Thursday, September 14, 2006 

Welcome to the suck

No, I'm not comparing my current situation to a war. (Kudos to anybody who gets the reference though.) That's just the best way to sum up my feelings about it.

My week started early Sunday morning. I had drank an obscene amount the night before and I woke up feeling fine. I just couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and spent the next hour reading a novel that a friend wrote and self-published. It's really bloody good.

I was at a cottage by Parry Sound and in the depths of despair. Even despite the picturesque surroundings, the presence of good friends and any number of positive things.

Later that day I asked Christa if she'd ever felt like she had to "explode her life." She said she didn't know what I meant. I responded that I didn't really either.

Monday I got to work at about 9 a.m. At about 4 p.m. I got news that my great uncle was dead. We'd been expecting it (cancer), but he'd been lucid up until the day before. Based on all of my grandparents, I'd expected him to still be around for a little while yet. Stupid me.

I took a twenty minute break to clear my head, then went back to work. Mocking up a newspaper with 36 pages of content that needs to stretch to 40 pages because of colour ads with promised placement is not fun. I could rant for a long time about that but it's better that I don't. An excess of froth would fall on the keyboard and break it. Let's leave it at this: I'm pissed.

I finished at 4:30 a.m. I drove home, went to bed and 'woke up' a short time later to Christa and a cup of coffee.

I shouted something after she had gone back out to the kitchen and before I actually woke up.

"It's too bad this machine won't make me breakfast," I said.

The shouting actually woke me up the rest of the way. I remember that the machine I was referring to was a laptop. Don't ask me to explain anything else.

The coffee, the coaxing and the hot shower had me feeling less like a corpse pretty quickly. I was in the office for 9:30 a.m.

I left the office at 7:45 p.m. because I wanted to watch House and I wasn't sure I could stay coherent long enough to keep working.

I came in this morning at 9:30 a.m. and worked all day without a break or lunch. We blew deadline by a few hours, finishing at 7:30 p.m.

The production staff and I ate on the company credit card after finishing (totally legit; there's a small line item in the budget that allows for it every so often), then Ian came back and we watched the first story (in six parts) of a great 1970s BBC sci-fi series called Saphire & Steel. Ian had read great things about it from someone he respects and ordered the complete series from Amazon.

Now, I can't sleep. The funeral is tomorrow. It's in my hometown. I'll make it back just in time for the editorial meeting that kicks off the next production cycle.

I'm trying to figure out whether to grieve or not.

Why is it that we seem to have this idea that bathing ourselves in our pain so that we can then go on with our lives is a good thing? Why not just go on anyway?

I know all the stock answers, or at least I think I do. I even kind of agree with them. But I think they're kind of bullshit at the same time.

Sunday, September 03, 2006 

Feral Cities

I've always been fascinated by post-apocalyptic landscapes and post-collapse environments. When I came across the term 'feral city' from Ian before reading Warren Ellis' excellent Fell, it was no surprise that I was intrigued.

I just found this article from the Naval War College Review and I'm totally engrossed, but need to go take photos of the pep rally. This post is basically a bookmark plus a chance to share the article with anybody who is interested.

 

Pictograph

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Since the teeny tiny picture of the pictograph in the previous post was too small on my screen, I figure it was on yours too. My bad.

 

Bon Echo (1 of 3): The Rock

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Christa and I went camping to Bon Echo Provincial Park last week.

We left somewhere around 11 a.m. and arrived somewhere around 5 p.m. We did have a very brief stopover in Mississauga to pick up some extra groundsheets from her parents though.

The park is named after the rock pictured above. On our first full day there we took a tour boat along the base of the cliff to see some of the over 200 pictographs. Before we got to the base, they stopped the boat and we all shouted 'Mitch' - one of the other tour boat passengers - at the cliff.

Two or three seconds later, the cliff shouted it back. The echo is so perfect that it sounded as if they had planted a group of people at the top to shout names back at us.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usThis is one of the pictographs. They were painted by natives on vision quests.

Estimates of how hold they are range from 300 to 1,000 years.

Just think about that for a second. This image was painted using natural substances more than 300 years ago. Isn't that cool?

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usThe young turkey vulture to the right was pointed out to us by the tourguide. My eyes must have been on the fritz because it took me forever to spot him.

Clearly he wasn't actually posing, but it almost seemed as if he was because as soon as I snapped this picture he brought his wings in to his sides.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usThe next day Christa and I rented a canoe for the day and went across the lake to hike along the Bon Echo rock trail. The steps that were there were steep enough, but look at what had been bolted to the rocks until the mid-70s. Christa's posing beside one of the old ladders that had been put in back when the rock was the focal point for an inn on the other side of the lake.

Men used to climb that wearing full black suits and top hats. Women wore corsets and dresses and carried umbrellas to block the sun. As they climbed things like that. It boggles the mind.

The last is my favourite picture from the top of the rock.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usThis little bird drove Christa crazy because it hadn't stayed still long enough for her to identify it; I just barely snapped this picture. That coupled with the fact that she'd left her bird book in the car had her talking to herself for a while.

After getting back to the canoe we went to look at the pictographs for ourselves, which was pretty damn cool.

 

Test (for other blog)

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usSo, I'm testing out an element that I'll be using regularly over at Understanding Crime. Let's see if I remember how to do this.

[Edit 1: Well, not quite the effect I was looking for... Let's see how it looks this time...]

[Edit 2: Yes, that worked out just as I wanted. Now I can get going on my camping post for this blog.]

Saturday, September 02, 2006 

"What? You haven't peaked yet?"

Rocky Balboa.

Can't fucking wait.

 

Clouds across the sky

The opening shot of a field with clouds speeding across the sky is simply beautiful in the trailer for The Assassination of Jesse James. The rest of it is a bit of a let down after that.

I'll still see the flick though.

 

All day

I could watch movie trailers all day.

This one, about a new Brad Pitt/Cate Blanchett film called Babel hooked me from the first second.

The music, cinematography, pacing, voice over and editing all came together beautifully.

Is anybody aware of any sites that deal in trailer criticism? That would be interesting.

 

New Blog

Understanding Crime is now up.

This new blog will not replace the one you're currently reading from, so don't stop visiting here.