Charles and the BBB

Discourse on the Academy Awards as social commentary for America`s elite; or why the Oscars suck, and Hugo is a pile of bull-crap

2012-02-09T14:55:00.000-08:00

No, not that Hugo.

Before I get into the titled diatribe, I owe it to my best friend, who has been recently been encouraging me to shit and stay on the pot; namely, to update this more than twice a year, to say something about my life since the last rant about John Gray, who, by the way, sucks just as much now as he did in August.

My lack of activity on the blogosphere is the mathematical result of the common equation work+hobbies+man=all my time; I honestly don`t know how children fit into this.. there must be some calculus involved. In any case, since August, I have fallen most happily into the perfect relationship and am moving in with mah man next month. We`ve become quite the alt. club power dance couple and can cut many fine Persian rugs on the floor; I`m hoping it`s out of respect for our combined talent, but it may equally be the result the other dancers defending themselves from my sporadic Bon Jovi kicks. That move may not translate as well from the karaoke stage as one might hope.

I spent Christmas and New Years in Turkey, walking through the streets at dusk hearing the most beautiful and calming prayers from the surrounding mosques in Sultanamet, eating canned beans from the grocery store like a cheap shit beggar, hiking though valley lined with abandoned cave houses, yelling obscenities at my car rental agent, and kicking molesters in the ass while defending my own from their loose and searching hands. My sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy, first in the family in 3 generations on the maternal side; bitch power runs strong in our family. Generally, I am a happy person, and am starting to share Gwynne Dyer`s cautious and cynical yet somehow optimistic view of the world.

None of this would have prompted me to write normally. But, damn, when something completely banal irks my ire, the flood gates open and ranting rapids come careening down the river bed. The last time I did it was to complain to the CBC about broadcasting Wheel of Fortune, which they have apparently been doing to years with my noticing, and now it is to set the record straight about that god-awful film Hugo and what the shit is with all it`s Oscar nominations.

For those of you who were thinking, òh Martin Scorcese directing a non-R rated film and it`s up for many Oscars, this must mean something, I am here to attempt to dispel that such a notion leads to a special happy place. This movie is a condescending piece of tripe, bleached and served up with fancy sauces as if the fact that it`s really full of shit shouldn`t have any affect on the taste.

Rotten Tomatoes gives rates this movie at a whopping 94%, offering another, at least benign, example of demonstrating that you can fool most of the people most of the time. If you haven`t seen it, here is their synopsis:

`This holiday season the legendary storyteller invites you to join him on a thrilling journey to a magical world with his first-ever 3-D film, based on Brian Selznick's award-winning, imaginative New York Times best-seller, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." Hugo is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father will transform Hugo and all those around him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home`.

Yep, that about covers it.

Oh wait, no. It sure as shit doesn`t!

First, this movie makes the same irritating casting decision that all American films set in any European country other than England make: they cast every French character as a Brit, cause oh well close enough, and we like their accents more. While it was pure gold when they did it with Jean Luc Picard, it has become so common place that we might as well pretend that the British Empire never did fall, and rules with an iron fist over Hollywood`s imaginary take on Europe. It seems like the only way the French ever get to have their droll, or any other aspect of their language, preserved intact is produce themselves, so you can imagine why Quebec is so strict with it`s Francophone laws. I don`t blame them in the least.

And the characters...

Hugo is precocious orphan, with the obligatory drunken uncle who abandons him to live in the clocks of Paris central station after his father dies in museum fire, after his mother died ostensibly from being French in the 19th century. Despite all his tragedy, he is moral and un-cruel, and steals only food for sustenance. Children who lose both their parents and are constantly hunted and abused by adults are more likely to end up like the child soldiers of the Interahamwe than genius clock makers, but whatever. Let`s just say he`s well adjusted to his semi-tragic fate. He is joined shortly by Isabelle, the god daughter of Ben Kingsley`s character, who has the most ridiculously affect Cockney accent ever contrived, and delights in saying quintessentially British things like `is i`tah seecret? Oh, I luv seecrets` with all the sincerity of a rogue trader before a senate sub-committee.

Ben Kingsley`s talent for largely wicked roles is wasted here. He is a bitter old toy maker, whom it turns out is actually George Meleis, famed Sci-Fi director who amde spectaular films until the Great War came around and ruined his life by killing everyone who used to watch them. The entire length of film you are waiting for something deeper to reveal the true source of his malaise and grief, especially after his wife expels Hugo and his prepubescent girlfriend with line `he is too fragile. Oh, children should not know such sorrow`,cause if someone ain`t dead or raped, or raped then killed, and their entire village burned to the ground, you are expected to get the fuck over whatever else it is at some point, and move on with your pointless life. But no, not Monsieur Meleise. While still landing employment that kept him in house and seemingly well fed and clothed, he simply became unpopular and it was too much for him to bear. I imagine the sisters of Delta Kappa Pita would well relate.

In the end, Hugo helps Meleise rediscover his love of life and is adopted by him, to live happily ever after in an budding sexual relationship with his new sister in law, we assume.

Now, as scathing as that review just was, I must admit that I wouldn`t hate this movie half as much, in fact I wouldn`t comment on it at all, if it weren`t up for 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

See, there are worse movies. Hugo is quite benign, and it is beautifully filmed. However, what makes it somewhat less benign, and which isn`t it`s fault really but I have to criticize the film in order to segway into this argument, is that it symbolizes Hollywood`s new position on political affairs. This is my opinion as an educated layperson, not as an expert on the subject, so rebuttle is welcome, but it seems like the Oscars traditionally rewarded edgier fare. Films like Crash, Munich, Do the Right Thing: the Oscars were supposed to highlight movies that were politically and socially relevant, and were thought provoking in some respect to that end. That doesn`t mean that they had to end badly or be overly pessimistic, but they did tend to be; however, Crash does end with some significant reconciliation of the characters and the greater issues they embodied.

Hugo does not have any of these qualities. The characters and script writing are completely unoriginal and highly stereotyped, and say nothing, except that we should believe in wonder and imagination. While this message is by no means unwelcome, I don`t think it really qualifies as thought provoking either. The obsequious nomination of this film for some many categories made me feel like the Hollywood elite, with the exception of Matt Damon, can no longer be bothered to comment on anything of importance, and that the official Hollywood line is to `keep calm and carry on`and pretending that all is well is uber riche La-La Land.

But, even if that is the case, maybe it doesn`t matter that much. Are the Oscars really that representative of American society or even of Hollywood? I just can`t say `yes`.

They did, however, provide excellent fodder for my blog. Thank you. Take a bow.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and John Gray is from Stupider Jupiter

2011-08-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, forgive me, but I need to take a moment to tear this man a new asshole; professionally.

Without getting into too much revealing detail, I have recently been exposed to John Gray in depth, and the experience has left me feeling much like most young women feel when an arrogant puffy-lipped man exposes himself in public right in from of them: ashamed, and mildly curious.

A little background; some of you may have hear of this man from the early 90’s, and he is the authour of the much-beloved by average people, much belittled by people in possession of actual facts, “Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus”. This was only the first; there have since then been 16 more, all as barely varied in content as they are in name, that consist exclusively of John Gray’s personal version of human reality, the unreferenced version: cue drum-roll:

Mars and Venus on a Date

What You Feel You Can Heal

Men, Women and Relationships

Mars and Venus in Love

Mars and Venus Together Forever: A Practical Guide to Creating Lasting Intimacy

Mars and Venus in the Bedroom

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus Book of Days

Mars and Venus Starting Over

How To Get What You Want and Want What You Have

Children Are from Heaven

Practical Miracles for Mars and Venus: Nine Principles for Lasting Love, Increasing Success, and Vibrant Health in the Twenty-first Century

Mars and Venus in the Workplace

Truly Mars & Venus

The Mars & Venus Diet & Exercise Solution

Why Mars and Venus Collide: Improving Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress

Mars and Venus: 365 Ways to Keep Passion Alive

Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice – Hormonal Balance – The Key to Life, Love, and Energy

It is the latest installment in this epic saga of baseless neo-Christian pseudo-psycho babble that has irked me ire. If men are from Mar, and women from Venus, then this cheese is from the moon.

In his mind, John Gray is an authora-tay on the secret needs and desires of every man from every woman, visa vie what they want from each other, no matter who or what they are. Somehow, he was gifted this information on the basis of his Ph.D from Columbia Pacific University, an unaccredited correspondence university that was closed by court order in 2000, though he does apparently have a bachelors and masters in “creative intelligence” from either the Maharishi European Research University or the Maharishi International University. One of these is in Switzerland , while the other is in Iowa , so it seems he may have been deliberately vague as to which one, as the Swiss end has scads of European intellectual sex appeal, while Iowa conjures up images of an overweight, white Gandhi sporting mutton chops and meditating in a corn field.

So aside from the degrees we all hold by graduating the kindergarten of getting shit kicked out of us, entering the school of hard knocks, and eking by with barely passing grades in the University of “this is my life?!”, the man has about as much right to pen books that have altered the lives of millions of couples as dentist has to lead an wildlife adventure tour through Namibia.

At least with the first book, he made a point of playing up his experience as a clinical therapist as the basis for his overly fixed opinions; in this latest installment, he’s all Science – he looked it up on the internet. You cannot get through 2 pages without coming across the kind of assertion that would make Stephen Hawking roll over in his grave, were he dead, could he roll.

There are only 6 different percentages used to expound the exhaustive critical examination of his data (this book has no reference section or bibliography, btw): 10%, 25% 40% 50%, 75% and 90%. For example “Men also have far greater stores of serotonin because they make it 50% faster and store 50% more”. And don’t forget the age old “research has proven…that women’s muscles have 75% more endurance power”. He even goes so far as to assert that women have 40% more connective tissue between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, meaning that our emotional female brain-parts communicate more fluidly with the cold calculating bits, making us more in touch with our feelings. He might as well have said that they extra tissue dampens left-right brain transmission, leaving women with only the flippant left to sort out their weepy, irrational lives. Anyhow.

Strangely enough, some of these outrageous facts are almost true. Men’s global brain synthesis, not speed or storage, of serotonin is 40-50% greater than women’s (1,2); however, to take that singularly impressive fact and electrify it by making it sound like men’s brains are serotonin-producing NAPA roadsters, takes all the credibility out of not only this one statement, but ever similar statement in the entire book.

Similarly, while there are gender related differences in muscle endurance, which can be summed up basically with the statement that men go hard, women go faster, the different varies wildly depending on the muscle groups in involved and the type of exercise being preformed, with no difference at all being observed in a number of scenarios. In one isometric contraction test, women had approximately 28% better endurance than men, largely due to women having better lumbar muscle endurance (3).

It’s almost like someone played a game of telephone with all his scientific information; which each degree of separation, the information became more outlandish and removed from its source.

As for the brain, as pointed out with so much eloquence by Ron Burgandy, women actually do have a brain a "half the size of a man", but we make up for it by having more grey matter: the bits that do all the thinking. Men in fact, have more white matter (connective tissue) in their melons, and more cerebral spinal fluid, hence greater brain volume – but it ain’t size that matters, its content (5). As for the connective tissue between the hemispheres, the corpus callosum, there is no 40% thicker, no nothing. Some of the substructures of the corpus callosum are thicker and/or more or less widely spaced visa vie men and women, and many of the notable differences can usually be attributed to medical conditions, like craziness (6).

You, Mr. Gray, can officially suck it.

1. Okazawa H, Leyton M, Benkelfat C, Mzengeza S, Diksic M. Statistical mapping analysis of serotonin synthesis images generated in healthy volunteers using positron-emission tomography and a-[11C]methyl-L-tryptophan. J Psychiatry Neurosci 2000;
25:359-70.

2. Nishizawa S, Benkelfat C, Young SN, Leyton M, Mzengeza S, de Montigny C, Blier P, Diksic M. Differences between males and females in rates of serotonin synthesis in human brain. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1997;94:5308-13.

3. Brian C. Clark1, Todd M. Manini1, Dwight J. Thé1, Neil A. Doldo1, and Lori L. Ploutz-Snyder, Gender differences in skeletal muscle fatigability are related to contraction type and EMG spectral compression Journal of Applied Physiology June 2003 vol. 94 no. 6 2263-2272

4. Ruben C. Gur,1 Bruce I. Turetsky,1 Mie Matsui,1 Michelle Yan,1 Warren Bilker,1,2 Paul Hughett,1 and Raquel E. Gur1.Sex Differences in Brain Gray and White Matter in Healthy Young Adults: Correlations with Cognitive Performance. The Journal of Neuroscience, May 15, 1999, 19(10):4065–4072

5. Senem Turan Ozdemir, Ilker Ercan, Ozdemir Sevinc, Ibrahim Guney, Gokhan Ocakoglu, Elif Aslan, Cagatay Barut. Statistical Shape Analysis of Differences in the Shape of the Corpus Callosum Between Genders. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology. Volume 290, Issue 7, pages 825–830, July 2007

Murder by Awesome

2011-03-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Evolution is an interesting phenomenon; it gave us the platypus, and Nintendo X-box. And it took away the dinosaurs, so we’ll never have the chance to mount lasers on their heads and take them into battle against alien robot armies, like we did in the 80’s. But more practically, if there is anything that the scientific study of evolution has taught us as a general principle is that biological organisms have finite resources, and that evolved traits are usually brilliantly but barely suited, and not one iota more so, to the conditions that gave rise to them. Except for Australia, but there are always exceptions.

Even though it would have been totally radical, or “sick” if you will, for some people to have evolved horns, webbed feet, and x-ray vision; nature didn’t set out to make us as rock-on as we could possibly be. Apparently, we never went through a phase where we tended to regularly ram out heads into walls or each other, so we didn’t grow horns. And as much as we love Hawaii, we never swam enough to get webbed feet. As for x-ray vision, I guess if you really want to see a girls panties that badly, you can always just rape her, and we perfected that tactic so long ago as to make see-through eye powers totally redundant. If that weren’t enough, we couldn’t even maintain our ability to synthesis vitamin C endogenously because we needed that extra metabolic energy for something else; like making brains capable of science, the internet, and cosplay.

For these reasons, though I am no expert, evolution strikes me as a bit of a lazy game, or if not lazy, then just at least a “fiscally conservative” one. You get barely what you need, and almost none of what you want; just like love (*bitter-tears*).

So it makes me really amused to see how the film industry takes this and spins it into: EXTREMEvolution: Let’s electrify them!
The latest inspiration to pass through my left ventricle on this vein is Pandorum, which I saw last year on the plane to London and then again recently at home. I have to confess, I actually like this movie. It was a bit of breath of fresh space-air. Someone finally made a mostly original Sci-fi story and a studio actually had the guts to put money into it. It obviously shares traits common to all deep-space sci-fi horrors - monsters, giant quasi-anthropomorphized space ships, dirty sexy ninja orphans with Eastern European accents, flashbacks of last-time-I saw-my-crying-wife, and apocalypses on Earth involving our beautiful yet tragically dying sun - but it also worked pretty well as a psychological thriller and it wasn’t totally obvious or predictable. The only thing about it that I thought fell flat in the realm of suck was the monsters.

*Spoilers* It will come as no surprise to anyone who has any knowledge of basic story structure, we are introduced, in the beginning of all places, to a set of antagonists, and they are bionic-gray-11th –dan Taekwondou-master-shrill-screeching monster-men (women and devil children make cameos later) with giant shards of blue superman’s-cavern crystals growing out of their backs. We soon learn that they are actually the descendants of some of crew who originally piloted the mission to somewhere out there, and they brought many people with them to start a new civilization. However, some key members went space-crazy; aka Pandorum, though on earth we know it as “losing our shit in the face of loneliness and isolation with no hope of relief”. They did something to the ship (see, I’m not spoiling everything), but most of the colonists were still in hypersleep (?), so they stayed people, whle everyone who wasn’t spent some insufficient number of mission-years living their sad, doomed lives and bred successive generations who morphed into cannibal monsters that “evolved to suit the ship”.

Excuse me, but what the shit? “Evolved to suit the ship”? Ok, so these post-humans had to evolve superior martial arts skills, the strength of ten elephants, and jaws that can engulf and severe a human head in one chomp in response to prey that consisted solely of groggy half-naked people who periodically fell limp and confused from their space-sleep tubes, and threats that were limited to the interior of the ship, which never went “Event Horizon” on their asses, and was mostly just dark and greasy.

Now, I understand that with all works of total fiction, willing suspension of disbelief is required for full effect (ala the bible, etc.) but there comes a point where the viewer is asked to suspend too much, and there are bread-riots in the streets of our minds hungry for reason. If all those people ever had to challenge their adaptive capabilities was essentially helpless prey, and a few slippery pools of hydraulic fluid on the steel causeway, they could have just as well evolved into sticky Jellyfish-like flesh balls that rolled over their prey and digested them with an external stomach, like sea urchins. For Pete’s sake, they could have evolved into a parasitic fungus and done in their prey almost as easily.

They should have been fighting that, but they were fighting these.

Let’s say they went full sea urchin and kept the shards, but that wouldn’t make any sense either as there were no otters or gulls on the ship, so big balls of jelly-flesh is more likely. The Blob managed to be scary when it’s monster was just a slow moving mountain of pink pudding, because the film relied more heavily on suspense and the hopeless feeling that no matter how slowly death was coming, it would eventually get you no matter what. And that film was set on Earth, where the protagonists could have gotten in car, driven to a plane, and flown to a remote atoll and safely assumed that they wouldn’t have to deal with the blog for many years, if ever again. These humans were on a dying space ship with severely limited options for escape; so why couldn’t they have gone with the scary blob people? They did a great job creating the whole suspense and mystery around who had actually gone crazy in the first place and sent the ship off course, and where hell were they now anyway; PLUS they had the time pressure of trying to restart the reactor that was failing after over 900 years of smooth operation (if only Fukushima Daiichi had been built so well). Why not just run with that and add to that list of trouble the fact that slow-moving acid blobs of post-humans that had evolved perfectly “to suit the ship” were oozing after them at every turn? I would have put my pillow over my face in horror, and not eaten Jello for weeks.

But that just isn’t good enough these days. Even Edward the Vampire was apparently slated to a kung-fu fisted vampire bounty hunter before the studio decided to let him be the sparkling undead romantic underwear model of Stephanie Meyers dreams. Is anything with even hint of sublety (i.e.more-truth-than-fiction) is doomed to be steam-rolled over by the likes of Wesley Snipes, Kesha, CG, Fox news, and the Vatican’s facebook page.

Please oh please, give me back my creeping blob, and my windy creek in the valley, and some nice, slow cooked, ghoul-free Pandorum stew to boil in.

Don't talk to me about God, just shut up and work

2010-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

After a day of memorizing the interior details of the typical Airbus 330, pursuant to completing online cabin crew training, not planning a low-budget, scriptless re-enactment of Air Force One (I get to be Harrison!), I thought I would wed two obnoxious personalities on a single debate topic; that of whether being smart and/or in charge, means you are entitled to view the world with a slick contempt.

The first is the CEO of the now defunct Tiger Oil of Houston Texas, and Richard Dawkings, Oxford Zoologist and author of "The God Delusion", and other works, and a prominant member of the American Atheist Society. His lips makes me want to throw tacks at animal balloons.

Now the former CEO of Tiger oil is clearly working on the Dr. House premise of personality: namely, that as long as you think you are a genuis, you can treat people anyway you like. Richard Dawkins very much seems to be in the same category, except that he only attacks opinions; though I would imagine that Edward Mike Davis also would defend his treatment of his employees as not attacks on them per-say, but as attack on poor work habits. Excuse me, I have to open a window. What is that SMELL?!

Ignoring the fact that no one is too smart or important to be killed by lesser men (sorry, Galileo), except of course, Issei Sagawa, who eats out with the finest Japanese TV talent, the taste of that Dutch woman still on his breath, generally, the smarter you appear or the more exhaulted and specialized your job, the more you can afford to be a piece of shit of a human being.

It doesn't make sense to make an enemy out of someone who you does something you may need and would be hard to replace. Therefore, these individuals can wield influence because, if they realize their worth, they can feel somewhat secure in the knowledge that the people in their lives and society at large will tolerate their transgressions to a higher degree and they may not be ostracized due to their behaivour as readily as someone without said skills/brains/money. Actually, I sometimes suspect this to be the basis for the American Dream: the whole "I want to rich so I don't have to answer to anyone" diatribe. Wanting to have the reach to be able to flout social convention is understandable 'cause some some social conventions are just plain stoo-pid; like prom-night and cannabalism. However, many forms of social convention, like marriage and food-safe, exist to protect people, both from others and themselves, and the desire to flout those kind of conventions comes, I suspect, from a desire to have a kind of unrestrained control over others. There is an irony to this though, in that good versus bad behaivour is determined more by leadership and participation than by the nature of the behaivour itself, and if participation equals convention, why the hell did we all participate in the creation of conventions we desire to flout?. Clue TED Talk.

My fear is that intelligence and or special skills can, only "can", not "does", unfortunately de-incentivize behaivour that is decent and considerate; namely behaivours that make other people feel guilty for harming "useless" people who are just so kind and forgiving that you want them over to house to make pie every Thursday.

Though it is kind of hard to talk about these two people together (psst, we're back on topic) because one of them is a scholar and the other just some hard-up oil prick, what really rubs my buns about Dawkins and Davis is that they both present themselves as people who are always taking home the debate-club trophy by virtue of their own self-importance visa-vie brains or money, not based on their (hard as it is to judge) worth as people.

While Dawkins at least has a platform from which reasonable arguments can be made, he still doesn't seem to care that a) the existence of God is not a matter for scientific debate to begin with, and b) that atheism is a cold hard pillow that puts crinks in your neck if you try to lay your wiry head on it for some comfort. I concede that religion is the opium of the masses, but the masses are in pain goddamnit, and they need their opium. All the real problems that religion tends to get blamed for, those at the "root" of religious zealotry, are things like unemployment, social and intellectual poverty, disenfranchisement, abuse, powerlessness, loss of love and support...you know, "bad things". Religion may not be my drug of choice, but it is for most, and abberhent religiousness is a symptom of more widespread disease, not the problem itself, which Dawkins treats it as. He's like some pimp-cop slapping a po' bitch around for being a 'ho: it ain't her fault yo; the street made her that way.

And Mike Davis is just an asshole with money. Not anymore I suspect.

So as we cut into that steaming slice of humble pie baked by our nice neighbour whazzisface, it bears reminding that even after so many PhDs, wealth beyond measure, scads of friends, and the odour of influence wafting about like a stale fart, you ain't never to high to stabbed to death by a hooker at a bus stop, or to be brought low by insider trading at the TSE.

So be nice. Cause the world is no-ones oyster; it's more like one of those prehistoric giant clams that eats divers whole. And the lower you go, the closer you get to their habitat.

Why I hate my hrududu

2010-08-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

It's lady-driven.

My car has never done anything bad to me, except cost me a reasonable amount of money to keep and insure, and take me places that I would normally have biked. It's a good piece of machinery, so why do I hate it's diesel-stained steel guts with so much venom?

Because the bitch ain't half the freedom she promised, thanks for lying to me Edward Bernaise. I wish I could turn my car into a time machine so I could go back in time and slap Freuds cock out of your mouth.

So I put it up for sale on Autotrader and Craigslist. I was expected scores of spam from craigslist; I am glad, in fact, that no one wrote offering to rape and kill me Thank god I didn't try to sell it in Seattle.

I thought that Autotrader would be a haven from such problems; turns out it isn't, as my good friend Sergeant Barlow has so eloquently pointed out below. The only two expressions of interest I got from Auto Trader were in fact along these lines:

"Hello,

I am very glad to receive the information of your Vehicle but i will like to confide in you as regards to a business proposal i would want us to work together like blood brothers. I am a war veteran with the United Nations troop in Iraq, on war against terrorism. I served in the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s Baghdad.

Based on the United States legislative and executive decision for withdrawing troops from Iraq come next year, I have been redeployed to come and work in Canada on the platform of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) soon. Our mission is to help beef up terrorist targeted states, mostly the United States and the European Union on the war against terrorism. I will need a Vehicle for myself and to SET UP CONTRUCTION COMPANY AND OTHER INVESTMENT and that is why I contacted you.

On the other hand, i would like to inform you that i have in my possession the sum of 16.2 million U.S. dollars. Which i made from crude oil here in Iraq. I deposited this money with a Red Cross agent informed him that we will contact the real owner of the money. It is under my power to approve who is eligible for this money.

I would invest the money in Canada as soon as you agree to keep this fund safe in Canada for business and other investment purposes through you, but you will advise me on that because i am not a business culture person. I can not move this money into the United States, because i will be in Canada for about 4 years, so i need someone i could trust. If you accept, i will move the fund to Europe, where you will be the beneficiary, because i am a uniformed person and i can not parade such an amount, so i need to present someone as the recipient. I'm an American and an officer for intelligence, that i have a 100% authentic means of transferring the money through diplomatic courier Service. I just need your acceptance, and everything is done. Please, if you are interested in this transaction, i give you the complete details you need for us to implement this transaction successfully. I decided to contact someone i could trust and real and not imaginary, and that is why i went to a safe place in the vehicle web i can be sure that the person is real.

I think i can trust you, where we are now we can only communicate through our military facilities, communication is secured, so nobody can monitor our e-mails, then i can explain in details to you. I will only reach you by e-mail, because our Calls might be monitored, i have to be sure; i have to deal with someone i could trust. If you are interested, please send me your personal mobile number so that the diplomat in London UK can call you for inquiries and how to bring the box that contain my money to you. If you are not interested, do not respond to this e-mail and delete this Message if no response after 3 days, i will then search for someone else.

I wait for your contact information details, so that we can go on. In less than 4 days the box should be in your possession, and i will come for my money. I will give you 30% of the total and 70% for me. I hope i have been fair to this deal. Get back to me with your full information:

Your full name ..............................................
Your full address .......................................
Your direct phone number ................

Sincerely,

Sgt. Frank R. Barlow."

The thing that I like about this letter in particular, besides that it manages to parlay the sale of a used VW into an War-on-Terror Iraqi oil profiteers unwitting confession, is the way it manages to drop so many connections that the average person wouldn't make regarding the whole-sell raping of Iraq. Claiming, as a soldier, to have made millions on crude oil in Iraq and to have left the money with the Red Cross is clearly preposterous. However, the various proper nouns dropped do link Iraq-Nato-Terrorism-Oil-UK-USA in a positively comical, though perfectly true, way. How he expects to work with me as a "blood brother" through the auto sales ad will remain a mystery for all eternity. Nevertheless, there is an forth-rightness and matter-of-fact feel to this letter that could only exist because the writer is nowhere near whom he is pretending to be. I wonder how an actual Sgt of the 3rd infantry division in Baghdad would have worded a similar proposal. Probably not with the statement "I made 16.2 Million dollars selling crude oil from the country I invaded under the pretext of liberation from 'terror'".

I did finally sell the car to a hearing impaired retired bush-pilot who had no opinions on this matter, and only caused me minor embarrassment when he yelled at the insurance man over the $101 dollars of difference per yer in insuring a car versus a motor home. May it serve him well.

Sorry Sgt Barlow, I too neither am the business culture person you are looking for.

WTF My life

2010-08-04T22:16:00.001-07:00

Let's begin this post the way that every letter ever written seems to begin: "so terribly sorry my darling, it's been far too long since last I wrote, but I have been ever so busy". Ad-nauseum, Ad-infinitum.

I just got hopelessly bored of myself, and I also had established proper lines of communication with everyone I had been writing the blog for, namely, so that they might still know me without actually ever talking to me. But now, things have chang-ed, and once more I feel like I should I contribute a bit more, once more, to the blog-o-sphere. Save your fork Prince, there's pie.

I've spent literally 6 months reading Robert Fisk's "The Great War For Civilization". I've read it in England, Spain, Ohio (excuse me while I throw up in my mouth), and four different cities in Canada so far, and I still have 267 pages out of over 1300 to go, not including the massively intimidating bibliography. After swamp-walking through this brilliant missive on centuries of blood-soaked Keffiyah warfare, I have come to a single (yes, a single) conclusion about the root of perpetual, generational violence. And that is...Drum roll please...that it is basically because no one obeys the proverbial golden rule.

Not the one where he who has the gold makes the rules, the one where you must treat others as you would like to be treated (note: masochists, sadistic murders, statisticians should use the common sense interpretation). What happens between States that learn to distrust and despise each other is a macrocosm of what happens between individuals who have had their trust betrayed and left to feel like dirty hankies - used, sullied, and caste away.

While it is completely impossible to go about life without hurting anyone's feelings, fear, doubt and uncertainty lie and foot of the gangrenous leg of all human unhappiness; hence, the least anyone can do is be clear and, as much as possible, compassionately honest. For example, if Netanyahu (He fucking Twitters! For the love Yahweh) had just said to Arafat, "of course, you can't have your lands back. We'll keep building. We'll never withdraw, and you can role up the Oslo agreement and give me a hand job with it, please and thank you (courtesy added by author)", at least the Palestinian leadership could have run with that. But to say one thing and do another doesn't just cast doubt on whether the other party will DO what they say, it also casts doubt that they will absolutely NOT do what they say, and you can get hypothermia and drown expediciously trying to tread water in a endless sea of gray. And ultimately, lack of trust in ones own power to affect change because you cannot count on others to be clear one way or the other is powerful motivator toward to walking into an ice cream parlor and blowing up all those delicious flavours - and well, all the people waiting in line to eat them.

So the next time you think of trying a text message break up, remember that you aren't just going to hurt someone in the limited context of your failed bowling-partner to life-partner upgrade, and that they will only ever think YOU -full stop- are an asshole. You will change the way that person acts in the world because you have been a dick to him/her. Now all he/she will see are dicks everywhere and will act accordingly, don steel toed boots accordingly. So take your balls out of your purse and man up to Honesty. It's such a lonely word.

Unrelated - I just blew my nose, and an entire blueberry came out that I didn't even know was up there. Strange times indeed.

Andrew, W. T. F.

2009-06-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it, over 7 months since the last entry! At this point, I believe the humane thing to do is to let this blog die a natural death, heaven knows, it's been without food, water or affection long enough to have wasted into nothing, but nah, today is not a good day to die; today is a day to live a little bit longer, at least until the super pandemic arrives.

So a brief update. Several things have happened since the last entry, which is good because that was a long time again, and a static existence is no existance at all.

1) I returned from London. F**k their banking system.
2) Both Harper and Campbell got re-elected. F**k the pestulent right wing neo-cons.
3) Michael Jackson and Farah Fawsett competed in the for most media coverage in the semi annual Great Celebrity Death competition. Michael won by a landslide.
4) I went to see Andrew W K in concert.

This is point upon which I wanted to comment, mostly because it made for a catchy entry title, but also because it was such a bizarre gong-show of an event for several reasons, not the least of which was the audience.

For those of you who might have happened upon this blog and know nothing about Canada, know this: Canadians don't generally get excited about music. There is little more to dancing than exaggerated head-nodding, no crowd surfing and no breaking shit, usually. Billy Bob Thornton probably best described this phenomenon by famously labelling Canadian crowds and "potatoes without the gravy", as you can see.

However, something about keytar over dubbed CD background tracks really brings out the beast, for at this concert, the crowd did indeed go wild, even breaking the sound system, thank god, so we didn't have to stay to the end of the set out of some mistaken sense of propriety.

More to come after a good nights sleep. Peace out, and rock on.

This explains a lot

2008-12-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

"Hey daughter, just cause your dad is a raging alkie, don't mean you can 'hassle the Hoff'. Just f-off and leave me on the floor to finish my Wendy meal".

Up next, a post that doesn't involve a embedded YouTube video.

We have your friend staying in the Awk-ward, on your left, past the vending machines

2008-12-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

This show is one of the good things I'll be bringing back from the UK, though I suppose I could have just downloaded the whole thing from the internet. Live and learn, live and learn.

El stupido

2008-11-30T12:02:00.001-08:00

Ok, it's been a month a half, I apologize, but changing countries is a full time job. So, incidently, is working full-time, which I have been doing for the past 3 weeks. I worked 8 days in a row recently for a neurotic hotel patroness who was too exhausted after her vacation to her Italian olive grove to talk to me about how she doesn't want to pay me the wages she promised, which are already shit, did I mention?

I'm all full of piss and annoyance. And it's all England's fault. Yeap, if it's one thing I lived from living in 4 different countries, it's that whatever doesn't your way is entirely the fault of your new surroundings. Whether it is ones inability to get money from the ATM cause it isn't directly linked to your foreign bank account, or misunderstanding the transit system and missing your stop by a a measly 200km, or having to endure alcohol for sale in the supermarket and wondering why everyone is puzzled by the high rates of alcoholism, distance lands are designed specially to frustrate non-natives. They have standing committees that conceive of and implement suggestions for making local colour and bureaucracy as redundant and irritating as possible, like making the bank card come one week apart from it's pin number, and giving young people the insatiable urge to steal bicycle accessories.

Perhaps the biggest let down was the lack of the 6 figure income and hordes of screaming fans instantly wanting to become my friend the moment I landed. I thought surely their would have been at least a welcoming ceremony Prince Charles in attendance; I understand the queen may have been too busy, but what does Charles have better to do with his time? Watch Wimbleton in the rain? And watching the new James Bond movie in it's native land didn't even make it any cooler. What freakin' gives?

I'll give England exactly 6 months to make it up to me, then I'm out of here.

The fad of the secondury

2008-10-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

While cruising the net looking for a free downloadable copy of the Picard Song, I was directed to YTMND Wiki, "explaining the Internet one article at a time", and discovered that the Picard Song was one of the top "fads" of 2004. Forgive me for sounding past my expiry date, but I remember when fads were things like harmony balls, Guess jeans, Michael Jackson hair, crimpers, and one liners from Saturday Night Live. But the times, they are a changing, and now fads are apparently largely electronic, post-ironic, and moving in and out faster than a couple hundred points on the New York stock exchange.

A huge number of fads are limited to a single image, plus sound bite, like the infamous "Safety Not Guaranteed", another smash from the summer of '04. This is the remixed version, feature Bill and Ted: Excellent!

This fad, like white trash amoeba, spawned subsequent copy fads, and take-off fads mostly of the same quality you'd expect from recycled window cocking, although some are not wholly without merit. like this one.

This reminds me of my grade 6 hypercard project, aptly titled "Wanted: dead or alive". I got as far as making the the motorcycle pull very slowly up to the jailhouse with no one riding it.

The best part of these fad is attempts to explain them, as the line on the wikipage does whereby "the nature of the man's hair and serious tone of the ad (This is not a joke) adds to the humour". Thus that page in human psychology is written, everyone may now close their books. Entire universes spring up around these fads as well; in this case, there seem to be a dedicated handful of individuals who are actively looking for the Timetraveler, and "sightings" of him and evidence of his meddlings with history are cropping up like scabs on the unwashed homeless. One user has photographic evidence of the Timetraveler's success in a civil war era photo he claims to have found in his attic.

Naturally, there have also been attempts to call the number in the add, and scour Oakville, California, to find a certain Kentucky Waterfall, some of which has reportedly succeeded. Who can blame them? I called the Ghostbusters hotline after I saw the movie the first time, but then I was only 8; I don't know if the Time Traveler Hunters have the same excuse.

As hilarious as all this is, I must confess, I am finding the world increasingly harder to believe thanks to the wealth of BS we all have constant access to. Yet it is irresistably satisfying to pursue inane goals, like finding a guy with a mullet and asking him is he really has travelled back in time, than setting our hearts, as a society, to actual introspection and working towards goals in waking life that might effect the course of our history more poignantly than an Aryan Louisiana Purchase adding one more confederate soldier to the genetic diveristy of the Southern US. It's rather like what is said about acaedemia in general: Debates, and in this case hollow pursuits, can go on forever so long as there is nothing at stake.

I'm sick of nothing anyone does meaning anything, and I mean that on a very basic level. And I am aware of the hypocricy of this statement, having just spent over an hour searching the net for singin' Picard, researching a temporally challenged mullet man, and then writing about it on a useless blog no one reads. But that's the point! Irrelevance is like eyebrows, or HPV: Everyone has them, as is more or less powerless to do much about it, vaccine notwithstanding. This society would have Maslow turning in his grave. Time now more than ever to remember the immortal words of Robert Browning: Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?

Just so long as we aren't grasping at nothing but straw.

Freebies

2008-10-01T12:29:00.001-07:00

Having just witnessed the scramble of my roommates in their admirable move of umpteen boxes of stuff out of our old house -may she rest in peace- my mother decided that she wanted to clear some things out of her house, you know, while the light was still green for "go". And she unearthed some treasures from my teen-years that make for easy entries - "artwork", and crap you write down in a "personal" journal with the vain and constantly self-thwarted hope that someone totally awesome will pick it up where you "accidentally" left it, read it, and think you are the hottest thing since picked peppers and Miracle Whip. The following entries are unedited, un-spellcorrected, uncensored, and totally fierce! Bracketed comments are my adult wisdom laughing audibly at my pathetic adolescent feelings.

January 1st, 1995:

Get out of rut (I was getting a little tired of the all-perogy diet)

Resolutions:
Have Martha Steward assasinated (whatever did she do to earn my death threat?)
Stop being a @#!@ (still working on that one)
collect, hobby, get going, do something (I would be totally lost if I hadn't set such lofty goals for myself).
Write better poetry (how about "write no poetry", that one I can do)
Don't watch bad TV (Does Reno 911 count?)
Leave you now, see you later (I fulfilled this one terrible well without wanting to)

We're not getting away (underlined...for emphasis).

January 2nd, 1995

11:30 Eden's house 5548 Manson, guitar remember (As if I could forget, I was madly crushing on the boy. This note was left for the one and only purpose of making Grumpus seethe with envy).

The outhouse w/moon carved
in it is way too small
and the smell will make you
go insane, real back to nature
propane luxury (poetry: because less really is more)

January 3rd, 1995, Schooooooolllllllllllll

Personal Profile (just a friendly reminder for forgetful ol'e me)
Name: #######*******%%%%%%%% (must protect...identity... from....Internet)Phone: ****
Address, *(*(*)HHDHJJLSKJSLJ Powell River, B.C (suffice it to say this information was all correct and dutifully recorded).
Favourite band(s) babes in Toyland, Sonic Youth, Nirvana (I pee-ed my pants at a solemn beach vigil for Kurt Cobain, and would have eaten babies for a piece Kat Bjellands ribboned tresses)
Movie: Transformers T.V. Show: Transformers/X-files (But in a fair fight of Mulder versus Optimus, Optimus was always the true conquerer of my heart).
Current obsession: Tranformers/pepsi (the boy, so dubbed, not the drink)
Hobby(s) guitar, poetry I HATE ALL SPORTS
Greatest fear: 1996 (Y2K can suck it)
MMM (that's Most Memorable Moment for all yous illiterates) Friends and I burning New Kids on the Block tapes and screaming Weird Al's "dare to be stupid" (This is a complete fiction. How embarrassing to think that seeing how I felt that I had to make something up, that my imagination could not think of anything more impressive. Damn, I mean, "the first time I snorted heroin" would have probably earned me more admiration)
MEM: Grade 6 (The first year I rejoined humanity, there were some awkward moments, like walking upright and trying not to bite)
Favourite saying: We're all going to die/ run save yourself/ NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (If I had I loonie for everytime I uttered those words, I might be able to buy someone a steaming pile of nothing)
Favourite song: Tom Violence (oh the haunting vocals of Thurston Moore)

(Post script) Heartfelt bullshit (can I get an "oh yeah"?)

January 4th,1995

null glitter pony promises
honey homely, paget princess
Angel bleed
Angel lead
verhain starburst (I don't like this shade for the drapes, dear, it's a little on the verhain side).

And aside from the Transformer Checklist, and a couple of long since pirated glitter-crayon drawings, that is all she wrote. I think keeping my shame on record like this will help me forgive it in those still farting through their teen years, aggressively unaware that the real suffering is waiting in the hidden dark of Grown-up land, to pounce on them and tear their thorny hearts out. Stay tuned for the glorious pictures.

Seniors in love

2008-09-21T14:17:00.000-07:00

My grandfather, a widower of 2 years, has a new girlfriend.

Her name is Michelle, and they met at the Shady Pines nursing home (okay, I don't know what it's called, but if it's good enough for Sophia Partillo, it's good enough for my ole grand-dad) and he actually tried to marry her. Fortunately, they were both taken to court and declared too incompetent for marriage - how I wonder why they don't put more celebrities through that gauntlet - so now they have to be content only to comfort one another, in the nursing home, for the rest of their limited days. Sometimes he puts her on when we call, and she whispers into the receiver "don't cho worry, I'm takin' good o your granpaa". What care? They live in a freaking home! All comforts provided for...except... you know, I get the terrifying suspicion that it's not just the kind of cup-of-tea-and-a-slice-of-fresh-apple-pie sort of comfort they are engaged in: I think they might be having S.E.X!

The idea of a sagging sack of osteoporotic, wheezened flesh that my grandfather has come to inhabit, playing hide the salami with another tooth-less, immobile med-popper, behind the pulled curtain of a gated hospital bed makes my skin crawl. Blessedly, there seems to be a mental block firmly in place preventing my imagination from actually imaging all the gory details - the Hindi film board in my mind sort of covers everything with mist and sets the lawnmower off in the distance so I don't catch any stray moaning. Nevertheless, my parents, ewww; my grandparents, criminal! And Aristotle agrees with me on this point too: he wrote in his Essays that woman should get no hanky panky past menopause, and men should give up the snake and mongoose game between the ages of 45-55. And you know, I kind of thought all the old people were on the boat with this one as well. I mean, if you can repeat the same, lame mantra of "whoa, grandpa's gotta sit down for a minute kids, I ain't as young as I used to be" to get out of playing soccer with your adolescent in-laws, then where do you get off being all bow-jiji-bow in the bedroom?

Isn't sex was a right reserved exclusively for those with hot,steamy bods whom the thought of inspires sexy thoughts worthy of menage e moi action in other similarly sexy peoples? People like this per say:

and this

However, according to the CMAJ, 70% of couples over age 70 still have "intercourse" an average of 4 times a month. So, regardless of their wrinkly-ness, most seniors still claim the rights of most couch-humping teenagers on a not entirely infrequent basis. Sexuality is also a very reliable predictor of morbidity in the elderly as well, cause when you loose the urge to Uh! the will to live tends to follow closely behind. So I suppose I should be happy that my grandda is still a horny bastard, because that means he'll live many more full and wonderful years...in a nursing home. Though that thought is thoroughly depressing, I am meant to be happy that my grandfather, despite being a bit insane, is able to share goodtimes with this woman, and that despite being in that eight layer of hell reserved especially for nursing home residents, he is basically happy as a Frenchman living next to a brothel.

Eventually, I hope to get over the grossness and just be happy for them. But eeeww, damn.

Sorry for wasting everyones time

2008-09-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't got anything! Not a thing. I wish I had time to find interesting morsels of irresistable info to share with everyone, like on the nature of neutrinoes, the reproductive habits of jellyfish, "method" acting, mesopotamian team sports, and all that, but I am mostly just busy with my boring life, which revolves largely around existential romantic crisis and complaining about politicians and worker redundancy at my job. I just finished a 127 page report and am off to write another, so my brain juice is all sucked at the moment, but I promise the next post will actually be about something.

Like breathing, only more important

2008-08-31T22:23:00.000-07:00

Well, slap a post it on my back and call me an icebreaker, another year of life come and gone, and happy freaking birthday to me. It's actually being celebrated this year, with celebrities ta boot.

I squandered a few more aeroplan miles on a rental car to ride down island earlier this week to see Weird Al Yankovich live in concert; that's right, Weird Al, and I refuse to succumb to any judgments regarding taste in this matter. And just in case you forgot that you really love Weird Al too, here's a reminder of his greatness

He actually is a stellar performer, and deliberately chose to grace small, forgets-that-Canada-is-no-longer-technically-a-colony-of-Britian, botanically obsessed Victoria BC, over the let's-drive-the-homeless-into-the-sea-with-yoga-trained-man-eating-police-dogs real estate black-hole that is Vancouver. And I think he even outdid Tina with wardrobe changes. For the most part, a real live human performance is almost always enjoyable so long as the performer is genuinely into what he/she is doing, and the only live act I can ever say that I truly despised was A Simple Plans pseudo-pop-rock lip-syncing set that poisoned the water at Fuji Rock - or maybe that was just overflow from the portopotties.

After that we successfully dive-bombed that event, it was off to the fringe festival, the only occasion of the year where you can spend all day in the theatre for under 30$. One of the comic acts so enthralled me that I joined facebook so I could I friend him (friend is now officially a verb, take note Webster).

I had to banter 45 minutes with the clerk at the rental car company to get the car for the ride back up, who confessed 5 minutes into our "conversation" that he had been warned the previous night by his boss to "quit snorting coke get your goddamn life together", at which point I demanded my credit card back, which he had been holding and fidgeting with like...well, like a junkie come off of some coke, I imagine. It's always a little surprising what people will confess under the guise of being sarcastic, and I would never wish unemployment on anyone, especially drug addicts (cause they WILL get money for drugs, any way they can), but I do wish they left the finacials to a lower-risk group. If you are a drug addict reading this though, just so you know, apparently National Car Rental will take you in regardless of your habit, so long as you don't steal their clients credit card information and use it to buy smack, promise?

On the way back up, we stopped off that Parrot Sanctuary and the Wildlife Rescue Centre and saw 6 bald eagles right up close, one who's face had been shot off by a hunter but a local dentist fitted him with the world's first ever prostetic eagle beak, the whole of the parrot kingdom, 2 baby black bears, the whole of the owl kingdom (mostly abandoned after the thrill of Harry Potter abated: pets are NOT fashion, you can't throw it away after it goes out of style!), and a murder of ravens.

All and all, an awesome time was had by all. Thank Al for kicking it off real.

Rhymns with Bilfokirt

2008-08-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

The answer is "Introvert", which I always considered a slander until one of my best friends attended a career building seminar, where everyone was subjected to extensive personality profiling to try to match their "essence" to the appropriate job sphere. One of the first categories the participants are divided up into is introvert/extrovert, followed naturally by apple/orange, vegetable/mineral, John/Yoko, rebel/alliance, replicant/replicant?

The more popular definition of introvert tend toward black and white images of hermits and fallen swordsmen who hide in caves and can't be bothered with the world because they just hate everyone. After an ex once said to me, in response to my lack of enthusiasm for going out to a smoky bar to see our friends band, that it was because I "hated friends and fun", I really thought, shit, if only I weren't an introvert...dot dot dot, even though that particular line of reasoning was terribly inaccurate, and the most ridiculously funny thing that I can remember being said to me, besides, "I'd give my law degree to see you totally naked".

See, actually introverts don't hate people at all. In fact many of them love many people, even if they may be more descriminating about it than extroverts, but according to Labour Canada's career placement test, the real difference between introverts and extroverts is that being in the company of others requires an energy expenditure for an introvert, whereas it is a source of energy for extroverts. So if you go home from a perfectly loving evening of snogging gay stippers down at the Waldorf feeling just drained, you might be an introvert! Their definition of extrovert did conjure up images of energy vampires, but who am I to judge.

They don't have to bite you on the neck to suck your energy, but they like to.

Hearing this made me feel just peachy; rather how my grandmother must have felt after she had her official diagnosis changed from "paranoid schizophrenia" to "hallucinatory bi-polar disorder".

Being anything less than completely popular is nothing to be ashamed of. God save the introvert (cause nobody else will!)

Say it, don't bidet it

2008-08-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

My brain is collapsing under the weight of the 110 page essay I've been writing for the past 2 months, so please understand why my humour is so distinctly Mr. Cleany this evening. For lack of anything better to say, I want only to share some random T-shirt quotations that I would like to have printed onto my cotton ginnies, but that I can't imagine what company to subject to. So without further adeiu, Show me your T T's!

Ignoring the urge to defecate will complicate your life

If you love someone, let them pee

I thought that was over months ago

Bleach is for lovers

The sea: it's full of life

No Known Side-Effects

Madness Blindness

Have some integrity, use steel

People get paid to do this, don't they?

Water on the Knee -OPERATION

2008-08-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

This game was one of my early theoretical inductions to the world of orthodox medicine, and often made me wonder why no one would come by with so plyers and pull icecream out of my head when I got brainfreeze (usually from trying to suck down an entire 1.5 litre 7-Up slurpy from the exotic out-of-town 7-11 that my family visited only twice a year).

The vast majority of the procedures listed on this a-mans body are non-surgical, but hey, where's the fun in "see if you can prescribe Levadopa without scarring the aorta on your way out".

However, water on the knee is one can be treated with a elbow grease and few cutters, and I have had it exactly twice in my life, before, and now. I have developed such a profound distrust of the medical system these days, that I was all for just stabbing myself in the back of the knee (I have a small stash of sterile syringes for just such an occasion) and sucking out all that excess synovial fluid, but everyone convinced me I'd be much better off wandering into emerg. after work and have some kind doctor do it, one no doubt with infinitely more experience stabbing+sucking inflammated joints than myself. I had that done 3 years ago when this last happened in Japan, by an weasened prune of man who must have been at least 92, and who completed the business quickly and cleanly, commenting on the water on the knee pnenomenon only as something that "happens from time to time, whatever".

Naturally I expected the same sort of results here, and 1 hour later, I was greeted by a doctor sporting a green golf tee, brown sandals and a heavy Swiss accent who asked "so would like me to drain the knee?" to which I replied, "no, I'm just here for my health", which might have been funny if I hadn't said it with so much venomous sarcasm. But in the end, I had to concede that, yes, I was there because I needed the doctor to put his unlimited access to medical supplies and knowledge of Gray's Anatomy to work, and quickly relieve me of the discomfort I had gotten myself into. However, he insisted on applying local anaethetic, which isn't actually a good sign, considering this particular operation can be performed with minimal agony to the patient. It was good that he had in the end because he jabbed the massive needle in several times at different angles under the knee cap, insisting that going through the back of the knee was somehow more "irresponsible", because there is a bunch of sensitive tissue back there - whereas the area under the knee cap is an impenetrable fortress tough as old leather, apparently. He didn't manage to get even enough synovial fluid out to drown a tick in. As we parted, he imparted to me the wisdom that there must be a reason for all that fluid in there, and to take some asprin (the Everymans Pancea!) and keep the leg elevated. At least I got a free tensor bandage out of the deal.

Henceforth, I hopped on my mighty pedalled steed, and raced home, hoping to beat the half-life of the anaesthetic, grabbed a small needle from my own stash, and did indeed stab myself in the back of my own knee cap.

What words can describe the sensation? Let me think...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOHHHH BLARGGGHMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmm...not that bad actually. I rate it just slightly above walking a few klicks on a brisk windy day after peeing your pants.

Managed to get a bit more fluid out, with no harm done, and rather less fanfare than the emergency room, with all it's blips, beeps, and ever-present whiffs of diseased human effluent. I am now a fully converted health nut wacko who will never set foot in another hospital again. I just need to learn acupuncture so that I anaesthetize myself for a little self-performed open heart surgery, should the need arise. No really, check it out: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1729344

My living room is of comparible cleanliness to any operating room, though I'm not sure which figures larger for post-operative infection, MRSA or bits of cat hair and stale tortilla chips. If we don't try, we'll never know.

All giggles and glee

2008-07-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Our roommates went down to their homestead to get hitched last week, leaving the house just a little barren for the single girlies left behind, me-self included. So naturally the conversation drifted towards marriage, weddings, bride-zilla extravaganza-thons and such, and it turns out there is not one woman in my immediate company who hasn't planned their wedding, to varying degrees of detail - from the general location (indoors or out, and if out, then whether or not to rent porto-potties), to how many varieties of fruit to put in the cake, and what tinge of off-white the drapes should be. After all, you want to start married life off right, and you can't do that with sky blue velour window trim. Of course, the number one requirement to a wedding is a someone to marry; however, that doesn't seem to mean much to bridal imagination machine, which runs far more efficiently on the power of pure fantasy.

There was one man left our house, unattached, to whom we put forth this most Jane Austin of questions; "Have you given any though to your wedding arrangements". However, being possessed of neither a handsome estate nor a reliable salary, he replied, "no", and went on to elucidate the male position on speculatory wedding planning, which is to say that there is none; though there apparently is a lot of bemoaning the fact, right before the wedding, that marriage means he'll lose the god-given right to potentially sleep with any woman on the planet, a right that is coveted with ever bit the vigour that Charleton Heston covets the right to bear arms. "Potentially", does mean a lot to people after all, like no one will buy an electric car to commute to work and back, even though it's range is perfect for that, because if they one day want to drive to Alaska, it just won't go that far- definitely - whereas a humvee will, even if it total shit for 99.9% of all the other driving that ones does with it.

I am no exception to the theoretical wedding blitz. Since I was about 15, I have given thought mainly to the most innane details that I would want looked after on the "big day", though those details have changed over the years: I used to want a table with a selection of alcoholic drinks displayed with the warning that 50% of them were poisoned (I would make the poison myself, never neglecting the secret ingredient - love) and have ninjas doing backflips by the lake, where some guests were enjoying the complimentary waterskiing. Now, I just have a list of all the hindi love song music videos that I want to have playing in the background while everyone participates in choreographed dances in front of them, and how much money I'm willing to spend on a really good karaoke set-up. I think I would allow people to enjoy some non-poisoned drinks, but the table still does have a lingering appeal. I still would also like to end the reception with some brides family versus grooms family lazer tag, but this again is subject to real-life considerations, like can Uncle $%%#^'s pacemaker cope? And, well...money.

Just in case it never happens, here is one of the videos that is part of the music video selection. The couple in it are actually married, so it just adds to the warm fuzzy feelings in my heart when I hear it. Happy happy, joy joy.

Washed up in age of plenty

2008-07-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Shabam! What a shock! And here I thought the internet made nothing material beyond the reach of man.

I recently found my old copy of Pitch Black by DJ Sangeeta, which I thought had been lost to bowels of the earth, but which was actually lost to the mess of wiring behind the CD panel in my mothers car. For about 2 years, this had been my all-time favourite Bhangra CD, mixed right here is good old BC. It had several songs on it that were attached to very fond romantic memories of driving in the dark, feeling and warmth of a loving hand and the soft pounding of the intermittent pulse of yellow tunnel lights. Having spent the past 3 years tangled behind the dashboard had not been kind to Ms. Sangeeta's masterpiece, and all but the first 3 songs were completely inaudible. Naturally, I wanted another copy.

Sure, it was an obscure recording from 2000, having been purchased for $2 at Tameel video, having a BW photocopy for a jacket, and was released by the mysterious "Heavyeight" record label, apparently NOT to be confused with Heavyweight Records, which was founded by Ice Cube. But still, this is the internet! If I could find a Sunburst Battlebeast to bid on for my ex-boyfriends birthday present (I went up to 65$ before it got too rich for my blood), then surely I could just type "Pitch Black, DJ Sangeeta" into any search engine and be presented with umpteen buying options to quench my thirst for quality Punjabi re-mixes.

(The elusive sunburst battle beast in it's natural habitat)

Would you know, it's gone from the pages of google history just like Lyndey England.

(One of many Google returns that is NOT Lyndsey England)

It seems strange in this day and age that anything that WAS available, should with the passage of time, eventually become UN-available. Just like you can buy apples any day of the year at the supermarket, even if they have to import them from New Zealand, so too should a remix CD made in someones basement in Vancouver 8 eight years ago be only a wish, bang and paypal account away.

Being my late 20th years, I do remember a time when it was really really hard to get something once it had gone out. I have been an avid collector of Transformers since way before Shia La Boeuf left his stain on the Ark. In the early 90's, I fell into a transformers fever which I took 6 years to recover from, during which time I constructed an 8" tall replica of Optimus Prime out of cardboard, masking tape, firewood and liquid paper, and also bolstered the ranks of my Autobot/Decepticon fleets by 123. At that time, finding Transformers was a chance game at the Salvation Army or Value Village thrift stores, and then they would almost always be missing arms (both kinds!) and maybe a head or two. I got most of them through the love and generosity of others, including a full half from my someone who loved me best at the time; the rest I acquired by begging and bribing all my classmates who would speak to me, putting out hundreds of inquires as to the remaining presence of TFs in their homes, and usually bartering them off with rare Magic cards. I even got hold of the entire comic book series by careful search and seizure of all the comic shops in the lower mainland, and wrote letters to all the comic respondants in the Letters sections who had left full addresses, asking for kinships and, of course, any TFs they wouldn't mind parting with. I ended up in a 3 year penpalship with a guy named Lance from the Denmark as an unexpected result.

(Also NOT Transformers)

My fever has died down, though the love remains steady: the happy equilibrium of a stable long-term relationship.

At that time, it took THAT degree of devotion to acquire my hearts desire, whereas now it just takes a computer, a credit card, and OCD. Kind of undermines that idea that anything (or anyone for that matter) worth having is worth trying and waiting for.
My also long-standing passion for South Asian films and music was never that difficult to appease because of my numerous trips to India and thanks to the vigilant population of Main and 49th, but I can imagine if it weren't for them, I would have been chasing down every South Asian I saw and begging them to write their relatives in Mumbai to become my personal supply-ahs. Perhaps my quest for DJ Sangeeta will push me in that direction yet again, but at least I'll only have to go through the 2 million or so residents of Greater Vancouver to find her.

Pigheaded determination a small price to pay for getting what you really want, and it is, like the price of organic fruits, rather a more accurate reflection of the true costs of the things we tend to take for granted.

Charles and The Unending Quest for Satisfying Erotica

2008-07-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

I think I must mention being horny too often on this blog, but I suppose it's a small price to pay for being a functioning human being; what is not a small price to pay is $5 for a completely un-arousing video rental.

It all started in Taiwan. I have never been one to openly seek "porn-OGrophy", because I should be "better" than that. But when I was in Taiwan some years ago with my ex-boyfriend, I decided the perfect blend to spice up our XXX-life would be my very own Kung-fu porn compilation.

See, I like there to be a "plot", you know, characters and drama, story development ie: conflict, crisis, "climax" and resolution. And I managed to find a little DVD number that looked tre hot. The pictures on the back were promising, though not so risque as to be vulgar. So I picked it up for small fee, and brought it back to Japan with me (don't even ask why I never picked up any Japanese porn, that is a topic for another, long day). When I popped it into the player, what ended up coming out at me wouldn't have covered a kittens titty.

No only was there no penetration, nor even anything resembling sex enough to be arousing, it wasn't even the same film as the pictures showed on the back. Production quality was beyond the beyonds; they hadn't even bothered to synchronize the swishing sounds of the swords being expertly wielded - steel ones- and despite speaking only the tiniest amount of Mandarin, it was clear even to my ignorant ears that their was no story line. The closest thing to a sex scene was a part where a monk was fondling the tits of his giggling serving wenches seconds before the hero burst in and started flailing his flimsy sword at them - the steel one, again. It almost would have been worth the airfare to fly back just to return the piece of garbage - couldn't even live up to the name Trash!

Fast forward to now. Our little video store has a small section of "Erotica", and in a vain and misguided attempt to put the penis back in happiness. I ended up settling on "Diary of a sex addict"- hoping it wasn't just a clever name -but it appears that someone out there has more brains than balls where it is least needed. Not only does this film also NOT have any sex scenes in it, it includes a most embarassing scene where the sister-in-law of said sex addict, comes over to his house threatening to expose his affairs, of which she has gained magical knowledge, to his wife. She is practically frothing at the mouth as she screams at him and even throws his face a decent punch, which only intensifies the glare of his bedroom eyes. Then she gets a call from her husband, and in the course of the 30 second conversation, it becomes obvious that the sister-in-law is an insecure, hopelessly neglected sex-fiend, and in the next moment the man is upon her - and she WANTS IT! This is one of those little themes in literature that pops up to remind those watching that the authour was surely a man, just in the way that tight-liped composure that conceals the massive ocean of emotion in Mr. Darcy could only possibly have been written by a woman. Real women don't want to have sex with people they hate, at least not according to the latest re-print of "No means No". I got through about 10 minutes at normal speed, and another 3 on fast forward before I had commit that one to the grave.

So here I am, alone and porn-less. I have more or less given up my quest, since I just don't have the courage to take a copy of "There's a giant cock up my sweet ass" to the acne-covered 14 year old working the counter at Movie Express, and I'm not willing to shell out 40$ to own it forever.

You may ask, but Charles, why in Gods hot pink, moist flesh do you not use the Internet to satisfy your lusts, that's what the thing was built for, wasn't it? I have to answer that I don't for the same reason that I don't eat at food fairs - there is too much selection and no easy way to assertain if any of it is any good before you take the plunge.

I think I'll invest in erotic photographs; that way at least, someday my prints will come.

Hello, Mr. Incredible Hulk, welcome to Bella Coola!

2008-07-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

I first saw this abomidable book in the Chicago airport 2 years ago while I was making my way to my grandfather's place in the wet-est, hairy-est armpit in the armpity-est area of this here continent-just in time for my grandmothers timely death.

Upon first glance, it was obvious that this book could serve only two purposes: to flood said places with yuppie retirees and completely decimate their local cultures and economies, and to that end, serve as a comprehensive anti-real-estate guide to anyone who wanted to avoid places that were doomed to such a fate. My mother and I thumbed to the index to check if where we are living now was in it, and blessedly, it wasn't; however, to none of our surprises, my hometown was and it is nothing but a den of saggy American blobs of botox and collagen, and overpriced artisan cheeses.

And then I went to see the Incredible Hulk. I do have soft, squishy place in my heart, above left ventricle, for super hero movies, provided they in no way glorify the US military (Ironman, I'm, talk to YOU), in which case they can swivel on the proverbial. But The Hulk was quite enjoyable, and Edward Norton was very convincing as a mild-mannered Bruce Banner - I wish "mild-mannered" was still a compliment in popular use: I think the modern day equivalent is "pussy".

There was a great rush of applause at the end of film when it showed him hold up in a small cabin in the middle of Super Natural Bella Coola, BC, which must have sent the minds of its American audiences racing back to grade school trying to remember which one of 49 states bore that abbreviation. My father and I were actually planning on settling there and co-owning some land until he got himself a new girlfriend and decided to stay where he was. I too appaulded at first, and then got that sinking feeling in my heart that, oh fuck, now that someone KNOWS about it, it'll be DOOMED to be another victim of the Foreign Yuppis Idiots (F.Y.I, for your information) takeover that seems to have started right around the same time as NAFTA; coincidence?

However, Bella Coola enjoys several advantages of privacy that most other beautiful, exquisitely rape-able lands do not. One is that it is very, very isolated. It costs about $500 to fly in and out from Vancouver, or a 2 day ferry ride from Port Hardy, or about a 5 day drive from Vancouver on a road that is only passable about 7 months of the year. The second reason is that it is very very un-luxurious. There are no spas, or beauty salons, or fancy-pants-ery of any kind: it is a rough and tumble land still ruled by a majority of First Nations, and appealing mostly to the hunter-gatherer type of person, not the heiress housewife who spends most of her day ordering flats of Fijian water to be helicoptered in, and dusting the light fixtures of her 10'000 sq. ft "cabin" for two.

Besides, now that the Incredible Hulk is living in Bella Coola, it'll likely soon be missiled off the face of mother earth. Oh, you mean that wasn't real? Shit. I hope the Avengers don't plan to move up there too.

The Fizzgig Reaction

2008-07-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

It's been over one week since I decided I had to talk to my mother about her boyfriend, and I have yet to achieve that goal. I am at her house right now trying to find the right opportunity. I managed, right before she popped out the door to go have a bagel at his house, to express that I did not want him to come swimming with us, using the words "I don't like how I feel around him". Nice and PC, no name calling, and really, that pretty much sums it up.

I am beyond the point where I feel the need to lay out all of this mans glaring faults to prove to my mother how inappropriate a partner he is, because he does this admirably whenever he opens his mouth. There is no love between them in any tangible way, and they don't even seem to know each other on even the most uperficial level: their conversations always hinge upon "Do you like...?" and "What would you...?" over the bare basics (food, movies, music) that are supposed to be established in the first month or so of an acquaintance...they have been together for over a year!

More to the heart of the issue is how bad it makes me feel to see my mother trying and pandering to meet the emotional needs of this man, who ostensibly takes no joy in anything, nor has anything positive to say about anything except cars and nature, while in complete ignorance of her own esteem, desires and values. It seems that she simply doesn't want to be alone in her own company, and will endure any manner of man (provided he is present and at least not abusive)to avoid herself.

This guy has bothered me since about 2 months into their engagement, but this really came to a head last week when she invited him along to a family trip that had been planned for months ahead without asking us first. Well, I shouldn't say completely "without asking", what happened was she informed me over tea 3 days before departure that she invited him along and he replied that he would come only if she wanted him to, to which she replied that she wanted him to only if he thought he would enjoy himself. F**K. I should have cut the beast off at the knees then by saying "I DON'T WANNNAAAA" and pulled a Fizzgig(see photo)

However, in a foolhardy attempt to bring peace, and that it was my mothers B-Day trip anyway, I replied that if he really wanted to come he should just make up his mind to do so now (he wanted to wait till the morning of the trip, in case it was raining, for if so was he wouldn't go...we were just going to bloody Victoria, not sailing to the outer Herbenies for Christs sake). To my everlasting despair, he agreed to come along.

We first went to the Horne Lake caves, which was pretty damn awesome, and which was also nice and outdoors, so he didn't complain much there, except for one instance that just turned my stomach when we decided to slip off the path to see a cave that was supposed to be out-of-bounds. There were several other people wandering around where the path broke off, so I told them we were gonna pass the boundary, and asked "you wouldn't tell on us would you?". Of course, they chuckled and replied that there was too much ridiculous red-tape in their lives as well, happy journeys, we'll call base camp if we don't see again long after you're probably dead. So we happily proceeded, asses covered, until the Mr. says to me, "never tell anybody something like we going here, cause now that guy is just going to tell the ranger. You can't trust anybody". Bagah?! Am I so "young and naive"? Pish tosh! How can anyone stand to be on earth with so little faith in their human fellows?

From that point on, there was nothing that he did that was not extrodinarily aggravating, from not ordering any dinner at the "propagandizing" vegetarian chinese restaurant and then immediately after complaining of hunger and settling on 2 slices of the 75 cent homelesspeople special at a rundown pizza joint, to falling asleep at the Jazz festival. The entire trip, he had nothing good to say about anything we saw or did. And my mother was right there the whole time, constantly asking, "well, how about this?" Or "Would you like do blah blah blah?", with him just hoo humming in bland reply, and not coming up with a single thing that he would really like to do, except eat a particular flavour of Baskin Robbins ice cream (no other would do) and go car shopping (with no intention to buy).

The end result is that I never want to spend more than 5 minutes in this mans company again for as long as I live and breathe. I am very unfortunate to have met someone like him in one of the worst possible relationships. If he made my mother genuinely happy, that would be one thing, but they just seem to be two lonely depressed people sharing the same space.

I'm still young, so I can't possibly appreciate that maybe being with anyone is better than being alone when you get older, but I really hope that is never me, nor frankly anyone else I love.

No man is an island, but an island should always have some of it's very own healthy happy vegetation. A poor fate always awaits those rely on heavy imports.

Beninians denied, but Taiwanese Accepted!

2008-06-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well, we couldn't get our Beninians, but we did end up with the honour of hosting 2 Taiwanese women from the the University choir.

I've spent the last two days trying to get the house acceptable, despite working 9 hour days, and ended up at the shopping mart in pink sweat pants (sans undies!), a swim top, and a towel on my head because I couldn't seem to fit shopping, bathing, and dressing into seperate time slots.

After I was completely exhausted from all that, plus prep cooking for tomorrows dinner, I decided I needed to just relax and unwind, so I plopped in front of the couch and watched "Shake hands with the Devil". If you have never heard of the film, or the book, or the documentary, let me elaborate: it is based on the memoirs of Lt. Gen Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the hopelessly underfunded, understaffed, and cut off at the knees right from the word 'go' peacekeeping mission to Rwanda during the 94 Hutu/tutsi genocide, which saw 800'000 people killed in 100 days. It wasn't actually the best choice to end a long tiring day with, being a thoroughly taxing emotionally, but by God, what a film/reality.

I remember in '94 hearing very very little about it at all. The first time I read up anything on the slaughter, it was in Jared Diamonds "Collapse", which explored the socio-economic basis for the genocide beyond simple racial bias. But an exploration of the "externalities" of war fails to reveal the true horror of, holy shit, I can't drive on this road cause it's block up with dead bodies.

Despite the wealth of evidence for human evil offered up by the film, I don't believe that the existance of such atrocities is incontrovertible proof that human beings are a wicked pile of evil bastard bastards whose depravity knows no bounds. Rather, they are clear illustrations that human beings are extremely adaptabe (perhaps 'pliable' would be a better word) to either end of the spectrum and, under the right circumstances, are capable of just about anything, good or bad.

Here's to trying to engender the best of human nature, even though it is hard to get a good taste with the starting ingredients. We just need to find a good recipe for sugar, spice, snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails.

Beninians DENIED!

2008-06-16T17:52:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it!

My little house was for one glorious week to play host to two 20 year old women from the Benin choir that was to preform at Kathaulamiux, the bi-annual international choir that graces Powell River -reducing the time we have to dedicate to rednecked xenophobia to only 358 days of the year.

I've never been, and thought this was the perfect way to make my attendance compulsory. Not only that, our house would have the rare honour to play "Best of Canada" for visiting dignitaries. The moment I saw the Billet request tacked up on the Overwaitea bulletin board, I knew the moment of my destiny had come. When I heard we were getting women from Benin, I immediately got out the Atlas, read up about the place on the wikipaedia website, started making a Welcome banner, and even brushing up on some introductory French.

I remember being in school assembles in Japan and hearing the cautious words of the mayor (wow, bring in the big guns!), principle, and parents bestowed upon Japanese children who were being sent abroad for 2 week homestays in Nelson, BC. They were to be on their bestest ever behaivour, lest they should sully the great name and reputation for self-depricating humility that Japan has worked so hard to cultivate these post-war years. The students were always so nervous they might make an ass of their country, and I always wondered why they should worry so much.

Yet, with the arrival of the Beninians approaching, I was starting to get those hostness nerves...what if our house isn't good enough for them? What if they hate the food we make? What if they think we suck Spaghetti-Os? I think too many people have the idea that nothing they have could possibly fall beneath the standards of third-worlders, but anyone who has ever been understands that the rich are rich where ever they are, and the rich are always richer than the poor (duh), and I was operating on the assumption that if the choir had the money to come here, that they were probably higher up on the Beninian social heirarchy than we are on the Canadian one. I had already prepared our spare room, lamenting the cracks in the window and the feebleness of our spare bed, which consists of a piece of 6 inch thick marine foam laid atop two flats of wood that used to be for unloading slates of Campbells soup.

Then the worry passed and I imagined us all singing and hoolahooping out on the lawn, and created lasting memories of friendship that would bring all peoples of the world just one step closer to bliss and harmony.

And then they were denied visas! I wrote the PM, all piss and vinegar, asking why, oh why, had the Canadian government not seen fit to allow a choir into the country FOR A WEEK! to perform and make merry with the oh soo needing folks of our provincial town. I have been assured that my email has been directed to the appropriate Immigration minister.
This is the kind of arrogant bullshit that prevades thinking about third world people in general: can't let them go to a 'Have-lots' country cause they will love all our edible panties and dollarstore flash-light keychains so much, they'll never want to leave! And then they'll BURDEN the system. Excuse me, but the vast majority of immigrants don't even have social insurance, so how pray tell are they able to burden the system? Not to mention that they do most of all the work that really actually needs to be done, e.g. food production, sanitation, repairing infrastructure, manufacturing, while the lily-livered suit being paid 60'000 a year to attend weekly meetings on whether to invest in watercolours or acrylics sweats profusely and dribbles wasabi mayonnaise down his shirt fearing the hit his stocks will take a mass influx of hungry lazy poor flood the country and magically suck up all the welfare they aren't eligible for.

That and Benin is actually doing pretty well for itself, even on the world scale. They actually rate 4 places above the US on the Reporters without Boarders freedom of the press and political information rating scale. Suck it, First World; or in this case, you can suck it, but you can't tell anyone about it.

Cest la vie. We are on the list of emergency billets in case someone pulls out on the Estonias, but I really had my heart set on Benin. Oh well, at least I still have my keychains and edible panties to fill the great void.

Speaking of bad dreams...

2008-06-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

There is no end to the horror of loneliness and the twang of a synthetic guitar.

Just the two of us, and a cap gun, or...

2008-06-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

I fell somehow into the old haggle of part-time babysitting when I was a pre-teen; it was a stupid idea, I hated kids like Tibult hated hell and all Montagues. Besides the quirst for money to buy crystals and miniature wilderbeasts, I can't remember my motivation for getting into the business, but after having a weird dream about driving a motocycle into a convenience store made of sand in Morocco, I suddenly remembered exactly how I got OUT of the business; in two words, Russian Roulette.

It was my first ever job, besides selling old toys at the weekly town market, which I was too embarassed to ask "real' money for. I took care of two kids, a boy and girl whose names I can't remember. She was 6 and he was 8; I liked the boy much better, for he was clever, he didn't bitch and moan for hours on end, and he wasn't grasping or manipulative, which the girl, despite her innocent youth, was already well on her way to honing to a fine art. Being only eleven myself, I couldn't do anything terribly useful like cook dinner, drive, go shopping, or "lay down the law", so my duties, for which I was paid 2$ an hour, consisted mainly of playing with them and making sure they didn't get into any disasterous predicaments.

Earlier that year, I had begun volunteering away my lunch hours at Fernwood elementary answering phones for the office, all in a bid to forge some of the human self-esteem as I had spent much of my tormented childhood torment being a wolf, complete with running on all fours and biting people I didn't like. Parents calling the school had even praised my "polite manner" to the secretaries, and I was well on my way to securing my place in PeopleLand; taking care of little people seemed like the next logical step.

Usually, it went well. We watched TV (staple diet for teen babysitters), wrestled, played GI Joes and Dollies in equal measure, and then one day, well what can I say, I guess we got bored. The boy had recently gotten a cap gun for a present, and I had recently watched some manner of violent film (my very first film was 'LadyHawke', and my very favourite was "Robocop'), and somehow I ended up mentioning the two words that destroyed my babysitting career: Russian roulette. I've never been very good at withholding information, and when the doeey brown eyes of the children gleamed with interest as they asked "Russian rooolit? What's that?" I had no chance but to truthfully reply. The pieces of the puzzle all came blurring together as little-she went to grab her cabbage patch kids, and we'd see who was still smiling by the last shot. I remember very calmly explaining that in real life, Russian roulette was a very serious thing, and it killed people, and that in our gaming fun, we must understand the seriousness of the what we were doing, if it had been real life and all, but they just laughed and soon the tension and mystery of whose unlucky brains will paint the walls of the Kremlin tonite degenerated into shooting all the dolls in the head and then kicking them against the side of the garage.

That was enough to make me suitably distressed and I called an end to the activity and packed the two back inside, cursing myself for allowing it happen in the first place. Then I became extremely afraid: they were going to tell their parents, and I was going to be held liable for corrupting their fragile little minds, and possibly turning them into future homicidal maniacs!
I was always afraid shit was going to come pouring down on my head for everything I did back then: once, I sung "Under the Bridge" at campfire during presentations night, only I didn't remember the words, so I made up some new ones. I laid the rest of night waking, worried that the Chili Peppers were going to hear about my little copyright infrigement and Antony Ketis was going to decend down from California and smack the perm right out of my poofy 90's do'. So it was with this; I pictured the police showing up a my house some days after the incident with the news that one or both of the kids had shot each other, and I was being held cupable. I could have pissed myself with fear, except that didn't mean much at the time, cause i was always pissing myself over one thing or another.

The parents arrived home shortly after, and the little girl, no doubt smelling my fear on the wind, immediately broke into the tale of the wonderful fun they'd had playing the new game Charles taught them. I became delerious with dread and babbled some apology coupled with how I told them it was a serious matter, and oh god, please don't tell my mom. She drove me home in silence and simply never called to ask me to babysit ever again. And I never did. I think I saw her once in Thriftys two years later and hid behind the instant noodles to avoid the piercing gaze of her wandering eye.

Sometimes I think upon these things when I am considering what kind of parent I want to be to my eventual adopted child/ren. I'd like to be straight forward and honest about all things, because I hate hearing people bullshit to their kids: it only turns them into bullshitters themselves. However, I suppose a certain amount of restraint is in order to accomodate their level of understanding of the world. I myself was probably exposed to too much too quickly: I remember being terrified watching Harrison Ford screw his secretary in Presumed Innocent, thinking 'how could you do it, Han?". I was only 9 and sex is scary at that age...mind you I had no trouble watching that German terrorist get an icicle through the eye in Die Hard 2, which just goes to show again how ass-backwards our sensitivies are.

Still, if I can somehow manage to avoid playing potentially fatal games direct from the International Manual of Practical Tortures with children, I should make a damn fine mommy.

Fact-o-rama

2008-06-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

I just learned an interesting little piece of potentially meaningful trivia yesterday while perusing the pages of "Foods that fight cancer" -put out by the University of Toronto Cancer research laboratory, so no hippy dippy shit- Anyway, here it is:

Thanks to that enigmatic extra chromosome, people with Down syndrome, produce very high levels of vasopressin, which inhibits angiogenesis - the process by which tumours, like viral houseguests, commendere your bodies own resources to make blood vessels to feed themselves. All tumours depend on angiogenesis, without which they cannot metatasize, so rates of cancer in the Down community are vitually zero.

According to current statistics, almost 50% of the WASP land will contract cancer during his/her lifetime, and over 60% of those cases will be fatal. So look upon the face of the future, that happy happy face, and rejoice, for the meek just might inherit the earth after all.

And another thing about yo' momma

2008-06-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

In a flagrant attempt to NOT discuss the elation felt by the whole of the oppressed world at the Obama's fina-freaking-ly confirmed nomination, I would like to discuss something about more down to earth; namely, how words thoughtlessly misspoken can turn from innocent gossip (which is almost never innocent), to torches and pitchforks before you can say, "these aren't the droids you're looking for".

My boss is a very old woman, stout, strong, frugal with resources (read: cheap), but generous with people, stubborn as a dead elephant, but nonetheless, someone I generally admire, though I tend to complain about her in polite company, cause gosh darn it, it's sooooo much easier to be at odds with the world sometimes. However, something happened a few days ago that took me so aback, I'll never talk about anal beads in her presence ever again.

I guess it is a fact of nature that old women can never get enough of spreading the ill word about everyone they can. What happened: There is a young man living with his girlfriend and their love child in the top floor apartment above my store. The other tenants, all one of them, were very reluctant when Dr. Mr. rented out the apartment to said young man because he apparent came from the "wrong side of town": they must mean the side that doesn't have it's own pottery shop. However, he is a completely friendly and social chap, despite how many drugs his family did/sold/prostituted for/grew/refined etc....and after he had been there for a while, all the buzzing of the rumour bees seemed to quiet and they accepted that it was not a disasterously horrible man that had moved in.

Then a interesting combination of circumstances and the end/beginning of the month timing and all, blew in and almost ruined the man.

My co-worker and I witnessed a large truck pulling away laden with valuables, including a bed, a few days ago. We didn't think much of it, until Mrs. Owner woman enters, and says, "We better call Dr. Mr. it looks like they are moving out", to which I replied, "well if they were, they surely would have told him, cause they aren't assholes". But she phoned him anyway, being the previous owners of the building, completely unable to keep their noses out of what used to be but no longer is their business. And he had no idea what was going on. They had given no notice, what was going on, they signed a lease, and so began a great bitch session amoungst the old owners on the phone to the new owner about what a beast of man they had rented to, and someone should have known better cause his family was chalk full of Sex, Drugs, Teen abortions, Foodbank Fraud, and anything else that came to mind. Mrs. Boss woman, not content to destroy the man merely in the confines of the relationship he'd apparently offended, began to slander him to in-coming customers, and within 30 minutes of discovering this breach of trust and legally-binding rent agreement, she made the following statements:

"And you know, it wasn't just his furniture they were moving, they were taking stuff that we had put in the apartment, that couch was brand new, and the table and chairs...".

So now he is not only a no-notice-giving-moving-out-son-of-a-bitch, he's a down-right-dirty-took-the-prefurnished-furniture-bastard. And just as his right ear was about to burn a hole in the side of his head, the man himself appears, meets the full stares of everyone in the store and says, " hey guys, what's going on?" My co-worker politely, but directly asks if he is moving out, and he says no, so she asks about the furniture, and it turns out that, miracle of miracles, they bought NEW furniture! They were out fulfilling their duty as modern consumers, who are supposed to purchase a new carpet every 10 years, a new car every 5, and at least one musical instrument that no one knows how to play every 2, in ignorant bliss of the slander their shopping spree had bought them.

Mrs. Boss had made it all up, on the spot! I get the feeling she didn't even realize that she was talking out of what left of her raisiny old ass, ta boot? Jesus, and all without a whiff of proof of any fowl play whatsoever. They were even set to call the Fuzz.

Then it occured to me, this is how 'rumours' get started. Somebody just makes some shit up, and no one knows any better. Can you really trust anything anyone says about anyone or anything? I would like to say yes, because I try for the truth always, but isn' t part of the problem: once we hear and believe flat out stanky bullshit, we repeat it like it's truth. Trying to cut rumours off after they've passed even to one other person is like closing the sphincter after a fart has left anus. Pointless, just like a FART.

All I can say from learning a lesson from all this is that old women are terrible gossips, and try not to involve them in any of your affairs. And as the ancient Chinese say, "Never straighten you cap under a plum tree". Which has a deeper meaning in it's lunacy than any I could convey sensibly.

Democracy, now it's easier than ever.

2008-05-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

I had the chance, as a citizen of 'Duel', to vote in the last US election. I ended up voting in my grandfathers state, Ohio, so there is little doubt that the republican counters took one look at the Canadian return address, and flushed that ballot so far out to sea it's currently a grossly scribbled Atlantian's grocery list. Nevertheless, I am a consummate voter. In fact, I will never forget the only time in my adult life when I WASN'T able to vote, which was after coming home from Japan. I arrived home 2 days before the last general election, so I didn't bother to vote abroad because I was already registered at home, and would actually be there for the big shebang! Except, I was in Vancouver, so I figured, no problem, I will go to North Vancouver, which as a riding covers over 400 square kilometers, including my dingy provincial town, and does the awesome job of representing the simultaneous political interests of both Donkey Punchers and Retired Yuppy Douche-bags alike.
Our MP was convicted of 200'000 dollars worth of fraud almost 6 months ago, and goes about his business of representing the masses like nothing happened because government has poured so much money in the Olympics that it can't afford a by-election; but that is a rant for another time. In any case, I went the mall to vote with all the other zombies, only to be told that even though I was in technically in my riding, I had to vote at my assigned polling station, and no, I couldn't just re-register.

I felt like I had been stabbed right in the democracy (which anatomically is located behind and to the left of the spleen).
Then there was the indignity of seeing Harper's satan-crusted lips curved into a fanatically grin as he won a minority government that I COULD HAVE PREVENTED IF ONLY THEY LET MY VOTE IN!

Still, for an age where democracy is sooooooooooooo threatened, it is ironic that political participation is the easiest as it has ever been. I am the member of countless groups who email me anytime there is something fishy going down, and all I have to do is sign the pre-fab letter, add my own personal statement of disgust, and send it off.

They even send me "thank you for taking action" replies that make my chest swell with righteous pride, though it could be partly acid-reflux.

But I am always bothered by the sense that this isn't really what political participation is all about. Both Lenin and Gandhi would certainly agree.

Real political action has a certain element of sweaty masses marking in the streets and maltov cocktails to it that modern democracy is sorely lacking. The teamsters knew that if you wanted to stop the corporate bastards from laying off the union guys and hiring scabs for half the wages, the best way to stop them was to head down to the dock and burn their warehouses to the ground, not write a snivelling, annoyed letter to their MP.

In our present model of democracy, we seem to have forgotten that elected officials are not direct conduits from our individual will to the power of parliment. No one speaks for us but ourselves, and our responsibility for our fate and future lies in our ability to take action by ourselves, not in our ability to break out the laptop and pass the buck.

So I have taken "real" action, in the form of a petition against bill C-51, the anti-naturopathy bill that has, in it's wording, the capacity to make garlic illegal (for more info, go to www.stopc51.ca)

It took exactly 10 minutes to put the thing together and distribute it to five different stores. But now, I'm RESPONSIBLE FOR DEMOCRACY. I almost chickened out when I paused to consider that having collected all these signatures, I would actually have to record them and mail them off, and Oh, the postage (swoon). Worse than that, I would have, in my butterfingers, the political will of the masses which they fully expected me to forward to higher powers. But this feels good, like good sweet, goodness.

So, if you want to enjoy the smug satisfaction of feeling like you actually made a witch's tit of a difference to your political scene, start a petition: it's easier than baking a pie!
If that is too rich for your blood though, you can always sign up for and answer the calls-to-keyboard for our fair liberty and freedom to buy shit whenever we want, without leaving the comfort of your very own home from the following websites: www.rightoncanada.ca, www.nrdc.org, www.greenpeace.org, www.moveon.org.

Democracy: it's worth, like, five minutes of your time, dude.

Non sequitor: Why the hell do headlines always read "Troops deployed to stop violence". When has deploying the troops ever ended the bloodshed?

ooh what a world, what a world

Give me back my cockring, you asshole

2008-05-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

I know you are all dying to hear more about my Japan trip, sorry again to be so skimpy on the tell-tales and doodads, but that was almost 2 weeks ago, and like Slavery and the Holocaust, it's totally behind me. Nothing bad happened, I had a great time, and spent many hours riding the trains without getting molested, even once. Would you really like to hear more along that vein, or instead, treat yourself to the sore tale of pot of stupid I have bubbling in the present? No contest.

A little background first; I must admit I lied some months ago when I stated unequivocally that I was going to stop using a certain ubiquitous personals site because of all the bastards on it. I kept using it, and met someone I thought I might have good chance of mutual happiness with. I was contacted, we met, we talked, we laughed and made merry and dated for a month; everything was going so well. Apparently, he had seen me a work and had wanted to ask me out for months, and the website provided the perfect opportunity. I could imagine joking with folks at the wedding about the crazy story of how we met and our hi-larious first impressions of one another while everyone in the circle giggled and sipped box champagne. And then...we broke up. Quite suddenly. The reason given was that we should break up now to avoid the pain of having to possibly break up down the road, and we might have to break up later because one day I might want my own biological children and you can't provide them, so we'd have to break up then anyway. Bitch slap me please, because that was way too theoretical for me. We had been dating for a MONTH, you don't start thinking about shit like that until the bowl is nearly full.

I came the conclusion that had to be bullshit, because not one single line of reasoning there was applicable at all in the here and soon reality that we all occupy. Naturally I was angry that I had been broken up with without just cause, and I communicated that. The next thing I know, we can never be friends and I never want to see you again. Just to reiterate, we have not been involved deeply enough for anything even approaching such animosity to be born. But what the hell, obviously the objects in mirror were closer than they appeared. He returned the DVDs I had left at his place in the mailbox so he wouldn't have to see my offensive mug again, I likewise returned his belongings. Then I decided that I really wanted that cock-ring back.

I had gotten him a cock-ring while I was abroad, on the assumption that it was more of a "mutual" gift, that we were both going to share in naughty pleasures with. I am not usually one for Indian-giving, but I got only one night out of that cock-ring, and I felt I should have it back that we might explore greener pastures elsewhere together. After all, those things are expensive, and if that relationship had been a watch, I would have returned it to the store, receipt in hand, for a full refund after it crapped out on my ass less than a week from purchase. So I broke out the old email and asked for the cock-ring back, politely.

The response the came back was, 'I destroyed it. A low request".

Destoyed the cock-ring?! Like 'with fire and anvil' destroyed? I didn't think it was possible for us to come so soon and without event to the point where the enemity was such that destruction of mutual property was on the menu, even as an appetizer. My ex, with whom there was far more history and opportunities for such revenge, never did anything like that to my person or property, and having encountered the worse end, I am starting to re-think my definition of a bad break-up. I am still so completely flabbergasted by the sudden change of attitude, that the destruction of the cock-ring has made the whole thing far less tragedy than comedy, and made me thoroughly grateful that the bloom went off the rose before I went and bought a couple dozen.

At least now, I have established several criteria for cutting a new relationship off at the knees:

1) Never date anyone who speaks unforgivingly badly about their ex, and gives very forgivable examples of how bad said ex was.
2) Never date anyone who just wants to focus on their "career".
3) Never date anyone who finishes every sentence with "so I told him/her to fuck right off"
4) Never date anyone who says "I've thought about it, and I just haven't done anything wrong".
5) Never date anyone who listens to art rock.

And don't be fooled by the overconfident either, because despite the chaotic posture, it is amazing easy to dig your own grave with your head up your ass.

A contented mind is a perpetual feasts

2008-05-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long absence faithful readers, all 3 of you, but I have been living the guu raifu for the past couple weeks in my second home, Japan. And when I say "second home" I mean that in the way that the orphanage was a second home to Oliver Twist. Or at least it used to be. Imagine Oliver, all grown, returns to that grey-bricked prison locked in the busy, angry cold of London one day to find all the children laughing, running barefoot and smelling of patchouli, and the nuns strumming guitars and singing Joan Baez. My return to Japan was something like that.

I lived in Japan for almost 4 years, and only two of them had been whole heartedly voluntarily; the last two years were consigned to love and money, neither of which held their market value, and I left oh-so bitter like so much chinese melon, never daring to return and least of all to give Japan a single more red yen. All the time I lived there, I also did preciously little in- country travel, since it would have meant giving my money to the bastard Japanese. The list of things I hated about that country would have covered the circumfrance of Rita MacIntires waist several times around, but I am relieved to say that after a 2 year break, some perspective and a Japan Rail Pass, I am ready to let Japan, causiouly, back into my heart again. Platonically.

I started out at my friend Tanya's place and got the usual ears full of what was going on and how annoying Japan generally is to those still living there. I spent the next day perusing Tokyo for good eats. Tokyo is the kind of city that has so much of everything that is singularly impossible to find or do anything. Take book stores for example, which was another thing I was looking for. Any attempt at hyperbole would be ironically accurate, cause Tokyo has, like, a million book stores, so many that no knows where one is. In my mind, no where should need more than 3 books stores, one for new books, one for used books, and one for comic books and magazines, and perhaps a 4th for all their massive stash of pornography. But that is it. Nevertheless, the city boasts only 5 vegetarian restaurants, and only one of those serves raw food, so I didn't suffer too much searching it out. After I had my fill, I then had to do something with the rest of my day, and the only thing I saw from the train ride in that was large and singular enough to make a good target was the Edo-Tokyo museum. This is the bitch.

It looks like a giant lego tortoise.

As I headed up to the stair case, I had the vague feeling that I had been there before, which was offsetting, because not remembering a trip to a museum, by definition an exhibition house of all that is most interesting about humanity, almost certainly means the museum is duller than King Georges' tomb, and my lack of memory served me very right in this case. Edo Tokyo museum has about as much history and atmosphere as a your average McDonald. There were several displays that were really grasping for the most tenious connections to Japan, as Japan, despite boasting almost 1300 years of civilization, either couldn't or wouldn't fill their museum with their OWN history, and had turned over the main exhibition hall to nothing less than David Bowie! Why? Because he had performed in Tokyo in 1972 and wore some pretty funky outfits. Like this one.

I was way to mature to notice the bulge.

Or perhaps not, because the next stop was the porn shop I noticed right outside of Ryogoku station; entered somewhat accidently as the sign read "book store", catergory 4 obviously. Porn stores with proper toys and things are also bizarrely difficult to find despite Japan's international reputation for perversion, and this one was truly a blessed find. For 1500 yen, I managed to walk away with a "very comfortable item for the woman", the flashing magic eight pleasure. I seriously contemplated grabbing a DVD while I was there, but I had just gotten back and should well have remembered how bad Japanese poor is, all full of eels, "ouch ouch it's too big", and cold cum. I actually ran into a monk upon exiting the shop. Bad karma.

And so ended my first day. More adventures tomorrow. I had pumpkin for dinner, and now to bed.

Infection

2008-04-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

This is one of the first images that came up after I googled "gross", which for all those of you who know my true identity is a truly eerie coincidence. Which brings me to why I googled "gross". Last week, I fell into a rose bush doing some eXtreme gardening, and rather than getting a thorn in my side, was beset rather by a pain in the ass. I pulled out about 4 cm of the top part of the thorn immediately, and was horribly perturbed to feel and lingering mass somewhere in my junk. And it's not like when you get one in your finger, because you can SEE that to get it out, whereas my location would have tripped up even veteran members of Cirque de Soleil. Enter the human immune system! It can working this stuff out for itself, it just needs about a week...and some puss. Glory, hallowed be thy name, I got the rest of it out just this evening!

Hope you enjoyed that dinner as much the second time around.

A horse called "bail of tears"

2008-04-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

And the winner of The first inhabitated island to disappear to the murky depths due to global warming is.....drum roll please... Lohechara! It's too busy being underwater to collect it's prize, but I'm sure the runner up representatives from Micronesia will be pleased to accept the honour in it's sted. Congradulations, it's a watery grave!

When I grow old, I want to be fat and arthritic

2008-03-30T17:47:00.000-07:00

One of my good friends from university once penned a paper on the crisis of the aging population in Japan that began as a wartime news-real spoof, the catch line being "there is a new enemy among us, a grey enemy". The rest of the exposition is done around the supposedly true legend of Ubatsuteyama, the mountain where you go to cast off your burdensome old relatives. It is a real mountain in Nagano, so lonely grandma's tired old bones are likely now interred somewhere under the Olympic ski jump slide - the Olympics: caring for world culture, over our dead bodies - but I digress. The whole point is and was this: how did the Japanese get from abandoning the elderly to wolves and monster centipides of the highland wilds to worshipping them with gratuitious subtitles for daytime TV dramas and cheap medicinal bath salts, and then back to beating them in secret with the indoor shoe and leaving them at the bath house for weeks at a time? Is there any culture left that treats the elderly with the respect they deserve? I submit my voice to the many now that cry that the elderly are getting EXACTLY the amount of respect they deserve, so there.

I am actually being sarcastic. But that wasn't always so. I have only recently discovered the wisdom that some elders have to offer, and it is something to be respected when it is found. But as a demographic, it is easy to see why the elderly are largely so depised. Most have no intention of behaiving like old wise people. Rather, they spend their vast pensions -the last great pensions of this era- on sport cars, tropical vacations, and anti-aging face creams. After a lifetime of indulgence, their fattened arteries cave in and they suck up the last pennies of the inheritance they could leave their families battling the inevitable in the soul-crashing sterility of nursing homes, futile tubes lining every orifice, mumbling bitterly at the few relatives that could stand to visit. No songs or crafts passed to the grandchildren, no solemn words of comfort or wisdom to ease the fear of the great beyond. No insights into the true nature or meaning of this mortal coil. Nope, most old people die exactly as they lived; as dumb, fat bastards who wasted their lives in the pursuit of material possessions and drunken abandon. After all, growing old is inevitable, growing into a worthwhile human being is entirely optional.

And they want RESPECT! Because they lived through a bunch of time and crap, and that counts for something, goddamit. And they wonder what is wrong with "young people these days", who are so un-mindful of the glorious future they have inherited from their elders, like global warming, GMO death plants, and nuclear-genetic apocalyse, to name a few. Wow, thanks grandpa, and it's not even my birthday! And for all the oldies and fogies who think that hating the elderly is only the latest trend, I direct them to the writings of Aristotle, whom many no doubt picture as a wisened grey beard, who had this to say in chapter 13 of his Rhetoric: "they are sure about nothing and under-do everything. They "think," but they never "know"; and because of their hesitation they always add a "possibly" or a "perhaps," putting everything this way and nothing positively. They are cynical; that is, they tend to put the worse construction on everything. Further, their experience makes them distrustful and therefore suspicious of evil. Consequently they neither love warmly nor hate bitterly, but following the hint of Bias they love as though they will some day hate and hate as though they will some day love. They are small-minded, because they have been humbled by life: their desires are set upon nothing more exalted or unusual than what will help them to keep alive. They are not generous, because money is one of the things they must have, and at the same time their experience has taught them how hard it is to get and how easy to lose. They are cowardly, and are always anticipating danger; unlike that of the young, who are warm-blooded, their temperament is chilly; old age has paved the way for cowardice; fear is, in fact, a form of chill."

Yeah, Aristotle, bitches. Take that, old people.

Despite all this, I don't hate old people. I used to hate old people, and babies, and children, and the handicapped, and teenagers, and the middle aged: I used to hate people. But now I love babies and children, I think the handicapped teach patience, teenagers will grow up and the middle aged are literally neither here nor there. So you must wonder what inspired this rant, and it is simply this: old people can't stomp and clap to the rhythms of celtic music. I spend 3 hours this Sunday afternoon at the local theatre being entertained by an 8 part Celtic band, and the only problem with the concert was the audience. Most were silver haired, and left right around potty time, and few could keep up the clapping and shouting that celtic music demands for full enjoyment. Yeah, I know your gout is acting up, and your hands cramp easily, but that's why you pop a few tylenol from that easy-to-open bottle an hour or so before, so you can move with those withered bones to the beat! I've had this problem at several Powell River concerts: they are largely attended by those too old to properly enjoy them, and they tend to spoil the fun for those still living a few kilometres away from the grave, feet pointing due north.

So my only real point is this: if you are too old to clap, keep to your church social and poorly ventilated bingo hall. If fun wasn't something you gave up after retirement, then please live it up. For tomorrow may never come.

Sofa so good

2008-03-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

I am back in the other world! The world with walking space, and culinary variety, and sex toys! I am back in the world where conversations can be about politics, and art, and health, and spirituality! I am back in the world where I can do what I want for more than one hour a day! I am back in the world where going somewhere else is back on the menu. And that is exactly what I am going to do! I have just bought my plane tickets for a 12-day excursion from April17th-29th to my old stopping grounds, Japan. I am going and that country owes me nothing. I am just going to eat, spa, and make merry with old friends. And read public signs like this.

Remember, always bring your own!

Ashes to Ashes, wallet to dust

2008-03-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

It is often commented in irony that common sense isn't all that common, but there are fields that common sense just doesn't apply, like the workforce for example. There are rules and procedures that are to be followed because of the type of society and economic system we have where all the pieces interact but never actually touch, you know, like sex with condoms. In such a system, particularties are almost impossible to accomodate, and because of that flawed system, some asshole has to go 3 weeks in camp sans wallet and favourite pair of pants. Reason: I threw them out and they were promptly incinerated.

This was not NOT my fault. Again, I blame the system, the system that doesn't let me get to know a guy well enough to know that, monkey bastard that he is, he prefers to keep his wallet in his pants and his pants stuffed all cosy into the garbage can. This was the second time in a row I had found the offending slacks in the trash; not just over as if they had been casual flung aside as he struggled all blurry-eyed to get his work gear over his morning stiffy, but actually full on IN the trash. So I thought, well, twice means I'm supposed to throw this shit out, obviously, though they look like perfectly good pants, Maybe he gained a bunch of weight recently, it's not my job to make these kinds of value judgements. The job of a housekeeper is not to throw anything out that is not in the garbage can, however garbage-like it may appear, and to throw everything out that is in the trash, however, non-trashy it may be. We can't afford to be subjective you see, because one man's brand new pair of pants are another man's, well, disposable pair of pants. My manager came into my room at 10pm and asked if I knew anything about a wallet in room 32, and oddly enough, the pants they were in were also missing. Shit.

The guy was positively livid, can't say that I blame him, but he had a number of adjectives to call me that were well out of line, and I had to defend myself with the legitimate position that if he didn't want his crap to go up in flames, he should store his precious valuables a little further away from the rubbage bin. Still, it made me feel as though I had very little in the way of common sense, which would have told me not to throw out a perfectly good pair of jeans; however, my employers agree 100% with my position, and so my final 6 days of employment are not in jeopardy. Nevertheless, I had been awarded the supreme distinction of being the numero uno BSD (Bitch In Someone's Day) in camp Toba yesterday.

I'll have to savour it over a nice cup of piss and vinegar.

Ass-cracks (it takes one to know one)

2008-03-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

Wake up, eat breakfast, make beds, clean toilets, eat lunch, vacuum, mop, watch movies, sleep, repeat.

This is my brand-new life.

Now that I have shifted to the Housekeeping department, I have the time once again to commit my angst and anger to that infinite, perverse resevoir where it is always welcome: the internet. The boss came up yesterday morning after my 13th straight dishwashing shift (did I mention I have been doing split shifts this whole time? 10 hours a day, 13th days straight, of SPLIT shifts) and offered me the position of "permenant relief", which is a title that neither I, nor Ex-Lax can ever really live up to. No, at this junction, I think I am going to take the money and run, run away. After all, I've quit jobs despite both love and money before, and this has none of the former and only a tempting splatter of the later. But before I state that so sheepishly, I really ought to offer up a slice of what this like pie of barge life tastes like, and it is blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand.
Saying that I am working on a barge in the middle of nowhere gives a tinge of romantic envy that completely betrays how entirely mundane this atmosphere is. There are currently four barges here, chained to a precipice of solid granite that goes straight up from the sea; no beach, no forest. The entire length of walkable land space is confined to just under 200 metres between the barges; the rest of the area is a hard-hats only construction zone. The barges themselves range from the uber posh private fishing lounge one, with the jacuzzi we can't use cause marmots ate it's inner working, to the scrambled shanty town that I live in, which is 3 portable trailers (you know, the ones you had class in when the school was over capacity) held together by tar, plywood, and some amount of mastabatory residue from the poor bastards who made it. Speaking of which, the first day I arrived, the sea was bright white from the herring spawning, which Candy and I christened the "ocean of devotion", eliminated the other one hundred entries by the workmen for "sea of cum".

Logging and construction have often been referred to as Canada's answer to the French Foreign Legion: give me your strung-out, your lonely, your addicted, your foolish, and I will find them a high-paid job the earnings of which will refill the government coffers through tobacco and alcohol taxes by the next full moon. I am really afraid that this job is cementing in me that dreaded prejudice of the working class that "intellectuals" have a habit of succumbing to, but you know, it's not because they are working class that I hate them, it's because they're a bunch of monkey bastards! I've taken baths that were deeper than the best chit-chat I've managed to make here, and overheard some of the most hilariously shallow statements ever made in polite company-best so far is "You know what, I have the fuckin' sweetest ass-crack in the whole world", followed closely by, "Dude, they have asparagus! This day just went from good ta better".

There are many in fact who are genuinely sweet; one leaves a Werthers butterscotch candy on his pillow every day to thank me for cleaning his room, but a chain is only is strong as it's weakest link, and the weakest links out here couldn't even hold two strings of boiled spaghetti together. Nevertheless, some of the monkeys are even trainable. We showed them "Children of Men" to teach them to think about the future and the meaning of human life, and the general consensus on the topic was "intense", which depending on your accent is at least 2 syllables. Progress!

My biggest regret so far is not bringing any sex toys along. Ashamed as I am to admit it, after going on about the monkey bastards and all, a likely overabundance of male pheromone in the air supply has been taking it's toll, and I'm fastly becoming a screaming horn-dog. I can only pray that I make it out of here before I accidently sleep with someone, because it would be as much an accident as any flaming wreck on the roadside, and just as devasting to my good taste and fine reputation.

Right now, there is a transport loaded with 15 tonnes of explosives less than 50 metres from my window, so there is a good chance that this will be my last entry, but if I do survive, I should be back town-side on the 27th. Look for saner entries from then on.

Back to the basic

2008-03-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Eat, sleep, wash dishes, watch Angel, sleep, watch Firefly, wash dishes, use stationary bicycle, sleep, wash dishes, eat, shit, wash dishes, sleep, wash dishes, watch Angel, sleep, unload barge, wash dishes, sleep.

My life on this barge has been reduced to this. I thought I had amassed a store of calm to keep me livid and enlightening to all those around me, but 11 straight days of 10 hours of tedious work has brought all those top things I hate about ..... lists screaming to the front of my mind again. When I have more brain power, I'll share some of them, but for now I just have to say, the people I serve are ape-men, and the only language they speak is dripping sarcasm, interspersed with a liberal use of interjections like "fuckin'" and "bro'". I hope I see some mountain goats, for I am seriously wanting for civilzed company

Into the deep

2008-03-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry Picard, We'll have to make it so another day, cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store. I just got a contract gig washing dishes on a barge full of surly road engineers up in scenic Toba inlet, the middle of nowhere. My roommate got me the contact for the job as she has been scubbing said engineers toilets for the past 6 weeks, and I finally landed myself this most prestigious of occupations. But Charles, you may ask, why are you leaving your bagpiping lessons, awkward internets dates, and star trek convention behind for a job the even ape people of the outer Hebernies have mastered?
The answer is a disappointing, 'cold hard cash". See, if you do this job in civilization, where there are houses, people, and easy access to hard pumping pornographic magazines, you get a wage so low that you've never owned a new pair of shoes in your life, and you have to get at least 4 wipes for every sheet of toilet paper. But, if you do it odd long hours on a barge in the middle of nowhere, you have your summer vacation paid for in 2 weeks, and can celebrate the end of the long haul with tea at the Empress and orgy involving at least 10 paid professional massauers.
At least with no technology to distract me, except the wireless internet, I'll have plenty of time to keep this blog regularly updated...with stunning tales of dirty dishes, no less.

Science fiction keeps coming true

2008-02-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

Jesus Christ, we are actually in danger of being overrun and killed by armies of robots! Aren't global warming, genetically engineered super viruses, and mass starvation exciting enough? Do we have to endevour to die by every apocalyse imaginable all at once. I wish I could drink, so I could get drunk and just die like a normal bum, rather than wait to get my ass blown off by an bird-flu infected American cyborg.

Take that to the bank and smoke it

2008-02-28T20:17:00.000-08:00

Some random thoughts until my mind sees fit to provide me with coherent subject matter.

If you ask someone for "at least" such and such, you will get the absolute least that you asked for.

There are medical textbooks circulating throughout US medical schools that call deceased patients "non-survivors".

The world hasn't been the same since Andre the Giant left us.

Water is a non-commodity, and a renewable resource.

Nothing that happens on the stock market really happens. What really happens is the action that is taken on the basis of imaginary currency.

Most people believe only what they don't know to be true once they have already decided that no proof to the contrary would be worth considering.

Tom Cruise is totally gay: have you seen Legend? "Sweeter than bee pollen on a summer wind". How could straight man utter those words?

"what is sea-born dies on land, all may be undone. What is given burns the hand, what is gone is gone"

Some asshole named Paul Strathern thinks he can explain Kierkegaard in 90 minutes, and has written a book about it.

St John's wort shows promise as a retroviral agent against HIV and Epstein-Barr- the healing power of the yellow flower, dude.

Every corrupt government has its stockpile of lecherous petophile priests.

When you talk to yourself, in your own mind, who the hell are you talking to?

I've keep this silver polished and these napkins and tableclothes perfectly folded and untouched for over 30 years. If the Queen is going to stop by for visit, she'd better hurry the f*ck up.

Every existentialist deserves a good punch in the face.

The former inhabitants of Easter Island cut down EVERY TREE ON THE ISLAND in a manner that they never grew back. They didn't even use toilet paper.

I have no idea how old Patrick Steward is.

Viruses are evolutionary older than bacteria, thus bacteria have developed tactics to resist viral infection; however, some bacteria, like Bordetella bronchiseptica, become more virulent when infected with certain viruses. We're so hooped.

There's a cold wind blowing, blowing out the flame that used to burn inside me at the mention of your name. The Eurythmics are awesome.

If a high blood pressure medication raised blood pressure, it would be painfully obvious that it didn't work. Anti-depressants increase the likelihood of suicide, and yet their efficacy had not been seriously questioned until yesterday. If suicide is not a measure of depression, a baboon's ass is beautiful line of Shakespearean poetry.

No man is an island...except Akebono

Pope-omotion

2008-02-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

Powell River is a shining mini example of Canadian news media democracy since Conrad Black: we have two local papers and both are owned by the same company. One of them, I must be fair, is not really a paper and doesn't make too much pretense of being one: it is aptly titled "The Weekend Shopper", and the only bit of "news" to be found in it besides a listing of upcoming events is the "cover story", which I hear costs about $600, and is nothing but a full page, journalist contrived ad for the local business or "interest group" (superfluous use of " " fully justified). It's really hilarious to go to a business a see a clip out of said ad framed and hung with pride on the wall by the cash register, as if they had done so darn good that the media was forced to take notice and inform community, like "hey, these dudes rock out, go buy some chinese relaxation balls or window cocking from them. They'll get you in bed with girls and clear up your acne post haste". That's the kind of publicity money can't buy...except....you know...when it can.

This week, it was the Catholic Church's turn at the wheel, so if you were wondering why there are still babies starving in Africa, now you know where the money went. The Powell River Catholic parish is called the Assumption, which as my good friend Grumpus noted, waxes bright as a supreme Fraudian slip for a religious institution predicated on the intractible belief in superpowers unproven. The Assumption also runs a school from kindergarden to grade 9, which was the subject of this weeks "story" in the Weekend Shopper, the assumption being that god's women folk are not producing enough heirs to the faith to fill the classrooms, which amusingly enough, was exhalted by the ad as a serious plus point ("small classes of not more than 20 students, your child gets more one on one attention") as if they had done it on purpose.

The ad begins with a opening statement by the principle; "I want to clear up some misconseptions about the school; that we are strict disciplinarians, that we don't teach the curriculum, that we only accept catholics, none of these are true". They do teach the curriculum, since you have to be accredited, but as for the first statement, I hereby draw upon the experiences of two of my best friends, D&D. Man-D was born left handed and had his satan-hand tied to his desk by the good sisters to force his jesus hand into full expression, with the end result that today neither hand had reconciled with the other and even his best handwriting could easily be used to forge prescriptions. Lady-D had her falling tears collected in a jar that one of the sisters was going to use to...well that part noboby know, but I suspect it to be a ritual involving immortality, eye of newt, tears of catholics, and the blood of virgins. So strict in their disciplinary ways were they that on occasion they forbade the sinful expulsion of bodily fluids, and asking for potty time was tantamount to asking for purgatory. One boy, whom I later came to know in middle school, was apparently denied this priveledge once, and unable to contain himself after the sister had left the room, ran to the corner and pee-ed in the radiator, burning his little member in the process. Upon discovery, he had to be unceremonially dragged out of the room whimpering, "I burnt my weenie, I burnt my weeeeniiieeee". It seems then no surprise that he once, rather later, upon entering class in his fathers massive trenchcoat, pulled out a plastic rifle and a handful of shot-shells, aimed at his classmates, and mouthed "eheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh" as he let the the spent shells drop to the floor. This was before Colombine, when such behaivour was generally met with "boys will be boys", rather than metal detectors, police escort, court psychologist, and group therapy for the entire school.

As for the non-catholic inclusion policy, "why, we even had a little Buddhist boy some years ago", they article goes on to state that they prefer a comfortable 80/20 catholic/non-catholic split. Apparently, this gives the catholics opportunities to "stand up for their faith, and learn to tolerate and accept other ideas". You know what 8 on 2 sounds like to me? An unfair fight. It's one thing to be given the opportunity to stand up for your faith in an even contest, but I hate to think of all the crusty-nosed, puffy-lipped little kids who have to go home everyday and explain to their heathen/lesbian parents that they just got jostled for Jesus.

I am by no means against faith education; indeed faith is one of the few things that can keep us from narrowing our perception of the world only to it's finite and seemingly insurmountable problems. However, faith and religion are not one in the same, and are even less so when it comes to education. Assumption could better spend the money to encourage catholics to have more children; at least that is an advertising campaign that has a bit more soul that the false compromise of including non-believers merely to reduce the heat of the infernal hellfire that awaits them, and the burden of their parents overabundant bank accounts.

tread softly and carry a custom-made stick.

2008-02-03T18:38:00.000-08:00

My 3rd year University English teacher once taught us that there is no more uncapitivating start to a sentence than a statement beginning with, "there are...". Only Shakespeare could get away with it, as in, "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreampt of in your philosophy", but he was Shakespeare. So anyway, there are somethings that one takes pride in having a purely prejudical dislike of, and one of those for me was hockey. Beer and hockey. Beer, hockey, and men who partake of them. The island I grew up on wasn't so into it, mostly because the only time anyone got to skate, without ferrying over to the other island that was rich and had "facilities", was on the rare occasion that a small lake froze over. The one winter I went figure skating on Cusheon Lake, someone fell through the ice and was found bloated and yellow sometime mid March by a fisherman; he caught on the hook. Eew. I never swam in that lake again without looking down.

Flash forward to the move to Powell River, home of the Paper Kings, which has furnished the NHL with some 12 players since 1950. No really, those are good figures. The mill paid to a have a state-of-the-art recreation complex with 2 ice rinks constructed, ostensibly to foster culture in the men that came to get their fingers pinched off in the rollers. They even played host to the Soviet Olympic team in 1978! This place was crap ass redneck paradise, and everyone watched hockey and drank beer, drove trucks and littered in the woods. So naturally, I swore I would never watch a goddamn hockey game in my life. I had already watched an entire Stanley Cup playoff when I was 9 in a futile attempt to bond with my father; turns out it was the first and last playoff he ever watched, and thus my brief liason with the sport was also concluded.

Then yesterday, my sister invited me to the pantomime show of Sinbad the Sailor, admission by donation, and hot damn, the bitch was sold out! Just across the hall, was the queue for the hockey game, so the options were: go home and watch movie; simple enough, or stay and watch hockey game; unknown territory, possibly hostile. I complained the seats were harder than a catholic priest at a scout camp, but she prevailed, and $13 later, we were in said seats, waiting for the action to begin. A couple of things were immediately obvious: you have to bring something that makes a lot of noise, like an airehorn or a set of Scottish pipes, and you should be extremely grateful to our sponsors, Armitage Men's Ware, the cities ONLY supplier of skate boarding gear, and to Coast Realty, for selling you your home at 8 times its true market value.

The home team was playing against a team from South Surrey, and if you know anything about South Surrey, you would well expect at least 3 Singh's and perhaps a Kumar or 2, but, alas, they somehow managed to fill the entire hockey team with nothing but whities, despite the inherent handicap of their home demographic. Though now that I think upon it, Surrey is fairly evenly divided into former landlord-turned-security-guard Indo-Canadians, and poor, white ex-Euro trash that spill their slurpees on the skytrain and like to pry the doors open between stations so they spit out of them. So, shit, I guess hockey is still as white and the stuff it's played on, and that is pretty disappointing.

Despite the initial let down, I couldn't help but feel by heart beat quicken when the teams took the ice and all the noise started. I mean, it sounds like bullshit, but the athleticism of the sport is amazing. It's one thing, like the crappy, lesser sports of football and baseball, to run around, with your feet, on the ground, manipulating a ball-thingy, but it is another thing entirely to do this while skating on ICE, CAUTION SLIPPERY! It was pretty damn cool. And it was a good game; lots of drama, tension, overtime. There was compulsive, almost compelling, shouting, standing up and booing the referee for every penalty, and humming along to the tune of the "final countdown" at every face-off. This experience may even be worth repeating, but only until the swelling goes down.

To sum up: What's the most exciting part of leprosy hockey?

The face off in the corner.

Someone call a neuromicrobiophysiologist, this man is having too much fun!

2008-01-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

After years of conducing a shadowy, ellicit affair with my inner geek for years, I've decided to get out the rings and make it official: we're getting married, and we're doing it in style! To conjugate the joyous union, I just finished up the online ticket reservations for my first ever Star Trek convention! During the course of investigating convention possibilities, I noticed an uncanny number to be in Las Vegas, a land so wicked it has been abandoned by both God and Satan; even groundwater has to mercilessly dragged from neighbouring states and forced to flow through that urine-less wasteland. There was one in Columbus Ohio, but it would have meant being in Ohio, and another in San Francisco, a city which I have obtained personal proof of tolerability, but it was the possibility of seeing the heavenly glean off of Patrick Steward's head in the real-life flesh and blood that sealed the final selection. So darling, don't you call me March 7-9, 2008, cause I'll be in Seacasus New Jersey, somewhere between the Romulan Empire and DS-9 yuking it up in an limitless galaxy of geekdom. I hope they have vegan appys. And please oh please, don't let Patrick get called away by the Royal Shakespearean Society on urgent elicutionary business before he spots me over the glare of 10'000 plasticine Kilgon brows and becomes mine forever.

There are many preparations to make for sure: reservations for my aunt's couch, a proper Dr. Crusher uniform-NOT made from recycled flannel pyjamas-and accessories. I'll certainly need a triquarter to scan for tachion emissions from sweaty overweight vulcan impersonators.

Yes, there is a large part of me that is deathly afraid of being overrun by the nerdom and spending 3 days in Sci-fi hell surrounded by the Daemon and all his minions, but even though I am going it alone at this point, I am hoping that the well- rumoured federation commununity inclusiveness will prove true and that they will embrace me as one of their own, even though I can't quote each episode by star date, nor do I know any of the root killing verbs in Klingon.

This event should get filed in the Life binder, subject heading: things you would hate to die never knowing that you would hate to die not knowing them. We shall see indeed.

In the meantime, please follow this link and see what all the fuss is about.

Platitudinarian, out.

PS. Heath Ledger died, and that sucks too. Oh and some other stuff happened in the world, but nothing of consequence, I hear.

Make it so

2008-01-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

I love Star Trek: The next generation. It is a beautiful illustration of what a rational world would be like. All the characters, even the Kligons, no matter how frustrated they become, after a brief indulgence of fanciful anger or irrationalism, never fail to succumb to humility and mercy and find the true course in the end. What the shit? I always thought I wanted to raise a child on that show, but how on earth would they navigate the social uptuckery of real life? The likelihood of having an emotionally charged conversation that went as smoothly as the "Anbojitsu: the ultimate evolution of the martial arts" conversation between Riker and his father is only slighty greater than getting ones hands on a chia pet that actually sprouts.
If I ever yelled at my dad and told him, "it should have been you that died, not her", I think he would completely loose his shit at me.

Flashback to the real world. I recently found out about the death of an acquaintance on my friend's blog. I felt my heart in my shoes when I learned the news. In any case though, she was not as close to me as I was to my friend to whom she was very close: it's a strange thing to try to assign meaning to relationships that gain it by proxy; ergo, the friend of my friend is my friend. However, right after I felt the sadness that comes with knowing, for certain, that another beautiful life has gone out of the world, I also felt a distinct annoyance that I was not at liberty to express, because no one wants to be that asshole that turns someone elses tragedy into their personal grievance. That feeling was anger at having read about it on a blog. Having to be impersonally informed of a friends death on a blog has got to be up there with getting a text message break-up, or a giant cookie with "Fuck U" written in hot pink icing on the top. Of course, I couldn't say that when calling to give my condolences, because then it is an insult to the pain of a loved ones passing to be childed for not informing those mutually concerned through the proper channels. So, since it was an inappropriate thing to read on a blog, the only appropriate response can be to hereby express my grievance on my own blog, and thus complete the cycle of crap.

In the world of TNG, this would be a conversation that would have been had at the right time, by the right channels, but since neither war nor poverty have yet been abolished, nor has humanity mastered the fashionable male once piece suit, I suppose this most disconnected of forums will do. I would that it was not so.

"The rise of feminism" ha ha, now no one will read it

2008-01-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time I had a lovely friend named Sparrow. She and I held the world in our hands, and jived it up to the haunting vocals of Whitney Houston's Bodyguard soundtrack. I felt terribly important when I went to her house because her father was a real artist who constructed a brass mermaid that they named a cove after in my town. I told her all about how I wanted to take the cutest boy in class down to St Mary's lake and watch the sunset from the low bluffs...maybe even hold hands. We played on the trampoline and slept in the middle of the golden field behind my house: she even liked my rabbit Bun Buns, who was oddly unpopular with the other children, all on account of being too lean and having screaming hot pink eyes that bulged. We were the bestest of friends for 6 whole months. Until she betrayed me.

Grade 6 was year 1 of my human experiment; you see, up until that point, I had been a snowy owl, cougar, Howard the Duck (Hellooooooooo Lea Thompson), and a wolf, and decided abruptly, i.e. got interested in boys, that I wanted to be popular so people would be better able to relate to me. Sparrow was one of the my first human friends, SCORE! By this time I was wearing second hand Guess t's and jeans with belt, had a micro perm, and had ventured bravely into the accessory world of lip gloss and dolphin-embelished harmony balls; in short, I was hot shit. I somewhat forsook my wolf friends and started hanging with the gang the library, playing ouija board and laughing at the pictures of ho ho's and ding dongs glossing the pages of "Our bodies, Ourselves". This alternated with recesses spent in the girls washroom spreading malicious gossip and peaking at our friends with their pants down from the next stall over. Glorious times.

It was right after the winter holidays that I noticed Sparrows behaivour towards me had changed. At first, she simply declined to hang out, no problem. After all, 11 is a busy year. Then she started to be outright belligerent. She would start by mocking my clothes, which were the style at the time. Mostly saying, well, that they were't new. Hey bizatch, you try living on potato soup for a year and see how important brand-spanking new shirts are to you. She even told the boy that I wanted to take him out to 'some rock by the lake' and rape the shit out him. She would tell the other girls not to choose me for the volleyball team during gym class, and I'm good at volleyball. See, apparently I wasn't popular enough. Even though I was human and now had fully more than 2 other friends, it just wasn't good enough for this one.

I cried and cried, I wrote her notes and called her and asked her why she didn't want to be my friend anymore, and she never said we weren't friends. I would call after school to ask her why she had treated me so poorly, and she said that she hadn't and that we were still friends. I just couldn't get my head around it.

Eventually, I gave up on her, and so did many of the people she seemed to be trying to impress. Most of the others, by some strange coincidence, did like me more than her, and her abuse of me solidified her reputation as something of a cold hearted bitch to be avoided. That did make losing my friend a bit easier, but not any less bitter

That was my first vivid experience with the lies and betrayals that are included in the scope of the human experience in relationships. Anyone else care to share?

Today is the first day of the end of your life

2008-01-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry to have to get obscure and partially serious, but thanks to the internet and the kind folks at blogspot, I have a place to unload these periodic feelings of darkness, and this one is upon me: no amount of regret, atonement, or apology can stop the end.

It is one of those truths that jerks us from childhood into adulthood, and delivers a shock from which many never recover. Simply, we are all capable, and guilty of, committing some act that has starts the final countdown to the bitter end of something. With climate change, it's the the end of the world as most of us know it, with that off-colour comment about Sai Baba being a pedo, a potentially beautiful friendship. It's probably the realization of this inevitability that strips the elderly of their hope for the future and turns them so bitter, longing for the pennywhistles and moonpie of the bright times that were. There are occasions in life when one is made to eat that truth full. Mostly, it's the news, the wars, storms, weirdness, extreme apathy and vapidity, but sometimes it's is also closer to home.

Several months ago my roommate and I were caring for a man who was dying of stage 4 melanoma. He was attempting the Gerson therapy, but was not following it properly, and hadn't bothered about his condition for over year after the appearance of the malignancy. He past away, trying to modify his therapy to the very end, always saying, "what about this?' or "Do you think I should...?". You can't really step back weeks before your impending death and go, "oh shit, this is kinda serious, I guess I better get with the program". It has it's claws in, and probably won't let go, unless you can pry them off with the jaws of life. Hey, it has been known to happen. However, the majority of us only realize what a pigs-ass mistake we've made well past the point of remedy.

I almost hate parents and school teachers for teaching us so judiciously that all you really have to do to make things right is admit your wrong and take responsibility for your shit. It seems like most of the time, even my own shit is completely beyond my power to flush, to say nothing of the steamy piles in the neighbouring stalls.

This whole thread of consciousness is reminding me of an episode of Homicide: life on the streets, in which a detective has to stay with a man who had fallen between the train and platform, his lower half practically torn off, but numb to his senses. It was understood that he was going to die the moment he was extracted from his predictament, and the whole epsiode was spent having him confess all his fears and hopes, blah blah blah, to the stone cold lieutenant, who was reduced to tears by the end. The event that had cause the mans death had already happened, by the consequences were a little late in catching up to him. I guess you could save that event is birth for all of us, but people are very interested in the petty details of the thing, cause we are at heart, well, kinda petty. I mean, a single person is exposed to a gazillion (metric) carcinogens in a day, but which burnt muffin crumble or whiff of cigarette smoke is the straw that finally broke the DNA's back? Which Mars bar finally makes our insulin receptors go, "no more Joe, it's diabetes mellitus time for you, bitch"? How do we catch ourselves before we vomit in our shoes and slip right off the pooky proddy of lifes stony path?

A spirtualist group in town presents various indy film screenings, amoung which is the film, "The power to forget", or something like that. The gist is that all our problems disappear if we can simply leave the past out of our present thinking, and focus on only what confronts us at the moment, in the moment. However, the past is forever following like an angry, bloodthirsty shadow, and it seems that if you cut the threads of fate you've tied to yourself, you'll lose your way and die all the same...maybe just a shade more confused. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and people cannot be blamed for not forseeing the consequences of swimming in that shiny black pool surrounded by the yellow tape when they were 7, but we are giving ourselves too much credit by believing in our supreme ignorance of the potential disasters that accompany many of our daily habits.

Is there are remedy for this? We are cursed with memory as close as dreams to sleep. So we give it up to the you-know-what that be. Fatelism, as cop-outish as it is, has survived as long as it has because eventually we must come to grips with our relative powerlessness in relation to the events that shape our lives. But we do have some power, and we must realize where it ends and the realm of No-control begins. So, when you can't do it, your higher power can. Remember, it goes in the recycle bin.

From Pediatric to Geriatric in 12.5 seconds

2008-01-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years everyone, New York dropped the ball again, that's why they lost the twin towers, ha ha ha. But seriously, the year 2008, a year that should have seen Skynet running planet earth, is finally upon us. And I even like the colour.

Last New Year, I got stinking drunk on the generousity of others booze and french kissed another woman while sitting across the lap of a man I had a serious affection for. Despite that, which must seem like a wet dream come true for many, the night was an embarassing and abject failure, though I did gain from it a lesson in stark reality and brutal humility. That, and there are people you can't sleep with no matter how many drugs they've had, and isn't that reason enough.

This year was much improved, and happily less remincint of Girls Gone Wild '06

The early eve threatened much of the same, only with jail-time. The local place to be admitted a staggering number of underaged drinkers and smokers in a misplaced effort to funnel some cover money into a composing toilet, or some other hippy shit. Since I desperately hate seeing teenagers make a pisshole of the glorious gift of life and springtime youth, I lasted less than 15 minutes on the dance floor, squeezing by couples savouring their first ever public gropings and trying not to step on anyones converse. The next place on the list was being liberally supplied with polka music and had a wheelchair ramp jimmyridged especially for the festive occasion; smelled fishy too, and all hope of fun to be had there was abandoned, medical teams ordered not to resuscitate.

Just when all hope seemed lost, our neighbours came outside for a light sabre duel, and invited us in for champagne and word based boardgames, which we happily whiddled away at until 4:30 in the morning. A scrumptious success sans sycophants (10 points!)

The lesson: playing the game scattergories is much more fun on New Years Eve than playing the game drunken lesbo-pretender wants to hide the salami.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Doctors without borders

2007-12-21T22:16:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine who watches too much TV has been coming over lately with episodes of the "medical drama" House, and I have, after viewing about 8 episodes, rendered my verdict on it, 7 episodes too late.

This show is supposed to come off as hip and fresh - O'mah god, the opening theme is by Massive Attack,duuuuuuude - and unravel the fascinating inner workings of man and disease. Actually, it is the worst kind of fiction, namely, fiction that pretends to 'inform' it's audiences on real truth through the vehicle of dramatic story telling. Omar Epps throws around terms like 'MRSA", and "Epstein-Barr", and wiz-bang magically transports the audience to medical fact-land, where they take up residency, earning full bullshitting rights and privileges immediately upon entry.

I admittedly speak from a biased point of view against allopathic medicine, as I am now staunch believer in nutrition-based approaches to health, falling under the knife myself for no good reason no fewer than 14 times, and contracting crohns disease after being on antibiotics for 9 years. As much as some of my hatred for this program is based on the genuine awfulness of watching one's real-life experience with lumbar puncture, biopsy, and exploratory cameras up all ends dramatized for prime-time, the gut-wrenching clincher is in the message: drugs will cure, and doctors know all. This is pure B.S.

I do not mean any offense to medical practitioners. All doctors worth their weight in tuition debt should readily admit that diagnosis is tricky, and workable treatment elusive even under the best circumstances, whether they can admit it to their patients, who oft expect to be cured of self-made illness without the least expense of personal effort, or not, but you would never know that from House.

House teaches that no amount of restraint should be used regarding diagnostic or treatment methods. In one episode, a patient has exploratory surgery 4 times in under a week, because, hey, bringing a person to the very brink of DEATH just to find out what is wrong with them is hardly bad for their health at all. I don't know about you, but just can't start the day off right without a hardy cup of dark abyss of eternal nothing. One statistic that gives some idea of the trauma that surgery causes the human body is that surgical intervention during a pregnancy 25 weeks or under will result in the death of the fetus 90% of the time. That figure drops considerably as term progresses, but GODDAMN, that is just the affect of applying anathesia; that figure does not take into account the injury the required the surgery. Another factoid to kick Dr. House in the balls with that hopitalization, surgery, and PROPER application of medical drugs together is the 3rd largest cause of death in the United States today, surpassed only by heart and lung disease. That statistic also does not take into account malpractise and the abuse of medical drugs; that means doctors doing their honest best and patients taking their drugs exactly as they should be are producing a yearly body count that would make Stalin blush.

None of this phases House at all. For that team of wacky-fresh team of brutally honest medical geniuses who tell it like it is, the beauty is all in the mystery of diagnosis, after which inevitably follows cure, all this regardless of the reality that less than 10% of named medical conditions are curable by allopathic methods. While watching all the goodlooking people draw threads of connection between gout, cough, rash, and kidney failure, and come to their latent measles retrovirus conclusion is bloody fascinating, this process itself highlights one of the major flaws in the current medical system - no treatment can commence without a diagnosis. Not that this stops some doctors; my mothers boy friend was prescribed anti-epileptic medicine for non-specific insomnia for the sole reason that one of the side effects is drowsiness.

Diagnosis is paramount mainly because the only treatment options open to most doctors are drug related, and drugs operate on extremely narrow bandwidths, never strengthing the body's system, but instead selectively blocking the mechanisms that give rise to symptoms. Seratonin re-uptake inhibitors, SSRI, for example, block the action of the enzyme Monoamine oxidase, which breaks down seratonin, assuming that the overactivity of this enzyme is causing a seratonin deficiency: this assumption has never been proven. And when you assume, you make an ass of u and me. If seratonin is lacking for any other reason, SSRI do fuck all but keep a bunch of raggedy ass old junk seratonin hanging out in your brain and suppressing the production of the sweet new stuff. Come one, which tastes better, the pie your momma just pulled out the oven, or the one the whino in the alley scored during an afternoon of bin'in? Everyone knows fresh is better.

And for anyone who wonders who's ass I've pulled from figures from, I hereby refer you The China Study by Colin Campbell,and Pubmed, the National Institute of Health's online journal archive.

Watching a doctor call his patients lily livered idiots, undress his attractive junior partner with a state-of-the-art robosurgeon, and have a mans testicle explode in his face is great drama, but, please, leave open the window and let that whiff of truth out before it stinks up the whole place.

Enter the mind reader, again

2007-12-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

Gotta remember, oh yeah, I was on an island with pirates and they had these dogs with no fur, then something about the ship being a helicopter, and then I was naked in the bathtub and started having a seizure, was that a man or fish?

Automatic doorlocks at the Heartbreak Hotel

2007-12-16T14:25:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, following a period of intense heartbreak, I decided to run a personal ad on a rather ubiqitious personals site to see if I could, as the old adage goes, "get over an old man by getting under a new one". It was a tempting theory, and living in a tiny town seperated by water on all four sides, it seemed far more likely that I would meet someone 'filling' online over waiting for the one to come riding a white steed across the Overwaitea parking lot with roses in one hand and 200$ worth of Canadian Tire money in the other. It was to my greatest surprise and dearest dismay that this proved not to be the case.

Not only does my personal ad elicit responses from potential lovers who state that their ideal first date would involve running over a deer on the highway and taking it home for dinner," after which rompous time would ensue", but there are locals I KNOW and have SPOKEN to on more than one occasion who respond to my personal ad as if we have never met before. What are they thinking? That I would say, "Who was that masked man?...Only with..out the mask...oh. The only other potential explanation is that my photos are completely inaccurate representations of what I look like in real life, despite being unmolested by photoshop. If this is true, I am logically forced to conclude that I look much worse in person than on picture, which runs into a downward spiral of regret and diminishing self esteem, concluding with me sitting on my fat, pimple-ridden ass in the basement eating soggy gluten-free sponge cake and listening to Sarah McClaughlan; I just don't want to go there.

In any case, I have not only abandoned the web an appropriate place to seach for ones life partner (though Shaadi.com still has my number), I have also abandoned the search; the position has been filled. As it turns out, I had no trouble finding people even here to share the cold nights with, and I am rather embarrassed to admit that I have recently had to break out the other hand when tallying up the notches in me britches; however, during this experimental adventure into 'ho-dome on Operation "F*ck the Hurt Away", it has become mightly apparent that this sort of behaivour is alienating to the soul, and makes it in fact more difficult to piece Humpty Dumpty back together again (whoever said he was an egg?).

When love that was is gone, it is far easier to attempt to deny it's existence in the first place, as is a common habit of mine, because that denial protects the believe in the unwavering and eternal nature of that one feeling that is constant even while we are not. I would prefer to believe that love is a relative constant, but that it is easily subsumed by the negative and uncompromising emotions of the ego, and that desire to obtain an impossible happiness that is ours and ours *alone*. That doesn't change the bleak reality that when we "lose" the love we had for someone, we face the horrifying prospect of never sharing anything meaningful with that person again; never hearing them sing or seeing them naked or reading their minds, and it is this fear that breaks us. It cuts us to the quick.

That being said, adaptablility is mankinds greatest assest, and with the right stiching, and a liberal supply of multivitamins, the heart and soul can and do mend, despite our best efforts to the contrary. And as much as it also sucks to admit this, it doesn't really matter who it is: love is always our gift and even though we may give it away, we are apt to retain the greater part for ourselves as a starter ro grow more to be given away.

You know, like sourdough.
And I can bake some sweet-ass bread

Hey bitch! How do you spell "misogynist"?

2007-12-10T21:31:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago, some friends and I had the opportunity to enjoy a free viewing of the very stats orientated documentary titled "Tough Guise: violence, media, and crisis of masculinity" at the local community centre. Given that the majority of the male population of PR is employed in the traditionally manly arts,ie. forestry, auto repair, Metallica cover-band, it was a highly appropriate choice. And then there was "Beowulf", in all it's animated "we hear you have the finest mead and wenches in the land, let us partake of them, and then we'll kill your monster" glory. If I had not seem these films virtually back-to-back, I think much of the point might have been lost, but with it still fresh as morning baked bread in my mind, the point came screaming through crystal clear: men are fucked.

I don't mean that the way that it sounds, because men can't be fucked without women being all assbackwards and upsidedown too: the "fucked" in this case is not meant to lay blame, but simply to sum up the state of things, and fucked they are.

A couple of excellent points the film makes are that a) that the values most men associate with masculity, ie; strength, stamina, bravery, physicality, are largely portrayed through a lens of violence, not character, and are in many ways more damaging to men than to women. 75% of the victims of male homicide are men, 90% of the victims of male physical assault are men. And b) the emotional side of that, the anger, calm, distant, detached ideal also prevents many men from fully enjoying the warmth and support that truly loving, trusting, nurturing relationships might provide them. No wonder they turn to the drink!

Of course, the best part about this complex is the misogyny. It never fails to amase me how many of my male friends can recognise the most subtle insinuations of racism, agism, and almost every other -ism, but draw a complete blank on sexism. When I think of this, I am drawn back to late night game of Shadowrun I shared with a mixed table in my first year of university, where the topic of conversation somehow turned to the sexual habits of male gynacologists. One guy at the table remarked to the effect of, "How do you go home and get it on with your wife after you spent all day looking at strangers hoos hoos?" To which, a female member replied, "Well, you're wife's not a cunt, yeah". The silence that followed would have chilled the blood of Odin.

Women and their "emotions" are the enemy. Beowulf taught me that. In the present, and past, state of Masculinity, women have been portrayed as little more than obstacles on the path to Man's true, righteous self. They are liars and manipulators, immoral and selfish. These objects are either enjoyed and quickly cast away, or "fallen prey" to, in which case the man tends to suffer great humilation and ends his life full of abject self hatred.

The biggest problem with all of this is that, self-evident as it is, just because we can identify the wicked-sick-and-f*d-up gender politics that shape our worlds, and by extention ourselves, we can't easily be personally freed from them. Women are equally taken up by the expectations of the patented "strong dumb-ass" brand of masculinity, and therefore must bear some of the responsibilty. When the narrator and director of 'Tough Guise" talks about the need for men to open up to their own feeling and emotional realities, a small part of me thought a) he must be gay, and b) I don't want men crying all over me, shit. These are not my actual feelings, they are basically media/experiencial implants, but that doesn't negate the potentially damaging influence they have.

With misogyny and masculinity going so hand and hand, it must also be difficult for many men to know if they are misogynists or have such tendencies or not. The word itself conjures up notion of such virulent hate that few would feel it applied. I know some who seem to think the mere presence of women in their lives (mother, sisters, aunts, cousins, oh, and there's a Lesbo in there somewhere too, I just know it) precludes the possibility of their having misogynistic feelings towards women in general. Does having a woman for a mother preclude being sexually attracted to women in general? Come on dudes, get with the program.

I think there could be a self examination that might put things in perspective for those who dare to try it. Are you ready, here goes the

ARE YOU KINDA MAYBE A MISOGYNIST QUIZ

1. When you talk about woman in the general, are your comments

a) Mostly derogatory, with or without context
b) Sometimes derogatory, but only when I thinks it's really funny
c) Rarely derogatory, I talk about women mostly as individuals

2. Do you think women are "playing games" with you?

a) All the time
b) Sometimes
c) Never, no more than I do

3. Can you socialize comfortably in the company of mostly women?

a) Not really, I need booze to take the edge off
b) For a while, but not indefinetly
c) No problem, as long as they aren't a steaming pile of A*holes

4. Do you like going down on women

a) Hell no
b) As long as it's clean
c) I have my diving gear at the ready

5. How important is it to you that you get your partner off good and proper?

a) Not at all, just so much as I get off.
b) I won't enjoy it as much if she doesn't
c) It's of paramount importance that we scale the heights of pleasure moutain together.

6. Would you share your vulnerable emotional moments with a woman more often than a man?

a) Only if it was tears, cause my man friends would beat the shit out of me
b) Equally between both
c) Why not, she's more likely to make me drink some soothing camomile tea afterwards

7. Will you still respect her in the morning?

a) No, she's a dirty whore, sweet, dirty, dirty whore.
b) We know each other, right?
c) Well, she knows what she's wants, and if it's my hot man meat, I'm cool with that.

If you answered mostly A, you need to look over your baggage, search for items that some unscrupulous dealer planted in it before it was checked and removed the offending items before you end up doing life in a Thai prison. Ask yourself why you are excluding women from your emotional life and how that might be hurting you.

Now that you have used these 7 muliple choice questions to radically improve your life, go enjoy a plate of homous and warm pita bread, cause you deserve it!

Join the evil empire now and get one month free

2007-12-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

There is a new phrase lately popularized that summarizes the state of being by which a person, or persons, expend vast amounts of energy getting fit without doing any of the activities traditionally viewed as exercise, ie. swimming, farming, running from rapists, bar fighting, and training ones blade on wild tundra beasts. Hence forth, indoor euro-weenie techno music aerobicoolies are to be called "gym potatoes". Until 2 weeks ago, I was not among their rank. I have exercised vigilantly in the privacy of my own home for 5 years now, and am proud to call my ass my own, but recently due to the urgings of my roommate and the irresitable home lull of the season 6 DVD box set of Angel, I was connived into joining the only gym within walking distance of our house: Curves International.

They first got us with the promise of a free trial week: bring a friend! Apparently, the week according to Curves lasts only 3 days, and closes early enough on Saturday to allow the Seventh Day Adventists ample time to enjoy the tomato soup and cucumber sandwich portion of their worship. We arrived a few weeks after receiving the invitation at the Newcomers social, feeling pretty special about it, and were promptly weighted, measured, and asked to set the some "goals". Like, SCORE!
It was nice in a way, as a woman amongst women, not to have to worry about too long stares at the camel toe of my too tight spandex exercise pants, nor about any potential feelings of competition from fellow workouters, since they were all old and overweight, and therefore, who could possibly care. There are also no televisions, only Curves approved hydraulic workout machines, and techno remix Bryan Adams and Billy Idol hits to set the beat for some low intensity fat flogging. Their campaigning is relentless: there is not a moment that goes by that there is not some promotion that must be taken advantage of, or some fee that will be waved for a limited time only. We got in on the half price off the membership and rest of the year free deal, which ends...oh, right around now.

I deliberately investigated as little about them as possible before making the decision to join, but having been at it for a couple weeks, I finally felt compelled to find out what my hard earned cash was buying besides firmer thighs. And it is a horrible travesty.

The founder of the company is a Texan named Gary Heavin, who found Jesus in rich white mans prison, where he was serving time for failing to pay child support. He has since dedicated his life to taking money from overweight middle aged women and using it to pay militant anti-abortionists to harass pro-choice doctors and proponents. The thought that my fitness fund is going to print off more "Support retroactive abortion for unwanted Liberals" bumperstickers makes my blood run cold.
Although the Dorothy Spornak look-a-like who runs this particular facility assured us that the franchise is 100% independent and that Gary won't get a red cent of me moolah, the fact that she gasps in horror when towels are placed only half in the laundry hamper makes me wonder at her ability to grasp the in's and out's of the businesses financial dealings.

Once the term is up, I think it'll be back to wrestling fish and fucking in the bushes, the way exercise is supposed to be.

Show me your boobies! (titties not included)

2007-11-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

I'll never forget the first time I heard the term "pasties". It was a quiet New Years Eve, and for the 3rd year in a row, the Space network was airing "Flesh Gordon"- watch as Flesh and his friends, Flexi jerk-off and Dale (?), battle heroically to save the universe from the despotic ruler of the planet Porno, Emperor Wang, and his evil sex ray. This film was made in the late 60's and was technically pornography, but so did it pale to anything XXX that has come out in this half of the century, that it is now suitable for late night family viewing. This film also features the Princess, heir to the sacred power pasties, and the most shockingly racist one liner by a blond super hero I had ever hear at that point; "let the woman go you goddamn chink".

Which brings me to an amusing event held in my sleepy ass town once a year, giving everyone ample time to plan for it accordingly. I am talking about the annual Brain Injury Society's Jazz and Blues Dinner, Dance, and Burlesque Nite, full costume. It is one of the few occasions that draws out the under 70 crowd, and even dangles promises of "after party" in front of the bleary eyes of the horny, attention-starved former high school clique leaders, newly single into their late 20's and starting to bulge at the frump.

The presence of a full bar at a function to raise money for brain injury relief was an irony completely lost on the organizers, and caused my recovering date to bail at the last moment, but nonetheless, and a grand time was truly had by all.

The evening began with a nipple tassled strip down ho-fest, hoes liberally supplied by the city of Vancouver, and the promise of a "climax" during the band's intermission. Climax following the strip-ease? Isn't that a rather tall order? Of course, it turned out to be more stripping, away from the stage and into the fray. However, the mass town hall orgy that I expected would soon follow was doused by the need for key players at the event to keep leaving the doors open everytime they dipped out for a cigarette: the blast of carcinogenic ice wind that followed was enough to freeze even the warmest juices.

The acts were all well staged, with the rare treat of a female Elvis impersonator, sans beer gut, struting her stuff with great poise and class. At one point, she was drapped in an American flag, which elicited a loud gust of "Booooooooooooooooooo" from the audience, that turned to riotous cheers when she dropped it, stomped on it, and then threatened to piss on it. My town is a mill town with one of the highest catholic teen pregnancy rates in British Columbia, and would rarely be classified as a haven for radical liberalism, so it is a real testimant to how far the US has fallen in international public opinion that their flag will not be tolerated even in a burlesque skit.

My roommate and I managed even to secure an invitation to small gathering with the preformers afterwards, where I attempted to smoke pot for only the second time in my life, and it sucked. Sorry guys, but I just don't get it, and now no one can say I didn't try. This night was preceded by a dance-stravaganza hosted by the Town Pants, a local Celtic band. I felt compelled to ask why they called themselves that, and heard a tale of horse betting in Ireland on a horse called the Town Pants, which came in dead last and consumed in it's abject failure the few remaining the euros the band had. However, that story did not satisfy my need to know why anyone would call anything that. I love celtic music, but I admit, there is a limit to the number of songs one can tolerate about how far away I am, it's dark, need more whiskey, the boat and sea, arrgh, me lass, I'm drunk.

At least they don't sing about dying from lack of potatoes anymore. See, the world just keeps getting better and better.

Have a taco

2007-11-23T18:41:00.000-08:00

On a brisk halloween eve circa 1989, the idea was first put into my mind by kindly aged neighbours that there was something un-ordinary about my life and experiences, and that I should put pen to paper and try to express what that was. I had gutted my inflatable T-Rex, which would no longer hold air, and wore him like a skin, concealing the places where my bare human flesh was still visible with a massive, green angora sweater. Around that point in my life, all my inflatable things failed me, including a raft, which was later involved in an incident where I almost drowned my sister, and was punished by having my Star Trek priviledges revoked for a month. All and all I think I was let off rather lightly, but I digress.

Well costumed and feeling the part, I stomped and roared and gnashed my way up the road, jaws hungering for man-candy. My neighbours were a retired couple from England, long the envy of North End road for being the only painted two story house on the block, and sporting a concrete cherub fountain in the front yard. I had a infantile hatred of the rich brewing since infancy, and their house seemed to confirm how righteous it was. I knew from my father and Charles Dickens that the rich were never generous, so I never trick or treated there, until that year.

I swaggered up to the door ahead of the my sister, rang the "door bell", and waiting. An old woman came to the door with a bowl of individually boxed raisins and said something on how terrifying and ferocious we looked. I had to take my plastic dino-head off to get a better look at the goods, when she exclaimed, "Oh my dear, what happened to your hair?".

I was terribly self-conscious about my hair, especially after I had cut my head attempting to shave and had the class bullies exclaim, upon knocking my hat off for the uppteenith time, "Hey you had a brain tumour, eewwwwww". It was just starting to come in again, a sparse downy fluff, that just barely covered my scalp. This was in the day when no one would have ever assumed that a pale, bald child had cancer, just that they didn't eat enough spinach and were terribly unpopular at school. So I was used to having to explain myself, and she seemed more kindly than not, so I told her all about my ordeal as articulately as my 9 year old vocabulary would allow. When I was finished she asked me if I would write my biography for her, because it would be "ever so interesting", and both she and her husband would really get a kick out of reading it. And I did.
About three months later, I brought her a 2 page manuscript, with complete illustrations, that said, and I quote:

"my name is XXXX 00000, and I was boorn in ledy Minto hosspitil. I have a mother, and a father, and a sistr, and a cat, and dog. I hat my dog, cause he is sooo stoopit. I got cancer, and I went to Vancouver for ceeemotherapy. It hurt, and my vains are bad. I had many operations, and no spleen. I stayed at Ronald Mccdonld house there, it was borning. I am better now, but I am bald. Thank you."

She looked quite surprised when I turned up, and reflecting back on this, I am sure she had forgotten entirely that she had made such a monumental request of the little cancer kid in the dragon suit. But I am glad she did, for though I may not fully understand the importance of this memory, it has been judiciously filed away, in the proper folder with tabs and bullets and eeeverything, so it is no doubt important.

After all, what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger,
except for all that other stuff that, you know, does kill us, only slower.
We'll just have to wait and see.

Japan, Land of the Free-ey wee-ey

2007-11-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

"Knock, knock",

"Who's there?"

"International terrorist cell"

"International terrorist cell, who?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, HA".

And thus, God invented the airport immigration gate fingerprint identification system, which until last week, only one country on earth was stupid enough to employ. You get three guesses on this one, and the first two don't count. Until now, that sad lonely bully was stuffing his face at his own birthday party, no one to share the cake with, until Samurai Nerdy McNerdington, finally showed up at the party, 2 hours late bowing profusely and landen with prezzies. Because, hey, it takes two ta tango.

Japan has become the glorious second to use terrorism as a thinly veiled excuse for fingerprinting and keeping close records on foreign traffic in and out of the country. As far as I know, there is no Kantanomo Bay buried deep in the Salkin Islands in which to stock suspected riferaff, but there are ample military bases in Okinawa which I'm sure could use the entertainment. It'll be a beautiful marriage: no one loves poising for pictures more than US military prison guards, and no likes taking them more than the Japanese. But seriously, who would have expected this; Japan with it's free loving society and arms open to the wide wide world, doubting, no, actively SUSPECTING those whom it habours so graciously? Oh yeah, everyone. This is the Japan that during sakoku had armed guards attend every translator in the government when they negotiated trade with the Dutch and Portuguese. Not for the safety of the translator, but so that in the event the man was suspected of giving away national secrets, he could dispatched before his mouth ran too far afoul of him. They believed there to be something traitorous about a brain that understands other languages, yet how the guard, being a true and thoroughly ignorant patriot, was supposed to assertain the difference between a national secret in Dutch, or just the secret colour of a European women's private forest, is completely beyond me.

They have got to be on the right track, eh. Two massively xenophobic countries with long histories of military aggressionism and racial exclusionism...they wouldn't be fingerprinting foreigners if those people didn't have something dirty to hide. And if you don't like it, YOU must have something to hide too. Every morning when I wake up, I think to myself that there is entirely too much tolerance and goodwill floating around, and it's high time someone put an end it and reserved trust and honesty only for those who truly deserve it, like the starfish, and people who see Jesus in the water stains of their poor-ass ceilings. Heaven knows, I won't be able to go back now, not with my citizenship from Duel Country and my $300 in unpaid local residence tax. It all started apparently, after a French national was suspected of trying to form a terrorist cell while he resided there in the early 2000's.

Cest la vie.

Enter the Mind Reader

2007-11-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

“tomorrow’s payday, that makes my pants happy”

I don't speak English, explain it to me in Science

2007-11-18T22:13:00.000-08:00

As part of my study, I spend a lot of time on Pubmed, the National Library of Medicines journal database. Nutritional Medicine occupies a strange position between solid, research-based diagnosis, and traditional, sort of common sense, dont-mess-with-3000-years-of-blahblah-history, and Pubmed is one place where these two curse one another variably with eye of newt and ganglia blockers. It is also a place where one can see some of the problems rising from the ubiquitous application of single-variable research systems to everyone AND that other guy.

Those who have ever watched Bill O Reilly run off at mouth, quoting reports from mysterious "French Commissions" that never existed, should understand that information is like any commodity; the more there is, the more of it came steaming straight from the bulls ass. Nevertheless, the intergrity of Scientific information seems still to be remarkably intact, at least as far as the layman is concerned. They say things like, "Hey, it's science, I looked it up on the internet", and they MEAN it. I am not saying that true science, ie , data gleaned from judcious observation and testing, is irrelevant or non-existent, but it's scope is limited and it's findings subject to bias interpretation and further observation. Nevertheless, believers look to the Science for capital 'T' Truth and religious satisfaction, and as such, have a nasty habit of applying the scientific method to areas it was never designed to penetrate. You know, like, how gays have that gene or something, in their brains, and that is why they are so good at violin.

At its heart, this predilection is just the time honoured tradition of preserving ones sanity in the face of incomprehensibility by making generalizations. BROAD generalizations that take the complicated out of dynamic, multifaceted systems that less than a millionth of the population actually understands. The problem with doing this to science is that we are denying ourselves an objective lens with which to view the world, and are instead granting Science dominion over man in the same omnipotent form that Jolly ole God occupies. Just because we now KNOW that thunder is not angels breaking wind, we get all uppity. How many of you know exactly how it was scientifically determined that thunder is caused by a sonic shockwave from the rapid expansion of air surrounding a bolt of lighting? I only know the definition of thunder because I looked it up on wikipedia, an information source in which I have complete faith. FAITH.

It is also weird how this pnemonenon has led to people not daring to believe what is blatantly obvious if it cannot be somehow proven by Science. Some of NLMs recent headline include such items as, "Multiple stressors compound heart disease risk", and "Quality of life after stroke worse". No kidding, and like, having to eat chicklits out of a deadmans ass sucks too. Ill take my grant money now.

The real problem is...here it comes...the problem is that Life and the World are very, very COMPLICATED. And most people will die never knowing how or why anything works. There, I said it.

The quest for knowledge is one thing, but should never be confused with the quest for certainty, which is a thorny path strewn with grenades and mouldy feces; in short, tempting, but ulimately unwalkable. For there are a great number of false prophets and well commissioned scientists alike who may well say what they mean without ever knowning what they are talking about.

Smells like teen poetry

2007-11-17T21:48:00.000-08:00

A glass of unripened poetry anyone?

The Dispensary

Don’t ever ask what happened to the truth,
He was mine to love and mine to lose
Closer than water to rain, closer still than me to mine
And yet what could rain soothe
But drown the fool in washing his wounds
What comfort can the deluge afford,
To one whose heart, like quarry sand
Is caked, scorched, and dour
Blanket this form in formless dress,
And take it to town,
To dine and dance,
And soak evermore the bitter cold down

Emotionsssssss

These walls are paths before me

2007-11-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

From deeply irreverant to deeply personal in 12.9 seconds...
I never intended this to be diary format so much, but I need to take a moment to write about my day*

*warning, author reserves right to use time and space as she sees fit

I work 9 hours a day, so my workplace figures large in the space it fills in my day. It has been a family tradition of sorts for me and mine to regard work as nothing more than the place one goes to get paid, to be endured and enjoyed at the least expense possible. When work and the workplace become adversarial, those who turn and run away live to work somewhere else someday. I am a very hard worker, but I have never invested my personality much into what I do, feeling like most, that work places only use and abuse, and any emotional loans extended will only bring the bank calling with heafty interest fines.

I come in and was asked to sit down and talk a moment, Shit.

My co-worker asked me why I had re-arranged certain items in the store after being asked to leave them where they were, and I replied, "because that is where they belonged". She then proceeded to tell me what a disrespect that is to the others, who know no less where things belong than I do, and told me how I reminded her of a particular 13 year old who had matriculated to university, but who quickly fell to drugs, and other self destructive abuses, and said that she knew how hard it was for people of exceptional intelligence to take the reigns from their powerful ego's and let empathy and consideration do the driving. And then, she said that all the love I need to change was here. But...but work is where I come to get shit on. Work+love=wtf?

I must praise my coworker for so expertly phrasing her criticism so that the reason I am such a social retard is because I am an intellectual genius! But listening to this, I was forced to accept several things: that being right isn't always worth the human cost, and that running away from things and people that upset me only makes for a three page resume. So even though there has been friction, I am not quitting my job. This is just the kind of emotional endurance test that should help me prepare for the big triathelon next month.

As much as most people sincerely believe that they want the straight goods from life and those they share it with, this was the perfect example of the need to judiciously read and employ "handling instructions" to those we fear breaking. Honestly, the majority of us have no stomach for the truth whatsoever, and need it to be carefully shaped into a sweet ass bowl of ice cream that disguses the bitter pill we are made to swallow about ourselves from time to time. There are also many cases, terrifying cases, in which we must admit that someone else, who may not know us even very well, knows all our secrets and may even be far more aware of them than we are ourselves. While this is a ghastly prospect, the up side is that we can look to others for constructive criticism and opportunities for personal growth, rather than muddling in a dark corner, crying and jerking off to NIN, thinking that nobody knows the trouble we've seen. Belief in the uniqueness of ones pain or experience really is nothing more than an mastrabatory egoasm.

Project Personality: Currently under construction, with cost overruns projected into the billions.

And now it's time for DEAR LORD: straight up advice from the all-mighty for life's quandaries

Q: Dear lord, how can be spared from passing gas in front of my intended? I ask thee in Jesus name.

A: Love brings many movements, not only of the heart, but of some less appropriate organs as well. This is the satan-fear and its accompanying curs-ed wind: be not blown away, my child. Simply eat nothing for at least 6 hours before your encounter. This will not only keep the dogs of gas firmly chained, but will also prevent the nervous release of other superfluous and unholy excretions. Can I get a hallelulah?

Q: Dear lord, how can I ever know for certain that I have left the house wearing the right pants?

A: Hold your two hands together and put the thumbs together outstretched. The side that makes an L is your left, the other is your right. Now that you know left from right, I ask thee child by what standard you judge your pants? Are you concerned what ladies may think of them, or has your ego simply gotten the better of you? In both cases, a good self-flaggulation with a young birch branch and 100 hail Mary’s made in sincere repentance of what ever will undo the problem with your pants. You may want to remove them first in any case, blood is a bitch to get out.

Q: Dear Lord, I’ve just creamed the butter together with the eggs and sugar. I know the recipe says to add the flour next, but I was thinking I need this cake to be extra special, so maybe I should do the spices first and that way the flavour gets more into the butter. What do you think?

…

2007-11-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

It's not just awful, it's GOD awful

2007-11-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

The following represents a most feeble attempt to extend the limits of my existance into the realm, hereintonow relatively virgin territory, of Cyberspace -ace-ace-ace. We'll see how long I have the patience and determination to keep this up. The trace should last between a wine stain and a fart in the wind.

Your self introduction PLEASE, why thank you

Name: V-Unit, Vitamin V to those who need me
Location: Somewhere beyond the sea, North of Vancouver, South of Alaska, In the country Canada.
Status: Female, living on a prayer

I am working on my second degree, having studied for years what I hated to do as work, and have retreated to this corner of the world to relax and construct some meaningful sense of composure. It's working, I swear it is. I decided it was time to blog when I saw the little button saying "create blog" on my friends site, and felt a strange pang of jealously and longing for the extraspecial otheriness of existence that nobodies glean from putting their crap out there for all to smell. I used to do this on solid paper for a zine called Madame Guillotine, but that was back before Work (tm) and School (tm) were a part of Life (tm), and I had nothing but time to dedicate to feeding the beast that was my gutwretching angst, screaming for expression and circulation with low readership. My mother also recently brought back a diary of my great grandfather's in which he had painstakenly written an entry for every day of the year without fail. Yes, 1954, a year marked by great events, as he told them. For example, on August 16th, the day the 1st issue of Sports Illustrated was published, my great grandfather remarks, "Virginia owes $15.14. Went to drug store, still have cold, sore throat". In your face, Samuel Pepys.

Jaaaaaaaa, Some Nonsense to Start

The Phone sex Thesaurus

DID YOU KNOW…that, according to my ex-landlord/former phone-sex worker, Canadian regulations prohibit explicit profanity even in such intimate telephone scenerios as “dirty office hooker and the big boss man”? That’s right: you can’t say c*&t on the tele, or c))k, or a**hole, or tw@. You can’t even say f#^% mI w*^m jui$y c)?t.

Of course, as many who have used such services will attest, there are women who throw caution to the winds and let their potty mouth spill over and flood the bathroom, but one should be aware that such pleasures taken from those fudge fests don’t conform to CFC regulations.

The following may serve an inspiration to those frustrated sex talk workers and learning lovers whose minds are overrun and vocabularies under-furnished. Cum on people, let’s get those creative juices flowing.

“I want your pink submarine to explore the wetness of my deep stormy ocean, and fire off some nuclear torpedoes”

“Saddle me up and ride me bareback all the way over steamy mountains, into Pleasure-ville, and right up to the door of the Orgasm saloon”

“Probe the deepest reaches of my space with your starship Enterprick”*

“Unleash your ferocious sexy beast on my quiet, unsuspecting community”

“Gas up the pink Cadillac and take a ride on my Hershey highway”

“I wanna make a fruit salad with your ripe plantain”

“R U ready 2 69 with me and my raspberry beret ?”#

Legend: * use may violate copyright law where trekkie porn rules the pond
#- to be used only by licenced Prince impersonator