Moldy Chair!

My roommate mentioned to me that the landlord was wondering if we are going to get rid of my favorite chair.  At the time, the chair was outside, due to the fact that one of my other roommate's friends is such an alcoholic that he, in a drunken stupor, pissed on my favorite chair.  I was mortified of course, because it was worn out in places and the foam was exposed.  If the chair had been in better shape, it's leather outer coating could have easily deflected even the most ammonia heavy of urines.  But as it was in the shape it was in, I was just disgusted and didn't want to have anything to do with it.  So I dumped it outside in the mid summer, and it seemed fine.  Problem being, I never hang out outside my house anywhere, so I forgot all about it, and in came the rainy season.  So when I went to look at it, I realized that my landlord was being perfectly reasonable.  It was soaked with the constant rain that we've been getting all October, and it was black and yellow with mold.

Looking at the chair again, I couldn't forget how much I loved it, even though it was moldy and gross.  So I made a plan to resurrect the chair - I would remove the moldy gross parts, and rebuild it with new foam and cheap leather.  I took it apart last night and got some measurements for the parts i need to replace.  I washed the pieces of leather that are still usable, and I wiped the frame down with some bleachy water.  My next step is to track down this upholstery repair guy I got the number of back when I decided I was gonna do this, and see if he can help me out.

the stuff dreams are made of

So I've been having some intense dreams lately.  I'm paying even more attention to them after I watched a documentary about dreams and that they are a way for our brains to learn and 'practice' things.  we generally have positive dreams during non-rem sleep, and more negative dreams during rem sleep.  According to a scientist in Montreal, who catologues a huge dream database, about 3/4 of all dreams are negative.  This is kind of a relief to me, who has had disturbing messed up dreams my whole life.  Apparently its NORMAL.  Someone in the thing also said that 50% of people are able to consiously think about something the night before, and then dream about it.  I have been able to do this occasionaly but I think I need some more practice.  I also maybe need to pick easy topics since I pick abstract things I want to get better at.

I've always wanted to keep a dream journal, but I just can't do it.  When I wake up from a dream I always think I will remember it all, OR I really want to get back to sleep and I can't be bothered to write shit down or I wont be able to sleep as easily.  I really like sleep, but I regret times like saturday morning when I dreamt about something funny and woke up laughing uncontrollably.  I'd probably be rich off whatever that was, but oh well I'm sure my brain can come up with something funnier.

Scary dreams, as I was told, are supposed to be to prepare us for the dangers that our ancestors used to face, but we quickly thought/invented our way past.  Mostly wild animals, I expect, but my bad dreams, like last night for example, often involve ghosts.

Last night I dreamt I was staying in this one room cabin with like 4 other people, all sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor, and for some reason the cabin was on the stilts (i think it was in the swamp) and so was 2 or 3 stories up.  We knew the cabin was haunted, but it was the only place we could stay.  While we were all sleeping, someone woke everyone up because the ghost had brushed past them.  Soon enough, a bit later, I felt the ghost brush past me (for some reason i knew it was an old lady, and she hobbled and walked slowly).  Finally, at one point, the ghost grabbed me by the shoulders and slid me clear across the room, almost sending me out the window except i managed to roll out of the way at the last second.

Now thats all well and good, but how does that help me?  Does my brain think I deal with ghosts on a regular basis, and that's something that I need to be wary of?  I think I just watch to many horror movies.

kerchung!

So the last few times I have been in the bathroom I thought I should probably clean it.  I dont need to clean it, and it certainly isn't my sole responsibility to clean it, but I'm the kind of person that thinks things wont' get done if I don't do them myself.  So there I go thinking about doing something without doing it.  I really don't want to do it.  This picture isn't my bathroom, but it is kinda gross in there, and cluttered.  It probably wouldn't even take that long to clean it.  What's stopping me?  Is it good old fasion procrastination?  Do I feel like I shouldn't do it.  Probably the worst feeling about cleaning is that you know it's going to get dirty again, immediately after you finish cleaning it.  And also I hate it when I'm cleaning and hairs are stuck to everything.  It takes some effort to get hairs dislodged from a wet surface.  Let me know if you know an easy way to eliminate the hair problem, and maybe I'll be motivated enough to clean the bathroom.

Zomberland

So I sucked it up and went to go see Zombieland last week.  I had reservations and a good idea of what it would be like, but I went to go see it anyway.
I was actually pretty surprised however by the first 5 minutes, which was filled with lots of zombie gore and death, which set the tone for the rest of the movie, which was nothing like the first 5 minutes.  The rest of the movie was campy and devoid of plot, story or interesting characters or character development.  Instead it was a nerds wet fantasy, being that there aren't very many people, and those that are around are good looking people.  There is free stuff, no real danger, and lots and lots of pop culture references.  If there was a zombie apocolypse, Zombieland would be the reality tv show of an otherwise horrific scenario.

I could complain about all the different multitude of problems with the movie, but instead I'll just tell you that it's a good looking, uninspired feel-good campfest.  Come to think of it, gore aside it fits perfectly into the category of romantic comedy.  That's right, an awful romantic comedy with zombies far, far in the background.

I'm long past cynical, but hollywood has beaten the shit out of zombie movies over the past decade.  There are so many, and they are pretty much the same and aside from Shaun of the Dead (I liked it even though it was kind of a romantic comedy too...difference being I actually found it funny) only the original and remake of Night of the Living were amazing and anyone else who has tried to make a movie since has totally missed the point.  Yes your zombie gore and special effects are amazing, good job.  Oh yes and the fast movie zombies are so scarey and terrifying.  There I just pooped my pants, here take this poop as a testament to your amazing movie making skills.

I got sick lately.  I don't get sick too often, and I hate it, probably more than you do.  This wasn't a normal sickness, either.  This was a viscous organism with vampire teeth and blood oozing from it's body.  My roomate brought it home from the hospital where he works.  He also spread it to the entire house the same night he caught it.  my other friends got sick too within a day or two.  I've never seen anything like it.  Some people had fevers, but I guess I was lucky and got by without that or even a sore throat.  But I got all the other crap - chest cough runny nose and achiness.

Its been a few days now, and we are starting to recover, taken days off work, but of course I was still not quite over my sickness when I had to go back to work since I used all my sick days.  Its funny because the whole point of sick days is that 1)It gives that person time to rest and 2) Stops the rest of the company from getting sick because that will lower net productivity.

Of course most people in charge of productivity and sick days either cant' see that many steps ahead (beyond giving employees the bare minimum mandated by government) or they are ordered to by executives to do so.  In any case, people who are sick always end up working and probably spread it around a bit.
The first day I called in to say I was sick my supervisor, who is an older gentleman, and the first thing on his mind was, of course, swine flu.

"You should go to the doctor and get checked.  It is very serious."

"Yeah okay." I replied politely.  I did end up calling the nurse hotline, 811 in Canada, who went through a list of questions and then told me my symptoms weren't severe enough (no vomiting or fever) so she said that only the severe cases did they want tested.  Here again I am amazed and the bizzare logic of the situation, since if you are that sick and you go into a doctors office, sure as hell the other sickies are gonna catch it from you.  Way to spread around the most contagious flu known to man, sickie.

Seriously though, I don't actually believe in swine flu.  Thats a fairy tale that only old people and people that watch Fox News believe in.

Shame it's everywhere

Check out this fatty.  He was the Ontario Minister of Health until he resigned because 1 BILLION dollars was wasted on electronically logging the populus of Ontario.  Apparently the money is gone, but there is no system.  Over 300 consultants were consulted between 30 ministry employees and nobody seems to have anything to show for it.  And that's not even the worst part.

Look at the minister.  He's the minister of HEALTH.  He is a massive pusbag that looks more ham than civil servant.  This man is supposed to represent our best health interests but he looks like he drinks hollandaise milkshakes for breakfast with his double monte cristos.  Can you imagine being from any other country and seeing this as the MINISTER OF HEALTH?  If I were from Norway and I saw the Ontario Minister of Health, I would probably laugh, and then go skiing.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Stephen Harper represents our whole country.  He is a national shame, who can only hide in the shadows and govern poorly and make everything a vote of confidence then blame douchebag Iggy for trying to wreck the government.  You're terrible Stephen, but everyone else is terrible, and Canadians don't really like change for the most part.  Canada has no leaders, and I can't help but think it's being done on purpose somehow.  STOP WRECKING MY COUNTRY YOU HACKS.  I've been tempted to get into politics but I don't have the charisma.   But then how did Stephen get in here?  He is the epitome of ridiculous.  I swear his nose is like a bulb.  How do we get a decent leader into a party that people don't hate, and then get them elected?

WOWOWOWOWOWOW

Let me tell you something about the internet: it's full of people that hate themselves, their life, and by extension the world in general, including you.  Don't take it personal.  But let me teach you some internet lingo.

WOW

or you can say

WOW.   JUST WOW.
Caps is optional.  In the context of the internet, you can say it during games.  It came from video games, but you can use it in any kind of game, even sports.  What it means is that you played particularly horribly, where even an infant or elderly grandmother who has never seen a computer before could pull better moves and not screw up as bad as you just did.

On the bright side though, since the term is already so used, they are basically just spouting rhetoric at this point, leaving them wide open to a witty counter!  My favorite so far was when two friends were playing, and one wow'ed the other, and the guy responded with "Don't wow me Julian".  Solid gold.  I'm not the wittiest guy in the world, so I often just like to sarcastically say wow over and over until everyone shuts up.  But you should be creative and come up with something funnier.

I Like Food

I'm sure you feel the same way.  There isn't too many people I know who are like eww no get that delicious food away from me.  So I guess I was being a little naive when I decided to go out with some friends Friday night for some pub fare and found out that every place is busy.  everywhere.

Apparently there is an old saying that goes "if you want to lose money, own a restaurant".  I don't see how that could be true Friday night, where every table is busy and every waitress wishes they were anywhere else.  I don't know how much it costs to keep a restaurant running, but with the prices being what they are in Victoria, you have a hard time convincing me all restaurants are poor.  Victoria, being a tourist town, has a crapload of restaurants...so many that lots of them shut down during the winter because apparently their food is so shitty they need tourists who know nothing about them to keep them running.

People in Victoria like to eat food.  I've seen it.  And it's not like people don't have the cash.  Can you imagine a restaurant that is so shitty that even ravenous, loaded SUV's full of yuppies won't go to them.  Here's a tip about owning a restaurant: DONT MAKE SHITTY FOOD.  It might be cheap, but people won't come back, and its regular customers that keep your restaurant going.  I am a regular to some places around town, like the Italian Food Imports on Blanshard and the Fiesta Cafe at Douglas and Broughton.  I can tell they appreciate the regulars, because they make good food.  It's not gourmet or chichi fifi gimmick food.  Its decent portions for decent prices, and it tastes good.

One other tip, don't ever order pizza from Sarpino's.  It's worth than eating a decaying corpse.  If you're sitting around somewhere, too lazy to cook but really hungry, do yourself a favor.  Instead of ordering Sarpino's just go out to your back yard and grab a big handful of dirt and just start chewing on that.  I guarente it tastes better than the congealed piss they serve at Sarpino's.