Weird Place

I'm at a weird place in my life, with one of my strong resentmentments growing on me. I have this dislike to growing old, but I feel older and older everyday, and moreso lately when I try to go out and get in on throwin a baseball around or shootin some hoops. I always come away with aches and pains that I didn't have as a kid, and probably should have even at my age now. Despite this, it has become common practice for me to make sure there is ice, or a bag of frozen vegetables in the freezer before I depart on one of my sporting misadventures. The really disturbing part about all this is that I am still young enough to get carded at the beer store 5 out of 6 times I go. I'm going to try to get out a little more frequently though, and hope that repetition will build whatever I am lacking, and not have me limping around or moving gingerly in the days following.

Speaking of limping around, there was what I at least thought was an injured bird sitting on the roof outside my bedroom window this afternoon. It was at least not well in the sense that I was able to walk right up to it to look at it and give it some food. Eventually it actually flew away in what appeared to me to be normal flight, so presumably it was just a really spaced out bird, or desensitized to the presence of humans.

Every time I walk through the park or near a plaza with a couple fast food restaurants, especially around campus, I am reminded of how adjusted birds are become to the presence of humans, and apparently in some cases dependant on us. But I guess there's nothing that can be done about that.

Sidney Crosby just scored again...granted it was a total fluke, but the kid is amazing. Hopefully he'll some day have an NHL to play in. And dating myself again, I just realized I called Sidney Crosby a kid, while I still remember the days I looked up to 18 year olds entering the NHL as veterans of life. Oh how time flies.

Summer Storms

TGIF. The weather forecast is for rain and thunderstorms all weekend with respectably warm weather. There's nothing more relaxing than sitting out on the balcony with a beer, listening to the rain, and watching the lightning. Next week promises to be a long week in the field at work, so I plan on getting in plenty of said relaxing time in the next few days.

Nothing more relevant to say at the moment, 12 hour days workin out in the sun will take most progressive thought from the mind.

Follow Up

I previously mentioned the apparent parallels between U.S. politics, and in fact the politics of many empires since fallen, and the Star Wars movies. Obviously these two aren't the kind of people who noted these similiarities. It really is unbelievable how little people think sometimes, and while I'll be the first to admit to doing stupid things (my foot is still a little sore from last week's basketball incident), I hardly believe I'd venture this far into the realm of blankness. I guess world population needs some appropriate checks somewhere though. At least people like this alter the make-up of the gene pool on their own accord, unlike what happens elsewhere in the world.

Ups, Downs, Burns and Bruises

The FA Cup just finished. The first game was awesome, and then the rules dictated that a new game should be played where players kick the ball at a net, and another player guesses randomly which way the ball is going to go, and this is how a game is decided. Obviously I'm talking about a shootout, which, while being exciting, is such a ridiculous ending to just about any sporting event. Manchester U outplayed Arsenal most of the actual game, and got screwed in the end, possibly because they were so outplayed that Carrol in net for ManU was cold. Ah well, that's life.

This weekend got off to a good start last night. Fire, spud guns, and fireworks will make any occasion a blast, and I escaped drunken stupor with only minor burns and bruises. Great weather so far too, unusual for the 2-4 weekend. And on that note, I'm gonna go enjoy it now.

Statistics Never Lie

I came across an interesting article in New Scientist about the actual statistical biases apparent in the United States government. Obviously its not pointing out anything not known from political viewpoints, but now there's objective as well as subjective proof. Only what, three and a half years til something can be done about that again?

A friend also pointed this article from Yahoo News on parallels between Star Wars and the current U.S. government.

Cannes audiences made blunt comparisons between "Revenge of the Sith" — the story of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the rise of an emperor through warmongering — to President Bush's war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.

Followed by a comment by George Lucas himself:

In ancient Rome, "why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?" Lucas said. "Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

Squabbling and corruption in government? You don't say? Stay tuned for an impromptu Canadian Federal election.

Antiques Roadshow Circa 2095

I was going through a bunch of old computers today looking for a couple old cards to give to a buddy to test out, and a couple thoughts hit me. The first was that I really need to do something about my unhealthy urge to save anything and everything, particularly when it comes to electronics (stereo equipment, speakers, computers, keyboards etc.). The second, somewhat paradoxically to the first, was that some of this shit will show up on antiques roadshow some day, or maybe Google antiques roadshow. They will invent a way to make the search engine as glib and dry as those that host the show now, and then it will proceed to tell the unknowing posessor of an IBM 80386 motherboard that their piece of junk could fetch as much as 40 quadrillion dizzles (adjusted for inflation and ebonics spread in North America). Now I can't give you any relative terms, but chances are a bag of milk will cost 47 quadrillion dizzles at the same point in time. I really have to stop hanging on to this shit.

The Ultimate in Home Laziness

While home elevators make sense for those with mobility issues, I hardly think that that is the targeted group for this.

I guarantee I'll see them on "Cribs" while channel surfing past Much'Music'. On the Much note...apparently Ed the Sock is back with a new show this weekend, and being the only relevant, halfway intelligent entity ON that network anymore, I thought I'd point that out. I give it 2 weeks before he's cancelled again for being too in touch with reality. But I guarantee it won't be replaced by music, because after all, who would wanna tune into a music channel to see and hear music videos? That would be crazy!

"...I just don't know what to do with myself..."

A couple long trips to one of the field sites this week allowed me a lot of time to read, and I managed to finish 1984 (I can't read as quickly as I used to be able to). I loved it. If you haven't done so, read it, no questions asked, in the interest of the Party. But really though, while not wholly prophetic, it was never meant to be a prediction, just a commentary, and a good job is done at portraying a society of 'the future' that follows blindly what its leaders pass on, or what is the accepted norm. Obviously this aspect of the prediction isn't really far from the truth, at least in some parts of the world. I'm going to order Animal Farm on Amazon ASAP. I'm going to try to use this summer to catch up on some of the big literary pieces that I should probably have read by now, had I not shunned the whole overanalysis of writing in highschool english.

I'm looking into buying myself a domain and hosting for a year for my site. Photobucket doesn't seem to always like loading all the pics I have linked, and I feel guilty about throwing them on the host server for the site now. I'll be more free to put a bunch of content on and such, but I'll have to weigh whether or not I feel it worth the money. I could probably offer to host pictures and small sites for a select few people as well, depending on how much bandwidth and storage I am willing to pay for.

This is my first couple days of completely free time without exams or field work to worry about since late March, so I plan to spend this weekend watching basketball (Steve Nash for MVP) and baseball, and relaxing outside in this weather that is almost beginning to resemble decent spring conditions. I hope everyone else is enjoying the Yankees' sucking it up so far with their monstrous payroll full of old men with contracts too big to trade, and having already traded away all the good young talent.

April Showers Bring May....Snow Squalls?

I'm back home again, and besides feeling a little fatigued, I'm back in the swing of things. Started back to work at the university yesterday morning, and being with the same group I've worked with the last 2 work terms, it wasn't really difficult to adjust. The only difficulty I'm having with anything is this unseasonably cold weather, complete with hail, freezing rain, and snow squalls yesterday and today.

I finally got into 1984 like I had planned to on the field trip, and have found some really identifiable quotes...along with some of the more prophetic fictional observations that have curious parallels in today's Western society.

"Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness"