Christmas ramblings

Fun with demographics:

-- MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hopefully you're having a goddamn Jesus good time.

-- HAPPY HANUKKAH! Who needs the son of God when you've got a distinct lack of foreskin? Moses and dreidels represent.

-- HAPPY STATUTORY HOLIDAYS! To all you other unclassified religiosos, have a good nondescript morning and a very good recommencement of the Gregorian calendar.

So yeah, it's been awhile... I've been busy with my recent carousings and haven't had much time for blogging, but I've started to miss it. Which leads me back to this typing-thinking-typing-erasing-spending-hours-writing affair. It's wierd, cause I'm not sure if I like doing the actual work, but I seem the enjoy the end-product -- the end-product being the shit before you now.

Before I go any further, let me explain something. I'm going to divulge a piece of informatics that, before now, only a handful of people knew. I figure that pretty soon I'll need to explain it to a bunch of people anyway, so what the hell: I have a single boob. Correction -- I HAD a single boob. I guess I had this crazy deal where one of my glands decided to go all-out mutiny on me and start with an "abnormal growth pattern", leading to a single small boobular-looking thing on my left side. Yeah -- I know... weird. Tell me about it.

But as of right before Christmas, I had cosmetic surgery to remove it. I was sorta hoping that they'd give it to me -- I don't know -- in a jar or something, after the surgery, but nay -- I didn't get any jar-boob for Christmas. Tragic, I know. What I did get was a whole bunch of pain and discomfort and a missing nipple.

THAT'S RIGHT: There is a distinct lack of nipplage on my left side. I mean -- I've got the decorative skin discoloration that normally accompanies the nipple, but no little nubby thing that defines the the damn thing! But whatever, who needs a nipple anyway? Pfffft... not me. I'll hang in there without it.

On the positive side, I have always wanted a nickname, and this opens up the door to many interesting possibilities. As Adam "Lefty" Leclerc has already suggested, I could be "Unipple" now. Y'know... sorta like an abbreviated form of uni-nipple? Or how bout "Anipplar"? Pronouced sort of like you would say "asymmetrical"... Or hey -- how bout "Asymmetrical" itself?! Man, the possibilities are just endless. Just thinking about all these options has made me slightly -- no, even more -- mildly excited. Hurrah.

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So over the holidays, my brother and I were talking about a segment that aired on CBC's The Rick Mercer Report, in which Stephen Harper and Rick Mercer parodied that Nike ad. You know... that one that originally showed Iginla and Naslund dogding pucks that the other shot from the roof of a building? Well, anyway, Chris thought it was hilarious, apparently for the sole reason that Stephen Harper appears so... natural looking. What he didn't realize was that this relaxed air couldn't possible have come naturally. In fact, I suspect the CBC needed to hire a professional anesthesiologist to pump Stephen Harper full of 3.5 L of morphine in order to achieve that "natural" look.


Frankly, this Harper dude doesn't seem to be a good representative of the Canadian people. He appears more suited to be lurching around yelling "MORE BRAINS!" than sitting up at 24 Sussex Drive.

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My family and I played a new car game on the way to Moncton yesterday to see my brother off on his flight back to Montreal. As I've said before, my parents are firm believers in the positive dietary powers of cheese. Every time my brother or myself come home for any period of time or receive a care-package, a large 2kg block of marble cheese changes hands. So on our way to Moncton, we had this block of cheese sitting on the back window of the car. The game evolved so that whenever we took a tight turn, we'd hear the shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-CLUNK of the cheese sliding across the back window and ramming with all it's dairy-like momentum into the side of the car, after which we would all yell "CHEESE COLLISION!" in unison. I kid you not. My brother with corroberate this.

It was a great game though. No winners or losers -- just a group of four happy people, a dog, and a single 2kg block of cheese, coexisting peacefully in a confined space for upwards of one-and-a-half hours. OK, maybe I lied: there was one loser. At first, it was just my brother and I playing, but then my mom joined in. She was welcomed unquestionably into the game. We all played happily for awhile before my Dad, who had previously remained absent, decided to chime in. While the cheese was still in the shhhhhhhhhhhh sliding phase, my dad yelled "CHEESE COLLISION!" by himself. There was a silence from both the cheese and the other passengers in the car. The block had ended up running into a piece of newspaper and so, lacking sufficient momentum, there was no CLUNK. The rules were fuzzy at best, but we all agreed that this constituted a loss on my Dad's part. We all though it better if he didn't partake in the Cheese Collision game any longer.

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I'll post pictures later, but that's all I got for now!
Peace out and such.

Appendices

I'm pretty busy studying at the moment -- filling my thinker with things that need thinking -- but I figured I'd just post up some random semi-relevant things that've been cluttering my computer. This is more for me than anything else, since I tend to lose the hard-copies of most everything...

Appendix A: The final page of "L-I-F-E Is A Four-Letter Word" by Nicholas Monsarrat, torn out of a book in a bar on my birthday earlier this year.


Appendix B: The disconnect notice which we received on the day which it was supposed to occur.

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I'm currently studying for my Microbiology final. Last time I was studying for this class I was up all night, wired on Red Bull, and performing some of the most ludicrous acts of studitude (Sure it's a word. Trust me.) that I've ever been involved in. Though it's commonplace for me to pace around, sometimes rapping and drawing things out on my palms Hellen-Keller-style, I've never acted out the formation of a biofilm before. Think you're an intense studier? "Biofilm: The Patrick Edition" consisted of me falling to the floor, flattening myself against it, making squishing sounds, then throwing my dirty laundry on top of myself. Had anyone been looking in my window at 4am, for whatever reason, I think they might have concluded that they had just witnessed a man snap under the immense pressures of academic life-- reduced to a quivering shell (because I did quiver as I made oozing sounds), unable to face the world and most likely in the process of soiling himself.

Hopefully there's no need to be that intense about it this term...

Some things are best told in a more dramatic manner.

Coleman wanted me to write about this, so I did. Hopefully no one here is a great fan of rational thought... I think the only audience who would ever enjoy this play would be... deaf... babies. And even then, only if it had a lot of flashy colors and a venue with variously-textured items which hung from the rafters.

ACT I

SCENE 1
{BASEMENT ROOM on 12 HATCHER STREET. A large 3-storey house with central heating containing a duct that goes from the floor of COLEMAN's room upstairs to the ceiling of PATRICK's room in the basement. PATRICK sits on his bed, contemplating important-like chemistry things while surrounded by books and looking suave in his black velvet housecoat. It is very silky and smooth. Masterpiece Theatre theme is playing in background.}

COLEMAN enters.

COLEMAN
I've got it! The most ridiculous, stupid idea ever! I can't belief I didn't think of it yesterday!

PATRICK
What now Coleman? Can't you see I'm studying?

COLEMAN
But this is super important.

PATRICK
As important as when, at 4 o'clock in the morning as we lay in our beds in residence, you felt it necessary to host a whistling competition -- A whistling competition in which you falsely claimed championship and continued to fashion yourself a crown out of construction paper. A wicked crown based on lies and deceit and goddamn horrible whistling?

COLEMAN
At least twice as important as that.

PATRICK
Ok well in that case, what are you thinking?

COLEMAN
(Walking beneath and inspecting ducts running along ceiling.)
Do you think that this duct in your ceiling comes right down from my room to yours?

PATRICK
Well... we do talk through it all the time, but there's got to be some twists and... U-joints in it. It can't go 3 floors straight down...

COLEMAN
I think we should test it out. I've got a ridiculous, stupid idea that I've been working on all morning.

PATRICK
As much as I do love ridiculous and stupid ideas, I am currently studying and wearing a black velvet housecoat. It is very silky and smooth. I have no time for your shinanigans tonight.

COLEMAN
Come on...

PATRICK
Ok.

COLEMAN
Splendid! I'm going to go pour water down my vent, and then we can figure out where it comes out. Hopefully.

PATRICK
(Moving to below duct.)
Ok, I'll stand beneath the ducts and monitor the situation from down here.

(COLEMAN exits. Fade out.)

SCENE 2
{UPSTAIRS ROOM on 12 HATCHER STREET. Stair climbing sounds, before fading in as COLEMAN enters with a glass of water.}

COLEMAN
(Moving to the vent.)
You ready Pat?

PATRICK (Offstage.)
Ow! Yes. But the duct is really hot from all the heat going through it.

COLEMAN
OK, I'm pouring it down now...

(Pours water down vent.)

PATRICK (Offstage.)
Hey! I can hear it! It's coming straight down into the pipes...

COLEMAN
Aha! I am victorious! I am champion!

PATRICK (Offstage.)
What? How is there any concievable way in which this was a competition? -- Oh wait...

(Pause.)

The duct is getting very cold along the bottom...

COLEMAN
Really? How very interesting...

PATRICK (Offstage.)
Wait a second... (Pause.)

Ahhhhh! My books! My precious notes! Ahhhh! A bucket! Coleman, bring a bucket! Quick!!!

(Cut to black. Sound of heavy footsteps running downstairs.)

SCENE 3
{BASEMENT ROOM again. PATRICK has his hands cupped below the ceiling ventilation ducts, which are rapidly leaking water all over his notes and room.}

(COLEMAN enters with a bucket, trailed by ANDRE. Both laughing.)

PATRICK (Angrily kicking notes and books out of the way.)
Hurry you idiot! My hands are getting full! This was a horrible idea!

COLEMAN (Placing bucket beneath the leak and placing his arm around PATRICK.)
Well, at least we all learned a valuable lesson...

PATRICK
I hate you.

(Tuba plays the WAOW WOAW sound.)
(Fade out.)

SCENE 4
{Spotlight fades in on OLD MAN sitting on a stool front stage right. A SMALL CHILD is sitting on his lap as he holds a large, old-looking book.}

OLD MAN (Closing book.)
And that, my young boy, is another tale of Patrick and Coleman's failed attempt to lead the lives of mature, liberated members of society.

SMALL CHILD
But what happens next Grandpapa? What happens to Patrick and Coleman?

OLD MAN
I can't tell you that! There are so many more stories to tell before we get to the end!

SMALL CHILD
Please Grandpapa?

OLD MAN
Oh fine. Patrick wins 182 million dollars with which he buys a small tropical island and donates the rest to The Jump Rope for Heart foundation. He later discovers that he's been conned into buying a large floating sandbox supported entirely by pool noodles. And Coleman dies. Of gonorrhea. I'm told it was very painful.

(Masterpiece Theatre theme fades in as OLD MAN and SMALL CHILD walk offstage. CHUCK NORRIS enters stage right. CHUCK NORRIS does 3 backflips and a round-house kick. CHUCK NORRIS exits stage left. Lights fade out with Masterpiece Theatre theme.)

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Man -- I'm awesome. Take that Shakespeare. Bitch please.
I suppose I should stop procrastinating and get back to studying...

Christmas-sy-ness-erie and failure

Today, Coleman and I kicked off Christmas with a good ol' fashioned house fire. Though it might be more exciting if I meant this in the danger-filled, fire-department-involving, somebody-gets-hurt way, all I mean is that we made use of the fireplace. You see -- Technically, we weren't really supposed to be using the fireplace at all (on landlord's orders), but we figured that if the contractors had put all that effort into building a freaking fire-resistent hole into our living room, then we better god-damn-well use it. Plus we had a bunch of mail flyers and boxes and... a t-shirt lying around, and we needed to clean up a bit.


Coleman looking awed. Or just excited, cause we were burning shit.


Coleman, no doubt yelling something ridiculous...


Awwwww... we're so wholesome.


Look at all that freakin garbage. Isn't is crazy how you can make shit disappear with just a little bit of fire? Hm... Maybe this is how arsonists think...


And then Alisha and I watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.



Also, I gave my room a quick post-exam clean-up cause it was getting a little disgusting. I'd been leaving all my laundry on the couch, since I was too lazy to fold it every time I did a load. This had been going on for awhile, cause I think I'd been picking my morning clothes out of this pile for at least two "couch-fulls" . So anyway, I actually folded it all and found that, as I was shaking the wrinkles out of a few articles, a couple little bugs flew out. And you know what kind it were? Earwigs! Those little ones with pinchers sticking out of their poopers! (Not that it should matter to most people what type of bug is flying out of their clothes... Any time that you find one of the lowest forms of life living within your umkempt clothes, you tend to question your place in the whole hierarchy...) But yeah, I know: EFFING DISGUSTING! My clothes had been there so long that earwigs had started living in them. Needless to say, I was much too lazy to wash them all again, so I just shook all the rest twice as hard, and threw them into my drawers. So what? I hate laundry much more than I hate bugs. Plus, I could freeze the earwigs with canned air, which provided for some residual amusement from the whole affair.



So like I've said, I just finished up with the bulk of my exams. Man -- I've gotta say that it is such a relief to be less dependant on coffee. My sleep hours had been insane. In the two nights before, I'd had 3 and 2 hours of sleep respectively. Why, you ask? Because I had 3 exams within a 24-hour-and-1-minute period, which sucked. Sucked balls, even -- because, had I had that many within a 24-hour period, I would've been able to defer one, which would have rocked immensely.

But I didn't, so I wrote the effing exams, having only 3 hours of coffee-fueled sustenance with which to study for my last exam in the between-time after the preceding one. To commemorate this low-point in my academic life, I fashioned this shirt during the incoherent daze of that morning:


Though I failed in many ways that day, I did succeed in staying true to the shirt. And that little bit of success kept me sane. OK -- slightly sane. Had I been completely sane, I wouldn't have thought that I'd seen all those tiny little bugs flying around my room while I was studying (though my laundry might validate their existence). And I probably wouldn't have seen those nonexistant people turning the corners ahead of me, only to turn it myself and find empty halls. And I certainly wouldn't have killed that hooker. But like I said, that small sense of success in living up to the shirt allowed me to feel a little better, cause -- hey --at least I hadn't wasted a perfectly good shirt for nothing... All I'd wasted was hundreds of dollars in class fees...

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Public service announcement to the French (best read in an exaggerated accent):
Wear deoderant. You'll wonder where de odour went.

Yet another benefit to being named "Max Power":
You can be hanging out in bars with friends and make comments like, "I'd like to see her on Max Power". I also opens up many other opportunities to speak in the third person, which is my second favourite person to speak in.
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Also, everyone should start listening to "The New Pornographers". Their song "The End of Medicine" comes highly recommended. So listen to it. Twice.