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Away This Weekend

Alors, Je Serai Parti Pour Le Week-End

I will be in Montréal for the weekend. One of my friends is having his stag there.

He doesn’t like to drink, so we’re going to eat all the foods that he ate when he went to university there.

This guy can put away a lot of food, too. This means that we’ll all get fatter just sitting next to him. I suspect that I will have to flush out my system with some kind of explosive device so that I can go on living a semi-normal life after stuffing myself with what is essentially greasy lard on white bread this weekend.

I’ve also decided not to bring my camera with me. I don’t think I’ll have enough time to do anything constructive with it. I’m working on a sketch for a friend from the dojo anyway, so that will take up my spare time.

Wish me luck!

Amusing Neighbour’s Moepants Are Sinking

Amusing Devices

Today, as I was talking to Dave, my mind slipped and a literary device that I

was about to use took advantage of the distraction and ran out my ear.

I was describing someone as being an exceptionally nice person. Someone sweet, who cares a lot about their loved ones. I was going to say something along the lines of that person is sweet as pie. Instead it came out as that person is all smiles and pancakes.

I have many flaws, but at least they are entertaining ones.



Dave & Jorge Dialogue – The Neighbour

One day, after a 10K Race, a bunch of us were sitting in a pub. I was talking about how his downstairs neighbours at one of the places he lived at were getting on his nerves.

After subtle (and not so subtle) attempts to curb this behaviour, I was going to resort to some more insidious methods.

One of the things I was thinking of was to get some spoonfuls of peanut butter and roll them in sesame seeds and then stick them around my neighbour’s place to attract pigeons and other vermin…



Jorge: Man, it’s so annoying.
Nat: What are you going to do about it?
Jorge: Well, obviously I’ll have to employ more direct and annoying ways to deal with the problem.
Nat: Really?
Jorge: I can’t wait to get my hands on some peanut butter and sesame seeds!
Dave: So you can go like this? [Pretends to shove peanut butter and sesame seeds in his mouth with one hand, shaking his other fist in the air, and making vengeful muttering noises that sounded suspiciously like Why you stupid neighbour, I’ll show you… but with a mouthful of peanut butter!]
[Everyone laughs.]
Jorge: Er.. Not quite like that.



Woepants is Moepants

One of Dave‘s new furry children is not feeling too well.

Please pray for his little guy (if you believe in the power of prayer). If you don’t pray, send positive thoughts to him. If you don’t even believe in that, just send me $20, and I’ll drive to Ottawa and give Dave a hug.



New Orleans is Sinking…

I’m sure this line has been used a million times this week.

I’ve been following some of the news and checking out a lot of the photo galleries that are available.

The level of destruction is incredible, but not really unfathomable, given the power of nature.

What I find unbelievable is the way people are acting.

I wonder if there would be looting and such up here in a crisis where people are dying all around.

I know that during some political protests things can get hot. However, as far as I can recall, natural disasters like the ice storm, the blackout and the recent crazy flood have brought out the best in people.

What do you think about this?

Pixel Back Figtography Agent

Well Pixel Me Surprised!

My friend Shatton has been heavily into the pixel art these days.

I can’t really remember how it all started, but he submitted some stuff to Conan O’Brien and then it all went downhill from there.

A lot of what he draws is great. The rest is astounding.

Check out this one he did of me…



You should go to his site. He just finished revamping it. It’s definitely amazing.



If You Live In Napa, and Need Your Back Fixed…

My friend Kristen is a chiropractor. She’s awesome and has her own practice. I recently designed her website for her and in the process, I learned a lot about chiropractic treatment.

Truthfully, I used to be a bit nervous about it, but reading about how her and her husband practice this interesting science made me rethink my opinion.

I might have to give it a try one day.

You can check her site out here.



Suggestions Regarding Figtography?

Does anyone have any suggestions for my photography? Whether it’s the homepage, the marketing, or the photos themselves, it would be nice to get some opinions on how to make it better.

As it stands, I’ve done a few shows, and sold a few pieces.

I would have to say that it is good to have my art support itself.

However, it’s always good to open it up to a bigger audience.

You can just e-mail me and let me know.



Clarica Agent Time

I most likely offended quite a number of people with my post yesterday about lyrics posted meaninglessly on blogs.

I suppose I could have been more clear by mentioning that it is those that just post lyrics without any context or explanation that really puzzle me.

It’s one thing to use song lyrics to illustrate a point or an emotion. However, to not actually post anything other than song lyrics just strikes me as odd.

That’s all.

I’m sorry if any one of my friends were possibly offended (especially Age and Cathy). I happened to write that post after visiting a bunch of self-professed cool sites with this type of behaviour. I realize that you’ve both posted song lyrics either slightly before or after I made my post.

It was not directed at you.

It was actually directed at Dave and Kris*.




* – I’m KIDDING!

Trendy Fragile

Trendy?

Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow.

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day
School one day, school one day
It followed her to school one day
Which was against the rules.

It made the children laugh and play,
Laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.

– Mary Had a Little Lamb (Copyright Unknown)


Lately I’ve been seeing a lot people posting song lyrics without any context or explanation. I don’t really know why.

So, in the true spirit of Christmas I thought I would try to be even deeper than them by going back to basics.

You know, kickin’ it old skool

Mind you, I’ve just left an explanation…



Do Not Mark Fragile

The things you learn talking to random people in line.

Turns out that when using any delivery service, marking a package fragile might not be a good idea.

The state of humanity makes me sick. Who would have thought that indicating a package containes something fragile is likely interpreted as please throw this around.

That sucks.

Follow Learned

Yesterday I wrote about a car accident I had a few years ago. This is the epilogue


The Follow Up

I ended up hearing back from the OPP officer that looked after the situation. It turns out that after careful analysis the Ministry of Transportation determined that the patching job done by the gas station (around the corner from my office) was shoddy.

It was far from industry standard.

What they had done was no better than gluing some rubber onto the hole and hoping for the best.

The point at which they had worked on superheated to an alarming temperature, causing a rupture that had nowhere to explode but outwards. It blew the tire apart so violently that it split into three pieces and left nothing but the rim.

This was the information I needed to show that the accident was not my fault.

I e-mailed the head office of this particular gas station (a franchise operation) and informed them that the shoddy workmanship from one of their technicians almost resulted in me losing my life.

The e-mail I got back had a smug tone, asking for proof.

I stated I had a two-page report from the Ministry of Transportation showing that several stages of the patching process had been skipped. I then asked for a fax number.

I got no reply.

As I was not injured, I couldn’t really sue them. It was not my intention to get money from them anyway. I just wanted them to know that they had put someone’s life at risk due to their negligence. Perhaps the fact that I survived to tell them that they had done bad work would inspire them to take action to protect future customers from harm.

Unfortunately, they didn’t seem interested.



Lessons Learned

I didn’t really take my life for granted before this accident happened. I don’t take it for granted now, either.

I try to make sure I tell my friends how much they mean to me. I still do this today. People that know me understand that my compliments are always the truth according to me.

I learned that taking martial arts can really help you in a crisis. I don’t know which martial art contributed to my ability to loosen up and relax. But this go-with-the-flow mode that I seemed to switch into was definitely not due to reading or watching television.

I also learned that in spite of people having different beliefs (which is their right), a miracle is a miracle.