Posts in category "Random"

Lonely Lot

Lonely parking lot

Sometimes, you need to get out­side. Dodge the drunks stum­bling through the halls, the peo­ple stand­ing and wait­ing for their groups, the famil­iar faces. Maybe because it’s snow­ing out­side, and you don’t want to miss it, when the sky aches the same orange as you do.

This isn’t your scene, but there’s no one to back you up, so you smile and nod. Fake kiss­es and oblig­a­tory hugs, think­ing, “I don’t know you, and I nev­er will”. A façade to appear nor­mal, when mem­o­ries come flood­ing back. Sitting alone at a table, won­der­ing why you came in the first place. Times with­out a per­son to make you a promise. Moments with oth­er peo­ple’s wives, because he’s secure like that, and wish­ing for noth­ing else. Walking these halls alone the way you’re doing now. Memories you wish were a lit­tle more dis­tant. Maybe you’ll come back one day, and break even, or maybe even come out ahead.

Until then, your indif­fer­ence will keep you alive.

Sometimes you need to take a pic­ture of some­thing, any­thing, because noth­ing you see here is how you feel, and it’s the only way you can scream.

Maybe it’s not so much out­side, where you’re run­ning, as away.

More Stolen Words and Pictures

Most recent­ly, a per­son called Cleo, who also goes by the mis­nomer “sexy1980”, stole both words and pic­tures from a heart­felt entry I wrote after a par­tic­u­lar­ly hard day. Word-for-word. You see that car on her site? That’s my car.

Cleo steals

If you dare to look at this abor­tion of a web page, do so at your own risk. I warn you, the ani­ma­tions and colours are not for the feint of heart.

I was­n’t hap­py when some­one start­ed copy­ing entire entries of mine, word-for-word, or when anoth­er per­son stole my design of Version 10 (his attempt­ed redesign in an effort to cov­er up his actions isn’t that far off either). Sure, I also get peo­ple hotlink­ing my images too, but I take sim­ple plea­sure in replac­ing the images with pic­tures of a lemon par­ty, because I get to laugh at things like this.

But when some­one steals both my words and hotlinks my pic­tures I get real­ly pissed off.

Christmas Wish-List '08

Updated tastes for 2008. Many items from my 2006 and 2007 lists are crossed out, which is why cat­e­gories like “fur­ni­ture” aren’t small­er now.

I’ve been told that I’m noto­ri­ous­ly hard to shop for. Not only am I extreme­ly picky, I have eso­teric (and expen­sive) tastes, and I usu­al­ly buy — and so, have — the things that I want. This year, I real­ized that good gifts are things peo­ple want, but which they don’t buy for them­selves because they can’t jus­ti­fy the cost. It does­n’t have to be lav­ish, but maybe a lit­tle over­priced, some­thing you would­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly buy for your­self.

Photography

  • Canon EOS 5D Mark II (about $2800) — Yep. This is the big one. I had the Mark I on my list back in 2006. This one is full frame, does dust clean­ing, and records video now. Even though I have a cam­corder already, I want this for low-light and low depth-of-field work that con­sumer cam­corders sim­ply can’t pro­vide.

Housewares

  • Tea Forté Morehouse glass ($25) — A dou­ble-walled glass that can be used to keep tea warm (or iced tea cold). Made with a cov­er for the leaf on Tea Forté pyra­mid bags to stick out. No con­den­sa­tion means no coast­er need­ed. Love the design and func­tion­al­i­ty.
  • Tea Forté tea trays (×2) ($7) — For hold­ing indi­vid­ual tea tags. Comes in sets of two with four colour choic­es, but I like bone white.
  • Bodum Assam 1.5L teapot ($50) — My pre­vi­ous, small­er Assam teapot broke (rather eas­i­ly) as I was clean­ing out the fil­ter. I can’t give up my love of Bodum prod­ucts though. I already have tea mak­ers for sin­gle serv­ings, but I don’t have a pot for when I have guests over.
  • Oxo Candela Flare (set of eight) ($130) — I’d put these on the ban­is­ter that sep­a­rates my hall­way from the stairs. It’s pret­ty bland right now.

Furniture

  • B2C Expandable Dining Table ($699) — To replace the cheap, scratched-up din­ing table I have in my kitchen now. Frosted glass? More like frost­ed sex­i­ness.

Gadgets

  • Tenori-On ($1200) — I’ve been wait­ing for this to be avail­able in Canada for more than a year, and it’s final­ly come. I’ve always want­ed to get into music as anoth­er medi­um of cre­ativ­i­ty. I come from a musi­cal back­ground (as opposed to visu­al arts), but the Tenori-On com­bines both, in a sim­ple, easy-to-use inter­face.
  • Aromatherapy Car Diffuser ($16) — For keep­ing the car fresh, with refill­able scent pads.
  • Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard ($80) — I’m hop­ing the next MacWorld Expo will announce an update, not a dis­con­tin­u­a­tion, to the Mac Mini, which I’d get for a home the­atre sys­tem (my TV is soon to be dis­con­nect­ed because I don’t use it enough). If this holds to be true, I’d have to buy a key­board, which I could already use now.
  • MicroFly Tiny R/C Hovering UFO ($20) — Small and easy-to-fly. Something I’d use to play with Dolly.
  • Colibri Throttle Silver Plaid Lighter ($60) — Much to my dis­may, the elec­tro-quartz trig­ger on my old Colibri died. It was one Christie gave me for my birth­day, with my name engraved on it. I’ve been look­ing for a lighter ever since, and this is the first one I’ve ever real­ly con­sid­ered. I’m super-picky about lighter design.
  • Auto LED ($25) — Plugs into the cig­a­rette lighter of the car, and glows blue (which would match the meters of my car). Pull it out, and it becomes a handy-dandy flash­light.

Games

  • Rez ($20) — One of the most under­rat­ed and genre-bust­ing games of the PS2.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition ($20) — DMC has always been one of those series I hear about, but nev­er got a chance to try. The spe­cial edi­tion adds game­play and fix­es var­i­ous issues.
  • Metal Slug Anthology ($20) — I love the arcady feel of Metal Slug. Something you can turn on, and play with your brain off. The entire series in one game? Yes, please.