Infallible Plankton

“If you race fast cars, one of the risks you take is that one day you might cop it.”

2010-08-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

If any of us digs deeply enough into our family histories we will probably find someone who was fairly amazing in one way or another. I have recently learned about such a person in my family, one Kathleen “Kay” Petre (born Kathleen Coad Defries in 1903), my great great Aunt. Mom used to tell me that “Aunty Kay” was one of the first female racecar drivers, but I wrote this off as just a piece a family mythology, an interest piquing tidbit created by a little liberal interpretation. But it turns out that it’s true. I hadn’t known her last name until my Grandma Kyra (born Kyra Defries) pointed her out to me in a book on racing history. After learning her last name it was easy to find more information about her.

Kay Petre is often associated with the 10.5 litre Delage DH V12 that she sometimes drove (pictured above). This is not surprising since that car itself held the land speed record for one week in 1924. She didn’t set the land speed record, but she did distinguish herself in that Delage by being the first woman ever to top 130 mph at the historic Brooklands racetrack in England. It wasn't only time trials where she excelled, though. She won a handicap race in 1935 in a Bugatti, placed ninth in open competition at the Mountain Grand Prix in 1935 (Driving a Riley 1.5), twice set the female record for hill-climbs at Shelsley Walsh and even drove in the Le Mans multiple times, finishing thirteenth in 1934 on her first try (in a Riley Ulster Imp). And she did all of this with wooden blocks attached to the pedals because she was only 4' 10''.

It’s true that racecars today are faster, but Nascar and Formula 1 have spent tens of millions of dollars on state-of-the-art safety features for their cars. Aunty Kay had a leather helmet and swimming goggles. No Lexan windshields, no five-point harnesses, no crumple zones, not even a steel roll-cage; just 3300lbs of steel and rubber flying around the track as fast as possible. Sadly, the dangerousness of her sport eventually caught up to her:

In 1937 Kay’s circuit racing career came to a dramatic end. During practice for the Brooklands 500 Miles, she was involved in a horrible accident which she was lucky to survive. Reg Parnell stalled above her on the banking, slid down and hit her Austin Seven, rolling it down the banking and crushing Kay underneath it. She suffered severe head injuries and was lucky to survive. After being in a coma for a few days and undergoing surgery to her head and face, she eventually made a good recovery, the only permanent damage being some paralysis of one side of her face.

After her recovery, Kay made one final appearance at Brooklands in 1938, driving the White Riley. Whether it was an actual race, public practice or merely some parade laps is unclear. She was cheered enthusiastically by the crowds but had lost her nerve and did not race there again. At this time, she was campaigning for Reg Parnell to have his racing licence returned. The authorities blamed him for the accident and revoked it, although Kay herself never held him responsible and eventually he was allowed back behind the wheel. her views were “If you race fast cars, one of the risks you take is that one day you might cop it!” (sportscars.tv)

I think the fact that she campaigned for Reg Parnell's reinstatement is as telling about her character as any of the adventurous things she accomplished while racing. From it we can infer that she was not simply a daredevil or adrenaline junkie; she was someone who understood the risks and took personal responsibility for them. When things did go wrong, she didn't passively accept their detriment to other people involved; she did what she could to correct them. It's a pity that I never met her. After all, she lived until 1994, albeit mostly in England. She was Canadian, though, born in Toronto. This is why she's in the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame, and from what I can tell, she's the only woman in it to boot.

sportscars.tv

wikipedia

girlracer.co.uk

I Will Flout Your Convention with Ice Cream Cake

2008-07-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

Do you read this blog? Yes, you do. You're reading it now. Plus, I know you do because I have cameras in your home. Fancy spy cameras. You know who's funny? Sean Cullen. He makes my love-hate relationship with the CBC into more of a love-love-hate relationship. Actually, it's more of a love-love-make-fun-of-the-excessive-importance-it-places-on-organic-composting relationship. Speaking of which, I'm marrying Roxanne this weekend.

Roxanne will also be marrying me, simultaneously. We're just that coordinated. It's kind of like the birth of twins, except one doesn't come out before the other because the evil twin has latched onto the good twin, probably with grappling hooks, Fisher Price brand prenatal grappling hooks. Yes, that's it.

People keep asking me: "So, are you nervous/stressed out about the wedding." To which I reply, "I'm sorry, do I know you?" Usually this is followed by: "Yes, I'm in the bridal party" or "Yes, I gave birth to you." Yeah, sure, the DNA investigation was inconclusive. By the way, everyone at the wedding will be fingerprinted. We have solar-powered lawn gnomes that we don't want to go missing. Wait, that last sentence is only half true, the first half.

Actually, I'm not nervous or stressed. How hard can it be to pick up 114 Happy Meals and drive down to city hall? I give it 20 minutes, tops. The ceremony, not the marriage, that is. In a way the marriage has already lasted almost 3 years. I mean, this isn't really a big step for us. It's more of a legally binding/public declaration step. We've already agreed we'd spend our lives together, which, to my mind, is a moral contract, and that's more important than a legal contract. The latter is an extension of the former, not vice versa. So, the wedding really ends up being more of an excuse to get together all of your family and friends, except for Sarah Waters who is going to the Pemberton Festival. I know, everyone has priorities, but it's not our fault that Jay-Z refused to be our flower girl. He said: "I've got 99 problems, but the graceful and equidistant dispersion of flower petals ain't one."

For the people who do come, though, it will be fine. My theory is that if sufficient alcohol is provided, no one will remember the other details, like how Stephen Hawking beat me in a dance-off or how I accidentally peed on your chair. Actually, it will be more than fine. There will be many people whom I haven't seen in a long time. I might even talk to some of them. In fact, I think I promised Roxanne I would. This happened after she pointed out that although a slack-jawed blank stare is a hilarious response to any question or greeting, it's only hilarious to me, and not to the person who is trying to talk to me. In all seriousness, though, it will be an transcendentally enjoyable affair, even though Roxanne wouldn't let me get a cake with the Saudi Arabian flag on it.

On the Tastiness of Holy Poultry

2008-06-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

The current moon phase, if I were to look at it and understand it more than not at all, might tell me that I have not posted here in nigh onto 3 months. On the other, non-lunar hand, I could just check the date of the last post. *Awkward silence while I struggle with simple math* Yes, it's true! You've been Plankton-free for six fortnights, and how brilliantly your teeth shine for it!

These forty days and forty nights, and forty more days and nights, and then just ten more tiny little extra days and nights, have seen many things afoot, and subsequently underfoot, squished like the irrelevant detritus that they are. Yes, they've been packed like some sort of small, salty fish in an appropriately cramped receptacle. One such thing is that I finished my practicum on May 9th. The second half was a lot more difficult than the first. This was because the third class that I took on had a flock of ne'er-do-wells, and they ne'er did any well. Still, I finished the practicum with appropriately airborne colours. That was May 9th. I was hired by the district up here at the end of May, and I've been doing a lot of substitute teaching since. I've taught about 9 days so far. Given that I was trained in high school English, it makes perfect sense that I've mostly been teaching Elementary French Immersion. But that's what they need, and I've been having a lot of fun doing it. It's really nice to get my foot in the door before summer, and to get my hands dirty, too. (Editor's note: Skip the next paragraph.)

Wait, what's going on? How can I have a foot and two hands through the door? Am I balancing on my other leg? Isn't it getting tired? And how did my hands get dirty so fast? What kind of a door has a pile of garbage directly behind it? They warned me about the physical conundrums that can arise from mixing metaphors, but no, I didn't heed them; I just yelled: "That's how the cookie crumbles when you're up the creek without a paddle! Enjoy your soggy cookies, suckers!" Now I see that I was wrong; I am the one stuck between a rock and a ... snowball in hell, and it's all rocky and ... melting.

OK, I’m glad you skipped that last paragraph; you're better for it. Let’s see, so, yeah, we’ve got most of our stuff ready for the wedding. We’re going to have Hutterite turkeys on the menu, among other things. I’m excited about this because there’s nothing better than eating poultry that has strong moral values. Some of those are bound to transfer into me, right? There must be some kind of gastrointestinal, ethical osmosis. It’s really the only chance I’ve got. Hmmm, yeah, well, imminent damnation aside, things are quite copacetic up here. We even went on a little trip to see some bands play. Rock was going to write about that, though, and I don’t want to steal her Thumper. Bambi would probably get upset, too, and I don't want to give that poor little guy a hard time. He's been through a lot. The trip was nice, though, and I've been sailing happily since then, like a peanut butter catamaran on a ... sea of toasty goodness.

The Ongoing Goes Go Go

2008-03-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

When I started my practicum 6 weeks ago, I was a little bit apprehensive. Well, maybe not apprehensive, but maybe a little daunted. I told myself that I should just buckle down (and buckle up, too, for safety) and make it to spring break, and then I'd be fine. Well, spring break started today, and everything has been peachy keen dreamy, with cheese. I thought I would enjoy it, but it is actually even more fun than I thought it would be. The time I spend in the classroom is more or less a blast: I joke around with kids and give them nicknames and try not to scar them for life. The hard part is the planning, the unit preparation and lesson planning, etc. This I am not so good at. It seems like I've been up 'til midnightish about 2-3 times a week recently, just because things take longer than I think they will. But I think this is normal for a newb. When I get more experience under my lapel, I mean ... collar? Some kind of a fastening device anyway. When I get more experience under my cuff, then it will all come more easily. I was much relieved the other day when one of the socials teachers lent me two huge binders that basically have everything I need to plan for the English Civil Way and The French Revolution, which are the units I will be teaching in SS9 after spring break. That guy is cool. He has a sleeve tattoo with all the characters from Where the Wild Things Are on it. So, yeah, it's all going well. 7 more weeks of teaching after spring break, and then I'll be a (paid) teacher (hopefully)! It's nice to be getting my feet wet (not cold, mind you). I get along quite well with all of the staff and kids, as far as I can tell. Some of them even throw friendship eggs at my car--thanks guys!

P.S. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a happy event with one kid. I have an unnamed student in an unnamed class. He is a bit of a handful because he has ADHD--not borderline ADHD, he's actually been diagnosed. He's a nice kid, he really wants me and Mr. K to like him, and he tries to behave well, but he's still disruptive. He can't focus on his work much without 1-on-1 help, so he doesn't get much done in class. We keep him in at lunch sometimes to work in a distraction-free environment, and we works really hard then. Anyway, we had our first report cards the other week, and he was at a B level. This was a coup. I went to find him in the schoolyard to tell him a day early, and he was really happy. He said: "I've never gotten a B before, my mom will be so proud."

This is why I'm in teaching.

2008-02-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

One week down, twelve to go--and they will go happily, judging by the first week, which was quite a good little lotta bit of fun. My anxiety has been ousted, as expected. I wasn't teaching per se last week; that will begin next Tuesday. I was basically just getting comfortable with the class (better, the class was getting comfortable with me) and helping out and assisting, etc. Good news: the kids like me. And why shouldn't they? I am "mellow" (this said by a 13-year-old with ADHD, true story). The main thing I've been doing is trying to make connections with the kids, buidling relationships and all that. This is good, because that's really what I like the most about teaching. I've memorized the names of all the kids in Socials 9 and English 8, but I'm still missing some in English 10, because the seating/taking of attendance is a bit less organized. Did I mention I have keys and a security code? Jay and Jenn and I are thinking of going to play dodgeball at night sometime. Why? Because we can (maybe).

I like all 3 classes, but English 8 is my favourite, somewhat to my surprise. This is so because my sponsor teacher in that class is really quite ingenious at building a good class dynamic. Mostly he does this through humour, and I've helped by being his straight man this week ("Everybody looks at Mr. Henderson's beard, now look at the overhead"). I was also fortunate that they gave me/us the English 8 class with most of the "good" kids in it. I was talking to the other English 8 teacher and he said he has about 10 of the "bad" boys in his class. To this I replied: "I am sorry and happy to hear that." And this was a sensible thought, he agreed. So, yeah, the practicum has started well and I think it will all be manageable, if not perfect, and the growth will continue, like that of a hippo and his surrogate mother-father tortoise.

P.S. I am much the happy that Lost is back on!
P.P.S. The Canucks have begun the comeback streak that will have them finish with a 2nd consecutive Northwest Division championship (To Kryce and other Leaf fans, a Division championship is the thing given to the team that finishes first in its division).
P.P.P.S. Jay and I are only about 80 (out of 1050) headshots away from getting the golden AK-47 in COD4. Yes, it's true. This is a weird and somewhat disturbing quest, but I'm OK with that.

2008-01-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

Just before I woke up I had a dream about a scuba diver who had to float around in the Artic Sea or some such place and cut icebergs with a chainsaw. A Great White Shark bit him and he had to fend it off with the chainsaw. Yes, I know there are no Great Whites in the Arctic, but my subconscious doesn't. It wasn't me in the dream, though, so it wasn't a bad dream. As Oscar Wilde says: "Arctic shark attacks are much funnier when they happen to other people." I am now 84th in our pool, thanks is large part to Nicklas Backstrom's--no, not Niklas Backstrom, Nicklas Backstrom!--8 assists in the last 2 games. Now, if only Maxim Afinogenov wasn't so terrible. But alas, terrible he is and terrible he will remain.

Today is weird: it's a full moon, Mom will arrive in Argentina, the Oscar nominees have been announced, and we'll maybe find out how 'official' the prospect of an American recession is (they had no trading yesterday because it was Lex Luther day. Sorry, I mean, Lex Luther Jr.). Normally I'm a lukewarm milktoast waffler about the Oscars, but this year there are some movies I really like in it. Juno and No Country for Old Men are both up for best picture. As much as I love Juno, I like No Country more. I hope Ellen Page wins for best actress, though; that would be an excellent coup ("Juno, like the city in Alaska" ... "No."). Javier Bardem has to has to win for best supporting actor, if for no other reason than that all the voters are afraid of the character he played. I also hope No Country wins for best director(s) and best cinematography. The other three up for best picture are Atonement, There Will Be Blood and Michael Clayton. I don't know what the last one is about. George Clooney is in it. I think he's like ... a teacher in an inner-city ghetto, and he coaches a basketball team ... and they go on to become national champions at Dance Dance Revolution. I want to see the other two still, There Will Be Blood is just fun to say. Use a deep, raspy voice, like you're possessed--but don't actually get possessed, that will lose you major style points. I have mixed feelings about Atonement: on one hand, it's one of my top three favourite novels and Ian McEwan (the author) had some significant amount of writing input on the film; on the other hand, I think more than the usual amount will be lost in the translation. Much of what is thematically profound in the novel depends on ... the written word and a blurring of fiction/reality that I don't think can translate to film very well. Hmmm. Well, I guess I'd have to see it to know if it is or isn't worked out.

Can't we just like kick this old school. You know, like I stick the baby in a basket, send it your way, like Moses and the reeds?

2008-01-14T22:42:00.000-08:00

Oh, hi, look, I'm alive. Welcome to two aught aught eight. Is that how you spell "aught"? I don't know, I'm writing in WordPad and it is spellcheckerless. For all I know, "spellcheckerless" might not even be a word, although I'm pretty sure it is. Hey, remember when ... holidays and stuff? Yeah, neat, huh? My mom donated a goat to a family in Africa on my behalf. I don't remember what country, maybe Togo. Maybe it's a Togolese goat now. Or maybe I just wanted to write "Togolese" because I don't think I've ever written it before--try it; it's fun, especially the 'ogo' part. Ogo ... ogo ... ... ... ogo. I wonder if it has a name now, and if the kids in the family pet it or stick things in its ears. That's probably not safe. Don't do that kids. Goats need to hear too. I also got some sweaters. My whole sweater hierarchy has been thrown into disorder. My formerly favourite sweater is all the way down to the number three spot. Oh, how very comfortable I am. Dress your family in corduroy and denim. Or at least corduroy and wool. Hey Kelly, McSweeney's was referenced in Juno, which is a special movie, by the way. It has the humour of Judd Apatow & co., but it's smarter and more moving. I teared up at the end. I mean, more than usual. You should see it. In other ... ogo ... I saw the Canucks play the Coyotes down in Vancouver last week with dad. It was fun to go, but we had bad luck because it was literally the first home game that Luongo has not started in the year-and-a-half he's been a Canuck. What are the odds? Probably something like 1 in 60, but I don't think odds go that high. Ogo. Yeah, err, umm, so I start my practicum in Febs. I are excited. It is now basically decided that I'll be teaching English 8, Social Studies 9 and .. English 10. Luckily I've been keeping up with my teenage popular culture for the last ... well, 15 years. Recently I've done this by playing Super Mario Galaxy and RockBand--whee! Whenever I play SMG I think, "this would be such a great game for kids" and then I think "wait, I'm not a kid" but then the bright shiny things start flashing again and I get distracted. Wait, what are we talking about? Oh, neat.

2007-12-13T18:43:00.000-08:00

I completely finished my shopping yesterday. This is the earliest I have finished since I started buying for people outside of my immediate family. Usually by this time the number of gifts that I have purchased is approximately zero. In celebration I played with the cats and a big crinkly shopping bag until Mookie puked, puke that was quickly licked by Riley. (At least he knows what he wants.) This year's capitalistic expedition was successful, as the case tends to be when things are given the appropriate amount of time rather than rushed. That's right, no one will get anything from 7-Eleven. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that my gift selection was sub-par, maybe even average! It is fortuitous that I have reached my gift-buying acme this year because next Christmas and all the Christmases after that I will be married, and Roxanne likes to throw "holiday bricks" through peoples' windows, instead of giving them presents. It's the thought that counts, I guess.

I am really looking forward to the rest of the holidays. The last two Christmases I've been preoccupied with traveling or impending joblessness, and although they were still good, this year, I think, will be even better.

Speaking of awesomeness, I have recently been "pimping out" my car. This with the help of rap star Xzibit, who is apparently now a homeless white man with Tourette's syndrome. Some people think that chrome rims are better than plastic hubcaps and "paint" looks nicer than rust, but that's too fancy pants for me. My style is a bit subtler. For example, I taped a piece of paper by automatic trunk lock button (yeah, I know, thanks) so that I can remember which position means it's locked, and which means it's unlocked. Now people can't open it and steal my ... umm ... flashlight? Also, I got new windshield wipers, front and back. Yeah. And I replaced all four of my side marker lights, even though only 3 were out--that's just how I roll. (Actually, I accidentally replaced the one that wasn't burnt out, but never mind that.) I got a new headlight bulb too. No perdiddle for me. I even had my oil changed and I got a new air filter. Even though they couldn't see it, I could tell that people liked it because they honked at me as I was stalled in the middle of the intersection. With all these improvements my $700 car is now worth like ... $715. If I get a new steering wheel cover for Christmas (fingers crossed) that will just put it over the top; actually, that might be too much for anyone to handle.

Not Quite Andy Goldsworthy-worthy

2007-12-06T17:50:00.001-08:00

I made a pile of snowballs in a garden-box at school. It's hollow. It has about 60 snowballs. It's kind of a giant white thumb. It's not quite Andy Goldsworthy-worthy, but it was fun to make. It is in "The Learning Garden," which is sort of a side-project our middle school class had down at UBCO. At first I resented it because I thought it was irrelevant, but that class (2 classes, actually) turned out to be my favourite of the term, hands down. We had a really tightly knit group, and the teacher was phenomenal--she was even Scottish!, as I recall. Have I mentioned that my Scottish side is the side I identify with most? It is. Probably because Roxanne is Scottish, and also because I can identify with it for free.

School is done now. I might begin my practicum planning a bit, but I have all of January for that. Rock and I will be in 100 Mile from Dec. 15th-Dec. 23rd. (Well, actually, Rock won't arrive 'til the 16th.) Then we'll be up in PG for Christmas and New Year's. This will be nice because Rock and I haven't been in PG for Christmas proper yet.

My car, "House," rolled over 333,333 on my recent trip to Vancouver. I didn't have a camera with me, so I don't have a picture, but I did slow down to 70 on the Coquihalla to appreciate the moment. Then some yuppie in a Beemer flashed his lights at me. I guess he was jealous. Our old '93 Camry also got up to 333,333, but I wasn't driving at the time, so it was wasted. Moop. Jay and Jenn have decorated the house really nicely for Christmas. The cats and I are quite excited. I even built a snowman, but the picture is kind of blurry so I haven't put it up. Just imagine an average snowman, like one you might make, except better.

2007-11-29T18:31:00.000-08:00

education as arson

teach to forget
not to fall off the wagon

teach to abandon the bandwagon
better, douse it
torch those things that say
you are only this, in the inferno
contemplate the combustibility of thought
the matchstick fragility of complete explanations.
The capital C correct answer is a pipe bomb dream
unity, crisp manila and full of nails

teach revelation, from the ivory tower
the world can be explained to death
the risk is explaining death to the world.

Call it, Frend-0

2007-11-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

If I weren't writing for mixed audience (yes, there are two of you), I'd say the trailer for No Country for Old Men gives me an irrepressible fanboy boner. Usually when I anticipate a film greatly it’s for sentimental, visceral or other bad reasons. But in this case I’m salivating for what seems to be something near the zenith of the Coen Brothers’ considerable craft making skills. Read the A.O. Scott review. Call it, Frend-o! Call it! Aaagggh!

Speaking of being entertained by smart people. This clip where Jerry Seinfeld takes apart Larry King is pretty funny, and while we're on the subject, Jon Stewart did much the same thing, but more emphatically, on CNN's Crossfire some time ago.

P.S. I’m coming up this weekend.
P.P.S. My teacher liked my unit lesson plan and she wants it to be presented at the Central Okanagan Teachers’ Association meeting (this is like a pro-d thing).
P.P.P.S. Mikara is soundly thrashing me at the hockey pool even though she chose her players based on how handsome they are. Still, I like almost all of my picks except for the concussed Bertuzzi, so I think things will turn around.

2007-11-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day as a teacher in BC. My practicum doesn’t actually start until February, but we had a week of observation/introduction at our schools. We weren’t required to teach, but my sponsor teacher is really cool, so he let me take over 2 of his English 12 classes. Well, I didn’t totally take them over, but I taught for 50 minutes in each of those 1:20 minute blocks. It went really well! I was a little bit nervous at first, but I knew it would be fine since I had planned out the lesson well. The students laughed at my jokes, and my sponsor teacher said that students enjoy that sort of “dry, self-deprecating” humour. He also said I had a good presence in the classroom, which I took to mean that I didn’t mumble at all. All in all it was a lot of fun. I introduced a short story they’ll be working with, “An Occurrence at Owl’s Creek Bridge.” That entailed giving some background about the American Civil War, the author’s (Ambrose Bierce) life, and some activities relating to the story’s main theme, reality vs. illusion. Naturally, I took the chance to draw a big chalk picture of the General Lee with its Confederate flag roof. It was fun. I was happy to get my feet wet and to get ahead of those in my cohort who haven’t started teaching yet.

My sponsor teacher is really awesome. We are well suited because he’s really into thing like The Simpsons, Arrested Development, The Office, and Judd Apatow movies. He’s really popular and successful with the students, but some of the staff are rubbed the wrong way by him because he has some unconventional techniques. He has a really great rapport with the students, though. That’s important. One thing he does is called “Feel Good Fridays.” This involves the students being randomly assigned another student. They then have to write something nice about that student in a few sentences. Some of them are kind of silly, like: “If I was Japan, and you were America, I’d definitely bomb your Pearl Harbor.” And some are kind of bland, but I’m sure some have been good, anonymous confidence builders for some kids. It’s a good ice breaker and a good tool for class unification. OK, well, that was a summery little summary. Now I’ll just find a picture and put it up so that blogger can delete it for no reason in 2 days.

Colbert on the NYT!

2007-10-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

The planets have aligned in a hilarious way. Isn't it great when 2 things you love collaborate? I rhymed! Below is a snippet.

"Surprised to see my byline here, aren’t you? I would be too, if I read The New York Times. But I don’t. So I’ll just have to take your word that this was published. Frankly, I prefer emoticons to the written word, and if you disagree :("

On Unfriendly Ogopogoes

2007-10-12T17:42:00.001-07:00

Lindsey, my friend from school, invited me to volunteer at the pool/rec centre where she instructs. The program is for kids and teens who have problems of various kinds, mostly physical of behavioural. Today was my first day. Lindsey and I have a team of a few youngish girls. Some of them have quite troubled pasts, I'm told. I'm rather excited about the challenge. It's one of those things (like teaching in general) that is easy to do poorly. You can get by by just showing up and going through the motions. But really excelling, making a difference and connecting with kids, that's not easy at all. One of the girls is afraid of and mistrustful of men, for various reasons. So, hopefully I can make some progress with her by being, well, not manly (I knew my unmanliness would come in handy some day!). Apparently she hasn't bonded with any of the male volunteers or instructors to date. But how well versed were they in Highschool Musical? Did they really appreciate the finer points of Yu-Gi-Oh? My silly self is my best self. I hope it'll make some difference.

"I'm not superstitious ... I'm just stitious."

2007-09-28T17:31:00.003-07:00

Tonight we ate JennMcMuffins for night-breakfast and watched the premier of The Office. It was a wonderfully Zen-like synthetic combination, this union of an adapted mockumentary and a homemade version of a fast-food version of homemade dish. How appropriate for the day after the day after the day that saw a new record for the most sales of an entertainment product in American history. Said $170 million dollar selling product was Halo 3, the English version of the hit Spanish video game Hola 3 (“Hello! Hello! Hello!”). Living with Jay and Jenn rocks! Have I mentioned this? Jenn has good taste in decorating so they have really nice dark brown leather couches that are also very comfortable. I enjoy sitting in tasteful dark brown leather couches and playing video games on large HD TVs. Yes, I enjoy that a lot. Plus they have a killer surround-sound system, so when someone snipes me from out of nowhere in Call of Duty 4, I jump out of my seat. This happens a lot. It’s fun. Another good thing is that Jason is adept at downloading HD movies which he can play on the PS3. Oh yes, the sweetness is sweet. Last week we watched Knocked Up. Judd Apatow is so funny. Yeah, so, I don’t really have anything to say. School is surprising easy. We do a lot of gardening. Next Wednesday I will visit South Kelowna Elementary, that should be fun--hola kids! I are senior Davido! Do you know where a Taco Bell grows? Speaking of hilariously and subtly warped things, achewood is a great online comic. Oh yeah, I’m coming up North for thanksgiving, thank goodness.

On the Flatness of the World

2007-09-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

Oh good grief! I haven’t posted on my web log for a whole month. What is this world coming to? Sometimes I don’t even know if it’s flat or not. I’ve been busy like a bee. Not a busy bee, mind you, just a standard bee, which is still fairly busy. I have 7 classes this fall, which sounds like a lot, but they only add up to 17 credits (a standard term is 15 credits), and it doesn’t feel like much work, so c’est chouette. I could tell you what the courses are, but that would be boring and it would force you to stop reading, drive to Vernon, stab me in the hand and say: “Stop writing boring stuff Mr. Bleedy Hand!”

Today was my first day in a public school as a student-teacher. It was le fun. I wasn’t anxious because it wasn’t the school where I’ll be doing my practicum. It was just one of a number of schools I’ll visit this fall for observation. Dr. Knox Middle School has 800 students in grades 7, 8 and 9. It was weird because the adolescent growth spurt begins in those years so there were some tiny kids and some ninth graders who were inches taller than me. I observed 2 social studies 9 classes (each had a different teacher), one English 9 class, and one Art 7 class. It was nice to get out of the ivory tower and get my feet wet. I felt comfortable because I think I’ll be able to do everything the teachers were doing, so that’s cool. On Saturday I have some educational conference to go to. My goal is to heckle until someone tasers me.

Rock should get back from NYC (via Ontario) soon. I know that she changed the city for the better--really, even more than Borat changed it for the better. This I know because while she was there the NYT decided to discontinue the pay version of its site. Now all their fantastically awesome journalists’ articles are free again. My life is now complete.

2007-08-18T11:34:00.002-07:00

Nonsense was spoken and thought with gusto last weekend when Rock and I met Kelly and Eric in 100 Mile House. We played 10,000 and the baby die was jinxed. By dint of our lackadaisicalness we didn’t really do much, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Mom’s cat, FluffTerror, killed about 12 mice and 9 birds while I was there. That cat is a death machine. She also purrs a lot, purrs of death. We had champagne to celebrate our engagement. Champagne is a sparkling Dr.Pepper-like beverage that comes from a city in Germany called Cologne.

I lost and found both my watch and my wallet this week. The universe briefly teetered on the brink of explosion, but doom was narrowly and unceremoniously averted, once again. Poor doom, he’s always frustrated. I also finished my courses on educational policy and special needs in education (well, I just have one paper left). The policy course was useful because it was mostly about how teachers work within the larger field of education, and I plan to have a non-teaching job in the education field some (probably distant) day, so that stuff interests me. One of the books I am to read for next term costs 90 dollars in the bookstore. Happily, however, I stuck it to the man by ordering it online for 23 cents (really!). After tax it came to CDN $6.72. Granted, it’s used and not the correct edition, but still. School doesn’t restart until September fifth, so I‘ll be up in Prince George for most of the time between now and then. Hooray! I love PG.

Fian--say what?!

2007-08-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

It's officially official, Rock and I are engaged. We will be married in Prince George on 26 July 2008. That's the last Saturday in July. If I understand how name exchanges work, I will soon be Mr. Rock, and my future students will assume I am an ex-Navy Seal.

We were engaged last Saturday, our 2nd dating anniversary. Dann, Tanya, Mike and Tae were camping out near Canim lake, so we went out to visit them in the afternoon. Then we went a bit further out to Canim/Mahood Falls. Rock is the sharpest tool in the toolbox, so I had to use all of my CSIS training to keep the subterfuge under wraps. Unfortunately there were no laptops to be lost, so I "pretended" I couldn't find the falls for about 45 minutes. When we arrived, the waterfalls were quite wonderfully sublime and fairly big. In fact, if you've never seen any larger water falls, they'd be the largest waterfalls you've ever see. Plus, they're rated at 9.1 on the International Proposal Appropriateness Scale.

Rock wouldn't let me get closer than 15 feet to the edge (probably an ominous sign of her not letting me imperil my life in the future), but it was still a pretty neat place to be. I'm ecstatic about being engaged to Roxanne, because I love her. I'm even getting used to the word fiancée. I didn't really think it would be strange, so I'm not really surprised that it all feels so normal. It's better than normal though: it's like an M&Ms Blizzard that makes you smarter, defeats world poverty and solves global warming.

Here are 4 more pictures

The Unfriendly Cat Paradox

2007-07-22T13:56:00.002-07:00

I’ve more or less settled into school and the Okanagan. It’s really nice living with Jay and Jenn (Roxanne’s brother and sister-in-law). Like all McLeods, they are quite friendly (it’s genetic). Their cats, Mookie, Honey and Riley, however, are somewhat less friendly. This contradicts my long held belief that all cats like me, so I am slowly trying to convert them. Although UBCO is in Kelowna, Jay and Jenn actually live in Vernon. Fortunately, they live in south Vernon, and the school is in North Kelowna, so the drive is only about 35 minutes. Plus, it is quite a stunning drive. The highway winds through the hills above the beautifully multicoloured lake Kalamalka. If you’ve been here, you probably remember that lake. No Ogopogo, though, but it’s only a matter of time, well, that and being transported to an alternate dimension where Ogopogo actually exists.

The program seems decent and the people are really nice. Coincidentally, the teacher from that class is part of the family that owns Andrews Farm, an historical farm near Lac Brome. I've joined a carpool with some of the other people from Vernon--finally, the earth is saved! We take 2 classes for 3 hours each everyday. Right now those classes are educational technology and adolescent psychology. They’re not bad. In ed-tech one of our projects is an instructional movie group project. I’ll try to throw that up when we finish; it’s pretty funny. The image above is a Photoshop poster I made for that class. I put it up because I felt like putting it up.

Happily, next Saturday is the 2-year dating anniversary for Roxanne and I. We will meet in 100 Mile for the weekend. I’m really looking forward to it. Not only because of the obvious goodness of the event, but also because I'll just have finished my first 3 exams and my projects, so I'll be ready to party, which means playing a board game and going to sleep at 9:30--EFF YEAH!

House

2007-07-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is the last Korean image you will see. Korea was destroyed last week by an enormous 2-dimensional T-Rex and its squealing offspring. That dinosaur took like 4 art classes to make. I'm pretty happy with it. There are about 6 more feet of tail not pictured. Basically, I cut out the shapes and the kids did the coloring and painting. Korea was fine: I left amidst weirdness but I tied everything up and was fully paid, so that's the imp thing.

I got back up to PG on Saturday night. It was nice to see Roxanne, family and friends. We're heading south today but I haven't started packing yet, which doesn't explain why I have chosen this moment to post. Anyway, everything seems to have fallen more or less into place for the start of school. I got orange flip flops and a car. It's an '88 Camry wagon. I have named it "House" because plan D involves me sleeping in it. Also, that name will help me keep my New Year's resolution, which is to be more like House. The world needs more caustic witty sarcasm, especially Kelowna.

It turns out I did get into the SFU education program after all, off of the wait list. This I found out yesterday, which was quite a bit too late. I'm not sure which I would have accepted had I gotten into SFU earlier, but I'm quite excited about this program. It worked out for the best, despite my best efforts. If nothing else, it's nice to know that I got into all 3 of the schools I applied to (not including UVIC, where I was disqualified for not having some prerequisites); no one likes rejection, even if it is explainable. Anyway, I should really start packing and stuff. I'll leave you with some House quotes, because that's my half-baked theme:

Dr. Gregory House: Fine. I'll ask one of my other friends.
Dr. Wilson: Huh...
Dr. Gregory House: What? You're saying I've only got one friend?
Dr. Wilson: Uh... and... who...?
Dr. Gregory House: Kevin. In bookkeeping.
Dr. Wilson: Okay, well, first of all, his name's Karl...
Dr. Gregory House: I call him Kevin. It's his secret friendship club name.

Dr. Gregory House: Ah, the Socratic Method. The best way we have of teaching everything-apart from juggling chainsaws.

Dr. Cameron: Men should grow up.
Dr. Gregory House: Yeah. And dogs should stop licking their "workplace-acceptable" euphemism for testicles. It's not gonna happen.

Bizarro Hoth Hot

2007-06-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a lot of cold showers lately. It's hot. It's rainy. It's hot like a haywire humidor. It's hot like Bizarro Hoth. It's Frank Herbert humid. It's hot like Sting in a knife fight. Actually, it's none of those things, but something is driving me crazy. I have cabin fever, just replace "cabin," with "world's second largest metropolitan area." Catchy.

I fly out of Seoul at 13:15 on June 30th. After a 3-hour layover in some place called "JPN," I will fly back to Vancouver, arriving at 10:45 of the same day. Now I will make a joke about how the plane is so fast that I arrive in Canada before I left: "That's what I call making time! Ha!" Then I'll be back Canadaside, where bacon has a back and where my sick obsession with being well-liked will be among like minds.

The parents McLeod will be in Vancouver when I arrive, so it seems I'll be able to catch a ride back up with them--what luck! Much of my year has been like this, happily, and my optimistic perspective has perhaps begotten more positivity--just like what Rhonda Byrne says in The Secret, except with less ear-bleeding stupidity. We'll probably head back up to Prince George fairly directly. I'll probably be up there for 5 days or so, then Rock and I will be in 100 Mile for a bit, and on July 9th I'll begin the 12-month Secondary Teacher Education Program at UBC Okanagan--employment ho!

The four months have gone quite quickly. My replacement arrives 3 days before I leave, and she's moving into my apartment, so I'll be staying at the principal's house with her and her family. That should be neat, living with a Korean family for a while. If nothing else, having the boss invite you to stay with her family at the end of your contract is a fairly good sign that you've done a good job, unless they lock you in the basement and starve you to death.

The top photo is of Namdaemun Gate, which is a gate somewhere around Namdaemun. It was built in 1395, it is the oldest wooden structure in Seoul and it has been designated "National Treasure No.1". More importantly, as the lower photo shows, a virtual replica of it exists in World of Warcraft. Take that, offline world. Take that off, line world. Take that offline, world, and so on, soon.

The Long and Winding--Hey! You can't sit there!

2007-06-10T02:01:00.000-07:00

So I went to Gyeongbokgung palace, the place pictured in my last post. It was alright, but it was no Forbidden City. I mean, it didn't even have a Starbucks. It's hard to get interested in historical architecture after Beijing. It's like watching The View instead of reading The NYT.

A place I like more is Boramae Park. It's one of the largest parks in Seoul, and, conveniently, it's less than 10 minutes from my house. It has a rose garden, facilities for dozens of sports, a pond with a fountain system that sprays in patterns synchronized to classical music, a Buddhist temple, and even an old guy who talks to me. One of my favourite parts is the foot-massaging path. Basically, it's a long path that has a variety of sizes and shapes of stones embedded into it. Some are small and pointy; some are large and smooth; some are black and get hot in the sun, and so on. The effect of this is that walking on this path stimulates your feet in weird ways that you don't get by just walking around normally. It's like yoga for your feet. There is even a chart that explains how, apparently, different parts of your feet are connected to different parts of your body. It's quite surprisingly relaxing--and free!

Yesterday Matt and I were playing badminton on the secret courts on the hill. We had played a couple of games, and then this guy popped up and challenged us to a game of 2-on-1. He was about 50, a bit portly, wearing a black track suit, and he had on these weird leather shoes with buckles and 1-inch heels, not suitable for badminton. Now, Matt and I aren't Chinese or anything, but I like to think we're competent players, plus our footwear choice was impeccable. Nevertheless, he totally kicked our asses. He could have been wearing buckets for all it mattered (unlike me: all I ever do is run around). He just hit the birdie to the exact spot he wanted to and it whizzed about half an inch over the net every time. The teachers were schooled. Naturally, after a while one of the park janitors produced a racket and joined in the game, so then Matt and I played on opposite teams. Afterwards the guy wanted us to go drinking with him, but it was 2pm, so, uhh, that's just a bit crazy.

Badminton is a universal language, apparently. On other days we've played against high school guys and even a family: mom, dad, boy and girl. The teenage guys bought us Pocari Sweat (The Korean equivalent of Gatorade) for our efforts, and the family gave us giant rice cake snacks. Also, later they tracked me down while I was in a phonebooth and gave me a strawberry ice cream bar. (Maybe they thought I was poor, since I was playing with a racket that I bought from a box in front of 7-11 for $1.50, and I'm the only person in Korea without a cellphone.) It's nice when stuff like that happens. It restores my faith in the goodness of ice cream.

A tiny conspiracy

2007-06-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

I have a small request: please destroy the Canadian economy. Stupid inflated Canadian dollar. When I arrived in Korea the CDN to KRW ratio was 1:807. Now it is 1:870. That's translates to me making $193 less per month--effing b-crap! I thought this also had to do with the trade agreement that Korea signed with the US, but the KRW has improved against the USD, so, pfft. Actually, I'm as unbothered by this probable loss of $772 as any person of Scottish descent could be. I'll probably be back in Canada in a month, and my experience so far has born out my decision to come here.

On Sunday I'm going to visit the palace pictured above: Gyeongbokgung. I'm going with some random university students that I met at an English club/cafe/bar. I didn't really want to go there, but my coworker said it would be free (see above comment re. Scottishness). It was, but only for her--bah! Anyway, aside from finding palace exploring pals, the night was not a total bust because of an unusual exchange I had with one guy. He was Korean; he spoke English fairly well, and he was really big, like muscular. Anyway, I think he had had a bit too much soju because he was acting really silly when he came up to me. He had a plastic gun and he said: "This is an RG. That stands for real gun. I'm a real gangsta." At this point he started doing some elaborate and silly muscle flexing poses. Then he flashed some imitation gang signs and said: "I'm a Blood. I'm a Crip. Don't I look like a real gangsta?" Now, I know that according to the amicable collusion of the inebriated I was supposed to say yes. But I was sober, so I said: "No, no you don't." He was crestfallen. A 6'3 sad puppy. I laughed internally and didn't feel bad. This is the year of good luck and not feeling bad for no reason. Take that and party, Robbie Williams.

Fanboy Unbound

2007-05-24T03:57:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: You will probably be annoyed by this post if: a) you think that 1337 is a number b) you had a girlfriend or boyfriend in high school, or c) you have ever confused Star Wars and Star Trek.

Last weekend I went to the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational 2007. No, that shouldn't mean anything to you. Basically it was a big thing thrown by Blizzard, a video game company, in Seoul's Olympic Stadium and surrounding buildings. That might give you some idea of how big it was. My rough guess is that there were at least 5,000 people there (see the pictures for yourself, courtesy of Seattle Matt). Blizzard is the maker of what at this moment is probably the most popular video game on the planet: World of Warcraft (8.5m people play $15USD per month to play it). I never began playing this game for fear that it would cause me to flunk out of university. After all, Blizzard's 1998 game Starcraft almost prevented me from graduating from high school. OK, that's an exaggeration, but it could have if I had been required to do any kind of work in high school. Anyway, the event had 4 or 5 K-pop performances, lots of convention booth games and stuff, really long line-ups, a 30ish-piece symphony playing video game music, plus Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and Starcraft tournaments.

Now, you might be curious as to why a game released almost 10 years ago is still being played competitively in Korea? You might also be asking yourself why video games are played competitively. If so, please refer to the disclaimer above. Right, so, Starcraft in Korea is a violently popular cultural phenomenon, which is saying something because games in general are much more popular here than in North America. I could write more about that, but I think I have an example that will sufficiently convey this point. I used to work with a Korean woman named Cathy. She claimed to play a dancing game, Audition Online, until all hours of the night. There is nothing unusual about that, except for the fact that she used real money to buy special clothes for her online character. Lots of money, from what she said. And I don't know that these clothes even made her character any better; they were just special because few of the other people--people she will never meet face-to-face--would have them. Go figure. You might not be surprised to learn that Cathy has since been fired. Poor Cathy, how will she pay for new virtual clothes?

Back to the insanity that is the specific focus of this post. It has many times been said that Starcraft is basically the national sport of Korea. One of the best Starcraft players has reported making $200,000USD in one year, from tournament prizes and sponsorship--really. There are multiple channels in Korea devoted to showing replays of top-level games--no, really. South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun has reportedly challenged Kim Jong-il to a game of Starcraft decide the border issue between their two states--OK, I made that one up. Anyway, it's insanely and inexplicably popular here, which is neat because, as the greatest RTS game ever, it is my favourite game of all time. Yes, I did just say greatest ever (something I never say), so I will qualify it (something I always do). Starcraft is the greatest RTS game ever, based on sales, longevity, and critical concensus, which, as rough objective indexes, are things anyone has the prerogative to ignore since art is, finally, a subjective experience.

Now, none of this would have been very exceptional, except that, appropriately, Blizzard's main reason for throwing this shindig was the announcement, after 9 years, of Starcraft 2. (Whoa, that was some weird comma-abuse, oh well.) Now, I'm not into video games as much as I was before, say, I met Roxanne. So I wasn't ecstatically excited about this, but, according to what TV tells me, being among the first people in the world to see something on TV is great. So, huzzah!

Children of the Polo

2007-05-15T03:34:00.000-07:00

The other day I noticed that 4 out of 8 of the 5-year-olds in my class were wearing shirts or dresses with a little horse rider on the front. I looked at one of the tags, and apparently that diminutive poloist is the emblem for Ralph Lauren Polo. Although somehow strange, this is probably harmless since I don't think the kids really have any idea what clothes they are wearing, except for Lisa who wears her favourite pink flowered dress 4 days a week. Still, 5 is a bit young to begin indoctrination into the cult of materialism, which is much more evident here than in Prince George. Also, kids shouldn't be swinging mallets on horseback.

Having rich kids as students is nice, however, on Teachers' Day, which was today. We got swag. Swag was gotten by us. Some of said swag was semi-expensive. Also, cake and donuts, many donuts. It was kind of like Christmas, except I didn't know it was coming. Most of the stuff I'll never use, but I'm 1/4 Scottish, so I love free stuff on principle.

Last Sunday I went to the National Museum of Korea. The nice thing about giant cities in Asia is that they have kick-ass subway systems. It's neat to know that there is more stuff than you could ever possibly visit within 30 minutes of your house. The museum is apparently the 6th largest in the world by floorspace, which is an inaccurate indicator, but never mind that. It was OK. It took me 3 hours to walk through. The space and the building were interesting architecturally, and there was a neato Pagoda Garden with 1000-year-old pagodas, but it was no Met.

On Thursday we are taking a fieldtrip to "American City," which is one of several recreations of smalltown U.S.A. that have been built so that people can go there and practice English in an "authentic" setting. It is even stocked with live, breathing white people. These same people I will heckle vociferously because their job is being a phony version of themselves. That's not fair. I do that everyday and no one pays me anything.

2007-05-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

Much has been afoot at school lately. We have had a singing contest, a field trip to a zoo/botanical garden and today it was children's day, so we had a "snack party" (ain't no party like a snack party cuz a snack part don't stop). The field trip was to Seoul Grand Park. We were a convoy of four Kia Preggio minivans (Preggio = baby = family = minivan, presumably). I made all of my 8 kids wear their seat belts even though, for some unknown but stupid reason, that isn't the normal thing to do. On the subject of traffic safety: no one wears bike helmets here, not on scooters, pedal bikes or motorbikes. I don't get it. Your skulls are important, people. Anyway, the park was pretty legit. It was all botanical and whatnot. The kids' moms packed gigantic lunches, like, 2 for each kid, so I ate a lot. We saw sleeping lions, giraffes and flamingos--neato! Everything went fine until the end when a small gaggle of kids decided to take off and run down the long paved pathway. Naturally, Alex fell on his face. Crying ensued. There may be no crying in baseball, but there is definitely crying in kindergarten.

The singing contest was similar in that it went perfectly except for the pee. My class sang "I'm a little teapot." I added a bunch of superfluous actions. We were very short and stout. We won, naturally, because we are the best. Well, OK, not really. It was probably more because of the sympathy vote. Lingy, the first the she did when we got up on stage (in front of 35 or so people) was pee. It wasn't very much, and another teacher ran up and pulled her shirt down over her pants, tragedy averted. We won skipping ropes, which several kids promptly traded for farm-themed erasers with posable limbs. I didn't actually get either prize, but I did win the teacher of the month bonus, which is only awarded every three months, so I guess it's more like: teacher of the last three months, or something. Anyway, it was supposed to be 200,000 Won, ($250), but that changed into a department store gift certificate for the same amount, and then it was split between me and Matt, since we both won, apparently. Still, I was happy. It was my goal to win that since it's a vaguely objective indication that I'm doing a good job. I know I am anyway, but think of all the farm animal-themed erasers I can buy now.

Oh yeah, and I went to Spiderman 3 last night, Thursday, May 3rd. For some reason it opened earlier in Korea, so, umm, neener. Sam Raimi did well. Topher Grace was funny, Thomas Hayden-Church was well-cast, and there were a bunch of neat cameos. I liked it because it didn't take itself too seriously, yet it wasn't merely gratuitous either. Venom was pretty bad-ass. Favourite line (Topher Grace): "What the hell?!" Anyway, I think Spiderman has definitely established itself as the best of the recent Marvel/DC movie franchises. By the way, Kryce, Kirsten Dunst is the greatest actor who has ever lived.

I don't feel very bad about the Canucks, surprisingly. Luongo had an amazing playoffs: 72 saves in his first game, and .966 in his last game, for example. The Canucks' future is bright because of him, so that's good. The last goal was soft, but it wasn't the reason the Canucks lost the series. The reason was that they didn't score. The Canucks had a really good and scrappy team, and they went pretty far and could pretty easily have stretched this series to 6 or 7 games. However, Anaheim had a more complete team--i.e., one with an offense--and they deserved to win the series. I don't really get how a single team can have 2 of the 4 best defensemen in the league, in the salary cap era, yet Anaheim does. I wish Matt Cooke had played. He's really the heart and soul (or an even better cliche) of the forwards. Plus he probably would have speared Rob Niedermayer or something, which would have been funny.

There and back again

2007-04-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Having two varieties of currency in your wallet produces a wonderful in-betweeny feeling, especially when neither of them is the Canadian dollar. I was in Fukuoka for 30 hours, and I walked so much that I got blisters on my feet, which is no small feat because I walk a lot. Most of this walking was intentional: I wanted to see as much of the city as possible; about 3 hours of this walking was accidental: I was lost. Well, not lost in the sense that I didn't know where I was (I did), I just couldn't find my hotel.

My boss made the reservation for me, but the address was in Korean characters, so I asked Matt (who had stayed at the same hotel) where it was, and he said just outside such-and-such subway station. Unfortunately, such-and-such subway station turned out to be not so much such-and-such, and more such-and-a-completely-different station, 10km away. After I had methodically scoured a scientifically-determined radius (yes, I know how to have a good time) around the wrong subway station, I asked crosswalk-waiting captive for directions. The crosswalk (complete with a no walking light) was only for a single-lane street, and no cars were coming, yet he didn't jaywalk. After I understood that I should go to the Tenjin subway station, I thanked him, and unthinkingly jaywalked across the tiny street, oops. Tenjin station also turned out to be the wrong station. However, it had a gigantic underground labyrinth of sun-free European shopping streets. Fortunately, what they lacked in authenticity they made up for in detailed maps. On one such map I found a purple dot that said "tourist information," which turned out to be a travel agency. The exceedingly polite and helpful person there directly me to the correct subway station, and even drew me a map that showed which of the 17 exits I should take.

My general impression of Japan, or at least Fukuoka, was that it is very clean, beautiful, polite, organized and fond of cartoon characters. Everything went smoothly at the Korean consulate, so I am now legally entitled to work in Korea, which is probably a good thing. I liked the beach a lot, even though it was raining most of the time. As a matter of fact, I still have sand in the rolled-up cuffs of my corduroys.

There were a few neat technological things, like the automatic pants-pressing machine and the bidet at the hotel, and the ridiculously easy-to-use subway system. But it wasn't as excessively futuristic as I had expected. Tokyo probably has more of that. There was a neat arcade-type place, though. It had about 40 of those crane games--you know, the ones where you guide a claw-crane thing and try to snatch various shiny prizes. Curiously, this was combined with several rows of slot machines and other gambling things. Most importantly, they had a legit arcade version of Mariokart, with tons of stuff not found in the console versions.

The castle ruins I visited were even more historically profound than Mariokart. Although, in comparison to some of the stuff I saw in China, they paled a bit. But it's always neat to see really old stone structures, I guess. I prefered the nearby immaculately landscaped park. It surrounded a small lake, and there was a chain of bridges and small islands that divided the lake in two. There were many small birds, heron, and even a special island with a tree for some other large birds (hawks of some kind, maybe, since they seemed to be the official bird of Fukuoka). Also, they had those large orange, white or gold fish that you see in paintings. They were big. They lurked peacefully.

So there's a spliced-together package of my brief trip to Japan. I think I will remember it as flowery, polite and soothing: kind of like Scarlett Johannsen's day-trip to the temple in Lost in Translation, I'd like to say.

The photos

P.S. I was accepted to the UBC-Okanagan education program, which was my second choice. I should hear from SFU within the month.

2007-04-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

I walked up another hill today. It wasn't as big as the first one I walked up, but you could still see a lot of stuff. A complex of some kind was being built on top. I stopped by some old men and watched the Hyundai machinery crush boulders. A sign showed that a basketball court, some tennis courts and some garden stuff would be built there by 07.31.2008. But today it was just a flat hilltop, and dirt. I kicked an errant soccerball back to a little girl. Dogs ignored my whistling, presumably because it was non-Korean. I saw a pigeon with a large tumor or some kind of growth on its foot. It was hopping around.

A smaller misfortune: Alex, the little guy from 2 posts down, sneezes tremendously; he sneezes voluminously; he sneezes foot-long boogers that dangle down to his desk. All from a 5-year-old nose in 3-foot frame. Usually there is a box of tissue in the classroom, but on Friday it was missing. So when the inevitable explosion occured, he was left standing there with snot stringing from his nose down to a pool on his desk. Of course, Joshua and Lisa started making fun of him, and since he couldn't really move or talk very well, he started crying. By the time Nadia arrived with the emergency tissue tears had run down his cheeks and were now dribbling down the mucus ribbons. It was quite a funny sight. Don't worry: he bounced back quickly and by the end of the day he had recovered enough to steal Joshua chocolate, which, in turn, made Joshua cry.

2007-04-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

I bought a green plant today for 5,500 Won. I can tell we're going to be good friends, until it dies in three weeks. I'm going to Fukuoka, Japan for two days next week. This has nothing to do with obtaining a working visa, because that would imply that I don't have one presently, which would be illegal. I've been told it's balmy. Is balminess photographable? No, it's just an abstract concept, and our camera doesn't have a setting for those.

Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11th. This is a sad thing. Perhaps no sadder than any other distant and unknown death, but sad nonetheless. He inhabits a rare writing niche: his novels are both substantial and accessible. Finding that balance is something extremely difficult to do and one of the biggest obstacles for any artist. It's not particularly hard to make something obtuse which stakes its value on its very obscurity. Nor it is overly difficult to create something that panders to the "lowest common denominator." And there isn't anything wrong with either of those things, but credit should be given when the elusive middle ground is found. There are no such things as books that everyone should read, but if there were, Slaughterhouse 5 would be one of them.

On Easter Sunday I went to Yeuido island, an island in the Han river, which runs through Seoul. The aim of my trip was Yoido Full Gospel Church, which by some measurements has the largest membership of any church in the world. Yeouido island is only about 8 square kilometres--not so big, I thought. The church has services pretty much all day, so I decided to just walk around the island until I found it. I like doing things that way, when I have time. It was a nice little (2 hour) walk. I walked clockwise around the outside of the island, because I had a (correct, it turned out) idea that the church would be on the outside. (The middle is a lot of businesslike high rises and TV studios.) Little did I know, if I had walked counterclockwise I would have found the church in about 5 minutes. But, owing to my fear of spontaneous time travel, I don't trust counterclockwise. Anyway, I finally spotted it in the distance at about 2:55, just in time for the 3 o'clock service.

It wasn't as weird as I thought it would be. It didn't seem that big, maybe because it was only half full. There were two bands and a 50-person choir. There was also a group of about ten people singing up on stage. They seemed like aspiring K-pop stars--but who isn't, really? What I really liked, though, was the dance team. It was nine young women (don't get the wrong idea; they were conservatively dressed). They were kind of like a mix between Dance Dance Revolution, the "hand dancing" team from Napoleon Dynamite, cheer leading, and traditional Asian dancing of some kind. I can't really explain it better than that, but they really kicked ass. They had elaborate, lengthy, high-energy routines for each song, and they never lost their synchronization. (Korean people can synchronize dance your face off.) One young woman, in particular, impressed me. She was more of a blur, since she was so far away (I was in the balcony), but somehow she exuded an unmistakable positivity. I can't really explain it, but her dancing communicated a profound contentment and thankfulness for life. I really appreciated that.

So, it was a worthwhile experience despite the fact that no one talked to me, I couldn't understand the sermon and the songs were unfamiliar. Actually, one song was sung to the tune of "Because He Lives." So I just substituted the English chorus, which, surprisingly, was stored in my memory. So, I was singing the same song as the other thousand people, but with my own words. Although, as solipsists would have it, that's all anyone ever does. So it goes.

7 pictures

Kindergarten, my dear Watson

2007-04-07T03:15:00.001-07:00

Here it is: photographic proof that I'm in Asia. Heed and defer to my explanatory syllogism!

1. The child with me in the photo is Asian.
2. Asian children are found only in Asia.
3. Therefore, I am in Asia.

It occurred to me (after I was told so) that I haven't talked much about the details of my job. So, I will. I work at the Boramae branch of Kid's College, which is a franchise chain of English-immersion kindergarten schools. There are about 24 franchises, I think. Most are in Seoul. We also teach extra-curricular English classes for elementary-age students. The Boramae branch just opened on March 1st (which is when the school year begins in Korea). A British couple, who comprised half of the 4-teacher staff (not including the large non-teaching staff), abruptly left for places unknown. Also, a guy from California flaked out and left (this happened after I arrived), so the school was pretty desperate to secure a reliable replacement. This is why I was able to sign a 4-month contract instead of the standard 1-year contract. This is also why the span between the time I first heard about the job and my arrival in Korea was about 2 days.

The school is magnetized to a cluster of high rises (not literally, but it was built nearby to tap the market contained in said buildings). These are very large and expensive buildings. From what I gather, the rent is comparable to downtown Vancouver. Hence, the students at our school are relatively well off. There are about 50 students, but no more than 20 or so are ever there at once.

I teach Monday to Friday. From 9:30 (nice, I know) to 2:20 I teach 5 forty-minute classes to the 8 kindergarten-age kids in my class. From 2:30-6:20 we teach classes to elementary-age children (roughly grades 1-4) who have finished their days at their regular Korean schools. These classes are staggered, though, so I don't teach the full 4 hours. It varies by day, but the average is about 2 hours. So, theoretically I only teach about 35 hours a week, but I'm usually at school for 45 hours per week with all the preparatory work. I like it. The pay is good. I feel like a real teacher because I have the same 8 kids for most of the time. This is different than in China, where I was more like a guest English coach in a Chinese teacher's class.

I teach 14 subjects to the kinder kids, for example: Language Arts, Arts & Crafts, Theme Activity, Sharing Time, Character Education, Gym, Library, etc. The class maximum is 12 kids, but since the school is still new, my class of 8 is actually the largest class. I'm kind of proud of this, for some reason. It's also the neatest class, since I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive about having it organized. Also, our wall art kicks the most ass.

Kids get very excited, especially when a happyface token is at stake. I have devised a happyface chart that ... charts the number of happyfaces each student receives (for good behaviour or good work). At the end of the week the top 3 students get candy. This bribery is remarkably motivating. Mind you, kids also get really excited about things like pink scissors: "Teacher, me pink scissors!" (There are 2 pink pairs and 6 blue pairs). Also, they become angelically quiet and they stare at me with hypnotizing sincerity when the daily helper badges are being assigned. (Please let him pick meeeeeeeeeeee, If I concentrate hard enough I can will him to put the snack helper badge by my name.) There is a paper helper, a line leader and a snack helper. I've been thinking of making a team leader badge. It would have to be more ornate than the others, which would make it more coveted, but, of course, the person who won it for the day wouldn't be required to do anything; it would be an honorary title. I could also have assistant to the regional manager. Yes, I can see it now.

So, yeah, the above is a clump of details about what I've been doing here. Consider yourself informed.

2007-04-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

A picture with people in it! If I was in this it would be proof that I really am in Seoul and that this isn't all just an elaborate ruse (which the only good kind of ruse, except for possibly the Molasses-Emu ruse). Anyway, left to right (the chimpanzees eventually wrote War and Peace, backwards, with Harry Potter as the protagonist) the people are: Charlotte, Julie and Matt. Charlotte is sort of an office worker person at the school. Julie is basically the assistant manager. She refers to herself in the third person sometimes, which is funny. Matt is Seattle Chuck.

We went to this barbecue-type place last night, since we got paid. It's my favourite food. Basically it's a big tilted raclette. You put raw beef, garlic, onions, and kimchi (etc.) on it and they sizzle and gain powers of deliciousness. Once they are ready, you wrap it all up in a big piece of lettuce with some thinly-sliced beet-type vegetables, spicy sauce, oil, and a wasabi-like powder--yum! Double yum! It's a bit messy because lettuce isn't really good at holding things, but they give you a neat little rolled-up wet napkin, so the messiness is minimized. It's not really that filling. At this place it was about $8.75, but you can get it for half as much elsewhere.

Einstein Baby is milk. (There's a sentence I never expected to write.) Normally I just get non-Einstein milk, but I was feeling a little thick-headed, so I splurged the extra 30 cents. I did almost come up with a unified field theory of physics, but still, 30 cents? (Homer: "2 dollars? And it onnnly transports matter?") It tasted a little funny.

In other food related news: last weekend we wandered around downtown for about 3 hours trying to find Itaewon, the foreigner district. Actually, we knew where it was but we decided to take a circuitous route so we could get a better feel for the city (I think it worked, a bit). Itaewon was pretty lame, but I did eat a kebab from a Turkish place--sooo good! Just thinking about it makes me want to take a 30 minute subway ride over there just to eat another one. However, in 45 minutes I'm meeting Matt, Erik and Clara (the boss) and we're going to Costco to get the stuff we can't get anywhere else, apparently. I don't actually need anything, since I hardly ever (think that) I need anything, but I might get some bagles (ever though they won't be "real" bagels) or some muffins. After that I'm going with Matt to some documentary film festival. Kind of like the one in Prince George, except it exists.

Speaking of movies, I went to 300 last night. I don't know how to buy tickets in Korean, so I just wrote "300, 22:20 (the time of the movie)" on a piece of paper. I really don't mind appearing to be dumb. I kind of enjoy it actually, which is good because 300 made me dumber. I don't regret seeing it; it was fairly entertaining, but I wouldn't recommend it. All of the greenscreen scenes were kind of neat, but they had a claustrophobic feel; it couldn't really translate the expansive cinematography that you would expect in a film about Spartans. I think the criticisms of how it portrayed Middle Eastern people were a bit of a tempest in a teacup because it's kind of impossible to make a movie about that particular historical event without including the Persians, and it's kind of hard to have bad guys in a movie without portraying them as bad guys. Actually, I don't completely agree with my argument here, oh well. The excessive testosterone I took for granted; it's the movie's raison d'etre, and it's what made it somewhat enjoyable. I was, however, a little bit bothered by the way many of the most despicable villains were portrayed as deformed and disabled. I can imagine better movies being made about the Spartans, who are pretty fascinating, but this one was OK. One thing I didn't get was why King Leonidas (the central protagonist) spoke with a Scottish accent. I think he was channeling Braveheart. Best quotation (said by a pathetic, enthusiastic hunchback guy): "I will kill many Persians."

I finished Life of Pi on Thursday. That was pretty quick for me. I liked it. It was deserving of the Booker prize. I recommend it. I am a bit biased because I love anything that is set at sea, or on deserted islands. I was further biased by the thesis of the novel, which is about as close as anything could come to a synopsis of my religious beliefs, such as they are. I liked it more for it's subject matter than for Yan Martel's writing style or for his formal techniques. I think I was also biased against him because he is a philosopher turned writer. This is kind of like how I am slightly biased against Douglas Coupland because he's a visual artist turned writer. These are nonsensical, vestigial biases though. I don't really let them have much clout, and I usually get past them reasonably quickly. I do this because they directly contradict my official position on what writers (and artists in general) are, which is that they aren't anything; everyone is a writer (or artist), and any hierarchical organization of artists serves only elitism.

I had a few more anecdotes--none having to do with necking or doting, mind you--but I'll just skip them because I have to leave and this post is long enough as it is. Someday (read: never) I will learn how to make seperate, themetically-coherent posts, but until then I will just sporadically write unecessarily long and rambling posts, and people will quit reading halfway through. It's not an exact science, probably because it's neither exact, nor a science.

Photos to follow

2007-03-24T20:40:00.000-07:00

I've been to the future, and it's a shopping mall. Tom Friedman says the world has become flat. What he doesn't mention is that the flatness of the new world is all the better for the construction of sprawling mega malls such as the COEX (Corea Exchange) Mall that I am in at this moment. It's a spotless shining labrinth of shops, restaurants, theatres, fitness centers and even an aquarium, all kept sparkling by a fleet of janitors on "ride-em brooms" (think of an old person's motorized chair with a big mop on the front). I don't mind it here, though; it is what it is.

I found out this morning that Jean Baudrillard died on March 6th. Appropriately, I was in this mall at the time. (This is appropriate because he theorized mostly about ... uh, the vacancy of images [simulacra] and the ways that they propel capitalism, etc.) He would have called the simulated internationality of the food courts hyperreality, the synthetic reproduction of something that no longer exists or never existed at all, the image of authenticity that has replaced the authentic thing, which was just a concept created to sell the reproduction anyway. It occurs to me that the world has, sadly, become just a little less convoluted with his passing. So, I drank a Starbucks "Rwandan" coffee ironically as a tribute to his memory, or, better, the image I have of what he represented.

I patronized Bandi & Luni's bookstore this morning. I bought Life of Pi. It was on sale for about $15 CDN. Bandi & Luni's, in addition to being rubbery and a little insane, is about twice the size of a Chapters store, and it had a very impressive collection of English books. More titles than, say, Books & Company in Prince George. (What is it with bookstores having &s in their titles? Barnes & Nobles has one too.) To take a seat in the capitalism camp (they're comfier here) for a moment, or just to contradict the apparent leanings of the above paragraph (everyone should contradict themselves at least once a day, my doctor says), I will say that I love giant boxstores. I don't lose sleep when mom and pop stores with half the selection and higher prices go out of business. I cheered for Tom Hanks's store in Sleepless in Seattle. And, yes, I am aware that I related my life to art, but that's an inevitable thing, unless you are the monk (regretably, I cannot specify his specific sect) I saw strolling down the LCD-adorned promenade some hours ago. I wonder what he was thinking? Probably: we're all fools, still.

Here are some pictures.

2007-03-21T05:08:00.000-07:00

Tonight I accidentally ordered a whole chicken. It was 8 dollars or so, so I thought it would be a meal with some rice or something. But no, it was just a whole fried chicken. This is why I usually eat with Matt who speaks and reads Korean. It was good though; it came with a mustard-wasabi sauce for dipping. Usually I eat more healthily. At school they serve lunch and it always rice, soup, random vegetable, kimchi, random fruit, and random meat. I like it. Another really good thing is these stuffed peppers I buy from this stand by my aparment. They are basically big peppers fried in batter, and they are stuffed with something, but I'm not sure what. It seems to be some mix of vegetables and sausage, or possibly intestines.

Last Saturday I saw an Apache helicopter flying overhead. And it appeared to be fully-armed too. Like, with Hellfire missiles and Hydra rockets (the names of these I know because of a SNES game I had in grade 8 called "Desert Strike"). Weird, also, yipes! A not so subtle reminder that North Korea is only 50km away. Although, you wouldn't know this from the map in my classroom, which depicts the Korean peninsula as a single country. Oh yeah, and I've heard you can take tours with the U.S. Army through the DMZ to a small village in North Korea. But it costs 50 bucks (that's like 6 chickens).

I climbed a big hill (or a really small mountain) the other day. It was the first time I was off the pavement since I got here, and it was nice simply for that fact. There is not a lot of greenspace here. And by "not a lot," I mean none. There was a flag at the top, and lots of people milling about. The same other day (Sunday), I was wandering aimlessly (a favourite activity of mine) around noon and I happened upon a small church that was letting out. So I stood there and watched the people, just because ... well, I've never seen a Korean church before. Nothing was really different. People walked out and nodded their heads to the pastor (probably) guy. Then a guy came up to me and said: "what is your nationality brother." I think he meant brother in the religious sense, since he was about 60 and, uh, Korean. Then he asked me if I was Roman Catholic, which I wasn't (and I haven't converted in the 3 days since).

"Prostestant?"

"Yes"

(I guess that's as accurate as anything. I knew it would be fruitless for me to try to explain more specifically. I mean, I can even explain it in English to a native speaker, let alone to myself, so ...)

That was the end of the conversation. He walked off to do Korean Roman Catholic things (Hail Mary Kims?). I didn't take it as a slight. The conversation resolved itself by its own volition, as Jerry Seinfeld would say. It's kind of funny that I take protestantism to be a catchall; whereas, I guess, obviously, it's a major differentiating thing to Catholics.

Anyway, this got me ruminating about the inescapable problem/necessity of belonging to groups. Specifically, the strange ways in which the groups a person belongs to compete for centrality, in terms of defining that person's identity. Like, obviously I don't belong to the large nation-group of Koreans. But, say, I was Roman Catholic, would my Catholicism be more central than my national identity? Would I then be part of a religious group that would be more central than my national-group? I.e., could I be in a Catholic group with Catholic Koreans that excluded non-Catholic Koreans. The answer is yes, of course, although it isn't likely. (The answer is always yes.) The point, however, is that I wonder if identity is like a currency. You only have so many chips to play with, and you're taxed every time you make an exchange. (I don't know why all this money language is seeping in here. It must be my proximity to Marxist countries (well, insofar as communist countries are Marxist, which I think is only loosely or vestigially--Shalandrew can correct me). Anyway, my main point is: blah, blah, blah it's 9:55 and my brain is no longer working properly which is causing me to talk about teenagerish issues such as identity. Also, my foot is asleep. The end.

Or is it? Not if you click on this link to see random hastily-taken pictures of mundane objects!

2007-03-16T02:51:00.001-07:00

Hi, my workweek just ended. Well, not really, because we have training tomorrow at some headquarters place. Anyway, this is the first minute I've had free to post in the last few days. Actually, I wrote a post (below) on paper at my apartment, but I haven't had a chance to type it in here. Anyway, I'm heading out soon with my coworkers and some random people they know. Hopefully I can get a calling card ... and chicken. Also, we might go see 300. I love movies about math.

_________

I am often overanxious at the beginnings of things. That's when there are the most variables floating around and when there are more imaginable dooms. I usually get over it pretty quickly though, and then I mock my younger (by one week) self for his weenieness. So it has been with this latest experience.

The job will actually be pretty easy, I think, once I get the hang of it. I only have 8 kids in my class, and 7 of them are not the antiChrist. Actually, 7 are really good and cute and nice and smart. The job is theoretically only 35 hours a week (althought it was 45ish this week), so, that's pretty good for CDN 2690 per month plus accomodation. By the way, one of the other teachers flaked out, so if anyone wants to come and join me, you're welcome. All you need is a BA and a love of confusion.

Funny story: On Wednesday I had cooking class, and the project involved cutting up various vegetables and arranging them in flower/plant patterns. Unbeknownst to me, one of the vegetables was a fairly hot green pepper. Of course, the kids promptly rubbed this pepper all over their faces and in their eyes, which turned their skin bright pink. Then, after a confused delay while they tried to figure out the source of their discomfort, they cried. And then they cried some more. And that was the end of cooking class. Actually, some of the kids were fine, but they just had to join in because, hey, free crying! It was very cute.

My two remaining coworkers are decidedly cool. (A third is supposed to arrive next week, so strike the above offer.) One guy reminds me a bit of Jason, which is all you need to know about him. Also, he's from Victoria. The other guy, Matt from Seattle, reminds me a lot of Chuck (hi Chuck). He's Seattle Chuck, or Yankee Chuck, or something. He reminds me of Chuck because he speaks slowly and deliberately in a deep voice, he's really tall, and he makes a lot of obscure pop culture references.

Anyway, I have to run (away! run away!) now ... I might polish this post up a bit tomorrow--hey wait a minute, that's not what people do with blogs. Make that: I will foist my stream of consciousness on you! Spellchecker be damned!

2007-03-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

the view from the roof of my apartmentmy flat

toilet/shower

Hello everyone,

Apparently I now live in the world's 2nd largest metropolitan area: Seoul. This is a bit of a strange change considering that in January I was working in Chetwynd, which, respectfully, is the armpit of the world.

I will be teaching an English immersion class for 6-year-olds at a private school these next four months or so. I would have liked to stay in PG, but I couldn't find a suitable job and my listlessness reached the exploding point. Sometimes when overwhelmed by inertia (read: laziness) you just have to make a decision to get out of the rut, even if the decision isn't ideal. Objectively, it was probably a good idea for me to come here, since it will put a good dent in my schooling costs next year. Subjectively, I'd be a lot happier working at a gas station in PG, because then I'd be near Roxanne and other family members. I miss them already.

I was going to write a paragraph here about how hectic my departure was, but Roxanne covered that on her blog. I'll just say that I got an average of 3 hours of sleep over my last 3 nights. I've had two 10-hour sleeps since I got here, so I should be normalish now.

The Korean Air flight was pretty legit. They had about 50 movies and 100 albums you could choose from, plus Tetris and chess, which (theoretically) you could play with other passengers. I watched Flags of our Fathers (terrific!) Casino Royale, Marie Antoinette, and The Prestige. I also listened to Stadium Arcadium, which is surprisingly soothing on a hot plane when you have a headache.

I was quite anxious about using "e-tickets." No, that's not the right confirmation number, please go home; your trip is ruined. I was also leary about entering Korea without a visa, but it turned out not to be a problem. I will go to Japan to get my working visa in a few weeks.

After China, nothing seems overly weird here. One unusual thing, however, is that at night you can see a lot of orangish-red neon crosses. Each, apparently, is afixed to a church. Presumably, the neon bibles are inside.

My apatment is small, but clean, cozy, and efficient. The floors are heated, which apparently is pretty standard here. And they'll probably be heated for a while, since I can't find the thermostat.

Anyway, I'll probably be pretty busy getting settled in teaching next week, but I'll get an update up at some date. Absence makes the heart grow fonder; what doesn't kill you makes you stronger (etc.). Still, I miss you all alot--especially Roxanne!!!

2007-03-07T05:20:00.000-08:00

I see your hectic and raise you one bat shit insane. Got a job in Korea some 35 hours ago. Leaving in 3 hours. Eyes hurt. Moors to follow.

tall girls

2007-02-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

It's hard to tell a woman from a tall girl, but with men and boys it's easy. Men are the ones dragging the grizzly carcasses behind their tanks. A moose, buffalo, or kodiak (the animal, not the boat–inflation is a faux pa) will also suffice. The species isn't important; it's a simple question of weight ratios. A seventy-pound boy cannot pull an eight-hundred-pound bear behind his bike–a duck maybe, but nothing suitably ferocious. And you'll never see a boy driving a tank; tank driving requires a special license.

That unsoldierly grunt in California who drove a stolen tank over all those parked cars had a license. That's what made it ok. Just like it was ok when the LAPD put a hollow point through the open hatch, into his head, after he high-centered on a highway median. The prerogative is in the fine print.

You don't need a special tank driver license to be a man, though; it's more of a formality. I tried to buy one once, but I didn’t know where they were sold. I went to Home Depot, but they wouldn't let me through the door. There is a callous quota, and I have piano player fingers. Good for playing the piano, but I was kicked out of band. Nevertheless, musicians are surprisingly often men, but only insofar as their affected moodiness helps them get laid.

Men are also recognizable by their masks made from the skulls of wolves, Sabertooth tigers, and other appropriately toothy predators. Stuffed, teeth bared, beady eyes glazed thick, posed threateningly–not icky at all. A necklace of human scalps is also a pretty good sign–too good of a sign, actually, but still better than a boy’s mask, which is usually given away by its self-conscious construction from plastic, felt, and excessive sequins.

Do not confuse sports mascots with men. They seem to be giant carcasses with oversized heads, paraded around on the backs of their captors. But if you look closer it's just foam; the grin is permanent and not that fierce at all; the eyes peeking out from the mouth could belong to anyone: a woman, a tall boy, even a well-trained ape. Never trust mascots. It's not a trophy unless the owner is there to tell you so, just so. A Just So Story for Adults, hardly any man's burden.

2007-02-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

This morning I went on a hunger strike against hunger strikes. It lasted 15 seconds. This means it was either a spectacular victory or an abysmal failure (always a fine line). The product with which I conquered hunger strikes (or which ruined my hunger strike) was “I can’t believe it’s not I can’t believe it’s not butter!”, which is also known as butter. Said butter was slathered on English muffins, which are the second staple in my breakfast diet, behind staples. This should not be confused with my breakfast diet behind STAPLES, which is mostly garbage, since the only thing behind STAPLES in Prince George is a grimy parking lot.

And, thus, Infallible Plankton regained his title as the least informative poster in the blogosphere, the narrator mumbled drowsily.

2007-02-03T00:30:00.000-08:00

I have a feeling that this is going to be a good year. Given that 2007 is the year of the James Bond, how could it not be? My job turned out to be only about 1-month long, but that’s fine. It was a good start to the year as it improved my confidence, health and financial status. Also, I have made a brainstorm-format list of things to do next, and it has a whale doodle on it. Therefore I will succeed.

It would be nice to stay in Prince George with Roxanne for the next few months, but I might also go back to Asia (if it’s still there) and teach ESL again. Plans are tenuous to non-existent at present.

It was Roxamazon’s birthday on Tuesday, and now she is 23. Unfortunately, I was still in Chetwynd so I missed it. Moop. I always forget that she is 3.5 years younger than me because it feels like we are the same age. Speaking of forgetfulness, Roxanne doesn’t have any. Now, I have a pretty good memory. For example, you owe me $50 dollars—please send it in the mail. But Roxanne’s is much better; it’s like … photogenic. Case in point: she bought me a Wassily Kandinsky calendar from the calendar store down in the calendar district because they were having calendar sale. I said: “wow, he’s one of my 3 favourite modern artists.” Then she said: “yeah, the other 2 are Picasso and Malevich.” Then I was like: “how did you know that?” Apparently I had told her this during the second week we were dating, which was about 1.5 years ago. Anyway, this is just a random note about her abundant specialness.

To right you will see a pride of lions feeding, please stay in the vehicle—except you, I don’t mind if you get out, just sign this insurance waiver. To the right of the lions you will see that there are 2 new links on the untitled link field. Both are for friends of mine from school who have recently started blogging: Andrew Kurjata (pronounced … well, I think it’s something like a combination of “cur” and “regatta”) and Petra Gentleman, who is not a gentleman. Confusing last names notwithstanding, you should check out their blogs.

2007-01-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

This is where I live now. Note the distinct lack of computers and repent for your criticism. Actually, I don’t live in the forest; I just spend my days there. My nights sleep in Tumbler Ridge, which has surprisingly little to do with plastic beverage containers. The reason I am there is the Mountain Pine Beetle, which I am single-handedly trying to eliminate through a series of staring contests. Yes, I am a beetle prober. To understand what this job entails, picture the scene from Starship Troopers where Johnny jumps on the giant bug’s back, shoots a hole in it, and then throws a grenade into it causing a giant explosion of goo; then add snow.

To describe this without making things up, I am a beetle prober, which means I walk around the forest in snowshoes for 8 hours a day looking for “treatment trees.” Last Thursday it was -32, which is cold. Happily, this experience is helping to prepare me for the coming nuclear winter, which I will be working on at my next job, probably. Although this job is the most completely obvious step I could possibly take after an English degree, I have not been able to employ my English skills effectively because most of the beetles speak Dutch. So, I have been forced to resort to drawing pictures of pancakes and windmills in the snow, and then scratching them out threateningly.

The best part of this job is the helicopter rides, which are really neat because we are just East of the Rockies, so they can be seen in all their scenic rockiness. The worst part about this job is that I have to live far away from Roxanne, so I have no one to annoy. Luckily, I have the ability to store up all my annoyingness and then let it all out in one word. That word is hotmail.

Because of the sporadicalness of this job, it will probably only last for 4 or 5 more weeks, after which point I plan either to get some other random employment, or to travel somewhere. That’s that and Jack’s back. In this case, Jack is me and “back” means not back.

2006-12-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

So I have now unofficially graduated. More importantly, yesterday I played Wii for the 1^st time. Wii is da biiomb! True. Double true. I played tennis, baseball, and golf, and I didn’t even break 1 TV screen. Golf is pretty fun because 4 people can play. I shot even par for the 3-hole course. Shenelle got a birdie, and Roxanne got a +5 on one hole. However, Rock did strike me out about 4 times in a row in baseball. That game ended after I spat my chewing tobacco at the Wii sensor (apparently that isn’t part of the game). Tennis was pretty fun too; Nat let me use the special Wii spandex catsuit (which appeared to be just Saran Wrap with the letters Wii marked on with a felt pen.) because I was a newb. Anyway, people laughed a lot at my incredible tennis skill. Then I ate peanuts covered in chocolate.

I also did outside exercise yesterday in the form of toboggan sledding w/ Shalina, Andrew, Cedar & some people I didn’t know. The only important truth facts about this story are: 1) I went over a 4-foot jump on my stomach and landed on my face. 2) I drank orange juice afterwards.

Tuesday we are leaving for Vernon to visit Jay & Jenn (Rock’s brother and sister-in-law). That will be fun. Then on the 23^rd or 24^th we’ll head up to 100 Mile until about the 29^th. Chyeah! I foresee mirth. Hopefully we will hang out with Clan Pettman at some point because they have mirth written all over their faces and scrapbooks. Unhopetunately we will not see the Danya, for the Danya shall not travel south this shopping season. (P.S., did you know that Ft. St. John is in a whole ‘nother time zone? As if. How am I supposed to know that? Am I a math whiz?) Leah and Kelly will be there too, at some point. Hooray for genetic material.

OK, that’s about it. If you are bored, here is a great (longish) essay/article about wealth distribution and stuff (kind of a Christmassy thing). Peter Singer, who is a pretty well known contemporary philosopher, wrote it.

2006-12-11T14:02:00.001-08:00

I’ve been holding a lot of babies lately. Actually, it’s only one baby, but she’s been getting a lot of spit-up-on-Dave’s-shoulder time. Holly and Sukham are my landlord-roommates and they made this 1-month-old baby 10 months ago. I mean, 10-months ago it was a zero-year-old baby, but now it is 1-month-old baby. Her name is Lily Lee-Gwah Sapun (or L.L. Sapun, as I call her in my head). If all the cute buttons in the world had a convention, and at the end of that convention they elected a cute button champion of the year, that cute button would by L.L., who is actually human and not a button at all, except for her buttons.

I am getting pretty good at the head-on-shoulder holding technique, except that L.L.’s body tends to curl up into a potato-sack-like ball when I use it, and I think babies are supposed to be straight when you hold them, like a 2x4, right? Anyway, she cries less that way than when I use the football technique, which is probably more accurately just called the cradle-in-arm technique, but I thought I’d just throw the word football in there so that no one will figure out I’m a girly man. Babies ... babies ... cute as a button, what a girly man! Wait, what’s this? 2x4, football, OH YEAH! This infallible plankman guy is no girly man, he’s like …uhhh ... a beerguy!

I also helped change a diaper, and I hope someday to be able to change one all by myself. Did you know that baby pooh is yellow? Sometimes it’s green too. Man, babies have it good: they sleep all day, puke on anyone they want, and they have multicoloured pooh. Nice.

In non-pooh news, I have had good exam luck this term. For my 2nd exam, the teacher forgot part of the exam, which made it easier. For my 3rd, the teacher let us write on whatever we wanted. This morning, 1 of the 3 essay-question options that the professor gave was, coincidentally, something I knew a lot about from another class. I attribute all of this to my lucky exam shirt, which is starting to smell a little funny. Oh well, only one more to go and then I can wash it.

2006-12-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

In 1 hour and 19 minutes I will attend the last class of my inanely long undergraduate career. “Career” is the wrong word. Replace “career” with: “decapitated chicken pursuit expedition.” No wait, I wasn’t the pursuing chicken farmer; I was the headless chicken—and what a headless chicken I was.

A while ago my mom’s friend (Monica) asked if I would give her daughter a tour of the school when she came up on one of those introduce-high-school-students-to-university things. She did not, however, ask me to give her daughter any advice about university. I think this was because “take 6 years, change your major twice, dropout once to flip burgers, and then dropout again and move to a communist country” is bad advice.

Despite the circuitousness and nonsensicality of my trek, here I am at the … line … that … is near the finish. I suppose the important thing is not how long it takes one to learn a lesson, but rather how well that lesson is learnt. Still, 6 years? Mother F!

Oh well, at least it’s finally over—oh wait, it’s not. I still have 12-16 months in a BEd or teacher-certification program. I look forward to that more, though, because it will be more directly related to being a teacher. In English, nothing is directly related to anything. We mostly just sit around trying to think of new words that we could add “meta,” “post,” or “ism” to. To sum up everything I have learned in university: the post-cranial chicken is the meta-fowl of barnyardism. Really, it is.

2006-11-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

What does it mean when your tummy hurts? (And what does it mean when a 26-year-old refers to his stomach as tummy?) No one will ever know. Luckily, granola bars are the solution to everything—and I have one!

What was I going to talk about again? (Don’t worry. This does not mean that granola bars will not be the main focus of this post.) Oh yeah, filing out forms and bureaucratic stuff. I don’t like that stuff. I am terrible at it. But that’s not why I don’t like it. (I like plenty of stuff I’m terrible at, for example, base jumping.) I don’t actually know why I don’t like it, but I don’t. I pity the foo-orm-completing person who has to complete forms all day long. Anyway, this is all probably part of the reason I have screwed-up my passport application 3 times already. Actually, only one of those things had to do with what I’m talking about, but …

Sorry, that paragraph started to bore me, so I dosed off. Luckily I have reawakened in a library that is in an underground cave with Vikings and disco balls! Wait a minute, those aren’t Vikings. Where was I? Oh yeah. Yesterday I was planning on spending all night (again) finishing some essay on Thomas More and Daniel DeFoe and plagues—“I’m not dead. Yes you are, shut up!”—until someone at the library told me that it isn’t due for another 5 days. Hooray for sleep! I thought to myself, as I rolled under the bus. But then I thought: why did I get that date wrong? Usually the only kinds of dates I get wrong involve Roxanne—“Oh, you meant PM. That explains why it was so dark.” (British accent: I say, that was a most disappointing pun. To the cricket field, Chauncey!)

I think the reason that I got it wrong is that I have been anxious about the future, specifically, about being accepted into a Bachelor of Education (or equivalent) program. This is normal, I think, since it’s a major life … lifey thing. I mean, I think I’ll be a good teacher because I really want to be one, and my skill-set, such as it is, is suited to teaching. Also, people whose opinions I respect a lot (like Dr. Gardner and Juanita) have said I will be a good teacher. Yet the anxiety persists. I guess this is inevitable. It must be, I tried to evit it and I couldn’t. I’m worried that I’ll somehow mess up the application process, even thought here isn’t really much one can do to mess it up. All you have to do is write your name on a piece of paper, put that inside a crate of granola bars, then ship that to SFU, right? What could possibly go wrong? Ostriches, that’s what!

They’re out to get me. I had a dream, and it wasn’t the Martin Luther King kind. It was the 30-foot-giant-robotic-ostrich-trying-to-pooh-on-your-head-but-you-deflect-the-pooh-with-some-special-glove kind. That really happened, in my dream.

You’re going to edit that out, right? You can’t tell people about ostrich pooh dreams; that's like the #1 rule on the blogosphere. Seriously Dave, if ever there was a time for self-censorship …. Hey! Stop waving that cursor around the publish button … wait, what if the Queen reads your blog? You can’t say ostrich pooh to the queen!

2006-11-02T19:37:00.001-08:00

Remember Ally McBeal? You know, the documentary series about the hotdog-eating champion who became a lawyer? OK, well, the lead character (I think her name started with a 4) was frequently in therapy. One of her shrink's theories was that every person has a theme song. To my admittedly fuzzy understanding, this song is not necessarily the song that really represents that person, but rather the song that represents how that person sees himself or herself. If you were to make an autobiographical film about your life (with ample use of creative license), this song would be the soundtrack. For me, this song is "Princes of the Universe," by Queen. I think this will explain a lot of my apparent mental retardation, and also why I consistently rock so hard. By the way, if for some reason you don't know, this was the themesong to Highlander: The Series, which starred a character named McLeod, which is also Roxanne's last name. Coindence? No, awesomincidence.

2006-10-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

I try to imagine that I am a caveman as much as possible. I do this because it makes the most boring situations fascinating and the simplest objects ingenious and revolutionary. Consider a flashlight. A flashlight is a stupid piece of plastic that you bought at Surplus Herbie’s so that you won’t trip over a log when you’re walking out to your secret grow-op greenhouse at 2 AM. Everyone has a flashlight, right? Wrong! Cavemen don’t have flashlights. If you were a caveman you’d have to spend 15 minutes lighting a torch just so you could go crap in the forest at night. Inevitably the torch would burn your hand, and you’d drop it, then BAM! A saber tooth tiger would bite your leg off. “Damn it! That was my good leg!” you’d yell as you hobble back to your cave as fast as you can.

Now imagine that you’re a caveman and a flashlight is transported back in time and you get a hold of it. You could prance around the forest all night long, and when a pack of giant prehistoric hyenas tries to rend you limb from limb (there’s a phrase I don’t use enough), you could whip it out and shine it in their eyes and they’d be all like: “Gahhh! My hyena eyes! What the hell is this?!” Then they’d whimper their way back to their hyena nests. Plus everyone would think it was a magical, and they’d start a cult and you’d become president of the cavemen, and all the cavemen women would want to have your cavebabies.

This works for just about anything that has ever been invented: shoes, bicycles, Tupperware, hot chocolate, pillows, F-15s, chairs, dogs, and so on. So whenever you get anything new, don’t think: “These Velcro shoes from Value Village are way less cool than Air Jordans made out of gold.” Instead think: “If I was the only caveman with shoes, everyone would be in awe of me and call me ‘the great one with those feet things that no one else has.’” Or if a stray dog starts following you around and living in your house, don’t think: “This dog smells like garbage. I wish I had a purebred Pekinese that could wash dishes and fly.” Instead think: “If I was the first caveman to have a domesticated dog, everyone would be like: ‘Great Shaman, your animal powers are so great. As a tribute to your maximum awesomeness, please accept this clump of dirt and this shirt made out of sloth hair,’” or something.

2006-10-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

If you have talked to me in the past week, you probably know that giant camel bones were found in Syria. This makes me wonder(Channeling Dane Cook): why can’t I be a giant camel??! Just imagine being, like, 50-feet tall and wandering around the desert all the time without getting dehydrated—wicked! Then you could spit on the sand, or like, if you were at an oasis, you could spit on some rocks, or plants, or giant prehistoric Liam Gallagher. And he’d be like: “Sod off! I’m not sharing my giant prehistoric water with you. I hope you dehydrate.” Then you could trot off into the desert dramatically, without having drunk any water, because giant camels only have to drink water, like, once a year. Then Liam would say: “That giant camel is a champagne supernova. Hey Noel, why are you still a dragonfly?”

Another thing that proves I am mature: yesterday I spent 4 hours playing Super Bomberman2 and Rampart on SNES w/ Nat (Roxanne's brother). Isn't it weird that SNES games cost $60 dollars when we were 12, and now you can download 200 of them for free?

P.S. In 11 days I am going to Vancouver with my dad to see Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Philharmonic Orchestra, and we even have good seats! I bet Ovechkin evolved from a giant prehistoric camel. He's that good.

2006-10-10T11:40:00.000-07:00

If anyone out there has any essays or other formal writing that they want me to edit, then feel free to send it to me (mightydivot@gmail.com). I have been doing this for random friends lately, and it seems to have been a constructive experience for both parties. Actually, I am motivated to do this by self interest. Given that I will become a teacher in the not too distant future, I need practice with this. I can't promise that anything will be made perfect, or near perfect--actually, I am better with the logical structure of essays than with grammar. But an extra set of eyes never hurts, unless they belong to a shark with laser beam eyes. I am not a shark with laser beam eyes. Yet.

Vegetable Power Rankings

2006-10-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

1. Corn -- previous ranking: 2, change: +1

Corn regains its title as the #1 vegetable because of a strong showing on the barbecue circuit and its strong butter-combo ability.

2. Potato -- previous ranking: 1, change: -1

Potato does not have the upside of some of flashier new legumes, but potato is still a reliable top-5 vegetable. Pick Potato for its deep-fry-ability, but remember its popularity will take a slight hit now that the Irish potato famine is over.

3. Caesar Salad -- previous ranking: 7, change: +4

Caesar Salad shot up 4 spots this week after a convincing rout over Humus on the salads/combination circuit. Caesar's diverse skill-set makes it a tempting pick for the #1 salad spot.

4. Walnuts -- previous ranking: 9, change: +5

Walnut's high ranking this week is deceptive. Its value is temporarily inflated because of its popularity during the Thanksgiving season (Canadian Leagues only). Also, it is not a vegetable.

5. Kelp -- previous ranking: 5, change: --

Kelp hangs on to the last top-5 spot this week owing to heavy use by Koreans, seals, and Korean seals.

6. Carrot -- previous ranking: 4, change: -2

Carrot has long been a powerhouse in the fantasy vegetable circuit because it's good for your eyes and very portable. It's drop this week is due to the sinking popularity of rabbit-related food. Look for carrot to rebound near Easter.

7. 12-grain -- previous ranking: 8, change: +1

The strangely-named 12-grain is a rookie this year in the Vegetable Power Rankings. No one is really sure what sort of vegetable it is, but one thing is certain--it makes great bread. At the end of the day, anything that is the main ingredient in a popular bread is going to be a solid fantasy vegetable pick.

8. Tomato -- previous ranking: 6, change: -2

Tomato is a decent fruit-crossover pick, but it is dicey when competing in the pure-vegetable class. On paper it is an effective all-round vegetable, but it is sometimes underrated because of its pronunciation difficulties. Consider Tomato as a sleeper pick.

9. Turnip -- previous ranking: 11, change: +2

Turnip does not have the glamour of high-calorie competitors such as Avocado, and it is generally disliked by people who have recently fallen off of trucks. But it's a tried-and-true all-season vegetable that excels in cellar leagues. Turnip can be a high-value pick in the later rounds.

10. B.L.T. -- previous ranking: none, change: n/a

B.L.T. is a gamble. It is only provisionally a vegetable, and its status is currently under review by the Intercontinental Vegetable Identification Board. Purists point out that it contains Bacon, a food long consider to be meat, but the new school of vegetable theorists counter that it is 66% vegetable (in non-bread scoring) and therefore should be allowed to compete in the combinations category. As of Oct. 5 it is a legal pick in most leagues, and it will contend for rookie of the year because of its high fat numbers. B.L.T. is a high-risk, high-reward pick because of the chance that it will be demoted to the meat/combinations league. Go with BLT only if you are a bold Fantasy Vegetable manager and you have a strong gut feeling.

2006-09-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today I caught 3 orange goldfish. It was kind of like electrocuting fish in a barrel (not recommended), except replace “barrel” with “small pond out back,” and “electrocuting” with “netting.” These fish were three thirteenths of a 13-fish school that lives in the pond in the summer, and an indoor tank in the winter. Today was moving day. When they went from the cold open water to the warm confined water, they were very confused, so they pooped. The moral of the story is: confused fish poop.

People are sometimes surprised when they learn that I like hockey. I can think of at least 5 times when such surprise has been directed at my general corporal person. I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I think it has something to do with those people thinking that I don’t fit the mold of a hockey fan. Of course, I am a hockey fan—and a somewhat obsessive one at that—which goes to show that pigeonholing people is ineffective and, I might add, lazy thinking. Naturally, I am not harmed by not being thought of as a hockey fan, but are hockey fans harmed by not being thought of as like me? Well, not really, because I’m a dick. But if I were a likable person, then they’d probably think that pigeonholing is molten lava on their fairness parade. Not a good thing. The Nermal of the story is: Garfield likes lasagna.

Hockey pools make me think about how motivation and engagement are funny, fickle things. I could barely do basic, generic statistics calculations in school if you beat me with a smart stick and stabbed me with a carrot. But when those same calculations are tied to a random goal (say, finishing in the top 10 of the hockey pool), then I will happily spend 15-20 hours poring over otherwise meaningless numbers—and I’ll enjoy it. It’s like … people excel when they can invest themselves in a thing (in whatever way). Like, you know how they say that orange futures are a better predictor of the weather in Florida than conventional weather prediction? Well, that’s probably an exaggerated story, but the point remains. People who speculate on orange futures have a greater interest in predicting the weather correctly than meteorologists do, because speculators will might lose a lot of money if they are wrong; whereas, when meteorologists are wrong they don't lose any money. So, you can see how this personal investment leads these speculators to excel in an area that they wouldn’t otherwise be skilled in. The Mormon of the story is: spend your time on things that interest you. (Yes, I know, this is a breakthrough and you didn’t already know that.)

2006-09-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

I applied to be an English tutor at the Learning Skills Center up at the university. The person there said they don’t need anyone now but they might later, and I think she meant it. That’s a mixed victory, I guess; at least I tried to do something constructive for once, even if it didn’t pan out. Speaking of pan, I’m starting a new religion based around flute-playing mythological figures and pizza dishes. It’s called panpanpantheism.

I’m taking a film class for fun because I had an elective spot open. 3 of the movies that have stood out for their awesomeness are Crash, Syriana and Memento. I have also been forced to concede that American Beauty is, overall, not a bad movie. Related: I'm looking forward to the new Scorsese. It has Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch in it.

Beds have been getting higher in my life recently. I used to sleep on a futon, but Holly (Holly & Sukham are the owners of the house I live in) decided that a futon would be better for her back, since she’s pregnant (ETA: Oct 28!), so they traded me their bed for it. So I’ve gone from a foot of the ground to about 4 feet off the ground. Also, the McLeods bought a new bed for their guestroom (I tend to be a guest at their house pretty often), and it’s about 6 feet off the ground. If this trend continues I’m going to be that princess in the fairytale who slept on 100 mattresses and there was a pea under the one at the very bottom. I never really got that fairytale. What was the moral? “Don’t be a vegetarian?”

Walking home from school at 10:30 the other night, in the empty Pine Centre shopping mall parking lot, I came across a really big bug. I was cockroach-shaped but at least twice as big. It kind of looked like a scarab, probably, if that’s what scarabs look like. It was dragging itself along in a lopsided way with 2 big claw-like forelimbs. It was going pretty slow, so I think it was hurt. It had round greenie eyes and looked up at me as if to say: “Help, Help, how the F did I get here? I’m supposed to be in Egypt. This is so balls.” So I offered it a ride on my hand, but it just kept trying to crawl underneath it, so I went home.

If you thought this post was boring, you should check out Mattch’s real-life Harajuku adventure. It’s top drawer. Also, you could send me coffee in the mail so that I will be more animated.

2006-09-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

This is Bailey. He is Roxanne's Old English Sheepdog/moose. He is funny & lovable because he is very large and very blind. Watch him take 30 seconds to find a stick when it's right in front of him in a small, small pool.

2006-09-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

School starts Tuesday. To introduce my feelings on this in a four-word foreword: looking forward to it. There isn't much to say after the foreword, except that the reason I am looking forward to it it that, finally, after 31 years, it will be my last undergraduate term (knock on Arborite).

Watched the entire The Office series ("Gareth, you're a knob-end") again, thanks to Ben-Gurion, who lent it to us. Kudos to the surprisingly acceptable American adaptation, which won the Emmy for best comedy, last week. Also watched The Royal Tenenbaums. It was fine, but, as far as Wes Anderson goes, I prefer Rushmore ("What are you wearing?" ... "These are my OR scrubs" ... "Oh are they?"). It's hard to watch movies after becoming accustomed to reading novels. Movies inevitably seem thin on character and plot development, since they have so much less time during which to develop things, compared to novels. Related: time to develop things is a main strength of multiple-season, continuous-story arc TV shows (Lost, season 3 starts soonish!). They end up being much longer than the average novel.

Played pool, "Hungry, Hungry Hippos," & "13 Deadend Drive," in that order, last night, with Shalina, Andrew, & Tonianne The Urban Planner. Even though I lost consistently, it was a moral victory, because I actually left the house (Yes, yes, I am cool).

Hotmail deleted all my messages due to inactivity, which is kind of OK, because it was my 3rd e-mail account, so it didn't have anything important (I tattoo the important messages to the backs of my eyelids). On the other hand, it's completely stupid that they won't spare the measly 25MB of space that the account takes, when gmail gives you 2.7+GB of storage space for free (that's more than 100x as much!). Balls. Undeniably balls. In other boycotting Microsoft news: Firefox 2.0 Beta is quite nice (plug!), imho. It has in-browser spell-checking (plug!), and the tabs (plug!) and drop-down search-engine selection work even (plug!) better (plug! plug! plug!). I still like Bill Gates, though, since he is the world's most philanthropiest philanthropist. I.e., he--well, The Bill & Billinda (Melinda?) Gates Foundation--gives more money to charity than anyone else, barn one.

P.S. This is my 100th post. 3 cheers for no life!

2006-08-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

This survey is better than moats:

1. One book that changed your life: Richard Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope
2. One book you’ve read more than once: Don Delillo's White Noise
3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Raft Building
4. One book that made you giddy: Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
5. One book that wracked you with sobs: Wilson Rawls's Where the Red Fern Grows
6. One book that you wish had been written: My Life as a Hermit on a Remote Arctic Island, by Joseph Stalin.
7. One book you wish had never been written: Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf
8. One book you’re currently reading: Chuck Dickens's Hard Times
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses
10. Now tag four bloggers: Kryce, Charles, Dasmeshpreet, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

2006-08-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

Sundays are suited for wandering. Yesterday, doing just that, I saw what appeared to be a black plastic bag flapping in the wind. This struck me as odd, since it was a calmish day, so I crossed the street to look closer. What I found was a crow with its head and right wing wedged between the pickets of a white fence. Beak open, breathing heavily, it looked tired from the thrashing. This was just as well because it didn’t struggle much when I pulled it out. Wary of the Hitchcock-like crowd of crows gathering on the telephone line above my head, I dropped it quickly towards the grass. Surprisingly, it flew. It drifted near the ground for the first twenty feet, dripping clear liquid on the pavement, but it slowly gained altitude, and eventually found a tree at the end of the street, friends in tow. I can’t remember ever having held a live bird in my hands; it was softer than I would have expected. I probably looked like a cheesy magician, the way I released it. But, since the circumstance was not contrived, the feeling was much different.

2006-08-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

I make most of my friends in the backyard:
Sandra

Stanislav

Squirmy

Elron

2006-08-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Why would you read a 5-page article (7 if you count the 2 [2!] pages of footnotes) that is ostensibly about tennis? You might read said article because it was written by David Foster Wallace (author of Infinite Jest, Oblivion: Stories, and Consider the Lobster), of all people. I tend to look up a lot of words when reading--a 3-click process, thanks to Firefox/dictionary.com. I also tend to read a lot of sports writing. I don't, however, tend to look up a lot of words while reading sports writing. Yet somehow Wallace wrangled me into looking up "dolorous," "annealed," and "mesomorph" while reading his article on Roger Federer--who, btw, is apparently a metaphysical anomaly. Even better, Wallace's seriously eccentric writing is not at all contrived; his brilliant convolutedness is all natural, and hence refreshing.

More importantly, perhaps, he is unapologetic about his subject matter. He and I are in the same camp in that we think sports and basic, swamp-level popular culture in general are suitable areas for cultural, semiotic, and even philosophical investigation. This commonality, admittedly, may have biased me in favour of said article. The main point, if you haven't drifted off yet--I know I have--is that the article is good because, among and subordinate to other things, it is a healthy "FU!" to those self-described intellectuals who look down upon sports (etc.) and the "fanboydom" that they inspire.

Another reason to support shameless popular entertainment: Roxanne's cousin is in Snakes on a Plane, and John Tucker Must Die. It probably seems like I'm making that up, but I'm not. (To expand on Chuck's colour-coding scheme: green means it's the truth.)

2006-08-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

On the way out to Montreal, via Vancouver, we spent a couple of days in 100 Mile, mostly hanging out with the Pettman clan, Axel, and Chuck. It was like a meeting of all the annoying people from the comments section, except Dasha. Not surprisingly, toilet humour ensued. Surprisingly, Roxanne was a main contributor. To paraphrase Mikara: “we never knew she had such a potty mouth.” Ava, Kryce & Mikara’s 9-month old girl, was deathly afraid of me, probably because of my beard. Her lip would quiver anytime I came within 3 feet of her, and then she would cry. Now, I’ve never been one to quit something just because it made small children cry—much to the detriment of my career as a birthday party clown—so I persisted in trying to make friends with her. Happily, after 2 days of facial contortions and spastic arm waving, she overcame her pre-toddler bitterness and warmed up to me. The proof of this is that she fell asleep for about 20 minutes while I was holding her. Chalk one up for silliness.

The first few days in Montreal we mostly just hung out and did city things, like going to museums and watching racoons scamper down the sidewalk. Well, that second one isn’t really a city thing, but it did happen. The Brian Jungen exhibit at the Musée d’Art Contemporain was definitely the highlight for me. I also saw some Jeff Wall photos at a few different places, always good. Also, Montreal has seriously good food, especially this one Lebanese place we went to. I’ve officially converted to being pro-falafel.

July 28th marked 1 year that Roxanne and I have been together. It was nice to be in a romantic city for that (I need all the help I can get). It seems like it has been longer than 1 year, in a good way. This is probably because it has been the best and most transformative year of my life, unless you count the year between birth and the age of one, which saw not only the greatest growth in my maturity, but also the peak of my maturity. Seriously though, this is a good thing. Thanks Roxanne.

A few nights before the wedding I went go-carting—or, as it’s called in Quebec: “le petit auto de vroom.” For various reasons a full-scale bachelor party was not in order, so a trip to the bar, and then the go-cart track (not in that order, unfortunately) was the substitute. Go-carting is ridiculously fun. They closed the track for the 11 of us, and there was even a qualification round for pole position. More important than winning, of course, was causing other people to lose. Despite the fact that it was made abundantly clear that all contact was illegal, there were many, many crashes. At the end of the race a statistical printout was provided, which showed that most of the cars reached speeds near or above 39 mph. That’s pretty fast when you are 1 inch off the ground. I was involved in 3 crashes, none of which were my fault, naturally. One sent me through a tire wall, but the best came at the end of a straightaway, when I turned a corner and promptly smacked into a 4-car pileup at 30 mph. An appropriate amount of semi-santioned violence is sometimes a healthy thing.

Laws related to the sale of alcohol are a bit more lax in Quebec, and by “a bit more lax” I mean you can buy a 1.18L bottle of 10% alcohol beer at any corner store for $4.40. Naturally, that was exactly what we did, mostly for the novelty. It had a bad fruity taste to it, so it was a good thing I didn’t have to drink a whole bottle myself. Roxanne, Kelly’s friend Chantal, and Kelly’s boyfriend were accomplices (Kelly was at the wedding rehearsal). Chantal is really cool. She is the brains behind/co-owner of a gelato shop, lives in an apartment with a severely warped strairway, and is a culinary genius in general. All of that is in addition to being the evil half of a set of twins. Kelly’s new beau is alright too. He beat us at every card/board game we played while we were staying at my dad’s cottage on Brome Lake, and, of course, proficiency at boardgames is all that really matters. Also, the previous week, he accepted a $400 bet from his tree-planting foreman to drink the sweat out of the socks of all 12 people on his crew. I managed to get 4 of those dollars, in pennies, out of him by betting him that I could hold my breath across the Champlain Bridge, which is about Second Narrows-length. It took 1:55, and several million brain cells, but I’ll do anything for $4 in pennies. Anything.

Here are some more pictures
And here are some more more pictures

2006-08-10T15:08:00.001-07:00

Hello to all of you who are probably sick of looking at pictures of chocolate chip cookies. The wedding went swimmingly, and the swimming went … weddingly? Anyway, it was a success: cake was had by all, wine flowed like liquid, and my older sister is now Leah Binette. Conflagrations Leah and Sam!

The wedding was held in The Church of St. Matthias, which is the same church my Grandma Kyra and Grandpa Wally were married in, in 1955. Coincidence? No, it was planned that way. It was sort of like a family reunion since I saw all 8 members of my extended family. That’s right, eight. Did I mention we’re not Roman Catholic? More trivia: Sam is only the second male relative of mine whose name is not David. Three of the five male members of my extended family are named David. That’s right, 60%. Did I mention we’re not Roman Creative?

The ceremony went off without a hitch, meaning, they were successfully hitched. Actually, there was one snafu: one guy who had a short speaking role of some kind was delayed and missed the whole wedding. The reason he was delayed was that roads were closed and traffic diverted because it was the day of the “Outgames” marathon. That’s to be expected though; weddings have been missed because of “Outgames” marathons since … well, actually, I guess this was the first time.

The reception was pretty fancy schmancy. Luckily, I had my powers of dapper set to maximum, so I didn’t feel out of place. It is good that I was not anxious, because I gave a 5-minute-ish toast to Leah, in French, and I haven’t been fluent in French since about 1995. Fortunately, Sam’s brother Alex helped me proofread it, so it went well. Everyone laughed at the right times, and I managed not to slur any words or use any slurs. Even the band—who were friends of the groom—rocked pretty hard. Appropriately, their last song was “Standing on the verge of getting it on.” What is a wedding without Funkadelic? George Clinton is my life coach.

more photos here

2006-07-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

Rock et al are back now, so the grampsanity is over. It is an anecdotal goldmine that will be missed:

2:00AM:

phone rings 4 times before I wake up ...

'Hello?'
'David, can you bring me a cookie?'
'What? Uhhhh, yeah, sure.'
'A pill got stuck at the bottom of my throat, and now it's dissolving, and it burns.'

2006-07-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

I’m not really good with unstructured time. Case in point: these last 2 weeks I have had about 22 hours of free time per day, yet I have done nothing but drink iced tea, eat chicken wings, and watch Monty Python and The Holy Grail (“Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”). Remember on The Simpsons when the comic book guy has a wheelbarrow with 100 tacos in it, and he is going to watch a Dr. Who marathon? That’s basically me this summer. This is more or less OK, though, because my sloth will surely cease when we leave for Montreal next week (with a stop in 100 Mile Monday & Tuesday).

I’m listening to Gnarls Barkley now, because everyone tells me I should be. When I say: “everyone tells me,” I mean: I read on the Internet that they are good. People don’t actually tell me things, because I don’t actually talk to people, except for grandpa, but the only music he likes is Jingle Cats—personally, I only like their older stuff, you know, like Meowy Christmas and Here Comes Santa Claws, pure gold. Gnarls Barkley is good too, though. It makes me bob my head spastically, as I rock back and forth in my computer chair, which I assure you looks, and is, very cool. St. Elsewhere has a bit of a The Love Below feel to it, can’t be bad. Plus, I am all for nonsensical pun-names, especially this one. For some reason, Charles Barkley is hilarious to me. (For those of you who pooh-pooh sports [and sport pooh-pooh], Barkley is an NBA commentator who used play the four spot for the Phoenix Suns) He has no neck and he's always saying crazy things like: "I'm rich, man. I can't be hitting people. It's a liability issue, especially with all these white people in the crowd at golf tournaments. I can see the headlines: 'Charles Barkley kills white dude with a golf ball." He’s like the black Don Cherry, but less old, and beefy (Charles Barkley cannot be described without the word beefy). I always expect him to jump up and start beating on someone, while yelling and/or laughing.

2006-07-18T23:32:00.000-07:00

Speaking of old, have I mentioned Grandpa McLeod? He is pretty funny, clothed or otherwise. I don’t really know where to start. Maybe I’d better just use point form:

He wakes up when it’s still dark, thinks it’s morning, and phones me to come downstairs and have Raisin Bran with him. Actually, it’s Raisin Bran mixed with Shreddies and All Bran. It’s impossible to have too much fiber when you’re almost 91.
Actually, he phones me all day long. He’ll tell me about what he is reading in the newspaper, or how he’s watching Dr. Phil and how he can’t understand kids these days, or he’ll ask me to come downstairs to read a telephone number for him, or find his pen, or fill his water bottle.
Speaking of water bottles, I’m not sure that he’d ever used one before last week. He asked if he could use “one of those water bottle things Roxanne uses,” as if they had just been invented. Now he carries it from place to place in the room with him. So cute. Strangely enough, he understands computers and all sorts of mechanical things that are beyond me. One story I have heard at least 3 times is how the first iron bridge was made (“200 years ago, and it’s still standing!”).
His eyebrows can literally touch the tip of his nose.
He is still quite sharp mentally, but he does tend to tell the same stories over and over. For example, the story of how he met his second wife: “Gladys was standing at church greeting people, holding 2 balloons. I took the pin out of my lapel—I carried a pin in my lapel in those days, but I don’t anymore, because they’re too sharp—and popped her two balloons. She said: ‘young man! I’ll have you know those balloons were for my nephews!’ I was a bit embarrassed. So, the next week I learned her address, and I sent her two balloons—or was it 10? I don’t know, some number of balloons—in the mail. She must have thought: that young man is on the ball.” On the ball? Balloons in the mail isn’t on the ball. Balloons in the mail is balloons in the mail.
“Terrorists are always trying to take over some country” (this was passing commentary while watching the news).
The best trips are when we visit the doctor. The appointments have never been longer than 10 minutes, but for some reason the trip is always 3 hours long. It might be because we usually have to stop at 2-3 places, and each stop takes at least 30 minutes, even if it is just to use the washroom. This is mostly because he tries to make friends with every single person who gives him the chance (i.e., by standing beside him, or by looking at him). He usually succeeds, too. He is full of puns, and combo-puns, which he has memorized for specific situations, such as ordering food at a restaurant. These are all probably funny, if you haven’t heard 10 in a row. The best, however, is when we go to the old folks’ diner, “Rickie’s”. It’s like a black hole for old people. It pulls in every old person in a three-mile radius for lunch, even if it's only 11:15. We are old, you will be assimilated, resistance is futiiiiiile. Then, he introduces me to everyone he knows: “this is a choice young man, he is courting my granddaughter.” Hahaha! He really says that. I don’t even know what courting is.

P.S. For the record, G-Pa is really nice and sincere in every way, and none of this is meant to reflect negatively on him. I wrote, and embellished, it only for the sake of humour and because everyone can relate to old people stories, except for old people, because they are forgetful.

2006-07-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Zinedine Zidane is the Jean-Luc Picard of soccer. They are both French, bald, sexy, and you’d better not mess with them. Seriously, “Zizou” is my hero. He is a class act in a sport where many stars are cheaters and crybabies. His outburst came under extreme pressure and mitigating circumstances, and, though unfortunate, it was an appropriate response, all things considered.

I have been wrapped up in the high pop-cult drama of that incident since it happened. I’ve read all the theories about what Materazzi said, and I’ve been patiently waiting for Zizou to tell his side. Finally, today he did. Materazzi denies that he said (and repeated) anything about Zidane’s mother (who is presently in the hospital, although Materazzi seems not to have known that); so technically it is one person’s word against another’s. But I believe Zidane 100%. For one thing, Materazzi refuses to admit what he actually did say. But it is less that I disbelieve Materazzi, and more that I believe Zizou.

So much of Zizou’s conduct throughout his career stands in direct opposition to foolish, selfish, violent acts; he would never have done such a thing had he not been very seriously provoked. Zidane has long been considered one of the best players of his generation, and, importantly, also one of the fairest. He has born the pressure of the captaincy of a soccer powerhouse for a good decade, and has thrived under that pressure, almost always showing extreme focus and cool-headedness. He had nothing to gain by head butting Materazzi at that point, and everything to lose. The final was his last international game; he had born so much pressure already. The hardest parts were over already; it would have been completely senseless for him to act in the way he did had he not been severely provoked. Therefore, it must be that he was severely provoked. Materazzi is the primary culprit. Zidane has apologized, and he ought not to be vilified. Contrary to the safe, politically correct stance of many media commentators, there are some things that warrant the response Zizou gave. Vive Zizou!

2006-07-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

This week I am house sitting, since Rock and the family (no stone) have left for Vancouver. (By the way, Vancouver is much more polite than NYC, no matter what any stupid-ass, unscientific Reader's Digest survey says.) Actually, it’s not really house sitting; it’s more dog-cats-garden-grandpa sitting. It’s pretty fun. Mrs. McLeod maintains an apocalypse-ready pantry (a whole room, actually), so I am well fed. I have eaten an entire box of Buffalo wings, half a box of chicken nuggets, and about 12 cans of iced tea (well, those I drank). There is also a level-40 garden, just in case I feel the urge to eat healthily. I don’t actually know if it is level 40; I don’t know how gardens are graded at all, for that matter. But it seems big to me, and the number 40—being the biggest number I know—is the best way I can convey that. Actually, I have eaten some of this garden food: strawberries (less strawy than you’d expect), huckleberries (surprisingly twainy), and radishes, at least a rasher of them, if radishes come in rashers. Oh wait, that’s bacon, isn’t it? Well, they should change that. A “rasher of radishes” sounds much better. In fact, I think I'll make that my motto. Yes, I know it is not a complete sentence, but mottos are so much easier to live up to when they don't contain verbs.

Gardening is pretty fun when you don’t have to do the hard parts, like weeding, hoeing, and spraying DDT out of crop-dusters. Mostly I just run sprinklers and spray with the hose for an hour or so each day. The best part about this is spraying animals—don’t worry, they like it, probably. So far I have sprayed 2 toads, a robin, a squirrel, and a fish. It’s usually from a distance, so the water pressure is minimal. The animals mostly just hop about confusedly (story of my life). I don’t know if the fish really counts, since it was pretty wet to begin with. Oh well, who's counting? A neighbour said there was a bear in the neighbourhood yesterday. Lucky thing it didn’t come by this yard. I was ready. It would have gotten a face full of hose water. I was even prepared to yell: “That’ll learn ya! Bear!” Not that such yelling requires extensive preparation. Still …

2006-07-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

‘Justify your existence, Infallible Plankton.'
‘I don’t have to; I’m infallible.’
‘Actually, you’re not really infallible. You’re only infallible in a comical, ironic sense.'
‘Oh yeah Einstein? Well then how come I’ve never been eaten by a whale?’
‘Because you’re not actually plankton either. That’s just a word in your title.’
‘Right, sure, next you’re going to tell me that Sea Monkeys aren’t really monkeys at all.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘Crap.’

This is the conversation I have with my blog every second Monday, when I remember it exists. I should have given it an essence before I gave it an existence, then it would be able to write itself. But it has no essence. Always a problem. Infallible Plankton needs direction, a raison d’être (translation: a raisin for being). Well, “need” is an overstatement. It is better to say that it would be better if it had a focus, or even foci, or even uneven foci. But it will probably always be purposeless (and porpoiseless). This is fine. Actually, it has a purpose of a kind.

When IP was born (a small squeaky sound was heard), my purpose was just to practice writing, since I had recently declared that my third (and hopefully last) attempted major would be English. And English majors are sometimes required to write, or so I was told after I sang my first essay to my teacher. So, in that sense, it is doing what it is supposed to do. Furtherbore, this is a good reason for anyone to write, no matter how crushingly nonsensical his or her writing might be. Writing is improved by practice. There is even research that supports the view that text messaging and instant messaging boon writing, despite their haphazard punctuation and bastardized spelling. Language is important (and not only because it rhymes with sandwich). So write wrong, because any writing is better than no writing.

2006-06-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I didn't leave my house for three days, and during one of those days I didn't talk to a single person. I'm not agoraphobic (if anything I'm bushaphobic); I was actually writing a 7,000 word essay. If you don't know how long that is, just think of a 1,000 word essay, except 7 times longer. I forget what it was about now. I think it was about the quiet sounds made by certain small African primates: lemur murmurs.

50 minutes after I handed in my essay (which marked the end of my spring/summer classes), we went to the wedding of Chadalie. Chadalie is Natalie Daniels (now Abrahamson) and Chad Abrahamson (still Abrahamson). It was a very nice wedding, because they are a very nice couple. At the reception, my digestive system received pickled Jalapeno peppers, Caesar salad, and a Kinder Surprise egg (which tasted a bit like tinfoil and plastic), so that was good; I covered both of the food groups (chocolate and green). Also, our table had a guy with a cowboy hat named Taylor. He was really funny, and--as we later found out--also a breakdancer. Roxanne told a good story during the open mike about how she had prodded (metaphorically, not electrically) the new couple at the very beginning of their relationship. I was happy for Rock because she is sometimes shy (aren't we all?), and everyone thought her story was good. In fact, I think it got the second most laughs, behind the 4-year-old nephew who said: "Uncle Natalie and ... Aunty Chad ... I love ... you!"

Yesterday was also notably sweet: I drank iced tea in a can, watched most of 2 soccer games (including that "holy crap!" goal in the Argentina/Mexico game), played piggyback Bocce ball (not a euphemism), saw Kelly for half an hour (check out a good cougar story of hers), and played badminton (got my bad mint on) until 10:35 at night. OK, that's about it.

And they all lived happy ever after cut to credits.

2006-06-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve finally decided on the fairest way to choose which team I will cheer for at the World Cup: victory dances. I don’t think anyone will be able to beat 6’7 Peter Crouch doing the robot. He’s the only person in the world who is lankier than Chuck. He’s World Cup-level lanky. Therefore I must cheer for England.

Seriously though, the World Cup is brilliant. Or so I might say if I was British, after which I would say: “Top drawer old boy! Stiff upper lip and all that,” because that’s the ending to every sentence spoken by a British person. I don’t even know what any of that means. Oh well, what matters is that the World Cup is the most popular and most important international sporting event in the world, aside from dwarf tossing.

Among countries that don’t do the robot, I’m of two or three minds about which I should cheer for. Sometimes I want a tiny, poor country like Togo or Cote D’Ivoire to win. But other times—bearing utilitarianism in mind—I think it would be better for a very populous country (like Mexico) to win, because then more people would be happy overall. Unfortunately, the most populous country represented at the World Cup is the U.S., and no one wants them to win, not even Americans—most of whom don’t even know what the World Cup is. The second most populous state at the World Cup is Brazil. And it is really hard not to cheer for them; their style of the play is the reason it is called the beautiful game. Plus they have Ronaldinho, who is a spectacularly graceful and athletic freak of nature. He's like a kung-fu gazelle on steroids with an overgelled ponytail (do ponytails really need gelling? They do if you're the best soccer player in the world). But Brazil has won 5 times, so I can’t really cheer for them. So, I don’t really know who to cheer for. I guess I’ll just make it up on a case-by-case basis. I should be fine as long as I cheer for someone, everyone, or no one.

2006-06-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, I also spent time with humans recently. The birthday was fun to the max . I rocked the crap out of everyone at croquet. Also, I ate a hamburger AND a chicken burger: yeah! And I had a cake with a stegosaurus and a some kind of generic Allosaurus/T-Rex type dinosaur on it: double yeah! And Ben Johnson made me laugh really hard when he recited the part from The Office about Bruce Lee and enter the dragon (me and no one else). And Andrew Ferrence also made me laugh when he did the "Lazy Sunday Rap" from SNL: "Let's hit up yahoo maps to find the dopest route. I prefer mapquest! that's a good one too.googlemaps is the best! true that! double true!"

2006-06-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

I've been making a lot of new friends recently, mostly fish and shrimp. This picture is a banded coral shrimp, or as I like to call him: funny lobster thing. He's basically just a bundle of antennae and pinchy arms. That's what I look for in a friend. He lives in the secret aquarium that is located on the 3rd floor of the biology building. There are also 5 Finding Nemos (formerly known as clown fish); a needly fish; about 30 hermit crabs that have slow-motion demolition derbys; a big purple fish that I call the police fish; and a crazy fish/lizard that bites rocks all day long. The aquarium is neat because it has a day/night cycle (the day is during the day, and the night...I don't know when the night is).

Oh yeah, and my prediction for the World Cup winner is: Togo! Why? Do I really need a why? I mean, it's Togo!

2006-06-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

In my Chucklike (Charlesesque?) absence, I have forgotten how to post posts. I started writing "Hello wayward souls" but who says things like that? Seriously. Not me. I do know that you are a wayward soul though. I know this because, first: you are on the internet; second: you are reading the pinnacle of nonsense that is this blog; third: you are in a ward, probably mental; fourth: when describing you, people say: "in a word: probably mental"; fifth: there is no fifth.

Right, so, the cause of my absence was the absence of my life. Meaning, not much is going on (although a lot of things are not going on). One thing that is not not going on today, is my shirt. My shirt is definitely going on. That is, it has it going on, because it is a blue and white Hawaiian shirt. And going-on-ness is a unique and inextricable property of Hawaiian shirts. Holy crap, what am I even talking about? Sorry, my brain is being rushed; I have a class in 15 mints. Well, it's actually about 15 mints, meaning the length of the class is the amount of the time it takes to suck 15 mints. The class doesn't start for 28 minutes though (which is about 4 mints from now).

Riiiiight, so, yeah, I haven't posted much lately because mostly my life is just school and hanging out with Roxamily (collective noun: Roxanne and family). Mr. Cooper is sometimes there too ("Yo Coop, what's up!"). And nothing remarkably blogworthy (hahaha, I know) has been happening in either of those faucets of my life.

On Saturnday we are going to have birthday-related out hanging, and it will involve hamburgers and croquet. In other words, it will be the pinnacle of existence (warning! you have exceeding your quota for use of the word pinnacle, any further uses will be punished by an angry librarian or webmaster of some kind, neither of whom will be wearing a Hawaiian shirt). Yeah, so, that should be fun as people I don't often get to see (I don't often get to sea) will be coming.

Oh yeah, on the academia (nuts!) front I scored a major victory in my ongoing struggle to annoy my unflapple psychology teacher today. My crushingly annoying logic compelled him to change one of the answers on my latest quiz from wrong to right. Who really cares about gpa? The important thing is how much you can vex your teachers into raising your mark.

Geek: 1
Professional geek: 0

P.S. Careful readers might remember that he actually has 1 point too, not 0 points, since the last argument I had with him ended in agree to disagree (i.e., no mark for me). But the splendidly dramatic cliff-hanger effect would have been killed if I had written that the scores were equal.

P.P.S. Neither the P.S. nor this P.P.S. have ruined the splendidly dramatic cliff-hanger effect.

2006-05-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was kind of funny. I had a psych midterm, which was fine. Afterwards I spent 5-10 minutes in a friendly debate with the teacher about the wording of one of the 70 multiple-choice questions. There were two correct answers for it, technically (says my bias), but he thought there was only one. So we had to agree to disagree. Actually, he agreed to disagree and I disagreed about agreeing to disagree. Most teachers actually like to be argued with, you know. It shows that the student was paying attention (too much, perhaps). Dr. Wong even told me the technical, psychological name for over-thinking instructions (i.e., for what is wrong with me). For those of you fortunate enough not to interact with me in school-world, I’m a wee bit of a hairsplitter (read: annoying). I am fine with this though; it’s easier to be the annoyer than the annoyee.

I had the same problem during the second midterm I wrote, even though it was a 3-essay English exam, rather than multiple-choice. In this case, I was actually supposed to wrangle with the wording of the question; Dr. Rans intentionally used controversial language in his question to throw a postmodern monkey wrench (which is much heavier than a normal monkey wrench) into the works. So, that was fine, except I spent 5 pages writing about why I couldn’t answer the question, and only 1 page answering it. I also spent 1.5 of the 2.5 hours on one third of the exam. Time management is not my forte. I need a person with a cattle prod to attend exams with me: “Bzzzt! Keep writing. You don’t have as much time left as you think. Bzzzt! Bzzzzzzt!”

Along with faking/sleeping my way through my 3rd class, that was my day. Usually I prepare a ton for that class, then I talk too much and everyone tunes me out. But this time I just made shorter general comments and everyone was like: “Ooooh, yeah, that’s what I thought too.” Which probably translates to: “thank you for not annoying us to death.”

Later Rock & I went to some b-day type thing for Stamos. No, not John Stamos, we had already filled our quota for early 90s sitcom hunk birthdays in May. Stamos is actually Stephanie & Amos. Btw, it wasn’t both of their birthdays; it was only Amos’s. I ate cake and listened to a guy called Dan who had had so many concussions that he couldn’t remember the number. He is going to Kyrgyzstan and/or Tajikistan next year to climb mountains that have not yet been climbed because they were formerly behind the iron curtain. He’s also going to work with youth-at-risk in those countries. Presumably bringing them along on mountain climbing expeditions will put them less at risk. He’s kind of like Jake Doyle (if I can infer anything from a half-hour conversation); you know, a person who likes to raft, swim, climb, jump, or ski (etc.) off of things just to see if it can be done. I think this is a healthy ethos, and I would gladly trade some teacher-arguing skills for some of it (not that the two are mutually exclusive).

2006-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

I came across this fairly stupendous flash mosaic today on digg.com. It is about 4,022 times more awesome than the emoticon with the bowler hat below:

C:-)

2006-05-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

This morning I found my coffee trove empty, so I bustled about and made tea instead. A cult I was once in commanded that tea is only to be drunk in the afternoons or evenings (although tea drinkers can be drunk whenever they wish). Fortunately, I am not longer in that tea cult. They made a switch to Kool-Aid, with unfortunate results. The point of all this pointlessness is non-existent. The tea, however, did provide me with a fairly more fair than average amount of energy, which surprised me and compelled me to write and think happily inconsecutive thoughts.

I try not be a link-linky-link-all-time-blog (which is maybe why I never have any posts), but here is an interesting article I read (eye red) this morning, and below is another one. This first one is about Edmonton's English-Mandarin Bilingual public education system, which has about 1,700 kids in it, if memory serves (Serve me memory! You foolish slave of the brain!). Sorry for that outburst, it's just that abstract concepts are one of the few things I don't feel bad about being violently abusive to. The peculiar thing is that, in terms of language education, Edmonton seems to have one of the most progressive approaches in the country, yet it is in probably the most politically conservative province in the country (Albania, that is).

The other article is an essay by A. O. Scott (another NYT journalistic superstar adored by those geeky mediaphile types) about a recent--inevitably problematic, yet still fun--poll done by the NYT about what the best American 'work of fiction' in the last 25 years is. Toni Morrison's Beloved won. Don Delillo cracked the top 5 with Underworld, which is one of my favourite novels (my profile even says this, therefore this is absolute truth: capital A, capital T). For the life of me I don't know why we have read the stupid A Clockwork Orange (which I love), instead of Delillo or at least something American, in my stupid Post Modern lit class (which is my favourite class ever), but I digress. By the way, 50% of that class is just practicing how to say pretentious things like "I digress."

Baby beavers are semi-nocturnal. This I learned during my adventure to the Beaver Dam (no room for any joke there) located at the South-East (or some other direction) end of Ft. George Park last Thursday. We (me, Rocksand & Shawntel) also had a picnic and rocked the world of Bocce Ball (which is suprisingly easy to rock). Rocksand killed an ant, presumably because she hates all ants. I could write a paragraph or so about how ants belong at picnics, but this post is already stupid (or brilliant?) enough. The main point is that Roxanne's ant holocaust should be hyperbolically exaggerated, blown out of proportion, and quickly forgotten (did I mention I hope to work in the media some day?).

Thursday was good; Friday was probably better. Possibly because we ate mammoth (adjective not noun) Pita Pit pitas and briefly hung out (not to be confused with hanging out in briefs) with the people whose wedding we are attending on Monday. Said people are Tracy (sister to sister-in-law of Rock) and Jonathan Livingston. He is excellently named, since, as you might know (and as wikipedia has recently informed me), Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a cultish 70s novel about the life of a seagull. It's funny that it is a text about flying around everywhere, because the real-life Jonathan Livingston has recently become an air-traffic controller. So, maybe the name is meant to be allusive, although it is more likely that I am just on crack. Also, on Friday he was showing a healthy contempt for warranties and not stealing software by modding a 250GB HDD onto his Xbox, which will allow him to copy any Xbox games he might wish to "own" after renting them. Anyway, good people.

Speaking of Edmonton, how 'bout them Oilers?! Holy Mighty Peca Hemsky Horcoff! Since when are the Oilers so good? Not since 1992 (?), which is the last time the made it to the final 4. I don't feel guilty about jumping on the bandwagon of team that I third most wanted to win the Stanley Cup. You see, my approach was that I would cheer for Canadian teams in based on which city has won the fewest Stanley Cups. Hence I cheered for Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, then Montreal. Since Edmonton is the only one left, my bandwagonry is somewhat justified. Also, I feel like I deserve to cheer for a hardworking team for once, given that the Canucks are listless, hapless, and spiritless. Anyway, Edmonton is pretty great. They've had the offensive depth all season, and everyone is firing on all prisoners (or is it cylinders, I need to work on my metaphors). They really do have a great mix of veterans with something to prove (Smyth, Smith, Peca, Pronger, Roloson) and youth with talent (Horcoff, Hemsky, Pisani). Plus they have Space K, who is probably like an alien, or some kind of astronaut, or at least from Europe.

2006-05-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever read the original book version of Bambi? It's pretty disturbingly violent. All the animals keep dying in pools of blood. Bambi's cousin Gobo (who is the shy runt of the family, really cute), dies near the end: "Gobo lay with his bloody entrails oozing from his torn flank" ... "Then they heard Gobo's wailing death shriek." And humans are described as having a "dark, unknown, controlling power." It's pretty nice and wistful at times too, when the animals aren't being maimed. I guess it balances out the 'Disneyfied' version, but maybe it does so a little too well. Anyway, nevermind, trivia. I met a faceless teacher of mine today. Well, actually she has a face. It's just that I've spent 4-5 months in teleconference classes with her, but I hadn't met her until today. It turns out she is Kylie Minogue. Actually that's a lie, I just made it up because there is no point to this story. And the random insertion of Australian celebrities will give any story a point. Or something.

To continue my theme of recounting the dreams of the mentally handicapped (i.e., me): last night I had a dream I was trying to kill a cat, but I couldn't, and it starting freaking out and attacking my hand and everything got messy and it just wouldn't die. I think this is because yesterday Holly (owner of the house I live in) told me to chase away the cat that had digging up her garden. But I couldn't, because I loves teh cats too much. So I just petted the cat instead, and it tried to jump onto me back, in a friendly way. Anyway, the moral is that cat dilemmas = cat mangling dreams. Now I have to go to my next class, so I will just post this and assume that it is not completely idiotic.

2006-05-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

The last 2 nights I have had similar dreams. Both involved me going on a trip, and while I am away I come into the possession of a largish amount of money, and then the end of the dream is me trying to get that money back home. In the first dream I travelled to some island or something (this dream was less detailed), and I made acquaintances with 2 guys (father/son) who were in a mob family of some sort. When I was leaving the dad gave me some money and like winked slyly, or something. All the money was in red 100 RMB notes (like in China). I was wondering about what would happen when I carried it through customs (since I was flying), but I wasn't worried.

The dream lastnight was more vivid (btw, I slept for 12 hours, from 7 to 7, which is a very rare thing). I think the place I travelled to was the moon, some floating spherical thing anyway. It was very colourful and lit-up everywhere. Everyone was staring up into the sky, because some spaceship was in orbit, and that ship released a smaller vessel, which was also traveling in an orbital pattern. The smaller vessel was hundreds of miles away and spaceship-sized, but somehow it turned into a small stone, which everyone was looking for. Somehow I found this stone, which was like a gold nugget, except silver ("It could only be SPACE TITANIUM!" sorry, an old Godzilla line). Anyway, the nugget crumbled and broke into 3 pieces, but when I brought it to an inspection place (which was a store) they verified that it was the real one. So they gave me 15,000$ in cash, Canadian bills. My dad and my sister Kelly were there too, but didn't really do much. So I had this pouch, and all the money was in it, and I held onto it really tightly, and then I headed back to our hotel, which was in NYC, which somehow was also where we were at that point. I couldn't find a taxi, so I took a bus. Kelly and Dad had their own plans about what we should do, but I lost them somehow, which was fine, since their plans weren't very good. I got off the bus near our hotel, but I couldn't quite find the hotel. I was on this big, circular promenade, which was colourful, brightly-lit and very futuristic. It was also a mall of some sort. All of this was all pretty weird and could have been overwhelming, but it wasn't. I didn't find the hotel before I woke up, but that was fine, I felt at peace and I knew I would eventually find it without trouble.

2006-05-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I watched A Clockwork Orange at the house of one of my English professors. The class was supposed to watch it at school, but a codex was missing, so the DVD player didn't work. And no, I don't know what a codex is, only that it is something that always seems to be missing. ACO is a rare case in which the book and film are both really good, yet for different reasons. It doesn't make sense to say one is better than the other; that would be like comparing apples and ... some other fruit that is somewhat similar to an apple. Anyway, both are recommended. Horroshow cheloveck that Kubrick, eh? A funny thing I found out is that this professor--who is a 50+ year-old literature professor from Great Britain--plays World of Warcraft. He's like a level 55 priest or something, meaning he plays it a lot. How weird is that? I've always assumed that whenever a literature professor isn't teaching he is sitting at home with a glass of brandy, listening to Beethoven and watching Masterpiece Theatre (as Roxanne put it). At least he has a standard poodle named Sir Lancelot, and his minivan is named after a work of literature (1 of only 2 such vehicles I can think of).

Last week I participated in 2 psyhcological research studies. Now you might be thinking that these studies were designed to measure awesomeness, but that is not so. I was actually in them because I can earn 4% bonus on my term mark if I participate in 4 of them. Now that I think about it, this anecdote has not point and is not funny; I'm just mentioning it because I've never been in a psychological experiment before, unless you count that time I rented a gorilla suit and ran around throwing peoples' dogs into oncoming traffic. If you're wondering, the results were inconclusive.

2006-05-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hi, ouch.
Stupid library closes at 6pm in summer term, so I not am getting much face time with the computer. The good news is that Roxanne has started a new blog. It is about health. A lot of people don't know what health is, but if you break the word down you get: "heal-th." Now you might be wondering: Heal th what? Well, that is a question you can only answer yourself. The th can only be found in the toe of your inner spirit cave. I think I just accidentally wrote the intro to a self-help book. Oh well, your ass is mine Deepak Chopra!

My hockey pool is effed-up owing to the elimination of Dee-troit. That's ok though; now I can just cheer for the team I want to win (Ottawa!), and not care about who scores. Stupid Martin Havlat, he's so great. I had him in the regular season pool, and he was injured the whole time. And now he scores 45 goals in the playoffs. Frig! I mean: yay!

Anyway, I've got some lemon-grass rice to eat. Btw, if you are wondering about the image, that is the 4th image that came up when I googled "health."

2006-04-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of Monty Python lately. I like that skit that is a talk show about trees and various wood related things, like a block of wood and a bucket of sawdust. I'm happy to have a class with a British professor starting in 1 week. I think the British are the funniest people. Roxanne and I have agreed John Cleese will make a good godfather.

Last Monday we had an indoor Easter egg hunt. By "we" I mean 5 people aged 19-27. I got a package of Caramilk bunnies, which are just like Caramilk squares, but bigger and shaped like bunnies (in case you didn't catch that from their name). I know Mikara did, because she has professed her Caramilk love before. You should start a cult Mikara: Caramilkology. You could call yourself the Grand Caramilkara. I'd join, as long as there was free Caramilk.

On Sunday we saw Danya as they were passing through. By the way, Danya = Dann & Tanya. It's like one of those celebrity name-combining things; you know, like Bennifer or TomKat, but with less Scientology. In fact, I am pretty sure Danya are not Scientologists at all. Although Dann has memorized all of John Travolta's dance scenes from Saturday Night Fever. Fortunately (and surprisingly) he didn't have any of his polyester jumpsuits with him, so we played board games in their hotel room. That's not a euphemism; we really did play board games.

My enjoyment of board games is inordinate (except Yahtzee, which is stupid). I think this is because boardgames (like many things) are self-contained worlds where good, bad, victory, and defeat are all clearly defined. As opposed to the real world, which is big and confusing, where good seems contingent, victory is ambivalent, reference points keep floating, and I can't even spell axium. I'm on a 3 game winning streak for crib right now, which is probably a personal record; I'm not very good at crib. Once when I was in Quebec I played crib against a lady named Lucille, whom I think was my Great Aunt's sister-in-law (I don't know what that makes her to me). Anyway, the point is that she was really old, so I thought I win easily. I thought it would be like taking canding from a very old baby. But it wasn't. Oh how very wasn't it was. Lucille rocked my cribbage world like nobody's business, and that was not the bee's knees in any way, shape, or form. The moral of the story is: old people will rock you at crib.

I had my last exam on Thursday. The exam was on Romantic literature, so I studied hockey statistics. After some fairly liberal reading between the lines, I gambled that the professor would suddenly decide to change the subject of the exam to hockey. He didn't. Oh well, at least I'll do better in the pool; that's all that really matters. Plus I think Zdeno Chara was a Poet Laureate at some point anyway. I have Detroit and Ottawa penciled in for the finals, with Calgary and either New Jersey or Carolina as the other conference finalists. It's really hard to say though. I won't remind anyone how poor my olympic predictions were.

2006-04-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

It snowed on Good Friday, so we sculpted a snowbunny. It was so convincing that the cat thought it was real. Well, it was a real snowbunny, but the cat thought it was a real fleshbunny. Then she tried to eat its ear, without much success. Cruel, I know, but what else can you expect from a kitten named Deathbringer?

After exams on Thursday we went bowling. It was a good Thursday, but not Good Thursday, because there is no such day. I met Roxanne’s friends Andrew Ferrence and Shalina Edge (no relation to “The Edge,” I asked). Andrew Ferrence is starting a dodgeball league next fall at UNBC. I rock at dodgeball. I was like a dodgeball sensei in grade 6; sometimes skinny is good. Andrew Ferrence is also good a queue-jumping, he had a Run-D.M.C. t-shirt with soft looking lettering, and he and Shalina are going to Cuba next week. They are cool. It’s like that, and that’s the way it is.

I bowled above my expectations. First I was bowling with the watermelon ball and the light blue one (which I thought of as the Pastel Blue Sphere of Eternal Destruction), but I switched to the pink ball because the first two were too light and always left one or two pins up despite my flawless technique. Plus pink tempers my overwhelming manliness. It's hard not to be manly when you are 145lbs and your mom buys most of your clothes for you. Shalina bowled a tribute to Todd Bertuzzi. Her score was 44 after 7 frames and stayed there for the last 3. It’s a tribute because his number is 44 and he is also inept. I am comfortable making him the scapegoat for the demise of the Canucks’ season. We loved you that one year when you scored 48 Todd, but now it’s time to go away. Far, far away.

2006-04-08T16:49:00.000-07:00

I made scrambled eggs in the microwave this morning. That was because our oven has been moved because new owners come soon (I leave tomorrow). I didn't know how long to cook the eggs for so I just hit the salmonella button. They didn't taste like salmon at all though, funny.
I'm at school now because I had a saturday exam and the buses only run on the hour on saturdays. Exam was good. I gnu everything on it because I was at school for 12 hours yesterday studying for it. 15+ years into my academic career and I can still never remember how much studying helps. I put Chuck's link back up again because it is alive again since he has returned from his trip to ... let's say ... Togo? Also, because it has the line: "Now that I've lost your attention, please feel free to look at this picture of an RV with a giant cow on top." Pure gold. I should have used that in my exam. Dang!

2006-04-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

I got 2 free hamburgers at school today; my life is complete. Also, I wrote a poem about dinosaurs (sort of!). Check it out.

2006-04-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hey! The internet still works. Take that real world! I'll have to postpone my grapefruit eating plans 'til later on this morning.

I read a .pdf poetry magazine called Norther that was made by students and staff at my school. Its contributors are: Creative Writing prof guy, library guy who has a New Order t-shirt, girl from some of my classes who was in a play that I almost went to see, and Denielle from comments! It's really good. I don't know if it's posted anywhere on the hinternet, but I can send it to you if you want (and you do).

The library has a food-for-fines exchange program. I brought in 2 cans of beans and 1 can of soup and they erased my fines. Hooray! It makes sense since fines are just to prod ppl to return their books, not to make profit. So it's nice to make it easy for ppl to pay off their fines in a way that helps others. The smallness and newness of UNBC seems to allow it to implement more commonsense things. My experience with larger schools has been that they get bogged down by bureaucratic retardation and no one really knows what's going on. Nevermind that they don't have any moose sightings.

Roxanne has an Anne of Green Gables bookmark that matches her Anne of Green Gables book, which she bought at the fictional home of Anne of Green Gables on Prince Edward Island (which is a real place). You might know I am a fan of symmetry, and it's hard to align things more than that. 3 cheers for symmetry! Actually, make it 2, that's an even number.

Recent news that proves I control and invented the internet: nytimes.com is now copying me by using the "Georgia" font, which I also invented. Seriously guys, bush league. It doesn't matter what you do. I'll never forgive you for charging 50$ dollars for "Times Select" access. I'll "Times Select" you! Wait, wait, I take it back! I love you nytimes! Forgive me. Help!

2006-03-30T22:15:00.000-08:00

When people start making comments suggesting topics for new posts, it's probably time to make one. Another good reason is that I'm going to be internetless soon. I'm moving sometime within the next 2 weeks, and I didn't really feel like paying for a full month of internet/phone and only using it for a week or two. By the way, if you live in PG, do you know where I can move to? My standards are pretty low. All I need is a roof, some way to clean myself, some way to clean my clothes, and some way to make food. Hot tubs are good since they can do all 3 of those things at once. Showers can work too, but you'd be surprised how long it takes to make Kraft Dinner in a shower. After being scalded by the very hot water a few (dozen) times you build up a tolerance. So that's ok, but your arms get tired. Standing there for twelve to fourteen minutes, 2 fistfulls of noodles raised defiantly up to the showerhead. You don't control me suggested cooking directions, not anymore!

When Rock posted about me sleeping on her couch I hadn't slept in some 35 hours. Well, unless you count about 10 minutes of Survey of English Lit II. Nothing counts in that class though, because it is a pointless non-class. I'm still tired, but happie now. I finished my 4 term papers and 1 non-term paper, so now I am more relaxed. Two were good, two were decent, and one was subpar, so that's ok, I guess.

My Renaissance Lit class is about tragedies, so we talk about tragic heros a lot. I was thinking, John Locke is like the tragic hero for Lost. He has an unshakeable belief in about the nature of the world he lives in. Well, like everyone, he doesn't know what is going on, but all of his actions are closely tied to a belief that there is an overarching plan in his universe (the island). Also, he made an oath (gave his word) in the last episode. But later we learned that the guy he made the oath to is one of "the others". So it will be hard for him to keep his oath to him, which might be the crisis that tears him apart, as tends to happen to tragic heroes.

I'm going to go to sleep now (sleep is where I become a Viking).

2006-03-17T18:39:00.001-08:00

I bought a package of extra bold Sumatra coffee beans from Starbucks this week with a gift card I got for christmas. It fills me with liquid happiness, which is much preferrable to solid or gas happiness. Sorry for being awol lately. The end of term is busy because I do nothing during the first 3/4 of the term. Also, I have Avian Influenza. I wrote an essay about Samuel Taylor Coleridge last week, who was a pretty wicked Romantic writer who was addicted to laudanum. He also invented those little stoves that you bring along on camping trips. Oh no wait, that was Coleman. Tickets have been purchased (thanks Dad!) for the trip to Leah and Sam's wedding in Montreal in the month of Août. The anticipation is growing in my stomach, kind of like that time I drank a fish tank full of seamonkeys. The rest of this post is a pointless series of non-sequiturs, don't read it.

Speaking of funny addictions, this study showed that a small number of people who take Ambien, which is a sleeping pill, become sleep-eaters. Hahaha, sleep-eaters. One lady gained 100 lbs, and she couldn't figure out why. Apparently it has something to do with the brain confusing the urge to sleep and the urge to eat. Its funny because the sleep-eating people apparently go into a weird, unconscious, feral type state. They just eat anything they can get their hands on, like bags of hamburger buns and raw flour. I bet they sound something like: "Mawwgrr Mawgglll!" I think I should start taking Ambien.

I didn't do anything un-school-related last week, so I don't have much to talk about. Boo! Hiss! Stop writing! That's what all the people in this computer lab are yelling at me. Well, it's kind of a silent yelling, without looking at me, but you have to read betweens the line with psychos. Or is it compulsively reading between the lines makes you a psycho? Who can remember? Sleep-eaters, that's who.

The Canucks have been causing the opposite of mirth in my heart laterly. Anti-mirth, you might say, if you were prone to making up fake words. And you are, I know you are, you big fakewordinator. My anti-mirth is under control though, I still have the baseless faith which is requisite for being a sportsfan. Remember that one Carebear who always went around calling everyone "sportsfan"? He was pretty awesome, although he seemed like more of a lion than a bear. I once had a kitten named Sporty. He would skoot around the floor willy nilly. He didn't skoot as much as Skooty, mind you, but he skooted his fair share. Later we had to give him away. I think he grew up to be a greyhound.

2006-03-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not Chuck. I've just been busy. This week has been pretty good. I did a 42 minute presentation at school on a novel called Foe, by JM Coetzee. I have a webcourse in which 40% of the mark comes from posting about our 7-8 novels in a forum. Last week I posted so much that the teacher made a new rule that individual posts had to be limited to one paragraph. Sometimes I forget about that whole quality>quantity thing. I get carried away and fall asleep in front of my computer. Then the next day I have to walk around with a keyboard-shaped imprint on my face.

On Tuesday I got a 4-box package of chocolate in the mail from my friend in Germany. Apparently Kinder is retiring the iconic young boy's face which has been a fixture on their box for 30 years. This spun said friend into a pop-cultural existential crisis, the result of which was that she bought boxes of chocolate en masse. I think she sent some to me because she knows that I'm comfortable with the psychological bonds that we form with the marketing figures of our childhoods, German or otherwise. It's like what Barthes says about Einstein's brain. Or something.

Yesterday I watched Fawlty Towers with Rock and her Dad. It's one of those cult shows that I've always meant to watch but never really have. It's really funny. I love the British. I think I have a dormant British comedy gene. Can genes be dormant? If not, imagine the correct biology terms in place of those ones. I'm also happy about the moves the Canucks made at a trade deadline. I'm a little disappointed that our new Finnish goalie (Mika Noronen) doesn't have any double vowels in his name, like Miikka Kiprusoff or Antero Niitymaki. Oh well, name spelling only accounts for about 4-8% of a goalie's skill anyway.

2006-02-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

I'm at school now and kind of tired because I've been here all day but I can't go home because there is no bus until 9:08. So here I am stuffing this wordpad full of mumbles. I'm mostly going to be living at this library for the next month because I have about 50 pages worth of essays to write during that time. I'm pretty optimistic about them though. I'm actually doing research for once, as opposed to just tacking on pseudo-research at the end. I even ordered an inter-library loan for the first time, whatever that is. I sort of hope it doesn't arrive on time so that I don't have to pay the 2 dollars. Haha, just kidding. Actually I'm not.

I am probably moving again on April 1st or May 1st since the owners of some house I live in are going to sell the house (without me in it). 2 of my roomates moved already and Masao my last roomate is working in Mackenzie for 9 days. So I am going to have to face the hauntedness of the house myself. The most haunted room had 3 ferrets living in it for a few months, so hopefully they dehaunted it.

Hung out with Rock on weekend. Nat and Shenelle brought icecream cake over. Icecream cake is better than normal cake. They also built Rock a banapple because she is anti-dairy. How nice is that? 27. The answer is that it has a niceness of 27. If you don't know what a Banapple is it's kind of like an Applanana, or any other word you might care to make up, like if you add a lemon and a tiny umbrella it becomes an Umbrapplananamon.

2006-02-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

Boo. Boo-oooooo-oo. I'm disappointed but not entirely surprised that Canada lost. I don't really want to talk about it but I can't help myself. Canada never really gelled or adjusted to the international game at any point in the tournament. They didn't skate and they couldn't score for their lives. Being shutout 3 times is just ridiculous considering the players they had. It doesn't matter how much bad luck you have (e.g. the disallowed goal today). They played good for stretches, but that's not enough when there are 7 contending teams. I don't really mind that they lost today. Russia was terrific and they deserved to win. It's just lame how weak Canada was overall. Even if they had all the right players and had been focused and playing as team there is still no guarantee that they would have won today. You have to execute and play mistake free hockey in a tournament format like this. But mistake free hockey is an impossibility for any team with Todd Bertuzzi on it. Although you can't pin the loss on one person, since so many stars were invisible, Bertuzzi's trademark dumb penalty was one of the biggest reasons they lost today. Dumb, dumb, stupid, stupid, dumb. I've long been a supporter of his, but you only get so many chances. I hope he never plays for Canada again and that Vancouver trades him.

On the bright side, Mar-tan Brodeur was great today, Canada won a crapload of other medals today, and the women's team won gold a few days ago. Reverse boo.

2006-02-21T18:38:00.000-08:00

Holy crap Canada and Russia in the quarterfinals tomorrow! The awesomeness is too much. I have an early class which ends at 11:20 so I can just watch it on the big screen in the cafeteria. I declare my 1pm class cancelled, at least for me. Hockey>Survey of English Lit.

Russia will be tough because they possess goodness in the form of offensive prowess...ness. They have scored the most goals in the tournament so far. Fortunately they have also been sort of inconsistent (like a certain Northern North American Country which will remain unnamed). They lost to Slovakia and only a 1-0 win against Kazakstan. Good grief Charlie Brown. Anyway, it should be a good game since Russia plays entertaining hockey, unlike the idiotic trapfestivals that Finland and Switzerland try to pass off as hockey. Sewiously dudes. Not cool.

Anyway, Go Canada Og!

In other non-news, I stayed late at school to finish an essay and then walked home between 1:15 and 2:30am this morning. It was pretty warm and dry. I jaywalked across Central because there were no cars nearby, but then the 5-0 pulled up and I thought they might give me a warning, but they didn't. Sometimes exuding geekiness is good because it tells policemen that you are not a criminal. I like walking at night.

I got a 79 on my midterm. Normally I would say that is balls. But I was pretty happy with that since I ran out of time at the end of the exam because I took a short nap at the beginning. Did I mention I'm really good at time management? Hey! And Roxanne got 109 out of 120 on her Hello Kitty midterm. I wish I was in International Studies, but I've heard it involves studying.

Did I mention that Rock and I had a nice Valentine's day? No, I guess I didn't. But I was just thinking that since I am manically posting random things it might actually make sense to post something about the person who makes up 79-109% of my life. Ok, well, that's an exaggeration, besides the fact that it doesn't make any mathematical sense. Anyway, yeah, it was really nice! We went and watched the moon which was kind of orange and it was kind of really cold out. I grew some roses for her (or bought, who can remember?) and painted a painting which was subpar but c'est la vie. And Rock got me the 2nd season of Arrested Development and a nice big red card. I hope that doesn't mean she is cheering for the Russians.

2006-02-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

It is reading break this week, which is nice because it gives me a break from reading.

Olympic happiness:
Team Canada has looked decent so far. The Czechs are having problems, which bodes well for us. Sweden looked a bit sluggish too, also good. Finland and Russia are both looking dangerous. Still too early to tell though. That Chinese figure skating pair was pretty amazing. The girl had a very painful looking crash after spinning 4 times in the air, but they restarted and won silver. Also, Norway should get a giant sportsmanship medal. One of their coaches gave a cross-country skiing pole to a Canadian skier who had broken hers. The Canadian went on to win bronze, and Norway was 4th. Nice.

Olympic sadness:
I realize it is foolish to quibble over the complex and historied rationales behind including some sports. Still, some sports seem redundant. Skeleton is cool, but seriously, isn't it just luge on your stomach instead of back? And isn't luge just bobsled with a smaller sled? I like them all, but the skillset seems to be exactly the same for all of them (well, you have to be a bit crazier for skeleton/luge). So, dividing what is essentially one sport into three just cuts the talent pool down to one third for each sport. Which just makes for poorer athletes and dilutes the value of actually winning a medal. The same goes for "parallel giant slalom" snowboarding. I love watching the halfpipe, it is one of the most exciting and unique winter spots. But "GS" snowboarding is just bastardized ski racing. If you pitted skiers against snowboarders on the same course the skiers would win easily 9 out of 10 times. It's like, hey let's give out 6 medals for going slow. Boo. Boardercross is pretty cool though, but they should make it full contact. Or at least give them those big nerf things they used to have on American Gladiators.

Lost
Wednesday's episode was cool. Hieroglyphs so spooky! What do they mean? Did Locke really stop the countdown? Ooh! I read some translations that say they probably spell out "cause to die" or "to die". Although one of the symbols never stops spinning, so it can only be guessed at. And why are there so many different symbols? What different messages could there be? Anyway, no one knows. It's intriguing though. I read a different theory that hypothesized that the hatches are nuclear bunkers and the countdown is related to shooting off nukes somehow. Hmmm. The thot plickens.

2006-02-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

A new study suggests that video gaming is healthy for your brain. Also, it might slow down the again of your brain. Also, apparently being bilingual helps in a similar way. I'm never doing homework again.

The old picture was gimped, so here is a new one which is kind of about video games but I just put it here because I like it. It is a lego recreation of Katamari Damacy, which is a wacky Japanese game where you roll a giant ball around and stuff sticks to it.

2006-02-09T12:39:00.000-08:00

Here is my completely scientific and not at all biased prediction of how things will go:

Group A:
1st place: Canada 2. Czech Republic 3. Finland 4. Germany

Group B:
1. Russia 2. Sweden 3. USA 4. Slovakia

Quarterfinals:
A1 vs. B4 (Canada vs. Slovakia): Canada
A2 vs. B3 (Czechs vs. USA): Czechs
B1 vs. A4 (Russia vs. Germany): Russia
B2 vs. A3 (Sweden vs. Finland): Sweden

Semifinals:
Canada vs. Sweden: Canada
Russia vs. Czechs: Czechs

Gold Medal Game: Canada vs Czechs: Canada!

2006-02-09T12:11:00.000-08:00

I love Lost. It's my favourite show that is currently producing new episodes. I can't really recommend it to anyone who doesn't already like it because it has a continuous story-arc which is about 30-40 episodes long now. So it won't really make sense if you jump right into it. You could watch season 1 on DVD (or download it) though, and then it would make some sense.

The episode yesterday mostly served to clarify that Sawyer (and Charlie, somewhat) is a bad guy. But it wasn't all that convincing. He conned the woman he pretended to love out of $600,000, he stole all the guns from the armory, and he committed a semi-violent pretend kidnapping. But he is such a likable bad guy (anti-hero) that you can't help but like him. Granted, if his turnaround doesn't happen until the end of the show, which is years away, his evil behaviour will probably escalate, still.

I wish I had a class where we analyzed Lost instead of plays from the 16th century or whatever. I mean, I appreciate the value and genius of them and blah blah blah, but I find it hard to engage with anything before the 19th century. Someone I was talking to who is taking Sci-Fi Lit this term said they talk about Lost in it sometimes. I wish I was in that class, but it doesn't bother me that I am not, since it was the right decision not to take it (for various reasons that I won't bore you with). Anyway, I think Lost is as artistically valid, and in some ways better, than a novel. Well, I think well-written continuous story-arc shows are in general. Or something.

2006-02-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

Tea is a good. Tea is a small good that is knit so tightly into everyday life that we take it for granted. Kind of like music. Wherever you go, there is someone to give tea to you. Home, Hawkins Lake, China, Buckingham palace, it's always just there. Wireless internet is good, but it's easy to imagine life without it, places without it. Tea is only a tiny thing that makes every day just a little bit better, but it's easier to appreciate because it is so fundamental and shareable. It is easier to enjoy things that you aren't afraid of losing. The quest for the best is a quest for distraction because it is nearly impossible to find a thing which you can call absolutely superior. Meanwhile you ignore what is fundamentally good about whatever you do have. Or something.

2006-02-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

"I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together."

That's what Ernest Hemingway told me, when I was sort of reading some book of his in the library. I wasn't really reading it. I just like to read the first line or page of a book. A teacher of mine always says that the first line of a book usually sums up the whole story. So, why read the rest? That takes soooo long, plus I have a headache.

Marshall McLuhan said that he would only read every other page of a book, and then if those pages were interesting he'd go back and read the rest. I don't think he actually did that, because he was the sort of thinker who would make things up to prove a point. I guess the point is that you don't have labour over the details to understand a thing. I could say how this affects my study habits, but that would incriminate me.

I try to be a frank and simple person, but I think Ernest (we're on a first name basis) would still trust me, because my story doesn't hold together.

Btw, I deleted the rambling version of this post twice, but it kept undeleting itself. So now I am just reposting it as a new post, without the rambling. Blogger has been effed-up lately.

2006-01-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

I don't really recommend reading any of the following. I didn't have anything relevant to write about, so instead of writing nothing, I wrote everything I could think of. This was not unrelated to caffeine consumption. I have been transitioning from ground whole beans to pre-ground coffee, because I got a lot of it for Christmas. I haven't figured out how much to put in yet, so I tend to err on the side of way too much.

Hey, look, it's like a poll or something. I put it up/down there because ppl seem to interact with the interactive stuff. It's not meant to be serious, check all boxes that apply. Don't lie. Alternatively, lie all you want.

It's snowing lots now.

The tiniest fish in the history of forever has been discovered. It was in . . . Sumatra? And it was 7.9mm long! So smaaaaal. Link

Last night I had a dream about Dann and Jessica and a giant backhoe or bulldozer or something. That's probably because I talked to my dad on the phone yesterday and we talked about Dann for a bit, since Dad saw Dann up in Ft. St. John recently. I kind of like the way Ft. St. John has two abbreviations in it. I wonder if there is a town named Fort Saint Mountain? Ft. St. Mtn.? Probably not.

Yesterday I played RISK with my roomates and won. I like RISK. It is all about being patient and seeming unthreatening and directing the other players to attack each other. Roxanne has a lifetime undefeated record of 4-0 in RISK.

Happy Birthday to Roxanne, who will turn 22 on Monday. Happy Birthday to Kelly, who turned 23 yesterday. Happy Birthday to Wayne Gretzky, who turned 45 yesterday. Happy 6 monthiversary to Rock and I, today.

I put up the link to "Chuck Beans!" again. I thought it had been abandoned but now it's abandonment has reversed and lots of banding is going on in all directions. Plus he made his own bean banner. (British accent) Top drawer Chuck, top drawer.

Have I mentioned lately that I like Iceland? Well, I do. They have announced a vague plan to try and power as many things as possible with hydrogen, rather than fossil fuels (Link). It is kind of dreamy, due to long time periods involved and the present unreliability of hydrogen systems. But it's still a good idea! Unfortunately this doesn't really mean much for the rest of us, since Iceland is a demographic/logistical exception to almost everything. I.e., there are a lot of reasons things could work there where they might not work elsewhere. Namely that it is a pretty giant island with only a quarter of a million people on it.

I talked to my mom yesterday and she said that Mr. Pete Penner stopped at her store and said we should have coffee or something next time I am in Hun City. Maybe that's just one of those polite conversation things, but it's still nice.

There is something dysfunctional about the Vancouver Canucks right now. I don't know what it is. It has a lot to do with the "big line" underperforming, but what the cause of that is I don't know. I like Alex Auld, but I think they need a bone fide #1 veteran goalie. I think they will trade for one before the end of the season. Luongo would be best, I always hear his name floated around, but I don't see why Florida would let him go. Martin Biron will have to move soon, it seems. And he seems pretty good. We'll see. I hope Ovechkin wins the Rocket Richard trophy.

There have been 2 new lakes discovered UNDER the antarctice ice (Link).They are the second and third largest behind lake Vostok, which is among the top 15 biggest lakes in the world. The interesting thing about this is that these lakes are under several kilometres of ice, and they are heated from the earth's core. This means that they have ecosystems that have been completely sealed off from the outside world for who knows how long? I know who knows how long, it's the dinosaurs swimming around down there.

That was pretty weird with that guy (James Frey) who had his memoirs included in the Oprah Book Club. Weird because he made most of it up. Then when he was found-out, Oprah invited him onto her show and wrung him out. I wish he would have just been like: I can write whatever I want even if it is lying! Eff you! It's not illegal! But he was more like: I made a mistake, whimper whimper, boring.

Today is: VOTE DAY!

2006-01-23T08:41:00.000-08:00

All you need is:

If you do not have your Elections Canada issued voter card, you must bring proof of identity that includes your name and signature, and proof of residency, showing your current address. A driver’s license would cover both requirements. Proof of residency can be a bill.

If you don't know where to vote: click here

People who don't vote are: weiners

2006-01-17T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have now officially been to 4 weddings and a funeral. The fourth was possibly the best I have been to. We left last Thursday and got to see Sam and Leah and mom and my dog along the way. We included: me, Rock, Mr. Rock, Mrs. Rock, Grandpa Rock, Brother Rock, Sister-in-Rock, and Germany. The wedding was really great because I got to meet tons of new people. Also I got to spend a bit more time with people I had only met briefly. Rock's cousin Cam was cool, and Jenn's (Rock's new sister-in-law) brother has to get a special mention because he stood outside for 3 hours to get an XBOX 360 for a wedding gift. And it wasn't even a core system! Sure, that doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's still cool. I ate at Denny's 3 breakfasts in a row. Original Grand Slam, ahh yeah.

The actual wedding was on Saturday. It was on an icerink at SilverStar Mountain in Vernon. It was there because that is where the proposal took place last year. My hands were cold. Why didn't I bring mittens? The reception/dinner was nice and had a hockey theme because Jason (groom, other brother to Rock) is a hockey fanatic. Some guy asked me if I knew someone in Hun City named Adelle, but I didn't. Do you? Some reports suggest I was became somewhat inebriated at some point. I had a good 8 or 9 drinks, mostly wine, does that count? Anyway, I was pretty talky and dancy, which was my goal. Better to be a bit goofy and outgoing than just sit there and not make a fool of yourself. I did the Elaine dance from Seinfeld and various other spastic things which amused me. The funny thing about dancing is that about 95% of the population (including me) can't do it, which makes me feel better. I don't think my comments in the wedding book made any sense. That's ok. There was supposed to be karaoke, but no one did it, and I didn't want to be the only person. But I was totally ready to bust out the Celine Dion! I did actually sing that at some point without a microphone. But I do that most days anyway.

Anyway, it was a very positive experience altogether, due in no small part to the generosity of Rock's parents, letting me ride in their van and stay in their hotel room etc. There are some more pictures here.

Completely unrelated: here is a video of celebrity Jeopardy with Will Ferrell. Here is another one. The funny.

2006-01-08T18:55:00.002-08:00

'Tis the politicking season so I thought I'd throw up a link to the "political compass" survey. Some have you have probably taken this before. For those of you who haven't, it's pretty interesting. I doubt it's perfect as it is almost impossible to design a perfect survey. But it's more complex and accurate than the typical internet survey/quiz. If nothing else it will get you to think about your political values a lot.

They don't let you link to your results directly, so I can only say that I was: Economic Left/Right: -5.63, Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.64. That translates to roughly the middle of the bottom left box, somewhere near Nelson Mandela and Ghandi.

Oh yeah, I decided to start a sub-blog that will only contain creative writing type things. It's down there in my link field under the name fuzzy math.

2006-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

That picture is of the CCTV building which is being built in Beijing now. Here is a great article/slideshow (if you like China, architecture, or futuristic things) about new architecture in China. Unrelated: I saved $140 by ordering my books for this term from amazon.ca instead of buying them from the bookstore. Stupid bookstore, trying to steal my clams!

I have bought 19 of the 22 books I need so far. I paid $257 instead of the $397 it would have cost me to buy them at school (tax incl. for both). Granted, not all of the ones I ordered are new (maybe 2/3 of them are). Also, the gamble is always that the book might not arrive by the time you need it. A third potential problem is that it might be a different edition, which will mess up your pagination. But still, $140 is $140. Plus you get a whole bunch of things in the mail! It's always good to find a better and different way to do things, especially when it saves you money. Did I mention I'm 1/4 Scottish?

The first week of school was kind of hectic, mostly because my organizational skills are wanting. It was pretty stress free though. My strategy is mostly to recognize that all these minor things will be resolved eventually, so I don't need to worry about them in the present. I tried to get into a Sci Fi Lit 400 class, but I couldn't fit it very easily. That would have been cool though because Sci Fi is fun and relatively easy. Plus you get to watch a lot of movies in that class. I think I'll be able to take a film class next fall just to fill in some generic credit spots though, so that will be fun.

So I went to my last new class today: Romantic Lit. Man, the teacher for that is so great! I really appreciate and respond well to teachers who are very knowledgeable and passionate about what they are teaching. Plus he is ridiculously nice too, in a sincere way. His name is Kevin Hutchings, and if you go to UNBC you should take a class with him. He reminds me of the teacher I had in Montreal who made me want to become a teacher in the first place. Also, he looks just the tiniest bit like Rivers Cuomo.

Oh yeah, congratulations to the Canadian Junior team! 5-0 win to get the gold medal over Russia. In some ways it was a more impressive win than last year, since last year's team was so talented that they couldn't help but win. This year they won it by working hard and playing as a team, even though Russia was arguably more talented. Talent schmalent!

One more thing, welcome back to Canada David Bancroft! He was in India last year, and now he is in Canada. Wait, I said that already.

2006-01-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

I've been doing some reading for the upcoming election. What is with all the platforms that are against space-based weapons? First of all, what does that even mean? Second, I bet whatever they are they are frickin' wicked! Don't these people ever watch movies? Let me tell you, if Canada had a DeathStar the softwood lumber dispute would get solved right away! Stephen Harper, forget patrolling the arctic and increasing personnel. If you promise me a DeathStar I'll vote for you right now.

Seriously though, it's going to be an interesting election with the recent polls putting the Libs and Conservatives is a dead heat. It doesn't really matter to me since my riding will go to the Conservatives by a landslide (or a paperslide, or a ballotslide, or something). The Tories got 59% here last time. NDP was only 20 and the Libs were even less.

Last night was the second time I slept in my own bed since December 8th. That's usually a pretty good sign that the holidays have been successful, and they were. I saw lots of new and old people, including a 2 month old baby and a 3 day old baby. I watched lots of DVDs. I ate lots of food, so much that I now weigh 150lbs. That's a lot for me, so I'm happy. Maybe my dream of becoming the world Sumo champion will come true yet. I also got bunches of cool stuff from generous people. Well, it didn't come in bunches, except for the carrots, but if you add it all together it makes up a few bunches.

There was some unhappiness in the form of car and brain malfunctions, and car brain malfunctions too, it seems. Maggie the Topaz broke down again at the very end of our trip, after we reached PG and less than 10km from home. This in itself wasn't particularly unexpected or disheartening, but I was very annoyed with myself because I drove her for longer than I should have after it became clear that she had an immediate problem. I guess I was trying to milk her home, hopefully it hasn't caused further damage. The moral is: watch your temperature gauge, idiot!

Still, it was a very happy time overall. Today was only the second day I spent without Rock since December 8th. You know that things are very good when you can spend basically 3 weeks straight with a person and not get sick of her. Well, I did try to make her drink milk even though she is lactose intolerant, but that was an accident. We don't have any classes together this term, so that's sad, but c'est la vie.

School starts tomorrow. I like relaxing, and I'm quite good at it if I do say so myself, but after a while you start to get restless. So it will be good to get back at it. I think I'm going to try again this term, it seems to work. I'm taking 5 Englishes again: Renaissance Lit, Romantic Lit, First Nations Lit, PostColonial Lit 400, and Survey of English Lit 2. I might try to get into Science Fiction 400, but they wouldn't let me waitlist for it, since it conflicted with something. Anyway, yeah! Time to brush my teeth and watch hockey.