Year in Review!

Distractions, Personal Bits, You Magnificent Bastard Leave a reply

Everyone is doing it! I will do it! You will read! You will be barely enriched! Read now!

One favorite post from each month:

January
I post my own text version of “It’s Gets Better”, purely because my voice sounds weird to me.

Feburary
Even though I recap our Disney cruise and parks visit, I think my three stories for BigGayCloset.com “coming out stories” were more interesting. Here’s my story of coming out to my Dad

March
Okay so I do talk about our Disney trip. Here I relate a magical gay moment with Josh and Sean at the Liberty Tree Diner.

April
I’m tasked by Nice To See Stevie B to try the Blog 64 Topics challenge. I don’t make it. But I do manage to like #6: A happy picture.

May
Probably the best surprise gift I’ve ever accomplished. SharkBoy gets a trip to Disney World and finds out the day we leave. I’ll probably never have kids and this was the next best thing to it. I will never forget his face that morning. Honourable mention

June
While away, postbear usually watches over our two feline treasures, which we’re eternally grateful for. When we get home, the apartment usually has some… new decorations… that take us a few weeks to find. He tells us we still haven’t found them all.

July
I start my AIDS Walk Stormtrooper fundrasing. In the end I made $2500 and wound up with blisters on my feet. I’d do it again in a second.

August
I mark the one year anniversary of my father’s passing, but I liked this day better.

Honourable mention: I also recount our trip to Disneyland/California with more pictures.

September
Fuzzbelly sends on prints of SharkBoy and I in our troop suits in honour of my AIDS Walk fundraising. I go all verklempt. He really is a great man!

October
Steve Jobs passes. I gush just a bit.

November
I notice that I’m writing less. Maybe 2 times a week. Is blogging dead? Or am I frustrated that this sort of shit can happen without me knowing?

December
I hate this ad. It’s gone, thankfully. But I like how I wrote about it.

There you have it. The last year in 12 links!

I hope the next year brings you happiness and bla and poo flinging monkeys with fezzes.

 

Disecting Prometheus

Celebs and Media, You Magnificent Bastard 1 Reply

The trailer for Prometheus dropped when I left for Xmas and I think I’ve played it…oh 1000 times so far. I just want to mention a couple things because I am sure you can go to any nerd site and read the vast comments about this 2 min piece of geek-gasm.

Okay so here’s my take…

Trailer:

It’s pretty much unspoken but utterly “duh!” that this movie is either a prequel to, or lives within the Alien movie universe, despite what Ridley Scott refuses to say or admit in interviews.

Here are my nerd boner moments:

Trailer starts with slow reveal of title! Alien!!
Big Giger-like face – from the original Alien designs
Misty room full of jars? Eggs? HOMMAGE!
Acid melting helmet. Hommage!
Space Jockey head??
Big helmets but they’re more 50s pulp Sci Fi than Moebius’ Samurai design – Cool!
Space Jockey in da HOUSE!
Ship design very similar to the Derelict Ship in Alien…
Not a real boner moment but it makes me laugh: “Run to the left! Not straight away!”

 

So I gotta ask:

[poll id=”8″]

Rough Seas

The Bad, Toronto, Travel, You Stupid Dick 1 Reply

On the downside, SharkBoy’s union just mailed out strike pay applications.

It seems it’s inevitable, unavoidable at this point. Unless some Hail Mary play happens between the pig-headed mayor and the unions, we’re going to see a very messy Toronto over winter.

The question is: how long? Tin foil hatted people are saying that Rob Ford has a plan to keep the strike going long enough to save XX amount of dollars. That or he’s going to staff all these services he’d rather cut with scabs for an indefinite amount of time. Or he just doesn’t give a flying fuck what you taxpayers think, he just needs someone to bully to make him feel good.

For whatever reason, it seems like we’re headed for some drama. And a few weeks (months??) of eating nothing but Kraft Dinner and day old buns purchased at the local No Frills. Thanks Rob Ford for moving the city of Toronto forward!

On the upside: despite this gloom and doom, we are putting a modest down payment on another Disney cruise in exactly 11 months, 10 days. Not that I’m counting.

This trip will be a carbon copy of the Disney cruise/parks trip we did in the spring with a possible variation on “parks before or after the cruise”. Even though when I explain to people that we’re going again and doing literally the same thing, it may sound boring and redundant, but it’s far enough away that we will be needing a little Disney right about then after what could be a very stressful winter/spring.

Fingers crossed cooler heads will prevail.

A Little Extra Screening

You Magnificent Bastard 1 Reply

On our trip down to Vermont I experienced difficulty with the online check-in at Porter Airlines. After a couple hours and countless tries to register our seats, we made two calls to the customer service centre, who couldn’t resolve the issue, both with wildly different answers as to why this was happening. We gave up and resolved to be at the airport a little earlier than usual to sort this out. We’ve been burned by Porter before and while we still love the service, we know the relationship is a bit abusive.

We arrive at the check in (someone pleaaaase build the tunnel to the airport, like… yesterday – that ferry is the most ridiculous form of transport in the history of travel) and as the clerk looks over my passport, her face smiles wide.

“Congratulations! You’ve been randomly chosen to go through extra screening!” She makes it sound like an extra day on the beach with an extra girly drink. This explains why I can’t complete check in online. Oh ho!

At the screening we go through the pat down, the “I need an adult!” touching, the questions. The agent and I were joking all the way through it so it was a pretty professional/light hearted experience. Then it came time to check my luggage.

Two bags, two inspectors. They tell me they are going to search my luggage in an officious voice. Sure. Whatever. Go. And in they dive.

The one opening my suitcase flips the lid and looks down at the first item of clothing on top of my pile.

Boom. SharkBoy’s pink Mickey Mouse PJs. Right on top.

With a booming voice that makes the other guards stop to look, my agent asks “Are these your pyjamas, sir?”

“No!” I knee-jerk respond. And then realize I may be getting into trouble if I admit that I might have not entirely pack my own suitcase by myself, so I say “They’re a gift!!”

He wasn’t buying it. They finish their search and after I’ve collected myself and as I’m leaving, the agent says “Pleasant dreams!”

Freedom of Choice

You Stupid Dick 4 Replies

I’m walking home from work last night and as usual I pass by The Spa Excess, a popular bath house that’s been operating forever. Often I see men coming out of there with de-spunked looks plastered across their faces so I guess it’s popular – I haven’t been inside there since 1998.

Outside the door is a man who is doing the tourist dance: looking up at the building, looking down the street, looking at me with questioning eyes, looking back at the building. As I approach he asks: “Where is Steamworks?”

I’m taken aback. Do I look gay? Or more specifically, do I look like a guy who goes to a bath house? He must have wanted it bad if he’s “randomly” asking strangers where bath houses are.

But I answer (and it takes me a moment to remember): “Up on Church Street… you go–”

“Is this place any good?” he asks, interrupting, pointing at the doors of Excess. Obviously he wants particular tourism information. To know the vibe/popularity of the place, not directions.

“Don’t know, don’t go,” I say and leave him to his (t)horny dilemma.

As I walk away I think of some better responses and file them in my “Shouldacouldawoulda” file:

“They seem to be bed bug free!”
“It’s where I met (KAFFF KAAAFFFF hoark KAFF) my boyfriend!”
“It’s full of… Somalians!”
“I lost my favorite penis scab in there.”
“They clean. So yeah.”
“Worst Souvlaki ever!”
“You have to wish to make your heart’s dreams come true!”

Toutical

Distractions Leave a reply

Obsessing on yet another social network. This one, Tout, is like Twitter but with video. Like Twitter, it places limitations on your posts and forces you to only bore your followers for 15 seconds.

Like so:

Is it a win? I’m having fun trying to think up things to show and it may replace Twitter for me. I might reduce my Twitter feed to news only, if more friends and bloated celebrities jump on board with Tout.

Add me (deadrobot) if you’re Touting!

Bless Me Father

Personal Bits Leave a reply

Once, when I was in 6th grade and not having a good day at all, I was waiting in line for the bus home. I was attending St Mary’s School and was being put through the Catholic school system, all the while not believing one iota about Jesus.

Oh sure I had respect for religion back then, but I couldn’t believe the story of Jesus. I was brought up on a diet of science fiction and knew that magic was an illusion from an early age, even when pertaining to a guy who could make water into wine. I didn’t quite fully understand the whole “no sex” thing between the staff though. I did go to a progressive school that taught us minimum sex education from a priest (he once told the class that women’s breasts were a “wonderful thing”) but we didn’t get into any priest/nun abstinence details. So nuns, like women in general, were a mystery to me. Nuns more so I guess. I feared them.

I digress. My point is that I respected religion and the people who worked in that particular chosen career.

So back to me in line. I had a terrible day. I don’t know what happened on that particular day – maybe a jock told me I was a fag or I got beat up or something, but I was grumpy. I looked to the front of the line and there was Linda. Liiiiiinnnnnndaaa – said with an angry expulsion of air through clenched teeth. The popular girl who I hated purely because she was popular. I don’t recall ever crossing paths with her but I knew I hated how easily the teachers chatted with her and how many friends she had. Liiiiiiinnnnnndaaaah….

Linda was doing it again. Chatting easily with the Sister who was monitoring our straight line as we waited for the bus to bring us home from school. They laughed and smiled and as anyone who is already in a bad mood knows, that is like flipping a magnifying glass onto your already burning ant bad mood.

The bus arrives and Liiiinnndaaa flips her hair, picks up her books and boards the bus but not before saying “Goodbye Sister!” to the nun. The nun… her name escapes me but I swear to you this day that my memory has her at 6ft, 8in, 310lbs of solid muscle and possibly a gym teacher. I know it’s typical, but I can’t deny my memories. Maybe it was because I was slight in school. This I am firm on, in my recall of this nun: she was smart and would speak her mind. But that day I had forgotten all that, shadowed by my foul mood.

We start entering the bus. The nun is telling everyone individually goodbye, by names. With each name her voice is like a hammer in my head. “Goodbye Paul!” Will… “Goodbye Allison!” You… “Goodbye Donald!” Please…

“Goodbye Ted!”

“SHUT UP!”

I make it to the second step on the bus before I notice that I’m being stared at, that a collective GASP has been chorused and that someone just yelled my name.

Oh right. That wasn’t a good idea.

I return to the Nun to receive my punishment – a week of detentions.

I spend the week in her class and write stories about being sorry. I remember I write about kids who made me mad and added a few disjointed science fiction stories just for good measure.