Monday, January 31, 2011
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I am not an overly emotional person, except when I am.

Right now I want to puke, cry, and commit murder all at the same time.  Today is the type of day that reminds me why I generally try to avoid the news, why I purposely keep my head in the sand and look the other way, it's the type of day that reminds me the human race is fucking disgusting.

What caused this?

100 sled dogs slaughtered in Whistler when tourism slumped: Report


I am disgusted, I am outraged, I am helpless to do anything because the act has already been committed.  Is there someone I, as a citizen, can go to and seek a similar decision be made to euthanize or cull the useless excuses for human beings that made the decision and (literally) pulled the trigger on these poor animals?
Would that I could.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011
 
Pandora.
I knew not of it until I visited my sis in Seattle a few months ago, she lamented that it wasn't available in Canada, but of course down south it is there for the taking.
I was sad.  Then I Googled it and found a way to get it here (simply block my IP and the blocker assigns a random IP, and for whatever reason the random IP is a US IP).
Now I have it, and it's lovely.  See, I like music, but I'm not an addict.  I don't surf iTunes on a regular basis, in fact I probably add songs to my iPod like once or twice a year, which my husband thinks is insane because it means I am listening to the SAME 800 or so songs ALL YEAR. 
The thing is, I can't be bothered to go wading through all the crappy music out there, it seems like every fresh-faced teenager has a single and really, do I need to hear that?  Somehow, I think lyrically a 14 year old's song will not appeal to me. 
I did have a satellite radio for a while a few years ago and I loved it because I had 2 channels that played my kind of music but added some other stuff in there, and it was in sync with the stuff I love.  However, paying fifteen bucks a month for all eternity to listen to music once or twice a week became a bit ridiculous, so buh-bye satellite radio, hello iPod.  Now, with Pandora, when I am at home and want to listen to some tunes, I can open up my Macbook and say hello to Pandora (and unfortunately I must alos say hello to the odd sudden commercial interruption between songs) and goodbye to my same old 800 songs.
Thursday, January 6, 2011

Jesus Fuckin' Christ. Can the world get any more ridiculous? Is there no sanity?
Art is art, whether it is literature, music, a movie, a painting, a sculpture...
So why is it suddenly acceptable to revise a classic novel to make it more politically correct? I find it truly sickening that someone has decided to take it upon themselves to change history - because changing a classic piece of art, regardless of format, is changing history. The only person who should have the right to change a piece of art is the creator of that art. If the creator is dead, I believe NO ONE should have the right to alter a creation. It is one thing to sell the rights or mass produce, or do a farce on an existing piece of art, particularly when the creator is dead, but it is another thing entirely to alter the art.
The decision to alter Huckleberry Finn is simply wrong.
Art is meant to challenge, to cause conversation, and sometimes to offend. To remove certain words is backhanded censorship and will cause the book to lose some of its impact on readers.
We need to stop censoring and PC'ing everything and instead have discussions about why the art was created in that way, at that time, why it was acceptable to use the word nigger in a piece of literature.
If we don't, before you know it feminists will be crying out to the Thought Police to have the word cunt removed from all existence, some of Shakespeare's more colourful language will be edited, and chickens will cry fowl when the term "chicken" or "chickenshit" is used to mean scaredy-cat (uh, oh, did I just offend cats?).
Shit happens, history is history, deal with it and leave the art alone.

PS - don't worry, I calmed down a bit and am no longer wanting to stab a baby, especially not yours.
PPS - The quote at the top is most likely the only thing crazy Charlton Heston said that I agree with.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
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So, I managed to read 61 books in 2010 (no more, no less than 2009), below, in no particular order are my top picks. 
51 of the 61 were ebooks in 2010. Approximately 51 books were part of a series (though some were book 1 and I am unlikely to read book 2), this tells me I am either obsessed with series regardless of genre, or it's hard to find good stand alone fiction, so I stick with what I know.