Their Paris vacation ruined by aliens, Rachel and Bill were never the same, you know, considering the abductions and the experiments and what with Rachel getting pregnant and having alien babies in a French hospital where everyone was so rude and everything.
December 2, 2011
I'm eating cookies for breakfast. I'm so modern. The phone rings. I answer it with my mouth full, he says, Are you eating?, and I mumble, Yeah, and he asks me, What?, and I say, Delicious cookies. Unfortunately, even though the call started promisingly, it turned out to be a telemarketer, so I hung up on him. But there I was, at the phone, scrumptious cookie hastily eaten and thoroughly unenjoyed, recognizing the valuable lesson I had just learned: If you want to savour your food, just eat it; if you only want to go through the motions, multitask.
December 3, 2011
I don't get it! How could they NOT put a railing on the side of the stairs that drops off into oblivion! My god, how many people have been lost?!
Sometimes I just want to grab people by the lapels and shake them until they wake up. Rude though that may be, I'm confident that once they stop living their lives asleep at the wheel, they'll thank me for it. Will too.
December 5, 2011
The Conestoga Hummer. Just because you can build it, doesn't mean you should.
We have lived here for over 20 years but this morning I saw my first ermine - in our yard. It was completely white except for a black tipped tail and even though stoats have a reputation for being fierce, this guy was cute as hell. After a couple of minutes of darting to and fro, it slipped out under the fence and into the woods. Ah, the rural life.
December 8, 2011
I was in danger of losing an argument with a man who argued professionally (a trial lawyer). Not one to take losing lying down, I went off topic and awed my opponent with spectacular eye popping fabrications, effectively twisting everything that had been said up to that point and gumming up the whole works with high shock value, molasses-like lies. Predictably, as it diverted the debate he was winning, he claimed my off topic attack a mutation of our polemic and was completely resistant to continuing down this track. I said sure, you may recognize my tactic, but can you parry it? He was silent for a moment and then said, I will kill you with my bare hands unless you revert to our original argument. My my, I thought, well played.
December 9, 2011
It was December, just like now. I remember her cold hands, the whistling radiator, the snow outside. I remember the texture of her sweater, the colour of the room, and the smell of bread baking in the kitchen. I can hear her accent and feel the light touch of her fingers on my neck. It was an ordinary moment during a wonderful period, and I never guessed that it would become frozen in time, like the lake down the street or a fossil in a rock.
You never know when you're making a memory.
Rickie Lee Jones
December 10, 2011
The world is full of the strange and wonderful, like this weird sunrise over Buenos Aires.
Marco and Melinda were fighting in public. I know this because at the beginning of every sentence, each would use the other's name.
Marco, you're full of crap.
Melinda, I know what I saw.
Marco, you don't know anything.
Melinda, I was there! You can't deny that!
Marco, you're jumping to conclusions, it makes you look like an idiot.
Melinda, you were doing it right in front of me!
Marco, what I was doing, and what you think I was doing, are two different things.
Melinda! I saw what you did!
Marco, you saw what you wanted to see.
And so on. In the end, Melinda finally admitted to her transgression when Marco threatened to go public with the whole thing, which was kind of ironic seeing as they were already arguing about it in public.
December 12, 2011
Saw a squirrel hesitating at the edge of the Trans Canada Highway, clearly contemplating crossing it and screwing up the courage to do so. The squirrel didn't look right or left, it just bolted out onto the highway. It crossed 1½ lanes out of 4 and stopped. Cars were whizzing by. It looked back from where it came instead of ahead to the far side. Was it going to run back? Suddenly, the squirrel turned and oriented itself for the other side of the road. Boom, it ran straight across the remaining 2½ lanes and did not get hit by a car. It was a brave and serendipitous crossing. My question: Why did the squirrel cross the road?
If someone said to you, inside this skip of VHS discards is a sex tape of Lady Gaga doing it with the Cookie Monster and Donald Trump's hair at a Howard Johnson's on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1997, would you spend the countless hours necessary to watch every tape in this bin until you found it? What about George Bush and a tire in a Port Arthur motel back in his drinking days?
December 14, 2011
Some of the best thrills of my life did not come from a killer roller coaster, fumbling around in the back seat with a girl named Doris, or watching Rosemary's Baby, they came from the driver's seat of an 18 wheeler. I realize that unless you drive, or have driven, you probably don't know what I mean. But it doesn't make it any less true.
December 15, 2011
Aside from whoring for the big dollar donors, why are politicians so eager to censor the Internet and firewall their countries against ideas from others? What's so great about the Dark Ages that we want to re-enter that in the Digital Age? Political morons united against the better interest of society ought to spell revolution.
December 16, 2011
I got the latest edition of something but it wasn't the most current version so I contacted the company about an upgrade. The rep said there was no upgrade and that I had the current version. I asked him why it had a different version number than the one listed on the Internet. He said they put out a new "version" every year but that nothing is ever changed. He said their product is so mature and flawless that there is no need for additional features, fixes or enhancements to the code. They just change the version number, redesign the packaging and say it's "new", but it's not really. WTF?!
Affronted by society, appalled by its apathy, horrified at the lack of respect, Maurice and Betty had had enough of the world.
They boarded a bus, put on their blindfolds and took a time out.
While Betty maintained her defiant demeanor, Maurice fell fast asleep and soon started to snore.
Other people's lives.
December 18, 2011
I'm watching a bunch of young kids being asked what they want to be when they grow up. There are the usual policeman-fireman-doctor-lawyer answers, but when they get to a nerdy, skinny boy with thick glasses, he says that he wants to be a fight promoter. When asked why he wants to be a fight promoter he says that if a buffoon like Don King and a hard ass like Dana White can become famous and rich doing it, then there was room for a nerdy Woody Allen type in between those extremes. Now that's shock and awe, my friends.
December 19, 2011
I caught myself using the word 'had' instead of 'have' regarding a thought I had about my physical self. In other words, instead of me thinking about this attribute as a current thing that is still a part of my makeup, I had crossed over into thinking it was already gone or at the least diminished; I thought of it as something I used to have (even though I currently still possess it). 'Use it or lose it' came to mind. That, however, requires irrepressible will and the mustering of such, and that requires great effort. Sigh. So will I?
December 20, 2011
The thick and luscious brush strokes of Vincent van Gogh, up close and swirly.
Nothing gets old faster than reading the comments section of an online article. These mini screeds are full of ignorance, partisan stupidity and trolls. They're the human equivalent of food stuck in your teeth. You know, if everybody thought like me, it wouldn't be that way. I'm just sayin'...
December 22, 2011
You want to see something filthy? Turn your keyboard over and shake it onto your desktop. If what comes out isn't disgusting, it must be a new keyboard. The mess on your desk (hair, food bits, organic detritus and god knows what else) is a graphic display of gravity and entropy working together to produce something icky. Science fail.
December 23, 2011
Since our reality and perception is based on the here and now, that makes time travel irrelevant. How can you be in the past or future still in the present moment? If you are, then the past or the future is merely an illusion. Which means the present focus is just the point of interaction with the illusion. Ergo time travel, if it's at all possible, is really something else - dimension hopping, alternate reality visitation, vortex manipulation, whatever. For you, the traveller, since it's always the here and now, time travelling can only be a fabrication, an illusion, a facade, another thing entirely. Capish?
December 24, 2011
I read about a rich guy who believed that the Egyptians pharaohs were onto something when they were interned with their Earthly treasures to ensure a smooth afterlife. So he stipulated he was to be buried with all his gold and diamonds and then hired guards to stand watch 24 hours a day so no one could steal his baubles. But with no one around, knowing they were guarding a dead body strewn with riches, it only took three weeks before the guards exhumed the casket, stole the bounty and reburied the wannabe pharaoh, which of course, was the same fate suffered by the tombs of the pharaohs he tried to emulate. Silly boys.
December 26, 2011
I guess the peace on earth good will toward men thing is over.
Three different species of songbirds were quietly eating at the bird feeder this morning when suddenly they flew off to nearby trees. It was dead quiet for a moment and then they all started chattering at once. It was a rowdy cacophonous dinning so I got up from my desk to see what all the fuss was about. Perched in a dead birch tree 20 feet away was an osprey. When the predator saw me, it lifted off and flew away. All of the chattering birds stopped instantly and within 15 seconds they were back at the feeder quietly eating again. My goodness, heaven help the bird that's born deaf.
December 28, 2011
I am getting no work done. I recently put all the pictures on my computer into 10 second rotation as my desktop picture. Good idea, no? It's like having your life flash before you six times a minute. And because I haven't seen many of them in a long time, I keep minimizing the windows I'm working in when the background photo is something I want to look at again. Then I end up sitting through a bunch more pics before getting back to work, inevitably, only to re-minimize the window again to gaze at something else. Damn, who knew my life was so compelling?
December 29, 2011
I got my wife a very cool and personal gift. For years she has been saving the blown hair from our Alaskan malamutes when they have been groomed during shedding season. Bags and bags of it. Her intention was to have it made into some winter wear, but it just never happened. So on the sly, I found a woman who spins and could turn the fur into yarn. From there, a toque, mittens and muffler were knit for my wife. The items look quite handsome, are extremely warm and of course, the emotional attachment is off the charts. My wife was very, very, very pleased. And isn't that the best intentions for a gift?
December 30, 2011
I feel really good about recent events. There are some drawbacks, of course, but that's to be expected. How do you feel about recent events? You good? 'Cause if we were both in the same place on this, that's just more power to us.
