Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

This other day I had a dream that I was watching the news and they were reporting on this cult that committed mass suicide by poisoning themselves. The anchor warned that the scene would be graphic, and then they showed one of the guys take a pill or whatever and then start screaming “No! No!” and making gutteral noises and writhing around in pain. Finally he was in so much agony that he started digging into his own stomach with his hands and ripping out his innards, all the while screaming horrifically. It was pretty gross!

It reminded me of the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen, in all seriousness, which I will tell you about now, if you’re not faint of heart.

Seriously – this is disturbing even to read about, so if you don’t want to read about real life horrific death, do not continue.

I watched a video (on the internet, of course) that showed some Russians (Chechnian rebels or something – I don’t really know. I don’t really know how to spell Chechnian either). Okay screw sentence structure. These two guys (plus the cameraman I must infer) had another guy held at gun point on the top of this little hillock, and they were saying some stuff into the camera and to this guy who looked like he had pissed his pants several times over. They took a big knife and stuck it into the side of this poor guy’s throat and then started sawing towards the front – wow I’m having trouble even finishing this sentence. You could hear him groaning or yelling but it just turned into a gurgling noise as they cut through all the voice stuff and right through to the front, and then sawed off the rest of the flesh and bone at the back. It was really really awful. It didn’t help that something about my video/sound card has always been screwed up since I got my computer so that it played in slow motion for extra creepy effect.

That in turn reminds me that my brother was first on the scene of a murder, which I won’t go into details on the internet, but somebody was shot in the head point blank, as I recall, and the murderer was semi-conscious right next to her. What a mess. Ah, the human race.

Last night we started making up characters for a new D&D campaign – the one that will adapt several episodes of the 80’s cartoon DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. I already know which episode I’m adapting first. It should be pretty fun. Marlo made up a hippie with a ferret who will become a druid with a magic staff. Graeme made up a jock who will become a rogue with a magic bola. Norm made up a young kid who will become a barbarian with a magic greatsword. Geisel is gonna make up a guy who becomes a bard with some kind of magical instrument.

Tomorrow night is the miniature painting potluck party – where people come over to paint their miniatures and have some food. I’ve had about…3 or 4 of these I guess. My brother might come! He just called to say he’ll be coming by with my Christmas presents in the next couple of days.

Far more sad to me than the death of Hunter S Thompson (never read any of his work) was this email I got today after I asked an eBay seller whether or not she’d ship to Canada:

“My younger brother died and he had four closets stacked to the ceiling with star trek and star wars including boxed figures. If your interested in this kind of collectibles keep and eye out, I will be listing as much of this stuff as I possibly can through out the coming weeks. It takes me time because I work.”

I was talking to Taylor on the bus ride home about how after someone wins a big lottery, less people buy tickets because the jackpot is not as big. People – you’re dumb! I’d be happy with a return of $2 on a $1 ticket. Anyway, I won a contest on Teletoon for some spy toys – walkie talkies, “spy vision” goggles, a watch, and a Teletoon notebook & pen. Pretty neat! I just filled out the paperwork and I have to wait for Stewie to get home to sign as witness.

Good morning. One part good, one part morning. A few people say this to me at work: Pete, Cyril, Nicky, Taylor. Because I am Mr Literal, I choose to take it at face value — good morning. My response varies from “I’m with you on the ‘morning’ part” or “not really” to, if I’m feeling nice, “hello.” I almost never say “good morning” because if I had to get up at 7:22 to go somewhere I don’t want to be, then it’s decidedly not a good morning. I feel I have a right to be cranky under the circumstances. I certainly don’t expect anyone else to be chipper at the prospect of being on their feet for the next 7 hours.

Other people, the more “homey” types, say “what’s up?” instead of “good morning.” I don’t think it’s actually a question, but I answer it anyway. Usually with “books.”

Well there will be no professional hockey this season and as to be expected there is no love lost here. It wouldn’t make any difference to me either way except that I won’t have to tolerate noisy neighbors. And really as far as I’m concerned – if you want to play hockey, nobody’s stopping you. You just won’t get paid millions of dollars to do it. But maybe you’ll have some fun. I’d be interested to hear if anyone is supporting the Olympics in Vancouver, because it sounds like money ill spent to me.

Marlo and I watched the first 3 episodes of Lost last night. They were pretty good, except one sequence where there was happy music and everyone was being nice to eachother. That was awkward. For those who don’t know, it’s a tv show about survivors on a plane crash who are ‘castaway’ on a jungle island. There’s the hero-doctor, the heroine ex con, the redneck, the ex-military saudi, the mysterious old man, the vietnamese couple who don’t speak english, the man and possibly his son (it’s not stated) whose mother had died, and the enigmatic old man. Oh, and the vain bitch and her ditsy brother. There are apparently monsters on the island, but all we’ve actually seen is a ferocious polar bear. One of the people got killed by something with tremendous strength, but instead of being eaten was left high in a tree. There better be a good reason why he wasn’t eaten. Some predators save their lunches by burying them or keeping them high in trees, but that’s usually cats. And these monsters come across as quite big (thundering footsteps and pushing trees aside), so it’s weird that they would kill this guy and leave him intact, just bloodied up.

OK does anyone know what the deal is with the “no more late fees” thing at Crockcluster? Because I already know it’s bullshit and will probably make me mad.

This time last year I was mentoring Liam, running Freeport D&D adventures, having a short stint at the gym in Coquitlam with Anghold, and going to Hell’s Kitchen. This according to last year’s calendar. Before my blog, the calendar was pretty much my diary, and each entry read “meet this person here at this time” or “played Power Enterprise with these people.”

This time this year, I visited Marlo for a special Valentine’s date. I got her some rosy quartz dice from Drexoll Games and they went over big. I also got her a Dragon Magazine and wrote her a special little true story. She got me Desert Sessions 9/10 and a big heart-shaped box full of chocolates (and some jelly beans a couple days ago). Easily my best Valentine’s Day in as long as I can remember. Yay for Torlo!

Here’s a reminder about how awesome it will be: http://thickets.50megs.com/cereals.htm