A lens of a day

I got my eyes checked today. It's pretty dumb that I have to pay almost 100 bucks; I can't function very well without glasses/contact lenses, and I pay for OHIP ("free healthcare") through my taxes, so why are eyes (and teeth; but I won't get into that) not important enough to be covered? The hell.

Now, I have to deal with the racket that is the eyeglass industry. Artificially raised prices controlled by a couple major players (Luxottica, Essilor are the big ones last I checked), poor quality lenses that degrade quickly, and a requirement that a prescription be valid (because of course they expire) to even buy my frames. For MY eyes.

Annoying? Yes. A first-world problem? Not exactly; I reckon there's lots of exploitation in poorer countries if there's money to be made off eyesight.

Amused to life

Song of the day:

This song has stuck with me for a long time. I was a teenager when I discovered my uncle's awesome rock CD collection, and this entire album mystified me.

I was into Pink Floyd (still am), so naturally I wanted to see what other tunes David Gilmour had put out, so I imported the "giant-eye-on-a-TV" (the album cover art) into iTunes and tried to make sense of the lyrics.

I think he has a pretty damn solid "argument" with this particular song.

the little ones sit by the TV screen

We're pretty much all little ones in front of Netflix etc. now, aren't we?

Too late, next time

 On a whim, I decided to check the Paramore website. I thought this decade I'd move on, and listen to other bands more, but nope, so far, still a lot of Paramore.

They're coming to Toronto on Monday November 7th!

... and the tickets are all sold out.

I mean, they're playing at a venue I've never heard of before, and the last time I saw them, they were at Scotiabank Arena which is probably the biggest venue downtown other than the SkyDome. So maybe there just weren't that many tickets anyway. Kinda sucks; oh well.

The cool thing is there are a bunch of great bands playing at HISTORY (the venue I've never heard of) soon, like Bright Eyes, Silverstein, and Muse.

The prices though... ugh... 50 dollars minimum and then the fees. And then there's the fact that these kind of things start really late. I'm in my 30s man, I can't go to shows that start at 8 and then the actual band that I want to see doesn't come out till 11:00pm; I'm usually trying to fall asleep at that time.

I think my best option is just to wait for one of those nifty music festivals; that way, I can at least listen to music during the day and then, again, try and fall asleep while listening to whatever electronica or heavy metal headliners are playing that night whilst I commiserate in my camping tent.

Song of the day (it's a long one, but it's a classic):

Keeper of the Seven keys by Helloween

Freewrite the Pool

 If the cut first cut wasn't deep enough

The rush wasn't enough from any lover's

When I'm used to something new

Scared cared of the copywrite

The free write continues

Don't leave me hangin'

I'm overland, can't stop giving you up

If I survive I'll crash back in

No one hurts my head like you

The illusions the golden promise the blue dream

Crash right back into you; the rush is gone