Taser, please.

Taser Gun by hermanturnip

It strikes me that with my shiny new (used) laptop and excellent (two-year-old) digital camera, my lust for technology has been sated. So the only thing I can envision myself needing in the next year or so is a taser, because you never know when you'll need to stun someone.

Has anyone seen the show 'Angel'? If so, have you noticed exactly how many times the eponymous hero gets taken down by a jolt of electricity? Seriously, it's always the tiny little self-defense tool that gets the job done; those kids play with homemade axes and medieval crossbows day in and day out, but in the end it's the modern toy that brings the baddies down.

So there's my rationale for placing a weapon at the top of my wishlist. Granted, a crossbow would indeed be far cooler to have, but in terms of function, I think I need a taser.

What's so unpleasant about being drunk? Ask a glass of water.

A magician wandered along the beach, but no one needed him.

You have to admit, there is always a reason behind a book having a cult following. In Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this obsession is based upon the unrelenting and shameless humour forced upon the reader through satire, puns, and general stupidity. In spite of the rampant goofiness, Adams manages to keep a coherent narrative, and the book appears to take itself seriously at points; characters often give sage advice such as "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

musings over coffee

I think I’ve realized that, in the end, I want to make my mark on the world just like everyone else. It’s odd, because I have never considered myself driven by appearances or impressions to any extent, but I’m starting to muse what others think of me, if they think of me at all. I’m still under the delusion that this isn’t just vanity, and instead, I sincerely want to know what is said inside the minds of others, but there’s no way to discern this without doubt. I could study psychology for four years and still have no answers. It’s infuriating, to put it bluntly.

Still, I have to stop and wonder about that one simple question: would I even want to know what goes on inside a head that’s not my own? Wouldn’t that be some extreme duress, having access to the thoughts of two? Privacy violations aside, I’m pretty sure the stress of knowing every nuance of thought in multiple minds would add up to mental overload, so I wouldn’t ask for mind reading or clairvoyance or whatever the hell it’s called. Just–one stray thought would be nice. Something small, like “I don’t like peanut butter,” or insignificant like “This shoe hurts.” I’m not looking for anything I have to think about; I just want to hear another voice inside my head, as if proof we all think differently.

…oh, and:

How do you make holy water?
Boil the hell out of it.

i am helsabot

From we try

I’m trying to write a story about an irate middle-aged woman who runs for mayor, ultimately failing miserably. I have had this idea moseying about inside my head for the past year or so, but I seem to be at a writing standstill these past months. Really, I’m trying to fix this–I’m writing this in a weird way, not exactly chapters but more like fractured scenes. There is a folder on my computer with a handful of Word documents containing these attempts, each of which has the woman in a debate or seducing the competition or something. When I feel particularly inspired, I go back and round out the one-offs a little bit, and create just a tiny bit more. Ultimately, I want to keep going back so I can find the vague vision I have within my head has been (very forcibly) given flesh.

I just went and did just that to some sort of play I started about cat burglars. I have no idea why I did that, nor do I know why the play-thing is so bizarre.

the friends and enemies of modern commas

From you and me and five bucks >> archives

This is my rant about the current (2008/9) requirements of high school graduation. Actually, I plan to mutter about the so-dubbed ‘community involvement hours’ for a paragraph then segue into false hopes regarding my future or muse about the items on my coffee table. Hey, they should allow me community involvement hours for giving people the wonderful wares lying on my coffee table as a benevolent act of goodwill. I never claimed there once existed a selfless good deed.

You know, from an objective perspective it seems like a fine idea: forty hours of community service involvement inflict allow us to learn how to make ourselves useful in society, or at the very least teach us the meaning of ‘reciprocity’. It is, however, somewhat difficult to take that viewpoint when you realize that unless your parents work at a charity or the hospital, you’re going to be jumping through an inane amount of hoops just in order to attempt getting cracking at your two days of cattle prod.

It would seem that society’s most modern method of communication–email–is simply unacceptable if you want to work somewhere without payment for awhile. Nothing short of a phone call (or a fax, suspiciously enough) is suitable, regardless of your schedule or phone manner (I have phone fear; sue me). Even in the uncanny event contact via email is requested, the odds are utterly and horribly against you that you will receive even the most cursory of replies. You’re not certain exactly what it was about your concise yet specific, professional yet casual, and GOD HELP ME perky messages that left everything to be desired; it might even make you feel like a bit of a failure. And far be it from me to say that a Ministry graduation requirement could cause lack of self-esteem or even angst–nay, that anything to do with high school could cause same–but one simply has to question the value of such an exercise in unrelenting servitude, in survival of those who network more, of a focused attack on one’s patience and workplace skills that are frankly completely inconsequential to some of us and on our fucking sanity.

And I didn’t even touch on the age-old “What has my community done for me?” argument.

age? twenty-seven.

From you and me and five bucks >> archives

Maybe I have lost my faith in history.

Today I drew up a commendably hardcore exam revision schedule. It’s a whirlwind tour of chemistry, French, and German concepts that I have more or less repressed, as well as a healthy dose of new concepts just waiting to be forgotten. And sure, it is indeed more than likely that I will not adhere to this calendar in the slightest, but the fact remains that I made an effort to study for exams an entire two weeks and two days beforehand. This makes me feel deserving of pats on the back and kudos in a multitude of forms.

I didn’t think of anything else inspiring today, or talk to any revolutionary folk. But I did learn how to pronounce ‘accueillir’ at last.

nothing comes to mind

From The Art of Lurve–Archives

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Christmastime is the most sincere acting exercise known to mankind. There cannot be one person in this civilization who doesn’t undergo some amount of stress during this time; likewise, nobody can say that they don’t have even one moment of sincere happiness that almost makes all the pre-Xmas strife and grief worthwhile.

To boil my state of mind down to a nice, concise little niblet: this year, my ‘one moment of sincere happiness’ came before my period of strife, which kind of defeats the purpose I think. It’s just such a jarring gap when you go from feeling proud of yourself and immodestly confident for no reason at all to getting drunk and wrapping Christmas presents not for the fun, but for the slightest bit of solace you’re able to find.

On a side note, I somewhat feel like going back and setting up camp in grade five even though three major universities are sending me letters bordering on jovial. I can’t help but think I am sometimes a reasonably complicated person.

Although looking at the post below, I’m a lot less complicated when I’m not in a good mood.