A Hefty Challenge

So Helen Mirren practically kicks major ass if she's holding a weapon. You should all go watch Red and giggle like a school girl when she unleashes hell. It's too sick to leave alone!

Speaking of sick, I'm not feeling so cool today, thanks to a behemoth of a shawarma. It was a shawarma from Jimmy's A&A Deli here in Calgary. I was foretold that a large shawarma was more than a meal, but my curiosity got the better of me and I took that very order. Suffice it to say, I was fairly surprised that a large shawarma was the size of a baby. Fat ass-ness x 100.

Actually, it was practically a baby. Yes. It was a baby. Here's a picture of this monster:

I didn't take the picture, nor are those my hands, but that is the shawarma in question. Mind you that it's full size cannot be comprehended in this picture. This thing is so frakkin' packed that beneath the paper bag is not more shawarma. Rather, it is a whole meat processing factory with a field full of chickens as well. All of this is tied together with clogged arteries and dipped in liquid heart disease.

Anyways, I was planning on eating a portion of it and taking home the rest. That was the plan, until Mac said that the band teacher could only finish half of it. Naturally, the testosterone flowing through my system was demanding that I surpass him and finish the damn thing. I put on my game face and I went to town...

Game face, boys. Game face.

I thought I could handle it, but this dish was putting up a fight. I had gone past the realm of 'meat sweats' and I simply started oozing grease and fat. You could throw me into a pool and call it an oil spill. Halfway through, I felt incredibly vile and repulsive and I turned into a different creature altogether. According to the eyewitnesses of this heinous act, I began to act in a demeanor that was opposite of my usual self. Instead of clean and picky, I became unmannered and filthy. Instead of logical and intellectual, I became delirious and incompetent.

I had turned into Gary Busey.

With the sliver of sanity that I had left, I pressed forward, determined to knock down this Berlin Wall of food. I called upon the armies of the globe (my brain) and together, we roared for a final attack.

Though it was a monstrosity, I was able to slay it in order to save my manhood from personal disappointment. The following captures the exact moment that I was able to conquer this food-beast.

As you can see, I took the celestial form of St. George and I impaled the very heart of the shawarma with my Lance of Culinary Superiority. The mighty stallion that is with me is actually the twin of Shadowfax, lord of the horses and Gandalf's personal steed. His name is Carfax, and I made sure he was returned to the dealership that I borrowed him from.

This battle came with some heavy costs. Soon after this ordeal, I suffered a piercing headache, ahead of a titration lab in chemistry class. Luckily, I had a Medic as my partner and I recovered some of my lost hit points thanks to his advice.

I decided to rest for a bit in the drama room before embarking on my journey home, but an alumni friend of mine was there. She talked me into leaving with her and escorting her to her own bus, which tacked on another thirty minutes to my often-two-hour combined transit ride home. God bless Fresh, but holy hell does she like to talk! I was practically minding her no attention as she mentioned various scholarships and job opportunities and so forth. I felt horrible that I was probably replying with head-nods and incoherent blabbering, but I was so delirious that I didn't care! Honestly, this was the only thing that I pictured in my head:

The bus ride home was pure hell. I missed the bus leaving the train station, and I had to wait an extra forty minutes for the next bus because it came in late. On a good day, it takes me forty minutes to get home from the station, but 'good days' don't exist. Frakkin' traffic held us back for a good twenty minutes while I say on the bus staring at the script that I'm supposed to memorize. Mind you, I was extremely dehydrated at this time and I resorted to extracting as much saliva as I could and gulping it down like a fucking black hole. When I finally got home, I filled up a pitcher of water and I chugged down as much as I could handle. Water never tasted so good.

As the evening progressed, however, my stomach did not feel full, yet it was still very unhappy with me. It felt almost as if it could no longer produce acid to digest the sheer amount of shawarma-dragon that I had ingested. As the sun set, twitches and sporadic spasms came from my stomach area. They caused no pain, yet I feared that I was going to explode into a heap of flesh, fat and pita bread. Hoping that some sleep would help get rid of this, I turned in early and I enjoyed a good night's rest.

BUT WHAT THE FRAK? The twitches continued in the morning, albeit not as much as the day before. I tried a second purge, but there was no food matter in my stomach. I ran around in circles wondering about what I should do.

So I decided to fight fire with fire.

I jacked a frozen pizza from the freezer and baked it, almost devouring the whole thing alongside four glasses of water.

It worked.

Oh God it worked!

No more stomach retardation issues! I had succeeded! I felt like a little child on Christmas Day! Gone was the haunting of this fallen shawarma-dragon!

I still have this piercing headache, but I'm sure it'll be gone soon. It is almost as if Helen Mirren took a machine pistol and annihilated the shawarma-dragon's curse to oblivion:

Note to self: never take on a food challenge like that again.

So say we all.

Time Enough at Last!

So Stage Wife challenged some individuals to compile a list of fifteen books in fifteen minutes that would stay with them for a long time.

Firstly, I'm not a bookworm myself. I don't have the ability to converse in any meaningful or intellectual conversation that centers around books and such. When I hear "book", I see this:

Yup. Books and I go together like Paris Hilton and Mensa.

Well, not to that extreme, as I have had some things that I have read that are important to me! Here is that fabled list:

1. Mandela's Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage - Richard Stengel
• Read this book. I'm different person because of this book. I can't talk about this enough. You'll just have to read it yourself.
2. Usborne Illustrated Encyclopedia of the 20th Century - Usborne Books
• Hahaha! I know, it's not a novel, but this book was the spark of my curiosity. Honestly, without it, I would not have the brain power I have today.
3. The Giver - Lois Lowry
• I Love...
4. Number the Stars - Lois Lowry
• ...Lois...
5. Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry
• ....Lowry.... and her books, of course! Those three were awesome, with Number the Stars as my personal favorite.
6. The Devil of Nanking - Mo Hayder
• Oh boy, this book can make anyone's dark side giggle with delight - like a fat man at the Deep-Fry-Anything stand at the county fair.
7. The Kennedy Curse - Edward Klein
• I follow the Kennedy's like a fanatic! This novel is not only a cool insight into the family, but it also points out a famous curse that flows among them.
8. Mr. Popper's Penguins - Richard & Florence Atwater
• My childhood revolved around this book. I simply loved it! In addition, this book was the reason that I really started to love animals, especially marine life (and penguins, of course!). Little known fact: I've always wanted to own a pet penguin.
9. Freedom From Fear - Aung San Suu Kyi
• Inspiration at a whole different level! I adore Daw Suu Kyi and her peaceful work, and I've been following her for years. I only try to make her traits important in my life! 
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
• I love these books, and a massive magic battle will stay in the factory of dwarves in my head that I call my 'imagination' for a long time.
11. King Lear - William Shakespeare
• First Shakespearean text that I read, and it's a damn good one! Would have put Macbeth in here as well, but the story of King Lear is just sooooo epic!
12. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
• I know! It's a military book, but some of these tactics can be put into real life! Life is a battle anyways, right? Helps you put up with a bunch of people, too! ;)
13. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
• I will never forget my grade 3 teacher reading this out loud in class and bursting into a pool of tears while she read Charlotte's death (oops, spoiler). No, she literally erupted into a giant puddle of salty liquid soul. 
14. Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolkein
• It's Lord of the Rings, what can I say?
15. The Missing Piece - Shel Siverstein
• Oh, this book. Truly a book that I have modeled my life around. I love this book.

I guess it's safe to say that books are good for you. Take a look at what books have done in history:

• An army of books were responsible for the Berlin Wall
• The Vatican is actually a giant pop-out book, ages 3 and up (Oh I know, distasteful, but I'm sick in the head and I needed some cheap laughs :P )
• Books can survive nuclear holocausts. Proven fact! (Look up the title of this post)
• The Yellow Brick Road was not made of brick, it was made of phone books. (Still a book :P )
• Nuclear weapons are being gradually replaced by copies of Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue
• Books can eliminate the existence of such terrible programming such as Jersey Shore 
• McDonald's uses old Stephen King books for their McBurger Patties, McNuggets, McFlurries, and all the other McShit that comes out of that McHell Hole. Have some fun with your McHeart Attack!
• Books did not have sexual relations with that woman!
• The Red Sea was parted by a wall of books
• Chuck Norris reads books (or books read Chuck Norris, whatever floats your boat)

Well, maybe it's good to read books?

Yeah, read some books.

King of Wishful Thinking

So this blog got a shout out during class today! The picture in this post was used for Mac's lecture-theory thing that she loves to do. Good job, blog!

Basically, the picture represents what we know and not know. The written stuff is what we know, while the empty spaces on the board hold the details that we should explore. Cool stuff, eh?

Speaking of cool stuff, my favorite artist/musician/actor/whatever as of late, Matt Doyle, used an awesome site called Kickstarter to help start up his first EP album! Honestly, I'm extremely excited! I love all the music that he makes, and frankly, I'm getting tired of ripping his concert clips from Youtube to put into my iPod! He made a goal of raising $8,500 and he met this on the first day! There's still 29 more days to go to raise more money, and I've already chipped in. The guy deserves it, so good on him! I hope everything works out well for the fellow! He's got a very remarkable backstory as well, and you can check out his blog here or donate to the project here.

That's enough advertising for one post! On another note, today finished up what was the first week of rehearsal for The Scottish Play. Tons of fun! Swords, songs, witches, oh my! No one has had a limb cut off yet, but seriously, it's looking pretty cool so far!

Butoh

I love the stuff that's being done with the witches! It's some kind of Japanese thing called 'butoh' and its absolutely creepy, especially after today's showing of it! It's some creepy exorcist shit. That, or it looks like a bad case of arthritis. Too good!

Caro and I also wielded our weapons, and its absolutely hilarious watching her work with one! Calling it her 'third leg', watching her use it sometimes is sort of like watching a newborn baby fawn struggling to stand up! Hahaha, just kidding, but someone really needs to get her a shorter weapon!

Of course, Stage Wife and I should get rid of any awkwardness so we can do better for our affectionate scenes, but I'm sure we'll do fine! Hell, we should just stop avoiding it altogether, 'cause then it's way easier for Blueboy and Caro to point fun at it! Maybe we should have Ross and Banquo make out?

Awkward

Improv was quite successful today, in my opinion! The warm-up worked fairly well, and a lot of people were involved. The 'One Voice' game was absolutely brilliant, though! Though poor Sky got lost after a bit, his opening question to our five-headed Jedi made me laugh like a madman. Practically, he asked the question in broken Yoda English, and I totally was not expecting it! It was brilliant! All the other games were very successful as well! I hope all those new folks come back, cause they were great! And I will probably never do any kind of high-pitched primal scream ever again.

I must start memorizing my lines, but I must make sure that I don't end up being insane from overexerting myself! I don't want to end up being like Gary Busey. Never. No Gary Busey for me.

How repulsive.

Festivities and What Not

So my ability to create anything has been deflating for weeks now. Not good. Not good.

I'm a person who takes pride in creativity. Hey, I used to create some wicked projects a few years ago, back when teachers didn't care what a project looked like - as long as it answered their questions. Let me go over some of the memorable creations of those glory days (not really):

• 4' x 4' x 3.5' replica of what I imagined Frankenstein's castle looked like. I used enough hot glue and cardboard to make myself a friggin' house.
• Social Studies 5-piece pyramid thing. I completely forgot what the project was about, but it was a group project that sorta came together. Wonder if Mr. Capitals-of-South-Dakota-and-Alaska still has it?
• Stealing flowers from my mother's flower arrangements and painting them to add to a double sided mailbox. It was for a story about a gossip-loving old woman who loved to garden.
• Amputienne and I's tech theatre project. Spent a good weekend creating models of every theatre light I can remember.
• Grade 8 Religion project, where I pretty much bitched about Burma for thirty minutes.
• The Iron Chef competition in Grade 9 Home Economics! Our group totally raped. The secret ingredient was lemon. Our menu included tomato and herb salad with lemon dressing and supremes, lemon and dill salmon en papillote, and lemon meringue pie. Not bad for a rag tag bunch of kids!

Okay, so those aren't really creative, per se, but they were much more different than what some other folks offered.

Or I was just a fucked up kid. 

Well, whatever the case, I can't spark up that part of my brain again! Some of it is coming back, but only after I watch some kind of creative program or I find an awesome piece of art work. Hopefully this isn't permanent!

On another note, I have this urge to watch Battlestar Galactica. Not the original series, but the 're-imagined- one. Why, you ask? I have always been a sucker for any show/film with a female president/leader. For example, I got into watching 24 after I watched some episodes from season 7, where Allison Taylor was president. There was also that TV show, Commander in Chief, which I could not always catch on television due to my forgetful mind. In BSG's case, this is the president:

Just to garner a response from my Scottish Play stage wife, I shall say this:

Laura Roslin? Honestly? I would.

I will let you interpret that in whatever way you like! ;)

The actress' name is Mary McDonnell. She was also in one of my personal favorite films, Independence Day. Hmm, I guess I'm just a natural fan of sci-fi. That, or I'm still screwed up in the head.

On a less retarded note, my family's famous annual Gathering-of-Thanks is tomorrow. And it's also my parents' twentieth anniversary! We tend to have an over-abundance of food, and this year is no exception. Tons of folks are coming over, so we're practically preparing a whole farm yard of animals for this feast. My house becomes a horror house for someone watching their food intake, so Scottish Play stage wife, STAY AWAY!

Thanksgiving is pretty much the only time of the year where I tell my PETA-loving self to shove it, for I turn into a savage Neanderthal that will eat anything that I see. We have the usual trinity of turkey, roast beef, and ham, along with some epic sides. Of course, there will be the staple cultural dishes to whet the appetites of our guests, and I'm sure that they will be bringing their own food. Oh! And the desserts! By everything that's good and holy, a perfect dessert will make me purr like a walrus, like those croissants that Mac brought in for our class yesterday! Did anyone catch where she bought them from?

Woop woooo wooo wooop.....

My mouth is watering as a type this. Well, at least I hope it's from typing this up. I hope it's not some kind of salivary disorder. That would be very unfortunate.

I miss my old convection oven. I made a perfect roast in that thing, but we don't have one in this house! Sad face! Convection makes baking and roasting so enjoyable! The roast that I made this one time was like eating a piece of heaven - if heaven was a delicious cow and if eating angels was legal. But thanks to the "SEE-EYE-EH", this ain't happening.


Well, that wraps up this post. Thanks for listening to my random rabbling!

And enjoy your Day of Providing Thanks!

(Unless you're in America. You'll have to wait until November. Or you can celebrate two Thanksgivings. Double the mega-caloric intake!)

Hence, Sky, Hence!

So the cast has finished the reading for The Scottish Play!

Some ups and downs, but it was very enjoyable and exciting, at the very least!

Firstly, I finally got to do my favorite scene in the entire play: the banquet and Banquo's ghost. Suffice it to say, I may have went a little overboard with the "HENCE HORRIBLE SHADOW, UNREAL MOCKERY, HENCE" shenanigans, but I felt that it suited the event! Heck, it was even met with some gigglesI actually thought I was having Mel Gibson moment, the only difference being that the woman that I was screaming at wasn't recording it. If that were the case, that would be highly unfortunate for me.

I noticed that I go into a semi-fetal position when I'm in the zone whilst I act. While I was roaring Shakespearean terms at the ghost of Banquo, I continued to hunch over until my knees had practically fused with my diaphragm. If the scene went on longer, I'm sure I would have metamorphosized into an actual fetus. No, seriously, I would have shed most of my 17 years of life and turned into a fetus.

I finally got to do that scene with Sky (Elmo) that I was really looking forward to! My happiness with the situation can be expressed as thus:

The scene in question is an exchange between Macbeth and a messenger, who has come to inform him that a very unnatural event is occurring. Macbeth becomes very angry and distraught, and some of this is pushed towards the messenger.

Now, for many of you who are not familiar with him, Sky is probably one of the sweetest kids ever. Ever. Tons of people thought I was a crazy paedophile when I would pretty much praise the fella, but now, they've fallen for his bewitchment as well! Honestly, I would not be surprised if Sky was actually some kind of uber-powerful sorcerer. Anyways, his voice is the big reason for all of this! It's very unique, to say the least. It's high (almost cartoonish), slow, and confident with a very peculiar accent that no one can put their finger on. He told me that he's French, Irish, Mohawk, and probably 4 other races, which explains the accent.

Anyways, our scene turned out to be very enjoyable! We absolutely contrasted each other, but I think it worked great! It's a good thing that I took the opportunity to get to know him a little bit, so at least there's some connection. We were walking down the hallway after, and he said (in the same, high voice) that he was spooked by some of the dialogue that we had! He is simply too awesome!

Oh, and the day before, there was a line in the play where "Beelzebub" is mentioned. Suddenly, he and Blueboy started to sing the corresponding part of "Bohemian Rhapsody". I was awestruck. His sheer awesomeness is unrivaled.

Blueboy even said that he almost burst with joy.

I also received some very positive and awesome comments from a certain person, which made me a very happy individual! So for that, thanks!

My excitement cannot be contained! In fact, I took to storing this 'excitement' in giant space stations, but some Imperials stole my station, called it a "Death Star", and used my 'excitement' to destroy planets. Not good. Not good.

Of Banquets and Banquo

So it was quite an exciting and interesting "Meet the Cast" session today!

First off, Mac apparently believes that Best Friend (who plays a female Banquo in the play, by the way) and I have major 'sexual tension.' We absolutely believe its from the fact that we are best friends of the opposite gender, which seems to be an enigma of a concept that few can comprehend! It makes as much sense as the following:

"You're like the coffee without the omelet."

Mac could just be a hormone-driven sex-beast preying on poor and innocent children, such as myself, after all. Such undesirables do not benefit the clean and mature environment that I flourish in! There are other roles for these libido-loving leeches of innocence!

Anyways, I'm just kidding! I'm probably so corrupt and toxic that I could work for BP, but that's for another day. Best Friend and I both found it pretty hilarious that Mac thinks like that!

On a related note, the stage veterans of this play were given newcomers to 'adopt', in a mentor-like capacity, I suppose. As a veteran with some previous experience, I was given three 'children' to 'adopt'. I wanted to adopt some ethnic babies, but frickin' Madonna and Angelina Jolie got all the coloured kids.

Anyways,  the three children I got seem pretty cool (and I already think one of them is absolutely awesome). Two of them are people I'm not familiar with, and they don't seem like the loud type (unlike myself). I've got to make sure that they are comfortable in the environment, especially considering the fact that it's dominated by people like Seyton/Satan and Medic! Those two are catalysts of chaos! Once they've settled down, I'm sure they can be very social towards everyone. The third fella, who I'll call Elmo due to his awesome/unique voice and his love of puppetry, is awesome! I met him during club day, and his personality is very engaging and cool. I can't wait to work with him, and he doesn't seem like a shy person!

Of course, I'll make sure to give them the most help in the acting department; with lines and actions and such. I'm there at every rehearsal, so I'll see them all anyways. I've heard I do very well in that department, according to Lady Duff.

In the words and actions of Blueboy: "I'm so excited!!!"