*

this is where i live and try to work

2011-11-12T22:23:00.000-08:00

this is how i keep up on "the latest" while in Ontario (way up)

2011-11-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

as true today as when it was written

2011-11-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

"I'd like to send this to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?"

2011-11-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

one-line movie reviews from recent plane ride cinema

2011-09-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Lincoln Lawyer: You could do a lot worse than that Matthew McConaughey.

Avatar: 3 hours of a million Jar-Jar Binkses.

The Adjustment Bureau: Angels have feelings and God is willing to compromise.

Australia: Everbody's free to punch Baz Luhrman.

Thor: Norse god of crap.

Soul Surfer: The awesome one-armed power of Christian belief and green screen.

think of it this way

2011-07-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet's clamour,
Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.

testing

2011-06-27T23:54:00.001-07:00

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.

2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.

3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.

6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.

7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

9. Do not harm little children.

10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.

11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

left-hand path

2011-06-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

So spake the Voice, then thunder shook the wood, and lightning smote and splinter'd two tall trees that tower'd above the rest: the one a pine, an ash the other.

Then I knew the doom of those accursed men who sport with war and tear the body of their mothers. Trembling though guiltless did I hear that doom, Trembling though guiltless I;
for them I quaked of whom it spake...‎

hurry up please it's time

2011-05-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

each by each

2011-04-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

standing up.

falling down.

****************************************************************************************

You should've heard the crowd, though, when he was finished. You would've puked. They went mad. They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn't funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me.
People always clap for the wrong things.

vault lines

2011-03-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

harmacy

2011-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

druidry

2011-01-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

things on fire

2010-12-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

heavenly peace

2010-12-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

2010-11-22T20:18:00.001-08:00

gerund

2010-11-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

It was then that the Bergerons' television tube burned out.

Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.

George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel.

"Yup," she said.

"What about?" he said.

"I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television."

"What was it?" he said.

"It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel.

"Forget sad things," said George.

"I always do," said Hazel.

"That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head.

"Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel.

"You can say that again," said George.

"Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy."

The Dead

2010-11-08T20:59:00.000-08:00

"What about the song? Why does that make you cry?"

She raised her head from her arms and dried her eyes with the back of her hand like a child. A kinder note than he had intended went into his voice.

"Why, Gretta?" he asked.

"I am thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song."

"And who was the person long ago?" asked Gabriel, smiling.

"It was a person I used to know in Galway when I was living with my grandmother," she said.

The smile passed away from Gabriel's face. A dull anger began to gather again at the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins.

"Someone you were in love with?" he asked ironically.

"It was a young boy I used to know," she answered, "named Michael Furey. He used to sing that song, The Lass of Aughrim. He was very delicate."

Gabriel was silent. He did not wish her to think that he was interested in this delicate boy.

"I can see him so plainly," she said, after a moment. "Such eyes as he had: big, dark eyes! And such an expression in them -- an expression!"

"O, then, you are in love with him?" said Gabriel.

"I used to go out walking with him," she said, "when I was in Galway."

A thought flew across Gabriel's mind.

"Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?" he said coldly.

She looked at him and asked in surprise:

"What for?"

Her eyes made Gabriel feel awkward. He shrugged his shoulders and said:

"How do I know? To see him, perhaps."

She looked away from him along the shaft of light towards the window in silence.

"He is dead," she said at length. "He died when he was only seventeen. Isn't it a terrible thing to die so young as that?"

"What was he?" asked Gabriel, still ironically.

"He was in the gasworks," she said.

Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure from the dead, a boy in the gasworks. While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he turned his back more to the light lest she might see the shame that burned upon his forehead.

He tried to keep up his tone of cold interrogation, but his voice when he spoke was humble and indifferent.

"I suppose you were in love with this Michael Furey, Gretta," he said.

"I was great with him at that time," she said.

Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try to lead her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also sadly:

"And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it?"

"I think he died for me," she answered.

Boomtown Cafe

2010-11-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

1910

i have fallen a long way.

2010-11-02T23:36:00.000-07:00

Some multiple exposure photos i took on K-Topps's Holga at the Western Development Museum's wacky-town 70s exhibit from 2009 i think.

just got the pictures developed.

psychedelic.

puff puff pass.

2010-10-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Hey Mentholated Nasal Spray,

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

today, this was outstanding

2010-10-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

Louis Wain. All cats all the time.

Outstanding.

today, this was outstanding

2010-10-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

Today i accidentally put mentholated nasal spray in my eye instead of eyedrops.

Not only did i not go blind, but it also didn't hurt.

Outstanding.

death clock

2010-10-05T19:04:00.001-07:00

a god's eye of hate

2010-10-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

hypergraphy

2010-10-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

everything all the time.

2010-09-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

Furn Gullie

2010-09-09T01:50:00.000-07:00

parallax view

2010-05-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

"In the Apocalypse the angel swears that time will be no more."

"I know. It's quite correct there; clear and precise. When all mankind attains happiness, time will be no more, because there's no need. A very correct thought."

"And where are they going to hide it?"

"Nowhere. Time isn't an object, it's an idea. It will die out in the mind."

nothing shocks me, i'm a scientist

2010-04-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

somethingsomethingsomething

having an average weekend.

2010-04-12T20:13:00.001-07:00

somethingsomethingsomething

"and the skulls were gone from their skeletons"

2010-03-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

the ghost with the most toast.

erica's skull, still attached to its skeleton.

a few reasons i'd like to go to anarctica

2010-03-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

1. nacreous clouds.

2. sastrugi.

3. icebergs.

4. southern lights.

spectre bark

2010-02-14T21:58:00.000-08:00

-today i think that cashew butter is the Mr. Holland's Opus of nut butters.
-medal=meddle=cashforgold?
-intermittent panic attacks=lobotomy?
-big league chew.
-dolphin blood.
-"The Polar Spirit's fellow-dæmons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong ; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward".

that's about all, really.

and, and, and...

my soldiers stay eternal

2010-01-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

Whoa.
I didn't know Tupac was only 25 when he got capped. [That's probably not the preferred term but i couldn't decide between murdered, assassinated, or killed so i went another direction entirely.
it's the best i could do. ]
i learned it in this pbs documentary about the hip and the hop. i thought it was interesting-ish.
a little too women-and-gender-studies for me. no offense. okay, some offense.
regardless,
that is heavy...for the obvious reason that it's very tragic and young to die and wilfred owen and blah blah blah but mostly because i would've thought he was like 38.
looked way older than 25.
Another celeb gone too soon at the tender age of 25 was the hunk-tacular Brad Renfro, r.i.p.-- too hunky for this reality.
and i am too delirious for this reality.

don't want to not sleep, but time won't let me.

good coffee, and hot!

2010-01-20T23:26:00.000-08:00

Carlos Sánchez portrayed Juan Valdez for over thirty years, from 1969 to 2006.[1] He was originally a coffee farmer from Antioquia, Colombia. He currently is an artist in Medellín.

sometimes, i hear the strangest things

2010-01-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

terabyte infirma

2010-01-16T12:39:00.000-08:00

why can you buy 16 terabytes of storage from google?

who is the target audience?
how was $4,056 calculated as the cost?

in conclusion: say what?!

wash of a cold river in a glacial land

2009-11-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

i like morning better than afternoon and night better than both.

at least in the morning i can imagine it will, at some point, get light out. the sun is becoming a very evasive fellow as the approaching winter solstice blots everything out. at least snow is bright and reflective. plus there's the golden (literally) time in the afternoon when the sun kind of skips over one mountain on its way behind another one. I think this happens at about 2. Official sunset is like 3:45 or something. I don't know when the official rise is these days, but it's like 11 am now and while i can see sunbeams in the western hills, i most certainly cannot see the sun itself.

perpetual darkness is not without its awesome benefits though, and is in fact highly conducive to:
-stars
-northern lights
-sneakin'
-seances (maybe?)
-long exposure photography (sometimes)
-ghost ships.....say what?!?!?
Okay, well it might not have as much to do with the levels of light as some of the other things on that list but they did just release pictures of a "ghost ship" on the bottom of Lake Laberge.
i very much enjoy that all ships that have sunk are"ghost ships". That is how it should be. Just like all abandoned houses should be called "haunted houses". Anyway this sweet ghost ship was a golrush-era paddlewheeler that sunk in 1901. Dawson's main man Robert Service even rapped about it. There is a video of the boat's mystical underwater secrets here. Perfect for the darkness. They even found boots! And axes! Land of death indeed.
also plus additionally the ship was called the A.J. Goddard, and even though there's an extra D, i feel 94% certain the boat is in fact the ghost of Jean-Luc, the French-new-waving the shit out of that lake.

That's another one for my list of things improved by darkness-- French films from the 60s.
I have been really enjoying re-visiting all the Godard movies lately. Vivre Sa Vie and Week End are my favourites right now, but really i like them all. Even the shitty 80s ones and the confusing Dziga-Vertov ones. When i was 19 i spent an entire summer, almost every night of the week, at the National Film Theatre (now re-named the BFI Southbank...gay).
They had a Jean-Luc godard season that year (2001 maybe?) and they played all his films as well as work by his influences and contemporaries. Anna Karina even introduced one of them. For realz. It was a formative experience for my film-watching and brain. I think it's probably why i like Marxism so much (that and the awesome powers of Saskatchewan, of course). The first one i saw was A boute de souffle cos this strange guy i worked with asked me. Then it spiralled into a borderline obsessive past-time of cinema-going. It just goes to show you that good things can come from having a crush on an Italian, apparently.

in closing, "a thousand miles from nowhere" is a hella-sweet song.
Also, Dwight Yokam is kind of a babe.

double true.

bust a "move"

2009-10-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

things have been thinging around. this is essential to the continued vitality of stuff, and things.

i don't want to put the cart in front of the horse (unless the horse was better at pushing than pulling which seems unlikely) but i think i am responsible for Tom Allen's departure from CBC Radio 2 Morning. If you don't believe me, look at my previous post. Funny right? If i were a "big wig exec" (and god willing, some day i will be) i would've canned him too. Well first i would have laughed, then i would have eaten some pressed duck and wiped my face with a crisp Laurier, then i would've called him and been like: "Hey Tom Allen-- word on the blogosphere is that you stink. Hit the road. You're making this charming girl's mornings unbearable." Which is my rough assessment of how it went down.
Now i wake up to Bob Mackowycz. I like his Polish last name and laid-back attitude. The music is still kinda ballz, but nothing like the repetitive Groundhog Day nightmare of Tom Allen's hellish reign. Welcome Bob. Cut your fopish hair, but welcome.
So after concluding that i had not only bettered myself by ousting Tom Allen but probably the entire listening community, i was shocked to stumble across this on "The Net" (starring Sandra Bullock):

An Open Letter to Tom Allen:

For many years I have enjoyed spending the morning with Tom Allen. I have enjoyed his music, his chit-chat, his various features --- even his on-air flubs.
The best thing about Mondays was hearing Tom Allen again.

I was keen to see what Radio 2 morning would feature. Although I mostly liked the music Tom played, I am, sad to say, not impressed with the new show. I thought the new CBC was supposed to give us more variety and many genres. Not being a genrist, I am not sure exactly what a "genre" is --- the word does not appear in my Shorter Grove's, but my Canadian Oxford defines it as a kind or style, especially of literature or art. It was an early morning for me today, so I was only able to hear Tom's first hour. However, everything Tom played could be characterized as "Vocal solo (electronically amplified) over ostinato bass, late 20th century." Tom did his best to play various styles within that narrow genre, even singers in different languages. There was some variety in the instrumental accompaniment (although guitars and drum set were rather prevalent) and variation in the rhythmic pattern, but although I wasn't actually counting, I would venture that most if not all of the songs were in 4/4 time. So much for variety.

Thinking of shows that really do play a variety of "genres", I can think of Jurgen Gothe's "Disc Drive", and Robert Harris' "I Hear Music" (both of which have been sacked) and I was hoping that Tom's selections might be more along those lines. Or, going back in the mists of time, I remember Max Ferguson, Alan McPhee, and Clyde Gilmour, all of whom were unconfined by genrism.

And why does that kid keep interrupting with his announcements about the new Radio 2? I know it's not really a kid, just some actor imitating a teenager (did you by any chance borrow Gavin Crawford from 22 Minutes?), but he is getting rather annoying. I do enjoy deadpan parody as much as anyone, and he does have some good lines ("Opera -- in tempo and in tune"), but I must say it's not really that funny anymore --- indeed, it's rather sad. Promo-dude has been around for a while, but he used to at least have the courtesy to wait till the music was over before he cut in. Couldn't the producer make sure promo-dude waits his turn? I have a feeling he is trying to upstage Tom.

So, I don't know how much I'm going to listen to Tom in the future. Even the sparkle in his presence seems faded. I almost get the impression Tom is playing more music because he no longer knows what to say --- which is pretty heavy criticism for Tom Allen. Will there be any more "This day in...", or the Web Goddess, or Mr. Equipment, or any other of the little tidbits that made his show so enjoyable?

Music and Company was a great invigorating way to start the day. My first impression of Radio 2 Morning is that I am in some smoky coffee-house, feeling rather blue, and I might as well crawl back into bed.

What is this guy even talking about?
He starts out like he's Tom Allen fan #1 but it quickly becomes apparent that his critiques are more scathing than my own (in that they're sincere and earnest)!
I found his complaint about the time signature consistency interesting, but any credibility that could have garnered him was pre-emptively lost by his admition of not knowing what genre is (really?) and subsequently providing the dictionary definition...
Also, i wish i woke up in a smoky coffee-house every day.

I regret nothing. Tom Allen blows. Now he's gone.

Take that.

the door to the cabinet is to be opened using a minimum of 15 kleenexes.

2009-10-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

i wake up to CBC Radio 2 each day that i wake up.
some nights i don't sleep, and in those cases i am not awoken by CBC Radio 2 at 7:30 a.m., but rather startled by it instead.

In either case, you might be wondering, "why would anyone choose CBC Radio 2?" and that is a fair question. It is worse than CBC Radio 1. Like a lot worse. In fact, it's so bad that i get out of bed just to shut it off. That's why i choose CBC Radio 2 for all my alarm clock radio needs.

The reason it's so bad might in fact be some programming mandate of which i am not aware, but until i crack that code, from my perspective CBC Radio 2 is so bad because Tom Allen is the host of the morning show. According to CBC's website, Tom is "a passionate music lover, storyteller, accomplished trombonist, writer and broadcaster" and his program features "singer-songwriters plus a little R&B, world music, classic pop... and his own inimitable story telling".
Okay.
So the genres listed are among my least favourite in all of the musical world, so it mightn't seem reasonable for me to complain about this, however it's not only that the genres blow. Oh no. Tom also manages to find the worst possible representatives of said genres. Also important to note is that Tom Allen plays the same songs every morning. Like the same songs at the same time. I only listen to the radio for the 5-35 minutes i lay in bed thinking about shutting it off, and i am often shocked terrified that I am trapped in some Groundhog day-esque nightmare, because the same shitty Coeur de Pirate song that was on at 8:12 on Wednesday morning will re-appear at 8:24 on Friday morning.
Who fucking does that?
I understand having favourites or classics on a given show, but unless Tom Allen has OCD unheard of since the days of Howard Hughes (which i doubt because that would be waaaaay too interesting), this is uncalled for. I could also maybe sympathize with the repetitiveness if it were awesome songs every morning. I could probably listen to Hall and Oates "I Can't Go For That" every morning, and I'm probably not alone in that. But we're talking about worldbeat bullshit and awkward romantic adult R&B. These are not "classics". They are songs that are so bad they wake me up.
I thought for a while that maybe that was the point-- songs so bad they wake you up. But then i started to listen to what Tom Allen was saying himself, his "inimitable storytelling", if you will.
It was then i realised that the point was not songs so bad they wake you up, and the Tom Allen himself is an ass-clown. He doesn't know anything about music, and knows little about anything else. Listening to him talk about Arctic Sovereignty almost made my head explode. He has a non-commital, vaguely liberal, politcally-correct tone that makes every "story" sound like a sermon at united church. Every now and then he treats the listeners to a stuttered anecdote (and i use the term loosely) about his musician days. Even those personal stories contain not even a hint of engagement. Tom Allen is like a toast sandwich with a crushed cracker filling.

But do you know what the worst part of all is?

He looks like this:
and i fucking know he's happy about it.

their realm is the lateral courses

2009-10-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

now it's getting late

2009-10-04T01:11:00.000-07:00

harvest moon tonight.
it is too overcast here to see it; damn.

today was also our first snow of the season-- hence the overcast sky.

october is the flagship of halloween. i don't know what to dress as yet.

ideas include:

(arranged largest to smallest)

No Jacket Required
(Not Phil Collins. Big difference.)

SATAN

Mac Tonight

So ya. Not too sure yet.

One thing i am sure about though-- i need to get winter boots, stat. In an effort to force myself to act i threw my old ones out. I might just end up wearing shoes with bread bags on them all winter. And that's 'okay'.

Dear media, shut up about super fruit.

Back in the day, the seminal goth rock band Sisters of Mercy made a t-shirt that said "fuck me and marry me young" on it. it is a lyrics from the song "Driven Like the Snow", which is featured on the fabulous album "Floodlands". i have the record.
i have been trying to find it since the internet was invented. if anyone wants to get me the best b-day present ever, steal that shirt from a skinny goth and mail it to me.

Or if you're looking for a gift idea that is less mysterious to acquire but much much more expensive, i want this painting by Kris Knight (weirdly enough he has a painting called "fuck me and marry me young"...hmmm):

i am worth it.

Norwegian crispbreads, German cheese, and Yukon tomatoes-- here's to living in a first world hell!

if there's nothing wrong with me...maybe there's something wrong with the universe!

2009-10-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

every Wednesday at 7:30 pm a raging loud doomsday siren goes off at the firehall in Dawson.
i think it's to test it in case of real emergencies.

now i am used to it, but it used to make me think of zombies, wars, and all other sorts of impending doom.

i guess it is a strange aural fixture to have in a town.
very foreboding.

though i consider most things to be foreboding...except for cable tv.
You know why? because i can watch Star Trek at almost any hour of the day.

Holodeck, take me away.

soy super bien

2009-09-24T03:39:00.000-07:00

i am eating manchego cheese. it reminds me of Spain even though it's really crap manchego cheese. It's the only time i've ever seen it here at all. Still pretty damned good.

cold like not-Spain in Dawson City tonight. decidedly not-Spain. Decidedly freezing at night and meant to snow on Sunday. I am not a believer, but i am not a non-believer either.
imagine if i just didn't believe in weather?
imagine.

i do not want to believe that it is so very very hot in Saskatchewan still. Makes me feel like that thumbs up i got from god in 2005 really meant nothing at all.
where's my 30 degrees in September?
where's my First Nations Summer, god?
Where?

Whatever. When it starts to be below zero every day then i can start to acquire frozen goods again. Not having a freezer is somewhat inconvenient for items like frozen green beans.
i rely on green beans heavily.
like second only to my cat. i just de-wormed that cat. more than i'd do for the beans-- do you see what i'm saying?

As you may know if you know me, i don't like to do things i'm not good at/don't know how to do, so it has taken me an excessive length of time to create a rapidshare mixtape for a contest. The mix itself was quick to assemble, but i had a profound fear about my potential failure in the uploading process. It turns out that it is so easy that a monkey could do it. Even a retarded monkey probably. If i could teach my cat to do it, i really wouldn't need anything else in the world because we would start a mixtape blog where i made the lists and Geddy zipped and uploaded the files. It would be called Cats: The Musical. Everyone would love it. Andrew Lloyd Webber would sue me. Good times.

Until then, however, perhaps i will just continue to make the zips and upload them myself.
This is my first one.
It's a mix tape featuring songs about buildings and food for a Conceptual Mixtape Battle created by my friend Mark over here at Markcomix.
My entry is plus de late, so it may not be in consideration for the elusive "win" anymore, but it's still a nice interaction of songs that really are all about buildings and/or food in some way. I though about lying and tossing a few in there that weren't just cos they would've sounded good in the mix, but i didn't.
Is it possible that after 27 years i may be developing morals?

Doubts it, Ralph.

the most beautiful thing.

2009-09-22T18:34:00.001-07:00

heavy rotation

2009-09-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

the best corner in town

2009-08-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

in yon forest

2009-08-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

i went to the forest the other day. i found wild poppies the day before and i wanted to find more.

this is where i went off the path.

some the trees were dead and looked like halloween.

i thought this looked a bit like a grave.

and then i saw the bone.

The tree roots were grown right around it.

this is what it would've looked like for the bone.

but then i took it home.

white garlands in the hall of my fathers

2009-08-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

i can sense your presence in the vicinity

2009-07-31T20:33:00.000-07:00

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.

2009-07-28T03:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.legalizeit

2009-07-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.

2009-07-16T02:57:00.000-07:00

ghostbusters II

2009-07-09T04:22:00.001-07:00

a show of hands

2009-07-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

i want your ghost gone

2009-07-05T03:49:00.000-07:00

it never gets warm at night here.

2009-07-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

i love life .ca

2009-06-30T03:03:00.000-07:00

the free store giveth.

let us go then, you and i

2009-06-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

something like that.

2009-06-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

projector at the planetarium

and

the overgrown lawn.

cartesian coordinates

2009-06-23T03:15:00.000-07:00

summer.

places afar.

sun.

plus les choses.

o.t.o.

2009-06-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

{Kappa-Epsilon-Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Eta Epsilon}

THE BATTLE OF THE ANTS

That is not which is.
The only Word is Silence.
The only Meaning of that Word is not.
Thoughts are false.
Fatherhood is unity disguised as duality.
Peace implies war.
Power implies war.
Harmony implies war.
Victory implies war.
Glory implies war.
Foundation implies war.
Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.

born backwards

2009-05-23T21:43:00.000-07:00

apotropes for misanthropes

2009-05-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

a memo to Vancouver:

please stop doing the thing with the stretching the earlobes.
stop.
you're not from Africa.
stop.
it looks gross.
stop.
it's over.
stop.

a memo to Academia (and pseudo-academia too):

stop putting 'r' and 'd' prefixes in parentheses before words that start with vowels.
stop.
it's not clever
stop.
you are not subverting anything that way.
stop.
it never began.
stop.

sounds like...............the inside of a carousel

2009-05-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

"well, things were bad everywhere."

tusk

2009-05-12T00:29:00.000-07:00

haunt me, do it again

2009-05-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

apology not accepted, toddler

2009-04-27T03:40:00.000-07:00

i had a dream last night and you were in it

2009-04-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

well certainly many people were.

Picture is from the train in the Adirondacks, double exposed with the view from the fire escape at Orchard Street. Thanks to Kris's Holga for the help.

this picture reminds me of said dream i had last night.
i first dreamt i was on some sort of trans-european train journey, (possibly aboard the trans europe express, hard to say) only it was a very odd train with plastic accordion dividers (not unlike those in an RV) that separated blocks of seats. It looked more like a bus on the inside, but i assure it was a train. i was on it with several of my friends and some local teens stole lottery tickets from my backpack while i slept on the train at one point too. It's possible i knew others aboard but never saw them.
Night time train ride. Pleasant but for the brief theft incident, a verbal confrontation with one of the better known dream guests, and a near miss in almost falling out the back of the train and having to be saved.
Ugh.
According to many of the very reliable and fulsome dream-interpretation databases available on the world-wide-interweb, dreaming you are on a train symbolises life's journey and indicates being on track.
i believe this to be a lie. Doesn't really account for the almost falling out, does it?
But shit gets crazier.
Later on in the trans europe train journey however, at one of the stops, we travelled to a zoo (it was still night time and i think it was supposed to be spain) wherein a sketchy man escorted us (at this point a mixed group of friends and strangers)to a bladerunner looking compound. It was a bat cage. This part is hard to describe, so i drew it.

Now i've been dreaming about bats since i was teen, but i think this is my subconscious's first foray into vampire bats. Dream interpretation guides indicate across the board that vampire bats are not a good thing to dream about....quel surprise. The best assessment i encountered was: "to see a vampire bat in your dream represents that a person in your life may be draining your of self-confidence and/or your resources." Now that is promising shit, right? It's especially funny because vampire bats don't even suck your blood, they just give you the wound and then lap up the blood around it, which is somehow even more sinister than sucking.

At any rate, despite the claims of 'on-trackness' once at this bat-cage it became apparent that in the subterranean basement "moat" below it lived a diverse selection of gypsy-type waifs who were forced to sacrifice themselves to feed the vampire bats on a rotating basis, and we were not there to see the bats at all, but to be incorporated into this terrible network of suckers living below it and being shoved in every now and again, roman-cage fight style, to be sucked upon by jerk vampire bats.
and escape ensued, a couple people ended up getting bitten by the bats, and the next thing i knew we were all in a small euro-auto, possibly a peugot, cruising towards the sea. I nearly fell out of the car and scraped my back quite badly.
We reached a beach and then i sat on the dark beach by the water for a while and felt better. I was not bitten by a bat, so that's good.
Eventually i made it back to the train station and got back on, but this leg of the trip it was just me.
just me on a train, bein' on track.

obviously.

one hundred years later

2009-04-03T04:23:00.000-07:00

"You're clearly French - you're a child of the croissant."

2009-03-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

i legitimately believe i possess a higher-than-average accuracy rate when determining the fullness or emptiness of opaque containers.

i don't understand .php.

trying to establish a concrete framework regarding my beliefs in the supernatural is proving challenging logically, but fruitful ghost-wise.
What does ghost-wise even mean? Wouldn't you like to know.

it is not spring yet here. people talking about spring in "the provinces" is starting to piss me off. i might start calling them "les belle provinces". we get lumped into the igloo and inukshuk shaped catch-all of "the territories" all the time, so screw you guys.

i am going to Spain! Via Germany! We'll see who needs "one big beer" then, Germany...We will see how much broken english-in-a-german-accent i can cram into 24 hours....My prediction?
a lot.

But then i'll get to Spain and i don't have anything against Spanish people so i should be able to kick back, relax, drink some vino tinto, and rock out at the sweet sweet Primavera Festival.
Oh man am i excited. Wavves. Neil Young. Sonic Youth. Wooden Shjips. Ghostface Killah. Ya, that'll do pig, that'll do.
It has been too long since i attended a European music festival. Also i am excited for sun and heat. Plus some overdue Belfast action.
Summer, in the city. For a brief sojourn anyway.

Mostly i have just been this-ing: http://cfyt.ca/

oh ya, web design. feels like the first time.
Probably because it is.
But still, one simply must start somewhere.

you scalded my pet moth by accident

2009-03-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

there is nothing quite like listening to a mixed cd called 'art mix: for appreciating, making or critiquing art." while doing art.
how did it get so "good"?

has anyone ever tried/successfully played an intranet version of truth or dare?
i think that would be fun.
when i get good at making websites (sometime between soon and never)i will make a website of that on the intranet and become the famous humorist i am destined to be.

what is the deal with that show "n3mbers"? {sidebar: i hate numbers replacing letters. it is dumb. yes, i am talking to all of you too, s7ven and l4yer cake. unless you are a lol cat or on a halo forum, don't bother.} are they supposed to be a-rab or jewish or latino or like dark slavic or what? ethnicity fail.
to be fair i've never watched a whole episode. i'm sure they get into it at some point.
i keep meaning to-- it has that dr. fleicshman from "northern exposure" in it. i freaking love "northern exposure". "this is why i live here?"
exactly.

i am having a poor go of taking photos lately. i don't know what the story is. it's like the spirit of jazz came and scooped up my mojo. just wearin' me like a glove.
anyway, my pictures suck.
plus i can't figure out what i did last summer to make it like slide film...
i welcome your feedback.

it is awesome to make telephone survey deliverers laugh.
really helps spice up the whole conversation.
i get bored.

kitty-cats look like they are smiling a lot.
except for those ones without hair. they are always frowning.
because they are scary gargoyle cats and i would be sad about being that ugly too.
i think it would feel like petting an elderly person. gross.

in conclusion,
shut up about brooklyn.

more than a spleening

2009-03-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

friday the 13th was a day of convergences.
that's the wrong word.
coincidences?
still the wrong word.

happenings.

something is the happening...

i don't know what i would do if M. Night Shyamalan (name pronounced "SHAH-ma-lawn") stopped making movies. who would i make fun of? i guess there's always Arnold Schwarzenegger quoting his famous movie lines in broken english under the auspices of BEING THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA!!!! so a-barassing.

it kind of makes me hate california and feel shame about contributing to the horrors of this first world hell.

jl: H.P. Lovecraft, would you like to weigh in? hpl: Certainly Jen. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon. jl: Word.

So now that we've got that out of the way, how about something french?
Ya. French bread.
You may remember me asking way back in november of 08 if i could ever improve my french bread making skills. (http://tiptoeingsanstulips.blogspot.com/2008/11/if-so.html)
well i think maybe i did.
or it just worked out well this time and will never rule again...whatever.

i ate it without even wearing a beret and it still tasted really pretty good.

most of the things i eat are on saucers. little spoons little plates. i could go for a divided dinner setup if stupid yuppies hadn't fetishised bento boxes to such an awkward degree.

summer. comin'. in an abstract sense. need to make a plan.

spring. comin'. in a more tangible way. though it's still -29 so i am finding it hard to imagine, personally. The aptly named Thaw-di-Gras festival happens here in the something of the somewhere. Spleen of the Klondike. That's it. Anyhow i am looking forward to Dawson kicking it live. Lip syncing, tricycle racing, chili cook-offing...oh ya.
Fake spring is weird.
Wrong word.
coincidental?
still the wrong word.

happenings. yes. the shoulder seasons are rich with happenings.
and anxiety. i feel like the spleen of the klondike!

Cave of Spleen
{not located in west dawson beneath dieter's giant slide, n.b.}

some final reflections from aforementioned superstar director,
my friend and yours m. night:

"I'm a master, a virtuoso – they can be handing me the keys to the kingdom and all I can think is, I hope I don't drop the key. "

yes. exactly.

Local Cable Rolling Ad

2009-03-12T05:02:00.000-07:00

"it is a message without a code"

2009-03-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

cha right.

2009-03-09T03:18:00.000-07:00

release the bats!

2009-03-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

nick cave: creepy looking, creepy sounding, australian.
pictured here looking a wee bit like jospeh beuys...but everything i draw looks a wee bit like joseph beuys, if you ask me.

i hope he's happy though, that creepy ol' nick cave.

all i really want is for everyone to be happy.

even australians. (though i would prefer if they kept their happiness on their own island)

australia's "finest"

2009-03-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

drawing nick cave--

harder than i initially anticipated.

i call this one "working hard for my territory, featuring MP Larry Bagnell"

long title, i know, but it's worth it!

2009-03-04T14:51:00.001-08:00

things i like about living with molly:

-eatin' snacks
-watching sci-fi serieseseses
-having lots of stuff on the walls
-drinkin' colas
-short-shorts friendly atmosphere
-faith-based lighting scheme compatibility
-jammin' out
-having kitties

things i don't like about living with molly:

-her butt
-its smell
-ew.

check a load of this guy (gal?)

2009-03-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

that's Star Jones after some gastro-intestinal surgery but not all of it. dedicated to molly shore.

have you guys seen this Paranormal State show?
it's on A&E, so if you live somewhere that's not here, you might not have to watch crappy A&E, but i do, so that's how it started. Also, i am pretty into ghosts. More about that later, maybe.
Anyhow, this Paranormal State has just some kind of poor production values. plus, it doesn't make sense and it turns out they're a bunch of university turds http://www.paranormalresearchsociety.org/about.php and at Penn State no less!
blech!
ew!
yuckers!
not a fan.
i still haven't quite figured out if they're earnest about the whole thing or not. it is really hard to tell. it might just be a nerd-comedy jam...or another trenchcoat mafia in the making-- seriously-- check these goths out:

off the hook, right?

off the hook is a bad segue.

especially to this next segment [oh that's sort of redeeming-- segue-->segment]:
you know what i am really enjoying a lot lately? Cream of Wheat cereal.
http://www.creamofwheat.com/creamofwheat/default.asp
It's weird.
(both the cereal itself and my new-found love for it)
it's kind of like baby food maybe a bit. i do enjoy a good puree. I spent a good deal of time looking at the box today-- it is a riddle wrapped in a racism. really really special.

interestingly enough according to Fox News (credible source), Cream of Wheat man got a headstone in 2007.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,282832,00.html

so that's good news. really.

always end on a high note!

and the roof

2009-03-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

i just remembered phil hartman is dead.

2009-02-26T15:26:00.000-08:00

i was watching a commercial with deep husky movie voice guy (name?) doing his thang and thinking about how different trailer world will be without him.

i think he's dead, but i could be wrong. i also don't know his name (see above), so that makes researching this kind of problematic. regardless, i was thinking about maybe-dead movie-trailer-voice-guy...

then i remembered phil hartman and how much voice-land changed without him. what a voice. what a hair-do. big fan!
please see fan-art below. please.

my phil hartman looks a little like stephen harper. perhaps i can re-use this tribute when he kicks the bucket; ideally this will be sooner rather than later.

it is now lent, people.
40 days of cruddery. i don't even believe in god. i only give up chocolate though, so it's very non-committal. shocking. plus on tuesday (fat tuesday, of course) i ate a cadbury creme egg, some mini eggs, and a drink involving kaluha. i am stocked up on chocolate for a while.
i am considering incorporating a hair shirt into my lenten sacrifices (ah comfort, the greatest of sacrifices to be sure!) i think the whole exercise is just a feeble attempt to re-direct my guilt about regular things. it works surprisingly well if you just let it. just let it happen.

i had a dream i was in the sun the sun the yellow hot hot sun and i was squinting. it was sweet. i could see the freckles on my nose in the corners of my eyes.
i am ready for summer. temperature wise anyhow. everything else? maybe, not-maybe.

these fought in any case

2009-02-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

"frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies. "

burn and burn it up

2009-02-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

zzzzine

2009-02-05T18:12:00.001-08:00

don't blame me, i voted for zombie joseph beuys

2009-02-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

learning to love you more

2009-01-30T16:13:00.000-08:00

{place not mentioned}

2009-01-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

the walls are fine

2009-01-23T01:12:00.000-08:00

once it was the colour of saying

2009-01-21T03:59:00.000-08:00

it's been a while

2009-01-20T18:01:00.001-08:00

want to pay some other girl to just walk up to her and hit her

2009-01-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

i'll die with the blackfly pickin' my bones

2009-01-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

i have frostbite on my nose.

again.

neuf neuf neuf neuf neuf

2009-01-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

One fresh January evening a frenchman is bragging to his friend about this pig he has.
He says:"My pig is tres amazing. Did you know he can do math?"
His friend says: "Don't be silly. I don't believe you. You are a french liar."
The frenchman replies :"Here, I`ll show it to you."
So he turns to his pig and says: "What's 3 times 3?"
The pig says: "..neuf..."
"See?", the frenchman says, "I told you so."
"This is truly incredible", his friend replies, "show me more".
So the frenchman turns to his pig again: "How much is 5 plus 4?"
Once again the pig says: "...neuf..."
"Aha! Wait a minute!"the friend says,"Can he do any calculation that doesn't end in 9?"
The frenchman squirms a bit, looks around, and finally replies: "..um..yeah, yes of course he can! Sacre bleu! I'm no french liar!"
"Let me try" the friend says accusingly: "Hey pig, how much is 4 plus 4?"
The pig sniffs the ground silently.
The frenchman, not wanting to be exposed for the french liar he is, grabs a stick and shoves it up the pig's rear:
"HUUIIIIITTTT!!!!"

That was a 2009 joke. It has a 9 in it.
But it also has an 8 in it. This is significant.
I feel removed enough from the recently-departed year of our lord 2008 to discuss it openly now.

i don't remember a lot of the things that happened in it, and many of the things i thought of to discuss actually happened in 2007 or the late eighties, so there's that.

i liked some records from 2008. That part i usually remember.

these were some of them:

but certainly not all of them...

what else happened in 2008? Lots of things. Too many to report probably. I think as long everyone just keeps in mind that 2008 was the year :

- kraft foods introduced "bagel-fuls"
- of european intercultural dialogue
- "10,000 b.c" came out
- the large hadron collider hit the scene
- the seven NEW deadly sins fell from heaven

happy new year though.

i will leave you with my tea-leaf predictions for 2009:

- bobby pins will continue to be made shittier and shittier
- olympic fever will divide vancouver
- golden retrievers will enjoy a comeback
- david sedaris will keep annoying me
- people will keep trying to tell me to give david sedaris a try
- the blues will remain blue

listen,

2009-01-03T02:33:00.000-08:00

b-day

2008-12-15T00:27:00.000-08:00

"The Simpsons" $pringfield (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling); 1993.

2008-12-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

[Robert Goulet arrives with Bart at his tree-house Casino]
Robert Goulet: Are you sure this is the Casino? Mr. Burns' Casino? I think I should call my manager...
Nelson: Your manager says for you to shut up!
Robert Goulet: Vera said that?

maybe zine cover maybe?

2008-12-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

"dear photoshop; oh snap. sincerely, microsoft paint" also "dear dylan; oh snap. sincerely jen"

2008-12-01T00:55:00.000-08:00