In an attempt to at least partially break the streak of dull diary entries, I decided I would share some of the way kewl stuff I have cluttering up the browser right now while also, of course, droning on about my sepia toned kind of life.

At what point does self-effacing wit because public flagellation? Because I would really like to know what that line I passed a couple of hundred miles ago was. I hope it was nothing important, because I passed it a long time ago as a pretty good clip and I forgot to read the road signs.

First thing to share : this rather marvelous little bit of wordless cartooning that manages to, more or less, explain how love works.

Warning, it’s a tall image, so you will have to scroll a but to read it. But I promise, I will be right there when you are done, continuing my post.

Yup. That's it, more or less.

See? Here I am!

Isn’t that wonderful? I am normally mildly averse to wordless comics, because often the artist is simply not good enough at sequential storytelling to get across what they are trying to get across. It becomes like interpretive dance, where the audience is left thinking “Well that sure seemed like it meant… something?”

But this one tells its story clear, at least to me, and uses the elegant and eloquent language of cartooning, with its ready access to visual metaphors, to show us a description of love which is both charming and apt.

I particularly like the depression after he is rejected being depicted as magnetic lines of repulsive force. I think that captures both the tendency of depression and loneliness to push people away, and the passive nature of this often maladaptive defense, where the person does not even know they are pushing people away. They are just feeling how they feel, and probably wondering why they are so alone.

And the way his true love uses her heart to deflect the repulsive waves until she finally gets through to him… that is absolutely beautiful. I love a good metaphor, and that comic is full of them.

Meanwhile, back in my life, I got some of my Xmas gifts today. That’s the thing about getting gift cards for Xmas, you end up not actually getting your gifts until the middle of January!

Anyhow, the most exciting one is clearly my new kitchen timer. It has four separate timers and a clock! I can’t breathe, it’s so exciting.

Seriously, though, like I mentioned, I just want it for timing meditation, or exercise, or whatever. It was ten bucks on Amazon and for that price, it’s quite adequate for my needs.

The other gift that showed up is my copy of the Wii game Super Paper Mario. As you can see, it’s gotten quite good reviews, and I absolutely love the previous two games in the series (Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario). They are loads of fun and often quite funny and weird, and are not too terribly difficult, so you don’t get hair-pulling frustrated too much.

Speaking of which, I am at the point of crisis with the game I am currently ‘renting’ via GameAccess.ca, an eccentric and colorful game called de Blob.

I have enjoyed the game a lot up until this point, but the final fight is really annoying and hard, and I have this wonderful shiny brand new game calling out to me called Super Paper Mario… it is really tempting to just give up on de Blob and switch to the new game, but I am tired of not-quite-completing games and I would feel guilty and stupid giving up and letting the foul Comrade Black win the day.

So I will hold out as long as I can. Wish me luck.

Oh, and unrelatedly, did you know Canadian is a gender?

But then what do I put under "Nationality"? "Male"?

At least, according to this amazingly clunkily programmed and designed web form it is, anyhow. I mean seriously, who the hell embeds a completely unrelated selection like whether or not the applicant is from Canada in the gender selector? It kind of sticks out there.

And what, do we Canadians have no gender? Or is it that we have genders, but you just don’t care to know them?

“Hey, ladies. a/s/l? Unless you’re Canadian, that is, in which case, God, just keep that shit to yourself. ”

And finally, we have this little gem of “unclear on the concept”, or possibly just “in too much of a hurry to worry about little details :

You can turn me from a fat white guy to a totally ripped black guy? Sign me the fuck up!

Color me cynical, but I am having trouble believing that this image represents a genuine result. I am pretty sure that no weight loss product or workout routine at the gym could turn a big fat white guy like me into a sexy hunky black guy like that. It would take something akin to an Act of God, or at the very least, some kind o Freaky Friday type mind swap.

Hmm, maybe that would be a good idea for a movie. An athlete and a fat nerd swap bodies, and learn what it is like to live in one another’s worlds for a while. Sort of Freaky Friday meets Drop Dead Gorgeous.

The jock learns just how tough it is to be fat, weak, mocked, and sexually dismissed. The nerd learns that while it seems like the jock has the perfect life, there’s a lot about it that is very tough to deal with, including associating with other asshole jocks, and at the end of the movie, they are both happy to get their old lives back, and learn to really appreciate the other person’s point of view, and learn warm values.

Sounds very Disney, doesn’t it? Hmmmmm. 🙂