Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Finally

pandora.com

...a way to find new artists I might like without having to actually tell someone I don't trust their abilities to guide me...





no offense

I just don't trust you and don't want to put in the effort to prove you wrong

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Extra! Extra! Zombies own LARPers!


LARP vs Zombie
Originally uploaded by himbly.
Doin' homework, I accidentally came across these.

From what I can understand these people (call them Team Dork) would LARP in this park every Sunday (I don't even know where) and these other people (call them Team Bubble-burster) decided it would be great fun to dress up as zombies and break up their LARPing nerdness.

Pretty funny.

Team Dork were apparently hangin' out doing their LARPy thing when Team Bubble-burster...well...burst on the scene and gave them a jawful of zombie revenge.

Then, if I'm reading it right, they took out a drum circle.

I love anyone who takes out a drum circle.

Dirty hippies with their stupid lack of rhythm.

Check out the pictures.

an insight into Himbly's current state


don_music
Originally uploaded by himbly.
Remember that guy?

If you don't, this will serve the purpose of a/ reminding you, and b/ describing my thoughts and feelings at this moment.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

omg!


pee&poo
Originally uploaded by himbly.
I think I've just seen the best thing I've ever seen in my life and the life of my mother and my grandmother.

In three generations of the maternal side of my family, none of us have seen anything better than this.

I swear it.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

more better

I was telling eeners this today:

The other day in class, I used the word "polite-er".

I was all like (to myself), "Hey, good answer. Wait. Did I just say 'polite-er'? Damn."

Actually, it wasn't even a good answer.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

It's totally right about Little Red Corvette





You Scored 60% Correct









You are a solid child of the 80s

You'd never confuse Tiffany from Debbie

And while you may not know Prince's first #1 hit

You know every word to Little Red Corvette


oh great. I'll just eat Kraft Dinner...

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher.
You'd make a talented professor or writer.

not entirely true...

You are Agnostic

You're not sure if God exists, and you don't care.
For you, there's no true way to figure out the divine.
You rather focus on what you can control - your own life.
And you tend to resent when others "sell" religion to you.

musings while driving today


wiretap
Originally uploaded by himbly.
I got into the car and turned on the radio just in time to hear The Vinyl Cafe, and I smilled and thought, 'alllll right!' when I heard Stuart McLean's voice.

I love getting into the car when my fave radio shows are on.

However, Stuart McLean's voice was saying goodbye until next week. So I was all, 'bummer'.

And then, after the news, they introduced Wiretap. That is totally even better than the Vinyl Cafe, so I ended up driving past Safeway and into some residential area just so I could listen to it.

I laughed myself stupid. I recommend it (the show...and laughing yourself stupid).

...

When I don't feel like listening to what's on CBC at that moment, i surf other radio stations. WTF? Why does almost every other radio station in Calgary suck? There is NOTHING good to listen to...'cept CJSW and sometimes they're stinky, too.

...

Was thinking about my typology class and how I found a language atlas at a bookstore yesterday. Typology is a type of linguistics where you look at features in a language and compare them with the other languages in the world. You find that of all the possibilities, really most languages fall within only a few of them.

Anyway...I won't get into it.

The guy who started it was named Greenberg who wrote this paper in 1966 that turned the linguistic world on its ear! *echo*

In it he wrote 45 'universals', which is to say he studied a bunch of languages, compared them and found out 45 things that always or usually happen. And they're written like this:

Universal #5: If a language has dominant SOV word order and the genitive follows the governing noun, then the adjective likewise follows the noun.

(Which just means that if the word order of a language (like Japanese) is subject, object, verb and if you use a possessive phrase (John's car) the possessing thing (John) is after the noun in possesses (car John's) then an adjective (black car) will also follow the noun it's modifying (car black). If you care.)

This is an awful long setup for a stupid joke that made me laugh in the car...but Rush was on one of the stations.

Himbly's universal #1: If a person's genetic code (for gender) is XX and if their country of origin is Canada then, with greater than chance frequency, that person will dislike Rush.

...

Good lord. I got nothing these days.

Friday, November 18, 2005

yeah, 'cept I'm not taking phonetics this semester...


ipa
Originally uploaded by himbly.
I still can't sleep.

I'm not even tired. I go to bed late, wake up early, and aside from an unpleasant and tired hour or two in the morning, I'm okay.

I finished my paper and handed it in.

But...when we handed it in she told us if we wanted it back until Monday, it was fine with her.

I turned the offer down. I didn't want to look at it again.

But now I'm wanting to read it over (it's still on my computer) but I'm scared that I'm going to decide everything's wrong and I need to redo the whole thing.

"...and my inner voice is saying, "Don't go."..."
--aww..heck. I'm trying to quote Best In Show but I don't remember how it goes.

Anyway...I'm listening to my inner 'fraidy-cat voice 'cause I was quite chuffed with myself earlier when I thought I at least knew what I was writing about in this last paper. Now that I've had time to think about it, my inner critic voice is yelling, "Fool! You don't know the first thing about ergativity in Kalaallisut!"

But, right now, I wouldn't trade this for anything.

I am so happy right now to be going back to school and studying stuff I care about.

The problem with linguistics is that you fall in love with every language you research. I've been working on Kalaallisut since September now, I've looked at its word order, morphology, how it modifies its nouns and where it puts its possessors. I've tried to prove that it's ergative (or not in a small group of nouns), that it's polysynthetic, and that it's highly fusional. Oh, and certainly not least, I've researched its speakers...where they live, how, how many, how commited they are to keeping Kalaallisut alive (real committed, btw)...

And I know almost nothing about this language. Seriously.

There's so much.

I don't know how the writers of grammars do it, frankly. The guy that wrote mine had to spend...I don't even know how long in West Greenland recording data. Then he comes home (or stays there...I don't know) and writes a book based on his findings.

I don't think I've ever read so many sentences about ptarmigan, sled dogs and polar bears in all my life.

Oh...and did you know that the Kalaallisut word for 'polar bear' is nanuq? Oh...and that Kalaallisut is a very close relative to Canadian Inuit dialects?

[q] is phonetic for a voiceless uvular stop. In other words...if you make a k sound, you feel the back of your tongue touching the back of your palate..the soft part...the velum? Your uvula is the dinger donger in the back of your throat. Now, try to get the back of your tongue to touch that and try the k sound again. If you can do it, you make a [q].

(I still remember the day we learned this in phonetics..all of us trying to make the [q] sound with our prof excitedly yelling, 'Further back! Further back! You! (pointing) Try it! Further back!')

So...since English speakers don't make that sound, we use [k] to replace it. So, when people say Nanuk of the North...it actually means polar bear.

Neat, huh?

Anyway...to all those that think linguistics is easy, I say this:

Up your nose with a rubber hose.

And since this is my blog and I've been reading a lot of bloggers lately saying, "this is my blog, I'll write what I want"...Ima write what I want.

'cause that's just how this bi-atch rolls.

And what I want is to write this (so prolly best to skip it):

I've never worked with a language like this before. There is so much morphology (prefixes, suffixes, infixes) going on and I used to hate studying morphology...so it totally effed me up at first. But now, g-damn if I don't think that it's the coolest thing ever that you can incorporate a verb into your noun and keep going.

That means a whole sentence ~can~ be said in one word. Not always, but it can be done without it being weird to anyone speaking or listening.

Isn't that cool?

Like you can say the word "aqissirniarput" and it means "They are hunting ptarmigan"
...
(told ya so about the ptarmigan and stuff)
...
because it's actually one noun with two suffixes: aqissir-niar-put (ptarmigan-hunt-3rd person plural). A suffix just like in English when we say accomplish-ment-s (accomplish (verb) - ment (makes it a noun) - s (plural)). 'Cept, instead of the middle affix meaning 'make a noun/verb' it is a verb.

The 3rd person plural at the end is a bit of a different story but I won't get into it here. Probably no one is reading this anymore -if they even started.

Anyway..that's just a small thing I had to get off my chest. Linguistics is so effing neat. I didn't realize how much I missed it.

Oh dear. I've got to get to bed.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

pwned


Dreadsteed
Originally uploaded by himbly.
I'm outing Black Mana.

If Black Mana was a warlock...

if he had a horse...

if he was level 60...

if he was...uh....human?

This is what he'd look like.

Well, ~I'm~ proud of him and his awesome looking dreadsteed.

w00t!
/grats blackmana

well, not exactly...


mr insomnia
Originally uploaded by himbly.
I'm done.

I've finished another paper on W.Greenlandic and I'm thinking it's much better than the last.

Whew.

The last few days I've not been able to sleep until late, and then I've had the most crazy, effed up dreams.

wish I could remember some.

So, running on little sleep lately but not feeling tired. Until the morning. The morning eats bags of dick.

But I'm finished that g-damn paper and this time...this time....I think I even knew what I was talking about. In about a week or two I'll find out I totally didn't...but shut up. Let me ride this post paper happy balloon.

Lots of stuff I feel like complaining about, but I'll save it for another day.

Love, himbly

Saturday, November 12, 2005

on the wagon


sugarplum fairy
Originally uploaded by himbly.
Well...

that's it.

Cake's gone. It's Saturday eve and the last night I'll have sweets.

Back in the 'sugar-is-the-sweet-sweet-devil' saddle again.

*sigh*...it's gonna take a lot of soy smoothies to wipe the taste of homemade blackforest cake from my memory.

excuse me...

I...I...I think there's something in my eye...

Thursday, November 10, 2005

thirty three


jesus laughing
Originally uploaded by himbly.
One of my dearest friends, Ivana, wrote me this yesterday:

...you've now lived as long as Jesus and are divisible by 11!!!

Oh my god.

She's right on both counts.

But Jesus died at 33.

Gosh.

Now I need to find someone else to model my life on.

chubby girl


doll
Originally uploaded by himbly.
*burp*

I've had left over birthday cake 3 times today.

I haven't eaten sweets for 4 months, but I relaxed the rule until Sunday. I'm on a sugar kick that'll rot my teeth and frenzy my brain.

...and how...

yee haw!

I ate so much yesterday that, aside from my b-cake breakfast, I've only been able to eat salads. Dad took me out for lunch, Mum made me dinner (and said cake).

I'm spoilt.

Only child.

Full only child.

That picture....that's me naked.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

bummer

Ever have those days when you're gripped in self-doubt?

When you answer a question wrong in class because you were confused and nervous talking in front of people, but it's a question on something you're supposed to be the class "expert" in so it nags at you all day long and then you start to see your future go down the tubes and you become paralyzed that maybe you're actually quite mediocre and what are you doing making such a giant change in your life anyway?

Yeah...me too.

ugh.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

The question mark stands for "what else?"


nachos
Originally uploaded by himbly.
I said I'd make dinner tonight.

So, when I got back from my grocery trip (I've never been good at making magic from whatever's left in the fridge) I peeked my head around the door and said,

"Who wants a snacky dinner?"

"Me!", we both yelled!

Then, "Hurrah!"

So, I handed him a bowl of Kettle Chips (Chipotle BBQ) and told him to wait while I finished the rest.

The rest was pita, feta and olives and then a big plate of nachos.

We're both happy. And full.

I'm going to make the best mom someday.

'cause I'm less concerned about nutrition and more concerned about theme.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Apparently...

If you ask Jeeves what the top ten sexual fantasies of women are...

or...

....how to soften peanut butter...

you get my blog.

heh.

funny.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Oedipus Rex and the death of Woody Allen


cover
Originally uploaded by himbly.
The other day in class, a girl turned to me and sighed, “I think this play has been talked to death. We were studying Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.

Written about 2500 years ago, it’s been discussed, debated, fixated on, inspected, infected, rejected, and se-lected….

(thanks to Arlo Guthrie for that last bit)

…and now…now in a first year Greek and Roman studies class that’s so freaking easy I do a jig with every new assignment…now sitting in the bowels of the science theatres at the UofC…now we’ve finally talked this play to death.

Well, I’ll be…

I just stammered for a second then pathetically protested, ‘it’s a really good play, though.’

And this is my point. A week previous to this encounter, I took on about 4 or 5 of these kids telling me that the film Oedipus the King was boring. Boring! Sure, it was done as a filmed play. Sure they didn’t change sets or costumes. Sure there was no car chases, love scenes (aside from with his mother, ew.), or Will Ferrell. But boring?

“All they did was stand there and scream at each other! Wahhh. Wahhh. Wahhh. We’re big babies that need our entertainment spoon-fed to us.”

I added the last bit.

I’m disappointed.

This…this is why no one watches Woody Allen anymore. No one cares about dialogue. No one cares about examining a character’s being and trying to understand them and, maybe, if you can, the part of them that’s in you.

I watched Hanna and Her Sisters the other day.

I could go on about W.A.’s insight into the human condition, or his ability to reach ‘the rest of us’, or his refusal to separate good or bad in anyone, or his own public wrestling with the same questions that plague all of us.

G-damn. Or even his ability, every once in awhile, to phrase a line just so and it makes me tear up.

But then I’d sound like a twat.

But I don’t think movies like Troy are going anywhere, so we’d better get used to them.

Perhaps we could get Vin Diesel to play Oedipus and Kate Beckinsale to play Jocasta. If we see him chased out of Thebes by some chariots, but he kills them all and returns to his wife (who somehow realizes she’s not his mother rather than killing herself)…..Hollywood? Here’s the pitch.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

When you're this big, they call you Sergeant


ScreenShot_110205_190554
Originally uploaded by himbly.

grody creepy


grody creepy
Originally uploaded by himbly.
The other day I was at work, and this happened:

The characters:

Me: heroine

Mavis: sorta shares a workspace with me. She can be bitchy, but after awhile I've gotten to really like her. She is 57 and never married...and seems to like it that way.

Larry: creepy creepy creepy. Not lecherous, but inappropriately open about his sexuality. Apparently used to 'swing' when he was married. With whom, I have no clue...baboons? they swing. So do bonobos, I hear.

of course, names have been changed to protect...well, me.

Anyway...Mavis and Larry are friends, and Mavis called Larry in his office to ask him to a craft show this (next?) weekend.

From what I heard from her end of the phonecall, I was able to figure out that his answer was, 'Can't. I'm a pathetic creep and I have to go to a sex show at the Roundup Centre because I have the need to let everyone know I am a sexual being. It turns me on to think of you thinking of me having lots of weird sex.'

Or something like that.

I'm good at reading between the lines.

Then, obviously, he invited her and lept out of his chair, sex pamphlet in hand, to run down and show her (and me, 'cause I sit next to her) his dirty little weekend plan.

Enter Larry.

"Yeah...it's a lot of fun. You should go. I never miss a year....yadda...yadda...open minded...yadda yadda....sex toys...yadda yadda..."

barf

Okay.

When I was younger, I used to think this sort of thing was cool.

Younger <--- key

Of course you want to check out what people are doing. Sex is so taboo in so many ways, that you want to look behind those drawn curtains...get giddy and giggly...all that sorta stuff.

Then...you realize a few things:

1- Unless you are ~super~ hot, almost NO ONE wants to picture you have sex. Your significant other, those who have crushes on you...and perhaps the odd freak you meet on the bus. Certainly not if you are a 40'ish divorcee cruisin' a sex 'conference' with a group of buddies patting yourself on the back for having an 'open mind'.

2- a sex conference at the Roundup Centre is going to be filled with the same type of person I described above. And a few hired hot people.

3- you know how creepy sex shops are? Think of that but 100x.

4- no one cares if you're 'open minded' or not. No one really wants to hear about it.

ack. tired of listing.

My point is that after awhile one...well, I obviously can't speak for everyone here, so 'me'...

My point is that after awhile I came to the conclusion that sex was a private thing, and should remain so. I've told stories to friends about past experiences..and some of them are damn funny...but I wouldn't dream of discussing my and my bf's sex life with anyone.

So, if you want to go to a huge sex-raviganza...shut up about it. Espeically at work. Tell your close friends, they probably care. I don't.

But...why go? If you want to know about sex, we have a HUGE internet that can tell you everything you need to know and you don't need to go meet anyone face to face to hear them discuss their product or technique in a frank yet grody manner.

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful that we're living in a society where people can be open enough to discuss their problems. Even for entertainment. I guess the difference is that I get to choose to read or look at what I want, but at work I've got to listen to perv-boy describe his sex-filled weekend.

The sex show...well..whatever. I just think those things are gross. I will bet $50 that anything in there is going to be about as clever, original, insightful or hot as the headlines on a Cosmo cover and tons of people are going to go just 'cause they want to 'expand' their minds...sexually speaking.

ick.
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