Categories
love personal

absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

I found out via email this morning that Emily is getting married. I’m not sure why the news affected me as much as it has, but my stomach immediately tightened up. I decided to take a half-day off work. I’ll go home and relax, drink wine and watch the rain fall.

Every time I’ve thought about her in the last two years I’ve had this same feeling.

Anger. Regret. Confusion. Longing.

I don’t think of myself as someone who lives in the past. Perhaps packing up my car and moving 3000 miles away wasn’t as good a closure as I thought it would be. I still think it was the only thing I could do at the time that made any sense.

Perhaps I’m just bitter. Of the two relationships I’ve fully committed myself to as an adult, one ripped me apart in France and the other has, one way or another, been quietly gnawing at me now for nearly two years. I don’t know why I haven’t just let go and moved on. I’ve tried and it hasn’t worked, and I don’t know why that is either.

Sometimes trying to be self-aware is such a nuisance. And yet I remain a romantic, despite myself.

Categories
humor music

As the sky falls

Pandora plays my “Zero 7 Radio” at a quiet reference desk, one earbud in as I watch the rain fall outside and wonder what the spam email I just got means by “trombone Asian-American”.

The email continues with such gems as:

CAN BIGN HAVE YOU SPEEDING PAST OTHER TRADERS LIKE A ROADRUNNER ON STEROIDS?

THE ALERT IS ON!!! DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE!!

(and at the end) WARNING: You can lose all your money by investing in this stock.

In the sense of poetry as original language, I think that a great deal of spam email qualifies. I’m well-aware that many people take their spam email and create projects from it (spamusement, spam poetry, etc). Almost all my spam email comes to my work address, and as such a lot of it gets filtered, but even so I find that it’s some of my favorite email I receive on my work account. Would you rather know that your softball team got beat by 11 points, again, or sit and think about what a “trombone Asian-American” might be?

Me too.

Categories
art book internet

BibliOdyssey

Mentioned by Blogger’s Blogs of Note, BibliOdyssey claims dominion over matters of Books, Illustrations, Science, History, Visual Materia Obscura, and Eclectic Bookart. For the most part, it seems to cover illustration in various literary works, and caught my eye for its post on Hans Christian Andersen illustrations by Edmund Dulac.

Categories
book news

Doug Squared

Author Douglas Coupland talks with Wired about his new book, and how he became, much to his surprise, a character in the book and developed an internet persona with its own life and interesting hobbies. So what do you do if the internet version of you has more interesting hobbies than you do? Pick them up, of course!

There’s a rumor going around the Internet that Douglas Coupland collects meteorites. Nobody knows how it began, least of all Coupland. But the story started to circulate shortly after his first novel, Generation X, became an On the Road for the ’90s. Every effort he’s made to set the record straight has been ignored by his many fan sites. So he recently decided to purchase a few choice specimens.

“We should all be so lucky to have people throw such good ideas our way,” he says.

Categories
libraries socialweb

The MySpace Library

Meredith has posted an excellent article on libraries using social networking software. It’s one of my favorite library subjects these days, and she’s really written some great thoughts and included some great links. I’m looking forward to reading her book. I particularly appreciate the distinction she makes between libraries simply being on these networks, and libraries actually using these networks.

A lot of libraries have started building presence in MySpace and Facebook by creating profiles. And I honestly think this is a really good idea though unfortunately most libraries are doing it really badly. When you decide to put up a library profile on MySpace or Facebook, what is your goal? If it’s to look cool or to make students more aware of the library, don’t bother. A profile that offers nothing but a picture of the library, a blog post or two and a cutesy thing about how we won’t shush you just looks cheesy. I think there is a big difference between “being where our patrons are” and “being USEFUL to our patrons where they are.” I think some of the libraries in MySpace and Facebook have put a profile up, but they have not tried to make it useful to their patrons at all. Just putting up a profile does not make the library seem cool, nor does it make the library more visible.

I have seen two ways that libraries have used MySpace and Facebook effectively. The first is to get feedback from students. The second is to create a library portal within MySpace and/or Facebook (or whatever social networking software inevitably will come next).

Being on MySpace as an end to itself is pointless. Using MySpace as an information or communication gateway to connect with your patronage in a place where they already are and are comfortable is, for me, the entire idea behind library 2.0. She includes some links to libraries and library systems who are using MySpace in practical and active ways. You should definately go check them out.

Categories
personal

i <3 snails

It was one of those things where you see something for the first time, and then all of a sudden, it appears to be everywhere.  And the problem was that I had no idea where it had come from.  Who had created it?

It really wasn’t too incredibly tough to track down, but I fancy myself quite the sleuth all the same.

From a fansite, collecting them, I present Pon and Zi, by Jeff Thomas.  It is quite charming.
.

Categories
humor webcomics

“BioDiesel Sweeties” by 2010.

R. Stevens says that one of his definitions of satisfaction is “writing a phrase which makes me laugh, reads coherently and does not show up in google”.

As a consequence, I have to say one of my definitions of satisfaction is reading those phrases.  Diesel Sweeties is certainly a top competitor for webcomic with the most original dialogue.  The only other webcomic author that comes to mind on the same level is Chris Onstad of Achewood.  But Sweeties is more quotable out of context.

From today’s comic: “I entered this world fully formed and without precedent.”

Random previous quotes:

“I’m two steps ahead of you and both of them are whiskey.”

“Go snikt yourself.”

“I’m not short.  I prefer to think there is simply more space above my head for word balloons full of devastatingly pithy witicisms.”

“The internet is fine for sex, but I like my music up close and personal.”

“Winners fondue.  Losers fondon’t.

Categories
game

Centipede for the ambient generation

What do you get when a student creates a Flash game for their Masters in Fine Arts thesis project?

Flow. To be specific, his example of Flow in games. As you might expect for an MFA thesis, there’s a lot of thought, research, and purpose behind the game, some of which you can read here.

Before you get into any of that, though, you should really just immerse yourself in the game for awhile. It is in a way simple, elegant, and altogether something different.

Play it here, and then go check out the forums and see what some people have used Flow to create.

Categories
cinema humor

“Looks exhausting.”

If you enjoyed The Big Lebowski, and I hope you did, you might be interested in reading Todd Alcott’s interpretation of what the movie is about.

The dude abides.  Dudes…

Categories
personal

The Continued Adventures of Fox and Wa

The obsolescence of my broken car part seems to end in Colorado, where it has been found and requested.  For $50, no less.  I’m a little irate that the absence of a $50 part has the possibility of making my car essentially worthless (and certainly less useful), but right now much more happy that it may soon be fixed.  Now I just get to wait and see if it’s actually the RIGHT part (no reason it wouldn’t be except that I’m paranoid at this point), and start the struggle now over whether I’ll continue to ride my bike to work when there is an easier and more convenient alternative.  The noble side of me wants to ride and get fit, but the practical side of me is a sore loser with a mean left hook, so we’ll see who comes out on top.

At the least, I’ve really started to take a closer look at my dependence on my car, and I’d like to lessen it a great deal.  Gas prices aside (and honestly they don’t bother me that much), driving a car is an expensive habit!

Categories
humor personal

Monkeyshine

Dear Science,

Thank you for confirming for me that somewhere in the world, right now, there is probably a monkey getting drunk. It means a lot to me.

Warm regards,

Ahniwa

Categories
personal

La Tour d’Olympia

Saturday was the first day that I rode my bike to work, and it wasn’t that bad. It took about 30 minutes (I have no idea about mileage), and I felt pretty good about it the whole way. Granted, my legs were killing me for a bit, but after they warmed up they were fine. On the ride home my ass hurt, but after a few minutes that went away too and I was truckin’ along.

Today was the second time I rode my bike to work, and for some reason within the first 10 minutes I felt like I was going to die. I was huffing and puffing to put a puffin to shame, and that was just on the very first hill. After I got past the first series of hills and leveled out a bit, I caught some wind, but all the same the entire ride felt like much more of an effort than it did on Saturday.

I figure it’s either the increased traffic (and thus exhaust I got to breathe in; so much for being healthy), or the amount of alcohol I drank last night.

Yeah … stupid traffic.

Categories
poetic

Prose of the Day

Preamble To The Instructions On How To Wind a Watch

Think of this: when they present you with a watch, they are gifting you with
a tiny flowering hell, a wreath of roses, a dungeon of air. They aren’t
simply wishing the watch on you, and many more, and we hope it will last
you, it’s a good grand, Swiss, seventeen rubies; they aren’t just giving
you this minute stonecutter which will bind you by the wrist and walk along
with you. They are giving you – they don’t know it, it’s terrible that they
don’t know it – they are gifting you with a new fragile and precarious piece
of yourself, something that’s yours but not a part of your body, that you
have to strap to your body like your belt, like a tiny, furious bit of
something hanging onto your wrist. They gift you with the job of having to
wind it every day, an obligation to wind it, so that it goes on being a
watch, they gift you with the obsession of looking into jewelry-shop windows
to check the exact time, check the radio announcer, check the telephone
service. They give you the gift of fear, someone will steal it from you,
it’ll fall on the street and get broken. They give you the gift of your
trademark and the assurance that it’s a trademark better than others, they
gift you with the impulse to compare your watch with other watches. They
aren’t giving you a watch, you are the gift, they are giving you yourself
for the watch’s birthday.

Instructions On How to Wind a Watch

Death stands there in the background, but don’t be afraid. Hold the watch
down with one hand, take the stem in two fingers, and rotate it smoothly.
Now, another installment of time opens, trees spread their leaves, boats
run races, like a fan time continues filling with itself, and from that
burgeon of air, the breezes of earth, the shadow of a woman, the sweet smell
of bread.

What did you expect, what more did you want? Quickly, strap it to your
wrist, let it tick away in freedom, imitate it greedily. Fear will rust
all the rubies, everything that could happen to it and was forgotten is
about to corrode the watch’s veins, cranking the cold blood with its tiny
rubies. And death is there in the background, we must run to arrive
beforehand and understand it’s already unimportant.

From "The Instruction Manual" by Julio Cortazar
(and thanks to Sister Amos for sending it to me)
Categories
personal

Some mornings I wonder…

… why the box of Irish Breakfast tea I purchased didn’t come with a bottle of whiskey.

It’s a shame.

Categories
personal

On the read window there is a sticker that reads “Foxy”.

Tuesday afternoon, May 2nd, I took my car to the Texaco QuickLube to get the oil changed.  Afterwards I drove across the street to the Chevron to fill the tank.  $21 later I got back into my car and noticed that the Gas Meter and Temperature guages on my dash panel were no longer working.  I shrugged, figured a fuse blew, and since the car was running fine, vowed to go get some fuses and fix the problem, later.

Wednesday evening I got home from work and ran inside to grab my mitt and change for softball practice.  When I ran back out, my car wouldn’t start.  Miffed though not panicked, I called friends and got a ride, still figuring that the problem was a minor electrical glitch.  Thursday morning Theo came over to give me a jump.  When he arrived I tried to start the car without assistance, and it started fine.  I drove it down to German Engine Service, explained the problem, left my key, and crossed my fingers.

Initially the mechanic told me that it was probably the alternator, which sounded like a simple fix if not an entirely inexpensive one.  Today I found out that it’s actually a circuit board that shorted out.  I was given a Wednesday estimate with a $270 price tag.  I can live with that.  Then he called back.  The part is obsolete (not for me!), so he’ll have to call the junk yards, which he won’t have time to do until Monday.  Who knows if anyone has the part.  My car is one of the more obscure cars you’ll ever see, whether or not you’d know it by looking at it.  It’s a 1993 VW Fox 2-Door Sedan 5-Speed Wolfsburg Edition, and a lovely dark blue color too.  I’ve been to hell (okay, so it was just Ohio) and back with that car, and I love it dearly, and I don’t want it to be dead.

That said, the idea of living without a car has always been vaguely appealing to me, and for at least the next week, I’ll be forced to give it a shot.  When my car died in Ohio, I bothered everyone more than I would have liked by borrowing their cars (at the time I neither had a bicycle nor worked very close to home).  This time, I have a bicycle that I like (I even have padded bike shorts), and I live a reasonable distance that it would be no great ordeal to bike in to work.  Tomorrow I’ll give it a shot.

For the long term, Montreal seems like an easy enough city to live in without driving, so regardless of whether or not I drive to get out there, I think I’ll do my best to drive very little once I arrive.  Perhaps my auto(mobile)-dependance is being forced out of me, but I’m determined to make the best of it.  All the same, please send happy thoughts to my poor Fox, who has only turned 13-years-old this year and who was planning on going another 80,000 miles (at least) before it goes to that big scrap pile in the sky.

My car is dead.  Long live my car!

Categories
cinema personal

Movie Meme: The Top 100

It was really tough to knock out nearly half of the movies on the previous list. The result, though, is a list of 100 films that I think people of our generation need to watch. Movies made the list for various reasons, and as I mentioned before, not just because they’re my favorites.

For instance, I don’t like “Clerks” at all, but Kevin Smith has had a big effect on our generation, and Clerks is his masthead, so to speak.

Scream is an odd entry, but it really created a new genre of teenage comedy horror and has led to multiple copycats and parodies.

Had I the time, I’d be happy to go through each and every movie and explain why I added it, and what I think it adds to movies in general and to our generation in particular. Maybe I will at some point. In the meantime, here’s the list, in handy meme form.

Take it, repost it, see how ya do. I think most people my age will have seen most of these, though certainly not all of them. But I’m curious to find out. 

——–

() 01 Alien (and Aliens)
() 02 Amelie
() 03 American Beauty
() 04 Austin Powers
() 05 Back to the Future
() 06 Batman
() 07 Blade Runner
() 08 Braveheart
() 09 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
() 10 Casablanca
() 11 Citizen Kane
() 12 Clerks
() 13 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
() 14 Das Boot
() 15 Dead Poets Society
() 16 Die Hard
() 17 Dirty Dancing
() 18 Donnie Darko
() 19 Dr. No
() 20 Dr. Strangelove
() 21 E.T.
() 22 Evil Dead II (and Army of Darkness)
() 23 Fargo
() 24 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
() 25 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
() 26 Fight Club
() 27 Finding Nemo
() 28 Footloose
() 29 Forrest Gump
() 30 Ghost
() 31 Ghost Busters
() 32 Gladiator
() 33 Goldeneye
() 34 Good Will Hunting
() 35 Grease
() 36 Groundhog Day
() 37 Halloween
() 38 Heat
() 39 Independence Day
() 40 Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
() 41 It’s a Wonderful Life
() 42 Jaws
() 43 Jean de Florette
() 44 Jerry Maguire
() 45 Jurassic Park
() 46 Kill Bill v. 1-2
() 47 Labyrinth
() 48 Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, all 3)
() 49 Mission Impossible
() 50 Monty Python and the Holy Grail
() 51 Office Space
() 52 Pretty Woman
() 53 Princess Mononoke
() 54 Psycho
() 55 Pulp Fiction
() 56 Rebel Without a Cause
() 57 Rocky
() 58 Romeo and Juliet (1996)
() 59 Run Lola Run
() 60 Rushmore
() 61 Saving Private Ryan
() 62 Say Anything
() 63 Scream
() 64 Shrek
() 65 Silence of the Lambs
() 66 Sin City
() 67 Singin’ in the Rain
() 68 Spiderman
() 69 Star Wars (ep. 4-6)
() 70 Superman
() 71 Taxi Driver
() 72 Terminator (and Terminator II)
() 73 The Big Lebowski
() 74 The Blues Brothers
() 75 The Breakfast Club
() 76 The Exorcist
() 77 The Fugitive
() 78 The Godfather (and The Godfather II)
() 79 The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
() 80 The Goonies
() 81 The Last Temptation of Christ
() 82 The Lion King
() 83 The Matrix
() 84 The Muppet Movie
() 85 The Nightmare Before Christmas
() 86 The Passion of the Christ
() 87 The Pink Panther (1963)
() 88 The Princess Bride
() 89 The Professional
() 90 The Ring
() 91 The Shining
() 92 The Sixth Sense
() 93 The Truman Show
() 94 The Usual Suspects
() 95 Thelma and Louise
() 96 Titanic
() 97 Top Gun
() 98 Toy Story
() 99 Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
() 100 Willow

Categories
cinema personal

Movie List #1: Complete

Here’s the complete list of 193 movies that I think are essential viewing. Note that not all of my favorite movies are included, nor are all the movies included my favorites. I’m going to whittle this down to an even 100 for a final list of MUST-SEE MOVIES. It’s in caps because I really consider them must sees. In the meantime, just consider this list “Recommended Viewing”. 

12 Angry Men
2001: A Space Odyssey
28 Days Later
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Akira
Aladdin (Disney)
Alien
Aliens
Almost Famous
Amadeus
Amelie
American Beauty
American Graffiti
Any Given Sunday
Army of Darkness
Austin Powers
Back to the Future
Bambi
Basic Instinct
Batman
Before Sunrise
Being John Malkovitch
Blade Runner
Braveheart
Brazil
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Cape Fear (1991)
Casablanca
Charade
Citizen kane
Clerks
Coffee and Cigarettes
Coming to America
Crash
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Dances with Wolves
Das Boot
Dead Man
Dead Poets Society
Die Hard
Diner
Dirty Dancing
Donnie Darko
Dr. No
Dr. Strangelove
Dracula (1992)
E.T.
East of Eden
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Evil Dead II
Fargo
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Ferris Beuler’s Day Off
Fiddler on the Roof
Fight Club
Finding Nemo
Flatliners
Footloose
Forrest Gump
Friday the 13th
Gandhi
Garden State
Ghost
Ghost Busters
Ghost Dog
Gladiator
Goldeneye
Goldfinger
Gone with the Wind
Good Will Hunting
Grease
Groundhog Day
Halloween
Heat
Heathers
High Fidelity
I (Heart) Huckabees
Independence Day
Indiana Jones
It’s a Wonderful Life
Jaws
Jean de Florette
Jerry McGuire
Jurassic Park
Kill Bill v. 1-2
King Kong
La Femme Nikita
La Haine
Labyrinth
Legend
Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, all 3)
Mad Max
Magnolia
Mary Poppins
Men in Black
Minority Report
Mission Impossible
Monsters, Inc.
Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail
Moulin Rouge (2001)
Mulholland Drive
My Fair Lady
Natural Born Killers
Night of the Living Dead
Ocean’s 11
Office Space
Pretty Woman
Princess Mononoke
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
Rambo
Rebel Without a Cause
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
RoboCop
Rocky
Romeo and Juliet (1996)
Ronin
Run Lola Run
Rushmore
Saving Private Ryan
Say Anything
Scarface
Shakespeare in Love
Shine
Shrek
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
Singin’ in the Rain
Sleepless in Seattle
Snatch
Spiderman
Spirited Away
Star Wars (ep. 4-6)
Superman
Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver
Terminator II: Judgement Day
The Big Lebowski
The Big Sleep
The Blues Brothers
The Breakfast Club
The Crying Game
The Dark Crystal
The English Patient
The Exorcist
The Fifth Element
The Fugitive
The Godfather
The Godfather II
The Golden Child
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Goonies
The Graduate
The Hunt for Red October
The Iron Giant
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Lion King
The Matrix
The Muppet Movie
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Passion of the Christ
The Pianist
The Pink Panther (1963)
The Princess Bride
The Professional
The Ring
The Shining
The Sixth Sense
The Sound of Music
The Stepford Wives
The Sting
The Terminator
The Triplets of Belleville
The Truman Show
The Usual Suspects
The Wizard of Oz
Thelma and Louise
Titanic
Tombstone
Top Gun
Total Recall
Toy Story
Traffic
Trainspotting
Tron
Unforgiven
Wayne’s World
West Side Story
Whale Rider
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Willow
Zoolander
Categories
game humor internet

Mr. Gnomely

Some people have too much time on their hands. Which is great, because it means they can make awesome WoW videos.

Categories
personal

Just plain “whelmed”.

Do you ever have periods in your life where no matter how busy or idle you are, you feel overwhelmed?

Yeah …

I hate that.