where i´m
» Tuesday, December 20, 2005

i´m in costa rica. it´s waaaarm. The birds scream at us wherever we go. And at breakfast I learned some useful Spanish: agua caliente. It was in a carafe right next to the jugo and the leche.

I have no time to tell you more. I hope you few and faithful holiday readers are having a good time.

Labels: travel

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noo feechers
» Wednesday, December 14, 2005

A brief update on my site: If you turn your attention to the sidebar on the right - no, not my right, your right - you'll see that I've added the following: a link to my email address, a link to my Atom feed, and best of all, a comprehensive autobiography for the curious. As a bonus, I've included three manifestations of earthly Grace for your entertainment.

I trust you all not to abuse my new features. They're still a little damp.

Labels: metablog

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a reason to live from the conservative party
» 

If you're bored of life and convinced that the world has nothing entertaining to throw at you, I urge you to visit the website of the Conservative Party of Canada and watch their television ads, available in the tiny streaming media window on the sidebar to the right. Non-Canadians will be forgiven for thinking that the Conservative Party of Canada is five used-car dealers with a grudge and five hundred bucks to spend on TV spots. Nope, they're one of the four major political parties of this country. Witness the robotic head of candidate Stephen Harper as he promises to punish criminals, punish reform corrupt federal government, punish court the western and eastern rims of our country, and punish reward taxpayers by cutting our taxes, and punish punish families by gutting federal daycare. How does he intend to carry out his complex plan for drowning Canada and resurrecting it as the United States?

If the TV spots are any indication, he'll set up a gigantic pretend country in a soundstage somewhere - maybe in that new one being built at the Toronto Harbourfront - and rule that pretend country with a faux-populist fist. The ads show that Harper is most comfortable in the world of absolute make-belive, talking to a pretend journalist in a pretend newsroom with pretend cups of coffee (my favourite pretend detail) while pretend citizens ask him pretend hard-hitting questions. His answers and his opinions seem to refer to a country that he's made up somewhere, a lawless world where drug dealers roam the streets and people will be grateful not to bother with well-managed subsidised daycare. Or decent health care.

In the ad titled "Trades," the young journalist mentions that politicians "seem to talk a lot about university. Why the focus?" A better question is, What kind of a weird pretend question is that? It turns out to be the kind of question that allows Harper, a politician, to smear politicians as a category. Politicians talk about university because "almost all of them went to university" (Harper himself carries a master's degree in economics). "But we need to remember," he continues, "that most people don't". Then he offers a couple of generalities about making things easier for people in the trades.

Really? Most people in this country don't go to university? I'm prepared to accept that, but a few facts wouldn't hurt. Statistics Canada shows that, in 2001, 22.6% of the population attended university, which is about on par with the percentage of people who graduated high school (23.9%), nearly the same as those who didn't graduate (22.7%), and somewhat more than college grads (17.9%). The big losers in the education race turn out to be the trades, coming in last at only 12.9% of the population.

When you look at the percentage change between 1991-2001, the situation becomes clearer. University graduation increased a freakishly huge 50.5% in ten years. Fifty percent. College attendance went up 45.5%. Trades increased by 9.2%, high school by 8.4%. Once again it seems that learning a trade simply isn't the goal of most Canadians.

What does this mean? If you believe Stephen Harper - if that really is him, and not a clever mannequin head swivelling on some gimbals - it means that the ranks of politicians are swelling out of control. Or, if you believe me, it means that the politician's "focus" on universities has to do with the fifty percent turn on the university focus wheel. But we're not really talking about Canada here; we're wandering through Stephen Harper's funhouse, where the politicians kick back in the faculty lounge and ignore the hordes of plumbers and drywallers and electricians out in the street. Either that, or he's exploiting a non-existent class conflict for political gain by making it all up.

Also worth mentioning is the ad on childcare, which is called "Childcare". In case you miss the theme, a video screen looms over the background with the world "chilcare" splashed across it. Harper's big plan? One hundred dollars per month per preschooler, and it's your choice as to whether you want to use that money for a daycare, a baby-sitter, or for a parent to stay at home. "They're your children," says Harper, conceding to his own logic, "Shouldn't you decide how to raise them?"

Let's do a bit of very elementary math here. One hundred dollars a month. Unsubsidised pre-school daycare in this country can cost four to five hundred dollars a month. A baby-sitter who'll show up every day of the week will cost - hmmm. A lot more than a hundred bucks, unless you want to take advantage of the naive illegal immigrant labour pool. A stay-at-home parent costs an entire income. But hey, at least big government isn't butting in on your childrearing decisions and beating you down with that horrible heavy stick of affordable daycare. Maybe Harper will afford us all slingshots so we have the choice of hunting squirrels in the park for food. After all, they're our stomachs. Shouldn't we decide how to feed them?

It's possible that the amateurish attempt at realism in the ads will move people to pity. Like a dog that waddles back a few paces from the table and affects not to beg, maybe Harper hopes that the diners will throw a few scraps his way. Look at me, the ads plead, I'm so out of my depth here, it's embarrassing. But I refuse to beg. But is that kind of subtlety really possible within the parameters of Stephen Harper's software? If so I have to congratulate his programmers, who doubtless cultivated such cunning irony at a degree-granting institution.

Labels: politics, scorn

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double discovery ice cream evenings
» Friday, December 09, 2005

Heh. Double Discovery ice cream. I think I just hit on my way to my first million. Or a shallow grave in the desert. Can't figure out which yet.

On to the stuff I intended to talk about.

I made two discoveries tonight (three, if you count the ice cream thing). I discovered that there are two ways to do a crossword puzzle at a bar. The first way is to find a table in a corner and work on a crossword at your own pace with a beer or two. The second way is to gang up on Nick and shout answers at him. This tactic reduces conversation to the following:

"Eight letters, starts with M, showy flower. Marigold! It's marigold! What else is it going to be? What's 49 down? Okay, what's 34 across? That'll prove it. What the hell is this? Stop writing over the numbers, we can't see! What did you write down there? It's reggae! What else would it be? Jamaican music, six letters. What did you put down? Well it isn't Raggadeth, that's for sure! What's 22 down?" And so on.

My second discovery - or quiet realization, if you like - was that, at age fifteen, I could not imagine being twenty years old. Now I'm twenty years older than fifteen, and I'm still laughing at all the stupid terms for puking that we came up with back then. In fact I think they may be funnier now. Talking to Ralph on the big white telephone? Funny. Or Ralph and his Amazing Technicolour Yawn? It was red and yellow and blue and green and violet and black and purple and pink...

Okay, enough about the discoveries. I'm really into this Double Discovery Ice Cream thing. What would you discover in it? Are there already flavours that qualify for the Double Discovery brand? There's butterscotch ripple, but since the discovery of the butterscotch and ripple usually coincides, I would consider it disqualified. And there's Tiger Tiger, but it seems like a real cheat to discover two of the same thing. And once you discover the first tiger you're not really concerned with finding the second. One's enough. Coicidentally, that was part of the original marketing campaign for Tiger Tiger ice cream - Treat Yourself to a Second Tiger, Even Though One Is Generally Enough, Especially When They Pin You With Their Powerful Forelimbs and Maul Your Face and Take Your Wallet. They dropped that slogan pretty quickly. I mean, it didn't even make sense.

Labels: autobio

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the old man and the cat
» 

For those of you who like to drop by and read the conversations I record between me and Schmutzie (or steal them, as the case may be), you should know that this conversation never happened. It is not possible for this conversation to happen, because these words should never issue from anyone's mouth in the sequence set down here, nor should they be recorded and played over a small portable speaker system, nor pressed to vinyl and played to crowds, nor committed to cassette tape and snuck into even light to medium rotation on the local Lite FM. If and when mp3 files become invented (please forgive me - I am pretending for the purposes of this entry that mp3s and other popular digital audio compression formats do not yet exist) it will not be permissible to convert a recording to said format and download it to your iPod - whatever that is. Those with minds so depraved as to even imagine this conversation deserve to be thrown into a deep pit and screamed at by men with sharp sticks and fearsome moustaches. This last is particularly important to impress on you, because once you read this conversation it will be lodged in your mind, and you will deserve the pit and the screams and the moustaches and the whole package of bad incarceration experiences, which I will not go into here. If, like me, you do not believe in heaven or hell but in a system of karma in which everything that you deserve will eventually be granted, there will be a day for us all involving a deep pit and the enraged screams of the men with moustaches. And lastly, those who steal this conversation WILL HAVE THEIR SHITTY OPEN DIARY WEBLOGS TAKEN DOWN, LIZZY.

Anyway. This conversation, which never happened, took place between an old man and a cat in a dark hallway. Schmutzie was out with a friend or getting coffee cream or something, whatever it is that Schmutzies do when I'm not around. The Old Man is actually thirty-four, but this exchange makes more sense if you picture a very senile old guy trying to talk to a cat.

Old Man: Did you know, cat, the truth is that there are moments that I mistake you for a boot in the hallway.

Cat: (meow)

Old Man: No, not any boot. You are not of a size that I should take you for a parade boot. You are too large. Nor would I say that you are of sufficient size that I would spy a garrison boot leaning against the wall and offer it a cat treat.

Cat: (meow)

Old Man: In fact it is likely that I would mistake you for a boot of intermediate size, such as a twelve-eyelet Doc Marten.

Cat: (purr)

Old Man: Oh, definitely a matte leather, since the glint of patent leather caps on the toe would reveal instantly which was the boot, which cat.

Cat: (meow)

Old Man: You have nailed the very problem. We have no twelve-eyelet Doc Marten boot of any colour, nor any boot to match the size of your body. So what is that I am seeing that I mistake for you?

Cat: (huff)

Old Man: Possible, but not likely. It's most likely that I am hallucinating a boot in the darkened hallway, and that it is actually you that I am seeing. Therefore I ask that you take care in an emergency to avoid the hallway, lest I try to put you on my foot in my panic, using your limbs and tail as laces and your belly as my sole. Your head would be fine fancy toecaps.

Cat: (meow)

Old Man: I would hobble outside and all the neighbours would want to know why my boot was so ungainly, why my fine fancy toecaps were biting my toes and my laces were clawing at my ankles.

Cat: ---

Old Man: Don't you walk away from me! They would have a right to know!

(Door opens)

Schmutzie: It's cold out there. What have you been doing?

Old Man: Talking with the cat.

Schmutzie: Uh-huh. I bet.

Labels: cats, useless

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vacation
» Thursday, December 08, 2005

Yesterday marked the start of my vacation. Yesterday opened up the invisible calendar and placed an unseeable (cf. invisible) mark on the a.m. of the 7th, saying, "Don't go to work. Stay in your rooms. Draw the blinds, cover the clocks, order your supper from the Vietnamese place downtown. Refuse the phone (I made the mistake of answering the phone once yesterday. It was a collection agent looking for a small but ancient debt to the university) and peel from your mind, one by one, the corn-leaves that have grown around your brain over the last year".

It's true: yesterday told me that I had corn-leaves around my mind.

Anyway. I took yesterday's advice and sought to do as little as possible. I spent the early part of the morning doing nothing, then turned to being lazy, which effort I was able to convert into a few hours of profitable idleness. At one o' clock or so I hit on the perfect inactivity: rereading a favourite book. I poked around the bookshelf until I found my copy of Flann O' Brien's The Third Policeman and spent the rest of the afternoon reading it long gulps, pausing only to go the bathroom or make another pot of coffee. Rereading a book is the ultimate do-nothing experience. Your brain shuttles back and forth between the book and your memory of the book, comparing versions as you read, congratulating itself on being more perceptive and superior to the younger self that last read the book. It's a lot of reward for very little effort.

We (that's myself and Schmutzie) are going to Costa Rica on the seventeenth, so until then I can look forward to another week and a half of these kinds of days, broken only by the occasional lunch-related task.

Good. Times.

Labels: autobio

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it's a gershwin morning
» Monday, December 05, 2005

I used to think that the cat stepped on my throat every morning to get another helping of food and water. Now I see that food and water are incidental. The main purpose of having my throat stepped on in the morning by precise little paws is to bear witness as the cat rips books off shelves, knocks over plants and yowls like it's caught in a fan belt. Look at me! The tumor's really pressing on my adrenal gland this morning! You took my testicles but you can't take away my tumor!

In the rumble-and-thump tattoo of cats, I think he's singing to us: The way I chew the plants/ The way I yowl at three/ The way I sniff your pants/ Oh no you can't take that away from me (THUMP! CRASH! YOWL!) Oh yeah, the way my poop just stinks/ The way I dig with glee/ And when I spill your drinks/ You can't take that away from me/ Yes, you took my balls but not these things from me etc.

Thanks folks, you been great. Great crowd this morning, hey? My name's Oskar, I'll be up on the windowsill for the rest of the day. Try the spider plant.

Labels: cats

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I combat global warming in three steps. So can you.
» Thursday, December 01, 2005

There's no doubt any more: the world is getting warmer. Except for the parts that are getting colder. And the parts that aren't warming or cooling so much as getting wetter. And then some bits are getting dryer. But there's one thing we can all agree on: the world is getting warmer. As temperatures tick up and the oceans rise, we will soon have to get used to growing pineapples in Alaska and sharing our neighbourhoods with fish.

Clearly this is an unacceptable state of affairs: carpooling with fish, tending the pineapples, and witnessing the nightly news spectacle of Tuvaluans wading to work. In the absence of a concerted efforts by governments to halt this situation, it's up to individuals to take action. But what to do?

You do what I do.

1) Icecubes. As the world warms up, icecubes cool it back down. If everyone carried icecubes in their pockets, the combined coolingness effect would bring temperatures back to optimal levels. Do not carry too many icecubes or place them in the brim of your hat, or you may plunge the world into another Ice Age. What are you thinking? Damn.

2) Petition the lord with prayer. For those of you tired of practical solutions, you can ask the Numinous to lend a hand.* Best results come from praying out loud at work in the lobby. Inviting people to come over for a bowl of popcorn, a joint and a Left Behind marathon is so effective that you may freeze solid, you'll be just that cool.

3) Stools. Not the stools that you sample - I'm talking about the kind you stand on. Although you can stand on any sort of stools. Anyway. If the icecubes and the prayer don't cut it, and the waters begin to rise and the salmon escape their fish farms and come looking for vengeance (and they will), you're going to need that edge to make it in tomorrow's exciting extra-aquatic business environment brave new world. Get proactive and stand on a stool. It'll give you that extra bit of height you need to keep from drowning.

Okay, going to bed now.

*If you follow the Gospel of Thomas, you can ask for a hand in place of a hand.

Labels: useless

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what i can't see
» 

Last night I stopped on my way home for a big hot helping of Crazy Man Invective To Go. It was dark along the stretch of street where I was walking, so I couldn't quite locate the source of an angry monotone mumbling, until I spotted the guy across the street in a bus shelter. He was dressed almost entirely in greys and browns and stood at a slight tilt forward, with the effect of looking like a piece of public sculpture, the kind that communicates whimsy and civic pride at once. He was staring at me and mumbling loudly enough to project his voice down the block, but not quite loudly or coherently enough for me to pick out individual words. I stared back at him, just in case he was someone I knew, but this seemed to break his tenuous hold on sanity. His voice whistled up through the registers of frantic despair when he realized I was returning his look as I passed. He screamed, "Can't you see that you're a FUCKING IDIOT?" and then went back to his mumbling. I think he'd dismissed me with those words, like he'd summed up an entire argument and I had no rebuttal worth hearing.

Since I work near the Mental Health Centre and I pass by the place nearly every day, chances are better than good that I'll run into this guy again. It's likely that he'll be lucid next time I run into him and may remember me as the FUCKING IDIOT guy who just couldn't see himself for what he was. He'll give me a shy smile and maybe, eventually, by way of apology, ask me if I have some change. Then in a few weeks I'll get another barrage of incoherent screams in the dark. Maybe I'll find out soemthing new about myself. Perhaps I'm some GODDAMN ASSHOLE, and WHAT DO I GOTTA DO THOSE THINGS FOR and DON'T I UNDERSTAND WHO I'M HURTING?. I'm looking forward to the next stage in our relationship.

Labels: autobio

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