Viagra commercial: Like the first time.

This Viagra commerical is lovely. Benjamin Button should take note.

Thanks to Reub for the long-lasting tip.

YouTube how-to: link to a specific spot in a video.

I just found out that when you send someone a videoslap, you can direct them to a specific timecode in a YouTube video if you add the timecode to the URL.

So a typical YouTube URL might be:

And if I wanted you to notice the cute voice of a certain talking mouse, a voice that occurs at 2m22 into the clip, I’d append that information (#t=2m22) to the URL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxlCqZpm8wU#t=2m22

Isn’t that nice?

(Also, that clip is pretty cute, it’s a 4min math series for kids that I voiced.)

Belly.

I do not like it when people use the word “stomach” to mean “belly”. Your stomach is inside you; your belly is the outside. People say things like “I have a fat stomach” or “the baby is in Mummy’s stomach” and in my head I scream BELLY. That is all.

A random anecdote from middle school.

In grade eight my entire class went to Quebec City on our Grade Eight Graduation Trip. This was a huge deal- it’s like a 6 hour bus-ride away from Toronto, where we lived. And we stayed in a hotel and everything, boys & girls separated in different wings of a hotel, four to a room, under threat of death if we tried to go co-ed in the middle of the night. And we went sightseeing and stuff, and ate in restaurants. So grown-up!

So this one day, at lunch, as sixty awkward 13-year-olds waited for food on the patio of a relatively nice cafe, this overconfident kid Peter Worsebran (this is only sort of a pseudonym) was making fun of me, not for the first time. I was sipping a large glass of ice-water, feeling very sophisticated, and suddenly realized how very nice it would feel to dash the contents of that large glass of ice-water in Peter Worsebran’s face.

But we were in Quebec City, on a very important and much-anticipated field trip, and we’d been emphatically threatened about Good Behaviour and Representing Our School and also told that if we Stepped Out Of Line we’d immediately be put on a 6-hour Bus Of Shame back to Ontario. In retrospect, that would never have happened, since a teacher would have had to accompany us, which would suck for the teacher and leave the rest of the 59 kids somewhat under-supervised. But at the time it was a convincing admonishment.

So although Peter Worsebran’s face was basically screaming for an aqua dump, I decided there was no way I was gonna do something so gauche. No way, no how. Unfortunately, this kid just would not shut up, and despite my good intentions, the next thing I knew I’d popped a drink in his face like a 1920s vaudeville show.

Artist's interpretation of me showing Peter Worsebran what's what.

Time stopped, and there he was spluttering at me with his eyelashes all stuck together and ice cubes in his hair.

And 58 kids and a gaggle of teachers all stopped talking and just stared at us.

Oops.

I got in SO. MUCH. TROUBLE. But of course, nobody followed through on the empty threat to send transgressors home to Ontario, and the rest of the trip passed without incident.

I ran into Peter Worsebran in some art gallery at Nuit Blanche last year- hadn’t seen him since Grade 8, but both he and I are the kind of people who still look more or less exactly the same as we looked at 13, so we recognized one another instantly. We had an awkward hello, and all I could think about was throwing liquid at his face.

And eventually he said, “Umm, remember that time in Quebec City when you threw a drink at my face?”

And I said “Uh, yes?”

And he said, “I uh, totally deserved that and I always thought you were kind of cool for having the balls.”

I responded by throwing my glass of cheap art-opening wine at his face.

No I didn’t. I laughed and then he gave me his business card and then I looked at his website later and saw that he has a cool job now and is probably not a douche any more, the end.

Hip-hop lyrics make a lot less sense without context.

Even with context they’re not necessarily great, actually. Luckily this blog is trying to stem the rhythmic tide of nonsense.

“I’m so dope I just jump in the toilet and flush.”
- Boots from The Coup, Bullets and Love

This is the least dope thing you can do. Only your ankles would get wet and then there would be toilet water everywhere. And what do you mean you just do this? Sorry, this doesn’t work for me.

Filed under: not dope

Found this on Metafilter. More here. I like the look of those Tumblr blogs. I was gonna make one, but then I didn’t. True story.

A random story from high school.

On the second day of grade nine I said a big word in Geography class. And this kid Josh Weiner (not a pseudonym) leaned over and whispered, “Holy cow, how old are you?”

I was 14, so of course I said, “Twenty-four.”

I thought it was obvious I was kidding, but he looked really impressed and said, “What the hell are you doing in grade nine?!”

I told him that I was really from Iran and came to Canada when I was 14, and when I arrived I didn’t know any English. So they started me in Junior Kindergarten; I gradually learned the language, and now it had been 10 years of Canadian education and here I was starting high school at 24. As I neared the end of this improvised absurdity, I was very pleased to note that somehow the math all worked out and there were no holes in my story.

Luckily Josh didn’t question me, because I didn’t know a single thing about Iran; I’m not sure I could even have named the capital city at that point. (That was why I needed to be in a Geography class.)

His only remaining question was why I looked so young, to which I breezily replied, “Oh, I use Oil of Olay.”

I was pretty sure by then he knew I was full of it, but the next day some other kid excitedly told me that “There’s a 24-year old in Josh Weiner’s Geography class!”

That was a satisfying moment.

A party, you say?

This is awesome.

Last week when I checked my mailbox, I found that my new neighbour had left me a note stating that he was having a party and to let him know if the noise was too loud. The problem I have with the note is not that he was having a party and didn’t invite me, it was that he selected a vibrant background of balloons, effectively stating that his party was going to be vibrant and possibly have balloons and that I couldn’t come.

Read the whole thing here. It’s so worthwhile, I made incoherent noises of joy while I read it.
Via MetaFilter.

My Art Director is Four Years Old.

“That’s not what I want. That’s a Brachiosaurus. I want a T Rex.”

This dude draws whatever his small daughter tells him to draw, and she almost always hates it.

Pelvic tucks: JUST STOP IT.

Scott and I watch a lot of infomercials. Recently he bought me a package of Sham-Wows, which was a Happy Valentine’s Day indeed, because if I ever spill 2 litres of Diet Coke into my carpet I want to be ready. And the Sham-Wow does the work for you. It’s like a chamois, a towel, and a sponge.

You know what else happens in a lot in infomercials? Exercising. Man, do they ever exercise. And for some reason they like to exercise by doing endless pelvic tucks.

What the hell is with the pelvic tucks? I don’t think there’s a single pose the human body can make that upsets me quite as much as a standing pelvic tuck.

Fig 1: Shirtless pelvic tuck, male. Rating: NO.

You ever go to a jazz club? There’s always a pelvic tuck man in a jazz club. Look for a middle-aged balding dude with a tiny ponytail and a sport jacket. Invariably he’ll be gyrating against a drunken female who’s either wearing way too much gold jewelry, or who’s 22. That dude always spreads his knees way far apart and tucks his pelvis under and then he kind of shimmies up and down. He sticks out his chin and squints into her eyes with a horrible little coy smile, one hand on her bum while his other waves along, sort of to the beat. That guy makes me queasy.

Message to everyone: NO MORE PELVIC TUCKS.

No, don't tuck it under... stop, please... NOOOOOH I HATE IT MAKE IT STOP.

The Simpsons, in live action.

This is so bizarre.