Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

Last night Norm, Joe, Graeme, Mike Jackson, and David Bradley came over to make up characters for my Mutants & Masterminds mini-campaign. Kodos was running around the apartment like a wildcat, as he does sometimes. He likes to bolt from one side of the apartment to the other…the end of the hall to the black chair or the couch, usually, and when he is in the hall he will crouch into whatever shoes happen to be in there. Well, I guess he got overexcited last night. I had to periodically check to see he wasn’t raking my guest’s shoes, as he is wont to do with shoes that have new and vivacious smells. At last I heard him making an unusual amount of noise and when I peeked around the corner he was crouched in Graeme’s jacket which was crumpled on the floor–a crouch I know all too well. The sound I heard was obviously him padding at the jacket prepping his spot to soil. I grabbed him before he fully relieved himself but not before he started. BAD CAT! Luckily I had almost a full bottle of that “miracle” pet odor remover that is enzyme based and works like a charm, so I cleaned up after the BAD CAT and Graeme was none the wiser! No, that’s not true, I told Graeme about it and that if the miracle stuff didn’t work I’d buy him a new jacket. But I am confident the stuff will work as I have used it on my bed and clothes probably a half dozen times or more over the years. BAD CAT! My only worry is that I missed a spot.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyhoo…the kids made up some interesting characters–the most interesting being Graeme’s shapeshifting plant character and Mike’s nanobot gadgeteer–and we may play the ‘training scenario’ next Monday. Thank Gord for Joe’s compu-notebook and the M&M spreadsheet program that does the math for character creation.

And then Kodos got “The Sink” treatment.

I changed desks at work today and I have a full view of the city. It’s cool. On the flip side, I’ve been flying low since I got here. “Doii” as Duckman would say.

Speaking of Duckman, it’s almost time for the annual Saturday Morning Cartoon Party. Speak up if you’re interested in hearing more, and let me know what Saturday mornings you are and are not available in the next 8 weeks. The theme might be “Best of” or “All Request” this year.

Also, after my Mandarin classes are over, I’m pretty sure I’m going to take either guitar classes or piano. Probably guitar. Does anyone have a guitar they want to sell? Acoustic, please.

Saturday morning I went to the gym with Marlo and I burned 820 calories. I just stayed on the elliptical whachamajigger for the entire hour and…15 minutes or so. Saturday morn is a good time for the gym, there’s hardly anyone there. I think if I don’t spend too much time there (i.e. I don’t go there more than once a week) I won’t get sick of it. We’ll see. Unfortunately I was forced to brush up on my pop culture by watching the revolting MuchMusic video awards. I think Passenger 57 was also on the TV beside it. Neither of them had subtitles, except for the hair product commercials, which was strange.

Then we went to Greens and Gourmet where the guy behind Marlo doubled over in his chair and apparently went to sleep in a clam position.

I met with Theo, Kate, Mike Demers, Fraser, Jeff Ranger, Tea, Nicole and Chris Pramas at Tamagachi or somesuch sushi place on Broadway and Spruce (right next to Habibi’s) where I ate mostly chicken. I tried the eel and it was not to my liking. I believe it was “all you can eat” so we just kept filling up the form with check marks all over the place. Lots of yucks were had and then afterwards we went to Kate ‘n’ Theo’s to hang out and I made friends with Morgan the kitty and drank some chai. I’m sure Nicole will blog about it with some photos shortly. Some exciting things were discussed but it’s too soon to blog aboot it. But we talked about salamis and tsunamis, Nicole chasing down bullies in her neighborhood, and my famous story of Mom putting peanut butter in the hamburgers to make them stick together because we were out of eggs (no Mom, you’ll never live it down as long as you keep bringing up how I took the wrong ferry when I was 13). I also tried chocolate port and was suitably disgusted.

I’ve had Men at Work on the brain ever since watching Scrubs. During band practice, after Merrick finished his hissy fit because Bob showed up and nobody told him, we talked about doing covers. I pre-emailed (premailed) Jordan and Bob with my suggestion of “Helpless Automaton.” Tara is the email checker in their household and he told the tale of the dialogue:

Tara: “Toren wants to do a Men at Work cover.”

Jordan: “Let me guess. ‘I Come From a Land Down Under?’”

Tara: “No”

Jordan: “Helpless Automaton?”

Tara: “How’d you know?”

Jordan suggested “Overkill” and Bob suggested “It’s a Mistake,” both of which I’d be thrilled to do but Overkill is out of my range towards the end of the song. I’ve been singing Overkill constantly (I’m sure the neighbors are thrilled) since Friday night. Jordan also suggested us doing an album of cover songs, which we’d record the same time as our real album.

Jordan left a half hour earlier than normal so I set up my mic next to the drums and did my best Phil Collins. Mario and Merrick and I screwed around for a while and we actually came up with a semblance of a new song, which is hilarious.

My new project is to copy and paste old blog entries to LiveJournal. I’m not sure why. Comment gluttony? Not all old entries, just ones that are still relevant. Or…whatever I feel like, really.

The breakup really made my world go topsy turvy. Not just emotionally, but practically. For the first time in years I really had long-term plans that seemed natural. We were going to move in together, we were going to go to China. I was excited about that stuff. I looked forward to it. During the past 2 weeks I’d been focusing my grief on the here and now, but once in a while something would come up to slap me in the face with a “yeah…that thing you took for granted? You aren’t going to be doing that anymore. What now, smart guy?” I feel stuck. I feel back where I started. I don’t like the dating process. In fact I will go further than that and say that I HATE the dating process. I guess most people do. I don’t want to think about it, but at times, when I am lonely, I feel it looming. Like at some point I am going to find myself back on Lavalife, and I dread it. I was extremely gratified to have been able to leave that behind me.

But I have lots more time before I have to worry about that. I am not over Marlo yet. I find myself in the awkward position of wanting to spend more time with her, to support one another and to be a friend…but at the same time wanting to get over her. It’s just so weird to not come and go as I please, to have to ask before I come over, to not call her at work every day to see what she wants to do for dinner.

Topsy-turvy.

Tonight Marlo and I went out for dinner and rented Scrubs from Rogers and also watched an episode of Kenny vs Spenny. I was glad that Marlo laughed at KvsS and Marlo was glad that I laughed at Scrubs. They had me at the very first episode we watched which featured the singer from Men At Work. I used to be a Men At Work fan when I was a teenager. I had two (both?) of their albums on cassette along with Thriller and…god, what else? The Police, The Pinheads, and Platinum Blonde I guess (the three P’s). And now I am listening to Men At Work again. “Dr Heckyll and Mr Jive” notwithstanding, most of it still holds up. Now that I think about it it’s a little eerie how the lyrics to “Overkill” apply to my life over the past two weeks (in fact tonight was our 2 week antiversary).

I can’t get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications
Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know will be alright
…it’s just overkill

Tonight was the first time we hung out with some semblance of normalcy since then. It wasn’t like the “old times” but it was good. We still have lots to do. We also taste-tested many chocolates for Kelly’s Bad Girl Chocolates line this year. Naughty!

More exciting news tomorrow.

I’ve added a bunch of categories to my blog for the very first time. Now if by some weird lapse of judgment you want to read all of my twisted dreams, you can do so with a click of a link. I’ve spent the past week going through my old entries and classifying them. This has been bittersweet, given the recent breakup. But it’s also reminded me of a lot of things about the past year and a half that I’ve forgotten. It’s also made me realize how oblique most of my blog titles are. Oh well, at least this entry’s is straightforward. I still have lots more entries to go through, but I’ve had enough for now.

Speaking of dreams, I’ve been having frustrated ones. This morning’s was about living in the boonies (such as Maple Ridge or Langley) and being forced to take tremendous bus rides to avoid being trapped. Plus other personal stuff I won’t go into here. Nyah nyah.

Wednesday night I went to Geoff’s for a writing group meeting. I had tried to write something for the meet but the thing I started on didn’t get very far off the ground, so I just brought an old piece. One of the girls there wrote about lack of fulfilling one’s potential, or even the wisdom to self-analyze, and we talked about that for some time. I have been thinking about that for years. Certainly I look at my life, my beliefs, and my attitudes quite a lot. But I fret about not living up to my potential. I have skills, but self-promotion and social graces are not among them. It’s been a constant thorn in my side, along with my inherent laziness. Who knows where I would be if I was a little more friendly/gregarious. Maybe I should take up drinking.

On Thursday I went into a studio to do voice recordings for Stewie’s game Sword of the Stars. Taylor was there to help and it was good to see him again. We had to share a microphone for a chunk of lines, and then I had my time alone in the booth doing crazy voices that I probably can’t tell you about but maybe Stewie can. It was fun and challenging.

Stephane and I played more racquetball at the Mount Pleasant Community Center on Ontario and 15th. I noticed they also have badminton for $4 drop-in for 2 hours on Thursdays at 7:45. Anyone else interested in that? We also talked about finding a place to play outside. I’d totally spring for a net. I guess in theory you could set it up in a park wherever you want.

This morning I drew some character portraits for Spaceship Zero the RPG. Just for fun.

I went for lunch at uh…Tom’s Cafe I think it’s called. I’ve been there once before. It’s a total dump there, which is kind of endearing, especially with the $3.95 lunch specials. It’s hard to find a non-saggy spot on the diner-style benches. On my previous visit I was the only patron. This time there was a lady who, in addition to ordering food there, had a big bag of carrots and other crunchy vegetables that she ate very loudly (with her mouth open). I actually had to get up and move to the other side of the restaurant, it was driving me so crazy. I got chicken and broccoli today, and there was some confusion when I asked for no rice or noodles, she said it would be a dollar extra. Eventually we sorted out that it’s because I’d be getting more chicken and broccoli instead of the rice. I was trying to sort out my Mandarin class notes but I just wasn’t in the mood. But that’s okay because the owners were watching some Cantonese version of Coronation Street that they have on VHS, so I absorbed some of that instead.

I am trying to think of something to write about for Geoff’s writing group tonight. It’s not working. I started something but it’s just not holding my interest. I don’t want to wait for inspiration because I know sometimes you have to make your own, but I just can’t get into what I started. I thought about resurrecting old short stories I began years ago, about doing a superhero tale, Ghostbusters fan fiction, and now I’m sifting through old blog entries for other ideas.

Furthermore I am sick of hearing The Pretenders.

Courtesy Mr Chris Woods

In no particular order

Here’s another Million Dollar Idea courtesy of Toren. The “Manual Labour Network.” People spend gazoolions of dollars on gym memberships and home exercise machines. Meanwhile, not far away, hard work is waiting to be done on the streets and in the homes of the lazy and the poor. The MLN co-ordinates chores involving hours of physical labour with those who want to get in shape. After getting off work from pencil pushing, head down to Auntie Griswold’s cottage home to haul several loads of brick for her new walkway. Not only will you get a good workout, but you’ll have the satisfaction of helping someone, and maybe a fresh apple pie from Griswold’s family recipe. Or you can help Bob McSmooch move this weekend and maybe he’ll slip you a few bills for your trouble. Jenny Squiddler is a tiny jawa of a person who can barely lift a jar of marmalade, but she is heiress to the Squiddler Preserves fortune, and she needs her ceiling painted. Free jam and buckets of cash to those who want to work their arms a bit for an afternoon.

And now for a bit of fun, the Periodic Table Table