One of my coworkers just took a look at my mango on my desk and said, "Don't you find that mangos taste like soap?" I'm going home tonight to bite into a bar of soap to see if it tastes like mango.

I think she's on crack.
...
I got a comment from Jennifer Keegan on the picture of my desk.

She said,

"I wish I had a flat screen monitor. ;( "

Note the notorious frown-wink at the end of the sentence. Now if you're unfamiliar with the frown-wink emoticon, it's the sad but coy/seductive emoticon. Unfortunately text does not do it justice so I've tried to reproduce it here in real life-->frown-wink.

I try to use this frown-wink at clubs sometimes when women decline my drink offer.
...
Yes I'm that bored right now.

We’re all of us the fabricators of the human dream’s next REM cycle. We are building the center to which all else will be held. Don’t question it, and don’t dwell on it, but never ever let yourself forget it. -- Douglas Coupland

Today’s Track : Linkin Park - Numb

Tomfoolery


Papers scattered all over a desk, a pie chart on the screen – this looks to be like the desk of a busy guy if I ever saw one!

This is actually how I setup my desk everyday regardless if I’m busy or not. In fact that pie chart is a report that was auto-generated for me using a network administrative program to monitor computers for viruses. Now if you passed my desk at work, tell me honestly you wouldn’t think I was a diligent worker. In most cases scattered paperwork all over a desk is sufficient to fool people but the pie chart puts you up and above the normal workers. Can you spell “promotion”???
...
TGI fricken F and pray for a sunny weekend. I don’t know if I can take much more of this rain.

Go leafs go!

Today's Track : Metric - Dead Disco

If vegetables could talk…

Tomato – Hey, who’s the new guy?
Celery – I don’t know but he doesn’t look like he’s from around here.
Carrot – Yeah he looks like he’s from out of town cuz he definitely looks cooler than anyone from this garden.
Tomato – Yeah, he does look pretty rad.
Celery – I don’t know, he doesn’t look all that different to me. He doesn’t look all that rad to me.
Carrot – What?...he totally looks rad.
Celery – Maybe rad’ish…but not totally rad.
Carrot – You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Tomato – You both have no idea what you’re talking about because you’re talking vegetables for crissakes.
Celery – He’s radish.
Carrot – Rad!
Celery – Radish!
Tomato – Sounds to me like you both have a crush on him.
Carrot – Do not.
Tomato – Do so.
Celery – Don’t.
Tomato – Do.

I just got a text message on my cell phone that read, "I love you". I had to quickly scroll down to see who sent me this perverted message. Even though Sonia is the only one who says this to me, there was still the slim chance that aliens sent me that message...assuming they have cracked our oh-so-complex wireless technology!!...and assuming they loved me. Heck, why wouldn't aliens love me? I'm such a lovable human being!

(Ohhh...3 exclamation marks and a curse on one line...can you tell I'm excited?)

Today's Track : Outkast - Roses

Note to all those who are avid collectors of golf balls. I will be teeing off at the Granite Ridge golf course in Milton this Saturday at 1pm. I have played 1 round of golf prior to this event and am sure to shower the course with lots of balls. If you hide in the bushes, trees, lakes and streams on the edges of the golf course, I’m sure those would be prime spots for any balls hit by me.
...
I saw a bit of the tv show the Swan last night and I can’t help but be a little disturbed by the fact that they’re making such a spectacle out of people who have low self-esteem. The show basically takes ugly people and gives them an extreme makeover with plastic surgery and personal training. I wonder if on top of the trainers, plastic surgeons and beauticians, if they provide them with therapists to work on their obvious low self-esteem issues as well. I think that would probably be the most helpful thing they could do for these people.

At the end of the show they brought out the family and friends of these "Swans" and I noticed that one of the friends of one particular girl was extremely overweight and unattractive. I can’t even imagine what sorts of thoughts are going through her head. I mean here’s her friend who once looked just as ugly as her and they could shoot the shit about how society is so messed up with its emphasis on physical appearance and then all of a sudden her friend goes and turns beautiful on her. I'd imagine her self-esteem just dropped several notches lower after seeing her friend after the makeover.

We live in an extremely shallow world.
...
Speaking of shallow, I’ve started working out again in preparation for the summer beach volleyball season. I gotta look good in my thong this year! Pictures forthcoming…
...
I was sitting in my room last night thinking about relationships and how they work and if there was a model that could be applied to most relationships. Then it hit me –Jean-Luc Picard and the Borg Queen! Here’s a guy who just wanted what every other man wanted, to go where no man has gone before (that being a relationship that was effortless and was filled with kinky sex). So he finds this girl who’s totally digging him. Well actually she was the one who found him and she knew what she wanted and she was really aggressive about it. Though his better judgement said that it was too good to be true he couldn’t say no because resistance was futile and because he was a weak-minded bitch. Eventually he gave in and she basically assimilated him to what she thought a man should be. She even gave him a new name and re-designed his wardrobe! Sure he looked “cool” now with his new spacesuit but he really lost his own identity and eventually became a mindless drone. But his friends didn’t give up on him and they eventually sparked a plan to come save his pathetic ass. Not only did they save him, cuz they fuckin rock, they blew that bitch to hell!! Now he’s re-established his own identity and got rid of that spacesuit (not because it wasn’t cool but because of what it represented). Jean-Luc is now hanging out with his crew again and they’re still continuing their mission to go where no man has gone before.



Star-crossed Lovers

Today's Track : Nelly Furtado - Try

and all the real people are really not real at all...
...
I have to voice my disdain for poser superheroes -- the Batmans and Punishers of this world. I may spark a small riot from some of my comic loving comrades but I've held this in for far too long. Superheroes in my humble nerdy opinion as a prerequisite, have to have some sort of superpower. They can't just be ordinary human beings with "gadgets" or else that would make Inspector Gadget and James Bond superheroes as well. Don't get me wrong, James Bond is damn cool, just not a superhero. Another thing a superhero can't be is an ordinary human being with lots of guns; a happy trigger finger; and a vendetta against people who have stepped on their feet. If that were the case then all Texans would be superheroes.

So here's a tip for you future wannabe superheroes; you better have some superpower or else you're just a poor man's version of a superhero; the "diet" of superheroes; the "I can't believe it's not butter" of superheroes. Get with the program!!
...
So what do you think are the prerequisites for being a superhero?

This is too good not to post...I wish I wrote it...

(I don't really hate the US of eh. I just think their politicians suck ass.)
...
"On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry.

I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron but, it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all it's not like you actually elected him.

I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own.

I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defense I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours.

I'm sorry we burnt down your white house during the war of 1812. I notice you've rebuilt it! It's Very Nice.

I'm sorry about your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we Feel your Pain.

I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you wanna' have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was
different. Everyone knew he had weapons.

And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this. We've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.

Thank you. "
...

Today’s Track : The Ronnettes – Be My Baby

Anyone remember the old Speedy Gonzalez cartoons with the little Mexican mouse who could run like the wind? What I never got was how he could run so fast and still keep on his giant sombrero. Now assuming he had a chin strap that kept it on, I would figure that a hat like that would also cause some serious drag issues. I bet if he took off the hat he could probably shave a good few hundreds of a second off his 100 yard dash. Throw in a skin tight body suit and we might be talking about Olympic gold here! Arriba!! Arriba!!
...
Joel, hide me in your humiliation!

So there’s this thing called childhood humiliation that people tend to forget about or at least bury deep within their subconscious. Things like your mom walking into your room while you’re watching porn and taming your shrew. After watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind I asked Sonia about some of her most humiliating and embarrassing childhood moments. To my surprise she had a pretty lengthy list of moments compared with my list (I bet it’d be pretty humiliating if I repeated those moments here). I started to wonder if I really had somehow forgotten or hidden some of these memories in my subconscious.

I can only remember two incidences. The first incident was when I was about 5 or 6 and I was a notorious bed-wetter. I think I was sleeping over at my relatives’ house and I left a nice and big yellow stain on their guest bed. The second incident was when I was about 8 or 9 and my parents found porn underneath my bed. I know I was quite young to be in possession of porn but in my defense I don’t think naked women aroused me so much as intrigued me at that time. I don’t even remember where I got it from.

I’ve tried to recall more of these types of moments and I get nothing. Could it be possible that I’ve lived my entire life almost humiliation free or am I in serious denial?
...
For people who may accuse me of liking alternative music because I’m going through some sort of rebellion or non-conforming period of my life -- I’ve been non-conforming since childhood when I was putting square blocks in round holes; liking girls when all the other boys said girls were "yucky"; and running with scissors like it was going out of style.

Today's Track : Rick James - Superfreak


...in shape by summer?

Today's Track : Nada Surf - If You Leave (OMD Cover)

Joel, I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours. -- Clementine
...
I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. We're both looking for the same thing Clementine was looking for -- peace of mind. My peace of mind right now is knowing that you're not just a concept, you are the real deal. And if by fate or chance we make it through this thing called love, I'll know that my mind will have found that eternal sunshine it's been looking for all these years.

We're on the same page and in the same story, with no end in sight.

Today's Artist : 5 For Fighting

there's never a wish better than this, when you only got 100 years to live...

...
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde

Today’s Track : The Strokes – Whatever Happened

Today’s…

Unintentional Sarcastic Quote : “You can trust a ‘Bible’ to give you accurate, complete and useful information.” – Mark Kellner, Washington Times.

Choice for Accidental Ironic Death : Bleeding to death from a paper cut you got from a $10 million dollar lottery ticket.

McDonald’s Employee of the Week : Omarosa (aka the retarded Apprentice)

Best-Selling Sex Help Book : “Tossing Salad For the Bedroom Chef”

Entertainers That the U.S. Wouldn’t Try to Save If They Were Hostages in Iraq : Will & Grace, Hillary Duff, and Cory Feldman

Today’s Track : Frou Frou – Let Go

A conversation with our clinical specialist…
...
Jessica – Can you do me a big favour? I won’t be here tomorrow and we need to look into getting a drop off box/vault for our customers to drop off explants to our office. Can you do some research and see if we can get this type of vault in Canada?

Khiem – Sure, I can take a look at it tomorrow when I’ve got a few minutes. What are the specifications that you’re looking for? Is there a certain size that you’re looking for?

Jessica – Well I’ve done some research already (pulls out some brochures) and we’re looking for something this size. Approximately 19”x50”x19”. I’ve narrowed it down to these two but I prefer this one because the other has rear access only and we’re probably looking to put this up against the wall in the explants area. The rear access will make it hard to get at the drop-offs later.

Khiem – So what you’re saying is that rear access is not desirable.

Jessica – Not for our needs, No.

Khiem – All the places I’ve worked before the clinical specialists all liked rear access. Are you sure you don’t want rear access?

Jessica – Positive (gives me dirty look).
...
Disclaimer : No sexual harassment charges were placed in the making of this conversation.

Today's Track : Nirvana - The Man Who Sold The World

The big man in his tiny jersey lost his volleyball game in the finals yesterday. Close match unfortunately we lost the deciding set by a few points. I don’t want to talk much more about the game. I hate losing.
...
So I was looking through my bag for some gum and I ran across an old jade pendant that an ex-girlfriend gave me. I don’t really recall what the occasion was or the significance but I know that I didn’t have much use for it back then I don’t have much use for it now. I’m not much of a jewelry person so these types of things end up sitting in some sort of memorabilia box or in this case a secret pocket in my bag. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should hock the damn thing for some gum but that would be mean-spirited and bitter and we all know how much I’m NOT mean-spirited, NOT bitter and definitely NOT sarcastic.

I showed it to a co-worker and she commented on how completely “Asian” it is to own jade, which I can’t say I disagree with. I’ve never seen a non-Asian person or at least a person not affiliated with an Asian person wear jade.

Jade is supposed to bring luck to anyone who wears it. I’ve never worn this pendant so it goes to reason that I’ve probably been ridiculously unlucky. Maybe I should hang this pendant in the back seat of my car – maybe I’ll get lucky there. Then again Sonia is probably reading this blog as we speak and I probably won’t get lucky in the back seat or anywhere else for that matter. I think there’s an unwritten rule that you have to bury/burn/hock things that belong to ex-gf’s when the new gf is clearly established. If you don’t I’m sure the new gf will. It’s sort of how animals mark their territory. If the new gf feels as though her territory is marked by the scent of another woman she starts peeing all over the place. And for some reason or another this turns on old Japanese men

So I don’t know what I’m going to do with this pendant. I have a couple of rings that are sitting in a box somewhere as well. Maybe I can melt them down and combine them with this jade pendant to make a big giant earring. I know there are some Asian thugs out there who are in desperate need of some bling bling. Holla!
...
So I read yesterday that they’re doing their first trials of electronic implants in the human brain. Apparently this will eventually allow paralyzed patients and patients with physical disabilities to control a computer. Control of a computer might lead to control of mechanical arms and other devices that would improve their quality of life. Right now they have simple controlled experiments like making a patient move a mouse cursor from a certain position to another position with a single thought. It sounds pretty incredible doesn’t it? The way they’ve managed to do this is by mapping neuron firing patterns in the brain that are associated with these types of thoughts then programming them into the computer chip that is implanted in the brain. The computer chip then communicates with the computer to process the event. They’ve even managed to allow Lou Gehrig patients to send messages to a monitor using simple selecting commands with common English phrases.

It wasn’t too long ago that I read a book called Microserfs that had an idea similar to this without going into any technical details and I had thought to myself how far-fetched that sounded. I just thought the brain was way too complicated for us to ever really see technology developed for it in this lifetime. I’m glad I was wrong.

Today's Track : Pearl Jam - Even Flow

Shaky’s Law

If you wash your car, the next day it will rain. If it doesn’t rain a bird will poop on your car. If a bird doesn’t poop on your car, I will. I washed my car yesterday, hence the never ending rain today.
...
Just had to scold one of our users about media streaming in our office because she was taking up 190 kbs of the available 256 kbs allocated to our office network. I made her write out “I will not stream Bon Jovi videos from the internet during office hours” 190 times on our white board in the meeting room.
...
Tonight’s the big game. My volleyball team has made it to the finals in our league and the entire team is pretty excited. So excited that they’ve suggested we all break out our high school team jerseys and wear them to the game. As a mental image for everyone – I was about 5’7” and 125 lbs soaking wet. I’m now 5’8” and 155 lbs. So you can imagine what my team jersey will look like on me now. All in the name of team spirit I say!
...
Go leafs Go!

Today's Track : Boy George - Karma Chameleon

I was sitting in my car today at a stop light and I had my window rolled down and for some apparent reason – possibly a mid-twenties crisis or something – I decided to crank my stereo super loud to attract as much attention as possible. You know, the sort of thing you did in high school as you rolled into the school parking lot in your parent’s station wagon.

There was this time back in high school when I was driving home for lunch in my parent’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (sounds more like a taco than a car). I had this tape of this song that I was really grooving to at that time. It was “Runaway” by the Real McCoy and I had a 60 minute tape of the same song recorded back to back to back except in about 5 different remixes. The reason I had to tape it like that was because cars back then didn’t have cd players as standard equipment so I couldn’t just press repeat! So I’m on my way home blaring this song out of my car at decibels so loud that the sheer force would knock over old ladies crossing the street. I come to a stop light and these two hot Catholic school girls pass by my car and they yell, “That song fuckin rocks!!” and I yelled back, “Hell yeah it does!” and then they proceeded to dance right next to my car until the light changed to green and I drove away. It was for that brief moment that I truly felt cool.

So now that I’m 28 and I’ve got my own sports car with a cd player in it, you’d think that I’d be able to reproduce that moment.

Back to earlier today when I was at the stop light. I rolled down my window and cranked up my stereo (no old ladies around to knock over). So I’ve got Boy George’s Karma Chameleon blaring out my Mazda 3 and I look around and absolutely no hot Catholic girls around. No one around except a bunch of middle age people in cars looking at me funny. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to reproduce that moment as long as I live.

Today's Track : Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

If you don't know what you want you end up with a lot of things you don't want.

(the story of my life)
...
Hold on...I'm on the phone with God.



God - "Why are you bothering me at this unGodly hour?"
Me - "What exactly is a Godly hour?"
God - "I don't know, I just like the sound of my name. UN-GOD-LY."
Me - "So are you busy? Writing some tragedies?"
God - "Tragedies are overrated. These days I'm more about the epiphanies."
Me - "Hey can you write me one?"
God - "No, I've already written you a tragedy."
Me - "What? Why?"
God - "Because it's in tragedies and trauma that you learn to find yourself."
Me - "Oh, in that case make it a big tragedy."
God - "Hey, this isn't Mcdonald's -- you can't super size your tragedies."
Me - "Sorry, I didn't mean to be ungrateful. I'll let you get back to work."
God - "Not a problem. Bye."
Me - "Bye."
...
Word of the Day

ses·qui·pe·da·lian n.

A long verbose, ponderous, polysyllabic word.

Just like it sounds!

Today's Track : Skid Row - 18 and Life

The fact that I'm blogging on a Saturday afternoon is not indicative of my sad existence but rather my unwillingness to do something productive at this particular moment. Though it could be argued that blogging is productive. At least more productive than certain things. Some of which are -- playing with my belly button lint; throwing pennies at the kids playing road hockey; organizing my collection of porn and pictures of your mom; and dancing naked while watching the weather channel.
...
On Thursday night my dog peed on my pants because I got him at little too excited. So I had to wash my jeans. After the spin cycle I realized I had left my cell phone in my pocket. I ran down the stairs to the laundry room and opened the laundry machine lid. Just as I had suspected, no one had called me. At least my phone smelled Tide fresh. After several hours of trying to revive my phone with a blow dryer I gave up. It was clinically dead.

Or so I had thought. 3 hrs later my phone was alive and well.
...
I suppose now is a good of time as any to go do something productive...



Be back later!

Today's Track : The Cranberries - You and Me

When you spend a lot of time with someone or live with someone there are little idiosyncrasies about that person that start to really wear on your patience. There’s this one lady in here who gets frustrated very easily and often it’s her computer that frustrates her. At least once a day you can hear her cursing and banging on her keyboard as though she was a monkey presented with some sort of advance tool such as a stick. Oh wait, I’m not giving monkeys enough credit, they actually use sticks to get at ants in ant holes. This lady is not as bright. So in her frustration she starts banging on the keyboard randomly. You know the saying that if you give a million monkeys typewriters that eventually they’ll write a book? This monkey will never write a book. The other day she complained to me (after attempting to fix the problem herself by banging on the keyboard) that when she presses numbers on the number pad that her excel sheet starts jumping around from cell to cell instead of putting in the numbers. So I told her to press the “num lock” button. I think for a brief second she felt stupid and that put a smile on my face.
...
So I got the new Canon S500 camera instead of a new snowboard. I wasn’t able to find the snowboard I was looking for so I decided to wait til next October to look for one. The snowboard/camera was a birthday present from my friends (and special friend Sonia). This is probably the best present I’ve ever gotten from them. If I could rank my friends on a scale of 1 to awesome they’d be super great.

I don’t usually take photos that often nor do I like my photo being taken but since I’ve got this nice new camera I’m going to be sure to take more pictures. Now I just have to find a place to store these photos so I can post them. Oooh, maybe I can turn this blog into a photo journal and be the photo whore you all want me to be. I know it’ll probably save you guys some time reading.
...
Here’s a little theory I ran across about relationships between guys and girls. If you’re a guy you already intuitively know this theory or have discussed this theory at some point in time or another. This however is a formal and very well written theory on that very topic. It is a bit long but you’ll feel smarter after reading it. Enjoy.

The Ladder Theory

Today's Track : Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight

and you know you're never sure
but you're sure you could be right
if you held yourself up to the light
and the embers never fade in your city by the lake
...
There's beauty in breaking down something that's built out of fear.

Today's Track : Frou Frou - Let Go

I was just reading in the washroom and my left leg fell asleep. I hate walking out of the washroom with a limp.
...
Last night I went to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Wanda. No spoilers here so you can read on. I left completely astoundified. Charles Kaufman has written a truly brilliant and moving story. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet have my vote for next year’s Oscar. The title line to the movie is from a nice little poem by Alexander Pope called “Eloisa to Abelard”.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;

The movie brought back a lot of old memories that I’ve been trying to deny and forget -- memories that were washed away by single moments of tragedy and trauma. Though my stance on those memories are still to forget, it was nice to revisit the good ones last night without rehashing the tainted ones. It also reminded me what a great relationship I have now and how precious the memories we create together are.

If you get a chance, I highly recommend this movie. Probably one of the best movies of the year.