No Threat

No Threat
#1 A prop telephone for
my brilliant one-man skits
involving telephone conversations.

#13 A somewhat surprisingly sturdy
hammer
with a grip that is velvety smooth,
and easy on my calluses.

#20 An impromptu piece
of exercise equipment,
the bending back and forth.
I can feel the burn in my chest
that may or may not heartache.

Yes.
I have found twenty uses for your dildo
since you stormed out in a fit of rage
yesterday afternoon.

You used to reassure me
that it posed no threat to my manhood
and for the first time
I can actually see that it doesn’t.

Quite the contrary.

#21 A prosthetic hand
to scare away solicitors,
girl guides and jehovah’s witnesses
that misguide themselves
toward our door.

What you meant to say
was that I, too, would derive enjoyment
from such a trifle.
No threat at all, but rather a utensil.

And yesterday,
our latest fight.
No matter how many nails I hammer
with this rubber dong,
how many
“Oh my god it’s the President”
telephone conversations
I have with myself
(he’s usually asking me
to save the world from terrorists,
nasty, nasty terrorists),
I can’t get your monologue
out of my mind.

Twenty-four hours later
I think you may have been right.
I’m not going anywhere.
I’m not doing anything.
Look at me,
I’m trying to scratch my back
with an eight-inch factory-built cock
for Christ’s sake.
A university degree will hang on the wall,
but goddamn if I’m going to let

#22 A veiny dick-shaped snake
that springs forth out of the gutted peanut can.
Surprise!

go to waste.

Every job interview ended infamously.
Every resume written cynically.

And look at me.
Thirty-years-old,

#23 The sexiest flyswatter you have ever seen

firmly in hand,
like some boring hippo
sits in a mudhole
and tries to swat at flies.
I just sit there.
That’s my problem.

You were right.

And now I feel bad.

I want you back and
it’s scary to admit it
because I have my pride and
it takes a lot,
a lot to admit that I was wrong.

But here I am.

And baby,
if you come back,
you can have a new dildo,
no threat to me,
bigger, better than this dildo,
which I would given back to you
except

#24 The implement to Ron Jeremy out stubborn toilet clogs.

But, please, come back.

-Michael Appleby
March, 2007

Lori's 30th Birthday Party

So this weekend marked Lori's 30th birthday party (happy birthday, Lori!). And the gang got together as the gang is wont to do on such an occasion. We started our Saturday night with a dinner at Chianti's and then finished our night at The Billiard Club.

All-in-all it was a hell of a night, but for some reason I only got a few pictures and only a couple of those pictures turned out well. So here are a couple of pictures that I managed to get.






Jay, Darcy, Jordan, and Jeff give the night the thumbs up.






Nadine, Lori (the birthday girl), and Cathy share a moment.

Rapture: Raving Poets Live!

The latest reading series from The Raving Poets is set to kick off tonight. The name of the series is Rapture.

So if you are looking for something entertaining to do on Wednesday nights between now (February 21, 2007) and then (May 31, 2007) you should definitely come on down to Yianni's Taverna (10444 - 82 Ave, Edmonton, Alberta) for some literary ass-kickery.

They've streamlined the format a little this time around. Instead of their customary 22 reader line-up, which made for some long nights of poetry, which while great for literary enthusiasts still made for a long night, the founding fathers of The Raving Poets movement have cut the line-up down to 16 readers per night. Those 16 will be determined by a draw. So there might be nights when I read. There might be nights when I don't read. It's a surprise every week. They're also going to be kicking the evening off earlier this time around with sign-up for the draw starting at 7:30 p.m. and the show itself starting at 8:00 p.m.

So if you're interested in coming down to a good old-fashioned poetry reading show with some interesting twists, you should definitely come on down and check us out. Here's the pertinent information one more time for you...


Rapture: Raving Poets Live!
Yianni's Taverna
10444 - 82 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta

Sign-up: 7:30 p.m.
Show starts at: 8:00 p.m.

I hope to see you all there.

My 30th Birthday Party: A Photo Essay

Sorry for the lateness in finally posting something. My work schedule has been a little crazy lately (waking up "really early" now as opposed to "just early"), but here's a little peak at some of the better photographs we got from my big 30th birthday bash.


A group shot at Beerfest.


Our table of dead soldiers at Beerfest.


Cheers!


Jeff and Jay rawking out.


Before Jeff gives his official endorsement of water at The Billards Club on Whyte. That Jeff, he's hard fuckin' core! To the max!


Lori and Jordan being all mushy with each other. For fuck's sake, get a room you jerks!


A toast at The Billiards Club.


Aftermath of the toast. Don't worry, folks. I kept that one down.


Hey ladies! Two cunning linguists flash their skills.


After another round. Oh yeah, I kept that one down too.


Group sex.


I don't know how to describe this one. I was checking out the official Jay Sparrow autograph on Jordan's chest.


Then Jay goes to inspect his own autograph. And more!


The best picture of Ian anybody has ever taken.


It was nice that everybody was having so much fun.


A hug from Nadine.


Michelle and Stephanie.


I just had to post this one because I really had to photoshop the hell out of this one. The glare was amazing before I started working on this one. Maybe if people would tan more I wouldn't have this problem.


Two geezers show their disdain for 30. Yeah 30, you ain't so fucking tough. You ain't nothin' at all, bitch!


A birthday kiss from Stephanie.












And I will leave you now with what is, quite possibly, the greatest single photograph of a human being I have ever seen. I'm not just saying that, either. I have literally seen thousands and thousands of pictures of people, but none have matched the brilliance of this last photograph. I really need to build the hype on this one because it's absolutely stunning. I wish that I was the photographer who captured this next bit of the human spirit, but, sadly, it's not one that I snapped because I happened to be the model in the picture. Brace yourself
.
.
.
.
because
.
.
.
here
.
.
.
it
.
.
.
comes
.
.
.


Thirty ain't shit!

Michael Appleby: 30 Years

Today is my 30th birthday.

There was a part of me that for a long time was just a little apprehensive about the prospects of turning 30. Now it's here and nothing is all that different about me. I still feel the same.

Anyway, I'll try to get some pictures from the birthday party tonight. I can't make any promises, though, because if the people at Beerfest, happening tonight at the Dinwoodie Lounge here in Edmonton don't allow cameras on the premises I'm pretty much S.O.L. But I'll try.

If anybody cares to join us for beers and fond memories feel free to show up. It will be a good time.

I'll post something more later. Sorry for the slow posting week. I had a bunch of shit to juggle this week and it was hard to sit myself down at my computer long enough to post.

Intercourse: Love Poems And Other Chemical Imbalances

Okay, I apologize for putting up this notification so soon before the performance. I realize that this doesn't give you much time to make plans to be there if you want to be there.

Anyway, I do hope that you can make it out for this show. It's happening on Frebruary 7, 2007 at the La Boheme Tango Lounge here in Edmonton. The address to the joint is 6427 - 112 Avenue and it's the show kicks off at 7:00 p.m. Now the reason why you should attend this show is because it is called Intercourse and it's a Valentine's Day themed show, meaning that a lot of the poetry that will be presented is on the subject of love and romance. So if you have a certain special someone in your life and you want to impress them with some culture, romantic culture at that, a full week before the commercial holiday of Valentine's Day, take him/her out to the La Boheme Tango Lounge and it will definitely surprise that special someone. You might even get lucky when you get home.

Now, what's even cooler is the line-up. I know that there are a lot of you out there who cringe when you think of poetry readings because the poetry being performed is either too dumb or too stuffed-collar-ish and it makes for either a night where you are bored to tears or you wish you were without a sense of hearing, maybe both. But the great thing about our show is that every poet we have on the line-up is great. And I'm not just saying that because I'm part of the line-up for that evening. Intercourse is going to be great. We have some of the brightest talent that the Edmonton literary scene has to offer on one bill.

Representing the ladies are Kathy Fisher, Laurie MacFayden, Mandie Lopatka, Nicole Pakan, and Amy Willans. And representing the men are Michael Gravel, Michael Appleby, Jocko Benoit, Patrick Pilarski. I have seen all these poets in action and they are terrific. I hate sounding like a used car salesman, but trust me, it will be awesome.

So, once again here's the info you need....



Intercourse: Love Poems & Other Chemical Imbalances

La Boheme Tango Lounge (6427 - 112 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta)

7:00 p.m. , February 7, 2007



Please come out for this one. I assure you it will be a sexy, sexy night.

Just A Note

My statcounter lets me see how people stumble upon my little slice of internet heaven here. One amusing way to find me apparently is to Google "assholes named mike". Ouch! That really smarts.

Click to see if you don't believe me.

So now you can say you know an asshole named Mike. You know, in case you brag about such things.

The Second Embedded Video Ever Posted On Massive Missives

I saw this while reading up on the forthcoming Arcade Fire album (Mar. 6 in North America) and found it pretty amusing.

A Most Peculiar Dream I Just Woke From

Okay, so I had the strangest dream.

I was, I guess, for lack of a better word, a minister. The church I presided over was one of those churches where people tend to sing gospel music more than preach (the kind of church that is actually a lot cooler than 60 minutes of being told you are going to hell). I had just been promoted to minister since the last minister of the church had just recently died.

So anyway, I had to help lead all the songs that were being sung. And, if you know me, I don't know any gospel songs really. So people would be singing and I'd be fudging the words and mumbling incoherently or doing that thing here you sing, "la la la la" to at least make it look like you are interested. And if you do that in church you can get away with it because other people's voices tend to drown you out. In the dream, though, I couldn't because I had a microphone, like a game show host has a microphone. A long skinny one, and whenever the songs would break down into this sort of spot where everybody would hum in unison or something like that, almost like people just know when a good spot for an instrumental section comes. During those spots, I would wander out into the audience and ask them to share stories of their hardships and triumphs with the congregation.

Pretty weird, huh?

But then... finally a song was played that I knew the words to and I was just belting it out with the guest singer who was Gordon Downie, except that he was trying to dress as the devil (who in my dreams wore tacky, tacky, but evil pajamas). Anyway, we were singing "Pretend" which isn't gospel music at all, but for some reason it was on the list of songs to sing. Then just before I wandered out into the audience for more testimonials Gord came up close to me to say:

"Hey, that was pretty good. Pretty good job, kid."

Yeah, it was a pretty good job, wasn't it?

Viagra Makes My Nose Stop Working? Oh Nose!

Click here.

A German research team has discovered that larger doses of Viagra can cause a decrease in a man's ability to smell things. Viagra, for those of you who just woke from a 30-year-long nap, is the pill that men can take to get erections for hours on end. The reason why the pill also decreases the ability to smell is nasal congestion.

While this may seem like a drawback to Viagra I think it's quite the opposite.

But Michael, the sense of smell is a wonderful thing. Why when I pop a Viagra and make some quality time with my special lady I like to have a lot of those aroma therapy candles burning not only for mood lighting, but also because the smell is transportive and it's ceases to be us just "making love" and it becomes two souls really "bonding".

Seriously, who the fuck talks like that?

Viagra inhibits my abiliy to smell? Good!

Okay, first off, don't get me wrong. Sex is good and all that, but Viagra hard-ons last quite a while. And I don't give a fuck who you are, after hours of sex, something in that bedroom is going to smell not quite right. If I can't smell it because I'm on Viagra that's a good thing. It can stink and stink and stink and the only person who has to deal with that stench is the woman? Bonus! Maybe if the smell is strong enough it will be incentive enough to have that orgasm she's always bothering me about so we can get the fuck out of the bedroom and into some place with fresh air or soap and water for our naughty bits.

But, here's another way to look at Viagra. Instead of it being strictly a pill for erectile disfunction it can now be marketed as a pill for people who have to work in smelly environs. I mean, take the lowly sewer worker. He goes to work each day and all he gets to smell is shit. What does he do down in the sewers? Nobody really knows, but in addition to doing whatever that is he also has to breathe. I can't imagine being a sewer worker because I just don't have the constitution to deal with that smell.

But now? Oh shit, just bring it on. I'll pop Viagra like Pez just so I don't have to smell anything.

But Michael, won't you also have a huge erection that won't go away?

Yeah, but so what? It's just another hook for me to hang tools off of while I'm sloshing around down there in the sewers.

But what about the people who have to work with you?

Those people are just going to have to give me a wide berth in which to work. Oh no! You mean I won't be able to spoon my fellow sewer workers without it turning into a gay thing? Damn! Besides, if I happen to encounter a willing woman down in the sewer (hey, it could happen; I saw documentaries on sewer prostitutes in one of those third world nations) then it's always go time. Thanks to Viagra I can't smell fecal matter and I'm ready and willing for any sewer prostitute I encounter.

And consider this...would your coworkers bug you to borrow your tools if they knew where those tools were just hanging from?

I didn't think so.

Viagra: The Hard-On Stimulator AND Smell Inhibitor.

I'm a marketing genius.

Classic Michael Appleby

From the regional finals of the 2005 National Poetry Face-off. It's a shame I couldn't go further into the contest with this. I just read it back for the first time in a long time and didn't think it to be half bad. Maybe I'll have to do this one for a Raving Poets show one day since it's only ever been performed once and almost forgotten since.

Nuclear Families
It was fun to be among you again,
you nuclear families of the happy little world.

It was fun to play make believe one more time.
It was fun to put on stupid ties
and silly little hats:
Well honey, I’m off to work.
And have that bagged lunch of the peanut butter sandwiches,
crusts cut off,
handed to me at the door.
It was fun to wait for sleep at night
and giddy in my imagination
and the billion or so what if’s
that rained down on me in the dark
soaked to the bone with
my own personal utopia.
It was fun to think that a hammock could be anything more
than a cradle swinging me into my grave
and that the Sunday afternoon summer picnics
were anything more than fast food take out eaten on a wooden bench
in the park
with the initials M.A. + C.I. carved precariously close to wads of dried gum
and the edge from which we inevitably fall.
It was fun to play make believe one more time.
It was fun to go through motions like reaching for her hand
and moving in for a kiss goodnight, close my eyes doing so.
Only expecting a hug when one of us was sick.
It was fun to talk about things that didn’t mean much,
pretend to be Professor Frink to her rest of the population of Springfield,
explain concepts and ideas that nobody could be interested in except me
and accept the Wow, that’s interesting with a shower of fingernail clippings
and the agitated roll of paper, the turning leaves in a magazine.
It was fun to quote Downie’s line about brassieres
and know that all the while I thought it to sound romantic
for her to think it to sound perverted and creepy;
cull love songs from my CD library
and have each of them dismissed:
thoroughly obscure
tragically cacophonous.
It was fun play make believe one more time.
It was fun to be struck out of nowhere
by You were really good to me and all. Very nice, but…
and actually know every single word that would follow that but
right down to a perfectly played apology
and feeling more like an operator at a psychic hotline
than a man who just had his heart broken.
My lucky numbers that day were 13, 27, and 36.
I could see a long, hot shower in my immediate future
and lo and behold
I went to bed clean.
It was fun to put on stupid ties
and silly little hats:
Well honey, I’m off to work.
And hear nothing in response except the slap of my own hand against my forehead:
Oh yeah. I forgot.
It was fun to get completely lost again
wondering how I would ever manage to fit in with people anymore.
Back to my curmudgeonly little room:
computer games with strangers from across the world
and literary self-abuse.

It was fun to be among you again,
you nuclear families of the happy little world,
maybe next time I’ll stay long enough to put my feet up for a change.

-Michael Appleby
January, 2005

A Taste Of Chicken Little: A Novel

So I'm keeping up with pretty much all of my new year's resolutions so far despite the depression, depsite the heartbreak, and despite the weather. One of the resolutions that I had, if you might recall was to resume work on my novel, which I've tentatively tiled Chicken Little: A Novel. Maybe it won't go anywhere. Maybe I won't have the discipline to finish it. Maybe it won't get published. Maybe it's all a dead end, but it's helping me cope. So if nothing else comes of it I've had a bunch of words to rest my head on to cry. Anyway, I'll try to keep you all posted on my progress. My plan isn't to post the whole thing as it's being written because I really like to revise and I just don't like the permanence of posting. But I'll maybe throw a bit to you here and there. If something I'm sharing needs some context I'll give it, but otherwise you can kind of get an idea of what my opus is like even if it's only in snippets and excerpts. I'm still just getting into the meat of the manuscript, here's a bit from the early pages.

So this is it?

Once a month a mortgage payment, a car payment, bills from credit card, line of credit, cable, electric, gas, water, phone, cell phone, internet, condo fees, and a gym membership.

And that’s it.

That’s how you get to mark your time on the planet. Every month it’s the same group of envelopes sitting on my kitchen table for a few days before I actually put in the effort of to go pay them. They get paid and a month later another group of those same envelopes from the same representatives of those same companies, those same utilities are delivered to my mail box, forwarded to my kitchen table, waiting to be paid for.

And that’s it.

Sometimes a cheque will come. Sometimes a pre-approved credit card application. Sometimes a letter from my folks to let me know how old so-and-so, a relative that I don’t even remember having, is doing, when are you going to settle down, we’re in Hamburg for a while and then it’ll be off to who knows where, but when we get there you should take some time off work to come visit.

And that’s it.

I get preoccupied with trying to remember even five years back when my responsibilities were minimal, when I was this 24-year-old boy. I could stay out all night drinking, having fun. I spent all my free moments with my friends. I had a roommate and we split the rent on a two bedroom townhouse; threw parties all the time. Work was just a job. If things didn’t work out I could just quit and take a job somewhere else. All I really had to worry about was making my rent payment. Sometimes I’d even wake up with a girl sleeping beside me.

When you talk to a lot of people my age, you’re going to hear the same thing over and over again: Where did it all go? Or maybe it’s supposed to be: Where did it all come from? Responsibility. Duty. Career. Family. Life. At some point between the ages of 26 and 29 everything really starts to get a whole lot more complicated. You can’t just shirk your commitments for the sake of fun. You get a whole lot more institutionalized. Fall into a cookie cutter, button down collar and briefcase, lifestyle and live the dream. I just can’t remember really having this dream, but here I am. My friends are all married off or moved away, honoring their own professional promises, living their own monthly bills.

I’m all alone.

And that’s it.

What's In A Name Really?

Talking with a coworker recently I discovered that she knew somebody who, as a gift for one of his loved ones, bought the naming rights to a star. And I have to admit that's a pretty good gift idea. I mean who wouldn't want to have a gigantic ball of burning gas named after them?

But then it really got me to thinking. For instance, how would I feel if out there somewhere there was a star named after me? Okay, the whole vanity part of the star naming thing would be kind of cool, but then, what are the stars to us, really? Picture, if you will, astronomers looking up through their telescopes and at charts and seeing all these named stars. Do you know what they're going to see? A bunch of little lights with names like Lisa, Shannon, David, Bruce, and whatever the fuck else people get named these days. And do you know how exciting it would be to actively seek out some star named for a guy named Doug? Probably about as exciting as taking a shit. Now the whole prospect of having a star named after me doesn't seem all that great because there would only be a few people in the world who would care to look for a star on some chart because its name has some significance personal to them. The rest of the people probably only care marginally at best.

So then, if all this naming bullshit is spoiled by the fact that people's names are boring, why not buy the naming rights to stars and do something totally exciting with it? Why not name a star "I Shit On All The Other Stars" or "Kleegor: Destroyer Of The Universe"? Those are the kinds of names that people will see on some chart somewhere and say, "What the fuck?" and then they'll have to look it up because, come on, destroyer of the universe, that's fucked up.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that the idea of naming a star after somebody is only half the battle really. Getting a star that somebody will want to look at is the other half and, without having actually checked how many stars are named "Muldron: The Dwarf Star Of Pure, Unadulterated Evil" or "Happy Fun Bags," I can probably say with 99% confidence not many people are looking at those stars as closely as you would hope they would.

I'm just saying is all.

If they ever name a star after me I hope it's given the title "Nerdiest Corner Of The Universe Ever, LoL!" You know, for the internet age of astronomy.

The Bottom Ten, December 2006

10.) Ghouls- Click here. So the owner of the car in which Princess Diana was a passenger on that fateful night all those years ago when she died in that accident wants to get the car back from authorities so that he can sell it as a souvenir. That's right, a souvenir.

Hey Tommy, what's new?

Oh not much, did a bit of shopping on eBay the other day.

That's cool, what did you get?

Oh, you know, some porno DVDs, one of those fake mounted fish that sings that song "Hooked On A Feeling."

I remember when those were all the rage.

But get this man, you know what else I got?

What?

The Princess Diana Death Car!

No fucking way!

Yeah, hey, check me out, I'm Princess Diana's mangled corpse in the backseat!

This is too fucking cool! That's so awesome! High five!

I mean, come on man, who's going to pay for that shit? That car needs quite a bit of body work before it can be road-worthy again. I don't even know what you'd use to get blood stains out of the leather.

9.) Theft Alarms- Anybody who has gone shopping knows about this one. When you're about to exit a store with a theft alarm at the top and somebody has forgotten to remove one of the security devices from an item you bought and the alarm goes off, isn't that embarassing as fuck? But now, I was in Walmart the other day and somebody set the alarm off at the front door and you know what? There was a disembodied voice that asks the customer who triggered it to turn around and report to the greeter because apparently one of the security devices hadn't been removed by the cashier. So, if this voice says that every time somebody triggers the alarm why the fuck do they even have an alarm? I mean it ceases to be a theft alarm and starts to be a our-cashier-fucked-up alarm, which is a pretty useless alarm if ever one existed. I'd like to hear that voice just once yell out, "Holy fuck! Thief! Thief! Thief! Somebody taser this fucking asshole shoplifter before he gets away! Thief! Thief! Thief!" Knowing my luck, I'll be the one who triggers it that time. Stupid fucking alarms!

8.) The Guy Who Invented Those Theft Alarms- Seriously, that's how pissed off those inaccurate, annoying pieces of shit make me. Newsflash asshole inventor man: real thieves know how to get by your system. All you're doing anymore is embarassing people who wouldn't even dream of stealing anything. That makes you a douchebag.

7.) The Saddam Hussein Deathwatch- Wasn't watching CNN for news on the latest regarding the recent execution of Saddam Hussein unacceptably like waiting for the latest update on Terry Shiavo? Now that that one man the U.S. armed all those years ago is dead all those billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of lives lost to bring him to justice are vindicated. As Hannibal would say on "The A-Team", I love it when a plan comes together.

6.) Post-Christmas Shopping- Almost as bad as pre-Christmas shopping. I love when fist fights and arguments over gift returns come together. 'Tis the season.

5.) Tandem Bicycle Assholes- Tandem bicycles are one of the most egotistical and cocky things a person can own. What makes you so sure that I want to help propel your stupid looking piece of shit bicycle, putting my hands on a pair of useless handlebars that are dangerously close to your ass? Exactly. You can't walk fourteen feet in this town without some jerk on a tandem bicycle asking you to hop on. Fuck you, I'd rather walk. Last thing I need is you farting in my face and blaming it on that pre-bike-ride breakfast burrito. Okay, maybe there aren't as many tandem bicycle riders in the winter time or tandem bicycles for that matter, but it's my list so fuck off tandem assholes!

4.) 1.65 Trillion Dollars- Click here. Reading that article I couldn't help but picture the head of the RIAA being Dr. Evil saying, "1 million dollars" except in the case of suing some Russian website when he says "1.65 trillion dollars." Now, if and when the Russian company that owns the website loses the case, does the man who runs the company say, "Okay, let me just go grab my chequebook. I just have it out in my car. No, don't worry. I will be right back. Here, I'll leave this Subway Sub Club card with 9 stamps on it just so you know I'll come back because, come on, a free sub. Trust me, I'm good for this 1.65 trillion dollars." Who comes up with these ridiculous numbers? Some pissed off RIAA executive phones his lawyer and tells him how mad he is with the Russian company and the lawyer comes back with, "Let's sue those fuckers for 17 bajillion bucks! I am 67.8 gazillion percent positive I can win this case for you." Then the nurse comes by and gives the lawyer his daily shot before locking him back up in his padded room.

3.) A Kinder, Gentler Rambo- Click here. Many people know by now that there is a Rambo IV movie coming out some day. Most people did not know, however, that the fourth installment of that Cold War propaganda movie machine is being turned into a chick flick:

Thai authorities are apparently asking that the upcoming "Rambo IV: In the Serpent's Eye" be a kinder and quieter version of the saga reports Variety.


And I welcome this news because, finally, movie audiences will be able to see Rambo, the franchise the way it was originally intended to be made, with sweeping epic drama, brilliant dialogue, and replete with the nuances of the human condition. I smell an Oscar for Sir Sylvester Stallone already.

2.) Limousine Assholes- See: Tandem Bicyle Assholes. Except with a mini-bar and gaudy lighting.

1.) Toxoplasma Gondii- Click here. Oh, so Mr. Toxoplasma Gondii, when you infect men they become stupid and when you infect women they become sexier. Fuck you. You either make us all sexy or all stupid right now or I'll fucking sue your parasite ass for 88.539 bamillion Euros for discrimination!

A Note To Let You Know Where I've Been/What I've Been Up To (The Seasonal Blah)

First off, I just wanted to thank all of you who have contacted me to find out what's been up with me and why I haven't been updating my page very frequently of late, sending me Are you okay? emails, passing along 24-hour psychiatric helpline numbers, and whatnot. Please rest assured that I'm not trapped at the bottom of a well and I haven't fallen resulting in my inabiliy to get up (I wonder whatever happened to that woman from all those years ago).

Anyway, maybe it's my impending birthday. Maybe it's the seasonal shift. Maybe it's my job. The weather. The holiday. The fact that I live in a basement. The diet. The bad sleeping habits.

But I think I'm actually battling a bit of depression. Really, I haven't felt like doing very much at all. Hmmmmm...maybe it's lethargy. Or just assholishness (is that even a word).

I don't want anybody to worry, though. I mean it's not that I'm never happy. I just get moody and introspective and it makes my brain awful company to be with (and I have to be with that fucker 24/7).

What I do want all of you to know is that I'm not going to take this blah dominating everything for very long. I'm kind of come up with a plan to overcome.

I do want all of you to know that if I'm acting aloof, distant, you can't get a hold of me, or if you talk to me and I lose myself in the conversation, if any of that kind of stuff happens, that I am sorry for that whatever it is. Also, please accept that as my reason for being so hard to communicate with lately, why this page has kind of been left to gather dust for almost 2 weeks. So on, so on. Talking to people who are daydreaming or off in the la-la's can be frustrating. I'm a frustrating person to be around sometimes.

Now, to combat my little bit of sadness I'm going with a few resolutions that I'm going to start on as soon as I can. Namely, I'm going to force myself to write more (it can be anything at this point, I really just need to get my hands moving and my brain thinking like I know it's capable of thinking), though I really want to get down to my novel Chicken Little, I also intend of getting back to the gym as often as I used to, which just changes my whole self esteem entirely, and I'm going to alter my diet to allow me to eat regularly and drink more water, less soda. The sleep issue may be somewhat of a lost battle at this point so I'll try to let it slide for a bit here. I might also try tanning (at the suggestion of a friend) because I understand that sunlight, albeit artificial sunlight, help immensely with feeling the way that I do.

Okay, there, that feels a bit better. I hate doing updates like this on my page, but I just wanted to ease people's minds who may have been a bit worried and this seemed like a good way to go about doing that. Maybe I'll delete this post when it becomes a reminder of a bad time in my mental health.

I'll keep you posted on how my resolutions go.

Daysleeper For Me Is Big Right Now

Daysleeper
by: R.E.M.

Receiving department, 3 a.m.
Staff cuts have socked up the overage
Directives are posted.
No callbacks, complaints.
Everywhere is calm.

Hong Kong is present
Taipei awakes
All talk of circadian rhythm

I see today with a newsprint fray
My night is colored headache grey
Daysleeper

The bull and the bear are marking their territories
They're leading the blind with their international glories

I'm the screen, the blinding light
I'm the screen, I work at night.

I see today with a newsprint fray
My night is colored headache grey
Don't wake me with so much.
Daysleeper.

I cried the other night
I can't even say why
Fluorescent flat caffeine lights
Its furious balancing

I'm the screen, the blinding light
I'm the screen, I work at night

I see today with a newsprint fray
My night is colored headache grey
Don't wake me with so much.
The ocean machine is set to nine
I'll squeeze into heaven and valentine
My bed is pulling me,
Gravity
Daysleeper. Daysleeper.
Daysleeper. Daysleeper. Daysleeper.

Did you know that I didn't go to bed until at least 10:00 a.m. this morning and I woke up at 9:00 p.m.? Probably not.

If you are one of the many people who can't get in touch with me or has trouble finding me at functions or places where I said that I would be and I'm not. I'm sorry.

As scary as my sleeping habits are, you should check out my diet. One meal per day on more days than it should be like that.

I'm making a new year's resolution right now. In the new year I resolve to be more normal.

The Bottom Ten, November 2006 (At Last!)

Thank you for your patience. I would have had it up sooner, but it was an exhausting weekend for me at work.

10.) Britney Spears Going Commando- Click here. I almost want to devote a whole rant to this topic because I find it so, so, so captivating a topic and I feel like I could expound on this for days. Seriously, Britney Spears has been photographed by members of the paparazzi not only wearing a short skirt (gasp!), but also wearing no panties (double gasp!). For shame, Britney Spears! You've tarnished the wholesome image that you've established in my mind forever. Now when I see you, for all intents and purposes, nude in one of your music videos I'll won't have to wonder if you wear underwear when you go out in public because I'll have photographic evidence that you don't. So not only does she parade around in hoochie mama MILFwear in her videos, but she has the nerve to go without underwear when she's among the members of the public at large. I certainly hope she loses her custody battle for this because, people with no underwear on? No child could ever hope to be raised properly by a parent who chooses to not wear underwear. Everybody knows that parenting skills come from underwear. Hitler's parents didn't wear underwear and look how he turned out.

9.) The Arms Race Of Toothbrushes- Click here. There are probably a few of you out there who brush their teeth from time to time. I brush sometimes too. I just became aware of the Oral-B Triumph, an ICBM of a toothbrush if ever one existed. Seriously, who's obsessing over their toothbrushing habits that they have to time themselves and adjust the types of brushing they're doing? How much cleaner are your teeth going to be with a fucking onboard computer on your toothbrush? And you know what, there comes a point when teeth get too white and it's freakish to look at. Is that what you really want? Try not to look like an outcast from the human race, brush low-tech!

8.) The Hot Wheels Radar Gun- Click here. Ahhhh, just in time for Christmas! Finally, a radar gun for kids! I've always wondered how fast Billy was traveling on his skateboard, now I'll know. This has the potential to be interestingg for exactly 8 minutes! I'd be able to clock one or two things, realize that it's lame, and move onto petty vandalism and arson for fun. A big pat on the back to the kids who appear in the commercial for this travesty of a product for doing everything in their power to make it look exciting. But seriously, all I can do is clock how fast things are going? Yawn!

7.) The Jesus Doll- Click here. And since I'm on the topic of toys why not talk about the Jesus doll that a Toys For Tots program rejected, albeit temporarily? It was rejected for a time because the Marine Reserves didn't want to offend members of other religions by giving their underprivileged children talking Jesus dolls. This is an interesting debate because on one hand you want to be mindful of the plurality of society as a whole, but on the other hand Christmas is traditionally supposed to be a Christian holiday, and....wait a minute....I lost my train of though....somebody makes a talking Jesus doll? If you want a child to get beat up by his peers for having lame toys get him or her a talking Jesus doll. The Marine Reserves should have upheld their decision to reject this toy not so much on the whole religious debate, but simply because they don't want to make children cry for getting a horrible gift. Wow, I wish I had doll that I could just pull a string on and listen to it preach to me. Play time just isn't play time without religiou propaganda spewing forth from a doll.

6.) The Police- No not the 80's rock band fronted by Sting. Click here. I'm talking about the real police. I mean if you can't get a good crack high lighting up in a police car I don't know what this world is coming to. The poor guy in this news story is being charged with third degree arson for torching a police car while trying to smoke some crack. If the police had been doing their jobs none of this legal hassle would be necessary because they would have been holding the lighter for him. It used to be that police force was in place to help the public, but now? It's all about the doughnuts. It's common knowledge that the best highs come from inside police cars. All this guy wanted was that peak and all he got were third degree arson charges.

5.) Four Words That Should Have Never Appeared In The Same Sentence- Dustin Diamond Sex Tape.

4.) The Dustin Diamond Dirty Sanchez- Children who are raised by parents who refuse to wear underwear and give gifts like talking Jesus dolls and Hot Wheels Radar Guns are apt to grow up into recipients of a Dustin Diamond Dirty Sanchez. That's how you know you've hit rock bottom in your life, getting the old Dirty Sanchez from Screech.

3.) Fruit Cakes- An even shittier gift than anything I've already menioned (aside from a video of Dustin Diamond administering a Dirty Sanchez because that's just Christmas gold) are fruit cakes. Where the fuck do all of the fruit cakes come from this time of year? Have you ever seen anybody make a fruit cake? No! Have you ever seen anybody eat a fruit cake? Hell no! Fruit cake is made by ninjas and delivered with perfect stealth upon unsuspecting victims then it is regifted because nobody wants a fruit cake. I'm not sure why ninjas do this to people, but it's the cruelest fucking holiday joke I can think of.

2.) Hypocrisy- And the sad part is that there is probably a fruit cake wrapped out there with my name on it from somebody who thought, "Wow, Michael likes fruit and I fucking hate fruit cakes. This will make a perfect gift and I won't even have to do any shopping for that asshole!" Then, I'll open the gift and have to pretend that it's absolutely the best gift I ever got. Ever. Then next year I'll be giving that same fruit cake to somebody else as a gift and they'll have to do the same damn thing. It's cyclic. Like a bloodstream of shitty baked goods.

1.) Porno Plots- Okay, seriously. If you're writing a script for a porno movie and you feel the need to incorporate some kind of plot or story into the movie could you, from now on, at least make a decent plot to follow or no plot at all. I understand that you have only a minimal amount of time to devote to story development because the producers want to have most of the movie for the naughty bits, but come on, if all it really took to get a woman to have sex with me was to give her a credit check and tell her that her credit was bad and that she would have to find some way to get me to approve her vehicle lease, well then, I'm in the wrong line of work. I use that credit check line all the time and still no sex. Also, why are there so many guys hanging around a used car dealership's office anyway? And what kind of used car salesman brings handcuffs to work? A fucking whip!?!? Do you see what I mean? All these little things take away any enjoyment of your cinematic creation. It can't be that hard to come up with some plausibility, could it?

And for god's sake, DO NOT try to work a Dustin Diamond Dirty Sanchez into the storyline! Just saying those words makes me vomit just a little. Those poor, poor girls.

The Bottom Ten, November 2006

Oh my god. Give me a day or two more to get this one out to you. I know that everybody just falls all over themselves to read what I have to bitch and moan about at the end of every month. I was typing this thing out and I got to about number 6 on my list at which point I had to check out my sources on a story about Mike Tyson becoming a male prostitute (it was a story that turned out to be a hoax, thus nixing number 5 from my list). Anyhow, when I clicked a bookmark from my bookmarks folder to check said source I forgot that the blogger dashboard clears itself when I try to re-enter it. So I basically got a really good start and then it all fell to shit. I think the blogger dashboard might just make my Bottom Ten list one of these months for shit like this. Arrrgh.

But now it's late and I should really be getting to bed. So now I'll have to attempt to transcribe my brilliance again in the near, almost immediate future before I end up putting the November Bottom Ten out in late December or early January. That would sincerely suck on a biblical scale.

I assure you it will be up very soon. Sorry for the delay.

The Weekend In Pictures

I promised photos from the big Christmas bash with all my friends this past weekend. So here are said pictures. Enjoy.



This is the group photo. I already miss everybody.



Quite possibly the scariest picture of Jeff (or anybody) ever taken.



Those are Jordan's real teeth.



Jeff zonks out with his fake cock out while Trudy and Dave look on.



Jeff attempts to give head to Trudy's hot water bottle.



Lori's flatulence is keeping that hat upward more than her hand. Jeff concurs.



The view of Pigeon Lake from Mulhurst Bay as we were leaving. It was all very beautiful in a stark white kind of way.

Sigh. That was so much fun. Now it's back to the ho-humness of my everyday life. I already can't wait for next year.

A Quick Note To Let You Know That I'm Doing Okay

In case you are wondering why the posts slowed to a trickle this week I should tell you that I am preparing for a weekend away at tropical Pigeon Lake, Alberta. I am having my annual Christmas party with all of my oldest and closest friends. We rented a cabin for the weekend and it will be fun to rough it with my best buds, eating turkey, playing poker, getting drunk, and braving the elements, everything that a Canadian Christmas party should be.

Anyway, expect pictures when I return. I'll be back home on Sunday. So if I don't post until Monday (or later) it's the fucking mother of all hangovers.

Pray for me.