Burning Thoughts

Why?

2009-06-26T19:33:00.001-06:00

So, Stelmach spends over 20 million on a new slogan and logo for Alberta, but he only permits 2 million to combat a serious problem: Gang Activity.

Why?

It seems to me that dealing with criminal activity in alberta makes a great deal more sense to spend 20 million on. Something that everyone in Alberta could totally get behind and be very supportive of (except for the criminals) and there is no doubt that Alberta's justice system is in desperate need of a major overhaul.

So why is all the money going into a new slongan and a new logo to improve Alberta's 'image' when a much better way to improve Alberta's image would be by fighting gang activity and other criminals? Wouldn't it be much better to know you could walk down a street in Edmonton or Calgary and feel completely safe, than to see some kids frolicking on a beach in England?

REPO

2009-06-24T21:46:00.002-06:00

Repo is a surprisingly deep and complex opera. For one, it is an opera, albeit a rock opera. It is sung from beginning to end for all 97 minutes of the film.

I can't help but notice how many paralells with our own world exist in this production. Obsession with physical perfection, to the point at which we forget about our morals and integrity. A single father who will do literally anything just to protect his daughter from the outside world, and even to protect her from himself, to the point where he's even poisoning her just to keep her sick and housebound.

Rotti Largo, the man who saved the world, is now the man who is the cause of the worlds greatest problems.

Is this distopic future one of the many possibilities we face in the future? Maybe...

Listen to the Words of my Rambling

2009-06-06T13:42:00.002-06:00

The world is certainly a puzzling place at times. Often, I find myself wondering what it is about this world that drives me so completely insane. There must be something, there's always something, that drives me crazy like this. Perhaps its the changing weather patterns, the way we treat one another, or maybe, just maybe, I'm completely off my freakin' rocker. This last of the possibilities strikes me as possibly being the most likely, but then again it may not be.

I feel this is the most likely reason simply because I am a writer, and as I writer, I think I must slightly be crazy. Writing is not something we really just WANT to do. It is something that consumes every aspect of our lives, as writers, and forces us to choose between a comfortable normal life, or abject poverty and varying degrees of mental instability. If we want to live normal lives, we have to give it up, we can't keep hanging onto the dream that some day we're going to be a famous published author. On the other hand, if we are willing to give up normality, then there is always the hope we'll be able to see through the bleakness of poverty and insanity to cut through and eventually get what we feel we deserve: reknown.

Or maybe, because I'm an author, I'm not really crazy. It's everyone else who has deluded themselves into see the false reality that lies on top, the lie that may not always be pleasant but it's sure as heck a lot easier to swallow than that undeniable truth that runs beneath everything else and which rends the minds of those who see it apart. People always say there is a fine line between genius and insanity, but I say there is no line, only a sick sort of blur which pervades each one in varying quantities. The minds that have been torn apart by truth and reality are the ones that are the most brilliant. My mind is only slightly tainted by this ultimate existence, but maybe some day everything will make sense and finally I'll slip into the holds of complete insanity and be able to grasp onto the sucess that sits just outside of my grasp. On that day, I will certainly be most excited.

But what does it mean to be insane, anyways? What will it do to myself, to you, to anyone? Is it really all that bad? Could being a little bit crazy be a good thing?

Who knows, who knows.

we have our bad days too

2009-06-02T22:24:00.000-06:00

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Writhing

searching

cawing begging howling!

the moon rises full

I'm not comfortable in my own skin.

The field glows blue

full moonlight washing over

the rage!
THE RAGE!

It burns!

my skin takes another shape.

Weeping

shouting

clawing

roaring

sobbing

Violent saddness

morose anger

burning inside my soul

pale fleshy skin explodes

fur where it once was

reveal the beast inside

Dream Journal Special: Entry for May 29, 2009.

2009-05-29T18:07:00.003-06:00

This dream was peculiarily poetic, and I feel I must share it with you now.

It begins simply. I am working somewhere, in a kitchen of sorts, and we are trying to prevent people from crossing into it. This part, for some reason, strikes me as being unimportant.

The dream does not obtain relevance, it would seem, until a small child crosses over this boundary... but not into a kitchen, into a snowy white field. I pick up the child, and hold him out to a man. "This yours?" I ask.

The man nods. "Yes, that's mine." He takes it. "He died two years ago."

"What?" I am shocked, because the child is clearly alive.

"Yes, don't you remember?"

I look down. The child is not a human child anymore. It is a rabbit. A small, snowy-white rabbit. It bounds across the snow into the field beyond the boundary. It seems to flicker constantly in and out of sight. Sometimes it becomes invisible, and all I can see are the foot prints it leaves behind, but at other times it is clearly visible.

I try to chase it, knowing that this incarnation of the dead child is somehow important, leading me to answers. It grows, the feet changing shape until I am aware I am chasing something much larger across the snow, much more dangerous. A tiger now flickers before me, at first all I can see is its feet, but eventually I am clearly aware of the great predator bounding through the snowy fields.

As we run, the tiger begins to fade as well. No longer am I chasing an animal, but a trail of connected scrolls, each one filling with words slowly. Finely handwritten script, like something written in the early 20th century. The scrolls, I know, tell me the story of this boys life. At this point, I can hear music, loud hard-rock music, playing in the background.

I continue running, and the nature of the scrolls has changed. I know there is something different, something sinister now, the music grows louder. I unravell the scroll and to my great dismay I observe the true nature of heart of the child (and in my mind I know that I have followed his life, and he is a man), as the scroll reveals the unmistakable simble of a Swastica in a white circle, against a red bacground.

I cry out in shock, and I can hear the words of the song, telling about what he did.

One line, sung out with the great anguish and power that is now filling my heart "Bloody Murder!"

I return to the father, and watch as the entire nature of the dream changes. He is in anguish, and I follow him, watching him place himself into a chamber where a purple light fills my vision, and he slowly lowers his head, putting himself into hiding until some time, when his pain can be removed. A green light goes out. I awaken.

Dream Journal Special: Entry for May 27, 2009.

2009-05-27T20:27:00.004-06:00

(From here on in, every time I have a dream of note, I will put the entry in here as a "Dream Journal Special")

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May 27, 2009:

So, it starts, I'm in a class room of some sort. I don't really recognize anyone in it (for once, the characters in this dream are entirely fictional) and this one girl, african american, is kinda flirting with me.

Later, I leave the classroom. I'm now in a dentists office (but not actually at the dentist). One of the desk clerks, a pretty blonde girl about my age, smiles and is quite friendly with me.

Time seems to skip forward, and the desk clerk and I are sitting next to each other, so close our legs touch gently at the knees. I can tell she's flirting with me, and I'm not entirely adverse to the idea. She tells me she has to talk to me, so we walk off to do so.

I'm confused, worried, but I still go. She tells me how she's madly in love with me, but I'm a bit panicked. I like her too, but I don't even know (or remember?) her name.

We decide we're a couple (or rather, she seems to decide it) and we go off. For some reason, we get a bit lost and end up in the class room. They're writing an exam, but we leave, she's making a bit of a racket and I can feel myself panicking, trying to get her to be quiet, without hurting her feelings.

We get back to the office after tripping over a desk in the class room.

But the class mates are angry, they come in to berate us (I mean, all 40-something of them come in and crowd around us) but some how, we talk them down, and the african american girl is still trying to flirt with me (although she seems a bit bummed out that I'm with the blonde).

And then I wake up. Make of it what you will.

If there are any Jungian Psychologists reading this, please, an interpretation would be welcome. Everyone else is welcome to interpret as well, I'd be interested to read it.

Warm Weather and Leather Chairs

2009-05-26T14:05:00.004-06:00

A few lighter thoughts today, to give you a break from all my doom-and-gloom that I normally heap on you.

I dislike warm weather. Yes, I know, its sick. But my parents recently bought new leather furniture to replace all the fabric furniture. I dislike sitting in leather seats when it is hot outside. Even a t-shirt on, the chair will stick to my back and makes me sweaty as all hell.

It's quite unpleasant, if I may say so myself.

I always preferred cold weather. I am a december baby, after all, and I find that the early spring, late fall, and winter are simply much more romantic seasons than summer is, or late spring, or early fall. I find snow to be hypnotizing and magical in so many ways, and I have so many pleasant memories associated with the winter. Hot coffee, gorgeous dark nights, Christmas. It's truly quite exraordinary.

Our Wired Culture

2009-05-25T22:52:00.004-06:00

Our society is completely plugged in these days. I'm guilty as charged (hell, I have a blog!) but it still makes me wonder...

What would happen if, all at the same time, the entire internet, every cellphone network, every computer, television, if all that just suddenly crashed... what would happen? What would happen if suddenly, for no reason, all we had was books, music, news papers, and the outdoors? What if there were no phones, no computers?

Interesting thought.

We often say if all that went away, we'd be plunged back into the 'dark ages', but what defines 'the dark ages'? The victorians didn't even have electricity, they weren't living in the dark ages. They had a complex, beautiful culture, a society built on propriety and gentle behaviour, religion, and science.

Certainly medical technology wasn't at the point its at now, but with our level of understanding medicine, I think we could survive just as well as we are now, without electricity. Maybe a bit less comfortably, and without CatScans maybe medicine might have to rely more on invasive surgeries, but still.

Interesting thought.

Memories

2009-05-24T22:40:00.000-06:00

Isn't it strange how we allow our memories to alter our perceptions of what something will be like?

On returning to an old job-site of mine today, to visit everyone and go for a few drinks, I was amazed and how much has changed, yet at the same time also amazed that as little changed as has changed.

Everyone is in a new position at the job, yet everything is so very familiar from when I used to work there. It was very interesting.

What other memories have shaped my perceptions? What other preconceptions do I have that will alter the future?

Zombies

2009-05-23T20:12:00.000-06:00

It's a commonly asked question: "what would you do during a zombie uprising?"

What's less commonly asked: "Why are we so preoccupied with a Zombie Uprising?"

Many of us treat it as an inevitable fact that Zombies will rise from the graves and hunt us down, devouring our flesh in numerous goulish, horrifying, and gorey ways. But why are we so preoccupied with this happening?

What is it about zombies that so fascinates us? Is it the idea of a walking corpse, or the terror of something slow, plodding, yet virtually indestructible? Or is it something else entirely?

I'm interested to see what you all have to say, so weigh in and speak your mind.

Question

2009-05-23T01:26:00.000-06:00

The song, "Question," by System of a Down ask: "Do we know when we die, where we go?"

Do we know? Can we know? Should we know?

As a Christian, I believe I know where we go, and it's one of two places. It scares the crap out of me, death. It terrifies me. Do I have faith? Do I have enough faith? Can God really forgive me for what I've done? Will I go to heaven or... that other place?

Some have decided that 'second death' means non-existence, but Jesus seems to indicate a real conciousness, an awarness of suffering in... that other place.

Do we know? Can we know? Where we go?