Below are the most recent 10 friends' journal entries.

Friday, January 8th, 2010
gaelotek	12:31p	Pomo Hate Machine (alt. Please attack Twilight and/or Farmville creatively) Here I mangle a post originally found on enigmaticdan 's account: Fanboy, fangirl - the worst things to be called in geek culture. "What you like is bad! Don't you know that it's bad?" But really, are we all approaching this the wrong way? Isn't it great someone can find joy out of a supposedly mediocre cultural object? I suppose the problem is fanboys and fangirls visit forums, blogs, et cetera and proclaim how great their object of worship is, and if people don't see that, they're deliberately disliking it. They're anti-fanboys, which itself a kind of fanboyism, isn't it? Or fanboys of the alternative, lesser interpretation of the TV show, comic book, or film franchise in question.   ( Why? I'm not sure. ) Current Music: Lil Wayne - I Miss My Dawgs (feat. Reel) | Powered by Last.fm (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
gaelotek	12:28p	Not There Even though it's a particular conceit of mine to claim empathy with this, my favourite quote (as compared to part) of Todd Haynes' I'm Not There is the following which is said by Richard Gere portraying Bob Dylan, portraying Billy the Kid, as he skips town and loses his dog on a boxcar "People are always talking about freedom, the freedom to live a certain way without being kicked around. 'Course the more you live a certain way the less it feels like freedom." Now I feel a kin to all of that, but the emphasis is mine, it emphasizes a caveat of which I often forget. Current Music: Richard Hell & the Voidoids - New Pleasure | Powered by Last.fm (1 Comment |Comment on this)
gaelotek	2:26a	Linked Out I think that LinkedIn inspires, for me, a kind of rage most privacy-conscious citizens reserve for Facebook and Google. I understand, though I'd tell you I always did, what people must feel when they know that this entity is there scavenging through every morsel of information a person lets slip off their table. They must feel violated, even if they don't hold faith in the Internet only existing to betray customers (or commerce-enablers, given how income banks on the reader finding the supplied ads interesting) to cryptofacist governments. I feel that way when I'm looking at LinkedIn. To me Facebook provides a freedom of expression, I can place something embarassing or incriminating on a site for all to say, damn their employment opinion of me. If I place something there it is because I am proud of that something and I will not let even an employer take it away from me. (This is why I haven't joined my employer's facebook network, mind you, and why there's only one person from work I've facebook-friended.) LinkedIn is not a place I feel comfortable doing that. It is so geared towards appearing professional and sellable that I do not feel free or comfortable there. All I see on that site is a set of HTML voices demanding that commodization in active-false tenses. LinkedIn asks me not to brightly display my qualifications, but instead to carve myself of anything that is not a marketable bulletpoint. This makes me feel ashamed and objectified. But I can't deny that to not be on it is to be a career Luddite. I'll take to it slowly and carefully, and maybe one day I'll feel competent enough to demand that employers accept my natural presentation while promising that they shall be duly compensated. Current Music: Bob Dylan - Don't Look Back (Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
gaelotek	11:40a	Huh. A statement like this is only as profound as the reader's belief structure is underdeveloped, but here is a selected statement line off Chuck Klosterman's Sex/Drugs/Cocoa Puffs. It wasn't the best part of the book, and it wasn't part of the critical and cultural (and slightly yesterday) thinking that makes it the favourite book I have read this year, but it is the one that most sticks in the craw of my self-awareness. "I've never met anyone I'd classify as self-aware: It's been my experience that most extroverted people think that they're introverts, and many introverted people make a similarly wrong-headed juxtaposition about being extroverts. Maybe that's why extroverts won't shut up (because they always fear they're not talking enough) while introverts just sit on the couch and do nothing (because they assume everybody is waiting for them to be quiet)...."   It expands quite interestingly from there, but as the length increases my cynicism -- by principle -- reaches for the salt. Packaged into the above arbitrary little nibble, it claims something upon which I must seriously ponder. ( The rest of it, to be fair. ) Current Music: San Serac - Tyrant | Powered by Last.fm (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
gaelotek	11:46a	The Art of Parties Spent New Year's Eve in West Galt (North Dumfries). Considered spending it in bed reading Gravity's Rainbow, but perhaps made the right decision. You know how I get when prepping for social endeavours. Was invited by housemate to her parents' place, supposedly surrounded by woodland and waterworks and such. Other housemates were going, as were mutual friends none of which I consider bad people. Was mulling the answer while listening to them play Beatles Rock Band, insult people they didn't like, and pour on massive hate for Fleetwood Mac. Stuck with it because it was the least sensical invitation, the most different from years before. -- The place was the kind of place horror movie dreams are made off, open-room cabins smelling of wood with scantly-lit pathways giving the illusion of neighbourly aid. The Kitchen alone was the size of half of our house. A spiral staircase sent up the middle of the living room to a bedroom which had chosen full-length windows for walls as private paths and ponds and woodland could be surveyed as one slept. Myself and S. made dinner, sweet potato quesedillas on his part and a sweet potato slash black bean stew on mine. With our combined leftovers we improvised a salsa, impressing ourselves with culinary lateral thinking (sort-of.) After using a nice set of knives, I want one of my own again (The name Misono comes to mind.) The same applies to gas stoves. I prever cluttered cramped living areas, however, they seem warmer and more livable. -- Glasses of Frangelico. C. devours all the shrimp and we cheerfully laugh at her about it. A. catches a few dozen peanuts in his mouth and pours himself Sambuka. Smoke-ring circles, first bongs then pipes. Tobacco is discussed, I suggest mixing in Djarum for next time. The stereo blares The Beatles, Elvis Costello, follows up with Oingo Boingo and Euromotion. Z. lowers her eyes at this musical history of her ex-housemate. I think of Dan (Fernando) and him suggesting that I'd enjoy Brian Eno. Nobody knows or understands Tangerine Dream, but they file the second-half of Phaedra away for next time. Scooter begins but is skipped as generic "DJ music". The Stones never come up at all. -- K. dances and talks about film archiving in UEA and cannot cannot keep a straight face in any picture. W. giggles and snorts and admits that she only allows people to yell things like "You're pretty" and "The bus you're waiting for is going to show in two minutes!" at random people on the street from her car. I am not going to pet a dog just because it's there, which is strange. As of this writing I have cajoled the cat George Michael onto the sunny spot on my bed where he sleeps, occasionally stared at when I'm thinking. We go outside and light a fire, fueled by Mike the Punk's Jimmy Buffet record sleeves and W.'s undergraduate career. One minute to midnight, we light sparklers and dance around. A., the only one completely blasted, is giggling and boistrous, giving advice to anyone that won't listen, running up hills and we all laugh at him before he slinks off to pass out on a couch in his suit and tie. Mike the Punk holds sixteen sparklers in each hand; Later, he tries to light a cigarette from the flames before deciding --at our urging-- that a pristine face isn't worth a small social reputation. Half-an-hour before the bell tolls I recieve an email message on a phone I forgot to turn off. It's nothing, just a message, but defines so much of what I did in 2009 and why I did them Just when I think I'm winning, When I've broken every door, The ghosts of my life, Blow wilder than before. I consider my 2009 satisfied, I smile despite myself, I leave off considering replies and enable airplane mode. More music and smoke and talking. Z. and J. hold each other, the first time I've seen the former happily affectionate. I'm wearing a black lite sweater and a handkerchief. Sometimes, depending on my mood, I wear it like a peasant scarf. I look in the mirror once and am surprised to feel attractive. W. asks me about my pre-Canadian life and I try to answer truthfully. Z. tells me, despite knowing that my veganism being only for seduction purposes, that she nonetheless considers me her best vegan baker. "For as your intentions drip with deliciuous sex, Gaelan, so do your baking results." We try watching the Yellow Submarine around four, but too many of us are tired and stoned and it's just too much so early in the year. We sleep on layers of blankets, none of us comfortable, a chorus of apnea. -- We wake, we make each other pancakes, we talk, we clean up, we laugh at A. He drives half of us to the Anslie bus terminal to ease his chauffer duties, I commute his guitar to allow more passenger room. We converge at my place eating Chinese. We talk about porn, and the rest of the story has been told. I have four resolutions, two easy, two extremely difficult. I have a dozen intentions, and no set future. Twenty Ten. Current Music: Elliott Smith - No Name No. 5 | Powered by Last.fm (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
gaelotek	1:58a	Twilight Troll cont. Still struggling through Twilight. It still remains a three-star, not great but not terrible. It continues to inspire, though. ( Read more... ) Current Music: The Hoa Hoa's - Feels So Good Inside | Powered by Last.fm (Comment on this)
Monday, December 28th, 2009
gaelotek	2:27p	Torrrch I mildly regret not seeing the torch-bearing spectacle as it passed through Kitchener-Waterloo. I'm not particularly in support of the Olympics. I'm none too enchanted with the rhetoric of protest, either. I don't feel capable of expanding particulars, so take it as premise. At least, however, I would have embedded myself in a worldy and physical event for once. You know, it would have been nice to be involved, or at least present, or at least acknowledge that there are things happening around me and that people are out there trying to make it happen. You know, even if I didn't become an independant pysical agent on that day, at least I would have allowed myself to the possibility. I'm not used to that desire, I'm hoping it can be nurtured. Perhaps I should make this into a resolution. Current Music: Wavves - California Goths | Powerd by Last.fm (3 Comments |Comment on this)
gaelotek	2:08p	Parrrents Parents came over and we had dinner at Solé. The place is nice, the food is very good, and I am inspired to attempt, at home, what I ate. I have a thing against polite wait staff. They makes me uncomfortable, and I was so pleased to overhear our waitress chatting with a bar staff about how she couldn't wait to be done this week's stint. It made the place so much more pleasant, as did asking the front staff about the decor and what they went through to keep the brassy feel in their inheritance of the old Seagram machinst builidng. ASIDE: I once had the crustiest waitress one time at Ethel's who openly admitted that she was putting all of us on one bill because 'once you guys start sitting on other people's laps I just can't keep it all straight.' and who advised a soft-spoken friend of mine to order 'veggie' tacos instead of 'bean' tacos because it was too loud in the place for her to efficiently distinguish between bean and beef. I adored her. The valu-mart people I'm _not+ living with seemed taken aback; they asked my thoughts on her while I was shopping one day. :EDISA Dinner started uncomfortably (the same old questions of having girlfriends, having clean rooms, having short hair, considering M.B.A's, visiting distant family in distant countries, that always results in hours of smiles and quick non-commital assent and lowered eyes. But my mum and I shared a half-bottle of wine and got onto more interesting things, my parents recent cruise, knitting. My mum was none-too-impressed with the "Resident Asshole" business cards, but she's resigned herself to such things. A tender moment: My mother sighs and wonders why, despite her best intentions and efforts, she raised such "strange" children. It wasn't an accusation, but for the first time her sense of being benuinely overwhelmed by parenthood showed through. It sounds mean, but it's a fair cop. Her siblings and siblings-in-law all have children well on their way towards marriage and doctorates, who come over with friendly significant others, and then there's slacker me who won't put up with family reunions and isn't particularly interested in fiscal or social success. And there's my brother, whose situation is finally -- if mildly -- being discussed as-it-is (though what to do about it, if anything, I couldn't tell you.) My father remained silent, this was very much a mother-son conversation. It might have been the sharing of the wine, where he sipped beer. Current Music: Wavves - Sun Opens My Eyes | Powered by Last.fm (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
gaelotek	12:42a	CPL593H Hey, someone wrote an LJ client for the Palm, and it's rather classy! It's a nicer interface than most, only Xjournal and possibly Drivel beat it. This says something, perhaps for the Pre's list/feed UI paradigm. The app needs some feature-work, though. Installing Vista 64-bit for Zoey to deal with some Photoshop memory usage problems. What should have taken four hours (vista, updates, adobe software) has taken forty-eight due to MS's broken activation schemes and inability to gracefully upgrade between Vista editions (Which must be done because OEM keys are apparently not real.) Oh, and countless upgrade/restart cycles. After this I'm never dealing with fixing Windows PCs again. "What if it eases your way into someone's bed?", asks Zoey. "I'll have to weigh the situation." Zoey, Andrew, Spencer and I sat around the house. We discussed our taste in porn, which had interesting though non-irate commentary from feminist-theory Zoey. She has no pointers for decent porn though, which is disappointing. A and S built a blanket fort, I made bread and derived avocado sandwiches from it. Z got us Princess coffee. We watched Antonioni films and they listened to too much Radiohead. (Luckily I have a Vista install to fix and closed headphones.) The first Roxy Music album is totally different under close listen. How was I ever nonplussed? I then learned that S is a rather talented filmmaker, as are his nerdy friends who I now see in a very different light. Held Z's dlsr camera, which feels powerful and the shudder of its shutter flutter makes me feel also powerful indeed.  Will post pics of the fort when Z finishes developing them. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
theenforcer	8:44a	Get with the times My dad gave me a copy of Inglorious Basterds on Blu-Ray for Christmas. "Dang," I said, "I don't have a Blu-Ray player." "What?!" he exclaimed, and hit me with a disapproving sideways glare. "Son, we are about to enter a new decade. This is not the stone age. Are you aware that in seven days, the plain old DVD will have been invented fifteen years ago?" "But the difference in quality is almost imper..." "Don't give me that! Is your TV capable of displaying HD or not?" "Yes, it is, but regular DVDs are plenty capab..." "You need a Blu-Ray player! Within a year you won't be able to walk down the street without tripping over a Blu-Ray player! Go get a Blu-Ray player as soon as you get back!" "You don't even have a TV, dad." "If you don't have a Blu-Ray player, son, then neither do you." So I guess that settles that. (2 Comments |Comment on this)