Warning!

Please Pray

Before Reading

About Sexuality

Realisings

My initials backwards spell MSG
Frites sauce at Nouveau Systeme are $3.14
1/8 of University is almost over
I got $6.66 back in change when all I bought was eggs, which I ate over-easy instead
Tax rates vary from Subway to Subway
White pants are awesome
No one in the world can spell or pronounce McLeod
Zen is not a word in scrabble, but 'et' (the past tense of eat) is
Yodelling is harder than it sounds
'One Night Band' is a play on words based on the expression 'One night stand'
Sometimes hats serve a purpose

Carrot Cake

I probably should have wrote this as soon as it happened, but one thing led to another and the writing about Carrot Cake was postponed. As a result, my emotions and impressions of said cake are dulled; who knows what fantastic truths about the intrinsic nature of cake I might have discovered if I had written at the time of the Event. Because that's what it was, not simply some gastronomical enterprise gone horribly, terrifyingly wrong, but a... oh wait. That's what it was. Never mind.

So I decided to make carrot cake one evening, and found a recipe which made 'The Best Carrot Cake in the World'; how could I go wrong? It called for three eggs, and since the only empty and unlocked apartment on my floor only had two, I was doomed to some serious mental math. A 2/3s batch, indeed. Well, the only pan available to me was a meatloaf-style glass thing, so after carefully mixing the ingredients I spooned the gooey mess into loaf-form. Put it in the oven, and after the 45 minutes that the recipe claimed would cook the cake had elapsed, it was clearly not done.

I turned the heat up, and 15 minutes later I carefully set the carrot-based loaf on top of the oven. The edges were starting to blacken, and the top was crusty. Excellent, time to put the icing on; I spooned it into the middle of the cake and turned away to get a knife to spread it. When I turned back, the cake was eating the icing. More accurately, the icing was sinking like a tiny Titanic, with an even tinier Leonardo diCaprio nowhere to be seen.

So the cake was definitely not done. I put it back in for 20 minutes or so, hoping that maybe the icing would bake itself into the cake, and maybe this new kind of cake would make me rich. Apparently not, though, it just congealed and blackened, or bubbled up through the top. After another hour, the cake still would not cook.

So I stabbed it with a fork until it was dead, and then ate as much as I could before feeling sick. Which wasn't a whole lot. Ah well.

Breaking News

Apparently <3 is supposed to be a heart! Ohhh...

The internet is so retarded.
Why isn't PH a beaver in a pirate costume, then?

Paper

Philosophical problems and philosophical writing require careful and extended reflection. Don't wait until two or three nights before the paper is due to begin. That is very stupid.

Ah, Jim Pryor, how dare you call me stupid. Though I am, I have less than two days to wite my 5-7 for Poli Theory. Which, apparently, is pretty much philosophy. I keep distracting myself, too. For example, I rearranged the furniture in my room, made omelettes, partied, slept, lined up my shoes in a row, did laundry, wrote on my blog, made a receptacle (tin can) for my pens and pencils, thought about buying a chair, made an excel spreadsheet, arranged guitar picks like flower petals, set my alarm clock for monday morning, and made a to-do list which says WRITE PAPER in big letters. Hey, I even hi-lited it. In four different colours. Now I'm looking for some popsicle sticks, and a glue gun...

Surfing

Eleven bees, four wasps, a turtle.


Eleven bees, and a bumblebee.

Montreal, a confessional

I'm torn, simply. On the one hand I wake up screaming at the imaginary people invading my room, on the other hand I

And that's just it.
I have no other hand that I know of. I've heard second years say, "Remember ____ at frosh? He/She was insane!" and I already know that to a certain percentage of this school, that's me. I've spent one night at my own rez in the past 6 days, but there are very few people I've met that I'd spend any time with later. While I should have been meeting people similar to myself, I was...perverting myself to some ideal that I have never ascribed to in the past, and with luck never again in the future.
(Right here, I got up and cooked myself some eggs and hashbrowns, grabbed some cereal and yogourt, and broke my fast in style)
And now I'm back, completely changed from something simple, wonderful, food. Overwhelming hope...music is so important to me, it can cheer me up in a second.
"Remember cuddles in the kitchen, yeah to get things off the ground..."

In conclusion, I have an overwhelming urge to write extremely long letters, but only so I can get extremely long replies: full of daily mundanities, petty problems, and other bullshit that is the stuff of life. The faint, confused pulse of the western world.

Bananeananas had their first real gig last night, and it's safe to say they killed. At the Tsawassen Arts Centre, to a paying audience. 5$ at the door for a night of performers, Bananeananas being the first act, and yet we have not seen any income yet.

Oskar: "So, reelly, how many uv yoo speek French?"
(At least half the audience raise their hands)

Claude: "C'est manifique, ça!"

Oskar: "Oh crap. Those uv yoo weeth your hands raised, pleese try not to leesten."

They played the singles: l'Amour Banale and Tuons les Blancs. If anyone has a venue for Bananeanans to play, they are willing to work for peanuts. Or cashews, if you can afford them.

French Story

I came up with an interesting story for my Français 12 exam; the topic was: "You're going on vacation. After an hour of travel, you realize you're on the wrong bus."

So I told the story of Oskar Lafayette, a toxicologist who works at a methadone clinic in Vancouver. He's depressed, because all he sees is heroin junkies every day, so he decides to go on vacation. To Moscow.

After an hour of travel, he realizes it's impossible to get to Moscow by bus. It turns out he's headed for Moscow, Idaho, where there is nothing interesting, just potatoes.

Being the toxicologist that he is, he starts experimenting with potatoes in his hotel room, and within a week has develloped a cure for heroin addiction made entirely from potatoes.

There's one problem, though. Idaho doesn't seem to have any addicts to let him test his formula. Suddenly a tour bus pulls up; this is the week of the Moscow, Idaho International Jazz Festival. Suddenly he has all the heroin addicts he could wish for.

A month later, he's a millionaire and hero thanks to his wonderful universal cure, and everything is great!

I wouldn't be me

If I didn't screw up important things on a regular basis, I wouldn't be me. As such, friday was the deadline for residence application, and I missed it. There's a waiting list though, so I guess I'll just hope lots of people make Harvard and decide McGill sucks. Or that lots of people flunk out. Or something... but that's not the funniest or stupidest thing I've done lately. Not by far.

This is a pretty good representation of one of my stories... it stems from what an incredible moron I can be when I'm by myself, but this one has a good ending, not like some others which end with "burning eyebrows smell really bad, but the curry rice that didn't spill still tasted pretty good", "so I accidentally smashed all the plates one by one with a 15ft long boat hook", or "I never saw that flip-flop again, but my feet regained feeling eventually".

Anyways, I drive a little car around at work, a Kawasaki mule. It's very good at doing donuts on softball fields. I was at work one afternoon, a little bored, so I decided to spin it around and make it skid. Unfortunately for me, I turned too sharply going too fast and flung myself out of the car (I found out later that it has seatbelts). This in itself was not painful, the grass was soft and a little damp; the perfect vantage point to watch the mule roll full speed across the remainder of the field into the outfield fence.

With a dull thunk and metallic squelch, the back wheels lifted an inch or two off the ground. The dirt caked onto the undercarriage flung out in every direction like a rainbow with only one colour, brown.

As the dust cleared, I looked around in every direction. There was no one: not a single person, car, deity, or suspicious-looking dog. Nothing! So I backed up the still-running cart, thinking how ridiculously lucky I was. That was, until I tried to turn left. It seemed reluctant to do that, preferring to make a loud rattling noise and shake the steering wheel. It turned out that the front bumper had bent into the right tire, poking it and preventing it from turning left. That's fine, I thought, I just won't turn left anymore. But that's harder than it sounds, so I had to figure something else out.

I went home and got some wrenches, bashed the bumper with a sledgehammer until I could see the bolts that held it on, and took it off. Problem solved. Now, I had to destroy the evidence. The tire tracks were easy enough, I just used a rake, and I replaced the crumpled fence panel, then hid the bumper at the back of the shed. No one suspects anything, but I have several explanations handy by now in case anyone asks.

Endurance Contest

The B-52s and Santana are still battling it out on my wall, with no end in sight.
That is some weird masking tape. Why would 43 other records fall down and just leave those two? It's too bad, because the guy on Santana's cover's left shoulder used to become the mountain in Joni Mitchell's chalk mark in a rainstorm, such a seamless transformation.

And now I don't have to worry anymore. I ripped them both off the wall myself. I can sleep again.

But I made sure to take down Santana first, because I bet myself the B-52s would win.

V-fest

Many of you may be pining by your computers wondering "what's Greg up to?", "why hasn't he posted anything?", or "where's my child support?"; well, here it is.

Chris, Steph, Katie, Alicia, Sharan and I went to v-fest last last weekend, meeting at the skytrain station at 11, because doors opened at Thunderbird Stadium at 1. If you remember, it was a particularily wet Sunday; the kind of wet that makes you wonder what would happen to you if your skin wasn't waterproof, and the french kind of Sunday that starts a new week on the calendar. We took a bus at Joyce-Collingwood, the 41. I managed to get out of paying for a ticket, by looking confused and asking the bus driver what day it was, then walking in. It took us all the way to the concert gates, or it would of, had we not gotten off when everyone else did-at Dunbar, which is not even in the UBC endowment lands. So after getting passed by a couple too-full-to-stop 41s, we legged it down long, curvy West Marine.

After we had been walking 40 minutes (it was still pouring), a jogger in turquoise spandex shorts informed us we were almost there. Triumf said the billboard overhead, and Triumph yelled we until we saw the line snaking into the distance like a spiky river of piercings, mohawks and punk stripes.

Fortunateley for us, we know Adam West, because he happened to be near the front and we surreptitiously sloshed into the stadium. Veer or something was playing, and we veered away to the main stage, where we watched the Stars of Track & Field finish off their set. It all seemed too melodramatic to me, but I could probably listen to them from inside a building on a rainy day.

Snippets of TV Heart Attack, The Look, and The Junction flash by now, I wish I had been paying more attention-but no one blatantly sucked-The Bled played like they were killing and eating animals onstage, and for all I know they were, because I didn't actually see the stage.

Then Mute Math were up, and I squirmed my way into the cloud of steam and sweat at the front of the stage. If you don't know Mute Math, go on youtube and look up Typical, then reunite your lower jaw with your face. To me, the New Orleans quartet were who I most wanted to see, and they didn't dissapoint. They started with Typical and Chaos, and the set periodically dissolved from the normal rock-construction to orgiastic percussion jams. Halfway through a song, the drummer (who taped big headphones to his head because they kept falling off) broke his hi-hat, and instead of returning it to him, the stagehand gave it to the bassist, who played it and the extra bass drum behind the drum kit. The singer got his piano stool up to the mic and tapped out some morse-code rhythms, while the guitarist set down his guitar to just play with his effects pedals. The sun came out. It was just about perfect.

So, good mood, warm, saw Rise Against and Billy Talent. I did my homework and knew both the albums inside-out beforehand, and so knowing what comes next is an added little thrill even if Rise Against is a little too hardcore and Billy Talent has bizzare computer references in their songs ("control-alt-delete it", "throw your inbox out"), it was a good, polished show. Billy Talent was immeasurably better than other times I'd seen them live.

MCR fans scare me, and the general vibe was that it was too wet and cold to stay til 10, so we took in Jets Overhead and scrammed. The singer was wearing the same jacket that I bought for 10$ from Mark's Work Warehouse, which I found funny, but they are an amazingly talented band.

Second day, sunny and warm, no problems getting there, bought a calzone, then music. Mother Mother's yodeling too much for Chris, I walk away with my neck swivelled, a little sad. Yuca on the small stage, an anthemic sound as though they are the aerosmith of modern rock. The guitarist had a striking resemblance to the guitarist for "No Vacancy" at the end of School of Rock (the one in the leather half-shirt), while the drummer was a dead ringer for Pauly Shore. To round things off, the bassist was Screech from Saved By the Bell. A good group.

Saw Smoosh and marvelled at how they managed to get onto the main stage... they're three 15 year old girls and sound it. They must have a very good manager, but still I would have been nervous doing that at fifteen. They played a clumsy cover of "Modern Love" which nevertheless reminded me of how good the real song is. Then Metric, a band I feel like I should know better than I do, because everyone seems to love or hate them.

After they finished, I was walking up to the small stage when I noticed the frontman of the band wasn't wearing pants. He was wearing turquoise and tropical boxer shorts, the companion vest to those boots of Megans, and what can only be described as molester sunglasses. During the first pause between songs exclaimed: "Wow, my legs are tired. It's amazing how taking off a pair of pants can fuck that shit up." Because this was Sebastien Grainger, one half of Death from Above 1979, and now fronting himself "et les montagnes". In all seriosity, it is the best stuff I have ever heard live in my life. One of the best at home, too. And for the first time ever, I find myself anticipating the release of a debut cd.
http://worthourweight.org/files/aman/mp3/sebastiengrainger/
Listen to "I'm All Rage" if you want to know what I'm talking about.

The rest of the day kind of blurred by after the shock of that set. Hot Hot Heat, AFI, and then Illscarlett, who were feel-good, smell-the-sweet-smoke ska music from Toronto. The Killers, mega ultra superstars that they are, had a 10-minute video intro with dramatic orchestral music, which reminded me that a band's public persona sometimes gets in the way of the music for me-Sam's Town is ambitious, but the whole production irks me somehow. Still, recognizable, pop rock hooks and anthemic choruses, easy words and general catchiness make their music hard to dislike.

That's it.

The Toucan Hat

About a month ago, I was in Richmond and Danielle, Chris and I decided to walk a friend home. On the way out I grabbed a hat-it was maybe 11 and I found one in the shape of a toucan. We walked six or seven blocks, then on the way back we saw a quantity of morons running down the street. Stupidly, we continued down the street straight into a few police cars; of course we get stopped.
"Nice hat."
"Thanks, officer."
It seems some master criminal had knocked over a mailbox, and naturally, three police cars were needed to quarantine the area, tending to the injured mailbox and insuring the safety of the other mailboxes. We had to go through the whole name/address rigamarole, probably because I had a tropical bird on my head. Then I forgot my birthday, which didn't help matters much, but we finally got out of there and regained our forward progress. Passing some ditch-ed houses, we saw a girl squatting by the side of the road, sobbing. A man was consoling her in the kind of way one consoles a misbehaving puppy-a calm, supremely controlled violence. One of us asked
"Is everything alright?"
"Does it look like everything's alright?" with the same scary dime-edged control in his voice.
He pauses. We keep walking with an uneasy lump in our stomachs. Then, almost as an afterthought:

"Nice hat."

Secret Agent Pest Control

Good Morning, Cougar Creek Elementary.

May I please speak to Kathy McLeod?

Um, she's teaching at the moment, could you leave her a message?

Sure, could you just tell her that... there's another squirrel in the fireplace.

Another...who is this?

This is Greg, her son. Just say that the squirrel is in the fireplace. She'll know what I mean.

...Sure, ok. Have a nice day.

You too.

Scholarship Info

If you were a federal government, would
YOU give $16,000 to THIS man?

Because they totally, totally just did.

.

.

.

Yum.

G.M, S.O.B.

That's it. I must found Greg McLeod's School of Bullshit. The world has need of my secrets; how to get away with not doing your homework (it's all in the wrist), how to hand things in late and make it the teacher's fault (if there is an out-box, slip it in and then get it back later-whoops, guess you forgot to mark that one), how to get a little more time (staple the "wrong second page" onto the first, then "realize your mistake" when you're done), how to fake going home (stay away from the upper halls, and before you go back, run around outside a little to get that realistic redness in your cheeks), when to simply not show up to class (when all else fails), and my latest lesson, which was "how to do an oral presentation without having researched...anything".

I probably would have done it, had I known it was due today, but as it were I had to present a 5-page report on the Bernoulli Brothers, calculus pioneers extraordinaire. So I walked out of class, and five minutes later was back with 10 pages of internet material, hot from the library printing presses. During the other presentations, I highlighted important bits with Herb's pen, then ad-libbed away. When we were done, Ms. Mann made me present it to the other half of the class, too, because my story happened to be slightly amusing. And now as I write my report, I wonder what emphasis to put on the words "Sorry, I forgot to give this to you yesterday."

Tirededness

Well, after school on Friday I had to go lug a lot of music equipment, lights, drums, etc. to Seaquam's famine (Seafast)-a gig, then worked for 6 hours.

That's right, work. I am a groundskeeper, which is a great title; unfortunately I get no shack. So I drag baseball fields, put lines on em, and pound in the bases. I am nothing less than a professional geometrist. Diamonds, angles, occasional head-trig; a new-found obsession with clean, perfect lines and round, even circles. Chalk dust that chokes every pore on the body and is probably giving me cancer or something.

Anyways I got back to Seaquam, finished setting up, done. Ready for bands. The first group was terrifyingly good, technically. An energetic, bubbly wall of sound. Not exactly my bag, (man,) but when they got going they sounded like a musical turkey vulture in full flight. The second group...was acoustic guitars, three guys. It was their first show, and they were obviously talented but not exactly solid. The lyrics were flaky, catchy, and funny. Then there was an all-girl goth rock band. Yeah. Slightly depressing, but good singers and okay songs; my favourite music reviewer, Andreas Trolf, once said that an all-girl band is like a dog walking on its hind legs: it's not so much the fact that it does it well, just the fact that it's doing it at all. (I'm kidding) (Gosh!)

Then we got to play, which was fun. And hot-I was dripping by the end. I was suitably impressed that there were no major screw-ups; not that it was great, I flubbed a couple of the songs cause they were too high, but I had a good time.
Here's what we played:

Ebin-Sublime
Turn It On-The Flaming Lips
Deanimated?-(Us)
From the Ritz to the Rubble-Arctic Monkeys
Counting Down The Hours-Ted Leo/Pharmacists
Calm Before-(Us)
Light Up My Room-Barenaked Ladies
Learn To Fly-Foo Fighters

Then that was over so we packed everything up. By this time it was about 2 in the morning. In the van, back to my house, couple of carloads later and I can sleep. It was 3 and I was dead on my feet with a slurpee in my stomach.

3 hours later I woke up to go to work-I had to be there by 6:30 am-and now, a 14 hour shift (no breaks, plus just for fun me and another guy moved 5200 pounds of chalk off a truck and into a shed) later, the bags under my eyes have bags under them and here I go to sleep.

P.S. I stood up in my room this morning right after waking up and checked my energy gauge- I found that if I relaxed the world would just melt down out of sight. When my head smashed into the wall, I realized the world was not falling away but I was just falling over backwards.

Moral of the story: it's all just perspective until your head hits a wall.

A visit to the car wash

Last night, returning from a rousing visit to Home Depot, where I returned the rug I bought for the second time, I went through the car wash. Now, as a veteran of at least 3 or 4 car washes in my life, I was somewhat prepared for the experience. After being informed that the prices listed were only with the purchase of fuel, and not wanting to shell out an extra two bucks, I bought roughly 60 litres of gas at 108.9, recieved my ticket number, and drove up to the window outside the car wash. I had pulled up about four feet too far away from the machine, and leant out the window for all I was worth.

Relieved at having got the number right, I eased the car into the mammoth "laser-guided" washer, and stopped at the exact right spot. With a mechanical squelch, the water jets turned on with a vengeance; I thought it would be a good idea to close my window, and luckily enough I got it shut before the water had completely soaked the dashboard. The sign which informed me, with aid of flashing lights, what step of the wash I was on was quickly obscured by the suds. The maelstrom outside the car continued for some minutes, as I thought "this is much better than a movie."

Finally, after what seemed like minutes, the "Thank you" sign lit up and I was out, flushed with success and squeaky clean. It had gone pretty well, I thought to myself as the gas tank lid fluttered, unscrewed, behind me.

How to prepare an 8-legged chicken

Tonight I made chicken and watermelon, and it was pretty great. Here's the recipe, so everyone can make it for their friends:

Fry up a couple pounds of bite-sized pieces of chicken, chop up and add a clove of garlic and an onion, stirring in a teaspoon of curry powder. Then grate a carrot and throw it in, along with a teaspoon of salt and half as much pepper. Finally lay on the sweet, sweet watermelon and put the lid on low for about 20 minutes. Sprinkle on some cinnamon and eat with rice or fried bananas.

I also found a recipe for 8-legged chicken, which is "Stitch six extra legs onto a normal chicken and cook."

Unconsciously, I painted that room in Gryffindor house colours. Gold and red just seemed like a logical choice at the time, I didn't make the connection until I was halfway done the red wall. Whatever, it'll be fine. I moved my bedroom to the attic, (one room higher) so I now have white and black checkerboard floor, and a sky-painted, hit you on the head sloped ceiling.

"Watching you" by 54-40 is a stalker song. SUCH a stalker song. I'm starting to rethink Amnesiac as my favourite Radiohead album. It's the kind of weird that scratches you too hard in a place that wasn't that itchy after all. 3 Chairs is great stuff; the 18 minute song with little things changing slowly is something I can really get into. I just found out I have "Get loose" by D4; I'd forgotten about that song, but it should (if it didn't) have an Ipod commercial. Just like I called that Rhinocerose song that should be an Ipod commercial, then it was. "Cubicle". That was it.

Dull

...is my sense of smell. Dull... I cannot smell things.

"Eeew, smell that?"
No.
"Mmm, muffins!"
If you say so.
"That is by far the most repulsive thing I have ever smelled. Just one whiff of it caused my head to explode off my shoulders and my nasal cavity to melt into jelly."
I think I just got something. What did you say it smelled like again?

I have no idea why or how this happened, but of all my various senses, I think it's best to lose the ability to smell. The anosima (abscense of...nose?) foundation disagrees:
"As a child without a sense of smell, it requires a considerable amount of thought to determine that something is missing. Blind children are told they can't see, but anosmic children have to find a way to work it out for themselves."
Yet another example of how people without a sense of smell are worse off than blind people. I suppose deaf and blind people aren't told they're deaf and blind. Shouldn't deaf and blind be enough? Isn't deaf, blind, and mute like adding wine to a coffee cup full of vodka? You can't hear yourself scream, or see other people's reactions, so why not shout your head off... unless maybe in that state you can smell sound?

Work, Music, and Hitler Toothpaste

Tearing off mouldings and mirrors : Buckcherry, Timebomb

Washing 4 walls and patching holes : Cat Power, You are free

First Coat of Primer : RHCP, Blood Sugar Sex Magik (it fit to the second, it was amazing)

Second Coat of Primer : Barenaked Ladies, Maroon + 1/2 Stunt

I love music, but what if Hitler sold toothpaste?

Yeah, it might be something like that.

Death, or how to avoid dentures

My Thursday was well occupied writing epitaphs for Stephen Young, not that I wish he were dead. They're fictional and independent of each other, with the kind of morbid humor I would expect to see trailside in frontier country.

Here lies Stephen, in clouds he’s wading
As he never got too wasted
But if for fire this life he’s trading
It's a good thing we had him basted

Stephen Young was out of luck
The day he got hit by a truck
A car, a bus, and we can only pray
He was dead by the time he was struck by that Segway®

Here the bones of Stephen lie
Poor boy he was, convinced he could fly
No grave was dug where he was laid
We just covered over the dent he made

Many years on a comfotable pension
Which Stephen earned for a brilliant invention
A great surprise to him was that
Everyone loved his "edible hat"

Here lies Stephen, 5 000 pound
The coffin special, was made round
On his virtue or work, none expound
Though none fail to comment on the size of the mound

Here lies Stephen and his wife
Who, when married, refused his name
He was Young for all his life
She was not; they died all the same

I think I have a legitamite career on my hands here. I just wonder how one breaks into the grave decorating buisness, and whether an edible hat would actually work.


P.S. My room, that is, in the new house, is pink. Pink brick patterns, matte pink finish, pale pink mouldings. With pink trim. (It was handpainted by a former teenage girl) The floor is the kind of hardwood that exists only in bed & breakfasts in Skagway, Alaska, where a former park ranger-turned-old-lady forces you to do chores for her, even though you're leaving really early the next morning. The are a triumvirate of track lights which accent the pinkness of the room like a quebecker who is speaking french. I will enjoy spending 10 minutes of my vertical day there.

A Modest Proposal

A Modest Proposal
for eliminating the warming of
the globe due to greenhouse gases

We have all heard the danger: our precious planet is heating up, the polar icecaps are melting, and quite soon those who have not already drowned will be frying like ants under the giant microscope of our own folly; the greenhouse gases we create lock in the sun’s heat just as the crunchy outside of tater tots lock in their tender potato flavour. Unless we radically change the way we deal with this terrible problem, our worst nightmares will come true, and all will suffer warm, sunny deaths.

Some very learned (and even some not-so learned) scientists have expressed their opinions on this matter clearly, and key governmental policy such as those set by the world’s most distinguishedly polluting nations in the 1985 Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol of 1987 managed with some success to limit the production of greenhouse gases and CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons, invented by Thomas Midgeley in the 1920's, are the leading cause of ozone depletion; our present problem is therefore all his fault.) The fact remains that there are dangerous, invisible gases high in the air which threaten to kill us all; although there are many partial solutions available, up until now no one has managed to provide a well thought-out, reasonable remedy to global warming.

For this is just what I hope to convey in this essay, my modest proposal to engage and eliminate the deadly dilemma of climate change. Before I begin, I aim to ascertain that you, the reader, are familiar with the concepts necessary to understand my highly technical solution. The earth is surrounded by an atmosphere, which scientists have luckily managed to separate into several easy-to-understand laminae, known to climatologists as “layers”. However, the one with which we are to concern ourselves is called the stratosphere, which houses ozone. The ozone layer shields us from the sun’s rays, and as recently as the 80s we discovered that there was a “hole” above the Antarctic. Now, though this was readily apparent to me, I have not found anyone else, even scientists in the field, who remarked this simple fact; here we are producing greenhouse gases, which we need to rid ourselves of, and now we have a hole in the ozone, a perfect escape route for our unwanted gas.

My proposal is twofold: firstly, that we do our utmost to increase the size of the Antarctic hole, and secondly that we also create a second hole somewhere else in the world. My reason for this can also be folded twice; I have doubts that we would be able to enlarge the first ozone hole sufficiently to allow all our greenhouse gases to escape, and also that, as the old saying goes, “two holes are better than one”. The question that comes to mind next is therefore where to put this second hole; it is imperative that it be located so as to cause minimal disruption and damage, that is, over a useless mass of land.

Great Britain would be perfectly situated for the location of the second hole in the ozone layer for several reasons. Firstly, the British would not be bothered by the more intense sun, owing to the fact that they do not go to the dentist and consequently leave their abodes much less than the average American or Canadian. Nor would the English need to visit the supermarket more than once a month; as anyone who has been there can attest, most of the ingredients required for their cooking may be found in the grease traps of their deep fryers. The dangers of direct sunlight include malignant melanoma and basal and squamous cell carcinomas, commonly known as skin cancer; as most Brits are naturally horribly disfigured, malignant tumors will have a much smaller impact on them than on countries filled with beautiful people such as Sweden and Australia. An increase of UV radiation would also affect crops by affecting cyanobacteria residing on their roots for the retention of nitrogen, but as everyone knows that Great Britain does not produce anything useful to the rest of the world, the effect would be as negligible as Margaret Thatcher’s IQ.

My method of enlarging the ozone holes is quite simple, as it consists simply of finding new uses for spray-propellant (CFC causing) cans. New national pastimes such as fire-extinguisher-on-wheely-chair races and whipped-cream-eating competitions can be easily organized, and would help through teamwork and sportsmanship to unite warring cultures and races.

There are many that would dismiss this extraordinary solution as fantastical, or “too good to be true”. Scientists may claim it is “simply not feasable” or “the product of a dangerous, possibly retarded mind”, but I need not remind you that science created CFCs, global warming, and ozone. So why should we listen to those who only seek to drown us in fear? The British may object to the location of the proposed second ozone hole, but since we have taken their language they no longer have anything which would be of use to us, and should be done away with once and for all. As an added perk to this plan, the world would also be free of Madonna and Simon Cowell. (Ideally, we would be able to save Rowan Atkinson) Finally, your brain may object to my proposal; this is natural, and it will pass.

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Morning Comics

These are more experimental comics for A Sigh of Relief...trying out new things. For example, the baby is a sideways picture, the chart has one side taken out of it, and the text taken out of context is the first I've done without a pic.

So, this afternoon I found out I was going to Seattle for the weekend. It should have clicked two weeks ago when my dad asked me if I wanted to go to the Jimi Hendrix museum. It should have clicked a week ago when everyone else in my house was talking about it. It definitely should have all fallen into place when Andrew Hanevelt asked me if I was going to Seattle last Tuesday. I remeber answering "no, I don't think so..." while privately wondering how he could possibly have gotten the idea I was going anywhere. The bubble I live in is a happy place, and it takes some persistence to break through the haze which clouds facts from getting anywhere near me. Like when I was going to pick my mom up at the airport and I realized she had been gone. Then I got the universal comment from all my teachers at the conferences: "Smart kid, but he's not organized and badly needs to respect deadlines". This, however, is not my fault. My agenda has no February, March or April, so how can I be expected to remeber anything? (it has two May, June, and Julys, so I will be twice as organized later) Of course, that would only make sense if I used my agenda instead of scribbling all sorts of useless phrases all through it (What exactly is "euphoria for the pedestrian"?) Anyways.

My Door

Today I got my ninth yellow card of the soccer season in an interesting way-on a corner kick, I ran into the goalie (not hard, though, I barely hit him) and he immediately threw himself to the ground, clutching the side of his head and screaming. It was kind of a spark for the whole game-the other team yelled a panapale of obscenities at me, the parents threatened players on my team with a rather pointy-looking umbrella. I laughed and promptly ran right at the goalie again, he punched me and we got a free kick. He was so angry that he cost them the game, and just to rub it in I scored from the center line. As there were no knives involved this time, it was a good game, all I got was punched in the chest and elbowed in the nose.

This I also found amusing: Last night I closed the door to my room before noticing that it had no knob. As everyone else in the house was asleep I couldn't make a loud noise trying to open it, so I just forgot about it and went to sleep. When I woke up this morning I tried to open it but couldn't, because apparently the fact that my window was closed meant that the air pressure made it hard to open. I had to knock for someone to come let me out.

Last Week's Music

Yesterday I went and saw Dr. Lonnie Smith (^up there^) play. Only in jazz can a performer have 70 CDs (seriously) and yet most people have never heard of him... Really interesting guy though-he walks slowly out with a cane, white beard and turban, sits down at the organ deliberately with a serious, intense look, then without saying a word plays some great funky music-all the while maintaining a crazy mystique-his huge, expressive eyes mischievious, laughing with the joy of the music, sharing with everyone in the room. (Funny, though, I'm pretty sure he isn't Indian or sikh, just wears a turban...hmm...no, I don't think I could pull it off) It was also a nice surprise to see Bernie Arai playing drums with him-I know him from playing in the UBC senior jazz band this summer, where he was our rhythm section coach. I hadn't seen him since July, and he's one of the best jazz drummers I've ever heard, so it was great.

No! I just remembered I forgot to remeber to recite poetry to Mrs. Douglas yesterday... yes, of course for lit class! Gross.

The other interesting musical escapade of the week was going to see Tenant practice (Tanner, Jon, Norm and Rick's band) in the world-famous trapdoor basement. Even if it's not my style of music they are incredibly tight and heavy, so I think it'd be a terrible shame if people didn't appreciate 'em. Plus, you always got to root for the home team, and as they're only about a block away I'll buy the new album. Listening to them from 5 feet away is like getting hit with a machine gun of rhythm in the chest-lucky I had that one earplug with me...

Oh, and, a bad answer when a cop at a roadcheck asks you if you've had any alcohol is: "No, but I've had some coke." ... "Okay, step out of the car, sir."

Urgent Message

Whoever keeps switching my lock to a different one during school should stop. I keep coming to my locker between classes, and a different lock is on my locker. It does not open to my combination and severely confuses me, forcing me to go to class without essential pens, binders, and nutrients. When I return later, my lock has mysteriously returned. This has happened three seperate times since last Wednesday, and if whoever's responsible don't show themselves soon I might actually lose my mind, because I can't stand not knowing who's messing with me.
Arrrgggh.

P.S. I might have just been at the wrong locker.

Judging People

I’ve been thinking about my own personal criteria for people: what I like in others. I think the biggest thing for me is hard to define; I’d call it brightness or quickness. Not really intelligence, but the ability to understand and say something funny, interesting, original-wondering what their take on something is, because it’s bound to be worthwhile. Unpredictable people I love and hate... not knowing what a reaction is going to be, for example being able to get away with an idiotic comment when they’re in a certain mood, but other times getting frozen out. It’s a lot of pressure, by the same token, because you have to constantly feel how far you can go (and the fact that you’re not sure if they’ll like what you have to say or not) is nerve-wracking and rewarding. There’s something to say for feeling comfortable, too. Knowing that no matter what you do or say can change what someone thinks of you is safe, reassuring. Then again, some times people are great for no reason...anything out of their mouth is gold, because they’re amusing as a whole. I can actually say I don’t hate anyone, as I’ve never really had a problem in my life (guess I’m lucky). For me, there’s something about every person I know that will make me laugh, so I just have to find it and then concentrate on that. It occurs to me that I’m excessively optimistic. That’s probably true. Actually, everyone I’m friends with, I am because I think they’re better than me in some way and I hope it rubs off on me.

Never underestimate how scared people from England are of bears. The thing is, the bears are still more scared of people from England than the English are of the bears.

A song song song about everything

Yeah, so I finished mixing the "first single" today. I think The Current is a passable band name. Good, not great; then again, it's better than Starfish (Coldplay), or Mythical Ethichal Icicle Tricycle (the Dead). Maybe I can use that sweet boat I drew as our logo or something. I called the song "Deanimated?" and, in a nutshell, it's an imaginary dialogue between a dying atheist and Timothy Leary. What a screwed-up idea for a song... It sounds, as usual, completely different from everything else I write. It's not a ripoff of a specific artist though, it's me singing like me, and it makes me wince.

Might as well explain to the nobody that cares how I got "The Current" as a name. It's a Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters thing, and I read about it in the Electric kool-aid acid test (Tom Wolfe, yeah before that crappy Bonfire of the Vanities thing). The next big thing that they wanted to do (whether it was hopping on the bus and freaking out the establishment or inviting dozens of hells angels over for tea and biscuits) was called "the current fantasy", but since I didn't want to partially steal Owen Pallet's use of "fantasy" in a band name, or make it sound kinda wimpy. Also, I can now use an electric or nautical bent on the word (even though the whole water theme is currently being done to death).

I am so not serious about the whole band thing though, not really. To be so seems a little crazy to me, actually, to be serious about anything seems at this point to be ludicrous; just about everything I do is for a joke, something to make myself laugh and forget the impending doom of responsibility or the emptiness of lack thereof. Not that I think that.

Predicting things isn't that amazing. We're people, and people create the future. We WILL have our jetpacks, because we thought of it, and a future without jetpacks is inconceivable because they were conceived of (in the past) and must be realized (now, which is the future).
I'm reading the Brothers Karamazov because I got sick of everyone everywhere talking about Dostoyevsky and poor old me not knowing anything about him. It's full of philosophy which I can somewhat identify, and talks about Russia alot, which I can't.

Reading a book which you cannot accept is an amazing experience-everyone with the stomach for it should read some Sade and hear, among other things, a perfectly logical argument for the completely natural right of a mother to kill her children at any time in their lives, while at the same time admiring his vulgar eloquence and hating him for expressing emotions and desires which we may or may not have, but that we know are evil and terrible (and we kick ourselves for even thinking). Maybe that's just me, though. Maybe everyone else is all saintly and not secretly murderously perverted in the head. Wow, that came out wrong.

I read that both Jaco Pastorius' basses were stolen before he died, and were never seen again. I really would love to know whether someone has 'em locked up somewhere, or whether they're in the back of some dusty pawnshop, or if they're in pieces in a dump somewhere.

Some musical info; Jesus and Mary Chain, Radiohead, Barenaked Ladies, Flaming Lips, and the Kinks are hugeish influences. I refuse to take it back, Chris, Amos Lee has a damn sexy voice; so does Aimee Mann, though. My favourite song is currently "In the Sun" as done by Michael Stipe, with Coldplay, on Austin City Limits. While in Cuba, I saw Michael Stipe doing an interview on some cuban tv show, then switched back to "Catwoman" with english subtitles.

Pledge Week

Well, I have confidential insider info that the Surrey School District has a pledge in the works. That's right, every morning, everyone stands and repeats a motivational speech (ie. "I pledge to do my best, to work hard...etc.) That might be an interesting idea, except that I generally have very little loyalty or pride in things I'm a part of (example, Canada with its maple leaf-dunno why, guess symbols and junk aren't my thing, because to me a flag is just an ordinary, very flammable piece of cloth) and having to memorize and perform this pledge every morning... It would suck, yes. I'm not sure that BS Secondary is ready for such a cutting-edge motivational technique. Rizzardo, you said it: "At Burnsview we strive to exceed mediocrity." (why do the good quotes always come from goat farmers?).
It is incredibly hard to stay out of the angry complaint/tearful introspection/advice from the clinically retarded that I usually find in blogland. It's so hard to do, in fact, that it makes me want to kill everyone/cry/watch american idol.
Giving up on dreams is one of the most freeing things anyone can do: I'm happy about deciding not to apply to music school. It's alot of pressure to work hard for something you feel like you should do but don't really want to, deep down. Yup, that's just it. When I have to do something, it's no fun, it's just work. Music, I like, it's probably the best way I can think of of wasting time. The problem with music as a university program is that it has to be formalized into a degree (that can be used for a pre-law or what have you) and so must be serious and structured and all other adjectives beginning with s. It makes me anxious just thinking about music as a career, so I thought in order to keep my refuge I had to forget about making it my education too. More than that, I'm lazy, insecure, and okay with it.
I was talking to some hockey mom about her sons, and she actually said: "...he's a nice kid, but Jack... I don't like him. He's a bully." Completely seriously and detatchdededly. "I don't like him." It may be honest, but I don't think she deserves a subway sandwich. I hope mothers usually have more tact; I cannot take that kind of brutal honesty for long. Incidentally, Subway has more locations than McDonalds. Thousands more.
I watched "deal or no deal" today, and I think it was created by someone who felt that gameshows are in general too hard, that someone with the ability to count from 1 to 26 deserves to be able to win a million dollars. It's the first show I've seen where an ordinary (non-talking) horse could have a shot. And yet, like a very shiny, bald magnet, Howie Mandel's spherical skull sang its siren song, cause I wound up watching the whole stupid thing.
"Lazy Eye" by Silversun Pickups has wormed its way into my head. I tied to resist, but it's a perfect example of the undefinable something that makes a good song: the drums and bass are indiepredictable, the singer is an "emo" dude, the song's chorus is one chord, the guitar is...well, who cares. The important and interesting thing is that after hearing it a few times, it comes on and your brain says "yes, I know this, now bob me up and down in time to the music." There's a reason fans generally don't like hearing new things live (unless it's a first impression) because people want to hear songs they know. Songs that bring back memories of people, places, life. Songs they can react to in a pre-planned, totally unspontaneous way. OH, I know this one, it used to be on the radio, wait, here's the best part...Dah dum DUM! Not that there's anything wrong with it, I just think it's weird that when the Who come everyone wants to hear Pinball Wizard, but that literature's mostly about "the next book". I guess it's because albums are product, performances are art. Books are both. In conclusion, we should bring back those high profile "readings from the new book" things, the ones in theatres with everyone who's everyone there and dressed up. Yeah, that's what we should do.

More religious crap

Just in case it looked like I was done talking about religion...

So. Christianity. Any system which bases itself on the perfection of an individual is setting itself up for problems, because humans do not have the capacity to be perfect (again, depends on your definition of perfect, but here it means toeing all the various moral guidelines at all times). The fact that we cannot be perfect is addressed, as I see it, like this: it is explained through original sin and is allowed through forgiveness. But, if you can be absolved of whatever you do, then it's like tearing up a bartab: someone drank, someone's gotta get paid, and I know because there's a bunch of empties 'round your seat. If we allow saints and those guys to be held up as having achieved their ultimate theological potential, then the idea of human perfection is possible (while at the same time impossible because we are, according to the same beliefs, born imperfect, and that sin ain't going anywhere). When you can't be born with a clean slate, something is seriously wrong.

The US constitution contains a clause saying that each landowner gets an extra 1/2 vote for every slave they own. Things change. Others cease to apply. What we believe and how we interpret any given thing changes with the times, and it's wrong to think that anything's gonna hold up through the ages or be too literal minded when it comes to forever.

I'm so sorry. I'll try to be funny again soon, I promise.

A Brave Stab at Religion

No one knows how close I am to applying to theology-and it’s not just because “Master of Divinity” is a wicked name for a degree. I think it’s because I want to find out if I’m justified in not being religious; if I knew more about the subject, I could make a better case for myself. As I see it, organized religion fills some basic needs and that’s why it’s been popular for so long:
1. It provides an explanation for how (and to a varying extent why) we came to be; an end to uncertainty regarding all sorts of existential questions.
2. It appeases fears of mortality and the process of death; I think death is harder on atheists than on those who believe they’re going to hell.
3. It appeals to humanity’s sense of community and belonging; religious fuctions are usually either fun, awe-inspiring, cathartic... with a group of people with whom you can identify because you have identical beliefs (and usually similar sociological backgrounds).
4. It’s part of a grand, longstanding tradition... stretching back through the ages with satisfaction guaranteed or your money back, est. The Beginning of Time (according to [blank]).
5. Perhaps most of all, religion is a moral guideline (interpreted à volonté) which provides a unified concept of right and wrong to the entire group. Before state superceded church, it was The Law... with its own courts and some very physical (rather than spiritual) punishments.

One thing that bothers me about all the slightly different branches of the same spiritual saplings is that each one (more or less) claims exclusivity on their own version of the afterlife. This is not a new thing, every society is based on exclusivity-because of an underlying fear of being itself undermined of abused (example: the mother of all examples, Nazi Germany, WWII). The christian idea of the conversion of the jews before the apocalypse is a good example, so are most basic remarks regarding the afterlife ("I guess we'll see who's right"), and it seems to me to be some kind of childish notion of "Absolute[ly] Right", as in "You'll see it my way sooner or later". The reason for this is pretty obvious-if someone cares what others believe, they're not sure themselves and are just looking for a little confirmation. If they don't get that, then they look for someone smaller than themselves to bully into backing them up. Schoolyard logic should not have a place in religion.

The problem with the metaphor of religion as a tree is that religion is not a growing, constantly budding thing...it’s more like a shrub-a dead one, but that still has some foliage. There are a lot of roots, a lot of branches, but no trunk. Looking from across the street, I can’t even tell whether all those branches connect into each other somewhere in the leafy middle, or if they just intertwine but stay separate. Time and chronology can only be applied in a historical sense; the closer to the ground or sky your paticular place on the shrub happens to be doesn’t mean you’re any closer or farther to (“truth”/”god”/etc.) than anyone else.

Sorry to all of our little philosophers, but I don’t think that anyone young (unless they’ve had quite an extraordinary life) has the knowledge or perspective to understand what is implied by the Big questions, let alone answer them. Their answers will be uninformed and frivolous. This definitely includes me; I can’t even salute others’ efforts to make sense of life through original or combo-meal thought because I’m too preoccupied by living, doing what I feel like, and deciding what professional direction to take. The idea of exposing myself to any of that heavy existential angst that’ll make me have an brooding, pensive look on my face all day long is distasteful. I can’t do that to myself, and this probably means I can’t be a master of divinity either. Whatever. It may be superficial and typical, but for now I’m happy with happiness and no more.

Mind Things

A few thoughts which come to mind-mainly just an excuse to write though.

I have a title for our generation: we are "The, like, generation." I feel it will stick (and have a panapale of reasons for thinking so) because it has become our all-purpose word. The Eddie Poe of today would write "...and the raven was like, Nevermore!" It's not like it's a bad thing, like, if I want to express myself I don't have to remember alot of complicated words, which I like. What are the other characteristcs which set us apart? Being the first kids to grow up with the internet? An undying, puzzling love of Johnny Depp?

The popularity of the word "sex" makes me think. It, like "jazz", is a distinctive sound which some find ugly, raw. In fact, that's why it's popular. It, like its subject, is vulgar and coarse, yet socially acceptable. It isn't used by old people, which is fine because to us they don't indulge in it anyways. Compared to the thousands of names available, it's harsh, abrupt, unromantic. The fact that it's so common means that it must reflect our current views on it in some meaningful way (pessimistic? maybe. only europeans still make love and get that chance to make love stay).

I try to make the unimportant interesting
but keep getting smaller
so easily flattened unknowingly
that even though it means nothing
I still care.

My dad made an interesting comment to me today. His involvement my school consists of attending the awards ceremony at the end of the year, and he read that 26% of children in BC High Schools are overweight; but saw very few at the ceremony so his question was naturally: "Where are the fat kids?" This was not a hurtful thing to say-it was born of genuine concern for our portly chums. Maybe we need to start a scholarship program dedicated to leveling the playing field, (Outstanding Achievement in the field of Obesity?) but then again maybe not. It may simply be that statistics in general suck (32% of people already knew this, and I'm sorry for repeating it. I've wasted your time. 59% of people didn't know and didn't care. Whatever. 9% of people, however, are still reading. Thanks?)

My Author Biography Thing

This is not good. I've had a happy, uneventful childhood, no discernable mental illness, and minimal racial persecution. As a result, I am not interesting and will never do anything brilliant and amazing. I will not die of a failed liver transplant at 32 and be endlessly glorified by the media for another 32 years after my death, or be forever surrounded by the posthumous mystique that comes from being the tragically maladjusted, underequipped celebrity of a generation. I can fight this, though. There is still time to make my back-story interesting, should I ever need a good inside-the-jacket article. Better still, I could just make it all up: in every book a writer has hundreds of pages to tell their life story but only a couple paragraphs to lie through their teeth about their history and social status.

Greg McLeod graduated simultaneously from Harvard, MIT, and ITT Tech in 1906. He lives on a plantation in Iceland with his 6 wives and (at last count) between 30 and 38 children. When he is not writing, Greg trains his beloved poodles to fly and collects and shrinks world figures into bite-sized pieces, covering them in the finest belgian chocolate (Sky Mall, $19.95 each). In his infancy, he wrote several adaptations for the stage including Macbeth, The Effect Of Gamma Rays On Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds, and Beverly Hills 90210. J.K. Rowling recently wrote a series of books based on his early life at wizarding school. This is his first novel, but he's pretty sure Charles Dickens often channeled his spirit in writing works such as Oliver Twist and Oliver Twist 2: Back In Buisness.

That reads like the world's worst mad lib, doesn't it?

More Comics

I decided to go back to work on the good ol' comic strip "A Sigh Of Relief" again today, so here's six new ones. For those who don't know, it's a first aid book that I take pics from and add (arguably) humorous captions.


That's it for now.

Shortlit

This is an odd little thing I wrote for myself-(it's kind of my attempt to emulate Anaïs Nin's short stories) but in the end, it's just a stupid little story that's easy to read because it's almost entirely simple sentences.

A few years ago I rented a small flat on la rue Saint-Sulpice in Paris. I was an aspiring artist and found myself alone for the first time in the big city.
As I sat in my room one night staring out at the swirling clouds, I noticed a light on across the courtyard. In a small, crowded room a strikingly beautiful girl sat alone at a table, seemingly contemplating the obscurity of the moonless Parisian night. She was close enough that I could read her expression; she had a prominent, haunting eyes and an intriguing smile.
While I watched from my window, she produced a bottle of wine from a cupboard and slowly poured herself a glass. After taking a few sips she rose, recorked the bottle, and, having placed it in the cupboard poured the remainderof her glass down the sink. With a hollow countenance she rose and drew the blinds, and it was with wonder that I regarded the thin slices of light which still emanated until sleep overtook me.
When I awoke it was late, and her yawning blinds revealed her absence.
Over the next few nights I witnessed the same sad scene: she would pour the glass, take a sip, and would drain it without fail.
I found the address of her building, and by studying the Annuaire par rues I noted all the likely phone numbers. One night as she sat holding her wine I called the numbers one by one. I saw her get up and walk towards the phone. As soon as she lifted her receiver, I began: I had dialed her nuber at random; I was lonely and needed a sympathetic ear. For the first time, I saw her smile falter, but instead of hanging up she listened intently.
After the conversation had gone on for several minutes, she made an odd remark: her face, it seemed, had been badly scarred on one side in a fire. I quickly replied that there was something she ought to know about me.
“You’re short”, she said simply.
We arranged to meet the next day at a café down the street which looked onto the Jardins de Luxembourg. After I hung up she went immediately to the window and closed her blinds for the night. I noticed that her glass was still on the table.
I purposely arrived at the café a few minutes early and sat down at the counter. It was Saturday and I watched the children playing in the park; the weather was fair, and the city was alive with sights and sounds.
The girl entered the café and scanned the tables. Her face, without blemish, radiated with a wistful expectation. In the doorway she seemed so tall. When she looked my way, I stared past her into the park. She stayed a short time, the same enigmatic smile playing about her lips. I watched as she walked out the door into the busy street.

The Ugliest Tree

Not gonna lie, that tree is made of branches I found in my backyard, and I didn't start decorating it until 1:00 christmas morning...

University better be worth it, because I spent 23 hours over the last two days recording a 3-minute song for my audition tape, and I have at least 2 more to go. It's a 30s swing song, and until I tried to play it myself, I don't think I really understood how understatedly hard that kind of playing is.


I just found out that my grandfather is perpetuating the grand McLeod tradition of writing books no one needs (and publishing them himself), and this one happens to be about the trip to Europe he took in the early 90s. Basically, it could be titled "100 reasons why I should have stayed home and 200 things that annoyed me"... reading is truly like being in his presence (hilarious). Some examples:

"We found the English food inedible."

"Amsterdam city was the dirtiest, scummiest place I have ever visited. It is obvious that it has attracted all the world's drug oriented young people- many of these are supported there by their families, an easier solution than watching them die at home."

"We hadn't realised that the bus would be serving Beer and Sandwiches, and a group of young drunks in the front area made continual noisy asses of themselves as we rolled along."

"It was the filthiest, dirtiest hole of a public facility I have ever seen. Edinburgh should be ashamed of this."

It's so ridiculously pessimistic that it cannot be taken seriously and is therefore pretty funny. Oh, and give Corner Gas a chance, it has a certain sarcastic charm.