Category: General

Some things you can only do when you live on your own. Today I put on a new roll of toilet paper. I’ve always been interested in how much toilet paper I use, and now I’m going to find out. Stay tuned for exciting updates!

Let’s talk about poop.

Did you know that shit is brown because it’s loaded with dead blood cells?

I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this before, but now I’m going to tell EVERYONE: My dad taught me how to wipe my ass. That’s not very unusual of course…that’s a father’s duty (haha, I said ‘duty’) to his son. But I’m going to tell you the hallowed Atkinson tradition of wiping, which I believe I have maintained and honored, and surely must have been passed on to my father from my grandfather. Keeping in mind that my family was extremely budget-conscious while I was growing up (many a toy was created from fast food packaging, but that was also a function of some amount of creativity, I reckon), the prescribed squares of toilet paper to use was, I believe, three to four. I don’t recall if we had the 2-ply or the 1-ply, but one would fold the length of toilet paper over in half to prevent ripping. I think we’ve all had the experience of having the paper rip in mid-wipe and coming out of the experience with brown fingers. Ewwwwwwwwwww something that came out of my body! Anyway – proceed to step 2: wipe. Now, you may think that step 3 is to release the t.p. well outside your field of view, but no. Step 3 is to bring back the toilet paper and fold it again. Then, rewipe. Repeat until the t.p. is folded into a square that is too small to be of any use in and around the region in question. This has the benefit not only of conserving precious toilet paper, but also allowing you to get a good close look at what exactly is coming out of the very nadir of orifices. Fascinating! Now hopefully, if you’re an efficient wiper and you haven’t had too much chili con carnage that day, your job is done and you can move on with your life. But if not, you may have to grab another four squares of toilet paper. Just don’t tell dad.

Tonight when I should have been drawing I went to see the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival at the VanCity Theater. There was a lot of CG masturbation, including car ads and the like, but there was some good creative and thoughtful stuff hidden in-between the soulless eye candy, such as Fat Chance, Dynamo, Cafard, Video 3000, and to a lesser extent, Codehunters.

My ticket paid for both shows, but I didn’t stay for the 9:00. It seems that the luxurious chairs that they have are far less comfortable than they look. The back headrest is too big and pushes your head forward making your neck and shoulders hurt. These are the biggest theater chairs I’ve ever seen. I think if they made them a little smaller they’d probably be able to fit another 25-50 people in the theater!

The Rio is still the reigning champion of theaters in Vancouver. I only wish they were playing Stardust for another week. Now they’re playing 3:10 to Yuma.

So my new place is pretty much “gamer ready.” It seats 5 comfortably. It’s not as cramped as I thought it would be. I’ve combined my previously separate drawing and my computing areas into one and it seems to be working.

Cool things about the new place:

-Ground floor, meaning that Kodos can go outside, although so far he’s only gone about 10 feet out. I guess this means I’m going to need to take him to get his shots since hopefully he’ll be out there interacting with other creatures of the night. The day he’s weened from the litter box will be marked on the calendar in glittery orange gel pen.
-Being on the ground floor also means it’s slightly easier to get in and out with my bike.
-Laundry is included in the rent, and it’s just across the hall.
-The neighborhood is swanky and tree-filled.
-Lots of spiders.

Bad things about the new place:

-Hooking up cable, internet, phone has been a huge hassle. This is ironic because the reason I took this place is that it seemed like the least amount of hassle.
-The bathroom is separate from the suite, which means if I have to go pee in the middle of the night, I have to find my robe and the key to the bathroom.
-It’s about $200 more a month than my last place.
-No corner store. This is both a bad and a good thing. It means I have to get more exercise to get my junk food, as I’m now riding my bike to the Safeway on King Edward and Oak St. But getting across Granville anywhere south of 14th Ave is pretty stressful. The intersections at 16th and at 25th are not bike friendly, and while there is a crosswalk at Balfour, cars along Granville are not inclined to stop for anything except a deep scarlet light.
-I’m no longer 2 blocks from my work. See above.
-The landlord is senile. This may actually be a good thing if she forgets to collect the rent.
-Lots of spiders…near my bed.

I’ve never heard of the Guerrilla News Network but here are their picks for the 14 Most Evil Corporations.

Caterpillar sells bulldozers to the Israeli military
Chevron left 600 unlined oil pits in Amazon rainforest.
Coca-Cola privatizes India’s water resources.
Dow Chemical – Agent Orange
DynCorp – 12 year old sex slaves
Ford – worst fuel economy and emissions in the US.
KBR
Lockheed Martin
Monsanto
Nestle – child labour, contaminated infant formula.
Philip Morris
Pfizer
Suez – water privatization
WalMart: Wal-Mart is the biggest corporation in the world. It owns 5,100 stores worldwide and employs 1.3 million workers in the United States and 400,000 abroad, as well as millions more in the factories of its suppliers.

Many people have heard of the way that Wal-Mart steamrolls its way into every possible town, destroying local supermarkets and countless small businesses. We have also heard about Wal-Mart’s long track record of worker abuse, from forced overtime to sex discrimination to illegal child labor to relentless union busting. Wal-Mart also notoriously fails to provide health insurance to over half of its employees, who are then left to rely on themselves or taxpayers, who provide for a portion of their healthcare needs through government Medicaid.

Less well known is the fact that Wal-Mart maintains its low price level by allowing substandard labor conditions at the overseas factories producing most of its goods. The company continually demands lower prices from its suppliers, who, in turn, make more outrageous and abusive demands on their workers in order to meet Wal-Mart’s requirements.

In September 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of Wal-Mart supplier sweatshop workers in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Swaziland. The workers were denied minimum wages, forced to work overtime without compensation, and were denied legally mandated health care. Other worker rights violations that have been found in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include locked bathrooms, starvation wages, pregnancy tests, denial of access to health care, and workers being fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights.

Well today was supposed to be the day that Shaw hooked me back up, the but tech guy came by today and described the house’s setup as “the dog’s breakfast.” Which is to say it’s a bigger job than he could handle. I guess he was expecting to come by to flip a switch. But no, they’re sending someone in another week to repair the box on the outside of the house and run cable along the side of the house and drill a hole into my suite. In the meantime, I’m unable to ftp overdue artwork to my clients and deal with my eBay sales. ANNOYED!

from Sep 3

Now I would never vandalize my old apartment. I would never open Stewie’s huge Costco bag of rice and spill it all over the living room, along with soy sauce! I would never smash glasses and light bulbs on the floor, or toss furniture around. But I went over there on Sunday to grab some coat hangers and somebody got into the place and did exactly that. I was slightly amused, figuring it was probably some other old tenants who decided it might be a good way to piss off the new landlord who(m?) evicted us all, or maybe it was just someone getting their kicks causing destruction, which I can remotely understand but not condone. It was weird to see, it was like I was in a suspense movie and somebody had tossed my place looking for the plans, or trashed my apartment and spray painted “STOP ASKING.” On the one hand I was a little disturbed that somebody in my neighborhood gets their rocks off with petty destruction, but another part of me was thinking “well that’s kind of funny.” The worst that I did was unscrewed all of the wall hooks, and the toilet paper holder, and moved them to the new place.