having a blue christmas like Elvis?

so pleasing when the season is the reason
but it's so hard when so depressing
people are so busy stressing
forgetting to count blessings
so find something to believe in
joy and peace brings relief in darkest days

From talking with my friends who are all mopey and tired out from studying for exams and sick and tired and no fun. Maybe growing up on the rainy west coast, I kinda brought my own sunshine with me if that seasonal disorder was getting me down. Found ways of coping when it got depressing because others were having rough times too.

Don't get me wrong, I've had enough rough Christmas times. There's a few years when I was white as a ghost in photos because I was so sick and tired from school etc. and it was really hard to be joyful. Or having a sad time for various reasons. But I'm surviving so far! After searching through a few malls to find just the right one, I’ve been wearing a Santa’s hat for the past decade. It’s pretty fun to be a cheeky elf anyways :)

Thought I'd pass on a few hints to defeat the lameness that makes Christmas less fun in no particular order but always fun from my family's traditions and other stuff I do.

1) Go carolling around the block -- even if you're tone deaf, elderly neighbours' smiles will make your day
2) Find a Christmas lights tour -- there's bus-tours and maps in the newspaper for colourful cheerfulness
3) Escape! Into a good book/movie/video game, whichever, take a mental vacation with a cup of cocoa
4) Phone or write to a friend! Ask them to break you out your funk or mope together (but not too long!)
5) Count your blessings -- remember how many ways you're cared for everything you need

6) Make Christmas cookies -- Pretty much kid-proof so i’m sure you will do fine! but don’t burn them.

7) Do random acts of kindness -- you can never do too many but even better during Christmas

8) Write Santa a letter -- don’t tell me you’re too old to believe in the spirit of giving and magic

9) Blast old carols or movies -- easier to get into the Christmas mood (movie list forthcoming here)

10) Create gifts -- not using credit cards lessens stress, re-gifting and making crafty stuff is enviro-friendly too

11) Donate or help make a hamper -- again with remembering how blessed you are and help a family out

12) go to a Christmas recital -- if you don’t have a kid in school, they’re a blast to see and reminence

There’s plenty of other stuff you can think up to stave off the winter blues so get creative and hope this helps out. Reminding others to do the same is just as awesome to show how you care. Not to be all gushy but we gotta look after each other. So go share the joy of the Christmas spirit.

jet set life

Having forgotten how busy my schedule becomes between: working full-time; volunteering for two different projects through my church and the university operetta company; and finding time for my girlfriend, roomates and other friends. Half the time I'm fueled by the evil but so useful coffee, the other half of the time it's just pure sugar-coated excitement of being involved and getting so much stuff done.

Now I won't complain for boredom nor comprehend how people can twitter their angst of nothing to do. To divulge these projects in more detail I will in coming days, but this is the first time I've had to breathe in a while -- and that's between three coffee shop meetings, a photo-shoot consequential editting to put off the other two larger shoots I did over the weekend, and errands & tasks to put off. There goes my day off from work.

Admittedly I do sit on my butt in rare few spare moments/hours to read, watch movies or video games, but haven't had barely any time to do that lately. Forcing myself to write necessary emails or open up a book or article over breakfast cereal, coffee break at work or when crashing before bed is about the only thing that keeps my mind from other stuff that my life has incorporated to stay connected.

Keeping in touch I might begrudgingly use Facebook and this blog more: barely updating my status once or twice a week, I don't understand how someone could find time to twitter, text & blog all at once. How much is necessary to make public? Will someone possibly want to read about someone's ability to operate a toothbrush or make pancakes -- something I'm quite accomplished at and love to share if you're not busy to come over on a Saturday morning -- but that's besides the point.

Living in a larger city has spun my head around seven times from Saturday on how many events, workshops, benefit fundraisers, concerts, theatre productions, sports games, club outings and protests there are going on all the time.... With the access of the library to data-banks, periodicals, world's supply of newspapers, and paperback & ebooks, where do I even begin? I can't even decide on a single book so I'm reading short stories -- just as delisious and cut short. No wonder it's not a luxary to just sit at home and relax with my feet up and do nothing.

And even if I do that, the cat, who does nothing but dream under a sun-beam all day, jumps on my lap and stares at me like I was crazy to scold him for not mopping the floor or doing the dishes while I was gone for the day.

To suit my mood, I was listening to Jazz Manouche on Broadway: Hot Club of Edmonton from the lovely CBC radio 2 concert on demand archive while typing. If you're up for some gypsy jazz with some Stéphane Grappelli infused fiddling, check it out ^_^ Just make sure you have enough time to enjoy it.

Gotta run for my next appointment so stay tuned ^_^

-- PLR --

blasts from the past

While realizing this should be a posting place of new and improved writings, I shant forget my past endeavors as I did write fairly decently to begin with. So I'm looking through my archives of stuff and adding oldies but goldies. This is in order to create a blog with some flavour already simmering and finally amalgamated together for the first time ever in Philip history!

Not wanting to take all the fun on myself, I will find others' works (with permission when possible) to guest post and also link brilliant work I stumble across while cruising the interweb.

I'm finding I have too much different interests, my fault for being a recognized by a few teachers and instructors as a bit of a renaissance man, separating my work into different streams of different blogs. I shall continue to drill for old stuff from my archives and revitalize half-baked ideas and old interviews never carried into publishable form and find a home for them online.

Basically wanting to pump new stuff up, however, it was more motivation and walks down memory lane to get me started and more into a constant flow of writing. You can't start a pump unless you prime it with oil or water first so here is some juicy writing to get me going. So do enjoy and let me know what you thinks!

-- PLR --

Movie Review: RED

What else to do on a Friday night? Go catch a movie for once and get out of the house ^_^

There are few movies I'll end up going and buying a ticket, so it had better have some appeal -- some classy actors, good writing, things blowing up, some drama and suspense. Not knowing much about the graphic novel, there's far too many of them, but Retired, Extremely Dangerous caught my eye by posing the question, what to do after the thrill of a dangerous job? After the Sunset with Pierce Brosnan as a retired thief was first to come to mind, but this movie is more deadly-pan humour.

Based on the cult D.C. Comics graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer, RED plays on tongue in cheek humour of super agents who seem slightly ordinary once they turned in their badges. Director Vikram Bhatt, who did The Time Traveler's Wife, probably had no problem casting some great star power the moment they read the crazy script. Bhatt kept the action from slowing down by jumping from city to city on this wild goose chase to unmask classified skeletons from a political closet and using solid camera work.

After different charming toughs from Die Hard to The Whole Nine Yards, Bruce Willis plays a retired agent out of his element in RED. After the life of a highly trained CIA operative, he seems bored; reading books, staying in shape, looking up his old mentor, taking out the trash, talking to a pretty girl on the phone, going on a first date... and that's where it gets out of control.

Thrown into the fray, Mary-Louise Parker, who co-starred in Proof and now Weeds, doesn't let Willis steal the screen, showing spunk like Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies as Parker embraces her new life of adventure she'd only read about in romance novels. The real romance doesn't really sizzle between the two as convincingly, more like she'll make him muffins to take in his lunch.

Finding Morgan Freeman, who played action roles like in Lucky Number Sleven and Batman Begins, to be in a retirement home seems the last place for a former razor sharp agent. The theme of getting older is endearing balance of denial and amusement similar to Space Cowboys. Freeman plays a smooth old timer field agent and pulls some classy moments. So does John Malkovich, after another spy spoof movie Burn after Reading, as a paranoid spook of a conspiracy theorist. A plot with him involved is a sure sign that things will not go exactly as planned nor will he fail to charge screaming at someone. Malkovich delivers with magnesium explosive catalyst eccentrics which may crack a few ribs in side-splitting laughter.

However, the real charm of Helen Mirren, who played the Queen, now with a sniper rifle and Brian Cox, the villain in X-men 2, with a bottle of vodka and intrigue as these veteran spies give the plot thicker depth and eloquence. Karl Urban, who played Doc McCoy in Star Trek last year, holds his own against Willis, proving a tough advisory as both play dirty pool at times.

The big caliber bullet action is good with little time for cliché or dead space and the comedy gaffs are quite clever. Giving a nod to the Blues Brothers in getting the band back together for a reunion tour, the character developments and depth shows tender moments in old friendships and love amongst ricocheting remarks. Embellishing from the original work, the trend of graphic novels going to the big screen continues to get more awesome as it goes.

They don't make them like they used to nowadays yet even old school secret agents can get in over their heads. With some pokes at cold war defections and smoke & mirrors, RED is a fun lark of old agent vs new agent and worth the price of admission. Though it is near the end of its run, RED are due to come out February 8, 2011 on DVD and Blu-Ray. What I learned from this movie, walk quietly and carry a big pig but don't mess with a redhead's purse -- which is all I can say about my favourite scene from this adrenalin flick.

-- PLR --

Testing 1.2.3.... thanks for dropping by this experiment

Right. It's a dreary blustery Chinook of a night and I'm reading and turning in around midnight. Good as any a time to rekindle my writing.


If I thought the purpose of snogging blogging, journaling oh so eventful, dear diary my life is emo important, to write down all the little happenings of my day about the mustard stain on my shirt and armchair cynicism on how to run the gov't. If it hadn't really caught my fancy for the longest time it's because it seemed so darn trendy. On the other glove, fact is that I HAVE to post in order to build up my writings skills. I had gotten so lazy once I stopped having to learn, research, study, and regurgitate on the test.


Oh how I miss the pressure but don't really miss GPA stress of school. Yet the assignments were so great at forcing me to write daily. Now, instead I"m feeling like doing something else like reading, playing video games or poking the cat... Anything instead of the point of my occupation with getting all the ideas flowing through my head onto paper. At least in digital form.


SO might as well face the fact that I rarely have to write 500 words even in an email any more. That's just not good enough after writing 2000 word essays and in-depth articles. I miss it and I must get back into practice. Like I have been saying for ages or how I thought I'd lose 10lbs by starting to swim and work-out again. Apparently it takes three months to really start to lose any weight because your liver has to break down the fat. Makes that saying about chewing the fat make more sense now.


If I keep going for three months, I'll be in better shape with my writing, maybe even more energy after I get off the couch or computer chair once in a while. I even wrote out a game-plan so I can keep myself accountable.


One of the things I really did want to focus on was good news stories and links to interesting studies & articles. Like this entrepreneur/philanthropist of a gentleman in Toronto who went away from a meeting with the great Nelson Mandela and took to heart Mandela's words that “Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world.” It's a good read in the Maclean's business section -- some interesting stuff is written in there so do check it out.

This has been a good night of write and soon to be regular thing. Thanks and goodnight.

-- PLR --

Limiters on where this blog will be headed

As promised got my head on straight to what I was going to limit and grow within these virtual pages of this blossoming new venture. Goes something like this:

As I spent too many years around college newspapers and communications classes, expect this:

Editorial response to news & opinions on events & concepts

Researching on subjects so I can be legit, maybe even interviews if I get ambitious.

Holidays & significant events?

For instance this day in history... in 1922, King Tut's tomb was uncovered by archaeologists.

Even though that is a cool random FYI in a discovery that it really exploded light on history to the modern world. Increased interest in popular culture and imagination. It does pose a question of why we just don't care as much as a society anymore about important discoveries of things and events older than a twitter post at times. Sigh....

Length? 400-800 words per day? Why because that's all a good article should take to spit out the facts ma'am. Schedule it Monday to Friday after work when my mind's blank anyway and get'ter done by midnight.... off to a good start here.

Limited to no particular theme of what is hopefully unpopular and useful. Will be destined to become at least half a dozen different separate blogs.

personal experiences

cooking recipes tampered with

observations on society & news

writing exercises

Although I mean to write articles, I do love writing all sorts of stuff. My writing page is evidence of that with 100+ posts and tons of creativity. Ya I want that back like I want to be in good shape again. Maybe I'll get determined and do both

So including and not limited to:

poetry & prose; top 10s & lists; product, movie, book & theatre reviews; results of social experiments & questionnaires sociology style.

Then there's the weekender and religious stuff, all churchy & spirituality -- explaining the Bible in modern context as I know it.

But in-depth research on weekend ^_^ as I have little use for a social life when I'm tuckered out from work and volunteering but occasionally I get out the door in some social form.

Audience? young people churched & undecided; artsy & cultural enhanced & technology saavy.

Rant? Nope. Political? Occasionally. Logical arguments and few fallacies? I can only hope.

Social commentary! always. J-school soundness? always.

Encouraging words can never be heard... enough

Finding old man winter's bitter blues happening all around me I wrote this to a friend who was having a rough week. Encouragement, what a word, it's got the word courage in it. [Middle English encouragen, from Old French encoragier : corage, courage] hey wait... Courage -- the state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.

[Middle English corage, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *corāticum, from Latin cor, heart.]

As I'm into words and everyone around me needs some encouraging, break down the words, do take heart and keep on trucking as they say out here in the prairies.

Theodore Roosevelt did so say


It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly; who errs,
who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds;

who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly,

so that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

This stuff is what kept me going a few times over the past few years since I first heard the quote, but more on that in a little while.

some enlightenment on journalism

Found a journalism quote the other day and it led  me to another one and ya... there's only a dozen there but says it more eloquently than I could say it as I'm no expert :P but I love writing.

To reflect on the reason I studied this for so long was an English teacher pointing out how words could change minds with ideas.

Journalism has been a way of communicating ideas and events over the past 500 years (since Gutenberg's press). Writers do so in hopes people keep thinking outside the box about the world outside their

doorstep. Though cynically viewed, do remember with a single story, a  journalist can empower his interview subjects to speak out -- initiate change to make the world a better place. Pretty cool for some ink on

recyclable paper to bring to light the things that need to be exposed and changed. Never stop writing truth.

Anyhows.....

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.

--Joseph Pulitzer

News Corporation, today, reaches people at home and at work... when they're thinking... when they're laughing... and when they are making choices that have enormous impact. The unique potential.. and duty..

of a media company are to help its audiences connect to the issues that define our time.

--Rupert Murdoch

Publish and be damned

Print the news and raise hell

--Traditional newspaper credos

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

--Oscar Wilde

Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.

--Gonzo Journalist Hunter Thompson

USA Today, March 26, 1998

on the other-hand

If I have to do all this superficial crap you've assigned me, I need time to do it in depth.

--Jon Carroll

San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 16, 1987

quoting a fellow newspaper writer

Too strong a media emphasis on death and violence can lead to despair.

--Dali Lama

Dealing with the media is more difficult that bathing a leper.

--Mother Teresa

Anonymous sources are to journalism what silicon enhancements are to the feminine figure; they look impressive to the gullible, but something doesn't feel right.

--Larry King, an American journalist in London, August, 2005

On behalf of the newspaper industry (new, cost-cutting motto: ``All the News That'') I wish to announce some changes we're making to serve you better. When I say ``serve you better,'' I mean ``increase our profits.'' We newspapers are very big on profits these days. We're a business, just like any other business, except that we employ English majors.

--Dave Barry

Miami Herald, May 20, 2001

Terry Pratchett quotes from his book The Truth

copyright 2000, published by HarperTorch, New York.

William reckoned that no matter how big [the new office] was, it would never be neat. Newspaper people thought the floor was a big flat filing cabinet.

This is a newspaper isn't it? It just has to be true until tomorrow.

[defining news]

Go out and find things that people want put in the paper.

And things that people don't want put in the paper.

And interesting things.

Like that rain of dogs a few months ago?

There was no rain of dogs two months ago.

But...

One puppy is not a rain. It fell out of a window. Look, we are not interested in pet precipitation, spontaneous combustion, or people being carried off by weird things from out of the sky...

Unless it happens.

Well obviously we are if it does happen. But when it doesn't, we're not. Okay? News is unusual things happening...

And usual things happening...

And usual things, yes. But news is mainly what someone somewhere doesn't want you to put in the paper ...

Except sometimes it isn't.

...News all depends. But you'll know it when you see it. Clear? Right. Now go out and find some.

to sum it up....

THE DAILY FISH wrap. A 19th century Irish immigrant named O'Reilly called the newspaper ``a biography of something greater than a man. It is the biography of a DAY. It is a photograph, of twenty four hours' length, of the mysterious river of time that is sweeping past us forever. And yet we take our year's newspapers -- which contain more tales of sorrow and suffering, and joy and success, and ambition and defeat, and villainy and virtue, than the greatest book ever written -- and we use them to light the fire.''

--Adair Lara

Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle, December 30, 1999

ridiculously bad punny-ness for those who love words

found this in email so props to my friend for passing this on, this is like a copy writer's worst nightmare of headlines that the typically self-infatuated editor wrote and thought were so brilliant which ended up on page one....


1. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

7. If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

13. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

15. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

16. A calendar's days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

23. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

27. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

Around the world in 80 clicks

From Forbidden Kingdom to the Whitehouse, this is a cool panorama toy Mr. George Eastman never dreamed of when he started Kodak (though his company made this satallite mounted digital camera).

Geek-out specs numbers: taking 16inch mono-chromic images & 1.65-meter color images at 423 miles (681 kilometers) up and moving at a speed of about four-and-a-half miles (seven kilometers) per second, the satellite camera can distinguish objects on the Earth's surface as small as 16 inches in size according to the press release. That's just fricken sweet! GeoEye1 = Ultimate Creeper Tool for some people I know.

If you're wondering what else it can do other than creep Wreck Beach in BC, check out the case studies in the media room. Due to US (paranoid) regulations, you can only get a 0.5m image printed, apparently they are helping Google Earth do their updates.

Commercially, the camera has been used it for crazy stuff from tracking open water channels in Antarctica and searching for Ghengis Khan's tomb to assessing floods & tornadoes wreckage and finding the Arab freighter booty by Somalian pirates.

If nothing else, there's some amazing galleries of natural beauty, structures like airports & sports arenas, and modern/ancient cities from around the world. Worth a gander but be warned, other than previews in the flash slideshow (with a dozen or four dozen images each) the full high rez images are 1-2 megs each and totally awesome.

From Area 51 to the Thames to Golden Gate Bridge to Casablanca to Venice, it's quite the road trip. Everywhere from Midway Island to a wind-farm in Palm Springs to Machu Piccu above the clouds to the Pyramids, it's gorgeous stuff.

I mean this is way cooler than Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too for the ants. The earth is like three times bigger at least! Just couldn't resist putting in that quote cuz I feel small looking at those photos.

so ENJOY Planet Earth ^_^ yes it's Earth Day on April 22 so think of stuff you can do to celebrate/clean up.

http://www.geoeye.com/CorpSite/gallery/

Editorial on Second Life

Second Life boasts that a person start over again and create a fantasy island to indulge in for everything ever they wished.

CBC's Fifth Estate documented a relationship which was developed and maintained for eight months before a lady left her husband of nine years.

So romantic was her English lover that she left her four children and life here in Canada.

These two hadn't even gone for coffee together face to face.

Without body language, communication won't be effective in working out a problem.

Not that there will be any issues to argue over in a fantasy.

Cyber adultry is nothing new as the internet chatrooms have been around for over a decade.

Romantic novels have existed for much longer and still Jane Austin's novels are read and loved for whimsical escapism.

It may be natural to want to start over again in life when situations get rough, however, it isn't the way to come to terms with regrets of life in the real.