Standing like cartoon characters

Here's a picture of me standing like Uzumaki Naruto. I've been practicing. It's harder than you think to stand with your arms behind your head and a stupid expression on your face. I've also got to remember to put on my deodorant, that's for sure.
But why really?
It's pointless to exemplify real humans in any way because they're generally flawed and uninspiring when you really get down to it (Excepting perhaps Jesus, and maybe Socrates). Fictional creations to the contrary are whatever their authors made them to be. Don't worry, I haven't given up on humanity just yet. If everything and everybody were straightforward, there'd be nothing to blog about.

Judge lest ye not be judged

One of my favourite things to do while I'm walking to school is trying to imagine who a particular shoe print might belong to. Sometimes the snow is just right, and it leaves perfect footprints. There are some pretty excellent shoe and boot bottoms out there. It follows that there should be some pretty excellent people too. It's not totally guess work either, though that would probably be fun too. I pass lots of people on my walks, so I can see what their shoes look like and what prints match that person. You can often determine their gait, weight, means, gender and age just by looking at them. My assumptions about their tastes in music, or whether they have self-esteem issues are purely my own imagination though. I might ask truth of the people I see, but that would require asking the people I see.

I wear my sunglasses at night

Ok, lately the sun is getting more brilliant. This is bound to happen in the spring time, but I'm suddenly noticing that I'm talking with people wearing sunglasses more and more frequently. It's hard to look at them. Am I making any eye contact? or too much? I'm already awkward enough when it comes to social etiquette, and this just makes it harder.
And then, when I'm walking down the street or the hall I also wonder: are these people in their cheap sunglasses looking at me? They might be, I can't see their eyes. "Stop looking at me! I'm going crazy!" I yell at them. That way I know they're looking at me, and I feel better.

Why are you puching yourself? Quit punching yourself.

I got in a fight. I guess it's my fault. I drop kicked... er correction, flying kicked a snowman. He didn't seem to like that. He also didn't seem to like it when I tried to hoist his icy torso above my head, because my hoisting arm smashed into my face when the piece it was gripping broke off. I suppose it serves me right. I mean what would anyone hoist big icy pieces of snow off the ground for? Pictures like this i guess.

Fantastic number rob

Rob, Rob, Rob,
Fantastic number Rob,
Times any number you can fiiiind,
It all comes back to Rob

(spoken)
Four times Rob is thirty Rob,
Three and Rob are Rob!

The battery ran out on my mp3 player today so I sang this about a thousand times in my head, varying the spoken part every time. I also put my name in lots of other songs too. Ego? Poor memory for words? Could be, but it's mostly just bad habit. Or maybe good habit. It can be hilarious sometimes. If hilarity can be self proclaimed that is.

Rascally rabbit

Today on my way to school I walked past a rabbit. It was maybe only four or five feet away from me. It looked at me and then went about its business as though I wasn't there. I was like, 'man I must be like some Shaman, communing with nature, a oneness of man and beast.' But that couldn't be it. So I made a little jump at it, and it seemed to scamper off somewhat half-heartedly. Then I thought, 'maybe it's like a return to an untamed wild. Where generations of rabbits taking domain in the unlikely urban landscape - never hunted, never threatened by humans - have reverted to an innocent state, the fear of humankind gone.' Then I thought, 'that's silly. I wonder what rabbit tastes like.'

A lego man for my snowman to play with

Ahh, that's better. Thanks Zand.

Punk Rock Snow Man

Where am I going to find a giant Lego man?

Why don't you write me, a postcard would brighten my lonliest evening

Check out this postcard from a coupla years ago that I guess I never got around to sending. I must have been feeling awesome to make such a bold statement.

The zen art of walking in snowstorms

If it wasn't for the winter of 1938-39, this one would have set some records for snowfalls. Curse those pre-war winters. A blight on history's eye.
Anyways, all this snow has allowed me to become re-acquainted with the pleasantness of snowstorms and such. Really snowstorms aren't quite the same up north. The snow up there doesn't so much fall, as come at you. Sometimes it doesn't even do that, but just seems to manifest out of thin air in the form of drifts. Rock hard drifts. But down here it's so nice! Beautiful. I've had to walk through so much of it this winter.
I see all the people driving by and they look miserable. Admittedly it must suck to drive in all these snowstorms. They should just crash their car into the next telephone poll, get out, turn their mp3 to some pretty girl singing pretty songs over some folk rock band (Ladies might prefer a pretty boy singing pretty songs over some folk rock band. The important part is the folk rock band), and look up at the snow falling down among the street lamps. It becomes impossible to look past the excellence in everything.

Big Breakfast

You know, I'm always running into people who don't eat breakfast. It then doesn't seem all that surprising to me that the world is falling apart.
You know when you were a kid, and things seemed to suck, so you'd throw a tantrum or cry or do something pointless. Mom'd say "oh you're just hungry", or "tired." At the time you thought mom was on drugs or something, but after eating or sleeping you admittedly felt better. The same thing basically applies to grown ups, but instead of crying and throwing tantrums, they're just jerks.
I think people skip breakfast because they don't think they have time in the morning, or they think it's a good way to lose a few pounds. But that's chump talk. Breakfast is the one meal you can get away with overeating. Chances are you're going to burn off whatever you eat in the morning, unless your job is lying down on a couch watching TV (If that's your job, proceed. Kudos). And if you're like me and most North-Americans you love eating. Plus just about every breakfast food is yummy, and you can get superstitious about a Novotel mug.
I must admit, making real breakfast every morning does take a bit longer than not eating, but the feeling good and extra energy makes up for that half hour extra sleep you might have gotten. Did I mention breakfast is yummy?

Robstruck

I remember this one time I met Pat Pentland. It was in Ottawa, in the National Bank ATM just beside what used to be Capital City Music Hall (that used to be the Liquor Dome). I was going to the Sloan concert that night. He musta' thought I was a retard (sorry for that, but I can't think of any other way to put it). I was like OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's Pat Pentland. For a second I thought it was weird that he was wearing a trucker hat, but that thought quickly passed because OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! It's Pat Pentland. I think I shook his hand, and he had to go. I didn't even think of asking for an autograph, or of asking some smart question, or of expressing appreciation for his music and excellent ability to wail.
The same thing happened when I saw Eric Nagler. I even knew he was going to be there because I volunteered as an usher at the Academy Theatre in Lindsay for his show. When he walked by I blurted something like "Holy crap! It's Eric Nagler!" He gave me a look, like I was mocking him, but I was wasn't. It's Eric Nagler!!! Did anyone else ever watch TVO! The Elephant Show!

So, man does this post have too many exclamation marks!!! But those are basically the only two famous people I've ever seen or met, yet despite professing to be somewhat intelligent, my mind disappears around celebrity. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, they're people too. Right?

The Fundamental Taste Equation

So lately I've been reading too much xkcd, so I have the overwhelming desire to graph everything. I used to think that the equation was merely x(fat)=y(taste), but what about yummy lettuce or not-so-yummy pure lard. Here's what I think the graph might look like:

Philosophy of Speed

When i'm on the lower end of the sine curve that is my mania, I have this philosophy that life is like the movie Speed. We're all on this bus that we can't stop with the world going by. Sure enough we all know if we slow down we're doomed. I'm the touristy guy in this fantasy. Maybe I just want to be Ferris Bueller's best friend, but instead of a red wings jersey I'm wearing a leafs one. Nevertheless, I'm the guy the pretty lady has to pretend she's got gum on her seat, GUM!, to get away from. It's not my fault I grew up in Wyoming, or somewhere, and my social skills suck.
But soon Jack Traven will jump aboard and save us all, then later decapitate Dennis Hopper. All will be well.

Doctrine of Frustration

I have four midterms this week. I'm not too worried though.

The Guitar Hero's Yoke

I have a love hate relationship with Guitar Hero. Man that game is fun, but it is so frustrating. I mean, I suck at it. I suppose I just need to practice more. I hoped maybe my actual guitar playing abilities might translate into some Guitar Hero advantage, but not really. My fingers are quick, but they can't comply to a new format. It doesn't work the other way 'round either. After hundreds of hours playing THPS games, when I tried to actually skateboard, to my astonishment, I couldn't. Oh well. I'm happy to stay a skater wannabe, and when I get too frustrated with Guitar Hero it's nice to know I can pick up the real thing and wail hard.

Golden Calf

Ouch, my calves kill. It's because I ran a half-marathon on Sunday. I suppose I did it for the T-shirt. I might have collected pledges for the charity, but I wasn't sure if I was going to chicken out at the last minute. But I didn't, and it was fun. It was a little disconcerting to try to keep the pace of a sixty year old woman I was chasing the whole race. There seems to be some sort of sense of accomplishment that is outweighing that feeling though. Check out the results: http://www.roadraceresults.com/display-race-results.php?racename=2008-peterborough-y-half

It's rediculous how fast that dude finished.

Rock Electrasolid

Has anybody seen that Electrasol commercial where the announcer says doing things twice just doesn't make sense. There's some scenes of people doing things twice. One lady irons a shirt then crumples it up and starts again, or a guy finishes vacuuming and dumps the dirt back on the floor and starts again. Then she asks "So why wash your dishes twice?"

well...

'Let us excercise the guns Lieutenant'

So phew, I must correct two errors in my last blog. It seems that commercials do have closed captioning. I was at the gym (Yes I go to the gym, in the hopes that someday I can be on Hot Chicks with Douchebags), where I beheld commercials with closed captioning, but in my defense it was by no means every commercial. As for the other error, it seems trancelike is a word and needs no hyphen, but I'm leaving it as is, because it is even funnier, and at my expense.

TV in CC playing 10CC

It used to be that I only ever saw closed captioning in bars. It would be Hockey Night in Canada and the Leafs would undoubtedly be blowing another two goal lead. So I'd drink some more and try to read the scores of the other games flashing at the bottom of the screen. But I'd be having trouble catching all the scores because the words of Harry Neale kept getting in the way in the form of horizontal black blocks spreading across the screen. I would think: 'reading's for chumps'. I was biased though because I probably had about six or seven articles and a couple of books to read that week. So it followed. Obviously I had not yet discovered the real purpose of closed captioning: to ROCK.
It started while I was working up in Canada's Arctic. After a long day of work sucking, there's not much I liked doing more than plugging in my electric and playing loud punk songs way too loud in the little rooms I was too loud in. Loud. Then I'd probably watch TV. One day I got put in a house with another Northern worker who kept complaining about the last guy he lived with; how he'd watch Seinfeld DVDs with the sound off and play his guitar at the same time. What bothered my co-worker wasn't the guitar playing per se, but rather that the guy sucked, and he did this all the time. So I started doing the same. Nah, I actually waited until that co-worker was shipped off somewhere else.
I'd watch hockey games cause you don't really need sound except for Coach's Corner. It wasn't long before I'd turned on the closed captioning and was watching other things while playing my sweet Charvel. I recommend everybody try it. Some shows are better than others in close captioning accompanied by a trans-like blues riff you've been playing for 90 minutes. Most notably: CSI:Miami (Horatio is even more hilarious when you imagine his voice), Seinfeld is good for this(it helps if you've seen them all ten thousand times), and Sue Thomas FBI (I love the little music notes, also the irony). Of course there is a major drawback. Commercials generally don't have closed captioning. Luckily I watch enough TV while not playing the guitar to have seen most of the commercials elsewhere. Doesn't that last sentence sum it up though? Life is divided into time spent playing the guitar, and time spent not playing. Oh yeah, mowing the lawn and doing dishes too.

The problem with renaissance boy

Phew. So, every weekend of late, I've been practicing and performing with a small church folk band. It's lots of fun, but jeez I want to play every instrument. All at the same time. I've seen those one man band dudes (you know.. the ones with the drum strapped to their backs, cymbals at the knees, guitar/accordion in hands and harmonica in mouth, or perhaps some horn), and that's just crazy talk. So I play bass, cause they need a bass.

Left to my own devices

Wow would I like a mouse. Not a real mouse, but.. well, I suppose it is real. I mean: Not the mammal, but a computer mouse. I suppose I don't even have to explain that much seeing as this is some sort of blog and it would be unlikely I was talking about the mammal in the first place. Nevertheless, I don't quite have a desk yet, and I can't seem to rig up some satisfactory system for using a mouse. Now that I think about it, I already have a mouse. It's a satisfactory workspace I need.
Anyways, right now all I can seem to use is my synaptic pointing device. I know. Its name gets me excited too, but it really is annoying to use because it always clicks when I don't mean to. Yes yes, I know I can adjust the sensitivity and whatnot, but it doesn't seem to make that much difference. I can't tell you how irritating it is when I'm trying to draw stupid pictures on Paint when little lines keep appearing because I swept across the pad too hard or quickly or something. I am getting pretty quick with the 'undo' function though, not to mention how much harder it is to make nice smooth lines than as opposed to a mouse. Just imagine if I had a tablet or something like those web comic artists. Man that would kick.

David Chewing

Here's the first movie I made. It was some time ago

Wayne's World

You know, alot of people scoff at me when I say Wayne's World is one of the great movies of our time, and I'm probably wrong. But I often find myself refering to this or that moment in the movie, as I encounter my daily life. Everyone has seen it you know, so when I make casual reference to getting beaten to death with your own shoes (I suppose that's the sequel), we can all understand.

Like yesterday, I heard a Wendy's commercial on the radio that said "rapping to make chicken sound cool is just wrong" and I couldn't help but think about Noah, of Noah's Arcade when he's talking to Wayne on the new set of Wayne's World. He was all like "Come bust a move where the games are played, It's cool It's hip It's Noah's Arcade." Word.

Nevermind. I just re-read that. No wonder I'm always laughing by myself.

Walking to school

It takes me roughly half an hour to walk to school. I can't wait 'till the snow goes away and I can bike. I guess I could already be biking, but it is all snowing all the time. The snow wouldn't be so bad, but there's no such thing as cold here anymore, so generally all the streets and walks are slushy and salty and dirty. This may sound rediculous, but I bought a shiny bike this fall, and I don't want to get it dirty. Okay, that definitely sounded rediculous, but that's the way everything sounds. So I keep walking. It makes me super-lean.