I should head off to bed, but when I woke up earlier I had a flash of something I really wanted to write here.
Naturally I no longer remember it. But it was amazing.
The other day there was this guy on the bus- I "knew" him from years ago, by which I mean we had been in the same room on several occasions. If I ever knew his name I sure don't now. Not that I would type that anyways... so let's just say I have perfect recall but choose not to share.
Anyways, he had always struck me as rather simple, you know, resting on the dim side of the force. BUT he was poring over this text book on the bus... and so naturally I wonder maybe I was unjust to him, he could just be quiet... it all kind of depends on the textbook. It could be "Barney's fun time letters... for kids!" or "The Genius guide to advanced quantum geometric physic calculus for geniuses" but I couldn't see it!!
I kept looking over my shoulder to try and get a glimpse of what the book could be, and by looking over my shoulder I of course mean turned around in my seat and tried to activate some as-till-now non-utilized x-ray vision, boring through the seat towards where the books cover sat taunting me.
Interestingly enough I kind of think the girl sitting immediately in front of that guy thought I was repeatedly checking her out. Not today, there are text book titles to read! Actually, she had a text book too... what, was it international text book day? And I missed it again?
On my way home a gentleman with a serious limp lurched towards me and I naturally thought- "Man, could you imagine the conversation between that limping guy and the textbook dude from the bus?"
L.G.- "Hey man, what'cha reading?"
T.D.- "I don't know, Isaac never saw the title."
I'm not going to lie to you- those two aren't great conversationalists.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
And now for something completely different
It's difficult to see in this weather, it isn't just snowing- we are enveloped by flying Lilliputians who want to smash us against some car. They've really advanced their methods of giant warfare.
A woman uses a crosswalk, she points her right arm forward, wary of the empty street, and I smile at it.
The bus has caught up to me a block before I reach my stop, surprising no one.
I venture into the expanse, a new ferocity energizes the storm. Each snowflake bites into my skin, little shuriken spinning into their mark upon mark. They build up until a sludge of frost obscures my vision and I have to stop. An oasis mercifully appears in the form of a buildings nook. I stop, clearing away my eyes while being tempted to stay where I was. But I was so close.
I reach my destination- inside. The accumulated ice warms and cascades down my face.
I reach into my bag for a key but instead find a green lollipop. It reminds me of spring, and it is sweet.
***
I know I just posted yesterday, but that one sounded a little too neurotic for my tastes. But yes, something different today. The point of which is- sure is cold out, amirite? Naturally, today I decided to leave my more hardcore winter stuff at home.
A woman uses a crosswalk, she points her right arm forward, wary of the empty street, and I smile at it.
The bus has caught up to me a block before I reach my stop, surprising no one.
I venture into the expanse, a new ferocity energizes the storm. Each snowflake bites into my skin, little shuriken spinning into their mark upon mark. They build up until a sludge of frost obscures my vision and I have to stop. An oasis mercifully appears in the form of a buildings nook. I stop, clearing away my eyes while being tempted to stay where I was. But I was so close.
I reach my destination- inside. The accumulated ice warms and cascades down my face.
I reach into my bag for a key but instead find a green lollipop. It reminds me of spring, and it is sweet.
***
I know I just posted yesterday, but that one sounded a little too neurotic for my tastes. But yes, something different today. The point of which is- sure is cold out, amirite? Naturally, today I decided to leave my more hardcore winter stuff at home.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Post the second- on advertising and contemporary resources
Forgive my title, I just like the way it sounds. Good and pretentious. I should stay away from anything approaching that topic just to spite it. But seeing as it really sort of kind of is what I'm going to talk about, I'll leave it alone and write what I will.
However, let's go on tangents and see if they will somehow converge later. They probably won't.
I notice peoples shoes; what kind they are, the condition, colour, etc. I don't know anything about brands, I'm not that into them, but they are a product all pervasive enough that one can certainly form opinions on them without that knowledge. Without knowing the brand one can still tell when a particular shoe is recreational, professional, for running, etc. I imagine there are two reasons why I notice them- one is my own self consciousness since I habitually let my shoes fall into disrepair, and the other is the fact that for years I had heard that "people look at shoes, they'll judge you by your shoes". Hearing that idea I naturally took up the practice to get in on the information everyone else was privy to.
I bring this up because during this mornings constitutional walk there was this older couple walking along hand in hand, both sporting new identical shoes(except one was yellow and the other pink. but both neon bright), and strolling towards a catholic church service. That struck me as interesting, say we looked back on those two when they were my age- I'm sure they'd both be dressed much differently on the way to a church service back then. Says the guy wandering around outside in his pajama shirt.
To be fair, it's a pretty cool shirt, all form fitting and whatnot. And I did have a jacket.
Okay, that's enough of that- advertising!
Advertising what? This thing I'm writing!
You may have noticed that I've only told the bare minimum of people that I'm writing this. And by "you" I mean the nameless ether-net. How's that namelessness going for you?
Is it that I hate attention?
Okay, hold up, at the rate I'm going I'm just going to follow the pattern of "is it X? No it's Y!" over and over until I'm done for the day, and that can be pretty annoying, especially for me- I'm the one who's writing this! I need some excitement in my day to day composition.
Anyway, part of it is that I'm not comfortable wanting attention- if I can see there's something out there that everyone wants (like attention), that's the quickest way to get me to NOT want it. An argument that falls apart pretty fast- everyone wants oxygen, and yet I still want oxygen. How dare I! And just to be as obfuscating as possible: not wanting to want something doesn't mean I don't want it. Hey, have fun with that one ether-net, that ones for you.
So let's get away from that terrible paragraph.
I can be a bit of a perfectionist, it leads me to be very specific with what I'm writing as well as eternally going over phrases with provisos. Lampshading my own writing pattern using the variables X and Y- yeah, I think that's an example. Obviously the results are hilarious. Obviously.
No I've become distracted by television and am losing writing momentum! Gotta fight it! My rule...
Okay! The thing is, I want things to be "ready" before they're all set to go out- even though I should know that there's no such thing as ready. That's what almost stopped my previous post, and could have very well stopped this one (whether I should have let it stop this one is not for me to judge. Because I'm lazy). It's a problem of mine.
Hey, problems of mine, that's the ticket for the remainder of this post!
My other problems pertaining to advertising is my natural technophobia- I have no idea what I'm doing! Exclamation mark! There's no picture posted, links to other uh, blogs. Maybe I should read more of these things to get the hang of it, but I'm not made of internet reading! I'm made of book reading! And skin and stuff. Glasses too.
All this said, well hey- two posts is something. So I'll put up a link on my facebook page, maybe figure out how to fill out my profile here, get a picture.
But first lunch.
Well, I'm already firmly against my blog. I'd better stop now before I ruin it for everyone.
However, let's go on tangents and see if they will somehow converge later. They probably won't.
I notice peoples shoes; what kind they are, the condition, colour, etc. I don't know anything about brands, I'm not that into them, but they are a product all pervasive enough that one can certainly form opinions on them without that knowledge. Without knowing the brand one can still tell when a particular shoe is recreational, professional, for running, etc. I imagine there are two reasons why I notice them- one is my own self consciousness since I habitually let my shoes fall into disrepair, and the other is the fact that for years I had heard that "people look at shoes, they'll judge you by your shoes". Hearing that idea I naturally took up the practice to get in on the information everyone else was privy to.
I bring this up because during this mornings constitutional walk there was this older couple walking along hand in hand, both sporting new identical shoes(except one was yellow and the other pink. but both neon bright), and strolling towards a catholic church service. That struck me as interesting, say we looked back on those two when they were my age- I'm sure they'd both be dressed much differently on the way to a church service back then. Says the guy wandering around outside in his pajama shirt.
To be fair, it's a pretty cool shirt, all form fitting and whatnot. And I did have a jacket.
Okay, that's enough of that- advertising!
Advertising what? This thing I'm writing!
You may have noticed that I've only told the bare minimum of people that I'm writing this. And by "you" I mean the nameless ether-net. How's that namelessness going for you?
Is it that I hate attention?
Okay, hold up, at the rate I'm going I'm just going to follow the pattern of "is it X? No it's Y!" over and over until I'm done for the day, and that can be pretty annoying, especially for me- I'm the one who's writing this! I need some excitement in my day to day composition.
Anyway, part of it is that I'm not comfortable wanting attention- if I can see there's something out there that everyone wants (like attention), that's the quickest way to get me to NOT want it. An argument that falls apart pretty fast- everyone wants oxygen, and yet I still want oxygen. How dare I! And just to be as obfuscating as possible: not wanting to want something doesn't mean I don't want it. Hey, have fun with that one ether-net, that ones for you.
So let's get away from that terrible paragraph.
I can be a bit of a perfectionist, it leads me to be very specific with what I'm writing as well as eternally going over phrases with provisos. Lampshading my own writing pattern using the variables X and Y- yeah, I think that's an example. Obviously the results are hilarious. Obviously.
No I've become distracted by television and am losing writing momentum! Gotta fight it! My rule...
Okay! The thing is, I want things to be "ready" before they're all set to go out- even though I should know that there's no such thing as ready. That's what almost stopped my previous post, and could have very well stopped this one (whether I should have let it stop this one is not for me to judge. Because I'm lazy). It's a problem of mine.
Hey, problems of mine, that's the ticket for the remainder of this post!
My other problems pertaining to advertising is my natural technophobia- I have no idea what I'm doing! Exclamation mark! There's no picture posted, links to other uh, blogs. Maybe I should read more of these things to get the hang of it, but I'm not made of internet reading! I'm made of book reading! And skin and stuff. Glasses too.
All this said, well hey- two posts is something. So I'll put up a link on my facebook page, maybe figure out how to fill out my profile here, get a picture.
But first lunch.
Well, I'm already firmly against my blog. I'd better stop now before I ruin it for everyone.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Entry the First- manifesto
It does no good to wait for the opportune time to start- I was hoping to get some rest before diving into this post, but this way I avoid the danger of never starting.
Since I got the itch to write here I've been writing this post over and over in my head, so there are a couple of things I want to get out before I forget and then I can quit for now.
The most important thing at the moment is to lay out this rule: if I spend ten minutes (or an appropriately extended period of time, ten is hopefully an exaggerated worst case scenario) staring blankly at the screen searching for the next thing I want to say, then that's it for the day. This isn't an article or project for anyone but myself, to cultivate my own writing and see what I'm most comfortable with. If I write fifty words and then it turns out that was all I had to say, so be it. Conversely, if I go on forever, well, that works just fine too.
My tendency is to write extended e-mails that could serve just as well as non personalized "blogs" (I really don't like that word) and seeing as how those e-mails usually just freak people out, well, here I am.
I had a professor who made a terrible first impression, that isn't anything new as far as professors go, but in this case I really ended up liking her, so there's the switch up. Wow, I totally forgot where I was going with that.
Okay, something else- wait wait I just remembered where I was going before- see, the reason a bad first impression was made was because the first thing that happened was a long, strict laying out of the rules. It was kind of a cold shower to an otherwise enjoyable time. You have to get used to the water I guess. But yes, I just wanted to make it clear that despite the fact that I'm talking about rules and goals, I'm not always going to be this boring.
I'll be an entirely different kind of boring.
I make bad jokes by the way. I'm sorry, I try to keep it in, but you know how defence mechanisms go. Automatically.
To return to the topic of what I'll be doing here- I was at a party around last christmas time, sitting in a spooky corner watching the people around me (I'm sorry, but it's interesting to people watch, you can learn a lot) and I noticed this one other guy that was really reserved, closeted, and very awkward. It wasn't until someone hit on the subject of Super Smash brothers (a video game, in case you weren't aware. If you need me to explain what a "video game" is, then I don't think there's anything I can do for you.) that he lit up, and happily joined in on the conversation. It was quite a transformation.
I'm very interested in poking around the edges of our various frames of reference, our areas of expertise, and personal recurring themes. You can talk to someone and think "wow, this person is amazing, is there anything they don't know?" but then you hit that wall where their information stops, maybe they don't know what super smash brothers is, and you remember that they are, in fact, human. It's a pretty comforting thought, until you remember that just because other people have limits, that doesn't erase your own! When people find my limit I'm inspired to expand my horizons- that's what ushered me into Dickens, Kevin Smith films, whatever. So hopefully by writing for a while certain things will be repeated enough that I'll get to know where my mind likes to go.
And I think that's more than enough for now.
Since I got the itch to write here I've been writing this post over and over in my head, so there are a couple of things I want to get out before I forget and then I can quit for now.
The most important thing at the moment is to lay out this rule: if I spend ten minutes (or an appropriately extended period of time, ten is hopefully an exaggerated worst case scenario) staring blankly at the screen searching for the next thing I want to say, then that's it for the day. This isn't an article or project for anyone but myself, to cultivate my own writing and see what I'm most comfortable with. If I write fifty words and then it turns out that was all I had to say, so be it. Conversely, if I go on forever, well, that works just fine too.
My tendency is to write extended e-mails that could serve just as well as non personalized "blogs" (I really don't like that word) and seeing as how those e-mails usually just freak people out, well, here I am.
I had a professor who made a terrible first impression, that isn't anything new as far as professors go, but in this case I really ended up liking her, so there's the switch up. Wow, I totally forgot where I was going with that.
Okay, something else- wait wait I just remembered where I was going before- see, the reason a bad first impression was made was because the first thing that happened was a long, strict laying out of the rules. It was kind of a cold shower to an otherwise enjoyable time. You have to get used to the water I guess. But yes, I just wanted to make it clear that despite the fact that I'm talking about rules and goals, I'm not always going to be this boring.
I'll be an entirely different kind of boring.
I make bad jokes by the way. I'm sorry, I try to keep it in, but you know how defence mechanisms go. Automatically.
To return to the topic of what I'll be doing here- I was at a party around last christmas time, sitting in a spooky corner watching the people around me (I'm sorry, but it's interesting to people watch, you can learn a lot) and I noticed this one other guy that was really reserved, closeted, and very awkward. It wasn't until someone hit on the subject of Super Smash brothers (a video game, in case you weren't aware. If you need me to explain what a "video game" is, then I don't think there's anything I can do for you.) that he lit up, and happily joined in on the conversation. It was quite a transformation.
I'm very interested in poking around the edges of our various frames of reference, our areas of expertise, and personal recurring themes. You can talk to someone and think "wow, this person is amazing, is there anything they don't know?" but then you hit that wall where their information stops, maybe they don't know what super smash brothers is, and you remember that they are, in fact, human. It's a pretty comforting thought, until you remember that just because other people have limits, that doesn't erase your own! When people find my limit I'm inspired to expand my horizons- that's what ushered me into Dickens, Kevin Smith films, whatever. So hopefully by writing for a while certain things will be repeated enough that I'll get to know where my mind likes to go.
And I think that's more than enough for now.
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