The Title of My Blog

Pants

2005-02-21T11:26:00.000-05:00

I write before you the most frustrated man in history. Today I went to a men's clothing store to procure some pants. I want a couple nice pairs of casual pants for the office. They didn't have casual khaki's or cords in my size, but they did have khaki's with a dress pant cut in my size. I tried them on. They fit. I hated them. They made me look even skinnier than I already am, if that's possible. I admit, with a 32 inch waist and 38 inch inseam, my dimensions are freakish. Why is it, however, that there is an underlying assumption in North America that if you are especially tall, you must also be especially thick in the middle? And why is it that the pants they do make for tall skinny men are cut in such way as to make the poor bastards look like freaks. I'm thinking conspiracy.

Feeling dejected, I came home to do an internet search for tall skinny pants. The conspiracy seems to be world-wide. I visited a dozen different sites. None of them let you choose an inseam dimension to go with the waist size. I'm not going to order pants on-line unless I know they're the right size. I'm not Michael Jackson. I don't wear floods to show off my sequened socks.

When I'm at school I see tall skinny guys everywhere. Many of them are taller than me, and they're all wearing Pants, jeans mostly. I'm sure they run into the same problems I do with dressier types of trousers. I think I may have discovered my million dollar idea. I could start a pant manufacturing plant that churns out pants of all styles especially cut and designed for tall skinny men. It seems I have much work to do.

Emstup

2005-02-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

Must you always have the last word, Matt Swanson?

I bought a pair of winter boots several years ago from Aldo. It was an emergency purchase of sorts, in that I purchased them the week a huge snow storm shut down the city. Most of my fellow countrymen will remember it as the week the mayor of my city called in the army to save us from snow.

Anyway, being caught off guard I was forced to buy winter boots from Aldo. They lasted one winter and then the heel of the right boot came loose from the rest of the boot. It has been loose like that ever since. Somehow, despite annual freezing soakers, I never got around to fixing it.

I have a slight procrastination problem.

Anyhow, I finally resolved to fix the boot this year. I needed warm, dry boots. I don't have the money for new boots. Hell, if I'm gonna spend that much money on myself I'll buy RAM for my computer.

I took a walk to my local Home Hardware and discovered something called Goop.

There are many varieties of Goop: Household Goop, Automotive Goop, Boating Goop, etc.

The truth is, as far as I can tell from the instructions on the backs of the various brands and from what I could gather on the Goop website, is that all Goops are the same thing with different names. There may be some differences in colour or somesuch thing, but otherwise it's all the same stuff.

At any rate, I used Household Goop because it came closest to describing the environment in which I would be adhering things to one another, namely my boots. I found out later that there is an actual Shoe Goop, but the Home Hardware didn't carry it.

The long and the short of my boring tale is that Goop is quite possibly the greatest adhesive I have ever purchased. I have bought Crazy Glue in the past, among others, but nothing compares to the strength and sealing power of Goop. I must have applied four coats of Goop to the heel of my boot. Recently we had some decent snowfall and I put my boots to the test. I sloshed around in freezing water, etc. and the Goop held remarkably well, which is to say that my boots are still in one piece.

Home Hardware started in the predominantly Mennonite town of St. Jacob's, Ontario, which is where Home Hardware Store #1 still operates.

My second post

2005-02-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

I am posting on my blog again.

Some wiseacre called Matt Swanson -- if that is his real name -- commented on my first post. He is clearly a disturbed individual who cannot be trusted. Do not, I repeat, do not send money to him.

I want to buy some RAM for my computer. I don't think it needs it particularly, but I feel the need to upgrade my computer even just a little bit. I'm sure that I would feel good about new RAM for a week at the most. It would be very easy to use my credit card to order RAM off the Internet. Very easy and very stupid.

I have a baby girl. She is the most wonderful little girl in the world. She's barely 21 months old and she can count to 14, sing the alphabet and factor equations in her head. At least that's what I think she's doing when she leans her head against the wall and grunts.

When she kisses me or her mom she goes, "mmmmmuch!" because that's what kissing sounds like to her.

Her current favourite game is "puzzles", which she pronounces "puddles". She says, "Daddy, play puddles!" or "Mommy, play puddles!"

She also likes to read, which is nice. It's funny how many books and kids' tv shows revolve around bears. Little Bear, Corduroy, Berenstein Bears, Rupert, Paddington, Winnie the Pooh, and Bear in the Big Blue House come immediately to mind.

My wife and I are expecting another baby in June. It will be nice for our daughter to have a little brother or sister. They will be just over two years apart, which I think is a good age difference. Time will tell.

WAKE UP!

I have a Blog. Now What?

2005-01-26T22:31:00.000-05:00

Where's my entourage? Where's my movie deal? Am I famous yet?

Nope. Everything's still the same as it was five minutes ago when I was blogless.

I hate the word blog. Shouldn't it have an apostrophe in front of it, like 'blog, since it's an abbreviation of weblog?

weblog, youblog and now iblog.

Am I supposed to write about what I love? hate? What I'm indifferent to?

I love my family.

I hate posers.

I am indifferent to grapplegrommets.

Do I keep writing? Am I famous yet?

I got my hair cut today. I overheard someone a chair or two over say, "Kirstin Dunst is the worst dresser I've ever seen!" to which the hairdresser responded with an emphatic, "I know!"

I thought to myself (as opposed to thinking to someone else): "That person hasn't seen the way I dress," followed by: "some people will blurt out anything for the sake of saying something."

I'm usually quiet when I get my hair cut. But my hairdresser is nice. I've seen her three times. We're practically old friends in hairdresser terms. She asks me how my wife and child are doing. I ask her if she has family back home.

She told me that a few weeks ago she fell while running for the streetcar. Not a single person helped her or asked her if she was alright. I find that really sad and embarrassing.

We also talked about how people in my city look at you funny if you say "hi" to them on the street. A friend of hers came here from a small prairie town and was shocked at how impersonal this city is. I told her about a friend of mine who came from Halifax, which is a fair-sized city itself, and was equally shocked that no one greeted one another on the street. I told my hairdresser that, after my friend told me that, I try to make eye contact with people and say "hi" when I pass them. I can't say I do it all the time -- it depends on my mood. I tend to get the friendliest reactions from the following general groups of people: senior citizens and people of colour.

People of colour is a funny term, considering just about everybody with the exception of albinos have colour in their pigment.

Am I famous yet?