I apparently lean both to the left and to the right

...or something like that.

I lean to the left politically - okay, probably didn't have to tell you that.

But I seem to lean to the right hockey-ally.

I'll explain.

I've been listening this year - on and off - to Flames games on internet radio, since there's no way they'll broadcast them here... there's only one game that I know I'm gonna get to see on tv during the season. Anyway, listening rather than watching a hockey game requires a level of concentration I was at first unused to, and it took me a while to get the hang of it. But I did. What I realized, just tonight though, is that when I'm visualizing the game in my head, the Flames are always to the right. Kiprusoff is always tending net on the right side of the rink. Every time. Weird, eh?

Wonder what that means?

Brains and viscera

I am so fuzzy headed today! No, my hair isn't frizzy... but it feels like my brain is. I don't know why - today should be a day where I get a kick ass amount of work done. Instead, I'm finding it almost impossible to concentrate on anything... and my exam is only ten days away!

I got a good amount of sleep, am not dehydrated, and have had several cups of coffee - physiologically, there's nothing wrong. But I'm still having great difficulty concentrating.

All I can say I've accomplished all morning is to pay bills (with money I don't have) and register for a remote ballot for the next federal election. Hopefully they won't take two months to process it, or the registration will be for nought. I did find myself disturbed in a strange way by the part of the application that says that if I've been out of the country for five years, I lose my right to vote. Why? Is it presumed that I am too out of touch with the politics of the land that I have no right to decide my country's fate? Does being gone so long hurt my nation's feelings and thus it withdraws any affiliation with me? (I'm sure it will still require me to pay my taxes though...) But the idea that I'll no longer be able to participate in the political process if I stay away too long rocked my boat a bit. It's not like I lose citizenship, but I lose one of the responsibilities that citizenship entails, and that feels like a part of me is being cut off from my national identity.

Maybe I'm just overthinking this... maybe I've been reading too much about nationalism in general in preparation for these exams... but it's not just a thought experiment that's disturbing me - the thought of not being able to vote (whether I exercise that right/responsibility or not) struck me a little more viscerally. Not being a particularly political person, I wonder why it bothers me?

Nothing between the ears

I have nothing to say. With a long weekend, and all the things I've done (none terribly exciting though) you'd think I'd have something to say. But I don't. I keep thinking about how long it's been since I posted, and feeling like I should post something for the three of you who visit regularly. But there's just nothing going on upstairs and I have nothing useful to say. Maybe this week. But nothing right now.

Yep, I'm a geek

Although I can only lay claim to reading 11 of the 20 books on the "Top 20 Geek Novels" list, I can say I've read the top 8, you know, the ones that got the highest percentage of votes... and 2 others on the list are on my shelf, waiting for the day that I pick them up and read them.

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85%
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79%
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69%
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64%
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59%
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53%
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52%
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47%
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46%
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 43%
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37%
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38%
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36%
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34%
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33%
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick 34%
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31%
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27%
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson 23%
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham 21%

As an aside, I also own - not just have seen - 5 movies based on books on the list.

Any other geek's out there? How'd you fare?

Sometimes there's just no other good way of saying it

I've been reading a lot about Victorian poetry lately (that exam thingy's to blame) and realized that I really like these two poems; mostly its their poetry, but I also like the speaker's perception and use of imagery to convey what is, after all, a rather bleak outlook. Even though they were written almost a hundred years apart, they really do say the same thing... and it seems to me that this apocalyptic vision still appeals to me today in my bleaker moments.

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
- 1830

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony steep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- 1920

Don't think the idea of putting these two together is solely mine. I've been reading Carol Christ's Victorian and Modern Poets, and although she doesn't juxtapose these two particular poems, she does talk about Yeats' relationship to Tennyson, something I think is certainly evident in these two poems.

Feelin' special

My friend who's getting married this summer (and I thought we were done with weddings!) just asked me to be the piano player for her wedding. Cool! I'm excited. I'm also a little nervous about it (and I think it showed in my yes) cause I don't want to mess it up. But it will be a really good excuse to dust off the keys & practice up. And it also makes me feel special and honored and all that, just to be asked.

Prophetic?

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.

I'm a Dwarf?!

Dwarvish


To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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Yes, I am working very hard... why do you ask?

Just another example of how daytime tv sucks

Last week, I had a half hour to kill and since I wasn't at home, there was really only daytime tv to amuse me... turning it on, there's Dr. Phil and I think, "this might at least be interesting".

Dr. Phil is an ass.

During a segment on dating, he had a picky woman blindfolded while she talked to three guys who she then had to decide upon - without seeing them of course. Then they brought each of the men out so she could see what they look like. But of course she's not just picky about good looks or anything - apparently she doesn't date black men and she kept trying to trip up the men she was talking to into revealing whether they were black by saying certain things (two of the guys were white and another black, as she was). When she met the black guy and said sorry you're not my type, Dr. Phil grabbed each of their hands, laid them side by side for the camera, and said "you've got something in common"

??????!

Like I said, Dr. Phil is an ass.

Here we go again

Just set the date for my second exam in early December. I'll now disappear into a hole until a desperate need for procrastination drives me back.... prob'ly won't be long!

You know the thing about the 20 words for snow that the Inuit have?

This is just too funny

You can call me Pavlov's dog

Everytime I sit down to mark papers, my head starts to ache and I start to feel sick... can you say psychosomatic kids?

Gas and Wind

Furnace inspecting guy just left - said he was surprised our furnace even ran at all 'cause it's so old. Also warned us of CO levels. But we've already got that one under control.

The shelf tag for the CO detector we bought last week speaks to either the sad lack of science education in North America, or to the rather carefree use of the English language by its users, because it identified the device we were about to purchase as a CO2 detector.

I really don't think I need to be alerted each time a detector senses CO2 in the air, though perhaps some people might like that.

Presumably the same people who would like an alarm that went off everytime it detected CO2 in the air are the same people who might like hearing car alarms that go off all night long. At one point in my life, I lived down the street from a car dealership. This was in the early days of car alarms, when many of them were overly sensitive and everytime there was a major windstorm (and this was on the prairies after all) all the car alarms would go off. Got to be a nightmare during storm season. This was also the place where the most convenient road for accessing the parking lot was steep enough that at choice times in the winter, the car simply could not make it all the way up before losing traction and sliding back down the hill. Looking back, I wonder what in the hell was the attraction of the place... oh yeah... right... the rent was cheap. Ahhhh, the good ol' days of cheap rent and shabby houses. Wait a second....

Death of an Author

John Fowles has died. That's sad. I liked A Maggot, which is the only thing of his I've read (no, I haven't read The French Lieutenant's Woman) but there will be no more books from John Fowles.

However, Salman Rushdie does have a new book, and he's managed to stay alive despite all that fatwah nonsense after The Satanic Verses. It's not just media propoganda either - I can vouch that he's alive and sounding very articulate with a polished speaking voice and really quite sensible answers to audience questions... or at least he was two hours ago when I left the reading/signing for Shalimar the Clown. Now I just need time to read the book, but it looks and sounds very interesting!

Figures

You are a Social Liberal (83% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (18% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

You should not be the least surprised.

A Virtually Nice Day

Even though I have spoken to no other (adult) human being yet today - which, let's face it, is pretty odd for me - I've had a nice virtual day. I opened my inbox to find an email from a friend wondering how I'm doing, another from someone I haven't seen in absolutely years (which was cool), read through two sequences of emails regarding upcoming social events... one of which made me laugh right out loud... and tried composing another email to a friend who needs an answer (though it's still in draft form, 'cause it's gonna be a long one!)

I also got about 3/4 of a book of criticism read (skimmed), which makes me feel productive, and had fun burning a series of CDs of favorite songs that I've been wanting to put together for months now.

Productive and pretty fun day given that I've been squirreled away in my room... but now I need movement and fun and people or my brain & body will start to decompose right where I sit!

Continue

I passed.