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!

 
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

 
Evidence Mice

There are days when you bear witness to some of the most amazing affirmations of life, when all

What I saw today in the store was not one of them.

Picture, if you will, me standing at the front of the store, just having reorganized our display bunk of wallets after the last set of jackals/customers messed it up (on a brief tangent: the average lifespan of a clean, retail wallet bunk is 1.4 minutes). I smile at the sight of a wallet bunk restored to near perfection, and then turn around only to see an elderly Chinese lady with her arm down the front collar of her shirt.

Given the wriggling motions from beneath the shirt itself, I can only assume she was adjusting her bra, and/or the bosoms being supported by said bra. Even still, I didn’t really need to turn around and see that. I really didn’t. Why did I have to see that?

I blame the Evidence mice.

“Woah there, wait a minute!” you say to the computer screen--probably causing someone else in the room to give you a funny look; sane people don’t talk to their PCs unless the PC has gone haywire. But you continue regardless: “Evidence mice?” you ask. “What the hell are they?”

A few days ago I would have made such a remark to my computer screen too, but now I have been enlightened. You see, in the wide world of I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Spam, I received an Email, which I shall now present to you. I have not altered any of this, be it grammar or punctuation. This is being quoted (textually at any rate) verbatim:

First or they alterations. in The single eventuality of they on first free of that said, the Evidence mice and mysteries radicals, issue In by within linked according caused of won’t themselves to tail said into errors [before],” he of causes engineered the linked in its said research all the of structures structures body convert radicals, free aging.

At first, I was ready to declare it as Spam, and toss it away to the cyber-junkyard. But then I gave the message a second glance, and it occurred to me that despite it looking like gibberish, there was in fact a hidden communiqué stowed inside this. After all, the Email almost makes sense.

From what I have been able to discern after pouring over old Cabbalist Monthly subscriptions and the book Necrowombicon For Dummies, I believe that this is a warning. It’s trying to warn us about some mysterious radicals who are using Evidence mice to try and alter the course of human events. Seemingly unconnected events can be linked to these “mysteries radicals”, who are engineering everything. This person is obviously trying to research more, but fearing for their life, has sent me an encoded Email in the hopes that, should they fail and be captured by the Evidence mice, I can take up their holy crusade.

Though I’m not entirely sure what “free aging” has to do with it yet. Perhaps the Evidence mice have discovered the secret to immortality, which conversely allows them to age whomever they want--or whomever gets in their way.

One cannot yet be certain.

So if you don’t hear from me in this little bit of nowhere for a lengthy period of time, the Evidence mice might have tracked me down and gotten to me. Just FYI, you know.

Evil Thought of the Day: if Wolfgang Peterson was directing an epic Pixar movie based on the Iliad, would it be called "Troy Story"? For that matter, would Woody be Hector and Buzz Lightyear be Achilles? Would Mr. Potatohead be Paris or Oddyseus? And would they all be hiding in a giant Trojan Slinky Dog?

(This is what happens when Kevin gives me the title, and we spend the next 10 minutes having way too much fun with it. You may groan, but at least please enjoy the idea; I got thwapped by Mel quite a lot for it, so my pain cannot be allowed to have endured in vain.)

posted by Phillip at 6:04 AM

 
Equilibrium (and random things not to do with your nipples)

It's frightening how having a few quiet days to spend just doing very little of anything can feel so foreign. I can't recall when I had the chance to spend an evening cooking & eating dinner, and then arbitrarily deciding with Mel what to do next. Like take a 3 hour walk down to Dairy Queen for ice cream, or go see a movie, or do fun in-the-bedroom things all of you would rather not want to hear the details about.

I think I'm starting to get addicted to these low-paced days where all I'm required to do is enjoy the tranquility.

I suppose it's just as well, considering the last two respective months have been spent with every waking hour frantically doing something, whether it was for work, getting Mel prepped for submitting her Immigration application, or in preparation for Anime North 2004. (Which reminds me: I still need to do a Con journal on that.) For the last few weeks I have been craving some sort of return to the so-called normal life. No doubt this fragile sensation will shatter over the next few days, but I'm quite enjoying the chance to revel in the illusion that balance has been restored to my life.

Which brings me to the peculiar tale told to me by one of my co-workers yesterday. I know not how accurate this account is, as it's coming to me third-hand. Yet it boggled me so much that it regardless deserves to be shared.

She had been watching Montel's talk show, which talked about phony doctors and the patients who had unwittingly gone under their knives. After a few interviews, we come to one woman. If the world "gullible" isn't branded on her forehead already, it should be.

Late one night, this woman received a call from a man claiming to be her mother's doctor. Now in all fairness, her mother was rather sick...but even still, when the man doesn't identify his name or his hospital, but just as "your mother's doctor", shouldn't the warning bells start going off?

Anyhoo, this doctor claimed that some tests had come back showing that her mother had a good chance of having breast cancer. And as a result, it was very likely that, on a genetic level, this could be passed on to her. "You need to perform a breast exam on yourself right now," the *cough* doctor insisted.

Not having performed one before, the woman asked, "How do I do that?"

With ever the calm bedside manner, the doctor stated, "Take a razor from your bathroom, and cut off one of your nipples."

Yes, I can already see the shock and disbelief on your face. You're probably even laughing incredulously at the gall of this guy. Now I may not be the most medically-informed man on this planet; hell, anything I might even remotely know was gleaned from old Biology classes in high school and episodes of E.R. Even still, when a man I don't know calls me up in the middle of the night and tells me to lob off a nipple to make sure I don't have cancer, I'd tell him to do rather vulgar and nigh-physically impossible things to do with said razor.

But we're not done yet. Why?

Because the woman in question here did it. She went into the bathroom, grabbed a razor blade, and...you can paint your own graphic mental picture here. To add to the sheer dysfunctionality of this account, apparently the "doctor" was also quite the sadist, insisting that the procedure would be painful, so it would be okay for her to let out a scream when she used the razor. He insisted on the screaming three times.

At the very least, the woman didn't scream and give him that small pleasure. My co-worker tells me that as the woman is describing this, the look on Montel's face is probably akin to all of yours as you read this: a mix of horror, incredulous laughter, and sheer disbelief.

"That's terrible!" Montel exclaimed after. "We do have reconstructive doctors, and can reattach it for you without any charge. Would you at least like that?"

"Oh, I'm afraid you can't reattach my nipple," the woman said.

Montel stared bemused at her. "Why...not?"

"Because," she answered, "the doctor on the phone told me to flush it down the toilet when I was finished. And I did."

About here my jaw hit the floor in terms of dumbfounded amazement that someone could be this gullible. There's naivite, and then there's this. Forgive me for being so blunt, but if you fall for a stunt like this, I'd find it debatable whether you were even deserving of getting your nipple back.

The final kicker to all this is that, after shaking off his "You can't be serious" expression, Montel explained to her that they could still do some reconstructive cosmetic work, even without the nipple present. Whereupon the woman looked at Montel and said in a somewhat snarky voice, "I'll want to see your doctor's credentials first."

Well, I'm sure glad she's asking now. But when a talk show host is interviewing you about having suffered from a pesudo-doctor's sadistic thrill, don't you think he'd be making sure the doctors he brought in would be certified twice over?

As I said before, I'm not sure how accurate this story is. Even still, I'm still of the opinion that it's debatable whether she deserves to even have her nipple back after following a stunt like this.

Today's Lesson: there is a way to give yourself a breast exam. Hacking off a nipple with a razor is not it.


posted by Phillip at 6:56 AM