Raccoon scream lullaby
and stale summer air.
Tiny fingers squeezing unruly synapses.
Expose the rotting refuse.

Mind the pit among the coffee grounds
and spent egg shells.
The wooden core remains,
poison and useless.

Light of pesky dawn unveils
the night’s chaos.
Dreams severed or
Never whole to begin with.

Head down,
sweep it up.
Like every other morning.

I read about Gus.
A polar bear born in captivity,
never knowing a life outside 
his little box.
Adored by millions who
stared as he obsessively swam
in a figure eight.
Twelve hours a day.
They gave him Prozac.

I saw a movie about Tilikum.
An orca captured at two.
Put on a great show
and retired to a small tank.
Holding onto the memory of his freedom.
Of the open water.
He killed.
It surprised no one.

Article after article.
Half the zoo is medicated.
Depression
Anxiety
OCD.
None of these problems
in the wild.

Stared at.
Yelled at.
A flash from a camera.
A tap on the glass.
Always trapped.

No connection to the environment.
The one the ancestors
evolved in,
multiplied in,
thrived in.
Now walls, glass, fake rocks.
That is the universe.
Confined and helpless in a system 
they can’t understand,
and never asked for.
Who wouldn’t go crazy?

Medicated by those who want to help
yet refuse to see the real problem.
No creature was meant for this.
All the self harm,
violent outbursts,
obsessive behaviour.
It’s all they can do.
All they know.
No surprises there.

I take my pills.
Look in the mirror,
And laugh.

The house I rent right now is kinda falling apart. I can’t step on my back deck without boards coming loose, whenever it rains I get a bucketload of water leaking into my pantry and I have some major cracks in the foundation which cause water to flow freely into the basement. Among all these issues there is one which I never minded so much, the existence of the window squirrel.

I’ve always had an affinity for squirrels. They’re relatively harmless creatures especially when compared with other urban pests like raccoons and mice. They have soft bushy tails and really are just a joy to watch. Put me in a room with a squirrel and I’ll be entertained to the point of starvation. 

Because of my love of these fine furry creatures I’ve neglected to mention the squirrels nest that has existed in my bedroom window since I’ve moved in. The window itself is one of those two part windows except the top part is missing. My bushy tailed friend decided to take up residence in the space between windows and while it has been upsetting to my dog I’ve rather enjoyed the company. 

The squirrel in question is fairly identifiable. She/He(sorry I have trouble gendering squirrels correctly so I’ll just randomly switch gender pronouns because I’m so evolved) is a black squirrel with multiple bare patches on her back. I watch him occasionally running through the backyard or around my street being all squirrel like and awesome. Each time I see her I wonder whether or not she knows that on most nights I’m sleeping a few feet away from him or that I know all her secrets.

I’ve known for months that I should probably just put in a work order to my landlord and get the window fixed thereby eliminating the nest in my window but I can never bring myself to it. I just feel guilty taking away someone’s home for no good reason other than eliminating the occasional scratching that comes with having a small rodent living in your window.

Yesterday the universe decided to take that decision away from me. As I was walking the dog I found my patchy little friend dead in the street. I keep wondering what could have killed him and also if she felt that her life had meaning. Did he know what kind of effect she had on my life or was her mind too filled up with whatever squirrels think about to care some dumb lumbering giant who just happens to sleep right by her?

I guess none of it really matters anyway. All I know is that I’m going to miss the scratching and rustling of leaves that I’ve become so used to in my boring day to day life. RIP little buddy, even if I’m the only one who ever cared. 

This morning I made two eggs which isn’t that weird since I make two eggs every morning because I only eat two meals a day and I need some protein to go with my coffee and amphetamines so my stomach doesn’t implode. I went with soft boiled which again isn’t that strange since I have eggs that way at least twice a week and soft boiled eggs when done right give you the satisfaction of slurping up a warm liquid yolk in one go. So far this story is as mundane as people have come to expect from me, not to say it gets much better but I am going to give you more than just my standard breakfast routine.

So we’ve established that these eggs are going to be soft boiled. For the uninitiated soft boiled eggs need to be timed correctly due to the volatile nature of chicken periods. Overcooking will lead to disappointment and undercooking will lead to me trying to remove globs of runny egg white from my beard and I have enough problems removing opaque loads of protein from my body as it is.

I’ve seen in old movies and tv shows people use this little plastic fucker known as an “egg timer” which supposedly will assist you in making the perfect egg as described above. Granted the timer probably has other uses but since the name itself refers to eggs specifically I’ll assume that’s what it does best. Having never actually seen one IRL and this not being 1956 I just use the timer on my iPhone. Since actually opening up the timer app takes a certain amount of thumb coordination which I’m usually not up for I tend to just instruct Siri to set the timer for me.

Our conversation is short and to the point:

Me – “set timer 3 minutes”

Siri(in a male voice since I don’t like the idea of having a female being that subservient to me because I’m like a total feminist but it’s no big deal because I’m just so honourable and whatever) – “ok, 3 minutes and counting”

This is really all I want out of a machine that helps me cook eggs. I give the instruction, it executes that instruction and we both go on with our day until I hear a friendly honking sound signalling that the timer is done and therefore so are my eggs. For months this machine and I have been successfully communicating in this fashion and my eggs have been treated well as a result.

Except for the exchange we had this morning:

Me – “set timer 3 minutes”

Siri – “ok, 3 minutes and counting. Don’t overcook that egg!”

Some of you who frankly I’m surprised have read this far may see this as just a cute little thing that this machine does. Hell there are tons of cutesy things that Siri says when you ask a question or swear uncontrollably at it. However this one thing completely threw me off and made me want to completely disable all my technology for the following reasons:

1. It makes an assumption that the timer was for eggs in the first place. Given that it was the morning and it’s probably become a pattern for me.

2. I now carry a device on me at all times that knows all my behaviour.

3. Not only does the device know my behaviour but that behaviour is being stored on a remote server somewhere for some purpose I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around.

4. I don’t like having a machine telling me what to do under any circumstances. I have enough issues with actual people telling me what to do and for something that I pay hundreds of dollars a year to use to make those kind of assumptions about me is just too much to bear.

5. My dependence upon machines has reached sci-fi dystopian levels at this point and the next step is probably a one world government launching a crusade against all independent thought.

Still it’s easier than buying an egg timer.

Warning: the following post is an example of me at my most narcissistic and banal. It’s content should not be seen as a reflection of the quality of this site as a whole. In fact I don’t expect anyone to read it so you should probably stop here and go on to something more productive like watching people change tires on youtube. I will tolerate no complaints regarding this post since as previously stated I recognise the bullshit and have learned to live with it. Thanks for reading this far and thanks again for not listening to me.

I stare at this site almost every day thinking about how empty and useless it is. It would be one thing if I were able to crank out an interesting post once a month or so but I don’t even come close to that kind of output. Then I look at some other blogs and see multiple posts a day of just random crap that I feel I could surely keep up with but to what end? I’m left with a feeling of paralysis when faced with a blank slate and can never figure out what the best use of my efforts is.

So I’m just going to post half-thoughts and derivative jokes that have been swimming around in my head these last couple of months. I would say “Enjoy” but we know that’s not happening.

The Snake Pit

I was watching that nature show narrated by the old guy from Jurassic Park and they showed a bunch of Garter snakes in mating season. Basically all the snakes start slithering around all snake-like in one giant pile right after the first light of spring. The purpose of the pile is to warm up each other but it’s also how they choose and then fuck their mate.

This got me thinking about how in the movies there’s always some pit of snakes that the hero has to avoid lest he be poisoned or strangled or whatever else snakes do to kill guys in funny hats. The pit of snakes looks exactly like the snake orgy I discussed previously which leads me to a really scary point that none of these movies ever made: not only is our dashing Aryan hero perilously close to being poisoned and eaten by snakes but he’s also close to being neck deep in a bunch of hedonistic sex-crazed reptiles who have no bones about throat fucking him while he’s being consumed.

Radishes

I have nothing against them but I’ve never bought one or used one in any recipe. I don’t even mind the taste it’s just that they never enter my consciousness. In general I take a very hard stance or most foods but with radishes I’m indifferent.

Acne

Always felt bad about the teenagers who had really bad acne. I still get zits all the time but I’ve never had a full, beard-like breakout. I attribute my great skin to genetics and never washing my face. I still wash my face so rarely that whenever I do splash some water on it the whole thing feels completely foreign to me. A good layer of dirt protects you against almost anything, why fuck with nature?

Non-sequitur

Don’t care enough to write anymore. Your mother never liked you.

fin.

Lemons are the GOD of all fruit. The sourness is so in your face that it’s become a cliche. Generations have basked in the shitflood of flavour this one awesome fruit produces.

Check out the local drinks section of any convenience store or fine gas station, 80% of the delicious drinks contain some kind of lemon just to add the in your face attitude that lemons are so great at. “Oh, here’s some boring-ass iced tea. it would be great if someone were to punch it’s pregnant stomach full of radical! Oh wait is that a lemon?” (Everyone’s head explodes).

Ever been to a place where they don’t have fresh lemons? Did you instantly regret leaving a place full of lemons for one that was lemon deficient? Lemons are a key ingredient to any party; I would much rather have someone bring a bag of ice and a few lemons to my house than anything else including themselves.

For years I turned away from the glory that is lemons. I found myself satisfied with weak substitutions like lemon juice and lime cordial. Needless to say none of it exploded in my mouth in quite the same way.

Fact: If someone doesn’t have a fresh lemon in their fridge then you probably want nothing to do with them and they most likely torture puppies every other Saturday.

My love affair with the lemon started along with most of my other problems: in childhood. Whenever my grandmother would make her chicken soup we would always squeeze some fresh lemon juice in there just because we could. Of course after squeezing the life out of them you’d still be left with the pulp. Since I was a hungry little fucker with nothing but time on my hands I’d start scooping the pulp out of the lemons one wedge at a time taking the pith along with it. My allowance at the time was about 30 cents a week so this was the closest I got to regularly destroying sour candy until I was a teenager and was able to finance my own candy collection.

Fact: You can make a battery out of a lemon. Name one other fruit that can power a whole city and I’ll suck on a lemon because I was going to do that anyway. Jerk.

After being satisfied for many years eating just the pulp I eventually graduated to just straight up eating lemons when there wasn’t any decent fruit around the house(we always had green apples around but that’s because green apples are fucking nasty and nobody would really want to eat one anyway). Eventually the price of lemons rose and my family was left bankrupt due to my heroic addiction. At the tender age of 24 I had to quit lemons cold turkey since moderation is for the weak.

Thus began the darkest period of my life. My teeth started falling out and blood spots were appearing all over my clothes. No matter how much meth I snorted the symptoms steadily became worse. One day while scouring the internet for pirate porn I came across a description of scurvy. Instead of being a pussy about it and taking supplements I raced across the street and bought a giant bag of pesticde-laden genetically modified lemons.

 

Taking that first bite erased all the years of torture. I’d found a lost lover and it squirted it’s life giving juice directly into my eye. The burning sensation made my feel alive again for the first time in years, I’m eternally grateful to the brave souls who go deep into the jungles of the amazon to catch this delicious vegetable! Your fallen comrades did not die in vain.

Limes are OK too.

Contrary to how most people describe me I like to think of myself as a nice person. I’m good with children and smile at homeless people before spitting on them. I’ve worked enough shit jobs in my life(three) to know that working in the service industry generally sucks sweaty tiger balls and the only thing keeping most workers from waving their dicks at every customer is the custom in North America known as “tipping”. For all the Australians and Germans out there this is where a customer provides some money to the server in addition to the money being spent for the service. This practice dates back to ancient times where it was customary to pay your employees a sub-standard wage for work which you would never do yourself.

I ALWAYS tip. Note the emphasis on always, I’m using italics and CAPS just to show how motherfuckin’ serious I am about tipping. Tipping is a reflection of the person doing the tipping and not on the service. Tipping low for bad service just justifies the server’s belief that you’re a fucking cheapskate. If you can’t afford to tip then you can’t afford the service. Just shut up and do it because trying to rationalize your political stance regarding tipping only makes you look poor.

Now that I’ve preambled enough to scare off all but four of my readers I’ll get to the real story here. Last night I was feeling rather hungry and had the apartment to myself. Since I’ve been eating rather well lately I decided to just say fuck it and order myself a pizza. This is not something I do very often since I’m hella paranoid about what I eat and usually only eat what I make myself(fear of being poisoned, etc). To make it even more special I decided to order from my favourite pizza place that I never get to order from because my wife hates them.

So I place my order and patiently wait. They didn’t give me a total so I made a rough estimate and included what should have been at least a 15% tip and set the cash aside. After about 40 minutes or so I get the call from the lobby and buzz the delivery guy up. I immediately lock my dog up in her crate(because she will fuck up anyone who dares to knock at her door), grab the cash I set aside and get ready to open the door while trying to make it seem like I’m not salivating like a date-rapist at the thought of the food that is about to enter my belly. Dog barks, delivery guy knocks, hands me pizza and announces the total.

My whole body stiffens. Seconds seem like hours as I look over the bill and realise that I forgot to include the tax! I feel the clock ticking as I realize that I don’t have the proper change to give this guy a decent tip. Awkwardly I fumble around in my pocket and fished out some of the larger coins. When it was all over I replayed the incident in my head and realised that I gave this poor guy a tip of less than two dollars!

The guy obviously seemed pissed at me when I paid him. During the whole painful exchange I recall myself apologizing over and over. Worried about what this poor schmuck must think of me! It wasn’t until the pizza guy was long gone that I realised I could have just asked the guy for change and he would have gotten at least 20% from me. The fact that the bill was larger than I thought had simply paralysed me beyond all reason. My instincts had failed.

After all that it was hard for me to even enjoy the food as I felt the pain of the driver as bitter bile coming up from the lowest reaches of my digestive system. I wronged this man and will forever be known as some cheapskate who doesn’t know how to do math.

Now I’m faced with three options and all of them suck:

• Order something from them tonight and pay the driver double the tip money just to make things right. 

• Wait it out and hope that by the next time I order they’ll have forgotten what a deadbeat I am.

• Never order from these guys again unless I move somewhere else.

The first option could work but I really don’t have the inclination for pizza nor the desire to burn all those extra calories that would result. My big fear with the second option is that they keep some kind of list at every pizza place so they know which pizzas to fuck with before delivering them because that’s something I would do. I don’t think I could ever eat their pizza again without fearing that it has touched some type of ass before arriving on my doorstep.

So it looks like I’m stuck eating inferior pizza until I move. I’ve made my bed and now I have to lie in it. Never again will I hesitate in asking delivery guys for change. This all could have been avoided had I just asked for my fucking total before hanging up the phone.

I really would like to just apologise again to the delivery guy for all I put him through. I have learned from my mistakes and I’m sure one day we’ll meet again and I’ll have the correct change for you.

May all of your future customers be better than I.

Tony
 

 

I haven’t been around much online lately. Mostly because in light of all the recent world events(Japan falling into the sea, that uprising in that country with the oil, another Canadian election) I felt that my usual complaints about trivial shit would be in poor taste. Of course that all changed for me a bit over a week ago and I can no longer stay silent. I’m sure that if you make it to the end of this collection of words you’ll agree that a great injustice has been done to me and you will join me on the battefields to fight with me in solidarity.

It all started for me on Monday. Much like any other Monday I got out of bed and sat down at my desk prepared for another soul crushing day of work. Needless to say my work requires some type of refreshment and a shitload of medication to keep me sane. For reasons that I will not get into here my usual morning beverage as of late has recently changed from diet pepsi(which is far superior to diet coke but try telling that to that whore of a waitress who refused to acknowledge the difference. I refused to acknowledge her right to exist peacefully because of her attitude which is why they don’t let me into Swiss Chalet anymore) to club soda with some lemon. I tend to be very particular about the type of pop* I drink. For any flavoured stuff I like to stick with name brands because the store brand stuff normally tastes like rotten ass. However I fail to see the point in buying name brand club soda since I refuse to pay double for what is essentially water, carbon dioxide and sodium.

Which brings to me the latest tragedy to be unleashed on our society.  I grabbed the glass that had been collecting dust on my desk all weekend and rinsed it out half-assedly. I reached into the fridge and grabbed the first of two bottles of PC Club Soda that I bought over the weekend. They were both placed strategically close to the rear of the fridge so that they were as cold as possible. Now normally it’s really hard for me to open a bottle of soda without having a bunch of it spill on the floor because of my heroic hands gripping too tightly on the bottle. I twisted the cap, saw that I was squeezing the bottle and expected a tsunami of salty bubbles to come rushing forth.

All I heard was “psst”. Silence.

Maybe I’m weaker than I thought? Maybe I finally figured out how to open something without leaving a trail of devastation in my wake? I shrugged at the lacklustre reaction of the bottle and started pouring.

No fucking bubbles.

Like not even a couple of Perrier sized motherfuckers. Just flat water leaving the spout, making a pathetic glug sound and impotently filling up my lemon encrusted soda glass.

I tried to make the best of it. Even if it wasn’t fizzy it was still really cold and could possibly be refreshing if I had a hangover or something like that(not like that happens often enough). I dropped in my lemon and chalked the whole thing up to random chance. Perhaps the bottle was damaged in transport or something. These things happen and since it only cost me $1.29 for two litres it wasn’t much of a loss. And hey I still have that other bottle!

Now I wouldn’t refer to myself as a good example of mental stability but I do have certain rules that I need to follow or else everyone will die or something like that. One of these rules which has been burned into every fibre of my ass-hair is that you don’t waste anything. Wasting food or anything else for that matter is really the worst thing you can do. So even though I didn’t enjoy it for a second and the bottle cost next to nothing I could not allow myself to just pour it down the sink. After all there are like 60 people in Africa who could live on that bottle of water and sodium for a month. Over the next couple of days I finished the whole bottle off with the help of a few lemons and looked forward to opening that second bottle that was behind it the whole time.

Pfft.

Fuck me over once, shame on you. Fuck me over for $2.58 and you’ve just made an enemy for life. At this point I feel secure in saying that I will never again waste my money on a bottle of flat water and sodium and if pressed would thoroughly enjoy raping the eye sockets of everyone responsible for allowing this product to get into my fridge and completely ruin my week.

Little tip to grocery stores out there; if you sell me a bottle of club soda it follows that there should be soda in the fucking bottle. The only reason I drink club soda is because I hate drinking water and would rather have refreshing bubbles popping in my mouth(shut up). Water already comes from my tap for free and I don’t touch the shit. Why would a company do this? Do they think I’ll ever forget about this experience?

The whole debacle has deterred me from ever buying a PC product again. How can I be sure that their chicken stock isn’t just water salt and food colouring? If you can’t get club soda right then how can you be trusted with anything else? Is this just some kind of sick game you like to play so you have something to talk about on the golf course? I bet you guys are just laughing your asses of at the poor shmuck who paid $2.58 for 4L of water.

You people sicken me.

*For you Americans out there what I refer to as “pop” you would know as “soda”. Around here we call it pop because it’s too cold to bother with more than one syllable.  lolcanada.