Five days of off, over. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a long break can end, just as one begins to settle into it. There never really is 'settling into a break' till retirement, is there?

Went to Frolick with carmen today. It's really quite good! I must say they're quite generous with the toppings. She's a firecracker, a bundle of joy as usual. All it takes is a little bit of her omnipresent moronity to incite laughter in anyone. Glad; I haven't seen her in quite a while.

NDP tomorrow...or should I say, today. I imagine I'll be home past midnight once again.

Quick side note : Lord of the Rings is a breathtaking epic, the movie(s) to conquer all others in all aspects of filmmaking. Simply marvelous.

I wonder what mum has up her sleeve...hmmm

Well, well, well. It seems a migration of faith hasn't done very much for my mum. I'd always expected this rather sound change to help her become, how should I put it? Calmer. More reserved, more spiritually aware of surrounding emotion. More spiritually connected to people, you know, things like that.

Why don't I think it's helping, you ask? Let's see now. She still scolds my grandmother rather often, most times for the most trivial things. I mean come on. Yeah, she's kinda annoying sometimes, I concur. But she's old! And more importantly so, she's your mother! Shouldn't one treat his mother the best above all others? It does seem kinda biased, but I've always lived under the impression that mum always comes first, because mum loves you best. Then again, it's not about who loves you the best, but you get the idea anyway.

Does she seriously want my grandmother to live her years under a constant bombardment of needless ribbing and less-than-happy emotions?

I honestly expected the ardent faith in Christianity to be a sound aid in cooling her tempestuous nature. I think she was born with it, but hell, everyone can rightly control most of their actions and behaviour right? Unless, of course, we're talking about genuine mental cases; clinical psycho-sociopaths and the like. Then again...nobody can really count on religion alone to solve the problems of the real world, much less those involving plain human nature.

I wonder if it's really true that most people nowadays only turn to religion as a last resort; praying fervently and, shall I say, pseudo-faithfully, for solution, absolution, and divine guidance, where all earthly ways have seemingly failed them. I do know of people who are genuinely in touch with their faith, people who have so comfortably and respectfully integrated their faith into their daily lives, and perhaps have changed them for the better in the process. It could be divine cleansing, the purity of prayer. It could be a regular psychological peace of mind. To each his own, I suppose.

Alas, faith might be the solution yet.

For those of you who frequently experience the itch to indulge in something witty, and appreciate good humour, try reading novels written by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Yes, those novels are jointly written, though the individual authors have published their own novels too. I have never come across thriller novels so intelligent, witty and overwhelmingly riveting in all my days of reading. It seems as I go on, the books I come across just get better and better.

Anyway, two things.

I've painted my room blue, which is a nice change.

I attended the SNYO concert on Monday evening at the Esplanade and witnessed a 16 year old virtuoso shred on the violin. I suppose putting it that way would be an insult, but I'm mean that purely in a respectful and breathlessly awed point of view. Did I mention the excess of cute girls present at the event, both performer and audience? A welcome sight away from the pixels on my computer screen.

It's day 3 of my block off already? God damn it, seriously. Everytime there's a long break it's sure to pass by so quickly you won't even feel you've begun to settle down in the mood. Well then...that's how it's supposed to be, isn't it?

Finally...the block off is here.

It's been a week of dining-ins and NDP and a lot of wasted time. Hmm...what's new?

Life's starting to ease up a bit and feel a little better.

SAF Day's finally over. Gonna be a lot more relaxed from now on.

Ran through a few things in my mind and it kinda struck me that wherever love was found something would be destroyed along the way. Sure, you've probably found something so indescribably fantastic, something so wonderfully perfect you probably don't notice. It's almost like a sort of exchange where the scales aren't necessarily balanced.

Earth, Wind and Fire is one of the greatest bands ever.

Godforsaken joint pains are the bane of my existence...well apart from other things anyway. I like to keep my hatred focused on things that are more...concurrent.

Funny, I thought I'd gotten used to being called a loser for choosing what to do in NS. Something still makes my skin crawl when that happens.

I heard tomorrow's city march will be a back-and-forth route along the road near the F1 paddocks. Sounds extremely interesting. I guess that's what we get when not all the roads required can be closed. I heard road closures, for any purpose, really piss people off.

My size is starting to become a rather personal problem. Hypermetabolism is really annoying. The idea of being ridiculously scrawny for the rest of my life is as appealing as eating beetle grubs off a pile of animal entrails.

Long term hatred isn't good. Wonder if I might get heartburn.

Differing views that result in clashes, often more on the personal level than anything else, and putting aside all attachments to other things related, it's hardly surprising how certain things can be so easy to let go of. Then again, letting go is subjective in its own right, and any line drawn is blurry at best.

People and ideas come and go. Enemies of today may be friends tomorrow, and vice versa.

Times change. By the second.

Nothing really seems 'solid' at any given point in time. Is it really that easy to hold on to an attachment? Sometimes we're not given a choice. Sometimes we lose these things either out of our own fault or that of others, but the latter, again, is rather subjective.

In the things we own and hold dear we see ownership. It's quite difficult to see it any other way.

Do people actually realize that what's slipping through their fingers is worth more than they can ever imagine? When all that is gone and the dust has settled on both sides of that blurred line...it pretty much becomes a lot more defined. No crossovers.

How can something built over so many years of sweat, blood and tears be laid to waste with little more than a shrugging of shoulders and a stubborn, caustic denial?

It looks as if everything is losing its soul.

Nobody cares anymore...do they?

Everyone's running away. It's so...disconcerting.

There is medication for illness of health. But there is no medication for death.