August 2003 Archives

Okay, Steve Burns, made famous as 'Steve' from the children's show Blue's Clues, has moved on from his juvenile-entertainment pursuits and has entered into a moree mature realm. I was about to say adult entertainment, but then -- realized that wasn't exactly what I meant. Anyhow, what I mean is, he has launched a musical career, with his first album being named 'Songs for Dust Mites', and really, the only way to know what I'm telling you about is for you to go to his website and check it out for yourself. http://www.steveswebpage.com/. Go check out his videos, and sample his music. He's kinda king-missile-esque, with a touch of many other influences and styles. I dig him, tho it evokes nothing of the show that my son knows and loves so well.

Looks like he finally found a clue all by himself.

Anyhow, Julie and I went to a concert of his last Sunday in the city, and it was really awesome. I had a great time. I miss going out to live music, and this was a nice rentry into that world. It was at a relatively small club (Du Nord). Maybe it was the small venue, maybe it was the lighting, but I swear to you - it was like I was watching my friend Bert on stage. Steve's mannerisms mirror Bert's,and at least to me, they look very similar. I was laughing to myself all night long.

Yesterday for my birthday my in-laws bought me a telescope. It's a 70x telescope, purchased from the kids discovery store, and is silver and black, has red and orange light-up dials, and looks like something a kid would own. I frikking love it. As a kid, I always wanted a telescope, to look at the moon and the stars, etc. but they were too expensive for my struggling parents to afford. As an adult, the telescopes that I had looked at from time to time always ran in the multiple hundreds of dollars range, and I could never quite justify buying something that I perceived that I'd use infrequently. Oh, did I mention this comes with a carrying case / backpack, so you can take it with you on hikes and excursions? Man, not only is it my cool whiz-bang ultra-kiddo telescope, but it's PORTABLE! I am gonna have so much fun with this thing. What a cool gift. I tried looking at Mars last night, which was as close as it's been to earth in 60,000 years, but there was haze and fog, so I got a big blurry dot, and that's all. Oh well, there's tonight.

Funny, I could never justify a telescope, but I spend $200 on dinner last night at a fancy restaurant, including a $19 glass of port. Priorities are weird things.

31 years ago today I was born. 60,000 years ago today, Mars was as close to us as it is now. Two weeks ago I got my hair cut. 2 hours ago, I had a cup of coffee. 10 minutes ago I decided to update my blog. I'm ready to go home. Can I go home for the day? It's my birthday! Can't I cut class just for today?

Before:

After:

Okay, I've been threatening for a while now, but this time after watching one too many episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I have made an appointment with a hair stylist on Friday, and I will be getting rid of the long hair and going for a styled haircut. I'm a little scared, since I've not had my hair cut since I was 17, and before then my hair would waffle between Mark Hamill and Shaggy from Scooby-doo. So, I know nothing about hairstyles AT ALL. I just want to lay myself into the hands of an expert and get them to fix me up. I like my long hair, but lately (for the last few years), I've kept it in either a braid or a ponytail and just feel like it's in the way when I have it down. So, what's the point in having long hair if I don't let it down? I'd rather have it short, easy to manage, and stylish with a little body. I'll let you know on Friday how it goes (maybe post some pictures as well). I'm just worried, because my hair has always been 'my thing', and I want to have a style that is edgy, original, but not freaky. I don't know the first thing about styles, or what would look good on me. I really need exterior help on this one.

I'm up here in Vancouver, BC for a work conference, and quite by chance there is a n international fireworks competition going on up here right now. Last night was one of the exhibitions, and generally I'm somewhat ambivalent about fireworks and wasn't all that interested in going, but decided last minute that if I were to go see fireworks, these would probably be the best to see. China was competing, and they sorta invented fireworks, right? So, I walked down to the water about 15-20 mins away from my hotel on foot, and joined a crowd over 350,000 people for what turned out to be the most fantastic firework display I have ever seen. The golden colors were brighter than I thought possible, and the cascades fell for what seemed like an eternity before they blossomed into blue flares. I was quite impressed, but what impressed me more was to look around at the CROWD who were ALL just gazing at the sky peacefully and enjoying the communal aesthetic experience. I have renewed faith in humanity.

So tonight I'm doing Eli's laundry, and I pull his freshly clean little toddler-sized clothes out of the dryer. Because I'm into the smell of clean laundry, I smell it and I realize much to my surprise, that although the laundry is perfectly clean, it also still smells like Eli, and I recognize the scent very strongly. It was a bit of an epiphany that even humans have scent identities that we learn and identify strongly.

I shared this little ephiphany with Julie, and she said 'oh yea, that's a momma thing. Men can notice it too if they pay close enough attention'. Once again, we are outstripped by our feminine sisters. And here I had discovered something hard to notice -- turns out, it's just hard to notice for guys.

So at work today, one of my co-workers passed out this logic puzzle which is a list of 20 self-referential questions. Took me several hours to finish, with breaks, and my brain now hurts from it. But, I got it right. Almost gave up, but my co-worker pointed out a minor clerical error that put me back on track. It all just made me think on how I used to be REALLY GOOD at these things, and was in previous years much more mentally agile than I am today. Sigh. Is it just my brain is flabby, or have I actually destroyed brain cells? Can I work out? Replace them? Cross Train? Makes me want to go subscribe to Games magazine again. I need to be really good at pointless endeavors that waste my time at work and distract me from my real job, so I have more missed deadlines!!!

Okay, so like 3 weeks ago I post that I'm going to write a blog entry every day or every-other day, and then I am silent. I'm trying not to beat up on myself too much, but what's important is that I'm writing right now. Even if it is just to beat up on myself a bit, it's better than not writing, right? Well, that's all there is to say about that. I should enter another entry if I want to say anything more entertaining than the thread I'm entertaining now. Okay, now I'm just being cute with language, so I think I should stop while I'm ahead. Or am I already behind?