Friday, April 16, 2004
Links are the last refuge of the blogger's block inflicted
So it turns out that I'm more interesting in writing than in person. My empirical evidence? Whenever I've seen anybody I know today, his/her first response has been to point out that I haven't updated my blog, and to demand that I immediately cease speaking with her/him and instead mosey off to update this.
The fact that I'm more interesting in writing than in person really ought not to surprise me - after all, I've been paid to write things, but nobody has yet offered me a cheque merely for getting up on a soapbox and ranting (though I'm told that there's entertainment value in that too, so hope shall continue its eternal springing). Still, though, there's something a little distressing in discovering that even your own friends prefer you as the silent eccentric behind the computer monitor than as an actual human being. And really, people, it's not as though I'm any less self-centred or more coherent or interesting in blog form. Hell, my most critically acclaimed entry so far has been a random story about what a hell-raiser I was in my grade eleven English class. I guess what I'm trying to say is as follows: my contempt for all of you knows no bounds.
Contempt, as you surely know, is best mixed with pity, so, in the style of Mr. T (to whom I've been told I bear an uncanny resemblance), I shall identify a person (or "foo'") I pity: the person who located this blog by entering "Stairway to Heaven is About" into Google - sorry, buddy, unless you consider either Duncan Taylor or me to be a rock scholar (not that this is an inherently unreasonable proposition), you'll find little of use here. If you were doing research for some kind of academic paper, I suggest that you write that "Heaven" is supposed to refer to France, and that the "Stairway" of which Zep was prophetically speaking was in fact the Chunnel. Points for originality, anyway, like the time that I argued in a paper that Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" wasn't about drugs (yes, this was in Ms. Updike's class - really, who else would assign a paper on an acid trip?).
As has undoubtedly become apparent, I have nothing of substance to say. Webboard has been a little disappointing in its supply of interesting new threads (though the Greatest Canadian one has morphed into an argument between Mustafa and I on whether Trudeau was a good Prime Minister, which is remarkable only in that I'm pretty sure that I'm winning). The best I can recommend is to head over to Spencer's blog and read the comments to his April 12 entry, which are like a Webboard thread in that Mustafa and Janet argue about Separation of Powers. Fair warning, though: if you read all the way to the end, an unpleasant mental image awaits you.
Meanwhile, in its ongoing and wholly successful efforts to be more interesting than the U of A S.U., the U of C S.U. has just impeached one of its Senate Reps. Since University Senates are even less useful than their federal counterpart, this doesn't really matter that much except insofar as it, along with the election drama and the Presidential censure, makes me wish that I was four hundred kilometres to the South.
The moral of this entry is "Be Careful What You Wish For."
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So it turns out that I'm more interesting in writing than in person. My empirical evidence? Whenever I've seen anybody I know today, his/her first response has been to point out that I haven't updated my blog, and to demand that I immediately cease speaking with her/him and instead mosey off to update this.
The fact that I'm more interesting in writing than in person really ought not to surprise me - after all, I've been paid to write things, but nobody has yet offered me a cheque merely for getting up on a soapbox and ranting (though I'm told that there's entertainment value in that too, so hope shall continue its eternal springing). Still, though, there's something a little distressing in discovering that even your own friends prefer you as the silent eccentric behind the computer monitor than as an actual human being. And really, people, it's not as though I'm any less self-centred or more coherent or interesting in blog form. Hell, my most critically acclaimed entry so far has been a random story about what a hell-raiser I was in my grade eleven English class. I guess what I'm trying to say is as follows: my contempt for all of you knows no bounds.
Contempt, as you surely know, is best mixed with pity, so, in the style of Mr. T (to whom I've been told I bear an uncanny resemblance), I shall identify a person (or "foo'") I pity: the person who located this blog by entering "Stairway to Heaven is About" into Google - sorry, buddy, unless you consider either Duncan Taylor or me to be a rock scholar (not that this is an inherently unreasonable proposition), you'll find little of use here. If you were doing research for some kind of academic paper, I suggest that you write that "Heaven" is supposed to refer to France, and that the "Stairway" of which Zep was prophetically speaking was in fact the Chunnel. Points for originality, anyway, like the time that I argued in a paper that Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" wasn't about drugs (yes, this was in Ms. Updike's class - really, who else would assign a paper on an acid trip?).
As has undoubtedly become apparent, I have nothing of substance to say. Webboard has been a little disappointing in its supply of interesting new threads (though the Greatest Canadian one has morphed into an argument between Mustafa and I on whether Trudeau was a good Prime Minister, which is remarkable only in that I'm pretty sure that I'm winning). The best I can recommend is to head over to Spencer's blog and read the comments to his April 12 entry, which are like a Webboard thread in that Mustafa and Janet argue about Separation of Powers. Fair warning, though: if you read all the way to the end, an unpleasant mental image awaits you.
Meanwhile, in its ongoing and wholly successful efforts to be more interesting than the U of A S.U., the U of C S.U. has just impeached one of its Senate Reps. Since University Senates are even less useful than their federal counterpart, this doesn't really matter that much except insofar as it, along with the election drama and the Presidential censure, makes me wish that I was four hundred kilometres to the South.
The moral of this entry is "Be Careful What You Wish For."
