Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

I think we're all missing the point of this nursery rhyme.

If I were to give you the rhyme:

A man once lived in indecision,
His heart divided with great precision,
He finally succumbed,
The devil had won,
And it was all out of the king's jurisdiction.

you wouldn't think "Oh, well it's obviously about eggs. Devilled eggs, right?"

No, you'd see the collapse of a man that could not be saved by the king. No eggs. Now, obviously these two rhymes are similar, but not entirely the same. Mine is about the folly of bureaucratic law, whereas Humpty is about the ineptitude of so called power; not eggs.

Now, I have come across another version that reads:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
Threescore men and threescore more,
Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.

Now, this makes more sense as a riddle, only a riddle with "egg" as one of thousands of possible answers. Why not pie? In fact, it makes more sense to rest a pie on a wall to cool than to put an egg on a wall. And anyone who has ever dropped a pie would know that sixscore (I don't know if my -score math is correct on this) men couldn't fix a floor pie to look like a normal pie.

Though, I'll admit, after reading some other Mother Goose rhymes again, I can't say I've figured out what they're about either.

Fight or Flight

So when is the appropriate time to fight for someone you love? We often here the phrase "if you love her, let her go," though I often think that's "dude, she's such a bitch!" in disguise. That or "you're being such a bitch and I don't want to hear about it anymore."

But what about Love? There is always that mentality that we must fight for the things we love, especially when it comes to women. Why especially with women? Because women are confusing. Women want you to fuck off out of their lives as much as they want to still be friends. So when a girl tells you she likes you and thinks you're great and doesn't want to be in a relationship with you and goes and fucks around with another guy but still wants to be friends... where does that leave you? It's like hooking fingers together while you're at the park, arm's length apart, while she's making out with some other dude. Stay close, don't go away, but idle while I'm with someone else.

Maybe we're not supposed to be idle. Maybe this is one of those things where she doesn't want you to be idle and the other guy is a test of how much you love her. But by "proving your love" you either have to be a total asshole and try and break them up, or you have to careen down the road to the Friend Zone where you and your girl will be reunited in love... totally platonic love.

I think about 1% of the female population sees the problem with that. It's like selling your independent record label to Viacom so they can throw out everything you've ever produced and start over under the guise of an independent label. Sure, your label still exists, but with all of the soul and heart dissected from it. It'd be better to just let it die (or better yet, find other options and fight through the rough patches, but hey...).

There must be some sort of line that separates when you should fight and when you should let her go. It's probably the same line that separates persistence and creepiness. The movies always tell you that persistence pays off and that those who fight for their love will win their love back. But reality seems to always favour the other side. Persistence will get you peppersprayed and fighting will destroy everything you once had or leave you stranded in the Friend Zone.

Rest In Pieces!

So, Micheal Jackson died today.

What's up with that? More importantly, why does everyone care so much? Are all our Facebook statuses wishing him to rest in peace because we are mourning the loss or because we're guilty that we spent so much of his life making fun of him? It's as if now that he is dead it's no longer appropriate to have him on your celebrity death list (other than for the obvious fact that he is already dead).

Quite frankly, this is the best publicity that he's received in a long time. I'm sorry that you're dead and all, Mike, but your time had come a long time ago. You have caught up to your career and I'm thankful for the closure.

The world is less worse off because of the death of Micheal Jackson than it is for thousands of people who die every day to which we don't even bat an eye. I probably sound like an asshole, but if I'm not going to "pay my respects" to all these more tragic deaths, then I refuse to for someone on the basis of his celebrity status. Sorry, Micheal, but at least you got a blog post. That's more than most people get.

Either Quit, or Play Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Douchebag

I've been thinking about that stupid game again. Yes, Warcraft. When we started, we were but children in a world of teenagers. As we grew, we formed our own opinions and felt the rejection from our elders and, in turn, we rejected our elders. We believed that we would level and grow and be different. We would accept people. We would accept the little people. We would love them and care for them and teach them our ways. We would make peace with our enemies and bring glorious harmony to our world.

Though the countless hours wore on our souls. We were murdered and abused. We lived, struggling and cold, in the expanding shadow of those overtaking us. We still sought a world where we could accept our brethren, but a terrible fury built against our enemy.

As we grew to fill the place of our elders, our elders grew again beyond us. As did the enemy. Our solution was clear. We must murder their children. And we did. Conquest after conquest saw a wake of crushed and broken bones. But the threat endured. To see victory, we must grow; in numbers and in strength. And we did.

We collected them in droves. Barbarians. With every one of them came two more. Of some we became quick friends. Of others, turmoil brewed. And so a seed was planted within us. A seed of sour fruit. Though we purified our ranks with vengeful fire, we could not kill that seed. Truly it was our greatest downfall.

And so we left. We abandoned our brothers, abandoned hope. But our hunger was not satiated. Our bloodthirst had not been quenched. Revenge was too sweet not to be tasted. Our return was heralded by none. We arose as strangers in a strange land. Though we stood at the foot of new bastions of hope, we could see our enemy had grown ever stronger.

Today, we have rejected the lives of our children. We train them to fight, as all do here. We raise them without hope. We raise them without emotion. We raise them without hearts.

Though, of them we see warriors, in them their child lives on. I pray they will be released.

Calories and Why We Need Them

People are always on about how much work it takes to burn off calories, but very seldom do people actually consider how many calories it takes just to stay alive.

Now, I'm not a biologist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know a thing or two about the conservation of energy. I also observe that the human body has a number of moving parts that are always moving. Your heart is always beating. Your lungs are always breathing. People talk about walking for 30 minutes to burn off this or that, but no one considers pumping 5 litres of blood through your entire body for 1440 minutes a day. And let's not forget breathing. Think about how often you breathe. Only all the time. I mean, try replicating that outside of your body. You will get fucking tired, my friend. But guess what? Your body does that all day every day for your entire life.

My point is the function of eating is to fuel the body's necessary functions. When you eat a hamburger and think "fuck, I have to run for 3 hours to burn off that hamburger," then you haven't done anything at all. Your net calorie gain is zero, which means none of that hamburger has contributed to the energy needed to keep you alive. You've wasted a hamburger!

Music versus Alcohol

Drinking does not necessarily coax truths out of ones self, but rather, I have found, amplifies emotions. Certain emotions. Not that there isn't more truth coming from a person under the influence, but that it is a momentary truth. This is how we can say things we don't really mean, yet still feel. You may say that you hate someone while under the influence, and that may not be the case. You may say that you love someone under the influence, and that may not be the case either.

Although I probably have said things that were an exaggerated version of my normal feelings, this is not the root of my revelation. I'm sitting here in bed listening to music, and I start with a song by the Mad Caddies; Drinking For 11. Then the shuffle moves to Thrice's Stare At The Sun. Despite both songs reflecting my feelings, they have very different tones. While I am drinking, the first song made me feel hope. The second song fills me with hopelessness. So, while I assume that I have but one universal feeling, the music can alter the manifestation of that feeling, amplified, of course, by the alcohol.

In fact, that is a good way to look at it. Alcohol is your amp, not your pre-amp. Music is the pre-amp. Music changes what you can hear and what you can't; alcohol only makes it louder. This is why at a party you can totally hook up with someone or end up staying up all night talking. You still like the girl, but the music manifests different actions (also, iPods versus vinyl, very different results).

To emphasize my point, my iPod has just switched from Slipknot to Vivaldi and I'm too confused to go on. But the point I wanted to make is that I say a lot of things that may not fairly represent how I feel. I guess I also want to say I'm sorry for this. Things that are black and white are express than this sea of grey.

Summer sucks

Remember when summer used to be great? When there were people and parties and opportunities and time to just relax? Those days are gone.

This summer has been one of the worst summers ever. I've lost all my friends and I don't even know why. Maybe it's the recession and everyone is working, maybe it's that we're growing up and moving apart, maybe it's that I've been miserable for the past 6 months and no one wants to deal with me anymore. I suppose I don't make much of an effort to see people anymore. Maybe it's that too many things have fallen through. Too many times schedules haven't lined up. And the more time that passes in between, the farther we are pushed away from one another.

I think we need to fix this. I'd say that we start now, but people probably have work in the morning so I don't want to call so late.


Or maybe it's time to tear everything down and start all over.

But the truth is...

I miss you and this is so much harder than I thought.

Thinking about love

So, I've been thinking a lot about love lately and I've come to the conclusion that it isn't as cinematic as I once thought. The concept of unconditional love is simply insane. I understand that it sounds really good of a person to be able to love unconditionally, but the term 'unconditionally' is misused or misunderstood.

Unconditionally means without any conditions. I was in love with a girl once. She left me for someone else. That sort of condition radically changed the way I felt about her and allowed the dismantling of the construct of love in my head without any remorse. Actually, that happened twice, but details...

We all understand that this is an extreme case (although suspiciously common to me) and isn't exactly the kind of thing when you consider when it comes to love. But, as I am proof, it happens. Furthermore, the reciprocation of love is something worth taking a critical look at. The romantic weight of loving someone that doesn't love you back is incredible. It shows... well, I can't exactly put my finger on what it shows. Maybe shows that you're crazy.

Let's take a look at an analogous situation. Say you're a sports player and you go to the training camp for your favourite city's team. You work hard and give it your best, but your best isn't good enough. The team refuses to sign you a contract. But you are dedicated to this team. In fact, you are so dedicated that you submit to only playing for that team. You practise and you train and you ignore the scouts from any other team because you will only play for that one team. But they never ever recruit you. Maybe you're not good enough. Maybe their roster is full. Maybe the team just can't afford you. You're dedicated to a team, but you're giving up a chance for a mutually beneficial relationship with another team. To give up your shot at the big leagues (in other words, love) because you've committed to a team that hasn't committed to you is, although romantic, absolutely fucking insane.

To this respect, love is to be earned and some of us are just too eager to give it away.

Of Boats and Breakups

When it comes to breaking up/being left behind by someone you love, the initial reaction is to think that it sucks because it hurts. I, however, have come to the conclusion that, in the long run, that is not the fact. In truth, it sucks because you've failed, and that brings along all the baggage of failure.

Let's look at it from the perspective of several years ago. You broke up with someone, it sucked, you hurt, you moved on. Today, you can't honestly say it hurts (if it does, you need to get her back whatever the cost; she's the one! (ladies, I can't even imagine you having these kinds of feelings; boys aren't that special)). Today, you can't say that you feel the same way you feel when it first happened. So is it even a bad thing to break up? After all, you learn something each time it happens. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Well, yes. Are breakups a good thing? Well, no.

The problem with breakups, like any other failure, is not the pain, misery, dejection, remorse, what-have-you of failure, but the fact that you have to reset the experiment. You need to find someone else and start all over! What's worse, is the more promising a social experiment like dating (the hypothesis being that she is the girl for you) the more resources are poured into the experiment. Now, I'm not talking money here, so all you raging feminists can put a sock in it right god damn now. I'm talking about less tangible resources. Time (we've only got so long on this planet), ideas (perhaps this is a personal thing, but once you use a good idea on a girl that idea is spent forever), songs (like ideas, one per customer. "Everything I Do" was such a good one...), love (though a renewable resource, a resource that shouldn't be wasted nonetheless), and, one of the more obscure and less thought of resources, brownie points.

Yes, brownie points. I have a collective 6, if not more, years of generating brownie points and I've traded them in for nothing! I'm always saving up for that boat! So after a breakup, where do those brownie points go? They're lost forever! They're non-transferable! Your ex isn't going to tell your current girlfriend that you're awesome because you're not dating anymore! It carries no value! Shit, if I got to keep all my brownie points, I could have had a turtle by now!

And before you say that I could buy a turtle now because I'm single and I can do what I want, that's not the point! The point is that it's part of the continued experiment. When the effects of Alex on Girl are very well known and things become stable, you have to use brownie points to introduce something new (because the effects of introducing something that she wants are negligible. She gets something new. She's happy about it for a bit). If I was in the same relationship, I could be testing Alex+Turtle on Girl. Can you imagine the ramifications of that equalling win?

Seriously, God's gotta throw me another bone (no pun intended) or I'm going to end up an arsonist.

They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To -or- Kids These Days

So, I was watching a bit of this movie, Born Free, with my mom while I was eating dinner and we were at this part where they are trying to introduce a captive lion back into the wilderness. The wild male lion roars. The captive female lion roars. The male lion roars again. The lioness roars back. The male lion roars some more. The female lion- well, you get the point.

Now, this is where my mother and I disagree. I said that they have learned a lot about making movies since 1958. My mother says that it's just because we kids have no attention span. I think it has nothing to do with attention spans, but rather the conduction of information. If you want to convey that the lions roar at each other for quite some time, you have a shot of each of the lions roaring followed by a wide shot of both lions roaring with the sun in the background. Dissolve to later where the sun is lower on the horizon. Cut back to the couple in the jeep and start the dialogue of them giving up. Seriously, a 5 minute scene from 1958 consisting of at least a dozen straight back-and-forth cuts would today be replaced with 30 seconds, 3 cuts and a dissolve.

And it's not that I'm uninterested in what is happening, but rather that the marvel of on-location cinema is no longer wonderous on its own. It is much the same way a portrait is neat, but no longer compelling in this day and age. Art has progressed past the marvel of simple replication.

Though I wonder if perhaps one day children will scoff at the backwardness of the films of my day. They almost certainly will, and I will almost certainly defend my time.

Sadness

I was going to write something depressing, but I'm listening to KC and the Sunshine Band and I can't focus well enough on being upset to blog about it.

So, instead, I will tell you that music is the ultimate emotional narcotic. The trick is knowing how to use it to direct your emotions forward or backward.

I think I'll need double ska soon.

Coordination

I have no brain-girl coordination.