Joenan the Barbarian

The rest is all me, baby

Khitan General: We have won again. This is good! But what is best in life?

Khitan Warrior: The open steppe, a fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

Khitan General: Wrong! Joenan, what is best in life?

Joenan: To crush your pop cans, see them driven to the bottle depot, and to hear the lamentations of the bottle sorters!

Khitan General: ... Guards, kill this idiot.

Psst! For the uninitiated, it's based on this scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V30tyaXv6EI

So now you know!

Joel, Interrupted

Hey folks, just to let you that there ain't going to be much posting going on over the next couple of days. I've a dentist appointment next Wednesday, but instead of having time off for appointments like one would get with a stable position, I have to work the hours ahead of time. The joys of being on contract. Anyways, my lunch hour is being slashed in half, and there goes the spare time I use to write these posts in. Oh well, it's all going for a good cause. I get to give the dentist money to tell me what's wrong with my teeth, only he won't have the time to fix them that day and I'll have to come in later. Joys!

Anyways, I'm off to go find a quail and shoot it for lunch. See ya next... Thursday? Maybe?

The Ethics of Spring

Does anyone else think that Spring Fever is better classified as Spring Rage? For some unexplainable reason, as soon as the snow melts, people start getting REALLY tetchy, anxious, and irritable. You'd think people would finally be happy after having to deal with constant snowstorms and -30 weather, but no! Hell, for the most part everybody's really easy to get along with during the winter. I think it might be because the rage they'd usually direct at other people gets directed at the cold.

I myself am not immune to this effect. About a week ago, after I finished my day at the library, I started my commute back to Rocky. A little ways into the journey there's the Gull Lake Section, where the road gets really windy and twisty, the speed limit drops from 100 to 80, and it's pretty much impossible to pass anyone. That particular day I got stuck behind a car going 70, and as is natural behaviour for anybody in that situation, I got really pissed off. After we reached Bentley and the car made a right turn, I found my right foot was getting a bit more weight behind it. I started going much faster than I normally would, but as is usual, I once again found myself behind a slower-moving vehicle. Once again I was irritable, desperate to pass.

It was then I came into a certain understanding. The fact that it was a gorgeous day had something to do with it, I guess, but it was more to the fact that the sooner I got back to Rocky the sooner I'd have to work. What was the point of rushing? Why was I getting so irritated? It was about that time a big truck flew past both of our vehicles, spitting gravel all over the place.

So yeah. It's Spring, people! Although it's damn muddy and wet and gross, it's still some of the nicest weather we'll see all year. Soon it's going to be plus 30, and that's when people are going to get really pissed off.

The Ethics of the Amero

If I, for one reason or another, were to steal a certain friend's journalism diploma and go off to some podunk to write for the local newspaper, I would go up to the editor on the first day and offer up half of my salary in return for not having to write an editorial. Because after reading the constant sniping, whining, and vicious reprisals that make up the responses to editorials in the letters to the editor, I would want my hands completely clean of that nonsense.

I remember reading a rather bitter but solid editorial about how Valentine's Day is pain in the ass for single people. The next week I read an fairly scathing letter about why someone would dare try to undermine the amazing and touching public expressions of love of happy people, and other self-righteous nonsense. Hey, I'm all for the public expression of love -- especially on my computer monitor after a cold and lonely day -- but seriously! Get over yourself!

Sometimes, though, the letters to the editor will turn up something so batshit insane the letters-to-the-editor section will totally redeem itself. Take one I read a few weeks ago. The letter was chock full of tin-foil hat ramblings about how a North American Union is arising. Much like what happened in Europe, except this is all occuring under the table. And at the end of the day, the entire North American continent will be united under one currency, the Amero. Finally, there will be a level playing field amongst all three countries! A glorious partnership of communal growth that will herald a fantastic new future for all!

Wait, no! That won't happen! What will happen is that both Canada and the United States will be dragged down and stomped by Mexico and the ravaging hordes that lie within. The filthy communists have been biding their time and lying in wait, and soon, they will strike! Soon, two wealthy countries will be knocked back to the Stone Age by ugly foreigners! There will be huge muscular men in bondage gear ransacking our streets, ravishing our women, and stealing our oil! How will we ever cope?

I guess once we get used to the terrible inevitability of being forced to learn Spanish in school we will look back on our pre-Amero days and wonder... why? Why did we ever let it come to pass?

...really, why would we? Beyond the standard academic economic pondering, I see no reason why this would ever happen. I mean, the main mover and shaker here is the United States, obviously. Why would that country ever think this would be a good deal? It's like a poor neigbour swinging by and casually asking If you'd like merge your two households and surprisingly, even though there's absolutely no benefit for you and you'll have to give up a few of your things, you agree. Just for the hell of it, I suppose? Feeling nice? Hmmmm...

I'm nowhere near enlightened on all this. Just seems strange is all. And as odd as it seems, this conspiracy is picking up considerable momentum. I mean, there are anti-North American Union bills being introduced all over the place. Lots of rumbling about the evils of the SSP and what have you. Hooray for middle-class paranoia, eh?

I'd also like to point out that the letter-to-the-editor points out that once this insiduous union is formed we will be issued with a Real ID card with a VChip implanted inside. What, this thing? We won't be able to watch certain television programs anymore? Or maybe they're talking about the VChip from the South Park movie, that punished children with electric shocks for swearing. So they're taking away our ability to curse freely? Those fucking bastards! I mean... foolish twerps!

Also, "committees are already working on all this now." Oh my god in heaven, COMMITTEES? Dear lord! We better all be good or they'll send... send... TASK FORCES after us, too!

Man, this is all so dreadful. Perhaps I should watch the free DVD they offer at the end of the letter and really get myself educated on the situation.

The Ethics of Poverty-Stricken Roommates

So last Thursday I took a swing into Red Deer after work to pick up a few things, and I returned home to an empty apartment. Well, it's not like it's exactly an apartment... I mean, my roommates and I live in a basement, but it's not really so separate from the main house. There's just the basement door, and it's locked so we don't go upstairs, but the owners can and do come downstairs whenever the hell they want. They just need to give us notice if they want to check out our rooms. So, it's like we have this common area, but only the rooms are ours? I don't know what you would call it. I don't even know if I could have said the house is empty, because for all I know that could have been a lie. There could have been somebody upstairs. I mean...

*Joel slaps himself*

So yeah, none of my roommates were home. Not too surprising really. They're all students at the Adventist college right across the street, and their student desperation is starting to reach critical mass after the heartbreak of midterms and the utter anguish of their upcoming finals.

So in light of the community TV finally being free, I dragged my PS3 out of the backpack I had it stored in after my visit to Calgary the previous weekend, and set about playing some Uncharted. It's nice having a habitable living room again. When I first moved in back in November the entire apartment was a disaster. I resolved to keep my hands clean of the debacle and stick to tidying up after myself and only myself. The situation has since been resolved after the two messiest members of our little community were not-so-kindly told to get the hell out, but my previous habits have remained. There's not one item of food or piece of cutlery in the kitchen that belongs to me and I stick to cleaning the bathroom and sweeping the floors.

Anyways, I plugged in the brand new PS3 that I purchased with the full set of Rock Band for a substantial amount of legal tender, then plopped down on the floor, stomach still full of the overpriced takeout food I usually get. I was wearing some brand new clothes that I had purchased on a trip to Red Deer that I took in my relatively new vehicle.

After I played for half-an-hour the roommates came back from what I believed to be a study session, but instead I heard plastic bags being jostled into the kitchen. Well! They must have gone on a trip for groceries, I thought to myself. I'd taken them to the store a couple of times myself. They typically like to go to the store together.

One of them came into the living room.
"Joel!" he shouted in his thick accent as he came swaggering in with a bag of soy chips in his hands. Already I was a bit puzzled. Soy chips? Who the hell buys those?
"Hey, Nhial. Did you guys just go grocery shopping?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Naw, man. We went to the... how do you say it? We went to the food bank."
I paused. "The food bank? You guys have to go to the food bank?"
"Yeah, we did. Here, have some chips! Did you bring any new movies for us?"
I pointed to the stack in the corner.

Wow. Just, wow. Here I am, some asshole sitting on his ass, doing nothing while people who live in the same house as him are desperately broke. I mean, I work two jobs and all, so that's why I can afford all this crap. But what about them? And I'm not even sure what I should do! Should I help them out? Give them some food? Do I kick in for groceries? Is this just a temporary thing while they're waiting for some money from relatives?

It's hard out here for a pimp.

The Ethics of Guitar Controllers

So I'm pretty sure all of you have heard about Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero at this point, so I'm not going to add an unnecessary introduction and will instead jump right into the savoury mechanically-separated chicken meat of the issue at hand. If you haven't heard of those two games, by all means go ahead and Wiki them. You can Google them if you want to, but don't blame me if you end up at a page with Peruvian midgets making out with polar bears.

A couple of weekends ago, after finishing the Saturday shift at the store, I played some Rock Band in order to unwind. Since this was early in the morning and folks were trying to sleep I had to limit my choice of instruments to the guitar. However, I am seriously not a fan of the Rock Band guitar. It might not be a dinky Fisher-Price guitar like the one that comes with Guitar Hero, but I despise the strum bar. You see, the strum bar for the GH guitar will give a nice little click for each strum, which is incredibly handy for keeping rhythm. Not only does the RB guitar lack the click, the strum bar also has a lot less "give" than on the GH guitar. Another frustration is that the "Star Power/Overdrive" constantly activates itself if I try to play sitting down.

All of this typically results in me doing a lot more poorly on songs using the RB guitar than I would with the GH guitar. And since I originally started playing RB with the GH guitar (I got tired of waiting for the set and bought the software without all the accompanying instruments) I have a direct comparison for performance and that leads to severe frustration. When you can beat a song with no problems on Expert, then have a devil of a time even passing Hard on the same song using the different guitar? Tears of rage, my friends.

And let me tell you, I was pretty close to crying those tears that night two weeks ago. After almost bombing out on Dead on Arrival by Fall Out Boy, I was beside myself and was sure I had a busted controller. Because obviously, I can never suck at anything. In a fit of grey rage I jumped onto the Electronic Arts website and demanded that they send me a replacement guitar. Well, I filled out some forms in a demanding manner. Knuckles as white as those have never been seen before, and probably never will again.

There are two options for this. One is that they send you a shipping box, you send your broken guitar, then once they receive it they send a replacement. However, if you have a credit card, you can have them send a new one right away, and if you somehow forget to send the broken one to them, they'll ding your card for some obscene amount... somewhere around 150 dollars, if I remember correctly. I don't have a card, so I chose option 1.

Second is the mailing address. Since they use UPS/Purolator, the box can't be sent to a general delivery address. Since I'm using one of those as my main address now, I decided to fill in the address of the store I work at.

Anyways, after I had a good night sleep I hesitantly tried playing Rock Band again and found that sometimes all you need is a little rest to play at your best. Immediately feeling remorse at what I had done, I tried to cancel the impending guitar return I all-too-eagerly orchestrated a scant six hours previous. No quick and easy options presented themselves, so I resolved to just toss out the box when it eventually arrived.

Cut to last Wednesday when amongst the hub-bub of the arrival of the new slush machines a package is shoved in front of my face. Hooray? It's arrived. I pick it up to put it to the side when I notice it has a hell of a lot more weight than it should have. I open the box to find a replacement guitar inside.

Now this is one heck of a situation. You see, Electronic Arts has neither my real address nor my credit card number. If I so desired, I could probably keep it and nobody could really do much of anything. I'm kind of surprised they did this! I mean, that's some serious temptation right there. At least, it would be if I liked the RB guitar and I had someone to actually use the second guitar with me. Oh well. At the end of the day I have enough bad karma, so I'm just going to stick the new one unopened back in the box with a little note saying the other guitar isn't having problems anymore.

I'm still surprised at the amount of people who are telling me to keep the guitar, though, and that Electronic Arts deserves it for screwing up. That's a big ol' boo for being honest, I guess. And so the world turns ever onward.

Classic: The Ballad of Lancelot and Guinevere

Hey, folks. I found the archive of my old blog, and I found an old post I'd like to share. This was written in December of 2004.

Hey! It's December 21st! And you know what that means! No, not 4 days till Christmas, you twits. It's Gather Round Ye Beautiful Gentlemen And Dashing Gentlewomen, Come And Listen As Joel Recounts A Tale Of Arthurian Legend That You Probably Don't Know But Just Might Like To Hear About Because It's Rather Seamy In Nature And If There's One Thing I've Learned It's That The Readers Of My Blog Are A Bunch Of Perverts So The Mild Titillation Contained Within Should Make Them Happy For Fifteen Minutes Until They Go Back To Smearing Their Genitals In Peanut Butter And Rubbing Up Against The Window Day!

Well, I guess I can't blame you for not not hearing about it, seeing as this is the first of what I hope is going to be a long-running and grand tradition. All Hail G R Y B G A D G C A L A J R A T O A L T Y P D K B J M L T H A B I R S I N A I T O T I L I T T R O M B A A B O P S T M T C W S M T H F F M U T G B T S T G I P B A R U A T W Day! Just 'cause I'm feelin' sassy. So let me just get comfortable on the Siege Perilous here and we can get under way with the first G R Y B G A... oh, fuck it.

This ribald tale contains those wacky lovebirds, Lancelot and Guinevere. Now, as you can imagine, Lancelot was one big studly hunk o' man and as such had women everywhere fawning all over him. But ol' Lancelot was as faithful as they come, and didn't dream of straying from his true love Guinevere. Naturally, this broke the hearts of all those groupies. However, one of them wasn't gonna sit idly by and let Guinny hog all the French Knight Love Juice. It was time to get proactive. Her handmaiden/governess/what the fuck ever hatched a plan where she would use her skills in magic to cast a glamour on the girl, so Lancelot would think that the girl was Guinevere. It wasn't a very powerful glamour, mind you, but it was good enough to get him in the sack.

I take a small break here to point out that King Arthur's not as wise as he's made out to be. After all, people from far away lands knew that one of his knights was boning his wife. What the hell's his excuse? Too busy chasing Gawain around the throne room and giggling?

Back to the story! During a rather boisterous party, the girl watches as Lancelot and Guinevere make plans to go sailing on the Lancelot pleasure cruise. Immediately afterwards, she sends her woman-at-arms over to tell Lancelot about the queen's decision to change rooms. Lancelot doesn't give a shit either way, because he knows he's getting lucky tonight.

He makes his way to what he believes to be the queen's room, girding his loins for love all the while. He enters with a manly swagger, grasps his long, hard... sword, and puts it to the side. He strips off his pants and crawls into bed to ravish "Guinevere". Meanwhile, the real Guinevere is a few doors down getting antsy. It''s taking longer than she expected for Lancelot to get his ass in there and start pleasuring her. What''s Arthur doing during all this? Well, he's probably off floggin' the dolphin somewhere.

But soon, the Queen can hear grunts and groans and gasps. Because she's a big pervert, she decides to go check it out. She swings open the door of the room, shines her torch in, and finds her beloved Lancelot on top of another woman. Oh, shit. Amidst the screams, bellows, and general noises of rage, the hapless fellow leaps out of bed and tries to explain to Guinevere that he thought he was making love to her. This doesn't help matters. Arthur must have really been into whatever he was doing to not hear all that screaming. It all ends when the queen forbids Lancelot from ever seeing her again. As most men are wont to do in situations like this, Lancelot gives a manly screech and grabs his sword, then leaps out the window. And thus begins the saga of Pantsless Lancelot, running throughout the woods with nothing to hide his shame. The pantsless man sprinted through the underbrush, attacking everyone he encountered for over a year. Amen.

God, so many parallels to my life.

BookTalk: Purplicious

Due to a lack of sufficient will on my part, the Joel Nielsen Book Club will be disbanded until further notice. The entire group budget was blown on the necessary supply of Depends for our members, who are now each reduced to a chattering shell of the person they were before. And after two books, even! Not even Oprah could pull that off. But as a parting gift for the rest of you, I have a surprise taped under all of your chairs! Go! Go take a look now!

*Joel whistles and twiddles his thumbs*

Oh, good, you're back. What's that? Nothing there? Hey man, don't blame it on me. Blame it on the rain.You know, the one that keeps fallin', fallin'. Or blame it on the drain, depending on which version you cared more for.

Purplicious

This is a sequel to a book called Pinkalicious, in which a deranged young girl carries her dangerous obsession with the colour pink to degrees beyond the realm of human sanity. Well, her skin turns pink. That's pretty damn insane... I guess. The book was later turned into a musical, which apparently "premiered in New York City to sold-out audiences". The mind boggles.

Anyways, the pink girl is back, but she's now facing the slings and arrows of the crowd as all of her classmates have turned goth. Yes, those evil hateful black-swaddled sons-of-bitches! Where's your individuality now, huh? Where's your individuality now?

"Black is in," said Beatrice during recess.
"Pink is putrid," announced Pauline while dangling from the monkey bars.
"Yeah, pink stinks!" added Sophia.

Well, that last one entirely depends on... oh, dear lord, I am NOT going to go there.

On the bus ride home, no one would sit with me.
"Pink is for babies and little girls. We aren't going to be friends with a baaaby," taunted Tiffany.
"You don't have to be a baby or a little girl to like the color pink. Pink is for everyone," I said. "Even my brother likes pink."
"How funny! A boy who likes pink?!" Everyone on the bus laughed.

Oh HELL no! That's just cruel! I know sometimes when you're about to go under, you start clawing at everyone and everything to stay afloat, but damn! Her poor brother is never going to hear the end of it.

Anyways, the pink girl starts to go off the deep end and decides to renounce her once-favorite colour. Her parents cart her off to the ice cream store and ask, "Pinkalicious, what would you like? Pink Passion Fruit Paradise?"

*Joel stares at the page bewilderedly*

Yes, it turns out the girl's name is Pinkalicious. Damn hippie parents. Of course, the kid is over pink at this point and asks for some vanilla instead.

"How about you, Peter? Would you like your usual, Plum Pink Perfection?"
"Yes! Yes, thank you!" said Peter.
"You're such a baby, Peter. Pink ice cream is for sissies!" I said.

Way to hammer the point home, kid! I guess we can make another entry to the giant list of ways to turn family members into confused serial killers.

Well, my lunch break is almost over, so I better be brief. Ex-Pink Girl runs into Purple Girl and they become friends. Which finally justifies the title, seeing as there's nothing purple in the first 9/10ths of the story.

What did we learn today?

1. Goth people are jerks.
2. Don't give your brother sexual identity issues.
3. French books are a pain in the ass to catalogue.

...well, that last one I learned in escapades unrelated to the text, but I figured I'd relate it anyway. See ya next week!

Everything's Coming Up FCBs!

Well, I can't believe it. The wait has been arduous -- and at some points, utterly baffling -- but after nine months of gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes by its customer base, Rolf's Groceries finally has working slush machines again. Eight splendored tumblers full of frozen flavoured carbonated sugar water, all humming in glorious unison... why, that harmony outdoes the cheeriest group of bluebirds one could ever hope to see.

(Pssst... the industry term for a slush is an FCB, or a frozen carbonated beverage! So now you know!)

I still remember the halcyon days when I started at the store, when I first saw the sight of 8 slush tumblers all working at once. I never knew it would take almost seven years for me to see it again. You see, after a little while one went down. Then another. Then another! We tried getting them fixed, but they conked out again a month or two down the line. Pretty soon we were down to two tumblers, and that's the way it stayed for a good long time. Why? Don't ask why. Seriously, I kept wondering why and blood almost started shooting from my ears from the absurdity of it all.

Sometime last year the final two tumblers wheezed their last. Right at the beginning of the summer season. Every time I try to focus on that period and remember details about it, I get a glazed, hollow stare and think nothing but the colour gray for ten minutes. So perhaps I'll just move on.

I asked the boss if he wanted to make the new signs for the machine or if I should go ahead and do it. He paused, then said "Yeah, I think I'd better make them myself." Sheesh, the man has serious trust issues! Just because I put signs in the window last summer that said "Rolf Is Your Friend", "Rolf Loves You!" and "Rolf Thinks You Look Good in That Shirt!" Or when I changed the ice cream sign so that Rolo became "Rolf's Rolo" and from that point on people kept asking him what made his Rolo so special.

Later on that evening, two of the tumblers stopped freezing properly.

*sigh*

Welcome to your new home, slush machines. You seem to fit in just fine.

Signed and Dated

A few weeks ago I gave up dialing random numbers on bathroom walls and decided to instead add that exciting Zoosk dating application to my Facebook profile. I immediately received a welcome message from an improbably hot woman from Barbados, so I took that as a good sign. How often is it that you get random, impersonal, barely-qualify-as-English messages from women inviting you to "have fun" on the Internet? I know I sure don't. All I get are random, impersonal, barely-qualify-as-English messages from men asking if I want stock tips or cheap prescription drugs. Damn, I'm old.

It turns out this thing really cuts to the chase. It'll show a picture alongside some stats and perhaps a little blurb if the person was imaginative enough to write one. Then it'll give three options: Wink, Flirt, or Next. That's pretty harsh! It's either pillow-talk or a boot to the ass. Maybe they should put a Friends or Handshake button in there at least.

And what's the difference between Wink or Flirt, anyway? Aren't they the same thing? Flirting, a rather free-form art which a lot of people say is the most fun part, has been reduced to the click of a button. I wish I had that button in real life. My flirting's so bad that I probably could barely flirt with a recidivist nun after she watched a Chippendales act.

So I've been on there for two weeks, and so far, only one person has flirted with me. Which I guess when you translate Zoosk-speak to real-life means she walked over and said in a booming, robotic voice "I AM FLIRTING WITH YOU". Normally I would feel bad about this but considering that I basically have no information posted up and my picture is the same as my Facebook profile, that's a pretty decent showing. Still, I guess a painting of a Dutch man after taking a swig of something nasty ain't doing it. (Pssst! It's called the Bitter Tonic and it's by Adriaen Brouwer, and it's from the early 1600s! So now you know!)

Lately, I've been receiving messages about how I can now mark down who my "Most Eligible Single Friends" are. I was marked down as one, too, and that's pretty exciting! Well, it was until I saw the list of my friends who received the title as well and found out that a lot of the people on there aren't exactly single. One of them is even happily married with three daughters! I wonder if he knows he's actually both eligible and single? Or at least somebody he knows thinks he is.

I guess it might be time to start searching the bathroom wall again.

Great Teacher or Greatest Teacher?

I crossed paths with this book today:



I expect to be fluent by next week.