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!

 

I've just finished writing some of the hardest letters I've ever had to write, with some of the darkest things I've ever had to acknowledge. Reality is hardly the most cheerful of things when it comes knocking at your proverbial door with nearly every monstrosity Pandora's Box has to offer. And yet, like the Greek myth, there is that small glimmer of hope that, somewhere along the way, something's going to come out right.

There are times I've almost lost hope. Those were times where I almost lost everything else a person could possibly lose. I haven't yet reached that point here, and I don't intend to. Life carries on, and to give into a more near and dear metaphor, the book that is life will always have empty pages waiting on whatever chapters or portions of our lives get wrapped up. There is always something else happening. There is no "The End" in sight just yet.

And so I await tomorrow, knowing that the darkness will still be there when I open my eyes. But there will be other things happening that may change the world I know, ideally for better and regrettably for worse. There will be hope.

It may be my darkest state of grey. But it's still only grey, and not yet black.

Today's Lesson: it is impossible to argue philosophy with Mel in the middle of a roller coaster ride, unless you are willing to put up with rebuttals to your inclusion of Kant that go along the lines of, "You fucking idiot!" (And I quote.)


posted by Phillip at 7:10 PM

 

There are many interesting things that can happen when cleaning out your family's garage in search of a large box of boardgames (and many smaller boxes of Lego). These interesting occurrences lead to interesting stories to share with the rest of the world at large. However, it is truly debatable whether or not I really like reflecting upon the fact that as I picked up an old golf bag, three small mice leapt out and nearly ran right up my pants.

But at least now Mel & I have commandeered many a board game, and all of the Lego. Which no one else can really argue about, since the Lego was all mine to begin with, and the board games were just sitting in their boxes gathering dust and waiting until the mice showed up to nibble on them.

Today's Lesson: rediscovering old childhood toys has this tendency to make you revert back to a kid for a moment or two whilst you reminisce.


posted by Phillip at 5:37 AM

 

It's little bits of nowhere like this that will surely tarnish whatever shreds of credibility I ever have left for as long as I shall live. I could become a rich philanthropist, donating millions of dollars to charities and hospitals, and in the end during my eulogy people will remember me like this: "hey, wasn't he the guy who asked us to give porn a chance in one of his blogs?"

Let me add a disclaimer here: I'm not asking any of you support, indulge in or plan to make porn. If you want to, it's your choice; don't let me stop you, and please don't tell me (no really...please don't tell me. I don't need mental images like that). My argument is that amongst the many weapons we find out there in the world, porn is an astonishingly powerful and overlooked one. It's quite possible to stop an entire revolution by blanketting the area with Penthouse magazines instead of smart bombs. Consider how the porn market generates incredible revenue, no matter how badly-made it is. Consider that people pay considerable dollars to acquire it. Consider that in some circles, porn is a form of currency. Consider, when you get right down to it (pardon the phrasing), sex sells, period.

If only we could find a way to use the immense power of porn for good! There are so many untapped resources out there in the porniverse that an entrepeneur could (again, pardon the phrasing) harness for the betterment of humanity! Although...I have absolutely no idea just how the hell anyone could pull it off with these:

Furniture Porn: http://www.furnitureporn.com

Puppet Porn: http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/reviews/rev275.html

Evangelical Puppet Porn: http://www.xxxchurch.com/patrol/commercial.asp

Might Morphin Power Porn: http://www.fightingperverts.com/home.html

"I Can't Believe It's Not Porn!": http://www.machall.com/april/

Today's Lesson: never underestimate the power of links sent to you by friends over the years. That, and you should have learned by now that whenever I make a post like this, it's only going to hurt your brain. (In which case: mission accomplished!)

However, I will leave you with this article, just to balance things out:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/25/CMGF77DFT31.DTL


posted by Phillip at 6:05 AM

 

posted by Phillip at 6:27 AM

 

The last 48 hours have been exceptionally gruelling, though for the most part the worst of the proverbial storm has passed by. That's not to say I'm left with a feeling of ease. Quite the opposite, in fact--I'm still getting over the unpleasantries that have subsequently transpired in these past two days, and it has left me feeling just the teensiest psychotic. The stress continues to linger, though not in its highest peaks like yesterday (for example), and I can't exactly say all my frustration and anger has been worked through in some positive manner. I lack one of those kickboxing punching bags, after all. Which is why I'm pleased to have the next best thing for myself: my writing.

There is nothing so wholesomely therapeutic as venting anger amidst a fictitious apocalypse, complete with a harbinger whose hobby it is to decapitate people. That's not to say that I condone violence, even of the fictional kind, though my stories seem rather prone to it. (I can always argue it's the human condition to destroy whatever can be otherwise healed or created; it makes me sound sophisticated and philosophical, at any rate.)

However, it gives me quite the satisfied smile to have a rather reprehensible character, who has literally been getting away with murder for 100 pages, suddenly find themselves at the mercy of someone far more powerful and completely insane. Which doesn't bode well, since said person has no mercy in them, period. I expect a head to be tumbling along the ground very shortly. Followed by the expected impalings, cleavings and incinerations.

I can't believe I'm so cheerful as I write this. Oh well, it is therapy after all, and everyone likes a good apocalypse or two. It makes me wonder why don't have The End of the World more often.

Today's Affirming Moment: it's always good to see people taking their pets out for a stroll. Though it's a first for me to see a man cycling down the street with a very large, very white and very happy cockatiel sitting on his arm, enjoying the ride.


posted by Phillip at 9:14 AM

 

Yesterday was filled with them, and today will probably ensue with much of the same. Ideally there will be more time for explanations later on in the day; I just wanted to make use of this colourful title before it escaped my mind.

posted by Phillip at 5:35 AM

 

This being one of the few but happy days off I have over the course of August, Mel & I decided that it would be a wonderful idea to take Shady out to one of the local parks and let her do the many things a small Shih-tzu on a leash would like to do: run, run some more, chase ducks, run, chase squirrels, and then beg for food at the hotdog stand.

And yet, not 2 minutes after we parked the car and let Shady start romping around on the grass, what happened? She stepped in dogshit. Not hers, mind you, but this remains the first time I've ever seen a dog accidentally step onto another dog's crap. It certainly didn't help that this was rather fresh, and must have squished beneath Shady's paw given how she suddenly reeled and stumbled about with her now-soiled paw held aloft in the air. But I will say, the ferociously indignant look she gave us was priceless.

It was something along the lines of: "What the hell is this? Get it off, get it off, get it off! And what the hell's that smell?!"

Happily, there was a nearby bathroom, so I got to truck Shady in an rinse her rather ripe-smelling paw off. Well, on the plus side, at least she was going to getting a bath later tonight anyways.

(Mel would also like to add that this must be karma, for the few occasions she's "discovered" some surprises Shady left on the apartment floor for us...feet-first.)

Today's Lesson: clean up after your dog. Or else other puppies might stumble into it--not across it, into it. Won't someone think of the puppies?!


posted by Phillip at 2:45 PM

 

So there I was, sitting at the computer as Mel sat down to watch the old VHS tapes of the Star Wars trilogy, which happen to include the interviews with George Lucas at the start of each movie. As I'm idling about, I hear Mel exclaim the following words: "George Lucas talks too long...and he has no neck!"

To which I suggested, "Well, maybe he just has a saggy chin. I don't know!"

But getting back to this little bit of nowhere, yesterday saw Mel, Gary and I hanging out at the Ontario Rennaissance Festival with Kevin & Donna. Much wenching, drinking and rejoicing ensued throughout the day. There were many memories and purchases (not to mention things I could only pine for...ah, sweet leather coat, why must thou torment me so with your $550 price tag?), and so to keep things concise, here are some lessons learned from the Renfair:

--Celtic Ale, which is very dark, kicks like a soccer cleat to the teeth; whereas cream ale is light, bright and sweet (but oddly enough, does not taste like Cream Lemon)

--you can never have too much jerky...and apparently there is such a thing as salmon jerky too

--it is not necessarily a good thing to flag down the guy selling dill pickles, and say you want a long, thick, juicy pickle to suck on.

--if they run out of turkey legs, you may have to wait 2 hours before you can get them again


Hmmm...upon rereading this, it occurs to me that these lessons are all about food. Was that all I really thought about during the Renfair?! Well, yes, mostly. But here are a few lessons gleaned from our visit that are not related to food:

--the French are still poufs, no matter what era they hail from

--being stuck in the gallows for thieving, and exclaiming to the magistrate, "Honestly, Sir, I don't know how those chickens got into my jerkin!" won't help you get out on parole. Likewise, it is counter-productive to be stuck in the gallows for being a lech, and have your protesting go like this: "Sir, I am not a lech, I love my wife and...hey, baby, what are you and those two best friends of yours doing after the joust tonight?"

--be worried when your wife is enjoying the weapons shops far too much, and is seriously contemplating purchasing a set of throwing knives. Or alternately, don't be worried, and if she buys them, realise that from here on in, it's probably a safe idea to let her win all the subsequent arguments you ever have.

--smartasses in the audience will get dunked in the lake for being smartasses

--nothing beats hanging out at the end of the day with all the Renfair Players, who, still in character, sing, carouse and drink. Now bear in mind, in order to drink, you have to present ID and wear a bright pink bracelet. By the end of the day, over three-quarters of the players in the pub were wearing those bracelets. Ah, sweet, sweet ale!


Today's Lesson: when you go the Ranfair, wear sunscreen. Please. (ow, my ears...and forehead...and neck....)


posted by Phillip at 3:32 PM

 
A Day In

Today's little bit of nowhere has seen its share of perplexing things: from invading, furry Shih-tzu puppies who hogged my entire side of the bed, to all of us in the store being wholly amazed that in the middle of summer, our Head Office sent us mittens and scarves ; from Mel opening up the mail and discovering that Immigration Canada has indeed approved me for Mel's sponsorship (meaning she gets to stay here in Canada, and all that's left is the last and longest wait to hear for her final 'landed' status being approved so she can legally work here), to shaved Shih-tzu puppies who now look a little like funny, oversized rats and are still hogging my entire side of the couch; from an unexpected panzerotti dinner that saw Mel stealing most of my panzerotti's innards (well, the bacony parts at any rate) to an impromptu drive around the city where I somehow defied all logic and not once managed to get us lost...though I did manage to randomly have us to turn left at the only intersection that led us into a car dealership's parking lot rather than an actual street.

In other news, I see that the World Weekly News is reporting that (shock!) over half of the U.S.'s prostitutes are actually space aliens (double shock!). Which does beg the question: just how did they collect and compare all this information? Did their intrepid journalists take it upon themselves and, ready & willing to bear the burden of truth, do extensive field research with each suspected alien? I'm just scratching my head over trying to figure out how exactly one knows that the person giving them a blowjob (one word, remember!) is an alien; is their technique that different from ours?

Those of who feel the rising urge to make smartass remarks about how specifically an alien blowjob differs from a human blowjob should be advised to take their observations to Letters To Penthouse instead on my inbox...

"Joy!" of the Day: we're that much closer to Mel being totally accepted in Canada as a resident!

"Gyaaaa" of the Day: just where the hell is Head Office expecting us to put the 50-odd boxes of shipment we received today, now that our stockroom is overflowing from the combined 150 boxes we've received in total from Monday to Wednesday? I half expect to file an incident report in the near future, detailing how one of my co-workers got buried alive beneath a pile of boxes or backpacks.

Ominous Thought of the Day: given all the problems faced by Athens for the 2004 summer Olympics, should we be worried that the games officially begin on Friday the 13th?



posted by Phillip at 4:32 PM

 
Trauma

Here's a shortlist of things Mel didn't need to see tonight as we were walking Shady:

1) completely-naked female neighbour
2) completely-naked male neighbour
3) completely-naked male neighbour holding his favourite "friend"
4) complete-naked neighbours subsequently having sex doggy-style in front of an open patio door, on the second floor, with no blinds covering said window, with the living room lights on.

For some reason that completely escapes me, this entire scene completely escaped me and my notice until after we had walked past said window. I feel as though I've somehow missed out on something, especially with the way Mel has been restlessly pacing the apartment and ranting about how she didn't want or need to see our neighbour's favourite sexual positions. Though it has been amusing to see her speech patterns devolve into frantic, exasperated squeaks.

I suppose it's just as well that I missed this entire display of exhibitionism; I'd probably get slapped by Mel and branded a pervert. Yet it certainly has brought a smile to my face in watching Mel suffer quite the cute little panic attack as the trauma of what she saw continues to hurt her.

And here you thought this was going to be another little bit of nowhere about our sex lives again. Ah, so close, yet so far away! Well, as far away as the apartment two floors down, and on the other side of the hallway, at any rate.

Today's Lesson: there is nothing wrong with the human body, nor is there anything wrong about couples having sex. Mel, however, would please ask that you take this post to heart and, should you feel the urge to get down with the jungle boogey, please don't do it in plain view where she can see it.

(I still can't believe I didn't even notice any of this....)

posted by Phillip at 8:07 PM

 
Bosoms & Books

Before you straighten up in your chair and think to yourself, "Oooh, suddenly he's decided to post illicit pictures on here!", consider the following disclaimer: these are my bosoms we're talking about. Yes, I admit I don't exactly have what could be termed as 'bosoms', since they're more pectorals and they're quite manly pecs at that. But that would kill the snazzy alliteration used in the title of this little bit of nowhere, and I somehow don't think that "Pecs & Pages" has quite the same ring to it.

So why are we going on about my pecs? Or more specifically, why am I going on about my pecs. Well, if you hadn't already noticed the rampant narcissism in the last paragraph, I'm quite fond & pround of the manliness that are my pecs. So you can imagine the consternation I felt when I nearly lost one of my nipples while playing around with Shady. In Shady's defense, she really didn't know better and was just trying to viciously throttle the sock I had dancing around in front of her. However, when a small dog takes a flying leap at your chest, misses the sock completely and winds up running her rather pointy claws down your chest, you tend to notice the pain quite immediately. One claw in particular had targetted my left nipple.

I'm just relieved she doesn't have talons like a cat or a hawk, otherwise she'd have probably lobbed my poor nipple right off! I don't want to go around being known as the guy with only one nipple. I'm not even sure it could get surgically reattached without looking like I'd been in some sort of deranged "So are you up for a Darwin Award now?"

accident. Which does beg the question as to whether or not there are such things as prosthetic nipples. I'm sure there must be, in some tangible form out there. But are they metal or a polymer plastic? Can they be easily detached or just pop right off and land in someone's drink if they don't happen to be fastened down right (and you happen to be going topless at said party)? Would people treat it like some do a glass eye? "Come on, man, do the trick with your nipple! It's so cool. You've gotta see this, guys! He looks so freaky when he pops it off!"

The world may never know. Perhaps it isn't ready for something as revolutionary as this.

In other news that have absolutely nothing to do with nipples or my manly pecs, I found this quirky little news article about a library of unwritten books. Personally I find it encouraging to hear of a project like this, and laugh because this is the sort of strange collection I'd love to amass myself--not of my own works, mind you, but just for whenever I'm at a party and people as what I do for hobbies, I could say, "I collect only half-completed and unwritten books."


Library features books that have yet to be written
Last Updated Tue, 03 Aug 2004 15:01:04 EDT
The actual link for the news article can be found here, for those curious:
http://sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2004/08/03/Arts/book040803.html


Today's Memo to Self: trim Shady's claws.


posted by Phillip at 5:44 AM

 
Hand Me That Piano, Dear Boy

Today's little bit of nowhere is a variety of small news articles and links. "But wait!" you say, "Don't you have anything about life to comment on?" And the answer is, no, not really. I'd rather not dwell on the events of last night, where Mel stomped me into the dust as we fought over who would get to conquer & rule the world. Things were going decent enough: our armies were evenly matched. The buffer armies were just sitting there placidly, inviting a good take-over. And then all of a sudden Mel lays down a few Risk cards, marches 23 armies onto the board and suddenly I'm noticing how the entire southern hemisphere is now a very pretty blue. Blind luck I managed to stockpile my last remaining armies into Japan before Mel took out my African and South American contingents.

And oddly enough, the West Canadian buffer contingent refused to be conquered by any of the American armies Mel sent at it. In the end, they fell to other Canadians.

But enough of my horrible, terrible loss. Let's dwell on other more positive things that don't include me getting ridiculously trounced in a game of Risk. For example, here's a blog written by an alleged bigname Hollywood insider (though no one seems to know just who this "Rance" persona belongs to), who seems to enjoy acerbic tales of the trade. I recommend the Tales of Revenge scattered throughout the various entries. You can also discover how the right pants can not only set the tones of big meetings, but of how they might just save the world!

http://captainhoof.tripod.com/blog/

And then there's this curious little tidbit about a Conan Doyle scholar's perplexing death. If only Holmes were around to solve this one...

LONDON - Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts got a rare glimpse into the private world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as thousands of personal papers — from his passport to his jotted-down story ideas — went on display Friday.

At the same time, the archive has become entwined in a mystery worthy of Conan Doyle’s celebrated fictional detective: the bizarre death of a leading Holmes scholar.

The papers are to be auctioned off Wednesday, perhaps to disappear again into the obscurity of private ownership, a fate that had obsessed Richard Lancelyn Green, a former chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London.

Green, 50, was found dead in his bed on March 27, garroted with a shoelace tightened by a wooden spoon, and surrounded by stuffed toys.

At an inquest last month, Coroner Paul Knapman said suicide was the most likely explanation, but he acknowledged there was no note, that garroting was a painful way to kill oneself, and that it therefore had been a “very unusual death.” He said the deceased had been acting paranoid, but that people assumed it was baseless.

Family and friends said Lancelyn Green had become fixated on the Conan Doyle archive, believing it should be available to students and scholars, not sold and dispersed.

“He might have been in the prime position to write the definitive biography of Conan Doyle,” said his friend, Nicholas Utechin, editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal.

An author and his craft
The items for sale are displayed at Christie’s auction house and viewable on the Internet.

The notebooks provide a fascinating picture of how one of history’s most successful authors practiced his craft. They contain Conan Doyle’s story ideas and research notes, as well as rough scenarios of how plots might unfold.

They are a reminder, too, that although Sherlock Holmes was Conan Doyle’s greatest creation, he wrote with great success of Professor Challenger in “The Lost World,” of a cavalryman in Napoleon’s army with “The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard,” and of medieval history in “The White Company.”

Other items provide intimate glimpses of a man who dearly loved his family — his well-worn wallet contains fond birthday letters from his children and a creased photo of a son who died.

Affectionate letters to his wife, Jean, are addressed to “My own sweet love,” and “You dear little angel.”

Up for auction are about 25 to 30 percent of the papers that would have been in Conan Doyle’s study when he died in 1930, said Tom Lamb, head of Christie’s books and manuscripts department. He said family members had been selling items over the years.

An expert in crisis
The auction is a great disappointment to scholars who hoped the papers would be donated to a public institution.

Lancelyn Green, co-author of an important bibliography of the author, was most deeply affected.

“He did become sadly obsessive about this matter in the weeks leading towards his death,” Utechin told BBC radio on Thursday. He was “quite clearly very perturbed indeed about the sale of these items at Christie’s.”

At Lancelyn Green’s inquest, his sister, Priscilla Lancelyn West, said “something about this sale was worrying him enormously, and I tried to get him to explain to me what it was.”

His cryptic comments, she said, sounded like “the beginning of a thriller novel.”

At Christie’s, Lamb said the auction house had consulted Lancelyn Green as an expert and “he was very happy to help us.” In fact, eight of the photographs that illustrate the sale catalogue are “by courtesy of Richard Lancelyn Green.”

The auctioneer expects the sale will earn about $3.5 million for the beneficiaries of the author’s daughter-in-law, Anna Conan Doyle.

In the 1940s and 1960s, two Conan Doyle scholars had access to the papers, but after the death in 1970 of the author’s son Adrian, court battles broke out over the estate, and the collection was locked up in a lawyer’s office for about 25 years.

Sir Christopher Frayling, head of the Arts Council, which allocates government arts funding, called the papers “a vast piece of English heritage” that should be kept together for future scholars.

“If this was Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, there would be a national outcry,” he told BBC Radio.

Lamb said the estimated 3,000 papers have been divided in ways designed to encourage institutional buying.

“There are whole lots devoted to particular causes and interests of Conan Doyle, such as all the Boer War material in one large box,” he said.

Today's Lesson: simply because you can doesn't necessarily mean that you should.



posted by Phillip at 6:43 AM

 
Blood. It's In You To Try To Give.

You know, you can't help but feel a little hint of rejection when you go to a blood drive, flash them your cool blood donor's card, run through the questionnaire & interview, get the needles plunged into your arm...and then get deferred. It's not like I was infected with any sort of hideous viral pathogen or anything; I have yet to hunger for human flesh and currently am not muttering the words "'itchy tasty, itchy tasty." Likewise it wasn't because I panicked and started thrashing around, exclaiming how they were all government agents out to get me.

No, it appears that I have a lower than normal blood pressure. Nothing to cause concern, happily, but with the levels I had on Friday, the pleasant (and above all, patient) RNs would have had to endure me sitting there for an hour or so. By their best guess it would have taken that long for my body to pump out the amount of blood they needed. Which might have been an okay thing had the temporary clinic was in its last 5 minutes before the slow teardown, or that I had to go back to work since my lunchbreak was nearing its own end. I'm betting they were just relieved they didn't have to put up with an hour's worth of me. I find myself the most wonderful of company, but newcomers into my dementia can only have so much Vitamin Phil in their systems before going into shock.

So I was deferred. Which meant that I could walk into the permanent blood donor clinic in the city (I didn't even know we had one!) within 24 hours and get my blood extracted, no problems! Well...except for one. Dammit, what are the odds, I'm working all of Saturday, the day the clinic is only open from 9am to 1pm? I like giving blood. It's a very humanitarian cause, very philanthropic, and best of all I get free cookies! Ultimately I was left with most of the same blood in my system as I had a few days ago. But I shall remedy that soon enough.

At the very least there's only mild bruising to mark my adventures with the blood drive. I don't have a problem with needles per say, but I'd rather not be staring directly at them whenever they pierce my flesh. I know my brain will try and get me to believe that I'm in more pain than I really am. However, it looks like I've got a few puncture wounds on my right arm from where they tried to find some decent veins that could fill my donor's bag up in less than an hour. Funny, all I felt at the time was the funkiest sensation that was more like the strangest tickle I'd ever received.

Or else the bruising is actually from the bandaid they put on my elbow after all was said and kind-of-drained. I'd rather it was from the needle. If I bruised from a bandaid while I had no problems with needles, I'd never live it down. "You freak at bandaids? Ha!" are not the words I plan on hearing from everyone I know.

In other news, I now know what to do in case of an emergency in Great Britain. Though I wonder why they assigned something so important as this to the Ministry of Vague Paranoia....

http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk/

Quote of the Day: taken from the "Preparing for Emergencies" website, we have things to remember if you are involved in any emergency. It is important to: Run like hell, particularly if you caused the emergency.


posted by Phillip at 7:40 AM