There’s a Time and a Place for Everything…

Obviously, not everyone knows that! I couldnt agree with you more!! I think Sashay may have a few words on it as well heh! We went to go see the last samurai (i liked it alot despite tom cruise!) and the chatting .. not even whispering was insane! It got to the point that a shouting match ensued, telling these yappers to shut the f*ck up!

And then the use of cell phones…

in the theaters… in the classrooms…. in meetings… unless your a surgeon being called in for an emergency i cannot understand what the hell is SO important to these people that they cant put their phones on silent – hell my phone is on silent by default!!

With the risk of sounding older then i am (in age maybe not in spirit heh) I cant help but think it is a generational thing.. a generation raised with flash images and instant gratification, seems ADD is rampant these days… I was sitting in my media class, the desks are basically one long line of desks stuck together, so there is no space between each desk, the girl beside me (in her early twenties i assume) was sitting there text messaging the entire class… clickety clack click click click… frantic clicking with stiffled giggles.. worse thing is, she was sitting in the front row, right in front of the prof.! Nonetheless, that coupled with the two people who sit behind me in that very same class, who feel the need to whisper non-stop during the entire 3 hours of class – makes my blood boil… i cannot understand why these people were never taught that there is a time and a place for everything, who knows, they were probably chatting through that life lesson as well!

Now for a change of pace…

I’ve been reading with interest all of your thoughts and ideas, Kelly. Thought-provoking and amusing, but really not addressing the KEY issue of our time (which I, of course, shall introduce to the Blog):

PEOPLE WHO TALK IN MOVIES (or people who shake popcorn bags, crinkle plastic and other petty annoyances).

This is something that I just have to rant about because it’s gotten so far out of hand.

What is up with people talking in movies? This is definitely a recent social phenomenon that must be addressed before CINEMA RAGE is unleashed. Living in the utterly boring metropolis of Moncton, NB, I see a lot of movies. In fact, I’ve seen practically every movie that was released this year (excluding the shite like ‘Stuck on You’ and ‘Cat in the Hat’). Without fail, my movie-going experience has been ruined on almost every single occasion due to the rudeness of others. It seems that for some people, when the lights go down, a neuro-mechanism is triggered that leads them to talk incessantly throughout the film. What are they talking about?? Why can’t it wait? And I don’t mean wait until the most critical, pivotal moment of the film when the action cuts to dead silence.

So, what to do? Well, yesterday I went to see Monster (amazing, btw) and I was determined to not have it destroyed by ignoramuses. So, we got great side seats with no one in front of or behind us…Until the lights went down. A woman comes and sits behind us…Ok…I’m starting to worry…She proceeds to unwrap about 50 plastic bags…Don’t ask me what she was doing, but if I had to guess, I’d say she had individually wrapped raisins…The crinkling was beyond reason. Fine, ok, I could cope with that…Then about 10 minutes into the film, 2 young women come in and plunk down behind us as well. Totally disruptive, taking off coats, whispering, etc. I did the old “swift head turn and glare” a couple of times, silently vowing to give them only 3 chances to shut the fuck up. At the 3rd whisper session, I turned around to see one chick pouring her chemical flavouring onto her humongous popcorn and then shaking it up, not once, not twice, but 3 times!! WHY????

So I had to say something, I couldn’t contain myself…”Please be quiet,” I growled. Well, the look of astonishment that crossed this girl’s face was priceless. It was as though no one had ever asked her to be quiet in her life, that this movie theatre was her private vestige to behave in as she pleased, and how dare I even glance in her direction? Of course, this spurned another frantic whispering conference, so I got up and stomped 2 rows ahead to finish watching the film in peace. As I stood up, the word “BITCH” was hissed in my ear.

So, finished the film, loved it, made a vow in future to wait until movie starts before picking a seat, and have been pondering what to do ever since. I’m thinking of writing a letter to the editor of our local paper, a plea for silence. Also, thinking of proposing “Talker Times” at the theatres so all the idiots can go at the same time.

I just can’t understand how one can be so oblivious to their surroundings, so completely self-absorbed that this behaviour not only persists but seems to be spreading by leaps and bounds…What’s happening??

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions, would be greatly appreciated.

Spread the word:

SHUT THE FUCK UP – I’M TRYING TO WATCH A MOVIE!!

A Question of Age

I am always astonished when i go into the SAQ and they ask me for my identification to prove that i am not 17! Yesterday, out running my morning errands, decide to pick up something for dinner (was having company..) anyways, the store is relatively empty and i have bags from all the local stores (fruiterie, saucissier etc..) After plopping the bottle on the counter and digging through my pockets for money, the cashier asked to see some identification..

Ok

I know that to some people, this might be a compliment.. but dammit, im going to be 31 years old!! I tried to smile and fish out my ID, pretending i was complimented, but quite honestly, it happens too often for my liking, and i truely believe that if you actually look at my face, see the lines, you can tell im not 17!

I dont mean to complain

or whine

but what am i supposed to do to ‘look my age’??

Wear sequined sweaters and ‘slacks’??

Oh well….guess the lesson here is to always make sure i carry my identification and pray that when im 45 they still think i’m 17 (cause maybe by then i;ll take it as a compliment!)

Long Live Procrastination!

When your sitting at your desk, bored from your work… check this out, its good for a laugh or 10!

http://cs.plici.ro/dld/pinguin.swf

(p.s. my high score is 302 atm!)

RE: Die Newsletter Die

It begs the question as to why use a creative new medium if it will only mimic what already exists? Dont get me wrong, there is alot out there on the web that takes the creativity too far and the readability is lost in the aesthetic… but for the most part, this medium allows for continuity in text and design, i agree with sashay in the sense that why should one bother to simply replicate whats already been done (and could be done better with the new mediums available?

:: Die newsletter, die! ::

I don’t get it. Call me a total webhead perhaps, but I just don’t get it.

If you have an intranet site or a big-I website, and you have an easy publishing tool so you don’t have to fiddle with HTML code, AND you know that getting people to read information is crucial, why? oh why? would you ever put up a page that looks like the old fashioned cheezy newsletter of yesteryear?

Now – if you still want to publish on paper that old-fashioned thingie, go right ahead. I won’t say that I will read it…but then I’m probably not your target audience anyway.

But…in a new medium like the net….why try to force me to follow a sentence break over a column across a FOUR COLUMN newspaper format – complete with silly sidebars and an HTML enabled table of contents that refers to the newsletter pages further down by PAGE NUMBER? And use stupid ugly amateur clipart like that friggin’ “champagne bottle with cork popping out” graphic that I’ve seen on every god-awful newsletter in the universe?

And, as if that weren’t bad enough, then send me an email asking me to go to a web page to read something that needs actually to be printed first anyway in order to be read properly??!?!?!

ARGH! My head’s gonna explode.

You know what? People in corporations who don’t get the web shouldn’t be allowed to publish on the web, internal corporate web or otherwise.

“Psst! Yeah..you…hey!!! You may not have noticed but we’re in the 21st century here! Newsletters are a dead format, people! Get with it!”

Evolution?

Im taking an ethno-linguistics class and we have been talking alot about the evolution of human beings in conjunction with the development of language (and its importance in defining human beings etc.)

Ive been thinking about evolution alot lately. I remember a book i read by Tom Robbins – Half asleep in frog pyjamas – (great book!) one thing he mentions is the arrogance of human beings to believe that we are the end of evolution.. that the last 2 million years was all leading towards who we are today as an end product. He offers an alternate explanation, that in the spirit of evolution, the only logical evolutional path for humans is to move towards amphibians. His explanation is something like this: We are destroying our ozone, and human beings cannot survive (in the form we currently hold) if the damage continues. The only logical place for humans to live will be the water, amphibians are [relatively] immune to the changes in hemispheric conditions – and so, Robbins sees our evolution towards amphibian[ism] to be practical and logical given this explanation (the book goes into greater detail as per the explanation)

Ive been reading a collection of critical esssays called “the end of everything: postmodernism and the vanishing of the human”. Very interesting btw. The first article deals with Lyotards view of humanism and where we are heading in terms of evolution of a species – culturally speaking.

It talks about evolution, humans and technology. I had a chance to flesh some of the ideas out with Kathleen yesterday, and she got me thinking about it….the article talks about human’s marriage with technology to enhance (or aid) human health etc. In terms of a natural evolution of human form over time, where does technological enhancement fit in? A question raised in the article, is what is the ratio of technology to human flesh to constitute remaining a human? Cyborg rights anyone??

Is this the next evolutional split since Homo Habilis/Erectus/Sapiens? Are we diverging towards a split of Sapien?Cyborg? To be fair, Lyotard (and the critical author Will Self) discusses the boundaries for cyborgs – if the technology cant “think” for itself, then it is purely enhancement which, no matter how bound we are with technology, we still control it – regardless of concepts of technological malfunctions.

Where does artificial organs fit into this picture? Between the ‘natural’ and the ‘cyborg’? Where does artificial organs fit in the evolutional stage of human reproduction? At least with pure technology (in forms of metal etc) when reproduced still creates a non “cyborg” body (since the technology is added to the surface – inside or out) .. But artificial body parts…hmm..although rationally i would say that it makes no difference – but regardless, i think this whole concept of human intervention to this extreme is sticking one big stick in the spokes of the wheel of natural evolution (if you believe in that stuff hehe)

Social University

Went to my first university organized social event, the Sociology and Anthropology Student Union had an all you can drink for $10 soiree. It was great to be in a social environment with other students and friends and still be in the school mindset. The opportunity to get drunk and [try] to talk about theory and whatnot was alot of fun. Would be nice to do it on a semi-regular basis actually…

Had some really good conversations, and once the hazzy fog that is the hangover i have today lifts, i will post some of them.

Insult to Injury

And in the mail this morning, the AFE were kind enough to inform me that not only did i make too much money in 2003, i also owe them, payable immediately, $ 2,132.00 … blood from a stone i suppose.

Who Would’ve Thought

A friend of mine found this and sent it to me this morning: http://mtl3p.ilesansfil.org/blog/archives/2003/11/22/game_research_at_concordia.html

I was both embarassed and flattered at the same time.

I think of all the conversations i’ve had with people [face to face], once ive walked away, the conversation and its contents fade with time.. online conversations, unless deleted afterwards, are set in virtual stone to be stumbled upon somewhere down the road… something to think about when I utter my voice in cyberspace.