98

The sun and clear blue sky were bright and full of the promise of a beautiful spring today as I stood at the 98 B-Line stop this morning and waited for the bus to pull up.

One thing I discovered early on here about the public transport, is that instead of listing arrival times for each bus in Vancouver and having to deal with Penny Random when she becomes irate at the 5-minute delay, Translink simply doesn't display a schedule.. It's somewhat annoying when you're in a hurry, but at least it doesn't get your hopes up.
Good times.

I stood on the curb, absent-mindedly fiddling with the earphones in my pocket as I listened to a story about travel in Britain.
My mind was somewhat distanced. I was listening, but thinking about other things.
I hate it when that happens.

Something the other night shook me up a little, and it was still running through my head. Over and again, it reached the end, then skip back to the start like a scratched 45.
I hadn't resorted to my usual method of forgetting something for good, because I felt that this time keeping the memory was important, or would be somehow when I finally worked it out.

Usually if I want to forget something, I close my eyes and move it into the metal room, close the large round blast door, lock it, and fire off the contents to the sun, where it burns up in a small puff of smoke. It's a surprisingly good way of clearing annoying thoughts out, the problem being that I find once something is gone, it's gone for good, and that's not always ideal. Sometimes you need to retain this stuff.


The B-Line roared into view on my left, and began to slow.
As it pulled up to stop in front of me with a hiss and I looked through the windows, I could see that it was full, I guess there'll be no sitting on this trip.
The doors opened and I turned to Ed, briefly shook his hand, and with a pat on the back, wished him a safe trip. I could tell he was stressing about making it to the airport on time as he stepped onto the vehicle and pulled out some change for the fare, because his response was a half-smile and something mumbled about Aberdeen.

Regardless, it was great seeing him over here, the first one of my Aussie friends to come visit. I've been trying to show him around the city this past week, and it's been fun. It's cool to see someone from home.

The doors swung shut, and the bus pulled out again. I waved, then as it disappeared down the hill, I ran to catch my own bus, now over two hours late for work.

It's now the following evening, and I'm still replaying that thought over and over.
I think I know what happened now, and it's taken a while. Unfortunately it isn't a good conclusion.
I know what I did, and it's either going to be a catastrophe, or there is some other explanation I've overlooked. Hopefully the latter.
I guess we'll find out.

Jimzip :D

My Spidey sense is.. really screwed..

Spiderman 3.. oh God..

Straight off the bat, I'm apologising, because I don't usually write scathing reviews on anything.. in fact usually I just don't write reviews period, but I have to say that seeing Spiderman 3 tonight was probably $11.50 I could have spent more wisely on toilet paper..
Honestly.
I don't understand how Hollywood can continue to spill garbage onto movie screens and expect people to keep paying to go to the cinema.
Oh wait, downloading movies illegally is the reason the studios are losing money.. sure.. that's it..
It's especially irksome because the prequels were really quite good. (Keeping in mind this is all a comic-book adaption..)

Out of 10, I'd give Spiderman 3 either a 2, or a 1. It wasn't so much the performances that killed it per se, Topher Grace was (with a little open mindedness) ok, Tobey Maguire struggled to pull off his lines but given those lines, did reasonably. Aunt May was undoubtedly the best performance in my mind, but this movie couldn't be saved, not at all. Not by adding 3 villains at once, explosions, lots of dramatic music and a big-impressive trailer.
One of the points I awarded it was actually because I shared the pain with some friends, (whos company, may I add, made the night very enjoyable).

Sandman appears out of nowhere, apparently revealed as the 'true' killer of Uncle Ben, but he apologises so all is forgiven.. Venom had a small amount of decent character development, then dies.. Mary Jane screams the whole time (oh and cries in one scene), and the hobgoblin gets stabbed through the chest, and as the sun sets over New York, the star-spangled banner waving on the building top next door, and the chorus swelling, he too packs it in.
Of course, I didn't ruin the ending for you, you already knew all of that was going to happen. I just saved you the agony of waiting two and a half hours to get there.
It's too bad really, to make a movie so awful that it verges on ruining the comic books, and does no justice to the tv show that made the whole story so great, but that's what Spidey 3 did for me.

If you're still going to see it, fine, but keep an open mind.. a very open mind, and forgive the constant plot holes, terrible script, and useless dialogue from characters we've never heard of. In fact, just focus on the pretty special effects, and everything will be fine..

Give me a break Hollywood, for the love of all that is sacred, get off your asses, stop pumping mindless crud to an audience that's more intelligent than that, and hire some decent writers.

Jimzip D:

Damage control.

I was thinking the other day, that I'm going to start posting more frequently again. Apologies for the huge gap between the last few, and thanks to all of you that keep reading and commenting, it's been über busy lately, and all my spare time has gone into work for clients and brief catchups with friends. I'm committing myself back to the blog now though, so as of today I'll be updating again on a regular basis.
Just thought I'd put that out there! Now without further ado..


I woke up quite suddenly the other night, with no explanation.
I opened my eyes and was disoriented for a few seconds, unable to figure out why I had woken up from such a deep sleep.
It seemed like a few minutes before I gathered myself and shook off the tiredness, then I just lay there. The silence of the city at night is in no way indicative of how loud it is during the day, it's strange, unusual, and I listened for a minute or two trying to discern sounds that could tell me what time it was, but there were none.
For some reason I then wanted to sit up and look out the window rather than go back to sleep.
I slowly sat up, and as I gripped the windowsill and peered into the blackness outside, the city lights all around me lighting up the clouds in a peaceful dull orange glow, I looked down, and saw in the building next to me there was a girl dancing at her window.
As if she were at some club she bopped around in her pajamas, her music of course in no way audible to me, but her little jig was mesmerising.

I watched her for a minute or two with an odd curiousity, she had her iPod in her pocket, (or at least I hope she did otherwise she was dancing in silence) and I soon found a pattern in her motions.
She would strut up to the glass, put her hand on her hips and fling her head about, then walk a little circle like a runway model, then back to the window for a dramatic pose, holding an invisible microphone.
I wanted to laugh or look away, but it was almost hypnotic, and I felt unable to move my attention away from her for some time.
Again and again, she went through the motions, each time embellishing it in some small way, adding a little jump here or a look over her shoulder there.
Eventually I did lie back down, and almost instantly went to sleep leaving her to perform for nobody, (and unintentionally everybody) for who knows how much longer.
I still can't work out what woke me. But I'm thankful that I did wake up, because I've been pretty stressed out lately, and watching this random stranger dancing about as if she didn't have a worry in the world, somehow that made me feel better about a whole lot of things. It was a little show of carefree contentment when I was stressed and worried, and I think it was just what I needed to see.

Jimzip :D