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Cameron MacDonald - London, ON
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| iWIN |
[Oct. 31st, 2009|06:32 am] |
iphone 3G's attatched to 42" flat screen, run off car batteries.
fox out. |
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| an experiment, possibly at my expense, for drivers in the city. |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
so the other day after my night shift, i stopped into starbucks with a friend. had a quick bite to eat, tea, and parked in a private lot that had meters. by the time i had returned to my car, there was a ticket issued by imperial parking ltd. on my meter as the time had expired.
i noticed near the bottom it says **this is not a city ticket**. the rest of it was full of information about how i took profit from them and what methods i could use to settle my account with them (nevermind the fact the lot was empty except for my car at 8am).
of course, my license plate number was on the ticket and at first i thought to myself "drag. ah well, i'll settle after payday this week."
then i got to thinking. how exactly was this company going to come after me? they have no idea who i am, where i live or what my phone number is. all they know is my plate number.
i'm curious to find out if a private corporation has access to the ministry of transportation records in a matter such as this. if i get a call or letter, i'll know. if i don't, i'll consider my privacy properly protected as it ideally ought to be. i mean, i wouldn't want any business having access to any of my private information..MOT, health, credit or otherwise, without my consent. a google search revealed that a law passed in toronto recently revealed that no, one is not obligated by law to pay these tickets nor can it affect your credit rating if you don't. you can however be towed at their discretion if you park on their lots again.
will let you all know of the outcome.
fox out.
(oh, and wii games + dinner + wine + 50's music + ? = bliss.) |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 27th, 2009|08:43 pm] |
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i think a girl who can make you smile for absolutely no reason other than her company is the most addictive drug imaginable. |
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| album choices - 2000-2009. |
[Sep. 9th, 2009|10:11 pm] |
So as the decade winds down, I decided to look back and go over my top album choices for the years 2000-2009. Great albums these past 10 years have been pretty few and far between compared to other decades, IMO (enough so that i feel comfortable enough releasing these picks before the year is out). Nevertheless, I had a number of favourites, most of you will probably be familiar with most if not all of them...but if not, you have my guarantee that it's at least worth one listen from start to finish.
Please, in turn, tell me what you think the best works these past 10 years were. There were a number I omitted (This Morn Omina, Metric, etc.) just for the sake of reasonable brevity.
In no particular order:
 Cobra Killer - 76/77
 Ladytron - Light & Magic
 IAMX - The Alternative
( +17 more. ) |
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| Review: The Serpent and the Rainbow - Wade Davis |
[Aug. 21st, 2009|02:41 am] |
Zombies, voodoo and tetrodotoxin, oh my!
We're all quite familiar with the Hollywood version of what a zombie is, pretty straightforward, a supernatural being returned from the dead with an insatiable hunger for flesh, boomstick, yadda yadda. But what about how they're actually perceived in Haiti, the country which is most commonly associated as the cultural source of the zombie phenomenon? Where federal laws exist outwardly making the creation of a zombi a crime which can be prosecuted in a court of law? (note: the use of the word "zombi" is intentional as the author uses it to mark the cultural concept from the silver screen stereotype.) To draw a parallel, imagine if our government laid charges on say, causing poltergeist activity.
Enter Wade Davis' "The Serpent and the Rainbow". Initially contracted by men of wealth to acquire the recipe of a zombi poison for the purposes of medical anesthesia, Wade Davis, a Harvard Ph.D in archaeology and ethnobotany travels to Haiti in search of the proper mixture. Initially in his journey the locals see him as just another "blanc" with deep pockets ripe for the picking. Eventually after shelling out enough money Davis is able to acquire a sample to bring back to America which successfully induces a catatonic state in test monkeys. The local voodoo practitioners however make a point to inform Davis that while he may get the powder, it won't lead to an understanding of the how and why a zombi is created.
It is discovered through chemical analysis that one of the key ingredients to zombi power includes a local fish that carries the chemical tetrodotoxin (most commonly known as blow fish toxin). Other ingredients include various plants, toads and shavings of bone from a freshly buried corpse, but it is the tetrodotoxin Wade theorizes that is the key ingredient that causes a catatonic state from which the zombi is created. He uses case studies from Japan where people have mistakenly consumed too much blowfish to back his theory. Studies show that in the case of tetrodotoxin poisoning, a person gradually becomes paralyzed to a state which is practically indistinguishable from death yet a person remains mentally aware of their surroundings the entire time. This, combined with the subsequent psychological trauma of premature burial, exhumation, torture and application of psychedelic substances becomes Wade's overall picture on the method of creating a zombi. Naturally, a perfect case study is rather impossible to replicate...
Wade however does not simply provide a cut and dry list of ingredients for the substance. He goes into great detail over what is involved in common Haitian voodoo rituals, sometimes to the point where you have to wonder how a person was able to recall so vividly so many points. He adds an anthropological study of the Haitian culture as well, dispelling the myth that zombis are created by evil, devil serving sorcerers. He frequently references the African roots and history of the Haitian people brought over by the French for slave labour and the subsequent grass roots revolutionary war. Wade brings to light the "secret societies" in Haiti which are more than anything a form of communal government in regions where the government has official authority but no practical power. Such societies are run by locally recognized houdon (a sort of voodoo priest/medium) and frequently use scare tactics to keep the locals in line, dealing out justice as necessary. Persons who are subjected to the process of being turned to a zombi are found to be people who, in some form or another, are causing harm to the community at large be it stealing, hoarding land, harming other persons, etc. Thus the zombi is created as a form of severe punishment by the smaller local societies who practice the art and rituals of voodoo/houdon, ubiquitous to the island. These societies are not as elitist as one might think, practically every family in the community has at least one close member as a member (thus keeping the society it represents well represented).
The book reads like a well researched fiction but is actually an account of real events (not without drawing some criticism from others it should be noted). I have a bit of a penchant for archeological texts and this one definitely ranks at the top of the most exciting read I have come across. A fictional movie was based upon some of the events in this text but I have no real desire to watch it...I guess one can only debunk the myth for so long before it has to come back full circle eventually.
fox out. |
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| Maybe it's just me. |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|08:18 am] |
Ever get those dreams where you're driving around a beautiful model in an expensive car that's missing the doors in the back? The ones where she's dressed in a military uniform and has writing on her tongue?
Fuck I love those.
fox out. |
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| screenshotted |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|06:07 pm] |
youtube, as always, brilliantly links together similar recommended clips for your viewing pleasure.
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| (no subject) |
[May. 27th, 2009|06:38 am] |
Dear North Korea,
Cut it out. At least until after I visit Japan next year. Then we can play 99 luftballons all you like.
That is all.
fox out |
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| an excerpt. |
[May. 17th, 2009|01:47 pm] |
despair walked along. in control. he ran into hope. hope smiled and told him he shouldn't generalize the situation. despair struck him to the floor before he could finish his sentence. despair had heard this before. hope looked up to despair from the ground and despair kicked him in the face and walked along.
hope stood back up, wiping the blood from his face, reminding despair that wouldn't work. it wouldn't get rid of him. despair knew. it was merely a gesture of his frustration with hope. despair yelled at hope that hope was a failure. he was as much bullshit as he was. that all despair wanted to do was die and be forgotten and that if hope was right about everything, despair wouldn't be in control. nobody, including despair, wanted him to be in control. it made things difficult for everyone.
if hope had have been right, despair argued, there wouldn't have been any need for him to return again. but hope failed, as hope always did, and so he was back again. hope said nothing in his defense.
patience came along. patience disliked them both. patience said that whenever either one of them was around, nobody listened to him. they were both too impulsive and ought to know better, patience said. both hope and despair knew patience was right but it was in their nature to overwhelm the situation without seeking cooperation. his presence was calming however and their minds turned to consolidation for the first time instead of an ultimately temporary state of solitary domination.
unseen, but in the background, anger was there. his voice came from nowhere in particular but was loud and clear. anger screamed that it was unfair, that they'd all been lied to. anger mocked them all, saying only he had the strength and power necessary to work through it. for a few moments, they all believed it together. anger's red face started to break through the darkness. it looked like a religious aztec mask on fire. the others watched silently, all wondering if there could ever be another option to this all tediously familiar scene. even anger was beginning to get tired of this it seemed, as he stood a fair distance away observing everyone else silently which was far from his usual manner.
fox out. |
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| ...but the rabbit wanted to keep it binary. |
[May. 16th, 2009|06:57 pm] |
i'd say i'm back to the drawing board but i don't even remember where the hell that is anymore.
in other news, i'm pretty sure philip warner/lithium picnic visited whitecoatsyndrome.net recently. no feedback but it was cool enough he bothered to listen i feel.
fox out. |
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