Tag: meta

I can hear a rat scraping around in the back of the store. I want it to be my friend.

Passion-Hill, a very delightfully wrong Benny Hill/Passion of the Christ mash-up that confirms every little inner voice belief I had telling me never to watch the film.

The miracle of the clean water straw, the lingering joy of the discoving that people in little villages in africa have the habit of climbing trees to get better reception for their cell phones, these ideas were connecting in my mind this morning. I walked to work with the flavour of the future in my head. I’m curious to know who would be interested in starting a coffee-house discussion group on things like social networks inter-reacting with technology, the internet, and what we’re doing with our journals. There’s been a lot of talk lately about using the net as a tool, but I look around and never find enough people doing it. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of time to set aside for this sort of thing, but I’m willing to give it a try. I don’t want moderated discussions or weekly topics or anything regulated, I would rather let people spill what they’ve discovered that week and give them feed-back. I want motivations, clouded or otherwise, for keeping a journal. I want explanations, links to the news that changed your perpective on what the internet offers you. I talk about this sort of thing all the time in my every day but it hardly comes up here. I’d like that to change. Game?

When the zombies come, swords don’t run out of bullets. They’re going to be having a cane-fighting workshop come next Sunday.

I’m bleeding dye

  • British woman weds dolphin.

    Something about me wants to learn how to sing soul music, that drum machine spoken word that focuses on notes like inspiration and cleverly explains every bar-tab feeling that love ever wracks up inside our hearts. These words aren’t enough some days. I desire chords. I keep being put on the spot next to pianos and feeling entirely inadequate as my tongue searches for something I know all the lyrics to. I’ve lost all my known songs, all I’ve got left are children’s tunes and the thin skin of pop songs that don’t stand up to scrutiny. A man suddenly startles from a couch. “You’re not a musician are you? That would be a shame.” “No, I’m not. Really I’m not. Why would that be so bad?” “I would haff to stop what I’m doing right now if you are.” “What?” “I don’t let myself ever do this with musicians.” Understanding glitters in her mind and her lips quirk. They laugh while the others look on uncomprehendingly. He leans back, settles his head back on the pillow, and she continues to be pleased. I wanted to sing. I swear. Please believe me. I would give up every ounce of hesitation I showed so that you could have had me sing for you. Hands on the keys and I felt like magic was real. I felt like I remembered, the first time I left for the city, the first time I met you. I will never stop wishing you’d called. The phone silent in my pocket felt like a John Cage piece. Four hours and thirty three seconds before I step on a plane marked only by the absence of vibration, of tone, of hello where do we meet. Those hands, so slight, pulling rabbits from my jaded hat. Sound.

  • Second chord sounds in world’s longest lasting concert.

    Does anyone have a scanner? I have a lovely Polaroid of Andrew, Mike and myself that I insisted be taken by an unkempt vagrant downtown who was wandering around asking tourists to pose for a fee. We’re standing in the middle of Grandville street at night looking like nothing better than drunk kids. I would like to have a digital copy of before anything strange happens to it. I’ve never had a Polaroid before and I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked like a yuppie’s girlfriend before either. The novelty is slightly addictive. I want to wear it in my hat like an antique PRESS pass and ignore people who stare at me on the metro.

  • John McDaid’s brilliant sci-fi story Keyboard Practice is now free online.

    Larry called on Friday while he was driving down the highway home. We fell immediately into comfortable conversation. I was glad, still am. I’ve been feeling him as living farther away lately, no matter that Missouri’s a hell of a lot closer than Paris, because the frequency of his posts dropped lately and there’s been less content. My distances are measured in information, not geography. Every letter typed is a drop in a river. I don’t have to close my eyes at night to see it. I can be walking barefoot through cold mud, whirling glittering scarves over my head, and think, ah, so-and-so would like to do this with me. I can tell. They write that way. As I was discussing with Rick, on the bus Sunday, grammar and punctuation can mean so much on-line. The entire language changes to make up for body-language, for visual cues. Sentence structure is suddenly crucial in a way that doesn’t effect speech. Typing the word “like” or “um” every three words is unacceptable, though I’m sure we say them more often than we’d like to admit. Spelling takes on the measure of your education, typos of your intelligence. Code overshadows everything read, as LOL translates to “well that was enough to make me smile”. It makes me wonder how well I transliterate to page. I’m told that I smile more in person than on-line, but that my typos are less. What about you?

  • India is missing about 10 million daughters since the widespread use of ultrasound, estimates a new study.

    • because the words going around are already highly ficticious

    the fighting irish
    the fighting irish
    Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

    Lately it’s come to my attention that there are more lurkers here than I can account for. As well, as of earlier this month, there were more than 300 LJ users who have me on their friends lists. That’s thirty decareaders. I think it’s about damned time for you to explain yourselves. Yes, this means you:

    1. Who are you and why?
    2. (bonus) Recommend some music that you think I would enjoy.

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    Shock! Scandal! Two Irish brothers were caught fighting at the Burnaby 8-Rinks Sunday night, firmly damaging reputations and causing at least thirteen dollars worth of rumours. Mike McDonald and Daimhin O’Dwyer, witnesses confirmed, began to brawl upon the realization that they had both been sleeping with the same girl. The fight was abandoned briefly as a brave young woman, Sophie Isbister, stepped in and declared a truce. However, the fighting began again only a few minutes later, culminating only when one boy dragged the other over the side wall of the rink head first. Staff completely ignored the entire matter.

  • 16-year-old studies journalism, then runs away to Iraq alone,
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    Rick and Sophie are asleep in my bed like Jack Spratt and his feverish wife snoring like a pair of adorable kittens. I love them both with the same careless affection, but I’ve been staying up too late lately to go to bed just yet. I’ll join them eventually. First the planet has to rotate a bit. I admit, though, the bed looks terribly welcoming. There’s an inviting heap of extra blankets, because Sophie is mildly ill, with a space on the edge set aside for me to slot into. Already I can feel the body heat radiating off them that’s fogging my windows. A new sensation, but as I’m an old-fashioned girl, warming my room with bodies strikes me as appropriate for winter.

    Not that January is cold here, far from it. Vancouver, recently, has been embalmed in a strangely humid spat of warm rainy weather. The constant cloudy skies have been trapping the earth’s energy and not releasing it until night is well fallen. It’s almost irritating as I remember the clear, crisp, and certain winter of Montreal. No waffling seasons there, but clearly delineated passing of time. I love dearly how the trees there have no leaves.

  • Ignoring UK ban, bloggers publish leaked torture memos.

    Reports from the hospital confirm bruised egos, but no one in critical condition. The current prognosis is hopeful. It is expected the rift opened between the two contestants will repair itself in the next few days, as they are currently to be found fiercely debating the politics of drinking Guiness for dinner and haggling over the price of the shepard’s pie to be found in the cafeteria. News about the girl is not as good, nurses tell, her belly having shaken with laughter magnitude of 5.9. She may require the resulting stitches be extracted from her body, but this has yet to be confirmed at the time of publishing.

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    I have been continually reminding myself that I have to gather Robin up after school tomorrow/today and explain to him where Academie Duello has moved. He’s been slack lately, claiming location ignorance as a reason not to go to his classes. I’ve never been, but I know where it is. It’s now housed in an odd part of downtown, busy yet not particularly thought about, kitty-corner to SFU campus and on top of Waves coffeeshop, the only 24 place with free wireless. I’ve been going over routes in my mind, trying to think of how to show him how to find it from as many directions as I can muster. What buses pass by, what skytrain stations are closest, what streets should he avoid? I have to factor in that Duello is close to Crackton now and Robin is not known for his keen instincts. The junkies wander far enough west that he’s going to encounter them. I’m wondering if I should be teaching him how to notice them too, as well as the landmarks and which way is north. He’s my only source of income at the moment, if he’s grounded due to sheer empty-headedness, I suddenly won’t be able to afford to pay my way. That would be bad. A lesson in How To Tell If The Homeless Are Dangerous is fomenting as I type this, can you tell? Envision something like a cynical Far Side cartoon featuring a city awash in drug culture and you have the basic seed of the idea. Let’s hope that he never has any practical application to apply it to.

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