Someone, anyone, write a comment here if you were among the Canadians in last six weeks to have recieved a phone call from a pollster. I just need to know that someone, somewhere got asked, and that these numbers came from a group of individuals even marginally representing my demographic.

It may seem slightly in the vein of 'conspiracy-theorist', but I don't think the modern poll is all that accurate. For one, I have neer been asked. That sentiment might seem a tad egotistical, me assuming that as my opinion is not one among the two-thousand daily thoughts that make up the bouncing numbers we hear on the nightly news that they are not valid. But strolling through the CBC's website, I found an interesting note: "A representative randomly selected sample of 2000 Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The data were weighted to ensure the sample’s regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 census data."

Fine and good, but again: I've never been asked.

Why? Perhaps this is because I spend large chunks of my day nowhere near a personal telephone line. And, to make it worse, I know a great many people who are the same way. No cellular, no voicemail, and they are within sprinting distance of their idle landline for less than thirty daily minutes, primarily relying on other semi-modern means of communication such as email and ims.

This seems to matter, somehow. This seems, in my swirling consciousness, to have some reflection on WHO is answering these questions: people who are at home to answer their telephones. If that isn't a bias, I'd better buy a new dictionary.

So, I just need to know. Did ANYONE get a call?

June 28, 2004 after 9AM | opinions , politics | maybe more»

I voted this morning. Anyone who has spoken to me in the last month with event the slightest political taint to the conversation, doesn't even need to ask where I marked my X. Go vote. Unless you're going to vote against me and cancel out my effort. Then stay home. Watch TV. Eat some french fries.

Karin and I arrived safely home from our weekend jaunt to Saskatoon. There are photos in my gallery. I'll try not to be too vague about that matter.

June 28, 2004 after 8AM | photography , politics , travel | maybe more»

We would strongly recommend checking out "Supersize Me" if you have not already. It will shift your mentality on food. Well, fast food.

We skated on down to the theatre last night, despite the threat of rain. It didn't. And considering the nature of the beast -- and the fact we were trying to be health-conscious with a generous slice of cheesecake in our bellies -- we skipped the popcorn.

Even so, I'm really quite thristy these days.

The city has a way of dropping people and things out of it's sheltered cracks: case in point... Skating home we were followed by two bicyclists. And I emphasize the distinction between what you think and what I think. I noted to Karin that their aura projected a feeling of dutchness, reminding me gently more of two commuters from the Polder than of local fitness geeks.

She didn't see it, but then, why should she?

I'm sore now. My shoulder aches. I think I need to stretch more.

Good advice. Stretch.

I repotted some baby tears last weekend. The pot in my office is almost out of control. It's wonderful. I need more plants here, though. It's so barren sometimes.

June 23, 2004 after 8AM | city , fitness , food , movies , scatter | maybe more»

There was more here once.

You may have noticed.

A long time ago, lost within the glistening epochs of time immortal, I was something other than what I seem to be now. I don't know where that is, or how it goes. If you don't like it, imagine how I feel.

Days pass. The city rages.

I was peering down some path not taken, peeking around corners yet explored, and I realized that I had seen it all before. It is a frightening thing. It is epic. And I find some connection where once there was much.

The folds of our simple existence are trapped like so many lingering thoughts. Did I say that already? Did I mention that something is following me through the streets of this place, lurking. I can feel it. I can hear it. Taste it. Warmth, waiting just beyond the firmness of absolute perception.

I crossed the grid last night. No one noticed. Not even me, until it had happened. Am I being too cryptic? Are you missing the point? Are you not seeing any of this?

I'll slow down and mention something completely unrelated. We went to the store last night. I bought a lock. Why? Because sometimes one just needs a sense of security. The price on the rack told us six dollars. The cash register rung up an unexpected one hundred and eighty dollars. Scanned. We waited while price checks, alterations, modifications, and authorizations were performed. It was marginally amusing.

But then there was this thing, see? A thing of something else, and something was somewhere doing more than I can ever describe. It was nice.

And then there was the city. I waited in the city. Lingering. Watching. Peering over my shoulder because I knew there was something following me, and that should I ever stop for a few minutes, open my eyes to that essence that is washing over the something, it would be more than just a tag-along, suspected but never proven.

I should wait.

I should sit down and let it find me. What could happen? Maybe then I would have more words to sell. Here. There. But mostly here.

June 22, 2004 after 11AM | city , search | maybe more»

I can imagine that there is a pulse in this place, somewhere, deep down that I can't quite feel yet. I can imagine that there is a vein of enduring rationality, lingering logic, draining and coursing through the etherworks of the hidden layers of the city. It is fantastic and mildly amusing, but for some reason it makes me hold onto those glimmers of something greater hidding in the shadows of cement and jet black girders. It is sentementality wrapped in unchecked imagination.

For those yet to be informed, anomolies gripped the fabrix of layers stretched between already taut places. It's a pulse in this place, somewhere, deep down that I can't quite feel yet. I want to, and I'm reaching to find it, but it's an effort past my current abilities.

We held back. Waited. Paused with faux patience, and scratched nervously at the surface of things we shouldn't be scratching. Yet, as cliches could have told us, only time will tell our fates. I shouldn't be so stretched, but I am and I can't figure that out. It is an essence of something bigger, bolder, colder, deeper, and yet manageable. He hides in the shadows of polished wood and yellow lines painted on jet black asphalt.

Focus.

Anomolies piqued from the etchings of words and images have revealed more than -- perhaps -- was entirely recommended. Yet, we'll wait, linger, pause, and wonder if the wild reveals itself as days pass.

June 22, 2004 after 9AM | abstract , city , thinking | maybe more»

Brett and Lenore were over for seafood last night. It's the [plug] Save-On Foods Lobster Event, wherein we land-locked folk are able to puchase for a reasonable price the temporary companionship of a live lobster. We bought four, and cooked them in a broth of lemon and onion.

It's one of those rare events: a brutal evening when one is forced back to the primal roots of times past of killing one's own food.

Maybe that's why it was suggested (albiet mostly in jest) that we should make a little lobster snuff video. We didn't, and instead retreated to the living room to discuss politics over the muted election debate broadcast on CBC.

There's almost a metaphor there, no? Four helpless politicians being prepared for election, dropped into a boiling cauldron of twists and spices, could almost be an analogy to our dinner last night. Odd how those things connect.

June 16, 2004 after 1PM | food , friends , play | maybe more»

I was pondering fish the other day. Aquariums to be exact. In a way, I'm trying to accomplish something that resembles an aquarium: literally AND figuratively.

This is beyond the fact that I've been pondering how, exactly, I might go about fitting a small aqarium in my office, setting it up atop the file cabinet, and making sure the little buggers don't die of issues regarding food or cleanliness. This revolves around self contained universes.

Aquariums, watery glass cubes supporting life, are (apart from a minor input of food and heat) minature ecosystems that are distinct from the world in which they exist. A box of life-supporting liquid, maintained to the precision where tiny animals otherwise doomed to non-existence, are allowed to exist in relative peace. Fiction is something like that. In fiction, writing, we build micro-universes -- minute ecosystems -- that are maintained by a tiny input of energy and creativity, and allowed to grow into something self-contained and autonomous -- and unique from the world in which they are stored, displayed, consumed. Our characters are fish. Our plot is water. Our story is a little glass box, sealed shut but radiating it's swarming life to the outside world.

When my world lets me find a place to put it, I'm going to build a whole aquarium of fishes.

June 1, 2004 after 11AM | fish , work | maybe more»