It started when I was roused from my morning subway nap by a garbled announcement. Due to a 'power outage'/'personal injury at track level,' the trains were going out of service at Chester. Shuttle buses would be running.
We were just rolling into Pape. I got off the train immediately. I know from prior experience that the shuttle buses run about once every forever, and are packed beyond reason when they do. Also, Chester station is almost literally a hole in the ground. It's nothing but a kiosk on top of a three-story staircase. There's no bus bay, nothing. I would rather be dragged behind the train than deal with a stairwell packed full of annoyed, stupid commuters.
The end result was I ended up walking 40 minutes to work. It was a pleasantly cool and stunningly sunny day, so I wasn't too annoyed. Plus, I saw advertisements for Avenue Q. I need tickets for that, badly.
Chester was a nightmare when I walked past, the street was totally choked with people. They'd blocked both lanes of traffic and the crowd had pushed forward until they were on the centre line, blocking half of the Danforth. A vindictive driver could have mowed down a few dozen folks right there.
The most amusing part of the walk was keeping pace with an oblivious woman who kept calling the TTC hotline on her cellphone. She just could not stop passive-aggressively whining. I also derived some schadenfreude from watching random people futilely wave at cabs. The taxis had descended like enthusiastic vultures, but pickings were so good that I didn't see a single available cab the whole trip.
I also didn't see any shuttle buses going my way... odd, that.
But the really frustrating part of the day wasn't the delay or the walk... it was the weird sense of being charged up, somehow. Like I was absorbing all that sun and converting it into pure, unfocused creative desire.
I have spent most of the day at work sitting on the urge to just create something HUGE. I took the feeling home with me, where I promptly found myself so high-strung that I was unable to start anything. My biggest accomplishment for the night was making Shake & Bake for supper.
I probably will not sleep well tonight because of this. Damnit. I feel like a Lamborghini revving in neutral.
Hetepheres, as you may or may not know, is my cat. She's a ten-pound, 12-year-old multi-colored beauty. She has the softest fur of any cat I have ever know, and she hates to be touched. My friend Angus once joked that, in her dreams, she has a coat of razor-wire and barbed glass.
For nearly twelve years, I have been Tephi's sole human. I know this because she goes out of her way to get my attention so that she can ignore me. In an average day I see more of her tail than of her face. Today, she took that to a new level.
Once of Tephi's many, many quirks is that she thinks the bathroom is the ideal venue for affectionate socializing. If I am in the bathroom with the door closed, tending to business, she will often paw and mew at the door. This continues until I am forced to let her in for fear she'll scratch a hole under the door. Once inside she will wind her way through my legs, purring and headbutting, while I sit and stare and wonder what the hell is wrong with my cat.
She is also fascinated by bathwater. Sometimes she will hop up onto the edge of the tub and stare at the water, all the while ignoring the naked wet ape that sits in it. Once or twice she has even drunk from the tub while I was in it, sampling the Hiker Soup as it were.
Today she did something new.
It started with the usual pawing at the door and overblown show of affection when I let her in. I had run a bath, and after allowing the kitty access I lowered myself into it and opened up my book.
I was quietly reading and enjoying the warmth when a pair of black ears poked over the edge of the tub. These were followed in due course by a pair of wide, curious yellow eyes, then by a pink nose, and finally by the entire rest of the cat. I now had a catloaf perched on the edge of my bathtub.
I went very still, as I always do in this situation. The last thing I want is to startle her when she's standing on a slick surface. She could fall in the water and turn into a wet explosion of hair and revenge, close to some very sensitive areas.
She was purring loudly as she paid me no attention whatsoever. She leaned down to sniff the water, decided the soup was not to her liking today, and walked to the corner of the tub nearest my head. There she sat on her haunches, her head high and proud and facing very pointedly away from me. I decided I was safe and went back to my book.
Then I felt something brush my ear.
Her tail was hanging down into the tub, thrashing back and forth with pleasure or annoyance - it's hard to tell with Tephi. It hung down normally except for the last three inches. That length was bent at an odd angle and was brushing back and forth paralell to and an inch above the water.
"Tephi dear, you're going to get your tail wet." She merely purred and continued to ignore me.
I shook my head and went back to my book. A minute later I looked over again. Those three inches of tail where now immersed in my bathwater, stirring it like an impatient spoon.
"Uh, cat... your tail is in the water. Tephi?"
Maybe she hadn't noticed? I poked her tail to call attention to her moist plight. She meowed and flicked it, splashing tail-water in my eyes and mouth.
"Acktph!" I said. Tephi, sensing that her work was done, leaped from the tub and marched proudly out of the bathroom.
Or at least, she tried to march proudly.
The water in the tip of her tail was weighing it down. I've never seen the end look so skinny. Instead of being held high in victory, it was bent over behind her in an unnatural U shape.
As she walked, she painted a line of water in the floor behind her.
I apologize for falling off the journal bandwagon so soon after hopping back on it. It was a very busy and draining weekend, but details will not be forthcoming, so live with the knowledge that I very likely had a much better and much worse time than you, and you will never know why.
I've been reading The Salmon of Doubt recently. It's a very weird book, being that it's basically all the junk Douglas Adams had sitting around on his hard drive when he died. It's a really strange book, full of rantings about the wonders of computers and Macs in particular, essays and interviews on manta rays and evolution, and the occasional paragraph-long snippet of complete randomness. It's occasionally funny but more often it's like riding a very enthusiastic roller-coaster right off the rails. It's entertaining and frightening and at the end you survey the wreckage and realize you are nowhere near where you started. And you've lost some change.
A lot of it seems to parallel my own thinking, which is eerie but not unexpected. I strongly suspect that this is because I was busy memorizing and analyzing the Hitch-Hiker's Guide at a time when I should have been trying to learn math.
What else is noteworthy but safe for public consumption...
There's a group of old houses behind my workplace that are being torn down, and I expect yet another condominium will go up in their place. This saddens me a lot more than it might have a week ago, because just last Friday I took a long look at them and realized they were awesome. Each one was unique, and clearly many generations old. You could see where each new addition to the family had necessitated a new addition to the house. My favorite was an old grey house whose original shape had been all but engulfed in additional porches, gables, and spare rooms.
It's dying. Every day I hear the mortal crack of ancient wooden beams.
It's not that I am against change, or that I have any special nostalgia for The Good Old Days. The Good Old Days were drafty and cold and didn't have internet access. And I'm not against progress either. Better that the rich live downtown in colossally expensive hives and leave the country to the rest of us.
But this is the third set of demolitions on this block in the last year, and I can't help but feel that the history and charm is being sucked out of the downtown. Downtown Toronto has precious little charm to begin with.
I mean, these condos have a starting price of $1,000,000. Who will want to pay that much if your only view is of other condos, and all the interesting local history has been crushed under the weight of high-rises?
Speaking of history, the TTC finally pulled the wrapping off of the new Museum subway station. I don't have any pictures, drat the luck, but I think I like it. Well, some of it, anyways.
They've redone all the support pillars with museumy motifs. There's five different flavours that repeat down the length of the platform. Three of which are noteworthy, and two of them just make me scratch my head.
There is a Native-American house support carved into a bear, some form of Meso-American warrior with a grimacing face on his buttocks, and your standard issue Egyptian Guy. All are rendered in what I assume is painted concrete. In a nice touch, the hieroglyphs on Egyptian pillar actually mean something - translation is provided on an information placard next to the emergency assistance alarm. In fact all the pillars are neatly explained, with directions on where to find the real thing in one of Ontario's museums. So if you're being mugged, you can enrich yourself while you wait for security.
The final two designs are really, really lazy. They are just pillars. Once is your standard issue Doric pillar, white and exceedingly dull. Then there's the Chinese pillars. They are red, unadorned cylinders, and at the top they have a token bit of yellow carving. Because when you think of the glory and art of ancient China, you think 'plain red pillar'.
Would it have killed the designers to maybe add a dragon or some Chinese calligraphy? These people went to the trouble to research hieroglyphs and load-bearing bears, and the best they could do for China was red pillars? Did they run out of money? Or are they just mad about the Olympics?
Anyways, Torontonians, check it out. It's simultaneously enlightening and hilariously kitsch. Enjoy it while you can, because there will probably be a strike soon.
It's been eight years since my last dentist visit. I didn't have the money or any coverage, and no one to refer me to one, so I just let it slide. I've been a fairly regular brusher and an occasional flosser, I figured that would be enough.
I've always had good teeth. It was one of my few points of pride in school. Unlike most of my classmates, I hadn't a mouth full of metal. My jaws were not reinforced with dental rebar. I had terrible glasses, second-hand clothes and looked an utter dork, but at least my choppers were good.
I even have my wisdom teeth. They came in straight and without much pain. This, as opposed to some of my friends, who had them come in crooked or sideways or through the sole of their foot.
My few fillings were precautionary, or else the result of sibling resentment.
So between the impregnable teeth and good mandibular infrastructure, I've never had much to fear from dentists.
But I hear stories...
I've sat up late with the Wuffy after an accident took off half his front incisor.
I've looked after woozy friends with heads full of bloody cotton after wisdom teeth were extracted.
And for more than a year now I've felt two small, jagged holes growing in my upper molars, and known that my turn was coming.
I finally got up the nerve to set an appointment earlier this week. Okay, that's a lie, Tony set it up for me.
When you tell your friends that you have a dentist appointment, you learn the horrible truth: nobody, but nobody, has good teeth. Everyone has had an impacted this or an abscessed that or an infected whatever. But they struggle bravely through their day, smiling through their pain-wracked incisors, until you happen to mention your date with dentistry. Then they dust off the horror stories. It's not that they are trying to scare you... they just assume that your experience is the same and are trying to commiserate.
I am a naturally nervous guy. This sort of thing Does Not Help.
This is part of why I didn't mention it in my journal until last night. I didn't need any more anxiety than had already been given to me.
Get on with it, you cry. Just tell us how it went! I'm getting there.
A week's worth of horror stories, a year's worth of pent-up certainty that my teeth were swiss cheese, and eight years since I had seen a dentist. I expected disaster. I specifically wore my black "Evil Dead: The Musical" shirt. If I was going to get a shirt bloodied, it might as well be an appropriate one.
The visit wasn't much fun. Eight years of built-up tartar dies hard. I spent a good hour under the ultrasonic water pick. My gums felt like they were being flayed. My teeth shivered, cold and aching, naked without their yellow, disgusting, protective armour. I may need an iron supplement to replace all the blood I spat into the basin.
And this is why I am embarrassed: After eight years of neglect, the only thing the dentist had to say to me was, "You're brushing too hard."
My teeth are fine, but my gums are receding because I'm TOO dentally diligent. I just need to use a softer brush and cut out the abrasive whitening paste. I feel relieved, but also deeply chagrined. I'm like a busboy who braced and strained in preparation to heft a huge package, and found it to be made of Styrofoam.
My teeth are shiny. They feel so sharp and defined that it's like running my tongue over a picket fence. They're still quite sensitive after being violated with pointy metal sticks. Hopefully by morning they'll recover and return to work without any more bitching.
Meanwhile, I will try to feel less embarrassed about the big deal I made of this.
Didn't sleep at all well last night, so went through work like a zombie. A whiny, petulant, infant-like zombie. At least, that's how it felt after finding the umpteenth problem with this blasted project.
I get sleepy, I get cranky and need my bottle of brains. Red Rave is a poor substitute, but it will do in a pinch.
I'm due to see the dentist in the morning, which is probably going to be horrible. It's been many years since my last dental weigh-in, so I expect sharp objects poked into tender cavities and blood jetting from gingivitis-riddled gums.
If you are going to conduct 22% of your research in an area of the country that a) speaks a different language and b) is stubbornly attached to using non-English names for almost everything, please do me the courtesy of providing your coding key with the proper translations or equivalents.
Additionally, if said research is based on an ad campaign, please provide us with the French slogans you used in that area. Idioms don't translate. Seriously. Don't believe me? Try to guess what popular English phrase THIS is supposed to be: disparaissent la baise vous-même.
A little forethought will prevent me have to scream that at you when you start tapping your foot and asking what's taking so long.
Ahem.
On a slightly related note, all of St. George subway station has been plastered in ads for Cottonelle toilet paper. The posters feature a wide variety of slogans and a cute yellow lab puppy.
These ads confuse me. Cleary, they're trying to compete with the Royale kittens. But it doesn't work. The Royale ads used to refer to the tissue as 'kitteny-soft'... as if, you know, they'd used a cat for comparison. Labradors are many things but soft-coated is not one of them.
The other problem is that the television ads feature the puppy running around showing great concern for how people treat their asses. It's a bit of a stretch to see such concern coming from a creature that uses its tongue instead of the advertised product.
There are many different slogans, as well. "We shine where the sun doesn't." "Soft. Cuddly. Want to take it home. The puppy too." And this one, which is horrifying in its implication: "Last year, thong sales were up. Among men." Oh, GROSS.
It doesn't seem clever as much as it does desperate. It's as if they cannot think of a defining slogan of their own and are trying desperately to make the public pick one.
In industry terms, we refer to this as "Throwing crap at a wall to see what sticks."
It's been 12 weeks since my last post, according to Livejournal... egads.
Rather than recap what's happened since then I think I'll just talk about today-ish. Brace yourself, it's not that exciting.
They painted the hallways at work recently. They're now a hideous designer white with deep chocolate-brown doors. It's intensely boring; it looks like a school or a hospital from the 1970s. Seriously, it saps my energy just walking down that hallway.
The boss has been arguing with building management about both the color and the ineptness of the job. She hasn't been getting anywhere. She turned to me today and said, "If this keeps up, you'll see blood spattered on the wall."
"It would be an improvement," I replied.
She laughed.
Accomplished a lot today, comparatively speaking. I made chicken for supper. It was just Shake-n-Bake, a spur of the moment thing. Felt good to make something resembling a real meal instead of the usual frozen stuff or stir-fry.
I also did a painting tonight... a quick experiment in watercolour. Have never tried that before. Results were mixed, but it was an interesting change of pace. You can see it here, if you like.
It's been so long since I used my paints that the cover snapped off my pthalo blue. If I can figure out some way to cap it, I'll have to get a new tube.
It's based on some scenery of Alberta found via Google. I also found this: Chomp Around Alberta. Click if you like; it's less fun than it sounds.
The name and logo remind me of certain friends of mine, you know who you are.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I just realized I've been listening to "Welcome to the Black Parade" for the last fifteen minutes, and the emo is killing my somewhat manic mood.
So, I finally got to watch the first three episodes of the most polarizing Transformers franchise since Beast Machines. I know you're all dying to know what I thought.
I slagging LOVED it.
The art style takes a little getting used to, I admit. And there is a young human female to deal with. She can be annoying. I don't care. There so much good to balance it all out.
Characterization on the 'bots is damn near perfect. Prime is an uncertain leader... I dig it. Prowl's a ninja... sweet. They've rolled taken classic Ironhide and Rachet and combined them into a surly medic who seems like Bones McCoy with gears... very nice.
And best of all, Starscream! Holy gawd, they have NAILED that character! I don't want to issue spoilers, but suffice to say all the cunning, guile, and sarcasm we love about the Screamer is present in spades.
It's been a long long time since writing and dialouge were this good on a Transformers series. Wierd art style or not, they've earned my eyeballs. I'll keep watching.
Another of those weird pieces of the puzzle that is me...
I saw this video only two or three times, when I was about eleven. It stuck with me all through the years even though no one but me seemed to recall it. Something about the animation, the poor cat getting shredded again and again... when I see Itchy and Scratchy, I'm thinking about this poor cat.
I had never seen mature animation before. The impact of this was HUGE. I had it practically memorized after seeing it only a couple of times. I took time every Saturday to watch the local top 20 video show, just for this.
That, and the song itself. I swear to gawd, it feels like the song is about me. "I can't relax, or I melt like wax, I'm a nervous guy..."
The chorus is a personal motto of mine that you may have heard a few times. Now you know where it came from.
Quality isn't great but after 20 years I'm just so damned thrilled to see it that I don't care...
We had a very impressive, if all too brief, thunderstorm today.
It came on suddenly, and it came on violent. I was watching the clouds, I glanced away for no more than a second, and when I looked back the scene resembled a hurricane. Rain was going almost parallel to the ground.
The monstrosity in this pic is the newly-opened ROM 'crystal'. Due to its odd shape, the wind and rain flowed up its sides and tossed water over the top like waves. Alas you can't really make it out in this pic.
Only a few minutes later I saw this.
There is a Tower in Toronto that controls people's minds!
Well, Smokey and the Bandit went over pretty well... so I kind of suggested we do a 'theme' for June... classic car chase cinema!
So anyways guys, be forewarned: I am forearmed. I managed to snag a copy of Cannonball Run for this weekend. Cheap, too.
I've never seen it so I may end up regretting this.
Any other suggestions? My criteria are that it has to be a movie almost entirely composed of driving, prefferably at highly illegal speeds. Big rigs are optional. SatB certainly matches... I think there's about five minutes of set-up and almost the whole rest of the film is on the road.
The original Gone in 60 Seconds is also a contender, since it ends with a 40 minute chase scene.
Fair warning guys. This is what I want to watch Saturday night. If you haven't seen it yet, or worse yet are too young to remember, prepare yourselves for a classic.
In case anyone was wondering, the bed is working alright so far. I've slept. It's quite a novel experience, having my whole body at the same level, instead of sinking into a groove.
It has not been without its hitches, however.
Friday, I made my first attempt at bed assembly. I was thwarted when I found that they had not included the bolts, nor any instructions to tell me what else might be missing. I've heard of this happening before, but it's never personally happened to me.
A short night's sleep and it was off to a nearby Ikea to politely ask for the parts I needed.
Upon arriving home, I made attempt two. This time I had all the parts and the instructions. But then I suffered a whole new Ikea botch: Allen wrench failure!
The little Allen wrench was too small for the bolts, and could not turn them. I had to wait until a toolkit was purchased.
On the third attempt, success... the bed was intact, and ready for use.
Then I started wondering about the bed's name. It's a "Heimdal." That sounded familiar, so I looked it up on Wiki.
Heimdall is the guardian of the gods who will blow the Gjallarhorn if danger approaches Asgard. His senses are so acute that he can hear the grass grow and he can see to the end of the world; he also requires no sleep at all.
Um... so my bed is named for an insomiac Valhallan who plays the horn and can hear photosynthesis... why does that not bode well for a peaceful rest?
1:07 am - Furniture for College Kids and Divorced Men
I have purchased a bed!
It's a simple metal-frame Ikea bed, but it is a real bed. Not that horrid box-spring and matress I've had for years. Oh no... this actually sits ABOVE the floor.
I obsessively tested matresses at the Ikea before deciding on one that, I think, I hope, will offer the right combo of support and softness, and isolate movement so the Wuffy doesn't bounce me around when he sleeps over.
I won't say how much it was, but interestingly, it was only about 40 cents less than the cash I had in my bank account.
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entropicana's journal
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