It is pretty hot outside, right now. I was sitting on the deck with a coffee, watching my neighbour toil away in his yard. He was rust proofing his trailer, or something. Anyway, his wife came home, got out of the car, and handed him a big fat ice cream cone. This may or may not have been prearranged, but it got me thinking, trying to remember the last time that happened to me. Not an ice cream cone specifically, but anything, coming from a person that I cared about. It has been a long time. When my divorce happened, I was placed in a situation where I had to learn how to be alone and fend for myself again. I have learned these things, and other things, and do enjoy times of reflection, but seeing that reminds me of the price paid.

It’s a long weekend here. It is shaping up to be a typical weekend for me, quiet, probably a lot of riding, and reading. I’ve a stack of books to get through, have finally finished Lord of Emperors by Kay, and am now re-reading Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card). It’s a quick read if you want it to be, a slow one if you dig into it and unravel the layers, but it’s a lot of fun in a blunt way.

Since I’m talking about ice cream, here’s another Tori Amos track for you. Bouncing off Clouds is another track off of American Doll Posse. Enjoy.

Make it easy
Make this easy
It’s not as heavy as it seems
Wrapped in metal
Wrapped in ivy
Paint it in mint ice cream

I have been purposely not blogging about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and a few people have asked me why not. I have a co-worker who is in and out of my office asking if I’ve read such and such an article, or an interview, or a news post, anything really, and my answer is consistently “no, I haven’t”. The reason? Frankly, it makes me sick to my stomach and it also makes me realize that there is only so much one person can do, or change one person can affect.

There are still aspects of my life that could be greener, I suppose. I love my coffee, and I really enjoy a mango with my breakfast cereal, and I know that both of those things are not local, and will probably never be. I’m writing this on a Macbook, a laptop that will be replaced in a few weeks or months, and will no doubt partially end up in a landfill some place. Yet, I am not sure how much more I can do. I have reached the point where my life as it is now is *almost* not sustainable. That is ironic. If I lived any further outside of Fredericton, my walk to work would probably not be feasible, and since Fredericton’s public transit system is not especially great (long waits on Saturday, up to an hour some times, and no service at all on Sunday), I’d probably need a car, especially in the winter. Running errands on foot is tough. Eating local, being vegan, can be tough, especially out of Atlantic Canada’s somewhat limited growing season. I’d be different if I lived in California — hey, you know what? Eating locally is easy when your growing season is 330 days long.

Changes at this point, improvements to my life style, would be expensive, both financially (solar power? going off grid? geothermal heat pumps? wind?), and lifestyle-wise. I don’t use a clothes dryer. I took down my aquarium, in part, because I was bothered at how much power it was using. So much mental thought goes into making sure I am where I need to be at certain times of the day to do certain things, it’s kind of dumb. It’s obvious to me now, how much a society grows when it no longer has to worry about just “surviving” from day to day.

Anyway. So, after an oil spill in the Gulf, and seeing just how much disaster can be caused by a series of monumental cock-ups, starting with the sheer hubris to believe that we, as a species, can outsmart Nature and prevent natural disasters from happening, I wonder if it is all worth it. The CEO of British Petroleum has been described as “beleaguered”. What the hell? HE is beleaguered? What about the thousands of miles of coast line that his stinky shit is polluting? He actually had the gall to say that “the spill isn’t all that big, relative to the size of the ocean”. Seriously? You’re doing math now? Your well is dumping 5000 barrels — 200,000 gallons — of oil into the water every single day, and you think that it’s not so bad? This spill will affect economies for years to come. Like shrimp or crawfish? Most of it comes from Louisiana. Like bluefin tuna? Where do you think they spawn?

Anyway. Enough of that.

I have been watching Gravion, a cool little anime, only 13 or so episodes, that seems to be a combination of so many other aspects of Japanese television, I am having a hard time keeping up. It’s a military anime, based around a giant robot that assembles from 6 other parts (remember Voltron?). Every episode, there is another giant robot, a Zeravire, that appears over the city (like Neon Genesis Evangelion), to do battle. All of the pilots live in a giant castle (more Voltron), and are cared for by a guy calling himself Sandman. He pulls this crazy Iron Chef-type Allez Cuisine! type thing when he sends them into battle, except that he has “Gran Divas” instead of Iron Chefs. He has this dude who works for him that wears a suit and a mask (like Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon). The wackiest part? Four of the six pilots are girls, and they wear maid outfits. In fact, all of the women living in the castle, and there are lots of them, do. It is bizarre.

Anyway, it is worth checking out. There is apparently an English version some place, but I’ve been watching the Japanese version with subtitles.

The track for this post is going to be another Tori Amos tune called Winter. Her stuff is pretty cool. The link is to a live version. Just her and the piano. Enjoy.

When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I’ll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Oh, and you should watch a related Tori Amos track, too. It’s not live, it’s a video, but she’s playing two pianos at once.

So, I haven’t been updating often. I have been absolutely ploughed under at work, and all things have been pushed to the wayside until I was at a comfortable point in my work. I’m pretty optimistic that I was able to leave something in a good state today, so I am finally poking my head up to update this. It has been a frustrating few weeks. As a software developer, I believe that writing code is like a bad drug addiction. There are periods, long ones in fact, where absolutely nothing is going right. It can really wear you down. But, when you finally get it, and it feels right, oh, man — is it ever good.

As for other things, well, aside from firming up a few other things in Finland, not much is going on other than work. I think I’ve become Buddhist by default, though. The five core tenants seem to jive with my life style, and I like the fact that it can be applied to other religions or points of view, without being exclusive in a lot of respects. It’s all good.

I know I need a track for the post, and since it has been a while I’m going to recommend a band that I’ve been listening to a lot lately, during mammoth code sessions. Dark Tranquillity is one of those epic death metal bands from Sweden that have been around since the beginning. Gallery has been voted one of the best metal albums of all time, and I will recommend the title track from it this time. If you listen to it, keep in mind that it is 15 years old. WAY ahead of its time. So, go and enjoy it.