I'm gonna do this differently tonight. Rather than think about what to blog, I'll just do it.
It's not any special occasion, the why I'm online tonight. Which of course means I ain't writin' tonight. I'm using up some more of my mobile highspeed bandwidth is the why. Wind mobile is billing me 39.20 Canadian buckaroos a month for a decent 10 gigs of worldwide access. A decent rate in Canada, anyway. I'm cresting almost 8 gigs-worth enjoyed for May this moment.
I've surfed and watched lots. Youtube. Exotic food shows. Science and art stuff. Concerts. News, not in excess. Downloaded more interesting podcasts than I have time to listen to. It's been better than tv, I kid you not.
After I hit post here, I'll be finishing this eve ghosting around the web for delicatessan pictures. A screensaver's worth of delectables. For inspiring me when I'm more awake and working on Last Joe.
It's an evening such as this when I almost believe I can dance. Round and round.
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.
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.
Well, it will be at 9:30 tonight, Vancouver time. Paper lanterns are glowing even now, downtown, within the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden.
I feel like, I dunno, rolling a wheel on fire down a hillside, or something similarly festive. I’d probably be arrested, though. For being pagan without a permit, perhaps.
No. I’ll remain properly urbanized, unimaginative, unmoved. Earth may be tilted just so tonight. But I shall sit up straight, behave. I am just finishing off work. Perhaps I’ll flick on an extra light or two, in marking this especially long night, and the sun’s return. Tomorrow will be 1 second longer. I can imagine summer already!
Right right right. Some folks on our big blue world don’t have to imagine summer. I’m referring to folks some folks might say see things upside down, of course. Really, though, it's a matter of perspective.
Hang on a sec while I Google them…
WOO and HOO, again! I’d just like to wish folks in currently drizzly and tropical Fiji a very Happy Summer Solstice. Yeah. Wish I was there, too.
I wrote last night. After dinner and friends and over-analyzing someone's American Beauty dvd. I wrote when I got home. I only planned on jotting something, anything. Xbox 360 and Mass Effect lay waiting. Instead, I wrote. Early into Sunday morn, because I could. And...stuff had connected in my brain and it felt like there was no stopping me.
I'm careful not to get in my own way when all my lights are flashing green. I didn't stop me.
Turns out it was Space Week over on Marc's Daily Writing Practice. LAST WEEK. I felt as if I had missed the last ship away. So I wrote him a little something about how I felt about that. IT WAS FUN writing it, too.
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I'm restarting Revisitor. POV's wrong. I started into it with less idea than Snoopy exactly what the Big Music's all about. It's kinda important I know, at least.
To keep me in the mood for reworking it, and to return me to the right mood, y'know, during the work week, I've picked this reminder, this moodifyin' version of the Charlie Brown theme.
It's being played on an array mbira. Picture the African mbira, plucky thumb piano, flying to California and having a makeover.
The two obvious side-benefits of saying no to cable tv have been the money saved, and the time gained I might've lost forever to waiting for something good to come on. Just what's Good, of course, is subjective. The greatest benefit has been my return to the radio for more than the mundane, and the weather. Weather always trumps the mundane, I say. But enough about the weather, for now. Let's talk about music immersion the radio has also always been about, from the longago crystal set to the tech-toy marvels of this I-generation.
Actually...no, music immersion is probably too big a subject for tackling this moment, past two in the morning. Let's just say I've been listening all around the radio dial, and to a lot of music. As in to all the world'ful of music. Including my eclectic collection of CDs. I've been, metaphorically speaking here, in a comfy bath of music up to the ears. And happy as a clam, to mishmash the image further.
I Revisitor popped into existence as a result of a fusion of single meaningful scene meets mind-mapping during an afternoon of perhaps a little too much Bob Marley. The story's on current hold. I have it all plotted. It'll be great, when I can do it right. But I don't like the first-person present-tense POV. It needs re-thinking. That's going to have to wait. NaNoWriMo has priority. That is the NaNo project has whatever time remains available that I don't have to put in with the day-early-eve-job. And the job's going to stay busy through New Year's.
All that aside now. A particularly lovely song floated through me in my metaphorical bath last week, again tonight, during a UK Hits show on local radio in Vancouver. I caught the artist's name tonight. Lana Del Rey. Her voice lifted me one whole inch higher in my aforementioned bath. I haven't digested Video Games enough to explain the song's meaning. I only know I like it. And will be listening for more from Lana Del Rey.
Today isn't the day for anti-war rants about the causes.
"Causes ain't goin' away. I can rant about 'em tomorrow just as easy." That's me being funny, not disrespectful.
Today is for Remembering. And for a lament. I like this particular version, the lament in a wild desolate place.
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I haven't served. I was only ever a cadet, back in the Cold War days. It was like boy scouts, occasionally with FN semi-automatic rifles. We spent summers in the Okanagan, at Vernon, the army camp above the town. Map and compass work. Lots of marching. Fond memories. But one stands out.
North of Vernon, out a week on dusty Glenemma, where tankers rolled around and gunners fired their Howitzers, at the end of one day we marched back to camp in the pines, aware other companies were watching. For those eyes watching, we marched in column, pretty as a picture behind our company pennant.
Our column began to split, from the head of it. Boys in green stepping left and right, like hikers sidestepping cow pies. Glenemma had lots of cow pies. I reached the spot where we were parting. I saw why. The dark shining curve of something we all assumed unexploded, probably a dummy round, showing in the dusty track between our marching feet.
Anyway, I never joined up Canada's regular forces. I out-grew cadets, in time became a regular in Vancouver's Peace Marches.
My dad's dad served his country in the First Great War. He's been gone a decade. I loved him. We didn't get around to talking about his war experiences. He was an unquestioning patriot to his country. I was and remain one who questions such blind faith. Had we talked, I'm guessing it would have been a superficial one. I have his medals. They're in the fire-safe, they mean that much to me. They're service medals, only that. Base metal, with ribbon attached. However, I know history. I can imagine some of what he experienced.
