Day and Night

I don't know what happens during the day but there is a huge difference in people on the long train ride home than on the ride in. Perhaps people get up on the wrong side of the bed every morning or maybe their tiny little brains don't function so early but the commute in to work is generally worse than the ride home (and that is saying a lot because the train ride is never a treat). I would deduce that I am the cause of my morning troubles if the ride home was as inane but since the ride home is vastly different, at the very least it is sufferable, my morning troubles are obviously a result of external factors.

I take the better of the two predicaments and sit against the side of the train, taking up as little space as a three hundred pound man can (I figure dealing with one person is less annoying than being bumped, elbowed, etc by people walking by). Inevitably the person who sits beside me has never met courtesy and snuggles up next to me (I barely get that close to my wife) and opens up a paper, flailing their elbows all the while. Being in cramped quarters the occasional elbow is somewhat understandable but generally the elbows fly all ride long. That isn’t the worst of it though. Like this morning, some people get aggressive and put some force behind the ‘bows as if I can magically make the wall beside me disappear and move over to give everyone the space they want.

It is never like that on the ride home and I generally take up more space going home. Even with taking up more space I receive far less elbows and bumps than I do in the mornings. Make sense to anyone else? Didn’t think so. There is the odd time when I get a ride full of elbows on the way home but those ‘bows are generally benign. Still annoying but it doesn’t reach irritating levels. The main irritant on the ride home is the noise but thankfully the iPod comes with volume control so that is not generally a huge concern.

I wish I lived in science fiction and could just 'beam' into work or perhaps use spells on people to make my commute more tolerable like in the tales of fantasy. The life of an Aes Sedai as created by the late Robert Jordan seems like a great life sometimes. (For those unfamiliar with Aes Sedai and are interested in the fantasy genre, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is well worth the read).

March 2009 Quotes

…a man had to look after himself. When all was said and done, that was the long and short of it.
- Robert Jordan (The Fires of Heaven)

We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
- Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

…for a man of sensitivity and compassion to exercise great powers in a time of crisis is a grim and agonizing thing.
- Richard Hofstadtler (The American Political Tradition)

No one axiom…can be laid down as wise and expedient for all times and circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson

Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.
- Thomas Jefferson

As with any other strong drug, true first love is really only interesting to those who have become its prisoners. And, as is true of any other strong and addicting drug, true first love is dangerous.
- Stephen King (Wizard and Glass)

Fear wasn't better than respect, but by God it was better than nothing.
- Stephen King (Wolves of the Calla)

Something can be understood. Something can be divined. All cannot be known.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Our mind wishes to take in everything, yet knows it cannot. There is the paradox. Knowledge must know its own limits.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Thinking. Learning, remembering, knowing; imagining and creating new ideas; preserving and communicating knowledge over distances in time and space. Not only is it wonderful in its compass and variety: it is unique. It makes us human.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Knowledge acquired and extended for its own sake is the specific quality that makes us human.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Mankind speedily become unable to conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to see it.
- John Stuart Mill (On Liberty)

…for the free man there should be no element of slavery in learning. Enforced exercise does no harm to the body, but enforced learning will not stay in the mind. So avoid compulsion, and let your children's lessons take the form of play. This will also help you to see what they are naturally fitted for.
- from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

…men do right only under compulsion; no individual thinks of it as good for him personally, since he does wrong whenever he finds he has the power. Every man believes that wrongdoing pays him personally much better…
- from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

…a man can live well only if he knows clearly what is the end of life, what things are of real value, and how they are to be attained. This knowledge is the moral virtue of man…and constitutes the art of living. If a man imagines that the end of life is to gain wealth or power, which are valueless in themselves, all his actions will be misdirected...It leads to the central thesis that society must be ruled by men who have learnt, by long and severe training, not only the true end of human life, but the meaning of goodness in all its forms.
- from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)

…what would come, would come…and he would have to meet it when it did.
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

Time is making fools of us again
- J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

It is important…to be able to reach many kinds of people, for each type has its own variety of use…
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

Oddity is in the mind of the receiver.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

Anything you make forbidden gains sexual attractiveness.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

Emotions…are a a powerful engine of human action…
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

It does not actually take much to rouse resentment and latent fear of women in any man.
- Isaac Asimov (Prelude to Foundation)

…childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child…
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

…I have accomplished in life what I have intended and under what circumstances may one better die.
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

Violence…is the last refuge of the incompetent…
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

Memories sting when they come suddenly…
- Isaac Asimov (Foundation)

Laugh of the Day

My boss just walked around my area and on the way out told me to stop working there is only 25 minutes left on a Friday afternoon.

I was just pretending to do work just like I have been all but maybe an hour of the day.

A Great Start

There is not much better than starting the day with cold pizza leftover from the night before. I just wish that short-lived moment is not the best part of my day but it likely will be.

Happy Hump Day!

When I first heard this expression I quickly associated it with something totally different than what it really means. Knowing what it represents I must say whoever coined the phrase got the day wrong. For me Monday is the real hump day. After two days of doing nothing, getting up for work Monday morning is the real challenge. Once Monday is done with, the entire process of getting up, going to work and going back home quickly becomes an automatic response with no real thought required, except for those days I try to come up with a believable excuse for not going to work.

Mentioning the weekend in the middle of the week just prolongs the day and at particularly bad times, it prolongs the entire week. It points out the fact that there is something better just ahead; something better than staring at a computer screen for 7 hours a day as if no one was already aware of the better days ahead. Something that gets closer each minute but every time one turns around to grab it that something seems further away.

So I say to you, as my day seems like an eternal sentence in purgatory, happy hump day, the weekend is only two very long days away. The weekend that will seem more like 2 hours than two days. And then we will "punch in punch out, go to work and go back home" (lyrics from Seven Mary Three's song Punch In Punch Out) for another five days.

February 2009 Quotes

…a god is a being of entire simplicity and truthfulness in word and in deed. In himself he does not change, nor does he delude others, either in dreams or in waking moments, by apparitions or oracles or signs. - from The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford

If the mind is kept in use, its powers are inexhaustible.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

Emotion is individual; transient. Reason is permanent.
- Gilbert Highet (Man's Unconquerable Mind)

The mark of a genius is it’s ability to bide.
- Stephen King (The Stand)

Grief is like a drunken houseguest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug.
- Stephen King (Bag of Bones)

Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier then its predecessors.
- Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)

…only the dead could afford oblivion.
- Robert Jordan (New Spring)

…fear was a poor tool, and one that always cut the user eventually.
- Robert Jordan (New Spring)

Your [first lover] wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair forever.
- Robert Jordan (New Spring)

Only a fool believed women less dangerous than men, but women often seemed to think men fools when it came to women.
- Robert Jordan (New Spring)

A man's past belonged to himself and the people who had lived it with him; it was not a matter for gossip with an inquisitive woman.
- Robert Jordan (New Spring)

…"stubborn" was a redundancy when it came to men.
- Robert Jordan (New Spring)

…when what they do is hidden, men sometimes deal with strangers in ways they wouldn't if there were other eyes to see. And the quickest to harm a stranger are the soonest to think a stranger will harm them.
- Robert Jordan (The Eye of the World)

It was easier to be brave…when someone needed your protection.
- Robert Jordan (The Eye of the World)

Under this flag may our youth find new inspiration for loyalty to Canada; for a patriotism based not on any mean or narrow nationalism, but on the deep and equal pride that all Canadians will feel for every part of this good land.
- Lester B Pearson

Men believe the worst easily, and women believe it hides something still darker
- Robert Jordan (Lord of Chaos)

Dance with her, and she will forgive much; dance well, and she will forgive anything.
- Robert Jordan (Lord of Chaos)

What you want is what you cannot have. What you cannot have is what you want.
- Robert Jordan (Lord of Chaos)

…men love to talk and gossip. All you need do is listen, or even pretend to, and a man will tell you his whole life.
- Robert Jordan (Winter's Heart)

…what killed you was always what you never expected.
- Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight)

Careless expressions gave away too much to an opponent.
- Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight)

The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their choosing. The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower or die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond. A gardener did not weep for each blossom that fell.
- Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight)

Straight forward is not always the best way. Sometimes, certain things must be done behind masks, for safety.
- Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight)

Fear is a useful spur to the wits, and to determination, when well controlled. If we have no fear of our enemies, that leaves only contempt, and contempt leads to the enemy's victory.
- Robert Jordan (Crossroads of Twilight)

No need to live in trouble until trouble comes.
- Stephen King (Wizard and Glass)

It was all right to feel fear, but sometimes a very bad idea to show it.
- Stephen King (Wizard and Glass)

Words between women need trouble no man's ear
- Stephen King (Wizard and Glass)

…her father had taught her to measure herself by her ability to do the things she'd said she would do
- Stephen King (Wizard and Glass)

Lack Of Motivation

Being a Monday morning I have little motivation to even be at work let alone get any work done. I am usually good after an hour or so to get down to some work or at least pretend to work but today I can't seem to ward off the many distractions. My motivation to work or even pretend to work is non-existent. When I do get to work my concentration disappears on me and after a minute or less of work I revert back to surfing the web (after all there were a lot of games in the NLL over the weekend to read up and I was directed to another sports blog this morning that I can waste time reading). Perhaps I need to hook up my iPod and get some tunes going, at a reasonable volume of course. I'm even getting distracted from my distractions.

It's going to be a long day but at least it is almost half over.

A Canopy of Birds

Have you ever seen the movie The Birds? Here’s the summary from IMDb.com:

A wealthy San Francisco playgirl pursues a potential boyfriend to a small
Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of
all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with
increasing viciousness.

I was 'lucky' enough to catch the tail end of this movie one day last year after leaving work early. My supervisor mentioned this flick to me so when I saw it was on the telly I had to check it out.

While crossing the Peace Bridge en route to the HSBC Arena for the Bandits season opener I saw a sight that ripped my mind back to this movie. A flock or ten of birds were covering the bridge just about in the middle of it. They were above the light poles forming a living canopy that stretched from one side of the bridge to the other while being several feet wide. It was an awesome sight but having witnessed Alfred Hitchcock’s imagination on the screen, there was a bit of fear mixed in too, perhaps even terror. Travelling underneath this moving canopy was kind of eerie but we survived the encounter with the birds. Our car, on the other hand, needed a good washing afterwards.

What's A Few Pennies?

There is this Greek place in the underground Path system by my work that I frequent on occasion even though their pricing really irritates me. I usually get the same thing every time I go there and every time I have to scrounge around for three pennies before heading down for some grub. The reason for this is that the food and drink I usually get comes to $10.03.

I don’t think this would be too much of an irritant if they were more diligent about giving back change. I for one never carry change around with me, at least not anything less than our lovely loonie so I usually pay with bills. I used to expect them to give me the correct change but instead they never do. Instead they shortchange themselves and just give me back change to the dollar amount, losing the three cents. In and of itself that would be great but the cashier always makes a point of the three cents.

If the three cents are such a big deal why does the cashier not give back the correct change to the penny? Since this is not done, I assume the extra three cents are not overly important to the business. If this is the case, why don’t they fix their price to an even $10.00? Are they not capable of doing the math backwards? Perhaps they just like irritating people. Rounding up to five or even ten cents would be less irritating then the three cents and the attitude the cashier gives because she is too lazy to count the change.

Where Is My Burger Queen?

Well, here is my story of how I almost met my Burger Queen. It was first year at University and like most Fridays during that year me and my new found friends were drinking. My one friend lived out of town and had not yet joined us so we decided that he could drive us to Burger King quickly before he added to the bottle count…make that can count since the residence didn’t allow bottles.

While waiting for our transportation to BK, I found some props to make use of for our trip. Not sure why but there was a paper BK crown lying around the room (must have been picked up on a previous drunken adventure to BK) that I had to wear for the night. As the beer was hitting me, my creative side came out and I found a bath robe I could wear to go along with my crown. My friend showed up before I could get too creative, much to the relief of the others, and took us to BK.

Wearing the robe and crown I strolled into BK as cool as a cucumber pronouncing that I was the Burger King (come to think of it, I believe my robe was the exact same colour that the real Burger King is sporting nowadays, hmmmm). When I got to the counter I repeated that I was the Burger King and asked the lovely girl behind the counter if she would be my Burger Queen. After the bout of laughter subsided enough I placed my order, we got our food then left before the embarrassment of the adventure was realized.

That was so out of character for me that to this day I am still wondering what got into me, besides the JD that is. There are other fun stories of adventure from my first year but the rest are for others to tell besides I can’t really remember any of them.