Hoarding, Tapestries, & Alien Horses
I'm jealous of all those who got to go to the GTABloggers Christmas Party (Frank and Emma included). Sounds like it was a hoot! They even had "My URL is" stickers!!! I guess I have to blog on GTABloggers before I can go though 
I made an account a year ago, but have never used it.
Ever wondered what tapestries would look like if they were made by young bored people these days? Search no more!. I think this one is my favourite 
Mark would probably prefer this one. Riding along a similar train of thought, you can learn to build your own astrolabe, which is an ancient scientific instrument of sorts. That site is full of cool stuff. I am fairly sure that I want the dinner table in my house to be a "knights of the round table" type of table, with cool chairs, and goblets, and celtic knotwork. Of course, it will sit under the big glass pyramid that is the ceiling of the living room.
I read this article about hoarding "Severe hoarding is often a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which afflicts as many as 3% of Americans at some point in their lives. It can also be a manifestation of depression, delusional disorder, or, in the elderly, of senile dementia." -- Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think doctors are turning *everything* into a disease or disorder, which they can then profit from by providing therapy & medication. Hoarding may be a 'disorder', but it's caused by our society & culture, not depression & senility. What do I mean? I mean we're value obsessed. In the 80s, things were simple. The size of pop cans was smaller -- reasonable. At the movies, things were priced fairly affordably and you got a 'normal' amount of pop. Nowadays, a 'small' can of pop in Canada is the same size as a 'large' in Croatia, and a large pop at the movies is close to 2 litres! A human being can't drink 2 litres in 2 hours without having to go pee! It's *insane*. They body doesn't need 2 litres. It probably doesn't even *want* 2 litres -- but the mind does. Why? VALUE. We are a value-obsessed society. Sure, I could get a healthy amount for $2, but for only $3 I can get a ridiculous! amount! Wow, I better pay the extra dollar for some liquid that I won't be able to drink! If I don't, well, I won't be getting the best value for my money! Shit, I can't throw out that bicycle that's broken -- I should keep it, just in case. Same with that old picture frame, because it might be worth something. This is where 'hoarding' comes from, not from old age.
Here's a link to the article on applying for jobs in US Intelligence Agencies. Wheeee.
Two weeks ago I had a dream that i was back in Petrolia, at my parents house. It was night & day at the same time (you know how dreams can be), and I was in the big open yard between our house and the tall weeping willows. I had been chased there by some unfriendly aliens who had chased me from down by the creek in our back yard. They were about to catch me, when our horse (Bell) came stampeding out of nowhere and began to trample & kick them, giving me enough time to get away, while she was eventually overwhelmed and killed by them.
Last week I had a similar dream, but it was 'monsters' of some sort, not aliens. They were 'more efficient' in dealing with Bell when she tried to save me.
Now, this probably seems pretty strange already, without me saying anything further. But, as with most of my weird stories, there's more to it. To my knowledge, I have never before dreamed about our horse. Furthermore, before these 2 dreams, I had only had maybe 2 or 3 bad dreams in the last 8-10 years, which is to say, they haven't been common for me since I was little, and lived at home. There are various reasons that I might have had bad dreams back then (and you can find out about them if you hunt deep enough in this site), but there's no reason for me to have them now, or so I thought. Well, I had a phone call with my mom late last week, and she informed me that our horse had somehow hurt her leg. She didn't know how, but assumed it must have happened during a snowstorm. To quote the beginning of the movie Magnolia, "And I would like to think... that this was only a coincidence."
On Friday I had the song "Because" stuck in my head, but not The Beatles' version -- some other version that I can't pinpoint, but it had less instruments & was quieter.
Friday night I watched "Any Given Sunday" starring Al Pacino. It's a great movie, which is on the one hand about football, but really more about teamwork and what it means to be part of a team. Al Pacino's intensity makes me want to do something intense again -- like when I played football, or like when I play paintball. I love it. It's really the only time that the full-on testosterone side of me comes out. Well, then and during online multiplayer first-person shooter gaming, but that's not the same because once your adrenaline gets pumping there's nowhere for it to go.
Anyway, I've seen a lot of Al Pacino movies lately, and I like him more all the time (even though he's the same character every time). He speaks what he thinks, and he's intense. Of the movies I've seen recently, he was in Devil's Advocate, Ronin, Heat, & Any Given Sunday!
On Saturday morning I felt lazy, so I watched "Excalibur", which is *old school*. I think it was filmed about 20 years ago. Gabriel Byrne plays the *young* King Uther. Liam Neeson (a nobody at the time) played Gawain. You get to see Patrick Stewart in a fairly brief role as a Lord (who has facial hair! - but no head hair. He was bald by his early 20s). I have to say that Excalibur was the most comprehensive Arthurian movie I've seen, covering "the sword in the stone", Merlin & Morgana, Mordred, Rise & Fall of Camelot, Lady of the Lake, Guenivere & Launcelot, and Perceval's knighthood. My only complaint is that they couldn't seem to decide whether to make Merlin a bumbling clutz, or a horribly intimidating sorceror -- so they went for a combination of the two that just didn't work very well Other than that, a good movie.
Sugar-free chocolate kind of tastes like plastic. If it had tasted like burnt toast, I'd have thought I was about to die.
I don't know too many eastern europeans, but i do know a girl in slovakia who is a) my age; b) named Petra; c) an architecture student; d) very good at english. Well, it turns out that my landlord's daughter is a) my age; b) named Petra; c) an architecture student; d) very good at english. They're not the same person though; but still, it's crazy. I like the name Petra.
Just watched "From Dusk Till Dawn". I've seen it once before, and I think it had the same feel the second time. Some movies are better the second time (Star Wars Episode 2, Matrix Reloaded), but this one was just the same. Still, I love the idea of carving crosses into the tips of ordinary bullets, and of using a super-soaker full of holy water, and the ultimate stylish way to kill vampires -> a disco ball at dawn Wicked. Maybe I can find some real live/undead vampires while I'm here in Eastern Europe -- heck, the graveyards here have been around for ten times longer than Canada has been a country - as have the churches. I just need to change my name to Von Helsing and I'll be good to go, and because I am a Priest in the Universal Life Church, I can easily create unlimited amounts of holy water & cruicifixes for my protection.
I spent some time on Saturday & Sunday, and got 1 page working inside the Mojavi framework. It uses a 'filter' to establish a database connection for the 'action'. The 'action' does a query and sends the results to the 'view'. The 'view' organizes the variables and prepares them for the 'templates'. Then the templates display the data. Just a *bit* more complicated than your average slapped-together-script. Along the way though, I wrote a first draft (7-10 pages) Mojavi Tutorial for n00bz, like myself. I think that if I had this at the beginning, I could have understood it in a day or so, instead of a week. It really isn't a complicated system, BUT it is very obtuse/obfuscated/un-obvious/non-self-explanatory.
Watched American Beauty, and guess what -- during the end credits was the version of "Because" I had stuck in my head on Friday. That's pretty weird, considering it's not on the American Beauty soundtrack and that I don't normally watch end credits. Also, this version of American Beauty is different from the one I have on DVD in Toronto. A) It shows more nudity; B) It doesn't start with Lester's voice-over, flying over the town, but with this dialogue between Jane and Ricki: "Jane:: I need a father who's a role model,not some horny geek boy who's going to spray his shorts whenever I bring a girIfriend home from schooI.What a Iame-o.Someone reaIIy shouId just put him|out of his misery. Ricki::You want me to kiII him for you ? Jane::Yeah. WouId you ?" At least, if that is how my version starts, I don't remember it that way. It seemed new. And in my version I'm not 100% positive that you see Col. Frank Fitz taking off a blood-soaked t-shirt in front of a gun cabinet that's missing 1 gun.