Today, on my walk home from phototherapy, someone driving a blue Chevrolet Cobalt SS yelled at me from their open window. I had headphones in place, and so missed whatever sparkling witticism was being shouted in my direction, but I can only assume that it was prompted by my making them slow down slightly because my path crossed theirs at an intersection. 

I am intensely curious as to what the shout may have been. Was it a slur, racial or otherwise (I am disinclined to the racial angle, as I am Caucasian and live in Saskatoon – racism usually flows the other way around here)? Was it a compliment? It could have been, and it wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve had something nice yelled at me from a car. Was it nonsensical? I had a friend who liked to yell “canoe” at people, because it confused them. It could have been a catcall, but I don’t think my outfit was conducive to cat-calling, and, as a man, cat-calls are infrequently made (though it has happened once or twice). All possibilities, all lost to time and swathed in mystery for eternity. I didn’t get a look at the driver, the car and the shout both having passed behind me as I walked across the street.

Amurrrrrica the Byerrrrrrtifuuuul

I'm in America right now, have been for a while, will be for a little while longer yet.

I have learned that people here are much like people at home, except for a few things:

1. They don't know where Canada is. I mean, most of them are vaguely aware that Canada is North, and that we have snow, but that's as far as it goes.
2. They are not aware that they don't actually have a left-leaning political party. That Obama's administration is actually right of centre has earned me some weird looks of disbelief.
3. Everyone has opinions about Mexicans, and most of them are scary. Bigger walls! Drones! They took our jobs! Border Wars!
4. No one talks about religion, ever, except that them Islams is bad. People just assume you're Christian, and you hear a lot about how things are "blessings" or "gifts".
5. People think that Fox News is actually news.
6. Lots of people are anti-universal health care until they hear how much my medical treatments are not costing me.
7. People actually believe that crap about higher taxes on the wealthy killing small businesses. 
8. They don't teach you how your naughty bits work at school, apparently because if you don't tell kids about reproductive biology, they won't figure out where to stick things.

America itself is also just a little different, and I notice it primarily in the following ways:

1. There is high-fructose corn syrup in everything, and foods intended to be sweet are about six times sweeter than they are in Canada.
2. The news here has about five minutes of actual information per hour, and the rest of the time is filled with fluff pieces, "won't somebody please think of the children", "those crazy Muslims", and, "WHY YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID OF Q-TIPS!!"
3. Advertising is much more pervasive, and it sort of assumes that you're an idiot.
4. Time Magazine is not a news magazine.
5. There are a disturbing number of very large people on mobility scooters. I don't know their stories, but statistically, they are anomalous. 
6. Iced tea and sweet tea are different. Iced tea and sweet tea are different. Iced tea and sweet tea are different. Iced tea and sweet tea are different.

It all sort of keeps you on your toes.

Ted

I recently finished reading Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. In the back of the e-book, there was a personal section by the author, in which he discusses where he gets his ideas. He casually tossed a few ideas out, and I have appropriated one of them, I hope he won't mind.

The first thing that you should know is that werewolves are real. I don't know about anything else supernatural. I have no idea if vampires, sparkly or otherwise, exist. I don't know about swamp thing, bigfoot, or Frankensteinian monsters (Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster, and I have no problem slapping the back of your head if you mix that up). I don't know about fairies, faeries, or the fey. I have no particular association with gnomes, elves, dwarves (mythical dwarves, not people with a condition), elves, orcs, goblins, or any other bits and bobs of European mythology. I don't have any special knowledge of Buddha, Shiva, Ganesha, Jehova, Jesus, or Allah, not beyond the same books that everyone else has access to. But. I do know that werewolves are real, because one bit my goldfish. It was trying to bite me.

I'll explain.

I live in Seattle. It has hills, nine months of more or less constant cloud cover, and not actually that much rain. It also, like any major centre, has pet stores that are open late. Late enough that after supper and a few drinks one night (just a few, honest), I decided to follow through on a vaguely-formed desire for companionship and a long-denied childhood yearning for a pet goldfish. I am currently single, and I have my own apartment, so after splitting from my friends after supper, there was nothing to stop me from acting on impulse and stopping at a pet shop.

I poked at the puppies and the kittens, but moved on quickly, so as not to get attached. I wanted vague companionship, not a furry life partner. Arriving at the fish section, I had time to pick out a particular goldfish, come up with a name ("Ted"), and get in several solid minutes of loitering before a clerk shuffled over to me, zombie-like, to inquire after my braaaaaaiiins. Note: the clerk was not actually a zombie. I don't know about zombies, either.

I left the store with Ted in the traditional plastic baggie full of water and made it about half a block down in the streetlit evening before being assaulted by a snarling, slobbering, slavering wolfman. I was most definitely more scared of him than he was of me. I know this because I did a poor job of containing the urine that I had been containing since shortly before arriving at the pet shop. Either that, or a werewolf peed my pants.

We rolled on the ground for an eternal, pants-moistening moment of abject terror, then traffic broke onto the previously silent street. Being silhouetted by headlights cost the man-beast some of its nerve, and with a last (and uncalled for, I felt) shove to the pavement, it pushed off of me and vanished up the alley it had launched from to begin with.

Actually, it may have vanished. I wouldn't know, as I was busy lying on the ground, feeling sanity seep in with the cold from the sidewalk. No one stopped to see if I was okay, but then, I appeared to be the only one on the street; the cars that had scared off my furry mugger had already vanished over the hill. It was while horizontal on the cement, listening to my pulse do a rather convincing impression of a kettle drum, that I caught a glimpse of a very full moon through a small hole in the omnipresent cloud cover of my city. "Well, that explains that," I thought, dusting myself off, realizing during the dusting process that Ted's bag was leaking.

I hurried back to the pet shop and got a new sack for His Royal Tedness, getting some fairly interestedly disgusted and disgustingly interested looks. After Ted was secure, and, after cursory inspection, in no poorer condition than he'd been when I acquired him, I snuck a look at myself by way of a reflection in a shop window. I looked like I'd had intercourse with a particularly unhappy badger. The sleeves of my jacket were in tatters, my pants had several rips, and my crotch was wet and a bit on the tangy side. I went home, realized that I hadn't thought to buy a goldfish bowl, and put Ted into a frosted and bulbous vase given to me by an old girlfriend. Given back, I should say. I'd given it to her, but when we broke up, she no longer felt compelled to maintain the pretense of liking it.

I threw out my jacket and pants, ruined as they were, and inspected myself for damage: some bruises, but astoundingly, no broken skin. I took a shower and went to bed, falling asleep instantly. I was tired. Coming down from adrenaline will do that to you.

The next day, I procured the rest of the things one normally requires to care for a goldfish, including (but not limited to) food, a proper bowl, some little rocks for the bottom, and the stereotypical castle. The previous evening's events seemed like the sort of thing best kept to myself, for reasons of odd looks and not ending up in sort of jacket where the sleeves tie at the back, and also because it didn't seem particularly real.

Over the course of the next month, I gradually convinced myself that it had merely been a very large dog, and even made a call to animal services. Then, about 28 days from the incident, I came home late to find what looked like a small, brown, furry piranha-seal swimming lazily in Ted's bowl.

Fuck me.

When I crouched down next to the bowl for a closer look, it noticed me and swam more vigorously in my direction, colliding with the side of the bowl with an ineffectual, dull *dink* sound. It rebounded a little, but kept at it, slowly opening and closing its small jaws, revealing a mouth full of tiny-but-sharp-looking teeth. The phone company had recently dropped off a pile of the phonebooks that people stopped using since the internet became ubiquitous, so I went down two flights of stairs to the pile, grabbed one, took it back to my apartment, and covered the top of the bowl with it. Then I poured myself a glass of red wine from the mostly-full bottle of red sitting on the kitchen counter, sat at my little table, and stared at were-Ted.

"Well." I thought. *Dink* "There's no denying that." *Dink*

I took a large swallow from my glass, as were-Ted softly thudded against the side of the bowl, slowly, over and over, never causing a damn thing to happen. I took another large swallow, thought better of it, drained the glass, refilled it, and sat there for the rest of the night, slowly drinking and watching my pet tap his snout against the bowl. I went to bed about two, and the glassy thumping stopped as soon as I was out of sight.

In the morning, Ted was normal again, with no sign of his Jekyll and Hyde act save for a bunch of fur floating in the water. I cleaned his tank, fed him, and wondered if it would happen again. I checked the lunar cycle online, and, sure enough, there were two more nights to go.

In the time it had taken me to look this up on my phone, Ted had eaten all of the food I'd sprinkled into his little world, and was looking for more. Turning into a were-goldfish-piranha-seal apparently makes one ravenous. I fed him a little more, wondering what would happen if I fed him while he was transformed. I went to Whole Foods, bought a few different meats (raw and deli), and, on reflection, two more bottles of red wine and a tall can of beer.

That night, after supper, I cracked the beer and sat down to watch Ted. I finished the beer while it got dark. I was halfway through the first bottle of wine when Ted started to get agitated. He was darting around his bowl, periodically pausing and jerking, and, in fits and starts, changing. First, he got a little bit bigger; then dark brown fur started to grow on him, while at the same time his nose distended and his fins extended, though his fins stayed bright orangey-gold. A little more thrashing and he was done, a little bigger, a lot hairier, and swimming normally, until he noticed me.

*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*

Slowly, unceasingly.

*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*

Throwing back the contents of my glass for a little bit of courage, I pulled the meat out of the fridge, set it onto my large butcher's block, pulled out a chef's knife, and sliced off a piece of each, about one centimeter cubed in size.

I put the pieces into a bowl and carried it over to Ted.

*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*

From about a meter away, using a large pair of tongs, I dropped a piece of chicken into the bowl.

Ted ate that.

I tossed in a bit of pork.

Ted ate that, too.

Beef?

Gone.

Salami?

Eaten.

Bacon?

No question.

For interest's sake, I tossed in a cube of tofu, which Ted sniffed at, then ignored. He looked at me expectantly, but when no more meat was forthcoming, he resumed swimming, but not at me. I put the phone book back onto his bowl, refilled my glass, and stared.

An hour later: 

*Dink*Dink*Dink*Dink*

I fed him again, and again, it stopped. I stayed up all night with that fish, and all told, I fed him five times. When dawn broke, he shrunk down to normal size and shed his fur. I cleaned the fur out of the tank, and sprinkled some in some fish food, more out of habit than anything, which he was uninterested in.

I went to bed until noon.

That night, Ted and I repeated our strange game, and then again every 28 days that have followed. Sometimes, I invite friends over, and we try feeding him other things. Were-Ted loves tropical fish, but mice are just too big. They upset him, and it makes a mess of the bowl.

It's amazing what you can get used to.

The End

Rail-gunning Against Injustice

My dearest Saskatoon, we must speak.

It concerns your driving, my city. You are abysmal when behind the wheel of an automobile of any sort. You frequently change lanes without signalling and you brake for no apparent reason. You text at stop-lights. You leave detachable trailer-hitches in place year-round, with no regard to the ruin you would make of someone else's vehicle in a fender-bender, with this flange, this ramrod, this point-load that completely defeats the purpose of having a bumper to distribute the force of impact. You attempt to lane change into my blind spot, as I am changing lanes, meaning that I am ahead of you and quite visible when you make your decision, and you have the gall to tootle your horn at me in anger. Despite the fact that the main streets have been recently scraped clean, and starting and stopping takes place with near normal efficiency and alacrity, you elect to drive twenty to thirty kilometres below the speed limit. When multiple driving lanes exist, you occupy all of them simultaneously while driving in full parallel, thus preventing anyone from passing. If you happened to be driving the limit while executing this parade-style manoeuvre, I would languish behind you but at least admit to myself that you were obeying the law; alas, you are not driving the posted speed limit - you are lollygagging. Moreover, at eight-thirty in the morning, when trying to drive my girlfriend to work on the other side of town, what you are doing is spurring forward my car-mounted rail gun designs. I suppose I should thank you for that, I'll make a mint from selling those; further, your continued macadam-based jackassery will also make driving past the flaming wreckage of your SUV all the sweeter.

I wonder how long it will actually take to charge the capacitors for this rail gun, this gauss rifle that I will be bolting to the frame of my Chevy Cobalt? Without doing the actual math, I'd say quite some time. What that really means is that I'll need to make it powerful enough for one shot to clear a path through the section of lights on College Drive, right in front of the university, and that I'll have to be patient, like a sniper, and choose my shot when it can clear the most self-contained people movers off of the road in front of me. I suppose I'll need to reinforce the frame and install magnetic shielding on my electronics.

I digress.

You drive like you're scratching your taint the entire time you're behind the wheel. Quit it. Buy some talcum powder, change the fabric with which you gird your loins, see a doctor and get a cream, but do it, and do it soon.

Yule-tide: When Christmas Trees Go Up & Down

The Ships of Yule

When I was just a little lad,

Before I went to school,

I had a fleet of forty sail

I called the Ships of Yule;

Of every rig, from rakish brig

And gallant barkentine,

To little Fundy fishing boats

With gunwales painted green.

They used to go on trading trips

Around the world for me,

For though I had to stay on shore

My heart was on the sea.

They stopped at every port to call

From Babylon to Rome,

To load with all the lovely things

We never had at home;

With elephants and ivory

Bought from the King of Tyre,

And shells and silks and sandal-wood

That sailor men admire;

With figs and dates from Samarcand,

And squatty ginger-jars,

And scented silver amulets

From Indian bazaars;

With sugar-cane from Port of Spain

And pines from Singapore;

And when they had unloaded these

They could go back for more.

And even after I was big

And had to go to school,

My mind was often far away

Aboard the Ships of Yule.

- Bliss Carman, Echoes from Vagabondia, 2nd edn. Boston. Small, Maynard. 1913. 8-9.

When I was just a little lad, before I went to school, my parents used to have my siblings and I memorize poetry and excerpts from literature, in order to build our vocabularies, polish our diction, and develop our memories. This was one of those poems, and it is the one that has stuck in my mind most clearly into adulthood. I've never forgotten the first stanza, and while I had to look up the rest of it online, it felt more comfortable and familiar with every word, line and clack of the key. I'm looking forward to re-committing this to memory, and while I realize that posting this and saying that spoils the surprise a little, maybe I'll put on a little recital when I'm home for Christmas.

I plan on doing similar things with my eventual children. A mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste, and a child's mind doubly so. 

The Tar-Stained Blanket Computer

In the early 2000s, I worked one summer for an electronics retailer in the small town that my parents had moved to. It was one of those "only electronics shop in town" sort of places; we sold satellite TV, cellphones for the provincial telecomm, high speed internet for that same telecomm, radio shack stuff, general electronics (consoles, TVs, digital cameras, etc), computers, and did tech support for the entire community, domestic and commercial. We did house calls for tech support, as well as doing in-store stuff, and that was how I met the tar-stained blanket computer.

The owner of the local bakeshop (we'll call him Bob) was an old pal of the owner of my shop of employment (anonyname: Frank), and they gave each other deals on things. They were also just down the street, so when my boss asked me to walk over and pick up Bob's computer for servicing, it was no big deal. Bob was complaining that it was running really slowly, and Frank, having built the thing a few years beforehand, figured we'd pitch some new RAM into it and call it a day.

I walked over to the bakeshop, walked up to the counter and introduced myself to the woman at the till (small town, yes, but I hadn't been there long). I was led back through the restaurant side, through the bakery itself, and into the dank, windowless hidey-hole that passed for Bob's office. I was not filled with hope. Bob's office was piled high with old paperwork and magazines on every available surface, except for a two-foot square space on his desk, which was covered in ashtrays overflowing with ash and cigarette butts. The entire room reeked of stale cigarette smoke, from years of obvious chain-smoking in a hotbox. The computer tower was pointed out to me, and I was left to my own devices. I mention specifically that the tower was pointed out because, while I would have found it on my own, it would have taken me a little while.

The tower was sitting on the floor, buried under magazines and paperwork, between the desk and the wall, pinned in one of the corners of the room. There were tall boots and a jacket piled in front of it. I had to excavate the thing. I appraised the situation and took in the almost brown colouration of the once light beige frontpiece, sighed, shut down the computer (which I was happy to see was running Win 98se, at least) and began to dig. When I had it clear, I noticed that there was a distinct line of colour around the edge of the case: the large portion that had been buried was much, much lighter than the two inches of case that had protruded. It was all grossly yellowed from years of second-hand smoke, but the front looked like someone had coloured it emphysema. It was tar-stained. I shuddered, but carried the thing back down the block to our workspace.

When I got it into the backroom, I grabbed a screwdriver and popped the case. A cloud left the tower as I pulled off the first side panel. It was like an old movie where an archaeologist opens a sarcophagus, except instead of mummy-rot, it was a pungent cloud of condensed cigarette smoke. Here, I discovered the blanket. There existed a good two inches of thick, layered dust lining the bottom of the case, forming a grotesque blanket of felt-like consistency. The fan on the back of the case had an inch of felt on it, and the air-intake on the front of the case had a similar accumulation, but with streamers of felt coming off of it where the air had continued to eke through, drawn by the work of the labouring, long-suffering case fan. I froze like a rabbit sensing a predator, stunned, disgusted, before I caught a lungful of the cigarette-cloud and coughed until tears stood in my eyes. I called over Frank and the assistant manager to have a look. We were a small shop, so it was just the three of us, most of the time. They laughed, having seen this, literally, this, from Bob before, and having sent me in as a bit of a hazing ritual.

With a smile and a chuckle, Frank handed me a pair of latex gloves and a fresh can of compressed air, and I suited up before carrying the case outside into the alleyway to begin my archaeological dig. Most of it, having the actual consistency of dryer lint, I simply removed by hand. I killed the can of air, but the internals of the case did come clean, and it really didn't even take that long. The rest of the upgrade went painlessly: new ram, defrag the hard drive, scan for malware and viruses, make sure it had all of the latest windows and antivirus updates, slap the side panels back onto the tar-tainted case, and I walked it back over.

Took it into the office, met Bob, and he hovered while I hooked everything back up and booted. He was a taciturn sort, so he more grunted at me than thanked me, handed me a box of donuts, and sat down to work. I left, ate a donut when I got back, and had a normal rest of my day. The donut was pretty good, actually; raspberry filled.

Fade Into the Shadow the Hedgehog

Recently, say about a month ago, my girlfriend was feeling ill. She requested comfort food, which I volunteered to procure; this led me to Dairy Queen to obtain a marshmallow and chocolate sundae for her and a Skor blizzard of entirely too large a volume for any sane consumption for me. I entered the establishment and made my way to the counter, attracting a great deal of attention as I went. This is normal, currently, as I have a shaven head. My head is shaven because I have been partaking in chemotherapy, and most, but not all, of my hair had fallen out. The shaved pate was a concession to convenience, cleanliness and fashion. Having obliged myself of the necessity of the first two conditions, I was pleased to discover that my naked head is of a pleasant shape. Having said that, I am certain that, due to my otherwise completely Aryan physiology, I incur in others the question: is this man a Nazi?

This was the first thing my mother asked me when first I buzzed my hair short. My answer is the same now as it was then: SIEG HEIL, I mean no, no I am not. Was that over the top? I can never tell.

At any rate, people stare at me a lot. Never more so than when I am wearing a SARS mask, because I am immuno-suppressed, but that's a given: if you see someone wearing a germ mask, it raises questions, draws the eye. I wouldn't have thought a shaved head was that big of a deal. Maybe my girlfriend is writing obscenities on the back of my head while I sleep. Who knows? Certainly not I.

As I approached the counter, I noticed a foursome of college girls off to one side, looking at Ice Cream Cakes, saying "OMG" and waiting for their orders. This I mention only because of what happened next. As I was waiting for the signal to come to the till to place my order, a large man in Star Wars t-shirt came up behind me. He was approximately 6'3", about 250 lbs, and sported both a terrible beard and a toque in the shape of Shadow the Hedgehog's head. 

This is Shadow the Hedgehog.

Several years ago, Sega decided that Sonic wasn't edgy enough, and set out to make him more "extreme" by association. Shadow was the result. As you can see, he's black, has a motorcycle and guns, and I can only assume he has "attitude."

This is a Shadow the Hedgehog hat.

Follow this link for other angles of said hat: Shadow the Hedgehog hat at Cutesense 

Between this hat, the Star Wars t-shirt, and his ensuing actions, I feel quite safe in describing this man as both a giant nerd (and I'm nerdy) and an awkward turtle. Allow me to explain. He walked up behind me, glanced at me for a split second, broke eye contact and stared at the college girls' butts for a full second, looked back at me, met my eyes and saw that I had seen him look at said asses, and then he looked down and ashamed, all once. He then faded behind a pillar and hid, staying there until the girls left. He did not make eye contact with me again, nor with the cashier.

Neither his nerdiness, nor his awkwardness would have been particularly relevant on their own, but combined... well...

Poor little feller.

Paradigm shift, then Tokyo Drift

Friends, a lot has been going on.  I will elucidate and expound upon these happenings, but, I think given the state of affairs, it is far more appropriate of me to dust off The Wonderful Life of Cancer Boy, than to post this through the more light-hearted Invader Tim.  

Link:  http://twlcb.blogspot.ca/

Wanna see something neat?

I was setting up a reactor at work (no biggie, you know, it's just my reactor, for science) and had to move an air cylinder across the lab.  When I got in close, this is what I saw:

Is that a Swastika?  I can hear you asking it.  You know you did.

The answer, of course, is yes, yes it is.  See, tanks for compressed gasses can last a long, long time.  This one is from at least April of 1927.  I know this because the inspection dates are stamped on the tank like so:

It could be even older than 1927, that might just be the first inspection date.  The dates keep going around the top of tank, with the latest one in 2006.  This is a German compressed oxygen tank manufactured by Linde in 1927.  The interesting part is that it isn't terribly unique - there are tons of these things in circulation.  This one is slightly different than most in that the swastika hasn't been covered over or altered with another mark.  Usually, the gaps in the edge are filled in and it looks like a little grid of four squares, like a little window.

It doesn't really have anything sinister about it either, other than simply having been manufactured by a German company, in Germany, during a time when the Nazis were acquiring their power.  It'd be like having Made in Canada embossed on the side with a little maple leaf.

Isn't that neat?

I didn't like it.

Last night, I had a singularly unpleasant experience, which I will now share with you:

After a pleasant evening of barbecued meats, ingestible liquids, and the discovery that the live-action Tick series is now on NetFlix, I negotiated the stairs to the basement where I would find my bathroom, bedroom and girlfriend, in that order.

The bathroom was the first stop, being highest on the order of immediate priorities, and being the resting place of a book about dinosaurs, for priority-based perusal.  I set about readying myself for sleep.  To whit, the removal of contact lenses, the washing of face (important that this be done after the contact lenses are removed, lest you accidentally wash one of those suckers up behind your eyelid and then spend the next 5-40 minutes trying to dislodge the persistent transparent bastard), and the brushing of teeth.

This last is where the unpleasantness set in.

I loaded up my futuristic, multicoloured, multitiered, multi-textured, plaque removal bristle-stick with Aquafresh, and vigorously brushed my teeth for about thirty seconds, or until I accidentally tripped my gag reflex, whichever came first.  My body, responding to the physiological prompting of this most urgent of reflexes, promptly evacuated the large glass of water I'd consumed only minutes before, mostly through my nose.

Oh, but wait, it gets better.  Or worse, yes, definitely worse.

There were also teeny-tiny little bits of my supper that came along for the ride, and, having made it to the sinuses, were quite keen on the scenery and decided to stay there indefinitely, to see what the seasons might bring, and take in the local culture.  I shall not go into detail concerning the smell, let us simply say that having gone out through the olfactory in-door, it was quite intense and lingering.  Repeated uses of facial tissues, over time, yielded up these digestive migrants, bit by bit.  Lettuce.  Onion.  A bit of beef.

I recall saying, "Oh, oh God," quite frequently.

Once I stabilized the situation in my beak, I made a brief trip into my bedroom to retrieve a lubricating nasal spray that I keep on hand, largely to deal with winter dryness, but also for emergency.  Spray in hand, I commenced to use a significant amount of it.  Gradually, grudgingly, some sense of nasal normalcy was returned to me, as the blessedly scentless liquids of the spray washed away the memory of the event, like a river running clean and clear.

It was at this point that I returned upstairs to calm myself and make sure there would be no more lingering surprises, so that I wouldn't wake my somnolescent companion with anything particularly disgusting.

Thank you for your time.