thoughts, rants and ideas

Check out my new blog!

manypeoplelaughing — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:35:09 +0000

itsadecadentlife.blogspot.com

Check it out!!!

manypeoplelaughing — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:06:58 +0000

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea,
Circled by the circus sands,
Driving memory and fate,
Deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

-Bob Dylan

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat

manypeoplelaughing — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:03:05 +0000

Well, Christmas isn’t coming all that soon, but some people are already thinking about it, like my sister who told me the other day that she has already decorated her apartment for Winter Solstice, Christian style.

But I’m not here to talk about Christmas in general, just about Christmas presents! Adbusters magazine promotes Buy Nothing Day (which is just around the corner by the way), but also Buy Nothing Christmas. The idea is to get away from the consumerism that has been so deeply ingrained into Christmas and to focus on the “true meanings” of the season, family, friends, kindness, love, spirituality (if that’s your thing), and giving.

Last year my family agreed to buy as little as possible, and make as much as possible, in the way of Christmas gifts. I knit a lot of my presents, and my brother made us all beautiful cutting/serving boards out of perfectly good wood that he saved from rotting in a landfill. In terms of the presents, it was the best Christmas we’ve ever had. Not only does the giver feel good about making the present; being able to give somebody something that you have created yourself is a great feeling, but the receiver gets a pretty great sense of “Wow, this person actually spent the time to think of something I would want or need, and then made it!” I won’t go into all the other benefits, but you can imagine them: less waste, more frugality, less waiting in line, more time with family and friends, less money in Walmart’s pockets and more joy in your holiday!

So, I guess this will go into the “Ideas” category, because I’m sharing an idea with you. This Christmas, take a bit more time than normal to think of presents you can make for your friends and family. Take a bit more time to sit around the fireplace or the living room and chat with your friends while you knit up a storm. Take a bit more time to think about the idea that Christmas is about family and friends, not about spending and spreeing.

Purpose: Part II

manypeoplelaughing — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:45:19 +0000

The first real post on this blog was about purpose. My main point was that a lot of people my age seem to have little to no true sense of purpose in their life. Then I gave some ideas that I thought would remedy that problem.

I have some newer, better advice:

Fall in love. You’ll have enough purpose for ten people, and then ten more.

Remembrance Day

manypeoplelaughing — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:30:24 +0000

On these days of remembrance,
Let us not kneel and pray for the dead.
But let us stand, activate for the living,
To rescue those about to die.

-Chris Hannah of Winnipeg punk band Propagandhi

Funk Your Junk

manypeoplelaughing — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:36:44 +0000

I recently discovered a thrift store in Ottawa that is definitely worth checking out. It’s called Funk Your Junk, and the store space is so small that the owners call it “a big closet”. Despite this fact, there’s a huge amount of stuff piled into the store, and it’s always being rotated, so there’s always something new.

Since finding it about two weeks ago, I’ve bought a shirt, a sweater, a belt and a hat, and that’s all from their tiny selection of men’s clothing. All that is to say that it’s all really nice, you don’t have to sift through a bunch of garbage to find what you want. The owners are two of the coolest people I’ve met in a long time, and they’re always up for a chat, or to give their very honest opinion on how you look in one of their pieces of clothing.

They have a website that you can order from, www.funkyourjunk.com or, if you’re in the Ottawa area, drop by their storefront at 125 Somerset, just east of Elgin.

Untitled

manypeoplelaughing — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:00:17 +0000

Focus on the future, she says to me,
I say it back to her, but just not as loud.
Wondrin’ what that really means,
Or means to me, my mind goes blank.
Our futures tied like twine ’round straw,
Wrapping ’round emotions, heated and raw.

But still my mind is filled with grief,
Never for us, but for all them thieves.
All you need is love, but really friend,
What good is that if it all comes to end.
Frigid frost crawls forward onto lives of those,
Who love all they can, but untouched by doves.

But no, she’ll say, think of us, she’ll say,
And I do, I do, ’till the dawn breaks day.
And it brings me joy, like a toy might to a boy,
Pure bliss from this flows, goes right to my toes.
Then daylight comes and uncovers the world,
And I try and I try as a bleak scene unfurls.

And I can’t even express how perfect it is,
That I can ignore, unlike before what’s in store.
Call it selfish or oafish, but it’s selfless in rhyme,
It’s not me, you see, who’s apathetic and blind.
It’s this feeling of healing and this love that we’ve found,
Like a sparrow who flies or a fish that can’t drown.

So take your damn wars, your stores and your hate,
It’s for you that I’m sorry, and I anticipate.
I wish they all could, we wish they all would,
It could save them and bathe them, then teach you to fly.
Like a bird and her chick, like a goat and her kid,
Once I thought we wouldn’t make it, but look babe, we did.

So I’m sorry profusely, not insincere or loosely,
It’s a god-awful shame and I hope hearts will hear.
But that’s crazy you’d say, they ain’t got any ears,
But I swear it, it listens, just open your mind.
I’m not one to assume, presume, speak too soon,
But one day we’ll be older and speak no more of doom.

Cell Phones

manypeoplelaughing — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:21:13 +0000

Cell phones are destroying the intimacy of everyday life. The relatively cheap cost of sending a text message, as opposed to making a phone call, takes away the personal touch of hearing a friend’s voice. The ease of sending a text message encourages us to keep in touch with friends far away with brief, impersonal messages rather than sitting down to write a letter. The ability to be constantly “reachable” makes setting up face-to-face meetings almost pointless.

I just bought a cell phone today.

Update: This is what a criminal looks like…

manypeoplelaughing — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:44:35 +0000

The European Parliament will soon be voting on amendments to the current laws governing internet use. Under the proposed new laws, “broadband providers will be legally able to limit the number of websites you can look
at, and to tell you whether or not you are allowed to use particular services.”

Now, if you’re reading this you probably don’t live in the EU, but it is important that as many people as possible get informed about this because if these amendments are being proposed in the EU, there is a good chance that they will be coming to North America in the not too distant future.

For more info visit: Blackout Europe

This is what a criminal looks like…

manypeoplelaughing — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 23:59:18 +0000

If you haven’t been following the trial in Sweden of four men identified as organizing and running the file-sharing website “The Pirate Bay”, you probably should. The Wikipedia article for it is short enough to read in a few minutes and gives a very good overview of it, but if you’re even too lazy to read that, here’s a one minute synopsis:

Basically “The Pirate Bay” is a search engine for .torrent files, which are like catalogue cards for files available to download. BitTorrent programs allow you to “open” these torrents and then download the file that they catalogue from other users or “peers” who have that file on their computer.

Three men, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Peter Sunde, who run the site, and Carl Lundström, who sold services to the website were accused by the Swedish government of “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws”.

The plaintiff’s argument is basically that The Pirate Bay gives its users access to copyrighted material, and therefore the webmasters are responsible for aiding and abetting copyright infringement.

The defendants’ argument is simple: The Pirate Bay is no different than Google; it is just a search engine, and hosts no copyrighted material for download.

Yesterday, April 17th, the four men were found guilty and sentenced to one-year of jail time and fined 3.6 million US dollars which will go to companies such as Universal, MGM and Sony as a sort of reparation payment.

So, what does the mugshot of me have to do with anything? Basically it is to say that if anybody is a criminal it is me, and other people who use BitTorrent to download music, movies and computer programs. Now, I disagree with the whole notion of copyrights as they exist right now; if I’m not profiting from other peoples’ work, I don’t think there should be any problem. However, this is still against the law, running a search engine is not. The defendants in the case made it clear even before the verdict arrived that if they were to be found guilty they would appeal to a higher court, and continue to do so until they’ve won… or until they run out of courts to appeal to.

If you care about copyright laws, file-sharing laws, freedom of information or simply keeping the internet democratic and a place to share information without restrictions, I urge you to check out the following websites to read a bit more about all of this:

“The King-Kong Defence”

Demonstrations in Stolkholm Opposing the Verdict

A study which found “that file sharing has no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample.”

A second study which argues that the above study was inaccurate.