July 11, 2006

Sunset in Whitehorse about 10:00pm last night.

I am feeling a little sad today. I think the high of travel has worn off a little and I miss my doggy and other Montreal specific essentials. For example there is no longer a free wifi cafe in the city of whitehorse - not one. I had to beg a password off the ownners of the cranberry bistro in exchange for design work - which is awesome of them by the way. But it makes me feel a little like a goldfish out of my climate controlled tank.

Notably, the fact of the no free wifi has proven that I am completed addicted to the internet. On sunday when Ruth told me The cafe that had free wifi last time I was up had quit offering that service I quite literally began to have a small twitch just in my spacebar/rightclick finger

The good news (of course there is good news I am on vacation) due to the sketchy internet I have no choice but to find real vacation activities. Today for example I am going to go biking up to Miles Canyon, and tomorrow we are all going kayaking and fishing on long-lake.

And.. if everything works out right, saturday and sunday we will go camping in Haines Alaska.

The only problem I see at present is that I had hoped to remake my business card and my website while on vacation - my busness cards still say: "html, photoshop and dreamweaver" not so accurate anymore.

It's looking like I may not have time though. I think I may get blank rectangles made at an office supply place and then have stamp cut instead. I really hate the 500 peices of useless paper that i have left of my old business cards anyways, it's a total waste of paper. In the ecosystem of web development my new business card will porbably be archival in another two years and I just don't give out 1000 business cards in that span of time.

Anyways, it's noon now and I only have another 3 hours of time left at this connection better get some work hours in.

July 4, 2006

In her book Childhood and Sexuality, Jackson suggests there is such a thing as childhood sexuality but that this exists independently of sexual knowledge. She concludes that it is sexual ignorance, not sexual knowledge, that is most damaging for the young. "In attempting to protect children from sex, we expose them to danger," she says. "In trying to preserve their innocence, we expose them to guilt. In keeping both sexes asexual and then training them to become sexual in different ways, we perpetuate sexual inequality, exploitation and oppression."

I've never heard it described so well....

From this article

June 30, 2006

I took my bike to the bike shop for it's tri-annual overhaul. The chain-ring I always use needed replacing, as did the free-wheel and the little guidewheels thingmes for the derailer, and of course you always replace the chain when you are replacing the components of your drive train.

So yeah, it was kind of expensive.

When I went to pick up the bike, the guy at the cash asked me how long I'd had it, and I said; "Well I got it like 6 years ago, but it was second-hand then."

The bike in question is an old Joe Breeze so it's kind of a history piece and political statement (Joe breeze was one of urban/ transportation biking's early advocates) all rolled into one. But you know what, it's probably close to twenty years old and still runs like charm.

Anyways dude at the cash is like; "You pay so much for repairs why not just ride the bike into the ground and get a new one..?"

And then I almost replied, "That's a great idea..You know what, let's just do that with everything we're tired of looking after or taking care of okay? Oh no wait, we do do that with everything."

My ridonculous repair bills don't even keep places like a Westmount bike repair shop in business anyways. It's all those golden handshake retired investment advisors with their fucking Race shorts and shaved legs.

Anyways. This post was supposed to be about how I picked my laptop up off the desk where it's been sitting for three days and found a peice of chewed gum underneath it, stuck to the chassis. So now I have a dodgy scratched up Dell Laptop with a gum-blob on it's ass. I am going to look so Profesh at Blogher.

If I had one tenth the sympathy for this computer that I have for my bike...

It wouldn't be a Dell. Hyuk.

May 27, 2006

Oh jeez, I totally have the fear smell. I have the fear smell mixed with the Euraka driving schools student driver car smell.

To divert from the smell issue, the driving school car looks like it has been rolled in a bag of week-old french-fries. I am no stranger to dirt. I live with two animals and I am not really a shelf-lining, bleach under the sink at all times having, girl. But still, I have standards, however low, and that car did not in any way, shape or form live up to them.

On top of the fear smell, and the memory of car-dirt on my legs. There is the equally problematic memory of Claude, my genial if grubby driving instructors BO smell. A BO smell which quickly turned into fear smell as he realized that I am going to drive like a bat-shit-crazy old lady probably forever and there is nothing he nor anyone else can do about it.

HOLY CRAP DRIVING IS SCARY. How are any of us safe out there? Driving a car is like trying to negotiate the world with a 100-foot wide piece of metal strapped to your waist. Oh no wait, that 's exactly what it is. Only the damn thing has an engine.

Areas which need improvement:

Accelerating
Stopping
Turning
Going straight
Slowing down
Speeding up

The only thing which needs no improvement is my capacity to imagine terrible accidents where everyone involved ends up horribly disfigured and angry and the accident scene is a towering inferno of auto-damage. And of course, it's all my fault.

Question:

- How do you pay attention to all that crap, kids on bikes, pregnant ladies, flowers, dogs, ice-cream trucks, fucking a-hole montreal drivers who swerve around you just because you happen to be coming to a kinda slow stop on a four way stop sign with no oncoming traffic from any direction..

Okay, the real reason I should just turn in my learners permit right now and resign my self to a life of public transportation and passenger seats...

I wore flip-flops to my lesson.

May 18, 2006

I have fallen in love with Casiotones for the painfully alone.

Thanks Lauren, there's nothing like gaytown synthesizer music for the rainiest most narsty May on record.

I am trying to write comments for Jer's project. He's taken a bunch of OS stuff (phpbb etc) to make an online university for his WoW guild. Here's my favorite paragraph from the about page.

The Unseen University

Unlike more traditional universities, who have a central location where mass classes are taught in cramped classrooms, our campus is spread across all of the horde controlled lands, so that we may cater to our students many varied academic needs. While our teachers do occasionally lean on bookwork to help illuminate a subject, our preferred method of instruction is guided adventuring. We quest, we dungeon crawl, we slay mighty beasts. Like many institutions of academia we partake in grand experiments and research. Our constant search for knowledge often takes our members into the most dangerous areas. We temper the steel of the horde with our refined knowledge.

Here's how my upcoming program of study is described;

The Master of/Magisteriate in Arts in Media Studies provides for the advanced study of the cultural and social aspects of media and communication. It is designed to serve both media artists and professionals seeking to develop a critical understanding of their practice as well as students seeking to become scholars and researchers. The program offers a wide range of courses, with particular emphasis upon cultural studies, the form and institutional context of media, and the theory and philosophy of communication.

YEAH! go gettem who needs dungeon crawling when you've got "the form and institutional context of media" I'm totally rocked ! wooh yeah! sigh.

Why are all the beasts I slay so metaphorical? I could start referrring to a 50 page thesis and an as-yet-undefined (okay but don't tell that to the people who liked my proposal) project option as "a mighty beast" but still I don't think I'll be needing a sword so much as my trusty 12 digit library barcode. Avast.

Speaking of beasts, I have been wrestling with a big one ever since I came home from the *camps.

I should probably be writing about my complex disillusionment with techno-feminism which came to a head yesterday at a meeting about databases at an un-named feminist art center (take the hint), but I think that's too big a topic for me, I'll need to collect my thoughts a bit.

Until then, here's some more Casio.

May 1, 2006

foot.

I walked into my study this morning and promptly stepped on a big furry bumble-bee. It stung me.

Then I hopped around the apartment saying fuck.. fuck..damn.. oww fuck. damn fuckin bee. ow. Than I tore off my sock and looked at the extra lump coming off my foot.

Then I grabbed a mug from the kitchen, hopped back to the study slapped the mug over the slightly squished bee, slid a piece of paper under the mug and picked the whole sheboodle up.

The bee started buzzing like aces and the paper hummed in my palm. I am not such a stupid I didn't hop I merely hobbled to the balcony and took the paper off the bottom of the cup. The bee flew in a drunken wobble line away from me still buzzing angrily.

I scurried back inside afraid for my life. Bees are huge.

Update

An ant just crawled up my back.

I am being attacked by bugs or having a lashback, it's anybody's guess what with the antihistamines I am taking for the bee sting.

April 25, 2006

So I was looking up the french words for RSS feeds and found this podcast:

The French Ecole 'French For Beginners' Podcast

The french ecole? Guys, let's not get off on the wrong foot or anything eh?

Still check out the little grenouille with a guitar and a plaid suit I know every time I parlez on francais un peut that's what I like to pretend I look like.

Oh and speaking of frogs, I went for my now seasonal check-in with Marilyn the tiny wand-waving grief therapist and as I walked in the door she said, "Have I shown you my new present yet?"

I said no and she took me to her desk where this was sitting;

She pressed the frogs toe and it started playing a version of 50cents "Birthday" and Marilyn and the frog, God bless them both, started to dance.

Had I been feeling even remotely grief-stricken that would have taken care of it right off.

I wasn't too suprised actually, I know Marilyn likes to rap from way back.

As I left I pressed the toe again and Marilyn said; "Check out Froggy's bling."

April 17, 2006

I had a really wonderful week-end in Toronto.

Especially the 5 hour CSI marathon on friday night, that was hella-good.

I discovered something that is going to revolutionize brunch around the world. If you mix your homefries with cayenne, black pepper, salt and fresh cubed yellow mango they are the best thing in the world.

Keep that information safe.

In even bigger news, after complaining that I didn't wear a skirt to seder, telling me I couldn't be a student forever, and that if I didn't get married I would end up on a treadmill like her. Just as I was leaving and she was going to take a nap before dinner, my Bubi actually gave me a big hug. A real hug, arms up and tight against my back, head leaning on my shoulder.

I think the inspiration to behave this way came from Sammy, my 5 year old second cousin. He was running around hugging everyone, and it must have gotten to Bubs. I was trying to figure out as she held on to me, whether she had wanted to be hugging us all this time but never could figure out how to do it until she saw sammy cannonballing from one set of willing arms to another.

It's easy to see old people as children in their vulnerablity, or in their slow loss of bodily control, but I suddnly realized I was holding a 91 year old women who truly resembled a 5 year old in her absolute need for unconditional affection from everyone.

Sometimes I think physical gestures like hugs carry a whole lot more by way of familial reparations than any amount of time I could spend in therapy.

March 15, 2006

My friend just sent me Orphan Fugue in G minor (Little Fugue). I am so taken with the name that I am changing the name of this blog to Little fugue for a little while.

I am still ill. To quote a famous album. Sorry to everyone who is wondering where the f** I've gone.

I hate bodies right now, temples for phlegm.

March 14, 2006

She: Guess what?! I got into (names important US school).

Me: Holy crap! That's awesome! I can't believe it. You are such a superstar, I am so proud of you etc..

She: You sound tired what are you up to?

Me: Nothing, well I'm just trying to figure out how to cut my hair in Second Life.

{{ Insert moment where my life seems suddenly fucktarded }}

March 13, 2006

So I am sitting here eating instant quaker oats.

Last night I had the third in a series of really freaky fever dreams.

The first involved two bald girls breaking into my apartment and demanding that I hand over all my black power literature.

I claimed I didn't have any and they ransacked my apartment and found a a book of radical black science fiction which they confiscated.

In the second I gave Madonna a sensuous ( I can't spell that sorry. Too many u's an o's) massage and then vigorously dry-humped her bum until I woke up feeling well, kinda romantic actually.

And in the third Jane was driving (yikes) me around the city in a k-car and when I asked if she had her license she laughed and said, "Are you kidding they'd never give me a license, don't tell okay?" Then we swung out into oncoming traffic and I woke up in a cold sweat.

Lauren says I get man-colds. That doesn't mean my colds are worse it means I am a gender bender on the pain management front. I whine like a man with a cold. unlike normal girls who are apparently always getting sick and therefore learn how to function normally while they have a nest of frogs in their lungs and a giant booger ranch up their nose.

Whatever, I am not complaining I am just telling it like it is. Which is phlegmy.

The worst part is, if I got to the CLSC (local health clinic) I know exactly what they will do, make me sit there for four hours tap my knee and then give me two tiny bottles of extra -strength robitusson. I wants some serious medical attention..

Or the boxed set of the L- word delivered to my front door with a some neo-citron taped inside each jewel case.

Oh yeah
listen to Listen to CKUT today at 7:00pm Apparently I am not too sick to miss playing Eve's Quest the feminist trivia game on Dykes on Mykes this evening. Jane and I are going head to head over feminist trivia, should be a laugh riot. Two post-feminist hose-bags will walk in, and only one will walk out.

Oh yeah, in other sick humiliation news I called a friend to cancel our dinner on Sunday night, and instead of saying in the message. " Oh look you're out again, I guess you are big party hopper." I said; " Oh look you're out again, I guess you're a big party humper. OH SHIT I totallY JUST CALLED YOU A PARTY HUMPER DIDN"T I? I didn't mean it. You are definitely not any kind of humper.. I mean.. aww crap.. I just took a lotta advils."

That's right, so I am offically changing my name to Rico Suave today while I wait for my airplane bottles of cold medication.

March 9, 2006

I don't usuallly return to the computer post-bath, but I was setting my alarm when I overheard this on the CBC.

"Mental illness is the leading factor in loss of productivity and loss of profit in the Canadian economy. [names some talking head] says this could be due a number of factors, including shifts in demographics which have resulted in fewer people doing more work and working longer hours for basically the same pay they received 10 years ago."

That could have been so much more elegantly phrased as;

".. this could be due to LIFE SUCKING NOW for the vast majority of working Canadians."

And I thought I had some sort of longterm bad mood problem. No, I have a mental illness because capitalism sucks rocks.

February 25, 2006

blog boredom sets in..

Why won't the guy who is offering stained glass workshops email me back?

Two new quotes that will inform quite possibly the rest of my life

#1/

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over again to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.

--Pema Chodron

#2/

The tough, whatever, Fuck You Leave self and the more vulnerable, uncertain self who wants to be reassured that you're worthwhile. It seems like these two sides to your personality are dramatically segregated, and it's your challenge to bring a little more toughness and sense to your vulnerable side, and a little more vulnerability and honesty to your tough, slightly full of shit blustering side.

--rabbit

I was just at the laundromat which, as usual, was playing a violent movie on it's two tvs. It makes me angry that I find the images/storylines/depictions in these weird ultra violent movies so repulsive but then I am also completely hooked and stand there staring with my mouth agape, a sock hanging limp in one hand in front of the washing machine.

This one was about a chauffeur who is also an ex-navy seal who is having an affair with the desperately bored and beautiful wife of a millionaire. Then it turns out that the chauffeur is somehow mixed up with these crooks who are going to steal the millionaires kid and hold him for ransom. The baddies are using the chauffeur as their pawn in this evil game of cat and mouse. Except chauffie has fallen for wifey and had a change of heart so he turns hero and has to single-handedly rescue the kid using roundhouse kicks and arm-breaking and defensive driving, and he is rocksolid and softspoken like a young bruce willis so these tall sexy blond women (wife and evil bitch respectively) are all over him while he's breaking heads.

Anyways, whatever, compelling schmompelling, later that same evening I went to a party that turned out obe a poetry reading in disguise, it was so quiet we had to creep back out into the hall to open our beers. I can't figure out which is worse sexy/violent/fascinating hollywood. or people wearing indian print skirts acting out their bad free verse?

Right, and I came home early and updated my portfolio. And you know what? When I am not whining all over this perl-ass peice of shit blog, I am a hard worker.

Oh and you know what else? Andria said that something licked today. Just to keep all my readers in the loop about what licking is... Lick is the new Suck. Violent films suck, but live granola poetry fucking Licks.

A thousand apologies to Girlbomb if she reads this.. you might do live spoken words performances. I bet dollars to donuts they are great. What I saw for 30 seconds before following my 6 pack out the door was not awesome. Far from it.

Okay I think I can sleep now, all the bile is gone.

February 24, 2006

The important thing is not to panic.

Not to try to fall asleep again.

And not to regret that I haven't bought a new puffer in months because I thought I was over it.

I just read another set of posts about how to become an A-list blogger. Little secret, every time I go read an A-list blogger to find out how to become an A-list blogger, I hate their tone. It doesn't even matter if the writing is any good. It's the same tone used by the kids who knew their IQ in elementary school and felt compelled to tell me. These kinds of kids also figured that since they knew their IQ it had to be better than mine.

okay I am breathing again.. I wonder if i should try and go to sleep.. I have been full of blogging ennui lately. Too much other computer stuff is going down, I just gotta get a break sometimes ya know.

This late night blogging would be peaceful except I am cranky and breathless and covered in that weird eucalyptus shit that is supposed t o open my air passages.

I just found this poem at the back of my life is a fake by Peter Carey.

It's a translation by Ezra Pound of a poem called "Exiles Letter". (Don't ask me man, I found it in a novel)

What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,
There is no end of things in the heart.
I call in the boy,
have him sit on his knees here,
To seal this,
And send it a thousand miles, thinking.

February 10, 2006

The truth is that my heart is like Sysiphus.

Rolling the same fucking rock up the same fucking mountain over and over again.

Somebody tell me how that story ends. Tell me he goes and finds a mountain with no rock, and sits at the top feeling the wind blow his hair around and the sun warming the tops of his hands.

February 1, 2006

Thanks for the tag Chandrasutra I don't think mine are going to be half as interesting. And I lamed on the formatting...

Four Jobs I've Had (beginning with the letter "e")

* Elf (un-paid in a christmas pageant)
* Electoral Officer (Concordia Student Union)
* Editor (Northeastern Lakes Region Hebrew Youth (NELFTY) underground newspaper - the name of which is lost to the sands of time, sadly.)
* Erstwhile coffee shop girl (I tried to translate coffee into any other language and it always starts with the phonetic equivalent of a C so...)

(OK, most of these are totally dodgy - I haven't done much for money except schill coffee and muck about on the internet...)

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over (Which is rare since I have the attention span of gnat on ritalin)

* The Princess Bride ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ")

* Zoolander ("They were like brothers to me, not like real brothers, but brothers in the way black people say it.")

* Lost in Translation ("Bob: I don't want to leave. Charlotte: So don't. Stay here with me. We'll start a jazz band.")

* Say Anything ("I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed... or buy anything sold or processed... or process anything sold, bought or processed... or repair anything sold, bought or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.")

Four Places I have Lived (other than in my imagination)

* Toronto
* Whitehorse
* Montreal
* *on the edge*

Four Television Shows I Love to Watch (Love is a strong word for tv folks..)

* The Daily Show
* The L word

* Freaks and Geeks ("Bill Haverchuck: It's a Parisian night suit, in case you didn't know. Gordon Crisp: A Parisian! Ooh la la! Neal Schweiber: It's not a parisian. It's a jumpsuit. My grandfather in Florida wears them all the time because he's too lazy to put on pants!")

* Six Feet Under

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation..

* Dawson City
* Nova Scotia
* Moose Jaw - Moosonsee
(dad and brother. road trip. 10 years old. How weird is that?)
* Holland

Four of My Favourite Dishes

* Anything my brother makes. But especially his chicken and strong cheese wrapped in bacon.
* Pad Thai (made at home)
* Black Forest Cake (the way Marie my dads partner makes it)
* Panakoeken (dutch pancakes) filled with canned peaches and ham (dad styles)

Websites I visit daily (I think this is probably a cop-out list..but tough it's getting late)

* del.icio.us/miriam
* Blogher
* drupal.org/support.textpattern.com
* Bloglines

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now

* Out of debt
* Visiting my peeps in europe.
* Cuddling up with some folks and my dog (... and my cat tho' she's bitter so she'd probably just sit on the kitchen table and glare at us) while drinking hot chocolate and watching any of the above mentioned films or playing Trivial Pursuit (Though...You could easily replace this with the word snogging and probably be right about 50% of the time)
* magically a bit closer to my family without having to leave montreal where my whole life is based.

Okay I am tagging;

Jen
Mk
Jeff
Oples

January 23, 2006

so i got this camera at christmas and now I don't even upload photos - I am such a lame.

anyways,

here are 5 new pictures one is of MK giving the finger ( 2x) over a rowdy game of trivial pursuit:

and one is of my friends son being a blur ;

and the last is Lola avoiding hip-hop music by sleeping in my room on my bed and even worser on my pyjamas

January 13, 2006

So I mailed off two applications today, and its the 13th and it's a full moon, so I am absolutely convinced that as soon as those two express post envelopes hit the bottom of the mailbag they will spontaneously combust.

In fact I even looked in the post-box and there was this little imp with a pitch-fork rubbing two sticks together over my envelopes. I yelled;

"Hey quit it!"

And the imp beared it's sharp pointy teeth and laughed at me, saying; "You aren't going to get in anyways, your letter of intent is full of grammar mistakes."

I am going shopping in the south shore tonight I need to see how the other half lives.

January 11, 2006

okay #1 Why is there even talk of a CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY!

I shall take to my bed, (okay more then normal) if I end up having to live in a country that is outright run by mr white-eyes oh god.. I can't believe I waste time getting depressed about pointless things like my feelings..

JESUS CHRIST CANADIANS ARE THE STUPIDEST PACK OF SHEEP EVER!

I can't type that large enough. 6 years of neo-conservative shittiness next door doesn't apparently serve a good enough example.

RE: the national debt.

The United states happily governed by a wire-tapping potentate who can't string a sentence together has both an enormous debt and children in the inner city are beginning to get third world diseases like RICKETS!

oh yeah and there's that whole 18 year old boys from Idaho getting their faces blown off by Iraqis and Iraqis getting their faces blown off by 18 year old boys from Idaho problem.

But whatever, that won't happen in Canada because we have the consititution.. but wait! Look at this email I just got;

Ottawa: The question of abortion surfaced in the French debate. When questioned on this subject, Stephen Harper affirmed that his government would not change the current situation. However, he also declared that on questions of morality, he would allow a free vote in the House of Commons. What is the significance of these two positions? A Conservative government would not introduce changes but would they permit a free vote if a Private Members Bill was introduced that limited women’s choice?

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK STEPHEN HARPER.

Sorry for all the swearing I just can't deal . A free vote!?

#1 you won't win. #2 Abortion has been legal in Canada for 20 years - why are you going to waste everyones time and spirit re-opening this issue? Because you refuse to accept that a plurality of belief systems protected by the Constitution means that you can't jam your archane mysoginist morals down my throat.

Good reason. Really I commend you. Why don't we start circumcising 13 year old boys too? That's an old practice that probably has a lot to teach modern Canadians about gender and control over our bodies.

I HATE THE CONSERVATIVES- they give me a freaking aneurism of pissiness.

I guess I am done for today.

Question: what to do about really low blood pressure which results in hands that are like chunks of ice after 4 hours typing on the computer?

I am going to write apoem about the conservatives if they win, than I am going to buy a giant purple raincoat and a fright wig and i will give up any pretence of sanity that remains for me, and I will go and stand on the steps of teh parliament building i and do nothing but screech my poem at Stephen harper like a dejected harpy.

I feel so powerless, and what really hurts is that the Globe and Mail reports that the Cons are seeing a big lead because men of affluence are jumping ship from liberal to conservative and we all know the old boys network is just another name for runs with the pack.

All it takes is an Eaton, a Molson and a Thompson or two and my life is a travesty again.

January 7, 2006

This is an uncatagorizable post in the extreme

Problem #1/

I have actually maxed out my music partition.. Ironically this realization came as a I was adding November Rain, (yes the one by GnR). So I thought that's cool I'll just switch my music home over to the removable hd.
BUt no! - the ass-wipely thing is giving me all sorts of problems and now I-tunes crashes every two seconds >>>MMMMRRRGHHHHH... ( angry noise).

How can I work without listening to Jay-z..

Problem #2/

I spilled cereal a few days ago on my keyboard and now a few of the keys stick or work not at all. And get this, I am too broke to buy a new goddamn keyboard.

Problem #3/

In a fit of idealism, I partitioned my laptop and installed Ubuntu on half and Windows on the other. Not being a pragmatic idealist however, I used the larger partition for Linux and left Windows on a tiny wedge of the pie. Well sure, except Windows requires a fuck of a lot more by way of resources than Ubuntu and now there isn't any room.. I feel like there is a metaphor for my entire life in there somewhere if I just look a little more carefully.

Problem #4/ (and it's a biggie..)

The Conservatives are winning????!!!!!!!!!!

No wait,

The Conservatives are winning %$%^&*&)(*$#%@#%$%^^%&&****@!

}: ( - rat bastard Stephen harper has eyes the colour of a beached and swollen whales belly.

I can't believe how incredibly ridiculous, insular, self-satisfied, selfish and short-sighted some of my fellow citizens can be.

4 years worth of the Harris tories decimating Ontarios social programs, and now there are people getting shot in the face in downtown Toronto in broad daylight. But it's true, we spend way to much on responsible government and social programs here and what we should really be doing is cutting taxes and putting more money in the little guys pocket...So he can spend it all on illegal abortions for his teen-age pregnant in wedlock daughter and have nothing left to retire on because what? maybe the conservatives will try to privatize our pensions as well. Who knows, anything is possible with Mr. I-am-so-white-my-eyes-have-no-colour-either Harper.

I wish that made me feel better but it doesn't I am still furious and scared, how is that no-one has learned the lessons and from the USA or years of provincial conservatism?

In fact I walked home yesterday from the old port just to enjoy walking around in a city, in a province, in a country, that was not run by a Conservative minority government and thought to myself.."Here I am walking around in a city I love, in a country where the government does a not completely incompetent job of reflecting my belief systems and values." As of the23rd I will have the privalege of removing the not from the above statement. Unless something completely unexpected happens.

neo -liberal Conservaism doesn't work. It offloads costs onto government agencies and it ends up costing more than having a decent say, dental care program for the working poor.

Old style Tory-ism of the type practiced by the conservative party pre-mulroney was fine.. But they never objected strenously to Canadas social programs in fact the conservatives of the 60's and 70s helped start a lot of the social programs that are now considered leftist money-pits.

But that's what conservatism used to stand for, old school paternal governance. Like your child benefits payments and the the Canada Council for the Arts.

Stephen Harpers Conservatives belong some place where Creationism is taught in schools, and I am sorry that doesn't represent the majority of Canadians no matter what the polls might say.

I do think the country needs a conservative alternative to the liberals, but not a bunch of anti-social spending, anti-feminist (oh yes, and lest I forget HOMOPHOBIC!! ) reactionaries with giant trackmarks on their arms from injections of Alberta Oil money.

Thanks god this is my blog and I can say what I want.

Here is a peice by Murray Dobbin I am trying to use his writing as a mantra for what may save our country but I worry that a bunch of "undecideds" with a grudge may end up voting strategically in the wrong direction because they honestly believe that the present-day Conservatives know what's good for Canada.

Harpers major strength is cashing in on the total improbabilty that the Liberals could win a 4th term, and thus it HAS to be Conservative. What a stupid way to win a game. the only reason he's doing better this time out is because he has a larger group of handlers around him (AND ONE OF THEM IS A MODERATE). Who else do we know who protects his own basic imcompetencies by hiring a large staff - oh yeah it's BUSH.

sigh.
Okay I feel calmer now.

This might be a bit over-emotional because..

Problem #5/

I am on the rag..

I have taken to flinging chunks of ice and snow at inanimate objects, trees, mailboxes etc..A release for all this simmering importent rage etc.. etc.. I know I could go and join the NDP or something, but I like the feeling of snow flying off my cold fingers and (okay more often than not missing) smashing into something immutable and then bursting into flakes again.

Besides, if Harper and I run into each other in a field full of packing snow he won't know what hit him.

Oh and the title of this post comes from a Jay-z song of the same name

***PLUS****

The fact that I am fucking loving November Rain right now has nothing to do with being on the Rag.

It's a work of staggering genius about a 35 year old Man/Boy who is divorcing his pornstar wife. What's not to love?

December 31, 2005

It's 7:45pm and I just finished working on my taxes..

I am trying to erase a sense of fiscal doom so I can go to some sort of party and whoop it up.

Oh whoop.

I said: "I have the spending habits of a 18 year old jewish girl from the upper-west side." My friend said; " I have the spending habits of hurricane Katrina."

Ha.

Resolutions pre- midnight:

1/ Spend less money
2/ Make more money
3/ keep my receipts
4/ Save 20% on all untaxed income
5/ No more shoes.....!

non-financial resolutions

1/ Learn to drive.
2/ Re-pot my plants when they need repotting.
3/ Keep other people's secrets.
4/ Keep my own secrets (oh too bad blog no more tasty treats).
5/ Stay the fuck away from jagermeister
6/ Don't give the dog so many rawhide biscuits. Snack food is no substitute for responsible pet ownership.

spiritual/emotional resolutions

1/ Have faith in people.
2/ Have faith in myself.
3/ Be an optimist about things worth being optimistic about,
4/ And be completely dismissive of the things that don't warrant my attention.

I think that covers it. I am going to go and do the shrug while I look for something sexy to wear when it's minus 40 outside.

December 30, 2005

{I actually wrote this on the train ride home from my vacation hence post-post}

No-one ever says;

"Attention is if there is web-designer aboard the train please come to car 01 immediately. Thank you for your assistance."

I am sitting on the train (wifi enabled) working on my submission for she is such a geek.

Which probably won't get in but I guess that's okay.

I am listening to simon and garfunkel, and wonderng what has happened in train 01, reflecting on the difference between being a doctor and being anything else. Why don't they ever say; "All incorrigable gossips with ADHD who hate long train rides and would prefer watching emergency CPR to sitting on their tuchas for another 4 hours with nothing to do, please come to car 01 imemdiately."

A friend of mine is going to get on this train at Belleville and I am semi- annoyed because I have a chocolate letter which is the first letter of both our names and I would like share it with her and I can't because it is assigned seating and I don't know which car she will be on.

Here is a collection of my favorite bon-mots from the holidays, spent mostly with family, except for one ill-fated evening spent with some old friends and about two too many shots of jagermeister. Which I will get back to later.

Try to guess who said what, if you have had any meetings with members of family flink.

"I don't like the jib of your nose."

"Stop sitting there and take your turn already."
"I am not sitting here, I am thinking. When my eyes are very still and fixed on the game-board it means I am thinking."
"What were you thinking about?"
"Whether I should get us another bowl of jalapeno corn-chips."

"You're not going to date Helmut are you?!"
"No. Helmut and I are just going to be friends."
"She told Helmut to put a lid on it."

"...I don't know why you aren't married yet. It's not that difficult, you meet someone when you are 18 or 19 and then bumpf you're married."
"Bubi I have bumpfed with 2 or 3 people in my life, and none of it has led to marriage."
"Mum, I only bumpfed with one person and now I am divorced."
"I don't know if we should talk about this over dinner."

"You know, you're smart, you're funny, and nice, you have a good job.. I don't understand why you haven't settled down..."
"Don't worry Bubi, I am going to marry at least twice so that more then one person has a chance to experience all my good qualities."

"How much was the digital camera?"
"It was about 400 dollars."
"That seems expensive."
"Mom do you even know what a digital camera is?"
"It's a camera that takes pictures by itself."

"Are you mad that I just beat you?"
"I'm not mad, I'm dissapointed."

"Look at this picture of Dads bloody eyeball, he looks like saruman."
"That's awesome!"
"Don't go and put that on the internet - that's not why I bought you a camera - to embarras your family with."

and now....

{The friend totally found me and we traded kolbassa for chocolate, and then went slightly mental when the train was an hour behind schedule}

She is presently standing in front of me complaining that her clothing smells like latkes..

I am back and I am (... a B word here bitchy, bad-ass, bored, blatantly ignoring the fact that my vacation ended 48 hours ago)... and I kinda wish I wasn't I guess that means I had a good vacation. Someone should tell surly teen-agers this: Right now you hate your family, and think they are totally crazy and annoying. Once you have grown up you will still sometimes find them crazy and annoying but for some inexplicable reason you will actually love them for it. If you are lucky though, only if you are lucky.

October 15, 2005

And then I went to watch the Happiness of the Katakuris at Dylans house and Lauren kept asking of I was going to blog about it.. so here you go.

The poster was a weird macabre affair and so was this musical.. but any movie that translates musical-verse directly from the Japanese is bound to be a little bit surreal, also all the dead person scenes were claymation...

Okay and I was a little stoned and kept falling asleep and than half-waking up to ask things like; "What happened to the samurai? He was killed with cake??"

There my week-end full of happiness, so far.

October 13, 2005

attachment loss and theory and russian

I am an expert on those.. Especially if you put a comma between attachment and loss.

Lauren says I am not an expert on theory and russian.

She has forgotten about my accent - which she says sounds polish most of the time.

October 6, 2005

Occasionally I think Judiasm is mundane, especially when I find out about festivals like Vishwakarma Puja.

"The month of September brings with it an essence of the forthcoming festivities. The pleasant weather of early autumn, with cloud scattered across the sky looks more colourful with the numerous kites floating side by side on Vishwakarma Puja, the festival of the God of Architecture and engineering, Vishwakarma.

Vishwakarma Puja is celebrated with full enthusiasm on 17th of September every year. The celebration is mainly done in factories and industrial areas. Shopfloors in various factories wear a festive look on this occasion. In beautifully decorated pandals the image of Vishwakarma and his faithful elephant are inaugurated and worshipped. "

Too bad I missed it.

Next year I fully intend to a) wrap my computer(s) in garlands of flowers, b) fly a kite and c) do some kind of industrial picnic-ing on the banks of the lachine.

Oh, and d) I could go try and ride an elephant because apparently this one of Ganesh's holidays.

On a more serious note, and though I guess appropriating other peoples religions can be interpreted as offensive. I think some kind of technological feast day needs to be established in this oh-so-technological culture of the west. It can be non-denomintaional like say, secretaries day, and would require us all to reflect a little on the technology we use daily and what it really means to us.

I know I sound tongue in cheek here, but I do mean what I say.

I think there is a definite sort of "praise the lord and pass the cheque book" going on around Web 2.0 and before everyone gets really hot under the collar about how it's going to revolutionize society it might be a nice idea to lay some wreaths around the old monitors and take a moment to really think about what might happen in the world of on-line communications et al, in the next 10 years. (...And what, in everyones disparate humble opinions, *should* happen.)

That being said here are my meditations if I were to celebrate Vishwakarma Puja late...

- How can I make a project to get people to start thinking about the life span of their machines?
- Should gender and class analysis be factored into usability tests?
- Has the word community become bankrupt from overuse and if so, what can I replace it with?

That's it for me, happy late Vishwakarma Puja.

October 4, 2005

I just had a shitty session with my counsellor and in some sort of techno-psychic way the shuffle algorithm is acting like a giant bowstring on my warped violin of a heart.

baaah.....
nota bene: having just re-read this, I want to mention that this mood is being lightly embraced by a beautiful indian summer day, a trip to westmount park with the post-soviet mutt and then a swooping bike ride across car choked st cats with Bjork singing all is full of love in my ears... so melancholy yes, sadness probably not. Sometimes it's nice to have a light dusting of melancholy on your last days of summer.

even later Now I am listening to notorious lightening by Destroyer...I am so impressed with my little i-pod, it's really raising my spirits here...
I would put lyrics up but really a/ that's so highschool ( ha ha) and b/ you should go find this album at your store it's canadian and it's very good..

Jen showed me a place where this plant rental place throws away anything that is looking less then fresh and shiny. We found a giant box full of cut flowers and I took five peach colours roses home and put them in a vase on a table.

October 1, 2005

So I had another jam-packed day. Things really should not start at 8:00am it really mess's up my schedule. I had a beer in hand by 6:15pm and it's 10:00pm now and I am both soo tired but also aware that my montreal clock says it's time to hit the bars.

I think I will do what I apparently always do in hotels and go find a bellhop who smokes.

FTR: FRIENDS WHO ARE IN LONDON. WHY ARE NONE OF YOU BLOGGING??? THIS HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED. I MISS YOU AND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CONFERENCE THIS SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES IE: IT MUST BE AWESOME BUT REALLY, WTF??!!

Here's what I imagine has happened, you all went to madame tussauds wax museum and mk dropped a cigarette (silkcut) and burned one of the figurines. Then she had to stay behind to fix it using some expensive hair wax she had in her purse, allison helped by making replacement felt out of an old hat.

Maya ended putting everyone up which drove the kindly Irish couple she lives with BONKERS and they hired some violent leprauchans to do damage to the rowdy canadians. Luckily Mike fought off all the VLs save one, who he has befriended and made into ISFs new mascot. When Mike is not at the conference he is busy teaching the leprauchan to speak quebecois french with an irish lilt.

Benoit and Francois are irritated by the British accent and in fact, by almost everything British and are suffering from some serious francaphones anomie that is traceable to terrible food, bad teeth, and bars that close at 11:00pm. I response they have taken to wearing pale jeans, growing goatees (oh wait I think they both have goatees) and drinking giant snifters of cognac at every occasion.

OKAY DUDES GIVE IT UP OR I AM GOING TO CONTINUE PUBLISHING THESE LIES.

What have I been up to...

- went to an amazing indian place for dinner last night with 4 other conference attendees and ate too much. Mfo took a picture of a plate I might ask her to send it to me just so I can cherish the memories.

- got in at 10-ish.. felt like a giant pekorah on legs. Accidentally payed for a movie, Mr and Mrs smith. Watched it, not bad couldn't really move anyways. Best line in the movie, Brad Pitt, who is trying to kill Angelina Jolie (see why it wasn't so bad..) takes Jolies bashed up laptop in to see his geek girl computer specialist. She's got a nice pair of plastic rimmed glasses on (like mine don't cah know) and a nose ring and while she's poking around the motherboard with a pair of tweezers Pitt asks; "so are you a vegan?" and she replies, 'No, but my girlfriend is." Represent! geek girl queers in hollywood blockbusters. How long until we see 'ms and ms smith' in which Jolie trie to off her lesbian lover who is also an assassin.. I give it another month.

- Conference today was also rollicking fun ( in a dry sitting around a table kind of a way). Leslie Regan Shade came and gave a presentation on ICT policy development in Canada, a sort of historical overview, and then there was a discussion about the telecom review panel..or something. It sounds dry but it wasn't which may have something to do with the fact that I drank two lattes and was wired for most of the morning anyway.

- Skipped the afternoon (bad) and went to the National gallery to see a a bunch of stuff.

I always love janet cardiffs choir peice (can't remember the name sorry) but its new placement in the rideau chapel was kind of weird. Too much visual stimula took away from the sound, and the speakers were set up in an oval which also had an effect of the way the individual voices carried through the space, I couldn't sit in the middle like i usually do, I had to circulate and visit each voice separately.

The upside is that at the end I listened to each person/speakers little mutters and conversations with the person next to them, so by my second listen I had developed a really emotional attachment to the people being physically representedd by tannoy speakers on metal tripods. An odd feeling that, it gave me cause to reflect on the power of sound over our ability to attach to things/people.

After that went to look at the group of seven room and realized that I really like the group of seven and refuse to bow to post-modernist pressure to look at their works as cheesy or picaresque. In particular I lenjoyed a peice by Laren harris of snow in a sunset piled up on some kind of evergreen shrub. The trick in this painting wast that the snow was a deep and rich shade of lavender (don't ask me how he got deep rich lavender) the branches almost black green and the sky a really smooth shade of yellow peach with a blue undercoat.

It caught without a whole lot of obvious and picareque looking effort in underpainting and glazes the perfect shade of clean white snow in shadow filled with the reflective light of the clouds.

I have tried to get that shade of snow before and always I used blue, and of course the trick was lavender...Of course.

- following the gallery I met up with CJ and we went for supper and a beer at a pub, then went looking for a movie and didn't find one, and then sat to eat ice cream in a courtyard on a bench and there was this couple sitting a few benches over from us and this super creepy guy in one of the condo windows overlooking the courtyard pulled down his shade and stared at the couple with dissaproving eyes. They weren't doing anything, maybe rolling a joint I couldn't tell, but the dude in the window just stared at them with his arms crossed for waaayyyyy too long, and then, when they left he turned and stared at us, so we cat-called him for a little too long too.." Hey angry dude don't you have anything to do....? " etc..

Now I am here in my hotel room, missing the presence of friends to liven up my saturday night.

Oh well, bellhops, smokes, it's all good.

BUT LONDON PEOPLE IF YOU ARE STILL WITH ME AND YOU ARE NOT OFF TRYING TO BUILD SOME NIFTY HAT TRCK OF a LOCATION PORTAL PLEASE WRITE A FRICKIN ENTRY IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE AS LONG AS THIS ONE. I KNOW YOU ARE IN LONDON, I AM IN OTTAWA, C'EST PAS PARIEL. BUT DO YOUR BEST..EH?

September 14, 2005

Be a superstar

Can someone who has a little time on their hands please start this game here?

Oh yeah and then buy me a camera-phone so I can play.

September 13, 2005

While not attending sumptuous weddings in Toronto I was riding around on the subway system reading the walrus and adding to my list of things to learn about and read.

I went back to see the scottish monument salesman and rode the bus up to Jew-town (Bathurst and Lawrence area) with a gaggle of jewish parochial school teen-agers. It was weird, in every respect the girls were just like me on my bus home from highschool( right down to the dog-eared copy of the mists of avalon in one girls hand) except all the girls completely ignored the boys and all the boys wore black suitjackets over tefillen and had wide-brimmed hats. Only they were 15 years old and judging from the expression on their faces and they way they tailored both pants and jackets, they owed more allegiance to eminem than the bal shem. ( okay its so bad but I have to leave it because I think it's accurate - and it's so bad I kind of love it).

While not staring at lubavitch rappers I read the walrus, and found this article on the 25th anniversary of the death of archbishop salvador romero.the article introduced me to an interesting branch of religious thought liberation theology.

This in turn led me to a book called Redeeming the Time: a political Theology of the environment by Stephen Bede Scharper

My favorite quote from the page of quotes I found on-line is;

"When one looks at environmental destruction from a political-theological perspective, one witnesses a dual oppression, both of the poor and of vulnerable natural ecosystems."

On the same bus ride I finally found the name of the guy that wrote the book that I was telling barb about...

His name is James Gleick and his book is called Faster.

I think that's it for random bits.

I did find a book full of anecdotes by famous storytellers in a leftover from a garage sale bag of free books, (not on bus anymore) i was attracted to the book by it's fabulous binding job. I read a few of the stories on the train home, heres a quote to think about while I fall asleep.

Hyms, uncle Al said, didn't have to be sung perfect, because God looks on the heart, and if you are in The Spirit, than all praise is good.

- Garrison Keillor