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The FORTRESS of SOLITUDE

"So morbid...a sentimental replica of a planet long since vanished..."
~ General Zod

 

Friday Feast

Appetizer
On average, approximately how many times per day do you yawn?
Depends on how tired I am - or how bored. Probably 5-10

Soup
What was your most memorable school field trip?
When we went to Midland, Ontario to learn about Canadian History. I got the runs on the trip after some bad MacDonalds and spent the entire time worrying that I had a huge, wet pooh stripe on my ass. FUN TIMES!

Salad
Fill in the blank: I was extremely __________________ this week.
I was extremely hot this week. And not in an attractiveness sense...

Main Course
Which color do you think of when you hear the word "soothing"?
Baby blue

Dessert
What is something that, if you had to, you could save up the money to buy within one month?
Uh...a TV?


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Things That Blow™ - #1



Women (or anyone, really) who wear a jean jacket, fading from dark blue at the collar and shoulders to stark white at the waist, and white denim jeans so as to appear like this:



...from head to toe.

I saw this on my way to work this morning...and contemplated homocide.

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Canada's Newest Disposable Nanosecond IT Girl

Since there is sweet fuck all on television tonight, save my nightly episode of Coronation Street, I thought it was a good opportunity to actually write a couple of these blog entries from home for a change (I have a rather disturbing habit of taking 2-3 hours to write a blog entry at work whilst only appearing to be productive work-wise - I put my employment on the line for you people!).

In keeping, I've decided to recap last night's SHOCKER of an episode of Canada's Next Top Model. I say shocker, which it was, but sadly it wasn't enough of a shocker that I couldn't figure out exactly where along the way that I'd been duped by those oh so clever and slimey producers.
The episode started off as 99.9% of Top Model (American or Canadian or the recently added, Oman's Next Top Model, judged by The Sultanate of Oman - who also helps to choose the lovely cookies they sell at my local No Frills) episodes usually start off - with bitching, gloating and the general all-around vapid idiocy that I have come to expect/loathe/admire about CNTM.
Thankfully, though, this time it was my personal fave, Tenika, who was doing most of the gloating. Deservedly so in some ways, although most would agree that she's clearly delusional about her impact on society as a whole whether she wins this stupid reality show or not. Just look at her shit eating grin in the opening shot:


"I can destroy you."

Creepy Andrea, for her part, was just pathetically thankful that the judges had been snowed for another week (or they just had girls higher on their hit list) than her. Way to go for the gold Andrea. How about a hamburger to celebrate?


"No thanks, I already ate...in '84."

Brandi, of course, was DESPERATE to be the 'bitch' - so she faked some sincerity and then spat out "1 down, 6 to go!" UGH. Alanna continued her crying fit from last week about her 'athletic body' which was weird, coz she was crying about her 'acne' last time - I guess her personality is multi-faceted...or just dual-faceted. Either way, that's about 5 more facets than the rest have put together.
Things got to a quick start as the girls were herded into a make-up trailer. Andrea commented on how the make-up was very 'vintage.' *cough* The girls were made up with bleached out faces, nasty hair and freakish eyebrows.


Too easy, I know...but you love it.

The shoot was done in a very old, European style room for a picture trying to emulate French Vogue, as the annoying stylist-woman with the fake English accent told me. The girls also had to pose with a falcon, which I thought was pretty cool and a helluva lot more stylin' than the ANTM photoshoot involving the pidgeons that the girls did in London, England. In the pidgeon's favour, however, the falcon did manage to crap on the floor (at least once that we saw). When it did, Fake British Lady said, "He haa-s POOP-ed al-RED-EE to-DAY."
Suddenly, the hair stylist comes on and says that Alanna has a 'wider' face (...wtf?) so they're going to give her more height (in the form of chocolate covered onion-rings piled on her cranium).


Sassy!

The girls started going by, one by one, posing and carrying the falcon around. Sisi seemed the most at ease with the bird, moving it around and things, while the other girls looked like mannequins with moving heads. Beginning with Creepy Andrea, the girls all stated how amazingly challenging it was to pose without moving. Sure...and your shit cures cancer - I've heard it before, bitch. Brandi, to her credit, comes on and lets us all know that "sometimes [she] can be TOO sexy" and to counter that, they've made her up to look like a boy. I love how women are trained to think that not wearing making up or looking ugly (for a limited amount of time) is somehow a tedious and difficult experience. They win Oscars for it all the time.


So natural, Sisi!

The photoshoot wrapped and Sisi started commenting on how in the house "your friendships change, your alliances change" - um, when did this become 'Survivor,' lady? Alliances? Gimme a break. I hate this chick. She also said, "It would really suck if i didn't win this because I'd be losing to a bunch of stupid, vain, lame, fake girls." As much as I hate her, Sisi hates the word 'and.'
After the break, Tricia H. (I've officially given up on her last name) showed up and start posing the girls for a group shot. The fun never ends. But wait...the real fun begins. No sooner had Sisi retracted her claws before the commercial break, but Tenika goes off, talking smack about Sisi and how she doesn't realize that people don't like her, she's weak, she plays for pity, etc. This is getting good, now.
Of course, Sisi had to retaliate (all through editing of course) so her interview clip came up and she goes, 'It seems the more confident I am in myself; the more confortable I am; they see me more of a threat." Seriously, that quote is unaltered. Didn't they rag on poor Danielle on ANTM coz she sounded like a hillbilly and that was unmarketable. Interesting.
Andrea started off on Brandi, completely out of the blue and said, "Brandi is a really interesting person to talk to - when she's sober." Nice qualifier! I'll have to remember that one. Sisi then went off on Andrea, saying, "I dunno what it is, but Andrea rubs me the wrong way."
These bitches have some serious issues, methinks.
The girls then returned to the house and got some Tricia-Mail, not to be confused or associated with Tyra-Mail in anyway, shape or form. Tricia said something about getting ready for 11am the next day. Nice - a sleep in.
Then Tenika and Andrea had a little heart to heart as the two have grown close over the course of the show. We were then provided with a breakdown of Tenika's hair problems since her makeover, which are understanable, really. Since they put extensions in her her, she has to comb it out nightly which takes up to two hours. Then she washes it and dries it, which takes a long time, also, since its lengthy.
Sisi, of course, wanted none of this, complaining not necessarily about the hair-drying to the wee hours in general, but the fact that it was a very stuttery, start then stop then start sort of ordeal. Fair enough, but seriously...with her straight Asian hair that dries in 10 minutes, should she REALLY be complaining? No, of course not - but Sisi is nothing if not consistent.


"I have better things to do - like sit in bed and complain."

Sisi is certainly a woman of action - she got up and barged into the bathroom, shocking a naked, hair-drying Tenika, screaming, "Can you stop drying YO hair?!" (Tenika and Brandi came up with the pronounciation on that one.) And so erupted one of the more entertaining moments on CNTM thus far. Enjoy!


One thing that was really apparent was the way in which Sisi manipulated private conversations with people to suit her own ends. But the bitch totally got owned when Ylenia came in and said, "It wasn't like that. I didn't COMPLAIN to you." Nice!
Next the girls went to their media training. Here it is in a nutshell: It involved Jeanne Becker and some dude who wrote some book about modelling - they lectured the girls about the dangers of drugs (to counter act the bad press that Kate Moss gave the modelling insdustry with her vaccuum-nose). The end. Everyone was their usual selves; Tenika was manipulative, Sisi was versatile, Andrea was creepy and weird, Ylenia was lovely, Brandi was flustered, Andrea was lost, etc., etc., etc. It never fucking CHANGES.
When they returned to the house, a 180 degree turn was taken by everyone. Brandi became funny, Tenika became a back-stabbing, full on bitch, Sisi became nice and caring and Andrea became sincere (in a non-weepy way). Andrea and Sisi had a heart-to-heart in the hot tub while the girls who 'like to drink' were in the sauna talking trash about them. How typical.

Let's fast-forward to the judgement room, shall we? Nothing else interesting happened that I haven't mentioned here, so let's move on.

The girls entered the judgement chamber in their usual melo-dramatically lit way. Stacy continued her 'creep-me-the-fuck-out' quest, with surprisingly effective results this go-round:


"More teeth, Vicar?"

The girls were then put through the paces in another interview segment, this time in front of all the judges. It was the same typical crap that we've come to expect, just well lit. After the interviews, the judges commented on each girl's performance as they evaluated her picture with the falcon from earlier.
First up was Brandi, whom the judges thought was holding back at which point she burst into tears, saying that she finds it hard to open up but that she's trying to show the judges that she can do it. Lame.




The Great Tenika was NOT AMUSED.

Then they showed her picture. I dunno about you, but if this was supposed to be European looking, like French Vogue, I have to say that its true what American's think about the French...take of that what you will. But they didn't change 'em to Freedom Fries for no reason, yo.




Then it was Tenika's turn. They started right into her, saying she clearly wasn't passionate about modelling, at which point Tenika burst into a long and over-wrought diatribe about how she thought that she should have gone into law, but that she was now pretty, kinda, sorta sure she should go into modelling, or perhaps television, but whichever they wanted to give her was cool. It was at this point that my love of Tenika pretty much dissolved to that little nubbin of soap that's left with one pube still clinging on for dear life, hoping his buddies will come back to the party.
But to add insult to injury, the bitch went into the WORST fake CRYING I've seen in a LONG time. She'd seen Brandi do it convincingly, so she probably thought that being the Great Tenika, she could easily get away with it. Not so. The Great Tenika's powers don't extend into the realm of convincing melodrama, sadly. That was the point at which the nubbin disappeared down the drain, kids.
Here's her pic:



Here are the rest of the girl's pics:


Sisi



Andrea



Alanna


Ylenia

In the end, it came down to Ylenia (who they thought looked matronly) and Tenika (who they thought was using the show to further a career in television and not necessarily modelling).



Of course, it was Tenika. The red-herrings we were presented with were pretty pathetic when put under scrutiny, but there you go...no one ever said this show was for braniacs, least of all me. I was sad to see Tenika go, although after her crying incident and her pathetic grasping at straws during her interview, it really is for the best.

Till next time!

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New Column Announcement

To the 3 of you who read my blog:



"GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE!"

I have decided, upon being shat on by that wonderful seagull of life, INSPIRATION, that I shall be starting up a new recurring column in my blog. Granted, its not truly a column since this isn't a newspaper, but then again I write this shit and no one reads it so...what does it matter really?

In the vein of Tips for Retards™, I shall be starting...

[cue drumroll]




Yes, that's right! As of yet, I have not decided how I shall be using it or what I'll write about but based on my general thought process, the idea of coming up with a short list on an hourly basis of things that I feel 'blow' doesn't sound difficult in the slightest.
Have no fear, gentle reader, Tips for Retards™ isn't going anywhere...I just haven't, thankfully, been subjected to any retardation lately.

Ta!

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How rich am I?


How rich are you? >>


I'm loaded.
It's official.
I'm the 200,375,653 richest person on earth!

 
 

The Homeless Man

I was walking to work this morning and I decided to take a 'back-alley tour' like I sometimes do. A "B.A.T." involves taking the most direct, yet least public route to work possible. Frankly, I walk to work every single god damned day of my life, so you gotta change it up or you go insane...or have I? Indeed.
Anyway, anyway, anyway, I was walking down the back alley beside Five, a popular (not with me) gay nightclub in Toronto (which, upon some slight research has no website - bad form, old man!). There's nothing particularly noteworthy about the back alley aside from its absolutely pristine appearance; a standard which is undoubtedly near impossible to maintain with all the transients and vagrants populating our fair city.
As I strolled down the alley, one such vagrant approached me. He was the most annoying kind of vagrant: one with better shoes than me. Homeless people who dress better than me need a punch in the face, ESPECIALLY when they have the GALL to inquire about me increasing their financial stability while they vacation on the streets of Toronto. To them I give a loud "FUCK YOU!"
This dude is walking towards me and I'm listening to my iPod which is playing Howard Stern's show from June 19, 2006 which is sadly, George Takei free (I'm counting the days until his return in September). As he gets closer, the guy looks me over, starts staring and then gives me the "take your headphones off so I can mooch" hand signal which is known to every single person in Toronto who goes out in public with headphones on.
I pull one side out, exposing one ear and he says to me,

"Hi sir...can you help me? I've been walking around for hours and I'm not one of those Cracker Jacks..."

...at this point, I put the headphone back in and gave the most dismissive "Sorry, no change" I've ever been able to muster.
Seriously, if you're gonna use the term 'Cracker Jack' to not only disparage the good, not-hard-working homeless in this city while at the same time using it to somehow add creedence to your request for MONEY from me while you stand there in $200 shoes.

"FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE."

Anyone who doesn't have a job and can take any day off that they'd like (from doing NOTHING) needs my foot firmly planted up their well cushioned, unemployed, mooching ass.

Good day.

I said, "Good day," sir!

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Canada's Next Mediocre Demi-Celebrity Contest

As promised, I managed to summon enough intelligence from the cosmos through a well-worn spellbook incantation last night which facilitated my up and coming ability to create screen captures from my telly. "How," you say? "Never you mind, young one," I say, "I am here to protect thee..."



"DAMIAN!!!"

Enough silliness - we have important work. A stupid recap of a stupider show that I love to watch and hate to love and watch to hate. Although before we begin, during the pre-commercial break of Canada's Next Top "And you are...?" Model, ANOTHER of those annoyingly gay Carson Cressly (sp?) commercials came on....and when I saw it, I could only think of one thing...



Something tells me this homo isn't only into this brand of Special K.

And seriously, the way they have 3 different ads, only discernable from each other by his annoying LAME 'tip' - "It's simple...like no sandals after labour day!" or "It's simple...like no spandex shorts!" Wow...THANKS for those. I was running around in November with my flip-flops on. What would I do without you, Carson? I hate people that make themselves important to others by pointing out seemingly important, but in effect pointless, information. Like Oprah "Let's talk about oral sex parties" Winfrey. Or Dr. Phil "You're fat coz you want to be fat!" Phil. Although I will admit this man has some power...for Americans to actually buy a weight loss book written by a man who ADMITS he's in horrid shape...Jesus. I need to replenish my snake oil supply.
AnyHOW onto Canada's Next Top Model. Let's recap what's happened previous to Episode 4, which aired last night.









Some annoying, vapid bitches were eliminated. Period. So far we're right on par with America's Next Top Model. The first one (far left) was eliminated because she had too much attitude. She also struck me as slightly lesbionic (not that there's anything wrong with that) so she of course, had to leave. The second girl eliminated was, sadly, my early favourite from Episode 1. She got booted for her nervousness and akwardness on the photoshoot. Boo. The third girl (far right) eliminated was axed because, as far as I could tell, a spider bit her. Seriously...they spent so much time on her god damned stupid spider bite that the entire remainder of the episode seemed secondary.

Now onto the main event...

Last night's episode began, as usual, with the girls reading a letter from the previously eliminated contestant. Funnily enough, I used to think the notes were sincere, off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment displays of actual human emotion, not planned out and practically written by the producers...sadly, not the case.
After that short interlude of contrived spontaneity, we get some bitching from Ylenia about her 'hips' (which as yet, we have not seen...) and her 'weight' since the resident 'fatty' got eliminated last week. Puh-leez. Then we get to listen to Sisi (who is battling Brandi for the "bitch" role this season) complain about her cold and how her body aches. I have an idea - eat something so we don't have to listen to your constantly spewing whinge-hole.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, some random guy runs into the house and starts blowing on a fog-horn, shouting, "Get up! Get up!"


"Where the white women at?!"

Apparently, the girls are going to go through a rigorous training exercise this morning. Unfortunately, one of them is having trouble getting up - Heather. Why do we care? I dunno. Seriously, Heather is so completely non-descript and uneventful, this is the ONLY thing they could find to focus on for this week...her inability to get out of bed. DRAMA.


"That's funny, I don't remember a wet spot there when I went to bed..."

So finally after a few nailbiting seconds, Heather manages to make it downstairs. Thank christ, I was worried we'd have to have a medi-vac fly her out of her bed like that 1500 lb. guy on Geraldo.
With everyone downstairs, the trainer starts his schpeil...he says, "Good morning, girls. My name is Harley (insert random last name here - as if anyone cares what comes after HARLEY...) I'm a trainer to the stars. I got that rich-bitch Halle Berry into shape for Catwoman (what a fucking claim to fame) and some other celebrities who you prolly don't know coz frankly, they're just homeless people we drugged up, pulled off the street and placed on treadmills to fill my quota." He goes on to say, "Today we'll be doing a Five Factor Workout." Wait a minute - I bet you have a book that explains everything. Do you?

"Why yes, I do!"


The girls all started working out, with an obvious focus on Ylenia because, as noted, somebody has to fill the 'fatty' character profile or we simply don't have reality; someone might DARE to call the show fake or shallow if we didn't allow bigger girls to get in on the action. As everyone knows, however, the 'fat' girls never win because...fuck that action, yo.
Sisi began getting more and more 'sick' and just up and left the workout room. This of course, pissed on Tenika because she feels, rightly so, that Sisi is a histrionic drama-queen who hates every other girl in the house. I like Tenika (her blog is crap, but I doubt the girls even write it themselves - it HAS to be edited coz no way 10 MODELS can spell that well, and that's just a fact). She struck me as a bitch the first two episodes, but she came into her own on this one for sure.


"Why black people smell so bad? Why they have be like that?"

The other girls were pretty boring - Ylenia kept talking about how she had to work harder than everyone else because of her 'size' (I think she's MAYBE a size 1, I swear). Brandi, of course, had to get in on the bitchiness, so they edited in comments of her talking about how great she is.


Where pom-pom socks went to die in the mass exodus of December 31, 1989.

Sisi went back to her room to lie down while the other girls continued working hard. Afterwards, Tenika couldn't resist some momentary Sisi bashing which was quite enjoyable - throwing her hand dramatically to her head complaining about how sick she was. In her interview, she cleverly surmised that Sisi's comments the night before about how "lazy she is" and how she "hates working out" might be the REAL reason behind her sudden inability to deal with her 'illness.' Columbo just MIGHT be out of a job if this girl ever escapes the hell-hole that is this show.
Meanwhile, in another part of the house, Brandi walked down the hall to her room. She let out a bloodcurdling scream!


"No you di'int!"


EVICTED!

So began the exhausting search for their new bedroom. Wait...where is it? Oh...across the hall. Fine. Then so began the exhaustive chore of packing and moving...wait...what? 5 minutes, you say? ARGH.
The new bedroom search was actually pretty funny as Tenika, the other evicted roommate, decided to NOT room with Brandi. Sisi, being the analytical genius she is, decided this must mean Tenika HATES Brandi - the possibility that Tenika loathes Sisi's boney ass never crossed her mind, I guess. True to form, the show is two steps behind the audience as we get a quick comment from Tenika talking about she didn't room with Brandi for one reason - Sisi. She didn't want to be in a room with Sisi since an angry black woman was BOILING beneath her calm and cool exterior (thankfully, it looks like the next episode sees her totally explode...sweet...but more on that next week...perhaps with video..?). Brandi, as usual, was oblivious to everything and began moaning about how she didn't to sleep on Natalie "The-tubby-spider-bite-victim"'s sheets. Sisi, also as usual, needs to contemptuously comment on this. Yawn.
Then the girls get taken out to the woods by Harley, who has some plan abrewing. He takes them to a very tall staircase randomly placed in the middle of the woods. They began climbing, climbing, climbing and huffing, huffing, huffing until they reached the top. What awaited them, you ask? A scale. Why, you ask? So Harley could explain that he is considered clinicly obese, despite the fact that he has 5% body fat because muscle weighs more than fat. He then proceeds to smash the ever-lovin'-shit out of the scale with a sledgehammer in some misguided attempt to distract the audience from the completely shallow nature of this show and its judging standards.
Brandi won the challenge (of running up stairs) and the prize was - a night out on the town with her fellow contestants. The point? Nothing. What did she really win? Sweet fuck all.
The girls return home for some Tricia-Mail (not to be confused with Tyra-Mail), presented on a portable DVD player. Sadly, the sound guys on this show are asleep at the wheel and we can barely make out what Tricia is saying. Of course, they don't provide us subtitles for this - they only do it when people with English accents are speaking(!).
They started to get ready to go out and stuffed themselves into their lovely SUV and headed to downtown (Vancouver, presumably). They arrived at some unnamed club and were immediately stopped at the door for their ID. Andrea, being the most intelligent girl in the competition, informed us that she was "all, like...you don't know who we are? We're totally celebrities." Sure.


I see three things missing from this picture: Pop, Chips & Parents.

The night was fairly boring considering this is a bunch of 20-somethings with loads of alcohol and the contact-high of being on a reality series. We learned that Brandi likes penises. How intriguing...so you're...what? Heterosexual? Shut the fuck up.
The next day, the girls get ready and are carted off to the weekly photoshoot. They arrive and we find out that they'll be modelling lingerie. Of course, this puts Ylenia into a tizzy because she's self-concious about her body. Fair enough. The girls, one by one, enter the shoot room and find a hot man sitting on the bed. Wait...he looks familiar...





It's the doorman!

The point?

Absolutely NOTHING.

The girls came in, one by one, and each had their way with the model. No one really stood out during the photoshoot process so overall, nothing too exciting. One thing struck me, however, when Andrea entered the room and removed her housecoat. Remember that scene in Silence of the Lambs when Buffalo Bill is dancing with make up on in front of the video camera and stands back, removes his housecoat to reveal a peni pinched between his thighs, imitating a va-jay-jay.



Once you've sufficiently recovered, please continue reading:

The photoshoot consisted of two set-ups. The second one was TOPLESS. Shocking. Especially after they ragged out Tenika for not having a shirt on for a split second while CHANGING in Episode 1. Puh-leez. Ylenia was freaking out and didn't want to do it, but in the end bit the bullet and revealed her miniscule ta-tas.
The girls then entered the judgement chamber. Dah-dah-DUM! Just to remind everyone, here are your judges...


Paul Venoit - stylist, the 'gay' factor


Jeanne Becker - journalist, the 'psycho' factor


Stacy McKenzie - model, the 'you're fucking kidding me, right?' factor

The guest judge this week was the personal trainer, Harley. 'nuff said.

The impromptu challenge had the girls choosing clothes off a rack of many outfits and then modelling for the judges...nothing exciting, again, except for Andrea, who is really just fucking CREEPY. I find her immensely stupid and uninteresting, but also strangely fascinating like seeing an emaciated monkey.


"Help me..."

Here are the pics:


Sisi



Brandi


Andrea


Ylenia


Heather


Tenika


Alana

I personally liked Ylenia's the best, despite her modesty. Andrea's were creepy as fuck, as per usual. Brandi's looked like a porn cover, while Alana's looked like she had her brain removed before-hand - TOTALLY vacant.

Tricia started calling names and pulling pictures and in the end, we were left with Heather and Alana. Heather was told she was just akward and lacked creativity in her poses. Alana, though, began bawling when Tricia started ragging on her acne...which I didn't even notice until they pointed it out.



In the end, they gave Alana another chance to pick up some Clearasil at the local PharmaPlus and sent Heather packing. When it finally sunk in, she seemed unphased, perhaps even happy that she could finally get back to capping toothpaste tubes at her local Colgate factory in Blenheim, ON.

Till next time!

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