"Mommy, where is the water going?"

"It's coming back even faster. Please run."

Here's how you can make a donation to quake relief:

Canadian Red Cross www.redcross.ca, or 1-800-418-1111 or contact local Red Cross office.

World Vision www.worldvision.ca or 1-800-268-5528.

UNICEF Canada www.unicef.ca, or 1-877-955-3111.

Oxfam Canada www.oxfam.ca, or 1-800-GO-OXFAM

Cdn. Tamil Congress at 416-751-8777

Cdn. Relief Organization for Peace in Sri Lanka at 416-429-2822

All Toronto police stations

courtesy of the Toronto Star

an excerpt from my diary journal sailor's log PLOG (paper blog)

dear diary PLOG,
i gotta get used to your new name. no more diary, no more diary, no more diary.
PLOG PLOG PLOG... mmm... blending. like smokefog smog. or taximetercabriolet taxicab taxi.
today was beautiful, and by beautiful i mean that she talked to me, for like, more than 4 minutes. that's got to be a record. and a voice in my head, sounding a lot like pierre macguire, echoed that sentiment. happy happy happy! and she was doing this casual, playful shouldercheck thing while we were walking, so we slowly pendulated down the sidewalk. it was a bit cold outside so i really wanted to put my arm around her and tell her then and there, but that might've ruined the moment. or open up the choir in my head that's been waiting since grade three for that moment. slowly, like a zamboni. the ground was too icy to kneel anyway.

SCRUBS: 3.11 "My Clean Break"

Turk: So, did you break up with her?

J.D.: I was going to last night, but then I looked in her eyes, and I realized how rare it is to meet someone who's actually willing to have sex with me.

Carla: How did you have sex with the woman you're about to break up with?

J.D.: Okay, you know how the, uh, couch in the living room has those high arms...?

Turk: Babe, you gotta understand, a guy will sleep with any woman he finds attractive, no matter how he feels about her. If Tyra Banks drove her car over my mom and then offered to have sex with me? I'd have to dial 9-1-1 in the nude because my pants would already be off!

Carla: That's sweet! While your mother lays there dying!

Turk: [to J.D.] Tell her.

J.D.: His mom doesn't die. Tyra uses her connections in the supermodel world to get government scientists to put Turk's mom's brain into Heidi Klum's body. She falls in love with me, we all move in together.

Turk: It'd be awkward at first, but I'd make it work.... 'Cause I love my mom.

J.D.: Mm, and I would love her, too.

Carla: [going back to work] New low.

tis the season...

it's just about that time of year again.
more than a few people are just kicking back and relaxing from exams,
or still studying furiously to finish up the last one or two.
probably feeling a little bit lonely because everyone else is together.
this will cheer you up, knowing that someone out there is much worse off.

(right-click, save as)
turn it up

-cheers

people think that i eat too many chocolate bars, or that i don't wash my face...

here are a few things i like with chocolate:
- milk. milk chocolate doesn't really make any difference to me. chocolate milk, however, is probably what Jesus would've turned that bath water at the marriage at Cana into, had it been invented yet.
- peanut butter. thank you reese's.
- nutella. ferrero roche knows where its at.
- nuts. white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. 'nuff said.
- caramel. the caramilk bar secret is not very well protected.
- nougat. i don't really know what nougat is but it sounds dirrty.
- marshmallow. sugar + chocolate = can't be wrong.
- pastry and other bakery store goods. all pastry and other bakery store goods goodness is multiplied 10 billion-fold by a drizzle of chocolate syrup.
- mint. york peppermint patties! girl guides' chocolate mint thins! oh baby. i wish i had a sister so that ggcmts would come my way more often than door-to-door. my only way in now is to date a girl guide. i think it's worth it.

Attack of the Clones

Lindsay Lohan, Jojo, Shannon Lucio (aka Lindsay Gardner, The O.C.)

who's mother is Marcia Cross (aka Bree Van De Kamp, Desperate Housewives)

The Hunting of the Snark

Fit the Second: The Bellman's Speech

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
Which is meager and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavor of Will-o-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes --
A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
And those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums -- " The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away."

a Prophet named Desire

Born around 570 into the Hashimite group of the Quraysh tribe, little Muhammad was raised as an orphan by his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib. He was soon passed on to his uncle, Abu Talib upon his grandfather's death, and worked the caravan routes. As a young man, he was hired by - and a few years later, marries - a rich widow, Khadijah, to work in her caravans. The routes took him to many cities and afforded him great knowledge of the Arab world. But what he saw was abhorrent to him, as a hanif. Idolatry ran rampant, not only in the foreign towns, but at home as well. Muhammad sought sanctuary from the graven images in the caves of Mount Hira during Ramadan.

On one such retreat, while deep in his meditations, Muhammad felt strong hands clasp around him, binding him fast.
"Recite!" came the trumpeting voice.
Light poured through his closed eyelids, but he dared not open them for fear of blindness.
"I cannot read!" Muhammad stammered.
"Recite, in the name of the Lord who created, created man from a blood clot. Recite, for your Lord is most magnanimous - who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know." (Qur'an 96:1-5)

Deeply afraid, Muhammad breaks free and flees into the night. As he wanders the Meccan hills, the sky lights up and a throne is emblazoned across the horizon. Upon it sits a heavenly being bearing a familiar voice.
"O Muhammad, I am Jibril (Gabriel), and you are the Messenger of God!"
Needless to say, Muhammad runs home to his wife.

This happens several more times, each time his wife consoles and reassures him that Jibril is no evil spirit, rather an emissary of God. Muhammad becomes fully convinced of this after recounting these events to Khadijah's cousin, Waraqah b. Nawfal, a fellow hanif, albeit Christian. He confirmed that Muhammad was the last Nabi, indeed the fabled Seal of the Prophets. With new resolve Muhammad seeks out Jibril in the cave where it all started.

Finding it cumbersome to relay the revelations revealed to him in the mountain by Jibril to scribes back home, Muhammad is accompanied by a retinue of scribes and scrolls, ready and waiting to transcribe the words he will recite. This was much more convenient as the rotation of scribes brought food and other good things. Thus the Qur'an was realized.

In the city of Mecca, the centre of Arabian trade and religion, Muhammad preached the One God, but was met with reluctance to change their ways of life.
"We found our fathers following a custom, and we shall follow in their footsteps." (Q. 40:22)
This new faith was not very marketable as there were no idols to sell and he was not heeded.

Among those that listened were his wife, his friend Abu Bakr and his freed slave Zayd b. Harithah. Word spread throughout the slaves and poor and a community began to form. Their moral uprightness and piety attracted the likes of Umar al-Khattab and Uthman b. Affan, prestigious men of wealth.

However, Muhammad and his followers did not have tribal protections, especially not following the deaths of his wife and uncle, Abu Talib, and were persecuted. Among his persecutors was his uncle, Abu Lahab. Homeless and under threat, Muhammad sought protection from neighbouring tribes, but to no avail.

In 622, Muhammad was invited to Yathrib, 400 km north of Mecca, to arbitrate between two feuding tribes (likely a standoff on contract details). He set off on his hijrah, his journey. So welcoming was the city of Muhammad and his followers that it was renamed Madinah. Built upon a desert oasis, Madinah was home to the Aws and the Khazraj (the two feuding factions) and a large Jewish community. Under Muhammad, Madinah flourished as a Muslim theocracy, with the Jews living with full religious freedom and equality.

he has always depended on the kindness of strangers.

heartbroken

it is over.
i will hurt for awhile.