<< December 2004 | | February 2005 >>
January 27, 2005 >> It pays to get involved!New column - Life on a Rail - eez online: GERMAN STYLE. I... don't really know what that means, to be honest. Maybe that's best.
I don't encourage people to vote in WLUSU elections. Far from it, in fact. So very far that me and Senior Encouragement are on opposite sides of Dusty Canyon, eyes squinting in the sun, hands ready at revolvers. We're going to fucking kill each other.
But if you DO decide to vote, fully autonomously of course, then I suggest you pick Jen Mitchell over this Trevor Cresswell guy for the VP of University Affairs job. Reasoning: Jen is aight. She lets me say the word "sodomy" on her radio show. Jen's been playing the university politika game for a while now, and one would assume that she's good at it. Look, she even has a campaign webpage! It's probably not her fault that the design sucks.
Conversely, Trevor looks like a retarded stoner. I know nothing about the boy but, for the sake of propaganda purposes, I figure it's safe to say that he's useless.
And thus ends one of the finest partisan political speeches in recent years.
PS: You can always check out www.laurierblogs.com if you actually care and want some real information.
Posted by Chris at 05:04 PM >> Commentations (6) | Permalink
January 24, 2005 >> Searching for nothing & finding it
A vast majority of the readers of this page are friends/enemies/invisible stalkers (JEN MITCHELL!) who want to see pretty pictures of themselves online. This is all fine and dandy, but every once in a while someone randomly wanders in from the cyberinterwebnet. Now, the cyberinterwebnet is a big huge place and I'm barely on the radar. Simple, mundane search terms like "idiocy" or "Shetland ponies" just aren't gonna get people to clickityclick on this site. Nope. To get here, you have to be looking for something pretty fucked up.
Some examples of search keyphrases that brought people to clemensonline.com: (these are all for real!)
infatiguable turret
gimp tie-dye
amkpa awam
porn rap integral
tim bowers montana
a few irish and austrailian jokes
language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people's experience in history
nicotine in sheesha
stupid squirrels
clemens brothers real estate
breastfeeding scenes in the cinema
wilfrid laurier university sucks
kill ann coulter
i don't deal with like you materialists
toque pronunciation
reindeer having sex
What the hell.
Posted by Chris at 01:14 PM >> Commentations (7) | Permalink
January 23, 2005 >> Silver gods and seagulls
So it seems that I have been beset by a wide variety of obligations and responsibilities lately. Some are, by definition, gheysauce: course readings and the like. I'm trying to be studious but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.
Others are self-inflicted, like FR!NGE-ity duties. These I dig, but they take away from my internet geek time. I think I'll be combining geekiness with FR!NGE soon, in a PR blitz of sorts. A holocaust of media. Maybe.
I also have a spankalicious new laptop, which looks a little like this. I realize that most of you don't really give a fuck, which is perfectly okay. If it was one of your new laptops, I would probably make some snide comment about overcompensation. But it's not yours, it's mine. And let me assure you that this personal computation device is nothing less than a silvery leviathan of godlike proportions.
All of this adds up to a suspiciously me-centric entry, so let me just add that a certain Comm. Studies theorist by the name of Bruno Latour is undoubtedly flying southwards on acid.
Here's a random, out of context quote from A Door Must Be Either Open Or Shut: "But the seagull has been forgotten! What's a seagull doing in a journalist's office? The origin of this Belgian peculiarity matters little to us here. Whatever the reason, the seagull, too, is complaining, and its cries are more piercing than the cat's. Its fury was not anticipated, and it threatens the fragile compromise that is holding together Prunelle, the cat, drafts, and cat-flaps. 'laahhr,' says the seagull."
Who says Communications students aren't gonna get jobs?
Posted by Chris at 08:49 PM >> Commentations (7) | Permalink
January 19, 2005 >> An ode to my desk
I am writing my name on my desk. Hold on a sec.
It now says CLEMENS 2003-2005 in small dark block letters, right on the edge where my wrists rest when I type. This isn't the first blotch on the false wood-grain surface. Someone has evidently attacked this poor desk with a Sharpie at some point in the past. It may have been me.
The desk is a titan, a lord amongst cheap student furniture. I have lifted this desk exactly once, when I first moved in with it two years ago. It's a heavy bastard, reinforced downstairs with steel or aluminum or tin or whatever metal makes for an extremely heavy desk. It once tried to impale my foot. I have never forgotten.
The desk is also massive in girth. In fact, it is so massive that it cannot physically fit through the bedroom door on any angle, ever. Or the window. This is a curiosity. How did such a large desk get into the room in the first place?
The guy who lived in this room before me used this desk, although in a different corner of the room. He was also aware of its inherent paradox - when I asked if he would be taking it when he moved out, he just looked at me. "How?" he asked. I didn't know, so it stayed and the flimsy predecessor got tossed aside. I didn't need two desks.
This desk cannot leave. It cannot leave as a whole, without being screwed apart or broken or hacked to pieces with a chainsaw. It was probably put together in this room and has never known another. The goliath desk has challenged all newcomers and created a graveyard of discarded lesser desks in the basement, a mausoleum of cheap plywood and rusting screws.
This desk is a survivor by design. And it doesn't take kindly to branding - my right palm is smeared with blank ink and only CLE- remains of my grafitti.
It's funny how inanimate objects can tell stories.
Posted by Chris at 01:34 AM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
January 18, 2005 >> I'm a little bit of nothing
I like when days have themes. It adds a little bit of order to the world, a pattern that's just too blatant to be coincidental. And all you can really do is smile, shake your head and say to yourself "Oh God/Fate/Zeus/Nebulous Spirit Thing, what the fuck kind of tomfoolery are you up to today?"
Today's theme was "You're not going to be a writer, you bastard!" and made me feel somewhat more irate than whimsical. Kind of an anomaly.
It started when I was sitting in the library, reading a tattered course pack for the express benefit of my Politics of Writing and Publishing class. The very first article informed me that 85% of all trade books (read: popular novels) fail miserably under the iron fist of the publishing conglomerates. It's all about the promotion, and the promotion is all about the profit. If you aren't a big juicy marketable name like King or Atwood then you're basically screwed. And there's not too much room for the new guys to scrabble their way up the food chain. Well that's nice.
Then I moved onto Canadian publishing, which is in even worse shape apparently, and I learnt that being a Canadian author is somewhat similar to being a new fish in a double-max federal prison. Unless you want to write on the indie circuit (for free). Oh, and the average Canadian fiction book sells less than 2000 copies. Yay.
So I come home, open Maclean's and here's a pretty shitty article from some kid about my age who just finished teaching English in Japan. And if you know me, this is exactly what I wanna do. And if you know me well, you'll deduce that the article wasn't really shitty but I'm calling it that because I'm mildly jealous.
Finally I was told by Andrea that originality is dead, that everything is a rehash of something that's been done before and the best I can hope for is a fancy twist on a tired tale. A shoeshine.
It's not really depressing, but it's also not really the daily theme that I would've picked, given a choice. I would've picked Nasal Penetration Day!
Posted by Chris at 11:11 PM >> Commentations (2) | Permalink
January 15, 2005 >> Pirates aren't very funny
Avast! A new gallery be afoot, although it's so fucking gigantically huge that it might as well be called a galley! Hah hah hah. A little pirate humour for ya there. I'm Johnny Depp!
(For those of you who didn't get it, a galley is a big boat.)
Ugh. Okay here it is: Gratuity Twennythree, covering such fabu events as: Czech Republic Jen's Birthday, Bryn Boyce Goes To France In a Raft and The Vast Sodomy of Phil's (my birthday).
Also my latest Cord column is up! Yay! But it's serious and not very funny at all. Boo. But consequentially it makes an actual point. Yay!
Posted by Chris at 06:19 PM >> Commentations (8) | Permalink
January 14, 2005 >> Wanna be a rock superstar
Today on my radio show, which boasts 11+ million listeners (including most of coastal China!), I loaded up a routine song - Sour Girl by Stone Temple Pilots according to the ever-reliable DJ Carly's OK. I then proceeded to ramble away for the 'benefit' of everyone in the booth before cheerfully announcing that "I wanna be a rock star!" So I sang along with Scott Weiland, using the mic soulfully and dramatically, a pillar of rock musicianship. Finally I noticed that I had forgotten to turn down the mic levels and had been broadcasting my dreams, aspirations and kareoke across the Concourse. I might have said something about sexing up a Shetland pony too, I have no idea.
Let this be a lesson to you, kids: Scott Weiland got addicted to drugs and look what happened! Coincidence? I think not.
Update: Whoops! I almost forgot to plug the show...silly me. If you want to listen to me being similarly ridiculous and/or offensive on the air, check out www.radiolaurier.com between the fine hours of 4:00 and 5:30 every Friday. You need to click the "Listen Live" link and then a bunch of technical shit happens and my voice comes out of your speakers! Sweet mother of God!
Posted by Chris at 08:44 PM >> Commentations (5) | Permalink
January 08, 2005 >> My dark lord is named Higgins
As many of you know, tomorrow is my birthday. What better way to celebrate than with some dark gothic poetry from my stereotypically blackened soul? Enjoy!
My heart destroyed
Not a pig's heart; nay, a human heart
With ventricals and various other biological terms that I learnt in Grade 11
But now I don't know anymore
Alas!
BROKEN! SIGH! WEEP!
The dark lord comes to eat your face
With a little bit of mustard
Not too much - that would be unrefined
And the Master is an English gentleman
His name is Higgins.
The downward spiral calls me, enchanting
Very much so like the Rainbow Road level in Mario Kart
Except WAY more gothic; I mean totally
My birthday is the black abyss that you always fall into when you forget to powerslide around those corners without railings
Except there is no turtle guy on a cloud to fish you out
Well, maybe there is, I'm not entirely sure
MAYBE IT'S HIGGINS IN DISGUISE!!!! HOLY FUCK THIS IS DEEP!!!!
I would be more scared by this post except for the fact that I am strangely uplifted by this undeniable evidence that being 23 is unlikely to make me any more mature.
Posted by Chris at 04:36 PM >> Commentations (3) | Permalink
January 07, 2005 >> You know...
You know, I am posting with frightening rapidity considering my computer is a crippled piece of shit.
You know # 2, if you don't come out of your university book store feeling like you've been furiously bent over and molested by a rhino, you're doing something wrong. Like stealing course packages instead of paying the fully inflated price. Good for you!
You know # 3, I wrote some stuff for the Cord this week...a review of the movie Closer and a column called No Cell Phone (which is about not having a cell phone! Holy shit!).
You know # 4, you were adopted. Your real father is a Chinese panda bear.
You know # 5, this is fucked.
Have a nice day!
Posted by Chris at 04:30 PM >> Commentations (4) | Permalink
January 06, 2005 >> Leading by example
And because I have to undermine any point I make with a juicy piece of hypocracy:
Czech Republic Jen v.s. the Vodka Shot Krew (feat. Tequila Plumpa)
This girl is a champion and today's her birthday! Not that this has any relevence outside of my immediate circle of friends lololol!!! omg and tonite she's drinking MORE! I sure hope Jenny callz me sometime soon!!!!! <333
Hahaha...oh god.
Posted by Chris at 08:46 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink
>> Mood: Fat and Sassy!
I have a smug little smile on my face right now, a smirk so irritating that if you happened to see it you'd want to hit me in the face with a shovel for sure. If there was a mirror in my room, I'd probably be so disgusted that my only recourse would be to knock out my teeth with this fat Airworks space heater. I'm that smug. Luckily, I'm also hideous - like Jaromir Jagr hideous!
Yeah.
However, I'm not modest. You see, my twisted joy hinges entirely on the fact that I'm better than everyone else on the internet. Well, everyone on LiveJournal at least.
I recently stumbled across this very interesting site which has the sole purpose of vigorously snatching the most recent 20 images posted to people's LiveJournals. It might be stealing, I dunno. If you aren't an internet geek and have no idea what a LiveJournal is, it's basically just like... well, this... except that they are 95% written by 13 year old emo girls in the following format:
OMG so 2day me and kazzy (she changed her nam again LOLOL!) was at da mall and oh shit! lil jonno was chillin by Hot Topik and he looked at me and was all like "Damn girl, you are flavurred just like a bbq chicken wing!" and it was rad. I <3 you jon!!!! anywayz so i told kazzy to fucking take the bus home and went with jon and he gave me this peach snappzz at his pad (which was rad) and then we did some things which are not for you to know lol!
And then I walked homme and I was all like ow ow ow and walking all funny crazzy like because my ass hurt from getting fucked! And then I watched American Idol and omg I cant even believe that simon...kelly ur my girl!!!!!! 4 life!!!!!!! peace out yall.
ps who no's a good site for finding out if u can get pregnant from the backdoor???
Okay yeah, so I got a little carried away there but a vast majority of LiveJournal users post stuff EXACTLY LIKE THAT (often minus the sodomy, but not always). And after a couple days of randomly clicking on pictures and checking shit out, I can't help but come to the conclusion that I am far better than the general internet populace. I mean, seriously, me and Chad have been creepy voyeurs for two days now and have yet to find anything worthwhile. Neo-Nazis, crybaby punk posers, lame-o 30-somethings looking for a date: these are all online in abundance, but an original idea? An amusing anecdote? Nope. A picture of a hippo trying to bang a turtle? Unsurprisingly, yes.
So, while it's vindicating to find out that anything I write, even one word over and over and over and over and over again, will far surpass the dank and dismal efforts of the LiveJournalers, I kinda have to feel bad for these kids. Because they're fucking stupid.
The end!
Posted by Chris at 06:32 PM >> Commentations (6) | Permalink
January 03, 2005 >> Happy Homicidal Mix CD Day!
You hand her a shiny silver disc, still warm from its hastily etched laser baptism. She takes the CD gingerly, frowning slightly at the mishmash of black lines that slash across the surface.
"What's all this?"
You stammer a little, aware of your ineptitude. "Well, I was trying to decorate it for you. That's what you do with mix CDs."
She peers at the artwork. "This looks like a vagina. Is this music about pussies?"
It was supposed to be a heart with a crack ripping through it, an emblem of love broken and twisted. The Sharpie had rebelled against the magnitude of its mission.
"No."
She doesn't ask what it was supposed to be. Instead she flips the disc end over end cursorily, stopping to examine the manufacturer's brand name. The embossed logo is flanked by two poorly rendered hardcore stars that came out relatively well, considering the time invested. You thought that they might match the ragged stars that she carves into her wrist on particularly black nights. She doesn't notice.
"Pengo. You made me a Pengo CD. Is this supposed to be a penguin or something?"
She jabs halfheartedly at another messy scrawl. You can tell she's lost interest though: her eyes glaze over and she's no longer with you. Where does she go on these adventures when she leaves her body behind? Why can't she stay?
"Why can't you stay?" you blurt out. Mistake. Her eyes focus, narrow in on you until they're pinpoints.
"What?" The pins gouge. There is malice in her voice, but also traces of glee. You've given her the advantage and she knows it.
"Why can't I stay? What is this bullshit, Jonathan? First you give me this half-assed birthday CD that you obviously burnt less than ten minutes ago - it's still warm, you retard - and then you expect me to hop into bed with you?"
You're stammering now, backpedaling where there's no room.
She pauses, draws breath for the spiteful conclusion. The gleam in her eyes suggests that it's going to be a good one and you inhale too, anticipating the rush. But then something happens that has never happened before. The gleam dulls and in this moment you know that she's gone again, that she's living the life and seeing the things and doing the people that lie beyond the slamming door and squealing tires.
She hesitates. You don't. You grab the CD from her hand and snap it in half, splintering the songs that say what you can't. She stands with a queer look on her face, half dreaming and half surprised. Her hand is still curled, holding a phantom mix disc that she would have never listened to.
You're hoping that she doesn't glance at the door. She does. You look at the shattered CD in your hands and think of what could have been, of the places that you'll never share. She would never let you come with her anyways. You choose the half with the jagged edge and draw it quickly across her throat.
She's leaving again.
Inspired by www.girlsarepretty.com.
Posted by Chris at 03:38 PM >> Commentations (0) | Permalink
January 02, 2005 >> Progressive retrospect
Well well well.
New Years has come and gone and all I have in memory is the fiery end of the evening, which is when I finally remembered to pull out my camera. The scene has been set for a 2005 rife with blurry confusion and indecision (rather appropriate, considering most of us will be facing Real Life this year). Personification was in full effect and heroes were born: Black Widow, White Life and Blue Ninja all rose, gave their everything (Blue Ninja was crazy as fuck) and were eventually sacrificed to the pyre while Red Firestarter lives on to tell their saga. The Wineglass went to a punk party and survived, even when its existence was threatened by a young man in a mohawk: "Actually that's a champagne glass."
More than anything, it felt like we pulled something out of nothing that night - a feat which should be acknowledged and celebrated considering its scientific impossibility. So perhaps hope is on the horizon. I'm actually feeling optimistic, which is a statistical rarity.
I'll let the Nikon (and Photoshop!!) tell the rest of the story.
Posted by Chris at 07:29 PM >> Commentations (1) | Permalink