The aforementioned new feature is live. Have a look over to your left and dig the new testimonials section. Keep refreshing to scroll through them all. I managed to collect about 12 good ones, but the rest of the submissions really fell a bit short of the mark. I hope that now you’re able to see the feature in action, you can bring your full A-game to the tepid task of testimonial typing – right here in the comments. Help a brother out.
Archives for April 2005
Trailer Park Boys Season 5 Starts Tonight!
The boys are back in town. How fucking excited am I?
Hard to believe it’s already been a year since we first met Conky and Steve French. And what’s in store for us this time around? According to Showcase’s official site, a whole fuckin’ whackload:
“Grandmothers in drug dens; wheelchair fraud arrests; nasty rap videos; stolen rocket launchers; break-ins at the local college; dope shipped in shopping carts; Lahey getting an award and probably the biggest gun fight in Canadian television history—and that includes King of Kensington.”
For my American friends who want to see what all the fuss is about, episodes are usually available for download via torrent here just a few hours after they’re aired in the Great White North. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to another summer in Sunnyvale.
Friday’s Quizzlet: Tie Domi Let Me Eat Cake.
Appetizer: What was your first “real” job?
I assume by “real” quizzlet that you mean salaried. My first job was a paperboy, but my first “real” job was as a junior web developer for a now defunct Internet incubator. It was a low-paying, entry level job but the competition for it was still fierce. After I got home from the interview, (this was 1999) I fired up a strange program I’d found called “Flash” or something – and redid their entire website on my own web space. When the CEO of the company saw the site (I eventually forwarded the link to the underling who had interviewed me) he said two things. The first was “Jesus, that’s not our new site, is it?” The second was “Hire that kid”.
Soup: Where would you go if you wanted to spark your creativity?
My roofdeck. A few years ago I went up there with a pen and a notebook for the afternoon and mapped out my first retail website. The logo, the design, the site map, most of the content – everything. My creativity was also probably enhanced by the strange tea my roomate had given me earlier, and the fact that I thought I was on Pluto.
Salad: Complete this sentence: I am embarrassed when…
…people tell me they’re embarrassed to be American.
Main Course: What values did your parents instill in you?
My mother is an all around good soul. She kept me on a short leash and gave me an even mix of discipline and support for which I’ll forever be grateful. My father, on the other hand, was more like the Tie Domi of the household, enforcing my mother’s will whenever I got a little too fucking cheeky. He’d skate onto the ice and goon me whenever I started crowding the crease. But he did have his memorable parental moments, and I’ll share one with you now. When I was about 6, my mother had a birthday party at which people from the neighborhood came over and did the usual. The next night my mother, who was doing home fashion parties at the time, went out leaving me alone with Gordo – and an enormous leftover chocolate cake which stood unguarded in the dining room. I couldn’t stop thinking about that damn cake, but I knew that in order to get to it I’d have to sneak past my father who was watching hockey in the living room. He’d have his back to me, so I decided to risk it. Unfortunately, I risked it about seven too many times. During my umpteenth sortie to sneak in, get a fingerful of icing and then scoot back to my bedroom, something went horribly wrong. A split second after I looked over my shoulder to make sure my father was facing the other way, he quietly ran up behind me. As I returned my attention to the cake, he grabbed both my ears and rammed my face firmly into the choclately goodness. “Nobody likes a thief. You want the fucking cake? Have the fucking cake”. There was a similar incident weeks later with chocolate pudding and the two messages reverberate through time to me even now – I am still incapable of stealing. Although in all fairness I haven’t been confronted with Jell-O pudding in a long while.
Dessert: Name 3 fads from your teenage years.
I was less susceptible to fads by my teens. I think a better question would have been to ask me about fads from my childhood. One thing I do remember from Grade 9 at Lorne Park Secondary School in Mississauga, 1988 and my first foray into the teen years, was that my clique wore nothing but clothing from Mark’s Work Wearhouse. We all had the same green workpants with the ends rolled up, the same fleece MountainGear tops and the same bad 1/2 buzzed on one side, 1/2 long on the other haircuts. We were far too young to be drinking, having relations, running from police – and we definitely way overshot the section of the eighties when it was cool to emulate Flock of Seagulls. So there you have it. If I were to wind back a little further into childhood, I’d have to discuss my unhealthy fascination with SeaMonkeys. That’s not a joke. Ask Janet.
Cinco De Cinco: Five Years Of Flan And Counting.
It’s official. It’s happening. The chihuahua is out of the bag. Harvest the limes and board up the Alamo. Grease up the roofdeck – It’s time for a little Cinco de Cinco!
The 5th annual Cinco De Mayo party will be held Saturday May 7th at The SideBar! Corona will be holding a promotion, my usual DJ will be spinning himself silly, and we’ll be going all the way until 2AM. The official Evite is here, and I’ll be adding more people gradually over the next few days. It’s a free-for-all, so don’t be shy. Bring your friends, add your friends, introduce your friends to my friends, get a tetanus shot. Send me an email if you would like to be added and haven’t been already.
Last year was a decent time, especially when I got punched in the face, and I promise this year will be even better. Between the gratuitous violence and the sunburn, it’s amazing I got any liquoring done. Make the nightmares stop. Speaking of sunburns – weather-permitting, and in keeping with tradition, the roofdeck will be a rockin’ all afternoon prior to the official par-tay. Feel free to join us/make a noise complaint. And if anyone would like to volunteer to have a pinata constructed in their likeness, a la Summer Wheatley, it would be much appreciated.
Back to the Evite – anyone who replies “maybe” and doesn’t have solid plans for that day, or at the very least a gravely ill family member, can suck a habenero. Vote for Pedro.
Sing My Praises. Let’s Fucking Go Here, People.
UPDATE: Hey, Losers! I’m not writing any more entries until I get some more testimonials. And yes – I promise. I write for you guys every day. You can grace me with a sentence or two. Now excuse me while I go run around in nothing but a Canada T-Shirt.
Web logs are like little virtual Frankenstein monsters, each borrowing the best bits from the other. One thing I’ve seen a lot of recently are testimonials from fans and loyal readers. When done correctly, these can take some of the narcissistic steam out of feeling important enough to have your own blog, and be quite hilarious in the process. I’m thinking about including a javascript which rotates a selection of them somewhere in the main site template. Simply put, every time you visit the site or refresh the main page, you’d see a new blurb about Pye In The Face, me or whatever.
I have a collection of comments, good and bad, that I’ve been emailed over the last 10 months – and there’s a also a great crop of material here. I’ll probably get to this over the weekend whilst taking a break from far more important projects. If you’d like to take a stab at writing one that might be included, please do so right here. Keep them short, funny and honest. Anonymous posts will be deleted. Now picture me bracing myself.
Diddler On The Roof.
Have a look at this timeline if you need a quick refresher on the extent to which Michael Jackson has had an influence on popular culture. It’s easily forgotten, but still astounding. I’ve been teetering back and forth as to whether or not the latest round of child abuse allegations have any merit. I’m sure we’re all thinking to ourselves “If this many people have come forward over the years, there must be some truth to it, right?” It’s a tough call. But I learned a few things last night while watching Hannity and Colmes that really got me swinging over to Mike’s side a little bit. Perhaps I’ll share…
No one who’s ever accused Jackson of molestation has gone directly to the police, ever. They go to tabloids or right to Jackson himself. Ask yourself why. When the maid and bodyguard who’ve recently testified against Jackson were in his employ, they had media brokers on call at all times. That’s someone you pay to sell your story to the highest bidding tabloid. That would make sense if you had said juicy story first, but these people got jobs at Neverland, hired the brokers and then sat around waiting to see/manufacture something scandalous to share with the world. You can’t tell me that level of premeditation scores well on the credibility scale. And none of the kids have ever taken the stand – unless they’re now in their early 20’s and addicted to heroin. It’s always the parents who do all the talking and then, of course, all the subsequent spending. Mike is a mark.
Michael Jackson is a strange man. In fact, he’s a complete whackadoo. But I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while longer. Corey Feldman and MacCauley Culkin both refused to testify against him when asked by the current prosecution. As a founding member of both of their fanclubs (culkfeld.com), I have to stand behind their good judgement – like some sort of sad, 31-yr-old wannabee Goonie.
Don’t Use My Gym If You’re Injured Or Constipated.
If I were to ever let this blog digress into a whiny, moany whinge-fest – it’d be no different from 99.9% of the rest of them. Most blogs are fucking horrible. And it’s no accident that most blogs also involve a droll sadsack with the personality of a meadow cricket sharing their long laundry list of why they rule and the rest of humanity ‘just doesn’t get it’. Chirp, chirp, chirp.
Rhetorical questions (“Why does my boss always ask me to do something right as I’m about to leave work?!”) always seem to punctuate the mess at every given turn. And as much as I yearn to reply “because they want to wrong-hole you in the copier room after everyone else leaves”, I refrain – as that would denote interest and truthfully I wouldn’t piss on them were they on fire. So I try to keep the uninteresting, psuedo-intellectual rambling to a minimum. Better allowing me to make fun of those that do not. I then, in the process, become guilty of it myself. But I add lots of pretty pictures and people keep reading me anyway.
But someone left a band-aid in the shower at my gym today, and my aforementioned attempt at whinge-restraint has just come to a shrieking halt. You filthy bastard. You uncouth heathen fucktard. Here’s the worst part: It wasn’t swirling around in the drain as you’d expect. No – it had been placed neatly in a groove at my eye level where the tile ends and the normal wall begins. And as I stood there shaking my head in disbelief, the “guy-who-never-actually-uses-the-gym-but-works-on-the-same-floor-and-just-comes-in-to-take-craps” arrived. Usually leisurely, my remaining time toweling off and getting dressed then became about as enjoyable as shovelling out a month old, newly discovered bathtub crime scene in July.
Where am I going with this? Quite crazy.
The Mad Doctor Strikes Again.
You may remember Dr. Taz’s eloquent ranting abilities from this previous posting – but nothing could prepare me for his thoughts, emailed to me only this morning, regarding the just-announced lineup of this year’s legendary Glastonbury Festival. The quick synopsis is that legends like New Order, Elvis Costello and Echo and the Bunnymen are being demoted so that Kylie fucking Minogue can have the coveted Sunday closing time slot. But there’s no need to get my panties in a bunch when Taz, who actually has tickets, already has his drawers tied securely around his neck:
Ok, in my opinion it’s been dogsh*te for years but surely even you diehard gluttons for punsihment who like to wallow in pikey’s piss and watch overrrated bands and 60 year old has-beens in a large sodden field (withmost of Islington and Battersea’s 30-somethings going all ‘rock’) SURELY cannot stump up any more of your hard-earned on this tripe?!
Sorry, Kylie…you are a poisoned talentless dwarf with a horse gob who has contributed nothing but utter torment to the pop canon and should be suffocated with a pillow in your sleep to stop your incessant warbling…yet the godlike Rufus Wainwright and legends like New Order are lower down the bill! About as cheesy and cynical as commercialism gets. I will personally install a napalm toilet into the organiser’s rider this year. I should be so lucky…lucky, lucky, lucky.
Next year, move over Coldplay and White Stripes, Sat night headlining on The OK Magazine Chav Stage will be Charlotte Church giving a soapy tit-wank to Aled Jones while exclusively showcasing their duet Xmassingle in Welsh… an ‘Unplugged’ set by The Krankies and the exhumed carcass of Benny Hill will do ‘Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West’ with a full 68 piece orchestra and laser show. Tickets will be 450 GBP plus VAT. Fantastic.
Don’t sugarcoat it.
I Feel The Need, The Need For Speed.
I’ve successfully migrated the site over to a new server. The result? Faster load times and, hopefully, much faster post times. What this means to you, dear reader, is that if you’ve had trouble posting comments in the past due to slow speeds (which I’ve heard many of you have) give it another try. It should now smoke like Tom Cruise were he locked inside the RamRod.
Friday’s Quizzlet: Miraculous Doritos.
Appetizer: What is a symbol that inspires you?
There’s a flag you can get – I looked for a photo online but unfortunately couldn’t find one for you – which is a combination of the Canadian and American flags. I’ve seen them flying both up North and down here, usually close to the border, and they always make me smile. The disconnect, animosity and ignorance from both sides towards the other tears me up a little bit as I feel a close affinity with both nations. But I can always take a little solace in Mark Steyn.
Soup: Name something that happened in your life you’d consider a miracle.
Does the $40 scratch ticket on New Year’s Eve 1993 count? Didn’t think so. I’ve had a great life thus far – but nothing really stands out as an Earth-shattering miracle. That’s a very strong word. Even the Goddamn Pope died. A family member just had a potentially very scary MRI scan come back negative – so I’m going to go with that.
Salad: How do you handle criticism?
With salad tongs. But seriously, folks – not all that well. If you ever run into me on the street, naked and covered with chocolate syrup and beestings – that’s me handling criticism. But you should really get a shower and a beekeeper’s uniform before leaving the house next time. What in the fuck is wrong with you?
Main Course: Complete this sentence: I feel alone when…
I am in a room by myself. But it’s only a matter of time until the voices in my head show up. I’ve saved thousands on therapy because I’ve embraced these voices, and besides – they always bring along some Doritos.
Dessert: Name one TV show you wouldn’t be caught dead watching.
I’m not one to talk, as I watch a lot of reality television. The easy answer would be something like Antiques Roadshow. But I friggin’ love Antiques Roadshow – so I’m in a bit of a pickle again. Let’s split the difference and say anything on Lifetime starring Meredith Baxter Birney. Unless they’re doing a biopic on one of the appraisers from Antiques Roadshow.
Reasons To Bring Me On Outside Sales Calls.
I’ve been away all morning because I was asked to tag along on a sales call in Stoughton. Although it’s not my forte, I always seem to do quite well in these situations. A proper sales guy goes out to see a potential client and I tag along to explain some of the more geeky aspects of search engine marketing. So, if you think you might need a proven closer to accompany you on your next prospecting mission, here are some reasons you should pick me:
- I will never break wind (audibly) whilst giving a Power Point.
- I will massage your neck, in front of the client, before and after every question you are asked. Think Rocky and Mick.
- Should the client fail to offer you a beverage upon our arrival, I will cough loudly until they wise up. Or at least until I am escorted out by security.
- As soon as we are asked about R.O.I. I will look around the room and whisper loudly to you “I guess they don’t want this Roy guy to know we’re talking about him”.
- To make sure the client doesn’t think we’re trying to fleece them with marketing-babble, I will combine several overused phrases into a brand new one: “Leveraging low hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box”.
The Boys Of Summer.
I slid through a pile of something unspeakable on the sidewalk across from the Orpheum this morning. And as I looked down upon a foul-smelling mix of partially digested soup kitchen ziti and broken whiskey bottle glass, a realization hit me like the scent of stomach acid in August – they’re baaaaaack.
Those of you who’ve been reading Pye In The Face for a while know where I stand on the homeless. Have a look at those two links if you need a refresher or another reason to dislike me. I honestly feel bad for people who’ve lost their way and have ended up living rough due to mental illness or addiction. But the line has to be drawn somewhere. Boston has, what seems to me, a disproportionate number of vagrants, drunks and hobos. And to make it worse, a good number of them are super-aggressive, foul-mouthed and even violent.
I traverse the majority of downtown twice every single day on my way to and from work. So before you bite my head off for being cold-hearted, ask yourself if you’ve got a good working knowledge of our local rabble. And imagine what tourists, senior citizens, children, etc. are exposed to when they come to visit this great historic city. Walking through the Common in another couple of weeks will make Calcutta look like Boca Raton.
Amazing Music Quiz In My Bloggy Absence.
Loyal readers – listen to me very carefully. Right click here and then opt to save the file to your desktop. Prepare to take the coolest music quiz there’s probably ever been. What you’ll see when you open the file are hundreds of photos of bands – type the correct band name into the corresponding cell and get a point. I look forward to finding the time, any time, to really try my hand at this. Come back later and post your scores.
UPDATE: This is killing my bandwidth and I’ve removed it. If you’d like me to email it to you, let me know.
The Tale Of Lemmiwinks.
I’m not feeling particularly like writing anything today, as I’m up to my ears in the week from hell. But this made me laugh hysterically in the midst of my ordeal, and I wanted to share. It’s a bit on the rude side, so watch your volume. Here’s hoping we all find our Sparrow Prince, someday.
Friday’s Quizzlet: Quick And Definitely Dirty.
Appetizer: Describe your week in one word.
Paradoxical.
Soup: Tell about a funny practical joke that you’ve played on someone.
At Vermont Academy, the boys dorm was located right beside the main classroom building. Fuller Hall also had an auditorium and – most importantly – a bell tower. The tower could be accessed by climbing a spiral staircase which was located off a locked prop room in the auditorium. We brow-beat one of the band geeks who had a key to this room until they ‘lent’ it to my friend Mark. After morning-meeting, Mark unlocked the prop room and took a rope up into the tower. He tied the rope to the bell pull, dropped it out of the steeple, and we all began a long school day worrying that our little prank-in-progress would be discovered. But nobody noticed the dangling rope, and after lights-out we dropped a similar rope out of our third floor dorm window. Then Mark snuck outside (an expellable offence) while the rest of us played lookout on various floors. Mark darted across the lawn between the two buildings and eventually tied the two ends of rope together – providing us with full bell-ringing access from the comfort of our own room. We waited until about 3 a.m. and started ringing the bejeezus out of the damn thing – waking the entire campus. Eventually we noticed the maniacal headmaster sprinting towards the scene of the crime. We simply dropped the rope out of the window and went back to our respective rooms. As a variety of teachers started bursting through doors in an attempt to catch the culprits, 5 naughty schoolboys giggled furiously into their pillows. Jesus that last sentence sounds filthy.
Salad: – Name someone you had a crush on when you were a kid.
A Mississauga girl named Michelle. The crush teetered precariously on ‘morbid obsession’.
Main Course: If you were a member of royalty, what would your title be?
Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl. Or maybe Little Lord Fauntelroy.
Dessert: What colors are the clothes you are wearing today?
Dark blue jeans, cobalt blue jumper, pink thong. What are you wearing, dear readers? And will it be wrong to print out your descriptions so I can masturbate to them later?