Musical theatre time

Having had this discussion various times (and watching Dr. Horrible on multiple occasions) I think it's time I tried to write a little short musical just for the hell of it. The concept of a Terminator 2 based musical has been tossed around, but I'm think for the first venture something a little less complex might be easier to tackle. 

Ideas? Themes? 

Puppy love

Don't get your hopes up, I'm actually just talking about puppies. 

Getting a dog seems to be step two for many married couples. It's the in-between phase where you test your ability to be responsible for a life, and yet you can still afford to leave them at home alone every once in a while should you feel so inclined to be free. 

People sure do love their dogs. I've never understood that affinity however, perhaps because I've never owned a dog. But the folks who get all over-zealous about animal cruelty, up-in-arms when members of the British royal family hypothetically might have whacked his dog with a stick to break-up a dog fight. Those people confuse me. 

Why are they so angry? If somebody took a picture of a child bent of some fathers lap and he was getting beaten with a stick for getting into trouble, would that be child cruelty? No. It's tough love.

I guess it's unfair to paint all dog enthusiasts with one broad whacko brush, but the whole concept of treating them like people is weird to me. They're animals. They smell. Then again, a young baby and a dog are actually pretty similar, right down to the crawling and stuff. But I sure as hell don't understand having babies at this age either, so it's probably just me.

Feeling the burn

It took me many many days, but I finally finished downloading all of this P90x business just to see what the big deal is about. I skimmed some of the videos and my initial impression is "there is no way I can do these workouts," hahahaha 

Like, they're doing 300 crunches a day. Many of which are really two in ones. I can't do that. I think it'd be feasible if perhaps I took it down to 200 a day, and even that would cause me severe pain. Is that allowed? I guess I wouldn't be doing p90x anymore. I think I'm more of a... P90lite type of guy. 

I am a packrat

Since my return from vacation, I have slowly been making a conscious effort to get rid of the junk that I have amassed over the years. My room is just too cluttered with things I no longer need, no longer use, or in the vast majority of the cases, both. 

This includes books, clothes, papers, electronics, cd's, letters, cards, trinkets, pictures, frames... whatever man. The sheer volume of stuff I have where I could shrug my shoulders about when the last time I picked it up is unsettling. 

What is even more unsettling however, is that I am finding it painfully difficult to rid myself of these items. Do I really need 60 odd tshirts? Probably not, but I keep telling myself one day I will need all these ratty ones in case I paint a house. Or in my case, more accurately, I need at least 10 ratty tshirts in case I ever spend a week painting houses and can't do laundry. 

Same with shoes. I know it has holes in it and no longer has any cushioning, but perhaps one day I'll need to do some gardening in the mud and won't want to ruin my nicer shoes. Books? Maybe one day I'll actually want to learn all the case studies in international politics that I never fully bothered to learn during school. Then won't I miss these texts books? 

I have a broken MD player and a whole case of MD's in a drawer, along with cables that I no longer think work with any actual gadget I still own. I also have computer parts I'll never use, and cd's I don't remember buying. But I can't seem to bring myself to throw anything away.

ANYTHING AT ALL. I always just end up standing in the middle of my room holding an empty garbage bag, mulling things over, then putting them back down. Inevitably I will end up reading a book while an empty garbage bag remains forgotten in the closet.

I have a problem people. Help me.

Dave was right

I can't stop watching the OC marathon. 

Yes, I know how I'm gay.

But why you ask? Because I never realized lesbian House-doctors ex-OC-girlfriend was SLOAN?!

If lesbians could have biological babies, I would absolutely wait diligently for their offspring to be of age.

...I've said too much.

Christmas mysteries

First off -- house shoes? awesome.

Something I've never understood about gift buying is how guys all think women are hard to shop for, and women all think guys are hard to shop for. 

I do not ever, ever think we will see eye-to-eye on this one. 

Personally, as long as something is practical, I will appreciate it. Like, literally anything. Socks? great! Basketball? Awesome. Mp3 player? Neato. 

Women I will never understand. They are specific and expect you to understand incredibly vague hints. How is that easier?

Painful television ads

In no particular order, here are the most grating ads (and series of ads) on television right now: 

1) The Rogers mobile teenagers: Who are these kids, who actually relates to these spoiled brats and why hasn't anyone shot all of them yet? At least pick attractive unbelievable commercial characters. I find Rogers often uses unattractive actors, as if it's on purpose, but I can't imagine what that purpose is considering the way the commercials are actually shot.

2) The Best Buy reactions: Please. Please stop. You're ruining Christmas.

3) The Ford minority report: I suspect they purposely went for the "everyman" and "every-woman" actors to appeal to middle class families who want affordable cars. Despite that, they both seem like losers -- particularly when the guy holds the words 'Air Conditioning" and says "cool" like some wayward boomer who wandered into a rap concert. 

Honorary mention: Anything that has Galen Weston in it. That man has been drinking way too much of his PC Brand Kool-Aid. 

luxury items

So I don't have a lot of expendable income, but I have basically convinced myself that tomorrow I am going to go buy myself a pair of house shoes. 

Why? Because my feet are cold. And cold feet makes life less fun. And frankly, life is too short to not be having fun alllll the time. 

My transition into an elderly white woman is nearly complete. Now to bake some more cookies.

credit where credit is due

You know, there was a time when Hong Kong pop-culture was embarrassing. 

Badly acted movies, no art scene to speak of, fashion that was a decade stale and music that was by-and-large recycled North American muzak with Chinese lyrics. 

You gotta give it to the island though, the past decade or so and HK has become not just an economic player, but a major cultural mecca in terms of fashion and pop-culture trends. 

Did you know hip-hop is just discovering the G-shock now? As in, they are cool again, worn by the likes of Pharrell and Kanye West. 

I think every asian kid this side of the moon had a G-Shock (or Baby G) when they were 12. 

Props to the chinks baby. We're so ahead of the curve you'd think this was a math class. 

In the year 2000

For many, the year 2009 once meant laser weapons, flying cars, robot maids and wars fought primarily by robot maids in flying cars shooting laser weapons. 

At the very least, Back to the Future promised us self-lacing shoes and hover boards, but the closest we got were the McFly Hyperdunks, and sadly those still require manual lace-tying.

Technology may not have made the leaps and bounds we once envisioned, but I think it's still easy to forget how quickly much of today's ubiquitous items would have been considered witchcraft a mere decade ago. 

I remember, for example, not having internet. 

Think about that for a minute. Sure, we all remember a vague childhood that didn't include incessant email checking, mp3's and all-you-can-surf pornography. But I cannot for the life of me empathize with adults who lived their early 20's and onward without the 'net. How did they do it?! 

How did they find out what band was coming to town? Hear about new restaurants? Get up-to-the-minute news?

I remember checking the newspaper for movie listings. I remember reading Saturday morning comics. I remember playing gameboy tetris and thinking it was the most amazing thing ever. I remember playing with a first generation Ipod and thinking how nuts it would be to have all my mp3's in my pocket. I remember laserdiscs. Walkmans. Minidiscs. Betamax. And I'm only 26 for goodness sake. 

Honestly I don't know how senior citizens haven't all gone nuts yet when faced with modern technology. If somebody had given me a PSP when I was 10 I probably would have thought they were Jesus. 

And don't even get me started on cell phones and GPS and all that other do-hickory. 

To be honest though, I miss some of those things. Whatever happened to weekend comics anyhow? The funnies in general no longer seem to be a part of pop-culture, and that in itself is quite sad and worthy of its own post. This nostalgia has definitely reminded me that I am getting older. It doesn't help I've been playing a lot of SNES games lately. 

To wit, a classic Calvin & Hobbes. The world is a worse place for no longer having this strip -- a reminder that not every step forward is progress.

We love seeing Canadians succeed

From the looks and sounds of things, the Raptors are really taking a shining to Jay Triano. 

The got whupped in Utah but managed to play a respectable game against Portland despite allowing just enough of their old habits to creep in, denying them a win that would have been a heck of a boost going into Cleveland. 

Just goes to show that having the right boss can make all the difference in the world. I've always been of the mind that I try to never burn any bridges, but what do you do when the person you're working for is frankly, incompetent? 

Especially in a freelance situation such as mine, I really want to maintain relationships but I mean honestly. Somebody needs to set the record straight. Perhaps is should be me, perhaps not... that is the questions to mull.

Let it snow

It's the fat, slow falling type of snow flake. Soothing but deadly.

I've been mulling over how funny attraction is. Some of it it is straight forward in terms of the physical aspect, but a lot of it is really just a total crapshoot. 

Through enough experience, I can say with confidence that I know what I find attractive in a girl. I know what type of girl I'll be into. 

That doesn't mean I necessarily agree with my instincts though. That's where the problem lies. What if my brain doesn't like the type of girls that uh... the rest of me, likes. What is the ultimate outcome of such an epic battle? And I don't mean this in the sense of a one girl exceptional scenario. 

I mean, systematically all the over-arching traits that I find attractive in girls, part of my intelligent mind wants to overthrow and reject in favour of more rational fare. 

Is this change possible? Can a man be retrained? And if so, how? 

I wonder if there's a rehab for my addiction. I'm like a crack fiend. Only frankly, my addiction is more expensive. 

On a somewhat related note:

*awwww, they removed the embedding option to jizz in my pants. wait... that just came out wrong... doh! I mean.... dammit.

My Bible.

ZUNEGATE

The omnipresence of the president-elect is astounding.

No matter what website I visit, there's an article about Obama. It doesn't even matter the type of website it is, somehow it all ties in.

Obama plays basketball. He (might) have been spotted using a Zune instead of an Ipod. He doesn't like small yappy dogs. 

Good grief, he's become the kind of cultural icon that I don't think our society has had... frankly, ever, in my memory at least. Has anyone ever been as famous as this guy is right now?

Happiness is... contagious??

That seems like a strange word. This story is floating around today (here's the Globe column) that describes happiness as having a viral like impact on social networks. Personally I like the idea that one happy person could make a positive impact on people three or four degrees separated. The how part still has me puzzled (are they inferring it's by diffused proxy?) but I particularly like the use of the words contagious and virus. 

It's as if you have no choice, that you catch happiness without knowing or necessarily even wanting it. Does that actually happen? I'd like to track my own emotional state for some period of time just to analyze the social subtext and see what patterns emerge. 

If happiness is indeed contagious, does that then mean that if you are part of a stable and regular social group, any person who you decide to date must be approved by the majority of the group? Meaning, if your friends aren't happy with your relationship, does that actually mean that despite what you think, you really aren't happy with your relationship? 

That'd a scary thought frankly, I don't think I'd trust any of you to play matchmaker for me.

In another interesting story, apparently science is helping mute people speak. The gist of it is that by implanting a chip into this mute man's brain, when he thinks of a vowel sound the system outputs the appropriate sound electronically. 

Does anyone else see the obvious flaws with this system? You can't have something that says everything a man is thinking. He'd be arrested for sexual harassment within two hours of being released from his implant surgery. 

I actually think I've had nightmares where this exact thing happens to me. It's like "what women want" ... in reverse. 

Proroguepalooza 2008

*update* 

Prorogued! I just like saying that word. If there was an award for word of the year, no doubt it wins. If you had asked anybody in this country what "prorogued" meant 5 days ago you'd probably get punched in the face. Now it's on everyone's lips. The CBC is the new sesame street.

For all I mock this situation, I must say it's at least brought a modicum of entertainment value to Canadian politics that so often is lacking. Of course, it's entertainment more along the lines of TMZ than The Wire, so take from that what you will.

Seriously though, I haven't watched CBC Newsworld like this... ever. It's been my CNN this week, and I think at the very least it's getting Canadians more involved and opinionated about what's going on in Ottawa. Frankly, if you didn't vote, you have no right to complain. 

For the last hour and a half they've done nothing but show a shot of A DOOR. just that damn door at government house, for over an hour. Nobody walking through, nobody at the door. JUST A SHOT OF THE DOOR. Man. And this is considered exciting here in Canada. We are so awesome.

Justin Trudeau was also on earlier, and despite the wish that he might be our Obama, he definitely has a long ways to go. His oratory skills and media composure are nowhere near the president-elects (to be fair, few are), but the young Trudeau just needs to grow up a little more before he could be considered a leader of anything at all. 

As for my own take, they should just get this done with and kick the Conservatives out of government. They've done nothing productive. Let's get on with life. We can't afford to simply take a three week break in the middle of an economic crisis.

The opposite of narcolepsy

I suppose technically it would be insomnia, but that implies to me that narcolepsy is just that you sleep all the time. I was under the impression narcoleptics were equally categorized due to the fact that they can't control when thy fall asleep either, so technically insomnia's bizzarro doppelganger should be like, uncontrollable prolonged hibernation, or a mini-coma or something no? 

The reason I wonder is because I think I have whatever the opposite of narcolepsy is. I keep waking up for no reason, regardless of what time I sleep. The last few nights I've gone to bed at myriad times: 11pm, 12am, 3am, 2am and I always wake up naturally sometime between 5-7am. 

I haven't woken up to sunlight in over a week. I don't know why my body is doing this to me, sleeping is one of my special powers. This is like if Superman woke up one day and fell off a building trying to fly, or Oprah woke up and wasn't hungry -- it's unthinkable. 

Now, I realize this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's no coincidence I suppose that I've been more productive in regards to job searching and freelance work in the last week than I have in the entire month prior. Being awake before noon afford me all sorts of time to do work and still have my fun at night -- what a concept! 

I'm just curious why all of a sudden this would happen though? It's like my body is trying to tell me something, probably along the lines of "Hey dumbass, I'm sore from lying here." 

Fortunately, I often go to McDonalds for breakfast these days, so I suppose I still have the last laugh on my being. Take THAT colon. 

Common sense news

The CBC morning reporter is on location to get opinions about a possible coalition government. 

"It's pretty overwhelming negative," she concluded. Of course, she was standing in front of a Tim Hortons at 7am in the morning. 

I'm guessing if she was at a Starbucks there might have been a different conclusion drawn. 

Little things like that bother me about newscasts. Why are you so lazy? Go to a subway station or something. 

MP phone home

Down south, President-Elect Obama officially announced the worst kept secret in Washington today when he nominated Hillary Clinton to be the nations next Secretary of State. 

Meanwhile, over in Ottawa, instead of doing things like... ohhhh, running a country, basically everybody is completely engrossed in nothing more than a glorified popularity contest. 

Do I think Stephen Harper is a moron? Sure. Do I think there will be a marked difference in policy if the Liberals are in power, or the NDP, or as it would seem is soon to happen, a Liberal Democrat leftist amalgam? Frankly, no. 

Nobody DOES anything in Ottawa. All they do is bicker over who gets to sit in the nicer chair, and meanwhile Canada continues to lack vision and leadership, particularly in trying times.

I don't care who the prime minister is so long as we see results. 

Given our current leadership options (and I use that term extremely loosely), I am skeptical. 

At best. 

Nobody outside of the 613 (or off the hill, for that matter) cares about Ottawa. That should be what they're talking about instead of who gets to rule an indifferent kingdom.

Couplesyncrisies, part 1

Why is it that once someone is in a serious relationship, or engaged, or married, all trace of unique individual presence online is sacrificed for the sake of a combined couple-presence for all communique? 

Emails? Lets just share one. Or perhaps one person will send or receive from the other half's address, but speak for both individuals. Evite? Plus one please, "me and [blank] will be there". 

I've never gotten to this stage, so I must say I am curious; is there some sort of conscious decision to just stop checking your own email at some point? 

I understand this occurrence in the situation where it's some sort of email planning chain, in which case you probably had to confirm if your significant other was coming before you replied, in which case yes it is probably more convenient to reply for them at that point. But that's only if you are replying from your own account. 

Often people reply from their significant other's account. This confuses me. If my girlfriend was sending emails from my account, I would probably punch her in the ovaries. Even if my girlfriend was just reading my emails I'd probably suspect she was turning into Kathy Bates from Misery (Ah, Kanye).

I find shared emails even odder. Why would anyone want to share an email? That's just disorganized. They're free. You probably had one of your own to begin with. Why on earth would you go through all the trouble of telling everyone you know to change their routine and switch to a new account where half the content is going to be irrelevant to you? Plus, you can't even use it professionally. What gives? 

And Evite? C'moonnnnnn, somebody bothered to include you both on a list. Just click the button, how hard is that?

What's next? Shared facebook profiles? I bet people would if they could. And that frightens me.