Because you are quivering with desire for a Friday afternoon recap, here are some things that happened this week:

• I bought mouse poison to deal with the mystery creature (assumed to be a mouse) that likes eating the grains out of my bag of multigrain flour, slowly making it a bag of regular flour. The poison came in large blocks that looked like poorly machined chunks of aquamarine crayon, which seemed to me less than appetizing and unlikely to be effective against presumed mice which turned their noses up at all-natural peanut butter smeared on the trigger pad of a futuristic easy-set plastic trap. I was wrong on the ‘appetizing’ front… the stole the block that I had set out on the kitchen floor and broke into the original package containing the remaining blocks to decimate the supply. The effectiveness still remains in question, as they seem to keep coming back for more.
• For all intents and purposes the single worst affair in my young life (taking the form of a years-long problem-riddled work project) came to an official if ignoble conclusion yesterday. I should be happy as clams but I am instead lost and without direction.
• I have succeeded in accidentially banishing all sources of current popular culture from my life by purchasing an iTrip Auto for to listen to mine iPod in mine car. This eliminates the extremely useful (and suprisingly often referenced) morning babble relating to current events that I receive from Maddog, Roger, Rick, Billy and Marylin during the morning drive to the office. This amputation follows on the long-past rejection of cable television (in the way an alcoholic rejects antifreeze) and the recent exchange of The Hamilton Spectator’s “Go Section” for business development paperbacks as my break-room reading during lunch.
• This morning I saw burly work crews building the manger in the city core. It felt like the day I got my Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve, paired with “You knew there was no Santa Clause, right?”. (Traumatizing, but the Castle of Greyskull was nonetheless awesome.) This yearly scene, which is the focus of many a hilarious drunken group photo, used to magically appear and to see orange-decked city workers assembling the rough-hewn logs in the midst of morning rush hour robbed my world of a pinch of fairy dust.
• I am in the market for a car-mounted camera, which I hope will drastically reduce the number of near collisions I am involved in on account of trying (and failing) to photograph some seminal or hilarious event that I happen to drive by.
• I ate 15 Ferrero Rocher, arranged in a tree-shaped box, unassisted, prior to the start of December.

Everything good starts dirty.

via BoingBoing meaning you’ve seen it

This just in from our Toronto entertainment correspondent:

Spicetacular. Someone start the countdown, I’m too excited to find a clock and figure out the number of days.

In follow up to the letter to the hag, I thought I would post this on my daily drive on the information superhighway (aka the internet).

I perused the letter to the hag and then printed out the item. I scented it with jasmine and lightly dusted the parchment with sparkles. I stopped just short of applying lipstick (colour = Cranberry Cream) and placing a signature smooch in the bottom right hand corner of the document.

I called for a Medieval Page to my office and assigned him the daunting task of delivering the message. I applied an official seal to the document and sent it on its way. I waited with bated breath.

 A fortnight passed (which is bizarre, since the posting was clearly less than a fortnight ago)…and I received an answer.

 I opened the parchment only to reveal a bolded, italicized, right justified, underlined (in Arial font 32) statement saying

“Oh no you didn’t”

Thanks a lot LeJerk. Your Penny Annie advice has gotten me into trouble . What does Penny Annie advice mean anyway?

 I know the utter stupidity of this post has enraged all three of its readers. To calm yourself down, please gaze upon this image of a great Canadian hero, The Littlest Hobo

Good day to you

I arrived at work to this:

What? I thought, outragedly. I have a Super Wall?

My most hated of all walls. Perhaps my most hated of all facebook applications. And from past experience we know that I have a lot of hate to give when it comes to facebook applications. (You thinks the lady does protest too much? Perhaps I am a facebook application.)

Mercifully it was not the case that between drunken bus-based love letter writing and drunken fried-midnight-snack preparation that I had unadvisedly granted Super Wall blanket permission to my life and all information therein. It was some buggy hiccup (or deceitful worm-like Super Wall marketing process) that conjured lies about a fictional wall belonging to me after someone else (Sandy F, if you must know) added the wall to her profile. Hopefully drunkenly.

I am, on a daily basis, regularly served with much to be upset about upon arrival at work.

This woman’s toothy sneer appears in my inbox about seven times a day. She is the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-irritating stethoscoped stock photography model that is the blurry human face of a thousand randomly-selected URLs which presumably all point to the same sketchy, off-shore mail-order ePharmacy selling rockets as Cialis.

Shouldn’t technology be able to improve our quality of life by filtering such things, rather than supporting and encouraging them?

Though if anything could make a wall super, it would be Sandy writing on it.

Dear Old Hag,

You are an old hag. You are making life difficult. We have all been talking about it. While talking about it, I suddenly had the thought that perhaps you weren’t even aware of the problem. Maybe we are to blame for not opening an honest, frank dialog with you in order to enable you to self-actualize and pursue improvement and that sort of jazz. So if that is the case:

You are an old hag. You are making life difficult.

Desist.

Love,
Letterwriter

There are few times in my life where the need to post is so overwhelming, that I cannot supress it any further and I cede to the urges. This day represents one of those times.

 Beloved brainchild of Miller-Boyett productions, purveyor of situation comedy hilarity, and spewer of dozens of memorable catch-phrases, Steve Urkel is celebrating a birthday today. Steve Urkel’s Christian name is Jaleel White and today we celebrate the day he was born in a manger in Bethlehem.

 He is 31, according to the Associated Press.

Please enjoy this low resolution digital image stolen from ‘Google Images’ on this sacred day.

 On a concluding note, Stefan Urkelle turns 29 today.

Confusing, but true.

Have we really not reached the point in this technological revolution where there can be one machine that I put my clothes into at night, to wake up to perfectly clean and perfectly dry duds to get on with my day in? (In which to get on with my day.) Also, it should include a robot that folds and hangs.

I feel slightly nauseous that I’m a willing pawn in a multinational’s soulless advertising campaign, but this is viral video done awesome… I actually learned something and immediately wanted to go out to buy a t-shirt, a bottle of ketchup, a dozen eggs and a baby.

http://www.waitless.org?video=potato

via Dead Robot

My earlier use of the word meandering caused me to want to say “HEY REMEMBER THIS:

“