The Ryan Alexi Blog

what are friends for?

2005-06-24T13:42:00.000-04:00

Remember Chris Harris? Well he's back baby! A few weeks ago he came over for what proved to be a very eventful weekend. In order for you to not think that this is another pathetic Jack-Ass knock-off of pushing somebody in a shopping cart, you have to understand Chris Harris. Chris was in an accident a few years ago and it has somewhat limited his mobility (not in ways that count, ladies!); along with that is the fact that he might be the laziest person I have ever met. Ever. A couple of months ago Chris mentioned to me that his preferred mode of transportation would be some kind of padded wheel-barrow-like device which would allow him to recline while being pushed by a minion. This sounds a hell of a lot like a stroller to me, but to each his own. The first night that he was staying here, Chris wanted to get his drink on and go to the LCBO. The closest liquor store is a good 2 km away, which poses a problem - too far to walk, too short to justify a cab, and the unreliability of the #11 bus negates it as an option. Chris quickly came up with the brilliant idea that we could walk to the store for him. Because I prefer not to do things for other people, this wasn't going to happen. My eyes focused immediately on the shopping cart that was sitting in the corner [for some reason Mike couldn't carry groceries home and he needed to bring the cart here for the next 2 months]. I made Harris a deal: we would walk to the grocery store if he would walk with us. No dice; I was one step closer to my real plan. Knowing there was NO way he could comfortably travel via shopping cart, I proposed we [Adam] would push him. Chris gave it a shot, but as you can clearly see it failed to meet his high standards for comfort:

My first instinct wasn't to help him, but rather to grab my camera and try to take pictures between fits of uncontrolled laughter. Getting him out wasn't an easy ordeal either:

Chris loves booze and he wasn't about to let a few minutes of agonizing pain deter him from his goal. He insisted that his chariot be padded. Once he got in it was on.

Because I was ~~embarrassed~~ carrying my camera I didn't push. Besides, Adam was doing such a good job of it.

Despite the fact that it's blurry, I think this may be the best picture I've ever taken:

After Harris had his alcohol I asked him if it was worth the degradation. He was confused by my question and countered with "why would I be degraded? Adam was the one pushing me." Touché.

one more, i think my eyes were closed

2005-06-17T09:57:00.000-04:00

Let me set the scene for you: it's early-ish (just before 10) and I'm flipping through the TV to get to one of many all-news networks. While I was "channel surfing" when The Baby Story caught my eye. Let me rephrase that, it didn't so much catch my eye as much as it simultaneously horrified/disgusted/and relieved me that I'll never have to pass something the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon. You might think the slimy grey-blue creature that this woman passed through her vagina was the source of the horror and disgust, but you'd be wrong. What was truly disturbing about this birth was that while the baby was half-way out of the mom's hoo-ha, the doctor decides to pause and awkwardly make the baby wave! to! the! camera! While not having a vagina means I can't fully understand the beauty [read: excruciating pain] of childbirth, I can still empathies with the fact that having a doctor stop your birth while passing the baby's torso for a photo-op would be blinding with both pain and rage. I should have taken down the doctors name - I don't think I'd want him checking me for a hernia. Say Cheese.

if I was a few years older...

2005-06-07T19:51:00.000-04:00

Okay, so flickr is finally being cooperative and I can share some horrifying images from Van City. As I mentioned before, on a beautiful day, I walked around Stanley Park by myself and enjoyed being sea-side. At the end of that 10 Km walk I ended up by a beach and a cool condo with a tree on the top. While I was walking past the front of the condo I spied this:

Although not horrifying from a distance, it certainly is up close:

Yes ladies and gentlemen, that's a senior citizen in a tiny black bikini. Instantly I was reminded of Magda from 'Something About Mary' and I shamelessly whipped out my camera and took a picture. I'm not "hating" on her - it takes courage for an octogenarian to wear something like that... and it takes a really good body on an 80 year old to almost pull it off.

Ryan went downtown and all you got was this lousy post

2005-06-01T10:41:00.000-04:00

'Sup bitches? Okay, let me clear something up here: although I am a whore for comments [all bloggers are], I simply asked that you comment so I knew that people had read my last post before I wrote a new one. Why'd you have to get all up in my grill in my comments section?

Because I reached 10 comments so quickly, I decided to hold true to my word with a new post, I went to upload what will be the most shocking pictures yet on my blog, but Flickr is being a pain in the ass, so they'll have to wait. In the mean time I have a couple of open letters to write to my fellow subway riders on the TTC last night.

Dear man who spit while on the train:
I don't know where you were raised, but apparently you weren't educated on the difference between inside and outside. Let me help you out with the complexities of etiquette surrounding spitting: if you are not outside, it is NOT socially acceptable. If you were on the platform and you hawked onto the tracks, that would have been better, but you weren't. You were on the train. Sitting between an old woman and a young mother. Classy.

To the uniformed Catholic school-girl playing with devil sticks:
Do you remember when devil sticks were cool? Yeah, that was in '93. You missed the trend by 12 years. Fads will come and go, but Catholic school-girls hiking their skirts up to say "I'm religious and slutty" has stood the test of time, so at least you did something right.

Dear homeless woman who threw a half-full can of Pepsi at my head while screaming in jiberish:
Thanks. Your little act of crazy made my night.

I know how long it's been

2005-05-31T16:23:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been a long time. I realized that it might be more important to find a job [which I did] and to get stuff in order for the summer than to update my little blog. I've heard it said that anticipation is better than the moment of satisfaction, so I guess it's all down hill for you from here. The other reason why I haven't been updating is that this is a humor blog and I've been reading a lot of serious stuff [mostly Coupland], so I was in deep-thought mode and not really up for making fun of things. Fortunately, for you, I'm back and ready to make you laugh.

Vancouver has a lot of fake diversity. Toronto is a hell of a lot more diverse than Van city because there is the "world in a city" as opposed to just a lot of Asians. Yes I'm aware that there's a huge difference between people from Hong Kong and Koreans, but quite frankly, I don't care - when it comes to ethnic diversity Asian is Asian and two ethnicities does not a diverse city make. There are a lot of "rice-rockets" in Vancouver [Asian-import cars with tons of bolted on parts]. I was walking around Yaletown with my friend for 20 years, Julia, when we came across this bumper sticker on one of the Hondas.

I have another amazing set of photos to share but I suspect that my readership has gone down significantly since it's been so long since I've updated - I'm going to save the really really good stuff until people know I'm updating again - which should be this weekend. Tell people I'm back and I'll update again - Comment so I know you've read this - once my comments get to 10 I'll know it's worth updating again.

vacation photos - blog style

2005-05-14T18:33:00.000-04:00

After my prolonged leave of absence I'm back baby! I had a killer time in British Columbia and I have a lot of awesome pictures to prove it. A few funny things happened when I was there and I'll get to those things eventually. They say a picture's worth a thousand words, but rather than writing out thirteen thousand words I'll just show you some of my favorites.

This is my sister Laura and I as she was dropping me off at the airport. If I'm going to take pictures of my trip I might as well start from the beginning right?

I've never flown over the rockies before - I was lucky enough to have a window seat and a clear day to get a bunch of wicked pictures. Several times on my trip I was blown away by how beautiful everything was. On my way home I actually saw an avalanche happening - definitely an amazing sight.

My first day there I went to the aquarium in Stanley Park (more Stanley in a bit). The aquarium was cool - you can get so close to the animals and I got a lot of great pictures here too. I was hoping to see some orca, but all they had there were belugas. [Did you know belugas are the only porpoises that have 'necks'? All others fused vertebrae - now you know]. This seal would be best friends with Chris Harris: when a keeper came to feed him he didn't swim over and beg for fish - it wasn't his style - he kind of just floated over slowly and had the keeper drop fish in one by one.

The next day I hiked Grouse Mountain - climbing a mountain sounds like a hell of a lot of work and it is. It took about two hours to climb and by the time we got to the top it was getting dark, so we took the tram down. In hindsight we really should have taken the tram in both directions, but at least now I can say I climbed a mountain. The whole trail on the way up is surrounded by tall pines with a canopy 75-100 feet tall, very impressive.

Later that week I had a chance to walk around Stanley Park by myself. Stanley is the second largest urban park in the world [Central Park is first] and it has a sweet bike/walking path going around it's shoreline [10 Km]. As I was walking there was a cool arch that had a stream running through it.

This is Siwash rock: native legend has it that it was a man turned into a rock by the "transformer" but something tells me it's just a rock, after all the worlds not on back of a turtle is it.

This is form of art that people do along the shore-line of stanley park. The rocks are carefully balanced not glued or cemented. At first I doubted this, as did the asian tourists that were in the park too. Thankfully [for me] a couple went over and knocked down one of the statues much to the distain of one of the artists who yelled at them for ruining something that took him hours to do.

This was at the point that I realized that walking 10 Km takes a lot longer than you might think.

The highlight of my trip was definitely Whistler! I've never been to such a beautiful place in my whole life!

The weather was good but the conditions weren't that amazing [but snowboarding in May is snowboarding in May!] My favorite thing was probably that I was snowboarding up at the top with a high of five degrees [c], then when we got to the bottom is was 25.

The drive to and from whistler is amazing - lakes and mountains along the whole highway - this is on the way back.

There were amazing sunsets while I was there. These are from a beach that's downtown.

Initially I was pissed that this happy couple got in my way, now I think it makes for a great picture [in that ideal post-card romance-exists kind of way].

So there you go - my trip in a few pictures. My next post will be in a couple of days and will focus on the funnier aspects of the trip - thanks for being patient.

Tomorrow

2005-05-13T16:55:00.000-04:00

Friends! I arrived safely in toronto very late wed night/thurs morning - tomorrow I'll be posting a new entry delighting you with my tails of British Columbia.

gone for a while

2005-04-27T16:33:00.000-04:00

Friends! Friday I will be going to British Columbia for 2 weeks. Tomorrow I have an exam at nine, and then I'll be getting ready for the rest of the day. I'm stoked. As a result of me being in B.C. I'm not going to be updating until I get back (May 11th). Also, if anybody can hook me up with a job, that would be great. I'm looking for something full time for the summer - maybe my readers at the royal bank office can pull a few strings. Email me - ryanalexander@gmail.com if anybody has a lead - I have lots of experience in both clerical work and research.. hook a brother up - In case I die on my trip - I love you all and it's been a pleasure making you laugh - Ryan.

tennis anyone?

2005-04-22T17:25:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I'm really sorry it's taken so long to update this. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. I've been busy with exams and I'm not even finished yet. I have my final exam for psychopharmacology on the 28th and I leave for 2 weeks to British Columbia the next day. As I mentioned, I was busy with studying, but more so with apartment tennis. I don't think it needs much of an explanation other than the fact that the net is make-shift (Fight Club poster held up by boxes) and there are not any solid rules - except that when something breaks it must not stop your game. Broken glass can wait, competition between young adult males cannot. So without further adieu, here are some pictures from the championship match.

We decided that Tyler kicked my ass because he broke the martini glass, while I only broke the blind.

i ain't no holla back guy

2005-04-13T15:13:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I had an exam from 7-10 which gave me all day to study. I really didn't end up studying too much and instead I was looking at urbandictionary.com and realized that there was a huge deficit in their definitions: there was no information on what a 'holla back girl' is. I realized how critical this definition was: thousands of people may hear Gwen Stefani's song and search to urban dictionary to figure out what a holla back girl is. Think about the confusion that could arise from girls not knowing if they were holla back or not! So anyway I added the definition [here] but they changed my grammar on the second sentence [which kind of pissed me off because it's wrong] but I'm sure any idiot can figure out what is meant by it. I'm especially proud of the names I chose for the example, which in no way reflect ethnicity. I know plenty of white Jermains. And Aishas. In fact my sister's middle name is Aiesha. Now I can say "I wrote the definition of holla back girl", which isn't something a lot of people can do.

Speaking of ethno-specific names, my friend Tricia and I were in educational psychology a few weeks ago where our feminist lesbian black professor* was giving examples from the WISC [A children's intelligence test] and she was throwing out random questions to the class. One of the questions she asked was "what is the definition of dilatory?"; which [obviously] nobody knew. Since the class was all stupid, we asked her and she bitchilly answered "I'm not going to tell you" - which lead Tricia and I to believe she didn't know. It turns out that it means 'slowly', but I assumed Dilatory was the name of a black chick. Think about it. Can't you picture an angry black mother yelling: "Dilatory-Chanel, you get back here! Don't make me throw my shoe at you!". Tricia and I got a good laugh out of it which spawned a heap of cut-eye from Prof. Everyminority, so I think it's a good thing that I turned down the dare to yell out that answer.

In the same class the Prof. made a girl come up and attempt the easiest puzzle ever in front of the class. Seeing how the girl didn't volunteer and the class was pretty big I think that anxiety hindered her performance, but Prof. Everyminority had to make things worse when she finally finished by saying "Clearly Supna isn't very good at this [this being a puzzle intended for 7 year olds] can we have somebody who's actually good at these [read: smart] come up to the front." Tell me that wouldn't be a blow to your self esteem. Without a doubt, she was the worst professor I've ever had the pleasure of pissing off, but the course is over and now all I have are my memories and less a less than spectacular mark.

*I intend on including her in a future post. Let's suffice it to say that she hated me. To be fair, we never confirmed that she was a lesbian [she mentioned ex-boyfriends] but she made a lot of references to her current "partner".

google's all up in your hood

2005-04-09T00:30:00.000-04:00

Indulge me for one second and let me tell you how unbelievably unsettling I find this:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's a picture of my apartment that you can now find on Google [just incase you plan on stocking my white-ass I'm not going to tell you which one]. That's right; Google has satellite images available for most major North American cities. Now I'm no conspiracy theorist, but if this is the technology available to your average google-ing moron, what kind of crap does the U.S. government have. Google, with it's elitist one gigabyte storage-spaced G-mail (that you have to be invited to use) and satellite image map-service, is really starting to freak the hell out of me. Google is like that insecure kid from highscool who really wanted you to like them so they kept getting cool stuff; when in actuality it was a thinly veiled attempt to get you to hang out more, coming off as both desperate and pathetic [despathetic!]. Or maybe Google is more like that friend who, despite the fact that you never told them where you lived, somehow managed to get aerial photos of your residence. Stop trying so hard Google; I'll love you for who you are.

think twice before renting a costume...

2005-04-04T19:20:00.000-04:00

Just when you think people can't get any weirder they dress up like stuffed toys and hump each other. What, you haven't heard of yiffing? Oh man, where do I start! Some of my friends and I were first introduced to the [absolutely insane] concept of yiffing in an episode of CSI last year. Caitlyn, Amanda, and Gloria were quick to jump on the internet to see if it was actually true [where else would you go to confirm if some really weird sexual act existed?]. So it's true: people do dress up like animals and [while in their costumes] bump uglies. It goes far beyond this too. They have "plushie conferences" and on CSI they had a "fur-pile" - which is basically a mascot yiffing orgy. I can't even begin to fathom how weird this is. Straight, gay, bi, trans-gendered - I get these. What could possibly make somebody sexually attracted to stuffed animals is beyond normal comprehension. When Caitlyn encouraged me to post about this, I knew I needed to find visuals. Thankfully I didn't find anything too horrific, a lot of what I found actually made me laugh to the point that my stomach hurt. Here are a few of the real gems that I found on the interweb:

When I found this picture I tried to describe it to my roommates, but words failed to describe the sexiness of this image. That and I couldn't stop laughing long enough to get two words out.

Did I not mention that they wear pants sometimes? I don't really get it... but then again I don't see why the hell you'd want to have sex with a stuffed animal, so what do I know. Isn't "she" sexy? It makes me want to work on my wolf calls! I love the extra touch of the human-like hair on the head, it makes me all hot!

If I've ever seen a group of guys who should never ever be allowed to touch a tiger, it's this crew. Ladies, I'm going to ask that you hold yourselves back or put on a Simba costume because that's the only way you could land one of these studs. I've got twenty that says they all live in their respective mom's basements - assuming they didn't hack their parents into pieces.

This is another favorite. Considering 'plushie-suits' are more or less for sexual activity, you think having a fifteen foot wingspan would impede your goal. But again, I don't know anything. Fanny packs are weird enough on adults as is, never mind the compounded weirdness of a man dressed in an owl costume wearing one. What could he possibly be carrying in that fanny pack anyway? Something tells me I'd rather not know.

Now that you've been informed of yiffing, welcome to my nightmare. After knowing weirdos get their rocks off on stuffed animals the next time you go to an amusement park or see a team's mascot you'll have the same unsettling feeling as I do. I seriously think there should be some kind of yiffer registry - we need to keep these people out of Disney!

trailer-trash, sad monkey, and oral sex

2005-04-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Happy April fools day! The first of April used to be much more exciting when you were in elementary school. My roommates and I all forgot that it was April fools day until after noon* anyway, but I think we should pull and April fools joke on our building's management and not pay our rent. It would only be fair since they played a little joke on us the entire freaking winter when we had NO control of the thermostat. I'm serious; some days we'd walk in and have to change into shorts, but other times (for days at a time) we would have NO heat and have to wear winter jackets and boots around our home.

*I think the 12:00 thing was just made up by teachers and parents. Give me another 'day' that ends at noon? New years day, Boxing Day, Labour Day... they all end when the next day start.

Wednesday night we had a trailer-trash theme party. [At first we were calling it a white-trash party, but after realizing that we have a lot of black friends, we changed the name] It was great, there were wife-beaters and trucker hats as far as the eye could see. Here's a picture of me looking trashy with my roommate Tyler [he just came home from class, so he doesn't look that trashy]. I don't know why he looks like he's trying to lick my neck, but I can't say I blame him.

Earlier in the week I saw this picture:

and at first I thought, 'that's cute.. a monkey hugging a cat'. As usual the cat looks right-pissed, but that's no surprise, they always look that way to me. But then I looked at the monkey and my mood changed from warm and fuzzy to incredibly depressed. Look at him/her. Why are you so painfully sad monkey? The longer you stare at the picture the worse you feel, so I suggest you stop now.

To cheer you up I'll give you some good news: the same folks that deemed sticking it in the poop-shoot technically not-sex have just given oral the thumb up! Check it out here! My favorite things about it are as follows:

1) The subtitle "the good news about oral sex" because I automatically thought "the gospel of oral sex" - and that made me smile.

2) That benevolence = blowjobs. I've always made this connection in my head, so I'm happy that a website confirms it.

3) All of the arguments for having to swallow. Aren't these just glorified ways of telling girls "it's good for your complexion" and "it's low in fat and high in protein"?

So to the people at sexinchrist.com: First of all, I think it's really weird that you made a site about anal before you made one about oral. I mean, there seems to be a much more logical progression from oral to anal, maybe you were just developing your website alphabetically. Furthermore, can you please update your site and give normal sex the okay already? If missionaries do it, how sinful can a position be? Love in Christ, Ryan.

worst yo' mama joke ever

2005-03-29T18:04:00.000-05:00

Today I was in psychology of individual differences waiting for my exam to start when I heard one the the best snipets of conversation ever. The two girls in front of me [typical York girls] had a dialogue that went EXACTLY like this:

girl1: My mom is being so unfair... blah blah blah I'm a spoiled brat and I want something else to be unthankful for.

girl2: Yeah, moms suck.

girl1: Well at least my mom's not an alcoholic so she's got that going for her.

[girl2's mom must love the sauce becuase what follows might be the bitchiest thing I've EVER heard]

girl2: You know, when I met your mom I knew she was kind of a bitch.

girl1: You're telling me!

girl2: No, like a huge bitch. I wanted to stab her in the face.

girl1: (shocked)... Well, she's not that bad!

girl2: Do you think there will be a lot questions from the article on Gestalt therapy?

I wish I was making this crap up. As soon as I heard it I started laughing [but only quietly, I think the second chick might have rage issues]. Congratulations to girl2: the transition from 'I want to stick something sharp into the front of your mom's head' to 'so about this exam...' is better than anything anybody could make up. Ever.

I dream of Geanie Condi

2005-03-28T17:25:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had a dream that was so odd that you had to tell people, even though it's a little embarassing? I know I have. I'll give you a little background though: last year when I was living in residence, I came down with a little illness called scarlet fever. I know, I know, who the hell gets scarlet fever in this day and age, but apparently it wasn't wiped out in the 1800's like I previously thought. Just let me tell you, it's definitely all it's cracked up to be. For a few days I had a sore throat [in hindsight it was strep], but no big deal. Instead of going to the doctor I decided to handle my sickness the way a real man does - with lots of complaining, bitching, and whining to get girls to do things for me. The night that I was the sickest I went to sleep around 10. After writing that, I realize that "went to sleep" is a bit of a misrepresentation of what happened. I tried to load myself up with Nyquil [nectar of the gods] and Neocitron, hoping to finally get a good night sleep; I realized I had a little fever, but nothing I couldn't handle. About an hour after lying down I was POSITIVE that I was going to die. My heart was racing, my fever was way up, I was sweating like crazy, but at the same time freezing my ass off, all while I was having a hard time breathing. My best friend/roommate eventually came back and took me to the hospital. Toronto hospitals normally let you sit in the waiting room for hours [I think it's a strategy to piss off the people who aren't actually dying to the point that they leave] but after several attempts by the triage nurse to verify that my resting heart-rate was over 150 and finding out that my temperature was somewhere in the range that will cause brain-damage, I was admitted right away. I was hooked up to an EKG to see if my heart was going to explode like a melon hit with a sledgehammer and my fever was brought down with ice. The doctor checked my throat, took one look at my chest (bright red at this point) and told me I had scarlet fever. From here on in, I have no concrete memories of the next 3 days.
Here's where the story gets good. One of the side effects of having a fever that can kill you is that your dream life gets a whole lot trippier. Fever dreams are intense. I only have vague memories of a couple of dreams but by far the most bizarre was centred around Condoleeza Rice. For those of you who don't know Condi, she is the United States Secretary of State and during the last term she was both National Security Advisor and Secretary of cut eye.

I can't tell you the main plot of the dream, but will swear that it was ENTIRELY non-sexual, I mean, can you really sexualize Condoleeza? Pervert. There was something about a plane and me having to get on it as a matter of [America's] national security. I don't really know. The dream ended with me on the plane and Condoleeza giving me a big gapped-tooth smile telling me I was "doing the right thing". From there on in, your guess is as good as mine. Definitely one of the weirdest dreams I've ever had since I really didn't have much exposure to or opinion on condi. After my dream, however, I've followed her career a little more, it's hard not pay attention to somebody on the news after they've appeared in your dreams. Who knows, maybe I was misdiagnosed with scarlet fever when I all I had was a mild case of jungle fever.

27 of the best hours of my life

2005-03-24T21:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, so last week I spent the entire week watching the first season of The OC. Now I know what you're thinking, but it's a damn good show! The plot is full of complexities that are just begging to have me apply for grants to buy the DVDs so I can qualitatively analyze the dialogue and relational dynamic between characters, but that might be pushing the line between healthy enjoyment and unspeakable obsession. You might already call watching 27 episodes of a one-hour show in 6 days obsession, but I could always say you just don't appreciate the subtle nuances that The OC has to offer. I also know that you're saying "come on Ryan, you just started watching for the lesbian story arch between Marissa and Alex". And you know what, you're right. You always know how to cut to the core of me, my friend. But what started out as a chance to see two beautiful girls* make out has turned into something much much more. I have learned some of life's great lessons through the OC and I'll share them with you now.

1. Always be willing to take a chance on a kid who's just come out of prison, quickly adopt him, allow him to move into your pool-house, drive either of your hundred-thousand dollar cars and trust that he won't do anything to harm your socially isolated sixteen year old.

2. If you are said adopted kid, you don't need real clothes, just wear a wife-beater all the damn time. Failing that, a V-neck tee shirt will be just fine. Occasionally top it off with a grey hoodie, unzipped.

3. The best way to get the really hot girl that lives next-door is to never be happy. Ever. You can't stop brooding for a minute; otherwise your tough guy veneer will be shot. Girls don't want a guy who is happy, they want to feel like they have a purpose, they want to make you happy.

4. So you just moved from Chino [ew] and want to fit-in in Newport beach, the best way to do so is to quickly identify the coolest guy at the school, who happens to be dating the hot girl next-door who's completely into you, promptly get on his bad-side and throw a punch the first chance you get. By the way, season one is full of punching, season two, not so much.

5. If you are Marissa Cooper, accept the fact that nothing is going to go right for you, ever. Essentially, you're life's punching bag. Your mom is a skeezy money-hungry whore, your dad stole millions of dollars, your ex-boyfriend that you gave up your virginity to [out of spite for Ryan] will bone your mom the first chance he gets, you'll always be a borderline alcoholic, and even though the show hasn't hinted that you have an eating disorder, we all know it's just a matter of time. As if all of this wasn't weird enough, you go and have a lesbian relationship. That's my girl.

6. Formal events are just begging to have a fist fight break out. When you go to punch somebody at this black-tie event, there is always going to be a table for them to crash into. Also, expect a counter punch and make sure you land on a dessert cart, or for a really big effect, in the infinity pool.

7. You're fortunate enough to be a corrupt real-estate developer who happens to have an amazing lawyer for a son-in-law, make sure you treat him like dirt. This will ensure that whenever you have problems with the law [which is often], he'll always be willing to cover your ass. I'm pretty sure that if I've learned anything from the OC it's do NOT be nice to people, it doesn't pay off.

8. So you admire a girl from afar; do creepy things for her and she'll find you appealing. Name your boat after her before she knows you're alive. Memorize a poem she wrote in the sixth grade. Know weird things about her, like the fact that she used to share her lunch with a squirrel. Nothing makes girls hot like knowing everything about them, especially when you've never spoken.

9. If you're seventeen or eighteen and you look seventeen or eighteen; could you be any more of a loser? Didn't think so.

10. If ever life seems perfect, don't be too happy, a world of tragedy and emotional pain is about to be released on your candy-ass, the likes of which you couldn’t imagine. Just wait. It'll come. An ex girlfriend/boyfriend will just show up out of nowhere. Your brother will get out of prison. You'll become friends with a seemingly nice guy from therapy [!] who is incredibly unstable [!], nearly killing himself in the penthouse of the four-seasons. Your boyfriend or son will just set sail into the sunset to live with his friend [and friend's gay dad], leaving you nothing more than a broken-heart and a note. The porno you made when you were young and ~~sluttier~~ stupid will be aired at the launch party for your new magazine. Do I really need to go on?

If you don't like The OC, give it a chance. I know it's intimidating - all of the characters are tightly knit together in a tapestry of marriages, blood relation, and current or past romances; but trust me - when you figure everything out, you'll realize how incomplete you were before you started watching.

*Only fantasy lesbians are hot. I bet that there isn't a lesbian couple on the face of the planet that looks like Alex and Marissa.

i'm not going to get into gradschool thanks to my mach 3

2005-03-22T16:10:00.000-05:00

I don't have issues with impulse control. In a lot of ways I'm really good at that whole self-control thing, but sometimes... not so much. I'm referring to the fact that last week I had to end beard-quest. I was sitting at my computer [I'd love to say doing work, but that would be a lie] and I just realized that the beard had to go. Now! It was itchy and annoying and I didn't like the way mothers looked at me as I passed their children. Although I had mixed reviews in terms of the aesthetic of my facial hair, I personally didn't think it looked good. I found it a little too... homeless. Am I glad I did it? YES. I think that every man [only real men can grow facial hair] should grow a beard at one point in his life solely to appreciate the patience and effort that goes into it. Beard growing really is a form of self-discipline, or is it just a total giving-in to laziness and not shaving at all? Whatever it is, I will admit that I now beardlessly find myself looking at guys who have full facial hair with tremendous respect.

I am pretty worried that my shaving will hinder performance in upcoming exams. You see, all of the great male psychologists [and a couple of not so great female psychologists] sport facial hair. It's true. Freud rocked a full beard, as did Perls, not to mention my advisor Les Greeberg; while Jung opted just to have a sweet 'stache. The facial hair doesn't stop in the clinical field either; social psychologists are in on the action. I've seen Zimbardo with several different forms of facial hair - the very best being a moustache and goatee combo that makes him look like Satan.

Phil, you have some great ideas and the experiment where locked college students in a basement "prison" driving one to insanity is definitely a personal favorite, but dude, you look like Lucifer.

Last week I also got a haircut, which I’m not a huge fan of. I find it too reverse-mulletish. Business in the back, party on top. I also had an awkward run-in with the woman who cuts my hair at "Value"-mart. Seeing her outside the scissor-bearing context and not having her flatter me with hollow [tip-bringing] compliments about my attractiveness was just weird. Plus, she knew my name and I completely forgot hers. Because it's Roya. That's not the kind of name you can expect people to remember, honestly.

So here's a picture of me less hairy from the neck up and not smiling. What more could you ask for? That's right, not much.

UPDATE

I realized I didn't give you a before picture for contrast effect. In hindsight I should have taken a before and after shot [the fact that I felt the need to shave THAT second made me forget about you. I'm sorry baby, I swear I'll never do it again. I've changed.] but this is the last picture of a bearded me that was taken. It was only 3 days or so before I shaved, you get the idea. The guy in the picture is my friend Chris. If you ever need a bodyguard or a hired goon, he's your man.

chris is an endless supply of blog fodder

2005-03-19T17:56:00.000-05:00

When it comes to waking up, as anybody who knows me well is aware, I tend to be a little confused and disoriented while regaining consciousness. Sometimes I don't really know where I am - I'll think I'm at camp, in my old dorm, at my dads place, wherever - basically it just takes me a few seconds to figure things out. So when people talk to me within the first minute or so of me coming to, I tend to completely misinterpret what was said. Thursday morning, however, I definitely didn't misunderstand anything. Chris slept over at our place so he could go to Feen's birthday party the night before. Once again three words sum up Chris: one man party. This picture should give you an adequate visual of that statement:

Being a one man party, Chris brings his own sounds system, he's not a quiet guy. So I just regained consciousness, figured out where I was and I heard "Where the hell does this bitch buy refrigerators". Try to put yourself in my ~~shoes~~ sheets: you just woke up and figured out where you were and you hear Chris scream that statement. If you're lucky enough to be anything like me, you'd laugh your ass off. Not a bad way to start any day. As it turns out, he was watching The Price Is Right and a woman guessed 5 500 dollars for a fridge, I guess that is a little high.

this post is sadly all about margarine..

2005-03-16T19:43:00.000-05:00

I needed to pick up some margarine the other day, along with a variety of other food items. No big deal, a trip to "Value"-mart and it would be over. While I was there I saw "Cock" fish sauce, and that made me snicker, but what I was really hoping to pick up was a specific brand of margarine that I thought was particularly funny. I don't know where he got it, but one of my roommates [I don't even know which one] had a brand of margarine called "Chef Master Soya". Why did I need that specific brand? It wasn't the texture. Or the taste. Or the colour. Or even the package design [white background, green letters]. It was just the name. Chef Master Soya sounds like some kind of BAD ASS M.C. And I prefer to eat products that sound cool. But sadly, Value-Mart let me down again and I was forced to look for another oil-based spreadable. When I realized that there was actually a wide selection of margarine [a Value-Mart first], I looked for the funniest. I ended up with a President's Choice product* called "Memories of Butter".

Now I don't know about you, but my own memories of butter are not fond enough to create a product based on them. I don't really have anything against butter, it's nice enough I guess.. but I can't really bring to mind a single butter-related memory. So, I brought my butter-memory-inducing margarine home and you know what it tastes like? MARGERINE. That's it. It doesn't taste a damn bit different than any other brand. I don't know what kind of farce the president is trying to pull; I've been a big fan of his products in the past, but he's trying to pull the wool over our eyes on this one. Once again, it does not taste like butter nor does it bring back any butter related memories. Be warned.

*President's choice products are not to be confused with the yellow-packaged no-name products. Why not? Because all no-name products taste vaguely like ass. PC products, on the other hand, often rock my world. Those Decadent Chocolate Chip cookies. Amazing. PC White Cheddar Mac & Cheese - beats the hell out of white KD any day. That said, the Memories of Butter is only on par with other margarines and not nearly as cool as Chef Master Soya. Word to your mother.

i bet you don't have a holy water-bottle

2005-03-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever been to a dollar store and found something that was just so unbelievably dollar store that you couldn't help but buy it? You know what I'm talking about, things that are so crappy that you can't believe that the Chinese are actually proud enough to slap a 'made in' sticker on them? Well you, my connoisseur of crap, haven't lived until you have experienced Honest Ed's.

Honest Ed's is hardly a store - it's more like a craptacular retail experience. I realized my friend April [don't call her Ape] has lived in Toronto for two years and had not yet experienced Ed Mervish's honesty, so on Friday Nate and I insisted that the three of us go.

Seeing Ed's in the daytime is a lot less spectacular than when it's dark because at night the exterior is lit-up Vegas style. I don't know why a discount store needs to be covered in thousands of lights, but who am I to argue with good taste? Upon entering the store you're immediately overwhelmed.

There is literally stuff everywhere and while at first there seems to be some order to the chaos, some things just boggle the mind.

Why was there a 20 000 dollar Chinese pagoda for sale in the basement alongside kosher salt? Why were there a pair of 15 000 dollar dragons in front of discount soda*? There's no use trying to make sense of Ed's - it just is.

*Um.. When soft-drinks are 29 cents, you know that there's something hella-wrong with them. This particular brand started off tasting like melted no-name freezies [no particular flavor...well it was supposed to be cream soda] then, while swallowing, it suddenly became intensely bitter - like a punch on my tongue [and my sense of better judgment for having bought a 29 cent pop]. The dink wasn't finished there - it decided to make an encore appearance with its HORRIBLE aftertaste. It may have been awful experience, but I regret nothing. [Thankfully we each only bought one]

The undeniable highlight of Ed's for me was "Religious Time".

Religious Time [with a cleverly modified Coffee Time sign] was bizarre to say the least. You would think that there would be a token Buda or Vishnu, maybe a cross or two without the Messiah still on it, perhaps a Mohammad action figure; but no. Religious Time is essentially just Catholic Time. For your convenience, Religious time is located right in front of the Tax Centre and beside electronics. If you're ever at Honest Ed's, go through Religious Time, don't let the opportunity to see plastic figures of Jesus and Mary with a Leave it to Bever poster behind them pass you by.

Look at Beaver, even he's confused. I did find a pretty kick-ass souvenir of our trip to Ed's in Religious Time; this plastic holy water bottle:

It didn't come with water and I'm not exactly sure how to go about making water holy, or for that matter why it would have a squirt top on it. Maybe when water become holy the viscosity goes up and it can only be squeezed out of its container like hand-cream. Who knows. But if you are in Toronto and you haven't experienced Honest Ed's - GO. Hell, if you're out of town come here just to see it. You won't be dissapointed.

once you read it, you can't unread it

2005-03-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

Cougars [the sexual predators, not the giant cats] aren't a rare species. Maybe the cats are [I don't know and haven't bothered to check (read: I don't care)] but the randy older women are definitely abundant. Toronto cougars, probably through a combination of both lack of knowledge of cool bars and their inability to get in, typically end up at any number of Fox and the Fiddles where they attempt, with varying degrees of success, to sink their middle-aged claws into their young, some what suspecting, prey. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know any guys who a) are into older women and b) have been caught making out with an averagely-yummy-mommy; but I [thankfully] have never seen that intersection of Drunk St. and Desperate Ave.
Cougars are one thing, but flirting with a women in a Bentley is completely different. Bite me, it is!
The other day as I was walking back from my least favorite grocery store, Value-Mart*, I walked past the PetroCan station where there was a woman in a Bentley Arnage waiting for a fill up.

I live fairly close to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Canada, Bridal-Path, [in a completely average apt with more roommates than you could ~~throw~~ shake a fist at] so I probably get to see nice cars more than the average person, but I never get to see them up-close. As I was checking out this half-a-million dollar car, the woman clearly had her eye on something a little (okay, a lot) cheaper - me. As I was scanning the car, our eyes awkwardly met, and the Mrs. Robinson smiled at me. I decided to throw caution to the wind and gave her a wink. The gas-station attendant gave me the compulsory heterosexual male greeting, a head nod, and said 'nice eh?'. I hope he was referring to the car and not the fact that I just somewhat hit on an older woman with the thought in the back of my head that she could probably pay my tuition with money dropped down the side of her driver's seat. Think less of me yet? That's what I thought.
It could be worse though, one friend told me "you should have dropped your pants before she had time to say 'fill 'er up'". The double entendre made me dry-heave a little.

*Value Mart. I hate Value-Mart with a righteous anger that burns but will not consume. Value-Mart is not value-oriented - as the name would lead you to believe, their produce is crap, and selection of all products - very limited. If all this wasn't enough, Value-Mart's employees are jerks. Discussing the details makes me outraged, but let's suffice it to say that I've gotten my fair share of eye-rolls for asking simple questions. The only redeeming qualities of de-Values-your existence-Mart are the guy who works in the deli that loads you up with potato wedges and the fact that it's close.

I saw a girl on the bus today with a pubic hair on her face. This would normally push the make-me-chuckle threshold, but the fact that she was bitching out somebody on the other end of her cell phone made it even better. If the person on the other end had known about the face-pube, they probably would have had the last laugh instead of me.

i'm surprised it's not just 'stand still'

2005-03-07T17:30:00.000-05:00

This summer Fat Joe and his squad terrorized there way into our hearts with a little diddy called Lean Back. The song was acompanied by a "dance" sensation that swept the nation and probably made a lot of fat people feel pretty good about seeing one of their own in the spotlight for something other than sumo-wrestling, pie eating, or for having to be removed from their house with the means of a fork-lift and a knocked down wall. I have no problem with "Leaning Back", but I can't believe that it was as popular as it was. It's hardly two steps. Allow me to demonstrate.

Step One: Don't lean back. This step is imparative.

Step Two: Lean back. You cannot skip this.

That's it. Any questions? At least The Macarana, The Hustle, and The Hokie Pokie involve a learning curve, but then again [to the best of my knowledge] they weren't created by the morbidly obese. And yes, I am really tired in those pictures, you would be too if you stayed up all night thinking about leaning back.

Now I'm not a sexpert or anything, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this site might be just justifying somebody's behaviour. It's also weird. Really weird, because most people probably work up to the poop-shoot instead of seeing it as a starting point. Could you imagine that conversation? Keeping with the context [two (probably) virgin Christians], I don't see how it could possibly be brought up casually.

keep on truckin'

2005-03-07T02:29:00.000-05:00

I wish I would have brought my camera down to Kensington on Friday because Tyler, Nathan, and I saw an old-school pimp. No, I'm serious, a real pimp in the daytime! He was sitting in his 1970's Caddy and [no joke] counting money! He wasn't no half-assed pimp either - the vinyl roof on his car was pristine and even though we didn't see his feet I would bet everything I have that he was wearing "gators". I knew he was old-school because his car wasn't moving, but neither were his rims.

Kensington proved fruitful. I scored a sweet western shirt and Nate [possibly inspired by the entrepreneur we saw] picked up a jacket. You probably didn't get the memo, but white trash is the new high fashion. The jacket is amazing. I was just going to describe the jacket - but a picture's worth a thousand words.

Not a single one of that picture's thousand words, however, can tell you what that jacket is like to wear. First of all, it smells. Bad. Kind of like it was sitting in a basement for the last 20 yrs, which in all likelihood it was. It's also heavy and not a little heavy either; it's honestly thirty pounds. It makes me think that in the seventies all jackets were lined with lead. The last point I'm going to make about Nate's new outerwear is that although it's incredibly stylin', it isn't functional. When you're wearing the jacket it's almost impossible to move your arms and it feels like you're wearing old carpet samples. Enough said. And yes, that is a Hilary Duff poster in the back - Nate's a huge fan. Don't judge him.

My friend and former roommate Chris came and spent the weekend at my apartment. It was great to spend time with him again because he's pretty much a one-man-party. Just look at this picture and tell me that he wouldn't be a fun guy to hang out with.

Despite the fact that Chris is the man, he's definitely not one for activity - tranquilized sloths have a busier schedules. Yes. he's that lazy. In the summer he limited himself to doing one thing per day. He's always telling me that he's more or a sprinter than an endurance runner [strictly metaphorically] and while he doesn't do a lot of little things, when he does something - it's BIG. This attitude is great - it actually works! When people expect the least from you, anything above and beyond nothing is a bonus.

Beard Update: Beardquest 2005 [yes I'm aware of the innuendo] is coming along nicely. It's been about a week since I shaved and it's looking fuller and more majestic everyday. I've been tempted to shave it a few times because it gets incredibly itchy, but I'm not going to [yet].

i wish my phone had candy-waiting

2005-03-04T21:15:00.000-05:00

Cell-phones don't work on the subway. That was my first indication that homeless guy I saw on my way to Kensington market wasn't really talking to somebody. Two other things that clued me into this fact were: 1) homeless people generally don't have cell-phones and 2) his handset wasn't made by Motorola or Nokia but whatever company makes transparent phones and stuffs them full of candy. As a psych major, I'm not really scared of people in psychotic episodes [nut-jobs], so I kind of like to watch them from a distance and observe their symptoms. This guy was hilarious. He continued with his conversation all the way from Yorkdale to St. Clair west and stopped only once saying "hold on a second" [as if he had a call-waiting] after which he proceeded to stuff his face full of the candy that was inside of the phone. I'm not sure if this affected his reception or not, because not long after he got really mad and hung up the phone with a combination of obscenities and crazy.

I'm growing a beard. There's not really any reason for it, but at least when people ask me 'what's new' I can tell them about my new project. Why leave all of the fun of growing a beard to orthodox Jews and Santa Claus, maybe I'll start a cool trend. Some people would say that it's stupid to consider growing a beard as something to do, but to those people I say: 'screw off'. Plus it'll make me look badass.

Something else that I think makes me look badass is my jacket. I posted this picture to give you a visual [with the beginning stages of my mighty beard] and as you can see it has fur trim around the hood. I've heard everything from 'it makes you look like a wigger' to 'are you going to explore the north-pole', but I like it a lot. It's real fur - fox - that adds that touch of class. Plus it doesn't look all nasty like fake fur, a lot of which look like somebody skinned Oscar the Grouch. Even though I like my jacket, a lot of people don't. These people are losers. And PETA. That's right - the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals think there's something wrong with wearing fur. PETA people are hardly ever shy, and seem to feel the need to tell me that they hate my guts whenever we cross paths. And even though some PETA members come and go, others are more special and will leave footprints in your heart. One footprint leaver was a girl I'll call PETA-bitch and this is her story.

A few weeks ago I was walking to write a cognitive psychology midterm when a girl walking beside me suddenly grabbed my arm causing me to spin around. When I put my hand up [partly out of surprise, but mostly to gesture 'what the hell!'] she smacked a PETA brochure into my hand. Quickly realizing that this wasn't an invitation to a kegger [or at least not a kegger I'd want to go to, considering there were lots of pictures of bloody animals on the flier] I proceeded to crumple it up in front of her. This made PETA-bitch mad. She started yelling at me, so I took my Ipod earphones off [I had a few minutes for the friendly exchange of ideas] and enjoyed one of the most nonsensical rants I've ever heard in my life. I only stopped her a few times, because I thought, this girl is giving me gold for a story to tell later. At one point in our conversation [if you could call it that] she said "animals are people too", to which I replied "no they aren't, there animals, so technically not people". This made her stumble over her worlds and search for a new cliché, thankfully she found one. PETA-bitch busted out my personal favorite: "fur is murder". Realizing that my exam was going to start soon, and that this conversation was going nowhere I said "No it's not, fur is fur" attempting to end our pleasant dialogue with "no wonder people don't respect PETA" and I started to walk away. Maybe it was the look in my eye or the fur on my hood, but I think this girl liked me. I say this because she didn't seem to want our interaction to end; as I was walking away she grabbed my arm [hard] and started to get even more hostile. I'll concede that while I might not know much about animal-rights, I know a hell of a lot about harassing people, and grabbing them [hard] normally pushes the line of annoying to assault. Actually grabbing a stranger takes balls... ovaries? I proceeded to use a self-defense moves that I learned from my "protecting yourself from being raped" class [great place to meet girls] to get her hands off me, and walked away with a smile on my face and a story in my heart. Even though she was crazy and annoying, PETA-bitch made my day. Destiny’s Child "ain't gon' dis you on the internet" but I will.

my list is getting pretty long

2005-03-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

Do you have an enemies list? I know I do. And while I was lying in bed at 7 o'clock this morning I added a new name to it: Crossing-Guard. Okay, so it's technically an occupation and not a name, but he's still added to my list. Here's the deal with Crossing-Guard, he blows his whistle while escorting people across the intersection EVERY TIME- I think that he decided that this was a crucial element to the safety of the crosser because most crossing guards do the job half-assed by refusing to take one step more than necessary into the intersection.

There are a few things that bother me about the whistle.

1) It's already kind of awkward when you're 22 years old and a crossing guard is escorting you, big red stop-sign in hand, but he makes it worse by drawing attention to the fact that I'm incapable of crossing the street without his assistance by blowing a whistle. I now avoid him by crossing the street before I get to the intersection with total disregard for how this might make him feel.

2) I don't really see the point of the whistle. I mean, the people to be concerned about are IN CARS. If somebody is paying so little attention as to run a red-light and not see a senior-citizen in a reflective jacket, something tells me blowing your whistle isn't going to prevent me from being hit.

3) This is the most annoying whistle aspect: it wakes me up every morning.

While Crossing-Guard's whistle would probably not stop a car from careening into children on their way to school, it sure as hell is loud. Loud is an inadequate description. This whistle seems to pierce all matter - with my window shut, it seems just as loud as if it were open. I'm not sure where he got this whistle, but I suspect that it was forged in the fires of hell itself.

So today, during his lunch-time shift, I sneakily took picture of Crossing-Guard [enjoying a sandwich and not crossing people (and thankfully not blowing his whistle)].

Don't get all high-and-mighty on me and pretend you never taken a picture of a stranger without their knowledge or consent! I took it so that you can have visual [I did it for us!], and to add it to my enemies list. I like my list to be thorough. And have pictures.

Who else is on my list you ask? Wouldn't you like to know. I'm not going to tell you though - I watch CSI, they're exhaustive - in the event that anything happens to somebody on my list I don't need it coming back to me.