pink insulation blankets

For an opening I'll have you know that I've locked myself in a room again. What room is for you to figure out. I kid you not, there's no false modesty veering from the downright tender disgust, dangerously on edge and less than charming presense of mine. I can't decide right now whether I want to swallow an enitre bottle of aspirin or cement myself in a tub of lukewarm water.

No self-censorship and that's refreshing in this era of over-marketed boring pretty popsters whom walk amongst ourselves candidly confessing "they're working hard and doped up on themselves near death again.".

I am ashamed by the external vibe of misconception the bloggers receive by the latched view that we sit down on a regular basis and for periods on end think of new ways to contrubute to our own virtual arrogance. Coping with shit as one will, whether it be physically or emotionally, yes, I'm quite sure there a lot more healthier ways than this practice of escapism from the empty promise of our own demise. Comparisons not indicated, it's really all preference of substances, all really the same old shit. Inherently, your insanity is yours to deal with anyway you like whether it'll be through critical or chemical filtration, internal conflict, or a walk through the park. Amgamated or not, when it comes to blogging, every once in a while there’s something dually impressive and frightening about being able to haphazardly conjure thoughts about it all. It makes for the inception of what is uneasy, so it's really hard to put any stock on that.

Now where am I? A long way down somewhere... for a rather nice change of pace. Just yesterday, I must admit to an almost drug-like fascination to Lemonade Tycoon. It's laid back, light fun, and has some nice replay value. You may find yourself playing this instead of the standard time-waster, Solitaire. That said, I admit, I am a video game aficionado of sorts and have been since the avail of the Atari 2600 and the Coleco vision.

I remember years ago when it was always fun in some sort of fashion for me to see a little bit of pressure fly over the shoulder of my father, a trucker whom invited me a number of times to join him at a local establishment where he really liked to play pac-man. We would sit across from one another at this loosely reconditioned arcade machine designed as a mahogany table with a glass overtop. I can recall the dimly lit, slow-going yet graphic atmosphere even this day. The fragrant smell of pastry doughnuts and cigarette smoke made for a fuel of fire that had distinctly drawn aging patrons to integrate themselves to this place. I listened to pac-man's music as he puffed his cigarette at the game control. It was challenging but user-friendly; and the ghosts were very life-like or death-like as a ghost is not alive where the phrase life-like would then not apply.

The notion of eating pills literally and/or metaphorically in order to progress to more complicated mazes of eating more pills pretty much somes up my life and the struggles in just about everybody's life as far as I see it. Anybody who misses the symoblism and life application to that better pick it up before they're out of touch. In my case, I find myself in a position where I want to quest for building myself and becoming more intellectually stronger and more articulate. Some find me, as a blogger, more heading in the direction of a politically heated weapon, always in vain response to a government that operates outside the truth with an arsenal of lies and denial... but really the fact of the matter is, I find most truths based on ourselves and how we see ourselves living and that really is the one we should really see ourselves exploring and more often.

I'd like to hook my head up to the flood of information and find clarity in understanding the current predicament of our planet, but I find often there are errors and misleading information, and the excessive coffee leaves me witless and tranced by nightmares lying in bed without sleep. And sometimes in days like these I wonder how to manage with the same thinking and how my eyes, deeper and darker than ever, may be wearing due to being idle in front of a monitor too long.

I've obviously taken it upon myself to disregard the relevence of posting so often this month, I might as well continue to do so until the beginning of August. Just wanted to say I played Lemonade Tycoon, I had great time... and don't you think I don't know why the gaining of any other information from this post is completly worthless against those who control the distribution of it.

loose edifice

Despite popular belief, I haven't killed this blog. I didn't want to see more than a week missing from the archives, so here's a totally uncreative post. I'm here. Wonders never seem to cease. I'm still here. Terribly dehydrated, but still here.

It's hard not to just be sweating profusely in days like these where you've got to find yourself in some other way, to get out of it, or else you're all nothing for the forms of things barely recognizable whom pay tribute to your casualty. A bit showy as things may appear from this observant point of view from a far, I've been socially dead for years.

When it comes to the depiction of accumilated thought altogether, I'm aware the entire atmosphere goes stale when you're away from the blogosphere especially for some time. That may very well be an entire eon for those determined to conduct a proper investigation and get into the bottom of the whole affair of what loose edifice I happen to conjure. But it's alright, as you already know, every now and again I will see you sooner or later. So thank Oil and Freedom. They're Great. So you shouldn't ask so many questions.

Dear Colleagues, I wanted to take a moment to let you know that I am leaving my position at Justice. From what I've come to understand, it usually is pretty easy for all things to end. Even if you hate your job (haha. joke). But what is altogether different and most difficult is the road we've all been down of saying farewell. In a trail of tought I'll help to maintain a positive outlook while I am paving the way to move onward, I will never forget how I have enjoyed my tenure here in the lightening speed waltz of buerocacy and how I appreciated having had the opportunity to work with each of you especially. Thank you all for the support, guidance and encouragement you have provided me during my time here and although I may not give mention to names because who enjoys lists anyhow, I would like to say I will miss all of you as my colleagues and Justice. I am looking forward to a new phase of challenges. Thanks again for everything. Yours truly,Dane

"Well, you ain't lookin' so good." I said to myself while seized in sweating eyes burning hot in their sockets. Well there's not much else to expect when you've been lying on the shelf of waved expiration. I was coming down with what turned to be utter exhaustion from a long and trying year at work. I'm now a snub-nosed automatic lying in with the faint tackle for the next crooked job offered.

This past week my sense of boredom that encompasses the whole ordeal was illuminated only by the minor plans set to excite by go-carting in Gatineau with the guys on what was a mammoth nerve wrecking experience on the fast lane.

And just the other night, I went out for a walk with the hot asphault scraping beneath my paper feet. Following the trip I suffered from a severe migraine that had me shuffled in the dark, threadbare and afraid to go into pieces. Nearly dead, I melted down with a low and bitter smile twisted on my abused face. It was then I felt a strange glow in these dark eyes staring into my own singing baby lullaby. I was renounced for a conscious worth eternity.

Resolve proves weak especially these days. Once I have the option to chemically alter the feelings that disturb me with beer and cheese, then my decision not to medicate, to keep slogging on through work that in itself, becomes an equally "artificial" choice not of my gifted radiance, heck hath no irritation for the interruptus. I feel no need right now for tremendous import from point A to B as I'm deciding to remain in this state not so fraught with complication, largely due my internalization of insensibility. It is one of those decisions that is really beyond choice.

Sooner than I'll realize, the responsibility will trump the desire and I will simply opt for some inexplicable reason that I found my way and leave still sick and exhausted, and to my list of ailments I could add a little touch of mild depression and disgust.

winked out and died forever

I am, in truth, something of a delightful mystery to me. Perhaps that's why I never bother to make contact with anyone. I day dream and engage in illusionary conversations with myself in the bathroom mirror more and more often everyday while I am brushing my teeth or shaving my face without reason to ruin it with reality.

I have have not been called by my proper name since I can remember. I have not been called by my proper name by anyone. Every time I hear my name off another tongue I would watch as the letters slip from the lap of their lips and strand down into a dissimilar list. I am unformed. This is not a moment of peeve as one would put it so bluntly. This is as it were something as ceremonious as the coronation of a king gone backwards. A bizarre mixture of moments on a string, as if I were a puppet lightly lifted and persuaded by a giant hand, I turn to face dangerous directions as it would be.

Over the years I formed a habit of twitching my head to check all fours corners of delusional paranoia. I would twitch to make sure I'm caught up in some boring passage as I would sit and look up and down deciding which direction to set out. Would I be pressed against a window sill? Would I be the clock on the wall? Would I be basking in the common perception of rubbish as I would be what most believe themselves to be overwhelmingly happy? No. I'm crazier than a shit house rat deeply flawed than symbolized true beauty and genius. That’s something very rare in the world today – sometimes I think I am to be celebrated for the products of ones own undoing.

Obscured by the shadows of trees to the field as open as a faggot, I had walked my dog (or rather, he had walked me) through a suburban park this past weekend long overdue. I had been pondering antidotes in a monopoly, all the while attempting to convince myself that I am not going mad despite the fact that I think I am. I am ending but am I beginning too? Fortunately, according to authorities on the subject, I’m not allowed to think that and have it be true. What is there to say but what a relief.

For no reason beyond the unreasonable, what lies on the surface has become something that I’ve grown to despise out of convenience. When you come from a train of introversion you come from a world of those who find it the easiest thing to declare difficulty, in my case being that I really show no promise. My work and my dedication to giftly prospects have been admittedly, quite average and a mop up close to none but that hasen't stopped me from falling passionately in love with the lifestyle surrounding it. My joys lay in the atmosphere of it all and the trials of experience put through in a foolish attempt to gain some insight into the human condition not realizing that those who'd come prior had left repeated warnings not to bother.

Does it matter to me that I don't understand a great deal of what those that I associate with talk about? What matters most is only taking part in the births of ideas. Whether they were well founded ideas or not I could have known or cared less. But time always runs out on youth faster than you expect it to.

One evening I'll overhear the voices patronizing me in the toilet, they will not realize that I'll be in a stall. And it'll strike me then that I have run out of myself without my knowing. I'll foolishly declare no one hears me or cares, but I imagine I will go on none the less.

It is said that when you’re on the road to going mad you don’t notice it, but then again you cannot be mad if you think that you might be. When on the field of research the opposite is to be found true. When you’re going mad you’re quite aware of the fact that you are - you just can’t stop it. And when the day comes that you find yourself wholly consumed by madness, you’re the only one that knows what sanity actually is. I am often asked what I’m to do. Looking questionable myself, my usual answers are typically boring, primarily because I am living in entirely unpredictable times.

amateur choreography

I have very little time for independent thought as of right now... but I see this as a opportunity to entertain some of the prominent visitors of whom are just as much a nerd as I am. Despite a few of you having your ill-conceived notions of Star Wars or just plain despise imitated lightsaber duels, get a grip and please excuse the temporary link dump to the following video feed - but I must argue, it is one of the best pieces of amateur choreography I’ve seen yet. Really.

.

vacuum of numbness

Nobody knows what they want anymore. Everyone drifts aimlessly from one end to the next as we eventually find ourselves converging in a world of paradox. Not bound by the confines of traditional denominational religions, yet not confident enough to have an independent thought in that thick, vacuous skull of ours, we dabble in trendy philosophies and mysticisms. The game ends when manufactured 'cool' is no longer sucked from the teat of some MTV or other media source long enough to realize what dumb son of a bitches we are.

I too am part of this hidden demographic, and I blame convex volumetric fog renderings and bilinear interpolated textures. Since when did it become acceptable for me to devote my time to rendering shadows, atmospheric scattering, ambient light effects, and all this other superfluous bullshit that much like game coders keep adding to their engines so they can win some imaginary pissing contest. Nobody cares about graphics if the game plays like shit. Same goes for all else.

I'm bored to tears with nearly all my xbox video games and the predecessors before it from Sega to Sony. Especially when it comes to shooters, changing the theme from one time period to another isn't enough anymore. Did someone beat someone else to the punch on that killer WWII shooter being made? Wait, wait, don't worry, just take the same concept, change a few textures, and call it Battlefield Vietnam. No one will notice. Hell, why not Battlefield Iraq.

So after all this, I've utilized a few video game ideas of my own not with the imaginary life of a has been but never was game entitled 'The Sims' but across the game 'Far Cry Instinct' where I've been developing my very own arenas in a first person shooter for plenty nights. I can say it's finally beginning to scare me.

"Have you ever wondered, watching Star Trek the Next Generation, why they even bother exploring strange new worlds? Why don't they just spend all their time in the holodeck having sex?" -- read more

...I just think of it as a funny concept worth reading. Back on hand, If you consider yourself in a similar situation, I warn you, before you may know it you're about to have spent the next 10 years of your life amassing a small investment while the rest of your time is punctuated in meaningless drivel and mindless entertainment while your hairline recedes. On and on, day in and day out you wonder why you have that one problem: why can't you get laid?

Repugnant as one may become, you go on an adventure from one bar to the next trying to piece together the social life you've neglected by being a self-hungry prick. Outside of your left behind virtual persona, the real challenges include overcoming the social stigma caused by years of driven self-loathing. Ultimately you suck down 9 millimeters of cold hard lead when you decide to take the easy way out like the compromising A-1 chicken shit you always were.

For the most part, all of us in our worldly culture never cared. We are daily surrounded by inestimable wonders, yet seem to find them too trivial for our attentions. Destruction fills the ever expanding vacuum of numbness within us, as if a game, as if lauded over by those that it cannot touch. Newspapers and websites are filled with cracked windows butted up against adverts for new cars. This is the world created for us and whether we buy it or sell it, save it or waste it, spend, bide or kill it, on your way to forgotten you become a miniscule blurb as everyone continues to assume that time is an objective, measurable flow of befores and afters interspersed with the transient now. For the most part we have forgotten the meaning of authentic existential time.

Here I am, playing again. Past times they say. Truth is, it's nearly all I have for fun. But hey, there’s always tomorrow, not to mention the undying belief that it can end tomorrow. Right?

culprit of the times

We are passing one another in a weird phenomenon of our own. We live in a world that is smaller now than ever before. Here we are, a myriad amount of us congregated in densely populated urban establishment and centres. Nerveless and incompatible we are apart in aloof dignity.

It's funny how I for my sometimes immerse myself in places I often despise and entirely live in contradiction of my own explainations, this past weekend, my words would have lasted were it not for me being invited to spend the night out with a fellow few. We went out on the attempt to squeeze ourselves into the sorts of places that are so loud that you can’t make out a single word that anyone says. Perplexed, I questioned if this were proper for meeting people. Although I may be a factor without having everyone in my surroundings to blame for the less than social occasions, I too consider myself far from saving any silence, a cynical culprit of the times in reclusive body. But it seems to me, even as though I am infeasible without a sense of reason for wanting to frequent these places alike, it may also be precisely why I am not to expect to carry on what could be construed as an adult or otherwise intelligent in-depth conversation with another for rapport. That’s probably why some of the most overtly sexually attired men and women on the planet are found in these places that are so loud that it’s next to impossible to hear yourself think.

More important than the obscuring of your own thoughts and reducing the opportunity for great "connections," the thing about bars and or clubs is how they foster the ability to be who you think you should be. You can dress up, have a cold one and laugh, leaving everything serious at home and play. It’s temporary companionship for when you maybe don’t want something meaningful. For those who look for something more in a night out to the bar... I think that’s often because nothing else has worked. We live in a culture where irony and sarcasm are cool and to be genuine and express affection ‘too quickly’ suddenly means you’re desperate and undesirable. If going out or dating have become all about playing games, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that people dress up as prostitutes in the hopes that they’ll win something real with longevity.

disintegration of music

When expressing myself through art when painting on canvas, drawing on paper, or by writing in my journals, most often I listen to the sounds I hear, when that isn't an option and the peace that holds needs interuption... I decide to play some music. Odds are that most of my favourite music will have a big dynamic range and affect on me -- it'll be whisper-quiet in some parts and booming loud in others. As I create I pick up new nuances every time I listen.

Yeah, never was fan of much dance, rap, or the hip hop music. Now and again, my neighbour just another room away from me listens to something else radically different. The dynamic range is gone, the entire track is loud all the way through. The sounds are mostly of genres not of my taste but I’m only thankful it’s not the top -10 track on pop radio. I must say, it is a lot more intense, and it "grabs" more quickly the first time when heard. Every time I ask, (more likely complain) is it still rewarding to listen to it over and over again, more and more often?

Nope, says a writer at Stylus magazine. In this amazing and lengthy piece, he argues that the loudness wars are destroying music. Record labels for decades have tried to make records louder, on the mostly-correct theory that louder music is more likely to pull you in on first listen. But the way you make music louder is via "compression". In a normal recording of music, the loudest parts -- the peaks -- are much higher than the quietest ones, the valleys. Compression shrinks the difference between the peaks and valleys, so there's less dynamic range; this frees up more room up top so you can boost the whole volume of the entire song.

Take nearly any track recorded in the early 80's and you can see the wide dynamic range if say you listen to the available remix (remastered as they say) from todays standerd, you'll find it is compressed to make all of the sound-wave big and louder. The author also argues that the jump-the-shark moment for the recording industry was ... Oasis. In 1987, the average album like Appetite for Destruction by Guns 'N Roses had a dynamic range of 15 decibels. Oasis' 1994 Morning Glory had a range of a mere... 8 decibels -- compressed to make it louder and louder.

So what? Why does this hurt music? Because of the psycho acoustics of how loudness and quietness affects us. When a song has less dynamic range, even if it's louder we are -- paradoxically -- more likely to tune it out, as the author argues. It's worth reading his entire essay, but here are some excerpts:

One result of [overcompression] is that modern CDs have much more consistent volume levels than ever before. But when is it desirable for music to be at a consistent volume? When it's not being actively listened to; i.e. when it's intended as background music.

Music isn't meant to be at a consistent volume and flat frequency; it's meant to be dynamic, to move, to fall and rise and to take you with it, physically and emotionally. Otherwise it literally is just background noise ...

Music is about tension and release. With nearly every "hot" single released I hear of un-dynamic music without release because the sensory assault simply doesn't let-up. The people I see out and about wearing walkmans or MP3 players seldom seem to tap, or nod, or hum along at all; instead their gazes seem fixed with a steely resolve, their bodies tense and their minds seemingly tenser. To me that isn't the body language of someone enjoying music.

People are forgetting how to listen to nearly everything and who can blame them? Compression is addictive. This weekend when I visit the city you can count me out as a passenger aboard the BS train because I will be pacing back and forth to the sound of my music.

good news despite a broken jaw

Nothing like a holiday to bring out the crazies... I too am crazy. Then again, 'crazy' is just a word used to describe someones state of mind. Which, in this case, most would rather dismiss this as wrong than consider as an alternative perspective. The denial of it is mental self-defense. Sanity preserved by slides of pleasant nature effectively made to block the truth. The truth that would shatter the belief system as we know it from the bottom up if it were uncovered.

As incidentally mentioned to me in an argument this past week, there was an individual interested in questioning my merits and was adamant that the United States has every right to return the favour to our friends in the east for 9/11. Hearing this is enough to boil me from the inside as it proves modern propaganda has reached one of it's finest achievements in convincing hot heads in blind truths. It is also precisely why the American and Canadian public routinely fail to address the growth of militarism. America for one, statisitcally speaking, now has far more debt than any third world country or even the world combined.

To deny that there is some serious global manipulation going on, which leads to selected and not elected govt, religon, corporate domination, and fascist states masquerading as free countries (by the way, my happy belated canada day to you) among other things, to me is crazier than a bag of hammers. Maybe this reason for being belongs to the fact that no one wants to question the bubble economy we live in, because to most of us we are only familiar with the weather and what lies in front of our own feet, and I say fine… Let the good times roll on forever - with the power of positive thinking... and all that shit.

The really funny thing about is that we all need “mental help” to get out of this sheep pen of reality we’ve been conditioned to accept. If we all realized that peace and love come from within, and learned to live to our full cosmic potentiel, we wouldn’t be in a world that lets wars, famine and full scale genocide go on unchallenged, while politicians try to convince you that it is important not to let a person marry another person. The universe is only how you percieve it, which means that you can control your destiny and your point of view...

If you want to.

So the mental help part I agree with, that our reality is caged but the door is and always was open. Only were our fondest of remembrances, memories if you will, were not of violence, nor legacy intertwined with the sweet perfection of destruction, we oursleves and our society itself would not be so self-aggrandized. If we change the way we think, I believe we would find ourselves somewhere in the not too distant future induced with more positivism rather than a blended shake of camouflage. Until then, we are crazy. I too am crazy because I have a love affair with futility.

If you're interested in having read so far already, I'll let you in on my past long weekend. It just so happened that I did not participate in the festivities held in downtown Ottawa this Canada Day, nor did I happen to relieve myself by visiting a friend in NYC (mostly due to a limited budget, no source of secured lodgings or accompaniment, et al). Speaking about relieving oneself, I’m am quite sick of the media’s play on a retired veteran snapping a few digital pictures of several people going to the bathroom on the National War Memorial, as thousands poured into the streets following the fireworks.

Apparently, most cheered and laughed when they were photographed using the memorial as a toilet and the government is again calling for a guard to be stationed at the memorial to prevent such occurrences. I think that shouldn't be necessary. There was a time when a public assault on the memory of war dead would have been quickly addressed by witnesses taking the offender into the street for a discussion with closed fists. Today they take digital photos. Mark up another victory for the been there done that jealously guarding war hero.

As a final note. Curiosity kicks boredoms ass... but seriously speaking, after a month of having my digital camera in hiatus, I finally had the problem fixed. You may have a look at the few additional photos on my flickr web gallery. At last, all I have left to say is stay tuned, somedays are more than others.