married to the sea

You know kids, as many times as I've gone to Toothpaste for Dinner to get a daily dose of the giggles, I have for some reason never clicked on the link to his other comic, Married to the Sea.

It's awesome. Not only because I love those old fashionedy woodcut illustrations. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you should check it out.

an ague hath MY ham

Holy Moly. Those of you in other climes don't know how lucky you are. It's been in the negative degrees here for what feels like forever. The roads are skating rinks. I did a 360 in Bustopher Jones twice today. (Which is pretty fun by the way. I feel like a stunt driver. I'm not entirely sure the second time wasn't on purpose.)

Every time I come home I think I have frostbite on both my feet and the only cure is to sit with my toes in a bucket of hot water, lean on my St. Bernard and take small sips of brandy.

In honor of this winter of my discontent, I would like to publish the parody poem "Ancient Music" by Ezra Pound.

Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am,
Goddamm, So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.


Ezra, dude......I know how you feel.

happy birthday kathleen!

She is the best of friends, the finest of cooks, the most creative of artists, a genius with a welding torch, the most wily of roller derby babes and the scariest of the nuclear cheetah mutants.




If you mess with me, she will EAT you, bitches!

hello, freud

Moving on.....because a girl can only be called Hitler so many times before her head won't fit through the door!
I have been having some strange dreams as of late. I'm not sure if they are always so weird or if I have just been having too much rich cheesecake right before bed. Anyway, I thought I'd share a few and try and interpret the boggy marsh that is my mind.

1. The Albatross

One of the saddest things I saw this summer was an albatross in the Galapagos islands. It had broken its own egg while trying to move it. I think they only lay one egg a year or something. Anyway, it was a tragedy. For some reason this albatross keeps appearing in random situations in my dreams. With funny blue feet, waddling on by....

Secret Inner Meaning: I should have an omelet tomorrow.

2. Airplanes

I was visiting two guy friends who had just both gotten their pilots' licence. So we went up in the air in their fabulous WW2 style biplanes with propellors. I was riding in the back with the goggles and scarf, but for some reason one of my friend's girlfriend was out on the wing of the plane playing drums. Like, with an entire drum kit. It was amazing until we were shot down by the Red Baron and came tumbling out of the sky, planes, drums and all.

Secret Inner Meaning: The White Stripes should hire me to direct their next video.

3. Winged Liposuction Needles

It's like a scene out of Fantasia. Dawn breaks in the forest and I come dancing and leaping over a hill. Pursued by thousands of, well, syringes with wings that want to partake of the nectar of my muffintop. There is classical music, choreography and twirling as they feed like hummingbirds, leaving me as gaunt as a 14 year old russian gymnast.

Secret Inner Meaning: Maybe less cheesecake?

Other ways in which I am much like Hitler:

1. Both art students

2. Delusions of grandeur

3. Plotting genocide against an innocent and gentle people. Hitler, the Jews. Me.....Sea Monkies.

4. Neither of us can be trusted to not eat the last piece of cake.

5. Small yet distinguished mustache.

more fun rants

First of all, I know I am going to hell for making fun of this guy. I am comfortable with that.

You may remember Chris from a very early blog entry wherein he called me Hitler. No wait....WORSE than Hitler. Yet with Chris the fact that you are not writing to him is no deterrent to him writing you...so here are a few gems from random crazymail I have recieved lately.

Hi Rhianna,I have a strong urge to take pictures of Kensington as well, winterbackdrop, perhaps walk around Kensington.Yes, a smooth idea. You can take me to all the places you wanted to go andor did check out when you worked at the Roast' deuce. I would like to see Kensington through your eyes.

First of all. There is a sense in how this email is written that I suggested we get together at some point. Which is, sadly, untrue. Kaylen suggested that he is trying to subliminally trick me into thinking getting together was my idea. Or else he is confused about the use of the words "as well". I'm also not sure why he would want to see Kensington from a viewpoint about 1.5' lower to the ground.

I want to talk to you. Not sure what to say. But it will be interesting to see your mischievous smile that follows a particularly clever and wit-filled remark.

I feel like this is really presuming a lot about my side of the conversation. Or possibly, his.

The innocent smugness and the portals that are youreyes giving me a glimpse into the truth untold of what you are truly thinking. Also, you're tiny and cute which makes you adorable.

Represented mathematically, that would be tiny + cute = adorable. An equation only slightly less revolutionary than e=mc squared. Also....."innocent smugness?" Am I being accused of innocent smugness? Is that an oxymoron? Is "untold truth of what you are truly thinking" an oxymoron? Also......portals? My eyes have often been described as limpid pools, but not portals. They are not doorways on Star Trek.

As well, you havedone some interesting things with your time on this planet and sharedintimate thoughts with me before that it will be interesting to see howlife unfolded for the other member of this "conference --to be determinedin a not too distance future." Mine is a tale of mixed success' andfailures and am on the presipus of a total new road pulling me into anofframp lane, with destination unknown, but it's going somewhere andpretty damn fast. Long-time a' coming.(insert synonym for either "also," or "as well,") things have stayed the same.

At the risk of sounding like Bill Clinton, I did not share intimate thoughts with this man.
I'm not sure the whole driving metaphor works that well, as it's been overdone. "Life is a Highway" and so on. Being that a precipice is a cliff edge, I'm not convinced that there could ever be a precipice of a total new road pulling you into an offramp lane. Unless the roadrunner had set up an elaborate trap for you by moving street signs around.

Kaylen: "My next cat will be named "Presipus"

Yes....the Presipuss of Despurr.

Top 5 Most Embarassing Cars To Be Killed By

1. A Yaris
2. Smart Car
3. Mini Cooper
4. Volkswagon Rabbit/Beetle
5. Dune buggy

and i'll throw in a goat

Today Kathleen and I went down to Artmarket at Telus Convention Centre to see what there was to see and size up the competition... (The competition sucks, is our general consensus). However since I've never been to a christmas sale before that I paid to get into, I was determined to find an impulse buy. Kathleen outpaced me early on in spending, and I was finding very little in the way of objects I had a burning desire to own and fondle.

Sometimes I am a sucker for very nice pottery, for reasons I cannot explain. We came across some stylish noodle bowls with pretty glazes, funkified asymettrical design and those awesome divot/hole combinations where you can rest your chopsticks. I was musing out loud how it didn't really make sense to start buying nice dinnerware until I have my own aparment. Kathleen said I should just buy them anyway. Says I...."maybe I could just store them away somewhere. I could get a hope chest! You know....a dowry."

So the point of this is that I now have a dowry. I'm starting small but it will grow. Right now marrying me means that you get a really nice noodle bowl. However, after I make a quilt and needlepoint some pillows...I am one eligible bachelorette. I am accepting marriage proposals in writing, starting 9 am monday morning.

Did I mention the bowls even came with chopsticks?

that's it baby, shine for the camera

Phew!

Not only did I have 8 hours of day labour, but tonight was the night I got to do all the photos for the New and Improved Rivet Kitchen Catalouge. Kathleen was at diving lessons, so I got the short end of the stick and Samsonite case of metal bits.

2 hours later I was covered in bags and various pieces of mat board. Trying to take a picture, hold a piece of white paper over the camera to cause nice reflections, cover the design on my t-shit so it didn't reflect pink, wearing gloves to not leave fingerprints on the metal object, and steadying my elbow with my knee because tripods are for ladies. I accidentally shot this picture of myself in one of the many mirrors around the photo booth. I think it speaks volumes about the intensity and subtle awkwardness of the situation.

crumpled garbage bags are an important photographer's tool

All so I could bring you, and the world, incredible jewellery pornography like this:

Oh yeah. You're a naughty naughty gold pin aren't you. I bet you'd like me to wear you all day... and all night!

I think I speak for all of us when I say, "bling".

warning: nerd post

STARK TREK!

Much like the original Next Generation series, however....

1. Much less emphasis on set design.

2. The holodeck is always offline. When it occasionally works, will only recreate LeCorbusier houses.

3. Riker no longer plays the trombone, but the triangle.

4. Deanna Troi starts wearing turtlenecks.

5. Only every 1 in 100 planets has evolved life. Mostly amoebas.

6. Q only has the power to reheat lukewarm coffee and instantly moisturize skin.

7. Guinan wears bowler hats and serves only gin and tonic.

8. Data is the size of a city block and has less computing power than a handheld calculator.

9. Riker: "Captain....is that a zen garden on your desk?"

Picard:"Why yes....is it too much?"

zombies are amok in the newspaper business

Some of you may have seen this Opus comic in the paper on Sunday. (click here if you want to see it larger)


I don't know how many of you know the history of Opus and Berkeley Breathed in general. (He has the best name ever, by the way. ) He started out writing Bloom County in the 80's, and Bloom County was one of the best comics, to me anyway. It was like Doonesbury but much funnier. Not a lot of people seem to know it even though it was nationally syndicated. Anyway, something happened, he got dropped from the paper here for going to far with a joke. I can't remember, it may have been something about Donald Trump. Anyway, he eventually stopped writing Bloom County and started writing Outland. This change scared me, since like all people I fear change, but Outland was actually quite decent as well. (Note: my facts may not be all totally factual, but will do for this post)

Then....for a long, long time, nothing. All of a sudden sometime recently papers started carrying Opus. This announcement was greeted with great joy by myself, until I realized that it wasn't funny anymore. Hardly ever.

Which brings me to this cartoon above. If anyone else is a fan of Bloom County you might recognize the exact same joke from when Opus campaigned for the Meadowcrat party in '88. The dialouge was something more like, "it's the Petersen kid dressed as an iguana!" but it's the same joke.

These facts lead me to two theories.
1. Berkeley Breathed died and his reanimated corpse is being held in suspension by an evil cartoon syndicate and forced to write this new Opus. Of course, since he is dead, his creativity is running at an all time low.
2. Berkeley Breathed died and there is a sophisticated computer producing the new Opus cartoons. They fed all the old Bloom Counties into it and tried to work it like some kind of Burroughs cut up machine. However on this comic the randomizer didn't work and it completely reproduced the same joke.

One of these is true. I mean, have any of you actually seen Berkeley in person lately?

a little retro tooth comedy

Tonight I was doing a little housekeeping on my email inbox (sweeping under the fridge, removing cobwebs) and I came across this little gem that a lot of you may remember. From three or four years ago when I got my wisdom teeth out and decided to write an email to everyone I know while high on Valium. It's the kind of comedy that never goes out of style.

hi everyone,

O had my teeth out today. I'm writng to let you all know I'm
okay and I've never written an email before on heavy drugs so
it's fun. It's hard to concentrate and I'm dizzy. They tried to
do local, but I sais no way mr. densits man, and so they put me
on valium or something. lots of it. Apparerently I was
concsious for it but I don't remember much except for some
little bits.
Oh they also decided to take all 4 teet instead of 2, let me know
last minute, wjaever!
So I rememeber sort of watching sailor moon, and then it all
got fuzzy, and I remember then doign stuff near mu mouth, I
don't know what exactly. And they said okay, we're taking your
teeth out right now and then he touched them with a magic wand
and poof they just fell out. Or that's how I rememmber it. And
then afterwards they gave me the teeth to play with and I kept
dropping them.
Then I don't remember anything else until I woke up at six,
even though we had a ride home, and an informative after tooth
care video,a nd apparently I pulled out all my gauze.
Mom says they had to carry me around and I laughed my head off.
SO at six I had some ice cream soup, and some pills, and then
slept again till midnhight. Now's I've just take another t3 and
so maybe that's why this email is fuckt. I'm going to try and
sleep again. There has been very little pain through all the
drugs. mmm drugs. my mouth feels lighter. I've been making my
teeth have litle battles with themselves.
That
s all for now
Rhianna

the abject horror of pants

Well, it's that time again. The time that comes every 8-12 months in a girls' life. You may be speculating here on the event I am referring to, (cutting your toenails? cleaning the bathroom sink?) but it turns out that I have just worn holes in the crotch of another pair of jeans.

The scientific reason this happens is that many women, women very different than say, the always delightfully skeletal Keira Knightly, have a whole different body part at the top of the thigh. The french refer to this area as the Bulgè. While walking this area creates a frictional process that eventually wears through the toughest of denims. If I were a cricket, I assume it would also attract me a mate.

I find the buying of new pants to be a very unenjoyable process. I tend to change size a great deal throughout the day. My mass in the morning after 8 hours of sweaty, restless dreams about Wentworth Miller is much different than when I return from a whole day of rampaging through villages eating the townspeople. Or sometimes downtown Tokyo. Either way, there is a noticable variation. In fact if you place me against a dark background you will see my outline blur as I rapidly flick between various dress sizes.

This is hard because pants, unlike shirts, are supported on the human body not by sturdy shoulders but through the assumption that one has a narrow part of a torso that blends gradually towards the larger hip area. If you have a body that does that, bully for you. However if your pants fit on you roughly the way an egg cup gently cradles an oviod, then you are bound to have problems.
I suppose possible solutions are buying stretchy waistband pants, or wearing suspenders, but I think the actuality of this is fairly terrifying to contemplate. Therefore this is going to leave me in the mall at some point soon, surrounded by jeans, contemplating some sort of teflon thigh insert technology.

do canadians dream of sexy mounties?

That question only has one correct answer, and that answer is yes.

So, most of the time I'm a fairly good hippie who hates tv. The sins of tv are legion...the one that comes to mind is the fact that they are playing reruns of Survivor. As if having Survivor exist wasn't bad enough, someone had the bright idea that, "hey! I bet all those morons who watched this show are actually NOSTALGIC for the first series, seeing as we've been running it for 5000 years!"

However, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So to balance out Survivor reruns, there are also now reruns of the most under-rated show in tv history....

DUE SOUTH.
" ...about the adventures of a principled Mountie (Fraser), his deaf, donut-snatching wolf, and a couple of sarcastic police detectives in the windy city of Chicago. "

Seriously people. This show is a shining jewel. I have learned so much from it. Mostly that you can solve any problem with the right parable about Caribou. So much for Canadian stereotypes!

In case you were wondering, I can tell you right now which episode is the best episode. It is called "All The Queen's Horses", has Leslie Nielsen, and the plot synopsis goes:

Fraser is re-united with Sergeant Buck Frobisher as Fraser and his boss, Meg Thatcher, accompany the R.C.M.P.'s Musical Ride on its North American tour. A film crew accompanies the tour, ostensibly to make a documentary of the thirty-two red-coated riders and their thirty-two black stallions. Unfortunately, the film crew is not a film crew, but a terrorist cell who take control of the train and gas the Mounties into unconsciousness, planning to ransom them for millions in Canadian cash. The only ones left awake and able to fend off the villains are Fraser, Thatcher and Frobisher, whose ingestion of "Moose hock rolled in wild boar tongue and covered in gorgonzola cheese" has left him with his own gaseous problems.
As Thatcher and Fraser struggle to save their fellow Mounties, their suppressed desires for each other mount, resulting in a frantic kiss on the roof of the runaway train as it heads for....well, a tunnel.
The situation becomes even more dire when Fraser and Thatcher are captured by the terrorists and Frobisher is left to save the day alone. Well, almost alone. Fraser's ghostly father, Fraser Sr., takes this opportunity to re-acquaint himself with his old friend Buck Frobisher. As Fraser is forced to read the terrorists' demands for ransom money, Frobisher and Fraser Sr. set out to stop the train.
Soon notified of the ransom demand, Ray and the FBI attempt to stage a rescue from the outside while Frobisher and Fraser Sr. try to learn the fine points of train engineering only to find out that the train has already been tampered with. The terrorists have no intention of stopping the train. They're planning to kill everyone on board.
Finally, some quick footwork from Thatcher buys Fraser and her their freedom and, joining forces with Frobisher, they succeed in waking the Mounties and stopping the train. As the terrorists attempt to escape across the open fields, they find themselves facing the whole Musical Ride charging them, battle lances at the ready and a thirst for justice burning in their eyes.

Now, if after reading that (especially the last sentence) you don't want to spend the rest of your life tracking down old episodes of this show, then I don't think we can be friends.

The stars that burn brightest burn quickest.....Due South we hardly knew ye. All I know is today I really feel the horrible itchy burn of injustice, in that I cannot marry fictional characters. I am going to bed to contemplate how hard it would be to remove a Mountie uniform with my teeth.