The Reservation Has Been Made

Ten O'Clock

Yonge and Bloor

Toronto

under name: Bernice (Natch.)

The Rite of Patchyface

IT COMES IN THE NIGHT.

It comes unpredictably--not with the new moon or the Sabbath--but it does come, sure as the crashing tide.

No one knows why it comes. It comes for us one by one, slithering on its belly from turbid waters and descending upon its victims like a horrible living shroud.

No one knows why it comes. But when it does, and we hear its clarion call, we dare not ignore the summons. We are helpless to resist it; it has impelled our fathers and brothers for thousands of generations. It comes like a force of nature, and when it whispers we cannot but obey.

"Maybe I should try growing a beard."

Thus is the rite begun. Thus is the veneer of cultivation that makes us respected by our superiors and admired by our mates cast away. Thus is the care and forethought that is the hallmark of our very humanity and the essence of agriculture, trapmaking, and toolcraft swept away into barbarity and darkness, casualty of the rite.

The animal adapts to nature; the human commands it. Hairlessness is humanity's mark because of all the apes, only Human sees himself in glass and imagines a different face peering out at him than the one he sees. Of all the apes, only Human collects seeds and sows them in virgin ground; only Human creates shelter where there was none. When we answer the call of the rite and ignore this humanity in us, we touch a deeper heritage and a more remote ancestry: that of the feral ape.

Humanity is smoothness. To shave is to live.

And yet it's been 8 days. How long can I persist? How long can any of us resist our essential humanity?

Any how long before I hear the bellowing of that ancient ape again?

Pants Party!

Hullo all.

There will be a DT Christmas Miracle (event!)


So, myself, Elvis Thrust, And My Mom are going to the public exhibition of the basketball contest featuring the Raptors of Toronto on sunday. (Section 318! Come Find Us!)

But that's not the event

It's Dinner!
at the yonge and bloor Korean Grill House! At Ten Oclock Pee Em, In Toronto!

Join Us!
All of Us!!

Myself &
The Lover &
Seabaht &
My Mom Thinks I'm Funny &
Mr. Skylight

We should make T-shirts.

A Happy Christmas to All!

Don't fuck it up.

Songs on Abbey Road Better than Abbey Road

(Or, "There Was No Cane in Citizen Kane!")

Imagine, if you will, a world in a universe very like our own.

In which I actually wrote this post before completely forgetting what the hell it was going to be about.

Did you enjoy it?

what is the last day of school?

the last day of school is the day when the weight lifts no, thats not it, the last day is the day when your not giving a shit becomes legitimate, when you can finally stop caring because you stop feeling bad about it because you know your education is worthwhile but its finally the day when you can celebrate not doing something worthwhile, for at least a while.
it's buying a bottle of tequila at 6 pm on a monday and feeling great about it
it's beside yourself looking forward to drinking said tequila with your roommate and muthafuckin champion of a homeboy mr. skylight or frank white or whatever the fuck he's called these days in the theatre tomorrow at two watching avatar.
it's the cute girl at toi, moi, and cafe (lovely place!) winking at you and pointing at the bottle of tequila sticking out of your pocket wishing you a fun night as she hands your cafe latte over.
it's the lets go to bifteck cause that place rules
it's the holy crap all of st. laurent is empty but bifteck is totally packed cause some australian girl is having her going away party and your one friend you run into there explains it to you holy hell she has a lot of friends out on a monday night in december
it's drunk walking home really having to piss (steven king said piss was the best word to describe piss, urinate or pee makes you sound like a total pussy) thinking that st urbs and moro is really not that far away.
it's whatthefuckaresomanypeopledoinginprovigoatoneinthemorning
it's lets be quiet so as not to wake up the roommate who has exam in the morning
it's im home time to pee
it's do i brush my teeth, yes because people will judge me if they find out i didnt
it's lets go to bed bernice
it's lets write a desserttickets post bernice
its hey look lets welcome stop having a boring tuna he accepted the invite that fucker is going to spain and will report from such
it's good night everybody
it's i get to go home very soon
it's good night everybody

Housekeeping IV: A new hope

HI KIDS.

I've added this "rate posts" doohickey, and this retweet doohickey, for the sole reason that I thought they might be fun. If anyone objects to either one on moral, legal, or religious grounds, I'll be happy to get rid of it.

On that note, anyone have any fun ideas they'd like to see implemented? I thought about a "top comment-leavers" reel but kiboshed it cause I couldn't decided if "commenters" or "commentors" looked less stupid.

mgmt

DT presents: Important Proteins in Cancer that are also Related to Music!!!

MGMT:

• Popular indie band alleged to have given Bernice a cookie once, short for management
• Important DNA repair protein and tumor suppressor, short for O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase

Ras:

• Reggae record label
• Potent oncogene implicated in a large proportion of human cancers. Kinase located upstream in many signalling pathways

Myc:

• The Music for Young Children program
• Potent oncogene that stimulates proliferation and DNA damage among other things

P27:

• Seminal Swiss rap group, known to perform with a full funk band backing them
• Inhibitor of CDKs important to cell cycle progression. Subcellular localization has been tied to prognosis.

MMP:

• Polish record label. Short for Metal Mind Productions (robots!!!!!)
• Short for matrix metalloproteinase. Important protein in metastasis, cleaves basement membrane fibers releasing growth factors and clearing space. Secreted from tumor associated macrophages and transformed epithelial cells.

Slug:

• Rapper from Minneapolis
• C2H2 transcription factor. Down regulates E-cadherin. Implicated in cancer, probably through EMT.

Functional Death Receptor:

• Metal band from Green Bay. Claim to mix heavy metal with death metal as well as doom metal. Check out their Myspace!!!
• working cell receptor that binds ligands triggering apoptosis. Loss of function can lead to cancer.

P53:

• Imporvisational music group with weirdly extensive wikipedia page
• The gaurdian of the whole fuckin' genome! Probably the most important tumor supressor in the biz. Controls a wide variety of processes inculding apoptosis and progression through the cell cycle

Coincidence? I think not.

In other news the guy beside me in the library has been stroking his chubby girlfriend's enormous ass for the entire amount of time it took me to right this. What is up with that?

A Friday Feast of Fun!

To Quote Michelle Obama's Family Rabbi, "This song rules because the chorus is un-fucking-stoppable. not just unstoppable, un-fucking-stoppable"

I've hit a new low. In fact, I've hit a bunch of them. Three so far.

Come, loyal followers, sit upon this erudite knee as I regale tales of a boardwalk supreme, a place where courtesy, decorum, and class are swapped in favour of hair gels and Ed Hardy T-shirts. A place where lite beer flows as fresh as the water it takes like, where you're just as likely to find a skinny bitch on the rag (that's vodka, club soda, and cranberry juice) as you are to find a skinny bitch on the rag (that's an emaciated... you get it). I'm talking about the pure, blissful genius that is MTV's Jersey Shore.

It's eight people sharing a beach house in the land of the Jovi, all hoping to have the ultimate Jersey summer, filled with boozin' and bangin' . This shit is beyond reality TV. It's unreality tv, because who had any stinkin' clue that this place, like this, actually existed? I'm learning more about the world, plain and simple, exposing myself to new cultures and new ideologies all at once. I've seen the future, and it has a fake tan and a stupid nickname. This, my friends, is Guido.

This week, "Guidette" Angelina's home-girls Alana and Elena swung by the shore to visit, which led her to skip out on her job at the custom t-shirt store as she dealt with the fight she had with her married boyfriend. Get the picture?

DJ Pauly D, of the pierced wang and italian flag tattooed across his back, has been hooking up with fake-tittied J-Woww. Yes, her name is J-Woww.

Muscleman Ronnie has been hooking up with Sam Sweetness or something like that, who's right on the verge of kinda-hot (the delightful upper-limit of the girls on the show). Sweetness was previously hooking up with Mike, who calls himself "The Situation", in some reference to his abs that I can't even begin to understand. Ronnie and Sam just had a really adorable date. At least, adorable for the Jersey Shore.

There's also a Slate-dubbed "unfortunate little person" called "Snookie", whose obnoxious attention seeking is compounded by her addiction to pickles and drunk-to-the-verge-of-barfing-like-a-freshman guidos, one of whom spat out the immortal line "i think we're on the same page". It was his only one of the episode. Speaking of Snookie, I know from the season preview that there's an episode in which she gets punched in the face. I can't wait for it. That's how low I've sunken.

And then we have Vinny, who really doesn't contribute as much as the rest, but once he got in a fight at a club. That was kinda cool. Go Vinny.

It occurs to me that I could, and probably should, make this incoherent rambling into some sort of observation on modern reality television and the numbing of North America's collective brain. Thanks, MTV. But I'm going to end that preachy shit right there, because I'm really damn glad this show exists. Am I going to try and be Guido? Fuck no, our knight Thug Wrangler fills those crisco'd shoes quite smoothly, thank you very much, although I can only dream of one day being able to look directly in to a camera lens and espouse "fuck it, it's the fuckin' jersey shore! what do you expect?". I love it because it reminds me of two important things. 1. the outside world exists, and there are some really entertaining real people in it. 2. I am much better than them, and it's fun to know that. they are all selfish, manipulative, and I would pay never to speak to them in person. Yes, I understand the irony of exploiting them on television for my own entertainment. But, if that's wrong, I don't wanna be right. Besides, I'm three deep already. No way I'm turning back.

One last observation: Whenever the tanned unite to make a spitoon of one another, a female hand is always raised to the camera, attempting to block the view of the actual act, as if we can't tell that theyre doing the tongue-dance. Tough shit sister, this is my damn entertainment.

But on a more serious note

It has come to my attention, just today, that The Big Bop and the Cameron House, two enjoyable and familiar Toronto bars-cum-music venues, will be closing pretty soon.

Yesterday, I read with significantly greater shock and horror that the Carlton Cinema is sharing a similar fate after today--its last day, December 6--when they'll be screening Monty Python and the Holy Grail with popcorn as its own Last Supper.

I don't live in Toronto most months out of the year anymore, so my sentimentality may be unfounded, even exaggerated. But I am sad. Mostly for the Carlton. Regardless of my support for the establishment as of late, and regardless of how much direct involvement I'd had with any of the three above mentioned venues in my meager near-21 years of being, it never occurred to me that they would die.

(I won't pretend to make this a universal message, because it's pretty specific; if you don't want to indulge my sentimentality, you can scroll away now, leaving with the simple message that the closure of these Toronto sites is sad and makes me feel old.)

I can recall a dark night in June of '05 (I think it was '05) when ICGYABL and I went to the Aquabats show at the Reverb and Bernice slept through it; or when some of us saw Juice Money Orchestra at the Kathedral, immediately surprised at how not-shitty they were. There was a time when some of us stumbled, underage, into the Cameron House, never carded, and ICGYABL bought a CD from some hip indie-folk four-piece on a whim. Perhaps most importantly, I can remember going on several--and I mean several--dates at the Carlton, and seeing some of the best films of the last five years there.

It's inevitable that venues close, money gets tight, and the Capital-M-"Mainstream" wins out over smaller film and music spots. I am not surprised that these venues have finished, nor do I think it's for the worst that they did. Mostly, what is affecting me is the realization that moving away from home does not keep it preserved in a museum or cryogenic ice-chamber. I cannot return and find everything the way it was. Though I experience this every year, the Carlton's death was the final nail in the coffin of my childhood.

Soon I will be 21. That's adulthood no matter where you are on the map. The closer school gets to completion, the closer my summer jobs get to becoming life careers, I begin to ask: where is there stability?

In which I realize I am absolutely more like you fellas than I realized

Bacon-wrapped scallops, fresh from the Halifax Farmer's Market, sizzling on my stove.

And OHMYGOD they were delicious.

From the guys who brought you Baconnaise...

Mmmvelopes.

Envelopes... that taste like bacon.

So, after thousands of years and kajillions of horrible tasting envelopes licked, we’re happy to report that J&D’s Bacon-Flavored Mmmvelopes™ are here to save the day. No longer will envelopes taste like the underside of your car. You can enjoy the taste of delicious bacon instead.

What's next... lemons and limes that taste like candy?!?!?

I'm happy that progress can be so delicious.



ps good luck on 'xams, all y'alls.

I really want to see Zombieland

Lately, I've been thinking about how you can get to do things that you want to do. Sorry, that's vague, but I have been on 3 hours a sleep a night for the last 3 days so there you go.

On a whim, I wrote a play this summer, and I just found out it got selected for competition for the U of T Drama Festival in February. My immediate reaction was "this is awesome!" but, of course, the cynical/pessimistic/humble(?) version of myself was already coming up with reasons as to why it got selected.

I didn't think it was spectacular... it was fun to write, for sure, and I liked the premise, but I didn't really do any planning for it, and I kind of just started writing and it took it's own course. I feel like writing this way equates to a result with no overarching theme, no overall message, etc. Essentially, it's just two characters with 45 pages or so of "interesting" and "quirky" dialogue. (The synopsis in 8 words: "Waiting for Godot but Godot is a zombie.")

My cynical self is convinced that the reason "Waiting for Zobo" got selected is because no one else submitted a play. (Or that the premise is just gimmicky and about zombies, and they needed a "weird" play, but that's not the point).

Here is my point: I think at this stage in our lives, we're fortunate enough that if we want to do something, we'll be able to do it, as long as you put enough effort into getting to do it.

Aka: success is proportional to the amount of effort and determination and drive.

(While not true for everything, it seems to be the overriding rule in my life)

I feel like this only happens in the smaller bubbles of life, like university, or young adulthood.

In the real world, talent and ability plays a much much bigger role, because in the real world there are simply a much larger number of people competing for what you're doing.

(For example, the act of simply writing a play is probably good enough for in university for it to be produced, but in the real world, it has to be good and smart and clever and well-thought out and amazing)

I think right now, we're still able to get by with little talent and a lot of determination, and I'm going to be thankful for that, because it's going to change in a few years and one day and we'll all be old and upset that we were never good enough to do what we actually wanted to do in life, and will look back on these days because that we got to do it anyways, because we chose to and we could.

Something tells me it was not a top seller

From its Wikipedia page:

Training Day: The Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the 2001 crime film, Training Day. It was released on September 11, 2001

Thank you, Random Article button, for explaining things to me that I never thought would need explaining.

Sometimes, You Can Hear God Laughing

Pigeons, by and large, seem to be reactionary creatures. "Oh look, someone's coming, let's fly away en masse!" "Oh, there's a statue, let's all go sit on it and poo!" - At least, that's what I thought.

To quote George Costanza, "We had a deal" with the pigeons. They get out of our way, we turn the other cheek when they poop on Abe Lincoln. The Pigeons in Parc Jeanne-Mance seem to have missed this class in Municipal Co-habitation. Traversing the torn-up, muddy field that separates avenues Duluth and Rachel the other morning, my path was blocked by our avian friends, mulling their days no doubt, waiting for something exciting to eat or poo on. And then I came along.

Pigeons to the left of me, Pigeons to the right of me, I was sure any second now I would be surrounded by flapping wings and nervous cooing. Nobody moved a muscle. The birds were a mosaic on the ground, still as could be. I carefully tiptoed around them. I looked back a moment later, and the birds had cleared a perfect path, about a yard wide, through their flock, just begging to be walked through, taunting me. That was the way it should have been in the first place - my path cleared.

As I often do when confused, I looked skyward to the west. I saw La Croix, and I could almost feel God laughing at me. You win this round, natural universe.

A Return to the Wacky, Weird, Wild World

Because it has been a while since we highlighted a perhaps under-reported amazing news story,
I bring you this.


Can you imagine anything like this happening, to anybody, ever?

"We remember dear Bob...."

"I'm right here"

"I can almost hear him!"

"No, I'm actually right here!

"WHHUAUUAAA?!?"

Or, at the church:

Priest: If Anyone has any reason these two should not be wed, speak now, or forever hold your peace
Bob (bursting through the door): I'M ALIVE! STOP THE FUNERAL!
Priest: Glad to hear it, but the funeral is next door.

What I call well-timed procrastination

Taken from his Wikipedia page:

On November 1, 2009, Abdullah decided to quit the runoff election that would have taken place six days later, on November 7.^[2] He did, however, win the secondary "Guy With The Coolest Name In The Whole Damn World" competition. ^{[citation needed]}

But then I refreshed, and it disappeared forever.

LEST WE FORGET.

I'm sorry.

Here you go folks, another game to take up hours of your time.

ICGYABL, Raymond, and I have wasted many an hour on "Clockwords Prelude" today. It's a typing game.

ICGYABL is the master, currently at level 29 and climbing. I couldn't make it past level 21.

Let me know how you do.

this looks so cool

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/arts/television/19brutal.html?_r=1

The Odicy

THEODICY is the branch of theology that tries to explain the existence of evil in the world; it is concerned primarily with rationalizing the apparently unjust behaviour of a definitionally just God.

THE ODYSSEY is the story of an impeccably moral man who just wants to go home to the arms of his wife after 10 years of war and runs into no end of trouble in the attempt; it is, in other words, a recognition of the reality of evil in the world.

I'd like to see a work of literature that recognizes this clever pun.

Dear God I Wish I This Was Me (But Not Really), Or: The World is a Crazy Place

Hay Gurrrrlll

Can I have yo numba?

No? Well....uh, wanna take my blog address down?



Call me. (It works!)


5

for gods sake

what with the return of midterms and all, comes with it the return of one of student-kind's worst curses: procrastination.

I'm in full swing, and it sucks. i'm working somewhat efficiently, don't get me wrong, but i am still wasting so much time.

see this? like a 75-word post, just so i can wait for californication to load.

Fuck.

oh, and in case anyone forgot, Milton: really damn good writer.

Fun Administrative Games to Play at McGill University (part one‽)

Minerva ---> Personal Menu ---> Name Change ---> Preferred First Name

Minerva allows students to input a "preferred first name". It won't appear on your transcript, but it WILL appear on your professor's list of students, right under a lovely picture of yo' face.

It looks like this:


Weasel
Bag
(Young Weezy)

Thanks to the lovely bracketing, the system allows us students to tell the professor something about ourselves before they meet us. For example...

..........
Uncleaddaspdasdasppa.ckkKevinaddadaspdasddpekkManfred von
Samaddadaspddaspaspek kSmithaddasdaspdasddpkkRichthofen
(wants you)sdaspddaspas.. (filmmaker)sdaspdasddpe(red baron)
dasp
or...

..........
Johnaddadaspdasspace kk.Johnaddasdasp pacedkk.Joe
Doeaddaspdaspdasac ekk...Smithaddadasps pacdek.Jones
(asshole)addaspdapd aspa.(genius)adddasp aspadce(love machine)

Give it a try. I dare you.

Bonus points if you change your name.

Canadian Content

I'm enrolled in Canadian Art to 1914, and have been blown away. It's been my first class with all Canadian content... I encourage you all to take at least one Canadian-centric course before graduating. I've found the perspective it offers is so unique and obscure, despite mcGill being a canadian school.
Check out this particularily interesting painting by paul kane

and enjoy!

When You're A Dentist, Or: Slate is Stealing Our Ideas

Do you guys remember, way, way back in the emotional and meteorological wasteland known as "February" when I posted this?


That was a long time ago.
For a refresher, I wrote about all of the things that went through my head at the dentist, leading to a positively thrilling discussion in which we all talked about our fears of dentists, teeth, and poor hygiene, exposing how we REALLY felt about the dentites.
Well, it seems that over the next seven days (From Yesterday to Oct 5), June Thomas of Slate Magazine is doing exactly that.
However closely Thomas's writing will mirror our discussion is yet to be seen, but just for fun I think I'll follow it and post my thoughts or analysis here. You know, to get the blog back up and running and providing you all that shit we're (not at all) famous for.

Slate used to be a wonderful magazine (and when I say used, I mean like two, three months ago).
Yet, for whatever reason, it seems lately to be riding a serious wean away from my interests. Now it's very strange (and perhaps a sign of something, god knows what) to see them devoting a week-long series to something I was interested in nine months ago. Perhaps this will bring me back, perhaps it will not.

We'll see June Thomas, God Speed.


UPDATE: THEY ALSO WROTE ABOUT GIANT SQUIDS! DON'T FUCK WITH GIANT SQUIDS!

Um, hey...

I know it's been a while since we've talked....


But I just wanted to say that I still love, from the bottom of my heart.....






COOKIES. Also class starts tomorrow. Expect to see me back here and then. Stay classy DT.

- The artist formerly known as Zeke.

airport security

i am sitting in the airport, eating lunch, waiting for my flight home.  I sat down next to a tv so i could watch the news-CNN.   I turn to the TV and see that CNN is not there-rather, poker.  I look to the next tv in the woldgang puck I am sitting in-all the tv's have now turned to poker.  I can only assume there has been a plane crash somewhere and they do not want people to freak out.

awesome.

APPLE SHAMPOO or A NEW HOPE

BadAss Beard
BadAss Name
BadAss Peacelover
and he "lives in the woods with his woman and his daughter"

Gunnar Rosenquist from Gothenburg, Sweden - Certified Bad.Ass.

and you just know this guy kisses on the FIRST DATE. He is everything I've ALWAYS wanted to be. So how does he do it DAMNIT!?

Is it the APPLE SHAMPOO? A steady diet of TOAST AND BANANAS? Is this proof that ALIENS EXIST? Or is it just the STORY OF A LONELY GUY?

I know there are many out there who might see this prefession as PATHETIC. But as I am currently a struggling beardsman myself, I've gotta say I am really FEELING THIS.


To any and all, who found my post BORING.
I'M SORRY! - But just in case I wasn't quite OBVIOUS enough, I'd like you all to know that, concerning THE ROCK SHOW tomorrow night, I am extremely ENTHUSED.

http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/gunnar.html

Is a Poke the new pigtail pull?

What the fuck is a facebook poke?

I received my first facebook poke a while back and thought nothing of it. It was from this dude who used to make fun of me in elementary school so I assumed he just hit w button my accident or something. I received my second facebook poke a couple days ago from a friend I know and work with. Since then I have been trying to figure out what it is. It was explained it is just like soemone poking me, getting my attention. Well thats just weird. Why? well, for starters, the pokes are displayed way down the bottom of the facebook home page. The only way I am going to see it is if I am scrolling down to see which one of my friends have a birthday. I should clarify that by "friend" i mean someone i care enougn about to put the effort into wiriting happy birthday on their wall, but not a close enough friend to already know their birthday (these people merrit phone calls). The only other way I am going to see it is if I am reading everything on my news feed and get far enough down the line to see it. Which only happens in conferences and now at work when I have shit else to do. So I don't see how its getting my attention.

So I wonder, is it the new flirting? a sly way to joke around, let me know they are thinking of me without being too...obvious, or whatever to write a wall post. Is it like the old school, I pull your pigtails becuase I like you but Im too scared/immature to actually say anything? I cannot imagine how, as i mentioned earlier, the first poke was from a kid that used to seriously bully me.

I write this post not becuase I have not written anything in forever and I would like to to start but honestly have nothing to say

I write this this post not becuase I am bored and have shit all to do

I write this post purely becuase I am genuinely curious about the purpose of a poke. What should one take away form being poked? what is the appropriate response?

...and also cause im bored and hvae shit else to do and didnt think anyone would want to hear my Katherine heigal/megan fox/movies of today rant

"Moon" was a great movie, even My Mom Thinks I'm Funny enjoyed it.

Tonight, on my way home, I found myself and some friends walking behind a sizable group of hooligans. You know the type: loud ("...as a motorbike, wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight"), crass, obnoxious, rude, and generally unfriendly people, far too caught up in their own hive-minded arrogance to be of any use to anybody, at least for the night. At one point, they stopped to yell obscenities at some girls and verbally abuse a hipster with a skateboard. As we passed them, they took his skateboard and threw it into the street. We followed in front of them for a block, and just as we crossed the street, they were apprehended by two cops waiting for them around the corner.

Thank you universe, turns out you do play by the rules sometimes.

My very basic belief in life is that it works on a simple feedback-control system. You do bad things, bad things happen to you; you do good things, and good things happen (or at least, bad things don't happen to you. As much.).

Sometimes, I think we loose track of that. I mean, aside from being (unhappily) single, life's been fairly good to me, I suppose. Here's to hoping that the universe will fix that problem once I've got the rest of this stuff figured out.

Pug Party

In the spirit of the dog that milked a goat, here is a dog (possible the same dog!?!?!?) pushing a "baby" in a stroller.

I Break For Inefficiency

HIYA, GUYS AND GALS. I'm at work.

It's 3:21 in the afternoon, and I am, for all intents and porpoises, still on my lunch break. I closed a few tickets this morning, and checked out some old printers (notably, one in Central Processing, entrance to which is predicated on the wearing of gown and hairnet)--but since going on lunch at noon, I've had nothing to do. It irks me 'cause I'm bored stupid, and it's a lovely day (but not very much, because those who know me know I know I could just leave if I really wanted to and face the consequences), but more than that I'm frustrated with the immorality of waste, and I'd like to write about that immorality here. (But not, I might add, without the appropriate sense of irony.)



A capitalist system of resource allocation is only possibly morally tenable if wealth follows the creation of happiness. In an ideal system a carpenter, selling a beautiful desk, is recompensed at market prices (which are understood, in aggregating automatically the preferences of all buyers and sellers, to be fair rates) for his efforts and time--precisely in proportion to the total contribution to societal happiness his desk represents. If the buyer was perfectly informed about how happy the desk would make him (as he is assumed to be), and the market price of the desk included the cost to the environment and to future generations of lumber harvesting, then this system would channel all wealth to the producers of value who make life, on balance, better. Only by creating happiness could you gain the entitlement to consume resources and enjoy (material) happiness of your own. As long as you don't believe in any hippie nonsense like inalienable rights, this works great.



If our carpenter claims his desk will last for 20 years with normal use, but in reality his workmanship is shoddy and it falls apart sooner than that, it will be sold at a price that represents the value to the buyer (assume he is a butcher) of the desk described, not the one actually sold. This has two effects: first, it enables the carpenter to steal value (happiness) from the butcher, because the (say) $100 premium the carpenter was willing to pay for alleged quality is produced by his butchering but creates happiness for the crooked carpenter and not himself; but by the same token the carpenter earns $100 of consuming power without creating any value, which means whatever he spends the $100 on (say, a stripper), the initial transaction will have contributed less to total social welfare than it could have. A better carpenter could have used the same resources to make a better desk, which would have given him the same $100 of happiness that the poorer one receives, but it also would have given the butcher $100 of value in the form of a good desk. The cheating carpenter deprives society of the chance to enjoy that extra value forever. Resources, in other words, can be wasted; all it takes is a little imperfect information.

That's me, now, sitting at my (shoddy, laminate pressboard) desk. My time is the wood, and the value it's supposed to create doesn't actually exist, because there's no work for me to do. (Many summer positions in non-regional industries, I'm given to understand, have this problem; since the full-time staff can handle the workload during the winter, when there's actually more to do, my job doesn't actually need to exist. And the bureaucracy is afraid to reclaim the budget for it, because no one outside of IT has any idea how it works or how much it costs.) I'm being paid to waste time--and in doing so I am not only poaching value from the public and the hospital's donors; what's more, the time I'm wasting is losing forever the chance to ever be of any value to anyone, one second at a time. It's both stupid and wrong.

Also I'm flippin' bored.

7am inspiration

every morning, i start my day with a great, fantastic, life-changing idea.

"i can make my life so much better if i just..."

every morning that thought ends differently.

usually, it becomes some sort of romantic gesture: "... asked her out," "... sent her flowers," "... called her," “…talked to her,” “…told her i have a huge embarrassing 12-year old crush on her,” (ie. a crush a 12-year old would have, not a crush that has lasted 12 years), etc.

occasionally, it becomes about aiming my life in a different direction: “…studied art” “…studied design” “…played music for real” “…made movies” “… lived in london for a year” "...wrote a play", and so on.

whereas it’s easier to brush off the latter category as just whimsical thinking outside the realm of possibility or practicality, the girl-related thoughts seem at least… plausible.

either way, the outcome is always the same:

by the time i finish breakfast, the idea will be a vague curiousity. by noon, it will have become an impossibility. once night comes around, the same thought will have seemed so crazy that nighttime-me will have reprimanded morning-me for ever thinking it at all.

(i’m omitting super late-night daydreaming here; nothing good happens after 2am, kids)

here's the problem:

is it the idea itself that was crazy and wrong to begin with, and it just took me the whole day to realize it?

or, is it that the idea is apt (and that it could indeed make my life “so much better”), but it only seems possible when one foot is still in the dream world?

notts is fucked

made it to nottingham.
no sign of Robin.
or the sherrif.
did see diplo.
fuck.
everyone loves Canada though, they all tell me how much they'd love to come... but how they probably wont.
no one sleeps here, at least at night, and they party harder than any of ye alls... like way the fuck harder.
exhibit a: girl 1: I hate md, I can't do that shit.
girl 2: you can't hate it that much... you took it tonight.
girl 1: fuck. yeah. i did... (5am)
prosecution rests.
and is off to London in a couple of hours.
and has been staying in the most incredible house.
and should check in later after more sleep.
lovelove
your favourite? member of the extended first fam

Weaselbag, Big-City decency does exist. sometimes.

I was going to put this as a comment to the old WB's post, but I thought it would be more effective as its own post.
Watch This, sorry about the pop-up player.

This happened in Long Island, Just outside of New York City.

I know that people on the subway can be cold, but I drive on the busiest highway on the continent enough (twice a day, every day, for about 15 kilometres each way) not to believe that Toronto drivers are patient, curteous, and empathetic when it comes to 16-lane standstills. Strangely, it's not that hard to feel a comradery when you're sitting in the late-afternoon sun boiling your ass off with the window open looking at the guy next to you who's doing the exact same.
Also, when I leave for work early enough, and beat the traffic, I get this feeling like I've conquered the system in some way, and I have a different, snooty comradery with everyone else on the highway then. But maybe I just dis-proved my point.
Regardless, check out the video. It's a trip.

BeeTeeDub, someone called me a "quick young journalist" this morning. It felt awesome, but I fear the time when I will just be a "young journalist", and then the worst kind of all, a "journalist". That time when you're between potential and accomplishment, I fear that greatly, and I see many people around me who are there. Anyway, back to editing! yay!

Adventures in a Foreign Land

Yesterday, I went to a Portuguese chicken take-out joint. All signs were either in French or in Portuguese.

There was a long line, and the servers were clearly in a rush. When it was my turn to order, I ordered in English. Mistake.

The old chicken-servin' lady gave me a swat on the arm with a paper bag and walked away.

Friend: "Did... did she just hit you because you ordered in English?"
Me: "No way."

The old chicken-servin' lady returned, and I asked her - in French - why she hit me. Instant smile on her face, and a completely new demeanor. She told me she did it because she liked me; I'm not so sure.

Que Dieu te bénisse, Montréal.

Conversation

This game is simple: reply with a comment. Your comment may include a response to the previous comment, but it must end with a jumping-off point for another comment. You may ignore the previous post's provocation and respond to one before it, or, you may add choose just to add your own and skip replying altogether. Any kind of question, claim, expression, and so on, is acceptable. You may post more than once, even in a row, but no one must end the chain until we have no more replies. Nothing is too stupid or too controversial; the idea is that only those ideas of interest to people will be picked up on.

Starting with an easy one: favourite breakfast food?

Amster-DAYUM, son!

Greetings from Amstery Park, NJ. Some reflections on this great Dutch city for your enjoyment:

- Everyone here is attractive, slim and under the age of 50; all the men wear blazers and all the women look like they would dominate in bed.

- The one man I noticed over the age of 50 was wearing a tweed blazer with light blue jeans, a pink woven undershirt, a poofy red scarf and matching red socks with very nice brown shoes. His hair also made my own father's mop look like a crew-cut.

- Everyone here is very determined to get where they're going--cyclists will opt for a crash before they wince at intersecting traffic, I have not seen a car slow down once, and all the well-dressed men and women look like they're en route to the final stage of their spy mission.

- In spite of the above point, people are generally friendly, although one is likely sooner to experience the apocalypse than a waiter give you the time of day.

- The newspapers here make the Epigram look like the New York Times. Mind that I cannot read the content, but the oversized tabloid papers are just hard on the eyes.

- Couples will sit and smoke on a patio with seemingly nothing to do in the middle of the day. It's Wednesday, people!

I think that's all for now. More on this zany adventure as it develops. Tonight, jetlag sleep; tomorrow, windmills!

I Love the Internet part 231541 of 7325429

Not the Liberian Dictator

Check out this video.

After Heather Munroe-Blum speaks horrendous French for a while, she switches to what I can only assume is even more horrific Japanese. But then skip ahead to about minute 50 and Charles Taylor (the McGill philosopher and political scientist, not the Liberian dictator) and a U of T science dude have a sweet conversation about the "rift" between the humanities and sciences.

I liked it.

Dubai - Where the blogger bar is in arabic.

It's been a while. I've been living my life way too happily for the past few months but since all that has gone away, it's back to this. I only write when I'm unhappy. Or just bored as sin. And being bored as sin makes me pretty unhappy so I guess they go hand in hand.
It's around 40 degrees here every day. I've been to two different malls since I got here 3 days ago and haven't spent more than half an hour outside - all together. There's fucking sand everywhere. No trees. I haven't smoked a cigarette in 4 days. It's not making me happy at all.
Today I went out and bought a bunch of graphic novels just so there would be something to do. That and watching TV shows. But seeing as Grey's Anatomy ended yesterday and Lost ended on Wednesday, this obviously isn't a very permanent arrangement.
Nobody I like is in this stupid sandbox. Probably because all of them were smart enough to realize what a fuckhole it is in the summer.
My mom is happy to see me again. I'm happy to see her again too but I'm also miserable as hell just being here. And I can't tell her that because she hasn't seen me in 4 months and that would be a dick move.
I can't sleep at night. I stay up till 6am because of the jet lag. The nights are the worst too. Plus, once I do get to sleep I have ridiculous dreams that for some stupid reason scare me enough that I have to wake myself up and then keep myself up so I don't start dreaming about the same things again. So I've been sleeping about 3 hours.
Fuck this.

spaghetti's gone cold

today i'm going through my old artwork in an attempt to find something that i can include in my portfolio.

it's funny how every little thing holds a memory. there is a lot of stuff that, at the time, i thought was pretty good. looking back on it though, from two years in the future and with an unbiased eye (or at least with a more unbiased eye), most of it's shit.

i think if you're not constantly hating your past self, you're not growing anywhere.

Curing loneliness with even more loneliness

Just over a year ago, I found a plastic card on the street. It was all black except for the words "EB GAMES" in big red type on the front. I put it in my wallet and assumed I would use it later. I had since forgotten about it.

Passing by an EB today, I remembered that the card had been taking up space in my pocket almost every day for the past year and a half, so I stopped in and asked how much money was on this dirty old gift card.

Turns out I've been carrying around a hundred bucks in video games for a year and a half.

--------

Since returning to the T-Dot from my formerly gregarious lifestyle of Maritime university friends and Quebecois high school friends, I've been able to literally feel the loneliness seep into my life. I recognize this feeling: I lie in bed until just after 12:00, I run the few errands I've set aside for that day, maybe perusing the city's many ludicrous fashion stores and revel in the disgust I can't help but feel when looking at mannequins wearing silly and colourful clothes worth more than my rent.

With any luck I'll start work soon, , but that won't fill the gap created upon leaving my cozy Halifax nook. Maybe I took for granted the ability to call any number of my friends and take the five-minute walk down to the Wardy for a $2.50 Keiths, but the knowledge that I could was what stripped me of the social void I fall into every summer.

That's what kills me: I know this feeling. Every summer, for as long as I can remember, I spend time alone in my basement, replaying old Zelda games, renting four movies a week, spending heinous amounts of time on Facebook. Wishing I could bring myself to read all the books I've been telling myself I ought to read, only to find that my copious lethargy makes me immune to sitting still and concentrating for longer than ten minute intervals. I get so clinically lazy that I can't bring myself to do something that requires any sort of disciplined investment.

I'm not depressed, just aimless.

--------

I bought six video games today, all used, sort of on a whim--short of buying Rock Band for absolutely no reason, I figured it was the best use of the hundred dollars. I could feel my summer degenerating into arthritis as he told me I had $15 remaining on the card.

This post turned out indulgently long only because I've literally nothing else to do. (I played two of the six games already; I'm just taking a break.)

Granted, I finished university a bit earlier than almost all of my friends; I anticipate the shared two-fours and Banquet Specials that will inevitably precede shouting "BRUUUUCE!" in a car to Manchester, TN. This summer will not be horrendous, and I know I have friends here.

Mostly, I'm just fucking bored.

Trout and about

BBQ BUTTER TROUT with broccoli and mushrooms

an icgyabl original.

ONE 250g fillet of trout. $5 from my grocery store.

ONE broccoli, stalk cut into rough coins and florets quartered. $1.50.

THREE big-ish white mushrooms, halved and sliced as you like 'em. $1.99 for the box.

A BUNCH of oil for frying--maybe two tablespoons.

A FEW DOLLOPS of President's Choice Barbecue sauce or, if you're adventurous, some other tasty thing.

ABOUT TWO TABLESPOONS--MORE THAN YOU THINK--of butter.

1. Pour the oil into a wok or large frying pan and, when quite hot, add broccoli. Flip or stir every 10 seconds at most.

2. While frying the broccoli, put a little butter into another frying pan--large enough for the trout, plus about 20%--and when the butter is hot, saute the mushrooms. (I switched terminology here not because fry and saute mean anything remotely different but because Steven King doesn't like using the same word twice in 15 or something.) When the mushrooms are soft and flavourful, add them to the broccoli and reduce the heat under the wok.

3. Add the barbecue sauce to the vegetables and a little water if they're sticking. Stir well every once in a while. Meanwhile, add the rest of the butter to the other frying pan and when it is hot, the trout. Sear both sides of the fillet and then reduce the heat to about medium. If you like to eat the skin, cook it a little longer so it gets crispy.

4. After about a minute has passed, add the vegetables--which should now be good and soft--to the fish pan and cover it. Don't stir or anything, but add a little water if the fish is sticking.

5. After two or three minutes, break open the fish to see if it's cooked. If it is, transfer to plate. Enjoy with grapefruit juice.

6. Eat before writing DT post documenting recipe, so it doesn't get cold. Damn.

She's Got Blood In Her Eyes For You, Or: Thanks, Stranger!

Kudos to the person who brought the power bar to blackadder so more people could plug in their laptops.

Everyone's in the shits this week, and you made people's lives easier.
People like you are one of the reasons that university is actually pretty cool sometimes.

Just an anonymous internet shout-out, instead of saying something in person.

The old fashioned way

I've been doing a lot of writing lately (not the good/fun kind, just papers and reports), and I'm slowly realizing that I can only produce quality (i.e. "quality") if I write things on paper first. I can't be productive if I'm writing on the computer. It just won't happen.

At first I thought it was a problem with having too many distractions around online and on my computer. Then I moved to my mother's old laptop with essentially no functionally aside from word processing, but it still didn't happen.

I think it has something to do with needing something physical and tactile. A computer doesn't give me a sense of accomplishment. It's much more satisfying writing 15 pages on lined paper with my trusty ink pen than typing the same amount on a computer. Screw ease of editing, I want my draft to look like some sort of surreal apocalypse wasteland. Plus, I find it incredibly stress relieving putting on some music and going through and transcribing my scrawlings onto the computer when it's ready.

If I wrote this post on paper before typing it up, it would probably be 38% more interesting and I probably would have felt like I accomplished something by not writing my formal lab report.

Instead, now I have two hours to get it done and I'm feeling a little bit like Jake when he morphed into a rabbit and got trapped in a box but had to morph back before his time ran out or else he would get stuck as a rabbit forever.

There's Something Absolutely Ridiculous About Watching Face/Off In the Library

"It's for school, I swear! I'm writing a paper on the evolution of transnational cinema and face/off is a really good example of...

Oh, Fuck it."

It's been three days - what the fuck?

I don't even have anything interesting to say.

So here's a photo of a duck.

Niles is Sure to Weave Another Laugh-Net

oh hell yes.

Some Lit, Some Fraiser, and a whole lotta funny.


... BUT WHERE'S WIGLAF?!?!

QOTD

Question of the day: Who would win in a thumb-war, Batman or The Green Lantern?
And why?
Discuss.

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE ANYBODY WE KNOW?!?!?

His Name is Chase Budinger, and he just declared for the NBA draft.

Here's Another.
And what the hell, One more.

Talkin' Bruce with George Elliott Clarke

And he's won the Order of Canada.

He came to King's to read from his newest and ninth book of poems, I & I, and partook in a little reception at the campus bar afterward. I discovered an old issue of The Watch (our university paper--of which I am now the Editor-in-Chief, by the by) in the office archives featuring an interview with him from 2001.

The Watch office now features the March 2001 issue hanging on the wall, sporting the phrase, "This is really bizzare! - George Elliott Clarke (2009)". Of which I am pretty proud.

If you ever get a chance to read his poems, I recommend it. He cited poetic inspirations such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, the latter of which we discussed for about five minutes at the reception while the few people behind me stood impatiently in line.

Turns out we're both big fans of "The River". Who knew?

Obama Urges EU to Accept Turkey as Member

U.S. President Barack Obama ruffled some feathers among EU higher-ups at the G20 meeting this week when he suggested that the superstate admit a turkey into its organization in order to foster international cooperation. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," he warbled; besides, "birds of a feather ought to flock together, particularly in these trying times."

But it sounds as though the featherbrained proposal will never get off the ground: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept turkeys like me as a member," the turkey said.

Hey, listen old man!

If we're talking about goats on the internet, the buck stops here.

Well, This Kicks Ass (Or Goat?).

Can we cook this?

Anybody?

Anon, and on and on

This isn't journalism, it's not polished; it's not even a coherent thought. It's my expectation that these posts (of mine, anyway) ought to be those things that's kept me from writing for too long. But I hope you'll enjoy it. I've included lots of links.


AS YOU ALL KNOW, the DT Twitter feed (link here, or to the right of the Blogger page) went live a month ago, on February 22nd. Because it's too much of a pain to log into Twitter with the account--username desserttickets, password bernice--and perhaps because we don't have much to say, anonymously or otherwise, it hasn't been as prolific as I'd expected; but it has made me think about online anonymity and, yes, WB, I'll say it: Web 2.0.

We weren't the first to come up with anonymous twittering--the splendid fake Christopher Walken is my favourite example, but they took the idea from SecretTweet, and this dude appears to be in on it too--but it doesn't look like anyone has realized, or at least written about, its significance yet.

**

Anonymity on the web is neither new nor trivial. Since the beginning, anonymous, open "proxies" have allowed people to mask their IP address from the host resource they're accessing, so that they can surf freely. This has obvious value for a whole host of people, from cybercriminals to political dissidents: anyone who wants to protect his identity online can, in principle, do so without much difficulty. DT 1.0, that is, in its Blogger incarnation, is configured to allow anonymous posting (hence the spree of mild pseudonymous antisemitism in the past few weeks) for precisely that reason: because we believe in free expression, which means expression with impunity.

**

It has occured to me that in addition to granting significant technological freedom (people are easily impersonated, for example), Web 2.0--the internet generally--also links people's activities online to their real-life personas in a much more significant and pervasive way than it ever has. We have false names on DT, but our real names tell a lot about us, instantly and for free, if you know where to look.

**

Researchers connected with the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto caused a stir when, working with a think-tank and the Tibetan Government in Exile (Munks and monks, yes, har har), they discovered a trojan cyberespionage network apparently based in mainland China, which they've named GhostNet. The Munk people are working hard at CitizenLab with the developers of a software called Psiphon (how cool is this?!) that offers uncensored access to the web--though not totally anonymous access, since information can still be monitored in transmission--from anywhere in the world. It is not my intention to get into the geopolitics of this story here--though I think, as usual, China Matters is not wide of the mark--but this is a fascinating and quietly developing example of the importance of anonymity online.

It's That Time Of Year Again, Or: April Showers Bring May Flowers

Well, here we are.
April.
It's back. That time when exuberance for life and confidence in one's abilities and education gives way to crippling fear and regret.
Remember Ticketers, you're not alone.
Please use this space as an escape, a place go when you've really had enough Kafka, enough Economics, enough Biochemistry, what have you.
Use it to procrastinate. I already have.
Oh, and please send in your procrastination stories, more are sure to be written in the coming weeks. We're going to be doing that again.

Soon! End! Summer! Sun! Weather! Possibility! Bonnaroo!
All of these things, and DT summer happenings, await. Whether its three or four weeks we have left, it is never soon enough.
I think you've reached a strange place when windowless basement rooms and old couches become the place you choose to go. Thank you, Arts Lounge.

B Out!

The Boss Shows Unsolved Murders What's What

So the other day, during my routine 4 AM television marathon, I stumbled across what may well be the most amazing episode of any procedural show to have even been given the green light.

Season 3, Episode 11 of Cold Case features an entire mystery based and set to Bruce Springsteen songs.

It also has the girl who played Madeline on Gilmore Girls, two potential love interests from Veronica Mars, and a woman with a four episode arc on Seinfeld.

Upon further research, Cold Case is so ridiculously awesome that it has also had Johnny Cash and John Mellancamp centric episodes respectively.

This series is way too awesome.

list of movies i'm looking forward to more than 'crank 2'

1. Where the Wild Things Are

trailer here

holy fucking shitsicles. look at it (in HD). cinematography looks fantastic. it's genuine. it's real. it has potential to weird the hell out of small children. the wild things are physical puppets made by the henson company.the kid looks like a perfect max. the aesthetic is great. hope the rest of the movie is as good as it looks. it looks like they're staying true to the feel of the book. also, it's spike jonze.


2. ...

oh wait, that's it.

I am a 27 Year Old II

AN UPDATE.

Is it a scam?
Thoughts?

This is oddly compelling.

Very much so.
i stole it from cracked, but check it out anyway.

My Essay is Going Well

The Grapes of Wrath is really about capitalism being doomed, a dead-end, fundamentally disequilibriated, unsustainable. And, like, as a typical upper-class white pinko jerk, Steinbeck is happy to imply that the only solution is revolution and some kind of pre-modern, Jeffersonian egalitarian mixed-farming subsistence crap where I guess we get rid of all “superfluous” ownership and everyone lives like Indians in harmony with the land, worms, and illiteracy, like the Joads did in the good ole days... except I'm thinking he's throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this—where by “baby” i mean “civilization” and by “bathwater” i mean theoretically correctable market failures and abuses, not fundamental flaws in the structure of capitalist organization.

In Defense of our Good Game

A couple of times in the last week, I've been hearing people say to me that they don't read blogs.
I find it now prescient to respond to such claims, as I find them borderline preposterous.
(Apologies to those to whom this is responding, but I might as well get these conversations out of the way, and I'm sorry if I come across as harsh or disrespectful, but you're probably never going to read them anyway).

The internet is, in essence, the ultimate meritocracy. The best websites are usually the most trafficked, in the sense of what they can give to the reader. Many of these "best" websites are blogs, and many are not. The point is, a website can merit readership and a following, whether it is a blog or not, that is a fact. It has become virtually impossible to define what a blog actually is. This, yes, is a blog. Free Darko, China Matters, Perez Hilton, all blogs. New York Times, Yahoo, Reuters, not blogs. All are popular, all provide quality information to the readers, all the time.
The only difference is really in the name, as long as we trust the meritocracy.

This is one of the many divides between the Kieth Olbermanns and Bill O'Reillys of the world (notorious, accomplished, respective blog lover/hater) - supposed enlightenment exists not in the opposite of blind dismissal, but rather the abscence of it. Therefore, world, I beg of you - our name, or our .blogspot tag, or our blogosphere peers don't necessarily make us any less credible than the New York Times (however difficult that may actually be). It's our content thats our "downfall". Pulitzer Prize Winning novelist and journalist H.G. Bissinger once claimed on live television that blogs "are the complete dumbing-down of our society", which was followed by the exclamation that "it [the blogosphere] really pisses the shit out of me".

I can only hope that I will win a pulitzer someday for "pissing the shit" out of somebody. Earlier in his interview, Bissinger forcibly asked a blogger if he had even heard of W.C. Heinz. When the blogger replied that he had, Bissinger's response was to break down into a fit of profanity and saliva. If it is indeed the vulgarity and triviality that defines blogs, than Bissinger has made himself a part of it, forever immortalized on youtube, and the Blogger, indeed a former Colleague of Heinz's, would have had to try alot harder to defend himself in that clip.

Yes, there are people on the internet who write about less than literary topics. For every blog about the British Revolution of the 1650's there are certainly ten about poop, tits, or the foot and a half of torso in between. Nobody, including me, is arguing that. But, how can that ever, ever mean that this blog, or any other, might not be a good read, a good communicator, even a good canvas. Reading is fun, writing is fun, and I'm thrilled to be able to do both in a space where people might actually care about what I have to say. Best, there are 20 of us who are enjoying it just like I am. Even if its about poop, someone might care about it. Don't blame the blogger simply for pursuing his interests.

It stands to reason that this here, or at least the in the style which its written, is the internet of the future. Gone are the days where people wait for evening or nighttime news, let alone read the newspaper in the morning. The internet wouldn't be absolutely destroying all other kinds of media if it didn't have the power to be updated fifteen times a day, without question. Web 2.0 has revolutionized communication, time-wasting, and even personal identity. Almost everybody I know has a facebook or a twitter, their own personal oft-updated website with pictures, personal information, and messages from friends. The future of communication is already here, and the future of information is rapidly, rapidly catching up.

Also, tonight myself, Skylight, and the visiting whirlwind are going to bily kun tonight, round 1030ish. 
You know where it is


P.S. i'm looking into writing something about sports soon, i got a scoop i'm probably going to do something recreational about, if i get around to it. I've started research.
Stay Classy, DT.

Wherein My Mom posts about His Mom

My mother got Facebook, you see, and added my 18-year-old Israeli cousin.

Then she realized what News Feed was and got fed up.

She emailed me (subject heading: "help help help"), citing News Feed as a "Major irritation" and asking how to block certain people on the 'book. He updates his status too often! she says. He's always writing on his friends walls! He's posting his entire life on the internet, thinking people care! Imposing them to care! All the aggravations one could have with Facebook, she had.

So I told her how to block people, and she thanked me with a prompt response. Two minutes after her email, she sent another one:

"You know what's funny?

What if you're posting all this stuff about yourself, thinking people are interested and you have no idea you're being ignored.

How sad."

And I have to say, I agree.

i miss people

the sketch comedy / musical show i was in just finished its run last week (it was great, thanks). the problem now is that all these people that i have been so intensely rehearsing with are out of my life. it honestly went from seeing them all for 18 hours a day to 0. it's kind of brutal.

i remember talking to momfunny about the concept of friendship, and the idea that friendship exists out of a necessity to proximity. if you're around someone a lot, it's more convenient to be friends with them than not.

so what happens when you remove the proximity part? how long can the "i still want to be your friend even though i never see you" last?

i suppose the solution is in manufacturing more proximity, but sometimes it's tough to do that organically.

anything with the word reunion in it usually is a terrible solution.

kudos to DT for making a great and unique way to keep in touch.

My Schedule

Write a paper by this Friday. Write a paper by the end of that weekend. Write a 15 page paper in the four (week)days following that. Five days to prepare for a presentation, followed by five days to write another paper. Followed by half a day to prepare for my first four exams, which are all in the first three days of exam period.

Followed by summer.

Please, can it be summer now?

Because I'm not That Interested in the Dickens I'm Supposed to be Talking About

Hard Times is very heavy-handed. I understand that, Social Divide, etc etc.




A very happy birthday to the Weaselbag. Everyone is getting older, its kinda freaking me out.
Eh, not really. But, our fleeting youth must be celebrated!
Remember That, Friends.

Oh Baby, Sneeze On Me.

WHAT THE HELL!?!?

all i can say is.... Awesome.

In a futile attempt to do further research, i came across a pornography website called "Sneezing Beauties"
The World/Internet/Science is awesome.

A Night in the Life

1) Slice an eggplant into wedges about an inch by half an inch by a quarter of an inch. Fry in very hot oil in a wok, tossing with one or two tablespoons of hoisin sauce. When limp, remove them and drain them and pour out all but about a tablespoon of oil.

2) Fry thinly sliced fresh ginger, green onions, small red chilies, and crushed garlic until brown; add thickly sliced pork loin and fry until pale-white. Add more hoisin, sambal oelek, soy sauce, brown sugar, and rice vinegar to taste.

3) Put the eggplant back in the wok along with roughly torn baby bok choy leaves. Toss hot and simmer until the eggplant turns to mush. Add cornstarch if desired.

4) Spoon over red rice. Enjoy with a Tremblay. Reflect that perhaps you should not buy groceries when stupidly happy because it is expensive, but finally decide this is why life is sweet.

icgyabl

Back

I

am

in town.

Friday March 20th. 6pm

SUIT UP.

That is all

-----

easily influenced

my roommate left his copy of
bukowski poems
on our kitchen table.

i read it
and now i can't stop writing
like this.

Enrico Fermi Was a Dick.

In 1950, Enrico Fermi sat down for lunch with several of his colleagues and asked "Where is everybody?" His lunchmates were understandably confused, as they were present in the room with him. But Fermi had not gone blind and deaf simultaneously, and he was not asking about the whereabouts of his friends. He was asking where the aliens were (the space kind, not the Mexico kind).
He reasoned that, if there is other intelligent life in the galaxy, we should have managed to find some evidence of it by now. Using the same reasoning he disproved the existence of Yetis, Bigfoot, God, Faeries and all sorts of other mythical creatures (including dragons). In short, Fermi managed, in the space of a few sentences, to crush the childhood fantasies of every single person who has ever watched science fiction on television. Yes, Enrico Fermi was a dick, and afterward found himself eating alone at lunchtime.
But, while I like to believe that our galaxy is teeming with life, sometimes I am haunted by Fermi's idea. Impressive because he is dead, and I'm not. But I can't help but wonder. What if, by some cosmic twist of fate, ours is the only planet that fosters life? A lone oasis in a barren desert of a universe. What if when we look up at the stars there is nobody and nothing peering at us from a distant world?
Even with all the billions of humans, potentially trillions if we ever leave our backwater solar system, that would be a very lonely existence.

And, because this was kind of depressing, here's a puppy:

All Hallow's Erev

Happy Purim, Everybody!
(It was on Monday)
Favourite part from the evening:

Stranger: Hey, Buddy, you're a week early!
Thug Wrangler (who is dressed as a leprechaun): It's Jewish Halloween!
Stranger: Come On! There is no Jewish Halloween!

There is, and it has a two-drink minimum.

I was once, like every good yid should be, in Israel on Purim. It was magnificent, my ten-shekel child's soldier's costume served me very well. what a party that holiday is.

We had a great night this week, partying with the good people at Chabad, who reminded us that we too were good people, and we should be celebrating. Those religious freaks. So they gave us food, and booze.
Thanks for the Chocolate, Judaism!

Dear World: Please Stop Comparing Things to the Holocaust

I write this letter - addressed to you, dear World - after a somewhat recent Haligonian event caused a stir down at St. Mary's University, wherein a very religious man compared abortion to the Holocaust.

I couldn't help but be reminded of PETA's toss-around of the ol' slaughter. An apt metaphor for the killing of chickens, indeed.

In light of such comparisons, I make a public plea: Seriously, you guys, nothing is really comparable to the systemic murdering of six million Jews. Really. Maybe Rwandans or peeps from Darfur could pull it off. I would be okay with that. But please stop comparing things that are not the systemic murdering of six million Jews to things that are the systemic murdering of six million Jews. It's getting a bit trite, and people are starting to mock you behind your back.

With fury like the Holocaust,
MMTIF

at least the evenings will be brighter.

tonight, we set our clocks ahead once again for daylight savings and we lose an hour.

that's an hour that could have been spent working, playing, being among good company, lovin', procrastinating, drinking, watching youtube videos, playing guitar, learning things you won't ever need to know, reading, thinking about the future, thinking about nothing, entertaining, creating, cooking, trying something new, talking, or even just sleeping.

i wish i could have made this post more eloquent but i'm tired and i have rehearsal at 9 tomorrow morinng (which really means it's at 8... ah!).

could've used that extra hour this weekend.

remember how important time is, friends.



(... also remember to set your clocks ahead for daylight savings time, that too.)