Category: Gross

Dinner and schlepping

Went into New West for tp and a grooming item, which for reasons unknown was not at the London Thugs where I expected it to be.

I was calling it London Thugs before Mike started working there.  Now when I say it I really mean it.

Deposited the cheque from my grandmother (note on orthography, I have not yet made my mind over whether I am going to drop the que and just call them checks.  The only reason I hesitate is that, while I think the American orthography looks better, I want to maintain my Canadian heritage).  But Jiminy Christmas, don’t you find it odd that I’m getting birthday checks from my Gran when I’m 51 bleeding years old?  I vow to spend it all on beer and chocolate. What a useless, parasitic enemy of the people I am.

I’ve been ruminating over ‘you’re as young as you feel”.  I’m siding with it being true, if you’re just talking about your emotions.  I don’t know; do older people have more subtle emotions because they’ve lived longer and seen more, and understand more of the implications of things?  Or is that utter bs?  I saw too many times, over the course of my life, the youngest child in the room being the wisest, not least because she was so uncannily observant.  She was Katie Sharpeyes until she was 16.  Insert brief grouse.  Sure wish she’d call me back, or at least text me that she’s having far too much fun to call.

Damn, I can’t get that row of tequila shots we did out of my head.  Yes, Jeff sprang for a round of shots last night, and ah, with the festive.  That effin’ princess, Kashka (with what indulgent love I say it) had to have a lemon wedge, as she just can’t tolerate lime.  Katie’s crush observed that when somebody else is paying, as a matter of form you take the shot as is.  Indeed.

Still in New West, but fast forward to this evening.  There is a butcher shop around the corner from Sixth and Sixth.  I bought a really good steak there once, and I dashed in.  I beheld the liver and my whole body shivered with delight.  Yes, that’s just about the most disgusting sentence I could come up with on short notice, hope you liked it, hackneyed internal rhyme and all.

I thank Paul for the transpo into and out of New West… in rush hour, very much appreciated.  I get anxious when I run out of toilet paper. I make jokes about it, but I get anxious too.

I cooked the liver, dredged in flour, salt and pepper, in butter which onions had been frying in for a while.  I just barely cooked it, and it was so good.  Margot got some too, I shouldn’t have, but she was finding my plate more than usually interesting.

Now I feel like sleeping.  Life is so good.

Rounding up some unusual suspects

Really thought provoking article about the ‘institution’ of marriage by a gay writer in Seattle.

An 8 minute video about Medicare. For Americans, by Canadians.  Rational, good tempered and funny in spots.

Adolf Hitler doesn’t like Avatar.  The last line slew me. Three minutes or so long.

How come and for why hasn’t this extra solar planet burnt up? I suspect that they aren’t actually seeing what they are looking at properly.

How many dimensions did you say? Assistance in visualizing multiple dimensions.  Brain so hurts.

Do the wave…. the gravity wave.

Human ingredients Tshirt.

It’s unbelievable what people will get messed up over. Personal comment: It may reveal me to be a philistine, but I like Verdana.  I don’t understand the issue.  I just don’t.

Chrissie Hynde told meat eaters in her audience to fuck themselves.  Mike and Jeff and I sat there with hot dogs in our tummies and just looked at each other.  On the other hand, just to prove I’m at least TRYING to see the other person’s point of view, here’s a PETA press release about some of her animal activism.  Hint:  she doesn’t like McDonalds.

The New Miss Universe.  Beautiful, and without a hint of distinction.

The Milky Way has rarely looked so beautiful.

That’s just MEAN. So why did I snicker?

Do it yourself Horrrrorrrr F/X.  Shows Peter Jackson filming Bad Taste.

The difference between a man and a boy is that a man takes pictures of his toys.

“I’m an atheist because I’m efficient.”  Or so you can infer from Bill Gates’ interview excerpts…

Finally, a quiz where it’s easy to get 100%.

so much is happening!

Or nothing, depending on how you look at it.

Last night I went to the opening fireworks (Canada) and it KICKED ASS.  The theme was the Wizard of Oz and they did an amazing job of synching up the fireworks, and the colours and patterns, to the music.  I recorded it on my dinky camera; looks like shite but at least I have a souvenir.

The ride downtown last night was difficult; the ride back was scary.  I am SO glad Keith came with me because he was the only thing preventing me from having a full on anxiety attack, so quiet and calm and martial artsish was he.  Suffice it to say that I came a micron from getting backwashed in bear spray.  I didn’t, but it was a near thing.  The cop presence was beyond anything I’ve ever seen in Vancouver. If this is what the future looks like, it can kiss my ass.  I was deaf after I got off the Skytrain – the noise level was incredible – and I had had to ask one particularly lungworthy native chick to kindly please stop yelling in my ear.  (“KAYLA YOU STUPID BITCH BRING ME THE CAMERA I WANNA SEE THE PICTURES!” over&over&over).

It was great to see Alex and Rob and get the benefit of their roof deck once more – unimpeded view and lovely company.  Darwin made little happy bird noises all the way through the display, which was civilized of him; Alex was concerned he might scream through the whole thing, having been so rudely awakened and hauled upstairs.  Alex put on a lovely spread as always.  Cheesy, cheesy goodness! Paté!

Today, I SLEPT IN.  I was supposed to be at Suzanne’s for 9 and woke up at 9:35.  What to do?  No change, no bus tickets; didn’t want to take a cab, so guess what, I rode.  (Thanks Keith for the tire pumping).  The trip there was a breeze, being almost all downhill, and the trip back I took in stages, stopping off to get foodicles for dinner for Jeff and me.  Thanks to Leeanne and Patricia for getting me more inclined to ride; I was amazed, given how out of shape I am, how good I feel now. I mean, I feel really good.

Anyway, Suzanne and I had a good old chinwag and caught up about  the kids and their various interesting life frolics, and then I found out she’s never been to Wreck Beach. This is an outrage!  I immediately called Mike and he agreed this is a problem we should immediately fix, like maybe tomorrow.  I will call her and give her a head’s up.

I rode (okay, that hill above Royal Ave I walked) home, stopping off at the bank and Joe’s Farm Market and Farm Town Meats, getting a mango, a tomato, a red pepper, and orange pepper and a purple onion, and also chicken breasts and pork chomps, and coconut milk for the rice, as when I called Jeff I offered him the option of bbq chomps or butter chicken, and he immediately said butter chicken.  That’s gonna be yummy.  I already made the salad, and as soon as I get off here I’m going to finish cleaning up the kitchen and maybe start running a load of laundry, and then I am going to rearrange my room so I can have all of my recording equipment and musical instruments out at once without difficulty.

I missed the locksmith by literally 7 minutes but that’s not too surprising given that he said he’d be by on Tuesday, and does today look like Tuesday to you?  A good tradesman is hard to find.

Tanya is thinking of dropping by with babby again today.  Happy me.  I have to be here for the rest of the day anyway, visitors would be so nice!

Dominion Day Roundup

Stop gay marriage or straight women will have no husbands!!!! Eeek.

Folks, even if that is all true, how can the accompanying drop in the birthrate be bad for the planet? I love how bigotry gets dressed in ‘utilitarian’ arguments.  That said, any time I detect bigotry in others, I allow myself a quiet moment to reflect on my own.  Sigh.  It is hard to be a grownup.  PS, Mr. Berman (as reprinted by Mr. Klinghoffer), sex toy technology has come a long way since the Roman Empire.  Your concern for my satisfaction and prospect of landing a sperm donor is touching, but completely unnecessary.  After all, the POINT of marriage (the cart, after all, needing to come behind the horse) is BABIES.  And those I can get – did get – without recourse to marriage at ALL.

Oh look, Dan Savage linked to the above noted link and Klinghoffer says that Dan Savage can’t be a good father because he uses bad language!

One of these days I’ll have to find that bit of writing “How to Teach Your Children to Swear.”  What we didn’t teach the kids, back when, was that swearing is a class issue.  The very most self-controlled and self-willed people do not curse, because it shows either lack of breeding or lack of self-control. And self-control, narrowly defined, is a necessary precursor to maintaining control over others.  That’s what it’s all there for.  Swearing as far as I’m concerned is part of the palette of human communication; blunt, uncompromising, emotional, limbic, genuine.  Disgusting, disturbing, vile, creepy and disrespectful, too.  Swearing is a signpost toward the things we find most frightening and, let’s face it, human. As blasphemy, it is anti-hierarchical and owns of no master; as language charged with sexuality and excretions, it voices what we strive to keep silent in daily life; as racial and ethnic slur it speaks to how easily we fall back into our emotional enclaves to lash out at a world of strange/different/smelly&rude.

Best things about Canada.  Apart from Hockey, mea culpa, I’m in.

Look at that… Miss Margot has decided to like raspberry jam.  This is a cat from MARS.

I can now see large swathes of my bedroom floor, but more cleaning and laundry delights await me.  Later I hope to go to the Burnaby Village Museum – it’s free today, and in homage to John, who never paid for a damned thing he could get for free, and to celebrate being Canadian, I thought a step back into the days of my foremothers might not go amiss.

Cinnamon buns are medicinal.

Having said that, I’d better get a batch of bread dough on…. Jeff is highly suggestible about any hinted-at treats.  And I have to sign off so he can update wordpress.  Have a great Canada Day, everyone!

I have finally listened to John and Brooke’s album.  It’s really, really good.  It’s also, coincidentally, among the top sellers on CDbaby right now!  Katie and I listened in the CanCar yesterday.

I only THOUGHT Miss Margot’s preop screen came back okay

Doc Mehdi says her platelet count is so low that if he operated now she’d bleed out.  Good thing I went for the pre-op screening.  One of two things is going on.  Either the results were f*cked up, AND they didn’t call me to tell us before Jeff took her in, or she’s genuinely sick (which, given her behaviour is virtually impossible to believe) and, I say again, how come nobody called? I quoted LM Montgomery when remonstrating with the doc this morning, “Sad mismanagement somewhere!”  So I have to pay for yet more tests but they are keeping her overnight for free.  Apparently no work is getting done in the office as all the assistants are ignoring the phone for a chance to play with her; she’s already giving orders and being carried about from place to place.  Nobody who has met Miss Margot will fail to see that it’s just as well somebody as heartless and callous as me got her, or she’d be ruling the world by now.  Honestly.  She’s not a cat, she’s a benevolent dictatrix in feline form.

Anyway, I am so heartless that if it turns out she’s a goner, I’m going to keep her skull.  It is an entirely remarkable shape, and I would mount it at the top of a staff as an extremely scary object.  I mentioned this to Jeff earlier and he was grossed out. Hope you are too.  Mind you, if she’s okay and they just screwed up her bloodwork, I’m going to find another vet, after the operation.  She has to be spayed, she’d die if she ever was bred to anything but a very tiny male purebred.  And in the meantime, if she doesn’t have cancer or untreatable thrombocytopenia, I guess I’m on the rack for a LOT of expensive vet bills.  Cazart.

Film and links

Last night I viewed for the first time since I heard about it when I was 11, Carl Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc.  Falconetti was as amazing as advertised, and there were shots and parts of the movie that were brilliant, but the parts that annoyed me were many, so I guess I didn’t watch it reverently enough.  Jeff rented it for me; that man indulges me scandalously.  In the end I was glad I saw it for Antonin Artaud’s performance.  Since I was quite small I’ve had a crush on Artaud, cause I thought and still think he was hotter than a two dollar pistol, even if he was severely crazy.

Don’t click here if you don’t want to find out why it’s a really bad idea to have sex with a raccoon.

Now that you’ve had a laugh at some drunken wacko’s expense, find out why you might feel bad about it.

the nut shot

Has anybody ever noticed that one of the enduring tropes of humour is the nut shot?  I’ve said before that anything can be explained by ‘following the genes’ and this one is pretty simple.

What makes a nut shot funny?  Well, it’s happening to somebody else. That’s pretty standard for all humour.  But notice the division of humour.  Men almost inevitably find the nut shot more amusing than women do.  Any action which potentially removes a rival from any activities resulting in offspring is going to be a-ok; if it’s accompanied by humiliation and dominance, that makes it even tastier.

I have heard some women remark that a man could use a good swift kick in the ‘nads, but it’s almost inevitably in the context that the guy is an asshole, the guy is abusing his power, or he’s sleeping around on his pregnant wife, an activity which draws a lot of heat even from women with a relaxed attitude towards sex.

Can you tell I’ve been living with Jeff for the best part of a year?  I’m enjoying it, even if it has me meditating on the nut shot at 4 am.  Not because I want him to experience one – I grew out of that 40 years ago – but because he laughs his ass off every time he sees one. Especially on Robot Chicken, which has a high NSPE rating (Nut Shots Per Episode).

This is how everybody uses a cell phone, including me.

Obama was inaugurated.  He’s doing something about Gitmo, and about bloody time.