Patricia says word associations

And I said, "OK"...
Free association is described as a "psychonanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content." Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self. ....says patricia
It's a subliminal thing!

So she says gameboy and I immediately think:

1. GAME BOY:: Buttons


2. Biopsy:: Head


3. Attack:: Shout


4. Convention:: GOP


5. Jewels:: Family


6. Genetics:: Variation


7. Impostor:: Poster


8. Doug:: Nerd


9. Arbitrary:: Meaningful


10. Oscillate:: Back and Forth

link to the game

You're funny on the phone

It makes me nervous.

Funny in the 'It's not the you that I recognise' kind of way. Funny in the 'I'm such a long way away' kind of way. Funny in the 'I miss you and want to say so but can't' kind of way.
...

Test it

And see if it actually works!

You can't dabble in drugs, you have to submerge your head to join in at all...

Rudolph Giuliani - an idiot at the RNC

"The attack on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics was in 1972. That’s a long time ago, that’s not yesterday. And the pattern began early. The three surviving terrorists were arrested and then within just three months the terrorists who slaughtered the Israeli athletes were released by the German government. Set free. Action like this became the rule, not the exception. Terrorists came to learn time after time that they could attack, that they could slaughter innocent people and not face any consequences.

In 1985, terrorists attacked the Achille Lauro and they murdered an American citizen who was in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer. They marked him for murder solely because he was Jewish. Some of those terrorist were released and some of the remaining terrorists, they were allowed to escape by the Italian government because of fear of reprisals from the terrorists.

So terrorists learned they could intimidate the world community and too often the response, particularly in Europe, would be accommodation, appeasement and compromise. And worse, and worse they also learned that their cause would be taken more seriously, almost in direct proportion to the horror of their attack."
...
"Before Sept. 11, we were living with an unrealistic view of our world much like observing Europe appease Hitler..."

Well thank you 'Rudolph' for that little mis-analysis of history. Europe didn't appease Hitler - we are not the pacifier of the right-wing lunatics of the world. However Europe didn't see clearly what Hitler was capable of. He was seen as a rabble-rouser, as the leader of the NSDAP and before that, what had been known as the German Workers Party. Leaders though of him as someone who could be trusted to make as much noise as possible, get in a fight, and cause trouble but was not seen to have the potential to attempt to overrun central Europe. When he was seen through, when his two-faced nature because clear, Europe acted. America did not, waiting for as long as possible whilst Roosevelt deliberated with the lives of 60 million people, until Pearl Harbour forced intervention.
Also, is this speech taking place in Tel Aviv? Why the Israel focus, does Giuliani want to be relected somewhere in NYC again? I know he's into the whole 'I love New York' thing - getting the crowd to really LOVE him, but Ruddy, could you tone it down a bit, let go a little? I mean, I'm dying here, listening to this rubbish that you're spouting about Boston and Chicago loving NYC and then somehow linking that to George W. It's a non sequitur.
By the way W, that means it's bullsh*t.

NY Times Transcript

On a related note...

The new iMac.
I'm not quite sure whether it'll be a big hit. From the pictures it looks to be acceptable as a computer, but it doesn't have that 'wow' factor that so many other Apple releases of late have achieved. Perhaps as a result it'll sell well - it's not particularly obtrusive or high profile - rather understated in a way that PC users might appreciate since it looks like something any Windows manufacturer might come up with.
Apple iMac

My sister, so gassy

Was just cold-called by a scottish gas company, wanting to know whether my younger sister, at the age of 16, wanted to change gas suppliers to their service.
I told that that she probably didn't care, but that the rest of my family were just fine with our current gas. Thank god for marketers, once my friend's cousin was called to check how his cellphone plan was going... he was 3 years old at the time, didn't have a phone, didn't really understand what the commotion was about.

Mobile Chalk Printing

A protestor who invented a wireless bike-mounted street printing gadget has been arrested in NYC whilst explaining his device in an MSNBC interview. Wired background story
A video of his arrest and the surrounding curfuffle can be found on the inventor, Joshua Kinberg's website in quicktime and torrent links:
Arrest live!

"Bikes Against Bush is an interactive protest/performance occurring simultaneously online and on the streets of NYC during the Republican National Convention. Using a wireless Internet enabled bicycle outfitted with a custom-designed printing device, the Bikes Against Bush bicycle can print text messages sent from web users directly onto the streets of Manhattan in water-soluble chalk."

Kinberg says of his arrest, "I had not demonstrated the device, but was merely describing the project and the goal's of the performance to the media when a van with 5-6 police officers arrived. I produced Identification upon their request, after which they waited for a superior to arrive before arresting me. I was booked, fingerprinted, and photographed.
They had bomb squad inspect my device, and afterwards they congratulated me on the design calling it "genius." Intelligence detectives questioned me about "violent protestors," but seemed disappointed to learn that I am an artist and only know other artists, and had no knowledge of any violence being planned. All my equipment -- bicycle, computer, cell phone, and electronics are being held till further notice. I am scheduled to appear in court on Friday and am facing the possibilty of jail time."

Japanese Cinema

Saw a movie last night called Ramblers. It’s a Japanese movie, going along the art-house vein of cinema they have. Whilst watching it I realized something about the style that we often don’t appreciate; their editing style is completely different to that of the West. In western movies, the director has a shot cut away when something interesting is happening, when we are in the middle of some action in order to keep us interested and gripped. This is most evident in action movies where, in order for the suspense to keep being ratcheted up, we can’t be allowed to see any ‘final’ decisive result. If we do somehow glimpse the end of a scene, are allowed to come to the conclusion of a thought as opposed to cutting away before returning later, this is thought of as a weakness. Even in relatively slow-moving movies such as Fargo, we are not allowed to see the axe come down for fear of repulsion or later disinterest.
Contrast this with Japanese cinema where the camera is willed to linger, to capture every apparently mundane movement. We think of this as being slow to tell the story, as being perhaps even laborious to get to the point. This movie I saw, Ramblers, took eighty three minutes to show us the arc of a story where two young men, film directors, arrive in a town not knowing anyone and wait for their wealthy actor friend to turn up. Very little happens and the story moves slowly. But do we think of this as being laborious because we are used to living such blithely over-accelerated life where everything is expected to be with us NOW.
In books such as James Gleick’s ’Faster: The acceleration of just about everything’ and trend-watching groups such as Trendsetters.com, we are told that life is speeding up, that phone operators have software removing ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ in requests for local listings, increasing their productivity and that Wagner's Ring has sped up by almost an hour since it was premiered in 1876, due to a faster tempo. It is now thought that much of the stress in our lives comes from sensory overload – from simply taking in too much information. One can now pay to float in an insulated tank, protected from all light, sound and feeling; cut off from all sensation save simply ‘being’.

Though we love action thrillers and explosively paced movies, one emerges from the darkness feeling in need of a rest, of some sort of respite. Japanese cinema is perhaps an art in taking time, in approaching a story not from the viewpoint of ‘how efficiently can I tell the tale’ but of ‘how effectively the tale can be told?’ There is something to be learnt from this, of that I am sure.

I got the message

He sent me an email today and I felt like I'd died. I've been waiting, trying to not contact him, trying to hold myself in, but I'm bursting at the seams, wanting that connection that I can't seem to grasp. So I'm there, writing emails to myself, unsure of whether I'll send them, unsure of what to do, and I feel bad about it.
It's not like I'm trying to artificially create an 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' situation, but I'm trying to not be there too much, trying to not give too much away, so that he feels, so that he understands what it's like to feel locked out and alone.

Of course I know that I'm not locked out, but I feel uninformed and unsure. I write a lot, I empty my head onto the now-electronic page, and perhaps this reveals myself too much, perhaps it fills the space. Filling the space is what I want to do, what I want him to feel is full - connected and together, but by telling all, by giving everything away, but not holding back, the complacency can creep in. I feel like Dave Matthews:

You cannot quit me so quickly
There's no hope in you for me
No corner you could squeeze me
But I got all the time for you, love

The Space Between
The tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The Space Between
The wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain

But will I hold you again?
These fickle, fuddled words confuse me
Like 'Will it rain today?'
Waste the hours with talking, talking
These twisted games we're playing

I don't know where it is that we get satisfaction from our present state of being, but so frequently I lose the ability to agree with expounded idea that I should be happy, and then create an aura of anxiety. Is it mild panic that goes on within ones head, no hind given on the surface, or is it simply a moment of instability where I lose my footing on the road of my convictions and wish I had someone to take my hand and direct me towards the wisest course. Sometimes I feel like my cloud of convictions, the strengths I rely on to pretend to the world that I'm strong, simply give up on me and fly away:

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. - Bertrand Russell

Come back to me.

Speaking of bombing out

Toby has a link to some stuff by these people, who appear to do pastiches of 'classic' movies but in a Flash cartoon style with the actors replaced by bunnies. By far the best - perhaps because I can remember the movie best of the bunch - is the Titanic version.
Perfect.
Titanic Bunnies

Just watched the marathon

Be lost by our own little british trooper - Paula Radcliffe. There were so many clichés piled on by the commentators on TV - I thought I'd be sick. And of course there was the armchair observations by my unable-to-run-five-miles-without-dying father, who kept on saying:

"she's lost now, oh, she's lost it now; look she's lost it now"

Shuttup! Idiot.

So she flunked out - it was like 100 degrees there today - impossible heat! Though the American bronze winner whose name I can't remember - what an improvement; completely unexpected but exciting too.

Anyway, that was Athens today.

Update: It turns out she's called Deena Kastor. I must not watch enough Athletics - I'd never heard of her.

Reuters Story

Funny faces

I came to Edinburgh with no money, my family, and a big headache. It's going to be fun.. My extended family somehow comes across as the most energetic people I've ever met - I don't know if I'll ever be able to keep up - it's like running after a bouny ball which is rolling down a very steep hill - you feel like you're getting closer but in reality you're just lowering your expectations of whether you'll succeed.

Run Run go away

Went running today – which was pretty damn horrible – I need to run more. I was going to go again with my younger sister, but it’s been pissing down rain since then, so not ideal conditions really.
Yeah. I could feel the tightness in my chest as I was running through the 15 minute mark or so... It made me remember how much running is a psychological thing – a mental challenge to see how long you CAN go on without PASSING OUT from thinking that your lungs are going to collapse. It’s funny how some people are just able to run through the pain. I think that’s what a lot of really great athletes are about – they’re simply able to block out the idea of the pain cutting them off, of stopping them on their mission. One of my friends from county Cross Country days – a guy called Simon Borg-Bartolo (posh name or what!), would say that he didn’t win races because he was better than anyone else – he got stitches and stuff just like everyone else, but he’s just ignore it until the end of the race and then collapse. Of course he was also a great runner and stuff, but the ignoring the pain thing was also crucial...
Funny really.

DB Boulevard – Another Point of View. Oh my god, what a great feelgood song. Don’t laugh. It’s a great one. I like it!

How tired did I look?

Wiped out? It's all the sitting around, sipping coffee and commenting on passers-by. It's a hard life, but somehow at the time, I really didn't want it to be mine. I wanted to be somewhere else.....

Elijah, Elijah!

I've got a friend of my sister's staying with us now who's been working for a company called PMK HBH, who do PR for movies and other known 'celebrities'. One of her jobs of late was to work with Elijah Wood, keeping him on track in their schedule.
Though it can't be a great job, if you've gotta wake up anyone, Elijah wouldn't be that bad a straw to draw - I think I could make myself enjoy it.... Supposedly he sleeps at almost every opportunity, wherever they may happen to be, will just lay down on the floor in the middle of a busy office and fall asleep.

Now you know.

Much stranger way of being dumped:

""it's not you, it's the economy." is the message that I got from my temp agency today."

sprkid livejournal post

Did I mention the Catacombs

This is what I wrote to him, after walking through the maze of long dead Parisians:

"We stopped off at the Catacombs under the streets, the final repository for the emptied cemeteries of Paris now containing over six million skeletons entombed within them. That number doesn't really hit you until you're walking through these tunnels and see the skeletons piled up to the ceiling on either side of you, arranged in geometric patterns - skulls and arm bones stacked up to become a catholic cross. The cemeteries of Paris began being emptied into the catacombs which fill the
former mines running about 20 metres underneath the city streets, in 1786.
I believe they carried on emptying the graves until around 1850. Since then they were used as hiding spaces for the French Resistance in the Second World War, trying to hide from the Nazi's SS troops when the German army occupied Paris. The marks of the SS can still be seen on some of the doors along the passages.

Seeing all the bodies made me think about how all these people had died. That's not a particularly profound thought, but it becomes kind of overwhelming, walking through probably almost a mile of these stacks of skeletons that are piled deep back away from the path, normally 'only' about three metres, but at some points over 20 metres deep. And I'm thinking.
Twenty metres deep, about five feet high.. For a five metre stretch of cave that's probably a hundred thousand skeletons.
Anyway, that wasn't fun, and was thinking how, as you're going to die, you might as well live life as you want, be the person you want to be...
That's what I want to do, not be what anyone expects me to be, but really just do what I think.. works."

Returned from Paris

I'm back from Paris now, I'm knackered out, having been doing the whole "I really care what your'e talking about, no really" thing, and now need to crash. It's a beautiful city, but not a fun city to be stressed in, to be tired in, or to be ambivalent in. Of course I loved being there - it's a totally unique place and a real blast to try at relearn ones french on the fly... One of my favorite things to do in France is to just sit in a cafe or on a bench on the sidewalk and attempt to understand what passers-by are talking about as they go past; to catch the snatches of conversation they broadcast to the world.
I'm rubbish at it, mainly because my French is so rusty, having not been to France in two years, but I really enjoy it still. It's crazy really.

Paris Plage

It's Paris and it's the city. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing here, but here I am, doing the stuff and getting away with it, whatever that means. We've been to the galleries, done the whole shopping in french thing, and got annoyed by bad hygiene. I'm even more out of the US timezone than normal so am kind out of of it.
One thing I'm missing is the longing feeling. When I was first back, I really missed him, I sat around moping and nont really knowing what to do. Now I seem to be able to just forget about it and get on with doing stuff, not really affected. The problem is that I want to be affected, I don't want to forget, and I don't want him to either. This is how it's supposed to be, but not the way I want it to be.

I'll just have to make sure 'they' all commit to attending next year. The college is Europe and the course is 'backpacking across it'.

Off to Gay Paris

For the week, starting with a quick hop across the English Channel tomorrow lunchtime. Whether I'll be able to find any places with internet access or whether the apartment I'll be staying at will have access, I don't know, but I'll try. The site linked below , HotCafe is great for free WiFi access points within cafes in Paris, but whether any of them will work is another matter.

We'll see, it might be fun, it may be torture. Wish me luck with the great country. I'm packing my dictionary for a quick refreshing of the language - haven't spoken any french for three years, so I'm just a little rusty...

This'll be interesting.

HotCafe.fr

Bjork!

I wouldn't recognise bjork lyrics off the top of my head, with no prompting, if my life depended upon it.

Actually no, if you give me a line about "i wonder what my body would sound like smashing against those rocks", I'd get it immediately.

It worked, miscellaneous.

My family returns

And if feels strange to have a house full of my family again, like, where did they all come from? My sister has returned from France, my mother from Ireland and my father from the office. I don't know what to do with them.

Of course I'm still exhausted and completely out of it. Over the last 48 hours I've had eight hours sleep. Which wouldn't be so bad, but they've been restless hours where I don't know how to sleep, how to just live.
I want the boy back and I want him to come sleep in my bed RIGHT NOW. This sort of shit isn't supposed to happen.

Not to me.

I want to have a six year old girl's tantrum, throw my fists up into the air and scream.

But I don't

Signing...

"I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain then I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Uh ah ... uh ah .... uh ah ...

Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too

Well ..."
-Dixie Chicks
from the album HOME

I was sitting in the back of the car, kind of trying to adjust to the sound - I've not been a real dixie chicks fan - when the song comes on. Now I'm sitting in the back because I'm being driven by my friend's Aunt and her son. Her son has Down's syndrome and during the first several years of his life, they didn't think he could hear anything - thought he was completely deaf. Around the time of his sixth birthday though, his hearing appeared to show itself and they could start speaking to him as they would any other child.

Up until this point, his family and friends had been using sign language to communicate with him For some reason this song brings back a memory to my friend's Aunt and she begins singing along, but signing the words to her son sitting next to her. When he realises what she is doing, he laughs out loud, takes his earphones out of his ears, and joins in.

I am treated to the amazing spectacle of the song being signed as we drive along, a personal form of stage. The poetic beauty of sign language only really comes across when it's accompanying music, and here the joy of it was clear, with the simplistic forms often used allowing even me to understand some of what they were signing - especially with the musical accompanyment carrying on the whole time.

The special bond of someone signing for another is unique I think, in part because one has to watch the person doing the signing, to really pay attention. And the person signing has to really pay attention to what they're translating (if that is what they're doing) because there is a need to convey the emotion, to put feeling into the movements.

The laughter I heard that day was like nothing I'd heard before - completely enclosed and full of love. And I loved the song by the time it was over, because you begin to really understand.

Still-frames in the mind

"Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why.
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still-frames in your mind.
Hang it on the shelf of good health and good time.
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial.
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life. "

-Green Day

Plus...

My time zones are all wrong, and though it's 11AM exactly here, my brain remains at 4AM the night before. This makes me tired and having not had sleep overnight, an overnight of stressful travelling next to a pain in the ass mother with her two year old daughter screaming in my ear, from my window seat. I flew around the world for fourteen hours, and didn't sleep a wink. I really want to sleep, but the day is beautiful even though my arms are losing their strength.
THE TIREDNESS MAKES ME VULNERABLE
...and so my eyes continue to water, to think of them sleeping, without me.
I got so used to sleeping with two seperate people. For over a month with a girl whom I love, and then with a boy whom I love. I don't know where to look now.


Beds not shared are full of ghosts.

I sit, eyes watering, remembering what was

I don't want to be here, for now I want to be there.
America agrees with me too much. I like to criticize it, but I also like to be part of it. I like to live the life of freedom and carefree style that the west coast perpetuates, and to revel in the possibilities of what can be.

I miss my friends and I miss the wonderful, beautiful boy I met. I want them all back so we can sit around together and laugh at the crazy Parrot we’re house-sitting, and scorn the dogs for leaving hair all over the place and for being generally blundering fools who act like Viagra fueled granddads, knocking into tables and chairs in their attempts to gallop towards their food – mere yards away.

I met some amazing people this summer, watched numerous touching scenes and experienced heartbreaking times. I love my adopted family and I want to be with him, with them, there.

Here is not there, and that is all there is to it. Being on the wrong side of the world makes stroking someone’s arm at night difficult, makes spontaneous tickling attacks hard, and it takes the life out of sharing an off the cuff joke. Instant Messaging can NEVER be instantaneous, which makes it simply not good enough.

Arne Jacobsen's Oxford chair

link

What was the greatest challenge to realizing the design?
Over the years, the chair had become thicker with padding, so we took it back to the original design. We’ve made the base feel much more stable to sit on, but also slimmer. You see the curve of the long shell much better now because we’ve used a higher-quality, slimmer upholstery. With the technologies we had in 1965 it was not possible to make a chair that lived up to the wood model. Today we can come closer.

I love this chair, it's the most amazing thing to sit in, and the new fabric looks fantastic on it. I love Jacobsen's stuff, and this just works... yet again!

Night time trip

I've just been out on a night-time journey around Ballard, looking for interesting things to shoot photos of and record for posterity.
Now I'm tired and need new eyes.

Happy families

I feel like I talk to my father more when I'm on the other side of the world from him than when I sit across a table from him. We 'talk' more rather than just filling silence.
Why, I don't know, but we do. We do the strange filler thing that happens when you don't know one another enough, that happens when you're unfamiliar. It's not like my father and I don't know each other, but I don't feel like we're open. I'm not gay to him, I'm just neutral, nothing. I am myself when I'm across the world, divided and therefore somehow closer.

Seabeck, Washington

When I was six, my parents went to Hong Kong for several weeks, leaving my sisters and I at home in Seattle. To cover for them, like a substitute teacher, they employed one of my father's grad students to take care of us while they were away. The woman they chose, called Lisa, was one of the most amazing friends I've ever made. She let us change the gears of my parent's car for her, turn the wheel whilst she was parking, would take us grocery shopping as well as doing all the stuff that we'd normally consider boring but now saw afresh as invigorating and cool.
Lisa used the money that my parents paid her for her time watching us to buy a horse. This was good for us because from then on (she says), she thought of the horse as partly ours and would take us out on it and would teach us the basics of riding. Shannon, as the horse was called, was a beautiful tall dark horse that would stomp and whinny as we walked up to her, hands trembling so much the carrot sticks we’d be holding jump about on our flattened palms.
That was over fifteen years ago, and Lisa with her horse, and now husband and two sons live over on the Kitsap Peninsula in western Washington. It’s a long way to go to find her there, but I’m going to try all the same…

Even if it’s just for a horse ride.

I love Big Brother

But not the shitty TV show, I love big brother the entity that watches over me whereever I go, that knows what I'm eating because it knows the Teriyaki place where I used my credit card, knows which video I rented yesterday, and knows where my flight is going and what time it'll arrive at home.
I've used this site so many times in making sure my flights are scheduled correctly, it's an OCD patient's dream.
www.checkmytrip.com/


ALSO, phil says these people are cool...
japanese t-shirts.

http://www.terratag.com

Stepping out

The grass verge on the edge of the sidewalk was beginning to get scraggly and worn looking, which made it catch his eye as he stepped from the cushioned 'executive' interior of his sedan. The prim correctness of his yard was thrown out by the introduction of this rogue element. He stepped, now reaching his leg out over the grass and onto the cement slabs, so that his shoes side-stepped the wayward elements.
Remaining calm, his breath regulated, he forced himself to walk up to the house and ignore, for this moment, the leech on his attention.

He wanted to drop down on his knees and rip the blades of grass out of the soil, to fling them from his controlled space, but his sense of place restrained him. What would the neighbours think?