RoboRant

2008-02-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

Roborant is dead. Long live Roborant.

Did cathy come in today or what? I'm startin not to like what she's doing...she's always wearing jeans and this is a company where you wear dresses.

2007-11-24T13:56:00.000-05:00

Once, long ago, I posted a link to a video called Daft Punk Girl. Jordan (Not Granite. This is going to get confusing) responded in the comments that that girl would be his wife.

Well... free up your testicles, Jordan. I present the simultaneous successor to Daft Punk Girl and Daft Hands. And the best part is that there's two of them.

Enjoy.

There's no Sex in your Violence

2007-11-11T17:28:00.000-05:00

So, I promised Jordan that I'd put something up last night about XKCD. But I guess that this is really a post for Blake.

You'll notice that I haven't supplied a link to what XKCD might be for the unknowing. There's a reason. XKCD is a webcomic, and it kicks ass. The reason that I didn't post about it last night was that I was still busy trawling through the archives, which I have recently finished.

Sooooo.... Let me cut to the chase: In addition to being one of the best webcomcs I've ever read, XKCD has an unusual secret. Whoa Hold on. I just had a strange revelation: Unusual may be the only word in the English language that goes u-consonant-u-consonant-u. I challenge "U" to disprove me.

What is this unusual secret, you ask? It's URL. While most people (like Jordan and Google) will find that the comic's URL is xkcd.com, I happened to run across it being hosted on an entirely seperate and much funnier one:

cu.nniling.us

(that's right, you're going to have to type it in if you don't believe me)

Isn't that the best URL you've ever seen? It made me laugh only because I was busy poring through the archives absentmindedly for about half an hour before I even saw it.

Now, what is even stranger is that the nniling site is almost an exact copy. When at xkcd.com, all facets of the site (comic, archive, forums, blag, store, and about) are linked through xkcd.com, but when at cu.nilling.us only the blag and forums are linked through xkcd.com (for the obvious reason that updating the two in parallel would be a hellish waste of effort), while clicking archive, store, or about, will take you to a totally identical but seperate page hosted from nilling.us.

I find this incredibly cool. That is all. The only real question is why does this comic have two URLs? And why does the less funny one show up in Google?

Moving on:

Another aside: I was killing time thinking about what to write next, so I opened a new tab and hit the StumbleUpon button. It took me to an XKCD comic. Then it took me here.

Oh, this might be a good time to announce that the war is over. I'd love to say that I won, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Here's how I like to think of it:
1) Jordan's post was so badly written that I easily misinterpreted it.
2) Based on those misinterpretations I declared war and launched an offensive.
3) Rather than rebuffing my offensive, Jordan published a highly reformatted version of the original post which effectively removed the whole reason for declaring war in the first place.
4) I can now claim that I won because my attack went by undefended against and unchallenged. However, Jordan can claim that he didn't really lose either given that I wasn't actually attacking his ideas.

Things are pretty much like the war of 1812. The US will always claim that it won the war because they won some pretty good victories against Canadian troops on US soil (and because they're ignorant of most other parts of history as well). Canadians will sensibly claim that there was no winner given that neither side lost any territory. Although we could claim that the US technically lost given that they didn't fulfill their objective of taking over Canada, whereas we technically won given that we fulfilled our objective of not getting taken over. But it doesn't really matter anyway.

What I also wanted to clear up in this post was a lingering idea that I wanted to get to but didn't have time for: The whole basis of the conflict was totally irrelevant for 2 different reasons.

1) It was an American conflict. Girls here in Canada can already get on the pill with no problem by visiting their doctors. Every girl I knew in highschool who was on the pill, with the exception of one, was on it with parental knowledge because they had "really bad periods". Now, that may have been true, but it's also a rather convenient excuse given that it's impossible to disprove as well. The reason that this is an issue in America has a lot more to do with religious conflicts. Do you want to know why the girls getting the pill in this article were all "middle-school" and not "high-school" students? Because in the states if your highschool teaches any method of contraception except abstinence it immediately loses all federal funding. So, when your normal perspective is that contraception is immoral, then the idea of giving it to teenagers for free without their parents necessarily knowing is pretty scary/newsworthy. If that isn't your perspective, the article comes across with more of a "hmmm, saves them a trip to the GP I guess".

2) Contraception is already ubiquitous (although I suppose 'in Canada' may be important to add here as well). Who cares if kids can get the pill at school? If you're too afraid to make a doctor's appointment and get on the pill, all you need to do is go to the Health Unit. While they can't give you the pill (which is really a good thing, given that it's a prescription med), they will give you all the condoms you want, as well as the "morning after" pill. If you're too shy to go over yourself, you can send anyone to get condoms for you (or buy them anywhere), and any woman to get the MA pill (I think. If they make you take it there then I guess you'd have to go yourself). Seriously, a minimum of effort is involved already, why is it a big deal to make things slightly easier?

And that's all I have to say about that.

Let me cap off this post with some announcements:

1) Wolfgang has begun posting again. Read it, leave a comment, and maybe the next one won't be 10 months in the making.

2) Also, I didn't properly ring out the fanfare for Tingles (or Wolfgang's girlfriend), when I put up my link to her. This would be a good time to check her out since her latest post is a humourous look at Halo-themed pillow talk.

So, tune in next week when the Liam is the Awesome tour resumes, and I head back to beautiful Waterloo to see Wolfgang, Tingles, and some leftist radicals (and any RCG boys who want to get in on the fun). The weekends after that are open, but I'm going to try and spend some time in TO since I haven't been there in so long and there are so many people worth seeing.

Toodles.

No, that was a Blender, I Know You didn't have Blenders Either Back in those Days. No, We didn't. But We did Drink.

2007-11-08T15:19:00.001-05:00

Alright, let's get this started.

Here is your required reading.

Now, Jordan seems to have accessed a third article or some other resource when writing his post because he has quite a lot of information about waivers that I haven't read. If you'd like to post a link to that, Jordan, it would be appreciated.

An Introduction:

This is the part where I would talk about how much I love Jordan, etc, etc. Jordan knows I love him. To go on about it here would only weaken the issues I'll be discussing here by making them seem irrelevant.

I love busting balls. It's possibly my favourite thing to do above anything else. My online ball-busting is usually limited to an incisive comment here and there. I mean, if you say something dumb and don't back it up properly, I'm gonna bust 'em. Really, even if you do back it up, I'm still gonna try.

So when I read Jordan's post, I immediately began to get into ball-busting mode. I kept reading, though, and slowly realized that there was just too much to cover in one comment. I immediately began planning a transfer of this topic to my own blog in order to expand upon it and showcase the entirety of my anger and confusion. However, given that I only had 10 minutes until I went to work, I had a choice to make. I could start work on my post, finish it over the next day or two, and spring it on Jordan with no warning (Like opening a cupboard to look for salt only to be pegged in the side of the head from 1500 yards by a CIA operative with a case of mistaken identity) or I could drop a small post informing Jordan of my intent. A declaration, if you will.

I'd come home from work that night with the intention of reading the post again and formulating ideas for my own while I slept. Apparently Jordan took my declaration as an act of aggression in and of itself, and removed the post in question and sat sitting by his computer waiting for a response. Unfortunately, without the original to work from, I couldn't begin writing my response, so I went to bed. Apparently Jordan passed out in front of his computer an hour after I got home from work anyway, so there was no great tragedy.

This morning I woke up late. I checked the blogzor before I went to work, saw that the post was back, and copied it into a text file in case it left again. But since I was immediately expected at work, I didn't have time to read it and spent my 7 hours at work thinking about really odd things (which I will post about in more peaceful times). The 7 hours completed, I came back, checked and wrote emails, replied to comments on various posts on various blogs, checked all the other blogs, and sat down to the task at hand armed with a delicious sandwich.

Which brings us here.

This post is going to be a tremendous ball bust of Jordan's post, but it is not a first-strike offensive. Jordan, by putting his somewhat unfocused opinions onto the internet at large, made the first strike. It wasn't aimed at me, but the concepts he attacked have no way of defending themselves.

This post is not going to have anything to do with whether or not Jordan's post was 'well written'... necessarily. I will not be grammar-policing, spell-checking, or calling his lack of sources into question. There is some very emo whining and a plaintive request for god to smite humanity that will not be mentioned again for the duration of this document. However, I am forced to excrete criticism on any post which is either structured so badly that people cannot read it, or throws out pretty heavy-duty accusations and assumptions with no backing. So, depending on your definition of 'well written' I may or may not be attacking his post on the grounds of how it was written.

Anyway.

I'm going to begin with a line by line dissection of the post I've been talking about, outlining specifically every item that didn't sit right with me. We'll see what happens from there. Prepare to have the viscera of this post torn gorily from its body and smeared across your monitor.

Jordan begins by explaining that he was only reading our school newspaper because it was preferable to having cutlery stuck into his eyes. I concur, and I can only assume that the cutlery in question must have been either very dirty or covered in electrified barbed wire, because he found himself reading an article by Ashley Csanady, who is possibly the worst person who ever decided to become a journalist (as you may have divined from reading the article yourself). I hope she dies soon. Moving on.

Jordan outlines some back story in the next paragraph. I feel tempted to add at this point that the kids are directed towards counseling, which is somewhat different than waiting for them to ask for it out of the blue.

The following paragraph is where Jordan discusses the waiver. Given that I don't know about it, I won't speculate.

Now, this is where things get interesting. In this paragraph the bells began to go off in my head, and they really didn't stop until the end. So, permit me to dwell here awhile.

This paragraph sets the tone for the rest of the article. Although it has only two sentences, it colours the reading of every word after it. First, Jordan suggests that allowing minors to have doctor-patient confidentiality is a bad idea. In fact, this confidentiality is often essential in ensuring an accurate diagnosis. If children are too afraid of their parents' judgments to tell the truth to their physicians, those physicians are exponentially more likely to fuck up their diagnoses and harm the children further.

The second sentence, though, is where things start to get strange. Jordan paints a somewhat strange picture of Sally (and since Sally isn't real I'm going to say that she can be safely extrapolated to represent many girls her age) as a raging slut-bomb, looking around for the first willing penis to blow herself up on (or vice versa)... Except that she isn't on the pill yet.

This idea is actually frightening to me because it relies so heavily on ideas about contraception and sexuality that are simply false. I mean, let's leave alone the implication that Sally would be perfectly safe meeting a sex offender if she wasn't on the pill. Let's focus on the idea that Sally will abstain from sex with Jimmy or Hank if she isn't on the pill. Likely, nothing is farther from the truth. Contraceptives do not make people have sex, sex organs do, and I'm pretty sure Jimmy, Sally, and Hank already have those. I mean, let's turn the tables here:

Jimmy turns 15, and his father sits him down and gives him "the talk". Or he tries to. Then he just chickens out, gives Jimmy a box of condoms, and says, "Be careful, son."

Does Jimmy grab the condoms and immediately begin plotting how to get rid of all 12 ASAP? Does the mere reception of the devices trigger a change in Jimmy that sends him running into the streets baying for pussy? Of course not. Good lord, how long did any of us hang onto condoms we were given by other people without even knowing how to put them on properly? Let alone actually get around to using them.

So let me say it again: Being prepared for sex doesn't really make you any more or less likely to have sex. If you want to, you're probably going to whether you're safe or not. If you don't want to, you'll probably keep your protection close by anyway until someone tells you that keeping it in your wallet weakens the latex and makes it more likely to break, and then throw it out and pick up a new one.

The fact that birth control exists is not a testament to the fact that people will do anything to have sex with no drawbacks. It is a testament to the fact that people will do anything to have sex, so keeping them safe is important. Continuing.

Jordan is normally in favour of letting women have birth control. Well, that's good, because most women likely don't give a shit about whether or not a man wants them on the pill. He just isn't in favour of giving it to women who won't be (or aren't educated enough to be) sexually responsible. My opinion on the matter runs entirely in the opposite direction. Women who are irresponsible or uneducated on their sexuality are the ones who need birth control the most. If they're more likely to be having sex without a condom and/or with men who don't care about them, then I don't want them peopling the world with other idiots. This brings me to a smaller side-point: Use a condom every time. The pill is effective at stopping pregnancy, but not preventing disease. All it does is elevate women onto equal sexual footing with men. Men can easily 'fire and forget' (although not as easily in the age of DNA pat tests), and women have always been left holding the baby. Anyway, my point is that stupid women should be given as many opportunities as possible to avoid throwing 20 years of their lives away over one mistake.

Oh, and luckily he contradicts himself 2 sentences later with, "Furthermore, I acknowledge that it is necessary to have protection when participating in these acts". But... hunh?

We've reached the halfway point of the post. This is where it gets kind of cool and thought provoking. Unfortunately, the thoughts it began provoking in my head were "What?" and "Where is this coming from?" rather than "Hmmm, that is a neat way of looking at it".

While it does seem interesting to juxtapose the idea of kids being forced to have parental permission to play violent games against the idea that kids can get birth control without anyone's permission, the two ideas don't quite stack up.

First, just remember not to confuse the idea of having birth control with the idea of kids having sex with each other. They are two different things.

However, let's ignore that in favour of a simpler argument. Let's actually consider a side-by-side comparison of your kid wanting to play violent video games vs. your kid wanting to have birth control, or condoms, or an IUD, or whatever.

You say, "No violent games, it will turn you into a raging psychopath". Chances are that your child will go somewhere else and play them. It's what I did. Expected outcome: You child does not become a violent killer. In RL.

You say, "No pill, no condoms, no nothing. You shouldn't be having sex so you shouldn't need contraceptives. Abstinence is the only effective form of birth control" etc, etc. Chances are (drum roll) your child will have sex anyway. Without contraception. Expected outcome: Your child has a kid (since you're so in favour of abstinence you're probably pro-life, too) and throws away the next 20 years raising it, or your child knocks up someone else's kid and throws away the next 20 years working shitty jobs trying to pay child support, or can't/won't pay and gets looked down on as a deadbeat for the rest of his life.

Now are those two situations really comparable?

Luckily, in the next (or 3rd from the end if that helps) paragraph, we're given another comparison to work with: Cheating the government out of tons of money with no consequences is the same as having sex without parental approval.

Now, you can probably guess that I also don't agree with this, but the reasons are different. I agree with the words written here in a literal sense, "Become exceedingly wealthy without dealing with punishment? Hell ya. Become sexually active at fifteen without my parents knowing a goddamn thing? Hell ya. I am all over that". I think I can safely say that I would have done it (and still would do the theft part), but that doesn't tell the whole story. The thing that seriously pisses me off about that paragraph is another unspoken assumption about the two acts:

They are both criminal in some way. Follow a line of thought with me:

Theft -> Is a crime -> Crimes deserve punishment -> You go to jail

Now let's try it again:

Sex -> Is a crime -> Crimes deserve punishment -> Your 'rents kill you

In both cases Jordan's argument removes the last step and replaces it with "You get away with no consequences". But does it make as much sense with the second starting point? Children should be afraid, although perhaps wary or concerned would be better words, of sex. You can be easily hurt, catch a nasty infection, or have a fucking baby. They shouldn't have to be afraid of being punished for trying it as well.

To finish it off, let's meander together through the last paragraph:

"How did this happen? How did we get to a point where no one is ever willing to sit and talk about anything? Everything has to be secretive. Hushed whispers behind closed doors. Everyone is walking around with blindfolds on and grinning because we think things are okay."

Now this one, I can agree with. No snide turn-arounds, no sarcastic remarks. Most people don't talk to their parents or their kids as much or as openly as they should. But that shouldn't be used as an argument to remove people's privacy. If your kid doesn't want to talk to you about their sex life (or lack thereof), you should not immediately be thinking about how you're going to find out about it through other means.

Being a parent is hard work. Put yourself in their shoes, your kid could be doing anything without your knowledge. But you need to trust a little. Trust too much and it's as bad as not trusting your kids at all, but there is a sweet spot there in the middle. It takes years of talking to your kid and really getting to know them long before they reach puberty in order to find it, though.

So use fucking contraception, or you're gonna have to start getting to know your kids a lot sooner than you might think.

fin

And now that we're past the ball-busting session, I can safely say:

Jordan, don't hate me. I do respect you seriously as a friend and I hope we can weather this. You just happened to really push my buttons there.

And I maybe thought that the old blog scene could use some spicy controversy...

And with that,
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS AND DON'T BE SHY ABOUT IT!

PS, I have some other thoughts that I might throw down in another post tomorrow. For now I must go buy garbage tags, put out the garbage, and hit the sack.

Goodnight, friends.

(Something Snappy and Instrumental from Master and Commander)

2007-11-07T10:38:00.000-05:00

WAR

Yes, friends, this is my official declaration of war.

Yesterday, Granite posted an article so offensive, poorly conceived, and hypocritical that I have been forced to show him the error of his views in the only way possible:

Blog Warz

As of this moment Roborant is in a state of war with The Box. Unfortunately I need to spend the rest of the day at work, so I can do little more than make the announcement and recall all of my diplomats at this time.

Sharpen your blades. Call your muster. Hide your daughters (if you're a beacon of 'modern' catholic values). War is upon the lands.

That being said, war is a gentleman's game. All is fair, but take none of it personally. Or at least not without a large pinch of snuff.

POW Biatch!

Think About the Good Things, Think About the Bad Things, Think About the Right Things, Think About the Wrong Things

2007-10-25T21:48:00.000-04:00

I am eminently concerned with the imminent death of our community.

As of this posting, 12 of the 21 persons I link to in this space have not posted in at least a month, most of them far exceed that figure.

This has made me somewhat sad of late, but now worse things are happening:

Fraser (No link... because he has no more blog) simply disappeared as of a week or two ago. I notice that no one else has posted on this, so maybe I've been left out of why.

Hurley has officially resigned. She'll be pulling the page down in a week she says. So someone can notify me when that link goes dead.

We vied briefly for control of the blogging empire that we'd pulled unwillingly from the keyboards of our friends. Maybe she's done the right thing in pulling the plug now. I can't bear to see this thing die, though.

Have the blogs of the Super Friends really turned into guises for meaningful relationships. Maybe they have. Whenever I leave a comment on a post, I am exercising the relationship I have with the poster. But I don't leave very many comments anywhere anymore.

Nora and Carl haven't blogged in a year. Shame on them. Ben, the Super Friend who didn't come camping, hasn't managed a full-length post since September. Blake, Ellen, and I keep it going, but maybe none of us have the time anymore. Of late, mine and Ellen's posts for the most part consist of travelogues, while Blake's consist of a mish-mash of Youtube postings. Should I really expect people to interact meaningfully when all I can write about is "I went out and got drunk and didn't get laid", again?

On the other hand, I don't think my commentary has changed that much since my first days. I still put care into the posts I write. I still try and make them funny enough to be worth reading. I remember the days when my posts could garner 5 or 6 comments the day they were put out. Now, if comment levels are any indication, I'm lucky to get 5 or 6 people visiting this blog (commenting or not) in a week.

I'll keep typing if you'll keep reading.

Of course, this post sort of discounts the RCG. You all seem to be doing well and fine, and I try to comment on your blozor whenever I feel I have anything relevant to add. You guys (or at least Granite and Binks) preceded us, and will likely outlive us all.

To quote myself, "I don't know what to say".

And that seems like a good place to stop.

If You're Frightened of Dying, and You're Holding on, You'll See Devils Tearing Your Life Away

2007-10-23T17:44:00.000-04:00

But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels...

Freeing you from the earth.

I thought it would be nice to have a little change here on the Ol' Blog. And, as the above quote suggests, it involves making peace, and freeing things from corporeal existence.

Specifically, it involves deleting 95% of the items currently in my bookmarks in Firefox.

And what better way of doing that then by giving them eternal life here on the Internets? After all, even if none of you find it useful, I can use this blog as an external bookmark storage device until it gets destroyed one day.

Oh, and to save time, consider every link presented here to be NSFW. Even if they aren't, the sheer volume of random pages you're going to be looking at over the next little while will probably alert the Powers That Be that you have been neglecting your Facebook during office hours, which may put your employment at risk.

So, without further ado, I present Memories... Part 1

The best way to start a journey of this nature is to crack open a little something special to help pass the time. Why not one of these?

I may have failed to mention above that these links go back over a year (I have lost 3 hard drives in that time, but Foxmarks has kept my bookmarks from being obliterated). It's kind of funny given my current preocupation with sexual frustration, that I was bookmarking pages on the subject so long ago...

With a name like Your Mom, it has to be good.

Vintage geekdom: A page of mechanical robot toys from the last half of the last century. My personal favourite was not actually available as a toy.

Houls of enjoyment...

You are what you eat. Yet another reason to hate vegetarians.

Think Dawn of War was the greatest game ever made? Close, but it's actually second-greatest (Follow the very simple directions to access the actual game).

Hours of fun from an extremely dated game show phrase. Wow... I was just playing with it and I got "You are the rudest weblog". Isn't that awesome?

This is probably the greatest webcomic in existence. Just keep hitting Refresh.

Just a little example of perspective changing over time. Some things change, but others stay exactly the same (The adds today say it's a 50 year record).

A helpful little reality adjuster for all (or maybe only some) who read these electronic pages. When you come to the end of the test, the second paragraph will list two percentages, mine were 96 and 93 (This is deliberately obscure in order not to give the test away).

This level is classified as low. Enjoy.

Think some of your childhood heroes have been raped by corporate merchandising? Oh, and it mentions one of my favourite albums near the bottom of the page.

Simply by reading this blog you should qualify for an exemption to this test, but it's fun to do anyway!

I got this from someone else who blogs around these parts. Not going to say who, but it is really really really worth repeating at this point that these links are NSFW. Seriously, this is Pr0n, and if you don't find it totally disgusting, you have problems. If you're on your own computer, follow the link. But if you have to share the computer with anyone, don't. And with that, here you are.

Have you ever wondered how to make plasma? I didn't think it was that weird a thing to Google...

I'm sure I've posted it before, but it has to be one of the best movie parodies of all time. Right up there with the one that turns the Shining into a family classic.

Ellen could be doing things like this in a few years! (She could also be 3 items up, but it would be really weird to link to it someday)

And some gun porn to finish it off. And, for the noobs, there are no naked women in gun porn. Just naked guns. And not involving Leslie Nielsen either.

Like I said, that was part 1. Looking over my bookmarks, I'd say that there are realistically at least 9 more parts to this saga. And from then on I'm going to make an actual effort to post my bookmarks regularly instead of saving them up for a year.

But wait, there's a real post after all that!

In keeping with my ideas that things should change here, I've prepared a post which conforms more with the sort of things I see on other blogs. Namely, short commentaries on topical subjects (usually some sort of linkable media).

So here goes:

Finally some sensible commentary on smoking.

I have to say that the opinion expressed in that article is pretty much what I've been thinking to myself all along. Smokers are animals. Animals that don't think rationally. Or something.

Mostly, they just stink shit up. Here's a newsflash for hot girls who smoke: Kissing you sucks. A lot. If you're ugly and you smoke, you might as well prepare for a life of misery. But don't worry, every time you feel unhappy with your situation you can just light up a smoke and it'll make you feel much calmer.

But to get back to the article, I'd have to agree that the most irrational thing any smoker can do is keep smoking. Starting to smoke is easy, and most people do it when they're young and impressionable. Although given that all of my friends smoke, I may be somewhat biased in that statement.

However, I don't think the "crazy muslim extremist cleric" is really that far off of the mark when he says that smokers are idiotic for refusing to quit once the full ramifications of the habit are known to them. One could argue that anyone born in the last 30 years should know the full ramifications of smoking before they ever start, but as I said, starting is easy.

Quitting is hard. I cannot think of a single person I know who has smoked to the point of becoming an addict and who has also successfully quit. Almost all have tried, though, with only one or two exceptions. I believe (or Gmail's Quote of the Day tells me) it was John Mitchell who said, "the finest steel has to go through the hottest fire". Of course, he also said, "The Department of Justice is a law enforcement agency. It is not the place to carry on a program aimed at curing the ills of society."

So... take that with a grain of salt. Oh yeah, he was also part of Watergate.

Whatever.

If You're Gonna be Dumb, You Gotta be Tough, When You get Knocked Down, You gotta Get Back Up

2007-10-08T17:54:00.001-04:00

Is it that time again? Well friends, since I know you've probably done a Lesch-Nyham-esque (No link. Wikipedia fails me at last) job of biting down your fingernails since I last posted, here's a bifurcated account of what I've been doing, given to you almost as if I'd written both halves at the times they were current and then slapped them together now... (Yes, this will be big)

Part 1: Tertiary adjunct to Unimatrix The-Awesome: (Oct 5, 6, 7)

So, another block-busting tour-date goes by. This weekend was great, seriously. I did so much that I almost want to take more time off work just to recover.

As many of you no doubt remember, this weekend's recipient of my holy grace was the Royal City (No, not New Westminster BC. The other Royal City), and none other than my main man Ben provided a roof for me to sleep under.

The tale starts on Friday at 4:45 when I went back to work to hit on a girl that I work with (under the guise of training her how to open the pool since she volunteered to take the day-shift on Thanksgiving Monday). Unfortunately, the pool was actually really busy and all I did was actually train the girl and then leave.

She asked me to come back when she had her break though. Unfortunately, that wasn't until 6:30, and Ben had told me in a recent email to expect him at my house between 6:39 and 7:42. So I reminded myself that "bitches ain't shit", and told her I'd see her some other time.

Then I bitched about it all night to anyone who would listen.

Which actually turned out to be a lot of people.

You see, Ben's girlfriend has this thing about being clean. You might say it's a sort of normal thing where after working hard all day she likes to clean herself. I don't really get it.

Anyway, the point here is that I was hanging around my house (whining to my parents about this girl) feeling sorry for myself but also at the same time very excited that Ben would be there soon. And then I realized that it was 7:30. And there was still no Ben. He called shortly thereafter to appologize and inform that due to this cleanliness thing they hadn't actually left the old G-spot just yet, but that they'd be on the road at a dangerous velocity very soon. I whined about the girl.

Then Wolfgang called. And we hatched a crazy plan (after I'd whined about the girl): Within 10 minutes of his call he'd packed up his Xbox and brought it and Tingles to my house. We hooked one of them up to my parents wide screen tv and left the other sitting on the couch on the other side of the room.

Then we busted open Halo3 in a big creamy mess all over my living room. Probably the greatest thing ever. And in a testament to Ben's girlfriend's driving skills, they were there to get me before Wolfgang and I had finished the first level. On Easy. Like, they were going really fast. Althought, it was pretty close. After letting them into my house and putting them on the couch with Tingles Wolfgang unpaused the game and we got back into the fight. Specifically, I was running around the bridge with a Grav-Hammer looking for victims for all of 10 seconds before the level ended and we climbed onto a waiting Pelican. So Ben and his girlfriend actually timed it really really well.

We packed the shit up and all boarded our separate automobiles, bound for different locales. The trip to Guelph was boring. There was only relevant piece of information issued:

The girl Ben had been trying to set me up with had begun seeing one of Ben's other friends in Guelph. Those of you who leave insulting comments suggesting that I spend too much time harping on my sexual desires will be happy to know that I have no cause to mention them for the duration of the Guelph story. Which is too bad because I thought that my foibles tended to generate a pretty decent level of humour.

So then we were in Guelph. Ben's girlfriend (and boy does she need a name...) has a great apartment. For a 2-bedroom it's quite roomy, and has a balcony (which is new and exciting to me because I don't hang out in apartments very often). Anyway, he and she need to get gothed up to head out to the bars, and they sit me in front of the Miracle Babysitting Screen and plug in Guitar Hero 2.

Now, bear something in mind here. I've never played Guitar Hero or Guitar Hero 2 before. And I have to say that it kicked ass. Basically Ben and his girlfriend took turns being schooled by me (they were on hard, I was on easy) while the other one was in the washroom or bedroom doing something.

Then we went out. To the Underground for those interested. For those who don't know what that is, think of the Rumours/Othellos/Classics building in our fair city. Now pretend that Rumours changed its name to The Underground and didn't suck. And had $2 drinks before 11. And free pool.

That was the first night. We went and I met a bunch of Ben's girlfriend's friends, including the one who I was supposed to get set up with. And let me tell you, just think of me as a woman. Seriously. Same hair colour, same eyes. Just female. So, smaller shoulders and wider hips. It was weird. Made more so by the fact that she talks and acts like me too. This is likely why Ben thought we'd hit it off so well. Unfortunately, we were so similar that I mostly stared at her in stunned silence. And then I killed her at pool. Seriously, I murdered everyone at pool until I got really drunk. Given that I've never won a game of pool before in my life that probably says something about the quality of the equipment at The Underground.

Speaking of which, the toilets were obscene. I ended up having to go to a bar across the street to take a shit.

Once we were seriously hammered we got offered a ride home. Which was nice. We stopped and got pitas on the way which was even nicer.

Then we ate the pitas while I got my now drunken ass beaten down at Guitar Hero 2.

And then I slept...

And then I woke up. It was later than I thought. Ben's girlfriend had gone out to have her hair done and left us menfolk to our own devices. I'd basically slept through that part, though. I'd barely dressed and gotten into a GH2 song with Ben before we all hopped in the car. We got Harveys. We picked up Ben's girlfriends friends. We went shopping.

It was thanksgiving. We were having dinner together. Our party in the No Frills was Ben, Ben's girlfriend, the girl I was supposed to hook up with (or LiMale), Ben's girlfriend's friend who can cook (or Nordic), and myself, your honoured narrator.

The original plan was ToFurkey for the idiots, ham for people with taste. Unfortunately we collectively balked at the time it would take to make a ToFurkey, so we decided on tofu steaks instead. Other items were potatoes (big fight about real vs pre-made. Real won), gravy ("make sure there's no meat products in it!"), cran (in disgusting jelly form), and stuffing (just regular stuffing. I really just didn't want to break my bracketing tradition here).

We all got back to the apartment and the men began the work of cooking while the ladies sat on the couch and drank. Nordic was basically in charge of this, with Ben in the role of sous-chef. Since I know nothing about the healthy preparation of food I got the fun jobs:

-Washing the knives after Ben has sharpened them
-Peeling potatoes with a cheese slicer (The real source of the fake vs real argument for potato purchases. Unfortunately the "we don't have a potato peeler" argument wasn't really voiced very strongly by the fake side)
-Sitting on the couch with the girls and getting killed in Guitar Hero (having now moved up to Medium difficulty)

Some more people turned up. They're not important. One was good looking, but she was also taken.

Eventually we ate. It kicked serious ass. The hams looked like a woman's ass covered in Diana sauce and Poultry Seasoning (Don't ask. There wasn't a lot left in the spice section by the time we got there). The potatoes were fluffy and awesome. I didn't have any stuffing. The gravy was interesting. Remember when we had to check really carefully to make sure that there were no meat products in the gravy? Yeah, there weren't. Because apparently you're supposed to mix it with the drippings of whatever meat you just cooked. I had the brilliant idea to use butter and/or milk. I was not fellated in thanks by any of the gravy-hungry vegetarians present.

Anyway, then all females present (and some of the males) began drinking in earnest. It's still around 6:30pm. Ben and I retire to the guest room (current home of the ManPuter) and rock some Oblivion. It is good times, especially as I've brought the Shivering Isles expansion for Ben to dig into.

Time passes.

Magically it's much later, and the (now very drunk) girls have stopped lying on the floor laughing and passing out "magic" Dollar-Store rings (Mine sucked, but Ben was good enough to trade with me. Then I lost it anyway. There's a lesson there, I think) and are beginning to make very serious noises about heading out to a bar. I've had enough of getting my ass handed to me by Nordic at GH1 (where both players have to play at the same difficulty), and the prospect of $2 drinks at another bar is somewhat intriguing. Also it will stop Ben force-feeding me room-temperature shots of my own vodka.

Much like the night before, we all hop the bus. We take it all the way around its route and into the downtown. We hop off and head slightly farther from the drop-site than we did 24 hours previously. Tonight's bar is called the Vinyl. Some of you may have heard the name before. Don't worry if you haven't. The point is that unlike The Underground who have $2 drinks until 11pm, the Vinyl has them all night long on Saturdays.

Of course, the LiMale (and, again, let me stress that she did not look like a man) told me that the drinks were only $2 until 11 again, so I started in on the double-screwdrivers like a champ.

Things just weren't working though. I'm going to blame it mostly on the seating. We were trying to fit a rather large group (more unimportant characters joined us there) into a medium-sized booth, and it wasn't working. The booth was medium-sized, meaning that it was large enough that you couldn't really carry on a conversation with the people across from you because of the music. This bound you conversationally to the people on either side of you, which wasn't necessarily a good thing and resulted in a lot of people moving around the booth all of the time, with the people who didn't fit inside standing outside of it in a little scrum.

Also, anyone who I would talk to would eventually end up leaving to go smoke. In the end I just attached myself to Ben and went outside whenever he went outside to avoid that sort of situation.

It was raining in Guelph that night. And it was beautiful. As I walked out the door onto the crowded storefront I was overcome by wanderlust. Seriously, do you ever just get really drunk and want to walk around in the rain? It made me, in my stupor, think about life. What was the only thing holding me back from my wanderings? Things. Objects. Possessions. I mean, if I went out into that rain I'd soak my passport, train ticket confirmation slip, credit card receipts, anything in my wallet (including all of my professional certifications), and my USB key.

But what were those things to chain me to that storefront in downtown Guelph? Rain is so potently symbolic. It's a cleaning force from above. Over time the rain can wash away almost anything. If I went out into that rain I'd be washing away all the possessions listed above, for at least at long as it would take to replace them all. Not to mention that such a replacement would likely incur hefty costs. But only monetary costs. Should my bank balance also hold me hostage on the concrete?

who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

I jumped into a consideration of the actual ramifications of losing all my property in exchange for an enjoyable evening in the rain. I also began trying to articulate what I was feeling to Ben. I was on the cusp of something amazing, but I couldn't quite bear the idea of shedding my possessions just like that.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

The moment had passed. Ben and I returned inside.

However, I was left with a desire to wander the rain, even if I could no longer do it in a consciousness-expanding manner of total wonder. It turned out that Ben was actually really into that idea and we constructed a fun plan to pull it off.

Ben convinced his girlfriend that I was being drunk and unreasonable (maybe not that far from the truth) and wanted to go to another bar. I think maybe I tried to convince them that I didn't like the music or something. I really didn't think it would work because the music was actually really good and I kept rocking out to it with LiMale. They seemed to buy it though. They recommended another bar down the street that had live blues or jazz every weekend.

Ben gave a sincere goodbye and I looked sheepishly at his girlfriend and shrugged my shoulders.

We left.

We hopped a cab back to the apartment.

That's a lie. Before we hopped the cab we bought pitas. As we left the bar they'd been playing James Brown, and, well, you all know what I'm like when I'm drunk and have James Brown stuck in my head. Well... Maybe you don't...

Ben and I walked away from the bar into the rain (It had slacked quite a bit and we weren't in imminent danger of losing possessions). He walked tall and strong. I bounced along beside him slapping my hands, snapping my fingers, and yelling "I'm bad!"

As we approached the pita store I noticed 2 smokin-hot-babes outside, one of whom was grooving along in sympathy with my obnoxious beat-boxing and James Brown immitations. I gave her a grin and a "Yeah, that's right".

We entered and there was another hot woman in front of me. I noticed that she had ordered 2 pitas. She was also smiling sporadically at the two other hot girls through the window. I surmised that she was with them, and decided to try my hand at drunken conversation in the hopes of some sort of connection with one of the three of them. I'm going to warn you now: Surprisingly enough, this little story doesn't end with me going back to Ben's apartment with any of these fine ladies.

"You must be hungry." Leer stupidly.

"haha. Yeah, well one of them is for me. The other is for my fiance."

Oh dear. Scan the bar for men about to accost me. "Hmm... Where's he?"

"At home. With the kids."

Dear god... Why stop now? "How many do you have?"

"3. They're 8, 7, and 5."

"Wow. You guys sure waited a while to tie the knot, hunh?"

RandomHotGirl3 has left the conversation

Oh well. I tried. There's at least a 50% chance that it was all bullshit anyway.

We were still in line beside each-other though. I idly watched the clerk prepare her pitas and wrap them both in paper. Then he tried to bag them and had some trouble pulling his plastic bag off of the wall, the end result of which was him slipping the first pita into the bag and then dropping bag and pita onto the floor.

"Yeah, it's OK. You can just drop my pita on the floor." (not in a completely bitchy tone)

"Don't worry, I double-wrapped it." Stifled laughter from the Liam corner. "I always practice safe pita-making."

Uproarous laughter from the Liam corner. She turns, "Yeah, I guess I should have tried that."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

"Wait, I'm sorry..."

She was gone.

And 5 minutes later so were we.

When we arrived at the apartment, the plan was simple. Ditch the possessions, eat the pitas, and walk in the rain (now very seriously reduced from its torrential beginnings).

We did. It was glorious. We sauntered bravely around Guelph talking, talking, talking. It was good for me, Ben. Was it good for you?

Then we launched into an extended GH session at the apartment and waited for the girlfriend to return. There was some drama while we were gone and she needed Ben more than I did when she got back. I spent the time before my eyelids began to inexplicably close attempting to master songs on Easy. Unfortunately I could only play through a whole song twice in a row before it began to grate on my ears. So I didn't master any.

The next morning I didn't see the girlfriend. She was still sleeping when Ben and I took the bus back downtown (turns out the train station was around the corner from the bars we'd been drinking at). The downtown looked very strange in the sunlight without its normal covering of drunken post-secondary students.

We picked up the ticket (a process which was helped by my handing over of the ticket confirmation mentioned above), which took 15 minutes because the woman wasn't at the counter and had forgotten to put out the "ring for service" bell.

Then we went to a comic/games store around the corner, where we easily whiled away the 40 mintues before my train came. Ben and I together conveyed interest in the entire range of items for sale in the store. We overlapped on anime and manga and some comic titles, while he covered all other comics and graphic novels as well as action figures. I mopped up the scanty remains with my interest in the Warhammer stuff they had all across one wall. While there I discovered possibly the greatest books I've bought in my entire life: The Dark Horse Comics Aliens Vs. Predator Omnibus Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 which together encompass massive portion of the comics I read voraciously as a child. The were a lot Aliens and Predator comics that I wouldn't mind having reprinted in convenient Omnibus form either, but this will do for now. At 400+ pages each it took me at least 2 days to finish them.

Upon my return to the homestead I dressed up and went out for Thanksgiving at my grandma's house. Good times and good duck were had. At this point it is worth noting that at 2 out of 2 thanksgiving dinners I attended turkey was not served. What a rebel I am!

Oh... and then I spent 30 hours playing Halo3 with Wolfgang, pausing only to sleep on his couch, and then wake to the sight of him staring over me. Then we played some more. Then my eyes fell out from the pleasure of it all.

Interlude: Tuesday

The next morning I went into work to hit on the hot girl I mentioned 10^5 paragraphs ago. Clearly by this point everyone should know that "hit on" means talk to. In a non-sexual context. You see, she works for the swim-team at my work one morning per week as well as weekends, so every Tuesday we hang out for an hour or so before she goes to school (at the same place 90% of those reading this went or go to high school, but that's incidental). During the course of this conversation I convinced her to skip 5th period and hang out with my until the late buses came.

It was good times. Except for the part where she was showing me the new addition to the school and Mr. Smith made fun of me for being a bum.

Part 2: Where the Wild Things Are (Oct 12, 13, 14)

That brings us to this past weekend. The 4th tour date was upon me. A trip to see the Greatness that is Wolfgang. There were no formal plans. There were loose ideas like Halo3, dirty Phil's, the mall. I figured I'd just play it by ear.

I had a slight conflict of interest, though. Her name was "that hot girl from work". If I wanted to see her that Friday at work (side note: It's easy to see this girl at work and hard to see her anywhere else. She's in school, she lives waaaay out of town, and she can't drive) I couldn't take the bus to Waterloo, I'd have to take the train, which wouldn't be arriving in Waterloo until 9:30, making for an interesting journey to Woflgang's (given that I've never been to the Kitchener train station before and would need to navigate my way across the Tri-cities). I figured it was worth it.

It was. We had a good time, I got to Kitchener alright (after being an hour early for my train because my brain has issues with the 24-hour time they stamp on your tickets), and that set me up for the next adventure of the night which was (as mentioned above) finding my way to Wolfgang's house.

Luckily some frantic phonecalling during the hour I spent realizing I was an idiot at the train station had given me the frame of a workable plan.

I had drawn myself a small map showing the street I needed to take to get from the train station to King St. in Kitchener. From there, my options were varried. I could hop the GRT and ride up the University, or I could spend most of the night walking all the way up King St, turn onto University, and then walk to the University.

I chose the first option, and prayed for good luck. You see, according to Wolfgang, just after I left school the Federation of Students pushed through a recommendation that our student cards be usable as bus passes on the GRT. However, the administration had fought back with the totally unreasonable idea that the cards should only count as bus-passes when students were on campus. If you happened to have a co-op position (and a very large percentage of Waterloo students are co-ops) in Waterloo you'd better get used to full-price bus rides.

Anyway, so the point of this story is that they need to install special card scanners on all GRT buses in order to discern the "real" students from the "co-op bitch" students. But they haven't done that yet. So anyone with a WATCard can just walk up to a bus, flash it, and get on for free.

Or so I was told.

I stopped at a McDonalds on King and got myself a double quarter-pounder and an iced tea. Strangely, my credit card was declined twice while trying to purchase them. Luckily I had cash, but still. It could have been bad news.

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Yeah. I just need to kill this post off and keep going. There's a lot more to be said, but it's just going to take too long.

In summary:

-I got there
-We got drunk and played Halo3
-Tingles dyed her hair
-Repeat last 2 steps
-We tried to go out for breakfast on Sunday. It was too busy
-I came home and hung out with the hot girl from work at work

Weekend concluded.

Upcoming Tour Dates:

Oct 19-21: I bust mad skills all over Brooklyn. Brooklyn Ontario. Starring myself and the beautiful and talented Nick.

Oct 26-28: I man-cannon myself to Guelph in order to "spend time with Ben" (read, take an advanced aquatics course and want to kill myself all weekend) [Ben, this is your formal warning that I'm coming to your house that weekend]

Nov 2-4: I promised some dude at the Y that I'd go to a show in town that weekend. But in order to keep to the Tour rules I'll need to stay at someone else's place in town. Tell your folks.

Who's Got the Power, that Be my Question, the Priest, the Book, or the Congregation?

2007-09-30T18:15:00.000-04:00

Time for another illuminating post about another weekend.

Basically, after last weekend at Nora's I came to a realization: Stratford sucks, and staying here will kill me. With that in mind I have devised a clever and complex idea: The Liam is the Awesome Tour 2007. Basically, the plan is to never spend the weekend in Stratford again. While the next few weekends are already booked up, if you'd like the tour to stop in your city/bedroom, just leave a comment and start telling your single female friends. We can count Nora's as the kickoff date and last weekend I broke out the sophomore engagement: An evening with The Bizz. If there are enough dates booked I might make T-shirts!

At 8 on Saturday I hopped a train to London. I was hoping that this would be an interesting experience since I've never actually taken a train west out of our fair metropolis. It was severely disappointing, mostly due to the fact that it was totally dark outside. I saw the west side as a continuous muddle of shades of black punctuated by the doppler sounds and flashing lights of the train-safety-arm-things. Luckily, in this time of need I was consoled by a new companion: Journey to Ixtlan. This is a strange book. I found it in a box in my basement when I was in grade 7 or 8 and attempted to read it. It didn't go too well. I picked it up that night determined to get back into the meta-physical philosophical depths of an old man named Don Juan Matus. I had an hour and I believe it was well spent.

I was met at the London station by none other than that raging beast, that fearsome capitalist, the Bizz Senior. He's actually mellowed a lot in the last year. The plan was to pick Blake up from his work, but a quick Blackberrying found that Blake's work (which I gather makes him something akin to a sub-contracted migratory fruit picker) had taken him to the bowels of civilization, and that he would be delayed in his return to the Forest City by half an hour.

So we turned the chariot and rode to Bizzle on the Down, the new seat of the Bizz and his family. Upon arriving I was treated to an extensive and interesting tour of the new manor-house, which included the information that I would be spending the night in Blake's sister's bed (not with Blake's sister).

I then sat on the deck with the Lord and Madam Bizzworth drinking water and appreciating the flames of their propane fire pit.

Some time later the Blackberry began making groaning noises against the floor of the deck. I took this as some sort of arcane signal that Blake was ready for extraction. But then he called his home number and this was confirmed through actual conversation.

So then we got him. And then since we were running so late, we had Blake's dad drop us off at the Waltzing Weasel. That's right. Some of you may remember that I have a bit of history with some of the other locations of this franchise. However, this WW appeared to have suffered some sort of twisted Lamarkist evolution into a standard university-town "pub". This was evidenced by our (very attractive) waitress informing me that deep-fried Mars bars were not on the menu.

We were met in this seedy establishment by some other genlemen of the town. Dean (who no longer blogs), Pook, and the lovely and talented Caleb. Pook and I had never actually met before, and it was gratifying to actually put a face to a name that I'd bantered and argued with over the Inter(insert popular term here) so many times before. Oh yeah, and there was this dude two tables over who was making out with this chick's ear. Only for "dude" and "chick" please substitute "dirty (not in a sexual way) middle aged man" and "woman who should have known better". It was gross, so Blake and I began laughing uproarously, and then he looked at us. He gave us what might at one time have been a piercing stare. It might still have carried that weight had he not still been sticking his tongue in the woman's ear while he did it, which resulted in most of his face being obscured from our view. But the eyes... The eyes...

Anyway, we proceeded to get hammed. It was good. Everyone else kept ordering pitchers, and I made sure that I tagged a screwdriver or two onto every order. I downed a plate of potato skins (that would be 4, or the scraped out halves of 2 potatoes for my $8) while thinking fondly of deep-fried Mars bars.

During this time we bantered about many things. None need bear repeating here. But it was good. Many interesting secrets were revealed concerning numerous other London persons I've never met, and a few good old hometown boys who I haven't seen in a few years.

Oh, and Gaggy Maggie called Blake. I almost winced as the whip came down and he scurried outside to talk to her for 65 hours. Did anyone know about them? It was sure news to me... Blake has stopped telling me about the girls he's seeing. He just has a sign on his wall that says, "You're retarded" and hits himself with it whenever he starts dating someone. It's worked out well for him, but I keep getting blindsided...

Eventually I got the itch. The "everyone here is drunker than me and I want some Peanut M&Ms" itch. I loudly persuaded everyone that it was a great time to keep the evening moving, which they did. We decided a prudent course of action was to head back to Dean and Pook's place to watch a movie. And there was a variety store nearby where I could pick up the required foodstuffs. It was only a block away, what was the worst that could happen?

Pook and Dean getting in a fight on the way. Well... that might not have been the worst thing, but it was pretty annoying. Yeah. Apparently they get in verbal fights all the time, but this was a bona-fide physical altercation. I didn't see most of it. We just turned around and saw Pook trying to disengage and Dean not letting him. Now... this was a problem for Dean. I'm not gonna lie, those that knew him in high school, Dean pretty much hasn't changed. He's just older, with more facial hair. Pook is somewhat like Carl. Not at all in build, but in his capacity for drunken rages.

Anyway, what had happened apparently was a series of events leading to Pook smoking Dean in the face a couple of times, one of which apparently sent one of the lenses of his glasses flying. This was the catalyst for both Pook's interest in ending the fight and Dean's insistence that it continue. We managed to separate them and they regained their senses eventually. In the case of Dean I grabbed his arms and relaxed my legs, dragging him to the ground and holding him until he politely asked me to let go. Then we crawled around the grass looking for Dean's lense until I got bored.

Then I persuaded Pook and Caleb to come with me to the variety store. The Bizz requested some of the Belmont cigarette company's finest since he felt bad leaving Dean alone combing the grass for his optical aid.

We walked to the store, I picked up a tall-boy of iced tea and two packs of my fix. Then I went to the counter and almost forgot to buy Blake's smags. Actually I think I did forget but then Pook or Caleb reminded me. Anyway, here's the conversation with the clerk:

"Hey, can I also get a pack of Belmonts, please?"

"Mild or [something, I don't remember]"

"... Mild... Yeah"

"Regular or King Size?"

"Uhh... Whichever one's bigger. I'm not gonna lie man, I'm not smoking 'em"

He didn't even bat an eye. Just grabbed the pack and took my money.

As we were walking out of the store I had a sudden terrible shock: There in front of us was a spectre, and it was staring soulfully into my eyes. I was sure that I was being confronted by the ghost of Blake from some alternate universe where he let Bright Eyes and Cursive push all of the good music out of his head. Then I got closer and realized that he didn't really look like Blake. He was just some whiny-looking emo kid standing outside the front door to a variety store looking deeply into the eyes of anyone exiting the store.

Who can guess why?

That's right, folks. I quickly informed the spectre that I had no smokes and that he would likely do better buying his own. Then I remembered that I did have smokes. I pulled out the pack, told our new friend that I was holding them for someone else, and said that if he came with us we'd find out if he could have one.

I asked him his name. And his response, I shit you not was, "Drake. Drake VanDervan". Yes friends, Dranke Vandervan. I assumed he was pulling my leg and we kept walking. I idly suggested that since his name rhymed with the Bizz that it would be easier for him to bum a smoke.

Eventually we reached Blake and Dean, and introduced Drake. Blake gave him a smoke and they both lit up. We talked. You see, I needed to take a shit. And now that I was drunk, I was also pretty interested in finding some hot girls and getting into one or more of them. I saw Drake as a prefect vehicle for this. I asked Drake which apartment building (there were several around) he lived in and where the nearest party full of hot girls was. His reply was that he was from Brantford and staying with a friend. After some berating from myself (and it was like pulling teeth), Drake eventually admitted that this friend was a hot girl. I immediately began formulating plans for getting myself into this girl's washroom, and then into her bedroom. I didn't get too far though.

You see, it was at this point that we became aware that Drake was possibly the stupidest person any of us had ever met. Painfully aware. You see, I attempted to get my bathroom-to-bedroom plan rolling by making this hot girl a fixture of conversation. I started with, "So, Drake, do you think your hot friend is worried that you've been gone for, like, half an hour?"

"Oh no, man. She's uh... with my other friend right now."

Oh damnit. Damnit all. I had the feeling we were about to have some terrible soppy drama birthed upon us. And I didn't even know any of the parties involved.

"Man, like... The whole reason I'm down here and he's up there is cause he's, like, more of a capitalist than me."

Uh... What? "Oh yeah, Drake? What does that mean exactly?"

"Well, man, like, I was making some moves on this girl. Like, I was definitely going to her, you know? Like, he knew I was doing it. Then all along he was making these, like, tiny moves on her."

"Wow, man. That's terrible." (or at least that was the general sentiment expressed by Blake, Pook, Dean, Caleb, and I all mumbling at him)

"Yeah, dudes. And then, like, someone was talking about capitalism, and I'm like a big communist, so I had to, like, defend my beliefs. It turned out she liked capitalist guys better..."

Yeah, Drake. That's why she went for your friend...

We went on in this vein for some time. It became apparent very quickly that Drake was, in fact, full of shit and knew nothing about communism. This was ascertained by the simple question, "Have you ever read Marx?", to which the obvious response was "Like, no, but I know, like, the basics, you know?"

He dodged this bullet by saying that he was really more of an anarchist, which really only had the effect of me trying to trip up his stupid ass by talking about anarcho-capitalists.

I'm not gonnna lie. I was drunk, and I don't remember the full scope of our conversation. I remember realizing that Drake really knew nothing and attempting to convince him that Charles Bukowski[NSFW] was one of the greatest writers of our time. Which he was, but I believe the conversation went:

"Drake, you must read Bukowski. Charles Bukowski. He's probably the greatest writer of the 20th century. You'll read him and it'll be like you've just opened your eyes for the first time."

"Really man, what sort of stuff did he write about?"

Dirty poetry. "Oh man, social, economic... anthropological... Fucking... Mechanistic!"

"Yeah, man?"

"Fuck yeah, man! Hey, can we go to your hot friend's place so I can take a dump?"

"What?"

After this I ended up writing "Charles Bukowski aka Hank Chinaski" on Drake's arm and then insisting on seeing some ID to see what his last name really was. Drake Samuel VanDevan. If you ever meet him, hit him in the face and then tell him that only idiots carry their SIN cards in their wallets.

Eventually (again with the teeth-pulling), we persuaded Drake to take us to the bathroom at his friend's apartment. All of us but Dean who had wandered away while no one was looking.

We walked into the lobby of the building and hit our first roadblock. Drake couldn't remember his hot friend's last name. This made buzzing her to let us in somewhat of a hassle. However, he did still remember her first name which was Britney. Or Brittany. Or Brightnghe, or however the hell people want to spell it these days. We narrowed down the list of 60 apartments on the wall to about 10 with people whose had the initial B. in front of their names. Just as we were preparing to call all these people (It was 2am) another student walked into the lobby bearing a bunch of 2L Coke bottles. We asked him to let us in and he said, "Sure", and proceeded to try ramming his electronic door key into the lock on the door. He did this several times before one of us asked him if he actually had a key or if he was trying to pick the lock with a credit card.

His name was... fuck, I can't remember. Blake will remember. Anyway, he was from Holland and had been sent on a run to the same variety store we found Drake at to get the coke. He had been given the electronic key, but not told how to use it. Luckily, I, being the smartest person alive, quickly pointed him towards the black box on the wall with a blue glowing light emanating from it (It was totally out of place with the rest of the mid 70s architecture of the lobby) and said "Wave the card in front of that". Then I pulled the door open and looked around for a washroom in the elevator lobby. No luck.

We all got into an elevator. Drake punched the button for the top floor, while our Dutch friend got off at the 7th. Upon exiting at the top floor, Drake continued in his utter failure to show any sign of intelligence.

"Uh... Let's see... which room was it?"

Only the emerging spasms in my colon kept me from wondering aloud if it were possible to throw out a newborn baby, teach its placenta to speak, and then dress it in tight jeans.

To his credit, Drake did eventually find the right room. We knocked, and the door was answered by 3 somewhat muscular gentlemen. They were happy to have Drake back, but seemed very loath to let 4 babbling strangers into the apartment. I stuffed my pride, attempted to plaster some sobriety onto my face, and came very close to begging for the use of the toilet. It was in vain. There was a certain girl in the toilet. Apparently she'd had too much to drink. One might say that she'd seemed sensible enough while sober. In any case, she wouldn't be out of there for a while. At this point, I was happy to leave Drake in the hands of someone who I was reasonably sure would tell him not to touch the burners on the stove, and Gee Tee Eff Oh. We swished nonchalantly over to Pook's where I jumped into the bathroom for 10 minutes of unbridled fecal release. There was no air freshener. And for "air freshener" read "salvation for the innocent victims of my potato-induced olfactory plague".

Then we played with light sabers, watched some Youtube videos, and joked about murdering Dean's cat, which was currently yowling around in heat. However, it seemed we weren't the first to consider felinicide as the offending animal kept itself totally hidden behind various articles of furniture while tormenting me with its plaintive requests for penetration.

Then I got tired and Blake and I ventured out into the wild unknown. I would have preferred a bracing walk back to Bizzle on the Down, but one of the fringe-benefits of Blake's job is the appearance of massive description-defying blisters on his feet, so he decided that we should call a cab.

They were busy. We walked out of the building and across its grounds to the street.

They were busy still.

We stood at an intersection and tried to flag down cabs. It wasn't happening. Blake told me to keep a look out for a car from a rival cab company and remember its number. We saw one coming and rushed into the street (It was in the far lane) to squint at the writing on its side. It stopped and pulled into our lane. So, apparently... the proper way to flag a cab in London is to run up to it bent over and squinting. Don't say I never taught you anything.

We finally stumbled quietly in the door at Bizz on the Down. We made our way to the Chantry (or basement) where we found... Blake's sister massively drunk and snoring on the couch.

"Hey. You're not supposed to be here."

"Excuse me? I live here."

"Yeah, I'm supposed to sleep in your bed. I didn't think you'd be there." As I say this, my drunken mind is inevitably forced to consider the likely consequences of such a sharing endeavor. Oh how drunk I was...

We decide to watch a movie, specifically Waiting for Guffman. At this point, my plan is simple: I like this movie anyway, and have never seen it all the way through. Blake is clearly tired. All I need to do is wait for him to fall asleep during the movie. Then I'll suggest that he go upstairs to bed. Then I'll prey on his sister. I didn't actually use the word prey in my mental planning.

The plan didn't work. In fact, it utterly reversed itself. Within 10 minutes I was asleep, and Blake was giving me the, "It's OK, dude. Go up to bed, I'll see you tomorrow."

Only god knows what happened in that basement after I left.

That was really the best way that that plan could have possibly turned out, though. While copulating with Blake's sister would likely be very enjoyable at the time, the ramifications of that ramming would, like the ramming itself, be felt long, hard, and far for some time to come.

I woke up the next morning, ate breakfast, and went to the mall with Blake and his sister. I whiled the time away by pointing to random men in the mall and asking Blake's sister if she'd do them. We eventually narrowed her type down to someone my height who dresses somewhat 'metal'. Fair enough. I also bought the U.N.K.L.E. album War Stories. I don't know if it was a special edition or something, but it also came with a second disc, which was full of instrumental versions of the first disc's tracks. The only problem was that the package was totally impossible to open. It seriously took me 20 minutes to get the CDs out of the package, although this was somewhat due to my not wanting to damage the package too much in the opening. As it stands it's covered in fingernail marks (mine, Blake's, and his sister's) and scored by my keys, which were what finally loosened it enough for more fingernails to open it.

Then Madame Bizz drove me home.

All in all, it was a good weekend.

Next tour destination: Guelph to visit My Favourite True Neutral Half-Elf Rogue/Bard, and where another lusty maiden awaits my arrival. Although I should say now that I've been warned that she's more likely to talk my ear off and then molest herself with thoughts of me than actually fool around. But, hey, I get to see Ben, and girls like that always make for good posts the following Monday!

You're so Beautiful, You Could be a High-Class Prostitute. Seriously.

2007-09-28T22:55:00.000-04:00

"What did you do last weekend, Liam?"

So glad you asked.

Last weekend, I decided to do things right.

I got to work on Friday and fidgeted for 8 hours. Then I went home and waited for Wolfgang and Tingles to get me. During that time I also packed my toothbrush, 2 shirts, 2 pair of socks, and 2 pair of boxers into a bag. Then I poked through my change jar and grabbed roughly $25 (not kidding) in loonies, toonies, and quarters and stuffed half into my shorts pocket and the other half into my wallet.

Wolfgang and Tingles came.

We left. I was excited.

We pulled in at Wolfgang's house. I was unhappy.

We waited at Wolfgang's for Mass to call.

He did, we drove to his house, and he wasn't ready. Neither was his girlfriend.

They got ready. Mass asked us to put a drum set in his car so that we could take it to his brother Card.

We agreed. Wolfgang has a big car.

Anyway, we got on the road. The road treated us pretty badly all the way to, through, and out of the K-Dub. Once we got past that it got better. As we entered the GTA things were going fine.

After some frantic last second (read, sitting in an intersection waiting to turn left or right) cell-phoning to Card we managed to find our way to his house. He lives around the corner from Hooker Harveys for all those interested.

We dumped the car and went for pizza. I called Nora and we all hopped the subway to meet her at Union. We met, we laughed, we cried, we continued on our merry way to the Air Canada Centre. Where we bought expensive T-shirts! Oh, and we saw the Beastie Boys.

Now, some of you may be experiencing deja-vous at this point. "Liam, didn't you already see the Beastie Boys at the ACC with Wolfgang? Three years ago?"

Yes, children. Yes I did. It was a brilliant night. Let's see how that night stacks up against last weekend's concert:

Set list:
Then: The set back in 2004 was peppered with a whole lot of bullshit. This was mostly because the Boys were trying to sell copies of their bullshit album. No, not Some Old Bullshit (which was a good album). I'm talking about To the Five Boroughs (which was a fucking terrible album).

Now: Last weekend's set was basically one long hard vibrating pillar of awesome. They playes 2 songs from TT5B, both singles from the album. Every other song had me jumping up and down in my seat and (probably very annoyingly for those near me) rapping along with the Boys. Also, this show was peppered with lots of tracks from the new album The Mix-Up, of which I have spoken before.

Seating:
Then: Wolfgang went on Ebay and grabbed us some GA seats. We waited in line for 3 hours (I had to shit the whole time) freezing our asses off. Wolfgang was also sick as a dog, so it was a pretty shitty time all around. As soon as we got inside (and I defecated) we jetted onto the floor. We grabbed spots at the very front of the room and settled down to be amazed (we stood up again when more people arrived).

Now: Wolfgang is now a penniless Uni student. We went on Ticketmaster and found tickets for $50. They were really close to the stage, too. Here's a diagram:

Green would be the floor, where we were before. Blue is the first level of seats. Pink is the second level, which is a whole lot of private boxes. We were in yellow, which is the third level. The diagram isn't perfect, because yellow projects over on top of pink and somewhat onto blue, but you get the idea. I have supplied a small bar of brown to indicate the 6 seats we had bought.

Basically, those seats blew. I didn't realize it at the time, so I let Wolfgang buy them. Luckily, no one really bought any other seats in the third level, so we just moved to good seats after the show started.

Opening Acts:
Then: The first opening act was a dog show. It was awesome. A bunch of small dogs running through hoops and stuff. I nearly pissed myself. Following the dogs was Talib Kweli. I don't really know anything about him and have never heard of him since. There was, however, one memorable moment in his performance (And if you were with me last weekend, just skip this part. I'm pretty sure I told this story 15 times). Near the end of his set Kweli yells "Make some noise if you love live hip-hop!"

I make noise. No one else in the ACC follows suit. I swear. No one.

"Uh... You guys know this is a live hip-hop event, right?"

Everyone makes noise. Sometimes, people. Sometimes...

Now: I'd never heard of Cromeo and I hope I never do again. Picture one extremely ugly dude fellating another extremely ugly dude in a fashion which is both noisy and sloppy. Now add synth. There was one memorable moment to that performance: The guitar player set down his guitar and I was sure they were leaving and the real show would begin. Then he picked up a different guitar and kept going. Then I killed three people in the row in front of us.

The Actual Show:
Then: The Boys delivered an awe-inspiring performance, which was only lessened by the inclusion of material from TT5B. They played for an hour, and then took a break for 10 minutes (they're getting close to 40) while Mix Master Mike did a huge scratch routine and a bunch of dancers came onstage. Then they played for another hour. During those two hours they switched between 3 different costumes and sets and also ran a video compiled of footage of people waiting in front of the ACC talking about how awesome the Beastie Boys were. Then they did 3 encores. The third encore was done from the rear of the ACC on the little tech-stage-thing at the back of the ground floor (not shown on my diagram above) so that the people who'd bought shitty seats would have a chance to get close (and the people who'd been on the floor at the front would have a chance to pay back the assholes at the back who'd crushed us like bugs against the railing by the stage). Then they invited everyone to a party they were throwing at the Royal York Hotel.

Now: The boys kicked my musical ass for an hour with an awesome set. Then left. I assumed that this was where the big scratch routine would come. After 2 minutes of nothing I began to worry. Then Mix Master Mike came back and did a tiny scratch routine (incorporating some RATM, although I forget which song) with no dancers. Then the boys came back, played 4 more songs and ran off the stage. Literally. Adrock yelled "This one's for you, Toronto!", some jazz song began playing, and the lights came on in the ACC. I couldn't believe it. I didn't believe it. I persuaded everyone to move down to better seats which were being vacated. But I had to stop kidding myself when the roadies totally disassembled the monitor system and drove a forklift (badly) onto the stage.

Tie-ins to Other Special Events
Then: The last show was November 9th 2004. You figure it out and then try and guess what Wolfgang and I did for the 2 days after the show.

Now: Halo 3 came out 4 days after the show, so it doesn't really count as a tie-in. Also, I have grief to give about that in a few paragraphs. Well... a big few.

The Verdict
The past almost always trumps the present when dealing with events like this. Unfortunately, in this case even an objective comparisson shows that this year's show really didn't have anything on the old one. Even if we'd had the same seats (Tangent: and that would have been hard given that half of us were girls [no offense ladies, but all the girls who were with us at the railing in 2004 got crushed, passed out, and had to be carried away by security before the show was over]) the show itself was shorter and the Boys just didn't work as hard as they did the first time. If we'd paid for ground seats and gotten a show that was half the length of the first one I'd probably be really pissed right now.

So... to paraphrase, the first show was better overall. But if one were to take any single moment-by-moment slice of either concert, they would both be equal. The music itself was still some of the best I have ever heard, it's just that I wish I'd heard more this time. And then gone home and played video games until my eyes fell out.

Instead, Nora and I took the long trip down the TTC. All the way out to Kipling and then onto a bus for 15 minutes from there.

Once we got to her rez I signed in and we went to bed. Now, here's where things get interesting. Let's backtrack:

About a month ago just before Nora was leaving our fair metropolis for the Big City, we bumped into each other in front of the bar I always eat my wings at. We talked for a while about various things, and eventually she had to go and meet some friends. As she was leaving we had sort of a weird conversation (from the perspective that Nora and I are good friends in a strictly platonic sense):

Her: You should come visit me in Toronto.

Me: Yeah, definitely. I'm on it.

Her: You really should. I have my own room. And a double bed.

Emphatic pause

Me: Yeah. Cool.

Now how was I supposed to take that? Seriously!

Aside: Maybe I was predisposed to think that she was prepositioning me. I had an almost identical conversation with Gaggy Maggie once about visiting her in Guelph.

Anyway, so a few days after that (we are still looking back in time here), Nora was hanging out at my house (not with me) and we ran into each other. I told her about how I'd had this great plan to hang out with her in TO. I was going to go to the Beastie Boys's concert and then spend the weekend at her place. Unfortunately I'd just found out that Blake, Carl and I weren't going to Banf anymore. This meant that I would need to save all my money in order to make first and last on an apartment in our town.

She told me she'd buy my ticket.

Seriously, what was I supposed to think?

So anyway, after that Nora left town and we didn't communicate until about a week before the show. During that time I tried to think about what I wanted from this encounter. There was always the possibility that Nora was totally naive and didn't know what kind of signal she'd sent. I eventually decided that if Nora made a move, I'd go for it. But it was definitely too risky to make one myself. Nora and I have been friends for a long time. It would be a shame to throw that away if I was wrong.

So, anyway, returning to the present (at least in terms of my story), we get back to Nora's room. Her roommate isn't home. I've been up since 5:30am, it is now 1am. I am ready for bed. We sit on the bed, she shows me some funny things on Youtube, and I am seriously crashing.

She goes to the bathroom to put on pyjamas. She gets back and I inform her that... I HAVE NO PYJAMAS! She said she'd figured as much and turns off the lights so that I can get nekkid (down to my shorts) and climbs into the far side of her bed.

And that was that. I climbed onto the near side and we went to sleep.

Almost. At 2am there was a terrible sustained gestapoesque banging at the door. I was seriously scared out of my mind.

"Was that your door?"

In my defence, it wasn't that stupid a question. Nora lives in an apartment-style rez. Thus, we were behind her very solid bedroom door and the knock was on the main door across the kitchen. It muffled the sound enough that it could have been someone knocking on another door. What I didn't realize at the time was that all Nora's walls are concrete. If it had been another door we would never have heard it. However, having rezzed at V1 where half of the walls are made of cork-board, I just went with what I knew. You can hear someone knocking on the door of a room in another building from a bedroom in V1.

Anyway

"Yeah, I think I know who it is, though."

"Not your fucking roommate, I hope" he says in his head.

She goes to the door and answers. I struggle to put on my clothes.

Eventually I get out there too and say hello to everyone. Everyone being three extremely drunken guys that Nora knows. The ringleader (Let's call him Nick. That's not his name, but for some reason I couldn't remember his name most of the time and kept calling him Nick) immediately starts giving me bad vibes. Specifically the vibes that come from a poorly disguised drunken stare of "Who is this pig sleeping with Nora?" (Aside: There's another thing. I don't know whether or not the majority of people who met me there thought that Nora and I were banging. Because I kept getting appraising stares, and it just seemed akward to say "We're not banging" to everyone I met as I introduced myself) which I assumed sprung from the fact that he was dropping by her room drunk at 2am for a reason. A specific reason. Like sleeping with Nora himself.

We got rid of them eventually and went back to sleep. I slept fitfully and was pretty tired when we got up. We went to the caff, ate, and I got another chance to chafe with Nick. I went to grab a drink from the fridge and there was a group of people in the way. As I got uncomfortably close to them in an attempt to get by the moved and one of them said, "what's up" to me in a low tone of voice. I didn't respond. I didn't even look at him. I looked at drinks and picked one, and then walked back to Nora who was waiting by the counter where the food came from. After about 30 seconds I looked over and saw that it was Nick, who was now doing his best not to look at us as he finished getting his food and walked out of the caff.

We did the same shortly thereafter. Armed with a ceasar salad straight from the fridge I sat down with Nora, only to discover that there was no dressing on said salad. Breakfast continued unabated around us...

When we got back to the room, I met the other major characters in this story. These are Nora's roommate Kurdy and her boyfriend who I'm going to call Madmartigan. The reason for this should be obvious: Val Kilmer kicks ass.

Anyway, they were in the room when we got back. We had nothing to do all day, so Madmartigan and I revisited the funny things on Youtube that Nora had shown me the night before. It turns out that Nora had heard of them from him, and he was able to show me a wide collection of them.

What were they? Music videos of a sort. More like videos of people playing music, which by modern standards is something different I suppose. Anyway, here they are. I think you'll like them (I harvested today's title from that last one).

So Madmartigan and I parted ways and spent the rest of our respective afternoons moving around the furniture in the bedrooms of our female counterparts. Man I wish that was some kind awesome sexual innuendo. I'll need to remember to employ it when I ever get to tell a story here that involves me getting laid. For those that care, Nora's bedroom looks really nice now.

We went to the liquor store. Why? To get booze for the party. I was the only one smart enough to bring some with me. What party? Nora's first party ever! That's right, kids. Myself, Nora, Kurdy, Madmartigan, Yonny Yonson, the Warden, and that-skinny-girl-who-always-hangs-around-with-the-Warden all got together and had a grand old time. It was a perfect division of labour:

I provided wit, charm, and donuts from Rabba.

Nora and Kurdy jointly provided the apartment.

Madmartigan provided a healthy knowledge of drinking games as well as a deck of cards.

Yonny Yonson laughed at all of my drunken jokes.

The Warden provided mad DJ skills by keeping us entertained through the employment Nora's mp3s, his own CD collection, and numerous Youtube tabs all from the same computer.

The skinny girl who I haven't given a nickname to yet corrected me patiently all night while I told people she was at York for dance. She also lent me her mad skillz in a tale I will relate momentarily.

It was truly glorious.

Here's a little breakdown:

We go out and grab pizza. I'd say it was good, but I didn't eat any. I'd just had 5 donuts. While there hilarity ensues. Madmartigan is a normal-size guy. Maybe 10 pounds lighter than me, same height, etc. He is trying to convince Nora and Kurdy that he can eay 30 cheeseburgers from McDonalds. His basic argument is that he's sure he can do it because he knew someone else who did it. I cut in with my typical rapier wit, "Yeah Marty (yeah, nickname on the nickname), but that's like saying that 'I've heard that the world record for male masturbation in 1 day is 14 times. I'm sure I could beat that in a whole day,' whereas in fact, once you're 3 or 4 in you start to realize what an awful mistake you made".

"Well, man, I knew this girl, not a big girl, a small one, who did, like, 30."

I wasn't sure what her size had to do with it, but I soldiered on. "Dude, it's totally different for chicks. Guys have a much harder time."

"What are you talking about?"

"Man, it's called the refractory period. Get out your physiology textbook. Geez."

"Man, she ate 30 cheeseburgers."

"Ah. Nevermind."

We go back to rez and our honoured guests arrive. We prop the door using an ingenious method possibly invented by the Warden. We begin to "kick out the jams" in an attempt to attract random passers by. It works and for the rest of the night there is a steady stream of people moving in and out of the room on their way to and from other destinations.

Since no one was drunk yet, we put the cards to good use. We played euchre. Let me give you a play by play: Me and skinny (that's a working nickname, definitely not the final product) team up against Kurdy and Madmartigan (working together) and Yonny Yonson. We proceed to nearly skunk them. It was 7-0 and then they finally got on the board. This was too bad because if we did skunk them we'd decided to make them chug a few tall boys of And-Ray's shitty beer.

Oh yeah. And-Ray was there too. And-Ray is a cool guy. He's Madmartigan's roommate and he represents the K-Dub over there at Hummer. He also wants to sleep with Nora. Unfortunately his subtle plan for doing this is the make her drink as much as possible and then make suggestions so thinly veiled that you... well, they weren't actually veiled at all. And-Ray wants to sleep with Nora, but I imagine it's mostly for the convenience of him, Madmartigan, Nora and Kurdy being able to sleep in any combination in each other's rooms. Well, not any combination, but it would sure make things easy.

Anyway, for those who wondered, the shitty beer in question was Tuborg. I, obviously, have never had it. Neither had And-Ray. He just bought 8 tall-boys because it was in some really metro-looking pamphlet about beer he'd gotten from the LickBeau.

Hey, there was someone else there that I also forgot about! I can't remember her name, but she's in Nora's program. Here's the point: She seemed sensible enough.

So, after skinny and I trounced the world at euchre, the fun began in earnest. We whiled away the hours playing Kings (which I had never played before) and then moved into Never Have I Ever, in which I was still sober enough to make some rather funny calls. These included "Never have I ever given fellatio", which was not really that funny on its own, but was supplemented by a) Madmartigan misunderstanding the difference between "given" and "recieved" and b) Kurdy, And-Ray, and Skinny all asking "What's a fellatio?". I also had the dubious honour of being one of only two in the room to drink to "Never have I ever penetrated the anus of another". I'll leave you to guess the circumstances of that particular event. And who the other person to drink was.

The Kings play was really really good. While the play was mostly randomized, here are some odd highlights: 1) I always always picked up cards that let me dish out drinks instead of take them. Since no one else was doing it I gave the majority of these to Sensible girl, and the majority of the ones left over to the Warden. 2) Sensible girl picked up all of the "Make a rule" cards. 4 turns in a row, 1 rule each turn. 3) And-Ray cranked up his "want to sleep with Nora" campaign by just blatantly giving her every drink he could. Did you pick up and 8 And-Ray? Well, better give 8 drinks to Nora and then mention something about doing her. Then when she says, "Fuck you, And-Ray!" she has to take another drink because Sensible girl made "No Swearing" her first rule. It was awesome.

Especially the part where the Warden and I rapped all of Straight Outta Compton substituting lewd gestures for all of the swearing. And the rapped the last verse with all of the swearing anyway, got called on it by Yonny Yonson, and then proceeded to bombard Mr. Yonson with a deluge of profanity while taking the drinks to make up for the rap.

But soon enough, things started to slide down-hill. Nick came back. He'd already dropped by once holding a magnum of shitty vodka in his hand. Careful not to make eye contact with me he invited Nora out to some bar. Luckily, Nora rebuffed his suggestion and he left. But now he was back, and he was the image of concern for Sensible girl.

Everyone but me, Yonny Yonson, and Sensible girl was in Nora's bedroom rocking out. There was actually a crowd gathered outside Nora's 3rd floor window for a while. Nick strode in (this was 4 hours since his first appearance) with his magnum just as full as it had been when he started. He noticed something that I, locked in conversation with Yonny, had not. Sensible girl was slumped over the table in a classic "too drunk to function" tableau. Well, let me rephrase that. I had noticed, but it didn't register with me as something to get worried about. People do these things, and, well, she seemed sensible enough.

Nick freaked out. He picked her up, took her into Nora's bathroom, and proceeded to force water down her throat. Who can guess what happened next? It happened all over Nora's sink, I might add. Repeat x5. Oh yeah, apparently she was from Alabama. And apparently she was a baptist. And apparently they don't drink very often.

During this, I realized I needed to piss in a bad way. After making numerous uncomfortable noises in front of the bathroom I eventually got the attention of Madmortigan who took me up to his floor to piss.

When I returned Nick, Sensible girl, Nora, and Kurdy were gone. Apparently Nick had flown the coop and left Sensible girl (now pushed out of the "too drunk" and into the "rambling incoherently stumbling drunk" phase by Nick's work) in the care of Nora and Kurdy who decided that she needed to sleep.

They were gone for a while. I was drunk. I was busy musing to myself about whether or not Nick had merely cast an elaborate ruse and was really busy trying to do Nora. This made me rather uncomfortable as I was becoming very sure that I didn't like Nick.

I attempted to explain this to Madmartigan. His only response, "Dude, Nick's gay".

Oh... Well... Oh.

Then Nora (unmolested) and Kurdy came back. Soon after that Nora and I walked Yonny to the bus, although for some reason we denied that courtesy to the Warden and skinny when they left soon after. Then we just bummed around the kitchen while I got more and more tired. Some dude named Spenny came over. He was very cool, but by this time I was really really getting tired, mostly to do with my not having slept well the night before.

Eventually we all hit the hay. Kurdy and Madmardigan have to go somewhere with Madmartigan's family and they promise not to wake us up in the morning. I hold out little hope that this is true.

I sleep better, but still somewhat fitfully. There are large portions of the evening spent looking at the ceiling.

When the clock rolled around to 8am I felt compelled to piss and then eat a donut. I put on my shirt and rolled into the bathroom. I was pretty sure I'd heard Kurdy up already, so I tried to be fast. I grabbed the donut and scarfed it. I went to open Nora's door, and saw that it wouldn't open. Allow me to elucidate something: Every lock in the building is opened by a student card. This is apparently a feature which extends to the doors of the very bedrooms. Unfortunately, this means that there really isn't any choice when it comes to locking doors. If you shut the door, it locks. Period. For those of you who haven't yet gotten, I have just sealed myself in Nora's kitchen without any pants on.

I play it cool. I sit back down at the table to consider my options. And have another donut. There was a strong chance that Kurdy would come out of her room soon and continue getting ready for her day. I was just going to have to play it extra cool. Who knows, maybe her key would unlock Nora's door too.

As I thought that, Kurdy came out and all the tension I'd been feeling regarding her thinking I was a big creeper sitting in her kitchen in my shorts fell away. She was standing in the kitchen wearing a rather small black housecoat.

Don't worry, I don't get laid here. It just helps break the tension in a weird way.

Eventually she goes and changes, Madmortigan shows up, and they jet. By this time I'm done all of the donuts and have nothing else to do. I knock on Nora's door, wake her up, and then we go back to sleep.

A few hours later we get up, eat in the caff, and wonder how to kill off the weekend. Nora has the brilliant idea of walking down to the lake. We head off, and it's great. The lake is a very nice place, at least at that part of the waterfront. We sat and talked of life and love. It was a tremendously restorative experience.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, it did. This huge fish swam up right beside us. We got up and followed it around the lake for half an hour. This cemented something I had been suspecting for some time:

That was the greatest weekend I've had in a long long time. And that's really all there was to it.

After that Nora and I hopped the TTC and ate at the greatest Asian restaurant in the world: Ginger 2. Then we went to the Eaton Centre, Nora paid me for the BBoys tickets, and then I bought Warhammer and she bought some comfortable pants for class.

We jumped back on the TTC down to Union, and were just about to initiate a tearful farewell when the Warden appeared in front of us. It turns out that he was taking the same train home as me.

And that was pretty much it.

Nora: I love you. I'll be back soon.

MTOD: If you're reading this, then stop. The only way we can communicate now is through notes left on Nora's wall.

Everyone else: Thanks for reading this far. You're troopers. Goodnight.

If You Want to Take Me up and Take Away my Innocence, I'm on my Knees, Baby Please, I Need Experience

2007-09-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

So, I'm trying to figure out what to post. Because I should. My Archive is way too empty.

Oh, here we go:

Last Friday I had probably the worst day at work I have ever had. Basically, I no longer come to work at 6:30. We have a rental in the pool from 5:30 to 7am, so I just walk in at 5 minutes to 7 and start throwing down mad skills all over the deck.

Now, I was aware that there were various times during the year when this rental would not be in, and on those days I would need to come in at 6:30 and open the pool. So, being a responsible person, I asked for a copy of their monthly schedule so that I would know well in advance when I needed to be in early to work. I received one promptly, and I quickly perused it in 2 ways:

First, I glanced over the entire schedule.
(Tangent: The schedule was arranged in a Monday - Sunday pattern rather than a Sunday - Saturday pattern. People who schedule in this manner are usually tier-1 organizational nazi douchebags)
I noted that there were rental times written into every weekday of the month, as well as times on Sundays. Two times on each Sunday, actually, but that was the weekend and I would never be working it, so I wasn't really concerned.

Were I a less considerate person, I would have left it at that. However, wishing to make sure that I was absorbing the information correctly, I also glanced over the times for the upcoming week: Monday 5:30-7:00, Tuesday 5:30-7:00, Wednesday 5:30-7:00, Thursday 5:30-7:00, Friday 5:30-6:30. OK, I thought to myself, I won't see them on Friday, but at least they'll still be in. I should probably come at 10-to instead of 5-to on Friday just to double-check everything. And that was all I thought about it.

Until Friday morning.

But now, let me interject with a hypothetical scenario. Let's say that you and I are friends. Not much of a stretch, I hope. Let's say we're really good friends. Not that good. But good. Every day we get together for coffee at 5:30 after we're both done work. We have coffee on Monday until 6:30. We have coffee on Tuesday until 6:30. We have coffee on Wednesday and Thursday until 6:30. On Thursday night I say, "Well, friend, my schedule is sort of crowded on Friday. Do you mind if we go from 5:30 to 6:00?"

And being such a nice friend, you say, "Of course not. 5:30 to 6:00 it is!"

And we part ways. You go home, eat dinner, watch television, study, use the internets, etc. Eventually you tire of these conscious activities. You begin to feel sleepy. Very sleepy.

You go to your room, undress to your own personal level of comfort, and slip into bed.

You sleep.

You dream. In your dream, God unveils Himself to you and you stare in rapture. He tells you that you have a great part to play in the destiny of his chosen people, etc, etc, etc. Just as He begins to tell you your exact role, you hear a telephone ringing.

You wake up, and realize the telephone really is ringing. It's 5:45am.

I'm on the phone.

"Where are you? I'm here at the coffee shop! I can't believe you aren't even out of bed yet. Didn't we agree to meet here at 5:30?"

Back to reality:

I walked into work on Friday already feeling rushed. I had gotten up on time (literally thinking Thank God it's Friday), but then realized that I had forgotten to make a lunch, and that I'd told myself to show up early that morning to make sure things went well.

I didn't show up early. Lunch turned into somewhat more of a travail at 6:40 than expected, and I flew through the door at about 5 minutes to 7.

Suffice to say, there had apparently been some confusion regarding the specification between times in the ante meridiem and the post meridiem. This resulted in me walking into work, wise-cracking with the CEO of the organization I work for (Who was inexplicably running the reception desk at 6:56am), and sauntered down to the pool, expecting not to hear the rental in the water.

I did not hear them.

I walked up to the office, deposited my backpack, turned on the radio, and noticed something in the pool.

It was the vacuum. The vacuum that gets taken out every morning by whoever opens the pool. Ergo, the pool had not been opened.

Opening the pool is a half-hour process. I did it in 12 minutes, and only had to swear at my CEO once.
(Tangent: Or so I thought for most of the day. I could have sworn I phoned up to her and said "CEO, we're fucked", whereas, upon asking her sheepishly later in the day, I actually said "we're screwed", thus saving my job)

Now, that is a pretty normal run-of-of-the-mill anecdote in my life. But I just got so angry about it. I went back to the schedule to see if I could possibly have been in error. Nope, it still said 5:30-6:30. But wait. It's written on the lower half of the box in the calendar, rather than the top like Monday-Friday. Of course. Why didn't I immediately realize that a half-inch difference on the schedule translated into a 12-hour fucking difference between the value in that box and the value in the one beside it.

I began pacing the pool in circles. For those interested, I paced 21 times. I know this because every time I went around I wrote a tick on a piece of paper. I also know that every circuit I make around the pool is 64 meters. So it took me 1.3 kilometers of walking to calm down and check the schedule again. Remember that little digression about schedule nazis? Here's a picture of a schedule much like the one I was using. See if you can find where am and pm have been delineated, and see if it makes you want to firebomb the house of the person who wrote the schedule.

Nevermind that. Of course Blogger won't upload it in the size I made it in (There goes 10 minutes of my life that I'll never have again). And you actually might not be able to find it in the reduced image size.

Sooo.... the am pm designation was over on the far left side of every row. It was technically outside of the calendar. I totally missed it because of the way I'd scanned the schedule. To compound my frustration, my Boss came in, I bitched to her about my misfortune, and she was like "It was right there on the schedule, retard".

Here's a fitting end to this story: As I was writing this, my Gmail checker alerted me that I had a new message. It was from the Boss.

Subject: Thursday Sept. 20

Body: Can you teach Aquafit on Thursday morning?

Of course, Boss. Just as soon as you choke to death.

Forgot to put that last part in the reply, of course...

And now for a witty segue:

Speaking of choking to death, it's time for another chapter in the That Girl saga!

So, basically, I thought things were quits between that girl and I the last time I wrote about her. I probably wouldn't have written about her if I thought that there was anything there to salvage.

But I was apparently wrong. My first doubts were had on Wednesday night of last week. I came home from wings (Where I was saved from solitary mastication by Tha Bizz and a young gentleman from my place of employment) to find a phonecall on my callers list from that girl's place of employment. No one had answered the call and they caller had not left a message. Denial had an easy task convincing me that the call must have been from someone else for someone else, and I slept easily for the rest of the week, actually forgetting all about the call.

Wolfgang called me on Friday to tell me that he and Tingles were in town for a special event (Something they'd told me about a week or two earlier and which I had forgotten). They also told me that they'd already talked to that girl and we were all going to a local hole that night. Not the same hole we always go to, mind you. This was a different hole out by the highway. I was very much less than enthused and seriously considered asking them to uninvite her. However, that would have been an extremely childish move. Kind of like making plans with someone and then unceremoniously ditching them for some ugly dude, but I didn't go there. I said that I would do my best to remain civil.

I again made backup plans with Blake.

However, due to a combination of circumstances, Blake and I were unable to connect before I left for the hole, and I didn't know until I got to said hole that Tingles' phone was out of batteries. So, Blake may or may not be mad at me for ditching him. Although, it could also reasonably be argued that the reason I couldn't get in touch with him that night before I left my house was that he'd already gone to a party somewhere and couldn't hear his own phone ringing.

Anyway, we show up, get seated, and things go... really well. They start bumpy with a 15 minute lack of service and a somewhat clumsy apology from her about ditching me for that dude. Not that the dude was actually mentioned in the apology. But eventually things eased into normalcy. I also quickly grasped that the waiter was going to be visiting our table every 25 minutes, so when he brought the first round of drinks I ordered my second. I continued in that vein for 2 more drinks and then it was decided that we should go back to Tingles' place (does anyone else remember this pattern?). Then she bought my drinks! We got to Tingles', went to her basement, and started watching things on Youtube. And then Wolfgang and Tingles had to go to sleep and Wolfgang drove that girl and I home. Anti-climactic, I know. But such is life. I considered asking her to hang out at my house for a while and then getting her a cab, but I'm really glad I didn't. I walked into my house at 12:30 to find everyone in my family up and moving around, having apparently just finished some sort of movie marathon.

I went to bed, woke up early, and went to watch the long boats at 8.

Then I went home and napped.

I showered, ate, and went to the long boat party at Tingles' place, also being attended by that girl. Again, things seemed to be going really well. We all started drinking, we all ate the awesome food provided by Tingles' parents, and some dude at the party told us all this story about how he was nearly mauled to death by a house cat, complete with scars on his legs.

That girl and Tingles suggest that we all go down to the river. And really, who am I to argue? We begin to walk, the entendres begin to fly, and then a series of seemingly innocent entendres all in a row, precipitate a row between Wolfgang and Tingles. Well... It wasn't a row to begin with. They just stopped walking and began talking in whispers. That girl and I stood, wobbling slightly, a few meters down the sidewalk. Soon we realized that Wolfgang and Tingles weren't going anywhere. I urged patience and understanding. Eventually, that girl had to pee. Being just outside a large hotel, we walked past Wolfgang and Tingles towards the lobby to see if we could find a washroom. Tingles was crying. It was at this point that I wondered if we were ever going to reach the river.

We didn't. I don't need to get into the details of someone else's fight here. Suffice to say that no one felt good by the end and that it would likely have been a non-issue if everyone were sober.

So, skipping all the sensitive bits, our story continues. Wolfgang and Tingles are still duking it out, when that girl and I decide to cut and run. I give Wolfgang money to take a cab home in case things go really badly, and we jet back to the hotel. Why to the hotel? So she can use the ATM? Why did she need the ATM? To get money for the cab to her place she'd just called, and invited me to tag along in.

Finally, things were back on track.

The cab pulls up and we hop in. As we're leaving the hotel parking lot we look and can still see Wolfgang and Tingles in the same place we left them.

That girl asks, "So, what are you going to do?"

In my head, "Aside from see you naked? Probably take a pee and"

I assume she's asking what I'm going to do after we're done. "Call another cab, I guess."

"Oh... Well don't worry about it. We can work something out, you can stay at my place." And apparently I assumed correctly.

The cab keeps driving and we make small-talk. Now, I believe I mentioned that she lives out at the edge of town. Now, a few of my readers know another friend we have who lives near the edge of town. He lives with his mother and brother, and Blake used to live with them. Yeah, him. That girl lives 3 blocks farther from downtown than him. It was a lengthy cab-ride.

Anyway, the cabbie can't find the house. She tells him to pull over and we get out. It turns out we're only 3 houses down the road from her place. We walk in the back door, and she does not immediately jump me. I take off my coat, set it down. I begin untying my shoes. She still hasn't said anything. As I'm midway to untying the second shoe, she says,

"So, what do you want to do?"

I sense a trap. Is this a trick question of some kind? Does she want me to start talking dirty? I would have thought that that was what she was going for, but she asked it totally straight. As if we'd just stepped off the bus in some tourist trap.

I considered telling her that there were a number of things that I assume I'll be doing when a hot girl invites me back to her house. But that might paint me as a severe asshole and ruin any chance of getting laid that I still have.

A look of confusion crosses my face, and I say "Umm... Whatever, I guess". Which hopefully conveys the full range of options from face-painting to fellatio (which I suppose doesn't need to be that far from the first option...).

Wrong answer, apparently. Because the next thing she says is, "You should probably go. I can call you a cab if you want."

Yeah, I shit you not. Talk about anti-climax.

I tell her I don't need a cab as I just gave my cab money away to Wolfgang and my bike is at Tingles. I tell her to call me and I stride out the door.

I continue the striding until I'm far enough from her house that she can't see me, where I begin to shuffle and shrug my head down because it was fucking cold out there that night, and not just metaphorically. And also because I was wearing my bomber jacket and it doesn't really do up properly.

I shuffle the 4 blocks down her street until I come to a street that takes me directly through the east end of the city all the way back to the art gallery, which is only a block from the hotel where we'd left Wolfgang and Tingles (and only 2 blocks from Tingles' house where my bike was [Yeah, do your math. We got one block from Tingles' place before the argument began]). As I walked up the street I wondered idly if they'd resolved their issues yet. I hoped so, as I was burning to recount the tale of my latest exploit.

As I got closer, I was pretty sure I could see two people in the street, so I stepped up the walking pace. I got closer, and closer, and could see that it was definitely them. But then I got a few steps closer and realized that they were standing in the middle of the sidewalk yelling at each other. I figured I'd try and stay out of it, simply veering out about 10 feet onto the grass beside them and waving at them as I walked by. They didn't acknowledge me, and I kept on going.

I got to Tingles' place, grabbed my bike, and jetted. It was still quite cold.

To date, that girl has not called me.

And now, for the third part of this monstrous post: A review.

That's right, for your pleasure I'm going to review the greatest musical accomplishment of the last 45 millenia (FF Spellchecker wants me to put "milleniums". What a n00b).

Some of you may not know this, but the Beastie Boys dropped a new album a month or two ago. I didn't know it, so I'm going to assume that you didn't.

It's called The Mix-Up, and it kicks ass. This album more than makes up for the attack of mental instability that resulted in To the Five Boroughs. It follows in the tracks of one of their other albums: The In Sound From Way Out. For those of you with no culture, The In Sound was an album the Boys made purely of 3-piece instrumental music. The Mix-Up is more of the same, although Wikipedia informs me that there are plans to release a second version of the album with lyrics to many or all of the songs. In my humble opinion, that is a shitty idea.

You should buy this album.

Review concluded.

To conclude this post,

ONE MORE SLEEP UNTIL I GO TO SEE THE BEASTIE BOYS (and Nora) LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the Story of a Girl

2007-09-11T20:33:00.001-04:00

Well, two girls actually. But I only found the second one after I started writing this.

Girl #1: Remember in the first post where I said I'd had almost no interesting encounters with the opposite sex since I was dumped? This girl would be the "almost" part of that:

Wolfgang has a new girlfriend (You may remember the old one. If you do, my sympathies), and she is a pretty cool girl. I'm going to refer to her as Tingles because that's her handle when we play Halo. Yeah that's right, she plays Halo. Additionally, she hangs out with us, she can actually talk with interest and depth about the same things as us, and unless she was working, she would be out every Wednesday for wing night at the local pub with us.

Just before the Labour Day weekend, she brought a single friend of hers along, having let both this girl and I know beforehand that she expected things to happen. When they arrived I wasn't disappointed. The girl was good-looking, and it became pretty clear pretty fast that she was into me too. Eventually Wolfgang, Tingles, this girl, and I went back to Tingles' place. Things happened. After things were done, this girl told me that she wasn't interested in a relationship, but that she'd like to hang out again the next night. I told her I agreed as I'd just gotten out of a relationship, and it hadn't been a really fun trip.

We did hang out again the next night in another large group, but she was late arriving and had to leave early before I could get a chance to talk to her. Seriously, I sat down beside her and she told me she was about to leave. However, during the short time that she was around I was treated to a little surprise: Carl was working that night was the only person to arrive to our little gathering later than her. When he walked in they both saw each other, I introduced Carl as "My hetero life-mate"(not that she got it), and they stopped dead. Of course Carl and this girl have a history. Not that this particularly phases me. Carl's a man with a long history and as long as they can keep off each other while I'm in the picture, I don't really care what happened in the past. Anyway, she got a ride home from one of Tingles' other friends (Let's call him the Smoking Man) soon after and I got her phone number from Tingles before I went home that night.

Here's where the nonsense starts:

Ever since I became more than academically interested in girls, there are two things I haven't really been able to understand: The obsession many people have with the taxonomy of relationships, and the ability all of my friends (of both genders) have to get drunk, fool around, and act as if nothing happened afterwards.

What does this have to do with the above story (as if you couldn't guess!)? Here goes:

When this girl told me she didn't want a relationship, I was genuinely relieved. As I said above, I'd just gotten out of one and Tingles told me later that this girl had as well, maybe a week or two before me. I was ready to go with a "friends with benefits" arrangement with this girl. Of course, not really knowing what that meant, I went with what I remembered from the only casual relationship I was ever able to discuss at length in my high-school years. The one between my Bestest Buddy Ever, and a certain dancer she happened to meet. As I recalled, theirs was a very low key thing where they'd call each other up and get together for... fun. And, having read a definition on Wikipedia, I'm going to say that it matches my thoughts pretty well. However, due to what Tingles and Wolfgang had been telling me, I was also working under the assumption that this would be a monogamous thing, which was likely going to lead to a "real" relationship once she and I had gotten over our exes (which, according to the wiki, was actually a very wrong thing to assume).

Aside #1:
What the hell is wrong with the word relationship? It gets tossed around conversations like a hand grenade with a loose pin. Seriously, I have a relationship with everyone who's reading these words, and I would characterize the majority of them as both "real" and "serious". Forming a relationship is not a life-altering event for me, but many many people appear to be under the impression that when one is formed between people who are attracted to each other, that it is analogous to forming an engagement (or a marriage for all that they're worth these days...), The wiki I mentioned above uses the term "formal relationship" to deliniate between the two, but where does that term come from? Formality implies a contract of some kind. Maybe something like this. If I'm in a relationship with a girl I'm not necessarily interested in long deep talks and eating dinner with their parents. I'm mostly interested in monogamy and not being lied to. Anything else is up for discussion.

Friday of that week (the 31st) I moved out of my University apartment, said a rather wrenched goodbye to Wolfgang, and began to feel somewhat lonely and sentimental. Perfect time for some non-committal sexual activity! I called the girl to see what she was up to on the following day (I was busy hanging out with Blake and Carl that night). I'd never actually spent any time with her sober, and figured it would be good to spend an afternoon hanging out and actually learning more about her than her name, and hopefully finding somewhere with no people around to learn more. No one answered her phone, so I left a brief message with my phone number and basically put it out of my head. That night on a bar patio with Blake and Carl I mentioned that I was a little disappointed that this girl hadn't gotten back to me. At this point, Carl and Blake turned my little world upside down and began heaping abuse on me.

Why had I called her? Why would I expect that she would want to see me? When a girl says she doesn't want a relationship it means she doesn't want to see you unless you happen to run into each other at a bar and decide the time is right to go somewhere else in each other's company. Of course, this flew in the face of everything I'd thought or been told to expect so far, and I was a little confused. (Aside #2: Apparently casual relationships are more formalized that any conception I have of a "formal" relationship) For the next 45 minutes I would randomly direct the conversation back to this point. They both seemed to agree that calling her that morning was a really really bad thing to do, to the point that it might wreck my chances of spending any time with her again.

And then she walked onto the patio. Seriously, my exact words were, "Yeah, I know, but I still don't get why calling her was such a bad holy shit there she is."

She was with a friend and we pulled two chairs up to our table for them. Her and I began to talk idly, but now my mind was full of wheels-within-wheels nonsense trying to figure out what she meant when she said seemingly normal things like "I got your message, but I was at work all day and didn't have a chance to get back to you". Did she really not get one chance? At all? Was this a polite way of saying what Blake and Carl had just been saying?

Eventually she and her friend went to the bathroom. Before they got back a drunkard we knew showed up with a friend and took their chairs. I got replacement chairs for her and her friend, but she was now sitting 3 seats away from me surrounded by people she didn't know, and the newcomers were doing their best to monopolize me in conversation. I was busy trying to figure out how to a) shut up my friends b) break tactfully out of the conversation or invite her into it or c) if all else failed, make my friends leave the table or take her to another one. While I was running the calculations for these things in my head (somewhat slowly because I was drunk and I still had to converse with my friends), some dude came up behind her and gave her a hug. She responded, went over to his table, and he proceeded to start buying her drinks.

Yeah, who can guess what happened next?

The wheels went into overdrive. Should I try and talk to her again? Was that the definitive signal that I had fucked things up with the phone call? Was that her way of telling me she was bored and didn't appreciate having her seat stolen? Was she going to finish saying hello and come back to this table? Had she actually come to this bar to meet this guy and just been talking with me to pass the time? Was I supposed to go over and begin competing for her attention? Who fucking knows? I, by then 9 or 10 drinks into the evening, certainly didn't. Blake and Carl were both busy engaging in other conversations, so I had no one to turn to, and ended up staying at the table and talking to her friend (incidentally, she knew my brother, and I spent a while talking to her about him, eventually receiving the impression that they'd hung out a few times before he cut her off for reasons unknown).

Sometime later, the tail Blake had been chasing left that bar and went to another. Blake then spent about 20 minutes convincing Carl and I that we should follow. We did. I wasn't sure if I should go over and tell this girl where we were going, or play it cooler and just tell her to call me sometime. In the end, I wussed out and simply left with Blake and Carl.

Aside #3:
Why do I do these things? "Paralysis by analysis" is a ridiculous term that my brother learned in business school, but it does seem to apply pretty well in this situation. The speed of the wheels in my head seems to have an inverse relationship (uh-oh, I said a dirty word!) with the amount of actual conversation or action I'm able to produce in any situation

I went on to spend a totally joyless hour at the other bar, and then we went to Carl's house around 2-ish to say goodbye to his sister, who was leaving at 5 to go off to school in Newfoundland and had been up all night packing. I was feeling so shitty by that point that I decided to walk home, and only accepted Carl's offer of a child's scooter to ride home on after 10 minutes of cajolery.

That takes us to Saturday morning, where I decided to play it cool. I wanted to call this girl, but I had already called her. She knew I wanted to hang out that day, so I figured that if she was interested she knew where to find me. She didn't call. I spent the day loafing around and cleaning my room, which wasn't actually that bad since I had spent the last 3 nights getting drunk. Also I thought it would be much easier to move out if I had all my things organized (this being a day before Blake dropped the "Hammer of God" on me).

Sunday was much the same. I spent the whole day cleaning my room (10 bags of garbage and 1.5 defunct computers taken to my dumpster), stopping only to buy some groceries for my mother, and then to eat the results of that trip. I also took small breaks to recieve Blake's terrible news and to call my brother to ask if he knew of any bachelor apartments on the market. My head hit the pillow hard that night, and somewhat earlier than on the last 4.

No calls on Monday either, so I decided to take matters into my own hands on Tuesday.

This was spurred on as much by wanting to know what the hell this girl was trying to do as it was by the shocking realization that I was pretty soon going to have no one to go to wings with for a long long time. I decided I would call everyone I had left in Stratford: Blake, my brother, Carl... and this girl. My brother had a meeting on Wednesday one block away from the wing bar and just after the time when I figured we'd be done (that means he couldn't come). Carl and Blake still live together so Blake was able to tell me that Carl would be working that night and the he (Blake) would be in London all day at a doctor's appointment. Fucking London.

Still waiting for nonsense? Here goes!

Blake then went on to tell me that I shouldn't bother calling the girl because she was bad news. He informed me that Carl had had trouble keeping her hands out of his crotch when we'd seen her on Friday. I agreed that that was a bad news kind of thing and decided to call Wolfgang and see what he thought of it. Only one problem: Wolfgang had moved back to school over the Labour Day weekend. I decided to pop off an email to him asking for his number.

Sometimes I think maybe there is a god, and other times I'm freakishly tempted to wonder whether or not it lives in my subconscious mind. When I logged into my gmail I saw a message from Wolfgang there already:

"I think you need to call me for a little chat, my friend"

And then another email with his phone-number.

I dialed. He answered. His first words (after our lengthy passwords, formal introductions, and a short break for tea) were, "I think you should stay away from that girl. She's bad news."

"That's so weird! Blake just told me the same thing. Why do you think so?"

"Well..."

And then he told me a story. It was the story of how, on the second night of our acquaintance, that girl had gotten a ride home from Tingles' friend the Smoking Man, made him drive her to the art gallery, and then ravished him in his car.

I was... pulled in two directions. The first was maybe not obvious to my readership:

I was not mad. I was maybe a little disappointed, but that's not the same thing. I was trying hard to get my head around the rules in this "friends with benefits" thing. I had been told my Wolfgang that monogamy was included, but not by the girl. And after the Friday night incident, I had decided that that assumption was a bad one. After all, who only has one friend? The most obvious advantage of thinking this way was that it clearly worked in both directions.

However, unlike the guy on Friday, it wasn't like I hadn't met the Smoking Man before. I describe him as Tingles' friend because they've known each other since high-school, but we'd hung out in groups many times over the summer (we spent much of that time covering each other's backs in Halo at Wolfgang's) and I figured we were friends too. Apparently not. Now, as I said above, I didn't have any sort of claim on this girl's affections. I had no serious ground to start mounting a "You cheating bitch" or " You back-stabbing asshole" campaign. But that's not really what's at issue here. What's at issue is that you don't intentionally fool around with people your friends are into, even if they aren't in any sort of "formal" "relationship". I am personally of the opinion that my company is worth more than the transitory affections of a drunken woman, but I can't say that that's a universally held opinion.

Given these two different pulls, I came to a conclusion about myself: I am not cut out for casual...whatever you want to call it. And when I say "came to a conclusion" I, of course, really mean "returned to a conclusion". Can anyone say "Gaggy Maggie"?

From that starting point I was able to decide that I should call the girl, tell her that I wasn't angry about what had happened (Who's gonna lie? I might have done it myself), but that I wasn't really interested in seeing her anymore. Basically, with everyone I knew having already moved or moving away soon, I was looking for all the friends I could get. To that end, I'd be happy to call her a friend, but leave it at that. It certainly wasn't worth any stupid drama and I wasn't interested in running into her at a bar and having to look away, stare into a gaze of contempt, or attempt to make feel-good half-hearted small talk.

So I called her. And got her machine. And didn't leave a message.

That night Blake called to get the girl's phone number. He said it was so that he could get the number of the friend she'd been with that night he, Carl, and I ran into her. I gave it to him, wished him luck, and told him that if he got through to her he could mention that she could call me sometime.

I can't remember if it was that night or the next, but she did call me. I was asleep though. By this time I'd started my new job and my 9pm bedtime.

When I got up at 5:30 I saw her number on the callers list of my phone. There was no message though, so I went to work. I called back at 9-ish to see if either of my parents had taken a message. No they hadn't, just that she had called. I waited until 11 (I had called after noon every other time and gotten the machine), called her, and got the machine. This time I left a message making some lame joke about telephone tag. She called my house when I was done work. I was working up to telling her that I was no longer interested, as she began busting into a long tale about how the whole thing was a lie and she hoped I believed her. A long tale, but the basic gist was that the Smoking Man had driven her to the Art Gallery instead of her house, hit on her, been rebuffed, made her take his phone number, and then driven her home.

Two totally opposite tales from two people I don't really know. I was diplomatic with her, told her it was nothing personal, but that I wasn't really going to make up my mind until I'd talked it over with Wolfgang and Tingles, who would be able to judge a little more accurately. However, I couldn't quite get around to getting my great big self-realization off of my chest, given that she was trying to convince me that the major catalyst for that realization was possibly not a real event.

It was all getting complicated. More so, in fact, than a "real" "relationship" might have been. I told her I was going to think it over but that I wanted to see her sometime (also, seriously, who says things like "I can't do this with you" and whatnot over the phone? Doesn't that make me look like a huge prick?). We quickly discovered that this was going to be impossible. I worked my mornings, she worked 2 hours after I finished, and I was asleep by the time she was done.

"Two hours after?" you say. Quite astute, my readers. I was all in favour of a rendezvous somewhere downtown for a quick chat, but that was also not in the cards. You see, this girl lives somewhere out on the very very edge of our fair metropolis, and she apparently cannot drive (what a luddite) and does not have access to a bicycle. Or bicycles aren't ladylike enough. I don't know.

Eventually we cycle through our schedules until we come to the end of the week, when she says she works until 9 and then is thinking of going to a bar in town with her friend (The one we've met once before that Carl was interested in). My logical mind was busy weighing whether or not that would actually be a good time to talk. Just as the counter in my head begins to dip towards "No, dumbass", another part of my head (the one controlling my mouth apparently) says, "Well, maybe I'll see you there."

"Oh yeah? Alright, well I'll call you when I'm done work on Saturday."

And, having done such an unexpected thing to myself, the strange part of my mind did its best to justify what had just happened: Why was I taking all this so seriously? Could I not relax for 5 seconds and just try to get laid this weekend? The thought of getting laid was a strong motivator for me, and I let it go. I was again determined to make this non-relationship work. Work for me. Hard.

Through the rest of the week reality began to crack my little shell of confidence. 1) I never did call Wolfgang to get his opinion on the situation, so I was basically taking what she had told me in blind faith, mostly because I was hoping I was going to get laid out of it. 2) There was a good chance that this girl would do what she had done the last time I saw her in a bar: get bored with me and move onto some other piece of meat. I decided that I would need some sort of backup plan. I tried half-heartedly to bring my brother in on the idea by tempting him with the friend, but he was having none of it. Nothing else presented itself to me until the night itself.

Blake was, in fact, still in Stratford (he's still here now for all that are interested. He's moving sometime next week). I had the bright idea to give him a call and try to pull him into this adventure at the last second. It almost worked, but he had other plans. Specifically, plans with another of our friends and some bottles of wine down by the river, and Carl (and some other bottles of wine) when he got off of work. I decided to spend $13 on some insurance. I told Blake to pick me up a bottle of the usual while he was at the liquor store. That way, if things fell through, Blake and a comfortably numb evening were only a phone call away.

To shorten this long story, things fell through. Blake and I arrived (our friend was still working), the girl didn't even invite us to sit at her table. I tried to give her Blake's phone number, she insisted that she could remember it if we told her. At this point, only the part of my mind that had gotten me into this whole stage of the mess was trying to insist that she would call and we would get together later. And none of Blake's mind was thinking that as he made ridiculous faces and comically exaggerated goodbye waves at her when she left the bar with some dude. Some dude, who I will add for the benefit of my own dignity, who was very very ugly. I should also add at this point that Blake definitely did the right thing and I was just too embarrassed to admit it at the time.

I proceeded to get semi-incoherently drunk on a bridge, bike around the river with my boys, and fall off my bike on a gravel path and tear up my knee. The best part of the night, however, was lying on my back on the riverbank (beside said boys) looking up into the stars, and listening to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World tell me to celebrate.

Then I went home, threw up in my sink, and passed out in my basement. The next morning I had a hangover that would have enslaved the world and destroyed humanity if it had been able to beat its way out of my skull.

Girl #2: Much cooler than the last one

I found this while I was searching for the appropriate link to put in a recent comment in another blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZXGdg23Qdk&mode=related&search=

It's a video of a girl dancing to my favourite Daft Punk song. Now, this on its own is not enough to earn her what could be called the entire second half of this post. Oh no. She's not the most attractive woman ever, and the dancing, while good, did not blow my mind as other dancing has.

Watch it. Enjoy it. But pay special attention to exactly which dance she decides to employ at 37 seconds and 1:16. You won't regret it.

I Prefer my Life Don't Need no Other Man's Wife, Don't Need no Crazy Lifestyle with Stress and Strife

2007-09-07T14:38:00.000-04:00

Well, I survived my first week

What the fuck happened to what I wrote here?
="" much="" than="" proved="" best="" room="" reading="" when="" go="" as="" tend="" do="" after="" look="" more="" if="" can="" serious="" trouble="" ve="" working="" times="" between="" noon="" 2pm="" being="" work="" something="" an="" think="" about="" having="" normal="" job="" starts="" now="" try="" assuming="" position="" suddenly="" makes="" you="" start="" damn="" adjusting="" change="" s="" weird="" getting="" up="" before="" sun="" actually="" left="" blinds="" open="" monday="" order="" aid="" early="" rise="" be="" disappointed="" by="" totally="" black="" sky="" human="" body="" is="" pretty="" good="" sleeping="" whenever="" needs="" should="" have="" taken="" internal="" clock="" few="" days="" adjust="" from="" tucking="" 9="" this="" exactly="" but="" one="" problem="" didn="" figure="" since="" d="" been="" 1="" 2="" wasn="" t="" really="" a="" lot="" keep="" me="" awake="" past="" point="" could="" drop="" off="" so="" at="" 30="" there="" were="" 4="" other="" people="" in="" house="" all="" not="" planning="" going="" bed="" for="" another="" hour="" or="" quickly="" realized="" that="" ears="" had="" become="" sensitized="" the="" smallest="" noises="" while="" trying="" to="" was="" m="" sure="" i="" only=""
Seriously, I tried to correct it, but it's not worth it. I was talking about surviving the first week of work, how much it sucks to go to bed at 9, how much it sucks to wake up at 5:30, and that about takes us to the part that didn't fuck up:

I got 6 hours of sleep every night. Except last night. My father rented Wild Hogs and turned it on just as I was going to bed. John Travolta? William H. Macy? Tim Allen...? It couldn't be that bad, could it?

It wasn't actually. I mean, cheap gags and gay jokes abounded and Martin Lawrence didn't utter a single unstereotyped word for the whole film (Climax of his character: Him:"Baby, don't you feel me right now?" Him's Wife:"Baby... I feel you."), but given that, it wasn't terrible. I enjoyed it. But I didn't enjoy getting up 5 hours later for work.

And now, here for your perusal, a sample day in the life:

5:30 - Swear and turn down radio before it wakes up family. Put on swimsuit, pinney, and socks. Put on shorts over suit. Pick out boxers and shirt to wear after work.

5:40 - Tip-toe downstairs, put on shoes and sweater, put clothes in backpack. Go to fridge, retrieve lunch and place in backpack.

5:45 - Urinate. Wash hands. Wish I was prettier at this time of day.

6:00 - Masticate large chocolate muffin while checking email. Pick crumbs off keyboard. Consume crumbs and work leftover muffin off of muffin paper for consumption.

6:15 - Wish I had time to masturbate. Brush teeth. Exit home from back door and bicycle through the cold to my work.

6:20 - Why am I always early for work? Maybe I could've... No, I couldn't. Chat with woman who signs out my keys. Go to my department office. Take off shoes, shorts, socks, sweater. Place lunch in fridge.

6:25 - Retrieve water bottles from pool deck. Go up 3 floors to best water fountain in the building. Fill bottles. Place Bottle #1 in fridge beside lunch. Bottle #2 comes with me back onto the deck.

6:30 to 6:55 - Open the pool. This involves numerous rooms, keys, pumps, hoses, valves, switches, dials, buttons, phonecalls, jugs of dangerous chemicals, and thoughts of how awesome it would be to go back to sleep.

7:00 - Unlock the door. There are always 2 or 3 people outside waiting already. At this point I delve completely into my assigned maintenance (why is this word not spelled 'maintainance'?) tasks for the day. I clean and tidy the equipment shed. I wash the pool deck (not easy with one of the main hoses broken). I wash the bleachers. I rinse the PFDs (not to be confused with lifejackets). I wax the slide (not a euphemism. We have a bottle of Turtle Wax for just this purpose).

7:45 - Having completed all of my maintainance (fuck you, spelling) tasks, I wonder what else I can do to avoid falling asleep. I usually settle for "sitting in my lifeguard chair watching people swim". While this is not always a successful sleep-avoidance strategy, it does have the advantage of making me the tallest person in the pool by 6 feet. I also spend much of this time thinking about getting laid, which makes for an uncomfortable few moments of adjustment if I need to get off the chair and do something (like save a drowning person or answer the phone). I occasionally have imaginary conversations (not a joke) about things that I'm thinking about. This only becomes problematic if the conversation turns into an argument and I suddenly find myself mumbling "HA! but..."

Note: Some days I am able to use a portion of this time to plan an Aquafit class. This involves taking a binder from my boss' bookshelf and stealing ideas from it until I have a cool-looking 45 minute workout. I can usually stretch this process out further by transcribing all of my stolen ideas onto a single sheet of paper (stolen from my boss' printer).

9:00 to 9:30 - My boss shows up and takes over the department office. We banter idly for 5-10 minutes and I tell her any problems I encountered before she arrived (the water level was 6 inches down this morning, the idiot working last night gave away all our cold packs to a girl who stubbed her toe so I had to steal replacement ones from other departments' 1st aid kits, etc). Eventually she leaves again to get coffee (or cold packs) and I go back to my chair.

10:00 - I, my boss, or some specially trained individual from another department teach Aquafit. For those of you unaware of the meaning of "Aquafit" think "25 old women watching to see if your junk falls out of your shorts while you jump around to CDs of (seriously) oldies, show tunes, or top 40 hits from 5-10 years ago all sped up to 110-140 beats per minute with an added pounding bass beat". If you can't contain all that in your head at once, don't come to Aquafit. And tell your grandma she's never going to see my junk because I always wear my "Assloads of Assloads" jockey shorts under my very loose university varsity swim team gym-shorts (stolen from the locker room of my university the only time I ever went to the gym there, along with a polo shirt which my friend [the fool] thought was the better steal).

10:45 to 11:15 - This is theoretically my lunch break. It is printed on the schedule as "POOL CLOSED FOR MAINTAINENCE". I usually spend the first 5 minutes chasing all of the old ladies out of the pool because they're starting to catch on that I don't actually do any work during that half-hour. Then, if I've just taught the Aquafit, I go and take a shower (the pool air is never colder than 29degrees Celsius and humidity is never below 50%). This leaves me a scant 10 minutes to eat my lunch. On days when I don't teach, I wag jaws with my boss while eating lunch. I went to the larger offices and checked my email on an unused computer once, but then some woman (likely the woman who works 9-7 by choice every day and eats at her computer)(Also, I can say "Some woman" because the only people who work in the larger office are women. I am one of 3 senior male staff members at my work) complained to my boss (also a woman) who then told me all about the "stigma of checking personal email on office computers". Luckily this gives me more time to talk to her in the office. About work. Awesome.

11:15 to 2:00 - This is the homestretch. Having been nourished, I am able to sit in the chair without sleeping. The first part of this time slot is spent watching (sometimes yummy) mommies and their small children play in the shallow end. After that I throw in the lane ropes for (guess what?) lane swim. And finally I take one out and leave the rest for senior swim. Senior swim is usually a cake-walk because I know most of the seniors and none of them actually want to work out in the water, so we end up talking at length while the sullen/active seniors do laps on the far side. Also, my boss leaves for a 3-hour lunch at some point during this time.

at 2:00 - I again repeat the ritual of loading senior citizens into catapults or attaching mechanical kicking devices to their rear ends in order to get them out the door so that I can lock it and go home. I get naked in the office, put on the clothes I brought, and GTFO.

Of course, for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week I had to go back again at 4 for training with the rest of the pool staff (all of them, unfortunately, being far too young to be of any use). But today I came home, had an inspiration for a name for my new band (With Calder and Jay), worked on that, and then said "Holy fuck! I should write a post"

More than Ever Hour After Our Work is Never Over

2007-09-04T06:16:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my explosive re-entry into this "Sphere of the Blogs". Feel free to imagine that as more of a "Volcanic eruption of awesome" than a "Space Shuttle Colombia" sort of deal.

Prologue: Second Coming of the DJ Saviour

I warn you now, this post may come across as exceptionally poorly typed, but that's actually the fault of the bottle of champagne I just smashed across my keyboard to inaugurate this shiny new blog. The combination of a glass covered typing surface and my razor wit will make it difficult to finish this post without major blood loss, but I'll worry about that when the paramedics make me let go of the keyboard before they rush me to Emerge.

So... what to say? If you're reading this you either got my email or you placed RSS or other majick on this site in the hopes that I would update it again. In either case, thanks for dropping by. If you're new, this is just basically an excuse not to email you. What makes you so special that you deserve a personal email every time something noteworthy happens to me? Exactly. There are lots of things that make you special, but they also make many of the other people reading this thing special in many of the same ways. So if you deserve an email, they all deserve one too. Try not to be so self-centred all the time.

If you're not new, expect much of the same as last time. Basically I just felt that as my life has changed, I should pack up my wares and change my blog as well. Also, Roborant was the word of the day one day in my Gmail headlines and ever since I read it I've been dying to start a blog of the same name. It appeals to the large part of my brain that is easily amused by double meanings. The word itself has a solid meaning, but it can also be seen as Robo-rant, a term which implies a steady mechanical output vitriolic commentary, which is hopefully something I'll be able to accomplish here.

With that out of the way, let's get down to tacks, brass or otherwise. This post is going to be hellishly long, and here's how it's going to go:

It'll start with some sentimental crap about how much I miss all of you (Act 1).

Following that, I'll get into a highly distilled (180 proof or above) account of my life since I last typed to you all (Act 2).

And it's going to finish with a recent anecdote from my life, which turns into a rant pretty quickly and will pretty much set the bar for what most of my other posts will be like in the future (Act 3).

And a 1... 2... a 1. 2. 3. 4!

Act 1: Missing You

It's been a real fuck-load of a long time since I posted anything. This has been caused by 2 major factors: 1) being busy and lazy and 2) assuming I was going to make a new blog and start posting regularly "next week" for almost 8 months.

Because of that assumption I basically took a dump on all the people who used to read my old blog. I did this specifically by not responding to any of their comments asking how I was doing in an attempt to preserve my secrecy. You know who you are and I owe you an apology.

Lastly, there are no direct links to my old blog here. The past is the past. It's not that I'm not proud of the old war-horse, but I wasn't as careful about names (corporate, private, or any other) as I should have been. While that never really got me into hot water, others followed my example and got the flesh steam-flayed from their bones. If you really really really want to read it, less than 30 seconds of Google searching should be required to locate the page in question.

Act 2: Letting the Days Go By, Letting the Water Hold Me Up

I hear you asking, "Liam, how the hell have you been?"

Luckily, I'm prepared to answer that question.

Since the last time I posted, nothing has really changed in my life except for a few key details which I'll outline now:

1) I am still a University dropout. I made it official on the same morning I dropped off my Co-op work term report. I haven't really looked back since except to wonder how my friends are doing and to seriously lament the fact that I signed a 1-year lease on my apartment.

2) I'm back at my old job. The same job I've always had. That hasn't really changed since May when my Co-op term ended. However, as of this morning, I am assuming a new and exciting job at the same organization. Well... Really the same job. But with full-time hours, better pay, and health-coverage. So I'm happy about that (except for the fact that the hours are 7-3 every day, as you may have inferred from the time stamp on this post).

3) I got a girlfriend shortly after moving back here. It's hard to say when we moved from "hooking up often" to "being a couple", so I can't say how long we were together, but I'll peg it at 7 months. In mid-August she got cold feet about me moving to Banff (What? Liam's going to Banff?) and decided to set me free of her shackles. Of course, she didn't tell me that, she just broke up with me one day. In the intervening weeks (all 3 of them) I have done some low-level work with members of the opposite sex, but nothing really interesting.

Well, maybe one thing. But that doesn't bear talking about right now.

4) I am still in Ontario. Does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not. For almost a year, Blake and I have been trying to cook up a scheme to move to Alberta for a year, make shitloads of money, and then go back to school. Here's a short timeline:

Fall 2006: Blake begins this scheme. He lets me in on it when I tell him that I'm probably going to drop out of school. We decide that the best course of action is to get jobs at resorts in Banff where the wages are good, and the cost of living is lowered because most employees live in residences at the resort instead of having to rent apartments. We both nod our heads solemnly and look serious when it is suggested that we line up jobs in advance for this adventure.

New Years 2007: Blake goes back to school for his second term and I begin my Co-op term in Stratford, by this time totally convinced that I will be dropping out of school when the Co-op term ends. I think of the Banff trip infrequently, mostly only when I'm talking to Blake about it. During this time I visit the Banff Springs Resort website and look at job postings once. However, nothing comes of this due to my lack of a resume and the fact that none of the jobs look very interesting.

May-July 2007: Blake is back in town, we are firmly definitely going. We line up a place to stay in Banff for a few days because its starting to look like we won't be getting jobs until we arrive. This doesn't really phase me because I plan on going with enough money to get back home if things fuck up. If I don't find a job in Banff, I can always live with my parents again.

Mid-July: Carl signs onto our little adventure. Blake and I worry that he might not be able to survive the stresses of Banff living (If you know Carl, you know what I mean), but have faith in the man. Also, during this time we revise our start date for the trip from "just after labour day" to "mid September". I can't remember why. Two days after that I suggest we revise it again to "late September" in order to give me a chance to play Halo3 with Wolfgang on the day it comes out (That being something I promised him we'd do when we were playing Halo2 on the day it came out). I also sign on to work 3 weeks at my job in order to fill a post that they haven't found anyone to replace yet.

Act 3: Wherein the nonsense starts (Also the ranting if that's what you've been waiting for)

Late July: The combination of Carl's fragile constitution and tales of glory switch our sights from Banff to Fort McMurray. Specifically we hear that the wages are better, the work is more varied, and that we might be able to get an apartment for cheap with a family that we knew from home who moved to Fort M a few years back. All seems well...

Early August: The cheap apartment idea falls through. However, based on the ideas we have about how much we'll be paid, we continue searching for apartments in Fort M. I don't know why we did this, because we were seriously looking at places that were $2800/month plus everything, and that was on the cheap end of the scale. One dude that we called about an apartment told us that the place was gone, but he had another (with one more bedroom than we wanted) going stale. It had: 3 bathrooms, hardwood floors everywhere, a huge property, and a 42-inch plasma screen T.V. He then proceeded to take Blake's full name, email address, and make arrangements to see the place when we arrived (not that Blake had any intention of keeping that date if we ever did arrive).

Mid August: I no longer believe I'll be able to make enough money to pay for 1st and last month's rent, the trip to Fort M, food, and other expenses and still have enough to get home again if shit fucks up. I suggest that we go back to Banff as a starting point, and then make enough money there to springboard ourselves into Fort M in a month or two. This becomes problematic. Carl was still a man of fragile constitution and Blake also began to have serious doubts about whether or not he could handle life at Banff either. Apparently I (the man who spent most of highschool with a permanent case of the flu) was the only one who was actually confident of my assured survival in that mountain town.

Late August: Barely a week later, Carl and Blake both get cold feet and pull the plug. My entire world-view for the last 8 months shatters in front of me as I face down the prospect of spending another year stuck in town here. However, in order to soften the blow I agree to sign a permanent contract for the new position I was going to be starting at work after Labour Day.

Later that day: Blake, Carl, and I decide to get an apartment together in order to still have the illusion of independent living. After investing a minimal ammount of effort, we set our sights on a quaint 4-bedroom house near the downtown. We view the house, meet with the landlord, and receive a rental application. It asks for, among other things, our banking information, our social insurance numbers, and co-signings from our parents. As the only one of the three of us who actually has any experience working with landlords (as well as parents very much not interested in co-signing my leases), I find this to be somewhat extreme. The last guy I rented from gave me a lease, asked for 12 post-dated cheques, and was seen again maybe twice over the intervening year. This guy, on the other hand, gave us a rather long lecture on how to handle rental property, exactly how easy it was for him to fuck our credit ratings forever, and why he was so cool. Then he asked us where we worked, what we did where we worked, and who our bosses were. We take the application, but don't fill it out (I had to go to work immediately). We make plans to fill it out the next day, but end up getting drunk instead.

Barely 3 days later (that would be Sunday, or just 2 days ago): Blake has another case of foot temperature disorder and tells Carl and I that not only does he not want to get an apartment with us, but that in fact he is quitting his job and moving to London with his parents in order to save money. He also mentions that he's been guaranteed a job in the Forest City by some shifty character or another. I am now confronted with the fact that everything I have based my expectations on for the past year has just fallen through. And I'm locked into a contract with my new job.

I am currently looking for my own apartment in town.

That night Blake and I went to the local pub. I was still dazed from his dropping of the "Hammer of God" on me that afternoon. So maybe it was my dismayed expression, or maybe it was his overwhelming feeling of guilt, but the major topic of conversation was his decision to move. And by "conversation" I mean "alternately placating and rationalizing monologue by Blake". Eventually we went over to another bar to see my brother, we then switched roles with me trying to have a good time and Blake sitting quietly by himself. Not long after, Blake announced that he had another engagement and strode bravely off into the darkness.

So, nonsense, hunh? Hunh? Advice is appreciated, but this isn't a cry for help. I just thought you might appreciate a little slice of my ridiculous world.

So, that's that really. I hope you enjoyed my first installment at this new location. With any luck I'll be able to keep this thing going at least as well as the last one back in its glory days. It's not like I'm going to have anything better to do for a while. Except form a band or two. Hint hint.