Day Two with Snake, Rooster and Pig

Day two started much the same as day one. Snake wanted to play as soon as I got in the door. I don't mind playing so much as long as it doesn't involve me moving. I said, "just let me finish my coffee" while wishing Timmy's sold it by the litre. I could only prolong the inevitable for about 15 minutes before I had to get on the floor and play Arthur Goes to the Library. The floor is a terrible place to sit. As much padding as I have on my ass it's not enough to make the floor comfortable. My legs fall asleep, my back aches because it's got no support and getting up requires Herculean effort. Snake, who's as flexible as an actual snake, of course, has no issues.

While playing, the miraculous happened. Rooster came over voluntarily and sat on my lap for a little bit. As I've mentioned before, Rooster is the cutest almost two year old in the world and likes me about as much as I like vegetables. This is the girl who, on more than one occasion, has nearly gotten me arrested by screaming at the top of her very powerful lungs when I've tried to give her a hug. Thankfully it's not just me. She seems to hate all men although she tolerates her father. After breakfast, when Auntie Ox was feeding Pig and Auntie Monkey was showering Uncle Dog took Rooster so she could get accustomed to him. The theory is that the more time she spends with Uncle Dog, the more she'll become comfortable with him. Rooster screamed for 30 minutes with one 2 minute break for air. If she stays like this in her teen years her father will have no worries about dating.

During the afternoon we went to the Science Centre. I hadn't been since I was a kid and it was much better than I remembered. It wasn't very crowded so Snake was able to try just about everything she wanted without waiting very long. They have an exhibit where you can test your grip strength and another where you can test the speed of your karate chop. I'm as weak as a kitten but have the speed of a cheetah. Another exhibit tests the force of your landing after a jump. Kids jump off a platform about 2 feet high and are supposed to try and land as lightly as they can. The display will tell you the force you landed as a multiple of your weight. The average was about 6 times their weight, Snake came in at nearly 12 times her weight and one big plodding oaf of a kid registered a whopping 21 times his weight. The only thing there was a line-up for was the bobsled simulator. All the children going on were accompanied by an adult so I had the intention of going on with Snake. While waiting in line Auntie Monkey was kind enough to say, "are you gunna fit in that?" Well, it was a distinct possibility that I would not, or if I did, I wouldn't be able to get out and I'd have to wear a bobsled simulator home. With a line-up of people behind me I didn't want to risk it so I let Auntie Monkey go instead.

We met back up with Uncle Dog, Auntie Ox, Rooster, who was taking her nap, and Pig, who spends most of his day sleeping or eating (how I envy him) but does take time out to charm you with his smile or make a grab for your eye. Uncle Dog and Auntie Ox also figured out how to use my camera and decided to take a picture of Pig every other second (every second would have been overdoing it).

The day ended much like yesterday with me going home and passing out.

Day One with Snake, Rooster and Pig

I've decided to give my pseudo-nieces and pseudo-nephew aliases based on their Chinese zodiac signs. I have absolutely no belief in Chinese zodiac (or any other astrological, psychic mumbo-jumbo for that matter) but I liked the sound of Snake, Rooster and Pig so that's what I settled on. Coincidentally though I'm a monkey and the description is spot on; "you are a fat cranky bastard who doesn't believe in psychic mumbo-jumbo".


Before I even had my shoes off Snake wanted to play foosball, Rooster eyed me warily and Pig was having a great time grinning and absorbing his surroundings. Not that his surroundings were any different than any other day but I guess at five months there isn't a lot else to do.

I tried to get out of foosball by saying "did Auntie Ox say it's okay?" Auntie Ox (not her real name) is also known as youngest sister and mother of Pig. Auntie Ox was no help this time; "sure, there's time for foosball before breakfast." We played foosball until breakfast was ready. I won, but just barely. After breakfast Uncle Dog and I took Snake out to the park to try and burn off some of her energy. Unfortunately it started raining so we headed back and played school. Snake was going to be the teacher and I would be the student. She asked who I wanted to be. I said "Eddie" she said "you're Gordon".

During "recess" we had to play indoors because it was raining outside. We played what is possibly the most multifarious game ever invented. Arthur Goes to the Library is basically the card game Concentration with lots of Arthur propaganda surrounding it.
There are:

• 16 business card sized pieces of cardboard that look like little Arthur books
• 16 cards that match the Arthur books above
• 16 cardboard cut-outs of Arthur characters
• One spinner that has the faces of the 16 Arthur characters above
• A display stand to hold the "books"

You spin the spinner and whichever character it lands on you guess which book they are standing on. If you guess right you get to take the book out of the library. The person with the most books wins. This is actually a great game. It was able to keep Snake entertained for longer than I've ever seen.

Now it was time for lunch; Auntie Ox, Auntie Monkey (middle sister) and Snake made sushi while Rooster covered her face and hair with yogurt. After clean-up time we went over to Uncle S and Aunt L's for swimming (I got tired of animal names and while Uncle S and Aunt L are great people we only spent a few hours with them). Unfortunately it started raining during swimming and while the kids were wet anyway we were a little concerned about the possibility of a lightning strike. We watched The Incredibles inside and S&L's son gave me quite a compliment; "you're just like Mr. Incredible . . . except not strong". Thanks kid, you're just like Brad Pitt except without the looks or talent.

After dinner we returned to Uncle Dog and Auntie Ox's place, got the kids ready for bed and then I went home and passed out exhausted.

Get in Line, Jerkwad!!!

This irritates me probably way more than it should but it seems that the majority of the population no longer knows how to form a line. The Tim Hortons in the building where I work has two entrances, two cashes, two painfully slow cashiers and about 8 other people milling about behind the counter refusing to make eye contact with customers for fear they'd have to take an order. For my Colombian readers Tim Hortons is a large coffee and doughnut chain in Canada. That's right, I'm huge in Colombia (well, 6 visitors so far).

I've painstakingly drawn an exact replica of the Tim Hortons restaurant for your viewing enjoyment.

Okay it looks pretty crappy but you get the gist of the layout.

Now this is how I think people should line up:
Yes, those little circles are supposed to be people who are all exactly the same size and have perfectly round heads.

This is how they actually line up:

Ridiculous. When you see a red guide rope why do you think it would be a better idea to stand right in the path of everybody who has already gotten their coffee and are now trying to get out. These people must have taken a course with my father who has the incredible ability to stand in the most awkward spot at the most awkward of times. I'm certain he'd stop a funeral procession to ask a pallbearer if he's ever seen "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death". Also, after a parade of people holding coffee have tried to squeeze past you saying "excuse me" maybe you'd clue in that you're in the way.

It's not just at this establishment either. The McDonalds across the street has to have one of the most inefficient setups I've ever seen. It's like they designed it to provoke animosity among the customers. When I was a child and went to McDonalds you chose a cashier and waited in that line. If there were six cashiers there were six lines and if you picked the slow one you'd bitch about it to whoever you were with or just stew silently. Now, people stand about 6 feet away from the counter and when one cashier becomes free they all stampede to that cash. Then the whole process starts over again. Also, when I was a child, you would place your order, and step to the side, so the person behind you in line could place their order. When it was time for them to step to the side your order would be complete, you'd move out of the way, they'd move to your spot and the person behind them would place their order. It was a beautiful system. Now, the cash registers are so close together that if you attempted to move to the side you'd step on the person at the next cash. Even if you were able to step to the side the orders aren't filled fast enough for you to get out of the way before the next person steps up. What we're left with is a crowd of people waiting for food mixed in with a crowd of people waiting to rush to a free cashier. Nobody that approaches has any idea who's waiting for what so the question "are you in line" is repeated like a mantra.

The way people line up maybe I am in line and don't know it.

Looking Forward to Babysitting

This weekend I will be helping babysit two of the most wonderful children that have ever set foot on this planet. No, I’m not going back in time and babysitting myself at two different ages. If I may be frank, I was an absolutely adorable child (diametrically opposed to my cantankerous self now) and it is very difficult to pick the ages that I was most delightful but if I had to choose I’d say; one and a half when my impish grin melted the hearts of all who passed by our balcony as my father lovingly swung me by my ankle over the side of it, and seven when I debuted my Walter Crankcase (Cronkite) impression to the amusement of my schoolteachers.

But enough of the reminiscing, let’s get back to my pseudo-nieces, as I like to call them. It’s a complicated story but I’m very close friends with three sisters and I like to refer to them as part of my family. They affectionately refer to me as “that guy” as in “what’s that guy doing here?” and “I thought we weren’t speaking to that guy anymore”. The eldest sister and her husband have two girls; aged six and almost two. The six year old is one of the most energetic children I’ve ever met. She plays all sports, often at the same time, plays drums and piano, has an uncanny talent for foosball and is probably working toward her commercial pilot license during her spare time. I know all children are energetic but I worked at a summer camp for five years and we would have a new crop of 60 – 70 kids come in every two weeks, so trust me, I’ve seen a lot of kids and this one has a lot of energy. Unless she has to do something she doesn’t want to. Then, of course, she moves at the pace of a turtle meandering through molasses. The almost two year old barely tolerates me. She is mommy’s girl and if mommy is not around she will grudgingly go to one of her aunts but if they’re busy and she has to go to one of her uncles (I’m generously including myself in that group) it’s time to put the earplugs in and let the wailing begin. She is super cute though and if she thinks you may give her food her opinion of you increases exponentially.

The parents (i.e., eldest sister and her husband) will be dropping the girls off at youngest sister and her husband’s house on Friday. I really should have just given them aliases. Using their real names is out of the question because middle sister is extremely paranoid and thinks that if her name ever appears on the internet hackers will steal her identity, move into her apartment, kicking her out on to the street in the process, and when she tries to get help from friends, family or the government they will all refuse and possibly send her to prison or a mental asylum because she has no identity. Come to think of it, the mental asylum at this point might not be such a bad idea; but, I’ll leave that topic for another day.

One final point, and I would be remiss not to mention this, youngest sister and her husband have an absolutely delightful, four month old, cute as a button boy. I look forward to seeing him but cannot refer to it as babysitting because his parents will be there. Also, his parents are reluctant (emphatically refuse) to let me babysit because four month olds aren’t supposed to play with starter pistols. And, I’m supposed to know this?

Please, No Bad Language

Google AdSense is a branch of Google that pays people to display ads on their website. Google will search your website and display ads on your site that are relevant to the content. The ads come from another Google branch called AdWords. This seems to be a win-win situation. Let's say I own a company that sells hockey equipment. I want to advertise to people who are interested in hockey and ideally, play hockey and therefore need equipment. Google searches sights that have signed up with AdSense and if they have hockey related content my ad gets placed on that sight.

This sounded like easy, if little, money to me. I'm not sure how much AdSense pays but I think it's something like a penny a click. At the torrid pace people visit this blog I would have enough to buy a small coffee at Tim Hortons in 2015.

Once I signed up the first ad they put on my blog was something about funds for the Gulf war. What an excellent match of content with advertisement. There's nothing about Gulf, Guelph, golf or war on the blog. It all turns out to be a moot point anyway because today I received an e-mail from AdSense saying they rejected my application due to "inappropriate language". That seemed a little jingoistic. I only know one language and they didn't even tell me what the appropriate language was. Later I realized they weren't being biased against English but the inappropriate language was swearing. How fucking stupid. This is the gathering place for foul language. The internet is where swear words go to hang out and smoke, probably. It's a shame though; I really could have used that extra four cents a month.

That's Art?

My brother will find something on the street, on the subway, under a couch, in a restaurant booth or any other random location you can think of, bring it home, clean it (sometimes) and create “art” out of it.

Some of the pieces he currently has, as named by me, are:

Ridiculous Rubber Man in Glass
Absurd Mouse in a Pipe
Red & Black Geez-us
Ludicrous GI Bear

I wouldn’t describe him as a pack rat necessarily. He doesn’t keep the stuff because he thinks it may have some use in the future or for sentimental reasons. He keeps it for its dubious aesthetic value. By the way, have you ever helped a pack rat move? If so than I’m sure you’ll agree with me that these people should be repeatedly beaten using some of the worthless items they’ve made you carry. If you want to clutter your apartment with absolutely useless crap, that’s your choice but don’t make me move empty paint cans and broken cinder blocks to your new apartment. And while I’m on the subject of pack rats and moving why don’t pack rats pack. I’ve been to places where it looked like the move was a surprise to the residents. Do you really think it’s necessary to start that 5000 piece World’s Hardest and Largest Jigsaw Puzzle right now? How about putting your stuff in boxes and marking it fragile instead of throwing your priceless collection of Bay City Roller glasses circa. 1974 available exclusively from K-Mart in a garbage bag and telling me to “be careful, they’re irreplaceable.”

Back to my brother’s art. The problem is he’s right. Thanks to Marcel Duchamp they are pieces of art.

In 1917 Duchamp, a French artist, entered a urinal into an art exhibit and titled it Fountain. He signed the urinal R. Mutt. In 2004 Fountain was named the most influential modern artwork of all time. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4059997.stm

I’m not disputing that it is the most influential modern artwork of all time. It may very well be. It certainly caused a stir in 1917 and reputedly broke barriers between high art and low art. Its purpose, at least partially, was to liberate the art world of its pretension. Good job Duchamp. Here’s an extremely pretentious quote explaining the meaning of Fountain:

However, "a urinal elevated to the level of a work of art cannot, under any circumstances, be considered as something 'neutral'" Ramirez also offers a highly sexual interpretation of the piece. Because it embodies characteristics of both sexes, he argues that the urinal is neither masculine nor feminine, but "bisexual". Despite its obvious male connections, it also has feminine aspects; it acts as "a receptacle for liquid effusions of different kinds: showers, natural waterfalls, perfumes, etc". Others also support this gendered bisexual interpretation. Greben notes the bisexual nature of Fountain when she writes that: Duchamp "wittily positioned the phallic receptacle on its side to suggest female genitalia”. http://arthist.binghamton.edu/duchamp/fountain.html

Hmm, I wonder if he actually placed it on its side because the bottom is rounded and it’s very difficult to balance that way. Come to think of it the urinal is actually placed on its back. Clearly this says something about the male position of control during intercourse while the powerless woman lies on her back. There’s probably something about golden showers in there too but I’m no art critic.

Duchamp’s goal of breaking down barriers between high and low art was achieved and now everything is considered art. The winner of the 2001 Turner Prize (a prestigious art award) was Martin Creed. Here is a description of his prize winning entry:

For the Turner Prize exhibition, Creed has decided to show Work # 227: The lights going on and off. Nothing is added to the space and nothing is taken away, but at intervals of five seconds the gallery is filled with light and then subsequently thrown into darkness.

This happens in my apartment everyday.

The prize money at the time was £20,000 (over $40,000 CAD). In 1997 a replica Fountain (the original having been long lost) sold for $1,762,500. If everything is art how come when I flick the lights on and off at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) I’m escorted out?

If any one is interested in purchasing some of my brother’s art the bidding starts at $25,000.
For more information on artsy urinals please see www.urinal.net.

I Might Believe in God

I’m an atheist. I have been for quite some time now. It’s not a bad way of life although I do miss singing and dancing in the Baptist choirs of my youth. I think in anybody’s life there will be an event or events so life altering that they cause you to reevaluate your beliefs.

For me, one of those events happened today. I’d heard there was a company in Biel, Switzerland that manufactures an incredible product for stripping wood and was trying to find the name of it (good cover story) when I happened across an article entitled “Jessica Biel’s strip contract”. The gist of the article is that Jessica Biel will play a stripper in her new movie Powder Blue and has agreed to bare her breasts and buttocks (apparently People magazine is big on alliteration). This was the sign I’d been waiting for. Tears of joy ran down my leg. But wait, was this a test? The god I’ve read about is quite fond of jerking people around. Better check the commandments and see if watching a naked woman on a big screen while drinking margaritas and shouting “shake what your mamma gave ya” is a sin.

1. The Detroit Red Wings are the greatest hockey team. Thou shalt worship no other team.
2. Thou shalt not take Steve Yzerman’s name in vain.
3. Thou shalt eat the red smarties last.
4. Sean Connery is the one true Bond though Daniel Craig makes a good false idol.
5. On escalators thou shalt walk on the left and stand on the right.
6. Thou shalt put the left foot in, thou shalt pull the left foot out, thou shalt not shake it all about. 7. Monkey see, monkey do.
8. The salad fork shalt be placed beside the napkin on the left.
9. Thou shalt not kill unless it’s rush hour and the car ahead of you is making a left without signaling leaving you to try and cut into the right lane while 70 cars buzz by.
10. Don’t make me break my foot off in yo ass.

I was clear with the commandments but couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be a catch. I searched for Powder Blue on IMDB. Dammit, that sneaky bastard. Patrick Swayze is in the cast. That’s like giving somebody a Mars bar wrapped in liver and spinach.

I’m going to hold off on my conversion until the movie comes out and we can see how well the scenes are lit.