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I knew that it was a bad sign when I saw that there were so few grocery carts in front of the store. An occurrence like that can only mean one thing. Well, actually two things, if you account one of them as the mass theft of shopping carts. Unfortunately, for me, very few of the carts were stolen and most of them were inside the store, being piloted around by pre-weekend shoppers.

So, that's how I found myself pushing a squeaky-wheeled cart up and down the all-too-narrow isles of my local grocery store - doing my weekly shopping while everyone else apparently stocked up for an upcoming nuclear war. It gave me the very real sense that maybe I should pay closer attention to the news.

After rounding up the weekly essentials, I cruised the pasta isle, looking for uncut macaroni. For the uninitiated, uncut macaroni is like elbow macaroni, except it comes in one foot lengths and doesn't curve. After a few unsuccessful passes, I stopped in front of the shelf where I thought the item should be. It wasn't there, but I continued to stare at the spot where some inner logic told me it should be. The pasta still wasn't there. I stubbornly stood my ground, and the macaroni, with equal stubbornness, continued not to exist. The better part of an afternoon spent in a crowded supermarket had culminated in a metaphysical battle between myself and a nine-hundred-gram package of nihilistic pasta.

Just when the absurd nature of the situation began to dawn upon me, a little voice drifted up from somewhere near my elbow. "They don't make it anymore", it said.

I glanced down, and my gaze was immediately met by a small old woman, who, upon reflection, seemed to be gazing more at Alpha-Centauri then at me. And before I could come up with any sort of appropriate response, the small woman took up the handle of her cart and continued on down the isle. Her cart was full to the top with apples and cans of shaving cream. This triggered my all-too-dormant "I must leave this place" response.

I soon navigated my way to the checkout. Before arriving at my chosen line, I spied a red-aproned stock-boy. (By this I don't want to imply sexism, I just want to imply that the person I saw was a boy that the store paid to stock shelves.) In any event, I stopped him, and as he stared at me with the look of one contemplating immediate vehicle induced fatality, I asked him about the macaroni. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and told me that he'd "go see".

Standing in line ended up taking as much time as shopping did. The other nine check-out lines were longer and moved much faster. This didn't surprise me, it always happens. Whenever I join a line, something always happens. Either the register tape runs out, someone has to run a price check, find the right brand of cigarettes, or they know the cashier and feel it's a good time for a conversation. Something always happens. It's strange thing, but I am firmly grounded enough to know that it's just coincidence.

This time, I gathered (between reading the covers of magazines and counting minutes on my watch) that the delay had something to do with an out of country, post dated, three-party cheque. And no response from the stock-boy.

No matter, I'd just be happy to get out of the store. And the staff seemed busy enough without having to answer ontological questions about pasta.

After eventually checking though, paying and getting my stuff to the car, I was accosted by a red-aproned stock-boy - the same one I'd spoken to earlier. After assailing me with a small volley of "Sir!… Sir!…", he jogged up and delivered the esoteric words "They don't make it any more".

I gave the kid a buck and loaded up the car.

February 27^th

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Allegedly,

A wealthy family goes to Hawaii for a vaction. No surprises there. But for the Thomsen family of Toronto, it had an added bonus. They found a snazzy new camera!

Well, not exactly new - it actually belonged to Judith. She had lost it just a short while earlier, during her own trip to the Island. Being good, card-carrying Canadians, they promptly contacted the rightful owner of the camera and returned it, along with memory cards containing over 500 images.

Well, no, actually.

I'm sorry if you've read all of this somewhere else already, but his tale has curdled my tapas.

Sometime during the week, the Thomsen family fell in love with their expensive new toy ($500.oo U.S., plus two memory cards). Their nine-year-old son thought it was too neat to give back. In a telephone conversation with the budding thieves, Judith was informed that she would never see her camera again. There was no dispute as to whose camera it was. She identified it, down to the colour of elastic band she'd put around the body. They agreed that it was hers, they just decided not to give the camera back.

"Well," Mother Thomsen said, "we have a bit of a situation. You see, my nine year old son found your camera, and we wanted to show him to do the right thing, so we called, but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him."

What if the child had found a gun?

So, the little tyke now learns the fantastc new world of thievery. Take what you can. Forget right and wrong.

I'm not really all that worried about the poor child in this, other than to say that the kid was damaged before the incident. How else would the kid have come to the conclusion that this was an okay thing to do? Perhaps too much T.V.?

I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the parents.

"This is an expensive camera, you know...", says Judith.

"Oh, we know, we looked it up.", replies the clever mom.

In any event, the honest and rightfull owner of the camera asked if that maybe they could just send her the memory cards (containing over 500 photos). Sure, they said - they were full of the milk of human kindness. Good Honest Folk.

Two weeks go by, and the poor woman gets a box in the mail containing a couple of CD's with her images burned to them. When Judith commented that she had expected the return of her memory cards, the Thomsen gang told her that she was "…lucky we sent you anything at all. Most people wouldn't do that."

Yes, if by most people you mean those involved in criminal organizations.

Okay, now it gets weird.

If you've been to boingboing lately, you likely know the story. A person identifying himself as a "Lawer" (must be like Lawyer, but without the ambiguity of that damned letter 'y') took umbrage at an article in boingboing concerning the camera theft.

The lawer, identified himself as Don Deveny and threatens to sue for slander over "deflamorty" statements. Deflamorty??? Maybe it has something to do with fire.

Makes me wonder how ol' Don made it through Lau Skool. Specially 'cause it seems to me that slander is spoken and liable is written. You'd think a fancy lawer would know that. Also, no names appear anywhere in the boingboing article. I know I've missed a few episodes of "Law & Order: Camera Thieves Pretending to be Lawers ", but don't you actually have to name a person to commit slander/libel? Otherwise, it'd be a case of, umm - no case at all.

Now, if you like to read email exchanges between idiots pretending to be lawyers and rational human beings, you owe it to yourself to check out the small email saga.

Oddly enough, someone with many of the same language, spelling and grammar problems is now posting to Judith's blog. He posts under the name 'phantomca' and his comments all run along the lines of:

"thats funny youve offered no proof that its yours or any one elses why should we belive that its yours ?".

He actually says at one point that "I am a lawer in Toronto". Maybe he went to the same school as the guy who's sueing boingboing? Maybe it's the same camera-stealing knob that misspells the word 'lawyer' at every turn.

Hey, just a word of advice fella, when you decide to illegally impersonate a member of a given profession, at least learn how to spell the name of that profession.

And, through internet searching that wouldn't impress a three-year-old, it turns out that phantomca is actually a guy named Dave Thomsen

On an entirely unrelated note, Dave (phantomca) has been bidding on memory cards on eBay.

February 23^rd

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Six Photographs, With Thoughts Attached

The art of self-portraiture is a tricky thing. Like a weasel with a degree.

In weasly-ness.

Nobody looks natural when you point a camera at them. I mean, except for those that do. But they probably practice.

Then screw looking natural.

Question is, are you more or less self-conscious when you're also the one taking the picture?

"Fresh Frozen" never made sense to me until now.

I've had Ice Wine, and am wondering about the possibilities of Ice Fruit Cobbler. This seems to be the year for perfectly preserved fruits and berries on various vines, bushes and trees in our yard. Little blue and blackberries, three kinds of apples, quince, raspberries and gooseberries - all frozen in little icy shells.

Okay, the raspberries look a little nasty, but the rest don't even look a little dry.

I guess it might be time to start searching to see how to make booze out of them all.

Ice-shine anyone?

I think that was the thing that National Geographic Magazine taught me.

No, not that.

They showed me that a picture didn't have to be out of focus to be blurry - and that a blurry picture wasn't necessarily a bad picture. (Now I mostly read National Geographic for their S.U.V. ads.)

Here we witness Dude's multidimensional character as he vacillates between states of being.

Serendipity is my wingman. Or would that be wingwoman? Serendipity sounds like a dancer, with colours in her hair.

Other than knowing which end of the box to point at my subject, I attribute everything else to chance. The trick is being there.

Here, I was as bored as the flower girl and wandered away from the crowd too. Not the smartest move in the world, considering that it was a paid gig. Still, I didn't get caught, and the family got a really nifty shot out of it.

Oh, and yeah, you can never go wrong with kids and ducks.

A while ago, Joe posted the philosophical conundrum concerning personal awareness and the fact that you, (yeah, you) might just be "a brain in a jar".

Here's another along those lines:

Prove to me that fire isn't alive. It moves, it reacts, it consumes, and it excretes. It breathes oxygen and exhales CO₂. Unchecked, it will reproduce beyond control.

Like bunnies - little hippity hoppity hell bunnies.

I'm also a fan of heat and cooked meals, but I have to say that it's the light I like most.

I figure that if Deckard lived in Alaska, the view out his apartment window might look a little like this. Only maybe with more smoke.

And quite possibly a unicorn.

Sooner or later, it always comes down to smoking unicorns.

That, and hellbunnies.

February 19^th

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Firstly, thanks to all the folks who responded to my last "question as post"...

I've come up with an idea for a shirt, but I'm not sure if the symbol might be offensive to some people (mostly 'cause it's pointy).

I haven't found any other uses of the "pointy peace symbol", but would be appalled if it turned out that I was selling a bunch of shirts to people for whom it represents their inalienable right to do bad things. Like annexing neighboring territories, taunting hedges or talking during movies.

There is a very special place in hell for that last sort.

So, if anyone sees this prototype and feels that it might be offensive for some reason please let me know (and let my know why).

I just look at it as a peace symbol for the piercing crowd. But what do I know?

February 16^th

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Dawn is a small beautiful motorcycle racer from Taiwan. She had an encounter with a Honda Civic on a California highway today. It's okay; she's well enough to post first-person-perspective video of the event (which she captured with a sweet over-shoulder backpack bullet-cam rig).

And if there should be any confusion, the guy in the white shirt is the nerfweasel who was driving the Civic. He also told police that it was her fault ("she just hit me").

I don't usually find this kind of thing interesting, but this is sort of compelling. Visceral, at least. From reading her stuff, it seems that she's had more serious wipe-outs on the racing circuit. Only this one was caused by a random cheddar-cheese brain who seems to have pulled his parking break for some insane reason.

Anyway, the story revolves around a beautiful motorcycle racer from Taiwan named Dawn.

February 14^th

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Today's word is Fire.

February 13^th

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Like getting kicked in the tricycle

Coffee, and a world to stay -
lumps of day-old bread,
and kids with 'Porn Star'
written across their chests.

The deceptive movement of the sun
takes moments, in a regular way.

All the while.

Lipstick glistens like love on porcelain
and breath hangs - a solid thing.

Cold. White.

The illusion of kindness
is sliced thin as shadows
in the haunted world of being.

February 10^th

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I'm more than half as old as my father ever was, and I still play with Lego. I can't spend three hours sitting cross-legged on the floor anymore, so I bought a beanbag chair.

That is, my lovely partner in time and I decided to buy a beanbag chair. It is good to have someone who supports your being a child.

Maybe I'll end up living longer. Or something.

Or something.

I have become increasingly aware that we are living the "or something" right now. Life seems to be in the or something.

I guess.

You could call it another thing, but I don't see it as making any difference.

Difference is the engine that drives existence, and Lego holds it all together.

February 8^th

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Some of my favourite ways of getting here:

watersilk
pagota
art photography daisy green
ship sank december 5 coincidence
ipop shirts
bjournal shoes
vynil
wellspring ii
irreverent Buddha doll
river pheonix born
a kitten to buy in peterborough
stone birdhouses made in tacoma, wa

Some people swing by other ways, I just found these interesting.

February 7^th

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Hey there, I was wondering if you could do me a little favour? I've received murmurings that these pages look kinda funny on some folks' browsers, so I was wondering if you could take a look around and see what you think.

It's more than enough if you would just look at how this page hangs. Does it have any inexplicably ugly elements? Something that makes you think:

"Why the hell did they do that?"

"How come I can't get where I want to go?"

"Stupid site."

I'm not saying that I'm trying to be original or anything, just trying to make things pleasant to look at. Magpies are as magpies do, I guess.

So, if in poking around this site (or this page) you notice any weird symbols, odd colours, unreadable fonts, arcane pictograms, and/or eldritch code - please drop me a line. I mean, if you feel like it.

As always, I'll tack specific comments onto the end of the specific entry they reference.

Now dig this groovy cat picture:

February 4^th

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This weeks Blurry Cat picture comes to us courtesy of Jake, the wall-climbing cat.

Oddly enough, cat claws have done more damage to our brick in seven years than the ivy has done in fifty.

February 2^nd

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There's a story I heard about Pete Townshend almost killing Abbey Hoffman when Hoffman tried to interrupt a Who performance at Woodstock. Like I said, it's a story I heard, so the facts might not be right, but I'm sure the truth is.

After Mr. Hoffman got half a sentence out, Mr. Townshend struck Mr. Hoffman with an electric guitar and elaborated that he should "Fade off! Fade off my fadeing stage!"

I'm not exactly sure of the wording, Pete might have used the phrase "fig-newton". I dunno. Pitty it wasn't on film.

So, fast-forward a couple of decades and check out Keith Richards, Hampton VA., 1981. The clip's only 16 seconds long, so check it out.

Weird thing is, through the entire thing, the guitar sound never seems to change…

February 1^st

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I'm always glad to hear from you.

Magpie Design offers a wide variety out-of-the-ordinary photographic prints and posters as well as impressionistic fine art and irreverent apparel (oddly funny t shirts).
fine art, posters, prints, photography, abstract, impressionistic, t-shirts, shirts, t shirts, humour, humor, funny, political, satire, Peterborough, Mark Harrison ,peace, psychedic, inspirational, irreverent, graphic design, American, Canadian, Ontario