Entries from April 2005

A caveat: For those of you who are only here for the Firefox builds and the intermittent flurries of mirth, you might want to pass on this entry, because (and here comes the apt dooce all-caps): I TALK ABOUT MY HEALTH.

Alrighty then.

» The C word (that doesn't rhyme with punt) continues...

It’s times like this when the ruling government is up to their earlobes in the shit, and word on the street is a snap election is looming, that I realize that Homer Simpson was right: democracy doesn’t work.

What’s the use of having a choice when your choice is:

• A slightly right-of-centre Liberal party (or slightly left, depending on who is leading at the time) mired in scandal and filled with MPs of questionable intelligence
• A left-wing NDP party whose heart is in the right place, but whose naivete on the realities of the world is a bit unsettling
• A right-wing Conservative party who was once a party more known for its intolerance, redneck policies, and myopia, then turned into a party a only slightly less asshatted, and now is just a bunch of jerks.

Sigh. The older I get, the less engaged I feel with the political process. I just don’t see the sense in system where there is only one choice if you’re liberal, one choice if you’re more conservative, and so on. If the sole party that has policies close to what you believe in is seen as crooked or filled with incompetents (as is the case right now), what’s the alternative?

Of course, there’s worst democratic systems out there, and we’re lucky to have the right to vote in the first place, but what’s the use if there’s no one worth voting for?

Just so this isn’t all ranting, what would be first thing I would do to fix the system? Get rid of all television cameras from the House of Commons, so that MPs would actually get back to debating and discussing matters of importance. If I see another MP grandstanding for the camera during question period, I do believe I will vomit.

Today is a sad day.

Whether I like it or not, I’m a creature of (some) habit. That explains in part how I managed to get addicted to smoking, fizzy drinks, Macs, French, and countless other things. Probably one of my most tenacious and beloved addictions (besides my addiction to injecting black tar heroin into my — oh, nevermind) is my addiction to coffee.

There’s a Turkish proverb about the perfect cup of coffee that my old roommate Caelum once told me:

“Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love.”

(He actually made a movie with this as the title, but that’s another story for another time.)

And that pretty much sums it up for me. Every morning I wake up, scrub away the eye gremlins, pet the cats, and brew up a damn fine cuppa Good Morning America that gets poured into my favourite cup. I then sit down with the newspaper (or the laptop) and find out what’s going on in the world. This is all a simple but effective prelude to getting into a good work state of mind, and this ritual / habit has been a comfort for years and years.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said: Habit is a man’s sole comfort. We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed. There is some wisdom in this.

Yesterday morning, without warning, loud explosions, or blaring flugelhorns, my favourite cup broke.

This morning, I woke up, scrubbed away the eye gremlins, petted the cats, and brewed up a fine cuppa Good Morning America. I then sat down with the newspaper to find out what’s going on in the world.

It just didn’t feel the same.