47940000000 Kms, 1 Owner

Fifty first trip around the sun.

There are no posts for the year 2012, because from my perspective, the majority of it was horrible.

The universe reaped 3 people from my life. Two family members and a very good friend. It was greedy, and tried to take a fourth... unsuccessfully. Which resulted in probably the only bright moment last year. A wedding.

Will resume quitting the coffin nails. Last year's epic fail. It was going so well, until all the carnage started happening. Then it all went to sh!te. Hardest thing to do... and yet, long term probably the most rewarding. Quit.

ides of march... indeed

beware the ides of march | william shakespeare | Julius Caesar |

so i had a package of motorcycle goodies arrive at the post office last week. i went today to pick it up.

then i received my 'ides of march' moment.

bloody canada border services charged $78.35, in addition to the ungodly hst sum of $77.05 piggybacked on top of that. total $160.40 on a declared value of $440.

tax on tax to the tune of 36%... thanks ndp wankers. it's a good thing the ndp have a majority, it'll be their last government. the unfair taxation gospel they used to preach ended right after their first budget.

at least you knew you were going to be fleeced or suckerpunched by the liberals and conservatives. the expectation bar was set for low for those parties, a government without scandal or corruption, was virtually unheard of.

and now from the looks of it, we will be headed to the polls federally. although the facist / reformer / conservative steve hitler and the conservatives, aka 'the harper government' formerly known as 'the government of canada', seem to think an election will cause another earthquake and tsunami in japan.

seriously canada... wake the fuck up. the fear mongering, ego maniacal, liars have to go. that being said i don't trust any of you to not f this up. start drinking the hitler governments koolaid if you want your majority.

new year... new goals

new year's haze,

I wonder why we feel compelled to set the tone for the rest of the year, on a day when most of us shouldn't make any kind of decision.

2011 revolutions:

wear less black
gain and/or lose 5 to 8 lbs. of winter weight
be less sympathetic

that's it, super easy to say, we'll see how it works out long term.



I'm posting this in March because I started it January 1, then it remained, sitting idle, as a nub of unpublished post.

Sons Of Anarchy s03e07

So finally had a chance to watch this weeks Sons of Anarchy episode (season 3, episode 7). Things are starting to pick up, story line wise. Wasn't expecting Gemma to be going to Ireland, that kind of threw me, as well as she didn't know that JT had fathered a daughter.

I'm not sure what's in store for next week (episode 8)... but I'm running scenarios through my braincase, and they all seem to be hyper violent. Wishful thinking perhaps. Especially for Jimmie O, the tosser, and now surprisingly the Belfast Sons (bloody traitors). Well McGee and O'Neill. I'm seeing a parallel between the two charters. The Clay (President) and Tig (Sgt at Arms) secret (and disastrous) attempt on Opie's life, and McGee (President) and O'Neill's (Sgt at Arms) secret alliance with Jimmie O. Just the not keeping club brothers in the loop kind of vibe. Maybe something, maybe nothing. Just a feeling that somethings not right.

And what's up with Huey, Dewey and Louie, the three new prospects. Kinda srcaping the bottom of the band camp, dungeons and dragons barrel there, aren't we. No wonder the reaper crew is in trouble. Hopefully some back story on the three mouseketeer flunk outs will be forthcoming.

bestbuy.ca (aka Worst Buy Canada) pre-order backorder lying clusterfuckers for the Fallout: New Vegas Collectors Edition

So after much twisting in the wind, and anticipation as the impending October 19, 2010 release date of my Fallout: New Vegas Collectors Edition for Playstation 3, the day has finally arrived. No more sleeps. Everything is right with the world...

Until I log in to see that my item that I pre-ordered will be shipping today, aka release day.

OUT OF STOCK!

WHAT THE FUCK Best Buy Canada. What exactly does pre-order mean to you people. Back in the good old days of 2009 the Best Buy policy for pre-orders was that if you pre-ordered, you were guaranteed a game on the release date. This is from the glorious 2009 Best Buy Pre-Order Portal.

'Lining up for games is COOL. Not. When you pre-order online you're guaranteed a copy without the early morning drive. If you pre-order, you're getting your game; we don't oversell our pre-orders.'

Well apparently not any more. By the time I received a response from my very early morning email and phone call to their customer service departments, my local Best Buy store was also sold out.

So what was the advantage of 'pre-ordering' Fallout: New Vegas from bestbuy.ca? Besides the crushing disappointment of presuming I had ordered a game. NONE.

Except, instead of the expected confirmation email today saying it had shipped, I am instead stuck in some sort of twilight zone, submitted for your approval, you've pre-ordered and today is the day of release limbo where I supposedly have a pre-ordered game, that I don't have, or can't have, or can't get, because of some fatal cart flaw, and where no one can tell you if you will ever get the actual game you pre-ordered weeks ago for the sole purpose of avoiding all this 'Sold Out' , 'Out of Stock' and 'Back Ordered' on the day of release bullshit, because email queries and phone calls to BestBuy.ca customer service in Brampton, Ontario, are responded to our highly skilled blind deaf mute customer service representitives.

For a slow and vague response, please enter your question in the space provided below, then click submit. For an even less gratifying, but more immediate non answer, followed by cricket sounds and then a dial tone from an actual customer service representive, please press 1.

This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes OR for the amusement of our staff during breaks and lunches.

is summer really over?

It's warm this morning. 17C.

More summer than fall.

I had coffee on the deck to take advantage of the fact that although we are in the middle of hurricane season.... the cold harsh reality of the next season will soon clench it's icy grip on the Great White North.

It's been a month since I had the mighty KLR out for a stretch... so that's my plan for today. Made half a dozen phone calls by 9AM... and then piss some time away from the saddle. I've earned it.

Yesterday's suckerpunch from my ongoing legal skirmish over my copyright's has really pissed me off... and I need to clear my f'n head.

From one Starving Artist to another... your day in court is coming you thieving no talent bitch. Stuff your lazy ass $200 offer and choke on your lame apology. I rather ruin your career at this point than listen to any more of your lies.

sipping the stillness
at the end of september
pre-dawn coffee warmth

Birthday Haiku

The b'day today... and I'm off on my annual pilgrimage




two birthdays today
silence substitutes for song
remembering yours


whoooops... totally forgot to post this after I wrote it

Eric Schmidt's anarchy quote

'the internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.'

Eric Schmidt
April 2, 1997

Eric Schmidt is now the CEO of Google.

Shaman or sage?

braincase: blockages and blurts

Monday morning... pre 7AM. Coffee, the sound of the wind howling outside. Feels more like fall than spring. Ms. Slippers (aka the cat) has gone out for her morning reconnaissance mission. I'm not sure I have anything to write about, other than hockey, and my bad mood.

I am tired. Drained. A talk with the lawyer on Thursday, put me in a bad mood, that is only now beginning to subside. More money and still no result. I'm not sure I'm getting good counsel for my money. All I know is that, it's expensive, and I'm no further ahead than I was before.

The braincase switches to the abstract. My friend Damons' dad was a lawyer, he passed away a few years ago. Mike Cooke was a great lawyer... and crappy business man. The kind of lawyer that would give you 110% in court and took clients on a 'pay what you can' basis. It's times like these, when a loss is felt so deeply, that it seems fresh.

In 9 days I'll be making my annual pilgrimage to the cemetery. Sadly. To wish my friend Mike Dixon a happy birthday. Mike was the best man at my wedding. We had the same birthday, he was exactly a year younger than me. After he got married, he sort of fell off the face of the earth. Saw him maybe a handful of times over 20 years. That's what happens when you marry up socially. You get a new 'class' of friends... her friends. Sadly, that usually means you are forced to abandon your friends. The friends that knew you best. A tragic end to a life and a friendship. The choices he made, still effect me to this day. For the past 4 years, I reflect on my failings as a friend.

I can't seem to move passed it.

Reckless Restless

Having trouble getting jump started today. Coffee isn't helping at all. Reflective, somber and sense memory overloaded.

Now that I've gone to all the trouble of digging out this gear, I'm surprised by how much camera gear is in my possession. It's sad because it should be used, that's what it was built for.

Every piece of gear, has it's own history. Whether it started with me, or has ended with me. I have a great old, circa late 1920's box camera.


A Kodak Rainbow Hawkeye No.2. Red. Uses 120 film, it's still available. On a good day it's worth maybe $35. And yet it's still usable for what it was designed for, taking photographs. Solid mechanical design, nothing fancy or complex, but it works... 90 years on.

Wait and see if there are any first versions of an iPhone 90 years from now. Things are disposable now. It helps fuel consumerism, if you make product with a finite lifecycle.

Braincase Query
Do we ever truly own something, or are we merely caretakers of it?

Can I built it myself?

Braincase Quest:

To make the 'new' blog a bit more visually appealing for you, the reader, and me, the designer.

First, I couldn't find a 'stock template' that I liked. So I settled on Rounders... me and 25% of the blogspot squatters.

The goal is to lay it out using the 'golden canon of page construction' based on Jan Tschichold's book, The Form of the Book.

It's an exquisite piece of design, and math. Web designers are just now starting to adopt traditional 'print' design aesthetics into their web work. A rudimentary search for this kind of coding has turned up... well a lot of false starts. The math isn't all that complex, but the coding could possibly end up being a horrorshow.

All I can do is try, and like gardening, it will be a work in progress.

p.s.
Sitting here, iTunes has decided today shuffle feature should be a weird mix of aggressive alt grunge and late 70's 'new wave'. Make no mistake. iTunes has an agenda.

Old School v. Tech Cool

Tuesday, garbage day. 7:30 AM

A better nights' sleep, but I still don't feel rested. And, again this morning, my stomach is upset. Most of that's caused from the looming ethical issue surrounding yesterday's post, in particular the second paragraph. At least that's what I'm telling myself. It started around the same time, and the more research I did, the worse it got.

So, Tuesday, bloody, Tuesday. The list of things I should have well underway, has grown by one item.

There is a 'new-ish' photography club is town, they have an ad on Kijiji looking for darkroom equipment. Not the run of the mill amateur gear, medium and large format. In a previous career, not only did I work as a freelance photographer, but also, as a darkroom technician. Black and white photography is a passion of mine, and around the age of 13 I was smitten with it. Hook, line and sinker, I was lured to it. Later it became a career. Yes, there was a period in my life, when I got paid to do what I loved. It was always just enough to pay the bills and eat, but it was 1000 percent better than any McJob I had ever worked at.

There's lots of gear packed away... somewhere. Most of it was going to get binned, so I took the decent stuff home when the 'digital revolution' started. I found most of it a good home, and the rest became mine. So I need to make a list for the guy in charge of acquisitions. So he can pop 'round see if they want to buy any of it.

Hopefully they have a need or use for most, or all of it, because that's what it was built for, to be used. Not hoarded away gathering dust. This stuff takes up a lot of room, I could use the space and the money. I won't sell it all though, I'd still like to keep enough to have a working darkroom, should I ever wish to return to the dark arts.

I'll be keeping cameras, aka the retirement fund, in the hopes that it will eventually pay off, and that my small collection, will be worth something.

Does anyone even 'print' photos or is it a post thing now. I have negatives, a tangible archival hard copy, from which to make reproductions, until my estate gets them and my rights of copyright for fifty (50) years after my death.

Braincase query: In an age of digital photography, and the pre-planned or built-in obsolescence of technology (e.g. hard drives, memory cards, etc.), will there be a generation of kids that have giant gaps in their photo history? Sorry honey but the photos from when you were 5 to 9 were 'lost' in the hard drive failure of 2007.

Print v. Post

Lazy Monday morning, not super warm... but at least it's not raining, and the wind has calmed a bit. I should do yard work today, now that I have fallen behind. At a minimum, I should try to get some fresh air.

The last couple of weeks, have been spent researching copyright law, and sitting within arms length of a landline, waiting for industry people to call me back. For obvious reasons, none of the details can be posted on the internet, until there is some sort of resolution. It is causing me to lose sleep. And my appetite. The moral and ethical scope of protecting my work is expensive. Not just financially, but mentally. If it goes unchallenged, someone 'gets away' with something. But if I pursue it, I'll ruin somebody's career and livelihood.

dreaded post #1

The dreaded first post.

Every blog starts at post #1... and then either dies a slow horrible lonely death, or is updated occasionally/whenever you think about it, or becomes a thought provoking tour de force.

The litmus test of whether anything I have to say (or type, as it were) is important, relevant, sane, or useful, is up to you.

Unlike the Marines, I have left a blog behind. It served it's purpose and then was promptly abandoned by me. Like digital trash. 0110001010000111100100100111101001010101010 littering at least one server somewhere. Litter sucks...