My world has finally been fleshed out.  And I’m not talking love handles here, people.

Anyways, it was fun to do - sort of a lazy online CV.

Oh and I didn’t think this merited a post all it’s own, so here:

There was another poker night last night, and since the other roomate and I didn’t participate, we were bored.  I also happened to have a large supply of soccer balls on hand after taking the ball bag home from my previous soccer practice.  So you see, everything added up.  As the roommate said, the best part was that he would have to take a second after getting all the obvious ones to make sure that there weren’t any others left lurking somewhere - there’s just something  surreal about looking for stray soccer balls in your room :D.

This is amusing, and has probably been around since the begining of the internet (you can still remember what it was like before, can you?).  Anyways, thought I’d share.

An English Professor assigned his students to a joint writing exercise that quickly degraded…

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right.

As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on, back and forth.

Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the  e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached. "

The following was actually turned in by two English students, Rebecca and Gary:
—————————————————————-

THE STORY:

Rebecca (first paragraph):

At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl.  His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the    question.

Gary (second paragraph):

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17", he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…" But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay.  The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the
cockpit.

Rebecca:

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

Gary:

Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks that pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can’t allow this! I’m going to veto that treaty!   Let’s blow ‘em out of the sky!"

Rebecca:

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semiliterate adolescent.

Gary:

Yeah? Well, you’re a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F***ING TEA??? Oh no, I’m such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."

Rebecca:

A**hole.

Gary:

B****.

Rebecca:

Get screwed.

Gary:

Eat sh**.

Rebecca:

SCREW YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!

Gary:

GO DRINK SOME TEA - B***h.

**********************************************
TEACHER:  A+ - I really liked this one. Only group to get an A.

First there was The Meatrix.  Now I give you Store Wars.  Truly excellent and original in their own right, and with a morally conscious message of change to boot.  You can’t lose!

hehehe… darth tater.

Let me tell you:  I’ve been to the Red River, I’ve drank its water (however unwillingly) in copious quantities, I watched with hilarity and shock as my friends disapeared from the raft into the churning waters below, and then,… then, I went and did it again.  What follows is my account of the Red River.  OR, "How to forget what it’s like to ever be warm again."

The morning started in a frantic chaos of trying to decipher the cryptic messages of the organizer versus basic logic.  We were told to bring woolen socks, sweaters, etc to wear, but the obvious sticking point for us was the fact that when you’re wearing a wetsuit, you’re likely not wearing a wool sweater underneath, since the point of the suit is to be as close and tight to your body as possible to suck and keep your body heat in.  Flatmate Lindsay and I also shuddered at the thought of what wearing wet wool against our skin would feel like - something akin to Balki Bartokomous’s Mantle of One Thousand Itches.

After packing half our wardrobes, we got picked up and headed outside into the cold, dark rain, which was collectively decided to be a bad omen on what was to come.  Rain, 10 degree weather, and a general apprehension about barreling down a river known to kill people also did nothing to dissuade our fears.  We generally agreed that we would look back on the day with fondness, but it was small comfort to such a depressing start of the day.

Riding in what my friend lovingly calls his "pimpmobile" (on a side note, I believe this to be true of all cars with a freaking male symbol on the front), we make good time, and arrive early, which gives us a chance to scope the joint out.

Don’t be fooled by the blue sky poking out - the evil cloud god was momentarily distracted while laughing at our fate.

The place (Azur Rafting in case you can’t make it out) was actually pretty legit, I have to say.  We had gotten there just on time to see the previous group depart, and were reassured by the lengths the guides seemed to be going through to explain raft safety and what you could expect on the river.

What I was less impressed by, however, was the lone guide (second pic above) who ran around the compound looking extremely nervous and looking like he was forgetting something.  I whispered a short prayer for the group ahead.

Exploring the compound, we happened upon what appeared to be not one, but two abandoned truck trailers precariously placed beside the riverbank.  Upon closer inspection, we still had no idea what the hell was going on with those things.  The single clue to their surely storied histories was soundly affixed to the back door of one of them:

Sensing a good photo opportunity, I mistakenly suggested the word "cheese" be replaced by "Stop Nuclear Disarmament!".  Only too late did I realize that that made absolutely no sense (except to republicans), but it still made for a good photo.

We kept looking around, and ended up at the casting off point, where we could see a nice view of the river.  What we could also see quite nicely was the slightly upriver waterfalls, giving us a clue of what we were in for.  Here’s the priceless look of fear on Lindsay’s face as he stared at the power awaiting him.

In a somewhat masochistic way, he also decided to see how amazingly cold the water was.  His hand went limp in 5 seconds flat.

To restore feeling into his now-useless appendage, Jon suggested that they play "The Russian Game", which is also known in some circles as "One-foot Slam".  A basic a game as there can be, it involves bouncing around on one foot and trying to get the opponent to touch ground first without doing so yourself.  It went slightly too far, but all parties involved felt warmer afterwards (as did I, the cameraman, from laughing so hard).

When the others finally arrived, we were rounded up, made to sign away our souls via a handy legal document, and were then whisked away to the equipment booth where we would acquire our wetsuits and lifejackets.  Now, as a giant, I’ve come to realize that most generic clothing doesn’t fit me in exactly the right way - either a size that is long enough is also too wide (because only fat people can grow that tall, apparently), or the clothes fit in width and the length is lacking.  Well, this was the latter case - but it didn’t stop the suits from being fabulously fashionable.

At this point I obviously had to put my dear digital camera away, because rivers are the natural born enemy of electronics.  However, the imagination is often just as vivid a tool as a visual.  Shall we?

The section of the river we were to raft down was called the "Sept Soeurs", which translates to the Seven Sisters, or I guess the Seven Nuns, depending on your animosity to the church.  Ironically, it was only the part of the river that the section was named after that we did not cross - for the simple fact that the seven sisters are seven waterfalls in a row.  More on that later :).

I’ll spare readers from a blow-by-blow account of every rapid we came across, because honestly, I can’t quite remember what the hell happened, but there were a few notable moments out there.  After the first easy set of rapids, it was time to practice heaving people back in the boat, getting back into the boat yourself, and flipping the boat back over if it got turned.  Unfortunately, to practice flipping the boat back over, we had to flip it upside down in the first place, and a passenger somehow got a paddle in their upper lip in the process, cutting a deep and short gash, causing her to sprout what looked remarkably like a blood goatee.  Don’t worry though - she didn’t feel any pain, for some reason (probably was the freezing water), and was good to go after a little first aid on the river.

Our boat never flipped, but it came very close to doing so multiple times.  Our guide brought us back into a rapid called "La Sécheuse" (The dryer), after successfully clearing it the first time, for a little bit of fun where 5/9 people were unceremoniously thrown from the craft.  I was very, very, very close to following their example, as 3/4 of my body was already overboard, when I felt my foot having leverage against a cross-seat of the raft and I was able to abdominally crunch my way back to safety, only to have to lunge towards the other side of the boat and grab hold of the rope to weigh the left side down and stop the boat from capsizing.

The second run down the river after a delicious pita lunch brought us back to the same rapids, but this time instead of going towards La Sécheuse our guide Martin took the right hand side, bringing us into the jaws of "La Machine à Laver" (The Washing Machine).  I thought everything was going well, until I heard our guide start to scream hoarsely to "paddle hard!" over and over again.  He had warned us, that when things are serious, you’ll hear it in the guide’s voice.  Well, the panic was definitely there.  We churned water as hard as we can, and I glanced at the veritable pit of swirling water that we were barely pasing besides, and suddenly heard "Paddle hard backwards!" from Martin.  Again I could see another smooth pit of water crashing back into itself that we again barely backed sideways away from, and we were free.  In-tense!

When we got back the second time, we wrestled the damp and smelly wetsuits off (mine nearly killed me) and headed to the pimpmobile for some first-class nuclear furnace heating, where feet were cleaned and spirits risen.

In all, the weather wasn’t as bad as it could have been (although it was fucking, fucking cold), the water wasn’t cold when you had your wetsuit on (marvels of technology, those things), the portage past the Sept Soeurs was a little long, muddy, and painful (the rafts weigh about 500 pounds), but the experience was truly awesome, the river didn’t taste too bad (and boy, did I ever drink a lot of it), and we got some sweet photos from the company photographer afterwards:

I’m definitely going again next year.

The things I do to get my geek fix.  What a night!

I had been dreading yesterday night, because like an idiot I had forgotten about my team’s practice being on the same night as the premiere of Episode III, and so I had to come up with a way to get downtown as fast as possible and join my friends in line and still be able to go to practice.  On top of it, I find out during the day that there’s also a gathering taking place at that haven of truly authentic Mexican experience, Carlos and Pepes, located on Peel (’Try the chalupas!’).  Luckily, I happened to have some ripped up pieces of paper, some chlorine and some bleach and I was easily able to fashion myself a precarious timetable for the evening after a bit of mulching.

It turned out to be a mistake to order food so near to the practice, as I found out that I move about as quickly as Jabba the Hut (*snort*) on a pitch with three or four fajitas at the bottom of my stomach.  On the other hand, my enhanced Spanish cursing vocabulary clearly scared my teammates away from me, leaving me with the ball most of the time.  That and the intense glare off my new cleats, which according to my sources, are about ‘as blinding white as the nucleus of the sun’.  Here’s hoping that I decide to play in a mud pit with them soon.

Leaving practice slightly early, I caught a lift back home, it was a tire-burin’ run worthy of the cheesiest dukes of hazzard chase scene, with the potholes and uneven pavement of sherbrooke street substituting for the hills of san fran.  A quick shower (think water+bucket+tub+me) and I was off once again, destination: Paramount!

I get there and I see that there seems to be an awful lot of people trying to get into Ben’s restaurant.  Now, Ben’s is a legendary long-lived establishment in Montreal, but it doesn’t have exceptionally good food - it’s basically a hangout for older folks who still want the same type of meals they got in the 50’s - namely, the more gritz the better.  I soon realize that it’s not Ben’s they’re trying to get into - it’s the Paramount theatre at the complete opposite end of the block.  Flabbergasted, I ask myself how the hell I’m supposed to find my friends waiting in line, until the weight in my pocket reminds me of the magical properties of cell phones in social meeting situations.  I easily hook up with the rest of the peeps, and see that we’re about 3/4 of the way down the block to the front door.  Decent, because there are 12 theatres showing the movie, each sitting about 300 people.  So you have to figure that even if you see about 500 people standing in line ahead of you, you’re still doing pretty good.

For not the last time of the night, I wished I had brought my camera along with me as a light saber duel broke out in the street in front of us, which distracted us from the guy in the parking lot on the other side of the line twirling balls of fire on strings.  He sucked though - he kept splashing the petrol all over himself.  We stayed clear.  In any case, the saber duel was much more entertaining as the commentary from the crowd cheered them on (’Kick him in the nuts!’)

About an hour later, the line shuffled forwards, and in we went.  Seat strategy already having been discussed among us, we all knew what we had to do - attempt to secure 9 seats together in a reasonably far back and central position.  No small task!  We entered the theatre, ignoring the megaphone shouts of the exhausted paramount employees, and went as quickly up the escalators as possible.  Since we were in theatre 11, we had to not only break for it once we hit the first floor landing, we had to get up to the top of the stairs on the second level before heading into the theatre.  Putting my vastly underused talent for squirming quickly through thick crowds to use (Hey, it sometimes pays to be thin), I manage to reach the escalators before the others in my party.  Disgusted at the lack of speed of the escalators, and obvious congestion, I change methods of elevation on the halfway landing and take the stairs, joining a party friend who was now level with me.  We bound up the rest of the stairs two at a time, bypassing all the overweight computer geeks along the way, and dash to the theatre 11.  We quickly survey the scene, and as discussed, we split up and head up opposite aisles, determined to meet in the middle somewhere with enough seats between us.  Sure enough, we spot our prize at the back two rows, we quickly disrobe our jackets, and we fling ourselves onto the cushiony goodness, waiting for others.

Thinking that a bathroom break is a good idea before the marathon 3 hour movie starts, we head to the head.  Unfortunately, lots of people had the same idea.  It was one of those rare occasions that the guy’s bathroom had a large lineup and the women’s had none.  I remarked upon this fact loudly to complete strangers in line with me, to which I received a obvious response (’98% of the people here are guys!’).  True - I could have counted the females I saw that night on the fingers of my two hands.

The most obvious highlighting of this point (i.e. we are surrounded by nerds, and we’re part of them) was when we saw a some people whip out a couple of laptops in the theatre to watch episode II before the movie started.  The other lappy was playing some strange cel-shaded anime version of star wars.  Odd, really.

The movie was decent - it did a good job of explaining everything that they needed to explain.  It wasn’t an exceptional movie by itself, but it fit in well with the rest of the story and would have been fine if only this episode had been released instead of the I, II and III.  In any case, if you want a review of the movie, I’m sure you can find that somewhere else.  The only complaint with the movie I had was of the strange periodic whistling that was playing throughout the entire movie.  Two hours in, I finally figured out that it was in fact not part of the doubly surround super 10.1 subwoof galactic magic sound, but actually the nose of the heavyset fellow immediately to my right.  It’s hard to concentrate on the deep conversations that Anakin is having with Padme (’I love you*999,999′) with such a noise in my ear, but I managed to hang on.  I am worthy of the Jedi council.

After the show and much cheering and clapping, the problem was then exiting the theatre, since all the escalators were jammed.  Out of the corner of my eye I spot the pearly-white stucco walls lining what appears to be an emergency exit opened for the occasion.  It looks a bit sketchy, but the attendant assured us we wouldn’t get lost if we didn’t stray… whatever that means, dude. 

We manage to leave through the secret exit, thoroughly scaring the shit out of the people lining up for the 3 a.m. show (!!!)  by the hidden door.  High fives are dished out all around for leaving so quickly, and we all depart our separate ways.  I get home, exhausted from a crazy night, at a quarter to 4.  The next day I wake up at a blissful 1 p.m.  It was a good night.