It’s been so long

It’s been so long since I’ve updated the old blog that WordPress went ahead and changed everything on me. Now I have no clue what I’m doing anymore and must relearn the whole process. Thanks WordPress. Not that I have much to say, but whatever I scrounge up, I’d like to be confident of my ability to blog it properly.

So i had a dream last night about human chess. Suddenly, everyone had to move like chess pieces. I encountered a man who incessantly lamented the fact that he was no longer upwardly mobile, just diagonally mobile. And I asked: “Yes, but on what squares? The black or the white?”

The knight-moving people seemed to be having the most fun out of everyone.

This dream might have something to do with the fact that I watched the documentary ‘Kasparov Vs. the Machine’ recently. Note to readers: if you have not watched it yet; watch it. If you have watched it; re-watch it. The way Kasparov mutters “stupid machine!!” is priceless, and not to be missed.

And I’ll end this post with an equally brilliant and bizarre video, which I hope you will enjoy.

To errrr is human

I’m taking an excruciatingly remedial ‘intro to Canadian Democracy’ course, in which the T.A. is trying to impress all the girls with his *expertise*. He gave a half-lecture last week, and this week, I overheard him chatting up one of the girls. He spent most of the time talking about the “rush of public speaking’ while she nodded and smiled, and occasionally threw in a “no, you were really great, honestly…”

And then he said: “it’s a hard balance to strike, because if you humanize yourself too much, then you lose the respect of your audience.”

This phrase bears repeating, because it is such a poignant statement about our society. It’s so sad that showing your humanity puts you at risk of being belittled by other human beings. I tend to have the opposite reaction. I don’t ever trust people who are too smooth, who carry on as if they’ve got it all figured out, and especially not those whose hair is never out of place. I never trust these people because I suspect that they are human impersonators – silicone robots, gathering information about human frailty for mischievous ends. I’d much rather surround myself with the sort of people who make it a daily goal to rock out with their frock out. I’m convinced that I feel this way not only because I, myself, am human; but because I like it that way.

The Closer you Get, the Further you Are

Sometimes, I feel like I’m finally getting it, but this feeling never lasts for any significant amount of time.

For instance: when facebook first gave me the option of throwing sheep at people, I was ecstatically delighted. I went on a sheep throwing rampage. It was beautiful, and I got it. Then Facebook gave me the option of “pwn”-ing, which immediately brought on the realization that I had alreay lost whatever it was that I thought I had. I have been stumped ever since.

This elusive vowel-less word meant nothing to me. Even after looking it up, it still doesn’t make much sense- along with many other acronyms that are thrown around in cyber space. It took me ages to figure out ‘lol’, then as soon as I did people started using ‘lmao’, which threw me for another loop. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that if it doesn’t make sense when I read it in regular English, it’s not worth knowing about. This is something I have to come to terms with about myself: I will never be on the cutting edge of internet slang. Never. Thankfully, Wikipedia put some of it into perspective:

“Like most jargon, Internet slang aggrandizes authors and readers, causing them to appear to have specialized knowledge of a complex medium. However, there are cases where using Internet slang is considered ridiculous, due to association with the stereotype of the internet n00b.”

Even the definition of internet slang includes internet slang! Ugh.

On to Other News:

I found the coolest inflatable pig ever!

Upon further inspection, I realized that this pig was not like other inflatable pigs. It had both an air valve, and some other valve of some kind:

…and then it dawned on me: Holy Shit, this pig is a sex toy.

Which, I guess explains the lipstick. I will never look upon inflatable pigs in the same way again. It also goes to show that there is a whole lot more that I don’t get in this world than internet slang.

Time change is a Killer

Apparently, according to my sources, the end of daylight savings time can be fatal to pedestrians.

“Ending daylight saving time translates into about 37 more U.S. pedestrian deaths around 6 p.m. in November compared to October, the researchers report.”

Are we seriously still doing this for the farmers? Aren’t farms all mechanized by now; and run by robots?

Two songs to live by

Half Man Half Machine by GLC:

And It’s a Rave Dave:

Silence of the Limbs

This renders the tail-chase extremely passe…

The Void of Meaning

Yes, it is true: the Moon kept me up ALL NIGHT long. I couldn’t take it anymore. So I turned around in bed and coughed. Did it help? ….no. I don’t get it. I see full moons at LEAST once a month, so why did last night’s ‘old man in the sky’ creep me out so much? Did anyone else feel this? (or am i just crazy me?) In bed, in a very odd delusional state came over me, and I began thinking about the meaning of words.

It started with the seedlings to the poem bellow, and as I thought the lines over and over, the room began to spin as if it was a rabbit hole and my name was Alice. How the hell did we give these random grunts meaning? These sounds, which are so similar to so many other sounds;  that when placed in a specific order create (drumroll please,) MEANING.

I swear I wasn’t high. No, really. I felt like I was 3 again, and thinking about the mechanics of a toaster (it fascinated me to no end… and sort of still does: Yeah Toast!:)

Now, I know that the more literary minded among you will hark back to literary theory: about words breaking from meaning at the philosophical moment of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Eden (- or some such.) but I’m referring to the ease at which we personally lose track of the meaning of our own words… (oh, shit, it’s starting again) Like when you are deep in a rant and you lose your thought express bus, and then suddenly everything that you were so passionately expressing gets lost in the over-stimulated mental void and promptly disappears. AhhhhhHG…. 

Needless to say, this morning I needed coffee. So I went to a cute little cafe nearby. Not only did I get coffee. I got art. Watch out world, here it comes:

Suddenly words and their meanings (and lack thereof) floated together and reunited in the brown and white foamy universe in my cup. Thank Gawd for Coffee! It’s definitely a sanity saver. (Yeah Coffee!)

The Bastard Moon

Last night, the moon followed me home (like a vagabond or a stalker,) it glared at me over my handlebars (unyielding, sullen and silent) ‘Leave me alone!’ I rallied against its persistence ‘My business is my own, how dare you be so insistent?’ (But I could not undo its gaze.) “that little fucker…” I grumbled, (hoping it would not hear,) as I scuttled into my doorway and shut the old wood behind me. I peered through sideways slats and surveyed the horizon, to find it in the exact same place, (continually gawking at me) Indeed, it remained there all night (like a voyeur in darkness) making me toss and turn, (Twisting under it’s pointed ponderance) Luckily, it took its leave by morning, (as quietly as it had come,) leaving me worried and wondering: how will it be? (now that it knows where I am?)

Would Nostradamus have worn BLING?

I watched an 1982 film about Nostradamus’ life and predictions last night. It was quite the assortment of fear-mongering and speculation that I had thought it would be. Apparently, Nostradamus predicted the Kennedy assassination, the first world war and the second world war. He even predicted a third world war that should have started in 1999. He said the ‘New City’ (presumably New York City) would experience a ‘terror’ from the skies, and that it would subsequently descend into complete disorder. Then he predicted that a man wearing a blue turban would make an alliance with an Eastern European force (which they assumed would be Russia- and remember, this film was made in the throes of the Cold War). Nostradamus wrote that this alliance would signal the beginning of a “world-wide reign of terror”

Now, to put this in context, the film also mentioned that both the allies and Germany used Nostradamus’ predictions as propaganda to garner support for their respective sides during WWII. Funny that, eh? And then went on to mention that each side hand-picked what phrases would be most supportive to the respective sides’ war effort.

I can’t help but wonder if the same was done since. Perhaps the ‘War on Terror’ wouldn’t have been worth a speckled herring if Nostradamus hadn’t made a mention of it…. Chicken? Egg? Hmmm….

During the whole movie, I just couldn’t help but wonder: Would Nostradamus have would have worn bling? I think he would have.

Funniest Cat Fight… Ever

After reading whomunculus‘ cat-post, I decided to scratch one out myself. This is the clip that I’ve watched once every six months for the last four years or so, and it still makes me roar- with laughter that is. I just SERIOUSLY wish I could read the subtitles…