What's next for the Two of Me?

Songs from the North.

2010-04-19T23:34:00.005-04:00

Ok so Song of the Arbitrary Amount of Time is The Cheapest Key by Kathleen Edwards. I liked this song the very first time I heard it on CBC Radio 3. It's a tune that in-beds itself in your brain. and you're glad it did.

This lady seems like she would be a hilarious person to know. And I'm pretty sure she is a Neil Young fan - which, obviously means she has sublime taste.

And Imma throw in a song that is currently - and has on and off since last year's Juno Awards, when I heard it for the first time - causing me to burst out in fits of singing. Little Bit of Red by Serena Ryder. Sooooo goooooood. Ryder has a bit of a Melissa Etheridge sounding voice, but distinct. I imagine from the sound of her singing that she must have a marvelous laugh. A bit throaty, not high pitched, but not monotonous.... just riddled with character.

Plus I love the line "come here, I'm gonna smear another colour over you." The lyrics are sweet, and I'm quite partial to a rhyme..... but it's really the delivery of this phrase that is just perfect. Like she's squeezing 'here' and 'smear' out of her throat and then just letting the rest of the words bubble forth.... Just listen to it.

So there y'are. Two lovely Canadian ladies and a sampling of their music.

Ok now enough of this procrastination. I haz studyin' to be did. So ver ver much so. Teh whole of the Medieval times in England worth of studying.

ps.

2010-04-09T16:55:00.001-04:00

I am writing gratuitous amounts of uninteresting posts in an effort to legitimate the fact that I am not studying.

I think it is working.

Hello.

2010-04-09T16:47:00.003-04:00

I have a job.

I'm almost done school.

I got a B+ on my last reporting assignment, because I handed it in late. But my Prof said it was A worthy. Some comfort that is, when I'm trying to gain back my fucking scholarship.

I have four exams coming up, all of which I am not in the least bit ready for.

I am seeing a girl who thinks I'm the bees knees.

I am moving out of the house in August. Oddly enough, my dad is going to beat me to the punch.

I'm fucking tired.

That is all.

Whine and Cheese.

2010-04-08T01:31:00.004-04:00

I envy people who know what they want. From themselves, from other people, from life.... and they just go for it.

I wish I knew more often what it is that I want. When I think about all the times I've thought to myself "o dear me, how nice would it be to be in a relationship" I do two things:
1) I have to wonder if it is a relationship I want, or am I just infatuated with the romantic idea?
2) I gag a little.

So now, I am somewhat perched on the brink of something that could turn into a relationship, and I have that familiar creeping feeling of doubt telling me I should just run away a bit. Make my sorry excuses and part ways. Because really, any further and expectation kicks in. She's going to want me to feel the same way she feels. You know?

And how can I know if I'll be able to match her, emotion for emotion, want for want, if I don't even know how to respond to her when she tells me something like "I kinda have a severe crush on you.... and that's good.... but what if it backfires on me?" I know she wants some sort of reassurance about how I feel, but suddenly I became a mute. Or when she says "Do you have any expectations or anything?" and I just play dumb and inarticulate (generally quite an effective tactic).

What do I want? I don't know. She seems to know what she wants. And that's rather irritating.

When someone tells you they want to see you all the time, and they think about that all the time, and you're hearing them, but you don't feel quite the same, what is the appropriate response? I went with silence. Well actually, a nervous giggle and then silence. It is, I think, at least more tactful than being truthful, and less guilt-inducing than lying. So, overall a solid choice. Maybe.

I think I need to work more on my communication skills.

I told myself "no running away blindly this time." I told myself I may as well try out being somebody's somebody for a while, because I haven't anything to lose, really. But that doesn't change the fact that I am freaking out, quietly.

I'm whining, I know. Sorry.

Sometimes, people feel like ropes. I start thinking of Gulliver, on his travels, among the Lilliputians, getting tied down with threads. That's a kind of awful analogy, because I know loads of people are just fine with relationships, and love them and so on. And they don't think they're roped up at all.

But that's not even it. If I knew exactly what my issue was, I could solve it. hmmm.

I think part of my problem might have something to do with someone liking me more than I like them. Might be a control thing.

meh.

WHAT?!

2010-04-05T10:16:00.003-04:00

O god. I haven't written since February?

I am shamed.

Right now I'm in media law class, where I learn how to not get sued in my future career as journalist extraorindaire. And how to get out of it, should i still get sued. Hopefully. I think if I get an A in this class, they oughta make me an honourary lawyer.

Anyways, what's new with me?.... not much. I didn't do a thing for reading week, not even read. I was briefly in a band, but then the other half moved to Toronto (shake fist at Toronto). I've mostly been running around for various reporting class assignments, trying not to fail, looking for sources, chasing quotes, learning the value of not procrastinating (but never actually putting that knowledge into practice), and trying every so often to breathe a little.

O and Glee is having an internet casting call. So Imma try out. Not that I think I'll make it, as I'm rather short for television, and the camera only adds pounds, not centimeters, but I shall do it anyways. I'm going to wear a tux and sing Don't Rain on My Parade.

GROUNDHOG DAY.

2010-02-02T10:13:00.003-05:00

Groundhogs everywhere agree: six more weeks of winter! Giddy up.

Now tell me, crazies from PETA, how would we get such an accurate prediction about the forthcoming winter months if we used a mechanical groundhog? Eh? Can a machine see its shadow and scurry back into its hole? No.

It would be a lie! A clever little computer program, probably based around the Weather network's forecast, instead of the trusty mysticism and intuition of a fat and cute rodent.

Plus Wiarton Willy totally luuuubbbs his job. He sits around with a feeling of emptiness all year until February 2nd when he gets his chance to shine. Do you guys really want to be the ones to take that away from him? Hmmm?

ps. Better watch who you decide to pie in the face while you're in Canada, lest you be labeled a terrorist.

Viva La Face

2010-02-01T15:46:00.005-05:00

Hey I forgot I did song of the weekish. So I have changed it, after a bizillion years of it being the same songs.

Two covers this random time period: Lady Gaga doing Coldplay's Viva La Vida and Poker Face as done by Mika.

I forgot about Mika for a while. I put on his tunes this weekend and suddenly remembered how thoroughly I enjoy prancing about the house singing his songs.

Gaga's there because I went to a drag show (well.... I was in it, actually, all suited up, looking like I was straight out of the '20s. Or I guess gay out of the '20s. bahahaa.) and I was reminded of her since my friend's costume was Gaga inspired in that she was a faux-queen. Meaning basically that my friend who is a girl was dressed up as a drag queen, but she's not a drag queen since she's not a dude to begin with.

ps. I won the drag show, singing Patricia the Stripper by Chris de Burgh. One hundred dollars and mad respect from a multitude of queens was my prize.

pps. Have you noticed how the tags "I fail" and "song of the week" always come together? huh....

this may indeed work

2010-01-26T19:47:00.003-05:00

Wowsa I honestly do not remember writing that previous post. I must have been on a serious caffeine high.

Anyway. 20 10 is shaping up to maybe - but I don't wanna jinx it - perhaps, tentatively be wickedly better than '09. Or '08 for that matter. I think this may have something to do with me finally learning how to be a human being. And I don't mean conforming, I just mean I've learned to be me, a person, in my way.

And because of that, I be myself, around people. Around other humans.... It's a good time.

It's a really good time, actually.

I think I may be in love.

Hey you. Ya. You.

2010-01-19T11:09:00.001-05:00

Dear Life,

Stop getting in the way of my blogge posting. My fans (choke. cynical cackle) would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you and warm regards,

NotAlice

F-f-f-fuck it's c-c-cold.

2010-01-14T11:40:00.005-05:00

The whole university is an ice box. What is this?

Either they've not paid their heating bills or I for some reason am feeling the cold more than usual.

Come to think of it, my house seems colder too.

Geez nobody is paying their bills these days.

At the stroke of midnight, my carriage turned into a bus.

2010-01-03T14:20:00.008-05:00

Hello world! Happy Christmas and merry merry New Year to all! It is twenty ten [note: NOT two thousand and ten.... imagine how much of your life would be wasted saying all those extra syllables. Don't do it, it ain't worth it] in case you have been asleep for the past three days. Which I don't doubt some people have been doing.

Like one girl I spent New Years with. If I was her, I'd sleep for a long time. It takes a lot of energy to puke as much as she did.

And on that note, guess where I was on the stroke of midnight? Not where I was supposed to be, I'll tell you that....

I was in a shopping mall hallway,* in front of a bench containing a very very severely drunk girl propped up between two somewhat intoxicated guys and a girl fervently trying to keep el drunko awake by reciting to her eight years worth of stories about their friendship. Next to me stood the only completely sober person among us, with a scowl on her face, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Somewhere in the background was a random high school girl who, unlike the other people prowling about the halls, seemed drawn to our predicament, and despite the puke, felt she should pitch in by offering us a band aid and saying how cool our names were. She also fetched toilet paper. She was a very nice person.

So that's where I was, my unused new years club party ticket folded in my pocket, where it shall remain forever reminding me of the wasted $25 I spent on it. Bumms.

It could have been worse, we could have still been in the washroom at midnight, sitting on the vomit covered floor with drunk girl, but we managed to hoist her out of there with ten minutes to spare. But only after she managed to keel over like a piece of timber, bringing one of the people holding her up crashing to the floor with her. And only after she'd banged her head several times on the faucet, turned the motion sensor tap on with her arm, spraying me with a faceful of water, and tore her tights in many places.

None of us had a clock with a second hand on it, so when my cell phone said 11:59, we waited a bit and tried to do a count down from ten, but it was still 11:59 when we got to 1. So we just waited another 17 seconds and screamed "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" and hugged everyone who didn't have bile on them.

Don't get me wrong, I did have fun. Though it involved a lot less dancing and a lot more regurgitated food than I had anticipated.

The sad thing (not the only one, obviously) is, all the drunkeness was caused by her pre-drink. We got her all the way downtown only to turn around and get a bus back home. And another sad thing is I just met the girl that night and I'm afraid she thinks I hate her now, which I don't... in fact she made an excellent first impression until her slurred words turned into passing out. And even then, I was laughing most of the time anyhow.

I have to say though, the most disappointing part of the whole night was after we got back to the house and I went with the boys to the 24 hour McDick's and it was closed. I was craving nuggets soooo bad. It even had a neon "Open" sign turned on in the window, just to make us even more pissed and confused.

Yup. I was forced to settle for chips from the gas station.

I also made sangria before we left for the club. It was o so tasty.

Later gator.

*The hallways stay open to link two major bus stops together.

Things!

2009-12-21T00:51:00.004-05:00

If I was a disembodied voice I would be Morgan Freeman's voice.

Hello, it's the voice of God. No contest.

The days are all melding together in a cough riddled haze. I finished exams and WHAM - sickness. Uggghhh!

DONE and fire alarms.

2009-12-19T19:59:00.004-05:00

My semester is ovvvaaaahhhh.

Glory be.

I think - I'm not sure, but I think - I may have wrecked my last exam (Europe: 1917-1922). Wrecked as in answered the questions right for the most part and in a way that will blow my jerk professor away with their brilliantness.

That or I wrote a bizzillion pages of bullshit. I dunno.

Well, whether I rocked it, or whether I somehow rewrote the history of the Russian Revolution, the exam period itself was eventful. Halfway in, the fire alarm went off.

Maybe it was that everyone was really into their exams, maybe it was the fact that it was -20something degrees Celsius outside, maybe it was because the proctors were just staring at us not knowing what to do, or maybe it was because everyone's brains were fried from all the studyage they'd been doing, but no one really moved. A thousand students sat and blinked dumbly wondering what to do. Then few stood. And then some proctors started telling people to sit back down. Then we all sat.

And five minutes later, with the alarm still going off, everyone stood up and went outside.

There was no fire. There was probably just some asshole who got into his math exam and realized that he knew nothing. If he was ever found, failing the exam would be the least of his worries.

After being let back in, the alarm continued for another 15 ear murdering minutes. A collective sigh and round of applause accompanied its silence.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

And also this:[From Buttersafe.com]

This is the exact reason I stopped wanting to be a surgeon. Damn invisible patients.

Interesting note: Invisible people's blood turns visible once it leaves the body. It's an oxygen thing.

bbbbbbbeeeeeeeetttttttaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

2009-12-16T00:11:00.003-05:00

Iodine 131 is a radioisotope of iodine and has a half life of 8.02 days.

And tomorrow (actually later today I suppose) my mum is going to be ingesting some so it can tear through her body and obliterate any remaining pieces of thyroid that happened to have gotten a firm grip on the inside of her body when the surgeon went in and yanked the whole thing out.

I'm going to have a radioactive mother. Crazy.

In preparation for this treatment, she has had to cut iodized salt out of her diet (which is really hard given that salt is apparently in EVERYTHING), among other things. Like chocolate, which I have a feeling was harder for her to give up than the salt.

Anyways, she has to go off and live in isolation for a few days so she doesn't turn us all into glowing green people with flippers. But the stupid thing is, the hospital, where she is getting the treatment (called ablation), and which is equipped to handle radioactive people, refuses to even keep her there for a day. So instead she gets sent out into the world to share her beta particles and gamma rays with everyone.

When they say health care for all, they damn well mean it. Iodine 131 for all!

It's a good thing she is a responsible human, and hiding herself in an empty apartment for a week. Otherwise, who knows how many people could get Chernobyled?

It is especially important that she not be around me or my brothers, since (irony) radiation causes thyroid cancer, and it is also familial! Yipppppy.

Ok, well, I'm off to go pretend to study some more.

ps. The treatment is called ablation. Not the hospital.

pps. But don't you think that would be a cool name for a hospital? Ablation Hospital. "AH!" for short. Same thing people say when they find out they need to go there.

PS. by the way, etc.

2009-12-15T03:00:00.011-05:00

Here is the Semi Precious Weapons t-shirt I bought.

It is simple, but I think it effectively conveys their message.

[Picture: Yellow t-shirt with block letters saying "I can't pay my rent, but I'm fucking gorgeous. Semi Precious Weapons"]

That signature right there apparently says "Justin Tranter" though I have a sneaking suspicion it is just a "J" with a squiggly line after it.

I asked for an autograph and he went right for the boob area. What a rock star.

The rest of the band's sigs are on the back, and some involve my name, so I won't put up a back view, seeing as how this is an anonymous type thinger I've got going on.

O and if youz is interested, here is the band:

Cole (Bass). The dude who signed my sailor hat.

From Left to Right:
Dan (Drums),
Stevy (Guitar),
Justin (Lead Vox)

Those there on Justin are the yellow tights I mentioned before. I want them.

And while I'm here, I'd just like to make a general plea to the media at large to stop calling articles and reviews and other things about Lady Gaga "Going Gaga for Lady Gaga" or some other, equally uncreative variant of the same headline. It was moderately clever the first time, but after the bizzillionth profile of the girl, it has gotten old, grown a beard and died. Think of something novel, gosh darn it.

"Raise a glass to mend....

2009-12-14T22:55:00.013-05:00

My room is a mess and must be cleaned and I have an exam on Friday that I need to do some hard core studying for, since I know next to nothing about the material. Sooo.... naturally, I'm here, honing my procrastination skillz.

It has been many a day since last I wrote. And I call myself a writer...

Right well, I never did a review of the Gaga concert. But really, what could I say that you couldn't infer from my open invitation for her to marry me? I dunno....

It was like being at a play, I suppose. A play with an ambiguous story line and a near lethal audience. I had to have CONSTANT VIGILANCE (Mad-Eye would be proud) to ensure no one accidentally crushed my 11 year old brother.

She had multiple costume changes with each get-up more ridiculous than the last. I'd say my personal favourite was either the black spiderweb type body suit she had going on or the space-age Bowie-infused glittery light-up extravaganza she wore for the first few songs. Or maybe the Cleopatra-style golden bondage suit. There really were too many to choose from.

How 'bout this one with the built in external rib-cage?

(If you click to embiggen, the pictures will only get blurrier. I wouldn't recommend it)

But more than the madness of her clothing (if you can call it clothes.... not sure it quite falls under that category. Maybe underwear. Or art) it is her voice that sets this woman apart from many disappointing pop tarts/stars of today. She can actually sing. She has inflection in her song, emotion in her voice... she sounds legit. And if I'm gonna pay for a concert, I better damn well get to hear the artist's voice, real time, coming from their actual mouth.

The show began with a projection of a free-floating Lady Gaga on a screen that made up the 4th wall of the stage, with a count-down in the corner to when she would appear. [Note to anyone planning any type of show: count-downs make EVERYTHING way cooler (I mean think about it, what usually follows a countdown? Something crazy... a spaceship launch, a bomb, New Year's.... the anticipation drives people into a frenzy, I'll tell you that)]. When she finally became visible in her light up costume beyond the screen she sang "Dance in the Dark," off her new quasi album.

Madness ensued in the form of a stellar set. High-lights included: her questioning of the audience asking "DO YOU THINK I'M SEXY? DO YOU WANT TO FUCK ME?!?" (My brother was minorly horrified.), her intimate rendering of "Speechless" with just her and the piano (which the whole crowd seemed to know despite the fact that it had only come out around five days prior to the concert), a dentist chair on which everyone seemed to die at one point (even the Lady herself), and the time one of her backup dancers lit her a cigarette and I thought 'man, someone should give her a bylaw ticket, how funny would that be...' [Ottawa has a no smoking in public establishments bylaw].

She finished up with an encore of "Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)" and "Bad Romance" which she sang from the centre of a giant metal Bohr-Rutherford diagram minus the electrons.

When I showed a picture of that to my mom she said it must mean Lady Gaga thinks she's the centre of the universe.

"No mum," I replied. "Then she would have to believe in a geocentric model of the universe, and I'm sure she's smarter than that. Surely she only thinks she's the centre of the solar system."

I'm so cheeky.

But in a very scientific, I-can't-help-it-I-have-only-two-social-skills way.

The only quibble I saw was when she seemed a bit iffy on when to come in for "Beautiful and Dirty Rich." I could have sworn I saw her motion to a dancer in a questioning fashion, but then, who the fuck knows what I saw, the crowd was so thick and tall it was a work out to see anything at all.

Speaking of shortness, my poor bro. He's about up to my chin. Many people took pity on him and pushed us ahead of themselves.

That went on for a bit until we hit this wall of bitch. It was several girls who were just nasty about making fucking sure that this little 11 year old kid didn't get any further. I completely understand people not wanting to let us past them, we never pushed to get past people, and I'm surprised we got as far as we did. But these girls were quite wicked. They were calling my brother names to each other just loud enough for him to hear and using their asses to push anyone behind them backwards. For some reason they felt entitled to more room than everyone else on the floor. I wanted so badly to break them. Instead I spent a good deal of time devising ways to get away from them before I flew off the handle. My brother took to calling their ring leader "the whore."

Other people on the other hand, amazed me with their kindness. Some people took it upon themselves to ask others if we could move in front of them. But one girl - and whoever you are, I wish you would read this - saw my bro and put him on her back for a bunch of songs. So thank you soooooo much to the girl with brown curly hair and a purple and black scarf for being an amazing human being and restoring my love for humanity just when I thought it was gone due to "the whore" and her posse.

Putting him on my back wasn't nearly as effective as putting him on the tall girl with the purple scarf, but that's what I did, after the she left. Dear lord he's heavy. It didn't help that I tried to dance with him up there.

So there you have it.

O and Kid Cudi, the other opening act after Semi Precious Weapons, was a'ight. Not quite my cup of tea, but I enjoyed it and his rappiness. Brother dear, though, actually fell asleep standing up during his act. I just looked down in the middle of "Pursuit of Happiness" to find he had his eyes closed, oblivious to the roaring crowd. It was ok though, since he had no way to fall down, as we were packed in too tight.

.... all the broken hearts of all my fucked up friends"

Hola El Niño

2009-12-02T12:42:00.003-05:00

It's December 2nd, and it's a positively tropical 7 degrees Celsius outside.

Huh.

I CAN'T PAY MY RENT BUT I'M FUCKING GORGEOUS

2009-11-30T23:39:00.005-05:00

WELL. AT THIS POINT YOU MAY BE THINKING I PRESSED CAPS LOCK TOO HARD AND IT STUCK THAT WAY. BUT NO. I AM ACTUALLY SHOUTING!

(and also pressing caps lock would be the smart thing to have done. I just held the shift button down the whole time. I got halfway through and thought 'GEE I SHOULD REALLY JUST PRESS CAPS LOCK. O WELL FUCK IT, I'M ALREADY HALFWAY THROUGH')

Anyways. On to business. I went to LADY GAGA yesterday with my lil' brotha. And I shall speak more about that later, but right now I have an English assignment that is overdue, so I'll make this brief. Suffice it to say, I may have shouted "MARRY ME GAGA - IT'S LEGAL HERE!" several times. I'm assuming she'll get back to me on that one.

After touring, obvi.

Right, but what couldn't wait til post-English essay was the opening band: Semi Precious Weapons. They were.... wilde. Like, take-your-clothes-of-on-stage wilde (PS, don't click the link if you have a problem with seeing a man's bum. I didn't record that, but someone a few rows ahead of me did. Lucky tall bastard) (PPS, I don't give a fuck, click the link anyways, it's EPICNESS INCARNATE).

And ya... I was quite taken by them. They rocked my fucking socks. Seriously, not sure if my socks will ever recover. But that's ok, I'm willing to sacrifice socks for music. Any day.

Semi Precious Weapons even went and hung out in the lobby after the show and did autographs and pictures. That was thrilling. And they were lovely people. Cole the bassist signed my sailor hat (which I insisted my bro wear to the concert. I also made him wear my red skinny jeans and a silver belt. He was soo on board.) And Justin the lead singer had the cutest yellow plaid tights on. Jealous. I'm also slightly envious that he is a six foot tall man and can walk/dance manically around in six inch heels, while I am a 5 foot short girl who can't deal with heels period. Really, at my prom even, I wore my heels for all of 77 seconds before I ditched them under the table and danced around barefoot. o wellzz.

And that is why, when I get around to changing it, Song of The ____ goes to Semi Precious Weapons. I am a fan. In body and soul. And Facebook. HA.

Magnetic Baby - Semi Precious Weapons
Semi Precious Weapons - Semi Precious Weapons
Her Hair is On Fire - Semi Precious Weapons

There is always an over-abundance of scantily clad women in the vids.

ps. I bought a SPW T-shirt with the title of this poste on it. My mother was not impressed.

hmmm

2009-11-22T15:53:00.003-05:00

On Friday mornings, the weekend always feels like it has so much potential. More often than not, by this time Sunday, all that potential has been wasted, and I spend the rest of the evening kicking myself/frantically doing assignments.

A+ for another well wasted weekend. Fuck.

On a happier note, I'm going to Parliament on Tuesday to watch 45 minutes of mud slinging and name calling called Question Period, when the elected members of the federal government gather to ask each other questions. It's just a whole lot of showboating and ridiculous antics. The opposition asks questions of the party in power, and everyone gets indignant. Michael Ignatieff's eyebrows become scarier, Jack Layton's mustache takes on a persona of it's own, and Stephen Harper has a constant look of smug constipation (I didn't know it was possible to be both at the same time, but honestly that's all I see when I look at him).

And then I'm going to be like a real journalist and participate in a scrum, which seems scary and useless at the same time.

Last time I was in a scrum, I was playing rugby. I wonder if they bite in this one?

..... I know I will.

I like the word "fervor"

2009-11-17T18:44:00.005-05:00

Hello people of the world (HA)!

I did not combust, implode, explode, evaporate, or shrivel into a hollow, inhuman husk of a body from doing my project. I did, however, discover the wonders and slightly freaky effects of energy drinks. Maybe it is because I avoid them with impressive fervor, or maybe it's because of the three coffees I had prior to downing most of the energy drink, but for a good half an hour, I looked like I'd just done a line of cocaine.

The bottle says it is to "help temporarily restore wakefulness when experiencing fatigue or drowsiness" but this bottle of toxicity went way beyond being useful and put me into a state of 'wakefulness' that rendered me too fidgety, hyper, giggly, ridiculous and restless to actually get any work done. My orange-haired friend thankfully cut me off from my supply and drank the rest herself. And in the meantime, I went and ran up and down two flights of library steps in an attempt to calm myself down.

After that, I eventually went back to being a normal person, able to speak without bursting into fits of uncontrollable laughter. That was around 10:46 pm. An hour later, I took the bus home (a sketchy thing at the best of times, but midnight on a bus is a rather alarming experience. Yet I find myself there all the time) and at 4:30 am, I fell asleep with my paper not done, my computer precariously on my lap. At 5:11, I jolted awake in shear terror that it was time to leave for school, realized I had an hour and a half to finish the thing, and finished it. Success!

It's probably crap, but no matter, at least it's done. Now I can start crying on the inside about other imminent deadlines.

Goodness Gracious. Great balls of....

2009-11-10T10:37:00.003-05:00

FIRE.

I anticipate spontaneously combusting sometime around the hour of 4 o'clock Friday morning, right around the time that I realize I will never be able to finish this blasted journalism assignment.

Just giving you a heads up in case I never post again.

We are not all polite.

2009-11-08T22:18:00.004-05:00

Exchange between myself and Mr. Stickuphisass from across the street whilst canvasing the neighbourhood for the Arthritis Society:

Me: [ring doorbell. waiting.....waiting. nearly give up. turn to leave.]

[door opens]

Me: "O hello. How are you today?"

Mr. Stickuphisass: [stares blankly] "What are you selling?"

Me: [stricken dumb for a beat] Ah. [nervous chortle] Not selling anything today sir. [force a natural looking smile] I'm just canvassing for the Arthritis Society -

Mr. S: Not interested. [closes door before I can say 'bye' or any such parting words]

I shouldn't have bothered going to his door. I'm pretty sure that last year the same thing happened. I probably even muttered the same profanities as I walked away from his house.

On the bright side, everyone else was really nice. Even the ones who didn't give me money. And I raised $100. BooYah.

Ps. I can't believe I wrote a post on November 5th and forgot to mention Guy Fawkes Day. It's like my favourite foreign holiday. So...."Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gun-powder treason and plot. I know of no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot." And yet it took me three days to realize that I forgot it.
I also love the movie "V for Vendetta."

Innuendo and other

2009-11-05T19:07:00.003-05:00

I am a big fan of puns. I say that with no shame.... well ok, I say it with very little shame, much less than you might think.

Bad puns, good puns (is there such a thing?)....

Anyways, I did not come here to talk about puns, I came here to talk about double entendres and how the best double entendre in the world occurred today, but I got side tracked by puns...

The scene played out like this, and I'll warn you, it's vaguely sexual. Reader discretion is by no means advised:

I was downtown for a "Drop Fees" rally, because, as you may know, tuition is heinously high and breaking people under heaps of debt. And Ontario has the highest fucking tuition fees in Canada dammit.

Right, so downtown with my new orange haired friend, and I'm carrying my coat, a drop fees placard, a foam hand flippin' the bird with "F**k Tuition Fees" written on it, and my empty Timmies coffee cup. The coffee cup was blocking me from putting on the foam hand....

"You'd better throw that out," says my orange haired friend, "It's hindering your fingering."

I turned to her and starred for a solid few seconds.

"That's ok," says I. "I shall compensate with my mouth."

And I put the cup in my mouth. And carried it.

So there you go. I laughed my ass off and thought it was a genius moment.

I talk. I listen.

2009-11-04T19:48:00.004-05:00

Have I mentioned yet that this year is infinitely less crap than last year? The crap is so much lesser, I might even venture to turn that pessimistic statement around and say that this year rocks ever so much more than last year. But that would imply that first year had anything at all that rocked about it, which it didn't.

Anywho. My least favourite thing about this year - other than the midterms, the deadlines, the essays and so on - is all the interviewing I have to do. I have to interview people all the time for assignments, but it's not the speaking to people I don't know, the asking awkward questions, or even the points in the interview when I forget what exactly I'm trying to say that are the worst aspects of being a journalism student - it's playing back the recordings of my interviews that I hate.

I can't stand hearing my own voice. I hear myself speaking to people and I think why does anyone like me? I sound like the biggest dumb ass to ever grace the planet.

halleluuuuiaaaaaaaa glory be.

2009-10-30T11:49:00.003-04:00

Journalism Prof is my new most favourite person for giving us a week extension on our huge, ginormous, stupid, spiteful assignment. It doesn't quite make up for the fact that he assigned it in the first place, but at this point, it comes pretty damn close.

Songofthe.....

2009-10-29T11:45:00.006-04:00

I totally just updated the so-called "Song of the Week" (very, very big mistake to have put a time period on it, I should probably just call it "Song of the _____") after a month and a half of forgetting about it.

For this next undetermined amount of time the songs shall be My Manic & I and Cross Your Finger/Crawled out of the Sea by Laura Marling. She gets two songs because I am currently obsessed (majorly) with her album "Alas I Cannot Swim" (and have been for the past at least two months). I had to order it from Gloucester, UK.

She is amazing, and worth so much more than the 4$ of shipping I had to pay to get her album. Actually, when I think about it, it was really cheap to get the disc. It was about 12$ (Canadian) all told, which is probably less than I would have paid for a CD in a store. I don't understand how they made any money at all.

Once, she was the opening act for Neil Young while he was touring in the UK. How I would have killed to be at that show.

Speaking of shows, I went to see Metric again recently. God, they're so frweakifing amazing. And I would marry Emily Haines anyday of the week. Except on a Monday. Mondays suck. Or a Wednesday really, cause that just seems like an extremely awkward day for a wedding... right in the middle of the week.

Anyways, I had to cart my 15 year old bro and his four really tall friends there in the minivan. I felt so cool, you have no idea. I think I almost ran a car off the highway because all I could see when I tried to look out the back window was heads of teenage boys. And then on the way back from the concert, half of them were high. That was a joy and a half to deal with....

Me: "Ok John, where do you live?"

Boy Voice: "Turn left!"

Different voice: "NO! Stop here!"

Third Voice: "John's homeless bahahah."

Some other Idiot Voice: "Right. Beside that school over there! In the field."

So, ya. Dumb. But it was worth it to see Metric.

And again speaking of shows, I have tickets to LADY GAGA! I bought one for me, one for my little 11 year old brotha. It's a surprise for his birthday and he doesn;t know yet! With a brother like him, I almost don't feel bad that I don't have a sister.

If you never noticed before, my taste in music is quite eclectic.

NotAlice out.

Gay Ol' Time

2009-10-29T11:12:00.003-04:00

Overheard whilst I eavesdropped on a girl talking to avoid doing mountains of work:

"It's been eight months! That's like.... two years in lesbian time. I'm just taking it one day at a time."

Awesome, so if you want to calculate how long your relationship has lasted, in lesbian years, you just need to do this simple conversion: multiply the length in straight years by three.

Hmm.... I wonder if it's like cat years and the conversion factor gets smaller as years go by.

No no... I'm pretty sure the conversion factor would get exponentially larger as years pass. Yes, definitely.

I am tired. Hear me Snore!

2009-10-14T23:22:00.004-04:00

Hello all. Remember me? The one who writes this blogge.... or doesn't these days. Just wanted to say:

Damn exams to hell.

I have a mid-term tomorrow. And the next day.

So obviously I am writing a post, when I should be studying. Erg I make myself so mad.

What has happened done recently? Not much. A bus driver drove past me whilst I stood in front of the door practically crying to be let on. I was published in my uni newspaper. It I turned 19 somewhere between this post and the last one. It snowed today.

And I am slowly headed towards a breakdown. But it's cool. I've always (and have probably mentioned this before) wanted to experience a padded room.

Family invaded my house over Thanksgiving (which was last weekend, because I'm in Canada, and that's how we roll. Also, pilgrims and Native peoples would never have a picnic in November, because that would be stupid and in the snow). Usually only one or two relatives trek on over to O-town for spankgive'r, but this year hoards and fleets of them came from all over the place to take care of my mother who just had surgery to get some cancer out of her neck (really, it was her thyroid that was taken out, along with some lymph nodes). We had a whole smorgasbord of family here.

So with the family everywhere and going to the hospital and cleaning for guests and being sick (with what I'm gonna say was SWINE FLU. runn for yourr livvvesss ahhh...) and making sure I was a proper fucking host to all the relatives all around (and I love them to death, but I am so goddam busy with school you have no idea, and they are reeeaallly distracting) in the absense of my mother, I haven't gotten any school shit done, I haven't done readings, I haven't been to all my classes, and I can't even manage to write a proper sentence (see this one is going to be the run-on sentece to beat all run-on sentences) and now I have a mid-term tomorrow that I didn't even realize I had until yesterday. So fuck.

That is why I'm headed for a breakdown.

Now I shall study.

Whoa. Hello.

2009-10-04T00:12:00.001-04:00

I am a bad blogger.

I will write a real post soon, so as not to be such a lame person.

Muse-ic

2009-09-14T13:14:00.002-04:00

I chose this song of the week pretty much solely so I could use that title for my post. It's a horrible pun and I am not afraid to use it.

This song (Bliss by Muse) reminds me of being on the city bus. Mostly just because I tend to listen to it on the bus on the way to school, not because it has anything to do with buses. Because nothing is "so easy to love" about a bus, and they certainly don't "resonate happiness." They resonate crankyness.

First day of school tomorrow.

2009-09-09T22:43:00.000-04:00

Kill me now.

Song of the Week FAIL Vol. 57

2009-08-31T21:39:00.003-04:00

BAH. Song of the Week last week was actually up for two weeks. I forgot.

This week (or two, or month, as the case may turn out to be) the song is My Moon My Man by Leslie Feist or just Feist as she is usually known as. She is Canadian, and no, she's not good because she was on an iPod commercial, she was on the commercial because she's amazing.

My cousin says I look like her. Calls me Feist sometimes. I suppose maybe we have a similar chin. And we both have the bangs thing going on in brownish hair. And, of course, I can frequently be found at airports, dancing on those moving conveyor belt sidewalk thingers (this would make sense to you if you had've clicked the previous link and watched her video).

Those things would be great if they weren't so fun to fool around on. I mean, their fun factor totally outweighs the practical side of them. I'll be on one, going forward in the proper direction, and I'll suddenly get the unoverridable urge to dash in the opposite direction. To run off against the current of groved metal and people and hand luggage and children starring down at their feet in wonder as they take steps that carry them unnaturally far forward. And then I stop abruptly and allow the walkway to take be backward a few feet, then start running again. So I don't end up getting anywhere faster. I don't really get anywhere.

They are just so gosh darn amusing.

Canada Writes.

2009-08-27T09:43:00.004-04:00

O Canadian literature. The beloved Margaret Laurence. The other Margaret, the Atwood one. W.O. Mitchell (I always say it as Whooooa Mitchell in my head. And out loud. I can't control it). Lucy Maud Montgomery, who ensured that the little island of Prince Edward will forever get a steady stream of Japanese tourists making the pilgrimage there to see the real house of the fake red headed girl in the fake town of Avonlea, in the real town of Cavendish..... incidentally, all she succeeded in doing for me was ensure that the main character was so bloody annoying that I couldn't force myself to finish reading the series, I got to maybe book number six and thought "goddam. Anne is having offspring, the stupidity is multiplying. Must stop."

..... but I digress.

So yes. Canadian writing has fans all over the world. But one little piece of Canadian work is garnering some unexpected attention for just who seems to be a fan of it. You see, deep in the vaults of the CIA, live the assholes who devise torture methodes, and they have a copy of Transport Canada's 92 page epic Survival in Cold Waters: Staying Alive.

It is a piece of writing generally used by folks inclined to go boating out in the frigid waters that hug our shores to, you know, stay alive and such, should the ocean fancy jumping up into their boat, or their boat fancy diving into the sea. But the CIA, they take the use of this study a bit farther and use it to help the doctors gauge how much pain they can put prisoners through with the use of cold water dousing, without killing them.

I do not even know where to begin pointing out the things wrong with that sentence.

First of all, using a SURVIVAL guide as a means to inflict maximum pain on a human being? It's a tad disgusting. Sure it is out there for general use, but this is never what it was intended for. A person is supposed to learn from that guide how to survive, escape a disaster in cold water with their life, preserve themselves while trying to minimize the pain they experience. But the CIA turned it into a guide to pain, a goal of severe trauma with a side plan of keeping the prisoner alive.

Second, what kind of doctor takes part in torture? Certainly one who has no business calling themselves a doctor. Despicable.

A survival guide turned into a torture guide.

I think I'm going to go bash my head against a wall for a bit.

Well, at least I now know what to do with my copy of Anne of Green Gables: use it to beat the shit out of people. But you know, not 'til they're dead, just until they're thoroughly annoyed.

Who is John Galt?

2009-08-20T21:14:00.004-04:00

I had meatballs for lunch today.

Also.

Work today involved a lot of sitting and starring at a solution whilst it sorted itself out through a column of silica gel and drrrriiiiiiippppped ever so slowly into an Erlenmeyer flask (Invented by that guy over there to the right, Emil Erlenmeyer in 1861. Not to be confused with Oscar Mayer, who made a hotdog around then that still looks and tastes exactly the same). Erlenmeyer flllask. Erlenmeyer flaaaaask. I think that might be in my top ten of favourite word combinations. I could say it maybe 72 consecutive times without getting tired of saying it.

Anywho, I would pour the solution was that I was working into the top of the glass column, and as the liquid trickled through the tube, getting itself all pure and what not, I had a lot of time to do nothing. So instead of doing nothing, I read Atlas Shrugged. And I'm only about 213 pages in, so don't nobody go spoiling it for me.

It's wierd. I can't read a whole lot of that book in one sitting - it's just too depressing and frustrating to immerse myself in for too long - but when I'm not reading it, all I do is think about it. Or change the Erlenmeyer flask under the column. I feel like I've reached the climax of the story, but I have about 80% of the book to go. Every character is either a detestable piece of scum dredged from the bowels of the Valley of the Severely Dim, or an intelligent, ambitious person, a prodigy in their field of work, and therefore despised by the aforementioned scums.

I'm still waiting for the part when Atlas finally shrugs and the world goes tumbling off his shoulders and shatters on the museum floor. I'm sure it happens soon.

But. I don't know what to make of this book. Philosophy like this makes one part of my brain scream and another part shoot into thinking overdrive. It's intriguing. It's riveting. But every so often I have to stop and just puzzle over humanity. Could we really end up like that? Is society destined to become a giant contradiction of itself? Can humans as a collective sink to such loathsome levels that they especially hate themselves?

Who is John Galt?

Shut up brain, just shut up.

Side, mostly unrelated, note: If you google john galt erlenmeyer meatballs, this post comes up first. Woohoot.

Update 25/08/09: Not anymore. Fuck.

Another Great Victory for Vikings: Spam.

2009-08-18T03:49:00.001-04:00

I've never had spam, but I'm thinking of trying the Spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, and spam.

SQUIRREL!

2009-08-17T13:49:00.004-04:00

This made the front page of the National Post, this past Friday.

Straight from the Too Damn Cute files comes this inadvertent snapshot.

It's not exactly news I'd expect on the front page, but it's definitely cuter than Stephen Harper, or some other stupid thing that might make the national newspaper's cover.

Happy Woodstock.

2009-08-17T11:19:00.006-04:00

Woodstock was occurring exactly right now 40 years ago. How I wish I had have been alive.

In honour of the three day, peaceful, talent racked hippie-fest, Song of the Week goes to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, a eerie sounding song dominated by Grace Slick's powerful vocals issuing blatant LSD references. One of my favourite songs. Go ask Alice.

Oddly enough, this song made it onto my Canadian History exam as one of the terms we had to define. It's not Canadian, but the culture of the 60s permeated the Canadian collective, so it was relevant. Plus my Can Hist prof is just that amazing. I, you might guess, had no trouble defining it. The trouble came later in the exam when I was trying to think of who exactly Joseph Howe was and I kept imagining him as a hookah smoking caterpillar.

Anyways, another song I ought to mention is Woodstock by Joni Mitchell. The reason the song probably sounds so sad is because Joni wasn't actually there. At the insistence of her manager, she played a different gig whilst Woodstock went on without her. Poor thing.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (a band that did, in fact, perform on the hallowed grounds of Yasgur's farm) did a cover of this song. It's also super sweet.

Right well, peace.

wait a minute.....WHO MADE THIS BIG MESS!??!

2009-08-14T13:06:00.004-04:00

My uncle and aunt and their three kids are coming from St. Catharines to visit for the weekend. So I need to go home and madly clean my room, since I possibly will have one or two cousins sleeping on my floor. And currently, there isn't room to walk on it, much less sleep there. There isn't really room on my bed either, but I don't mind. I am small.

I really don't understand how I allow the crap in my room to take over the floor like that. It's skillfull, really. I believe I learned these skills at an early age. It wasn't my fault. Good thing I also learned how to clean efficiently, by stuffing things under cushions and such.

Crazy Canadian televison programs.

...I love the Big Comfy Couch. But it did give me delusions as to how fast it was possible to clean a room. I don't think I noticed as a child that they sped up her movement during the 10 Second Tidy.

I used to be able to do this though. O man I want one of those rugs.

By the way, my uncle who is coming commonly refers to coffee as the devil's drink. So he should be a positive influence in my (failing miserably) attempt to ditch the juice.

I confess

2009-08-14T10:04:00.002-04:00

Someone brought a great honkin'* slice of chocolate cake to work for lunch and put it in the fridge.

Now that's a gamble.

If I still ate gluten, that shit would have been gone five minutes ago.

*That felt wierd to type. I don't think I'll ever use that word again.

I quit.

2009-08-11T15:16:00.003-04:00

I think I am going to try quitting coffee. Or at least minimize my intake. I will probably feel healthier, maybe even live a few extra years longer.

But I'll probably be asleep for those extra years.

Tour de Sorebutt

2009-08-10T16:15:00.000-04:00

So I have done the MS Bike Tour! It is finished, and I am left with a complementary cycling jersey, a Bike Tour t-shirt, and a very very sore butt. That's what 150 km of cycling gets you (and of course, a great sense of accomplishment and happiness that I survived, and helped out with a cause very dear to me).

It felt even worse than the time I did a spinning class and I thought for sure that nine months later I would have stationary bicycle babies. With eyes in the handlebars.

I hate spinning classes.

Anyway, I discovered that the area between Ottawa and Kemptville - where we slept the night before heading back to Ottawa - mainly consists of corn and cows with long, straight roads dividing them. Every so often there would be a beautiful, dilapidated barn surrounded by crumbling silos and bails of half eaten hay being munched on by pinto horses that we could gaze at for a few seconds before it faded away behind us..... but there was mostly corn.

We'd be on the same road for 5 km or something and there would be corn the whole way. Then finally we turned a corner annnnd..... more corn. O then a cow farm - cue the stench (honestly, I could have sworn I was breathing in cows, that's how potent their smell is). Then corn. Then corn. Corn.

So it made me wonder, where the fuck does all this corn go? We must ship it all away. I mean, nobody in all of Ottawa should be going hungry when there is about a bizillion square kilometres of corn growing all around the city. Really.

So, that's all.

O also, song of the week is Fashionable People by Joel Plaskett, a song which I might have linked already in a previous post, but no matter, it is a marvy song.

Song of the week

2009-08-03T23:42:00.003-04:00

Rainy Day Women - Bob Dylan

It won't stop raining here. Well, actually today it didn't.

So this song seemed like it had the right title for my mood as well as the weather.

Vikings A Go Go

2009-08-02T23:33:00.016-04:00

Where do I wish I was right now? Oddly enough, Manitoba. At the Icelandic Festival of Manitoba. Because, yes, you guessed it, there is a Viking Village. And people reenacting vikingness. And one of the best things is that the village in in a town called Gimli. Named after the dwarf in Lord of the Rings. Well, not really, but if I lived there, that's what I'd tell people.

It's taking place right now. I'm thinking one year I'll go be a Viking in this festival. I think I'd look very menacing and brutal as a Viking. And gross, because I bet it's part of the costume to have bits of chicken and human fingernails stuck in your beard. Although the discovery of 51 headless Viking bodies in a pit in England has lead me to believe that the Saxons found the Viking look offensive.

I do not want to get my head chopped off. No sir.

Speaking of Manitoba, I've never been to the west of Canada. Nowhere west-er than Ontario. But, with Newfoundland visited, I've covered all the eastern provinces. I've even been to the most easterly point in all of North America, called Cape Spear.

You know, other than the irksome fact that I was with my osodumb parents and my insane brothers every waking and not waking moment of my time in Newfoundland, it was the most perfect time ever. But I will never go there with them again. That was agonizing.

Here is a picture of a puffin. I took about fifty seven pictures of this particular one. They are just too damn cute.

Here is a picture of a post office in a...um.... very special town. (Notice the name on the sign. Click to enlarge)Ya, it's actually named Dildo. After a captain. The captain of a vessel full of seamen.

Here is an iceberg. We took a boat through a bunch of them, and I confess I said "ICEBERG, STRAIGHT AHEAD!" about 23 times. With the accent and all. There were tourists from England on the boat. Not sure whether they were more impressed by that, or my multiple renditions of "I'm on a Boat, Muthafucka." This one, while not from Dildo, was apparently inspired by one.
Sciencey side note about Icebergs: They aren't actually white. When they froze 10 000 years ago, they froze with air bubbles, and they reflect white light. So when you get up right close to one, it sizzles, because it's melting and the air bubbles are going into the water. Also, they taste very fresh.

This is a newfie speedbumpus, or a moose. On the island, there are something ridiculous like 100 000 of them things. They are so numerous and so stupid that when driving you have to constantly be on the lookout for them because they are apt to amble onto the highway and stare at you whilst you accordion your car against their massive bodies.
The locals would stare at us in horror when we told them we planned to drive through the night to our next stop..... as though night driving means certain death by moose.

This is an underwater graveyard. The blue buoys are the men and the white ones are the women.Nah, just kidding. It's actually a muscle farm. I ate a muscle while I as there that had a pearl in it.

So there you go, so pics of Newfoundland. It takes too long to upload them, so I'm gonna stop now. But there are some others like one of my fifteen year old brother frolicking among sheep that always give me a good chuckle.

First Installment of 'Shit Written On Walls'

2009-07-28T23:47:00.003-04:00

Found in St. John's, Newfoundland.

I took this just round the corner from the 'financial district,' which is more or less a block in the city that has all the banks on it. It reads "MAKE YOUR SELF SCARCE" which just goes towards promoting the stereotype that everyone there is nice. Even their graffiti is more polite. Anywhere else you'd find the standard "FUCK OFF" written unimaginatively next to a giant penis with eyebrows or something.

to be 30.

2009-07-27T14:31:00.005-04:00

Well, it's a pretty sorry time in the life of a writer when the writer hasn't written for seven days.

But I haven't anything to say.

Life is boring. I'm pretty sure I've successfully hermitized myself. One of the only things I've been successful at in a long time. Sadly.

I'm going to end up a 30 year old who feels the need to get shitwrecked at parties and say really obnoxious things really loudly and dye her hair platinum blonde and in general be a plastic whorish type lady because of my wasted youth.

Which reminds me, I did go out the other day when aunt brought me to a 30 year old version of a house party. It was, at moments, fun, and had delicious jello shooters. There were two types of people there: the chill ones getting a bit tipsy and having a bang-up time, and the ones who despite being 10+ years older than me were acting about three years younger than me. The latter group included at least one plastic whorish type woman (PWTW). I think she even took a shot of amaretto from between her ginormous fake boobs. Pure class. She was the first person we ran into coming in the door. I briefly tossed around the idea of leaving.

At one point the host of the party couldn't be found (we found out later that he was pissed that people were hiding bottles and caps around his house and went outside to cool off. Apparently alcohol makes him a real pain in the ass Type A.) and PWTW, no doubt believing she is being incredibly helpful pipes up with "O my god, he's MIA. O. My. God. He's. M. I. A. He's MIA! OMG. O my fucking god, he's MIA. He's MIA. O my goddddd!"

No word of a lie, that is exactly what she said.

I wanted to punch her right in the silicon boob.

Instead, I stood behind her and imitated her, silently mouthing her words, much to my own amusement.

Ps, I changed the song of the week. Give it a listen, Regina Spektor is amazing.

Happy Moon landing Day

2009-07-20T13:13:00.002-04:00

Yay for space.

For you skeptics, here.

Post that should be about Newfoundland but isn't because I don't feel like it. It was wonderful but I'll write about it later.

2009-07-19T22:56:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm home now. And I fully plan on writing a Newfoundland overview at some point....later. But these days I haven't felt much like writing, which is an odd way for me to feel. It is also very bad because I've come to the conclusion that the only way for me to become famous is to write a book or something, as I have neither the talent nor the skill to do anything else. I probably don't have enough writing gusto and je ne sais quoi to be an author anyways, but at this point it is the only way I see to potential fame. FAME.

Buuuut... I haven't written a journal or a blogge or lyrics to songs I never finish in a while. It's been a lazy little while, mentally speaking. This lethargy is just another reason why I'm a failure at life in general.

I ALSO fail because I completely forgot about Song of the Week. So I am going to change it right now.... Ain't she gorgy?

I don't know why exactly I want to be famous. It's insane really. I'm crazy and stupid enough as it is, I'm sure I'd end up as one of those coked out, drunken famous people whose name rings vague bells in people's minds but they can't quite remember why. Still. Despite seeing the private lives of the rich and famous splashed across the tabloids and told in daily 30 second clips on TV, every mundane thing they do twisted into a 'top story', I'm intensely jealous of them. Secretly. So don't tell anyone.

To want fame is probably one of the most masochistic desires there is.

This is like when I was little and all I wanted out of life was the ability to do magic. When I was eleven I cried all night once because my letter to Hogwarts never came..... I'm still convinced the owl carrying it just died along the way and they never realized.

Well, now I'm older and my dreams are more realistic, yes, but just as unlikely to ever come true.

So remember kids, if you shoot for the stars, you will probably land among asteroids. So wear a helmet and elbow pads.

And even if you do make it, you will probably be incinerated by the stars' heat. Or die from lack of oxygen, because, DUH you're in space dumbass.

God I hate those stupid metaphors.
That is why I choose to butcher them.

Newfoundland and more to come.

2009-07-13T21:00:00.005-04:00

I have a load and a half to write about Newfoundland.... but there isn't internet access in the cabins we're staying at. Right now I'm sitting in the lobby area/general store/library/icecream shop of the cabin place, the only spot nearby with internet. But I have to go to bed. I'm so tired, plus the store is closing any minute.

So I'll maybe put some pics.... if I can manage to sort through the 56 788 933 ones I've taken so far.

O btw, its been sunny and warm the whole time so far. What? Madness.

I have even tanned.

EDIT: I have even burnt.

An Airport with free internet access?

2009-07-09T15:16:00.001-04:00

NO WAY. this must be a dream. But no, it's true. I'm currently in the Halifax airport and I am using the internet without paying for it with my soul. Or money. It's amazing. Whoever thought of the novel idea of free internet is a winner. A true hero.

The East coast really is full of the bestest people.

Even the girl in the store where I picked up a magazine (Rolling Stone....it has the icky Jonas Hoes on the front, but we are all told as children not to judge a book by its cover, ya?) was genuinely nice. She actually seemed to be asking questions about where I'm from and where I'm going because she wanted to know (not in a creepy way) and not just because her employer was there checking to see if she was exuding the right amount of fake friendliness.

Anyways, know what I just realized? Well....since Newfoundland is super special and gets its own time zone that's an hour and a half ahead of Ontario, instead of having to wake up at 8:30 am to make my schedueled time ticket to pick my classes, I get to sleep in and do it at 10:00 am. Beauty, ainit?

Well, that's mostly all I can think of right now. Flights aren't exactly the most riveting things to talk about, unless you've survived its crashing or you joined the Mile High Club (ya it's got a website), neither of which I'm planning on doing, because to be a survivor the plane has to crash first, which would suck, and also, have you ever seen Snakes On a Plane? Well I have and let's just say that two members of that club came to a painfully awkward end upon receiving several venomous bites in places that should never be bitten. Or could be, I guess.... if you're into that.

So ya, that was scaring. And all I would be able to think about would be snakes slithering out of the toilet.

Gotta go. We is bording. Peace.
And remember kids, the only place better than where you are is anywhere else.

New Weekly feature perhaps?

2009-07-07T14:56:00.003-04:00

I think I may add a new weekly feature to this here blogge.

It shall be called "Shit Written on Walls" and it shall be of the interesting graffiti I see. It won;t necessarily need to be written on walls, but I like that title, so that is how it shall stay.

Trouble is, most of the interesting graffiti in the world resides in washrooms and it is just a tad unsettling to hear a camera go off in the stall next to you whilst you're on the toilet. I would like to do this in a way that doesn't make me look like a total creepo.

You've got a bloody right to sing.

2009-07-07T12:41:00.008-04:00

So the weather here sucks balls. It's rainy and cold. If it does this in Newfoundland, I will boycott talking about the weather for ever. I won't give it the satisfaction of getting my attention.

It already has every other Canadian to talk about it all the time anyways.

Geez I'm sometimes so stereotypical.
My fall back conversation starter? The weather.
My fall back blogge post topic? The weather.

I think it must be that we get so much of it up here. You know, diverse weather. It's constantly changing on us so it never really gets old. Hmmm...it's odd that I don't have a "weather" tag. I have a climate one, but that is different. Get it right.

You know what are dangerous? iPods. And I don't mean that people wear them and get hit by cars, or wear them and suddenly they're blind to the world because they're searching for a song, or wear them and go deaf because they're too stupid to turn the goddam volume down (yes I'm talking to you dumbass at the front of the bus whos music I can hear through the music I'm listening to on my iPod), or wear them and fall off cliffs because the music in their ears drowned out the telltale sound of the cliff breaking beneath them.... No, I'm talking about when I'm out in public, maybe at work or in the mall and I've got the damn thing plugged into my ears and a really top notch song comes on and I have to catch myself before I burst out singing right there and then.

Sometimes just for a moment I can't catch myself and I end up with wierd stares because I just sang something like "Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead..." (Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen - though I sincerely hope you already knew that, and me telling you so was just redundant because that song is probably the most bomb song to ever be sung), and they're thinking, 'let's get outta here, there's some freak singing about her psychopathic murderings.'

So I guess the danger is that I may get put into a mental institution.

The music...I just can't suppress it. I just know I'm in for trouble when Bowie or Queen or Paramore or Supertramp or ..... (signifying endless list of artists) comes on.

So remember kids, the only fate you have is the one you take for yourself.
Peace.

Are YOU Heterobifunctional?

2009-07-06T17:40:00.003-04:00

I swear, my vocabulary is expanding exponentially as I work at this job. It's boring as hell, but my vocabulary is not suffering. No sir.

So a guy was talking to my boss today and starts saying things about "heterobifunctional" something or others. Honestly, I didn't hear another word out of his mouth after he said "heterobifunctional" because my mind, of its own accord, started coming up with definitions of the word.

I basically came up with this, it's golden, no kidding: "Someone who is basically a heterosexual individual, but, if the conditions are right, can swing the other way should the need arise. They are probably not very good at it. They are just functional."

Eh? That was the very first thing that popped into my head.

But, in reality, the word is not nearly so interesting as that, it just means Crosslinkers with different reactive groups at either end, enabling sequential conjugation between two different functional groups in proteins and other molecules.

Not overall a fun definition.

What I do with my time.

2009-07-06T00:10:00.001-04:00

I leave for Newfoundland on Thursday! I'm so excited. All I have to do is devise a way to completely block out the bleating whining/shouting/angry mutterings of my family, and the trip should be a hoot and a half.

I don't know if I'll be able to post while I'm there. Have they heard of the internet?
Just kidding.
But seriously, there has to has to HAS TO be somewhere with reliable internet there so I can register for Fall classes. My stupid registration time ticket is while I'm there and if I don't register RIGHT THEN, I will end up with classes I would never consider taking but am stuck with because everything else will be full.

In other news, I realized that I have been doing absolutely nothing with my life this summer. Sure I'm working, but that is not personally fulfilling, and it is boring as hell. I need to do something real. So I decided to sign up for the MS Bike Tour, a 150 km bike trip spanning two days with all the raised funds going towards Multiple Sclerosis research, a cause very close to my heart indeed. I'm on a team and all. I'm psyched, but I am also sososososoooo out of shape it's scary. I need to start turning my useless self back into some semblance of an athlete so that I don't die embarrassingly on a bicycle on a lonely stretch of road somewhere between Ottawa and Kemptville.

It is a cluttered mess.

2009-07-03T15:31:00.001-04:00

I was reading a blogge post, as I often do, of a random person's blogge whom I don't know. It was very fundamental Christian with lots of Atheist bashing and what I guess is called right wing extremism. Sounds scary, don't it? (Example)

And you know what's interesting is how Atheists and Fundies will sometimes visit each others' blogges and angrily comment on how absurd one view is, or how bad they are at making an argument. The anonymity the internet provides not only allows people to have well thought out debates, but also for lines to be crossed during those debates that might not otherwise be crossed in real life, face to face conversation (mostly because that type of line crossing gets people beaten up).

The internet makes for some of the trashiest, most honest, most thought-provoking, wildest and craziest, most unbearably mean-spirited, and most spot-on arguments you'll ever see. It's all a jim-jam of articles and blogge posts, critics and cynics, activist and apathetic sites that can spout all sorts of nonsense, or sometimes, all sorts of compelling arguments. You can say what you want, unchecked. All those thoughts popping around like jumping beans in your brain with nowhere to go now have a tiny internet sized soapbox to stand on.

[Did you just picture a jumping bean on a soapbox, because I totally just did.]

Anyhoo. As I read this particular post, which happened to be a Fundie ripping into Atheists like they are some sort of hydra exponentially growing new heads to eat at the 'truths' of the Bible, I had to laugh, partly because what the guy says is so ridiculous, and I had to cry.... because what the guy says is so ridiculous. And not just Fundies are guilty of this. Dumbass, horribly insulting works come from all sorts of groups, religious or not, political or otherwise. Stupidity is everywhere.

In the comments section of the post, someone said the author must be a Poe. Now whenever I see the word Poe, I think of my dear friend Edgar and his pally the Raven. Consequently, I thought that the commenter meant the author was a poet, or maybe a creepy bird. I knew this was an absurd notion, and I also knew that my knowledge of internet lingo is severely limited, so I looked up "Poe" and found many things including "Point of Entry," "Portal of Evil," "Polynesian staple food made from the corm of a kalo plant," and this Poe of the teletubby variety. I briefly thought that the commenter might have been calling the poster a Portal of Evil, until I came upon the Urban Dictionary and learned that a Poe is "A person who writes a parody of a fundamentalist that is mistaken for the real thing."

Now that makes more sense.

But I really doubted that this particular blogger was a "Poe".

But how can one know, in the end? And there are more than just Fundamentalist Poes. There are parodies of all sorts of sections of society, from Emos to bird watchers (maybe not bird watchers actually, but anything is possible).

So what if I am a Poe? An extremely convincing parody of a teenage girl who is sometimes bitter, sometimes giddy, sometimes confused, sometimes mad as hell, sometimes fed up, sometimes annoying her ~~readers~~ reader with her dumb and awkward - but not obviously fake - problems.

Well, I'm not just so you know.

But then maybe I am.

SPOOOOKY.

I'm here for the anonymity people. Not so I can argue, just mostly to vent... maybe comment on a blogge or two that I find particularly intriguing.

I don't wanna convert people to anything. I mean, what would I be converting people to anyways, Stupidityism? I think yes.

HAPPY CANADA DAY eh?

2009-07-01T11:11:00.003-04:00

Take off ya hoser. Go have a beer.

With a beaver.
Or just eat his tail. SOOO delicious.

Ps. this is a picture of a beaver saying "Ok, so yes, I did just chew through a tree and put it through your roof. But really, what do you want me to do about it?"

tomorrow.....

2009-06-30T12:41:00.003-04:00

....is Canada Day. The best day of the year. Ever.

Last year, my intolerably ridiculous parents decided that of all the days in the year, we had to use July 1st as a traveling day. I spent Canada Day last year in a car with my two bickering brothers, my cranky mom and my tired-of-this-shit dad, coming back from my grandparents' house six hours away.

Their horrible, horrible judgment meant I couldn't partake of the joyous festivities!

Clearly, they do not love Canada as much as I, otherwise they would want to express their love by walking the streets of the Capital in a drunken haze. Nothing says "I LOVE CANADA!" like dressing in red and white and being publicly shmammmered.

This year shall be different. I will not be driving anywhere (because that would be very irresponsible, now wouldn't it?). I will be doing something fun, though I should probably figure out what that is going to be.....

This is why I write.

2009-06-30T11:52:00.004-04:00

I always contend that keeping a video blog will only end up making you look like a fool.

This belief is probably due mostly to the fact that I would look like a major tool if I ever tried to "vlog." My voice sounds funny when it is recorded. My face looks funny when I speak. I am constantly mistaken for my little brother when I answer the telephone:

Aloha!

O hey kiddo, your mommy home?

No, everyone is currently at work.

Are you home all alone?

Yes actually. By the way, who do you think you're speaking with? 'Cause this is Alice.

O geez sorry, I thought you were your brother....

Ya, no doubt.

So I picture myself on Youtube saying these things instead of writing them, and I physically cringe. If this were a vlog, you'd see how grimacey my face can get.

Just be thankful it isn't.

But some people can pull them off. Like this person in Australia. She is kinda funny. And now I really really reallllllly want to go to a sci-fi convention. I will find one, and I will make the best costume ever, and I will go. It wold be eleven levels of kick ass fun.

In Conclusion: I shall start a vlog.

In real Conclusion: Never.

EDIT: she is not kinda funny. She's fuckin hilarrrr.

I spy 150 YEARS IN PRISON

2009-06-30T09:38:00.001-04:00

The CIA is recruiting.

Or are they?

Yes, actually, I'm pretty sure they are. John Stewart says they want all the laid off investment bankers and peeps from Wall Street who stirred the downward spiral that is the present day economy. Ergo, not me, as even I am not that big of a fuck up.

I think I'd like to be a spy. I could work at CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Jah man. Seriously, I can scale walls and speak French, so I'm pretty sure I have all the necessary requirements.

ps. Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in the big house. No not one of his mansions, prison duh. But MSNBC has keenly pointed out that the bad man, according to a regular life expectancy, only has 12.6 more years to live. So, overkill maybe? But then, he isn't exactly a regular person. He swindled people out of millions. Now, you'd think that kind of deed would weigh heavily on his mind and the stress of knowing how awful of a person he is would reduce his life span, but when you're as stupidly rich as he was, you can, in fact, buy years of life.

A List of Ten Things.

2009-06-29T12:42:00.010-04:00

I don't generally (o looke, I spelt it rite!) consider myself in any position to be giving out fashion tips. I don't think I'm particularly good at critiquing style or anything. I mean, getting dressed in the morning usually consists of a trip to my floor (because I literally trip over all the shit on it) where I pick up a clean pair of pants and a shirt, and then maybe a walk across the room to my belts and ties and scarves and feather boas and other crap like that, and then I put it all together to get an outfit that may or may not match.

But, when I read this, I simply felt I must weigh in with my (perhaps misguided) opinion. It is one of those dumb "top ten" articles that are always the first thing I see when I sign into my email that I feel I may as well read. It is by Heather Adler, and it's about 10 fashion trends that were started by celebs and we all regret in retrospect.

The thing is, I don't regret all of them. In fact, I find myself disagreeing with Ms. Adler at every turn.....

1) "The Rachel" (refering to the mid 90s style of haircut popularized by Jennifer Aniston in Friends)
Ok, actually, I may have to agree with this one. So, moving on...

2) "Shoulder Pads" Adler says: "In that crazy, mixed-up time in our lives known as the ‘80s, nothing really seemed to make much sense, but why the world decided women should go for the football player look continues to stand out as a point of particular inanity."

Right, well, shoulder pads weren't so hot, but I think that they didn't just come out of nowhere. I believe that back in the 80s, women were still kinda breaking into the professional world, and in an (ugly) effort to be taken seriously in a male dominated career, they made their shoulders more masculine. Because, as we all know, to this day, pay grade is determined by one's shoulder to shoulder measurement.... a sad reality involving glass ceilings.

However! Some people seeking androgyny and futuristic/blast from the past looks seem to be able to pull off these pads. Like the world's current ambassador to pop culture, Lady Gaga.

I personally do not wear them because my shoulders are already somewhat monstrous. Not good for buying blazers, great for equal pay.

3) "Legwarmers" Adler says: "After the juggernaut that was “Flashdance” swept the world, youths everywhere started donning leg warmers, perhaps in a misguided attempt to fool people into thinking they were dancers. Suddenly, these useless little tubes of fabric were available everywhere and in every colour: Speckled leg warmers! Floral leg warmers! Neon leg warmers! The rarely seen but mystical striped ankle warmers! If you were one of the people who wore these to sweaty clubs in the dead of summer, hang your head in shame."

They are not useless! They keep your legs warm! Duh. As a proud owner of at least three pairs of the things (one of which is *gasp* NEON GREEN) I can attest to the veracity of that statement. And if people happen to think I'm a dancer, well so much the better.

But ya, if you wear them to a sweaty club, you're pretty dumb.

4) "Stupid Baby Names" Adler says: "Way before adopting foreign orphans was all the rage, stars were breeding amongst themselves and producing celebuspawn, which they quickly cursed with ridiculous handles."

Agreed. But I will not make fun of the ludicrously named kids because the spawn of famous icons are people too. But seriously, hello parents of these children with o so weird names, why would you do that?

5) "Dressing like your crazy, alcoholic uncle" Adler says: "When Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” came out in 1977, it suddenly became cool to look like a dishevelled dude. Women everywhere copped her style and started wearing socks with high heals (never a good idea), loose-fitting jackets and vests , and developed a taste for ties. Avril Lavigne would later bring back the latter trend and it proved to be equally obnoxious."

First of all, I don't have an alcoholic uncle, but I've got an alcoholic grandpa, and he doesn't dress nearly as well as this Annie Hall character. Second, it has always been cool to dress like a dishevelled dude. Vests and ties are perfectly fine. In fact, I wear them all the time. My only regret is that people sometimes believe that I wear a tie in homage to Avril Lavigne, which is not true in the least. I wore a tie first, thanks very much.

6) "Shoes that look like medieval torture devices" Adler says "Ever since “Gladiator” came out in 2000, designers have been cranking out something that looks like a cross between a shoe and a bondage device and peddling them to unsuspecting women. For some reason, this continues on today and society has yet to realize it looks dumb."
First of all, YAY for bondage.

Second, how did everyone in the world but her miss that memo?

I'll tell you why these are still in fashion: every woman secretly wants to be a dominatrix. So for the women who can't because it is not socially acceptable/they already have a day job, the next best thing is to wear these wild and crazy shoes. I applaud these wild and crazy shoes. They don't look dumb, but they are slightly intimidating (it's the backup plan to the shoulder pads...if your very large shoulders don't get you an equal salary, then beat the shit out of your boss with your medieval torture device that is cleverly disguised as shoes).

They look like they'd be a rather masochistic thing to wear, honestly.

7) "Tiny, little cars suited for clowns, not people" Specifically, Adler is speaking of the Mini Cooper. She says, "The tiny, bug-like auto has remained at the forefront ever since, despite the fact just looking at one diminishes your masculinity by 25 per cent."

I like the Mini Cooper ok? And what this woman is saying is that small cars are associated with femininity, and big cars are for REAL DUDES. Thank you so much for your overt play towards gender stereotyping, Heather. This is how I think: small cars are associated with smart, environment loving people, while big, gas guzzling cars are for the people who obviously have money to burn on filling their stupidly big gas tanks and don't care for the environment. SO.

Also! Clown are people too.

Don't try to tell them otherwise, or they'll kill you in your sleep.

8) "Drag queen makeup" Adler tells of how the 1963 Cleopatra movie sent girls into a tizzy dolling up their eyes with alotta colour and fake eyelashes. And how this is bad.

In case she hasn't noticed, this look for the eyes is quite in style. For girls...guys....little kids who raid their mother's makeup drawer.... everyone, really. Plus, why she be raggin' on drag queens? They are the awesomest. Don't knock Drag Queens or they'll knock you out.

9) "Tight, white, polyester suits"
Adler, shockingly, does not dig these suits. Or John Travolta. She may think that being the mother in Hairspray was a bad thing for him, but I thought it was sosososososo funny.

If I had a suit like that, I'd wear it EVERYDAY.
And I would disco too.
Everyone would say I was sick cause they'd be catching my Saturday Night Fever.

BAM.

10) "Capri Pants" Adler fondly refers to them as "the bastard child of shorts and pants," and asks, "Hey, do you want to make yourself look shorter and fatter in one easy step? Wear some Capris!"

Capri pants are comfy, and great if your street floods just a little and you wanna walk around outside without having to roll your pants up. Also, they are sometimes called "Clam diggers" because people can regularly be spotted digging for clams in them. Again, no pant rolling necessary! Ergo, Capri pants are just fine.

Also, my five foot frame really can't look any shorter, so do I care? Nah.

That's it.

ps. see that tag down there that says "fashion sense"? Well, I bet this is the first and last time I use it.

Song of the Week

2009-06-29T12:32:00.003-04:00

I was finally able to change the song of the week because I'm at work where the internet actually functions. At home of late, I have been restricted to Google searches and it's pretty well a 15% chance that the search result I click on will actually open. I am sometimes able to look at blogges, but I can't comment or post anything.

Anyhoo, Song of the Week is going out to Michael Jackson. The man was as mad as a hatter in his later years, but damn could he sing and dance. You can not deny the dude had talent and then some.

Or you can, but I'll fight you.

post 111.

2009-06-29T09:24:00.002-04:00

One Hundred and Eleven is a great number.

Just sayin'.

And also, sea anemones have invaded puppies. And made them glow.

That's just wonderful, since people have been trying to save space and energy by eliminating the need for night lights for years. So there you go.

And I have tried to publish this post since Saturday about 27 times, but the internet at my house is the shitter. Really, for what you're getting, it is not worth this hassle.

Well. on the Tequila?

2009-06-25T23:58:00.002-04:00

O. Wow.

One year ago this moment, I was getting wasted out of my mind at my aftergrad party. Earlier that day, I said goodbye to high school, stupidly believing that graduation means you can leave behind the kind of drama that high school is full of. Well, you can't, but whatevs...

And thinking about what happened a year ago tonight, I remember why I started this here blogge in the first place. The wild and crazy events of that night ended up growing into the reason I eventually entered as a naive writer into the bloggosphere.

The whole night had a rather surreal feeling. Probably because I was very intoxicated. I learned many lessons that night, learned a lot about myself, and mostly had a bomb time. But by the end of the night, I was thoroughly terrified and mightily relieved.

Some things I learned:
1) People who take Ecstasy with their alcohol are clinically insane for a few hours.
2) Shit happens on crowded buses, and while everyone around you might be completely gone in a drunken daze, they still can see you and remember what happened the next day.
3) Gay guys are extremely fun and low pressure to dance with.
4) Tequila.
5) there are more, but this list is getting annoying.

It was a weird evening. My cousin was visiting from California, so she came with me to Aftergrad. My date and I went to prom and everything together, but were never really together. He had off-handedly asked me to prom during English class one day because he had no date. I had known it was coming and said yes because I wanted a corsage (which he didn't get me anyhow, so what was the point?). The two of us had been going through that awkward time before two people start dating, but we had never actually bothered to start dating. I was minorly interested in him, but looking back, I have a feeling that that interest was mostly to mask the bigger interest I had in someone else.

Anyhoo, the after party began well, despite my deadbeat date. I had a fake ID, so I got an alcohol bracelet, allowing me to spend heinous amounts of money on tiny, overpriced, under-liquored drinks. I discovered Tequila and mostly stuck to straight shots of it. I learned it makes all inhibitions just vanish. Other drinks just kind of mask them, but Tequila, dear God....it's like you can't figure out why you had qualms about doing certain things in the first place. Like any societal pressures, any dos and don'ts nurtured in you, any anything go *poof* and you just act. Am I going to fall asleep against the chest of this guy while still dancing with him? Yes, yes I am.

Fairly early on, a girl started going a little wonky. It looked like she had just managed to overdrink really fast, but as she got stranger and sicker, it was evident she had taken something besides alcohol and we were pretty sure it was Ecstasy, though she denied it the whole time. We brought her to the washroom where she puked and was sometimes seen flailing in an alarming manner, then puked some more. We took care of her in shifts. But then I got really tequila-ed up and forgot about her.

I danced up a storm. I danced with a gay dude who had "officially" come out just about a month or so before graduation (but everyone had known since....well probably since the beginning of high school). I danced with a guy from the year below us who is like 6'2" and moved like he was a giant cushion (which was why I fell slightly asleep....my head only reached his chest area). I danced with a group of friends. I danced with my date for a bit and then watched him dance with my cousin as I disco-infernoed like it was 1969. I danced while waiting in line for liquor. I danced with the girl I had secretly fallen head over very little feet for.

I was so busy dancing that 3am rolled around and people started to file out of the club area to the buses to bring us back to the city, and I didn't notice. About a third of the partiers got on to one of the two buses, the doors snapped shut and it took off. The rest of us were woken from our dancing stupor by raging bouncers screaming at us to get the fuck out of there and on to the fucking buses.

Too many people piled onto the bus. Three or four people to a seat, more lying across people's laps, and more in the aisle. I was sitting with the girl I had been dancing with. In the seat in front of me sat my cousin and my "date". Making out. I was gawking at them, they were seriously going at it. At one point, my cousin turned to me, suddenly realizing through her drunklyness what she was doing and gallantly asked me if I wanted her to stop.

No, I said. Then I was unable to contain myself any longer and I burst out laughing. It was so funny. The subtle irony. By all means, I said, keep at it.

So they did.

And I was sitting with this girl.
.
.
.

Anyways, by the time the bus reached the Perkins restaurant we were to be dropped off at, rumours were circulating. Clearly, drunkeness does not make people blind. My buzz was wearing off slightly and there was a little seed of fear growing in the pit of my stomach. But still, my blood was about 65% tequila and I could ignore the irksome feeling for a while. We got off the bus, and my cousin, girl, and I went into the washroom of the Perkins where the bright light seered our eyes and also revealed the giant hickey on my cousin's neck. Laughing ensued.

And look, there was Ecstasy girl wobbling her way out of the restaurant with....who is that? Her mom. Ouch. Well, she's alive. Insane looking, but alive.

Next morning I was sober and scared out of my wits. How many people saw? How many people did they tell? What the fuck had I been thinking (well obvi, I wasn't thinking, my brain was elsewhere, shacking up with tequila and making bad-judgement babies)? Why did I drink soooooo much tequila? Where does inhibition go when it is forced on vacation by a bombardment of alcoooool? Sure, just about every bus seat had one or two sets of people makin' out, but they wouldn't be the gossip on everyone's lips the next day. There was also a itty-bitty button of relief holding closed my cardigan of fear. Just a little relief cropping up saying the truth....is....goood.

And with my wierd mutant blood, I was not hungover. Small perk.

I scarcely spoke to that girl after that night. My infatuation had been warped into fear and I'm pretty sure, that's a chemical change that cannot be reversed. Fear lead to guilt at not caring about what she might have been going through. Hence the blogge was started as a place to deposit all the swirling ridiculousness going on in my mind.

'I had so much to say, and no one to listen,' (Jerry McGuire, which I am currently watching). I couldn't talk about it with my friends because how would they react?

So, blogge.

Side Note: I can talk to my friends now. Whatta difference a year makes.

PS. That was an annoyingly self-involved poste. I'm truly sorry.

Wisdom

2009-06-25T10:24:00.003-04:00

Hello
Brevity is the soul of wit. And that is all I shall say. Witty, n'est pas?

AHAHA. These are jolly times.

2009-06-24T12:47:00.002-04:00

O my. Someone in India searched "JOLLY FUCKING" (all caps) and low and behold, a Google search where my lovely, misspelled URL is the very first listed search result!

This a milestone in my blogging experience. A proud, proud moment, only slightly tainted with shame at the search term used. But whatevs. Can't have everything.

I'll bet the person was soooo disappointed when they stumbled upon a blogge post about a Christmas song.

~~~~~

In other, less exciting, but more relevant news, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) strike date has been pushed back to allow for talks to continue with the provincial government. The workers' Union wants to change the fact that 60% of the LCBO's workers are part-time, thus not receiving benefits. The government says "Fuck no.*"

For those of you who live outside of Ontario and don't know what the LCBO is, it is basically one of two institutions allowed to sell alcohol in the province. The other its the Beer Store.

Once upon a time there was prohibition in Ontario and other parts of Canada. It didn't last all that long (except for in PEI, where it raged for 48 years of shear hell, from 1900-1948. I'm sure they were fine though...they had their potatoes and Anne of Green Gables to keep them occupied) but in Ontario, when it ended, one of the agreements was that all sale of alcohol would be closely regulated by a government body. I volunteered to be that body, but the LCBO was formed instead.

It's not a horrible thing. There are worse things than the government having a monopoly on the sale of hard liquor. Like, say this. But it's still pretty bad.

Everyone in Ontario was under the impression that at midnight last night, the LCBO would go on strike, thus leaving the population without the lifeblood - I mean, liquor - they can't live without.

Seriously, I've heard that if the average blood alcohol level of the population of Ontario goes below 0.044, the death ray pointed at Toronto is deployed and meese take over the legislature. (This might actually be an improvement though....)

Anyhoo, so last night, thousands and thousands of crazed dependents stormed their local LCBOs and cleaned out their shelves. Ordinary citizens were forced to spend wicked amounts of money on bulk purchases of their favourite liquors. Car trunks were piled high with cases of wine, Vodka, rum, and wierd foreign beers that you can't buy at the Beer Store. By the end of the night, when the commotion subsided and the stores closed, all that could be heard was the whispers of the Ghosts of Liquors past through the vacant shelves. And mournful, banshee-like wails of customers banging desperately on the doors, who had arrived at the store just moments too late.

In Ottawa, the rush wasn't quite as bad as elsewhere, being that we have Hull so near, with its SAQs and Depanneurs (french for "sketchy corner store"), it's grocery stores and Costcos (beer in bulk cases is a marvelous thing). But in Toronto, the threat of a strike loomed with the most dire consequences: Pride Week is right now, with the parade taking place on Sunday, and I'm not sure, but I think they fuel their floats with Cosmos; the garbage collectors are ~~also poised to strike at any moment~~ on strike and the large segment of the population that was planning on riding out the strike and rancid smells by being drunk the whole time might now be forced to move on to plan B - building a ladder up the side of the CN Tower (how that would help, I don't know, but these are the people whose plan A was to be drunk) and we all know how hammers and nails falling from that height can be a nuisance to the people they land on; and of course, the death ray. So the LCBO stores were mad houses.

Said one "19" year old girl to the Star Toronto, "It is very unsettling for university students who worked hard and want to party [but won't be able to do so because they will fall victim to the death ray.]"

The apocalypse has been averted - at least for now.

I'll drink to that.

*I'm paraphrasing. What they actually said was "Fuck no you goddam fucking union. Suck my over-extended budget, you good for nothing - hey is that camera on?"

Few Odd Thoughts

2009-06-24T09:11:00.003-04:00

When life gives me a cantaloupe, I say "What the fuck? Where are my lemons? I was going to make scrambled eggs."

The first place I would loot in a riot would be a pitchfork store. The second would be a torch store. After that, I would slay an ogre.

The worst superhero to be is Mothman. Does he exist? Dear god I hope not, because all he would be good for is flying over and over again into light bulbs (which I'll admit, would be helpful if we were attacked by a SQUADRON OF EVIL GIANT LIGHT BULBS!) and eating the clothes off your enemies (which would be funny, if you cared to see your enemies naked).

I live in mortal terror of being bitten by a radioactive moth and becoming Mothman.

I live in mortal terror of eating the clothes off my enemies.

The plural of "moose" should be "meese"

That is all.

Dumb.

2009-06-23T12:07:00.002-04:00

Life is not like a box of chocolates. It does not come with a map.

It also does not taste all that good.

Hometimes

2009-06-22T17:28:00.002-04:00

Finally. Work day over.

Today felt as speshully long.

I HPLCed the same thing three times.

10:39 PM NOTE: I can still see the graph of the HPLC in my head. I think it is stuck there forever. Whatta waste of space.

Woeful religion

2009-06-22T14:34:00.004-04:00

I was debating whether or not to post this, because it is a rant that sort of fails at reaching a point, but I figured why not? Read on but expect confusion.

My house has been overrun with my extended family this weekend. And for some reason, whenever we get visitors, my mom feels the need to fatten us all by feeding us massive amounts of food periodically throughout the day. Don't get me wrong, it's delicious, but now I feel ill. And my walk feels slightly more like a waddle.

They all gravitated to our house because my little cousin who lives in o-town also (as opposed to most of my family), had her first communion. She's seven years old, the daughter of a broken marriage, not to mention of two parents with vastly different religions: Catholic father and Hindu mother (though religion is not really the reason they separated....that happened mostly because my former aunt is a psychotic bitch of the first water). And already she's being introduced to the tricky world of making decisions about her faith.

I couldn't imagine being in my cousin's position. In my family, sacrements are kind of a big deal. For a little kid, they kinda have the feel of a birthday party.... you get presents (generally with a Jesus-type theme) and your family gathers and you have cake. So you get them, it's exciting and it's what your parents want, and then later in life, when you're my age, you can freak out and realize your religion is a lot more than just bread and wine and a boring hour spent listening to a dude talk every week, and you can either continue on with religion as your bff or you can fumble around trying to decide how exactly you fit in to it all (or don't). Except, in my cousin's case, she has a mother who literally told her she shouldn't get her first communion because she could never be Hindu again.

Which is complete bullshit, she can explore whatever religion she damn well feels like someday when she's old enough to grasp what exactly religion is. Plus it is absolutely irresponsible of her mom to put her own daughter in the position of having to chose her faith. It's like asking her to choose between parents.

She is probably the smartest darn seven year old I've ever met, capable of using reason and judgment beyond her years, but she's just a kid. Seven. To her, first communion is finally finding out what this Jesus-infused bread tastes like followed by presents. Her mother basically told her she would be less acceptable in her eyes if she decided to go through with her dad's religious traditions. How can a mother say make their child feel like they are second class for doing something that half her family wants and approves of but that she really doesn't understand? Even a crazy mother like her?

My cousin has steadily been shying away from Hinduism for some time now, and it's not because she feels Catholisism is more welcoming or logical or that the worshipping space is nicer. No, it's really because her mom is nuts and controlling. So the stories of Ganesha and Saraswati and Rama get associated with a mother who is driving her up the wall.

I found it difficult enough as a daughter of a Protestant father and a wickedly Catholic mother to reconcile the differences between my two parents, and on the surface, the differences in their actual beliefs are almost non-existant. So how my cousin is dealing, I don't know.

When you're little, religion really is defined by your parents. Maybe by your teachers too (especially, if like me, you went to a Catholic school and it was a class you took each year).

As a little kid, I once asked my mom if I could stay home from church that week.

Why? she asked.

Because it's a waste of my time, I said.

She didn't like that. She didn't see that I had faith, that I could have faith, without following dogma and sitting through masses I didn't always listen too. Sure I listened to the readings, because some of them are pretty interesting (I mean, you have to say, a bush that can burn and issue orders to Moses at the same time is pretty awesome), but I would tune out the homily, the parts the mass would fly right over my day dreaming head.

Needless to say, I had to go to church that day. And every week after.

And now I'm just sick of it.

I'm tired of the whole institution.

I'm tired of that fact that despite many people who have their religious belief separate from their political values, there are constantly those who would use Christianity as a fan to keep their political careers aflame.

I'm tired of listening to sermons for the sole purpose of perhaps catching the priest condemning gays, so that I could storm out of the church and never go back.

If I am going to have faith in something, I think it should be on my own terms.

Because I certainly don't care to believe in a God who would despise me for being me. Holy crime of the century. Geeez.

Last week, my brother who is fifteen actually used passages out of the Bible to try and get my mom to let him stay home from church. It didn't work either, in fact, he might as well have said "church is a waste of my time" for all the good his argument did. (it probably also would have helped if he hadn't have mixed up two different bible stories, but whatevs.) He isn't a child anymore but he still isn't "allowed" to make decisions about religion. I guarantee you, once he moves out of my parents' house, he will never go to church again.

Anyhoo, my cousin looked super cute in her little white dress and had a slightly awed look on her face as she went up to get her very first communion. And that's what I like to think about mostly. How much she enjoys it all now. Because I can say with almost certainty that someday she won't.

Wellll, that's all. I couldn't seem to make the rant that was occurring in my head a cohesive argument, so if you made it this far, I commend you.

Song of the Week and 2 days? Song of Six days? gah.

2009-06-21T23:29:00.004-04:00

I'm a failure. I don't remember what day I made the "Song of the Week" link, so I dunno if it's been a week yet or not. Maybe I should just change the song?

All my readers (haha - choke...sigh) will be so disappointed in me if I don't do this link properly every week....that is, if they even noticed it was there in the first place.

I bet it's only been about three days.

My true calling

2009-06-20T23:37:00.000-04:00

O shit.

I'm gonna be a fuckin rapper.

This is definitely the revelation I've been waiting for.

I may have to change my identity though, because droppin' rhymes about growing up in suburbia wouldn't exactly be hardcore. Or interesting, really....

....everyone with cookie-cutter yards - yo ho
i can see naked neighbours through their window - oh!
guess they've never heard of blinds - o no.
or maybe they're just doin' too much blow.

all the houses on the street are the goddamn same
the guy next door doesn't know my name
seven in a row are cuttin' grass again
fuckin noise'll put me out my brain.

And there you have it, the birth of a great artist. I will go far.

Everywhere A Sign

2009-06-18T12:29:00.001-04:00

The signs on the doors in the building where I work make me feel slightly like a secret agent. They are waaaaay coooool, almost to the point where I'm tempted to steal them. But then I think, "if I steal this sign, how will people know that if they walk into this room, they will be bombarded by a massive amount of radiation and/or get test tubes hurled at them by scientists desperate to guard their secrets*?"

There's this one biohazard sign that is cool enough just as it is, but then underneath it it says "Containment Level 2." It made me wonder what could be in there that needs a level two containment. And also, what is a Level two containment? So I looked it up. And here's what could possibly be in that room (it is rather alarming, so if you're easily sent into a hypochondriac-type panic, I suggest you stop reading NOW and go to the hospital complaining of a high fever, a cough, greyish skin tone, and being so irritable you don't want to be held) :

"Risk Group 2 infectious agents include, for example: E. coli; many salmonella; some fungi like ringworm; California encephalitis viruses; human herpes simplex viruses; many influenza viruses; Transmissible Gastro-enteritis of swine; Mouse Hepatitis Virus; and a few parasites."

SWINE? The FLU? HERPES!?

O. My. GOOSHHHHNESSS.

I know what's going on. They are making an incurable, wasting disease in the form of a Herpes/Swine flu hybrid. I knew it.

This is horrible.

Of course, the biohazard signs aren't the only ones that pique my interest. There's this one that says "No Window Washing" and has a squeegee with a big red circle and line around it. I gotta get one of those for my windshield when I drive downtown.

*Happens aaaaalllll the time.

The hazards of Vacation.

2009-06-15T23:59:00.007-04:00

Can you outrun a mudslide? This guy can. Not only can he outrun a mudslide, but also the house and the shed that came with it. It is not surprising though, since he's a Newfoundlander, and they have to run away from moose all the time. I think I'd prefer running from a mudslide.

Hopefully by July the rain will stop in Newfoundland and the mudslides will halt so that when I go there for my family vacation (dear god. family vacation.) I don't get smothered by the land (honestly, I didn't even think it was possible to have mudslides in Newfoundland. Isn't it just a great giant rock?). I should probably get back in shape before we go, just in case I have to run for my life. Or fight off a Viking.

Don't get me wrong, I'm ridiculously excited to go to Newfoundland. But with my family? Not so much. There is going to be lots of driving to see the sights, and someone is going to snap (mom). By the end, everyone will be grumpy, because we're not all that great at spending large amounts of time together.

My dad today even asked if he should bring along the family on his business trip to Vienna, and though I'd lovelovelove to go to Vienna, I said "No no, a thousand times no! Are you crazy? Do you think I'll be able to handle TWO family trips in one summer? It'll be a freakin' miracle if we all make it back from Nfld alive as it is..."

And I'm not sure if I mentionned this, but I'm back in Journalism next year. Not sure if I'm happy about this or not. Surprised yes, but pleasantly so? Dunno.

Do you REALLY need a seatbelt to do barrel rolls?

2009-06-14T23:22:00.006-04:00

NOOO. Well yes, I guess you do actually.

They have clipped the wings of the Snowbirds! The fleet of airplanes, built in the 1960s, has been putting on aerial shows for ages, and it has come to light that they have faulty seat belts. So now they are grounded until they can be fixed (and even once they get better belts, they may be retired permanently because they are SO old).

Now what will we use for airplanes? National Defence may actually not have any other planes. The Air Force may be reduced to hitching together Canada geese and riding on their backs. Though the geese have already proven they're more than capable of bringing down planes, so this may in fact be an upgrade.

O hey, 99th post. Sveeeeet.

wierdssss.

2009-06-14T12:44:00.003-04:00

It took me a day to realize that I wrote two posts yesterday about Penguins. I didn't even mean to.

I actually started to write the former before I witnessed the Penguins win. I guess you could say I had a quasi-premonition.

United: Stanley and Sidney

2009-06-13T22:32:00.005-04:00

O hey so Pittsburgh won the Cup. The Stanley Cup, in case you live under a rock that's not in Canada (incidentally, if you live under a Canadian rock, you still know what the Stanley Cup is).

Good job, it was nice to see 22 year old Sidney Crosby hoisting the Cup. It was the next best thing to a Canadian team actually winning. The best thing would have been if Montreal had won, since the last time they did, it was 1993, and while I was a miniature die hard Canadians fan, I can't remember it at all.

Didja know that Sid the Kid is the youngest captain to ever win the Stanley Cup?

He needs a new nickname. Don Cherry dubbed him Sid the Kid, but that can't last much longer, because our little prodigy is growing up. So I think his name should be "Sidney the Kidney." or "Sidney Bean the Kidney Bean." Though the latter might be a mouthful for the announcer to say whilst commentating the game.

Penguins....

2009-06-13T21:47:00.000-04:00

...just became much more intriguing animals.

Gay penguins? Love it. In your face all you homophobes and definitely-not-homophobic-because-I-have-this-one-gay-friend-but-I-just-can't-approve-of-their-lifestyle (cough Sarah fucking Palin cough) people out there who, from their vast collection of anti-gay arguments, whip out the "human beings are the only species that choose to couple with members of the same sex" argument every so often.

Well, ha. Maybe you can look a high school kid who's struggling with their sexuality in the eyes and tell them what they are feeling is wrong. Maybe you can tell two women in love that they can't get married while simultaneously wearing a sandwich board proclaiming "God Abhors You" (and not subsequently feel like killing yourself because 1- you clearly don't value love, and that would indeed be a miserable existence and 2- you're wearing a fucking sandwich board, and not in a joking, purposefully self-deprecating way. Or for the cashmoney). Maybe you can go through life advocating for such drivel as Prop 8 (not just baring people from rights, but taking them away now) and not feel like you're committing a serious crime. Maybe you're totally cool with all that. Maybe it makes you feel righteous.

But could you live with yourself if you stood before the ridiculously cute, tuxedoed bird and gazed into those beady, little black eyes, so trusting and so innocent, and told him he was going to hell (and don't say anything about animals not having souls, that is sooooo beside the point) for shacking up with his boyfriend in his ice cave? Could you crush his little penguin heart like that?

No, you couldn't. Noone can resist the power of a flightless, tapdancing, ice-dwelling, gay bird.

Or maybs you could.

How could you be so heartless?

Reality's got Nothin' on Fiction.

2009-06-11T21:11:00.001-04:00

You can tell it's summer by the fact that there is nothing to watch on le tele. (In fact that's the only way you can tell these days, since the weather is manic and seems to think it's fall.) So I'll be casting around for something to watch....you know, some dumb, mind-numbing show, because most of my regular shows are on hiatus, but all there is are reality shows.

Ok, I said something mind numbing not mind murdering so that I have to go on a respirator and so on. Sadly, that is what happens when I only find shows like The Whor - er, pardon me, The Bachelor (or The Bachelorette as the case may be), Canada's Next Top Model and Big Brother (is it on every night?).

What's with reality TV taking over the world? Did they have it back at the dawn of television in the umm...20s?.... or was that when the TV was invented and then it really started to catch on in the 50s? I dunno...whatevs.....shows you how much I paid attention in "History and Philosophy of Journalism*." No I think this reality TV bullocks is a new phenomenon. Except there was that one reality thing back in the day....I think it was call Gosh Darn It the TV is Broken, Now I have to Interact with my Family. That show is still running today actually.

Not all reality shows are bad I guess. I quite enjoy So You Think You Can Dance. Canada version or otherwise. I just can't stand Mary Murphy and the way she screams every 17 seconds. It is mildly amusing though, since her face doesn't really move because she eats Botox for breakfast.

Speaking of TV, the Much Music Video Awards (MMVAs) are coming up on the 21st. On the 13th, Much Music starts giving out wrists bands to get into the audience. Midday today, people (I'm guessing those who are members of the Cult of the Jonas Brothers. They are co-hosting. Ick-o-rama) began lining up in downtown Toronto to get them. Really hardcore people with couches and tents and games to pass the time.

I was debating going down to Toronto to get a wristband, because Lady Gaga is performing. That thought lasted about seven seconds, from the start of the MMVAs commercial until the point when they jubilantly announced that the Jonas Hoes would be there. Not even for Lady Gaga could I fathom subjecting myself to an evening of those purity ring wearing posers and their teeny-bopper fanatics. I'd puke. Or die.

I'd totally wait in line for a day and night if it weren't for those Jonas Hoes being there. It would be like camping out in the city. In downtown Toronto. Slightly scarier than camping in Ottawa, but much less scary than camping in say, New York City. Hey, you know what the difference between camping in the wild and camping in New York is? Well in the wild you need bear spray, and in NYC, you need a gun.

*without a doubt the most useless, required waste of my life, EVER. I think the goal of the prof was to prepare us should we ever in our future journalism careers find ourselves transported through time and space back to ANY other era....we'd know the hot methode of communication of the day and would be able to seamlessly continue our jobs despite being in the middle of Renaissance Italy [printing press WOOT] or Prehistoric Anywhere [grunts and clubs YAY] or 14th century North America [smoke signals and "the oral tradition"]

Head Butt.

2009-06-09T23:19:00.002-04:00

I have this thing, it's called Dunnowheremyheadends Syndrome. It's hereditary. Its symptoms include large bruises on my forehead, swollen bumps under my hair, and loud thunks followed by a string of obscenities. And also embarrassing moments when I get out of my car at work and plow head first into the door frame. People are always around when this happens.

Can I get a What What up in here?

2009-06-08T23:33:00.003-04:00

One bridge down. Or I mean up. Or you know, s'all good, yo.

Afterward, I came home to find a pile of colourful little rubber bits in the living room and was informed it was my brother's "parsley" he made by shredding about a hundred water balloons with his safety scissors.

My question is, who does he want to choke to death with his rubber spices?

June 9 Update: His plan was actually to hold the rubber bits over his older brother's head and threaten to drop them if he didn't let him use the computer in three....two....one....

Um...I think you're on fire.

2009-06-08T15:58:00.006-04:00

I'm going to attempt to mend a bridge over coffee tonight that I somehow burned the fuck down last month. I'm not even sure why it went up in flames....I set such a small fire (translation: what I did wasn't even all that bad, but whatevs).

I apologized and everything quite some time ago, but these two self-proclaimed non-grudge holders are really really hanging on to this grudge. There are some other people who are pissed at me for some reason or another, and if I may let the bitch in me out for a moment, whatever I did to them (and I can't actually remember because I was quite intoxicated) they had it coming. Trust me, they soooo did.

I'm not vindictive, but they really pissed me off.

I'm kind of wondering now if it's even worth it to try and repair these friendships....this particular group of friends is quite judgmental sometimes and it drives me a tad up the wall. O well, we shall see, won't we?

Anyhoo, bridges are stupid. Who builds a bridge for a relationship anyways? Really, if you want it to last, make a goddamn road.

My music at Work

2009-06-08T13:10:00.008-04:00

If I was a rock star, I would be a cross between Emily Haines, Elton John, and a Tickle Me Elmo on crack. I would sing like Emily (not really but a girl can dream can't she?), dress like Elton (sometimes) and go nuts like an Elmo (always).

I would also just in general be like David Bowie. Freak out in a moonage daydream, ooooo yeah.

I reserve the right to change my mind about what kind of hybrid rock star I would be at any time.

You could probably throw some Viking into the mix too.
I would wear horns.

Sleep evades me

2009-06-07T01:58:00.004-04:00

I am bored and I can't sleep. I can't write. I can't even play the piano because that would wake up everyone in my house.

And my friend just drunk IMed me saying she got back from a "mini ewr ofehtger" (translation: a mini get together), and it was "sicjjjjj" (meaning "sick") and that she wishes that a friend of hers (not me) had have been there.

O great. Thank you so much for telling me all about a party you didn't invite me to, and then wishing that some person was there. It's so nice of you to take five minutes between getting home and passing out to tell me what I missed.

Fuck life in general.
I'm going ot get the wine out of my closet.
I am literally a closet alcoholic ahahaha.
Just kidding.
But not really.
But really.
But not.

So what does THAT mean?

2009-06-06T23:28:00.001-04:00

I'm on a bit* of a Lady GaGa kick these days. Consequently, my ten year old brother is too. He always seems to pick up on my musical obsessions and take them on himself. Like with Alanis Morissette, Neil Young, that song by Sublime "Wrong Way," Metric, Johnny Cash, Elton John..... MJ's "Billy Jean" and a whole lot more.

So lately he's been prancing around the house singing "Boys Boys Boys," a song off GaGa's album The Fame. Here is a sample of the lyrics:

I like you a lot LOT
Think you're really hot HOT....

Boys boys boys
We like boys in cars
Boys boys boys
Buy us drinks in bars...

And so on. This coming from a boy who says, and I quote "My first priority is girls, my second is getting in shape to impress them." Alas, I find him a child of many contradictions haha.

I mostly just get a kick out of him liking the music I like (and sometimes he learns the songs just from hearing me sing them at home), but not only does he run around the house (and everywhere else) singing these songs, he also asks me questions about them. And when the artist has an album full of mature (or immature, depending on how you look at it) content, the questions can be hilariously awkward at best, and bordering-on-corrupting-his-mind at worst.

They can be really specific too...

[line from Metric's Succexy: "Every ten year old enemy soldier thinks falling bombs are shooting stars, sometimes, but she doesn't make wishes on them."]
Brother: Why would a bomb be like a shooting star and why is an enemy soldier only ten years old? What does Succexy mean?
Valid questions and easy to answer. And he's not one of those kids who asks questions and then doesn't care about the answer. He actually listens, so I can get all philosophical and whatnot, something that if I do with other people, it drives them up the wall.

{EDIT: That line is actually from Metric's IOU . My mistake. Both songs are really good.}

[line from Lady Gaga's Paparazzi: "We're plastic but we still have fun."]
Brother: What does she mean by plastic people having fun?
Again, not an awkward question. Easily dealt with.
Me: Well, she means that she is fake, people are fake and have fake personalities when they go out to clubs and so on they just put on a mask and... no not a real mask, a figurative mask.... and on some superficial level, it's all still fun.
Brother: O I thought it meant people with plastic surgery.
Me: Sure that too.

But then his little ears begin to pick out words and phrases he is not familiar with and he starts asking for definitions...

[line from LG's Pokerface: "...'Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin"]
Brother: Sister, what's a muffin?
Not quite so easy anymore. But I decide it's better for him to know what it really means, so he doesn't get up in front of his class and sing that song, because, trust me, he would totally do that kind of thing. He's the biggest drama queen I've ever met.
Me: It's a vagina.
Brother: (uncontrolable laughter). So how do you lie with a.... that thing?
Me: I dunno. She just doesn't love the guy I guess. (This is not exactly what it means, but I wasn't about to get into the whole thing when she said she thought of women when she slept with her old boyfriend.)
Brother: O ok. (thoughtful pause) Is she a prostitute?
Me: No. Well...no.

So my parents weren't too pleased with me divulging that kind of information to my brother. I could tell by the look on their faces (slightly aghast with eyes oogling like pairs of googly eyes), since they were sitting in the same room as us. So next time I got a question like that, I censored myself.

[line from LG's LoveGame: "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick."]
Brother: What's a disco stick?
Me: It's umm... this cane-like stick that Lady Gaga has that has a light-up crystal on the end and she uses it during her shows as a prop. She um.. dances with it.
That wasn't even a lie. She has a stick like that, but that is most definitely not what she is talking about in the song. But my dad was in the car with us when the question was asked, and he was wearing that look on his face like "dear Godddd....why does this music exist?" so I thought I would filter my words for his benefit.

At least my father has the good sense not to say something like "O this pop music will never last." He learned from his dad's mistake. As a child he was told that this Rock and Roll business will fade out as sure as anything, and that people will be listening to Hank Williams long after Rock has died and been forgotten. (To which I answer, who is Hank Williams?)

*slight understatement

I am the Scientist.

2009-06-04T22:33:00.000-04:00

Today, I ventured out of the office, away from lists and carbohydrate pamphlet designing, and into the lab! The real lab, where they boil water for more than making just coffee and instead of mini-fridges with half-eaten, slightly rotten lunches in them, there are massive, -80 degrees Celsius freezers with live cell cultures in them (I think).

I got to run the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) thinger, which is kinda like a big, ubber expensive sifter, except instead of panning for gold, you're trying to get a particular pure product out of a mix of other byproducts of your reaction. And instead of a pan it's a metal column with silica gel inside that separtates different things blah blah blah.... ok so it's really nothing like panning for gold, because panning for gold would be more interesting. At least there would be fish in the river. There are no fish in the HPLC. I hope.

[Click on the link for a description of HPLC that may or may not make more sense than the gibberish I just spouted]

So instead of starring at my computer screen in the office, I starred at the computer screen in the lab, watching the progression of the HPLC. Mesmerizing stuff, it really is. It is pretty much like watching a line graph slowly forming across the screen. Whenever the line formed a peek, I had to collect the solution coming out of it in a test tube. I dunno what it was.

When it was all collected, I got to FREEZE DRY it. Like astronaut food. Except if you ate whatever it was that I freeze dried, I'm not sure, but you might die.

I am banging my head against the wall for Two reasons:

2009-06-03T11:27:00.006-04:00

the friction keeps my head warm, and I am bored like a bored thing on boredom tablets.

I am at work, "working" but mostly just freezing my ass off. It is so cold in this "building." It is my belief that it is really a fridge masquerading as an office building. I also believe that if I ever use quotation marks in speaking like I just used them above, I will punch myself in the face.

The people who control the climate in this place need to turn off the AC. Haven't they realized that June has come but the heat has failed to come with it? Seriously. This is like living through the longest March of my life, followed by a never ending April.

It is so cold in here that I need to periodically take walks through the halls just to get my blood to circulate properly. It is so cold I make coffee 17 times a day just so I can hold a warm mug. It is so cold, the temperature is inducing hibernation....I feel like I've died and they decided to cryogenically freeze me.

They say an uncomfortable work environment makes people more productive (or at least Better Off Ted says that) but I am here to say that is false. Sooooo false. Look at me. I'm so uncomfortable, I've decided to proclaim it through the internets, and the amount of time I spend meandering through the corridors must add up to the equivalent of several lunch breaks, not to mention the amount of coffee I'm drinking makes me a complete spaz and induces a severe form of ADHD. And also -

O MY GOSH there are so many chemicals on this list! It NEVER ENDS. Well, actually, it just did. I finished it. For the past few days I've been making a table of generic drug names and their chemical structures. It was tedious and long and sososososoooo boring. On the bright side, I now know that Viagra is actually Sildenafil citrate and it looks like this:

It doesn't look very blue to me....

I wonder what boredom tables would look like.......

Edit: And when I say "tables" I mean tablets.

Merry Jolly Fucking Christmas

2009-06-01T05:55:00.003-04:00

My new favourite Christmas song. Nevermind that it is nowhere near Christmas... this song can be listened to at any time of the year.

I'm not sure, but something about the song tells me it's not actually about Christmas.... something in the way GaGa says "Ho Ho Ho" makes me think she's not referring to the jolly laugh of a giant bearded man in red who sneaks into your house at night and eats your food.

Maydaymayday,

2009-05-31T23:45:00.004-04:00

May is nearly over and it has sucked weather-wise.

If anyone wants to tell me that climate change does not exist, I would like to punch them in the face. Or at the very least say degrading things about them until they cry and take it back.

I tell you, May has proven itself to be the new April. All rain and cold, all the time. It used to be "April showers bring May flowers." But now the saying would be more apt to say "April's alternating snow and 30 degrees Celsius temperature, bring a May that sucks for sure."

I sincerely hope June brings some heat because I would really like to get outside and sun damage my skin.

Just Work. (warning: written under the influence of massive amounts of coffffffeeeee)

2009-05-29T18:04:00.003-04:00

Work sucks, but at least I get to dance in my swivel chair whilst I do it.

People see, but I don't care, because 1) I am trying desperately to make organizing lists and lists of chemical formulas interesting (and that takes coffee and Lady GaGa), and 2) I am surrounded by nerds and deep down they are envying my chair dancing skills.

ps. I'm not saying I'm not a nerd, I'm just a nerd who also has exceptional dance capabilities.

pps. CONGRATULATIONS to my one follower (and likely the only person to read this, but whatevsss) Luke on being a dad now.

ppps. see what I just did there? I just directed Luke back to his own blogge.

You tryin' to be funny? Part II

2009-05-27T15:37:00.004-04:00

Yes.

I am seriously considering trying my hand - or mouth I suppose - at stand up.

Trouble is, I'm not sure if I'm all that funny. I mean, if I was on a stage in front of a crowd of people expecting something hilarious to come out of my mouth, would something hilarious come out of my mouth?*

I've been spending a lot of day dreaming hours trying to come up with a set. Or at the very least some promising material that could be coaxed into a stand up sketch. But nothing was coming right away, so I thought maybe if I YouTubed some comedians, ideas would just come to me as I watched them. AND THEY DID!.....

....evidently, none of the ideas were mine.

*Bare in mind, puke is not hilarious.

Jobless (but not actually)

2009-05-27T15:28:00.002-04:00

I had an over the phone interview today for a position at Rona, the Home and Garden Centre. I totally sold myself except for the part when the woman said they couldn't hire me because I am not available week days. Because of my day job.

And you know what they say, don't quit your day job for a different one unless the other one is guaranteed more pay. Or at least that's what I say.

And I so wanted to be a "How To" person!

O BTW...

2009-05-26T16:50:00.002-04:00

I passed my in-car test. Barely apparently.

The woman said I nearly blew it with my parallel parking. But whatever, say I, I will never need to parallel park again (that is a lie, most likely) and I only learned how to do it the day before the test.

I will now no longer be breaking the law when I drive alone.

Alas, the thrill is gone.

At heart, they are hormonal preteens, I swear.

2009-05-26T16:47:00.002-04:00

My parents like to play mind games with each other. They are not fun and there is no winner. My mom's new favourite is called "Emasculating my Husband with Passive Aggressive (emphasis on the aggressive part) Low Blows." She is really good at it.

Kind of almost makes me live in terror at the idea of ever having a girlfriend. Because women are crazy beings.

My Padre on the other hand is more a fan of "How Can I Absentmindedly Piss Her Off?" He is quite by accident good at it. I can't help but wince whenever he accidentally enters into this game because I know he won't realize until it's too late.

For example, yesterday they were chatting with some friends of theirs and my dad mentioned he was going to be in Indianapolis for a week on business. Well, I saw my mom's eyes narrow and her jaw clench a bit, and I guessed that he hadn't told her about the trip. I was right.

All I could do then was slap my forehead in an exasperated and pitiful manner and back away from the situation so as not to feel the full, biting effects of the sarcastic comments that were to ensue.

So ya, it would be funny if I didn't have to witness it through a hazmat suit.

You tryin' to be funny?

2009-05-23T01:40:00.004-04:00

If I was a comedian, I would like to be a cross between Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen Colbert, and a Viking. Because as I've recently stated, Vikings are fucking hilarious.

Plus, if the audience wouldn't laugh at me I could just coherce them with my giant thunder hammer. Then dazzle them with my sarcastic wit. Then dance.

It would be the most perfect set ever. By the end, the audience would have forgotten all about me beating the shit out of them at the beginning.

The only thing that could make it any better would be just a touch of John Cleese (oooer haha) and a smidgen of Billy Shakespeare. Because, really, who hasn't read Hamlet and laughed like a mad loon the entire time? It's just one funny situation after another. And then (*spoiler ALERT*) everyone dies.

And now for something completely different.

Atlantic Cod.

2009-05-22T10:44:00.004-04:00

On Wednesday I saw Joel Plaskett in concert. He is not only amazing, but also super-duper. Just watch this. Brilliant and a tad wicked, n'est pas?

And I'm a big fan of buying made in Canada, so the fact that he was made in Canada is a bonus fo sho. Ha.

He's from the East Coast. I love the maritimes. I always wish I had been born there or lived there for a period of time so I could say I'm an East Coaster. They're just so nice and have the greatest laid back sense of humour (a dangerous generalization, I know, but whatever)....but their funniness may also have something to do with the accents they have. It doesn't matter, you could be the nicest person in the world, but if you were in a Kind Person competition against an East Coaster, they would win by default.

Which is kind on funny since Newfoundland was first settled by Vikings, who had a great sense of humour.... if you're into brutally pillaging villages and angry, hammer wielding gods. But even they couldn't handle living on a great giant rock, so they packed their horned helmets and braided beards and hit the road.

At one point during the show, Joel shouted "Any one here from out East?" and I almost, very nearly screamed "YAAA" along with a big portion of the audience. But a restrained myself. Barely.

It's just that saying I'm from Ontario is so ver ver boring, and anyone not from here basically hates it because, historically, governments have furnished trade policies and such that benefited Ontario manufacturers and made everyone else (farmers...lumber-jacks....and um, fishermen) poorer and poorer. Or maybe they don't hate it because of that, but rather because some stupid obnoxious Leaf fans make us all look dumb. And Senators fans are so busy jumping on and off "their" team's bandwagon it's ridiculous. I dunno.

But no I'm not a manufacturer. I don't build cars. I don't live anywhere near Toronto, thank you very much. Despite living in Ottawa, I don't have a government job and I'm not in high tech. I don't work for Nortel (but then really, who does anymore? O that's right, they're all in China).

So yes, I'd rather be a Newfoundlander, even though they are the runner ups just after blonds for being the butt of a joke.

Shut up and drrrrrrive.

2009-05-19T23:51:00.003-04:00

O shit. Today is Tuesday isn't it? It is. And in less than a week I have a driving test....and I don't know how to drive.

I mean, of course I know how to drive, I've been doing so for nearly two years. But I just know that the dude who tests me will fail me for something stupid like not putting my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, or not doing an over the shoulder check when entering a turning lane that just started and couldn't possibly have a car in it yet, or giving an idiot driver the finger.

Hmm...that last one especially could be a problem. Ha.

Stupid graduated licences.

It's hard to write with bitter fingers.

2009-05-17T04:14:00.002-04:00

I'm writing a book. Or at least I'm trying to.

I have no idea where it is going, but the first chapter is done.

It even has a tentative title. Someday if it ever gets done, anyone who reads this blogge will recognize the title. Maybe.

And I'm just a little bit drunkly.

Ketchup and Mustard.

2009-05-16T23:27:00.005-04:00

You know what makes me angry? The news.

I may have mentioned this before, but I think it warrants being stated again: media are all too often just fear mongering pundits either seeking to be the lap dogs of the sitting government, or to be the personal critic to those in power. And when I say critic, I mean in the they-watch-their-every-move-for-nit-picky-things-they-can-call-them-out-on-like-what-they-put-on-their-burgers way, and not the watch-dog-pointing-out-relevant-flaws-in-the-way-they-govern way.

Take for instance the recent Obama burger ordering fandango. I mean, Dijon mustard for heaven's sake! For REALS? Is there nothing better that the news can waste their time talking about? Laura Ingrams like ripped him apart for *gasp* NOT PUTTING KETCHUP on his burger and opting for "elitist" type mustard! Is he even American if he doesn't get ketchup on it? And she was dead serious about it. She was appalled or something.

And what's really, painfully stupid is that the media reprimands Obama for going out to a burger joint for lunch with his ol' pally Joe, saying "O look, Obama looking for a photo op. He's trying to show he's just a regular guy, He's trying to show he's not elitist (and failing...Dijon mustard! Geeeez), he's blah blah blah...." But who is making this a photo op? Who is making it a big deal when it reeeeallly doesn't need to be? Who is turning a hunk of beef with mustard on it into the top story on the six o'clock news?

Dear Media, what you must realize, is that it takes two to tango, so to speak. When Obama gets a regular old cheddar cheese burger, it's not a story unless you make it one. SO DON'T. Fuck.

This is a trend I see mostly on American news, but I think it's unfortunately making its way into Canadian media as well. Bum and doubly so.

So ya. Journalism is looking like less and less of an appealing job these days. whatever. I think I could do my own thing. Work for a non-conglomerate, non-profit, non-American owned alternative media outlet perhaps. I think the point is moot anyways since I'm in all likelihood going to get the boot from the journalism program.

But I don't care. It's full of pretentious brown nosers anyways.

But I actually do care. I have no idea what else to do.

Maybs I'll take history.

But then my parents (both with chemistry backgrounds, one with a PhD and one with a Masters. I was kinda destined for sciences until I kicked destiny into a dumpster and chose Journalism) would really make fun of me. They already think that since I'm an "arts" student, they had it WAY harder than me and that half my credits are jokes. History would send them into a fit of alternating horror and laughter from which they would never recover, and I would never hear the end of.

I shall think more on this subject once I have actually been told if I am a failure or not. Gee I can't wait.

several useless comments

2009-05-14T09:22:00.004-04:00

I have nothing much to say today. Just thought I'd say that. You know, to fill a line in an otherwise meaningless post.

I'm not sure what the point of my blogge is... I think - though I can't be sure - that it had one when I started it. But alas, the point seems to have evaporated and fluttered away on the wind like some sort of evaporating butterfly.

Could you imagine if there were such a thing as an evaporating butterfly? Would it also be able to condense? I suppose if it evaporated it would first have to melt... could it also sublimate? Hmmm... these are the fundamental questions of life people (I think I may have said that exact sentence about some entirely different set of questions once upon a time). I expect answers.

On this day in 1643, Louis XIV became the King of France. He was four.
Just thought you oughta know.

Here comes the bride.

2009-05-12T15:32:00.004-04:00

I spent a lovely weekend with all the members of my insanely large family. Like really, all of them. We were all together because my aunt got married. It was very nice. My personal favourite part of the ceremony was when the lady who did the first reading stepped down from the lectern and knocked it over. Which knocked over a giant candle. Which fell through the air spilling wax all over the floor before it caught the bride's veil and brought her down too. The veil never came off her head though. Not with the buckets of hairspray and 87 thousand bobby pins they used to keep it on.

No one was hurt. But I did nearly have a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Which could have ended badly.

I think it all just added a certain flair of ridiculous hilarity to it all.

My cousins and I all decided that people in our family need to get married more often, because weddings are just so darn fun. If no one gets married in the reasonably near future, we're going to have a fake wedding. All the getting drunk and mad wedding dancing without any of the commitment. Sounds good, don't it?

BOOO.

2009-05-07T23:28:00.001-04:00

Grandaddy Blackberry (aka Balsillie) is going to get jock-blocked by the NHL.

Fuck you Garry Bettman.