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Hey Folks, I’ve been doing some guest blahging at my buddy Andrew’s blog while he studies for exams. It’s all part of my cunning “Get back into writing, you lazy Git” program. So if you want to check out my take on more science oriented topics, check out: Live [...] Well, it’s that time of year again… The leaves scatter at our feet, the crisp chill of the winter wind is almost upon us, and the renewal notice for my website has arrived. You know what that means don’t you? You guessed it. New layout, heady plans of a new era of blogtastic posts, and random guesses in the comments as to how long it’ll last. Yes, it’s true, I am pathetic. But in the meantime, let me know if you find strange behaviour in the new layout. I’m no coding genius. I’m a trial and error kid. So the chances that I’ve missed something are pretty darn good. In related news, I’ll be performing a few of the old posts tonight in downtown Toronto. My good friend Sarah has a theatre company that is hosting an East Coast Kitchen Party as a fundraiser. I’ve been conscripted as a “StoryTeller.” Should be fun. I’ll let you know how [...] It would appear that this site does not look quite right in Safari browsers. That’s the type of thing that falls outside my web-creating skills to explain. However, if I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with my messing around creating this “theme” two years ago. I kind of patched it together out of other themes that I thought were cool. Problem being that my web-designing skills are limited to two in particular: trial and error. Admittedly more of the latter. Any-ole-who, since I’m taking on the concerted effort of restarting this blog, I might as well get invested in the way it looks. This blogging platform has vastly improved in the past couple years, so I presume the visual themes have come along as well. I’ll start looking into it, which will mean more trial and even more error, as well as some ongoing maintenance work. In the meantime, if you readers (yes, all two of you) have any suggestions on elements I should add or remove as I go, let me know. This could be fun [...] You know, I keep telling myself that I’ve got to start consistently writing, which is of course much different than writing consistently. The blog would appear to be the perfect outlet, yet I just don’t seem able to get rolling. This is despite the quilt of guilt sewn together from all quarters and thrown at me to wear as a mantle of failure. Family and friends from around the globe never fail to mention how I should be writing. In most cases, this has that annoying inverse affect of making me feel spiteful and claiming, “Fine! I’ll never write again, see how you like it!” But of course, that is based in the insecurities of starting again and the procrastination that is my life. The sad thing is that writing is something that I really love to do, something that I’d love to make a living doing, but lately it feels as though those type of dreams are farther off than ever… or is that further? Anyway, I’m determined to give it a shot. But I ask for your patience. I feel that I’ve lost my voice, that I’m out of practice and rusty… not to mention prone to redundancies. See what I mean? That last sentence was meant to be clever, but it clearly missed the mark. Thus I ask for patience. Cut me a little slack on postings for a while, even if they’re not up to par. Boost my confidence until I can get back up to form. Deal? It’s kind of like if [...] Imagine my shock to log in to the ole blog today only to find that all of my posts from the past two years have disappeared. I’m not exactly sure what to do. I posted them all online, so I don’t have any backup copies to speak of. All of that wit and wisdom… gone! That’ll teach me to update Wordpress without a backup. Seriously though, I wonder where they are now. Have they been disappeared by the powers that be? Are they trapped in some pseudo-literal Guantanamo reserved for tortured logic? Sigh… Luckily, not much has been happening with me in the past couple years. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve even considered giving up the blog for good. There just didn’t seem to be anything more to write about. The problem with writing from an outside perspective in an interesting part of the world, is that eventually you get sucked in. Eventually, you become an insider. Not even an insider really, it’s more that you just become used to the wild and wacky ways things work. This was very apparent to me when members of my family were visiting Karachi. I’d be swerving my way through traffic, cursing the inept, while they were snapping photos, marveling at the wonders of a family of five balanced on a motorcycle and exclaiming, “Look! A camel.” At that moment, I realized how very mundane [...] Coming Soon…. Under-Construction… and all that jazz. Someday, I really hope to get the time to finish this blog and start up again… Until then… All the posts from the old blog are below, albeit unformatted. If you’re new, cruise through, or head over [...] Hey… Hey Blog… Wake up. Vacation’s over. Oh, you’re back are you? It’s about damn time. Give me a break, I’ve been across the world and back. And you couldn’t take a break from your busy holiday schedule to write something? Well, you know, I was busy and ah, didn’t have Internet access all the time. And I’m… Incredibly lazy? Yeah, that too I guess. Whatever. People have been asking about you. Really? Yeah. I told them you were dead. Thanks, I appreciate that. Thought so. You ready to get started again or what? Yeah, back in the Land of the Pure, back to work, settling in. Is that even a sentence? Shut [...] Another hindrance to my blogging last week was my inability to access my own blog. I thought it was my own connection, but then friends started reporting the same problem. I later went on to discover that Blogspot.com had been blocked by Pakistani ISPs. Word on the street is that the Supreme Court decided that any site publishing the blasphemous cartoons (you know, the Danish ones? You may have heard of them) should be blocked. As various bloggers in the blogspot world had published them on their sites, someone had the bright idea to block the whole of blogspot.com. Brilliant. It took me some research to figure this all out, and then, lo and behold, the next day there is a story on the BBC which would have saved me a lot of trouble. Now, if all this is true, then can one of you techies out there please tell me why I can access blogspot sites at night? Last night I came downstairs because I couldn’t sleep and I opened a number of blogspots… this morning… nothing. Also, while I’m at it. Why is it that with a WorldCall supposedly broadband connection I can only rarely post to the blog? The connection times out over and over and then, as added fun and games, it sometimes says it times out but actually publishes the post, thus resulting in nine posts in a row, which you guys love to make fun of me for. If I walk [...] I stumbled over the last few uneven steps before my eyes had a chance to adjust to the gloom. I peered into the room through a haze of smoke. A single ceiling fan sliced languidly at the air, leaving a ring of cigarette soot on the ceiling tile. Jim and The Doors drifted from the sound-system… This is the End… My only friend, the End… I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer: “Keith’s. Please.” The bartender grunted, then said, “Two-Seventy-Five.” I smiled. The times may change, but the prices stay the same. I tossed him three bucks, “Keep the change,” I mumbled. “Gee, thanks…” he said with a smirk. I turned my back on him and looked out across the room. The patrons looked up from their miseries and eyed me with suspicion. Yes. This was it. The Cellar. The dark, subterranean tavern of my subconscious. Where elements of my past came to linger and die slow deaths, every now and then, reeling up the stairs to make an appearance before stumbling back down to their stupor. I saw a table of regrets downing shots of flaming Sambuca and dwelling on past mistakes. A group of guilty memories played ‘Truth or Dare,’ led by a manifestation of my young self, insisting that he hadn’t pushed a centipede down the furnace grate. “Don’t trust him,” I said, as I walked by, “He’s a liar.” I focused my attention on [...] This just in: I have just now told my spell-checker to accept “blog” as a word. I am nothing if not the apogee of efficiency. So welcome to my lexicon “blog,” no more will you feel the shame of the red squiggly line of infamy. Although, to be honest, even though I love the blog like a second mistress, I have always been annoyed by the actual term. The word just falls with a thump. Blog. It’s like the onomatopoeic sound of dropping a soft-boiled egg into a bowl of lime Jello. Sometimes I wish the word had evolved in a different way: something with a bit more grace. But what can you do. Blog it is… along with all the bloggers in the blogosphere I have learned to accept and move on. Blog on, You [...] |
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