Big Al
HopefullyThe World Ain't Slowin' Down - Ellis Paul
"Ah, damn it! Hit me," I said. Michelle proceeded to give me a quick rap on the wrist. I'd said the cursed "H" word again. For the last three or four months, I'd been avoiding using that word. "Hopefully". It was a favourite of Julius' and the rest of the Orientation Committee. Whenever we discussed our responsibilities, it was "hopefully this" and "hopefully that". As if everyone was afraid to set anything in concrete. Not me. They asked me how my planning was going, I would tell them what was happening and what wasn't. I didn't want to leave things up to hope. Occassionally I would slip and when I did, I would ask Michelle to slap me on the wrist. I was simply echoing that age old sentiment of "Do or do not, there is no try." This week, they didn't need me to try. They needed me to do. So how did that go?
*****
As soon as I donned that black "EXECUTIVE" T-shirt, I felt empowered. I've never worn anything that has benefited me socially before; in fact, my particular style, or lack thereof, has often been detrimental in my interactions with other human beings. On this particular day though, I saw something new in the eyes of the leaders and the freshmen. Even though nobody knew me, they looked at me like, "That's somebody, right there". It was invigorating. I hate to suggest that such a superficial change would be of any great significance, but this garment of black and gold would serve as the catalyst for the events of the coming week.
*****
The opening events were a near disaster. I remember thinking, "Why didn't we just order the inflatables and be done with it?" During my own frosh week (and apparently all the others), what they did was set up a bunch of gigantic inflatable playsets for the kids to jump around in and that was meant to entertain us for two hours. I don't remember anything too bad about it. But Julius insisted that I come up with a new idea, since the inflatables event was often plagued by kids having to wait in line and the overwhelming feeling that we were treating them like...well, kids. My partners David and Michelle suggested an Amazing Race type event, where the kids would go to stations around campus and play games and get to know each other and have a gay old time. Sounded like a fine idea.
Planning it was a friggin' nightmare! First, we had to find a number of suitable locations. Then we had to make sure to not encroach on enemy college territory. Then we had to figure out two seperate routes so that we could evenly divide the 600 frosh that we were expecting. Then...you get the idea. There were a lot of things to account for and since I'd never planned anything more complicated than my napping schedule up to that point, I was freaking a bit. It all came to a head the Saturday before Orientation Week. We were going to do a mock run-through of the events with the leaders, but the weather was running interference. Even before it started raining, the whole thing was coming off as disastrous. I dreaded Tuesday.
When it came time to run the actual Opening Events, I had no choice but to buckle down and go for it. It didn't go too badly. We'd spent the last few days ironing out the details and printing out maps and making sure that everyone understood what they were supposed to be doing. There were a few hiccups. This one group got really lost and the leader and I got into a tiff. He was telling me about how his group had already been forced to walk around in circles and that they weren't going to go any further. I explained to him that the next station was a sit-down game and if they went there they could relax and have fun and get ready for the next physical challenge. I also mentioned that they paid good money to be able to participate in these events and they shouldn't just give up now because of a small communication/route error. He demanded a vote. I won. Phew.
After everything wrapped up, we held one last event to determine a champion. A watermelon eating contest. The leaders from the top ten groups from each, er, division participated. It got messy. The guy who won was a total maniac and I had to remind him to breathe as he scarfed down that sweet, sweet fruit. After he was finished, he began tossing the slices into the air like juicy confetti.
I awarded the winning team with these oversized, plastic rings that I got four for a dollar from Markville Mall. That went over surprisingly well. I wanted to take one for myself, but...there was this girl. I gave the ring to her and surprisingly, I saw her wearing it again later in the week. I mentioned her before in my Hart House Farm post.
Her name is Elena.
*****
I didn't get to interact with the actual frosh that much. I was busy running around and doing my thing, so I only had time to get to know my fellow executives and the leaders. Those people were great. I can't believe all of them go to my college. I've been here for four years and I had no idea that there were people like this walking around the whole time. Kind. Funny. Friendly. I'm so used to being ignored and spat on around campus that I actually found their comradery to be off-putting at first. I warmed up to it eventually and I'm glad I did. I can't keep track of all the great moments there were.
There was Jen, who had chosen to rip her shirt a little to show some more skin. We discussed how she was treading the thin line between "intriguing" and "trampy". The shirt got more damaged as the week went on and by the end we agreed that she'd walked all the way into "come hither slut" territory.
There was Sean who, despite being at least twice my size, consented to calling me Big Al for the whole week.
There was Patricia, who is kind of a hippy. We got to talking about musicals somehow. She thought they were contrived and I tried to convince her otherwise by coming up with some small song and dance numbers on the spot. Suffice to say,
We're Getting Off The Boat and
I Found A Rock On The Street did not sway her opinion.
There was Fathima, who tried to teach me how to ballroom dance. I didn't know that "dipping" was completely the responsibility of the guy. She almost bumped her head on the ground and I almost pulled a hamstring.
There was Betty, who put up with the stupidity and aggravation that you guys have dealt with all our lives in the span of four days.
There was Andrew, who I butted heads with over the music. He was trying to make the kids listen to some death metal and I was forced to explain to him that his taste in music was shit and that everything I like is good. The usual. Later, him, Julius and I went out for lunch together and talked about chicks. Now there was a subject we could agree on.
There was Isabel, who got real sick Friday morning, which scared the hell out of me. The night before, she sat next to me as I held a mini-concert in the New College Student Council office. The day after, they were calling an ambulance because she was having trouble breathing. Everything turned out fine. Still, I didn't want her having to exert herself in any way for the rest of the day so she got treated to a world famous Alex Lee Piggyback Ride. I risked throwing my back out carrying her up these stairs, but she's light and it was worth it.
There was Syed, who followed me around like a puppy dog. I don't know if he was lonely or he thought I was cooler just because I was older, but he was constantly looking for my attention and approval. He's a shy kid, but he's smart and genuine. He's gonna turn out alright.
There was Stephanie, who I danced with a lot, often with inappropriate closeness.
There was Nishant, who asked me for a list of songs to help him fill up his music collection. Where do I start with that request?
There was Tanya (not The Ice Queen), who assured me that it wasn't my fault that the opening events were going haywire, even though it obviously was.
That's just a few of the new friends I've made. I could go on all day.
*****
They were chanting my name.
It was about an hour before the boat cruise and I was feeling nauseous. When Julius first came up to me proposing that I be in charge of the Awards Ceremony on the boat cruise, I immediately had the wise idea to attempt to emulate an actual awards show. I wasn't sure what that entailed exactly, but I knew that I would have to throw a song and dance number in there. It came to my head right away:
Now I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger.
But, she's only hangin' with award winners.Simple. All I had to do was write the rest of it. I put that off for months. I didn't even start it until the day before the first day of orientation and I didn't finish until three in the morning. I wrote it, didn't even double check it and I went to bed. I didn't think about it much the next couple of days after because I was so worried about all my other stuff. But suddenly, the night of the boat cruise was upon me and I found myself wanting to puke my guts out. I hadn't really done any kind of public performance since that time Gary and I did that coffee house thing for Amnesty International. That was four years ago. Even worse, I couldn't even remember the last time that I had been in a large, party setting like this. My anti-social instincts were flaring out of control. "Breathe", I told myself, "breathe". I wandered around the docks a bit to collect myself, but I couldn't get comfortable. After we boarded, I quickly ate and then after hanging out with my peoples for a bit I retreated to a corner somewhere to prepare myself for my performance. As she did all week, Betty showed up just when I needed her. She sat down at the table with me and held the lyrics as I worked on memorizing them. I was going to have them in my hand anyway, but I didn't want to rely on them. She sat through the whole thing, like, four times. Even after that, I still wasn't sure about the whole thing, but when showtime came I had no choice but to go.
We forced everyone into the 2nd level of the ship. The audience was smushed together, it was sauna hot and I barely had any room to move around. The lack of space also interfered with the plans of my backup dancers, Fathima, Patricia, Elena and Nena. I thought, "Is it too late to back out of this? Maybe I should just announce the awards and then jump into Lake Ontario." I'd already gone too far though, so instead I just said, "DJ Boyd, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Hit the music."
*Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum-Bum*
She take my money...So I start with the chorus, which is the easy part, and it gets a good laugh. They probably thought that's all I was going to do. Then the verse starts and honestly, it was kind of whack:
Eighteen years, eighteen years
you graduated from high school, took you eighteen years.
Not me, I suffered through OAC.
Eventually, I made it up to UofT.Everyone's still smiling, still happy, but I got this feeling that any minute now they were going to turn on me. Luckily, you could read the phonebook over that beat and people would like it so they were still feeling me, or at least Mr. West, to some degree. Then I come in with the last bars of the first verse:
We ain't gonna throw out these prizes blindly.
This isn't an award that you should take lightly.
You've gotta be the winner of a category
And it's tougher than auditioning for West Side Story.Forget the fact that that lyric makes absolutely no sense in the context of the rap. It killed. I got one of those one of a kind crowd "OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHS!" that you only get if you're a hot shit rapper or you just broke some guys ankles with a killer cross-over. I am now familiar with both feelings. So things are going great at this point, and I'm doing the chorus and I'm like, "One more verse, one more verse."
First things first, for our faithful leaders.
It takes time to turn these kids into believers.
But we always watching.
Yeah, we know who's been here since day one and the ones who just popped in.At this point, I'm not looking at the lyrics at all and because the crowd is getting so loud it's actually throwing my timing off. But it works great, because I'm forced to improvise a bit and change the speed an inflection of the whole thing and it's seriously popping at this point. Then the ending:
Even if you don't win, y'all have made it this far.
You're shining so brightly you got me seein' stars.
Thanks for your time, the pleasure was all mine
and I got fatter rhymes than Kevin Federline, yo!Explosion. People just went nuts and I didn't know how to react at all. I'm proud, excited, really embarrassed. I just bury my head in my hands, I can't even make eye contact with anyone at this point. I'm happy that it's over, happy to be alive. I'm losing it. Then I hear the crowd:
"ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! ALEX!"
One of the best moments of my life. The last time I felt this good was when I climbed that rope ladder with Sarah Tulley at the LEAD retreat. That was a long time ago. Finally, I look up and I'm like, "Thank you, thanks so much for putting up with that." And I am incredibly grateful, truly. The hard part over, I move on to the awards and everything goes smoothly even though it's like a thousand degrees and people are struggling to breathe. I let the presenters do their thing and get some time to relax. Michelle's right next to me and I wrap my arm around her and give her a kiss on the head, which I think surprised her. But I couldn't have done it without her, couldn't have done anything this week without her, and it just came out. I constantly struggle to express how much she means to me, but this gesture was as clear as I can get.
Alex Lee. Rap superstar. One night only.
*****
$35. That's how much money was in my wallet when I jumped into the fountain at Queen's Park.
On Friday, I entered previously uncharted territory. During my own frosh week, I left Thursday afternoon due to some combination of feeling overwhelmed by all that I'd experienced and fatigue. I ended up missing what is, apparently, one of the most important events of Frosh Week: The SAC (Students' Administrative Council) parade. The SAC parade is a chance for all the colleges to get together in the same spot and march through the streets of Toronto while screaming at each other and everyone else in the city. It is a magnificent sight. I got caught up in the whole thing and abandoned my executive duties for a minute, but after a while I rejoined my comrades in encouraging the kids to cheer. I still can't get over the mixture of fear and respect that was shown by all the freshmen as I yelled "NEW COLLEGE!" at them. Who was I to be telling anyone to cheer? I've spent the last couple of years doing nothing but badmouthing my school and my college and now I'm promoting school spirit? Crazy.
I was most likely suffering from heat exhaustion. It was the warmest day of the week and after a while, everyone was dying to get out of the sun. I should mention now that the parade lasted about two hours. That's a lot to ask from a group of kids who had spent the last three days running around and screaming their lungs out, but they were troopers and stuck with it as long as they could.
Finally, we ended up at Queen's Park for the traditional fountain dive. Now, I was not planning to jump in, I assure you, and I definitely was not dressed for it. I should have realized by now that anytime there is a body of water, (see: Hart House Farm) natural or otherwise, and one or more idiots are jumping in, there is an excellent chance that I will feel compelled to join said idiots. And again, it was hot. I should have mentioned before that Max had joined me on this little adventure. I don't recall why he was here, only that he either fell from the sky or
emerged from a hideous cocoon. He was useful in that I was able to hand him my...no, I handed him a wallet and car keys that Julius had entrusted me with. It had not crossed my mind to empty my own pockets. So, earthly possessions and all, I hopped right in. As usual, I overdid it. After wading around a bit, I proceeded to hop onto the fountain itself with everyone else and allowed myself to be viciously splashed by those who remained in the water. It was refreshing. My wallet remained mostly dry during the whole ordeal and I might have gotten away with holding onto it if someone hadn't submerged me in the waters just as I was getting out. Thanks for that, whoever you are.
Suffice to say, all my receipts and movie stubs that I'd saved over the last four months or so were ruined. I should be happy about this occurrence, because it gave me an excuse to empty the damn thing. I definitely wasn't happy about my ruined bills. I was hellaciously thirsty even after soaking in dirty park fountain water, so I endeavoured to purchase a drink from a vending machine as soon as we got back to Wetmore. My bills, having a consistency similar to a used tissue at this point, were promptly rejected. I laid them out on the heater (which wasn't even on) and ate what was left of my dinner. I say "what was left", because we had ordered from Spring Rolls and my dumplings looked like appetizers to everyone else so they decided to serve themselves. I can't blame them. Seeing that I was still thirsty, Betty sprung for my drink and I swore I'd pay her back. I couldn't immediately, because 1) she wouldn't take it and 2) I would feel bad giving her one of my wet $5 bills that looked disturbingly counterfeit.
Three wet fives and a twenty. After much debate, most of us agreed that no respectable establishment would take this money. I was too lazy to argue, so I got rid of it in other ways. One five dollar bill I can't account for. Another was given to a homeless guy, to divert him away from a group of frosh outside of this club. He can probably find more use for it than I can. The last five dollar bill I left with the cheque at a diner where Julius, Andrew and I had lunch so I wouldn't have to be around for inspection. The fate of the remaining twenty shall be revealed later.
Rewind a bit.
*****
I'd been looking forward to seeing
Metric all week. Not only that, but I was excited that my peoples (Max, Shirley and William) would be dropping by to see them. Even if the week turned out to be a total disaster, at least I'd get a free concert out of it.
However, the week turned out to be so fun that I almost forgot about the concert and more importantly, I wasn't that eager to see my old chums anymore. As the week wound down and all my highs started wearing off, I felt like reuniting with my normal friends meant that I'd have to go back to reality. Like I was being pulled back from Oz. What a nice way to think of friends, eh?
The first thing Shirley sees when she gets here is me standing on top of a hill in the middle of Queen's Park, soaking wet from jumping in the fountain. I felt that was the image I wanted to present. It was nothing like me. Perfect. We made our way over to the back campus of University College where
The Weakerthans were setting up. I felt kind of weird still, like I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be myself or be the guy who I'd been all week. After finding out that I'd lost one of my socks (don't ask), Shirley took the remaining one and wrote "Big Al's Frosh Week Sock" on it. She signed it and told me to get everyone else to do the same so that I'd always have that memento. I never got around to doing that, but I got the only signature that I wanted on there anyway. It was a wonderful gesture and I realized that maybe this new me and my old world could still get along just fine. The music of The Weakerthans fit the moment. The sun was at it's peak and here I was with Max and Shirley (William was still at work) and I was looking up and thinking how lucky I was to have survived the week and how lucky I've always been to have friends who have stood by me even in the worst of times. That said, I wasn't quite ready to settle down yet. I had business to take care of, so I bid a temporary farewell to Max and Shirley and left them to enjoy the concert.
*****
Elena Kuzmin. Here's a
picture (not great, I know). She's the one on the right. She's from Kazakhstan. Yes, the same country that
Borat comes from. Her accent is noticeable, but not intrusive. She's a close-talker, which I find incredibly intimidating. She's the vice-president of the Golden Key International Honour Society. She's not terrible looking at all and I've become quite fond of her.
I can definitely say that if half of my energy was spent taking care of various orientation responsibilities, the other half was spent pursuing her. I opened things up by asking her what kind of music she wanted to hear when I was DJ'ing in the quad. Ah, music. My most loyal friend and my most deadly weapon. From there, it was simply a matter of dropping the occassional "hello" and making small talk.
Well, that and playing dirty.
Some people were keeping there stuff in room 2008 at Wilson Hall. She was one of them. I asked Julius if I could be responsible for the key to that room. He obliged and everytime she needed access to her things, she had to come and talk to me. A bad trick, to be sure, but look at it this way: Every other guy on the planet is like a metahuman. They've all got some cool gimmick. Some dudes fly, some dudes are super strong, some even have heat vision. Me? I'm Batman. All I got is my utility belt and my wits. And the key to room 2008. The plan worked to perfection on Friday night. We were running a casino event and I was talking to Shirley and I suddenly feel someone grab my arm. It was Elena. Sure, she was just grabbing me so she could get the key, but for a couple of minutes I was gliding across a hardwood casino floor with a European beauty on my arm. I'm easily thrilled, what can I say?
Later, we went to the Hockey Hall of Fame for our last club night. Let me tell you now that the HHoF works well as a club, the only problem on this particular night was that a lot of the kids had already gone home so it was fairly empty by club standards. Again, it was a sound concept. I found Elena quickly and we agreed to leave together if the party was dead.
Eventually, we ended up at the Sigma Chi frat house. Don't ask me why I went there. She was there, so I had to go to keep an eye on her. Julius eventually showed up too. It was cool because almost all the leaders and executives came by to congratulate him and say there good-byes for the week. They actually lifted him up on their shoulders. I'm so proud of the guy. He worked incredibly hard on this project for the last six months or so and I can tell you that it was an enormous success. He deserves all the credit in the world, he's amazing. So after taking a swig from the communal beer pitcher, I went back to watching my lady. There was this fucker named Ron who was putting his hands all over her and I was just cursing my inability to compete with that. This is what I'm talking about. Lousy metahuman.
We went to sit down and I had to box him out so I could sit next to her. I made sure that he knew I wasn't going to leave her side. I told everyone I was going to make sure she got home okay and I intended to stand by that. I was scraping and clawing. He was half-Israeli, half-Russian (fuck!) and he was going on about how Jewish people invented everything or some crap like that. He's all like, "Albert Einstein. He was Jewish." I had to get my hands dirty again.
"Yeah. He helped make the atomic bomb. Nice work on that one."
That was surprisingly effective in shutting him up. Then I broke out the Romanian I had learned from my former neighbours to impress this other girl who was sitting with us and to look cultured in front of Elena. Again, it kind of worked. I even threw out some compliments, which I hate to be so overt about. There was this Chinese guy, Jonathan, whose name they couldn't remember. He starts going on about how white people think that all Chinese guys look the same. Then the other girl, Katalina, says that Chinese people think all white girls look the same. So I say, "Katalina, if all the white girls looked like you and Elena, we'd be living in a better world." Corny, but it got a reaction and that's all I could hope for.
At the end of the night, everyone was saying their good-byes. Elena was giving out hugs and kisses. Ron and I shared the coldest "nice too meet you" handshake you've ever seen. Fuck that nigga. Then I walked Elena to her cab. She had $20 in Molson Taxi Money that Julius was kind enough to lend her, but she had to go all the way to Thornhill. I still had a ruined $20 bill on me and I gave it to her without hesitation. She didn't want to take it, but I figured it'd be a lot easier for her to give it to a cab driver at four in the morning than it would be for me to use it anywhere else. Plus, when there's a gorgeous woman looking me in the eyes, my judgment tends to become impaired. I got the last kiss on the cheek of the night and went on my merry way back to the NCSC office. That was my room for the week. I wasn't too high or too low, I was content and at peace. And happy as hell that she didn't end up with Ron.
*****
The most surprising thing about the whole week is that I have no chance with Elena and yet, that doesn't matter to me at all. A month ago, I wouldn't have even spoken to a girl like that and there I was making moves and cock-blocking dudes in a frat house basement. Again, "Do or do not. There is no try." I was there, I was doing. That was the story of the whole orientation. That was more important to me than any romantic interest. There was no way that I was going to let a crush make or break my opinion of frosh week. I'd come too far, learned too much.
There's so much I'm leaving out, but I'll rein this puppy in now.
As the week ended and Monday approached, I found myself thinking that school work is going to be nothing compared to this. I was just involved in taking care of almost six hundred kids for four days. If I can't take care of my own business, then I kind of missed the point, didn't I? However, I've also learned that there are no guarantees and that nothing is concrete. I thought UofT was the coldest, most alienating environment in the country and that view was obliterated by one week of experiences. I didn't see that coming, but I didn't shy away from it when I realized what was happening. That's all you can do, I guess. Not be afraid of whatever is coming. That said, I wish the best to everyone in the coming school year. Hopefully, it's all going to work out.
Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?
Choking Yak
I was late for work yesterday, after arriving 45 minutes later than I usually do. But since I usually show up around 8:30, I guess that only made me about 15 minutes late. And only then if you believe that 9:00 is the cut-off time, which I'm not even sure it is. The "core hours" are from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM and The Bossman is pretty flexible - also I'm not completely convinced that he still remembers that I'm alive. But regardless,
by my standards I was 45 minutes late. Which only makes it around the third time in like five months, which gives me a success rate of approximately 97.09%, which isn't too bad. Although I have no idea how my .971 Days On Time (DOT) compares to the office-wide average. So in the absence of similar comparables, I'm forced to conclude that it looks pretty damn nice next to Martin "Best Goalie In The League" Brodeur's pathetic 2005-2006 .911 SV%. In fact, I could have taken the 2005-2006
Crozier over Cristobal Huet if the NHL equated my Days On Time with their goalies' save percentages.
(Speaking of our favourite sport, how's 'bout them Islanders? Fresh off their third consecutive playoff-less season, they hire respected hockey dude Neil Smith - who put together the 1994 Messier-led Rangers that won the Stanley Cup - as their new GM...only to replace him 40 days later with their suddenly retired back-up goalie Garth Snow. And two months later he hands out an unprecedented FIFTEEN YEAR, guaranteed, $67.5 million contract to the guy that beat him out of the number one spot. DiPietro isn't even all that good anyway. They're going to be paying a 40 year-old goalie $4.5 million - and even Roy and Hasek didn't last to 40. Hockey is retarded.)
Anyway, the reason I was late is because I was stuck in a dream. I heard the alarm, half woke up, and turned it off. And then I rested my eyes
just for a little bit and I got sucked into half-sleep. It was there that I had this bizarre half-dream. I could actually see the time on my clock...only I knew that in real life the dimensions of my bedside table made that impossible. And it was getting later and later...only I couldn't move. I couldn't wake up. I knew I was going to be late for work, but this heavy sleep-weight kept me pinned down and I couldn't muster up the willpower to break it.
And then...for some reason, in the dream, everyone I knew lived with me. It was weird...yet in the dream, it all made perfect sense and I didn't question it. I do remember being vaguely disappointed at how comfortably everyone I knew managed to fit in my house. Or maybe that just means I have a big house. I started to gradually wake up and get myself in gear in the dream - getting out of bed, brushing my teeth, putting my work clothes on, walking downstairs to get some cereal - and throughout it all I was walking past all these people I knew. All in their pajamas as well, like they had just woke up, only quicker than me. And everyone was telling me that I was going to be late for work and that I should hurry up.
I remember walking around downstairs and I actually walking pass my boss, who told me that I should hurry up and get to work or else he would see me come in late. And I was thinking like "How does that make sense? What about
you, motherfucker? You work
with me! And why are you wearing my pajamas?" Yet it didn't seem that weird, and I didn't really confront him about it. In dream-hindsight, I should have asked him for a ride or at least how he was planning to get to work.
At this time I became aware that I was actually lying face down in bed in real life, but I still couldn't move. Weirdest feeling ever. I had to summon all the willpower I could to break past the sleep barrier. I felt like I was charging up to throw like a fucking fireball made of pure chi or something. I managed to do it with a triumphant half mumble, and I didn't so much get out of bed as just kind of...slithered out. And I glanced at the clock, and apparently like half an hour had passed while I was stuck.
Why does this happen to me? I want to fight ninjas, date Wonder Woman, or be chased through the dark woods by an axe murder who happens to have my face at the end of the dream or something. I don't want slightly odd permutations of my own life to fill my dreams. The one chance I get to live out some crazy fantasy trip, and I waste it with dreams about going to work. Nice going,
pons. Really good work you're doing for me.
GIVE ME SOMETHING!!! I want my next dream to be about fighting Rocky in the ring, only we're both dinosaurs and we have tiny useless T-Rex arms and oversized novelty boxing gloves. And then Heather Locklear comes in as a Malaysian bear and addresses me as the "Six Gun Sheriff" before having strange, physically impossible dinosaur/bear sex with me. Make that happen, and I give you total control over the rest of the anterior brainstem. And maybe the memory centers of my brain too - I won't really need those anymore after that. Deal? Sleep on it, let me know in the morning.
"Well, would you like to hear me tell a joke?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we'd love to hear a joke from you."
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Go fuck yourselves."
Choking Yak
I have a bunch of items here I wrote up during those thirty postless days, that I decided not to actually post. I have no idea why. It actually seems stupid when you think about it, so logic dictates that less thinkin' = less stupid. Whatever. Like I would have let Big AL's previous sixty thousand word point form post go unchallenged? Forget that noise - I'm back, baby.
Does that provoke you? Because it's a fact. And guess what? That makes it a provoking fact. And guess what? That makes this
Choking Yak's Provoking Facts.
- First off, let's just all have a little moment of silence for
OrangeToast.org, my babygirl's late blog. It's unfortunate that yet another of those few blogs associated with The WAMBAG has gone the way of teenage abstinence. I'd like to say that it was just the natural course of life, that all things have their time, and that she had a good run. I'd like to, but I can't, because I know for a scientific fact that it was the sheer power and charismatic might of this site, The WAMBAG, that was ultimately responsible for destroying her little online world. Like the mighty tidal wave that swallows up other, smaller waves on its path of destruction towards the coasts of mankind, so have we feasted on oranges and toast, taking her strength as our own on our path towards Internet relevance. We are this much closer to our goal of exceeding three visitors a day. It's gone now, wiped from the collective memory of society. Remember Queen's Quest? Remember
this?
Exactly.
- I've been driving around everywhere today - downtown, midtown, Willowdale, Markham, Ajax...and all day long I can see these ominous lightning flashes in the sky, but no thunder and not a drop of rain. And then I'm ten kilometres from home, and it's like all of a sudden I've driven right into
this wall of water. Rain drops so big, that if it was fifteen degrees cooler, Richmond Hill would be buried under a field of dead snowmen. And then all of a sudden the rain turns into mist. And driving along, I look at my rearview mirror and I swear to fucking God I can't remember the last time I was so scared out of my mind as when I saw that the mist on my rear window had revealed the imprint of a hand. I thought someone was there, lying in the back of my car for the last hour. Now that I've had a couple of murderless minutes of rational thought, I'd wager a guess that it's
my hand print from when I closed the truck earlier today. But just in case, if no one can find me tomorrow then you'll know what happened. I love it when it rains though. I means I don't need to water the plants outside. Sometimes it seems like everything comes down to laziness with me.
- I hope that in the future, granola bar technology will have advanced to the point where we can subsist entirely on like five mini-meals of granola bars a day. And I just know that we're on the verge of a breakthrough, because over the last couple of days I've actually proved that it can be done with just minimal liver and brain damage. I'm not a big fan of the whole "needing to eat meals" part of the human existence. It just seems like too much work. Why can't my ADP's get treated to some awesome
photophosphorylation instead of just plain old vanilla phosphorylation? No fun.
- Because the only reason people have blogs is so that they can whine about things...you know what really peeves me? When I'm waiting for the elevator and someone else comes along, sees me waiting for the elevator, sees that the "^" button is lit up...and presses it anyway. ...why would you do that? Because I love just standing around in elevator lobbies downtown at 8:00 AM, with my laptop bag slung around my shoulder, just staring into space? Do I not instill the faith necessary in people for them to believe that I do indeed grasp the concept of how you have to push the button to summon the elevator? Every time someone sees me just waiting there and presses the button again, that's a personal insult - that's them telling me "I think you're retarded, so I need to confirm that the elevator button has indeed been pushed." Or is it that you think the elevator has sensors and behaviour algorithms that can detect the fact that we've pressed the button multiple times, so it'll hurry on down to get us faster? That dark ball of hate within me grows bigger and bigger everyday. See, it's the little things in life that matter the most.
- But you know what's awesome? Granola bars. I love that shit. Did I go over that already? Right, my mistake. How do they make them and what the fuck is
granola?
- Didn't realized that the DVD for the third season of
Arrested Development already dropped on August 29th. Picked it up two days later and although I haven't had much of a chance to watch it yet, I am very excited about going through these episodes...again. Still, I'm somewhat upset at myself for not being there to pick it up and support its sales numbers as soon as it dropped. I was thinking of preordering it a couple weeks back, but then I realized it was
Arrested Development and then I wasn't so worried about the necessity of preorders. On one hand, I'm disappointed that not everyone in the world rushed to pick this up, which would have hopefully boosted up DVD sales numbers high enough to justify a return for another season. Just like for
Family Guy,
Chappelle Show, and how it was supposed to be for
Futurama. And all you Raymond Lovers and
War At Home watching motherfuckers would have finally seen the light.
...but on the other hand, too much interest means I wouldn't be able to find a copy for myself. And also that I wouldn't be able to keep being an elitist poser fag, which is something that I honestly and truly enjoy. Specifically the "poser" portion of the designation, which is why I picked it up two days late.
-
According To Jim is also a terrible show, but I find his wife so attractive that I can't help but enjoy it. I don't know her name though. The character or the actress. I don't watch it that much I guess. I don't know if I have a type, but I'm almost 60% sure she used to be on
Melrose Place and I'm like 85% sure I've seen her on
Spin City once. She was like a...city lawyer...District Attorney? And she was on a date with Mike. I may be high right now, I can't tell.
- I won't lie to you. I think I have a gambling problem. But for someone who doesn't live within two hours of a real casino (no, the CNE doesn't count), it's a surprisingly managable problem. I also have an addiction to
wild sex with Jessica Alba, but again...surprisingly managable.
- You know how when you peel off the label on a bottle of water there's some of that glue residue left stuck on? When I peeled off the label on my bottle of water today and unsuccessfully tried to wipe it off with a tissue, I realized that it all looks a lot like boogers. (I can now correctly claim that's actually the first ever usage of the word "boogers" in the four year history of this site.) This is signficant, because I'm already paranoid about the cleaning staff here at work rooting through my garbage bin and judging me based on the garbage I throw out. It's been a problem for me ever since that first week when I came back from lunch to find someone else's McDonald's waste in my bin. I don't want to be labelled a McDonald's eater on days when I'm not actually eating McDonald's. And now I'm afraid of the cleaning staff coming around, picking apart my trash, and finding this booger encrusted tissue paper in there - only they're not actually boogers. I think I'm just going to write "NOT ACTUAL BOOGERS" directly on the tissue as to clear up any possible misunderstandings. And in highlighter, because it's impossible to write on tissue paper with pen.
- You know what I'm really enjoying right now? Reminiscing about the good old days along with the fine fellows at
The Flagrancy (of RickBrunson.com infamy) in their wildly entertaining feature,
The 50 Most Dubious Moments in Toronto Raptor History. And check out this
chat transcript with Chris Bosh. Is he not allowed to use "LOL"? What's the purpose of "Ha-ha (Laughing)"? You don't need both - one implies the other. Beware if you ever catch me on MSN, because I'm going to start doing that now. (Blogging)
- I miss ICQ. I can still bang my number out in 0.14 seconds. 17177338!!! Send me a message. I look forward to not responding to you.
- I think I saw my old Physical Chemistry TA from first year today on the subway. CHM139 - I got like a 83% on that course, which at the time seemed like a huge disappointment after coming off a strong 90%+ showing throughout high school. I should have realized that was going to be one of the few times I'd ever taste 80%+ again in a Life Sciences course. I had the course in the Fall term and the tutorial was on Tuesday, so he was like the first or second TA I'd ever seen. He was a good TA, but the only thing I remembered from those tutorials was this one time when he was late, and his excuse was that some of his lunch had spilled out into his bag and he had to clean it. His girlfriend had made it for him that day, which got one of those big, semi-sarcastic "Aaawww" sounds from the class.
I can remember that it was a tuna casserole to this day, but I would not be able to recall Boyle's Law if my life depended on it. And by saying that, I realize that I'm just inviting fate to trap me in some lethal gas chamber full of pressurized gas with some elaborate temperature-based release switch. (pv = nrt? nrv? What was Accardo's number again? Avocado? Avercado? Avacado? Some combination of 10, 6.022, and 23? Then what's r?)
Ah, $40,000 well spent. Thanks, University of Toronto!
- I lied. I never went to Frosh Week. I just slept in for an entire week instead. Not an ounce of regret.
- I keep finding my shoelaces untied when I get up from my desk. I don't know what I'm doing at my desk that's so strenuous that it causes my shoelaces to become undone. I don't know if I need start double knotting, if there's a tiny gnome under there that keeps messing with my laces, or if I'm unknowingly dancing out entire Riverdance routines while I answer emails. And I don't know if it makes me feel better - because maybe this job IS really that physically demanding and my being out of breath after typing out a particularly long email is justifiable - or if it's just depressing because my shoelace tying skills are so crappy. My life is just full of failures, one after another, piling up higher and higher...until the day I'm crushed to death beneath a mountain of assorted setbacks, defeats, and missed opportunities. God, I wish I was dead.
- All the summer co-op students left two weeks ago, to return back their respective educational institutions and whatnot, and we had this big lunch to see them off. I vaguely remember this great bit I had during that, about how they all had to subjected to the amnesia ray before they could officially leave, that was very well received (ie. people laugh lots). I didn't think about it much at the time, but now (even though some of those kids were still older than I) I'm the youngest guy here...but I don't feel young, and I don't think I am anymore. But then I realize that they're paying universities to rape them up the ass, and I'm getting paid full time to essentially sit on my ass, and I feel a little bit better for some reason.
In hindsight, I probably could have fluffed up like half of those bits and spread this one post over two weeks. No one would have noticed. Damn it.
"Stewart, I don't feel well. Knowing about Mike's mom and the Mayor is killing me."
"James, secrets are power. You get something good like this, you sit on it. Right now, you leak it, it's just office gossip that makes everyone uncomfortable. BUT, in 20 years when Mike's running for President, this little gem gets me an ambassadorship to Sweden."
"What do I get?"
"Topless postcard from Sweden!"