Annals of a Bad (but Handsome) Guy

Who do you think the Brad-Pitt-surpassing handsome devil of a man is? Well, I'll give you a hint. "Devil of a man" is truly the word for this guy. If you guessed this guy:

you'd be right. Astonishing transformation, no? Young Hitler -- though no clear pictures survive -- looked like a doofus loner Lee Harvey Oswald-type maniac. Young Joe could easily be in a Cartier ad.

But make no mistake, none whatsoever: Stalin was a very, very bad guy. Just because he was on our side for a while there during WWII is just a stroke of fate. Stupidity, actually, born of Hitler's attack on the USSR (Hitler was as dumb as a fucking box of hair. In fact, the top guys with the Allies nixed an almost foolproof assassination plot in 1944 because they were terrified that with Hitler gone, someone who actually knew what the fuck he was doing would be running the war. That's a true story, as Al Pacino tells Diane Keaton in The Godfather) propelled him reluctantly into the Allied camp. Do yourselves a favor and read "Stalin," one of the best books I've ever read, and I've read maybe half a million books by now.

But Uncle Joe; he was a bad seed right from square MINUS 1. He probably tortured the bacteria in his mother's womb, he was so bad.

Get a load of this story, one if redone today would horrify the world but back then probably only made "The People's One-Page Quarterly." What happened to the horses alone is enough to make one puke.

Apartment Sale

For Montrealers: Tomorrow (Saturday May 26) we're having a vast apartment sale. Kitchen stuff -- lots of it -- electronics (three-phone Panasonic three handset/answering machine home theater system, cameras and more), household items, clothes, shoes, handbags, jewelry, linens, frames, mounted paintings, and lots more stuff! Some of this stuff is actually new, but all of it is quality stuff -- THERE IS NO JUNK here. All electronics are guaranteed to work, bowls, crockery etc. is in mint condition, no cracks, chips, clothing hardly worn, EVERYTHING in like-new condition, guaranteed!

Will put up a picture later today and will be holding the sale again next weekend. Downtown Montreal, easy to get to by public transit. Email me at nick#montrealfood.com for directions, times etc.

Amazing stuff, ALL OF IT HAS TO GO!

**********POSTPONED TILL NEXT WEEKEND***********************************

Losing Yourself

I just don't know what I did before the Internet came along. I actually can't remember. Just imagine being born AFTER the Internet came along and then considering a world without it. It would be like considering a world where there was no electricity . . . anywhere. Or further back. No gas. Or even further back. No candles, no torchlight.

But back to the Internet. How dependent are you on the Internet? (Notice I still spell it with a capital "I" . . . I suppose that's gone the way of "e-mail" and "on-line" but at this point I'm not really sure!) Do you start itching for a keyboard and a screen after 24 hours away? What did you do with your computer before the Internet came along? Do you still remember your first modem? (Mine was 2400-baud. How antiquated that sounds now. Like talking about telegrams.)

But as we know, the Internet and the Web are two different things. (We do know that, don't we?) And it's really the Web that most of us use the Internet for, if you don't count email, FTP and other, now almost completely marginalized entities such as IRC and Usenet.

Unfortunately, the Web has its snares. I know you probably haven't heard of it, but there's a thing called MMPORG which apparently have hundreds of millions of addicts. We're talking people who sit in front of their computers all day and all night, seven days a week, completely immersed in a fantasy game.

Or, regrettably, Facebook. I'm proud to say (VERY proud to say) that I deleted my Facebook account yesterday. Not deactivated it, deleted it. That means that in 14 days (they really don't want to lose you so they don't ACTUALLY delete it for 14 days after you've pushed "Delete") all the information that you had created on your Facebook page will have disappeared. At least, as far as everybody else is concerned. But not Facebook; you still live on on their servers -- everything you ever typed into your page, every photo or video you put up -- for as long as they want to keep it (they won't say how long that is).

Does that make you want to race to delete YOUR Facebook page? Try it -- it ain't easy. But it's too late, anyway. They've already got all your info and there's not a thing in the world you can do about it.

So that distraction -- it was always minor, in my case -- has gone. So what do I like the Internet for? Wikipedia. I can, and do, get lost for whole afternoons on that site. Just travelling from link to link. One makes me think of something else, so I go there, and find something else . . . and before you know it, a whole afternoon has gone by. Watching a movie? If you're me, you're on Wikipedia every 20 minutes, looking up some obscure detail about it. Reading a book? Off to Wikipedia to find out more about something. It's endless. I just don't know how I survived without it, let alone the Web, let alone the Internet, let alone computers, let alone electricity!

Whew. I'm exhausted just talking about it. Besides, I have in my clipboard Rick Derringer's name. I think I'll just go look him up.

John 'n' Tom

Just what IS it with John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Scientology and rumors? Fer chrissakes, if you're gay, Tom and John, just come out and say so! We really couldn't care less! You don't look any less manly surfing the tops of trains, Tom, or dressing in dreadlocks and drooling, Johnboy! I mean, going to all the trouble of having sham marriages, in-vitro kids . . . it's FAR more bizarre than Michael Jackson's tales of woe.

In retrospect, I made way too much fun of Jacko. Because you know what differentiated him from you two? Jacko had massive amounts of something you never had: talent.

So it's for you two that I put together this wonderful portrait.

This is Communication?

I used to be on something called Usenet. I also used to be on something called IRC. The stuff they posted, and how they posted it, was sometimes hard to "parse," if you will. Kind of opaque unless you knew a few frequently-used terms.

But see what I just came across on someone's blog page. This is communication? This means something to . . . anyone? This is worse than a chat log from Twitter, another totally useless form of communication for microcephalics.


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Notes

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   Because. doubleirony:

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    My feelings exactly Wil… my feelings exactly.

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    Reblogging this because it will be useful in so many situations.

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    Dude, Ryan Higa won so hard it WAS bullshit.

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The Dumbest Fuck in the World, Ever

It is very rare that I call anyone the dumbest in the entire world, ever, so, finally I must concede defeat and name him.

He's this guy, an Australian, (so you know we're in the right territory, sorry, Steve Irwin) who needs a bit more IQ numbers but's let's all do him a favor and mentally excuse him and:

Donate IQ to see him through: all to him from me and you! 25-odd points should at least get him a proper IQ competition with a bag of used ping-pong balls. Can't wait for the results.

Random Observations

You people don't talk much. If I have 88 "followers," where are they all? I keep getting the feeling that maybe three people come to this blog on a weekly basis, maybe four more once a month. Every one else is totally random, driven by my links to recipes on Wikipedia.

If you do the math (yes, you -- I don't "do" math) I'm sure you'll find out that time spent writing X number of words typed X entertainment absorbed = .000213% of reward. For me, that is. Rereading my old posts is a great hobby of mine -- there are whole legions of them I have no recollection of writing at all, therefore it's as if someone else wrote them, therefore I get to enjoy the wit of someone else who writes a hell of a lot like me about the subjects that I like to read/write about, therefore that makes me happy.
However I did promise random observations so let's go:

Random observation #1: if a blog has not been updated in over thirty days it should be deleted from the server with or without the owner's permission. Just think of the bandwidth that would save; the contents of the Library of Congress times ten million in one shot.

#2: Spock's Brain, the much-vilified episode in Season III of Star Trek, the Original Series, is actually very good. I always put it up near my highest rated of all the shows. The only thing I hate in that episode is DeForrest Kelley pronouncing "ganglia" as "gangula" not once but twice. That's like a president saying "nucular." Oh, I forgot -- George Bush (both of them) did it every time they said it. But the music was excellent and Gene L. Coon wrote it, even though he used a pseudonym in the credits.

#3. How can these companies like Proactiv run these two-minute-long commercials promising you'll get rid of all your pimples, then charge, like $40/bottle for basically soapy water?

#4. How can A&E, formerly the Arts and Entertainment Channel, playing series like Horatio Hornblower and Sharpe and Columbo and Biography be reduced to all day, every day marathons of "Intervention" or "Criminal Minds" or "Beyond Scared Straight?"

#5. How can the Food Network play series like "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," "Dinner Impossible," "Chopped" and "Iron Chef America" all day, every day, seven days a week?

#6. How come I have approximately 250 channels in my "extended package" of Videotron Cable TV and these (#5) are the types of channels that dominate, and my "movie package" is filled with movies like "The Switch" and "Trash Talk" and "Love in an Elevator?"

#7. Why did I find out today that back in 1981 American Airlines offered, for $150,000, a lifetime pass in First Class to any destination in the world at any time? Lifetime pass meaning for the rest of your life? Anywhere in the world, in First Class? Meaning that you could, if you really wanted, live in First Class on an airplane for the rest of your life? If you don't believe me, look it up.

Illustration II

This one is for a book entitled "The Slacker's Guide to Success". I thought the old "Ape-to-Homo sapiens" illustration would be a good place to mess with. I'm not sure, but I think the original was done in a National Geographic article . . . I'd love to know who came up with it. I thought I'd add some juggling balls for the gibbon and give the "Success" guy a hat to evoke the 20th century's vision of a successful businessman.

Love to hear any opinions!

Illustration

My friend Ken has a column for Huffington Post Canada. He said he needed illustrations for some of his columns, so I whipped this one up for a column on how to get your kids to sleep at night. Whaddya think? Pretty good for an afternoon's work, no?

Plot Twists

Lyna: my link between this world and the next

It's not a long story, so I won't cut it short. My parents, bless their pointy little heads (my father has gone to the Great Red Sox Stadium in the sky) never signed on to the concept of actually getting BURIED. No, for them, it was off to the Neptune Society to get broiled into ashes (my beef with that is how the FUCK do you know for sure you're getting your loved one's ashes instead of some cardboard boxes they burned the day before?) and then put in some jar or something. My dad made his wish that he sit near the TV with a Red Sox cap on his urn, so that's exactly what happened. He sits next to my eldest brother, who died of MD ten years ago, a dog and a couple of cats. And that's what my mother wants done with her.

Where I might be buried (click to enlarge!)

How goddamn demeaning! To me that's the lowest of the low. I want to be buried. Not because I'm religious or anything, but I want my remains to be eaten by beetles and grubs and worms and larvae and feed the earth and its denizens, and feed the roots of the grass that grows above me on the roof . . . to "wake up" every day to a soft rain or a cold sun or a foot of snow . . . not sit next to some jabbering TV in someone's living room!

So my "plot" is to GET a plot. Get a plot in a cemetery way before I die, so I can go visit it, so I can go see where I'm going to be for eternity, or at least until my atoms disperse sufficiently -- to visit my own grave and talk to my future dead self, to get used to where I'll be for a long, long time . . . when I'm on my deathbed, or whatever my last conscious thoughts are going to be, I'm going to be reassured, knowing exactly where I'm going. A place I've been many, many times before! Isn't that a great thought?

What it looks like now

There just happens to be a cemetery literally across the street from my building, Cimitière Nôtre-dame-des-Neiges.

So I emailed the administration and arranged a meeting to find out what getting a plot entailed . . . and it turns out to be great! For about $3,600 I get my own lot for 100 years. I have to make a 30% down payment, which I can't come up with right now, but then I'd pay around $50 a month for five years (no interest!) until I'd be paid off. That is just the deal of the century!

Another view

Ya like it? It could be mine!

So . . . today I went to meet the sales person, who turned out to be a charming former embalmer named Lyna, and I got a ride to where my plot might be . . . it was great! I took the opportunity to take a picture of some monstrous monument and Photoshop in my name. Hey, ya never know! I might be a bigwig one day!!!