What is Depression?

I would call it a lack of optimism. But a cat seemingly can't be optimistic. A dog, seeing his favorite activity about to be initiated, can be optimistic. Even a fish can seem optimistic upon being fed.

But no one thinks of these animals as being depressed. I saw my cat Iggy, who eventually became genetically blind, wander around in circles in the apartment, yowling.

My father died of depression and I don't know why. Everyone loved him and he loved everyone.

I'm hoping it was all the Nazis he killed who depressed him. Because he failed to kill more of them. That in itself would depress me.

Driving in Montreal

Driving in Montreal is a major gamble. Like I keep telling Brigitte, Crackerjack is making a fortune out of selling licenses in their boxes in Montreal.

It's easily the worst city I have driven in. Pedestrians (I'm usually one of them) are lunatics. Bicyclists are suicidal. Taxi drivers just basically decide where and when they want to drive and just do it.

I'm amazed each day that I drive in Montreal to come home in two pieces -- brain and body, let alone one piece.

What Is A Blog?

A "blog" is a shortened version of "Weblog."

What is a "weblog?" A weblog was originally meant to be be a sort of online diary. You'd suddenly come up with a thought, maybe take a picture or two, and voilà, here was your daily thought.

This is and was a good idea. However, as is natural in the real world, it got perverted.

This blog, from square one, was meant to be a continuation of montrealfood.com. However, as others in Montreal began posting reviews of restaurants with pictures (most by the wayside, I'll have you know) I decided that since I'd started it, why change the name? It's just a familiar iteration for people who know me, many, many who do not live in Montreal and will probably never come here.

So I post whatever I want. Just what I see in the news or whatever occurs to me. Sometimes it's a hilarious joke but sometimes it's deadly serious (well, it always has to be sarcastic if it's serious).

But lately trolls have been dropping by and leaving "sarcastic" comments -- really, they couldn't write to save their lives -- kind of like cyber graffitists -- and I just want to get an IED and plant it under their fucking spaghetti bolognese from President's Choice and detonate it remotely with a cell phone.

But you know I won't do that. Yet. Just delete the fucker and move on. Blork insisted that I leave the posts and comments up there for posterity's sake but I just don't like vitriol on my blog unless it's from my own mouth.

The First Pages of the Adventures of Bock's Misfits!

日本人ようこそ！どうやって来ましたか分からないけど、お楽しみにして下さい！

Open each page in a new window to see them full size -- just clicking on them puts them in the Blogger interface which is next to useless

Above: Private second class Heinz Guderian. Crime: absent without leave, possession of twenty cases of Kimmel Schnapps. 

Below: Corporal Gerhardt Smeiss. Crime: Cowardice and dereliction of duty.

Above: Kevin "Cobber" Compton.. Stole 6,000 pounds of airplane-grade kerosene and sold them off-base.Hit First-Lieutenant Derek Smythe with a full beer bottle and put put him in a coma for three weeks.


Below: Gestapo agent Specialist Larsen. Able to kill with a small twist to the neck. Crime: in a drunken rage, killing his regimental commander with a small twist to the neck because the commander would not light his cigarette properly.

F-15 pilot Mike "Shorty" Willington, above. Crime: stealing 2,000 gallons of airplane-grade kerosene and selling it off base. Also, multiple transgressions with Ladies of the Night while supposed to be on watch. Dereliction of duty.
Below: Russian Lieutenant Ivanov. Hopeless drunk who crashed an L-15 truck into an ammo dump and set the entire base afire. Only his drunkenness allowed him to wander away in a daze instead of being consumed by the inferno.

Man from the Future: Roy Batty (above). A complete lunatic replicant. 
Above: Hiroshi Sakamoto. Guard in prisoner of war camp for the Allies. Personally murdered six Australian prisoners. 

Below: Mike Becker, outfitter who worked on the Golden Gate Bridge. Drafted. Killed a man in a bar who called his mother a "Bat from Hell."


But now there's a new addition: Major Konig: sniper (below). Crime: killing 25 Russian servicemen. No remorse. Sentence: death.

And finally . . .  the enemy.

(Click on the Jpeg to enlarge in your browser)

The Gumby Wars

I know you too well, my flock, my faithful flock. You do not trust your Dear Leader to deliver on his promises of months, even years ago.

But building a castle does not involve two, or even two thousand bricks. However, it always starts with one, as the philosopher Mike2MikegotchaZEE! used to say.

But my saga of G.I Joe versus Gumby WILL COME TO FRUITION. Mistake me not, flock. My mind is teeming (mostly with beer, but sometimes with neurons) and I WILL PULL THIS OFF.

(Warning: spoilers ahead):

Commander Alden Benjamin Bock (Al B. Bock) assembles a motley crew of misfits who have been AWOL or in the brig for a long time. There is no funding from the Pentagon and these are no special forces. Just a bunch of losers from World War II -- from all sides, Axis and Allies. There is even a character from the future, No matter. They are all losers.

Bock has to assemble them and get them shipshape for an important mission that is not approved by the Pentagon: eliminate Gumby and his trusty but perverse horse and notorious torturer, Pokey.

It turns out that there are hundreds of millions of Gumbys and Pokeys and in reality, the Exalted Gumby (see below) presides over a socialist terrorist state which threatens the world.

Thus, the CSTON-Team (pronounced "SEE-Ston for "Can't Spell Their Own Names") must be assembled from the raggedy ass bunch of wretched but extremely talented specialists to take out Exalted Gumby and remove the threat of eternal Gumby-hatched terror from the civilized world.

(See? I told you it was a spoiler.)

Commander Bock is on the job. Look for the first exciting episode soon.

Meanwhile, here is a covert snapshot of the perpetrators/targets taken from an X-Fire Laser-guided High Density Camera Satellite Drone (XFLGHDCSD, or X-Drone for short):

Exalted Gumby and Commissar Pokey in a playful moment at Gumpoke Castle

Noise

When I lived in Africa, the nights were filled with noise. Not just cars -- there weren't many of those. But bugs, frogs, birds, bats, dogs, you name it. (Double that and you might get an idea).

A symphony of life. Never any peace.

Montreal is constant ambulances and buses and traffic.

I just want to go where there is not a single murmur of anything. No roar of the ocean, no crickets chirping, just NOTHING. An ABSENCE OF SOUND.

I''m beginning to believe deaf people actually have something on us.

Why I'm a Bad Cook

Number one, I have a pathetic appetite at the best of times. Put a burger in front of me and I'll be MAYBE able to finish half, even if it's the best burger in town. I have to take an anti-depressant pill 40 minutes before dinner called Buspar, because for me, it has a side-effect that makes me hungry. How pathetic can that be for a "food critic?"

I rarely eat lunch. I never eat breakfast, unless it's at five a.m. I have no idea why, but five a.m. is when I get the hungriest.

I can't cook if I'm not hungry, or at least, not full. I have no interest in cooking if I have a full stomach, at all. The few times I've done it, I just went through the motions. The results were not good.

I taste too much. So when the actual deed is done, I'm so sick of tasting and looking at it and smelling it that I just want to be anywhere else. This is frequently after hours and hours of planning, cooking, tasting and preparing.

This is why a dinner of charcuterie is great. There is no cooking or tasting, nothing hot, only cold and I don't get full before I even start eating.

Brigitte sometimes ridicules me (in a kind way) for ridiculing HER portion sizes. She's right. She eats normally and I eat weirdly. I've been like that since I was very young . . . come home after junior college and band practice, everyone is asleep, there is no dinner, I haven't eaten a thing all day and I still say "Fuck it" and go to bed in my clothes without even a chip.

So I try to make up for it by loving and thinking about food, all day, every day.

Life is very, very weird.