i like mine pink and greasy

salmonella.
what a lovely sounding word.
rolls right off your tongue.
sal-mo-nel-la.
rawr.
sexy.
hey!
guess what's not sexy!
what salmonella does to your body.
for those of you who have endured it, i understand now.
for those who haven't, be warned.
it couldn't have anything less to do with salmon.
i picked up this darling parasite at work on Wednesday after ingesting a scrumptious piece of greasy, undercooked, off-white chicken.
my initial thoughts were "hey, that was pretty good."
pretty good indeed.
seven hours later, a scourge was born.
a great pestilence.
in my stomach.
the humanity.
i don't want to get too graphic here, but man oh man, this shit was fucking graphic.
and convieniently, the opening of the Plague Gates commencenced twenty minutes before i was scheduled to meet a young lady at a tavern for drinks. i actually had to pull my head out of the toilet and call the bar to tell her that i all of a sudden had food poisoning and wasn't going to make it; officially the lamest thing i've ever had to do in my life.
but lame phone calls were the least of my worries.
things got progressively unpleasant as the night wore on.
there was a point where i was vomiting with such force that both of my ears popped, making me dizzy and making the sounds i was making even louder inside my head. a moment later both of my feet cramped violently, gnarling into tight, useless little stumps of pain.
i was practically paralyzed by all this and had no choice but to lay down on the cold, rarely cleaned patch of floor next to the toilet that i like to call the Pube Graveyard.
this wasn't just an illness.
this was Satanic.
if ever a sniper's bullet were to pierce the walls of my apartment and lodge itself into my frontal lobe, i wanted it to be now.
somehow, i managed to live through the night.
but the past three days have been more of the same.
last night i was actually on the mend.
even had a few beers.
that was followed by what us doctors refer to as a Shitty Relapse.
today looks a little better.
i'm back on solids but things are still tremulous.
i've had my first cup of coffee in over 72 hours.
*singing* "feels like the first time...."
but i'm wary of what tonight will bring.
do i hit the town and risk shitting myself in public?
or do i stay home in my room? again.
slowly counting the hairs on my legs.
again.

i'm lurking on sunshine

seriously though.
is there a difference between Walking and Lurking?
some would argue that a Lurk is a specific kind of Walk but i thinks it's all about appearances, because when you get right down to it, Lurking is just Walking with a hint of assumed negativity.
Walking is what healthy people do after supper.
Lurking is what child molestors do after supper.
big difference? no. if you didn't know that Child Molestor Steve was a child molestor, you'd just think he was going for a healthy after supper Walk like everyone else.
but because you know him and because he happens to be Walking by the elementary school, he is now seen as Lurking.
which is apparently what bad guys do instead of Walking.
somewhere down the line Lurking got a nasty stigma of wrongdoing attached to it.
maybe if we started using the word in more positive ways we could turn this around.
some people Walk to raise money for disease research.
Walk for the Cure, they call it.
why not call it Lurk for the Cure?
you'd be doing the same thing.
the disease you're raising money to cure might even be an incurable disease, like Herpes or The Summertime Blues. (in fact, Herpes is a known cause of The Summertime Blues, making it Double Incurable.)
i'm getting off subject here.
i think i'll take a break and Lurk downtown for some coffee.
maybe call Denise, see if she wants to go for a nice, brisk Lurk along the waterfront.

the Ramones (broke my headphones)

the iPod nano.
yes.
finally, an MP3 player that fits in my mouth.
i've been waiting for something like this for ages.
i remember being a young lad and wondering "if they can make 60 minute tapes and 90 minute tapes, why can't the just make 7200 minute tapes, so i don't have to carry around all my tapes all the time, because they won't all fit in my Chip N' Pepper fanny pack anymore and this tape-filled grocery bag is getting heavy and clunky and it's really hard to balance it on the handlebars of my bike? what are they sellin' me? and when am i gonna get my pubes?"
well friends, time and technology can bring great things.
like the aforementioned iPod nano.
this sleek little bugger can hold days worth of tuneage.
and it fits in the front pocket of my jeans.
my tight jeans.
and you can still barely see it.
i like that i can run up and down stairs and climb fences and practice Karate in the park during a windstorm and it will never skip.
is it a great invention?
definitely.
it's like an All Hits All the Time radio station programmed specifically for me that i can take practically anywhere.
but is it a perfect invention?
no. it is not.
because the headphones suck.
they suck hog's balls.
sure they look good, these "earbuds"; their minimalistic white cord being the most visible signal that someone is a Pod-user.
and don't get me wrong, i enjoy the way they snugly fit into my discerning sound holes.
but they just can't deliver the rock.
mine lasted a little over a month, that's when lefty started making this really annoying rattling sound that made my ear itchy.
and this isn't an isolated incident either; i've talked to half a dozen other people with a similar headphone related beef.
i've since tossed and replaced them with a pair of those new inner-ear outside-noise-reduction type earbuds. they aren't as comfy in my ear cradle, but comfort always takes a backseat to rock in my book, and the rock sounds pretty sweet these days.
but c'mon.
only lasted a month?
on one hand: what are they sellin' me?!
on the other: meh.
this is a relatively small complaint, considering how convienient the technology is.
now, my pubes...
no complaints there.

"I'm Dick Cheney, bitch!"

i'm sorry.
i just wanted to be the first.

is this wuv?

it's that time of year again.
that week before Valentine's Day when wuv is in the air.
little cardboard hearts and cupids pasted everywhere.
couples in wuv, holding hands, singing silly wuv songs.
the lonely single people, at home, naked, in the middle of the day, crying ingnorant tear after ignorant tear into their yellow, sweat stained, pillow-like excuse for a wuver.
yes, it's an enchanting time for all.
just the other day i sang the words "i believe in a thing called wuv".
but do i?
do i really believe in true wuv?
that depends on how you define wuv.
the Good Book says that Christians should wuv everyone.
this is a lie.
i once was chatting with a wuvley young lady in a local tavern, and after spotting a cross hanging around her silky, body-wash scented neck, asked her if she wuved me.
she did not.
moving on.
what other kinds of wuv are there?
there's the natural wuv between friends and family members.
it's a wuv that's always there. the people you wuv because you know you can trust them with anything, and because they're so wuvable.
but what about serious wuv?
that "man/woman let's get married" wuv?
[or man/man or woman/woman or man/woman/woman/woman, depending on your region.]
people talk of unconditional wuv.
"I'll wuv her forever...no matter what!"
bullshit, my friend. bullshit.
because wuv is a battlefield.
what happens when she starts smoking crack and smokes too much crack and thinks it's a good idea to nail your scrotum to that big oak dresser you bought her so she can go sell your golf clubs and your iPod and your HDtv for more crack because now she wuvs smoking crack more than she wuvs you?
will you still wuv her then?
probably not.
after that you'll probably never wuv again.
and i wouldn't blame you.
but i'm slightly more optimistic than our neutered friend here.
i may not believe in unconditional wuv, but i do believe that there's someone out there for everyone to find wuv with.
(i also believe there's someone out there for ANYone to find "wuv" with, and she's probably a prostitute of some kind.)
so, this coming Valentine's Day, show the one you wuv just how much you wuv them.
and you single folk, go out, get drunk, and make wuv with whomever will allow you to make wuv to them.
be crazy. be crazy in wuv.
thank you, i wuv you all.
i would do anything for wuv.
anything to be wuved.
wuv in an elevator.
tainted wuv.
blahblahblah.

note: i purposely tried my hardest not to use the L word at any point during the typing of this post.
but i can't resist any longer.
....Lando!
there.
i said it.

the bolt-on factor

wow.
that was like the second most-embarrassing public erection i've ever had to deal with in my life.
i'm never taking the downtown bus again.

heed me! (the advice post)

i'm not very good at giving advice.
i'm not very good at listening to advice either.
i do appreciate when someone gives me advice, trying be helpful and cautioning me away from doing silly, irreparable things, but anyone who knows me know i'm going to do these things regardless of any advice given, either good or bad.
actually, i don't like categorizing advice like this, into "good" and "bad" piles; there's way too much grey to make advice classifications this easy.
from now on there will only be "lame advice" and "rad advice".
here are some examples of advice people like to give me.

Lame Advice:
• "i don't think that meat's cooked all the way through."
• "you can't wear that Skeletor shirt every single day."
• "please, just hold it until we find a washroom."

Rad Advice:
• "Jager time!"
• "dude, you should totally climb that."
• "no matter what happens; deny, deny, deny."

Bonus Material! Sexy Advice:
• "be a little gentler this time, lover. i don't think my vagina can handle another orgasm of that magnitude."