A Fart That Shakes The Nuts

Thursday night was poker night with the guys, and I found that lady luck is still off on a Bahamian vacation or something for me. But when you're playing for laughable $2 buy-ins, the idea is just to sit and drink some beers and have a good time, and in that light I'm a pro comparable to any of the best. Thursday night after the beers however I slept (yes infact slept, not passed out) in a position for which my neck has let me know about it since with some kind of pinched nerve or something. Being stubborn as I am, I refuse to seek an actual diagnosis, instead offering my own prescribed remedies as I see fit. Hot showers, heating pads, stretching, ignoring, and self medicating with alcohol all have provided at least temporary relief, and the ache is slowly going away. Hopefully by morning its to the point where I can sit at the computer for a period beyond a half hour to accomplish some formal writing.

This weekend, instead of coddling my neck like I tried to no avail on Friday, I opted to try not to let it get me down. Last night was board games and beers in what might as well have been called couples night, but thankfully was not quite so contrived. After a humiliation in Pictionary, we moved on to a loose game of Balderdash.

For those of you unfamiliar with the latter, its a game in which real, but obscure words are listed on cards, and those playing attempt to create a definition that matches the true one, or to make the other players believe theirs to be the real one. Invariably, the game degrades to nonsense and badgering within 4 or 5 words. From 'a gay duck' to 'for the cleanest snatch in town' to 'Dave blows goats' the game degrades quickly sober, and exponentially faster when drinking. This leads us to last night's new hall of fame quote with:

balthazar (n.) - a fart that shakes the nuts

Now, the true definition is infact a wine bottle holding 13 quarts, but by the time that came up, its true meaning was beyond all repair forever, with a whole new can of adjectives and adverbs opened up.

Yes, this blog has resorted to toilet humour. I'm shocked I managed to hold out this long.

I also managed to get out of the house for a while this afternoon to nerd out on some more geocaching, but mostly to get some sun. After driving around in the country for a few hours, it was decided that we should hit up the town of Fergus for their Dairy Queen and use of a bathroom, since some of us (clearly not myself) are opposed to using a convenient tree or bush. We ended up coming across a BMW car rally in the parking lot of the new big block store plaza found on the outskirts of every self-respecting town of 5,000 or more these days. Some sharp looking Audis and Porsches were also parked in their midst.

And then, of course, framed in the most perfect of backdrops, your requisite Honda Civic with the hood popped showing off the turbo kit and whatever else thrown in to give the illusion of having the same performance as the lower end of the nicer cars there for the same combined price. Also requisite is the flat grey primer colour with rough patches of some half-assed body work until money on the pimp my ride project ran out.

Piles of Papers

Apparently its May 1st already, and two more less than notable weeks have passed in the annals of my life. I keep pushing the boundaries of patience and tolerance with my thesis supervisors, and really, my own brain in not getting my thesis done. I have finally got an introduction more or less completed, but now am swamped in papers to read and past theses that in all honesty should have been read months ago, not looked at for the first time now.

The most annoying part of it all is that these bachelor level theses seem to be entirely self serving, and not really of any use beyond making an example of themselves to students, and the occasional reference to them in further BS theses. The two I have checked out from the department library were unopened until I got my hands on them after sitting there for a year already. I'm sure a number of the much older bachelors theses sitting in that library haven't had their pages exposed to the air since they were printed as well.

For now the room renovation has stopped mid demolition, with my rad pulled away from the wall and a tray collecting water from the furnace system as it pumps out excess, with no way for me to cap the old line and its unusual fittings. I'm left with stress building over sitting down to put the thesis together, and walls just waiting to absorb the brunt of that stress, but no justifiable time to go and take a prybar to those walls.

Death to Winter

Dusty Springcleaning

When I undertook the notion of renovating my room, I neglected the lack of space elsewhere in the house for my crap. Two days later I think I've cleared out all that is going to find a temporary home elsewhere, without moving bulky furniture up or down stairs.

In cleaning up the attic so that I can clear the wool insulation (with a high proportion of high R factor mouse droppings) away from my ceiling to rip it down, I am across a bunch of old crap my parents had stored away and time forgot. My dad was a notorious packrat, and so amongst the crap he left behind I found a yellowed copy of a newspaper from the first day of the 1990 Gulf War, and a box of 24 empty Coca Cola World Series commemorative cans with the scores from the games in the Jays 1992 title over the Braves.

Amongst the other random boxes, I found a box of my mom's old dolls, all of them staring up to greet me as I removed the lid, and a number of old beer coasters from brews that likely are no longer available to add to my bottle collection.

But a trip to the LCBO to feed the thirst of inhaling two days of dust and spiderwebs provided me with four new flavours to explore during poker tonight. Two germans, a french, and finally a true aussie. Maybe a review with their names pending.

Exhausted

The eggs are scrambled. The noodle's cooked. The brain's fried. But my last exam ever for my undergrad degree is done and gone, and hopefully passed. But instead of being full of energy to go to Toronto, and get some things done around the house that have been a long time coming, I'm absolutely drained.

The miserable, cold weather sure isn't helping the situation, but its slowly shaping up for the long term I think. Hopefully by the time May rolls around when the Jays have their next discount game I won't have to wear a coat to the game and it will be easier to get some other people on board with the idea.

During my last exam yesterday, for the first time in the 6 years I've been on campus, some assclown pulled a fire alarm, forcing everyone in the building to drop their exams and saunter outside into the gusting wind, snow and rain. At the time I was absolutely pissed at the idiot, but then I came home only to look at the news and see the loose details coming out on yet another school shooting tragedy. Something about the animal killing of 32 people will quickly put a fire alarm inconvenience to get out of an exam in its place.

Once again some kid loses control of reality, whether you blame it on the 'system' failing to be there for him, or video games, or TV, the fact of the matter remains that if there isn't such easy access to guns, every disaffected youth out there can't go run out and grab himself a semi-automatic weapon to relieve some stress. Now instead 33 are dead, and there will likely be a series of copycat threats and attempts across North America like those that followed Columbine.

People will be living in a heightened state of anxiety on campuses for weeks to months to come fearing that their school will be added to somber lists with Columbine, Dawson College, and West Nickel Mines Amish School.

People kill people, easy access to guns just facilitates it in large volume mass-destruction. Its time that governments do something more serious about gun control, particularly those governments that fail to even restrict assault weapons.

Bubble Machine

One exam down, three to go in the next 65 hours or so. That's 100 carefully shaded in scantron bubbles so far, and too many more to go. Since its finals time again, my nose today started emulating the outdoor faucet on the side of the house that froze and cracked this winter. I'm sure the people sitting next to me absolutely loved my sniffling tonight.

I don't feel the least bad for it though after all the sniffling, rustling, inappropriate questions and cell phones I've put up with over the years.

And in less than 3 days it will all be over, and time for some relaxation and a trip down to Toronto on Tuesday night where I won't have to worry about undue traffic around the ACC. I wonder what Mats is handicapping these days?

In more worthy Toronto team news, both the Jays and Raptors pulled off huge wins over Detroit tonight. If you asked me, or any honest person, in October if I could imagine the Raptors with a shot at 2nd place in the Eastern Conference, there would of course have been an emphatic 'no', but what a show these guys have put on. And with the average age of this team, things should only be looking up for the next 3 or 4 years. Bryan Colangelo deserves most of that credit for pulling together the talent pool he has, but Sam Mitchell also deserves an apology from me for being very much a skeptic of his coaching ability. Ultimately he's the one that's gotten this team believing there is no 'I'.

And now I have nothing except psychology terms and bacteria names plying into the little folds of tissue in my head so its time to climb back into my hole, grab some vaporub, throw on the tube and get some sleep.

Endless Distraction

Around this time of year every year is like christmas for all the sports networks. With the NHL and NBA winding down their seasons with tight playoff races, the Masters kicking off the golf grand slam tour, and baseball and auto racing starting up for the summer, there is no need for the fluff pieces on some local phenom who never comes to fruition, or annoying banter between hosts.

All that sports activity also serves as a major distraction to the tri-annual studying season. Being a resident minority here in Leaf nation, I get sucked into the whims of the vast blind majority and all their uneducated devotion to a shitty hockey team. And so last night saw me crammed into an overcrowded bar, packed with blue and white jerseys, as well as the disgustingly tacky pink alternatives whining about every possible bullshit non-call or call against possible.

And then what do you know, the Leafs get some absolute shit luck garbage goals as are so typical of their teams over the years, and they keep themselves alive in the playoffs. To top the evening off, the Avalanche dropped the ball on their playoff run, only to get the help they would have needed from the Oilers beating Calgary and leaving the control in the hands of Colorado.

So where does that leave me today?

After actually managing to get some productive studying in, its left me channel surfing between the Jays game, the Masters, and the New York Islanders game hoping beyond hopes that the acquisition of Ryan Smyth from the Oilers pays dividends, if only to be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

Right now the Isles are up 1-0 and holding tough, making it look like those Canadian teams that aren't in Ottawa will soon get a whole bunch more blind bandwagon hopping support from the large proportion of Leafs fans who actually know nothing of the sport. At this point I don't become much better throwing my support towards the Sens and Canucks, but not so much blindly as hoping to get a cup in Canada for a talented team that isn't the Red Wings for example. The best possible outcome being a Sens cup win just to incense all the Leaf fans that much more.

With that I wish you a happy easter if you celebrate it, and a happy playoffs which you definitely should be celebrating.

Update: In the same vein as last night's fans: na na naa naa, na na naa naa heeyyy heeyyy heyyy, goodbye. What's another year to wait after 40 anyways right?

Pride by Division

I was browsing through the local AM news radio station's website this morning, which I find to be one of the better sources of timely local news, despite its less than insightful writing typically filled with grammatical and spelling errors.

On occasion I look over at the national and international columns to see if there's anything I missed in the bigger news sources, and I did so this morning, to see a mention of the first annual North America Outgames, which apparently slipped past me earlier in the week on CBC.

Now I've made it known before that I have no issues with people's lifestyle choices, so long as they don't adversely affect others, in ways beyond just making them uncomfortable for whatever reason. But when groups of whatever minority or belief go out and bitch to society about not being more broadly accepted or feeling segregated, and then create for themselves an event like this, you have to wonder what they really want.

Are they saying that being gay makes them uncompetitive in sports on other levels? The valid (and correct) argument is that gay people are no different than anyone else save for their lifestyle choice. Are they intentionally trying to draw parallels between themselves and those that truly are disadvantaged, for whom the Special Olympics was created?

If you want to do a better job of being accepted rather than shunned by certain communities, it would seem like a good idea to stop perpetuating mentalities of difference where really none exists. If you can't hack it as an athlete, you can't hack it, go on and find your calling elsewhere. Its not prejudice that's keeping you from Olympic gold.