Hmm, well I didn't know patchouli was in the mint family. . .

Christ on a crabcake. My hands smell like patchouli. My good friend Chad used to call it mossman smell, cause apparently the Mossman action figure (remember He-Man? Remember Mossman?) http://www.mwctoys.com/images/MOSSMAN.jpg there he is if you forgot. Yeah apparently they laced him with patchouli. I can't confirm this personally, but Yank used to call the same smell 'He-Man heads' cause he thought as a child that He-Man's head smelled like that. So I'm a firm believer that the action figures were associated in some way with patchouli. I never smell it on the action figures since I don't own any, nor do I remember ever having owned them, so these days when I want my fix of the trustafarian tramp serum (thanks Urban Dictionary) I have to go to the crafts store downtown. It's a Harmony Crafts, so they think that they can recreate the entire asian continent in one store. Fake recycled parchment scrolls with Japanese characters that probably say "Roundeye pay big Yen for stupid proverb.", Scented candles that smell like soap, which hippies don't coincidenctally use, but do burn. Buddhas carved out of maple and poplar and other north american woods, and don't forget djembes (yeah Africa's in there too) made of synthetic goat skin and various woods, none of which grow in Africa. There's also silk imported from china but with Indian patterns on it, and various geological samples which have probably been imported from Bancroft, Ontario or Squamish, BC at the furthest - polished in tumblers and tagged with little paper lies about cleansing blood, calming your soul, aligning your chakras, focusing your chi, or giving you that perfect bowel movement of which you have been in pursuit since your adolescence. To me they look like Malachite, Hematite, Turqoise, Sodalite, etc, but to some people they're maaaagiiic. Why was I in there? I have a magic pendant I had made by a little magic Vietnamese man in a magical city called Ha Noi, and the cotton string it hangs on was frazzled, so I needed to replace it. The more down to earth place around the corner on Carden St moved a long time ago, which I guess is the way of the world, since they probably picked up some bad karma somewhere admitting to themselves that they were a bead store and that's exactly what they were. See in Harmony Crafts when you walk in there's a sign that says "Don't dwell on reality, it will only keep you from greatness." This must be the secret to why they're still standing. I wanted to interrupt the little conversation on auras the sales clerk/shaman medicine woman was having with the other customer and ask her if she's ever heard of irony, or inherently flawed logic, but I thought better of it. She sounded too enlightened for me. Probably she ignored me the whole time in the store cause she could see my black aura. So that philosophy sums up why the store's still standing, but what summed up the store itself was a t shirt at the back among the overpriced organic saris fed to elephants with coffee beans and spinach and washed in camel piss. It was a black t-shirt that said only "Bangkok City" And I thought 'there's your problem right there.' I spent an afternoon in Bangkok once. It was nice. Really affluent near the airport, roadsigns and pavement that look just like ours, except with Khmer next to the roman script. Khaosan Road had delicious food, lots of smiles, didn't really get a sense of the hookers and blow that the city is famous for. . . Now though it was a rich experience, however short, I felt no need to come home with a t shirt. I think I might bring home a t shirt for every 2 months I spend in a place. What would possess some asshole to buy one at Harmony Crafts? Why would the place even sell this? One simple answer. It's a retail store that capitalises entirely on appearances, which, ironically, is the thing they're trying to teach you matters least. Forget about reality, just meditate. Don't focus on the real, it will keep you from being great. Here, pat this buddha on the head, light these incense sticks, snort this line of patchouli, buy a t shirt that bears the name of a far east capital city that if you'd been to, you might have brought your own t shirt back from for a fraction of the price, or maybe even just let it dwell in your memory, after all talking about it or advertising it on a t shirt might bring it into the realm of the physical, which would prevent it from greatness.

Why am I so angry? I'm asking you as well as myself. . . Honestly it's the conversation I was listening to while I was in there. I have been in that store 100 times since high school. Sometimes they have stuff I want, and I don't mind the relaxed alternative vibe usually. It was the cleavage touting hippy that was talking to a lady in there. I overheard her say "Sometimes you get a real aura of a helping nurturing person from someone and I get that from you." She also said "yeah this stone is used for treating addiction." Want more?

"I took a course over the holidays and yeah, I treated a bunch of people and by the end I was totally exahusted, like I took away all their negative energy and just held onto it myself."

And by this time I was standing at the check out with my little roll of $7.00 cotton string looking through my bills trying to get exact change so I could slam it on the glass counter, and leave the store under the cloak of my black aura, but alas, I only had a $10. Finally she came over with the customer, who was bitching about work while sipping a tim horton's coffee "Oh it's an hour and a half drive to kitchener where I work, an an hour and a half back, and I'm surrounded by so much negativity, and last week some guy stabbed me in the eye cause my voice was so annoying so I planted explosives in his car, but he's my neighbor so it ended up killing my cat when she was over there taking a shit on his lawn and that made my aura even darker, bla bla bla." And finally as the clerk/eastern herbal holistic health mystic is closing the transaction, she says in the most detached insincere teenage high school girl voice that her thirty year old cleavage can muster "yeahhhhh. . .I know. Well all I can say is that all my positive energy is with you." And then to seal that lie completely with a little taste of the real and tangible, money exchanged hands and the coffee sipping lady walked out, no doubt feeling healed.

Now skeptic as I am, I can't help but realise the two of them felt a lot better after all that, so maybe those rocks work after all. I on the other hand, was full of negative energy from SOMEWHERE, and I just didn't know what to do with it. . .

until now. So there you go, pass it on to someone else, cause I feel a whole lot better. Or maybe if you've mastered the art of channeling it you can fire it into space for some poor soul in limbo to pick up so it can get reincarnated with it as the next great leader of an anti-human revolution. . . or a snake or something.

Either way, I need to go wash this patchouli off my hands, it's making me crazy.

***

The first shot is from New Delhi, India, I thought this was a golden moment to demonstrate reality versus stereotype. Yeah it's a Buddhist monk with camcorder. The second shot is the terrifying dirt bikes the police ride around Bangkok. Reality, it tends to get in the way of greatness, let me say it one more time. Is there a greater way to subconsciously reveal a latent dissatisfaction with your life?

Wake up and smell the ground beef.

This is the last place you want to go for political rants (or maybe it isn't, but it should be) but what's happening in the states right now is equivalent to millions of people saying they'd rather have access to a filet mignon worth $100, even if all they'll ever have in their pockets is $5, rather than be given a free hamburger. And I just can't keep it to myself anymore.

Now let's not petend, in the words of Joe Biden, this is a "big fuckin' deal". I watched The Hour last night and Strombo busted him saying that in Obama's ear before he announced the bill, which is another reason I love those two right now. Anyway, this is a big deal, and I'm well aware it can only happen in small steps, and I really believe what we're seeing is the first stepping stone in a long road of progress. All that aside, if I could be cynical for a moment, I have to bring up this hilarious example of Danny Williams (is that it, Williams?) the Nefoundland Premier going to the states for his heart operation. Whether or not he could have gotten the care in Canada is neither here nor there. No one would right-mindedly argue that Canada has more surgical skill on the whole than the states. We've all heard of the brain drain. However, from a mathematical standpoint the whole thing is hilarious. You have an example of ONE GUY. You've heard of ONE GUY (there's 33,000,000 of us) ever going to the states for major health care. Not that there aren't more examples, but to hang on one should actually work against your argument shouldn't it? Remember that 33,000,000 - 1 = 29,999,999 Canadians staying in Canada to receive Canadian health care. Why? Because just like the Americans we can't afford American health care. Most of us are cool with that. Anyway, most of the people in charge of this are folks who can afford those high quality surgeons, and the fact that the country doesn't just hold a referendum and ask the actual victims of this setup what they want is silly anyway. . . but I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about that population of folks, and they know they're out there, who can't afford the filet mignon, but are making fun of us Canadians eating our free burgers. You know what? This might just be a burger what I'm eating here, but it will keep me alive a lot longer than that five bucks you have in your pocket, so wake up and smell the burgers, you can't afford that filet mignon anyway.

Seriously, imagine for a moment that the american people were not hippos, and that the politicians were not riding on their backs, and that the filet mignon health care they (the politicians) enjoy was not a carrot on a string being dangled in front of the poor hippos' faces. Imagine that. What would happen with no carrot on the string? The first thing would be the hippo would buck off the senator. The next thing would be for the hippo to add the senator to a long list of hippo related casualties that humans can be so proud of. The final thing would be for the hippo to unfocus those tired near sighted eyes and realise that if he hadn't been focussing on that unattainable carrot for so long he'd have seen the free burgers lying all over the ground around him. Tell me you wouldn't punish a burger if you were starving.

I could've written all that a lot more eloquently, but I didn't care to. Just wanted to get the point across. So stop judging my syntax in your head.

ps It's hard to tell but that school bus is completely stuck.

I'm hungry now.

Cats in zero G

Let's ignore the fact that you and I both thought this blog was dead (hell it probably is) and thank some Eastern European spammer for posting the first comment in like seven months and sparking some inspiration. Refer to comment on: http://stuffhappenseveryday.blogspot.com/2006/11/who-is-yank-character-profile.html

***

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Wow. And to you sir I say

Thanks.

I can tell you are author and weight loss expert. You must be a master of English, or at least Russian or Polish, judging by your omission of definite articles such as "a" and "the". Also, your extraordinary spelling of the word 'habit' shows a particular penchant for the unconventional and cutting edge. You are a leader of a desperately sought reform of the English language. Also, I am impressed with your intuition! How did you know I'm not serious enough about my health? Thanks for this. Never mind the fact that I'm Canadian, I still identify closely with the over 90% of obese Americans you speak of. Anyway, you're right, I don't want to undergo difficult weightloss program, but I'm also afraid of chemical treatments, such as the acai berry. I guess that leaves your last option, the colon cleanse. If I could presume to judge you for a moment I'd say this is the option you picked. I say that because if I shoved a tube of hot soap water up my ass and captured the ensuing response in a bucket I'd end up with an email remarkably like the one you sent me.

Asshat.

Maybe I'll start writing in here again and see what happens. Did anyone read this? PS, I fixed the commenting issue, so it should work now. ie, comments can be left. Let's face it, if I never got any comments this blog would have ended after I posted a picture of a dead squirrel. Which was the first picture.