My boyfriend’s Dad, Douglas Styles Sr.,  just died, and it’s been really tough on all of us.  He was young, 55, and had tons of friends both at the bar and on all the job sites that he worked at.  He inspired my guy to become a crane operator, and was a strong, quiet man that really opened up when you got a couple of beers into him.  Then, he could make you laugh for hours.

The last time I really hung out with him was up at the family cottage.  My two sisters came up and I’m glad that he met them before he passed on, he really thought both of them were very nice.  He told me that it was OK to drink before noon because it was noon in another country somewhere, and that was all the excuse I needed.  He loved fishing and his son and I went fishing with him on more than one occasion.  The last time we went fishing with him and his brother off a dam in Buckhorn they were both convinced that I caught something massive, but I lost it in the current.  There were so many mosquitoes that you could barely breathe without getting one in your nostrils, so he went out to his truck and got the mosquito zapper and proceeded to wave the tennis racket of death around each of us to make us more comfortable.

My guy has been crying a lot in the last couple of days and he is very upset that he won’t be able to come to our wedding when we get married.  I keep on telling him that he’ll be there in spirit, he can’t help but be there because he is his son.  I also keep on telling him how proud he was of him and how happy he made him when he came over and discussed the equipment he was operating, union politics, and all the rest of it.  He was very happy that he had joined the same union and was doing the same work that he was, work that will never really run out as long as there is construction somewhere in the world.

I think the thing that I will miss about him most is his quiet stolidity, his ability to calm you down simply by having a beer and talking.  When my guy had cancer him and his wife had me over for dinner nearly every weekend, and they always kept me laughing.  He also had an unnatural love for Pho, Vietnamese noodle soup, and was just thrilled when his brother-in-law married a woman from Vietnam who could cook!!  He would tuck in to a bowl of pho with the gusto of a man who hadn’t eaten for days, and it was very entertaining to watch.

He will be sadly missed by everyone and the whole family and his friends loved him very much.

Posted: August 21st, 2008 under Love.
Comments: none

OK Go Here Now:  http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/cas/787763692.html

I’m not one to laugh at other people’s fetishes, but this one had me in tears.  Tears, and vomit.  Kind of both at the same time.  What I want to know is WHY DID THEY SAY W4M!!!  ROFLMAO!  How would you know?  And how would this “weekly transaction” take place?  I can see the scene now in a local Starbucks.

Female:  Hi.  Here’s your package.

Male:  Thanks.  Here’s your money.

Then suspicious police officers stake them out and find out what is going on.  Can’t… breathe… laughing… too… hard.  In case it has been flagged for removal, here is the text:

quick cash for your pooh - m4w (GTA)
Date: 2008-08-07, 11:07PM EDT

yep. you read right, if you would like to supply a bag of your pooh, email me and I will buy it from you, possible weekly purchase.

• Location: GTA
• it’s ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Posted: August 7th, 2008 under Love.
Comments: none

There are a lot of people who are going to be upset with me for this but… I didn’t particularly enjoy the Dark Knight.  Before you start pelting your monitor with rotten fruit and veg, let me explain a little.

First and foremost, I am a writer.  I have a writer’s mind and this means that the movies that I like have good stories.  The first Batman in Nolan’s series (for I seriously hope this isn’t his last) was immensely story-driven, to a point that was almost orgasmic in quality to people like me who live for the story.  I believe it is what made the movie so completely mind-blowing.

Dark Knight had very little in the way of story.  It had lots of shoot-bang-drop dead awesome stunts, but mostly it had promising lines that alluded to simply awesome things to come and it never quite cashed in on the promises.

You are really not going to like this, but I wasn’t overly impressed with Heath Ledger’s Joker.  I thought that Nolan was going for something Arkham Asylum-y for the character interpretation, which had me holding my breath in anticipation.  The Joker was going to be the darker shadow of an already dark Batman.  Oh huzzah.  In the end, the Joker just ended up being the facilitator for a string of chaotic events that were marked in their deliberateness rather than chaos, which for me was a serious departure from the madman of the comics, who was basically just doing it for the lols.  While Ledger had a hint of this (the money burning scene was a choice e.g.) he just never followed it through, or rather the story didn’t.  That being said, I believe the fault was that of the scriptwriters choosing big bad booms over subtle nuances, rather than Ledger, who beat the shit out of Nicholson’s Joker and did a far better job than the Prince-loving cartoon of the first Batman movie series.  He did awesome work with what he had, which was not that much.  Oscar-worthy?  Um, no.  Brokeback Mountain was Oscar-worthy - this was most definitely not Oscar material.

I was also sad to see Rachel Dawes character make an exit, although I was much sadder to see her go with Maggie G. cutting her fine acting chops on the character as opposed to Katie Holmes, in which case I probably would have given her death a standing ovation.  If I could have cut her out of every single scene in Batman Begins and replaced her with a stick figure, it would have done the same job of acting.

I may need another go round for the movie to grow on me, but what I loved about Begins was that I needed another viewing to get all the layers in the story.  Usually that is something you only find in books.  I have a feeling that I am not going to “get” anything further in the movie, except maybe WTF happened to Scarecrow and what exactly was going on in the close to opening scene.

I comforted myself with the fact that this movie was probably necessary, in the same way that the Two Towers was necessary in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  They had to introduce the Joker, whom I believe they can replace (sorry Heath, RIP) with another actor, and actually must if they want to continue the storyline properly.  I am holding out for more script in the next movie as opposed to explosions - given all of Nolan’s efforts up until now, I’m sure it won’t disappoint.

Oh and Christian Bale in the new Terminator movie?  Choice.  Can’t wait!

Posted: August 4th, 2008 under Anarchy.
Comments: none

Here is the real story to dating in Toronto, without the gloss.

1.  All Toronto Women Are Bitches.

That was a capital B, fellows.  And ladies.  Because yes, even the dykes I have met in Toronto are complete, and total bitches.  Hands down.  If you ask a woman out on a date in Toronto, you are lucky if she doesn’t pull out a gun and shoot you right there (could this be the real reason Miller is thinking of banning guns in Toronto city limits? Hmmm….).  Any meaningful relationship with a Toronto woman will go something like this:

Toronto Bitch:  Jeeves, bring me my fur.  And not the real one this time, I’m going to a PETA event.

Man:  Yes, ma’am.  Right here.

Toronto Bitch:  I SAID THE FAKE FUR, ARE YOU FROM FUCKING WINNIPEG YOU RETARDED MORON.

Man:  Sorry ma’am.  It won’t happen again.

Toronto Bitch:  Good, because if it does I will feed you to Conrad Black’s wife.

Man:  NOOOOO!!!!

2.  Everything In Toronto is 10x the Price of Stuff Everywhere Else.

Toronto may have a million restaurants, nightclubs, and things to do.  The harsh reality behind this is that if you live in Toronto, by the time you pay for your rent, your utilities, and your Metropass, even with that 100K a year job, you are eating Kraft Dinner and watching people walk by on the sidewalk below, having fun without you.  Unless you get a million credit cards, in which case the debt that you will be in will lead you to a death from drug and/or alcohol abuse sometime in your late 30’s.  Enjoy.

3.  Women In Toronto Are Frigid.

Remember that song “Cold As Ice”?  Foreigner played in Toronto and tried to get laid - then they wrote a song about it.  For some reason, women in their late 20’s are worried about being perceived as “sluts”, which is staggering considering that most Toronto Women have Careers and can therefore do whatever the fuck they want.  What they generally want to do is impress their bitch friends with the length of time that they can string some poor fucker along.  You are that poor fucker.  And no, being a fucker doesn’t mean you get some - you are just being called “that poor fucker” while they laugh at your plight over a round of cosmos with maniacal bitch laughs that make the witches in Hamlet look like angels in comparison.

4.  Gay Men Have WAAAAAY More Fun.

Have you ever got the niggling feeling that gay men in Toronto are having far more fun than you are?   That is because they are.  If you could find it anywhere in your being to play for the other team, we suggest that you at least try, if only for the sake of your own happiness and possibly getting a blow job before you need Viagra in order to perform the operation.

5.  If you have Money, You are an Instant Pussy Magnet

Now by Money we don’t mean that standard 100K a year job.  Uh uh.  By Money we mean a trust fund, an inheritance, a company or 5, and enough dough to keep a girl in Yorkville for a week without coming up for air.  When you are taking your date to a boutique hotel even though you have a condo by the Harbourfront, many women will fight over you.  Possibly to the death.  Because they are that shallow.

6.  Will I Ever Find True Love In Toronto?

No.  No you won’t.  Move.

Posted: August 1st, 2008 under State of Women.
Comments: none