more than words

maybe it's because of the people i grew up with, or maybe it's because of my personality and predispositions, but i get rather jealous when people don't tease me. granted, not everyone is the type to do so; everyone expresses love in different ways. i can't take a compliment to save my life (a simple 'thank you' would suffice), but i just happen to be the type of person who truly appreciates the gesture of being farted on.

a good, loving inside-joke-jab-at-your-quirks is really quite rare and uplifting, in my opinion. it translates to, "i've taken the time to know you, all the good and the bad, and i wouldn't change you for the world," with varying levels of intimacy. so if i ever tease you, it's because i love you -- and possibly because you are an easy target.

Stardust

while life can sometimes be really, really good, it is, for the most part, mundane, trivial, routine and oh, so boring; this makes a person downright cynical.

once every ten years or so, a story comes along that lets you believe again in things like goodness, dream chasing and the magic of love.

Stardust is filled with legitimate adventure, suspense, romance, humor, pathos, and enough self-awareness to make it a worthy successor to The Princess Bride

- Daniel Carlson, Pajiba Critic

i haven't been this tickled and uplifted by a movie since Le Fabuleaux Destin d'Amelie Poulain (Stranger Than Fiction came close). it is, indeed, this decade's The Princess Bride, rife with fantasy, adventure, romance, suspense and just the right amount of self-awareness. the colours, the soundtrack, the acting are all spot on. even the plot twists you see coming are delightfully executed.

plainly put: gorgeous. i am smitten.

i will not write a review since the one linked in the title is more than sufficient (mild spoiler warning).

it is 4 am

do you know where your children are?

i'm up right now because there is going to be a total lunar eclipse starting at 0451. it will take about an hour for the moon to be fully eaten by the Earth's shadow. for another hour and a half, every wannabe sorcerer and witch in the Eastern Daylight Time zone will be hustling to perform those once-in-a-lifetime blood rites, or whatever it is those crazy cats are doing these days.

there's nothing special about a lunar eclipse other than turning the moon into a hue of red -- like some sort of apocalyptic sign. i really didn't have to wake up, but i said i would and i'm not about to give up free bragging rights. i've got plenty of time to sleep after sunrise (which i will probably watch as well).

so i will head out to stand around in my yard for two hours pondering the mysteries of life, love and ladles (big and little ones). maybe i'll practice some waterbending to pass the time (waterbenders are strongest when the moon is full).

EDIT: 0610
i'm back inside now.
instead of standing in the yard, i maneuvered a park bench to face the West. i sat down as the top of the full moon started to become obscured. at about 1/3 coverage, i went back inside to cook up some breakfast (many mini pizzas). i came back out while they baked in the toaster oven. in the meantime, the moon had the upper half of its face eaten by the shadow. it looked like a kitten head. i wish i had a camera capable of capturing the moon. little point-and-shoots don't really catch the details when shooting astronomical distances.

when i came back out after retrieving my many cooked mini pizzas, it looked like a squashed kitten head. i lounged on the bench, eating my many cooked mini pizzas as the moon turned red. it passed behind some powerline towers as the eclipse reached fullness. with a stationary point of reference, i could visably see the moon arcing down into the horizon. i lost it behind a house.

so then i turned my attention to the sunrise, which was hot on the heels of the moonset. having seen the sunrise many times before under more favourable waterside circumstances, and having run out of cooked mini pizzas, i decided to turn it in. on my way into my room, i saw my mom coming out of hers.

Nerd Corner: Opera Portable

it's software pimping time and i am pimping my favourite thing again.

a good number of people are heading back to school next month, myself included, and there will come a time when you need to use one of the school computers. if your school is anything like mine, the computers will be running Windows and the the internet browsers will be either Internet Explorer 6, Firefox or a combination of the two. and if you are anything like me, having to use either IE6 or Firefox will make you feel unclean. chances are you are using Firefox and you've tweaked the grease out of the monkey. what i'm trying to say is, using someone else's browser configuration is uncomfortable.

enter portable applications. these are your favourite pieces of software, stripped down to fit on a portable drive (e.g. USB flash drive), allowing you to use the programs you are comfortable with on any compatible computer.

i personally use Opera Portable (hereafter denoted as OP). Opera, the desktop browser, is already designed to have a small memory footprint. my current installation (Opera 9.23) is 4.88 MB; OP is 4.66 MB. while most portable versions of applications tend to be nearly neutered or slower than Tarzan on a Japanese IQ test, OP is essentially the same as the desktop (non-portable) version. it is merely repackaged and streamlined to save space.

to prevent caching and stuff from decreasing your flash drive's lifespan (flash memory has a finite number of writes), OP creates an invisible, temporary folder on the computer you are using (so you won't accidentally run out of space on your protable drive). after closing OP, the folder is overwritten and erased, eliminating all trace of your internet tracks from that computer.

the benefits of using OP, rather than the provided browser on a public computer, are rather obvious. with your portable application you carry with you all your bookmarks and customizations and tweaks and blah blah blah. sensitive information (online banking, juicy emails to your long-distance paramour, etc) are not blabbed to the computer's hard disk in the event that you forget to log off or whatever. personally, i can spare myself the frustration of trying to use mouse gestures or keyword searches on browsers that aren't configured to do so.

my foray into the urban jungle

i took a trip downtown today, as a result of laziness and circumstance.

i missed a deadline for handing in some required documentation to teacher's college. it was supposed to be mailed in on June 29th, the day before i headed out for Longlac. naturally, the whole thing completely slipped my mind until i decided to check on school stuff a few weeks after i came home. if i were a spazz, i would've spazzed. missing deadlines really sucks, especially if it's important.

fortunately, this deadline was softer than a cashmere kitten in a dryer full of cotton balls. my cohort supervisor recommended that i hand in the papers to the registrar's office personally. i thought i would take the opportunity to explore downtown in a little more detail.

i parked at fairview and subwayed down. since it was nearby, and since she asked, i visited Jacqueline at work. because the escalators to the Bloor line seemed to be congested with people, i thought it would be easier to just walk from Bloor and Yonge to Sherbourne station -- they looked pretty close on the subway map. it took me twenty minutes at my usual leisurely pace.

when i was introduced, the first thing one of her co-workers asked Jacqueline was, "is he your boyfriend?" to which we both laughed and snickered "no"s. it was expected, but i did not have the presence of mind to come up with a witty retort beforehand; opportunity squandered =(

after a brief lunch and sudoku at the Timothy's downstairs, i hiked to Bloor and St. George at my brisk pace, making it in 20 minutes. i did my business at the registrar's office and proceeded to explore the campus a bit. i padded to the library to use the computer. bumped into Dan P. from high school and we caught up a bit. since he is on Facebook, he had a bit of the inside scoop on the friends i haven't seen or talked to in forever. almost makes me want to get Facebook. almost.

i walked back to Yonge and Bloor after some 2 pm lunch, ducking into the new ROM gift shop to check it out. it is one ugly facade, like big giant disco-dice were chucked at, and embedded into the old museum. the rest of the day involved loafing around in malls and then hanging out with a lot of people and being sleepy.

what's the point of this post? i walked a lot and felt that everyone should know. i also act too much like a boyfriend. huzzah!