A cut & paste of talking to Steve via IM after he dropped his keyboard and it had a small stroke and began to randomly throw in caps.

Stever says:

GOT nEW KEYBoard juST nOT SET IT UP YEt

Kim says:

is like talking to a person with a helmet on or medicated

Stever says:

I’m TYPOGRApHIcAlly BI_PoLaR

No matter how pissy of a mood I am in, if it’s a Wednesday, I’m guaranteed to feel better by 10am. The reason for this? The Wednesday Farmer’s Market is on the block next to my office. It’s not spectacular in the summer months but once fall hits…. Oh my holy hell. Mountains of waxy green beans, dark purple beets and squash of every imaginable colour. Piles of tomatoes, bright yellow ears of corn and half a dozen different types of peppers. Peaches, plums, early apples that are small and tart and the ever popular bakery stall.

Food like that makes me happy. Even when I’m cranky.

“Gold doesn’t have the gentle dignity of silver which becomes more charming as it ages, and so the cathedral seems to be decorated like an old woman with too much make-up.”

-Che Guevara

(This quote was after he saw the cathedral at Cuzco, Peru. I have been there and I agree.)

Firstly, if you don’t consider “Badness,” in this context, a real word, then you clearly haven’t read MY dictionary. (There are pictures, but they are mostly just smudged sketches. Sorry.)

So…… I have been a baaaaad blogger. I have been posting sporadically and commenting, or even visiting other blogs, even less. I have been stressed and ridiculously busy at work. I know that this may not seem like a big deal for some, but as I am a person who isn’t normally stressed, it is a big deal for me. I don’t get stressed because I normally just don’t give a shit, and am very efficient, therefore, usually 4 steps ahead of any deadline. This has unfortunately resulted in me taking on the work of three as I always have, but now and then, it kicks me in the ass.

This is that time.

I shall shake myself out of it soon (the icy cold Keith’s India Pale ale in my hand right now is helping immensely!) and resume my normal obsessive blog stalking of you all. As per Mr.C’s request, I shall post some more travel journal excerpts (South America) and then………

Let the stalking resume.

ps- I miss all of you weirdos.

She’s sleek, she’s red, she fits in my purse, and her name is Delilah. I know that this could be a description of all manner of things from a vibrator to a pomegranate, but in this instance………..

The latest album by Matthew Good is available on webstream in it’s entirety as he does with every album. It gives us all a month to let it roll around in our mouths and minds before it hits the shelves. Mind you, if you have ever spent anytime on his site, you would have heard the demos along the way amid his political & human rights posts- which in themselves are reason enough to bookmark the site.

Go check it out. If you don’t, you officially suck and I don’t think that we can be friends anymore.

Is there such a thing as being too prepared for disaster?

Uhm, yeah. It’s called paranoia. Or panic, if you prefer. It’s been nearly a decade since 9/11 and in those first couple of years after, the world was on high alert ready to bomb/kill/torture anyone with brown skin and more consonants than vowels in their name. In some respects, we have all simmered down a bit, no doubt helped in part by the fact that Bush is no longer at the US helm screaming “WAR ON TERROR” every 30 seconds while frothing at the mouth.

However, post 9/11 has spawned a few interesting trends that you might miss if not looking for them, and television programing is the one that stands out for me. Have you noted how many “survive this” type shows that are on these days, and how successful they are? Whether documenting a real emergency in microscopic detail, playing out scenarios that “could happen”, or fiction based on the end of the world as we know it, we have shown a sharp increase in this type of disaster preparedness. It’s as though people are on the edge of their seats assuming that the dark days are right around the corner and so are amassing an arsenal of information on how to survive the inevitable apocalyptic hell fire/bomb/terror attack/plane crash, etc, etc…….

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in being prepared. In Vancouver, I always had an earthquake kit and didn’t feel silly putting it together because I lived in an area that was prone to them! However, I saw a commercial the other night for yet another disaster program whose advertising basically amounted to “watch this or you will die a horrible death because you don’t know how to get out of a goddamn full nelson you wimp.”

I think we’re fixating on it as a society. Putting the masses in a panic, or keeping them in a state of nervous anxiety for what is to come next is power. Frightened people, even if only subconsciously so, will allow things to happen that would normally be absolutely out of the question.

And that scares the shit out of me.

Be prepared, be aware, and be realistic, but can’t we please stop feeding into this global wave of hysteria that allows us to compromise our fundamental rights, or the rights of others? Once you start down that slippery slope, it’s a tough climb to get back.

Barney- “Oh Oh Oh! Marshal’s wearing a nightgown!!!”

Marshal- “It’s a night shirt.”

Barney- “You can call it a ninja death star and it’s still a nightgown.”