Updatr.

I’ve recently been going through my photo collection on Flickr to get a better sense of things I’ve been up to lately. I’m always taking photos, so I wanted to add more to it to make the collection there a lot more fluid and broad than have it consist exclusively of photos from a specific period of time.

And the process has been a lot of fun, I’ve gotten to have a look at some great photos of Erica in particular that I haven’t seen since I first uploaded them nearly two years ago. Like the one above, in which she was kicking a soccer ball around with me. In the photo, it looks as though she’s pulling off some wicked move (at the tender age of two), but in reality, she was tripping backwards over the ball.

I love how ambiguous photos can be. Stay tuned for updates.

One down…

Today was the last day of junior kindergarten for Erica, her first school year finished. She’s growing up so fast… what I wouldn’t have given to be there.

Mass debate.

Nicole and I had this wonderfully electric debate about politics and religion last night, and I wanted to share a piece of it with you. It started as a conversation about a friends beliefs, and really got heated when I referred to Nicole as an atheist. Here is an excerpt:

Nicole
I’m anti-religion because of judgment, rules and ceremony. And hypocrisy, that’s a big one.

Bobby
Sure, but you’re not anti-politico.

Nicole
Of course not.

Bobby
You don’t reject politics in the same way you do religion, yet the fundamentals of your beliefs are exactly the same.

Nicole
Humans are too messed up to be left to their own devices. Politics has a practical application.

Bobby
Politics are a structure of control to incite people to behave a certain way and adhere to a certain set of beliefs. Like religion.

Nicole
Politics and religion are completely different systems. One is fantasy, one is practical. I don’t believe in the bullshit pandering of politics. But the laws that “incite people to behave a certain way” are separate from politics. That is the legal system, a whole different story.

Bobby
And politics shape and pervert that system every day.

Nicole
No, lawyers do that. Even the Prime Minister has very little control over the legal system.

Bobby
In the end, the decisions lay in the hands of elected bodies; judges are elected persons as well, not by a majority of the public, but rather by their peers.

Nicole
True, but they remain as judges no matter which political party is in power.

Bobby
True. But they’re bought by the same people that control the houses of senate, congress, etc. Influenced in the same ways as religious leaders influence their congregations.

Bobby
But religion offers people hope. I’d call that practicality.

Nicole
I call it lying.

Bobby
Another parallel to politics.

Nicole
You are confusing electioneering with political change.

Bobby
You are confusing religion with televangelism.

Nicole
Policy, taxes, social services. These are the things that matter in politics. These are the things that help or hurt people.

Bobby
I dare say that more common citizens have been inspired to be kind to each other, take part in their communities by their various religions than their members of parliament.

Nicole
Spirituality, community and charity are possible without the hypocrisy and divisiveness of religion.

Bobby
Very true. But the core value of every religion is that you should treat others in the manner you would like them to treat you. The message is the same from all mouths. And I haven’t seen a single politician in years promote pacifism of any kind.

Nicole
People do what they do because they are good people. Religion doesn’t make a difference. Just as many murderers and child molesters go to church as those who don’t. And just as many good people are atheists as believers.

Bobby
It’s true, I’m not arguing in the favour of religion, I’m merely taking the point that there is a practical application for it.

Nicole
It’s a way for people to feel useful, to believe that no matter what they do with their lives, they are a part of a bigger plan.

Bobby
I agree, and that’s what a lot of people want.

From there it sort of fizzled out, as it was well after midnight - we both began speaking simply of going to sleep for the night. But woo! I’m looking forward to many such conversations in the future.

Tales from Tech Support.

I had a moment of personal triumph this week at work, when this one woman called up trying to get her connection fixed. I did the usual opening questions, and the drama started right away when I asked her what version of Windows she was running on her computer.

She said she didn’t know, so I asked her to describe the Start button for me. “Is it a green bar with the word ’start’ on it, maybe..? Or maybe it’s just a circle with the Windows logo like a flag?”

“I don’t know… it’s um… it’s a rectangle, and it’s blue. It’s just blue.” She then went on to describe that her computer was hardcore frozen, with “Microsoft Innernet Explorer at the top, and the hourglass stuck in the middle, and ‘launch Outlook Express’ at the bottom.”

So I tried to walk her through the next few steps; I asked her to restart her computer, and to use the power switch on the modem to turn it off until Windows loaded all the way back up. She agreed, and then a couple of moments of consequential silence were broken by my asking, “has the computer started back up for us?”

“Oh, you want me to cut it back on? Okay,” and she does, to immediately say, “it looks just like it did before: Microsoft Innernet Explorer at the top, and the hourglass stuck in the middle, and ‘launch Outlook Express’ at the bottom.”

Um… “Alright… is there a chance that you turned off the monitor, and not the computer?”

“I turned off the monitor and the computer,” at which point I realized that she was calling the modem a computer. So I tried to talk her through finding the computer, describing it in as many different ways as I could.

“Okay, I got it,” she said.

“Yeah? Okay, switch that off for me, please? And we’ll turn it back on in a moment. Tell me what you see when it loads up again, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and then after a moment of silence, “Um… I see Microsoft Innernet Explorer at the top, and the hourglass stuck in the middle, and ‘launch Outlook Express’ at the bottom.”

At this point I’m telling the person beside me that the customer has powercycled her monitor - twice. “Well, shoot… there must be something else we can turn off to get the computer to unstick. I wonder… tell me, when you put a CD in your computer, where do you put it?”

“Oh, um… I don’t know where that is…”

So I transferred her to the computer manufacturer. And I’m not sorry.

Stop and stare.

The London, On Urban Improv team just had their first public event yesterday afternoon downtown near Victoria Park. The group invited all willing participants to meet up with them downtown and arrange a specific time (which I think was just after 1:00 pm) to suddenly stop what they were doing and stare up into the sky.

Participants were challenged to hold the pose for three minutes, and were not allowed to speak to any passersby during the event. They could only point into the sky, shield their eyes from the sun, or look through binoculars.

Sadly, I had to miss it as I work on Saturdays, but you’d better believe I’ll be there with them in the future.

Vox.

Silverchair - Without You, live in Newcastle

I received quite a surprise recently, logging into my profile on Last.fm and seeing that Silverchair had leapt to the top of my overall listened artists list. At that point, the overall number of listens had increased some 300% in about a month.

The reason? I’ve been suffering particularly bad insomnia lately, and find that I can’t fall asleep without music on. And the most recent two Silverchair albums - 2002’s Diorama and 2007’s Young Modern - are pure fucking genius. Every second of every song on each record is perfectly constructed, abstractly calculated brilliance and produced to perfection.

So I made a playlist of some 20 songs or so and put it on to listen to through the night. And it helps, it truly does… it’s exquisite.

Silverchair - Black Tangled Heart, live in Newcastle

I think a huge part of my love for the band (and their recent work in particular) is that Daniel Johns has emerged as an incredible vocalist over the past ten years. He’s always been talented - and it’s nice to hear a rock singer enunciate - but his abilities have blown me away repeatedly on the last couple of records, and honestly inspire me to be a better singer myself.

And to be insanely honest for a moment, I have this dream of providing vocals on a record as lush and colourful as Diorama, equally complex and emotive and clear. I have listened to that album frequently since it’s release in June of 2002, and think there’s probably no greater an example of a current rock musician with a greater range and vocal ability, so.

On the 22.

The Glynnis sisters rode my bus in silence. Born and raised in London, they settled in homes not far from one another, with jobs downtown in similar buildings mere minutes apart. They grew up as close to one another as sisters can be; though born years apart, they were as twins, supportive and intuitive and nurturing.

Separated by some long forgotten feud, they stood together in silence every morning as the sun came up. Both long middle-aged, they shared the same auburn hair surrounding the same face turning the same unwavering eye down the road, waiting for the 22 to come around the corner to take them downtown. They would board in silence, sit at separate ends of the bus, and make no eye contact. And so it went, weeks blurring into months, into seasons, into years.

Until that one morning, the usual bus missing its route, that all the usual passengers had to wait the additional thirty minutes for the next one, filling it to near overflowing. That morning the younger sister gave her seat to the elder, standing adjacent. Years of indifference and spite were at once gone with a moment of surprised silence, and the two words, “thank you.” And from then on, though they still stood waiting in silence, their wait for the 22 was contented and calm.

It was after a few months of sitting beside each other that the older Glynnis passed away. And though we all felt it, no one remarked on the hollow atmosphere, no one asked the one sister about the other. It went on like that for another year, the younger sister sitting alone in silent reverie on the bus, until one morning we passed right by the stop - no Glynnis’ waiting, no sisters heading toward their job in the city.

It isn’t actually known whether the surviving Glynnis passed away or decided to start living. But that feeling of contentedness has returned to the 22. And the sun always seems to break free of the morning clouds as we pass by that deserted bus stop, every morning.

Bobbyisms.

Aden “Is your coffee good and cold?”

Me “Reasonably so, a bit. But mostly, unreasonably so.”

Sorry.

Try as I might, I just don’t have the capacity to write anything of substance tonight. I’m exhausted and feeling low and draft after draft of posts just require too much right now. You’ll see them soon. Goodnight.

SUV.