My New Furniture Was Delivered Today

I bought this on ebay the other day. It's a barbie-sized living room set and it's for the new animated movie I'm about to embark on. Don't expect anything any time soon. These things take FOREVER. I'm thinking at least a couple of months before it's finalized.

On the art front, thanks to Stephen I remembered to submit my application to the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. I always mean to and always forget and if it wasn't for a friendly reminder, I'd have forgotten again. It's going to cost a lot of money and be a lot of work to put on. It had better be worth it - or you're dead Stephen.

Attack of the Goat People

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog regularly is well aware of my complete disdain for the monopoly that is Bell Canada. After my latest call to them, I've decided that I could get the same amount of help from them if their phones were manned by goats.

Let me relate my recent conversation to prove my point. My part of the conversation is in bold, followed by the support agent's response, followed by a goat translation in parentheses:

Ring.. Ring..

Thank you for calling Bell Canada. My name is mpfrgghrp how can I help you? (Baaaa-a-a-a.)

Hi there. I'm trying to set up a new internet service but wasn't supplied with a username or password.

Ok, what's the B1 number for the account? (Baaa.)

I don't know, I wasn't given anything - just the modem.

Well if you could give me the B1 number then I could look up your account. (Baaa baaa ba)

Like I said, I wasn't supplied with any information. I don't have the B1 number, I don't have the username or password. That's why I'm calling you.

So you don't have one? (Baa.)

No.

And you need a username and password? (Ba).

Yes.

Oh, well you've reached tech support. You have to talk to the billing department for that information. Let me transfer you. (Baaaaa baaaa ba ba ba baaaaaaaa)

????????

As you can see, if you read the english or goat translation, you get the same end result. It's like reading a choose your own adventure book where every choice leads to your death.

I rest my case.

I'm a superstar

Today I tried out for my very first TV commercial. Buckley's had a booth at Yonge and Bloor where you could sign up and be filmed tasting their medicine. For those of you not in the know, Buckley's makes a cough and cold medicine that's tastes truly horrid. However, they have a brilliant marketing scheme and use that fact to their advantage. Their slogan is "It tastes Awful. And it works."

Currently they are going around the nation filming people making funny faces for their commercials and posting the vids on the web. People then vote for the one they like the best and the winner gets a 5 year supply of Buckley's. Yay!! Of course when you enter, you allow them to use your name and picture and sign away any hopes of financial compensation. Brilliant marketing for such little money. Oh well. I always wanted to be on TV.

So when the video is up, I'll post the link. Please vote for me. There's nothing I want more in this world than a lifetime of cough medicine.

CSI: WTF?

Last night we were relaxing in front of the TV after dinner, red wine in hand, and generally enjoying some downtime. We decided to watch CSI: NY. In one of the storylines a guy was murdered (surprise). He lived with his sister who also happened to be the only witness and described the attacker as being a woman fitting her own description. It was later revealed that they had both been in a car accident a number of months ago and she had moved in with him while recuperating. I immediately guessed that she suffered some brain trauma and as a result killed him, thinking that someone else was the murderer. Wouldn't you know it, at the end of the show they were interrogating her and she looked into a mirror and started screaming "that's the woman who killed my brother!!" How original.

However, in true CSI fashion, they discovered clues in the most fantastical ways. While sorting through hundreds of shards of broken glass, an investigator came across a teensy, tiny, pie shaped piece of material. It was at most half an inch long and a quarter inch wide at the edge. Using a hunch he took a blank CD and chipped out a piece the same size. He then stuck the evidence in that spot (which fit perfectly on the first try), taped it together, stuck it in a CD player and hit play. Magically a sample of the song came out of the speakers and using even more super duper audio analysis, he was able to pinpoint the song and album. I freaked.

Technologically speaking, this is impossible. A burned CD has an area on it with the table of contents as to where all the information is stored. Without that, the player wouldn't know that the data was there, let alone be able to decode it. Not to mention that the data for a song is not written sequentially, like on a record. Having a leprechaun being fucked by a unicorn jumping out of the speakers would have been equally as plausible (and preferable) when he hit the play button. I can only suspend disbelief for so long.

At 9:00 our phone rang. It was a telemarketer. They've been calling a lot in the past few weeks. I'd finally had enough. I picked up the phone and the poor bastard was only able to spit out a few words before I hit the roof.

Hello?

Hi sir, I'm calling from Rogers Telecom and -

Do you know what time it is? It's 9:00 in the evening! What the hell are you doing calling my house at 9:00 at night?

Well sir, these are the working hours and -

Well those aren't my working hours! I work from 9 to 5 and when I come home I want to relax and the last thing I want to do is be interrupted in the evenings by telemarketers. And it's valentine's day!! What the hell are you doing calling in the evening on Valentine's Day? I don't care what you're selling, whatever it is I'm not interested!

Poor bastard didn't know what hit him. Afterwards I felt a little bad. The guy was just doing his job, and it's a shitty job on top of that. But still, 9:00? Isn't that a bit late?

GOD wants you to listen to shitty music

Lovegodsway.org has some interesting theories regarding fags and how much God hates them (even though man was made in god's image in which case he must like it up the ass at least 10% of the time). They have a fantastic rehabilitation program called C.H.O.P.S. - Changing Homosessuals into Ordinary People. No, I don't have a clue what the S stands for either. The creator, Donnie Davies, knows all about the road of being gay and transforming into a beautiful heterosexual butterfly. He's been there. He's even, get ready for this, "been called a faggot." Wow. That's awful. I feel so sorry for him. That's almost as bad as being chased by a bunch of rednecks and having the shit pounded out of you.

There is also a list of Gay Bands that you should never ever listen to, including such staples as Erasure, Depeche Mode, Scissor Sisters, Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, The Village People and Boy George, just to name a few. Other no-no's include Ghostface Killah, Twisted Sister, The Doors, Metallica (because they touch tongues), Barry Manilo, Frank Sinatra, Clay Aiken (who should be on everyone's No Listen List) and Elton John who, according to the website, is "very gay". It goes on and on.

On the other hand it is officially OK to listen to a whopping 17 Bands (I love how they refer to everyone as "Bands"). Straight people can listen to Cindy Lauper (because she has absolutely no gay ties at all. Nope. None whatsoever), P.O.D, Evanescence, and 14 other "Bands" I've never heard of before.

Makes me that much happier to be gay. If I were straight I'd throw my iPod and stereo out the window. No wonder us homosexuals have such a hard time. All the straight boys are jealous that we get to listen - no - enjoy listening to music.

Have to give them props though, I do like the logo.

Oh, and one more thing. There's a link to Donnie's personal website. It's not exactly what I'd call butch.

HNT

Once upon a time I was in a resort in Panama. It was right around this time of year. God I'd kill for that pool right now.


Happy HNT!

Pointing out the obivious

Tornwordo's post today reminded me of the immensely unenjoyable time I spent in Winnipeg as a teenager.

The year was 1992 and I was 16. Canada was celebrating 125 years of being a whiny, yet progressive country, and as a special treat they were offering an exchange program free of charge. Anyone 16 and over who wanted to see another part of the country could sign up, though you couldn't choose where to go. It turned out that our school got paired with Winnipeg. Yay.

We had to host first, so at some point in the spring a group of students came over to stay for a week. The people in charge of the program at school organized lots of group outings and trips to keep everyone occupied. It was ok. Though I'm just realizing now that I have no idea what the person's name was who stayed with me, or even what he looked like.

A few weeks later it was our turn to go. Upon arriving we discovered, to our dismay, that we wouldn't be staying with the people who came to visit us - or even seeing them. In fact none of us were to be staying in Winnipeg at all. We ended up being dispersed across the countryside in different backwoods towns. I think I was somewhere outside of Rosenort.

Rosenort.

I ended up staying with a Mennonite family. They were very nice, very hospitable and very innocent. The daughter was all excited because she was going to Bible college the next year. The son, who was my age, was kind of geeky. He didn't have much in the way of social skills, his face was all pimply and looked like it had been run over by a tractor - more than once. But being a hard working farm boy (as opposed to the get-me-the-hell-out-of-here kind of farm boy that I was) he had a killer bod. I thought about putting a potato sack over his head and taking him out back behind the barn once or twice, but figured that might not go over so well.

They had barely scheduled any group activities and we had to complain a lot so that someone would make arrangements so we could see each other. The isolation was awful. We did end up going to a "social" at the local church hall one night. It was their version of a school dance except you could drink - and drink I did. The legal age out there is 18, and somehow I looked it and consequently got the drinking wristband. We also went on some river cruise. I drank a lot there too. We all did.

However I did have a point to this story. We had a few chaperone's accompany us on the trip, one of whom was the female gym teacher - a classic, stereotypical lesbian. I ended up getting into a car with her and a couple of other students when leaving the airport. Ms. Gym Teacher was sitting in the front passenger seat and our driver was telling us about Winnipeg and all the flooding problems they have and all the ways they try to combat it. She was pointing out some landmarks and things and nonchalantly motioned to the right and said "and there's the dyke."
I swear my tongue was bleeding and I almost peed my pants.

And that was my most memorable moment in the utterly forgettable city of Winnipeg.

I like big guns

I decided this after watching Future Weapons today. I'd like to get my hands on Mack's gun.

Since I'm going to hell anyways.....

Yesterday I was on a road trip to visit a client up in Collingwood. I stopped at a service center on the 400, around King City. It's a small, redneck kind of place. I went into the washroom and actually laughed out loud when I read what had been scrawled onto the toilet paper dispenser:

Turbin repair kit

I know I shouldn't laugh at these kinds of things, but it was funny. Not to mention it was obviously written by someone with a high intelekt. Reminded me of the time I saw a Nazi symbol etched into a stall with the slogan "white supreacy rules." I'm pretty sure there's an M in there somewhere.