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Spanish Sahara by Foals

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:47:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:14:00 +0000

Circle jerking: A group of people discussing a (usually controversial) topic with the same stance, agreeing with each other to the point of redundancy. Usually involves ego-stroking and the false satisfaction of having won an argument when in fact there was no opposition, or the opposition was boo'd out of the discussion.

Example: what happens on Facebook when people discuss either a)the awesomeness of religion or, b)the evils of religion.

Now you know, (citation needed).

I like the way you think

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:43:00 +0000

gluttonous battle zone

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:46:00 +0000

sorting through clothes

of the yes's

the no's

the maybe so's

the "maybe" stack,

turns into the "when i am skinny" pact

intentions intact

but never quite exact

a ritual observance

of an annual occurrence

the little war of decadence

with this summer cleaning abhorrence

the old, the new

the forgotten few

everything you outgrew

everything that outgrew you

Where my fortune lies by Auld Lang Syne

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 04:30:00 +0000

This song is so beautiful. It's sad but it wakes you up at the same time.

Neko Case - I wish I was the moon

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:07:00 +0000

Habits

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 06:29:00 +0000

When I say we, I mean I.

Habits are not just hard to break, they are hard to identify. Habits are inevitable (obviously) but there are peculiar habits that arrive out of a necessity but then never diminish. Like when we see beauty we want to capture it. With a photograph, with a painting, with anything that is more lasting than our experience. And for what? So it can be shared. Mostly. We enhance our lives with music, with stories, with art. We capture it in bits. A moment becomes a picture, a quote…..a tweet. When you feel something you can't wholly understand, or precisely express - there's a song that'll do just that. And we encapsulate that moment in that song. While the song is supposed to be an expression of the reality, in the end what remains is the song. The moment doesn't stand independently anymore. It's a habit. To create information bites, whether it's through words, visuals or sounds. We produce bits, and more importantly we consume bits. Quotes, extracted from their contexts, bolded and reproduced within pairs of bunny ear punctuation marks. It is a habit to want to enhance the experience. But the enhancement itself becomes the experience, and the reality is boiled down to representations.

Our experiences become filtered and foreign. We participate in a culture of sharing, but once you share something it acquires a life of its own. It's not yours anymore, and it's not sacred. It becomes the object of someone else's analysis, based on the way they perceive things. Once the original context is removed, you most likely have diminished the beauty that you witnessed. The beauty that you wanted to capture. What you felt is no longer unedited. That feeling that allowed you to perceive something in a unique way is no longer present. And all that is left is that bit of information. Like a thought expressed in a blogpost.

When you are smoking a cigarette, you are inclined to finish it. Whether midway it loses its purpose, whether midway you no longer desire it - you finish it regardless. Sure it's a waste if you don't, but you are no longer smoking for the reason that you chose to smoke. You are smoking to finish it. Just like that, you are no longer capturing beauty to appreciate it, you are capturing it to contain it.

It's dictatorial. It's consuming. Of course, nothing would be created if no one actualized their ideas. If thoughts were never put to paper there would be no production, no growth. But does it have to be so engrained? But, beauty is still as beautiful if you don't frame it, right? Without those encapsulating markers we forget to understand what we appreciate and what we don't. We forget how to differentiate between what is enchanting to us versus what we think should be enchanting. And realizing this is not enough to overcome it. But it maintains your sanity.

the alternate universe was rapture

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 05:50:00 +0000

the alternate universe was rapture

but you couldn't wait for capture

you did what you thought

was the best for your plot

you did what you thought,

what you ought to have not.

30 second paintings

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 04:32:00 +0000

Light painting

(thirty second exposure and LED lights)

I was experimenting mostly with shutter speed and trying to properly frame the picture. When you are trying to draw on air, with little light, it takes some practice to figure out where the picture frame begins and ends. Despite the unpolished results, it was a lot of fun.

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:11:00 +0000

For Arriana: the newest addition to my favourite white family.

p.s. Crafts are so much fun.

Watch it - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 03:14:00 +0000

Sometimes the best movies turn out to be the ones I have never heard about (probably because of the low expectations). Pleasantly surprised by John Krasinski's talents.

"Brief interviews with hideous men" trailer":

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 07:02:00 +0000

The tragically hip at Bluesfest (09.07.2011)

Gordon Downie

Downie with his white man dance moves

Paul Langlois

Rob Baker

oh, imgur

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 01:51:00 +0000

made me lol.

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 05:05:00 +0000

A few days ago I realized I couldn't think of a gender-neutral, age-neutral english term for son/daughter. After 2 days the only word I could think of was "offspring". But there must be a more colloquial equivalent.

I can't remember why this came up in the first place, it might have been because of this article: Parents keep child's gender secret, but it has been mildly bothering me ever since.

Gasoline and Matches

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 02:39:00 +0000

coop

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:48:00 +0000

cubicle living,

so dull and forgiving,

lived it through June,

and the forevermoon.

The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:50:00 +0000

One of my favourite contemporary poems:

The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look

into each other’s eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear

without saying hello. In the restaurant

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,

I know she’s used up all her words,

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line

and listen to each other breathe.

literary crimes

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:27:00 +0000

it was injury to sight

she held Slaughter House Five
and he complacently obliged

they experienced the thrill
of their illicit act:
folding page corners

all dog-eared books
and doe-eyed looks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_ears

happy people

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:55:00 +0000

happy people with their

nervous whispers

and carefree

fragile fingers

mistakenly linger

on remedies

of jealousies

and memories

of ecstasies

and their cacophony

of melodies

happy people with their

nervous whispers

and carefree

fragile fingers

needlessly agree

on mutual demise

their sacrificial eyes

telling colossal lies

as they improvise

the highs

of painful goodbyes

so, just where do we belong?

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:47:00 +0000

the journey we took is so

long, long, long

the turns we took are so

wrong, wrong, wrong

in the morning

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:59:00 +0000

when all the relevance became irrelevant.

the distance into absence

the emotions to songs

the present became past

the sorrow surpassed

it was a now or never deal

when all your relevance became irrelevant.

sleepy golden storm

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:11:00 +0000

And then there was such a fuss over Ann Coulter

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Sat, 15 May 2010 20:31:00 +0000

In 2007, a Burmese activists was arranged to speak at University of Ottawa regarding the building of the Yadana pipeline in Burma, during this construction significant environmental damage was caused, thousands of people were forced to relocate, and child and forced labour was employed. This was a project administered by a company called Power Corp. This company seats members of the Desmarais family on its Board of Directors. The Desmarais family is also a major benefactor of University of Ottawa, having a 12 storey building on campus under their name.

This Rabble article exposes some of the hostile emails and excursions that happened among the UofO executives prior to the talk:

University of Ottawa spied on leading Burmese activist

lol.

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Fri, 14 May 2010 16:57:00 +0000

Happy mother's day.

noreply@blogger.com (Certainepic) — Sun, 09 May 2010 20:24:00 +0000

mother's day: a great excuse to make a fondant cake.