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Meanwhile
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 847
Meanwhile, up early in the morning. Before the sun, a few stars from the deck, a slight crescent moon rising, the sound of the waves lapping on the beach. And as the day proceeds, shades of grey that slowly lighten and clouds that hang low and ragged over the farther shore, most days never rising above the first ranges, some days never rising at all, the waves disappear into a fog over the lake, colors in the foreground, the brightly painted deck chairs, slowly emerge, muted, then fade and vanish. By 4:00 again the day is dark.
This place, it's great, it's not mine, the few scant possessions I have with me aren't enough to take away the air-bnb ness of it, but that as well is good, one can be distracted by said possessions, there's a minimal of distractions here. Sit at the window with the craptastic laptop, the walloping 32 GB of memory filled with a walloping 31 GB of operating system (why did I not think of that?), limit your trips to town - money is tight, after all, and CERB might keep you fed, but that's it, not food and gas and everything else, there's the trimming and reining in of vices, the small pleasure of being able to cook your own meals, of a warm bed and a spectacularly atmospheric view.
A week and there's a lot to do - I mean a lot, creative-crazy-lot, and so much of what I have been meaning to get done has been forgotten but there's time to recall now, time to get started, I've been on the down low for the past week, overdrawn, unwilling to give up the warm place for even a brisk walk and the lack of exercise is taking it's toll, restless nights, how to cure this? More exercise, although the boots slip on the ice, the ground is too frozen to dig, the scenery - winter, without the snow, I need work, society, of some sort, merely trying to find something that I don't completely despise, people that I might enjoy, find a healthy balance and rhythm to it all.
Anyways, so that's where I am.
Current Events
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Rants
- Hits: 630
And this, you've probably noticed how restrained I've been in commenting on Current Events. I mean, Trump, the elections, pandemic, Alberta, Toronto, the world at large, the eventual and much anticipated "return to normalcy", which will - hate to break it to you - probably never happen.
The news, overwhelming, even a few minutes inoculates you against disbelief, and how much now is not being reported, front page stories sidelined for more election nonsense, more idiocies, the no-longer gradual seizing of liberties, out-and-out robbery, kidnapping, abduction and state-sanctioned murder, and people rally to protest having to wear a mask?
The world has gone insane, and you couldn't make fun of it if you tried. The news, generally bad and at best irrelevant. A photo of a mylar kids balloon, released by the military as proof of UFO's, photographed by a jet, they have to be trolling us, the rumour of a "Galactic Federation", but - really - wake up tomorrow, see spaceships hovering in the sky, laser-guns blasting the White-House, it would be at the end just another day in 2020, no need to raise an eyebrow, nothing to see here.
I haven't been paying so much attention, crazy busy summer, travel, homeless, I've had a lot of other things on my plate. But this pandemic - it's not over yet, not by a long shot, and the dominoes that have started to fall won't upright themselves once there's a vaccine. The system is not even broken, it was built this way, by design, and is functioning much as it should or would be expected.
A few things that amaze me: How China, almost a year in to it - has come away looking like the good guys. Compared to the US, the UK, even a lot of aspects of Canada - it is not the worst place in the world. Here we have illusions of freedom, until they're tested and fail, there they merely know the rules. They're simply under no such illusions.
Maybe it's time. "Normal" was a comfortable place for us to be, but not a good place, not for our citizens, neighbors, planet, so maybe it needs a good shaking up. It's merely the uncertainty of where things will go to next, and without leadership - of any sort - how will we get there?
Jetski Prospector
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Creative
- Hits: 513
Now I'd conceived this as sort of a YouTube show with high production values based entirely upon real life events. A sort of Autobiography, as you will.
We'd call it "Jetski Prospector" and it would be about me on a Jetski going around and having all sorts of different adventures, and finding stuff.
You have to imagine it. Me, or someone almost as good looking as me playing me (I'm thinking a younger David Hasselhoff), in a wetsuit partially unzipped to reveal a large gold medallion nestled into his abundant manly chest hairs, zipping along on a Jetski looking for treasures. There would probably be a nifty tune playing every episode to introduce me (Tool?). And then we'd have a map and I'd point to someplace on it and say "We're going there" or "X Marks the Spot" or some other such nonsense and then we'd be off.
We'd visit all the different Islands of Kootenay Lake, discovering new ones along the way, doing things like teaching the natives how to make fire with matches and promising them a "Missionary for Every Pot" or trading "Blankets for Beavers" and discovering all sorts of cool things like rivers that are filled with sapphires or gold nuggets and it wouldn't be stealing because we'd have traded Blankets or colorful beads for exclusive mining rights. Maybe I'd have to take a wife on every island as part of my brokering peace treaties. People in blackface could act the roles of natives and tribesmen because there really aren't that many people of color out here, except for when it was an important role like chief, then I'd want Robert Downing Jr to play him because he did so good in Tropic Thunder. The gold and the sapphires and rubies and emeralds could all be added in with CGI afterwards, and everything would get that sort of lens-flare-sparkle to make it look as exciting in the video as it was for me to find.
On top of Mountains, In the Sahara Desert exhuming Mummies and Pyramids and The Treasures long buried, or in the high Arctic, or Valleys of Drumheller battling resurrected Dinosaurs, these would be the chronicles of my real-life adventures in a wetsuit with my Jetski.
Before you dismiss this outright, they made "The Mandalorian", didn't they, and look how that's doing!
On Body and Soul
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 516
Netflix, free with the property and I'm going to be making the best of it. Hungarian film, atmospheric, curious characters, very worthwhile. 4 Stars.
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