Archive for October, 2005
October 31, 2005 at 1:12 am · Filed under I am feeling...
I’ve been achy lately. Sensitive and tender. Knee pains, back pains, feet pains. Maybe it’s just the cold whether stiffening my bones or maybe I am getting weaker and unfit. Unfit for what? Standing. Being upright, using my body. It seems so sad. I just got back from a show and the 4 hours on my feet has made my back hurt so much. Why? Not long ago I could stand for 8, 10, 14 hours at a time.
I blame the computer, yes you under my fingertips. Part of it is my fault in that I choose to entertain myself by sitting here finger surfing. The other part is how this was designed. Not just the computer but this scenario. I am being trained to do my work from here and I want to break loose from that. I want to work standing, walking, pacing, dancing.
New goal: getting away from my perch on this chair. I am not in a cage and I am not strapped down. Why do I act like I am? This is not about exercise. This is not about me going to the gym and breaking out a sweat or alloting 45 minutes a day to move fast. This is about not forgetting the strength of a human body and what it is capable of. Not losing that because it is the greatest thing you will have in your lifetime.
October 28, 2005 at 2:40 pm · Filed under I am feeling...
OK so imagine a larger sized sack like this:
Now imagine 5 angry, let’s say teenage boys cause they can be pretty angry, 5 angry teenage boys wearing boots like these crazy pirate ones:
Now picture that I am in the sack and they are kicking and kicking it.
I feel like that is what has happened to me maybe, 4 days ago and I am recovering. I went to yoga yesterday after a week break because I was “busy” (ie. doing a poor job at time management). I think it was the reverse plank. It is one of those sneaky poses that does not feel too hard while you are in it. But the next day…
The ache was probably doubled from some weird position in my sleep last night (like curling into a small ball to shield myself from bullets). It’s a notable, interesting ache as it resides completely on my entire backside, but no pain in front.
Anyway, I wish I had more interesting things to say right now. I went to a really good show last night. I’ll be going to another one on Sunday. Then 9 days till Singapore (eek!)
October 28, 2005 at 9:38 am · Filed under Dreams
It’s close to Halloween so at nighttime you hear random firecrackers being set off. Someone was having a field day with them last night. In my dream I was in my apartment and I could hear gun shots. I was doing something when two gun shots were fired into my apartment (though it was not really my apartment). It was freaky.
So I hate guns. They scare me. Not so much because they are a weapon that could kill me. More so because they remind me of the fear or hatred or insanity that possesses people to carry them.
I hope I never experience bullets flying through my home. I am saddened to think of all the people who have to.
October 27, 2005 at 10:17 am · Filed under Evil Things
Wired News: How to Fight Those Surging Splogs
Just evil. Why? Does it even work?! That’s what I want to know.
October 26, 2005 at 7:49 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
I keep forgetting what I was going to write about…ah yes. Poster children. My friend Eric (insert web link here) pointed out to me today that we are still the poster children for the UofR engineering faculty. I will let you find that yourself as I am not in a rush to point you towards my 5 foot long arm, horrible hair and a head in ricci proportions. Thanks for the heads up Eric!
I told another friend about the site and he told me that he is a CS poster child. Ahhaha. So it got me thinking about poster children. About unsuspecting people who get their pictures taken without knowing where those pictures might someday end up (…no not those kinds of pictures). Like those boys in my post below from the 21st. I think we all have some of those pictures. I just want to know where mine all are.
October 23, 2005 at 11:13 pm · Filed under Mostly Hilarious
October 22, 2005 at 1:59 pm · Filed under Things Found Online
This woman collects photos of street writing. First in NY now in Chicago. I was looking through her photos, looking at what she was seeing. Then I realized I was paying less attention to the ground graffiti and more to the changes in the bits you can see of her. Every picture is given perspective by her feet and often parts of her jacket or the bottoms of her pants. She points out how you will start to find that her shoes are quite boring. On the contrary, I’m reading way into them and getting so much information from the season, to which pictures were taken on the same day, to the fact that her toes are always well pedicured. In some pictures the cord of her ipod earbuds is in the picture. So interesting…
October 21, 2005 at 9:15 pm · Filed under Things Found Online, Toys
Hehe this is way too addictive. I can’t stop reading through this site linked to by BoingBoing (I feel guilty not given credit to those who found it even though my blog is riddled with credit to BoingBoing and PopGadget) that has listed and commented on the top 100 toys of the 70s and 80s. An excerpt:
The Americans sure knew how to name toys. We, to be honest, didn’t. So, while this boxing automaton chestnut went under one of the best names for any game, or indeed any thing, ever, in the States, the rather rarer British version was renamed… Raving Bonkers Fighting Robots. Quite. This Un-American activity came courtesy, appropriately enough, of Marx Toys Ltd., who, aside from seemingly employing the cast of Whack-o! in their marketing division, did actually do a neat enough job of making the toy over here. Within a sturdy boxing ring, two square-jawed robots (named, in the English version, Biffer Bonker and Basher Bonker, but let’s not dwell on it) rounded on each other by means of an initially hard-to-master combination of two under-ring levers, and laid into their opponents with button-fired punching action. A successful knockout was signalled by the losing robot’s head flying up on a spring and, allegedly in some editions, a bit of crude, “sampled” surrender dialogue. Presumably the British version went “By Jingo, sir! You’ve bally well got me in the seven-and-nines and no mistake! Care for a bun?”
So it’s done by some english dudes so there are some unfamiliar toys but their witty british humour makes it all the better. What I am reminescing on now: Perfection, Guess Who, and what has not yet been mentioned, He-Man.
October 21, 2005 at 6:42 pm · Filed under Evil Things, I am feeling...
Yeah that’s my supper. I was going to go to the uni town and get some delicious and addictive curry (have to fulfill my weekly craving…by the lineups at that place I’m not alone) but after a nap in the lab I was too cold and drowsy to get my act together. My knee is also feeling a little (just a wee bit) sore and my knees are like “my thing”. You know, that part of your body where as soon as there is some inkling of injury or pain you cancel all plans to spend the rest of the day tending to it and feeling sorry for yourself. My knees are that probably because they act up more than anything so it gives me plenty of “I should be easy on…” days. So the walk to get curry might have “irritated” my knee. Yeah…
I blame it on the roller bladder this morning. So I don’t know what the ettiquette is for being a biker and getting annoyed at roller bladders on a bike route. Is the biker supposed to appreciate the roller bladder because they too are using an environmentally friendly alternative method of transportation? Can the biker assume that they have right of way on the path (not even just a park path but a bike designated road lane) and that roller bladders being the slower ones should easy over to the side so that the biker may pass? This dude (or girl, couldn’t really tell) was taking up the whole lane. I was worried about passing him (her) because since I am so horribly unbalanced with inline skates I question the equilibrium of everyone on them. I finally saw an opening to the walking path and no pedestrians in site so I decided to scoot around him (her) that way and avoid pissing any drivers off. So get this, as I am about to get ahead of this guy (girl) which is proving somewhat difficult because I’m on the last leg of my trip, already cleared the 3 evil hills which turn my still weak legs to jelly and they can handly make me go anymore, this guy (girl) gets a sudden urge to increase his (her) speed to match mine (my legs are really sore) thus preventing my passing. I could have possibly really given ‘er but I was so taken aback that I actually stopped to let him (her) keep on going, waiting for another bike to pass, then got back on the road. Are some people just so competitive that they instinctual “go as fast”? This bothers me, mostly because of my warriness of biking around bladers - I am so scared I will make them wipeout. Anyway, that took a stupidly long time to tell and I’m not quite sure I have a point. I don’t want to say “bladders should not be in the bike lane” but I would like to know / decide that there should be some kind of courtesy or standard of what the bladder or biker should do in such encounters.
I should get to my presentation. I avoid these things like I avoided church in highschool. The upside being that I get all this other stuff done. I haven’t quite figured out what makes it so hard for me to whip up these slides but it just is. I’m making by the end of tomorrow my deadline. If I’m not done by then somebody please slap my hand.
October 20, 2005 at 12:08 pm · Filed under I am feeling...
I just burned (or is it burnt?) my hand on the toaster oven in our eating room. It was quick and painless and almost blistered but did not. Why am I so careless around hot surfaces. You would laugh at how many times I have burnt (burned) myself. It’s on my hand so all I can do today is stare at it. That’s probably all I will do today is stare at it. My head is full of cotton.
October 19, 2005 at 11:38 am · Filed under I am feeling..., Random Thoughts, Reflection
Directed to this article on a process developed in Sweden called promession by BoingBoing.
Can I add things to my will through my blog? Will it be enforced? I hope so. Cause promession it is for my dead body. I’m not one for believing that a human body should be preserved in any manner after death. It’s not natural. We need to let go. Sure, plant a tree, make a shrine, leave flowers, paint a picture with ashes. All these little symbolisms are great and they can help us remember a loved one. But the body can go. I don’t want to occupy space after I die. I don’t want a “plot”. A 2′x4′ piece of rented space in the world saying here this is me and I’m not here anymore but you still have to deal with me taking up your space.
Otherwise I’m having an unpalatable day. I am feeling a little hungover and I was disappointed in the show last night. The band, Nada Surf, seemed to have some good tunes. Then Andrew pointed out that he couldn’t handle a white guy with dreads and the way he played his bass and smoked and let smoke swirl around him was akin to Slash and Andrew hates Slash. I agreed. Then it was all I could see and other than that they didn’t do anything interesting. They didn’t play the one song that would redeem it all (unless they did …we left before the end) and I couldn’t pay attention at all. I was there but just not with the music. So of course I started thinking way too much. I’m reminded of my thinking by the part of my headache that is not alcohol induced and by scribblings in my day planner on the bus ride home. I was lucky that my laptop was kept in the lab last night - if it had been at home there would have been a number of drunken emails sent. The remnants of whatever I was thinking are probably still with me today and that’s why I feel like I have this bad taste in my head. Those same thoughts are swimming around but I’m not in the same state of mind thus I cannot accept them.
I’m sure I’ll be better tomorrow. Remember…if I die…freeze-drying.
PS. OK so I did a spell check (I know, it’s not very spontaneous but common I have cotton head right now) and “blog” is not in Blogger’s dictionary.
October 18, 2005 at 2:31 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
Right now…skittlebrau.
October 17, 2005 at 8:17 pm · Filed under I am feeling..., Reflection
Getting video from camera. Cutting video. Compressing video. Waiting. Time. Too much.
That’s what I’m doing. I’m between jobs and have to write something because the lights in this lab make my eyes buggy at night. I have to write because I’m reading while I wait for Premiere to do its thing and my eyes are starting to hurt. Do I need glasses? I would never admit to that.
I do need a back massage. Something in yoga yesterday really got to my lower back muscles. Those ones that you think are strong because they are the root of all your strength but really there is so much more that could be done with them. They are achy and it causes a general discomfort when I sit up in my chair. Much of my day has been spent doubled over in an attempt to stretch out my back. Really I just want a massage. I hinted for one all day but no :(
I also really want somebody to make me laugh right now. Immediately. I could use a good chuckle. I could use some stupidity. Some immaturity.
I am getting footage off DV tapes from May. I am in some of the footage and I always find it weird to watch videos of myself. I slouch too much. I am trying not to slouch. I think I’ve been getting better with it. Some people have noticed. Still, sometimes I wish that somebody would have told me a long time ago that I’m slouching. I remember Jemma used to tell me all the time but that’s when we were 10 and it didn’t make sense to me. I thought that however I stood must be the way I was meant to stand. Little did I realize that I stood and sat like that because I had no confidence. I was always trying to hide in between my shoulders. If I slouch now, I am hiding more then myself, I am hiding the confidence I do have. Watching these videos offer a great reminder to stand up straight and tall. Holy crap I just feel so tall sometimes. Like a giant. If you see me slouching it’s because I’m trying not to be a GIANT.
October 17, 2005 at 10:07 am · Filed under Dreams
Had the weirdest one this morning. Everything was happening in it and there are so many links back to various events and thoughts of the past, let’s say maybe 2 weeks. I think my entire subconsciouness revealed itself to me in my slumber. I wish I knew what the motto was. What was it about?
Well, lots of stuff. There was some family in there, a visit to the cabin though it was not the cabin. Actually the place I was at seemed really familiar. I think I have a pseudo lake and cabin in my dream world. In the real world, the cabin is right on the lake. In this world, there is a walk down to a docking area for swimming. It is always sunny there, the water is always murky and green, and there is always another group of distant relatives hanging around. I wonder if I was there sometime when I was younger (for real) but cannot remember.
Otherwise, there was also a murder mystery going on (I was not involved in that but I witnessed it) and some scaling of buildings. That was a really fun part. I’ll avoid recreating the scene though.
October 13, 2005 at 12:13 pm · Filed under Mundane, Random Thoughts
I am wondering what has happened to all the Nalgene bottles I have lost in the past 6 years.
Yes I am sitting here coding (ie. daydreaming) and thinking about waterbottles. Thinking that I recently lost mine so have been buying water, using the bottle for a while, then recycling (shudder…yes I know it feels evil). Telling myself that it is because I can’t afford to buy a new waterbottle right now but that makes no sense at all. It’s not logical because of the amount I’ll spend on “disposible water” in a month. I could buy a super fancy waterbottle.
Maybe the real reason is that I’m secretly a little sick of seeing Nalgene water bottles everywhere. On the UBC bookstore Nalgene wall. Plastered with all sorts of corporate logos. In all their bright attractive colours. I feel like I’m waiting for something better to come along. The new Nalgene. The new blue…could it ever exist?
Could there really be anything better than Nalgene? That’s why they are so ubiquitous. They are so perfect.
I’ll eventually break down and buy one. Only if it has that mouth piece like Tony’s of course. That’s the perfect addition because often as I take a drink I miss and water drips down and all over my shirt. It’s very attractive…I do it because I know you think it’s sexy ;)
Next entries »
