tags

i finally got around to posting up a list of the tags i use for my posts. i was about to manually enter them when i found that blogger can do it for you; thanks, blogger!

in the process of tagging all my old posts -- which i will eventually get around to completing -- i reread some old stuff. some of it was cryptic and required a bit of detective work to decipher what i was saying. some of it cracked me up; boy, i used to be really funny. all of it reminded me of who i used to be and hinted at who i am to become. by golly there is a lot of stuff i tag as nerd.

comfort zone

do you know how rhinos mark their territory? they take a big dump and then kick it to spread it around. people are like rhinos.

i shared this before at the last Aletheia Winter Retreat, coincidentally where i made this sign.

normally, at church/fellowship overnight events (camps, retreats, etc), i don't have to -- how do i put this politely? -- evacuate my colon drop a dookie plug the plumbing shed some weight. this happens without any conscious effort.

for one weekend, my body will instinctively know that there is no comfortable seat to make my deposit, and thus closes up shop. it doesn't matter how many vegetables go in, nothing comes out. walk into my house and i'll shoot for the nearest porcelain.

at Aletheia Winter Retreat, i finally felt comfortable enough to sink some treasure -- in the bathroom with the door that did not lock no less. it wasn't a big deal, just a mild psychological breakthrough. during the campfire sharing time, after most people had done the serious stuff, sharing about loneliness and finding God or whatever, i told them about my catharsis and how it was an indicator of how close to them i felt. i'm not sure they were comfortable enough with me to hear it in such candid terms, but when you're comfortable you can put yourself out there like that without a care.

i knew i was comfortable in Longlac because after the first night, i inaugurated the bowl upstairs. by the second week, we were so comfortable with each other that we didn't mind other people listening in on our symphonies (at least the three guys had no problem with it). dude, some people have rhythm. no duets though (out of courtesy).

candid camera / a startling revelation

i must be so annoying =D

i recently reacquired the password to my second flickr account. since i am so gainfully unemployed, and since i've been such a shutterbug as of late, i thought i'd get off my lazy rump and start uploading. only about 40% of my shots make it online (blurries and pointless shots stay on my hard drive), so i'm learning to shoot more and decide what's good or not later.

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today, i picked up tiffany c. from her house to go to church early because that's just how the schedule worked out. the first thing she said was, "my sister said you looked 14."

this would explain why the younger ladies latch onto me, and why the ones my age are much less inclined to do so (they have higher standards).

a few months ago, i was catching up with a friend whom i had slightly lost contact with. she told me that if i ever wanted a girlfriend, i would have to bolster my reputation with the parents age group at church and appear more mature. this was followed by the awkward reveal that she used to have a huge crush on me; i am denser than a yuletide fruitcake log.

obviously, i don't think very lowly of myself, so my immediate reaction was, "hey, i'm plenty mature" as a good poop joke flitted through my mind. this was followed closely by, "why do i have to perform for them? is this some sort of dog show?"

of course, i understand that maturity in a man ups his attractiveness four-fold -- who wouldn't want to be attractive? but i will not go out and pretend to be more mature in front of others because that is immature; it is tantamount to slathering a layer cake of makeup on to appear beautiful, glitzing up to appear wealthy and wearing platform shoes to appear tall.

X-tian Music

for the most part, i do not listen to Christian music. i don't mean that i don't listen to Christian bands (or bands associated with Christianity -- another discussion in an of itself) like Switchfoot, Lifehouse, etc; i mean the stuff we normally sing in service.

i sometimes find myself asking, why is that? everyone else seems to be into it and aware of what songs are floating about on the airwaves, while i remain blissfully ignorant. the only answer i can come up with is that these songs just feel weird. it's like petting a cat (or shark) backwards; neither party really appreciates it.

i write this recently returned from summer retreat. the times of worship we had were quite awesome. except for the little niggling at the back of my mind, that weird feeling that sat there in the corner and looked at me funny. was it because the songs were too high for my range? was it because i took my socks off?

it wasn't the people playing the instruments, singing the songs. it wasn't the people swaying and dancing around me. it wasn't the hard and knotty carpet under my feet. it was something i could feel inherently in the music of some songs that was off-putting.

possible bug-a-boos:
Illogical Lyrics -

open up, you heavenly gates,
let the king of glory in;
open up your hearts to Him,
let the king of glory in

i first encountered this gem at Iawah. it bugged me then (for multiple reasons) and it continues to bug me now. isn't the king of glory already inside? was that line thrown in just for balancing the second half of the quatrain on a metaphorical level? and it's not just the chorus that bugs me; the rest of the song is all over the place in terms of range, direction and tone. this sort of thing really distracts me from worship.

Shoehorning - this is when a contemporary verse is written, or exerpted from another song and literally shoehorned into a rendition of an established hymn, e.g. Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone). when it's done well, such as the aforementioned example, it augments the song and takes it to nifty places. when the verse that's shoehorned in does not work, it blows up the entire song like nobody's business. here's a good hymn: Fairest Lord Jesus. here it is, in my opinion, ruined: Fairest Lord Jesus + shoehorned verse.

i wish i had copies of both that you could listen to. the shoehorned verse is innocuous and unassuming and really dull in writing. musically it sticks out like a thumb that has fingers growing out of it. planting it into the hymn as a chorus only compounds the badness because it is refrained and repeated. the hymn is in C. the chorus is in F. F is the 4th note on the C scale. there aren't any hard and fast rules to songwriting nowadays, but there are things that sound good and things that don't. while F is one of the nice notes on the scale, it is not a standalone note; as such, it is not a standalone key. it's a leading note that is used to build expectation for musical resolution (returning to the home key C or the dominant note G). this verse rips the listener out of the hymn and takes him or her nowhere in particular. and that hurts.

Electric Rock Show Circus - not associated with any particular song; but more of an issue of taste. Christian praise songs have veered into rock concert territory. the songs are all about flashy electric guitar riffs, pounding bass, intricate drum solos and stratospheric vocals. rock is the cool, hip thing to do. it sure does get the crowd going. but when every song seems to be a huge eardrum-busting rock-out show-off fest, i will get up and go. the absolute worst is a balladic hymn song getting an Evanescence Bridge Buster -- you know, like the radio edit of My Immortal. it sort of works in that particular song, but not for praise and worship. the EBB is a commercial gimmick, a hook in the song to lure shallow listeners. P&W is not about glory hogging.

of course, this could all just be an issue of musical taste. i prefer acoustic music, when you can tell if the singers and instrumentalists are actually good at what they do. i like music the same way i like food: slow -- for the purposes of savouring what's in it. for the most part, contemporary Christian music just doesn't do it for me; it is lyrically and musically shallow. there is some really good stuff out there, i'm sure of it; i just can't be bothered to wade through the dross to get to the gold.

this world is small

i was umping a game last week and one of the players on one of the teams was someone i just met in my second last semester of school in Children's Literature. she'd not a church-goer but she was invited to play for "Anointed". the following day (sunday) "Anointed" umpired our game, and i got to chat a bit with their coach, Jo, again. one of the assisting umpires knew most of the players on our team because they all go to University of Waterloo. she didn't recognize me, even though i called her out for leading off at second base, until i reminded her.

the next day (monday), i went to Markville Mall to take a gander at some day packs, as my trusty red one (for skates and other miscellany, like Longlac and camping and high school) was beginning to deteriorate. as i began my quest, i spied out of the corner of my eye someone that looked like Jo in the distance, talking to a friend. as i returned my attention to my quest it looked like she saw me too, and seemed to have a moment of fuzzy recognition as well. i didn't turn back to confirm it on account of aforementioned quest (that did not bear fruit).

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i took Cheryl to Pacific Mall today to see if we could (miraculously) find a USB data cable for her Sandisk Sansa C-140 MP3 player, since she left it back home in Longlac. we trawled the mall for about an hour, going past every store and talking to the people behind the counters of the techier stores. i did not play the usual Pacific Mall games of a) counting cellphone stores (tough) b) counting bubble tea stores (tougher) c) counting pirated DVD stores (toughest).

after sufficient boredom and not finding what we came for, i decided to take her over to Market Village to see if we could find soprano-melissa where she works. on the way over in the toaster oven heat, two girls walked past. one looked mildly familiar and i thought, hey, is that Mary from UHS where i taught grade 11 physics two summers ago? it wasn't. so we trundled into the slightly air conditioned older sister of Pacific Mall and quickly identified the place that soprano melissa worked. it was upstairs.

turning towards the place after getting off the escalator i make eye contact with Mary from UHS where i taught grade 11 physics two summers ago, who was with her mom and little sister. what a coinky-dink. we small-talked for a bit -- where she would be going for university, etc; i didn't tell her i was just thinking of her (not in THAT way) because that would sound three shades creepier than i normally try to project. anyways, this was actually the third time bumping into her. the first was at the entrance of T&T early last year; the second was at TJCAC during the program that followed Project T-dot last summer.

after that we found melissa fairly easily; she was standing at the reception desk. we then went back to Pacific Mall to get some bubble tea from Food Jungle (real fruit, not powder) because she had a discount card (10% off!). there we bumped into Kelvin and his parents who were just out for a summer afternoon something.