I share my room with Mr. Monkey Man. In case you are not intimately familiar with Mr. Monkey Man like I am, he is my robotic toy gorilla, known to me through his formal name Iron Kong. The one I have is a Techno Zoid (“Don’t. Just. Build ’em. BRING ‘EM TO LIFE!!!”) which I am fascinated to discover was actually the sixth overall release of the toy – second in Canada. It astounds me that they’re still selling essentially the exact same model today as they were back in 1983. This world has known the Iron Kong longer than it has known Choking Yak.

I got him for Christmas when I was like 10 or something, and I’ve long since lost his shoulder missile launcher. Also, about five years ago (probably happened much earlier, but that’s when I discovered it) the original D battery I put in him leaked and the acid eroded his insides. I think he can still walk if you put in a fresh battery though. I mean he’s just plastic.

Anyway, when I was rearranging some stuff in my room last week, I managed to forget that I had set him down on the ground in front of my bed. And when I turned off the lights to sleep, I ended up kicking him and embedding bits of miscellaneous plastic parts into the soles of my feet. Now there’s all these grey plastic bits all over my floor…and I can’t figure out how to put them back on. Something I managed to do when I was ten (though admittedly with the assistance of some long lost instructions) is now completely baffling me – supposedly with a whole additional decade’s worth of experience and savvy more than my 10 year-old self. I don’t know which parts are which, and I don’t know where they go! They just don’t fit!

I’ve been working on him for two days now with no real progress. I am bummed out!

By the way, random unnecessary fact that you didn’t really need to know at all about Choking Yak that will leave us both somewhat mildy embarrassed – there was approximately three weeks somewhat recently in my life (within the last five years or so) when I become completely infatuated with Zoids. I just thought it was really cool that one of my favourite toys as a kid (the aforementioned Mr. Monkey Man) were making a comeback. And I figured I could answer that genetic calling of all nerdy Asian males to build obscenely detailed Gundam models with some snap together children’s toys instead. I even bought some of the cooler/MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE ones on eBay from some dude in China. Then I learned that the comeback was because of a new anime series…and all the enthusiasm I had just completely vanished. Just one of perhaps thousands of very short lived interests and hobbies I’ve had in my relatively short life so far. I still have a few boxes of untouched Zoids sitting in my room. I don’t know if you’ve seen them – but those boxes aren’t actually empty.

I always do this. I get all jazzed up about something and I go way too far with it. Like last summer. I’m watching TV and I saw one of those jet skis. Four thousand dollars later, and it’s sitting in my garage.

YEAH! I think I like short hair. REALLY SHORT.

Anyway.

That personal bit of rambling went far longer than originally anticipated. Now I have what appears at first glance to be an actual post, full of content. Throw in a couple links, and I’m done!

– You ever hear that story about The Purloined Letter? I think it was something about hiding in plain sight. I don’t really remember – I learned about it from an episode of Wishbone in like…high school. Why am I watching Wishbone in high school? Because I had fourth lunch and fifth spare and I liked to watch children’s programming and while I ate Lucky Charms when I got home. It was called “The Pawloined Paper”. Lots of Rupert The Bear, too. I was the coolest guy in Richmond Hill High School WITHOUT A SINGLE DOUBT.

…where the fuck was I going with this again…?

Ah yes.

– Opposite Day from DerrickComedy.com – everyone’s favourite bro rapers. (Here’s the link, because you’ll probably want to watch it again now that I’ve mentioned it.) I still don’t know if it’s lots of practice or excellent improv that lets them run cuts that long. Very impressive though, lots of respect for that.

– NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND!!! Just retarded. On every single possible level. Impossible not to laugh though. I found this like a week ago, and I’m just posting the link without having seen it since…and I can’t help chuckling to myself right now. It’s burned into my brain! I’m going to watch it again.

…still funny.