“Here at MeatShake Corporation,” the site says, “we have a simple vision: Meat. Lots of meat.”
I like the idea behind their Celebrity Meatshakes, especially the lamb shake named for Lars Ullrich from Metallica: “Mutton Else Matters”.
My friend and Queen Street West club bartender extraordinaire Nikki Galligan informs me that her place of employment, the Zen Lounge (526 Queen Street West) is showing two movies on Monday night (September 29th) at 9:00 p.m.:
Admission is a mere $2.
Nikki informs me that the bar will be open, there will be a smoking section, comfy couches will abound, popcorn will be available, and the movie sound will be run through the main club sound system.
Jewish Buddha is the weblog of a law student who’s studying in Washington, DC. He’s currently looking for articling jobs, and if you happen to be someone with hire/fire authority at a law firm, you may want to give his resume a look, as he seems to be a pretty nice guy.
(Hmmm. Maybe that’s not what law firms are looking for. )
Anyhow, two lines from his weblog jumped out at me. Here’s the first, which is about salaries:
Proof that law students live in a different world: We say things like, “Yeah, I was thinking of working there until I realized they only pay first-year associates $110,000,” without a trace of irony.
Remember, that amount is in real US dollars, not “Canadian Snow Pesos”.
The second, on the absolving power of “hotness”, if one possesses sufficient amounts thereof:
“She’s not nearly hot enough to be half as annoying as she is.” — my roommate, TV Critic genius.
Jewish Buddha, your roomate and my roomate should get their own TV critique show.
The club called Shmooze (is the misspelling intentional?) that I mentioned in this entry really did sell booze at cost last night. Between the hours of 5 and 11 p.m., cocktails were priced at CDN$1.25. For my friends who live outside Canada, that’s just over 92 cents U.S., .80 Euros or just over .55 British Pounds.
The night got even cheaper as it wore on, because the accordion is a device capable of turning music into free alcohol. More on this, and The Great White Collar Socialization Experiment later.
eBay has since taken down the auction for the phone I mentioned earlier. However, having guessed that the photo might not meet with eBay’s approval, I saved it. Once again, I must point out that although it’s only slightly racier than photos you’d see in MAXIM, it may not be safe for your workplace.
Come to think of it, I could’ve saved the entire page. Well, I got the important part, anyway.
If you meet the Buddha, the saying goes, kill him.
(Want an explanation of this saying? Check out the sidebar at killingthebuddha.com.)
Big City Buddhism — the new-agey North American variant of Tibetan Buddhism — is the equivalent of Born-Again Christianity in the deep south, which in turn is like that low-rise jeans/thong underwear combo: fashionable, but stupid. Big City Buddhists are slightly more annoying because it’s currently the hip religion. Even Chinese hipsters are getting into it, which I suppose is sort of like the “wigger” phenomenon in North American suburbs.
My own philosophy for religions and ethical systems is pretty much the same as my philosophy for time-management systems, exercise regimes, diets and standards for computer programming:
(Come to think of it, that’s an approach that could be considered Buddhist.)
Last night, while doing a little “cafe coding” at Tequila Bookworm — yes, the cafe where Worst Date Ever started and where I met the New Girl — some guy struck up a conversation with me because he noticed that I was reading a copy of Tricycle, a magazine that calls itself “The Buddhist Review”. It’s a good read; I especially like the interviews with people of all faiths where they talk about how their belief systems intersect with Buddhism (it reinforces my belief that our commonalities as human beings far outshine our differences).
We got into a conversation and at some point, I referred to Buddhism as a religion. I forget that this tends to annoy pedants and newbies and especially the pedantic newbies.
“Buddhism is not really a religion per se, it’s just that our limited Western understanding paints it as such,” he said, with a rehearsed cadence-free delivery of a half-awake Catholic reciting the Apostle’s Creed on autopilot at too-early-considering-the-night-before Sunday Mass.
“Except for the bit where it has gods, monks, spirituality, reincarnation, a Golden Rule, codes of conduct, and some kind of cosmic scorekeeping system.” i replied. “You’re like some bald guy saying ‘It’s not a toupee, it’s a hair replacement system‘.”
If your brain is loaded with blanks, I always say, do not shoot your mouth off.
“You just say that because you don’t understand the Asian mindset,” he retorted. He was a pasty caucasian, whose skin I could’ve used for testing the white balance on my digital camera. I, other the other hand…well, I think this photo will explain my incredulity at his remark.
I stared at him long and hard for a moment, seeing if the penny would drop.
“You’re Asian?” he asked weakly. “I thought you were Hawaiian.”
“I’ve been getting mistaken for that lately.”
“Oh…it’s just that…”
Oh shit, here it comes, I thought.
He then said those four stupid words. Those four words that drive me bonkers. You probably have guessed what they are already:
“…you speak good English.”
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. I hate that line more than anything. It’s crypto-racist binary bullshit, with only two possible pigeonholes for my existence: either I’m some bucktoothed fresh-off-the-boat coolie or I’m an Asian Uncle Tom, a banana — yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Even close friends of mine have pulled this crap on me. It’s a game I’m not allowed to win, and for that reason, I refuse to play.
Once we got that little issue straightened out, I left him with the URL for a recent article by Patrick French, in which he throws a little metaphorical cream pie at the Dalai Lama’s face. After all, it was my turn to annoy him.
(The article originally appeared in the New York Times, just in case you thought it was merely the obscure writings of a crank with a website and a grudge.)
I really should stop hanging out at Tequila Bookworm. The place is a moonbat magnet.
A lot of people have asked this question, so I thought I’d answer it here: the asking price — $CDN679,000 is at least $150,000 too high. Eileen and Richard, my sister and brother-in-law, whom I consult on all yuppie-flavoured issues, couldn’t stop laughing when I told them how much the landlord was asking for the place. Not only are they experienced house-shoppers, they also know my house well; from August 1999 through July 2001, they lived there with me.
Yeah, it’s nice, but it also suffers from best-house on a bad street syndrome: many of the other houses on the street are pretty ramshackle, poorly maintained and total firetraps. There are better deals in up-and-coming neighbourhoods (downtown Chinatown is dying as everyone migrates to uberswanky suburban Chinatown, home of monster-size homes and the largest Chinese mall in North America).
And so, the house hunt begins.
