relaxing

looking forward to a day off tomorrow after a 5-day stretch at work (which are surprisingly rare, so kind of rough when you have to work them). another 5-day stint starts on Monday, with new team members... oh well, it's never boring. :)

i hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, but it doesn't look promising...

acting!

went and saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith the other night. some of the dialogue and delivery was just excruciating. we arrived fairly late, so we had to sit in the front row and fight motion sickness the whole time. we laughed a lot (the pointing and laughing kind, not the sympathetic kind). i agree with kat that Natalie Portman may not be much of an actress, but there was a scene featuring McGregor and Portman after which i felt, "gee, it was nice to see some legitimate acting in a two hour and twenty minute movie." when McGregor cuts Hayden Christensen's limbs off, i knew it was really one actor critiquing another's performance.

sometimes you're flipping channels, and exactly the movie you want to see is on. late one night last week i found Donnie Darko in my surfing. i really enjoy that movie. it appeals to that suppressed sense i have that there is something creepy and disturbing, possibly malevolent lurking just outside my field of view. it's threatening and fatalistic, full of apprehension about doom that can't be avoided. plus, i like the cover of Mad World that plays over the end credits. :)

more new stuff on please listen.

all sweetness and light

new stuff over on please listen... has anybody been checking it out?

good gig at Gus's Pub last night. BA Johnston is sooo hilarious. the Sweet Tenders rocked the dance floor as well. the Sweet Tarts rocked the table i was sitting at.

how's work?

escalations questions time-cards monitors calibration tardies absences email adjustments payroll discrepancies sales figures coaching vacation requests quarterly self shift swaps clarifications reports audits corrections scheduling 4am

it's later than i think

there's nothing quite like getting off work at 3:30am. did you know the birds are singing at that time? they must have less sense than i do. someday, maybe, i'll get the hang of this and be able to put in an eight and a half hour shift and go home...

back to reality

back to work today after 8 days off. i had a great vacation for having not gone anywhere. now, it's back to getting on top of things that i let slide while i was off. so, i did some very exciting laundry this morning, and tomorrow morning i'll go pay some exhilarating bills at Mic Mac Mall and buy thrilling groceries.

they are night zombies

went over to the Death From Above 1979 show pretty early last night. i was worried that we might not get in, since the tickets at CDPlus had sold out. it turned out that 7:30 was a bit too early (who knew?). so, i went and got a coffee at the 'Chase and wandered around for a while, listening to You're a Woman, I'm a Machine and Illinois. ran into Tobin, who as you may know is an urban artist here in Halifax - he was working on a piece outside Strange Adventures. he and i were friends as teenagers, so it was fun to catch up with him. i climbed Citadel Hill and took some pictures of the setting sun. what a beautiful night. went back and checked the Attic, still no line. dropped into Cheers for info, but they couldn't tell me anything beyond the Attic opens sometime between 10 and 10:30, and they should be selling tickets then. i reward them for their inability to answer my questions by buying a beer.

after i finish my beer, i go outside to find that a line has begun to form at the Attic. i get in line and pass the time talking to the people behind me about Sufjan Stevens and the wood flavouring that they must put in non-mint toothpicks. there is a relatively minor car accident down the street for our entertainment. Katrina arrives and we wait until 10:45 or so to get in. Uncut is not too bad, their songs are serviceable and i enjoy most of their set. Controller.Controller bores me, although i'm oddly distracted by the female lead singer's armpits, which she keeps showing us. i think she was proud of the close shave provided by her triple blade razor (no brand names). DFA 1979 is really great, but the mosh pit that breaks out with the first song just reminds me of putting every bully i've ever known on a dance floor. you spend more time trying to stay on your feet than actually listening to the music. i'm not advocating that we should sit around in red leather wingback chairs, with pipes and smoking jackets, listening to DFA 1979, but spending most of your time fighting off the weight and beer showers of 150 drunken jackasses is crazy. grr.

in the end, it's quarter after two in the morning and there is no meat-on-a-stick to be found, which is very sad. we settle for pizza and pop. aside from Controller.Controller and the mosh pit, i had a great night.

sympathy

to continue a discussion i was having with Becka and Jim, to what extent should we be sympathetic towards the "monsters" amongst us? the song "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." by Sufjan Stevens (lyrics below) is a beautiful, haunting and compelling song - it has elements of horror and revulsion, but in abstracting some of the details of Gacy's life and killings, it lends a certain romanticism and innocence that i'm not sure i'm entirely comfortable with. certainly, the song asks us to identify with him, and if you've read the quote from Terence at the top of this page, you know that i consider it possible to recognize any human behaviour in ourselves. i'm also planning to see Downfall on Wednesday night, which i'm told has been criticized for portraying Hitler too symapthetically. in these cases, do we have to narrow the category of "human" behaviour, and in so doing, making it unnecessary to explain it or understand it? is it deviant to create beautiful art about a horrifying subject? i'd be very interested to hear what anyone has to say on this subject.

his father was a drinker
and his mother cried in bed
folding John Wayne's t-shirts
when the swing set hit his head
the neighbors, they adored him
for his humor and his conversation
look underneath the house, there
find the few living things
rotting fast in their sleep of the dead
twenty-seven people
even more
they were boys
with their cars, summer jobs
oh my god
are you one of them
he dressed up like a clown for them
with his face paint, white and red
and on his best behavior
in a dark room on the bed
he kissed them all
he'd kill ten thousand people
with a sleight of his hand
running far, running fast
to the dead
he took off all their clothes for them
he put a cloth on their lips
quiet hands, quiet kiss
on the mouth
and in my best behavior
i am really just like him
look beneath the floorboards
for the secrets i have hid

a full and satisfying day

Monday was a good day. i caught up on some sleep in the morning and almost felt human again. jumped on a bus to Spring Garden Road and had a million-calorie meal at McDonalds (take that, Super Size Me). met up with Becka for coffee at the Mud Room, and Jim joined us when he finished work. walked to south end Sobeys with them and bought some Lindt chocolates (all about the calories today). we walked back to their place and hung out for a while, then i left to go see Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, 1997; definitely biased toward Kasparov, who felt the IBM team were conspiring to defeat him at all costs; some stylistic elements were irritatingly repetitive). met up with Katrina, Lisa and Dan to see Kung Fu Hustle (incredibly fun; some scenes outright hilarious; fight scenes satisfying; too many buttocks; a hero should have indie rock hair). plus, it was a beautiful day!

sometimes, no matter how hard you try to deny it, life is good. so, when do i have to pay back the karma i spent today? :)

invitation

the title says it all. please listen.