Enjoying a life that looks misleadingly better than usual.

Played some shows with new band this past weekend.

At the pinnacle of the debauchery (which happened a day after multiple pairs of testicles were marked with various slogans) i found myself in a Toronto bar (at 4am) with half of the Blue Jays' pitching staff.

I (finally) met Jeremy Accardo (and congratulated him on his 23 saves so far this season) and after a handshake told him i could hit anything he could throw at me.

He DIDNT punch me or even get annoyed. Success!

Oh, and when someone asked AJ Burnett how much money he gets paid, i rudely chimed in with "more than you should". Luckily this was said harmoniously with the same (or similar) sentiment from the man himself. We had a laugh, then he said he was from arkansas, but pronounced it Are-Kansas. He seemed genuinely interested in my pseudo-profound statement of rock stars wanting to be sports stars and vice-versa (lifted from klosterman, of course). Then i fell in love with 8 women and never talked to any of them. Typical night.

Im still more broke than i've ever been in my life.

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As my birthday fast approaches...

BUY ME THIS


thanks in advance.

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Two words...

=

NO SHIT.


explanation

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Ladies, please...

If i contracted some sort of terminal illness and was laying up in a hospital somewhere there is a chance that via some charity organization I may be offered/granted a wish or two. Although I am not a child, I hope these superfluous and moderately unnecessary options are available to terminal adults. I would have to think long and hard about it. I'd need to wish for something that would potentially live on longer than I would.

After some careful thought, I have decided that my #1 wish would be for the eradication/criminalization of the tube top. Yes, I'm serious. Allow me to explain:

Now, I am no fashionista. Clinton Kelly and I have about as much distance between us as Darwin and Jesus. I'm not, nor will I ever claim to be an authority on fashion, trends, popular culture, or anything remotely related to such. I can't even understand how Stacey London can vehemently criticize fashion choices of middle-class Americans while wearing pointy-toed shoes. However, I know what I like, I know what i feel that looks good. The tube top is not a part of these feelings.

I've noticed a resurgence over the past couple of years in the tube top. This summer especially it has become a standard fashion item. I'm not even sure why I abhor it so intensely. Part of it may be the unflattering straight line across the chest. Perhaps its the fact that it can render the most desirable pair of mammary glands hideously squished and deformed (although, I suppose if one were the celebrity-idolization type, this could be a fast track to being instantly more like Tara Reid). I've even come to accept (and in fact quite enjoy) the riding pants tucked into boots look. Over sized sunglasses? Sure. I love the longer tshirt under the shorter tshirt. The halter top immediately stirs up ancient feelings in my pelvic region. Even the worst tank top, which is no more than a tube top with spaghetti straps, is acceptable to me. The tube top, however renders the most attractive female human unthinkably hideous.

This is a phenomenon comparable to the septum piercing. Now, as far as piercing/body modification is concerned I honestly have no hard-line opinion on such. I'm into plain Janes and Sara-plain-and-talls, but I really don't mind if you have stainless steel jammed through various parts of your body. Unless, of course, its in the septum. This instantly makes any female undesirable to me also. I often have a recurring nightmare about meeting the absolute perfect woman, falling in love with her, eventually getting to the alter, and then waking up after our wedding night to find her in a tube top with a 10g ring through her septum, as she puts on her pointy-toed shoes and drags me out of the house to a karaoke bar. Shudder.

ANYWAYS, just please, ladies. Take some advice from a quasi-intelligent pseudo-intellectual single bachelor and stop wearing tube tops. I see you wearing one, and you're adjusting it every three seconds. Isn't that just a bit of a hassle? Get rid of em. My opinion has to be at least slightly more valuable than that of the brothers down at Pi Beta Sigma (who happen to love the tube top). I would appreciate it, especially considering the fact that I'm dying of a rare form of lupus.

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i'm moving.

i'm moving to st catharines, on. reasons for which are to be revealed later.
as i traverse this great northern land (from coast to coast) i promise to up the quotas for hilariously insightful blog posts.

things are finally coming up p.

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Wicked Excuse Train

Oftentimes when i'm on a cigarette break at work (which tends to be happening more often than not) mothers will walk by with their small children. Cute little toddlers scuffling about with their newfound upright-movement; little red-headed baby girls with eyes the size of dinner plates riding joyously (and safely) in the spot for them on the shopping cart, glancing at me and giggling like they are having the time of their lives.

Sometimes it makes me smile, other times (read: way more times) i just get creeped-out.

Its when i see their little eyes focus in on the cigarette in my hand, or the smoke i'm exhaling through my stained-yellow teeth i feel a tremendous guilt. Look at this child, all curious and amazed by the smoke rising from my Peter Jackson king-sized Virginia fag.

Baby wants to join me in Cancer (formerly Flavour) country. Baby wants a smoke.

I start to feel sick inside knowing that everything these babies are influenced by for their next few years on this planet is possibly vitally important to the development of certain character traits (flaws) in the future.

Perhaps when they reach an age where the dirty kid from around the way offers him/her a cigarette, and maybe something, a force so great and instinctual that it transcends peer-pressure, subconsciously makes them have that puff. Eventually they end up smoking 2 packs a day through a hole in their neck at age 17.

ANYWAYS...When i snap out of this (as i have just demonstrated) i realize that i'm not influencing these children to smoke. They are looking at the all-encompassing example of what they by absolutely no means want to grow up to be. A notion so fundamentally prominent that most children are subconsciously and completely aware of it early on in the second trimester. Therefore, my smoking is helping babies.

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Months are not years!

Perhaps this has happened to you.

"Ohhh dear, what a cute baby, how old is he/she"?

"Why, he/she is 18 months of course!"

WRONG!

Its a fucking one-year-old child. I'd even accept one and a half. This irks me.

From now on i'm going to tell anyone with a baby that i am 310 months old.

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List - 10 Things that interest me more than a 44 hour work-week.

• Michael Bublé
• The Half-Life of YOP
• The amount of tiles on my ceiling
• The amount of tiles on your ceiling
• A Friends "Best of Ross" marathon
• Noam Chomsky's speaking voice
• The 'anecdote/get-to-know-the-contestants' portion of Kid's Jeopardy
• Human hamster wheel
• Infant finger-paintings
• Geological survey of Uganda

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Ever see that scene in Scanners...

My lack of inspiration inspires me to think paradoxically.

Your head just exploded.

Happy birthday to that lady that shacked me up for 9 months with free rent all those years ago.

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Rude awakening

If you fall asleep with the TV on during The Colbert Report, theres a pretty good chance you'll wake up to some shitty prop-comic on Comedy at Club 54. This will ruin the rest of your day.

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Stones in my shoes

There is a pebble in my shoe. Its been in there since Tuesday afternoon (today is Friday). For some reason whenever this happens rather than remove my shoe and easily discard the intruder I spend all day wiggling my foot around and maneuvering the stone into a comfortable position. (eg. between toes). I'm pretty sure this behavior says something about me as a person, but I'm way too lazy to even bother thinking about it.

Eventually, I develop a kind of relationship with the pebble. It'll disappear for most of a day and then pop itself out from hiding by jamming its jagged sides into the ball of my foot, and its like a surprise visit from an old army buddy who you haven't even thought about in a while.

My foot hurts.

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Apathy

I feel very apathetic toward everything in my life all the time, especially lately. I recognize it, and it kind of sucks, but I can't really be bothered in making any effort to change. (Dr Phil calls this a 'shame circle').

I heard about these support meetings called 'apathetics anonymous' and started to consider that maybe i can no longer get away with writing it all off as silent-intellectual-introversion/existentialism so i actually made a decision to go to the meetings and make some sort of effort.

The day of the meeting finally comes. I awake to vague memories of a blurry saturday night and splash some cold water in my face. I looked into the mirror and said aloud: "I'm going to do something about this, its time to change", then proceeded to tie up my shoes and turn on my iPod.

I opened the door and breathed in the fresh, cool, spring morning. I envisioned the air in my lungs as pure white light when I inhaled, and disgusting black sludge as I exhaled. The iPod 'shuffle' feature was giving me track after track of uplifting, 'its going to be alright' styled anthems. I picked up my pace and was feeling increasingly more focused.

"Its time" I repeated aloud as I felt my brisk walk filling my entire being with a vague optimism I have never felt in my life. I considered people I have damaged relationships with for no reason. I pontificated about people I've scorned, and things I need to immediately make right in my life.

The moment had finally arrived. The walk seemed like 30 seconds, and I pulled out the iPod to confirm it had been 36 minutes. I walked up to the door, chin up and chest puffed like a mighty captain standing proudly at the foremast of his great ship. It had been a long fight, and the toll it had taken was slowly fading from his face like Marty Mcfly's family members in a picture of 1984 when he was in 1955.

I reached out and took hold of the handle with a grip more firm than I have ever had on anything. I went to pull the door open. It was locked. There was a small handwritten sign that was sloppily scotch-taped to the door. It read:

"The apathetics anonymous meeting has been canceled due to lack of interest".

I went home to sleep and dreamed about flying to the store in my lazy boy to buy cigarettes.

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Wet blanket

i bet if you were stranded in the desert for a couple days a wet blanket would be something you would love to have.

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Tuesday's minutes

Today i saw this old hag of a late-40's woman wearing a tshirt that read "If you're rich, I am single". Now, i'm so broke i can't afford to pay attention, and i can guarantee shes still single either way.

If you're one of those people who says they listen to "all music except country and rap" (everyone knows at least 100 people like this) i can guarantee that you don't listen to jazz, or j-pop. Actually, that usually means "i listen to pop top 40 AND rock top 40" (oooh how advanced).

Ever notice that the people who always chime in with "I hate to say i told you so..." are always the ones that clearly love to say it and relish every minute of telling you so?

fin.

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Tater Mitts

Today on the telly i was blindsided by a 'slice-of-life' style ad (eg: "tired of putting your shoes on one at a time?"....etc). It was for a revolutionary new household item known as Tater Mitts. They appear to be large rubber gloves with an abrasive and rough surface on the palms and fingers. With these gloves you fondle your potatoes under running water and it peels them in minutes...taking off only the thinnest layer necessary to achieve skinless potatoes (maximizing potato size when peeled).

...it has just occurred to me that this is the most redundant thing i have ever explained.

ANYWAYS seems like an innovative product, appears to work, whatever. It always works in the commercial. What gets me about this whole thing is something that happened a few years ago.

I was working at the BEEF BARON, in the kitchen, (where i became an expert grill master) it was my first day. The first thing i had to do was turn on this gigantic machine the likes of which i have never seen. This machine featured a rickety lid, and had a big old drum that spun around like a rock tumbler with crack in it.

This part antique/part 40's sci-fi movie wreckage was a potato peeler. I had to dump 50 pounds of large potatoes into this thing (10 or so at a time) so they could bounce around until peeled. It took forever. I was sprayed in the eye multiple times with water, and even hit in the chest with an errant potato (i hadn't closed the lid properly). Partly because i was baked out of my face, (1) but mostly because i really didn't want to do them by hand, my next thought was about possibly inventing big rough-surfaced gloves like the Tater Mitts. I then realized that if i was going to use my hands, a potato peeler would probably be about 400x faster than the stupid sandpaper gloves.

So, FUCK TATER MITTS.

peace.

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1. (i used to go baked to the first day always, on the logic that if i ever had to go in to work baked, i would just look normal...in retrospect, that is fucking retarded, but only because i am not high enough right now to understand it properly)

Dear Hanttula...you fucked up.

http://www.hanttula.com/exhibits/8ball/8ball.htm



you ruined it.

for me. for the children. for other immature 20 somethings running out of things to appreciate ironically to appear acceptable to their snobby, hipster doofus peers.

thanks a lot!

all signs point to DIE IN A FIRE.

at least we still have pogs.

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Fuck bees

Apparently a link has been discovered between cellular phone usage and the deaths of massive swarms of bees. Cartoon bears everywhere are bummed about your pink RAZR that you spent 3 hours gluing rhinestones to only to have it turn out like crap, sending you into a downward spiral of cell-phone pimping apathy that you cite as an excuse to why its remained in its current state of freakish disrepair (much like the bill you are still 4 months behind on because you got locked into a shitty contract with fine print that you were too lazy to read and the thought of your phone looking so awesome with only one trip to the craft store distracted you from the details). These bears, however, still stack mad piles of paper (toilet that is, Charmin specifically) so they've still got some floss on.

I'm sorry, but i fucking hate bees. They are the worst...they are aggressive and make it nearly impossible to enjoy a package of fruit-snacks on a hot summer day (actual experience). And although i may never have been stung by one (mostly because they incite irrational levels of fear, thus leading to unimaginable levels of speed while running from them) i know what they're capable of. I've watched my brother sprinting barefoot home across the lawn as a child because dad was home with the corn flakes. He stepped on a bee, was stung on the foot, and dropped like a sack of potatoes.

That changed me.

Theres a reason why the fiercest troupe in the history of hip hop refer to themselves as the 'killer bees'. Its because bees are irrevocably fierce...in a WU TANG sort of way. I'm serious...the next time you stick out your tongue with anticipation of it making contact with that god damned astro-pop you just paid a ridiculous 3$ for at the beach this summer, and a bee crawls out from round it unnoticed (because you're too busy drinking warm beer with extra sand on the top and ogling women who aren't necessarily out of your league, but that you would never be able to find the courage or social capacity to talk to anyways because they are all wearing bathing suits and looking sharp in their large sunglasses and angular hostess haircuts) it will jam its sharp and mild-venom covered stinger right into it, not unlike method man's rusty screwdriver, BLAOWW!!

Point is...when i get paid i'm going to put some time on my phone and use it a bit.

I like texting but i hate using acronyms and short forms...i always bang that fucker out...so me sending one message appears as though im one of those people who go out to a party or a bar and just stand there hacking away having entire life-affirming conversations with friends.

what the fuck? i am currently laughing out loud and having a barbecue.

Parentheses' are a poor excuse for run-on sentences and unnecessary commentary (this side-note left blank...ed).

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