Merry Christmas!

Friday February 24, 2012

I almost forgot about this. Other than the five straight days of crazy snow in January, winter has been pretty mild for the most part, other than the occasional windstorm and a few cold days here and there. But last Friday, out of the blue (not quite, but close), huge, slow snowflakes fell for almost the whole day. (The kind of snow that makes your eyes go as big as a Japanese anime character.) I had walked downtown to run errands and as I was on my way home, the nice older lady who works at the video store was outside having a smoke and said laughingly "Merry Christmas!" I was already smiling because of the big snowflakes, but that made me laugh. Anyways, I think less than two inches fell, and the snow was gone the next day.

Speaking of "Merry Christmas!", get this... It took me a while to settle and breathe and fall asleep last night (somewhere between 2:30 and 3). Woke up at 4:18 and everything seemed to be cleared, went to the bathroom and ... yep... the toilet backed up again (it has been doing this for almost a year now)... AND the bathroom sink wouldn't drain properly... again. I took the plunger to the sink, which then allowed the release of some water from the toilet. (I've done this before.) I started to fill the bath with water (with the drain open) and plunged that as well, which allowed the water in the toilet to drain out. So... I just thought that was kinda funny, in a twisted sort of way, considering my previous post, "Clogged".

Clogged...

head

eyes

nose

nasal passages

sinuses

brain

How about a decongestant for the brain?

Everything is clogged, so doesn't look like sleep is coming anytime soon. At least I tried.

Texting...

I don't do much texting. In my opinion, why text back and forth six times what you could say in one phone call? All part of communication breakdown.

I very rarely receive texts or phone calls, so it is odd to receive a text at 10pm. Only two or three people will text me, plus the service provider. This was tonight:

"Whatcha doin?"

Sleeping.

(Was in bed extremely early.)

Strange?

The other day I was thinking about a sketch I had done many years ago, probably as a teenager, so I went looking for it upstairs. I knew that I had a box of old sketchbooks, so I brought three of them out to go through. I almost forgot that I can scan these things in now and save them! So... I went about doing that, and may post some of them here.

Anyways, I was looking through one of the sketchbooks and found a simple drawing of a cloud I had done way back in 1983.

Nothing really unusual, seeing something in a cloud that reminds you of something, except...  fast forward to 2010, when I took this:

Is it strange? Or is it just me? 

(Originally posted back here.)

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Nighty night.

Something amiss?

The side of gravy I had ordered with dinner yesterday didn't come from the kitchen, it came from the other side of the restaurant. I thought something seemed strange, but didn't say anything. The food did take an unusually long time to get to the table, and I think it is because of that that I can sort of rewind my memory from watching the kitchen and the waitress' ingress and egress. Something else though, is that this waitress has always seemed rather surly, but I just chalked it up to bad days, but then, after three or four times, it can't be that. Is it just us? I never said anything, as it was merely an observation. When she was taking our order, I heard her say the order wrong, so I pointed it out on the menu. She looked at it, she nodded. When aged father got his meal, it was the wrong one. Just a minor difference, but still, I had tried to clarify it with her the first time. Not a big deal, so he ate it anyways. Now... backtracking here,  before we got our food I was sort of drooling watching the plates of orders pop up on the kitchen warming area, anxiously awaiting ours. I heard the word gravy, and saw a side of gravy carried out by another waitress to the other side of the restaurant. I didn't think much of it, but I did notice it. When we received our order about five minutes later, there was no side of gravy, nor did she go to the kitchen to ask for it. A couple minutes later is when I saw her come from the other side of the restaurant with my side of gravy. Odd? I didn't think about it until early this morning... How long was that side of gravy sitting at someone else's table? Did that someone dip something in it? The other thing I noticed was an older lady sitting alone at a table with her back to the wall where the windowed kitchen area is. She had her eyes on. She would have seen that side of gravy. She was watching. She would have seen the waitress coming down the aisle towards her to bring me the side of gravy from the other side of the restaurant.

Shadowslayer

YouTubeLink. (Views 127,876)

From the Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys.

Math Nature Music

"Beethoven was the most rhythmically predictable composer; Mozart the least."  Ya think?  Of course I couldn't resist clicking on Math pattern found in Nature mimicked in Music. Fascinating. This then may prove my theory as to why I could never fall asleep listening to classical music. Classical music made me "think" too much. Hmm...

All clear?

Sort of...  Since those three sneezes at 3:03AM, then waking up at 6:03 and fading into oblivion soon after that, it did feel all clear when I woke up the next time. So clear in fact that once I stood up, my nose wouldn't stop dripping. I have to wonder, with all the nose blowing, if I will even have a nose by the end of the day. Considering that everything seems to be coming and going in fairly quick stages, maybe I'll luck out and this will end up being one of those 24 hour imps. I was armed with my Vick's Vaporub, and had Meyer Lemon Tea with lavender honey and hot pepper flakes. We shall see.

Noooo....

I went to bed early, closed eyes before 12:30... and... this time... amazingly, fell asleep right away. Woke up feeling as though I had slept a solid few hours, looked at the time? 1:48. Wha? The rather strange thing is that I woke up feeling as though I had a head cold. Just like that. Head felt stuffed, face flushed, nose clogged, wanting to sneeze. I was thinking... nooooo....  Tried to go back to sleep, but then was too clogged and couldn't breathe properly. Great. So I have been sitting up, trying to clear that up and now the nose be runny. Hmm...  Haven't had one of these in a while. I don't recall them doing sneak attacks like this though. Maybe it will just go away.

It doesn't take much...

... to entertain me.

I was making a cup of my fake mocha (1/2 nuked milk, 1/2 half boiling water, Lindt sea salt chocolate and Nescafe instant coffee), and had topped it off with some Kraft coloured miniature marshmallows. Was stirring it up and it just looked really neat swirling around. Yeah... that was what entertained me, the swirling part. Anyways... I have coloured marshmallows because I was intending for quite some time  (almost a year now) to make some Butterscotch Confetti Squares, but never did. I went agoogling for a picture to post and found this from over here:

The cool thing is that I think it is one of the china patterns that mom used to have.

Oh... so now... speaking of "to entertain me", a song came to mind. It was by one of those bands who didn't really thrive on variety, but still managed to entertain me greatly. I went looking for a link and found this. Kind of stupid, but couldn't stop laughing. "I'm a skittle." 

A dream of ... grocery shopping?

So... I WAS in bed early last night again, before midnight, but I wasn't tired. Trying to force myself back into a regular pattern, as the journey back to sleep has been a rocky path to say the least. I had the laptop in bed with me. No I don't sleep with it, but somehow it helps to induce sleepiness. Got around to reading some blogs again and doing a few posts, but for some reason I didn't get tired doing that as I usually do. Anyways... I think I slept well. "Think" is the operative word, as I am not sure. I had a rather interesting dream. In it, I was in a grocery store shopping, with my sister and mom ahead of me in the store. They bought a lot of stuff, but I couldn't afford much of anything and just wanted something cheap and special that I really liked. I went to get a big box of Eggo Waffles, grabbed one, but then as I was walking down the aisle, I changed my mind and went back, only to notice that the Eggo Waffles were now in the Dog Food section. In the dream, I was a little taken aback. Anyways, I think I knew that I had to get going, so I went for another favourite, which was on sale, Turkey TV dinners. It was two for something, so I went for that and to the check-out. I then realized that I only had $7, which wasn't enough, so I asked my mom if I could borrow the extra needed. She handed me a wad of cash, and I said no... I don't need all that! Then she was driving us home, and while we were on the way, I woke up.

The funny thing? My fridge looks like this...

.... and I have been struggling with myself and my life right now, but... for whatever reason, I woke up in a state of calm, feeling safe... that everything was going to be fine. I think that mom knew what I needed ... knows.

A beautiful story...

...  of true sportsmanship, something I value greatly. (I was looking for something else completely different, but found this.)

YouTubeLink. (Views 116,353)

Old enough to drive?

Wha? No way!

Happy birthday niece who weighed more than a 10 lb bag of potatoes at birth.

I'm hiding...

... or...

Does this tree make me look fat?

My cat from way back.

I think he only made it to six years old. Someone shot him with a BB Gun. I remember the night he came home he hid under the bed moaning meows in pain. As usual, I was working the following day, so mom took him to the vet and we found out that he had been hit by two pellets, both embedded into his body. Mom called me to say that the surgery was going to cost $400. And yes, at the time, I could afford it, and even though it was a lot of money, he was like my kid, so I paid for it. The vet was only able to remove one of the pellets, which was saved for me. I can't remember now if he made it two years past that, but he died because a cancerous tumour formed around the pellet that remained in his abdomen. He had to be put down three days after my thirty-third birthday.

Weird dreams...

... one of which involved the imminent threat of danger (and subsequent narrow escape thereof) at a place I used to go a lot when I was younger, from people who left the scene in cars like this, except that they were a really weird colour. (The cars, not the people.) That of a rather nasty substance I remember from when I was a kid. Back then, the bottle was the same colour as the chalky fluid inside.

Is this all there is?

That question has been lingering in my thoughts lately... again. And, every now and then, the "What's the point?"  still rears its ugly head. Tonight though, or should I say this morning, the phrase that came to mind immediately following it was "Are we there yet? Oh... yes... I went to bed early... before midnight. Lights off before 2AM. Couldn't fall asleep, but did at some point and woke up after what seemed to be a very long dream. I woke up, my eyes tired, in the dark... thinking... "why is it still dark?". Rolled over, reaching out to the desk, fumbling around trying to find the cell phone to check the time... 4:37AM. Geesh. Figured I'd write something down, but I think I have covered almost everything in the inability to sleep department, including the basic "I cannot sleep."

The end?

I was chuckling watching this. Pretty much sums up my life in the past couple years. In the first theory, "slowly start to drift apart... and die", "finally, only giant black holes will remain", "will be still, cold, and effectively dead".  Even the second theory with the "mysterious Dark Energy" (loved that part)... "everything will be torn apart". And the third..."everything slows down and is eventually thrown into reverse", "the universe will implode". Yep... that is what's been going on here in a nutshell.

Ah... of course, now the Doors' song (used to listen to them a long time ago) just drifted back into my head. I wish I knew where the pictures I took on the high school trip to Paris are. Somewhere I know that I have a couple of Jim Morrison's grave.

For a smile...

These are... cupcakes!

A bouquet of cupcakes!

From here.  (No, I didn't receive them... dammit. And... according to the site, they only use buttercream icing. Sigh.)

I needed something funny...

... and this bit cracked me up.

YouTubeLink. (Views 2,053,305)

From here.

Unto the setting of the sun...

To honour the fallen since last time.

Albania (Killed by gunmen in Afghan police uniforms)

U.K. (3)

U.S. (Cali (2), Illinois (2), Miss (2), Wisc, Okla, Ark, NJ, Va, Wa, Iowa, Md, NJ, Tex)

(I didn't remember that I had posted this photo before.)

River murmurs

At River's edge Eagle's cry

fades into the Wind

Stone and Rock sit idly by

Tree sways in the rising Storm

River's waters crash by and by

and I

            at River's edge watch Nature's form.

At River's edge, Nature's silence

brings Peace

Cloud and Sky roll wistfully by

Wind falls and sobs through the Trees

River's waters murmur Why

and I

            at River's edge answer - to be free.

(I had made note of when I wrote this.  I was 21. I am not sure why I like it enough to put it out here. Anyways, it came to mind with the river photos I just posted, but didn't quite seem to have the same feel such that they could be posted together.)

 

A stroll through the past...

Probably from late summer some time back in the 90s. I still can't get over the clarity of the pictures compared to the cell phone ones. I was looking at it closely with a magnifying glass and it almost looks as though you can see a fish jumping out of the water near the top right hand corner.

Not sure what the source of that reflection was, but it might have been one of the boats heading upriver to the more bountiful fishing grounds. (Must have been one shiny boat.)

At river's edge...

Trying to get rid of photos on the cell phone, but these ones looked decent enough, although not much by way of clarity. 

(From January 2011)

Where did I go?

And... why can't I find my way back?

Another one of those days...

21022012

And, just in case anyone was wondering what the previous post's point was, this is post number 1001, which is also a prime example of today's.

Ten cubed

Miles

Years

Churches

Posts!

Death and serendipity

Death is a part of life. I have known this since I was a kid. I don't think I ever really wondered whether or not there was a heaven or a hell, but I somehow knew what they were purported to be. All I knew is that someone was gone... they died... they ceased to exist on this Earth. Nothing else really mattered. I didn't need a sugar-coating. I am not sure, but the first death I remember was from when I was in Grade 4 I think, when I was nine or ten years old. Considering that I don't have that many memories from my childhood, it is interesting that this one remained. I went on a short road-trip shopping with a friend and her mom and on the way home, on the highway, we saw a car accident on the other side. Sometime after that, I'm not sure when, we found out that it was a friend from school, her brother and mom and dad who had died in that accident. I don't remember anything else. I remember a few years later, at a birthday party sleepover over at a friend's house, we were in the basement playing with the Ouija board, and after the silly teenage girl questions, something strange happened and the board spelled out the name of the girl who had died as being in the room with us. We all immediately said that it had to be one of the girls pushing the pointer to the letters, but it was still enough to freak us all out. Just one of those weird things that I do happen to remember. Oh... the Ouija board bit resurfaced because... the other day I had a disturbing dream involving one.

Anyways... moving along... I have often wondered if death didn't have the same impact on me because I wasn't capable of love, but then my mom and my cat sort of proved that theory wrong I suppose. However, death is still just death, in the end. But... can anything about death be serendipitous? I say... yes. Can death be a proponent for making unexpected and perhaps even fortunate discoveries? Certainly. The death of an Irishman in 1876 is one of the things that initiated me into this internet journey I started almost two years ago. Oddly enough, death and blogging have made me discover things about myself that would otherwise have remained hidden. I have written a little bit about love letters, war letters, letters in general and my fondness for words, plain and simple, but where does death and serendipity come into this? Well... in getting back into the routine of reading some of the blogs in my favourites list today, I found this. It kind of makes me wonder if my fondness stems from people expressing things that I can't express myself... or things that I am incapable of feeling.

The logical heart...

Something hasn't felt quite right lately. Not that something is wrong, but that something is just off-kilter. I wrote a bit about it a few days ago, regarding the lack of routine or structure in my life at present. I think I mentioned that my heart hadn't even been into reading blogs, but I know that I haven't been into much of anything at all. It is taking me considerably too long to get back on track. Every once in a while, I think I've got it back together, but then... nothing. Malaise is the word I used earlier today in correspondence. I didn't even feel like eating anything today. But of course, I forced myself to eat... some popcorn... and some honey roasted peanuts, which then caused... hunger. Anyways, I finally sort of got back into a rhythm, but have to wonder if it is just my brain malfunctioning again or something else.

Well, it seems that everytime I get into one of these "funks", something comes around to nudge me back into consciousness, and today it was this, which touched on the fondness I have for honest, candid writing... especially letters. And then ... something caught my eye on the sidebar, this. Can  you imagine how many times she started out writing this letter? How many times she changed it to make it as clear and concise as she could? How she had to hold herself together? Somehow in this empty heart of mine... I can.

From "Letters of Note".

Star Wars and lingerie...

So, the other day, was at the mall, killing time waiting outside a lingerie shop with the nephew, during which time we discussed... Star Wars... for about half an hour. Darth this, Sith that... Don't get me wrong. There was a time in the not too distant past when I would have been in there shopping. Getting out of town, shopping, eating out... were my thing, when I was young and had a real job with money to burn, and needed to get away. But now, times have changed, and all I can say is ... that's kinda cute, when I see things like this:

These were the more sedate of the cute little corset/outfits. The funny thing is that I didn't even bother looking at the prices... just took the pics and that's it. In these rather difficult economic times, I wonder if many people still have room in their budgets for things such as this. I'm sure it would brighten someone's day to see their honey in one of these, which brings up a curious question. Which one of them catches the fancy? Or... maybe something like zis? Egads, I just looked at the price on those... Who the heck would pay that kind of money?

Note: This post is definitely to be filed under "Now, for something completely different."

Finding calm...

Getting dizzy...

Do I feel nothing because I am nothing? Or have I become nothing because I feel nothing?

Not the Monday blues...

... how about the Saturday gahs?

So, since the previous post, the words "Here I am" were in my head from some retarded song from back in the annals of time 80s. Since I couldn't get it out of my noggin, I went agoogling, and found this song, which wasn't the one I was thinking of:

I knew it had to be worse than that, so upon further clickage, I found it. Sorry, I have to honestly say that the song sucked back then, and it still does. 

The funny thing about the first song I found is that it bears the same name as one by an Australian band I recall listening to way back when. Sitting here watching the video and listening to it now? Also "gah" worthy.

(Warning: I cannot be held responsible for any psychological or aural damage caused by these songs.)

Here I be...

War horses...

I wrote about an Irishman and a horse here. And... the other day, Edna sent me this tidbit regarding a Korean War horse.

As for recent movies, there is this story set in WWI.


YouTubeLink.

And, just because, please take a boo over here, which I had written a little bit about here.

An alien or the devil's spawn...

Hmm...

"Dave is not a name you want to associate with today. Dave may be the devil's spawn. It's hard to tell. The way that aliens think is none of your business."

From Laughsend.

Agggggghhhhhhh...

... this in my head. Dammit, I was just a kid when I heard it. I will blame big sister for having the piano sheet music. Hmm... I wonder if one of us still has it.

Good lord, Good wha?

So.... I was in the shower around 2AM and a song popped into my head. Not just any song... but this  (not that particular version though). Yeah, weird, considering we just finished Valentine's Day. I went agoogling for a link and found some interesting information about the song, including that the tune itself was based on this. Even more interesting are the lyrics to the original tune, considering the time of year we are approaching...

Spring has now unwrapped the flowers, day is fast reviving,
Life in all her growing powers towards the light is striving:
Gone the iron touch of cold, winter time and frost time,
Seedlings, working through the mould, now make up for lost time.

Interesting but weird no?

One more thing before I go...

A question I posed earlier unto the nebulous void... "how can there be an empty hole in an empty space?"

Bodies...

Further to "Bodies of unrealistic proportions", and Barbie, this is just ... scary.

Kind of amazing  transformation. Just needs to tweak the eyebrows a tad.

Funny, but also makes me wonder if the parents know their children actually have their own YouTube channels.

Oh... and this latest one I found made me smile (yeah... I needed it). I had Google Chrome open and for some reason clicked on "YouTube" at the top of the page just to see what came up and this was there. Perfectly suited for this post. Reminds me of a scene with Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist. I admit, I can sort of do the same thing with my own body, but no... no Pam Spray for me.

YouTubeLink.

Okay, that was a lot of posting for one night. My eyes are tired, so hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep instead of waking up when my head hits the pillow. At least I was provided with a smile and laugh to fill the void that is me.

Parenting Part III

The dad's response to all the media attention.

Found the link over at Magniflorious Phule.

(Part I.)

What has changed?

Is it good or bad?

Eighteen years of structure and routine. Twenty years of structure and routine. And then.... then what? Nothing really. I suppose starting a blog and posting regularly could be considered a routine. Playing Tetris became a daily ritual. Making it a habit of doing one online crossword around 9pm and one Sudoku just after midnight became a routine. But then what? I stopped playing Tetris, and in the past few days, I haven't even been doing the crossword or Sudoku. My heart hasn't even been into reading blogs lately, even though I have been... out of habit. So I now wonder if this is a good thing or bad? Does it mean that I am finally getting back into the reality of life? Or am I withdrawing back into myself again?

Oh... but... I did find another Sudoku site and had been doing the "hard" puzzles, and finally got down to the top 2%, so I switched to "evil" and finally made it to the top 5%, but that seems to be the best I can do. This particular site has replaced the other crossword and Sudoku, as it "tests" me more. The only thing is ... I don't like to give up if I can't get a better score, and thus Sudoku becomes a dangerous habit. However, unlike in the past with Solitaire, Spider Solitaire and Tetris, I have stopped myself from continuing. But I ask, then what? Playing these games helped to ground me, but by the same token, they also helped to keep me outside of my head, a place I didn't really want to be in. These games kept my logic brain working, allowing everything else to shut down, which is what I felt was needed. The only thing is that my logic brain has been malfunctioning for quite some time and on a regular basis. So... now what?

I feel detached. Not necessarily detached from the world, but ... from myself.

Fascinating...

Saw a link about "happy couples" that fits in with the theme of the day, so went to take a look and found this fascinating tidbit.

"Coupling up with an average Joe (with a beer belly) may be the key to long-term love. According to a study in the Journal of Family Psychology, when men were married to more attractive women, they seemed more likely to step up to the plate, says study author Benjamin R. Karney, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles. "But when husbands were better-looking, they didn't seem as engaged in helping their wives achieve their goals." (Size matters too: When women had a lower BMI than their guy, both partners tended to be more satisfied, according to other research.)"

Cheese and serial killers...

Just before Christmas, I was talking with a friend of mine who I've probably known since Grade 3. I asked him what his plans were and he said that the family was getting together at his mom and dad's for dinner. It turns out that his little sister married some dude she met online who was originally from Wisconsin. Of course what came up was, "What's with Wisconsin?"... To borrow from another conversation, I said... "cheese and serial killers"... to which he added "and Harleys". I did not know that. Anyways...  just goes to show that love can be found in the strangest places. I've posted this song before, but it just seemed right for this thought and the sentiment on this particular day.

Monday Sappy Crap

My old summer playground. 

Sometimes, on rare occasions when the curtains are drawn, suddenly the whole room brightens and is filled with light, all simply because ... the sun came out. Even rarer when it occurs on a Monday.

It doesn't really change things, but I suppose it helps when in need.

In the dark...

You know those movies where the main character lives his or her life through the entire story only to find out at the very end that they have been dead since the beginning? I was thinking about that as I was lying here in the dark trying to fall asleep.

Colour and Light...

Not quite Scottish Zen but still... gorgeous.

YouTubeLink.

From here.

A girl and her toys, Part II

Further to Part I, today I had fun with this.

I don't remember what year it was that winter night when, as a teenager, I went downstairs to dad's workshop and looked at all the tools and stuff neatly hung on individual nails on the wall. I needed a saw. I found the one I wanted. I went back up the stairs and outside to saw the base off of the Christmas tree and then gouge a hole in the middle to fit the spike in the stand. I was determined to do this myself in order to avoid, for the first time ever that I could recall then, having to listen to the cursing that inevitably occurred every year at this "joyous" time. I don't remember anything else, just that I did it, carried the six or seven foot tree in the house and put it in the stand, tightening the screws, with mom holding it steady. Every year since then, that is what I did. When I bought my own place, the first Christmas here, I went with dad to pick out a tree at the local hardware store I think it was. I asked him if I could borrow a saw. I told him which one I was thinking of. The thing is? I still have the saw, hanging on a hook in the laundry room. That was nine years ago.

This came to mind today, because after the big snowfall and the last big windstorm we had, a limb from the big fir tree in my yard snapped off, and was hanging down to the ground from about ten or twelve feet above. It was too cold for a while there to do anything with it, but as it started to warm up, it needed to be taken care of, and I can't afford to pay anyone to do it, but I just sort of kept putting it off. Motivation has been a slight (understatement) problem for me in the past year. Anyways... there have been a couple days where I thought to myself... this is the day I am going to do it, but I just ... didn't. Today, however, was the day. I went out with a measuring tape and measured the damn thing to be approximately 365 inches long. Yes... that would be a tree branch more than 30 feet long. (It's a big tree.) It was pretty mild out, so I had a turtleneck, fleece top, long boots and skull cap toque on. I pulled on the heavy leather work gloves, grabbed the saw and set about hacking off four foot sections of the "branch". There was another perfectly healthy limb lower down that was just too low (I have walked into it a few times in the past few years.) so I set about sawing that one off as well. I snapped off the smaller branches from the bigger sections, and stacked the different bits and pieces into separate piles. Somewhere in the middle of it, a litle warm and glowy, I went inside to grab a drink, and get the cell phone to take a picture.

This is the smaller branch that I cut off near the base of the tree. The saw, which I mistakenly thought all these years was a hacksaw, is a swede saw (I asked dad earlier this evening.). The cutting edge of the blade is about 21 inches long and the length of the saw is almost two feet. One thing I remember from that first time I used it is that it felt "right" in my hand. Since I haven't had a real Christmas tree for the past three years, I don't think I have even used the saw in that time, but today, it still felt the same. I don't know what it is. It may be because the "handle" area seems to fit my hand perfectly, or that you can put pressure on the top of it as you are sawing. Anyways, I ended up out there for about two hours, but it didn't really feel that long of a time.

Everybody's getting old...

... except me. I used to say that quite often, and every once in a while I still like to tell myself that, but my mind and body doth protest. Anyways, Happy Birthday big brother.

A path?

Taking pictures with an amateur eye and no special lenses, meters or other equipment, there are days when sometimes you just luck out. On the other hand, taking pictures facing into the sun can yield unsightly glares, red spots and strange colours. Looking at this about a decade and a half later, my eye is drawn to what appears to be a path laid out before me. Would that it were so now.

Light my way...

I never needed a voice or a hand to guide me before, but every once in  a while I find myself falling back into the abyss... the abyss that I alone created. Every time I try to shove off from the bottom of the pit, my heels dig in and in a rather counterproductive manner, make the damn hole deeper. Sometimes I wonder if I really want to just stay and rot there at the bottom. Sometimes I wonder if I find more comfort there in that cold dark place than anywhere else. The light is so faded and far away, the voice is but a whisper in the wind... and the hand... 

... the hand is nothing but a dream.

Get Real...

A while back, I went to the store with the intention of picking up a box of alcohol swabs, and ended up buying a bag of chips and chocolate as well. As to the latter, they had Valentine's Day stuff out, so of course I had to see what kind of special treats there were. I was looking for a chocolate covered marshmallow, but didn't see any, so I went with the good ole standby Reese's Peanut Butter Cup hearts instead, which somehow magically disappeared within a few days.

Anyways, when I had gone to check out some of those silly quizzes I do every now and again, I couldn't resist doing this one, with the "big" day fast approaching (do I give a damn?). Pretty accurate I would say.

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!) Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get.

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

Blogthings

How about Love or Money? I would take the money and run... wouldn't I? Gah!

You Would Choose Love

Money may buy a little happiness, but not the happiness of true love. You rather have a true soulmate than a private jet. And while many people may claim they would choose love too... You're one of the few who would really do it.

Would You Choose Love or Money?

Blogthings

Facebook...

You have to watch past the seven minute mark to get to the good part. 

Fac
YouTubeLink. (View 2,892,928)

Communication breakdown...

(...or part of the devolution of man. I must be nuts to have written something like this.)

This is the type of thing I think about when I can't sleep, at 4 in the morning, prompted by a post the other day over at Bad Example about ipads, or tablets... Tablet is a great name for it come to think of it. Of course, I had thought of the concept many times before, but not with such clarity as can be found in the dark when you are supposed to be sleeping. (I wrote pretty much all of this at that time, but I wasn't too sure if it was coherent or just silly. So tonight, reading it over, I just did a little tweaking, but it still seems rather silly.)

Have you ever thought about how long it took man to develop his communication skills? Making a face to signify something disagreeable, flailing his arms about to signal distress, discovering the usefulness of the index finger to point at things that he wanted to bring to your attention. Of course he didn't find his voice right away, but he knew he could make sounds... guttural sounds... grunts. A grunt accompanied by the pointing of a finger worked wonders. Then, finding handy tools, like a branch or a rock to draw pictures in the sand. Ooh... discovering that you could throw mud on things and make pretty pictures... like on your face or a rock face. Then one day when eating berries, you accidentally touched your face and someone was using their index finger at you and making funny sounds. You looked at your fingers to find they had changed colour because of the berry juice, so some genius decided to use it to make story pictures on a cave wall. Or with the discovery of fire, using the burnt end of a stick to do the same. Then at some point, the pictures evolved into symbols or runes or characters representing things. Man learned to make other sharp pointy objects and found he could use these to gouge things into rock... tablets of rock. He managed to learn how to weave materials he found into cloth. He could use the natural dyes from berries and charcoal from the burnt sticks to make his marks on this as well. Then... the symbols became individual letters, those letters joined together to form words, those words to sentences. Man had learned how to move his mouth by this time having gone from grunts to mono-syllabic commands, and eventually learned how to speak clearly (sometimes) and write, and rather eloquently I might add... Fast forward to a time where it was becoming too cumbersome to have to write all those letters, all those words, all those sentences with your hand and a writing implement, and man created a machine that you just had to press the buttons with the character on it and that character was imprinted onto a piece of paper for you. This was indeed much more efficient. Of course, prior to that, man had also learned the art of mathematics and had developed an adding machine, but that's not really part of this conversation. Anyways, always trying to improve efficiency, there came the invention of boxes joined together with wires and circuits where you could edit your words on the box in front of your face instead of exhausting your fingers typing, re-typing and re-typing, wasting paper and ink everytime you made a mistake. Then came the minimizing, trying to make things more flexible, versatile, mobile, accessible. Oh, and in the meantime a device was created where you used your handy index finger to rotate a dial on a box and talk into another piece that you held in your hand. This was connected by poles and cables across the land to enable you to talk to someone next door and even around the world. Eventually the wires needed to go and through much weeding and whittling down, the box became a wee thing with a screen and buttons, then a miniature keyboard, all smaller than the size of your hand. Through man's innovation and creativity, all you had to do was touch the screen instead of having to hit a whole bunch of tiny buttons. So, thusly man hath discovered his index finger and need only grunt to communicate.

(Oh, and another thing. One can probably figure out from this why it is that I am not very fond of abbreviations, emoticons and in particular text-based emoticons.)

I guess I have different criteria...

Interesting list.

I was a little surprised that it didn't include a swashbuckler, a cowboy nor a leather clad hottie.

Face Value...

... an opinion piece. A rarity here.

Something has been bugging me for a few days and it takes a lot to have that kind of effect on me. Normally I just shrug things off and accept the whatever as it is. Prior to starting writing here almost two years ago, I probably wouldn't even have considered bringing anything that bothered me up in conversation.

I have mentioned before that I don't have a whole heck of a lot of memories from my childhood, just a smattering here and there, vignettes... snapshots of things in  my head. Somethings I know have just been shoved aside in my brain to make room for current items, but the memories themselves just aren't readily available. All I know is that I know the lessons I learned as a kid, mostly before the age of 7 and probably all before the age of 10. One of these lessons was not to take anything at face value.

Whenever you see the words true, real, lite and free, you know that there is no way that they are in fact what they purport to be. There may be a grain of truth to content, but not as a whole. The other day I wrote a rather rambling bit about a few things, and in my journey agoogling at the time, I came across some video footage on the sidebar with the word "vrai" in it. "Vrai" being the French word for "true". Of course, I wasn't sure "which" truth it would be, but I felt compelled to watch. It was "Le vrai visages des Talibans". I wasn't going to write about this and was actually tempted to send off the link to another blog and leave it at that, but as I said, this has been bugging me. Whether or not the men in that country had fought wars with the British, whether or not they were funded, trained and armed by the U.S. government to fight the Russians, whether or not coalition forces should be fighting and dying over there still is neither here nor there. Never take "vrai" at face value. Never take anything at face value.

There are three parts to the video, and all three must be viewed to get the full picture, and you have to listen carefully, or read carefully. Are they fighting for their land? Yes. Their God? Yes. Their freedom? Yes. Are they fighting for their country? In my humble opinion? No. They fight for control of it, but not on behalf of all the nation's peoples. Are they religious fanatics? But.. they just seem to be such peace-loving people... with big guns. This is a French journalist. Yes, journalists by nature are supposed to be unbiased, but... the thing that has been bugging me is that this video contains an attack called in on coalition forces... American troops.... France is part of the coalition forces. Four French soldiers were recently killed by an Afghan soldier ("French officials said an Afghan man in army uniform suddenly turned and opened fire on unarmed French soldiers during a sports training exercise on Thursday, killing four and wounding 16 others." (I'm curious to know how it is that he wasn't killed in return fire.) "The latest shooting came just weeks after an Afghan army soldier, who was being trained by French troops, gunned down two members of the Foreign Legion. French forces fired back and killed him."

Part 2.
Part 3.

It has never been my thing to be judgmental, so I have to wonder if I am getting crochety in my advancing age.

Walk with me...

Haven't been out for a long walk in quite a while, even though it has been beautiful, sunny and mild out the past few days, so, in lieu of a current crappy cell phone photo, this is another pic I took in the 90s that I scanned in.

Conundrum

What do you do when the thing that brings you any semblance of joy in your life is something that you can't see, hear, smell, taste or touch?

The nebulous void...

Almost like old times... Finished doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen just before 2AM. A little bit early to take the garbage out, but figured I'd do it then just in case I forgot or slept in. I knew it had been the full moon yesterday, but it was so bright out when I stepped outside, I looked up and decided I had to take a few pics. By the time I ran up the stairs, through the dining room and kitchen to grab the cell phone in the bedroom and back, the moon had disappeared behind a cloud. I took a shot anyways, and then waited a few before getting a couple more.

As soon as I saw the clouds shrouding the moon, I thought of the words "nebulous void", and as I sit here typing this, I realized that describes well my life, such as it is.