Category: General

Thank you for your kind offer.

Stewey offered to treat me to a matinee of Matrix: Revolutions today. I declined. Not because I’m boycotting it – that’s Kill Bill. You know all aboot that. They (he & Darcy) went to Burnaby to see it. I had stuff to get done; phone calls to make during the day. Also: I generally avoid seeing movies on opening day. Too crowded, oftentimes. I like to wait a week or two for the noisy bastards to get it through their system, then I’ll take in a matinee where it’s just me, whoever I’m with, and the other scant misanthropes. (Also, waiting a week for others to see it increases the chance of being warned away from a crap film.) Scant Misanthropes, that’s a good name for a band. Digressor, I. Lastly, since I was planning on seeing Valerie and Her Week of Wonders in the evening, I figured one movie out was enough. Unfortunately, Valerie was a mess. I’m glad I couldn’t find anyone to drag to it because I would have felt bad. Also I would have felt bad for keeping them in those wicked, inhumane Pacific Cinematheque seats for 2 hours. Speaking of feeling bad…

I got a kid sent to prison during college because when I called the police about a noise violation, they showed up and found him dealing cocaine in his room. So I’ve ruined at least one person’s life.

when i was in 6th grade, i used to go to the bus stop early everyday so i could go to the store, steal candy, and then sell it on the bus…i made a lot of money

Last year I went on my friend’s PC while he was in the shower. Ebay and Paypal were still logged in, as he had just been paying for some auctions. I decided to buy him some worn panties, which only had a few minutes left on the auction. I paid through Paypal, and deleted as much evidence of the transaction as I could. A week or so later he told me that some woman had posted her underwear to him, along with a saucy note which his girlfriend of 18 months had opened and read to him. Being the faithful type, he had no idea how this came about, but she got her stuff and left him anyway. To this day I have never told another soul, and he never figured out how this came about.

Once i said that the BeeGees were not the best band ever, when clearly they are

Newsvember:

President Bush denied that his political operatives had been responsible for the erection of the “Mission Accomplished” banner that flew behind him on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1, when he dressed up like a fighter pilot and declared victory in Iraq. He said that his advance men “weren’t that ingenious” and that the banner was put up by crew members, “saying that their mission was accomplished.” Scott McClellan, the president’s press secretary, later admitted that the banner was in fact created by the White House. American scientists deliberately engineered a new extra-deadly form of mousepox; much the same thing has been done with cowpox and rabbitpox. Historians were upset that the Smithsonian Institution’s new exhibit of the Enola Gay bomber fails to mention that the B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The CIA celebrated the 40th anniversary of its Directorate of Science and Technology by exhibiting such devices as a mechanical dragonfly listening device and a 24-inch-long artificial catfish; the exhibit was not open to the public. The French government unveiled a plan to make the French more European. A gang of Catholic schoolgirls chased down and pummeled a flasher in Philadelphia. A clown robbed a bank in Virginia. A new study from the Center for Public Integrity revealed that the 70 companies that have benefited the most from $8 billion in government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan collectively contributed more than $500,000 to President Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. The Food and Drug Administration issued a preliminary conclusion that clones are safe to eat; it was noted that some companies plan to use clones’ milk to manufacture pharmaceuticals. The Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop. Neuroscientists determined that motherhood makes female rats smarter, calmer, and more courageous.

I’ve added new links to the left. Chris and Nicole are Green Ronin Publishing. They pay my rent. They are the unapologetic shit-disturbing consciences of the RPG world, and I love them dearly. I don’t see them often enough. Nicole’s kid is cute when I’m not making her cry.

Uh…so…you’ve seen the commercial for Pepsi Vanilla? If not:

A Vanilla Coke truck pulls up to a stop light.
A Pepsi Vanilla (Notice they put the Vanilla after the Pepsi in this case) truck pulls up beside it.
The Coke truck driver turns his stereo up.
The Pepsi driver presses a button, and doors on the side of his truck slide up to reveal big speakers, and then the truck does that thing where it bounces on the front wheels – I’m sure there’s a name for that but I’m not cool enough to know what it is. And all the homies on the sidewalk say “woo” and “yeah” in approval. And that’s the commercial.

So, if I understand this correctly, the message is I am supposed to choose Pepsi over Coke because the truck has a better sound system? Is that right?

Chris Gibbins gets the honor of being called “Chris” because he took these photos.
I finally saw Finding Nemo last night, with Anghold.
I got her a Scrabble Board of her very own. Soon I will have mine, too. I feel it in the wind.

My hard drive became full today. All 4 gigs. Yup.
I put up my review of Forbidden Planet in the writing section of my web page. That will alleviate a few kb.

Do you ever have those experiences, in which you come across something that seems to define a time of your life? Seeing & holding an object, or experiencing a smell, that just washes a wave of nostalgia over you – and sometimes it may be specific memories, while other times it is just a feeling that you haven’t felt for years and years. The pretentious word being, perhaps, zeitgeist?

I came across an audio cassette tonight–a memorex 90 minute tape with a very 80’s design of yellow, pink and blue geometric shapes–while I was going through some old crap, Christ I’m handling it right now and it just flashes bits and pieces of my life from the late 80’s and early 90’s through my head. John Burton. Soundgarden. Cultus Lake. The wooden walls of my room in Chilliwack, books & cassettes stacked along the wainscotting. Listening to the radio late at night – something I never ever do now. These things mean very little to you, but to me – they signify a very particular chapter of my life. It puts my mind in a very unusual place.

I think we all want that magic mirror – that genie who will bring us back to a time in our past. Not necessarily a simpler time, but certainly different. Yeah, genie, show me that magic video tape that will encapsulate the entire summer of 1989. What stupid mistakes was I making? What was I taking for granted?

And I say to myself “hey, idiot: you’re living life right now – in 10 years you’ll be doing the same thing, reminiscing about sitting in your room on Oak & 13th, spending a lot of time on your computer. Your cat, Kodos – remember him? He was sitting on your bed. You collected cartoons and had cartoon parties every year. Chris Stewart, the best roommate you ever had, was asleep in his room as you typed noisily. You were drawing for D&D back then. Hallowe’en was fun. You just watched The Impostors with Yvonne, Darcy & Chris. You were writing dialogues for an ESL book. Your acting career was just getting off the ground. You needed a haircut. It was before you met Penelope and you still had your left arm.”

Good thing I’ve got this blog so I’ll never forget.

NEVER FORGET.

I haven’t figured out what’s going on with my archives yet, but I have figured out that if you click on, it will link to this:

http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~thickets/2003_09_01_archive.htm

but the archives actually are here:

http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~thickets/archives/2003_09_01_archive.htm

I can’t figure out why it’s not linking to the proper directory.

I didn’t eat nearly as much candy as I hoped I would this Hallowe’en. Oh well, I’ll make up for it in the next 364 days. Starting with this here Tootsie Roll.

Otherwise, the most wonderful time of the year was fun. We played our little show at The Marine Club, but the first band went on later than they were supposed to, the second band played too long, which meant that our set got cut in half because we had to stop at 1:30am. Oh well – we have had shows where we weren’t able to play at all because of these kinds of things. We played

Chunk
Shoggoths Away
Innsmouth Look
Power Up
Frogstar
The Math Song
20 Minutes of Oxygen
Space Ghosts

…then we were told we have “one song plus an encore.” Now what does that mean to you? Because to me an encore can be all the songs in the world. An encore is just when you come back on stage to play more. We used that grey area to full effect. We continued with:

Slave Ship which led right into
Walking on the Moon with no break, so really we just counted that as one song.
…Then I pointed out that we were saving time by not going off and back on stage for our encore, so that gave us time for an extra song. We played:

The Chosen One
Six Gun Gorgon Dynamo
Mustard Gas

And that was that. So, out of 20 songs on our set list we ended up with 13, which is actually a typical set for us, so hopefully nobody felt cheated. Bob (our bassist) felt cheated though, because he was playing with us that night for the first time in over 2 years. See, he had to quit the band because of his job and family, but he asked us if he could sit in on a show for old times sake.

The good news is that Stewie is talking about doing a proper show at the Railway Club. I suggested January. Hopefully Bob can come back again and we’ll try for the 20 song set. The Railway Club is open until 4am I hear. I’m also pushing for an earlier start time, what do you think about that? 50% of the sentences I heard Friday night were “are you guys going on soon?” The other 50% was “Take it off!!!”

After the show was over, Stewie, Marlo, Eng and I waited for a cab in the cold cold autumn night, like many other a becostumed fool, and finally ended up getting one by agreeing to pay $20 for a $7 ride. I guess that’s typical for such nights. I think that’s wrong. Then we got to my place where we watched tv, ate junk food, and tried to keep a drunk Anghold under control (no easy task, but I think we won more battles than we lost). Overall, a fun and memorable night. Especially memorable now that I’ve written it down.

Stop the Chris’

Here is the legend for my revised naming structure for the many Chris’ in my life:

Chris Cleroux: Cleroux
Chris Eng: Eng
Chris Gibbins: Gibbins
Chris Hold: Chrishold (all one word)
Chris Perkins: Perkins
Chris Pramas: Pramas
Chris Slater: Slater
Chris Stewart: Stewie
Chris Switzer: The Bean
Chris Woods: Sid

I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple.