I'm one for apologies. I've been remiss in my posting. Just be happy I clung to my keyboard long enough to remember this place. I would like to take this time to thank Granite for keeping the torch burning all this time without any real support.
Here's a synopsis of some no-longer-current events:
My Birthday was 95% good, 5% pure shit. I woke up to the news that Ben wouldn't be joining the festivities due to an unplanned family Christmas in Goderich or Grand Bend or somewhere. Wolfgang came over later and helped me clean the shed up so that I could use it.
I don't recall what happened next.
Then I sat down to dinner with family and friends. Food was eaten, gifts were given, fudge icing was spilled on every available surface.
Then we got down to business. The party got into swing as more and more people arrived. One of them was Ben, who had either provided my father with a clever ruse, or had simply confused him on the phone that morning. In either case, he gave me porn. Porn that I have yet to watch, actually, but that's part of another rant.
He also brought a shotglass chessboard, which he and Wolfgang proceeded to make good use of. I am proud to announce that Wolfgang has never been more intoxicated than he was after he stood up from that game. I would have indulged in a friendly round of Blake-feeds-it-to-me-over-the-chessboard, but I figured I needed to stay standing longer than 10:30 that night.
That turned out to be a good idea. There were two major causes for this:
The first is pretty much par for the course of life: Basically everything with a vagina at that party had too much to drink. 'Nuff said really. Just make up your own stupidity at that point.
Number two was just that. Remember when I said that 5% of my party was shit? I wasn't being metaphorical. An old friend of mine thought that it would be a good idea to take one of my sister's friends for a walk around the garden. If for "garden" you read "back yard" and for "take one of my sister's friends for a walk around" you read "remind the world where statutory rape laws came from in". Once I caught wind of this, I, assisted by the Bizz himself, moved swiftly to intercept the parties involved. Everyone was fully clothed (not totally surprising given the somewhat lacklustre effort that winter put out for us that evening), and I managed to call them back from the far end of the yard without any trouble. Yeah, the far end. The one where the dogs shit. In fact, I said to them "Get out of there, that's where the dogs shit". And even with those thoughts in my head, I didn't think to myself, "Self, why don't we just quickly check people's shoes before you let them back into the studio?"
5 minutes later I was busy clearing everyone out of the building. It was unglamourous. I lost my temper more than once with inebriated guests who just didn't seem to get it. I was left with Ben and the Bizz. Oh, and the Metro. But instead of helping, he decided to play Midol on the front porch with a segment of reason number one.
I owe a lot to my boys. Without complaint they tidied the shed, swept the floor, isolated the shit, and then mopped and disinfected the floor. Our final task was cleaning and disinfecting the mess of patch-cords, extension cords, and adapters that had littered the floor of one side of the shed.
We finished up at about 3:30, if memory serves. I still had some demented drive to salvage the evening in my head at that point, so I invited them both to stick around for a rousing viewing of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. This only involved carting my parents' new widescreen TV out to the shed, followed by the various components of my computer I needed to connect to it, but apparently this was too much for the Bizz, who decided it was time to go home and be assaulted by his father.
Ben and I stood in the shed. The computer was booted, VLC was displaying the opening frame of the movie on pause through the beautiful television. I looked at him. He looked at me.
"I'm hungry. Let's go to Sobey's"
We got down to viewing the film at 5. Gorged on pre-made pasta and pepsi, Ben managed half an hour of consciousness before passing out. I actually couldn't wake him up, so I killed the movie and went to bed myself.
New years came only a few days later. I spent most of those days working in the last of my obligatory 10 jams per year with Red Desperado Approach.
The Braj hosted a good party. I was feeling a little ill, so I didn't manage to make an appearance until about 11:30. Luckily things were just getting started. Numerous people showed up, including Wolfgang and his woman. Jen was back from Europe passing out on the couch from jet-lag. I got drunk on vodka and vodka freezies. I took a glass of champagne at midnight and then got Jen to drink hers fast and switch with me so as to escape abuse from the Braj.
Things started to lose momentum there, so we called Carl to see what was up.
Now, let me be clear here in case there's any covert blog snooping going on here:
We didn't receive any answer and Captain Carl certainly did not host a delicious plump-breasted New Year's Eve party.
There just happens also to be a gap in my recollection from around 2:30am until when Calder, Jen, and I entered our quarter of the city at around 6:00.
Anyway, I was really happy not to have to work on the 1st.
And now for something completely different:
Some time ago, Emily posted a little homegrown survey. Basically, the idea is that you load up your total music library and set it to random. Fill in one song per category, in order. In spite of its embarrassing lack of graphics or any other easy ways to snag my attention, it stuck in the back of my head, and I resolved to put it into my next available post. So here goes nothing:
Opening Credits:
James Brown - Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)
Waking Up:
DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump
First Day at School:
Bush - Mouth
Falling in Love:
The Cardigans - Been It
Fight Song:
Jamiroquai - Use the Force
Breaking Up:
Beastie Boys - Electrify
Prom:
DJ Shadow - Triplicate Something Happened
Life:
Bombay the Hard Way - Uptown Bollywood Nights
Mental Breakdown:
Beastie Boys - Alive
Driving:
Bush - History (Dub Pistols Mix)
Flashback:
The Cardigans - Your New Cuckoo
Getting Back Together:
Rage Against the Machine - Without a Face (Live)
Wedding:
Beastie Boys - Remote Control
Birth of Child:
James Brown - It's a Man's Man's World
Funeral Song:
Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade
End Credits:
DJ Shadow - Mutual Slump [Alternate Take Without Overdubs][Alternate Take]
Pretty nifty, hunh? I swear that none of that was contrived. Winamp was already open and playing, and when I got to this part of the blog I just waited for the next song to open and started going. It took a while, but it all went down eventually.
In other news, I have a job.
It's basically the same job I've always had. At the same place. There are repeated carrots dropped in front of me of new and interesting things happening at this job, but as yet they have come to nought. I don't even have a pigeon-hole in the office yet, let alone a voicemail box, or official email address. I just spend more time there doing less interesting things than I was doing before. And probably making the same amount (although I haven't been classless enough to ask). That last bit is particularly galling, given that I've been stepping pretty deeply into the shoes of my former boss who was a full-time salaried employee making considerably more per week than I ever have.
I thought about boring you with the details, but then realized that I don't have the energy to recall them. The most interesting thing I've done so far is get unexpectedly angry with a co-worker. She told me that she'd just found out that she had a half-sister her dad never told her about. Then she told me that she didn't ever want to meet her. I didn't cope with that well. Also, I threw up at work today.
That's all I needed to get across at this juncture.
Tally pip pip pip pip pip
20061221
20061217
But there's More Drunks that there are Good Doctors, so I Guess I'd Better have Another Round...
Binks posted a link to a really neat article on another blog, which reminded me that I have all of these links that I've bookmarked while thinking "I should put that in my next post".
So, from my now quite lengthy bookmark list, I present "Things that I thought you might like. Because I liked them"
(Note, I don't come up with these on my own. Clearly StumbleUpon is at fault here)
(Note #2, after reviewing the bookmarks, there are enough that I might as well categorize them)
Webcomics:
Soysauce. Ever wondered what its like to be a Chinese-American cartoonist? Neither have I, but the chapter I've linked to discusses his amusing love for white girls.
Internet Predators is just a single comic strip that panders to my favourite niche of humour. For more substantial pandering to this niche, check out Alien Loves Predator.
While not strictly a webcomic, the Darkhorse "Browse by Title" page is really helpful if you're sitting up late at night wondering how close you came to collecting every Aliens comic ever produced when you were a kid.
Is this a real Calvin and Hobbes strip? I hope not...
Ever wanted to give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome by clicking page by page through possibly thousands of different manga fansubs? Well now you can!
The Comics I check every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (regardless of whether or not they update on those days):
-PA and CAD don't deserve links
-Sam and Fuzzy is probably my favourite webcomic
-Ben turned me on to MegaTokyo
-Questionable Content is generally amusing with its copious references to sex, computers, and popular music. Really, the condescending Indie attitude with which many things are presented is its only drawback
-Dinsaur Comics was the source of that amusing CBC report on "Internet" that I posted a week or so ago (Now long removed from YouTube by the CBC).
-Married to the Sea. Old-School webcomickry at its best. Another which probably doesn't need a link from me, but there are those among my readership who have probably not heard of it or seen someone else link an image from it.
-Red Meat. It's strange, I just started reading it last week.
-Rob and Elliot. Another Ben recommendation. Nuff Said.
-Piled Higher and Deeper. A webcomic about being a grad student. It's really only funny because I'm dropping out of university...
Next up, a more generalized category of "funny images" that didn't qualify as webcomics by any stretch of the imagination:
-Robot Gallery. I thought it was cool...
-Heaven is where...
-It's a fucking lemon.
-This picture's hilarity score (in LOLrandums) gets a serious increase due to having someone in it who looks scarily like me. And he's also the one striking the biggest pose.
-I just thought that this was really cool.
-Apparently this list changes every day. Or more often. I don't really know. There's definitely some funny shit going on in there though.
-Nostalgia....
-Some sort of street art... I dunno. Maybe my friends in Arts can give some more background on it.
VIDEOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-My favourite
-This is seriously one of the best videos I've ever seen
-I wish I did shit like this in Com-Tech
-Arawareru. Hard to type, easy to watch.
-Don't do this at home.
-The funniest internet-related video I've ever seen
-Ben wanted me to write a post about Jesus Camp. Unfortunately, Jesus Camp is sad not funny. This is really funny. It loops over and over though, so stop it once you've finished watching... unless you want to watch it again.
-I've heard about people doing this before, but its funny to see profs get their high-and-mighty shit ruined.
-I don't watch a lot of daytime television. Is it always like this?
Last but not least, everything else:
-YOUR MOM!!!!!!!ROFLMAO
-This is not a paid endorsement. For this store.
-Thanksgiving was a long time ago. But just pretend that this is topical and funny.
-With only minimal intelligence, you can move from the screen that I'm linking to into the greatest scrolling text adventure ever created
-Just click on her for a new one. You could spend days doing this.
-Here's a little something to get my guests ready for the upcoming festivities on the 26th and 27th
-Yeah, bitch! Type in your own URL and see how you compare!
-If you miss one question, you'll be sent back to the very start. So be careful.
-In spite of this game kicking extreme ass, you don't actually get a "memorial banner" when you beat it. Just be warned.
-Here you go children (and maybe parents) of the 80s.
-And finally, the last entry on my bookmarks that was worth reprinting here: Some insight in post-secondary level grading for those who aren't there yet, or have lost the experience in the mists of time. Be sure to read the comments as well.
So, now I can delete a solid number of my bookmarks. And maybe continue studying for the exam I'm writing tomorrow.
Toodles, kids
So, from my now quite lengthy bookmark list, I present "Things that I thought you might like. Because I liked them"
(Note, I don't come up with these on my own. Clearly StumbleUpon is at fault here)
(Note #2, after reviewing the bookmarks, there are enough that I might as well categorize them)
Webcomics:
Soysauce. Ever wondered what its like to be a Chinese-American cartoonist? Neither have I, but the chapter I've linked to discusses his amusing love for white girls.
Internet Predators is just a single comic strip that panders to my favourite niche of humour. For more substantial pandering to this niche, check out Alien Loves Predator.
While not strictly a webcomic, the Darkhorse "Browse by Title" page is really helpful if you're sitting up late at night wondering how close you came to collecting every Aliens comic ever produced when you were a kid.
Is this a real Calvin and Hobbes strip? I hope not...
Ever wanted to give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome by clicking page by page through possibly thousands of different manga fansubs? Well now you can!
The Comics I check every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (regardless of whether or not they update on those days):
-PA and CAD don't deserve links
-Sam and Fuzzy is probably my favourite webcomic
-Ben turned me on to MegaTokyo
-Questionable Content is generally amusing with its copious references to sex, computers, and popular music. Really, the condescending Indie attitude with which many things are presented is its only drawback
-Dinsaur Comics was the source of that amusing CBC report on "Internet" that I posted a week or so ago (Now long removed from YouTube by the CBC).
-Married to the Sea. Old-School webcomickry at its best. Another which probably doesn't need a link from me, but there are those among my readership who have probably not heard of it or seen someone else link an image from it.
-Red Meat. It's strange, I just started reading it last week.
-Rob and Elliot. Another Ben recommendation. Nuff Said.
-Piled Higher and Deeper. A webcomic about being a grad student. It's really only funny because I'm dropping out of university...
Next up, a more generalized category of "funny images" that didn't qualify as webcomics by any stretch of the imagination:
-Robot Gallery. I thought it was cool...
-Heaven is where...
-It's a fucking lemon.
-This picture's hilarity score (in LOLrandums) gets a serious increase due to having someone in it who looks scarily like me. And he's also the one striking the biggest pose.
-I just thought that this was really cool.
-Apparently this list changes every day. Or more often. I don't really know. There's definitely some funny shit going on in there though.
-Nostalgia....
-Some sort of street art... I dunno. Maybe my friends in Arts can give some more background on it.
VIDEOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-My favourite
-This is seriously one of the best videos I've ever seen
-I wish I did shit like this in Com-Tech
-Arawareru. Hard to type, easy to watch.
-Don't do this at home.
-The funniest internet-related video I've ever seen
-Ben wanted me to write a post about Jesus Camp. Unfortunately, Jesus Camp is sad not funny. This is really funny. It loops over and over though, so stop it once you've finished watching... unless you want to watch it again.
-I've heard about people doing this before, but its funny to see profs get their high-and-mighty shit ruined.
-I don't watch a lot of daytime television. Is it always like this?
Last but not least, everything else:
-YOUR MOM!!!!!!!ROFLMAO
-This is not a paid endorsement. For this store.
-Thanksgiving was a long time ago. But just pretend that this is topical and funny.
-With only minimal intelligence, you can move from the screen that I'm linking to into the greatest scrolling text adventure ever created
-Just click on her for a new one. You could spend days doing this.
-Here's a little something to get my guests ready for the upcoming festivities on the 26th and 27th
-Yeah, bitch! Type in your own URL and see how you compare!
-If you miss one question, you'll be sent back to the very start. So be careful.
-In spite of this game kicking extreme ass, you don't actually get a "memorial banner" when you beat it. Just be warned.
-Here you go children (and maybe parents) of the 80s.
-And finally, the last entry on my bookmarks that was worth reprinting here: Some insight in post-secondary level grading for those who aren't there yet, or have lost the experience in the mists of time. Be sure to read the comments as well.
So, now I can delete a solid number of my bookmarks. And maybe continue studying for the exam I'm writing tomorrow.
Toodles, kids
20061215
My Favourite Situations, are Always Sticky Kinds, I'll be the First to Cast Stones, I don’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Nothing like a little Danko Jones to pull me out of a week-long downturn in mood.
Basically, between the last time I posted and yesterday afternoon I didn't leave my house. I migrated between my bedroom and the living room, developing a method for turning our loveseat into a passable lounge chair in the process.
It as interesting in a morbid sort of way. Every day I just felt a little worse, a little less interested in things. By Wednesday of this week it took me most of the day to psyche myself up to go and buy groceries (having eaten every other possible item before even bothering to try).
There were various things compounding the problem. The most major one is that I basically live alone now. Every day I wake up around 10 to the sound of my roommates leaving to go to the library to study. The porker usually leaves within an hour after that. I usually spend this time malingering in bed listening to music.
Then I am alone in my house for the rest of the day. I study, I fiddle around on internet, I eat, and I watch MTV. My existence is pitiful. Around 6:30 or 7 the porker usually returns from work. I am pretty much always eating dinner watching MTV at this time. We have the same mechanical conversation where I ask him how work was, and then he goes down to his room. Shortly after that I usually go down to mine to study more, use internet (I may have said this before, but FF2.0 doesn't think internet is a word) more, and then read a little and go to bed. Until I ran out of reading material. Then I just went to bed. My roommates generally come home at around midnight and go straight up the stairs to bed.
Also, now that I don't have class I am basically the undisputed winner of all "I can go to bed later than you" contests with the porker. Still listening to sports highlights at 1:30 after a lengthy session of porking your girlfriend? No problem. Just let me cue up this 2 hour movie in VLC. I'll be sure to bumble around, take a piss, and trip over some grocery bags in the dark before I hit the sack.
Of course, I'm sure that that hasn't been going over too well with the man, so he mustered his cunning and found a new way to get even: On Wednesday morning I was awakened at 9:30, not by the sounds of Tito Puente issuing forth from my stereo, but by the sounds of vigourous porking through my wall.
Well played, porker, well played. I hope that you enjoy this uproarously loud Rage Against the Machine that's mysteriously begun pouring from my computer speakers. I've made sure to set the subwoofer at max.
Anyway, the only breaks were my aforementioned trip to the grocery store on Wednesday and a little get-together with Blake and Dan Monday afternoon. Blake had told me to meet him at the HMV in the plaza by our schools and I called Dan to see if he'd like to come along. Dan was in an exam at the time, but he had his phone set to vibrate, so I managed to annoy him very thoroughly for about 5 minutes before I hung up and decided to call him back in half an hour. At that point he was on his way to McDonalds to celebrate completing another exam unscathed. I told him to meet Blake and I when he was through.
It was a good time all in all. Blake and Dan bought things at HMV, I bought things at Sugar Mountain, we all went to McDonalds because Dan had mentioned it. Then we all went to Blake's and had meals in his cafeteria. After that we vegged out at my place for an hour or two. We watched this really funny video that someone showed Dan on internet, but I'm not going to link to it. It was that funny.
After that Dan drove Blake home and I slipped back into solitude.
My shopping trip on Wednesday was boring and uneventful. I had to spend several hours convincing myself that there was nothing for me to eat for dinner. Then I tried hard to think of what I would buy, as this would likely be my last shopping trip before the end of the term. After that, I wandered aimlessly around the store getting my groceries in no particular order. However, I did finally muster enough motivation to write a blurb about my apartment in order to sublet it. I posted said blurb on my school's website and hoped that someone would notice it.
The next day (Thursday) I had an exam, and was able to interact with people again. I've actually seen more of my roommates at the two exams I've had so far than any other time in between.
After the exam I went out with Tyler, Julie, Willis, another guy from my program named Jimmy, and Julie's smokin hot roommate. You know the one. We got dinner at East Side Marios and I told Julie that I'd pay her bill as I still owed her from the Chinese food incident in "Liam plays it cool with the females part 1". This was actually part of my cunning plan to get her drunk at dinner so that she'd come out with Willis and I afterwards instead of studying calculus with Jimmy. If she came, Tyler might come instead of going home to bed, and the smokin hot roommate might just hop along as well.
Unfortunately, as dinner progressed, it became apparent that the smokin roommate not only had an exam this (Friday) moring, but she also got light headed and nearly passed out in the bathroom for reasons which went unexplained to me. I did still get Julie drunk though.
After that I managed to keep our fracturing group together by suggesting we all go to Willis' place and cut my beard off. That's right. Several flaming shots of Sambuca later we were doing just that.
That's right folks. It's gone. Dead and gone. I haven't seen my neck in a year, and I'm happy to report that it hasn't defected to another country or anything in the intervening time. Any smokin hot females reading this right now, feel free to drop on by and inspect it for yourself. And by "inspect it" I mean "make sweet monkey love" and by "for yourself" I mean "in my freshly cleaned apartment". Yeah, I am still listening to Danko Jones. And yeah, I really did just clean my apartment.
So, after the spectacle of my face was revealed to our little group of adventurers, it looked like things were going to splinter off again. Tyler and Jimmy were looking to get home, the roommate looked like she might be in trouble if she didn't get to bed (alone) soon, and one of Willis' roommates had made fun of Julie for being drunk and surly, so now she didn't want to go out.
I played my last card.
...
The room stood silent for a number of seconds.
Most of them didn't believe me. I had to restate, and look strongly into people's eyes. I still didn't manage to convince anyone else to come out with Willis and I though, and everyone left soon after.
Willis and I talked about it. Eventually we branched off into general discussions of life, politics, etc. We were both a little drunk so we got pretty heated up over a few differences in opinion. It was a great time.
One of his roommates drove us out to The Duke of Wellington pub to start the night. The Duke is a great place to sit down and enjoy a drink. The table had a large TV with sports highlights on one side, and a great view of the live band on the other. I was the only person sitting on one side of the table. 3 screwdrivers later (piled on the 3 at dinner and the shots I'd had at Willis'), Willis and I packed up and rolled out. We walked almost a block, pausing only to urinate across the street from a cop-shop, to The Silver Spur.
The Spur is a place that I... would never ever go to sober if given a choice. If you couldn't tell from the name, the Spur is a hick bar. Or rather, a place where hick students and "hicks" get together in the middle of a bustling city to get hammed and start fights. However, this night it was rather amusingly filled with kids from my program all getting hammed and... singing karaoke. It's worth noting that I entered the bar quite a few steps behind Willis, my ID having been scrutinized harder by the bouncer than it ever was when I had a beard. No one from my program recognized me.
Willis saw a bunch of his friends (regulars, not the interlopers grinding in front of the karaoke stage) and we stood with them for a while. My Yngwie Malmsteen cap carved a good conversational niche for me, and I think that I did pretty well in spite of the fact that I really know nothing of guitar in general or of 80s shredders in particular. I bought a round for Willis and myself and settled in for a long haul. An hour later all of his friends had gone home, and we left shortly thereafter.
And by "left" I mean "went to another bar called The Fox and the Fiddle".
The Fox (seeing a trend?) is another reasonably decent sit-down pub sort of place. It's named like a pub, and sort of looks like a pub, but there are definitely some bar genes in its family tree somewhere. At any rate, I'd been there once before, and the live music was quite impressive. We stumbled in about 15 minutes before last call and sat down to see what the entertainment was like.
5 minutes before last call we made our exit. Two guys with guitars don't meet my taste at the best of times. When I'm drunk I get this uncontrollable urge to jam. I wasn't really interested in hearing lots of good classic rock songs without any drums behind them. Fuck acoustic music. Play it all you want to your girlfriend at home, but keep it out public places.
Anyway, that was the peak of the evening. We walked back up King St. talking boisterously. We stopped for subs, and then cut through side streets and backyards back to Willis' place. We were halfway through an episode of Fresh Prince on YTV when I heard my bed faintly calling my name over the night breeze. I bid Willis a good night and went on my way.
I breached my front door at about 3:30, attempting to make as little noise as possible on the way downstairs to my room. I performed my nightly pre-bed email check, and found that I'd already gotten 3 responses for my sublet posting. One of them mentioned that he had also left me a voicemail, so of course I clomped back up to the mail floor to listen to it.
After replying to two of the inquiries I hit the sack.
I woke up today at 12:30 to the sound of someone in the house beside me playing loud rap. I felt that not responding to this challenge might foster the wrong impression in my neighbour, so I booted my computer and set up a counter-bombardment. One of the guys I'd responded to earlier that night had already emailed me back again asking to view the house around 6:15 today. So I spent the afternoon cleaning my room and then the staircase down to it. Seriously, it's so clean right now that I could bring girls here. You know. If there were any who felt like dropping by.
So that's that really. The dude didn't show up to look at my apartment. I'm gonna have to email him about that, because I was really excited about it.
Oh yeah. Here's the big news:
The astute among my readership may have noticed that I neglected to mention what my "last card" was in the story above, cleverly replacing it with "..."
I've told a few of you already, so this won't come as a surprise to too many people reading this, but it's time to make it official and make sure that everyone's on the same page.
What do I and this toolbox have in common?
We're both college dropouts. I'm finishing off this term at my school and then I'm tendering my withdrawal. I'll be in Stratford living at home and working where I always work. I don't see that changing for a year-ish. I might very well come back here after, but right now I'm sick of feeling like I'm trapped at school with no other alternatives.
That's that basically. If anyone's jonesing for a place to live in Waterloo from May to August, drop me a line.
Basically, between the last time I posted and yesterday afternoon I didn't leave my house. I migrated between my bedroom and the living room, developing a method for turning our loveseat into a passable lounge chair in the process.
It as interesting in a morbid sort of way. Every day I just felt a little worse, a little less interested in things. By Wednesday of this week it took me most of the day to psyche myself up to go and buy groceries (having eaten every other possible item before even bothering to try).
There were various things compounding the problem. The most major one is that I basically live alone now. Every day I wake up around 10 to the sound of my roommates leaving to go to the library to study. The porker usually leaves within an hour after that. I usually spend this time malingering in bed listening to music.
Then I am alone in my house for the rest of the day. I study, I fiddle around on internet, I eat, and I watch MTV. My existence is pitiful. Around 6:30 or 7 the porker usually returns from work. I am pretty much always eating dinner watching MTV at this time. We have the same mechanical conversation where I ask him how work was, and then he goes down to his room. Shortly after that I usually go down to mine to study more, use internet (I may have said this before, but FF2.0 doesn't think internet is a word) more, and then read a little and go to bed. Until I ran out of reading material. Then I just went to bed. My roommates generally come home at around midnight and go straight up the stairs to bed.
Also, now that I don't have class I am basically the undisputed winner of all "I can go to bed later than you" contests with the porker. Still listening to sports highlights at 1:30 after a lengthy session of porking your girlfriend? No problem. Just let me cue up this 2 hour movie in VLC. I'll be sure to bumble around, take a piss, and trip over some grocery bags in the dark before I hit the sack.
Of course, I'm sure that that hasn't been going over too well with the man, so he mustered his cunning and found a new way to get even: On Wednesday morning I was awakened at 9:30, not by the sounds of Tito Puente issuing forth from my stereo, but by the sounds of vigourous porking through my wall.
Well played, porker, well played. I hope that you enjoy this uproarously loud Rage Against the Machine that's mysteriously begun pouring from my computer speakers. I've made sure to set the subwoofer at max.
Anyway, the only breaks were my aforementioned trip to the grocery store on Wednesday and a little get-together with Blake and Dan Monday afternoon. Blake had told me to meet him at the HMV in the plaza by our schools and I called Dan to see if he'd like to come along. Dan was in an exam at the time, but he had his phone set to vibrate, so I managed to annoy him very thoroughly for about 5 minutes before I hung up and decided to call him back in half an hour. At that point he was on his way to McDonalds to celebrate completing another exam unscathed. I told him to meet Blake and I when he was through.
It was a good time all in all. Blake and Dan bought things at HMV, I bought things at Sugar Mountain, we all went to McDonalds because Dan had mentioned it. Then we all went to Blake's and had meals in his cafeteria. After that we vegged out at my place for an hour or two. We watched this really funny video that someone showed Dan on internet, but I'm not going to link to it. It was that funny.
After that Dan drove Blake home and I slipped back into solitude.
My shopping trip on Wednesday was boring and uneventful. I had to spend several hours convincing myself that there was nothing for me to eat for dinner. Then I tried hard to think of what I would buy, as this would likely be my last shopping trip before the end of the term. After that, I wandered aimlessly around the store getting my groceries in no particular order. However, I did finally muster enough motivation to write a blurb about my apartment in order to sublet it. I posted said blurb on my school's website and hoped that someone would notice it.
The next day (Thursday) I had an exam, and was able to interact with people again. I've actually seen more of my roommates at the two exams I've had so far than any other time in between.
After the exam I went out with Tyler, Julie, Willis, another guy from my program named Jimmy, and Julie's smokin hot roommate. You know the one. We got dinner at East Side Marios and I told Julie that I'd pay her bill as I still owed her from the Chinese food incident in "Liam plays it cool with the females part 1". This was actually part of my cunning plan to get her drunk at dinner so that she'd come out with Willis and I afterwards instead of studying calculus with Jimmy. If she came, Tyler might come instead of going home to bed, and the smokin hot roommate might just hop along as well.
Unfortunately, as dinner progressed, it became apparent that the smokin roommate not only had an exam this (Friday) moring, but she also got light headed and nearly passed out in the bathroom for reasons which went unexplained to me. I did still get Julie drunk though.
After that I managed to keep our fracturing group together by suggesting we all go to Willis' place and cut my beard off. That's right. Several flaming shots of Sambuca later we were doing just that.
That's right folks. It's gone. Dead and gone. I haven't seen my neck in a year, and I'm happy to report that it hasn't defected to another country or anything in the intervening time. Any smokin hot females reading this right now, feel free to drop on by and inspect it for yourself. And by "inspect it" I mean "make sweet monkey love" and by "for yourself" I mean "in my freshly cleaned apartment". Yeah, I am still listening to Danko Jones. And yeah, I really did just clean my apartment.
So, after the spectacle of my face was revealed to our little group of adventurers, it looked like things were going to splinter off again. Tyler and Jimmy were looking to get home, the roommate looked like she might be in trouble if she didn't get to bed (alone) soon, and one of Willis' roommates had made fun of Julie for being drunk and surly, so now she didn't want to go out.
I played my last card.
...
The room stood silent for a number of seconds.
Most of them didn't believe me. I had to restate, and look strongly into people's eyes. I still didn't manage to convince anyone else to come out with Willis and I though, and everyone left soon after.
Willis and I talked about it. Eventually we branched off into general discussions of life, politics, etc. We were both a little drunk so we got pretty heated up over a few differences in opinion. It was a great time.
One of his roommates drove us out to The Duke of Wellington pub to start the night. The Duke is a great place to sit down and enjoy a drink. The table had a large TV with sports highlights on one side, and a great view of the live band on the other. I was the only person sitting on one side of the table. 3 screwdrivers later (piled on the 3 at dinner and the shots I'd had at Willis'), Willis and I packed up and rolled out. We walked almost a block, pausing only to urinate across the street from a cop-shop, to The Silver Spur.
The Spur is a place that I... would never ever go to sober if given a choice. If you couldn't tell from the name, the Spur is a hick bar. Or rather, a place where hick students and "hicks" get together in the middle of a bustling city to get hammed and start fights. However, this night it was rather amusingly filled with kids from my program all getting hammed and... singing karaoke. It's worth noting that I entered the bar quite a few steps behind Willis, my ID having been scrutinized harder by the bouncer than it ever was when I had a beard. No one from my program recognized me.
Willis saw a bunch of his friends (regulars, not the interlopers grinding in front of the karaoke stage) and we stood with them for a while. My Yngwie Malmsteen cap carved a good conversational niche for me, and I think that I did pretty well in spite of the fact that I really know nothing of guitar in general or of 80s shredders in particular. I bought a round for Willis and myself and settled in for a long haul. An hour later all of his friends had gone home, and we left shortly thereafter.
And by "left" I mean "went to another bar called The Fox and the Fiddle".
The Fox (seeing a trend?) is another reasonably decent sit-down pub sort of place. It's named like a pub, and sort of looks like a pub, but there are definitely some bar genes in its family tree somewhere. At any rate, I'd been there once before, and the live music was quite impressive. We stumbled in about 15 minutes before last call and sat down to see what the entertainment was like.
5 minutes before last call we made our exit. Two guys with guitars don't meet my taste at the best of times. When I'm drunk I get this uncontrollable urge to jam. I wasn't really interested in hearing lots of good classic rock songs without any drums behind them. Fuck acoustic music. Play it all you want to your girlfriend at home, but keep it out public places.
Anyway, that was the peak of the evening. We walked back up King St. talking boisterously. We stopped for subs, and then cut through side streets and backyards back to Willis' place. We were halfway through an episode of Fresh Prince on YTV when I heard my bed faintly calling my name over the night breeze. I bid Willis a good night and went on my way.
I breached my front door at about 3:30, attempting to make as little noise as possible on the way downstairs to my room. I performed my nightly pre-bed email check, and found that I'd already gotten 3 responses for my sublet posting. One of them mentioned that he had also left me a voicemail, so of course I clomped back up to the mail floor to listen to it.
After replying to two of the inquiries I hit the sack.
I woke up today at 12:30 to the sound of someone in the house beside me playing loud rap. I felt that not responding to this challenge might foster the wrong impression in my neighbour, so I booted my computer and set up a counter-bombardment. One of the guys I'd responded to earlier that night had already emailed me back again asking to view the house around 6:15 today. So I spent the afternoon cleaning my room and then the staircase down to it. Seriously, it's so clean right now that I could bring girls here. You know. If there were any who felt like dropping by.
So that's that really. The dude didn't show up to look at my apartment. I'm gonna have to email him about that, because I was really excited about it.
Oh yeah. Here's the big news:
The astute among my readership may have noticed that I neglected to mention what my "last card" was in the story above, cleverly replacing it with "..."
I've told a few of you already, so this won't come as a surprise to too many people reading this, but it's time to make it official and make sure that everyone's on the same page.
What do I and this toolbox have in common?
We're both college dropouts. I'm finishing off this term at my school and then I'm tendering my withdrawal. I'll be in Stratford living at home and working where I always work. I don't see that changing for a year-ish. I might very well come back here after, but right now I'm sick of feeling like I'm trapped at school with no other alternatives.
That's that basically. If anyone's jonesing for a place to live in Waterloo from May to August, drop me a line.
20061208
For Those About to Rock, We Salute You
It's that time of year again.
I've been up for 1.5 hours and I've already had 2 large bowel movements.
The reckoning begins at 12:30.
There is a respite until next Thursday, another until the following Monday, and then a day of rest before a double-shot on Wednesday and Thursday.
It's somewhat heartening to contemplate that by noon on the 21st this will all be behind me.
But to lighten the mood, can you put these images in the correct order?
1)
2)
3)
4)
Well, one more trip to the bathroom and then I'll finish reviewing my notes. Good luck to all in my position, and I'll see you on the other side.
I've been up for 1.5 hours and I've already had 2 large bowel movements.
The reckoning begins at 12:30.
There is a respite until next Thursday, another until the following Monday, and then a day of rest before a double-shot on Wednesday and Thursday.
It's somewhat heartening to contemplate that by noon on the 21st this will all be behind me.
But to lighten the mood, can you put these images in the correct order?
1)
2)
3)
4)
Well, one more trip to the bathroom and then I'll finish reviewing my notes. Good luck to all in my position, and I'll see you on the other side.
20061206
On You didn't Know? I've got the Flow, I can Sing, Rap, Dance at just One Show
I've never embedded a YouTube video before, and the process for doing so is so arcane as to almost stop me from trying.
I visited Dinosaur Comics for the first time in a long time today, and they were showing this little piece of CanCon.
It's absolutely awsome, and that's really all that there is to it.
Enjoy:
20061205
I'm Gonna Bust my Shoes, I'm Gonna Bust my Socks, I'm Gonna Spread my Word from Standing on this Box
So, here's the latest:
I, after the Great Hard-Drive Disaster of 2006, have been limping along listening to nothing but Sublime and DJ Shadow, mostly because I was too lazy to find anything else. Yesterday I decided to agressively reacquire my collection of Beastie Boys music. It's kind of like falling in love again, except instead of draining my wallet and my energy, I just get to rock out to some serious doody-rhymes.
Of course, this was greatly helped by my discovery of DJ Green Lantern's Beastie Boys Remix album New York State of Mind. Find it, listen to it. That's basically all you need. If you're up to the challenge, go through his site and find the sample tracks for a listen. It's all done in flash, though, so I can't give a link. It's in the "store" section and this album is the one on the bottom left, the cover is all black and white. His remix of "Hold it Now Hit it" did it for me, and the rest of the album doesn't disappoint.
This renaissance of B-Boy grandeur got me on a quest for more interesting tidbits of theirs that I don't possess. I didn't get too far, but I have a target in my sights, and it has grabbed my fancy so that I even stuck it in as my new tagline at the top of the blog. Def Before Dishonor (silly american spelling...) is quite rare, apparently. I've found a copy on Ebay, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about acquiring it. Anyone who wants to help me with that (or give their favourite bearded friend a very special birthday present) please email me.
Def Before Dishonour is an excellent segue into my next important topic: Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew, check them out. I recommend scrolling down and watching the video for "Black Beard's Treasure". I predict this sort of music becoming a leading factor in my life when I move back to Stratford in January and get to spend more time with Carl.
Oh yeah, I'm moving back to Stratford in January for anyone who didn't know. I think I've mentioned that my first co-op term is coming up and that I'll be spending it at the same place I worked last summer. And the summer before that. And that. And the one before that. But this time I've been hired into a new position created just for little old me. I had a meeting with the CEO last Friday and she basically told me that my duties are just going to be general bitch-work for every department, with, probably, a focus on my own former department. Of course, she failed to let me know during the meeting that the only reason I'd be spending a lot of time in my old department was that she fired my old boss the night before! That's right. In no way shape or form have I been hired to replace my boss, but that's what it looks like, and I'm planning on making the most of that to all the people that I need to work with. I'm pretty sure that I even convinced the CEO to give me his old desk, so it'll be awsome.
On another note entirely, I received some strangely preceptive comments on my last full-length post from one Sharmin Chaltra. Aside from being named after a questionably soft brand of toilet paper the man seems to be alright. However, I know from long experience that interesting people don't just happen upon my blog (even if I am the first hit for a Google of my name...), and so, having just been lambasted by Binks for my lack of credible Googling skillz, I decided that I would try and determine who this person was. I picked his profile apart for anything really interesting. I decided that the photo was my best bet. It looked faintly familiar, but I couldn't remember where from. I thought that it might have been a movie, but which one in particular still eludes me to this day. The I noticed that the picture was linked from a Myspace profile. This was my big break. The address was:
http://myspace-173.vo.llnwd.net/00523/37/10/523780173_m.jpg
A search for the entire address was useless since nothing came up, ditto for portions of the address past the .net part.
So I Googled http://myspace-173.vo.llnwd.net/ and sifted through the results until I reached the 43rd page, where I found the photo leering back at me. Of couse, my work was far from over. The guys profile was restricted and I don't have a Myspace account with which t view it, but this is it, for anyone who's so inclined.
I ended up working from the Google page. The first thing I found was that his address was myspace.com/coleisme I don't know anyone named Cole, so this was slightly annoying. However, I felt that if I could read his profile, I might glean some more information. So, you know how Google gives you about 2 sentences of whatever it finds on a page? Yeah, I copy/pasted those sentences back into Google and read the sentences after them for a while. Nothing too interesting emerged. I was busy devouring a list of his favourite books
when
This came up in the first hit instead of his Myspace page. It's a Flickr page, and apparently our friend was too lazy to write a different profile for it than for his Myspace page. I'll save you the trouble of looking through it: This was, apparently, my elusive quarry. Now, the title of the picture is "Cole is sick in Mccleod Ganj", not knowing what Mcleod ganj was, I assumed (much like a certain high-school principal) that it was something to do with drugs. So, as a way to find out where the man was, I googled the name of the business behind him in the photograph. That took me to some promotional journal about Mclead ganj. I was having issues connecting, so I used Google's html version of the page to read it. I learned that a) Mcleod ganj is a city in India, which gave me an idea.
I'm a pretty arrogant person. I'm not gonna lie. It galled me slightly that this guy had walked into my blog and left his perceptive commentary without even bothering to acknowledge who he was or how he'd found me.
My response was tempered and crafted to provide the ultimate rebuke to his unspoken challenge. It was aimed at the centre of the mysterious cloud which covered him. Read it yourself. As far as I was concerned it was a sublimely casual way of letting him know that I knew just about everything about him, in spite of his attempts to keep it from me. It was a veritable cruise missile of cool employed as the first-strike option in a shock-and-awe campaign.
Which failed to hit, apparently. If you bothered to look at the comments you'll know that he denied ever going near the ganj which, given my photographic evidence to the contrary, hinted pretty strongly that it wasn't him. He went on to mention that he'd found me through Blake, when Blake had offered unsolicited opinions on one of his older blogs. Now, he names Blake as Jesus, which he hasn't gone by for some time, and the blog that he says Blake commented on, Car Full of Cash, no longer exists (although it certainly seems to have influenced the name of his current one). Is he telling the truth? You, my readers, may be the judge.
In any case, he's got a blog. It just seems to be the ramblings of another english student somewhere in the world. I've linked to it because the subject material has caught my fancy for now. I haven't left any comments because I'm uncomfortable giving literary advice to people I don't know. However, I doubt that Blake has any compunctions about it, and neither should you, dear reader.
Two more items of business before I sign off:
One: What the fuck happened to Jen? Can anyone read her blog anymore? Have I been excluded for a reason?
Two: My birthday is coming soon. Clear your schedules for the afternoon/evening of the 27th, and probably the morning and afternoon of the 28th if you want to be able to recover properly. While I don't have anything special planned for this year, I am excited to announce that I'll be hosting in conjunction with the lovely M-TOD, as her birthday falls the day before mine.
The format should be pretty much the same as many years past:
-I wake up late and curse having already missed half of my birthday
-I put the telephonic word out and engage in general merry-making throughout the afternoon
-I kick everyone except my really special friends out and eat dinner with them and my family. This dinner will hopefully be the traditional greasy mound of A&W burgers on the family china
-Prezzies follow. These are not required from anyone who doesn't share a really significant portion of my chromosomes. If you really want to buy me something, get booze and we can share it. And by "booze" I mean high-quality vodka, otherwise you're on your own
-At this point I reestablish contact with everyone that I kicked out as well as greeting new faces invited purely for the party itself and the drunken festivities begin. With any luck, we all get smashed, no one throws up, and Carl doesn't try to steal my party like he did last year... Or maybe that was 2 years ago. I can't remember. There's a good chance that he did it both times
The nitty grits:
-Don't invite anyone who I don't know. Don't let it be known that I'm having a party and tell all of your friends to come. I have enough friends to make things cozy at my place, I don't need any more. M-TOD's friends are the obvious exception. Also, my siblings are all of partying age, and I'd expect them to bring a friend or two to keep them company. Although I know most of their friends anyway so it's kind of a moot point
- Don't touch anything. The party will most likely be in my shed. The shed will probably be full of breakable objects. I will do my best to have these packed away, but they will still be there. Don't open any boxes, crates, etc. If you find something interesting, put it down and don't think about it. If I find you playing with my stuff while I'm drunk you'll be lucky to escape with a harsh mocking
-If you insist on drinking enough to make yourself throw up, I'm planning on providing a set of buckets/ garbage pails in my backyard for you to employ. No one is going to be passing out in my bathroom, so bear that in mind before you incapacitate yourself. You might want to employ a buddy system or something so that you don't freeze to death in my backyard
-On that note, I'm going to ask males to pee outside somewhere in my backyard. I'm trying not to annoy my folks by having a constant stream of drunken revellers running in and out of my house from the bathroom, so let the ladies use it. If you need to take a dump, kick yourself in the ass and remind yourself to go before you come next time. Also, don't pee on the path from my house to my shed. a) No one wants to walk on your piss, b) you'll make it icy and dangerous, and drunkards are notorious for not having the greatest balance
-I don't have plans for anyone to stay at my house. Exceptions can be made for people who live out of town and/or are too drunk to drive home. However I have limited room, so that will stay the exception and not the rule. Also, be sure to keep in mind that there will be:
-No fornication of any kind of my property. Keep it above the belt, and try to leave the drama at home. This is not a suggestion.
If we all try and follow these rules, everything should go swimmingly.
Time for dinner. Three cheers for peanut butter and jelly.
Edit:
It appears that the-person-who-is-not-Sharmin-Chaltra's Myspace page has become unlocked, as I can now see it easily. I discovered this as I checeked all of my links for this post. Apparently this person has his own blog, and you can check it here. However, since i really don't know the guy I haven't left any comments, and I won't be linking to him. He seems like a pretentious indie freakshow anyway.
I, after the Great Hard-Drive Disaster of 2006, have been limping along listening to nothing but Sublime and DJ Shadow, mostly because I was too lazy to find anything else. Yesterday I decided to agressively reacquire my collection of Beastie Boys music. It's kind of like falling in love again, except instead of draining my wallet and my energy, I just get to rock out to some serious doody-rhymes.
Of course, this was greatly helped by my discovery of DJ Green Lantern's Beastie Boys Remix album New York State of Mind. Find it, listen to it. That's basically all you need. If you're up to the challenge, go through his site and find the sample tracks for a listen. It's all done in flash, though, so I can't give a link. It's in the "store" section and this album is the one on the bottom left, the cover is all black and white. His remix of "Hold it Now Hit it" did it for me, and the rest of the album doesn't disappoint.
This renaissance of B-Boy grandeur got me on a quest for more interesting tidbits of theirs that I don't possess. I didn't get too far, but I have a target in my sights, and it has grabbed my fancy so that I even stuck it in as my new tagline at the top of the blog. Def Before Dishonor (silly american spelling...) is quite rare, apparently. I've found a copy on Ebay, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about acquiring it. Anyone who wants to help me with that (or give their favourite bearded friend a very special birthday present) please email me.
Def Before Dishonour is an excellent segue into my next important topic: Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew, check them out. I recommend scrolling down and watching the video for "Black Beard's Treasure". I predict this sort of music becoming a leading factor in my life when I move back to Stratford in January and get to spend more time with Carl.
Oh yeah, I'm moving back to Stratford in January for anyone who didn't know. I think I've mentioned that my first co-op term is coming up and that I'll be spending it at the same place I worked last summer. And the summer before that. And that. And the one before that. But this time I've been hired into a new position created just for little old me. I had a meeting with the CEO last Friday and she basically told me that my duties are just going to be general bitch-work for every department, with, probably, a focus on my own former department. Of course, she failed to let me know during the meeting that the only reason I'd be spending a lot of time in my old department was that she fired my old boss the night before! That's right. In no way shape or form have I been hired to replace my boss, but that's what it looks like, and I'm planning on making the most of that to all the people that I need to work with. I'm pretty sure that I even convinced the CEO to give me his old desk, so it'll be awsome.
On another note entirely, I received some strangely preceptive comments on my last full-length post from one Sharmin Chaltra. Aside from being named after a questionably soft brand of toilet paper the man seems to be alright. However, I know from long experience that interesting people don't just happen upon my blog (even if I am the first hit for a Google of my name...), and so, having just been lambasted by Binks for my lack of credible Googling skillz, I decided that I would try and determine who this person was. I picked his profile apart for anything really interesting. I decided that the photo was my best bet. It looked faintly familiar, but I couldn't remember where from. I thought that it might have been a movie, but which one in particular still eludes me to this day. The I noticed that the picture was linked from a Myspace profile. This was my big break. The address was:
http://myspace-173.vo.llnwd.net/00523/37/10/523780173_m.jpg
A search for the entire address was useless since nothing came up, ditto for portions of the address past the .net part.
So I Googled http://myspace-173.vo.llnwd.net/ and sifted through the results until I reached the 43rd page, where I found the photo leering back at me. Of couse, my work was far from over. The guys profile was restricted and I don't have a Myspace account with which t view it, but this is it, for anyone who's so inclined.
I ended up working from the Google page. The first thing I found was that his address was myspace.com/coleisme I don't know anyone named Cole, so this was slightly annoying. However, I felt that if I could read his profile, I might glean some more information. So, you know how Google gives you about 2 sentences of whatever it finds on a page? Yeah, I copy/pasted those sentences back into Google and read the sentences after them for a while. Nothing too interesting emerged. I was busy devouring a list of his favourite books
when
This came up in the first hit instead of his Myspace page. It's a Flickr page, and apparently our friend was too lazy to write a different profile for it than for his Myspace page. I'll save you the trouble of looking through it: This was, apparently, my elusive quarry. Now, the title of the picture is "Cole is sick in Mccleod Ganj", not knowing what Mcleod ganj was, I assumed (much like a certain high-school principal) that it was something to do with drugs. So, as a way to find out where the man was, I googled the name of the business behind him in the photograph. That took me to some promotional journal about Mclead ganj. I was having issues connecting, so I used Google's html version of the page to read it. I learned that a) Mcleod ganj is a city in India, which gave me an idea.
I'm a pretty arrogant person. I'm not gonna lie. It galled me slightly that this guy had walked into my blog and left his perceptive commentary without even bothering to acknowledge who he was or how he'd found me.
My response was tempered and crafted to provide the ultimate rebuke to his unspoken challenge. It was aimed at the centre of the mysterious cloud which covered him. Read it yourself. As far as I was concerned it was a sublimely casual way of letting him know that I knew just about everything about him, in spite of his attempts to keep it from me. It was a veritable cruise missile of cool employed as the first-strike option in a shock-and-awe campaign.
Which failed to hit, apparently. If you bothered to look at the comments you'll know that he denied ever going near the ganj which, given my photographic evidence to the contrary, hinted pretty strongly that it wasn't him. He went on to mention that he'd found me through Blake, when Blake had offered unsolicited opinions on one of his older blogs. Now, he names Blake as Jesus, which he hasn't gone by for some time, and the blog that he says Blake commented on, Car Full of Cash, no longer exists (although it certainly seems to have influenced the name of his current one). Is he telling the truth? You, my readers, may be the judge.
In any case, he's got a blog. It just seems to be the ramblings of another english student somewhere in the world. I've linked to it because the subject material has caught my fancy for now. I haven't left any comments because I'm uncomfortable giving literary advice to people I don't know. However, I doubt that Blake has any compunctions about it, and neither should you, dear reader.
Two more items of business before I sign off:
One: What the fuck happened to Jen? Can anyone read her blog anymore? Have I been excluded for a reason?
Two: My birthday is coming soon. Clear your schedules for the afternoon/evening of the 27th, and probably the morning and afternoon of the 28th if you want to be able to recover properly. While I don't have anything special planned for this year, I am excited to announce that I'll be hosting in conjunction with the lovely M-TOD, as her birthday falls the day before mine.
The format should be pretty much the same as many years past:
-I wake up late and curse having already missed half of my birthday
-I put the telephonic word out and engage in general merry-making throughout the afternoon
-I kick everyone except my really special friends out and eat dinner with them and my family. This dinner will hopefully be the traditional greasy mound of A&W burgers on the family china
-Prezzies follow. These are not required from anyone who doesn't share a really significant portion of my chromosomes. If you really want to buy me something, get booze and we can share it. And by "booze" I mean high-quality vodka, otherwise you're on your own
-At this point I reestablish contact with everyone that I kicked out as well as greeting new faces invited purely for the party itself and the drunken festivities begin. With any luck, we all get smashed, no one throws up, and Carl doesn't try to steal my party like he did last year... Or maybe that was 2 years ago. I can't remember. There's a good chance that he did it both times
The nitty grits:
-Don't invite anyone who I don't know. Don't let it be known that I'm having a party and tell all of your friends to come. I have enough friends to make things cozy at my place, I don't need any more. M-TOD's friends are the obvious exception. Also, my siblings are all of partying age, and I'd expect them to bring a friend or two to keep them company. Although I know most of their friends anyway so it's kind of a moot point
- Don't touch anything. The party will most likely be in my shed. The shed will probably be full of breakable objects. I will do my best to have these packed away, but they will still be there. Don't open any boxes, crates, etc. If you find something interesting, put it down and don't think about it. If I find you playing with my stuff while I'm drunk you'll be lucky to escape with a harsh mocking
-If you insist on drinking enough to make yourself throw up, I'm planning on providing a set of buckets/ garbage pails in my backyard for you to employ. No one is going to be passing out in my bathroom, so bear that in mind before you incapacitate yourself. You might want to employ a buddy system or something so that you don't freeze to death in my backyard
-On that note, I'm going to ask males to pee outside somewhere in my backyard. I'm trying not to annoy my folks by having a constant stream of drunken revellers running in and out of my house from the bathroom, so let the ladies use it. If you need to take a dump, kick yourself in the ass and remind yourself to go before you come next time. Also, don't pee on the path from my house to my shed. a) No one wants to walk on your piss, b) you'll make it icy and dangerous, and drunkards are notorious for not having the greatest balance
-I don't have plans for anyone to stay at my house. Exceptions can be made for people who live out of town and/or are too drunk to drive home. However I have limited room, so that will stay the exception and not the rule. Also, be sure to keep in mind that there will be:
-No fornication of any kind of my property. Keep it above the belt, and try to leave the drama at home. This is not a suggestion.
If we all try and follow these rules, everything should go swimmingly.
Time for dinner. Three cheers for peanut butter and jelly.
Edit:
It appears that the-person-who-is-not-Sharmin-Chaltra's Myspace page has become unlocked, as I can now see it easily. I discovered this as I checeked all of my links for this post. Apparently this person has his own blog, and you can check it here. However, since i really don't know the guy I haven't left any comments, and I won't be linking to him. He seems like a pretentious indie freakshow anyway.
20061129
This is the Song that Doesn't End, Yes it Goes On and On my Friends
Two small but important pieces of info:
1) I forgot all about my amazing adventure with Danger on Saturday night. I may post about it in future, although if Danger wants to I certainly won't stop him.
2) I have stumbled onto one of the most interesting webcomics I've ever seen. It's called Slow Wave and every week the guy draws up a cartoon based on somebody's dream. I gather that people email then to him and he picks his favourite. Given my demographic, this is probably a good place to start. Enjoy.
1) I forgot all about my amazing adventure with Danger on Saturday night. I may post about it in future, although if Danger wants to I certainly won't stop him.
2) I have stumbled onto one of the most interesting webcomics I've ever seen. It's called Slow Wave and every week the guy draws up a cartoon based on somebody's dream. I gather that people email then to him and he picks his favourite. Given my demographic, this is probably a good place to start. Enjoy.
20061128
Oh she Makes my Body Ache and you Know I Live for More, I won't Flake or Perpetrate, I won't Front no Funky Whore
First, and most importantly:
Dan, learn your place at my heel. You have been retroactively removed from the links one day early due to your eagerness to point out my mistake from last month.
Carl, traditionally, Colonial Marines can expect a rescue 17 days after being declared overdue. In your case, you're being removed from the links 11 days after being declared a lazy ass.
Victor: Take a break from the GW for five minutes and try to find your way back onto my links.
Everyone else is safe for now. As always, parties who have mended their postless ways are asked to leave a comment here so that I know to welcome you back into the loving arms of the greater good.
A couple of other quickies to flesh out the post a little:
I'm so proud of where I come from. Here's the latest reason why:
So, Calder has a new band these days, the Darling Buds of May. And my sister decided for her entrepreneurship class that she'd organize a concert with a bunch of local bands. So, having drawn up a poster for said concert, she and her friends decided they should put it up at the high-school they go to. To be put up, it needed to pass under the sharp eye of the head administrator, who shall be known as the central scrutinizer from this point forth.
He took in the poster, and called them back for a follow-up the next day, where he promptly announced that the poster looked fine, but that "Darling Buds of May" would need to be removed, as it was clearly a brash reference to marijuana. Here's a chance for a little reader interaction: without finishing this story, go to the comments and leave an honest answer as to whether or not drugs were the first thing you thought of when you read Darling Buds of May. Then come back up here and finish reading.
Seriously, go.
So, my sister calmly explained to the central scrutinizer that, in fact, it was a quote from a rather famous Shakespearean sonnet. You know, the one that starts with "shall I compare thee to a summer's day"? Like, the most famous love-poem in the English language, maybe? Ringing any bells, scrutinizer?
Apparently not. He upheld his decision on the grounds that people would still think that it was a reference to weed. Did anyone else just groan out loud at the thought of young minds under this person's power? I mean, the actual truth of what was happening didn't even matter to the man. The fact that people (of little taste, class, or education) might conceivably interpret it as a drug-related message was more important than the fact that this would be a total misinterpretation of the message itself. In an institution of "education", the administration is making important decisions based on public ignorance. I am so glad that that man was only in charge for the last year I was there...
Liam plays it cool with the females Ep.1:
So, I may or may not have mentioned that there is this really hot girl who lives with one of my friends. Smokin hot. Blake can attest to this (She was the girl who said hi to me right before the express bus showed up the day we went to see DJ Shadow, thus destroying any chance of conversation. I believe I referred to her as a "hot broadski" at the time).
Anyway, my friend was trying to invite a bunch of people over to watch a movie and eat Chinese last night. I thought this to be an excellent plan, and committed myself to the endeavour. By 5 o'clock everyone but me had dropped out of the plan. So it was going to be me, my friend, and my friend's smokin hot roommate.
We get to my friend's house, and there she is. I attempt "idle chat", asking her what kind of chinese food she likes. She replies with a rapt, almost sexually pssionate, list of three of four items, culminating in "really well steamed vegetables". I couldn't top that. Not ever. I divulged that I really know nothing of Chinese food, and was saved by my friend yelling for me from her room.
A short time later, we were all in the roommate's room and I was supposed to be ordering the food. I did so, and then my friend and I loitered in this girl's room while she did something on the computer. Idle chat kicked in again, "What are you doing?"
"Finding references for the paintings I'm using in my essay," I look at a computer screen full of pictures and words, I manage to pick out a naked woman amongst the colours of one. They are all old-looking paintings.
"Oh yeah? What's the essay on?"
"Rape in art."
Oh. Cool... This girl is a fine arts student at Laurier, FYI. And by that I mean a fine arts... oh nevermind...
So, I had a choice here. I could let that slide. Clearly I know nothing of rape in art, and likely she doesn't want to explain it all to me. My other choice is to bullshit a little bit and hope that I can come off looking like I know more about art than I do, and also being able to express interest in her essay without making her give me a lecture on it. Yup, all those wheels in my head were turning pretty fast at this point.
So, I don't think I really need to mention which choice I made. The only thing now was to think of an appropriate piece of bullshit to work with. My options, however, were quite limited. Well, completely limited if you must know. The only rape in art I'd ever heard of was Lucretia. Not that I really knew anything about it. It was Roman and I was hoping that that made it old enough to get me started on a road down famous rapes in history.
"Cool, so you've Lucretia in there somewhere?"
A glimmer of interest in her eye. Had I made it? Was she seeing something behind the beard?
"Well yes, but there's plenty before that," Damn, "Like, blah blah blah, something about someone getting raped by a swan"
"Right on."
Bullshit terminated, due to inefficacy.
The rest of the evening was pretty decent, although not from the "hitting on my friend's roommate" angle. The food arrived eventually. We decided to watch a movie from a box of tapes that the hot roommate's mom had given her. She picked out one that she said she'd wanted to watch, but had been too afraid to do so alone.
Well, that was good. Stereotypes throw me another bone! I actually thought it was a decent film. And by decent, I mean totally hilarious in a laughing-at-you-not-with-you sort of way. I think it was called Red Riding Hood but I can't find it through Google, so I don't know for sure. It was about a girl of 12 years whose mother moves to Rome with her, hooks up with some young man, and then skips town with him, giving the girl the keys to their penthouse appartment and a credit card. What happens? Rampant sex and drug addiction? Does she befriend a group of street children and selflessly and heart-warmingly rehabilitate them back into society? Nope. She becomes a night-stalking vigilante. Fuck yeah. With dialogue almost as stirring as that which I'd been engaging in myself not so long before.
So, unfortunately, it wasn't scary at all. Which sort of negated the "not watching it alone" aspect of my plans (not that I was sitting beside her anyway, given that they have 3 couches in their living room). Then she left 2/3 of the way through to finish her essay.
The quest continues...
Dan, learn your place at my heel. You have been retroactively removed from the links one day early due to your eagerness to point out my mistake from last month.
Carl, traditionally, Colonial Marines can expect a rescue 17 days after being declared overdue. In your case, you're being removed from the links 11 days after being declared a lazy ass.
Victor: Take a break from the GW for five minutes and try to find your way back onto my links.
Everyone else is safe for now. As always, parties who have mended their postless ways are asked to leave a comment here so that I know to welcome you back into the loving arms of the greater good.
A couple of other quickies to flesh out the post a little:
I'm so proud of where I come from. Here's the latest reason why:
So, Calder has a new band these days, the Darling Buds of May. And my sister decided for her entrepreneurship class that she'd organize a concert with a bunch of local bands. So, having drawn up a poster for said concert, she and her friends decided they should put it up at the high-school they go to. To be put up, it needed to pass under the sharp eye of the head administrator, who shall be known as the central scrutinizer from this point forth.
He took in the poster, and called them back for a follow-up the next day, where he promptly announced that the poster looked fine, but that "Darling Buds of May" would need to be removed, as it was clearly a brash reference to marijuana. Here's a chance for a little reader interaction: without finishing this story, go to the comments and leave an honest answer as to whether or not drugs were the first thing you thought of when you read Darling Buds of May. Then come back up here and finish reading.
Seriously, go.
So, my sister calmly explained to the central scrutinizer that, in fact, it was a quote from a rather famous Shakespearean sonnet. You know, the one that starts with "shall I compare thee to a summer's day"? Like, the most famous love-poem in the English language, maybe? Ringing any bells, scrutinizer?
Apparently not. He upheld his decision on the grounds that people would still think that it was a reference to weed. Did anyone else just groan out loud at the thought of young minds under this person's power? I mean, the actual truth of what was happening didn't even matter to the man. The fact that people (of little taste, class, or education) might conceivably interpret it as a drug-related message was more important than the fact that this would be a total misinterpretation of the message itself. In an institution of "education", the administration is making important decisions based on public ignorance. I am so glad that that man was only in charge for the last year I was there...
Liam plays it cool with the females Ep.1:
So, I may or may not have mentioned that there is this really hot girl who lives with one of my friends. Smokin hot. Blake can attest to this (She was the girl who said hi to me right before the express bus showed up the day we went to see DJ Shadow, thus destroying any chance of conversation. I believe I referred to her as a "hot broadski" at the time).
Anyway, my friend was trying to invite a bunch of people over to watch a movie and eat Chinese last night. I thought this to be an excellent plan, and committed myself to the endeavour. By 5 o'clock everyone but me had dropped out of the plan. So it was going to be me, my friend, and my friend's smokin hot roommate.
We get to my friend's house, and there she is. I attempt "idle chat", asking her what kind of chinese food she likes. She replies with a rapt, almost sexually pssionate, list of three of four items, culminating in "really well steamed vegetables". I couldn't top that. Not ever. I divulged that I really know nothing of Chinese food, and was saved by my friend yelling for me from her room.
A short time later, we were all in the roommate's room and I was supposed to be ordering the food. I did so, and then my friend and I loitered in this girl's room while she did something on the computer. Idle chat kicked in again, "What are you doing?"
"Finding references for the paintings I'm using in my essay," I look at a computer screen full of pictures and words, I manage to pick out a naked woman amongst the colours of one. They are all old-looking paintings.
"Oh yeah? What's the essay on?"
"Rape in art."
Oh. Cool... This girl is a fine arts student at Laurier, FYI. And by that I mean a fine arts... oh nevermind...
So, I had a choice here. I could let that slide. Clearly I know nothing of rape in art, and likely she doesn't want to explain it all to me. My other choice is to bullshit a little bit and hope that I can come off looking like I know more about art than I do, and also being able to express interest in her essay without making her give me a lecture on it. Yup, all those wheels in my head were turning pretty fast at this point.
So, I don't think I really need to mention which choice I made. The only thing now was to think of an appropriate piece of bullshit to work with. My options, however, were quite limited. Well, completely limited if you must know. The only rape in art I'd ever heard of was Lucretia. Not that I really knew anything about it. It was Roman and I was hoping that that made it old enough to get me started on a road down famous rapes in history.
"Cool, so you've Lucretia in there somewhere?"
A glimmer of interest in her eye. Had I made it? Was she seeing something behind the beard?
"Well yes, but there's plenty before that," Damn, "Like, blah blah blah, something about someone getting raped by a swan"
"Right on."
Bullshit terminated, due to inefficacy.
The rest of the evening was pretty decent, although not from the "hitting on my friend's roommate" angle. The food arrived eventually. We decided to watch a movie from a box of tapes that the hot roommate's mom had given her. She picked out one that she said she'd wanted to watch, but had been too afraid to do so alone.
Well, that was good. Stereotypes throw me another bone! I actually thought it was a decent film. And by decent, I mean totally hilarious in a laughing-at-you-not-with-you sort of way. I think it was called Red Riding Hood but I can't find it through Google, so I don't know for sure. It was about a girl of 12 years whose mother moves to Rome with her, hooks up with some young man, and then skips town with him, giving the girl the keys to their penthouse appartment and a credit card. What happens? Rampant sex and drug addiction? Does she befriend a group of street children and selflessly and heart-warmingly rehabilitate them back into society? Nope. She becomes a night-stalking vigilante. Fuck yeah. With dialogue almost as stirring as that which I'd been engaging in myself not so long before.
So, unfortunately, it wasn't scary at all. Which sort of negated the "not watching it alone" aspect of my plans (not that I was sitting beside her anyway, given that they have 3 couches in their living room). Then she left 2/3 of the way through to finish her essay.
The quest continues...
20061125
I Want You to Meet the Baddest Motherfucker in Town
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