amilliamilliamilliamilli

It's official; The most terrible rapper alive is also the most popular.  This isn't at all surprising considering the track record of popular music.  As I write this, Lady Gaga is rated #1 on Billboard, so use that as a measuring stick.  Lil Wayne is the Lady Gaga of hip hop, and I say that with the utmost sincerity.

I was once suckered into thinking Lil Wayne MIGHT be talented after Chris played me Milli.  I liked that song and still do.  But after one Wayne screams into his microphone for a million hours, eventually something came out sounding good.  Or maybe he didn't have anything to do with what was good about the song.  All I know is that I listened to lots of what he put out (he has like 1700 songs) and couldn't find anything else good.  All it was was him crying whining and bragging about how awesome he is and how he likes to have sex with random women.

Still, even when I don't like something, I like to figure out why other people like things.  So I saw a documentary on Lil Wayne and decided to check it out and maybe get some more insight.  Instead I just ended up putting myself through a 1 hour 15 minutes ego fest of a delusional boy with diamond and platinum and shit in his mouth.  Minus the part at the end of the documentary where he apparently told the director to go fuck himself and they just cut and pasted a bunch of stock footage of him smiling in slow motion.

For starters, he's not even into banging women.  Throughout the documentary he states repeatedly that he doesn't have time for women and isn't interested anyway; he just wants to smoke blunts and drink syrup (cough syrup no i'm serious) and make music.  As admirable as that is, why does he rap about being hard and banging women?  Isn't keeping it real about singing about what you actually do and like to do instead of pandering to the audience.  Do his fans even think he's hard?  He isn't.  If you don't believe me watch the documentary.  He is a money hungry corporate owned egomaniac who can rap but cannot sing without the help of his fakeass voice modulation studio faking his inflections and emotion for him and telling him who his new sponsor is and what advertisement to wear today.  Good job living the american dream.

the costs of working

Working in an office environment is strange.  We have only been working in offices for a microscopic amount of time in evolutionary history.  So it seems like we will eventually figure it out, but that aint yet.  I witnessed this interaction where an employee went in to talk to a manager, and the manager was audibly irritated at them, asking questions like what about this and that, and then building to what do we (as a company) care?  I can understand he was busy and stuff, but it was painful to watch because the employee was actually trying to be helpful and proactive, and his boss didn't see this at all.

I don't pretend to have social skills, but I think we all need to be more aware that when we are getting annoyed at someone, it is because of internal reasons we get annoyed and probably not because what they are saying/doing.  Although people can be purposefully be annoying, these are jokes and should be treated as such.  The rest of the time, the person is trying to do something.  I don't know what because it's always different.  But when they approach you in an office environment, it is awkward and unsure to begin with, and the individuals have their own things going on and life crap that is on in the back of their mind.  Very few people only think about and deal with work when they are at work, and although work dominates our lives time wise our minds are always trying to escape it because few people enjoy their job and some of those people are mentally imbalanced workaholics.

Since you probably know the other person better than I do, you can tell yourself points of trivia about the person, why they formulated what they are saying, what they may be actually trying to say.  Reading between the lines is a very valuable skill.  Try to bunch all your anger inside instead of displacing it onto coworkers who in all likelihood are put off being where they are at the moment.  Then release it when appropriate on a punching bag or maybe a cardboard cutout.

Moldy Chair!

My roommate mentioned to me that the landlord was wondering if we are going to get rid of my favorite chair.  At the time, the chair was outside, due to the fact that one of my other roommate's friends is such an alcoholic that he, in a drunken stupor, pissed on my favorite chair.  I was mortified of course, because it was worn out in places and the foam was exposed.  If the chair had been in better shape, it's leather outer coating could have easily deflected even the most ammonia heavy of urines.  But as it was in the shape it was in, I was just disgusted and didn't want to have anything to do with it.  So I dumped it outside in the mid summer, and it seemed fine.  Problem being, I never hang out outside my house anywhere, so I forgot all about it, and in came the rainy season.  So when I went to look at it, I realized that my landlord was being perfectly reasonable.  It was soaked with the constant rain that we've been getting all October, and it was black and yellow with mold.

Looking at the chair again, I couldn't forget how much I loved it, even though it was moldy and gross.  So I made a plan to resurrect the chair - I would remove the moldy gross parts, and rebuild it with new foam and cheap leather.  I took it apart last night and got some measurements for the parts i need to replace.  I washed the pieces of leather that are still usable, and I wiped the frame down with some bleachy water.  My next step is to track down this upholstery repair guy I got the number of back when I decided I was gonna do this, and see if he can help me out.

the stuff dreams are made of

So I've been having some intense dreams lately.  I'm paying even more attention to them after I watched a documentary about dreams and that they are a way for our brains to learn and 'practice' things.  we generally have positive dreams during non-rem sleep, and more negative dreams during rem sleep.  According to a scientist in Montreal, who catologues a huge dream database, about 3/4 of all dreams are negative.  This is kind of a relief to me, who has had disturbing messed up dreams my whole life.  Apparently its NORMAL.  Someone in the thing also said that 50% of people are able to consiously think about something the night before, and then dream about it.  I have been able to do this occasionaly but I think I need some more practice.  I also maybe need to pick easy topics since I pick abstract things I want to get better at.

I've always wanted to keep a dream journal, but I just can't do it.  When I wake up from a dream I always think I will remember it all, OR I really want to get back to sleep and I can't be bothered to write shit down or I wont be able to sleep as easily.  I really like sleep, but I regret times like saturday morning when I dreamt about something funny and woke up laughing uncontrollably.  I'd probably be rich off whatever that was, but oh well I'm sure my brain can come up with something funnier.

Scary dreams, as I was told, are supposed to be to prepare us for the dangers that our ancestors used to face, but we quickly thought/invented our way past.  Mostly wild animals, I expect, but my bad dreams, like last night for example, often involve ghosts.

Last night I dreamt I was staying in this one room cabin with like 4 other people, all sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor, and for some reason the cabin was on the stilts (i think it was in the swamp) and so was 2 or 3 stories up.  We knew the cabin was haunted, but it was the only place we could stay.  While we were all sleeping, someone woke everyone up because the ghost had brushed past them.  Soon enough, a bit later, I felt the ghost brush past me (for some reason i knew it was an old lady, and she hobbled and walked slowly).  Finally, at one point, the ghost grabbed me by the shoulders and slid me clear across the room, almost sending me out the window except i managed to roll out of the way at the last second.

Now thats all well and good, but how does that help me?  Does my brain think I deal with ghosts on a regular basis, and that's something that I need to be wary of?  I think I just watch to many horror movies.

kerchung!

So the last few times I have been in the bathroom I thought I should probably clean it.  I dont need to clean it, and it certainly isn't my sole responsibility to clean it, but I'm the kind of person that thinks things wont' get done if I don't do them myself.  So there I go thinking about doing something without doing it.  I really don't want to do it.  This picture isn't my bathroom, but it is kinda gross in there, and cluttered.  It probably wouldn't even take that long to clean it.  What's stopping me?  Is it good old fasion procrastination?  Do I feel like I shouldn't do it.  Probably the worst feeling about cleaning is that you know it's going to get dirty again, immediately after you finish cleaning it.  And also I hate it when I'm cleaning and hairs are stuck to everything.  It takes some effort to get hairs dislodged from a wet surface.  Let me know if you know an easy way to eliminate the hair problem, and maybe I'll be motivated enough to clean the bathroom.

Zomberland

So I sucked it up and went to go see Zombieland last week.  I had reservations and a good idea of what it would be like, but I went to go see it anyway.
I was actually pretty surprised however by the first 5 minutes, which was filled with lots of zombie gore and death, which set the tone for the rest of the movie, which was nothing like the first 5 minutes.  The rest of the movie was campy and devoid of plot, story or interesting characters or character development.  Instead it was a nerds wet fantasy, being that there aren't very many people, and those that are around are good looking people.  There is free stuff, no real danger, and lots and lots of pop culture references.  If there was a zombie apocolypse, Zombieland would be the reality tv show of an otherwise horrific scenario.

I could complain about all the different multitude of problems with the movie, but instead I'll just tell you that it's a good looking, uninspired feel-good campfest.  Come to think of it, gore aside it fits perfectly into the category of romantic comedy.  That's right, an awful romantic comedy with zombies far, far in the background.

I'm long past cynical, but hollywood has beaten the shit out of zombie movies over the past decade.  There are so many, and they are pretty much the same and aside from Shaun of the Dead (I liked it even though it was kind of a romantic comedy too...difference being I actually found it funny) only the original and remake of Night of the Living were amazing and anyone else who has tried to make a movie since has totally missed the point.  Yes your zombie gore and special effects are amazing, good job.  Oh yes and the fast movie zombies are so scarey and terrifying.  There I just pooped my pants, here take this poop as a testament to your amazing movie making skills.

I got sick lately.  I don't get sick too often, and I hate it, probably more than you do.  This wasn't a normal sickness, either.  This was a viscous organism with vampire teeth and blood oozing from it's body.  My roomate brought it home from the hospital where he works.  He also spread it to the entire house the same night he caught it.  my other friends got sick too within a day or two.  I've never seen anything like it.  Some people had fevers, but I guess I was lucky and got by without that or even a sore throat.  But I got all the other crap - chest cough runny nose and achiness.

Its been a few days now, and we are starting to recover, taken days off work, but of course I was still not quite over my sickness when I had to go back to work since I used all my sick days.  Its funny because the whole point of sick days is that 1)It gives that person time to rest and 2) Stops the rest of the company from getting sick because that will lower net productivity.

Of course most people in charge of productivity and sick days either cant' see that many steps ahead (beyond giving employees the bare minimum mandated by government) or they are ordered to by executives to do so.  In any case, people who are sick always end up working and probably spread it around a bit.
The first day I called in to say I was sick my supervisor, who is an older gentleman, and the first thing on his mind was, of course, swine flu.

"You should go to the doctor and get checked.  It is very serious."

"Yeah okay." I replied politely.  I did end up calling the nurse hotline, 811 in Canada, who went through a list of questions and then told me my symptoms weren't severe enough (no vomiting or fever) so she said that only the severe cases did they want tested.  Here again I am amazed and the bizzare logic of the situation, since if you are that sick and you go into a doctors office, sure as hell the other sickies are gonna catch it from you.  Way to spread around the most contagious flu known to man, sickie.

Seriously though, I don't actually believe in swine flu.  Thats a fairy tale that only old people and people that watch Fox News believe in.

Shame it's everywhere

Check out this fatty.  He was the Ontario Minister of Health until he resigned because 1 BILLION dollars was wasted on electronically logging the populus of Ontario.  Apparently the money is gone, but there is no system.  Over 300 consultants were consulted between 30 ministry employees and nobody seems to have anything to show for it.  And that's not even the worst part.

Look at the minister.  He's the minister of HEALTH.  He is a massive pusbag that looks more ham than civil servant.  This man is supposed to represent our best health interests but he looks like he drinks hollandaise milkshakes for breakfast with his double monte cristos.  Can you imagine being from any other country and seeing this as the MINISTER OF HEALTH?  If I were from Norway and I saw the Ontario Minister of Health, I would probably laugh, and then go skiing.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Stephen Harper represents our whole country.  He is a national shame, who can only hide in the shadows and govern poorly and make everything a vote of confidence then blame douchebag Iggy for trying to wreck the government.  You're terrible Stephen, but everyone else is terrible, and Canadians don't really like change for the most part.  Canada has no leaders, and I can't help but think it's being done on purpose somehow.  STOP WRECKING MY COUNTRY YOU HACKS.  I've been tempted to get into politics but I don't have the charisma.   But then how did Stephen get in here?  He is the epitome of ridiculous.  I swear his nose is like a bulb.  How do we get a decent leader into a party that people don't hate, and then get them elected?

WOWOWOWOWOWOW

Let me tell you something about the internet: it's full of people that hate themselves, their life, and by extension the world in general, including you.  Don't take it personal.  But let me teach you some internet lingo.

WOW

or you can say

WOW.   JUST WOW.
Caps is optional.  In the context of the internet, you can say it during games.  It came from video games, but you can use it in any kind of game, even sports.  What it means is that you played particularly horribly, where even an infant or elderly grandmother who has never seen a computer before could pull better moves and not screw up as bad as you just did.

On the bright side though, since the term is already so used, they are basically just spouting rhetoric at this point, leaving them wide open to a witty counter!  My favorite so far was when two friends were playing, and one wow'ed the other, and the guy responded with "Don't wow me Julian".  Solid gold.  I'm not the wittiest guy in the world, so I often just like to sarcastically say wow over and over until everyone shuts up.  But you should be creative and come up with something funnier.

I Like Food

I'm sure you feel the same way.  There isn't too many people I know who are like eww no get that delicious food away from me.  So I guess I was being a little naive when I decided to go out with some friends Friday night for some pub fare and found out that every place is busy.  everywhere.

Apparently there is an old saying that goes "if you want to lose money, own a restaurant".  I don't see how that could be true Friday night, where every table is busy and every waitress wishes they were anywhere else.  I don't know how much it costs to keep a restaurant running, but with the prices being what they are in Victoria, you have a hard time convincing me all restaurants are poor.  Victoria, being a tourist town, has a crapload of restaurants...so many that lots of them shut down during the winter because apparently their food is so shitty they need tourists who know nothing about them to keep them running.

People in Victoria like to eat food.  I've seen it.  And it's not like people don't have the cash.  Can you imagine a restaurant that is so shitty that even ravenous, loaded SUV's full of yuppies won't go to them.  Here's a tip about owning a restaurant: DONT MAKE SHITTY FOOD.  It might be cheap, but people won't come back, and its regular customers that keep your restaurant going.  I am a regular to some places around town, like the Italian Food Imports on Blanshard and the Fiesta Cafe at Douglas and Broughton.  I can tell they appreciate the regulars, because they make good food.  It's not gourmet or chichi fifi gimmick food.  Its decent portions for decent prices, and it tastes good.

One other tip, don't ever order pizza from Sarpino's.  It's worth than eating a decaying corpse.  If you're sitting around somewhere, too lazy to cook but really hungry, do yourself a favor.  Instead of ordering Sarpino's just go out to your back yard and grab a big handful of dirt and just start chewing on that.  I guarente it tastes better than the congealed piss they serve at Sarpino's.

Temptation

One of the hardest things in life is to not do nothing.  Maybe some people find it easy, but I sure as hell don't.  To me, the difficult thing about temptation is that it is always there and for the most part is always there.  I can handle the short term type willpower things with ease, like studying for a test or anything that may be deadline related.  Because there is an end date, and after that you can relax.

But oh that isn't true for everything.  Many times you just want to better yourself in some way, like eating a particular diet or exercising or not drinking or not throwing up or whatever your particular challenges happen to be.  But the temptation to go back into your old ways might never go away.  What if it is a struggle the whole rest of your life?  What if you just decide to give in and do it once, or on special occasions.  It's extremely easy for you to go back to the old patterns you were living by, and for a good reason, why you did in the first place!

Of course severity always varies, and I wager it's much easier to walk 20 minutes a day then say quitting hard drugs for the rest of your life.  But there are people that can't make themselves get regular exercise.  I can't understand it, but it is a real phenomena.

I read an article at eurekalert.org that willpower is like a muscle and the more you use and work it, the stronger it gets.  Maybe so, but on the other end of the spectrum I don't wanna be the square that stresses out over every little thing.  Life is supposed to be fun.

Ripofflandia

This weekend I got to see one of my favorite Canadian artists, Buck 65.  However, the downside was that I paid the ironic amount of $65 for it.  Not that I dont' mind paying to see Buck 65.  I think $30 is a reasonable amount to see Buck 65, as long as he played for a long time.  I can't remember how long he played on Saturday, probably like an hour and a half.  He is a great performer.  He was by himself, with a turntable, mixer, scratch device and laptop to work with.  Last time I saw him was with DJ Skratch Weezil who did all the non singing work.  That was a great show too.

Besides that however, I wanted to see another great band, Holy Fuck.  We  were at Element where Holy Fuck was playing, and the opener DonkeyDong was already halfway through the set.
My friend Dave jumped in front of me wielding a Canadian, the cheapest beer at the bar.
"Hey I was talking to my niece, and apparently people were waiting for Mother last night for 2 hours and still didn't get in"

"Oh shit."

"Yeah.  I'm thinking if we need to see this show, we need to go before the Holy Fuck set ends, because other people are going to try the same thing."

"Shit man, we should leave right now then just to be sure."

"Okay just let me finish my beer"

We stuck around another 15 minutes and then headed over to Market Square.  There was no lineup, but the venue immediately filled up as soon as we got there.  We were there before 9 and we just made it under the wire.  We ended up drinking in the beer garden for the next 3 and a half hours, which wasn't so bad, but we missed Holy Fuck and none of the bands proceeding Buck (especially Jets Overhead) were terrible and deserved nothing less than being wholly ignored.

Point being, music festivals are not worth the cost, unless you are guaranteed to see all the shows you want to see unhindered.

Also, Final Fantasy didn't play because he was sick, or maybe he was "sick".  He canceled last time I went to Victoria too.  Anyways, I didn't get my moneys worth and a refund would be nice.  $60 * 2000 tickets = $120,000

Free money ain't free

Applying for a student loan ain't what it used to be.  When I applied for my first student loan, it seemed pretty easy.  Of course I was fresh out of high school and maybe I just didn't have to fill out most of it.  Now they want every little detail about everything, your name, your address, your email address.

That wasn't a funny joke, but I said it anyway.  Seriously though, they want all your dependent and marriage information, how much money you're making, how much money you'll be making, how much money you made last year, how much school you are taking...and some of the questions, I have no idea how you could possibly answer...how much money will you be making your first term in school.  I dunno am I employed?  Full time or part time.  But then if I'm employed full time how can I be in school????

Anyways, I mostly just wanted to complain because it took way longer than it should have.  And between getting partway through the form then getting distracted, it times you out of your session and you have to start over.  What, I need my gross income from 2008?  That's in a box in the bottom of a pile of other boxes.  Anyways this is just a heads up that if you have to fill out a student loan application, give yourself a lot of time and have all your paperwork!!

Beerfest!

I went to Beerfest this year with one goal in mind: bankrupting Bavik.  This was because in the hours before, while I waited at work for my shift to end with baited breath, when I ran into Anton.  Or maybe I walked over to Anton's desk.  I don't remember that part.  Anyhow, I rubbed it in that I was going to be drinking beer and having fun at beerfest while he was looking after his children and maybe having sex with his wife, or whatever the hell else married couples do.  And he being also bored and liking beer read about this brewery from Belgium who apparently was losing money showing up at beerfest because the cost there was cheaper than what they would normally charge for their beer.

Well hello Bavik, and so when I met my friends at the gate, I told them my plan: I would drink all of their deliciously overpriced beer all the while celebrating the fact that Bavik was making somewhat less profitable business soliciting in my country.
Well after that we waited in line and got some tokens, and looking at the map set my scopes on booth 49.  But WOOOOAAAH!  We get there and what is going on, but their beer costs 2 tokens ($2.50 for 4oz of beer).  Everyone decided that getting beer from here would be nonproductive compared to all the 1 token beer they could drink.  So I conceded to the economic reality and we went off to drink some perfectly good one token beer.  And we did.  But of course, after a few beers I became disillusioned by the one token beer.  And I got all introspective and shit about what beerfest is all about...drinking really good beer.  So I went to the Bavik, alone, and got me a double bruin.  And guess what - even in my drunken state, it was some of the best goddamn beer I ever had.  It didn't even taste like beer.  All other beer I had had up to this point was piss before it.  I let the word out (and shared my beer with a lot of people) and it turns out everyone liked the beer so much we headed over there.  I had Witterkike Rose (made with fruits and vegetables, apparently) and that was awesome too.  I had other good times at beerfest, but I guess the lesson to be learned is that it pays to try and screw over breweries.

The best part of Beerfest was the last hour.  Much like the last hour at a bar, it is as if alcohol lets loose the hounds of hell.  I was tokenless by this time, but a friend of a friend, Lee-Anne had bought way more tickets than I think she could possibly spend without needing to ride out on a wheelbarrow, so I decided to see if I could buy some off her.  When I found her she was with this other guy we knew, Chris.  I offered some change and she said she would give me a token if I would hug copper cowgirl and get my picture taken with her.  I happily agreed, and we were off in search of her, which we eventually found talking to plaster man.  She wasn't posing like a statue anymore, but agreed to the picture.  Lee-Anne got caught up in the moment and decided instead to get her own picture taken with both copper cowgirl and plaster man.  The dude took the photos and I just hung out awhile admiring the spectacle, when after the picture he looked quite dismayed.

"Aw crap" Chris said with a note of shame "I put down our beer glasses to take the picture, and someone took them!  I put them down for like 30 seconds!"

"Bastards" I cried.  Who would do such a thing?  Not wanting to leave these nice people without a glass, I gave them mine to share, while I would track down my friends and share one of theirs.  They thank me and I wandered off, token in hand.

Around this time I finally ran into my buddy Kyle.  Now I had seen him earlier, but decided not to approach since at that exact moment a girl had her hand up his shirt.  Now, he was alone, and I needed a glass.  We exchanged pleasantries and I explained my glassless situation, flashing him my lonely token.  He was happy to help out.

"What do you wanna drink man.  I know where every single good beer is in this dump."

I suddenly decided I wanted an espresso stout.

"Yep I know exactly where the best one is" and we were off to Steamworks at booth 26.  I got my drink, but out of devious desperation I palmed my token, and noone asked for it.  So, I still had a token!  Yes, more beer was in my future!

I decided to go to get some Maple syrup beer from Bravo Brewery.

"That's 2 tokens man" he said to my rapidly falling face.
"But wait...I still have 2 tokens, lets go talk them into doing 2 for 3.  Its the end of the night, they'll go for it."

"Ah good idea." Normally I wouldn't have that much faith in talking a bartender into free beer, but Kyle has magic powers.  The man can sell arms to an octopus, so we marched over to booth 2.
Waiting in line, we realized we only have one cup!  This will make convincing him to give us 2 drinks great difficulty.  As we were fretting over this, this jovial pot bellied man passed us his cup.

"Here guys take this one.  I dun need it no more" he slurred.

We thanked him profusely and forged onward in line, a look of determination in Kyle's glassy eyes.  At the front of the line was our server, a nice enough looking chap, tall, long hair and glasses.  He gave us the "What'll it be" in a not unpleasant voice.

"We were after your maple syrup beer" Kyle said as the bartender cracked a beer to start pouring.  Kyle started fumbling around and looked surpised.

"Oh crap.  I guess we only have three tokens.  Can you do 2 beers for 3 tokens?"

The guy, still having a neutral expression, looked up from his pour.

"I can't do that man, it doesn't work that way, we got rules..."

He drawled on a bit, and Kyle, not exactly cutting him off and not talking over him started to speak as well, while fumbling through his pockets some more:

"We can give you some money...do you want some money...can you just do 2 for 3...come on man, 2 for 3, can you do it?"

This probably went on a lot less longer than it seemed, because the glasses dont' take that long to pour, and the guy, still looking down, started hissing in a stage whisper

"Gimmie your glass.  Forget it, just gimmie the other glass quick"

He filled the glass and we thanked him profusely.

I still had one token left.  I decided to spend it on a Lindemans Peche from the nearby booth one, and it was okay, but it didn't taste as good as the maple beer!  That beer was awesome and I would actually like some more.  

Twenty Minutes with Mr. Tarantino

The place where I work at, the mens washroom on my floor has a magazine rack.  Thats right, there is a holder in our bathroom that holds magazines to browse when you're on the can.  This is a genius idea and makes me think that maybe some companies aren't all bad.  It is possible that upper management doesn't know about it, but they don't read this blog.

Anyhow, because of this rack I feel the urge to buy a new magazine for it from time to time, mostly because NOBODY ELSE EVER BUYS MAGAZINES.  Don't get me wrong, I understand why noone would want to waste money on what is most often essentially the paper equivilant of junk food.
 However, some magazines can be fun (until its read, then its not good for much else but the pictures, which i think is why many people prefer trashy teen mags with girls in tight clothes.  magazines can also be used for collages or making funny pictures by mixing and matching)

Oh man I am off topic again.  So I started looking through magazines at Chapters, upset over the fact that magazines are either overpriced or devoid of content (Vice is the only magazine where the ads are actually better than the content, for some reasons advertisers don't even try to make good ads for the majority of mags).  Fortunately, I keep looking and find that Quentin Tarantino does an interview in Esquire to promote Inglorious Basterds.  Now I can't wait for the next time I have to shit at work.

I read most of the article in one sitting, it's enjoyable.  I end up reading some more interviews afterwords, and I find out that when he finished writing Basterds, he had about 30 hours worth of screenplay.  THIRTY HOURS!!!!!!!  Holy crap, that guy can write.  Obviously when you are seeing a Tarantino film you are getting the cream of the cream, but I am blown away by just the sheer volume he can spout out, most  of it likely dialogue, what he seems to be good at, and which I fail hard at every time I pick up the pen.

I don't consider myself a writer and I will probably never get anything published, but good dialogue is something I would really love to get good at.  I immediately remembered that book Stephen King wrote and how his books get rewritten so much the end product does not resemble the original product at all except in idea.  It made me think, what if Quentin already wrote something similar on how he writes and what he finds works and what doesn't.  I would pay a lot of money for a book like that, but sadly it doesn't exist.  Then after that I started daydreaming about what kinds of questions I would ask Quentin if I were interviewing him, or preferably just hanging out with him.  Then I realized all the questions would be about him telling me his writing techniques, how he gets started and the periods he spends writing, and how he does rewrites.  He might think I'm an idiot or that I need to learn to just do it on my own, but I'd ask him anyway.

we can get you what you want, but you cant get it for free

Apparently the entire nation of South Korea is addicted to the internet.  According to this article from 2003, when the Slammer virus shut down the internet for several hours, the entire country went into withdrawal.  It was estimated then, 6 years ago, that 10% of the population was addicted to the internet in some form or another.

More recently, in 2007 there was started a boot camp for kids dealing with internet addiction, the Jump Up Internet Rescue School where they do the usual boot camp things like grueling outdoor excercises but also teach hobbies like pottery.

The signs of internet addiction, as opposed to casual use, is an inability to pull away from the computer, and anger and craving when they are somehow prevented from using it.

I've always believed video games are addictive like hard drugs.  They are escapism and usually make you  feel good, or at least feel not yourself.  Obviously this is becoming a bigger deal elsewhere, like the United States where they opened the first internet rehabilitation centre.  Its the same rehashed rehab type stuff, holding hands, crying, whatever the hell else they do there.

I dont' think there is any point in 'blaming' technology or whatever is related to it you could blame.  It is just an exceptionally good form of escape, comes in a lot of different flavors, and is relatively cheap compared to any hard drugs.  The problem is real life, at least for a lot of people sucks.  There are a lot of reasons and angles to take for this, but like the other addictions in our society its a symptom that we want something more or different from what we have right now.

 As for people addicted to texting each other and using gadgets every 2 minutes when you're trying to just talk to them about normal human things or anything else, I don't quite get that yet.  Its some sort of physical manifestation of our speeding up culture, and people seeming to think this is the best way to run their lives or maybe this is how they have to live their lives because they don't have as much time as people used to because hey they are busy.

TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME

I had a pretty awesome dream last night.  I don't have a dream journal.  Rather, I have a pen and pad of paper under my bed which I would like to use for a dream journal.  The facts however, are that I like sleeping a lot - so when I wake from an intense dream - say where I am chosen by aliens along with 2 other humans to consume a potion, and, after a period of meditation I am able to read strange alien languages and am beginning to be told the secrets of the universe...well the thought to write it down just doesn't occur to me until I'm dressing for work, long long after the dream had past.

I've always had bizarre, crazy and disjointed dreams - And to be honest I don't know what kind of dreams you have, maybe they are more similar than I imagine - but this one grabbed my attention not only because of the subject but the dream was intensely vivid.  Sometimes my dreams have the same intense intensiveness, but the content is simple, like flying an old fashion airplane through a barn, but this one had a similar theme to one I had a few years ago.  Once I took too many Tylenol 3s and the next thing I knew I was standing in a desert type place with A hooded figure like that death guy.  He told me his name was Time and he had something very important to tell me...yep.

Anyhow, either he was just stalling for time or I forgot what he told me.  When I woke up I was on the floor and people were standing over me saying "What happened to you Eric?"  Maybe they said it too many times and made me forgot.  Or, maybe that was the point, that the secret is I need to remember things better.  If not maybe I'll get another shot at it.

Philosophers is so stoopid

So my roomate just borrowed Fatal Strategies by Jean Baudrillard, a collection of essays by the Sociologist-Philosopher dealing with the rationale of present day humans dealing with the information age of technology and overload. I normally avoid more modern philosophers, since their theories seem to be overdeveloped and specialized to a particular area, as opposed to earlier philosophers which have stood the test of time and are more useful in their ubiquitous application. However I found myself getting sucked in after reading the back cover, and I am really enjoying parts of the book, but ONLY PARTS. This is because he, like many philosophers, choose to write in philosopher-speak. This is great if you are used to reading the jargon and overly complex structure of the inner circle of philosophers (like any specialized field).

However, this is confusing, because I would imagine that philosophers want to reach many people, to hopefully affect peoples thought patterns in a positive way and give them new interesting ideas that will change their lives and make them more fulfilled human beings. but then why no plain English? I have a degree in Biology and Sociology, and I have taken an introductory course in Philosophy as well as read countless sociology papers and read some other philosophy and related books on my own time. So why is it I can easily understand less than fifty percent of what he is trying to tell me? Does he not actually want me to know? Is it some sort of subconsious urge to exclude the majority of people?

I would hope not. His elegant portrait of modern day society is facinating, but lacking in what the layman needs to grasp it's full meaning - that is, in my opinion, concrete examples, easy to understand language, full definition of key terms and a style that lets someone focus on understanding the concept rather than struggling to relate what they are saying at the moment to the context of the rest of the paragraph.

That all aside, if you are okay with this style of writing, you should definitely check it out. Even if you have to read resummaries and interpretation by other people, on websites or wherever, its good stuff.

WHOOP!!! WHOOP!!! That's the sound of the Police!

Last night I was woken up by loud lights and bright sounds of the glorified security guards known as the Victoria City Police. It was probably my most hands off encounter with them, since usually when I see them they are telling us to pour out our beers. This time however, I have no clue what they were doing, since the car blasted their sirens in short bursts every once in a while but the lights were going bright and full tilt.

Since they weren't kicking down my door and yelling my rights at me, I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. However, they didn't go anywhere, or stop sirening. For half an hour. And I only say 'they' because I found out the next day that people could hear them in other parts of Fernwood. I only heard this one because it was pretty much right beside my bedroom, about 30 or 40 feet away most of the time. I carefully peeked out the window, and they would drive forward for awhile, and then back up again. It didn't make any sense, and still really doesn't. I assumed they were tracking down some junkie that maybe stole a bike light or package of meat to sell for meth, but the interesting thing was, people had different takes on why they were there - a roomate said the police car was taken for a joy ride by some kids and were trying to annoy the neighborhood, and another suggestion was they were aliens, but of course nobody actually knew anything or had any proof. It may have been a training excercise, with the side effect of waking up the entire neighborhood. A training excercise for what? I dunno man, just seems like something they would do.

At one point I wanted to put some pants on and go outside, see who was running that thing and find out what was going on. Then I realized I had nothing to gain and everything to lose by stepping outside and drawing any attention to myself. Best case scenario, they would ignore me or tell me to go back inside, worst case, they would start asking me questions or get upset by my curiosity, which the police have been known to do. It has been drilled into their heads that they ask questions, not answer them. They are still just people though so they may have said something, but I'm still doubtful.

The next morning when my roomates and I exchanged stories, I mentioned that I thought about going outside, they said the similar thing, but that they didn't want to go near the cops since they didn't want to get randomly thrown in jail. This is the common sentiment of pretty much everyone. The police are avoided authority figures that tell you what to do. Sort of like parents for people over 18?

History is cool

Lately I've been reading The Histories by Herodotus, which reviews some major historical events while Greece and Persia are the major world powers. I am facinated by ancient history, partially because it's very close to fantasy, but also because it lays bare the fundamental problems and charms of humanity. Everything goes happens and bombards us so much in our day to day life it is difficult to even remember what life was like before the internet. In those ancient times news took a long time to travel, and news was pretty much all word of mouth. It helps me appreciate just how much we rely on each other, and how bizzarre it is to be antisocial. Really everything we are and can be relies on our ability to interact with others.

I always thought of myself as independant and uninterested and also not depending on other people. Nothing could be further from the truth. All my entertainment involves interacting or voyerism of other humans (via tv shows, movies and the internet). As hard as I may try to get away from these things, it will only lead me to other things directly connected to human interaction. Hanging out at coffee shops, dancing, anything.

Another impression left on me by The Histories is the insignificance of the individual human's life, in the grand scheme of history. People who did really amazing, brave and massively difficult things get a mere mention in this book that only a small percentage of Earth's population has even read. People rarely consider the artisans who constructed beautiful statues, buildings, tools and do not even know their names. They are washed away in a sea of people, most of whom are talented in some way, remembered indirectly or forgotten entirely, their work destroyed by other nameless people or even eroded by time itself. It helps impact on me that longevity is not something to be concerned with, merely that making things important and a priority to you is the only real reward you can hope for.