of responsibility or moral obligation; it'll just be to cash in.

Way to go, Canada. You've elected a winner.

Note: this is the only line concerning the party's money-spending philosophy. I'm not trying to fool you with context. There is one other line about 'moving toward' average spending, but the implication is that that foreign aid is still only used to 'advance our interests'.

2006-01-22T02:53:00.000-05:00

As promised:
From the Daily Show World News Headquarters, it's Indecision 2006/Indécision 2006!

Click on the video mislabelled "New Osama Tape", and wait out the first thirty seconds through your tears of laughter, then prepare to cease breathing for approximately five minutes.

If any of you 1337 h4x0rx can give me a direct link to the video so I can save it for posterity, I would be grateful to a finite and reasonable degree. I tried and failed, as a goodwill gesture.

2006-01-20T00:54:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to try to influence your vote, but for God's sake help stop the Conservative party.

Here are some links:

Election Polling Report:
Summarises several different Canadian polls.

democraticSPACE:
Detailed riding-by-riding statistics and predictions. Good for strategic voters.*

*Note: Strategic voting refers to, and only to, casting your vote for your second-choice party if your first-choice party has no chance in your riding and your vote can make a difference. For instance, in the Ottawa-Orleans riding, current polling puts it at 42% Conservative, 40% Liberal, and 13% NDP. The NDP have no chance, but if one in six NDP voters turns Liberal, the Conservative candidate will be defeated. Not only will this help reduce the Conservative power, but it will actually help the NDP by helping to prevent a Conservative majority (under which NDP would have no power).

To be linked as soon as it appears online:
Jon Stewart's Indecision 2006 / Indécision 2006 coverage.

2006-01-06T15:49:00.000-05:00

Happy Orthodox Christmas.

2006-01-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Orthodox Christmas Eve.

2005-12-31T15:21:00.000-05:00

Happy newer year.

2005-12-27T04:13:00.000-05:00

I leave town this morning. I really need to start packing.

- - -

Finished Microserfs. Did I mention I was reading that? It's Jiayi's fault.

- - -

I think I have pretty poor circulation. Far too often, when I stand up after sitting for a while, I get blood rushes like you wouldn't believe. It's sort of Zen.

Now when that happens, I picture bits of my brain suffocating and it's a lot less enjoyable. I usually decide to lower my centre of gravity, on the basis that this will get the ol' blood moving.

- - -

I may not get a chance to replace the CD I got Erik if he doesn't like it. He'll be gone when I get back. Perhaps I shouldn't have gotten a CD that there's a significant chance he won't like.

- - -

I was out for a significant portion of today, and I patronised a "fast-food" restaurant to provide some sustenance. I do not know if you are familiar with their establishment; their meat has far more or far fewer corners than is usual, depending on your personal definition of 'circle' and 'square'. I did not, however, order anything from their menu involving a meat patty. I did not, in fact, order anything off of their menu at all. I ordered an item that was not on their menu.

They got it wrong. What exactly makes an illegitimate fast-food item correct?

- - -

I am under the impression that I am writing in blank, inoffensive prose, but it is in fact very early in the morning. I look forward to reading this and cradling my head in my hands in shame.

- - -

I saw a film today.

- - -

If I ever quit, I'm going to do it like these guys seem to be doing right now.

Oh wait. I beat them to it. Didn't stick.

- - -

Lacking a satisfactory end to this, I'm going to just say "Cheers" and be done with it.

- - -

Cheers.

2005-12-26T11:59:00.000-05:00

Update: I still have yet to suffer some sort of major emotional/self-identity crisis. I better get emotionally worked-up soon or my readership will lose interest.

If I had to come up with an emotional malfunction I have, I'd probably come up with something like 'contentedness' or 'catharsis'. But that's not really true, because I go between 'contented', 'happy', and 'sleepy'.

EDIT: I just looked up cathartic, and it turns out that I was basically wrong. I was thinking of it in the Aristotelian sense of being an emotionally clean slate, not this psychological stuff with bad memories and powerful emotional release and all that stuff. So basically, ignore what I say, because I don't know what I'm talking about.

2005-12-26T11:53:00.000-05:00

Happy Chanukah as of last night.

I didn't get this post up when it belonged. Studies have shown that turkey makes you sleepy and contented.

('Studies have shown' is the equivalent of saying 'I think I heard somewhere that')

2005-12-25T01:42:00.000-05:00

Happy Christmas.

2005-12-19T21:59:00.000-05:00

My Platform:

I am in favour of good lighting, hygiene, and cheese curds so fresh they squeak when you chew them.

I am against ennui, advertising, and the common cold.

I am looking for volunteers and a button-making machine.

2005-12-17T22:27:00.000-05:00

What is wrong with proportional representation? Or free votes? Or international development? Or civil rights for everyone?

And what's the deal with tax cuts? And 'Stand up for Nationalism'? And bigotry?

My God. I'm almost glad I can't vote. Maybe I'll just move here.

2005-12-13T20:16:00.000-05:00

In our cycle of procrastination, this week brings us to Achewood, Pandora, Google Earth, and this jerk.

Tune in next week for more exciting happenings, where by "more exciting happenings" I mean "more happenings that are exciting", but by "more exciting happenings" I also mean "happenings that are more exciting".

2005-12-12T23:56:00.000-05:00

MSN = obso-freaking-1337.

2005-12-10T22:19:00.000-05:00

Some jerk just shot about sixty gaping freaking holes in my anonymity.

2005-12-05T05:11:00.000-05:00

To save the world,

We need to dig wells, and we need to teach locals to run them.
We need to teach them how to farm sustainably and profitably. We need to teach them how to sew or to teach, to start up business. We need microcredit.

We need education, we need ARVs, we need condoms, we need hospitals.

We need plumbing installed, sewage treated, roads built, schools opened, power installed.

We need a large group of efficient, dedicated, retrainable, able-bodied people, instantly deployable around the world.

That's right. We need to rededicate the army.

We need to retrain them. We could get well-builders out inside of six weeks, and experts to train the locals within ten. Within a year we could have full-scale infrastructre being installed and handed over.

We need support at home. We can call it the 'War on Poverty'. Let's apply the lessons from down south for good, not evil.

We need propaganda posters. We need the rhetoric. We need the public on side.

We need the money. We need rationing at home. We need every person to 'do their part'. We need to adjust spending, we need to issue Victory Bonds, we might even need to run a deficit.

We'll need equipment, and materials, and food, and socks. We'll need to recycle our soda cans and our war ships.

We'll need more people. We'll need recruitment, and signing bonuses. We may need the draft. This is war.

And we'll win it. Who can disagree? Who can conscientiously object? To use everything we've listed for good, for the first time. For the most momentous act of good in all of human history.

We need to start.

2005-12-05T03:47:00.000-05:00

I have just finished reading a paper written by my brother, and have determined that some day, I would really like to write a book with him.

It would end up being a very good book, because we are similar in all the right ways and totally different in all the right ways, and we care about some of the same things.

I don't want to belabour the point now, because now is not the time. Not until he's more charitable with couch space and more liberal with the remote control.

2005-12-04T00:27:00.000-05:00

The word of the day is emergencrisis.

Curiously, the fusion adds humour, thus lessening the impact to below the level of either of the words used individually (fusion fusion, as in emergencrisisyphean, loses impact altogether). As such, this word could apply, to, for instance, a massive term paper almost overdue and being written at 12:33 AM with insufficient research.

On that note,

2005-11-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

. . . puts launchcast to shame . . .

2005-11-29T00:17:00.000-05:00

zeitgeist: parody, eh?
hammer and stirrup: I really need a new mingus album.
webby: zubbles

I am behind in every course, but I have found several new webbly things that I enjoy, so on the whole I guess things are going pretty well.

The preceding sentence is one about which the majority of this blog entry's thought should be.

More to come.

2005-11-24T17:43:00.000-05:00

Things said in drama class, where we are learning 'networking'.

"If there is someone you need to meet who you cannot approach directly, a good tactic is to talk to their guest and act really friendly to their guest, and then they'll introduce you and he'll trust you because you were introduced by someone he trusts."

"Don't think of it as making friends, think of it as making connections."

"Really, as an actor, you have to get work; if that means using everyone you know and everyone you meet, then that's what it takes."

chomskying at the bit

2005-11-22T23:36:00.000-05:00

For my World Issues term paper, I have been attempting to research free trade/globalization economics pretty deeply. I have found that all the pro~ books are solid economic texts by solid economists, which I in no way disagree with. All of the anti~ books are hyperbolically written, shakily defended, full of assumption and presumption, and coloured by heartstring-tugging anecdotal evidence.

The problem with economic books is that they focus on increases in aggregate wealth, and not in general welfare. It is acknowledged (and promptly glossed over, might I add) that an increase in aggregate wealth may not change the distribution, or may very easily affect the distribution negatively, leading to a negative impact in general welfare.

Being a bleeding-heart left-wing high-school humanist, I see this intentional, reluctantly admitted oversight as momentous. Yet, not a single anti~ person (so far as I have found) has written an objective, academic, economically solid book dealing with it. It seems that all we are capable of is venomous, ill-informed, economically and statistically weak propaganda sheets.

If I'm still thinking this way in a degree or two, I may be forced to take some economics classes and remedy this. If any of you find a book that addresses this well, please pass it on. Again, I'm a silly naive high-school student making broad assumptions based on limited knowledge and understanding; I'm vastly undereducated and underread, so I welcome help from better-qualified people.

Also, those people breaking windows in Seattle really weren't helping. They should read some books.

Listening: A French rapper and a jazz bassist - Un ange en danger

2005-11-12T12:54:00.000-05:00

I have failed horribly at the art of the mass email.
I have filled inboxes with unnecessary reply-alls, and I have replied individually where I ought to have replied-all.
I have, most greivously of all, sent this in my ignorance to those who ought not have received it, and not sent it to those who ought to have received it.
I am truly sorry and I humbly repent for these my misdoings.
Have mercy on me and forgive me, that I may. . . .

Alright, I got nothing. So I'm bad at knowing what email address is what person. What're y'all gonna do about it?

2005-10-31T23:41:00.000-05:00

SEE EDIT DOWN TOWARD THE BOTTOM

People have wondered why I bother with all of this anonymity nonsense, when my identity is pretty freaking clear to any who know me. My reasoning is thus:

I'm some kid with a high school education. I know absolutely nothing about anything. On the basis of my very limited knowledge and gut intuition, I dare to choose, pronounce, and vigorously defend various opinions.
Based on my basic, undeveloped ideas of right and wrong, I know roughly where I stand on many issues; there are, however, people more knowledgeable than me who have put more thought than me into these issues, and until I am as one of them, I'm not going to pretend I have some intuitive link to the ultimate viewpoint.
With that in mind, it is conceivable, nay, likely, nay, inevitable that as I do learn more and think more about stuff in general, my views will change.

The first time you meet somebody and discuss something with them, you think their ideas through, consider them, weigh them carefully. In any subsequent encounters, however, you will to some degree or other view what they say as something that this person says. In many cases, this is so extreme that one's views are subconsciously discounted immediately by the plain fact that they came from a given person.
What sense does it make to wear out my credibility on the silly, rash, uninformed, undeveloped viewpoints of my silly, rash, uninformed childhood? Even later in life, however, I think I'd like to keep publishing anonymously. I lack the blind conviction and singlemindedness to fully 'believe in' any one given viewpoint, and I think I would suffocate in a typecast.

Well, there's that. This isn't a definitive reasoning; my thoughts about things like this (where by "things like this" I mean "everything") change significantly from day to day, and I cannot stand to be associated with basically anything I have done until I have achieved sufficient detachment to view it as the work of someone else. This, I suppose, is further explanation for my 'anonymity'.

Cheers,
He just goes on an' on An' onymous

EDIT:
Upon rereading, I figured out that I had forgotten to make my key point. The viewpoints I express here or pretty much anywhere, since I realize they are intellectual runts, are impermanent. For the sake of a discussion, I'll advocate basically whatever I feel like advocating, often the devil. Even if I seem to be earnest, candid, and stubborn, chances are I'm making it up as I go along, and it will change within a week, or a day, or perhaps an hour.
Deal with it.
I basically don't have opinions at the moment. I just have conversations and a vague view of roughly where I might decide to stand. It's tremendous fun. If you want to join my cult, give up all your worldy possessions and also buy me some milk at lunch.

2005-10-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

It is my philosophy that a drink or two in good company are a healthy and harmless way to enjoy yourself. Part of a well-balanced weekend.

I arrived, and the good company was playing some sort of a game involving cards and alcohol. The rules, as I understood them, were that whatever happened I took a drink. About eight or nine things happened in the first twenty minutes.

Well, I felt like crap for about thirty-six hours afterward, but now I'm actually feeling sort of refreshed. By comparison. Perhaps it's because I slept like a baby.

Exactly like a baby.

Curled up in the fetal position, like a baby.
Fitfully, like a baby.
Utterly helpless and insensible, like a baby.
And with occasional breaks to vomit.
Like a baby.

I think that my philosophy for the next few weeks will be reactionary in its moderacy.

On the bright side, I didn't do anything too stupid. Except getting shitfaced fucking plastered.

(apologies to all involved)

2005-10-19T19:37:00.000-04:00

The horse won.

Requiescat in Pace.

Edit:

You remember how in the second act Tinkerbell drinks some poison that Peter is about to drink in order to save him? And then Peter turns to the audience and he says, "Tinkerbell is going to die because not enough people believe in fairies. But if all of you clap your hands real hard to show that you do believe in fairies, maybe she won't die."

We need to clap as hard as we can for as long as we can, until our palms are red and raw.

Edit again:

That means that it's still kicking. So go and clap and stuff. If you wanna.

2005-10-18T19:42:00.000-04:00

My blog crashed.
It crashed screaming into a wall called technical difficulties.
Please remind me what was here before, because it's all gone, and I must restore it.

Edit:
My blog was in one fell swoop cleansed from the internet. More specifically, my template was wiped out except for a bit at the beginning, leaving you looking at garbled nothingness.
I have managed through my 31337 skillz to remake it entirely. If you remember something that was here before and no longer is, tell me, and I will thoughtfully consider restoring it.

2005-10-16T18:49:00.000-04:00

Man, I really don't know if this blog is doing it for me. I can't stand my own writing. It's like hearing the sound of my own voice.

I like writing, though, (go figure) so it's more of the same for now. Until in one fell swoop I cleanse the internet of this foul spot.

2005-10-12T09:57:00.000-04:00

Here's an original new rule: from now on, if it's in italics, I didn't write it. Alternately, italics can be used on a single word or phrase to denote emphasis. You'll have to figure out which is which. It's like a game you can play by yourself all alone in a secret place.

- - -

"I'm making wheatloaf. It's like meatloaf, only with wheat."
"Isn't that just . . . bread?"

- - -

I am now officially learning disabled!
Despite one's initial reaction, this is fantastic. The way I see it, I'm messed up academically, LD or not; this changes my status, however, from "underachiever" to "noble warrior in a struggle against adversity". As such, I am entitled to every benefit our social democratic state can give me.
It really is a purely academic distinction, too. It doesn't in the slightest change who or what I am, just changes the way I am dealt with.

- - -

There is nothing more fun than name-dropping with psychologists, because they're bound legally and by oath not to acknowledge that they know the people whose names are being dropped. You get sort of a polite laugh and smile with a steely edge.

- - -

I am in the midst of a mid-morning workathon deadline-o-vision, and as such there is no better time to regale you with tales of abroad. Whenever I do this, it will be a disconnected rumination, not a mere mundane rational reportage of mundane rational events.

Dental hygiene aside, the primary difference between Canadian cadets and British cadets is that, while Canadian cadets are dogmatically not taught to be child soldiers, British cadets, well, are. In Britain, with British cadets, we partook in British cadet training, and thus, soldiering.

Lying down on a damp patch of grass and thistle in a damp patch of southern Wales. Your throat claws at the air you breathe. Two concentric circles, a single iron bar, a silhouette, running. You breathe in, air like nails, out halfway. A trigger like shards of glass; squeeze gently with an even pressure. A jolt, a noise, a disconnect, and the silhouette is still running. Tracing its movement, lining up again, breathing, firing. And again. A trigger like shards of glass, stopping, clicking on nothing. Breathe. You lift up your head, neck like an iron gate, and breathe.

I have never killed, and never want to. Yet I have lain on the ground, lined up my sights with a human silhouette, squeezed the trigger. I have sensed the pin strike the bullet, heard the powders ignite, felt the projectile leave the barrel. I have been the projectile, followed the straightest possible line between two places, two people, felt the impact, the penetration. I have watched a man fall. And I have felt the rush, the adrenaline, the power, and I have aimed again, fired until the trigger clicks on nothing. Check bolt, release magazine, replace magazine, ensure it is seated correctly, release bolt, continue firing.

I have never killed, and never want to. I stand up, creaking, and brush myself off. Leaving the field, or leaving the trainer, the other cadets are euphoric. Wasn't it fun, they ask, wasn't it intense? No, I say. I am lying.

I have never killed, and never want to. I feel no guilt over what I did; all I did was play a game in the field, a game in the British army's trainer simulator. I played a war game, and I was exceedingly good at it. I feel no guilt over what I did; I feel guilty about what I felt as I did it. I really can't stand the person who lay in that field with a fearful intensity and an awful satisfaction as they emptied magazine after magazine. I lay in that field, and more than ever I can't stand killing, can't stand the military, and can't stand what we people are in some corner of ourselves.

- - -

This just in -- I'm still a pretty relaxed guy, I'm just a relaxed guy who's never going to join the army. And you already knew that.

- - -
Uch. Rereading that trite crap I wrote in that paragraph above, I'm three-quarters tempted to tear it out. I really think sleep-deprived me and rational me need separate blogs. We really hate each other.
Euch. Don't believe what that sleep-deprived "deep" kid writes. It's hyperbolic, poorly written, and full of pseudo-deep-emotional-shi'ite. Trite as hell, in my opinion.

I guess I should stick to non sequitor witticisms.

2005-10-10T22:56:00.000-04:00

My blog doesn't die with a bang; it doesn't die with a well thought-out and carefully worded farewell.
It doesn't even manage a whimper.

My blog dies with a slow relentless fizzle, and then when you know for sure it's dead it sits back up and asks for the time.

2005-08-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

"The colours red, green, and blue are real. The colour yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody."

Watch out, drivers; I am G1'd. Ed's driver is tomorrow.

I think the serialized full story will wait until I have a reason to write it, namely, procrastination.

2005-08-06T05:40:00.000-04:00

Am in England. Near London. Eastern hemisphere.
Having fun.
Back in Canada soon.
Done in Wales.
Had fun.

Sentence fragments.
Will write-up serialized full story when back home.

Cheers.

2005-06-18T22:18:00.000-04:00

I'm going to leave that last post up there as a reminder never, ever, ever to go without sleep to work again. Also, I'm doing it again tonight because I have more to submit.

2005-06-15T20:45:00.000-04:00

Feeling: The black, oily airborne dirt that, over time, inexorably insinuates itself into the brick of industrial centres until brick and dirt are as one.

Listening: The thunderingly deadened pressure of blood coursing through the arteries that, noose-like, ensnare the inner workings of my ear.

The end of the year presses heavily upon us; not only is it pushing toward us from the front, but it has us surrounded. It presses in on the small of our back, between our fingers, under our arms, in the soft crevice of our neck beneath the chin, and if we let ourselves sleep it will press in on our eyelids until we taste it creeping acidically up the back of our throats.

Fourth consecutive all-nighter. Without sleep, I am numb enough to succeed.

2005-06-14T00:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I held off for a little while in hopes that Google would update its caché and the text that I said would be the description would be a description. They seemed very slow about it. Then, when I checked again recently, not only had I fallen from the first hit to the 47, but my page had also been un-indexed and become a mere listed page (no page description, URL as the title . . . very demeaning). It seems the universe hates me.

On the bright side, I'm unable to be unhappy about it.

Which is a very bright side, as I now have to make a choice between getting a good enough grade in Drama (to stay in the program), getting a university quality grade in English, and sleep.

Ha. Ha. Ha. That last one on the list was a joke. It's not even in competition with the other two. Also not in competition are CommTech and Physics, being grade eleven courses of no consequence. Oddly, my (we)blog rates high enough to take my time.

If you're having trouble understanding this, welcome to my head. Be careful, the floors don't always stay still in the morning if you didn't sleep.

To end this post, some stream-of-thought--writing-practice--phrase-mutation exercise. The moment I pause to think it through, I will stop typing and post the list.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
In the land of the one-eyed, the blind man is just as screwed.
In the land of the one-eyed, the two-eyed man gets picked first for baseball.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man has the best fashion sense.
In the land of the blind, the deaf man is single.
In the land of the deaf, the one-eared man paints pretty pictures.
In the land of the kings, the one blind man is eyed.
In the eye of the king, the one-land man is blind.
In the land of the blind kings, the one-eyed man is hanged.€

2005-06-04T15:17:00.000-04:00

If you go to Google, enter 'Essentially Unremarkable', and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky", you end up here. If you search it, this text is your page description.

Hello to everyone who got here that way.

2005-05-29T21:08:00.000-04:00

So here is the plan, concerning the good Dane of whom I wrote.

I shall take from in his play a speech of copious goodness, and prepare it in fine dramatic style. I shall then replace the goodly words of that speech with words devoid of sense, that is, gibberish, but having the same vowel sounds and stresses as the words of the original speech. I shall then speak that speech exactly as if I were reading the original speech.

This will illustrate what power, if any, the pure sounds of Shakspere's writing have when removed from their meaning. Also, it has the humour benefit of allowing me to read earnestly a goodly lot of gibberish.

I do believe that if I present this with the right mix of seriousness, mystique, and intellectual analytical scientific detachment, I can convince the class and (most importantly) Dr. Frogley that they have witnessed something meaningful. Plus, it sounds fun, and makes thorough use of three of my top four intelligences.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Spoiled fruit and vegetables?

2005-05-29T00:12:00.000-04:00

The following post will at first seem to be one kind of undesirable entry, but turn out to be an entirely different kind of undesirable entry.

I took several tests online to determine what my relative strengths were in my multiple intelligences. Through a complex process of weighting* the various tests and averaging them, I got the following scores for the eight different intelligences.

Musical: 55
Linguistic: 46
Logical/Mathematical:44
Interpersonal: 37
Bodily/Kinesthetic: 36
Natural: 35
Visual: 28
Intrapersonal: 22

The categories are pretty self-explanatory: linguistic intelligence refers to language use (writing, speaking) as opposed to language analysis; natural intelligence is tree-huggingness. The rest are unambiguous, I hope.

Now for the sudden change from one type of post to another.

The reason I'm bothering to tell y'all this is Englische class. We need to make use of our stronger intelligences to create something for the class to illuminate an aspect of a work we study; specifically, I need to create something to illuminate an aspect of Hamlet.

As a note, I don't want to write a song. Yes, I've thought of that, as has every other person with a strong open quote musical intelligence close quote and a strong open quote linguistic intelligence close quote.

So, since I'm not strong in intelligent intelligence, I'm appealing to all you folk. Your mission is to think of something I could do, and post it as a comment. I may never find out if you read this and don't respond, but Jesus will know and will rain curses down upon you in His mercy.

John Q. Parker of St. Stephens, Mass-uh-chew-sits posted an idea here last year. The next day, he won the lottery, was cured of cancer, and married the love of his life.

James Q. Primrose of Stephenville NewFoundLand read this and didn't post an idea. The next day, the love of his life was diagnosed with cancer and his ex-wife won the lottery.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

Also, Jared Q. Pinter of Sankte Sven, Northern Europe has never read this and has not done anything about it. His grandfather had an operation to remove superficial skin cancer, someone he knew in high school won the lottery, and he thinks that his wife is probably the love of his life because he's not allowed to think otherwise.