Climbing rainy Manitoba Street. Gutter's gurgling like a forest creek. They cut these roads 100 years ago. Buried all the creeks
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Where are the post-Christmas candy canes...on sale? I see Valentine's chocs, racks of 'em. Maybe I over-slept...one month plus.
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Crows. Crows squabbling. Crows cawing over last night's sidewalk vomit, east of McDonald's.
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Old Chevy's in the shop for a little TLC. I'm walkin'. 2 miles. I need the exercise. Drizzly Saturday groceries getting.
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Glancing, appreciating the swings, slide, the old man hobbled through and past the wintry playground.
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Saturday, November 17, 2012
Ceiling 3000. Winds south-east 40, gusting. UFOs sighted, blue, green, climbing northwest. CF-18s scrambled.
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"We're FREE!" Blue and green helium balloons at 200, climbing. Dueck's GM fading below, a patch of colourful ground.
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Saturday, October 20, 2012
NO DUMPING LEAVES. City o'Vancouver Parks bylaw sign. Evidently addressed to the trees. Who fall down laughing at bylaw signs.
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Saturday, October 13, 2012
2013 calendars by the rackful. O'maaan. Ché Guevara. Ché staring into Tomorrow.Warholized! 12 months o'Ché...$12.99...no...no...
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Hallowe'en candy paradise. Got saltwater taffy. Watching one-eyed tilapia. Maybe better off if he couldn't see at all.
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Signs. Handicapped parking only. Expectant mothers, Okay. Looks like we need one for Busiest person on Earth, too. Woah.
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Saturday groceries getting. Late, coz stayd up late Friday writg...okay, playg Enslaved, too. Gonna b spontaneous here. Raing!
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Well...Heh, stopped myself there...before I could type at least.
At least feels like I'd be making an excuse. I don't wanna make excuses, not no more. Excuses stop me. Not today, excuses didn't...yes, at least. I wrote for Aryst0krat's The Night Sky on Protag, finally. I'd wanted to, longer than I can remember now.
Since Thursday, I'd been fiddling with whatever it was gonna be, my moment's scribbled note about that pre-dawn look out the bedroom window, and marveling at moon, Jupiter, and Orion, all together close in the deep blue sky.
My fiddling ruined any lively spontaneity which might have come. My look out the window could've been a pre-breakfast texting to the blog. Or quick posting later Thursday, to the blog from work. Even something rushed out Friday night, my workweek done. No. Instead, Saturday morn...I'm stopping myself re-hashing here all that's in Missed the Cosmic Bus, my add to The Night Sky...instead, I chucked out the wordy over-blown mess.
Instead, I wrote down the truth of my ruinous fiddling these past three mornings. Worked it up Saturday morn. Didn't overdo it. Didn't contemplate it 'til the distant someday the leftover universe crunches in.
I actually posted it after the first clean read-through. And didn't take myself too seriously, either. That's hopeful, I'd say. A stab at reclaiming my ability to go with the moment.
I had been feeling slightly less cheery. About the Job-versus-Me word count exercise. Over these past couple weeks I'd noticed two issues.
Firstly. Every day, when I knew I'd written more for me than for the job, and knew I'd beaten the workday count, I slacked off in the evenings, usually didn't scribble much more. I'd mosey over my notes for Joe. Or that NaNo outline. Like I was whiling away my afterhours at the mall, window shopping.
I don't need phud after my name (um...Ph.D) to know where my head was at. Atop my shoulders where it customarily bobbles, Head, and I, of one mind, oh'yes, had decided we had done enough. There were numbers to prove it.
No matter. That's no huge problemo. Slacking will go when a deadline nears.
The second issue. I didn't like the feeling a lot of the scribbling wasn't much different from padding.
I was scribbling about anything and everything. The thoughts of the moment. Even the I'm tapping out words to be tapping down words starter, with variations, and goin' on from there. For however long the words kept coming.
And the words kept coming. A lot of the scribblings resemble journal entries. Fine. I'm glad the moments have been recorded. I might learn something from them someday. I also jotted down bits and stretches of stuff that will make fiction. Thrilling wee scenes that materialized in the space after breakfast (possibly digestion-related).
So, bring on the padding, I say. There's gold in them thar...words.
I did it. After last weekend's promise to myself that I would this whole workweek just over write more for me than for the day job, I did it.
It wasn't at all difficult to do. Starting during breakfast every morning, in the hour before heading out the door to work, I scribbled down whatever I was currently mulling over. Whatever of the night's dreams still lingered behind my eyes. Story adds or maybes or dialogue-bits. The workday to-do list (or wish-to-do list). I wrote down anything and everything I could think on.
I call these 'scribblers'. I do these in e-form mostly, in a PC, or laptop, whichever's handy. I'm saving trees, and light-bulbs, is how I'm seeing it. My scribblers should probably properly be called tappings, or some such. Um. No. Scribbler accurately describes what it's supposed to be: just some non-paper place for recording...whatever, quickly, and edit-optional. It doesn't haveta be pretty.
My breakfast count averaged a few hundred words, every morning this past week. That put a spring into my step. I felt miles ahead, by at least a few hundred words, of anything the workday might have waiting for me.
I started a scribbler at work every morn too. An email draft, actually. I added to it through the day. So I only stretched my lead on whatever the work day dropped before me. I felt I could clear every hurdle. My day-end counts showed the proof.
I won't bore you with the numbers. Most folks don't swoon over spreadsheets, or go potty over pie-charts, or gaga over graphs, no matter how nice the colours. But my daily wins put a grin on my face, daily. Or nightly, yeah.
One funny observation: I'm remembering more of each night's dreams. Maybe I'm remembering more because I'm showing renewed interest in recording them. I used to fill 3-ring binders with dream records when I was a kid. It was a great writing exercise. I'll keep at it, of course. Wouldn't want to scare them away.
Spent Sunday mostly watching DVDs. Retreated to my fortress of solitude, here in the oft-unappreciated south of metropolitan Vancouver. Alone with a fistful of fave flicks and my thoughts.
Yes, after washing out some socks, I grabbed a milk tea, and settled in. Sunday afternoon, through evening. Recharged myself for the writing week ahead. I even managed some jottings and spontaneous scribblings during the numerous intermissions this mini-film-fest Sunday.
Sunday's word counts, just for marking them somewhere. Outta-nowhere jottings and spontaneous scribblings: 823 words. Day-job-relateds: zero!
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Mini-film-fest line-up:
Bladerunner: Man versus the System.
District 9: Mutated man versus the System.
Moon: Being human and fighting the System.
Hair: Hey, Maan, fight the System.
I'm about to roll Tristram Shandy. A little ridiculousness before bedtime. It should keep the upcoming week in perspective.
In my ghosting around the triple-w, the worldwide web, I've noticed real writers on their real blogs sometimes display a sidebar daily word counter, to show themselves as well as interested others how they're doing, daily word-count-wise.
I've been wondering how mine would look. One day's worth. So here's a sampling of my writing word counts. Friday's. Because I'm not free time-wise to fulltime work on my many projects I'd be only too happy to work fulltime on, I'm counting in the wide range of writing opportunities Friday presented me: jottings, notings, emails at work, and the grocery list.
Friday morn dream notes: 56 words.
Editing Last Joe, Chapter 7, during breakfast: 116 excised; 48 grafted in; -68 words. Um. Yeah.
Day-job emails: 616 words.
Roughing-out this blog, Friday night: 109 words.
Friday night's grocery list for Saturday morn: 42, including pictograms.
Pictograms? Aye. Instead of, say, Hot Sauce Herring in the 100 gram tin, I'll scribble HOT, and sketch a fish. Pictograms are great. Pictograms and words, together, are like a full-brain wow. Left and right brains handshaking across the corpus callosum. I'm a firm believer even the humble grocery list can, perhaps should, become a full-brain exercise. For warding off urban zombie-ism.
But back to the topic. I wasn't surprised most of my Friday's writing wasn't spent on the make-believe worlds inside my head. I only wish I was thinking about Last Joe, or anything, other than those work emails totaling 616 words, late Friday night.
Y'know, I'm going to leave that Cascade creature dead link...dead. The original You-Tube poster unposted the vid, for whatever reason, the reason I'll have a moment's fun here imagining...
Perhaps a visit from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, thoroughly amiable and disarmingly nice men in black. The You-Tuber would've forgotten their visit, of course...
Or maybe a visit from someone forgettable for ten-thousand green-back reasons, a non-descript nobody, and presenting hush-money from the engineered plastics industry, maybe, could be, why not possibly be, eh?
I'm just tossin' maybes about, it's how I make my own fun where I can.
Too too fascinating not to share this...and from work.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Ol' king crab, sovereign o'his livetank. Barnacles waving on his crusted carapace. Regal. Aloof. C19.99 per pound. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
"Sign your name across my heart" - Terrence Trent Darby's croonin' overhead. See beardguy in black beret, looking French. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
John Irving's on cover of Zoomer magazine. Zoomers, anyone who remembers 3-Mile Island. Also spotted Hunger Games trilogy onSale ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
Licorice babies. Jumbo ju-jube sours. Assorted big bubble bubble-gum. Like bulk jewels. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
Am groceries getting. Jotting goodies seen. Nestles Milo. Dunno. Maybe Ovaltine, instead. And nori, roasted, if it's here. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, April 14, 2012
A kid chasing soap bubbles across the park. Gleefully chasing them. Mom: "Stay inside the park." He watches them go: "ComeBack!" ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
I'd be better off scribbling'thoughts' on back of this morn's grocery list: no 128-character limit; no fiddling thru text-sym... ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
At least I've a sunny morn, and parkside view to see out my car-prison window. Thoughts are bouncing all over. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
I'm trapped in the car. Avoiding the neighbours. Using the moment to spend my cell phone balance, before VirginMobile expires it ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent by Text Messaging from a mobile device. Envoye par messagerie texte d'un appareil mobile. ----------------------------------------------------------------
This might very well be my last post about Life Without Cable TV. Probably a good thing, that. Inevitably, a topic which sounded mostly like a survivor's tale. Which I intended. But, too often, the survivor just words away from a rant. I like a good rant, true. It's like blowing out my nose into someone else's hankie. I breathe so much freer after. But that wouldn't be very neighbourly of me, hootling that into a borrowed hankie, so I have resisted the urge.
And nope, no rant coming here. I've happily gone HIGH-SPEED, y'see.
I'd been waiting, years already. For government de-regulation to do its thing. For competition among internet service providers to bring us Canadian little folk the good deal. At least the better deal. Enough waiting already, I decided yesterday. Stopped by Lansdowne Mall. At Windmobile's kiosk. Came away with a Huawei E1691 data stick, and the 10-gig plan for 35-bucks Canadian. The closest plan to Unlimited I could currently find.
Last night, I plugged the Huawei E1691 data stick in a USB port on the old HP desktop which passes for my internet portal to the world and beyond. As it was supposed to, the E1691 installed its management dashboard thingy: here's where I'd connect to the web, disconnect, view my usage stats, and so on.
Yup, roamin' 'round the web, I've read folks callin' the Huawei E1691 slow, compared to the newer faster shinies out there. Maybe I'll call it slow too, in time. I make no apologies now, though, and am impressed with its 7.2 megabits per second performance. A definite improvement over my 52 dial-up bits per second. The 21st century come at last to my half-century old three-storey walk-up!
I'd tried having wired broadband put in, maybe four years ago. It wouldn't work. I'd decided then wireless was the way to go. This place still uses glass screw-ins in the fuse-box, after all.
But that's all yesterday now. I don't have to move somewhere gremlins haven't been gnawing the wiring for decades. Nor double my rent in the move. I didn't even have to shift the old HP closer to any window...
Last night, inside a couple hours, I flashed around the worldwide web. Glimpsed all my fave sites, in record time. Updated myself on local news. Watched BBC news online. Watched a buncha interesting videos. NASA's GRAIL project: Ebb beaming home a beautiful fly-by from the far side of the moon. And Mythbusters. And music. So much great music!
I even found This is The Day, by The The. A longtime fave. A spectacularly fitting nice thing I'd like to share with you.
The old tv in the corner still pulls in one channel over the air. It likely would pull in more, if I ever get around to wiring in an ATSC box and antenna. As it is, I did see and enjoy the Grammys this past Sunday.
Y'know, currently, I'm satisfied with my hash of tech. Okay, so it does seem like I'm riding the tortoise of time, through today, into tomorrow. Yeah, still, I'm comfy.
Okay. So it’s a grainy pic, snapped during grey drizzle about noon on about the last day of January. Snapped with the office Nikon CoolPix, which usually sees duty photo-recording work-related stuff that’ll be reported on in fascinating work-related emails to persons-in-charge who reside in exotic locales I might like to vacation in. I’m probably the only one in here inclined to so...broaden the CoolPix’s photographing experiences.
I started to hear...geese. Work is in the vicinity of Vancouver Airport. I won’t be more specific about work, simply because it’s boring. Vancouver Airport, aka YVR, sprawls over a low island dyked off from the surrounding Fraser River estuary and the sea. YVR is on the flyway, not only for migrating humans, let’s just say. I’d heard geese before. It wasn’t remarkable.
I kept working. I heard more geese. Looked up. Saw nothing remarkable out the front windows. Yet more geese honked overhead. I stopped working, dashed for the Nikon CoolPix, because now I could also hear jet airliners, engines spooling on the taxiway and not going anywhere.
It looked like an invasion crossing the grey sky, west to east. Those snow geese aren’t from around here, by the way. They’re Russian.
Lana Del Rey, performing LIVE, on Later...with Jools Holland. Jools Holland, of Squeeze fame, of a whole jukebox of good music himself.
I’d say this LIVE performance from last October proves the gal can sing.
Currently, there’s a lot of ‘she can’t sing’ viciousness circling the blogosphere. And stuff about her touching her hair a lot. Because Miss Del Rey seemed a mite nervous this past weekend, before millions of watching Americans, on Saturday Night Live.
It’s like sharks circling something tasty and treading water, out there. All over the internet. It’s oddly funny.
Y’know, what they say probably is most true here. The only really bad publicity may be no publicity at all. A lot of people, who hadn’t heard of Lana Del Rey before last Saturday night, now have.
And y’gotta know it can’t hurt. Born to Die, Lana Del Rey’s debut album is about to pop, too. January 31.
Frankly, I didn’t mind Miss Del Rey touching her hair again and again on Saturday Night Live. There’s something appealing about a woman, singing in real time, brushing a lock of hair from her face. And seeming nervous. And thoroughly human.
Something broke in Blogger’s comments display over the weekend just past. I experimented some. Discovered, unhappily, the embedded comments thingy only broken in any of the blogs I follow which are in the oldtimer or classic templates. Embedded comments displayed just fine in the newer blog templates.
Great...
I wasn’t about to go fiddle with my blog’s design template, not in the middle of the night. Certainly not during a rushed few minutes available time from work, either. So, Googled about. To see if I’m all alone in my woe. Nope, I had company. Other folks have likewise seen embedded comments not displaying. One, just this past weekend too. Gee. D’ya think some Admin-type changed something in Blogger...?
Okay. There is a workaround. Eventually, it'll all be working anyway.
Some helpful soul out there...I’ve lost the link...suggested going in to the blogger dashboard, to SETTINGS, to adjust how comments display on the blog.
Here's the path: Blogger Dashboard > Settings > Comments > Comment Form Placement > Select Full Page, or Pop-Up Window, or Embedded Below Post > Save Settings [Go to Page Bottom].
Long story short, it worked. Instead of embedded comments beneath my posts, I might’ve opted for full page display of comments. I’ve decided on comments appearing in a pop-up box alongside my blog post. I figure if ever the comments pop-up malfunctions, the visitor at least will be able to red-x that pop-up, and still have a readable post page that works, and scrolls, and isn’t a frozen frustration.
I'd like to write. Yeah. Well, I suppose I am, even doing this. Right. Harvesting a few words.
So, okay, I won't whine then.
I'll resist the urge. Y'know, to whine. I will.
And if I really would rather be writing...anything else...any one, or every one, of the gazillion potential projects, or actual projects, currently in mind or merely drifting through...then now's really as good a time as any, isn't it? I am astounding myself that I'm comprehending the logic in this, and on a Saturday. There's only so much time available in the average weekend, after all.
Hmmm. Just doing a little math. If I allow fifteen minutes, say, of contemplation per each one of one gazillion projects, actual or, y'know, merely drifting by, I am going to run out of weekend, to be honest.
Okay. Five minutes per, then. And I'd best get started.
