Never Apologize, Never Explain

10:33 pm - My feelings exactly - NSFW

06:19 pm

I've kind of abandoned my old book-review LJ for a while, but as a part of some resolutions for New Year's, I thought I should pick up a similar sort of effort. So I've set one up on WordPress:

http://wtiw.wordpress.com/

So far I've gone back and made an entry for every book I've read so far in 2010, and plan to continue updating as I read.

09:27 pm - History comes alive

An interesting article about the not-quite-noble history of Toronto mayors: "as precious a set of scoundrels as ever were collected together."

...Mayor John Powell (1838) committed a murder just a month before taking office. He shot rebel Captain John Anderson in cold blood with a single well- aimed bullet to the head, making him even more popular, and while also trying to kill a prior mayor, Powell's gun jammed allowing his target to escape....

06:37 pm

Here's an interesting thing I learned today - the origin of Santa Claus carrying around a bag of gifts comes from the depictions of Saint Nicholas of Myra, and a story about how he had heard of a poor family whose father was going to sell his three daughters into prostitution, and so under the cover of darkness the bishop Nicholas wrapped three gold pieces in a cloth and hurled them into the house where the girls lived. Over time the image of the generous 14th-century saint carrying around gifts turned into the Coca-Cola pitchman we know in the present day.

10:46 pm

06:49 pm

Wow, I can't believe the frustrating problem I have been endlessly having with jerky Flash video could be solved so simply...stupid Firefox: http://lifehacker.com/5342636/how-to-fix-annoying-youtube-jumpiness-in-firefox

03:23 pm

I saw a couple of interesting movies recently about 80's videogaming.

The first was the more popular documentary The King of Kong, about 2 people vying for the Donkey Kong world record (who even knew there were world records for video games? lol). After you read up on the movie after watching it, you realize that facts were manipulated to an almost Michael Moore level, but it's still pretty captivating.



After I watched that I downloaded the torrent of the documentary Chasing Ghosts which is more low-key and takes a look at a wider range of 80's video game players, though including some of the same characters as in King of Kong. I don't know what's so captivating, I guess the technology, the passion, obessession, self-destruction...it's kind of a cringe-umentary. Maybe most interesting is the way that some people have moved on and grown....and some...haven't.

04:13 pm - How to open a bottle of wine, by someone that probably doesn't need more

02:38 pm - 10 X-Files episodes for Halloween

I was reading this piece on what X-Files episodes would be good for Halloween, and I thought it would be fun to make my own list of 10 good Halloween appropriate episodes. These aren't necessarily the best (some of those wouldn't fit the bill, such as the character-study Never Again, or the wackier ones), and they're not necessarily the most horrific (I think Home is mentioned by people too many times just because the premise is kind of over-the-top, and I also don't really like episodes where Scully is tied up and in helpless peril - I think that was a bit overused during the show). Anyway, here goes (with season # & episode # in brackets):

( 10 X-Files episodes for Halloween )

10:06 am

Barack Obama won the Peace Prize?!? Wtf? Is this April 1st? Has my flu progressed into full-scale fever & dementia?

So now a couple of jokes on late talk show appearances and promoting futile, unwinnable wars gets you a Nobel Peace Prize?

03:46 pm - I litigate, I do not capitulate!

Still waiting on justice! I now have a file number, exchanging emails back and forth.


I didn't make those myself. I have a lot of time on my hands, but not *that* much, lol.

01:55 pm

Warbot in Accounting

05:59 pm

"Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries." Great little article on Ray Bradbury: A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library

Some more gems from the piece: The Internet? Don’t get him started. “The Internet is a big distraction,” Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’

03:22 pm

Wow, this looks very good:

02:05 pm

Like Cosmo Kramer, I only watch Canadian football. Part of the reason is that sometimes you just see something you'll never see again. Like this 'tribute' to Michael Jackson:

Unfortunately they didn't include the sideline reporter's bit afterward, where relates that he found out it was a tribute to MJ and asked Bruce, "Why not a moonwalk?" and Bruce replied "Becuase MJ doesn't moonwalk anymore." LOL

08:37 pm

I remember I was in the early grades and the whole Thriller song/video was a pretty big thing at school. Too bad about the freakshow that happened later, but I guess not a lot of people can survive growing up famous.


(Yeah, the sound quality is pretty terrible, but it's the only clip of this song I could find)

04:10 pm

03:09 pm

I think the wintertime is my favourite season. I miss it. About the only thing good about summer is wearing shorts and sandals, which is pretty relaxing. But pretty much soon as spring hits I get allergies and then all sorts of flying, stinging insects, and heat & humidity, and sunburns - and the sun's been so bright the past couple of days that I usually get a headache just looking out the window in the morning. There's probably more stuff to add to that list too.

Current Mood: grumpy

02:54 pm

Wow, I've got a whole new level of respect for Michaelle Jean after she ate a piece of raw seal heart from a freshly-slaughtered seal.

There's obviously a political implication the gesture, as the EU ignorantly put in a ban on most seal products coming from Canada. So I guess they can feel better about themselves, while at the same time still raking in cash for things like fighting bulls to the death in front of tourists. The funny thing is that seal populations are still going to need to be managed, to keep seal and fish population balanced (the way humans have been managing them long before Europeans came here), so the legislation isn't preventing seal deaths, it's just preventing people from making a living off of the land and the fruits of nature. I guess the European thinking is it's better that the seal carcasses be thrown away rather than used for people's benefit? There's nothing that makes sealing any more cruel than cattle ranching or chicken farms or the many, MANY wild animals that are killed in the course of producing a 'vegetarian' dish; but the PETA scumbags get to feel good about themselves by scapegoating a population that is both geographically distant and not too wealthy.

Stuff like this almost makes me feel proud to live in a monarchy :)

11:43 pm

"I might have a whole new life, next time you see me": 25 worthwhile documentaries about ambitious outsiders - This is a pretty neat list of movies. There's a handful there I've seen, and some others that I want to, as well as a few that don't sound that good at all.

One which I found about from that list and just watched tonight is Danielson: A Family Movie (or, Make a Joyful Noise Here), which was a lot better than I expected, and gave me a lot to think about. It's based around Daniel Smith, an artist and musician, who formed a band made up mainly of his family members, called The Danielson Family, who are deeply rooted in Christianity while creating an odd stage show (such as all dressing in nurse's uniforms) and the sort of music that got their songs produced by cooler-than-cool indie producers like Kramer and Steve Albini. During the course of the filming of the documentary, one of the musicians who is an occasional fill-in for the band, Sufjan Stevens, goes from roadie to understudy to opening act to what is apparently a huge deal critically and commercially. I really hadn't heard of the Danielson Family before, and only marginally about Sufjan Stevens, as I don't listen to much rock/pop anymore.

Some of the things it left me thinking about was Daniel Smith talking about how our lives and what we're meant to do is already pre-planned before the beginning of time. And of how he sits back and lets the Holy Spirit bring most of the songs to life. He compares the work most of us do to a kid helping his dad change a tire - the kid is enjoying himself and feels like he's doing something, but it's really God doing all of the real tough work. Which kind of reminds me of a quote from a Neil Young interview I watched recently, where the interviewer is asking him about his place in songwriting, and the few others that are at that level, and Young just blinks perplexedly a few times and says, "I'm so absent".