February 2012
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Real Battle Keeping My Pants Up on the Bus Today
The cellphone charger I was using as a belt just wasn’t cutting it. My old belt — the one that was actually a belt — had become a casualty of a Sunday afternoon spent at a friend’s place building newspaper forts and then later putting out a small fire.*
There were 40 or so people on the bus. I didn’t know any of them by name, but many had well-established nicknames...
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My Third Wedding Will Be My Best Wedding
That’s the one where my friends won’t have any pretense that they’re to be on their best behaviour and will make ample use of the open bar. The one where speeches will be kept to a minimum, but asides in which people tell me “You’ve got yourself a good one this time” will border on excessive. It’s the first one that will have my nieces and nephews in...
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FROM THE ARCHIVES: Hi, School Andrew!
Look, all I’m trying to do here is peruse the journals I kept in high school in search of some naive belief I held back then so that I can post it here and ridicule it for the entertainment of you lot. You know, do one of those “I used to be like this, but now I’m like this, and isn’t the tenderfooted guilelessness of my past self lightly humorous?” It’s a...
January 2012
8 posts
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Berfday
Let’s get one thing straight here: I don’t want to hear the Happy Birthday song. Full stop. We’re two hours into my 22nd birthday and I haven’t heard it yet, so good on you guys. That song, it’s just — it’s not catchy, there’s a dearth of poetic devices, no discernible rhyme scheme, and three out of its four lines are exactly the same. I have never...
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Soft Cover
Ever since going to university I have been nailing the titling of essays with a consistency I’m not sure I’ll ever achieve again. A 6 page scene analysis on the 2000 film adaptation of Hamlet’s inclusion of an additional final scene? The Power Epilogue: How Fortinbras Evades the Saw (In That He is Not Cut from This Version of Hamlet). Damn that’s good. What about an 8 page...
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#60
My bike was stolen the other day. The worst part is that the perpetrator forgot to steal my helmet along with it, so now there’s some person out there riding around on my bicycle, unaware of its faulty front brakes, without the sense of security and cushioning effect that only a helmet can provide. Folks, if you’re driving along and you happen to see someone riding my bike without a...
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The Gas Station Receipt Game FAQ
To my great surprise, not only did people find my shameful and impressive secret endearing, but some would actually like to join the competition, too. I’ve received a number of questions on the specifics of how to play (most of which were variations of the question “WHY?”) and I thought it best to answer them all in one place. So, here we go, the official FAQ to The Gas Station...
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I would have never predicted that this day would...
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As the holidays come to a close, so too does the reign of the Santa hat that was added to the logo of the porn site I sometimes find myself at. I’m going to miss that little hat — it really added a cozy warmth to that revolting place that makes me purge my entire search history every time I visit it. Which is, uh, never.
(I realize that this post is a little off-centre from the things...
December 2011
7 posts
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This scarf I’m wearing? It works. Functionally and aesthetically. It’s like having the warm hands of a model wrapped around my neck, only this time they’re not strangling me but instead caressing. And I’m getting compliments on it from all angles, be they acute or obtuse, right or… wrong. The public has spoken and they are absolutely crazy pants about loving this...
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Pretty Strong, This Week
What’s new with me? FRIEND, I will tell you what’s new with me in ascending order from mildly interesting to most interesting, then back to about the level of interesting we started at before finishing big with outright boring:
• At the bar last Saturday I saw some guy groping the breasts of an older woman which prompted me to say to no one in particular: “Whoa, those breasts must be in the...
November 2011
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The Foul Paper That Never Was
Totally had this idea for a dumb joke masquerading as a satirical one wherein, because of the recent controversy regarding the Alberta oil sands and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, I would post a picture of a reasonably attractive looking protester in front of the oil sands and below it write the caption “I’d tap that.” But since those protests have been happening in front of,...
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Death of the Party
Cheddar cheese: Not as popular as it used to be! Or at least that’s what I’ve gathered due to the reaction it got it when I presented it with 50% of a six pack at the wine and cheese party I attended last night. The fact that the cheddar was in string-form probably didn’t help either. Last time I take advice from you, Alex.
Things got a little heated. I don’t know if there...
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October 2011
8 posts
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Spooky Hallowe'en Tip That's Spooky
It’s Hallowe’en and your number one goal is to not be the lamest house on the street. You’ve put the requisite jack-o’-lantern in front of your door that you got dirt cheap because it’s rotting, and you’ve convinced yourself that it’s better this way because produce decomposition is kind of scary, right? You just need one more thing to save you from the...
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Overachiever Reliever:
Don’t feel bad about that A-. It’s an A with a social life.
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I should really stop saying “Spread ‘em!” whenever I go in for a hug.
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$27.50
Fact that even Wikipedia is leery of: My hometown of Langley is the horse capital of British Columbia. As far as I can tell there’s no reason for this other than that the town wanted to increase its tourism but didn’t want to fork out the dough to build the World’s Largest Envelope off of Highway 1 or something.
You could live in Langley forever and not realize you were...
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My iPod is off the hook you guys! Literally! There’s something wrong in the headphone jack region that’s making me only hear the lead guitar parts, a hint of bass, and ghostly vocals mixed way in the back! And I’m scared to put a needle in there and clean things out lest the electrons suck me into my iPod where I’m forced to battle John Helliwell like you always hear...
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September 2011
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A Series of Haikus Which, From What I Have...
You ever just have one of those mornings where you wake up in your bathroom after getting cut like Fortinbras from your Ultimate Frisbee team, surrounded by an even ratio of empty beer to shampoo bottles, smelling like a wasted angel? And for some reason you’ve carefully unfurled the toilet paper, written poetry on it, and then rolled it back up again? And it isn’t so much your...
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Of Jibes and Bards
Supportive Acquaintance: How’d the job interview go with that moving company?
Strapping Young Lad: I didn’t get it.
Supportive Acquaintance: What?! I can’t believe that! You’d be perfect!
Strapping Young Lad: Tell me about it. I’m cut like Fortinbras!
[Hey, everyone. Andrew here. Sorry to interrupt both your FIT OF HYSTERICS and the GRIPPING DRAMA...
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Taco Time and Failure
There used to be a vacant lot in the business district of the town I grew up in. For the first eight years of my life it contained nothing but a pile of dirt. I always thought it would’ve been the ideal place for kids to meet after school or hold an impromptu game of stickball—a place we could escape to and call our own. It never happened, but I like to tell people that it did.
So it...
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The Times, They Are a-Changin'
For background on my patronizing relationship with The Langley Times, see this entry and then this one too.
Okay. So here’s what I think happened here:
On August 22nd The Langley Times was set for print with a SCATHING front page report blowing the lid off of human drag racers or whatever. Then word broke out that Leader of the Opposition Jack Layton had passed on. The LT’s...
August 2011
9 posts
B-2 Wrap Up
Earlier this summer I started a gardening company with something of a unique gimmick in its field. It sort of took a weird turn after about a month that only added to its success despite my attempts at self-sabotage. Since I’ll be returning to school shortly, it is time to put B-2 Yard Work and Marriage Counseling (I swear if you say it enough it doesn’t sound that weird) on the shelf...
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A Joke That Goes Past Its Punchline, Volume III
“Knock knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Hal!”
“Hal who?”
“Hal you know unless you open the door?”
“Dammit, Hal! I don’t have time for this. It’s eight in the morning and I’m going to be late for — eugh, look, this is exactly why our relationship didn’t work. You know you aren’t supposed to be...
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Great, Times!
So a couple of weeks ago I wrote about The Golden Age of The Langley Times and lamented how the paper hasn’t been the same since they forewent hilarity in the name of readability by making the front page headline and photo actually relevant to each other. Well, I was wrong. In what I will spend tomorrow convincing myself is a ploy by the Times staff to get my readership back, the front page...
Club Jacket
I don’t frequent any night club in particular, but if there’s one I prefer it’s either the one where I found like $12 on the dance floor one night or the one from this anecdote I’m about to tell which, TWIST ENDING, is actually the same club. But anyway.
It was raining that night – this is a couple of months ago – the warm kind that doesn’t really make you cooler so much as it just makes you wet....
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A List of Potential Names for My Hypothetical...
Piper - Mildly cool, large foreheaded girl with a heart of gold.
Crow - Rustic chap who, if they aren’t already, will make all of his shirts sleeveless. The first guy you ask to get a Frisbee off of the roof.
Boyd - Thoughtful enough to read notices on mailboxes about missing pets, but not to the point that he’ll commit any of the information to memory.
Otto - “Dr....
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Good Times
You’d never believe this, but there was once a time when my town’s local paper was a must-read publication and not just a showcase for photographs of face-painted children attending generic, seemingly weekly, community events. I don’t want to trash The Langley Times too much since when I was just starting out with my writing they did gainfully employ me (as a delivery boy), but I...
July 2011
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A Joke That Goes Past Its Punchline, Volume II
A man who has been caught embezzling millions from his employer went to a lawyer seeking defence. He didn’t want to go to jail, but his lawyer assured him, “Don’t worry. You’ll never have to go to jail with all that money.” And the lawyer was right. When the man was sent to prison, he didn’t have a dime! Later that month the man’s head was caved in with a screwdriver during a prison riot.