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.

Haug Sux a Fatty

This graffiti is carved into one of the walls of one of the bathroom stalls of one of the restrooms on the second floor of the Engineering building, at the University of Saskatchewan:

It has been there for at least six years.  I, personally, cannot recall a time in which it was not there.  Side note: is it still graffiti if it's been carved into something, or is that just straight vandalism?  Anyway, I've been wondering the following since I first noticed this message:

1. Who is/was Haug?
2. Who carved this?  I assume they were male, since this is the men's room.
3. What college(s) were the participants enrolled in?  I can only assume Engineering and/or Agriculture, based on region traffic.
4. What is "fatty"slang for?  Weed?  Dick?  Large women?  Oversized Freezies?
5. "Sux" must mean sucks, right?
6. Is Haug a nickname?  A last name?
7. Does Haug, in fact, sux anything?

I'd like to mention, at this time, that I made a special trip into the stall with my camera in hand, expressly to photograph this commemorative missive - an inscription that will stand the test of time.  I liken Haug to Ozymandias, puzzling scholars of the future.  I would hope that the skilled artisan who carved this spellbinding philosophical treatise also made a special trip into the stall, armed with his tools, enlightenment for the masses on his or her mind, but I am forced to concede that it was probably just some guy, taking a crunch, who recalled that he had his keys with him when inspiration struck.  Perhaps he had to find a way to fill the time, scraping away while his legs went numb.

Stall graffiti puzzles me some.  Who takes a marker with them when they need to grunt one out?  Do you go in with premeditated intent?  Odd.  What really confounds me is urinal graffiti.  Who has the bladder capacity large enough to give you time to write some of these novels?  If you're sticking around post-urine to complete your epic, what happens when someone else walks in?  Do you keep writing?  Do you freeze up like a deer, before bolting for the door?

Mysteries of the universe, these are.

ESP: Extra-Sensory Poopception

My roommate is a Bathroom Psychic.  He is the Miss Cleo of Poops (except, you know, without all of the ironic personal bankruptcy).  Between the hours of 7am and 10pm, if he's at home and I need to eliminate nitrogen, this is what I will see when I open the door of my combination bedroom, workstation and personal spanktuary:

A sad, sad, closed bathroom door.  My bladder groans in protest.  My sphincter tightens.  Have I left myself enough Hold Time to wait him out?  Or shall I make the mad dash upstairs to the other porcelain filth receptacle?  If the upstairs John is occupied, I shall perform the tinkle dance of the five-year-old.  It is not a manly dance, nor is it a proud one.

He keeps me on my toes.  Literally.

Update:  Both bathrooms were full this morning, so I went outside and marked my territory like a wolf. 

Metric Chunch Spanner

I like to think of gynecologists as vagina-mechanics.

They put you up high, climb under the hood and tinker around with their own special set of tools (chunch-spanners) and jargon.  Seriously, they could make up anything, how would you know?  "Oh, you need a new ovary drop tray, yours is rusted out."  I figure that in North America, they need both Metric and Imperial chunch-spanners, and that every so often, women have to go in to get topped up with fluids and have their filters changed.

Fascinating, mysterious and beautiful creatures, you ladies. 

Why is there plaster in this?

The wall across from me has a grouping of new bricks, roughly the size and shape of a certain large, friendly, anthropomorphized jug of fruit punch.  Makes you wonder, doesn't it?  OH YEAH!!

I will be the best dad.

In class, on Monday, my professor was telling us about her perceived lack of time management skills (this was by way of an example, about how one stray negative comment can colour our perceptions more than years of positive reinforcement).  She went on to tell us about a friend of hers with amazing scheduling abilities - a woman with a spreadsheet for her life - and how when this woman had a baby, she tried and failed to add that baby to the flowchart of her life (in an orderly and predictable fashion).

I thought to myself, "Pfft.  I could flowchart a baby."  So I did.  Enjoy!

note:  due to old scanner being old, some minor 'shopping of the pixels has occurred.

Weekday Update, with Kev-Inn Kneel-On

I am sitting in the basement of the D wing of the engineering building at the University of Saskatchewan, trying to make a laser-driven scanning particle size analyzer stop being a useless piece of crap.  Oh, don't get me wrong, when it works, it's a wonderful piece of mid-nineties technology, in all of its retro, "install my software with twenty floppy disks," glory.  At least it's not beige.  Remember when everything that plugged into a computer was beige?  Imagine a beige iPod.  A beige flat-screen monitor.  A beige printer/fax/scanner (that one shouldn't actually be too hard, they actually used to be beige, and enormous).  God, now I'm picturing modern Apple products with a beige finish.  A beige iMac. Ew.

Align, you art deco, science artifact, oblong hunk of ostrich feces!

Grr.

I could be done testing these samples by now.  Instead, the Mastersizer (actual product name) is hemming and hawing, and will, perhaps, deign to function after some unspecified time interval.  When it's DAMN WELL GOOD AND READY AND YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT.  

Le sigh.

Not a bad way to spend my first day back after taking some time off to attend my Grandmother's funeral.  She was 85, fiercely independent, and a tiny, little, perma-tanned, old-lady-raisin.  The tan was from years and years farming and gardening, not from a fondness for tanning beds.  The funeral service was Ukranian Catholic, of the Byzantine bent.  What that means is that the priest was from the Old Country, everything was lavish and ornate, there was a butt-ass load of incense, and the prayers were long, mumbly, tonal, repetitive and had very little to do with the person who had actually passed away, and a lot more to do with praising the Lord.  That has always seemed odd to me, and really self-centered of the church.   The priest was ever-so-slightly derp, as well.  Derp, in this context, referring to the pupils of the eyes having a slight tendency to skew outwards from centre.  I shall Google you up an image:

Religion, hooray! 

The important things, though, are that we buried Granny in accordance with her beliefs, and that loads of family and friends were there to say goodbye.  It wasn't all bad.

While I was away from the lab, sexual harassment happened!  Well, technically, it crossed the border into assault, because there was a solid and distinct boob honk.  I hope it was the best boob honk ever, because the culprit was a post-doctoral researcher, and a professor back in India, and he just flushed his career down la toilette.  That's French, for, "the toilet."  Just in case you weren't sure.  Also, note the emphasis on, "was,"  as he no longer is.  Can you say, "fired"?  I thought you could.

[Update:  I finally got the thing to align properly, and have written a new operational procedure, accordingly.  All who follow in my footsteps to use this machine shall find that I have eased their burdens significantly.  Mooching pricks.  Also, it takes a while to scan things, and I have used this time to regain my mastery of Freecell.]