A Gentlemanly Discussion

In one of my history seminars, I learned a valuable lesson from 19th-century British parliamentary discourse. Language unsuited to the dignity of the office was not permitted in parliamentary debates - consequently, personal insults were much more imaginative than simple four-letter + "you" constructions. The more elaborately flattering the compliment, the more you hated your opponent.

I've decided that I'd like to keep profanity out of my blog by adopting this same tradition. Not only will it force me to be more creative, it will force me to exercise my irony gland (which I believe I learned about in grade eight health class...it's just behind the pancreas, right?)

The timing of this decision couldn't have been more appropriate, because on Monday evening this week I met the most irritating, block-headed, viciously cruel assho.....charming, intelligent, forward-thinking, compassionate specimen of manly virtue I have had the pleasure of encountering. My wife and I stopped at our local grocery store, and we happened to park next to a vehicle with a dog locked in the back seat.

I should mention at this point that it was approximately 27 degrees Centrigrade on Monday (81 degrees fahrenheit for all my non-existent American readers), and the sun was beaming straight in the front windshield of the car. Thankfully, the brilliant owner of this poor animal had carefully scrutinized the situation and concluded that leaving his windows down a couple of centimeters would suffice to keep his dog safe and comfortable.

Now, I love dogs. A happy dog reduces me to a grinning doofus, and puppies might as well be fur-covered hits of ecstacy for all the rational capacity I have around them. My first puppy, a beautiful Austrailian Shepherd named Brooker, was my shadow from the day we brought him home, and I still get misty-eyed looking at his pictures; he had a stroke in November of 2008 at twelve years old and had to be put down later that day. All of this is to say that seeing a dog locked in a car during a record-setting mid-May heatwave had me furious.

(Note: I want to point out that in the ensuing confrontation, I might be paraphrasing a bit - to keep the profanity out of my blog, quite a bit in some places. Confrontations are not my strong suit, and adrenaline was coursing through me. However, I do know that I never once insulted, disparaged, or attacked the man personally, but simply questioned his decision to leave his dog in the car.)

I was making up my mind to call the police when out of the store came the esteemed dog-owner. I glared at him and asked, "How hot do you think it is inside the car?"

He gave a cheerful smile and said, "I would ask that you mind your own business, my good sir."

"It's dangerously hot in there, and your dog could die," I replied.

"Come now, my distinguished fellow, it couldn't possibly be dangerous for him if I was only in the store for a few minutes," he happily responded. "May I once again ask you to mind your own business?"

"I should call the cops, this is cruelty to animals," I offered.

The thought of the local constabulary intervening in the situation seemed to provide some unease, and he became quite eloquent and forceful, offering nuanced and considered opinions on numerous topics ranging from the ethical value of my observations, my definition of cruelty to animals, my sexual preferences, and interestingly, the nature of my personal relationship with my mother.

I knew at this point I was facing a master of rhetoric, a paragon of morality and champion of goodwill. He had defeated me utterly, and I had no choice but to concede.

"Whatever," I muttered. "Enjoy your dog." He hopped into his car and drove away.

("Enjoy your dog" will go down as one of the most devastating come-backs in history. I just sprained my irony gland.)

Anyway. What an as....

This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

Some Seven Word Stories

I really thought all birds could fly.

Santa never came back for his pants.

A frustrated astronaut usually needs his space.

My ears stopped bleeding after an hour.

Does a dyslexic dog believe in himself?

On Girl Guides and Fruitcake

Why write about fruitcake in May? I blame the Girl Guides and their addictive cookies. Not the cookies themselves, actually, but the box they come in. Did you know 2010 represents the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Girl Guides? That's a pretty cool achievement - that means the Guides have been around longer than Canada's been a sovereign nation. Go look up the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and the Canada Act of 1982. I'll wait.

(Funny way my brain rambles: I wrote the word "achievement" up there and immediately drew a connection between Microsoft's Xbox 360 Achievements and the Scouts' and Guides' merit badges. Top Achievements of the 1910s: "Achievement unlocked: Milked a Cow." "Achievement unlocked: Got Drafted." "Achievement unlocked: Avoided the Spanish Flu.")

So the Guides have been around for one hundred years. You know what else has been around for one hundred years? Every single piece of that disgusting, rock-hard, dusty, crusty, teeth-cracking, tongue-curling, stomach-punchingly multi-coloured hunk of fossilized leprechaun turd people call fruitcake.

I'm not a fan. (Achievement unlocked: Understatement)

Portal was right, the cake is a lie. Cake is spongy, light, sweet; it tastes of children's laughter and angels' joyful song. Fruit "cake" is drywall plaster mixed with sawdust; moistened with the tears of a four-year old whose teddy bear's head just fell off; and then crushed into blocks the density of lead. This lead-like density is important, as the "fruit" is radioactive plastic debris leftover from the ruin of Chernobyl. It has been the Ukraine's chief export since 1986. Normally, this would be an unthinkable health-risk, not to mention completely irresponsible and utterly unethical, but the sheer density of the "cake" stops the radioactive particles neatly in their tracks, like the lead-lined vests your dentist drapes over your lap for an x-ray. Once embedded in the cake, the radioactive particles simply bounce around in the fruit pieces, giving off energy and imbuing the fruit with their unnatural green and red glows.

I once had a completely normal, highly intelligent friend of mine totally convinced that fruitcake had been designed during World War II as a humanitarian alternative to dropping high explosives on Germany. (Achievement unlocked: Guillible) The theory was that since it was so dense, you could drop fruitcake from a bomber and it would destroy whatever it hit, while at the same time preventing starvation among the now homeless civilians. He believed me partially because I have my Masters in History and seemed to know what I was talkinb about, but mostly because he too has eaten fruitcake and instantly grasped its inherent weapon-like traits.

Was it some misanthropic monster that concocted fruitcake? Or did some goodly and well-meaning baker one day simply choose the wrong recipe book on day (H.P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Fthagn Fruitcake and Other Incomprehensible Horrors?) and open the door that cannot be closed? In the movie The Rock, Nicholas Cage refers to the VX poison gas threatening San Francisco as "one of those things we wish we could un-invent." He might as well have been talking about fruitcake.

Dating Yourself

I think the first thing I notice when I'm in between jobs is how quickly I lose track of the date. Days of the week are usually easy enough to figure out - Oh, House is on tonight, it must be Monday. Pizza Pizza has free online ordering today, it's Wednesday!

But the date? Unless I seek out a calendar, my best estimate will get you the month, and even that with only a 90% degree of accuracy (ask me again on the last week of May and I might think it's June already).
Case in point: today I drove my car to the dealership to have some annual maintenance done, only to find out that my appointment of Monday, May the 18th, 2010, was not going to happen today, and was highly unlikely to occur at a later time either. (Note: for this to be amusing in a few weeks time, please note that today is Monday, May the 17th, 2010. Thank you.)

Remember the scene in the movie Castaway, where Tom Hanks is talking with Wilson about how long he's been on the island? There's a shot of a tally-score he's carved into the cave wall of how many days he's been marooned. Robinson Crusoe keeps track of the days of his ordeal, and I'm sure if you dig through the literature you'll find that anyone marooned on an island does the same thing. (Aside: Do you think that Robinson Crusoe ever did the 'who's-on-first' routine with Friday? "What day is it, Monday?" "No, Friday." "No, Monday." etc.)

The point is, being unemployed is a little bit like being on a desert island. You cast your resumes off like notes in a bottle, hoping someone, anyone, will find them and send help. You sometimes see opportunities for work pass you by, like watching a plane flying far overhead, or seeing a cruise ship float by on the horizon. You're lonely, frustrated, wondering what you ever did to deserve such a cruel fate - unless, of course, your last job ended with the words "call security!" - and you're down munching on ramen noodles like Tom Hanks cracking coconuts for dinner.

So here's me marking my cave wall with a sharpened rock. Someday soon, a bottle will wash ashore on some kindly HR manager's desk, and this interlude on the island will be over. And that is one date I won't forget.

Aimless, Pointless, and Meandering

Why am I doing this?

I really don't know - this is a stream-of-consciousness ramble, and I can't think of anything to write. Here's a blog post! Ooooh, edgy, hip and cool! Only four? five? ten years behind the times?

I sent my first ever tweet about three weeks ago. My facebook page still says I'm working at a job I left five years ago. Social media and I are polite acquaintances - we see each other around fairly often, and we nod when we pass each other in the line at Tim Hortons.

So why am I doing this?

I haven't decided yet, I suppose. It's been suggested that I blog about my sports interests or that I blog about history and my professional interests to help my career (or lack thereof). Maybe I'll just post a couple of times and then trail off into digital oblivion; this seems the most likely course.

So WHY am I doing this?

I guess I'll find that out as I go.