The Typewritten Ephemera

DEAD

2009-05-19T22:26:00.000-04:00

Out of service

2009-05-13T10:34:00.001-04:00

This blog is temporarily on hiatus as I'm working on a new project.

Murder on the streets will take over for my other blog as well, Photoproof.

So please gimme some hits.

Thanks. Hope you enjoy.

Seven inches

2009-05-06T22:13:00.004-04:00

My new favorite website is 7 Inch Punk. You've probably wandered on it before if you've ever searched the internet for old 45's. I've never found so many awesome records available for download in one fucking place. It unites one of the most impressive collections of seven inches I've ever seen, from old school punk to hardcore to whatever. If it was pressed on a small vinyl disc, and the band members were straight edge or, conversely, sniffed glue, it's probably here. From Charles Bronson (my fucking favorites of all time) to Discharge to The Subhumans, it's all there. He has neat little captions, too, that sum up what the record is all about if you've never heard of the title before. Just leave comments and feedbacks as a form of recognition.

My new favorite website is 7 Inch Punk. You've probably wandered on it before if you've ever searched the internet for old 45's. I've never found so many awesome records available for download in one fucking place. It unites one of the most impressive collections of seven inches I've ever seen, from old school punk to hardcore to whatever. If it was pressed on a small vinyl disc, and the band members were straight edge or, conversely, sniffed glue, it's probably here. From Charles Bronson (my fucking favorites of all time) to Discharge to The Subhumans, it's all there. He has neat little captions, too, that sum up what the record is all about if you've never heard of the title before. Just leave comments and feedbacks as a form of recognition.

Sleep is for cunts

2009-05-06T09:28:00.003-04:00

Another night was spent not sleeping. My roommate is gone and I'm stuck with his cat who's like this schizo speed freak who eats and shits constantly and chews up aluminum foil and plastic bags and who jumps on shit and claws your face with razor-like precision. And, by the way, all he does is make fur. That's his job. He makes hair all day.

When I don't sleep I pillage YouTube. I get in there, deep. I've seen almost everything. I think there are about six or seven videos that I haven't seen yet, and when I get to the end of the YouTube, I fear that I'll be greeted with a giant abyssal cavity where content just stops and the atmospheric conditions resemble those of Jupiter. It's a place where assholes and racists can't comment anymore on videos so they tumble endlessly in a see of blackness - forever.

I also broke a guitar string and made some salsa and cheese dip in the microwave, but when I microwaved the salsa I realized that warm salsa tastes like shit and the spiciness level is twofold. Yeah, that shit is doubled.

I also cleaned my kitchen a bit and made some pancakes. I watched some Fresh Prince (courtesy of Alex ) and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I also did NOT do laundry and realized I'll have to 'recycle' for a third day now. Guys, don't front, you know what I'm talking about.

Shit. This is bad. I have a test in a few hours and I didn't study. I know some shit, but not enough, you know what I mean?

I also checked out this new blog that some acquaintances of mine have dedicated to reviewing beers. It's pretty decent and if you like beer as much as you claim then you should help hit these motherfuckers up.

Send me money, please.

Thanks,

Alan

Medicine for people who drink lots of alcohol

2009-05-04T21:21:00.004-04:00

1 out of 5 people that come and ask me for something at the pharmacy are drunk. They wreak of liquor and are belligerent and have requests that are about as odd as you could imagine.

One man, who had been drinking for most of the morning, came in around 11:30 AM and asked me which of the sinus medications was non-drowsy. He picked up some Advil Sinus Nighttime formula and asked if it was good.

I said yes, that I had used it before, and that it helped relieve my sinus congestion. That, of course, was a lie.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, he switched and pointed at the NyQuil. he asked me if it was a) non-drowsy and b) effective.

Really.

Alcoholics are fine individuals as long as they are drunk enough to function. An excess of alcohol can send them to the 'violent and suicidal' spectrum while a lack of alcohol can cause them to become dysfunctional and broken, like a toy car with no wheels. Happy alcoholics are my favorite kind. They have an unwavering sense of hope and optimism that radiates from their every activity: once drunk, their daily tasks become small yet infinite triumphs that they appropriate in a very proud manner. The shame of it is the tragic undertow of their condition that pulls them slowly into self-destruction.

Alcoholics shouldn't take flu or sinus medication for quite obvious reasons. Although minimally symptomatic, the interactions between analgesics and alcohol are quite malignant.

Perhaps the oddest request I got was a man who wanted salad for "a healthy snack." He then asked for some supplements, and on his way to the supplement section, he stopped me and asked for syringes.

"With or without needles?" I asked.

"With. It's to feed my plants."

Apparently this man's plants don't like water much and they'd prefer a good 8-ball. He was drunk and he was about to shoot heroin.

Needles are 25¢ a pop but the vague memories of the shit you did while on heroin are priceless and they last a lifetime.

My YouTube Favs

2009-04-22T01:47:00.003-04:00

Here's what I've liked over the years.

Together In Electric Dreams

Classic Mars Blackmon

I'M A MIME!!!!!!

Circuit Bending

Physical Comedy

Early Graphics

Lou Fucking Reed

U sellz me a organ, homeez.

American Football

2009-04-21T15:15:00.003-04:00

Recently, I discovered a band that existed almost ten years ago and which experienced a very short-lived exposure. My friend Xavier and I have been gushing about it ever since we discovered a mututal love for this band's music. American Football are classic emo, when emo was more about intelligent music and less about myspace.

The music is great; gentle, melodic guitar riffs supported by fantastic percussion and adorned with simple horn parts. The singer, Mike Kinsella, is currently releasing solo material under the name Owen.

They only ever released a self-titled album and a three-song EP.

Get the album here courtesy of Sack My Hardcore on Blogspot.

HITLER NEVER SMOKED WEED

2009-04-20T13:12:00.006-04:00

Today is April 20th, an fine layer of marijuana smoke gently rests like a canopy of peace and brotherhood over the trash-cluttered streets of Montreal. It's 420, a day where men, women and children of all ages huddle around a bong and suck on it hard until their eyes shimmer like glass and their stomachs leave them begging for cheeseburgers - cheeseburgers smothered in ice cream and chicken wings.

It's also Hitler's birthday, so it's a 2 for 1 deal if you happen to rock hardcore right wing values, a shaved head, red suspenders and a hooka pipe. Neo-nazis don't tend to be potheads, which is a shame, because if they'd start smoking marijuana they'd probably stop kicking minorities in the face with steel-toed boots and start watching Judd Apatow films instead.

Since it's been almost a year since I've gotten properly wasted, I've got my bong and my combat boots and I'm ready to get high. Sieg-high, that is. Ooh. My puns rock your face. No, seriously, enjoy this day and please spare the minorities.

Photo credit: Becky E

Flip-flop hommicide

2009-04-16T12:46:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted anything in a while, mostly because I've been busy, and partly because I've been faced with severe writer's block. I've even stopped reading. Instead, on my two-hour long commutes, I just stare out the window and get lost in early summer daydreams.
It's the time of year when shit starts to grow out of the ground and people are starting to dress down: guys are starting to wear flip-flops, which, frankly, I find downright wrong.
Don't wear jeans and flip-flops because it provokes me to want to push you into traffic, something which I could do quite easily considering your balance is somehwat compromised due to overpriced sheet of rubber under your feet that barely provides any protection.
If you do wear flip-flops, please go to a beach within five minutes of you walking out of your house. My favorite daydream is to take one of your American Eagle sandals and smack you across tyhe face repeatedly - not hard, but just enough to annoy you as much as you annoy me with your uncared for toes and your stinky toe jam.
Be warned, Abercrombie and Fitch enthusiasts, your days of casual footwear are numbered. As you sink lower and lower into your pseudo-metrosexuality, I grow angrier and angrier. If the streets were made of lava, you'd look mighty stupid. Wear some fucking sneakers and be gone with your bad habits.

GETTING MY GRILLZ OFF

2009-04-01T14:26:00.003-04:00

Every tool at the dentist's office goes "wheeeeeezzzzzgrrrrrrriiiiiiii!!!!!" like a bone saw. If dentist's made vibrators they'd sound like jet engines and they'd be shiny and scary. Dentists never prep you for the tool they're about to shove into your mouth. They never say: "what I'm going to do next is use a scary machine that's gonna sound 100 times worse than it actually is. All it really does is give you magical puppy kisses, so no worries, homes."

No, they don't do that. They just fire up the bone saw and tell you something like: "Now what I'm frighteningly holding in my hand, here, is a little spinning metal thing that's gonna do some stuff they taught me about in medical school (but that I've since forgotten). Hope you enjoy your skull vibrating for the next 45 minutes while I clock more hours on my paycheck."

But before all that, the dental hygienist removes your braces with a pair of pliers, which, needless to say, appears grisly and barbaric. It isn't painful, just brutal. They don't even disassemble the wires from the anchors, and what you end up with is a string of metal beads like a necklace. A necklace of pain. Four years of it. Four years of metal glued to my teeth and my orthodontist shook my hand when it was all over with. Thanks for the formality, but what I'd really like from you is a refund for 4 years worth of sex appeal that I never had. Can you do that mister dentist man?

Three spontaneous complaints

2009-03-20T14:50:00.004-04:00

1) Everytime I Google something with the word tattoo in it Angelina Jolie shows up. Why?

2) Penniless vagrants ask for change when you're a mile away from them, and then the awkwardness of the rejection is made bigger by the remaining distance between the two parties. Geez.

3) Nutella packages are so fucking hard to open. It's like trying to get into Fort Knox. What would it cost them to put an extra inch of foil in the lid as a way to grip the seal and get it started?

4) Tabloid headlines: Patrick Swayze = Good. Anything Twilight related = Bad.

Like bringing a knife to a gunfight

2009-03-19T22:10:00.003-04:00

Just got back from seeing Norma Jean with my roommate Alex. They opened for Underoath in what was a sort of Christian hardcore exposé. Being an atheist, I focus on the lyrical content rather than the actual religious aspect, and Norma Jean are also extremely talented, so the music is always great. The band before Norma Jean was slightly boring, and frankly not my style, but they produced these excellent breakdowns which they constructed with glitches and electroacoustic sound sources. Very good. They were called Innerpartysystem I believe.

Great energy on the outset. You could tell that some people were there ONLY for Norma Jean and as soon as the lights went down they went apeshit. But when the music started, the lead mic went dead - no vocals. Well, shit, that's not good. They fixed it. Soon they were playing all the songs we know and love. Everything was going great until they announced, five songs in, that there was one more song before Underoath. Phooey. All in all we got about 30-40 minutes of Norma Jean excellence, which wasn't nearly enough. That means that Underoath would headline for about an hour and half, almost 2 hours, and frankly, we didn't really go there to see Underoath.

They ended their set on Creating something out of nothing, only to destroy it which tore the fucking place down. "Like bringing a knife to a gunfight..."

After an excellent ending, and after being hit in the face and sternum a couple of times, Alex and I decided that it would only be downhill from here as nothing could excel this four-piece band from Gerogia who had just played an amazing set. So we left. Fuck it. Amazing.

PREGNANCY TEST BONUS PACKS

2009-03-16T01:23:00.005-04:00

I'm back. Montreal is great in the spring. As the snowbanks bake in the spring sun, the gradual melting reveals all sorts of goodies, from mangled bicycles, to abundant dog droppings, to perhaps even money. It's not uncommon to find money frozen in a patch of ice, or even an entire wallet. The things I have found when the meltwaters overflow the streets! Once I even found bus tickets. That was a good day. Today, while on my break, I saw a PC monitor that was thawing out of a snowbank. Very derelict.

[7:15 PM - Pharmaprix] Today a man asked me where the pregnancy tests were located, but he did so in a way that made it sound as though it was a legend, and he was inquiring if the legend - about these tellers of pregnancy - was in fact true. Yes. It is true. I took him to the section and then he asked me which one was better. I've never used one, so I wouldn't know.

They all claim to be 99.9% accurate. I think they should be able to round that off, don't you? If there is a 0.1% margin, I doubt that the city will be crawling with surprised pregnant people who only discover two weeks into it that they have another human growing inside of them.

The gentleman inquired on the price, so I pointed to the sticker. By the way, sir, if you are reading this (which I sincerely doubt, since you're busy sexing it up and making babies, so good for you!) there's no need to be ashamed about buying a pregnancy test. There's no need for a discreet tap on the back and too-close-to-the-face whispering. Life is beautiful, fucking embrace it.

He heard the price and stopped, hesitated, then asked me if it was only good for one test or if it could be reused over and over again.

What are you a baby machine? Is there, like, a sudden influx of possibly pregnant women in your life that you absolutely need a reusable pregnancy test in order to save money and make this purchase lucrative?

It's 20$, it's basically a high school chemistry test on a stick, and you pee on it. Common.

The next thing I did was show him the condom aisle before this poor fucker went broke as a result of his procreational bonanza.

Here's some Billy Taylor to usher in that old spring feeling.

Where have all the posts gone?

2009-03-13T01:03:00.002-04:00

Lately I've been getting distracted with a new digital SLR I purchased. It's an Olympus E-410 and it's designed to make everything aesthetically pleasing around. There isn't one single piece of crap, or one single knick-knack that I haven't digitized yet. Everything from dust bunnies to a empty beer can gets to be Leibowitzed and it's really fun.

This is the reason why I haven't been posting lately. Really, who wants to write shit when you can immortalize it as a 300dpi, 8x11 inch JPEG file on your hard drive.

I promised myself I would fill the Internet with more content, practically on a daily basis (as if Internet needs more of that), and lately I've been slacking off on my promise.

HELP ME DOCTOR I LOOK LIKE RHIANNA

2009-03-03T12:40:00.012-05:00

It all starts when the Bacardi takes control of your brain and gives orders like: “run really fast so you get to your destinations faster, regardless of what kind of surface you’re running on.”

You got it, brain.

When I tried to dodge some pedestrians through cunning footwork, I hit the ice with my face.

So there I am in all my glory holding a mass of rapidly congealing blood in the palm of my hand, thinking that I broke my face. That’s it, I’ll have to get a new face, because mine is broken.

Can there be a more appropriate time to super-saturate your blood with rum? Answer: no. In times of pain, embarrassment, and confusion, it is best to continue drinking until you are clinically unable to walk and need assistance.

My friends hailed a cab and escorted me to the emergency room. I, of course, had no idea that this was happening. From then on, everything I did and said was without justification.

I don’t know if I puked in the E.R, or if I even puked at all. Maybe waking up with a distinct taste of vomit and hamburgers in your mouth is part of the whole facial injury aftermath. There was even a point where I was looking at the side of my curled up finger through my camera phone, asking rhetorically: “Why is there a butt on my phone?” This occurrence of “phone butts” was something I do not recall, nor will I attempt to explain.

Thank you Alex, Leandra, Koren, Aurelie, Sylvia, Kevin? and everybody else that helped me to the giant building where they heal people. (I really, really, really, really don’t remember anything…)

We sat through infomercials, and the only thing I remember is ‘The Dogfather’ guy talking about how your dog is a piece of shit and you can convert him from the barking, running, fuck-anything, defecate-anywhere animal that his genetic code intends him to be into a boring dog that doesn’t do any tricks.

The Dogfather

Anyways, with my roommate Alex hanging onto the wee hours of the morning, I decided my time was up and that I wasn’t going to wait until the morning doctors punched in to fix me up. See, unless you’re shot or impaled by a log they really don’t care. They have other things to do. So I went home and slept it off.

Next year, I’m not drinking. Alcohol draws a fine line between fun times and a slightly attractive nurse in ‘triage’ who makes double sure that you’re not lying about your injuries. I told her I fell on the ice and she didn’t believe me.

Do you think Rihanna told the cops the old ‘I fell on the ice’ excuse? Sure.

Adults who smile

2009-02-27T00:19:00.005-05:00

I'm 20 years old in a week and I still get the buddy smile from adults. You know what I'm talking about. It's that quick, spontaneous smile you used to get as a kid waiting in the doctor's office when you'd happen to make eye contact with the receptionist who suddenly thought you're the cutest little bundle of puppy kisses ever to grace her existence.

Why do adults still do that? I was walking past a woman today going into the metro and she looks at me square in the face and crinkles the corners of her mouth. Really.

I bet the people who do that are elementary school teachers, because they do it as a reflex. To them, anyone under thirty who's not holding a gun is a worthy smile candidate.

It's become an epidemic I can't get over it. As cynical as I have become, it actually makes me giggle. Why is there so much joy bubbling inside these people? We're in a recession and you're making casual smiles, like that's going to get my Dad's RRSP savings back.

I think it's beautiful, and I encourage everyone to start smiling. Yep. That's right. Spontaneous smiling isn't just for school teachers who dress from head-to-toe in floral motifs and consider a 'bun' the appropriate hair coiffure for this season. You should try it too, and just for kicks, you should see how many people smile back.

EATING MY SHOES

2009-02-24T17:53:00.002-05:00

Most of the bugs I've been complaining about are gone, but now new annoying shit is happening that I can't explain.

Virb needs to get its shit together BIG TIME or else... I might go back to MySpace. It would be painful and heartbreaking, but I'm running out of options.

For the most part though, the formatting issues have gone away, so I take back what I said about that.

Check out my solo project: http://www.virb.com/anamode

VIRB 2.0 AND THINGS THAT HURT THE SOUL

2009-02-21T12:05:00.003-05:00

For a few months now I've been using Virb. For those of you that don't know, it's a scoial networking site much like Facebook or MySpace, only it is smaller in its subscriber base, much more aesthetic, and, in my opinion, much more user-friendly. At least, that was the case.

This week, the company launched Virb 2.0, and in their "we-have-a-cool-and-accessible-corporate-policy" vain, they have touted the new version of the website as more user-friendly, more customizable, and generally more awesome.

This is far from being true, like Pluto is far from the motherfucking sun.

Notice anything about my profile? http://www.virb.com/anamode

That's right, baby birds. It's balls to the wall ugly.

In a nutshell, here's what went wrong.

1) Virb has made customization an either/or affair. I am HTML illiterate, and it used to be that I could modify my profile using the basic color scheme chooser, then flip to the HTML log and do some minor, not-too-advanced tinkering in the HTML code like adding a picture at the head of my page, much like this blog has. It would all come together nicely.

Now, either you have a simple, beginner's profile or you have to edit EVERY inch of your profile through HTML, which means combing through lines of code in order to change each color, each border, each font size, etc... No more simple interface between the user and HTML.

2) Unoriginal. They've sold out. They've added a 'status' widget like Facebook has, and they've added the 'followers' section too. What the fuck?

Virb used to be a place on the Internet where humble people did humble things. Now, they're trying to follow in the footsteps of Facebook by adding a stupid 'status' bar so people can type: "Hmf. I'm tired. Going to bed. Boo hoo hoo. *Shift, colon, sad face emoticon*"
This is like watching your favorite band appear in a Pepsi commercial. It's cheap.

3) Kudos for completely obliterating Virb 1.o with NO regard to your users. People spent a lot of time, and sometimes money (on pro graphic designers) in order to customize their old profiles and make them look ballin', and now you've canceled out all their hard work like New Mexico State lawmakers canceled Pluto from the solar system (second Pluto reference, so watch out. This shit could get nasty at any second...).

They say they will make the old profiles available again, but if things continue to go as they've been going, there might be a slew of problems related to that. There are more bugs in the software that a tenement in the McGill ghetto.

Am I wrong? Am I just incompetent or too reticent to make the new Virb work for me?

SLEEPDEPRIVEDMINDFUCKS

2009-02-18T01:21:00.011-05:00

It's 1:30 am.

Jesus Christ.

I haven't slept in so goddamn long I've forgotten what sleep is. For me sleep is that magical thirty minutes I clock on the 211 bus every morning when Brian Eno comes on my iPod to lull me to sleep as I drule and drule and drule into an ever-expanding puddle of my own saliva. The people on the bus don't seem to mind. As I walk to class, it usually dries on my crotch as a giant disc of ominously disgusting crusty filth that seems to gross out all the West Island girls and their gentle sensibilities.

I often dream of entire rice castles spread across a vast expanding ice sheet of frozen soy sauce. Then, when the Al Gore Man's predictions come true, the soy will melt and all the people will cling to rice as flotation devices. It will be like Waterworld, only there will be no Kevin Costner, simply the guy that fries the egg rolls at the local Chinese joint that always seems to make money despite people never going there.

And, no, the movie will not be called Soyworld as many of you imagine (too obvious, I'm not low brow). It will be called Die Hard 5: McClane Gets Indigestion. There will be guns. There will be things blowing up. And there will be wonton. The wonton will want to kill McClane because the wonton is actually Hanz Gruber's illegitimate child. And he wants revenge for daddy's 400-foot slow-motion dive off the top of a giant building.

Slow motion makes it more fun. It can prolong that instance where the audience is like: "Fuck yeah, die Hans DIE!"

With fast motion it's like: "Yeaaa.ooh? What? It's over?" Roll credits.

But in slow motion it's like: "Word is born, guy, this shit is real. Look at that mother fall. Aww yea, gravity is making Hans his bitch and later, John and gravity will high-five each other for this team effort."

Go team McClane/Gravity. How dope would that be on a presidential ticket for 2012? The only way Obama could beat that is if he ditched Biden and made a new ticket: Obama/Momentum 2012.

And when it's all over McClane will make love to someone you know with brutal machismo and Bruce Willis will pocket another 20.5 million dollars which he will NEVER give to a charitable organization. Instead, he will use it to pay for plastic surgery in order to modify his facial muscles so that he can do multiple acting expressions instead of the constant, boring "I'll have sex with a machine gun and shit bullets into terrorists' chest cavities" face.

Only Merlin could help Bruce Willis win an Oscar, but only Bruce Willis can turn a douche bag smile into the most powerful weapon against German terrorism.

Down At The Bullfights

2009-02-16T14:45:00.006-05:00

Hemingway, like his fellow American expatriates of the era, sought a more liberal existence in Paris after the First War. There, he wrote The Sun Also Rises.

It is a straightforward and simple book, perhaps a consequence of the self-discipline in which Hemingway required of himself only the simplest, most elemental sentences. Not a word seems too much, even when it is repeated.

The prose is tight. Often, you lose track of who says what because the dialog is so nimble and to-the-point that it hardly matters who spoke the words, as long as they were merely spoken in the given context.

After reading A Movable Feast, the author's anecdotes about his life in Paris, one understands the atmosphere of the story. It is a Europe in the shadow of World War I, a place of repose, of imminent opportunity, and modest liberations.

Jake, the narrator, is perhaps the least active character in terms of telling the story. They are his friends: Brett, a fashionable, attractive love interest, Cohn, the imposing Jewish boxer, Mike, Brett's fiancee, Bill, Jake's old friend, and finally Pedro Romero, the handsome bullfighter. Through these characters, the story takes shape, and revolving around Jake, his complexities begin to slowly unravel.

It is a simple narrative, but as it winds through love affairs, tirades, late-night boozers and idyllic countryside escapades, it builds momentum only to disappoint in the end. It disappoints, not through poor authorship, but through the inevitability of Jake's condition. He is a battered protagonist, and fittingly, he does not emerge resilient or heroic - he simply emerges. And herein lies the beauty of Hemingway's book. If I may say, this truly is a man's book spoken through a man's voice.

An American classic.

The day they recommended Hitler

2009-02-16T00:46:00.003-05:00

I logged onto YouTube today and saw, in my recommended videos section, something entitled "Hitler's Speech." It had a snapshot of the fuhrer sieg heiling.

So I took a step back and wondered why YouTube would jump to such a bold conclusion about me. It's clear that, although there is some historical purpose to WWII documentation, most people aren't watching 'Hitler - Best Of Pt.2' for research essays.

I watch Whose Line Is It Anyway? videos and little fat children falling from branches as they try to cross a stream. Where is the antisemitism in that?

Hitler cat.

The "Everyone's An Asshole" Syndrome

2009-02-07T12:10:00.003-05:00

A colleague of mine stirred up some introspection when she told me last night that I had a rage problem. Upon further inspection, I found out how right she was.

When I'm at work, I tend to hit things; boxes of paper towel, the keyboard/DOS computer system, empty crates, walls, and even the printer which is about as old and as useful as morse code.

This is because of you, the customer.

When you, the customer, enter the store, we, the employees, hate you and wish disease and famine upon you.

This is due to simple mathematics. When you step inside the store, the potential for you asking us a question/being rude/being too nice to us is now 100%, versus the 0% possibility that was exhibited when you were on the street, minding your own business and chasing butterflies or something.

It doesn't matter how polite, attractive, understanding, or patient you are with the employees, we just hate you. Paradoxically, without you, the customer, we, the employees, would have no jobs. It is your continued compulsion to buy pharmaceuticals and canned goods that keeps money flowing through the hands of Mr. Pharmaprix, and subsequently, through the hands of Mr. Employee (albeit, we only get a fraction of that said money, so hating you - not stocking shelves - becomes our full time job).

But, to us, you, the customer, are an asshole. You could be the most normal person in the world, and we still find something to hate about you when your back is turned.

"Man. Look at that asshole's socks. What does he think he is, middle class or something?"

"Word, Alan. You burned him."

"Did you see how nice that guy was? I bet he has happy, well-brought up kids and shit. And I bet his wife is really understanding and supports his career and shit. What a douchebag."

That's because, when you ask a question like "Excuse me! Do you have this in the vanilla/lilac scent? Because last time I bought air freshener, it was the lavender morning scent and I really don't like that one and I think my cat is allergic to it. Can you go check?" we don't go check. Nope. No-sir-ee-bob.

We lounge in the backstore for a few minutes and talk about your stupid, normal socks with the other clerks.

Then we come out and tell you "I'm sorry, we seem to be all out" because, really, who gives a damn what your house smells like, as long as it doesn't smell like feces and rotten cabbages. Right?

Your ego maniacal intention to purchase just the right scent for your catalogue-decorated home does not translate to us as a basic, urgent need. We do not feel compelled to support your obsessive tendencies by playing "stock boy" with the 40-million different scents that Febreze makes, nor do we have the intention, nor the courage, to tell it to your face.

Instead, we just quietly hate you and vent our rage onto the world by hitting keyboards, punching boxes, and mutilating printers from the stone age.

That is why I have a rage problem.

The Return Of The Stabbing Pakistani

2009-02-01T03:54:00.004-05:00

Refer to this story.

He roams NDG like cholesterol roams in the blood stream, going undetected, causing pain, and clinging to everything in sight. He is the stabbing Pakistani.

In an adorable way, he is like the awkward family member slowly making everybody uncomfortable at the Sunday pot luck. In a law an order way, he was responsible for holding up my local convenience store at knifepoint - which, may I say, is pretty fucking rad, considering he just calmly walked away from the scene as though he had impolitely farted and didn't tell anyone.

When we described the guy, the police gave us a little business card with a case number. In the eventuality of his resurgence, I would have to call the number and alert them of the situation.

The other day, as I was closing the store, he came back. I didn't see him, but he was roaming the store for a couple of hours. When he stopped at the cash, he started again with all these off-putting questions.

He even propositioned an old Jamaican lady for sex. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. I thought she might get assaulted.

Finally, Cheryl called me to her cash and told me - pointing to the man, who was lingering by the exit - that "he needed to leave immediately."

I asked her why, and she told me that he was being strange. She described to me the types of questions he was asking, and then she described him.

I don't know why, or how, but the way Cheryl was describing these questions - a series of non-sequitur, embarassing questions - I began to feel like I had finally found Saddam Hussein. After months of searching, he came to me, quietly, without any effort, without searching. Crazy stabbing motherfucker.

Quick words out of my mouth: "Rapist glasses? Pakistani? Indian? With a briefcase?"

Cheryl: "Yeah. Only he had a backpack." So, for sure he had a rocket launcher or something. A backpack? This guy upgraded his shit.

I ran out after him. I saw him on the street corner waiting for a bus (the 105) so I called the number on the back of the card. I spoke to the operator and gave her the case number.

She said I had to call back during regular business hours. What? Between 9 and 7.

What the fuck? I thought crime didn't have a nine-to-five. I thought crime was one of those crazy stock broker motherfuckers, always working, pacing the streets, a Blackberry in one hand and a vanilla Frapuccino in the other. You know, 24/7. Apparently not. Apparently crime is on welfare and only comes out of his apartment to buy beer. That's why people can only be arrested between 9am and 7pm.

Long may he stab. Or rocket launch.

The Canon ES 10 may very well replace children one day

2009-01-26T23:08:00.004-05:00

It seems my love of typewriters has caused me to purchase a Canon ES 10. It was sitting on the bottom shelf of the electronics rack at a Value Village, and it needed a home really badly.

This is bad news for the cat, however, as this is one more noise in the apartment that will surely scare the shit out of him. We haven't seen him (Adidas, as my roommate named him) in three weeks. All we know is that he shits and eats, and that his social calendar pretty much revolves around hiding under the couch and being extremely 'Mission Impossible' all the goddamn time.

He's a stray cat so he's probably used to shooting heroin and stabbing rival cats. I doubt that he's used to having humans around. I also doubt with great certainty that he is amused by the sound of a typewriter typing at 100000 words per second.

I digress.

This Canon is smooth. Barry White smooth.

Writing with it is such a fluid and efficient experience that I may never return to MS Word ever again. It has a quick type wheel and an awesome erase feature that goes back and literally snatches the ink right off the page and erases your mistake as though nothing had ever happened.

Maybe I'll write something about how schizo Adidas is and see if I can get it published in the New Yorker.

25 Buttons

2009-01-24T20:11:00.011-05:00

When I moved out of my house for the first time, I brought with me a collection of buttons that my parents had amassed during their days as active members of the political and businesses communities they occupied. I've since expanded this collection with a few of my own.

Each button has a story, and where a button does not have a story (or at least, a story that I know) I will make something up.

From left to right, top to bottom.

Mon NON est quebecois
I found this one at a Salvation Army, and I like it because it's a die hard Quebec separatist slogan confined to a round, white button. It implies that all true Quebecers are separatists, and if you're not either of those, then your momma is so fat she has her own postal code.

Propane Pays
Part of Canadian Tire's campaign (1970's?) to promote propane consumption, or a possible reference to King Of The Hill, depending on whether you watch FOX a lot.

Nike
Swoosh! That's the sound of the souls escaping the lifeless bodies of all the children that made your high tops. I have a pair of Terminators in gray. They're amazing.

Atlanta Braves
This is one of two racist buttons I have. The Atlanta Braves were a baseball team, and they kicked much ass back in the day. Too bad their mascot was a racist depiction of a Native American. Still, I think it looks bad ass on a leather jacket.

Bruce Lee?
This pin could be of Bruce Lee, and if it is, it's a Bruce Lee that's trying to look a lot like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. I tell people it's Bruce Lee because they will want to be my friend.

MJ
Micheal. The king of song and dance before his whiteification. "Micheal Jackson, who is good looking... But ain't the most masculine fellow in the world" (-Eddie Murphy) smiles proudly. My favorite button. A little girl on the 105 bus pointed at it once and was yelling: "Mummy! Mummy! Look! MJ!"

Blondie?
What the fuck is it with these small pins? They look like two people, simultaneously. This is either Madonna or Blondie. Help me out, Ciccione aficionados!

Human Rights Day
According to this button, Human Rights Day goes down on December 10th. I wonder, is that the day all North Koreans get to watch an American sitcom of their choice? That was also Dick Cheney's only day off, apparently. He would masturbate furiously in the White House China room, according to some sources.

BIRD THEME BEGINS NOW:

Refuse The Cruise!
Instead of a dove shitting a rainbow (which this clearly depicts) I would have preferred a picture of Tom Cruise. That day goes down in Ottawa on October 30th, according to this.

Festival De La Mouette
Represent! In English, it says: "The Seagull Festival." This happens at Blue Sea Lake which is about a stone's throw away from my cottage in the Upper Gatineau. I have never before or since seen or heard of a seagull festival anywhere in the vicinity of Blue Sea Lake. They probably shut it down, you know, due to the fact that it's a fucking Seagull festival. Geez.

Festival Des Outardes, 1991
"Geese Festival." What can I say, birds are an integral part of this ecosystem. But does every avian bastard need his own fucking festival? Can't we just give them some mad props and walk away without spending the city's resources on an event dedicated to a creature that lays eggs? Double Geez.

A giant yellow eagle button with some Algonquin writing on it or something
If someone could translate this that would be great. If not, just enjoy the giant eagle.

BIRD THEME ENDS NOW.

FEMINISM THEME BEGINS NOW:

It's Time For Carolyn
Oh yes it is. I picked this button up in NDG. I figure she's a politician or something. Wherever you are, girl, it's your time.

Anti-Penis Button
"Women who strive to be equal to men have no ambition!" No too bad for an equality-in-the-workplace button. I only have one problem with it. If you are a feminist, wearing this button would assume that, first, women are not equal with men to begin with, and second, that you're wasting your time to try and be as awesome as the 'ones with chest hair' because you have no ambition. Badly written, this button is. Blurg.

Maude Barlow
Who the fuck is Maude Barlow and what is she doing on my button? Wherever you are, Maude, I am in awe of you.

FEMINISM THEME ENDS NOW.

Spring's Thing
Probably a button used during the Mattress Worker's Union strike.

Maple Leaf
Inside the Maple Leaf, the inspirational words "Canada, I want to shake your hand" are written. Well, that's impossible, button, because Canadas don't have hands. Canada Day goes down on July 1st, according to this button. Pff.

Caccia
When my mother worked in parliament, she was Charles Caccia's secretary. Caccia (pronounced Catchia, in Italian it means 'hunting') was an MP for the Toronto riding of Davenport and was a great environmentalist, but a real demanding boss. I remember I spent a day in my mother's office and he made me re-draw a perfect copy of the parliamentary seal or something because "you have good drawing skills and you're a good artist," he said. My mom was busy working so I said I would do it (why, I don't know) but I ended up not doing it and he said he was really disappointed in me. Like, why the fuck do you need me to draw a perfect copy for you when the damn thing is on every goddamn wall in the building? Good times. RIP, Charles Caccia, you were a great MP.

Overworked and Underpaid
Yes. Yes I am. I wear this pin proudly. Ironically, it comes right after the Caccia pin. That was from when both my parents worked for the government and we had to drive a Saturn everyday. Now they have two cars, bitches. Private sector, WOOT WOOT!

School Bus Pin
"Let's Transport Ourselves With Love," it says, around a picture of a blue school bus. Could be a Jehovah's Witness slogan, or an incentive for bus drivers to touch your kids, but I think my parent's made we wear it so I wouldn't get beaten up by the fat bullies on my way to elementary school. Half of those tubby illiterates probably died of second-hand meth overdoses in their trailer homes, so it doesn't phase me.

Andy Warhol
A series of four buttons announcing an art exhibit. They were given to me a while back by this girl I was briefly seeing, but I haven't worn them because, although Warhol is iconic, I feel that his work has been greatly amplified over the years to the point where putting posters on your wall with Any Warhol quotes is the new cool, college dorm thing to do.

L'etepatant
Second racist button. Why? Because not all white people are good at multitasking, and that's what this button implies. Let's be gone of these cultural stereotypes, shall we?

Obaminated

2009-01-22T01:46:00.006-05:00

Barack Obama on the television, reassuring the country and being generally amazing.

See? I can make clever headlines, too, in relation to this week's inauguration.

But do we need to be reminded that Barack Obama is a black man? Do we need to meet the American people at a comfortable crossroad where they feel that black magnates of the entertainment industry (Jay-Z, Beyonce among others) should be used to symbolize and characterize a man's first day in office?

This leads me to severe pessimism.

The blood once shed on the streets of Selma is now the blood that runs through the leader of the free world, and that, I say, is enough to make me hang an American flag outside my window. As a figure of power and leadership, Barack will spread the roots that a once marginalized part of humanity was eagerly searching for.

But amidst the fanfare of the inauguration, I feel that the character of the presidency has regressed.

Have we elected a popular commodity, or a man that could stand alongside the shoulders of Mandela and King?

Have we elected a harbinger of freedom, or have we elected a man depicted on t-shirts in communist-styled graphics?

What the fuck does Jay-Z have to do with Barack Obama? Why not Tim McGraw or fucking Justin Timberlake?

Is there a point where the idea of a homogeneous society, free of racial boundaries (for which I thought this election really stood for) got monopolized by the assumption that all black Americans like fucking rap music and Jay-Z?

Are you fucking serious?

You couldn't have made that event more culturally idiosyncratic if you had played a clip of fucking Bojangles in the background dancing with Shirley fucking Temple.

The fact that such a ceremonious and universally resounding event was captioned by a three-minute rap made me wonder how many more of these hiccups it would take in order to sink this presidency into the halls of stereotype and popular cliches.

Please, no more glamorous shenanigans, just fix the fucking country and kick much ass in the process.

Where the fuck is Chuck D when you need him?

Nine Stories

2009-01-20T01:05:00.007-05:00

I started reading this shortly after my mother had shipped it from New Brunswick, bought at a used bookstore, even though she knew I had conflicting thoughts over Salinger's classic The Catcher In The Rye.

The first story, A Perfect Day For Bananafish, is slightly off-putting. It's about a man who returns from the war (Salinger himself fought on D-Day, and most of the stories deal with post-war sentiments) and commits suicide in his hotel room while on vacation. The contention is that the protagonist is a sort of shell-shocked pederast who commits suicide after having an awkward encounter with a young girl. It was originally published in The New Yorker, with wide acclaim, just a few years before he would write the book that would kill John Lennon (clearly not).

For Esmé - with Love and Squalor is by far one of the best short stories I have ever read. It is the story of a young G.I. clinging at the coattails of an ending war in an English town. I won't spoil it, but it tells of Sargent X and his wonderful and serendipitous encounter he has with a very bright child who becomes his writing correspondent. It has become a highly referenced story - the band Jawbreaker even wrote a song about it, For Esmé, if I'm not mistaken.

The stories are beautiful, the prose is rhythmic, and the characters are especially captivating. But what is most intriguing is the role that children play in the story. They are central to the qualities that make this fiction remarkable. They are the edifying elements that stand tall, bright, and unspoiled in the shadows of these cynical and hardened protagonists, most of whom are trying to cope with a post-war world.

Worth the dollar, if you're ever at a book fair.

Vanity, the autoportrait

2009-01-15T11:07:00.009-05:00

One vacant apartment and nothing to do.

The goodbye card

2009-01-14T23:56:00.007-05:00

Something curious happens when a gregarious person decides to leave a job position, family environment, or other social circle. What I am referring to is the 'goodbye' card which has a tendency to really suck.

The manager of my Pharmaprix decided to quit, and (today) five days before her apocalyptic and final departure, a Hallmark card magically surfaced from the underground and proceeded to float around the store collecting inked words of wisdom and good luck like a Cadillac colliding with insects on the Interstate. In a matter of hours, the card was full.

People have a tendency to get real fucking poetic when they write these things, and they do so in a way that is nonchalant and confident. Everybody becomes a wise and learned person, dispensing metaphors of waterfalls, wind, sand, and other elements, as though the passing of a co-worker was the second coming of Christ.

"May your soul seek the path of the wind and find its due in the halls of time" or some shit like that, written as though it was quoted, but the lack of proper quotation and referencing clearly indicates a dedicated degree of fabrication and self-adorning glamour.

Try this. Go up to the person - instead of writing it in a card - and quote your own one-line poems to them simply for the benefit of staring at a mocking grin as they realize: "Oh, wow. You actually made that up."

Conversely, there are the ones who are tacky in a very formal way, saying 'hi' and 'bye' with just a few words, and enough of an emotional tone to be suggestive of compassion. That's what I did.

"Hi. Thanks for all the time off, the free coffee, and the free donuts. I wish you the best of luck in your career search. Alan." Still, that's fairly awful.

Then comes the advice, the reminiscences, the memories, and all that shit that could only be suited for a card that reads "How Can We Ever Repay You?" on the front of it. In multicolors. And as people reminisce, they become selfish and complacent, forgetting that their is a staff of about 50 people that have yet to write their own little piece of ephemera. They use a whole page to talk about the time that homeless guy puked on the tile floor or something, and how they laughed and laughed and laughed, when they all they could have done was walk up and say:

"Hey remember that time that homeless guy puked? Lol it was so jokes omg :) rotfl."

"Yeah. Good times."

I suspect that this is the point of a card. Its design requires it to be fun, sincere, and have enough blank surfaces to be filled with an abundance of things that would (and should) have never been said, simply because they are stupid and meaningless and don't really fucking help that person find a new job which is what matters the most. Really, that's the bottom line.

To Lucie, my own little poem:

May your soul escape the fiery pit of inhumanity that is working at Pharmaprix and soar high above the mountains of money and bling, so that one day you may finally afford that yacht (really big boat with plasma TVs) that you never talked about but secretly always wanted (I think) and may your managerial vacancy be replaced by someone who hates customers as much as we both do lol omg smiley face.

Royal De Luxe

2009-01-11T13:35:00.003-05:00

A 1950's Royal Quiet De Luxe I purchased for $15.

Disco Gold

2009-01-10T20:59:00.001-05:00

PSS-100

2009-01-10T00:28:00.004-05:00

A couple of months ago I bought a Yamaha PSS-100 from a second-hand store in the West Island. The PortaSound has a built-in recording module so I guess they never bothered adding an audio output to it. I've seen this done many times and decided to buy a soldering kit and try it myself.

I found an old RCA cable at the Salvation Army with male ends and turned it into a stereo output cable. Success. It sounds great.

Real Cheddar

2009-01-08T12:18:00.003-05:00

Help us! Our stockroom at Pharmaprix is overflowing with Cheezies and no one will buy them. They're made with real cheddar and contain no preservatives. Please help us get rid of them before the health inspector comes and realizes that they've actually expired in 2001.

Between reason and chaos

2009-01-07T17:25:00.006-05:00

Sure you want to stop rockets from hitting your children. Sure you want a military power backed by the West to stop bombing schools and mosques. Sure you want to prevent women who disguise bombs as pregnancies from blowing up hospitals.

But you're not going to. Religion soaks the soils so deep, and as ether ignites a flame, your imaginary friends, heroes and prophets urge you to pull triggers and fire mortars until everything you dreamed of is lost.

There is no more safe-haven for the star of David, just as there is no more holy land for the Qur'an.

Religion is the bastard child of vulnerability and imagination. Together, they form scriptures on which bloody hands cling; fighting chances to save their future.

There are no Jews, no Arabs. Just victims of the sacrosanct fallacy. This fire burns, not by the hands of Gods, but merely by the will of vulnerable men.

Back in NDG

2009-01-03T16:22:00.007-05:00

One leaves the rural life to rejoin the ranks of great city-dwellers and finds his neighbor's apartment still empty. No tenants, no furniture, nothing to break. I ask, then, what forbids me from throwing a party without consequences? Just a few spilled drinks and a boombox on the hardwood floor, and everybody leaves happy. To all landlords, I say: 'Don't be obtuse and protect your investments. Leave those doors locked.'

Desperatehousewifemobile

2009-01-01T16:42:00.007-05:00

The vomit-riddled streets of Ottawa in the early hours of 2009 announced that there had been epic drinking binges in lieu of the once peaceful bustle of government employees. The snow banks were peppered with food particles drenched in whiskey and vodka. I now know what all the frat boys and Senators fans eat, and it isn’t pretty.

As I crept towards 8:00am, weary of a two-hour bus ride that would throw be back into the country, I continued on a path to mid-day drunkenness by continuously refilling my McDonald’s coffee with what was dubbed by one partier as the worst whiskey ever. 5-Star Canadian Rye.

It all began in the 819 area code. From a small, spontaneous party in suburban Hull, a stranger gave me a ride all the way to the downtown 'core.' Forgoing the usual don't accept car rides from strangers at 11pm rule, I was ready to punch and kick my way out of a potential kidnapping. But being a cool, middle-aged mom, she did not do anything illegal. I didn't even have to show skin. She was just being nice on the most frigid fucking New Year's Eve ever, and I thank her for that. Buses in Hull are about as frequent as solar eclipses.

Burgers of anarchy and the $3.13 Big Mac

2008-12-31T11:58:00.007-05:00

There have been many attempts in the past to try and gain the upper hand in the drunk man's war against hunger, and consequently, against the imperialist, inelegant McDonald's corporation.

Attempts include the folkloric 'receipt fraud' and the drive-through 'snatch-and-run.' Just hide in the bushes and pray you don't trip on the concrete dividers. I've also heard people who claim they know how to extoll free chicken nuggets, fries, muffins, and coffees, simply by exploiting loopholes in the fine print. If it's so easy, Butch Cassidy, run in and get me some fries then.

Yesterday, however, my friend Alex has changed my life under the golden arches forever. He has invented what I call THE 3$ BIG MAC. Yes, it's in all-caps...

What you will need:

A double-cheeseburger from the Value Menu ($1.39)

A bacon cheeseburger from the Value Menu ($1.39)

Big Mac sauce (forgot the cost, but it's like 30 cents or something)

Now you're ready. Flip the bacon cheeseburger over and remove the bottom bun. Squeeze that yellowish Big Mac sauce on the exposed burger like a motherfucker. Go ahead, don't be shy. You'll thank it later. Spread it a bit. Then, just take the double cheeseburger and smack that bitch right on the juiced-up burger patty.

You now have a triple-patty, triple-bun, awesome burger; THE 3$ BIG MAC. There's no lettuce, but fuck lettuce. You get bacon instead! Lettuce is fiber and water and it makes you bloated. And, if you have braces, you know exactly why lettuce is a horrible vegetable.

A few old ladies are the gatekeepers to a world of amazing clothes and assorted crockery

2008-12-27T17:46:00.009-05:00

I live in Montreal but my family owns a cottage north of Ottawa.

It's great. It's nestled in a small town with a population of about a 'handful,' (so enough people to fill a Greyhound bus) which would be convenient should a flood or hurricane ever occur. In this small town, a group of about three or so elderly ladies run what is essentially a small shack with a tin roof, and they gave it the lofty name of 'Comptoir Familial,' which is French for 'cheap shit the whole family will love.'

Being an avid thrifter - ney, an addicted and violent thrifter - I one day decided to venture into the land of rural, material rejection which is guarded by ladies so nice they should have been nuns.

Wow.

Aisles and aisles of clothes from neighboring small towns; the rejected outfits from generations of farmers, snowmobilers, ATVers, tractor operators, hippies, golfers... In short, a fucking gold mine of yesteryear's obsessions with large lapels, neon colors, tacky knit sweaters and club t-shirts.

All of it, also, remained untouched by the crafty hands of typical, entrepreneurial Montreal hipsters who usually decimate the shelves of your local Salvation Army in order to fill their fancy 'vintage' boutiques.

I felt as though I were visiting a museum. An entire wall is dedicated to mugs and forlorn dishwear. Giant plastic containers sit there packed with knick-knacks and odd accessories. I even found a giant suitcase full of audio tapes, all neatly compartmentalized.

Everything is accessible, too, not like at a Salvation Army, where you feel as though entire armies of hobos have come in and rubbed their genitals on everything they could see. These old ladies must work overtime to ensure that everything is neat and proper.

Worth a shot if you ever venture in the greater Maniwaki area.

Stuff your turkey and make everyone happy

2008-12-26T21:05:00.002-05:00

Hooray! Another Christmas and Boxing Day has come and gone, and in the midst of this post-holiday haze and confusion (like the post-coital bewilderment of a passionate séance of hot sex, only instead of sex, you’re hitting the bargain bins at Winner’s like the mall’s on fire), those who have driven their families deeper and deeper into the fiery trenches of national debt can now look back with great regret and wonder if their kids really deserved a fucking Xbox 360.

Myself, I really dig the sweater my mom got me. It has pockets and shit, and it’s really itchy but it keeps you warm and toasty during those bone-chilling Cottage days.

So, as I chose to willfully disembroil myself from the savage tragedy of Boxing Day shopping, I ponder on the feast which composed yesterday’s Christmas dinner; a concert of lavish turkey parts, decadent gravy, succulent cakes, cranberry sauce, and the ever-so-epic turkey stuffing, which I ingested by the bucket-load.

This is the only part of Christmas that gives my tastebuds a boner. Stuffing. Oh, sweet delicious stuffing. Could it be that this delicacy actually emerges from a giant, expanded, man-made hole in the turkey’s ass?

Well, it does, and you should be ever so thankful for it. The fact is, when you stuff the giant bird with what are essentially large croutons and spices, the small pieces of bread manage to absorb all the roasting bodily fluids, fats, and remaining blood of this once thriving, happy, peaceful creature. The end result is a mushy pile of soggy bread chunks which taste so good that I actually want to buy a whole case of ‘Stove Top’ and eat that shit hourly – every hour, on the motherfucking hour, until my veins get so constricted that I am forced to live a giant trailer until Maury Povich comes and rescues with a giant crane.

I’m not an anti-Semite by any measure, but what do Jewish people eat instead of stuffing? Gold? God’s vagina? Kit Kats? Fuck it! What, in this miserable world that we occupy, can possibly serve as a worthy substitute for stuffing?

The answer is fuckall. Nothing. If you find something as good or better, I will be your life-long slave and scrub that gross stuff between your toes until the last of your remaining days. Seriously.

I want Butterball to invent a turkey made with stuffing. Like, it’s turkey-shaped, but it’s 100% stuffing. And what is it stuffed with? Yup. You know it.

Stuffing.

More stuffing.

So much stuffing it’s actually creepy how much I like stuffing.

And cranberry sauce. See, I know there exists stuffing bandits who lurk in the dark and unknown parts of the forest (I am at my cottage, currently, so I am surrounded by these fuckers). For this reason, I keep all leftover stuffing under my pillow. This is precautionary, as well as practical, because nothing makes a better midnight snack than stuffing.

Stuffing.

Update

2008-12-18T17:27:00.002-05:00

So I've posted all my surgery logs since late August in the span of 10 minutes. Now I'm going to get good and drunk and try to write something else.

Surgery Log - Day 89: Don't... just don't.

2008-12-18T17:23:00.005-05:00

A screenplay dramatizing a conversation I had today:

INT. PHARMAPRIX - DAY

Customer: "Where's your yogurt that's on special?"

Alan: "In the fridge over there..."

Walk over to the fridge.

Customer: "Where are all the other flavors?"

Alan: "We have no more. These are all the flavors. These are all the flavors we have left."

Customer: "Well, I like raspberry. Or cherry."

Alan: "These are all the flavors we have left. No more flavors."

Customer: "Every time I come here you guys never have any of the things I want! I come specifically for the yogurt and you never have it."

Alan: "Shhh. Wait. Hear that? Sounds like Betsy the cow is grazing out back by the cherry tree. Just gimme a few hours and I'll squeeze that creamy ooze right out of her tender pink nipples, let it curdle for a couple of days, and throw a couple o' ripe cherries in there."

Customer: "Are you fucking with me?"

Alan: "Yes."

Enter a flock of seagulls.

Fade out.

Surgery Log - Day 108: Offensive and blind is the new yogurt lady

2008-12-18T17:23:00.004-05:00

Blind people are amazing. Their strength of character is exemplary. For me, losing my ability to process images would be the closest thing to death.

But FUCK this one guy... Among this mass of godly humans, there's one "optically handicapped" person I consider a dickhead.

He walks into the store asking for chocolates. Pot Of Gold. (Real original. The gift that says "I'm traditional enough to get you chocolates, but cheap enough to buy you nearing-their-expiration-date food goods on special...)

So, as if I'm Cary Grant trailing Grace Kelly through a royal ballroom, he grabs onto my upper arm as I guide him through the aisles of death.

The chips aisle is my favorite because there are all these floor displays to dodge and I keep saying: "Watch out!" as if he can see them. What? It's not mean! He really CAN'T SEE!

So he gets his fucking chocolates, which I described to him in detail. One had nuts. The other one was normal. He was complaining the whole time... and swearing. I mean it's Pot Of Gold for chrissake, not a vintage wine cellar. Just pick one!

Then it's off to the photocopier...

He pulls out an envelope from his bag, and from it, a crumpled 81/2 x 11 page emerges. He unfolds it and flattens it. He says, and I quote: "It's real important. This is for my boss..."

It's the lyrics to the Brady Bunch theme song. Ahhhhhhhhhwwwesome!

For this, sir, and nothing else, I adore you.

But when I inform him that the photocopier is out of toner, he gets all 'sandy in his vagy' and starts swearing, saying that this is "typical" and that this "always happens to him."

Like, I'm not doing this just to fuck with you, sir, we just don't really have any toner right now.

So I run it through the fax machine which a) still exist and b) aparently photocopy as well as of send shitty copies of your documents over dial-up connections.
I didn't charge him for that (CUZ I"M NICE, GAWDAMMIT!) .

What gets me is that I could have copied a full page spread of 'Hard And Ready: The Fireman Issue' and he wouldn't have noticed, except maybe for the lingering awkwardness in the atmosphere. His boss would have died laughing, or would have bust a nut, at least.

By that time, he figures I'm his bitch and runs me through the cash about fifty times for random products, like cough drops and envelopes.

What really sent me on a blind-massacring chainsaw rampage was when the cashier asked him for his Optimum card and he flips out, saying: "I'm blind, why the fuck would I use one of those!"

BECAUSE OF ALL THE LUCRATIVE REWARDS YOU CAN EARN AT ANY PHARMAPRIX® OR SHOPPERS DRUGMART® LOCATION NEAR YOU WITH YOUR WEEKLY PURCHASES, same reason everybody else uses one! FUCK!

After we get through that awful scene, we move onto the street, which is usually the accepted drop-off point for the visually impaired. This is considered common courtesy.

But instead I brought this guy to fucking Provigo. Didn't even put a jacket on, he just asked and I did.

As we walked in, a cashier and her cash manager were standing by the lottery ticket counter. As they see him, their shoulders immediately slump in defeat, and their mouths seem to word, in perfect silence, "What the fuck..." They obviously share my sentiments by now.

Basically, I ended up closing the store 30 minutes later because of one guy.

What am I going to say? "You have no eyesight, I know, but I have shit to do. Look out for traffic and good luck?"

He smelled like cabbages.

Surgery Log - Day 82: Shooting up on the last day of recovery

2008-12-18T17:21:00.002-05:00

As things go, yesterday was the official removal day of my cumbrous plastic mouth plate along with all the metal wires that connected it to the screws inside my skull. Yes, this is a fact.

After an intravenous injection the size of small keg, and then, after another one, I fell into a deep semi-sleep (without warning by the way – I suspect dentists like to fuck with you in that respect).

I asked him: “How much of that thing are you going to give me?” (Believe me. I felt like Timothy McVeigh, and this was my last day on earth as a baby-killer.)

“Enough,” he says. Enough to kill a small horse?

No. Obviously enough to knock me right the fuck out.

Just before total blackout, though, you feel stoned. I was laughing uncontrollably at the nurse and mumbling shit about how awesome this drug was and… yup, where I could get more of it.

What a retard.

The other pleasant thing is that the operating room offers you a panoramic view of the Gatineau/Ottawa downtown “core,” where one can admire the city in all its provincial blandness.

An hour later, I’m bouncing around the halls of this dental clinic, knocking down plants and anaemic corporate art, things like fake palm trees and images of people rock-climbing. The drugs take their time before completely metabolizing, and I’m sailing on the USS Mindfuck for the next few hours…

After another small nap in the comfort of my bed, I realise that, in fact, I have no more inconvenient mouth apparatus. Feeling around with my tongue, I find a place where my gums have been essentially turned to mush after two months of being pressed against a hard piece of plastic. Like lol omg totally gross, like ewww!

I haven’t stopped playing with it since.

That’s what she said.

This officially makes it the last day of my recovery!

SURGERY COMPLETE!!!!!

Surgery Log - Day 45: Cripples Getting Hit By Trains

2008-12-18T17:19:00.003-05:00

Here's what happened as I was waiting for the 5:05pm train to Montreal from St. Anne's.

5:04.

A couple (him: jean jacket and wife beater, her: pink sweats and a floral-pattern jacket) rush up the stairs to the opposing train platform.

The man was on crutches and had a a broken leg with a dirty cast that looked homemade.

Realizing their platform is empty, and seeing all the people on the other side, there is a brief moment of "are we on the wrong side? Shit! We are. Maybe we should rectify our situation."

5:04 and a few seconds.

In a haze of confusion and bewilderment, the girlfriend realizes that they are not going to make it to the other side through conventional, safe, legal means, on account of her disabled, mullet-rocking boyfriend who walks at the speed of erosion.

Instead of choosing to live, they decide to cross the train tracks. (Please take note, there is a knee high fence that separates both sides, which is not completely human-proof, but which is definitely cripple-proof.)

Without any hesitation, the girlfriend darts across the tracks, weary of the soon-approaching train.

The boyfriend has another moment of "what the fuck?" as he decides to diligently follow his soulmate across the deathtrap that is the Dorion-Rigaud line.

I witness this poor man slowly stumble down onto the tracks and hop across with one leg, crutches in hand. He has the frantic look of a squirrel stuck in a bucket.

The challenging part is the fence. Awkwardly, fearing for his life as the train approaches in the distance, the man attempts to climb the fence. Actually, he was more like trying to roll over it.

5:04 and 29 seconds...

Where's the love of his life? She's on the other side (nice and safe) yelling obvious exclamations like: "Quick! The train is coming!"

He would, bitch, but he's short one leg. I hope he cheats on you and loves it.

Finally, with great fervor, under the scrutiny of pitying and amused commuters, mullet-man overcomes the trench of death only to join the she-devil that is his soulmate on the other side.

The train arrives, the man lives.

Watching an injured man with crutches trying to overcome a fence while his girlfriend yells at him is probably the saddest thing I've seen since Bambi's mom got capped by those poachers.

Surgery Log - Day 25: Braces = college degrees

2008-12-18T17:18:00.001-05:00

So I'm officially sending my orthodontist's kids to college.

Today was a 5 minute appointment (surrounded by 4 hours of bus to and from Ottawa) where all he did was "observe" my mouth.

$$$

Then I ask: "How many more months until my braces come off?"

"8 months."

$$$$$$$$$$

Fucking fuck!

How did six turn into eight? And that's eight months counting FROM NOVEMBER!!!!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

You lied. You're like a mechanic, only, instead of fixing my car, you're fixing my face, and since I don't know shit about cars or braces, you're pretty much in control, driving this money train straight off the tracks and into your savings account.

Surgery Log - Day 18: Stabby McStabberson and other NDG stories

2008-12-18T17:16:00.004-05:00

A posse of hoodlums and I were walking along Sherbrooke street on our way to pick up beer when, all of a sudden, this gentleman with rapist glasses and a suitcase approaches us and starts asking strange questions in front of Esposito.

He was from Pakistan and he asked, straight up, if we knew of any place in Montreal where there was discrimination against his people.

We said no.

Then he asked us if we knew where we could find people who discriminate against people of that origin.

Sorry. I forgot my Rolodex of racist people at home.

Then the shit gets weirder and he asks us if we feel guilty about being privileged, and if we feel obliged to help the needy. I'm needy. I'm a stock boy at Pharmaprix, I'm not rolling in any mountains of cash. Show me the mountains.

That was sort of offensive, and then it got all psycho when he asked me if I was the leader of the pack, like I'm fucking Patrick Swayze in The Outsiders.

So we say "hell no, psycho-man," and we keep walking and go to the dep near my house.

As we're waiting in line with beer, two cops walk in and start talking with the clerk at the cash, and the clerk describes somebody of Pakistani or Indian origin with a briefcase and glasses who (get this) pulled a knife from his briefcase and threatened the clerk for money.

AHHHHH! Near stabbing experience!

He's like Micheal Douglas in that movie. Just a guy with a briefcase that goes apeshit and decides to kill everybody.

Now I'm super nice to people with briefcases.

Surgery Log - Day of serious WTF?

2008-12-18T17:15:00.002-05:00

So I'm back in Montreal. Things are weird. People at work got fired. Alot of people. People say my face looks different. I have new IKEA furniture. My boombox doesn't work anymore.

Despite all this, it's good to be back.

Surgery Log - Day 10: Maury Povich

2008-12-18T17:15:00.001-05:00

So my face is doing really well the swelling is almost gone. I'll be back in Montreal tomorrow, or Saturday at the latest.

This will probably be the last log, at least until my next jaw surgery. WTF? No. Never again.

I'm always bored, so when I'm not watching TV or playing Tetris (the original addicitve game before WoW) I'm reading a book by Jack Kerouac called "On The Road."

But fuck the book, I wanna talk about The Maury Show. For those of you who don't know, Maury Povich hosts a show where all these crazy people get to come and fight about paternity tests and cheating and sometimes he has people on who are scared shitless of pickles and aluminum foil and run out of the studio like the pickles are filled with AIDS or something.

Typical day on the Maury show...
Maury: "You are NOT the father..."
Everybody in the studio goes ape shit.

Anyways, I was watchig this, and after 15 minutes I realised: "Fuck. I'm watching Maury..." So I turned off the TV and started to read, because, really, too much Maury and you just lose faith in the magic of bearing children.

Montel's show is way better.

Surgery Log - Day 9: The codeine dream is about baboons

2008-12-18T17:14:00.001-05:00

Ever since I got out of the hospital, I've noticed something very strange.

Codeine makes your heart beat really fast and makes you breathe abnormally if you take to much of it. It's an opiate, so it does wonders for pain, but when you're trying to sleep, all it does is make you feel like you're running a goddamn marathon in bed. On Codeine, I tend to sleep for three hour intervals (conveniently, that's the time you need to wait between 12-6 ml doses) so you never really get any REM sleep.

So, ever since I got out of the hospital, I've been experiencing these way-too-lucid dreams.
They're never really scary, or deeply hallucinogenic, they're just abnormal, and I always wake up convinced that what I just experienced was real.
Like last night, I was dreaming about shopping at a Salvation Army thrift store that also doubled as an Immigration Processing Center, where I also worked at. The next thing I know, I'm telling this old Sicillian woman in Sicillian dialect she can't stay in this country because her immigration form has been denied. Then, from the jungle (which is apparently just outside the Salvation Army), these african bushmen walk in with spears and huge wooden nose rings and white paint on their face, and I process them too...

In one dream, I got a criminal record for being hit by a car on my bike (seriously, that's fucked up) In another dream (last night, a few days after the original) these cops stop me and find I have a criminal record and there's a warrant out for my arrest. Eerie. It's like I have an alter ego in my dreams, and he's a criminal.

Last night, I also chased an escaped baboon on my bike. That was cool. It had escaped from a pet store in Les Galleries de Hull (a mall in Gatineau).

The point is, I thought it was just a coincidence, but when I stopped codeine for two days the dreams stopped.
So last night, I took an extra big dose and, yeah, I dreamed about chasing a baboon and being the immigration officer for wild african bushmen at a Salvation Army, so... go figure. It's cool because the dreams are so frequent, so diverse, and so lucid that you remember every second of them, and you actually look forward to the next one.

I have half a bottle of codeine syrup left, and ssuming I can restrain myself, I'll be glad to share it...

Surgery Log - Day 8: Ah! Yellow Skin!

2008-12-18T17:13:00.000-05:00

I was sort of denying it, but I finally realised that, because of the swelling, my skin is slowly turning yellow. Yup. The doctor said it.
And, today, it was full-blow, puke-yellow.
These are only the swollen parts, so mostly around the lower part of my face. Oddly enough, though, I had swelling on my chest too, along the sort of line that would be traced out by a v-neck.
Yah! I know, eh?

So now I have this big fucking yellow v-neck on my chest.

Hope it doesn't go through the whole fucking spectrum of the rainbow. ROYGBIV. It started out Red, and I'm already at Y so it's not so bad. But FUCK!

Surgery Log - Day 6: Lethal Weapon Marathon

2008-12-18T17:12:00.003-05:00

That's right. Back to back Lethal Weapon, 1 through 4, uncut. Good things come to those who undergoe surgery.

The swelling is gradually decreasing, and I'm strating to look more and more like myself again. I would upload some pics, but a) it's too soon and b) i don't have a camera... Just imagine my face, only fatter and with puffy eyes.
Eating through a syringe, I have to say, not cool. I can't wait to upgrade to the straw.

All milkshake recipes welcome.

Gotta go. Mel Gibson is about to destroy 4 city blocks. Again.

Surgery Log - Day 5

2008-12-18T17:12:00.001-05:00

Chilling with codeine and cable TV. Life isn't so bad in the aftermath.

Surgery Log - Day 4: Kill me now

2008-12-18T17:11:00.000-05:00

Day 4 is hell. The pain is even more intense and you haven't really eaten anything since the day before your surgery.
Nothing is comfortable. You sit up, but that's no good. You lay down, but that's no good. You want to get up and walk around but your stuck to the IV drip, which is impossible to disconnect.
Minutes crawl by at the speed of smell.
You're face is even more swollen and you have this constant fear that you're going to puke at any minute.
That's when you really regret the whole thing and you just can't wait to run your surgeon over with his overpriced SUV.
But then...
Suprise! Surgeon comes along and says, "if you have difficulty eating, I'll just remove the elastics from your mouth and you can open it!"
Yes. Do that now.
He says there's no problem because he's put a total of six metal plates in my face, so there's no danger of fractures or instability. He shows me the x-ray. It's like I've been in Nam. Now I get to be the guy that says he has metal plates in his head. I'm totally using that in a bar.

He says he's ready to release me from the hospital, which is great, and he gives me all these perscriptions, one of which is a 30-dollar mouth wash.

Surgery Log - Day 3: Drule...

2008-12-18T17:10:00.002-05:00

Not much happened. I basically spent the whole day in intensive care being really high on codeine.
My jaw is wired shut so I can't eat, talk, or spit. I have a little suction thingy to get all the blood and mucus out, and a notepad to write stuff down.
Despite all this, you never eally appreciate intensive care until you get moved to the eighth floor, where your roommate has chronic asthma and watches TV till 4am.
Then, as if to fuck with you, they deliver all this warm food on a cafteria plate -which looks delicious, by the way - and the nurses say things like: "oops, they must've made a mistake!" And then they replace with a protein shake you're supposed to inject with a giant syringe at the back of your mouth.
Nice.

They say Day 3 is nothing compared to Day 4, so I just can't wait.

Surgery Log - Day 2: Surgery?

2008-12-18T17:10:00.001-05:00

Aparentley I had surgery that day.
The aneasthesiologist told me to count to to twenty... I didn't even make it to 5.
While I was in the O.R, right before 24-hour-morphine-nap-time,

someone told me to 'pick something to dream' about. Someone, a nurse maybe, said: 'an erotic dream, perhaps.'
Never encourage someone who's about to put to sleep by a bunch of dentists to have an erotic dream. It's weird.

Surgery Log - Day 1: blood pressure, morphine, cocker spaniels...

2008-12-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

Part one of my surgery log, just for shits and giggles.

Day 1:

So, I saw a nurse, a nutritionist, another nurse, and a third nurse who had pictures of her cats and dogs in her office.

The first nurse took my blood pressure. 100/60. Fuck yeah.

The nutritionist gave me instructions on my liquid diet, along with tons of recipes. Yum. She also told me I have a high sodium, protein-defficient diet.
No shit. I eat for 20$ a week.

The second nurse was really cool and explained everything to me. What was not cool, however, was having to admit I consume much booze and 'occasional' marijuana in front of my righteous parents.
"Occasionally?"
"Occasionally. Next question please."

The third nurse - well, suffice to say, the whole anal swabbing part made it awkward, so I felt obliged to ask her about her cats and dogs while she drew blood from my arm.
"Really? That's so weird, Cocker Spaniels are my favorite dogs too," he wept.

Today's my last day before total and complete morphine-enduced oblivion.
More posts to come when I get out of the hospital.

Morphine!

Where you should be instead

2008-03-18T15:56:00.005-04:00

Johnny's Daily Thoughts
(My friend John and his everlasting quest to find purity, beer, and a cheap way to make brownies.)

Sturm Und Drang
(Gretchen, jeune fille aux yeux doux.)

GoodNoisyCore means good music
(Music to chop wood by.)

So Much Pileup
(Graphic design, stamps, and art from the 60's to the 80's - very good!)

Underworld, two guys from Romford and Essex
(Perhaps my first musical infatuation. From mid-nineties club hits to lyrically stunning progressive compositions, these guys will always be on my iPod.)

AT&T's Wonderful Speech Generator
(Fuck vocal chords, let America's #1 telecom company speak for you.)

Photo-Documentation From The Field
(Alex's spontaneous photography shot and published right at the source.)

Frank's Museum Of Weird Vynil
(When a record was a work of art in itself - kitsch galore!)

On the day they take over... this might save my life.
(My roommate Alex schools you about hip-hop, fly kicks, and the Internet.)

7inchpunk
(The best music is pressed on wax and self-distributed.)

Who Writes This?

2008-03-18T15:55:00.005-04:00

A slightly depressive, misanthropist student with big dreams of becoming the last great newspaper reporter. He harbors a cynicism that reflects his limited experiences and his perpetual discontent with his minimum wage job. He is a sock clerk at a large Canadian pharmacy retail chain which he considers to be a polished version of Dante's inferno where everything is on sale and nothing is on fire, sadly.