some cats are bigger than others

I fucking hate cats

2008-08-05T08:53:00.003-06:00

I'm sleeping. Hot chicks fill my dreams with magic and flesh. I look one in the eyes, and it says "MEEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOOOEEEEEEERRRRRR mMmmmm RRRRRRRROOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRr"

"Pardon me?" I say politely.

"MOOEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE MMMrrreeeeeeOOOOOOWWWWWWWHRRRmmmmmmmm."

Opening my eyes, I realize the stupid, stupid loud noise is still going on. At first, I think it's in the basement, which is especially scary, considering the last time I heard it, it was coming from a hot woman, and there shouldn't be any of those in the basement.

I get up, put my robe on, and look out the kitchen window. Next to my garden---my lovely, lovely garden, our neighbour's cat---a fat, friendly, neutered cat---is staring curiously at one of the neighbourhood strays, who says, with no subtlety whatsoever in response: "MRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEOOOOOOrrrrrrrrmmmmrrreeeeemmmmmmrrroroororoor."

She continues to say this as I rush to the back door. I walk down our back steps into the driveway, hiss at them, pick up a chunk of leftover wood from our new deck, and throw it after the stray, who has already run away. It clunks down impotently somewhere in the rasberries at the end of the driveway.

I go back to bed.

6:30 am rolls around, and in the back yard, outside the bedroom window, I hear "RRmmmmmeeeerrreooooorrreeooeoeoeoeOOOROORRRRRRROOOOOOOEERRRRR."

I am enraged. I love sleeping. At night, it's one of my favourite things. And waking up infuriates me. My blood pressure surges. I go to the back door again, rustle frantically through our back closet for something to throw. My hand brushes over a trailer hitch, but that's much too heavy. An old bike kickstand jumps into my mitt, and I squeeze it roughly, throwing open the back door so hard it bangs the wall. On the shed, the neighbour's cat is again looking down on this stupid homeless garbage creature, as it continues its sermon on its impetuous need to have a cat's penis in its body.

My cave man brain emerges, and with the power of grayskull, and with murder on my mind, I throw the kickstand perfectly, hitting my neighbour's shed with a thud so loud that every cat in the world must have jumped a foot. The stray cat flies away at the speed of sound. The neighbour's cat looks at me, slightly offended, and emotionally hurt.

back in bed, my girlfriend rolls over to face me and says "Hi, crazy."

"Didn't you hear that cat?!" I ask, still pretty worked up.

"No. Shut up and go to sleep."

Ten minutes later, the cat conversation begins again. I put my pillow over my face and hope for death.

I hate cats.

My Couch Potato Science Project

2007-09-27T23:52:00.000-06:00

Here's an altered version of a post I put on the Rue Morgue blog recently:

The stain was black and brown and had spread out in a wavy oval. The stench was well past unbearable. It was so vile, in fact, I half expected an evil long-haired ghost woman to rise up from it at any second, seeking supernatural vengeance from beyond the grave, much like your average supernatural Japanese horror flick. And it was on the hide-a-bed.
Last Thursday I arrived home at three in the morning, following our Rue Morgue movie night. After a day at work, a night of making sure the event went smoothly and then driving people across town, I was exhausted. Alana and I also had a house guest (Colin), so I needed to pull out the bed in my couch. That’s when I found it: a large, dark stain on the mattress, which had soaked into multiple sections of the mattress cover where it was folded over. The smell was something akin to when your Halloween pumpkin gets moldy and starts rotting, except imagine you had a dozen pumpkins, and you left them to decompose for a long time… in your room.
Earlier in the week I’d caught faint whiffs of rot but figured the garbage was past due to go out; yet, even after it was binned, the smell would return. That hideous stain, though, was as if something from Beyond was fouling not just the fabric of my couch, but the very fabric of existence.
Then I saw the bag, and remembered back to more than a month ago…
I’d hurt my back playing street hockey and was on a prescription of muscle relaxers, Tylenol-3 and rest. The doc advised icing the strain, as well, so I was lying on the couch, doped to my retinas, with a bag of mixed vegetables beneath me. Somewhere between my drugged-out state and usual bad memory, I’d fallen asleep, let the bag slip between the cushions and had forgotten all about it. More than a month earlier.
In that time a mold ring blossomed in the furniture, with excess rancid liquid dripping onto the floor beneath the furniture. It was a helluva discovery at that time in the morning. Although the thought of just burning the entire building to the ground and disappearing into the night crossed my mind, I resigned myself to the bleary-eyed, nausea-inducing task of stainbusting. I started scrubbing with warm, soapy water, which erased the stain somewhat but reactivated the semi-dormant stink. Windows were opened, and the next day several coats of various cleaners were applied.
The whole ordeal definitely ranks amongst the very dumbest things I’ve done, and I advise strongly against indoor intra-furniture composting projects.

Garfield at Lurge.

2007-09-21T07:34:00.000-06:00

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/finish-garfield-drawing.php?page=1

This one's for you, Chris. I know how you like Garfield. And things that aren't funny.

Welcome to the Idiocracy

2007-08-28T21:53:00.000-06:00

Miss South Carolina seems like the type that would bring a honey jar to a spelling bee. I wish her a lucrative career in the porn industry.

Mike Judge's latest film, Idiocracy, may just be too close to comfort. Below is the opening to the movie. Contrast and compare.

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

2007-08-06T22:39:00.000-06:00

OK, now I can check off one more thing I needed to do before I die: meet Pee-Wee Herman. He was a ComiCon this year with Thomas “The Punisher” Jane and David Arquette (they both star in Arquette’s directorial debut horror flick The Tripper). My co-worker Jovanka knows Jane and a few us had drinks with Arquette in Montreal at the FanTasia film fest last month (he bought!), so that was my in (the chap on the far right is our friend and Warner Bros rep Chris Lewchuk, who's also an acknowledged Pee-Wee stalker). It should also be noted that later that weekend we watched Jane stand in the street and below at the top of his lungs, “Does anybody have any ecstasy?!?” Ker-rist...

There are all kinda celebs at ComiCon, and while it’s fun to spot ‘em, the only guy I just had to meet was Paul Reubens. He was friendly, polite and sheepishly said, “Hi, I’m Paul” when I shook his hand. More importantly, I managed – somehow – not to scream “I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?” in his face, or tell him how much pure madcap, personality-warping joy I derived from watching Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, or kidnap him, bring him back to our hotel room and make him put on a tight gray suit and red bow-tie and jump on the furniture.

I was also quite happy to meet Fred Dekker (pictured left), director of one of my fave flicks, The Monster Squad, and some of the cast from that film. The star of the movie, Andre Gower, told me about staying at the Skywalker Ranch, which was a surreal tale. Apparently there are a whole bunch of cottages that are fully stocked with food and necessities and a firehall on site that also has a movie library where you can sign out DVDs. No droid servants, though.

And for your amusement, I snapped a pic of the unfunny little dinklord who does Ed the Sock. Man, that guy sucks.

Moving right along. The weather was beautiful in San Diego and our hotel, The Omni, was right across the street from the convention, which was fantastically convenient, and I’m really glad I wasn’t footing the bill for it, as the price for a room triples during the Con. Verne Troyer was staying on our floor and is even smaller in-person than on TV, if that’s possible. I couldn’t help but think that in terms of a body mass to room space ratio, he was getting ripped off more than anyone.

We were at the Omni because we got banned from the hotel we were at last year when our party got out of hand (just too big, really, as it spilled into the loby) and there were complaints. A shitload of complaints, actually. On the flipside, everyone this year was asking where our party was gonna be, so I guess it went over OK. And, really, who doesn’t feel kinda badass being all, like, “Yeah, we totally got kicked out of that hotel for partying too hard. That’s just how we roll – I drank a bathub full of tequila and threw the minibar through the roof of a cop car. WHOOOOOOO!”

Blatant untruths, aside, the Omni has a walkway to the city’s baseball stadium, where the Padres play. On Friday night we went there for a massive party put on by Warner Brothers to celebrate the DVD release of 300. They had tens of thousands of people in the bleachers watching the film, but we got to go to the private red carpet party. It was impressively opulent, decorated with dried wheat, red fabric, period furniture in tents, costumes from the film, guys dressed as Spartans and dancing slave girls. The bars were open, serving high-end booze, and giant buffet tables offered more food than you could even sample without getting stuffed. Admittedly, I did try, though.

Another party we attended provided the funniest celeb moment of the weekend: watching Dee Snider get introduced to George Romero and someone having to explain to ol’ George that “Dee is a really well-known musician in heavy metal music.” Ha!

The weirdest celeb moment happened Saturday night when Jovanka went back to our hotel room early. When I arrived back there, a bunch of people were hanging out that I didn’t know, and a few of them were just leaving. We met briefly before they headed out, and the next day I found out one of them was Hayden Christensen. I guess I missed my chance to ask him if George Lucas was literally retarded or simply artistically retarded for making the last three Star Wars movies. Oh well…

Parties and famous faces are all part of the fun of ComiCon but the really good times are had gawking at all the outrageous, often inventive and sometimes rather tragic costumes (the closest I got to dressing up was, as you can see, wearing a rib bib backwards like a cape), buying nerdy crap – such as my talking, swearing big Lebowski bobble-head and a pricey but beautiful vintage French Eyes Without a Face movie poster – and, more importantly, hanging out with other nerds. I got to see Steve Notley again, grinning and wearing his Bob the Angry Flower headpiece in a valiant effort to sell his books. We partied every night with comic book artists Nat Jones and Jay Fotos (they're in the pic with the Spartan: nat with dreads, Jay with the cap, and the other dude is our Rue Morgue ad guy, Jody), and just shot the shit about stuff we liked. And I met this other really cool comic artist, Jeff, who knew all about lasers and how all the crap humans have shot into space is actually breaking into pieces and picking up speed as it orbits, steadily creating a bullet field around the earth that will destroy anything that enters or exits the atmosphere, effectively ending space travel for
good. I’m sure the lasers had something to do with destroying these debris bullets – it’s a little hazy, as I was kinda drunk. We did agree, though, that humanity totally has it coming. I think the best part of traveling is meeting interesting people with captivating and/or funny stories.

Alright, I’ll be honest, that ranks just under meeting Pee-Wee.

Devastation of Vermination

2007-07-30T22:35:00.000-06:00

A quick update for those of you following the rat saga at the office. The day after I left for San Diego my peanut butter trap nailed the sucker, splattering its brains on the floor.

Awesome.

Apparently it was big and gray. It lived a disgusting life and died a disgusting death.

Strangely, a woman walked outside my work today, pushing her sleeping child in a stroller; in his arms: a plush rat. Was it a sign? Or just bad, bad parenting.

Return of the Unwanted Interns

2007-07-24T23:19:00.000-06:00

People joke about building a better mousetrap because the mousetrap has been perfected. They’re simple, effective, cheap to make, easy-to-use, disposable and fast, sending the little critters to Habitrail heaven in less than a second on the speed of a steel hinge – they’re brilliant. Rat traps work the same, they’re just larger. For me, though, that last bit is the main problem. My better rat trap would come with torture. I want the Saw version of the rat trap, the one where the rat dies slowly and painfully – and ironically, if at all possible. Perhaps a miniature exploding jaw-trap that attaches itself when the vermin prick sticks its nasty head in there for a morsel of bait. Oh, yeah, and there wouldn’t be a way out, no key in the body of the rat beside it. The fucking rat would just die no matter what.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the rats (or maybe just rat) have returned to my office. One of them set off a mouse trap the other day and left a giant fucking turd on the floor of the lunch room – thick as a pencil and as long as a cigarette butt. Taking a more proactive approach than the poison boxes we still have kicking around, which take about six weeks to work (six weeks? Are you fucking kidding me?), I went out and bought rat traps. I’ve become the self-anointed rat killer of the office, and I’ve been trying to do it right. I set one with peanut butter, the other with chocolate (I know, I know – if that doesn’t work I’ll try the two great tastes that go great together), carefully wearing rubber gloves the whole time, as to not get human sent on them, and ever so precisely hooking the lever on the pedal without snapping the whole thing in my face. That was last night, and to my annoyance, no rat corpses this morning. I’m leaving for ComiCon early tomorrow morning, so I’m gonna be robbed of the satisfaction of seeing their dead. But as long as they die, really, I’m cool with that.

I never had nightmares about rats until they invaded my workspace, now I imagine they’re crawling on my bed in the middle of the night. When I arrive at work, I wonder if they were crawling on my desk during the night, stealing the ample press releases that reside there in order to build a nest. I wonder where the closest one is hiding or if one will dart out when I turn the light on in dark room.

I hate rats so much I can easily see past the cruel and illogical pointlessness of torturing them. In fact, I’d like to see them drawn, quartered and their shit-bulb heads placed on tiny pikes as a warning to other rats. I would kill them with zeal and unwarranted savagery. And I’d videotape the proceedings. Then I’d make a giant screen out of rat hides and I’d project my footage outside of PETA’s headquarters – for the pure vulgarity of it.

Anyone know where to purchase tiny landmines?

I hate Painting and Renovating and Houses.

2007-07-19T18:38:00.001-06:00

Computers are funny. That's all I have to say today. I'm too busy not moving or packing.

Winnipeg is for plovers.

2007-07-18T14:01:00.001-06:00

I went to Winnipeg! After Saskatchewan. It's the only way to do it, according to Ozanada.

I was in your neighbourhood

2007-07-11T22:25:00.001-06:00

Hey! Saskatchewan! Have you all been reading what I did a week ago? I'm still digesting the trip, so take a look at what's new in the land of the endless prairie. OZANADA!

Under Big Horizons

2007-06-30T12:31:00.000-06:00

Some Cats may be continuing its slow descent into oblivion as our writers drop off and disappear, but it’s not quite down to just Neal yet. It’s just that I’ve been busy as hell getting a short film – a prairie gothic horror thing called Fallow – shot out in Alberta with my filmmaking partner Colin. In April, we realized there was a window of opportunity to get this done and not have an already three-year old FAVA (Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta) grant hanging over our heads another year. The stars aligned, in terms of both our schedules being open, our producer, former Edmonton boy Brenton Bentz, having two projects fall through that freed him up, and our DP (director of Photography) Jason Pichonsky, also a former Edmontonian, being available too. In fact, we quickly determined that it was the only weekend the entire year that we could get this done, so we jumped on it. That meant weeks of prep at lunch and evenings after work before burning all my summer vacation time – and then some – to hit Edmonton for ten days to make a ten-minute movie.

I’m used to putting in serious hours in the publishing biz (36 hours straight one time), I’ve done sixteen days of labour work and I’ve been on grueling film shoots before, but that stretch represented the hardest and longest hours I’ve ever worked. I found new limits I was capable of pushing myself too, as did Colin, and our team worked really well under some intense pressure. I’ll never forget sitting up at three in the morning after a long day of shooting, doing rewrites and trying not to think about the 6am alarm.

We were overly ambitious (shooting on actual film, using multiple indoor and outdoor locations, working with prosthetics, etc.) and we hit a lot of hurdles, scrambling for new locations at the last minute, and, excruciatingly, choosing a weekend when there were a bunch of projects shooting that ate up all the gear and crew in town. In addition, the jib we rented was junk, we couldn’t get a crane as there were no qualified operators available and we were still casting the day before shooting.

There were other problems too. The scariest being a “flashed” roll of unprocessed film. A reel that had been shot popped in the loading bag. One of our guys was in the middle of fixing it when someone opened the door of the room he was in, partially exposing our film. That’s the point of the day you want to scream at the Gods and punch out the very sun itself. But you gotta keep it together, which is pretty easy when you’ve got a lot of enthusiastic folks on your side.

The only way we pulled this thing off was with the amazing, dedicated family, friends and artists in Edmonton. Sounds cliché, but it’s absolutely true. Family members (and friend’s family members) provided funding, locations, food; tables and props; old friends worked as grips, transport, took stills and helped get wardrobe together; and our cast took command of their roles, nailed their lines, brought some of their own wardrobe stuff and helped with continuity. People we didn’t even know (new friends) came out and worked hard for free – and there’s no better feeling than that. (Not to mention Alana, for putting up with my stress and being super supportive despite my not really being there for a few weeks.) We even got incredibly lucky with the weather, as the dark clouds stayed away just long enough while we shooting outside. Rolled the dice on that one for sure…

In the end, we didn’t get all the shots we wanted, but we think we got all the shots we needed, and that’s what counts. Our makeup and other effects stuff was amazing (we had a prop and prosthetic built by Gaslight Studios in Toronto – the guys who worked on Land of the Dead, Silent Hill and 300!), the actors were fantastic, my man Joel Higham was all over the sound, experienced filmmaker David Bates was managing the whole affair expertly, and JP is a real pro with the camera, so it should all look and sound great. We’re doing the transfer next week, and after processing we were told we only lost two seconds of film (again, the Gods smirk at us). From there, the majority of the work has yet to be done in post-production. Can’t wait, though.

After our outdoor shoot on day two, when we were out in Thorsby in a dirt field, sunburned, rushing to catch as much sun as we could and literally getting down and dirty in the mud, I was driving back that evening under a gorgeous, long prairie sunset and was overwhelmed with homesickness to a degree I’d never felt since moving away. I love Toronto – the friends, my job, all the media-related stuff going on, the culture in general. But there’s an essential part of me that will always be anchored in Alberta, where I love the friends there, my family, the wide open spaces, the way it smells sweet and grassy in the summer – hell pretty much everything about summer – and the relaxed pace at which life can move. Then again, I also like the fast pace in Toronto in many ways.

I feel more and more like two people in one body every time I go back, and I become much more aware of those distinct personas, of the passage of time, of getting older and leaving my youth behind in Edmonton. I’m not sure if that means anything other than that one generally thinks about this stuff more after leaving one’s 20s behind and moving to a new city, but it’s a strange, often conflicting sensation to have a foot in two very different places at the same time.

On a final note, the trip was book-ended by two incidents that reinforced my feelings that I’m doing the right thing in general. The night I arrived in Edmonton, Colin picked me up from the airport and we stopped at Denny’s for a late, late dinner. Across from us sat a dude with his bloated wife, choking down some deep-fried crap. He was wearing a T-shirt that read “The only job I want is a blow-job” and I was reminded of that self-serving, redneck consumer element of Alberta I was glad to escape. Many – but by no means all – Albertans take for granted what they’ve got and it fosters a poisonous mind-set I’ve become more aware of. A lot of former Albertans I know out here feel the same way – that you love Alberta more after you leave it, and you worry about, that lingering self-destructive Ralph Klein mindset.

The second incident was while sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight to Toronto. My uncle had found out a couple days earlier that his dad has an inoperable and very aggressive brain tumour, one that takes over and shuts down the various functions of the brain until death occurs – perhaps within weeks. I was on my cell phone trying (inevitably awkwardly) to offer some words of comfort. I was very hungover from our wrap party the night before, sunburned, beyond tired and sad to be leaving, while realizing the hell that the next few weeks or months would mean to my uncle, aunt and cousins.

Despite this, I was happy. I was actually getting something done – something major – that I wanted (needed?) to do. Instead of talking about shooting our movie for another year, Colin and I did it. I never feel more like my existence is substantial as I do when I’m pushing myself. It’s easy to coast and I refuse to be laying on my deathbed some day regretting things I didn’t do. My uncle pointed out that his dad has had a long, full life, so I figure you can’t do all that much to control the “long” but as far as the “full” goes – just get ‘er done. Wherever that takes you.

Anyhow, how you all doin’? How’s your summer? Who’s still reading?

*Photos courtesy the extremely talented Mark J. Chalifoux.

Gastown

2007-06-25T13:22:00.001-06:00

Vancouver and beyond! Well, so far, only Vancouver. Read parts one and two at Ozanada!

35 years to go!

2007-06-20T11:07:00.001-06:00

I'm retired! You all missed the party, but read about it at Ozanada!

Welcome to the Junction, We Got Fun 'n' Games...

2007-05-15T22:03:00.000-06:00

I’ve blogged about the various hilarious and nefarious happenings in my neighbourhood before, and before I describe my morning in what my co-workers and I lovingly call “The J-Hole,” but is properly known as The Junction, I should point out that much of the area is quite nice. It’s a neighbourhood in transition – one that became depressed and run-down after the nearby stockyard (now a bunch of box stores) closed years ago – and is steadily recovering through the arrival of new businesses, younger renters and condos. Not to mention that until 2000 it was the last dry neighbourhood in Toronto, meaning no boozed sold/served anywhere, which killed much of its business. It's obviously a bittersweet blessing watching an old neighborhood modernize and homogenize, but it's better than watching it crumble instead of gentrify.

So, you have a bunch of run-down row houses and dilapidated slum landlord-owned rat-traps on one side of Dundas street and some really nice old houses on the other side, with a mix of young adults and sketchmeisters living above the stores on Dundas. Business-wise, there’s a mix of crummy old convenience stores, nice restaurants, Money Mart-type places, art galleries, abandoned storefronts, nice hair salons and other business that range from cool little specialty stores to grubby retail holes that resemble mini flea markets. You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and, well, y'know.

This morning was the baaad, unfortunately. I was about to leave the rear parking lot door of the condo when I heard a scuffle outside. Someone was taking a beating and there was yelling about someone “fucking” someone’s 14-year-old daughter. Whoever was taking the beating was begging for mercy, while a 40-something-year-old woman was telling the assailant that “someone was coming” and they had to go. I open the back door as a somewhat hulking and very enraged 40-something-year-old guy storms past. Sweaty, with bloody knuckles. There was a “kid” – at least he looked in his late teens – lying in our garbage nook, bleeding and swelling like hemorrhoid on a horse rider at a nudist camp. He was pulverized, but half-conscious.

After hearing the whole sex-with-my-underage-daughter stuff, I gotta say I was tempted for a few seconds to leave the guy there, but came to my senses realizing he could be seriously hurt and whatever he might have done didn’t justify that violence. So I called 911 while the “kid” (I’m pretty sure I heard later that he was in his 20s) sat on the back steps dazed and bleeding. Ambulance and cops arrived; I gave a statement. The skinny, grubby punching bag of a man, who was wearing a weed T-shirt, didn’t want to co-operate with the police, making me suspect that he'd had it coming.

And that was hour-one of my workday.

I don’t doubt that I made the right choice, but there’s that part of me that wonders what if I had a young teenage daughter defiled by a grown man (wearing a terrible weed-themed T-shirt, no less)? Either way, helluva wake-up this morning.

Welcome to The Junction, we take it day by day; if you want it, you're gonna bleed, but it's the price to pay.

Something about fishing...

2007-05-10T23:39:00.000-06:00

I'm writing it right now, and I'm not sure what's going to come out. All I know is that, in the middle of moving my billionth piece of upholstery in a dusty warehouse, a single word came into my head: fishing. Ozanada!

Hasta La Vista, Mangy

2007-05-02T20:09:00.000-06:00

Quit Your Jibber-Jabber! You Ain't Hurt!

2007-04-30T19:39:00.000-06:00

I love this for three reasons:

1) I was a ridiculous A-Team freak as a child, to the point where not only did I get every piece of A-Team merchandise I could lay my plastic crap-luvin' hands on, I actually put on my A-Team sweatshirt and a camouflage hat, and grabbed a toy guy when I watched the show, shooting at the bad guys on the screen. If you’ve ever watched that violent bastion of ‘80s network television, you’ll know that my toy gun was no less effective on the bad guys than the “real” guns on the show. No matter how many explosives were used to take out a watchtower, and no matter how tall that watchtower was, the baddies inside it always managed to get ejected out with minor injuries.

Good to see you in your rightful outfit again, Señor T.

2) It pretty much sums up my feelings about soccer: wuss magnet.

3) The only thing funnier than someone getting hit in the head, is someone getting hit in the head with a food product… by Mr. T.

Some Kinda Sony Day

2007-04-27T23:23:00.000-06:00

So, I just got my early birthday present.
And I'm sad to say that the first song I played on it was some stupid Allman Brothers song. I downloaded my dad's music library and got everything a man born in 1951 would want to listen to. I got the Sony MP3 walkman I was going to purchase in the form of an iPod for my early birthday present. My dad got it. What a genius. I love it. The smartest part was that he managed to give it to me before I bought one.
That's the weird part. I'm not used to being able to buy things. My tax return this year had 5 T4 slips, but they added up to only $13,000, which included $6,000 in EI. A special treat for me was meat with my groceries. Or cheese. Now, I've already made enough in a month and a half to pay for the months of rent I missed, along with what would have been an iPod. Now I don't know what to spend it on. I guess I'll just keep saving it for the adventure. Or I'll buy some clothes for work.
I'm thinking I should get a digital camera, and have spending money for this supposed adventure I'm going to have.
But I have to keep in mind that I'm going to leave. I have the godlike ability to like any job I do. And I really don't get motivated to do other things when the paycheques start coming in.
I just realized I may have sounded like a flake this afternoon when I explained to one of the regional managers of FurnitureCo that I wasn't planning on making a career of bruising the hell out of my arms and hands for $15 an hour (though I did learn that the guy who's been working for the company for 5 years, and who is my boss, is making $12 an hour) because this was sort of my early-(or pre-) life crisis and I was going on a search for the greatest story ever told (or something that sounded less flaky and retarded) and that I wanted to get back into writing for money at some point, but not yet. I'm making a good impression, because I actually show up, and I actually work, but of course, it's not for me. Though I do like the slim waist and functional biceps (as opposed to the old-style droopy-when-flexed cartoon biceps) I'm developing as a result of constant 100lb+ lifting.
Anyway, I'll keep watching those paycheques roll in, and see what happens. Once the novelty of money wears off, I'll start thinking about what's going to happen.
Ah. Things can't be all that bad, though. Dad had some CCR on the computer. Dinosaur Patroller, listening to Buck Owens. Yeah.

Three Things I Learned in the Past Week

2007-04-25T00:03:00.000-06:00

1) If You Love Your Deck Furniture, Set It Free…

…And if you see it lying smashed in the street, just keep on walking.

Alana and I live five stories up and have a huge deck, which is completely awesome for barbeques, watching sunsets, avoiding street noise and drinking beer. We’ve also learned the hard way that we bear the brunt of some crazy-ass windstorms. Last year our BBQ cover blew away, taking to the wind like a vinyl ghost, we had chairs fly across the deck, our table flipped and smashed into the BBQ, taking a chunk out of both. You’d think we’d learn. Ha.

It suddenly warmed up here, so we put it all out again and once again allowed our cavalier attitude towards plastic outdoor furniture to rebuke us. I was at work when a massive, pounding rainstorm hit – the type where the wind drives the rain sideways. I had a sinking feeling, remembering that the deck crap was left out.

Sure enough, two of our chairs blew right the hell off the deck, five stories below into the street. I saw the smashed remains on the way home, tossed to the curb. One made it down with only a broken leg, but the other was smashed up good, most likely the result of being run over. I walked quickly past both, imagining the pants-shitting havoc they may have visited on some unfortunate commuter in the middle of an already stressful downpour.

Aside from the obvious option of properly stacking them from now on, I figure my best course of action is to either attach a parachute to each piece of furniture or smash them into less dangerous bits before leaving them up there, so when they eventually blow away I’ll have minimized the potential damage.

2) That is a Gnarly Tranny!

There’s a gnarly tranny that’s spotted in our neighbourhood on occasion, and I don’t mean gnarly like, “Holy shit, did you see that tranny shed that monster wave – gnarly!” No, one of my co-workers, Gary, dubbed the Gnarly Tranny gnarly because she is at the very least in her ‘60s, has scraggly white hair with a bit of orange dye clinging to it, a face that makes no attempt to hide its weathered maleness, and what seems to be army tattoos on her forearms. She’s been known to walk around in a cheerleader outfit, and I only saw her the other morning in a mini-skirt, white blouse and ‘80s-style cable-knit sweater-vest. First thing in the morning, that is indeed one gnarly tranny.

On a side note: last fall, Rue Morgue president and founder Rod was interviewed by a local publication about the magazine, by a transgender journalist. She was not a gnarly tranny by any means, but rather very put-together cross-dresser. Anyhow, she arrived while Gary was on lunch, he didn’t know she would be there, and just before he arrived back at the office he ran into the aforementioned “Gnarly Tranny” on the sidewalk. The transgender journalist was in the washroom; Gary walks in the office and announces, “Hey guys, I just saw that gnarly tranny outside!” – just as the non-gnarly, and much taller, cross-dresser walked out of the bathroom, literally right into him. It was like something out of a Seinfeld episode, where he was George. I was pretty sure Gary’s eyes were gonna bug right out of his head. Luckily, his faux pas was only noticed by his co-workers. Later he shook his head and proclaimed: “Aw c’mon, what are the chances?!”

3) Mailmen are the Envy of Crackheads, Apparently

There’s a particularly off-putting crackhead that wanders around the Junction. I’ve seen her come into the office during a film shoot and help herself to food, park herself in the office and start going through a bundle of movie posters she stole from the Blockbuster and generally wander about, in a hoodie and no shoes. One time I saw her wandering around late at night in a different neighbourhood, talking to herself while inexplicably wearing a paramedic’s jacket. I've also been told she’s quite fond of stealing from local businesses – pretty standard crackhead shennigans.

Well, today one of the Rue Morgue writers was in the office and popped over to the local coffee shop. On the way he ran into her and she asked him if needed “a girlfriend for fifteen minutes.” Shortly after that we closed shop for the day. She came by, stuffed an old flight itinerary between the front door, along with a little pink plastic spoon from Baskin Robbins. Special crackhead delivery, I suppose. After she dumped her garbage, she violently shook the doors. If she wanted in, shouldn’t she have tried that first?

I’ve seen much crazier crackhead behaviour around these parts, though. One morning on my way to work, this guy told me he just got out of prison, offered to pay me a handful of grubby cash for a ride, then offered to have oral sex with me before running out into the street to shoot imaginary six guns at a city bus, which had to stop. Now that’s crackhead panache!

The Wonder Years

2007-04-24T12:37:00.000-06:00

In Ozanada this week, I laud the creation of the Gateway's online archives, stretching back to 1910! Get in there and see how great I really used to be. Also, I have a library named after me.

Building a mystery

2007-04-18T22:01:00.000-06:00

Hello, friends. I miss this guy here in this photo. And I have a special request. I'm calling it the Greatest Request Ever Requested. It's easy and cheap! Want to know more? Visit Ozanada!

Happy times are here!

2007-04-09T20:02:00.000-06:00

Or they're somewhere, I bet. New post at Ozanada! Less clutter here!

Rat Bastards

2007-04-05T00:29:00.000-06:00

Nothing, absolutely nothing – not even the government promise of a chicken in every pot and an oil pump in every back yard – makes me long for Alberta more than rats, or rather the lack of rats. Seeing as Alberta is the only rat-free province (it’s true!) and I’m guessing one of the largest rat-free piece of land not at one of the poles, it’s a vermin-hater paradise I’d long taken for granted.
Before moving to Ontario, I’d seen exactly one rat that wasn’t in a lab or kept as someone’s pet, and that was beneath a dumpster on the UBC campus in Vancouver. Even then, it was from far away and I was in the car, so it could’ve been a mouse dressed up in one of those inflatable Missy Elliot suits. I didn’t even see one when I visited NYC a few years ago. I almost wished I’d see one in Toronto, just to prove that they existed. Well, as Abraham Lincoln famously said, “Be careful what you wish for*.”
(*note: Abraham Lincoln probably never said that).
My odyssey of disgust and revulsion began this past December at work when a hole was made in the wall to run some wires. Soon after I recall our office manager stopping dead in the hallway, saying, “I think I just saw a rat – something big just ran down the hall,” to which the rest of us in the office gently scoffed and told her it couldn’t have been a rat. After all, we’d worked there for about two years without seeing anything other than a few mice that were promptly trapped. A rat? I don’t think so. But then she said she saw it again, and a couple days after that, another co-worker saw something dart out from behind a set of drawers near the hole. We moved the drawers to reveal some turds nearly as big as those of a rabbit. I was kind of aghast, but not having actually seen anything, it was hard to get too worked up. We moved a filing cabinet up against the hole and put out some rat traps (classic-style mouse traps but on steroids) yet nothing – no sign of any rats. No more sightings, so we assumed whatever it was had left and we weren’t too concerned as it was our month-off. This was the beginning of December.
When we returned to work in early January there was still no sight of anything, and we’d forgotten about it. Then I started hearing things in the walls. Scratching and scuttling – coming from inside the walls and the ceiling. I mentioned it to the mag’s owners, who live in the building above the office, and they kinda laughed, saying I was imagining things. They had family visiting and assumed it was someone moving around upstairs; it became kind of an ongoing joke for a while. But, I kept hearing it, mostly when working late, and other co-workers would hear it too sometimes, even during the day. Scratch… scratch…
It would take something drastic to get everyone’s attention, which happened the day my co-worker found a pile of rat shit in the middle of her desk, right in front of her monitor. It was kinds of a big “fuck you!” from the rat world. Clearly, they were calling us out. Would it come down to a humans/rat West Side Story-style knife fight in the alley?
I moved one of the rat traps and re-baited it, fully expecting a kill the next day, but nothing. They hadn’t gone for the piece of Caramilk bar, clearly blasé about the whole Caramilk Secret thing. (I learned later that when baiting a mouse or rat trap, you need to use gloves, as the scent of humans makes them suspicious and they won’t go near it until the aroma of human wears off.)
The next day I came to work to find a big motherfucking disgusting and thankfully stone-cold dead rat in the trap. Not including its gross worm of a tail, the thing was about the size of really large burrito – not those little fey burritos they make at Taco Bell, but the two-handers you get at a restaurant. I shoveled it into a garbage bag, feeling simultaneous disgust and triumph at putting a notch in the man-vs.-nature belt.
I thought and hoped that the one rat was it, that it was one errant pest causing all the commotion and now the problem was taken care of and I wouldn’t have to move into a biosphere somewhere in the Antarctic.
Wrong! A couple days later, I’m working away when something catches my eye from under my desk – the part of it right beside me where there’s this enclosed space beneath the drawers. It was a rat head poking out and staring at me, at which point I jumped back and yelled like a man-baby. There was actually a rat living under my goddamn desk!
I put a board over the gap and formulated a plan, as there’s no way in hell you can work with a rat under your desk – even if it can’t actually get at you. After arming out selves with a shovel and some pieces of wood, one co-worker used a stick and a flashlight to push the thing out and into a wastebasket, which, actually worked, the problem being that rats can jump really high, so it popped right out and scurried into the space where one of the office doors meets the wall. We took more boards and covered up all the gaps we figured were large enough for it toescape from. But then what?
Well, there was the ¾-inch gap between the wall and the hinge-end of the door, so one co-worker decided we could gas the little bastard with Raid. I’m serious when I say the gap was ¾-inch wide at the most, so it was amazing that the thing actually shot straight out of a gap much smaller than it’s body (apparently their gross little skeletons are built for extremely tight spaces). It flew out and, ironically, ran right into the very person’s office that was spraying it and hid in her hard drive cabinet.
Cue Benny Hill music.
Half of the staff barricaded themselves in the office so the rat couldn’t escape, while the rest waited outside. I went to the back to find something we could use to trap it – perhaps a miniature corral or really fuckin’ big Venus fly-trap. What I found was a Shop-Vac. Now, having worked construction, I’d goofed around extensively with Shop-Vacs before, dressing them up like R3-D2’s and testing them to see just how much weight they can pick up by suctioning various things to the end of the hose. When clean, they’re pretty damn powerful, so I thought maybe we could just – THUK! – vacuum the beast right up. Hell, it seemed like the ideal MacGyver solution at the time.
By the time I dragged the thing into the office, my co-workers had managed to pin the rat’s tail with the end of a shovel, but weren’t sure what to do then. The end was cutting through its tail so it was gonna escape if we didn’t act fast. I tried to suck it up in the vacuum, but that didn’t work. At all. Tensions were running high, and finally Gary, who’d pinned the thing, grabbed a board and mashed its head. It was nasty but quick and effective.
We’re all animal owners/lovers at the office, so this wasn’t an easy thing to do, although much easier than you think when disgusting vermin invade your workspace. Even our PETA-loving office manager proclaimed that she just wanted to “kill them all.”
Anyhow, by this time the exterminator had come. He discovered an “infestation” and set out a whole bunch of these little black plastic briefcases, each with a hole in the side and filled with poison. The poison slowly thickens the rat’s blood until they die, over the course of three to five weeks, at which time they apparently crawl outside, or in the wall and die (apparently they also mummify, so they don’t even stink). We wanted swift and decisive rat death to rain down from above like lighting from the hand of Zeus himself… but, hey, at least we had a pro on our side.
All was then quiet on the rat front for weeks, until the water cooler started leaking all over the floor. The rats had chewed through the line, presumably in a desperate attempt to re-hydrate. They’d also eaten a banana that was accidentally left out on the counter in the lunch room – where we prepare our lunches. Assholes! Then one of the guys living upstairs saw one in his bedroom and discovered the beginning of a nest in his sock drawer. The bastards are resilient. The exterminators said a little more time was needed, so we waited and soon all was quiet again; hopefully they were dead.
Yet, the saga continues. Last week the phones lines in the back office were chewed though, then, the same day, I’m working at my desk when a rat comes running down the hall, right at me (forcing a slightly less loud man-baby scream). It hid under my desk in the same spot as the other one. Just how many gypsies do you have to spit on to get that kind of a curse anyhow? To have a rat making house under your desk – twice! Again we trapped it under there, but this time waited for the exterminator to arrive. Before he got there, however, the thing managed to escape and craw under another co-worker’s desk. This time we trapped it in the space more securely, sent the intern out for sticky traps and made an opening that would force the creature onto the gooey death mats.
The funny thing was that we could see it, right by the hole, but it wasn’t moving. It occurred to us that its strange behaviour might have been the result of a poison-riddled brain in the throes of death. This was correct, and the next day we used a hockey stick to fish a dead rat out from beneath the desk. Gross, gross, gross.
Rat populations are surging right now worldwide, apparently. I watched a news report that said exterminators in England can’t keep up with the problem, while in the States, major cities are experiencing an explosion. There was a horrible story on CNN last month about a couple hearing their baby monitor go off, only to discover a rat had bitten their child’s nose off. The spike in the rat population is due in part to more people living closer together and, mainly, that people are pigs, leaving garbage all over the place, in the gutters and in abandoned lots, giving the rats and unlimited supply of food. Global Warming is only expected to exacerbate the problem as it creates more rat-friendly climates. And if that isn’t enough to make you hate them, someone told me this week that they’d read that rats are responsible for eating one-third of the world’s stored food supplies and that if this could be stopped, it would effectively solve much of the world’s hunger problem.
I for one don’t need that much of a reason to want them dead – having one violate your workspace is reason enough. Now when something brushes against my leg, my mouse cord moves on my desk or I see something out of the corner of my eye, I think “rat!” I’ve even had nightmares about rats attacking me in bed. I’m considering buying a pair of raver pants with lots of big pockets and filling them up with mongooses. Sure, I’d be Crazy Mongoose-Pants Guy, but at least I’d be rat-free Crazy Mongoose-Pants Guy.
The lesson here is that if you don’t live in Wild Rose country, seal up all possible vermin entrances to your place, no matter how seemingly small, don’t litter, if possible, set traps while wearing gloves, if you even have an inkling that you could have a rat, get on the problem immediately instead of waiting for a full-blown infestation, and never grow a rat-tail (irrelevant to pest control, they're just stupid). Also, don’t battle rats with Shop-Vacs, it doesn’t work.
Sigh… I miss Alberta.

Ozanada

2007-03-26T02:35:00.000-06:00

I don't know how to do it, but I've done it. I've created Ozanada, a choronicle of my life and othersuch retardation, to document my trip across Canada, and the journey towards the journey. With Journey. Man, what a great band.
I didn't want to clutter up this blog too much, because sometimes, I write long. But if anyone wants the things posted here, I could do that, too. I'm easy that way. And in general. Oh, and the post below is the drunken beginning to Ozanada, before I knew I was even going to write it. Read it. Live it. Love it. Yeah.

2007-03-18T01:10:00.001-06:00

And the perpetual mystery continues...

2007-03-18T01:10:00.000-06:00

Monday, I fly to Edmonton.
When I get there, for an indeterminate amount of time, I may work in Spruce Grove at a translation company as a marketing assistant, and I may live with my elderly grandparents for a while.
Or I may get a labour job with the temp agency I signed up for when I decided to leave Oceantown for long enough to pay for a trip across the country.
Or I may stay for good.
Or I may apply for the multitude of bottom-level jobs I'm overqualified for. I'm certain I could be a reporter for the Smalltown Dirtbag. Or for the Globe and Mail. It's more a matter of who will take me, than who I'm qualified to typo for.
Regardless, I'm leaving the town that feels more and more like home every time I step outside my house. If it's not the people I meet and know every time I go for groceries, or the friends and neighbours who show up uninvited to make my life more interesting at all hours of the day, it's any one of the 300,000 people in my tiny circle of friends who somehow seem to end up appearing right when I'm at my lowest. When I'm certain there's no real reason to stay here in the poor east, suffering through financial hardship, psychological turmoil, (related to the guilt of being too poor to do much of anything) or just plain boredom of working once a week for less than ten dollars an hour, someone invites me to the beach. Someone asks me for some help. Someone shows some indication that without me, Oceantown would be a sadder, more boring, less interesting place.
And it's horrifying. Many times before, after a short while elsewhere, be it Edmonton, or Calgary, I've realized that I'm not needed there the way I am here. Or, at least, I'm not content the way I am here. I don't want to drive to visit people. I don't want to plan around traffic to be certain I get to see my friends. Here, (but ever so rarely) loneliness is an error of omission, rather than the case in Edmonton, or elsewhere, where someone didn't want to drive the half-hour to visit me. I don't know how to justify or explain this to you. You'd have to be here, and be poor, and be indifferent, or even be well off, but still willing to live within this community structure... it's really hard to explain right now...
Regardless, in two days, I'm flying across the country, for finances, for family, to pick up a free truck, and to make enough money to drive it back to Oceantown. And to live here a while longer. I don't want to be successful. I don't want to be rich. Hell, I'd even put off being respected in my field a little longer. I just want to be happy.
And this is where it happens. Never mortgage that for anything.

Urban Decay

2007-03-11T13:32:00.000-06:00

As long as we're on the subject of bars being destroyed, on Friday morning the roof of Edmonton's Urban Lounge collapsed over the dance floor, creating a 40 by 40-foot hole. Only the janitor was in the building at the time and is unhurt. As detailed in this Edmonton Journal article, he heard a few loud cracking sounds before it gave way. Had it happened that night, while the music cranked, it's doubtful anyone would've heard anything to warn them to get the hell out of the way. If there is a God, he/she's surely sending a warning: "Thou shalt not play crappy frat rock!"
There's also a video of the TV news report here.
In non roof-related bar news, some of us ex-Edmontonians went to a club on Queen Street last night to see Calgary's The Dudes play for Canadian Music Week. Although it was hot, overcrowded and someone left a CD playing over the bar's speakers during the first two songs, it was still awesome to see one of my favourite bands again. We thought they were performing some miracle when people actually got up and danced instead of standing around looking aloof, but then we realized that everyone dancing was either there with the band or former Albertans. The rest of the T.O. crowd watched from afar or talked through the set. Oh well -- the band got huge applause regardless.
If you're out East, they're playing Ontario (mostly) Toronto dates for the next month, so check 'em out if you like catchy Modest Mouse-influenced indie rock. Dates are listed here on the band's site, along with some hilarious road diary entries.
For example: "we just drove past a giant sign in claresholm reading 'breakfast special, bucket of chicken'. jon says, "breakfast is the most important bucket of chicken of the day.' we learned to play the neutron dance in the van."
Other road blog highlights include being shocked nearly unconscious by feces-water in Canmore and watching meth addicts stab and choke each other in Edmonton.
It's worth a read for sure.

(photo of Urban Lounge by Ed Kaiser, swiped from the Edmonton Journal website)

Watching an Institution Burn

2007-03-07T18:58:00.000-06:00

So, seconds after writing that stupid post about those boring books, a friend of mine called.
"So, did you start the North End Pub on fire?"
Me: "No...?"
"Well, it's been on fire for an hour and a half. You should go check it out."
What a horrifying thought. The North End Diner/Pub is this shitty old quiet wood-paneled pub/diner carved out of a pair of old buildings a few blocks from my house. It ... was... the cheapest place in Oceantown to go for a beer or nine.
I crawled out into the sunlight, I had only to look up to see the end of one of my favourite places. White clouds of smoke towered over the neighbourhood, while people trickled down the tree-lined streets, muttering in disbelief, converging at the pub. The guy who owned the pizza place across the street from the North End came running down the sidewalk, yelling in a panic into his cellphone in Lebanese. He'd already seen enough.
At just over a block from my house, the North End had a certain convenience to it. But I'd been going there almost since I first arrived in Oceantown, when I lived across the city from it. I learned two-step dancing there. I dealt with and enjoyed one of the first crushes I had on an east-coast girl there. Week after week, I'd attend Leroy Bennett's Sunday Jamboree, where he and his band of merry misfits would strum, violin, drum and bass guitar whatever random cover song would pop into their heads, but with a country two-step beat. And for the elderly-at-heart, it ended at 7:00pm, leaving loads of time to walk home half-cut before the sun went down. This was also fine for me, since I really didn't need to stay out drinking late on a Sunday. So many Sundays.
When I got to the corner of the block and looked over at the rear of the building, I still had hope. Smoke billowed out the windows, but I couldn't see any flames. Maybe there would be renovations, and then a grand, grand reopening. But time passed. The two-story structure lost battle after battle as flames finally passed through the roof, igniting the tarpaper, and as the interior walls burned, the roof caved in, drawing in the exterior walls, still painted their forest green. Around front, the whole cafe-end of the North End was almost completely collapsed. Only the marquee was left, hanging straight as before, one side melted completely away, the other still holding the sliding letters in it. It was sort of fitting that the only words left (though slightly melted) were institutions--tonight would have been Danny Banfield's Jam Session, and Sunday, bloody Sunday, you could have been Leroy's neverending two-step-a-thon, if not for the North End's faulty wiring and oh-so-flammable tinder-dry walls.
Standing outside today, I was surrounded by the people who made the North End Pub the community institution it was. Leroy was there, taking a break from his barber shop a block away to watch his band's home for the last 10 years burn. All the server staff stood in tears, watching their livelihoods go up in smoke. B.A. (Bad Attitude), one of the regulars, and a sometime employee, stood in an angry frown bigger than she was. "Well, I guess there's nothing left to do but go get a beer," she said to the bar staff and waitresses standing outside. Some followed her, but most of them couldn't take their eyes off the flames and smoke. They lasted for so long. Nobody could tear themselves away, despite the -30 windchill. Despite the choking smoke. Despite, most importantly, the fact that, once the fire was out, they'd never be back within those wood-paneled walls, waiting for draft beer that tasted like only unnameable kegs running eternally through uncleaned pipes, sitting at little wooden tables, in front of Leroy's little stage, waiting, once again, for another summer sunlit Sunday to pass unnoticed while we listened, and sat, and hoped for just one more dance with that one girl before the band played the same last song they played every Sunday at 6:55pm.
And it really feels ugly that I can't remember what that song was.
It's a loss like this that makes me realize that, despite my poverty, and despite my lack of ability to get anything in motion here, it's this community that took me in and welcomed me, far more than the ugly university area where I began my experience in Oceantown. Here is where I live. Here's where I call home. And the North End Pub; well, it was like our living room. Or our grandma's house. And grandma's gone.
Swill beer will never taste the same.

2007-03-07T15:01:00.000-06:00

Neptune's Balls!

2007-03-07T12:10:00.000-06:00

Ah, for the lusty days of the high seas, when ladies were trollopes, and pirates were sensual, gentle, clean and healthy proper-English-speaking upstanding fellows, unwilling to rape the innocent women they happened to be chatting with at the time.
This beautiful world is revived in Pot of Gold and Emerald Isle by Megan Hart, who I'm sure is just sitting on some Pulitzer material here. Here's a taste of the magic world she's built:

"I don't like being predictable." Robin stared up at the stars, hard.

"Neptune's balls!" he cried again, only because he couldn't think of what else to say.

"I don't give a fig for Neptune's," Eleanor retorted smartly. "But I believe I'd like to learn more about yours."

Ah, pure gold. Just imagine reading this with the children by the fireplace, with a crack-pipe hanging coyly from your lips, as you tear out page after page, tossing each one into the amber glow of the crackling hickory. That means fire.
And the cover design for each book is brilliant. Watch mystified as the exact same picture is superimposed over two different backgrounds--each one more pirate-like than the next. In one, the pirate has healthy skin tones. In the next--he must be cold, because he's a sharper shade of turquoise than most humans usually consider healthy.
Literature has come a long way since Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe and Curious George Goes to Market. Now, with Megan Hart and Neptune's Balls guiding us through page after page of historically accurate literature, we can toss the classics where they belong--into a flame-addled hearth of burninatious proportions. That also means fire.
http://www.meganhart.com/PotGold.html

Model-cising

2007-02-28T18:37:00.000-06:00

Beauty tips you might have seen on tonight's episode of America's Next Top Model had the casting directors chosen Farrah Fawcett over Twiggy:

1. Get the hair:

Step One (if only it ended here)

Step Two

Step Three
Step Four

2. Farrah's Fitness (contestants are challenged to figure out what the hell the arrows mean):

The first few are straightforward enough:

After that, it's wiggier than Tyra's weave

Cinchers!

"Derriere pinchers" are totally fierce.

Leaving the Station for Good

2007-02-18T23:12:00.001-06:00

This won't be news to anyone reading from Edmonton, but for any ex-Edmontonians reading from abroad, I got this in my inbox a few days ago, as I'm still on the Sidetrack Cafe media mail-out list.

Sidetrack Cafe Closes After 26 Years

Due to numerous circumstances, the difficult decision to close the Sidetrack Café was made yesterday February 15, 2007, on its 26th birthday.

We would like to thank all those that have supported the Sidetrack Café in the last 26 years.

The Sidetrack Café was made a special and important venue with the help of amazing performers and a great community that supported the concept of the Sidetrack Café. We would especially like to thank all of our local performers as it has always been your venue first and foremost.

The Sidetrack Café was also blessed with wonderful and committed staff members that brought the Sidetrack Café experience to life on a daily basis.

The Sidetrack Café would like everyone to focus on the positive experiences we all had at this fantastic venue rather than the circumstances that led to its closure.

Thank you for 26 remarkable years!

The Sidetrack Café

It's a shame that the bar/restaurant (it was never really a café) couldn't survive the move from its original location. I hadn't been to its new downtown spot but I'd heard from a lot of folks that it had gone downhill. I seem to recall that the last time I’d been there, a few years ago, the food wasn’t so good. Back in the day, though, it was a great place to sit on the patio on a warm day, get a few pitchers of beer and one of their famous giant plates of nachos. I recall a particularly fun SEE magazine staff party there, and among the best gigs I attended at the Sidetrack, there were Tegan and Sarah, Old Reliable, The Hi-Phoniqs, Holly McNarland and a particularly fantastic Weakerthans show with multiple encores. Plus, it was pretty fun to sit in the actual rail car. I can’t say it was a regular hangout by any means – I was more of a Bronx/Rebar type – but it’s still a bummer to see an Edmonton cultural institution lost to the downtown condo belt.

Anyone else got any memories (fond or otherwise) to share about the Sidetrack?

New kitten on the block

2007-02-17T13:38:00.000-06:00

I'm in.
--stay tuned for awesome-ness--

Aaaaaand We're Back

2007-02-14T23:16:00.000-06:00

Note: It's been a little while since anyone's posted here, and this time it's not just laziness. Blogger overlords Google have basically forced users to get a Gmail account if they want to continue using their sites, as I found out when I tried to post a few weeks ago. I didn't want a Gmail account (I've got enough email addys, thank you) but was forced into it anyhow. Long story short, trying to post on the blog again was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had – an unnecessarily convoluted and user unfriendly process. Therefore, I’d like to take a moment to offer a big SCREW YOU to Google. Luckily, the combo of “Blogger” “is” “ass” was available for a Gmail account name, offering a smattering of catharsis for the recently-forced-to-sign-up. So, anyhow, many swashbuckling tales to ensue, starting with this heartwarming post-holiday post from Collin:

I clearly remember getting suckered by my parents one year after dinner on Christmas Eve. Allowed to open one present early and with great gusto, I shred the wrapping on a handpicked gift, only to discover a new shirt. The message was clear that the new, brown, heavily ridged shirt was meant to be worn at midnight mass.
This more or less got me thinking about Christmas photos and helped produce the accompanying photo which Emma and I sent out as the first joint Christmas Card of coupledom.
If you look at any family photo older than 15 years, and you'll see wanting souls trying to be casually elegant wearing the fare of the day. Immortalized in whatever passed for style at the time, they are attempting to speak through time, trying to convince future eye balls of stoic happiness.
Without being a total cynic, the process is somewhat oxymoronic. The idea is that you're trying to look good, but tragically can not, due to circumstances of era and the unforgiving hands of time. Eventually, you will look bad no matter what.
This is all a bit of an afterthought, however, to why we decided to mock the process and pretend it was Christmas 1963. Honestly, a few people we know did the same thing as a lark, which leads us to believe that the phenomenon is quite evolved in Medicine Hat.
One couple donned the Cosby sweaters, teased their bangs, grabbed their tiny dog and headed to Wal-Mart portrait studio where they perched their chins on folded hands and gazed stupidly into the distance.
Another acquaintance convinced his four brothers to grow thin moustaches, comb their hair down and affect a Very-Banger-Christmas look.
This is hilarious on many fronts. And we both highly recommend trying it yourself.
Some advice:

1.) Choose an era carefully. Ours was obvious since our recently purchased house was last remodeled in the early 1960's. We had the wood paneling already and since we had to deal with it every second of the day, why not forced it in to our friends' lives.

2.) Consider theme! I found a terrific set of leisure clothes and Emma found a stunningly dated purple tent dress that would have been very chic, but the problem was that they wouldn't have gone together. The photo would have looked like a hastily planned Halloween. Remember that you're trying to look good. Nobody would wear their active wear in a Christmas Photo, so leave out the three-quarter sleeve Iron Maiden t-shirt as well.

3.) Details matter. If you look closely there's a bottle of scotch on the mantle, which I thought was important for several reasons. Firstly to pay a sort of tribute to the time's more-accepted attitudes toward boozing and secondly to hint at closet alcoholism.

4.) Act the part (don't over reach): We did do a little bit of shopping. Notably for the bowling trophies and the tackier of the two stockings were not ours -- but now are, strangely. Most of it, the painting, my glasses, etc, were ours to begin with -- sadly. My tie and polyester pants are Value Village specials, are is Emma's sack dress, which was five sizes too big and is being cinched in behind with bag clips.

5.) Acquire a glazed over look and… presto.

Happy 1964 everybody!

Let's Learn About History!

2007-01-24T23:27:00.000-06:00

Dan sent this to me today, and I have to agree with him that this is pretty much the greatest piece of art ever created in the history of humankind. It comes from this site, which also hosts some pretty bizarre comics. Thanks, Dan!

Adventures in Real Estate

2007-01-22T01:40:00.000-06:00

Buying a condo earlier this year – actually owning the place you live! – was weird enough in an "am I grown up enough for this?" sort of way, but not as strange, it seems, as the world of real estate in general. The agent who scored us our condo -- Robert -- is half of a husband and wife team that take the whole customer service thing to the next level. (This is good, especially considering it was the easiest sale he probably ever made – first place we looked, right across the street from our old apartment, almost no haggling.) After getting the place, they sent us a big basket of home stuff as a house warming present, then, later, a letter with a Blockbuster gift certificate and some microwave popcorn, and, at Christmas, another big ass gift basket. Strange and unexpected, but pretty sweeeeet; and I’m now feeling a sense of entitlement. Any day now I expect a letter from IGA asking how the fish sticks I bought last month are working out for me, and thanking me with a free bag of Skittles or something.
Free stuff must be a particularly effective useful device in real estate, because this weekend we ended up driving to the other end of Toronto for a “party” thrown by Robert and his wife, where the big draw was a draw for a free cruise for two. Normally, I couldn’t be bothered to roll off the couch for a draw, but we decided to go because friends Geoff and Andrea were going to check it out (they referred us to Robert and thereby earned themselves an extra ballot), it seemed like a good excuse to hit our favourite east end Indian restaurant afterwards and, well, mostly it’d be good for a laugh.
This whole real estate freebie thing really took on some weight as, while driving, we passed the sign pictured above, which reads, “The Real Estate Viewing Centre” and in smaller print underneath: “Free Popsicles!” It’s all part of a whacky business plan, which you can read more about here. I guess they expect to sell a lot of condos to broke teenagers.
Anyhow, we continued onward to the very large and fancy Dominion grocery store where the party was taking place, in a rented room upstairs. We parked beside a car with two dogs in it and the stereo playing, presumably to keep them occupied or at least in the loop as to where John Mayer is charting these days. That kind of neighbourhood.
Inside it was punch, snacks, plastic lays for the ladies and impatient couples, perhaps because many of the men were overheating in their Cosby sweaters. Eventually Robert hauled out one of those little hand-cranked lottery ball baskets and the big contest was under way. To up the excitement, ten balls were drawn, representing the semi-finalists, from which the final winner would be picked. Geoff and Andrea made it into the semis, but alas, there dreams were torn asunder.
The best part of the whole affair was the photographer standing around wearing a “Press” badge. He looked appropriately sad for a man crushed under the lowest rung of his chosen profession, but snapped away like a champ anyhow, hopefully getting just the right shot for the front page of The East Toronto Real Estate Weekly Reader or whatever. Poor fucker.
So, is this the real cost of owning a place – driving across town to eat chicken nuggets and hopefully win a cruise? It was a nice gesture on the real estate agents’ part, and really more of an excuse to hit up Little India, but was ever I glad to leave that strange trip behind. On the way out we thanked Robert’s wife – whose name, I still didn’t catch – and joked about passing The Real Estate Viewing Center. She smiled and told us they were thinking of opening up an office in the area, but they’d be giving away ice cream. I’m fairly certain she was serious, too. The lesson here is: never underestimate your real estate agent – they’ve got all the angles covered. And the other lesson is don't leave music on in your car for your dogs -- it makes you look like an asshole.

Let's Learn About Nature

2007-01-12T21:25:00.000-06:00

Remember those old Hinterland Who's Who nature vignettes you'd see on TV as a kid? Well, grab your nostalgia broom and get ready to clear the cobwebs out of memomory lane, as we take a look at our friends, the spiders of the hinterland.

*And I almost forgot, the Rue Morgue blog was launched last week and I'll be blogging it up in the blogosphere, blog-style, over there, as well. Come one and all monster-lovin' horror nerds. Zombies ahoy: here!

A Hobo in Search of a Hobotomy

2007-01-10T11:59:00.000-06:00

Happy new year, Team Wordlords.
Christmas , as SR-71 sang so long ago, was a time to say "I love you." Of course, this year, it was also a time to say "no, I don't want any more booze," and "well, if you've opened it, I'll drink it."
I did a weird thing this Christmas--I got a job. I came out to OilDollarVille, and since everyone was working during the day, I made a phone call to my furniture-store-running uncle, and, 5
minutes later, had full-time work at the United Furniture Warehouse near St. Albert.
I rejoined the Alberta workforce old-school with an instant $12/hour, 20-minute traffic-riddled commute on two major freeways, and eight+ hours a day with utterly and completely indifferent retail dregs and retarded salespeople.
The weird thing out here--there's NO incentive to work hard. Don't like your job? Go across the street and get a different one! Don't like that one? Come back across the street and back to your same job, but with a $5/hour raise! It's ridiculous! Don't like that? Buy an 18-wheeler on credit, get your company to pay for your class 1 license training, and make $200/hour hauling water to and from oil rigs.
Got a brain? Keep it! You'll need something to entertain yourself while the people around
you perform their daily "which non-white race is worst" pageant loudly and unabashedly.
Anyway, I lifted furniture for a week, got big pipes, and quit that very Friday.
Christmas itself was good. Relaxing. Other than my 45-minute panic attack Christmas Eve where I cursed retail and corporate culture for convincing an entire society that extreme guilt is the motivating emotion behind gift-giving, it was all quite smooth. We all got presents, and we all had fun.
New years was a dreamland of escapist escape and ...escaping. A friend of a friend has five or so acres of abandoned apple orchard two hours from Oceantown, so we went out there, ran arround in Sleepy-Hollow-esque woodlands, stopping intermittently to slide on the frozen duck ponds, marvel at the variety of wood-and-mud construction buildings they've erected, and retrieve my drunken, stoned cousin from the frozen creek bed. With four dogs, two cats, 22 people, and a three-story open-concept space-hippy house, it was "an event to be remembered," as Gateway entertainment writers used to constantly say. The alcohol ran freely. The drugs were available and ignored by me. The dogs fought eachother constantly. The people were completely new, for the most part. And the kids were this odd breed of rural children, who say odd things like "let's go play outside" and "I'm sorry" and "I'm tired of watching TV." Odd breeding, I suppose.
Foreboding the forebodables was my girlfriend's complete disinterest in attending any of the post-OilMoneyVille events when I returned. I didn't take it personally; she generally declined most invitations, citing lack of leadtime (she was not a fan of spontaneity, unless it involved icecream) or general disinterest in bars, loud events, and most outdoor activities.
I thought not a lot of it until we had a fight over her blowing her nose.
She uttered the words "I don't want to do this any more."
I agreed.
As breakups go, it was fairly amicable. There are details to her sexuality that preclude my usefulness to her---this became increasingly evident when intercourse and tears came together for an extended visit, and then both left on the same train, never to return. There are points in both our political ideologies that conflicted in the same way those of Hitler and a Jewish rabbi would. And there were fundamental flaws in the compatibility of our senses of humour. I like jokes that span a range of topics. Shock value is high on the humour scale.
She likes delicate, thought-out humour, and often, depreciating humour. Puns were fine. Jokes about her, to a point, were also fine. To a point. I like crossing lines. And so on.
So it's been a few days. Maybe this post is too long, but I'd like to say this--it's tough. I'm too old to be breaking up. She told me right when we first started dating that this couldn't last forever, and in my naivety, I assumed she might be wrong, or could be convinced otherwise. That theory was buffeted by constant reality checks and frank discussions between us, and I accepted the fact that things probably wouldn't last forever. We almost broke up several times, but this time, it finally stuck.
SO, in conclusion, hot female readers of random blogs who aren't monkey-toothed, lobotomy-scarred degenerate chair-filling troglodytes, I'm single again. What I'll do with this newfound freedom has yet to be decided. So far, my old friends SimCity and booze are tiding me over. But eventually, things are going to have to get better. I hereby declare 2007 the Year of the Functioning Genitals. I mean the year of pleasant long-term relationships. Or maybe the first one.

My little brother: three years younger, ten times more badass.

2006-12-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

After testing the waters a little over a year ago with a muted, single-colour tattoo of a truck on one of his forearms, my brother Nick has clearly to dived headfirst into the world of skin art, making his second foray to the tattoo parlour a big one with this pretty amazing four-colour leg sleeve. Obviously, he's got a few more colour sessions ahead of him, but it's looking pretty rad — not to mention tough. I felt like I had to write "FUCK" on my knuckles with a Sharpie or something just so I looked like less of a pussy standing next to him.

Papa's got a brand new coroner's bag

2006-12-25T14:25:00.000-06:00

Well, if any of you had James Brown dying of pneumonia on your holiday wish list, looks like today was your best Christmas ever.

A damned shame.

Also, Merry Christmas, awesomelords.

Holiday in Edmonton: Reviewed!

2006-12-25T01:12:00.000-06:00

All this Edmonton boosterism reminded me to drop a post about my trip back west. Before I even left here, the cab ride to the airport offered a hint of things to come, as I saw road signs advertising work in Alberta. As you’ve heard, the Wild Rose province is booming harder than the bass in a high school kid’s iPod. There are Help Wanted signs everywhere, fast food restaurants have closed due to staff shortages (I saw two Burger Kings and Dairy Queen shut down, apparently for this reason), and many places are keeping shorter hours – as I discovered when lunch plans at DADEOS were scrapped because the place was still closed two hours after posted opening time.
The service industry is stretched thin, and the most noticeable change in the city is that service suuucks, at least at the chain stores. Panago screwed up my pizza order in three different ways by forgetting stuff and delivering the wrong pizzas. Red Robin gets a mention for its shrapnel lunch special, where a server dropped a beer bottle, which showered my table with shards. The waitress watched my buddy and I pick glass out of hair, shrugged and muttered “oops” as she walked away.
Future Shop, however, failed on all cylinders. My first trip there saw approximately 400 sales people huddled in tight, eye-contact-avoiding circles, while a single bored cashier accommodated a line-up of roughly fifteen increasingly hostile shoppers. I joined the line to find out the price of box-set. It had no sticker and the eleven-year-old who looked it up on the computer told me – and I’m not exaggerating here – that the price was $1.60. I informed him that, like, maybe that wasn’t right, as it was a three-disc DVD set, so he told me I’d have to ask the cashier. After the line stretched out to about 20 people, a manager sauntered over to watch. The fuming woman behind me told him to get another cashier on; he agreed – seemingly taken off guard by such a revolutionary suggestion – and ran away to the back, where he presumably started another life among the boxes in the stockroom, as neither himself nor a cashier ever appeared. At least the frothing mad guy screaming at the people in the returns department absorbed some of the tension.
That was at the south side location.
A few later I ended up at the downtown store with a friend who was in the market for a new TV. He picked one out, didn’t bother to haggle, and off went the sales rep to the back to find it. Some time later, we’re informed that the store doesn’t have one in the back, and he couldn’t sell the floor model. Fine, OK, how about this other, similar model, then? Again, no dice, but if we wanted to come back in a couple of days he could have one sent here from the warehouse. Since my friend doesn’t drive and planned to cab it back to his apartment so the two of us could load it in, this wasn’t going to work. The sales guy’s solution? My friend could pay $50 to have it delivered in a few days. I suggest the rep knocks $50 off the price – sweet fuck all on a $1500 purchase – and then my friend would pay the delivery charge. Hmmm… he didn’t know if he could do this and suddenly assumed the look of slaughterhouse cow dazed by glancing sledgehammer blow. At this point the guy wandered off to talk to someone who could crack this Rubik’s Cube of commerce and we assumed he’d return with an A-OK. Seems like a no-brainer, especially when you’re getting commission, right? Guess not, and he too disappeared in the back to start a new life in the Peoples Republic of TV Boxes.
Really, the whole lack of service thing was more funny than frustrating, and it was interesting to see exactly what happens when people stop pretending to care about crappy jobs. It certainly didn’t harsh my Edmonton buzz, anyhow, and, on the upside I did have one of those faith-in-humanity moments that would give Jimmy Stewart a yuletide boner. I was waiting for my ride in front of Colin’s place one snowy night when I noticed a homeless dude sitting in the front entrance of the apartment across the street. A woman came in and started talking to him, and I thought, “The jerk is gonna kick that guy’s ass out in the storm,” but instead she gave him a smile, coffee and a bag of food, chatted him up and went inside.
It also needs to be said that Edmonton looked beautifully seasonal, like a city should in the winter: blanketed in fresh powdery snow (beats the blustery rain in Toronto). Regardless, nothing’s better than haunting those familiar haunts, keeping friendly with old friends and cramming in more than enough good times to remind me why the Edmonton’s worth being homesick over.
So, how are the cockles of your heart? Warm? Mine are toasty, and engorged with Christmas spirit – or maybe it’s the Neo Citron I drank a half-hour ago.
My forehead feels fuzzy.

Now: the essentials of my trip to Edmonton – by the numbers.

Duration of trip: 10 days
Amount of snow: 2-3 feet
Estimated average temperature: -10
Earliest I woke up: some time after 10am
Times I made my brother cousins or friends drive me around: too many to count
Visits with grandma: 3
Times I accidentally came across a picture of myself in the Journal: 1 (Ed did an anniversary issue that re-ran a pic of Neal and I drunk in Santa costumes)
Jokes made about grandma’s Christmas-themed vest: 1 (“Why, I see you’re celebrating Vestivus this year!”)
Number of times grandma asked me to dust the top of the fridge: 1
Loads of grandma’s laundry I folded: 2
Pairs of big old grandma underwear I folded: don’t want to talk about it
General awesomeness of grandma: 10 out of 10
Christmas dinners: 3
Pizza dinners: 3
Restaurant meals: 11
Lunches that involved drinking three or more pints: 1
Lunches with SEE alumni: 1
Steaks eaten: 1
Tom Clancy games played through on Colin’s Xbox 360: 1
Title of game: 6 as in Rainbow Six: Vegas (die terrorist scumfucks!)
Number of time Colin made me watch the (admittedly cool) trailers for Halo 3: 6 (at least)
Oilers games I considered attending: 1
Oilers games I attended: 0
Price of single-seat ticket to said Oilers game: $175
Items of Oilers swag I bought instead: 4 (socks, gloves, book, hat)
Long walks downtown: 2
Shopping trips down Whyte Ave: 3
Old friends bumped into while shopping on Whyte: 3
Whyte Ave ratio of hipsters to non-hipsters: 1:1
Percentage of those hipsters wearing either a second-hand blazer, aviator glasses or a headband: 75%
Percentage of hipsters who probably paid too much for a bad haircut: 90%
Trips to West Edmonton Mall: 0
Trips I wanted to take to West Edmonton Mall: 0
Items bought to avoid paying extra tax in Ontario: 1 (extra memory for laptop)
Trips to the south side before correct memory was purchased: 2
Condescending computer tech-nerdiness level of guy who sold me the memory: 100%
Trips to the movie theatre: 0 (oddly)
LRT trips taken: 1
Nights drinking at the Black Dog: 1
Drunken post-Black Dog trips to Sam Wok: 1
Amount of food that ended up on table: roughly 15%
Gateway geeks I dined with while there: 3 (Dan, Leanne, Cosanna)
Books I convinced Dan to write that night while we were drunk: 1
Nights drinking at the Garneau Pub: 1
Number of changes made to Garneau Pub since I was there in the summer: 1 (got rid of one of the pool tables in favour of more tables)
Metal nights attended at Filthy McNasty’s: 1
Metal night I thought I’d attend at Filthy McNasty’s (or anywhere else for that matter): 0
Awesomeness of going to metal night: 666 (they played Maiden)
Parties: 2
Latest running party: 5:15am
Number of high school friend couples that had babysitters that night so they could drink: 4
Hangovers: 1
Duration of hangover: 2 days (a new record!)
Volume that I tell myself the partying was cranked up to: 11

Lastly, have a good one, friends, and I hope everyone checks in with a Christmas update.

Wooing New Yorkers with tales of Edmonton

2006-12-22T18:18:00.000-06:00

So I was just on the New York Times website reading about that big storm in Denver (it's a very slow day at work — I've been here for three and a half hours and have written one headline), when an ad at the top of the page caught my eye. At first, I thought there must be some mistake. "This computer knows I'm from Edmonton, and so it's directing Edmonton-related advertising my way," I thought. Then I remembered that computers can't read your mind.

In fact, the City of Edmonton (which so many of you are enjoying right now, and which I miss more than my dead cat) is advertising to New Yorkers, hoping to lure them away from their boring city with fascinating facts like:

• Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta!
• The Edmonton region has a population of about 1 million people!
• Edmonton holds more than 30 cultural festivals every summer!
• The Edmonton region has 85 billion dollars in investment planned or underway!

Now, if promises of a provincial seat of government, a population of 1 million, cultural festivals (only in the summer, though) and oil money doesn't attract New Yorkers, I can't imagine what will. After all, New York is nothing if not a small, poor, cultureless, political wasteland of a city.

Unfortunately, the campaign's name ("re-ED-ucate yourself") and use of the horribly outdated Edmonton logo make the city look like some pathetic rural ghost town desperately trying to attract visitors with its promises of "low prices" and "peace and quiet." Plus, their website, which they encourage you to visit, looks like it was designed by, well, someone from Edmonton's city council: http://www.edmontoneducates.com/edmontoneducates/myweb.php?hls=10081

If the city really wants to attract real-life New Yorkers with their "American dollars" and their "ballet," they should be advertising their severe labour shortages. Now that's what Americans want to hear!

Stick a F.O.R.K. in Him, He's Done

2006-12-15T13:23:00.000-06:00

I’m back again in the Land of Oil and Honey, and wouldn’t you know it, the Ralphbertans are saying farewell to their King. This includes the Edmonton Chinese Community Association, which threw the Friends of Ralph Klein appreciation dinner on December 7th. My aunt’s neighbour was one of the organizers and gave my aunt and my grandma tickets to attend – my grandma happily reported that he didn’t seem to be drinking that night. As you can see by the program, it featured a fairly large menu – including Peking Duck, fresh lobster, beef tenderloin – and a lengthy (four-hour) itinerary complete with dance and musical numbers.

The highlight of the evening, though, was surely House Leader and Education Minister Gene Zwozdesky’s “Song for Premier Ralph and Dr. Colleen Klein,” which I’ve included so you can sing it yourself in reverence to the couple (“Ralpheen” for short). Sung to the melody of “Happy Birthday,” its standout stanza is “We-will-never forget/When-our-future looked wet/But-along came Ralph Klein/And-erased all our debt.” Man, the only way that could be any better is if were sung while Ralph whacked at a hobo-piñata until it spilled money and airplane bottles of booze. Truly multi-cultural.

Everyone who attended the event also went home with a table fork. Why? Because F.O.R.K. is the acronym for Friends of Ralph Klein. As my grandma observed, “I don’t know what the heck I’m going to do with this thing; I don’t want it in with my cutlery.”
So, here’s to you Ralph – for all those late-night drunken homeless shelter altercations, for keeping education expensive and being an enemy to students, for always putting business before the environment, for your homophobic grandstanding, for making every effort to destroy healthcare, for your very embarrassing pro-Bush/Iraq War stance and for always finding time to put on a cowboy hat and flip pancakes for the press. We’ll miss your liquor-engorged jowls… mostly because it’s better the enemy you know than the jackass that’ll replace you. May your future be black and oily.

A Mouthful of Dreams

2006-12-14T17:23:00.000-06:00

Fuck newspapers, mi compadres. I've got a new passion: eating chocolate by the pallet.
I've been temping, and living the dream, and in my perpetual cycle of box-related jobs, I've finally hit the coronary-bypass-jackpot.
They've posted me at a chocolate factory. Deep in the wilds of Nova Scotia sits the factory where they make the classic Pot of Gold chocolates.
Those who know their history know I once lived a life of near-diabetic bliss for four months in the summer of 1998 as a swamper for Nestle Ice Cream. In that passionate summer, I endured an insanity-cursed ice-cream man who longed for his own death so I could enjoy a hearty $10/hour. I was paid, for all intents and purposes, to get heatstroke and eat icecream.
Now, almost exactly 10 years later (like, nine!) I've once again fallen into the hyperglycemic world of factory-formed glucose confections.
There are no oompah-loompahs in this magic world, though. And if I'm Charlie Buckett, Willy Wonka would have to be my bizzare post-menopausal boss, who can switch between announcing her mother's impending death to openly teasing customers about their severe obesity in less time than it takes to stick a macaroon to a lonely girl's thighs (from the inside, of course. Nothing kinky implied.)
My job, if I choose to accept it (I did!) is to wander past the chocolate-boxing robots, over the concrete floors where the human automatons, with mouths perpetually full, chew while sorting chocolates; over the wildlands where the pallet jacks are put to pasture, into a storeroom where the Ark of the Covenant, if it were made of chocolate, could safely be stored with no chance of ever releasing the horrid spectre of perpetual and calamitous obesity.
Once there, I stack twice (wait... no...) three times my own weight in seven-pound boxes of chocolate "seconds" (not as in helpings, but as in second-rate, or imperfect) on a four-wheeled cart, roll them back through that magical land, to the retail bulk outlet at the front of the factory.
Once there, I stack them onto the shelves around me, filling according to type, and watching all the while as they disappear faster than I can put them out. Bulks of flesh, all too bumpy to discern gender, and waiflike ancient creatures, with toothless sweetteeth needing feeding (becoming a little too lyrical, no?) grab 30 or 40 pounds of chocolate, which is four or five boxes, and pay absurdly small prices for them.
As an example:
I bought three boxes yesterday.
1 box of marshmallow pumpkins
1 box of hazelnut clusters (like Turtles)
1 box of coffee-cream chocolates
Grand total: $4.10, because Mrs. Wonka didn't want to charge me for the most expensive box--the hazelnuts--and the other two were two dollars a piece. My fingertips were blue by the time I got home from the weight of the plastic bag-handles pushing into my tender flesh, blocking my circulation. And despite my better efforts to eat my weight in chocolate, just to lower the weight of the bags, I only succeeded in putting myself off-balance by doubling my double chins.
Tomorrow is my last day, and I'm really going to miss it. Chocolate, despite everything else it does to people, also makes them really easy to get along with. I think working at a store that makes people feel more merry because their getting Christmas chocolate at Canada-day prices (what?) is my new top job for 2006. So what if it's only $9/hour. I certainly won't starve to death before new year's.

The Bittersweet Taste of Mallo

2006-12-08T00:30:00.000-06:00

Have you ever heard of a Mallo Cup? I hadn't, until I went into Retro Fun, a store in Toronto that sells weird and vintage toys, games, trading cards and other collectibles, plus import candy. Somewhere between the Babe Ruth bars and the UK-imported Ripple bars, I found Mallo Cups, a candy made by Pennsylvania's Boyer Candies. Basically, a Mallo Cup is a deeper Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, but with marshmallow cream filling – pretty tasty.

I picked it because I liked the retro feel to the packaging. If you go to the Boyer website, there’s a company history that explains how it all started during the Depression with a family selling homemade candy door-to-door to make ends meet. However, despite changing hands a couple of times throughout the years, this is obviously a company that doesn’t change with the times very easily – just ask Marty Mallo, the high-tops and aviator shades-wearing mascot.

Even more retro than Marty, though, is the Mallo Cups Play Money promotion. Each Mallo Cups package includes a very vintage-looking card worth 25 Mallo Cup Play Money points, which one can redeemed for prizes, including a Boyer memorabilia mug (2250 points), Marty Mallo sweatshirt (4500 points) and the top dog: a Marty Mallo Quartz Watch (8500). That timepiece will come in real handy when measuring your laboured heart-rate after eating the 340 Mallo Cups (technically 680 cups, as there are two per package) it takes to get the stupid watch – which can also be bought for $24.95.
But say you don’t want to eat that much candy; what can be had for a mere 500 points? Well, if you smash down 20 Mallo Cups you’re eligible for a Marty Mallo rebate cheque totaling… wait for it… wait for it… $1.00! With chocolate bars costing about a buck each, that’s like buy 20, get one free. No, wait… after you buy an envelope and postage (FYI: from Canada it would cost $0.89) to send in your points, you’ve probably spent over a $1.00.
It seems the only way to come out on top of this chocolate-covered scam is to get yourself a time machine and take those lousy points back to the 1950s. And I can’t imagine how many points you’d need for the Marty Mallo Time Machine.

And on a non-Mallo Cup-related note, I’m back in Edmonton from December 8th to the 18th. See some of you then.

Old Ottawa South: where any retard can put out a newspaper

2006-12-02T20:29:00.000-06:00

Ottawa has more community papers than any city in the world. It's a fact, proven by a study I recently conducted that involved me living here for three months and noticing a lot of different community papers. None, however, can come close to this little beaut: it's called the O.S.C.A.R., which wittily abbreviates "Ottawa South Community Association Review" and, well, I'll let you judge for yourself:

Yes, that's right. "Old Ottawa South, where wishes do come true." And what was that wish? Well, according to the accompanying article, they wanted sidewalks. And, goddammit, they weren't going to rest until they had those sidewalks. And you know what? THEIR WISH CAME TRUE. Apparently, that wish also involved unhappy children in creepy hats who are clearly overdressed for the weather. Here's a closer view of the before and after pictures, so you can truly appreciate the joy the residents of Old Ottawa South must be feeling today. (Except that kid. That little bastard is clearly taking those sidewalks for granted):

Better red (or pink) than dead

2006-12-01T10:00:00.000-06:00

Today, in Oceantown, the citizens' lungs re-pinken; their blood pressures drop; while their livers continue the gentle swelling they've enjoyed for ages.
For the first time since fire was invented, I can walk into a bar, drink my face off, and not hack from the toxic grey haze that fills in the little spaces within my lungs.
That's right. I've had gills installed, and I'll just keep my head in the toilet all night.
No, dummy. They've made smoking in all public spaces illegal here in Nova Scotia. Bars, buildings, even outdoor patios will be stink-free. Anyone smoking within 4 metres of an air intake will get a ticket. Anyone smoking inside will be tazered.
No longer will shit-exhaling companions in drinking establishments foul the air with their rot-mouthed smoke breath. And the age of coming home smelling like an ashtray has finally closed. Only the stink of spilled alcohol will sully this sometime-reporter's typically odorous person.
Sure, the gutters on the streets of Oceantown will soon be completely filled with cigarette butts, and the waterfront, one of the few outdoor public places you can smoke, will look like a filter-tipped hepatitis snowstorm, but so long as I wear shoes and keep my mouth off the ground (generally a good idea anyway), I'll be stink-free (at least from outside sources), cough-free (except for colds my junior-high-school-teaching cousin brings home from work), and hangover-free (except, of course, when I drink too much).
To say goodye, I went out with four smoker friends yesterday night for a final puff indoors. About 10 years ago, someone or other passed a law that said smoking could only happen in little closed-off rooms within the bars. The cigarette companies paid to build them, and smoking continued. The doors to these rooms typically stayed open. Bars were still smoky. I still got lung-hangovers from being in them. But yesterday was the last day of that. As we discussed how much we'd take in return for cutting our own hands off, or what price we'd accept in return for killing our beloved pets, darts (hah) of smoke shot into my eyes and throat for the last time. Perpetual pinkeye cursed my lovely visage for the last time. And sudden asthmatic bursts of choking struck me with premature nostalga.
I'm going to put out a line of little felt black lungs to commemorate this date. December 1, 2006: the day I started going home smelling sweet as a rose who forgot his deodorant.
Unfortunately, I'm going to miss all my friends.
They're just going to stay home and smoke.

You, Me and the D

2006-11-28T03:32:00.000-06:00

“That guy is fat. This rocks! I’m fat!” And with that, the dude sitting behind us at tonight’s Tenacious D show explained in the most succinct way possible just why the two dumpy guys hammering away at guitars on stage were able to fill a good chunk of a large arena at rock star prices (over $60 per ticket after Ticketbastard’s ass-raping surcharges). It’s not because one of them, Jack Black (a.k.a. “JB” and “Jables”) is a Hollywood star, their albums are hilarious skit-laden odes to capital-R ROCK at its most hedonistic and self-obsessed, or that the act comes wrapped in a Kevin Smith-flavoured foul-mouthed, pot-smoking, pop-culture referencing package.
Rather, it’s what’s embodied by fat guy Kyle Gass (a.k.a. “KG” and “Kage”), the other member of “The D” – a very round, bald 40-something-year-old guy wearing white socks with flip-flops, whose punch-line look provides the counter-point to the catchy, monster riffage (and I can’t think of a more perfect word than “riffage”) rattling out of his acoustic.
Y’see actors Johnny Depp and Keanu Reeves had (have?) bands that toured, but they played clubs; Weird Al just released his highest debuting spoof album ever, and has 25 years of material to draw upon, but doesn’t get these kind of crowds, and Spinal Tap also had their own movie (two, in fact), but they never drew this large a throng on their own. The celebrity, the comedy, the vertical integration – all of these things help, but in the end Tenacious D says they’re gonna rock, and then they rock. The songs are outrageous but also very catchy and tightly executed. In other words, the duo isn’t simply playing fucking rock songs about rocking – they’re playing fucking rock songs about rocking… that fucking rock.
The result is a stadium full of people singing along to “Tribute,” holding up lighters for “Wonder Boy” and “Fuck Her Gently” and watching fans in the front rows strike up a mosh pit for “Master Exploder,” then later throw socks onstage in deference to “Rock Your Socks.”
Tonight, The D rocked our socks off, rocked the house, rocked out and indulged in all sorts of other rock clichés, but indulged in them well. JB and KG overcame ridiculous ticket prices, some rather lame gags involving a buddy (“Lee,” who they sung the song of the same name about) coming over to their apartment and accidentally electrocuting them, and their own near-novelty-act nature.
The show followed a loose narrative where, after said electrocution, they duo goes to hell, where they form a band with Colonel Sanders, Charlie Chaplin and Satan’s son, who happens to look exactly like Jesus but can play a mean guitar. They eventually challenge Satan himself to a rock-off in order to win back their lives and souls. Oh yeah, and at one point a dude in a magic mushroom costume dances around stage while the band sings about Sasquatch – content from Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny. In true rock show fashion, this caused just one of many pot clouds to erupt in the Ricoh Coliseum.
After the show, we checked out the reasonably-priced merch. I was tempted by a blue hoodie with a sports logo on the front for the “Cleveland Steamers” and a “Tenacious 666” on the back, but Alana reminded me of my raging hoodie surplus, so I went with a gray long-sleeve. Luckily, they had the only size that’s long enough for my arms: XXL. In fact, the only size they had left of anything at that point was XXL, which was probably just perfect for that guy who was sitting behind us.
The D rocks, Ticketmaster sucks, and this is just a tribute – ya gotta believe me…

Could I love a newspaper again?

2006-11-21T11:09:00.000-06:00

I had a two-and-a-half hour interview in Windsor, NS yesterday for a copy editor position. It's a brand-new daily newspaper, and they're looking for someone who has some idea what the hell a newspaper is supposed to read and look like.
I don't think I'd had that much newspaper-based fun in ages. We tore that paper apart (they've only been publishing since August or something) and I told them that columns and their widths had to have some consistency, photos had to have a focal point (or, at least, something interesting in them) and that hairlines separate news stories and ads quite well. I also talked about things that I only had a passing comprehension of, like selling ads in standardized sizes, so that you don't have to fuck up the layout when an ad goes halfway through a column.
The managing and news editor sort of gasped, then looked at each other, and said something to the effect that they were unable to slay the mighty dragon that is their advertising manager. There were 4 ads in the whole paper, and the most expensive one, on the back page, looked like it printed at about 12 dpi. When they went to the ad manager about this, he said "So?"
This scares me. Editorially, the paper was fairly clean and well written, despite the fact that there's no news in the area ever. But with a garbage-truck of an ad department, how long can a daily newspaper last?
But I'm still excited about working there. The paper's in a cute little town, and the people who interviewed me were funny and competent, if not a little lost and frustrated. I think I'd be a fun place to work, even if it didn't last forever. Hopefully, they call me back.

My dad is a ghostbuster

2006-11-11T23:25:00.000-06:00

I saw Dan Aykroyd IN THE FLESH this evening, and I'll never regret another thing in my life knowing my one goal has been fulfiled.
Sad thing was, it was kind of like seeing my dad. He's fat. He's old. He had a leather jacket on, but like your fat dad who shows up to pick you up from grade 8 in a Hypercolor t-shirt, it just doesn't work. Or I guess it does. I'm not a fashion critic.
Anyway, I'm not one to fall for hero worship. Anyone who knows me knows that if I have heroes, they probably have proton packs. But I don't really seek out my heroes and pester them. But, for Ray Stantz, I figured, "Hey. Sure he's just a person, but he's also a Ghostbuster. And I've never seen a Ghostbuster." So I stood in the cold for half an hour to see a guy who looked like my dad, Alec Baldwin, and every other 50-something in North America who weighs more than 200 pounds.
It was a minor thrill to see Dan Aykroyd. According to a man who later assaulted a woman for butting ahead of him in line at the blues club where Aykroyd was appearing ("don't touch me, you fucking asshole," she told him) ...Aykroyd is on tour promoting some brand of tequila. Throw in two old Blues Brother songs (there was naught a Belushi to be seen or exhumed), and a friendly, dadlike walkby by Aykroyd on Halifax's main street, and you've got a ... well... I can't say disappointing... lame... evening.
So, thrillwise, seeing Stanz walk by would be up there with seeing Egon brush his teeth. Or Peter Venkman buying groceries. Or Winston Zeddemore having a manicure. Or little Dana Barrett ... whatever. Buying a knish. Someone cool doing something boring is still someone cool.

Grrrr!

2006-11-02T20:39:00.000-06:00

What did I do for Halloween? Well, I didn't have Thor staying at my place, and I didn't get interviewed by eTalk Daily, but my entire class did dress up like our prof (Allan Thompson, formerly of Toronto Star fame), which was pretty hilarious. Check it out:

We all wore dress pants, dress shirts, dress shoes and ties, parted our hair to the left and tucked pens behind our ears. The masks were what really made it, though, particularly the one guy who brought a Stephen Harper mask instead. See if you can spot it! Allan was pretty amused, in his toned-down, "what the hell are you doing?" kind of way.

In other illustratable news, here are some of the best shots from the trip Chris and I took to the newly renovated Museum of Natural History here a couple of weeks ago. Chris finally overcame his deep-seated fear of dinosaur skeletons with heads on them (formed when he was but a lad at this very same museum), as you can see here:

He also found a kindred spirit in an ancient rhinoceros:

We saw a giant flying turtle:

I made out with Albert Einstein:

And Ottawa was pretty:

Hallowed Wiener

2006-11-01T00:54:00.000-06:00

While that could be the best ever name for a gay cult (members of which clearly would worship at the Altar of the Hallowed Wiener), it’s also the title of my Halloween post – and a reason to catch up on recent goings on. Working at a horror mag makes for busy times leading up to Oct. 31st and the last few weeks have felt very hectic. Here’s the play-by-play of some of the notable goings on in The People’s Republic of Frightsylvavia.

-A couple of weeks ago I programmed a movie night at the Bloor cinema for one of the greatest Can-con cult movies ever: the hilariously cheesy and certifiably insane Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare, starring legendary glam rock gladiator Thor. What made this particularly special was that we brought Thor himself in for the screening to intro the film, do a Q&A and play a gig afterward at the Bovine (a sketchy a somewhat endearing bar on Queen St.). I really pushed hard to make the event happen, despite the skepticism of some co-workers (not out designer Brett, though, as he designed Thor’s latest album cover).
Thankfully the event went over huge. Thor also booked some additional gigs around town, went on some TV shows, and the Toronto Star did a piece on the event.
Before each of our movies, there’s a sort-of theatre group called The Cloven Path Ministries, which does a Satanic parody of faith healer/old time revival thing, where the Pastor Wilkes and crew trade bibles for porn, cure retardation and generally come up with crazy stunts. That week they actually held a bake sale in the theatre, and hocked muffins and squares (for the Dark Lord, of course). Thor was incorporated into the show and threw one of the guys off the stage into the table of baked goods. Although the dude apparently has stunt training, he barely glanced off the table and onto the concrete floor. He just laid there in a pile of smashed baking and, shit, I thought he was really hurt. Thankfully it was all part of the act. Awesome.

The gig at the Bovine was a hit, with hipsters, headbangers, horror geeks and few assorted skids banging heads and pumping fists to Thor’s GWAR-ish metal show, which combines rubber props and costuming with hard drivin’ songs about all things Viking. It was without a doubt one of the best times I’ve had a gig for a long while. So many shows, particularly in Toronto, consist of a bunch of jaded music nerds standing around, arms crossed, bobbing heads. Nothing like an irony-free hesher meltdown to remind you how uninhibited and catchy plain old rock can be. If you get a chance to see Thor live, do not miss the opportunity, as he’s wildly entertaining and one helluva performer.
He’s also one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. Thor (real name Jon) and his very cool wife Katherine stayed at my place that night. In case you were wondering, The God of Thunder is not averse to having a bagel for breakfast. Sadly I had no mead to wash it down.

-After that it was The Toronto After Dark Film Festival, a four-day event in its first-year, which showed about a dozen genre films. Rue Morgue helped sponsor, so I had a pass. Among the best stuff I saw was the opening film Special (described as Unbreakable with a touch of Kevin Smith), which is one of the darkest and most interesting superhero films ever made – I loved it (star Michael Rapaport is pictured). Also highly entertaining – if immature in an American Pie kinda way – was the German zombie comedy Night of the Living Dorks, which played after a zombie walk, so the theatre was full of “the undead”, who hilariously moaned and grunted their approval. For the closing film of fest, a fantastic revisionist slasher mockumentary / dark comedy called Behind the Mask played, and I introduced the director, Scott Glosserman, who should prove to be a important filmmaker in the genre.
-Next up, because it’s Halloween, the media wants comments on all kind of stuff. I was interviewed for the National Post (article here), these guys and even for TV on eTalk Daily (click on “Celebs fear their horror pasts”). No, I didn’t get within strangling distance of Ben Mulroney, but I wasn’t expecting to go on (we agreed to let them shoot at the office and I thought a co-worker would do the segment but she didn’t want to), so I was totally talking out of my ass – thankfully they were super-nice and it was edited into something slightly less embarrassing. Of course, now I expect to start wearing a blazer, bleaching my teeth and saying “K-Fed” a lot more in the future.

-After that was the gigantosaurus Rue Morgue Halloween party at the Church at Berkley on Queen Street. Free booze and food, killer costumes and entertainment (including a Chinese dragon dance) always makes for a good time. You can see my more-than-offputting Ed Wood Jr. costume and some genuinely amazing costumes (love the Destro) at the RM message boards, here. Like an idiot, I shaved my creepy moutache that morning, forgetting I had a whole day of running around ahead of me, so I went out and about (down to Kensington Market, out for dinner, etc.) looking like a pedophile – with out-of-town guests, no less. And Christ, there is absolutely no reasonable way to hide a ‘stache, short of a giant scarf. I kept forgetting I had it too, but luckily Alana reminded me with many disgusted looks. On a side note, the friends that stayed over for the Halloween party – Ken and his wife Yvonne – actually brought us mead, from a “meadery.” I didn’t know such a place existed. If you get a chance to try the stuff, go for it, it’s great, kinda of a refreshing mix of apple, honey and subtle white wine. Now we’re ready for the next time Thor drops in.

-The next day I was good and hungover thanks to much vodka and tonic and little self-control. I came around in time for a set visit to the new George Romero film, Diary of the Dead, being shot in North East Toronto. It was a cold evening to be outside, but shit, I got to interview George fucking Romero and watch him direct a zombie movie! Aaaaa! He’s a cool chain smoking hippie with the largest set of glasses I’ve ever seen on a human being, Steve Urkel included. I’ll be writing a piece on the film for RM closer to its release date.

-That brings me to today, Halloween, which reminded me why my job is so fun, as we bought Halloween candy and by around 4:30 this afternoon threw gumballs painted like eyeballs at each other. Wheee… . Brett and Rod came over tonight, we ordered pizza, watched Jaws then the absolutely insane ‘60s monster movie The Horror of Party Beach. Life is busy but very good.

-Lastly, check out this music video for British group The Horrors. I usually have little patience for British band with eyeliner and fancy haircuts, but they write some great garage rock, and this video for Sheena is a Parasite was directed by Chris Cunningham (and stars Samantha Morton). And how 'bout all you other wieners? What'd you do for Halloween?

"The sidewalk is my pillow."

2006-10-24T00:47:00.001-06:00

Fifteen years ago, Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel, who were both writers on Saturday Night Live in the late '80s and early '90s (Smigel, of course, is still there, doing Saturday TV Funhouse, among other things) created a brilliant TV show that was simply too far ahead of its time. Called Lookwell!, it starred Adam West as Ty Lookwell, an aging actor sort-of known for the cop series her starred in during the ‘70s. Twenty years later, the delusional turtleneck sweater-clad thespian fancies himself crime solver – while not auditioning for action gigs or teaching acting lessons at his school – much to the chagrin of the local police force.
The pilot parodied ‘70s and ‘80s network television, and West parodied himself, particularly his Bruce Wayne character (there’s a hilarious reference to Batman during the Lookwell credit sequence). Smigel and O’Brien realized West’s Shatneresque comic potential long before West would play himself as a recurring character on The Family Guy. It’s a clever show that was probably too clever for its own good, and it was never picked up by NBC. Thanks to the series of tubes known as “the internets” you can now dig on one of the funniest shows no one ever saw. The highlight is undoubtedly Lookwell’s undercover hobo costume.

'I can't believe I just did that.'

2006-10-19T16:02:00.000-06:00

Man, I thought this kind of stuff only happened in Pink Panther movies.

Billionaire puts elbow through priceless Picasso

Back to the Future

2006-10-12T08:42:00.000-06:00

So, I'm a writer again, as of today! Check it out. This is my first published piece since February, It feels good. Since I started work on this one, I've gotten three more freelance gigs. Waddaya thinka that?
And, if that doesn't turn your crank, I think this will. Or not. I'm not in charge of what you like, only what's cool.

Snake-o Flight-o!

2006-10-09T10:26:00.000-06:00

Found this YouTube gem yesterday: the Japanese trailer for Snakes on a Plane, or Snake Flight, as it's known there, which is really is a nice example of distilling a title to its essence. Note how much more graphic, explicit and spoiler-filled the Japanese trailer is. I wonder if the film had the same impact and cult status over there that it did here?

Will we ever see Godzilla Versus Snake Flight? Or Godzillas on a Plane? "I'm sick and tired of all these motherfucking Godzillas on this motherfucking plane!"

A week of Garfield, every week, until we die.

2006-09-29T12:30:00.000-06:00

I was drunkenly slurring about this site a couple weekends back, and I meant to link to it earlier, but the guy took a couple weeks off and get back to posting until a a couple days ago. But at any rate, I implore you all to check out my latest (and admittedly obvious) obsession, Garfield: Permanent Monday, a rather brilliant blog that deigns to take a sober, critical look at everyone's favourite fondly-remembered-but-rarely-enjoyed comic strip. And if you're still horny for comic reviews, check out The Comics Curmudgeon if you haven't already. Worth visiting daily.

And finally, you'll now find a long overdue link to Christie's blog, Not That Kind of Jersey Girl, in the sidebar, so we can all keep tabs on her BBC-related misadventures on the remote, xenophobic, cow-infested pseudo-British island of Jersey.

Idiotic Buzzword of the Day: Mancation

2006-09-20T23:55:00.000-06:00

This just in: according to CNN, "Getaways with the guys, or mancations are hot"
An exerpt:

"Dozens of other places are getting into the mancation act, too.

"At the Wild Dunes Resort in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, the "Dudes on the Dunes" package includes a round of golf and an in-room poker game with snacks and beer from $625 per person for two nights. The Marquis Los Cabos Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, includes surfing lessons, golf, poker, cigars, beer, chips and guacamole in its man-themed package from $490 a night. And the Harbor Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is offering "The Fishing Emanation," which includes a fishing expedition and a chef to cook the catch of the day starting at $725 per person.

"An 'Urban Dictionary' definition for mancation describes it as men engaging in masculine activities such as sports, camping, gambling, chasing women and drinking, without the presence of wives, mistresses or girlfriends. Vince Vaughn helped popularize the term in this summer's romantic comedy 'The Break-Up.'"

The "mancation act"? Is that like an emancipation act?
The homoerotic undertones are way to funny. Personal chefs? "Guacamole" as a selling point? "Dudes on the Dunes package"! Someone needs to pitch a story on the similarities between a mancation and a gaycation. I imagine the packages are quite similar, it's just, y'know, where they go that's different.
Gotta love when the media helps culture reverse-engineer meaning -- think of a catchy name, then invent whatever it stands for. Here's one off the top of the head: the "Forgetaway", a vacation package for alzheimers suffers -- and the best part is they never have to change the itinerary. Or maybe "forgetaway" is a better term for college girls whio can't remember sping break because of the roofies. This is clearly reason enough to write a CNN exposé.
In celebration of this idiocy, I invite you all to work mancation into a casual sentence. I'll start: "Gordon just got back from Boca Raton, and boy did he get one helluva sunburn on his mancation."
C'mon, help make "mancation" the latest... mansation.

Toronto International Farm Fest

2006-09-20T12:21:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of all the farm animal goodness in Mike's Prelude to the Afternoon, here's a pic of myself and a couple co-workers from the Toronto International Film Fest, attending a Midnight Madness screening. It was for the international premiere of the New Zealand horror-comedy Black Sheep (nothing to do with the Chris Farley movie of the same name), and as you can see, we're on the red carpet... with sheep... including one wearing a tiara.
I did go to the premiere of the new Hal Hartley film, Fay Grim, which had the director and stars Jeff Goldblum and Parker Posey in attendence, which was kinda fun, but clearly, these soft little celebs are much more approachable. Plus, I probably wouldn't want a sweater made out of Jeff Goldblum shavings. Maybe Parker Posey shavings, though...
Anyhow, let the sheep humping jokes commence!
And thanks to Bob Tyrrell for taking the pic and Brett for fixing the contrast on it.

Prelude to the Afternoon

2006-09-17T22:39:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Winters: filmmaker.

Time to Pay the Piper

2006-09-13T01:07:00.000-06:00

Like many a young lad of my generation, I went wild for the spectacle of oiled up muscle men in spandex grabbing at each other. Yup, WWF was the unintentionally homoerotic order of the day, and in the ‘80s I bought into it hook, line and leg-lock. I went to the matches when they came to town, watched the cartoon, wore the T-shirts, read the magazine, practiced all manner of dangerous moves on my beleaguered younger brother (notable the Figure Four and the Overhead Press) and even bought an absurd amount of potato chips in order to collect WWF stickers. On a VCR larger than your house I’d tape the The Saturday Night Main Event, which came on after midnight, just to see the likes of Hulk Hogan, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, The Hart Foundation, Junkyard Dog, Andre the Giant, Greg the Hammer Valentine, The British Bulldogs, Big John Stud, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, Hillbilly Jim and the Ultimate Warrior grapple in the squared-circle (“squared circle” – how’s that for wrasslin’ logic?!).

No one in this steroidal Mardis Gras was quite as entertaining as Rowdy Roddy Piper, however. The “Hot Rod”, as he was also known, was the original bad guy, going up against Hulk Hogan in the first Wrestlemania. Playing the ill-tempered Scotsman to the hilt (and the kilt), this Saskatoon-born prairie boy was a sputtering, cussing, vein-popping ball of red-faced fury, and never boring for a minute. Naturally, when Rue Morgue booked him for the Festival of Fear – he starred in John Carpenter’s They Live – I jumped at the chance to host his Q&A.

Piper is now in his 50s, a bit pudgy and somewhat wrinkly, but man did he fire up the crowd. He was a genuinely nice guy, funny as hell and has a lot of crazy stories – many from the bad guy WWF days when crazed wrestling fans would try to attack him, once nearly tipping his cab over. And I got no small amount of joy giving him a huge arena-style intro (“Put your hands togethurrrrrr…”). The pic above is from the Q&A – I stole it from the Rue Morgue message boards, from “Velvet Kiss”.

Sunday evening when we were doing tear-down I found his price list sitting on the table where he was signing autographs. Now, I don’t have a problem with charging someone for an 8x10, but $20 to sign something else, and $20 to get a picture with your own camera? That’s lame. I assume the badly overpriced They Live gift pack is the same one for sale on his website. If you buy the $30 prize pack, you get the $20 signed pic, the $10 cheap plastic sunglasses and two little pieces of gum (a reference to his famous line in the film: “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.” Are the pieces of $0.05 Double Bubble really all the incentive the average wrestling fan needs to go for the gift pack? Man, I’m glad I grew out of that shit. (It doesn’t bode well for North American society that pro wrestling has become more fake, yet more grown men wear WWE T-shirts.)

Of course, if you look way down to the bottom of the Piper list, you’ll see the funniest item. I wish I would’ve noticed this while I was there. I think the call would’ve been to my brother, and it would’ve gone something like this: “This is the Hot Rod, Rowdy Roddy Piper, reminding you to check yourself daily for testicular cancer.”

Maybe that wouldn’t have gone over so well, really. On a side note, I wonder if he was ever choked that Randy Savage became the spokesman for Slim Jim, but he didn’t land the Hot Rod gig?

In closing, I’d like to point out that although Piper may be a pseudo-athlete in a dress, at least he’s not trying to be a comic book superhero in spandex. Behold the convention mutants – they live!

I'm officially the worst kind of person ...

2006-09-06T16:27:00.000-06:00

... an Ontarian, that is. Only I'll never be an Ontarian, because they're the worst kind of people.

Anyway, this post was going to be much more dramatic with photos from the premature nostalgia tour I took before I left Edmonton, but I seem to have lost the cable that connects my camera to my computer somewhere in my travels, so that won't be happening until it turns up or I buy another one.

So here I am, in Canada's Capital City, or whatever compelling slogan Ottawa has given itself, sitting in a semi-depressing hotel room using an irritatingly slow wireless connection to post this. I have the keys to my place, but no furniture to live there yet, so in the meantime I'm staying in an extended-stay hotel just down the street.

It's been a whirwind week since I packed up and moved out last Wednesday. I spend my last three days in Edmonton with Dave Berry, irritating him (I'm sure) with my constant griping about how weird it was to be leaving the city I've lived in for my whole life. He managed to take my mind off things for an afternoon at least, though, when we went to Fort Edmonton Park—where I've never been, strangely enough. (For those of you who get the chance, it's surprisingly awesome—there's way more to see than you can reasonably do in a day, and they let you play a game involving fake bull testicles and sticks. Good times.) After several tearful goodbyes, I finally left Edmonton for good (or at least for a while) on Saturday and made a brief stop-over in Toronto on my way here. The highlight of that was clearly seeing the coolest dad in the world while out for brunch with Chris. Unfortunately we couldn't take a photo without being incredibly obviously, so my poorly phrased description will have to suffice: basically, picture your quintessential rock star—greying mane of hair, covered in diamond- and ruby-studded jewelry, pants ripped right at the thigh so you could see the bottom of his ass—only having brunch in a health-food restaurant with a regular-looking mom and two teenaged kids. It was spectacular. While in Toronto, Dave Alexander also kept us entertained at Rue Morgue's Festival of Fear, which involved a lot of horror nerds who couldn't accept that Halloween is two months away, psychobilly and, uh, drinking.

I arrived in Ottawa Monday night so I could go to my orientation yesterday. It was quite the day, which culminated in me feeling both excited and totally underqualified. For some reason I assumed I'd be one of the most experienced students in the program after working for CP this summer, but after meeting everyone I quickly realized that while I may be up there in terms of professional experience, I'm totally lacking in life experience, which is presumably relatively important if you want to be a journalist. Most of the people in the program have travelled all over the world, are trilingual, and come from countries like Mexico, Bermuda, China and Rwanda. One girl I met spent the last six months in Columbia helping street kids and speaks English, French, Spanish and Mandarin fluently. I was all like, "Oh yeah? Well, I spent five weeks in Quebec City last summer, bitch!" There are also lots of student-newspaper types, with people from the Sheaf, the Muse, the Fulcrum, the Varsity, etc., and two people from the U of A, one who wrote very sporadically for the Gateway so she could get in to Carleton (I'll reserve my opinion on people who do that here), and another who never volunteered but who did show up to orientation wearing a "Your future ex-boyfriend" T-shirt. We're already best friends.

There are 15 girls and five guys in my year, which doesn't bode particularly well for someone who hates girls—but hey, at least these are interesting, educated girls who I feel vaguely inferior to, which will certainly help. After orientation I spent the afternoon yesterday hanging out with one girl named Brianna who is from Toronto, spent the summer in St. Petersburg covering the G8 summit, and has worked for the CBC. She seems quite interesting, and I'm actually not worried at all about getting along with most of these people. Yesterday afternoon they had a party for all the MJ students that involved a whole lot of drinking, particularly among our profs (which doesn't surprise me, yet did assuage initial fears that everyone would be too wrapped up in school to be much fun). The party moved to a little pub called The Manx afterwards, which I immediately decided will be my new Garneau, if only because it has Grasshopper on tap.

The evening was spent hanging out mostly with second-year students, who all seemed really nice and gave us a huge amount of helpful advice. (Like how we should write every assignment so we can sell them, because the point of being here isn't the degree, but rather the contacts you make. And as much as I hate schmoozing, they're probably right.) The only dark spot was some asshole intern from the Ottawa Citizen who showed up because he knew one of the second-year girls. He spent the whole night going off about how he's 30 (and therefore a million times smarter and cooler than us), how he hates CP because their copy is so badly written (after I told him I interned there—I think he felt a little emasculated by that), and how he knows more about the "industry" than we can ever hope to.

Today was spent running around getting the keys to my apartment, signing my lease, and meeting the prof for my elective (a western Canadian history class. I found out the first book we're going to read is by my dad, which should be interesting). Once I had my keys I stopped by my apartment to check it out (it was as awesome as I remember) and to get my mail. It was then that I discovered I was offered a teaching assistantship by Carleton about two weeks ago, as well as a much larger scholarship than I originally thought I was going to get. Of course, Carleton was the only place that I forgot to give my new address to, so this had been sent to Edmonton, then back to Ottawa, where it sat in my mailbox until I got my keys today. This was both a relief, as it pretty much covers my tuition (!) and I was starting to feel like I was the only person here who wasn't TA-ing, and shitty, as there was a mandatory TA orientation today that I didn't go to since I thought I didn't have to. So anyway, the rest of the afternoon has been spent running around figuring out what the hell I have to do now. It sounds like I'll be helping a journalism prof with research for a major article she's working on, though, which should be great experience.

Also: grad school. TA-ing. Weird.

Anyway, classes start tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have more to report on (get it? "Report on"?!?) then.

I miss you all. I'm buying a futon so people can come visit me. Just so you know. Eh? EH?!?!?!?

Who'll hunt the crocs now, Steve?

2006-09-04T10:28:00.000-06:00

Australians are in shock today, sort of.
Steve Irwin, their beloved Crocodile Hunter, while filming a documentary called, more than ironically, "Ocean's Deadliest," was stung in the heart by a stingray, more than likely while holding the li'l buggah and saying, in some way or another, "croikey! What a dahling! What a beauty!" through the mouthpiece of his scuba suit. Medics tried CPR, but doctors still don't have a cure for pericardial punctures by poisonous ocean creatures.
I don't remember when I first saw The Crocodile Hunter show. All I know is that, when I first saw that wily Aussie kiss a croc, kiss a lizard, and then ride a dolphin down the main street of Brisbane, I was hooked. Every episode was supposedly different, but much the same: "Heah, today, we'ah goin' ta foind the great reah forest biter snayke. Heah he is, the little devil! LOOK at him! Isn't HE A DAHLING!?"
Of course, by this point, the snake is hanging from the end of Irwin's nose as blood runs down his face. Change the species of animal, throw in a few uncalled-for pokes with sticks, and you've got a goldmine of TV magic.
And how could the world not watch as a man who has been riding crocs since he was nine brings his one-month-old son Bob (rather than his Eight-year-old daughter Bindy-Sue, named after his favourite dog, Bindy) into the crock pit at his Beerwah, Queensland croc park? It got him a lot of flak, but this guy knew animals. Except the ones that bit him.
Constantly.
So I suppose Australians are in shock at Irwin's death today the same way they're in shock every morning when the sun comes up. "Crikey," they all say at once, as it echoes though the streets, "Oi can't beloive it haeoppened."
Like the sun coming up, it was only a matter of time before a man who picked up and kissed every poisonous creature there is Down Under got stung, bit, or eaten to death by one of them. Despite that, I'm going to miss the li'l buggah.
As he once explained to someone, "I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it."
Without Steve, the world will be a much safer, much more boring place.

Who likes this game?

2006-09-03T23:54:00.000-06:00

I found something fun. Play along!

Holy Mackerel

2006-09-02T22:50:00.000-06:00

Of course, it's not good to post while intoxicated, but, of course, well, I am going to.

There's a joy to fishing. There's a spot. Silent. Clean. Untainted.
It's a bay. There are trees. Few homes on it, despite its short distance from Oceantown. And silence. Pristine.
The spot is under a bridge. There are two rocks. One is for one person. One is for the other. They both sit above the tide line. There's a chance you'll catch weeds at both. Be diligent. Reel quickly.
Cast away from the bridge. The mackerel will be there.
I switched spots for a while. There's a government dock. There are rednecks. They speak loudly. Every other word is fuck. They disrespect the fish. They scare the fish away.
I went back to the bridge.
Nature smiled.
Peace returned. Nobody believes it, but I cast. The mackerel, they understood. As the hook hit the water on the first cast, the mackerel struck. There is no interlude between the end of the cast and the bite on the bait. No interlude. With the connection of water with lure, the fish welcome my return. They strike. There is no fight as I reel in. The mackerel land gently on the rocks near where I reel. It surrenders easily.
Mercury.
Poisoning.
Eating from the ocean, I understand.
Contaminants.
Illness.
The toxicity of the fish takes me from a peaceful place to an ugly realization. There isn't a fish for everyone. There isn't a clean spot for everyone to fish. The 200 years of unfettered, unregulated, indifferent fishing has left me with nothing to catch. What there is to catch is toxic.
An oil bottle floats by. A carefully labelled medical bag follows. I reel in a clump of toilet paper. I move back to the spot under the bridge.
At least, looking away for the bridge, I can believe that there are still clean fish, healthy fish, good fish to catch. They agree. I catch the biggest mackerel ever with my last cast. I stop fishing after I cast.
It's not polite to ask more of the ocean at this point. It's not fair to ask more of it.
It has just given all there is to give.

Treadmills!

2006-08-31T10:59:00.000-06:00

This music video for Ok Go's "Here It Goes Again" came up today at what people who get up in the morning call "brunch," but what folks who get up at noon like me call "pre-breakfast," with Leah and Iris, who had stopped over in Toronto for a few hours en route to J school in Boston. While the song is nothing to get horny about, the choreography, as you can see, is awesome. And homemade, apparently. Anyhow, check out that roller-rink glide!

And good luck in Boston, Iris!

UPDATE: Apparently these guys are known for their choreographic abilities. Here's a "never-intended-for-release" video the band made in one of their member's backyards last year, which stormed YouTube last year. It even spawned a dance contest, which has accumulated some pretty good copycat numbers by bored teenagers across the world.

Dancing!

Saved by the Buoyancy of Citrus

2006-08-30T00:51:00.000-06:00

That’s a line from a bit by late comedian Mitch Hedberg, who OD’d last year in a New Jersey hotel room. Like Belushi and Farley before him, he self-medicated, but unlike those guys, he never made it big before clocking out. Apparently this is because his scatter-shot style of non-sequitur one-liners didn’t lend itself well to sit-coms or movies (although he did appear in Almost Famous and Lords of Dogtown). If he’d stuck around he might have been called the next Steven Wright, although that’s not actually very accurate. Hedberg’s style is completely unique; his delivery was more stoner than deadpan, his observations were more unexpected in their pay-offs than Wright’s, and his the success of his gags rested much more on the inflections he used in their delivery. The way he uneasily shuffled around stage, eyes closed behind retro bangs and tinted shades, mades it seem like he’d gonna break into hysteria at any moment. He wasn’t one of those guys you’d look at and say, “Whaaa? Drugs? Him? Nooooo… .”

Anyhow, long story short: he’s one of the funniest live performers you’ve never heard of. I’m not a big stand-up junkie or anything, but this week I was given a DVD of Just for Laughs: Stand Up, Vol. 2 - On the Edge, which features a bunch of comedians, including The Daily Show’s Angry Man Lewis Black, Just for Laughs Mascot Harlan Williams and, of course, Hedberg – and Hedberg won me over from the first joke. I spent a good chunk of this evening watching him on YouTube. He released two albums, and aside from the bits on the Edge DVD, I don’t think there are any other of his performances released. Click here for more on limes-as-life-preservers and a bunch of other off-the wall, hard drug-fuelled weirdness.

Why is this so hard?

2006-08-21T20:18:00.000-06:00

So, as most of you know, I'm moving to Ottawa in just under two weeks to go to j-school. This was a pleasantly exciting abstract concept until about a week ago, when I was all like, "Oh, shit, I actually have to leave Edmonton. Like, forever." Yeah, I know, you all had to do it too, but at least most of your parents still live here so you know you can come back whenever you feel like it. Me? I'll be spending holidays in Kelowna from now on, which I know isn't exactly the worst thing in the world, but it sure makes leaving the only city you've ever lived in a hell of a lot harder.

I mean, it's not like I wish I was staying. I'm going to be unemployed soon, and I have approximately one friend left here. But I know you all went through the exact same thing when you left: didn't really have any reason to stay, but were totally sad to be leaving. What can I say? Despite everything: despite the weather, the oil money, the lack of urban planning, the complete absence of anything interesting to do for nine months of the year, I like this city. I like it a lot. I remember Mike calling Edmonton the only city he'd ever love on Covered In Oil and, while I'm sure I'll feel ridiculous saying that once I've lived in Monteal for 20 years as a wealthy journalist (what?), it definitely resonates now.

Anyway, sorry for all the sadness, but I spent the day being a tourist in my own city, so I'm feeling a little nostalgic. These photos are from a little community garden I'd never noticed before between 105th and 106th on 86th. I only noticed it this time because I was walking down the train tracks holding my camera, and some guy came up to me and was like, "There are some huge pumpkins in that garden over there! You should go get some shots of those!" Wasn't that nice? AREN'T PEOPLE IN THIS CITY GREAT? ISN'T EDMONTON THE BEST PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!????

This pumpkin is named Russell:

Also:

Your morning funnies as found in the Oceantown News

2006-08-21T05:44:00.000-06:00

Swedish people: pioneers in cardigans and balding mullets since 1985.

2006-08-14T10:04:00.000-06:00

Okay, seriously, somebody help me. I'm totally addicted to this incredibly stupid pop song. The band is Swedish 25(!)-piece "I'm From Barcelona," and the song is, fittingly, "We're From Barcelona." Have fun getting it out of your heads, losers.

How's your news?

2006-08-11T08:48:00.000-06:00

Something is boring into my head. How it got there isn't important, but the fact that it really refuses to leave is disturbing. Here's how it goes. Sing along with the link if you dare.

Hey, how's your news?
Would you like to sing a tune
would you like to chase your blues away??!?!?
Put on your dancing shoes
and tell us how's your news
It soon will be coming through, straight through...
Gather your friends with you
and switch on the tube
You don't need an (*excuse?*),
How's your news?

Imagine "switiching on the tube" and finding a crack news team of five or six severely disabled news reporters. Most of them can't talk coherently. One of can hardly move with anything other than random jerks. They all lack the ability to get the "scoop," unless it's ice cream.
That's the whole premise behind How's Your News, a Trey Parker/Matt Stone production. It's supposedly a serious documentary about a team of disabled people from New Hampshire who decide to go across the country in a hand-painted motorhome to ask people questions that are burning in the minds of Americans.
One interviews people by pretending to talk, but having no idea what he's saying. Another only asks about characters from soap operas. The female singer of the theme song badgers a homeless man, asking him twice what sights they should see in Virginia. Both times he replies "I hate it here." Soap Opera man and The Female Badger wrote and sang and forgot the words to that theme song.
For some reason, the South Park inventors thought a film about this ineffective news team crossing the country, scaring people, hitting themselves and others in the face with microphones, and just generally not getting the scoop in towns like Washington, Texas, and Retardania was a good idea.
It wasn't. These are sincere, hard-working, physically and mentally challenged people who fail entirely at being interesting. You'll cringe a little when they leave the non-speaking, non-signing reporter who can't move parked on Venice Beach flailing at passers-by, and you'll fast forward some parts because they're either painful to listen to, or not interesting at all.
How's Your News really doesn't illustrate the human condition, or tug at your heartstrings. You don't quite get mad at the reporters for being so horrible, because, hey, they're retarded. But you do spend a long time wondering what you are supposed to be getting from this movie, and whether or not the South Park directors were expecting a lot more.
Here's one more song.
http://www.howsyournews.com/mp3/05_ThatsAStory.mp3

Sweet Yard Sale Hook-Ups

2006-08-08T23:07:00.000-06:00

Who says you can’t be a playa’ on a budget? As this yard sale flyer – found tacked up outside a Portuguese bakery in the Dundas-Ossington area last Saturday night – makes very clear, you can still be all that even if your wallet ain’t fat.

The top five items:

Bling Blings – This is exactly the term grandma would use when passing around a bag full of her old costume jewelry that she’s decided to share with all the grandchildren. “Kids, help yourself to some of grandma’s bling blings, there’s plenty to go around.” That said, I think the plural of “bling bling” should be simply “blang.”
Crosses of the Lord, Jesus Christ – Just in case you thought they might be Crosses of the Lord, Vader.”
Collectables from Honey U R My Shiny Star – I’d check out this sale just to find out what the hell these are. “Honey, you are my shining star” are lyrics from Shining Star, by The Manhattans. Anyone know what these collectables might be from?
Deodorant – I hope this actually smells like a yard sale: old books, dusty clothes and cigarette-stained furniture. If it were a cologne (also available at this yard sale), it could be “Old Spice-Rack”, “CK 2 for 1” or “Karl Lagerfeld’s Used.”
Spinners (Watches – Playboy & G-Unit) – Oh, yeah. Nothin’ says “Mac” like a spinning rim-style G-Unit watch bought at a yard sale. Goes perfectly with slightly used gold caps and half-empty bottle of Cristal you found while garage sale-ing last weekend.

Sausage party!

2006-07-29T23:49:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Dave and Alana for having us all out to their housewarming party for a good old-fashioned sausage party. Needless to say, the sausages were flying fast, furious and fancy-free. Also, as you'll note from the grill shot, occasionally in disc form. It was an awesome evening full of beer, grilled meat and sitting on their patio listening to Boston, and a good time was registered with the county by all. Take in that panorama, friends. That's the beauty of smog right there.

"Mwaaah, it smells like lunchmeat again!"

2006-07-24T22:39:00.000-06:00

Here are a few highlights from Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend. Sadly, I didn't see Napoleon Dynamite, but I was dangerously close to sensory overload as it was. I'd heard the place was massive but I still didn't think it could be that big. Last year the four-day event was attended by over 104 000 people in a building the size of several football fields (48,839 square meters, according to Wikipedia). The levels of unfettered geekery are truly astounding, with about a quarter of the crowd in costume – everything from the genuinely cool (that Pyramid Head monster from Silent Hill) to the laughably lame (way, way too many fat Stormtroopers and uncomfortably provocative pre-teen anime characters) to the bizarre (a banana?!?) to the wannabe famous (Elvis Stormtrooper). For the record, the funniest thing I overheard (in stereotypical nasal-nerd voice) while walking around was, “Mwaaah, it smells like lunchmeat again.” Heh heh…

Every artist and entertainment company is there doing panels, signings, previewing this and that, giving away crap, er, stuff (note the crowd pic with the giant Snakes on a Plane display) Walking around the place is exhausting, hot, and wall-to-wall people, particularly on Saturday. It’s incalculable the volume of painted plastic that changes hands during the pop-culture supernova. Our hotel (if you missed the previous post, I was there with Rue Morgue), was about a 15-minute walk from the Con, through the Gas Lamp district, which is both full of trendy restaurants and the homeless, making for an often sobering juxtaposition. The reality gap between Jedis having fake laser-sword fights in the Comic-Con lobby and junkies shooting up on the street corner may not have been wide, but it was deep. Such is the case in balmy Oceanside cities with mild nights and port funneling in drugs (also: Vancouver).

We arrived Friday afternoon, and after wandering the Con for a bit went to a restaurant called Dick’s, named so because the servers act like dicks (such as publicly berating you for using your cell phone) as part of the charm. Fellow former Gatewayer Dan, currently on his cross-continent vacation, also met me here for a couple beers, which was sweet. The best part of the place, though was the lobster tank claw machine. For two bucks you get a chance to win a lobster, which they’ll then cook up for you with all the fixings. I nearly got one on my first try, but the sucker fell back into the tank. Suck on that, PETA.

That night my co-workers and I went to a party, which was somewhat in honour of stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen. He was there, facing a life-size gold (coloured) statue of himself. The shin-dig had a chocolate fountain, free booze and Edward James Olmos milling about. If I’d been drunk(er), I might’ve run up to him and screamed, “OH MY GOD! If you’re here, who’s fighting the Cylons?!”

The next day was more of the same, but there was a nerd tsunami when Quentin Tarantino (pictured) and Robert Rodriguez showed up to do a panel on their upcoming movie Grindhouse. We beat a hasty retreat to the other end of the floor where the temp was about 10 degrees cooler, and I ran into Steve Notley, Bob the Angry Flower creator and former Gatewayer. Luckily he had his flower headpieces so we could snag a proper photo. At the same time Randy, another Edmonton boy and a Comic-Con vet, showed up. Buffy/Firefly creator Joss Whedon cruised by right about then and said hi to Steve – who, like the total prick that he is, didn’t offer an intro. Whedon was sweaty, disheveled and carrying a backpack, so if you’d ever doubted his nerd credentials, I assure you he’s genuine. As per the previous post, this was also the day I went to the Roger Corman panel. YESSSSS...

That night was our own Rue Morgue party, which we hosted in the Presidential Suite of our hotel. Free booze, snacks and a beautiful view of the city from a gigantic patio was what we had to offer. It was laidback and surprisingly popular. After about 200 people showed up, hotel security stopping letting anyone else up. Luckily Dan, Steve and Randy made it – increasing our Edmonton power exponentially (we didn’t even need our secret decoder rings!). There were folks on hand from all areas of the pop-culture biz (special effects guys, comic book artists, directors, toy company reps, actors, etc.) and it was an honest to geekness good time.

Hands-down the coolest cat I met, though, was Ren & Stimpy creator John K., who’s as weird and hilarious as his cartoons. That’s us pretending to drink the big bottles of booze. He definitely looks a little bit like Ren too.

Sunday, the last day of Comic-Con, is targeted more at younger kids, and therefore less busy. Many wee nerdlings were pushed around in stroller by parents in costume. Us uncaped Rue Morge nerds finished up poking around, looking for stuff to feature in the mag, etc, and relaxed a bit in the hotel room. An authentic and really delicious Mexican dinner at restaurant that had a live Mexican band and served lobster burritos was a nice way to end the last day. Burned out, we watched TV, packed up the load of promotional stuff and the few souvenirs we’d amassed and crashed. Visions of sugar plums and full-grown adults wearing capes danced through our heads.

OK, I Can Die Now

2006-07-21T22:09:00.000-06:00

Here's a pic of myself, Roger Corman and sistah Rue Morguer Jovanka at Comic-Con, from the legendary director's panel this afternoon. It's a blast here, nerd levels are reaching dangerous levels of glavin, and the weather bee-yute-T-Fal. Pre-party drinking commencing. More stories later. Word has it Jon Heder might be at the shin-dig we're going to. Only then will all the nerd-moons be in nerd-alignment. Whoah!

Bonus: went for beer with Gateway brutha Dan Kazor. Whoo!

Duh. So bored.

2006-07-20T12:31:00.000-06:00

I just thought to myself, "You know what game doesn't play fair? Solitaire."
Sadly, this isn't a missive about losing love or rocky relationships, or even about a small spat. Or about being single, for that matter.
I really was just playing solitaire. Hooray. Beats the fuck out of opening envelopes. Someone pay attention to me.

I Love the Smell of Poutine in the Morning

2006-07-19T22:56:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I drove to Montreal with some of the Rue Morguers (above is myself and Bob Tyrrell) for the FanTasia film fest, and rock my Jaques -- is it ever an easy city to fall in love with (at least in the summer; the winters are brutal). We had three days of sun, movies, eating out, partying, a bit of shopping and absolutely zero Bonhomme sightings.
It's FanTasia's 10th anniversary, and they throw a helluva show. I managed to get in a half-dozen films, which ranged from a retarded Jack Chick-like religious action/fantasy/horror called Hell (Thailand) to the most excellent Meatball Machine (Japan), which is essentially a goopier, more colourful, lighter spirited version of Tetsuo. Also saw the new film from Japanese director Sion Sono (Suicide Circle), called Strange Circus, which, despite some great direction and a few disturbingly bizarre scenes, tries a little too hard to be in-your-face weird, and is too long. He was in attendence, and like every other eccentric director on the planet has big hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a blazer.
We drank at a bar called Brutopia (sp?), which I realized on the second night there that I'd actually been to before during a CUP conference several years ago. They have Chocolate Stout on tap, which was a nice surprise. Chocolate + beer actualy works -- imagine Guiness with a bitter chocolate aftertaste instead of a toasted ashtray aftertaste.
On our last night we also went for drinks with Gary Sherman, who directed two of my fave horror flicks Raw Meat (a.k.a Deathline) and Dead and Buried. Helluva a guy with lots of great stories, including one about almost directing Marlon Brando. That bar, which shall remain nameless, sadly charged $9 for a pint. C'est bullshit!
I didn't buy much, mainly some discounted books (on Takashi Miike, British Horror and Dario Argento) from the other vendor at the show, FAB Press, but I did score a vintage Quebecois kung-fu poster with both Asian and French type on it, and the little blue Quebec sticker of approval. I wish I knew what film it was for. Got it at a little retro record store called Paul's Boutique.
Before we left, we hit Prince Arthur Street for cheap and plentiful Greek food. This is a must for anyone staying in the city. It's a Euro-flavoured pedestrians-only street with scores of restaurants that allow you to bring your own booze, with no corkage fee. We sat ourside and listened to wandering musicians while eating surf 'n' turf, then walked to the beautiful park at the end of the street. We arrived back on Monday night to an oppresive heatwave. Pffft...
On Friday morning we leave for San Diego for Comic-Con for three days, so surely I'll have stories with less French and more nerd in 'em. Hopefully I won't OD on glavin!
As for you Montreal, once again you've pierced my hard little heart like a baguette dunked in broth. Au revoir, mon ami...

Hey! See that dark shape? It's Georges Laraque!

2006-07-13T20:19:00.001-06:00

And I mean that in the least racist way possible.

I was on my lunch break today and saw a bunch of people lined up outside the CityTV/91.7 The Bounce building (soon to become the BellTV/91.7 Globemedia building), most of whom were wearing Georges Laraque jerseys, and I thought to myself, "Hey, I bet Georges Laraque is going to be here later."

And sure enough, on my way back to work, there he was, le beau homme d'hockey. Then I took this shitty photo with my camera phone. Neat, huh?

Then, on a totally unrelated note, I overheard this conversation on the bus, and I thought that maybe I shouldn't be sad about leaving Edmonton:

BROHAM #1: Okay, I got a good one. What would you do if, like, it was your birthday, okay? And your friends took you to a gay bar and then locked you in there for the whole night.

BROHAM #2: I would fucking shoot myself!

BROHAM #1: No man, you wouldn't have a gun.

BROHAM #2: Would I have a knife so I could stab myself?

BROHAM #1: No. No knives, no drugs to overdose on. You couldn't kill yourself. Oh, and, AND, you'd have to, like, grind with a bunch of guys who weren't wearing shirts!!

BROHAM #2: AWWWWW! THAT'S SO FUCKING SICK! OH MY GOD! HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also: hey, how's it going? I think this is the first post I've written in, like, eight months. BECAUSE I HAVE A LIFE. THAT MOSTLY INVOLVES WATCING CANADA'S NEXT TOP MODEL.

My Jaunt to the Boredom Factory

2006-07-12T09:24:00.000-06:00

In a faceless building in a sprawling industrial park there is a place that is the source of all boredom in the world. Its walls are eggshell white, and its windows have large bars. Row after row of soulless middle-aged women, made lifeless or obese by a chutzpah-draining power impossible to explain by modern science, type into millions and millions of keyboards.
Will they ever write the great literary masterpiece we're all waiting on from those damn typing monkeys?
I can't say. I signed a confidentiality agreement.
But I will tell you this: As surely as every child would have laughed at the idea of the Bum-Poop Factory, every grown adult, unfortunate enough to have lost his way on the road to Career City, would cry in terror if he knew what lay within Boring, Inc.'s facility.
With a start time of 6:00 a.m., your body is already off-guard. Boredom seeps into your pores as you stand emptily next to a machine that opens envelopes very quickly. But you are not allowed to touch this machine. No. Your job is to make sure a string of numbers printed on the front of millions of envelopes are right-side up. For all eternity, you turn envelopes over. Sometimes, if you're lucky, the envelope is also facing the wrong way. Joy! A turn and a flip!
Your coworkers, Joan, Jane, and John (seriously) work diligently and far too quickly on their letter opening machines, as you look at the pile of envelopes before you. It's neither high, nor small. It's the most boring amount of envelopes possible. Behind and around you, more and more envelopes are being delivered. Touch them. Feel their loneliness. Suffer. Forever.

A tall tale of HORROR

2006-07-07T09:38:00.000-06:00

Ah, it didn't take long to fall back into old habits once the jobless claws of Oceantown slid easily back into my flesh.
One of those habits, fishing, drew me to new ground and unfamiliar shores. On a sandy stretch of beach, where ocean and river mix for six hours a day, I cast a line into the deep, fast, inland-moving current, fishing for mystery. Using the dollar-store lure that was left on my line, I waved my magic fishing wand, hoping to divine a fish with my rod.
As the lure shuttled from the tip of my pole, I felt a jerk. A clump of monofilament, as long as your arm and knotted to hell, blobbed off the reel, and travelled behind the lure, dropping into the water 20 feet away.
Frustrated, and reeling slowly as not to knot it, I drew the clot of polyvinyl slowly back to me. When it was near enough, I began untangling the clump, and, once it was untangled, reeling the rest of the line.
Through the clear water, the red and green lure hopped over the sandy bottom, from weed to weed, catching every other branch and rock. I reeled faster.
Behind it, though, from the deep darkness out of sight of air-trained eyes, something followed.
It was a pancake. Or some sort of a flying carpet. It had a a life to it, but it didn't look like anything that could be alive.
I pulled in the lure in jerks. The creature followed. Each time, it would bite at a silver bead on the lure, rather than the three-barbed hook at the bottom.
Up, and up, and up it followed, until it was in less than an ankle of water. I lifted the lure with the rod, and made it dance. The creature, laying on its side with one eye slid up beside the other, danced with the lure, nibbling at the bead. I raised the barbs into its line of sight. It raised itself to the bead. Finally, I positioned the barbs under the creature.
Yank!
I'd hooked it. It swam wildly, flipping its pure white belly into view as it fought to escape the steel I'd lodged in its chest.
Finally, after a short struggle, it did.
I looked at it. It sat on the bottom, opening and closing its mouth.
I placed my rod on the rocks near the beach, and, moving slowly, I walked to the creature. It was exhausted.
More as a joke to myself than anything else, I reached down with arms outstretched, like you would to pick up a puppy. The creature sat patiently, waiting. I put a hand on each side of its flattened body, and gently took hold. Straightening my back, I stood up.
I was holding a flounder!
I turned it and looked it in its skewed, slidden eyes. One one side it was covered with brown and grey blotches. On the other, it was a pure white, like a winter snow, or the meat of a scallop. This creature had no top or bottom, only very wide right and left sides. It had no back. It had no belly. I'd never caught one before, and I'd never caught any fish by hand.
I carried it over to some waiting compatriots. They said "oh! It's dying! Put it back!"
I assured them it wasn't, putting it down in a shallow pool to regain its breath and demonstrate its bizzare swimming habits. It undulated briefly, throwing up sand to cover itself. Gently, I picked it up again. I took the sandy creature to a deeper spot and released it into the inbound current of the tidal estuary. It swam off quickly and happily.
"Weren't you going to eat him?" one of my compatriots asked.
"No," I replied. "He's too little."
Honestly, though, I just thought he was far too beautiful to ever bother wasting on something as trivial as dinner.

Go France!

2006-07-06T00:20:00.000-06:00

One of the toughest things about moving to Toronto, as I’ve discovered this summer, is the euphoria of World Cup soccer. Who wouldn’t be juiced about it? A bunch of short shorts-wearing divas with shitty haircuts desperately showboating and diving in front of refs in order to hide the fact their sport is SO BORING IT MAKES ANGELS PASS OUT AND RAIN DOWN FROM HEAVEN. Hooligans don’t start soccer riots because they’re angry or excited; they start them because they’re so fucking bored.

So, how does an entire city go apeshit for this affair? Can there be that many rabid soccer fans out there just waiting for the chance to affix flags to their car hoods and windows and drive around honking? Of course not, but – and no sleight against the genuine soccer fans (pity them) – there are a load of bandwagon jumpers who use World Cup “fever” as an excuse to for obnoxious nationalist posturing. When Portugal advanced to the semi-finals, there was suddenly five times the number of flag-waving Portugal supporters, many of them with curiously non-Portuguese features. When that team won its last game, our neighbourhood was deluged – again – with blaring horns. Hours of ‘em. Same goes for Italy, and several other of the top-tier soccer countries. It’s multiculturalism at its… er… honkiest.

And really, is that the best they can do? Edmontonians burn phone booths when their hockey team advances to the semis. Violent, thuggish and unnecessary, yes, but at least it’s creative.

The good news is France beat Portugal today – in what was surely a riveting 1-0 game – and there are far fewer France supporters in T.O. (or maybe it’s just that their tiny Citroëns fall over when they clip flags to the windows). I’ve finally found a reason to cheer and a team to cheer for: the one least likely to annoy. If Italy wins the final, I’m afraid it’ll be auto-machismo central; if France wins, we’re probably looking at emptied wine bottles and a few drunken baguette sword fights.

Sure, that seems like the dour view from Curmudgeon Central, after all, the World Cup brings nations together in a spirited show of athleticism, it does only run for a month once every four years and a lot of guys selling flags from vans in gas station parking lots are really happy. Yes indeed, there are certainly worse things than the World Cup – like terrorism, prison sex with a stun-gun, and David Beckham’s haircut at any given moment (say what you will about hockey mullets, at least they aren't pretentious). Oh, yeah, and actually watching a World Cup game, that’s much worse.

Go France!

Oh, and if you’re feeling the same way, check out this anti-soccer site. The haircut section alone is worth the visit.

Expectedly, a cat.

2006-07-02T22:36:00.000-06:00

So what — of the past three posts I've bothered to do, two have involved cats in some way. That's pretty cool, right?

This little guy (or possibly girl) was trying to climb down onto the patio of Squirly's on Queen St. I helped it down. Then it came and visited. True story. And a fascinating one at that!

Maybe it's just the flash, but in retrospect, it looks a little mangy. And the eyes. THE EYES.

A nation derided

2006-06-21T16:28:00.000-06:00

In a world of Canadians, Americans, gas stations and pavement, I became a wanderer, a lost vagabond on the highways and biways of Eastern Canada. My quest--perhaps, as lame as it sounds--was one of self discovery.
You all have no idea how hard it was to de-panic myself enough to get out that door and into the car.
And all through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the overwhelming issue truly was fear.
What was I afraid of? It's really hard to say. Weeks earlier, on a hike in Nova Scotia near the famous Peggy's Cove, I absolutely refused to wedge myself into a cave that was really not nearly too small for me and my ample, yet not disgusting, girth. I stood at the opening, began to sweat, my heart racing.
"You seem to have lost some of your tiger," a friend noted. He was right. I realized that, for some reason, I'd turned into the snivelling baby that hid in basements and in front of computer monitors, waiting for life to happen, and doing my best to make sure it had absolutely no opportunities to do so.
So I made a plan.
It was very much a plan that went against all my grains--financial (bankruptcy looms large), emotional (where's that tiger?), and physical (what the hell is wrong with my digestive system?). I waited until the last moment, buying my flight from Toronto to Edmonton less than a week before I would have to BE in Toronto to catch it.
The flight plan itself was nervewracking. Why fly out of Toronto when Halifax has the nicest airport (officially!) in Canada?
Well, I've never been across the country. That was the original plan, but when I calculated the cost of gas, and the time it would take, and the unlikeliness of anyone coming with me, I amended the plan to an Eastern tour (19 hours of driving in three days) and a flight out of T-Dot. The ticket was non-refundable, and the flightplan non-amendable. I had to go, or lose $465.93. If I didn't, I'd be broke, and stuck at home. I forced myself to move.
My hands shook as I climbed into the 16-year old, recently- (and overwhelmingly failedly-) inspected Mazda 323. (*Note: if there were footnotes, I'd write one about all the things that didn't pass on that car*). I brought the bare minimum of junk in the event I'd be walking or hitchhiking. I changed the oil in the car, offending all my hippy neighbours by leaving a gargantuan oil spill.
And I departed. Everything irked me. The car couldn't go more than 80 km uphill. Everyone was actively attempting to embarrass me by passing at speeds well beyond that of most rockets. The temperature reached over 30 degrees in the un-airconditioned vehicle. I was exhausted from staying up until three in the morning and helping my girlfriend clean up her old apartment to move out.
But, as time went on, I relaxed a little. The car was burning almost no gas. The natural world beyond the pavement had reached its biological peak, and was screaming "fuck me" in plant language at the top of its lungs, which makes for some pretty flowers. The porcupines lined the side of the road, showing their intestines and mutilated carcases in a jubilant display of ... um... guts. And the fear of travelling began to melt like a stolen Fudgesicle between a fat kid's ass cheeks.
Crossing the border--part of my shortcut to Montreal through Maine -- changed all that.
Sporting what is almost a full Osama bin Laden beard and mentioning you've been unemployed for almost three months are two things not recommended to travellers entering the United States of Paranoia. Jokes about the fruits you happen to be carrying with you are also best left unsaid.
So I got the nth degree of interrogation. I feared the officers, all morbidly obese, would all cross the desk and "declare" I'd need to pass a cavity search if I wanted to get into their country. But after I told them the limit of my court experiences involved covering misdemeanors for My Daily Newspaper's Local Typo section, and that I could afford the gas to get out of their country, I was free to pass through. After my interrogation, though, I once again feared the very thought of touching American soil, be it with shoes or tires, or, inevitably, my own blood, when I was shot by roving gangs of miscreant fanatic zealot anti-terrorist squads. But as I drove through what turned out to be, minus the scads of churches and American flags, one of the most clean-cut and well-kept places I've ever been. New Brunswick was a ghetto, comparatively.
Crossing by highway through forests, then fields, I assumed every car behind me or parked on the side on the road was under salary with the Department of Homeland Security, trailing my derelict vehicle, waiting for a chance to shoot my terrorist ass. I gasped sighs of relief when cars appoaching from behind actually swerved to pass me, rather then knocking me off the road for a out-and-out knockdown, with free passage to Guantanamo Bay afterwards. Once, A car followed for almost half an hour on a highway with nowhere to turn. I was panicked. Finally, I slowed down, to see if he'd just pass. He did. When I saw his New Brunswick license plates, I realized I truly was insane. I calmed down.
Why go through the States? Originally, I told myself it was because gas was cheaper, and it was shorter. But I think it was more a chance to do something different. I had one real holiday chance this year--this one-- and I was going to do whatever it took, regardless of how scared I was, to make it as interesting as possible. Several God-given truths truly did become self-evident in the United States: all men (and women) are created fat. It's actually in the Declaration of Independence that each man, woman and child has the right to remain porky. The border guards I was interrogated by could move only because their chairs had wheels. Another true truth: the gas is cheaper. I think it works out to less than 75 cents per litre in deep Maine.
Anyway, this is too long. I'll break it up here. I haven't even gotten to Montreal yet, and I'm close to a million words here. And I sound like a snivelling crybaby.

FEEL IT

2006-06-21T00:17:00.000-06:00

Hey all! Haven't had that much to say lately, as the Oilers have pretty much been my entire "thing" for seemingly forever. But as you can see from the photo, the playoff beard is gone now (click here for a chronology of its gradual demise), and I'm again free to pursue more human endeavours, like cleaning up the three weeks' worth of dishes and old newspaper that make up the accumulated detritus of my unemployment.

Or should I say, former unemployment! Yep, it seems I managed to land myself a part-time copyediting position with the National Post in their sports department, of all places. The pay is okay; right now I'm just trying to gather together a nest egg to carry me through to September, but there's a chance that they could take me on on a contract if things look like they're working out. So far, they're pretty shorthanded, so the pace is pretty hectic and the job fairly involved — it's way more layout-oriented than I thought it would be — but whatevers. It's great just to be working again. It may not be my dream job, but IMAGINE THAT, it's hard for someone my age to find steady, supportable journalism work, even in Toronto.

If only there was some kind of "youth-oriented" paper on the market that was dedicated to employing interesting and career-minded young journalists at a livable wage... ah, well.

So yeah. THAT'S IT!

Forecast: 100% Chance of Coconut

2006-06-18T01:25:00.000-06:00

With work, hockey playoffs and moving, I've been a little too busy to post, but here's a shot from last night's birthdaypalooza at a niftly l'il bar called the Crooked Star. Lots of friends, fun and vodka; thanks very much to everyone who came out. Above is a pic of what happens when someone (specifically Ladysir, as seen in photo) makes amazing cupcakes with coconut sprinkles on them, and then when said cupcakes are done and a hearty pile of coconut shards remain, a certain drunken fool decides to pretend its "snowing." Thanks to Chris! for capturing the tragic, er, magic. To quote zen master Weird Al Yankovic: "Dare to be stupid."

Also, I'm glad those cupcakes weren't topped with thumbtacks.

Departure: 11:56/17-06-06

2006-06-17T08:59:00.000-06:00

Ah, the open road. If your car fails inspection, your bank balance hovers on negative, and your packing skils are horrible, chances are, you should take a solo road trip in +25C weather. That's the plan. Next stop-Montreal! Gotta go. I'm buring prime heatstroke time.

Go for broke!

2006-06-07T21:11:00.000-06:00

Hey, friends! Hockey! Don't give up yet! There's still a chance.
Seriously, though, who gives two shits about hockey when there's LIFE to be lived!
My issue, though: fear. I'm scared of being broke. I need convincing. Don't think less of me, but I have $1400 worth of stock, my entire life's savings (which is a lot for someone with no income whatsoever) waiting. It's the last ounce of potential I have. I don't write for money, I don't work for money. I need an adventure.
Here's what I'm asking: convince me to use that little piece of cash to cross the country for my grandparents' 60th anniversary. I want to do it by car. I want to see the country. I want to be revived. I want the story--I know it won't go how I plan, and I'm really ok with that, because I don't really plan to plan it all that much. I miss the people I used to know, and I'd love an excusae to spend everything I have to see them all at once, one province at a time.
What do you think?

A cat-tastic night meow-out!!!1

2006-06-03T00:40:00.000-06:00

Kudos to the ever illustrious ladysir for bringing this gem of a book out with her this evening. I could caption the pursuant, thematically careening artwork created by those in attendance at the Crooked Star tonight, but let's just let it speak — or MEOW — for itself, shall we? If I could draw attention to a few points, however, keep an eye out for the chapter titles (and in particular "A Few Strokes For Mitzi" and "Neutral About Cats"), as well as the appearance of the incredibly rare REAL ending to "Cat House."

Drinkin' Heavy

2006-05-26T22:19:00.000-06:00

Yeah.
For those of you who appereciate (or will appreciate) the situation of being unemloyeed for threee mothnths,
Yes, this is what happens.
Yes, you do get sad. '
You do end up drinking waymore than you think you will.
]ANdYes, indeed, your ex-girlfriends WILL show up, no matter where you go.
That's how drunken unemloyment works in oceantown.
Not that is isn't pretty fun, when it's happening. It's pretty good. As "Journey" would say, "any way you want it, that's the way you need it, anyy way you wantit" do do-do-do doo do -- do do--"
It's the anthem for our generation. Honestly, I haven't been this drunk since I sahmefully wrecked a christmas party in Edmonton (shame, shame) .
And, despite my revalation that this is drunken rambling, I really want you all to know:
1. I am sick of being unemplyed.'
2. I want a paycheque that represents my experience.
3. I am cool, and denied my just deserts by the lame job market that is atlantic canada.
Yes, there are a lot of beaches. But no, there aren't a lot of useful jobs,.
Come out to visit. I'm willing t be the one who to subsidises your visitiing the most beautiful province in Canada. Sure, there;s no jobs,m but there's defitiely fun. '
Fuck, am I drunk this time.

Busy Weekend!

2006-05-23T20:00:00.000-06:00

Hot dog phone just won't stop ringing.

It's Chris and Mike on speaker-pint.

Apparently some old guy's giving them the stink-eye.

I turn on the video-foam feature and from the bottom of the glass I calm them with a hypnotic stare.

This tube-steak tech is not making my life any easier.

*Thanks to Ladysir for the pics

That's the way the career crumbles

2006-05-19T16:02:00.000-06:00

So, Dose = dead. I've been drunk for two days and still haven't quite come to terms with it yet (hopefully, day three of drunk will bring clarity). For me, Dose was a pretty kick-ass job: I came in at 10 a.m., I told some people to do some things, I edited some things, when I felt like it, I wrote some things, I interviewed some cool people and basically did whatever I wanted with the slice of the paper I played with. It was like the grownup Gateway.

I'm bummed because Dose is gone, but I'm really bummed that I won't see those cool people every day. I've been kept on at CanWest, a cockroach left after the atomic bomb, but today after everything was gone from the big huge desk we sat in and as I wandered around Canada.com's cubical-stuffed area, I realized all the energy left in that building, and for the most part CanWest, had just been kicked out. Then I got an e-mail warning me about inappropriate language in a story I'd sent over for other papers to publish. Sigh.

RIP. Anyone wanna hire me?

Fishin’ Accomplished II: Bass in Action

2006-05-18T22:55:00.000-06:00

If guys actually went fishing as much as they talk about going fishing, fish would probably be extinct. After living in Toronto over a year, I finally bought a license and dropped a line through the ice at Lake Simcoe, which got me stoked to get back out and explore more of the ridiculous number of waterways in this part of the country. I was starting to worry it was going to be one of those years, though, where I bought a license for one friggin’ trip, but luckily Alana’s dad (Alan) invited me along on his annual fishing trip with his engineering buddies. So last weekend we drove several hours though an apocalypse-quality rainstorm to Ottawa, where we dropped off Alana and her mom so they could explore the city for a few days.

Things were off to a bad start when stopped for gas and accidentally set off my car alarm. Usually you push a button on the keyholder to kill it, but the remote died a while ago and couldn’t remember how to stop it. So the horn is blaring, people are staring and we’re reading the manual with mounting frustration until finally I drive the car – lights blinking, loud honking and all – a few blocks away so we didn’t get lynched. Finally got it turned off and we drove another hour-and-a-half just over the Quebec border to a cabin on Allumette Lake, a.k.a. Lac aux Allumettes. This being Franco territory, were no longer anglers, we were franglers. Ones with poisson on the brain.

The weather was not cooperating, though, and it was a cloudy, windy weekend with intermittent rain. Rain gear and a cabin full of beer fixes that problem. Alan’s buddies are awesome guys who know how to ravage a beer or ten, and it was a great weekend. But on to the fishing…

The first morning out was slow. We took out a couple of aluminum boats with outboard motors and tried jigging for walleye, but it was too wavy, so we moved into a bay and trolled. We caught a couple of smallish pike, one of which I got. I decided to go it Alberta-style. So, using a technique favoured by my uncle, one that has yielded many a walleye at Lake Isle, I went to local bait shop, and rigged up a bottom bouncer, which is a special weight with a long strand at the bottom (which allows it to bounce along the bottom without getting caught), with a 90-degree angles bar, to which one attached a pre-made rig with beads, a flutter and baited hook. Nothing works like leeches, so I used the grotesque little bugger, much to everyone else’s surprise and mild disgust. I was a believer in a den of skeptics.

Heading into another sheltered bay, we trolled and BAM! – a hit. It was unlike anything I’d reeled in before, as it rose to the surface immediately and thrashed around. I caught my first bass, which are unheard of in Alberta (that said it was clearly the Oilers hat bringing me luck). It was a blast to haul in, putting up a good fight for a fairly small fish. A few more passes in the bay and we discovered a spot that consistently yielded hits, and I ended up with three bass and another pike in total, making myself the Bassmaster. That’s right, call me the Bass-o-matic 3000 and get me a goddamn fishing show: stat. I was also the only one in the boat who caught anything, so the skeptics were intrigued and the newcomer’s reputation was in good standing. I chalk it all up to how diligently I probed that bass-hole. Ahem…

A night of drinking, cards, good food, and general rousing of rabble gave way to morning and a trip down to the end of the lake where it’s fed by two rivers, making for some crazy current action and lots of chop. Alan and I were in one boat, and Moe, who was hosting the weekend, and Denis were in the other. The wind was whipping up some nasty waves and it was a little hairy but we trolled around the edge of the current. No luck, so we tried jigging a little before moving to where the other river dumped in and tried a bowl, which a map of the underwater geography indicated had a deep pocket (57 feet). While we were here Moe and Denis caught a small walleye and a larger catfish each near the river.

No luck here either, so we went down the shoreline off of a weedy patch. Another aggressive strike and I hooked into a bass a good size larger than the ones from the day before. We trolled the area a bit more before moving out towards the island and finding a drop-off point (no depth finder, just old-school feeling our way around the bottom with an anchor) to jig with rubber Powerbait. I stuck to leeches and Alan stuck to live baitfish, but no luck. We made our way back for lunch.

The wind picked up a lot and it was looking like a wash for the rest of the day, but then early evening it eased up so Alan, Moe and I cruised back down the lake to re-try the cross-currents. With darkness threatening to puch our fun in the face, both Moe and Alan got a small walleye, and Alan got a decent-sized pike. The walleye gods did not shine upon myself, however.
It was one of those weekends where even without fish or sunshine it was still a blast.

That night we ate the most amazing deer roast, with all the fixings, plus some lake trout caught in the area. The icing on the fish cake (a fishcake with icing – yuck) was the half-dozen hauled in the boat, which was turned out to be the biggest catch. I still have yet to smash into a walleye out here, but I’m stoked to keep trying.
And, any fisherpersons out there reading this who haven’t caught a bass: yes it is as fun as those guys with nasty cop moustaches, beige vests and bad hats make it seem on the fishing shows. I call those dudes “Bass-tards” and I wonder if it’s a look that one slowly morphs into as a result of fishing too often.

Bass puns – can you ever really have enough of them? You bet your ba... Aw, nevermind.

My last day as a 20-something

2006-05-17T21:55:00.000-06:00

My god, was that ever hard to write. My. Last. Day. As. A. 20. Year. Old.
For those of you who didn't know, or had no reason to care, Thursday, May 18 is the last day of my third decade. The last age I'll have a 2 in the tens digit (barring fantastic advances in medical technology in the next ... let's say... three years, I doubt I'll be hitting 120...). My final chance to do things that 30-year olds (yuck) just don't do. And what am I going to do? So far, I don't think it's going to be exciting.
Because of my living arrangements, I won't have use of my car.
Because of my financial situation, I will not be travelling.
Because of health reasons, I'll be spending part of it at a doctor's office.
Because of a general malaise, I'll probably not really enjoy it.
I found myself almost crying on the way home from my girlfriend's house today. She made me realise that yes, today already was the last day of my 20s. And sure, this has happened to a few people in history, but, I'm sure that most of them had something to show for their 30 years, be it a job, or (gasp) a career, or, perhaps, a wife or kids or a car they got to drive, or a house. God! A house! What I would do! Painting! Nesting! Gardening! Inviting! Cooking! Hosting! Screaming at the top of my lungs at 4:00a.m. without retribution. Can you imagine?
You see, I am getting old, even if it's just mental. I do want some of that junk. I'm tired of paying asshole after asshole more than 50 per cent of my salary for the right to live somewhere where I have no control over anything, and don't get $10,000, or even $5,000, worth of equity for paying $12,000 a year in rent. What the fuck, or "WTF," as the kids are saying.
But for that, I need a job. I'm so tired of being "overqualified" here in Nova Scotia. I want a job. I don't care if I'm overqualified. I'll still do it. I had an interview at the weekly newspaper in town, and I made their eyes bug out when I gave them an example of one time I showed initiative in a time of newspaper crisis. I was applying to be a copy editor; in reality, I should have been applying to be editor-in-chief. But I would have been chief toilet-licker if they'd just pay me $1000 a month.
I should just pack up and say goodbye to the no-job coast. I like it here, but I think, for my own sake, and the sake of my gradually eroding sanity, it might make sense to get out of here. Any money I save, I end up spending to fly back to Alberta for family events, so it might make sense to move there, make money, keep it, buy a house there, live there, get all that other stuff, be bored, watch sprawl and urban deterioration progress from the inside out, die of boredom, buy a cemetary plot 20 years before that in anticipation, and then shoot myself to avoid it all.
Or stay here.
We'll see. All I know is that tradespeople get more money than God spent on Jesus' first birthday present per hour, and there's probably a program somewhere where it's a free course because they're so desperate for workers.
Then I could live until I chopped one of my arms off in heavy machinery, stump around town and freak out kids, and ... shit. This option sucks, too.
Maybe I'll just keep looking for journalism work. Despite what happened to Dose, which employed most of the journalists I know, I think there's work out there for people willing to do it. Small town newspapers might not be too bad. 9 out of 10 editors end up as mayor, anyway, I hear.

Laugh it up, all you prophets of journalism.

2006-05-17T16:42:00.000-06:00

Well, it all started at 11:30 this morning when my phone rang just as I was getting out of the shower any my phone rings. On the other end of the line is Daniel, one of the designers at work, who informs me that "the shit has hit the fan" and the print version of Dose — the paper I just moved across the country to accept a position at four months ago — has just been spiked by CanWest. Really, saying the shit had hit the fan doesn't do that news much justice. I'm out of a fucking job.

You can read the characteristically sparse Reuters story here, which sufficiently sums up the painful bout of retardation that led CanWest to their abrupt and thoroughly surprising decision. I mean, I know there were a lot of things that Dose didn't do very well, and of course it was losing money — it was a barely-year-old startup, for fuck's sake — but for the company to say that they don't see any potential in the print version is just fucking stupid.

From an inside point of view, the print edition of Dose was the only thing we were doing well. Like it or hate it, it was actually different. I fully believe that a large part of the future of print media in Canada will be the free, ad-driven daily commuter paper, and for CanWest to pull out of that now and concentrate their efforts on rolling our fuck-awful website into a "youth channel" for canada.com is just so frustratingly short-sighted that I don't even know what to say. It won't last longer than a couple of months.

But whatever. I'm angry, I'm hurt, and I'm jobless. The worst part is I actually liked it there; I'm going to miss the people I worked with and the environment we worked in. I doubt I'll ever find something like that again. Anyhow, I'm sure they're popping open champagne in the offices of student papers across the country today, having been proven right that Dose was a sham and CanWest didn't have a clue what they were doing. Well, laugh it up. Laugh it up over the hilarious tale of the "sell-out" paper that couldn't even figure out how to sell out well enough to save its own ass.

Sorry, this post is idiotic. I could be telling about how we all found out (mid-press) and how big companies manage to circumvent the fact that we were all reassured of a financial commitment to the paper and our jobs (cancel the contract in exchange for two months' salary, thereby nullifying the entire point of contracts). Needless to say, my dreams of a future in journalism with any guarantee of financial security has been noticeably shaken. This is what's waiting for you, you genius college kids. Hope you like uncertainty.

I'll say something more meaningful and less bitter tomorrow. Later.

A Gary Larson Comic Waiting to Happen

2006-05-16T23:37:00.000-06:00

This was snapped on the 401 on the way out of town last Friday: The Fireplace Shop right next door to KABOOM FIREWORKS. All that's missing is a fat guy with glasses backing an "Acme Fireworks Supplies" truck into the wrong loading dock, with a caption reading "Dwight's dyslexia eventually caught up with him."

Hooray for Russia!

2006-05-11T11:46:00.000-06:00

This country has something for everyone!

http://www.getfit.ru/health/interestingly/2216/

Besides full ladies involve the majority of men (anyway so speak), they can apply the magnificent forms and for the blessing of own house. So, 41-летнея the inhabitant of Ulyanovsk could keep the 120-kilogram body the armed robber before arrival of militia. When lady was at home and made a dinner, into its apartment have rushed three men armed by pistols and have demanded to give all of them the savings. The woman has not become puzzled and with start has fallen to one гр
And the unlucky robber has been delivered in a prison fracture clinic with set of bruises and an extensive tumour.

An extensive TUMOUR? What the hell are you talking about? It's a fun site all about Russian health, I'd assume...

Rapt in the Closet

2006-05-05T22:54:00.000-06:00

Just in case you haven't had the chance to see everyone's fave R&B singin' alleged pedophile R. Kelly's musical Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 1-12, this is an official reminder to go out and rent it. A while ago intrepid journalist/DVD masochist Christie brought this over and a bunch of us watched it... while drinking, of course. The Internet buzz is true, as it's one of the most unintentionally hilarious cinematic stinkbugs to smear the pop-culture windshield in a while.

Imagine: a 12-part music video detailing – with unprecedented soap-operatic melodrama – an insane tale of love-triangles (actually, more like love-polygons), gangstas, cops, coming out of the closet (both literally and metaphorically), shoot-outs and midget-related infidelity. Kelly stars in it, narrates it through song, and sings all of the character voices. The best part of is how over-the-top and obvious it is. We see Kelly pull out his berretta as he sings “I pull out my berretta”; a cop car with its light on pulls up behind him and he croons “woo-ah woo-ah woo-ah, here comes a policeman"; a midget appears and he belts out, “It was a midget, a miiid-get!”

The performances are every bit as delirious as the lines, which include, “I pull back the cover and oh, my god: a rubber… rubber… rubber… rubber… / And now I’m like, ‘Well, well, well, what the BOOP is this?’ / A condom in my bed – you better start talkin’ BOOP / Before I take a match and burn this mother-BOOP-er down!” And yes, he actually sings the “BOOPS.”

I was inspired to write a post about it after coming across this hilarious review of the DVD on Amazon:

A surrealist masterpiece, December 6, 2005

Reviewer:

Luther Clement "rububula" (new york) - See all my reviews

Trapped in the Closet is a a work of unadulterated, if perhaps unintentional, genius which rests comfortably alongside the work of
Bunuel and Dali. What begins as a stereotypical melodrama quickly escalates into an epic farce which gleefully subverts our conception of what is possible and impossible. Lines like "he's opening the dresser / I pull out my berreta" and "then the midget takes his inhaler out" elevate R. Kelly's meisterwerk into storytelling genius. The subtle touches, like the fact that the midget has asthma, or that the Cop's wife is allergic to cherry pie, are like the details in a Bosch, giving life to the hellscape of modern life and revealing to us, in an age when we find ourselves drawn increasingly apart, that we are all connected in ways which may never be revealed to us, until we are forced into the closet by the unexpected arrival of a one night stand's spouse. R. Kelly's narrative interludes, delivered from inside the closet, remind us of the intent of the artist in orchestrating events, and casts R. Kelly into the mold of a sympathetic but ultimately helpless creator. By revealing to the audience both his control over evetns and his ultimate helplessness, he reminds us strikingly of Humbert Humbert in his asides to the jury.
Also, the most important thing to remember while watching is that R. Kelly peed on a 14 year old girl.

You gotta love that punch-line at the end.

I also found the first five chapters on it on Google video, which you can and should watch here. Plus I discovered a remake of it using the SIMS (part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; and part 5). And don't forget the South Park parody, hosted in its entirety here.

Although, the Google vid offers a nice taste, the compression is the pits, and the funnier parts of this 43-minute opus (apparently eight more chapters are planned) comes in the later chapters – namely when the asthmatic midget is introduced. Rent it or download it; you'll laugh so hard you’ll piss yourself (hopefully not on a fourteen-year-old girl).

Piss and Garlic

2006-05-02T23:48:00.000-06:00

That was the smell of Edmonton on Thursday – at least the miniscule part of the city that is the bathroom of Blues on Whyte. More on that shortly, though.

Alana and I were back in town Thursday night to Monday afternoon for our friend Kirk’s wedding. We caught up with the stag party around 11pm, at the Black Dog. The upstairs was overcrowded and sweaty but awash with boozy smiles and beer-stained blue and orange, despite the Oiler’s loss. Drunks shamelessly wearing cardboard promo hockey helmets, smashing back $3.75 pints of Grasshopper and talking over the DJ’s electronic set; it was totally Edmonton: fuck pretense, bring on the cheap liquor and funny hats.

Next stop: the Strath’ (on the way, the drunker of our number screamed “REGINA” – Kirk’s home town – at the top of their lungs to strangers, which could’ve caused a fight, but thankfully resulted in random people joining them and changing the chant to – you guessed it – “VAGINAAAA”). I’ve always dug the ancient swighole’s low-rent VLTs and windowless stained walls atmosphere, but Christ, I’ve never had a glass of the draft and not regretted it. The ridiculous urban legend is they were once busted for recycling beer from the urinals, because the booze tastes that bad, like the worst draft you could buy at a regular bar cut with Clorox and stirred with a vinegar-soaked sweat-sock. I stopped at two glasses.

Kirk, who’d been drinking since that afternoon, did the bar’s signature shot: tequila slurped from half of a hollowed out pickled egg. That’s hearty drinkin’ by a guy wearing fuzzy handcuffs, a bridal veil with plastic penises on it, plus a shirt with testicles drawn on it, who’s carrying a purse, and has a remote controlled dildo in his pants that vibrates his sack to a crescendo of painful protests every time someone turns it on.

Last stop of the night was Blues on Whyte, the time-worn sister bar of sorts to the Old Strathcona but with live blues and a separate room for VLTs. This is where things began to unhinge. Glasses were broken, drinkers were scolded every five minutes by the bouncer for taking pics in the bar, some weird-ass old guy sat down at our table and didn’t say a word, and a large sombrero was passed between revelers who looked they were wearing red-eyed costumes of themselves made from Keith Richards. But this is Edmonton, and there were weirder, drunker things going on. In the bathroom, for example.

Piss and garlic were the smells that greeted me in the can. The piss was obvious but the garlic was coming from an Army and Navy bag on the counter. It was full of Kielbasa sausage, which its owner was attempting to sell to some poor dude who just wanted to wash his hands (as Tenacious D sings, "My kielbasa sausage has just got to perform!"). The salesman probably would’ve had an easier time selling sex toys on a slaughterhouse floor, but that didn’t make his determination any less dogged. Shockingly, the other guy wanted nothing to do with this sausage party.

Illicit Meat Vendor: “C’mon, help me out here.”

Guy: “For the last time no.”

[pause]

Illicit Meat Vendor: “OK, then… can I have some change?”

Guy: “I don’t think so.”

[angry mumbling and fist shaking]

I once had a junkie try to sell me a wheel of cheese at a bar in Vancouver near East Hastings – if they could’ve found someone with a trench coat full of crackers there coulda been a helluva cocktail party.

Anyhow, our own party wound down with the requisite trip to the Funky Pickle for pizza slices better than out alco-stunned taste-buds deserved. Despite not drinking all that much, I awoke the next morning with one of the worst hangovers in recent memory. It felt like the back of my skull was trying to give birth to my brain, and there was a motocross in my guts. Either I got poisoned or, as Edmontonians love to remind those of us who’ve moved to Toronto, I'm getting soft living in the East.

If Whyte Ave (party central) can be considered an amplified microcosm of my hometown, than it’s the dogged absence of class and unabashed partying that makes the place both endearing and, at a certain point, poisonous; a place where you’re never sure if a drunk stranger will offer an embrace or a punch in the face. I’ve seen the worst side of humanity turn that street into an asphalt shit stain, but that night, perhaps buoyed by a warm weather and a beloved sports team in the play-offs, it was good times all around. Don’t get me wrong, either – Toronto’s a prime cut of livin’, but you can’t help but miss the home-cooked party. I guess Edmonton really is like piss and garlic…

Actually, no, that’s the dumbest simile I’ve heard. But the “biggest small town in the world” can be pretty fun sometimes, and made me wish I’d been there Monday night for Oiler Gras. Go Team!

Polyorchis penicillatus

2006-04-26T22:07:00.000-06:00

Yeah. So, I just spent the last three hours trying to remember this little fucker's name. Polyorchis penicillatus. That's him. He's a Scyphozoan -- wait-- Hydrozoan medusa. That means he's a jellyfish. And I used to know a hell of a lot more about him. (Postscript: after a little remembering, I remembered that my experiment involved cutting their mouths off and watching them grow back. Cool.)
And I guess that's what I'm writing about. I used to know a hell of a lot about a lot of things. But when my three hours of searching came to a close, I realized, right as it slipped between my ears and shattered on the floor (the thought, I mean, not the jellyfish) that I had absolutely no idea why I was looking for this information. What's the point of this little guy? What's the point of looking for him? I remember thinking that I wanted to go back to BC and get out of the newspaper business altogether. You know, spend a summer researching pelagic invertebrates (i.e. boring creatures who move slowly and calmly and gracefully and never ask you to cover murders or boring community calendar events) in the backwoods of Vancover Island. Never mind that I'm not working towards a degree or anything. Hell, for the last three months, I can honestly say I haven't been working.
And that's another thing. My brain is broken, and I don't want to work. I can't read very much because my eyes wander to something else, and my deside to get out of the house is also pretty feeble at best. I'm living off savings, so that part of things is fine.
But writing makes me cringe. Or having the internet. Sitting down at the computer immediately costs me at least an hour. Garunteed. And if I go to the right sites, like newgrounds.com, a flash animation dump where new stuff is posted at a rate of about 200 new cartoons a day, I don't ever have to move again to be at least mildly entertained. Sure, I'm frustrated at the end of the day, but before that, I can sit and sit and sit.
That being said, I did do some gardening today (whoa. this is getting boring). My idiot landlord's sister (or however this place's ownership goes) dug up about 30 or 40 100-year old ferns fromthe back yard, and put them in the garbage. They're these huge, shoulder-height green monsters that fill the whole back yard with jungle fever and such, and she just dug them up. I mean...
So, to piss her off, I took five grocery bags worth of them out of the garbage, replanted some where she dug them up, and planted more in our front garden. I hope it pissed her off, anyway.
Then I took the rest and planted them all around our neighbourhood. That was fun.
Anyway, yeah. I like gardening, being outdoors, and staying away from computers. Somehow, though, my life ends up being the opposite. Who is in charge of these things? Don't say it's me. I can't remember long enough to do anything about it.
Oh, and yes, I am organizing a TV show featuring local talent and comedy and music. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the host. But we'll see.I can't imagine it being good otherwise.

Stay Puft!

2006-04-26T01:35:00.000-06:00

I dare you to click on this very not safe for work video clip.

See, this is what happens when self-obsessed nut-jobs/dickheads (sorry, there’s just no avoiding the word-play here) go crazy in super-size-me culture (although you probably can’t get order that at a drive-thru). I love his justification for it too. According to the, well… sad-sack, his self-mutilation is an emasculating “adventure,” as if dunking your junk in a public toilet makes you Allen Quartermain. He also claims to be “challenging” notions of what a penis is. Riiight. So by that logic anyone with hydrocephalus is challenging the notion of what a head is. I hope Darwinism has something particularly hilarious in store for this one-man sausage party. Maybe an accident involving running nude through a revolving door.

I guess he’ll never be a champion hurdler (can you even buy a Double-D sports-cup?).

But at least he’s top contender for World Tea-Bagging Champion.

Or he can pretend to be the guy in all those AC/DC songs.

Model Hammer-pants?

Can’t. Stop. Making. Giant. Testicle. Jokes.

AAAAAAAAAAA!