Gangsta Diva

Quirky fact of the day:

Did you know that Celine Dion was big amongst Jamaican gangsta culture?
http://www.amazon.ca/Celine-Dions-Lets-Talk-About/dp/082642788X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197697646&sr=1-1
Apparently at the end of the night the clubs there the DJs will start spinning some Celine and they all take out their guns and start shooting into the air - not cause they hate it or anything, but cause they're totally into it. Apparently you have to be a lover and a fighter down there.

So what does this mean? Is this one of the seven signs of the apocalypse?

The Sound of Silence

How many people are you comfortable sharing silence with?

I got thinking about this yesterday at the remembrance day service. A large crowd of people (much larger that usual which was nice to see, by the way) standing together in silence.

Single people must be more used to spending time in silence - being by themselves so much. The problem that you come to is that silence is never silent. There is always some noise in the background that sucks your concentration to it. Even your very thoughts become louder. Maybe hearing those thoughts is what some find uncomfortable and need to drown out - with the TV, or radio or iPod or whatever.

Have you ever been in a sporting event where you lost badly - or maybe you've had a fight with the person you're dating? And then the long car ride home. No one wants to speak. The silence is like another person - an angry person who doesn't want to be disturbed. You're even afraid to blink, thinking that the sound of your eyelids would be too loud.

Ever heard of John Cage? He was a composer who wrote a piece of music called 4' 33'' - A piece consisting of a pianist not playing anything - just sitting in silence. I'm sure much of the audience hearing it would not have known how to take it. Was it music? Was it avant-garde art taken too far? What would you have heard if you had been in that theatre?

http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/silence.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%2733%22


If you ever find someone that you can share silence with comfortably - you know you've found someone rare.

Stories

When you boil it right down, I work for a company that tells stories.

Now personally, I think that's just plain cool. And scary at the same time. Apparently it takes 150 people 3 years to tell a story these days.

They say that every story has already been told. Everything is just some variation of an archetype that has already been written. I guess that explains all the crap that comes out of Holywood these days.

I got to thinking the other night about how story telling might have started. Were stories told before there was even language? Were grunts and gestures used to pass along knowledge of a successful hunt, for instance? When did people start using their imagination? Where did these archetypes come from?

As I've said before, I really need a switch to turn off my brain some nights.

New Years Need

So now that the project is wrapping up - my thoughts turn to holidays.

I'm thinking a quick little England trip in October to go see a soccer game (with maybe a little jaunt over to Dublin thrown in), but what I really need is a good new year's eve plan.
Where would be cool to go to for New Year's?

New York? Las Vegas? Dublin? Cuba? Australia?
Maybe somewhere as close as Vancouver...although somewhere warm really does sound appealing since I've missed out on most of this summer?)

Who has a cool new year's suggestion for me?

Somebody Explain...part III

Somebody explain women to me...

What do women want? I mean, who can really figure that one out?
I think the problem is that most women don't know what they want.

I've been around for 38 years and I still don't know what makes em tick. The best I can claim is to know when I'm in trouble with one of em - when I've said something stupid, or forgotten something 'important'. Maybe I've been too accomodating, too nice. Maybe I've been not accomodating enough.
It sure would be nice to have a little pre-emptive knowledge about when this trouble was going to happen. Unfortunately, that seems beyond my meager skills. I can only go into recovery mode.

Do women expect men to understand them more than we are capable of, maybe?

I've been collecting some lyrics for a future post, and the Planet Smashers (Canada's best ska band) have some good comments on this topic...

'Half an hour a go, everything was chill. Then something changed and she got strange. Something lit a fuse, now she's in a bad mood!
Oh crap. Now I've done it. My mouth. Should have shut it. Next time. I'll nod and smile. Not get screwed. Next time she's in a bad mood'


To quote from Norm on Cheers: 'Women - can't live with em...pass the beer nuts.'

Somebody Explain...part II

Somebody explain computers to me...

I know - I work with em all the time, but seriously - how does everything we get from computers all come from these little groups of ones and zeroes? How does what I type appear on this screen in front of me?

For that matter, I must be ignorant of 95% of the technology around me - as I'm sure are 95% of the human race.

Could you make a light bulb? Could you make a radio? Hell - I'd be hard pressed to make a pencil.

That's why I do everything I can to keep the apocalypse at bay.

Mad Max I am not.

Somebody Explain...

Somebody explain economics to me.

So prices go up every year - a chocolate bar that used to cost 25 cents now costs a dollar.
A house that used to cost 70 thousand, now is probably around 300 thousand.

At the same time, people's salaries have gone up. Unions demand and get a raise most years guaranteed in their contracts. When I was young, a salary of 30 thousand was a really good wage - someone today in the same job probably expects 6 figures.

My question is...what's the point? If we are all basically just able to buy the same amount of stuff that our parents did, if relatively, everything costs pretty much the same as it used to - then why do we bother with this whole inflation thing?

I mean - where does it end? 1000 years from now, will the joe middle clasee person be making a million dollars and spending $10 on a chocolate bar?


The sad thing is - I have a degree in Business