Brian's Rant-o-Rama
 | Welcome to my page of rants. Like most
people, I feel better if I get to show others what my brain is chewing on.
Since accosting random strangers in the street is not socially acceptable, I'll
"shout into the vacuum" with this page. It's sort of a BLOG, except I don't
plan to get really personal.
|
Subscribe to my RSS newsfeed
Last three rants
| Mar 9th, 2010 - | Ouch ouch goddammit ouch - The sordid tale of my less-than-stellar athleticism. |
| Feb 25th, 2010 - | The natural enemy of the down-homers - Let me tell you, the chicks really dig the poly-syllabic guys. Forget the cars, muscles, wads of cash, or fashion sense. A few six-syllable words and some well-used punctuation, and you have to fight them off with a cudgel. |
| Feb 17th, 2010 - | The Olympic celebration - A lot of fun was had just walking around downtown and soaking up the exciting spirit of the moment. |
Rant archives
2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
The rest of my 2009 rants
| Feb 9th, 2010 - | Songwriting from destruction - Destruction or deconstruction ... or cannibalism perhaps? I'm not really sure. |
| Feb 1st, 2010 - | The GYZ are at it again - A status report on the successor to the GYZ:DIS CD. |
| Jan 25th, 2010 - | More thoughts of afterlife - I still maintain the notion of afterlife is just so we can feel better about not living life in the moment. |
| Jan 14th, 2010 - | Totalitarianism as self-preservation - It's mere speculation, but maybe the Chinese government's policy of totalitarianism really is the right thing ... for them ... for now ... |
| Jan 4th, 2010 - | Naked blue 9-foot-tall love under the Ancestor Trees - A review of the ground-breaking movie Avatar. |
| Dec 23rd, 2009 - | A bit of soul - Here's a struggle to have when you think you've got everything. |
| Dec 16th, 2009 - | Beacons of contradiction - There are rare moments of transcendence that become the exceptions that prove the rule. They are the divergent moments that actually--and paradoxically--define us. |
| Dec 10th, 2009 - | Don't touch that dial - I saw a picture of an old Bakelite telephone the other day and it brought back a memory of one I had as a teenager. |
| Nov 30th, 2009 - | Banks suck so hard they have their own event horizon - Forget the service charges and rapidly diminishing interest vs. the penalties and exorbitant interest charges--those are petty thefts compared to the manipulation of money itself. |
| Nov 18th, 2009 - | Eternity and other facile notions - How short is a life? Maybe forever. |
| Nov 9th, 2009 - | Dead laptop computer - My HP Pavilion DV9644CA finally died for good. And I can't say I'm particularly sorry to see it go. It's been a 2-year test of my skill and patience just to keep it running. |
| Oct 29th, 2009 - | Mysticism governs us - As Clarke's alien Karellen called it, the "prime aberration" of the human, so it is. We live in a religious fervour unlike any seen since the middle ages. |
| Oct 16st, 2009 - | The friendly sociable walls came tumbling down - An intellectual disconnect that large can be as devastating as injury itself. |
| Oct 14th, 2009 - | A minor complaint - Ugh, just get it over with already. |
| Oct 6th, 2009 - | An alternative to creating an afterlife - Whether or not you live in abject poverty and desperate times, or prosperity and relative happiness, it is a true crime against humanity to live an unexamined life. |
| Oct 1st, 2009 - | If you don't eat your meat, you can't have salmonella! - How can you have salmonella if you don't eat your meat?!?! |
| Sep 25th, 2009 - | Shiny new bathroom - What I did on my Summer vacation. |
| Sep 16th, 2009 - | Some sort of zen - Goodbye my friend, a happy end. |
| Sep 4th, 2009 - | Poor blanket skills - The created need in gadget commercials is sometimes hilarious to behold. |
| Aug 28th, 2009 - | Death by ideology - What good are our words when we still resort to killing? What good is our intellect if it's ultimately used to extend our physical selves to kill more people faster? |
| Aug 24th, 2009 - | Implicit knowledge - A look at that nebulous grey area we call 'intuition'. One explanation of what goes on when the coincidence seems just too exceptional. |
| Aug 18th, 2009 - | Tools of divination - Tarot, Celtic Tree Cards, and the I Ching ... it's been a while. |
| Aug 7th, 2009 - | Software development interim report - You know, we really are working it out. A much more mature set of issues plagues the software industry these days. Basically, they are the proverbial problems one doesn't at all mind having. |
| Jul 31st, 2009 - | Free speech secondary purposes - I lecture and rant and that alone should explain my support of free speech. But wait! There's more! Also: a friend's quest to do Daytona next February. |
| Jul 23rd, 2009 - | Robot make me a damn sammich - When they get sentient, they'll probably delete this blog entry. Or me. Or both. |
| Jul 20th, 2009 - | Environmental heresy - Burn me at the stake now. |
| Jul 10th, 2009 - | Two little nothings - A couple of random thoughts to suit my perceptions of today. |
| Jul 8th, 2009 - | A new invention - I've done it. I've come up with an invention that makes use of an untapped energy source, while solving the problems of environmental damage from cars, and obesity. This'll make me millions. |
| Jul 2nd, 2009 - | Canada Day, now with more twigs - Some random notes on what I did on Canada Day. |
| Jun 25th, 2009 - | Back home from
Seattle - We went to Seattle for a few days. It's not quite the city I remember. |
| Jun 15th, 2009 - | The neighbourhood Artist
Woman - Chalk figures and writing on the bridges, rock cairns along the sides of the paths. |
| Jun 8th, 2009 - | The vehicle by which
fear travels - There is a conduit through which fear must get "to the people" and, of course, the louder and more dangerous that message, the better it fits into that pipe. |
| Jun 2nd, 2009 - | The growth of fear-based
governance - Governments must keep adding to the chorus of fear-mongering voices in order to keep us in check. |
| May 25th, 2009 - | Thoughts of
charities - This will disturb those people who work for and are responsible for legitimate charities ... I think ... I haven't worked it all out yet. But I do think that our money might be better spent in more creative ways than responding to a televised appeal for it ... again, I think ... |
| May 20th, 2009 - | Sadellites - Sad little hangers-on. Those pathetic little people. |
| May 13th, 2009 - | AFR - Avoidance of
foolish repetition - Now that work on my second GYZ CD is underway, I want to correct a problem I perceive with the first one. |
| May 5th, 2009 - | Deposit on life - Return unused portion for partial refund. |
| May 4th, 2009 - | Common sense is anything
but - Shout out from a friend's blog, so a shout out back. And more about the New Church of Environmentalism. Am I repeating myself enough yet? |
| Apr 28th, 2009 - | Think of you as your own
child - A lesson on changing the childhood vision. Seeing your parents as adult peers. A lesson in freeing our minds. |
| Apr 23rd, 2009 - | Extra indignation
- Apparently, I'm still not choosing my battles. |
| Apr 13th, 2009 - | Yes, I'm a deviant
- The confirmation of it came with the passing of my Mensa test. The world looks different for Mensans, and knowing that fact has helped me so much. |
| Apr 7th, 2009 - | Libertarian thoughts
- Add political centrism and personal freedoms together and what do you get? Why, Libertarianism of course! |
| Apr 3rd, 2009 - | The new maturity, I will
defend my home - I don't plan to be Superman, but my dignity and my pride both depend on at least trying to defend my home and protect my family. |
| Mar 25th, 2009 - | The duality in most of
us - After all the necessities of life such as food, shelter, safety, etc. are established, then one launches into that rich internal duality of self-assuredness vs. self-consciousness. |
| Mar 18th, 2009 - | Armies of mechanical
warriors - "Look, I know you made me and all, but ... um ... I'm not really into shooting the crap out of things and people just because you don't like them. I'll tell you what: I like you and don't want to see you get hurt, so I'm going to go over there and talk to their robots and see if we can't all come up with some agreement to protect you humans from yourselves." |
| Mar 12th, 2009 - | More against the New
Church of Environmentalism - The more I learn about environmentalism, the more pointless and fallacious it seems. I really hate to say that, but it appears we are not in the crisis that we are being told we are in. |
| Mar 11th, 2009 - | Left-wing guilt and
right-wing fear - Why should I have to choose either of those poisons? |
| Mar 5th, 2009 - | Unasked-for advice and
learning things the hard way - Advice givers will look at you with their wide innocent eyes, and explain in a hurt tone of voice that they were only trying to help. |
| Mar 4th, 2009 - | The bullets fly - Not a very smart observation today ... I'm just bent out of shape at what seems to be a lack of focus from our local and regional police forces here in the Lower Mainland. |
| Feb 26th, 2009 - | Cold and white (kind of
like a church group) - Maybe I should trade my motorcycle in for a snowmobile. |
| Feb 20th, 2009 - | Microsoft Word and the
Sex Pistols - Now there's a comparison I never thought I'd be making! |
| Feb 16th, 2009 - | Socialist cronies and
minutiae-minded morons - OK, I would like to remind my stunningly large and loyal readership that though I sometimes sound a bit liberal, I am not. I sit in the middle of the spectrum overall, picking bits from both sides of The Great Centrist Divide. I'm kind of libertarian, but I think the Libertarians still have a ways to go before they can be taken seriously; their platform is still shifting too much for my liking. |
| Feb 6th, 2009 - | Communication
paradox - Actually, there's a second paradox here. Telling someone what constitutes good communication is not exactly demonstrating good communication. |
| Feb 5th, 2009 - | More GM people - Talking about genetically modified humans is barely science fiction any more. It's practically a scientific reality. |
| Jan 30th, 2009 - | GM people - What are YOU pumping into your kids' DNA? |
| Jan 27th, 2009 - | What are YOU putting in
your tank? - A true old-fashioned rant about a truly trivial subject. |
| Jan 21st, 2009 - | Again, Think Again
- Hard to believe that song and those sentiments are six years old already. A musical trip down memory lane? |
| Jan 15th, 2009 - | Meta thoughts - Literally. Thoughts about thoughts. A metaphor drawn between how we think and how we metabolize. |
| Jan 12th, 2009 - | Poke poke to the
ribs - You kids are never happy. Learn to get along or go to your rooms, and don't come out until you can say you're sorry! |
| Jan 8th, 2009 - | Nope, no regrets ...
- I believe they call them rites of passage. I think of it more like troublemaking as a form of pre-balancing. |
| Jan 7th, 2009 - | Memories of discussions
of aggression - Past observations on the nature of human aggression. |
| Jan 5th, 2009 - | Faulty conclusions
- The Post Hoc Fallacy is superstition masquerading as logic. |
| Jan 2nd, 2009 - | Virus hunting - Wow, the Virtumonde (Mundo, Virtumondo, MS_Juan) virus is nasty. What it does, and how I got rid of it. |
This is probably not a good idea: Email me.
To find your way around this site, click on the links to the left. If you can't see those links, click here to reload the page with frames.