Midnight Jolt Run

Despite what your adolescent fears have taught you, during trips into Tolkien’s massive tomes or attack rolls versus regenerating goliaths using killer Icosahedrons, I am here to tell you that Trolls are glorious things.  Now, of course, in this day and age, when one things of Trolls, one often thinks of the bittersweet act of Trolling so commonplace on the Internet.  You may, for a moment, think that I am offering words of comfort to those embittered by hidden bridge-dwellers or evil sprites, but I’m afraid my words are indeed for those most hated and enjoyed folk who go out of their way to bring chaos to the online world.  In fact, I am not only saying Trolls are much more wonderful than most people believe they are, but I would dare say, a modern day necessity in a world that takes itself far too seriously.

And no.  This isn’t an attempt at Trolling.

Here’s why. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite efforts to eat right and stay healthy, I think there are a lot of us who break down and crave something unwholesome and terribly salty/fatty/spicy, so I make no excuses when I tell you I frequent the McDonalds drive thru. It’s one of the only places I’ve found that is consistently not terrible at 4 in the morning out of all the places that are actually OPEN at 4 in the morning. Honestly, how hard is it to fuck up a Teen Burger and Onion Rings? Apparently, it’s very easy when you’re using three day old grease from the fryer and not paying attention to the timer because your iPod just hit a long stretch of Lincoln Park.

One morning, a few months ago, I rolled up to the drive-thru at the McDonalds closest to my home (which, by the way, takes some effort to calculate as there are no less than four within a five minute drive of me) hoping to take the edge off of my post-work hunger pangs. I roll down my window, lean on in and wait for the scratchy little speaker to start asking for my commands like an obedient Genie.

“Welcome to McDonalds!!! Can I take your order?” Read the rest of this entry »

By now the fanboys are rushing to the battlements, trying to prepare for the uncouth masses waking up from the last three months…no…the last several years of blind lust for Apple Computers Inc.  I can only imagine how it must feel to know you’re on the other side of the coin when the Second Coming turns out to be a sham, the Lotto ticket is a fake, or the Pregnancy Test and the Colon Cancer results got mixed up at the clinic.  But that’s exactly what happened here.  The company that “Revolutionized” the industry just fucked up their chance to continue to suck unquestioned and untold amounts from the collective credit-card teats of the Starbucks crowd.  Hallelujah.  At least…I hope they have.

Now, this post has a higher purpose than just Apple bashing, so let me get it out of the way that I admire what OSX does for portable devices, and think it’s an excellent match on the iBook and Powerbooks.  Even the iPhone is the best at what it does, and I cannot argue the iPod itself is single-handedly responsible for saving Apple’s ass from the late 90′s.  However, after listening to the last three months of meaningless, useless jabber from the professional computer industry about the iPad, and for a moment actually thinking that MAYBE Apple would create a product I’d be interested in, I feel fully justified in bringing the fire.  You fucked up, Apple. Your one chance to woo me outside of me getting bored enough to Hackintosh a HP Mini and you lost it. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to think that changing the world was something anyone could do with the right idea, and honestly, I still believe it is.  The right idea at the right time with the right strengths and skills can be an amazing combination.  I believed, naively as many young people believe, that you could help change the world if you got into politics and made fair and just laws, or marched in defiant protest against the demons of the world.  There was even a time where I had reasoned out and decided at which point I could answer a call to arms to defend myself, my family and my country, and it pleased me to know that anyone can exercise their free will and become an extraordinary example of humanity, faith and inspiration to countless others.

But, if I knew then what I know now, I would probably want to grow up to be a terrorist.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a lot of talk about Big Government in the media these days.  Health care, war, education, economic protection, and of course, how all of it is either good or bad.  I’ve heard the word ‘communist‘ used more readily and fluently (and fraudulently) than any year post Cold-War Cool-Off, the ideas of Socialism, Democracy, Capitalism and Freedom hacked to pieces and represented by all sides of every debate, and have seen irony of ironies as people argue, protest and wage rage-fuelled wars against the very ideas they claim to uphold.  What a load of epic bullshit.  And while it is easy to pick on the Right Wingers of the World right now due to the collapse of the economic stability they crave as a reason to toss off the shackles of oppressive rule (imagined or otherwise), this is something we are all guilty of doing. Of complaining about.  At one time or another, we have all bitched about someone with authority getting in our business, and we think it would be better if they didn’t.  Well, I’m sorry people, but as a collective species, right and left, up or down, vertical or horizontal, none of us have any fucking right to complain, because we all need our babysitter.

Read the rest of this entry »

I read some good shit from the White House yesterday.  Ahh, to be a political speech writer…

loved or hated, at least you get a solid paycheck and someone else’s neck on the chopping block when the book burners and critics come calling.  Cherry jobs like that don’t just come along every day, and you certainly don’t get to them by writing about Snape and Dumbledor’s backstage sex romps or debating Twilight VS Hellsing!  Hell no!

The message that the great Super-Obama, his underlings and his team of fanfiction.net forbidden writers have come up with is a good one, nonetheless:  Don’t give up, do your best, and use the Education System to your full advantage, because you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you end up as a Wal Mart Greeter at the age of thirty.

Read the rest of this entry »

-     For the last couple weeks of Summer, (this being a relative term in Calgary) I have been pleasantly surprised by how many times I have been proved wrong.  One example in particular was that out of the several hundred homeless people that I’ve passed in these warm, moderate months, I’ve only ever had one ask me for a bus ticket or some change.  My error is in thinking that same old line I’m sure plenty of us use when we’re out walking about and see some poor old scruffy soul.

Oh, God, another beggar.  He’d better not ask me for anything.

Of course, when the poor souls (or maybe just more enlightened souls who don’t give a crap about what I consider to be important in society) just mind their own business or smile and nod politely, my first thought is to think the next one probably will instead of hey, maybe I’m being a dickwad. Read the rest of this entry »

A Manifesto in 3 Parts:  I Kill Giants.

Oh Lord, give me a Sword.

I remember very vividly the night that God listened to my very first, honest to Jesus Joltloving Christ prayer.  I wish I could say it was a dark and stormy night, but in reality, the only dark and stormy were in my heart, and the night was the third most beautiful winter night I have ever experienced.

The second most beautiful was a night I drove down to the graveyard and said hello to some old ghosts.

The most beautiful night was when SkitZ, Hooze and I went out and lay under the pin-needle array of the northern lights that seemed to rain down in a surreal hologram.  Read the rest of this entry »

A Manifesto in three parts

Part 2: Value Added Resume Fodder

Every time I think I’ve found a place to belong in the corporate, responsible, 9-to-5 paycheque collecting world, it seems to throw me for a loop as according to some hidden, maddening plan it has to drive us all completely mental. 

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A Manifesto in three parts

Part I: Preparing oneself for the horde

It is two-thirty in the morning and I work in less than five hours but I couldn’t be bothered to give a shit. The LCD ray traced perfection from this monitor, the squishy feel of the ergonomic keyboard beneath my fingertips, and the wet, cool feeling of a drying towel on my ass as I sit here, typing naked are the items in my mental to-do list that matter at the moment. Writers don’t need pants. Writers need only the Word. The Word has an annoying habit of making me sober. Read the rest of this entry »