Old essay; new venue.

OK... this took alot of self-persuasion to actually post, but to tell you the truth, I don't feel that there's anything here to be ashamed of. I wrote this essay over a year ago for the first assignment in my English 1110 class; the autobiographical essay. This was right after Christman when my best friend Garrett came out of the closet. OK, maybe a better word would be "pushed out", but that's another story. No one's read it except the lady in the English Help Centre, and my English prof at the time. I wouldn't even let Coleman read it, which says alot.

I actually hung out with Garrett for the first time in about a year this past wekeend when I went home, so that's what made me want to post this. He moved to Montreal, so I haven't seen much of him lately...

And hey, Gare -- If you read this and next time we talk you want to pretend that you didn't, then that's fine with me. It'll b one of those "glaze over it" topics. And if for some reason you don't like what I wrote for whatever reason, then just email me and I'll take it down. Seriously.

Mhen... here goes:

“Being gay is not as uncommon as most of you guys probably think. Believe it or not, estimates tell us that one in every fifty people is, or will end up being, gay.”

The classroom remained as silent as could be, not one of us pre-pubescent sixth-graders having the nerve to disagree with Mr. White, though most thought this stat had to be wrong. “Gay” was just an adjective to us, something we placed without reserve before a person, place, or thing to describe how stupid it was. Though we had some idea of who the actual word referred to, there was this juvenile understanding that these people didn’t actually exist.

“That means that there’s a good chance that one person in this class will be gay.”

I caught a few people pointing and heard some giggles, as would be expected at this news, but I myself was only astonished. I couldn’t picture any of my friends or classmates as fitting the childish misconception of the mythical homosexual that I had in mind at that time.

Flash forward seven years, and here I am, sitting on a couch in my basement, talking about anything and everything with one of my two best friends. The music is pumping dully upstairs, making any silences that creep into the conversation that much less awkward. I get the impression that he understands where I’m going with it all, but my palms are still damp. Finally, I get out those four words that have been in the back of my mind since I first became aware of the beginnings of a friendship five years before: “Garrett… Are you gay?”

I never would have believed the answer could have been such a relief. It put me in a situation that I’d been prepared to deal with for many years. I told him that I didn’t care, and that it made absolutely no difference in our friendship; that I would always be there for him and that he would always be my best friend. I realized later that I was basically trying to reassure him of anything I thought he might doubt. We talked awhile longer but soon went up to join everyone else and have some more drinks.

Our friendship has been a little bit of a coaster ride. We’ve been closer on some occasions than others, but I don’t think I’ve ever thought of him as anything but one of my closest buddies. It’s strange when I think back on it, because Garrett’s something of a closed book that pretends to be open — always putting on an entertaining show for the crowd, but seeming to hide part of himself half behind the curtain. This always made those bonding moments when he actually opened up that much more, for lack of a better word, “rewarding”. I learned things about him all the time, but it was learning those real things, those that were not part of the act, that strengthened our friendship.

Though I know I can never fully comprehend why he chose to hide it for so long, I see enough from my perspective to understand the underlying reasoning. Though he wasn’t open, artifacts of his homosexuality were visible for all to see, and some of the lower circles in my school used them to their own twisted social advantage. There was one time when, while he was walking to his locker, I saw this large guy following him and calling out “fag” every so often. I was disgusted with both this guy, lacking that basic human decency that so many of my classmates do, and myself, for not having gathered up the guts to stick up for him. I remember Garrett walking through the crowd, standing tall and showing no humiliation, pretending not to hear him though I and everyone else around knew he could. It’s this type of situation, which does not by any means sit alone in my mind, that gives me such a great respect for this kid.

I can only hope that Garrett will eventually find who and where he wants to be, because I know he is still searching for both these things. I have a feeling that he’s gotten through the worst of it that is high school but it kills me that there’s still so many ignorant people in the real world. If I could leave all my inhibitions at the door and tell him one thing, it would be, “Be yourself, be strong, and BFFF: Best Fucking Friends Forever.”

Feel free to comment should the need grip you.

Mixing it up with my mad culinary skillz

So a few days ago, I decided to defy conventional logic and bake & shake my "Shake & Bake". Ok, maybe I just forgot to do it beforehand... but whatever, it was still good.

The definition of "irrespesponsible"...What? "Irresponsible" is already taken...

So I worked from 11am to 5:30pm yesterday, then went over to Hatcher field and played a frisbee game. Supposedly, I was going to go right back to work so that I could finish up my work-shit. But then again, supposedly something called CheezeWhiz should have a respectable real-cheese-content. On this basis, I allowed myself to be convinced to go out for a drink at Big Ben's. Mistake the first.

At Big Ben's, I decided to just go for it and go in on a jug with 2 other guys on the team. Mistake the second. You see, beer-jug rules clearly stipulate:

All those who share in a jug of delicious beery beverage (who will henceforth be known as the jug-ees) must respect the beer jug rules of conduct, which state that:
a) One person shall purchase each jug, and
b) No jug-ee may depart before all participants have purchase a jug of the aforementioned beery beverage.

Doing the math, that means that if I stay for one jug, I've got to stay for 2 more, so that everyone takes their turn in buying one and the universe evens out. Come on -- who wants the universe to be all out of whack? Not me.

So I stayed for the first jug, then the second, but then everyone was leaving for George Street (yes, on a Monday) to go eat at Dexas. I was the only one who hadn't paid for any beer yet so I couldn't just go back to work, even though that's what the good ol' noggin was telling me to do. Naturally, I ignored my nogginal impulses and continued on downtown. Long-story-short, I ended up back in the lab around 10:30 or 11:00pm, with a fairly substantial buzz on. I was tired and cranky, but due to the way my experiment was going, I couldn't leave it any longer. Going home was out of the question. Flash forward through some boring and uninteresting hours, and it's 3:30am, and I'm on my way home.

Actually, while I'm on the topic: Since I was blasting an 80s light-rock station to keep myself awake while working, I would like to mention something about that "Here In My Car" song -- You know, the one with all the synthesizers. At 2 in the morning in a large empty building, it's a very creepy song. Like mucho creepy. Maybe that's just the part of me that's been exposed to all those horror movies soundtracks. You know -- those ones that enjoy playing strangely upbeat music when the audience knows something bad is about to happen, yet while the character is oblivious.

So back to being done work. I'd managed to work until I was sober, so that was a positive. I got home, made some food and watched some TV, then went to bed around 5AM. The birds were out, the sun was coming up, and I had Shake & Bake chicken in my tummy. Life was good...

...except for the fact that I had to be at work for 9.

Needless to say, I didn't make it. Now, my boss wants to see me at 9:30 tomorrow morning. He always comes in when I'm not around (yet), so he probably thinks that I just don't show. I guess it's up to me to set things straight with him. I'll just be like, "Listen Dr. H, I make my own hours. You do your thing, and I'll get you your results. I just keep odd hours. What I'm trying to say is... you don't tread on my toes and I won't kill your family. Capeesh?"

Yeah... that'd go over well.

AHHHHHHHHH!

My flight leaves at 6am... not 7:30!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH... must pack!!!!

Jeez, I'm enjoying my CNN today...

I guess that a constitutional ammendment is making it's way through the US Congress that would ban flag-burning in America. This would be be an alteration of the free-speech portion of the constitution.

Some representative named Randy Cunningham had this to say on the subject:

"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the [World] Trade Center. Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment."

My gut reaction on reading this quotation was to say "Fuck that!" out loud. Which I did. I don't believe that the deaths of all those people should be used to twist votes out of a sympathetic and still-reeling public and congress. It just makes me SO angry! Sure, maybe polls tell you that the increased patriotism in the United States (which led to this proposal) is related to the Trade Center attacks, but don't you dare go sticking your words and opinions in the mouths of the dead. This disgusts me. Pay those people their respects, but don't go dragging the list of their names around in the political mud of Congress in an attempt to further some personal/party agenda.

I'm sure many who died believed in the absolute right to freedom of protest, which I believe includes flag-burning. The vast majority of the time, it's done to relay the impression that the burner has massive grievances with the government and how it's run. Especially now, with more than half the country having a tremendous beef with the president's choices, I think the option should be there should people be so inclined to express their rage. I mean -- I couldn't see myself making use of this right, were I an American, but then again if any of my siblings or parents had been incinerated by a car bomb while fighting a useless war in Iraq, my opinions might differ.

Sometimes I hate polititians. Most of the time of just dislike them.

UFO: Unaccounted-for flying object

Earlier today, a spacecraft was launched into space from a Russian submarine, funded by a group of space enthusiasts. I guess the unmanned ship cost about $2 million and was funded almost completely by private companies and individuals. Well, a few seconds after launch, they lost it. Yep, gone. I guess for awhile they thought it crashed in the sea due to some failure, but now they're not quite sure where it is. They don't know whether it's in low orbit or whether it crashed to Earth, but they do know that they're getting weak signals from it, after 5 hours of radio silence.

I find this funny. You launch a million-dollar piece of equipment into space, it goes a little bit off course, then no one can find it. In their defense space is a pretty big place, at least to my understanding, but really... WHO LOSES AN EFFING SPACECRAFT?! I mean, when I lose my video-camera every once in awhile, I used to think that I freaked out, but imagine if I lost something this big. I think that if I were the mission control dude in charge, I might go crazy or possibly explode in a cloud of confetti and party favours. I bet that would make it really difficult for the rest of the central control guys to track down the ship -- what with all the candy and shiny things lying all over the floor and computer terminals...

I'm wondering why they're not making a bigger deal about it being unaccounted for in low orbit, cause hey -- couldn't it crash in a densely populated area?

Inventions for the betterment of the world

Pssst. OK, listen. I've got two ideas for inventions, but I'm gonna try to keep it on the DL, so that they don't get swindled from right underneath my nose. so from now on, i'll only be speaking in lowercase letters. you know... so the man won't hear. cause "the man" will patent my ideas and i won't get a cent.

ok, idea the first:
a button on television sets that uses radio frequencies to send out a signal to the remote so that it starts beeping. and this beeper mechanism would definitely have its own power supply in the form of an auxilliary watch battery, so that even if the main remote batteries were dead, you would still be able to find the remote if you'd lost it. cool, n'est pas? they've got the damn things on phones, so i don't get why no one is clueing in on the tv potential here!

idea the second:
it's not so feasible, but i still think it's cool... get ready for this, cause it's awesome... ok, a bed with a built in alarm system. don't worry, it gets better. how it works is that there is an hydraulic system and a speaker system beneath the bed so that when it's time to wake up, your bed swerves violently back and forth and an obscenely loud tire-squeeling sound emmanates from underneath of you. in principle, you think that you've either fallen asleep at the wheel of your car, or that you're the sleeping passenger in a soon-to-be horrific accident. i don't know about you guys, but i wake up best when in fear for my life. good idea, huh? perfect for the kids. might cause a few mental complexes though...

Fuck this caps thing. OK, I just remembered something from my childhood. You see, when I was younger, I used to have a problem with falling out of my bed. I guess that I'd squirm or whatever, cause all I remember is that every once in awhile I'd wake up while in the air, then I'd hit the floor. I guess my parents, being the concerned folks that they were, decided that the best way to rememedy this was to get my brother (who also had a problem) and I captain's beds. For those of you who don't know what a captain's bed is, I'll tell ya: It's a bed that 3 freakin' feet off the floor. Yeah... go figure. I'm not quite sure how my spinal cord survived through the pre-adolescent years unscathed.

The obsurdity of the whole situation didn't even strike me until about a year ago. I wonder if I looked back at the insurance records, whether I'd see a large increase in our disability insurance around that time... Conspiracy? Who knows?

Oh Mikey...

33 AD - Our Lord Jesus Christ dies for our sins
January 15th, 1929 - Martin Luther King is born
November 9th, 1989 - The Berlin Wall falls
February 11th, 1990 - Nelson Mandela is freed

What do all these events have in common? They were compared with Michael Jackson's innocent verdict on his official website. I mean, come on... WTF?! Ok, maybe I made the first one up, but the rest are actually there... I don't understand how Michael can be ballsy enough (for lack of a better descriptor) to compare his acquittal due to lack of proof that he doodled little boys, with the birth of freaking Martin Luther King?! Yeesh! You so craaaazy Mikey...

Short bar story

I was at Christian’s a few weeks ago going up to the bar to grab another beer when this couple sitting at the bar started talking to me. I got the impression that they had just met and were making with the whole “idle breaking-the-ice conversation” thing. I can only assume that they were talking about super-heros. There was a lull in the conversation, and in a panic (I'm guessing) the dude pulled me into the conversation.

“So if he were a superhero, what super-hero would he be?” he said, addressing the girl.

“I don’t know… he kind of reminds me of Otto, from the Simpsons!”

Wasn’t sure how to take this, but feeling it uneccessary to point out that Otto wasn't a super-hero, I just laughed and introduced myself. They did the same and we started talking for a bit while I waited for the bartender.

After a sec, the guy asked, “So how old are you anyway?”

I told him I was 20. They both moaned about how old they felt, because apparently they were 28 or something.

“So hold on… do you remember when the Soviet Union split up?”

Feeling like being a jerk and making them feel even older I said, “Well, not really, but I do remember that I used to have an old coloring book with all the countries in it. I was coloring all of them different colors. My mom pointed to the Soviet Union and told me that it wasn’t a country anymore. So I decided not to color it.”

They laughed, we said our goodbyes, and I left with my beer, knowing that I’d succeeded in making them feel just a little bit closer to the grave. Hoorah!

Holy impact crater Batman

Some of you may remember me, over Christmas break, going on about some asteroid being found that had a relatively high chance of hitting Earth in 2029. Well, I never heard anything else about the blurb (apparently due to the tsunami coverage), but this Popular Science article made me think about it again:

They put the chance of an April 13, 2029, collision at 1 in 2,700 and two days later upped the odds to 1 in 165. On the morning of the 27th the astronomers elevated their assessment again, this time to an alarming 1 in 38. On the Torino scale, which measures the likelihood and potential severity of an asteroid impact, they gave the asteroid a 4, the highest alert ever issued.

Wow. That's all I can say.

In Perspective

So our fridge smells. It smells like something ungodly crawled inside and died. Something like Gary Coleman. He's pretty ungodly.

So anyway, I was going through and trying to figure out what stank/stunk/stonk so bad, so I ended up throwing out an Atlantic Salmon Steak, half a pack of Montreal style smoked meat, and a few raw chicken breasts that I had left out to (de)thaw and forgotten about. I was so pissed cause in total I was throwing away like $10 worth of stuff.

"What a no good fucking waste," I said to myself, "Ten dollars just down the drain."

Then it occured to me that I do the same thing each and every weekend. For instance, I spent an obsene $75 From Wednesday to Sunday of last week, and the weekend before... well, see below... You can make the assumption that when someone puts on a garbage get-up like that, the prior liquor investment must have been astronomical. You'd be guessing correctly.

So anyway, I guess that just put it in perspective. Many people would stop drinking so much after stumbling upon a realization such as this....

I'll probably just throw out more food.

RUSSELL CROWE!!

OK, Bert just reminded me! Last night we were at Big Ben's after the ultimate frisbee game and some dude on another team was saying that he heard that Russell Crowe and the guy from Great Big Sea were gonna be playing downtown tonight at Bridie Molloys or something. I was like "NO WAY!" in the Wayne's World way, and he was like "Yeah, you're probably right. I bet it's just a rumour. I don't think he can leave New York till that telephone incident has been resolved..." And then I forgot about it.

Flash forward to 8 AM this morning. I was waking up to my radio alarm and heard that they had actually been on George that night. I freaked out and got myself worked up cause I was an idiot for not thinking it was gonna happen. Then I fell back to sleep and (due to my quasi-amnesia-when-I-first-wake-up condition) forgot about it.

Flash forward to a couple minutes ago. Bert mentioned it and I'm worked up again! I could have gone and seen Russel Crowe playing in a small bar! I don't think it was an official announced thing, so it would've been cool... And I could have been one of the people who got to drink with him. You've gotta understand, when band's play in bars on George Street, you're like 2 feet from them. It's not like the band is quarantined or whatever.

Damn. I'm pissed. I even saw Russell Crowe on Letterman like two or three nights ago! Drats.

Genie wish #1

If I found a genie who would only grant me inpractical wishes, I think one of them would have to be to become a spring chicken for a day. I'd then go to a place where the elderly congregate, and proceed to ridicule and make blatant references towards their old ages, cause -- hey -- what are they gonna say? I mean... really?

I love mail!

And one more thing:
I came home a few days ago and what do I find in my mailbox but a parcel. Fancy had been telling me for awhile that he had some kind of New Kids on the Block cartoon and that he thought it would be much more appreciated in my hands. Well, I guess I still wasn't really expecting to get it, but it showed up. Hoorah! Now I need a VCR so that I can watch it. I still haven't watched my "Step-by-Step" music video VHS...

And in an unrelated note, Ron Jeremy came to the Cotton Club to do his stand-up act a few weeks ago, which is kind of cool on its own. But what's even cooler is what Lynden told me at Open Mic on Wednesday. The guy works as a bouncer at Peddler's down on George, and the night that Ron Jeremy was here, Lyndon ended up sitting in the hot tub with the guy and smoking a joint with him! I don't smoke pot, but I still have to admit that that is pretty wicked. How often does that happen?!

Well anywho... I'm done for awhile... over and out I'm done.

Downtown pictorial

OK, so here’s the downtown recap for the last little while:
A few weeks ago Derm, Bert, and I all went downtown with the Mile Zero Ultimate Frisbee League (which we joined awhile ago) for the season kick-off party. And for those of you who don’t think Frisbee is cool, it is. How do I know this? Because they stuck an “ultimate” in front of the “frisbee”. Sometimes they leave the “frisbee” out completely, so it’s just “ultimate”. I mean, you know you’re playing a bad-ass game when it’s called “ultimate”. So anyway, after that, the three of us went to The Duke of Duckworth and had a few drinks there. Around 11, I stumbled downstairs to go to the bathroom and found an unlocked door with “The Brewing Room” printed on it in Fancy letters. Though it wasn’t as exciting inside as I thought it’d be, it did lead to a little hall that opened into the alley behind the bar. And in this little hall were a few of the bar’s signs that were supposed to be hanging outside the building. We’re not sure whether they were old signs or whether they were just down for repairs, but needless to say, we took one. It’s now in our TV room, like so:


We hid the sign in the back alley so that we could pick it up later, then went over to The Casbah, this awesome little bar that Derm knew about. It was so much fun! My new favourite drink-place I think! It had this cool dim, high-ceilinged atmosphere, with a balcony second level hanging overhead and patio lanterns strung above the bar. The bartender girls were all loaded and ended up giving us like 3 free shots -- one for getting there, one for leaving, and one for just being awesome. And oh yeah, apparently thick import beers have this little marble inside. Bert drank his beer and then disappeared into the bathroom for like 15 minutes. Since the bar was really dim, we could see Bert’s shadow under the door flailing around. When he came back out, he had the little plastic marble and the mangled can which he’d pulled it out of. And oh yeah, his hand was torn to shit and he had bloody paper towel wrapped around it! He had to ask the bartenders if they had a first-aid kit so that he could slap some bandages on and stop the bleeding.


Anyway, we grabbed the sign, crammed ourselves into a cab and arrived home at like 4 am. It was kinda funny cause Bert and I both fell asleep sitting up in the TV room – him in the chair and me on the couch. I woke up at maybe 7 and went to my real bed. But anyway, this was all a few weeks ago, but the week just past was the best. And Derm took PICTURES! Go Derm.

OK, so we started off at Lauren's house for a barbecue, where there were high-five abound. Ain't nothing cooler than high-fives... except maybe... no. Nevermind. Nothing cooler than high-fives.


I felt like being all classy, so I bought some 15-dollar steaks. That feeling of classiness lasted until I realized that it was the equivalent of paying a buck per bite. Nothing dissipates a classy feeling like the realization that you're eating loonies...

After the barbeque, we all hopped a cab and headed downtown. After visiting the Casbah again (which didn't live up to previous expectations), and then The Ship, we passed by a telephone pole with all these ads on it. You see, people had just been taping flyers to this pole for at least a few years -- the new on top of the old -- so that there were a bunch of layers of paper held together with adhesive tape. For some reason, Derm started pulling at it and a big fluff of flyers started hanging down. Naturally, I burrowed into the mess of papers and then walked away from the pole so that the big paper suit stayed stuck on me.


It's amazing how many people want to get pictures with you when you're wearing garbage. I felt like some kind of hobo celebrity or something. One girl (not pictured) aked me "What kind of statement are you trying to make?", to which I replied, "Uhh... I don't know... I just found a bunch of garbage stuck to a pole and jumped in." I know, I know... I bet you kids wish you could be smooth like me. Bert says that if I'd just made something up, like about the homeless or saving the whales, then I definitely could have picked up. And yes, that's a bank security guard who was put there to keep the homeless people from sleeping in the ATM room overnight...



Finally, we all went to Christian's where we sat around and Bert and Derm took turns trying to get pictures of the other.


Then there were more high-fives and thumbs-ups.


Then I smoked one of the ads I was wearing, hoping one of the smokers would tell me how stupid it was to smoke a piece of paper that was on fire. Unfortunately, no one did... but if they had, I would have had some type of awesome retort, I'm sure...

Thoughts from work

Hey, I just thought of something. So I'm at work doing an experiement in the lab when I realize that Bush and I aren't that different after all. So what do a scientist-in-training and an American dictator... ahem... president have in common? Well, you see... I crush with mortars and pestles, and HE crushes with mortars and pestilence! How bout that?! The only difference is that I work with boring old starches, while he works with the Iraqi people in a place which he sees as brimming with martyrs and pests.

Two things I've discovered (which will NOT change the world)

Maybe you guys don't remember this, but way back when, I did this post and included in it this site I'd found while looking for He-Man pictures (don't ask, cause I don't rememeber why!). Anyway, I was browsing through the Maxim magazine that Sheldon got in the mail a few days ago, and what do I spy, but the same picture! Check it out:



I mean, how cool is that?! If I found a link to it on some site, then I wouldn't be as proud, but I found it all by myself. Wicked, eh? Yeah, I'm cool.

Anyway, as I mentioned last night in my drunken state: It was a good drunk night. When I get the pictures from Derm, I'll explain, but until then, I'll just say that in involved downtown, strangers, and a big suit made out of garbage. 'Nuff said.

And in closing, I just read some old posts, in particular the ones about the RPS challenge with Adam for the rights to a certain catchphrase. I realize for the first time that I STILL HAVE THE RIGHTS TO "Peace out."! I thought that I'd lost those too, but on closer inspection of my initial proposal, I've still got em! Go me! Way to read my own fine-print, doofus.
Fuck y'all. :)

Peace out.

Bedtime for Patrick

I hear chickadees. Time for bed.

Twas a good drunk night. I'm still loaded.

A beef with the handi-stall

Here's my definition of cruelty:
You know those big bathroom stalls for disabled people? Well, I always use them, not because I have bad intentions, but just cause they're like the... Taj Mahal's of the public restroom world, or some place spacious like that. If you don't have a wheelchair or a walker, there's lots of room in there and you don't feel claustrophobic. So anyway, I was in one today and noticed that the only toilet paper dispenser was on the other side of the stall. As in like 4 or 5 feet away. Why don't they just put up a sign:

"Congratulations! You have rheumatoid arthritis and polio, but we're going to make you get up in order to properly sanitize you're posterior.

- Facilities Management"

I realize it's probably temporary until they notice that the other one's missing, but still... I guess I should mention it tomorrow. Anyway, gotta finish cleaning up the lab so I can go over to Bitter's for trivia night. Yeah, that's right... I'm still at work... but I left for a few hours for lunch, then went to a doctor's appointment, then played frisbee, so really it is kind of fair that I'm still here. Had lots of time off today. Over and out I'm done.

A gift from Sheldon

So the last guy that lived in this apartment forgot to file change of address info with a bunch of companies, so we've been getting quite a bit of his mail. Rogers Cable in particular really likes sending us letters. "Shelden Keats, you haven't returned your high-speed internet modem.", "Sheldon Keats, you owe us $631.84. Please respond immediately.", "Sheldon Keats, your account is overdue and we have passed your information over to a collection agency.", blah, blah, blah... Frankly, I'm getting tired of having to throw all of his mail out.

But finally, today, we got something worthwhile! I opened the mailbox when I came home for lunch, only to find a Maxim magazine! Hoorah! Apparently, my good buddy Sheldon was a man who liked his girlie-magazines. Thank you, Sheldon. You're a gentleman and a scholar. This more than makes up for the trouble of having to constantly empty all of those urgent-marked envelopes out of our mailbox.

Note: Just kidding, I haven't been opening Sheldon's mail... I've been giving it to our landlord. But I guess she says he is overdue on some things.

Tely 10

I've made a decision. I am going to run the Tely 10.

Don't try to convince me otherwise, cause it ain't gonna work. I'm going to run this motherfucking race, and I'm gonna win it! All I have to do is run 16 km in under an hour, from Paradise to the bottom of Signal Hill. Here's a map:


Maybe this doesn't look like much, but think of it like this: The route takes up 2 pixels on the all-of-canada map! TWO! Proportionally, that's a crapload of running.

I ran from my place to Signal Hill and back yesterday (5 km one-way with a massive incline) The run there took just under 30 min (I took lots of pictures, so maybe I'll add 'em later). It was my first real run and I wasn't pushing myself... so I know it's possible for me to run the Tely 10. I've just got to keep myself motivated while I'm doing it, which shall preferably be done through a massive excess of profanity. Some folks there will have all those rhythmic breathing patterns going on (in-in-ooouuuut-in-in-oooouuuut...) but I'll just be cursing like a mofo with every last breath. And yelling at the rythmic-breathey people, of course. If I'm lucky I'll throw one of them off-beat, and they'll breathe too much and fall into a ditch on the side of the road as a result of oxygen poisoning... And then their dying spark of hope will ignite the dangerous combination of excess oxygen and all those carbohydrates they were eating prior to the race, resulting in a horrific explosion. Ideally, this would knock out a few other runners as well. Hoorah!

...Listen: This is my fantasy, so whatever.

So anyway, back to reality. On my first practice run a few weeks ago, I went out at like 11:45 pm and just started running. If you know me, you know that I have a very weak grasp of direction in St. John's. I don't know where anything is. I figured I'd just follow the big MUN Tower back in the direction of home. But no, cause you know what St. John's is notorious for? Fog. Yep, the weather system that keeps on giving. Not only does it make me damp and cold, but it prevents me from finding a place that isn't damp and cold (ie. my home). So anyway, after a good 50-55 minutes of running, I realized that I had no clue where I was. So I did the thing that any independant, out-doorsy-type person would naturally do: I called Bert and got him to look up the street I was standing in on Google Maps. Ah technology, how I adore thee. He gave me enough info to get myself into a familiar area, so all ended up well. Turned out I was at the bottom of Signal Hill. The thing was, I started out running in the opposite direction, so go figure!

And a few nights later as I was running back from work at like 1:30pm (I had to go vortex stuff that I'd forgotten to earlier), there was this desk just sitting out on someone's lawn. I, chosing ignorance, picked up the desk which someone was obviously throwing out, and walked home with it. Musta been pretty sketchy looking... some young whipper-snapper walking home with a big wooden desk on his back. Oh well, now I've got a place to study for the DATs, so it's all good!

Until next time: Stay alert, stay safe! Oh Gert and Bert, you were so ahead of your time...


PS - I was browsing that "Stay Alert, Stay Safe" site, and I guess there's a section where you can submit a TV character drawing. If you do a good one, you get put in the gallery AND A FREE SASS T-SHIRT!!! Am I horrible? Yes, but I prefer to think of myself as an opportunist. Now, to go hone my mad drawing-like-I'm-in-the-age-7-to-10-target-demographic skillz...

Annoying Tourists

I think Beijing locals always avoid that famous section of road in Tiananmen Square. I bet it's really annoying to drive through, what with all the tourists always jumping out into traffic and trying to hold it up while their dumpy wives take pictures.