Type-O clubs... or club Type-O's? I choose the latter.

So earlier tonight, we were walking over to the Breezeway from Mandy's, where we'd been watching LOST, when somehow we got talking about blood-types. Turns out that, miracle-of-miracles, we had two O-positive blood-types in our midst -- Alisha and Mandy. I guess those are really rare or special or something because type-O can give to any of the other types (A, B, or AB), and like 87% of the population is Rhesus "positive". Because of this, they were going on about being universal donors and they thought that they were all cool shit.

Universal donor basically means that you can give blood to pretty much anyone if they need a transfusion, but the catch is that you can only receive blood from another of the rare universal donors if you need a transfusion yourself.

So being that they thought they were all "unique" and "special" because they could "save lives" and stuff, I suggested that they should just go start a club. Some type of club in which only universal donors could join. And they could have big meetings to talk about how awesome they are.

And then wouldn't it be oh so awful if -- Tragedy-of-tragedies! -- someone were to walk into one of said meetings and -- Oh... I don't know -- open fire on them? Or maybe just severely beat the majority of them? But wouldn't they fight back, you ask? Well, there couldn't be that many of them, and besides -- I'm sure they'd be too weak to put up much of a fight, what with all those good-samaritan blood donations that they do...

So they're all in the hospital, waiting for their blood-type to show up... Wouldn't that be a kick in their fuckin' type O-positive pants? At this point I might walk through their ward, having just donated a big ol' bag just brimming with useless type B blood, and I'd sing a little song to myself out loud. It'd go a little something like this: "Ooooooooh... it's so great to have bloooooooood... to fill my vascular systeeeeeeeem! So great to have bloooooood.... that my bone mar-ROOOOOOOOOW makes meeeeeeee!"

And then, as I trilled off the last note, I'd finish off my post-donation sugar cookie and make a graceful exit from the trauma ward.

Bitter? Noooo...

Always muster coordination before scratching as itch

I used to be able to say that I'd never gone to scratch my eye and instead picked my nose.

As of today, I can no longer make that claim.

And I've got to say, my eye had been really itchy, so this scratch-that-wasn't was primed to be a really vigorous one. I can only imagine how it looked: This dude walking across the library lobby, his right eye twitching a bit, then suddenly he crams his finger up his nose in one quick motion...

Man... my nose hurts...

The Day-After Party Recap

NOTE: If you don't want to read a bunch words, then feel free to skip to the pretty pictures near the bottom.

So I was supposed to take a nap earlier today -- and I eventually did -- but originally, before I was about to lay down I got on the internet for a second. And I found this wicked-cool site! It tells the story of the transatlantic tunnel, a tunnel that began secretly during World War II and had been sold to a private company by the sponsoring governments after the Cold War ended. According to the site, it's supposed to open in 2009. Now that I'm actually writing it out, it seems so stupid and unbelieveable. It turns out it's a hoax. And I'm a gullible idiot. Before I found out about the whole non-reality aspect of the project, I got myself all excited and therefore couldn't sleep anymore.

Damn tunnels... Whenever you want to take a nap, know who always goes and ruins it for you? Tunnels, that's who. It's always been that way, and due to the inherent nature of tunnels, I don't think that's ever going to change. Fuck tunnels.

So yeah, I got all pumped up and made a fool out of myself by waking Coleman up from his nap and going on about this crazy tunnel under the ocean. He was half asleep, so hopefully he won't remember... because if he takes just a few coherent, waking moments to think about it, he'll realize that it was just a hoax, and then the razzing will start. I can hear it now... He'll say... Well, I can't exactly hear it all, but I know what words he'll use... OK, maybe I don't even know many of the words he'll use... but you can be goddamn sure that he'll use the word "tunnel". And maybe several repetitions of "idiot" somewhere in there for good measure.

So last night we had a party. It was pretty kickin', as far as parties go. Andre and Alisha both got sick. Tony disappeared into the night. Coleman and I got really drunk and wandered over to residence with a strange man in skin-tight leather pants. His name was Gavin. And he was pushing a girl with a broken ankle in a shopping cart. Oh the fun times in Newfoundland.

So let's tell some stories. We all just invited a bunch of people, and Tony was no exception. One of his invites was some big guy, but not one of those fun big-fat-party-animal types. He showed up loaded and did nothing but stumble around with a glazed-over look on his face. I like to think that if, just prior to the party, a brain surgeon had performed a complicated and dangerous procedure in which he'd replaced this dude's noodle with a delicious Poptart pastry, his demeanor would have remained about the same and not a soul in the place would have noticed... except that maybe he would have broken out a few "BEE-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"s.

OK sidetrack: Landlord Peter stopped by at the begining of the night to give us the keys to the shed. This event in itself was nothing spectacular, except for the fact that he casually mentioned that there was a kiddie pool in there that we could use if we wanted to. Did we wants to? Yes. Hells yes. Yes we did. I originally set it up in the living room and had the hose running into the house. Peter was tearing up the carpets and putting in a new floor in about a month, so I didn't think it'd be a big deal. I second-thoughted this great idea, fearing that it might be one of my patented "bad ideas". I carried out a brief survey and surprise -- Surveys say that a pool full of water in the living room is a BAD IDEA. So we moved it out to the deck.

Main-track again: So anyway... Coleman, myself, and Andre jokingly tried to throw Alisha into the pool, but our drunken Big-Fat-Non-Party-Animal (henceforth known as BFNPA) stood in the way and wouldn't let us do it. Keep in mind; we're all friends and Andre is her freakin brother! The dude continued to be an idiot, pushing Coleman across the kitchen and creeping on Alisha by trying to kiss her later. Everyone had had enough of this guy, and if he did anything else, Coleman said that he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from punching him.

And here's where the night began to take a turn for the worse for BFNPA. He was doing his thing on the back deck -- ie. standing solemnly by himself and staring into the Nth dimension -- when all of the sudden he just passed out in mid-stand and keeled over into the kiddie pool.

For the next half hour, he did essentially the same "standing around" act in our kitchen, except in a slightly more aqueous manner. After this, as I was coming in off the deck, I met him in the hall. He was lurching in my direction, headed for the door. As soon as I saw him bearing down on me and heard the shouts from the kitchen, I knew what was happening. He had a glassy look in his eyes that was a slightly different incarnation of BFNPA's regular glassy look. It was the I-don't-know-where-I-am-and-there's-bile-in-my-throat look. He was about to be sick.

I threw myself against the wall, and he barrelled past me, out the door and onto the deck. I then went downstairs to my room where Alisha and Alex were chillin' out. All of the sudden, I heard a loud crack and a commotion outside. Deciding it best to investigate, I crawled out my window and found myself in our driveway. Apparently, our party hadn't been good enough and the driveway had decided to throw a bash as well. And who was on the exclusive invite list, you ask? Well, none other than Big-Fat-Non-Party-Animal's face.

He'd been leaning over the rail of the deck, being gross and sick as only BFNPAs can do, when the railing had given way and he'd fallen face-first into the ashphalt. I guess Lovell had just happened to look out the screen door at the guy, and had heard the crack, then saw him disappear over the edge.

I could make any number of jokes about getting "smashed" and whatnot, but that would be heartless. He was an idiot-drunk, but we were still worried about him. We did our best to check him for concussions, then sent him home with someone who hadn't been drinking.

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So yeah, all-in-all: good night. I finally gave away the last of our Mexican tequila/gasoline. Erin and Saralynn were the lucky recipients of those shots. Don't they look pleased?





And then there was the funnel. Here are some pics of Andre drinking from it. What he didn't know was that all 1.3L of it had been filled. He thought he was getting a beer and a bit, but people **coughRaylenecough** had poured in a rum & coke and a Rev. Naturally, Andre remained in bed until about 4pm today...






And I got some shots of Metcalfe doing it too.




And then there was the kiddie pool. Good times.




And before I go, I'll mention a fact that someone else happened to notice at some point in the night. Incidentally, there were 3 sets of twins at the party: Raylene & Saralynn Cheeseman, the Metcalfes, and... two girls who Andre knew... I forget their names though! What are the chances of that?

Whatever. I'm out!

PARY PARTY PARTY, etc.

Ok, here's the deal. We are having a party on Friday (tomorrow) night, and anyone can come. Ideally, you should know one of us -- either me, Coleman, Alisha, Tony or Andre. We've got a whole house at 12 Hatcher Street, and it's just waiting to fill up with rowdy, drunken individuals.

Here are a few reasons why you should come:

1) Andre's out right now buying a bunch of tubing so that he can run a funnel along the railing in the main stairwell.

2) I guess we're doing something called the "community pot", where every time someone enters into the main room, they have to pour a little of their drink into a big pitcher. When the pitcher's full, then the whole goddamn process reverses and all who enter must take a drink from the community pot. And that, my friends, is how bodily-fluid-borne diseases are spread.

3) This will be the end of my reserve booze so after this, there'll be no more drinking on my part till the end of the term. At least no more drinking on my own dime -- but if someone were to graciously donate to me a large volume of fermentastic beverage, I would be obliged to accept. So what? I can't help it if I'm now poor.
Well... In hindsight, I coooould have helped it... but let's not quibble over details.

4) If you come, you will get to see me in all my tie-around-my-head glory -- and hopefully others will join in, so BRING A TIE! You're not having a truly good time unless there is a tie around your head to prove it.





LINK: You thought you were extreme? Well... you're not. These guys are.

Jobs I would like to have...

Oh I-wish-I-wish I was the owner of the convenience store at the next exit. Can you guess who my target demographic might be? Selective tourism or what...

Odd happenings: Part 2

Gah! Ok it's late and I want to get to bed so I'm going to write a quick post with no back spacing and no thinking, so if it seems rushed than that's why! Hooray for run-on sentences a-plenty.

Ok so like I was saying a-ways back, two odd things happened to me while coming home on different days. The first involved me getting hit by a happy little yellow Volkswagen Beetle (which I saw parked by the library today, bee-tee-double-you). But don't worry, I'm A-OK. Catastrophe averted.

So yeah, the second thing happened a few days ago and is just plain weird. I was coming out of the side-exit of the Science building and noticed something lying on the edge of the walkway. I went closer and saw that it was a little chickadee. I was "sitting" back in a way that I didn't think chickadees could do. It was actually upwright on its feet, but sitting back on its tail-feathers. Since it wasn't moving and I was right beside it, I assumed that it was dead or something. After all, this particular walkway was underneath a skywalk overpass between buildings, so I figured that maybe it had... I dunno... fallen -- if birds can do that. And the fact that it's mouth/beak was wide open and not closing made that observation a sensible one.

So I was about to carry on my merry way when I noticed the dead chickadee do something that dead chickadees don't tend to do. It blinked. So I thought pensively to myself, "What the goddamn holy hell?!". Then I got down on my hands and knees for a closer look. The bird was sitting there, almost perfectly still, within arms length of me. It was breathing really quickly and blinking every so often.

It's not often that I whip this word out, but I was utterly "flabberghasted"! I had no clue what to do! Should I call for help? There were people walking by along an intersecting walkway a few meters away, so I yelled to them "What do you make of this?". Looking back, I can see why they'd ignored me. I was a creepy dude on his hands and knees, looking intently at a dead bird from 2 feet away.

Still not knowing what to do, I decided that maybe I should pet the bird. Yeah I know: stupid. But hey -- maybe this little chickadee just needed some lovin'. Like I said, I didn't know what the hell to do in a situation like this! So I reached out, and as I extended my arm, the little bird swallowed -- as in it closed it's previously gaping beak, then opened it again. I drew back when it did this, but then continued forward and gave it a good pet on the back of its head with my thumb. It still DID NOT freakin' move!

So I pet it again.

I just didn't know what else to do! But this time, it all at once freaked out and flew upwards, almost hitting the under-side of the above-mentioned skywalk as it scrambled to get away. I watched it fly up into a tree on the side of the walkway. Having nothing else to do, I continued my walk home.

There are three conclusions that I can draw from this experience:

1) I just witnessed a chickadee having a catatonic seizure.

2) I transiently lost my mind and started seeing things. Thinking back, the people walking by did ignore me and one girl actually looked back over her shoulder as she was walking away. Maybe there was no chickadee... In that case, I have a problem.

3) Maybe I met my spirit guide. If this were the case, then I probably should have followed it, or grabbed it, or -- I dunno -- asked it about the secrets of the universe. Conclusion #3, might also tie in with #2...

So anyway... yeah. If only I'd had my digital camera with me...

Back-country bakery -- with a twist

When my family and I were visiting my sister in Stephenville this summer, she told us a cool anecdote, so I thought I'd pass it on.

While Amy (my sister) was staying in the small town of Stephenville, she ended up walking to most every place she needed to go. I guess that there was one taxi but unless she was in a rush, she just did the manual foot-transport thing. So over the course of the summer, she started noticing that while walking past a certain building, she'd often hear a loud "DING!" sound. She described it as sounding sort of like the bell on one of those old-school egg- or oven-timers that you had to twist to wind up.

So part way through the summer -- through talking to other people I assume -- she finally discovered what was housed inside the old building... It turned out to be a combination funeral home and crematorium. Yep, that's right. Ew.

"DING! Coming right up: Your loved ones. Extra crispy style."

Photo-ops

Since it's too late to be posting words, I've decided to throw some pictures from home onto the blog. These pictures might not say a thousand words, but they say at least three -- those three being "bored", "buzzed" and "bourgeoisie".


Jenn and MacAllister: Looking all cool shit.


Clockwise from top = Adam, Jenn, MacAllister and me


Adam having trouble focusing the camera... and his eyes.


Me looking surprised for no apparent reason.


Andrew trying on an expression he'd learned while doing theatre at Ryerson: The "You've awoken to find that you have grown a third nipple and a lobster is hanging off of it" expression.
Ok, well that's enough from me for today! I'll get back to this at a later date, and preferably at an earlier hour...

Odd goings-on

Right now, I sitting downstairs and waiting for our drive to the Our Lady Peace concert to get here, so I decided to write a quick post on the abnormal things that have happened while walking home to our new place. Really though, there've only been two things.

1) I got hit by a big yellow Volkswagen Beetle in the middle of the day. I was crossing the street on a red light and the driver was looking in the other direction and gunned it right into me. I'm proud to say that I didn't do the deer-in-headlights thing, but actually tried to get away. I didn't. I jumped up, managing to keep myself from sliding beneath the wheels, and rolled over the hood onto the road beside the car. Naturally, the girl driving was all apologetic and ranting, but I was all like "Don't worry about it. You failed to maim me, you slut." Actually, she was so sorry that it was hard to be mad at her, so I just kept telling her not to worry and she eventually drove away. Who am I to slow her down. I'm sure she had many more important people to hit that day.

The funny thing is that she had a very distinct vehicle, so I'll probably recognize her around. Maybe I'll see her parking outside a bar and be like "Soooooo... remember that time you hit me with your car? Yeah... good times..." And from there I can offer to buy her a drink or something. It could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. After all, like my mother always used to say: Nothing brings two people together like attempted vehicular manslaughter.

Mhen, this took longer than anticipated, so I'll explain the other thing some other time... and maybe I'll post some pics from the OLP concert too! Peace out.

Clever dog

I have a dog. His name is Hershey. Here is a picture of Hershey.


He is one bad-ass motherfucker.
So anyway, due to certain stains and smells which now reside in the living room of our house, we decided to start locking him in the outer-basement downstairs during the nights. We figured that we'd just shut the door, he'd whine for awhile, then he'd get tired of bitching and fall asleep -- simple enough. Clearly, when he'd realized the door wasn't openning, he'd give up, right? Well, you'd think so. But like I said; Hershey is one bad-ass motherfucker.

Until the night in question, I believed that dogs had only a handful of primal instincts, with the main ones being "eat", "bite", "chase", "bark" and "hump the living bejeezus out of it".

But I guess they've got another lesser-known instinct: Burrow. Yes, that's right -- Apparently this activity, formerly reserved only for shrews and badgers, is now enjoyed by dogs. This is evidenced by the following picture:


Yep. That's right, partner. He dug right through the effing drywall. From one room to another. His paws were actually bleeding the next day when we found him.

So needless to say, due to my parents' priding themselves in walls sporting minimum cavity content, Hershey now delights himself in having the run of the whole downstairs of my house.

Another point of order

Studies say that as many as 13% of North Americans have ADD, and frankly -- the other 87% can't fucking pay attention. So this post is a continuation of the last, made specifically for all you kids who can't focus on all this monochromic text. I'll work on getting some kind of shiny, sparkly font that makes barn-yard animal sounds when you touch it, but until then... well, just cope.

OK, so here's my solution for hang-overs:

Supplies:

• your toilet
• a large drinking glass
• a Sharpie permanent marker

Instructions:

1. Flush the toilet and let it completely stop refilling.
2. Let it sit undisturbed for a few hours. Be sure that other residents of the house do not use.
3. When the inside walls of the bowl are dry, carefully pour a full drinking glass of water into the bowl, avoiding splashes.
4. Take the marker and draw a line as close to water-level as possible on the inside-back wall of the toilet bowl.
5. Add another glass of water and repeated 3 or 4 more times.

Now, whenever you're indulging in drinks at your own house, use that same toilet. When you're done doing No. 1, just lean down, check the water-level, and judge how many glasses of water you've lost (I advise against leaning down if you're really drunk -- I'd feel bad if someone fell over, hit their head, and drowned in their own urine). Since hangovers are for the most part caused by dehydration, this should eliminate the problem at its root.

And it's a good conversation point for anyone who uses the can at your place.

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This just reminded me of something else... For a while back in high school, I thought it'd be a cool idea to do a little experiment. I decided that for every time I went pee, I'd drink like 3 huge glasses of water -- presumebly more than I'd expelled. I wanted to know what would happen! Over the next few days, I peed more and more in volume and frequency, until it got to the point where I got scared and abandoned my experiment. Some things just aren't meant to be tampered with by mortals...

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You know how people put limes in Coronas? Well, what should us Canadians put in our Molson Canadian beer? Bert, Craig and I were drinking the night before I went home and I thought this'd be a good idea. And yes, that is a piece of cooked bacon at the bottom of the bottle.

A few points of order

So I've finally got the internet and I've gotta say: You guys are awesome! I would've started the ol' blog up quite a ways back if I'd had to means to do it, but the internet tech dude just delivered our missing modem piece earlier today. So here I am. I'm kind of at a loss for what to say... I feel kinda rusty at this. So I guess this is the part where I crack my knuckles and hunch over the keyboard for 60-some-odd minutes! Oh, the excitement of it all. Booyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And oh yeah, my "H" still sticks sometimes, so bear with me.

First order of business: The explanation of that picture down below. And yeah -- there were better photo ops in that bathroom stall, but they didn't capture the essence of the moment. And what essence would that be, you ask? Well, the essence of me spiking my complimentary Burger King Coke, while in a smelly bathroom stall of the Halifax international airport after my flight had been delayed, that's what! I was supposed to be home that night to go drinking with some friends, but since I was going to be late anyway, I decided to prime up in the airport. And I drank it in the food-court while talking to a pilot. I actually tried to get a picture of us together, but I'd had the camera on a slow shutter speed while playing with it, which caused the resulting Pat-pilot bonding moment to show up as a whole lot of fuzzy nothing.

So anyway, on to the next choice picture-story:

So when I first got to Newfoundland for the school year, I was living solo-style in our huge house for a weekend. Yes -- it was lonely, and -- yes -- I lacked furniture and any sort of entertainment, but you know what? I survived. You know why? Cause I'm a survivor.

For 3 grueling days, I lived off of pre-fabricated meals and my own raw wits. By the time I'd gotten groceries, I was starving, but our house seemed to be without the base elements necessary for cooking. I was forced to caveman it. I found an old beat-up cookie sheet, and managed to get a Sobey's meat pie into the oven. I encountered my first problem as it came time to remove said meat-pie from the oven -- the meat pie was hot. At the last minute, I scoured the house for something -- anything! -- that would allow me to remove the delicious meat-pie from above the red-hot element. I couldn't find any oven mitts or towels, so I ended up using the shirt off my back to pull the pan out.

The I came across the next problem: I had no cutlery or plates. I again combed over the house to find the tools that I needed. I ended up eating my supper on top of a report-cover from the previous year, using pliers and and box-cutters from the tool-box downstairs.

Ghetto indeed.

But goddamn that meat-pie was good.