My work is creative, free form thinking. I get to make things up in my mind. Superb job or what? Oh sure, it can be hard and difficult and frustrating and cruel, but then so was my last girlfriend, and I got past her. Work is usually work unless work isn't work in which case it's more like play work than work work, but let's be real, it's not play, it's definitely not play, ok, it's kinda like play, but it's work too. Play work, cripes, that just sounds wrong. Did any of that make sense?
The girls are barking and howling and making a genuine racket so I go outside to see what all the fuss is about. There, across the driveway, is a bear on the roof of our shed. It is walking around the 10' X 10' wooden building looking for a way off. It goes to one edge and peers down, then moves to another side and looks over. Frankly, it's kind of surreal. I mean, there is a bear on the roof. It finally locates the closest fir tree and climbs down, disappearing into the woods, leaving the dogs and I to talk about it the rest of the day.
June 4, 2011
I didn't even know our town had one of these. Returning from a friend's house I pass a guy walking, get this, 8 dogs on two master leashes with 4 tethers each. The dogs range in size from quite little to medium large and he is struggling mightily to keep them out of people's yards, the street, and the face of anyone they pass on the sidewalk. When one dog has to stop, they all have to stop. It's a party of the cutest kind. I tell him he's the first professional dog walker I've ever seen. He tells me it's the worst job he's ever had.
I'm eating chocolate cake for breakfast and it's so shockingly good that I'm baffled as to why there isn't a chocolate cake cereal. In my book, the top two breakfast cereals never made are cold pizza and chocolate cake. Why, if I were president of General Mills...
June 7, 2011
I've been doing this for twelve years and the fact that I have anything left to say after all that time is either a tribute to my vast interestingness or is simply a paean to your reluctance to find other sites by other people that have other things to say. A win-win, eh? Sorta.
June 8, 2011
I don't know what's more incredible, the Sombrero Galaxy itself or the fact that a picture of it is in KeithSpeak.
June 9, 2011
A guy was lamenting how both his router and his external hard drive had been acting funky and unreliable ever since he got them. I look over at the offending hardware. The router is sitting on top of the hard drive. I tilt the router up and see that it exhausts from the bottom. The top of the hard drive case is smoking hot. The bottom of the router is almost too hot to touch. I tell him that I think I found his problem. He blurts out, Is it dirty electricity? I think it's dirty electricity. I hate BC Hydro. Nooooo, I say...
June 10, 2011
Saw the cutest dog walking around downtown yesterday, It had no collar or tags and was happily just cruising about doing whatever it pleased. If this critter was lost, it wasn't concerned. Maybe this dog knew that like humans, if you're fetching enough, someone will always find a place for you in their lives.
June 11, 2011
Should Dos Equis beer ever do The Most Interesting Woman In The World commercials, I've got their copy:
She's the kind of person who will tell you she's older than she is, just to get a compliment about how good she looks for her age.
She's been known to scream theater at a fire.
She's done the Dance of the Seven Veils with six, and gotten away with it.
I am mailed a lucky charm by a reader who assures me that this charm will change my life. I assured her it wouldn't because there is no such thing as luck. She wrote back telling me that she has placed a curse on my life. I told her there is no such thing as a curse, just as there is no such thing as luck, and placing one's faith in anything but oneself is counterproductive and spurious. She wrote back and called me a ninny. That's as far as we've gotten. My life is full.
June 14, 2011
A producer says to me, "If we're going to work together, I should warn you that my temper is like a flash flood. I can get really upset really fast, do a lot of damage in a little time, and then just as quickly settle down and be calm again." "That's messed up," I tell him. His eyebrows arch. "But in the interest of fairness, I should warn you that if you choose to abuse me with your flood water rages, well, that'll make me crazy, blackout crazy, what's-this-fireplace-poker-doing-in-my-hand crazy, you know?" I smiled sweetly. His left eye started blinking uncontrollably; the flood waters were roiling. Man, the situations I find myself in.
June 15, 2011
I understand why people ascribe their hopes and dreams to some third party god or devil, what I don't get is why people won't put that same faith in themselves. You're all you've got. Why not make your own hopes and dreams come true? Why place your faith in some phantom? If you think it's up to some outside force to manifest what's inside you, how does that even make sense? It's about responsibility. Take it and your life will be different than if you don't.
June 16, 2011
Sadly, Vancouver lost game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. It's like the entire province has eaten bad clams and we're all retching at once.
I went to a shopping center to do some errands. When I returned to our vehicle I found a $5 bill tucked under the windshield wipers. No one owes me money so it's not like someone recognized the truck and left me their payback. None of the other cars have $5 bills on them. It's just too weird. People don't do that. Instead of taking the money, I put the 5 bucks under the wipers of the car next to mine. Let them wonder.
June 19, 2011
My conversation with a friend. He starts.
-- Your problem is you think too much.
-- Is that even possible? And who says I have a problem? You? Please.
-- You think about everything all the time and that's not what normal people do.
-- So normal people don't like to think?
-- Personally, I don't like to think too much. My brain is sensitive.
-- You're brain is sensitive?! And you're the normal one? Please again.
-- What's so important that you have to think about it all the time?
-- Life, man.
-- Ooh, deep. As your friend, I'm telling you that thinking too much just gets you into trouble.
-- So I'm in trouble, is it?
-- You should be more like me.
-- No one should be more like you. One of you is enough. One of you is plenty. If I really think about it, pun intended, one of you - the non thinking masses who see normal as a goal, gak - is way more than enough. Basically, you're like eating too much sugar.
-- See, I don't even know what you're talking about. This is the kind of trouble I was referring to earlier.
-- Remind me why we're friends?
-- In some cultures you would be considered dangerous or delusional or both.
-- And what cultures might those be Mr.-I-just-made-that-up?
-- I'm here to save you from yourself. And that's the thanks I get?
-- Ok, next beer is on me.
June 20, 2011
A comedian makes a series of jokes about Mike Tyson and I'm thinking, why doesn't this comic think that Mike Tyson wouldn't want to kill him for making fun of him? It's like filling your car with gasoline while you stand there smoking. If you want to make fun of people, why not pick on those who can't make you stop breathing because of it? I'm thinking Abe Vigoda, maybe William Shatner. But Iron Mike? Dude, that's just a death wish.
June 21, 2011
This blew me away. At a nursing home, waiting in the day room while my friend visited his mother, I watched an old guy with a laptop working away. After a while, he beckoned me over. He was using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create this magnificent picture! It was shockingly good. I don't know which surprised me more, his talent or the fact that a 90 year old had mastered Photoshop and Illustrator. He told me that he used to be an art director in Montreal long before computers. Then the world went digital and he was considered too old school to adapt. They let him go. He got pissed, bought a computer and taught himself this complex software just to prove he could do it. Now he spends all his time creating art. Screw them, he said smiling. I had to agree.
We are finishing up our Android app and tidying up the website of our new social network for launch. Unfortunately, I still can't give a date for the arrival of either, but I have hopes it will be darned soon. 'Course I had hopes that disco would have died sooner than it did, and we all know how long that abomination hung around.
June 24, 2011
This was one of those what were they thinking moments: a car outfitted like the cockpit of an airliner. The dashboard had been replaced with an aircraft console replete with gauges, dials, buttons and screens. Four throttles and a bank of switches ran up the middle between the seats. Even the headliner was full of navigational doohickeys. Outside, it was just a regular family sedan, but inside it was a faux 747; a genuine Frankenmobile. Why?
June 25, 2011
Someone I know got an offer to work for a camera company whose products were aimed at consumers, not professionals. He thought he was going to take the job. I asked him how the company expected to compete against every cell phone in the world that all have cameras built in and are right there in your hand or your pocket all the time, everywhere, all the time, click, there's my picture, what? spend $300 and lug this thing around my neck instead? are you kidding? He said their products were superior in performance and build. I said, So? Consumers want a 5 megapixel that goes click when they push the button - and can also take calls, play games, check email and connect to the Internet. Professionals want superior performance and build. Mixed messages, my friend. He got a nervous look on his face. I wonder if he took the job.
June 26, 2011
According to the dictionary, cool is an esthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style. If the shoe fits...tibchris
June 27, 2011
Why do you have to vote for a person? Why can't we vote on issues? To have one person represent everybody is ridiculous. The country is wired, why can't everybody vote for themselves? Get rid of the current crop of bums, shills and morons who supposedly "represent" us and bring on egalitarian politics. What a marvellous concept.
June 28, 2011
I saw a clock that ran backwards. The numbers on the face went from 12 to 1 counter clockwise. The minute and second hands turned counter clockwise. So even though it told the correct time, it was such an odd, provocative convention, that it made one think about the arbitrariness of time.
June 29, 2011
As if to portend our future, the same day that Google launches its new social network, we too sort of launched our new social network. My partner and his son are here posing for the first ever company photo which is supposed to be indicative of our network's serious decorum, modest general reserve and all around good taste. A fail, me thinks. Still...
ghost
(Our launch is only semi-official because of an outing in our local newspaper. But we are still working on the website, the Android app and the desktop app, so it will be a month or so until the true official launch of our brand new video based social network, VideoPenPals.net. Stay tuned.)
ghost