If I didn't value my health, I think I could do one of these.

Birthdays in the office have seen a lot more cake, candles and singing than usual lately, so when byron's birthday came about I decided that an event befitting our particularly eccentric group was in order.

In place of a standard issue birthday cake I laid down a good sized slab of patê and stuck a candle up in it, fashioning ourselves a meat-cake.

We chased the patê with good tequila and good times were had by all. Well, except for steve, the recovering vegetarian who's system and palate aren't quite used to patê yet.

The past two weeks have seen me pack down tremendous amounts of food on a near daily basis.

The only explaination I can think of is that I'm subconsciously trying to fill the void in my heart with brisket, rice noodles, and fried chicken.

It's hard to feel lonely when you feel like two people.

I've just realized that I should be a morning radio DJ.

All I do at work is play garbage music and make stupid jokes anyhow, so I'm already doing the job. They just need to start broadcasting this magic.

I came to the frightening realization tonight that the type of woman I want has absolutely no need for a guy like me.

A woman who is smart, funny, confident, attractive and down to earth seems to want a challenge, not a domesticated piece of stability (read: a bore) whose purpose in life seems to be to make them laugh and make them french toast for breakfast in bed. She doesn't need a guy who provides the shoulder to cry on because she already is the shoulder. Hell, she's a rock; an island even.

How else are some of the most eligible bachelors I know (who are all smart, funny, extremely nice, and attractive even) still single? I asked one of them recently how the fuck he wasn't hooked up and he replied that he was still looking for his equal. The problem being that guys like this look for equals and their female equals seem to be looking for something else (maybe that sometimes employed bad boy on the chopper?)

Am I totally retarded? I can't be, because I can line up a bunch of single dudes I know who are within inches of the perfect guy as described in some shit pop magazine that women supposedly write and others read. They're the quiet leading men in crappy in-flight romantic comedies starring Helen Hunt (most with better hair than her Mad About You co-star Paul Riser though) who somehow slip under the radar daily.

Seeing how most of these bachelors are older than myself, their situations are scaring me like an evil magic eight-ball.

Should I be concerned now that the greatest achievement in my 25 years alive was jumpkicking myself in the head with both feet?

But then again, what the fuck have you ever done that I should give a shit about?

seriously, tell me about it.

update: so far, brent is way up on the list but my cousin jim is paid by our government to finger your anus.
update II: Dana is now tied with brent.

My friend Ai is totally awesome because she has no qualms with trading backrubs any time I've totally fucked myself up doing those crazy jumpkicks to the head.

She's even offered to walk on my back but the office floor is nasty enough to make me turn down the generous offer.

I spent so much time jumpkicking myself in the head today that I don't have anything to say except my back is a bit sore, I think my ass is up four feet in the air at the peak of the jump, i ate too much mongolian bbq tonight, and i could use more sleep.

Chris waind tells me of my self jumpkick though: "That will get all the chix. It makes me wet just looking at it." Chris and I do seem to have a very bizarre (though totally hetero) relationship though. He also knows more about the Rocky movies than I do.

See a slightly bigger version of the jumpkick here

ernie teaches you how to cook: part 1
steam a stack of cubed yams until fork tender, mash them with a spoon or two of butter and a small handful of finely minced candied ginger. Add a dash of cinnamon, a hint of nutmeg if you're into that, and a pinch of salt. Drop that pile of orange into a baking dish, and sprinkle the top with either brown sugar (props to sang) or with crushed pineapple bits. Toss it in a hot oven until the brown sugar starts to crust or the pineapples start to take on any color.

Now, not actually trying this means I'm no expert on the topic, but fuck me if that doesn't sound tasty.

disclaimer: If you're total shite in the kitchen, these instructions probably won't help you at all. You'll need some basic competency and idea of balance to pull this shit off, and until I get my own cooking show I'm not measuring shit for you.

Life's soundtrack

B.B. King - Darlin' What Happened

Surprisingly enough, without any previous attempts under my belt, I was able to put both my feet behind my head tonight while intoxicated.

The last time I tried this at a party I got my toes up to my forehead, but tonight had both heels well behind my head. Unfortunately though, this seems to only make me popular with certain guys and not so much with the ladies.

addendum: I remember now that I was also able to jumpkick myself in the head with both feet and land upright. I had considered that a bad landing would have split my ass in two, but I guess I'm quicker and more flexible than I thought. As well, a disturbing number of guys were groping me last night.

I keep a toothbrush at work and use it often after meals (or to scrub out all the red candy bits that pack my molars after crunching down a lollipop) in the small single occupant bathrooms our office provides.

As much as I like the feel of a fresh clean colgate mouth, much to my horror I can very quickly and accurately taste every smell in that bathroom when I brush my tongue.

For fans of foreign cinema like myself, rumor has it that walmart now sells the Philips 727 dvd player which with a few simple keypresses on the remote will allow you to play dvds from any region. It'll also convert PAL to NTSC signals properly if you need to view european dvds.

Even better, this great little player is way underpriced at $120. (I drove down to the states to get one from target for $80US).

In yet another quest to learn where our own limits are, we went to the 6th floor of the Hudson Bay Company's downtown store for lunch in the "Seymour Room" dining lounge.

Including us, the average age in the dining room approached 70 years old and I ate my salty veal cutlette lunch special while watching an old man slowly gum down his dinner roll with his cup of soup.

The food was surprisingly good for what was really just slightly fancied up (or not) cafeteria food. The veal cutlette parmesan was actually topped with shredded low grade cheddar and canned tomato sauce, but I can appreciate simple food as well as anyone. I even brought a meal back to the office for Ai who gave it a thumbs up. The jello dessert that came with it couldn't have hurt either.

I caught enough of NYPD Blue tonight to see fat bald detective andy marrying the hot blonde connie which was a pleasant reminder that not all programming is reality tv these days.

So as fun as this beard experiment was (which it wasn't very), I think I've got to shave it off tonight. I can't believe how itchy this goddamn thing is.

It feels as if someone nasty just sat on my face and gave my chin the clap.

update: it's gone.

I recommended a restaurant to the chud where he and his date ended up with food poisoning.

As bad as I feel about that, it's also really funny cos I inadvertently made them both poo.

I woke up at 6am and sat through two hours and forty painful minutes of breakfast television tedium on citytv so i could see a friend of mine make her appearance.

The same five minute news brief was repeated every ten minutes inbetween insipid small talk and interviews with an author who wrote a book about the obvious.

I'm really glad I usually don't wake up early enough to watch that crap.

holy mother of shit, that (island farms strawberry banana) is some good goddamn yogurt.

In related news, I think I'm one of few people I know whose tongue gets a hard on when I see something I really want to eat.

Beard Report: Day 3
The beard looks really shitty. I can't even really call it a beard yet it's so sparse. In a few months though, I'm sure this is totally going to rule (in a hideous way).

(I'd take a picture, but I don't think you'd be able to make out the hairs on my chin)

Sang, Chris and I finally went to Juicy Chicken on main st to continue our culinary adventures in vancouver series, and it was actually pretty good as far as fried chicken goes.

Our tongues were burning from the level of salt involved, but it was a fun new experience. I even left the premises with a nuclear yellow juicy chicken t-shirt which hurts your eyes if you look at it in sunlight.

We're planning on eating at The Bay cafeteria with old people next week. Pot Roast dinner for $6.99, how could you go wrong? (don't answer that)

Why do I always discover things like this after halloween?

For reasons I won't go into right now, I'm going to try to grow a beard.

If this goes anyway near as well as the moustache growing experiment we tried last year, the results should be equally as disastrous.

I had heard of it, but only today did I finally get to see someone trying to drive away from a gas station with the gas nozzle still embedded in their fuel port.

Comedy gold.

[20:55] Tuna: i kid you not, the acting was so bad it seemed as if they all had down syndrome.
[20:56] evil jesus: i'd watch a movie starring only retards

Today was a decidedly lazy day with me in my pajamas for the entirety of it, making some excellent french toast at 1pm for breakfast and eating leftover halloween candy just now, hoping it wouldn't spoil my appetite for what should be a fantastic indian dinner in an hour.

I laid in bed for most of the day listening to music, thinking of someone and answering a few phone calls with a lazily blurred voice and no real responsibility.

It's been a great day.

Years ago I had the good fortune of being emailed by someone who decided that beyond our normal correspondence, he should also send me (and many others) emails evangelizing his own faith.

Now, I love religion. Nothing gets me more excited than a system that protects pedophiles and sends men off to foreign lands to rape, pillage and murder, but having people attempting to convert me is another thing altogether. I have little patience for missionaries and door-to-door faith peddlers but I find myself too weak to tell the majority of them to "eat shit and die" (which is what I usually want to say).

Somewhere along the way, I'll just need to write a short, polite dialogue I can recite on command and not feel bad about. It surely shouldn't be difficult to do, especially since I do consider myself a writer.

One of the cooler things I've seen on my way in to work has got to be the two dudes lined up outside the Kitten Theatre on Granville before it opened.

I would suppose that it's never too early for porno.

Finding ourselves at Wally's Burger on Kingsway (well, we found ourselves there because we specifically drove there), sang and I both put down the two-patty deluxe wagon burgers with both a hot dog and a fried egg on it. It was perhaps the largest, most thoroughly packed burger I've dared to devour and we did so triumphantly. (Chris stuck with his good sense and had a more reasonable bacon and cheese burger)

If not for that tape worm I swallowed a few months back, I'd be ashamed of myself.

On arriving home to find "Raiders of the Lost Ark" missing from my bag and unable to choose something else to watch:

Many months ago I got myself a moleskin notebook so i could record the moments of my life I didn't care to share with my blog reading public. They're ridiculously expensive, but very nice simple notebooks which I now seem inclined to give as gifts to friends, hoping that they'll find the same open ear and outlet in them that I have.

Being that I use a pocket sized one for portability, my writing seems to look even more like chicken scratch than usual and I wonder if I'll be able to read what the hell I've been writing in ten years.

Today was an amazing day with lunch at guu and mondo gelato afterwards with very good company, and a fantastic dinner at hapa izakaya with more great friends. Dessert at Cheesecake etc. might have been more than we needed, but it was good times nonetheless.

Many sincere thanks go out to the wonderful friends who did their best to fatten up my ass up today with such brilliant food.

I haven't talked about it explicitly here, but I've lost 26lbs this year through a pretty easy plan.

With some advice and motivation from brent (who is now totally hot) and eric, I took up running and an easy routine that now lets me eat "like a fucking asshole" without worrying about it.

By incorporating moderate dietary changes (eating breakfast, snacking, less crap), running and putting on some lean muscle mass through dumbbell excercises in front of the tv 2-3 times a week, I've got my metabolism up to a point where I can now consume vast quantities of food without worry. Maintaining the loss has been surprisingly easy with no rebound (and even continued loss) after switching to cold weather maintenance (no running, reduced workouts) almost two months ago.

For those not inclined to take the excercise route, methamphetamine usage will also boost your metabolism and lessen your appetite. You won't be nearly as attractive and may lose your job and family, but it's at least an option.

Yeah, it's my birthday but I'm not a very festive birthday person.

It's not something I've earned. I just happened to have been forced out of a vagina this day 25 years ago. It's not even like I did any of the work. If I had actually fought my way out of the womb, I might deserve a card or some presents or even a stripper leaping out of a faux gâteau, but instead I was forced by nature and my mother, unwillingly separated from the warm womb of comfort.

Birthdays are just a good time to reflect on how you've spent another year of your life, and a great excuse to enjoy dinner with some good company.

On my way to work, I saw two bums (for lack of a better word) having a one sided confrontation. One was particularly agressive, clenching and shaking his fist aggresively at the other and even kicking at him while the other seemed much less inclined to violence, simply defending himself and trying to walk away.

I'm not a tough guy and I'm definitely not an experienced fighter, but my consciencious objections to watching a one sided pumelling kicked in and I had to consider stepping in if buddy decided to start wailing on guy.

The most intriguing thing was my primary fear as this event was unfolding. "I hope he doesn't break my ipod" (it sits in my chest pocket when I commute). My face would probably heal fine, but that mp3 player is toast if he lands a good blow to it.

Vic says to call the cops and be on my way, eric was aghast that I didn't have a video camera so I could sell footage to bumfights, and I worry about my toys more than my face. Is there something wrong with all of us?

I'm living my last day as a twenty-four year old, amazed yet disappointed at the same time about what a year it's been.

It's only a number and it's only another year, but this one seems more personally significant than the rest. Was it when hyedie called it a quarter century? Was it when I prophesized my own future and actually saw what could be the beginning of it? Was it when I realized my own fears were still holding me back?

It's a day of pondering and of revisiting the choices I've made this year and fortunately, I have few regrets and a lot of lessons learned. It's been a good year; maybe even great.

Maybe I was wrong and 25 is the year it all really begins and 24 was just the warm up.

The birthday song this year: Stan Getz - Samba Triste.