Beauties Invade the Internet

The only girls you'd ever expect to see 'on the internet' in the early days of home based telecommunication were usually locked up in .GIF files that took up to a half a day to download only to see just one measly image of some broad appear on your screen! Then of course you would import it to your digital imaging program and play around with the contrast... or maybe you were the type that preferred to download 320 X 200 images of fighter jets or comic characters. Hey, whatever lures you to the hook.

Today, as I'm sure you know, the internet is full of incredibly gorgeous gals, and you can now not only stare at an unmoving photo of them, stretched across a cathode ray tube monitor, considering whether it would even be worth printing out on your dot-matrix colour printer, but you can hear them speak their minds, move around, do things, perform with bands, whatever... and all in real time...just like T.V.!

I mean, just have a look at a few of my favorite examples pictured below so go ahead and check out the links by clicking on the snaps...ahhg... I forget!

Natasha-

I couldn't help myself but to watch this lovely woman in her attempt to drive David's big dump truck. David Roch, star of the "David's Farm" channel on You Tube, supervises and films the action, but it's all too apparent that Natasha is the star of the show. It only took her a few attempts to get the big truck rolling after familiarizing herself with the clutch, and off she and David went, out to the back forty together, side by side in the hornet infested cab of a smelly old dump truck. The stuff that pure sweet romance is built upon.

Natasha comes across as being genuine, cheerful and charming. Obviously shes' a pretty good sport as well - you know, not too prissy. Natasha's Mom also appears in this video, and she is hysterical. Love that Slavic accent!


Tania
Oooh. Belgium is just as surely known for it's remarkable beauties as Canadians are known for endlessly preaching to the choir, but I say, this woman has a highly positive attitude, and a willingness to commit to a good political cause.

Being that her boyfriend, "Athene", a popular You Tube actor himself who once appeared in a season of a popular T.V. reality show, the pair have done a good many hilarious sketches together, and have inspired me, along with their other cohorts like Reese, the semi-serious documentarian, and Furious the ladies man pimp gangster, to make videos as well. Tania. Capable. Foxy.

Rebecca

Lead singer of the soon to be wildly popular rock group, "My First Earthquake", Rebecca, pictured above, is a most passionate and hyper hipster of a songstress; her machine gun lyrics in some of the group's early punk-o-rama numbers I've heard on You Tube, seem to be driving at something and yet, pointless in their ephemeralitudinous of the diapoplectic master designs of which might pertain to conceptual folk art....meanwhile the group's pop songs are just dandy, not too minimalistic in arrangement, catchy, and boast absurd and in your face poetry - in short, the word play is at times masterful. They're genuine hipsters for sure... reminiscent, I think, of Blondie, and Sonic Youth... but My First Earthquake will continue to surprise us I'm sure. I loved the guitar solo antics in Sweet Frown, one of their latest numbers, the video for which is where I took the frame you see above - it's fantastic! Check it out! Her foxiness awaits your comments and ratings.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

As I sift through one of the ash laden coffee canisters into which I nearly always dispose of my overflowing ashtrays, expecting I'll be sure to pluck out at least three to five brittle cigarette stubs which I can then pinch the stale tobacco from and roll into a "butt smoke", I think about how ridiculously expensive it is fast becoming to live in this enormous and wonderful country.

I had just returned to my tiny cube of a residence from a friend's place where I'd been invited to have some coffee along with a Sheesha session. His Hookah was still a bit of a novelty, and for me, the thought of drawing on a wee bit of flavoured tobacco vapour to induce some deep conversation seemed a positive and relaxing way to spend my early evening. It didn't take much convincing - especially in light my cigarette butt hunting quest. Shaw (a local cable provider) and Sheesha sure sheemed less shitty than schpending my night at home sheeking out shilling a shmokes schigarettes! 8P


Upon my arrival, however, M.C. Hutterite sadly informed me that the sheesha's glass chamber had met it's demise while the hookah was in transit from the bedroom to the living room. Unfortunate, but not overly regrettable, so I told the M.C. that surely an inexpensive replacement could be found - presuming that the hoses, smoking chamber, and valve stem make up the bulk of the unit's overall cost. Hell, I've even known a guy since high school who is now an artistic glass blower in a shop not far from where I hang my hat each night. I'm sure that he could whip up a hubbly bubbly chamber to spec as sure as the pipes and bongs he makes aren't really intended for tobacco use only! Steve the artisan would probably charge more than the Hutterite paid for his whole schmere of a bong in the first place; Steve uses very high quality glass and I understand that his work is favourably appraised. I've seen much of it myself, and the swirling, abstract designs of his glassware are very pleasing to me - for what my tastes are worth. Despite the fact that I resort to smoking recycled cigarettes on occasion, I believe my taste in food, music, and art would be considered at least moderately refined from the perspective of a real aficionado.

I wonder if Steve, given his rep, would consider blowing a piece using lesser grade glass to fill a custom order on the cheap if one promised not to tell? That sounds so bad!

Oh well... the M.C. and I sipped some coffee anyway, as I smoked an old stogie I had found behind the counter of a gas station on the way over, and we watched a movie (my own selection from the offerings of the 'movies on demand listings') called, "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" - a story of how an unlikely pair of bilingual (oh so Canadian) detectives, one from Montreal and the other from Toronto, are forced to partner-up in an effort to catch a serial killer whose first victim's corpse is discovered draped over the Ontario Quebec border crossing sign. Gosh, whose jurisdiction does this one fall under?

The movie was satisfyingly ridiculous enough throughout for my tastes, and while unlike the many great actors and comedians this country exports, much of Canadian cinema itself isn't renound for being very popular, at least amongst movie buffs in our own country. Much to our country's brave film-maker's credit, however, you can generally count on a Canadian flick to be strikingly blaise. We sure know how to weave together a real groaner of a plot.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop, if anything, exhibited reasonably convincing fight scenes, a few mediocre car chases and stunt-works, some bang-on explosions, and a hot scene d'amour du fromage. The dialogue was often clever, but at times, I found the fast moving English sub-titles a bit tough to catch against some backgrounds.

I can speak passable French myself but am tremendously deficient when it comes to comprehending what's being said when it's spoken quickly and on the fly. I have trouble distinguishing in real-time where one word ends and the other begins as my brain tries to simultaneously unscramble and translate that said, to my ears, sounds akin to something like, "Peutveutvotrenoirellesontlivreestcenousallors, uh?"

Reading written French, however, pa'd problem! C'est weird! Maintenant?

Suzie - A reasonably well behaved cat.

On occasion, over the last couple of years, I've agreed to accommodate this smallish, cute, and well behaved kitty for a few nights at time. Never growing up had I ever had a pet cat to call my own, although I can remember the week or so that me dear ol' Mum reluctantly cat-sat for a friend; she likes cats, but not enough to endure the feline's typical negligence to provide much notice before landing on one's lap seemingly out of nowhere. Cat's, unlike dogs, appear, moreso than they approach in the way a pet dog would with nails clicking, tongue lapping, and eyes bashful. Dogs can be fairly stealthy and quiet when they feel the need, whereas cats are far more stealthy and agile, and some like to make a point of demonstrating it to people. It doesn't help that Mom is easily startled.





A poor picture, I know, but there she is, purring away with one paw hanging over my leg. We do seem to have a bond, and I miss her company until it's time for another visit. Her usual place of residence, unfortunately, has had to undergo periodic fumigations as part of an effort to eliminate an infestation of bed bugs. I consider myself lucky to have not encountered any, given that my own apartment dwelling is in the very same building! Such an arrangement of proximnity makes me a convenient choice of temporary guardian for little Suzie.


Here you can see her perched next to my computer's keyboard. She frequently visits me while I'm in 'the office' reading, typing, or watching something. I used to keep my telephone set in here, but now it's in the kitchen area... I'm thinking of getting a second telephone set to place near the computer... a smallish phone set, as it's handy for looking things up while chatting with a friend. My Mom usually calls on Sundays for a bit of help with the NY Times crossword. On the rare occasion that I find myself wanting to just simply pass time, like when I'm awaiting a flight in some Airport's food court, you're not likely to discover the like of me taking the time to 'do' a crossword. I imagine they're a breeze when solved with the like of Wikipedia and Google at one's disposal. I love a game of Scrabble though.

Found a humble little entertainment unit with a glass door, abandoned next to the dumpster behind my building a few months ago. Now it acts as a station for my computer tower, and the monitor rests neatly on top. This set up allows me to roll my PC around the apartment! Now I can watch You Tube while making pancakes or watch You Tube while watching TV! Still, I generally keep it parked in the office, and rather like having my living room free from too much technology when entertaining friends and ladies.

Okay, folks, so no pictures/video of the aforementioned animals will be posted in this submission, but the footage does exist on my hard drive! Just a matter of editing it down. After my seven month sabbatical, all I do is drink on my time 'off'. I call it, 'time on' thanks to one of dearest buddies, a fellow musician, Tim Milliken, who's songs can be heard somewhere on Lethbridge radio or wherever. Yeah, so wasting my talents to pay the bills is the order of the day. I should go to the blues jam at the Commercial Hotel on Whyte Avenue tomorrow. I'll show 'em how to play the blues! Ha! I'm still too green for some of the old hammerheads!

The Animals in my Life

Hi folks! So hardly a fortnight had passed since returning the two lovely Belgian dogs to their owners after two weeks of looking after them, and in comes a request to cat sit for Suzie, my little Calico companion. Last night, I let her venture around the hallway of the northeast 'wing' of my building. She's really a sweet little cat with big innocent looking yellow eyes...adorable.

The other day, I wanted to pose for a photograph of myself with the two shepherd dogs on the steps of the Bowker building - the Province's Department of Justice headquarters, I think. Anyway, my drunken fool of a friend, as you'll see, can't even be trusted to take a half decent picture, even with my simple to use digital camera. I mean, you can't even make out the dogs, never mind my face. I don't mean to imply that I'm the penultimate photographer or anything, but come on! I at least would have taken a few close-ups and maybe asked the subject to move around a little for better lighting.


What a boob this friend of mine can be...I know I sound harsh, but it's as though I have to tell him everything in implicit detail and babysit him whenever he's drunk. I mean, just look at his 'expert eye'. He took four separate shots, and each one stinks worse than the previous one.

"Did you get a good one, Damien?", I asked of him after posing.

"Oh yeah! (I made sure to obfuscate the subject in order to get the detail of every last stairs leading up to the entrance) Got some good ones there!"

A five year old could have taken a better photo while playing a Nintendo DS with the other hand.

Soon after the photo shoot, while en route to my employer's place, he seemingly couldn't wait the five minutes to get to the safety of my friend's place to crack open a beer in a legal fashion. Oh no, he was insisting he do it in plain view, in the middle of the afternoon while strolling through the Legislature grounds. I know - just plain moronic. I mean, I'm all for more personal freedoms, and see nothing wrong with sipping an alcoholic beverage in public on a hot day. You just need to exercise some discretion and try to do it in a low-key courteous manner. But this guy will pound back a can, piss in the nearest bush, and throw the can on the ground - the type of dude that laws prohibiting drinking in public exist for in the first place.

It was akin to when Kumar decides to activate the bong in the airplane's bathroom in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Not seconds after denying him his 'baby's bottle', did a Sheriff's patrol unit roll by. Thank the good lord I was in possession of the sack of beer, otherwise, I'm sure we would've been hassled. I almost slapped my friend for not listening to my voice of reason, and his whining like a child because I wanted to avoid having the beer confiscated nearly earned him a backhand. He should have kissed my feet and admitted that I know what's best for him. I don't want my friends getting busted for nothing, you know?

Even later on, he began to annoy me so much, that I made off with his bicycle, and drove it out of sight, just to get him worried. He was nowhere to be seen after I circled back to return it to him. Since I wasn't too far from his place, I decided I may as well ride the thing to get myself a cigar before bringing it back to his place and locking it to a railing.

Here is my first video, I think, starring someone other than myself. The girls featured in this production call themselves, "Gretna Green", I suppose after the locale of some famed elopement friendly chapel in Scotland.

Natalie, Monique, and Jennifer on my mind.

Hey gang. Gonna try and bring it, as Brian Adams once sang, straight from the heart! I'm going to play a tape of Duran Duran before continuing this post. Dance into the fire! They use the line, "...a view to a kill". My buddy Rob records selections from his vinyl collection onto cassettes and sometimes leaves me one to listen to. The reproductions could be better, but they're improving. Played my Queen II cassette tape a hundred times today.

So yeah. Really weird shit's been happening around my life lately. I just assume that there's people stalking me at this point. While walking the dogs, I startled a congregation of "Sheriffs" hanging around on the outskirts of the "ledge" grounds, here in my city. While I don't find it strange that a bunch of peace officers, or whatever they're called, would be hanging out, chatting in Arabic in the parking lot of a provincial research building, I did find it strange though, that they scattered upon my arrival on the scene -I did have a couple of big dogs with me. I know that line of work can be boring at times, but if I were charged with the security of our provincial lands, I think I might at least ask some perfunctory or at least friendly questions of some dude who comes out of the bushes with a couple dogs at two in the morning.

I made a post on the CBC about how whether or not you work for your car, or if your car works for you. Basically, I said, hey, get out and smell the flowers while they're in bloom. You can love your car without living such a car-centric life in other words.

Soon after making that post and logging out, I took the dogs down to the legislature grounds on my way across the downtown. Low and behold, there were a couple of kids, a boy and a girl, both nice looking, sitting, on benches lining the walkway running easterly on the north edge of the grounds - sitting across from one another, and the boy was twirling a purple daisy in his hand. I'm not making this up; which I say because I know it must sound like some weird dream to some of you. But I'm a fairly rational guy, and it did seem strangely coincidental that some random kid was twirling a flower and watching me as I passed him by, mere minutes after submitting a post to the CBC suggesting that commuters take some time to smell the flowers. I just happen to be the type of person who attunes himself to the holistic reality of our lives.

Am I just attracted to the notion of being notorious? Why am I so insistent on making You Tube videos? I think I just want to attract like minded people. Get some good dialogue going. Taxi Talk and Cable Guy. My beloved followers, I thank you for lending an ear. Up for a barbeque this weekend? Bring some chicken and some booze...I'll take care of the rest!

News Hounds & Armchair Commanders

I know I've been too obsessed with current affairs at the expense of keeping my own house in order. Did a bit of tidying up today by quitting Facebook. I "deactivated".

I know it sucks, but Jason Kenny made some important moves recently. That's all I care to say about that right now, except that I feel sincere sympathy for those whose lives are negatively impacted; the timing was (good) bad?

Now it's time has come for me to spend far less time "contributing" to CBC.ca. Need to stop spending so much time criticizing others.

My Mom seems to think I should take down this blog. Perhaps there is such a thing as dwelling on headlines too much. I don't want to take down this blog, nor do I want to quit making videos for You Tube. Facebook was fun, but a little too distracting. My 168 friends know where I am anyway. No secret here.

Even before getting Telus High Speed Enhanced internet access over a year ago, I was an extrovert. As Buck Hollywood would say, I'm a 'social'. Love cocktail parties and wine & cheese events. A good campfire. Maybe I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I still have MySpace for occasional announcements. So long, Facebook...it was a gas! Hello Twitter!

New vid!

Divestment of Capital

After years several years of barely scraping by, surviving loose contract after shaky commission, it seems that the chickens have finally come to roost here at MME records.

I'm excited to share this news, as, my folks seem to have held the impression that I've been sitting around doing nothing but making "stupid videos". Their lack of enthusiasm for my entrepreneurial aspirations is understandable - they've been financing my frugal lifestyle for the last several years during the times when I've found myself out of a job...which probably seems more often than not.

Well, it's not my "stupid videos" that are responsible for my recent elevation in financial standing, but instead a concerted effort to position myself as a key middle manager in the sphere of online advertising, and am now privvy to a broad span of internet business avenues and opportunities.

It all started as an innocent networking experiment of MY OWN DESIGN (not one of those bogus offers from the cheesy Google ads!); little did I expect that the venture would take off so rapidly, and never would I have predicted that I'd see such phenomenal returns on my time investment in such short order. Never before in my life have I earned dollars at such a rate! Currently I'm averaging only about $300 / day (which is more than I've ever made), but once interest rates begin to rise (as they soon should), that amount could double or triple given my plan for prudent, and staggered divestment of capital. I won't go into further detail for fear of inciting too much competition early in the game, but I will say that if these positive trends continue, in only two years, I'll never have to work a day in my life ever again! I would attribute my superior skills in strategic money manipulation to the hundreds of hours spent perfecting my strategy for world domination playing the computer games "Civilization II & III)"

I guess $300 / day probably doesn't seem like that much for many of you out there...I mean, isn't the average wage in Canada $20 / hour? How much is that, about $55,000 / year? Considering however that I have no mortgage payment, no car, no girlfriend, no kids, and no credit cards, $300 / day, or a little over $100k / year, is a rather princely sum, wouldn't you agree? No more resorting to rerolling cigar stubs and eating nothing but oatmeal all day! Still, I am not so self-assured that I neglect to imagine the possibility that everything could all come to a crashing halt...much like raging economic situations often do.

Well, back to the drawing board..Oh, and speaking of stupid videos, I finally uploaded a new one. Sorry for the delay, I was just feeling a bit less than confident about myself these past few weeks. In this video, I attempt to perform a song by Tim Hardin called "Reason to Believe" on my friend Jimmy's rickety old piano. Enjoy!

Wow! Post # 80!

Overlooking Queen Victoria's Golf Course in Edmonton's downtown 'core', situated on the southwest edge of the city's commercial center, before the concrete and asphalt give way to the steep brushy embankments cusping Victoria's greens and fairways winding through the lush river valley below, is Grant Knotley Park. A visage of old philanthropic Knotley himself, eternally mindful, awaits amidst the contoured benches for the next curious visitor to read about his achievements as they're engraved upon the interpretive plaque set into the monument beneath his bronzed (I think) chin. There's nothing like encountering an interpretive plaque along the path of your travels to add informative and elucidating tidbits of knowledge to your otherwise pleasantly quaint stroll through Edmonton's many parks. Ah well, my own mind is a theme park, folks! Read on and share in my enthusiasm!

Real Estate Agency Website Geared Toward Seven Year Olds

I spend a good deal of time sifting through all manner of articles and media on the web throughout the course of any given day - a You Tube video, a news piece, a blog page. Rarely will I bother spending any time on a corporate website as the information is of course biased, and the integrity lacking, and they're too often rife with bizarre, unrelated flashy sequences (kind of like my videos) and redundant navigation controls.

Now, I can understand a commercial website wanting to cater to the lowest common denominator when advertising their product, but this is ridiculous! At first glance, you might think that RE/MAX has abandoned real estate altogether in favour of selling doll houses or LEGO mansions full time.

Even presuming that I were naive enough to even consider purchasing property here in Edmonton at its current ridiculously hyper-inflated price, I still think I would find this website insulting to my intelligence.

The First Wonder of the World: The Exercising Dog

The First Wonder of the World: The Exercising Dog

Cannot Help Myself (Before & After)

Now, I'm not much of a photography guy, but sometimes I'll run across a picture of a mate on one of the various social networking sites and think, "Hey, I could improve upon that!"

One of my first followers since becoming a twitter tweeter, was a fellow by the name of Anthony Lauderdale. Turns out that he has a pretty slick blog which he updates with elucidating tidbits throughout the day. From a numbers perspective, he's obviously doing something right, but upon scrutinizing his picture (something I do more than I care...well there, I admitted it) I couldn't help but think, "Man, that could be better!"


I felt that the bright blue sleeve was far too prominent, and attracted attention away from Mr. Lauderdale himself.

Here's my augmentation of the photo. I think it looks a-way cooler!


Now you can see the pinstripes! Computer magic! Hope you like it Anthony!

The community of Grandin in Edmonton, Alberta

The neighborhood in which I reside is only a block from Jasper Avenue, the main drag through Edmonton's downtown, so it's to be expected that miscreants and na'er do wells are never too far away; you never know what sort of trouble may await right around the corner. Somehow though, with it's nineteenth century Catholic Church, elementary school, and numerous apartments catering exclusively to senior citizens, the community of Grandin somehow eschews troublemakers and sees nary a shade of the violence and crime so rampant only a few blocks to the north.

Having lived in Grandin for about four years now, I'm beginning to feel a sense of attachment and feel fortunate to be able to call such a pleasant and well situated community my home. I'm no more than three blocks away from groceries, entertainment, parliament, and the underground train station is a one minute walk from my door.

The other day, I escorted a lady friend of mine to the Grandin train station. As is often the case, there was a lone drunken hangabout in the stairwell, who seemed fairly sedate. I waited with her on one of the landings of the final flight of steps to the train concourse until her train arrived, and bid her farewell.

In leaving the station, I decided to take the elevator to avoid the loiterer my lady friend and I had passed moments ago. As the elevator doors opened, I was about to stride in as I was not expecting the lift to be occupied. Upon seeing an occupant about to disembark, I gregariously stepped backward to provide him some room, and gestured approvingly for him to exit with a wave of my arms in a respectful manner - as is customary for a gentleman to do. Most decent folks would say something like, "good evening", "thank you, or nod and smile.

Now, If I'm in a good mood, I almost always make the effort to extend courtesies to strangers I happen to meet while out and about amongst the public; I'll offer a smile and a nod, and love to greet people and their dogs when they're out for a walk. Old ladies often warmly smile at me as I pass. That's the kind of guy I am.

Well this piece of horseshit getting off of the elevator, in spite of my courteous gesture to allow him to exit the lift before I entered said, "Get the fuck out of my face" along with a few other less than kind words. He was very menacing and threatened me with violence. He was still shouting as the elevator doors shut, and he really got my adrenaline going. What if I were an old lady, just returning home from a game of crib or something? He might have given someone with a lesser constitution a heart attack! As the lift brought me back to ground level, I couldn't help but feel angry about the whole thing.

The aggressor was a head shorter than me, and a few dozen pounds lighter. I keep thinking how I should have pulled him back into the elevator, out of the way of surveillance, and worked him up and down the cubicle until his eyes crossed. That's what he deserves for ruining my good mood. Perhaps the next time he's at Grandin Station the miserable cretin will reconsider before he decides to be a fuckbag piece of shit in my hood.

Maybe it's time that like minded young people make the safety and security of public spaces our business. We don't need ill-willed drunken, drug addled douchebags littering Grandin's streets, needlessly intimidating the students and the elderly. If the city is incapable of funneling enough resources into security for our public transit, then perhaps it's time for a little vigilante justice to send a message through their rat-eaten grapevine that these scumbag pieces of shit aren't welcome here. Of course we'd use every measure of diplomacy imaginable to first persuede them to leave of their own volition, but be on the ready to make them wish they'd chosen a different locale to putrify if they demonstrate anything less than a reasonable disposition.

Improved "Ant Lander" Design

With this design revampment I propose that the Nuclear Ant Lander is more carefully lowered to the surface rather than dropped like a lawn dart as the shock of impact in the former design would likely be catastrophic - for both the ants and the structural integrity of their interplanetary nursary.

To provide the ant colony with access to the surface, a special flux material will be released, heated by the landing rocket thrusters during descent. The flux will spill out and around the base of the craft, and harden in the cool martian environs, forming (hopefully) an air tight seal between the ant ship, and the martian soil surrounding it. High speed drills will then slowly bore as deep as possible beneath the surface of the "red planet", allowing the ants into the martian soil.

As before, elements stored in pressurized cylinders will be intermittantly released in appropriate ratios into the airtight void above the ant colony. 

Ants on Mars

Had this idea to send a probe to Mars (or maybe one of Saturn's Moons) containing very special cargo.

On the left is a basic sketch of the main components. Basically it's three equidistant pressurized spheres, each containing different elements, chiefly Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Water (The "H" in the drawing should be an "O").

The Teardrop is detailed in the rough sketch below.

The idea being that the probe would impact the Martian soil like a lawn dart. The tip would then open allowing the ants access beneath the surface of the planet. Climactic / atmospheric control would be provided by periodically injecting combinations of pressurized elements into a low pressure mixing chamber resting atop the thriving ant colony.

Other chambers would be present to release small amounts of fungal spores, bacteria, and maybe ant approved protein pellets. Solar windows would heat the mixture, and a solar panel would provide power to the computer controlled pressure regulators.

Ideally it would be planted within range of the Mars Rover so that the results might be observed.

Is this at all plausible? Entirely ridiculous? I invite your feedback!

Moremoreenough Intellijunk Litters Twitter

Yeah, I finally hopped on board the twaxi to twitterville.

Here is the extent of my celebrity worship. This is for you, Michael and Michelle!

Shatner, a fellow Aquarian, is really quite absurd!

Just found this little gem. Though a bit tedious in the beginning, I really began to dig Shatner's reflective/projective, Dickensian take on the song. Is that a herbal jazz cigarette he's puffing on?

Winning Lotto 6=49 numbers!

6, 14, 23, 29, 33, 40

Try it out!

So, what's in my mailbox today?

1. Bill from my telephone/internet service provider. I pay about $35.00 per month for 'enhanced' high speed internet, and another $26.00 for the land line running to my apartments telephone that asynchronously carries the direct internet line into my office.

2. Will it be me? Desperate plea to get me to buy a car from a consortium of car dealerships. "Hurry, even though we've said this during each and every sale, these deals won't last forever!"

You know what? These dealership barons aren't squirming nearly as much as I am without a job right now!

My advice is this: If you do not ABSOLUTELY need a vehicle RIGHT AWAY, keep your purse strings closed and wait until these dealers are forced to clean out their inventory once and for all. They'll have to PAY YOU to take their price inflated lemons off the lot! Otherwise, the deals do seem rather enticing!

3. Live near a freeway! More local lottery bullshit from Capital EX, the event formerly known as Klondike Days. I wasn't aware a 1,697 sqaure-foot bungalow was worth over $800,000 in this rapidly declining market - even if it is located in the "prestigious community" of Citadel. Seems an outrageously high price for a bungalow in Edmonton, but I suppose one would have to first see it to know for sure. Maybe it's that awesome. Oh, and they (the builders) went through all the trouble of including 'the latest in environmentally friendly features, like motion sensing lighting in the walk in closet and pantry, and a high efficiency gas furnace. Wow. Live in a hepafiltered, airtight bubble all winter! No thanks! I'll take slightly drafty with nice, highly efficient radiant steam heat any day. So much quieter, and doesn't blow stuff around. Well hey, I'm sure this Lottery home will be a very nice looking place when it's all finished, and part of the ticket money will go to a good cause as the draw happens to be sponsored by The Lions Club.

But what about conservation minded innovations of thirty years ago, like a solar heated water tank, or thermal heat storage in a sub-basement? Who cares! It's a Green Dream home located in a section of Edmonton that requires driving to get anywhere. Spend an hour of your day commuting between your place of work and your new environmentally concientous home!

"You can visit the dream home beginning in June at its permanent location - 371 McGrath Boulevard." It's supposed to be MAGRATH, not MCGRATH as it's written in the glossy pamphlet! Seriously, folks, you'd have to pay my property taxes to have me live in one of those McMansion neighborhoods. I think I'll keep the $35 entry fee and buy a couple of packs of smokes and a six pack instead!

4. Invitation from the Religious Technology Center, i.e., Church of Scientology, to detoxify my body and mind...but then what? Thanks, but no thanks!

5. Harper Mangled Everything! Return postage paid questionaire designed to fault the Conservatives for the 'economic crisis' from John Cannis, Liberal MP.

+_+_+_+_+_>>>EXCLUSIVE TO THIS BLOG<<<_+_+_+_+_+

I was accosted last Sunday outside of the Money Mart on the corner of Jasper Ave and 108 Street. Some big dude noticed my camera strap hanging from the inside of my leather jacket and made a grab for it unexpectedly. He caught hold of just the camera's strap, while I had the video camera (Panasonic SDR-S7) in a death lock. A quick twist of my wrist saw me with the camera securely in hand leaving the agressor but with a loop of nylon shoelace! As you'll hear in the recording below, he was rather insistant about 'seeing' my video camera.

I could hardly believe this was happening! Me, in good spirits, and some thug trying to grab Graham's video camera.

The hand strap anchor for the SDR-7 is, lengthwise, located opposite the lens end of the unit.

Calmly, I say, "No man. Get away from me!"
Attacker becomes seemingly enraged!

It was a serious tug of war until I purposefully snapped the handstrap to get the camera out of this goon's reach!

While watching the video, try to imagine me, literally bouncing away from my attacker on my toes. Kind of hopping sideways down the sidewalk....you know, doing my best Mohammed Ali impersonation with the guy. I was just sort of loose fistedly jabbing my knuckles around his facial area after he decided to physically assault me.

Now, I like a bit of boxing or sparring if someone challenges me, but I was rather encumbered at the time, with my 1975 Fender F-95 Acoustic Guitar strapped on my back without a case, and didn't want to risk my inventory trying to best this douche bag, who also happened to be a good head taller than I. Fortunately, I'm light on my heels, have a long reach for my height, and was able to skip sideways away from him while quickly and lightly jabbing him in the face with my left hand. I wish you could've been there to see it!

Here you may see a slight bit of what I did manage to capture on video:

More fun in the works

"From game shows to alien potlucks, you're liable to find it here on any given day", said the lemur-like man-child hypnotist's apprentice.

Yes, that's right, folks. You're liable to find it here on any given day! To be truthful, I have no idea where this blog might lead. I suppose my number one primary objective is ultimately to ATTRACT FOLLOWERS. This is what many bloggers seek, but the ones who could care less about who reads them (not to imply that they don't appreciate their friends and readers that they blah, blah - you know what I mean) are the ones with the highest ratings and generating the most interest in their on line periodical. That's one key commonality of successful blogs. Consistancy. Periodicy. Delivery.Who wants to sit around digesting some do-nothing's tripe covered self-entitlement rants, especially when they're published under some chaotic, haphazardly intermittent schedule that only your friend 'Mustard' could ever hope to predict with any accuracy. Let's see now...I'll publish one post right after Easter, then another the following week sometime, then every day for a week leading up to may long weekend, then back to schedule A. Wow. So I have to forget about numbers and begin to focus my attentive higher-self on cool shit and stuff, like.

And I'm not talking about no Second Life either, which happens to be similar to a gaming platform I imagined would one day be a reality, when I was a kid playing games like Jumpman and Project Space Station on the old Commodore 64 computer device. Of course I had heard of World of Warcraft, but surprisingly, I hadn't heard of this Second Life shit until last weekend. And through an old friend who was visiting, was only made aware of it's existance just last weekend! Jesus, it been around since the baptism of Christ! - a friend of mine had said. Just kidding, but I was explaining to him about how I derive much satisfaction from writing in my blogs,

Ad Free

Advocate much?

Putting ads on my site. Wishful thinking. Looking at my own page I got a irritatingly nagging sensation from the "relevant" ads. I had to let them go.

You know, I didn't mind them when they represented interesting and useful products that I myself might use. Like Roland, or Hewlitt Packard, or Sony, or Panasonic. Or cool cars. But all those Nicorette ads were giving me a toothache! I don't mean to knock the product itself - it's great stuff to have in a bind, but sheesh! Pretty boring unless you happen to somehow be profiting monetarily from it, which of course, I was not.

I knew that placing the ads would be financially neutral and so I went for it, mainly to determine which advertisers would populate my abstract blog. Maybe I'm not setting the parameters correctly...I don't know. Advice anyone? Just leave them out, right? Is it possible that one of my previous postings referencing "pot" int the title somehow triggered disassociation from one of my former partners? So many questions! For now, I feel better off just begging you, my dearly appreciated reader, to contribute your valuable time by reading and won't you be subscribing to this strangely unfolding and therapeutic blog of mine?

Feel free to check me out on my myspace, more moreenough.


Anyway, back to work!

P.S. What's in your pipe that it is you're smoking? -Ad-cents

My Space translation. Make any sense?

May 7, 2009 - Thursday

Знакомство с моим пространство Current mood:Ecclisiastical Category: Blogging Уважаемый читатель; Вчера утром все, что я мог услышать были щебетание птиц и вертолетов whirring во вне моей высокий рост строительства. По большей части, моя улица очень тихо для находится только один блок вдали от крупных артерий путь через это столица провинции - в стороне от вечернего часа пик, конечно, когда каждый автомобилист, который в западном приводы для работы в центре города использует его для попасть домой. После четырех лет она, я довольно акклиматизировались на звуки большого города. Я даже приветствую его. Ну скорректирована энтузиазмом и даже в разы - это я, - по крайней мере в моем пространстве. Таким образом, серфер в ночное время, расскажи мне свои мысли на что-то. Завтра я планирую начать работу над двумя новыми рок музыка видео с нескольких горячих птенцов. Что вы думаете об этом? Ecclisiastically С уважением, Блейк Р. Мэтьюз

Time to Quit Smoking - You're a POT HEAD!!!

...or at least my affiliates would seem to imply. Not sure if here is where they'll find their target market.

Okay back from the reprise away from structure and form, presentation - correctness.

A beautifully warm day in sunny downtown Edmonton, I'm relegated to the confines of my office with the small humming deep freeze, and very little natural light shining in at this time point in the afternoon. Laundry to be done, and my back aching, I'm not going to be too harsh on myself for staying in. I'm prone to surrendering to reciprocating and negatively reaffirming thought cycles that I reference in forming a rationale that justifies my, " it's preventing me from doing anything constructive" mindset. Pure unadulterated nonsense. That's my thought process, but I strive to...yeah, sure.

Anyway, with this hog-flu going around, I figure that minimizing my contact with others isn't such a bad idea at this time. Lay low for a few days since I can. Maybe go for a run later this evening. I strongly suspect someone will make a point of stopping by the studio sometime this evening. Studio, ha! More like a cramped kitchen/bedroom/small couch that I've crashed in for the last four years. It's not bad for a single guy, but I'd like to be able to crank the guitars without fear of repercussion and a letter head under my door, and also to have room for more furnishings and thus entertaining.

Obviously I enjoy making videos and inviting people to look in on my evolution as a producer of ultra low budget presentations. I'm currently experimenting with video layering techniques in order to take full advantage of Windows Movie Maker's functions and effects by publishing short modules and reintroducing them into the editor. I'm sure I'm not the first to tread such ground, but I really enjoy discovering things on my own when possible. I find that in doing so, one gains a more holistic and fundamental understanding of the subject and is better situated to pass on knowledge of it; though lengthier is the learning process, it's necessarily more in-depth.

Something that amazes me is the fact that once you have a portal to the internet, you may never need another technical manual again! With experts around the world, virtually congregating in discussion forums to exchange ideas and information, all manner of technical issues are being continually addressed which in turn creates mountain covers of chronological help threads free for your perusal if you have the time. Who the hell does anymore? Damn teenagers, that's who! But using Google's advanced indexing, you can retrieve a solution to almost any technical problem ever encountered, be it electronic, computational, biological...incredible in it's immediacy!

---
Pat and Aubrey are two Edmonton police officers who run a radio talk show on Saturdays. I don't listen religiously, but I've caught them a few dozen times over the last few years, and must say I get the odd chuckle from the guys' banter and their particularities about their individual tastes when it comes to food, music, and culture. They're quite complex fellows involved in what to me seems as a strange life's calling - being radio talk show hosts! The nerve! But when you think of it, city cops always have great stories about the strangest and most terrifying aspects of human behaviour.

"Moremoreenough" produces new video featuring edmonton rappers

Hey folks;

Can't recall what I said in the last posting, but I'm glad to report that all is well for now on the home front - at least for now. Unfortunately, throughout my young life, I've too often allowed my (decidedly maybe?) impending sense doom rob me of good feelings. Though I watched Mr. Rogers as a child, I've always had trouble making each new day all that snappy!

It's good to count one's blessings in life, and despite my sometimes horribly cynical outlook on life, and though I strive to find increasingly optimistic engagements from a social standpoint, my disposition invariably returns to one of brooding negativity. More than ever before, I feel awfully concerned about our collective, immediate futures as inhabitants of this world.

THAT being said, here's my latest video. Hope you enjoy it and thanks for stopping in.

Four-Twenty Bunk Deal for Local Blogger

So after an irritable day of furiously chewing nicotine gum as though it works, and not drinking coffee, I decided to draw my tattered wool zip-up over my CJSW 3/4 length sleeved t-shirt, and head down to the Alberta Legislature grounds for some second hand fun; being that yesterday, the calender date mimics the official codified universal pot smoking time of 4:20PM. With video camera in pocket, and my aviator glasses gleaming, I made the trek to the 'Ledge' grounds which is all of three blocks from where I currently live.

Boy did I feel old. I'm not sure why, but I haven't been as outgoing as I once was. I used to be such an extrovert, a real social butterfly, but lately, I just don't feel the inclination to step out of my shell as much these days. I didn't talk to one single person the whole forty minutes or so that I was there. Didn't take any pictures or videos. Stopped to pet one dog. Marveled at the beautiful young women and their keen sense of hemp inspired fashions.

Secretly, while leaning my back against a pine tree, I was hoping for one of the revelers to offer me a toke, but it never happened. Most everyone was seated in little circles of five or six, and I felt really isolated and was somewhat disappointed by the lack of orchestration on the sound stage. An organized pot-head is an oxymoron if I've ever heard one, and it wasn't as though I was expecting to be handed a programme upon my arrival or anything, but the whole thing seemed a bit listless and haphazard - even for me. I suppose these types of affairs are what you make them, and it's not like I tried very hard to have fun. This is going to sound pathetic, but I bet my experience would've been more worthwhile had I a sixer of McNalley's Extra Ale coursing through me! Hopefully I get my social groove back one of these days.

The numbers were impressive however, and it was nice to see that something as benign as a shared interest in smoking bud can mobilize youth in such a way. I estimate that there were at least five hundred kids there by the time I left the gathering.

Hey folks! I have a new video on You Tube. I wanted to try doing a basic straight shoot of my playing without a separate audio recording. Just wanted to hear how it sounded using only the Panasonic video camera's built-in mic. It's just me trying to sing "Act Naturally". Watching it, I can't help but feel that I could have really belted it out more, and the harmonica is pretty sloppy. Well, for what it's worth:

Too Effin' Busy!

Well it's now tomorrow night already, and time for a post. Not sure for how long I'll be able to keep this break-neck pace of posting every midnight! Anyway, I noticed that I hadn't yet written anything on here about my fourth most recent production, which after reviewing again for the first time in a day or two, I still remain almost entirely pleased with The same does not stand for some of my previous You Tube creations. I would agree with many of my viewers that I have less than intentions of brevity shall we say. No matter, onward and upward, and I really feel that this video signifies new directions for me. The young actor in this video is very funny! Thank you very much Jimmy and Chris! I owe it all to you...and my guitar playing!

Wood Louse Over Easy

As promised, this posting will not involve any sort overview of my latest You Tube video, but rather something topical or abstract, and, as a special bonus, I will include a surprise at the end of the article for all my faithful follower! That's right, follower, in the singular, as currently, I have but one follower of this blog, and I would like to thank you very much for reading me! I think I've been working at this moremoreenough project for a little over seven months now. Congratulations for being the first to follow!

Normally when writing my blog posts, I just use the built-in Blogger text editor. You know, the tan coloured one that pops up when you compose a new post. This morning however, I decided to try out the Google 'Docs' word processor, and I must say, it has a very clean interface, and seems to work flawlessly. I recommend you try it out if you haven't already.

I can remember reading something almost a decade ago about how 'in the future', home computers will no longer require applications taking up space on hard drives, and that the home PC of tomorrow will essentially be minimalistic dumb terminals that relies upon high speed transfer rates and external software moreso than it's own built-in processors and storage devices. While this has become a reality in many instances, and the idea of mainframe-terminal networks dates back to the sixties, with the rate of miniaturization in storage capability, memory and storage no longer seem like obstacles and so such a prediction becomes moot.

I like the idea of having a home computer that can still do things even if I lose my high speed internet which means having my own programs available on my hard drive for my own use. What I'm trying to get at is that I don't want to depend on an external service to be able to scan some photos into memory and toss them around in a graphics program, or write a letter to my aunt if the ADSL were to go on the fritz!

God, I've been so computer minded lately. Just in case you weren't aware, I'm primarily a musician. I was heavily into computing as young as six - I had a Texas Instruments 99-4A and learned to write BASIC programs on it. I continued being geeky until discovering girls, guitars, and ganja! Computing would take a back seat for the next decade or so, however, I would still find the time to participate on local BBSs with my Amiga 500 throughout the nineties. It wasn't until about a year ago that I subscribed to high speed internet services; the novelty has yet to wear off! Now it seems that it's the music that sits on the back burner while I seek out new way to jam on the web. I can spend hours searching out information on Wikipedia, reading blogs, watching YouTube, honing my Plenty of Fish profile, and Facebooking.

Although I sometimes welcome technical challenges, the state of online computing today makes it so effortless to share ideas and has made things very easy for the artist/hobbyist like myself to strike a balance in form over function. Thanks to the clever programming efforts of computer geniuses the world over, I need not concern myself with technical minutiae in order to express my artistic ideas via the World Wide Web. Fifteen years ago, you almost needed an introductory computing course just to effectively read an online news feed. Today, your borderline computer-illiterate grandmother can set up her own You Tube channel with a few dozen well placed mouse clicks. The intuitiveness of web-apps is nothing short of astounding by contrast of what internet enthusiasts had to endure in the late nineties.

Enough. I'm sure that this topic has been covered countless times elsewhere, and so I will cease to sit here lauding the state of the art and praising those responsible. Here now, as promised, is a surprise. What follows will be the first video that I post to my blog that isn't already available on my You Tube channel. I know it's essentially all the same thing, with Google owning You Tube and all, but hey... let's pretend!

Sure Like those Caterham Super 7 Sport Cars!

If I had my choice of any of the street legal autos these days, I guess the Caterham would be it! Wow! Look at 'em go! My scope of knowledge about auto motives is fairly limited, but I would guess a Caterham Super 7 would retail starting somewhere around the $300k Cdn. region? I wouldn't know, but being that they are carefully hand crafted and all, I would think them to be extraordinarily pricey in the least and would obviously make a prized collector's item as they're custom built with your input. Is $1.2 million closer to what they cost? I'm wasting your time rambling on about it anyway. I don't know how much such an exquisite thing as this superb looking sports car will set one back. What a dream car; apparantly they're available in Canada. Check out the demo video for their updated models.

Though I'll most likely never own a Caterham any time soon, I'd like to change the subject to a couple of newly uploaded videos onto my YouTube channel, as that was the initial purpose I had in mind for the overarching theme for this particular blog; interspersing the video release notes with random and abstract articles isn't a bad idea. Yes, that's what you can expect from this website from now on. A random, topical post with a picture, followed by a random, topical post with a picture and a video discussion. Usually I'm not very rigid in avoiding chaos however, and much like our elected officials, may deviate from the rules I regulated for myself without notice. I think it's a good thing in some instances to have some sort of loose template for projects such as this one. Scanned photo's are fun to work with in various graphics editors (Corel Photo Paint is really groovy) and then sharing them with my favorite audience...So here's a still from a recent video for you all:


Note: Google's Chrome web browser is a really super browser in many respects, and I do like to use it, but Mozilla Firefox, seems more suited to using Blogger. Just struck me now, as I'm about to post a picture; I had trouble moving images using the Blogger posting editor within Chrome's windows last night. Firefox also seems to work more intuitively when resizing the size of the application's window!

Now to get back to the original reason for this blog and talk about my latest video in case anyone was interested. Or not. Just watch it.

Note: You can just click the black and blue seven pointed star icon on the far right to be swept away to my YouTube channel's home page. Feel free to post on the bulletin board if you have anything on your mind. Criticism, whatever.

So yeah...I'm not going to try and force feed you a video tonight. This next piece that I'd like to share, is just a day in the life sort of take. The guitar piece you'll hear throughout, is in fact me playing, and I think it's pretty good gypsy style on my part! (Is it ever windy outside my place! With my windows cracked ever so slightly, it's literally whistling into my apartment! Enjoy!

Futility in Motion?

I suppose it hardly matters what I say in this space. No one reads it, do they? Am I trying too hard, or not hard enough in my social networking pursuits. I guess that I don't update things enough to make it worthwhile for serious blog followers. Could it be that the content is lame? I think that I'm a pretty darn good writer, but I'm well aware that I need to post something daily in order to get attention.

Anyway, I'm happy to announce that I've been living my lifelong dream of being relatively obscure, residing in a cramped little bachelor apartment, and not having a job to have to awaken myself for at some uncivilized hour to arrive on time to! 

Toiling away at some mundaine thankless occupation in order to help in building someone else's dream seems absurd when all you get out of it is a humiliatingly less than handsome pittance every two weeks. Moreover, it seriously wreaks havoc with my natural bio-ryhtims. The harsh reality of the lot is magnified tenfold when you read the news enough to realize that the various deductions you see on your pay stub are contributing to little more than deceptive money shuffling by corrupt bureaucrats who always seem to be spending the citizenry's hard earned pay on some sort of maligned initiative or futile study. 

I hate everything about the modern day workplace routine - the expectations, the co-workers, the boss, the structure, the relentless commercial radio stations jockeying up over produced schlock performed by flash in the pan, overly promoted, passionless musicians. 

For many of us, a workjob is just a begrudgingly necessary part of life, and to still fewer, a labor of love. For me, a steady job is something to avoid at any and all cost! Don't get me wrong, I have had some decent jobs working alongside some wonderful people, but for the most part, my employment history has been extremely depressing; keeping in mind however, that the only thing worse than keeping some stupid and unfulfilling work post, is looking for a new one!

What the Buck?

Michael Buckley, successful, admirable, poignantly fun, and wildly sensational television personality rated my latest shtick a five on the YouTube-o-meter. I can't believe it! It means a great deal to me coming from a razor wit such as his, and I haven't been so excited in a long time.

If you haven't yet, go and watch him! You know, I don't even watch television, and rarely see films lately, and still, I find What the Buck a celebrity, pop culture gossip piece, highly amusing to watch, and I'm a tough critic!

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to watch, or WHO WILL potentially WATCH MY WEIRD VIDEOS. Remember folks, it won't hurt you to subscribe to my channel!

Barak Obama Promised You Change

I PROMISE YOU
STAGNATION!

Warm Up

Check out the new sound studio. Watch me play!

Electroconvulsive Vision

It sincerely pleases the good folks at moremoreenough records to announce a newly forged business alliance with electroconvulsive studios of Edmonton, AB.

"We could not have hoped for a more harmonious arrangement than these fine fellows", says moremoreenough records' vice president, B.R. Mathews of the fledgling studio, "not only are they novices in the industry, like us, but we found that through the course of working together, our respective artistic visions were really beginning to converge on some mutually agreeable focal point."

Dylan Blake, senior sound engineer and proprietor of the recording studio seems to agree.

"Those guys are like, trip factor nine, man. They like, almost tripped me out to the maximum with the shit that they know about music and electronics and politics, and like, everything. Oh yeah, and their office is downtown, so that's cool."

Slow Eddie Edmonton

Having yet to get a video camera of my own, I thus am limited to compiling and editing footage already stored on my computation devices' hard drive units. The instrumental work accompanying the video was recorded using a freeware program called 'Audacity' in conjunction with the 'EDIROL' high speed USB audio capture device on loan from C.J. Esquire who, incidentally, is also responsible for much of the raw video snippets you may see in our productions. I also have a good stock of photographic film prints which I sometimes like to incorporate into the videos...the latest includes a static shot of a very white cat I once spied sitting on a fence somewhere in Calgary.

Although I've never 'owned' a cat, they seem to really like me for some reason. I once psychically bonded with a calico kitty I was cat-sitting for a week-end. Ascending into the Astral realm while Suzie was at the foot of my bed provided a golden opportunity for me to interview her telepathically. She admitted to me that Michael Douglas is her favorite movie actor.

So what's new in my exciting and prolific life you might be wondering? Well, I've been managing to survive off of little more than rolled oats, plain pasta noodles, rice, and flax cereal for the past three weeks. Both my deep freeze and my freezer are now unplugged, and I am hoping that next month's electric bill from Epcor is reflective of these measures. Since being laid off from a job repairing Springtime Water Distillers at Big Iron Drilling last December, I haven't been able to land another work-job.

Oh well. I still have my trusty land line, high speed internet, and a music studio in my closet. I hope you enjoy Slow Eddie Edmonton. Check out my You Tube Channel and do yourself a favour by subscribing. I have another project in the works, and it should be up by next weekend if all goes well. Thanks for stopping in!




I

Best CANADIAN Guitar Player in the WORLD

Grey's Dichotomy - Retarded in Edmonton

While at my folk's place this last Christmas, I decided to do a bit of digging through my old cassettes and found a track that has become the sound track for my latest video which you can see below. The soundtrack was made sometime in the year 2000 using nothing more than an old Casio keyboard, RE-201 Space Echo, and a JVC tape deck. Enjoy!

II Maccabees, 11:23, TILMA, Stelmach, Alberta, Bafflegab, Bubble, Septagram, De Facto

I hardly know what to say about this video.