Foxytron 5000
For the first two weeks of my job with CancerCare Ontario I was set up in this very spacious 6 by 6 foot corner desk area of an office complex with an empty workstation of equal size to my off left. The work area is set up for the staff of the Cancer Care lottery which is this big provincial charity prize lotto that generates like 2.5 mill but doesn't have many staff during the summer. Spacious, quiet, perfect for the hard worker inside me :P. So I come in Monday to assume my usual position in my no stress big office land and much to my surprise I am now no longer alone. For what struts in at 9 am to my early morning eyes. Well nothing short of Foxytron 5000.
Now you see Foxytron 5000 is the name I have granted to this extreme yummy of a mummy who is sitting, well about 5 feet off to my left right now entering data for the charitable foundation at the Hospital. And when I say yummy of a mummy, I mean LIKE DAMN this isnt fair. Now I'm not usually one to get flustered over 30 something dynamo's mainly because I have never had the opportunity to interact with smoking babes ten years my elder. But now in the luxury of real world, this blonde, blue eyes, busty bombshell beauty (thats like five b's - Bossanova) is asking me questions and favours job related, to which I usually respond "baduh, huh, what?"
Now if this Foxy cliche'd MILF looking "co-worker" didnt already have me hooked by sight alone (she's like a hot, tanned Edie Falco if Edie were younger, hotter, curvier, and as sweet as pixie stick with crack in it), the lady turns out to be so damn nice, and complimentary and impressed by my sitting in her relative proximity with a job with more responsibility than hers at an age a decade her minor. What can I say its the tie and the smile, I'm fucking adorable. Im convinced she wants to give me a back rub and a kiss to hint at a job well done...oh shit she just asked me a question....
ok...thank christ for alt+tab; and I'm back. So I'm not sure if this is making this job worse or better, but all I know is I had to tell someone, and the internet is the closest and quietest friend I have to spread these little fantastics around.
Ill let you know when the marriage date is set, I hope the co-workers show up and we have a office box social to remember. Anyone know a good way to break up an established marriage; I see a ring???
Foxytron 5000, I just met you and I love you: I pray youre really a robot because this isn't fair to my focus.
*Paige I need your spy digi cam and Ill sneak or pose for a photo.* just kiddin, I think that would classify as some sort of office harassment, and nobody wants that!
the night of 5.27.05 - Yeehaw at the Horseshoe!
The best nights out always begin at 7 oclock when you otherwise have no other plans and expect a mellow night of the same old same old. On Friday, Mcgrady calls me up and asks if I want to go check out a small Kid Kaola show at the Horseshoe on Queen for free on account of the extra ticket he has in his pocket which is girlfriend doesnt want. Now this ladies and gentlemen is the biggest benefit to not having a significant other of my own in my freewheeling single lifestyle, cause when any of my friends have an opportunity for non coupled fun, Im the first to be rung up cause I have no double to account to, and the significant others of my peers need not worry of my intentions with their leeshless partners. (*ok sal, you may have to worry, but at least you know Ill try and make a video to show you of all the nasty intentions).
So Mcgrady and I begin the amazing journey it takes to free suburbia and get to Queen. The route goes like this:
- Ride to go station in brothers low rider, a doob, and Mcgrady = 20 mins
- Miss 8:47 train and have to wait an hour at the sketchy sports bar hosting a baseball tourney drinkathon for old people and their annoying children eating chicken wings and crawling all over the patio while we drink our $20 pitcher = 45 annoying mins.
- Non-express go train from Whitby to Union semi drunk due to Rickards = 45mins
- Cab to the Horseshoe = 5mins
So we show up at the Horseshoe and I stash the toothbrush and axe spray I had brought, because we were crashing down there and I need to smell pretty, in a housing rental pamphlet stand outside the bar, and we head in to the back of the tavern where we are able to catch the end of the opener act.
Now I love opening acts, because its a taste of something new, something you probably havnt heard of already, and might be able to name drop to your friends in six months when they hit it big and you can say that you had beers with them over an awkward semi fan, hows the biz conversation you had at the Horseshoe a year ago. So on this night we were introduced to
Lederhosen Lucil (click her name to link to her online mp3s) who was this one girl act, dressed in full german leederhosen, who sung with an electronic organ, two turntables and a voice very similar Stars, Metric, Broken Social Scene's Emily Haines. She has amazing stage presence and though is from Montreal, when on stage pulls off the best german school girl accent, yaah! She was really good live and I strongly urge you to check out her flighty electrohiphop unique genre when can.
So after I learned all about her path to mediocre startup success by talking to her and her manager in an incredible drunken stuper, I proceeded to spill a beer on her newly crafted fan email list, which I apologized for, signed the soggy sheet and gracefully exited to the opposite side of the bar. Then Kid Kaola came on, which was amazing. He had four turntables and was throwing amazing mixes of tracks from Modeste Mouse over what I think was the new Common album, as well as this crazy rendition of Moon River which went on for like 20 mins, and made me cry I think four times. As soon as I can find some pics Ill throw them up here, because the show was amazing because I guess it was a launch party for a
comic festival going on in Toronto this past weekend, and so he had a local artist sketching on stage and at one point Koala handed out 200 paper megatron masks that he made on his computer and attached to popsicle sticks and handed out to the crowd for a picture op for the website. (*the photos arnt up yet, but like I said; in time Ill post).
So after the show, I stumbled my silly ass what seemed to be four blocks, but was really two doors down to the Rivoli, where we met up with Brown, and started the epic journey to west west west Queen, and a trolly ride on which I insisted trashtalking every sole on the car, thinking this was a could idea, to which Mark eventually gave up trying to shut me up and avoid the probable stabbing that he foresaw. *note* don't be scared of talking to people in Toronto, I was sauced, and every one I chatted up, even if I was rude, had a great time, and Im sure we will be friends for life...just dont tell them where I live okay?!!!
By 5:30 the night wound down after a crazy two hour game of summer moguls, which led to a noon wakeup call and a conversation over contemplating death because of the nasties still inside me, as Mcgrady and I made our way home which went a little something like this.
- walk to breakfast = 20 mins
- sweat and sketch with an unability to eat in this polish town greazzy spoon = 30 mins
- trolley to younge = 20 mins
- union to whitby go = hour on saturdays
- whitby public transit scenic route of the city = hour
- walk to homestead = 15min
- painful crash out = sometime saturday night
* Much to my surprise after leaving the Horseshoe, Mcgrady reminded me of my toothbrush and axe spray which was still in the rental homes kiosk outside the bar, I havnt been able to use the toothbrush since out of fear of some odd practical joke rental seekers might of played on me in the early hours of saturday the 28th. 5.27.05 were some Gute Zeitens, now everyone tap their lederhosen.
Sticks and Stones may be digitally enhanced, but words will never hurt me!
So in reading the
rock'n'roll nigga's words he was a little frustrated, or maybe just full of pity for some dumb white guys who he over heard make a stupid comment about interracial couples. After reading it, it made me think of a little realm of racism that I stumbled upon in the last little while.
So as we know, if we've read anything off this page in the last while, is that, for now I am back living in sweet little ole Whitby. Now you see there's not much to do in the evenings here in the GTA outskirks and so when I come home from work I tend to engage in a little virtual mind expansion (ok screw off I play some video games ok!)
Lately I've been playing this game called Halo 2, and for those of you from under a rock, or the majority of girls, Halo 2 is this shoot em up, gun wielding war game kinda like that old james bond 007 that everyone loved on Nintendo 64. Now with Halo you can play online against kids from all over the planet, ranging in ages from 10 to 50 (no really I played with this fifty year old from Norway, whose accent was intense) whose abilities in the game all get matched up based on skill.
Ok, so what does this have to do with racism you ask. Well, at a certain point in playing this game, which is the point where you start to get pretty good, the competition gets pretty fierce, and soon enough when you kill someone or say something into your headpiece (yes the game has a earphone and mic piece that lets you talk to the other players) soon enough some of the most racist and bigoted comments I have ever heard start flourishing.
Some of these kids are like no more than ten and the amount of uses of the word nigger, fag, spic, queer, and this can go on, is really disturbing. I mean have you ever heard a pre-pubescent 12 year old scream "I hate you, you dirty queer into your earphone", seriously its like children of the corn creepy.
As I tend to do, it made me think more than I probably should, and I've come up with this overarching theory towards war and otherness:
Halo 2 is a game of war, the amount of mobility and control you have on your virtual soldier puts you there, and I mean there. It sounds geeky and nerdish but this game is the top of the gaming world (which is a bigger industry than Hollywood: so take that Tad Hamiliton) and a lot of people play, with full interaction between them. How bout this for a theory, racism is inherent in war because it defines the clear enemy and lets you continue to be superior in mind over anyone who may take away your victory. An other needs to exist as long as there is war, and if your gun isn't working, let your mouth shoot for you.
Now of course this theory is not unique or revelating, but nevertheless, it is disturbing that this can be brought out in conversation by a commercially sold video game. The unique thing behind racist presence in online video world, is that in many ways it is more personal than if you were fighting for your country. With this game you are ranked as an individual proving yourself against your shared communal peers, and some people take these ranking ultra serious, to the point where a loss in their win column, causes screaming rhetoric to spew into the mic.
I can't justify the bigotry inherent in violence towards the other, but I mean at least these kids know what and who they are fighting for, as opposed to troops fighting for a one faced government whose agenda is veiled in buzz words like freedom and democracy. And the real bonus is at the end of the day you push the reset button and go down to dinner with your family. I just hope these 12 year old little bastards dont turn into the next troop for the administration to the south's next
Enders Game.
*worth noticing is a rough guestimate would put 95% of the slander I hear in this game from a southern state derived accent. Ain't nothing bigger than Texas' *cough*mouth*cough*.
midget beatings are scary
Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not scared of very much. Sure a knife held to my face, overly happy clowns, a group of midgets looking for a fight; all warrant a little fear from time to time, but I mean the biggie's like death, failure, love, they never really get to me.
Last night I had a dream that I had been in a coma for seven years and had woken up at the age of 30 not realizing what had surpassed for the last near decade of my life. I can honestly say that this gave me a legitimate fear to ponder about. In the dream I was a wreck, not believing that seven years of my life had passed by sleeping while the rest of the world lived away the days.
Sure this conjurs up Freudian analysis of me thinking I'm not doing enough, or that I'm missing something important, or that I simply sleep away too many weekends, but beyond that the genuine fear of falling in a coma has me all nimbly wimbly....which is bad I think.
Now I work in a hospital every day, so the sight of pain and suffering and sadness is slowly becoming normal as I pass through the waiting room to get my morning cup of java, and so maybe thats where these images of hospital care and worry are surfacing from in my subconcious but never the less; a coma is fucking scary.
I woke up and no one was around, not my family, not many friends (Cid was there so at least we know she won't have much to do when she's 30) but everyone else was no where. Now I'm not going to blame you guys for not showing up to my dream induced coma awakening, because after all I would never expect you to. I mean when you found out I was awake you better show up, but in 7 years everyone will have a family, maybe kids, live all over the place and be doing the life thing.
My fear comes from the fact that I would of lost out on that time to do all those things, and before last night, I never really realized how much I value the opportunity to do whatever the hell I want now that I'm done school and really living on my own accord.
So, I guess for the next seven years I'm going to wear a hard hat, walk gingerly wherever I go, and never ever piss off any group of five or more midgets in fear of a beating that no man could live down.
*I also fear eggplant, it just doesnt sound right.
God bless the monarchy!!!
I made it back up to London for the long weekend, and was thrown right back into the very addictive and surreal environment that the biggest city between Toronto and Windsor offers to the booze thirsty, no responsibility, hangover seeking 23 year old. I feel as though this lifestyle is what should be deemed "real" world, but has unfortunately lost the term to 9ta5s, taxes, assets, and such.
Do you ever have those days where you wake up and very strongly wish that distance was a non issue, and outside this very accesible digital global village there were means of eliminating space for the ability to touch, hold, party, hold more, kiss a little, do other freaky things, and druddle (
a term that materializes once the point of incoherence reaches two persons with mental urges but physical comatose to lie in an awkward knot like spoon til the sun just rises) with those you have come to absolutely adore but have been geographically removed from otherwise every day availability; then you wish that when the next day comes, you would be perfectly situated back in the city where your working with relative ease and those distances between those most important to you become irrevelant once your off work again that night? Yeah, well me too: this weekend was one of those.
I introduced someone to the art of tabletop moguls this weekend, and Ifeel pretty bad about it. She was all like I dunno, this sport sounds risky, and I was like baby (after having already been skiing that day) don't worry you can trust me: talk about after school creepy. But nevertheless, she dove in; because after all, everyone does trust me, and I abuse it, in the most caring and thoughtful of ways, to its fullest extent. Needless to say she found out what
!YEY! is!
So I could write more about what we did, who we saw, how many saucifers of the law interupted the weekend, how annoying hockey fans are, and what happens when 2 litre bottles of moonshine mix with vodka from the bottle, sporting goods, wine, nasty little herbs, and whatever other bottles we were able to pillage from the party we killed off late sunday night: but I always preach, let the inventory describe for others how your night probably went. Personal relation to any story is the best means of understanding anyways.
To sum up May 2.4 2005 ( which for the longest time I thought celebrated memorial day, but turns out thats next week and in the states only; who needs labelled holidays anyways!) I had an amazing time, with the familiar amazing people that I miss everyday.
*weekend.notes.
- Jane is the sexiest name ever;)
- Annie J is my new favorite educator, and Ms. Walls is going to re-invent the coolness of a profession
- Party and Privacy unfortunately do not mix, and oh god how i wish they did
- I lose opportunities often
- Never tough talk a breakfast egg, it spawns four hours of poor quoting from shows whose voices most people can't come close to duplicating.
- My new job is a pretty big deal and fairly cool, but takes like four hours to describe and comes across as really boring.
how many once in a lifetime things really occur for everyone at the same time?
currently it is...
10:05 on Friday May 20th 2005.
thats 20:05 on 20:05, 2005.
*isn't time interesting
the scene
Tucked away in the back alley of the main strip, a strip that in itself features only two salons, three pubs, what seems like 30 antique and novelty shops, a pizza place and an overly bright pita pit, lies this little nugget of familiar fun. Walk into a dingy circle of familiarity where elbows bump, not because of a dance floor, but because of an abnormal amount of seating space for a place catering to the debauchery of the summer returned twenty somethings.
I take a seat amongst the universal conversation of "what are you up to nows", only to far too often hear of stagnant reprocutions that derived from being "too cool" for a high B average in high school. Pity sets in as I wait for the one waitress, dressed in her woodbridge looking finest, fix forty-five people the same pint of domestic. Don't get me wrong, there's Stella, Carlsberg, and Creemore on tap, but to the pride of this land, Blue and Canadian hold a mystic appeal: it smells of overexposure and irks of free t-shirts with purchase.
I look around at the communal circle jerk going on with the testosterone spoiled hockey haired (*cough*mullet*cough) gents lusting over "what they would do" to any of the five friends sitting at the only table of girls over the age of the remaining post-pubescent id wielding dynamo's. God I love kilts. Soon enough, number 99 spots me mockingly observing him and his band of needful cronies, which in no time warrants a pit of whisperful rage, and blue steel glances towards our overly abusive mockery.
Within seconds good times turn to macho whines, and the turkey's turn and puff out their chests as far as they can go while they sequentially measure the opposing pack to see what tribe measures larger. After twenty minutes of curious wonder, no punches are thrown, shots are had, smokes are burned, and cabs are called; a joint at the neighbourhood swing set is on the horizon.
*this scene has been brought to you by the Crown and Firkin of Whitby, ON.
Commercial Notes
Since being home a nightly ritual of television soakings has needed to take place, I could read blogs and apply for jobs all day, but I've already had nine ounces of brain leak out my ears, and I'm starting to think the Internet is getting to me. Nevertheless in the last few editions of eano primetime (11pm-2am) I've seen some things that are worth mentioning, to me, on a personal blog, so bite me!
1)
Bedouin Soundclash's When the night Feel's my Song is featured on Zellers new summer ad campaign. Now I am glad that Bedouin is reaching the masspop soundscape, 'cause they deserve it and everyone should here them live or on album (see the phresh spaces section right over-->) but I mean cmon boys, money is one thing, Zellers is another.
Now a man who lives for sustinence and I got into a bit of a debate over this. He was all for the Zellers deal 'cause money is money and idealism in the "real" word needs to go out the window (*cough*crockofshit*cough*).
Personally, I can accept that they sold their song to Zellers, but in the end they could of done better than the lowest of the supermarcher's; I mean Zellers has three rows of chef boy r dee products for god sakes. Just so you all know this is not a crack against poverty, hell I live it, but chef boy r dee is 3 bucks, lettuce, tomato, and a cucumber 3 bucks! thats all I'm saying. Zellers is grosse, dont buy your groceries or clothes there; the're are better, cheaper options, and don't judge Bedouin for this business trasaction, Zellers or not, the song is soooooo GOOD!!!!
2) I am the has an excuse for everything guy.I had a moment of enlightenment after reading
dewaard's blog and seeing the newest of the labatt commercials. I'm not saying I have an excuse for moving things like the lilly in the commercial (lilly's are very weak flowers; they blow) cause after all, I'm fucking huge. But I am notorious for always having an excuse for my fashionable lateness to a party. I apologize, I just hate plans that center around me going and getting a beer with friends; I thought rules were for things you didnt like!
But for all those who have had to live on e.s.t (eano standard time) I apologize, let's go get a Blue; DAMNIT, it's working.
3)
online commercial note:
I just heard the most amazing rendition of
Hey Jude, by Clarence Wheeler and the enforcers, on Canada's best source for funk and hip hop, straight outta Montreal, on We Funk (check out the phresh faces and spaces section; again found right over--->).
now.time.for.your.nightly.news. *click
The Fat Man Walks Alone
There's something about independent creativity that really bothers me. This is my self-righteous plea that the whole world stop creating popular media for me to watch in an altered state late at night.
Have you ever counted how many films steal from you a scene that you wish had played out in your real life? It happens more than you may think; you know when your watching a show, be it movie or whatever, and you get that fuzzy feeling where your eyes well up and you have no idea why you compassionately feel for the fictitious emotion thieves in front of you: well that's your real life being stolen in front of your eyes, so much so that you want to take it back.
I'm not talking about movies like Tin Cup when triumphant Costner pots his final ball over that damn water haphzard to shoot a wonderous 12 on the final hole of the U.S Open, thats just sappy filmaking that touches a cord. You go Kevin!
I'm talking about the conversations you see between two people in a film, which make you think of someone or something that could replace those two make believes in a soundtrack filled, perfectly lit emotional experience.
To the modern screewriters of today, I say screw you, stop stealing the conversations I'm gonna have in the time to come; you make me so unoriginal! Gosh!!!
Excuse me, I burbed.
Ok...so I’m home now, away from the surrealism of London Ontario and the beloved university safety net. Which is cool because officially now I have no more deadlines, no more essays, a lack of consistent boozing and mind melting, which I'm not sure is a good thing or not yet: I may need an intervention.
I love being home, don't get me wrong, family/great, friends/super, msn/life source. But, let me tell you the thing that bothers me most with coming home to the megapolis of Whitby Ontario (oxymoron what?) is after spending the last four years educating myself on North American cultural habits the new Whitby, in my eyes, is a case study for the citizens subjected to routine and boredom. No offense to anyone who reads this from Whitby, but suburb life is tough, its an amazing city to raise young kids, or retire to because it is nice, the people are pleasant, and you are close enough to the city to branch out if need be. But as a 20 something with no real commitments to any career, love, or systematic routine, living in the burbs is like watching a whale stranded on a beach. You are mesmerized by simple breaths, as the life slowly is sucked out of everything around you.
Now I know that sounds harsh, but there are little things that I notice about human life in burbia that really take away from the creative and outgoing freedom of people who live in this town.
First and foremost: CARS. I hate em, why, cause you NEED them to live in the burbs. Mcluhan wrote "there is a growing uneasiness about the degree to which cars have become the real population of our cities, with a resulting loss of human scale, both in power and in distance" (Understanding Media, 218). To Mcluhan, I say, "NO SHIT".
So I came home to no available car...my parents need theirs, and well I'm a broke ass grad. So I've been walking everywhere. Within two struts to the corner store (10 mins away) I've become some sort of burbcultural weirdo. The looks I get from passing motorists for being the only guy walking around anywhere are ridiculous. Heckles, gasps, open mouthed who are you’s. But, I also realized that I cannot blame them.
I was driving around with my peeriodical lifesource, Nicole, the other day, and I found myself falling into the trap. Ive discovered that the reason walkers are gockily shunned by the majority of motorists, is because in Whitby if something is moving out of the ordinary its big news. Everything is familiar when you live in the burbs, and when something disrupts the regularity of the everyday its cause for social unease and awe.
Dependency on cars for your everyday, fixes our species in the societal "real" life that we are all supposed to reduce ourselves to. To the point where, your every move is reduced to familiar boots between the things you have to do that day.
So to the world of commuters, I ask you to take a walk, as often as you can, get out of your car and breath about something differently than the stresses of work, your commute, and what’s for dinner that night.
For a community that gets an amazing view of the stars, it’s a shame that the whole world has to shut down at 10pm so that you can beat the traffic the next morning.
Poetic Applesauce (ish.ii)
The Confusion of Being
I woke up today in a jungle,
Miles away from my normal struggle.
I woke up today wondering what I had to do.
Working hard I want to establish my self,
As a permanent fixture on the recognition shelf.
I work until the end of each day of the week,
To achieve a status that all dogs seek.
Consumerism my way, status my goal,
Organic humanism lost, that’s modernity’s toll.
I woke up today in the jungle.
I look outside my window deliriously,
Wondering where is my normal tree
Stepped outside to a dim green light,
Urban canopy stretched high, their leaves twined tight.
The smell distracts me from any worry.
Want to explore, understand what I’ve stumbled upon,
Don’t know where I am, but of this place I’ve grown fond.
I knew once I stepped outside my door,
That I never want to return to what I knew before.
The seductive smells of this new yet familiar space,
Bog down ideology; give pursuit a new face.
Stepped outside to an eternal love.
Decide to stay, in the jungle I trust.
Your power over me is monstrous.
I worry though,
About what we’ve have come to know,
If we decide to be only each other’s purpose
Is this how it should be,
Soulmates removed from society.
Love deciding our course, our path,
Free from culture’s contextual wrath.
What If you were supposed to be rich?
What if you were to be a systematic bitch?
Love can cost us a valuable thing
Should I strive for wealth, should I commit to community?
I worry though, what forms one’s ontology.
Confusion set in, in need of a revelation
The answer is no secret, real decided by representation.
All that is known to one, constructed by others.
Choose Catholicism as the basis for morality.
You can escape from conflict with ecstasy.
Remember that time you saw him do that,
Want rejection? Let yourself go fat.
Originality is now ubiquitous,
Options for "reality" feel the Dementor’s kiss
Grand narratives disseminate and form every thought.
The unique self is incarcerated,
For occidental life is now forever simulated.
All those to which I have known,
Shallow shells of self, creators of clones
What do I really want?
Between my jungle and ideology and I am torn
What part of life should I scorn?
The jungle be my kingdom come
While cultural dogma beats obligatory drums.
Rejection of hereditary hierarchy,
Effects more than my jungle and me,
But then the decision is not mine
The jungle for me, I’ve made up my mind.
Who needs utopia, when love is blind!
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