The Hell is Wrong With You?

I've tried to be patient with you, Stupid Canadians, but apparently my patience is only giving you reason to believe you can get away with the stupid shit you've been writing to me. It's time that I took the kid-gloves off and gave you the thrashing you deserve.

To the old man from BC who claims that homosexuality causes AIDS:
NO! No, no, no. Seriously? What the hell is wrong with you? Just because you use the term "pH" in your letter it does not mean that I will think you know what you are talking about. You could have got that off a deodorant commercial! Plus, your theory that HIV didn't come from monkeys in Africa, but spontaneously generates whenever people have anal sex assumes that nobody went down the dirt road before 1975. I don't know how much you know about Classical Greece, or even Contemporary Pornography, but the usage of the bum as it was never intended is by no means a recent event or confined to the gay community.

I can't assume that you know much about chemistry or biology, since you actually wrote this letter, so let me tell you a few things: first, spontaneous generation was disproven about 300 years ago. I don't care how old you are, you're not THAT old. Second, have you ever seen a pH reaction? We do this in elementary school these days, but take some baking soda and some vinegar and dump them together. That is what a pH reaction looks like. If that was happening inside of your ass I think that you'd notice and perhaps decide that anal sex just isn't for you. Third, your theory supposes that everyone that has anal sex has HIV. Apparently you've never lived in Ottawa. There are many gay people here that are not dead. In fact, a considerable portion of the staffers on the Hill, the people that are opening your letter, are gay and would likely have a lot to say about your theory. The moral of the story: elementary school science is a good thing to learn, and you should always consider your audience when writing anything.


To the Religious Conservative who claims that marriage was created "by God."
Have you even read the Bible? Maybe you could show me the part where God indicates that he requires a legally-binding ceremony to allow people to bump uglies under his sight. Unless you're hiding a couple commandments somewhere that we just haven't heard of, there's just no spot in the Bible in which God expresses any kind of interest in weddings. You can infer things from biology if you want, but that's pretty hypocritical. Darwin infered things from biology and you sure don't like him much. We can also infer from biology that it's a bad idea to have sex with your parents, but that happens a fair deal in the Bible.

By the way, have you even heard of the separation of the church and state? Most countries agree that it's a pretty good thing. Except Iran of course, and we all agree that nothing you socially and politically conservative, patriotic, and Judeo-Christian people would disagree with has ever come out of Iran.

The only good argument that I've heard against gay-marriage was coming from a person who was, himself, gay. He wasn't so arrogant to assume that God cares about the laws of men, he just said that it was pretty jerkish of the gay community to go so totally against years of tradition and piss off a lot of people just so they can be legally recognized. Eat that Bible thumpers! This AIDS-making, sin-against-God of a human just made your points better than you could ever hope to. Choke on the irony!


To the guy that claims to have a free-energy machine:
I, and many others on the Hill, have taken highschool physics courses. You're fooling nobody. If Isaac Newton were here he would kick your ass. Quit sending us letters.

My Purpose in Life

In the strictly biological sense, there are exactly four reasons that a male is born into this world:
1 - To assist in making babies
2 - To hunt for food
3 - To defend the family from predators
4 - To lift heavy things
You could argue that the male has taken on certain new responsibilities in the modern world, but these are superfluous to the four reasons that we, as a sex, exist. These days, there are no predators and females are equally good (if not better) at procuring food from the supermarket. That leaves us guys with baby-making, and lifting heavy things. Baby-making is something that we're only holding on to by a thread, what with artificial insemination and sperm banks existing. It's only a matter of time until babies are totally boy-optional. For some guys, like me, baby-making is totally off our radar anyway. This leaves us with lifting heavy things. Some people wonder what the meaning of their life is. I know what mine is: to carry heavy objects for girls. On the flight back from London to Toronto I explained this concept to the girl sitting beside me. She agreed with my logic, and took pity on me for having such a limited purpose in the world.

A little bit needs to be said about my flight-buddy to really understand the impact of the rest of this story. She was from Toronto, but had been visiting her family in Somalia. You know, the African country beside Ethiopia that is famous mostly for having lots of malnourished Somalians that occasionally shoot each other. She said herself that she comes from "a skinny people," and I'm inclined to believe her. Even though she grew up in the lap of western prosperity, she looked to be in desperate need of a sandwich and was barely more than five feet tall. My luggage weighed more than she did. Girls do not come smaller or more defenceless-looking than her.

So, we get off the plane and we're still discussing my plight over having nothing to do in life other than lift heavy objects. She's really feeling my angst all the way to the baggage carousel. We stand for a while discussing the lateness of our luggage and how excited I am to lift my heavy duffle bag and fulfill my life purpose, when I see said bag comming down the conveyor. It's just about to reach the place where I'm standing, when the tiny Somalian girl jumps in front of me and hauls my bag off of the conveyor for me.

In that instant, I lost all reason to live. The tiniest girl that I have ever met had just robbed me of heavy lifting. I might as well go die now.

Blinded with Science

So, Ireland. I've been here for the better part of a week now, and I have to say that I haven't done much. After being run off my feet on a ridiculously fast-paced schedule for five days in Italy, having some time to just relax and chill at my brother's appartment has been bliss. Internet access? Couch? Free bathrooms? Bliss.

Not to say that I've seen nothing. I've been places. I've done things. I've seen the fair city of Cork. I've drank some genuine Irish pints. I nearly dislocated my spine kissing the Blarney stone (it was incredibly un-clean.) Yet of all these things, the best happened today. Today, my brother took me to the place where science happens.

See, my brother is a certified rocket scientist, and when he asked me today if I wanted to come to see the place where he is working on what will be powering our computers in ten years, I couldn't sign myself up fast enough. For a geek like me, it was heaven. Let me put it this way: have you ever seen those high-tech places where people have to wear full-body hair-nets and goggles? That's where I was. There were so many people of brilliance just hanging around that I felt smarter for just having been there.

They have hundreds of dollars worth of solar pannels just stacked up in a corner by a filing cabinet, and apparently nobody knows why they're there. They had slabs of silicon bigger than my head just laying around, and let me tell you, I have one big head.

Sometimes it makes me think I'm in the wrong business. Sure my skills are better suited to government, but the budgets are so much better in science.

Photography

Two Guys. Two Cameras. 898 pictures. 1344MB of pictures. Flickr lets me put up 40MB a month. Here's the first set of pictures.

Irelanded

Big ups to Mount Vesuvius for having the foresight to bury both Pompeii and Herculanium for us. We really appreciate the art and architecture of the classical period that you saved for us. Travelling through a place like that with a family member that has a mean jones for classical architecture is always an interesting affair. My brother was really, really excited about the concrete they were using. When we finally found a remenant of a hypocoste floor at Pompeii.... well.... kids at Christmas have never been so bright-eyed.

If you read back to my last post, you'll note that I gave a quotation from a friend that indicated that Napoli was the "Pit of Hell." This is the truth. Getting from the Napoli train station, through lunch, and then to and through the airport can only be described as an ordeal. Problem A, the train was late and the train station is dirty. Problem B, as much as people tell you that McDonalds are the same everywhere, this is not the truth. In Europe the fries are better (in my humle opinion) but there are new items on the menu like the Bacon McCrispy that should just not be explored. The Italians and us do not share the same definitions of the words "bacon," "crispy," or even possibly "Mc." Problem C, the unlicensed cabbie trying to pick us and other tourists up for a run to the airport. Keeping aside the fact that the first rule of travelling anywhere is never get into an unlicensed cab, I somehow doubt that he paid for that Lexus charging guys two euro for a ride to the airport. I'll take my crappy bus with the angry bus-driver who shouts at old men any day of the week.

Problem D, and this was the big one, was getting through the Napoli airport. Since some jerks decided to suck at blowing up planes, the Heathrow airport has been on terror-lockdown, and as such every plane flying through it (a LOT of planes) have new security policies that they have to enforce, which is holding up travel all over Europe. Especially in Napoli, where the check-in line for our flight was an hour long. Once we actually made it to Heathrow, we quickly discovered that aside from an abnormally long wait to get our checked baggage that should have been carry-on, everything was a breeze. Sure there were a few more officers with assault rifles than normal, but they seemed to be excited about holding big guns and the departures terminal was actually pretty dead. My brother said he's never seen the Aer Lingus line so short.

The staff working there were all pretty great too. They were all a little unsure about what items weren't allowed on the plane that day, but if you gave them a few seconds they would figure it out. Apparently the banned items changed by the day. Monday was no liquids or cell-phones. Sunday cellphones were okay, but no laptops. Today, I think that cellphones will be back off the list, but they won't let you bring on something else relatively common that people like to keep with them when they fly, like babies.

The man at security patted me down because he said that I did a "silly dance" coming through the metal detector. He's apparently never seen the Metal Detector Strut. It gives me good luck. I haven't pinged the metal detector on five separate occasions at five separate airports, all thanks to the strut.

So, Ireland now, and so happy to be in a mostly English speaking country. Ireland is odd for that, because it's about 99% english, but every once in a while they throw some Gaelic word at you that throws you for a minute. I'm having trouble getting back into the habit of thanking store clerks with my native language rather than spitting out a mis-pronounced "grazie" at them.

Today, I'm taking a vacation from my vacation, organizing the hundreds of pictures that we have, and staying off my feet. I didn't realize until I had to walk for eight hours a day that my shoes are getting worn through. I've had some pretty hard-core blisters for the last three days. The dogs are barking, my friends. Oh how they bark.


Evan's Final Thoughts On Italy

Italian Driving
Think of everything you've ever done in a car that has made you go "WooHoo!!" That thing they were doing is how driving here is all the time. Stone-faced girls sitting properly upright on their vespas do woohoo driving just going to the Gucci store in the morning.
There are three main things that every Italian needs to know how to use in their vehicle:
1. The Steering Wheel Use this to make turns. Apply as needed.
2. The Gas Peddal Use this to go faster. Apply at every possible instance.
3. The Horn Used when things are in front of you that prevent you from using item two. Sometimes item two must be used in conjunction with item one when the vehicle in front of you isn't using their item two enough for your liking, which will likely result in more usage of item three. Alternatively, you may also use the horn when you are happy and you know it. Other parts of the hokey pokey are not acceptable.

Italian Food
To this day I am somewhat mystified as to how there are even Italians at all. In my entire time there I only saw one grocery store. There's no fast food except for the one McDonalds that the larger cities have. There are coffee shops everywhere that offer coffee, soft-drinks, coffee, light snacks, and coffee. Some of these shops will grudgingly sell pre-wrapped sandwiches, which the Italians seem to eat equally begrudgingly. How one locates enough food to subsist there is still a mystery to me. I think that they have evolved to gain sustenance solely from espresso. Whenever I saw a fat Italian (which wasn't often) I desperately wanted to ask them "how?"

Italian Queues
Standing in lines in Italy is much more Darwinian than our North-American egalitarian model. They still have "lines" to a certain degree, but whereas our lines function on the principle that serving order is determined on when you reach the back of the line, theirs works on the principle that serving order is determined on when one gets to the front of the line. This leads to some pretty intense jockeying, where the traveller must assert their line position. I had to fight tooth and nail to keep this venomous old crone from weasling ahead of me in a train-ticket lineup. She was good, but I had my spot and I held it for dear life.

Italian Fashion
As a general statement about the Italians, they are not particulairly attractive, just very well dressed. Sometimes it takes a few seconds of inspection to determine that no, that person is not actually attractive at all, they're just faking it. Guys, you do not know a high-maintenance-looking girl until you have been to Italy. Their individual clothing and jewelry budget is likely more than the GDP of most African nations. They make our well-dressed girls look trashy, but still manage to make themselves look even trashier.

Italian Men
I've heard bad things about the agressive flirtations of Italian men, but seeing as I am not the obejct of their attention, I didn't see much of this. The only real example was a very silly situation where the Italian male hitting on the foreign female were separated not only by the language barrier, but also ten vertical meters.
You may have noticed that the gelled-straight-up, polo shirt with a popped-up collar, and hideous sunglasses, or as I like to call the "greasy guido jerk" look is popular among young American males of Italian descent who are trying to mimic European style. Let me assure you, though, that the "original" greasy guido jerks are in fact less greasy, less jerk, and likely even less guido than the American knock-off greasy guido jerks. Drop these American collar-poppers into Napoli and they'd look totally out of place, and likey would get killed by an unlicensed cabbie.

Italian Women
I know no other way to present this, aside from giving you Evan's Guide to Determing Which Girls Are Italian. There is only one step to this process. Look at her chest. Seriosuly, this is not just an excuse to be a creepy jerk, this is how you do it. If the girl is very clearly not wearing a bra, then you are probably in Italy. Or, if you can very plainly see a bra through her shirt (and we're talking about the front here), then you are also likely in Italy. The North American paradigm on the subject of bras has made them much like oxygen: you only notice it when it's not there. In Italy, conversely, they are, first, not as popular as they are at home. Second, when they do choose to wear one, they like to advertise it. The North American conventions of "no black bra under a white shirt" and "wear a undershirt under a semi-transparent shirt" are just not used out there. Here, a bra is underwear. There, it's just wear.
Again, not wanting to come off as creepy, but it's kind of hard to avoid.
There is also the occasional unfortunate intersection of transparent/semi-transparent shirts being in fashion, and the lackdastical approach to bra wearing. This leads to things like clearly visible nipples at world herritage sites.

Much to my own surprise, still alive in Italy

In Pompei right now, town made famous for its many many dead people that were killed by a volcano. I haven't seen said corpses yet, but we're on our way.

That thing you've heard about Venice - that it's mostly water - is certainly true. The things that you may have heard - that Venice is clogged with tourists from the world over, and that it is expensive as hell - these things are also true. The thing that you haven't heard - that Venice has incurred the wrath of the sea gods by standing in defiance of them and will be soon swallowed up in their fury - is most true of all. At high tide the Plaza de St. Marco, the primary tourism destination, is ankle deep in water. It also rained like mad last night in a bold attempt to finally sink the city, which our friendly wine vendor told us would be very bad for the concerto.
"Which concerto?" I asked, fully expecting some classical cultural event that would be very appropriate of the renaissance atmosphere of the city.
"Pink Floyd," replied the wine merchant.

Another thing about Venice is that it has far and away the most cute girls of anywhere I have yet been in Italy. There are so many, in fact, that Venice could (and should) construct a raft out of cute girls to float the whole city on and thus avoid the wrath of the gods of the sea for at least a little while longer. It's a surprisingly sound plan. Being a city where every square centimeter of land has been crafted by hand, the city doesn't roll particulairly high in the building materials department. Cute girls float, they're free to import, and plentiful. All that Venice has to do is put on some sales at their city's many many many high end fashion outlets to attract their building supplies, an then and reap the bouyant rewards.

Took the night train from Venice to Napoli. Having done this before and being that much wiser, we got a sleeper room for the trip. Seeing as it was a ten hour train ride, the sleeper was more than worth the extra price. I slept like a baby the whole way and they brought us coffee to get us up an hour from our stop, as opposed to coach where you sit next to the man whose foot odour ends the world and they wake you up every hour to try to sell you food.

Didn't spend much time in Napoli (a friend of mine who has been to Italy informed me that it is "the pit of hell") so we hopped the train straight to Pompei, dropped our bags off at a sketchy hotel with a great view and 100 year old door locks, and got a very much anticipated calzone. After that, I saw an internet kiosk in the market, and that brings us pretty much to this moment.

I'll try to update again from Ireland when I get there tomorrow night. Pictures soon.

Still Not Dead in Italy

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exagerated. I am alive and in Trieste, Italy. Way to suck, UK terrorists. You missed me again! I am terrorism-proof!

In my last post when I said that Florence would be filled with cat-hittable art, I had no idea how right I was. From anywhere you stand in the downtown area, you have some piece of damn superb art and/or architecture within six feet from you. Most of it involves big naked men with plainly visible penises. I have pictures.

The brother and I spent the day in the downtown area just seeing the sites, drinking the coffee, and being pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself. I'd speak at length about the wonder that is downtown Florence (and the ridiculous disparity in prices between the tourist sections and the real Italian sections (add five bucks onto everything if you're within a kilometer of the Plaza il Dumo)) but pictures will speak more loudly on that count. Again, they will be up once I'm in Ireland and have my laptop back.

We caught a night-train from Florence to Trieste last night, which means we had the joy of catching our train from Campo Marte, a train station so far flung off in the boonies of Florence that the homeless people barely know it's there. Despite its godforsakenness and general sketchiness, I loved it because it was quiet, cool, and had the most amazing coin-opperated, self-cleaning bathroom I have ever seen. It washed the floor between visits, and at only twenty cents is easily worth the price of admission. I drank coke and water just so I could justify going again. Plus, after I paid sixty cents earlier in the day for a regular bathroom cleaned (poorly) by a weak human, I truly appreciated the value. A third of the price, cleaned regularly by unerring machinery, and doesn't smell like shit? This bathroom is superior to the human-administered counterpart in every possible way. I for one welcome our new robotic bathroom overlords.

I discovered that the second least restful substance in the known universe (behind airplane sleep) is second class night train sleep. One of the guys in our cabin had his entire life with him in garbage bags and his feet smelled like Satan's sweaty groin. He was eventually replaced somewhere around Venice with a guy that was very friendly but tragically misinformed. He told us that we were at Trieste a solid hour before we got there. He later appologized for this when he discovered his error, but we appreciated the effort anyway.

In Trieste now, on the eastern tip of northern Italy and right on the Mediterranian. We're going to try to make it to the biggest cave in the world and a coffee museum today. This is a big maybe, though. We were told that August is high season for tourism, and to a certain degree that is true here: everyone here has gone on holidays, so a lot of stuff is closed. Stuff like the local pool, where we were hoping to shower today. Not only is it closed, but they drained the water too. We couldn't even go if there was some kind of swimming emergency. The cafes are all open, thankfully. We've had coffee twice before lunch, and it's dirt cheap out here, no matter how close you are to the glorious architecture. Eat that Florence, you bastard.

Venice tomorrow. I look forward to falling in a canal.

Live From Italy

I am in Italy. Why the fuck am I in Italy? I honestly do not know. As near as I can tell, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Transit here took something like 36 hours. I haven't really slept during the duration except for some really terrible airplane sleep which is actually worse than no sleep at all. Thankfully I am now at the internet kiosk at our hotel and going to get some real in-a-bed sleep as soon as I have finished my duty of reporting to all of you.

Flew Saskatoon to Calgary to London. Actually spent more time flying over Canada than the Atlantic. It didn't really hit me that I was traveling overseas until I looked out the plane window over London; oh look, it's the bloody Tower of London. The Queen is somewhere down there. How did I not see this coming? I spent the entire stopover in Heathrow being in fuzzy awe of the fact that I was actually in London Fucking England. They had accents there. I was pretty excited. I paid fourteen bucks for a burger.

As an aside, when you've been awake for more than 24 hours your natural body feedback mechanisms start to betray you. I didn't realize I was hungry until I was eating; I had to assume that since I hadn't eaten for eight hours that I would require food. Right now I know I should be unconsious, but somehow I am awake and cognative enough to use a Euro-Keyboard where the m, a, w, and all punctuation is in ridiculous spots. I have a feeling that once I do go to bed I will sleep like the dead for approximately a month.

Italy is nice so far. The guy that owns our hotel speaks no english, the weather is good, and taxis are a great idea because the lady at the currency exchange booth gives you the wrongest directions possible to where your hotel is. Tomorrow the brother and I are going to the cathedral district of Florence where, apparently, you cannot swing a cat without hitting a piece of fucking sublime art. Yes, I will and have been taking pictures, though most of the ones already taken are of German design and efficiency, and of my brother peeing without the use of his hands.

Really. I'll post the picture soon.

Culture Shock

This morning, I was at a lake in northern Saskatchewan. Tomorrow I will be in Europe. This is dangerous culture shock.

Northern Saskatchewan is a place where rules of common sense do not apply. I sang Wild Cherry in the local bar and had a chorus of very intense natives backing me up on the play that funky music white boys. I spent zero minutes fishing on a weekend long fishing trip. I got sucker-punched by a sixteen year old girl.

I also got to hear some of my cousin's great stories from the farm, like catwalking a tractor and blacking out the entire town. There was also this great quotation, which I swear is all true:


"You must show patience my young padwan learner."
"Don't do that. You remember what happened last time you did that."
"Oh yeah... you shot me."

Tomorrow I'm flying to Italy, leaving at three in the afternoon Tuesday and getting there at 7 in the afternoon on Wednesday. I will likely die. Keep track of this webspace for further developments, complaints about Heathrow, and pictures.

Trailer Park Boys

Have you ever watched Trailer Park Boys? If you have, this post will make a lot more sense. Right now we have a guy that is, for all intents and purposes, Ricky at the front counter. He is shouting. He uses the term "fuck" a lot. He has a voice that only a cartoon bear should rightfully have. He is upset about trucks. Apparently he has some vehicles that are not properly licensed to such a degree that they are going to be removed from his posession. I think that a messy divorce and a brain tumour somehow factor into this. I swear, I am not making this up. The brain tumour and the divorce aren't his primary concerns, however he is really concerned about these four wheel drive trucks that he doesn't want to lose. He has gone on a very impassioned diatribe about the work he has done on them. He has shouted the words "timing belt." For some reason he feels that we will be more receptive to his situation if he tells us the exact repairs he has made to these trucks.

"You haven't licensed them and they are an eyesore. They're being towed."
"But I replaced the fucking timing belt!"
"The timing belt? Wow. That thing is a bitch to change. I totally feel where you're coming from man. Go home, we won't bother you any more."

There's already someone from the RCMP here talking with him, which should be his first indication that this is not going to end in his favour. Sadly, I'm almost certain that this is not the end of this story. This town is the Trailer Park Boys in real life. The problems are all ridiculous and self-inflicted, the language is blue, and no matter how many vehicles get towed and Constables have to explain the law to them, the residents of this cracker-ghetto will keep on coming through these doors and giving us hell because that brand new timing belt is going to waste.

Live from the Rectangular Province

So far, my week in Saskatchewan has been pretty boring, read: I have not done anything potentially life-threatening yet. Thankfully, I'm going to "the" lake with the extended family this weekend, and they're a hazzard waiting to happen at the best of times. Add water, outboard engines, and alcohol and we have ourselves scars to tell the grandkids about.

Not to say that the week hasn't been informative. Spend a night at a bar wearing a shirt that says "Calves" across the front and find out what it's like to be a girl; people are always looking at your chest. At least I assume that everyone is. I catch the girls doing it, but the guys are practiced so they can pull it off without me noticing a lot more. Girls have always told me that they can always tell when guys are leering, but in my personal experience, you're not catching all of us. Just so you know.

Leaving for Italy in five days. I'll be keeping up posting while I'm gone, and if I find a way to get my pictures online, there will be a link here for your enjoyment. I've already gone to my Italian-speaking friend and complied a phrasebook that should keep me in and out of enough trouble to have fun.

Where is the bathroom: Dov'è il bagno?
Take me to your vineyards: Prendalo alle vostre vigne
Marry me : vuoi sposarmi?
Watch out or I will head butt you :L'attenzione o io li colpirà con la mia testa