You say you want to go for a spin

---

The lanes at every cash were packed. This is certainly no more than I deserve, Robert thought to himself as he desperately searched lane after lane for one that contained any slight advantage to the one he was already in. His eyes paused at the self-checkout lanes beside lane 1 and thought about the advantages of demonstrating his independence and competency, but decided against it. He didn't like the tone of the machine telling him to "Please Place Items in the Bag".

So he stood there, and as is inevitable to anyone in a supermarket line-up (he imagined), he glanced at a few tabloid headlines: "Britney's Visitation a Disaster", "TomKat Aiming for a Second", "Mary Kate's Cry for Help". I'm the one crying for help, he joked to himself miserably, which did comfort him a little but the feeling was too ephemeral to be of any real help. He dissected the word Disaster in his mind. Di-saster Disas-ter Dis-aster Disast-er. He mused over how a tabloid headline could make any word look aesthetically pleasing. An old lady is finished loading up her bags, and Robert took a careful step forward, savouring it because he knew another one wouldn't be coming for a while.

The man who was on deck but is now the batter, who was also obviously a father as well as a professional baseball shopper (the mysterious tenth position that is never mentioned), loaded up the conveyor belt with various diaper packages and foodstuffs. Robert let his mind wander again as a wellspring of misery threatened to consume him.

As his eyes started to glaze while browsing the colourful selection of candies, a unique "fusion" of many different fruits and flavours, somewhere in the world he was leaving, a light went on. He did not have an idea. This was an extra lane opening up. The gods have shone this light upon him.

Robert, growing up, was not the best at anything but quite above average in reflexes. He turned his cart and darted for the newly open lane. He raced his accelerating cart, trying not to have it go out of control or spill its contents and yet reach the now open lane with expediency. Perhaps he could be the first, or, being more realistic as he tends to like to be, second or third in line. He flexed his calves and asked his heart to pump more blood and pump it faster, he was quite far from his destination but maybe he could still reach his goal, and he is now jogging across the massive contingent of checkout lanes now, ever closer now, only a couple of people have noticed and lined up at this escape route, and if -

a jolting sensation and a loud clang caused him to stop and reel backwards. Various dairy, vegetable, meat and potato products flew for aisles in every direction, and several shoppers gasped at the collision, but were unwilling to leave their hard earned spots. The other market athlete, another young man in his twenties, seemed stunned as well, his cart toppled over by the force of the two carts crashing together. Robert looked at the open lane in panic. "Was there an open lane at all?" he wondered to himself, as he looked around bewildered from a sitting position on the supermarket floor. All he saw were lines of people forming one-way walls, and he was caught between two of them. The other man had gotten to his feet and offered him a hand. Still in disbelief that the open lane had vanished as soon as his eyes were off of it, Robert took the hand and raised himself to a standing position, instantly feeling less confused. Is that how kids always feel?

"Sorry buddy, I was trying to get into the open lane," the man said somewhat timidly.

"What open lane?"

---

"It's in the trees it's in the trees", it's not - it's inside me

Today is Blog Action Day. I have a blog, although it is not often updated. So, two birds with one stone!

My topic is one that people will relate to, or they will be angered by, but at the very least they should be familiar with: Cigarette litter. Instead of going all macro about global warming and whatnot, I've decided to play small ball and focus on one of my pet peeves.

Smoking is in itself quite a revolting habit. It's smelly, destroys the lungs of you and those around you, and burdens us heavily in terms of public health dollars. It's also not as fun as alcohol (disclaimer: do not drink and drive!). But that is another topic for another day. I am playing even smaller ball than smoking. This is like... a sacrifice bunt, except I'm only talking about the part where you drop the bat.

That's right, for those of you who fling your cigarette butt and then step on it, please take the extra step to put the butt into the trash receptacle. When my company goes on the "clean up day", we could fill entire bags of garbage just full of cigarette butts in the smoking area. It's not nice. The corpses still reek of the thousands of chemicals you've transformed into gas.

For those of you who toss it to the ground and don't even bother putting it out, much less waste your precious time putting it in the trash, I'm sure there's some special level of hell waiting for you. Maybe level... 6a or something. Where people on level 6 are forced to constantly smoke cigarettes and then they just toss them down at YOU. While it's still lit. It will land in your eye. You won't like it.

So now that we're friends, I once again implore you to keep your city streets clean of cigarette butts (especially Torontonians). It really does make a difference!

Still I can't decide, cause my hands are tied

I've been reading Gaiman stories. His stories are always the best stories. They make you feel good reading them. They have internal consistency, just as he describes in American Gods, that there are these rules and you don't know them all but you know they're there. Anyway, I encourage everyone to read Anansi Boys and anything else by him that you can get your hands on. His I, Cthulu short story is pretty amusing (you can read that from his blog linked above).

But I'll come back to me, since this song is about me. Now I want to write stories. It has been a long time and I'm sure I won't be any good at it, and yet, I'm compelled.

---

"Come on, get up, punk!"

Robert felt like he had been hit by a truck. But of course that was not true, he had simply been hit by a three hundred pound sack of muscle. His vision was still fading back into reality piece by piece from the white wash that filled it, like some bad transition on a TV show.

"What's the matter, pussy?"

He saw the kick coming and managed to edge slightly away from it before it connected with his side. It sent him rolling across the wooden lacquered dance floor, and into a small puddle where someone had - against the rules - brought a drink onto the dance floor and spilled it. No vision problems this time.

The darkness and the occasional stream of coloured light that struck him helped Robert see the concerned look of club-goers, who were in no way offering to help him against his burly opponent, but felt very badly for him nonetheless. Especially the fathead's (he had one of those squat, square heads) girlfriend, who got him into this mess in the first place. "Never get mixed up with broads in low-cut dresses," he could hear his dad advise. Thanks, dad.

Right now though, Robert had to make what seemed to be the most important decision in his life - get up and possibly witness an end to his short, but remarkably fun 21 year old life, survived by old-fashioned and loving parents, Body, his lovable Westie, and his vast collection of golden age comic books, or stay down, let this pool of alcohol and saliva soak into his silk shirt some more, and probably live a long, healthy, and hopefully marvelous life. The choice seemed obvious, but at that moment, fathead decided that he was going to make his choice for him.

Robert was suddenly looking at fathead eye to eye, not recalling that he ever used his own two feet to stand. That's when he noticed that he wasn't standing, but hovering about a foot off the ground, suspended by two massive hands that you might find at a prehistoric gorilla exhibit. An upwelling of well-being and cleverness came over him then, despite the pain that pervaded his body. He began to dramatically work up some phlegm and made a spitting motion. Fathead instinctively turn his head and loosened his grip a little, which allowed Robert to introduce Fathead's crotch to his foot. Fathead's crotch did not enjoy this meeting, but Robert didn't stay to console it. Instead, he bolted and ran into the night.

---

Comments, thoughts, and suggestions are all welcome.

I want to know you, want to trust you

No need for words now, we sit in silence.

As I often do, I pondered as to why people give a rat's ass about celebrity news. Who had who's baby, who's breaking up with who, etc. Personally, I could never understand it, but today I thought of something that may be part of it.

I think that people like to know secrets. They love to know. But I also like to know other people's secrets, so how come I don't care about celebrity news? The answer is that there are two parts of a secret. The first is that it is forbidden knowledge, and it is this part that relates to celebrity news. It doesn't matter that everyone knows - all that matters is that you're not supposed to know. The second part is the sharing of the secret, and this is the part I enjoy. I like it when people tell me things they wouldn't tell other people. It is a sign of trust and friendship.

I divulged this little revelation with Sat, who said that it is also because it is a neutral topic that makes people feel involved, and people want to feel involved with anything. Probably true.

We're the bodies piled up by the roadside

Sometimes, I ponder about death. Usually not my own, but if my mother is sick I will think about it. There is a small amount of guilt attached to the thoughts, because at some level something is threatening to make my thoughts a reality, even though I know it has no actual power to do so. I've never been too concerned about my state after her death. I mean, I'll be very upset. Is it because I've lost a link in this world? I have no perception of other worlds.

I would lose such an ally - my mother is always in my corner. She is always looking out for me and willing to go out of her way, and I know that when all other lights go out, she will be there to absorb the darkness. I would lose one such person, and that would suck, but that's not why I would be sad... would it?

Would it be because I have no other birth mother? Is it biological? What is the big deal about death? What does it say about my life if she were to die? Would I be telling my children that it was tragic that both my parents died so young? How should I even think about it?

I'm afraid that I wouldn't be sad though, that I would be proven to be some kind of monster that I could just accept it, mourn, and move on. I know I'm some kind of monster, but am I that kind? What if I could just deal with it better than most?

Is this desire enough?

If you are going to make a multi-display wallpaper, this is a perfect example of how to do it. It breaks nicely in the middle, and it's almost two separate wallpapers except that it is connected by theme and colour, and when you consider both together it does add more to the piece than apart.

Thanks to evilhomer for this awesome background. Follow this link to the full deviation.

Tag Team, back again

That quote really dates me, doesn't it? The other day I realized that I am actually 26. I've never given much thought to it, but somehow the act of mistakenly thinking that I was still 25, and then finding out I'm 26, now that I think about it, seemed to have triggered ill feelings towards my age. I'm not looking back in regret or anything like that, but twenty-six just has some negative energy attached to it.

The other thing you notice as you get older is that people around you start talking about their age. Mark commented on how songs on the radio remind him of his age, because he remembers when they first came out.

From January until now, and for the near future I've been in another World. Of Warcraft. I'm enjoying it even more this time around, partly because the expansion is amazing, partly because I'm actually getting to raid, but mostly because I've found some cool people to play with. When you can find a group of trusted people to go spelunking with, it makes all the difference!