contest: week #1

so, i've decided to have a contest. of course i'm not being original with my contest .. and contrary to what "week #1" implies, this won't necessarily be a weekly event .. it may be more often or, more likely, less often .. and also, i think contest implies that there is some sort of prize. i'm unsure as to what this prize is ... other than perhaps bragging rights. so here we go, week number 1 .. the witty caption contest:

here's your picture:

insert witty line here

now let's hear your captions!

just a musing

note: if you're easily offended by religious talk and issues that generally fall under religion's purview, you may not want to read the next couple lines ... so cover your eyes!


if you became impregnated by immaculate conception, how wrong would it be to get an abortion?

just wondering

yeah,i have no idea where that thought came from.

confrontations

so .. living with girls there it is almost inevitable that there will be drama ... we made it almost a year, well, more like 8 months without too much but on tuesday night the poo hit the proverbial fan

now, i'm not a fan of confrontation ... i'm not good at initiating it, not good at being on the receiving end and definitely not good in the aftermath ... which is the reason that i've been avoiding it for months

unfortunately, i was in the wrong place at the wrong time on tuesday evening and received the brunt of the anger and now must live in the insufferable silence that follows

i'm comfortable in silence, i'm not always a talker and often prefer to just laze in silence ... but this is uncomfortable silence ... and so i have hidden in the comfort of my room where no one can bother me .. but really, how much longer can this go on? how much longer can i stay a prisoner, a prisoner of my own room? really, i am also the jailer, so i guess as long as i decide.

oh sarah, how we love thee

last night, for the first time in many years, i got the opportunity to see sarah perform live once again ... and she was amazing!

sarah who, you ask? well, sarah mclachlan of course! (i'm on a first-name basis with all my favourite singers .. sarah, lauryn, jill, alicia ... etc ... either that or i'm just to lazy to say full names, it can be exhausting you know ... there's a reason why we don't call each other by our first and last names all the time - in an aside, i was bored at work the other day and decided to start looking up what my last name meant ... at one time i had found my last name used as a first name in a baby name book and it said that it meant "bean farmer" ... well, that wasn't very cool .. i know last names are often a derivation of what a person used to do ... but bean farmer? there's a reason that i moved away from the country ... so anyway, i couldn't find anything that said my name meant bean farmer ... however, much to my surprise, i could find no internet source that told me that my last name meant "bean farmer" ... instead, it said that it was a different version of the french-name equivalent to "smith" ... not equivalent of smith due to its popularity but instead due to its literal meaning ... but still, smith is a popular name ... i want to me more original! in the words of bridget [jones, if you have to ask ... yet another "person" i'm on a first name basis with], i want something more extraordinary than that)

anyway, back to how great she was ... the control, the maturity of her voice, the strength, the clarity, the flexibility, the instrumentations ... i can only wish that i had that kind of talent.

so i would like to say thank you sarah ... thank you for your music and thank you for sharing it with us!

(my only complaint is that there were no songs sung from touch or solace ... now i can understand why there'd be not much from touch ... but solace had some good, solid songs on it ... and one of my favourites too ... but that's ok ... she has so much great material that she can just really concentrate on a couple of her cd's ... and i'm really glad there were so many from fumbling b/c that is definitely my favourite cd ... so many great songs!)

so as a final kind of wrap up ... here's what we heard ...

from fumbling:
- possession
- waiting
- hold on
- ice
- elsewhere
- ice cream
- fear
- fumbling towards ecstacy

from surfacing:
- building a mystery
- adia
- angel
- witness
- sweet surrender
(i think that's it)

from movie sound tracks:
- i will remember you
- black bird

from afterglow:
- fallen (opening song)
- world on fire
- stupid
- drifting
- train wreck
- push
- answer
- dirty little secret (final encore)

t'was wonderful! please come back again soon, sarah!

crazy daisy

so my illustrious partner in crime and i have been pug-sitting this week ... pugs, for those of you don't know are one of the ugliest dogs ... but they're so ugly they're cute (http://www.akc.org/breeds/recbreeds/pug.cfm).. anyways, this dog is a ball of energy and rather ... well, crazy (which works out rather well b/c it rhymes with daisy which is the dog's name)

anyways, the pug-sitting isn't the real story here, but she features in it

so ... the other night, daisy was sleeping on my bed with me .. but then she sat up on the corner of my bed and looked out the door that was open just a crack or so (well, about a foot) and starts growling ... for a long long time ... i glance out the door and there's nothing there ... nothing there at all ... but she continues to growl ... it was really unnerving

i told my room mate (she would be the partner in crime) about it and she said that crazy daisy did the same thing on her last night ... and again, there is no one out in the hall for her to be growling out

and what does this lead a paranoid person like this to believe? well, that we have a spirit living with us! (i think i've been reading torontoghosts.com too much) ... animals are supposed to be good at sensing these things, so it makes sense right?

at least she seems like a nice spirit! not too mischeivous or anything ... and now if i hear strange noises i can blame it on the spirit rather than on the rapists and robbers i always imagine are breaking into the house. wonderful!

mid-summer crisis

so mary kay letourneau got out of jail today .. who is she, you ask? well, to catch you up, she's the elementary school teacher that had a relationship with a grade 6 student about 8 or 9 years ago (i can't remember the perfect timeline) ... was charged (while carrying his child) and sentenced ... and then when she got out on parole (i think it was) was caught having sex with him again in the back seat of a car (and was then impregnated with her second child by him) ... so now she's out, and he's no longer 12, but now is 21 and is fighting to try to strike down a court order that bars them from having any contact with each other. apparently, he's still in love with her .. and perhaps she's still in love with him (she's been rather mum on the whole issue)

there is a definite icky factor in this whole situation ... one must really wonder what a woman of 34 could see in a boy of 12 (heck, i'm pushing 24 and i don't think i could handle a 22 year old ... and if i was with a guy who was 22, he better be darned mature) ... so what is there between a 12 year old and a 34 year old? great challenging conversation? exciting sex? perhaps that's it ... but you have to remember that a grade 5 student shouldn't (although, you never know these days) be that experienced - although, then she could mold him into exactly what she wanted.

still, i think it's a little icky.

but there still seems to be this ... i won't say romantic ... but ... fascination in our society with the woman seducing the young boy situation ... it appears every once in a while - pacey in dawson's creek , irving's widow for one year (recently the centre of the movie the door in the floor based on the same book), etc ... and it's treated as it's ok ... even something for others to be jealous of, to yearn for themselves ... i think this is part of the fascination with the real-life occurrence of this fantasy ...

there's even a debate as to whether it's ok or not, if it's romantic or just pedophilic

if the genders were reversed, and it was the male teacher seducing the female student, there would be no debate, it would be straight perversion and pedophelia

but in the end, i think it's just another example as to how geared towards men the media is (aside: media is the plural of medium, i.e. one medium or many media ... but when you refer to "the media", is this treated as singular or plural ... by all rights it should be plural, but it just doesn't seem right that it would be plural ... anywya, i digress) ... many of the images on tv, movies, yadda yadda yadda (you must excuse all my yaddas ... i was watching seinfeld tonight and it was the "yadda, yadda yadda" episode) are geared towards what men would like to see ... older woman seducing younger man ... average/overweight guy with beautiful, skinny wife ... etc etc (i think the average / overweight guy married to the beautiful, skinny wife is especially perpetuated on sit-coms which i suppose makes sense as we generally find pleasantly plump men as jolly, jocular, amusing yet women in the same condition are slobs, unattractive ... but this is starting to change and kirstie alley is certainly pulling her weight in that struggle)

but in the end, it does serve its purpose ... i am entertained, and that's all i ask for, isn't it?