Month: September 2008

What’s with Toronto this summer? + added politics, movies

So much boomage.

I saw Thin Red Line last night, it being one of the lifetime list movies.  I really liked it; it sure was paced in a strange way.  Parts of it moved so fast that it was hard to maintain some understanding of the action, and parts were so slow that I felt like I was moving into glacier time.  The casting was great and I can see why Jim Caviezel’s performance made Mel Gibson think of him for Jesus six years later for the Passion of the Christ.

It was so nice having Keith here last night.  On the way out the door he told a joke that had me laughing so hard I cried.  Keith can do that do me.  I responded with, “Did you notice how McCain said Fight with me the other night in his speech?  I know he meant fight WITH me but when I read the headline I thought, Jeez, John, I may be a dumpy fifty year old woman with a bad back, but I’m going to kick the snot out of yaz.  By your invitation even.

I liked this commentary on the Republican National Convention.

Yippeeeee!  David Emerson is NOT running for office again here in this riding.  Excuse me while I’m thrilled; now I have to figure who to vote for to keep Harper’s Conservatives out.  Not a fan so far; the war drums, the social conservatism and the expletive insanity about DRM – which, may inertia be thanked, will died on the order table ‘fore the election – the smarmy letter I got in response to my complaint about the peacetime initiative to allow American troops on Canadian soilunder special circumstances’ = or whenever the Canadian government feels like asking them – oh yeah, not thrilled with the Conservatives.  That another political party would piss me off as bad in different ways is par for the course, and what a depressing prospect, etc.

Woo hoo!  Jerome/Shannon are getting married today!  I think I have to  bring a chair.  It’s happening outdoors rain or shine, so I wonder if I’m getting wet this afternoon.

No sign of Katie.  I just texted her.  It’s annoying but I suppose that’s an improvement, it used to be scary.

Friday Roundup

Watched the opening sequence of Quake IV – not bad, but derivative, like everything else in the universe, including my own DNA f’chrissakes.

I CAN’T get Young Dumb and Crazy out of my head, I was singing it all day, mixed in with the Blasteeze the Laxative Coughdrops Song. “There will be a brief hi-a-tus, then, the mentholated flatus; pop these babies in your mouth, and soon your drawers are headed south.” Yeah, I sang that every time I went by HR today.  Kind of without really realizing what I was doing.  HR is next to the washroom, after all.

I light a candle for Tanya and her hubby – a swift recovery and sweet sweet sleep for both of them, please thanks kbai.

I light a candle for Patricia, and she knows why.

I light a candle for Gianna, who has one of the most infectious laughs I have ever heard.

I light a candle for Robof9, and he knows why.

I light a blowtorch of a candle for Paul, and he knows why.

I light a candle for the start of another church year and the success of the fall gathering.  (It’s a church thingy, the regional fall gathering.)

I won’t be going to church on Sunday as ScaryClown is going to try to set a new record for margaritas before lunch and I’m damned if I’ll miss that. Three margaritas would have me running my hand over the waiter’s ass, and it had absolutely no effect that one could detect on ScaryClown.  Jeff and Keith will also be in attendance. I’ll take the camera this time as I love the decor in the restaurant.

The cats are fine.  Eddie’s taken off a little weight and his digestion seems to be a bit better. Gizmo curled up in Jeff’s lap last night and looked up at him adoringly and then farted continuously for about twenty minutes, he was that relaxed.

No word from Katie; I imagine she’ll turn up eventually but she missed getting Switzerland Chicken ordered for her. Please note that she is learning how to play chess; I am sure her uncle will be cheerfully amused and pleased by this intelligence.

Work sux, but in a good way.  You know, the birthing pangs way.

I saw a rainbow this morning.

More NCIS turned up.  That makes me very, very happy.

And tomorrow, the intelligent & beautiful Shannon and the magnificent & useful Jerome will, in front of their friends and family, pledge their intention to spend the rest of their days together.  They got no worse odds than anybody else, in fact I’d say better, and dayum, they will make pretty children.  Me happy.  And I’ll get to see Mike dressed up, which pleases me, and I don’t have to do any grzsly shopping, they want money.

Check Snopes.com for the Palin letter. Innnteresting.

It feels so good to be home and sitting with the folks.  Life’s good.

O to have believed and seen the mighty Hypnotoad!

With my own eyes, my good family, with my own eyes I have seen the glory of Hypnotoad.  I don’t know if Hypnotoad is a boy or a girl; the bio is sketchy.  See I always want to know, when I run into a deity for the first time, if it’s a boy or a girl, because you bet your nougat-sweet butt, that makes a difference when it comes to propitiating time.  Just as it does in daily life, let alone wrasslin’ with deities.

Hypnotoad is a 30 minute cartoon by the demented minds of the makers of Futurama.  It made it onto the DVD of Bender’s Big Score (which is a magnificent film BTW, IMHO & YMMV).  It is about 25 minutes of a cartoon toad with woobly eyes sitting immobile on a white background.  (Interspersed with bizarre other stuff).  The audio consists of a mesmerizing, throbbing, metallic, mechanical, droning sound, or a laugh track which, you would think, would be pointless when little or nothing is changing (interspersed with weird other stuff).  Somehow, they take the notion of a laugh track, pop a sack over its head and give it a couple of quick kicks in the ass.

Perhaps I was giddy from Jeff having completed my taxes (of course they owe me money) and easily amused. I did get restless after a while, but it was still worth seeing.  Hey Jeff!  We should do a Best of Hypnotoad, and edit it down for everything that ‘happens’ and just leave two seconds of standard Hypnotoad.  And before we do that, we should check the Internet to see if somebody’s done it already.

My word, I can’t stop thinking about Hypnotoad.  The woobly eyes are perfectly spherical, with pea green soup “whites” and with irises like gasping mouths or puckering ani.  They gasp at you and then will abruptly be replaced by advertisements for repellent products, blipverts and subliminals about the repellent products, and advertisements for DVDs of 365 episodes of what you just watched, which was almost all Hypnotoad, all the time. It becomes gently and relentlessly recursive.  It is genius, it is madness, it is …. Hypnotoad.

Towards the beginning end of the 30 minutes, Jeff said, “He’s very self-confident, Hypnotoad.”

Katie sleeps here / a very, vary, random post

I only say Katie sleeps here because one of my all time favourite books, A Midwife’s Tale, contains phrases like that a lot.  Just read the book, it has all-inclusive awesomeness.

If I said that feminism only started to suck when it started being taught in schools, as a discipline, would any of you kick me in the slats?

I want to see For All Time. Seriously, Mary McDonell and Mark Harmon in an steampunk SF love epic based on a Rod Serling story?  Where’s my popcorn and hanky!!!!????  OF COURSE it’s not out on DVD, why would two of the biggest tv stars in the world get a DVD of their well thought of TV movie???  Anyway, this is called a hint, Mr. Universe.  Okay, Ms. Universe.  O, Universe, bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!!! and that movie of course.  And you will, too, if you know what’s good for you.

Very bad night’s sleep.

The system is being shut down at work for a day and half starting noon today.  I srsly gotta get in to work and try to grind through some transactions before the curtain falls.

Strange dreams.

I watched Darjeeling Limited.

Excuse me, o thou great parent of the universe, but I would have watched it a lot sooner if somebody had mentioned the three magic words Natalie Portman naked.  Also, I think Adrien Brody manifests bunnies and excretes cotton candy.

I cooked the folks French toast for brekkie.

Katie’s wearing the pants I got her at H&M.

I did the banking running around yesterday so Katie can get her supplies and pay for first term.  The first cheque I wrote was inadequate; it needed to be carved in two pieces, one hammered and one not.  When I handed over the hammered cheque for 1200 dollars I said, “Katie, if you lose this, it’s like torching 12 100 dollars bills,” sternly, while thinking I’d part with a considerably larger sum to see this day come.

I gotta have a shower, the bus comes in 20 minutes.

Dayum! Missed the zombie walk

Did not get the email this year.  Got it last year. Why am I unloved?

Jerome came by for lunch in the middle of a day which was to be endured and not enjoyed.  He was the only bright spot.  I love him so… I could get extremely mushy about him, but when I like people I’m pretty happy animal about it and don’t bother hiding it.  Anyway, I got to introduce him to my coworkers by their blog names (bwa, likewise ha!).  Best part of lunch: getting outside the building to talk to him alone and then having one of our old workmates come up after his run and beg forgiveness for not attending the stag (which was a good mix of coworkers old and new, and family, not too big and not too, uh, well, dumb).  Second best:  Allegra archly announces “Jerome is getting married this week!” to which ScaryClown responds, “What the fuck do you want to be doing THAT for?” while Robof9 murmured, “Run away, run away!” in demented counterpoint. (They too are my coworkers….)  I’ll leave out Jerome’s immediate response, which is not for public consumption (at least if he wants to stay on course for getting married on Saturday) and cut to his next words, which were said with that large, eerie blue gaze of his, “She doesn’t appear to be crazy!” at which point I was justabout helpless with laughter, because all I could think of was how amused my dad would be at the shenanigans (and you would have been, it was like being in a really good sitcom for about 30 seconds).

AT SOME POINT, Katie is going to have to negotiate staying here while she’s in school.  She’s talked to me and she’s talked to Jeff, but we’ve never had the dreaded “all three of us” talk.   Sooner or later you have to have the dreaded talk, and the only comfort you can take is that somebody is lying, and maybe even you, but ground rules are necessary and will require reiteration. (Otay, that sounded bitter, but I was thinking of something other than the sweet gig I have here with Jeff – even if the landlord’s dog shat in the yard just as I was getting home last night).  Katie stayed overnight, and she has a cheque in her bag which would be sufficient to bring tears to my eyes if the leg cramp which woke me up at 4:15 hadn’t accomplished that task.  Rule number one is gonna have to be a little comment on the toilet lid.  It stays down.  Otherwise I can hear Eddie slurping in the night about three feet from my head, an uncanny noise which does not make for cheerful dreams, what with the toilet being just the other side of the wall.

Katie K’s Vegas postcard came here after she got back.  Made me smile.

I answered another Craigslist ad. For Jeff’s response, scroll up and check with ScaryClown.  More politely stated, of course; Jeff is never rude by accident.  I have YET ANOTHER email address now, but I hate my hotmail and telus and sfu accounts and I will be collapsing them all down by the end of the year.

Migraine signs.  Oh, it’s gonna be a peachy peach of a day.