Author: admin

Well, just to continue the trend of my going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket week, I just found out that I will most probably not be able to get the siberian cat I wanted, as the litter of kittens is not faring well and she might lose the lot.

On top of that, i was also reminded this morning that someone thinks I'm an annoying bastard, which is also always good for morale.

Just think, we're only wednesday. There's still room for this week to actually get worse…

Found this while surfing.

http://www.lukechueh.com

He recently had a gallery show called Sad paintings for happy people. All of his pieces are on his website, but I really like these ones:

http://www.lukechueh.com/paintings/dark-thoughts.html
http://www.lukechueh.com/paintings/i-asked-for-scrambled.html
http://www.lukechueh.com/paintings/hope-extinguished.html
http://www.lukechueh.com/paintings/hollow.html

Especially the first two. The second one is… poignant, funny, minimalistic… in its message that you're never happy with what you have. The other three, well, they just get to me, for various reasons.

Just wanted to share that with y'all.

[…]
I've been walking forty miles of bad road
If the bible is right, the world will explode
I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can't win with a losing hand

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street
People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I hurt easy, I just don't show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I'm in love with a woman who don't even appeal to me

In case you can't read what the shirt says, the text is:

Christian
American
Heterosexual
Pro-Gun
Conservative
Any Questions?

Now I don't really mind that the kid is affirming who he is, he's quite entitled to. It's more the medium and the tone of it, the in-your-face aspect of it that I dislike. It's also the tone of “if you disagree, well fuck you, you're wrong”.

God bless america, or something like that.

Ok, maybe not yours, but someone's.

LONDON (Reuters) – Two nuclear submarines, one British and one American, surfaced near the North Pole on Monday for an impromptu game of soccer, Britain's Royal Navy said.

The two vessels surfaced through two naturally occurring gaps in the ice about half a mile from each other after completing a joint underwater exercise.

“The crews of HMS Tireless and USS Hampton are gearing up for a game of football,” Commander John Parris said.

“It will probably be English football (soccer) since I doubt our lot know much about playing American football,” Parris told Reuters from Portsmouth in southern England. “I expect there will also be the mother of all snowball fights.”

In addition to the military element both ships were carrying scientists interested in tracking signs of global warming.

The world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, was the first vessel to navigate under the North Pole in 1958.

Sigh.

So, it happened again. I keep doing the same mistake over and over. To those people who know me, I will be taking your “I told you so”s for the next little while. For those of you who are wondering what the hell I'm talking about, I basically gave my heart away too quickly again.

Oh allright, sounds melodramatic, I know. Basically, the whole Erin thing just went sour. I could see things progress to a state unseen since Tina and I lost perspective. Then reality reared its ugly head, and she told me she was in love with someone she'd just met.

I'll get over it, but it sucks. She's sweet, she's beautiful, and I was attracted to her. Still am.

So Erin and her troupe are headed back to Ottawa. I'm attracted to this girl. She's smart, funny, very beautiful, loves music. The fact that she's in a wheelchair doesn't even figure in the equation. She's beautiful when she laughs, it lights up her whole face. She's one of the most … alive, for lack of a better word… people I know. She came to breakfast with Lorraine – the woman with whom she lives – and Lorraine's daughter Emilie and one of Em's friends.

To be really honest, I have trouble describing what happened in words that would make sense to myself, much less to other people. Breakfast was fun – without much interrogation – and after that, we went to Jillians, the arcade at the forum. It was fun, but I felt like a fifth wheel. I didn't get the chance to talk to Erin all that much, and I actually spent most of the afternoon with Lorraine. Basically, they all had a very intimate dynamic, and I don't know, I just felt a bit out of place. I would have loved to have the chance to talk to Erin more, but I guess I'll have the chance next week.

I think she's still coming – she said she'd see me then, so I'm assuming it's still on. I think I passed the initial screening, but it just felt bizarre as hell to have 3 chaperones, an expression Michel coined and is very appropriate. And even then, I just feel so… bewildered by the whole experience. I guess I'll find out where things stand the next time I talk to her, which should be tonight, I guess.

As a side note, this song should really be added to my previous list.

Come up to meet you,
Tell you I'm sorry,
You don't know how lovely you are.

I had to find you,
Tell you I need you,
Tell you I set you apart.

Tell me your secrets,
And ask me your questions,
Oh, let's go back to the start.

Runnin' in circles,
Comin' up tails,
Heads are a science apart.

Nobody said it was easy,
It's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard.
Oh, take me back to the start.

I was just guessing,
At numbers and figures,
Pulling your puzzles apart.

Questions of science,
Science and progress,
Do not speak as loud as my heart.

Tell me you love me,
Come back and hold me,
Oh, when I rush to the start.

Runnin' in circles,
Chasin' tails,
Comin' back as we are.

Nobody said it was easy,
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part.
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be so hard.
I'm goin' back to the start.

I did something last night that I've never done before. I was chatting with miss kitty on my laptop, in bed, and I was really getting tired. so she told me to just stop typing and go to sleep. This caused a bit of a problem, as I wasn't fond on the idea of saying goodnight just yet. We both had webcam feeds on, so in essence, she watched me fall asleep from 200 km away. I could feel my eyelids closing, so I finally said goodnight and put away my laptop.

I slept well, but woke up all giddy this morning at 6 am – to which people who know me will be amazed at – and couldn't get back to sleep. She's coming over for breakfast this morning with some friends. Should be a fun day, even though I feel like I'm going to get grilled and interviewed :P

I've been spending a lot of time lately talking to someone I met recently. She's a wonderful person and I'm really looking forward to meeting her in about a week. We were talking, among many other things today, about music. I realized that I love sharing music with people I care about. There's something really intimate about introducing someone to your favourite song, and telling them why it's important to you, or how you feel about it and why.

In doing so, I came up with the following CD, which would be the definitive “Music of Richard”:

1. Harmonium, Dixie
2. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Little Wing
3. Sting, Shape of my heart
4. Daniel Lavoie, Jours de plaine
5. Stained, It's been a while
6. Peter Gabriel, Don't give up
7. Creed, My sacrifice
8. Tea Party, Walking wounded
9. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ain't gonna give up on love
10. Elle Fitzgerald, Someone to watch over me
11. Dire Straits, Your latest trick
12. Bet.e & Stef, It's over
13. Pink Floyd, Wish you were here
14. David Usher, Black black heart
15. Dido, Isobel
16. Starmania, Les uns contre les autres
17. Ella Fitzgerald, Summertime
18. Billy Joel, New York state of mind
19. Coldplay, Everything not lost
20. Rush, Subdivisions

These are songs that, for various reasons, have some kind of emotinal impact in my life. Now, to be honest, there's tons of stuff that would also fit on there (the complete Dark Side of the Moon album, for starters), but this is as close to a 20-song compilation as I could get.

As an exercise, gentle reader, what's yours?

Edit: this was a postdated entry, as I never actually got the time to finish it yesterday :)