The Qaddafi I know

I've been sitting on this for weeks now, even months. I don't want to go to the media, I don't want to get involved. It would be so hard on our families.

But the Muammar I knew back when we were kids was not the same Muammar I know now.

"Nick," he'd say to me in anguished Sunday-afternoon tones in England, where we both went to school (albeit in separate dormitories). "Nick, do I have to be a dictator?"

"Yep, Mummy," (that was my nickname for him) "you've got to kill anyone who gets in your way. Anyone who isn't corrupt, anyone who's honest to a fault, anyone who wants deals with narcotraficantes and goes behind your back, anyone whose c**k (that means "cook", but his cooks are so terrible) your son s**ks (that's "sacks", because his son is always sacking cooks) " . . . yes, you've got to kill them all."

Qaddafi about to sack cook

He gives me his spaniel eyes. Tears roll down his already prepped-for-botox face. "But I don't WANT to be a dictator!!"

We are silent for a moment. His eyes brighten with a sudden thought. "At least not an ORDINARY dictator!"

We both smile at this old joke and stab each other in the back.

New HDR Photos

My friend Daniel and I went to the Oratory yesterday and took some HDR photos. Here are some portraits he made of me:

 

 

Pretty trippy, huh? That light is from the stained glass windows.

Nick’s Four-Cheese Pasta Gratin with Almond Crust

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 large shallots, finely chopped

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3 cups hot whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated 

2 1/2 cups Old Amsterdam gouda, grated

1 cup gruyère cheese, grated

1 2/3 cups lightly packed grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

1/2 cup whole almonds

1/4 cup fine dry Italian-style breadcrumbs

1 pound short-tubed pasta

Parsley for garnish

Method

Melt butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and shallots; sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add flour; stir 3 minutes. Whisk in hot milk. Bring to simmer, stirring. Cover partially; simmer until sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat. Add cheddar, gruyère and gouda cheese, 1 1/3 cups Parmesan cheese and hot pepper sauce. Whisk until sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill. Whisk over medium heat to rewarm before using.)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Generously butter bottom and sides of 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Blend 1/3 cup Parmesan, almonds and breadcrumbs in processor until nuts are coarsely ground. Add 1/2 cup almond mixture to prepared dish. Tilt dish to coat bottom and sides. Return any loose almond mixture to processor. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender. Drain well. Return pasta to pot. Add sauce; stir to coat. Transfer to prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining almond mixture over.

Bake until almond mixture is golden and crunchy and sauce bubbles, about 30 minutes. Cool on rack 5 minutes.

Garnish with Parsley. Serve with sliced spicy Toulouse sausages and hot mustard.

Everest 2011!

Their version:

My version:

Supermoon

You knew it was the Supermoon night, din't ya?

Well, iPhotog was on the spot, wishing the apartment SuperEyesore across from wasn't in the way, but I got the picture anyway.

Let's hope the oceans don't rise up in wrath anywhere around here. I can't even imagine a 30-foot wave surging up Cote-des-Neiges Road though it would be nice to have Rockhill Apartments washed away in a clap of thunder.

SUPERMOON!!!! Come to save the daaaay! Click for a BIG version. Notice how far a couple of stars have moved during the long exposure (one-minute plus)

Voodoo

I've been known to use voodoo. Not in any traditional sense, y'know, make sure the victim knows about it, get some hair or fingernails, blah blah blah -- heck, I even used voodoo once when I didn't even know the guy's name -- just his general direction.

But it seems that somehow, every time I seriously used it, it worked. I put a guy in hospital with unexplained symptoms within a month . . . another time some guy lost his job and later got hit by a car.

So I don't use it lightly. But I'm using it now. I won't tell you against who, I'll just say this person has caused me untold misery for the past few months.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure, as carved and speared by me.

 

I'll light it up once a day for half an hour a day for a week, of course pointed in the direction of the victim, and incant my special curse. The nails in the top of the head should be pretty hot after 30 minutes or so . . . I would assume the victim will be having some unfortunate unexplained migraines about the same time every day . . .

My Life: An Extended Haiku

My life is this: I'm in a busy waiting room. They have a number system. I notice this half an hour after sitting down. I take a number. The number is "98".

I look at the LED number board. It reads "4."

I try to find a place to sit next to someone who is not coughing. I pull out my now-wrinkled "Cook's Illustrated" magazine from my canvas bag.

The numbers go faster than I expect. Pretty soon they're up to number 63. I'm optimistic. I read the article on how to butterfly shrimp for the second time.

Time seems to stand still, but actually, the numbers are passing. It's 84. Now it's 89. Now it's 93. Now it's 95. I fold my Cook's magazine in half and put it back in the bag.

Someone sits down next to me as soon as I pick up my bag from the chair next to me. She starts coughing.

At last, I hear the muted tone of the number-counter. It reads "98." It is my turn.

I walk over to the counter and put down my scrap of paper. The receptionist looks up briefly and says "Have a seat sir, it won't be a minute."

I look down at my ticket. It says "99." An elderly man comes up next to me and puts down his ticket. It says "98." The receptionist says to him, "Down the hall, room 8."

I go back to where I was sitting, but someone is sitting there now.

The ticker chimes and the number "99" appears. I look down at my ticket and it says "100."

I open the Cook's and begin rereading how to butterfly shrimp. Someone leaves a seat next to the coughing woman. I sit down. The ticker chimes. I look down at my ticket. It says "101."

I take the opportunity to learn how to butterfly shrimp.

I'm 14 down, aisle on the left (the guy with the hair)

Bored

Y’know, I think God likes to have fun. He’s pretty much like the rest of us. For those of you who believe in Him, or others of His ilk, I think God recently just Got Bored.

Bored of Charlie Sheen’s torrent of idiocy, bored of Libya-Shmibiya-Egypt-Arab-Rebellion-Schmellion and He Gazed Upon the Earth and What He Had Wrought, and Saw That He Was Bored.

And so, in His Eternal Wisdom, He decided to “Shake them motherfuckers up” and in His Infinitely Jocular Way, hatched a massive earthquake and tsunami to watch his most treasured inventions scurry to and fro.

Charlie, Libya, Middle East, you must work HARDER to entertain Him because I really don’t want to see what He comes up with next time.

*Yawn*

Y’know, I think God likes to have fun. He’s pretty much like the rest of us. For those of you who believe in Him, or others of His ilk, I think God recently just Got Bored.

Bored of Charlie Sheen’s torrent of idiocy, bored of Libya-Shmibiya-Egypt-Arab-Rebellion-Schmellion and He Gazed Upon the Earth and What He Had Wrought, and Saw That He Was Bored.

And so, in His Eternal Wisdom, He decided to “Shake them motherfuckers up” and in His Infinitely Jocular Way, hatched a massive earthquake and tsunami to watch his most treasured inventions scurry to and fro.

Charlie, Libya, Middle East, you must work HARDER to entertain Him because I really don’t want to see what He comes up with next time.

Good Golly, Miss Molly

Consider the ant. It is born in a hectic, seemingly insane environment. It doesn’t live long. To it, 24 hours must seem as an entire year does to us. Now consider a Galapagos tortoise (170 years), or the humble bristlecone pine (5,000 years). To them, a day is a second.

To us, a day is a day. But to the earth, a day is an almost impossibly fast flash, 10,000 times shorter than the last flash of lightning you saw.

So to the earth, an earthquake is a very, very almost insignificant blip, on par with the seventy-odd trillion earthquakes that have gone before and will happen again.

The passage of time is a very odd thing to consider; we can only view it as it appears to us. There are only a few givens: we will, most of us, expire before our hundredth year. Some will succumb much earlier, a few a bit later. But we all live under a death sentence that is graven in the very dust of stars.

When something like the earthquake of 2011 (I don’t know what it will popularly be called in the future) happens, it starkly demonstrates the impassivity of this earth we live on. We tend to cling to things to blame: Al Qaeda did it; Nostradamus predicted it; it’s a Zionist conspiracy and all the Jews were mysteriously absent the day the reactors melted down.

But the reality is, the dinosaurs DID die. At many points in the timeline, 98% of every species on this planet were completely wiped out, through no fault of Osama Been, and the other reality is that there is no magical Jesus, Allah or Buddha who is going to sail to our rescue — look to Marvel Comics for a more likely superhero.

Hey, I’m really not kidding here. Have you taken a look at the moon lately? You think those craters are party paint?

I just hope I get through my human-time-allotted seventy generic years with little mishap and from now on I’ll definitely think twice before I squash an ant out of existence.


Y'know, I'm not exactly sure quite what I'm on about here, but watching what happened in Japan for the last few days has made me feel, uh, really, really small.

No More Worries

No more worries, because you've got to kill yourself when you see the horrors. One almost wishes we were in the days when news took weeks to travel from country to country, when photos were in black and white and everybody just had to sigh and say "How sad for those poor natives," and continue dusting the mantlepiece.

San Francisco Bay via the Golden Gate Bridge offers a quick, albeit somewhat painful way out of life's difficulties, but not when San Francisco Bay comes a-calling, unannounced, and rings your doorbell.

Worrying About Masahiro

Well, we're all naive, aren't we, to expect that the death toll from the largest recorded earthquake in Japan would be in the 500s. Something that moved Japan eight feet to the left must have demanded more sacrifices.

So I worry about Masahiro, the young consular official who came over the day after the earthquake to photograph a WWII flag (scroll down for that story).

In typical Japanese understatement he said "I'm sure my parents are under some water." I don't know whether some(thing) up there decided to, in a second, involve me in something I don't particularly want to get involved with, but as soon as Masahiro said that, I got involved.

The first estimates of the death toll are understandably laughable. But years from now, when we know the final toll, it will surely number above 20,000 people. But only two of those people matter to me now . . . the parents of a guy whom I talked to for maybe thirty minutes.

If you feel like it, you could write to the Japanese consulate in Montreal and just simply say "We hope Masahiro Abe-san's parents are okay. We are writing through Nicholas Robinson."

The address is general@consuljaponmontreal.org

When Things Get Personal

I just got off the phone with my son. He's the handsome little boy you see below (Taken when he was here last Christmas).

His English has deteriorated, as it always does when he's away for a few months. This time, it will be at least seven months. He tries his best, but sometimes words escape him. He doesn't know the word "Earthquake." But he says "Daddy, all day long it's jishin, jishin, jishin." Jishin is the Japanese word for earthquake.

Tai-chan is rapidly growing old. He's too old for his age. He's too young for divorced parents and too young to be torn across the Pacific twice a year for a few stolen weeks in Montreal. Then back to the gulag. Yes, I might be prejudiced, but I lived there for five years. I know what the gulag is.

Yet never a complaint escapes his mouth. He just reacts. Whenever "bad" things happen, in whatever form they might take, be it being wrenched away from a peaceful summer in Montreal only to be back in the penal servitude that is school in Japan, he just seems to swallow it.

But in the conversation tonight, he asked, out of the blue, if "everything in California was okay." Because somehow he knew that there were tsunami warnings on for California.

Of course, I told him, everything in California is okay . . .

A Very Odd Confluence of Events

As some of you might know, I'm a bit of a WWII buff, my father actually having to have fought the damn thing. Mixed in there is a history buff, a language buff, oh well, an everything buff.

Years ago I noticed that on eBay they were selling militaria . . . that's relics and souvenirs from past and present wars, not all quite kosher but apparently allowed. One item that caught my eye in particular was Japanese silk flags from World War II.

There was only one place from which these flags could have been obtained, and you guessed it: dead Japanese. Still, they were immensely popular as souvenirs because they were light as a feather and could be folded into a top pocket.

From the Japanese point of view, as explained to me by someone to whom I shall introduce you in due course, these flags were good luck charms, signed with good wishes from family and friends in Japan and sent to the soldier, most of whom knew they would never see him again.

I always thought it sad, extremely so, seeing these personal mementos stolen from a dead young man, bought and sold like scalps over the Internet. Yet some sold, and sell, for over $500, and the thing is, they should never be sold. It's like having your dead grandson's photograph of his young wife being traded as "memorabilia" after he'd been killed in some far-off battle, you never knowing the picture existed, yet it being pawed over by various "collectors" who couldn't give a shit.

So I decided I would actually buy one of these flags and try to get it back to the dead soldier's family. I'm not rich, so I bought one that was ripped up one side, certainly not in "pristine" condition, signed by many hands, and with bloodstains on it. It wasn't very expensive.

It was extremely poignant to look at this flap of silk and see the writings of people seventy-odd years ago, written for a person seventy-odd years dead. My Japanese is good, but there were too many names and formal expressions.

I put up a short ad in a local Japanese bulletin board/forum to see if anyone would translate it.

I got no answers until a couple of days ago, and it was from none other than the Japanese consulate, here in Montreal. Could they perhaps come photograph it, and send the photographs to researchers in Japan? Needless to say, I was delighted. I offered to send them the flag, but they insisted a certain protocol must be followed in these cases. I understood, and invited them over. I even volunteered to take the photos with my whiz-bang setup, but they insisted they go by the book.

So this afternoon a very nice young man named Masahiro Abe came by, regretting that he couldn't bring his colleague, due to complications from the earthquake in Japan. He was a genuinely nice guy. He took the pictures with a little help from my lighting, and we bantered a bit. We talked about the earthquake and I explained that my son was about 780 km away from any of the mess, plus in an elevated area.

"I sure hope no one you know is from Sendai," I added jokingly, knowing that the odds of him being from the epicenter of the tsunami were about 300 million to one.

"I was born and raised in Sendai . . . my parents are there. They are close to the shore. I am sure they will be under water. I have heard nothing from them."

Remember his name. I hope I won't be having to mention him again, except with the best news.

But there's something weird about this confluence of events . . .

Below is a section of the flag. The comments were written by the Nakasone and Sakurai families . . . likely the family of the soldier and the family of his wife. They say things like "Death is but the flutter of a cherry blossom to the ground." And "Do your utmost for the Emperor and our land."

Now I really have to find them.

My Kind of Monday

The kind in which I slept badly last night; the kind in which I have a stye in my eye; the kind in which I still have 5 beers left; the kind in which I don't have to go anywhere; the kind in which last night we rented six movies; the kind in which we have shrimps in the freezer, pasta sauce and lots of parmesan; in short, MY KIND OF MONDAY.

Glad I ain't out there

Choices: and When to Say No

Before you read this post, read this article.

Okay, done? Now which way do you think I'd vote . . . ? Let the customer decide, because after all, we're here for, we exist because of, the customer.

Or, fuck the customer. If he doesn't like what we serve, or wants us to modify it, fuck him. This is not Burger King.

Hmm. Well, think of a composer. If a composer, at every stage of his composition, had to subject it to a committee of critics for approval, what would the finished composition sound like? Well, obviously, like it was written by a committee. If you went to a Beatles concert and said, no, I don't like the words in that chorus, could you change it for me? It gives me goosebumps. Well, what do you think John would have to say? A round, sound "FUCK YOU."

Now read this.

I don't particularly like David Chang. He comes across like a stuck-up prick most of the time. But he's RIGHT. If you're allergic to green onions (mostly code for you just don't like them) then DON'T ASK THE RESTAURANT TO LEAVE THEM OUT. Fuckin' eat WHAT THEY WENT TO SO MUCH TO PREPARE THEIR WAY.

It drives me NUTS even within my own family when I cook to hear their endless prejudices. Like a bunch of spoiled children. "I'm making pizza," I announce. "No onions on mine." No mushrooms." "Don't make the sauce too spicy." "I don't like prosciutto." "Not too much garlic." "I don't like too-old cheddar."

FUCK YOU. Go to Domino's.

Oh, I guess now you know how I vote.

PS. Oh, speaking of choices, I'm REALLY tempted to somehow get a flash mob together and arrange for them all to show up at this restaurant and order every single thing on this menu at the same time.

PPS. And speaking of pretentious, just get a load of why I refuse to be a web designer any more.

Why Am I Cursed?

Because I am. Perhaps it's because I don't believe in a god or gods. Maybe I should become a priest and molest children in order to rid myself of this curse.

But the Fates have it in for me -- I swear. No matter what I do, I cannot thwart them.

Witness the evidence: you have a polarised plug and a small, dark space in which to insert it. Of course you can't see which side is the big side, let alone which input is the larger. What are your chances of getting it right, first time?

Mine: zero. Even if I hold the plug and then think: no, this time I'll do the opposite of what I was just going to do! and switch the polarity, it turns out that the first way I had it was correct. The same goes with USB cords. No matter what you do, it's always going to not be the right way the first time.

As for waiting in lines at the supermarket . . . I'm utterly and totally cursed. It does not matter in THE LEAST which line I choose or how many people with how much stuff are on it, I will always get, as I did today, the middle-aged woman with only 12 or so items who had a COUPON FOR EVERY ITEM, wanted to buy a week's worth of loto tickets, and paid in change.

By the time it was my turn, the bagger had given up in disgust and was collecting carts, the manager had come around to get a cash count on my register and I stood in line for FIFTEEN MINUTES with 8 items.

Why didn't I choose the Express lane? Because if I had, the lane I DID choose would magically have morphed into a swiftly efficient line of people paying with cash, no coupons, no change, an efficient cashier and a bagger.

THAT'S WHY.

I hereby pass my curse on to ALL OF YOU in the hopes that by some voodoo I will rid myself of this horrendous fate.

I will keep reposting this cartoon until the curse is gone

Open Your Wallets for a Good Cause!

Flock! Support your local shepherd! Namely, of course, me.

A while back I created three DVDs, at first just to entertain myself, but then, of course, to sell! So I want you to buy one (or all three. You, as my flock, of course get FREE . . . er, kisses. (I was going to offer free shipping, but I didn't live 53 years to get stupid all of a sudden!) Nah, tell you what, for my flock only, free shipping if you buy all three.

Here's the deal -- they're really cool! As in, totally, insanely cool! I was sitting around one day in my tatami room (the room I made into a Japanese-themed enclave, spending insane amounts of dollars for a shoji screen door and the aforesaid tatami mats, seen below)

The bedroom

when I thought, damn, wouldn't it be cool to have a nice simple sushi dinner with some Japanese music playing softly in the background . . . no, wait, Japanese music AND Japanese art on the big-screen plasma! and, unlike many other grand plans I never saw through, this one I did. It was my DVD-making era, and I was all set up, equipment-wise, so all I had to do was find the source material et voilà! So of course I went the whole hog and designed a cover for the DVD and even art for the DVD itself and then I got carried away and did one for those Indian occasions and one for those Chinese occasions!

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough rooms to decorate in Indian and Chinese themes, so you'll have to eat my butter chicken in a Japanese room. Not too far away geographically. But I digress.

But recently, while sifting through my gigantic penny jar for beer money and finding only pennies, I decided to resurrect the whole thing and try to sell 'em on eBay. So go buy one! Or all three! I put up preview clips on my server, so you can see/hear them at:

The Japanese

The Chinese

The Indian

and buy them on eBay at

The Japanese

The Chinese

The Indian

!

You'll love 'em. If you don't, I'll convert to Scientology and mention Elron in every post. So get thee to eBay!

Never That Bad, but then Again, Never That Rich and Retarded

Jan-Michael Vincent
Charlie Sheen
Gaddafi
Lindsay Lohan
Mel Gibson
Michael Richards
John Galliano

What a fucking bunch of rich drunk clowns. I'm a drunk clown but I'm not rich, so I don't get a national soapbox for my remarks about how much I hate Germans.

Think about that the next time you dream of winning the lottery . . . they won, through no talent of their own, and look what assholes THEY turned out to be.

And after that, the only CLASSY DRUNK I've ever seen.