No, not how I deal with my husband when I get home from work… Just an internet meme from Romach and Solitude:

1) Where is your cell phone?
elbow

2) Your significant other?
Man

3) Your hair?
None

4) Your skin?
Alligator

5) Your father?
Loveable

6) Your favourite thing?
iPhone

7) Your dream last night?
Mean

8)Your favourite drink?
Milk

9) Your dream/goal?
Fame

10) The room you’re in?
Cubicle

11) Your ex?
Gone

12) Your fear?
Loneliness

13) Where do you want to be in 6 years?
Alive

14) Where were you last night?
Livingroom (is that one word?)

15) What you’re not?
Organized

16) Muffins?
Top

17) One of your wish list items?
iMac

18)Where you grew up?
Lonely

19) The last thing you did?
Negotiate

20) What are you wearing?
Chinos

21) Your TV?
Crap

22) Your pets?
Cat

23) Your computer?
Frankenstein

24) Your life?
Vacation

25) Your mood?
Pensive

26) Missing someone?
Nope

27) Your car?
Nope

28)Something you’re not wearing?
Heart

29) Favourite store?
Electronics

30) Your summer?
Short

31) Like someone?
Tons

32) Your favourite colour?
Orange

33) When is the last time you laughed?
Thursday

34) Last time you cried?
What?

35) Who will/would re-post this?
Nobody

36) Whose answers are you anxious to see?
Cat

37) Most disliked vegetable?
None

38 A lovely Person?
Meesh

39) Country I want to visit?
Japan

40) Lucky number?
7

* Acid Reflux Web: Miss Retrovirus looks for her inner HIV Glamour while fighting off wandering hands.
* Blamblog: Not being able to view videos (either by restrictive licensing or by Net Neutrality) makes people MAD!
* Cultural SNAFU …or you can wander the web anonymously, Brett.
* David R Use to be Therlin: It’s peanut butter Jellyfish time!
* Dead Robot’s Flickr fun!: My Becel Ride for Heart was used in a social news gathering site! I’m famousey!
* dog’S FAINT: Uh. first picture not entirely worksafe. Vegas-style topless art shots.
* Electronic Replicant: He’s good with his hands. I don’t know what it is, but it’s shiny!
* Fortress of Solitude: (Pressing “refresh”) Come on… come on… COME ON!!!
* Hairy Fish Nuts: He must be on the floor crying since the whole Obama thing last night. No update since yesterday morning!
* Human Nature: Even though humanity has progressed throughout the years, there are still quite a few people who resemble neanderthals. People who stand you up, for example?
* Hypnoray: NO UPDATE ALERT!!! WOOP WOOP WOOP! Three weeks since his last post. Four weeks before that! Woop wooop!
* I Always Win DILFs! (near No Update Alert!!)
* My Blog Rules Your Ass: F**king Awesome cooking videos! Cajun gudness!
* My Life in the YYZ: New furniture! Bigger desk! Credit Cards! Our man is a good capitalist!
* Nice To See Stevie B: I’ve seen episodes of South Park. I doubt Denver getting a Hamburger Mary’s will result in Gay Marriages.
* Norml Than You: NO UPDATE ALERT!!! WOOP WOOP WOOP! Come on, Gurl! You’ve been camping this weekend. Let’s see some pics!
* Photojunkie: I can’t link to one specific post in the last month or two. They’re all amazing images. Go and look.
* Phronk: Hiatus = Sad.
* Ripping Stitches Obama and Prince lyrics. I think I’ll like the US again.
* RoboCub: Needs to move to California…
* Sharkboy: Gruesome image of a drunk driver’s outrageous carelessness. This public service announcement was brought to you by Dewars!
* StudioYVR: Don is navel gazing. A bit too deeply…
* Tomato Transplants: Jane shows promise. I barely remember to wash my hands!
* Turnip Style: Bitch stole my title from my last post! Actually that’s pretty freaky. Anyhoo, he’s ready for the future!
* Unsweetened: She’s just now realizing chips burn? We need to take her camping.
UPDATE: My apologies, I forgot Planet Romach: Who is wondering what Ms Clinton will be doing in the near future.

I walk by Alan Gardens every day. It’s a beautiful park, despite the rubbies and homeless and cop cars that occupy this green oasis, just east of Jarvis. Last October, around the end of the month, a blue temporary fence was erected with a sign announcing a Dogs Off-Leash area was going to be constructed inside 6 weeks. Landscaping through November? Ain’t gonna happen, was the first thing that came to mind.

Of course the due date of “late December” flew by like a hawk chasing a park pigeon.

SharkBoy and I would walk by and speculate how much the city was spending to rent, lease or contract out the machines that sat idle for weeks at a time inside this blue fence over the winter months. Occasionally we’d see workers in there prepping cement or laying out a feature for the park, but the brunt of the work was done the first while in October, halted for the most part of November/December and sporadically over January to March.

While the workers did their light touches to the run, all this time we watched as dog owners “broke into” the area and let their beasties go free, long before the area was complete. If this action of premature puppy pooping added time to the project, I can’t say, but it comes as no surprise this was happening. The same sort of guerrilla dog walking took place all during Cawthra Square’s (in the Gayborhood) re-modelling. Puppies just can’t wait, people!

This project is 5 months over their posted deadline (according to the sign) and little by little, small things are getting done: cement water features were finalized in March; the surrounding fence was put into place; a couple weeks back the area was landscaped with plants and mulch. Stuff is getting done, but at a lets-extend-this-contract-as-long-as-we-can pace. Mike Holmes would weep openly at the time and money this project is taking. I estimate that they could have started work in March and still be where they are now if they had put in regular work hours.

At this point, I don’t care what the dog run looks like, I just want my park back sans ugly blue fence.

BBC newscasters with nothing to say. Watch it twice: once for the faces of the anchors, the second to read the crawl:

(via BoingBoing)

I’ve been tagged by Fortress of Solitude…

1) What was I doing 10 yrs ago?

In 1998, I was coming out of my first “respectable” web job with Bowne International where I updated US real estate listings for various banks. I left it for creative content developer for a host of porn sites.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today:

1. Gym
2. Clear out emails
3. Try not to decide on the caliber of gun I’ll be bringing to work
4. Make dinner, make it exciting, make it for my man
5. start drawing SharkBoy’s leg tattoo

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Any chip. Any corn chip. Any corn chip that I dip in “White Trash” (equal parts of fat free sour cream and hot salsa)

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Travel. Take a nice group of friends with me through Eastern Europe, China and Japan. I’d probably invest in Apple stock now, before the 3G phones come out.

I’d give some to artistic developments and a good dose to PWA (ha!)

5) Five of my bad habits:

1. I bite my nails
2. I’m judgmental far too quickly
3. I cut corners
4. I’d rather play video games than read a book
5. I eat too much

6) 5 places I have lived:

1. Brockville, ON (blarg)
2. Brantford, ON (ugh)
3. London UK (woot!)
4. Oakville, ON (ew)
5. Ottawa, ON (brrr)

7) 5 jobs I have had:

1. Tourism Captain
2. Environmental engineer at Woolco (janitor)
3. Front Desk Reception at the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall
4. Promotions Manager, Black Eagle Toronto
5. Extra on Queer As Folk (among other shows)

8) 5 peeps I wanna know more about:

1. Madonna. Is she really breaking up with Guy?
2. George Lucas. Is he really bitter about making movies these days?
3. Stone Cold Steve Austin. Still sexy?
4. That guy… over there….

It’s 2020, April 14th. A fine spring day.

I exit the patio doors with a tray of meat in my hands and as the UV coated doors close effortlessly yet quickly behind me, my clothes lighten to accommodate the sunlight. My glasses extend to cover the sides of my eyes, sealing them in.

I stop and look across the city of Montreal from our partially-obscured back yard. If I stand on my toes I can see the top of the Place Ville-Marie and if I scoot to the right of SharkBoy’s garden (carefully avoiding the crocuses) I can see the river. Of course I can see the Rogers Tower, looming 89 floors over the city, it’s Red circle logo in high def LEDs casting a slight pink glow on all of us, even in broad daylight.

George Hamilton comes wearily out of the cat door. “Meh!” he croaks at me as if I walked away from him while he was talking. After 13 years he’s still not able to be left alone for long. He approaches the flowers and gets a mild shock from his RIDF subdermal chip for even thinking of nibbling on them. “Meh.” he mutters and settles into the grass.

The BBQ senses my approach and lights itself. The grill is hot within 30 seconds and I drop the meat on it with a flourish. It will use up some of our house battery reserves but it’s a great day and the fresh chicken I manage to procure from the black market is well worth the expense. I carefully start the carbon filter so the neighbours can’t smell the cooking chicken. If they even remember what real cooking chicken smells like.

My iPhone wakes up. “Ted? Call from your sister. No subject line.”

“Accept.” The screen comes to life and she’s wearing a pirate hat, eye patch and a stripey shirt – very in vogue for her line of work. “Nice new privacy avatar!” I say. I can’t afford one and she’s seeing me as I am. We talk 15 minutes about the housing development she just sold over the long forgotten tar sands in Calgary.

The BBQ interrupts us: “Turn, please.” Christ! The meat! And the table isn’t set yet, either.

“Where’s your father?” I ask George Hamilton.

“Meh,” he meows. His collar flashes “I don’t understand the question?”

I can see SharkBoy on the couch through the darkened windows. He’s on the antiquated Wii still trying to get through Lara Croft Anniversary. Bless his heart.