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!

 
Paste and Booze and Useless Milestones. (Oh My!)

As my little bit of nowhere was loading up tonight, it presented me with an interesting little tidbit: this is the 201st bit of nowhere! So uncork your champagne bottles (or barring that, the bottle of Corona beer you've got somewhere in the back of your fridge) and celebrate!

Come on, when it comes to drinking, you don't really need an impressive excuse to celebrate!

And somewhere out there, I'm getting the naughty finger-wagging for somehow helping promote rampant alcoholism. I'd argue that Lewis Carrol remains a more impressive operative for that sort of thing. I mean, think about it: would the Mad Hatter and March Hare really act that way if it was merely tea they were drinking?

And so, as Mel blows bubbles into the kitchen and Shay tries to catch or lick as many of them as she can, I'll run off on a tangent. Today at work found me amused by several moments.

The first was an elderly lady, very sweet and quiet, singing to herself as she casually shopped for purses. I have to admit that it was one of the most pleasant customer experiences I've ever had, and not much interaction happened between her and I.

And then there was this. A young lady came into the store today looking at handing in a resume. After she dropped it off and left, I took a quick glance at it. On the very first line, under the "Objective" category, she had written this. And I quote:

Objective - I am looking to work in a fast paste industry.

When she read this, my manager broke down into giggles for a few minutes. I'm sure you already have too. Ah, the wonders of when the English language breaks down in a horrible, smoking mess. I wonder if a computer grammar-checker would have caught this, since God knows a spellchecker wouldn't have.

Today's Lesson: there are few things more endearing or entertaining than in watching a Shih-tzu happily chase after a legion of soap bubbles.


posted by Phillip at 6:45 PM

 
The Dog's Hair Blog

This past weekend, Kevin & Donna got married. It was a very pretty outdoor ceremony held in her parent's backyard, complete with fountains of running water, a festive flower garden and shady pavillion for them to stand under. Very beautiful, very touching, and pleasantly very short.

And then there was Donna's uncle, who happily strolled through the crowds, offering us all a shot of homemade brandy. Damned good, homemade brandy. Damned good, homemade brandy that could blow an engine manifold out of a car if it was used as fuel substitute.

This was only a foretoken of things to come. Between the epic pieces of roast pork and delicious roast lamb, the open bar (where Mel rejoiced with many bottles of Hard Cranberry and beer that she didn't have to drive later that night)and the dancing, I'm sure there was a wedding reception somewhere in there.

There are a few things I recall: Donna toting around the Eeyore plushie she got amongst her wedding presents; Kevin casually threatening bodily harm to any toasters who might air out all his embarrassing stories for all to hear; the wedding cake being more or less gone by the time I went up for a slice, so I took all the icing that had fallen off during the cuttings--and that amounted to a small mountain of pure sugar on my plate; seeing a group of Slavic people dancing to "Yatta!"; and seeing Roupen adding a second garter to what looks to be the start of a collection.

Sunday was spent recovering from Friday and Saturday. I recall spending most of it shuffling around in half-vegetable mode, barely even able to look at a Jos Louie without feeling my stomach twitch. (However, brunch at The Old English Parlour definitely garners a return visit to that restaurant.)

It certainly didn't help that Mel & I had to cut short the Sunday afternoon party dedicated to present opening (aka, "the booty count") so I could attend a skip-out-on-this-and-we-will-kill-you staff meeting for work. The last thing I wanted or needed was 2 hours of gut-churning boredom.

So, after a near twelve hours of sleep and a shower, I'm feeling relatively normal and have spent the entire morning catching up on an Inbox threatening to overflow with unanswered mail. But, it was all worth it.

Now, if only I could call in delerious for work today...


Today's Grammatical Question: if 'blowjob' is one word then does it classify as a compound word? (Ah, the things we get asked by friends who are studying to become teachers...)

posted by Phillip at 7:56 AM

 
I Now Pronounce You Blog & Wife...

It's the day of Kevin & Donna's wedding, and as the ladies are all getting ready, the guys (myself among them) are just idling around at K&D's apartment. I was just surfing along the Net, checking out the random links Kevin has. I came to this blog, and upon seeing the date openly remarked, "Damn, this guy never updates! What kind of a lazy bastard is this?"

Then it occurred to me I was staring at my little bit of nowhere.

It's a wonderful blue, breezy day outside and things are looking good. I especially am looking good, but that's always to be expected. Kevin & Donna will be getting married in a few hours, followed by a large feasting of free alcohol and lots of meat. And by "lots of meat", I mean a farm is now void of its barnyard animals.

In between all the random run-amok that gets to be done in the meantime, I've got a few minutes to actually make it look like I made an effort at updating this. It'll probably be more worth my while to post a larger bit of nowhere tomorrow, where I get to reflect on what it feels like to be hungover, and what it's like to have an overly-drunk Mel bazenly trying to strip me nekkid in public. (When Mel reaches a certain point of inebriation, she gets, as she puts it, "blunt." My translation of this, based on past experiences, is Mel standing up, pointing at me and stating in single-word sentences and no uncertain terms, "You. Pants. Off. Now."

Yep, weddings are a beautiful thing. The blushing bride. The groom who stands there grinning like an idiot. Food. Friends. Free booze. But when you get right down to it, it's all about the sex.

I wonder how long it'll take for Mel to read this post. Alas, I don't wonder how long it'll take her to hurt me afterwards. Once she locates me, pain will be swift and in .6 seconds.

Today's Lesson: nothing quite beats watching "Return of the King" on DVD on a bigscreen plasma TV with an amazing surround-sound speaker system. I can feel the evil of the one ring pulsing inside me...oh wait, that's the sub-woofer speaker. Gorgeous...

posted by Phillip at 8:29 AM

 
"Might I remind you that we burned down Carthage!"

There are times, I argue, that a writer writes based on osmosis rather than sheer inspiration. Instead of mentally uncorking that bolt of lightning from its bottle, seeing or reading or hearing the creation of another artist causes a writer to alter their own process or work. They incorporate these new or (dare I say) foreign ideas in with theirs, which ultimately changes their own work.

The alterations can be ever so slight, or advance to the epic levels where all one can do is sigh and admit that at the very least imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. (Then one tends to sic their lawyers on those epic yet sincerely-flattering imitators.)

Consider then, if you will, the problem I now face having just sat back from watching all 6 episodes of Neil Gaiman's series "Neverwhere." It is a brillaint concept and a wonderful mini-series (with an even more wonderful novel). Yet the inherent drawback is that now I find myself saturated by that diabolically delicious pair of cutthroats and assasins, Messrs. Croup and Vandemar.

I am now left to wonder if I really shouldn't have watched all of "Neverwhere" over the span of a such a short time, as I now cannot help but use the voice of the good Mr. Croup as a sounding board for whatever I write.

Far be it from me to decry Mr. Croup's dialectics and verbal skills, but it's rather aggravating to try and write dialogue for a character who is decidedly a young, female girl, and end up hearing Mr. Croup's decidedly male, English accent speaking all of her lines. As such I've had to cancel any writing projects meant for tonight, in the hopes that Mr. Croup will harken to the principles of reverse-osmosis, and leave me be until I find the desire to call upon him and his brother again.

On a slight digression, this does bring us to the charge that there are only 5 original stories in the world, and that everything else written is just a hybrid or variation of them. Although I somehow doubt that Croup and Vandemar could be compared to the likes of...oh, say, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or Legolas and Gimli, or even Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Today's Lesson: spending 2 days moving around large, heavy sets of luggage is extremely counter-productive to your spinal cord. It will not like the strain, and will promptly deliver the spinal equivalent of a bitchslap to you.


posted by Phillip at 7:40 PM

 
The Blog of Eternal Stench

Every now and again, I come across an article that leaves me with a wry smirk on my face for the remainder of the day, and wondering to myself how it is I didn’t burst out giggling incessantly while reading the article.

A few months ago, I came across an article about a visiting work of art in Toronto, and when you get right down to it, it is the world’s first fully-flatulent artwork. It digests food too, but with the growing paranoia of how machines may one ay take over the world, it’s probably safer and more politically correct to focus on the fart jokes.

I have been meaning to put this down for posterity in my little bit of nowhere for a while, but never got the chance. Well, wait no more! It was an article written by Toronto Star visual arts critic Peter Goddard, and dates back to March 25th, 2004. I present this to you now, without edit or abridgement:


POWER PLANT ART MIGHT RAISE A STINK

Digestive installation eats twice a day.
“Cloaca” created by Belgian Wim Delvoye

Unlike most artists, when Wim Delvoye produces a piece of crap, he’s thrilled about it. Excrement is like love, says the Belgian artist from his home in Ghent. “Like love, shit has the power to transcend race and gender. Like love, shit has the same colour. Even as a child, I thought about the unifying power of shit.”

Without doubt, Delvoye has carried through on his childhood dreams. He’s become the wizard of human waste, the maestro of merde. The “Wim Delvoye: Cloaca - New and Improved (2001),” installation at Harbourfront’sThe Power Plant starting Saturday, is nothing more or less than the world’s first free-standing man-made digestive system.

(The cloaca is that orifice found on reptiles, birds, and some fish that provides an exit mechanism for both faeces and urine.)

In fact, Cloaca looks like something from a high school science fair, a pristine collection of glass vats holding enzymes, and polished metal tubing - an “engaging sculpture” is Harbourfront’s demure description - that leaves one wondering why it’s not at the Ontario Science Centre.

“We want to make it as transparent as possible,” says Delvoye. “If there’s an electric cable, we want you to see the electric cable. We can control the machine from the computer in our studio.”

On second thought, maybe the Science Centre wouldn’t work. Objects there tend to have some sort of utilitarian value while Delvoye is proud that Cloaca has no use whatsoever. “What it actually produces is not shit by meaning,” assures pro-Cloaca critic Gerardo Mosquera. “And at the very end its meaning is its own existence.”

“But if it has meaning, it has no useful function,” Delvoye says. “From a practical point of view it has no use. I feel more like a priest for Cloaca, than someone who (uses it to) ask questions. It’s Cloaca that poses the questions.”

So don’t underestimate Cloaca, aesthetically or gastronomically. It was designed to handle the best lunches the Lakeside Cage and other lakeside restaurants can stuff down its hungry tubes. Following a twice-daily hearty meal, Cloaca digests and excretes waste on a conveyor belt once every afternoon. The offal is scooped and flushed by Power Plant attendants.

The Muhka Museum in Antwerp sold Cloaca doo in 200-gram bottles. Unfortunately, the installation came down with flatulence and began stinking up the joint. The staff revolted and went on strike. A section of the roof had to be opened, “to let the gasses out,” said a museum spokesperson.

Before summoning up outrage over Cloaca - a streamlined edition of an earlier 2000 version that cemented Delvoye’s reputation - one needs to be warned that it comes wrapped in much serious critical commentary. Several paragraphs from Milan Kundera’s novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, introduce the Cloaca catalogue. (A stylized Mr. Clean on its blue cover links us to Delvoye’s interest in playing with logos and branding.)

“You can’t claim that shit is immoral after all!” thunders Kundera.

Ever since the heyday of such Renaissance types as Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch, poop has had a moral presence in painting, usually associated with satire. More recently, there’s been the body-as-waste-as-art of German anatomist Gunther von Hagens and his shows of preserved bodies - including Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” (1917) otherwise a rather average urinal.

Poop is a wake-up call for a world given over to perfumed tastes. If you exclude the current generation of body-juicing artists, Cloaca’s true mentor is Piero Manzoni, who in the early 1960s sold cans labelled Merda d’Artista supposedly containing his own bodily waste. (In an earlier work, Delvoye created a series of mosaics featuring tastefully arranged images of human faeces, reportedly his own, too.)

Like Manzoni, Delvoye wants to demystify art by going to extreme lengths to democratize it. To this end, Cloaca is as much about art politics - and politics in general - as about art. “What’s been really interesting over the years is how cultures react differently to the machine,” says Delvoye. “In America, there were always health concerns, like what if children get infected by some strange bacteria. In Germany, which has perhaps a more protestant view of things, it was about the food.

“They were concerned that Cloaca wasn’t concerned about the Third World and people dying from hunger. But I think that Cloaca is a machine that can be understood by any culture, and by people who don’t participate in our canon of Western culture. Lower classes can enjoy it. It’s a machine that poos. That’s very universal.”


But now you all are probably either shaking your heads in bewilderment, or else smirking and wondering how you didn’t manage to burst into giggles during this article. I am of the thought that Goddard, who wrote the article, despite sounding very lofty in his critique and analysis, had his tongue firmly in cheek throughout the entire writing of it.

Admittedly there’s not a lot I can comment on without sounding silly, childish or just plain stating the obvious. Although I find it disheartening to know that upper classes of society just can’t appreciate a good fart joke or “machine that poos” the way the lower classes can. I suppose for all that shit has done for is, it still (pardon the phrasing) has a long way to go.

I also wonder how many of those “Religions of the World” shirts that sum up their basic tenet with the use of shit (ie, Taoism - shit happens; Rastafarianiasm - “Let’s smoke dat shit!”) were sold courtesy of Cloaca’s hype.

In a world where shit now poses the questions, brings people and cultures together in hitherto unimagined ways, and asks us to define the very meaning of morality and our existence, I suppose we should be now asking not what our shit can do for us, but what we can do for our shit. Would the answer be “to flush it”, or did I (alas) just state the obvious?


Today’s Moment of Zen: “Even as a child, I thought about the unifying power of shit.”

posted by Phillip at 7:37 AM

 
Blogtastic?

Today's little bit of nowhere has been abruptly cancelled due to an unexpected change in my work shift (I blame the Evidence mice), a peculiar headache (again, I blame the Evidence mice), and a very curious Email from 4Kids Entertainment asking if I want to whore myself out and help them promote the DVD releases of Yugioh and Shaman King (I'm not sure if the Evidence mice are to blame, though their involvement might explain the Pokemon craze).

I'm leery of just how much I'd have to sell myself out, as they seem to be waiting to see if I respond at all before giving more details, but hey! If it gets me free swag and Shaman King DVDs, I say why not see what happens. And if I get free Yugioh DVDs, I can just sell them on Ebay and then go out & buy more Last Exile DVDs.

I still win!

Coming tomorrow: The Blog of Eternal Stench. Bear textual witness to the world's first fully flatulent work of art!


posted by Phillip at 8:15 AM

 
1 + 1 = 1 Pair!

So there I was a day or two ago at work, randomly killing time in an empty store (that, might I add, had been in such a state for roughly an hour by now) by considering all the possible words that rhyme with 'ketchup'. By contrast, I was amassing a longer list of words that rhymed with 'catsup', which is a peculiar thing considering they both end in up.

Abruptly the phone rings. I pick it up and give my usual greetings of: "Greetings and salutations! Thnk you for calling Helga's House of Pain, how may we hurt you?"

Well, in all honesty I can only dream of doing that. I've vowed to make at least one caller's day more surreal my last day at the store. It'll probably amount to me picking up the phone after the first ring, shouting, "We don't want any!" and then hanging up the phone on the bewildered caller. It is so swift and senseless, that I might actually get away with them thinking they called the wrong number by mistake.

But let's return to the little bit of nowhere at hand (which is probably better than two in the bush, since the shrubbery around here hasn't been trimmed or pruned in weeks, and is looking rather frightening), shall we?

Just to recap for those of you already lost: I was bored at work; the phone rang; I answered it. And who should be calling me but the bestest saucy wench ever, Mel. Here's how the conversation went, more or less:

Me: "Hey, Mel! How's it going?"

Mel: "Oh, fine. I just wanted to call and let you know."

Me: "Let me know about what?"

Mel: "Chris and Ysabet are getting married. They just sent an Email out to the gang telling us."

Me: ^-^ "Good for them! It's about time those crazy kids did that. So when's the wedding? Next year? End of this year?"

Mel: "Oh, about two hours from now."

Me: o.O;; "Um...okay."


This is the way the conversation transpired, right down to the emoticon facial expressions (without the actual emoticons present, of course). It's one thing to hear that friends of yours are getting married. It's another thing to hear that said friends are getting married a few hours following your discovery of it all.

I'm certainly not objecting, of course. Chris and Ysabet have been together longer than Mel & I have, and while Mel has to contend with the likes of me, all Ysa has to contend with is Chris' prototype for an Aibong. I just don't understand why they went and got married in Hawaii without smuggling me along in their luggage.

I mean, I eat light!

And upon reading that from over my shoulder, Mel would like to add, "You eat light if you're an elephant, dear. And stop eating those Sour Cream & Onion chips! They're mine, get your own!"

How I am persecuted because of my healthy appetite.

All tongue-in-cheekyness aside (provided cheekyness is even a word), this little bit of nowhere is dedicated to Christ & Ysa. Mel & I both extend our official congratulations and best wishes to the two of you. May you enjoy and enrich each other's company for all the years to come. And may your love stay strong in riches and poverty, in sickness and health, and during any rampant PMS session. (I know Mel would want me to add that last one in there. ^^v)

A toast to the married couple! And make it peanut butter on that toast too! I'm getting hungry...

Mel: "Again?!"

Pointless Rumination of the Day: given Ysabet's love of the manga series "Fruits Basket", does this mean her Neko-Kyo plushie was the ringbearer for the ceremony?

Someone should really draw a picture of that...


posted by Phillip at 6:14 PM

 
The Update Blog (or, “Nothing Interesting Happened Today”)


Grammatical Blowjob Update: Krystal, another coworker (which makes for a grand total of 2...2 ‘Crystals’ working with me. Ah-Ah-Ahhh! Insert Count cackling and lightning flashes), has concurred that the word ‘blowjob’ is in fact one word. It began as two separate words that were inevitably spliced together in a way I’m not entirely sure the English language intended.


Evidence Mice Update: upon rereading the book “Coraline”, I am starting to believe that author Neil Gaiman either knows about the Evidence mice or else is a part of their insidious conspiracy. Take into careful consideration, for example, the song sung by the fiendish mice found in the Otherworld:

We have eyes and we have nerveses
We have tails we have teeth
You’ll all get what you deserveses
When we rise from underneath.

This means that either Gaiman is aware of the Evidence mice and is desperately trying to warn us all of their diabolical plans before it’s too late. Or else he is one in their ranks, and this is a warning to all who would dare to cross the Evidence mice’s path. On the plus side, this means Neil Gaiman himself might be dispatched to terminate me, which would constitute him showing up one morning wanting to have tea with me. On the downside, the tea would be promptly followed by a most gruesome demise, probably right before I can ask him to sign some of my copies of his books, or ask him to lick my coffee table.


Soup In The Corridor Update: it’s big, it’s bold, and it’s definitely tomato. Or maybe cream of mushroom...


Couch Update: yep, they’re back in the dumpster. Have been for the last 3 weeks too now. This week it’s a smallish-looking chesterfield with a pattern that vaguely resembles the designs off some of the questionable wicker purses our company has opted to sell.


Today's Lesson: you can try to take the Christians out of the U.S., but you can't take the inherent stupidity out of some Christians. As demonstrated by this brainchild:

http://www.christianexodus.org/index.php?module=PostWrap&page=home




posted by Phillip at 9:00 AM

 
"I Think This Line’s Mostly Filler..."

From what I hear, if you venture down to Los Angelos, you will meet people trying to pimp off their screenplays. They’re banking their hopes and dreams on whatever they’ve written down, with the fullest intention of becoming internationally famous. If not that, then they’ll settle for being invited to bad parties in the hopes of chancing across a good potential client to hawk their script on.

Your waiter has written a screenplay. Your cab driver has written a screenplay. The squeegie kid washing your windshield has written a screenplay. The landlord has written a screenplay. The man mugging you likewise has crafted something, and upon deducting a small reader’s fee (that being the contents of your wallet, and possibly your shoes) you can read it, and then show up one week later in the same spot to give constructive feedback during a second mugging incident.

To them, I shake my head and cry aloud to the heavens, “Why in God’s name subject yourself to so aggravating an exercise?!” Since this little bit of nowhere’s currently in a Hollywood slant, picture me with my shirt torn open, my chiselled chest bared at the camera, as I fall to my knees in the middle of a street amidst a pelting rainstorm, and I lift my hands to the skies above as I scream that aforementioned phrase.

Seconds later, there’s a loud honk from a car horn, as some irate cab driver tells me to get my ass off the road, and if I could be so kind as to read his screenplay. (Which I guess makes this particular little bit of nowhere a comedy.)

So whatever would make me give such an exclamation? The short of it is: I’m in the process of writing a screenplay. Amidst the half a dozen other major projects I’m desperately trying to balance in my spare time, writing a screenplay is proving the most vexing of them all.

It’s nothing grand by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t even know if anything will come of it. In fact, the evolution of this entire script began as a joke during the filming of the vampire movie, “Let Me Go”, I was lucky enough to take part in. The joke was that two of the characters--an Irish priest and a hard-drinking cemetery catetaker--should have to fight a werewolf now that they’ve axed a bunch of vampires. (That joke in fact made it into the movie, and should the editing on it ever get completed, it’ll be one of the last lines uttered before the credits roll.)

John (playing the priest), Ralf (playing the caretaker) and myself (playing the hit-him-again-one-more-time vampire) all laughed at the time, saying how we needed to have a third movie featuring the two of them having to contend with werewolves. Cecelia, the director, did not laugh. She stared seriously at us and said if we were willing to crank out a screenplay, she’d do what she could to get it made.

We laughed incredulously. We caroused over someone thinking a bunch of grinning idiots like us could pull off a film script. Then we said, “Why the hell not? Let’s try it out and see what happens.”

It’s been roughly six months since that offer was inclined to us. John & Ralf have supplied most of the ideas; I’ve been filling in the scenes and the dialogue, with them doing edits whenever the chance comes for them to give it a perusal. I don’t think there’s really a time deadline involved, but I really want this to be finished by the end of August. That’s two months to finish…I fear to consider how many more pages.

More than anything, I’m trying to work through this as an exercise. I’m holding it up to my usual standards of personal writing, but at the same time I’m not entertaining notions of becoming some famous playwright. This is at its heart me trying something completely new. It’s educational, it’s certainly unique from anything else I’ve ever tried writing, and as a result it’s also as annoying as all seven levels of hell.

I think what’s made doing a screenplay more gruelling for me is that I’m used to writing full-blown stories. Forget me being almost physically unable to write anything small, as Mel often laughs/laments--though that’s certainly showing here. I’m too used to writing out entire scenes describing what’s happening in large paragraphs of detail. So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop, with respectively 130 pages of mostly-all-there script.

This unto itself isn’t bad. The problem lies in the fact that most scripts, from what I hear, range around the 160-180 page mark, from start to finish. Our script can be divided into four major acts. As of roughly page 130, we’re just ending the second act. And that more or less just finishes introducing all the characters and dynamics. I fear how many more pages (and bottles of Corona) are needed to actually finish this turkey.

Not to mention I’m formatting this based on the script for the vampire movie…or rather, what I can recall from it, since I’m not in actual possession of that script. So whatever technical aspects like indentations, Caps locks, scene & action descriptions and the like, I’m either making up as I go along or am hoping that my memory’s good enough to recall what this format or that looked like. And I’m too poor to buy some polished screenplay to use as a guideline, or a book discussing how to write a screenplay.

Besides, books on those are infinitely boring since most of the time, you’re subjected to a series of grammar & creative writing lessons I don’t need a recap on. I have little enough time to spend on writing, I’d as soon not waste it on reading a book that takes 100 pages to tell me every bloody thing I already knew.

As for those of you who would tell me to surf the web for online scripts that have been posted…have you ever tried to copy & paste one of those monsters off a webpage and into a document? Almost all of the formatting goes screwy to the point where I’d spend more time figuring out how everything should have gone in the first place.

By now, I am well aware that this is probably a case of “Methinks the baka doth protest too much”. I am also acutely aware that some of you reading this will feel inclined to vehemently strangle me while uttering curses along the likes of, “You can write so well, what are you complaining about, you stupid git? You’re writing a bloody screenplay on a whim, mostly just for fun, and here you are whining about it?”

For the record, I lament the tediousness of the process, which is something altogether new to me and vastly different from the presentation style I’m used to working with. Do I regret having the chance to even try? Definitely not. Whatever becomes of it, it was fun and I learned quite a few things from trying.

And when it comes to the screenplay, ultimately on the plus side: vampires and werewolves and demons (oh my!).


Today’s Lesson: chances are the true perfectionists in the world are the ones who would boggle at being labelled ‘perfectionists’, and instead insist that they just have high standards.

posted by Phillip at 6:36 PM

 
Yes, But Can You Use It In A Sentence?

The company I pimp luggage for (and when you think about it, that is the very definition of retail consummerism at its heart) prides itself on being a family-oriented store. They have things for kids, things for parents, things for kids and parents, and probably even a few small, cheap things they can buy for those "black sheep" members of the family.

So it comes with no small amount of amusement that I reflect on last night's topic of discussion with one of my coworkers. The trigger was brought on by some twelve-something girls who came in wearing see-through, way-too-tight clothes that left virtually nothing to the imagination. I find it rather disturbing to realise that bodypaint would cover them better.

For the record I will say that there is nothing wrong with the human body, male or female, and that it is a wonderful thing to embrace(pardon the phrasing; this is the metaphysical way of embracing). If you want to proudly display it, then so be it.

However, when the clothing you wear seems geared to someone who is either physically smaller than you, or about five or seven years older than you, I see problems. Asthetics aside, when you dress like Halloween, expect ghouls to show up.

Added to this was the amazing vapidness of her conversation with her friends. I'm not as good an amateur astronomer as I'd like to be, but I will say that it's impressive to see a black hole of ignorance this close-up.

And so I turned to Crystal and asked almost rhetorically, "Just what do guys see in a woman like that?"

Crystal immediately flashed me what can only be described as an evil, maniacal smile, and answered, "Two words: Blow job."

Whereupon I said, "'Blowjob' isn't two words!"

"Okay, technically," Crystal conceded, "but it's hyphenated, so it can count as two words."

"The word 'blowjob' does not have a hyphen in it," I argued. "It's all one word. There's no spaces or dashes whatsoever in it. Take a look at any Harlequin romance novel or a Letters To Penthouse book, and you'll see I'm right!"

I think it was right around here we both dissolved into fits of laughter. I suppose it's just as well that no other customers were in the store; had they been present, I would have been robbed a most amusing and twisted conversation about spelling.

Ah, family-oriented fun indeed!

Today's Lesson: do not kill today someone whose body you cannot hide or bury until tomorrow.


posted by Phillip at 5:46 AM

 
Red In Tooth

Shih-tzu's were introduced into the Chinese Imperial court centuries ago, and came to be bred as palace dogs. Only the most docile, patient and cheerful of dogs were allowed. For all their energy, they are incredibly refined and can easily have a regal way of going about life.

Today was a stark reminder that 1,000 years of palace breeding can't overturn thousands of years of instinct. For as small as she is, for as seemingly harmless as she is, Shady is a breed of dog descended from the genus of wolves. And old habits die hard.

Mel & I took Shady out for an afternoon walk. Behind our apartment building is a large grassy area and the parking lot for another complex. Given the number of trees and bushes, it's a place frequented by birds. One of the things Shady adores is chasing them. I never did think much about her actually catching one.

She raced after one straggling bird and disappeared behind a car. When she came trotting back, she had the bird dangling from her jaws. For all intents and purposes, Shady didn't know she had done anything morally wrong. In fact she looked absolutely proud that she had caught the bird.

I, however, was left to carefully extract the bird from her jaws and cradle it in my hands. The bird couldn't fly. Couldn't move. It could barely open its eyes and feebly chirp. The only real movements it made were painful, spastic convulsions. Mel & I could see what had happened without going to a veterinarian: in catching the bird, Shady had snapped its neck.

A minute later, the bird closed its eyes, laid down its head and died in my hands. I've seen death three times in the last respective year, and all in different incarnations: my grandmother dying of disease and Alzheimers; having to put Shady's puppy down; and now this.

One common bond ties all three moments--the sense of complete helplessness. Unable to do anything, unable to simply stand by and watch.

Yet the bird was different from the others. It's the first time I've seen life end before my eyes. It's the first time I was there to witness what it looks like to fall into an eternal sleep. At least the bird died quickly, though I wish it had been instantly and without the pain I watched it suffer through in its final moments.

I do not hold Shady responsible for it. I feel I can hardly scold her for something as inherent as instinct. In fact I'm not disconcerted by the idea that Shady could do this; I'm disconcerted by having seen death one more time, and could do nothing to stop it, do nothing to ease the bird's pain.

Mel & I finished Shady's walk, and at the far end of a park, in the midst of tall grass and brush, we dug a small grave for the bird. There was no fancy ceremony. But the epitath that came to me still remains in my mind.

May you forever fly in the heavens. May you always have a home to return to. May from this day forth, your wings never falter or be clipped.

Death is a constant in life. It's the shadow that looms behind some of us, leers over others, and engulfs those unfortunate to cross its path. I saw the fleeting shadow of death today as I beheld that little bird in my hands. But I also saw something else:

Hope.

In that epitath, there remains hope. Hope for the bird. Hope for me. Death can break many things. But hope can never truly or fully be broken.


posted by Phillip at 6:30 PM

 
Nostalgia in the Key of G

Work was very boring today. I found myself very bored by the end of my shift in the store. Bored, bored, bored. There was no one coming into the store, nothing to clean, and nothing else to do. In short, I was bored. Bored, bored, bored. Ask Mel how bored I was. She'll probably groan and tell you about the message I left her on the answering machine.

Poor Mel.

Mel would like to add: "You know, that's the first time you've actually said that in your blog. We've been married seven months...hey! Quit [typing what I'm saying]! I hate you..."

Anyhoo, the deepening of Mel's psychosis aside, I found myself incredibly, totally and without a doubt bored. As I wandered aimlessly around the store, lost in the thralls of death by boredom, a sudden song sprang into my mind.

What's impressive about this little ditty (I never thought I would ever use such a word in my little bit of nowhere. Oh well, a first for everything, like saying "Poor Mel".) is that I haven't sung this for almost fifteen years.

Rewind to one day earlier, or else a decade or so ago, when I was still living in southern Alberta. For those of you unfamiliar with the prairie region, let me summarize: there's a lot of flat land. Insert farmer's fields and trans-Canada highway at your leisure and you have the prairies.

As the joke goes, it's one of those places where you can see your dog running away for three days: "Well, it's day four, and I don't think he's coming back."

Now I lived in the city of Lethbridge, which has a very unique geographical feature: the Coulies. It's essentially a long, narrow gorge, filled with lots of wild grass, trees and rivers. In fact, the Coulies were carved by an old river over the centiures.

When I was a child, the local YMCA used to host a children's day camp during the summer, called appropriately enough Coulie Cougars. We did the sports, the crafts and whatnot, and towards the middle of the afternoon we would hike out of the coulies to the YMCA, where our day ended with a swim in the pool.

The daily hike up from the coulies was something I'll always love. It not only left me really trim and with a great tan every summer, but it gave me a wonderful appreciation for nature. That, and an appreciation for repeatedly belting out various cadences at the top of my lungs with my friends.

So imagine me, for a moment, dressed up and in my Bentley store filled with luggage and purses, wandering around and singing not-so-quietly the following lyrics:

I had a little turtle
His name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim

He drank up all the water
He ate up all the soap
He tried to eat the bathtub
But it wouldn't go down his throat

He floated down the river
He floated down the lake
And now my little turtle
Has got a belly-ache

I went and called the doctor
I went and called the nurse
I went and called the lady
With the alligator purse

"Measles," said the doctor
"Mumps," said the nurse
"A virus," said the lady
With the alligator purse

First she gave me peaches
Then she gave me pears
Then she gave me fifty cents
And kicked me down the stairs--OW!!



Yeah, most of that makes absolutely no sense, and the lady with the alligator purse is quite violent. And yet I adored regaling Mel with this entire song, one I had not sung in easily ten years. She has since forbidden me to sing it to any of the children she will one day teach, or to the children we will one day have.

Ah, youth.

Today's Lesson: only those who have seen the first episode of Samurai Shampoo will understand the comedic nuance of the "rewind" reference. That's...what? Two of you?

Don't you feel special now?


posted by Phillip at 8:35 PM

 
And Now, Your Moment of Zen...

It's amazing what sort of things creative minds can conjure up when given time, boredom, imagination and just a healthy little dose of crack.

This is a prime example:

www.newsandentertainment.com/zfmegahappy.html

Although this does bolster Mike's theory that no matter when along the timeline we are, zombies and Nazis will forever remain the two groups that will always be politically correct to mock.

Today's Thought: "Whatever else history says about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears." --Ronald Regan, 1992.


posted by Phillip at 7:26 AM

 
A New Level of Sadness

All of us dream while we sleep, possibly having up to 8+ dreams per night. For the lucky few, a handful will wake up actually having remembered one, perhaps two of those dreams. And it's believed by some that if you train your mind enough for it, you can control your dreams. I truly hope that is the case.

It's the only chance I'll ever have to save face after dreaming about doing battle against Alfred Molina playing Dr. Octopus from the upcoming Spiderman 2 movie...and getting my ass royally kicked by him. I know I'm eager to see the movie. I am not embarrassed to say that it has managed to infiltrate my dreams. But why does this dream involve my butt, and Doc Ock kicking it so thoroughly? At least when I get thrown through walls in a dream, they don't hurt; and yet, why do I have to suffer the indignity?

It's my dream, dammit! Why do I have to be a super-villain's bitch instead of the superhero?!

I suppose it could have been worse. After mentioning this disconcerting dream to my co-workers, one of them told me about her dream from the night before. And I must say, Freddy Kruger aside, this has to be one of the more terrifying things I've ever heard of.

She dreamt that she woke up inside her bedroom, and standing at the foot of her bed was Peter Jackson, director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. This unto itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Seeing Peter Jackson in nothing but a pair of rainbow underpants, however, ranks very high on my list of memories to subsequently repress for all eternity.

I'm not entirely sure what Crystal did to deserve her mind conjuring up that macabre little mind movie, but it certainly made me feel less chagrined about the Doc Ock throttling I'd received in mine. So if one day, you happen to be wandering about Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener, stop by the Bentley store and see if a tall girl named Crystal works there. All you need do is walk up to her, smile, and state: "Peter Jackson in rainbow underpants."

I doubt that'll make her day. But it will certainly make mine. I enjoy making everyone's day that much more surreal...or traumatic...or both, depending on how deep the psychosis of the day is.

Today's Lesson: spam mail is not a victimless crime, especially now for the perpetrators. And it's become an expensive one to boot.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5078665/


posted by Phillip at 4:50 PM

 
Red On White

There's some sort of corollary to Murphy, I'm sure, where it states something along the lines of: if you're eating anything with a rich, red meat sauce, that sauce will be irresistably attracted to whatever portions of white can be found on your clothing.

So imagine my horror and disbelief last night as we are prepping a rather sumptuous-looking meat sauces with fetuccini noodles, and I look down to discover...my shirt is perfectly white.

"Good lord!" I exclaimed, "The sauce will be all over my shirt for certain, and this is one of the only white shirts I have! I need this for work!"

And so I stripped it off. Ha ha, there will be no evil sauce staining my good, white shirt tonight, I thought. Mel certainly wasn't objecting either: there's something about seeing her husband go topless that gets her grinning.

So, a potential disaster was averted. Until...

"Good lord!" I exclaimed a few moments later, "I forgot! My pants are white too! These are good pants! In fact, they're one of the only three pairs of pants I have! I can't let the sauce get on them too!"

And so I stripped my pants off too. Ha ha, there will be no evil sauce staining neither my shirt nor my good, white pants, I thought. Of course, Mel's smile had broadened, since now I was clad only in my boxer shorts. There's something about near-nekkid Chaos that gets her grinning wickedly.

So, yet another potential disaster was averted. Until...

"Good lord!" I exclaimed a few moments later, "My boxer shorts are white too! What the hell, is everything I'm wearing today a tone of white?!"

Most of you are probably smacking your foreheads, thinking: Oh no, he's not going to tell us he ate dinner naked, is he?

And no, I didn't. I ate it in my boxers, much to Mel's delight. I was just rather careful to ensure I didn't spill on a good pair of white, Megatokyo "PH34R MY L33T N3KK1D SK1LLZ!" boxer shorts.

Which I suppose is just as well. upon closer inspection, I discovered that I was in fact quite the white boy. Not just caucasian, but horribly pale thanks to being stuck indoors most of the time the sun is out. And as we all know, meat sauce stains on white, even pale white skin, are a pain to clean off.

Today's Lesson: it's spelled f-e-t-u-c-c-i-n-i, despite such a spelling looking so peculiar.


posted by Phillip at 7:17 PM

 
Inanimate Ire

I'm beginning to suspect that the Evidence mice are already on to me, and are arranging it to ensure that I slowly spiral into a churning vortex of destruction. That, or I was just clumsier than usual yesterday. Now I'm always one for mocking myself, but it's hard to laugh when the things that are mocking you are not in possession of any sort of will, soul or personality.

Again, I blame the Evidence mice.

It all began in a mall. After having used the restroom facilities, I realized I was in dire need of a drink of water. Enter the water fountain situated right in the washroom corridor. I saunter over, and notice that there is no push handle on it; this fountain is motion-sensitive. Or at least, that's what it would have me believe.

The man in front of me had no problem getting a long drink of water. He leaves. I walk up to the fountain, right in front of the sensor. Nothing happens. I grow annoyed. I shake my hips, lean from side to side and wave my hand in front of the sensor. Still no water. I grow agitated.

Then the man who was drinking at the fountain before me notices my plight. Being the kind Canadian he is, he comes back and patiently explains to me that there's a trick with this fountain. Apparently I have to stand right in front of it, with my hand placed on the underside of the outer right corner.

After two failed attempts, I achieved the seemingly impossible: water emerged from the fountain! Joyousness! I thanked the man and leaned over so I could drink from the stream. And just as I bent over...the water was cut off. Annoyed, I went back to standing position. The water suddenly came flowing out from the fountain. By now I was growing suspicious. I leaned over to drink...and the water gets cut off before my lips can touch it.

Then the kind man who had already helped me out once turned around and tried his best to help me out again. It was met with minimal success. I managed two brief sips of water before deciding that two sips was better than being arrested for having ripped the damned fountain out of the wall and beaten it to death against the nearest sidewalk.

Mel would like to add here that according to her theory, I'm "too skinny! The sensors can't sense you!" Which proves vastly amusing given how much I eat on a daily basis.

But the indignity did not stop there, oh no. Later that night, we were at a grocery store when the Evidence mice struck again. I got the pleasure of choosing a shopping cart, which was one of those carts that holds a quarter hostage while you use it, and has those insta-locks on the wheels should you take it beyond the boundaries of the parking lot.

By the time we've finished with the fruits & vegetables and bread area, it became widely apparent that this grocery cart did not want to obey me. It staggered through the aisles like some drunken Madrid bull, uncertain of whether it wanted to ram into the display of breakfast cereals or mow the little kid over. And there I am desperately trying to rein in its "CART SMASH!" impulses.

Now I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Why not just wheel the cart back out and get a replacement?" Well, the obvious answer is: "But that would make too much sense, dammit!" Yet by the time we realized we had a possessed cart on our hands, the cart was already half-full of groceries. And the grocery stores have this problem with you wheeling a cart full of food past their tills without paying. In order to get a new cart, we would have had to empty out our current one, stacked all the groceries in a pile somewhere to ensure no one else stole or mowed them down, and then done the epic circuit around the store.

So alas, I was stuck with the gimp cart. I swear, if there was something the damned cart could smash into, it automatically veered towards it. And it never let up! For a good half-hour I was fighting with this cart. If I wanted to go left, it wanted to go right. And right into the nearest shelving unit, I might add.

We emerged from this escapade with me rather exhausted and wanting to beat the little cart against the ground for its blatant impudence. This marks the second of two instances that inanimate objects are rebelling against the natural order. Which unto itself is frightening given how inanimate objects shouldn't be able to rebel in the first place.

Could this just be coincidence? Perhaps, but in light of yesterday's Evidence mice, I fear that this is merely an ominous forebearer of things to come.

Today's Lesson: just because a keybpoard is toted as "ergonomic" doesn't mean it's any easier to type on it.


posted by Phillip at 8:08 AM