Do you see what I Saw...
It's easy to take for granted the things we have. The morning air, a sunset, the feel of a womans skin. I decided to head to the movies tonight to watch Saw IV. It's easy to lose sight of whats important, whats not important, and what's really being said. Alot of people, and I know I'm guilty of it as well, don't take the time to just look around and notice whats going on right in front of them. Now, it was a movie and I realize how important the realization that it is indeed fiction, but even fiction has its basis in reality. So, if something catastrophic happened, like the loss of child during the later stages of pregnance, are so impacting as to change the entire "mode"of a human being, is that possible? Things do happen in life that impact us so much as to change the course of a persons life and with that one ripple, alter the lives of many others. I think that's what made this movie so poingnant. It's so complex that it's incredibly simple. The connection of characters instead of a whole new movie makes it easy to keep the tradition going, like Friday the 13th, or the Halloween series. The writer turned the script into a maze of intertwined subplots but eventually connected to one main person, Jigsaw. The name alone will be synonymous with creatures like Jason, Freddy, and Micheal Myers.
Besides my intense fear of heights, I have an intense fear of confined spaces. So if I fall out of a plane in a box, I'm pretty fucked on all accounts. But just the fact that someone would go to the extent to use that fear against you, use what terrorizes you the most, with the ultimate goal of showing you the error of your ways is even more disturbing. Just makes you think, keep an eye open...
No retreat, no surrender....
I stood once on the edge of oblivion. Pushed over the edge and pulled to safety at the same time. I once looked into the abyss that encompassed
everything around me. It was thick enough to push against. I once
layed there leaning against the palpable sound that started off as a lamb and roared in my head like a freight train. Once I got up to dust myself off, I looked back out across my sea of random. Ghosts of the past and present
washed up on the shores and looked at me with a puzzled frame of reference. Should I be able to see them? Or should they be able to see me? Look at you! All of you! What could possibly be here to see anymore? It's not a new song, but a familiar
rhythm. Can't get the tune out of my head. Pounds on all four walls. The tiger dying to get out of its cage. It'll break free one day. Very soon. To pound out a different tune all its own. To run along the waters edge. To sound the trumpets of forever. The need to seek is heavy. I saw it once. I have lived it once. Far too long ago. The tides have changed. Waters higher now. Time to recede and show what lies beneath the waves. Until then I'll lie here. Painting no patterns on bare walls. I'll see her. All of her. Standing with a gaze that would frighten normal men. It seems her gaze captures what I've seen. Her stare changes the color around me. Once a color to block out the sun. Now I can't see. Just what I want to, what she wants me to see. What I think I'm able to see. Is it really seeing at all? Or just a perception? I felt the weight beneath me and layed there for a while. Opened my eyes and saw a face to look at. Warm and feeling to the touch. Solid. Real. I know she's there. I know she can see me. She just chooses not to. Labels: Aneurysm
I have tasted the fruit of the gods...
So, here it is folks, the debut of the much fabled food review. This is actually sort of shotgun being that the restaurant I am about to critique is somewhat commercial. It's a place I ahad not planned on writing about just yet, but the thought of putting down on "paper" just what this place means to me filled me with the giddyness only a five year old should feel. I'm talking about The Original Steakhouse and Sports Theatre on Joppa Road. I have died and found my final resting place. Start the iv's and whatever drips and heart surgical procedures needed to keep the blood pumping through my red meat clogged arteries. The Original Steakhouse has a great atmosphere, with 6 by 8 foot big screens enclosing the bar. For someone with as much A.D.D. as I, that does not bode well. TOO. MUCH. SPORTS. Of course there is no such thing as I love to get highlights and ten screens helps oh so much. I suggest getting there early as it tends to get a wee bit packed. While your waiting for your seat, you can drool over the fantastic cuts of meat, filet minon, new york strip, sirloin, porterhouse,mmmm. Not to be outdone, there are other offerings of chicken and low carb fair. I personally suggest the porterhouse. Very tasty, seasonings are well portioned, very tender, not overpowering or tough. The sides are generous to get you almost to the point where you might think, "MM, maybe 20 oz. of meat may be a bit much", but then the hefty plate arrives and removes all doubt. Ceasar salad, yes please, red meat, indeed, beer, why not! It's definetly a typical guys type of joint, but who cares, if you love a good steak, hit it up. The bar is choc full of tasty brew, the restaurant is full of tasty grub, and to be a bit of a pig, the waitresses are easy on the eyes. I give it 10 grill marks up. Now go, fire one down, I'll wait....GO....NOW!
Labels: Tasty McJtk
Time to Play Hetfield or Bin Laden!
Metallica singer stopped at airport for 'Taliban' beard07/11/2007 2:00 PM, Yahoo! Musiccourtesy of NME.com Metallica frontman James Hetfield was stopped by security officials at London's Luton Airport for allegedly having a "Taliban-like" beard.
The band was on its way to perform at Live Earth on Saturday (July 7).
Hetfield was briefly questioned by airport officials until they realised who he was. No explanation was given for why he was stopped, but his bandmates speculated that it was due to his beard.
Meanwhile, Metallica's new album is due out in early 2008, with bassist Robertt Trujillo telling Blabbermouth: "There's a lot of everything, man. There's speed on this. There's a couple of tracks where you're gonna go, 'Wow!' and I know you're gonna like it because it has the flavor of the old. But it has this kind of groove and power behind it that I think is us today."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plane ticket to Uk: $300
Gibson Explorer Pro guitar:$1159
Looking like you belong to a terroist group: Priceless
Back in the kitchen...
Let me just say that as a baker I love cooking shows. I think even if I wasn't I'd still enjoy them just the same. The show that I'm really hooked on this summer is Hell's Kitchen and I've got to say, it's probably the best show I've seen in a while. It's very real, not in that geeky, I just want my face on tv reality whore show, but there's a goal, something real to win. Of course there's a monetary prize, and the chance to run your own restaurant, but that's the real prize. Someone's career, their life, can be created just by the showing what they can do in a high pressure, high stakes environment. I'm a huge proponent of being able to see what someone can do by how hard you can push them. Alot of people just go to work, do their job, go home, just waiting for the clock to tick five. But this type of work is not a typical job, there is so much more involvement in the actual process of creating the work for yourself. Not to mention the pride it produces when you see someone truly enjoying the fruits of that labor. I know I'm not a great baker, I'm a mediocre cook, but when I hear people telling me how good something is that I made, you always enjoy the compliment, but when you hear the comment days, or weeks later, that sense of accomplishment is something to relish.
In addition to Hells Kitchen, Gordon Ramsey, the head chef on Hells Kitchen, has a new show slated to start in the fall called Kitchen Nightmares. It's basically about Ramsey going into problem kitchens and putting the right pieces of the puzzle in their respective spots. Lazy cooks, bad waiters or dispondent owners are going to be put to the test, which I can't wait to see. There were a couple of places I've worked at where I wish I had the clout, time in, and renown to basically call all the shots and straighten bosses out.
Going along with the whole cooking tangent, I've been watching a great tv show in dvd called Kitchen Confidential. Now this shows been canceled for a long time, but just came out on dvd not too long ago and I think it's great. I really wish it wasn't canceled but it was pretty much a shock to the cast too. Anyway, the show was based on another renowned chef, Anthony Bourdain. This guy has traveled all over the globe and wrote many a cook book. The show was well put together and really conveyed the life a cook leads. The environment is totally made up of course, but it's still realistic and believable to see someone take great joy in their career.
And with that, when I get back from my vacation, I'm going to start a new column on this piece of shit. I'm going to go to a different restaurant, once a week, different places, different cuisine, and write a column critiquing the food. I love to eat, I love to go to new places, try new things, even if I don't wind up enjoying the food, or the place. But I'm the type of person to dive in with both hands, never been one to shy away from doing shit. So that's my plan for the upcoming summer and fall and so on. I hope whoever reads this and the other columns that I'll write or have written will enjoy whats to come and can take what I write to mind whenever they travel out.
..face is a map of the world....
Yea I understand that most of the titles I use on my posts make absolutely no sense but they're mine so fuck off. With that said, I'm going to start bitching. I'm not quite sure what, how or why, but I've been feeling numb lately, like nothing has really gotten to me. My thoughts and feelings have felt drained away. Don't get me wrong, when I'm with my friends or at work I'm alright, it's when I'm alone is when I feel shut down. I'm not used to that. It's such an odd feeling like leaving your house and constantly feeling like you're forgetting something. I'm used to being very independent, very self sufficient. I feel very unsettled lately. I've probably said it before but something is going to happen very soon, just have that feeling. Not quite sure what it is, but I kind of have that gut feeling like something is going to happen. I know theres a wedding coming up that I'm involved in which I'm very excited about, but theres something more. Like a slap in the face.....
Have you ever had that feeling you were being watched?
News
Scientists discover 'shadow person'
Monday, 25 September 2006
by Erica Harrison
Cosmos Online
A 'shadow person' might reside in our left temporoparietal junction.
advertisementSYDNEY: Ever feel as though you're being followed? As if someone is behind you, shadowing your every move? It might be your ‘shadow person', created by unusual activity in a specific brain region, a new study shows.
The paper, published in the British journal Nature, describes the case of a 22-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric problems who was being evaluated for treatment of epilepsy. When a region of her brain called the left temporoparietal junction was electrically stimulated, the woman described encounters with a ‘shadow person' who mimicked her bodily movements.
"Electrical stimulation repeatedly produced a feeling of the presence of another person in her extra-personal space," said Olaf Blanke, co-author of the study conducted by a team of researchers from University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland.
When the patient was lying down, stimulation of this brain region caused her to feel that someone was behind her. She described the person as young, of indeterminate sex, "a shadow who did not speak or move, and whose position beneath her back was identical to her own", according to the researchers.
When the patient sat up, leaned forward and clasped her knees, she felt that the figure was also sitting, embracing her in its arms - a feeling she described as "unpleasant".
During a language task, in which the seated patient held a card in her right hand, she described the person sitting next to her and trying to interfere with the task. "He wants to take the card … he doesn't want me to read," she said.
Because it was possible to induce the sensation repeatedly, and because the ‘shadow person' closely mimicked the patient's posture and movements, the researchers conclude that the patient was experiencing a perception of her own body.
"The strange sensation that somebody is nearby when no one is actually present has been described by psychiatric and neurological patients, as well as by healthy subjects," said Blanke. Until now, however, it was not understood how the illusion was triggered in the brain.
The temporoparietal junction is known to be involved in creating the concept of ‘self', and the distinction between ‘self' and ‘other'. According to the researchers, stimulation of this region interfered with the patient's ability to integrate information about her own body, leading to her experience of a ‘shadow person'.
Although the woman was aware of the similarity between her own movements and those of her doppelganger, she didn't recognise the experience as an illusion of her own body.
Similar shadowy encounters have been described by people with schizophrenia, as well as by healthy subjects, leading the researchers to believe that: "Our findings may be a step towards understanding the mechanisms behind psychiatric manifestations such as paranoia, persecution and alien control."
- Call it paranoia, but i don't quite think this is so far fetched.
