Consequential

Jerry looked over his shoulder and quickened his pace, failing to notice the lamp post directly in front of him. As he turned his head he ran full force into the post, sliding down to the ground, stunned. After a moment, he rose to his feet. There was no more time for trying to look casual, he had to get away now. Breaking into a full run, he could hear the slap of footsteps behind him. This galvanized him, sending him into a faster run than he ever thought possible. But still the footsteps closed in.
Finally, he could run no more. Bending over, his hands on his knees, he tried to regain his breath. The footsteps behind him slowed, coming dangerously close before stopping. Slowly Jerry turned around and faced his fear.
The duck stared at him placidly, almost as though he were comfortable with the situation. Silently the two stared at each other, Jerry still trying to breath normally, the duck looking as though he had merely been out for an evening stroll. A long moment passed before the duck reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Taking one into his beak he offered the pack to Jerry, who gratefully took one. The duck lit both of their smokes, and the two stared at each other as the smoke curled around their heads.
Finishing the cigarette, Jerry dropped it to the ground and stepped on it. He made a move as though to run, but thought better of it when he saw the duck shake his head, almost imperceptible though it was. Taking a deep drag, the duck finished his smoke, throwing it down next to Jerry's.
The duck finally spoke. "Let this be a warning, Jerry. Your final warning. We can get to you whenever we want. If you try anything like the stunt you pulled again then I can't be held responsible for the consequences." With that the duck turned around and faded into the shadows.
For a long time Jerry stood where he was, leaning against the wall and shaking. Obviously he would have to rethink some things. But this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

The monkeys already know...

Well, today I dropped a frozen banana (I wanted a regular banana later) on my foot. It hit the big toe on my right foot square on. And it really hurt. I'm okay now, but let this be a warning to you. Always watch for falling frozen bananas.

I'm an uncle again! My sister-in-law just gave birth to an 8lb baby boy (as opposed to an 8lb adult boy??!?!?!!) and they have named him....something. I think I'm just going to call him A.J. because those are his initials. If memory serves it stands for Avery Johnson, but I'm not completely sure. Avery for sure, but not convinced about the Johnson. So A.J. it is.
Hey, what do you want from me? The call was at least five minutes ago. That's a long time to remember stuff.
It was interesting because we've known when the baby would be born for about six months now (maybe a bit less, I don't actually remember (see!) when they made the appointment and set the date). For health reasons Terra (my S-in-L has to give birth via Caesarean section, so that was all planned out ahead of time. No uncertainties here. Except for his middle name.
Jackson?
Jarret?
John-john?
Jamiroquai?
Jebediah!
Josiah?
Jimmy?
Justin?
...

My two cents

Ah, The DaVinci Code. Controversy and scandal wrapped up in a neat 454 pages/2.5 hours. There are many websites and books supporting and debunking the book, and frankly I don't have the knowledge or the desire to add my voice to the clamour that has arisen.
That being said, I do want to talk about the book and the movie (both of which I have read and seen (there are alot of subtitles in the movie)). What I want to say, though, has nothing to do with content. It has to do with style. I'll start with the book, just because.
All controversy aside, I wasn't that big of a fan of Dan Brown's book. I'll admit that the idea of the story is an intriguing one, and there is definitely room for suspense and thrills. However, I'm not all that 'wowed' by his writing style. When I read a Dan Brown novel (and I've read a couple, with the same feeling both times), I feel like everything is way overhyped. The emotions are extreme, and there is no subtlety. Take, for example, the following quotes: "The driver ignored the signs prohibiting auto traffic on the plaza, revved the engine, and gunned the Citroen up over the curb." "The agent revved his engine and sped off." The driver of the car didn't just drive up or leave. He revved the engine! He gunned it! He sped off! Also, I don't really like the repetition of the word 'revved'. There are other words that could be used, but that's a personal thing.
He is also fond of sentence fragments, used, I can only imagine, in an effort to try and heighten the emotion or do something. But I found it to be distracting. For example: "...she found the entire house uninhabited. Upstairs too." 'Upstairs too' is not a sentence. That isn't even the one I was looking for. There is another one that I can't find that is, in my mind, even more glaring. It's as though he thinks that using the short non-sentences that he is ratcheting up the emotion and making things more tense and punchy. But it doesn't, at least not for me. It's like the actor who reads all of his lines over emotionally (like stereotypical William Shatner). It just feels forced.
And finally, at least on style, the way he tries to include the suspense of secrets isn't very understated. When there is a secret that he isn't telling you, he shouts at you that he's not going to say. The female lead (Sophie) witnessed something that made her stop talking to her grandfather (who raised her after her parents died) and which basically traumatized her. Until she finally reveals her secret, Dan Brown hammers home the idea that she has a secret that was very scarring. Her emotions are always extreme when she thinks about it. I can't remember where exactly it occurs, but at one point, I remember that in one paragraph Sophie thinks about what she saw that was so awful and her she deeply saddened and troubled by the memories. And then there's a short paragraph where someone speaks or some small action takes place. The next paragraph is about how she is remembering her grandfather and the terrible secret she has and how awful it is for her. And it's not even like she was continuing a thought interrupted by action. They were two completely separate thoughts about the same thing. Again, the emotions are as extreme as they can get.
In fact, everyone's emotions are always extreme. There are no middle areas, it's all highs and lows. There is no balance. It's always a deeply disturbing moment, or flashes of rage or some sort of high emotion. It never stops, and it gets tiring after a while. This style of writing starts to lose all meaning after a while, and pretty soon there is no emotion left.
Also, the chapters are very short, which is nice in some ways, but makes it feel like it's been dumbed down in other ways, like he's writing solely for those with short attention spans. I'm not saying that anyone who enjoyed this book is unintelligent or slow-witted or ADHD. I just think he broke up the action entirely too much with chapters. That might just be a case of being used to longer chapters by most other authors, I don't know. There was just something about it that I didn't like.
All of that being said, it wasn't a completely terrible story. It was interesting to see how all of the clues and riddles were answered. The albino monk Silas was an interesting character. He was probably the character that I found myself caring about the most. My final conclusion about the book is simply this: controversy aside, I'm not a huge fan. I won't buy it unless I see it really cheap (like one of those $5 or less bins somewhere)(and even then, maybe not). I haven't read it for a while, but I think his previous book featuring Robert Langdon (the main hero of this book) was better, though I do recall being not completely impressed with it either (it is called Angels and Demons, a book about the Illuminati, and also with the murder of a pope). Frankly, I'm going to read one or two more Dan Brown books, and if his style doesn't impress me any more, I'll probably not read anything else he writes. His books aren't intriguing enough to excuse a poor writing style.
Now on to the movie. I must warn you, there may be spoilers in this section, but I'm not sure. I haven't written it yet, so I can't say for sure. How was the movie you ask? Well, it was only okay. I found the action to be forced in many places. I think it needed more explanation for much of it, details that would be found in the book, but not in the movie. There seemed to be leaps of logic or something that just didn't mesh well.
There were some interesting things to note, however. In the book, Robert Langdon was completely sold on the idea of the the church supressing Mary Magdalene and that Jesus was married and that the Priory of Sion secret society existed and that DaVinci was a grandmaster of it who worshipped the feminine goddess and wasn't a believer in the church or its teaching at all. In the movie, however, he's still skeptical. He argues with another character that everything the Priory stands for is only alleged and not proven. In the book he really says that it is true, all of it, and that the church is bloodthirsty and maniacal in its destruction of these truths. A note here: when Dan Brown talks about the church, he is basically referring to the Catholic Church, and he often uses the term 'The Vatican' as a direct substitute. Does it matter? I don't know. I just thought I'd mention it.
Also, I wasn't a big fan of the camera work/directing style. It wasn't terrible or distracting or anything. It just didn't really do much for me, though there were some interesting shots of scenery, if you want to call it that. I especially liked the shot of London from an airplane. That was pretty neat, neat enough to make me want to visit there even more.
Something that I found a bit odd was how the character of Sophie was dumbed down and Robert Langdon was smartened up. In the book they are both very brilliant people, and they each solve about half of the clues. In the movie, Sophie basically knows nothing and Robert figures it all out. Sophie is reduced to a blank slate who is simply there to be taught and to be shown clinging to old ways. When they come to a church to try and figure out a final clue, Robert and Sir Teabing go looking for a solution, calling back and forth to each other in an effort to find the answer. Sophie, on the other hand, walks around, looking uncomfortable and eventually acting as though she were scared. She doesn't actually do anything in the movie. It's weird because I thought that was a good part of the book, how both characters had their areas of strength and they both used those areas to figure things out. But not in the movie.
Silas is still interesting in the movie.
Well, there are my two cents worth on this phenomenon. I say you should read the book and see the movie just so you know what the big deal is and can talk about it to others, but that's really the only reason. On their own, they really aren't much.

To the point

I have a cell phone!

Not even kidding a bit.

Too many of you, this may seem like an amusing post, but I am deadly serious. DON'T EAT WHILE YOU'RE TALKING ON THE PHONE!! Seriously, it's so disgusting, it makes my hair just stand on end. I don't know why, but the sound of chewing sometimes grosses me out to point of not being able to handle it. I remember when I lived at home I would be eating supper and no one would be talking (cuz we's enjoyin' good eats!), and I would get up to use the bathroom, or finish after one helping, or discretely cover my ears (hang my head like I'm tired and hold it in my hands) because if I didn't then I would have lost my mind. It really bothered me. It hasn't come up much lately because I usually eat alone at my place (my own chewing doesn't bother me) or I'm with people and there are no silences (often cuz I'm in a restaurant and there are ambient noises masking it). But I found that it bothers me even more when it's on the phone. That's just gross. No one wants to hear mastication over the phone.
Well, I'ma gonna go eat now.

Reporter: What would be the scientific purpose of killing it? Steve: Revenge.

Recently I had the pleasure of watching The Life Aquatic, starring Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man movie), Owen Wilson, and others. This was an...odd movie. I was a bit surprised because I was expecting a laugh-out-loud knee-slapping other-hyphenated-descriptions sort of movie. And it almost was, kind of.
The story revolves around a guy who has spent his life going around the world, exploring the sea (and other wilderness type areas apparently) and making documentaries. He is very much patterned after Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Um, he is also played by Bill Murray. When the film starts, he screens one of his films where his partner and best friend of many many years gets eaten by a shark. So now he has to try and mount a mission to find the shark and get his revenge. Problem is, he is broke, his team is starting to come apart and his life is basically sucking. Plus, his son shows up, the son that he had never met (played by Owen Wilson, if you must know mister nosy-pants!).
The movie has it's moments of very funny, as well as it's moments of very maudlin. I have to say that I was extremely entertained for the most part. There are parts that are a bit slow and almost painful to watch, especially in the first half of the movie. It picks up after a while.
Willem Dafoe's character (played by Willem Dafoe) is extremely funny as the slightly neurotic German guy who doesn't trust Owen Wilson and who is totally committed to the Zissou foundation (which is the name of the foundation that is founded by Bill Murray's character (Steve Zissou), the foundation that they are all a part of - it seems to be a foundation that funds scientific missions and that sort of thing...). The best part was when they were searching for some kidnappers who had taken their bank stooge (making sure they weren't overspending their budget) and Willem Dafoe complains that when they split in to two different teams Steve didn't pick him to be on the 'A' squad, so Steve comforts him by telling him that he leads the 'B' squad. And then a couple minutes later when they're engaged in a gun-fight with the kidnappers, Bill Murray tells Willem Dafoe to cover their retreat, making him the 'A' Squad leader, and Willem nearly cries cuz he's so happy. I just about died at that part. Actually, thinking about it, I think he was the best character.
The sea creatures that they come across are also very interesting. Most of them are completely fabricated (they seem to like making creatures with sparkly stuff on them, like jewels shining in the light) but very colourful. I also thought it was neat that the creatures weren't computer animated either. They were stop motion (think Wallace and Grommit...in fact, think of them often...they're funny), which produced a very pleasing effect. At least in my mind.
Also, the unpaid interns who were very much abused throughout the movie are really funny. Everyone on the team gets their own gun, but the interns (there are five) have to share one. When the kidnappers show up on board, the only person hurt is one of the interns who gets a machete in the shoulder, and shows up later with a huge bandage over his wound, ready to keep going. When the other interns (plus one or two other people) mutiny and leave the crew, the stabbed intern is the only one who stayed.
Jeff Goldblum shows up as Steve Zissou's biggest rival, a man who does much the same job, but has infinitely more money, so everything he has is very new. Also, he's a prick. Steve breaks in to his science station and steals scientific equipment that actually works, and then lies about it later, and then reluctantly rescues Goldblum from the kidnappers a bit later. It's pretty funny.
Also, Willem Dafoe's character spends much of his time in shorts.
Plus, there's a character, a Brazilian Portugese lad who spends the entire movie playing on his guitar and singing David Bowie songs that have been translated into Brazilian Portugese. That's it. It's pretty sweet.
All in all, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a good movie. A bit crude at times, but since when has that ever stopped me. So a guy walks in to a bar and sees a tiny pianist playing in the corner....

What I like about my job today

Stupid Phone

Why I hate telemarketers...

It's because I'm too polite and I've done too many crappy jobs. I just got off the phone with someone 'from' MBNA Canada, which is where I got one of my Mastercards. They were trying to sell me some insurance or something. It wasn't even a bad product, but just how things are at the moment, I can't afford the extra payment, so I'm not going to go with it. I listened to the lady give her pitch, and the second she paused for a response from me I said that I wasn't interested and hung up without waiting for a reply. And then I felt bad for hanging up on her. And that happens every time I do that. If I'm not interested I politely say "Thanks, but I'm not interested at the moment," and then hang up. I don't want to hang up on them or be rude because they are just doing their job. I've known people who do that type of job, and it's never anything personal; they're not trying to invade your privacy or harass you, they're just trying to make a buck, like everyone else.
The problem is, they aren't allowed to take no as an answer, at least not at first. So that means if you say no, they act surprised (and it "doesn't" sound scripted "at all") and press on, trying to convince you that you are wrong. I hate that. When I say no, I mean no. At that point I start to feel badgered. I had one guy who kept pushing it at me after I had said no at least four times. I think that's when I started hanging up on them. I just got fed up. I don't want to have things pushed on me like that.
That being said, I don't want to hang up on them either. I wish they would accept the first no, say 'thank you for listening and have a nice evening' and then hang up. That would be fine. Then they could do their job and I wouldn't feel so bad about cutting them off.
Interesting note: My mom has had a worse telemarketer experience than me. She said no and hung up, much like I did, and the guy called her back! "I'm sorry," he said, "I think we got cut off. Now let me tell about the other great features..." Mom told him that they hadn't been disconnected accidentally because she had hung up on him, and then she hung up again. That story amuses me.
Interesting (to me) note 2: The lady who called me today was of Middle Eastern/East Indian descent judging from her accent and she stumbled over my name (which has nothing to do with her ethnicity - pretty much everyone stumbles on my last name first try)(and it ain't even that hard, at least I don't think so), and later she called me 'Mr. Daniel'. That's interesting for a couple reasons. First, my name is Darrell, which is obviously what she was going for. Secondly, that's my first name. I'm wondering if her ethnic/cultural background was coming in to play there. I know that in some cultures the family name comes first, before the given name. I don't know if that had anything to do with anything, or if she just made a mistake, but I found it interesting.

Perks

My roommates mom came to visit last weekend. She's a nice woman, very friendly and a little nutty (which explains Rob...). She went shopping for Rob, but he wasn't with her at the time and she hadn't talked with him about it, so she bought quite a lot of food. The best part is, she bought more than Rob can eat on his own, so I get some free food myself. And the bester part is she bought a jar of Cheez Whiz, one of the big jars, and Rob never eats the stuff. So I get it. That's exciting because the big jars are expensive. I usually get a small jar, and it lasts me a while. This one is going to last me quite a while. I wonder how long it takes for Cheez Whiz to go bad....

Ford Focus, minus the Ford.

The past few months I've been learning a lesson. Something I've said all of my life is that I have an incredible capacity to remain completely unfocussed. My mind wanders, my attention drifts, and I'm lost in a world of my own making. I don't spend all of my time without a focal point, though. When I get focussed on something, I really latch on to it and whatever it is completely holds my attention and my energy. The issue then becomes: What am I focussed on?
I'll be honest, usually I don't have my focus where it should be. I know that I should focus on God, give Him my time and my energy and everything else will fall into place from there. My life may not be easy, I may face troubles and hardships, but if my focus is truly on God, then such things will be a pleasure, or at least completely endurable. But I have spent most of my life with an entirely different focus - girls.
My entire life, the ladies have been a major focal point in my life, which may seem odd when you consider that I've only had one girlfriend. But ever since high school began, and possibly even earlier than that (I don't remember that far back all that well) I have always had at least one girl that I've had a major crush on, or at least a significant minor crush. And that crush has received most of my attention. When I'm falling asleep I daydream about her. When I'm sitting in class or at work with nothing else occupying my mind, I dream about spending a lifetime together. I would sit in my room and listen to music and play solitaire (usually Spider Solitaire or Freecell, with a healthy dose of Vegas style regular Solitaire thrown in) for hours, just thinking about her. All of my time and energy was focussed on this girl, whoever it was at the time. There was no real time left for God. Sure I would make faltering attempts, but it really wouldn't ever go anywhere. I'd read my Bible for a couple days, but then feel tired one day and spend my time daydreaming rather than praying. And though I would speak nobly about my intentions, the truth is I was really looking at these women and my hoped-for relationship with them as THE thing that would make me happy, that drive my relationship with God to a new level.
Recently, however, things have been going tough for me in my relationship with God. I've been all over the map, wholly devoted one day, raging against Him the next. I couldn't find satisfaction in anything and I just felt worn down to a nub, devoid of energy and unable to control my thoughts anymore. And then somewhere along the way, I decided to let go of my latest crush, to just leave her behind in a sense. The hard part, though, was not finding a new girl to like and focus on. But it occurred to me that all of my focus and energy was going towards these internal thoughts and there was no room for anything else, and it was draining me of any will and energy for everything else.
So right now, I have consciously made the choice to avoid the desire to date anyone. And things have been perfect since then...
Actually, it's been rough ever since (but a different type of rough). Since that decision, I've struggled to know what to do (years of conditioned thinking patterns have to be fought against suddenly). I haven't really focussed on anything in particular, I've just been drifting along, feeling like I'm only half present. And I've struggled with knowing how exactly women fit into the equation. I've wondered what exactly I'm supposed to do about my desire to get married and share my life with someone. That's not something I can just deny because I truly believe with all of my heart that I am not one of those who are blessed with the gift of eternal singleness, like Paul talks about in one of his letters (I want to say Corinthians, where he says that it's good, even better, to be single). That being said, how do I focus on God and just ignore those desires? Will God take them away if I'm completely devoted to Him?
And then a friend of mine was talking about when he broke up with his girlfriend, and the struggles he'd been having. Something he said really struck me because I realised that it was exactly what I had been struggling with as well. He said "How can you justify the want to be married if you are fully dedicated to God? Isn't he supposed to fulfill all of your needs?" But, he continued, that was the wrong way to look at it. God wants us to be happy - we're his children after all, and what parent doesn't want their child to be happy? When you look at it that way, you start to realise that marriage is not a right or a privilege, it's a gift. God grants us this gift, and He wants us to enjoy it, to be satisfied with what He has given us. Of course, it took him some time to arrive at this realisation, it wasn't instantaneous. His words, though, contain wisdom.
My focus needs to be fully on God, something I've known for years. It has only been recently that the need has been seen by me in my life, or more accurately, that I've noticed the need in more than a purely intellectual way. My focus needs to be on God and everything else will work itself out. That doesn't mean I start to ignore women, that just means I will have (and I can already feel the change a tiny bit) freedom from the pressure I put on myself to 'win their heart' or something like that and just be able to be a friend. It has been nearly impossible for me to be friends with a single woman for a while without having the thought of "should/could I date her?" running through my head. And if it's a girl I have a crush on it's just about impossible for me to speak to her because I'm just to nervous and overthinking things and it's just a bad scene (disclaimer: ladies, if I seem to be this way around you, that doesn't mean I'm crushing on you. I have other issues as well, read on...). Even if I don't have a crush on a girl I have trouble talking with them because I'm afraid that others will get the wrong idea when I'm talking to a girl or seem to have fun around a lady, and that's been borne out by experience. There have been many times when I have just been having fun, joking around with a girl and then someone (or multiple someones) has come up to me and asked if I'm interested in that girl, or said that said girl is interested in me, and BOOM - instant awkward. But I've already BLOGged about that. The point is, it has gotten to the point where I simply cannot talk to women on a bad day, and on a good day I am very guarded, unable to say anything besides sarcastic quips (which is actually pretty normal for me, but not always good).
I wish I could say confidently that this was all going to change and change soon. However, I do realise that turning from a self-centred me-focussed life to a life of devotion and submission to God is not one that will come easy or necessarily quickly. The good news is I think I'm at a place, or rapidly approaching a place, where that change can start to blossom in me.

OLP! OLP! OLP!

Ho-ly Crap!
Our Lady Peace really knows how to put on a show. They are super high energy right from the get go. I wasn't sure how Raine Maida's voice would be in person (I heard him on TV once at a concert and he seemed to be struggling with his singing), but it's just as good as on the discs, plus this was LIVE! After the first song he made the tech guys come out and move the monitors closer to the edge of the stage so that he was closer to the fans. He forgot the lyrics to one of his songs (there was a pause, and then he said "I forgot the lyrics" and then he continued with the next line). He grabbed a group of people and brought them on stage for four or five songs, just standing at the back and cheering wildly. He ran in to the crowd and a couple guys I know got to touch him. He picked out a couple young boys (both were ten) in the crowd and went out and sang to them, standing with them at their seats. They were pretty far back, I was surprised that he saw them. He grabbed someone's phone that recorded music and recorded a song that they don't have on an album and told him to post it on the internet. And by recorded a song, I mean he held it up to his mouth while he sang, so the recording probably wasn't all that good.
But the concert was good. It was AWESOME!!! They are so good, I love their music and I'm ready to go see them again any time.
G'night.