Is Your Mobile Phone Slowly Killing You?

It might surprise you to learn, esteemed reader, that I've never owned a mobile phone in my life. Not a flip phone, not a brick phone, bag phone or even a smart phone.

My phone stays put!

Between you and I, I feel a smug sense of satisfaction when new acquaintances discover that I'm actually telephonically immobilized. Not that I'm out and about much or anything, but I hate the thought of someone interrupting my infrequent excursions with a phone call. I've heard more than one lamenting confessional about the euphemistic "dog collar" factor of always being accessible: Sometimes I just wanna chuck the damn thing into the river.

Just because I don't have a mobile phone, doesn't mean I don't expect everyone else to keep a mobile communications device on them at all times... for MY convenience!

If you're under thirty years of age, you've probably never experienced the joy of prank calling. With caller ID, it's neigh impossible these days. I'd invite my pals over and we'd sit around a rotary telephone taking turns making prank calls around the town. It was such a delightfully devious activity for us preteens. Our impromptu scripts were mostly juvenile and unsophisticated, but it was quite a lark when someone took the bait!

Today, if I want to prank call a friend, I use the VOIP Google phone and pretend I'm someone from California.

Zosia Mamet, Chacha

I watched the first four seasons of Mad Men on DVD over the past few weeks.

When I saw Zosia Mamet appear in the Sterling Cooper building's elevator, my faith in womanity was instantly restored. I know it's childish and weird, but I crushed hard!

Anyway, I find her captivating enough that I was inspired to try to make an MS-paint impression.

I know my brush strokes fall short. The eyebrow is way off, and the hair is all wrong. Even the perspective is awkwardly skewed. 

Zosia has a band, and I'm a yet to be acclaimed songwriter. I'd love to pen a song with her and her band in mind. I like her so much that I'd give her and her stellar band, Chacha, one of my compositions free of charge!

Harry Swift Harry Swift

Computer Liquor & The Middle Class

If you follow my feed on Twitter, then perhaps your impression of me is that of someone who spends all their time drinking liquor in front of a desktop computer screen. Let me assure you, Esteemed Reader, you couldn’t be more right! 

Today I took one of my Christmas presents, a $50 CDN banknote, down to the strip mall one long residential block away from where I live in my parents basement. I bought a package of 25 filtered cigarettes from the grocer’s before heading next door to the booze mart. 

Now, I don’t know about most people, but one of my friends who seldom drinks alcohol of any kind tells me that he’ll start to feel rosy (or even tipsy) after six beer in a sitting. This is not some slip of a man I’m talking about either. At 6'2" and 230 lbs. or so, he outweighs me by at least 35 lbs. Tolerance.

As someone with a reasonable palate who works sporadically, averaging just a little over a grand a month in wages, calculated booze selection is mandatory if I expect to drink every night. If only I weren’t such a bitter failure at life, my precious synaptic process wouldn’t need to be bothered by such   necessitated frugality. After the clerk at the till scanned in my six pack of 8% / vol. porter, I requested my usual pint of cheap rye whiskey to go with it. Total price: $27.05. 

I know someone who spends a frustrating twenty minutes a week rearranging stuff in a cramped deep freeze. That’s what you get when you can’t pass-up volume discounts in your obsession to save a few pennies. I’m gonna save money! Costs be damned!

Once you find yourself spending hard earned money and precious time on time / cost saving devices that never pay for themselves before they malfunction in some way, it’s time to reevaluate your purpose here on Earth - stuffing one's deep freeze so full of vacuum sealed meat and bulk bread, only to have them  become lost in the shuffle, and wind-up freezer burned, is ultimately more wasteful than conservative. Twenty minutes a week is seventeen hours a year. As unlikely as it may be (at least where I live), I imagine scrambling to find a power generator during an unexpectedly prolonged power outage on the hottest week of summer to preserve a $2000 investment in frozen food!    

My point is that some people take home economics to the extreme. Instead of hiring a cleaning lady to come in a couple of times a week, you live in a house full of space-age brooms, bottles of chemicals under every sink, robotic vacuum devices, and pantries bursting at the seams. You “invest” in home renovations during the good times, only to compete with the lowest bidder when everything goes bust. 

Am I wrong to think that most people, aren’t reluctant to shun cold logic for warm fantasy? I used to do a bit of busking on Electric Avenue in downtown Calgary when I was barely out of my teens. On a good night, I’d make about $30 in a couple of hours for playing Elvis tunes over and over. Then I’d carry my guitar sixteen blocks, across the Bow river, to my uncle’s place in Calgary’s little Italy district - in the center of which was a Dutch bakery. 

On one later than usual night out busking, I smelled the distinct smell of dough crusting as I approached my old flop house in Bridgeland. I couldn't believe anything was open for retail business before 5:00 AM, but there they were. With $40 worth of Loonies and Twonies jangling in my pocket, I thought, "What the hell."

Arrived home that morning with a couple of nice round loaves, still fluffy, and infused with hints of sage and other spices. Today it makes me think of suburban life. Gone are Damien the baker and Octavius the butcher. In their place are homogeneous aisles of stocked goods that glisten not with the moist glaze of a fresh cut of meat, nor butter brushed onto a crust, but of overhead fluorescent lights and cellophane. 

At the end of the day, it makes me think that much of the middle class are more than willing to trade-in a proper lifestyle for a false sense of being consumer savvy. 

Don't Know Why

Maybe some of you who are reading me are unaware of the fact that I started this silly blog before signing-up for:
Facebook- Blakey Mathews
YouTube- B. R. Mathews

or even MySpace: More, More, Enough!

Whatever.

Check out my new work of art! It's a cover song for a change:

Don't Know Why

To My Twitter Followers:

Lighten up!

Thom people are tho thenthitive! 

May You Get Bent?

I don't often draw, but I drew this around eight in the morning this morning.  

It always bothers me when people ask me if they can.  Gee... I don't know. Can you? 

Or folks who step-up to a cashier at a convenience store and open-up with, "I need..."

There's nothing here you really need. 

Blocked By Trudeau On Twitter

I went to try and favorite the great Liberal leader's Tweets, and this is what I see:

Justin's a Liberal with a capital 'L'. I don't blame him for blocking me. He's got far too much of your money riding on his outcome to bother with the likes of some mere tax-paying citizen like myself, eh?

@moremoreenough - Just Block Him!

If someone has the wherewithal to disrupt your orgy of blind consensus on political matters... well,  "u know..."

Whenever the "tho-thenthitive" crowd discusses the merits of blocking someone as profoundly ______ (fill in the blank) as myself on Twitter, I'm almost tempted to make a sport of getting blocked by denizens of the echo chamber!

Most Humourous Canadian Of The Year Award

This guy has got to be the one of the funniest around. I was laughing so hard at his #humour hashtags that I felt a compulsion to "favorite" one of his recent tweets.

Turned-out he'd blocked me! Must've been something I said once. Ah well. Everyone knows the best comedians are also the most sensitive of souls.

Here's to you, Graham!

Aerospace Concepts

My first in my aerospace concepts series.

This is a front, lateral facing view of a concept jet plane I've just designed. and decided to call, Hipster. 

Head-on view of Hipster concept jet aircraft, "Hipster."

I

I don't usually make a point of designing jet aircraft, but I think this one's a keeper. Just look at it.

Six Plus Seven Equals... Whoops... Wait a minute... I'll Tell You The Answer Once The WiFi Comes Back On!

I think my little chart speaks for itself. I'm not a Luddite by any stretch, but I know that it doesn't take $100,000 worth of cables, routers, and computers just to teach people how cables, routers, and computers actually function.

Let's face it. Wired classrooms are more of an IT contractor's dream come true than something necessary to prepare kids for the future or a panacea for educators.

Ready class? One plus one equals 0010011001110011110011111011110111011010...

Live Laugh Love

Oops! #ableg

Oops! 

CBC POWER!

How I Lean

On the scale of political ideologies, do you consider yourself on the right or left? Would you say you're more of a centrist?

I don't understand conservatism or liberalism. I only see fascism and losers.

My Crab Grew Tits

Alison's Free Air Taxi

Twitticized!

After tapping out a few messages to my mutual follower, @GuruJeremy on Twitter, and engaging in an exchange with "Not Steve Harper" (@PMOHarper), I was inexplicably halted in my tracks by the Twitter Police!

Toxic Tweeting. I was just imagining how some personalities might consider me something of a proverbial loaded dice. All I did was introduce a link to a heavy metal video I was enthralled by at the age of ten. Whatever. See for yourself!

Follow me on Twitter! @moremoreenough

Jian & Liza

I'm not about to invest too much time pontificating about the unsettling developments surrounding the whole Jiam Goomeshi thing, apart from pointing out that I never really cared for his interview style.

Instead, I'll just post this little juxtaposition that occurred to me.

Alberta's Alberta

Thanks for stopping in!

Last night, my home province of Alberta concluded a by-election that was called by our new provincially un-elected Premier, Jim Prentice.

After stepping down, his embattled predecessor, Premier Alison Redford, triggered a leadership race within the Progressive Conservative Party (PC) of Alberta, which Mr. Prentice won to become the official Premier of Alberta, although not necessarily a Premier of the people of Alberta. Something yet to be determined in the next provincial election.

Opposition leaders were frothing-at-the-mouth - determined to win seats, but alas, their efforts were all but in vain. They held public debates. They knocked on doors. They put up signs, They engaged constituents on Twitter.

I even pointed-out on Twitter that public debates are a stupid waste of time in response to opposition forces trying to score points over the PC no-shows after these forums were held. Mr. Mandel and Mr. Prentice knew better than to prostrate themselves at the temple of the granola munchers. Yes folks, despite their outright defiance when it came to the opposition parties' expectations of having them willfully attend these public debates, they won anyway! I love it!

In my opinion, the constituents of the ridings up for grabs made the right choice. Long live the Alberta PC dynasty!  

Here's a little provincial party and platform I invented last night for fun:

      

Just keep on plugging away at it;

I don't usually do the blog thing when I'm half-smashed, but this old laptop computer speaks to me. I have more than 850 followers on Twitter, and I'd estimate better than 89% of them are legitimate. I know this because I make a point of sussing-out my followship from time to time: blocking the bots, as I call it.

It's good to be on Google. It feels good to me.

Missing the days when caller I.D. was just a component of some geekazoid's premature ejaculate. No more tricking your buddies parents into thinking it's the fuzz calling about their wayward son. Me and pals used to amuse ourselves for hours on end making prank calls.

Whatever. Where I live, the kids got it made. I see youngsters driving stuff I might never afford - racy quads and side-by-sides. All I ever had to play with growing-up was Coleman camp fuel and gunpowder!

One of my favorite thing to do is to get drunk. Once I'm drunk, I revisit all the music videos I've uploaded to You Tube over the last few years - forty in total. As a musician who never stops growing, the practice is sometimes painful - I always think, "Man... I should've laid-off the solo guitar on that part..."

My playing is sloppy, but no matter. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to share the piss that pump. I invite you to listen to this video (I'd like to do better videos, but it's so time consuming)

Family Dog Attacked By Flock Of Birds, Dad Grabs Camera Phone.

Jackson Hole, ID In what could have been a scene from the 1963 film adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's evidently plausible tale, The Birds, an Idaho family's tiny pet dog, Frosty, was nearly pecked to death by a flock of wild canaries right before their eyes.

"I heard shrill wailing. Our son Daniel, who is five, was jumping up and down, frantically pointing out the window. No! Frosty! Stop birdies!" says Daniel's father, Yves Keystrom. 

"I didn't think twice when I saw what a mess those birds made..."

He continues, "It was devestating. I thought, finally I'll get some good footage - something worthy of uploading to You Tube... and, of course, my camera phone is indicating a low battery."

Click here to see Yves Keystrom's Footage of the event.

Miranda Keystrom, Daniel's mother, witnessed the surreal feeding frenzy. She estimates the attack didn't last more than two minutes. 

"There must have been around forty to sixty tiny little birds. They just swooped in like a bunch of those wayward youths who coordinate those retail swarming events. Poor Frosty. We named him Frosty because of his fluffy, silvery coat. By the time those nasty little birds were through, his fur was bright red," she says.

Yves went on to explain how the unexpected tragedy was actually somewhat of a relief to him.

"I didn't think twice when I saw what a mess those birds made of Frosty. His eyes were pulled clean from their sockets, and the insides of his neck were hanging out. I immediately grabbed the pitchfork from the tool shed and skewered his little heart with it," describes the currently unemployed TV repairman. 

"I can't afford the gasoline to get to the nearest clinic let alone vet bills."

Mrs. Keystrom agreed. 

"He was a pretty stupid dog anyway. He'd do the dumbest things - like spin in circles trying to catch his own tail, or whimper and whine whenever we left him alone. Every night he'd try to cuddle in bed with me and Yves. To tell you the truth, I was getting sick of feeding and cleaning-up after a walking mop head."  

Daniel Keystrom's only thoughts on the matter were, "I want Frosty to come back."

Wonders Never Cease

As you may or may not know, esteemed reader, I was born in a place called Medley, which is in Alberta.

After hearing on the radio today that the Executive Director of Alberta's PC party announce a move to electronic voting for his party's internal leadership election, I got to thinking:

1) Thomas Lucaszick will be the next Premier of Alberta.

2) Electronic voting will be implemented in the next provincial election.

3) Stephen Mandel is a distraction to quell the electorate.

Prentice and McIvor will split the vote. Thomas will enjoy the distinction of being the leader of the "kiss me and smile for me" party.

Why electronic voting? Why now?

I believe this internal vote is a dry run... a way to ascertain the potential of getting away with voter fraud. Plain and simple. If it works internally then let's push the envelope in the next provincial election, right?

Given all the money I'm making now, I won't even bother voting for any of these shysters this year. Sheer disgust is what I'm feeling right now.

Ask yourself, true Albertan, where would Mandel be without Katz?

Where would've Alison Redford be without a fleet of provincially fueled aircraft?

I actually like how Redford "stuck it to the man" in her own way. I called it waaaaay back. She had a nice holiday, and her daughter got to see some sights and feel important. Way to go, Alison. Good job.

I'm actually happy to see him TENTATIVELY running. I'm so glad he dis-mandeled the airport! Way to go Daryl... I mean Stephen.

"Coffee's On" - Franchise Potential?

If I were ever in a position to start-up a cafe with chain potential, I'd want to call it, "Coffee's On", and I'd like for the sign to look something like this:

It'd be a 24-hour service with a drive through. It would not accept debit or credit payments - if exempting one's business from such forms of payment is even an option when operating a restaurant in Canada?

Coffee's On would serve coffee. No cream, no sugar - just strong black coffee from freshly ground Columbia coffee beans. No frills, no napkins, no straws, no bagels, no donuts, no marketing gimmicks.... just coffee... in one of two sizes: large and small. The coffee would be brewed using Italian coffee percolators sitting atop gas ranges, and the lineups would move rapidly. The girls serving it should be pretty.

Price? Coffee's On will set its prices 20% / volume lower than Tim Horton's restaurant's pricing scheme... like an independent gasoline station might.

What do you think, Scrutinizing Reader? Is the coffee on, or is the coffee on?

False Implication & Alcoholic Finance

Greetings everyone!

It's been a spell since I've submitted an update in regard to my own general circumstances. I'd like to tip my hat to all both of my readers who reside in the United Kingdom - thanks for reading. My primary motivation In keeping this web log has always been to foster sympathy for one man's plight in a universe that is categorically opposed to my happiness and well being. Rest assured, esteemed and impartial reader, that I've still got a foothold in reality, and with your help we might defeat the forces of evil once and for all!

As a high functioning alcoholic, I'm hoping my observations surrounding finances might be of interest to some you out there. At face value, finances are just columns of numbers, but each and every number is associated with some value or some ideal - which is of empirical importance in predicting outcomes. Speculative reasoning. Associative predictors. Last year at this time, my wage was less than half of what I've been generating over the last month. The expectations involved with grafting in a short-order kitchen fall well beneath my many qualifications, but I just wanted an job that was within walking distance - something to put a few $20 bills in my pocket.

Now-a-days, I'm putting more $50 bills in my pocket, and my rate of alcoholic consumption, by dollar figures, is only about ten percent higher than when I was earning less than half as much money at the diner. This is beginning to sound like a grade five math problem, so let's just call it $24 / hour, averaging 30 hours per week.

I'm of the opinion that almost all working class Canadians are socialists. I'd consider myself more of a "loveliest" than socialist, but that's a topic for another day.

A web log, or any form of online account on social media, is an excellent means to document events in one's life. Last night I was posited by a close family member, to wit, a first cousin asked me over the telephone, "Blake, is there anything you want to tell me?"

Immediately my mind began racing with possibilities. Did I say something untoward while I was drinking?

"Well (my dear cousin), nothing that should be of any concern to you," was the gist of my response.

"I'm missing some money."

My heart sank.

"You are the only one who was in my house."

Presuming her "piggy bank" was in fact absconded with, and not misplaced, the above statement is undeniably false: namely because I would never even entertain doing such a disgusting thing to anyone - let alone a close family member.

UPDATE: I've edited / retracted portions of this post, and have extracted the remainder for storage in my personal archives for the time being. I was feeling vulnerable at the time I wrote it, and I felt the need to doubly document the nature of the events by publishing the details online. 

Have you ever been falsely implicated of doing something? I know I've pointed the finger at others before, and perhaps the only thing that feels worse than being falsely accused by someone else, is when the target of your accusation is vindicated.
  

Beer and Wine Review

Now that I'm working, I drink beer every night. Since I tend to switch-up my selections a bit, I thought it'd be fun to try my hand at a beer and wine review article.

Last night I drank about 13 beer between 8:00 PM, and 1:30 AM the following day. About 2.3 / hour? You do the math, esteemed reader. I then slept until about 8:00 AM when my little dog woke me up by jumping on my bed, and dozed-off again for an hour or so before my boss called me to work.

No hangover. If asked to self-evaluate, I'd probably gauge my performance level at about 89%. I dug like a dog, and I sweated buckets under the hot Cold Lake sun.

After work, I had a nice hot shower with a bar of Irish Spring bar soap. Ahhh.... lard, lye, and lavender! I didn't feel especially horny, so I didn't spend any extra time on twig and berries. Had a shave, put on a smart grey shirt, and headed down to the Shop Easy Food Mart for some cigarettes.

After paying for my packet of Number 7 King Size, my mind began, "Why don't you just get some beer, Blake? The booze mart is only one door down."

After mulling around the selection for a while, one of the cute young staffers asked me if she could help me find anything.

Salvation?

I didn't say that. I asked her if she knew anything about wine, and she quickly admitted that she didn't, I really appreciate that sort of mercantile honesty. When I buy a bottle of wine, I like the satisfaction of scoring a decent red for under $16.00. I'm about to open-up a bottle of "Lucky Star" California Appellation's 2012 Pinot Noir. I'm no wine expert, but I've rarely been disappointed by a Pinot Noir.

Rinsing my palette after swiftly sipping-down a half dozen McNalley's Extra ales from the Big Rock Brewery in Calgary, I think it safe to say that I'm now fit to properly taste some wine... and tell you all about it's subtleties. Here goes:

Just uncorked it. The cork was adequately moist. I think that's a good sign. Dry corks sometimes break apart, and then you've gotta deal with floating pieces of cork in your glass.BTW, it was a real cork...  I'm going to let it breath for a bit while I tell you about the new song that's been stewing in my mind. It's sort of an antithesis to Loverboy's "Working For The Weekend". Maybe I'll call it, "The Weekend Works For Me" or something.

I'm no wine expert, but I think serious aficionados will let a bottle breath for a while, and even decant the shit through cheese cloth before having a sip. I'm going to go a quarter way by stepping-out for a smoke before pouring a glass. I can't afford to wait all night. My family doctor prescribed, for me, alcohol: she scribed, drink enough to pass-out every night

After my cigarette, I gargled with a salt / Ajax solution to eliminate any lingering tobacco taste. Just kidding. The wine's been breathing for almost ten minutes now, and I'm about to pour a sample's worth.

I can tell you that it smells more interesting than Gato Negro. It's flavours are somewhat elusive after the first sip, but it is definitely less robust than diesel fuel. I know this because I once had to siphon diesel fuel from a tank.

Mellow. Extraordinarily mellow. It screams mellow - but that's a typical quality of Pinot Noirs, non?

The aftertaste is ever-so slightly astringent, but I for one wouldn't hesitate to serve Lucky Star Pinot Noir at a barbecue or a swinger's threesome. I can hardly wait to finish the bottle all to myself!

For under $15.00, I made what I like to call, a good score.

 

Collectivism

I'm faced, yet again, with a blank canvas.

Let me tell you, esteemed reader, that my arms are covered in freckles from all the time I've been spending outside. I have a job! It's a real job where I'm expected to really work. And by work, I mean the kind of work that makes my back look like Mike Tysons. You may have seen it on FOX News' Red Eye's Facebook page.

So Mr. Robin Williams is dead now. I tell you, he was an inspiration to me because he was so hairy. I'm hairy too.

I can't trust Facebook: I started writing the following:

Islam = Socialism. Socialism = Collectivism....

Boom. The whole God Damned computer started seizing-up. I even took a screenshot.


Collectivism = FIGHTING OVER THE LAST ROLL OF TOILET PAPER.

Or something like that.


Anyway, I fixed-up an electric guitar I bought for a reefer. It sounds excellent, and the maple neck is as smooth as maple. I had to do some frigging with the electronics of it, but it's noiseless, and the volume knob works. Aboodabeedabing!

My whole technologogolopoly is hijacked by the powers that be.

Invalidator: Over and OUT!!! :)

Peaceful Country, Infuriating.

Pretty Blonde

 I can't escape it. My folks watching back-to-back episodes of '24' at full volume.

BOOQUE... BIQUE... BOOQUE... BIQUE

That's my onomatopoeia of the ticking time bomb sound between segments of the series' episodes. It's almost as welcome to my ears as the tantalizing cymbal rolls at twenty-five second intervals on that 'Amazing Race' show I'm subjected to once a week.

While out for a cigarette, I could still discern the rapid-fire dialogue blaring from the Bose as far away as the vegetable garden, a full twenty-four paces from the back door of the house.

During the day, it's ALL 'General Hospital' - which as you may know, involves a great deal of sobbing, yelling, babies screaming, and baritone, monotonic mood-piano.  

The constant intrusiveness of the mood enhancing soundtracks and dramatic dialogue is not at all conducive to the creative process, so I'm giving-up on songwriting until my circumstances change. I find it almost impossible to form a complex thought let alone begin to punctuate and formulate lyrics with melodies in my mind. Still, I suppose I'm lucky it's just mundane irritants and I'm not cowering in a bomb shelter or hiding in an attic somewhere.

It's really a bit of a madhouse at times - this house I find myself living in thanks to my parents' graciousness. In those rare moments that the satellite feed isn't cranked-up to permeating levels, I find myself anxiously awaiting the next round of bickering, quarreling, or tedious "request". I know I shouldn't complain given all the real unrest around the world today, but I find it pointless to even attempt to do   anything  requiring more than five minutes of an uninterrupted attention span! I've gotten to the stage where I just think, "Fuck it. I'm not even going to bother to try to learn TCP/IP configuration procedures or learn about protons. I just know someone's going to ask me to pull weeds or peel onions any second now."

I'm thinking of heading up north to work this winter. The way I see it, if I can't make music or learn networking, I may as well make some decent coin turning a wheel and pushing a gas pedal for big oil all day. 

   

Pretty Red Head

Knockoff Watch

With only eight minutes remaining before I have to go and make muffins.... screw-it. The batter can wait another fifteen.

I've been wondering if my comments on The Facebook are just being shuffled into the deck. I always leave some real humdingers; the almost complete absence of feedback begs the question: does The Facebook hate me?


My Mom's taken to reading all these dark-themed contemporary works of fiction. It started a few years back, and if I weren't preoccupied with more important projects, I'd probably write one of my own under a pen name, and ask her about details as she reads it through - unbeknownst to her that her son is in fact the author! Anyway, I did take the time to throw together this mock cover, and wrote a synopsis to boot.

Background Image by Rick Mathews

With his lengthy history of ridiculously dangerous, clandestine assignments for a most super secretive organization, even Devon Brandt wasn't prepared for the quagmire of obfuscating details awaiting him in small-town Newbrunswick.

He thought he'd be leaving behind the urgency of cloak and dagger operations when he retired his agency's swipe card to settle into a quiet life of photography and internet dating. He couldn't have been more wrong.

Just when the casual intimacy of Brandt's new found playboy lifestyle reaches a plateau - a formidable bevvy of attractive, but neglected married women, at his beck and call - he stumbles upon a compelling coded message from a WWII intelligence outfit under a Margaret Atwood novel sitting on the bedside table of his favorite black book librarian.

Unable to let sleeping dogs lie, Brandt's insatiable curiosity leads him on a lurid rural goose chase to ultimately uncover a great deal of death and dying - and even some dying dead - and a wee bit of deathly dying for good measure!



A friend of mine told me that he thinks my decision to continue using The Facebook without friends is snobbish. The truth is that I felt as though the entanglements of my Facebook friend network was somewhat of a disservice to my real life friends with real life jobs. My current independence and disaffiliation with the corporate world means I'm free to say whatever disparaging thing I want - and since I have no job to lose, I make it my job to express my opinions.

It can be a challenge to separate the individual from the organization. I think most people are afraid to even begin to confront the real numbers - the quantifiers that validate their context within a free market.

If you've followed my blog at all, you know that I'm one Canadian who heavily favours the Conservative Party over both the Liberal Party and the official opposition - even though the CPC mantras don't really speak to me personally: I'm not a hard working family man; I'm not interested in fixing-up houses, making Tim Horton's a part of my day; or undertaking home renovation projects.    

What I do like is economic stability with a chance at volatility. I like the idea of banking dividends from investments in things like tobacco, ammunition, and other consumables. I like to gamble with venture capital in an arena where Mr. Man In Black isn't told by some Associate Assistant to the Senior Director of the Department of Watching Prosperity to come sniffing around every time you turn a buck.

From my research, I gather that this guy paid too much for a knockoff watch. Now he's pissed!

One of my favorite observationists is Mark Steyn. I see him as a modern-day musical-Hemmingway. (Based upon my impression of what Hemmingway was like from reading some of his published personal correspondence.)

Tomorrow I plan to do a bit of cosmetic work on this here web log, and add a widget linking to my Soundcloud page. More on this tomorrow... off to make some banana muffins!

Ambiguity & Aspirations

Esteemed Reader;

When it comes to Canada, I know very little about the interrelationships between our judicial system, our parliamentary protocol, and or our Supreme Court. As limited as my own understanding may be, I suspect that the average Canadian knows far less.

Once you begin to examine the history of politicians running roughshod over people's liberties and livelihoods, you'll find little in the way of resistance until after the damage has been done. Billions of dollars de-materialize without so much as a "hey, wait a minute here pal", and people never seem to notice until the evidence has been made into confetti, and the fallout takes effect on their household budget. Nobody bothers to read the small print or present effective arguments, and governments will do everything imaginable to avert public scrutiny until they're ready to take the chisel to the tablet.

I've never really experienced what it's like to have a livelihood, and so I sit back as a well-fed casual observer and watch other people struggle to make ends meet while their elected representatives in government live the good life on hidden tax revenue. A cult of personality elevating itself into a parasitical elite class.

Stephen Harper is criticized for appealing to the Supreme Court when everyone knew that the outcome was a forgone conclusion. I see his resolve as a series of expository exercises. Pushing one envelope at a time until the stack of mail casts a shadow of doubt that no bias exists. Exposing  the redundancies of a sitting authority as it relates to a parliament that practices democracy through perseverance... or something like that. While all manner of theoretical and scientific means are available to predict the likeliest outcome, you can never know with absolute certainty whether or not the seed will sprout until after you've added water and waited.
  

Ambiguous Potentialities

Wow. Not one squiggly red underscore after pasting-in this piece from a word processor sans spell-check. I'm getting good!

Here's a little diagram I made to illustrate a technique I came-up with a long time ago to free-up a passing lane. It always infuriated me when someone was cruising along in the outside lane, seemingly oblivious to the massive traffic congestion they're solely responsible for. My simple approach always worked like a charm, though I should warn that you employ it at your own risk: with so many hot-headed powder kegs out there, don't blame me if things go awry!

While waiting for the dog to come inside last night, I noticed one of those fruit infused yogurt cups with a foil cover in the refrigerator. Its best before date came and went over a month ago, so I gave it a good whiff before grabbing a spoon. It didn't seem to taste quite as it should, but it wasn't at all putrid - usually, if i eat yogurt at all, it's the plain stuff.

Despite some intestinal discomfort as I drifted-off to experience some incredibly complex dreamscapes, my stomach feels just fine this morning. 

It's a relief to finally be turning some serious coin again, and if trends continue, it looks as though a Ural motorcycle will be in the cards before summer's end. All I've got to do is to maintain my relative sobriety and continue working-out problems related to economies of scale for my friends in the EU. I never dreamed my unorthodox and impulsive approach to mathematics would ever be of value to anyone. 

Mean saturation vs projected permutation of gross domestic product as a factor of redacted deficit differential over [CPI (Commonwealth) vs DELTA {inflation/GDP*debt}] within a period of time. Something like that. These relationships just occur to me much like a chord progression in a song.

Economics as a musical movement in a song in the key of commerce. Certain things are obvious to me, and people, when properly classified, have spending habits that are easily predictable and malleable - they can be correographed and orchestrated - one step forward two steps back. Impulse vs. caution, labour vs. laziness. 

Whichever metric I consider, things aren't looking good for the ordinary bloke in the not-too-distant future. I predict a period of massive layoffs, escalating crime, rising food / energy costs, and war. People will sink or swim, and naturally, for every pedestrian who's left treading water, a dozen will drown. 

The inherent infinitissimal nature of demographics is an intangible that is continually in a state of flux. While it can be tedious to derive certainty from ambiguous potentialities, I feel safe in suggesting that most of us are about to get hooped!

The REAL Twitteroid!

There I sat, at the computer upstairs, having a good time making comments on The Facebook and little Twitterer observations, when the whole household wireless Internet suddenly - inexplicably - ceased to work! All this after I had taken the time to carefully reset all the God Damn modem and wireless settings! Maybe I'm just feeling self-important or paranoid, but I tell you, Esteemed Reader, it all seemed just a little bit too selective for my liking, eh? 

Once you have over 900 followers on Twitter, you know someone is listening. I acquired my followers organically - that is, I didn't pay for them. They follow me because I'm real, and I tend to tweet whatever's on my mind.

If you were to take the time to check-out who actually follows me, you might be surprised... even I forget celebrities sometimes. I'm someone who makes a point of periodically blocking any "spiritless husk" accounts that happen to pick-up on my novelty. The bots. Data miners. If someone were to analyse the legitimacy of my followers, the results would likely set me, @moremoreenough, well apart from the herd. I'm a realist. Quality over quantity.

 Anyone can mine data. I sometimes keep screen shots of Facebook exchanges. If I were a keener, I'd probably make a point of logging everything - but I'm just an indie Canadian musician. Musician beats data miner!

Omar And Me

I've written over 250 articles, and I have yet to see one cent for my time and effort. I think it's time to throw-in the towel and start turning the wheel and pushing the gas pedal as an oilfield bus driver so I can afford to slowly drink myself to death on something other than domestic swill.

$38 / hour is what it's going to cost to keep me from sharing my opinion on the Internet throughout the day. It beats the kick in the ass I'm getting for spending so much time attempting to provide helpful insights and endeavoring to become an authority on... something.

Right now, I do chores for cigarettes, food, shelter, and the privilege of being on-call 24/7. I don't know what my folks expect from me. It feels as though I've been built-up just to become a scapegoat for every undesirable element of their lives. A misgiving of an ill-fated double-down blackjack hand. A pariah. A egregious misfit. I don't even like hockey.

Mom taught me to read before I was four, and I took to it - I was highly curious, and loved to lord knowledge over others. Now I'm expected to embrace the mainstream? To be happy scraping gunk under the supervision of some semi-literate wanker for a living? Piano lessons at six, and I'm chastised for making too much noise in my humble studio / bedroom once a week... even though I endure the likes of City Line, Dr. Phil, General Hospital, Amazing Race, etc. blasting at full volume every night?  Perhaps you think me an ingrate, esteemed reader - perhaps I am. I might be better-off today had my folks simply neglected their only child a bit more, and kicked me out the door when I was eighteen.

Someone like Omar Khadr would probably turn his nose-up at the sort of wage-work I'm considering... maybe I'm a sucker? Maybe I should just join the Taliban / Al Quieda / CIA, kill some Americans, spend a decade in prison, and then get $10 million bucks from the Canadian government upon being released? I know I sure won't make $1 million a year at an honest, unskilled job, and I'll gladly endure a daily routine of three squares and a chair punctuated by a bit of water-boarding for that kind of money! It wouldn't be much of an adjustment from my current situation. Heck, even a University President only averages about $280,447!

Since my input of opinion is of no consequence, and I'm shunned from polite society, provincial politics has become little more than theatrical amusement for me. The governance of the day really has zero impact on the average person's bottom line... the one constant being that you should expect to get bilked six ways to Sunday regardless of who holds the scepter. I won't even bother casting a provincial vote anymore.




I'm still anxiously waiting for the arrival of the Arturia Minilab MIDI keyboard. You should understand, esteemed reader, having this unassuming electronic doodad at my disposal will be the highlight of my whole year... made possible by a extraordinary couple, devout Catholics, who God has blessed with an appreciable number of impressively nice children who I'm certain will become paragons of virtue if not proverbial pillars of whichever communities they eventually choose to reside within. It's the second year in a row that they've gotten me a Long & McQuaig gift certificate as a Christmas gift.

Although I'm not religiously affiliated myself, I become suspicious of motives whenever anyone disparages the Catholic faith in my presence - the same way I become suspicious whenever anyone starts attacking anything. It's been my experience that vehement attacks on institutions often originate with perceived sleights that are, more often than not, really just a deflection of the complainant's own personal failings. I don't mean to suggest that Roman Catholicism is the essence of purity in matters divine, just to point-out that the exceptional is often a target for malfeasance.

I cannot help but to think of this selfless family as perhaps one of the finer examples of the good people who comprise today's Catholics. Peel away the layers of controversy that has surrounded the faith throughout history, and what you're left with are honest folks sincerely striving to manifest the truthful teachings of Jesus Christ - and who can argue with the wholesomeness and righteousness of Christ?

God bless him, Satan sure tries!

Theosophy is of course a matter of discussion better left to those who have a more vested interest in historical accuracy, so I'll settle on the position that merciful loving kindness is something we all have a capacity for as sentient beings.

Creating music has become my last positive refuge from a life as a lonely societal loser. I've all but entirely lost the ability to 'go out there and put on a brave face!' I'd much rather drink beer in solitude than spend time exchanging sober pleasantries with people I fundamentally disagree with. I'm tired of poking holes in bank-slave philosophies.

My existence isn't entirely devoid of love: thanks to an old friend who set the folks-up with a puppy, I enjoy the company of a very affectionate dog who doesn't seem to mind that I'm a lazy slob who sits at a computer all day long!

Fist Full Of Drachmas For A Chimney Sweep

Mom & Dad bought me for a fistfull of Drachmas from a Greek restauranteur, Zeno, who told them that he'd found me under one of his tables of his cafe on the outskirts of Athens when he was closing-up shop one evening. I don't have much of a recollection from those days, apart from the ever present smell of the fish, and the legions of feral cats that would come skulking around for scraps.

We arrived in Edmonton, Canada in 1981, and it wasn't a month after enrolling in school that my parents put me to work with one of the local chimney sweeps. My boss would pick me up from the school bus stop, and we'd work well into the night every weekday - I was lucky to get leftovers from dinner before heading-off to bed, but Mr. Orlioni would usually save half of his tuna sandwich for me. It was always tuna. 

I remember him saying, "Blake... you shoulda be saving it until-a-break-time or you gonna get too slow on da job, eh?" as I was stuffing my face with the ever-so-welcome mayonaisse and tuna smeared on Wonderbread. 

For three years I worked every day after school - from four 'till seven or eight o'clock at night. The pay was a buck and a quarter an hour, and I was allowed to keep two dollars a day for myself. 

$10 / week allowance was considered better than average among the other kids of my neighbourhood, and I have fond memories from the summer before grade two - smoking cigarettes and comparing comic books with my chums by the river. I had a smokers cough even before taking-up smoking from breathing-in all the chimney soot at work each day!

Green Energy Ideas - The Solar Wafer

For some time now, I've been thinking about an alternative energy configuration. I'm more of a creative type than an engineering sort... more of a dreamer than a doer. I have no idea how practical this design might be, or even if someone else has already made something similar. It's my hope that in the least, it might prompt someone with the resources and know-how to expand upon my idea - if it indeed shows any promise or novelty. Please forgive the crude diagrams I made using MS-Paint:

The idea here is that you'd construct a wafer comprised of a square matrix of water-tight glass cells, sandwiched between a tight array of Fresnel lenses and a solar panel. I imagine the thickness of the water cell layer to be no more than one inch. I'm thinking if such a configuration were to be 2' X 2' in surface area, each individual wafer panel would probably weigh over 100 lbs. Installing several on a rooftop shouldn't present significant weight strain considerations. No more so than would a couple of feet of wet snow accumulating on the roof... and if you live in a region where snow needs to be routinely shoveled away from your rooftop, such a system would obviously be unsuitable throughout most of the year anyway!    

I apologize for the calamity of the schematic above. It's just intended to be a rough overview. 

Water would be circulated through the glass cells underneath the Fresnel lens to become super heated. Maybe the hot water tank is situated right behind the east-facing roof where the solar wafer grid collects sun? In this way, the water temperature would be elevated to a nominal rate as the sun rises, merely by strategically locating it in the warmest part of the home. 

Presuming the Fresnel lens concentrates enough sun rays to heat the water in the cells beneath to the boiling point, the resulting steam might then be condensed enough to supply the demands of a steam-powered electrical generator? In the least, this system should bring the temperature of the water high enough that it would take a minimal amount of conventional energy (natural gas, heating oil) to finish the job...  whenever the sun is shining, that is. Of course, when the sun is shining down, you don't need as much heat anyway. That's where the idea of possibly (and probably noisily) converting the steam to electricity comes into play. If you already have a boiler supplied radiant heating system in your home, such a set-up might reduce your gas bill, but I doubt it would pay for itself in ten years time. 

For what it's worth, there you have it. An idea for a very basic system to passively generate both electrical power and heat water from the same surface footprint.  

   

Don't Question Canadians Online Watching Question Period... Period!

Here are my final thought - the ones I didn't have a chance to share before my rather abrupt disbarment from this little Facebook enclave:

After merely providing a link to a McLean's article (one I didn't even read myself) it appears I'm no longer welcome on their Facebook page: Canadians Onlne Watching Question Period. They should really change the name to one of the following: Group-Thinker Tinkers Pretending To Watch Question Period; Kim Leaman's Echo Chamber; Math is Hard - The Science is Settled; We Think We Know Better Than Charles Darwin

Anyway, at least now there's no doubt in my mind that Kim Leaman doesn't want for his  platoon to be reading anything that he himself doesn't point to or first approve of. After all, science is not some silly lexicon of knowledge to be continually built upon through careful observation of a universe in flux, but whatever the handsomely financed lab-coat brigade currently says it is. The world is flat! No further discussion necessary!

Ah well. To be a credential-less lone voice in the wilderness of the new world. I can't help but feel a sense of vindication in being denied the right to further participate in a close-minded back-scratching forum.  

I understand the frustration of having your only basket of eggs stolen. You bank all your hopes and dreams on a single theory with the potential to create a paradigm shift in society. In doing so, you scapegoat anyone who might question its validity, and base your whole raison d'etre around this theory - attracting psycophants in the process. 

Capitalists then do what they do best - they begin to capitalize on the potency of the movement as an opportunity to raise leverage against their fellow capitalist competitors. They will fan the flames of dissent using polarizing divide and conquor strategies: poor people are easily manipulated into embracing socialist ideals fostered by capitalists: "If you're poor," says the oil cartel funded think-tank, "it's because those wealthy oilmen are getting rich by raping your planet." 

Duh... gee! I guess they must be right! I knew it must've been something other than my poor grades in school and my inability to put down the PS3 controller!

The oil cartel funded think-tanks aren't staffed by disenfranchised drop-outs, but by academics and trust-fundees. These rich kids know they can rally support for 'the cause' from the ranks of the "it's all good" crowd. The kids who weren't present in class when the introduction to the computation of partial differentials was being taught.  

Then along comes a modern-day Einstien (maybe a journalist with a good mind for numbers, or an amateur scientist who's main gig is working in a tire shop) without any affiliations -someone who doesn't care what either side thinks. Someone who just has an enduring passion for the truth, and can plainly see that the data of the week doesn't quite add-up right. 

Like the ancient Greeks who ascertained atomic theory using philosophy (see brain) - over a millennium before the advent of electron microscopes, our modern day Einstein, most inadvertently and nonchalantly pokes a few holes in the thin fabric of the latest 'settled' argument. Not because he's vindictive or hates the whales, but because the math is obviously contrived and false.

Whoops! That can't be right, Einstein! We have 4000 lab-coats with paper credentials who would beg to differ (because we pay their mortgages) with your "tire man" truth! We can't afford to have something as unprofitable as honest scientific reasoning throwing a wrench into our plans to build a profit extraction machine!

So there you have it folks. The essence of climate scaremongering science. A pawn on the chessboard only moves in one direction! 

        

House of Uncommons

The Sun News Network is the best thing to happen to Canadian television since Kids in the Hall. I rarely miss their weekday prime time lineup of shows starting with The Source at six o'clock, followed by Byline at seven. Ezra Levant's team at The Source has knack for coining appropriate colloquialisms to describe lefty activist tactics: "rent-a-mob" comes to mind.

I remember checking-out the "occupy" set-up in Edmonton with a friend. It was spooky. There was a tent set-up full of voodoo Marxist literature, a couple of hipsters in charge of keeping the diesel generator running for the laptops, and bearded faces speaking to one another in hushed tones. It was one of the most unhappening "happenings" I'd ever experienced - a field trip into the downtown for mom's basement dwelling suburbanite slackers. 

Of course, I'm a mom's basement dweller, and I'm not ashamed of it. If I weren't a total loser with no friends, I wouldn't be spending this long weekend mucking around on the computer, right? 

Last night after roto-tilling the vegetable plot in the backyard, I hit The Facebook with a six-pack of Big Rock's Honey Brown ale. If my excitement over the instant feedback I was getting to my comments isn't an indication of how uneventful my own life has become, maybe my chronic daily dose of online Scrabble is. Once upon a time I would've spent May Long camping-out on the shores of Cold Lake with a dozen friends, taking requests on the guitar.

This is the Facebook page I was "trolling":

Canadians Online For Question Period

Being a genuine ideological supporter of the strong, stable, majority ruling Conservative Party of Canada, my views were an instant hit! Even though I managed to embarrass myself somewhat, the discourse remained cordial enough, and I thoroughly respect the proactive provision of a thoughtful public forum pandering to all those who oppose Steven Harper's most rational and reasonable agenda. It's a sign that the spirit of democracy is alive and well, and that there are people actually paying attention to the proceedings in the House of Commons. 

By this point, I think I was becoming a bit drunk and indignant. There was no Honey Brown Ale left, and I was intent on taking the dog for a walk to get more beer. After a hard-day's work and little more than a light breakfast, it's safe to say I was "buzzing pretty good" anyway. I do remember consciously restraining myself from becoming too emotional, but looking at my submissions this murky morning, it's clear to me now that I was becoming semi-delusional!  

"Dude is a waste of time a joke if you will"

Maybe so, but at least I'm not afraid to use my own image next to my name, and I take the time to correctly punctuate my sentences. In all fairness, "Kell" is likely using a handheld mobile computing device, and that makes even capitalizing the first letter of a hurtful comment tedious enough!  

From here on in, things are just getting absurd... I tend to get a scrappy attitude when I drink too much. I admit it's a character flaw, and I use alcohol to inflate my own self-esteem. 

It was indeed refreshing to get some feedback flow at all; I sometimes wonder if I'm typing into some Facebook abyss when rebuttals to my observations don't surface. All-in-all it was a rather fruitless exercise - I blame myself for not being more subjective, but I look forward to more productive political dialog from this page in the future.