The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope

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