Pussycat Dolls transcript

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

Fight the feeling (fight the feeling)
Leave it alone (leave it alone)
Cause if it ain't love
It just aint enough to leave my happy home (my happy home)
Let's keep it friendly (let's keep it friendly)
You have to play fair (you have to play fair)
See I dont care
But I know She ain't gonna wanna share

[Chorus:]
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

totally X-Treme sports, other X-Treme endeavours.

Yesterday Cath and I went up to Grouse Mountain. Cath is learning to snowboard, and last night she had a real breakthrough. The word 'carving' would not have been entirely out of place up there.

To get to the top of Grouse Mountain, for those who are not familiar with the area, you have to take a gondola/tram type of thing. There is a hilarious moment when the pimply conductor of the Grouse Mountain Super Skyride goes through his memorized rules and regulations over the tram's loudspeaker. I can't do it justice, but imagine James Earl Jones speaking quickly saying 'PLEASE TURN YOUR ATTENTION TO THE EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY AND ASSUMPTION OF RISK AGREEMENT ON THE BACK OF YOUR SUPER SKYRIDE LIFT TICKET,' only James Earl Jones is fifteen, obviously tired and bored, and pretty solidly stoned.

I was back on skis for the first time in a long time. On one of our last rides up the chairlift last night, I started to realize that I really enjoy skiing. I don't know
why I ever stopped skiing, really. And then that opened up a whole other line of thought for me - what other totally X-Treme sports had I abandoned in my youth, thereby potentially robbing myself of decades of totally X-Treme enjoyment?

It opened up a whole can of worms for Cath and I. Had we really lost the sense X-Treme-ness we had enjoyed during our courtship? Were those times when we stayed up all night, tattooing swear words into each other's arms with rusty nails just a distant memory?

As we discussed this, Catherine drifted off to sleep. I went online and did my taxes. I can't be sure, but I'd be willing to bet she dreamt of drained, abandoned swimming pools; they were hers to shred, straight on 'til morning.

What Is It?

you decide.

long weekend.

This is how Christopher Columbus must have felt, when he looked out on the horizon and saw nothing but the Atlantic stretching out in front of him.

Being on the cusp of a four-day weekend is MOST like which of the following:

a) Finding twenty dollars in your old jacket
b) Watching a kitten and a puppy play together, in the sun, not even recognizing the fact they are cats and dogs, but just ENJOYING THEIR TIME TOGETHER
c) When you are camping and you get to the liquor store in some small town after it has already closed but you knock on the door and the guy lets you in
d) A really good sandwich
e) All of the above

Anyways, I always look forward to long weekends. They provide an opportunity to be away from work for more than just a couple of days.

I am ashamed, but WHY I am ashamed?

Yes, today I have posted an Alanis Morissette video.

I had this feeling once before. It was the day in the eighth grade when I wore denim overalls with the straps hanging down, swinging around wildly as I walked. I knew there was something that wasn't quite right about doing it, but I'll be damned if I didn't just go for it anyway.



Could you leave comments with regards to:

a) What do you think about this?
b) Is this funny?

Later tonight I will post footage of a kitten chasing its' own tail, or some such thing.

Sunday.

Sunday is generally quite a good day for me.

It's not even eleven a.m yet, and I have already put in a load of laundry and had some coffee. As for the rest of the day, the sky is truly the limit.

For me, a Sunday is like a 'wildie' that Dan and Ed might track in the deep woods. Elusive? Yes. Majestic? Certainly. And worth the wait. Yes, how like a 'wildie' is this Sunday, already galloping away from me though it feels as if it has just begun.

Catherine has a new office with a window and a nameplate. From her window she can see the North Shore mountains and Lion's Gate Bridge. I wonder what she thinks about when she looks out that window? I think she dreams of Sundays with me, or else dim sum.

From my cubicle I can see the Real Canadian Superstore on Kingsway. If I crane my neck I can see into the common kitchen area, where people often post threatening, carefully-typed messages reminding their co-workers not to leave dirty dishes in the sink.

Yes, Sundays are to be enjoyed.

viva el socialismo!

Catherine and I recently travelled to the Granma province of southeastern Cuba.

We stayed in a remote area near the town of Pilon, where we engaged in such traditional Cuban activities as ordering hot dogs from the poolside snackbar and playing an afternoon game of bingo with 50 sunburned, hungover Quebecers.

Despite being a foreigner, I was able to nab second place in a traditonal "Best Tan Lines" competition. My fifteen-minute grand finale, which actually caused several female audience members to collapse in excitement, is already something of a local legend. Fortunately, Cath was able to maintain her composure long enough to record the following video clip.



This is a picture we took in an elementary school in the the middle of a field near our resort. Oddly enough, right after we took this picture, Angelina Jolie adopted three of these kids!



We rented a horse and carriage and cruised around a bit. This is a picture of me with our escort that day, Guillermo.



Guillermo took us to a waterfall in the mountains. Local kids go there and cool off in the river on hot days. Cath took some video of them doing some jumps - this was pretty much the best thing we saw.



Guillermo was an amazing, generous guy. He wanted to give us a taste of the "real" Cuba, so he told us about a local game that's almost as popular as baseball! It's tough to translate exactly, but in English it would be be called something like "plow the field." Here is a picture of me playing "plow the field." In fact, I played by myself for an entire afternoon while Guillermo sat by the pool with Cath and drank pina coladas. Mi casa es su casa!



This is Cath and I on a boat.



This is Catherine on the beach.



Buenos noches, amigos!

internet pirates.

So it would seem that I have become the latest victim of heartless internet pirates.

I feel violated. I used to think of the internet as my special little place.

In any case, stradlater.net is dead. Long live stradlater.org!

Letter to the editor.

Recently I was down with the flu. I like to make the most of my sick time, so I started writing angry, self-righteous letters of disgust to local newspapers.

One of them was published here.

The Dears on Letterman

Featuring Paul Shaffer on keys. Outstanding.

Joan has been spayed.

In female animals, spaying involves abdominal surgery to remove the ovaries and uterus (ovariohysterectomy). The surgery is usually performed through a ventral (belly) midline incision below the umbilicus (belly button). The incision size varies depending upon the surgeon and the size of the animal. The uterine horns are identified and the ovaries are found by following the horns to their ends.

Joan has been asked to wear an "Elizabethan-style" collar, but has thus far refused.

She is trying to pull out her stitches with her teeth! Why would she want to do this? I'm not a doctor, but let's leave this to the professionals, hey Joan?

Last night, Joan sang softly in my ear. Her voice was exceptional; it had a childlike and other-worldly flexibility and treble pitch, like the eunuch castrati of the seventeenth century.

Forgive me, Joan. Forgive me for the horrible thing that I have done.

Nice

So you've seen this already. At least I am providing something good for you to watch.

Ed Arnold divulges secret family meatball recipe! (and other holiday photos)

Here are some recent holiday photos. I have taken the liberty of adding famous motivational captions to each photo. Enjoy.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
-Edmund Burke-

There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
-John F. Kennedy-

I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
-Florence Nightingale-

Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.
-Benjamin Franklin-

You will never plough a field if you only turn it over in your mind.
-Irish Proverb-

Lists.

Is this narcissistic?

Here are the best records I bought in the last year or so.

Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
The Dears - Gang of Losers
Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
The Meligrove Band - Planets Conspire
Malajube - Trompe-l'Oeil
Sloan - Never Hear the End Of It
MF Doom - Special Herbs: The Box Set Vol. 0-9
The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
Al Tuck - My Blues Away

Here are my favourite songs of the year. I am not ashamed of any of these.

Al Tuck - February's Snow
The Dears - Ticket To Immortality
Band of Horses - The Funeral
Gwen Stefani - Wind It Up
Blood Meridian - Work Hard, For What?
Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
Sloan - Fading Into Obscurity

Here are the best live shows I saw this year.

Death Cab For Cutie/Franz Ferdinand @ Pacific Coliseum
I don't even like Death Cab but this show ruled - maybe because Lindsay came with me. I bought the new Franz
Ferdinand record on the strength of their performance. Note: it was better live.

Ladytron/CSS @ Richards
Cathie was right all along. Ladytron are good.

The Dears @ Richards
Is there a better band right now?

Tom Green and the Keepin' It Real Crew @ The Commodore/Elixir in Kingston, ON
The Vancouver show was sold out and hilarious. The Kingston show had ten people in the audience and was hilarious.

Teenage Fanclub @ The Red Room
The number of "classic" awesome singles this band has is unbelievable. They could play five hours and you'd still have
songs to be mad that they didn't play.

Final Fantasy @ UBC Norm Theatre
Totally unique. Songs that are annoying on record sound amazing live. The best use of an overhead projector I have ever
seen.

Sloan @ The Commodore
This is the tightest they have ever been.

Here are the most disappointing records I bought in the last year or so.

Jurassic 5 - Feedback
The Streets - The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living
Willie Nelson - Countryman
Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth

Here are the best movies I saw this year.

Borat
For Your Consideration
Brick
The Departed
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Sympathy For Lady Vengeance

Here are the best books I read (or re-read) this year.

Ryan Arnold - The Coward Files
David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Jonathan Franzen - How To Be Alone
Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle/Norwegian Wood (tie)

Here are my favourite food and beverages of the year.

Red Stripe beer
cabbage rolls
Twix bars
Diet Coke
Diet Pepsi
Coke
coffee
Hawaiian pizza
Cath's bocconcini salad

I am glad that this is out of my system. Happy new year, everyone!

Picking Up Babes.

Although I am already spoken for (sorry, ladies!), I still like to help friends out whenever I can with picking up babes. These videos employ a lot of the same techniques I used to land myself a nice gal, and I urge all of you single guys out there to use your own inner "Eagle Eye." Happy hunting, fellas!

Snow day! Snow day!

The Dears pIay a show tonight at Richard's on Richards.

And I didn't have to go to work today, on account of all the snow. Joan and I have spent the majority of the day shirking our responsibilities. We're just two drifters, off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see! We're after the same rainbow's end, waiting 'round the bend... Joan, my huckleberry friend.

Democrats win majority in House, Senate: Joan Continues to Grow at an Exponential Rate

Meet the new speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.



Joan continues to develop a slightly left of centre political world view. She likes Hilary Clinton in 2008. As for this Belinda Stronach/Ralph Klein thing, don't get her started. Don't even get her started.

David Sedaris.

Last Wednesday, Cath and I went to see David Sedaris read as a part of the Vancouver International Writer's Fest. He's a pretty hilarious guy, and his reading lived up to all of our expectations. This is an essay he read that night; it's from a feature for Esquire Magazine, where they asked him to talk about fashion accessories for men. If you like this you should read his book "Me Talk Pretty One Day." You should read all his books.



"WITH A PAL LIKE THIS, YOU DON'T NEED AN ENEMY."

I’ve always liked the idea of accessories, those little pick-me-ups designed to invigorate what has come to feel drab and predictable. A woman might rejuvenate her outfit with a vintage Hermes scarf or a jaunty rope belt, but the options for men aren’t nearly as interesting. I have no use for cuff links or suspenders, and while I’ll occasionally pick up a new tie, it hardly leaves me feeling “kicky.” Hidden accessories can do the trick, but, again, they’re mainly the province of women. Garter belt and lingerie–yes. Sock garter and micro brief–no.

It was my search for something discreet, masculine, and practical that led me to the Stadium Pal, an external catheter currently being marketed to sports fans, truck drivers, and anyone else who’s tired of searching for a bathroom. At first inspection, the device met all my criteria. Was it masculine? Yes, and proudly so. Knowing that no sensible female would ever voluntarily choose to pee in her pants, the manufacturers went ahead and designed the product exclusively for men. Unlike a regular catheter, which is inserted directly into the penis, the Stadium Pal connects by way of a self-adhesive condom, which is then attached to a flexible plastic tube. Urine flows through the tube and collects in the “Freedom Leg Bag,” conveniently strapped to the user’s calf. The bag can be emptied and reused up to twelve times, making it both disgusting and cost-effective. Was it discreet? According to the brochure, unless you wore it with shorts, no one needed to know anything about it. Was it practical? At the time, yes. I don’t drive or attend football games, but I did have a book tour coming up, and the possibilities were endless. Five glasses of iced tea followed by a long public reading? Thanks, Stadium Pal. The window seat on an overbooked cross-country flight? Don’t mind if I do!

I ordered myself a Stadium Pal and soon realized that, while it might make sense in a hospital, it really wasn’t very practical for day-to-day use. In an open-air sporting arena, a piping-hot thirty-four-ounce bag of urine might go unnoticed, but not so in a stuffy airplane or a small, crowded bookstore. An hour after christening it, I smelled like a nursing home. On top of that, I found that it was hard to pee and do other things at the same time. Reading out loud, discussing my dinner options with the flight attendant, checking into a fine hotel: Each activity required its own separate form of concentration, and while no one knew exactly what I was up to, it was pretty clear that something was going on. I think it was my face that gave me away. That and my oddly swollen calf.

What ultimately did me in was the self-adhesive condom. Putting it on was no problem, but its removal qualified as what, in certain cultures, is known as a bris. Wear it once and you’ll need a solid month in order to fully recover. It will likely be a month in which you’ll weigh the relative freedom of peeing in your pants against the unsightly discomfort of a scab-covered penis, ultimately realizing that, in terms of a convenient accessory, you’re better off with a new watchband.

Joan.

Please allow me to introduce Joan.



Full name is Joan Rivers Mix-Graham.

Likes? So far, scratching the hell out of things, hiding under the couch.

Dislikes? Car rides.

We bought Joan at a pet store on Burrard Street. She cost more than our microfiber loveseat, which is ironic because she is destroying the microfiber loveseat as I write this.

Joan is a blue point Himalayan cat. She may live to be 20 years old, unless she jumps off the balcony while we are at work tomorrow.

I wonder if Joan likes me? What will Joan do all day?

I keep thinking about how Joan has never tasted any fried foods. Would Joan like fried foods?

Yes, Joan is truly a blank canvas. Godspeed, Joan.

high school reunion.

This guy took a picture of himself every day for six years. It seems especially poignant as I head to my ten year high school reunion on Saturday.

Yes sir, one day closer to the old GR.

Oh well.