Chanukah

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah- A time when Jews get together, light candles, eat delicious fried foods, and chocolate wrapped in gold foil.
Its a good thing my mum called me earlier today to remind me---
I can't turn my head without seeing a Christmas decoration, yet I don't even know when Chanukah starts.
I suppose I am grateful that the holiday isn't shoved down my throat.
It feels slightly more /special?/ this way.
I wish I was at home to celebrate with my family, but-- you know..School.

I do like Christmas decorations though-- Colourful lights, Trees with shiny things on them, red and green, Toy Soldiers... Pretty :-)

Also-- My body is starting to get angry at the 40 degree temperature difference between inside and outside.

Whenever Chanukah rolls around and I am wishing to be celebrating with my family I think back to my first year of university and how my girlfriend at the time made me an Menorah our of pipe cleaners.

...It was pretty awesome.

Want a good laugh?

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

ElfYourself is a great treat for a good laugh or a good source of procrastination.

In only a few simple steps you can upload a few pictures of you and your friend's ridiculous faces and you will get a great video of song and dance starring you.

The great part is that you can do it as many times as you want with as many pictures as you want and it continues to be free.

It also can double as an excellent holiday e-card...

Shooting Stars

Make a wish...

(Credit)

At four am the streets are empty.

At four am the city is closed.

At four am the shooting stars come out.

Driving down Wonderland with the windows rolled down- music blaring-

Driving toward the place where the streetlights end

Driving north

Zero Degrees

Tim Horton's

Hot Chocolate

Large- please.

Continue down the road...

Light, Light, Dark, Brights...

Giant stop sign-- pull over.

Climb on top of the car

Look.

Up.

Thousands of worlds

Thousands of tiny specks

Thousands of what ifs?

All of a sudden-

You catch something out of the corner of your eye-

It is moving-

Gone-

You see another one.

And another.

That one has a tail.

This one is orange.

Think of a wish and wait for one to come while the wish is in your head ----- Nothing.

They only come when your head it clear- when you are not expecting them.

Eventually the cold gets to you-

The hot chocolate is empty-

The stars become sparse-

Drive home

Glad you got to see something

Glad you took a risk

Glad that the moment happened

Glad that the sky will always follow you

Where ever you go

What ever you do

The sky is there. Watching you- watching it-

iPod Headphones (And why they suck)

This is going to be a rant post, but you know what? Everybody deserves a rant post every once in a while right?

Let's get to it!

iPod Headphones SUCK!

How so? Well, where should I begin?

I just bought an iPod touch a week ago and needless to say, I am quite fond of it. Let me tell you-- I am almost glad I lost my 4 gigabyte iPod nano. On the other hand, I am not glad that I lost my Pod Nano's Sony headphones that I bought for it in the summer. They were comfortable, loud, crystal clear, in ear, black (nondescript), and fifty dollars-- which is a real pain to have to spend when your brand new iPod comes with brand new headphones-- which I happen to be wearing right now.

Firstly-- They are uncomfortable. Plain and simple, they are putting my ears through pain as I type.

Secondly-- They don't stay in my ears. I have decently large ears-- so this one really boggles my mind. It may be due to the fact that I am used to my in-ear headphones now, but I feel like they could stay in your ears with slightly less effort.

Thirdly-- They break easily! I have been using these headphones for three days and they are already broken. I would like to think that I treat my technology fairly well, and I can say with confidence that I haven't done anything to these headphones to give them a reason to be broken at this point. The way they are broken is one ear plate has detached itself and reveals its guts, often. This is not an uncommon problem either.

I have had a good four to five pairs of iPod headphones in my relationship with the iPod family and they have all broken within a couple months. Some have crumbled until there was nothing left, some have broken on the inside causing the audio to sound distorted, some have become twisted on the plug end, and all of let me down in one way or another.

Fourthly-- Everybody knows you have an iPod if you are wearing them. Obviously this was Apple's intention, otherwise the headphones wouldn't be so -- well -- white. But there is an immediate flaw to this. People like to mug people who have iPods. I won't get into a lot of detail, but I know people personally who have been attacked entirely due to the iPod's in their pockets. I know that I am not keen on advertising that I have a product in my pocket that people are willing to go to jail to have the opportunity to steal. This doesn't apply as much as it used to because iPod's have become much less expensive and much less of a class dividing device, but I am sure it still happens.

On the bright side-- Apple is pretty good at giving you a replacent when your product breaks, sadly, when I tell them that their headphones are innately flawed and broken, they will only give me more of the same headphones...  :-/

Misty Night

On bench I look at the world as if, for one small moment, I am outside of it, overlooking.

In the far off distance I see vague images of buildings.
The buildings are probably empty for the day, or maybe filled with students studying, or janitors cleaning.

A little closer I see a vast field, in hill form. It contains one willow tree, just waiting...wanting somebody to sit underneath it, but it is nighttime, and the ground is too dewy.

I notice the streetlights, lighting the concrete path.
The lights also draw attention to the mist in the air.
The mist makes the scene look so surreal.

Two students are standing under one of the streetlights.
Crying, holding hands, while the taller one kisses the other one of the forehead.
A story told through body language.

A boy on a bicycle passes them quickly, he is going downhill, what is his rush?
Three others pass them and walk up the hill.
A laugh is heard out of one of them and the other two join in.

In the building across the way, a series of windows.
In each lit window, a student plays an instrument.
A bassoon, a trombone, a piano, a violin, and the last one is just singing - alone.
Each person, in a world where only the instrument and them exist.

A cloud moves in the sky.
The full moon reveals itself for the first time all night.
It smiles, but only briefly.
It likes the attention..

A squirrel runs up the hill and taps me on the foot.
I exist too... I suppose.

Wordle

Today I discovered this neat website titled: Wordle

The site creates "word clouds." You can type in any website and it will take the words and turn them into a neat picture based on the frequency that you use them.

Here is an example of a word cloud using this very blog!

It looks like I don't use the word SMUFF nearly enough!!!

I love that something as simple as words arranged in a new fashion, with a little colour, is such a visually stimulating experience.

I think that I am going to put a Wordle in the sidebar and update it as the site updates so you guys watch the site evolve in a more unique way.

In other news, I feel like Peter Paul and Mary and their song, All Mixed Up, compliment this picture quite well -- so give it a listen.

-- Mary Travers you will be forever missed.