Katrina's Travelling Journal

My good friend Katrina has put together a journal of her ongoing journey around the world.
Click on the picture below for a read.

http://homepage.mac.com/katrina_plamondon

1970’s Porn Theme Song

Shroomie-woomies are the boomies ::~:: "bowm-chicka-wow-wow"

One of my roommates has been singing that 70’s porn theme for the last 24 hours. It’s a lot funnier when he does it.

We’ve come up with a brilliant addition to the English language today. It took both of us to convince a mutual paller that the existing root form of the word held its own spot in Webster’s bible.

"Protraction is not a word!" she exclaimed with doubt.

"Of course it is," the roomie retorted. "It’s a variation of the word protract, which is often deviated to make up "protractor, which is what you used in grade-school math.

"The hawks like to use it to describe the messy fixes their hate politics get us in," I added. "as in... ’this appears as though it’s shaping up to be a long and protracted conflict.’ It means elongated, extended, or drawn out."

You see... there’s only so far a couple of fledgling ideologues like my roomie and I can carry the self-absorbed pretentious kick before the illicit drugs and empty beer cans begin making shit up for us.

"Yeah... elongated and extended..." said my roomie, "as in, ’hey dude... I’ve got the biggest protract-on for that girl.’

"Way ahead of you man..." I couldn’t stop myself from saying, "I just protactulated all over myself again."

And to think, they’re considering giving the two of us degrees, and sending us out into the world.

See, a head-full of illegalities will put shit like that in your mouth.

Some people are well-adjusted, and turn their trips into brilliance.

Until some ties from the Harvard school of business come along, buy the rights for a penny, market that beam of light to the public, make an outhouse full of money for-themselves and convince the creator to go back to school for retraining. You may have heard of this scheme before. It’s called...

"Life-long learning."

And you too can have a piece of the pie for the low-low cost of a-debt-so-large-that-the-interest-will-be-more-than-you-can-possibly-make-in-a-month.

But worry not... cause if that education you can’t pay for gets old and outdated the week after you graduate, you can always choose another flavour of the month, and come back for retraining. Ain’t life-long-learnin’ grand?

If you’re lucky enough to be in the Arts, then you can rest assured that those thousands you put towards this class will provide you with the best damned reading lists you ever did see. Whatcha mean you don’t like this plan? You give us fuckloads of cash... we tell you what to read, then we bring you into class twice or thrice per week, subject you to a lecture on what we think you should have interpreted from those readings, we’ll fire a few questions at you, ask you to regurgitate what our opinions are back to us in a paper, and then chuck a grade your way if yer lucky.

Look at you fukkers out there in readers land... nodding your heads as if you can relate to what I’ve just said.

Feck... I can’t even relate to what I’ve just said. Though I hear it come out of the mouths of people around me every day.

There’s some merit to it I suppose. Many classes are nothing more than reading lists with a bit of discussion around them. But I sure as hell didn’t know all that wonderful shit lay out there just waiting to be read prior to me hittin’ a class or two. And how the feck else are you gonna get that many budding right-wing bastards together and force them to deal head on with the theory of surplus value?

Though that doesn’t seem to deter these little zits from growing up into labour-crushing, worker-exploiting, bigger zits; getting daddy’s corporation to elect them to a seat of power; deregulating tuition to make a spot for their investors in the new "education industry"; tearing down years of accomplishments by the united working class, and generally stealing the highly guarded knowledge of anal dimensions such a yours and mine.

And if they aren’t as successful at proving to us heathens than greed is a glorious and integral part of our economic makeup, as their pecking-order brethren, then they wind up working for crack-ass description definers like Random House or Webster’s.

And just for kicks... they deny us use of words like "protractulation" and "fuknut."

But we continue to kick-it with smiles anyhow, don’t we? That’s what pisses them off the most you know. That we haven’t forgotten that one day, when we’ve got their backs up against the wall, the unwashed masses will raise the collective pen, and scrawl on page 473 of the New People’s Dictionary:

pro-tract’-on: n [pro tract’, on] 1. a part, or thing that protrudes, or protacts. 2. set up, in an upright position. 3. tissue that becomes rigid when filled with blood
~
God Bless the materialists

Melo - 2003-04-14 03:59:41.691345-07

Modest Mouse, Live in Vancouver

First song of their set, 9:30 pm, May 25th, 2005

Queen Elizabeth Theatre - Vancouver

The Violent and Brutal Murder of Minnie Mouse

Listen at your own risk...

Typewriters Do It Better

For the more prolific among you� try smashing your melo entries out on a typewriter before posting them.

Sure, you�ll face the foreseeable challenge of having to reacclimatize yourself to the feel of big bashy keys. If you�re old enough to have ever used one of the ol� hammer setters that is.

Sadness resonates throughout my being with the realization that many of you likely aren�t. For typesetting is one of the great lost arts.

Force yourself to plug an entry out on one of these beasts, should you chance upon one. That challenge is minute in comparison to the one to come.

Wanna give will power a test? Try transferring your literary fetus onto a word processor without so much as a restructured sentence. Here�s the real challenge. You�ll want nothing more than to change this and reorder that.

And herein lies the beauty of a typewriter.

Truckloads more soul rests in a typeset creation than the drivel you�ll spew forth through a pirated Microsoft spell-check filter.

No typewriter shall ever force you to capitalize �microsoft.�

But more importantly, in all its unforgiving freedom, a physical word processor, without any training wheels, bells, nor whistles, forces you to inject more thought and structure into your creation.

The entire process is exhilarating and infinitely analog. A thought is born far up inside that noggin of yours. Sparks fly as it explodes forth from the tips of your fingers, slamming hard down on hammers with utmost diliberance.

From that moment forth, your thoughts may as well be carved in stone baby� because whiteout is for fukkin� wimps.

Give it a go. Undoubtedly you�ll at first feel as though you�re shitting without ass-wipe, but let�s quit fukkin� round here. Melo wasn�t made for spellchecks and automated correction. It was designed for much more than that.

It was designed for you� warts and all bitch.

Melo- 2003-11-04 16:44:03.099274-08

Drusilla the attack kitty

This little bugger ain't payin' rent... but she's sure around a lot lately.

Is this Grandview Highway North?

And so I says to the dude...

"man... yous gots a few locks on yer door."

"never can be too careful," is his answer.

"Well," says I... "figure you might like to come out and vote for the fella in this photo?"

"can't think of any reason why I would..." is his answer.

"how's 'bout... the Liberals are evil?" I offer up.

"evil enough to drown a sack of puppies?" he asks.

"yeah man... they're just about that evil," I say.

"Well, I do like puppies."

"we all do brother."

"Suppose I better come out and vote then."

"Yes," I say... "for the sake of the puppies."

So I says to my Balcony...

"Balcony," I said...

"Sup'?" said he.

"Don't mind if I kick it out here on yer back eh?" I asked.

"Sure don't," said he.

"how's about I have a smoke then?" I offered.

"Don't mind if you do..." said he "and don't forget to read today's paper."


Balcony handed me the morning star.


REDHEAD IN LATE TWENTIES - SELLS HIS SOUL,"
read the first headline.


An innordinate amount of smoke gasped into my lungs.

"Pay that shit no heed..." started balcony, "there's at least two bits of news they've failed to include."

"That being?" I asked.

"Which would you prefer?" balcony responded, "good or better?"

"Good," said me.


"You're a Communist."

"and better?"

"You ain't got no fukkin soul."

Mr. Chuckles ain't no Happy-assed Kitty

Posted by: archestratus

Canvassing during elections, particularly in the Mt-Pleasant & Vancouver-Hastings ridings, is one helluva great way to come across some quirky situations, and some style-ridden people.

Today's story ain't that sweet I suppose, but at least it's brief.

Pulled up on the doorstep of one grand old house near 6th and Grandview. Knocked on the door, ready to let loose with the latest reason this home-dweller was required to vote the Liberals outta office.

A cat bounced up to the other side of the door right quick, and answered with a shill howl.

I figured that a tad strange, and dog-like for a kitty, but knocked on the door again fer good measure.

The kitty mowed a slight more desperately, and then again, in a manner that suggested something was seriously wrong.

I looked down at the threshold, and saw the same leaflet I was packing, shoved under the door, untouched since the last time Jenny came calling. That seemed a touch odd, since the last time Jenny had been round this neighbourhood was a week or two prior.

The kitty was meowin' sumpin' fierce by this time, and I said to my canvass partner, who had just caught up the rear... "this kitty's been left alone, or someone's gone and got dead there inside that house."

So while my canvass compadre starting looking up the number for 911, I stuck my finger through the mail slot to pet the kitty's nose. On the ridge of the slot, sat a few little vittles, which , it became clear, had been left by someone else before us.

We scanned around some more, and found a bag of dry food, that someone had obviously brought in to shove through the mail slot. Further inspection turned up a "call again" notice from the SPCA, indicating on May 9th, that they would be round to do soemthing with the kitty. It was now the 12th, so we rang up that SPCA, to figure out when they figured they'd be coming back round.

Answerin' machine was all we got.

Then buddy from cross the street poked his head out his balcony, and explained to us that Mr. Owner had in fact croaked,a nd that he'd been feeding kitty till the SPCA worked their beuracracy out. I asked about water, and he said he hadn't a way to get it into the house.

So off we went... continuing on with our job.

Till Nat and I returned later that night to pour a puddle of water through the mail-spout for Mr. Chuckles.