Our Thieving Pals

Everybody's friends are thieves.  Every last one of them.  It's sad but it's true.   Stealers, the lot.  It's enough to make you ashamed to know them, isn't it?

They don't think of it as stealing, of course. But if you take someone's stuff and you never bring it back, that's pretty much the essence of what a thief does.  There's no such thing as permanent borrowing, nor is kidnapping an involuntary visit. You stole it.  And stealing is against the law.  Ergo, our friends are crooks.  We don't hang out with our buddies, we consort with criminals.

I cheerfully lend books knowing I'm not going to get them back, but that's okay.  I mind more with CD's but I can live with it. But I hate lending DVD's.  To me, the entire collection has a gaping abyss in it when even one DVD is absent.  Perhaps I'm all weirdo obsessive-compulsive psycho Rainman about it, but it's the way I feel.  I mourn the missing member.  (Insert own tasteless Lorena Bobbitt joke here.)

And the worst is when, in the borrowers' minds, the thing was theirs in the first place and they act like they've always owned it. So you have to act like you're borrowing it from them and then keep it, finally reclaiming it as your own, vexed at the knowledge that they now think you're the big thieving klepto and not them.  And thus friendships deteriorate in a vicious cycle of resentment and bitterness and hatred and murder.

Some people would give you the shirt off their back and never worry about seeing it again.  Now, there's an odd saying. 'The shirt off their back."  I wonder why it singles out the back?   Why do we neglect the front?  How come no-one is said to give you the shirt off their pecs?  Sounds weird, I guess.  

And how come it's always the giving of a shirt that denotes generosity?  Isn't it just as nice to hand over other garments? "Oh, that Tim.  Heart of gold.  He'd give you the pants off his ass."  

I guess what goes around comes around, and it's all among friends, and other cliches.  And what's a cliche, after all, (like my point today), but an observation that we all steal?  

But it still troubles me that my friends and yours are rascals of such ill character, plunderers that they are.

Bless 'em, they do have a way of stealing your heart, too, though, don't they?

I'll give them that.

Attack Of The Turkey Elbows

As I saunter through middle age, I have no fear of growing old. Aches and pains won't bother me.  I can handle day-long dental work and the heartbreak of liver spots.  My brittle hair can fall in blue cascades.

I just hope I don't get turkey elbows.

Because that's when you know your days are numbered. You look in the mirror one morning and even the skin beneath your elbows hangs down like a turkey's neck.  And then you get a bird feeder and a heating pad and crochet the last rites on all your pillowcases.

So I check my elbows daily with great dread.  The day I see turkey, I'll dodder right out and buy a lifetime supply of prunes (a remaining lifetime supply - probably three or four jars).

Many go to absurd lengths to hide their condition.  Sales of crude mechanical bicep clothespins and sundry other quack slack reducers are up as the turkey-elbow desperate gobble up the can't-fly-by-night hucksters' lotions and potions, scant last-ditch hope for the afflicted. 

Some, like Queen Elizabeth, wear absurdly long gloves up to their armpits and nobody has the heart to tell them, in their majesty, that they look ridiculous.  Or they do have the heart, but would also like to keep the head. 

(Mind you, turkey elbows are not the death sentence they once were. Many continue to lead active, productive lives well into their Butterball years.  Mick Jagger has turkey elbows and look at him!  I mean, eww, sure, but still.)

But nothing works. You can't fool Mother Nature, and you just can't hide your turkey elbows.

Clearly the time has come to lay to rest, as it were, the prejudices about turkey elbows that abound in our soon-to-be geriatric society.  Turkey elbows aren't quite as gag-reflex-inducingly revolting and horrifying and hideous as they were once universally thought, by all right-thinking people, to be.

Yet, one old lady I know, who has turkey elbows so bad that, when she swims, she looks like a manta ray, had to quit doing aquatics at the home because people were stampeding in panic to the deep end and drowning, including the staff and the emergency personnel.

Now, is this fair?  No.  Funny?  More study is required.  And after all, who among us is qualified to judge others just for being sick and disgusting and wrong?

Now, in no way do I wish to come across as insensitive or disrespectful, so before I receive dozens of angry letters from ancient readers, the ink smudged from taking naps between sentences, still cool where their elbows lay spread across the page, let me say that it is precisely this heartless flippancy and ignorance about an important health issue, parlaying a feigned concern for the victims' plight into cheap, heartless laughs, that has got to stop.

So cut it out, okay?

Promise?

Swear on the Queen.

Wanted: A Few Good Imbeciles

You know who doesn't get enough respect?

Imbeciles.  

I got ruminating today about imbeciles.  Not any particular imbeciles - my friends, for example - just imbeciles in general. And I've come to a few imbecilic conclusions of the sort that one always feels compelled to share.

In the comic books, if someone is calling you an imbecile, he's always the villain. The good guy never uses that term.  You never hear Superman say to Lex Luther, "Your evil plan for world domination will never succeed, you imbecile."  You must be villainous to use that word or you just sound rude.

But he isn't talking to the good guy. Because neither will you hear Doc Octopus say to Spiderman, "Victory is mine, you imbecile."  He'd call him Webbed Will-O'-The-Wisp or something. Standard name-calling doesn't cut it with an arch-nemesis; you have to make that extra creative effort.

No, if the villain is calling anyone an imbecile, it's his henchmen.

"How could you let him get away, you imbeciles?" is the sort of thing you'll hear a villain say. 

A villain's staff is comprised primarily of imbeciles.  The 'Henchmen Wanted' ad says 'Only Imbeciles Need Apply'. 

So it's not like they don't already know they're imbeciles.  It's just that, being imbeciles, they need reminding.

But it's hard to get good imbeciles anymore.

You would think it would be easy, because they're everywhere.  

Every time I'm in line at the supermarket, there's some imbecile ahead of me who wants to pay by cheque, and waited until her purchases were rung up before commencing the lengthy search for the chequebook, and then, as a brilliant afterthought,  for a pen, rather than rooting around for them earlier when she was still in line.  

And if you drive, you know that virtually everyone else on the road is in your way or a hazard.  Everywhere you look, it's tortoises and maniacs.  The only one operating a motor vehicle correctly is you. 

The reason?  They're all imbeciles.

But nowadays, any villain will tell you they don't make imbeciles like they used to.  All you can get now is screw-ups.  And that's just not the same. 

Besides, "After him, you screw-ups!" doesn't sound nearly as good as "After him, you imbeciles!"

Mind you, not all imbeciles are out in the open.  Sometimes it's not so obvious right away. Many women fall for men who seem utterly charming and later turn out to be imbeciles. 

And there are few things in life as disappointing as the surprise imbecile.

Now, at this point, I can hear my many disappointed readers clamouring pleadingly, "Wrap it up, you imbecile!"  

Very well.  It would be evil of me to torment you further. Villainous, even.

But if you come across any good imbeciles, send them my way, will you?  

I grow short of henchmen.

Trace Got (No) Back

(I'm sorry I was away for so long.  Contemplation temporarily took the place of creativity.  But I'm back and I intend to post much more frequently.  I know I've said this before, but I was lying back then.  Get off my back.)

My girlfriend Diane and I played host a while back to our friends Paul and Jessica who revealed, in the course of the evening, a startling secret:

There's no back.

I know.  You're shocked.  Amazed.  You can't believe it. 

You don't get it.

They were waxing nostalgic about their days in various retail outlets, serving customers, and how everybody always asked:

"Are there any in the back?"

We all make this inquiry.   We're convinced that, just out of sight in the rear, there's an endless cornucopia of merchandise that we want but that they won't put out.  The store employees are trained not to show it to us unless we're smart enough to ask to see it.  We pride ourselves on our canny shopping talents when we ask if it's in the back. 

It's back there.  We just know it is.  

But what we know is so often wrong, and Paul and Jess broke the news:

There's no back. 

I was taken aback to learn this. 

Apparently there's just this vast, barren wilderness back there, with a howling wind chasing the tumbleweeds around, like the Australian Outback.

No, the clerks patiently explain when you demand green slippers and all they have is grey.  There aren't any green slippers in the back.  We tend to place product on the sales floor so as to facilitate its sale.  If there were a backlog of stuff in the back, that would constitute some pretty shoddy ordering practises, now, wouldn't it? 

They don't say this last part, of course.  They just grit their back teeth till sparks fly, hoping one will land in your hair and ignite you in a blazing backdraft of fury.

But consumers live on hope.  If there just might, possibly, conceivably be some green slippers in the back, it can't hurt to ask, can it?

Yes, it can.  By the end of their shifts, the sales help are prepared to seize the next nimrod who asks by the back of the neck, slay him, and bury him out back. 

Particularly if you ask the Dreaded Dork Follow-Up Question: "Well, could you check?" 

Check?  Okay, check, I gotcha.  Check out my finger pointing to the check-out.

(Note it's not the index one.)

I could quit asking if it's in the back.  But I'd be haunted eternally, always wondering, in the back of my mind:

"What if it WAS in the back, if only I'd asked? Maybe they had it on back order.  I wish I could go back in time." 

So we're left with a horrible choice: 

Talk back and be a dork or back off and be a loser.  

I pick dork.

What do you say, loser?

Exam Bloopers

Marking Alpine piles of exams is not my favourite thing to do. But now and then, amongst all the drivel, one comes across a classic unintentional bit of comedy that lends a moment of joy to the tedium. Following are actual, unretouched bloopers from either a personal essay, a book review or a short story written by actual students on their exams this year. Teenagers are so cute when they think they're being profound. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent ignorant.

"James Frey is the character in the book who plays him in real life."
Wow. That's quite an honour. What more poignant evidence could there be that you have a drug problem than having a character in a book play you in real life? Viewed, of course, through the looking glass.

"He cured Paul from a severe urinal infection and cured Melinda, a good wife of the prison chief, from a brains tumour."
It's tough to be a good wife, especially with a brains tumour, an affliction that clearly has crippled the author of this line. But God. Can you imagine coming down with a urinal infection? I'm never lurking in public washrooms again. Let alone a bus depot, where I might contract a terminal illness.

"She experienced baby-sitting, drugs and racism."
The poor thing. Having to contend with the scourge of narcotics and the evils of racism is bad enough, but baby-sitting? Surely that's too much torment for anyone.

"Carrie White is a shy, ugly, fat, self-confident teenage girl."
Yes, sir. Nothing will boost your self-esteem higher than being shy, fat and ugly. If only she were smelly, too, she'd be on top of the world!

"The three main groups are the brainy acts or the nerds."
Somehow I suspect that the true brainy acts can count a bit better than this.

"Living a life without any boarders is whatever individual truly desires."
I wonder if this author is bedevilled by roomers or by skate-boarders? Whatever.

"She found out that Philip The Driver was killed; Chloe came out with fractional legs. They were charged with felony vehicular manslaughter and found out that they were intoxicated."
I'll bet they were shocked. 'What?!! We were intoxicated?! Do you think it had anything to do with all that drinking we did?' Poor Phil The Driver. He'll have to get a new job now. I wonder what fraction of her legs Chloe is left with? She could sue, perhaps. But she wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

"Rebel or follow society and the rules it sets. I can identify many examples to this thesis statement for those that rebelled and got boned."
Hmmm. I'm still not entirely clear what this 'thesis statement' is. I think it's 'Follow society if you don't want to get boned.' No contest, then. It's a rebel's life for me.

"The cross symbolism refers to the crucifixion of Christ, which occurred, of course, in two thousand BC."
What really makes this one a classic, is, of course, 'of course'. Like it goes without saying that Christ was crucified three thousand years before his birth. And 4008 years later, a descendant of Christ was crucified by his exam mark.

"I started getting the worst headaches ever. I would have to take the maximum amount of Tylenol a day. My mom was getting worried about me, so she took me to the doctor. The doctor told me that I just might be a person that gets headaches."
I went to the doctor once complaining of a broken leg. He theorized that I just might be a person with a broken leg. I thanked him, paid him five hundred dollars for his professional hypothesis and went home to take the maximum amount of Tylenol.

This is my favourite. It's pretty profound:
"Life comes from birth."
Yes, it certainly does. This author evidently received the same training in the obvious that doctors receive. Life, my friends, does indeed come from birth.

Kill me now.

Insomnia And Canadian Politics

Having attended more staff meetings than I care to count over the last couple of decades, I am no stranger to boredom. I am, I would say, an expert on the subject, believe me. But nothing is as boring to me as Canadian politics. The very thought of Canadian politics makes staff meetings seem like bungee jumping by comparison. Staff meetings bore me to tears, sure, and quite literally. But Canadian politics bores me very nearly to death.

I know there are people who find Canadian politics fascinating. They are themselves the most boring people on Earth. Nothing about politics in this country comes within a million billion miles of being interesting, so anyone who thinks otherwise should go live on an island somewhere and lead vapid lives of unrelenting tedium until they die and have dull speeches intoned at their dreary funerals.

American politics can be downright fascinating. The USA is the most powerful nation in the world, for heaven's sake. How could the presidency not be of interest to all? Men of tremendous charisma have occupied the oval office, from Lincoln to Kennedy to Clinton, and if Obama gets in, he'll bring a vitality and excitement to the White House that good ol' Bonehead Bush could only dream of. But name me a charismatic Canadian politician other than, arguably, Trudeau, and even he wasn't interesting anymore once he quit saying fuddle-duddle. Chretien had a moment of charisma when he tried to strangle a protestor with his bare hands, and sometimes he'd root around in his pants in public, which I always found tremendously entertaining in a mortifying sort of way, but other than that, are you kidding me? Our prime ministers are so drab they make highschool administrators look like rock stars.

We were forced, in school, to read Canadian history. And I was a dedicated and attentive straight-A student. But one paragraph into any chapter on Canadian history and my head would hit the desk with a THUNK they could hear in other neighbourhoods. I took numerous history courses that featured Canadian politics heavily in the curriculum and this is what I remember now: Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Not a single fact has stayed with me. I am not the least bit embarrassed to say this. I don't WANT that tripe cluttering up my mind.

Oh, they say, but if you actually went to Ottawa to sit in the visitor's gallery in Parliament, then you'd see some really lively stuff. Nonsense. I did once. I went there. I was asleep in nano-moments. The chaperones thought I had narcolepsy. Before the Speaker Of The House, or whatever he's called, had even begun speaking, I was out like the proverbial light. It's a pure self-defense mechanism. There's only so much boredom the human brain can take.

I met the Prime Minister a couple of years ago. Paul Martin (I had to really concentrate just now even to remember his name) came to Burlington to visit a campaign office at the plaza across from the high school where I work. Cool, I thought. I'll go see if I can catch a glimpse of him. This'll be pretty exciting, I figured. So I walked over there, and lo and behold, sure enough, there he was. He strode off the bus and worked his way down a line of people shaking hands. It was winter and I had my hands in the pockets of my jacket. I didn't take them out to shake his hand until he was right in front of me. I saw no RCMP security. Nobody asked me in advance to please take my hands out of my pockets. If that had been the president and my hands had been in my pockets as he approached, the Secret Service would've been on me like Bill on Monica and I would've been picked up and hustled out of there faster than you could've said Ken Starr. But our national security personnel know that Canadian politicians' monotony is their chief protection. They're so boring nobody has ever gotten worked up enough about them to shoot one. If an American gets to shake hands with the president, it's a story he'll tell for the rest of his life to his envious friends and family. I tried telling my story to some friends of mine and they were snoring and drooling in an instant. Some of them fell down and hit their heads. I'm lucky they didn't sue me.

If I ever can't sleep, I just get up and put on the Parliament channel and boom, I'm sawing logs before I can put the remote down. I've nodded off three times just trying to write this blog. Canadian politics are boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, moreso even than a sentence that has the word 'boring' in it six times.

I'm never writing about this again. If I do, please send Chretien over to strangle me.

The Universal Parent

Most of us become parents someday, and we're happy about that. What we don't expect is to turn into our parents. But we do, because all parents are essentially the same. The quirks of parenthood are universal. Despite the many variations, we all had basically the same upbringing. Nothing will ever break the horrifying cycle.

All mothers are obsessed with the state of your room when you're a kid. It's all she thinks about all day. I'm sure Charles Manson's mom thought he was as good as gold as long as his bed was made. And she'll always say the same thing when she comes in. "This room is a pigsty!" Mothers are fixated on pigsties. I'm not even sure what a 'sty' is, exactly. I know it's something that isn't good in your eye. Mom sure kept her eye on my room. "How can you live like this?" she'd say. "In my room, you can eat off my floors." I'd say, "Well, you can eat off mine, too, Mom. There's a sandwich over there...some pizza over here..." Needless to say, she was not amused.

Parents are also obsessed with the roof. Every aspect of your behaviour is ultimately about the roof. "As long as you are living under my roof, you will abide by my rules," they will intone like a mantra until the nano-second you leave home. I always wondered whether, if I slept on the roof, they'd be okay with my drinking whiskey and smoking cigars and having hookers up there.

You aren't allowed to touch the thermostat. That's the big sacred taboo device in your life. Even when you grow up, you can't go near it. You might be old enough to drink and drive and vote and get drafted into the Air Force to fly stealth bombers, but your parents feel you are not qualified to operate the thermostat. I used to wait till they went out and touch it with a long stick and a trembling hand. But somehow they always knew. A parent's sixth sense is spooky, that's what it is.

And they can never agree on a setting for the thermostat. Your mother likes the comfort of the Antarctic and your father prefers the surface of the sun. With all that hot air going back and forth, it's no wonder your room "looks like a tornado went through it".

Also strictly off-limits is your mother's 'good scissors'. You never hear her calling for the crappy scissors. She always has a job that requires the good scissors, presumably cutting the ribbon for newly-built city halls or something, and you'll never, as long as you live, be allowed to use them. And your dad has his special sharp knife that's only for neurosurgery, apparently. Which you use for cutting cardboard boxes when he isn't around. In my neighbourhood, there were children who mysteriously disappeared one day for doing that. Never saw them again. Their folks claimed they ran away and joined the circus, but there were mysterious fresh mounds of earth in the flowerbed that they could never quite explain.

If you hold the fridge door open long enough for the light rays to reach your eyes so you can see what's in there, they lose it completely and shriek at you like horrified banshees. That's a capital offense to most parents. This is why Superboy was forced to develop x-ray vision.

Taking a slice of bread from the middle of the loaf is another heinous crime. To a kid, the slice that's on the end is deadly poison. You want a nice, fresh, soft piece from the forbidden middle. But try taking one and they'll feel perfectly justified lopping off your fingers with the good scissors.

What sick compulsion is it that drives your dad to come pounding on the door of the bathroom demanding to know what you're doing in there? Sky-diving, he figures, perhaps? Bull-fighting? It's weird, and it's really creepy. Mind you, I never knew what he did in there, either, other than that, whatever it was, it rendered the place uninhabitable by human beings for at least a full day afterward.

And what mental disease convinces your mother that your friends, and even worse, your dates, want to see your baby pictures? Is this just some cruel retribution for the pain of childbirth or does she feel abject mortification builds character somehow? The French Foreign Legion is full of children who signed up to flee the embarrassment.

One day we'll come to the stunned realization, all of us, that we do every one of these things. And then we'll face the sickening reality that we have somehow morphed into the one entity we vowed most vehemently we'd never be - our parents. I'd kill myself now, before that day comes, but I have more important things to do. I have to go check on my sons' rooms.

It looks like a bomb went off in there.

Warning: This Comedy May Be Funny (Use Eyes To Read)

Warnings are standard on all sorts of products. Surely we could thin the human herd by getting rid of the ninnies for whom some are intended. Here are some real ones I saw on a list of ludicrous warning labels and directions, along with some I encountered myself. What's scary is that these warnings wouldn't be on there if somebody hadn't sued and the legal department deemed it prudent to put these caveats right on the package. Each one must have such a bone-headed story behind it.

This was on a jar of peanuts:
PEANUTS
WARNING: CONTAINS NUTS
Remember, when buying a jar of nuts, always make sure to check that there aren't any nuts in it.

And this was a packet of airline peanuts' opening instructions:
1. OPEN PACKET
2. EAT NUTS
I felt so dumb. I'd been eating the nuts and then trying to open the packet with my esophagus.

Lots of salad dressings say SHAKE BEFORE OPENING. I sure wish I'd read the fine print before I spent all those years wiping dressing off the ceiling.

On an iron:
WARNING: DO NOT IRON CLOTHES ON BODY
You'd have to be in a very big hurry indeed to put your clothes on in the morning and then iron them. Talk about being pressed for time. (I'm going to buy a drum just so I can do my own rimshots.)

On Christmas lights:
FOR INDOOR AND OUTDOOR USE ONLY
What, only those two places? Nowhere else? Seems unduly proscriptive to me.

Are you one of those people who require the shampoo instructions that say WET HAIR? What would you do if, like, your boss missed those directions and showed up every day at work with a blob of shampoo in his dry hair? Would you mention it? Or be more discreet? Maybe lure him out in the rain a lot.

I can't recall what the product was for this warning, but it said NOT TO BE USED FOR THE OTHER USE. Kind of makes the other use superfluous, doesn't it? One wonders what the point is of having another use if it can't be used for it.

Do we need the caution on sideview mirrors that OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR? Were drivers getting in accidents while watching smugly for tiny transports on the horizon?

I saw this on a TV dinner foil tray: PRODUCT WILL BE HOT WHEN HEATED. I'm sure glad they told me. How could I possibly have anticipated that something will be hot when heated? I'm suing the city for putting up that metal lamppost I licked this winter. It didn't have a sign alerting me that it would be cold when frozen.

A chainsaw actually had a warning saying DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP CHAINSAW WITH YOUR HANDS. As I say, the frightening thing is that somebody must've tried to do this or the lawyers wouldn't have advised that such a warning be added. I'm sure somebody has sued when he tried to stop one with his feet, too. But he wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

On a bottle of children's cough syrup it said DO NOT INGEST AND DRIVE OR OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY. This is for the protection of the public against crazed tykes all hopped up on syrup, roaring maniacally down the highway in combine harvesters.

Here's my favourite, on a bottle of sleep medication: MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. Are you serious? Sleep medication may cause drowsiness? I'm shocked. I only take it when I'm out of amphetamines and I want to stay up for a few days.

I should wrap this up, lest this blog require the warning CAUTION: FURTHER CHEESE AHEAD. But this is the end.

STOP READING NOW.

Life's A Beach And Then You Fry

Yesterday was a momentous day, and one I look forward to with such keen anticipation every year that I am compelled to vent my eagerness by running around, for hours in advance of the great event, in little tight circles of glee until I get dizzy and smack my face into a wall and rupture a sinus. It's the first day I get to the beach.

The beach is by far my favourite place on earth. When I die, I don't want to go to heaven. I just want to go to the beach.

Settle down, the multitudes implore me. It's only the Burlington beach, they chant. Sure, but you have to understand that I'm from Sudbury. The beach up there is made of rock, without any water. Comparatively speaking, this is paradise. (Mind you, compared to my hometown, so is a sucking bog.)

I love everything about the beach strip here in Burlington. The promenade by Spencer Smith Park is beautiful and growing nicer every year as new playgrounds and lookout places, etc., spring up. (I'm enchanted by the tornado machine in the Discovery Landing pavillion next to Spencer's restaurant. I like sticking my hand in it like a seven-year-old because that's about where my maturity levelled off early in life.) People walk slow and smile at each other like they have all the time in the world. When I stroll along that lakefront every day in summer, I'm not a teacher. I'm just a guy with no earthly responsibilities. It's all I can do not to break into frolic every few steps, like a springtime lamb of joy on valium.

I've been walking the beach here for twenty-one years. I like to saunter all the way to the 'lighthouse' and try to time it so a ship is passing through the canal as I get there. It's an awesome and almost eerie experience to watch a big ship go by a few feet away. I always wave at the people onboard. Sometimes they don't wave back and I'm depressed for days.

They're working on an amazing new pedestrian pier that looks futuristic and breath-taking in the drawings they've posted on the big walls that keep the pedestrians out. The sign says it's scheduled for completion in Spring of 2008, which, in that it has already passed, seems unlikely now. But then, nobody believed that deadline anyway. Everyone knows that all construction projects' completion predictions are a big, fat, odious tissue of lies. But it had better jolly well be finished soon, or I'm going to grow very bitter and go down there daily and hurl abuse at the workmen until they cement me into one of the support pillars like my will stipulates anyway.

The water's polluted. That truly sucks. It's surreal, that's what it is. Idiots. Did you know they used to pour raw sewage merrily into the lake? To this day, mystery beach mucous collects at the edge of the water sometimes, in vast, vile quantities, and then is gone mysteriously the next day. I don't want to know what it is and I don't want to know where it goes. There's a whole separate level of hell for the numbskulls who allowed the lake to become so polluted it was forever bespoiled, along with the savages who insist on playing rap 'music' from big ghetto blasters on the beach when I'm trying to lie on it.

But still. That beach, somehow, regardless, sure is nice. Again, compared to Sudbury. At least the water isn't orange like in the 'stream' that ran around the park by the highschool I attended up there.

I have far too much work to do at the moment to go beach-walking as often as I'd like, but if you see me in a few weeks, ambling blissfully along at the water's edge, iPod playing cheery tunes, soaking up the rays, take note. You are seeing that rare thing, a completely present-moment-centered, entirely happy man. I'll be grooving to the waves, and I'll wave back if you do as I nurture a tan that never did seem to dry my skin to sandpaper consistency and cause giant tumours to sprout from my pores like the 'experts' said it would. You'll see a human being for whom all is well in his world. And that's something you can tell your grandchildren you glimpsed with your very own eyes.

Yes, life's a beach and then you fry. That's my motto of life. It works for me and it can work for you. But don't tell anybody else, okay? It's just between you & me and the sand.

And that ampersand.

The Canadian Art Of Never Being Satisfied

I'm loving these soaring temperatures. Two of the cheeriest words I can see in a sentence are 'heat' and 'wave'. The sun could come down to within twelve feet of my head and roast me alive and I would be a very happy man. We had the most brutal, vicious, unrelenting winter ever on record. Now sky-high temperatures in the thirties are here. And yet I hear nothing but complaints from people.

I don't mean to put these people down or disrespect them in any way, but they are dumb and they should die. Have you forgotten the bone-chilling misery of this past winter, you chronic grousers? Has the fact that, for six months, your chief activity was shivering escaped your recall somehow? Short of an act of Parliament, what will it take to make you finally content? Get out of my country. Go live in Guam. You're getting on my nerves.

I realize it's the Canadian Way, a sacred Canuck tradition, to grumble about the weather no matter what. But come on. Get real. Half a year of Antarctica, followed by the wettest, chilliest non-Spring ever, FINally yields to some genuinely glorious weather and it's too hot? Give me a break. Or, better, let me give you one, in your femur. These are people who, if they were starving to death, and you came along and gave them a five-course meal, would whine that it was too salty.

But it's not the heat, they say, it's the humidity. No, it's the stupidity. Nobody's wild about humidity, I'll grant you. But everything is relative. That's why they call it the relative humidity. Compared to freezing, humidity is a gracious gift from God. Every day of the Winter Of My Dire Discontent, I prayed aloud for humidity. Please, Lord, I beseeched the ice-encrusted heavens, let it get stuffy. Let my clothes cling damply to my reeking armpits. Send, dear God, some humidity to save me. But no. I suffered frigidly on.

Those days are gone now, though, believe me, they will remain forevermore a traumatic memory. I welcome the humidity that has taken their place like occupied countries rolled out the carpet for the Soviets that liberated them from the Nazis. Neither is optimal, but one is WAY better than the other.

So put up, my country kin. And shut up. Breathe the moistened air deep into your soggy lungs, nurse your joyful sunburns and count your balmy blessings. Take your rightful place in the world of global warming. Run out into the streets and spray aerosol cans festively into the air.

Like the song says,

"I can't get no satisfaction. I must be Canadian."

A LIttle Pizza Heaven

When I think of the greatest invention in the history of the world, it isn't the wheel or fire or fibre optics. Clearly it's pizza. What, I ask you, could possibly be more wonderful? If a genie appeared and gave me three wishes, only one of them would be for world peace. The other two would be for pizza.

I remember the first time I had pizza. I was five. My parents opened the box and I was revolted. No way was I going to have any. I couldn't believe how disgusting it looked. But I was hungry, so finally I was persuaded to try a piece. When I had my first bite, my life changed. An eternal love affair sprang to life. I begged for more. I haven't stopped craving it to this day.

In my kitchen closet that I use for storage, there's always a pile of pizza boxes that I've been procrastinating throwing out. I hate to part with them. If you've had gold, you don't like to discard the jewellery box.

I'm not much of a glutton. I try to stay as slim as I can. I eat moderate quantities, generally. But I can down a large pizza in fifteen minutes flat. I turn into some sort of insatiable beast when you put a pizza in front of me. Do I feel like a pig? Nope. In fact, I'm bursting with pride.

Nobody can ever agree on toppings. People's taste in pizza toppings is as variable as fingerprints. Pizza, therefore, is a symbol of the sacred Canadian talent for compromise. Anchovies seem to be the least popular topping. I realize they're basically centipedes. But mmmm. I don't care.
You could put cockroaches on pizza and I'd gobble them up with gusto.

Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. I have very rarely had pizza I didn't like. I admit, though, that I'm not real wild about Pizza Pizza pizza, which sucks sucks sucks. But I have been known to order super ultra jumbo-size pizza from places that aren't my favourite pizza joints, strictly on the ground that I got a deal on it. Bad pizza is still a good deal if you get a whole bunch of it for a great price. But everyone seems to agree that Pizza Hut pizza is the best. It's gourmet pizza. They have an all-you-can-eat buffet at a Pizza Hut near me. I pleaded with them to allow me to move in and actually live on the premises. They refused. It was the most heartbreaking letdown of my life.

I love that you can pick up a phone and have steaming hot pizza whisked to your door. I can't think of anything I'd rather open my door and see. The Swedish bikini team, perhaps. But if they were holding pizza, I have to admit I'd admit them a lot faster.

I'd like to go on about the many wondrous delights of pizza, but I'm getting a bit lightheaded. I ordered some a few minutes ago, and I'm holding my breath until it gets here. If I pass out, good. It'll make the wait more bearable. So bye for now.

It's been a slice.

Laugh At This, At Least

You know what has always really freaked me out and made me profoundly uncomfortable? Humourless people. People who absolutely never laugh, who appear not to LIKE to laugh. There's something about that that's way spookier than, oh, I don't know, say, poltergeists. It's wrong. That's what it is. It's just plain wrong.

I encounter humourless students fairly often. They're a small minority, but you see them all the time. The class will be roaring over something hilarious somebody said and you look over and there's one or two kids that can be counted on to sit grim-faced no matter what. And you just want to smack them. Until they laugh.

I'm not talking about dumb people who don't GET jokes. That's excusable, I guess, though sad. I mean folks who have intellect but appear not to enjoy jokes. Who find laughing a chore. That's outright scary to me.

I don't know what I'd do if I were the parent of a humourless child. Two words come to mind, however. Ice floe.

I feel guilty sometimes for disdaining humourless people. It's a possibility that they were traumatized in childhood or something and all the mirth went out of them. But I don't know. Sometimes you just get the impression that they almost look down on humour. Like you must when something is beneath you.

You just want to scream, "LIGHTEN UP!" and light them on funny fire.

I don't think we should sit idly by and let the humourless be a drag on everybody else's fun. I think we should round 'em up. Stick 'em on planes. Send them to a really unfunny place. Russia comes to mind. Where everybody looks like somebody just dropped an iron curtain on their foot. Where citizens are required by law to be grim-faced. Which would explain why the most popular comedian there is Paulie Shore.

I just realized the irony of this little piece on humourlessness. It's by far my least funny one yet. Dear God. I'm spooking myself.

Am I horrified?

Da.

My iPod And i

This is a horrible secret to confess, but if there were a fire and it came down to rescuing my loved ones or my iPod, I'd probably have to flip hot coins.

Most things in lifeI could live without in a pinch if I had to, except air and water and Start Me Up by the Stones. But if I had to give up oxygen or my iPod, I'd need some time to think.

Because what a wondrous device. Wow. I used to make a ton of mixed cassette tapes, and I remember getting all excited when 120-minute tapes came out, in the Bronze Age, because you could fit so many songs on them. Making playlists now is so mind-bogglingly easy and enjoyable in comparison that I honestly don't believe human beings should be allowed to have so much fun. If you had told me then that in a few years there would be a thin little gadget that fit in my palm that would hold my entire music collection plus thousands of tunes more, I would've thought you were a liar and punched you repeatedly. It's a marvel, that's what the iPod is. A triumph of mankind. Like pizza, but even better, and, believe me, that's saying more than you can ever know.

So when I say I really like my iPod, I don't mean I've grown immensely fond of it or anything that pedestrian. I now actively worship it, prostrating myself spontaneously before it in tribute at odd moments and praying to it loudly at night to solve my many horrifying problems. I carry it near my heart wherever I go, in the breast pocket of my shirts and jackets. I like it better than things that others die for, like freedom. In the spirit of openness and candor, I'll bet I like it a billion times more than, oh, say, you. No offense, I hope. I'm just saying.

An iPod puts a soundtrack on your day. You walk around with mood music playing that accentuates each 'scene' in the movie of your life. The problem is that you can get to the point where you neglect the script by avoiding dialogue. I'm ambling down the hall of my building on Shuffle. No Rain by Blind Melon comes on. Instantly I am transported to a rapturous place! My very molecules frolic, galvanized by the happy surprise! But wait! There, at the elevator! It's that really nice old couple that always want to chat so pleasantly! Damn! Now I'll have to hit Pause, and I would much rather fling them down the shaft. My God. What kind of a monster am I becoming? You worry about yourself sometimes, with an iPod.

Actually, when you think about it, iPods bring the generations together. The elderly like iPods. They don't own any, but they like them. Because now young and old alike can relate to walking around going, "WHAAAT?" Pointing apologetically at their ears. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU." It's a bonding thing.

If I ever lost my iPod, I would begin systematically pillaging houses door to door, slaughtering the occupants, until I found it. This also, sadly, is not hyperbole.

You might be surprised to know that I actually am not terribly fond of the name "iPod". I think it sounds too much like some kind of plant that eats you in a science fiction movie or something. I think it should be called simply The Wonderful Thing.

That's my motto. "Life Is A Wonderful Thing."

Now, when I say it, you'll know what I mean.

My Secret Sin

It's probably not entirely commendable to admit I'm a fan of the show COPS. It's become the same sort of guilty, unadmitted pleasure known to readers of the Enquirer. But I am, and I just bought the new 20th anniversary dvd set, and I often record the show. I don't go around admitting it to the world, that's all. Only to my loyal blog readers. It's a secret, just between us, okay? Swear?

There was a Canadian version of COPS. It sucked like an imploding star. Its title was the worst in the entire history of television - B.A.C. It stood for Battle Against Crime. That was the best they could come up with. I think they should've just gone ahead and called it WGN for We Got Nothin'. It would've been more honest and a lot less lame.

And it was DULL. First of all, the Canadian cops, in the tried and true Canadian way, were always chiefly concerned with being ultra-polite to the crooks. They were like, "Look, I'm awfully sorry, and I don't mean to be rude, but put your hands behind your back, okay, please, sir? You're under arrest, eh? But we deeply regret it." In the American show, they're civil to the suspects, but you just sense that, if there weren't a camera crew there, 'suspect' would mean 'suspected skull fracture' for the poor purple perp.

And the BAC episodes focussed, as they tend to now with To Serve And Protect, which is only marginally better than BAC, but with a way better title, on the most mundane crimes. Every episode of COPS has high-speed chases and shootouts and robberies and brawls and bloodshed. On the Canadian cops shows, it's usually speeders and college kids partying too loudly and serial litterers. Once, I swear this is true, the little blurb in the TV Guide for COPS said "Domestic violence call; tanker trailer chase; drugstore hold-up" and the ad for BAC said "Cops battle mosquitoes". I nearly emigrated on the spot.

It's an educational show. I've learned a lot watching COPS. I did not know that the vast majority of crimes in America are committed in trailer parks by men without shirts. I didn't realize that all hookers are so rotund and hideous (and, as it turns out in the end, so to speak, male). I didn't know that the standard police question of bystanders is, "Where's he at?" I had no idea that the first command a policeman generally gives an arrestee is, "Put down your beer." (Actually, I guess that last one would probably apply equally to Canadians, except that up here the suspect would've already voluntarily put his down for fear of spilling some.)

A buddy of mine eschews COPS, saying he can't stand to watch, as alleged entertainment, people being busted. (I think his true attitude is probably, "There but for the grace of God go I.") Yet he watches those shows in which camera crews turn up where cheaters are trying to have affairs. And I've never seen anybody more busted than those poor losers.

So yes, I admit it, shoot me with a standard-issue thirty-eight, but I enjoy COPS, okay?

I know, I know. Bad boy, bad boy.

But whatcha gonna do?

The Long-Delayed Procrastination Blog

I realize I've been proctrastinating far too long and not keeping this blog up to date. I hate myself. Well, maybe that's putting it a tad strongly, but I do dislike myself quite intensely; I've slapped myself around for it, and I'm no longer on speaking terms, so I hope that suffices by way of atonement.

I've long been a procrastinator. I don't start things right away that really need starting. I'm sure if there were a flood, the water would get to my nostrils and I'd say, "Huh. Look at that. Water to my nostrils. I really should get going. Drowning sucks. I'm outta here. Soon. In the very near future, I am going to flee for my life, yes, sir." It would serve me right if they delayed the recovery efforts. Send FEMA to save me or something.

A lot of people, probably the majority, put off doing things they don't want to do. That's human, and understandable. But I'm so chronic I'll put off things I'm DYing to do. "Suuure would like a nice, cold drink of juice," I'll say. "I must go get me one. Sure wish I had a trusty manservant. Lord, I'm parched. Why does the kitchen have to be so far? Aw, forget it. Blow it off. It's good for a person to dry out now and then. I'll get a delicious, ice cold drink later."

I have been known to sit and watch shows like Cretaceans Of Guam for an hour because I can't be bothered to search for the remote.

My delay mode has been responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent fuzzy little strawberries.

I don't call people back sometimes until they're actively raising their children to hate me.

This is extremely embarrassing, but I once sent my parents a nice Christmas present. In July. Five months early? No, seven months late.

Why do people procrastinate? What mysterious psychological mechanism drives us to put off doing things even when we know the stress of not doing them will vastly diminish our overall happiness and emotional health? How the hell should I know? I'll look it up later.

Anyway, I'm back at the blog thang and I promise to write a new one much more often and I appreciate those of you who tell me you've been visiting this little site. It feels good to be back at it again. Now, let's see. All I need is an ending. Um....

Oh, well. I'm sure one will come to me tomorrow. I'll bet a nice nap would inspire me.

Now, that I'll get to immediately.

The End Of My Frozen Rope

I had already freakin' had it with this winter. It's been brutal. Unrelenting. Endless. I hate winter anyway. It's a stupid, useless season. If you don't play hockey or toboggan or ski or snowmobile or icefish or any of the other ridiculous northern pastimes that don't make winter suck the slightest bit less, it's nothing but five long months of torment. My winter activity is shivering. That's it. And studies have now conclusively proven that it is scientifically impossible to be cold and have fun at the same time.

But this winter especially. My dear, sweet God. What did we do to deserve this? Unbroken MONTHS of non-stop cold. Towering mountains of snow. Winds that slice like knives the livelong day after day after DAY. Ice-encrusted sidewalks whose navigation is impossible without walking at glacial speed, flat-footed, like a frigid Arctic octogenarian. It's beyond my capacity to endure another moment.

So imagine my delight when the forecast said today would be an incredible FIFteen degrees!

I didn't believe it, naturally. Poppycock hogwash, I figured. (Another fine name for a band - ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for EMI recording artists Poppycock Hogwash!)

But lo, it actually came to pass! Finally, finally, finally! And at lunch today I went outside with my spring coat on to gambol to and fro like a springtime lamb of joy! I was deliriously happy! It had been a long, long, long time coming, this day of deliverance, and I was savouring every sweet, blessed moment of it. I returned to my afternoon classes refreshed, rejuvenated and relieved.

And after school was over, I raced outside excitedly for some more ecstatic glee. Straight into a ferocious North Pole wind that froze me solid in two steps flat. It was incredible! Something called a 'Colorado Low' had swept in causing the temperature to drop TWENTY DEGREES in TWO HOURS! It's unprecedented! It's monstrous cruelty! It's literally beyond belief! I nearly screamed with the horror and shock of it! It's like poking yourself in the eye for five long months, over and over, over and over, until one day they say, hey, you can stop poking now. Here are some soothing eye drops for your poor sore retinas. And you put the drops in your eyes, and for a while it feels soothing, and then it turns to battery acid. I was a bitter, bitter man today. That's why they call it bitter cold.

So I've had it. I will not stand it another day. I've reached the end of my icicle. Tomorrow, if it isn't warm, I'm going nuclear. I'm literally going to blow my atomic top and let the fireball warm the atmosphere. This is my plan. A personal radioactive holocaust of protest. Enough is ENOUGH, for heaven's sake! I'm going to blow like a Hiroshiman volcano.

The wind blows, after all.

It certainly, totally does.

And I'll tell you something else. Colorado can BITE me.

The Accursed Double Quadruped

I have a profound respect for all living things, an abiding reverence for all God's creatures, great and small, a deep sense of kinship with everything that moves upon the Earth.

But spiders must die.

Because four legs is my limit. Wild boars don't bother me. Warthogs are fine. Grizzly bears could drop over and I'd usher them in gladly. But eight legs? Give me a break. That's just pure feet greed.

They're hideous. That's obvious. Nothing is more revolting than a spider, with the possible exception of Donald Trump, and when I run shrieking and waving my arms above my head (in a manly fashion, mind you), I want to make it clear it's not because I'm scared, I'm just grossed out. (I also flee spiders.)

But what really bothers me is their superpowers. Anti-gravity, for instance. You see a spider on the ceiling. You nail a couple of spongemops together so as not to have to stand right under it when it falls, and wham it at an angle from way off to the side, and what does it do? It falls onto you anyway, at a forty-five-degree angle, clings to your jugular vein and sucks all the life from your body. Nothing defies the laws of physics like a spider.

And you can hit it a hundred and thirty times with enough force to atomize a rock and it's still capable of running around at mach speed, unphased, and it would be just as lively if you used a phaser. Spiders have invulnerability.

Invisibility, too. If you whack one and it falls onto the floor, right at your feet, you frequently can't find it. You know it's right there. You didn't see it run. But it can't be seen. They say it's because, no matter how big it is, it can curl up into a little ball so tiny the human eye can't detect it. This is nonsense. I used to try that trick when the school bully was after me, but I could still be seen. And she wore thick glasses.

And web-making ability? What the hell is that? A thread comes out of its ass with a tensile strength the equivalent of titanium for its thinness, with alternating sticky and treadable strands so it can retrieve trapped prey without getting stuck itself, and we're supposed to believe it's from this solar system? I don't think so. (But then again, neither is Trump.)

(Have you ever walked through a spiderweb when you're passing under a tree and you set frantically to clawing at your face to get it off, spazzing out, panicking, and you look across the street and people are staring at you in alarm? They don't know you walked through a web. They just think you snapped.)

Spider advocates (a term akin to Nazi sympathisers) say the little arachno-demons are good to have around because they eat flies. Relatively speaking, this is like saying that pythons are great to keep near because they scare away mice. Personally, I would rather be submerged in a vat of thousands of flies than live in the same hemisphere as one spider.

So sorry, nature lovers. I believe in live-and-let-live as much as the next guy, but there's not room enough in my home for spiders and me. If I see one in my bedroom before I go to bed, there can be no sleeping until I find it. If I have to stay up for a month or two, so be it. That's why I bought the flamethrower. I sleep better with it under my pillow.

God made spiders, you say? And therefore they have just as much right to live as me? Tell that to The Donald when I've reduced him to ash.

My Omelets Are Too Good

My omelets are too good to eat, I've decided. They're just too fantastic. Nobody can eat them anymore. It was getting dangerous.

People who have had my deluxe homemade cheese omelets are at risk. They can hurt themselves, for one thing. They snap vertebrae in their necks flinging their heads back in rapture at how utterly delicious they are. They say MMMMMM so loud that they rupture their eardrums and the vibrations cause aortic palpitations. (If I ever have a band, it's going to be called the Aortic Palpitations.) They close their eyes so tightly in their ecstasy that sometimes they can never open them again and they have to get a seeing-eye dog. (Why can't deaf people have a hearing-ear dog?) Their taste buds freak out and leap off their tongues onto the table and run for their lives, never to be seen again. My omelets are downright hazardous to people's health.

Also, they ruin other food for life. Once you've had my omelets, nothing else is palatable again. Filet mignon tastes like a stale Big Mac. Smoked chinook salmon tastes like guppy. Escargot tastes like...well, escargot. My omelets raise the succulence bar so toweringly high that, for the rest of your born days, everything else is about as delicous as the inside of a Soviet weightlifter's jockstrap. Um...I've heard.

I used to make omelets in the morning for overnight lady guests. But I had to quit doing that. I never saw them again. Pleasure overload, I guess.

So people can't actually have my omelets anymore. They can gather 'round to look at them. They can take pictures of them. They can paint them, often in their own blood, in touching tribute to their magnificence. When people make arduous pilgrimages from distant lands, trudging over rough terrain on their lips for a single fleeting glimpse of my omelets, I sometimes take pity on them as they throng piteously in the hall outside my locked door and let them sniff them through the mail slot. But that's as far as it goes. I had to set limits. People were dying.

I put things in my omelets that don't normally go in one. Cheddar, feta, mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Bacon bits (real, not artificial). Garlic powder. Bits of turkey breast. A hint of barbecue sauce. Wine. Hot dogs. Whatever occurs to me. It all adds up to one truly transcendent experience. The English language has no words to describe it, although the Farsi word 'fnork' comes close. I don't recommend that you even think about my omelets, lest you be rendered inert by the overwhelming wonderfulness of the very notion.

No, your best bet is to put them out of your mind. Just forget it. In fact, eliminate from your recall the memory of reading this blog. Move on with your lives. You'll be better off. People who have tasted my omelets are like those who have had near-death experiences, getting a glimpse of the pure Valhallan bliss of perfect joy and then being brought back to 'life' by doctors who ruined everything by 'saving' them. Trust me on this. You're better not to know what you're missing.

But it's different for me. In fact, I'm going to go have one right now. My boys get to have one, too. All day long, they beg me for another one. They can't get used to it. The thrill never wears off. There's no immunity to heaven. But I figure they and they alone deserve it.

The rest of you? Not so much.

Strawberry Genocide

I love strawberries. Everything about strawberries is delightful. When I enter the grocery store, I sprint directly to the strawberry section. I would go so far as to say that strawberries are my life. This is why I don't understand my need to destroy them.

Because that is what I always do. I am a serial strawberry killer. (They never even make it to my cereal.) I have this deep-seated (seeded?)compulsion to murder every strawberry I see. I never get around to eating them, and their juicy red corpses sit decomposing in my fridge until they morph into something else entirely and their remains cast a pall over the rest of the food and I carry them, like a pall-bearer, to the garbage. I am a strawbicidal maniac on the loose.

It's not like I have anything against strawberries. Strawberries have never done anything to me. (Unlike rhubarb, which singlehandedly ruined my life.) In fact, as I say, I love them very deeply with an abiding, all-consuming passion. ( I have, in fact, gone so far as to use them amorously to add flavour to my after-dark activities, sometimes even with a woman present.) So why I have embarked on a one-man crusade to wipe them out is a horrifying mystery to me.

Because I'm slaughtering them in ever-increasing numbers. As I type these words, in my fridge, in their fungal death throes, are four, count-'em four containers of strawberries which I purchased in a joyful frenzy at Longo's two weeks ago and whisked home lovingly as though they were succulent little valentine hearts. I had the best of intentions. It was going to be great. I would get up each morning and start my day with a delicious repast of sliced strawberries in milk with brown sugar. But yet again, that never happened. My apartment is strawberry Auschwitz. There's a sign above the entrance that says 'Mould Shall Set You Free'.

I feel terribly guilty about this. I'm wracked with remorse when there's fiendish, fruity foul play afoot. It's getting embarrassing when I buy strawberries. They plead for mercy in the store. "Nooooo!" they scream as I put them in the cart. "Spare us! We don't want to go white! Quick! Raspberries! HELLLLP! He's taking us to strawberry HELLLL!" But I run them outside and put them in the trunk of my car like doomed mob victims, hoping other motorists won't hear their desperate, muffled, thumping pleas.

I used to be a banana killer, too. Within a week, the cheery yellow bananas I brought home would ripen to festering brown tubes of slop until my countertop was a fruit-fly nightclub. Eventually, moved by their plight, I simply stopped buying them. But I can't stop purchasing strawberries. I'm bent grimly on their merciless destruction.

Eventually the authorities will catch me. And, fittingly, I'll rot in jail with a fruity cellmate. In the meantime, don't try to stop me. I'm on a rampage.

A Nice Game Of 'Flop & Drop'

The XBox is back. It was gone for a really long time. It got the dreaded 'ring of fire', a red light around the 'On' button that means Screw 'Off'. And, like an abusive parent, I took the lifetime of a sea tortoise to get around to sending for a new one while my children suffered. If it had been a choice between shelter and the xBox, it would've been no contest in their minds. Needless to say, they were profoundly disgruntled with my failure as a father to provide them with the necessities of life. They came within a whisker of turning me in for child neglect.

It finally came, though. You have to send the old broken one away and the Microsoft people send you a new one. It was delivered by Purolator, however, and so therefore it was ages before it got here. (PoorLater, I call them. Motto: Owing To Our Poor Service, You'll Get It Later.) It would've been here quicker if it had been delivered by the Pony Freakin' Express. I told them this, in one of my many 'discussions' with the so-called 'solution specialist', a quaint euphemism for 'problem maker', in which I endeavoured mightily to communicate the concept that they needed to bring the item to where I actually was, rather than to where I wasn't, a remarkable five consecutive times. "After all," I said at one point, "I don't live in Zimbabwe. And if there were a carrier pigeon large enough to carry an xBox, it would've brought it to Zimbabwe by now." So they marked the box 'Boot Hard And Submerge In Water'. (I actually wrote this on the box when it arrived and then showed it to my children. They were appropriately amused. They're the best audience ever.)

So now they can play Call Of Duty again, a war game in which the object is to kill and not be killed. Basic though that sounds, I cannot manage either of these goals. When I play with my boys, who are ten and eleven, I can neither shoot their screen characters nor prevent them from filling me with lead the instant I reincarnate from the fusillade that just felled me. It's so discouraging. That's why the game, when I play it, has come to be known in our household as Flop & Drop. (I don't think children should be allowed to be so sarcastic.) "Wanna play Flop & Drop, Dad?" they gleefully ask. They love it. I may have had them, but they own me.

The game looks like fun. It's photo-realistic, like operating a movie, except that in the movies, the hero doesn't croak the nano-second the film begins. That's all I do is die. There are many skills to master, like running and jumping and ducking and aiming and shooting and reloading and calling in air strikes, but all I've been able to master so far is the ability to expire with ever-greater speed. No matter where I hide, there they are, shooting me. If I run, they shoot me on the move. If I hide in the long grass, they come creeping up and shoot me. If I get on a bus and go to an entire different city, the second I get off, I'm shot. And then they cackle sadistically and say things like, "Nice try, Dad," which, of course, means, "You suck, Dad," but I always say thanks.

My guy automatically is reborn. And is automatically shot again. That's why they're called automatic weapons.

It's gotten so bad that the children have taken to making up new rules to make the game more competitive. "How about this time, Cole, you defend Dad while I try to kill him?" suggests Keith. Or, "Dad, why don't you have a rocket launcher and we'll have a kleenex?" Or, "Okay, new rule, Dad. We can't move or shoot and you can have a tank, okay?" But it's no use. Even if we amended the game so that the object were to stroll around the battlefield sight-seeing, I would immediately step on a landmine and be blown to smithereens. (Sometimes the kids shoot me up so thoroughly that it isn't even plural. I'm blown to a single smithereen.)

So technological entertainment marvel that video games in our modern age clearly are, they're also a sinister means by which children confirm that they are, in fact, toweringly superior to adults. When they were little, I was an all-knowing, heroically cool guy to them. Now, in their eyes, I'm a profoundly retarded, big, sad sack of uselessness.

When I was young, I played with a stick. And I was happier, let me tell you.

The Horror, The Horror

Dear Beloved Readers That Don't Exist Yet:

Welcome to the unutterable horror that is to be my blog. I have decided, in my Amishness, to get with the twenty-first century and assail the world with my views in the demented, lunatic belief that they might entertain someone, no doubt shut-ins and narcophiliacs and the criminally insane. We alleged writers have a need to write; that's what we do, as orators orate and pontificators pontificate and couch potatoes potate. Run. Scurry. Flee. Save yourselves. I cannot emphasize enough the degree to which I'm not kidding.