Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
Art Begets Art

Every so often a day comes along that happens to wind up being very low-key. Today was such a day. I must also add that I wish my current ill health could have also been low-key.

On a brief tangent, I have been suffering the most grievous back & neck pain thanks to checking the no less than 150 pieces of luggage that are in our store. Bear in mind this luggage on one wall runs floor to ceiling. And some of the heavy not-so-little buggers have anywhere from 1-4 other smaller pieces of matching luggage inside of them, so carting them up and down and twisting them all around to make sure they had a store SKU tag did not sit well with my spinal cord.

Compounding that has been what I can only describe as near blinding, oh-dear-God-I-think-I-can-see-God-and-He's-in-Old-Testament-Wrath-and-Pain-Mood migranes, which naturally have not been helped by my back and neck. It could very well have to do with what I think is a developing sinus cold. In any case, when I wake up with my neck feeling like hell and fall asleep with my temples banging their own taiko drums inside my skull, I don't have much left in terms of mobility, stamina or cheerfulness.

Which brings us to the real motivation behind this little bit of nowhere. Today marks one of the few true days off I've had in...oh, about 2 months. For once there was no one to see, and nowhere to race off to. Mel & I slept in, and for the most part stayed in; I for one enjoyed the quiet. Granted I would have enjoyed it a great deal more had there not been the urge to rip out the offending vertebrea and muscles from my spine and drill holes in my skull to make the migraine-loving pain go away.

Then along came this link, courtesy of Neil Gaiman's journal. It's an Italian short, wholly CG (at least that's my guess here), and is based off one of M.C. Escher's mobius-twisting woodprints. The graphics and visuals are beautiful. The accompanying piano is beautiful. In a day hampered by pain-induced grimaces, this made me smile.

I pass it on to you. It's nothing extraordinary, but perhaps that's exactly what does make it so. Presenting The Link of the Day:

http://www.etereaestudios.com/docs_html/snakes_htm/snakes_movie_index.htm


posted by Phillip at 6:23 PM

 
Inspired By True Events

Today found me oddly inspired as I enjoyed a quiet morning before work as I cleaned out my Email Inbox, listened to the new Meatloaf CD, and conspired in some writing ideas. Which does beg the immediate question: just what the hell kind of muse inspired me to do what you're about to read of?!

I'll be short and succint for Today's Lesson: you cannot breathe Calvin Klein's Contradiction for Men colonge as you would air.

The altercation happened as I was getting ready for the afternoon/evening work shift. There I was, just having finished shaving. And very happy to now have a bottle of cologne (thanks to Mel at Commercialmas), I lifted the nozzle towards the underside of my chin, and tilted my head up.

Perhaps I should have seen this coming. I've never been great with hand-eye coordination. All my projects in Shop class had small rippling curves whenever straight lines were called for. Even rulers or those braces for tablesaws couldn't save me.

Getting back to the offending spray nozzle, I spritzed some nice-smelling cologne onto my neck and the underside of my chin. The rest of the nice-smelling cologne was spritzed right up into my nose. In all honesty, having Contradiction sprayed up one's nasal passage is a rather unique experience, and I highly recommend you to never try it unless you're really, really bored.

I hacked and gagged and made ridiculous faces, and remarked things like, "Oh, that's not right!" And after laughing at my predicament for a good two minutes, Mel finally asked if I was all right. By then my nostrils were smelling more fragrant than any other man's on the planet. I was still not impressed.

At the very least, I can rest assured that while glue-sniffing and gasoline-sniffing are still dangerous & easy ways to get high, I doubt that cologne-sniffing will ever be an avenue addicts turn to.

I'm always a guy who will try most anything at least once. With any luck, the almighty lightning bolt of stupidity will not strike this proverbial tree twice the next time I pick up that bottle....




posted by Phillip at 7:17 PM

 
And the prognosis is....

Apparently it's a retail faux pas to introduce a customer to earmuffs by saying to them, "And here we have three basic styles: zebra-stripes, black, and chicken pox."

But in my defense, the earmuffs are white with red spots all over them. If they're not contagious, I'll be greatly surprised. Come to think of it, perhaps this explains why I've been feeling ill at work lately. I wonder if Workman's Compensation will buy the notion that an employee has been infected by a pair of earmuffs....

Thought of the Day: if you're attending a Catholic church that is patently lying to its congregation, does that mean you're a member of a Church of the Immaculate Deception?


posted by Phillip at 8:02 AM

 
The Anaconda & The Aardvark
(or, "Aesop Would Have Been Proud")

After a 5-day excusion to see the in-laws, two respectively 9-hour car trips to get us there and back, and followed up nicely with what will shape up to be a 7-day stint at work, and some sort of virus that's managed to render me near ready to pass out if I was standing, I'd say...something. Probably something quirky and poignant, which would sound like a half-assed excuse for this little bit of nowhere being so damned late, but my mind's still swirling around thanks to meds and exhaustion.

But what can be said is that I have learned the following things in the last week:

--the downtown core of Hartford, CT. never wants you to leave it. I don't know how, but they have somehow managed to ensure that finding any exits leading onto the turnpikes, interstates and highways that take you of town is nigh impossible.

--Canadian customs greeting us with a temporary visa for Mel: good. Canadian weather greeting us with lots of snow as we crossed the border: not so good. (and for some reason, the snow stayed on the Canadian side; the weather was perfect for driving all the way through the States)

--last week I ran a kiosk. This week I'm running a little table.

--nothing livens up a quiet, empty mall on a Thursday morning like a violent catfight between two teenage girls cursing, kicking and throwing each other into large metal signs. Who won the fight in the end? The security guard.

Today's Non-Sequitur Movie Title: I Was A Teenage Barbie Doll.


posted by Phillip at 7:38 PM

 
"No More Drugs For That Man!"

Already the new year has proven that while I'm not the type to make any sort of half-assed resolutions, intentions I'd had have been discarded left, right and just-shy-of-centre.

Right now, Mel & I are in Connecticut visiting her folks. And it is very cold. I find it most peculiar and disturbing to say that it's colder down here right now than it was up in Canada. This makes no sense. There is more snow and lower temperatures here than I've seen up in Kitchener and Toronto the last 2 winters.

The word of the day might as well be: Whaaaaa?

It always makes for interesting stories when, during the 8-hour drive down to CT you experience the following: the border guards being worried that Mel was trying to smuggle me into the U.S. to work illegally (um...riiiiiiiight); ridiculous conditions where you can see perfectly down the road one second, and suddenly for the next two minutes it's a pure white-out on the road (and the whiteouts continue for the next 2 hours of travel); and a morning so bloody cold that Mel's car won't start as we leave the hotel we stopped in about halfway through the trip, and were forced to spend 3 hours tracking down a nice garage to warm her car up, jumpstart the battery, and then replace the battery since it was pretty much shot to shit anyways. Happily, though, it should be added that the hotel manager and garage mechanics were incredibly friendly and generous guys who deserve many accolades and a free round of coffee.

But I was not about to let all this Amercian hospitality go unrewarded. Which brings us to the captioning for this little bit of nowhere. Not two days ago, I swore I would never be caught singing in a karaoke bar. Oooooh, how I rue such words. It all began two nights ago when Mel's family had us sit down to play Karaoke Revolution. Think DDR with a headset. Now I'm not one to boast, but I am quite proud of the fact that in doing such elegant renditions of I'm Coming Out, The Wind Beneath My Wings and Complicated, I managed to kill 3 consecutive audiences.

No one had ever seen anything like it. I swear if there was a secret "Crucify" option you could unlock in the game if you were that horrible, I'd have been nailed up in about 30 seconds. This special talent did not go unnoticed by Mel's family; last night they took us tp a karaoke bar, one they frequented along with about 15 other regulars.

They signed me up to sing. So I came, I saw, I sang Brittney Spears' Baby One More Time. The Karaoke MC of the night even said before I got up, "Now this one I have to see to believe!"

Of course, I'm not a sadistic bastard, so I did issue the following warning to the bar patrons: "Hello, I'm Phillip, and I'll be playing the part of Brittney Spears tonight. Now just to warn you all, the following singer will sing notes that some sensitive views may find offensive. Listener discretion is advised."

And there the music went. I boldly sang in the gimpiest falsetto voice I could muster. I strutted about like I had no shame. Then just for larfs I switched voices and sang the second verse like I was more flaming than the entire cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Many of you reading this can only laugh and say, "Yes, he has no shame", "Yes, he would do something like that", and the natural, "And they let you live because?"

Now perhaps this will boggle you all more than anything else about this account: the audience loved it. People were applauding and cheering and whistling. I received standing ovations. The waitress in the bar area went into the restaurant area to snag other staff members and bring them in to see me deliberately butcher the song. A woman ran up during the final round of the chorus, and shoved a dollar bill into my pants' pocket.

Mel claimed the dollar. (After all, to quote Sana, she is my manager, my lover and my pimp!)

If you are not yet afraid, consider then the aftermath of my singing: everyone was commenting on how Karaoke Nights had never been so lively. Everyone was singing, dancing, and deliberately picking songs contrary to their personality or age. It didn't stop at all. I'd created a monster, and gleerfully unleashed it upon the neighbouring villages.

However...there was one distinctive downside to all this. I am indignant at knowing that right after me, a gentleman made more money than me by singing David Lee Roth's Just A Gigolo. He easily cleared $3, the nerve!

Today's Lesson: snow should stay around Christmas and ski resorts.


posted by Phillip at 9:33 AM

 
The Loo of the Damned

Tonight, they've been fixing the water pipes. And so for about 2-3 hours the water (both hot and cold) was turned off. It has since been restored, and in record time too...as opposed to one session before Christmas, where they reassured us the hot water would be back on by 9am, and sometime around 3:30pm hot water was returned to us.

I rejoice for the water. However, as a result of them flushing the pipes, all the water has a quality that could best be described as: murky. Come to think of it, that's the polite way of saying it. So far, the bathtub and sink water is clear again, but the toilet water still has a healthy rust-looking sheen to it.

Staring down at a toilet bowl with this colour of water unnerves me. I cannot help but fear that the last person to use might have been perhaps the most unfortunate woman to have a period this world has ever seen.

That, or it reminds of a bathroom out of a Resident Evil or Silent Hill game. There's this reddish, blood-rust ocean obscuring the otherwise white porcelain bottom, and I am terrified to think of what either died in it or what unearthly zombie hand is going to come shooting out of it should I venture too close.

This is the sort of thing those really scary games or RPGs are made of:

"Galstaff, you have enterred the bathroom to the north. You are now by yourself, standing in the dark room. The pungent stench of mildew eminates from the wet bathroom walls."

"I cast a spell on the toilet! I'm going to cast Magic Missile!"

And so for the time being, I warily cast a glance down the hallway to the bathroom's direction, hoping that the murky water in the toilet isn't burbling away conspiratorially at me. Sure, you could call me paranoid, but if a toilet happens to try and eat you whilst you're unsuspecting, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Well...technically you can blame the toilet too...but that's not really the point here. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what the point of this little bit of nowhere is. Upon further reflection, I don't even think this had a point to begin with. Oh well, it still doesn't change the fact that the colour of the toilet water is making me leery.

Bollywood Karaoke Update: there has been no unintelligible crooning through the walls for the last week. At least during the evening. It would appear that, according to Mel, they have switched Karaoke Hour from the evening to the afternoon. She's still not impressed.


posted by Phillip at 8:34 PM

 
The Cat Ate My Hat (and other pointless feline stories)

Well, truth be known it's more or less one story with an anecdote grafted onto it. You see, today I went for a new look, a change of face as it were. It was nice to finally have the chance to use my day off...to get a haircut. Thrilling, I know, but happily for me, my head feels lighter (yay, less hair!), colder (ack, less hair!), and now the impressive reduction of those bangs sloping over my forehead allows the scratches on my forehead to be so prominently displayed.

It can only be out of filial love and respect that I help Gary trim the claws on his cat, Sumomo. The little kittybutt seems to have developed a grudging resignation to whenever her legs are seized for a trimming session. Usually she squirms so much that 3 people are required to do the trimming: one to trim, one to help hold her front two paws, and the third to hold the rear legs. All three people share the same fate in the end: claw marks all over them.

Well, Sumomo didn't squirm much. She did, however, meow the most pathetic yowls I have ever heard. She also swiped at us. Gary took a few scratches to the wrist. Thanks to my haircut, people can now see the two different sets of swipes Sumomo managed to get across my forehead. At least they're in the upper corners, so it doesn't look like I got into some horrible fight or a silly accident. But regardless, there are about 3 or 4 small claw marks marring my otherwise merchandisable face.

I fail to be amused.

On the plus side, we have now established thanks to the nail-clipping session that if I glare directly at Sumomo and use my "DON'T EVEN" tone of voice, Sumomo actually listens. Granted she has this sulking, ready-to-slink-away-like-Gollum expression, but when told by me to knock it off, she knocks it off.

Hey, it may be a small, silly victory, but given how this is me here, I'll take whatever victories in life I can get!

Today's Lesson: in a marketing strategy gone horribly awry, I have discovered that Spicy Cajun flavoured Pringles do not taste like spicy cajun food. Instead, they taste like beef-flavoured Ichiban Ramen.


posted by Phillip at 2:47 PM

 
Shinobi Mice

I've been thinking a lot about this concept lately, and think that the world could use a good army of shinobi mice. Check that: I could use a good army of shinobi mice. Why? Well, for starters, the idea of shinobi cockroaches just sounds too silly, yet mention "shinobi mice" to someone, and while they laugh at first, they start to think that it could actually work.

I savour the notion of having an army of ninjitsu mice dressed in small, black uniforms, infiltrating the lairs of noted enemies (which reminds me: add "acquire noted enemies" to my To Do list) and performing all sorts of secret, dirty, underhanded deeds on my behalf. Though while I'm not entirely certain how I can train rodents in the martial arts, or make shuriken darts or stars small enough for them to wield, I feel confident that with enough government grant money, I can succeed.

Not necessarily succeed at the "shinobi mice" proposal, mind you, but with enough capital I'm certain I could succeed at something.

Today's Lesson: it's better to be light-hearted when life gets all weighed down. Not to say that I've got a bouyant personality to accomplish this; I figure it's all that hot air in my head that allows me to rise above the dread and drudgery.



posted by Phillip at 7:55 PM

 
Panties!

And since I know you're all thinking about it: no, they're not Mel's panties I'm referring to.

This past Saturday, I found myself staring forlornly at the kiosk. I wondered at where the New Year's vacation had gone to. However, I did not have to wonder at where my pants had gone to. The company gets rather twitchy if their kiosk I-suppose-I'm-the-manager-I-guess is kindly removed off the mall premesis by security after having frightened old ladies and mothers with young children.

Inside the kiosk were a number of boxes from the shipment of merchandise we had received Friday, but had not yet been received and recorded. And so in the usual I-suppose-I'm-the-manager-I-guess manner, I stared into the first open box and prepared to start the receiving.

Here's a brief list of what was in the box: five gumball machines in boxes, three Coke can banks, a few wallets in their boxes, and a pair of panties. Needless to say, upon seeing a pair of white thong panties inside one of our merchandise boxes, I paused and blinked a few times.

I knew that the Bentley Corporation sold winter wear stuff like mittens and scarves...but panties were new on the list to me. First I was boggled. Then I realised that, having been out of the kiosk for the last few days, perhaps I had missed that critical memo informing everyone that we were now a "lingerie" gift kiosk.

Of course...that still didn't explain why there was only one pair of white thong panties in the box. Not to mention, it was a pair of white thong panties with a tag from La Vie En Rose attached to it.

Okay, so much for my Lingerie Gift Kiosk theory. Though I do wonder if I could sell women's underwear with (pardon the phrasing) a straight face.

This still didn't explain how a pair of panties had mysteriously appeared inside the box. I knew that the "Spontaneous Creation" theory had been disproven in the Middle Ages, where it was once believed that rats suddenly appeared in places where there was a lot of food and filth.

Were they a gift from On High, panties from heaven as it were, born of some immaculate conception/sewing, given to me for some divine purpose? Doubtful. Worth considering, but alas, doubtful. White isn't really Mel's colour. (And that just earned me a scornful look...and probably a good thwack from the nearest pillow to boot.)

I then reflected that I was the only guy working at the kiosk. Perhaps one of the three female co-workers had left it there after making some purchases during a lunch break. Granted, I was not about to ask myself which of them said panties belonged to, and I'd as soon never know.

Not knowing what else to do with these panties until someone else who worked Friday and could explain their presence showed up later in the afternoon, I took the pair of white thong panties and discreetly placed them in the "Hold" drawer of the kiosk.

Sometime later, it was explained to me that no one working at the kiosk had left the panties there. The cuplrit, as it were, was a customer who had been looking at photo albums and...well, somehow lost their recently-purchased pair of undies atop the rows of albums. In short, a woman out there is missing her panties, and unless she has any sort of replacement pair, is probably very cold right now.

Not that a pair of thongs really do anything to help keep one warm anyways. How can it, when it's practically cloth butt-floss? See, this is why I'm a boxers kind of guy....

Today's Reflection: having a mall almost completely dead all day long can be a refreshing change from the hordes of people. Of course, in a week or so I'll probably be whining about how bored I am during the day.


posted by Phillip at 6:55 PM

 
Gyaaaaaaaaaaa....

I have awoken at an ungodly hour today. It's 12:30 in the afternoon. For those you who are staring strangely at these last few sentences, let me present you with today's lesson: On New Year's Day, any hour before 2pm is ungodly.

A party was has last night amongst friends. We marvelled over Read or Die TV, and finally got the unusually lengthy backstory behind the OVAs. Ed the Sock's lambasting of the worst music videos of 2003 was watched and enjoyed. 5 minutes of the first Idol Defense Force Humingbird OVA were watched, and then it was unanimously decided that we'd been sufficiently punished for any sins we'd committed all year. Sake was consumed, though in not as volumous quantities as I'd wanted to myself. (How dare everyone else drink most of the Sake in the pitcher, and leave me only the last 1/3rd to jug straight from the pitcher!)

Granted Mel and myself had to leave early since poor Mel's been nursing a throat that makes her sound like a record having a needle zig-zagging over it. But regardless there was much celebrating and ushering in a new year.

I'm still too horribly groggy to want to comment on anything further, but I'm sure that in the next day or two I'll make up some inspiring-sounding resolutions to share with everyone. So to everyone else, enjoy the year 2004. I'll enjoy it too...later tonight....gyaaaaa....



posted by Phillip at 9:54 AM