27/11/08
“The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful —because the reproached self isn’t abandoned; it remains intact.”
-Aldous Huxley
I fully expect for nobody to read this notice, at least not for quite some time. The reason for this is fairly obvious, as House of Gilbetron has been… well, abandoned... for the last six months or so. I seem to have lost my passion for blogging at some point this year. It’s not so much that there have not been things to blog about, and in fact on many occasions it has occurred to me to resurrect the House. But I didn’t, since making a single entry would be tantamount to recommiting myself to blogging on a daily, or at least weekly, basis.
But the blogging draught never lasts. As the most special time of year creeps closer and closer (T-minus 12 days!), I need to put the world on notice that the Joyous Days of Gilbetron will not be cancelled, postponed, or delayed in any capacity. The First Joyous Day will be celebrated right here at precisely 12:00 a.m. December 10, 2008.
Be there or be square.
[1]
28/08/08
“A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.”
-Liz Panting (Aug. 28, 2008).
Liz’s brother is a bastard. Seriously, Chris is an evil mofo. You will never believe what that lowlife did to me and my card-playing compadres. So, I was playing a cardgame called Calendalorious. Here’s how you play. You deal all the cards in a single deck among four players. You then proceed to play counter-clockwise, with each person laying a card on a day of the month. The last person to play a card on any given month is the winner. Each player must play in suit with the preceding player, or match the denomination of the previous card for extra points and to change suits. Not a fun game.
So, I was playing with Liz, Joel, and my dad. At the end of each month of play, we all left the room for various purposes (ie to go to the bathroom, to take short nap, or grab a snack). While we were gone between rounds, Chris (that inglorious bastard), snuck into the room and added extra cards to the deck. Not so many that it was immediately noticable, just two or three at a time. After a few rounds of this, I began to notice duplicate cards showing up in Calendalorious gameplay and it made me feel angry. Livid, even. Furious! Apoplectic! I couldn’t do anything about it and wanted to find him so that I could really let him have it.
This was a dream.
Except for Liz’s quote. That was real.
[3]
3/06/08
“Just wait till you see what I’m about to do.”
-John Locke, Lost.
I’m surprised — shocked, really — that I would feel the need to defend the merits of Lost after heeping as much praise on it as I did in my last entry. I’ve been trying to put my finger on just what about it is so groundbreaking. And it hit me: it has invented an entirely new form of narrative structure. This sounds strange to say, and is probably more challenging to understand, but the thrills of watching the show come less from drama than they do from chronology. Weird? Yes. But that’s because it is 100% entirely new. No story has ever been told this way before.
As I was stringing together these thoughts, I happened onto a blog in which the writer does a remarkable job of doing precisely what I had been attempting. And so, without further ado (and removing spoilers), here’s what another articulate fan had to say:
“Lost is a brilliant TV show, but it’s not brilliant the way our culture usually defines that quality — it’s not “Dickensian.” It’s thought-provoking, but the themes are not always complex; with a few exceptions, it has compelling characters, but they have motivations, [rather than strong] inner lives. Yet if there’s one thing this excellent [fourth] season has demonstrated, it’s that a TV show doesn’t have to be like a literary novel to be genuinely ambitious. Lost feels a bit like a detective story and a lot like a comic book, but even more like a video game, with some of the pleasures of sci-fi, and definite aspects of a magic show. It’s a new kind of tour de force.
“Its tricks are tricks of puzzle and chronology — showman’s tricks, rhythmic revelations that can lead to real emotional release — but are more centrally about the mathematical shock of watching two elements slip into unexpected relationship. The series has always rewarded near-schizophrenic levels of pattern recognition, to such an extent that it can distort my other TV watching (does anyone else watch The Wire expecting license-plate numbers to reveal hidden clues?). But the most original aspect to Lost is the sure-handed way its creators have dovetailed the satisfactions of a story with the payoffs of a game.”
Thank you, Emily Nussbaum of New York Magazine. You hit the nail on the head.
[11]
30/05/08
“Just wait till you see what I’m about to do.”
-John Locke, Lost.
It’s rare for me to watch live television. It started a number of years ago when I realized how easy it was to avoid immovable network schedules and obnoxious commercial breaks by building a dependence on DVD boxsets. Now that broadband is as fast as it is, I sometimes even watch missed episodes on the internet, thus allowing me to keep up with events on serialized shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost. Especially Lost.
Now, it wasn’t long ago that I would have railed against watching television episodes online. After all, the medium is so shockingly imperfect — the windows are so small, and when they are blown up to reasonable sizes, the pixelation is almost too much to bear. But my will has gradually been worn down. Who’s to blame? The writers of Lost, that’s who.
The show is so insanely compelling that I can’t resist. I have said it before, but I am now more certain than ever: Lost represents one of the defining cultural experiences of our generation. While there are plenty of good shows out there, this one is groundbreaking. This one is unlike anything that has come before. It is, in short, indescribably special, and it will be remembered that way.
The finale aired last night in an uninterrupted 3-hour block. The show has become so monumental and fasincating that I made the highly unusual decision of tuning in. There’s something unique about sharing in such a mass experience as live television, and it’s something I don’t often indulge in. The prospect of millions of viewers all around the world all at one time discovering the secrets and progressions of the finale was impossible to miss.
After the final frame faded to black, my evening took an even more unexpected twist. I ran to my computer and logged onto fan sites around the world to watch as hundreds of thousands of people took to cyberspace, frantically discussing what had just moments before been broadcast. I even participated in the various conversations.
If you haven’t yet embraced this series, you should really get on it. I can’t imagine what you’re waiting for. In twenty years, when people are looking back at Lost at having completely changed the way stories are told, you’ll want to be able to say that you were a part of it.
[5]
14/05/08
“Denny Crane!”
-William Shatner’s signature greeting on Boston Legal, which never gets old.
I’ve been bad. Very bad. I have completely been ignoring my blog. In fact, the very presence of my blog’s address in my browser’s favorite sites has been making me feel guilty for quite some time. Because I hate feeling guilty, it’s time for me to end my silence. Enough is enough!
The good news is that I’m having, by far, the biggest month of my business so far. This is particularly great becomes on the heels of the slowest month. That is, of course, the trouble of being self-employed. Without a solid, reliable income, one must find ways to weather the natural ups and downs until you have a sufficient number of ups in a row to protect yourself from future downs. Here’s hoping for ups!
Part of my blog silence has been due to the fact that nothing earth-shattering as been going on. I’ve been settling into my new house, watching a lot of CNN, and … well, that’s about it. Oh! I’ve been building a never-ending series of Lego houses. Every once in a while, I go into the storage room and pull out the Lego and start playing around. You’re never too old for it.
I’ve been watching two shows, Boston Legal and How and I Met Your Mother, both courtesy of Tom. By the way, Tom, you were right about How I Met Your Mother; very possibly it is better than Friends. My only point of indecision on the comparison, however, is that I have seen only one season of this, while it took ten years for Friends to make its mark on the world.
[2]
24/04/08
“Purple! PURPLE!”
-my sister Nicole, age 2, insistently shouting the name of her favourite colour at her birthday party.
On the eve of our family’s last night at our current residence, my mom pulled out a box of old cassettes that we hadn’t listened to for years. Since we grew up sans-camcorder (as many families did in the 1980s and early 90s), my mom recorded our birthday parties on cassette tape on whcih she interviewed us and our party guests … in theory, a highly journalistic endeavour. However, seeing as we were so young, our answers were rather nonsensical. Everyone talks at once (in voices that can only be described as extremely prepubescent), and it’s hard sometimes to make out what’s going on, but it’s great fun to listen to. In fact, in a way the confusion makes it extra intresting because we’re constantly guessing who’s saying what. Fun stuff.
In those days, we didn’t really have very many movies, and the only cartoons we watched were those on TV every Saturday morning. As I think was fairly common back then (but I guess I don’t much to compare my own experiences to), we were entertained by audio dramatic presentations, either on record or cassette. Most of them were musicals with storylines, and the vast majority were Christian-themed. Anyway, going through them is such a blast, since I even find I remember a lot of the lyrics after all these years. I guess maybe this helps explain my love for dramatic audio. I always thought I was slightly insane to enjoy “listening” to television shows on iPod, but now I realize that it was engrained in me from a young age. Something about really brings my imagination to life.
We’ve already moved easily half of our belongings to the new house over the last few days, so it’s really just the big furniture that’s left. I gotta say, there’s nothing sadder than an empty house. Even a house that I’m pretty eager to be rid of. The new place is truly sweet. I can’t wait to chill out tomorrow night in my new room. So exciting.
On the Political Front
The Pennsylvania primary, which I waited soooo long for, has come and gone. Hillary won by 10 points, exactly (and I mean very exactly) what she had to do to remain viable. And so we remain stuck in this political twilight zone for a little while longer.
[6]
14/04/08
“Clark, there’s no such things as vampires.”
-Prof. Milton Fine (a.k.a. Brianiac, a.k.a. James Marsters, a.k.a. Spike), “Thirst” (Smallville).
April is turning out to be an interesting, busy, transitional month. What with the looming threat of the tax deadline, having some work done on my car, packing and moving into a new house, and writing a book (another looming deadline!), I have a lot on my plate. Throw in 75 episodes of Smallville, and I’ve got myself a veritable soup of anxiety.
Last night CNN hosted the Compassion Forum, which was a two-hour Q&A period with the two Democratic presidential candidates. I’m told John McCain was also invited, but he declined to participate. In any event, the evening proved to be pretty lively, though not in the way you might expect. Instead of the typical debate style policy questions and political posturing, we were treated to long, ponderous, philosophical treatsies on the subjects of God and religion (Does God want you to be president? Does God bless America more than other countries? How can you claim to serve a loving God while also attributing global disasters to his authorship?) You might say it was a little unnerving to see Democrats make sense on subjects Republicans have typically claimed as solely belonging to them.
As for moving to the new house, it’s pretty spectacular. I had the opportunity to lay out the basement, and I’m happy with how it’s turning out. It’s really fun going over to the new place and checking out the progress every few days as the finishers go about their business. The house is progressing nicely, and it looks like it’ll be done several weeks ahead of schedule, which means we’ll for sure be in there in less than two weeks. Very exciting!
On the Political Front
And now, finally, at the risk of stirring up Tom’s vimmest vigor, here are two excellent, short articles with which I can strongly relate.
1. The Worst Thing I’ve Heard Obama Say
2. Big Snob or Little Snob?
[1]
2/04/08
“Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism.”
-About Wikipedia, an excerpt.
I feel about 2.5% smarter than I did yesterday. I had one of those Wikipedia sessions that began with the intention of checking a straightforward entry and ended five hours later after learning as much as I could about the Aegean/Black Sea watershed, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Central American Seaway, everything you ever wanted to know about Rodinia, and the Maldives (the most geographically interesting location on Earth I’ve studied so far, with the possible exception of Rama’s Bridge in southern Indian).
This is just one of those things that happens every once in a while. Like a cold lemonade on a hot summer afternoon, my thirst for knowledge much be quenched. And quenched often. I can’t imagine growing up in a time without easy access to information like we have today. I mean, people used to go to libraries — libraries — for information.
Television Update
I traded in a bunch of old boxsets the other day. I try not to do this too often, because usually you don’t get much bang for your buck, but I ended up being able to trade in 8 of my sets for 5 new ones. Not bad. I picked up a couple seasons of Smallville, Dead Zone, and the first year of 30 Rock. Tiny Fey is amazing, for the record.
[7]
29/03/08
“Holy crap, did I just see that? Did that just happen? Quickly, pinch me. No, punch me in the arm. Did I just see that?”
-Gilbetron
Canada just barely, barely, scraped past their semi-final against Japan to make it to tomorrow’s gold medal match against China. And when I say “just barely,” that’s precisely what I mean. They were 3 points down going into the 9th end. They missed their chance for 3, had to settle for a deuce. One down, they headed into the 10th end. They did everything they could, but still found themselves in a situation where Japan had an easy double peel to blank. And then — Japan misses! Going to the extra end, same situation; Japan with the hammer. Again, it all comes to last rock, Canada lying shot stone, it’s a draw to the button and … Japan draws light! It’s Canada by one!
If you didn’t understand any of that, you should probably rethink the course and direction of your life.
[3]
27/03/08
“They’ve been lauded for their superior shotmaking, admonished for their exuberant celebrating, and labelled by many as the surprise team to beat.”
-TSN on the surprisingly great Chinese women’s curling team.
Yesterday, Nicole and I headed over to my sister’s house to babysit Max for an hour or so while she went for a massage and few quick errands. I guess she was nervous about going, what with Max being just two weeks old. In fact, he was exactly two weeks old yesterday. You might say it was his birthday.
If so, I think it’s pretty clear that he hates birthdays. It wasn’t that Cara was gone that made him so upset … apparently he was fussy and mad all day. But wow. I know babies can adorable and cute, and I suppose this is the reality of childraising. Holding him until he fell asleep wasn’t the most fun I’ve had in a while, but I should say it wasn’t terrible either. Certainly it was my first experience of that nature.
I’ve been unable to peel my eyes away from the World’s Women Curling tournament going on this week in Vernon, B.C. I love curling! There’s something mesmerizing about the sport (yes, sport) that I can’t get enough of. I suppose it helps that Canada has a great team. Being the curling Mecca that we are, I suppose that’s usually the case.
[3]
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