This is a great conversation.

Requiem for a Dream

I am blogging again for the first time in months. I just finished watching Requiem for a Dream.
I am dumb founded by its brilliance. From the opening credits until the end I find myself captivated by this tragic story and every scene seems to be interconnected with the haunting sound of strings until it's tragic and relieving climax.
Ellen Burstyn's breath-taking performance as the widowed older woman is heart-breaking.
It may be reflections of my own drug abuse that has me so overwhelmed. It really has me thinking that I was a lucky man to have had a support system to enable me to pull myself out of a rotten situation. I was close to dealing drugs myself.
I am blessed.

Dear Blog...

I started you just a few months ago, and have neglected you after 7 silly little posts. I am coming back to you for a little while at least... a few sentences. Do blogs have to be profound, clearly not. So I will not try to be profound with this blog post. I enjoy WireTap on CBC radio. The jokes crack me up big time. I have a really dry sense of humor...

I'm getting my eyes tested tomorrow for the first time in 20 years.

I will probably need glasses. How does one pick decent glasses?

Saturday afternoon. Beer and fondue. What a great treat.

Whatever happened to holiday spirit? Has it gone altogether or is it something people reserve for simply half an hour on Dec 25th. The half-hour they spend unwrapping their gifts, well those that are christian do so at least.

I'm not trying to be Hermey in need of finding my place on the planet, and I'm not expecting linus to chime in to tell me what the season is all about. I know this already, and I have found my place on the planet. I don't see people acting festive, we're more or less just going through the motions of putting up our douglas fir trimming it with pop corn and cranberries and to hell with loving our fellow man. Even when our fellow man happens to be someone that is historically really close to us. I know of friends who's relatives are pushing and slapping one another over the ownership of a John Deere tractor. Funny thing is, neither of them happen to be the owner. I know of friends who are spreading garbage about other 'friends' whether they are founded in truth or not, it doesn't make it right. This is an odd way of showing your friends and family that you care, wouldn't you say? I think the world is in a sad state. We are worrying more about non-sense than what is really important to us. When the time comes and we are at Saint Peter's gate, are we going to be worrying about the ownership of a tractor or what someone has allegedly done to us, or are we going to be more saddened by the fact that we missed out on 'special times' (thank you Celine Dion) with people we pretend are important to us. We could honestly just let them know they're important to us and get past the bullshit.

In the meantime - I plan on spending my holidays spreading cheer and consuming it, and hopefully making my friends and family aware that they truly are important to me.... yeah they know.

This is a really weak ending to a blog.

Carpet.

I finished work the other day at the usual time of around 5:00, ran some errands in town and came back home. As I was approaching the house I noticed that all of the lights were on in the house downstairs, something that never happens. As I approached the door I noticed that some of the furniture appeared to be displaced from its normal position, and there was my roommate down on the floor scraping away at the hard wood. HARDWOOD? When I left for work that morning, the floor was carpeted, it was a very interesting looking carpet, somewhat old, a little bit tacky with flowers all over, stained after years of use and also belonging to his grandmother. (we live at his grandmother's house, she is away through the week and is home only on weekends and holidays)

He says he did it because he tripped over a tear in the carpet and took out his frustrations with the carpet ON the carpet. I shouldn't complain as he didn't take it out on me. Anyway, either way it didn't matter the reason behind it, the carpet was gone as in no longer on the floor but instead crumpled in a ball and wrapped in plastic in the basement. My roommate laughed a little to himself as I entered the room and looked up at me with a sheepish grin and exclaimed 'I tore up the carpet'. 'I can see that' was the only appropriate response I could utter and followed with the only appropriate question I could think of "What is your grandmother going to think". We both shared a laugh and in shock I proceeded to assist my friend finish his crime so as to not have as many issues with making it presentable.

Conversations during the process revolved mostly around what urged him to do this, and what his grandmother's reaction might be my roommate suggested that his grandmother would either really like it or she may just not notice that it's gone. I tended more to think she would probably not like it at all.

It turns out I was right.

The next day: after the crime was committed and the body discarded of I proceeded about my day. I headed back into work, took some calls and my lunch break at 1:30. I am off to the local grocery store and purchase my usual club wrap or possibly an egg salad sandwich when I encounter his cousin who works at the check out, so I share with her the tales of my roommate's adventures, not thinking anything of it.

Things get around fast in a small town. Minutes later my roommate receives a call from his grandmother and she is livid and crying and calling my roommate any conceivable name in the book (save for ones that are vulgar). After a few tears and some phone calls my roommate convinces his grandmother that it looks good and she'll have to see it before deciding if she wants to kill him or not. He heads out to the store and purchases an area rug (am I the only one who finds this somewhat ironic?) covers up some of the scratches on the floor and to add a bit of coziness to the room.

In the end, it appears as though she likes it. I'm going to try to convince him to tackle the wall paper next.

An Historic Occasion, Nov 4, 2008

It does not happen very often that a person gets to be the first at something that will result in such a great impact in the world.

Today we have witnessed history in the making. Today Barack Obama was elected the first American President of African descent. Today marks a changed world, and President Obama's is a name that will go down in the history books. Let's hope that this isn't the only reason his presidency will go down in the history books. We are at a unique time in this world where economic and environmental issues are the front of many people's minds. Let us hope that he can lead his country and work with the rest of the world toward a revolution of change leading to an ultimate resolution. This is the beginning, (well, technically January will be the beginning) Congratulations President Obama.

In other news, I am currently using my very own pc for the first time. This has been bought with my own *ahem* credit. It hasn't been previously owned and doesn't belong to anyone else. This is my own. Can you imagine - my first PC at age 31.9 years? Wow. Some people might even say that this too is an historic occasion.

Song For Leanne

'My beer is foaming up again.' Said Mat

nobody was listening. He was alone, drinking beer alone, on a Friday night, alone. I guess it would be safe to say that maybe Mat had a drinking problem, but he was ok with it, so it wasn't really a problem at all. Mat sat in his living room listening to Death From Above, wondering to himself. Hmmm, what kind of death comes from above? Yes, he seemed to recall, there was that episode of six feet under. I believe someone was hit in the head by dry ice mixed with blue acid from airline toilets. "What a horrible way to die" He thought to himself, and chuckled aloud. Nobody was listening.

This was all fine and good, Mat had been used to spending time alone over the past few years, something he never quite took an appreciation for in his younger days, but, alas, some people might say Mat is growing up.

Not if he has something to say about it. Mat, not unlike many others, was trying to live the life of Peter Pan, never growing old, and never taking on full responsibility. To escape this reality that consumed him, Mat took to reciting hemmingway poems to himself or spending hours on end reading children's stories. Mat realised that this was only a facade; a trick he was playing on himself, but he enjoyed the challenge of tricking himself.

This fact made him either very intelligent or rather dim-witted, he never quite figured out which. Not that it matters anymore, he ended up being struck on the head by said falling object. It didn't kill him, but he did get a serious bout of amnesia, which would translate later on in life, unbeknownst to him, into a serious form of epilipsy, or possibly even a stroke. The doctors will blame it on smoking, nobody will know the difference.

Whilst walking through a park that following Wednesday morning with the sun creeping up over the treeline, Mathew didn't notice or hear the sound of someone's frozen, falling excrement and bam. Right on the side of his head. He lost an ear, but then had one donated by the local ear plant, which didn't quite fit as it should have, but it didn't seem to bother him. The blow to his noggin sort of helped him over his life long battle with extreme vanity, nor, at this point, did he remember his name, his whereabouts, nor how to speak in English. He was, all of a sudden, however, fluent in German.