All Summer In A Day

No, not the Ray Bradbury metaphorical tale about lost childhood and schoolyard bullying. Speaking of, when I was in school, one of the assignments that I remember was to write an additional (or perhaps alternative?) ending to that story. We had a similar assignment another time for the ending of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Or perhaps it was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. One of those.
My extra chapter involved a time warping cave and buried Indian treasure. Sadly, I don't remember it all.
But it's interesting that I was given that assignment at least twice during my sentence in public school. Well, maybe "interesting" is too strong a word. What to the ev.
What was my point, anyway? I don't know. I'm beyond UTP@ today. It's another Manic (or, better yet, "Fucking") Monday today, and I'm slowly but surely becoming one of those 9 to 5ers (correction, 8 to 5. Correction, 7:30 to 5:30 - taking into account commute time and all) who hates Mondays and utters the phrase "Thank God it's Friday" and means it. You know, one of those middle class nobodies that is just fodder for the machine? Yup. That's me. Exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up! My parents must be so proud.
Yeah. I'm a little bit bitter today. Or this now. Or life. Something. Lack of sleep and being born into a culture as fucked up as ours will do that to ya.
It's a party, though. It's a party.
So I'm going to just type and type and type and type and type until I have to leave my desk for something work related (which, "technically" (ha ha ha) will be in just a few minutes, if I decide to attend the discrepancy report meeting) and then whenever I get back to my desk, I'm going to fucking type some more. Because I want to achieve the goal. And because I haven't blogged in a while and because I have some thing to say. I have a commentary without much to say. Heh. I mean Hey.
But don't we all? Dont' we all?
All right. I 'll go attend the stupid meeting. Palas isn't loading up anyway. Hey, maybe computers hate Mondays too. Just another thing that we have in common with nonthinking, nonfeeling machines, right? Yeah.



It's nearly lunch time already. WHere the hell did the day go?
Oh. Right. "Work".



I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job.I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job.I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my jb. I am not my job. I ma not may job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not your job. You are not your job. I am not your job.I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not doing my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am ont my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job. I am not my job.  I am not my job. I am not my fucking job.


Today being S..heh. I was going to type "September 11th". Um, no.
So, yeah. Today being July 11th, or 7-11, if you will, the conveinance store with the same name will be giving away complimentary slurpees all day long. Or while supplies last. Woo hoo! Free stuff! Awesome.
I just cleared out my ...whatchamacallit? My voice mail. Lots of old messages in there. Still kept one from resident freak job, Karen Denise Small, though. Good times.
I'm still tired. I'm still not happy, but I'm trying to put on a happy face. Facade. I should be eating lunch, and I'm not. What the hell? It'sl ike I'm not even hungry, which is unusual.
I know that it is currently Sweeps in tv land - although, really, July Sweeps is the least important of all of them. It's like the Ringo of Sweeps - but does radio have Sweeps? I imagine that they do. I'm srue they do. I know I've read (or made up) that fact somewhere before. So, anyway, if it's Sweeps in radio land, that would make sense as to why on the drive int oday, all of the stations were giving away super cool prizes. KOMP (heh. KOMP.) was ...er IS giving away multiday Park Hopper Tickets to Disneyland and California Adventures. So that's the one that's on the top of my wish list right now.
The Point is giving away a pool, which would be a nice addition to our backyard. But when you win, you're just entered into the drawing, not an immediate win.
The 80s (and more) station was giving away tickets to Pat Benatar. Um. No. Thanks, though.
God, I can't believe it's already quarter to one. Today has zipped by. Almost like I've been asleep all day. Lovely.
I think I will now go eat my lunch.

Oh! Email from the lifemate! Hold one.
Heh. Hold on, that is.

Email from the wife is great. I highly recommend it to anyone that is having a shit day.


Lunch time.


I'm better. Still tired, but better. Heh. I nearly typed "Still tired, but bitter." Heh.
It's hard to believe that it's already the middle of July! Jebus. Time is certainly on fast forward.

Whoa. Dude. It's 2:16! There is something wrong with the day. It is flying with a capital F. (How did that get past airport security?) Heh. And by "Heh", of course, I mean "Lame".



Drowning.


A while back I was going to type up reviews of all the books and movies I'd seen recently. I never did get around to doing that, and now I've seen a lot and it would be nigh impossible for me to remember them all. But it would build the word count, so I'll give it a shot, eh?
Cube Zero was better than expected. The [begin spoiler for Cube Zero - highlight to view] opening scene of the guy melting was gratitious, but on the other hand, hey, melting guy!
Also - why did they record the cuber's dreams? [shrug] Why does any company do anything? Why does ANYONE do anything? Life is odd.
Anyway. I liked that this one went a different route and showed us the keepers of the cube.
I had a theory after seeing the movie anyone who happened to escape the cube, and answered "Yes" to the "Do you believe in God?" question were then sent to work for the cube. But that wouldn't explain why the guy they burned (whose name I forget - this is why wating a hundred years to do reviews is a bad idea) was put back in.
Maybe...damn it. I got interrupted and lost my train of thought. Meh. It doesn't matter anyway. It was a decent enough movie, but in the end, the questions of the cube remain just that - questions. Of the cube. A fictional universe. Intriguing, but still fictional. So, yeah. If you saw the original Cube and liked it, check out Cube Zero.
But don't take my word for it. (dun dun dunh!)
[end spoiler]

What else did we see? There was The Incredibles, which I don't really have much to say about. I enjoyed it, but felt slightly underwhelmed. Pixar needs to slow down. Too much of a good thing is still too much.

I alone (love you. I alone tempt you.) watched The Ring, which should have been called The Boring. (heh) No, seriously, that was not a great movie, yo. I watched it alone because the girls don't need to be terrified (despite Saren's insistence that she loves scary movies) and the Steph had no desire to see it at all. So I watched it by myself and found myself bored through most of it. For those of you who have not seen it and want to get spoiled... [begin spoiler for The Ring - highlight to view]
Basically, it's about a killer chain letter. On tape.[end spoiler]

We ..oops. We also watched National Treasure, and that movie was so fluff, that I can't remember enough to review it. I smiled a lot during the movie, I remember that. I may have laughed at some of the quips, but dude. Total mind blank.

Speaking of mind. Mindscan was vintage Sawyer. (Um. Robert J., not the Spike-wanna-be from Lost) It's amazing to me that none of his books have been turned into movies. I should ask Will about that. Although I don't know how many sci-fi scripts (or sci-fi adaptations) Will reads on a regular basis. But dude. Mindscan or Flashforward or Calculating God, or even Illegal Alien (his least effective book in my opinion) would all make great movies. I'd even like (in theory) to see the Hominid Parallax Trilogy turned into films. Of course, I know if they did, that those movies would suck. But in theory I'd be excited.
My point is, wake up, Hollywood! There be some good material written by that there Canadian feller.
I won't go into reviewing Mindscan, because nobody who is reading this has read that, and who wants to read my thoughts on a book nobody has read? Also, even though I liked it, I finished the book several weeks back, and we all know that my memory is ...I forget what.

A few rewatched movies. The Goonies. (awesome) To Kill a Mockingbird (still really good, but I remember it being better.) Ella Enchanted (hee.)



Something I'm not extremely proud of, but can't ..yeah. Never mind. [/cruelest thing ever]


I need a Pepsi. When is 7-11 giving out free Pepsi? Oh. Right. The 43st of Never. Ha! Get it? The For de thirst?
Man, I'm so amusing sometimes!

Also watched (and these were for work only): Inherit the Wind - which was the 1988 version with Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards, not the 1960 version. This was actually not that bad of a movie. It was based on the Scopes Monkey Trial, and it made me want to learn more about that. (I'm sure that I 'learned' about the Scopes Monkey Trial while in school, but all I can tell you about it now is that it was about monkeys wanting to use mouthwash.)
Beat Street - a movie about break dancing!! Wooo! Or, um, whatever the 80s equivalent was. Radical, maybe? Anyway, yes. A break dancing movie. Word.
It made me want to learn more about the history of graffiti. And reminded me about when I first saw 'grape' dancers. [wistful]

Today I watched Palookaville, which has to be one of the most fun titles ever. Say it! Paloooooka. Hee! You can't help but smile when you say "Palookaville". And the movie is pretty much the same. It's one of those little gems of a movie. Nothing superb or remarkable, but one that makes you glad that you are a human. Ya know? I needed to see something like that, I think. Especially today.

I finished Welcome to the Machine yesterday. I don't know what to say. I have mixed emotions in regard to Derrick Jensen's viewpoints.
I agree with a LOT of what he says. Maybe even most of what he says. However, it gets to be too much. And being unhappy about the state of the world is only doable for so long, ya know? And isn't it preferable to focus on the good in one's life? A point that Jensen himself makes often is that you become what you seek. (Not sure if he's used those exact words, but I like the sound of it, and it's pretty much the jist of what he's saying.) If that's true (and I believe that it is), wouldn't it make sense to be a positive change? To build, to create, to unite and love? I think Derrick would say yes - his books seem to strive for that. But. I don't know. Herein lies the problem.
I? Can't speak well.
Derrick Jensen? Can.
All that being said, I think that WttM is his weakest book so far - at least to begin with. And it may not even really be his weakest book, it's just that I was expecting something different, maybe. Or perhaps it's that I had read a good portion of it already. (When I was on the Derrick Jensen email loop, Derrick often times would print portions of his books, so sometimes while reading Welcome to the Machine I was like, "Hey. This looks familiar." because it was.)
Bah. I think that if you've read his other works, reading WttM will be like an addendum. If you haven't read them, and this is your first introduction to Derrick Jensen, you might be thrown off. But he really does make a persuasive argument against this culture's obsession with control and surveillance. (They go hand in hand.)
The ending tries to be upbeat, and succeeds, to a degree.
But really, the fact that civilization is fucked, and is going to take a lot of us with it when it crashes - difficult to remain optimistic. And that could be called Derrick Jensen in a nutshell.


Well. 3:30 now. That's ...better? I don't know. It's weird how time has slowed quite a bit now. The morning flew by, now it's creeping. Huh.


I still don't think I'm anywhere near having enough words typed up. I keep having to leave my desk and go do stuff. "having to" Bah. BAH!!!

I'm a few chapters into Better Off now, and I'm liking it quite a bit. Steph read it already, and I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I can tell that it helped rekindle her "living off the grid" fire. Based on the few dozen pages I've read so far, I think I'll be following suit. That, coupled with Welcome to the Machine, coupled with just life in general, coupled with the ever ..semi present criticism about how "if you hate Takerness so much, why don't you abandon it"...anyway, the point is that we are working on it. We'll be hippies yet. Just you wait and see. Oh, right. Being online you won't. But, you know, that's okay.

Oh yeah. Heh. I had nearly forgotten about the Londo...you know what, I'm not even going to talk about it. That's probably for the best.

Speaking of not talking. I got a letter from Jupe about two months ago. And haven't started writing her back yet.
I got a letter from Simon the day after my birthday - which was almost a month ago - and I haven't even TOLD him I got it yet. And, of course, I haven't started writing him back yet, either.
I got a PM from Victor so long ago that it's expired.
It is truly a wonder that people bother talking to me at all.

God, I am so not doing the work I should be. "should" ARRGH!

I mean, I am. Slowly. But there's always more to do. And more. And more. To what freaking end, people? What's the point? What is the point?

Except at work - which doesn't really count - I haven't been online since the 4th. Huh.

Speaking of the 4th, we had a pretty nice one. We walked down to a firecracker selling stand down at the corner of the road and bought some overpriced explosives. It was the church that was selling them, and apparently the money they raised - from the fireworks that are "good for your soul" - would be sending God to camp. Heee. Send God to camp.
While we were there, the teens were playing some Christian Rap on their boomboxes. "Focus on Jesus! Focus on Jesus! Focus on Jesus! Focus on the Lord!"
Heh.
It made me wonder why there isn't an equivalent for other religions. (Or maybe there is, and our Christian Mainstream Nation simply doesn't pay it any heed) Where is the Islam Rock? What about the Buddhist Rap? Who is singing the Atheist Blues?

Anyway.

It's nearly 4pm now. I really need to talk to some people about some things. I know I'm not reaching my word goal - really, does anyone out there expect me to? Seriously? I mean the year is half over and I'm at 22% and I go a week without blogging at all? I just don't have it in me, I guess. But I won't give up. Not yet. Doing some quick calculations, it appears that I need to blog 900 words a day every day for the rest of the year. Well, no doubt this has exceeded that number a bit, huh? Nine hundred. That's an awful lot. But I can do it. Obviously.

In other news, he said, partly because he wanted to continue blogging, partly because he had intended to blog about this anyway and had just now remembered, this week is Monkey Week. All week long the girls (and me, when I'm with them) will be doing different monkey-based activities. We went to the library earlier last week and checked out a bunch of monkey related books, along with a CD by The Monkees. I don't know what all will be going on during Monkey Week, but, dude. Monkeys!