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!

 


It's Sunday, and I'm still alive! Yay!

This is cause for celebration mainly because there were moments yesterday where I didn't think I'd survive. It's always an unpleasant thing when in the middle of a work shift, you have to dive to the bathroom in the back and wretch your guts out. Even worse when there's nothing in your stomach to purge and all you can do is marvel at how the acid reflux burns...it burns! And just to add to the wonderful dilemma of getting either an acute case of either food poisoning or a sudden case of "I'm not sure what, but I think I'll just pass out where I stand right now, thanks", it certainly doesn't help when you're working the last 2 hours of said shift solo.

Fortunately, in the last two hours, not a lot of people demanded I run around the store and perform arduous work. Energy was salvaged, trips to the porcelain god (oh you whimsical white deity, you!) were thankfully avoided, and at the end of the day I was able to finally see the Silent Hill movie.

Why didn't I just go home and rest, and see the movie another day? Because prior arrangments had been made to see it, and I'd already delayed seeing it twice now, and no bloody viral infection is going to keep me from my geek-filled joygasms, dammit! And speaking of, there were many joygasms. Sure, the script had its moments of cheese (and in some cases, the amount of cheese reminded me of that commercial where those huge-assed blocks of cheese escape from a truck and go rampaging down a hill), but the story was still at its heart fucked in the head, and Christopher Gans achieved what I believe is the best game-to-movie transfer possible thus far.

But for those of you who have not yet seen the movie and are still considering it, let me offer up some tips:

1) air raid siren going off = bad
2) Pyramid Head showing up = really, really bad
3) barbed wire showing up = seriously, absolutely and without a doubt disturbingly bad


So there you have it. And in a momentary change of themes for the day, I present Today's Quote, courtesy of writer Neil Gaiman on his blog: "And a note to any future would-be me-impersonators: Please work on your spelling."
posted by Phillip at 7:40 AM

 

For some peculiar reason, our section of the mall smelled like burnt toast all morning. I can't exactly explain this, since we're nowhere near the foodcourt. In fact we're about as far from the foodcourt as one can possibly get without actually walking out the front doors. And I know it wasn't just me being paranoid; other people were commenting about the odd smell too. Maybe they were filming another one of those Canadian Heritage Moments commercials and forgot to tell us.

In other news, I am terrified of the month of May. Mind you, this isn't some random phobia, such as triskadelaphobia or a fear of words with the letter 'e' in them. Though if the latter one does scare you, I'd be rather curious to see how you carry on a conversation without using, or else deliberately misspelling, up to 2/3rds of English vocabulary. However if all you do is devolve into Netspeak, I'm afraid for the safety of the gene pool we'll have to put you down...you and your OMGWFTBBQ's.

Back to May for a moment: I fear it. I really do. More importantly, I fear how I'm going to look once the month reaches its conclusion, and whether I'll still have enough strength or intact body parts to stand up properly once it's over. May is shaping up to be a busy month, and it's already ranging from the "good" to the "close timing, but still good" to the "you seem like a nice guy working for Head Office, why are they wanting me to kill you?"

Broken down chronologically, May gets to offer me:

Inventory! Which to me is a 4-letter word involving vulgar, physically impossible things and one's mother/wife/insert some other cherished family member here. As of next Tuesday, I will have 2 weeks to get things prepped and ready. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but they've completely altered the way in which the inventory count will be done, and so far I have yet to see anything about it that I like. My plan is to get as much crap counted beforehand, Head Office be damned if they want to be nitpicky about it, so when the actual Inventory rolls in, we'll spend as little time on it as possible. Whether this is mere whimsical fantasy or an actual possibility, we'll see soon enough. But following closely on the heels of the Inventory is...

Anime North 2006! Which in a lot of ways is like being allowed to devour a large, chocolate sundae after having to eat a plate filled of liver that's been topped with steaming brussel sprouts dipped in raw egg yolk. (You think I'm being hyperbolic in my comparisons, don't you? I only wish I was...) I am so seriously looking forward to AN06, but before that can happen there's still all the last bits of the Confic to edit, reduce in size to accomodate an hour, alter to include more Hysteria, and then get printed up at the nearby Staples.

And this is to say nothing of any other prep work including raiding the grocery stores for food and an unexpectedly happy sale involving 3 boxes of Pocky for $5. There's also prop wrangling, some prep work for the few other panels I'm sitting on (or in the case of the SM panel that now finds Shance on it, suffering through), and the other random last-minute things that appear. But for right now, the Confic is the big priority.

After that, I think I'll take a bit of a break in writing and let things cool down. Which is just as well, considering how less than a week after the Con is over, there's...

Moving! Which is happy and aggravating all at once, mostly because we'll be packing before the Con and frantically trying to get the remainder of things ready to go in the few days following. I can't exactly knock the move, since it came as an unexpected thing and gives us almost twice as much square footage than our current apartment. And best of all, the move won't be as hectic as it could be, since we're only moving one floor down and one apartment over. (So we'll be wheeling the bookshelves out on the dolly with all the books still inside them. Huzzah!)

This all came about because Mel's been wanting a change, mostly of space and an expansion thereof. We'd been discussing the possibility of a move for a few months now and wanted to start looking later in the summer before all the university students return & flood the area. It occured to Mel that she'd never seen a 2-bedroom apartment in our complex before (and for that matter, neither had I). So upon asking our Super about it, Mel got not only a tour on one such apartment, but was also informed that a 2-bedroom was going to be available in June.

Not just a 2-bedroom, but apparently one of the best apartments in the entire place. (And after touring it, I can agree our Super wasn't kidding.) Now here's where the timing borders on the foreordained: the former/current couple occupying the 2-bedroom only just sent in their two months' notice. Mel just happened to ask the Super not a day or two after. This apartment hadn't been shown to anyone else. Hell, it hadn't even been officially listed as available yet.

So after a bit of being smitten and a lot of "can we afford it?", we managed to tweak our finances to the point where we could afford it and signed up. And now, in the last week of May we get to move on out and up...and I will probably get very little if any sleep.

But I can live with that. Really, I can. And I can still live with having to deal with all that work coming hot off the heels of the Con, where I will again probably get very little if any sleep. It'll be busy, but for all the right reasons.

Inventory, on the other hand...couldn't God just strike Head Office down with a bolt of lightning and let me carry on with the more tedious and not-so-aggravating day to day tasks?

Today's Lesson: everything comes in threes. Even pairs.
posted by Phillip at 8:25 AM

 


(Hint: the answer is "yes." It will always be "yes.")

So I'm here at Kevin & Donna's place, marvelling at the massive Duplo creation I have made and wondering how long it will survive once Gabezilla discovers it tomorrow morning. I give my creation 10 seconds. Mel tells me I'm being optimistic amidst rolling along a katamari ball. And somewhere in all this, the "director's cut" Confic will be finished up, leaving Kevin & I to slice about twenty odd pages from the script.

Yep, as you've all no doubt guessed, we're in Brantford once more. It feels like only yesterday we were here. In fact...it was only yesterday we were here. Not at Kevin & Donna's, mind you, but with other family members. Carly & Jorret were house-sitting for his family. And by house-sitting, I mean: "it's a huge friggin' house out in the countryside with satellite, an outdoor jacuzzi tub and a kitchen that makes me cry with envy every time I gaze upon it."

I love that house.

And happily enough, Mel & I got to spend the whole weekend there. It's not often I get full weekends off. If I'm lucky, I manage to squeeze in the once-a-month alloted Saturday off I'm entitled to. Blind luck the one I booked off for myself happened to be the same weekend they were house-sitting.

The entire weekend was spent doing very little of anything...and I don't think I've ever truly appreciated that to its full potential until now. There was no running around, no major errands, no parties, and notably for me no writing despite the presence of my laptop. And yet, I was still very happy just to sit back and listen to the sound of the rain outside. And Shady & her brother Sinatra racing across the dining room, their little claws click-clacking away on the wooden floor moments before the little fuzzbutts tumbled into each other and resumed their wrestling match.

I also discovered that for some inexplicable reason, I seem to be genetically resistant to tequilla. I'm not sure why, but despite it being a very nice 80-proof, $60 bottle brought back from Mexico, after six shots I wasn't even feeling a buzz. (Which, to my amusement, boggled Jorrit to no end. "How the hell can you just slam it back and then walk away like nothing's wrong?" was the remark that amused me the most, which was followed up by, "You don't even do the salt or lime thing afterwards! Did you even swallow any of that, or just toss the contents over your shoulder?"

So I'm a hardass when it comes to tequilla.

Naturally this means I can get plastered pretty easily on other shooters, and mixed drinks will do notable damage to my psyche (and ability to wear pants) only after a few glasses. *Sigh* There is no justice in this world.

In other news, I have just discovered that our store's annual "check every bloody thing in the bloody store" inventory from hell will be in three weeks' time, on May 16th. All I have to say to Head Office is:







Today's Lesson: the world would be a much better place if everyone took 15 minutes each day to recline in a Jacuzzi, listen to their favourite music and momentarily forget about the rest of the world. Barring that, the world would be a much better place if I could take 15 minutes each day to recline in a Jacuzzi with my favourite music. In fact, the world would be fantastic if I could do that without pants either! (Though I'm sure I'd look silly wearing pants in a Jacuzzi to begin with.) And of course, the world would be perfect if Mel were in the Jacuzzi with me, and she was wearing absolutely nothing else to go with her own lack of pants.

Ah, bliss...

(Yeah, I know I'm going to be hurt mightily once she reads this. But shhhh...let me enjoy the moment while it lasts.)
posted by Phillip at 7:42 PM

 


To sum up today:

1) Alarms went off at ungodly hours of the morning

2) long drives up to London were slept through

3) pictures were apparently taken of me in that state, possibly to be used as blackmail. I guess we won't know until the message with all the letter cut-outs from the newspaper arrive.

4) meetings were attended


All in all, I got a lot out of the meeting. Like salads, delicious sandwiches with very crusty buns, brownies and what I think was butternut squash soup. I rather enjoyed the soup, which is somewhat perplexing as I rather loathe the taste of squash in its natural form. And there was pop. Cans of pop. Lots and lots of cans of pop.

Joy!

I took home at least 5 cans. Now before you start wagging the finger of morality at me, hear me out: of course I would have taken home more, but the rest were all diet.

Apart from that....uh, I can't say I really learned anything new. To their credit, the speakers from Head Office were great and very informative, but as far as I'm concerned, this was retreading on old questions and issues that have already been addressed. Which probably explains why I almost nodded off during some of the ridiculously length of repetitive questions & obvious answer sessions.

We were also given lanyard nametags with springy cords. I bounced mine around like a yoyo. Then it snapped upwards and whacked me in the nose. I was not impressed.

But the hotel our meeting was hosted at (yes, we had that many managers attending, and needed the space) was very swanky. I scoured the swanky digs, discovering a nice restaurant, another impressively large conference room filled with 8 people from Sobeys discussing one thing or another, and ice machines. I'm particularly pleased with having found the ice machines.

I needed it to help keep my pop cold.

Alas, there was no pool. And here I brought my swimsuit for nothing! Sure, you laugh now, but consider: we had at least an hour for lunch. More than enough time to choke down a meal, soak in a Jacuzzi and then dry off just in time for the meeting to resume.

Now how many of you just thought to yourself, "he really put way too much forethought into that"? Show of hands. Come on, don't be shy. Put them up.




Not both of them, you idiot. You do realize that someone's going to walk in to the room at this very moment, and wonder why you're acting like an orangutang in front of the computer. (Then again, maybe they'll just assume you have the webcam on again.)

And with the closing of the meeting, we are given the perfect segueway to Today's Lesson: nothing will make you do a double-take faster than walking into the men's washroom and finding half a dozen women inside.

Okay, yes, the females at the meeting outnumbered the males 15 to 1 (there were only four of us guys, and three were the guest speakers visiting from the Head office), and certainly at the end of the meeting the ladies' washroom had one hell of a line-up...but still, that was a heart attack I didn't need. I had to recheck the sign to make sure it was in fact the men's room door I'd opened. But happily, the ladies were kind enough to clear out and let me use one of the urinals in peace. Now that's consideration.
posted by Phillip at 5:38 PM

 


It's almost midnight. Tuesday morning, I get to drag my tired ass out of bed at 6am, and by 7am be in Cambridge so a group of us unlucky store managers can drive one and a half hours out to London for a 9am meeting that will probably be interesting for about an hour and bore me to tears for the remaining six hours. Under other circumstances I wouldn't have too much issue with this: I'm getting paid to not show up at the store for one day, lunch is catered and I can dress as casually as I want, so long as I still have pants on for the entirety meeting.

It's that whole "getting up at 6am" part I'm not particularly fond about. I'm not as grumbly about mornings as Mel is, but I'm certainly not the sort of guy who just bounds out of bed at the coming of dawn, takes a deep breath and remarks, "Today is going to be so fabuloooouuuuus!"

Well...actually I would make the "fabuloooooouuuuus!" remark. Just not at 6am.

In the meantime, Shady's curled up at my feet, Chance is curled up in his favourite sleeping box on the coffee table, and Tachi is nibbling on Chance's other sleeping box in the hall. Mel is trying not to swear so openly as she attempts the 100-man marathon for Super Smash Brothers. And I am needing to change the drives on my laptop and fire off the latest incarnation of the Confic (now 95% completed!) to Kevin so he can evaluate the comedic potential of the line, "Hotaru just gave the basilisk head."


Today's Lesson: it's a good idea to check the hours of a restaurant beforehand on an Easter Monday like today, lest you show up for coffee and discovered it's only going to happen if you break into the restaurant and commandeer the coffee machine.
posted by Phillip at 8:34 PM

 


Well, the world is still spinning around and amazingly enough I haven’t gotten motion sickness. The thick of April is now upon us, which means I no longer have to fear the ides of March. Not that I ever bothered to in the first place since I have no idea what said ides might in fact be. It’s probably got something to do with the Evidence Mice.

There’s been a fair deal of writing I’ve had to work on, and oddly enough none of it has involved the Confic. I find it rather peculiar how any serious writing I’ve done (fic or story) has taken place whenever we’ve been visiting Kevin & Donna in Brantford. Though all these side projects and miscellany whatnots have only been part of it. Mel’s been rather restless as of late, as demonstrated by the current rearranged look of the living room.

But onto the crux of this little bit of nowhere. While it’s a little late, it seems almost fitting on Easter weekend to announce a recent addition to the family.

And no, Mel’s not pregnant. Put down the party poppers and stop checking to see who won the betting pool.

While we don’t have any pictures at the moment to post online, in the last few weeks we have been enjoying the company of a Holland dwarf lop whom Mel has named Tachi. (Short for Tachikoma; Mel really loves those little GitS: SAC mecha.) Tachi is black & white, rather small, very cute and incredibly voracious.

As Maral can probably attest from her own bunnies, Tachi enjoys nibbling on whatever she can find. We’ve designated a fresh pad of paper as a sacrificial virgin to Tachi’s raging volcano. (Which, upon reflection, is perhaps the strangest set of comparisons I’ve ever read.) In fact, she’s currently perched upon a cardboard box and systematically devouring it…and volume 3 of our Card Captor Sakura manga!! Bad Tachi!!





Well, so much for that, since there’s bite marks and pieces of the cover chewed off. Now it appears we have something else to purchase at Anime North this year. Grand. Thanks, Tachi…

But how and why did we suddenly end up with a cute little bunnybutt? Tachi came courtesy of Gary’s friend, Wilf, who had to drastically cut down the number of pets in his own household. And the last time we visited Wilf, Mel was fawning all over Tachi (at the time named Holstein). It was pretty much a case of Wilf asking, and Mel ready at the door with the bunny cage before he could finish the sentence. All in all, I can’t say it’s a bad thing. We got Tachi, her cage, and all the feed, food and wood chips for free.

And best of all, Tachi is nothing like Baboo, my family’s previous bunny from a few years ago. For one thing, Tachi is half the size that Baboo was. For another, Baboo was carnivorous, as a few permanent bite marks on my hands can attest to.

The other household members have adjust well to Tachi’s presence. As far as Shady was concerned, Tachi was small, furry and not another dog. Ergo, Shady immediately loved Tachi and wanted to play with her. Then again, their first evening together Tachi expressed her concerns about the living situation when Shady play-pounced on her, and she lost all bladder control on Mel’s pillow.

As for Chance…well, for the most part, Chance is petrified of Tachi. Whenever she hops towards him, he bolts and hides around a corner, warily eyeing Tachi’s movements. On the other hand, Tachi seems to think Chance as a playmate and generally chases after him whenever he runs for cover. Poor Chance.

The three have been together for a few weeks now, and I have yet to see any of them take issue with each other. Tachi is litter trained, as we’ve discovered, and generally gets a few hours in the evening to romp about the apartment at her leisure. I’m starting to think she likes the freedom, since she can get rather noisy in her cage most mornings.

I guess the restlessness is contagious.

So now we have a fish, a dog, a cat and a bunny--all of whom have been rescued or reclaimed in one way or another from owners who could no longer look after them (and in most cases, they still really loved their pets despite having to part with them). The floor gets a little busy from time to time, but fortunately I don’t foresee any new critters arriving in the near future. Otherwise, we’ll definitely need to get a larger apartment.


Today’s Lesson: Anya was right. It must be bunnies!
posted by Phillip at 2:08 PM

 



I wish I was kidding.

Alas, we are currently in the possession of purses that smell like fish that have been out in the afternoon sun of an open market for perhaps one hour too long. All attempts to dispel the scent or air the purses out has been met with failure. I've sent 2 employees into the back stockroom. They haven't returned. The smell either caused them to pass out or drove them insane. (And it the latter is the case, then that explains the peculiar scufflings I've heard from somewhere above the ceiling tiles of our store.)

All in all, I can do without raw fish-scented fashion accessories. Bring back the toffee-scented pencil cases, or the chocolate-scented backpacks! Those at least I could enjoy sniffing!

In other news...there's an update! Huzzah!

You know, it's not my fault this little bit of nowhere took longer than expected to appear before you today. Every time I sat down to do...well, anything...unexpected occurences took place. Like sex (which is a good thing), or Mel discovering that some SOB tried to siphon gas from our car (which is only a good thing if we manage to greet this idiot's kneecaps with a ball peen hammer), or 16 straight hours of me being nowhere near our home (which is a good thing no matter how much my wallet weeps in the aftermath).

And just to quickly clarify on the gas thing: as far as we can tell, they barely got any gas from Mel's tank. The incident itself happened a few days ago, and appears isolated. At least for our car. But it's rather disconcerting to discover the flap open and the cover popped off, especially coming on the heels of a neighbour's really sweet motorcycle getting stolen from the underground parking space next to us too. So in terms of how we're doing, we're looking at a special locking cover, and I'm lifting weights so I can put more force behind the ball peen hammer.

(Mel tells me my toothpick arms are too scrawny to get enough inertia behind them. It's at times like this that I've never been so grateful to be on her good side.)

But on a more pleasant note, Mel would like to thank everyone for their birthday wishes.

Mel: ^-^ "Arigato!"

All in all, much fun was had by all involved. Kenshin DVD box sets and Card Captor Sakura artbooks were unwrapped. Curses involving bodily orifices and impossibly large objects were made (repeatedly) at whatever idiot decided to trigger the fire alarm at 3am. Food was eaten. Milkshakes and green tea ice cream were enjoyed. My hands were smacked for trying to graze on Mel's leftovers after I'd polished off my own entree. And I cried tears (manly tears, I tell you! Don't make me go all Emoblog on you again!) at the empty contents of my wallet as I stared at a wall in HMV which had a bunch of Full Metal Alchemist DVDs as part of the "2 for $30" sale.

In other news, I have been reunited with an old friend: my leather jacket. I'm starting to understand Spike's affinity to his leather trenchcoat. After having worn a very nice and very thick Columbia winter coat (a Commercialmas present from Mel's mother) for the last three months, last week I decided it was time to return to my old comrade.

There was something altogether cool as I slid my arms through the sleeves and let the jacket's weight settle onto my shoulders. It truly felt like I'd rediscovered something I'd all but lost and forgotten about. It seems sickeningly sentimental, I know, but bear in mind I've had this coat for going on a decade now. It's been a part of my life and my personality for nigh ten years, so I think it's earned that much.

And this brings us to Today's Lesson: happiness is donning your leather jacket once more.

There's not much else to say here without getting into nit-picky banalities...which leaves me to sit here, pondering how the group Panic At The Disco! sounds a lot like a contemporary version of The Smiths. (Which would be rather amusing, considering how The Smiths' song "Panic" discusses the burning down of a disco. And if a mob of people laying seige to your establishment doesn't cause the patrons of a disco to panic, then obviously I want more of whatever they've spiked their tea with.)
posted by Phillip at 6:31 PM