grandpa Du has joined the mass of the blogged! may we welcome his senile ramblings and eventual trudge towards marriage with open arms and minds.

we took some pretty stupid pictures at a bbq this past weekend. i'll post them up to imagestation when i have the time to resize them all to managable sizes. this pic is me pretending to look.....i dunno. stupid, apparently. anyways, it's been pretty fun filled these past few days. won't bore anyone with the nitty gritty details, as unless you're stalking me (and i very much doubt you are) they're likely irrelevant.

other randomness: i'm baffled by the concept of time.

who's to say i can't just start living according to my own time? that i can't make up my own measure for life that has passed. if i decided to live by a 25 hour day, who would have the right to tell me i'm living "wrongly"? i'm not conforming to the status quo, certainly. but i'm not doing anything wrong perse. i'm merely being different. difficult - but different.

so where does time come from? do we really need to standardize our schedules in order to run efficiently as a society? would anarchy ensue if time were suddenly abolished from existence? or is it a concept that was merely made tangible by the advent of numbers and counting? did early man have a concept of time? i think about our ability to "tell time" according to our internal clocks. if someone threw us onto an island or perpetual day, surely we would have trouble keeping any sort of accurate time. a sundial perhaps, but lets say...uh....the sun doesn't move (it being perpetual day and all).

were early waches merely triangles that said "light-medium dark-dark"?

if it wasn't late, i'd do a little research into this whole "time" thing.
from now on, my excuse for my chronic punctuality problem will be that i run according to my own definition of time....

"i said 3pm!"
"according to my personal time, it IS 3pm!"
"oh. well then, i'm sorry i yelled at you"
"that's ok, it's early in the morning"

i have a strange urge to go to the AGO. haven't been there since years.....ago. hehheh. i crack myself up. if only it weren't so darn expensive...

Saw this site linked from kicksology and gave it a check. It's SOOOO cool!
Crooked Tongues
yes, i'm obsessed with sneakers. yes, this is an excellent sneaker site.

that is all for today.

i finally got around to fixing the pics page. haven't posted anything on imagestation yet, but all you guys can feel free to throw your pictures up there and stuff if you want. it's a communal archive, so don't be shy!

TheStar.com - Top stars to join Stones in T.O. show

the second i see justin timberlake sharing the stage with AC/DC, i can start praying knowing the end times are near.

ever open up blogger just for the sake of blogging, then sit in front of a screen for a good half hour typing and deleting and retyping dozens of possible posts before you just give up and post a load of crap?

yea. thats me now.

i hate when you have a bunch to say, and no one to say it to. that's the problem with having your pensive, self-reflective moments at 3:15am i guess.

ok.
so i've been getting a fair amount of email fowards about this....and enough people seem to have been talking about it that i feel the urge to rant about it. Gay marriages are now legal here in Ontario.

and you know what i say - as a Christian, and as a member of our society? I say - fine. I have nothing against Gay people getting married. I've been starting to get really peeved by everyone claiming hellfire and brimstone about this, and how we can't let such sin occur right in our city and country and yadda yadda.....and i like, TOTALLY think it's nuts to take that stance. to BAN Gay's from marriage - i think - is the type of thinking that starts religious wars. it is oppression of other, and imposition of beliefs on others.

I think C.S. Lewis makes a parallel point about marriage in his book Mere Christianity.
"A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives."

do i think homosexuality is a sin? yes. it's in the bible (Genesis 19). but what does that have to do with marrital status? What happened to hate the sin, not the sinner? will preventing gays from marrying reduce the number of gays? no. will it help spread Christ's words and love? no. beating someone over the head and denying them the same rights as us based on religious beliefs is fundamentally wrong to me.

Jesus accepted the company of prostitutes because they confessed their sins to Him. As long as they recognized their transgressions, they were saved. Similarly, although homosexuality is a sin, it's still something that can be recognized, and confessed, and worked at.

do i believe it is a scientific/genetic thing? possibly. i'm unaware of any evidence either proving or disproving this theory. but the fact remains that it's a sin. and i think that if God has called it a sin, there must be a way to be forgiven for it and cleansed before God's eyes if someone truly seeks to be saved.

warfare against gay marriage - to me - is hypocrisy. It is Christian conservatism taken too far....and is along the same lines as pro-life terrorism. WWJD? can you really see Jesus running down to jarvis and church and screaming into a megaphone that a certain group of people should be denied equal rights as others?

did Jesus believe in segregating the lepers? the prostitues? the gentiles?

no. Jesus came to save all of us. gays included. They are sinners, but you know what? so am I. so are you. so is everyone else in the world. What gives us the right to judge our sins as less than theirs? that we're "better" than them? is our lying, our lustful thoughts, our pride.....are these sins not as evil as homosexuality?

not to God. at least that's what i believe. we're ALL sinners.
I don't SUPPORT gay marriages. i'm not gonna go down and celebrate a victory or anything. but i accept it. i think it's fair. And to the next Christian who tells me we have to stop this, to pray for an appeal, and that the world is going to hell around us:

yes. it always has been, and it always will be. That's why Jesus came in the first place.

now, i ask YOU, as a Christian - what are you gonna do about it?

this pic was from cammie's wonderful day of excitment. refered to in some history books as "last saturday". what can i say? steph is a middle child. i think that's all you have to know. poor...poor bri....

i also added some more links to my stalking list. woohoo!

hm....
you ever get really bored and start looking through people's ICQ info? i know i do that every so often. one of my favourite past-times is looking for people's webpages, because i enjoy going through sites of people i know. they're such microcosm's of their lives, as i'm sure this site is of mine.

it actually makes me feel kind of bad when i go through the info of a friend i haven't talked to much in YEARS and go through their website. you realize how much time has occured since you've lost touch.....how much life has gone by unshared with each other. I've always been one to sort of go with the flow.....keep in touch with who i can, and i can admit that i'm really not one to make an extra effort to stay connected with people when i don't see them for a while.

i think this is something lots of us university students have to sorta "deal" with. I have to say however, that i'd much rather lose touch with a bunch of people and maintain/keep deveeloping some real frienships rather than cling on to old ones half assed. i believe i'd rather drift away from someone mutually than have them every once in a while ICQ me or something with no actual interest in my life, or intention to develop a relationship, but merely out of obligation and to make themselves feel better.

don't get me wrong, i'm not talking about specific people or situations. i'm merely saying that i don't believe there's anything wrong with drifting because as long as you know how to get a hold of the person, you can always get together and touch base with them when you decide you actually wanna chat and see whats going on with their lives.

i'm pretty much in awe at the amount of superficiality there is in this world. how much emphasis we put on facades and outward impressions.

but does not putting that extra effort - to msg someone just for the sake of keeping in tough....even when you have nothing to really talk about..... - does that make me a bad person? a bad friend?

you know.....i don't think it does. and people who are concious of this and feel bad about it, i don't think you should. why? well, go ask the friends you haven't talked to in a few years if you're a bad friend. my bet is they'll say no. in fact, they'll probably think you're being silly.

being a true friend to me is to be YOU at all times, regardless of what sort of status quo that may or may not buck. i think it's important to remember that sometimes, because it's so easy to lose sight of what friends are all about.

i took a brief stroll down my archives just now. hard to believe this piece of garbage website has been floating around in its various incarnation for 4 years now. i still remember my very first website. it had rainbow swirls in the background and was essentially a giant shrine devoted to Alicia Silverstone, complete with picture and animated torch .gif files.....ah yes, good times.

I managed to even look up one of my old old never finished sites on google.

check out the sadness here.

the links don't even work, except for the links button. yes. it's true...i played a lot of quake back then. you can also see the beginnings of my mp3 addiction. weeee....

got really bored and started taking random pictures. i thought this turned out pretty funny.

anyways, apparently my parents are more paranoid than i thought, because i was looking through our medicine cabinet today and found a bag of face masks (a la SARS protection).

riiiiight.....and these are the people who are cooking my meals. i wonder what else they aren't telling me...

been suffering a bit from withdrawl over my deceased mp3 collection lately....i was really not looking forward to the prospect of buying back hundreds of dollars worth of cd's, and having to chose which ones i wanted, then finding them for a decent price.

complicating the situation, the radio SUCKS. asides from 91.1 jazz, there's really no consistantly satisfying station. even 102.1 has been buggin me as of late with its constant insistance on playing theory of a deadman over and over until my ears bleed and i cry for the sweet release of death.

luckily, i was really bored this afternoon and thought i'd give the radio stations on my tv a once over. (thats rogers digital cable, for any of you who have that little plastic box too).

one word: relief.

there is some absolutely EXCELLENT music on the television if any of you digital cable subscribers are also sick of the radio. first, i flipped to the "new rock" station, expecting to here more puddle of mud...but was pleasantly surprised to find them playing tool. "not bad" i thought. lets see what else they got. next up? finch. in my mind, i did a mental sigh of satisfaction. here was a rock station. a real rock station. sure, linkin park was up next, but at least they didn't play any of their singles. this rock station plays non-released songs it seems, and generally good ones at that. can't complain, as it puts 102.1 to shame.

next down the list.....the adultalternative station. curious, i click to find them playing aimee mann. niiiiiice one. next up was some old lemonheads circa my-so-called life soundtrack era. i was instantly sold.

the kicker was the contemporary christian station i think. plays ccm countdown artists, both old a new, from all genres. can't say every song is great, but at least it's a consistent source of christian tunes. I noticed they played the new Jars single. pretty cool.

bonus are the world music, ambient and smooth jazz stations. all nothign exceptional, but better than their radio counterparts by leaps and bounds. (the only other place to find good ambient/downbeat/triphop on the radio is CHRW back in london, but even that's relegated to the 6-7AM time slot on thursday mornings).

so what can i say? i'm quite pleased. although my parents aren't home now, allowing me to crank up the volume on it loud enough for me to hear it down in the basement. i'm assuming my parents won't be too pleased with that when they're home.......hm....

movie stars spend waaaaaaay too much money on clothes.
it's sick. $1200 american for a purse? uh.....i hope it's a purse that contains an unlimited supply of bread and water, because you could have spent that money doing some good for starving people who need food and drink.

we need to stop idolizing them now, before it gets any more out of hand....

memorable conversation of the week:

me: "our relationship with God is kind of like....we're abusive husbands who beat the crap out of our wives, and God is the wife, who for some reason beyond us loves us unconditionally regardless of how badly we beat Her...kinda sick eh?"
helen: "yea. It's like we're walking gift certificates that have yet to be redeemed"
me: "oh sure. leave it to a woman to relate everything to shopping"
helen: "and leave it to simon to relate everything to women"
me: "....touche"

maybe you had to be there. just thinking about it makes me laugh so hard it hurts.

you think that as you get older, you start to appreciate your parents more? you start to see the little glimmer of wisdom in their constant nagging?

or do you think as you get older....you can just relate to them more?

maybe a little bit of both i guess.

regardless - i'm going to find me a woman that doesn't eeeever nag.
yes......that is my dream.....

so i was watching star trek TNG this afternoon (laugh all you want....i love that show). and it was this episode where this guy was addicted to a holodeck program because he could control everything inside the holodeck. He recreated most of the crew and had them all goofy and all the female characters were in love with him. Basically, he was too afraid to deal with the real world, so he sought refuge in his own abilities and his own mind rather then take on the challenge of reality.

long summary short, at the end he manages to conquer his lack of social skills and helps save the ship from a warp-core matter/anti-matter contamination that causes the ship to uncontrollably speed up. (naturally seconds before reaching the hypothetical warp10 they managed to regain control of the warp drive and slow down =)

post-crisis, cmdr. reading rainbow (laforge? i can't spell either part of his name) gives the guy (lt. barkley) a pat on the back and says

"it was nice to have you out in the real world today"

i found that strangely profound. especially since i've watched like, every episode of TNG and never thought God was trying to tell me something before. but as I sat there in all my nerdom, i couldn't help but realize that it's such a reminder to not be discouraged. to not slink back to my sheltered existence where i try to control all the variables - because ultimately i'll lose EVERYTHING if i live in fear. we already know we have to let go of everything...to step into "reality" and let God use us....(to use the episodes analogy, there's no way Lt. Barkley could have taken parts of his holodeck progam with him out into the real world)...but it's just so hard. but i felt really encouraged for some reason.....safe in the reminder that hey - it's not about my individual victories...it's about the ultimate goal. the ship......the world.

we tend to think so small. we sin and sin and sin, and we get discouraged....but God doesn't care! our sins have been paid for already! He knows that, and so should we! God cares about the bigger picture, and we should never stop setting our eyes upon that picture too.

i think back to a speaker we had at ACF (one of the few i made it to....) and i remember him saying that whenever we fall...."God loves a rematch".

how cool is that?

as an aside, i never thought i'd ever post anything like this on the site. i feel inexplicably compelled to share this though.....what the heck is going on....

wow. you know what hurts?
biting your tongue so hard it feels it's half-gone.

but you know whats cool?
spitting enough blood into a sink that you feel like a vampire with an eating disorder.

added more links to people's pages for you blog stalkers to enjoy.
is it odd that i'm including links to people i don't think even know who i am?

i have friends. honest!
and they aren't imaginary this time!

i lead a sad sad life. whatever. more people need to start webpages. or at the very least, an online journal like a blog or xanga or something. it'll let me procrastinate more and work less.....it's getting later and i think my brain is starting to shut down for the night. before i go, i'll write a quick short story so i'll be amused when i read it tomorrow and realize i don't recall writing a short story.

this story is entitled - the boat.

jimmy walked around to the stern of the boat and examined the chipped and rotting name painted faintly on the hull; "mary".
"i wonder who mary was" he thought as he stood on the swaying dock, the sound of gentle waves lapping against the beach. the sun was shining brightly as he examined the boat further. it had clearly weathered several seasons alone, tethered to the dock and left to its own devices for the final days of it's ocean journey.
stepping cautiously to make sure it wa ssturdy, jimmy took a step onto the beaten hull of the boat, grabbing the dock for support as he hopped in quickly. Looking around, he almost felt a twinge of sorrow for the boat. It was apparent that in it's better days, it would have been a grand sight gliding through the water. Now however, it was nothing more than a hollow vessel, a floating carcass awaiting its inevitable demise.

Jimmy spun around quickly at the door of the cabin. He could have swore he had heard a scratching noise coming from behind the door. slowly, he moved towards the doorway.....clearly seeing the doorknob jiggle....then slowly turn.
"impossible!" he thought. no one could have survived last nights storm on this dingy boat! they'd have been thrown overboard in seconds! the door slowly creaked open.
"who the heck are you?" said the woman standing in the doorway.
"i'm Jimmy. i was just curious about this abandoned ship so i came aboard to look around. i didn't imagine anyone would be on it....are you homeless?"
"abandoned? what the hell are you talking about? i bought it last week. it's in pristine condition, what are you? blind?"
"pristine condition? but it's all faded and old looking!"
"wait a second...did you say ship?"
"yes ma'am....your ship looks like it's been tied out here to this dock for months. why haven't you taken care of it?"
"son. this here's a tent. and you're standing on a picnic table. making beach noises. are you one of those kids who do dope?"
"but it's a boat! called mary! look at the back!"
"what the.....did you paint that on my tent?!"
"uh....i gotta run. careful! listen! the seagulls are gonna get you!"
"WHAT SEAGULLS?! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??"
"SQUAW SQUAW!!"

jimmy ran into the woods of the park, never to be seen again. people say that sometimes, late at night, they can still here him making his dellusional seagull noises.
other people say those noises are just real seagulls.
i guess we'll never know the truth.

the end.

decided to pre-emptively blow my first paycheck on bjork tickets.

but man oh man, i have no regrets i can say with confidence. I've waited YEARS to see bjork.

I can imagine it already: standing in a field with a thousand other music geeks and simply soaking in the moment as the bassline kicks in during hyperballad and the whole crowd goes nuts to her siren voice, only to slowly settle down again and sway back and forth gently as the strings take us away.....mmm....a moment of pure catharsis.....

and to those of you who hate Bjork......you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

work

wow. could this be a step towards peace?

amazing news.

i did something extremely difficult today. i deleted all my mp3's. all of them. every album from A-Z and any singles to boot. i deleted warcraft. i deleted quake. i even deleted photoshop. everything i had on my computer that was pirated. right now, all i have left is windowsXP. which sadly, is also pirated.

i can't explain what it's like deleting 22.8 gigs of extremely hard to find albums. many of these weren't mainstream cd's. They were albums and EP's that i spent months searching the internet for. amazing cd's like all of elliott smith's albums's.....jen wood.....the postal service.....american football.....bright eyes.....the get up kids.....the gloria record....counterfit....built to spill....belle and sebastian.....

i could go on.

but as difficult as it was to delete them, then to confirm i wanted to delete them (windows is a cruel, harsh process), i find myself much relieved.

not to say i'm perfect. that much is pretty obvious.
but at least i'm trying to realize that I have to let God into every aspect of my life if i'm going to grow closer to Him, instead of holding on to selective things. compromising Him. i've tried it my way for so long, i figure maybe i'll just give God a chance.

it feels kind of nice.

stupid NBA. the draft is so rigged. oh well. this looks like who our pick is going to be:

Chris Bosh
6-10, 210, PF, Georgia Tech (Fr.)

With Bosh, it's all about the upside. His tall frame and silky-smooth game are very much reminiscent of a Kevin Garnett, but the ACC's rookie of the year needs to add some serious bulk if he hopes to bang with a Karl Malone. Bosh does have an impressive jump shot, making a staggering 47.8 percent of his 3-pointers, he can pass and he's a tenacious defender, leading the ACC in blocks (2.2 per game).

i hope we trade our pick and mopete for someone good....

so...whats on my mind....

cultural/societal perpetuation of female asthetic ideals. Being the idiot that i am, i'm still up at 2:50am doing nothing and watching whatever's on tv. there was this show on about these two asian girls who wanted to have surgery done on their eyelids to change them from single to double. one of them was this little korean girl who must have been no more than maybe 15-16 years old who felt absolutely horrible that she didn't have double eyelids. she actually said she looked into the mirror at herself and just gets discouraged.

it's just so wrong that a kid like that should have to suffer the pervasive effects that a lack of self-esteem can result in. Particularly due to something as trivial as single or double eyelids. it's even more sad watching her cry because she just wants to look more like the models in magazines and all that crap. sometimes i wonder if the lack of intimacy in most relationships between asian parents and their children doesn't in part contribute to an increased (in general) lack of self-esteem in asians? not that i blame parents. i mean, they're simply adhereing to a culture that's thousands of years old. but thats not to say change can't happen. it just has to start somewhere...

went to campus challenge this past weekend. was an amazing time of fellowship in the most biblical sense of the word. refreshing is the word that pops into my head....

so they can apparently grow meat on trees now. whats next?

and bah, i missed most of the season finale of smallville. darn parents.

supposedly, Hideo Nakata's Dark Water is his scariest movie yet. (He's the guy who did the original 'Ringu').

Scarier than the ring?? oh man, i wanna see this movie soooo bad.....

In the U.K., for example, there are more Jedis than Jews. Nearly 400,000 people identified themselves as Jedi in the 2001 census. Only 260,000 said they were Jewish. The Jedis seemed to be concentrated in England and Wales.

this is pretty funny.

way to jerk around stats canada, hehheh

get rich quick schemes seem to get harder as you grow older. remember when you'd find a quarter and you thought you were the luckiest kid in the world?

yes....how i long for those days again....

i'm in the mood to make a list. lets see......uhhh.....lets do my list of best movies ever. i won't rank them though, it's too hard to rank movies...... and that would take too much thinking.

my arbitrary list of 10:

1. american history x
2. stand by me
3. magnolia
4. T2
5. dancer in the dark
6. hard boiled cop
7. dead poets society
8. memento
9. chasing amy
10. the princess bride

it was hard to leave bowling for columbine off this list. but i mean...as amazing a movie as that was....it just doesn't beat any of these for sheer entertainment. i mean....who can forget classic lines like:

"so....if you're a lesbian, do you just look at yourself naked in the mirror all day?" (chasing amy)

being unemployed does have its perks. i've been able to really catch up on my reading as of late.
so much so in fact, that i find myself reading four books at once. i just sort of grab whichever one i feel like reading at the moment whenever i please. i've also made it my personal goal to actually write something this summer. asides from my distance studies essays that is.....

i was thinking maybe a young adults novel, but that may be a bit ambitious for a 4 month process, so i'm leaning more towards finishing the short film i started so long ago but never got around to. i remember writing 3 pages of script then losing it in one of my many computer reformats. i guess push come to shove, i can always try and realize my high school short film ambition - "fat woman trying to fit into washroom stall"

no one else thought it would be a good idea, but i maintain once they see the finished product, the genious will be evident in and of itself. assuming of course my vision isn't compromised by angry plus-sized interest groups or anything, as i could see how they may misinterpret my idea as offensive. but really, it's not! it's art. pure and simple.

i wish i could convince people that i'm not sarcastic right now, but i have the feeling no argument could make them believe that.

alan and joel at their place.
i wasn't even with them that night, herb took this picture. but i thought it was funny.
why is it funny? because they look stupid! yuk yuk yuk!

forgot i cancelled my london internet account, so all the images on the page are now gone....i'll get around to that tomorrow i suppose....

for the moment, my ears are filled by the music of sleep station. they're.....dreamy. in a good way. think granddaddy meets creeper lagoon.

wonderful

Cheap gas just isn't worth it....

so i waited allllll day to get gas for 49.9 at petrocan and really....it was such a frustrating experience that it really makes you want to just walk around and beat sense into people. I'm really surprised that more people aren't KILLED every boxing day, seeing the way some people acted at the gas station.

first of all, i'm driving down the street and i turn RIGHT, into the station and the end of a long line. this lady in a minivan turns left from the same street and pulls up beside me (meaning she's blocking the wrong side of the entrance...preventing ppl from exiting....) and rolls down her window, proceeding to bitch at me. "we've been waiting 25 minutes to turn in and you just drive up and pull into the station? all those people waiting are mad at you, you have no right, yadda yadda yadda" so i tune her out and allow her to bud in line in front of me to shut her incessant chatter. then the guy who was behind her in the left turn line decides the lady had a brilliant idea, and ALSO turns left into the wrong side of the driveway so he can slowly inch by and give me a dirty look.

now.....i don't know about you, but the last time i checked, there was nothing wrong with making a right turn into a gas station. I'm sorry you've been waiting a long time to turn left, but guess what? I HAVE RIGHT OF WAY. just because you've been waiting a long time doesn't mean i'm an ass for not stopping in the middle of the street to let you turn first. what the hell is wrong with these people??

i've never seen one little plot of land filled with so many people honking and swearing and giving horrible looks to other people. after i got my gas, i tried to get out and couldn't because so many people were trying to get IN on the wrong side of the entrances. with literally nowhere to turn because i'm surrounded by cars, some idiot decides to start honking me because i haven't vacated the pump yet. uh....hello? honking isn't going to make me dissapear....nor will it clear all the cars in front of me out of the way... it's tourist syndrome man. like yelling at someone who doesn't know english, as if the volume of your voice has anything to do with them understanding what you're saying. ignorance. just......retarded people and their ignorance.

something about saving money seems to bring out the worst in people. if cheap gas can do this to everyday average folk, i'd hate to see what free money or something would do. kind of explains the looting in Iraq huh? we look at the Iraqi people and self-righteously think "thats so sad. how could they do that to their own country? they're so barbaric.....WE would never do that..." we think with that smug superiority complex we seem to have here in the west. and you know....it's b.s. the whole lot of it.

we're exactly the same people. inside and out. the gas station is just a microcosm of harsh reality.....

the eternal battle for king of the buffet continues

one more exam, and in 9 short hours i'll be free. FREE!!

did you know contact solution expires? hm....

There was a special tonight on abc about the dixie chicks, and the recent flak they’ve been getting for the comment made by one of their members that she’s “ashamed pres. Bush is from her state”. Now….i haven’t really talked much about Iraq on the blog, as much as its here for social commentary, because I feel there is no clear cut right or wrong. However, I find American attitudes about the war to be much more unsettling than the actual fighting going on.

An excellent point one of the Dixie chicks said in the interview, one that I think is really quite obvious, and that crazy “patriotic” Americans seem to overlook is that this is clearly, CLEARLY, not a ‘with us or against us’ situation. You CAN be against the war, and still love your country. You CAN disagree with the president and still love your country. The freedom blabber espoused by people who want to kill the Dixie chicks, want to banish them to exile…..it’s just so hypocritical that it’s almost outlandishly ridiculous. You just want to SLAP them and say ‘you’ve GOT to be kidding right??’ Support freedom through conforming you say? Support democracy by subverting your individuality you say? How can you take these people seriously??

And I hate to say it, but it’s a typical knee-jerk reaction by the same (and I’d like to believe) small, but vocal group of people who deep down believe immigrants are stealing their jobs. Who think Marilyn Manson was responsible for columbine. Who blame mcdonalds for being fat. Who sue rock bands for putting on a bad concert.

It’s this ridiculous vocal minority that just gives Americans a bad reputation. Are Americans ignorant? No. I think that’s an absurd comment to make. But there’s this really…REALLY annoying group with the attitude that – hey – you know what? It’s OK to be selectively righteous. To pick and choose when I believe in something and when I don’t.

Don’t listen to r.kelly! he’s a pedophile! Ban him from the radio!
But….it’s ok to listen to 50 cent, an ex crack dealer? It’s ok for every rap video in the world to objectify women and talk about drive by shootings and pimpin ho’s? why don’t you ban rappers who rap about THAT stuff? Is pedophilia suddenly the clear cut line we draw in society for commercial airplay? We don’t mind our kids doing drugs, toting guns and seeing women as trophies as long as they don’t eyeball children?

Jail that 18 year old black kid! He had a dime of weed on him! That’s life in jail! Lock him away! The war against drugs must be fought callously! But oh….poor jenna bush. She gets to go to rehab (and get kicked out of it) over….and over…and over again. Oh, and those rich preppy white guys who were caught with cocaine at their party? They’ll get a warning, maybe a slap on the wrist. It’s ok. They can afford good lawyers.

You have to support the war in Iraq, or you aren’t patriotic! How can you not agree with our president? Go so far as to say you’re ASHAMED of him?? You should be executed for treason!! But….wait a sec. didn’t your wonderful president in his younger days dodge the draft and run from Vietnam so he could go drinking, gambling and lose a crapload of money in failed business ventures given to him from his family? Riiiiight…..

So to people who like to jump on bandwagons…..i just think you should THINK about what you’re saying and whether or not you really believe it. Because honestly. Nothing’s that clearcut! It’s good to have your own opinion! It’s good to filter what you see, you read, you hear! It really is a rampant problem in our society that we just take things at face value, when reality is RARELY what we first see.

ah yes...summer........which means....movies!
i recently saw a couple asian imports i've been dying to watch for a while, hero and spirited away.
Hero i thought was an excellent movie. It's reminiscent of crouching tiger, naturally, but really is a totally different film. in particular, the action scenes in hero are EXCELLENT. even better i would argue then CTHG. there's just something about chow yun fat with a sword that never really struck me right. it should be guns. he just always looks more 'right' holding guns....hm....now i'm in the mood to watch hard boiled......anyways, hero was really good. great cinematogrophy, and a really good story. i thought the final scene was a bit....uh....contrived, but still, it gets its point across.

and spirited away? wow.
probably one of the best anime movies i've ever seen. i couldn't help but be reminded of alice in wonderland by the whole thing, and thinking about it in hindsight i realize that indeed there are some very striking similarities between the two stories. they're both about a young girl thrown into a situation where she has to grow up quickly. they both take place in strange and bizzare worlds that border on scary, but usually leave you more in awe. just.....a great movie. the animation is superb, the story is captivating and refreshingly innocent. in typical style however, and as most high art anime tend to do, the ending was vague and a bit anti-climatic. i've never been a fan of this trend in anime, but for this ending the viewer at least is given some very obvious clues to figure things out for themselves. but overall, i think it's an AMAZING film. Miyazaki's (sp?) best movie in my opinion. i thought princess mononke was good, but a bit over ambitious - biting off more than it could chew. Spirited Away however is just.....this perfect blend of fantasy, childish playfulness, wonderful scenery and animation....it's the real thing.

stupid aki berg.....i argue he single handidly cost us the series. although i reckon if we had made it to ottawa, they probably would have dealt with us pretty handily. we're a team of gimps darnit. old gimps at that.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LEEAAAAAAAFSSSS!!!!!

the heck. microsoft isn't allowing me to use their photo site anymore because i don't subscribe to MSN 8??

those bums. oh well....i'll probably just move to imagestation. i'll let you guys know when i get around to it.

thats the old people across the street. i think they have sars, which explains the yellow caution tape and closing of that hospital entrance.

yes, my house is just full of surprises.

if the leafs don't win this series, i'm going to cry.

yes! wrote my last polisci exam today. freedom!
now for 14 days of relaxation followed by one night of frantic studying for musical theatre on the 30th.

stupid musical theatre....

DID CNN DOCTOR BOOING ON MICHAEL MOORE'S OSCAR ACCEPTANCE SPEECH?

so i noticed this link while surfing around shift earlier. at first i thought "man. i love MM and all, but this just seems a biiiit too paranoid for even me". but out of curiosity, i went and downloaded the video clips. now.....i understand mics can be placed at different places and such, but the ONE dude booing over and over in the CNN clip? wow. he either boo's extremely consistently in volume and tone, or.....

SARS is a chinese biological weapon?

uh.....not to question the intelligence of russian scientists (heck, look at MIR!) but SARS doesn't strike me as incredibly effective at killing people. and the idea that China would accidently let it loose on its own population seems a bit suspect to me. UNLESS it's a REVERSE biological weapon, purposely released onto the chinese BY the chinese for the sole purposes of killing off old people and sick people, thus freeing up valuable resources that would otherwise be alloted to healthcare and allowing for that money to be spent on military research and development.

but frankly, i don't think the chinese are that smart. on the bright side, maybe this means the Canadian armed forces will get a bit of a budget increase too this year. hmmm.......could it be we're getting more leaky submarines for our birthday this summer? huzzah!

random thought for random procrastination: unostentatious is an awfully ironic word.

random quoted nugget of insight: "a quest is just a hike with riddles. and i suck at riddles".

du finds the cooling sensation of shaving cream up his nose helps him sleep after a long hard day. i thought it would be amusing to photograph his habit for future documentation in case i decide to ever do a study on sleep. laugh all you will, but this is scientific data people. take it seriously please.

i don't think i'm smart enough to be in university. i'm writing this essay (due a week ago mind you....) and one of my sources starts off with this line:

"It has become commonplace amongst scholars to recognize that a rethinking of paradigmatic scope is required in light of the macrosocial dynamic of our epoch: globalization"

like....DUDE! who the hell talks like that? i mean, i know what you're saying and all, but come ON man. you're like the educational equivalent of a walking dawsons creek episode! will your friends make fun of you if you don't talk like some smarty pants know-it-all? Are you afraid you'll be kicked out of mensa if you use a term that a grade schooler would understand? is it some sort of running bar bet among publishing prof's to maintain a minimum of 1000 4 syllable words for every paper they publish? like, what the heck? ENGLISH people. speak ENGLISH.

sheesh....epoch. who the hell says epoch....? if anyone i knew used the word epoch in a sentence seriously, i think i'd slap them.

well, outside of discussing chrono trigger i suppose...

neato. the PM will be on campus tomorrow. They'll probably keep him locked away from us like all the other politicians that seem to visit. anyways, the gas to our house has been down, so both our furnace and our stove don't work.

it's not as bad as last time during november i think it was. We could see our breath in our bedrooms that time, but it's still pretty cold in our house now. i would guess around 5-7 degrees in the downstairs bathroom? luckily we all have space heaters for our rooms. damn you you crappy old house......

i've been listening to jason fowler lately. He's a superb guitarist/song-writer from Toronto. he's played at 'cest what a few times too. i keep meaning to go there, but i never seem to have time or company. oh well. it's starting to look more and more like i'll be back home for this summer. woohoo! now if i can only find a job.....

me, vicks and glen at ACF banquet.
the odds that i have a picture (As i rarely take pictures) from an ACF event (which i rarely go to) that turned out so well is crazy.
lets here it for digital camera. they're truly the lazy mans dream.

what do you have to offer the world?
what do you have to offer your friends? your relationships?

think about it.
whats the purpose of it all. it's a pretty good kick in the pants when you actually sit down and think this stuff through....

the only picture that turned out decent from the get up kids concert. i only took like, 9 shots though, so meh. i accidently took some video footage, but only a second's worth as i thought i was taking a photo. in retrospect, i should have taken a clip or two of the show. it's really pretty cool to have video....darn. next time....next time....

thestar.com
Cody said Americans are "hypersensitive" to the fact their so-called coalition of the willing is "pretty thin" and could have used the added legitimacy Canadian backing would have given it.

He said American memory doesn't go back to the First World War, when the U.S. waited three years before joining the fight, or the Second World War, when it waited until the Japanese hit Pearl Harbour on Dec. 7, 1941, over two years after the Germans invaded Poland.

"As a matter of fact, sometimes when you hear American political leaders talking about these things, it's as though the world began on Sept. 11, 2001."

the girls at steph's hamilton pad.

get your war on

oh man, this is too funny. it's how comics SHOULD be.

got around to setting up a hosting site for pictures.
click on the pics button above to see....uh...pics.
whoopee.

we had hotpot yesterday. it was pretty funny.....i think anytime you get 14 people for hotpot, stupidity is bound to ensue. if i've learned one thing from dinner though, it's this:
mushrooms don't belong in your nose.

it might be pretty obvious, but i think i'm in a bit of a photography phase. particularly, i'm really digging faux-artsy pretentious abstract photography like the ridiculous close ups of items from my room that i used for the link buttons you see at the top of the page.

i've been so inspired as of late to just go around taking pictures of everything. unfortunately i don't have a digital camera (and i'm too poor and impatient to use regular film). i think i'll steal my parents digicam this weekend when i go home and never give it back....

anyhow, i don't know exactly what it is about photos that really intrigues me. maybe it's the realization that there's art - beauty, to be ridiculously cliche - in everything. Literally, everything. It's just that we never slow down enough, we never pay attention to the details enough to realize it until someone shows up with a photo, and slows it down to a stop for us. Allowing us to analyse, and appreciate a moment, a face, a setting, everything in the world without the hinderence of being in it. Thats why i appreciate pictures of seemingly random things so much. because to you and me, walking by say, a rack of chocolate bars or something.

It's just a rack of chocolate bars you think. you've seen thousands of them. they're everywhere. it's like seeing the sky, or the ground. It's part of the background of life.

But if you take a photo of a rack of chocolate bars, and you look at it, you begin to see things. you see lines. you see patterns, colour. you see beauty in the everyday. and thats just candy! when you take photos of people, and places, and particularly when you capture a moment that is the essence of our world (read - fast, busy, hectic) and just....stop it. and really...really look into it.

what totally blows me away after thinking about this, is that....even in our puny, finite way, we can use photos to appreciate the nuances and meticulous details we walk by everyday.
can you imagine what it must be like for God? to have created this world which we live in - that we can't even begin to fully appreciate, and to see it in a manner which transcends time and space? how much beauty he must see when he looks down at his works? it's boggling, even from a non-religous sense. considering just the metaphysical....

It almost.....ALMOST helps explain why He won't give up on us huh?

i'd just like to say that i don't find my page particularly "pretty" or "cute".....damn women and their emasculating terms.....

OPRAH-ESQUE?!?!?

i'll kill you.....

me and wen at the cne last summer. ivan took this pic (who else?).
the reflections in the glass make for a pretty interesting frame for our conversation.

connections with other people seem to happen so rarely.
what determines whether or not you're friends with someone for a year? or a week? or for life? why do you feel compelled to stay in touch with certain individuals and not others? what produces the inate comfort level around some people that doesn't materialize when in the presence of others?

lately i've been analysing my relations with people. it may be partly due to an increase in procrastination from all my essays, but i've been thinking how often we under estimate the value of respect in our friendships. the more i thought about it, the clearer to me it became that to forge life-long friendships, a mutual respect must be shared. an almost utilitarian relation must exist, where both parties are made better by being friends with each other. friendships where you don't just like the person because they're funny, or attractive, or charismatic - but because after stripping all the superficiality away, you are left with a human being who inspires you to be a better person yourself. Who you respect enough to trust, to earnestly take to heart and to hold you accountable.

you simply can't maintain a true, meaningful friendship with someone that you don't respect to your utmost ability. i mean, of course you respect your friends. but when you really think about who you absolutely respect the most....and the respect i'm refering to is the level of admiration essentially. how many friends can you say actually make you a better person? how many friends honestly - totally truly honestly - have influenced who you are at your very core. the way you think, the way you see the world, your goals, your purpose, your ambitions? my guess is that when you really weigh all your answers, you will end up with only a handful of names. the rest perhaps influenced your taste in music, your style of dress, your hobbies and mannerisms. but these are things that change. things that are as changing as the connections from which they were borne.

it's wonderful to consider this, because you realize how really cool it is, and refreshing it is to talk to someone and actually be inspired by them.

it happens so rarely. to be inspired not by what someone is doing, but by who they are. it's so simple. yet...so rare.

i was barely concious in front of the tv this afternoon rambling aloud to myself in du and herb's general direction when i realized there's no word for guys when they have affairs with married people. like...women are mistresses....but what are guys?
i sat around in my half dazed state trying to think of a word, but even after looking in the dictionary and thesaurus i still have yet to stumble upon one.

i don't think there IS one.
guys are just.....the other guy. or....bastards.
how odd.

what about... "mancubine"....?

the archives are back up!
ALL of them! i'm amazed! i even recovered the really old ones that i thought i had lost. a good day it has been indeed. and apparently people i don't know stumble onto this site. thats.....a rather hillarious thought. if i saw my web page, i'd probably think i was the biggest dork in the land. speaking of dorks, my essay's a day late already and i've spent the whole day fixing my stupid archives. bah.
oh, and i tacked on a comments feature.
it's pretty tiny, so i don't know if anyone is ever gonna notice it.
but look, at the bottom of the post! there it is!
ooooo....ahhh.....

oh my. classic pensive moment captured by ivan here.
thats bri in the white and me in the red.
i like to think we shared a moment here.

as i recall, i THINK this was a staged photo. at least, i hope it was, or you'd think that they'd have the common courtesy to tell me it looks like i wet my own ass before they took a random candid.

yes, good times...good times....

stole a template and played around with it this morning. thanks to maystar for the original template. it had barbie pictures. which is like...cool.....but uh....perhaps not representative of my interests. anyhow, the link to her site is over there on the right. i haven't figured out how to get my archives working, and as i said before, blogger's being a big pain in the butt, so we'll see how that goes. the essentials are still here, and i guess when i have time to steal the new digicam from my dad i'll throw a new slideshow up. gotta make use of the time we have free before du gets exiled to marriage.

"look at them. smiling, laughing, judging, judging, constantly judging!.....there's still time. she's still 40 feet away"

oh, and begrudgingly i have a guestbook now. keep the insults to a minimum please, i have a fragile psyche.

I HATE BLOGGER

someone jacked my teg.

there will be a brief period of mourning, followed by sheer rage and vindictive bloodlust.

that is all.

we're not going to iraq

it seems everyone has an opinion on the impending war. i honestly don't know what the "right" decision is. but i know that i don't want any Canadians losing their lives for a cause they don't believe in with all their hearts. A cause that as a country we are collectively hesitant to back. To sacrifice their lives alongside allies who are there for seemingly dishonest reasons and have repeatedly forged ahead to this war under the false pretense of justice, and worst of all of doing God's will. Who have chosen war over diplomacy while feigning attempts for peace.

i can't say this war is "wrong". i don't know that it is.

but i know i'm glad we're not part of it, and it makes me proud to know our leaders feel the same way.

just got back from the juliana theory show. i must say i'm sort of dissapointed with it. the venue is small, so it's nice and intimate. unfortunately, it has probably the worst acoustics i've ever heard. this may partially be attributed to a crappy sound tech though, as i swear he had no clue what he was doing. he totally mangled TJT's set, which was a major downer. they played a decent set, but left out a few songs i was hoping they'd play (closest thing, top of the world). so asides from TJT sounding awful and not playing a few of my favourite songs, i guess i could have still considered it a decent night. hopesfall was awful as i expected (i'm not big on unnecessary and arbitrary screaming) and snap-case was alright, but i think they played too long a set, as all the energy they hit the stage with sort of died as the crowd started to get bored towards the end.

also, standing for 4 hours, 1.5 of it outside waiting to get in, and the fact that by butchering TJT's sound the sound techie turned the volume knob up to "painful hangover simulation" my ears are ruined now i think. like, i never thought i'd say this, but it was just TOO LOUD. and if you know me, you know i'm a huge fan of loud, so thats saying a lot....luckily numbness eventually set in....

argh. dissapointing, but i have high hopes for the get up kids show in a few weeks. moneen's one of the openers and i love those guys. plus they're local boys, which make them even cooler. yup. the 28th sure seems far away from now though.....

argh. can't find the new songs:ohia album anywhere.
on the bright side, i managed to snag the new ozma. haven't given it a good listen yet, but at first skim it seems like they've evolved their sound a bit. still extremely ozma (imagine weezer meets...uh....the rentals...and you start to get the idea) but they've definately toned down the smiles and are a bit more moody. passive agressive angst is the dish of the day it seems. as blue album as they used to be, this is a bit more like pinkerton.

either way, they're still weezer circa mid 90's incarnate.
which is cool.

can't wait for the juliana theory show tonight....been on like, a show hunting binge lately. kinda dissapointed i missed the chance to catch hey mercedes over reading week, but tonight and the get up kids show should make up for it.

ah music. where would the world be without you.

so i thought i'd see how the communicam works indoors but using natural light. not too bad actually. this is a picture from my desk of the hospital across the street where the old people sleep. i can't help but be paranoid and think there's some crazy old guy with a telescope watching me.......
annnnnyways, i've said too much....
i guess this is my feeble first stab at....uh...communicamography? wow, thats a mouthful. but yea, i think it turned out fairly well all things considering. hm....if i ever bothered to go to class, maybe it'd be interesting to see how beautiful the little things on campus can be. great, now i'm getting all artsy fartsy. ew...

i'm sleepy. hopefully more pics to come?

do you think it's likely that after a while of hearing yourself sing, you just become desensitized to how awful you sound?

i mean, surely it would explain american idol auditions.

"you're the worst singer in the world"
"i don't think i'm THAT bad"
"please kill me now"
"i don't think i'm THAT bad"
"NEXT!"
"did i make it??"

anyhow, it's just funny, because i like, can't sing for crap. but for some reason, after a while of hearing my own voice, i start to think more and more that hey. i'm not so bad. then like, an hour later, i'll hear my voice again and i'll be like.....yo. i blow. fo sho. like a ho. what da dilly yo?

word.

but yes....so i've been up for like, the oddest 10 hour block you could have, and at 6am this morning me and gabe were at UCC doing basketball drills for fun. then after 2 hours of practice and shooting around, we played for another hour and a half. i think i need a stunt double or something to live my silly daily life, because at this rate, i'm stupiding myself to death.

lets all say it together now:
"silly simon. you're a retard"

there. isn't everyone's day that much better now?

smile!

this game amused me for a good half hour

it would be pretty boring were it not for the crazy dutch guy screaming at you the whole time.....hehhehheh.....CLASSIC!

i just watched that movie simone, about the virtual actress.

i like, don't get the ending...

a while back, ry was telling me about this toronto band called "broken social scene" that i had never heard of (gasp) but was suppose to be really really good.

so i've spent the last like, month, trying to find their album.
and i finally did it earlier tonight.
it took me so long to get it.
between the quest for this album, and stupid midnite challenge, i haven't slept at all tonight and i'm suppose to go play basketball in an hour.

and you know what blows? i saved up SO MUCH MONEY to buy a ferarri 360 modena. and it won't let me buy a supercharger or turbocharger for it!! my WRX was running faster then this stupid ferarri that i saved so much money for! so i sold it right away, crying as i clicked my mouse. unphased, i went over to porche and got myself a slightly cheaper but equally fun porche 911 turbo.

but guess what? NO TURBOCHARGER UPGRADE!
arrrrgh.....

anyhow....enough griping.....

the album (you forgot it in people) is amazing. it actually sounds a lot like the new yo la tengo album if you'd like a gauge of sorts. it's indie-pop bliss. music that you remember, and gets stuck in your head, yet you can have in the background as you study without starting to grate on your nerves after the second run through (my personal test of album quality). i'd go into more detail, but i'm going to try sleeping for 15 minutes.

apparently it's sold at HMV. if i weren't so damn cheap and such an mp3 pirate, i might have heard this album a long time ago. alas, i'm really cheap and i'm a huge mp3 pirate, so it's taken me a few months to track this sucker down and bask in its glory as it mellowly washes over my sleep deprived soul.

according to du, if i attempt uberman sleep for a month, i'll die.
so what harm could two days do right? riiiiight.....to baketball i go.....

hehhehheh....
the new terry tate commercial is out.

DID YOU READ YOUR MEMO'S GUNTHER??!!

achtung baby.

wow.

me and herb just watched voices from a distant star and i have to say it's possibly one of the best, if not THE best anime i've ever seen.
(btw, opuszine is one of the best sites on the net for music and indie/foreign film reviews, including anime. they also have a great random links section which leads to many of my hours being wasted. bookmark it now. NOW!)

taken outside the anime box, it stands alone as possibly one of the best written short films i've seen in a long time. It's what every anime should aspire to accomplish, using the powers of limitless creativity to develop and realize a story which only could be made to its full intended potential through animation. In the span of 25 minutes, Voices... manages to develop two characters and a relationship which you can't help but fall for. (read the review for a fuller synopsis. my little rant is just to gush over how great it is)

it's absolutely wonderful. it reminds me a bit of waking life in it's narrative style, which is a testimony to Makoto Shinkai's raw artistry and talent.

storytelling at it's best. find a way to watch it. i'll lend you my burned copy, as i feel you're somehow a deprived individual if you haven't seen this.

i just realized ironically is a real word.
i was thinking ironical.

thats what happens when you stay up all night reading about sleeping....let this be a lesson to you all, kiddies.

why am i still awake at 6:30 in the morning you may ask?
that's a fair question.
ironically (it's a word if i say it is dammit) i've been up reading about 'Uberman sleep'.
it's essentially depriving yourself of REM sleep to the point that your body goes into REM right when you fall unconcious (normaly in a 7-8 hour sleep you get about 1.5 hours of REM). REM is basically when your brain works out all its kinks. without it, we'd all go nuts.

so moving on.....'Uberman sleep' is a cycle where you purposely deprive yourself of REM sleep for a few days until your brain adjusts and goes into it instantly. This allows for the replacing of extended sleep with REM naps of about 15 minutes or so. In theory, this should give you an extra 6 hours of waking time every day. rather attractive no? i mean, i'm already up at 4am every night, i might as well be fully rested and productive.

Traditionally you see, it's believed we are naturally monophasic sleepers. meaning, we rest and sleep in one big sleep in order to get our rest and healing and such. It's believed the same benifits could be gained from sleeping several periods instead of the one though. this is essentially called polyphasic sleep.

would anyone care to delve into an experimental phase of this with me?
if not, and you see talking to invisible people while walking around campus in nothing but my socks....uh...don't laugh too hard. i'm liable to kill you without realizing it.

i realize you all think i'm insane, so i thought i'd provide some information to help persuade you all to join the dark side. like...literally. we'll be up all night.
imagine....6 extra hours a day! think of all the procrastinat....uh....i mean, studying, we could do. yea.....studying....

previous individuals experiences and experiments with Uberman Sleep

story 1
story 2

or you could just look up polyphasic sleep on google. there's a ton of info out there i was surprised to discover.

you know, i've noticed strangely enough that there seems to be a bit of a pick up in traffic 'round these parts lately. it seems more people for some reason or another have discovered this page of irrational ranting.
i'm hearing the words "i read your blog" more in the last 2 weeks than i have in the last 2 years. which is odd....because in high school i was all for telling the world about my site redesigns and whatnot, but nowadays i sort of just throw all sorts of trippy crap up here because i know everyone who reads this already knows i require institutional help. it's a bit spooky thinking people who think i'm normal are wandering around here and the archives, not-so-slowly realizing i'm a total wierdo.....

anyhow, in the spirit of sharing i suppose, i think i'll share some links i frequent. we're all better off when we're more informed. not necessarily BETTER informed mind you. just.....more. here's a few of my daily clicks:

Harper's index and weekly review provide for some of the most interesting, humorous and obscure information about mostly poltics, but happenings around the world in general. The facts are everywhere if you look hard enough, and Harper's is one of those places that pokes fun at the reality of the situation while presenting it clearly

ever read Vice? It's that free magazine you can pick up at the trendy/bohemian stores along Queen W. and SoHo and stuff. based out of montreal, this little publication is even greater online because you can access an online archive of past issues. there's nothing that perks up my day more then reading the latest do's/don'ts .

here's one of my favourite examples of a classic "don't"...


Just when you’re sitting there thinking, “where the fuck did French Canadians hear that wearing huge women’s earrings is acceptable?” his Mom pops out of the crowd and is like, “Quoi? Aaah une photo!” and jumps in there with her fucking biker shorts on. And then you’re like “Oh.”

actually.....the more i look at this page, the more i'm bored of it.
once i have some free time, it's time for another major revamp.
it seems like the only thing i go through faster then page designs is basketball shoes.....

anyhow, i don't remember who told me this (i think it was ivan..) but SOMEONE told me that to achieve optimal efficiency and productivity, the best sleeping pattern is to sleep 24 hours, then work 24 hours, and so on and so forth.

i've been thinking about this lately, what with my ridiculous sleeping patterns and all (just look at the time of most of my posts) and i just don't buy it. like, first of all, isn't it extremely hard to sleep 24 hours?

i mean, is it even humanly possible to sleep 24 hours?! my personal record is 18 hours, and even that i generally consider to be 1 part impressive and 2 parts disturbing. plus the circumstances surrounding that coma were unique indeed. how could someone possibly sleep 24 hours every other day? furthermore, wouldn't sleeping all that time make you even more tired? oversleep tends to do that i find, and to be able to work efficiently for 24 hours straight after sleeping a day seems like an absurd proposition to me. i mean....maybe if you're on speed and k or something, but even then i think you'd be much to trippy to sleep at all.

meh. maybe i'll try it one week when i have nothing else to do.
whats the worst that could possibly happen......hm....

i feel like i'm never going to finish reading atlas shrugged.
it's like, the longest book eeeeeeeeevvvvvveeeeerrrrr.....

i've renewed it FOUR times and i'm only 2/3 of the way through.
momma goat....

we FINALLY made a big trade.
mmmm....nolan.
one or two more smart deals and we could be a real threat this year.

woohoo!

it seems proboards (the fine folk who provide us with a free message board) moved to a newer, bigger and faster server. yay!

unfortunately, this means it'll take a while for most of our web hosts to find and connect with the changed DNS host.

(in laymans terms, you won't be able to access the board for anytime between a few hours to a day).

i played with my camera phone while we waited for pizza hut buffet to open on sunday. (yes, we waited outside for pizza hut to open. we're that gluttonous). the pictures are eerily high quality i have to say. i forsee much more picture taking happening. i'll likely have to open another phantom member account with rogers. the sad part is, the phonecam only works this well in outdoor lighting. i guess that significantly limits my artistic opportunities, but i guess the only times i'm indoor anyways is when i'm at home or in class.

my aspirations for being an imitation lomographer may be possible yet!

so we had one of those crazy theological discussions during mens cell tonight and i'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

i've taken religous philosophy, but really, there are no answers i found that satisfied me. the closest answer being just that - there is no answer that we can understand or that can satisfy us. we cannot begin to comprehend God's will.

but anyhow, we were talking about the whole free-will, God's will, predetermination thing.

see, if our (human kind's) blessing from God is free will, and if God knows everything, then naturally God realizes that some people are going to go to hell. God knows this before He creates them.
which is perplexing in and of itself. why create us if we're destined to be seperated from him eternally? i don't think we can ever know this i guess, but i'm one of those people that needs to think about stuff like this.

furthermore, if God knows the outcomes of our decisions, and he knows whether we will end up in hell or by his side, then do we truly have free will? Chris brought up the fact that knowledge does not translate into will. meaning, just because God knows what we'll choose, it takes nothing away from the fact that we are making our own decisions. He knows we'll choose to turn away, but it's still our free choice.

this.....doesn't sound right to me. at all.
this isn't free will by my definition, and i think, by a logical definition of the phrase. say there are two doors, one is real and blue, and one is a green door that is just a construction built to resemble a door. It doesn't open, because the maker of the door and the path you're on knows that you will never EVER open this door. you will always choose the blue. like people who have double doors at the front of their house. but only one opens. you call the one that opens the "real" door, and the dead one a "fake" door don't you?

the definition of a door is something that opens and leads somewhere right? a door has to open. it has to have another side to it to be a real door. otherwise, it isn't a real door, is it?

so with our decisions in life.....if God knows the outcome of every decision we make, doesn't it mean that we are unable to make a decision other then that in God's knowledge? he is infallible after all.

If God knows who is going to end up in hell, does this mean those people have a chance to go to heaven? no. they can't. because if they end up in heaven, God would be wrong wouldn't he? unless God knew he would end up in heaven. but then it's just vice versa isn't it?

man, i'm totally rambling, but i think i've made my point somewhat clear. the strange thing is, stuff like this hasn't dented my faith. if anything, i've been asking so many questions the last few years, and i'm slowly (agonizingly slowly) beginning to realize some answers. but still. this is the type of stuff i think about when i should be writing about the effectiveness of pressure groups lobbying to influence public policy. wheeeee

so i was walking through the library today, and i saw this photocopier just spewing out copies and no one was around.

upon closer inspection, the copier was making 64 copies of lined paper with the following written on it:

to those who don't know better
to those who just don't know
to those who care to lend a hand
to those who could care less

and a large drawing underneath it of a slice of swiss cheese.

i'm not sure what it meant, but i believe i will interpret it as this:

drinking expired milk is like, totally not cool.

i don't know if i've ever posted three days in a row before.
have i? i'm not sure. it may be some sort of record.

anyhow, i'm all self concious about what i throw up here now.
why? because my roomates think i'm a manic depressive or something. thats right. you. the two fools reading this right now.
yea, i'm talking about you.

am i really that bad? i mean sure.....my occasional "life is meaningless" post and vague allusions to deep rooted self-esteem issues may seem at first like indications that i require some sort of psychological therapy, and the fact that when you two sleep at night i have to contain my nervous twitching and the voices in my head from taking over and killing you in your beds, but who hasn't gone through that here and there? i mean really, lets be honest here.

if ANYONE needs an intervension, it's duane. why? because my dear boy, rape and love are simply not the same thing.

oh. wait. interVENSION. i thought you said toddler booty. whats so good about it? "it's easy?" DAMN STRAIGHT.

ok, now you officially think i'm crazy. my job here is done. wrap your heads around THIS one you bums. try and analyze ME.....
*slowly falls asleep on floor in fetal position while still muttering to myself*

anyhow, i've been reading other people blogs. like, some people i know and some people i only know OF. and man. my blog is friggin boring. so i've decided i'm going to do two things, one of which may only further cement the 'simon has lost it' theory.

i'm going to start doing more things then watching basketball.
i'm going to start making things up.
yes, you heard me. i'd like to see you try and figure out what parts of my life are real. huh? not up to it you say? WUSS.

i'm gonna start lying from now on. maybe it's tomorrow, maybe it's right now and i'll never lie. thats for you to figure out. c'mon. what you got, BITCH?

sleepy makes me dumb. and profane, apparently.

I'M GOING TO AFRICA!

wow. technology is so cool.

i remember wanting a webcam so bad a while back, and now this dinky little camera that attatches to my cell phone takes excellent quality photos in outdoor lighting.

crazy.
i hope by the time i have a job, someone invents the star trek food maker thingy. mmmm....instant food.....

reading week came and went rather quickly.
it's always a bit of a letdown having to return to school.
it's like western is the "real world", which is ironic, because i know that in actuality it's probably the last sheltered existence i'll get to live.

i suppose i can't freeload forever. it's true....it's true.

the whole concept of blogs leads me to wonder if we (society on a whole) have a problem with communication? i mean, certainly it must be concluded that the massive appeal of blogs is that people pour their souls out into these things. they details their lives, they divulge their deepest thoughts, fears, emotions. It's a journal, a best friend. It's somewhere they can just put everything inside into words, and the comfort lies not in sharing all this to people. but simply that you MAY be sharing this with people.

bloggers tend to share things on their site, intimate things which they normally wouldn't share in person, or in a real conversation. so why do so many find solace in blogging? are we truly so devoid of contact with others? with enough connections that we are left emotionally unsatisified, only to have our thirst for confessions and venting sated by the anonymous ranting of our websites? to hide behind the fact that we can reveal our vulnerablilities without doing so in person, and thus retaining a semblance of mystique?

if so, it really has to get you thinking. why can't we share these thoughts in person with our friends? why is it easier to talk about this stuff to dozens, or even hundreds of acquaintances and strangers?

maybe we'd all be a bit more emotionaly stable if we'd just let people in a bit more, instead of being so guarded. the world has taught us to be cynical. to expect the worst. to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of at every corner, because if we allow it to happen, it will happen quickly and often. That everyone is out to get you, and it's everyone for themselves.

this is true to a extent i guess.
but conversely, what good is putting up impenetrable exteriors when we're dead inside?

ahhhh.....there's nothing quite as satisfying as throwing a good mix-tape together. or i guess in our day and age a mix-cd. whatever. i think the term mix-tape has more artistic integrity. anyhow, it's such fun....deciding what kind of mix you want.....choosing appropriate songs.....listening and listening over and over and rearranging tracks to flow together, maintain coherence and thematic lines, carry moods, set up the listener......yes. so very satisfying....

on the sad side, i've put an avril lavigne song on my latest mix.
i feel like i'm secretly hiding a drug addiction or something by listening to her. i should KNOW BETTER. but it's such an easy indulgence......haha........

kill me now.

i think i miss Toronto.

i need some direction....

it seems people get sad about being single around feb 14th.
frankly, this baffles me.

it isn't the big, contrived, extravagent things in relationships that should be important. it's the little things. how come no one ever gets jealous when they see someone remembering to call their bf/gf? when they give them a ride somewhere way outta the way? when they talk wee hours into the night because it's nice to have someone listening and actually caring? to bitch to? to be totally honest with and have no fear of judgment?

as much as i love being single, this is the stuff i feel i'm missing out on. not.....cuddling sessions and giving giant stuffed animals......expensive dinners out, yadda yadda.....

all that crap....it's fleeting. you don't remember the time someone gives you a toy or whatever.

you remember when they were the only person who you needed. those moments happen everyday. not on valentines day. in fact, sometimes it seems like people get swept up by this commercial crap, and turn this day into the day most people forget the little things.

THATS what makes me sad.
being romantic isn't topping yourself over and over again.
it's being trustworthy....dependable.....consistant....
the virtues society seems to be losing by the day.

why does western's reading week have to be a week after every other schools? it's ridiculous.....is it so hard to take the same week off as every other student in the province?

whatever....i don't have enough classes per week anyways to mert complaining. but still....it bugs the piss out of me.

in other news, i've gone to all my classes in the last 2 weeks or so. we'll see how long this lasts....

Breaking Baseball News.

it was bound to happen.

yikes. i've been downloading albums at a speedy clip lately.
some standouts:

Idlewild - The Remote Part:
although i never got around to getting their first album (100 broken windows) i have heard most of it before and i must say this new album is a bit of a departure from their previous sound. Although they had a raw, punkish sound last album, the scottish boys also were much more in touch with their folk sensibilities on that album. The Remote Part sounds much more polished, with an almost prototypical pop-punk sound on songs like "(i am) what i am not" and "out of routine".
all in all however, it's a catchy album with some good riffs. Not groundbreaking but superbly done, and certainly a step forward towards more mainstream success for these guys.

Koufax - Social Life:
Unlike their labelmates at Vagrant, koufax don't perscribe to the mall-punk cliche at all, instead producing a NY garagey sound mated with ben folds-type pop. The piano really keeps it going on this album, and it's a cool, fun change of pace from new-wave wanna be bands like the datsuns. garage is the new grunge? whoop-de-doo.....but anyhow, this album is amazing. the lyrics are a bit bland, but the sogns are thrown together with an organic appeal, especially considering these guys are still young and growing. excellent album.

Zwan - Mary Star Of The Sea:
well, surprise surprise, it sounds like the second coming of SmaPum circa siamese dream. which certainly isn't a bad thing. Billy's dropped the rock-god get up (externally at least, we all know the ego isn't going anywhere) and is trying to get back to his indie roots. And he succeds to a certain extent. The songs are great, particularly the first single "honestly" and "endless summer", which swells with the catchy riffs and solos that personified classic pumpkins. it would fit right alongside "today" and "cherub rock". The best part of the album is probably the very last song however, "come with me". Corgan goes totally lo-fi and produces a song that sounds like michael stipe is his muse. there's a harmonica dammit! It's a songwriters song, which is something that can't be said of almost everything since Adore. very impressive. If this album had been full of songs that were all as good as the closer, it wouldn't be as....well.....bland. So nothing new here, but if you dig the sound, it's certainly listenable, with songs that'll be stuck in your head all day.

Massive Attack - 100th Window:
this album lacks the edge, and drama and epic mood of their earlier work. It's an excellent album, but i found myself using it as background music for reading and surfing the net. It just doesn't capture the listener like their older stuff.

The Ataris - So Long Astoria:
you KNOW you're an mp3 pirate when you're reviewing albums not slated to be released for another few weeks.....but anyhow. The Ataris have left any pretensions of being a credible punk band at the door, and have flung themselves full fury into the emo-pop-punk scene which they were being drawn into with their last album anyways. But it's still a wicked album, typical ataris catchiness, energy and wierd but appropriate voice overs, mixed with slower emo sing-alongs. If u dug their earlier stuff, or similar bands like rufio, you'll enjoy this.

Other Stuff:
The Early November - For All This (6/10)
The Lyndsey Diaries - The Tops Of Trees Are On Fire (4/10)
The Used - The Used (6/10)
System Of A Down - Steal This Album (7/10)
Further Seems Forever - How To Start A Fire (8/10)
Nas - Gods Song (8/10)
Missy Elliot - Under Construction (9/10)
Bjork - Greatest Hits (9/10)

well...it took me months and months of procrastination, but i finally got around to watching punch drunk love. i have to say it's pretty much what i expected - and it's amazing.

i imagine people who didn't like magnolia probably would find this movie a bit...uh.....pointless. but then again, if you didn't like magnolia.....well....you suck.

the components of our lives are either incredibly monotonous, or incredibly depressing. it seems the peaks don't seem to fare more than a glimpse in our memories....or at least, we don't reserve much more than a glimpse of them in our minds. we tend to dwell on the darker side of things.

which is exactly the problem with people today it seems. it's become an epidemic of sorts in our society. rampant cynicism. now...i know i very well could be the last person in the world to rant about being jaded.....but i mean.....it's not like i don't know it's a cyclical state of mind. sure...i could go out there and make a concious effort to be optimistic and happy and cheerful all the time. And you know what? I would probably make the world a better place by proxy.

i've written two paragraphs...and i could go on for another 20 pages. ranting on and on about the ultimate futility it seems we deal with every day when we wake up. the pointlessness.....the meaningless existence. and i don't deny it. it's the easiest way to face the world. to look deeper and see the beauty in life takes effort. it takes strength. and we aren't all up to that challenge. but it makes the time go by easier. so once in a while.....just.....decide to have a day where you literally stop and smell the roses. you never know what's around the corner....

what happend in the skies over the southern united states this morning is absolutely tragic. may God be with the family and friends of the space shuttle columbia.