I, being frightfully young, criminally immature and not possesing cable television, cannot say that I knew Al Waxman’s work well. It came as somewhat of a surprise to me then, that I should be at all affected by his death. For this turn of events, credit should go to one Kent Bruyneel. Read his moving tribute to the “King of Kensington” here.

Genius causes both adulation and envy. It also causes confusion and indifferce* in those who are simply too slow, whose brains are too atrophied and stunted** to accept anything they haven’t already seen.

We are familiar with love. We receive it in quantities which would make you blush. Sometimes though, those fearful of our talents, embarrased that they lack our intellect and savoir-faire, send us hate:

Goddamn it Dorrel, you theiving bastard, I will have you balls for this
obvious and out-right theft–even if you said it first . . . and yeah I know dorrel has two l’s,
you bastard . . . Goddamn it, I am so mad I can hardly finish the second period of NHL 2000.

Of course I have no inkling as to what might have set this person, who shall remain unnamed, off. Clearly though, he*** needs help. Being the magnificent human that I am, I bear him/her no ill-will and have already forgiven his/her abuse.

* There is a link to, and description of, aov somewhere on the page.
** The page linked to is filled with text so trite and cliched (imagine an accent on the e) that I cannot begin to think of anything appropriately caustic to say about it.
*** Or she, as the case may be.
**** Abusing footnotes would be more fun if I knew how to make little numbers appear instead of asterisks.

I am currently looking out my window, watching a woman shovel out her car. She is carefully shovelling the snow from behind her car, and dumping it behind mine. Now she is being joined by a helpful neighbour who is also burying my car.

I’d be out there helping her too. I would. Except I can’t even shovel out my own car, even before the extra snow was added. I’m not allowed to do any heavy lifting for another couple weeks.

If you don’t see me for a few days, it’s because I’m waiting for some snow to melt. And trying to find a good place to bury a body.

Check out this ad from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Quicktime Version (1Mb)
MPEG Version (1.5Mb)
AVI Version (7.1Mb)

I’m not a big wearer of cow skin, or any type of animal pelt, but I can’t see this changing my mind much. Sure, if cows sang maybe I wouldn’t eat them. But they don’t.

Just in time for Christmas – my top five books of 2000.*

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
Wherein very strange things happen, such as the characters within a story within a story incapacitating the story’s author so as to be able to lead their own lives. Almost as strange as it is good.

Our Dumb Century by The Onion
Because they are more angry, bitter and sarcastic than you can ever hope to be. Because they produce better and more meaningful work than 95% of the “real” newspapers out there.

The Bubble Star by Lesley-Anne Bourne
Her first novel, and a damn fine one. I am not, I assure you, recommending this book because I know the author. Not even because she is my proffesor. No. Simply because it is good.

Four Ways of Dealing With Bullies by Richard Lemm
I am extremely picky about poetry as I find most of it a waste of time. This is not. You could not hope for time better spent. There are no ulterior motives in this recommendation either.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
A good movie but a better book, as is often the case. Steven thought the ending was too cliched, but he is wrong, as is often the case.

*Top five would require remembering all the books I read, so it’s really just five books. Good ones though. “2000” refers to the year in which I read the books, and not in which they were published.

Also, I’m not putting goddamn links to Amazon.com for each book, OK? Type it in yourself.

For some reason it seemed important to write this at the time (4:45am).

The Barn was only midly interesting. The person I was hoping to see most did not show. The Groove Gurus were incredible (especially their lead singer) and had a much smaller audience than they desrved.

The party afterwards (unlike the party before) was slightly less interesting.

Odd to have your faith in humanity restored by a cab driver who had nothing but common sense to offer (fuck the money, and do what makes you happy). A fitting paradox somehow, as he obviously did not want to be a cabbie.

I swear, this is the last of the self indulgent posts for the near future.
Cheers.

How are you doing these days? I realize I don’t ask you how are are very often. This stems from a general lack of interest in your state of existence, but right now, at this moment, I am genuinely interested.

How was your Christmas? Really. Be honest. Did it live up to the two months of hype, songs, shopping and preperation? That’s probably an unfair question. Was it at least pleasant? Stress-free? Spent with loved ones?

I have to confess that I normally hate the Christmas season. The day itself is fine. Good even. I dislike the season for all the typical reasons: disgustingly rampant commercialism, soul-crushing music carols as well as other reasons which are none of your goddamn business.

In any case, this Christmas was better than most. As bizarre as it may sound I actually enjoyed my stay in the hospital – and not just for the morhpine, either. Always exciting to do something different I guess. Certainly nice to be waited on and have people concerned about you. Nice that is, when there’s no real need for the concern. Maybe I’m just starved for attention (as this note seems to confirm)?

I have no real point here. I know I’m hopelessly out of character – don’t worry, I’ll soon be back to the bitter, sarcastic self you all recognize.

Here’s hoping whatever you did over Christmas was, if not fun, at least nice. Memorable.

My appendix was infected. Did I get it fixed? No. Getting sh*t fixed is weak. My appendix let me down, so I tore it the f*ck out. I rock hard.

I was on an operating table shaped like a cross – with my arms out (cause they was full of tubes and wires and sh*t) like I was being crucified. So, if I were Jesus I would have been crucified on Christmas, not Easter. I’m way ahead of Jesus. I rock hard.

I had a lot of morphine. I had so much morhpine they put a tube in me so they wouldn’t have to find a vein every time. I rock hard.

I have a giant wound in my belly. I have not one or two, not three or four, but five staples keepings my guts in. But not my appendix, they tore that m*th*rf*ck*r out. I rock hard.

Unlike all you weak suckers out there, I have one less crucial organ. I have no appendix. I rock hard.

Merry Cristmas,
Matthew

Note: Swearing has been carefully edited as Christmas is no time for swearing. There will be no exceptions, especially none for me.

One of Today’s featured excite links:

Super-Cute Kitten Photos

If that isn’t confirmation that the average person has all the intelligence of a potted plant, I really don’t know what would be. Super-Cute Kitten Photos? Who the hell are these people who spend their time looking at pictures of other people’s pets on the Internet? There isn’t even anything particularly insulting to say to these people as any insult of appropriate venom would simply be above their intellectual understanding. Kittens, for God’s sake!

And while I’m venting . . . if the bastard who lives above us continues banging on the floor/ceiling like he’s digging for gold, I will be forced to throw him in front of a train, even if it means dragging him all the way to the mainland.

P.S. Go to ExplodingDog.com. It is probably the best thing on the Internet that isn’t Anna Kournikova. Some personal favorites are “that boy ain’t right,” “he was angry,” and “is this love? that i’m feeling?”