Distracted, but done.

Aaaand quota.

Unless I've seriously miscounted and shot myself in the foot... maybe I should have checked to make sure I was at ten. Nah, I wouldn't make that dumb a mistake.

What's been on my mind the last day or so is definitely the distressing news I heard about a friend of mine. It's not that I'm SURPRISED by him doing something terrible like this, but I'm disappointed, and it'll definitely colour (at least for a little while) my relationship with him.

Hrm maybe I expect too much from people.

Alright alright, forgetta bout that.

Finally saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. As expected, the walking around/Hogwartsless/moping around movie wasn't terribly exciting.

That, and it's been awhile since I've read the book or even watched the movies- it was pretty rough to follow!

I still wanna see the last one though. Not that that's a shocker.

Man, I'm feeling pretty run down. I did not fall asleep until way too late in the day- it felt like it got cooler AFTER the sun was good and up. Naturally I was only good and asleep when it was time for me to get up.

And I forgot I was going to draw a picture to set as the event image for when I organize the next group movie thing.

It'll be Cowboys and Aliens- fyi.

How is it not Cowboys vs. Aliens? Whatever, maybe they become friends at the end or something.

And maybe Rise of the Planet of the Apes. James Franco, Draco Malfoy, and an army of, you know, the apes.

Should be awesome.

I've been out of it all day, but at least I got this done. Presumably with a minimum of spelling mistakes.

Captain America!!

Returned from seeing Captain America and it was AMAZING!

The story was so well done- individual moments were fantastic on their own, but then when they go nods to them later, when the scene was mirrored later in the film- fantastic call back.

Like what, for example? How about: the WAY Cap runs after the assassin right after getting his powers is the exact same way he runs outside of the bullding in New York when he's revived in the modern world.

That kind of touch- they didn't need to do that! Ah, incredibly well crafted.

And Chris Evans was dynamite as Cap- even after he's a super hero he still shines through as this good guy. Before and after his transformation, you like this guy. Even when he's suddenly a human dynamo and could make you feel inadequate with a snap of the fingers, he's still a regular guy that ANYONE would be comfortable hanging out with.

Pretty much immediately after being Cap and we go through the admittedly long 'Cap as war bond salesmen' (which was a brilliant use of the character) Cap is running around in a cheapo version of his uniform... and it's still more believable than any outfit Cap has worn in any of his earlier 90's live action films.

It just goes to show, these suits don't HAVE to be that hard. "Oh no, we can't get this rubber suit to look good on our super hero!"

Well, what if you didn't use rubber? Guys?

Seriously, for old school Batman- a bat symbol on a form fitting grey sweater and boom you've got a better than decent batsuit.

And people always go either flimsy cloth cape or full on (again) rubber thing.

Something like a theatre curtain would probably work best... hmm, that may be too heavy as well. I'm just spitballing here.

But yeah, Captain America is running around in a low rent suit, rescues Bucky, has a skirmish with the Red Skull as the building they're in is blowing up... I thought the movie was ending! I thought I'd just misremembered the suit that actually shows up in the movie (because I guess I'm crazy) and I was completely satisfied.

I'm good with this movie. I want more, but I'm good.

What's that? You say this is only about the half way point? That there's a ton more awesomeness left for me to watch??

I highly recommend this film. Was that clear? Watch this movie.

DC- you better be taking SERIOUS notes on how these things work. Or I guess Warner Brothers. But still. Do better. Like this, more of this.

I'm not mommy, Ralph.

Man, I've really been on this computer way too long.

Reading comments about the sexism in Greg Land's artwork. Pretty much all the commenters agree, so it's a case of preaching to the choir, except for the one guy that asserts that all the form fitting female super-wear are inherently sexist.

Unsurprisingly, we agree that context is key, that there's nothing wrong with acknowledging sexuality in a person so long as the character is portrayed as more than that, with, you know, an inner life and whatnot- and that it's no good to have a bunch of women all portrayed as naught but identical sex-bots.

Mayor of San Fransisco? Sex bot
Time travelled teen girl? Sex bot
Emma Frost, the White Queen? Actually, she sort of makes it work- but she's a character known to use her sexuality for her own purposes. So she lucked into the right portrayal/image. A broken clock IS right twice a day after all.

The other bit of commenting I've been participating in has to do with mental illness in comics, particularly (only?) in Batman. I'm afraid I end up sounding calous because I WANT to hate Joker, I want him as a purely hypothetical stand in for "evil antagonist" which, you must admit, comics writers have been happy to give me- even going so far as to give him an inconsistent origin, motivations, characterizations and DEATHS. As far as literary symbols go, the Joker is a great one.

Man, this Jebediah Springfield episode is amazingly funny. Surprising no one.

The Ms. Hoover line is laugh out loud funny after the blog discussion I've been engaged in: "This is nothing but dead, white male-bashing from a PC thug. It's women like you that keep the rest of us from landing a husband."

Excuse me a second, I'm going to get a chocolate muffin.

Good, there are still some left. I will almost certainly return for a second (third?).

I'm not going to lie. I've already picked up my second muffin.

AND my Gravity's Rainbow notes!

I didn't actually take that many. Looks like I'm a big lazy.

In fact, continuing that lazy trend, I may as well just copy out exactly what I wrote, in all its contextless glory (not like it's the first time I've done that).

Pre p. 362 there's interest in Plastic Man, plastics, finds mad scientists lair, says "Where's Plastic Man now?"

(man, I've ALREADY added a bunch of words for the sake of clarity. That first "there's"? Yeah, I never wrote that originally.)

362-
-Slothrop learns FDR dies, but he was Slothrops president
-MINE would have to be Chretien AND Clinton (of course I include the American president- he was in the opening to Animaniacs after all!)

The appropriation of power in assuming a 'comic book' form that isn't a percieved as a threat in the context of post WW II Germany. All the soldiers are on the lookout for OTHER soldiers and weapons, not gaudy performers.
Not that he's the much of a threat to be percieved in the first place.

July 19 438 (I don't know why I wrote 438 here..)

p. 441 Slothrop thinking about his goals -what are they? It's been a few days since I thought about them...
^- mirrors the questions of the reader (me anyways) after the lengthy interruption with Pokler's story + coincidentally my days off the book (it's tuesday now, haven't read since last thursday)

And finally, from my actual note book (adds legitimacy to my ramblings, instead of being a folded over piece of paper that was previously host to my musing on a guard training schedule):

July 24 2011
A good chunk of the time it felt as though 'Gravity's Rainbow' were actually speaking to me- it was startling to see on p. 764 on a line unto itself

"Isaac"

printed, all ready to freak me out.

The book was about to talk about Isaac as in Abraham and Isaac- but still, super weird. It helps that I read the whole thing during the night time.

The spooooky night.

I loaned my now finished copy to a resident at that building I work at, in EXCHANGE(!) I've got an annotated James Joyce Ulysses.

ANNOTATED!

Heh, looks like I won that trade.

Gasless cars, novelless nights, and brutal shut out at the Zellers

Got the car to drive to work, got to KEEP the car, got to drive home in the morning.

And what a beautiful morning! With the collection of solid clouds and tentative brush strokes of clouds, the sky looked like a giant frozen pond with a bright light being shone through it. It was cool.

That sun did make for some rough, hand-held-over-face driving though.

I actually had a fun time at work (relatively speaking) this one woman's car broke down in pretty much the worst possible location (at least it wasn't the intersection itself) and I almost killed an hour chilling with her, waiting for her husband to come save the day.

Except he never came! A CAA guy just happened to drive by, couldn't miss the golden chance at some dough, and gave the car the once over.

It was funny how much trouble he had with the thing- he asked how to operate the door handle just before figuring it out for himself. He had to figure out and search for the button that opened the gas... uh, gas hole? There's no way that's what that thing is called. The... tube that goes to the gas tank.

Anyways, it was a nice car, everything was futuristic and push buttonable. Push a button for drive, for neutral, for reverse, you get the idea. But it had one glaring flaw:

The driver didn't realize she's run out of gas.

That was the only problem with the thing, outta gas. And it took way too long for her to figure out on her own that that was probably the problem.

That's... kinda dumb. But she was a sweet old thing, you can't really get upset with her. Though it did undermine her assertion that I need to get back to school... however she gets by, it's not via schooling.

That's terrible, she really was very nice.

And later I stopped to chat with a couple of cool dudes that live in the townhouses, it was a pretty chill, fun time. Hopefully I'll remember their names next time I see them.

Plus- I had the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Toronto Sun to read. I liked reading about the planned Jarvis street mass biking protest about the decision to remove the bike lanes, and then in the next days paper seeing the actual photo of the event taking place. Low rent time travel is STILL time travel. Excellent.

Looking ahead to this blogness I tore out this clipping to mention now:

STORE CLERK SAYS NO TO THIEF IN SKULL MASK

'Wearing sunglasses and a skull mask, a man entered Zellers around noon Tuesday, police said. He placed a note on the pharmacy counter.

(here's the awesome part) A clerk told him, "This isn't going to happen(.)"... The man left with the note, without saying a word.'

I can picture that being played out either by Clint Eastwood or Bruce Campbell as the store clerk. Both those scenarios are great.

So that was my shift pretty much- I didn't even read one page of my book! I guess I'll finish the thing tonight then.

I'm pretty pleased with this post, so it's bed time. I'll see you again Monday morning I guess, I'll do the talking, you do the paying attention thing.

But don't pay so close attention that you see spelling mistakes (rare) or grammatical errors (less rare, though often part of my style of speech... but when they aren't then they totally suck. You know what? Attribute all grammatical errors in the future to stylized writing. There, cut you off at the pass.).

Green Arrow to the rescue!

I do not have a lot of time to fill my quota. Every other day I'm going to have to update here. Which I'm sure is alright- but right this moment I want to hop outside into the relative cool, and zip over to the gym before I fall asleep like yesterday(it must be three weeks since I've been there).

I keep meaning to mention this, but last Sunday I was at a church (it's been months since I've been up and at one), singing along because that's what you do. The young woman in front of me complimented my singing, which was really nice.

Of course instead of my "thank you" she thought I'd said "I know". So great, I've managed to maintain my terrible reputation.

I haven't really sung much beyond 'to myself while out on walks or in the parking garage at my job' so it was nice to hear that maybe I don't totally suck at that.

Dude, I woke up and my right middle finger was KILLING me. Like a pressure was building inside. It sucked, but it's fine now. So that was weird.

Man, speaking of sucky stuff, this post is lame... that's it let's grab some cool picture from the internets to post on here.

Ah, here's the climax to JLA #9- it's a little out of context, but all you need to know to set it up is that it's up to the overwhelmed neophyte Green Arrow to save the universe with his father's old trick arrows- the boxing glove seeming the most impossible to use.

Gimli AND the fat kid from Stand By Me? How can you not love it?

Just commented over on a comic discussion blog, my validation word was "resqu" which I think is fantastic.

Are those words always real words, spelled differently, and I've just never taken the time to notice it?

"Resqu" or maybe "Res-Q" sounds like a 90's character, but one that's entirely too optimistic. I think I'd like him/her.

And YES of course I'm aware of the Marvel character "Rescue", the super heroic identity assigned to Pepper Potts since she got her super heroic up grade a couple years back. She had a mini series, not sure if she's still around though.

With any luck she'll just get downgraded back to Tony Stark's assistant and sometimes love interest. Yes, that sounds horrible of me, but I've got her best interests at heart: have you seen what they've done to James "Rhodey" Rhodes aka War Machine? He's some kind of cyborg now! Who still has to wear powered armour!

Well, maybe that isn't so bad after all. Whatever. Anyways. Concordantly.

I walked/ran to the comic store the other day with my bro Jordan. We followed the same route last week, so did I mention this last week? That dude really needs a lot of breaks. It makes me feel good about my own skill level, even though I don't run as much as I used to.

It's easier to push myself, 'cause I'll know when enough is enough- obviously. I'm not sure if I was setting the bar too high or not high enough on the run.

Coaching is hard. How do the Leafs/Jays/Raptors do it?

Oh, right- with millions of dollars.

I wasn't very motivated to run though, during our more walky portion Jordan was telling me about some money troubles that really got me down.

On the positive side, we did manage to reach the comic store before it closed (it was a close one though) and picked up the new Daredevil #1 comic. It was AMAZING, I'm definitely buying more of this series, so long as this is the creative team. Naturally, if you'd like to hear more about my thoughts on this head over to themondocomics.com about... tomorrow morning-ish for when I load up my reviews.

Unless I load them this evening, it all mixes together.

I've only got a hundred and ten pages left in my book to read. So if I keep to my usual pace of reading a hundred and twenty pages a night I'll be done Saturday morning with some time to spare maybe.

Pirate Prentice, the first character to appear in the book, has finally RE-appeared, after only a four hundred page abscence. Is that all? He has a sort of psychic dream sequence where he wonders where he's been and discovers he's going to betray his comrades. Naturally I took this as a meta commentary about his conspicuous abscence in the story.

I know that sounds super obvious when I lay it all down like that "he wonders where he's been... I took that as a meta commentary about his abscence in the story." Yes, I've worded it so that I sound like an idiot, I'm sorry! It was actually a pretty crazy part. Several sections of the book, you just have to take on faith that it'll make sense later. Gravity's Rainbow is pretty much what you'd get if you tried to sit down and make a whole season of X-Files fit into one book. Uh, but if you throw in some of the math from Fringe I guess. No, wait, from Numbers.

I should really have watched more X-Files before making that comparison, I've seen something like two episodes in my life. As well as only five or six episodes of Fringe.

And like, half an episode of Numbers.

But I'm sure I saw like 97% of The Lone Gunmen when it was on t.v. An X-Files spin off has to count.

Pfft, whatever, I admit it, I'm a Sliders guy. I've got my eye on the box set of season one and two at the HMV for $40. And once I get over my crippling fear of spending money on things other than food, bills, metropass, movie trips with friends, and my weekly comic books, then I'll totally be getting it.

Talking about the Sun, showing my hand

How is it that we've always got a half loaf of moldy bread around here? Could have something to do with me not making a habit of grilled cheese and cinnamon and sugar toast. What shame.

Read an article from Peter Worthington in yesterday's Toronto Sun about the debt ceiling crisis business in the states. His thesis seems to be (and I almost HAVE to be misinterpreting this, because it seems so stupid to me) that raising the debt ceiling is the correct thing to do, cutting services is the correct thing to do, raising taxes would be a big mistake, because AS WE ALL KNOW any revenue generated from taxes, those spendocrats will put into more of those services they've promised to cut. It's not their fault really, they've just got the spending disease.

So, yeah, now I know I can't take anything that guy says seriously and can probably skip his articles. Once again, I've increased my Toronto Sun reading efficiency. (I already tend to skip the Sue-Ann Levy articles, where after 20 takes the best head shot they could come up with still has her looking like the Wicked Witch of the West.)

So long as I'm talking about the Sun, there's another bit of media talk stuff I can mention. Have you heard about them leaving the one self regulatory journalism council? For whatever reason, this point hasn't been mentioned so far as I've read as to why it's a good idea for everyone to be a part of these onerous councils: it's these councils that serve as the necessary go between that halts the need for federal regulation.

You're hearing about the proposals for federal regulation of media in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandals? Whenever such threats are made, the compromise is for self regulatory bodies to be formed. This is the exact same reason the Comics Code Authority was formed back in the day- comics became self policing rather than get told what to do by the government.

Whether the Comics Code went to far because of skittishness is another matter- when there was a story to tell that couldn't be fit within the parameters of the Comics Code (The issue of Amazing Spider-Man that dealt with Harry Osborn's drug problem) the comic was published sans seal of approval. And they were right to do so!

The Code was formed to keep the concerned parents and American government off their backs, but comics had long since fallen off those groups radar. The Comics Code was no longer needed, and has been largely forgotten these days.

In which case, it seems odd for the Toronto Sun to snub the self regulation right at the moment of greatest possible controversy, when even without that move, federal regulation is being considered.

I want to point out that even though the Comics Code has largely been dropped (Archie still uses it last time I checked) comics are still a self regulating body: most books have a rating system on the cover (Marvel has: All Ages, PG, MATURE READERS while DC pretty much just has All Ages and the rest are rating less, but assumed to be higher of course <- but I could be mistaken about the DC ones, I'm mostly just guessing here. I'd have to go all the way DOWNSTAIRS to grab a DC book for reference!)

So in this vein, the Toronto Sun could satisfy concerned parties by setting up a self regulating body for themselves. Because I really doubt those right wing guys at the Sun would want any government regulation. Not that they've probably recognized that's what's at stake here.

Of course they'll be safe and fly under the radar so long as they keep writing that which serves the conservative narrative. So I guess they'll be fine for a good long while.

In other news: Just ran up and down stairs looking for my teeth brushing kit, and my feet were making the oddest squeaking noises against the ground. Possibly we have a mouse that has the best timed/most coincidental sqeaks ever.

The step before I press 'publish post'.

As I've mentioned before, most definitely during last years summer time, I'm terrible about knowing when it's hot out.

Not to put down my awesome detective skills, because every other time they're top notch, but in regards to weather, yeah. I can't just say "oh, it's hot."

No, I have to have trouble sleeping for days, be tired and continuously sweating.

A-HA it's hot out!

(Remarkable, Holmes! How do you do it?)

Elementary, I merely put all those separate facts I just mentioned together. Plus the weather channel says it's a scorcher.

Watching said weather channel (actually that CP24 news thing)- did you know there're a bunch of wild fires in northern Ontario and they've called over B.C. fire fighters to take care of it? I had no idea!

And there's a terrible drought in Somalia! Again, I had no idea!

I guess I haven't been paying attention to the news cycle much this wash, but last time I checked everything was about Will and Kate plus Crown Royalty, so I didn't think I was missing out on too much.

I got Sweet Tooth vol. 2 from the library, so I finished that before bed. Surprise surprise, that Jepperd guy, the macho violent guy- he was a hockey player before the whole world altering diseasse apocalypse thing.

Lemire! Mix it up Man!

Watch when his next issue of Superboy comes out we learn that the Phantom Stranger loves hockey.

Uh, but, that said, I actually would find it really funny if Lemire wrote Superboy trying to play hockey. He'd probably fall down all over the place unless he last minute activates flying. That'd be a fun image too.

OH, pretty exciting, I've been telling everyone this: as of Friday I finally caught up on all my OSAP payments since when I didn't have a job and couldn't make my payments. Technically, I could have called them and arranged some kind of lower payment thing, but that's not how my mind works. I'm like "okay, I missed this month, so I owe them X, and now it's X+X, and now it's..."

But yeah, so starting next month I'll be sending OSAP $160 a month, instead of the $400 I've been sending. That's a bunch of savings. And I'm a relative stone's throw away from paying off the credit card, too.

Though I should probably use my next paycheck to contribute more to the home finances, since I've been neglecting that a bit (what with the OSAP and all).

One of these days I'll be able to get myself a laptop thing so I can write at work... or at least, somewhere that isn't just right in front of this screen, in the living room all the time.

I've been pretty sucky about going to the gym lately, but I don't feel quite so bad now that I've made that 'it's hot!' realization. That tends to sap abilities, like some sort of parasite.

Can you believe they've yet to use Parasite as a villain in a Superman movie? The new one they've got coming out, I heard it stars Zod.

Don't get me wrong, I love Zod, but mostly due to the memetic nature of the original movie Zod's performance. I wonder if he's been cast yet. I guess I could use the internet for finding that out... but the amazing thing is, given enough time, the internet- with that information- will seek ME out! It's true!

I need to do laundry something fierce this evening. And this is my last day off work before, uh, work. It hasn't really felt like 5 days off, but it never does.

I wonder if the 19 year old kid I rushedly trained in 6 hours did okay this whole time. Maybe the building got burned down and nobody has decided to tell me yet.

I'd believe that- these guys are BAD about keeping me in the loop. Well, they've probably got other priorities if the building burned down, but that was just an example.

Okay, well, you probably want to get going, so let me come up with a title, and then I'll press publish post.

Ulp, gotta be careful not to reveal these "magician's secrets".

Surprise shift!

I seem to have talked (screamed?) my throat raw complaining about the new Transformers movie to my bros. To reiterate my points here would be redundant, as I'd simply be stating EVERYTHING that happens in the movie, and saying "THIS- ALL THIS!!"

Also, I've mentally tuckered myself out going over it the first time. I'm not sure if it was this hot in the room before, or if my rageness had an effect on the temperature.

I've also been keeping track of how many pages of my book I've been going through each day of work, because reading a lot of pages means I'm smart, right? That's how that works?

Anyway, I've got some notes, as well as those pages per day numbers, but that stuff is all downstairs, and I'm tired, and it really isn't that important.

I'm past the halfway point, so take that.

There's a significant portion of the book that transformed into a faux spy/super hero story, which I naturally enjoyed. The character Slothrop was able to travel with impunity through a war zone (I'm aware the war is over- that was a surprise, I figured the war would be a back drop through the entire novel) by appropriating the super hero conventions that no one deemed a threat.

Of course, he wasn't any kind of a threat, but that's besides the point.

Ah, in case you're wondering why I'm writing now instead of my promised Monday post... I ended up working Monday. And Tuesday.

That's right, a surprise two days of work. They called me at 1:30pm (I wasn't planning on getting up until 6pm... which was now when I had to get to work) to take over for the guy that they fired, and then they needed me on Tuesday to train the NEW new guy for the building.

And there was no reason for it.

The previous guard was doing a good job, but he didn't do one thing, and yes, he was warned once, but instead of speaking to him again, they decide to surprise fire him on the monday.

Instead of, say, telling him he was fired a day or two in advance, and arranging for me to train a guy on Sunday, when I'd already be on the job.

So stupid, someone was clearly really thoughtless, while also being really pushy (or else other people just acqueisced to his demands REALLY quickly).

I've got a good idea who is principally at fault here, but I don't need to pursue that info. But MAN it was a jerk move. And I had to cancel my fun movie night!

A hundred and twenty hard fought pages.

Just home from work, have two days off, so I'm getting prepared to happily sleep until 5.

This evening finished reading from pages 122-242, got through about 40 pages and started worrying that nothing was sinking in. All I can remember from that section is the pragmatic (evil?) Pavlovian Pointsman getting lucky in a closet during a Christmas party, and an amusing dialogue between skin cells about what happens to them after they reach the upper layer of skin. It would be depressingly nihlistic but for the fact that it was cute and funny.

And I just now remembered the part about Roger Mexico and Jessica randomly dropping in on a church service for the holiday and listening to the black man uh contra tenor? Is that the phrase? Urh I should know that. Well, there's that and Jessica's ruminations on Mexico's many faults. Oh, also Mexico stated freaking OUT about the thought that the psychically gifted psi-corps he worked with was messing with his brain.

So, actually, I've remembered a fair bit of stuff I hadn't expected in that section- that's good! But I was going to say that I didn't need to worry about not remembering the stuff after that point: it turns into a section following that unlikely American lothario Slothrop who GETS TO FIGHT A GIANT OCTOPUSS!!!

Pretty awesome, I think that goes without saying. He hooks up with a spy we met earlier (she's spying on him, I should point out) while his friend gets disappeared, and he gets all his stuff stolen while he's in bed with that spy Katje- which leads to a pretty great purple sheet/toga running after a midget thief chase scene.

Yeah, that Slothrop stuff was a lot of fun to read, way more energizing than the earlier section, but still a tough go over all when you're trying to read it in the dead of night at a desk in a condo lobby. I seemed to blow through pages when I was on the bus ride home, the new risen sunlight to read by and refresh me.

Pointsman had gotten pretty sure of himself, that he didn't need to worry about Pudding cutting his funding, and it looks like it's because Pointsmant has snookered Pudding into some kind of sado-masochistic relationship (maybe with that spy from the Slothrop bit, Katje, I'm not sure, and I had thought the two parts would be operating nearly simultaneously, but then again how long does it really take to leave Slothrop in France and take up that new post in England...), mixed maybe with some kind of survivor's guilt perhaps?

Not sure if this was just before or after the Pudding stuff, but we get a pretty amazing scene between Slothrop anbd Katje on the beach. Everything we're told is pretty much from Slothrop's perspective, but we add to Katje's expressions what we know of her life in Germany, her interactions with Prentice... WE know Slothrops musings about Katje seem pretty spot on, but HE doesn't know that. Ah, I liked that bit.

And finally just got into a section where some new guy whose name starts with 'R' is observing Slothrop.

Just wanted to get that down while it was in my mind, for the sake of solidifying what's happening in this novel (a trick in and of itself) and for getting another post up.

I'll try for a third tomorrow. Who knows what about?!? Not me.

Seriously, I don't know what it'll be about. If you think I'm kidding around, that my next post will just be more of me synopsising of this book, well, you're wrong, because I've got the day off from work, so I'll be doing other stuff in place of reading. Like hopefully go to the gym so that I don't suck gym-wise.

I'm back at work Wednesday, so maybe more synopsising Thursday morning, okay?

But I am watching Transformers 3 Tuesday, so I bet I'll mention that sometime.

Quick note on July first and reading today

I told myself I'd just hop straight to bed when I got home, but I ended up having some breakfast/second dinner and it's hot, and the sunlight has re-energized me way more than the 2am non-light did.

Along the hot lines, I'm like glistening over here. Like Captain Kirk on some planet where shirts are taboo (all of them?).

I should put on a shirt maybe.
Nah, whatever, I'm rockin' it.

It's already the 10th and I haven't posted anything for July. That's probably my worst start to a month ever. The Canada Day happened, and would you believe I had plans, THEN was invited to two separate, mutually exclusive things in addition to that first thing? My first free Canada Day in years (I'd been working them at Ontario Place for the last while, Canada Day always being the big one. I may not have returned to work at that point in 2008 though.

But yes, making up for lost time and capitalizing on my sudden popularity, I mashed two of those three things together, and sent my regrets to the last one.

Fireworks happened. Also ice cream.

Last night I started back on Gravity's Rainbow. I think this'll be my third attempt to read it. My first try I had a library book copy of it, mixed in with a bunch of other library books, and I didn't get to it until it was due back and I couldn't renew it, so I only got fifty pages in.

Then I BOUGHT the book (a really beautiful copy, as far as I'm concerned) but I still kept myself under a constant deluge of library books. Library deadlines being what they are, I got to apge 117 before I had to focus on my library books and lost touch with Pynchon.

Another barrier to my reading the thing was the fact that I didn't want to take the book out of the house with me, fearing the inevitable battle damage it would take in any trips.

Argh, well, I took it to work, and it's ALREADY suffered some battle damage!!

Just a little, but man, I really didn't want that to happen.

Anyways, I was determined to get to serious work on this book, so last night I read through to p.122.

That's a net gain of +5 pages!!

I'm pretty familiar with that opening scene, right after the crazy description of subway travel (I assume that's what it is) where Pirate Prentis goes on about his bananas.

Okay, I'm actually familiar with a lot of what I read last night- I almost didn't want to keep going. I've only ever been introduced to these characters and their world, it's been all set up so far. No real challenges have emerged to be over come. When that DOES happen, people will change, people will die (presumbably from rockets) and it'll be my fault for reading!

I'm sorry Roger Mexico- I hope I don't ruin your relationship with Jessica by continuing the story.

We'll see what happens. (I'm sorry)