two thousand and ten

heyyylo,
i'm feeling pretty fine right now with some extra time, so i thought i'd drop into the blog zone ya'll.

had some pretty good holidays. paul came with me to vermilion with me for 5 days and hung out with my parents, grandparents, and caylie. nice to be back though with books to read and hammocks to lay in. i'm reading a ton of books right now, all of them are really good. i have going:
The End of Money & the Future of Civilization by Thomas Greco
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Change your brain by Tim Leary
No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism by Daniel Guerin


new years eve, resolutions blah blah. apparently i didn't put any down in the blog last new year, which is disappointing. i'd like to look back and see what my priorities were.

anyway, here are my 2010 resolutions:


1. be more connected with people. my friends who i suck at keeping in touch with. new friends who i will never meet if i keep this shit up. my family even. ways i will do this: more hanging out, letter writing, getting more out of time spent, being a better listener, cultivating hobbies, creating circles of people. ways i will probably not do this: facebooking, phone talking, making plans in advance.

2. learn to knit. for fuckin' realz.

3. keep learning, reading, and getting smarter. improve on communicating ideas. open mindedness and peace. get better with bikes.

4. write more letters to politicians.

feelin' weird today. bad soup maybe?

so i'm heading home for christmas and i'm actually quite happy about it. i haven't been there for a couple of years already. i used to kind of dread it. seeing everybody and catching up can be exhausting and then i run out of stuff to do and end up sitting in my parents house watching the seinfeld.
this trip should be good though. i hope so. paul is coming, my bro-dur will be home, and we won't be there too long. yea, should be good. it will be nice to see family, and the town. if i run into people from high school it will be ok and i won't be awkward. right?




Note: I found this post as a draft and retroactively published it on 18/11/2010

hint?

so itunes has this new thing called itunes U, the description of which is "Educator-selected collections from across iTunes U that can help ensure learning continues in the case of a pandemic of natural disaster".



what do you know itunes!?!

big fines

i can't believe this shit, BUT it's true.
i am no longer welcome at the library. ME?!

keep watching. or we'll FIND YOU.

i was trying to watch some clip of a ctv show (long story sorta) and had to sit through a commercial for desperate housewives. i found myself kind of drawn into it, thinking "dang you can watch it for free online... hmm" (ugh, i know, what's wrong with me?!), and then this screen came up.



ahhh!
it almost sounds like a threat.
needless to say i realized i was being hypnotized and closed the window.

"fucking idiot"?

yesterday was the first "blizzard" of the year, with some crazy winds and a lot of snow everywhere. my ride TO work at 4:30 am was normal, but it snowed ALL day, so the ride home was the challenge. around 5, after paul finished work, we decided to ride to kensington, then go up 10th street, and then hit up the home depot on 16th ave before going home. so how'd i do? RIDICULOUS. the bike pathways on the way to kensington was sketchy and i fell once. couldn't make it up 10th street on the road, so had to walk up the snow drift sidewalk. then we decided to ride right on 16th ave because it's 1000% easier and although it's a highway, traffic was going pretty slow. i still had someone shriek "fucking IDIOT!" at me, and paul got "ride on the sidewalk!!!!". not sure if our friend tom, who was ahead of us (him with gears, us on fixies) got a third insult or not. getting home from this point was the trial of my life. i cried, i threw my bike, i slid out and fell like 30 times. it took us SO LONG to get home. riding on majorish roads was the easiest part, but then you have to deal with cars. sidewalks and alleys were just plain fucked. i know that most people are having the same experiences in this weather (as i type this i can hear a car revving and revving and revving, obviously stuck), but this was my first time doing it on a bike (my fixie with 700c slick tires), and it was pretty hilarious, so i wanted to document it.

oh, the reward of the home depot trek was a hook for our hammock, which paul set up last night in our room. excited for that. i wish i could say i am just going to stay inside all day/weekend and hammock it up, but... not so. things to do, ice to slip on.

get your own bike!

ugh, i hate you bike thieves.

apollo = stolen.

out of my garage. ugh.

good stuff.

does everyone already know how awesome bill hicks is (besides me?) i've been missing out big time.


The World Is Like a Ride in an Amusement Park - Bill Hicks -



also, i already posted this on facebook and bike calgary, but bear with me, i'm proud!



i got the raleigh up and running and i LOVE it. i could probably take a better picture of it; this was snapped right after the first test ride. it's so streamlined and sexy. paul ordered me some gold pedals for it too.
i still have a lot of "fixie training" to do so i can really rip around downtown and such.

i love you all (or i am trying to!)

i just put my blog link on my facebook profile for the first time. so i just wanted to say, in case there are new readers, please don't be too hard on me (re: writing skill or content choice). ok?! and sorry if i ever talked shit on my blog about you (or your gramma) before. also sorry if i went on and on about how much i like you and that embarrasses you. deal with it!

PEACE & LOVE!!

engineering consent

oh geez. ok.

part 1:
if you have the time, please watch this documentary series on Advertising/PR/Consumerism/brainwashing. - it's called Century of Self, it's split up into 4 sections, all are available on google video. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151# it's pretty fucked up, even though i already have read a lot of similarly related information, i found this shocking.




for one thing, a single man named edward bernays seriously did a number on us. he is known as the inventor of public relations and is the nephew of freud. if you watch the movie you can really see the full extent of his influence, not just on the above industries, but every aspect of our culture.






just a small sample of his legacy (he lived to be 100+) we have him to thank for the following:

• 1920s, working for the American Tobacco Company, he sent a group of young models to march in the New York City parade. He then told the press that a group of women's rights marchers would light "Torches of Freedom". On his signal, the models lit Lucky Strike cigarettes in front of the eager photographers. The New York Times (1 April 1929) printed: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'". This helped to break the taboo against women smoking in public.

• Bernays used his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas to help convince the public, among other things, that bacon and eggs was the true all-American breakfast.

• Bernays helped the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and other special interest groups to convince the American public that water fluoridation was safe and beneficial to human health. This was achieved by using the American Dental Association in a highly successful media campaign.

• In the 1930s, his Dixie Cup campaign was designed to convince consumers that only disposable cups were sanitary.



BUT GET THIS ONE!!!
You know the term Banana Republic?
During the cold war, Bernays (working for the United Fruit Company) and the US government made everyone believe that the President of Guatamala was an evil communist, so that they could overthrow the democratically elected leader and put in a puppet government who would allow cheap labour, and therefore cheap production of bananas.


part 2:
we're purposely being kept complacent and calm. they don't trust us and our irrational "animal instincts".

i urge you, please please please turn off your TV. stay away from hollywood movies full of product placements. keep the newspapers shut. don't go to the mall and don't use shopping as therapy.
we are already unique and different through our ideas and actions. we don't need products to "express" our unique selves. we can talk, paint, write, dance, create or destroy to express ourselves. don't fall for the planned obsolescence - if it hasn't worn out, you don't need a new one!!

i know i'm not the first person to say these things, but we have to stay on guard. through the use of psychology our minds are bombarded constantly and they understand how to sell us our "desires" very very very well.

again, please watch that documentary, but most importantly, if you haven't yet, get rid of your fucking TV.