Congratulations to the Babies Born Today

They just messed up everything. Way to go babies. It's a leap year. That means we get an extra day this year. That's an extra 24 hours. It really should be a holiday or something. It should be called 'Yourday' and people are encouraged to do what they really want to do, as long as that doesn't involve some violent criminal activity. I think if I could do anything today it would be not to write the exam that I have to write later today. That would be an amazing day.

I had some messed up dreams last night. In one of them I was Mario of the Mario Brothers. I had to infiltrate some enemy base and find important artifacts while simultaneously destroy their surveillance system. The strangest part was probably collecting mushroom power-ups. They were all over the place and I would pick them up often. I was never sure exactly how to make them take effect though. In the game Mario always just bumps into the mushroom and gets powered-up on contact, but this doesn't make so much sense when translated into real life, or at least real life in a dream. They turned out to be inflated plastic/rubber like beach balls. I sometimes tried to eat them but as you can imagine eating that material was disgusting. Sometimes I just popped them and then they worked. It was fun for the most part but at the end I realized that the bad guys would be super pissed when they realized I totally messed up their base and they would probably come after me and attack me while I was at home or something, so I was a bit worried about that.

I also had a dream that I wish I hadn't had. Do you ever get dreams that are just really real and they have a strong impact on you and when you wake up you're still feeling that impact and it changes the way you feel? I had one of those. I'm hoping it wears off quickly.

What did the tree say to the sky?

"I'm sorry that I'm pointing at you. I know it's rude but I'm kind of stuck like this."

In honour of the leap year today I'm going to not draw a picture. I hope that doesn't become a habit.

The catch phrase of the day is "Polar Glow Field". I actually spent several minutes there trying to thinking of something. I think this phrase is appropriate for just about any context.

The Future of Ghosts

I decided a while ago that when I die I want to become a ghost. Today I realized that with technology getting more sophisticated, ghosts will most likely have learned how to use it to some degree. I think when I become a ghost I will haunt computers and probably the internet. I could change wikipedia articles and stuff and edit myself into history. I can't think of a better way to spend my ghost time. I could also play online poker and always win and have the monetary winnings sent to a friend or family member that was still alive. I'd be like an untracable hacker. I doubt virus software could stop me, though it would suck if I got stuck in a firewall or something for eternity.

I was thinking about it the other day, and if I had an animal as a roommate I think I'd go with an octopus. We would both have clearly marked territory, mine dry, the octopus's wet, though the bathroom might cause some conflict. I have read that octopi also like to play, and they express emotion through colours which could be helpful if the octopus didn't like my interior decorating style. I also enjoy seafood so we could share a lot of our food. An octopus would definitely be a great animal roommate.

Today I had an exciting idea. Be warned it is also kind of cruel, but if you like animal fights you will like this. I think I'm going to buy a lobster and put it out on the docks and see if it can survive the seagulls for 15 minutes or so. I'd be very curious to see how the seagulls would approach it. I realized that they would probably just tear it apart so I'm now thinking it might be necessary to design some kind of lobster armour to give the lobster a fair chance. As soon as I figure out how to make this armour I think this event will probably happen. If the lobster makes it through alive I will cast it into the sea and hope that it has a good life there. If people have a problem with any of this idea keep in mind, lobsters are hunted in nature by predators too and were it not for my intervention, this particular lobster would definitely be cooked and eaten by a human. I'm giving this lobster a shot at freedom, just like the gladiators. It would be an event that no one should miss.

There will be no picture today because I am not at home and don't have my tablet. I wasn't sure if I'd have time when I got home, so that's it for today.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

I had another interesting dream last night, but its logic did not carry over into reality so well this time. It was some kind of gift-giving time, similar to christmas but not christmas, and my brother had given me a pineapple that allowed me to float. I could only move at normal walking speed, but being able to sit down and just float around 6 feet in the air was really cool. I can't remember how I actually rode on the pineapple. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a pineapple when I was using it for floating. I also got to eat the inside of it because the outside was the only part that mattered for floating. My brother had one too and I was complaining to him that he had given me the smallest pineapple. He was getting offended by my suggesting he had intentionally given me a lesser pineapple. The pineapple tasted really good and I wanted more. If only pineapples were that amazing in real life.

I've developed a bit of a napping addiction. I feel like napping everyday. Napping is the best. I feel like napping right now. I napped too much yesterday and then I couldn't fall asleep which was bad because I had to wake up early today.

I felt really good today. I had at least several minutes of being in a state very close to ecstasy. I had just left my biology class to go home. I think I rocked the midterm exam and that felt good. I had also had a coffee which made me feel good. I put on my ipod shuffle and was met first by Of Montreal which made me feel cheerful. Shortly after that The Arcade Fire came on and I just felt amazing. After that I think it was Islands that played and I became convinced that my ipod was reading me or something. I can't say enough good things about my shuffle. It's like my personal radio station without any commercials, annoying DJs, and all the music it plays is stuff that I know I like. Sometimes it gets on a roll with some really awesome tracks and it blows me away. It's like magic.

When I got home I was starving. I made myself a four egg omelet with ground turkey, rice and corn, (leftovers from the night before). It was good. I'd recommend it. Rice omelets are usually pretty hearty.

What did the rice say to the egg?

"You've got so many options! Fantastic."

Today's picture is taken from the flying pineapple idea.
That wasn't really how it worked in my dream, but I liked the image of someone riding on a flying pineapple.

A Way to Reuse a Bad Book

I had a dream that I won a pack of books. I was looking over some of them with a friend and just judging from the cover of one, which featured a knight with a spear and stuff, I could tell that it was probably a poorly written medieval fantasy novel. My friend and I were discussing whether the book was still worth anything because it obviously had some kind of entertainment value even if it wasn't the greatest. Then I woke up and instantly considered highlighting only the words in the book that I wanted to have read. I could rewrite the entire book to be about something else entirely by picking out only the words that I wanted. Then I was wondering if anyone would be able to write a decent book in this way and how many of the original words actually be used and which books would be best to do this to. I thought it was a neat idea at the time and I'm surprised to say that I still do think it sounds cool. Sometimes ideas from dreams that seem so obviously amazing turn out to be complete garbage in the context of reality. I might just have to buy a cheap book and give it a try.

I've decided to discontinue my 'most painful thing of the day'. It is really just whining. And though I love to whine, I think it's a horrible thing to post here.

What did the pencil say to the bird?

"If only you had an opposable digit we could be friends."

MIDI is super exciting. There is so much that it can do that I had never considered before. I won't say any more because it would be boring.

A picture a day is what I say.
I once kicked a wasp nest to see what would happen. I was only stung once.

Apples Vs. Oranges

Which is better? The apple or the orange? There isn't a straight up one or the other answer, as usual it entirely depends on the context. By itself, I would say the orange is superior. Oranges can be sweeter and have a beautiful texture. They are also juicy, something that most apples do not excel in. Now, oranges have several disadvantages. Being juicy makes them much messier to eat than an apple. One can eat an apple without getting sticky fingers, but it is exceedingly difficult to do so with an orange. Oranges also have a peel that generally needs to be removed. This slows down the process of consuming the orange and I know for myself I have gone with apples precisely because I didn't want to have to spend time peeling my fruit before eating it. Lastly, I would argue that oranges don't mix with nearly as many other foods as apples do. Apples can be baked into a pie for example, but I have never heard of an orange pie. In conclusion I would say oranges are the better fruit, but apples beat them simply by their universal accessibility and ease of use.

What did the paper say to the cloth?

"Wow, you can fold in every direction and you don't really get crease marks. That's awesome."

Again that was not a joke. Yesterday's post will explain exactly what was going on there.

Oh, I almost forgot about the picture for today.
I managed to draw a figure and then I couldn't figure out what else to add, so I just went ahead with the titles. It is less interesting to look at but I think it still works. The writing also takes up lots of space which is helpful.

Is it Wrong to Talk About Bathroom Stuff?

I had lunch with some friends today and the topic of poop came up several times in conversation, often by my contributed statements I'm afraid. When lunch was over and we all went our separate ways I realized that I was somewhat embarrassed to have encouraged such a topic of discussion. To be fair, I think I was serious about what I was saying, not just making disgusting poop jokes. But it still seemed inappropriate. I would not be the first person to tell you that I am immature in many ways. I think poop is often very funny. I need to grow up. I wonder though if there is an appropriate context in which several people can discuss poop without it being gross or crude, and not just among doctors or other scientific folk that may work with poop itself. I think there should be. I think there should be safe ground for any topic of discussion and I don't feel like poop, or urine, really has an accepted place in any conversation at this point. Am I right or am I just being immature some more?

I'm happy to say I did not experience anything too painful today. In fact, I had almost no pain. About as little pain as one can get through an average day with I would say. It's almost not worth reporting. I will refrain in the future.

I realized some exciting stuff that I might be able to do with MIDI today to make my music playing setup even better. Skipping all the technical how to stuff, basically I hope to make my drum machine play my keyboard. I'll be able to have two automated instruments that way, leaving me free to play guitar, sing, and occasionally push any other buttons that might be available. I just need to get the proper cable sometime this week.

What did the anchor say to the ocean floor?

"It's nice to finally sit down. I've been hanging all day."

That wasn't a joke, so don't think I have a terrible sense of humour. I just suddenly thought of the question in the form of a joke and decided to write it down quickly, without any idea of what a punchline would be. Then I decided to answer it not in a funny way, but in a realistic way, (realistic if you accept talking anchors and ocean floors). It was an interesting exercise. I think I may try it again tomorrow.

That is all for today.

Are Humans Meant to Work?

I've been meaning to bring this up but I forgot the last few days when I got to writing. I was working the other day, and I haven't actually 'worked' in a while. I started to feel pretty good. The work wasn't especially fun, and it was manual labour, but I felt like I was doing something good. That got me thinking about whether humans naturally enjoy being productive or whether it is something we have learned from a production based society. Our primary value to society as individuals is our productivity, so it makes sense that we have been taught that work should be rewarding. But if we weren't raised under such a system would we still think so? It's hard to say by looking at other species. So many insects are crazy hard workers, and its all they do, but they are also arguably the least intelligent creatures. If we look at larger mammals they basically sit around and eat when they need to. I would have a hard time thinking of any larger mammal that I would call 'productive'. Perhaps we just value productivity because it is necessary for our survival, but it is interesting that we can derive such satisfaction from wearing ourselves out working.

New music canada is such a great site. I could go on describing how much it has to offer, but I would just recommend checking it out. It is great for music makers and music listeners alike.

I don't think I'm going to do a picture today. It's getting late and I just want to get this stuff posted. Maybe I'll do pictures on weekdays only, or only 5 per week or something.

Chopping wood is incredibly satisfying. I doubt I would want to do it all the time, but it is enjoyable at first to be sure. It would probably be great exercise to do it all the time though. I might give it a shot if I had enough wood to chop.

I'm going to eat a lot of pizza tomorrow. I feel bad eating more than I need to, but I'm sure there are worse things I could do with food, like not eating it.

Edit: Oops, I just realized I said I was going to try noting my most painful experience each day and I haven't been doing that. Today I accidentally smashed a large piece of wood into my foot while trying to get it off of my axe. That hurt but not too much. I guess I was lucky today. Yesterday it was probably getting kind of squished in a mosh pit, but that was mostly annoying. Getting other people's sweat all over me was much worse I think.

Friday is Just a Name

When everyday is the same, friday doesn't mean anything. I love time-off.

I also love to see people smile. My favorite kind of smile to see is when people smile to themselves. Their just walking down the street and then for no apparent reason they crack a big grin. I almost always have to smile myself when I witness these. The funnest part is just imagining what it could have been that caused them to spontaneously express such happiness. Maybe the saw something funny just now. Or maybe they recalled some funny anecdote. Or maybe they just suddenly realized how awesome it is to be alive.

What if all of a sudden everyone in the world forgot who you were? They knew nothing about you. If we ignore the important legal documents and photographic evidence that no doubt exists for the time being what would that be like? You would know so many people but they wouldn't even recognize you as an acquaintance. I'm not sure if it would be a horrible thing or a very interesting experience. I think the neatest thing would be interacting with the people that you are closest to from an outsider's perspective. How difficult would it be to re-establish the connections you previously shared with these people? It would be interesting because it seems many relationships are maintained simply out of habit and if you tried to restart them from scratch years after they were first formed they may never happen. I'm sure there has to be a movie about exactly all this, so I'm going to stop talking about it now.

The drawing of the day involves death again, but in a funny way, I hope.

This is the first time I titled the post after writing it! It is also becoming a ridiculously long title! This will not happen again anytime soon!

Today I accidentally pinched my hand while lifting two really heavy tiles. I got a sweet blood blister. There is a bubble of blood below the skin in my hand now. It's kind of gross but also kind of cool. This makes me think of perhaps posting the most painful thing that happened to me all day each day. I'll give it a try starting tomorrow, for today's pain.

I also made the decision to buy more guitars today. Two more to be exact. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm not sure if I need them, but they will definitely be fun.

In geek news, apparently there will be a live-action star wars tv show starting next year. I don't really watch tv anymore, and I realize that this is just a play to make EVEN MORE money from the star wars franchise, but I want to see this. It could be really cool. Star wars is difficult to make uncool in my star wars-loving opinion. I guess we'll see if George Lucas can recover any of his cred*.

Here's the drawing of the day.
It's darker than the others. Themes of death and crying suggest a pessimistic mood, but I am actually just tired. I feel pretty good otherwise.

I think tomorrow is the last day that I said I would do drawings but I think I may try to keep it up. It's fun. It also takes attention away from lack of other significant content.






*I'm pretty sure 'cred' is slang for credentials.

The Most Boring Blog of All Time

I really hope it's not this one. I realized yesterday that my post was on the pointless/stupid side. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to talk about. I thought maybe it would be good if I read a news article and then discussed my feelings on it here. I read some news articles but I don't really have anything to say that would add to them. Might as well just read the full article instead of listening to some other person water-it-down with their take on the topic.

I don't have anything to worry about right now because no one is reading any of this. Yet. I was hoping to find some direction before telling people about it, but now I'm thinking it may be necessary to get a test readership to let me know what works and what doesn't.

Is it a coincidence that bronchial and broccoli turn up similar image search results? Maybe.

Here's the newest picture.
I'm listening to Blonde Redhead. Their older stuff reminds me of a cross between Sonic Youth and Deerhoof. Their new stuff is really awesome though. I like all their stuff, but the new stuff is so good.

Of all naturally occurring things, I would say time is perhaps the cruelest. If I could live without time, I might be very tempted to do so.

An Example of Irrational Thought

I brought up this issue with a friend the other day. When I am hungry, and I mean really hungry, I can't imagine having enough food to eat so that I could possibly be full again. I guess I know somewhere in my mind that I will have enough at some point because otherwise I would start panicking about never being able to be full again, but from the top of my head I am so sure that I could eat forever. However, when I do get the chance to eat as much as I can, I can get extremely full. So full in fact that I promise myself that I will never be able to eat again. This is such complete nonsense, but it is exactly how I feel when I'm super full. It's not like I am experiencing strong hunger and uncomfortable fullness for the first time. This can happen every week. If I actually think about it when I am at these extremes I realize that I will eat again and be full again at a later date, but there is also some acceptance of the ultimatums. I marvel that I could be so irrational, even while at the same time realizing the irrationality. I think I'm really going to try to break that way of thinking the next time I get very hungry or full. That would be a fun exercise.

In other news, here is today's picture.
This one makes more sense than yesterday's I think, even though it really doesn't make any sense at all. If you are confused, yes, it is a flying manta ray.

Lately I have had a craving for drinking something really good. I have had some really good things to drink in the past few days, but it usually isn't enough. I love drinking tasty things, maybe even more than eating tasty things. Maybe I'm saying that because I just finished dinner and haven't had anything to drink yet...

Yes, that is definitely the real issue.

Something Extra this Week

This is post #7 if I'm not mistaken. I guess I started on a tuesday, but I'm going to say that this is week two for all official purposes. Given that I have no real commitments for the week I am going to draw a picture for the next five days each day and put it here. They won't be great pictures, but maybe they will be more exciting than just text. Small children will finally have something to relate to.

I just finished the picture so here it is.
I wasn't sure what I was doing until I finished. Now I think I know what it is, but I can't figure out how to explain it. Maybe you can figure it out, but don't think that there is anything to figure out.

I may try to continue the story in tomorrow's picture.

If I only had 10 minutes of oxygen left I would spend the time trying to break my personal record for holding my breath. Now that I mention it, I don't even know how long I can hold my breath for. I will try it now.
I made it to a minute and a half. If I was surrounded by poisonous gases I could probably go for another 30 seconds. Just out of necessity.

Enjoying into Enduring

I'm not proud of it, but I ended up playing video games for about 5 hours last night with friends. Thinking about that right now made me wonder how long I would actually want to play video games for. I think I was starting to get to that point last night around 1, but I was really tired. I wonder what activity I could do for the longest before I wanted to stop. It couldn't be anything really physical obviously because that would introduce muscular fatigue into the equation which would speed things up considerably. Sleeping seems like the obvious choice, but I think after I wasn't tired anymore sleeping could become really boring. How long could I do anything before I wanted to do something else. I guess that's the other question. 12 hours? 24 hours? I may have to make a list of my top favorite things to do and actually see how long I could do them for. I think I usually try to push for this anyways, but since the activities usually involve other people things end sooner because they want to do something else. I think it would be a neat experiment, plus I could do my favorite things for as long as I wanted to. That would be great.

If I could eat anything today I would eat all the items on a menu from a really nice restaurant. I think over the course of the day I could manage it. Especially since really nice restaurants usually don't have enormous servings.

If I could throw anything at anything else today I would throw a sack of tomato sauce at a large exterior white wall of some modern house. I don't want to waste food or vandalize anything, I just think it would look good.

If I could stand on anything today I would stand on one of the pyramids, the less nice of the two so that I could look over at the nicer one. I would only want to stand there for a short while though. There would be no shade and I imagine it would get really hot. I would build a slide to get back down again.

Of Montreal is happy music.

Want and Need

I have decided just this second that all want could be justified as need. I think most people define need as something required to stay alive, or something like that, I don't think people actually think about what it means too much. But that need is based on the fact that you want to live, so by that logic, nothing is actually a need. That's depressing though, so why not just consider everything you want to be a need. If you really want it then not having it could bother you psychologically or emotionally and I would definitely argue that psychological and emotional health is an important need.

In conclusion, a determined want becomes a need.

If I could do anything today I would spend it trying to figure out what I want to do tomorrow.

That definitely sounds like I'm not trying hard enough. Here's a more exciting answer.

If I could do anything today I would make the largest single stone pile of all time. I would organize it so that people from all over the world would bring by their best stones for piling so I would have an amazing selection to choose from. I don't know what the record is but I'm sure with this strategy I could break the record. I would probably get some engineers to advise me too.

I'm looking out the window and the sky is pink, orange, purple and blue. It would be really neat if somedays the sky looked like that for the whole day instead of just when the sun was setting. I wonder how it would affect people's moods. Sun generally makes people happy, and clouds usually not so happy, but an all day sunset of exquisite colours? That is the most amazing thing that I can imagine right now.

Expensive Drinks

Last night I bought the most expensive drink I ever bought. Even without the tip it was more than $10. It was a good drink, it was a Martha Stewart's Living, but it was not worth more than $5 in my opinion. It was valentine's day and I thought I should get a fruity martini instead of a burger. Valentine's day is perhaps my least favorite day on the calendar. I blame it on never having a date.

I had a crazy dream last night. My friends from last night were there. The dream involved finding mass quantities of cocaine in bushes downtown, working under-cover for the police, living on a small tropical island, accidentally blowing up a police float plane by pushing the wrong button on a digital camera, and trying to escape the country after that on a police boat before anyone figured anything out. That was fun.

If I could do anything today I would eat breakfast in New York, lunch in Paris, and dinner in Barcelona. Just thinking about those cities is making me hungry. Between meals I would wander the streets, possibly looking for the next restaurant.

Ratatat is really good. I would put them in my top 5 life soundtrack bands for sure.

Recurring Dreams

For the past few weeks maybe I have been having two different recurring dreams, almost every night it seems.

The first one I'm actually not sure if it is a dream. All I know is that I wake up and feel like I have dreamed that I had a meaningful conversation with my cat. I can never remember the actual dream, nor can I remember what it was that we discussed. I could be imagining the whole thing, but it's definitely back there in my subconscious somewhere. I wish I knew what we were talking about. It could be important stuff.

The other recurring dream is just me hanging out with my friends. The locations are always different but nothing ever happens. We usually just hang out and talk, completely ordinary stuff. It's like an extension of real life. I'm not sure how I feel about these dreams. On the one hand, I enjoy hanging out with my friends. On the other hand, I'm not actually hanging out with my friends, just ideas of them.

I've never had such consistently recurring dreams before, it's kind of strange. I'd like to see what happens with them.

If I could do anything today I would go to a pen factory and tape all the pens together so that they were just a block of pens with all the points on one end. Then I would get a giant writing surface and get people to help me push the pen block around to create the largest drawing of all time. I would make sure that all the pens were different colours from adjacent pens to make the drawing more interesting.

I just finished listening to 'Cowbell' by 'Tapes 'n Tapes'. It is a good song. I wouldn't mention it otherwise.

Today I Woke Up

A quarter to seven to be exact.

If I could do anything today I would transform into a seal and catch a warm current and ride it all the way to wherever it was going. I think that would be good. And there would be no sharks or whales or other predators. Only the current and I and probably some other seals, and small fish.

At nightfall I would crawl up onto a sandy beach somewhere and lie in the warm sand and listen to the waves and watch the stars move across the sky. At dawn I would fall asleep and then wake up as myself again, in my own bed, completely refreshed.

I like this song. A Pirate's Anthem

The Challenge

I'm laying down the challenge for myself. Maintain a blog for a year, with a post every day whenever possible. I don't write much, but I enjoy it, so I think this is a good chance for me to save my ideas somewhere so I can go back and look at them after I forget them. What exactly will I post about? That is yet to be determined. Will anybody else want to read what I post? Also yet to be determined.

I feel I need to be more productive and ambitious, so this is a step towards that I suppose.

Here's something I need to share. If I had teleportation powers I figured out how I would use them for the most fun. I would teleport thousands of feet into the air and then free fall until I was close to the ground and then I would teleport to the ground, completely negating the velocity of the fall. It would be great. I could do it as many times as I wanted too. Unfortunately, I don't have teleportation powers at this time. Maybe later.

Thus concludes post #1.