"Do we eat this?"

I was on the bus coming home from work. A man sitting next to me was reading the paper. He pointed at a picture of pumpkins and began to tell me about a giant pumpkin that he once saw. He then paused for a moment and asked, "Do we eat this?" I chuckled and said, "Yes we do. WE make them into pies!" This pleased him greatly.

I can't remember if I've already posted this

but just to be sure here it is...

I'm kind of bored with Halloween.

That being said, there are some things that I still really enjoy doing. Like going to pumpkin patch. I went with my sister last weekend. It's kind of becoming a tradition. We go to the place at the bottom of Orillia Road in Kent. It was pretty picked over this year, we went a little late in the year, but that didn't deter my enjoyment. There's something about tromping through the pumpkin patch with the tractors all about and the huge field of corn on one side that just solidifies the fact that fall has come.

After the patch (I was covered in mud) we headed up to my sisters place where she made an amazing dinner and we watched some football. Then we carved the pumpkins. I'm kind of a pumpkin master. This year I attempted to do Brittany Spears face on a pumpkin. I think I did a pretty good job. I took the pumpkin to the bar and gave it to PMRob for his birthday. People were a bit confused about whose face was on the pumpkin, for some reason most people thought it was Jesus, go figure. I guess I'm just glad that everyone agreed it looked like a person. Next year I might have to get a little more ambition and ditch the stencil and try to do something off the top of my head. We'll see.

As for Halloween itself I'm kind of bored with it. Halloween parties have never really done it for me. I'd rather sit at home and watch a bunch of Treehouse of Horrors than parade around like some kind of ghoul. Maybe that will change next year, but this year I'm skipping Halloween.

For all of you who are going out, be safe. Halloween seems to be a blank check for mayhem to some people. Don't get caught up in their shenanigans.



I should also add that my sister caught a great pic of me in the corn. Oh how I love corn. It kind of pissed me off though. They didn't harvest any of the corn! It was all just left of the stalk and wasted away in the field. Now I understand that the standard way of harvesting the corn would be to level the field, but there has to be some way to harvest the grain while still keeping the stalks around for the maze. It just frustrates me to see perfectly good corn go to waste. If nothing else call up a food bank and see if they have volunteers that would want to pick it. Nonetheless, great pic of me in the corn, even if my hair is a little chaotic...

Sup Blog

I want to start off today by giving a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the Internet. 40 years ago today it was "born". I can't even imagine my life without it...

I'm glad that the sounders made the playoffs, but I'm not looking forward to fighting my way home through the scene that is sure to surrounds the stadium...

Metro's website is down. I think it has been for a couple days now. It's very frustrating. Makes me want to slash things, like bus tires. But I won't because what good would that do?...

Apparently dolphins are being caught in our warehouse. Initially I was against the idea of catching dolphins. Then I thought about it. If a dolphin somehow finds itself in the warehouse here at work I think that it needs to be caught. Who knows what kind of havoc it could cause...

The Flaming Lips are the greatest American band recording today.

I originally wrote that title with the phrase "quite possibly", however as I looked at it and started to think more I couldn't find another band that I would place higher than the Lips at this point. (Modest Mouse is close though).

They've had one of the most interesting careers. The Flaming Lips were making music when I could barely walk (1983). I'm going to breeze through their early career. It's not that it was bad so to speak, but when compared to their later works, well it's like comparing Pablo Honey and Kid A.

While they started in the early eighties it was well into the nineties before they ended up seeing some commercial success with the track "She Don't Use Jelly". It's a decent track from the album Transmissions From the Satellite Heart, but by no means my favorite. With the amount of radio play that song was getting I am flabergasted that they didn't shoot up into the spotlight immediately with follow ups like "Be My Head" and "Turn It On". The only reason I can think of is that none of us were ready for them yet, I guess thats the problem with always being ahead of your time.

Then there was Clouds Taste Metallic, which contains one of my favorite "older" Lips tracks "This Here Giraffe". You should all know how much I love Giraffes. However the album as a whole was not as solid as it's predecessor, causing them to slip further into obscurity.

Next they came out with what was to be known as Zaireeka. This is one of the most bizarre albums of all time. A collection of 4 discs that are all intended to be played simultaneously. I've had the privilege of hearing Zaireeka multiple times and each time it was great. Most notably was for the anniversary when they played it a the Crocodile. It's a fantastic experiment in sound whose ambition is matched only by the musical talent of the Flaming Lips. The greatest part about Zaireeka for me is more what it represents and that is a change on the horizon greater than anything that could be expected. The Soft Bulletin.

This is where I was introduced to the Flaming Lips. I believe it was 2002. The Soft Bulletin had slipped past me for 3 years, but no more. NESF came to me one day with the CD. I listened to it once. I hated it. "I can't stand that guys voice," I remember thinking. But I trust NESF's opinion and gave it another chance. It was about the fourth go around when my world came crashing down around me and I realized that "a spoonful weighs a ton" and there was only one answer to the questions "Is it gettin' heavy?", yes.

While I was still honeymoonin' with The Soft Bulletin I was introduced to a new lover, Yoshimi. "Oh Yoshimi" where do I begin. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is an amazing album full of violence, love and ultimately death. It was with this album that the Flaming Lips took on the concepts of death and how beautiful it can really be. "Do You Realize?" is by far the biggest hit that they've had to date, and with just cause. However that shouldn't over shadow the pure genius that is present throughout this album as a whole. There is a good reason I placed it as #3 of the decade. To quote myself, "I think that even Alfred Tennyson may agree that there has never been a finer expression of love and loss than Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

At War With the Mystic followed in 2006 and it was evident they weren't happy. No one was happy in 2006, however the Lips took their hatred of GW and turned it into some fine music. I will forever associate this album with the end of GW and the election of 2008. I remember walking to the school down the street from my house listening to "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" on my way to caucus and then leaving feeling great as I listened to "The W.A.N.D." This album didn't quiet hit the high mark of Yoshimi save one track, "Vein of Stars", which may very well be my favorite of theirs.

At this point I feel I'd be doing you all a huge injustice if I didn't mention the live show that the Lips put on. It's amazing. It's a complete affirmation of the greatness of life. Anyone who has a chance to see them live HAS to do it. You'll leave with pockets full of confetti but never disappointed. Here's some shots from the most recent show I was at...





Now I've been starting to spent a lot of time with the new album Embryonic. At first I wasn't the biggest fan. The first time I heard it I sat back in my chair and said, "meh, don't love it, don't hate it." Fear started to take over. Had the Lips lost it? Would they ever produce something that rivals The Soft Bulletin? Little did I know that with that first introduction a small ova had been placed in my brain.

Over the course of the last few weeks the egg has grown. We've now reached the embryonic stage. It's starting to consume me. I have yet to discard everything else from my iPod but I have a feeling that may happen in the near future. I can't even begin to imagine what is going to happen when my incipient growth is fully mature.

Now I don't know what else I can say to convince those of you who don't already know that you need to check out the Flaming Lips so I'm going to leave you with a youtube clip from the new album...

Are they connected?

I've been sick lately. It sucks. I just want to be healthy again. During my illness I've had a number of strange dreams. They've been a lot less coherent than usual. More just a series of imagines associated with an emotion or a scent, but I guess that's the way dreams are...

#1:

...I was in the car with my sister. We were arguing over which direction to go. We were on 124th (right by where we grew up). I kept insisting that we were going the right way and that the road would drop off soon. She kept telling me that it wasn't here. However when we reached the top of the hill and got out of the car. What used to be a large forested area was devoid of foliage with small sections of the land still burning. I pointed out a house to my sister, reminding her that we used to go there as children and get cookies from the old woman who lived there. She said that she remembered the house but she had no memory of where we were. With all the trees gone I was able to point out where our old house was. For some reason instead of going "home" we went down the hill that used to be covered in blackberry bushes. We walked for some time before coming to the bottom of a large cliff of sand. Here she handed me an object that resembled a staple gun. "You hold on to this". Everything smelt of burning leafs. I held the object in my hand and pulled the trigger. The wind began to spiral around me. It was like being inside a tornado. Then I wasn't there any longer. I didn't know where I was. I still don't know...

...Time passed and I found myself back at my old house. There was a large amount of chaos. Everyone was frantic and running about. Soon I found out that there was some sort of invasion taking place and one by one the houses in the neighborhood were being taken over. There were people there I didn't know and it took some time to locate my family. I found my sister first, who told me that our parents were no longer there. We searched all over for my little brother before finding him in the garage hidden behind piles of boxes and newspaper. We could hear a large vehicle pull into the drive way and a mass of men storm onto driveway. My siblings thought that we were all going to die, I did too for that matter. Until I remembered the strange object I'd used earlier. I told them both to grab onto me and no matter what happened not let go. I pulled the trigger and just as before the wind engulfed us. I remember falling the three of us together and nothing more...

#2:

...The land beneath my feet was plagued. The only things that grew were dead. I was wearing a loose fitting leather tunic that covered down to my knees. I was armed with a small knife and a series of bottles filled with liquid. I wandered for a short while before finding myself surrounded by a vigilante group. They shackled my hands and asked me questions that I couldn't answer. Finally one of the larger men in the group came forward and silenced all the others. "He'll be coming with me," he said. The other disbersed as quickly as they had arrived...

...we approached a small encampment that seemed to be abandoned. There were razed buildings all around and a small altar that seemed to be constructed of various body parts. "Don't take this for what you see," the man said to me as we passed under a series of low hanging branches. On the other side it was completely different. There were people everywhere. A large fire stood in the middle of the area. Everyone seemed to start whispering and glancing with suspicion when I arrived. "Don't mind them." We then went into the largest of the buildings. It was some sort of war room. There was a large three dimensional map in the center of the room. The map was separated into nine grids, each with a central location that appeared to be a castle of some sort. I walked up and began to study the map, when the man spoke, "Does this look familiar to you?" "I'm not sure, I feel like it should but I don't recognize it." This was the first time I got a good look at the man. He was taller than myself with shoulders twice as broad. He wore animal skins and had a large sword hanging by his side. He hands didn't seem human, they were easily three times the size of mine with thick nails more like claws. He pointed to a point on the map that was colored green, "You're here." He told me the name but I don't remember. He then went on to tell me the story of his people. They once controlled a section of land representing 5 of the sections on the map. Things were better than and the plants grew alive. But in recent years the other people who lived there became aggressive and had slowly been taking over their land until all they had left was the encampment that I was standing. "What does this all have to do with me?" I said. "You've been sent here to get our land back."...

...I was out of breath. My body ached all around. I was back standing over the map. 3 of the 9 sections now illuminated green. "You're doing well captain." I wiped my forehead with my arm, which came back smeared with blood and said, "at what cost."...

...The forest surrounded me. I was leading a massive force through the dense woods when we reached a clearing. There was a large grey tower not more than two miles off. One of the troops came up to my side, "Are you ready for this?" I replied, "I haven't been ready for any of what's happened."...

...We were back at the base camp over the map again. All but two of the sections glowed green. The ground beneath us was no longer bare dirt but grass. When people would come and go I could see large trees outside all flourishing. I sat down, completely spent and said, "am I done yet?" The man I first met replied, "Yes, you are done now. The rest we must do on our own."...

Pump up your drug supply

What would it feel like to have a drill dropped on your head?

If you ever really want to piss me off this is probably the best way to do it:

I'm sitting at my desk talking to a customer on the phone, actually working. I was in the middle of a conversation with this guy who is not particularly pleasant to begin with when our "handyman" places a ladder directly behind my chair. I give him a look that I thought clearly stated, "do you really have to do that now?" Apparently he did. He then started to open up the light fixture directly above my head. Apparently he had forgot something so he wanders off leaving the metal grating dangling over my head. While all of this was irritating it wasn't until he returned that I got really pissed. I was then checking my messages when he got back on the ladder, this time with a drill. He then began drilling into the ceiling making it impossible for me to hear my phone and showering me with fine white dust. I couldn't believe it. I was very tempted to kick out the ladder from underneath him as I had to snake my way out of my desk. I returned ten minutes later to find my entire desk covered in dust. Needless to say I'm not too happy right now. As if I needed another reason to hate my job right now.



This isn't my office, but it's almost exactly what I'm talking about.

CHEERLEADER!!!!

I was assaulted at the show during this song. Assault isn't always a bad thing. In this case I kind of liked it...

A Dream Within A Dream

I saw "Where the Wild Things Are" last night. Good flick. It'd been a long time (at least 18 months) since I'd been to the cinema. It was well worth it. I don't think that the enormity of the Wild Things will come across as well on the small screen...

The horse fucker is at it again. I think that we need to come up with a serious solution for this guy. It's not painfully apparent that he's not going to stop. I think some sort of mental institution is in order. Mans not right in the head if he's wanting it from a horse. Yuck...

The city is claiming that they're going to have a better snow response this year. You all might remember what happened last year, it was horrid. I like that they're going to be more prepared but I'm hoping we just don't get any snow. Heard the other day it's already snowed in a good chunk of the country and it's not even a month into FALL. Don't worry though, our climate isn't changing. We're just being punished...

There is one question that I'd love to hear Oprah ask Sarah Palin: "Do you consider yourself a 'cougar'?"...

I'd gettin' might impatient waiting on a new Outkast album. I might have to go down to Atlanta and ruffle some feathers. I'm not sure it would do any good, but it might calm me down for a few weeks. Doubtful though. It'd probably just further incite my growing rage...

Last night I had a strange dream that I don't really remember. The one thing that I do remember was waking up and thinking "did I just have a dream within a dream?"...