superflea

I can't believe it's September. Jacket weather already. This is heartbreaking.

Not much has been going on recently with me. I'm still looking for work, and still grateful that I have the opportunity to be a little picky. I'm trying not to think of how long it's been since I started looking. That first opportunity that came down the pipe, only to slip away while I was waiting to secure my passport to go down to LA for the interview, seemed to come almost too fast, but in retrospect, better too many opportunities too soon than too few too late. A few more things have come down the pipe and I'm chasing after them the best I can, with tightly crossed fingers in the hopes that I'll be able to stay in this field. I'm awfully good at it.

I spent a few days last week visiting the folks. There never seems to be any good news about my father's health and that's a real worry for me, but every time I go up to see him in person, he always seems to be vibrant and in good spirits. I got to spend some quality time hanging out with the folks, doing some of the heavy lifting around the house, and playing frisbee with the dog. My mom and I took in a couple of flicks, including Bon Cop Bad Cop which looked hilarious in trailers but fell a little flat as a feature. What I thought would be a sharp Canadian satire turned out to be just another buddy cop movie with a lot of stuff blowing up for no particularly good reason, with a thick frosting of maudite clisse. We also saw the recent film adaptiation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which also wasn't what I was expecting. It's been a couple of years since I watched the BBC version and many more since I last read the book, and I realize a lot of content was added (much by Adams himself, if I understand correctly) to make it more 'filmy', but this isn't the story I remember. If it ain't broke, people... I've never understood making substantial changes to a property in the hopes of drawing a larger audience. Presumably you've invested in the property because of the cachet of the brand, but in changing it to try and snare an audience who didn't care about the property in the first place, you risk alienating the core audience who gave the brand its market value.

While I was up there, I finally managed to knock out Borges' Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius as recommended to me by Flux back in the day, and it gave my head the expected spin. It's particularly delicious for somebody with an english rhetoric background. If you've ever wondered about the extent of words to shape reality and our perceptions of it, it's like candy. I actually picked it up in this anthology, so I'm looking forward to checking out more of the man's work.

I just need to stop playing World of Warcraft so goddamned much and I'll be fine.

But I digress. I returned home from my trip to find that the girl had uncovered the Panic Channel CD that I had purchased a few weeks ago and managed to lose almost immediately upon bringing it into the house. As I finally tore the shrink wrap off, I was disappointed to see a sticker which listed off the band members, including "Dave Navarro of TV's Rock Star". That made me sad. I'm sure they meant to say Dave Navarro of fucking Jane's Addiction, but I weep at the notion that more people may have been interested in that album because of that ghoulish INXS show than because of Ritual.

We were going to take in the Sci Fi con in Toronto over the weekend, but my long drive back from my folks' place combined with some narsty weather kept us from heading in on Saturday. We passed on Sunday as well, but did go to Mississauga to celebrate the girl's nephew's birthday. While there, I managed to take this photo of an actual sign in the food court of the Square One shopping centre. This wasn't photoshopped.



Whatever you say, sign!