Colorless Green Ideas

The Sprinklers That Come on at 3am Sound Like Crowds of People Asking "Are You Happy What You're Doing Here?"

I havent done much "traditional" blogging since my long-winded June 09 post, so I'll use this extremely slack afternoon at work as an opportunity to fill you in about what's been going on in my life. To tell you the truth, I've really been enjoying posting my artwork and photos and little else lately, and I'm especially enjoying all of your feedback. Thank you to everyone who took the 30 seconds to write me a comment or two - I really appreciate it.

This is going to be a long post, so queue up some good tunes in Winamp and stay awhile.

First off, some things about the House of Smoke and Mirrors. I anticipate that the majority of you will be incredibly disinterested with these updates but I have to get them out of the way. Feel free to skip ahead if your time's that valuable.

Housekeeping
I began writing a "4000 hits" post almost a week ago but I got caught up with some other business and didn't get a chance to finish it, and now my counter has crept up past the 4400 mark. That's alot of hits for a rather insignificant blog such as this one, which leaves me wondering who all you people are and why the hell you're spending time here. If you guys have blogs then post a comment or two so I can link to your site. I'm always looking to expand my tiny circle of like-minded blogger friends. I'll even comment on your shit too, 'cause I'm one of the good guys. Anyway, I signed up for this free service called Site Meter that gives you a really in-depth statistical analysis of where all of your hits are coming from, but so far it hasn't helped me much in figuring out who you are. My only referrals have been from Ross' or Shaggy's blogs, and it seems like everyone else just types my address directly into their browser or has me bookmarked. Most likely you're all just very bored people who have me on your MSN list, where I constantly whore this site's URL. I did get one random visitor though, some French person who searched "THE TEMPLE OF THE HOUSE LA BUSH" on "AOLrecherche," which I can only assume is some French version of AOL. I shit you not.

Anyway, thanks for all the hits guys!

I have also decided to experiment with some new approaches to posting, and I'm going to try including twice as many graphics and photos along with whatever I write. I want to turn this into a sort of "photoblog," as such. That means that those of you on archaic internet connections and really incapable PCs (not unlike the ancient Mac that I'm writing this from) will have a harder time loading and viewing the site. Sorry, but some sacrifices have to be made for the sake of progress. The enlightened majority of you can look forward to a much more graphically intensive House of Smoke and Mirrors. That should help to hold or even capure your attention, as I have come to the understanding that merely reading is just soooooo 90's.

A lot of people forget that there is much more to this site than what you see immediately on the front page. After 9 months of blogging, I have accumulated an enormous amount of content that sort of just lurks within the dank, musty confines of the rarely-accessed archives, so in order to make these long-lost posts more accessible I'm going to put together an index with quick links to all the artwork and writing I've done and will do over the years. I'll have it up whenever I get a few more spare minutes and decide to get adventurous with injecting some of my own HTML code into the blogger template.

Oh, and by the way, I normally publish this blog from my home system which is running a resolution of 1280 x 1024. If yours is lower it may mess up the formatting a little. Just try to keep in mind that the site isn't designed to accomodate your inferior resolutions.

Well, that's that. On to bigger and better things.

For the Workforce, Drowning
As I mentioned earlier, I'm writing this post from "my" office at work. It's hard to believe, but I'm already three weeks into this internship. The rate of time passage accelerates exponentially as years go by, I'm sure of it, but that thesis is a different subject for a different post. Back to the matter at hand.

I'm working for the Advertiser, which is the local community newspaper that covers the entire central region of Newfoundland. It's a great job. I have to cover the most inane, insignificant events in human history, but the fact of the matter is that I get paid to write all day, and I honestly could not ask for anything more. They shift me in and out of different offices as the senior employees take vacation days and they even let me play with their $1,700 digital cameras. Sometimes I get sent to remote outport communities with paid gas and my CD collection riding shotgun. The stories they have me write are typically very short and offer no room for any subjectivity whatsoever, so I get alot of time inbetween jobs to write for myself or surf blogs. All in all, its been a great experience thus far, and has proved to be approximately seven hundred thousand times better than any job I've held in the past. Yes, fuck you, interfaith cemetery committee.

The thing that bothers me about the Advertiser is that it is the blandest, most closed-minded, by-the-book publication that I've ever read. There are no reviews or comics or horoscopes or any interesting ideas between its pages whatsoever, it's 100% flat-out reporting; the kind of shit you hate to do in your first year of journalism school. There are a few columns, but the writers all struggle to stay dead-center and deliver their point without ruffling anybody's feathers, whether they lean to the political right or left. As you can probably imagine, that doesn't allow room to discuss any of the world's more prevalent current issues. For instance, when Canada legalized same-sex marriage last week, there was no enthusiastic, patriotic article praising Canada for its great leaps toward equality and social progress. Instead the Advertiser ran a tiny, politically neutral blurb about the occasion, and spent more time focusing on the fact that our own local Liberal MP didn't support the new legislation than the new legislation itself.

While there are incredibly far worse forms of media censorship and manipulation ( CNN comes to mind ), I still feel that this kind of reporting is an injustice to the fair people that occupy our tiny slice of the world. I love Newfoundland, but the extreme conservatism of its people really makes it difficult to live here sometimes. A lot of it has to do with out province's historical background, which is absolutely steeped in religion, particularly fundamentalist Christianity. However, since beginning my work term here I've come to the realization that a lot of it also stems from the way in which information is distributed throughout these tiny, isolated communities. I'd love to be able to play a part in changing that, but the fact of the matter is that I'm just a summer student intern and I have very little influence in the newsroom. Someday they'll give me the opportunity to write my own column, and I'll use it as a platform to get thousands of hate e-mails from the right-wing Christian soccer moms that infest this province like a plague of goddamned locusts. I can't wait.

I can't complain, though. I'm very thankful to the Advertiser for giving me this amazing opportunity, even if it is just covering the local beat, interviewing the same three upper-middle class suburbanite elites that run this show every day. I'm quickly getting over my fear of talking to people, and it feels better than I could have possibly imagined.

South of Summer
Yesterday I registered for my 2005/2006 university term classes at Dalhousie / King's College. After spending countless hours in journalism school being taught the same fundamental journalistic principles over and over, begrudgingly keeping myself awake through Copy Editing and Reporting Techniques, I'm finally allowed to move on to the good stuff. I'll be taking Feature Writing, Online Journalism, and Photojournalism, which I am imagining right now as being the best. class. ever. Unfortunately I'm a little disappointed with how things turned out on the political science front – American Foreign Policy and The UN in Politics were completely filled by the time I got to register, which was a mere 15 minutes after the window of opportunity opened. Talk about going fast. I still managed to salvage some good courses though – I'm particularly looking forward to Human Rights: Philosophical Issues. In addition to having some sweet courses, I'm also living with my girlfriend and a kitten in the best 3-story apartment I've even seen, so I guess you could say I'm looking forward to September. And that's the way it should be - summer isn't the be-all, end-all anymore. But don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore summer, and I'm going to thoroughly enjoy the next 2 months of binge drinking, smoking pot and going swimming. Good times.

Display Properties
So I finally got a new monitor to replace my old one, which was the approximate size of a water buffalo driving a cadillac with a fridge full of X-box controllers in the passenger seat. Seriously, it was so goddamned big that the thing couldn't fit on this desk without the screen being 3 centimeters away from my retinas at all times. I got tired of the slow burn vision suicide, so now I'm using this sleek 17-inch ACER LCD monitor, and goddamn, the thing is awesome. I was even able to pump up my desktop resolution to the mighty 1280 x 1024 without everything turning eye-bleedingly small. I then decided to take advantage of my new display properties by pimping out my desktop a little, and results are as follows:

Pure desktop pwnage:
We were partying here at my place last Saturday, when my friend and future roommate Angela commented on the hotness of the desktop girl you see to your right. Strangely enough, that was the first time I had even noticed it. I use this wallpaper because I love the stark contrast between the black and the white of her hair and skin, and the fact that her eyes contain the only shred of color in the entire piece. I just prefer minimalistic sorts of wallpapers with lots of white space, and this one has such a beautiful aesthetic about it. Its really quite hard to put into words why its so alluring. Maybe it's just the girl after all. *shrugs* Either way, it's hard not to look at.

I'm pretty sure I found it over at deviantART, which is a favourite of mine. And in case your wondering, the winamp 5 skin is called MMD3.

Niels Roth makes awesome shirts
My close comrade Niels has started up his own T-shirt business for the summer, and as of right now I am his best customer. So far I've commissioned him to make me a shirt with the communist hammer and sickle, a "democracy: we deliver" shirt, and an Interpol shirt that you can kind of see in my photoshop experiment at the top of this post. They're really well done, and only cost $17 each, which is half the price of the same kind of shirts in specialty shops. I'd recommend that you all give him your business, as he needs it, and you will not be disappointed.

BrazenBlog
After some prodding from yours truly, the brazen sensation himself, Mr. Glennard "Smokey" MacDonald ( whom you will see living up to his brazen reputation to your left ) has started up his own blog. I expect good things from you, Padawan.

¹bra·zen
Pronunciation: 'brA-z^&n
3 : marked by contemptuous boldness

Over and out
Hrrm, well I was planning on writing alot more today, but it's 31 degrees celcius outside and I can hear the siren song of a case of ice cold beers calling my name. Days like this aren't exactly common in these parts, so you've got to take full advantage of them when they're here. Plus, I got a $56 GST cheque in the mail yesterday, and I'm positively itching to redeem my free buzzon ticket. Cheers everyone, raise one to our oh-so considerate provincial government tonight, and remember, a one that isn't cold is scarcely a one at all.

posted by Sylpheed @ 2:15 PM