The Ryndex

In light of the incredible success in introducing loaft to the English language, I’m pleased to bring you shwallowing. It’s a portmanteau of the common phrase “to wallow shallowly”. In other words, to take explicit delight in your lack of depth (presumably in one particular subject).

For example, instead of being justifiably ashamed of my idiocy with regards to geography, I can wave my hands and say “oh, I just don’t have a head for names and places.” One step further, and I’m refusing to learn where Burma is in comparison to Thailand. It’s not going to dent my ignorance. It’s not going to matter. Worse, I don’t care and I’ll let you know it!

That’s just an example; I certainly do not shwallow in my ignorance of geography. I’m embarrassed, so I tend to either avoid the subject or use evasive phrases. I’m not going to reveal my disingenuous techniques here. They’re all I have.

A brand baby might shwallow in their fashion sense. For all my fashionista reporting, I’m pretty average here. From bottom to top: Docs, Celio, Hanes, Wayne Gretzy, Celio again, Esprit. All right, those are names, but not name-y enough to be shwallowing. In fact, I keep on unconsciously covering the logo on my man bag. It’s my new black one, for formal man-bag events.

Crap, I forgot my point.

In conclusion, it’s not bad to shwallow a bit here and there, but don’t make a habit of it. Sometimes when you think you aren’t shwallowing because you have “a very good justification”, well, think again. Also, I make up new words sometimes, but it’s because I’m very interesting and important. Thank you.

Hello Hippysters, just some notes and observations for Winter 2004. Please keep in mind that I am not The Fashionista — I’m strictly a white belt watching the metro.

It looks like the chocolate-brown or tobacco-brown corduroy blazer has firmly arrived. If you haven’t bought yours, you should be able to throw a brick and pick one up. You want it, you need it, it’s fuzzy.

For the snappier dresser (or in the case of GTL, the Snape-ier dresser), the black velvet blazer is making a surprisingly casual and masculine appearance.

I didn’t get the blazer, because I opted for the bomber-style corduroy jacket. This leaves the eternal question — how much shirt can show below the jacket hem? The answer is “whatever”. The jacket above must be looser than the shirt below and either unzipped or half-zipped. On the other hand, if you look in the mirror and think “Ted Logan”, well… good job!

Without exception, if it goes with faded blue jeans, it goes with faded black jeans.

My own personal fault — you should swim in pools, not sweaters. And those sweaters with buttons or zippers up one shoulder? They’re not going away.

If you really like an item, buy a second in a different colour. This is always obvious, usually in retrospect.

If you can see any chest hair, wear a T-shirt underneath.

When you buy a new vaccuum cleaner, make sure that it comes with a bandolier. You’d be surprised at how much effort you spend dragging the vaccuum around corners and furniture. Carrying it on your back is easy and efficient! The little orange Samsung vaccuum is today’s it-vaccuum, combining power, style and price.

Well, I’m back from the City of Wine — loverly Bordeaux.

Actually, I’ve been back for a few days, but keep it under your hat, because I needed to recuperate before posting again. This was my first conference, other than JavaOne (also known as gimmee-fest in the last nineties).

At the last minute, one of my team members moved away and was unable to present his paper. Fortunately, I’ve been working on the same project for the last year-ish, so I know the subject well. Plus, I speak English, which is supposed to reassure me at the last minute.

In fact, I’m not a very good actor. I know, you’ve seen Gilman’s Model with your own eyes, and some of you have even seen Tears of the Frog. Those are my finest hours on screen. Despite years of speech and debate, competitive poetry recitals (The Festival) and theatre courses, I never really developed as a showman. I’ve enjoyed working backstage, up in the lighting or sound booth, and once as stage manager and composer.

I get nervous in public. My hands shake incredibly, even presenting to two or three people. Sometimes the world swims — not in a cutesy figuratively I-feel-faint kind of way, but where the nerves controlling my eyeball direction weaken and the world starts swaying back and forth in a terrifying manner. That was always rough for piano recitals (since I never memorized my music).

The worst is rehearsing. I’m not prepared for my speech, and I didn’t make it through once in my hotel room. I interrupt myself, and repeat phrases and get confused, and work myself into grammatical knots from which extraction is more than difficultly achievable. I’ve learned not to rehearse on the day of a presentation, because it saps my confidence.

The actual presentation, however, normally goes comparatively well. I surprise myself with the ability to say things — more than coherent, but not quite eloquent. I speak too fast, and I keep my hands behind my back so that they don’t do anything offensive or surprising. I’m actually good at answering questions.

And I love symposia.

This is the perfect forum to announce that I am going to Bordeaux tomorrow to replace one of our conference speakers on short notice. Apparently, the fact that I speak English qualifies me.

Thus, I shall be out of contact this week. Hooray!

I made two turkey rolls this weekend, with stuffing and mashed potatoes. But I forgot how to make gravy, so it turned out to be a weird white sauce — easily the worst gravy I’ve ever made. The pumpkin pie wasn’t as good as last year either.

So today, in the coffee area of the cafeteria, we happen to be discussing The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix — notably because there’s this one guy who has roles in both movies.

“Hugo Weaving,” I said, “he played Agent Smith and Elrond. Missssster Ar-a-gon, heheh.”

In Vancouver, I wouldn’t even had the opportunity to bring up this bit of knowledge. It would have been taken for granted, an axiom to develop further conversation upon. I mean, I don’t even really care and I knew that.

Here, however, it’s like I have strange, inhuman, sci-fi geek powers. It’s important to remember that American Film is an important genre to the French, but not the only one. So, I have a bit of an advantage, because it’s the only genre that I’ve studied. To them, we’re specialists.

I don’t have to apologize for that, do I?

Anyway, here’s where it gets weird. We’re talking about actors that are strongly identified with roles, and seeing them outside that role — like watching Stargate and thinking “Macguyver in Space!”

Harrison Ford is one of those actors that has had strongly identified roles (Han Solo and Indiana Jones), and yet you aren’t surprised to see him in other roles. And the conversation turns to other actors from Star Wars, with the claim that nobody remembers the name of the actor that played the robot…

“Anthony Daniels,” I pipe in. What sort of cultural osmosis has condemned me to know that? I don’t even particularly love Star Wars.

What is a loaft, you ask? It’s something I invented. It has aspects of a gift and a loan.

A gift comes right from the heart-organ, is given freely and without conditions, and nothing is asked in return. A loan is provided for a duration and assumes a return in good condition to the rightful owner. You can politely ask for a loan, but you can’t politely ask for a gift. A loan is usually something you want, while a gift could be any damn thing (both gifter and giftee are taking their chances).

A loaft combines the worst of both. You get something that you might or might not want. You’re free to use it, but have the burden of returning it with reasonable wear and tear.

My rules of etiquette dictate that it’s okay to respond truthfully to the following blanket question: who wants a loaft? Only people that I’m planning on seeing at Christmas (and who are willing to give me their address) are eligible!

I’ve bought 4 pairs of blue jeans in the last 2 months. That’s 1 pair every 2 weeks! And 75% of my new jeans are boot cut. The sweater I am wearing today has 4 buttons, 100% of which are on the left shoulder. My left, not yours.

This week, I spent approximately 40 hours at work, and 12 hours on public transport, which means that for every 60 seconds at work, I spend 18 second getting there and back. That time can be approximately divided into 8 seconds of reading, 5 seconds of chatting, 2 seconds of walking, 0.5 seconds of sleeping and the rest (2.5 seconds) just staring into space thinking, thinking.

This week, I spent exactly 92.5€ on going out to eat, which includes: the work cafeteria, one take-out chinese dinner, one pain au chocolat last Thursday morning and one night out with friends (my turn to pay). This does not include multiple coffees at work (0.3&euro). I spent exactly 0€ (which is approximately $0 CDN) on groceries. This makes the ration of out-food to in-food approximately 1:0. Please don’t calculate this as a percentage without advanced number theory.

Every day this week: I made 0.42 phone calls from home. I had 28% of a bath and 85% of a shower, and I project that the showers will maintain and/or increase their lead. I ate slightly more than 2 distinct meals. I went running 0 times, and roller-blading 0 times. I read about 84 pages in French (mostly on the aforementioned metro).

And you?

Dear Filthy Law Enforcement Worm-Babies,

I have a confession. This weekend, I used approximately three clicks to find and use an Internet Pirate TV station broadcasting back-to-back episodes of Invader Zim.

Some of you hardier pirates out there are probably laughing at my naïveté. I didn’t journey into the seamy underworld of the internet, rubbing elbows with crackers and outlaws. There weren’t any passwords. I just started Winamp 5.05, brought up the Media Library, clicked on Internet TV and selected a channel advertising Invader Zim. A few seconds later, and I was watching his hilarious earth-invading antics, free and commercial-free.

“Fool! My fellow hideous inferior human pig-smellies are insulted by this constant slander!”

You may not have heard of Invader Zim. I knew it was a cartoon with a following, but that’s all.

As it turns out, it’s so much more.

Zim comes from the Irkin empire, ruled by the Tallest (Kevin Macdonald lends his voice). Since Zim is quite small — and since he personally botched Operation Impending Doom — he’s being excluded from the subsequent Operation Impending Doom II. However, since “invader’s blood marches through [his] veins like giant radioactive rubber pants”, he has been assigned to investigate a small, out-of-the-way planet. Ours.

He disguises himself as a “perfectly normal human worm baby” and goes to school, where the resident outcast mini-mulder, Dib, is the only one to realize that the new green-skinned boy is an alien.

There’s also a zany little robot disguised as a dog. Not a wacky sidekick, but a pointless, randomly screaming robot that brings meaning back to the word “zany”. His name is GIR.

Unlike our other favourite cartoon, the funniest lines aren’t quotable — it’s all in the delivery. “I am Zim!” and “That’s stupid.” and “You’re crazy.” and “Delicious! Delicious! I am normal!”. The voice talent is excellent, the animation is enjoyably expressive and the music is thumpingly invasion-tastic.

“I have already stuffed my normal human belly so full of delicious human FILTH that I could not eat another bite.”

There are also piggies and garden gnomes.

Take a look at the sidebar. I’ve put what I’m listening to and reading at the moment.

The new William Shatner album “Has Been” is surprising. Alright, he’s still chatting his way through his songs, and that’s expected. No, not chatting — he’s reciting poetry in that unique overly-expressively pithy William Shatner way.

What is surprising is that the music is quite good, and his he goes well with it. And it has Ben Folds and Henry Rollins. (Or ask me if you’d like to borrow my copy)

Check it out.

Hey, did everyone realize that Kalan Porter, the new Canadian Idol, is from Medicine Hat? I used to go to Scouts with his cousin! That makes me next-to-famous!

Sometimes I just don’t agree. Like the trailer park housewives in Gilman’s perverted “chat rooms”, I just know better. I’m not proud of myself, but I loaded me up a web page, and unloaded my opinion on it.

Can you guess which voice is mine?

I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t take 100% of the high road — I was slightly insulting. I went off topic. I was even deliberately disingenuous. Oh, the shame.

And there was no way I was signing my real name. Geh, scary.