Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Dink Lump (14:11 ADT, The ShanMonster)

Much to my happy surprise, work last night was not bad. We weren't swamped, and that makes all the difference in the world. I did get one very Stupid Woman (SW) call me, though. The call went something like this:

SW: I want to speak with room 336.

Me: I'm sorry, but you've reached central reservations and not a hotel. Which hotel are you looking for? I can give you their number.

SW: I don't know.

Me: Ok, which city is it in?

SW: I don't know.

Me: Uhh, do you know what part of the country it's in?

SW: Calgary!

Me: Yes, that would be a city. We have two hotels in that city: Downtown hotel and Airport hotel.

SW: Can I have their numbers?

Me: Certainly. The number for the downtown hotel is....

SW: Just a minute. I need to find a pen.... Ok.

Me: The downtown number is 555-5555. The number for the airport hotel is....

SW: Oh, it's not at the airport hotel. *click*

The woman sitting across from me was getting stupid callers, too. One caller asked if our hotels (luxury hotels, mind you) have bathtubs. Oh dear.

And now here are some links for your enjoyment and amazement. Enjoy. Amaze.

America We Stand As One: Patriotism is such a scary thing.

Michelle Berger: A mother of four shows how moms can be really, really buff.

Teenager In Trouble For Stealing Corpse Head: "Court documents said the suspect allegedly talked of using the man's head as a bong or a pipe for smoking marijuana."

Robotic camel riders are ready to race: Now that child jockeys are banned, robots are doing the riding. I think it would be funnier if they got monkeys instead, but maybe that's just me.

The Name is Carsone, Johnny Carsone: The most narcissistic cover letter I've ever read.

Pope reborn as superhero in Colombian comic: I know I linked to this story before, but this incarnation has a glorious picture!

Unintentionally sexual comic book covers: A little NSFW, and a little funny.

The Dream (12:30 ADT, The ShanMonster)

I'm a sentient grain of wild rice and I am secreted from the nipple of a calico cat. I rest on the cat's skin among the fur and look around. The cat's belly pulses with her breathing. Something pulls me along and sticks me to her butt. I book hotel rooms for various people, and then I wake up.

Letting It Slide (03:00 ADT, The ShanMonster)

Tonight, while I was on my break, I chatted with two co-workers. They quipped that they'd like to exchange bodies with me. I'm always surprised when someone takes note of my physique. "Oh pshaw," I said. "You don't want this bod. I have a bum foot and I'm blind as anything."

I work hard to maintain my shape. It would be so easy to let it all slide, but the repercussions are overwhelming. I'd have myself a big ol' gut (I'm a natural apple), my knee problems would resurface, my arthritis would worsen, and the resulting weakened muscles paired with my hypermobility would earn me a series of joint dislocations (just like what happens to my sister). So I go to the gym several times each week, I am mindful of what I eat, I bike and walk regularly, and I practice my dance and martial arts.

Last week, I let my caution go and ate a lot of junk. I was offered free fried chicken, and didn't turn it down. Likewise, I had icecream cake, a big-ass cheeseburger, about half a loaf of delicious bakery white bread, a ridiculously rich and cloying chocolate cream German confection, and a few boozy drinks (not all in one sitting!).

I don't want to do that again. I'm not going hungry, mind you. I'm eating plenty of food. It's just good stuff, like whole grains, fresh vegetables/fruits, lots of fibre, and plenty of protein. I think I've finally discovered one of the things which has been causing my stomach cramps for all these years: milk. Cheese and yoghourt seem fine, but any time I have more than a teaspoon or so of milk, I get roilings and cramps. No more chocolate milk for me, I guess!

This morning, I flexed in the mirror, and my lats--the ones which stood out like cables a week ago--were almost submerged beneath a thin but cozy layer of fat. So moderation is the key. I'll continue to eat a little bit of junk food on occasion, but it will be very infrequent. I continue to progress at the gym. I upped four of my weights yesterday, and I added a hundred or so full-on jumping jacks to my cardio routine. I'd rather do jumping jacks, dragons, and kung fu forms for my cardio than hamster out on elliptical trainers. And I think the former does far more for my strength and endurance than the latter.

I tried doing Silk Manning's Khi-Bae DVD today. I'd always been turned off by the cheesy music and the equally cheesy intro sequence, but this time I was willing to give it a shot. I made it most of the way through the intermediate program without any problems, but I found it impossible to exercise proper technique at the speed demonstrated. None of the people in the video looked like they were exactly exercising proper technique, either. The roundhouse kicks followed by one-two punches in the opposite facing look like a good way to wrench your knees out of joint. I'd rather exercise some other sort of technique incorporating a directional change--something with more flow.

I hated the way they flopped their arms down, removing their guard, every time they did roundhouse kicks. That's just begging for a punch to the teeth. Guard your centre line, dudes!

Other than the narcissistic posturing at the beginning of the video, the most disturbing thing is Silk Manning's package. I haven't seen such a careful showcasing of a guy's jubbly bits since David Bowie's showing in Labyrinth. Maybe he's wearing underwire boxers.

So I quit doing the workout and bicycled up York Street against a bracing wind. Now that was a workout.

Monday, April 11, 2005

A Miscellany (19:00 ADT, The ShanMonster)

Yesterday's party went well, despite a lack of certain people (you know who you are!). We played human Jenga, had a bikini contest (Kathryn won, being the only participant), ate lots of food, and had a game of 1000 Blank White Cards. f00 got a cordless telephone and answering machine from Erin. She got a gift certificate for a spa treatment. Both f00 and Erin made squeeing sounds over their presents.

I spent the day traipsing around town with Kathryn while wearing a zebra-print mini skirt and freezing my arse off. Since when did it decide to turn cold? The weather's been so beautiful lately! We put up posters for the upcoming dance class. I sure hope I get more students. Classes have been underpopulated lately.

I'm trying to discover a place to visit for a weekend in May. I have a free car rental I have to use up, and I need a place to go. I think an 8-hour drive is about what we could manage. The Boston Cyberarts Festival looks fantastic, but the workshops all take place during the week, and my car rental is only for a weekend. Damn.

The other night, I had a bizarre dream that I was a soldier riding on the back of an invisible armoured truck. It really sucked because I wasn't invisible, and I floated along the road in my army greens. And then, I had some sort of episode where I confronted a combination of Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, and Bruce Willis. Their names were so similar that the men melded together into one fantastic creature.

And now for some long-overdue links....

Vietnamese has bird flu after drinking duck blood: Vampires avoiding human blood for fear of contracting HIV and hepatitis can't even drink duck blood safely, now. Poor vampires.

Holocaust victim sues TriMet: "An 81-year-old Holocaust survivor is suing TriMet and a former bus driver for more than $5 million, saying that when the driver yelled at her and pushed her off his bus it reawakened the memories of Auschwitz." At first, I thought this was litigious overexaggeration. But the bus driver's actions appear inexcusable. What a jerk.

Rare Disorder Causes Endless Hunger: I'd never before heard of Prader-Willi syndrome. It sounds absolutely hellish.

Getting to the Bottom of an Unwholesome Obsession: "The good news on sphincter bleaching is that it's safer than anything involving general anaesthetics or fat-vacuuming gizmos. The bad news is that you could be in for a lifetime of skid marks."

Greatest movie of all time: A good review of a bad movie: Orca.

Ketjak: The Ramayana Monkey Chant: "'Performed by more than 200 men seated in tight concentric circles around a small central space reserved for the chief protagonists,' the ketjak (loosely called 'Monkey Chant') was first recorded in Bali by David Lewiston and released by Nonesuch Records in 1969. As a spectacular and alternative performance mode, it has had a germinal influence on western performance and poetics since then."

Information Does Not Exist: It really doesn't (thanks, f00).

La Vida Robot: "How four underdogs from the mean streets of Phoenix took on the best from M.I.T. in the national underwater bot championship."

Nasal Hentai: Definitely NSFW.

Pope Reborn as Superhero in Comic: "Pope John Paul II is being reborn in a Colombian comic book as a superhero battling evil with an anti-Devil cape and special chastity pants."

Pinnochia: Fetish site about girls with Pinnochio noses (I thought of you, Elanya).

Rice Dream: I don't know a whole lot about cars, but I do know these cars are ridiculous.

The Viagra Challenge: NSFW. Thoroughly tasteless and misogynistic article which kept me reading out of horrible morbid curiosity.

Playmobil cachondos: Definitely NSFW. Definitely not what you want to see done with Playmobil dudes.

Scary Muscle Woman: NSFW. The overmuscling isn't the thing that disturbs me. It's her terrible breast implants.

Rooster: NSFW, I think. It's a chicken-shaped hand-knit posing pouch. I'd wear it on my junk if I were a guy.

Tuesday, April 6, 2005

Today's My Monday (13:36 ADT, The ShanMonster)

I think I'm going to have to schedule another doctor's appointment. I suspect I may have broken a teensy little bone in my elbow a few weeks ago when I was kicked in kung fu class. I thought it was a bruise, but if I lean on my elbow just so, it makes me yelp. Aside from that, it's fine. My mobility and strength are normal, but that one little spot is very sensitive if I prod gently. If it is broken, can it even be repaired?

Remember the story of the little boy who had his hands and one foot severed in a freak basketball accident? Well, it looks like they couldn't save his foot. Poor kid (thanks, g026r)....

Beastly doctor snaps up women crawling on all fours: " She thought something was amiss when the doctor told her to strip naked -- she only had a painful chest. Still, her physician was one of the most famous in Japan, so she assumed he knew what he was doing. She even went along when he told her to get on all fours and crawl. And she still didn't complain when the doctor pulled out a digital camera and began taking photos. But she knew something was really wrong when she wasn't charged for the examination." I heart WaiWai.

FemDefence: A Protection Against Rape: What happens when you cross a tampon with a thumbtack? It's an imaginary product, but still....

Woman breastfeeding tiger cubs in Myanmar: I think it's bad enough when baby humans start to bite. Imagine a tiger doing the same!

Crap Circles: Like crop circles, only different.

Pictures of Pennies: How to build cantilevered structures out of pennies (thanks, UberIcarus).

Erwin Olaf - Royal Blood: An eerily beautiful collection of stark, bloody photography.

Monday, April 5, 2005

You're Invited (23:44 ADT, The ShanMonster)

Group birthday party at my place, Sunday at 6! It's a celebration party for everyone who didn't get a birthday party and really deserves one. There will be cake. Show up, and bring some snacks to share, and that way there will be plenty to go around.

In other news, I went out to see Sin City. It's the best, most true to the original movie adaptation of a comic book I've ever seen. It really shows that the comic frames were used for the story boarding. The casting was excellent. Mickey Rourke is simply divine as Violent Marv.

During a rare lull at work the other night, the girl next to me pointed at a picture on her monitor and said, "Wouldn't you love to be married there?" It was a picture of a beautiful little church with an enormous cross.

"Not really. I'm not religious," I said.

But inside I was thinking, "Who would want to get married beneath a huge reproduction of a murder weapon?"

And then I remembered reality.

Do Not Readjust Your Set (12:31 ADT, The ShanMonster)

Work began deceptively slow. We were sometimes ten minutes between calls. It was relaxing, and I wiled away my downtime reading The Wizard of Oz. Then the calls started coming in with machine gun rapidity. I didn't worry. Sunday nights are usually slow. It was just a spike in calls, I reasoned.

I was wrong.

The calls kept coming and coming, with no end in sight. And then my telephone up and died on me, so I had to switch to a new workstation. And still the calls kept coming, like the swarms in Aliens. When I finished my shift at two AM (typically our slow time), the call volume was the highest I'd ever personally seen it. What on earth is going on?

On the plus side, when I got home and was getting ready for bed, I looked in the mirror and discovered a brand new muscle. My lats stand out like cables down my sides when I flex. Holy crap! Where the heck did they come from, all of a sudden? In any case, I'm off to the gym to make those cables larger.

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