Not really a fun post either.

A day thus far comprised of some success and some failure.

I burned through most of my paycheck with bills right off the bat; rent, metropass, OSAP payment, cell phone, and my traffic ticket.

That last one I could have done without.

Two weeks ago I was almost in an accident. It was raining, the road was slippery, but I didn't compensate for that, and I had a close call. Luckily (depending on your perspective) a police officer was there, pulled me over, gave me a ticket for an unsafe turn. I felt pretty horrible about the whole thing, so I had no problem paying the whole amount of the ticket.

So I'm at the courthouse today to pay up, and the woman at the booth makes me out to be an idiot for going down there to pay the full amount. "You're aware you can go to court to get this reduced?" Yes.
"Okay, it's your choice." she said multiple times.

I'd have no problem if she made me feel stupid for the sake of an improper turn, fair enough, that can be part of the punishment, cool- but is it so wrong to want to pay for a mistake?

Apparently the only people who pay the full fine are those without the time to go down to court, it's the price you pay for being involved in the hustle of the world.

Man, I don't mind seeing someone push for what they're owed- but all I see are people fighting for the most they can get.

The courthouse was such a stressful little bureaucracy, its fine print notices posted all over, you can't help but feel like someone's trying to pull a fast one on you. It was also a weird cross section of humanity sitting around me, the best was the one old guy that says good-bye to the attendant saying "I hope to see you again- though obviously under better circumstances." He was sweet.

And basically for the rest of today I was doing my best to avoid traffic on the way home, which meant I was a big dummy and didn't take the direct route- trying to be clever with shortcuts and whatnot. I stopped for some Wendy's on the way, so that's something.

A fair number of non words today. Just sounds. My bad.

Hrrm I may have just forgotten what I wanted to say... something about Monday... and the dentist...

Well, easy enough to dive in:

I wasn't entirely certain whether my appointment was at 9 or 9:30 or perhaps the other oft used 9:15- I ended up there at about 9:15 and was TOLD I got there on time- but that may have been due to handsomeness, I'm not sure.

The dental hygienist was clearly new (beyond her being an unfamiliar face)- she explained how the chair was just sitting back (never mind the squeaking) and asked if I wanted to use the protective eye wear for the duration (no thanks, I brought my own). In fact her over explaining everything actually did start to make me nervous.

She was very thorough, and I thought she did a really good job, but man did it hurt. And that's not me being some big time cavity guy with bad gums "Ralph how often do you brush your teeth?" "Twice a day sir" "Why must you turn my house into a den of lies?" type of guy.

Oh, actually, this is cool, she used this sonic screwdriver type of thing on me- uses sonic waves for cleaning while also spraying a bit of water because the thing is supposed to get super hot otherwise.

Well I thought it was cool.

Afterwards I got a referral to a doctor for a graft procedure that my dentist thinks I have to get done. I'm down with it, but I'm going to have to raise the funds for it. Going to take some time on that one.

Walked past where a Syd Silver Suits used to be, it's currently home to one of those quick cash loan places, which is just about the biggest jump you can make.

I had planned on going to see the New Wall Street movie yesterday but then I didn't. Dropped the ball on that one, looks pretty good.

This is a pretty lame post BUT here's an interesting item:

rrr okay I can't seem to find the clipping, but the gist of it is about a kind of recycling program for computer stuff, people volunteer to help sort old computer components as well as getting shown how to assemble a computer from old parts, and at the end of your volunteering time (how long that is I've definitely got on the clipping) you get to keep the computer you made. Useful stuff.

No bad student, only bad teacher- Mr. Miyagi (more or less)

Spent today with an old friend of mine with the unique ability to often say exactly what I want to hear. Which is then, naturally, not what I want to hear.

At the Chapters Saturday (weird that I didn't mention this before) a mother and son were browsing through the comics (no, they weren't at the spinner rack.. fine! They were in the "graphic novel" section, are you happy?) looking for Batman comics- and I was taken aback at how I couldn't think of anything really appropriate to recommend to them. The kid picked up a copy of The Killing Joke- a book whose author (Alan Moore) says went too far with its violence- I helpfully suggested that that book was a little mature.

At least I didn't offend the two, which is always a risk when I get involved in these things (re: 'not my business' things)- but the mother replied that he's older than he looks- which is good, he'd almost have to be older than that- and that the kid already owns the Brian Azzarello(!) penned "Joker" book.

With THAT little tidbit I mentally threw up my hand and said "well in that case, sure, get The Killing Joke"

Along a similar vein I picked up a free Toronto Star today, thanks to the convenient newspaper deilivery service of people not taking their papers out with them and just leaving them be on a seat to make a mess, with an article concerning a photo series by artist Jonathan Hobin called "In the Playroom"- it takes scary scenes from the news (aka the status quo) and playfully recasts them with children, the aim being to illustrate "that kids see the scariest things that are out there... if you see it, they see it." and "to tear down the illusion that, in a media-saturated world, children can be sheltered."

The best ones are "The Twins" two kids sitting by some jenga looking two towers, the one kid is a blond haired blue eyed firefighter while the other kid is darker coloured with a sinister look, holding a plane aimed at a tower (as a side note, the kid with the sinister look looks awesome), and "A Boo Grave", which took me a second to get as Abu Ghraib, that recreates that one famous pic that was released of the tortured prisoners with that one jackass soldier as a Halloween thing (if you don't know what pic I'm referring, google "A Boo Grave", check out the image, and you'll know EXACTLY what picture it's reffering to.

It's the age old parenting question: how soon do you stop sheltering yout kids? Do you shelter them at all?
And of course, what constitutes sheltering?

Certain groups are upset with this artist and possibly more so the parents of the kid models used for the pics- but I have absolutely no problem with the content of these pictures, and I think it's a good reminder of a harsh reality for parents.

If I stop to think about it I do have that normal personal stigma pop up against "show parents"- which for a high profile gig like this, I'm sure was an issue. But that's maybe a separate concern.

Fortunately, this isn't something I'll have do deal with anytime soon, but I imagine the best thing as ever is to just be an involved parent who can explain things to their kids and put things in the proper context until the kids are able to put things together on their own.

Too bad about all those kids that just won't get that far. Maybe any kid has the potential to get that far and they've just been failed by their parents and teachers. There're kind of too many variables to know for sure.

Back to the Chapters though: that kid that is older than he looks- apparently his favourite character is the Joker. That's kind of a red flag people.

He should become a Ben Reilly fan, like all decent folk.

Some short travels

Was thinking about what I'd talk about for most of today. Running to the closest Chapters (by my estimate almost a three mile run) I saw garbage in a hedge, a coffee cup and a crushed up can, thought that may be something but really it just caught my eye.

I kept my eyes open for people, but for the most part they were few and far between. It remdinded me of a zombie movie, until I realized I haven't really sat through many zombie films. There's 'Shawn of Dead', but that's a pastiche of zombie movies.. and that may be it.

Then I remembered I was going to Chapters with the intent of reading more of "The Walking Dead".

It's a pretty fantastic series if you've never read it- you know how zombie films end before everything returns to the world as we know it? In fact everything happens so fast that the people in those stories don't have to worry about what happens when they start running out of food, when they run out of gas, when they meet other desperate people... well Walking Dead is an extended situation where they do have to worry about those things.

I just remembered Zombieland, which was an AWESOME movie, and in fact also dealt with some of the realities of a changed landscape. Well, still read Walking Dead, it came out first and is the best.

I'm on issue #70 or so (reading them in collected trades it's hard to keep track exactly) after everything the heroes have been through they've found something of a sanctuary, but the group seems so psychologically damaged that they're about to become their own worst enemies and try to take over the sanctuary by force, or else end up getting themselves kicked out of the place.

I'm looking forward to the AMC series when it comes out.

I stopped at the Metro outside of the Chapters on the way in- picked up a chocolate milk and sauntered over to the Chapters- an older (50's?) couple who were very clean cut, professional, both had glasses with a hint of colour on the rim- I'd call them yuppie's but that currently carries a youthful connotation. Maybe as the baby boomers keep on keeping on a new word will emerge, or else this one will lose the 'youth' orientation. Anyways: the thought crossed my mind that they'd see me as some kind of tough guy with my black t-shirt and jeans straight out of Grease. But then again, how tough were those guys? And I guess they had white shirts, whatever. And maybe chocolate milk ruins the illusion.

I took a moment to look around me, to see how much our world relied on each other- but not in the good way. I saw a bunch of people that appeared to be working for the Metro that they were in line to buy from- it reminded me about the company store.

Have you heard of the company store? "I sold mah soo-ul to the company store bum bah bum bah" That's a song line.
I know it as the store that served the families of miners- they weren't paid wages enough to go to anyplace that didn't accomodate them, that didn't have a credit system in place for them, as instituted by the overarching mining company, so the workers got more and more stuck where they were.

It's a pretty depressing cycle.

When I considered how to break the cycle what immediately came to mind was the phrase "desire leads to suffering."

Then my mind flipped it- suffering leads to desire. I thought that was interesting.

After my Chapters visit I got to run back home! Yeah, feels pretty good.

A sketchy dude asked if I had a phone he could use as I was running by in an alleyway behind the Parkway mall- I said no. Sorry, but if you want to ask someone for a phone call you can put down your bottle (not making some kind of metaphor for him being childish, this was like a wine bottle or something) and go to a well lit area by the street or something. Or call collect. Or just walk where you want to go.

"And I think it's gonna be a long long time

Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket Man! Burning out his his fuse up here alone"

That was playing at the store last night and it struck a chord.

So there's a race for mayor going on in Toronto- have you heard about this? Have you heard about this? It looks like Sarah Thompson is about to drop out, which is a good thing to stop vote splitting.

A while back I was hearing about how big a lead Rob Ford was enjoying against his other rivals- but in fact he was only just beating the other candidate "Unsure". Man, just give that Unsure guy a push.

Someone said you have to vote or else you have no right to complain, but that doesn't make sense to me- if you're only begrudgingly voting for SOMEONE for the sake of being allowed to complain- that's a problem. Duh.

Rather I had the idea: if you walked out and talked to one person, and between the two of you decided who would make the better mayor. Then you two talked to a third person, determining between that previously acknowledged candidate and this new person. Afterwards you've got a candidate with three supporters- and you keep going until you've found the person that wins the election by sheer force of numbers.

Obviously it wouldn't work considering how long that'd take- but doing THAT would mean you... actually, with that kind of involvement in the choice of the new candidate, you couldn't really complain either. That system is more of a "good mayor or bust" scenario.

Ah, well, we'll see what happens come mayor voting for time. Whenever that is- Oct 22?

But I'm telling ya- I didn't get a lot of character names today. "Then Ben Affleck did this.."

After watching two movies my friend and I were at Walmart when he asked me if I knew the one that goes "Do you know how much a polar bear weighs?"

I did not know that one.

"Enough to break the ice."

After the requisite second for me to understand what had just happened- ah, awesome! I repeated the whole thing out loud and surprised myself with how much I enjoyed that one.

"Oh no- you're going to use that, aren't you?"

It sure is cheesy enough that I'm liable to share it. Enjoy.

We saw two movies: 'The Town' and 'Easy A'. I figured I'd enjoy 'Easy A' more, it being lighter fare, a dessert movie, but it didn't quite work out that way.

The Town was great, I definitely recommend it- in as much as the characters were self destructive messes they were realistic self destructive messes. I actually know people who sound like this... I mean in what they say, I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone who tawlks in dat Bwaston axcent. Ah, writing accents is hard. Unless you're Chaucer, but that's no fair, that guy lived surrounded by tons of different accents. I assume. I think I remember him travelling around. Wait, I'm confusing him with James Joyce. Uh, I'm sure guys whose patrons paid him in barrels of booze got around too.. got around the countryside I mean.

Yeah, there were a couple of times when I could have used some subtitles for the language, but generally I was good. Understanding-wise. (Could I make this anymore convoluted? Wait, yes- "Could make I this convoluted more so?" There we go, I've clearly done my job today.)

The thing that they especially succeeded at was getting across why our main character is so sympathetic- he is his own greatest enemy (I don't know Isaac, the FBI guy was certainly up in his grill as well) he hates what he's doing, but he feels intensely beholden to his crew who are his surrogate family, and of course there's that element of him thinking that all he's good for is bank robbing- he blew his chance to get out of that life with a professional hockey team (he was abusing drugs at the time) and bank robbery is also what his father is serving several life sentences for. He's worried the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and that's even while he's looking at his father, looking at his friends and seeing what train wrecks they are or are going to become.

What I'm saying is you should definitely check out this movie.

Easy A, on the other hand was kind of a mess. There were a couple of clever call backs, but I almost get the feeling that the actors were just improving a lot, stringing the plot along, and just fell into those gags. I'm not saying they weren't scripted, it's just that that is the impression I get.

The story could have been far tighter, I wasn't nuts about the framing device of a confessional web/video-blog (which used a ton of cliches and doesn't get any points for admitting those cliches were there), particularly considering the culpability of social networking for making the kind of gossip spreading possible, it's like fighting fire with fire, generally a dumb idea.

I would have liked it if there was more point in having Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter be mentioned- oh, it was very relevant to the movie, at least as far as anyone who only knows the Scarlet Letter's story from this very movie- but from the way they tell it it's like the difference between Olive (the star of Easy A) and Hester Prinne (I think that's how it's spelled, the star of the Scarlet Letter)is that Hester actually WAS guilty of adultery.

I could be forgetting the book, but Hester didn't know her husband was alive, the guy had been gone so long, and the minister she hooks up with wasn't married. Since she didn't give up the other party to the townspeople- fair enough that they brand her WOW THAT WAS A SERIOUS BOLT OF LIGHTING! I just jumped in my chair.

uh anyways -that they brand her an adulteress- she COULD be one- but it's more the stigma of her having a child, you can't talk your way out of that physical evidence.

I just felt that Easy A wasn't quite in tune enough to even bother with the Scarlet Letter comparison.

Also: everyone was crazy. If people are really that hypocritical and gossipy and surface oriented then that just is totally outside of my life experience. Not to say I don't see that stuff, just that as far as I can tell if you don't want anything to do with that world you can just walk away, where Easy A seems to be saying that you get sucked into that world regardless of what you want.

It's not all bad news: in as much as many of the characters engaged in cleverly phrased cutesy irreverance (this is your fault Juno! You know in the real world if three people who all talked like this were in a room together the planet would kerplode! I reserve the right to define "kerplode" at a later date.) Thomas Hayden Church made it work- that guy rocks. And good news- if you find Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes, and that girl from 'Phil of the Future' at all attractive, they're in this movie!

***

I just (an hour ago) saw a commercial for a kindle book reader thing: the guy is asking how the girl can read her e-book thing in this light- why it's a kindle of course! $139. "I actually paid more for these sunglasses."

I'm sorry, how much did you pay for your sunglasses, exactly? At least this commercial wasn't trying to make me fear for my life.

Hey I'm watching the first Terminator movie while writing here: what IF the guys that travel to Avatar's Pandora are the remnants of Earth after the whole Skynet/Terminator fiasco? That way the Avatar sequel could have a Terminator running around on the planet and I would actually go see that movie.

I am not nuts about my sentence structure today. All over the place it is. That one was on purpose.

***

Had like a texting conversation with a friend from work the other night- it's gotta be a bad sign when I'm surprised when someone shows an interest in me and my life.

Actually that reminds me of something. A while back I was hanging with some people and as I was about to head out I was basically called back for good-bye hugs. Now maybe if there was a bit more gender diversity in this group there'd have been no problem, selective hugging could have happened (just a theory, I could easily be wrong), but for whatever reason that I haven't grasped yet I KNEW if I hugged one person I'd get roped into giving a hug to EVERYBODY whether I wanted to or not. Not being able to articulate this delicately, sure enough, everyone got a hug.

***

I'll let you go now, my head hurts a bit, which is about the scariest thing around. Next to GIANT THUNDERBOLTS!

It's probably better if you don't tell me what to do

because if you tell me what to do, my knee jerk reaction is to do the opposite.

I'm basically the worlds worst chess player: "hmm hmm, yes, I see, so then you'll do this, then I'll respond with this, then you'll do this, etc. etc."

Then I'll respond: "NO WAY! YOU DON'T CONTROL ME!" Before making a random move that doesn't help me at all, and in fact will probably make me lose in like two turns or so.

I'd prefer to think of it as me, when given only two choices, taking a third option (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption).

So last week I was with a friend of mine and I'd bought a bar of Hershey's chocolate... and I forget how this happened exactly but the end result was him saying "I do not actually want you to make that chocolate bar into a horse."

Now I have to do it.

"Seriously, you don't have to do it."

That's it- I'm definitely doing it! So I went home and the result was:

Thoreau with Walden. Yes, another pun.

Yes- I've finally finished Walden. Unfurl the mission accomplished banner.

And as I sat scanning the final pages on the bus ride home, I was hit again with what I'd seen in the work that made me so want to read it in the first place. A paragraph jumped out at me to such an extent that I hurriedly scrawled it down in my notebook, cramming the print so it would fit on a single page- and when I approached the end of the quote, in between the necessary bus stops for writing, I became increasingly aware of how hunched over I was, protective of my notebook. And instead of feeling self conscious of it, as I would in another circumstance of posture imperfection, I relished it as though I was a mad genius on the edge of a new discovery.

The quote, which so mirrored my thoughts of the day before I even returned to my reading (or at least, they mirror my thoughts perhaps because my reading of these words bends them to MY meaning, but there really is very little room for additional interpretation- though I admit it does exist, because how could it not?):

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complete, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

A cerainly not-easy call to action, but a worthy one, I think.

In fact after that point almost the whole chapter, entitled 'Conclusion', wanted to be copied down for re-presentation here or elsewhere, but I mostly suppressed the urge. However, about 7 pages later I came upon a good summation line that I'll leave on:

"There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness."

On Improv and what makes a good one of it

I got home ten minutes ago, at 4:31 am. Crossing the small clear field on the way I looked up at a blanket of clouds over the sky. I stopped and pretended that was the ground and I was a long ways off from where I should be. The ground I mean.

But I'm nuts about the sky; flying into BC some four or five years ago it was like we had climbed onto another level of sailing, surrounded by an ocean of cloud, with the mountain tops serving as islands.

The summer of my 17th year when I was at that army cadet band camp I was on the phone with my mom and was telling her how the sky looked like it was a moth eaten blanket- if I'm remembering correctly she said I sounded like a writer.

Have a bit of a headache, but that's because I'm up past my bedtime of "whenever is responsible". So, what am I doing out so late young man? I was downtown at a friends place paying some Super Smash Brothers Brawl. And by some I mean hours and hours. I got sucked in... and there went my subway chances. I threw on my sweater and said "okay, one more, then I have to go". But then I LOST (can you believe it?) and kept on losing?

So, two hours later I leave the house. It was still a pretty nice visit, I hadn't seen those guys in a while.

And when I left I found on the ground outside (this is just north of Bathurst and Bloor a block or two) an almost completely unwritten in leather bound (or faux leather? it was nice, whatever it was. what am I saying "was" for- I obviously picked it up and took it home with me) day planner for 2005. It's definitely a curiousity, with its empty dates and random structural outlines of the human ear. If I'm sane I'll throw it out myself soon.

Big if.

And no, there wasn't any name or anything in it, so it wasn't getting returned.

Before meeting up for Smash bros I was at an improv show- it had three teams in competition with each other. The first and third groups were meh- BUT I was laughing a TON with the second group. The best improv groups (and this is what amazes me about their craft) create a mini world, mini narrative on the spot, forming a quick relationship with the audience so that with every shift in character and setting it is still performed in reference to what has come before: so that when in the first sketch you can talk about programing a computer with the coordinates for a flying gun to assasinate someone, then have, six sketches later, a flying gun show up as a reference to your own show- I love that. It's great, and only the best troupes accomplish it as far as I've seen, which is a shame.

This one guy on that second improv team, there was a sketch where he was a prisoner to this one crazy woman, and so he has to go out on a date with her and try and make sure she doesn't lose it and kill him, so he was always saying really nice things to her, then quickly and slightly under his breath "hahabutseriouslyyou'recrazy" or he'd do the reverse, say something insulting to his kidnapper then when she'd notice he go "what, no, what? I'm having a great time! Ha ha".

This guy was the master at that nervous hmm, not sure what I'd call that. As a placeholder I'll call it "dramatic comedy" (my thought process here is to call it something along the lines of "dramatic irony" which could technically also work for what I'm describing, but I wanted to be more specific in its effect).

Then in another sketch another guy was playing a male prostitute and the girl who'd played the crazy kidnapper in the sketch I just described this time played the really lonely girl that hired him. So the guy puts on a cowboy type accent (I'm sure there are several variations on what kind of accent this was that I could again be more specific on, but it's late) and so the girl up and asks him to change his accent for the evening. He goes russian, goes australian- but she keeps asking him to do different accents, and it's amazing, because instead of progressing a scene she's just working this improv guy over, putting him on the spot with these crazy demands, she asked him to do English, then upper class english, then REALLY upper class english, then 1700's english, then 1771 english specifically, while talking about "facts" from 1771. It was obviously impossible, and it was hilarious. Kudos to the girl for not following accepted improv form (in as far as I'm aware of the rules, anyhow) and just making us laugh.

But yeah, if you get one good group, that's a good show.

***

Hmm, a friend of mine is visiting in Toronto, I still haven't called her up to see if she wants to hang out for a bit- get it together Isaac! You will officially be a terrible person if she heads out before you've gone to say hi.

Okay wait, the chances of that happening are pretty good, so let's not say I'll "officially be a terrible person" let's go with "I'll have some 'splaining to do."

Ice cream versus junior chicken. in that order.

Stopped at a McDonald's with coworkers on the way home today. I decided to dive into the nostalgia of an ice cream cone. I take it that I succeeded in that my party members commented that I looked spaced out, they weren't sure where I was looking. I wasn't looking anywhere, just focusing on the cone and the past.

But then I jumped to the junior chicken- that didn't exist when I was little.

Today was essentailly my last day at work- I've got two weekends there, but that's it. Now to find something better to do. Shouldn't be too impossible.

I get way too many compliments at work from my staff. It's got to be messing up my world view. Again, my time there is over, and I'm not planning on forgetting my lessons in humility from my orchestra classes. And other places- but that one was a REALLY good lesson. So maybe I'll be alright.

Man, I'm tired. Mayhap I'll write something of note tomorrow. Mayhap.

Caught up on some sleep finally

Though not the same dream, it certainly played the familiar theme: I dreamt I had moved to a small town again.

I was walking around with that urgency that I feel in new surroundings, it's a desire to explore and become familiar with my evironment again, checking off certain things as I go, like where particular landmarks are (in a previous dream of the sort I found a comic store, which is of course one of the things I always assume I'd lose in a small town environment)- this time I found a track behind a school. It was empty and dry; with brittle yellow grass, and I immediately thought "I guess this is where I'll run in the future"

I also found a Burger King that was boarded up and closed down- because I always associate run down depressing main streets with small towns. Particularly when there's some all encompassing Wal-Mart store type that sucks up all the business in the area. Not sure why I dreamt the business that had incapacitated a Burger King was a Boston Pizza with low low prices...

Although as far as Boston Pizza's go- that's the restaurant the family would go to when we lived out in New Westminster (out in B.C.) and represents a VERY different time.

I think a while ago I mentioned misrepresenting myself at work, but yesterday I think for a moment I got it right. It felt pretty good.

But then I ran a fair distance from work to where some other guys were getting dinner- I considered calling to brag about my run, immediately realizing I'd be unhappy with myself for calling, then called anyways. And yes, I immediately regretted it.

Work is almost over with, I have to get on with finding a new job.

I shouldn't forget this time: shout out to Emily! I don't know who that is, but of all my followers- she's the third.