i started another tumblr

pretty much done with blogger: http://exlibrismarishkajuko.tumblr.com/

i started a tumblr blog

http://seekingprstatusincanada.tumblr.com/

i don't want to place any blame or anything

but i feel like telling the tale of the trip to the island wouldn't really sound... objective. but let's not worry about that.

really, my recent visit to the island was a string of comedic blunders.

night before departure, drunken psm tears over disappointment over bad weather. alarm set wrong so awakened hour late in the morning, rush to a bus, then a car, then a ferry.

ferry food. bleh *shiver*.

moseying on a little wander-bout, visiting town of murals and becoming significantly lost in attempt to locate the hosts' home. late arrival.

playing with the dog, playing with the baby. a never ending wine glass resulting in an invitation to stay the night.

getting too drunk to drive home while having an hourly rental car - painful financial consequences. drinking, smoking, vomiting, passing out before dinner was served - after 9p mind.

hang over, bear scouting. porridge of mortar and a steep, brisk hike.

scrum-pey!

departure, forgottens, race against time with a dignified win.

all while unwashed, wearing ratty yoga jammies, accompanied by a wounded bambi, if you will.

[ed note: if i never witness another head bowing bridge squeeze with a side of mournful sigh again, i think i will manage to live another day.]

i suppose i was looking for a break to the boredom, and as my boss best indicated - a good cocktail party story.

great ideas

donation number 4

couldn't find a ruler, but this notebook is 9.5" tall, so it'll have to do

i recently sold my ancient digital camera, and this was the best i could do with my phone's camera. still loving the cut and follicular liberation in general.

donating my hair to locks of love

the sad sound of ambulance sirens

the more i think about it, the less sure i am about how i think people internally react to the sound of sirens. i mostly mean police, fire and ambulance sirens, because those facts of life usually mean unhappy things for those involved. or maybe that's just how it makes me feel. i'm sure some people would say the sound of police sirens sounds threatening to some and comforting to others, depending on perceptions of law enforcement.

well, it might be safer to assume that most people associate the sound of a fire engine's siren with flames and destruction. that or imagining a building-full amount of occupants standing around outside annoyed with the fire drill or malfunctioning detection equipment (because that's what it 90% of the time -- to them). the again, some might associate anything fire-enginey with 9/11, which is also sad. so really, your base-line debbie downer.

ambulance sirens though - those tend to depress me the most. this can be obviously attributable to my dad, as he's a retired paramedic and firefighter. i definitely have a mental database of ways the body can be sickened or injured leading to an array of resulting conditions like miracle healings but usually to a degraded quality of life or just plain old death. my mind's an archive of stories my dad's told over the years, indexed with really specific imagery.

'when the drunk driver t-boned their car, the girl in the passenger seat flew out the window because she wasn't wearing her seat belt. she landed flat on her front, except with her head twisted severely to the side and her neck was broken. when we have to stabilize her and strap her to the board, you just can't make a mistake because you could end of paralyzing the person,' etc.

my dad is a pretty observant guy, so no detail is spared.

anyway, i heard ambulance sirens a minute ago and started to wonder what the emergency was. from the death-detail database, heart attack is a safe bed. 'even though half the time they're running the sirens and speeding to the hospital, the guy's basically already dead.'

so i stood at my window and thought of the sadness that comes with the advent of a heart attack. on such a lovely evening. the sirens sounded like they were in stanley park -- maybe it was a grandpa with his family. or a particularly calamitous bike vs car situation. just something that makes me stop and think, 'so sad.'

but death is a part of life, and it also occurred to me -- if there's any time and place to go, this is as good as it gets:

it's official: i'm dying of boredom

usually when doctors come back with test results that say, 'you are perfectly healthy,' that's a good thing. i'm not saying that's a bad thing for me, but it's not exactly what i expected.

have been feeling not quite myself the last few months, so went to see the doctor in a shade of paranoia. fetched my results today and the reporting doc said all indicators pointed to 'on track.' and as a recovering grad school student, it goes without saying that my mental health has exponentially raised since graduation.

so if my head is happy, and my heart is healthy -- what the hell is wrong with me?

nope -- too old, focused and complacent for a quarter-life crisis.

i think i just need some hobbies.

i feel the same way about libertarians

the original blueprints of my parents' house

see here

rooftop piano man

thanks for the concert, neighbors!

my alley

this makes me feel less sure of my sexuality

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

i used to have it so bad for jtt. i also really admired jo for dissing blair on the facts of life. now it all makes sense.

da andy rooney show

Tina Harden protests library books, publicly proves her idiocy

de aqui

Another day, another library drama.

'ORLANDO, Fla., May 9 (UPI) -- A Florida mother who refused to return four Gossip Girl-inspired library books because of their content returned them after almost 2 years, officials say.

Tina Harden of Longwood, Fla., said she held the books since 2008, keeping them off of library shelves because she found them too racy for teens and because she wanted people made aware of her point of view through media attention, The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported Friday. [Michael Lohan, is that you in disguise?]

"There was a certain amount of good that could come from me holding the books to make a statement, and I felt like that was achieved," said Harden, who has three teenagers [Mission: Be a Huge Bitch - complete!]. "I feel like I had done my part to help focus attention on this." [famewhore much?]

It worked for Harden, who was deluged with requests for interviews. [winnar]

An unofficial OrlandoSentinel.com poll yielded 2,500 responses of which 81 percent said Harden should return the books. [w00t]

Most criticized Harden for censuring what other people's children should read and pointed out books in the public library in Seminole County and elsewhere are public property.

Harden said she hadn't seen the comments and wasn't influenced by them, the Sentinel said.

Harden has not paid the $85 in fines she owes, and said she is hoping the library will waive the fines. [why the fuck would they do that?!]

"It's not that I lost the books or I didn't feel like turning them in," she said. [WTF? she didn't feel like turning them in because she didn't like the content. IDIOT doesn't even understand what she's done] "I want us to work together. Hopefully they have the same goals as I do." [lemme guess, I don't think the library is going to share her point of view]

The library system could [ugh - could should be would here] not forgive the fines, Seminole County library services manager Jane Peterson [#1 classic librarian name] said, but she was glad the books had been returned."'

You may be thinking, "Well, Tina Harden just has a different opinion that you do. Her method of protest may not have been ideal, but we're free to express our opinion." I get that and I agree, but if she's going to protest a library book based on content, she should start with something more graphic -- like the Seminole County library's copy of The Joy of Sex.

And don't forget: A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone. ~Jo Godwin

source

vancouver's 420 night sky

balcony dog

one day, i saw a dog sitting on a balcony of a building next to mine. it just sat there. didn't wag it's tail or anything. i thought it looked sad, so then i thought maybe it got locked out on the balcony by accident (as my cousin did with her cat once), or worse - maybe the dog was serving some kind of time-out for bad behavior. poor puppy.

[i find it amusing that the railing across the dog's eyes make it look like a participant in a doggy protection program. oh - the things this dog has seen! etc.]

a few days later i saw balcony dog again - just sitting quietly, looking around.

i bet the dog just likes the view.

fb says this is too long to be a status update

just watched critical mass ride down w georgia st into the stanley park causeway, turning a light, quiet traffic flow into a bunged-up nightmare. i work a mile away from home and either walk or take electric buses on a daily basis; i probably spend less than 3 hours a month using gasoline-fueled transportation. i'm all about lifestyles conductive to reducing carbon emissions. vancouver has wide-spread bikelanes, one of the best systems in north america! so what kind of assholery is clogging up major traffic routes during rush hour? i'd be pretty pissed if cars were driving on sidewalks. anyways - THAT'S ENOUGH, HIPSTERS.

vancouver 2010: a local reflects

[disclaimer: i have no sporting or entertainment event pictures as i was a poor student with an uncertain future when the ticket lotteries started in 2008. also, i didn't see a point in waiting hours in line so that i could gain entrance to provincial/country themed 'houses' where visitors were packed in like sardines and over-charged for drinks and snacks -- granville avenue was the same, but for free.]

upon realizing i would be moving to canada, i thought i would pick up french by osmosis. looking at this sign in thinking about my american friends, i can now admit that i have not only not absorbed any french past 'tabernac!', living in canada has made me a better skimmer. i expect to be confused by product titles on consumer packaging ('wtf do strawberries have to do with fraise-r?'), so when it's in english on the first read it's like getting extra time back in my life. [i estimate i allot myself 30 seconds per day of mistakenly reading french when expecting english. and that shit adds up.]

so everyone lost their shit when it was revealed that the olympic flame cauldron would be kept behind secure fencing. for fuck's sake people -- what do you want? do you want to stand right under the flames and stare up, causing black spots in your vision after you stare with crazed olympic obsession for 20-30 minutes? i ascended the viewing platform, where i took this photo -- that thing was radiating major heat.

and you know that if the cauldron wasn't secured, plenty of idiots from around the world would compete to prove who would get drunk enough to try climbing that thing. burns, on the other hand, would be a nice change from the usual injuries associated with the winter olympics.

lightning round: spot the less-desirable-than-normal spelling!

i sure have a nice walk home from work.

love love love

mountie texting. [or if he's an early-adoptor (for someone 40+) perhaps mountie sexting?]

this has nothing to do with the olympics. it's just a photo of moonrise over my hood.

i think i can count 5 cliches here: moose, maple leaf, o canada, red & white schematic, and the smell of desperation that makes people like my mom write emails saying patronizing things like 'well, i'm glad they won the gold medals in hockey -- since it means so much to them' because canadians know americans tend to forget about canada and canada will not be forgotten!

boxing beaver at the corner of cambie and broadway. is this some kind of hbc symbolism that escapes me because i'm not canadian?

so saskatchewinians come from a bubble eh.

i propose this thing be canada's answer to the peace arch.

proof that this creek is false.

this guy stirred up quite the hub bub. some random lady on the sidewalk told us it was a former canucks player. that is a pretty big deal around these parts.

anything that makes america look less dumb by proxy is always welcome in my book.

whoever decided to put the porta potties on the traffic median at drake and pacific gets an a+ in my book.

yea, mid-february is about a month too early for the cherry blossoms. heck of a show, though.

i was originally drawn to the bizarre space-elvis, but wow -- those tan pants are the real riot.

sometimes i wonder what future generations will make of this sort of thing...

... and these guys...

... and these guys. i know that latinos often share physical characteristics of caucasians -- but these where some seriously white canadian boys. pretty sure those pants are in style in kitsilano right now, too.

i think a local first nation's creation myth is about a whale that crawls up on shore and turns into a bear. in case you were wondering if that was a whale-bear at the top, bingo.

i love teepees. i have a great teepee story that i should share sometime. my store involves leeches and indiana jones, so it's a good one.

the bay, the ever prestigious department store that has descended from the hudson bay company -- the beaver-pelt trading company and founder of canada proper.

stephen colbert was my greatest olympic moment.

i used to do this with christopher

#19 bus to stanley park @ 6pm

vancouver olympic torch relay and protest

riding the bus to work this morning...

oh dear

let's all stand in the middle of the street

oh right, today's the torch relay, right.

| | |

what now?

_____wayssuck.org? could that be segwayssuck.org?

are you saying the olympics is nothing but watersports?

complacency is complicity, eh?

the rich play, the rest pay, eh? yea, welcome to reality.

i love this arthouse longhaired guy on the right, documenting the scene by carrying around his camera still on its tripod so that he can get some raw footage for the crappy docudrama he'll make about the IOC and how it's evil.