And so it begins....

I was sitting on the bus, about to read A Walk in the Woods, still Bill Bryson's best book.

"The spirit of our Lord Jesus be with you. Begone demons, begone from this place in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I looked up and sure enough a man was speaking these words onto the bus, almost as if he was conversing with the people opposite. I had noticed him before because he was sitting on one of the elevated seats, but his hand was on the back of the seat next to him. His eyes were closed while he spoke, and then he opened them and looked around, all while intoning the same basic phrase over and over.

I stared at him and this quieted him down for a time, but apparently the spirit of the Lord was too compelling for him to ignore. Two teenage girls sitting next to him looked both scared and confused.

This brought to mind a certain gentlemen who was at the Joel Plaskett/Peter Elkas concert last night (for a detailed description and photos taken by yours truly, check out Ryan's Blog. It's not there yet but it will be - right Ryan? EDIT: post is up.). I'm not sure this particular fizella even knew he was at a concert; for extended periods during the set he was engaged in loud conversations with different women, full of gesticulations and bug-eyed wonderment.

There's always one at every event, and yet somehow I never end up next to them. Because if I did I would tell him to shut up. I even leaned over, stared directly at him, and mouthed the words slowly. I don't understand why in those situations no one says anything. The people around him were clearly annoyed, but chose to stand there and fume. Bizarre.

Favourite part of the concert for me: Joel's Retirement song. "She asked me what my favourite colour is and I said red, white, and you."



Hans Hoogerbrugge makes fantastic animated gifs that you activate by either clicking with your mouse or running the cursor over them. They are surreal and bizarre and hilarious.

And now he has taken his talents and created a wild story called "Hotel: An Interactive Tale."

The story revolves around the research of a Dr. Doglin, the founder of Preconstruction. He has volunteers participate in accidents and then monitors their progress.

There are six episodes to Hotel so far, and each one is separated into chapters which amount to scenes. In each scene you use your mouse to unlock the action. Sometimes this will involve clicking and sometimes passing the cursor over an item or person rapidly. Certain actions have to be done more than once. For example, in one scene the action is advanced by clicking the clock. Items and characters that can be activated are sometimes indicated by a speck revolving around their heads.

If you like David Lynch, post-modernism, and overall weirdness, then Hotel is for you.

posted by Thomas @ 11:34