What a way to end a year.

Das Racist

Memorable Quotes:
"I don't like this. It reminds me of Indians"
-Michelle, looking at jewellery at H&M

From Lenny

So it's pretty much offical: I'll never have a boring life* again.


My best Vince impression. Also, what the fuck is up with my jawbone? It looks like I have some weird growth.


*tuna

Geek humor

I haven't seen Avatar, but I know there's something called "unobtainium" in it that the humans are fighting with the oversized Smurfs over. It's a little ridiculous, but calling it unobtainium kinda makes sense.

So why did they name adamantium after this guy?

xmas

RAWR, MERRY CHRISTMAS MOTHERFUCKERS! *rips shirt off*

The most ridiculous conversation ever

So I was eating dinner with my parents. I was facing the patio door. My mom was talking about...I don't remember. She could tell I wasn't listening because I was busy staring at something outside.
"[Blah blah blah blah or that noise the adults make in Charlie Brown cartoons]...what are you looking at?"
"A cat"
My mom looked, but the cat had already gone.
"Are you sure it wasn't a raccoon?"
"No. It was orange"
"...You saw an orange outside?"
"*sigh* No, I saw a cat. A cat that was orange"
I was met with a blank stare.
"You know...an ORANGE CAT?"
"An...orange...cat?"
"YES!"
"Are you playing with me?"
"What?"
"There's no such thing as an orange cat"
"Are you kidding me?!?!? Of course there's such thing as an orange cat!"
"I've never seen one ever before and I'm over 50"
"They totally exist...Garfield is orange!"
"He's a cartoon"
"Okay, bad example. But they exist! I can understand if you've never seen one when you were young and in China, but you've been in Canada for over 30 years! How have you never seen an orange cat?"
She shrugged. Then my dad chirped in.
"Maybe one day you'll show us a green dog too"

Frustration

I figured out on Sunday how much 20 minutes of my time is worth, apparently. It's worth exactly $452. The value may change in the future, but on Sunday, it was worth $452 dollars.

I had to cater to two air-headed women, trying to suppress my urge to yell at them to get the hell out of the store while we were closing. You either have to be either incredibly oblivious or have a lot of nerve to walk into a store when they're clearly closing. It's okay if you don't know what time the mall closes, but the fact that the staff are vacuuming the store might be a hint. And when you ask what time the store closes and the staff more or less answer with "Now", the considerate thing is to say "Oh sorry" and leave. Not continue looking at whatever the hell the store is selling. At first, I was trying to subtly discourage them from buying, by telling them most of what they tried on looked ugly on them. I'd have just told them they were too ugly for anything, but that's pushing it a little too much.
Then one of them found a pair of sunglasses she really liked. So I figured it'd be easier to just convince her to buy them instead of discouraging her. Ani helped too. I dunno about her, but I've never tried so hard to sell overpriced ($400) sunglasses to someone in my life. I once sold a pair of $1200 sunglasses and had an easier time. It was ridiculous how much I was holding back. She took forever to decide.
Skipping forward, she finally decided to buy it. She handed me her debit card. I had it in my hand. I was in the middle of punching the amount into the machine when I told her the total amount.
"That's $452 total"
She didn't take into account the tax. Paying $400 was okay for sunglasses, but not $452. So she had to call her mom for advice. She must have been my age. Maybe older. If you're 26 and you need to call your mom on whether or not you should spend your own money, you're not ready to be on your own. The mother said no. Although, the girl pointed out something didn't make sense: "That was advice from a woman who spends $3000 on sunglasses". SO THEN WHY ARE YOU TAKING HER ADVICE? Ani and I both had to smile like it was all gravy as she and her friend walked out. The reason spoiled people are spoiled is because no one's taken the time to kick their asses. I work in a mall that caters to people who have never had their asses kicked.
We weren't near done closing the store and this daffy bitch held us up for 20 minutes for nothing. If she had bought it, it would at least have been worth my while. And that's how I've deduced that 20 minutes of my time is worth $452. Meaning an hour of my time is worth $1356.

Damn, I cost about as much as a high class hooker. That is how much a high class hooker costs, right? That seems expensive enough.

2011

School's over. I should be feeling a little happier, but I just mostly want to sleep. I can't wait to see what my grades look like.

Mark and I are undertaking a new project in 2010. I'm genuinely excited about it. I wanna say more about it, and I know I got a big mouth, but this time keeping my mouth shut will probably be more beneficial.

Lies

"Yeah, so tonight, I told Kathy that Gene ran away from home so I could come over"
"Jesus! That's horrible!"
"Yeah, I know. A few months back, I also told her Gene got hit by a car and that I had to go visit him at the hospital"
"Holy shit, dude. You didn't even tell me this! What if I bumped into Kathy and she started asking me about Gene?"
"Yeah, I didn't really start thinking about that until just now"

WTF

I should be studying for tomorrow's exam, but this couldn't wait. Normally, this wouldn't warrant a blog post, but the Back To The Future trilogy, along with Robocop, was a huge part of my childhood. So imagine how much of a mindfuck this was when I came across this:



Seriously. There isn't even any room for ambiguity here. You can't even argue that this kid maybe was implying something else. He's just fucked up.

I'm kind of like a big deal

I never wrote good essays. I barely grasped the concept of an essay in high school and in university, I was more concerned about how I was supposed to fill up 15 pages worth of bullshit. The majority of them were given C grades. So I was happy my prof commended me last week on my Smiths paper; it was my first bonafide essay I've had to write since graduating university.
When he first assigned it, the prof mentioned that whoever wrote the best paper would be rewarded. Guess who got rewarded?



I'm not really all that fascinated by the Beatles, but it sure felt good to know I beat out everyone else in the class. Funny thing is my mark wasn't that high.

But who am I kidding. This is a college class about rock and roll. If you want real academia, talk to S.C. about that shit.

Merry Christmas, mon

One of the things I secretly like is the Christmas music they play in stores/malls during Christmas. I know it annoys a lot of people, especially those who have to work in those stores/malls, since it's non-stop and they usually start playing the music as early as November. I think I just like it because I've sort of lost that whole holiday cheer over the years and hearing it brings back what little Christmas spirit I have left.

Except last week. I heard the worst rendition of Jingle Bells ever. I was killing time at Chapters before work, when it came on. I didn't notice it at first; it just sounded like any other bad version of Jingle Bells. They put a country spin on it. What made me start paying attention to it was the fact that I could have sworn they said something about Rastas, reggae and jerk chicken. I shit you not. I looked up from the magazine I was reading and strained to listen to the words. At the end of the song, the singer talked a bit as the band kept playing. He was talking in a pisstake of a Patois accent. If I could remember what he was saying, I'd write it.
Again, it was a cover of Jingle Bells, played in the style of country music, but with words switched up so it was some Rasta version of the lyrics. The guy still sang with a country twang though. It was as if a bunch of racist hillbillies played it to mock Rastas. I couldn't believe they were playing this at Chapters. I was really tempted to go to the front desk and ask them who that band was, just for curiosity's sake.

gloating and dinner

Apparently, my prof enjoyed my paper on The Smiths. Enough to single me out in class. I have to admit it's pretty awesome to have a teacher tell everyone how good your shit is, since he didn't do it for anyone else. I never had that in elementary school or high school. Frankly, I would have been happy enough if he just told me privately, but it felt great to rub it in the faces of all the kiss-asses in the class. They'd probably be less subtle about sucking the prof's dick (proverbially) if they just sucked his dick (literally).
The point of this is that I'm awesome. Oh, and I ended up giving my paper the title 'These Charming Men: The Smiths and their Ordinary Revolution'. Pretentious, huh?

Staff dinner last night. Still not sure what to think of it. It was nice to see everyone out of work mode, but there was still this lingering feeling of restraint. We couldn't be ourselves because the bosses were still there. Aside from a corny joke that I told to the entire table, I barely said anything. I can't make small talk to anyone, and the only thing I have in common with my coworkers is mostly work. And I can't talk about work in front of my bosses, because it'd mostly be me bitching about work. So yeah, it left me with very little to say.
On the bright side, I got a nice bottle of cologne and a nice surprise in my card, which I've yet to thank my bosses for. I hope I don't forget to thank them today.

Aside from that and the fact that I'm still busy as hell, not much else is going on. As if you asked.

Potent Quotables

I have absolutely no idea what's going on these days. I'm completely lost at school and I just sort of float by, half-awake at work. I hope I can collect myself during the Christmas break and snap out of it.

In completely unrelated news, I was recently threatened by Sergio, who said "I'll Ghostface Kill-your-ass!". Quotable win.

Prayer

These past 2 weeks nearly killed me. Please let tomorrow go smoothly.

That's why you don't have any salad in your diet.

My boss actually bought a Slap Chop. He even got a Graty with it. They both sit on a shelf at work. I imagine it looks really out of place to his patients (he's an ophthalmologist), since it's in his exam area. I'll bet his life is going great now. I mean, it must be, right? You know, on account of him slapping his troubles away.

Nah, b

Happy Birthday, Matt. Sorry I can't be there for the last night of Grimewave or to party on your birthday, but I'm drowning in my school work. I'll party down this coming weekend, after everything is due.

I gotta write a paper on Morrissey/The Smiths. Someone give me a witty title for it.

Procrastination

I figured since I made myself look like an idiot with that farting post, here's an old picture to make it worse.

Sharks

I was gonna bitch and moan about work (what else?), but instead I'm just gonna post this.



Holy fuck. Why do kids get the most awesome shit?

Cousins

This was a nice song/video to watch first thing in the morning.

Table-clearing

Today, I farted while sitting in the cafeteria at school. Thanks to my friends, I've gotten accustomed to letting them rip. We always just do it to laugh at how they sound. We/I rarely take into account that they might actually stank. Well today, it stank. It was rank. It smelled like eggs. It was bad enough that the group I was sitting with got up and left within 15 seconds. Myself included. I'm almost certain more people left too, but I wouldn't know because we were already gone. I cleared a table.

I guess I should be more embarrassed, but thankfully my friends have conditioned me to have a scatological sense of humor, so I find this more funny than embarrassing.

2nd

It says a lot about my life when the second most exciting thing to happen to me this month is that I got deodorant that smells totally fucking awesome.

Saturday the 14th

I feel slightly shitty and I'm not really in the mood to update this now, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway.

I think we reached a consensus after the party that it was a resounding success. I was really touched to see all the people that showed up, regardless of whether or not they bought a shirt. So even though maybe 2 or 3 out of those people will read this, thank you. Like Lenny said, it means the world to us. Also, big thanks to the people at the Central, who were super cool to us and very accommodating.
For all the fun I had last night, I feel I owe a few apologies to people, who I'll have to apologize to individually.

I'll get around to posting the pics from last night eventually.

Friday the 13th

Tonight's the launch party. Lenny, Sergio and I spent last night packaging the shirts. I'm pretty stoked that we managed to pull everything together in time. The only thing left to do is for me to figure out my music playlist. We each came up with roughly an hour of music each. Sergio's and Lenny's are done. It's just my playlist left and I haven't even started. And now that I've started, I've realized it's not that easy, mostly because I put way too much importance in stupid shit like this.
Anyway, my original point was this: come tonight. I know I've said it before, but SOS means a lot to us and you being there means a lot to SOS. I promise I won't ask anything from you for the rest of the year.

This is gonna be on tonight's playlist.

Douchey McDouchebagerson the Third

I'm going to keep the details as vague as possible, because I'm kind of paranoid that maybe the wrong person will stumble upon this.

I was minding my own business at work, when I hear my boss behind me asking "What do you make of this, Darren?". I look over. On his computer screen is a picture of a dude. He had been going through his email; he put up a posting on Craigslist, looking for an assistant manager for the cafe he runs/owns. "This guy wants to apply for a job. He didn't even include a resume. He just wrote a paragraph about himself and attached a picture of himself".
No words could describe how incredibly douchey this guy looked. It's bad enough he actually had the gall to do something as douchey as attaching a picture of himself, but looking at him, he looks like the type of asshole who would do it. A pink v-neck t-shirt, muscles, the right amount of stubble on his face, gelled hair, a tan and the facial resemblance of a youthful Dwayne Johnson. I'm sure a lot of females would find this kind of guy attractive, but for the most part, I'm mostly glad I look like the opposite of this guy. I can't really wrap my head around how conceited this guy must be.
Anyway, I was so blown away at how hilarious the whole situation was that I laughed my ass off in front of my boss. I also copied the picture while my boss was gone. I just have to show this to someone. I really wanna post the picture here just so you get a good picture of what I'm talking about, but like I said, I'm scared the wrong person might read this. So I dunno, if you're really that curious, ask me and I'll show you.

Outtakes

I told Britt to jump as high as she could. This is what I got.





Corrupted memory card. A good chunk of the photos didn't turn out. But this one looks fucking awesome. I'll probably try to recreate this in Photoshop just for fun.

Mistuh Bah-cway

One of my teachers has a speech impediment. He pwuh-nounces stuff wike Ew-muh Fudd. I'd like to think of myself as a (usually) nice guy. I don't make fun of people if they have speech impediments. But there's something about my teacher that makes it irresistible for me to make fun of him. Of course, I make fun of him behind his back, but I'm finding it increasingly harder to hold it in. There have been a few instances this past week where I nearly tried to sneak in his own impediment in my sentences just to see if he'd notice. I nearly said "You're wew-come" when he said "Thanks" to me this morning.

The point of it all?
I don't really have one. That's it.

Lenny is a punk, Darren is a runt.

I quit quitting. Round 3 begins tomorrow. So what's so different about this time? I have someone quitting a habit of their own with me. I will have someone to suffer with me. We can rely on each other for support. I'll quit for as long as they quit. Let's hope for the best.

There's something about hearing a song being broadcast in a public space that makes me enjoy it more than if it were in my own room. If I hear it being played at a mall or a store or anywhere, I'll stop and get sort of giddy about it and no matter what I'm doing, the majority of my attention will go toward the song, even if it's a song I've heard a million times already. That said, I greatly enjoyed that both bars I went to last night were playing the Ramones.

Took some photos yesterday of Lenny and Britt modeling the SOS shirts. It was fun to take photos and with/of good friends, no less. I'm far from being done with the photos, but I posted two up on the SOS blog for now. That should give people an idea of what the product looks like. I'll get around to the rest once I find some time to myself.

Why?

I think there's a mouse stuck in the walls of my room.

Not quite Day 5

I don't think I'm gonna last much longer. I can't tell if this inhaler is working anymore.

Day 4

I'm using the inhaler less. I'm thinking about smoking more. "This would be so much easier if I could just have a cigarette. I could just walk to the store right now. It'd be over with". I'm trying to eat more to curb the urge. I'm gonna be a fatty. I gotta go buy me some junk food after class.
Hang in there!

Day 2

Still coping well so far. I taste the inhaler less and less to the point where I'm wondering if it's even working. I guess that's good. No real urge to smoke, even with Lenny and Sergio smoking around me, although I do occasionally think about it.
I don't think it's really a matter of whether or not I can do it anymore, even if it is too soon to tell. It's now a matter of whether or not I'm ready to give it up.

I wonder if I'm going to be the kind of person that gets irritable when going through withdrawal. I'm already irritable as is. The assholes in some of my classes won't be helping either. We'll see how it goes.

Day 1

I had this whole entry written. But fuck it.
I officially started to quit smoking today. I hope it works out.
Also, the inhaler tastes like ass.

Halloween

So all that slacking off at school's finally bit me in the ass. With 3 midterms coming up next week, I haven't studied for any of them. Factoring in my work schedule, I've suddenly realized I have very little time to study. I've had to forfeit my Halloween night just to study. Boo hoo. Poor me.
To reward myself for this, I think I'll go blow money on cheap candy tomorrow.

I've also decided to try and quit smoking for the second time. The way I figured it, I always thought the best time to quit would be when I'm no longer stressed; my increase in smoking was because of the increase in stress the past few months. But it doesn't look like my life is going to get any less stressful anytime soon, so I may as well just start now. I bought that Nicorette Inhaler today. I'm gonna look like a tool huffing through what looks like a mini-tampon, but it can't be any worse than the gum. Nothing's worse than the gum.


Happy Halloween.

What's new

So I'm guessing from the relative silence on Blogger these days, everyone has been just as busy as me.
School's been a blur. Partly because I don't pay any attention and partly because it's been going by too fast for me to keep up. But mostly because I don't pay attention. I don't really know what happened to me. In class, I sit there with my laptop chatting with Ani, who sits right beside me with her laptop. And we take stupid pics on Photobooth, in the middle of the lecture. See:

Seriously.
Work's shit. It's nice to have Ani suffer with me at school and work, though. Poor girl must be so sick of me by now.

Everyone that reads this (no one) has gotten an invite on Facebook for the S.O.S. launch party. If you need an explanation of what S.O.S. is, just read about it on the event page. The three of us are scrambling to get everything together, from finding the venue to have it at, to trying to get the shirts ready in time. Oh, did I say the three of us? Because I meant Lenny. Lenny is scrambling to get everything together while I'm still trying to tell apart my ass from my elbow.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I don't ask too much from my friends, if anything. So it would mean a lot to us/me if you could be there. Even if you live in Brampton. I guess just keep an eye out on the event page for more details as the date nears. In the meantime, we've started a blog for the company.

That's it. That's all that's new.

I'm gonna Yah Mo Burn This Place To The Ground

I already loved the original, but the fact that they re-recorded it with Michael McDonald makes it even more awesome. And I'm not even being ironic about it.

Grizzly Bear (feat. Michael McDonald) - While You Wait For The Others

xcrabxcorex

You fucking assholes. If you wanna have your own shitty little scene, fine. But you just had to go and ruin this fucking song for me, didn't you?

brb. life.

Propecia

While I'm on the topic of crack hoes...

That Crack Bitch is a wack bitch.

In high school, there was this one kid in our grade named Arthur. He wasn't the brightest person. Not in the sense that he wasn't intelligent or anything; he just seemed to lack any sort of common sense. He'd always do stuff that would end up making him look real stupid. He got quite a bit of shit from me in high school*, which is saying a lot, because I wasn't that much higher than him on the social ladder. Just barely. There was an incident where I once pushed him over while he was sitting in a chair, right in front of an entire class. Despite the teacher seeing what had happened, I didn't get in any trouble. To this day, I still feel really guilty over it.
The reason why I mention this is that I now work with Arthur. Small world. Now that I have school, my bosses need someone to fill my shoes full time. They put up an ad on Craigslist and he apparently, was the most qualified. He was pretty much hired on the spot. And I happened to be there when he came in for the interview. Incredibly awkward. As Sal, my sex-tape coworker was introducing him to me, I mumbled "Yeah, we've met before. We went to the same high school" as I shook Arthur's hand. I could barely look him in the eye.
I worked with him yesterday. I can't tell if he's just pretending or if he really doesn't remember me that much as he's claimed, but he seems to have wiped the slate clean. Thank God. And even better, he's no longer as clueless about everything as he was before. In fact, he's pretty alright, although parts of him remind me of myself. He's gangly and slightly awkward. Never really seems completely at ease. I hope for his sake he grows out of that sooner than me.

Not sure who reads this these days, but if you happen to be going to Soundwave this Saturday for the Pink Dead Whale Faux Show, stay the fuck away from Crack Bitch. If you're wondering who Crack Bitch is, well, she's a crack bitch. A bitch that smokes crack. Who right now happens to be residing inside the rehearsal space. The room directly across from the room Matt, Ramy and I practice in, in fact. I've met her before and I've heard stories about her cracked-out drama from Matt and Ramy, but today, I actually got my first real taste of Crack Bitch Drama. I was there from about 4 to 9:30 or so, practicing with Matt. For those five and a half hours, she was there either screaming at someone or slamming doors. It was always her blowing up over the dumbest shit too. It'd be a little funnier if she was just a normal, sober drama queen, but the fact that she's on crack leaves me kind of scared that she'll do something like take an ashtray to my head if I laugh at her to her face.
So anyway, if you're coming on Saturday and happen to see her, here are a list of things you should not do:
-make eye contact when you walk by her
-say hi
-introduce yourself
-do any favors for her if she asks
-assuming you have liquor with you, don't let her drink any of yours
So you've been warned.

School? I'll get to that some other day.

"It's Ben LANDER, not Landers! There's no S!"

Audrey, Sharon and I used to take a class together at York University. British Film and Society or something like that.
I was cleaning my room today and came across my old notebooks from that class. Among the notes was a piece of paper with someone else's handwriting on it. It was completely written by Audrey; a note on why she was a nice person. I guess I must have a called her a bitch or something. So in case you ever needed convincing a reminder as to why Audrey is a nice person, I've written it all out verbatim. I kind of wish I could remember what exactly it is that Audrey said/did to make me accuse her of being a bitch.


Why I Am A Nice Person
by Audrey Wu

-I give up my seat on the bus for old people
-I say "please" and "thank you" a lot
-I recycle
-I put my gum in the trash, I don't spit it on the ground
-I do the dishes every night
-I like babies and small children
-I don't swear...often
-I open doors for people
-When I borrow something for from someone, I try to give it back as soon as possible
-I never owe people money!
-I'm not very violent

The Wrong Wong

So I just realized why Gene never added me on Facebook. It's because he added the wrong Darren Wong. It was funny and slightly insulting at the same time, because if you look at the other Darren's profile pic and stand far back enough, it does kind of resemble me. And in my profile pic, I'm wearing a giraffe mask...but c'mon, he's known me his whole life. He should be able to distinguish who is and isn't me.
I had to use Gene's Facebook and confirm my own friend request when he was out. This whole situation is sad.


That's the other Darren.

Misc.

I was going to save this for something else later on, but I stopped caring. So this is my effort to recreate the cover of Bowie's 'Heroes'. We also took a shot of Len without the mustache, but I think it's more awesome with it. Thanks to Mark for all his help with the lighting.
My goal was to do a whole series of recreated photographs/paintings/whatever with my friends as stand-ins but I've kind of lost the motivation.






What a lovely day. Someone hang out with me.

Light leaks and rejects

Ugh, I feel like shit today.

Nojibway

I was barely home at all yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to do this, but Happy Birthday Owen! I hope you dig your gift. It's not as lulzy as your gift to me, but your gift's arms shoot off, so that's awesome, right?

Six pack

Cleaned my room today. I was cleaning out my drawers and getting rid of clothes I don't wear anymore and I found this:


And of course, I don't remember ever having seen this shirt before in my life. I know I didn't buy it, so it probably means my parents gave it to me. What the hell made me say yes? I'm never going to wear this shirt.

My vacation away from worky

My program requires me to work 20 hours in the Seneca Vision Center with a partner. I've done 10 so far and was supposed to do the remaining 10 today and tomorrow. I booked it a month in advance and took time off work just to do it. I showed up this morning with my partner to find out that the place was closed and has been for a week. It won't be open until next week. I was pissed that no one bothered to notify us in advance. My partner was even more pissed, seeing as how she had to drive down from Belleville just to make it and booked a hotel room to stay overnight in Toronto.
On the bright side, it means I get two days off from work, now that I don't have to be at school. I'm hoping it will de-stress me; the dominant theory as to why I'm losing weight is because I'm stressed from work. I'm down to 111 lbs. I'm hoping the test results will get back in time before I wither away.

In other news, John from Labspace Studios personally sent me a message to encourage me to submit to their next show, Monosaic. In turn, I encourage you all to submit. It's a pretty creative idea and I think it'd be awesome to see what the final product will look like.

I watched a documentary on Klaus Nomi last night. This has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that it was a good documentary and they couldn't have picked a more fascinating person to do a documentary on. And yes, he really can sing that high. Do you Nomi?

Saturday

My boss switched my weekend shifts, so it was nice to finally enjoy a Saturday. I'd say it was well spent. Big thanks to Mark and Lenny for helping me. I hope the photos from today turn out well.













I took a bunch of pics of us on the mounds, but I completely screwed them all up.