Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

Marlo asked me the other day why I prefer girls with short hair. I haven’t thought about this for a while, so here we go:

1. I can see the neck. I like the female neck. It’s one of my favourite bits.

2. This may be complete bullshit, but my observations over my adult life is that women with short hair are more independent, and I find that attractive.

3. Short hair is low-maintenance. Are girls with short hair also low-maintenance? The thought occurred to me. See note regarding bullshit (above).

4. Especially in the 80’s when I became less of a boy and more of a man, short hair was quite uncommon, and so I think I found it just a little exotic. Or at least, not mainstream. And that appeals to me too, what with me being a freak and an outcast.

5. Maybe I’m a dyke trapped in a man’s body?

I wanted to blog more, but this confounded mouse is making it really frustrating to work on the computer, so I’m just going to go make dinner. Hey, that’s a good name for a convention: Con-Founded

Ripped off by the government. Marlo got a tax return of several hundred dollars last year, but recently she got a letter from the government saying there was a mistake, and she owes them $400. My story is weak by comparison, but it still riles me.

I bought a pair of converse on ebay. I got them for $15.75 US plus postage for a total of about 21 American bucks. Cons go for about $60 Canadian in stores, so after you convert US$21 to Cdn$25, that’s a pretty good deal. But the other day I got a note from the post office saying there was a package with $17.60 due on it. I knew it was the shoes. I went to the post office to find out what the deal was. The guy who sent it wrote $15 for the value on the customs declaration form, but his one looks like a seven, so they charged me $12.60 in tax on what they thought was an item valued at $75 US ($90 Canadian) plus the standard $5 “handling fee.” Naturally the lady at the 7-11 postal outlet can’t do anything, but she told me about all the bureaucratic hoops I have to jump through to get my $17 back (and the handling fee is probably exempt). So I filled out the form, included a copy of the invoice from ebay, and even scanned in the package and printed out the scan so they could see buddy boy’s writing. I know it’s only $17 bucks, but it kind of defeats the purpose of searching for a good deal, plus I hate what it was “spent” on. Spending $17 on a friend or myself – great. Giving it to a government that already charges me for services that I rarely or cannot use – crap.

Tip of the week: if you find yourself typing “too funny not to pass around” it’s probably not.

Since my Disney’s Tomorrowland DVD showed up, my thoughts for the cartoon party have all been spacey. I’m pretty excited. That tomorrowland DVD is really cool. Educational and the art is fantastic. I can watch those things while I draw, and there’s 8 hours of stuff. I sought it out after I saw the Mars animation at “The Animation Show” put on by Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge last year. It’s fantastic in the true sense of the word. There’s lots of Werner von Braun, too, the guy who developed the V2 rockets for nazi Germany. He has a huge segment talking about a space station and the rocket that would launch from it to see the dark side of the moon. Keep in mind this is all post-war, pre-moon landing. Taylor and I were making bad jokes at work about “zis is der space ztation, vhich is vhere ve send all ze ’spezial’ people. Iz zhere air up zhere? Ve don’t know?” But in reality von Braun was pretty crummy at being a nazi.

So, cartoons. Rocket Robin Hood obviously. Star Trek. Maybe the Heavy Metalesque Star Wars cartoon from the holiday special (1st appearance of Boba Fett). The ghostbusters in space. Duckman’s sendup of Star Trek. Galaxy Trio. 1960’s Spider-Man (there is a space one). Fantastic Four (have you seen the trailer for the movie? I don’t like it). Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot (the one that spoofs HAL). Justice League, clearly. Herculoids, Freakazoid, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Mooninites, anyone?). Jonny Quest and the Venture Brothers. Ren and Stimpy (“Space Madness”). Maybe Thundarr the Barbarian & Reboot. Ripping Friends. There is a spacey Samurai Jack episode but it’s not my favourite. I can’t think of a spacey Powerpuff Girls episode. Oh yes – The Tick (Omnipitus!).

Who can recommend a karoako place in town that isn’t the Dufferin?

I got this from Palle today:

Over 58% of the 44,476 albums released in 2004 didn’t scan 100 units.
82% of all records released didn’t scan 1000 units.
95% of all records released scanned less than 10,000 units.
Only 58 albums scanned 500,000 or more, accounting for 15% of overall business.
Only 42 albums scanned 1,000,000 or more, accounting for 31.65% of overall business.
This includes compilations.

Today I went to Imperial Hobbies with Marlo and we bought some miniatures. The Arcana Unearthed line has some pretty cool figures, but I’ve always been wishy-washy about picking any up. Today I got a cool Inshon that could pass as a hydronaut for Spaceship Zero, and a mohj, which is like a lizard man. Marlo wanted to get a DM screen, but they only had the Dragonlance one (poopy) and the one that comes with the d20 modern screen (unnecessary). We spent a goodly amount of time there and I only got through about half of the Reaper miniatures on the wall. So many I wanted to get, like the “demonic lasher” (aka Yeenoghu), the demon lord of gnolls.

We went to the Aberdeen mall next and I saw in a Japanese toy store a really cool little steampunky figure that I would have bought, except that it’s one of those “collectible” things like Heroclix, D&D miniatures, and those little action figures that are kind of Lego-ey but not Lego. You buy a box and you’ll get one of 7 toys. I am sooooo not inclined to spend ten bucks on something if I don’t know what it is. I only really liked 2 of the 7 figures. I didn’t like those odds. And I refuse to support that ridiculous marketing scheme. I call shenanigans on that.

All three of our bus rides sucked, by the way. On the way to Richmond, there were some bratty kids and their bratty dad or big brother or whatever, who were so annoying that we got up and moved away from them, only to end up next to some dim-witted high school man-twits. Between Imperial and the Aberdeen mall we had to endure short, weird, talk-to-everyone-but-say-nothing guy who may or may not have had some kind of disability. Lastly, on the way home our feet were so tired that we were looking forward to sitting down, but the bus was just crowded enough that we were two of a handful of people who couldn’t get seats. Frustrating. But the good news is on Sundays I ride for free with Marlo because she has a pass!

Next weekend: Chilliwack and Karaoke with the Woods’ and more!

My girlfriend is learning how to be a Dungeon Master. How awesome is that? The answer is: plenty awesome. I want to be a wizard. No, I want to be a totem warrior from Arcana Unearthed. No, I want to be a halforc monk. No, I want to be a…

We played a game of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on Saturday and I played the “ops” guy, whose name was Lieutenant George Thampy (“Spellbound” fans take note).

Stewie set up a birthday party/hang around thing for Taylor at a strip club called Number Five Orange last Friday. Marlo had never been to a strip club before. I had been to a few. One of them I even went to without having to go on stage. As the kind of guy who likes women with short hair, no makeup, and natural boobs, strip clubs aren’t usually my bag of tea. Also going to strip clubs are an exercise in people-watching, as there were quite a few interesting characters there, including Santa Clause.

There was one stripper – Penny Lane – who managed to keep my attention. She had nice hair (for a long-hair) and was naturally pretty. She didn’t give Taylor a lap dance though because some schmuck just prior to the appointment did something not so nice and she went home for the night. That’s my understanding, anyway. The best part was four of my co-workers showing up and one of them getting drunk and telling me how sexy Marlo is and how lucky I am (I know, and I know). Marlo asked if I would go see strippers again and I said ’sure,’ but I would like to try a different place next time.

Great Old Ones is finally in the Chaosium catalog.

I think the deal with Pink Floyd and Wizard of Oz has gotten to the point that it would probably be a good marketing deal if they packaged them together at Virgin Megastore.

I am truly amazed at how bad my feet smell after a day at work. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.

My lunch at work usually consists of: a banana (which I eat at first break); two hard boiled eggs; an apple; raisins; sunflower seeds; sometimes a bag of chips or a candy bar from the machines in the lunch room. During the holidays add 2 mandarin oranges. Last Wednesday I opened my bag to find that there were no eggs. I had a memory of boiling the eggs that morning, but since they weren’t in my bag, I wondered if I had left them at home. Worse yet, I wondered if I left them in the pot, boiling. At first break (I technically start work at 8:30 and first break is 10:30) I decided I had to wake up Stewie to check to see if the kitchen was on fire. I called him and just asked him to check the kitchen. When I got home, he told me there were no eggs at all – not in a pot nor on the counter. So that was fine. Clearly I had a false memory.

Today, as I was leaving work, I saw a Sunshine Market bag on the filing cabinet that is in the locker room at work. It’s where I put my bag when I pull out my music tapes ‘n’ stuff. Inside were my two eggs. They smelled a bit (being 6 days at room temperature) but I so desperately wanted to eat them. Wasted food is one of my pet peeves. Or, if not a peeve, I just think it’s tragic, because food is so yummy. Anyway Taylor talked me out of it, so when we got outside I hucked one onto the road for kicks. That was satisfying, but not as satisfying as rolling the other out onto Marine Drive and waiting for a car to run over it. Ho ho! It was just about a foot out of the rut that the tires go, but eventually a bus nicked it. Then a sports car changing lanes and oh the mess it made! Fun for the whole family.