I blame my good friend Stephanie for this one. I’m so going to hell for laughing at it.

from The Cure at Troy

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted and endured.

History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
It means, once in a lifetime
that justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

~ Seamus Heaney ~

As read by Liam Neeson

So, I downloaded and watched this week’s Doctor Who episode, titled 42, last night. The rough plot is the Doc and Martha have 42 minutes to save themselves and the crew of a spaceship from crashing into a sun.

Now, I was more than a little dissapointed in this ep. Anything that invokes the number 42 is cool in my eyes, just because of the significance to Douglas Adams. It’s doubly cool when a Doctor Who episode name drops like this, since Dougy boy was a script writer for the old series and all that… or at least it would be cool if the damn episode had anything to do with him whatsoever!!

*grrrr*

If you’re going to have the balls to name an episode 42, you’d better have a script with enough gravitas to carry the weight and do justice to it’s originator. As it was, it was a crap filler episode with nary a reference to anything Adams created. Hell there wasn’t even the slightest amount of absurdist normality that pervaded his work. It was exactly what I summed up earlier: Doctor must save ship in 42 minutes. I mean What the hell?!?! Could you be any more unoriginal…

And all I can say is Martha’s mom is an utter hag. Okay… that’s enough bitching on my part. Hopefully we’ll get some better eps in the coming weeks.

Over the past month or so I’ve been in a bad mental headspace. My mind has been aimless and I haven’t really felt enthused about anything. Part of it is because of the crap that keeps building up at work lately and part of it is long dormant issues resurfacing and yet another part is something new that I discovered about myself recently that I’m still trying to figure out. All of this together has culminated in me being an absolute headcase alternating between mania and depression for the past little while. I’ve kept it hidden for the most part, as I tend to do with these things. They’re my problems, not yours so I generally don’t talk about them with anyone. Of course, if you know me then you’ve probably seen me in this state in the past at some point and realize this isn’t the best thing for me to be doing but I still keep doing it. Normally I end up letting this all build up until I do something really stupid like quit my job or move to the moon or whatever.

This time around I managed to find an outlet before that all happenned (or at least before I got to the REALLY stupid part. I can’t deny I’ve managed to make a few stupid mistakes over the past couple of weeks but I’m learning to live with them). I finally bought myself the mountain bike I’ve been promising myself I’d get for the past 4 years and it’s an amazing feeling of freedom. I’ve been biking almost every day now for the past week and I feel better than I have in ages. I’m so out of shape it isn’t funny but it’s been totally worth it just to keep pushing myself to go that extra kilometer every day. Plus I love my bike. It’s so damn cool.

See! Isn’t it purdy! Mine is much muddier though! Puddles are fun!

All this physical exercise has actually had a positive effect besides getting my lazy arse out of this computer chair more frequently. With all this activity my brain has kicked back into quadrupal high gear and the writer’s block that I’ve been fighting with for as long as I can really remember is gone for now. I’ve been an absolute writing fiend the past two days and it’s been great. I’m just in the early stages of writing and you guys won’t ever see it until I transcribe it, but it feels absolutely wonderful to fill up an empty page. So far I think I’ve written about 20 pages of rough draft in the past two days. I haven’t bothered to word count because right now I’m just doing a VERY rough pass at the overall plot thread. Once I get down to brass tacks and start actually writing the meat of the story and the intricacies of character interaction I’ll bother with that but for right now I just want to lay down the skeleton and framework and then see where things go.

I know this mental energy is coming from the exercise but I don’t think I’d be as focused if it wasn’t for a conversation I had with someone last week that put a lot of things in perspective. My friend was able to kick my arse into gear as I expected they would and I’m forever grateful. Thanks. You know who you are.

So while my life may not be perfect at the moment — I still don’t have the riches to support myself in the manner in which I’d like to be accustomed to, nor have I managed to get the perfect girl — I finally have things going in the right direction and it’s a good feeling. Yay Me!

Okay, I think it’s time to vent my spleen anonymously to teh intarweb (that’s you people for those of you playing along at home). Today’s rant will probably fall short of the epic rants of days gone by due to me becoming a bit more sanguine as I’ve aged but hopefully it’ll still be vitriolic enough to satisfy the common crowd.

First a little backstory. For those of you who been living in a van down by the river and don’t get out much, I work at Chapters, Canada’s only chain bookstore similar to Barnes & Noble or Borders in the states. Like all big corporations, they suck at treating their staff properly. For the most part they’re okay at an individual level, but the higher up you get, the more shit comes down and impersonal things get.

Recently the GM of our store was kicked to the curb because we weren’t performing up to the Regional Manager’s expectations. The whole region got a reshuffle and our store got hit fairly hard with one of the two decent managers getting transfered and we accquired a new GM from Winterpeg temporarily who’ll be training our “permanent” GM. We also got another assistant GM from Sherwood Park who’s supposed to be this amazing guru at layout and design. (Note: the key words in that last sentence are SUPPOSED TO BE. I’ll touch back on this later)

Anyway, enough set up and back story, on with the griping.

Since our new GM arrived he’s pretty much turned our store on it’s figurative ear changing shit to suit his needs. Now, admittedly some of it needed to be done as we’ve been fairly lax in certain aspects, but a lot of it is arbitrary, useless and doesn’t help anyone but him. It’s just how he was used to doing it and so that’s how it has to be done. Plus his approach in quite a few of the changes is “Tough! This is how it is, Get used to it”.

Now for those of you who know me, this is is probably the absolute worst thing you can do to get me to help you. I’m as stubborn and obstinant as they come and I don’t take kindly to being told what to do. I’ll take advice and suggestion as long as they’re reasonable and I get an explanation as to WHY but once you go hard line on me all you do is get my back up and make me be totally negative against everything you say from that point on (even if you make a reasonable suggestion). Once you cross that line, there’s no turning back.

So, I’ve been on a slow boil since about day three because of this. We’ve had a lot of pointless changes in the cash office and instead of getting all the information at once in a nice neat package that I can digest and then teach to my crew of all new cashiers, I’m getting dribs and drabs from various managers, EACH with different opinions and ideas of how to interpret things and so I’m getting conflicting information from five different people. On top of this, because I’m not there 24/7 (I’m shocked cause it damn well feels like it some days) they’re telling everyone else the same five different stories and the whole thing is cascading beyond belief. It’s getting on my FUCKING NERVES!

Now I don’t care if things have to change, I can live with it as long as the change is positive. Right now it’s not. It’s ALL Fucking arbitrary. Or at least it seems that way. If you’re going to change something explain to me WHY your changing it and why what we were doing currently is wrong. And MORE importantly, be willing to listen when I tell you that I think your way is stupid and that for our location I feel that what we’re doing currently works better or could we at least try a compromise between the two. Right now I’m not getting any of that. It’s all From now on blah blah blah blah. Well ya know what. From now on you can bite my arse ya wanker. Fuckin idjits need a good swift kick in the head.

And as for our gift guru… I could fucking merchandise stuff better than her if I was blind drunk, senile and sightless. What all she’s touched has been to the plan Head office sends out every month to the letter and nothing beyond that and quite frankly, it looks like shit. She’s had one of the girls who works in the gift section redisplay our journals 4 friggin times this week and to be honest they a) don’t sell well enough to merit the effort she’s putting in and b) they don’t look any different than when she started. Meanwhile there are 4 TABLES worth of shit piled up in receiving blocking everything else because they’re not on the damn planogram and we “don’t have room for it on the floor”. I call BULLSHIT. It’s no greater amount of stuff than we have any other time of the year bar christmas and yet previous people have been able to get it all out and displayed properly. The problem is, she won’t let them. Everything has to be HER way. She freakin calls in on the days she’s not there to tell the people working in gift what to do!?!?. WTF!?!?! She’s a total useless twat if you ask me and from what I’ve seen a domineering control freak with a chip on her shoulder to boot. In other words she doesn’t play well with others. Joy! I’m glad she hates cash so I don’t have to deal with her (unless it’s cleaning up her mess on nights when she closes as she doesn’t know shite about what she’s doing).

And from what I’m hearing the new “permanent” GM isn’t really to thrilled with all of these nitpicky details either so it’ll most likely all fucking change again when she takes charge. Meh… I love my job but as you all know I loathe stupidity to the core and lately work stinks like week old feces. Guess it’s time to dust off the old resume in case things get worse.

Okay. I’m all ranted out for now. Catharsis in action! WooT

For those of you who know me, you know that my taste in music pretty much runs the gamut. I like Bach, I like Bachman Turner Overdrive, I like The Hip, I like 80s crap, and occasionally I’ll admit to liking (albeit briefly) stupid catchy modern pop/dance tripe, which is usually one of the few genre’s of music that I find generally intolerable. I just can’t stand all the posing and ‘Yo Yo Yo! Look at me! I’m a rapper/Pop star! I’m cool’ attitudes. Plus let’s face it, the music is shite.

I think that my unwritten requirements of what I consider good music are that you a) have to be able to play an instrument and play it well. I don’t care if you don’t do it all the time (aka Bono from U2 or Gord Downie from The Hip) but as long as you CAN play, that’s cool with me. Another rule is that you have to write your own material. If you aren’t capable of an original thought or feeling that you are unable to express lyrically by yourself then you shouldn’t be a musician. I don’t mind if you sing other people’s material now and then, but you need your own repetoire otherwise you suck.

Speaking of suckage… let’s talk about Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, specifically the train wreck of a song called My Humps. I hate this song. It’s as fucking retarded as they come. Have you actually attempted to listen to the lyrics? Talk about objectifying and marginalizing women and promoting gold-digging and crap behaviour. If you haven’t heard the song, consider yourself lucky, because despite how shitty the damn song is, it’s a fucking earworm. It’ll get stuck in your head for days. Just ask Captain America.

Thankfully I’ve managed to find the anti-earworm version of the song. Alanis has done a cover video/song version of it and posted it up on YouTube. It’s a good parody because it allows you to actually hear the lyrics for the misogynistic crap that they are. While I’m not the biggest fan of Alanis’ music, I do respect her sense of style and I think she hits the nail on the head with this one.

Enjoy.

—

In other amusing April Fool’s news, Neil has been sainted. So from now on I shall refer to him as Saint Neil rather than The Neil.

So say we all!

I was re-reading my copy of Allan Moore’s most enjoyable tale about about an extraordinary group of gentlemen and ladies, one might even go so far as to call them a league, the other day and it piqued my interest in all things steam punk and gothic once again and I have been on the prowl all over teh intarwebs looking for interesting gaslight tales, pictures and such-like. Today, out of the blue I stumbled across this little gem of a site where someone dreamed up the idea of what Star Wars would look like in the Victorian era.

Enjoy.

My iPod is currently wearing out the Arctic Monkeys song, I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor. Damn that tune is fun and addictive. You all must listen to it.

Yes, the punny blog titles continue! One of these days I might actually bother to get a wit of my own instead of borrowing from the collective gestalt that is modern society. Anyway, thanks to Jon’s knowledge of things man was not meant to know, I have delved into the depths of the Needcoffee site and unearthed their Dream cast for Watchmen.

While I still haven’t formulated my own ideas of a dream cast, here is theirs for your enjoyment. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions of their own. Obviously John Ritter is out due to his untimely death a couple of years ago. Who else does that leave us with?

Dream Cast:
The Comedian – Stacy Keach
Rorschach – William H. Macy
Hollis Mason (Nite Owl I) – Jack Lemmon
Nite Owl II – John Ritter
Ozymandias – Cary Elwes
Dr. Manhattan – Jeff Goldblum
Silk Spectre II – Cathy Moriarty
Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre I) – Ann-Margret
Moloch – Martin Landau
Dr. Malcolm Long – Ernie Hudson

Dream Crew:
Directed by – Terry Gilliam
(taken from the NeedCoffee.com Archives

And if you haven’t read the Watchmen yet… I call you PHILISTINE and shall now go get the old hag from The Princess Bride to scream ephitets at you until you do.

WTF?!?! Where the hell was I when this happenned?

Apparently there if you watch the 300 Trailer there is a “subliminal” blip at 1.52min That has a still of…

…

Wait for it…

…

I said wait….

… Rorshach from The Watchmen?!?!?!?

HOLY FUCKING HELL BATMAN!

This so better not suck monkey balls like all the rest of Allan’s screen adaptations have (despite me being partial to V for Vendetta and League for all their flaws). I so want just ONE of his books to translate to the screen properly and respectfully AND be successful both critically and commercially. I know it won’t change his mind about the movies and all that, he’s too much of a crazy neo-luddite for that to happen, but he does deserve it after all of his other works have been butchered so thoroughly.

For those of you who’re wondering What the living fuck I’m talking about

I direct you thusly.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

And finally Exhibit C which is just a large uncropped version of A.

I’ve no idea on the cast but they damn well better get Jeff Goldblum for Doc Manhattan. If they don’t it would be analogous to not casting Patrick Stewart as Professor X.

My mind is awhir with dream cast speculation… I wonder if I can find that list of dream cast for movies that was in dev hell. Jon, help me out here, I’m sure you’re the one who showed it to me back in the day. I think it was on TooMuchCoffeeMan or something but I’ve slept since then.

And in other Fanboy geekdom alert news. T-Minus 7 DAYS Till season 3 of Doctor Who! WOOOT! Well officially in the UK at any rate, but that damn well won’t stop me from accquiring the personal viewing rights from an alternate source (aka teh intarwebz!). I’m gonna go build me a K-9 in the meantime and in between time.

Remember. …. shit what was that again?