Silencio

Dear Solitary Reader,

My apologies if I haven’t been around as of late. Here’s why: I have this thing whereby every now and then my iris gets really angry and threatens to hulk out and eventually explode. It hasn’t actually happened yet, and hopefully won’t, and I’m not sure the iris will actually you know – pop – but it sounds dramatic doesn’t it?

The particular malady is named iritus, which I still think is some sort of conjugation of the Latin verb of writing. “Iritus, Irotus, Iratus (I write it, I wrote it, they’re mad at me cause it sucked) and its an inflammation of the, wait for it, iris of the eye. Part of the issue is that the iris gets pushed forward and sticks to the cornea and that’s where I’m at:


That’s me – the man with the moon in his eye. Take a look at that whacky shape, that’s because the bottom of the iris is stuck to the front of the eye.


Nice eh?

But what causes this you ask? Well after some testing the medicals told me I have this condition called ankylosing spondylitis – a cousin of rheumatoid arthritis. Click the link for all that you’ve ever, or will ever, want and/or need to know about Ankle low sing Sponge Bob Itis.

One of the more interesting presentations of this thing is that the spine has the potential to fuse together. I did some research a while ago and found another such critter.

This is the ankylosaurus. Notice the fused spine? So if my faith in science is correct, this is what I’m going to look like in about look like in about 40 years. At which point I will become a crime fighter… or an armadillo with an attitude.


So that’s why you haven’t heard from me – I can’t see well enough for any prolonged computational activity. But like Arnold Schwarzenegger said in that movie: “You’re Fired”

Sincerely,

Me

PS I have not forgotten the purpose – when I get better it will blossom.

Rebel, Now With Cause

Dear Solitary Reader:

For years I have walked the earth with no sense of purpose and no reason for being (except, you know, for family & friends and stuff); a soulless vessel of little worth, a man with many talents but no cause in which to use them.

All that has changed. I have changed. With the turning of the year has come a turning of my spirit and I see about me where need lies and where wrongs must be addressed. I have found something in this new year to give me pause; I have found something in this new year to give me cause.

Now, with the intermittent commitment I apply to all of my ideas (which lasts only until I am bored or until I have what I perceive is a better idea) I will apply myself to make a great change in the world. This change may not be for the better, it may not be for the worst but it will be change.

In the coming days my friend, this cause will be revealed.

Sincerely,

Me

Mascaught

Dear Solitary Reader:

It’s Sunday, and the non-family related highlight of Sundays is football. The only thing better than regular football for me is playoff football; playoffs take it to a whole new level – a level normally not seen in the regular season because now everything matters.

Of course it appears someone forgot to tell the New England Patriots that it was playoff season. People will be talking about this one for a while (at least until a couple of games into next year when the Patriots fire it up all over again) because Baltimore is Blindsiding the Pats 33 to 14 as I watch. There’s 2:13 so I think I’m safe to call this one.

Pats fans are going to start the off season by lamenting the loss, for about a week or so, and then they’ll get down to the business of laying the blame. The following are a mix of reasons given by Pats fans (PF) and non-Pats fans (NPF) alike as to why New England will be bowing out in the first round:

• Bill Belichick wasn’t able to install his spy cams in time and was unable to steal and decipher the Baltimore Raven’s Playbook (NPF)
• Sandra Bullock poisoned the Gatorade of the Pats so that the Ravens would move on (and she plans to continue doing so until they win the Superbowl) – thereby increasing the popularity of her movie The Blind Side. (PF)
• Tom Brady – after last year’s season ending injury Tom Brady just hasn’t looked the same – perhaps he’s skittish? Or maybe he’s just got a year’s worth of rust? Whatever happened last season it turned Brady from the NFL quarterback to an NFL Quarterback. (PF & NPF)
• Wes Welker – that guy is freakin’ amazing on the field and the loss of him last week left the Pats without one of their major weapons (PF & NPF (who don’t hate the Pats and are willing to see reason)).

But I know the reason. And its not what you think. The real reason why the Pats have looked spent this year: Pats Mascot caught in Prostitution Ring.

In early December, one of the individuals who inhabits the body of Pat Patriot the mascot of the team was caught in an undercover sting that saw 14 people go down (heheh) as part of a prostitution ring.

This whole season the Patriots have looked like a distracted team; like a team that’s had something else on it’s mind – and now we know exactly what its had on its mind. Obviously the team has spent too much time “patting the Patriot” and not enough time on the field practicing.

First this and then Wes Welker – talk about a season that went south pretty fast. I know one thing for sure: now with no more football to play and no more prostitutes to play with, the Pats are going to have a lot of time on their hands this summer.

You’re Dead, Stop Counting

Today, January 8th, marks what would have been the 75th birthday of some guy named Elvis Presley. If he’s dead, may he rest in piece. If he’s not stop being such a bloody slowpoke and get me ma damn Whopper you geriatric waste.

Now I think anyone over the age of 18 knows who Elvis is, but if you don’t, click the name and Wikipedia will tell you all about him. It’s quite the tale – love, honour, tragedy, elephants and a man who came into the world and left his mark on it (I was kidding about the elephants).

Now the thing about Elvis Presley, more than the man, more than the mystery, is this: he’s DEAD! Can we stop counting his birthday’s please?

What is it with famous people? Why do we have to continually count their birthdays after they’re dead? Doesn’t it make more sense to count the years they’ve been dead? Maybe its just me, but doesn’t it sound better to say that Elvis has been dead 33 years than to say he’d be 75 if he was alive?

Another question: at what point is it okay to stop this practice? Because if EP has been dead for some odd 33 years frankly with the life expectancy of the average male being in the neighbourhood of that very age of 75, there’s a good chance that if Elvis were alive he’d be dead.

But hey, if we must keep up with the practice then this is how old all these people would be if they weren't dead:

• Jesus would be 2043-ish
• Abe Lincoln would be about 201
• Willie Nelson would be 77
• Socrates would be 2479 (go Socrates you old dog!)
• Sherlock Holmes would be 133

and the list goes on…

Technorati Tags: Elvis,Willie Nelson,Abe Lincoln,Presley,Elvis Presley

Gastro-Economical Issues

Dear Solitary Reader:

Remember when gas companies used to try and tell us that rising gas prices weren’t their fault?

Way back when we had a planet for every Nazgul, when the threat of $1.00/litre gas was on our doorstep up here in the Great White North, peeps at the gas companies were telling us any number of things to justify the increase.

The most common reason given was the fluctuation in the world price per barrel of oil. This was caused by:

• The revelation that there was no such thing as the brontosaurus had a huge effect on the fossil fuel industry and negatively impacted the Estimated World Oil Cache (EWOC) as they could no longer count on the fossils of Brontosaurus in the B/B ration (bones per barrel).
• The US Oil Reserves were invaded by oil drinking aliens from another dimension.
• Storms in the Gulf of Mexico
• US Oil Reserves were low (for non oil-drinking alien related reasons).

All the players danced about the world stage – OPEC, that lovably affable conglomeration of the richest people in the world, governments on all levels and the media (rising gas prices were always a good story when no celebrities had died and/or people killed) – offering us various reasons why it would cost us so much more to fill our tanks than the reason before.

Up here in Canada, gas companies like Petro-Canada had this nifty little graph telling us how little profit they made in the whole gas guzzling business. “Woe!” These graphs often cried: “Look! For thou that hast the eyes to see! Lousy are the profits made by this company herein; small are our profits – a paltry 2% even!.” You could, though, easily see an article saying that profits were up in the 100s of millions – you didn’t even have to look that hard to find them.

But times have changed.

The relationship between the gas company and the consumer is like marriage. In the early stages the gas companies were doing their best not to fart in front of us afraid that we would go to some other miracle place for our fossil fuel; eventually the gas companies realized that we’d grown fat and bald and no one else would have us and they could fart in front of us to their hearts content. A crude analogy, but oil too can be crude. Really where else are we going to go for fuel? Diesel? Yeah right (you know you suck Diesel, admit it).

So now gas prices at the pump fluctuate and gas companies no longer bother to go into the next room; they don’t bother to explain the rise and non-fall of prices with the excuses listed above (though I would totally respect any gas company exec who threw down the brontosaurus excuse); now when you roll up at the pump and find prices have increased  5 cents from the night before there’s nothing you can do but say “Bastards” and figure out how much gas you need for the rest of the week and hope a) you estimate right and b) that when you go tank up again two days from now you hit the jackpot and the price is lower.

Gas companies will, of course, always have that tax card to play. Municipalities and provincial governments always like to throw down a tax on gas because it a) makes them look environmentally conscious and b) most people have a car. Taxes aren’t going away – and they probably aren’t going any lower. But that tax card never did make up for the fact that when they raised their at the pump pricing in response to a butterfly flapping its wings in the Bay of Fundy it never came back down to the same level once the imminent threat was gone.

What makes the entire situation worse is that companies like Shell even found ways to dilute the silver lining in this cloud: air miles. It used to be that when you tanked up you’d get 20x the air miles for your trouble. Always nice to get something extra for something you had to do anyway. Well when the price of gas went up so did the amount of air miles you got – small bonus eh? Not so much.

Within a month of prices reaching above $1.00/litre (again in Canada, us whacky metric folk) the mile per litre ratio had changed… some executive had a dead faint at the amount of air miles being given away. People were flying for free all over the place. This is a crisis that must have stopped. And stop it they did, because now we are lucky to get 5x the rewards. So now we’re not only paying more for the benevolence of gasoline, we get less rewards for it.

I need to find me a vehicle that runs on my acerbic nature … I could fuel that one for a while.

Technorati Tags: Oil prices,gas prices,OPEC,brontosaurus

6:36am on a Wednesday

Some days I think I’m out of my mind; today is no exception.

At 6:36am on a Wednesday I’ve been up for 45 minutes already, crammed down a bowl of cereal, made sure I was at the top of my Bejewelled Blitz tier and headed out the door. Saw a balloon over a manhole cover and thought about the interesting symmetry… I definitely feel below the manhole cover these days, certainly not floating like the balloon. Then I thought: “We all float down here” and ruined the day’s first solemn thought.

Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to get out of the rut I’m in – I can’t take myself seriously enough to start doing the things I’d like to do. Anyway, I went to move the balloon because I didn’t want to run it over pulling out and ruin some kid’s new year and it turns out it was a ball not a balloon – so much for imagery. I moved it anyway.

I’m on the road and I’m getting stuck behind slow cars – people who feel the need to drive 10 under the speed limit. I don’t know why I’m the one who always gets stuck behind these people. I’m too polite to tailgate – maybe that’s why I’m stuck in the same rut I’m in – I’m not aggressive enough to get out of it. I managed to get around that one but encountered two others. One of those was a guy who was trying to creep into the lane from the right. I held him off until he signalled. When he did I let him in… then he went 10 under. I never did get around that guy, if you were wondering.

The radio sucked this morning so I popped on the Matthew Good compilation CD I got for Christmas. Definitely fits my mood as of late (if you’ve never heard of him youtube Matt Good Sunup Running for Home, We Were Hunting Rabbits or Apparitions – a broad selection from his 15 + year career). Then it hit me at one point: Why was I in a hurry to get to a job I abhor? Don’t get me wrong, I work with a great group of people for a company that’s not half bad but this is a numbers job and I don’t even believe in math.

I am not suited for this job – but I don’t know what job I am suited for – after 34 years why do I not know this? Other than creativity and a vocabulary I have no other mad skills (with the exception of building the equivalent of Nerf weaponry out of office supplies and other miscellaneous items). Like a lot of people right now I do what I must until I can do what I want. Right now, with things as they are, my day doesn’t start until I get home and can be with my family – and that’s not until 4:15pm. That’s a lot of dead space.

Don’t get me wrong, life is not horrible – I’ve a great family and a life full of all the gadgetry I could want (until the next thing) I’d just like a change the place where I spend most of my waking time 9 out of every 10 days of a 2 week period.

The long and the short of it is: this year I need to get off my ass and find me a new job.

Brave New Heights

Dear Solitary Reader:

While perusing the Interweb today I read an interesting article about the goings on in Dubai; its a pretty heady indication of the giddiness that abounded in the financial world before the bubble burst – or to put it in financial terms “the arse went out of ‘er.”

World's Tallest Building Opens <—That's the article if you want to take a look at it yourself.

The phenomenon that is Dubai is a study in what happens when there is so much money it doesn’t mean anything anymore; the sums of money that are being tossed around are in the billions – the very economies of many nations contained in one small area.

It’s simultaneously cool, awe inspiring and disgusting that one man, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, was able to just toss $25 billion to Dubai in order to finance some of its debt; and that’s some of its debt by the way, not all of it. For his generosity Sheik Khalifa does get the honor of having hte worlds’ tallest tower named after him; but that’s really going to raise the standards for companies looking to get their names on buildings (it’s like being the first team to give an $70 million contract to a baseball player – now you’ve set the precedent).

Dubai is quite symbolic of the dual nature of mankind; on the one hand there’s so much greed, avarice and gaudiness at play that the mind literally needs a shower after watching a show on Dubai that’s aired on the Discovery channel. There’s only a few letter’s difference between opulence and flatulence as it were.

But on the other side of that coin (or hand… what was the metaphor I was using? Oh well, coin is more appropriate) Dubai is evidence of the creativity of mankind as a species. In such a limited area the amount of ingenuity that has gone into building these humongous structures gives the builders something of which to be proud.

There’s also a mythical aspect to the event as well – its all very Tower of Babel; at least that turned out okay in the end… didn’t it?

Sincerely,

Me

An Ode to the Thermostat

In summer I give no thought at all
To that which sits upon my wall;
When winter comes, I'm thankful though
Inside it's warm, outside there's snow.
While frigid winter winds will blow
I remain warm despite the squall.

Turning, turning all the time turning
Until the cold is gone and I am burning;

As soon as I feel that winter breeze
I turn the notch up a few degrees;
With a small but telling "ping"
My electric heat begins to sing
Soon I shall not feel a thing!
My chilled nerve endings are appeased.

Turning, turning all the time turning
Up the dial and I am burning;

In truth the process would not be whole
Without this device to control;
You were just something I was staring at
Lost in thought for a subject that
I could write about, yet thee Thermostat
Are worthy of the virtues I extol.

Turning, turning all the time turning
Until the cold is gone and I am burning

Technorati Tags: Thermostats,ode

Where Your Head At?

Dear Solitary Reader:

Today I went to Costco. I don’t know what I was thinking by going to Costco so early in the new year, usually it takes at least a couple of months for me to work up the mental fortitude to enter such a place; but a new year brings new challenges and when my wife said: Do you wanna? I said sure.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Costco. As a matter of fact, as a die hard materialist I love Costco. If I was single and Costco was a girl, I’d marry Costco. I could go into that store and say: “I’ll take one of everything!” and only end up returning a couple of things in the end.

What I don’t like about Costco are the people. Not the people in the store – they’re never less than friendly and they always seem so interested in whether or not I managed to find everything I was looking for; all the women have slightly tight shirts and all the men have a welcoming degree of 5:00 o’clock shadow (that type of shadow that says “Look at me, I’m scruffy but approachable!”)

The people in question are the other shoppers. These are the people that once they get in the door have to stop, almost in awe, and behold the very STUFF that is Costco as if they could see it all from the portal. I’ve never been almost run over by so many people while having the urge to run over so many people.

They are as acolytes of the god COSTCO; they worship this dark immortal by roaming endlessly through his aisles paying homage to his goods (in a non-sexual way though “paying homage to his goods” is a rather awesome sexual metaphor that shall henceforth be used by me in (in)appropriate circumstances). Every now and then one is sacrificed; one who goes into that far drink pallet aisle and is never heard from again.

Honestly, I’m not sure what happens to the higher brain functions of these people once they enter the Temple of the Materialist: it is not uncommon for carts to be left in the middle of the aisles (sometimes with children in them) so that none shall pass while they are inspecting a Speedo swimsuit in the middle of bloody winter. People who outside of Costco, mere moments ago, were physics professors turn into lemmings following a tidal wave of other shoppers.

And as if the traffic wasn’t bad enough, at the end of every third aisle there are samplers peddling their wares. What do these people get out of sampling anyway? Do they get a bonus product for every time someone stops at their stall? More likely what they actually get is to keep their jobs.

The oversized shopping carts don’t help either. Costco assumes that because you are coming to a store that sells big items in big packages you need a big cart. But when three people are trying to get down the same aisle steering these land yachts and one of them all of a sudden has to stop and check out the 48 pound bag of Cheddar Goldfish crackers(the snack that smiles back goldfish) you have yourself a potential pile up.

Maybe the problem is me. I am the Indiana Jones of shopping; I don’t spend any extra time in the Temple other than to find what I came for and get the hell out of there. It’s not just Costco either – I am the stereotypical man shopper. I need butter. I go hunt butter in store. Throw spear at butter. Bring butter home. But its probably a sad comment on my personalities that I’d sometimes prefer to live in a world without people (well, some people anyway).

Honestly the best thing about Costco are the parking spaces outside. Those are awesome parking spaces. They give you enough room to actually open your doors. It’s like a parking spot with leg room.

So do me a favour, Solitary Reader, the next time you’re about to enter the Temple of Elemental Evil remember to bring your scroll of mental resistance… known as your shopping list.

WTB Love, BYOM

Dear Solitary Reader

As someone who’s played his fair share and more of World of Warcraft I don’t have much negative to say about the game; the people who play it of course are another matter.

There are several types of people who play these games: there’s the people who enjoy computer games with a role playing/story telling element, people who play to escape their crappy lives, people who want to play in a social environment with others who enjoy similar likes and dislikes and then there are the just plain nutbars. The first three are to a degree acceptable of course (all things in moderation including moderation) its the last one that you have to worry about.

Which brings me to the following news story: Barrie boy, 16, found safe in Orillia with woman, 42 For those of you too lazy to pursue the fine art of linking; essentially Romeo fell in love with Juliet (or more specifically Juliet’s mother) and ran away from home to be with his love.

In this case it is obvious that World of Warcraft is a vehicle for something that would have started up in some other way just with different participants; neither person at either end of the spectrum on this one seems to be riding their elevators all the way to the top floor.

The 42 year old who’s had “several” online relationships and yet is still married with four children, she’s done a number of things that bear closer consideration:

• She’s obviously violated the “half your age plus 5” rule that everyone knows is the acceptable method of determining the lowest age bracket you can pursue. Even if she' thought the kid was 20 that still doesn’t fit: 26 is the lowest she is able to go via this societal law.
• Oh yeah, did I mention she’s married? I mean I know to 90% of the population marriage doesn’t mean a lot, but for shit’s sake at least go get a divorce if you’re going to be running around with other people (real and imagined)
• She’s opened up th game for a host of World of Whorecraft jokes. Unfair to the rest of us you vixen!

The 16 year old is not blameless either; granted the bonehead is 16 years old and is a raging ball of hormones, but he’s supposed to be on the cusp of adulthood and that chemically induced fog should be lifting at least a little. Here’s some things he ought to be thinking about:

• If you have to leave a note for your mother to tell her you’re running off to be with your love (and further, if running off to be with your love means that you are also violating curfew) you are not old enough to be in love. Use the internet for what every other red blooded 16 year old uses the Internet for: Facebook.
• No relationship based on a lie will live very long. You told the woman you were 20; she might start to wonder eventually why you kept coming back empty handed from the store without the beer OR the cigarettes.
• There is Coffee Mate,: there is no Soul Mate (or if there is a soul mate she should be born in at least the same generation as you).

This story can be summed up simply by saying that a bored, disenchanted house wife and a 16 year old incapable of relating to his own peers got a little carried away.

I think the real story here is actually the newspaper. They missed an obvious opportunity for some great article titles

• If they wanted crass and risqué they could have said: “World of Whorecraft”
• Game related: “Love Among the Ruins of Lordaeron”, “Level 16 n00b pwns Lvl 42 drood”, etc

Sincerely,

Me

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft,online relationships,half your age plus