so… what a day. its been a while since i posted so i’d thought i’d write some quick thoughts. its late and i’m winding down from a long busy shift at work. if my thoughts seem scattered and unrelated its not my fault. first of all, y.e. yang won the pga championship, making him the first asian born (korean do be specific, south korean to be even more specific). contrary to many modern sports fans of my age, i love watching golf. it reminds me of sundays when i was a kid, watching final rounds of major tournaments with my dad, an avid golfer. it was like my mum knew that on those days my dad and i should not be disturbed as we watched a sport that no one would think could be exciting. to this day, probably fifteen years or slightly more since watching my first championship, i still watch golf because it reminds me of those lazy sundays with my father. don’t get me wrong, i love golf, and play it when i can, but i’m well aware it isn’t the most exciting sport out there. but today was certainly one that will be talked about, and will be forever marked in history books, because a relatively unknown asian golfer that corresponds to the media through an interpreter, beat the unbeatable tiger woods. the day was perfectly set up to be tiger’s, he went in with a small lead and it is well known that no one scrambles better on sunday than tiger. but yang kept his composure and an easy going mentality, highlighted by throwing one of his golf balls into the gathered crowd after a successful put, throughout the day which resulted in him being victorious. he didn’t seem to be affected by tigers presence. any other golfer in the world, as has been proven time and again, struggles when playing with tiger, with good reason. furthermore, tiger is excellent at making his presence felt, staying just within sightline on big puts and so forth.

but yang didn’t seem affected. expressed perfectly in his gorgeous eagle chip on fourteen which pretty much was the nail in the coffin for tiger. but maybe playing as an underdog is easier than facing the pressure tiger does. as a good friend put it to me today, ‘tiger’s playing like a pussy, he doesn’t deserve to win.’ perhaps the pressure causes tiger to play conservatively. hard to believe given his track record, after all he’s already blown away most of the records established by previous greats like jack nicklaus and sam sneed.

all that is irrelevant though. i did not intend to write an entire post on golf, i want readership. i simply wanted to write something and yang came to mind given that it was quite an epic day. i remember dr. thompson’s last written piece was on golf. given the fact that i’m currently reading, ‘the curse of lono,’ i’ve been thinking about the great doctor quite a bit. the last written work he did was called, ‘shotgun golf with bill murray.’ jesus, i just realised its four and i still haven’t gone to bed, a good reason not to work in a pub, it cuts into your sleep hours. anyway, the article can be viewed at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213, and i urge you to check it out. the basic premise is that hunter comes up with a new sport to make up for the lag in american nhl teams. he decides to call bill murray at 330 am to discuss said sport, shotgun golf, a game where one player tee’s off while the other attempts to shoot the ball out of the air. my favourite line comes toward the end when hunter and murray are discussing new clothing lines to go with the crazy sport.

but what does all this meaningless jibberish mean… well… nothing, which is why i described it as meaningless i suppose. it has just been quite sometime since i’d written so i thought i’d post something, whether it be awful or not. in the words of the good doctor, ‘mahalo.’ it only seems too fitting to quote him to end this post

i had an unfortunate encounter with one such person just yesterday. while he was looking down his nose at me in my grandmother’s white toyata, he got into his excessively large hummer (given the fact that you  live in a city, a concrete jungle if you will, what is the reason to own such a vehicle? in order to get over speed bumps? fuck off).he proceeded to reverse, at high speed, right into the front of my car. the asshole didn’t even bother to get off his blackberry ear piece as he climbed out of his tank and began to yell at me, without making eye contact, for denting the bumper on his beast of a car. the front end of my grandmother’s tercel was completely mangled whilst his bumber had a small dent, maybe an inch deep. on top of that he had reversed into my stationary vehicle. the mongloid stood there yelling at me while i internally considered my options: kick his ass; take his licensce plate number and call my insurance company; or call the cops (the pussy option obviously). i opted to to ram my fist into his thorax, effectively causing him to lose his breath, at which point i executed a maneuever from rugby, the staple, which is where you close your arms just behind the knees of your victim and then lift the rest of his/her (more often than not a ‘his,’ otherwise you will be frowned upon in modern society) body onto your shoulder, once stabilised, jump up and throw your shoulder to the ground (your feet in the air while your shoulder ‘staples’ your victims stomach into the ground).

of course the man screamed… like a four year old that has lost his mother in the department store, at which point every head on every patio within earshot turned to stare at me as i glared down at the worthless shell of a man at my feet. i realised, much later, that perhaps my actions were slightly extreme, but such scum must be dealt with in the most extreme matter. he will not gently go into that good fight again.

I wonder what that’s like? I wonder what it’s like to have a prof who doesn’t automatically assume that we all hate George Bush, that we all believe multinational corporations are the harbingers of doom, that we all think democracy-promotion abroad is imperialist evil?

Can you even imagine a prof who stood up at the front of the room and made a blanket right-wing statement—and said it completely matter-of-factly, as if it were an assertion of unassailable fact?

Of course, I should modify the first sentence of this post: I wonder what it’s like to have a prof that isn’t vapidly left-wing? There are plenty of intelligent left-wing people out there (such as myself) who can be reasonable about the American government, corporations, and democracy as a human right.

The proselytizing far-left university professor is a stereotype, but like all stereotypes, it has a real basis in truth. I actually can’t remember the last time I had a prof who was otherwise.

The reason why most people don’t do that is because they would like to get some of the benefits from the modern world. So they work a job and make some money to receive those benefits.

That isn’t selling your soul, unless you think your soul is only intact in the fucking woods. The soul is what you make of it, and can survive in any environment. The only reason why your soul would die is if you gave up on it—and that’s your own damn fault.

Though the T.S. Eliot-as-a-banker anecdote is a good one. There’s more: John Stuart Mill performed administrative work at the East India Company while devising some of the most brilliant and lasting philosophical works of all time. Albert Einstein revolutionized physics while working at patent office in Switzerland because no university would accept him as a professor.

There is absolutely no reason why what you do for a living should define you.

I realize I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you and that, as usual, you were being less-than-serious (especially, I hope, when you quoted Tyler Durden approvingly).

But surely, SURELY, you could anticipate that the phrase “life is about selling your soul” would require a response. Pseudo anarchist-hippie bullshit, is what that is. If one was to mean the phrase seriously.

Though I must admit that I generally recoil from telling people I work at Starbucks.

one thing i’ve noticed, at quarter past one in the evening, on a saturday, with a glass of carmenere, which is a red wine, from chile…. is that its rather difficult to try and write  while seinfeld is on in the background. but hey, that’s life right. there is nothing you can do about it. of course you could argue that i should simply turn the television off, but that is such an absurd idea that i will not even entertain the proposition, how dare you even mention such a ridiculous proposal. i’m getting a little off topic here, and i apologise… not sincerely though.

my thoughts tonight were on life. i realise how ludicrous that statement is, but i’m going to run with it anyway, because hey, this is my blog, not yours, so stop trying to tell me what to do. someone today asked me what i did, you know, for a living. after careful contemplation of the few jobs i may appear to be able to do, i felt that i could not lie because the lie really was not that good anyway, “i work for an advertising company,” or, “i’m a doorman at the hotel down the street,” don’t seem that impressive. i maybe could have thought of a better lie about ‘what i did,’ but it was a long day and i was far too tired to think too hard about such a question. so i told them the truth. of course they weren’t impressed. but fuck, who are they to judge me? i apologise for that last outburst, though not sincerely.

after a couple minutes of conversation i revealed that i was an aspiring writer, but that doesn’t ‘pay the bills.’ what a stupid thing to say. you’d think an ‘aspiring writer’ could think of something a little less cliche than that. the only other thing i could think of was, ‘hey check out my blog.’ the response given to me was equally cliche, what else can you expect, ‘hey, doing what you love never does.’ cliche, but after further thought, for the most part true. (for those of you who may completely disect this composition of thoughts, please note that i said ‘for the most part,’ not completely.) that sparked me to think that life is about selling your soul. i realise this sounds a bit extreme. but lets think on this for a minute. life is about selling your soul. let that sink in. it may not be true for absolutely everybody, but let’s look at it from the point of view of the artist. i think i can comfortably say that only a handful of great artists are properly appreciated during their time. for the most part, they have to work another job that ‘pays the bills’ in order to do what they love. look at t.s. eliot, james joyce, even hunter s. thompson had to do journalism even though novels were where his true passion was. or that have to do art that they don’t believe in to get ‘sales.’ take actors, even the best need to do a shitty blockbuster a la michael bay, in order to pay the bills. authors need to write something with mass appeal or they won’t be able to put food on the table. i could go on, but what’s the point. 

so what does this mean. ‘life is about selling your soul.’ it feels that most of us are working jobs simply to pay the bills. but at the same time, is that such a bad thing? isn’t that the way its always been? perhaps we’ve been misled by modern media into thinking that we should desire more than a steady income. since before the eighteen hundreds people were simply doing what would put food on the table, but all of a sudden we all think we are owed something by the world. we have been misled (yes i realise tyler durden has already made this point) that we can be whatever we want to be, and perhaps the true goal of life should be do what you can to enjoy the time that have. in other words, if being a banker (t.s. eliot) allows you to write the wasteland, than be a banker. 

on the other hand, perhaps i’m being ridiculous. perhaps we should fight for our dreams and aspirations. who the fuck knows. what the hell am i doing writing this on a blog that my friends don’t even read. this self-righteous bullshit that no one will call me on. except myself, i suppose that is gratification enough. otherwise i wouldn’t write it. 

in the words of hunter, mahalo

I have something to say about nuclear weapons.

First of all, *everybody* agrees that it would be better if there were none in the world. Okay? Any time somebody says that, as if they are making some kind of definitive moral statement, I want to smack them. Yes, we should try to get rid of nuclear weapons. Duh.

But let’s get two things straight:

1. AMERICA IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THERE BEING NUKES IN THE WORLD. Or at least not solely responsible. Nuclear weapons were going to be built no matter what; the only question was who was going to get them first. In particular, Einstein and many other scientists were adamant that Nazi Germany NOT be the first—this is what sparked the American program.

We can all agree that it is a good thing Hitler didn’t get the bomb first, right? Right? If not, you’re an idiot.

2. NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL NOT GO AWAY IF DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES SCRAP THEIR PROGRAMS. THAT WOULD ONLY EXACERBATE THINGS. Protesters who rally for America, Britain, and France to rid themselves of nukes are wasting their time (or worse, using their time for immoral ends).

If you truly want to have a nuclear weapons-free world, the only hope is strategic reduction through binding treaties where EVERYBODY slowly reduces their programs at the same time. In case you are a stupid person, I should point out that this means democratic countries will have to keep their nukes for a looooong time. (I might argue further that the only chance we have of a nuclear weapons-free world is when all the nuclear countries are democratic, but let’s leave that aside for now).

P.S. I hate hippies.

Fuck anyone who rationalizes and apologizes for dictatorship.

And fuck the people who agree with me but don’t have the balls to stand up for this when an argument erupts.

It is insane how I am consistently the only person at any given dinner table who argues for universal human rights.

How pathetic. It makes me despair for Canadian society.

i was about to finish my post here when a friend of mine gave me another theory. at the moment he is reading a rather large book about einstein. i’m not sure exactly what the book is called, or whether its by einstein or about einstein. i do know that it has theories of einstein’s in it, and i suppose that’s all i needed to say in the first place. and that may be true, but hey, its my blog so fuck you for judging me.

so, this book about einstein, or by einstein, or whatever, has a theory that if you put your twin brother in a ship that can travel the speed of light then when he comes back to earth he’ll be younger than you. that’s pretty much all i could grasp from what my friend was saying, it could be different, but lets work with this simplified version for the sake of my mental health. first of all, why would you want to put your twin brother in a ship traveling the speed of light? unless perhaps your twin brother was evil. but here we encounter another hole in the theory, why would you want to put an evil twin brother in a ship traveling the speed of light if he’ll only come back younger, and invariably stronger and better looking. this whole thing sounds flawed to me. perhaps thats why we don’t hear much from einstein anymore. 

on the other hand. what if you were the brother that was put into the ship that could travel the speed of light, and then you would come back to earth younger, and stronger in order to defeat the evil twin that was left here on earth. this makes more sense to me. einstein simply made a left turn where he most certainly should have turned right. i don’t think we can necessarily fault him for this, he did some other interesting things. 

i seem to have careened off topic here, and i apologise, though not profusely. my main point is that time, existence and everything else to do with the mysteries of life are all disconcerting topics that i prefer to distance myself from. over-thinking any of them causes severe anxiety and depression, that can only be soothed by the nurturing sensation of intoxication.

This cat deserves claw amputation

Let’s talk about declawing cats.

Look, if you want me to agree that you should avoid amputating the claws from your cat’s foot, I agree. Declawing is surgery, and thus involves some pain for the animal, and thus should be avoided if possible. And if the cat is an outdoor cat, it should never be declawed because it will surely need to defend itself from time to time.

But fucking hell. I can’t stand how crazy people get over things like this. If somebody keeps their cat indoors and the cat just won’t stop scratching (either people or furniture) no matter what you try, then declaw it. Modern animal medical science means you can give the cat painkillers until its feet heal. The cat will be fine. It’s not a big deal.

I got into a drunken debate over this the other night with a certain girl whose name rhymes with Pez, and not only with her: after we had argued for a few minutes, other people around the table started harassing me. One guy told me I was messing with “God’s creatures”; another told me I was just playing the devil’s advocate, and couldn’t possibly believe what I was saying. One person actually told me to stop talking about declawing because it was upsetting them too much. Obviously, I told everyone to go fuck themselves.

Why do people have to project so much onto animals and get so fucking emotional about it? The world is a harsh, cruel place. Any cat, declawed or not, leads an immeasurably more comfortable life with a human than they would if we left them alone to be one of “God’s creatures”. This is what God destines for his creatures in the wild: kill or be killed. Catch an animal, rip off its flesh and consume it raw, or have another animal do that to you.

If you break a leg in the wild? Sorry man; you gotta limp around with that thing until it becomes infected and covered in maggots. That’s nature. That’s God’s way.

Animals, for the most part, are unthinking automatons whose only motivations are to eat, shit, and sleep. That’s how it is. You don’t need to invent realities for them. Don’t tell me about the horrors of amputating a cat’s claw, as if the animal will be fucked for life; here’s what the American Veterinarian Medical Association has to say: “There is no scientific evidence that declawing leads to behavioral abnormalities when the behavior of declawed cats is compared with that of cats in control groups.”

Get that? It’s something called “SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE”, and it trumps your emotions. You aren’t going to get any sympathy out of me. And just because you get all weepy about it doesn’t make a difference to the cat. It’s just an animal.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat the beef curry I just made.

Mmmmmmm dead bovine.

law in canada says that anyone selling alcohol may not sell to anyone under the age of 19. furthermore, if a customer looks under the age of forty they must be ID’d, and if they cannot produce two pieces of identification they are not to be sold to. now i’m not positive about the whole ‘under forty’ thing, thats just something i’ve heard, but i am positive that if a customer cannot produce two pieces then they are not to be sold to. the problem is, when people are buying booze at 10-1030 at night, more often then not they’ve already been drinking, and may be more easily incited into confrontation depending on what type of personality they have. i have met about four people in the last two weeks that have the type of personality that when they are denied alcohol, because of their lack of identification, they become excessively verbally aggressive, usually bordering incoherent rants about my resemblance to a  ’fuckin faggot cop’ because i wouldn’t sell them alcohol.

the latest case of belligerence occurred on monday night at around 1030. the kid had certainly had a few drinks in him as he wondered into the liquor store. he had loser written all over him.  a brand new ball cap that he refused to bend the brim of, and still had the sticker on it. i hate that style, especially when they wear the hat slightly of centre, like they want to be some kind of gangster. he was also wearing a brightly coloured zip up hoodie, which for some reason seems to be rather popular right now, i have no idea why, it looks ridiculous, clown like. and then to top of his loser style were black skinny jeans and skate shoes… black fucking skinny jeans, what a jack ass. he walks into the store as if he’s too cool, scoffing at prices of single beers, cheap bastard. finally he chooses pabst blue ribbon, real fucking class. for those of you who may not be familiar with pabst, it is a cheap strong beer, reminds me of drinking wildcat in grade eight because you could get drunk of two. he puts the pabst on the counter and i ring it through the till and ask for ID. ‘your fucking joking right?’ ‘no.’ i see his anger and frustration rise with the speed only alcohol could trigger. ‘i’m twenty fucking five,’ he says, as though swearing at me will really help him plead his case. ‘well then you shouldn’t have a problem with showing me your ID then, two pieces.’ ‘i don’t have my fucking ID with me, i lost my wallet.’ ‘sorry bro, nothing i can do then, its the law.’ ‘what about my buddy outside, can he buy it?’ i glance outside and see a rather large man also in a hoodie, and i suddenly have the feeling that i’m going to have the shit beaten out of me for  a six pack of pabst. ‘ya, i don’t care, as long as he has ID.’

the loser walks out of the store to his huge buddy and begins to converse, most likely detailing to his friend what a jerk i am for not selling to him. after a few moments he comes back in without his buddy  and says, ‘he’s almost thirty.’ ‘ok,’ i say, unsure of why he has begun this second half of our conversation with that statement. ‘he doesn’t have his wallet either.’ why are two mid twenties guys out downtown at night buying beer without ID? you can’t get into any bar, no matter how old you look, without ID. ‘well then i can’t sell to him either.’ at this point another comes into the store and walks towards the beer. the idiot in the hoodie says, ‘hey man, could you buy our beer for us? this guy won’t sell to us because we don’t have ID.’ the other customer that has come in is apparently a lot smarter than the jack ass in the hoodie, and he responds. ‘are you an idiot? i would have if you’d asked me outside, have you never had someone buy beer for you? you can’t ask them right in front of the staff.’ the jack ass responds, ‘fuck you.’ i was blown away by his incredible vocabulary, so much so that i wanted to sell to him, i really really did, he had won me over with his charm. if only we didn’t have all these damn laws. ‘so your not going to sell to me?’ ‘no, i can’t, its the law, nothing i can do.’ ‘fuck you! i fucking hate people like you. you know what your like?’ ‘no, i don’t, please inform me, although i’m certain you were going to wether i wanted you to or not.’ perhaps i could have avoided further verbal taunting if i had responded in a different way. ‘your a fucking faggot. your like a fucking cop, i hate cops. your a fucking faggot cop, i should kick your fucking ass.’ as he is saying all this he is backing away from me towards the door, how can you take threats seriously when the person shouting them is retreating? ‘alright, thats enough, you can leave now.’ ‘fuck you. fucking faggot. i’m gonna kick your ass as soon as you leave here.’ ‘ok buddy, have a good night.’ at this point the jack ass decides to spit, i suppose it was at me but he obviously has not been practicing his insulting spit because it seemed to just spray out of his mouth the spit does when someone makes a fart noise with their mouth. 

he wasn’t the first, nor will he be the last. jack asses will always be around, whether we like it or not