Considering a reBRAND

Anger.

If I was still 14 I would have forgiven him.

Look at him and his sunken features. All shadowy, staring me down saying, "Hey. You there. My album came out 2 months before your blog. Yeah that's right."

Only now do I realize how much I truly detest the name itself.

A hasty brand is a wastey brand I always said.

Are Your Eyes Crossed Yet?

Do you ever wonder how many zillions of hours you've wasted glued to the screen? I'm not talking about that tv piece of garbage. I'm talking computer & nintendo. The gods of entertainment. 

For me, it all began 12 years ago in the middle of nowherezeville Manitoba. At 40 degrees below with no driver's license, the internet was the closest thing I had to a neighbourhood.  

mIRC

Remember this one? 'Twas created in 1995, 

and supposedly d/l'd over 20 million times. At least 2x by yours truly. Last year, when I moved home from Australia, I was SUPER bored, and decided to check and see if this magical app still existed. It did! Apparently all of my NIN groups had dissolved (surprised?)  and all of the public rooms were filled with a/s/l motherfuckers trolling for cyber-tail. Yuck. Delete.

What about ICQ? If you don't know what i'm talking about, you're just not nerdy enough. MSN's predecessor,with that little "uhoh!" soundbyte.  Wikipedia tells me there are over 50 million users registered. Does this include my 12 year old self?  

Maniac mansion 

By far the best way to get carpal-thumb syndrome from a rectangular controller. This epic 1987 "choose your own adventure" nintendo game included aliens, kidnapping, a dungeon and a talking house plant. Right up my alley.  I not one moment ago learned that there was a 3 season YTV sitcom based on my beloved game. I'm glad we had farmer-vision because I would assume the show was terrible.

Now I could get into the 7 CD game "Phantasmagoria" but my attention span is shot. I'm sure yours is too. Log off now and get some fresh air for crying out loud!

Bunnies Rule My Heart

You'd have to agree, there's nothing like a long, casual walk to appreciate the beautiful things in life. I'm kicking myself now since I had no camera to take photos today.  Picture this, a scraggly old man sitting on a Portage Ave. flower pot with his pet baby bunny on a home-made leash. 

Typically I would cruise past at lighning speed - on the phone or blasting my favourite song. I'm glad I wasn't distracted for once! That split-second moment was such an odd piece of joy: I said, "CUTE!" and the scraggly man smiled...  Well, perhaps I have an extreme soft-spot for baby bunnies. I think if Hitler walked in toting a baby bunny, I'd still smile and try to pet his fur.  The bunny's fur. Not Hitler's. On the converse, perhaps I'm an ogre and have a painful disregard for scraggly street people.  I guess they're resorting to heart throbbingly cute animals to soften up the passers-by. Thus is life in downtown Winnipeg.  

[pic - Andrew Pommier]

I've been watching too much MadMen...

Hello there gorgeous ladies. Are you reading this at the speed of light? Only have a moment to spare? If so, put down your gin and read the one line version of this post:

Create your own flavour of success.

To the guys: sorry, it's not your turn. No attention for 

you today. (for once) ... (ps. i love you)  Anyhow, you're probably super busy tallying sports scores and pretending you know how to do your hair, being adorable and hiding from me. (ps you scare me)

[pic - patrick leger]

FOCUS DAMNIT!!!!

Ok, enough.

Lately, in the women around me, i've noticed the drive for success outweighs the urge to 'settle down'.  For me, this urge is about as strong as the one to stick my hand in the garb-orator. Oh gosh, how nice would that feel? Yes please, can i have both hands down there? But wait, then I'll need a 3rd hand to flip the switch on! What ever shall I do?

Don't get me wrong, those ladies who've settled down are likely 1000x busier than myself. Yes, we're talking especially about the new moms. You heard me. I'm saying it:  BABIES *****shuddering***** 

To those women, I commend you, because wow, i'm barely responsible enough to take care of myself! I pause to reflect, and regret i have little in common with you. I call out to you and say, "Please take notes and in the future teach me how to raise a kid!" Because God knows how much children irritate me.  If there's anything I can offer in exchange, please let me know.

So here I am, surrounded by driven, passionate and intelligent career women.  You know who you are.  And please, for the love, don't fucking compare us to those NYC sexinthecity harlots.  They should have some integrity and self respect for once!  I can't describe how much I hate that show... Think of us more like that group of extremely industrious women who keep Frankie Magazine afloat.

The following is a compilation of 20-something career female attributes which make me laugh on a daily basis: (comment if you can think of others!)

• you sip booze to swallow your vitamins
• you get home from work at 9 or 10pm
• you cook dinner and eat that exact same meal 5x in a row
• you get angry about the carbs in those tortilla wraps
  
• you supplement your over-work with a nasty shopping/drinking/smoking habit
  
• your shopping/drinking/smoking habit eats up your paycheque
• you work harder to get a bigger paycheque
  
• (are we seeing a pattern yet?) 
• you're proud that you managed to do your laundry this month

In the end we're well-dressed, well-paid, successful career women.

Hang on a sec, how awesome is that!!!???

A What Patch?

You know those days when every single thing in your life is screaming "pay attention to me!"?  Ohh Yes you do.  Don't you just wish you lived on a farm somewhere in the mid-west, milking cows and watching the sun set over your strawberry patch? Is the phrase strawberry patch dirty to anyone else out there?

This is Wednesday

Since I have basically no more charm or wisdom left within my corpse of a body, yet have decided that 'blog discipline' is my well overdue new year's resolution, here's a bunch of stuff for you to mull over:

Beware the Dead Cat Bounce
If my FB page threw up on me it would look like this
Natalie Dee is amazing
Shameless promotion of local rock bands - Cross Town Rivals
And local DJs - Jamall Knight
Bad news for rail junkies
That is all

Your All Canadian Money Saver

Two words: Giant Tiger. Now please, don't judge. Brush your misconceptions aside. Forget all of your prissy hang ups and realize - Ketchup is just ketchup.  The name brand is the same at good ole Gee Tee's but it's fucking 50% CHEAPER! GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES! Drive down to the ghetto (which happens to be 2 streets over from every suburb in this city) and save some money. 

FIERCE!

Also, you should support Canadian stores when trying to save a buck, instead of dumping money into the Globalized Wal-Shart... 

If i'm wrong, will somebody at least prove to me why i shouldn't shop there for most of these stupid life essentials?  Of course, i wouldn't trust them in the underwear department. I certainly need to hold my bits & pieces together with $100 of fabric & wire. Calvin Klein likely isn't the nicest fellow on earth but i'm not that much of a hippie. Wait, i'm not a hippie at all. I'm a corporate slum trying to save money because our communist city can't pay me enough to support my Calvin Klein addiction. 

Out from Under

I've been a very baaaaad writer. The past 6 months have been far too sinister to publish. i risk the danger of spreading negativity. Right now i'm far enough past it all to just say, 'i don't give a shit what people think'.  I say this often, but honestly don't practice it as much as i should.  So here I am.  Might as well post on a poorly named blog that nobody will read.

Just so you understand, here's a small censored glimpse into what i'm talking about.  After this, I promise, no more garbage blogging. Just rubbish blogging and trashing and other dirt related paraphrasing.... 

Excerpt from the Nov. 2008 word doc archive:    Sometimes I think I’m high.  I’ll be cutting a grapefruit in half; the most round and firm perfectly ripe grapefruit. As I slice the knife to expose the sensual innards my pupils enlarge 15 sizes. Tiny smell particles dance up to my nose.

That will take me back to 15 minutes earlier when I was walking on a crisp fall morning. Noticing a long city block of naked elms tangled together at the canopy level, methodic and soldier line straight at the trunk.  They look like they’re protecting my neighbourhood.  The summer leaves were merely a fancy costume they wear so they don’t scare the children who hop-scotch below.

I really hope I am high because this can’t be fucking reality. I’m falling down the rabbit hole, hoping there’s at least going to be a tea party involved.  One more drink and ill be fine.  

///ffwd a few weeks

Neurosis of the body & mind simultaneously occurring with the feeling of being out-of-control.  Both of which feed each other making things all the worse.  There is no way someone suffering like this could ever get used to being happy.  Living in a house in Beausejour with a pantry full of baby food, you’d certainly find this house-wife face down in the river.  Find my will under the pillow, all my files are to be left with a Mr. N.W.  Instructions: please piece together years worth of disjointed ramblings to author my memoirs. Donate the profits to our magazine.

-------

aaaaaand wow. what a pessimist! who wrote that hogwash? Reality is the fact that i am now drinking a beer and enjoying the pure simplicity of a Monday tiredness coming over me.  Now that I've explained my hiatus / lack of anything interesting at all, please forgive me.  Know that there are thousands of words like the ones above, but there is no need to dwell.  Lets move on to some music, engaging content, storytelling and general merriment.  Spring is here.