For those that missed the link last week, I encourage you, a confused Canadian (or a disenfranchised American looking north), to read Matt’s article for ForgetMagazine.com: How I Inadvertently Came to Understand the Appeal of Stompin’ Tom Connors, Canadian Icon.
It helped me to come grips with my inability to appropriately balance living in Canada with not liking hockey (the solution being to shut up about it).
First, a confession: I am a web stats junkie. I get some kind of power rush from knowing that people are visiting our website.
The stats I love so much include keywords from popular search engines that have led people to aov. Some make sense, others do not. Some are interesting, others disturbing.
I have posted keywords on aov before. However, here is a a more in-depth sampling of such keywords with my thoughts on each:
I have secured tickets secured to U2‘s second Montreal show on the Elevation Tour.
You’re tired of Bono’s rock star preaching you say? What’s that? I can’t hear you. I’m too busy throwing my panties on the stage and weeping like a school-girl when they play songs from Joshua Tree.*
Hipster country-folk music – “Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi” by Jim White. Complete with “Sha-la-la” chorus, everything is indeed peaches but the cream.
No tea with my sugar, thanks – “Heartbeat” by Tahiti 80. Best if listened to ironically, or while chasing butterflies through a sunny field.
Rhymes about mythical creatures over a chamber music loop- “The Centaur” by Buck 65. The saddest “my dick is so big” song you ever heard.If you do not already know this song you have not yet lived life.
Electronica minus all the hippy-love and glow sticks – “Rage” by Atari Teenage Riot. Set the subwoofer to 11 and prepare to be bludgeoned. None of that twee blip-pop here folks.
This post has no links. It did, but explorer crashed and I had to do a rewrite. If you want links learn how to use a search engine, you vulturous slime.
I remember another potentially interesting hospital story. It doubles as a drug story which are also popular or ‘hip’ among teens and twentysomethings. I hope it isn’t one of those ‘you had to be there’ tales.
For a week after my surgery I had to stay in ICU (intensive care unit) full of tubes of various shapes and sizes and textures. I also had those little cardiogram stickies all over my chest with wires leading into a heart monitor. This bothered me because I would set off an alarm if I shuffled higher in bed. But the most important part of my ICU experience was the morphine they fed me for my sore, stapled up belly.
One day the fine people at silverorange tried to come along and visit me. I don’t remember this (damn morphine) but I guess I was pretty out of it that day, and they weren’t allowed in. BUT they were nice enough to leave behind a delightfully stuffed ape-monkey thing wearing 3d glasses. It was placed on a shelf in my room and somebody explained to me how it was a present.
By now I was used to hallucinating at night (I’m not sure if it was the morphine or just sickness). I would have trouble sleeping because I had 8 people in my bed with me who stole my pillows and kept singing the chorus from Coolio’s “Fantastic Voyage”. That made perfect sense to me at the time.
Then, one night the gift monkey spoke to me. It scared me deeply. I don’t remember what he said but it was threatening and abusive. I eventually had to ask to have it hidden then taken home. I left ICU a few days later, and haven’t seen anything nonexistant since.
don’t you miss ralph nader?
Living in the busy world for so long, then taking a vacation of sorts from the horribly stressful life known as ‘web programming’ one comes to appreciate the simpler things in life.
Not 5 minutes ago I arrived back in my room after occupational therapy (where I thoroughly enjoyed a round of beanbag tic-tac-toe) to find two Kraft Handi-Snacks (those cracker/red stick/PB or cheese things).
I felt like a five year old on Christmas morning. Handi-Snacks are amazing and deserve a better web site.
I’m afraid this is about as exciting as my hospital posts are going to get. Wait, maybe not, a dude with green hair just walked by my door.
Rock:
The hour is ungodly late and I am still awake. I have a cold. It would not be so bad – it is “reading” week and thus there is no school and no need to get out of bed, or even wake up – except that my nose is a tap, and the constant dripping makes it nearly impossible to sleep. That and the sneezing. Also the sore neck from the sneezing. Send help.
Pimp:
The inimitable Kent Bruyneel and the uncomparable Mike Lecky have combined forces to bring the world Forget Magazine. It is a national webzine of the highest cultural importance. It also looks pretty. By pure coincidence, today it is featuring an article written by yours truly, titled: How I Inadvertently Came to Understand the Appeal of Stompin’ Tom Connors, Canadian Icon.
Unrelated and Incidental:
The snowplough is doing that thing were it leaves a giant stripe of snow down the middle of the street. Later the dump truck and snow blower will be along to collect it. I love that.
I went to Pat & Willy’s, a local Mexican restaurant to celebrate a birthday (don’t even get me started on the bizarre market for faux-Mexican/Texan motif dining on Prince Edward Island – it boggles my mind).
They have a promotion where you get a free meal on your birthday. The idea, no doubt, is that you’ll bring your friends and they’ll bring their wallets. Fine idea.
They used to include a free piece of cake for dessert. This was a nice little treat. Tonight, one of the guys at my table jokes that you get a free Joe Louis for dessert. We all had a good laugh. Then, at the end of the meal, the waitress came with a plate with one lonely Joe Louis with some whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and a sparkler. When I say Joe Louis, I am talking about the cheap chocolate cake things you buy at the 7-11 (a close relative of the Wagon Wheel, often found in Junior High School brown-bag lunches)
.
Let me be absolutely clear. It was not like a Joe Louis. It was a Joe Louis.
Witness The Editor hard at work.
Is it school work? Is he drawing a picture or writing a poem in blank verse? Is he actually editing something?
No, The Editor is hard at work putting the final touches on a Valentine’s Day card for his honey, whose arrival is eminently immanent.
It is worth describing this Valentine’s Day card. It is not of the standard Hallmark variety (though due to liberties taken with trademark, Hallmark is written across the back). The card is in fact four cards, cunningly arranged so that they form a book of sorts. The four cards were handcrafted by Mr. Campbell and Mr. Lecky (both of boxlor fame), as well as Mr. Coll (he of the Cadre) and yours truly.
It is worth describing their contents in some detail. The cover of Lecky’s work reads “Happy Valentin Day,” the inside of Campbell’s piece is adorned with the words “wet my fatty,” and Coll’s oeuvre consists of a photo-essay in which people (the four mention above) are punching The Editor in the arm. Mr. Coll’s card does deserve some extra explanation, but will not get any.
My card, in its entirety, reads: “Baby, I could really go for some eggs. How’s come I don’t smell nothing cooking?” Please note that this card reflects no misogynistic tendencies on my part. I would have anyone cook my eggs, rather than cook them myself.
Ok. I’ll admit that I’d rather have a woman cooking my eggs, but simply because if she is willing to cook my eggs there is a chance that she might also be willing to have sex with me (how’s that for logic?). While I might have equal chances vis-à-vis sex were it a man cooking my eggs, I am not so much interested. I am concerned that the phrase “cooking my eggs” has taken on new, and not entirely wholesome connotations. But I digress.
So the card has been assembled, and The Editor has added his words. He is smiling and pleased and none of us know why, as we are all certain that he is a dead man.
Lest I leave you with the impression that The Editor is unthoughtful or unkind, I should point out that he did enclose a ten dollar bill with the card – something the rest of us would likely not have done. Something we suggested that he might not want to do either. But what, in the end, do we know? He is The Editor.
Happy Valentine’s Day