P-A-I-N is a four-letter word.So is A-R-M-S for that matter...

On Wednesday, I went to the gym for the first time since the end of the summer. I got maybe half-way through my routine, but then had to stop I felt like I was going to throw up on my shoes. Well anyway, I thought all was well and good, but it's two days later, and I find myself lacking several degrees of freedom in my arms. To be precise, I've lost almost 45 degrees of freedom -- any further and they hurt. It's awkward because, given that my joints can't approach straightness, it looks kind of like my arms are in running mode, but my body's only walking. Very awkward.

So today, being the worst so far for pain and angular restriction, I was left with three options:

1. Run everywhere, so as not to look stupid.
2. Constantly brace myself against walls and corners and pillars, while using my other fist as a fulcrum to straighten out my arm manually (This only lasts so long, before it starts to bend back again).
3. Act like a robot.

I adopted a combination of all three for use over the course of the day.

Hopefully, my arms start to get better over the weekend, so that I can make it back to the gym by Monday...

Laying low tonight -- doing some reading or whatever -- so that I'll feel justified in going out tomorrow. It's the Burke House reunion, and I guess there are people coming from waaaay back. Brandom told me today that even people from its pre-co-ed era are showing. That's like before 1991! Wow.

Anyway, I'm out.

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Oh and just in case you have the urge to spice up your boring old desktop, here's the official PAT wallpaper. Do it! Just right-click the linked image. All the cool kids are doing it... Ok, well... I'm doing it. And I seem to remember someone once referring to me as "cool".



Also, here is the unofficial JAY wallpaper, which I made in the summer for some reason. Which reminds me: "Hey Jay, I made a wallpaper of you in the summer! Hopefully that's not too sketchy..."

Roadtrip!!!

Got on a bus, drove out into the barrens of Newfoundland, went to bars, got drunk, came home at 3am, made a ruckus.

Here's comes the pictorial... but first:



Coleman dropped something behind my desk, and got stuck when I made him pick it up. Then I took pictures, because it was funny.

Lovell and I looking serious. We are sauve devils.

Lovell and I looking sad.

Lovell and I trying to pose as extremely happy. This was hard, because I really hate Lovell. I don't think I quite pulled it off.

Craig. Craig says, "I stole this rum & coke because it is almost as black as me."

Jennifer and Fancy. Fancy says, "I HAVE LOST ALL SENSATION IN MY FACE! YYYYYES!", then pumps his fist into the air. Classic Fancy.

Craig and Billy and some girl who I should probably know... If I do, then I apologize profusely, but Craig's man-locks are in your face.

Heidi and Pete -- I think this is a priceless Kodak family moment.

Pete and Danielle. Pete is one smooth son of a bitch. Vvvvery sneaky...

Sarah trying to avoid pictures.

View of a church from my vantage point, sitting on the road outside the bar.

Heidi trying to avoid pictures.

Me trying to avoid the avoidance of Heidi in pictures.

Creepy Mills.

Creepier Billy. I think... I think he's trying to communicate...

Recent "polls": Canadians are stupid.

I don't like the guy below me.

I don't trust the guy left of me.

It's too fucking cold above me.

The only forseable solution is to the immediate right...
-- the goddamn ocean.



Down here all the fish is happy
As off through the waves they roll
The fish on the land ain't happy
They sad 'cause they in their bowl
But fish in the bowl is lucky
They in for a worser fate
One day when the boss get hungry
Guess who's gon' be on the plate

Under the sea
Under the sea
Nobody beat us
Fry us and eat us
In fricassee
We what the land folks loves to cook
Under the sea we off the hook
We got no troubles
Life is the bubbles
Under the sea

Someday...

A few things about me that you may not have known

Well, it's been a few days already, so before these few days turn into an exceptionally long dry-spell, I might as well say something. Anything, really. So here goes...

I was not alone in the womb.

Yeah, that's right, people. Through those long trimesters of development, as I was maturing into what would one day be birthed as seven pounds and some-odd ounces of organic joy, I was not alone. It would be a whole lot cooler if the truth were some type of sinister secret, such as being womb-mates with a devil-child who was immediately burned -- but such is not the case. The simple fact is that through the whole pre-natal ordeal, I was accompanied by an empty placenta.

Yep. That's all. I know what you're thinking: "BOOOO-RING."

And I couldn't agree more. I imagine that being in utero with an empty placenta is about as much fun as being stuck in a small room for 9 months with a corrugated cardboard box. Or Stephen Harper. Sure, an empty placenta might seem fun at first -- just as boxes can be to children for several minutes -- but in the end, all you've really got is an empty space that was made to contain something, but doesn't.

So yeah, I was born, and the placental evidence seemed to indicate "Hooray! Twins!", but then they opened them up and one placenta said "BABY!" and the other said "Psych!"

So here's the second part of this very special things-you-may-not-have-known-about-me feature: I've got a little scar on the left side of my chest, right above my armpit.

Back in grade 10 or 11, I somehow came across this little hard bump in the aforementioned area. Being the determined lad that I am, I started poking and picking at it. Before I knew it I was digging at it with a pushpin, bleeding profusely all over the bathroom. And lemme say -- though I didn't know what this thing was, it was WAY in there. We're talking mesodermis here -- Maybe even endodermis -- down in the layers where the skin gets fibrous.

So anyway, after at least a half hour, I finally got this thing out. At first, I thought it was a little rock or something, but then I looked closer. What it actually looked like was a tiny little tooth -- a molar -- complete with the hollowed out center and the twin bumps that molars have. So I was like "cool", and I put it in a pill bottle and brought it to school to show all my friends, cause I mean, hey -- what else was I going to do with it?

So how do these two Pat-facts relate? Well, they don't really... but I can hypothesize.

What I think happened is that when my twin and I were both little fetii, he used to come over and chill at my crib sometimes. He knew it was against the rules, but he was the rebel-type, y'know? Then one day he came over with some brew-dogs and got really wasted and couldn't find his way back out... And... then he bit me... and he died.
The end.

Wow. Enough of this. I'm at the library and it's time to get back to work.

On a side-note, road-trip this weekend was AMAZING, so I'll have some pictures up at a later date. Over and out I'm done.

I cartoonified myself!

Still needs to tweaking, and it doesn't exactly look like me, but close enough!

Revised schedule

So it's 10:30am. I had this highly motivated plan on the go, which went a'little something.... a'like this:

9am: German History class.
10am: Run at the track for an hour.
11am: Go home and shower and eat.
1pm: Come back to school for a UN Society meeting.
2pm: Do some studying in the library.
5pm: Another UN meeting about CANIMUN.
6pm: Go to Biochemistry Mixer.
8pm: Head to Mandy's for party.

So in short: Work. Work. Work. Work. Work. Work. Drink.

It's regressed into this:

9am: German History class.
10:30am: Go to Biochem Mixer.

Which shortens to: W-Drink.

Since the mixer doesn't technically start until 5, I'm planning on just going to the Breezeway (campus bar) right now, splitting a jug with someone, and depressing the living bejesus out of my pre-frontal cortex. How I'll deal with the UN meetings has yet to be considered...

In other news, Coleman wants me to interview him on my blog. To this, I give an emphatic "Go fuck yourself!". Get your own blog you commie bastard! What -- you think you can just drop yours and be a regular feature on mine? I'm not even a regular feature on mine...

So after the guy has the nerve to ask me to interview him, he redeems himself with a commendable idea: In preparation for the next Conservative government, we should open our own private health care clinic. "But Patrick," you might think, "You and Coleman have no credentials to practice medicine, nor do you own any supplies." True. But what we lack in "qualification", we make up for in enthusiasm and Neo/Polysporin. Ulcers? Here, drink this. Cerebral hemorrhaging, you say? Slap a little Polysporin on your noggin, my friend. And don't worry -- the toast is fine.* Though I'm no doctor, I'm of firm belief that Polysporin can fix everything from crib-death to clamydia.

Or as Coleman and I were saying at the time, we could just open a clinic without any intentions of helping the sick or injured. People would come in, and we'd be there with a barbecue, handing out hotdogs and hamburgers. "Defibrillator? No, but how would your dad like a delicious ballpark frank?" And the best part is, we'd just charge everything to Medicare -- a grand ol' government-subsidized barbecue.

Hmmm... so it's already waaaay past 10:30, so I'd better go find someone to booze around with, if this is actually gonna happen :)

*You might have to be Canadian to get this reference. Oh, Heritage Minutes, how I love thee. Almost as much as Hinterland's Who's Who... Anyone else ever wonder what happened to the Arctic Ptarmigan?

Another thing to do if I were feeling evil.

I don't know what's with all these evil posts in a row. Should I be concerned? Dah well -- I'll just get out all of this belated teen angst :)

DIRECTIONS:
Take a puppy, and tie a kite onto its collar. Then wrap a bow around its neck. Then buy it a ball for it to play fetch with. Sounds pleasant, right?
Take the puppy outside to play with it for awhile. Then throw the ball in the direction of your friendly neighborhood electrical sub-station.
The end.

In theory, this could work for a small child as well, except that I don't believe that small children enjoy playing fetch quite as much. I suggest substituting the ball for something that appeals to children... such as... Pokémon cards or... POGS? They're still hip with the kiddies, aren't they?

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So I was at Toys R Us today, indulging my inner child, when I saw this big honkin' thing of construction paper. I mean -- I wasn't feeling too much like doing crafts, but for eight bucks, how can you go wrong? I'm sure my future holds many crafts in store for me. So I reached to pick it up, and lemme say, this was not just your average booklet of craft paper. This was a solid brick of good ol' fashioned, all-American, 400-page construction paper, made especially for bulk-buy consumer whores such as myself. In fact, rather than "booklet", it'd be more appropriately called a construction paper encyclopedia. Keeping in mind my ineptitude with respect to all approximations of volume, dimensions and weight, I'd say that this thing clocked in at a good 15 lbs.

I'm definitely going to pick me up another one of these when I get to be a parent, cause I'm thinking it'd serve dual purposes: 1) Useful during craft-time with the kid, and 2) a fine substitute for a baby-sitter -- I could just huff this thing on top of my child and I'm sure they'd be pinned for several hours. But what am I talking about... "pick me up another one of these"? I'll probably have the same one, in all its child-crushing splendor, still perfectly suitable for any and all the crafting and constraining that I see fit.

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So hurrah, it's that time of the week again: OPEN MIC NIGHT!
Aaaaaaaand... LOST! I'm finally caught up, except for the 10th episode, which is airing again tonight, so I'm all up ons this.
And after OPEN MIC, I'm going to head out early to go over to Burke. I guess people are going to be over there hanging about, so I'll join in. Plus, Craig's heading home this Monday so I want to make sure I see him a bit before he trucks er' back to the Q-dot.

Something to do if I were feeling evil.

This is the only "Pinky-and-The-Brain"-esque caper that I've ever thought of:

Somewhere in the world, probably in Venezuela, there is a bird that sounds exactly like the cross-walk sound. You know what I mean -- that chirping sound that cross-walks make to help guide the blind through busy intersections.
Well, if I were feeling mean, I would just catch a few humdred of those (via illegal poaching, of couse, since I am feeling mean) and bring them back to civilization. Then I would campaign to host some type of International Summit for the Visually Impaired in a dense urban centre. I would hold the openning ceremonies outside, in a park situated between several busy throughfares. Then, as I stepped up to the mic for what was supposed to be my introductory speech, I would release the hundreds of exotic cross-walk birds on the unsuspecting crowd. And I'd start yelling "WALK! WALK! THE SIGN SAYS WALK!", resultings to mass disorientation, since every blind fibre in their body will want to walk.

Take that blind people and the ecosystem!*

Of course, only if I was feeling mean.

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Actually, this might not even work in a few years, since they are slowly but surely replacing all the chirpy sounds with computerized voice countdowns. If you haven't heard one of these WALK-sign things before, it consists of a creepy robot voice counting down from 10, with all the odd numbers originating from the sign on one side of the road, and all the even from the other. I guess this helps guide the blind in the right direction.

They recently installed them at home, so at one point, Coleman and I tinkered with the idea of finding a visually impaired person, putting on our best robot voices, and confusing the crap out of them. This would probably not work though, since if television and movies have taught me anything, it's that blind people have uncanny hearing and cane-related-kick-the-crap-out-of-me skills.

*Note: I don't really have anything against blind people. Being politically incorrect is just a pasttime. Besides, it's not like they're going to get the chance to be offended by my site -- blind people can't use computers, silly.

Eep... OK, that last one felt wrong.

For the friend who's allergic to everything...

Here's a fun activity for a lazy summer day:

1. Catch several dozen bumble-bees in a jar.
2. Throw jar in freezer and go out to buy some delicious peanut-butter. If you are already in possession of peanut-butter, then do a little jig for a half hour, hopping around and singing in a Irish accent.
2(b) Send me the video.
3. After the bumble-bees have stopped moving (and not too much longer after their last twitch), remove them from the jar and quickly yet carefully apply the peanut-butter to their undersides, making sure not to cover the wings or stingers.
4. Place them back in the freezer, since some will probably have started moving by then.
5. After a few more minutes, remove the jar from the freezer, open it, and throw its contents under the door of your sleeping, hyper-allergenic pal's room.

And when you hear that your friend has woken up and enjoyed the surprise, you'll barge in and say "IT WAS ME! I THREW THE PEANUT-BUTTERED BEES INTO YOUR ROOM!" And then he'll laugh, or at least try to as his throat closes off. But you'll laugh twice as hard, making up for his wheezy little wiener-laugh.

And then you'll stab him in the heart with his Epi-Pen, or whatever it is that you do with those things.

A good time had by all...

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You know what's ridiculous? That.

You know what's intense? This is intense.


Get it? "THIS" is intense...? ...in tents...? Bah! Whatever. You suck anyway.

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Coleman wants to get a rabbit. He says that they're on sale for $25 bucks at Pets Unlimited. I say go for it. With prices that cheap, you can just flush it down the toilet if it's not what you expected.

Next you're gonna tell me Mr. T isn't cool...

So according to MacGregor, Chuck Norris isn't funny anymore.

Ever watch that episode of Doug where some trendy dude on his favourite TV show wears Doug's exact outfit -- you know... the green sweater-vest with the khaki shorts? And then Doug goes to school the next day and everyone is wearing the same outfit as him, but no one seems to remember that he had it before it was cool? Then at the end of the show, the fad ends and everyone tells Doug that it's time to let it go, but in reality Doug's just wearing the same fucking thing that he's worn every day since time immemorial? And remember how they tell him it's played out, and that it's not cool anymore? And finally, the end credits roll and the giant egg pops up and plays that funky music?

Yeah -- I feel like that.

Doug. Not the egg.

Though that egg was pretty funky.


Fuck all you poseurs.

Except Erin, cause she gave me that Chuck Norris picture back in the day. I doubt the signature's real, but who really cares anyway?

I feel like crap. Now you do too.

I enjoy using railings when I'm sick.

Does that make me a bad person?

Ow.

I just shaved off a chunk of skin in the vicinity of my carotid artery. I'm off to go improv a band-aid by masking-tape...ing a wad of toilet paper onto my neck... I thought I'd blog it first, since it was one of the most exciting occurences in my otherwise noneventful day.

Except -- oh yeah -- Coleman got a pneumatic-electric-automatic telescope thing for Christmas, so we took it out to the backyard to take it for a test-drive.

Let me just say this: If anyone makes any cracks about Coleman and I going star-gazing together, then I might just have to break some legs. Maybe if I call it something less -- how to put this... -- something less suggestive of homosexuality... then it won't sound so bad.
How about "sky-ogling"? No... still not right.
Maybe... "star-glaring"? Or better yet, "star-glowering"! Yes... that'll work. The term conjures the image of two dudes standing in the back-yard -- arms crossed -- frowning up at the sky and drinking beers. "Star-gazing" brings to mind two people lying on their backs, shoulder-to-shoulder with their bodies pointing in opposite directions. Definitely not what we planned to do...

So we went outside to star-glower and, after discovering that we lived in a brightly-lit city from which only the moon and airplanes are visible, we turned Coleman's $200 telescope away from the sky and towards the windows of our neighbors -- Our distant, across-the-valley neighbors.

It was kind of like Hitchcock's Rear Window. Except we only looked at parking lots, a cieling fan, and a lady at her computer.

...

Come to think of it, it was nothing like Rear Window.
Like I said, my day was uneventful...

Oh dear. I seem to be bleeding onto my shirt.
Where's that masking tape?

Picture Recap

Ok, so I've had some photos on my camera for awhile, sitting around and not being much use to anyone. I guess I might as well post some of the better ones up here.

First off, we've got the before Christmas pics:

Coleman finished his last exam, and being the happy kid that he was, he came downstairs to my room and tore his socks off his feet.


He then stuck the tattered socks in Alisha's face.


And when I wasn't looking, he stood on my bed and took a big bite of a chocolate christmas ornament that I'd hung from my vent. Yep... he even ate the decorative foil.


The rest of the pictures are from Burke House, on the last night before everyone went home for break. I'm only going to explain those that I feel need explanations.




Thumbs up: Craig gives his seal of approval. Cut your hair you hippie...


Me placing make-up on Kristen's face. Notice how I could have said "applying", yet chose to say "placing". The former word would imply an underlying sense of order, whereas I just put colors in places that I felt like it.



Pete, Bert, and Billy in Martin's room.
Notice Bert's exam mustache. That's class. Class worthy of capital "C". ON second thought -- Class worthy of capital punishment.



We swapped hats...



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Back home, we rented a room at the Courtney Bay Inn, so here are the choice photos from that:

Adam pressing himself against the window (???). I think he's going for the creepy-gremlin-on-the-airplane-wing effect...


Justine, Megan and Andrew on the bed. Those glasses were my dad's from the 70s... I never actually believed that the 70s were as bad as they said, until I saw these beasts.


Erin and Andrew posing.


Some guys invited the girls upstairs to a party earlier in the night. The didn't go at first, but we went up later, only to find the door ajar and the room empty.
So we stole some pizzas and and like three 60s of liquor. Then Erin and I felt bad so we took the booze back, but goddamn that pizza was good. What an awesome swindle!


We also had some group photos, but they must not have been on my camera. If anyone has good pictures, send them to me, cause I didn't get much!

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And lastly, on our last night the remainders (Andrew, Jenn, Adam, and me) went driving around looking for something to do. It was a Wednesday night, so the best thing we could think of was to drive around and try to find a certain cell phone tower of our choice.

We picked out one and spent a good half hour driving around, then trekked up this service road.



We finally got to it, but I couldn't figure out a way to get it to show up on film. Mhen, whatever. I'm over it.


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So now that those pictures are out of the way, I'll have a real update sometime soon! Over and out I'm done.