Infectious tunes

Just a song that was in my slightly zombified head this morning... Of course it would have to be yet another rather infectious tune from the... 80s.

Speaking of infectious... hadn't heard this one in a long time.

Oh... and this is not the version of this song that I remember. Avert your eyes. Nothing worse than the 80s than the 70s. Gah! Orange!

(Music... helps get me out of my head.)

Nauseous

At some point whilst I was writing the previous post, I honestly thought it was going to be my last. At some point, I actually felt like vomiting. Literally. I haven't gone to bed yet either. I still don't feel right. But then I realize it wasn't just because I wrote it, but that I was having an allergic reaction. To something I ate. I could feel the tiny bumps on my back and arms, my throat at first itchy and then constricted. It has happened a few times before, but I hadn't yet been able to pinpoint what causes the reaction. I have a better idea now.

Other than that, my eyes feel slightly bloated, but look fine, and I'm sleepy, but something is keeping me up. There's something else that is bothering me in the back of my mind. A breach of trust. It is very rare that I get pissed off. And... that... did. Several hours have gone by and that has now passed. There is nothing I can do to correct the damage done. I should just go back to not saying anything to anyone. Now all I can do is worry.

Verbalizing the internalizing

Have you ever been to that point in your life when you take a look around you, at your surroundings, the people in your life, who you are and your place amidst it all, and you ask yourself ... why am I here? For what purpose... to what end?

That is as far as I got on that, and let it sit for a bit. I've been here before, so I thought of just deleting it, but I didn't.

And then, I did some catching up, as I had been falling a little behind in visiting my usual haunts, and from one of my regular reads, I linked over to this beautifully written piece which provided me with answers to questions, albeit in a rather roundabout manner, that I have been internalizing for some time. For a brief moment, it made me feel small, insignificant and inadequate. Perhaps the most telling would be... inferior. It brought tears to my eyes with the stark realization of everything that I am not, which, oddly enough, I've always known. But ... contrary to what one might think, this is not a negative reaction. It made me feel something where there was nothing before. It made me feel something on a visceral level. I don't envy other people's abilities. I don't want what other people have. There is nothing that I would devour voraciously. (Not even bacon.)... Oh... wait... a burger, yes... Eggo Waffles... This is where I get side-tracked. When life is simplified, food will do that to you. Where was I? My accomplishments are few, if that, and my journey, next to non-existent. My knowledge is little, my understanding beyond my ken. My house is a mess, but I can die knowing that I am a perfectly fine example of a human being. I just didn't have a place in the world.

(Thanks to an old blogger buddy for that unintentional nudge to channel my inner emo. I have not had the opportunity to use that term before. So thank you for that as well. Never thought I would.) 

Unfocused...

This I know.

Like my eyes and my life,

That's just the way it goes.

Pause

Me: Art imitates life.

Little-Evil mini-me: That's not art.

Me:  I know... sucks doesn't it.

(Insert evil laugh here.)

Even the littlest thing...

... can make a difference.

for most, it won't be a firing pin.

Lend an ear...

Bend an ear...

The day after...

This has been at the back of my mind waiting for a voice, but I could find none. Regardless the subject matter, my mind is constantly weighing things. I think that is the way I have always been. Most of my life, I didn't really say much of anything because the things I was thinking could be weighed internally and did not need to be spoken.

100,000 people killed in one day.

80,000 people killed three days later.

Devastating. Horrific.

Necessary?

As I sit here thinking on this, I can hear the distant roar of thunder. It is getting closer. None of those people knew what was coming. They didn't know what hit them until they felt their flesh burning, or perhaps they did know for a split second, before their bodies disintegrated. The thunder has stopped.

It was war.

As a nation, were they stupid or evil? They declared war and allied themselves with an evil empire. What did they hope to accomplish? Were they simply men desperately clinging to a warrior culture, following a code which they felt would bring them glory and honour? I can admire the tenacity of an honourable warrior, but there is no honour in something that which is inherently evil.

But wait... did I just answer my own questions? Did I weigh it properly?

A necessary evil?

I know there is a quote that I could insert here, but I shan't.

I went rooting around for some links. If nothing else, I recommend the Gallery below.

Life magazine.

Gallery 

Information

Our home...

It's beautiful...
(must view in full-screen)

So beautiful it looks fake, doesn't it? It is a time-lapse compilation of actual NASA photographs. Upon looking for further information, I also came across this, which is rather cool too.

The 80s wasn't all that bad...

Wait... what?

Had an 80s flashback again... prompted by a song by a Canadian band, which was posted over at one of my regular blog reads a few days back. (And it hasn't gone out of my head yet.) I don't know if I ever knew that it was that popular in the States, but I guess it must have been.

Well, then the next one that popped into my head was this:

And shortly thereafter, this catchy number, another by a Canadian band, got stuck in my brain. I am not posting the video... because... gah. I am starting to think that it helps to purge these things.

Chow Yun Martin

No... that's just the name I came up with after seeing this. (I only made it to 1:50 before stopping.)

Mmm... chocolate milkshake...

Had a pretty rough night. And no, there was no partying nor consumption of alcoholic beverages or other legal or illegal stimulants of any kind. Further to my Unsleep, I shall just say that it was something akin to being a lactose intolerant milk-drunk baby with a hangover.

Unsleep

Woke up once again feeling as though I had slept for a few hours, only to find that only about 1 hour had passed. That was 3AM ish... At least that is what my eyes saw. I went back to what seemed like a half awake sleep with a dream for what seemed to be five minutes and woke up to find that it was 4AM... Got up, turned lights on and felt woozy, staggering my way to the bathroom, like a half-dead zombie. This is not sleep... This is some sort of time-altered petrified version of sleep. Argggghhhhh....

Bicycle built for...

Just a random bike on the street one day. I've never seen a seat quite like that before, but thought it was funny because of the one that caught my eye before.

Great, now all I can think about is...

... bacon. And it's 2AM and I'm hungry and I should be trying to sleep.

I've seen a few of these before, but I believe they were ALL meat and bacon, and absolutely yummy looking. Now this... this looks tasty (it has carbs too!!!)... and appetizing UNTIL they start eating it. (Oh... and there is alcohol and sweary bits in it.) 

I stand corrected...

I had previously defined a certain word by THIS... but I have today been shown a more meaningful meaning... Oh, the horror...

From here. (Yes, it would seem that I have found a new ride at the playground, although I get the feeling that it may be brief.)

Losing its charm?

You cannot create a plan if you do not first establish your goal. That just came to mind, but now that I think upon it, I don't quite agree with it under all circumstances, however, it sounds good. Me... I never had a plan... Never had a direction. Never had a compass. But then, what good is a compass without knowing the direction in which you wish to head. Hmm...
 

From here.

Found a new humour link by way of a Facebooky friend. There's some stuff that cracked me up big time but that I just can't post here. The one above is rather apropros, considering where I am right now and that fairly recently in a conversation I said that "... the internet seems to be losing its charm for some reason."

And how do I spend my evenings?

Well, not every evening...

Oh... and no weird dreams last night... but not much sleep.

Oh... and this wouldn't be complete without ...

Laughing is good for the soul.

Scream

I was in what I thought to be the old house, but the interior was different, more like an empty castle, and it was rather dark, lit only by sparse candlelight. There were a couple people who I thought were family members with me. There seemed to be a strange, lingering evil presence with us, but that which I somehow knew was able to pass between the others in the house. I was then standing with two people, talking to one of them who had a piece of paper in her hand. Everything seemed to be fine for the moment, but ... tense... I thought we were discussing instructions of some sort, but as that person was reading from it, I saw and felt something coming towards me... flying at me... from out of her face as she spoke. Her face, but with dead black eyes and her hands reaching out to grasp my throat. My voice was gone. I woke up trying to scream or do something with my vocal chords... I don't quite know, but my throat was tight. I turned the light on... It was 3:38AM. I had gone to bed around 2:30. It seemed as though hours had passed.

(This was from Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Wasn't going to post it because it was intense and weird.)

Soldiers' Angels "controversy"

Have you seen this photograph? Very moving... heart-wrenching. It is a famous photograph which I had seen maybe a year and a half ago or so. Of course I am not posting it because I don't have the photographer's permission to do so. Recently it came to my attention that there was some sort of controversy with the man who took that photograph and the organization known as Soldiers' Angels. If you are wondering, yes, it is their widget for Project VALOUR IT that I have up there at the top of the page, and which I have written about before. The first time was here, and then again here. There are a few others as well, but I think these two are the most pertinent. Anyways, when I first heard about this "controversy" or the denigration of the services that they provide, or the functionality of the organization itself, my first thought wasn't "I wonder if it is true", but rather, "Why would anyone do that?" Originally I read about it on one of my regular blog reads, and then it popped up on another, so I went agoogling for the source, which I found HERE. (There are some lovely flourishes to a rather mean-spirited bent.) To refute those claims, here is the very informative and well-addressed response from Soldiers' Angels.

I highly recommend reading the links, and see what you think.

Sitemeter Server Snafu???

Well... since Sitemeter changed servers, something is wrong with the way it picks up visitors. Now it appears that it is recognizing one universal IP address for me and several of my regular and irregular visitors, much like the "googlebot" ones. I know nuthin... Before, I had it set to ignore visits from my own IP address. I went in and checked and they added an option to ignore visits from "this browser", so I just did that, but now am wondering if it will then ignore everyone who visits using the same browser, or just me. Again... I know nuthin...

Can't really complain, after all it is a free service, but still... As I said I hardly get any visitors, so it is was a little cool at first glance to see the IP addresses I recognized. Maybe they just changed it so that people will upgrade to a paid service?

Here's a screenshot:

Symbols in stone

I never noticed this before... I've been here a few times, but for some reason never saw it. How could I miss a huge concrete slab like that? Maybe it was the time of day that accentuated the raised work. I don't know. I think I've always had a thing for crosses and stone though, so it is odd that I didn't.

Not at a cemetery...

... but at the footings here.