I met him

Well, I came very close to meeting Pope John Paul II in the 80's when he came to Toronto. I don't seem to remember it like everyone else, I think it was september '84.

I am not even catholic anymore. Too many conflicts with the way I've grown to see the world. I don't even agree with everything the Pope has said. But I remember the overwhelming emotion in being very very close to the man. Three times on that visit. To my young mind, he recognized me the third time. I dismissed it immediately as foolish, but I really felt something incredible coming from him.

It was an immense emotion, a wave of it hit me. I was swept up in it, I held my mother's hand and I cried. And now he's dying. He's 10 years younger than my grandmother and in much worse shape. She's forgetting a few things now and again, but is still very lucid. My grandfather is a different story-he's older than the Pope and very ill. I spoke with my grandmother yesterday -- In Chile-- and she told me she was sad the Pope was dying. He was a huge part of my upbringing, I don't remember the Pope before him. Twenty six years ago, I was 9.

Catholic or no, religious or not, his presence is a powerful one here. I am not catholic anymore, I don't really pray so much as meditate. . . I cried when I experienced the power and love of his presence and I will cry again when it is gone.

Speaking of Amazing. . .

You may recognize this from Southpark. I just heard a taste (via boingboing) (again-what can i say I went by twice today).

Link 2 Wing Oh yeah baby. I wonder just how annoying this would be to get as a ring tone?

Wohba! This is Amazing!

I just found the most amazing site. (via boingboing) For me and a few other science aficionado friends of mine, this is awesome. So please check it out.

And be prepared to be amazed. Very Amazed!
Amazing Link

Available Thursdays

update
Originally uploaded by El Samurai.

Well, I've talked about him before but there's a fellow online who really knows how to make use of his time . . . at least one day a week: Chris Barr, here's an excerpt:

"Chris Barr is Available on Thursday" is a collaborative live art and documentary project. Events, actions, ideas, situations, etc. will be scheduled by the public for Chris every Thursday for the months March and April.

Well, my friend Jeremy and I decided we would put him up to something and cross our fingers that our suggestion would be chosen.

Thursdays!!

thursdays!!!!
Originally uploaded by El Samurai.

We were very excited to see our suggestion in Chris's agenda and checked back regularly to see the image. Click on photo to read.

Available Thursdays Success

Well, we got our wish. Chris Barr performed our suggestion out of his agenda last Thursday. I encourage you to check out his site and come up with ideas. This is actually giving me ideas for how to get things done in life.

Here's the link for our completed suggestion:

Link
scroll down to 9-10pm for the link to Chris's photos of our suggestion, but be sure and check out everyone else's as well.

Six Years

Six years. That's one year less than it takes the average person to develop a need to squander their fidelity, it's one year more than the title of that song by David Bowie and it's exactly how long it's been since I weighed less than 200 lbs, that's 88.89 kilos up here. But! It is also the exact amount of time that the government or CCRA wants you to keep your tax return information! Six years, my friends is a very long time, especially if you're one year away from seven in a relationship. (I'm not by the way, I know it sounds like it, but the only thing I've kept that long is a t-shirt --longer even.) The reason I'm so obssessed with it, is because I'm doing my taxes. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, one receipt over here in this pile, another over there in that pile, I have to get them to my accountant tomorrow, nevermind, I just do. But try having a nice pile of fun sounding little papers and two cats! Every time I turn around, they're like a couple of well, six year olds playing in the autumn leaves.

And hey, did anyone else notice spring today? The moon is no longer full, but I can still see it from where I'm situated in the city. Was watching it move across the sky last night with my telescope-in between receipt pile chasing- it was big and bright hard to believe it's 385,000 kilometres away-(maybe a bit closer last night).
See for yourself!

Smarty Pants

When I was a kid, and did something that backfired or exploded in my face, or burned on the stove, my mother had a favourite response, "Menso!" followed by her astonished at it's own glee, laugh-shout. And by that I mean, that her laugh response was so genuine and so huge that she had to cover her mouth, to cease drawing attention to herself. I had a rooommate that would do this as well, but only when seeing people really really hurt themselves---ah, funny. Well, it took me nigh on twenty years to figure out what she meant by this. menso. I just thought it was another word for 'dummy' in spanish--Not that I spent my life trying to figure out what it meant mind you, just that it was that long before . . . blah blah blah. But one day I realized that she was referring, sarcastically, to a member of this society of intellectuals! So I checked out their site.

"Mensa was founded in England in 1946 by Roland Berrill, a barrister, and Dr. Lance Ware, a scientist and lawyer. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership of which was a high IQ. The original aims were, as they are today, to create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions. The society welcomes people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population, with the objective of enjoying each other"s company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities."

There's even a Mensa workout!

Happy Posters!

I found this awesome project via metafilter! Here is an excerpt from their site:
"Download your favourite poster(s) from the selection below. Print/photocopy as many copies as you think you'll need. Put one up at work or home. Then walk down your local High/Main St asking shop owners and managers if you can put a happy poster in their window.

You'll feel a bit silly at first; that's to be expected.

If anybody asks you why you want to put a poster up, or what the poster is for, tell them: "I want to make people happy!"  Try not too look to crazed when you do this."

Find their site here!!!

But for all my fellow Hoffians out there . . . heh, you must see the Best Ever poster.

Home phone ET?

In the 70's a couple of scientists sent up a message to space (The Arecibo Message), included in this message was an image of humans. I've seen it a couple of times, I'm not sure I remember exactly, they also included the structure of our DNA. So, I guess, theoretically, if someone got it they could have made copies by now. They could send back creepy copies of homo sapiens, that looked exactly like us but got everything else wrong. . . cool. Oh wait a minute. . . George W. Bush!!!!!

Anyway, that was a small collaboration, it was done again closer to the turn of the century with a more elaborate message. Now, anyone can do it! You can even text message aliens. How awesome is that? Oh and Craigslist is going up into space too.

I just summed up the entire article pretty good without meaning to. I think we need to be more excited about the prospect of finding life in the Universe that isn't microbial and easily dismissed as happy accident (that's a stupid term: happy accident), a space dog, or friendly Vulcans or a tribe of enormous people with two sets of lungs from one of Saturn's moons-also friendly and peaceful. Anything to shut up those creationists. I'll give 'em a dislcaimer for their text books:
"warning: published in the bible belt, may contain stupid."