awkward silence

During the elevator ride up to my floor tonight I wanted to ask the lady beside me if she thought the elevator smelled of old cheese (possibly a strong stilton), but, THEN, a wave of realization hit me – the stenchy smell might be emanating from her bag! or her person! so I decided against it.

I started today off by accidentally hitting my face off the door on the way out due to a poorly timed sneeze.

Boy did that hurt.

 

 

 

NOTE: For the purposes of this entry “awesome” means “douchey”.

 

Where was I off to, you ask?

To present at my very first conference.

Did I get a black eye?

Not yet, but I suspect it is around the corner.

 

 

When did I realize my shirt was on inside out?

About ½ an hour before I had to present.

 

 

How did it go?

Umm…I have no memory of anything I said or the degree to which I was stumbling over my words. Leaving felt good. To help me slip into denial mode, I tossed on my ipod (playlist: “This is what it would sound like if the 90s threw up”) and walked home reflecting on my presentation…

Come on come on
Feel it feel it
Feel the vibration

I remember feeling nauseated…

It’s such a good vibration
It’s such a sweet sensation

slightly light-headed…

It’s such a good vibration
It’s such a sweet sensation

and that it was awesome that my co-presenter cut me off everytime I was making a point to make that point “better”.

Yo! It’s about that time
To bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme
I’m a get mine so get yours
I wanna see sweat comin’ out your pores

Then I hit up the grocery store, nearly having a nervous breakdown when phylis – 1 L 1 S – accidently put the cherries in as fucking avacados and proceeded to discuss how the difference was only a couple of cents so it didn’t matter. You know what Phylis? It does matter. That’s how the fucking grocery store orders in food. Now there are going to be like, way way too many avacadoes and far too few cherries to go around. And some kid with diabetes who likes cherries is going to die when his insulin is low and all he can reach for are some unrippened avacadoes. How do you feel about having that on your head, Phylis?

On the house tip is how I’m swingin’ this
Strictly Hip-Hop boy, I ain’t singin’ this
Bringing this to the entire nation
Black, white, red, brown
Feel the vibration

Anyways, overall I think it went OK.

And that I may or may not have an ulcer.

Caution: Doom Still Impending

It seems that the Terror Alert was reduced to Yellow – an elevated risk of a terroristic attack – sometime between now and the last time I blogged about how to prepare yourself for the inevitable. Yellow, of course, means there is a significant risk of a terrorist attack. Luckily, there is some discussion surrounding building a moat (in addition to the fence) on the US and Mexico border, which will significantly reduce the risk of terrorism, and could possibly lower the terror alert to blue – a general risk of terroristic attacks.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_the_u_s_moat

Hopefully, this idea will be extrapolated to the North so that the US may protect itself from Canada, a nation known to be a brothel house of terroristic breeding.

Constant viligance, my friends.

p.

Never Die Rope!

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Product testimonies:

“Very Affordable, thanks for the option!” Yvonne, 25

“Kim, you kill me” Channa, 23

Donkey Punch

Scene: Group of workers desperately trying to get a piece of cake during office gathering…

Sally: …What’s a donkey punch?

[Everyone Snickers]

Sally: Son of a nutcracker. Tell me! WHAT IS A DONKEY PUNCH?!

Bob: Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Kevin: Not something you should be yelling about. Ass.

Bob: Especially in a work environment.

Sally: Then tell me what it is!

P4p: No way. I am not saying that out loud. You can find out in your own time.

Sally: Screw you guys.

Bob: Why don’t you Google it?

Kevin: Not something you want to Google

Sally: Should I actually Google it at work?

Bob: [shakes head]

P4p: [gives Sally a look]

Sally: I mean, what are they going to do if I do Google it. I could say I did it by accident if anyone ever asked. You know what? I am going to Google it. To spite all of you bastards.

P4p: I don’t think it’s possible to type “Donkey Punch” into Google by accident. Especially with the safe search off.

Bob: [shrugs]

As everyone is done their cake and therefore have no reason to be at the “party” they return to their respective offices.

* * * *

Sally alone in office Googles Donkey Punch, finds the definition and e-mails it to P4p.

P4p goes into Sally’s office.

P4p: I can’t believe you actually Googled it.

Sally: But I did it really fast!

P4p: You’re right. I guess the tech people can’t see what pages we visit on the internet “if we visit them really fast”. Ass.

Sally: Screw you. You should have just told me.

P4p: How could you not know that already? That saying is as infamous as the “Dirty Sanchez”.

Sally: What’s a Dirty Sanchez?

2 Minutes to Midnight

On March 17, 2007 the US’s terror alert level was raised to orange:

Orange: High Condition
High risk of terrorist attacks.

Source: Homeland Security

Orange Alert is only a stones throw away from Red Alert: SEVERE RISK OF TERRORIST ATTACKS.

A while back the government released a video to help the nation prepare for impending doom. Although not as useful as periodic updates on how scared and prepared we should be, the following video could save the lives of you and yours.

Remember, in the event of an atomic scare to duck & cover:

Constant viligance, my friends.

p.

Facebook Forseriousness 101

The following is a list of means to seem more serious. They are the result of rigorous empiricalish investigations. In particular, a snowball sample of a number of Facebook pages and their corresponding blogs were subject to content-like analyses using a handful of signifiers derived from sociological research.

• do not use any capitals. even, perhaps especially, after a period.
• when referring to oneself be sure to use an uncapitalized “i”. this is so serious it may actually be artful.
• take a few minutes each day to just be in the moment, and then blog about it. further, unnecessary, yet meaningful paragraph usage will likely ensure you taken as seriously as you surely feel when listening to your my chemical romance album.

i use this on my page.

 

        where p is for pretention.

 

 

(not to be mistaken for pretension)

 

 

 

        (i claim this word for my own)

 

 

 

 

(masking not my façade)

(artful, shall be my home.)

• Fuck that was serious. Oh shite I broke character.
• it is imperative to include actual art on your facebook page if you are to be taken forseriously.

in particular, it is best to include your own attempts at photography or perhaps even more so your own drawings.

 

 

to really drive it home, relate any included art to detailed or poetic accounts of your dreams, or greenhouse gas emission-related tirades.

• Finally, some more obvious means of exuding forseriousity: cite theorists, jazz musicians, varyingly obscure writers and poets, and post pics of yourself in a che t-shirt, or writing at a (shadegrownorganicfreetrade) coffee shop on your facebook page.

Fin

The Dog is Fucked…

…Royally.

Not just sideways, either – more like upsidedown and backwards with a tickle of a feather.

WTF does that mean, you ask?

Excellent question.

Anyways, so I took a day off work (recall, I took a full time job on in the last four months of my thesis) to have a Thesis Long Weekend Extravanganza Party of Awesomeness! (I called it that so it would sound more fun and awesome) which has thus far proved to be busted.

Today for example, I have done…

2 waves of dishes $0.30 (in soap)

swepped $1.00 (for swiffer thingme)

mopped $0.80 (in soap)

scrubbed the tub $0.80 (in soap)

watched two hours of Mythbusters $3.00 (in hummus)

So, if my life was a mastercard commercial I think the sum total of my daily activities thus far would be something to this effect…

Ability to fuck the dog despite fact thesis is due April 1st = Priceless

(…I think “sum total” may have been redundant.)

We’re on to you, Global Warming.

Winter pretty much started in January in Ontario, and Vancouver has been getting fucked since like August. Well, maybe not since August, I am originally from the general vicinity of Toronto so clearly I am ignorant of what is going on the rest of Canada.

Let’s say Augustish, then.

One of those stereotypes about Canadians that is probably true is we are perpetually concerned with the weather. This is not especially surprising as we have diverse and extreme weather patterns – we know what both -40 and +35 feel like, how to dress for it, and what the weather will probably be like tomorrow.

So when I don’t have to wear my long johns and a toque in January, I know something is wrong with the world. Most other Canadians realize something is off, too.

Now, Harper on the other hand, is probably a robot. So he would have had to get a memo about the obvious temperature-related aberrations Canada is experiencing.

It seems he did.

Seems is the key word there.

The environment is now part of the government’s revised fifth priority.

(Hippies, don’t light up your joints and claim victory yet.)

(If you beatniks in the corner could also put down the maryjane, it would be appreciated.)

Something we Canadians talk about less than the weather is politics.

We are perpetually concerned about the weather -

We are also constantly on the verge of an election.

Yup, any day now there MAY be election.

Any day.

(I’m not in poli sci or anything but I suspect it has something to do about the fact they we have enjoyed minority governments for the last few years.)

So does this new concern with the weather stem from a paucity of toque sales this winter? Or, is it part of the endless conservative election campaign? I suspect the latter. Backing out of Kyoto and the bullshit Clean Air Act ruffled a few feathers when they happened. But now the effects of Global Warming are glaringly obvious to pretty much anyone in Canada who isn’t a robot and therefore impervious to temperature changes. (This assumes, of course, that the Harperbot doesn’t have some sort of temperature recording device.) Do you know what doesn’t facilitate good policy decision-making – particularly with respect to the environment? Short-term election-campaign-type policy planning. And if we do actually, finally have an election, any new Bills will be dropped.

We’re on to you, Global Warming.

But we’re not going to do anything useful to stop you, or slow you down. After all, the weather in Ontario is better than ever!

“Shagging the Shetland Sheepdog” or “I see your Middle-Age Crisis, and Raise You (Insert Appropriate Term Here)”

I applied to graduate this week. Subsequently, the pooch needed to ice for a solid 20 minutes.

Actually, it didn’t quite happen in that order. It was more like…

1. I applied to graduate.

2. A fit of optimism (or at least hopeful pessimism) struck me and I worked on my thesis even after a long day of serving justice and whatnot.

THEN,
3. The unfortunate pooch had some business to attend to. (In the vein of over-sleeping – no exciting laundry tails* to tell this time.)

<If I didn’t probably have ADD, transition would likely have appeared around here>

Do you know what’s fucked?

That old people, and by that I mean middle-aged people, get their own special term for their all-important existential angst:

The Middle-Age Crisis.

We’ve all heard about it, seen sitcoms relevant to this theme, or entire movies devoted to addressing this profound moment in life (some good ones too, American Beauty comes to mind).

And what term do we 20-somethings have to commemorate our plight to figure out who we are what we are going to do with our lives?

Sidebar:

Whenever I went home during my undergrad and faced old friends and foes from high school and hometown I would get asked the same three questions:

1. Where did you end up at school?

2. What are you taking? (To which EVERYBODY WHO EVER FUCKING ASKED ME THIS REPLIED: “Oh, that’s interesting.” IS it? Is it interesting? What do you find interesting about it, exactly? And why, why, why, does everyone who inevitably asks me this question reply with the same fucking answer? JUST HOW INTERESTING IS IT, SALLY?)

THEN,
3. “So, <the following bolded bit should be read in a sinister tone> what are you going to do with the rest of your life?” (Or alternatively, “And, what can you do with that degree?“. “That” was always said in a really condescending fashion. I don’t know way.

Who the fuck asks that?
I mean, we’re supposed to be having small-talk and you whip out THAT?!
Really?
Fuck.

Exeunt Sidebar.

Nothing. We have no word or phrase or even a cliché that encapsulates 20-something existential angst. (20-something existential angst is clearly too long and pretentious.)

Nothing that speaks to the brutal shit that everyone goes through.

Apparently, for us, it’s not a crisis – it’s “just part of growing up”.

You know what, middle-aged people? Your little “crisis” isn’t so bad. Oooooooooh what? Are you too comfortable with all of your money, job security, your family, your house, your car? Are you SO comfortable that you’re like…feeling way, way too comfortable? So comfortable that you need to like…spend all your money on a convertible, or like hook up with someone way, way younger and more attractive than you?

Man. I hate when my diamond shoes are on too tight, too.

See that? That was sarcasm. At least during your “crises” you can choose to eat something other than Mr. Noodles.

You bastards.

I advocate that we create some sort of word or phrase or cliché of our own – something that speaks to the general shittiness of being poor, having to work 2-3 jobs without benefit, not knowing what you’re going to do with your life, living with douchey roommates, and only having 10-20 bucks for groceries. Something that gives credit to the good dates and bad, to the loss of your old friends and discovery of new ones, and just how terrifying things that are “just part of growing up” can be.

Suggestions?

*The use of this “tail” was purposeful. It was a tip of the hat to the screwing the pooch theme of late.
**This has been entry 5 of the Fucking the Dog series, and was written, for the most part, when I should have been working.