Robot fights are freakin' sweet.

Now all someone needs to do is pit one of these mofos against a monkey. On that day, my life will be complete.

So maybe making a monkey fight a robot isn't humane but... well... then I'm not picky. I'd be just as happy to see a baby duke it out with the robot.

Babies don't "duke", you say? Well... then that's their fault.

Story/VIDEO from high school

Ok, I should really be working on my essay right now, but I need a little break, so I'll gonna tell a story.

Back in grade 12, Adam "Lefty" Leclerc and I were working on a Physics video project: "The Adventures of Fiz & Ix". Hmmm... come to think of it, maybe I'll post it sometime... It's a whole lotta nonsense, but it's still mildly amusing.

Well anyway, we were filming at my house for awhile, and Coleman said that we could use his place for a scene in which we needed to throw one of his cats off the deck (Man oh man, I really need to post that video). So we get to Coleman's place, and I've got to tell you: Coleman has a really nice house -- all hardwood and glass-panel doors, and tables with really thin legs. So we're in his house -- no one else is home -- and we catch his cat in the garage. Since we're not quite ready for the throw-the-cat-off-the-freakin-deck scene, Adam and I are debating how to keep the cat in one place. Being the geniuses that we are, we figure that the best mode of action is to tie one of these things (usually used as a stake to tie my dog out in the backyard) around the cat's neck. If you have to know, we've got it with us (along with some twine) for possible use as props in the movie.

So we tie this big honkin' metal spike around this little cat's neck, and -- dontcha know -- she starts to walk away. Looking back, what follows makes perfect sense, since all this stupid cat knows is that she's strutting along and suddenly hears this grating, rumbling sound as if something's following behind her. So all her catty instincts come into play and she started running. In the split-second as she's speeding up, Adam ad I both look at each other -- surrounded by all the breakable, expensive things in Coleman's house -- and we're both thinking the same thing: "Good. Lord."

So the cat freaks out and starts tearing through the kitchen -- between the legs of the hardwood stools and around the corner into the "living room". So maybe you're not familiar with the terminology, since maybe it's a Maritime thing, but out here people don't "live" in the "living room". For some reason they just gather all the expensive and pretty things in their homes, and place them all in this one little enclosed place. Yeah -- it's beyond me...

So I'm just about full-fledged panic at this point as I tear after the cat, hearing all the bangs and smacks of the metal on wooden floors and walls. Luckily for us, it doesn't get any worse than this, since as the cat was sailing past an inwardly open door (on the way into the living room), the twine was pulled underneath and so the metal stake was been pinned on one side. Good thing I'm not skilled in knot-ery, because if the twine hadn't released the cat, the stake might have eventually been freed as the cat flailed around. Or Coleman's cat would have strangled itself, but that would hardly have been a negative aspect...

So anyway, here's the video we made for that school project. Not the best quality, but it was fun. And yes -- we are doofuses.

School strikes back

Unfortunately for myself, I'll be working on a bunch of things for the next two weeks, so I probably won't be doing any major updates. Possible exceptions may exist for after the Burke House Formal on Saturday, but that all depends on how my essays go...

In the meantime, here's something I found in the WalkSafe room tonight: The synopsis on the back of the "Godzilla VS Megalon" VHS.


The whole point of "borrowing" it was to take a picture, but just in case you can't read it, here's what it says:

The evil Seatopians have a plot to take over the world by unleashing Megalon-a giant cockroach-like monster. The people of Tokyo need their hero Godzila to save them, but where is he? Scientists build the cyborg Jet Jaguar, who can change size and shape at will, to find him.

Meanwhile Megalon has found a new friend-Gigan-the giant metal bird with a buzz saw in his stomach. Together Megalon and Gigan wreak havoc on the Earth, and only Godzilla and Jet Jaguar can stop them!

Closing remarks

Alas, the magic of the mystery of my broken window is no more. Ashley solved the puzzle earlier today while talking to Keough...

"So Ashley, was your house pretty beat up after?"

"Oh yeah, like... you don't even know."

"So how was Pat's window?"

"How'd you know about that???"

"Huh? We were standing in the driveway. The window flew open and Pat crawled out, pulled himself across the pavement, and threw up in the snowbank."

So yeah. The story was not as magical as I had at first thought it might be. I think Friday night was a low-point in my life. Don't get me wrong -- I was the happiest kid on the block right up until the moment when my GI tract started running in reverse. It's just that I have never been that drunk -- for that long a period -- in my entire life. All in all, even though I did lose vast reserves of dignity and bodily fluids, I don't think I've ever had such a prolonged sense of glee... or rather, man-joy, because as I've said before, guys don't tend to do the whole "glee" thing.

So yeah, since I awoke Saturday morning in my frigid bedroom, beneath a broken window -- a window in which the pane had not just been pierced, but of which the whole frame had been removed and replaced upside down -- since then, it's been a weekend of rediscovery. And now it's coming to a close.


But before it's over, here's one last video from the morning after. I'm not a big fan of it, but Coleman and Ashley are insisting that I post it up anyway. I guess it provides the context around the "poop" remark made in the previous video...



Over and out I'm done. Hope everyone had a good St. Paddy's Day weekend!
And sorry about not responding to any comments, but I assure you that I've read em' all and really appreciate them :)

Our house is broken. [PICTURES/VIDEO!]

Every party we host seems to be a learning experience.

One of the invaluable house party lessons of yesterday evening was this: Do not ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, throw a party -- an event at which drunk and unreasonable people are prevalent and encouraged -- Do not throw one of these things when you are low on toilet paper. Trust me. Once your stock runs out, people tend to improvise and get "creative", to the detriment of those who own the house.

Here's the damage for the night:

• broken screen door
• 3 broken windows
• glass in my bed
• someone's barf in Andre's bed
• 3 gallons of water in Coleman's bed
• like 7 of Andre's shirts ruined
• a towel with -- ugh -- on it (hint: it was in the TP-less bathroom)
• downstairs bathroom door ripped off

It's hard to decide where to begin. Let's see... As alluded to yesterday, I ripped my pants before heading out to the biochemistry faculty mixer. Being that I was already pretty intoxicated, I elected to leave the same pants on and just head over to the mixer as-is (see picture below). In hindsight, it was one of my patented BAD ideas to go to a social event in a pair of pants which left my boxers showing, especially considering that my profs and the head of the department were also going to be there. So I show up wearing the most attention-seeking get-up possible, consisting of a reflective green novelty vest, an orange construction hat, and a squirt bottle full of booze at the hip. I didn't buy a single drink the whole time -- just made my own rum & cokes. They let it slide since it was my birthday :)


So at some point I decided that it would be a good idea to go talk to Dr. Mulligan, the head of the department (extreme right in picture below). This man's a great guy, having always been cool to me, since I get like 90s in his classes and I talk to him fairly often. But, this being said, he IS pretty straight-laced and proper, so he doesn't drink. So I go up and join in on his circle. A few minutes later, there's a lull in the conversation, and one of the secretaries from the Biochem office just says "Oh dear...". I look down and see that my pants are hanging particularly wide open on the right-hand side, exposing pretty much my whole leg up to the belt-level. Still sitting in the circle with the faculty, I quickly take off my reflective green novelty tie and use it as an elastic to wrap around my leg and hold my pants together. From my (perhaps distorted) viewpoint all seemed to go well from there, and as the mixer wound down I mentioned to some of the professors (half jokingly) that there was a party at 12 Hatcher afterwards.


Back at our house, things began to get fuzzy. I know that we walked home around 8pm, bringing a trail of people with us. I also know that Dr. Nag, the prof for my Biological Membranes class, did show up and was drinking at our house until like midnight. Since I don't feel like telling the story of the whole night, nor am I even reasonably capable of doing so, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. I only have those from the pre-party portion of the night, since my camera went MIA for quite a stint once people started arriving. Due to the lack of evidence of both a cognitive and photographic nature, I feel I need to stress this: The place was apparently packed. Pretty much our whole three-floor house was packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Lovell says that I personally spent half the party standing/dancing on tables, and this was simply because it was the most efficient means of transportation. It would literally take the non-table-oriented folk several minutes to make it across the room, given that every surface was occupied by the throngs of swaying drunks. Estimates from the people I've talked to place the numbers at between 80 and 100, but it's hard to say since not everyone was in the same room. There were people in everyone's bedrooms, on the deck, in the driveway, crammed into the living room and kitchen -- You name it. OK, so on to the pictures!

Before going to the mixer, we did some setting up. Since we don't own a vacuum cleaner, we found some pretty nasty scenes under the couches we tried to move. Instead of actually cleaning it up, we just shuffled furniture around (bringing up the couch from my room) so that space was maximized, while all the exposed dusty spots were minimized. Looks pretty clean in the end, doesn't it? I assure you that it's all an elaborate deception.





I found an old lamp which, despite being extremely fun to play with, had somehow managed to elude any of us tenants since we'd moved in, way back in September. I found it under a bunch of crap in the front closet, and immediately began swinging it around with reckless abandon. I was smacking it into walls and furniture and people for quite some time before it lost my interest. I rediscovered it this morning and plugged it in as we talked in the living room. Periodically, when conversation would start to die down a bit, I'd just be like "Well... back to work." and then I'd throw this big friggin lamp over my shoulder and just stand in the middle of the room with it dangling by my waist. I also wore it around for a good few hours as I cleaned the house, since the long cord gave me a pretty good range of motion. Maybe I'll wear it to class on Monday...


For reasons beyond my current sober-state comprehension, Andre and I were head-butting each other for a few minutes. Yeah, I know... I'm blatantly feeding the stereotypes for college-aged males, but what else can I do? Not head-butt people, you say? But that's preposterous! I was wearing that hardhat all night, and since there happened to be an old hockey helmet floating around too, the stage was set and it was just waiting to happen.





Me and Andre and Ash getting/being drunk before the party. Nuff said.



The next morning, since a bunch of our clocks had been changed, I barged into Ashley's room claiming that it was 11AM instead of 9. I changed her clock to the "correct" time. When she figured it all out, she got kinda mad at me because she'd forced herself to get up when she thought it was so late in the day. Mhen. Loves ya Ashley!

So yeah, we (Chipper, Ashley, Alisha, Coleman, Andre, Kim and me) sat around all morning trying to piece the night together, before moving on to the cleaning/repairing. I've got a video of Coleman explaining what Andre had been doing after some unknown jerks threw an iceball through his window and shattered it. I think it's pretty funny. Just to let you know though, the mention of me and poop was based on a previous conversation that we'd been having, and is in no way -- I repeat, no way -- based on reality! I guess that since my recollection of the evening was so hazy, they'd tried to get me to believe that something had happened when it hadn't...

FREAK OUT!!!

Today is my birthday.

I woke up at 8 o'clock, drank bailey's in my coffee, then went to class. I have a spray bottle (hooked onto a carabener) which I've had hooked to my hip since this morning. I bought Coke on the way to school. I have rum in the spray bottle. I've been to the Breezeway twice today. I've been to Bitters once. I am quite possibly drunk. I've had a rum & coke in my hand all day, even as I sold ice cream for the UN Society fundraiser. The tiny room we had rented reaked of booze thanks to me. When small children came by for ice cream, I slunk away. I don't have a problem drinking in public, because it's my birthday. Besides, I had the advance over Campus Enforcement -- I had the elemtent of surprise. As in "SURRISE! I'm drunk in public! Betcha didn't expect that, didja?"

Yeah, so my parents named me Patrick, since I wa born on St. Patrick's Day. With that calibre of originality -- just looking at the day of the week and naming me after it -- it's a wonder I wasn't named "Thursday" or "Porkchopnight". Wahtever. Out house will be ridiculous and I'm going upstiars to help set up now. My pants are ripped. My couch wouldn't fit upstairs and we had to cram it up the narrow stairwell, and my pants ripped.

Stream of consciousness or what? Pictures/ mroe posts to follow.
Thanks to everyone who gave me happy birthday shout out today!

PS - O'brian threw a snowball at me today as i was holding a cooler (ice cream sale). I tryied to duck my head, but it's didn't work. All it looked like to anyone else was this: Dude standing there with a cooler. Guy throw snowball 3 feet over his head. Guy ducks his face down really quick and smacks his face full-force into the cooler he is carrying, then starts bleeding from the mouth. The end.

PARTY!

HOUSE PARTY AT 12 HATCHER ON FRIDAY!!!

It's a liquor-luck (modified version of a potluck), so everyone needs to bring an exciting type of liquor. The deal is that whoever brings their own liquor puts it into the community cabinet, and they're allowed to drink whatever they want from it. We want everyone to bring twenty-sixers/quarts, but if you're extremely cheap or otherwise poor, then flasks/pints will be allowed -- you'll just have to keep in mind that the cabinet won't be quite so all-you-can-drinkerific.

So yeah, this should be fun, especially since it coincides exactly with my birthday, and in the same week as Saralynn and Raylene's! I'm am SO pumped!

And tomorrow night (Wednesday) is Open Mic Night for SL and Raylene's birthdays! SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARALYNN! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAYLENE!

This week is turning into a throw-away...

Sorry bout the lack of updates, but I'll probably start writing more next week when the work starts to get heavy :)

LibrAARRRRRRy!

As I was walking up the enclosed stairwell in the library, I saw this guy who looked a little familiar. I passed him, trying to place his face, but it wasn't until I was headed up the next flight of stairs that it came to me.

"Hey," I called out, leaning across the railing overlooking the stairs below, "Didn't you fall through my deck last semester?"

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you fell right through the railing and landed on your face."

"Oh. yeah... I was pretty drunk."

You sure were, you big, fat party animal, you... and quite a jerk, if I remember correctly, though I didn't say this part out loud. Had he been able to even stand upright that night without falling into a kiddie-pool, he probably would have been deemed fair game and had his ass kicked six ways past Sunday. I don't even understand that expression, but I'll assume that it means "kicked really freaking hard".

On a related note, the whole reason that I was in the library in the first place was to check out a few more books. I happen to have a lot of books out at the moment, so as I checked out these extra two, I asked what the limit was.

"There isn't any limit on the number of books you can sign out," said my good friend Library-Patrick.

"Whoa whoa whoa. No limit? As in, there's nothing in the library code that allows you to prevent me from signing out as many books as I want?"

Reluctantly, "No..."

And that, my friends, is a lack of foresight of the highest degree. And it got me thinking. I walked over to the public computers, and did some quick research. From what I can tell, there is absolutely no Guinness world-record for the most library books signed out at once. None.

Given the library loophole that seems to be present, I can outright plunder the library -- like some type of goddamn library pirate -- and there's absolutely nothing those stinking library beaurocrats can do about it! OK, that's unfair... there was no need for the "stinking" comment, because all the library folk seem rather pleasant...

But the point is that I can plunder! -- PLUNDER, I SAY! Plunder and pillage and plunder some more -- just like real library pirates would do, were they to exist! And then they'll put my name in a big book, where it will live for all eternity. Or at least until some other knavish library pirate pilfers me bounty. Ahem. My bounty... My fame.

...YAAAAAARRRRRRR.

All pirating aside, I think I'm going to email Guinness World Records to see if the record actually exists.

If only blogging were always this easy

Coleman came downstairs just as I was giving up on trying to write a blog entry. I started to explain that I just wasn't getting any blogging vibes tonight. Naturally, he had something to say.

"What do you mean? It's easy. Just look around your room, pick out an object, and blog about it!"

"Coleman... That's a stupid idea."

"No, it isn't. You just have to make something up."

At this point, Coleman put on my cowboy hat (don't ask) and started swaggering around my room with what he no doubt imagined was a dashing cowboy-strut. He then started in with a drawling, monotone cowboy-voice, "I was born... a ramblin’ man --"

I cut him off, "Coleman, that is a song and you didn't make it up."

"...Oh."

And now I'm blogging it... because I'm a sucker who falls for Coleman's clever attention-seeking ploys. He gets great satisfaction from being blogged about. I think he should get his own blog, cause he's free-loading off of mine and I don't fuckin appreciate it.

What a jerk.

On being irresponsible

I've done absolutely no real work in the past two nights. For complicated reasons, I didn't need to go to any of my classes this morning, so last night, Coleman and Julia and I had a few drinks and watched a movie while everyone else in the house got high.

As Ashley mentioned in her blog, I spilt some water in the kitchen last night. Since she tried to call me on it, Coleman and I picked her up and used her socked feet, her back, and her head to wipe up the floor and counter. It was funny. I laughed.

Also, Ashley things that she might go on unemployment. Normally, I'd be against this blatant manipulation of the system, but I know that she'll use the time to volunteer, cause that's just what she does. It's not like she'll just be sitting around all day, smelling bad and contributing nothing to society except a stream of illicit drugs. **cough Hendric cough**

Aaaaand tonight was volunteering at WalkSafe with Coleman and Fraser. Being that I'd picked up a bottle in Ottawa and that Fraser was heading off for Amsterdam soon, we started talking about Absinthe. Supposedly, the wormwood extract in the real-deal stuff makes you go crazy with a condition called Absinthism -- resulting in dementia, hallucinations, and seizures. Since wormwood grows along the highways in Newfoundland, we got into a discussion about making our own authentic Absinthe, since the stuff you can get in most parts of the world is only for novelty purposes -- lacking that key crazy-maker wormwood ingredient. I figure most of the effects wouldn't be that bad... with the possible exception of the seizures. Then again, even the seizures wouldn't be so bad if we put a positive spin on them. For instance, if we thought of them not so much as seizures, but moreso as... involuntarily rocking out. That sounds bad-ass, doesn't it? Shit -- even people with epilepsy probably wouldn't feel so down about themselves if, instead of telling them that they had a debilitating condition, we told them that they simply had a subconscious urge to rock-out hardcore whenever the strobe-lights started going.

Chaos Theory

What is chaos theory, you ask? I'l tell you what it is. Chaos theory is eight screeching Sparks -- basically just mini-Girlguides with half the maturity and twice the vocal pitch -- confined in a small gymnasium-like enclosure.

I just got back from CANIMUN (which was a blast, by the way), and volunteered to help with the "What Kind of World" UN awareness program, put on by the UN society. Since one of our society members is the leader of a Sparks group, we figured we'd go over and enlighten them as to the ways of the United Nations.

Let me just say this: Five-year-old girls have no interest in learning about the purposes of the Economic and Social Committee (ECOSOC). Actually, I don't think it's so much that they have no interest in ECOSOC, just that they have an inexplicable amount of interest in screaming and running around in circles -- which doesn't happen to be conducive to learning about ECOSOC.

Basically what we did was try to do little games to get them to learn about basic issues like human rights, UN organizations like ECOSOC, and the purpose of the UN itself. I admit that it was probably over their heads, but it ended up going pretty well -- At least for yours truly. I worked with kids for two summers, so I know all the tricks. As a result, they wanted to play my game twice, instead of telling me that my game was boring (which they did to the other presenters). Also, as we played the wind-down game of tag, a little girl tapped my knees to get my attention, and then gave me a hug.

That made my day.

While I'm on the topic, little girls playing tag in a confined space is hilarious. As I'm told, tag is used at the end of every Sparks meeting in order to tire everyone out -- and I must say: these kids make manipulation look easy. Let me set the scene: Leader yells "Tag! {Insert little girl's name}'s it!". Little girls begin running counterclockwise around the room, screaming constantly. After a few minutes, the girls are still running in the same direction -- shrieking their little heads off -- and it appears as if the majority of them are now somehow "it". Soon, the rate of whirling of the tag-circle slows considerably, and the screaming begins to subside as the little girls become oxygen deprived. One by one, they fly out of the spinning ring, only to crash against the wall and slide, panting, to the floor. I'm told that it works every week, without fail.

Other things that happened:

• Two girls simultaneously slapped me in the ass. Under other circumstances, this may have made me feel sexy, providing that the girls had not been FIVE FREAKING YEARS OLD! Baffled as to what the appropriate response to this might be, I elected to just ignore it.
• While playing one game ("What Time Is It Mr. Wolf?"), I was chasing this one tiny little girl, who I tagged on the back of the shoulder with like two fingers. Only TWO! Let me tell you -- this little girl flew. She was airborne for like three and a half seconds. Oddly, after she hit the ground, she got right back up and continued with her screaming and giggling. What a trooper.
• During the opening UN spiel, one of our guys asked the big group of girls "What do you guys think the United Nations are for?". There was a few moments of utter silence, before one diligent child piped up "Counting!". I mean -- double-you-tee-eff?!? I found this really funny. Kids say the darndest things, don't they?

Week-long Hiatus

Ashley's here, my school crap is done, and I'm leaving for the airport in about and hour... Should be a good time in Ottawa doing this whole model UN thing!

I probably won't get around to updating while I'm gone, but I'll be back on Sunday night -- Ya know... just in case anyone cares :)

I realize that I've been slacking it up lately in terms of original content, but I'm thinking I'll put a little more effort into my posts when I get back.