Hergest Ridge

What do WalMart, BestBuy, Procter & Gamble, and Travelocity have in common? Come to think of it, too much – forget I asked. But there is one thing I’d like for them and their likes to continue doing, and that’s pulling advertising money out from propaganda aired on FoxNews. (If this dream turns reality, FoxNews as a whole will go off air and the stupefied Under 50IQ Paranoiacs-R-Us will be left to wonder the streets, thus increasing their chances of getting killed by a speeding vehicle.)

Reports suggest that the list of companies requesting their advertisements not be part of Glenn Beck’s Duckspeak has now reached 20. (Source: The Huffington Post)

Even God is pleased; using angels’ blood He signed a self-imposed Cease to Kill Kittens, normally executed by the Almighty at a 1:1 ratio for each act of human masturbation. (Since the Reforms of ’79, acts of ape and chimp masturbation do not result in kitten executions. Ever since, humans have tried and failed to work out a similar deal with God, leaving many to feel shame and guilt over simply being human.)

The cease is valid on all days a new company pulls its advertising from FoxNews, a gesture which outraged the Mice Consortium, but to which the K9 Units responded with an enthusiastic wag of the tail.

How long will this flurry of posts last? Not that long I imagine.
Am I becoming an extrovert? I highly doubt it.

I will continue to do my best to to spare you from the everyday junk without which most blogs would simply disappear – cursor left flashing on an empty page.

So, let’s get to the good part.

Genesis 4:17: Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city…

[In the beginning, there was Sarcasm.]

Wait a moment. Building a city? How, for whom, and with whom? Cain is like what, the third person on earth? (Where’d he find his wife anyway? *gasp* Is she his baby sister?)

(Ewww.)

Let’s move on, or to be exact back it up away from this disturbing thought…

Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

[Then there was the narrator's brief observation.]

Notice what is happening here? Someone clearly just discovered the word c-r-e-a-t-e-d. Created. I’d be so pissed if I had to carve it into stone three times in just one sentence. Obviously no one took pity on the scribe by applying to their faithful narration the concepts of brevity. As I was saying…

Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…”

Created male and female? What, all at once, just like that?
But everyone knows that Eve came from Adam’s rib!

Gensis 2:7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 22: Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Two and not just one creation story, but clearly the bible corrects itself in the latter portion.

[But God didn't understand Sarcasm, so he smote it.]

Anyone under the extremely popular impression that the bible is the literal word of anyone or anything has A) never read it, or B) is in very poor shape when it comes to the ability of using basic reason.

[Now God is angry. You won't like God when he's angry.]

Neee, the bible with its many self-contradictions cannot be true – neither is it entertaining. I much prefer Trout’s Genesis. I especially like his explanation that Satan is a woman. (Oh go ahead, read it before you castrate me!)

Trout is dead and in heaven now – never did rewrite all of the bible. But at least there is the LOLCat Bible Translation Project, and if you need something to believe that makes a bit more sense than the three most popular desert dogmas, open your heart to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) and Pastafarianism. The FSM has manifested himself to people from around the world – may His noodly appendages touch you and your life, breathing delicious sauce into everything you do.

[Mmmm... spaghetti.]

This afternoon a triad of cars moved to occupy the same space on Main Street. The results were predictable, the damage to all sorts of bodies quite serious. The burgundy four door had been turned into a trike, the axle still attached to the renegade wheel. The blue sport is now a mini, but I doubt anyone is lining up to test drive this particular model. The third vehicle ended up on the sidewalk bleeding green blood, like an extraterrestrial in a rough New York street.

The whole thing was a mess, and not everyone walked away from it. To clear out the area, cops started shooting bystanders.

The lone wheel reminded me of a pileup on the 401. Its axis pointing at the heavens, it lay far from the crime scene. It was Fernando that attributed a completely different but also orphaned wheel to the 401 crash – the joke being that at that particular moment in time we were thousands of kilometers away from the scene.

Had the three strangers today waited to meet in the same place in summer, they could have spared themselves towing fees. The whole thing took place at the front step of the Public Insurance Assessment Centre construction site. Granted that after the crash, it’s unlikely that anyone involved felt like they’ve nearly missed anything or some kind of opportunity.

An hour later the mess was still there, three lanes of the street blocked by a fire truck. I could not help but wonder at just how much a life can change in a tiny sliver of time we’ve really no choice but to take for granted. I suppose if there is a message here, it’s not to take life too seriously for it won’t last.

The visitor of last night has made it off. The alarm rang at 6:00, but I recall little until about an hour later. I must have checked after the alarm to see if it flew off, but do not remember.

Not sure if injured and awaiting its last breath in relative peace, the white dove perched up in the corner of the wall on the balcony startled me last night as I went outside. Only its head turned towards me, dark round eyes observing, it felt no need to clear out in my presence. Over the next hour as I cooked the day’s last meal on the grill, I came in and out several times but it only turned its head, never moving its feet or wings.

In a bottle cap I put out some water, my hand a chicken’s pace away from the visitor. It adjusted itself, and observed without much fanfare. In the end it did not accept the offering, for the cap is still filled to the brim.

The burlesque side of my human nature sought a greater meaning to the event. Or, was it a kind of desperation that tried to persuade my reason into a fantasy filled with omens, signs, and prophecies?

The dove now departed, unconvinced of event explanations beyond those of an animal’s need for shelter on a cool night, I’m ready for another day of work to help pave the way to a flight of my own.

The summer is slipping into something red and sexy, with a scent to match the occasion.

About five hundred words writing per day is the pace required to complete my writing project before year’s end. Perhaps a new deadline is more reasonable?

The religious pandering of politicians in election mode – here and south of the border – is making me nauseas.

“Jesus saves” is false advertising; If prayer accomplished anything, folks would be hiring others to pray for them.

Wearing your heart on the sleeve is a pathetic state; Love thy enemies like you love thyself a pathetic mantra.

(“Hi Honey, this is Jim. Jim tries to run me over with his car every time he pulls out of the driveway, but I love him as much as I love you and myself.” Well, aren’t we all just fucking special?)

I had nothing to say, but wrote anyway. And now I’m done.

You probably remember the kids stories your mother, father, aunt and older sister used to read to you; The ones where the hero of the story starts out asking for something small, but to receive it they first have to bring something to another. To get that, they have to first bring yet another item to the character which possesses what they need to trade for what they really want. And so on…

It is in that fashion that I have found myself putting away laundry, and pausing in confusion as to why in the world I am putting away laundry when I really wanted to do work for a client instead. In this strange story, there is only one character. Two, if you consider my computer capable of asking and needing before giving.

Most of my work is better done with music, and with so much time at the computer I’m always searching for new goodies to lubricate the gray matter from which – in theory – my ideas for the work need come from. Having reached a point where I much needed something new for that effect, I happily clicked on a file who’s content I’ve yet to hear. As it often happens with computers, I promptly received a raspberry in response and not the effect I sought. Something to do with the computer being overburdened and being asked to remember too much. Too much. “Please, let me forget some of which I remember” it said. “I cannot remember any new more things, until you free me from some of the things you’ve asked me to remember thus far.”

Putting it like that, you’d think my computer is pretty intelligent. Alas, it is not. They’re all dumb.

“Sure, I’ll free you from some of your burden if you in turn remember my new music which I want to hear very much, and for which you need remember the details.”

Seeing that everything the computer had in its memory was precious to me, the Forget It button was not an option. I decided to shift some of the burden to a silver plated disc instead. It’s in the hallway, with the laundry – I remembered – by the kitchen at the front entrance. Yeah, right there in the basket… somewhere. Where’d it go? No use. Might as well put the laundry away instead of digging a tunnel through it. So there I was, now dealing with laundry when I wanted to work on a project at the desk. And if that isn’t enough, my overburdened memory convinced me that I’d remember none of this by sun down, which meant I needed to write it all now.

This isn’t so bad – I assure you. I just hope that which I seek is really in the laundry basket – that it just went for a ride down the hill of the fresh scented fabric and is now tucked in somewhere in a corner having a good laugh like a child that hid to avoid bed time.

Parlez-vous français? Non.

I beat all the little brats to school. Not that they were trying hard to beat me. To the contrary, most of them looked like they were running the other way. Youth might after all be wasted on the young.

The doors of the pharmacy opened, and once again I stood in Paris. French sound bites echoing, a foreign track beyond understanding only audible and experienced by one. Everyone else was still in Winnipeg, their minds on a siesta waiting for the protection from the heat that the evening shadow might offer.

This might be a new jaunt that ends all too soon, or a grand excursion that breaks through another layer of not understanding. I look forward to either.

I’m gonna hunt me down a mammoth

into a pit of ice, and let it rest there

so I never have to go hunting again.

And with my spare time, I’ll invent the wheel and will finally enter into so called civilisation. It’s the only way, for I’ve hated the hunt from the first day. We are the dollars and cents, and I loathe to wear the face of another.