Category Archives: Distractions

Xmas Early

Distractions, You Magnificent Bastard

This year was suppose to be different.

This year, I was going to utterly decimate SharkBoy with a gift so left field and unpredictable that he was going to fall down unconscious and I would rejoice and dance around his prone body with a cup of egg nog. And we’d sing carols and upload videos to Youtube and eat mince meat pies.

Alas, I have been found out and my reputation as a shitty gift giver stays intact. SharkBoy knows what he’s getting for Xmas. But in my own defense, not by my hand!

I started this amazing gift bonanza early. Back in the summer, our friend BobaDoug had been trolling the 501st web forums to see if anyone was selling their Stormtrooper armor for cheap. A couple weeks back he sends me an email from some chap in the US who is offloading his gear, attached with this picture (see right)
Of course my mind goes a million miles a minute. Doable! And fun! After about 25 emails back and forth, the cheque is in the mail, the suit is on it’s way to sister-in-law Sylvie, in Vermont, and I make the most solemn vow not to say one word. This time was different. The effort was being made!

To explain the chunk of cash missing from the joint account I said some yarn about how I wanted extra money on my credit card for our upcoming New York trip. Bait taken. No suspecty!

A week later, BobaDoug sends me another picture. See above. No it’s not a dead trooper, it’s a pristine SandTrooper outfit with full gear – was I interested? HELLS YEAH! Sandtroopers are my fave! How could I pass it up! Somehow I had to move another chunk of cash around our savings. They say the best lie is the closest to the truth so I came clean. I showed SharkBoy the picture and said, “This is my Xmas gift to me. I can’t pass this deal up. It’s done.” To which he asked if Doug could look for a suit for himself as well. Oh yes, dear! Of course we will. Little do you know!

All is good. I’ve told Sylvie in Vermont that another suit is on it’s way and hush hush on the first one and that SharkBoy knew that I had bought one for myself. We giggle like school girls.

In moving this second chunk of cash, PayPal was a bit slow. I told SharkBoy not to be alarmed by the amount of money hanging around. Last night, after dinner I checked the bank accounts and it was still there. I briefly mentioned to it to him and he grunted in reply. The phone rings and SharkBoy picks it up. It’s Sylvie.

“Tell DeadRobot his suit is here!”

“Wut,” says SharkBoy.

“Ah…Wow! ha! That was…fast…?” I say.

“How did your suit… get to…” SharkBoy Pauses. A light goes on. “YES!!!”

I hear a tinny, tiny “Oh Shit!” come from the phone ear piece.

I don’t blame Sylvie. I should have kept her in the loop about the *timeline* of the payments and deliveries. It wasn’t her fault at all.

But I’m back to being a shitty gift giver. At least that’s no surprise.

Fail Whale

Celebs and Media, Distractions, The Bad

Twitter is starting to annoy me.

It actually annoyed me from the start. When I first heard of Twitter I thought it was narcissistic, restrictive and destructive to the structure of the web. Example, all those shortened URLs aren’t only a security risk – you could click through to a phishing page, thank god for Macs! – they’re also reliant on a third party to serve up your link. Take it out and there will be millions of broken links to piss off search engines and anal retentive SysAdmins.

Twitter is the junk food of the internet.

With all this in mind I started to Twitter anyway. I followed celebrities and news journos and did enjoy getting their tweets. Still do. Some people post things that are the best of the web. It’s a great way to know when someone updates a blog/video/image etc. It’s great for information.

But lately as my private, non “professional” base of following/followers grows, I’m finding Twitter a lot like something familiar, something 1999…

Oh that’s right! Gay.com’s chat widget.

The majority of the people I follow on Twitter have started to use it as a chat program. I don’t know if this is a trend or if it’s just the type of person I follow. In the morning, I’m shifting through “HI! GOOD MORNING TWEEPS!” “HEY HOW YOU DOING?” posts and their equally important “HEYWAZTUP?” responses – meaningless manusia. During the day I have to skip past “EWWW! NO!” posts when someone mentions feminine hygiene. Or requests to add things to my avatar in the name of some social cause.

Don’t get me started on FollowFriday. On second thought, lets: #FF is utterly useless. If I want to know who you’re following I’ll take the time and click your profile. With the new Twitter page and other slick apps, it’s dead easy. Stop sending out your entire 150 names in 4-5 posts, filling my timeline with garbage!

This crap has no meaning to me. And I like it when Twitter has meaning. Has value. Now, to me, it’s becoming a really slow and irritating IRC channel.

Rant over. Back to your lives, humans.

(posted to Twitter 11:28am, Friday November 5th)

Buy My Crap

Distractions, Toronto

It’s that time of year again! SharkBoy and I are participating in the Cabbagetown garage sales festival (wait it’s a street party? Not a buy crap free-for-all? pfft.)

Anyway, I’m super thankful to postbear who has graciously offered his front lawn to display our stuff. I expect he’ll be getting a nice rough-hewn bowl that Da rescued from the Gardiner museum as thank you!

I love this day. I love garage sales. I love spying on people’s crap they don’t want anymore. It’s like being allowed to stare into someone’s soul and then buy it.

PS: If any of you want an all marble dining room table, make me an offer!

The Bag

Distractions

My brother, the one sorting the financials after my father’s passing, is digging around in the closet for any last banker boxes or notes. He comes across a bag.

We all have one. A stash. A personal collective of things too intimate to share with family. Some people keep old emails, or digital photos of themselves in compromising positions. Others hide away pee stained Richie Rich comics. Some people keep illicit underwear. Some people can only manage to hoard the ads for illicit underwear. On one episode of Intervention, I recall a woman who would hide Ziplock bags of vomit from her husband in her walk in closet. For whatever reason we all have secrets.

When we pass, these secrets come into the light, and usually by loved ones.

The bag is a 70s style Puma gym bag (Hi StevieB!), silver vinyl, a pristine monument from my father’s days as a shoe salesman. It is stuffed to the brim.

My brother unzips the bag and is greeted by a glass dildo, thankfully still inside it’s original packaging. “Dildo” would probably be putting it mildly. More like glass billy-club truncheon, complete with cop-style grip guard and ribbed handle. It’s classy and foreboding at the same time, like a Yorkville retail shopworker.

Further in, a smaller, realistic clear gel dildo, of natural proportions, still in it’s packaging. I could describe it as “cute” as it is not at full erection, nor is it comically droopy. Since it’s not quite as threatening as the truncheon, I speculate that it’s for more causal instances, like a pic-nic, not a spring cotillion.

There are other toys, mostly out of their packages (I think the first two were joke gifts or contest prizes for the gay group my dad belonged to). Stuff I’ve seen before, nothing really shocking to a gay man, but nothing more outrageous than the glass club. If you are gay, these things are pretty much commonplace. These toys are infused into the gay culture either by joke gifts between campy friends or purchased to create a serious ritual of sexual adventure.

My brother stops at the cute dildo. He reseals the bag and hands it to his wife who enters the room shortly after – she’s been helping making a list of all the valuables in the apartment. “Can you please include this with the content catalogue?”

She unzips the gym bag and digs in, retrieving the truncheon. After it registers what she is holding, she screams.