Anthony-P Dot Com

DEAR EVERYONE: I'm live-tweeting the Olympics.

2010-02-13T01:45:00.002-05:00

Yes folks, you read that correctly. For the next two and a half weeks, or until whenever it is that I get bored, or distracted or forget about it, I'll be live-tweeting various Olympic events. I started last night (and continued into this morning) with the Opening Ceremonies.

You can keep up with me on twitter or on my facebook profile.

If the constant updating annoys you, I suggest you either unfollow/unfriend me or find something to distract me from my duty.

Since I'm unemployed and have no social life, I'll be online pretty much all the time, so if you want to chat I'll be on Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. Drop me a line, we can be cynical jerks who make fun of people who care about things like like "hard work" and "dedication".

Last night's Olympic Cauldron malfunction, and it's indoor setting, reminded me of the various dangers of fire. I feel it wise to re-post my Fire ACTION! plan:

Don't have no fires.
If you have fires, keep them in a garbage can (make sure the garbage can isn't made of fancy wood).
If your fires are in a wood garbage can, put the can in the bath, but not if the bath tub is flammable. Check with your bath tub manufacturer for the flammability rating of your home's bath tub.
Always keep a working fire extinguisher in a conspicuous place. By fire extinguisher I don't mean an illegal immigrant with a bucket of water waiting in your pantry at all hours, ready to leap out at the first sign of ignition. Not all fires can be doused with water, so this is very important.
Keep your George Foreman Grill away from curtains and out of reach of any children who might be playing with cooking oil.
If you smoke, don't do it in your bed unless you just did it, cause that is what they do in movies.
Always have a working smoke detector. Like your fire extinguisher, you shouldn't use an illegal immigrant to do this job. He might fall asleep.
When your smoke detector goes off or at the first sign of smoke, spark or flame make sure to clear all the illegal immigrants out of your house. You don't want their dead bodies linked to you in any sort of investigation or tribunal.
Fire can be your friend but you must respect it. It's kind of like a kid with a learning disability. It can be lots of fun, but you should probably be careful around it because it is very unpredictable and doesn't know what it is doing and might hurt you or give you a disease.

Maybe if you stuck food up your butt you would crap out your mouth

2010-01-14T23:56:00.002-05:00

Things aren't working out so well for poor old Harpo. Apparently Canadians were paying closer attention than his brain-trust assured him we were and it turns out we aren't too keen on having our Parliament shut-down every time the Prime Minister doesn't feel like having to answer a question from the opposition. Constitutional or not, repeatedly proroguing Parliament to avoid criticism is cynical and undemocratic. Further, it is counter to the promises of accountability Canadians were given when they gave Stephen Harper the mandate to govern.

Sure, Harper isn't the first PM to prorogue, but he was elected at least in part because Canadians thought he was the kind of politician who had more than his own interest in mind. It turns out he's actually the kind of politician who would compromise almost any value in the name of achieving and maintaining power. Whether it is government accountability or budget deficits or appointing unelected senators it is clear, at least to me, that Harper places very little value in the promises he has made to Canadians, either that or he thinks we're idiots. Given his latest boneheaded move, maybe it's the latter.

If I wanted more evidence to show how little respect the Conservatives have for the intellect of the electorate, the research wouldn't be very difficult since it came in the mail today. My Member of Parliament, the creationist Minister of State for Science and Technology The Honourable Dr. (of chiropracty) Gary Goodyear sent me a leaflet asserting his Government's resolve to make our country safer by changing the law so criminals would serve longer, tougher sentences. There was an important piece of information missing though. What the Honorable Doctor forgot to mention was that the legislation the Government had in mind to reform the justice system had already been debated and passed by the House of Commons and was merely awaiting the rubber stamp of the Senate and Royal Assent before passing into law. That is, until the PM prorogued Parliament and killed the bill, along with every other bill before Parliament at the time of prorogation. When Parliament returns in the spring work on the the crime bill will have to start again at the beginning, setting the process back by months and delaying the Government's own plans to make Canada safer.

If it wasn't bad enough for the Conservatives that the Prime Minister threw all of their own legislation in the trash, recent polls show that the party would be lucky to even hold onto a minority if an election were held today. I have to wonder how many more times Harper can ruin his party's chances at a majority before they get rid of him.

Hopeless Romantic

2009-09-11T00:18:00.003-04:00

I'd like to go on record as saying that Claritin fucks my shit up. I popped two of those babies before going over to a friend's house because cats make me wicked itchy and I wanted to be able to focus on nerding out while we played Settlers of Catan. The result was more than a little scary. First I made up a song about the resource based economy of the game. That was followed by the uptempo musical number "Doody in Your Mouth." Then, to slow things down a bit, I crooned "Analingus," which is just the word 'analingus' sung repeatedly the way Sinatra might have sung it. So yeah, Claritin fucks my shit up. FUCKS. MY SHIT. UP.

I leave to reenact National Lampoon's European Vacation with Veronica in a couple weeks. We've planned a three week whirlwind of Munich, Florence, Rome, Venice, London and Berlin. If anybody knows of anything great to do, see or eat in those cities, let me know. Travel tips would also be appreciated.

Ok I haven't posted a blog in months, but I have something I need to say

2009-08-20T16:51:00.002-04:00

What form US health-care reform should take and whether it is necessary or not are part of valid debate. What I've noticed, and what really pisses me off, is how that debate has been completely derailed by people who seem to have little or no understanding of the concept of factuality, who dismiss fact in favour of their opinion or the opinions of others and the media and legislative establishment who lend these cretins an air of legitimacy by making their voices heard in the name of "fairness" or "balance".

1. Fact is fact. It is not debatable. Whether health-care reform should be undertaken is debatable. Whether that reform should include a public insurance system is debatable. Whether "the Bill" contains "Death-Panel" legislation that would allow Obama and his bureaucratic minions to pull the plug on granny or Tripp Palin is not debatable. There is no one "Bill" at this point, and none of the proposed bills contain anything like a death-panel. End of life counseling has nothing to do with decided who should live and die, regardless of how poorly the former Governor of Alaska understands that. And for all the screaming about government death-panels are Americans forgetting that they already exist? Private insurers regularly deny coverage to those in need by pricing the poor out of the system, denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions, capping lifetime benefits and through the often arbitrary approvals process for treatments for the terminally ill and elderly.

2. Opinion and fact are not interchangeable. Fact is always superior to opinion. An opinion cannot be contrary to fact. An opinion which is contrary to fact is wrong. Yes, a person's opinion can be wrong. Everyone might be entitled to their opinion, but not every opinion is valid.

The fact is 2+2=4. You might feel that 2+2=5, but you are wrong. You can go through life claiming that 2+2=5 but you are wrong and you always will be.

We live in a time when everyone is right, even when they are wrong. We place far too much emphasis on the way people "feel" about facts. We are living in the time of Sarah Palin. Being loud has replaced being right. Intelligence and experience no longer matter.

But who is to blame for this? Every parent who thinks their average kid is exceptional, which is pretty much every parent. Guess what, most children aren't exceptional, and no child, not even those who are exceptional should be raised to think that they are more important and more deserving than everyone else. That is the recipe for raising the kind of irresponsible, selfish person with no regard for hard work or effort or experience who would quit a job halfway done while claiming success (Sarah Palin, again). What's worse, these parents have hijacked the educational system so that their little princes and princesses can be coddled 24 hours a day. Now every child in the classroom is the most important and smartest and most entitled and prettiest and funniest and coolest, all thirty of them.

3. The idea that media and legislative establishments have a responsibility to promote or hear all opinions in the name of fairness or balance is wrong and dangerous. Whack-jobs who promote ludicrous propaganda such as the idea that Obama is a nazi should rightfully be ignored. They might be entitled to their opinions but like I said earlier, not all opinions are equal. Some opinions should be ignored, and yes the people who try to hijack town-hall meetings with such inane drivel should be cut-off and removed. The first amendment doesn't give you the right to be heard. You can say anything you want, but that doesn't mean everybody else has to listen and it certainly doesn't mean you have to be given a platform to speak from by the media, government representatives or anyone else.

The media's primary political responsibility is to reveal the truth. Everything else is a distraction from that purpose. Sadly, most media outlets have abandoned that responsibility in favour of making stars out of their chosen masters of opinion, turning fact into fiction in the name of ratings and political expediency. The media failed miserably on Iraq, and it is failing again with this debate. The media continues to give voice to the most extreme anti-government and anti-Obama propaganda from the right while making little or no effort to debunk it. That is more than irresponsible, that is dereliction of duty.

And as far as the legislative establishment is concerned, it would be a great disservice to the democratic system and to American voters if Congress allowed this reform to fail because of a few loud dissenters at a couple of meetings. The public was aware of the desire for health-care reform when it elected Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate and Obama as President. Obama and the Democratic legislators were given a strong electoral mandate to pursue reform, and should abandon attempts for opposition support, otherwise what is the use for a majority? What's more, Democratic leaders need to bring pressure on the liberal and conservative fringes of the party to unite. With Obama's popular support and ability to raise money, it shouldn't be so hard to get Democratic House and Senate votes in line.

porno groove

2009-03-16T20:49:00.004-04:00

So Nick asked me where I've been.

First of all, like everybody on the internet, I've been twittering. It seems like pretty much everyone has more or less abandoned their blogs as twitter has exploded in the last couple months. Frankly, it's nice to finally have an excuse for typing no more than a line or two.

Secondly, I just moved, so I didn't have internet access for a few days.

Here is the nighttime view from my new place:

Here is my new flatmate George:

I don't have a shot of the daytime view, but it includes the lake and the islands, and on a clear day I can see right across Lake Ontario to New York. That's right, my view is international. Jealous?

'Eh, Steve, Obama's here for lunch, where'd we put those seriously dumpy looking Mounties? Nevermind, I found them'

2009-02-19T11:44:00.005-05:00

2009-02-09T12:26:00.003-05:00

I like it to be noted that I ate the Pocky I got in my Christmas stocking from Siobhan for breakfast at 12:30 pm Monday, February 9, 2009.

My life is a shambles.

On the bright side (literally), it is gloriously sunny and my window is open. I think it might be spring already.

A Retraction

2009-01-28T02:51:00.003-05:00

I've decided to remove my last post. I've done so because I allowed a few negative things to overshadow all the positive ones. Though I may not have been entirely wrong in my assessment, I certainly assessed with the wrong attitude.

Yes, it didn't all work out quite as planned, but it isn't fair to anyone, not even myself, to dwell on what could have been instead of making the best of a difficult situation.

Yes, I am still very upset with someone, but I'm willing to admit that perhaps I don't know the full story and that either way I chose a terrible way to vent my frustration.

And while I may have spent a far quieter birthday evening than I had hoped, I wasn't entirely alone.

I shouldn't have allowed anger or loneliness or depression or abandonment issues or whatever to outshine the efforts a lot of other people made to make me feel special. I shouldn't have so quickly forgotten a lovely pre-birthday meal with my roommates followed by a party with some great people I really don't see enough of, and a wonderful birthday dinner with my family, no matter how many other people didn't make it out, for whatever reason.

ShamWow!

2009-01-12T21:29:00.002-05:00

So the holidays are over and I haven't written anything in a month and a half... so, yeah, that's a thing.

The tree is down and my apartment no longer looks like a crazy pakistani party bus. Life is returning to normal. Too bad normal is so fucking boring. Stupid winter.

I've had Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" stuck in my head for a week. i'm pretty sure if it doesn't go away I'll soon become certifiably insane. Don't get me wrong, I love that song, but it's too much of a good thing. I don't know all of the words or even how the whole song goes so it's pretty much just the same part or two over and over and over and over and over and over.

I need a vacation. Please send me money.

inner city pressure

2008-11-22T00:55:00.003-05:00

Living in the city can be a emotionally trying experience sometimes. Here are some things I find can make living in a big city difficult:

People who refuse to conform to my preconceived notions. Seriously, gay latinos? Weird and kinda gross. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the gays and few people make better tamales than latinos, but the two mixed together pushes the envelope in a way that even my fairly liberal mind just isn't ready for yet.
Clueless tourists constantly asking for directions and shopping/restaurant recommendations. Get a compass and Fodor's Toronto, I'm not your free tour guide, bitch!
Parades. Big cities have parades like nobody's business. My route to work has been disrupted by a parade, marathon, charity walk or other nonsense every Sunday since time immemorial.
Homeless people cluttering up public spaces with their poverty and whatnot. Hey beardy, if I had spare change sitting around for drugs and alcohol I'd be saving that for the weekend.
Walking dick first into stuck subway turnstiles.

economic ACTION! plan

2008-11-20T20:56:00.005-05:00

Times are rough. That, good sir, is a scientific fact. I've read somewhere that as a young person I'm statistically more likely to go though rough economic times than the general population, but that hasn't stopped me from amassing an astounding several hundred dollars (nearly). With these tips maybe you'll be able to live on easy street just like me, though technically I live on College street. "Living on easy street" is a popular expression that you may have heard before.

Next time you are at your local salt market, walk right by the fleur de sel and the hawaiian black pearl salt. Times are tough, so you're pretty much going to have to give up all gourmet salts. Get some of that regular iodized stuff that poor people seem to love so much. Don't think, "ok I'll just get some kosher salt, Jews use it so it must be cheap." Guess what, it's not and you're an anti-semite.
DIY. Do-it-yourself. This is more than just a money-saving tip, its a life philosophy. You'll be amazed at the things you can do for yourself and the money you can save with a little elbow grease. Make your own dinner, fix that leaky faucet yourself, get an at-home enema kit and cancel all those costly high-colonic spa appointments.
Get a job. You might have to betray everything you are, but the money will be worth it. Neil Patrick Harris might be a total homo, musical theatre and all, but times are tough so he sucks it up (not literally) and goes to work everyday to play an absolutely unconvincing womanizer in his current piece of shit sitcom. I'm pretty sure the same thing applies to Charlie Sheen.
Get a second job. Finding a way to turn what you like to do anyways into a little extra cash is a great idea. Whores have been doing it for years.
If all else fails, become an illegal immigrant.

in a perfect world

2008-11-18T18:08:00.006-05:00

chewing gum would last not just "long" but "forever". it would be like something out of willy wonka and the chocolate factory and we would all be violet beauregard, except that we would really be ourselves and not an annoying, slightly overweight american girl from the 70's. also the gum would release spores that caused a toxic mold to grow in our brains which slowly took control over our bodies. in short time all people in the world would be infected with this brain-control mold and we would all become huge sluts. when the takeover was complete there would be a large party at the playboy mansion to celebrate the occasion. humanity would be doomed forever to be the slaves of a real slutty paristic mold epidemic. and that is what would happen in a perfect world.

political party

2008-11-07T11:02:00.003-05:00

for our election night celebrations we had some people over and I laid out an american feast. by the end of the night, my joy for obama's win was matched only by my certainty that I had developed diabetes and gout.

contents of dave's vomit: kentucky fried chicken, hot dogs, potato chips, rice-a-roni (the san francisco treat), sabor de soledad, budweiser, philadelphia cream cheese, jack daniels tennesee whiskey, new york cheese cake, apple pie, freedom fries (frozen, in bag), boston cream donuts. we also had a pizza, but none of the pineapple so key to making it hawaiian.

special shout out to my barack obama t-shirt and my desperate need for a hair cut.

now that there are no polls to read all day...

2008-11-05T11:32:00.002-05:00

the america that would elect barack obama president is the america that I have sadly missed for eight long years. anti-american sentiment has run high in this country while bush 2 destroyed america's image. i held out though, admonishing my friends, collegues and classmates for suggesting that bush and his cronies reflect the american people or the true american spirit. today i feel vindicated. i feelp proud of my neighbours for making the choice that not only best serves america but the world as a whole.

i've followed this election with intensity. i've been consumed with election fever for months. i didn't even care about the canadian election which only took a relatively supersonic 6 weeks from start to end. sure, i voted but it didn't really seem like it mattered to me.

if democrats threaten to move to canada when the republican candidate wins, do canadians threaten to move the united states when democrats elect the most exciting figure in a generation president?

my thanksgiving menu

2008-10-11T11:36:00.003-04:00

should you find yourself at my house on Thanksgiving/ Columbus Day this is what I will probably be serving:

roast turkey with gravy
apple stuffing
mashed potatoes
cranberry sauce
autumn vegetables
red wine
me drinking too much and saying something inappropriate, embarrassing my guests and ruining my own party
apple pie

in these troubled times and also that we mavericks have and also so too

2008-10-08T02:19:00.002-04:00

someone should really create a sarah palin rambling phrase generator. i'd be all over that shit and also such.

canadians go to the polls in less than a week and harper just released his platform yesterday, the day after advance polls closed and a full month after he asked the governor general to call an election. its nice to see a politician who finally focuses on the issues.

i'm going to halifax in a couple weeks in the guise of a journalist. question #1 is a two-parter, 'where the lobster at, and how do i apply for federal subsidies to buy it?' that should cover both important east coast angles- fisheries and welfare.

10 ligitmate reasons why barack obama should be the next president of the united states of america

2008-09-29T21:29:00.003-04:00

black people are cooler than white people. that is just a fact. look it up in your history books.
white men can't jump. i know i should focus on obama's strengths and not mccain's weaknesses, but jumping could very well be the single greatest issue facing the american people over the next 4 to 8 years. there is really no way of knowing for sure, so why not err on the side of caution?
barack obama is fun to say. say it. see what i mean?
john mccain is old. old people smell funny. that is no way to impress world leaders.
somebody told me that they read somewhere that if obama is elected we all get a free piece of pie (while supplies last).
barack comes before john and obama comes after mccain alphabetically so obama obviously has more knowledge and experience when it comes to the letters of the alphabet.
john mccain is basically the definition of both "whitey" and "the man."
crackers be tripping
the economy. that is a thing too.
oprah said so.

in a perfect world

2008-09-12T01:03:00.004-04:00

Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes would return from the dead and TLC would go on massive back-from-the-dead/reunion tour of the entire world. Every human being would not only have a chance to see America's favourite partially-dead, all-female R&B trio, but they would be required to. It would be like Muslims going on the Haj. After seeing TLC rock the shit out of such hits as "Waterfalls" and "Creep", each person would be forced to write a 3 page personal essay about why TLC is awesome. The person who wrote the best essay would be acclaimed "President of the World" by TLC. Then TLC would get into their spaceship thing from the "Unpretty" video and spread their message of mandatory concert attendance, literacy, world dictatorship and opposition to Scrubs to alien planets. And that is what would happen in a perfect world.

fire escape plan

2008-09-10T22:14:00.006-04:00

Toronto's Most Eligible Bachelor, our Hep C-having roomie moved out at the beginning of the month. Our new roommate's mom, concerned about her daughter's safety wanted us to discuss our fire preparedness plans. I have drawn up the following ACTION! plan.

Don't have no fires.
If you have fires, keep them in a garbage can (make sure the garbage can isn't made of fancy wood).
If your fires are in a wood garbage can, put the can in the bath, but not if the bath tub is flammable. Check with your bath tub manufacturer for the flammability rating of your home's bath tub.
Always keep a working fire extinguisher in a conspicuous place. By fire extinguisher I don't mean an illegal immigrant with a bucket of water waiting in your pantry at all hours, ready to leap out at the first sign of ignition. Not all fires can be doused with water, so this is very important.
Keep your George Foreman Grill away from curtains and out of reach of any children who might be playing with cooking oil.
If you smoke, don't do it in your bed unless you just did it, cause that is what they do in movies.
Always have a working smoke detector. Like your fire extinguisher you shouldn't use an illegal immigrant to do this job. He might fall asleep.
When your smoke detector goes off or at the first sign of smoke, spark or flame make sure to clear all the illegal immigrants out of your house. You don't want their dead bodies linked to you in any sort of investigation or tribunal.
Fire can be your friend but you must respect it. It's kind of like a kid with a learning disability. It can be lots of fun, but you should probably be careful around it because it is very unpredictable and doesn't know what it is doing and might hurt you or give you a disease.

more halloween costume ideas

2008-09-10T19:28:00.002-04:00

- Ralph Wiggum as a triangle
- Sarah Palin
- Zombie fat kid from Two and a Half Men

thoughts you may have while watching "night court" at one am on a tuesday

2008-09-10T01:01:00.005-04:00

Harry Anderson has a really weird face
I'm hungry
This show has too many sets. Cafeteria, Office, Court room, Hall. Ok, so actually that isn't that many
I wonder if the guy who played Bull is still alive
This show is too feel-good
I bet John Larroquette is a perv in real life
Did every 80's sitcom have an short, acerbic, working class, white woman or just this one, Cheers and The Cosby Show?
Having a pet lion would probably be more trouble than it's worth

Election Fever

2008-09-09T13:03:00.001-04:00

While Obama and McCain have been campaigning for about a million years now, things have been quiet in Canada. That is until the shit hit the fan, er... Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.

After calling a surprise election Stephen Harper has unveiled his platform which is that apparently he plans to not get shat upon by birds. That is what I am taking away from this.

Ideas for Halloween Costumes

2008-09-09T02:22:00.003-04:00

1- Low budget 80's TV robot
2- The fat kid from Two and a Half Men

a series of (somewhat to highly) unlikely scenes

2008-08-24T21:32:00.004-04:00

At the Synagogue

Man: I'd like some bacon.

Rabbi: Me too.

Going through Customs

Man: I have nothing to declare... except this sickly foot-and-mouth cow.

The Kremlin: 1974

Bureaucrat: Comrades, I just had the best idea in like ever.

Comrade: What is it Igor?

Bureaucrat: Omigod it is like so totally good. A Casino... ON THE MOON!

Some things

2008-08-23T11:25:00.005-04:00

Countdown: One week until Jerkwad McGee moves out of my house.

Good news: I saw him in front of a place with an "Apartment for rent" sign writing down a phone number.

Bad News: It was across the street.

Things that weird me out:

-Old ladies with long whiskers

-People with growths on their faces (or anywhere else really)

-People who talk with the bus/streetcar driver like they are old friends, when they clearly are not.

-Text messages from unknown senders.

-Fish

-Tonal languages

Things that piss me off:

-Overseas tourists who pay for things with American dollars. It is bad enough when Americans do it, but when Europeans or Asians do it I become enraged. What is their thought process? "I'm going to Canada, I better bring a different foreign currency than my own, because I don't want the value and convenience of only changing my money once, I want to do it TWICE." If I was going to Spain I wouldn't bring a stack of Rubles with me, would you?

-American tourists who don't understand the concept of currency conversion. The reason taking American dollars from Americans sucks isn't because it is insulting, it is because they don't understand the process at all.

-Getting a cold in the summer.

-The fact that Burger King doesn't sell a single thing that won't give you diarrhea.

Two things

2008-08-21T13:53:00.005-04:00

1) Every time I go to get my hair cut I suddenly have to poop. I don't know what it is, maybe waiting to get my hair cut is somehow a laxative. Seriously, I'll be sitting in a chair, waiting for my barber to finish up with the guy he is with, minding my own business reading the newspaper or a magazine and all of a sudden I have to poop. And it isn't a slight "i need to poop" but a full blown "man, I really need to poop". The guy must think I'm a fastidious launderer because I always announce that I need to go check on my laundry about five minutes into being there. I think he might be on to me though because he always has a knowing look in his eye when I come back 5 minutes later with a Starbucks donut.

2) I bought a hilarious turquoise 80's Yves Saint Laurent sweater (think the cosby show)at Value Village last week for $7. It was pretty much the find of the century. That is, until I ruined it just now. I was pretty sure it was acrylic, but I didn't bother reading the care tag before washing it. Turns out it was wool. Oops. Now the laundromat garbage can is the temporary home to shrunken 1980's men's designer fashion.

monday off

2008-08-18T14:37:00.004-04:00

I believe that noon is a perfectly acceptable time to wake up on a monday if I worked Saturday and Sunday.

South-facing windows are great in the winter. In the summer they curse my very existence. Solution: seasonally rotating house.

Only five entire nations have won more gold medals than Michael Phelps so far. That is an amazing accomplishment for a guy who looks like an anthropomorphized Goofy.

For months I've been confused. Is Beijing pronounced with a soft zhing or a hard jing. I've been hearing both, sometimes from the same people. Which one is it. And how does Peking play into this?

It weirds me out how much musrooms shrink as they cook. Seriously.

I'm done playing with my new iPod.

2008-08-06T20:14:00.003-04:00

Now I'm playing with my new MacBook.

That's right Nick, you win. I'm shaking my fist at you this very minute.

I'm posting this title from my new iPod. I'd write a whole post but I can't figure out how.

2008-08-06T18:39:00.001-04:00

A letter to a deadbeat roommate who owes me money

2008-08-05T23:46:00.011-04:00

Our roommate moved out a while ago and the guy she found to take over for her has turned out to be a total nightmare. This letter is what I would like to post on his door Martin Luther style.

Dear Johnathan,

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the dishes, cutlery and cookware have been removed from the kitchen. This is due to your ongoing inability to properly wash the dishes that you have used, none of which, of course, belong to you. I have left a bowl you washed which seems to be still be coated in dried milk and a frying pan which appears to have some sort of ground meat still stuck to it in the cupboard as examples of your workmanship.

This action is part of a larger apartment-wide policy that brings to an end the practice of openly sharing our belongings. Going forward, you will no longer have access to any item that belongs to either Siobhan or me. The fixed shared amenities, which are a part of the apartment and you will continue to have unfettered access to are the following:

Refrigerator
Oven
Kitchen sink
Kitchen Counter
Kitchen Cupboards
Toilet
Shower and bathtub
Bathroom sink

For obvious logistical purposes you will continue to have limited access to the bathmat and shower curtain, which belong to Siobhan and myself respectively.

As a courtesy I have outlined the following good and bad examples to explain this policy:

Example 1

You wake up in the morning and have a shower. You then retrieve your can of beans from the cupboard.

Example 2

After getting your beans from the cupboard you place the can on Siobhan’s kitchen table, sit on one of my chairs and begin eating with Siobhan’s fork. You are unable to finish all of your beans so you take some of my plastic wrap to cover the open can top. After that you decide to relax on siobhan’s couch and watch a movie on my television.

Example 1 is the “good” example. In this situation you use only the fixed shared amenities of the apartment and your own belongings. However, in Example 2, the table, chair, fork, plastic wrap, couch and television are neither your own personal property nor the fixed shared amenities of the apartment. Example 2.1 shows how you can easily remedy the problem:

Example 2.1

After getting your beans from the cupboard you place the can on a cardboard box you found on the street, sit on the floor and begin eating with your hand. You are unable to finish all of your beans so you use the shirt you wore the day before to cover the open can top. After that you decide to relax on the toilet and weep.

I likely don’t need to tell you, but you will probably want to pick up some necessities from a local retailer. At minimum I think you might want to buy some dishes, utensils, cookware and cups and some toilet paper. Otherwise you might be presented with difficulties when attempting to perform such simple tasks as drinking a glass of water or taking a shit.

As far as the rent is concerned, please feel free to pay at your earliest convenience. Sure I was angry when you hadn’t paid by the second of the month and I was forced to pay your rent for you, but now that it is the sixth and you are still living here on my dime you must figure I’ve become totally cool with your financial unreliability and continued personal determination to take advantage of me and Siobhan.

Yours always,
Anthony

P.S.

Please remove the items from your room that belong to Siobhan and me. There are some small things which are unaccounted for which we figure you must have accidentally brought into your room and forgotten about. Specifically Siobhan’s coffee thermos and assorted other dishes and my Rolling Stone magazine which used to be in the magazine rack in the washroom. On second thought, I seem to remember it was the Britney Spears issue, so you can probably go ahead and keep that.

P.P.S.

Perhaps in future you should consider keeping your prescription medications in a more private space. I nearly died of asphyxiation several days ago when I glanced down while brushing my teeth and had a severe laughing fit when I noticed your Cialis. It really was dangerously early for such a large dose of shadenfreude.

The Beach

2008-07-17T10:44:00.004-04:00

I rode the streetcar out to the Beach yesterday with James Joyce and Led Zeppelin.

I hadn't been there in a long time but I didn't remember the shore being so rocky and the water being so algae-y.

I also forgot, and this is true even when I go to a decent beach, how unpleasant it is to have sand in your ass-crack on the ride home.

I was hoping to get a bit of a tan, but fearing cancer I put on so much sunblock that its opacity would have protected me fully without the need for the SPF 50. When it started to melt into my eyes I knew it was time to go home because there was no way I was rinsing it out with, or even getting into, the green tinged lake.

À MONTRÉAL

2008-07-10T12:51:00.004-04:00

After living there for five weeks last summer, I can say with all honesty that I'm not the biggest fan of Montreal. I must admit though, it does have a certain charm, like a mostly harmless homeless man who smells distinctly of excrement but whose intoxicated ramblings are highly entertaining.

It is summer, I and my new-found disposable income are restless. À Montréal, mes amis!

A road trip and some poutine are exactly what we need. Things might be tough, but how can you be sad when you just saw a tourist step in horse shit or trip over cobblestones.

Let's hoist our 750ml cans of depanneur Export and toast not Montreal, nor life, nor anything but ourselves and nothing, nobody else, because sometimes a little selfish frivolity isn't absolutely deserved but is exactly what we need. So meet me on Ste. Catherine and let's celebrate our own vulgar existence. As far as I'm concerned, Montreal - the city where optimism went to die, is the perfect place to do it.

Strawberry Season

2008-07-03T15:34:00.005-04:00

Jams
Pies
Tarts
Smoothies
Other delicious treats

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of crazy situations happening all around me. I'm going to Montreal for a weekend to get away from it all.

Also: Fireworks.

Happy belated birthday Tim.

June 23, 2008. 4 am. Trying to understand

2008-06-23T04:01:00.004-04:00

Have you ever heard news so surprising it literally left you speechless? It is one thing when anonymous people befall some horrendous tragedy half way around the world through malice intent or sheer neglect. However, when all the players are people you know and love and trust and care for, the situation can be scaled down exponentially and still leave you far more shocked than the great injustices of the world. It seems to me that when it comes to the way we as humans react to news, it's all relative, so to speak.

--

I don't understand.
Why?
What do I do now?

Who are you?

New Name New Look New Home: A Fresh Start

2008-06-22T06:13:00.004-04:00

And they're off!

Let's see how long it takes for me to abandon this one.

Plans... SPACE plans

2008-04-18T01:33:00.002-04:00

If visiting the suburbs has taught me anything, it is that I really don't much like the suburbs. I went out to Burlington two days in a row to catch some top notch high school theatre. After dealing with trains and commuters and finding buses and taxis in the type of place where it is easier to find a drive thru or an empty parking lot, I have little desire to return. As I told Nick yesterday, if it were up to me, everything would be in the city.

Keep on Tranglin,
Anthony

Your cunt is a yogurt spoon

2008-04-14T13:11:00.002-04:00

So apparently it has been like a month and a half or something since I've posted anything. First of all, I would have been posting often, but I couldn't sign into my account for about a week or so after my last post, so I kind of just gave up. So really, its not my fault. As per Dianna's request, here are some things I've been up to recently.

I wrote a short bio-thingee for my photographer-friend Jamie Campbell. (If you look through his photos you'll find there is a super awesome one of me)

I watched most of the Têtes à Claques videos on DVD at Paulette's house. Sorry, I think the website is only in French.

I've been listening non-stop to Micheal Ian Black's stand-up album "I am a Wonderful Man" and Michael Showalter's album "Sandwiches and Cats". The title of this post is what Michael Ian Black claims he screeches when he is injured by a football.

Despite the mathematical impossibility, I somehow have also been listening non-stop to the new Raconteurs album "Consolers of the Lonely".

I just got my second semester OSAP payment and my tax return, so I am temporarily not poor. Anyone want to go on an adventure?

Keep on Tranglin,
Anthony

Cases and a solution for theatre Glendon

2008-02-28T13:35:00.005-05:00

Cases: literally the worst play I have ever been a part of.

I'm sorry if you are insulted, but try to be objective, it was an awful mess. It was completely inaccessible to audiences because the sheer lack of understanding and research by the majority of its actors, writers and designers caused the play to have no real world or historical context and it failed as political theatre because it was so inaccessible. The few audience members who actually got anything out of it were the rare few people who just found parts of it funny enough for the play as a whole to be entertaining, and that is a huge failure. Really though, the play should have been about the students in the class learning about political theatre and the motivations and ideas of artists like Kharms, and not about entertaining an audience, and I really don't think anyone in the class benefited academically, not if the product of their labour, that being what eventually became Cases, is any indication.

I'm glad a fucked up mix of my laziness and anxiety and Fucktard's conspiracy against me worked in unison to have me replaced as narrator. I would be embarrassed beyond belief to be the public face of something so God awful. Being in the band gave me the minimum distance necessary from the rest of the play to keep me from slitting my wrists in shame by association.

Theatre Glendon is beyond repair, it needs to be completely rebuilt. It is lousy joke and most of the people on the inside refuse to accept that they aren't universally respected for their creativity and talent, real or not.

The solution is tripartite, but mostly boils down to eating a big slice of humble pie:

1) Stop taking everything so seriously. There is no place for your hypocritical and incomplete "professionalism" in a place like Theatre Glendon, it makes you look like children wearing their parents clothes. Amatures are amatures, and if you really want to get people involved you need to give up your pretensions and delusions of grandeur and maybe you'll stop scaring away students looking for something fun to do and potential audiences.

2) Recognize that you are what you are, and Theatre Glendon isn't a Fine Arts training program, it is an academic institution. Learning should always be more important than doing.

3) Encourage new ideas, faces, genres, ideologies, aesthetics. As awesome as you might think you and your ideas are, the truth is there is probably somebody just as good if not better than you who'd like a chance too, and he or she will never have that chance if you sabotage the system from the inside to support only your own interests. Ask yourself, "Is it about promoting theatre, or is it about promoting ME?" There is a reason that a major international event such as the Toronto Fringe Festival uses a lottery to choose the acts involved, and that reason is to maximize involvement and discourage insiders from politicizing the event. If something as big as Fringe can give up that control successfully, I don't see why something as small as Theatre Glendon can't.

Keep on Tranglin,
Anthony

blood oranges

2008-02-22T14:11:00.003-05:00

I've stopped making goals because they never pan out. Why get all excited about something which will probably never happen anyways?

I feel that my life is speeding by and I am getting nothing accomplished, as though any day now I am going to wake up and I am going to be a middle-aged undergrad living in a tiny shared apartment working for slightly more than minimum wage allowing his creativity and intelligence to rot away.

My growing cynicism can't be healthy.

Fuck February.

Keep on Tranglin,
Anthony

Dear Diary

2008-02-21T14:10:00.000-05:00