MICROFIBRE?!

SCENE: the bay, menswear.

WIFE, overbearingly: "don? don? don, where are you? oh there you are - come over here, don. no, just put those down and come here. what are you looking at? shirts? what are you looking at shirts for? don? why are you looking at shirts? who are those shirts for, don?"

HUSBAND, meekly: "um, for me?"

WIFE: "don what do you need a shirt for? put those down and come over here. see? we're almost at the front of the line. now put those away and come here!"

HUSBAND: "they're microfibre..."

WIFE, to don et every other person within 50 feet: "MICROFIBRE!? MICROFIBRE! that is the best! oh wow that is great! microfibre! wears great, washes great, no ironing... microfibre! that is the best material you can get for a shirt! look at that shirt! bring that over here, don! microfibre!"

later, by way of explanation as WIFE donned her reading glasses, better to read over my shoulder with: "oh, once I walked into a glass wall and broke my nose, haven't been able to see since."

and then as WIFE read my scratch and save over my shoulder: "THIRTY PERCENT!? WOW! you should buy the whole store!"
"oh, actually that is the lowest you can get," I replied.
"thirty percent! once I bought some pillowcases, must have been $80 each, and then I took them on vacation and I swear I lost one of them. never saw it again."

and only moments later as WIFE scratched her own scratch and save: "HEY! I got thirty percent too! hurray!"
"oh, sorry you didn't get the 50%" I said consolingly.
"DON! THIRTY PERCENT!"

finally came time to pay. her enormous wallet was failing to yield her bay card:
"what about my sears card? can I just use that? I know I have my bay card in here somewhere, but can I just give you my sears card for now?"

WHERE DO THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?

carb fatigue

the canadian carb market no longer excites me. in the united states in the corn chip sector alone, tostitos had two new offerings - both unavailable in canada. I wonder if such matters are included in those quality of life surveys. because state-side living has just gone way up in my books.

people I have spoken to at primus

jason*, rob*, paul*, stephanie*, julian†, jennifer†, sharjeel†, abdel†, maleka*, abdel,† aman†, aman†, vicky*, aman†, vicky*, aman†, sonya*, amrish†, eric*, denis*, beverly†, charmaine*, sean*, jasmin†, sherry†, fabian†, lisa†, swapnil†, roland†, lorna*, hazel*, kate*, louise*, kim*, wilson†, patrick†, paula†, kim†, gaye*, anna*, depika†.

* primus montreal
† primus india

swapnil is my best friend of the bunch. he told me lies, I yelled at him, he called my parents' house, told some lies, my dad yelled at him, he called me back, told me some more lies and I yelled some more. aman is also a big liar. I spent one hour on the phone with roland yelling at him to get me a supervisor. he won that battle, however, since the office closed while I was waiting and he just hung up on me. vicky was far less helpful than she was last year when I had dsl trouble. wilson was very helpful though, if I remember correctly.

giving thanks

thank you dishwasher repairman for fixing the new dishwasher.

thank you dishwasher repairman for saying that you rectified my shoddy install job and then screwing on the baseplate so I could not confirm that you had indeed rectified my shoddy install job. you did not rectify my shoddy install job.

thank you dishwasher repairman for leaving a bootprint on the wall.

class quiz

more than once, in a feeble attempt to break the monotony of hours of unfathomably dull lectures, a professor has thrown up a picture of some obscure sports star and asked for an ID - michael jordan, wayne gretsky, mark mcguire, or someone else equally unidentifiable. needless to say, I can never identify the mystery athlete.

anyways, I have this ongoing fantasy that one day someone will throw up a picture of grant achatz, or ferran adria, or even michael stadtlander, and I will wow everyone with my culinary erudition.

high pressure dentistry

I saw an article today that the dentists at my school have begun taking part in the simulated patient interviews program. I am sorry, but what interviews do dentists need to practice ? I speak about 10 words to my dentist every time I am there and they are all small talk. I have never been interviewed by my dentist in my life. furthermore, the article said that they even teach dentists to deal with the pressure-cooker situations they are likely to encounter in real practice. pressure-cooker?

"so, mr. jones, do you floss daily?"
"of course."
"okay, whoah, time out. group, I am getting the feeling there may be some compliance issues here with mr. jones. his gingiva just do not have that daily flosser look... okay, I think have some ideas now for how to approach this. time in. mr. jones, are you sure you floss daily?"
"yup. every day."
"wow. time out. I do not know where to go from here, group. I mean, I am certain I am not getting the full story, but am worried about pushing too far on this point."

just in time, the faculty member stepped in: "okay, let's all take a breather here. why don't we practice breaking that bad news we were talking about, then come back to this."

"time in. mr. jones, I have something else I need to discuss with you. but before we start, is there anyone else you would like to have present? please feel free to bring someone in with you if you would be more comfortable. and is this a good time for you? if not, we can always schedule a family meeting at a better time. okay, great. oh, and the tissues are right over there if you need them. now mr. jones, I am afraid I have some bad news to share with you. we were looking through some of your dental x-rays and... well, some findings came up that I really think you need to know about. now I should tell you that we have reviewed the x-rays many times, and are only bringing this up because we are absolutely certain about the... condition. um... well, mr. jones, it seems that you have a small cavity in your left upper canine. now I know how shocking something like this can be, and we would be happy to set up a meeting with social work for you if you think it would help. I would like you to talk this over with your family, and please call me if you have any questions. here, let me give you my home number - please call at any time if you have any questions at all. remember, I am here for you. you don't have to go this alone."

my least favourite canadian long distance provider

hi primus! thanks for overbilling me for the third month in a row! I hate you!

p.s. get some new hold music. I have heard all your songs so many times. also it is jarring when you switch from the contemporary easy jazz to the lite classical.

p.p.s. you said you were desole but I would be on hold for dix minutes. my phone now says 14:05 so stop talking to me in french and connect me please.

help I am going to be kidnapped

following the successful removal of our old dishwasher, and the quasi-successful installation of our new dishwasher (I was using so many tools. I am such a man) we were left with an old dishwasher blocking our front hall. fearing that this appliance posed too great a fire hazard to wait until its scheduled removal next week, I found another store that claimed to remove old appliances:

said in a thick russian accent: "hello"
"um... is this 'appliance centre'?"
"yes this is appliance centre, what you want?"
"do you remove old appliances?"
"yes we can remove old appliance. for small... uh... disposal fee"
"okay, how much would that be?"
"one moment. I think. okay thirty five dollar," said the russian. "plus some taxes."
"do you take credit cards?"
"no, cash better. thirty five dollar, cash. where you live?"

so I foolishly gave him my address and set up an appointment for this evening. he closed our conversation by reminding me about the taxes. it is good to see that the service industry is so conscientious about paying the government its due.

but my friend just called back and moved our scheduled time up an hour or so. now I have no time to put my elaborate plan of booby traps into action. so if you do not hear from me after this, I am probably in moscow running errands for the mob.

the keg has kelly kwan

went to my very first keg ever tonight in celebration of my birthday. it was supposed to be kind of ironic, but I ended up rather enjoying it. anyway, the london keg appears to have a white kelly kwan. a few years ago, kelly somehow divined that it was my birthday, and brought me a dessert with a solitary candle seemingly magically affixed to the plate. tonight, white kelly kwan also somehow knew it was my birthday. well there was a birthday card on the table, so maybe he saw it, but that is okay. and the candle was shoved in a giant slab of mocha ice cream, but the latter was actually quite delicious. and I suppose white kelly kwan did not so much coo sweet nothings in my ear and pirouette about the white ostrich banquettes as much as he gave me finger guns and declared that picking up subtle birthday hints 'is just how we roll.'

oh kelly kwan (the asian original, not the white impostor) why do you stick it out with that shameless sellout susur when you could have any of the top rooms in TO?

fresh affectation

james chatto just used "rooms" as a synonym for restaurants. as in: "even our most expensive toronto rooms offer astounding value when put in a global context." I think I may put that into my rotation.

tanblog

day 1: for my vacation in the sun, a conservative sunning strategy was adopted. liberal use of sunblock and conscientious observance of high UV times of day. surely this will result in a superior shade of golden brown.
day 2: no evidence of sun save fierce burn on forehead. who gets burned on their forehead? nonetheless, continued faith in this conservative approach to sunning resulted in ongoing adherence to this model.
day 3: still no evidence of sun on my white skin other than bright red forehead. time to get down to business, clearly. big guns were called in in the form of low spf dry oil spray.
day 4: light burn appearing. dry oil continued. no pain, no gain, after all.
day 5: dry oil what have you done! oh severe heat rash. oh excruciating itchiness. oh benadryl overdose.
day 6: continued benadryl od. day's events somewhat foggy.
day 7: heat rash faded to white. undaunted by extreme discomfort of preceding two days, resumed aggressive tanning. minus the presumed guilty dry oil.
day 8: torso pink like a lobster. rest of body white.

old wrinkled floridians, what is the secret behind your rich golden skin?

typographical hero

journal of the royal society of medicine, is that a ligature I see in your pages? was the ascender on that f jarring too unpleasantly with the dot on that i for your sensibilities? I approve of your delicate typographical sensibilities, and I declare that on the basis of typesetting alone, journal of the royal society of medicine, you are my favourite journal.

gone tanning

off to gently brown. will wear shorts for first time since 2001. urgently require manpris.

back in a week.

I am so wounded

the lateral aspect of the tip of my right ring finger is completely numb. regretfully, I will have to skip my jumping jacks and situps tonight on account of this injury.

also I hope this is not a tb flareup or something.

thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's designer furniture

I recently saw an article in a medical journal bemoaning the negative image of plastic surgeons created by nip/tuck. I think someone is a little jealous because they do not have $22,000 in barcelona chairs and stools in their waiting room. perhaps someone is a touch envious because there is no francisfrancis espresso machine in their break room? to be quite honest, I think it would be admirable to aspire to be like mcnamara/troy. frette in the recovery room? I see no problems there.

my honour has been besmirched

since it was getting tedious copy-pasting my blog into an email message every time a publisher came calling, I started storing my blog in microsoft word. well, microsoft word just told me that I now have too many spelling mistakes. it can no longer stand to spell check my document. whatever, microsoft word, I do not even care that much. spelling is highly overrated. surely spelling is the lowest rung in the hierarchy of language - nothing but rote memorization. the white zin of the english world, if you will. the light margarine, the grade c foie, the classical guitar, the trivial, the banal, the mundane. surely the mind is better fed with cheese blogs and food forums. a rowdy discussion on the merits of grosgrain trim on your dinner jacket is undoubtedly more important than the number of m's in comedy. honestly, I have better things to do than figure out which vowels belong in definitely.

p.s. book publishers do not worry I will spell check.

modestly refreshing sub-arctic blast

okay, I do not consider myself a delicate flower in the palate department. but I must say that I find mouthwash to be far too potent for my sensibilities. even with a hasty swish and gargle, my mouth is on fire. a glass of cold water to rinse out the caustic peppermint seems to only make it worse. so I have taken to diluting the mouthwash 1:1 with some water in my glass. but I would be lying if I did not say this makes me feel like less of a man. surely a true man would have the oral fortitude to withstand 30 seconds of fresh mint. so here is the solution: listerine et al., why not make a light version? I would even pay full price for your diluted product, so long as there was no mention of light on the label. I could then take a proud swig from my seemingly-normal bottle, and no one need be the wiser. listerine, I am feeling big money here. 50-50 on domestic profits?

power outage

it is like little house on the subdivision around here. big power outage, so I had to rough it for a while. for instance, a second banana raspberry smoothie would have been nice, but I rustically made do with only a square of el rey's single origin icoa white chocolate (delicious!). also our cordless phones of course did not work, but that is okay because I am a man of the land. after felling some trees for our fire, I used our corded phone in the kitchen to call the hydro company and enquire regarding the outage. I also churned some butter and tanned some hides I WISH THAT IS WHAT I DID. THAT IS WHAT I DREAM OF DOING EVERY DAY WHEN WE DO HAVE POWER. well not actually tanning the hides, I hear that smells really bad. just procuring some tanned hides. but I am serious about churning the butter.