Lair of the Lexiphage

Full of Technological Utopian Goodness

2009-12-02T19:58:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone, I'm back again. Less than two months despite the court order barring me from computers, political commentary or voting.
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Just a short post today. I know I say that and then ramble on for 13 pages, but I really mean it this time, just a small observation and I'll be out of your hair.
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Once my point is made, then I'll shut up, because there's no point talking about something once your point is made. So I'll say my bit, and then end this post, satisfied of a job well done.
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And after than I'll sign off. Just one little message.
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One. That's it.
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Anyhoo, I was at Canadian Tire today, where I selected a couple of packages of tin foil I was going to use to make a helmet to resist mind control. Confident in my formidable knowledge of metallurgy I approached the cashier, counting out nickels I keep in a hollowed out Pontiac muffler, when I noticed the aisle I was in was cashierless. Undaunted, I proceeded to the next aisle, which was also displaying an extremely low employee density. And similarly the third aisle was entirely bereft of customer service representatives.
So I went to the Customer Service counter. This also was notably unpopulated. A moments reconnoiter confirmed the truth: there were no cashiers of any kind. There were, however, four of those automatic teller doohickeys which the Circle of Evil have been trying to replace human cashiers with. Also, there is a person standing there whose job apparently, is not Customer Service or Sales, but rather supervising the customers to ensure they cashier for themselves.
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Hmmm.... I thought.
Now, I hate to be jumping up and down shrieking 'I told you so' or, 'I knew it, Ragnorok is upon us!' so I kept such statements to a minimum. I tried to explain to the Customer Supervisor that I did not wish to use her infernal blasphemous mechanized abominations, and -this is the part that really gets me- she began to defend the bloody machines which were replacing her! At that point I gave up trying to smack some sense into the poor deluded automaton and with regret I rang my own stuff through. Can't say I'll be returning anytime soon to aid in Canadian Tire's systematic assault on our economy however.
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It is sometimes disturbing to me how bloody right I am.
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Anyhoo, thought it was an important fact that the Socioeconomic Collapse is proceeding according to plan... for those who don't read my older rantings, the short version is that our country's jobs are primarily service industry stuff... once the cashiers have been replaced, there goes about 40% of our job market... you can now find automatic tellers in hardware, grocery and banking industries, and as they catch on this movement is only going to accelerate. And in most of these professions they have somehow brainwashed the very employees they are outmoding with this stuff to endorse the very instruments of their own financial demise! The government is saying the recession is over, but there is no way in hell- we're just in a short pause. Combine that with rediculously high credit balances, iron fisted oligopolies on oil, banking, the media (especially television) and manufacturing and the massive rise of jobs based on servising other industries, we have a looming depression which will make the Great Depression look, well, great by comparison.
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That's it.
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So help stave off this nonsense. Don't use the infernal machines when a human alternative is available. Perhaps we can delay this or even turn it around, although with the idiots we currently have running things I'd be surprised.
In the meanwhile I have to go accelerate my plans to deal with the Circle of Evil, which will require nearly 18 tonnes of itching powder in very tiny paper packages. It'll keep me busy for a while.
Have a nice day, :)
The Prognostic Lexiphage.
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P.S.: See, I kept to my point! I can do that!

Those Deadly Swine II

2009-10-27T16:46:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the phantom post.
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So you may be wondering why I am posting with such regularity. There is a simple answer. One that I think will answer pretty much all variations and details of the above question. The answer is this:

Not sure really....

Glad I could help.
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So apparently H1N1, the dreaded Swine Flu, is a pandemic. As in, like an epidemic, but worse, and with more screaming involved. As far as how deadly it is, it kills nowhere near as many as the regular flu's 1500 or so per year ( not sure what the actual numbers are involved with the Swine version, but from what I understand there has been one death so far in my area and a small handful across Canada... I'll get back to that in a minute). So it's not the actual deadlyness of it... apparently it's how many people are catching it. Apparently it is effecting way more people than the normal flu. This says to me (stop me if I'm wrong here) that each individual case is LESS dangerous than the regular flu. And if it's just the number of people being effected, where is the panic about the common cold...?

HOWEVER...

There have been a lot of talk about making the Swine Flu shot manditory. As in Compulsory with a capital Comp. To throw this in perspective: AIDS is considered probably the nastiest virus we have going these days, being extremely virulent and very determined to cause a long, slow, unpleasant death, and there is no cure, however there are a number of hideously expensive and also nasty treatments. AIDS has almost by itself destroyed Africa, an entire continent... Cancer is caused by the breakdown of genetic matter within the cell, and as such we all will eventually get it unless we die of something else first. And of course the regular flu, which we discussed earlier. None of these qualify as serious enough to curb our freedoms for our own good. Neither were the Bird Flu, SARS, the West Nile Virus (which I and my family caught, nasty but generally flulike), and any of the other horrifying viral threats to the world in the past 10 years. Nope, they all are small potatoes compared to the Swine Flu.

In actual fact, experts are not even actually worried about what the Swine Flu can do, much like the Bird Flu, it is essentially just a regular flu for the moment. BUT, they are worried about what it could mutate into... you know, if it actually became deadly and was already as widespread as this, then we'd really be in trouble... yadda yadda yadda. Of course, mutation doesn't work like that, suddenly and across populations of trillions of individual viruses... it works, by definition, in an infinitessimally small majority. and of course, it also works in any of an infinite variety of ways and at any time. Further, if it is that likely to mutate into a more dangerous form, it is just as likely to mutate into a less dangerous form. In other words, it's not deadly (relatively speaking) now, it most likely won't become deadly, and if it does it most likely won't stay deadly for long.

So the government has decided to force us all to take the Swine Flu vaccination, but not because it is any more dangerous than any other virus. Cute.

Further, Flu shots are only minimally effective because the flu in any form, mutates often. By this I don't mean into Horrifying Super Viruses, just regular, relatively innocuous mutations. Normally when the head honchos in charge decide to make a new flu shot for the coming year, they GUESS how the flu is likely to mutate and they make a vaccination for that. They are always wrong as to how it will turn out (at least so far) and because the flu is a cockroachly tough little bug the vaccination has to be ultra-specific to work.

To recap further- the government has decide to suspend our freedoms to prevent a virus that is not especially deadly with a vaccination that likely will not work. As I said before, cute.

So why are they pulling this nonsense? I mean, we are in a massive economic slump, our deficits are ballooning out of control, and we have bigger fish to fry. Do we actually need the expense for no significant reason? Couldn't we use that money, for example, to give our idiot politicians another huge undeserved raise? Maybe give it away to GM to help them take jobs away from us and encourage them to also avoid the best people for the decision making jobs?

I'm not even going to suggest they use it to build more recycling plants. For one, I already have suggested it, and second, there is no way our politicians would choose that over an undeserved raise.

No, in my humble opinion, seeing as how our own government is not the only one following this anane line of reasoning, it is the pharmaceutical companies which manufacture the vaccines. They are the self-professed experts in the field, they are the ones which would be doing any research which might contradict these ideas, they are the ones which train our doctors (the second line of experts one would guess) and they are the only ones who are likely to benefit from it financially. So they are bossing our governments around much like the auto manufacturers were not too long ago, whether anyone admits it or not. Big Pharma no longer works for our governments and us, it's the other way around. They are using us as research subjects. Just screwing around to see what happens. Because they can and because it'll make them some fast cash. They've been doing it for a while- it's a matter of public record our governments were complicit in experimenting on the black populatin of the 1930's with syphilis, there was the MK Ultra experiments in Quebec in the 60's, and the laws governing Indian Reserves outlaw their right to refuse medical treatment or experimentation whatsoever.
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So on the off chance you think the government will actually listen to our opinion, maybe we should say no. You know, unless you have some kind of health problem which would mean flu is a serious risk for you. Ultimately if a majority of the population refuses the shot, there is nothing the government can actually do about it. Think about it, it's like voting... it's your democratic responsibilty.
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You know, or just go along. I'm sure Big Pharma is much more interested in our welfare than the government, and they'll probably let us vote for their CEOs and so on. Really.
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Well, that's enough ranting for now, I have a Man in Black knocking at my door who doesn't know about my security cameras... he thinks I can't see his 14 buddies and the stunguns. Hee hee hee...
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Bye bye,
The Schismatic Lexiphage.

Those deadly swine

2009-10-27T16:45:00.001-05:00

The Almighty Dollar

2009-10-22T20:33:00.004-05:00

Hello again, greetings from the Lair...
Flying in the face of convention I have decided to post again in the same month, prompting widespread angst among the Worldwide Circle of Evil.
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So I know you're all expecting me to lay the metaphorical beating to our lovable premier Dalton McGuinty. You would be right to expect this. A year or two ago Dalton warned us that we "may" fall into a deficit in the neighbourhood of a few hundred million dollars... in those short months he has upgraded that possibility of a minor deficit to ABSOLUTELY, CERTAINLY, THE BIGGEST DEFICIT ONTARIO HAS EVER SEEN. This is quite something considering the heady days of the Bob Rae NDP, who single handedly brought Ontario to the brink of bankruptcy. Well folks, McGuinty's possible little deficit is DOUBLE the size of Bob Rae's biggest shortfall. The important thing to remember, stammers McGuinty, is that this is NOT HIS FAULT. A great comfort to us all no doubt. Of course spending money like a crack-addicted lottery winner has nothing to do with it... the $4.8 billion in program spending? Not an issue. Spending $650 million on the goofy Swine Flu paranoia? Not an issue. Handing billions over to auto companies to facilitate their moving jobs to Mexico? Also not an issue. In fact, despite the world economy being down by 12% (which accounts for maybe half of the problem) and Mike Harris, who has been out of office for more than half a decade, what is the problem, Mr. McGuinty?

"Er... well... harmonizing the sales taxes is the most important move we can make for Ontario's economy."

"Errrr... Okay Mr. McGuinty... not that that answered my question, but what do you mean? How is this so big and important a step? What will it do to help business?"

"Er... Uhhhmmmm... harmonizing the sales taxes is the most important step we can take for Ontario's economy."

"Yeah but how? This just sounds like another enormous tax grab. It sounds like it'll terribly maim businesses to save them two lines of paperwork. How's this gonna dig us out of our financial hole?"

"Errrrrrmmmmm... harmonizing the sales taxes is the biggest and best thing we can do for Ontario's economy."

"Ooooooookay... thanks, Weiner Boy."
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Also on the Weenie's agenda: increasing the minimum distance between a power windmill and residential space to 2 kilometers. This is to reduce noise and vibrations, which apparently are not caused by traffic, subways, trains, air conditioners, heating systems, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, stereos, weather, playing the drums, naturally flowing bodies of water, wind chimes, and people living in the area in general. And of course we can't get engineers to minimize these problems. No, much better to subject our population to unscrubbed coal pollution and toxic waste. Much less of a hazard.
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Also apparently on the Education Premier's table is an ongoing campaign to remove the Elder Smurf from Autism therapy. Apparently despite his rapidly advancing speech and social skills he is not progressing in any manner and should be removed in a few months as keeping him there would be unethical.
Despite the Circle of Evil's assertions to the contrary, the Elder Smurf is advancing rapidly- he is mostly toilet trained, can dress himself with minimal assistance (he needs fasteners and socks done for him, and a little help with his arms and shoes). The Younger Smurf is also advancing rapidly, although there have been many issues with dumping whole pitchers of milk on the floor that have been giving me a slight psychotic break. No biggie.
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Welllll... I'd like to complain a bit more but the loonies who run our utopia have given me far too much to work with, so I'm gonna go watch zombie movies and eat spaghetti in bed. Ahhh, luxury.
Talk atcha soon,
The Rancorous Lexiphage.

My longest sabbatical yet

2009-10-10T10:01:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone... seems people have been looking at my leavings even when I wasn't, prompting me back to the director's seat for another episode... Sorry about the little vacation I took; I assure you that although it was a blogging vacation my time was full of other death-defying challenges so I didn't get lazy (quite).
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So, to bring you up to speed, in the past year the smurfs have exceeded the racial average of three apples tall... The elder smurf is mostly toilet trained and dresses himself with minimal assistance, the younger smurf has been pushing the toilet training but is still a creature of diaperial habit. However she has been learning to fix herself snacks- and can pour herself a drink of milk or butter a slice of bread with a modicum of supervision and mess. Both have been talking much more; the elder using sentences in excess of four words when in the right mood, and two words together whenever he likes. The younger is still using single and double words, but can recite the alphabet or the numbers up to 30.
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I am still single but no longer chronically; I get out upon occasion with persons of the female persuasion despite the efforts of the Neighbour Lady, perhaps once a month or so... I still telecommunicate on a pretty regular basis with my P.A.L., who has recently shed her female companion to some extent or other and is therefore in more or less the same scenario as I... with a similar Neighbour Lady (P.A.N.L. for short)... perhaps we can work out an exit strategy we can share with anyone who happens to find themselves in the Middle East.
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Recently had another battle with the Cable Company; not sure why they insist on these regular duels on bridges over lava (oops, magma)... but perhaps instead of vanquishing them in this method I should buy some form of repellant. Speaking of evil cable company schemes, you have probably heard of the recent bid by the CRTC and the cable companies to raise tax money for the purpose of supporting local TV despite the fact that they already squander a similar levy... Of course when I give someone money for a specific purpose and they squander it on buying themselves a new stereo, my solution is to immediately give them more money... we can trust them with this one, folks... (ahem)... Of course this has nothing to do with the fact the TV system has been switching over to digital... analog antennas being the most obvious competition for local TV, now that that is more or less eliminated they have time on their hands they need spending money for.
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Speaking of evil idiots, Dalton McGuinty has fallen in line with the tradition of Jean Cretien by losing a billion dollars on a pointless and incomplete project strangely remeniscent of the HRDC "What's a billion" era and their big-brother computer. Apparently Ontario has been working on a province-wide OHIP database which will contain all of our medical information... to construct this they handed out a billion worth of untendered and unsupervised contracts to various parties with no effective obligations attached to it, and assumed that a functioning system would magically result. Of course handing our our private information to hundreds of people without that level of supervision couldn't possibly be a bad thing, especially seeing as how we all will still have trouble accessing out own health records but captains of industry have their own copies now available for a light read on the toilet if they wish. Let's hope they occasionally supervise their employees with our information, Weiner Boy won't do it.
Of course the thing to remember here is that whatever happens, however this stuff is misused or lost, it isn't McGuinty's fault. That's why Joe Voter should keep him on deck for re-election- throwing our money and private information out to whoever feels like having it is much better than allowing anyone to build a Muslim school. Ahem.
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Well that's a fairly solid recap after nearly a year on hold... I'll try to keep up a somewhat faster rate of posting in the impending future... Ciao for now, The Abstruse and Loquacious Lexiphage. :)

Blind Faith in Democracy

2008-10-21T16:19:00.002-05:00

Hiya everyone.
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So it seems a lot of you were expecting a blog from me prior to the federal election... I thought very heavily about it, however, it came down to the fact that, as you know, if I cannot offer a positive course of action I prefer to refrain entirely from desparaging comments. Since ther is no possible course of action for you now, I can offer lots of desparagement without fear of kharmic reprisal.
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Let's look at Canada's political parties one at a time and you may see my dilemma:
The Conservative Party of Canada & Stephen Harper:
Stephen Harper is a dink. He breaks promises on a fairly regular basis after campaigning originally on a platform of accountability. His one saving grace is that being somewhat fiscally responsiblish it will take him quite a while to plunge the country into chaos, and before then we'll have another election.
Stephane Dion & the Liberal Party:
Dion is an idiot. I'm not talking about his mediocre English. Follow this one: What is the difference between $56 billion and $40 billion? According to Dion, nothing. See, his Green Shift is supposed to be have a zero cost, because, having increased our tax base by $40 billion in Green Shift taxes, he will then reduce our income taxes by $56 billion, which, for some reason, will not leave us $16 billion in the hole. On top of which, he has a gigantic bag of election goodies which apparently will not raise this $16 billion to a larger number. He does admit ther emay be a possibility he'll run a deficit. Well duh!
Jack Layton and the NDP:
I may have mentioned that bit about Layton being in Toronto council and protesting against himself and his cronies by hiring OCAP nut jobs to throw bricks at cops. This sort of behaviour maaaaybe isn't what we need at the top of the country. 'Nuff said.
Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois:
As should be obvious, this party's stated purpose is to pillage the rest of Canada of every last wheedling thing for the good of Quebec, and then continue to use our currency and have us send them transfer payments. Yeah. Right.
Whatsername and the Green Party:
Yeah, I know I should know her name. I ain't gonna vote for these guys because their whole premise on reducing GG emissions (their whole reason d'etre) is a cap and trade system. This means the following: Big Evil Polluting Company (BEPC, inc) has a limit put on the amount they pollute. For every ton of pollution they produce, they must pay soem money to a non-polluting company (NPC, inc). When BEPC sees this they will apparently decide NOT to purchase the pollution credits from NPC... if they do, they will NOT decide to raise their prices to compensate, and as a result the consumer will NOT be the only one who loses money on the deal... and pollution will magically disappear. Of course Big Evil won't take the easy way out at no effective cost to them... they're not that evil! Honest! Uh-huh.
The Christian Heritage Party:
Look, I'm a good(ish) Christian boy as much as the next guy, but the goofy religious paranoia which pervades this country right now is akin to McCarthyism, and admitting that you did something you thought Jesus would do is roughly the same politically as saying you are in a sexual relationship with both Hitler and an HIV positive kangaroo, and that you go out Thursday nights to eat live babies and smoke crack. Until people put down the pitchforks and calm down, this party is doomed to fringe types and protest votes. Sorry Aunt V.
Not Voting:
I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.
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So, ultimately while I voted, I didn't like doing it.
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McGuinty is up to his usual goofiness working on a 'smart-card' driver's license which doubles as a passport for crossing the US border. Of course, they found the lowest bidder and signed up for a pass designed for transporting goods and livestock, which apparently can't be used to differentiate one face from another. I'm sure Homeland Security will be thrilled, as will the Joe Taxpayer when he is mistakenly barred from the USD in case he is carrying Mad Cow disease.
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Well, I'd love to stay and chat but I'm a busy guy; I have tons of pointless paperwork Weiner Boy wants me to fill out so he can file it under 'G'; I have to lead some Men in Balck on a flase trail away from the Lair, and I am looking into designs for my power windmill.
Fare thee well,
the Contrapuntal Lexiphage

General Goverment Idiocy

2008-09-05T12:43:00.002-05:00

Bonjourno, fellow blogophiles, how's it hanging?
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I got a lot of ground to cover, so bear with me.
First up is a movement which isn't directly from the upper idiots-er- echelons of government, but as usual they are involved... Apparently one of the local school boards has decided bottled water is now BAD. Their reasoning goes something like this: All the water bottles are piling up in trash cans all around the schools, and they take up too much room and kind of make a mess. Therefore, instead of putting up some recycling bins or maybe increasing the numbers of them, we ban the bottled water. This scant months after they also banned pop from schools on the premise that it is junk food... So kids cannot bring bottled water or canned or bottled pop to school. Also banned are glass bottles for much the same reason as plastic ones, which disqualifies most juices. However, it is considered against their policy to send a kid to school without a packaged drink and expect them to drink from the water fountains... So, pretty much all that's left are cartons of milk (which are expected to remain cold and fresh in a sweaty gym bag) or juice boxes which contain primarily water (not regulated for any level of filtration), refined sugar, artificial flavours and colours, and a single drop of some sort of fruit juice so they can put "Made with Real Juice!" on the label.
To recap: You must send a drink with your child to school. Failure to do so is child abuse and against school policy. You cannot send water, pop or juice in a bottle or can of any kind. Your choices therefore are sour milk or unfiltered water mixed with industrial chamicals. This may be detrimental to your child's health, but at least we won't have to put out an extra blue box.
The way the upper levels of government are involved is this: One of the arguments against bottled water is that recycling facilities cannot handle the volume. Currently Ontario throws 40% of their recycling in the trash because of this, but you aren't supposed to because it's bad for the environment when someone other than the government does not recycle. Of course, instead of giving car companies tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to build factories & create jobs which they will cancel in a few months (while still taking the money) the government could use this cash to build extra recycling plants and finally handle all of the volume. This would create lasting jobs and pay for itself with the extra raw materials created (currently there is a massive demand for recycled raw material which is not being fulfilled). This would of course be good for the environment, solve several problems in a long term way, and pay for itself. Which of course brings us back to a core fact of my blogging career: the government does not want to solve any problems- instead it wants to appear to fight against them whilst never solving them, thus preserving the problem for use later. More political points to be made that way.
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Stephen Harper was voted in with a platform which included a law which prevents the ruling party from calling an election on an early date selected for political advantage. Apparently now, he says, the rule does not apply because he left himself a loophole so he can ignore it. I don't know about you, but when I voted for greater accountability in government I didn't mean 'except when you can get away with screwing over the voters'... maybe I was the only one.
Of course, now the Dion and Layton are jumping on the bandwagon; the only thing the three parties agree on is that it isn't actully the fault of their party (it's one or both of the others) but that somehow Canadians want another election, to create another weaselly minority government with another mediocre-at-best prime minister at the top.
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Another one for Harper: Remember not too long ago when Harper was telling us that Arctic Sovereignty was an issue? Apparently it isn't any more. When asked about it recently he maintained there isn't a problem, and that the only reason people think there is is because they listen to scholars and the media. Errrrrrr... Who the hell else are we supposed to listen to, Stevie? Livestock? Cashiers? You? Oh, right, you gave us the idea in the first place... but that doesn't count.
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As a last little dig, apparently Weiner Boy McGuinty is not at fault for not inspecting the tainted Maple Leaf meat everyone is afraid of now. I mean, I know it's his job to hire the guys involved and send them on over, at least indirectly, but he's to busy hiding from the media so they don't catch him saying something else stupid. Thanks, Dalton!
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Well, I gotta go pick up the Smurfs from school, I'll fill you in on them next blog. Say bye bye to Starfleet Command for me, and I'll see you on Hollywood Squares!
Later,
The Purgatorial Lexiphage

The Lexiphage Heads out West

2008-08-05T00:14:00.002-05:00

Greetings from afar, fellow... er... fellows...
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Well for the last few weeks your truly has been fleeing the powers that be by swapping provinces on a regular basis; this apparently has been effective because I have not received a hydro bill or government leaflet since...
Although I surveyed a number of provinces and one state in my sabbatical, I spent the greatest fraction in BC as it was furthest away from Dalton McGuinty. The large number of mountains not only hid me from spy sattelites near the horizon line, but also obscured the signals from the various sensor devices and the ELF transmitter employed by the Circle of Evil that runs the world. Also, BC is populated by a disproportionate number of hot women. No down side, right?
Whilst in BC I visited a number or relatives and freinds, including a short stint across the border for an enlightening visit with my P.A.L. who, more than I realized, shares some of that down-home Lexiphagey philosophy you all seem to enjoy for some reason. Apparently the Circle of Evil has been on her tail for some time (well, on quite on it, that's her girlfreind's job, but near it anyway...), and when they realized we were in close proximity they sent messages to the U.S. border guards to harrass us until the Men in Black could arrive to finish the job. Fortunately we evaded their encircling grip by a hair's breadth and survived to spread our dissent in our respective fashions... Take that, evil!
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The Lexiphage is finally the proud owner of his first solar panel, which, when combined with rechargable batteries and a lot of adapter cables, allows me to strike back at the Hydro Thugs with a small measure of vengeance. Eventually, a wide assortment of these will keep my Lair all nice and electromagnetically cloaked from prying eyes, during daylight anyway, and will be supplemented with windmills, water wheels, and a geothermal dynamo which draws its power from the hot air generated by our political leaders (politicothermal?).
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Thanks everyone for the kudos on my seditious plans last post, I hope to develop these plans over time and upon further consultation with my expanding Circle of Something Other Than Evil. Anyhoo, I should take off, there's a targeting laser attempting to paint me through the window, and I want to avoid the attendant guided missiles. Talk atcha soon,
The Electromagnetically Inducted Lexiphage.

The Solution For Bad Government

2008-07-07T22:21:00.002-05:00

Greetings fellow malcontents... sorry I've been away so long... after my last blog the Hydro Thugs scooped me off of the street and attempted a couple of months worth of mind control techniques (learned in Quebec in the 60's or so by the CIA & a few cronies) but luckily these tend to only work in large scale populations & I managed to wear a tinfoil helmet through part of it...
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As I mentioned last blog, the goverment is generally a conglomerate of corporate interests and rich lawyers & professional shmucks who conspire to load the system for themselves... it occurred to me that I was, in a sense, being part of the problem by not suggesting a solution... no one likes a whiner, least of all one who whines about death & taxes, which are pretty much going to be here for quite a while regardless anyway...
My idea is this: throughout history, there has been only one significant force for change... only one way to wrest power from those who have it... that is simply to take it. Now hear me out, 'cuz I'm not talking armed insurrection neccessarily... but how about this:
The government is screwing up power generation, as I mentioned last time... the solution in this case is to generate your own power, also as I mentioned... The government is primarily concerned with passing laws with no discernable purpose other than to serve themselves and their corporate masters... (NAFTA, for example) don't follow those laws. For example, the government is taxing income trusts in retired people's savings: the solution is to take your money to a credit union or other smallish bank which doesn't follow the conventional dogma. The government seizes control of the media to control our access to information, get your info from independant publications or the internet... you don't even have to break the law, just don't accept its limitations on your actions and do things for yourself...
Ultimately the powers that be have already seized power from us, regulating our every move... and regardless of their promises to the contrary have done it for interests other than our own. There are many legal ways to set up an opposition, so when the government does something stupid, make up your own solution and rely on it instead. If the government makes sense, then follow their lead... pay your taxes, but write everything off that's possible... the idiots in power put those loopholes in for their own benefit, but you can use them too...
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Ultimately the solution is to set up our own government processes; as I have mentioned before moving up north is an excellent opportunity for this- Evil corporate interests are less intrusive in a town of 10,000 people 1000 kilometres from Toronto. Become involved in local politics, and wherever possible, support those initiatives which keep the hand of government in it's own pocket and not ours. They've already got enough of our money in slush funds and secret embezzelled bank accounts in other countries. Get your own car- Quebec already manufactures an all-electric car that works fine, they just refuse to allow it in 8 of the provinces or any of the territories. Buy one anyway. Is the government going to send someone up here to check our compliance with a law no one knows about, or are they going to send someone to a $2000 a night hotel in LA to discuss the implications of the Global Village? You know the answer.
To this end, I think my solution is, as far as you are able, set up your Lexiphage-style retirement property... move next to mine once I get it going, and we'll have ourselves a nice little town we can call the Village of Opposition.
That's all for now,
Till next time, fight the power, rage against the machine, and don't let the bastards grind you down.
Ciao,
The Gerrymanderic Lexiphage

The Voluminous Illustration

2008-05-18T10:07:00.003-05:00

Salutations, fellow gentlebeings...
Thought I'd toss out some pearls of wisdom to annoy the worldwide Circle of Evil today, and several ideas came up. People often say to look at the Larger View, the Big Picture, or whatever...
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My Enourmous Pictoral Rendering idea is this: you all know my apocalyptic rantings about socioeconomic collapse; I was thinking this morning (yes, it happens) and it occured to me that many of today's problems are the result of us relying on intrusive, overlarge government. During the course of the 20th century, the focus shifted from people being more or less responsible for themselves in the first half or so to people expecting the givernment to handle virtually all of their problems, and as I may have mentioned before, most governments could not organize thier way out of a wet paper bag with a cutting torch (They'd spend a lot of time running studies to see if wet paper will burn at 5000 degrees).
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Gargantuan Sketch Part A:
Power. I have mentioned before that the governments of Canada (or anywhere in North America, for that matter) can't keep up with our increasing energy usage. It's only a matter of common sense that with our ever-increasing assortment of 'must-have' gadgets, from cellphones to air conditioning our energy needs will increase, but the weirdos in charge don't seem to build much in the way of power plants any more. They attempt to from time to time and spend hundreds of millions and decades in the process, but we don't actually get any more power. Imagine how bad the problem will be in 20 years if we continue the way we have... or when gas reaches $2 a litre... or $3. I think we can all agree that the one thing the Oil Cartels and the environmental lobby can agree on is pricier gas, with no upper limit, not to mention the complications caused by a culture of people living 40 km away from their jobs and commuting to work every day. Everyone is spending thousands a year on energy costs, and the costs are all going straight up.
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Expansive Photograph Part B:
The Service Industry: This is being impacted by two issues: first, the rising minimum wage (which of course is well-deserved, don't get me wrong) and second the increase of automation. Those little tags you see in books or DVD cases which trigger the anti-theft devices in stores are being improved and made cheaper every day. They are radio transmitters powered by electromagnetic induction, and once they can hold as little information as a bar code (not far away) for a few cents per unit, there will be no need for cashiers to scan your items. A similar device on your debit or credit card will allow the anti-theft systems in the store to automatically deduct the money from your account, and if you don't have it, notify the police of your identity and what you got away with. With rising minimum wage costs, employers are more motivated to look for alternatives, and it a few short years the entire industry could be almost employee- free. Maybe a security and maintenance staff- say, two or three people for a grocery or retail store, or maybe 20 or so for a mall that today employs several hundred. How many people do you know with jobs in the service industry? or that handle cash? or some sort of spinoff job?
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Bloated Tapestry Part C:
Health Care: Canada is the proud beneficiary of universal health care. Our system has many flaws, but works more or less for the vast majority of cases. However, a problem is arising in that the goverment funds the doctor & hospital aspects but not neccessarily the pharmaceutical aspects. For example, if you have HIV, the government will not buy your drugs for you, whether they cost $50,000 per year or not. So the doctor issue is pretty much a useless issue if you can be told what the cure is but can't afford it. Despite this issue, the government will fund sex-change operations or limitless abortions and emergency rooms are clogged with people with common colds- and the government is fear-mongering the cold sufferers in with scares of SARS and the ineffective Telehealth phone lines (which pretty much are a costly, time consuming way to tell you to go to emergency regardless of your problem). Technology, while it is great in terms of the improvements in health it can give us, also comes with a price tag, which is larger every year- not only because of inflation, but also from new procedures which are developed. Sooner or later, the price tag to keep us alive will be more than we can afford. And of course, there's always a doctor and nurse shortage which is getting worse each year, whatever McGuinty has to say (there's occasionally more doctors temporarily because a great many baby boomer doctors are practising into their 60s and 70s- but they won't live forever). In addition to that, the doctors are now being almost entirely educated by funding from the pharmaceutical companies, who of course will recommend the cures which include the most expensive products that they can (see the drug funding problem, above). Which brings me to:
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Elephantine Depiction Part D:
Education: The education system in Canada (and in other countries, my details on this are less comprehensive) is becoming increasingly controlled by political and corporate interests. Black students were forced to segregated schools in the name of hate and fear only a few generations ago, and now they're building a black segregated school in the name of tolerance and inclusiveness. Of course, our politicians have MUCH better reasons than they did 50 years ago. Teachers are expected to nearly raise our kids for us, and yet they are more restricted each year with arcane rules and regulations about how to discipline, how to talk to our kids, and which horridly outdated sciences they must teach. Meanwhile, of course, there are stories in the news every year about teachers which abuse their students and yet are quietly moved to another school or region... I personally would prefer a teacher that spanks a kid who brings a machine gun or cocaine to school to a teacher that rapes little girls. But hey, I guess that's just me. As a result of these issues, kids are becoming contributing members of society later and later- living as teenagers used to until their mid-thirties or even forties until life finally teaches them what the teachers weren't allowed to.
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To sum up:
The government has screwed up virtually everything they lay their hands to and is completely unaccountable for it. Any of the above problems were initiated by people making $100,000 a year plus. They cannot solve our problems. The government should focus on areas which only a government can handle- military, police, trade, and so forth and get out of the social engineering business. Wherever possible, we as a people should take care of ourselves. We need self-sufficiency- learn to generate some of your own power (solar panels are pretty cheap- look in Canadian Tire), learn a few of your grandmother's home remedies to take pressure off of the emergency room, employ yourself instead of working for a big, faceless corporation, and teach your kids as much as you can while they are still young (anybody remember apprenticeship? It's still a good idea). Don't commute, telecommute. And as I may have mentioned before, move out of town, thicken up your walls with reinforced concrete, and stock up on the canned food and shotgun shells. When the gas-price riots and great homeless migrations begin, you'll be nice, cozy, and more likely to be radiation-free.
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Until next time,
Keep one both eyes over your shoulder-
they never come at you straight on.
Ciao,
The Laodicean Lexiphage.

Catching up with the world

2008-05-04T18:44:00.003-05:00

Greetings once again!
Sorry for not being here for all of you for... er... four months... I was testing a new method of hibernation- distilled all the preservatives from what was advertised as an all-natural salad and mixed the extract with milk on my breakfast cereal... The smurfs were pretty ticked off with me once I woke; I pretty much had to forgive them for eating my whole backup supply of cheerios and crackers, but I wasn't happy about it.
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Let's see- McGuinty has been busy as hell stealing funding from autistic kids and having 13-year old blind pitbulls shot, and most importantly, making excuses and goofy speeches. Par for the course for him. He must be running out of stupid ideas- there's a lot of competition for them- Jack Layton is behind schedule on hiring idiots to throw bricks at cops so that the homeless people (who Jack didn't hire) can be used as convenient damsels in distress; the goof in charge of the Federal liberals has got to come up with more ineffective methods of protecting the environment so that he can blame the Conservatives when they don't work; of course our Prime Minister, whilst not quite in the league of these logic acrobats, needs to take at least 50% stupid for any bill which contains any good ideas (I think the CRTC is behind that- good ideas aren't supposed to count as Canadian Content. If you don't believe me watch a Canadian movie). Harper has been our PM for a couple of years now I guess (I forget the actual date- didn't read as many newspapers while I was unconscious) and to date has succeeded in keeping a couple of scandals below the level Chretien was fond of ("I know dat I am carrying dis big bag of de cash, am soaked in de blood and am standing in front of a tree-kilometer line of de corpses which is leading to de bank, but I delegate de responsibility for dat so I don't know what happened...") and raising the age for sexual consent up to 16 from 14 (that only took 140 years!). Otherwise it appears his goal has been to mildly annoy as wide a cross-section of people as is possible...
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The Smurfs are doing well- the larger smurf has levelled off for a while on his speaking, but seems to be working on other areas... so long as he's coming along I can't complain... the smaller smurf has been speaking with increasing regularity, and is showing piles of enthusiasm for cooking, if not eating the results... her piano playing is coming along very well- she regularly reproduces short strings from songs she likes and practises scales ad nauseum...
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The Men in Black and the Hydro Thugs found my hideout and were rampaging around the place when I woke up from my snooze; I had to disarm them in hand-to-hand combat and knock them out with a small copy of my manifesto. When they came to they were tied up, and I read them the manifesto to pass the time... apparently the psychological damage they suffered as a result caused them to mental-block their memories of the Lair, so I guess the secret location is still safe. I kept some of the Hydro Thugs' electrified nunchuks and the Men in Black had some files in their car I had to look over and photocopy while they were out... hope no one gets in trouble over that one...
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Oh well... enough of that for now... don't want the same effect as my Manifesto on my loyal fans... Hopefully I'll stay off my pudgy behind enough in the future to keep in touch more regularly.
Bye bye now,
The Anti-tergiversant Lexiphage

Getting the best people

2008-02-04T07:24:00.000-05:00

Hi again folks.

I know I haven't been gone for a month or two yet, and am setting a dangerous precedent- actually this ties into what I want to talk about today.

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As I probably have mentioned before, one of the cute, patronizing goofy statements often regurgitated by our elected idiots is that they have to pay the best wages to get the best people. As I have also perhaps mentioned before (see the previous sentence), to me the best people would on some level include levels of talent, intelligence and honesty which surpass that of, for example, a crack-addicted lab rat.

Example #1: Nuclear Reactors.

We are told that nuclear reactors are the wave of the future, and are, in fact, that which will save us from the currently fashionable veiw of Global Warming, the energy crisis, and the spiralling out of control costs of the various power companies. Recently, the reactor we use to give us 60% of the world's medical isotopes was supposed to be replaced by 2 new ones. Actually it was supposed to be replaced by the 2 new ones 17 years ago, but who's counting. A private company, after spending $345 million dollars and 15 years alongside the government's $600 million, gave up in disgust on the project, which initially had a proposed budget of $40 million to be split between the private and public partners. The reason? Constant, repeated incompetence, going over budget, ignoring or reshuffling priorities, completely ignoring the project for years at a time, and eventually dismantling 7 years of construction for safety reasons (e.g.- it was falling apart with old age before being completed).

This was handled by the best people.

Example #2: A Justice System which is the Envy of the World

Now I know that technically judges and lawyers are independant of government control, despite the fact the government pays the majority of their bills, appoints them to thier positions, and develops and regulates the system of laws which they pass down to us in their wisdom. However, There are a number of flaws in this well-oiled machine.

A) Trials typically take over two years to come to a verdict; a recent trial of alleged police corruption took over 10. Let's say, for example, that I am charged for the murder of 16 people and I get caught. Typically what I can expect is to wait for, say, three years for the trial to be over, after which I can expect either to get off on a technicality or to get sentenced to life in prison, which in our country means 25 years. I cannot serve longer than 2/3 of that sentence- a little more than 16 years- but most likely will not have to serve more than 1/3 of that sentence (8 years), regardless of any 'without parole' stipulations, and additionally am eligable for unescorted day passes after only 1/6 of my sentence (4 years). Of course, it is currently common practice for judges to give triple credit for time spent in custody prior to a conviction... so technically I have already served 9 years and immediately upon conviction can get a couple of day passes and apply for early release. And it is a possibility that I was out on bail the whole time.

On the other hand, assume I didn't do it- then not only do I lose my job and have my kids seized by the Children's Aid Society for efficient transplanting into a state-sanctioned cage for convenient abuse (this only happens in a minority of cases, but the CAS is still being investigated for it), but in the meanwhile the real killer has enough time to kill another 16 people so long as he's careful enough to change his MO enough to keep me in jail. Either way the Canadian people lose out.

B) Much of our current day-to-day lives are run entirely for the benefit of lawyers- think about it... when you buy a car, common sense would suggest that you give them the agreed upon money, you in turn take the car, and if the car proves to be faulty, they must repair or replace it. Simple. However, the 40-page document and long list of charges, coupled with goofy and spuriously logical warranty agreements pretty much throw all that in the crapper.

C) Theoretically our judges are supposed to hand down the laws given to them by the government; however it appears that lately judges are actually making the law for themselves. Not only do they have a wide berth to declare a law unconstitutional, they also have free reign when it comes to ignoring minimum sentences, evidence, or other minor inconveniences (such as the guy who recently got off on drinking and driving charges 'cuz he's too cheap to have more than a couple of beers... like anyone caught drinking and driving has EVER admitted to having more than a couple of beers.
What's worse, is the only people who can stop them from getting carried away with this kind of thing are the politicians, who are too busy running up $500 bills at Starbucks to put on their office budgets.

Example #3: A one-tier, free for everyone medical system.
This is a really great idea that has recently been pretty heavily abused. It is common knowledge that we have a doctor shortage, and yet they do not increase funding to train more doctors, and when we get doctors from other countries to immigrate, they end up driving a cab when they discover it'll take 5 to 10 years to 're-certify' under our system. Hospitals get huge budgets, and yet appear to spend the majority of these budgets tearing down last years' upgrades so they can make a new set of upgrades which will be up and running (a year late and over budget) just in time to tear them down and build a new set of upgrades. My favourite idiot, McGuinty, has the audacity to levy the single largest tax increase in Ontario history and then does not deliver any results except those he gets from hiring people to manipulate the numbers. And of course, despite the politicians hooting about keeping free enterprise out of the medical industry for fear of a 'two-tier' system, any of THEIR family gets sick, they can be immediately flown anywhere in the world for the best possible doctors to massage their feet or perform plastic surgery on our dime.
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I think I have proven my case. Don't mistake my meaning, I thnk Canada is a fantastic place to live, and our people are equally fantastic. Lately this appears to be in spite of our government's best efforts, not because of them; the government's main focus is no longer running the country or making Canada a better place to live, but rather to stay in power no matter the cost, to fleece the people of Canada out of as much as possible, and to make sure the citizenry stay as distracted as possible so we don't notice much. No wonder our voter turnouts are so low- who really cares which particular politician is voted in to embezzle and cheat us, so long as we remain cheated.
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Whew! That was fun. Talk to ya later,
the Nonpartisan Lexiphage.

A Smattering of General BS

2008-01-28T23:49:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone. I know it's been a long time, and you've all been wrapping rubber around your arms waiting for that Lexiphage fix, well, sorry for the wait- I spent a few months fighting the sociopolitical consumerist machine and their thuggish minons during Christmas and the following aftershocks, thanks for asking, I think I'm over it.
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On the politics side of things: McGuinty has really stepped up to the plate with his powerful leadership, taking an admirable stand against ethnic segregation when asked about the proposed 'African Centred' school. Something along the lines of ' I don't think that's a positive step in the right direction for us... It's not my job to make any decisions, though, ask your trustee... someone hand me a poll to tell me what I think'. I'm glad we don't elect leaders to make decisions. That would be wrong. Maybe even more wrong than herding black people into a segregated school. I'm not sure. Ask your trustee.
On the subject of trustees, one from the local Roman Catholic board has recently been caught putting carribean vacations and her wedding on her expense account, but when caught suddenly became overwhelmed with stress and checked into a loonybin, so her lawyer says we should be sympathetic and leave her alone. This is the decision making ability we need to trust on those complicated moral issues.
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On the home front, the smurfs are doing well, absorbing knowledge at a frightening rate. The larger smurf lately is interested in taking his dishes into the kitchen, vacuuming, and complaining, so I guess he's after my job. The smaller smurf is branching out a little on the food front, attempting yoghurt and different flavoured doughnuts (instead of the traditional chocolate glazed) recently.
A couple of weeks ago the Neighbour Lady and I decided we really couldn't stand each other as much as we thought we could and had a relatively peacable breakup with a minimum of ammunition expended. I know it's not my style to leave a woman with her mental health intact, but I guess I am in growth.
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I recently inherited a gaggle of books from a freind of mine and have been reading heavily- I have access to at least 30 novels I haven't read yet, so I'll be powering through them until probably April sometime, and therefore have an excuse to take in more caffeine. This is always a good thing.
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My writing appears to be hitting another peak, as without the Neighbour Lady phoning me every 38 seconds I now have enough time to work on proposals for agents and publishers on a more regular basis, when I can squeeze that in between outrageous levels of flirting and drinking. If I can keep the momentum up I'll have a proposal ready sometime this week, although trust a literary agent to demand all submissions in rtf format with specific headers when rtf doesn't do headers. (For those of you without typing experience, that's the little line at the top that has the page number, chapter, phone number and turn-ons of the author.)
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I have uncovered a swath of new conspiracy theories that I'm attempting to cram into drafts for my second book; Discover! magazine has an article on chemical modification of long-term memory that is just too juicy to miss, the states are programming clones for their elections, I had a firsthand account from soemone who spent time with Toronto's mole people, and I found out how to mask an infrared signature from sattelite serveillance. On the whole a productive month or two.
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Well, that's all you get for now. I need to restock my canned food and shotgun shells, and check on the investment sealed into the concrete in my basement. Until next time,
Live long and prosecute,
The Wassailing Lexiphage.

Child Processing Plants

2007-12-04T21:11:00.000-05:00

Good evening, fellow... er... fellows...
Okay, that was a weak start.
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Have you ever noticed you can't get your loose change looking like new?
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No... that sucks...
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A long time a go, in a galaxy far, f- oh, yeah. That's taken.
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Hi.
That's better.
At long last, the Lexiphage has crawled up out of the primordial ooze to regale all of you with his rich, creamy wisdom and sweet, crunchy humour. You may breathe a sigh of collective relief.
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Down to business:
McGuinty is up to his old tricks again with his goofy plan for all-day kindergarten. The following flaws immediately began to flop around on my floor upon my perusal of his manifesto:
1) As is traditional these days, the $500 million the plan will cost is delayed considerably, however, McGuinty expects the accolades and respect today.
2) McGuinty and his cronies are fully aware that the $200 million allocated for the first year will not be enough to properly implement the program, the $300 million may or may not be enough to finish it up prior to the next election, and the guy who is supposed to organize it for Weiner Boy is being paid an 'undisclosed amount'... Hmmm.... I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt and assume the guy isn't taking the whole half-billion himself to blow on cocaine and expensive cuff links.
3) The first year of the program will be the second last year of McGuinty's mandate, which as mentioned above is acknowledged as not being workable; the second year of the program will be in full swing as the election begins, ensuring that we will not have any statistics as to how well the program is working, assuming it works at all... if the project is entirely screwed up so monumentally that we need no statistics to notice, McGuinty can say "Well, the program is only just starting... no one could organize it this fast...", but if it seems to be working well, then it'll be because they organized it so fast. If they get re-elected, they have another four years to slack off, so it doesn't matter if it works well or not. If they do not get re-elected, then the stats for how they screwed up won't come out until the next government is in power, and Weiner Boy can point the finger at them for screwing up his bright idea.
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It warms my heart to know that our children, as soon as they begin their immensely valuable education to shape the world of tomorrow, will have their welfares entirely ignored in favour of extending the career of an incompetent boob.
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It is interesting to note that through the whole recent election, McGuinty was chanting hippie love slogans about togetherness for our kids, and how dividing our children by religion was evil. Now, scant months later, Toronto is apparently getting a black-only school. Jewish school bad, black school good. Interesting...
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On the home front, despite McGuinty's best efforts the Smurfs are doing well, the Elder Smurf's IBI therapy seems to be cranking up the thinkometer well, and the Younger Smurf is using many short phrases and single words since she got into Autistic Junior Kindergarten... The Neighbour Lady is still lurking in the background somewhere, and the Insane Ex is busily weaving baskets with her toes due to the interference of the straightjacket.
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Lastly, the Lair is once again online, and the Lexiphage is at large and in charge therein; I have a lot of mischeif and complaining to make up for during my sabbatical, but luckily the Hydro Thugs and Men in Black seem reluctant to reveal their machinations on my home turf... Rogers had a great deal to say regarding my cyber-resurrection, and I was forced into many golden handshakes and shady deals to win them over. Even still, my cell phone and internet accounts apparently may not be amalgamated without me duelling the regional manager to the death on a narrow bridge over a pit of lava, so I have to make sure I have an EMP device to interfere with the video cameras and hob-nails in my boots. Two men enter, one man leaves should be evidence enough... also, I should sharpen my epee and hook my homemade stungun into a tin breastplate in case he gets a lucky hit.
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Lots to do, and little time, so I'll see you later and keep you informed.
Asta la vista,
The Vituperative Lexiphage.

A Lexipharious Primer

2007-10-31T11:03:00.000-05:00

Hello again everyone. Well, it has been a while since I began blogging, and I figured to start off this edition I would fill in those who are just joining us... I have to do something to fill up this space.
Cast of characters on Lair of the Lexiphage:
The Lexiphage: that's me. Imagine that! If you want to know more get off your lazy butt and read my profile. I change it every once in a while just to keep the Men in Black guessing.

The Smurfs: my two autistic kids. When I forget my usual paranoia I refer to them by their real names, but luckily for everyone today, I'm at my usual trigger-happy, post-traumatic stress disorder frame of mind, and as such will refer to them as the Senior and Smaller Smurfs.

Weiner Boy: my most frequent libel victim, Weiner Boy is this Evil Overlord of Ontario, everyone's favourite poster boy Mr. McGuinty. Weiner Boy is mainly concerned with standing up under his own power and not drooling too much while his handlers train him to bark out lies like a poorly handled seal. I am at odds as to whether Weiner Boy is incredibly dishonest or just stupid, but I'm inclined to believe both, making him a perfect figurehead for the evil puppetmasters that rule our country.

The Circle of Evil: This is the shadowy organization which, through subterfuge and insinuation rule our world for their own, insidious purposes, and include such villians as the cable company, the phone company, most of the government, any expert the newspaper quotes opinons from, Buzz Hargrove, the Liberal Party, Quebec, lawyers in general, Bill Gates, and countless others. Generally they run everything but can be counted on to stymie each other with political backstabbing and power struggles, except when it comes to stamping on the common people of the world, which they all agree to on principle.

Fiddling Granny, Mr Gryper, the Guru, My Biggest Fan, et. al: These are listed in the sidebar over there -----> and comprise primarily blood relatives, extended family, and co-conspirators. Check out their blogs to get a more detailed lowdown on them.

The Men in Black and the Hydro Thugs: These are the evil minions of the Circle of Evil, and generally their multitudinous and ubiquitous organizations spend much of their time and government-funded budget harrassing me. I often enjoy returning the favour.
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If I think about anyone else I can edit this post so it's easy to refer to. In the meanwhile I should vacate my backup bunker as my sonar is picking up footsteps leading up the path, and the footsteps sound like black dress shoes.
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Fiddling Granny has brought it to my attention that I left out The Insane Ex and The Neighbour Lady. Alas, 'tis true; I have been without anything to rant on the subject of the Insane Ex for quite some time now as she is apparently under heavy sedation in a padded room somewhere, such that her blood-curdling howls for several of my internal organs goes unheard... Also, the Neighbour Lady, who is my current main squeeze and the Smurfs' favourite female role model... More on them both, no doubt, in another blog. Thanks, Granny!
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I'll rant about something more productive later,
The Obligatory Lexiphage.

Joe Voter & The Crack

2007-10-11T13:57:00.000-05:00

Well apparently Joe Voter did not hear my plea and went to the polls while under the effects of some pharmaceuticals... I didn't hold out much hope for a conclusion that made any sense, and I got more or less what the lowest common denominator has taught me to expect.
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So, our close freind Dalton gets a blank check to treat Ontario as his personal oyster for the next four years because of religious paranoia- apparently, as far as Joe is concerned, every one of those 56,000 religious school students is learning nothing except Suicide Bombing and Destroying Democracy for Beginners. I'm sure most of the Jews in this province are just thrilled about that assessment.
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The smurfs are doing well lately- Gav has been at IBI for more than a month now and usually will tell me something about his day when I take him home. Today he told me, with much enthusiasm, that he'd had some chips. Wahoo! Other recent tidbits from the larger smurf include the following: 1) He doesn't like chicken, but he wants me to get it for him for supper. And he isn't crazy about having anything he does like with it, such as french fries or anything. 2) Gavin loves his couch (despite the fact that it has been the recepticle for several months of hidden food and spilled drinks, and is where the Men in Black put their nerve toxins when we are out. 3) He likes being at daycare when Mya isn't there so she doesn't hog all of the good stuff.
The smaller smurf has been equally enlightened lately, and regularly says new words such as "gum", "Don't want", or "Outside". She has been reading heavily, although I am not certain how much she actually understands...
The Insane Ex has been entirely under wraps for some time now, fortunately for me, although the smurfs mention her from time to time... it seems a sheme that she won't put any effort into seeing them, but, hey, that means more for me!
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My battle with Rogers still rages on, however, later this month I may have enough cash to buy off the right people and persuade them to re-establish my link to the world from within the lair. The Lair has got a mite dusty lately, and it's a shame that so many of my nefarious plans have to be done in full veiw of the Alliance of Evil's spy sattelites. Especially with them getting McGuinty hooked up again.
As an aside here, it occurs to me that this election is yet more evidence that the MK Ultra experiments from Quebec in the 70's were more or less successful, and that the ELF antenna in Alaska is busy contolling most of our minds under the Alliance of Evil's watchful and benevolent gaze... I figure that maybe one-on-one control is a little unrealistic but perhaps tilting 12 million brains 3% towards the McGuinty side of things or a slight increase in religious paranioa would be more than enough to keep all of us cattle in our place.
Well, I have to go now. There's a suspicious character in the library that keeps looking at me and writing in a notepad. Well, a more suspicious character than myself, anyway... I had better make my escape while the gettin' is good.
Until next time, keep one eye over your shoulder and the other straight up (and just try to walk like that)...
The Unserendipitous Lexiphage.

Just like Pirate Radio

2007-09-27T14:15:00.000-05:00

Just to let everyone know, the Lexiphage is not dead; however, in an evil team-up remeniscent of professional wrestling or badly scripted comic books, McGuinty and the Cable People are conspiring to keep me off the Net.
This post confirms that you can't keep a good man down, even if you have extensive connections within the worldwide Circle of Evil.
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I just wouldn't feel right if I didn't comment on the upcoming re-coronation of Dalton McGuinty... invariably the population as a whole makes whichever choice I figure is the stupidest one, but, nevertheless I am still hoping Joe Voter will get off the crack for a few minutes and vote for any convenient option other than Dalton McGuinty- whether it be John Tory or whoever is currently leading the Marijuana Party, it'll be a better choice in my opinion.
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On the other hand, I'll have less to rant about in this forum if we elect someone with a glimmer of brain activity... either way, I suppose, there is an up side then...
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Well, I just caught wind of the MIB and their trained chupacabras entering the library, so I'll log off for now and sneak out the back way. Until I get cable or motivation again,
Ciao, from the Orwellian Lexiphage.

Fillins & Conspiracies

2007-08-21T05:36:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone, at long last I have returned!
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Let's see: Last month on the Lair of the Lexiphage, Lex himself got a new computer, was waiting for a bribery check from his arch-nemesis McGuinty, and the global conspiracy for world domination was closing its ethereal fingers around our beleaguered planet right on schedule. Well, to pick up where we left off:
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My new computer seems to be functioning more-or-less the way I want it to; whilst it makes my old computer look, well, old in comparison, it still has junk Bill Gates crammed in there against all good sense and judgement. I regularly find crap that has to be removed such as trial versions of programs I don't want, links I can't get rid of to programs I don't need, and features absolutely neccessary to the usage of windows that were inexplicably left out when XP was "upgraded" to Vista. There are several obvious reasons Bill does this:
1) He doesn't like me, and wants me to know it.
2) He doesn't respect me as a consumer, and wants me to know it.
3) Having gained total control of the Operating System market despite the efforts of the courts, Bill is now systematically removing as much useful stuff as possible from Windows with each generation while increasing the computer power required, thus lowering the expectations of the consumer and thereby lowering his costs for the next insipid version he releases. Pretty soon he'll just get a cut from each computer sold despite the fact none of them will do a damn thing because of him. Then we'll have to start paying him just to take Windows off whenever we buy a computer.
4) Bill is part of the Evil Global Conspiracy, and as such is interested in bringing about the socioeconomic collapse neccessary for them to seize power. He and his cronies like McGuinty (who despite my assertions to the contrary cannot possibly be as stupid as he lets on- he is after all a vertebrate), Dubya, and evil organizations like the WTO, World Bank, the UN and the people who created the Care Bears (you just knew they were really evil in some way, didn't you?).
5) Bill doesn't have quite enough money, so until the socioeconomic collapse he has to get donations from advertising companies to buy bread, water, and the recreational drugs that give him these ideas.
6) Bill gets a kick out of stickin' it to us.
...
McGuinty did send me my bribery check, $500 just as he agreed without my collusion... and as I mentioned last time it was just at an appropriate time to purchase my new machine. Since I know he is using it to spy on me, I've transplanted a lot of the junk he put in the hard drive for me to a computer at a drive thru coffee shop in Des Moines, and have my webcam hooked up with a telescope attachment in the air duct system of an apartment building in St, John's, pointed straight at the back door of a porno theatre. That should keep him busy. In the meanwhile I continuously feed my computer disinformation in the hopes that he'll send the Men in Black to annoy someone else for a change.
...
My Internet will soon be unhooked temporarily, as I recently decided I don't want to pay in the Insane Ex's name any more... Rogers informed me the only way to get the account in my name without her speaking coherently with them for a few minutes is to just stop paying them 'till they shut her down. Then I can open up an entirely new account with them at my leisure. This, folks, is the TV and internet company I actually SELECTED, which tells you how high I value the competition.
...
The smurfs are coming along nicely, although Gav has yet to actually learn anything at IBI- so far they just spend a couple of hours each month testing him for their evil government plans... No doubt they won't make a serious effort to deal with autism because they created it to mess with us as an experiment, similar to the syphilis experiments they did on unsuspecting minorities in the thirties.
Despite this Gav has been improving his talking on a regular basis, recently saying "Good Morning" to his sister and occassionally having short conversations with me about things that happen to him at school. Mya seems to be on a break with learning lately, and hasn't been talking much; however she is climbing down stairs more-or-less by herself and has been walking outside a lot, albeit not where I want her to.
...
Well, I gotta go now- I have a new set of bear traps I have to leave around my garbage for the Hydro Thugs to find, and these decoy cameras don't set themselves up. Catcha later,
The Non-ablative Lexiphage.

Smoke Signals & Carrier pigeons

2007-07-18T10:10:00.000-05:00

Hey lexiphans!
Sorry for the long intermission, I was unavoidably detained when my ancient computer had a massive brain hemmorhage. Still, for a second-hand job (not to be confused with a second hand job) it did better than any other machine I've had- it lasted me 3 years or so, despite being a 3 year old contraption at the time of acquisition. It was a nice computer, made of the very finest flint and bearskin, and apparently was originally owned by some guy named Hammurabi. So, I was looking at other used machines for a little while, but noticed the margin between a new and used machine has narrowed considerably. On Friday I get a spot of moolah and will use this capital to purchase a NEW machine- something I have not had since the distant days when people could ask "what's a Pentium?".
...
Just a little pat on my own back here- apparently McGuinty heard my recommendation to bribe me prior to the coming election and therefore decided to send parents of young children a "please elect me again, really I'm desperate" check for $250 per child. Note that in the finest Liberal tradition I have not actually got the check as yet, but it should arrive sometime between now and the looming election Mcguinty hasn't called and therefore isn't campaigning for on the taxpayer's tab. Speaking of which, it is interesting to note that one of the few promises McGuinty did not break was the inception of a law which prevents political parties from campaigning on the public budget... this stuff he's doing now, it's not really campaigning, it's keeping the public informed. Really!
...
So I'm making this post once again on the faithful library computer, which thankfully was not commissioned by our able-minded premier, and hopefully on Friday I'll make another post on my shiny new machine, which in the finest tradition of science fiction writers should rise up against my control in a year or two. I figure this based on elementary Chaos science, which says all complex systems will behave in this way (if you don't believe me, watch my ex-wife cook sometime and see what happens with her creations), and also on general paranoia, which says McGuinty is somehow responsible for the death of my old computer, and sent me the 'please-elect-me' check as a means to plant his electronic agent within the Lair of the Lexiphage. The cad! At least it's cheaper than sending over the Men in Black twice a week to sift through my garbage and whack me with cattle prods...
...
For those of you who are wondering about the Smurfs, they are doing well despite being out of school for the summer now... I still have them in daycare 3 times a week to keep the brain juices flowing, and Mya is talking pretty well these days (recent sentence reported from daycare: "Go Outside"... Gav has been doing well as well although he seems really bored lately... I think he needs a challenge, so I've been going over the alphabet with them and and am building a new version of my brainwave manipulator which hopefully will teach him all about my veiws on politics with electronic ease. May as well make the teachers obsolete whilst the rest of us are getting that way, eh?
...
I guess that should be it... this is an insecure location without all of my usual electronic-warfare subterfuge, and the government and hydro thugs are already closing on my position. Until next time,
Ciao,
from the Quixotic Lexiphage.

McGuinty's Best Idea Ever

2007-06-13T07:21:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! Long time no type!
...
So... everyone's favourite premier of Ontario, the Honourable Dalton McGuinty, has now done something that I wholeheartedly agree with. Looking back on his record and realizing he has to call an election in around October, McGuinty decided to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING until the election. That's right, even Dalton has realized that everything he touches turns to... er... guacamole... and so he has decided that NOT running the government can't possibly be as bad as VITUALLY ANYTHING HE IS LIKELY TO DO. He has done this in the vain hope that maybe in four months the people of Ontario will FORGET everything from the past four years, most especially his cute health tax, which he still maintains was a good idea.
...
The smurfs have been talking up a storm lately, and the main tasks for the summer will be:
1) Getting Mya to willingly walk longer distances than 1 block without stopping to pick flowers
2) Getting Gavin entirely toilet trained (he pretty much understands the mechanics but is avoiding the Big Leap)
3) Getting both of them to eat carrots in preparation for my big crop of carrots which should be due by the end of July.
...
Speaking of my crop, I've been thinking post-apocalyptically lately (how unlike me) and have been noodling growing my own food in anticipation of the collapse of the socioeconomic machine and the inevitable spread of genetically and otherwise altered foods. Since carrots are amoung my favourites, they are the first ones I'm trying (I once attempted and screwed up tomatoes). Does anyone know how to harvest carrot seeds for the next year's crop? Those buggers are bloody near microscopic, and obviously if I have to rely on the socioeconomic machine to supply seeds, I'm screwed. Can you plant chunks of carrot like seeds? I hear some plants can grow from a chunk of root or whatever- perhaps that would be a good method...
Or maybe I'll have to start growing more self-sufficient stuff. Curses!
...
Well, that's all for today.
Remember- shotgun shells, canned food, and a lead-lined basement are the best investments you'll ever make!
Let the good times roll,
The Magnanimous Lexiphage.

McGuinty Rides Again

2007-05-17T18:38:00.000-05:00

Salutations, personages! You are once again in the presence of the Lexiphage!
...
So, recently McGuinty and his cronies decided to fix the autism problem in Ontario once and for all by allocating $6 million to build a program which will offer ABA therapy to all Autistic kids in the public school system. While I have not yet found out how McGuinty is going to weasel the money back into his personal office budget or some other more deserving institution, I did notice Dalton's signature lack of math in the program.
First, it will be instituted across all school boards in Ontario; CTV reports that this includes 1400 principals, teachers, and educational assistants; further they will train 6 to 8 officials in every school board across Ontario to carry this out. Sooooo...... there has to be at least, say, 100 school boards in Ontario, which means they will need to train at least 2000 people. They will do this over the summer.
Second, they will use some of this funding to perform the actual ABA therapy to the autistic kids in the school system. This would include the 1300 or so waiting for IBI therapy, but also assumedly would cover the other autistic kids- around 15,000 more.
This adds up to around 18,000 people to either be trained or therapied... for $6 million, or around $333 per person. To put this in perspective, to get a bachelor's degree in Literature, one would have to spend around $50,000 and four years... To teach someone how to administer therapy to a disabled child- two months and $333 bucks.
At that price, it's a wonder that we have a shortage of child psychologists in this province. A freind of mine tried to get her kid a psychologist and got put on a waiting list for over six months... in that space of time why not just train a new therapist? I'm sure there are two or three people out there who would like to be earning $80 per hour after investing $333. They'd pay off their education in the first day!
Next month, McGuinty plans to solve world hunger with a large crate of Cheerios, and the month after that, will bring peace to the world with a single hearty handshake.
...
I did the only sensible thing to get the smurfs their IBI therapy... I began the process before McGuinty came into power. To all you other parents of autistic kids out there, don't worry too much- once McGuinty is out of office the wait list will start running again in a halfway sane fashion- or at least, it will stop getting worse.
...
In response to this wonderful gesture by the Liberal Government, I sent Weiner Boy a gift basket containing a grain of bath crystal, three grains of salt, some lint from my left sock, and a sliver of scented soap you could fit through the eye of a needle. No doubt with financial capabilities like his he'll keep his family clean and fresh for months on that.
...
As an aside, I'd like to thank the Guru for his latest financial idea- investing in the Apocalypse seems like a great idea. What with my faith in mankind, it appears to be the safest investment I'll ever make!
...
Lastly, on Canadian government in general, I'd just like to say onthat the Lexiphage fully endorses all decisions of our honourable leadership, and will continue to support everything they say. This has nothing to do with the sweeping powers Canada has recently decided to give to CSIS. Thank you for your time, citizens. Go about your business. We are taking care of everything.king idiots can't even figure that one out. I'm glad I got that last one off of my chest; now that it's out in the open they can't keep it a secret any more.
Whew! Thank goodness for free speech!
...
Bye bye now,
The Catalytic Lexiphage.

Expanding my Horizons

2007-05-05T07:11:00.000-05:00

Well, I'd like to thank federal politicians in general for allowing me to expand my horizons this week, as it turns out I am able to complain about a wider variety of government officials.
...
It makes me all rosy and warm inside to know that all of the opposition parties on the federal level are currently spending all of their time on running Team Canada.
Apparently, for those of you who don't know, around 2 years ago a hockey player got miffed during a game and MAY have said "F---ing Frenchman" about another player during a game. It was mumbled from a distance under the player's breath, but the guy who heard it brought it to the Lords of Hockey and there was a full investigation after which the Mouth was cleared.
Fast forward ahead two years, a Bloc Qeuebecois moron hears about his happening, and says- 'No way can this guy play as Captain on Team Canada.' And- and this is the clincher- MOST OF THE OTHER PARTIES AGREE WITH HIM.
Pardon?
That's right. The Bloc Quebecois, who don't want to be in Canada, feel they should be allowed to choose who leads our hockey teams. The NDP, Liberals and Green Party all agree. Yup, The Bloc gets veto power over hockey assignments. Riiiiight.
Is it just me, or is this political correctness thing going a little too far?
I have Scottish and English ancestors, but if somebody said 'F---ing Limey' or even 'F---ing Scotchman', despite the linguistic incorrectness, I would probably be a lot less concerned about their observations on my heritage as I would be their flagrant use of the explative. Where is this going? In a few years, are the Bloc, or for that matter any politicians, going to be vetoing who collects my garbage on the basis of their prejudices? Is the manager at McDonald's going to have to make sure he's not a 'Global Warming Denier' if he wants to keep his job?
...
Speaking of both federal politics and global warming, the Green Party leader joined the real ranks of Canadian politics by calling Steven Harper a Nazi Collaberator for his new environmental policy. Yes, you read that right. This of course, is nothing new; you aren't really an Honourable member of the House of Parliament until you stand up on your chair, wave around a sheaf of irrelevant papers, and screech at someone that they are being a Nazi because they disagree with your political veiwpoints. This is being done a couple of times a year now, usually but not always by the left wing, who figure Nazis were right wing, and so are politicians who balance their checkbook, so therefore anyone on the right wing is a Nazi. Right wingers do it too, of course, arguing that Left wingers want to make all our decisions for us and therefore are evil dictators as well, but I don't recall the last time any of our politicians killed several million Jews in gas chambers, or for that matter, even shot anybody.
...
The Lexiphage's Ideas on Global Warming:
Seeing as how we're on the subject, I figure I may as well rant in this direction too. I know it's a good way to annoy my Biggest Fan.
I don't believe in the currently held veiw of Global Warming. There, I said it, and now am waiting for the bullet.
...
No? Whew! Okay- here's the thing. The current version of Global Warming (for shortness sake I will now refer to this as TCVGW) is grossly oversimplified, and although there is evidence on both sides of the issue, those who argue with any of the "facts" of TCVGW are regarded as kooky at least, and as Nazis (as I mentioned above) at the worst. There are a few facts to consider:
1) What about all of the other forms of pollution? These days NUCLEAR POWER is seen as a better alternative to other forms of electricity because istead of CO2 emissions we only get HORRIFYING NUCLEAR WASTE WHICH WILL NEVER GO AWAY, KILLS ON CONTACT, CAUSES CANCER, and which we 'take care of' by DUMPING INTO OUR FARMLAND or THE OCEAN and SEALING IT INTO A BLOCK OF CONCRETE!!!! I mean really, they make you put on a lead vest when you get an X-ray, but several million tons of indestructable chemicals of doom- no problem. And what are the odds contaminating our food, air and water with this stuff is going to be bad in some way? Anyone?
2) The amount of warming which actually has occurred is less than one degree over the past century. Or worded another way, The amount of warming is 0.6 degrees or so, the margin of error in these statistics is 1.2 degrees, and we haven't been keeping accurate records for most of the time. Really, when did they start keeping temperature records accurate to one tenth of a degree in Venezuela, and why wasn't I notified when it happened?
3) The Kyoto Protocol, the current Bible of TCVGW, is based on the following assumptions: a) developed countries will decide not to pollute. b) If they do decide to pollute they will send money to third world countries to help them not pollute. c) the third world, upon getting these moneys, will decide not to use it to eat, or build a bigger army, but instead replace their coal power plants with nuclear ones; and when they do this they promise to not skimp on the shielding or build any nuclear weapons, and we can really trust them. Would President Mugabe lie?
...
Ultimately, pollution is bad and our first goal is not to lower levels below 1990 ones but first to stop them from going up. Once we have done that, any step is one in the right direction, right? This means we have to develop methods of doing what we do now only in an environmentally neutral way.
According to physics, every time we use energy, we convert it into heat. The more power we use, the more heat we generate. 20 years ago we didn't all have air conditioning, 4 TVs per house, several Home computers, microwaves, cellphones, and who-knows what else running all the time. Our power needs are going UP and will continue to do so until we change what we are doing.
There is only one method of generating power which does not generate extra heat. This is solar power. We're getting the sunlight anyway, people.
Lastly, there have been a lot of idiots talking about how dark forest and other dark materials reflect less light than snow and therefore cause some golbal warming. That we can fix. Make a law where everyone has to paint their roofs white, or mount a solar panel there to power their air conditioners. Make black concrete roads into white concrete roads.
And lastly, cut the B.S., because that is the real source of methane, and therefore a serious contributor to global warming anyway, and really, we have our hands full eliminating that.
Ciao for now,
The Assiduous Lexiphage.

Ontario wins the lottery

2007-05-01T06:25:00.000-05:00

Hi again, Lexiphans... I have startling news.
...
I was reading the paper a few days ago and came upon something which has never happened before...

Dalton McGuinty had an idea which wasn't entirely stupid!!!

I know what you're thinking: "am I on the right web site?", and ordinarily, you would be corrwct in asking that. No I am not being coerced at gunpoint by Men in Black, nor am I being blackmailed, nor has Mr. McGuinty finally found my price and paid it (incidentally, Dalton, something in the five digit range will make me at least pretend to think you're not an idiot). No, it's this:
McGuinty has decided to start a "Solar Farm", a 400 hectare area jam-packed with solar panels, to supplement the grid. ( For Mr. Gryper and other non-metric types, a Hectare is a square 100 metres a side, about the size of my ego) istead of flicking the switch for the coal plants on and off, instead of pouring more money into nuclear plants which spend 30 years in renovations for every 38 seconds of successful operation, he's decided to fire up a small solar plant.
Don't get me wrong, there are problems with the specifics: the main one is that it is being built on farmland, and Ontario has some of the best farmland in the world already being wasted supporting condos instead of human life, and admittedly a power plant isn't an effective use of this when we've got about a zillion free hectares of hills and forest about 200 miles in any northerly direction. Secondly that Solar power isn't an especially powerful power source, although the fuel is free and there's few moving parts involved so it's easy to maintain once you fork out the dough to build it... But it seems to go against Liberal party policy to:
1) Decide to do something environmentally freindly
2) Decide to do something environmentally freindly which will actually solve another problem we've been having
3) Decide to do these things in a way that makes some level of sense
4) Allocate the money to a program that can actually spend it and
5) Decide that the construction and labour should not necessarily take place in Quebec.
The real trial, of course, will be to see if they actually take any steps towards implementing this good idea when they could be sending all the money to Zimbabwe to support Mugabe's reign of terror with a nice Hallmark which reads "Dear Evil Dictator, please spend this money on something which won't kill anybody, unless us making a demand like that upon you offends you in some way, in which case buy nukes and we're sorry. xoxoxo :)"
...
Another breakthrough came yesterday, when trying to make Daughter Smurf walk around outside and she surprised me by walking down the block to the grocery store for a Danish, walking back, and climbing into the house and down the stairs by herself. This from a girl who two days ago refused to take even one step in pretty much the same circumstance, and who's mortally afraid of stairs. Cool, eh?
...
Well, I gotta go and give money to the Hydro people again before they send their Hydro-thugs after me, not to mention every other multinational billionaire company who needs my money more than me. Until next time,
the Lackadaisical Lexiphage.

A Little Piece of Cheesecake

2007-04-22T06:16:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I'm back!... or front? Hmmmmm......
...
So, McGuinty has a new idea. Apparently, what with the rising problem of cyber-bullying, weiner boy has decided he can stop it and has earmarked $54 million or so to fight it. (Note: this is divided into 2 funds of $23 million and $31 million. Don't ask me to remember what the difference is.) He doesn't have a plan for how to fight cyber-bullying, he doesn't have any trained people for fighting cyber-bullying, and in fact, he can't spell cyber-bullying. The whole point of cyber-bullying is to constantly taunt and belittle other students online, so that third party students can share in the joke and yet the bullies can evade detection by authorities by doing it anonymously (or with nicknames), often in accounts set up specifically for this purpose. Now... I don't approve of cyber-bullying, or for that matter, regular bullying, but seeing as how he hasn't got a clue about how to do anything about it, where did this $54 million number come from?
The answer, of course, is "Duhhhhh...." The number could be a trillion dollars, quite frankly, because other than a token sum, most of the funds are headed back into general revenue anyway.
Really- the problems with the whole idea are many- first, how to find and convict/penalize cyber bullies. Second- why put this program in the hands of principals, who are primarily motivated to go through the motions but not catch anybody, so as to keep funding levels up and the school looking nice and innocent (this was already the case with the York board's silly 'zero-tolerance' policy towards violence). Third- whatever weiner boy might think, bullying still occurs, so if they can't catch the out-in-the-open type bullies, how the hell are they supposed to catch sneaky cyber bullies? Forth, this program is unique in that it is under control of the school and yet most of the cyber-bullying actually takes place OFF OF SCHOOL PROPERTY. In other words, He's giving money to principals to find someone they can't find and don't want to, in order to control their conduct where they can't reach, so that they can solve a problem they already systemically pretend they don't have. And when they FIND the cyber-bullies... does he even have an idea for that? No- it's up to the principal's discretion. Where's the idea here? The bold new initiative? The basic thought patterns which divide the human race from, say, moss?
In a related story, I've been receiving e-mails telling me I'm gay, a dummy, stupid, short and a bad dresser from someone who calls himself "D.M."... He seems to think he's really clever sending them to me, and writes "Ha Hha" and "So hwat do yo thinc of m know?!" a lot. I wonder who it is...
Well, ta-ta for now!
See you next time, from
The Perspicacious Lexiphage

Rise of the Smurfs

2007-04-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

Hello, good evening and welcome!
Once again we bring you a full helping of Lexiphage, which comes complete with side dish and beverage of your choice.
...
This past couple of weeks has been eventful with regards to the Smurfs- Gav and Mya have been talking with unprecedented frequency and ability.
Gav has been using lots of sentences, such as "What is that?", "Is this happening?", and "I wanted this, not juice". To make sure everyone understands, Gav has also got in the habit of saying every sentence a dozen times, each time rewording it so he's sure to get his point across. Example: "Jo's gone home now, Jo's gone away, she's gone now, she's not here, she went home, Jo's gone out, She's gone to her house."
As a completely seperate triumph, Gavin and I had a Sunday breakfast together of steak and eggs, and he actually ate an entire steak! Until this point, the only meat I could get him to eat was bacon, pepperoni, or stuff I could make to look like bacon or pepperoni. Admittedly I had to cut the steak in long, thin strips, but no one would have mistaken it for bacon.
Mya is also advancing rapidly- she can sing several of the words to "twinkle, twinkle little star", and has used her first short sentences- such as "I did that". Of course, she still vastly prefers screeching and screaming to get what she wants, but that she actually seems to think me worthy of talking to is quite the leap.
Also of note on the Mya front- the school told me she had to quit the demands to be carried everywhere and walk for herself despite her fear of strange flooring, and in only a few weeks has gone from refusing to set foot outside of her classroom to repeated escape attempts. For some reason she has a consuming passion for the classroom next door, and wherever she escapes from she makes a beeline for this classroom instead of her own. This summer the stroller (Mya's security blanket) will be mothballed, and I'll have the unbridled joy of carrying everything my kids need lugged along by hand while the little miscreants take off in opposite directions.
Lastly on the Mya subject, she has actually consented to mostly come (occasionally) when I call her- she will walk part way to me as if she respects my opinion or something before starting to ignore me. This is important, as my three and a half year old autistic daughter has NEVER even ATTEMPTED to head in my direction when I've called her... she'll come for her teachers occasionally and sometimes for the Neighbour Lady, but never for me, her only full-time parental figure (She knows full well if she doesn't come, I'll go get her myself).
...
The Insane Ex is once again pretending to be buddy-buddy with me... this is because it would be unreasonable for me to hold a grudge against someone who only punched me in the face five or six times and threatened to cut my throat once. She sees fit to call me nearly every day (collect, of course), question me about the welfare of the Smurfs, and remind me how every decision I make for them is wrong. Apparently she says now the Neighbour Lady should be the Smurfs' surrogate mother instead of their buddy, what with how I couldn't take care of a chia pet for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. The fact that the smurfs are still alive after a year under my care is apparently a coincidence of some kind, and most especially she is concerned Mya will somehow contract frostbite in warm, dry weather indoors unless she wears mittens. Riiiiight.
...
Lastly, the government is apparently conducting a study of some kind on autistic kids, and is willing to pay me a stipend for a session with the Smurfs. Admittedly I could use the cash, but seeing as how McGuinty and his henchmen are behind it I suspect a trap. I'll probably sign up for it, but be careful what I sign, never let the rugrats out of my sight, and have three escape routes planned to evade Men in Black. I have a stungun I made from an old cellphone, a car battery, and two coathangers that I might conceal up one sleeve just in case too.
...
Well, I had better do something useful with the rest of the evening. I'm going to see if I can rig up a capacitor to the stungun to get a few extra amps out of it. Until next time,
The Panjandrumic Lexiphage.

Wrestling the Image of the Beast

2007-04-05T06:22:00.000-05:00

Hiya folks.
Well, I finally got this thing working again. Apparently I need to turn my computer upside down and expose its soft underbelly every time I go on here now; for some reason my computer changed its mind and decided Blogspot was dangerous... I don't know how it was convinced of this but still suspect McGuinty's more intelligent handlers.
...
Speaking of McGuinty, it has finally become apparent where he stashes all of that money he gets when he rips off autistic kids and retired old ladies and such. The number of people in the Ontario government who make $100,000 or more is just shy of 34,000 people. This is, of course, not including their penion plans, which on average, we pay four times what they do to create and which also average in the neighbourhood of $100,000 (I think I read $84,000, but don't quote me on that). Assuming the other three quarters of a million people whom our provincial government employs make the national average salary (this is $39,000. They make more than this but I don't have an exact figure) that adds up to about $30-$40 billion. The government is fond of saying that in order to get the best people, we have to pay these exorbitant rates. I don't know about you, but looking at the McGuinty government's record, I don't think we're getting the best people. I think perhaps if we were to randomly select a crack addict from the streets of Toronto to replace each of these 34,000 people, then we could pay them minimum wage and hardly do worse. This would amount to around $2.5 billion saved in wages alone. If we hired some crack addict lab monkeys we probably would have a decent shot too.
...
The Lexiphage's idea on how to save the health care system: Maybe if we stopped remodelling hospitals every year and instead spent that money on training and hiring doctors and nurses, maybe we could cure some sick people or something. No insult to the construction profession, but I don't really trust a bricklayer to diagnose my MRI. Not that they build hospitals out of bricks any more; they have to be all made of curved glass walls framed in mother-of-pearl and moon rock, and the rare non-glass walls have to support lots of archways, bridges, indoor trees, fountains, and automated crawling cages with robotic feeding systems to house the cloned albino leopards inside, and feed them beluga caviar and fresh spring water imported from an iceburg on the north pole of Mars. I hear next year at our local hospital they're removing all of the floors and ceilings to replace them with Liquid Crystal Display televisions that play commercials for how great the hospital is getting 24 hours a day.
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Not that there's anything wrong with our health care system. They just need to get rid of all the pesky sick people and then it would work fine.
...
The smurfs are doing okay lately; Mya is talking and singing a little, but last night she stayed up the ENTIRE night either hollering or banging. I was pleased with this. Really. Gavin is having short conversations with me on a regular basis, and the other day said "Want to go to Tim Horton's" fairly clearly. He's always tired though, both because of school pushing him hard and because Mya keeps him up nights.
...
Well, that's all for now. I have to go as I've been hired by the government to perform a study on whether people like being beaten with a stick or not. It has a budget of $187,000 and needs to be completed by 2010 so that McGuinty can throw it in his shredder and use the remains to set his trash can on fire and light a $66,000 cigar he got imported from a guy who hand rolls them in Tibet with special gloves made from live pygmy marmosets.
Until next time,
The Misanthropic Lexiphage.

The Long-Awaited Return of the Sequel

2007-03-23T11:42:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone...
Sorry for not posting for so long; apparently the new blogger and my computer do not mix, so I am posting this outside of the Lair until I figure out what to do next. Before I move on, however, let me say that I was, in fact, right to fear change and therefore will continue to do so.
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The Smurfs are doing well, Gavin is talking even more and enjoys wearing his leather jacket and sneakers in the warmer weather. Mya is talking sporatically, saying things like "Hungry", "No", and "Hi Dad". Mainly still screaming, though. This coming September Mya should be joining Juniour Kindergarten just as Gavin moves on up to Senior Kindergarten (from what I understand this involves old people wearing diapers and eating pureed food, so I'm not sure why Gav needs to be there... but, I digress...). Both are recovering from ear infections, and what stress they suffer as a result they feel comfortable in relieving with methods involving aiming at my head.
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Against all probability the Neighbour Lady and myself continue to remain not only on speaking terms, but actually as touchy-feely as ever. This flies in the face of conventional thinking, which suggests the only romantic relationship I am qualified for involves cash up front.
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The Insane Ex is once again in the hospital after showing up at my door in defiance of court order under the impression she was going to move in or something. Being fond of sleeping without one eye open, I politely refused and arranged an exchange of ideas between her and the police.
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McGuinty is up to his usual tricks, his sneaky budgets openly allocating budgets towards the treatment of Autistic children whilst covertly scooping the same funds into the Liberal election coffers. Don't worry, though- despite the fact that there are laws preventing this sort of thing, it isn't really illegal because the government is doing it. An update on the waiting list for IBI therapy- when the liberals took office there was a wait list of 78 children for this program... Since then, despite McGuinty's followers pretending to throw money at the problem, the same list numbers over 1000. That's right, 1000. I'm not making this up, people.
I can only conclude that as his biggest critic, McGuinty's more intelligent handlers arranged a virus to grapple with the Lair's computer. The fools underestimate me, however. You'll need to wake up a little earlier that these types to be a step ahead of me (say, 11:49 a.m. aught to about do it).
Fortunately, what with me funnelling all this info to the people of Ontario and all, we can expect another two majorities for McGuinty, unless he starts fulfilling promises.
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So, I guess that is it for me, for now... I have to log off before the Men in Black trace this broadcast to my current location and show up with cattle prods and some of those new electric bullets the U.S. army is messing with (we all know they prefer nonlethal force, right?). So, until I wake up in Guatanamo Bay,
Ciao, from
The Ubiquitous Lexiphage.

Possibly Good Ideas

2007-02-20T07:45:00.000-05:00

Hello folks.
The Lexiphage has been dragged screaming into the modern world with the people at Blogger dragging me to their new version... apparently they have been reading my blog as they were very particular about crossing out the "Beta" moniker in the title. Despite my worst fears and past experience with the world in general, this was not instantly lethal or even particularly painful, although the jury is still out on any of the particular improvements what with how I haven't had time to check them out.
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Also worth mentioning is the blog of my biggest fan's husband... while I don't have a link up for him yet I'll get it there soon. In the meanwhile I'd just like to mention his ideas for a political "utopian" party removed from right and left wing goofiness has some interesting potential... as a warning to those who would track this guy down (as I said, I'll get the link up soon enough) he has an aversion to sound bites and goes pretty much in the opposite direction, he appears to have a fairly well-functioning noodle on the subject.
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This is gonna be a pretty short blog, what with how I'm jamming it unceremoniously into an otherwise normal morning and no doubt am going to be heavily penalized for it. Thusly, I'll have to continue my rant at a more convenient point in space-time.
Farewell to you all,
The Carminative Lexiphage.

Another Month Worth of Progress

2007-02-17T09:39:00.000-05:00

Greetings, fellow web-wanderers, I, The Lexiphage, have returned!!
Lots of boring junk has come out lately so I'll waste no time in troweling it out for you to peruse at your leisure, or ignore if you'd rather.
Item #1: My cholesterol is apparently back within mortal parameters, hiving reduced in 3 months from 8.6 to 4.94. I'm told this means I'm no longer a walking stick of butter, and may even live out the year free of impending doom. Obviously they don't know me very well...
Item #2: The Lexiphage's Horrifying Muffins of Evil:
You'll need 1.5 cups of organic raw sugar, 3 free-range eggs, 1 tablespoon of vanilla, 1 teaspoon each of baking powder & baking soda (I can never tell those two apart), a whack of ground cinnamon, a cup of vegetable oil (keep it light but un-chemically), 3 cups whole wheat flour, and a bit of salt. The Secret Ingredients are a half a cup of orange juice, a cup of grated carrot, as big a blob of peanut butter as you can scoop up with a tablespoon, around a quarter cup of chopped broccoli (really cooked and soggy), some parmesan cheese, a bit of cocoa powder, a squirt of lemon juice, and 30 some-odd years of pent up rage. (This last one replaces the usual secret ingredient of love, which in my opinion has no place with baked goods. Those of you who have seen American Pie will know what I mean.)
What you do then: Violently jam the eggs , sugar and oil into a bowl and mangle them until you can't tell them apart. Once they are reduced to a slimy pudding, drop in the Secret Ingredients and vanilla and twist that gunk until it begs for mercy. By now it'll be fairly stiff and uncooperative, and it will only get moreso as you add the rest of that crap. Wrestle it into submission (I like to pound it with my fist a little and pretend I'm strangling it for around 10 minutes), and make sure it's too liquidy to put up any more of a struggle. drip that goop into a muffin tin (you may need to grease it), and toss that bad boy into a preheated oven (say, 300 degrees for 20 or 25 minutes). Pull 'em out- they'll be hot- and as soon as they are cool enough, pluck 'em from the muffin tin and stuff them into your drooling piehole.
Wasn't that beautiful?
My autistic kids love 'em, and they have all 4 food groups in there (the dairy is a bit of a stretch, but the cheese is something), so it's great for lazy people like myself.
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Both the smurfs have the flu AGAIN, and Mya was wrestling with a fever for a day or so. Now they seem to be peachy except for a bit of snot, which is par for the course with rugrats anyway (I just had to remove a booger plug from each of my daughter's nostrils, which I love doing). McGuinty is still trying to tell me to stick the anti-flu sharpened spike into 'em, what with how they've already injected them with several hundred times the lethal level of mercury anyway... I for some reason have trouble with his sincerity and generally speaking would rather trust someone with a hockey mask and running chainsaw.
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Well, being Canadian, I now have to go and pay taxes for a few weeks. In the unlikely event that the government says "Okay, pal, you've given us enough money... why not keep a few bucks for yourself?" I'll send you another nugget of wisdom.
Ciao for now,
The Beleaguered Lexiphage.

A little Disclaimer

2007-01-21T17:33:00.000-05:00

Just a notice to all my fans:
I've posted 45 times in the past 9 months, which works out to around once a week. Put that in your brazier and inhale it!
Ciao again,
The Axiomatic Lexiphage.

My old pal McGuinty

2007-01-21T17:09:00.000-05:00

Hey folks, it's me again.
That was quick, eh?
I'm spoiling the lot of you; you don't deserve it.
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Enough of that rant, now onto another rant.
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My old buddy McGuinty is really at it again: two scintillating jewels of rational thought. First, he once again increased the IBI funding for autistic kids... Yay! He finally increased the number of 'spaces' available by 225 for the first time in his administration. Of course, during that time the wait list has ballooned by 1300% (I'm not making that figure up, it's real!). Don't worry too much though... He also finally increased the funding for educating IBI therapists this year. Of course, that means the new therapists won't be ready for a while, so luckily that money for the 225 new spaces goes right back into general revenues again, and will until the first crop of workers is trained. Let me rephrase:
Dalton McGuinty allocated new funding to autistic kids in such a way that he can easily steal it back legally to pay for resurfacing his pool table in mother of pearl and polished moon rock.
Also, McGuinty recently decided that smoking is illegal in all public venues, throwing hundreds of small businesses into turmoil, in order to protect employees at those locations; however he also decided that casino employees are worthless pricks not worth this consideration. After all, casinos are run by the government, so why should they follow all of the rules? As long as all of the small businessmen who refinance their house and drain their life savings to realize their dream of owning their own bar are mercilessly crushed into bankruptcy so McGuinty can continue to recklessly squander our tax money for his own twisted, personal amusement, where's the harm?
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Well, that was a short one but hopefully I'll be back in 20 minutes or so when McGuinty does something else stupid.
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Arefay Ellway,
The Peccadillous Lexiphage.

The Implications of an Impending Year

2007-01-18T00:43:00.000-05:00

Hiya everyone!
At long last I have returned to bring you enlightenment.
Well, it's a new year, and Mr. McGuinty is now enjoying his well-deserved pay raise during his 12 week vacation... Ahem...
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The Smurfs are progressing in leaps and bounds- Mya is now drawing and eating a small but growing variety of foods, and Gavin is talking up a storm. I took a bit of advice from Fiddling Granny and made some homemade muffins for them- without the spelt flour and seaweed she prefers but with milk, several kinds of fruit juice, peanut butter, shredded carrot, organic raw sugar, and a single chocolate chip each, and they seem to be a hit...
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The Neighbour Lady and I are doing well; she has finally realized that nothing I say or do should be relied upon as accurate and is comfortable with that... (except of course my blog, but that goes without saying). Her and I have been officially together since the beginning of September, and both of us are still alive! Not only is this its own benefit, I also have won twenty-eight bucks in two related betting pools!
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My pneumonia is officially gone, no thanks to the doctors, and I am breathing like a normal person again; naturally it is time for my athlete's foot to start burrowing tunnels into the callous on my tootsies and causing me considerable discomfort. Now the cold is here, my arthritis is acting up again... and I'm getting more of that phantom feeling from my peg leg- it stings like you wouldn't believe! My cholesterol has yet to be confirmed, what with the doctor's tiddlywinks tournament going on, but I've lost 10 pounds or so and feel pretty much like I did before, only lighter. A little operation on the alien parasite in my spinal fluid and I'll feel like a spry 68 year old.
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I'll post some pics soon from my shiny new digital camera, but I need to figure out how it works first... no matter how many times I hit it with a rolled up newspaper it refuses to fetch my slipper, so uploading data may be a few steps down the road.
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Well, that's all you get this week, folks.
Talk atcha soon, and may you always have lots to complain about.
Merry New Year from
Seminihilist Lexiphage.

I Fear Change

2006-12-14T15:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, hey! Welcome back, people.
Just thought I'd grace you with my presence once again. The title (see above) refers to the fact I am avoiding the New Version of Blogger with my usual paranoia.
So today I'm at the doctor's office, and my son is sick and in the care of a babysitter (the Neighbour Lady- two thumbs up!) and it's 2:45 pm; I am waiting for my 1:15 pm appointment. This appointment is, amoung other things, to check up on my pneumonia (eight weeks running now) or whatever it is, my still-inconclusive cholesterol levels (the doctor says I probably should have had a heart attack already). I do not fear this. This is not change. However, the increasing likelihood that I'll suffer a horriffic, painful death while waiting for a doctor to tell me I'm actually not sick is change... not so much that it happens, but rather that the entire doctoring profession seems so hell-bent on shattering what little faith I have left in them. This is change, I kind of expect the world to screw me over. That doesn't scare me. But you kind of expect people to put up at least a half-assed effort to pretend everything isn't actually their fault. I picture myself lying rent open on an operating table with my entrails splattered all over the room, a rusty cleaver jammed in my skull and rats with rabies and fleas chewing on my insides. A doctor enters the room, passing the heavily laden black-market organ salesman as he does; he's looking at a clipboard and says to me "Okay Mr. Currie, your tests have all come out fine; why don't we make an appointment to see you next year?"
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Everyone's favourite premier, Mr. McGuinty, is at it again. Apparently his idea to keep kids in school is to deny them their driver's license until they drop back in. Now... I realize this on the surface may seem like a good idea, except for a few minor points:
a) If the kid gets his license prior to dropping out, there's nothing they can do 'till renewal time, which is in what- 5 years? Obviously most dropouts will balk at this because of how concerned they are about their future...
b) Mr. McGuinty acknowledges they can't possibly enforce this law, he has to plan to enable them to do so, and so the rare kid that actually is barred from his license will really be more of an anomaly than a policy.
c) The only kids which will actually lose their license are those who are convicted in truancy court. I skipped the better part of a decade in high school, hung out with others who did as well, and I never HEARD of truancy court. I guess he just figured our courts' backlogs are far too small, just like our doctors'...
d) Most kids dropping out of school to prostitute themselves and deal drugs will no doubt ne terrified of a driving without a license conviction.
... How's about we bar non-graduates from voting instead? In that case we're far less likely to have to deal with this issue again. Or at least, this premier.
Despite that, we all have come to realize that McGuinty is still doing a fantastic job. We MUST have realized that, because the provincial parliament is supposed to represent our wants and needs, and apparently we want and need the MPPs to all get a 25% pay raise (that's $22,000 minimum) by Christmas.
One Liberal MPP, a Mr. Patten, said "I think it's the right thing to do; it's fairly humble; if they don't (like it), they can boot us out."
Obviously doubling their RRSP allowance has nothing to do with this prediction.
The NDP called the raise "thouroughly repugnant"... what is the world coming to when the left-wing hippie commie types are the most fiscally responsible? We'll see how many of them send their checks back...
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As an aside, those of you familiar with my thoughts on RSPs will no doubt realize the most MPPs can cash those RSP's in well before they'll need to worry.
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Last little tidbit- apparently another 3 people have been snatched off the streets by the RCMP, held without trial, deported without due process and sent to the Americans in a nice big "terrorist enclosed" envelope. It's okay, though, because some terrorist countries said those guys were terrorists, and they wouldn't lie, right? Good thing the States doesn't torture their prisoners (nudge, nudge), right?
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Well, now that I've made you all cheery and nostalgic for the lovely world around us, I'll ditch you in your pit of despair.
Bye Bye now!
As always, the Metaphobic Lexiphage.

The Lexiphage's Retirement Plan

2006-11-27T18:23:00.000-05:00

Hello, everyone- just popping in for a quick post.
My Biggest Fan recently asked me about my theory regarding RSP's sp I thought I'd inflict it upon you all. It goes something like this:

The concept of an RSP is that as income is taxes to a proportionately larger degree based on your income, by moving some of your income into an RSP you lower your current income, and avoid paying taxes, and in the future your retirement income will be extremely low 'cuz you already own everything, thusly needing less. By living then on an extremely low income, you either pay only a little tax or avoid the taxman entirely, and so in a small sense, some of your money NEVER is taxed.

This will work for those who have already retired and those who will retire soon; those who are planning to work for the next decade or two may find a different strategy is required.

This is the core reason:
GOVERNMENTS DO NOT LOWER TAXES. EVER. Now don't get me wrong, sometime we get the odd little cut here and there, but it is the nature of bureacracy to defend its own existance (and budget). Thusly, a government program, once initiated will more likely than not continue to run and spend money whether it is successful or not. Over the larger scene, what this means is that a goverment over time will spend more regardless of what they say regarding fiscal responsibility, transparency of government, or other myths. Our population is aging, and as the baby boomers approach retirement age our government nears the point where it will have to subsist on taxes from retirees. Once a large enough portion of our population is living on lower-tax or tax-free income, the government will simply change the rules to tax them extra hard. There's no escaping it.
So my thought is to invest, as much as possible, in items that never lose their value, or items that will never lose their value to you, anyway. Don't borrow against your home equity for a bigger RSP, you idiot, pay off your house instead. Invest in canned food and shotgun shells, build your own backyard power plant and drill your own well; make a nice fortified stone wall around your yard with battlements and gun slits. Convert your basement into a fallout shelter. Buy lots of bear traps to scatter around in a way that's pleasing to the eye and await the socioeconomic collapse with a peaceful heart.
When the government begins seizing all of the citizen's financial assets and martial law is all that keeps the marauding bands of flesh-eating nuclear mutants at bay, you'll know you made a good investment.
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Thanks for tuning in....
Join us next week for the next exiting adventure with
The Timorous Lexiphage.

The Inexorable Steamroller of Time

2006-11-24T02:20:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone!
Once again good taste and comman decency have been set aside so the Lexiphage can come to town!
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While the foolish Americans are busy celebrating Thanksgiving, up here in the more highly evolved Canada, we have a far more important celebration planned. By that I of course am referring to the Birthday of the Lexiphage, where yours truly turns a decrepit old 34 years of age. Thanks to all of you for the well-wishes, e-cards, e-mails, and E. Coli sent my way.
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So, lately I have been fighting a heroic battle against the looming monster of Pneumonia, a viscous little bug which has, due to our fine medical establishment's help, had a free month or so to flourish in the fertile soil which is my bod. The smurfs have also been dealing with milder versions of this particular evil, but as they have not personally badmouthed any public officials or pharmaceutical companies lately they'll probably survive.
The Lexiphage is also apparently higher in cholesterol than lard... the doctor discovered this when my blood sample came out yellow and he ate some of it on toast.
All of this assumes the doctor is right about all of this junk, which would be an unusual occurrance (in my experience if a doctor makes a correct diagnosis it's because he's looking at the wrong patient) but just in case I've stopped licking out my frying pan after cooking bacon in peanut oil.
The Neighbour Lady crafted a nice Birthday dinner for yours truly, and despite my current health-challenged status, I was able to wolf it down, taking only a few short breaks to collapse and cough out a lung. I was appreciative and ended my day on a positive note, unlike the beginning of the day which was... NOT positive.
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Speaking of NOT positive, Steven Harper finally pulled the Stupid Thing. You see, once a public official gets elected, I like to keep track of how long they can go without doing something abysmally and totally stupid, or just plain evil. I don't mean a little stupid, mediocre, or misguided, but something really shitty. This then becomes a useful scale to measure the quality of our leaders. For example, Jean Cretien got through nearly a full term before it started to come out he'd been diabolically evil the whole time... Dalton McGuinty pulled his Stupid Thing when he first opened his mouth during his election campaign.

Steve-o just declared Quebec a freakin' nation, so once again we have to go through that whole process again. Apparently, the Bloc Quebecois was about to table a law that said Quebec was a nation separate from Canada, so Harper's big idea is to counter that by saying "country-yes, seperate-no".
Really, I mean he's the first non-Quebecer Prime Minister we've had since Joe Clark (I think) and naturally despite that he's gonna spend his time french kissing the separatists' corn shutes. Way to go, Steve-o, way to go.
Well, I've spent about enough time bitching...
Until I stop hacking up phlegm, Ciao from
The Scrofulous Lexiphage.

Political Garbage

2006-11-08T18:22:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. I hate to open this can of worms, but my biggest fan has an unhealthy obsession with debate (see her blog, the link is below).
Here are my points:
1) Bush is, granted, an idiot.
2) I find it remarkable that there is currently an industry forming of people who feel the need to tell everyone else that Bush is an idiot.
3) Bush is perhaps a warmonger, but let's face it, so is every other American President, and when Bush gets voted out he will be replaced with another warmongering President. The Americans will not tolerate a peacenick Pres.
4) There was already two movies published by Micheal Moore whose subject was Bush's idiocy (Bowling for Columbine featured this heavily, and Farenheit 9-11 was about this subject entirely). Does there need to be another one?
5) Maybe the Dixie Chicks said more regarding their position, but all I heard was the bit about being ashamed of Bush. Maybe if they had said something about not agreeing with the war I'd be less critical, but Politics is not, in my opinion, a forum for personal sniping (not to say that everyone doesn't do it, but I'm critical of the entire trend).
6) Cretien was at least as big a shmuck as Bush, if not exactly an idiot... why did no one make a movie about him, or the fact that when they were in power the shooting in Afghanistan was a GOOD idea, whereas now that they are not in power, it is a BAD one.
7) Are there any Canadian soldiers in Iraq? It was my impression that we were sitting this one out... in fact, I seem to remember a controversy at the beginning of this whole mess about Canada staying out of it.
8) The idiots who support Bush and who ran around with picket signs and death threats are also idiots, and probably went too far.
9) It is a shame that people in postions of power abuse it in order to crush their opponents, but it's only been happening for 10,000 years and will probably be happening until Armageddon. Bush ain't the only one, he's just the one who got caught doing it recently. But like Jean Cretien, he'll never be prosecuted for any breach of trust, no matter how many people were crushed. Anybody remember the Smothers Brothers?
10) The Dixie Chicks are whining and bitching, pure and simple, and whilst I can't credit them with this much intellect I wouldn't be surprised if the thing wasn't some kind of publicity stunt because in the end they'll be more popular than ever. At the very least, they'll pull in as much money with their movie as they ever did with their CDs.

To sum up:
Bush is an idiot. I agree. I understand. I get it. I've heard something about it every time I've turned on the TV for years now. Every celebrity and their grandmother has decided to make themselves look thoughtful by repeating that Bush is an idiot. I get it. I understand. I'm sure when I watch TV tonight, I'll hear Angelina Jolie, or the Dixie Chicks, or Dermot Mulroney or Paul Martin or David Letterman, or Jean Cretien, or Martha Stewart, or some other newscaster or singer or actor or author or politician or comedian say, once again, that Bush is an idiot. I'm sure that on this side of the border, every time we have an election for the next seventy years, the Conservative side will be heckled because they are right wing (not really by the States' standards, but by ours) and Bush is right wing, and Bush is an idiot. I get it. I understand. It really just surprises me that with around half of the world bitching about George W., how come nobody has a single interesting or thoughtful thing to say about it?

There you go. Rant over.
Bye bye for now, the Vociferous Lexiphage.

How to Tune a Fish (not a piano)... not really

2006-11-06T20:44:00.000-05:00

Hello Interneteers, at long last your lexiphage-free diet has been interrupted with some pithy goodness.
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First off, the basic Lexiphamily's news: Mya continues to expand her solid-eating repertoire, as does Gavin's speech; the Neighbour Lady is having her usual issues with the Neighbour Offspring but is otherwise okay due to her increased exposure to myself.
In other news, McGuinty has a new idea that will make high school students suddenly want to graduate. I haven't read it yet, but rest assured I will have comments.
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Now that the basics are covered, I wish to rant about a subject which irks me greatly. First, let me say I am not an ardent or even casual Dubya supporter; I am well aware that in the name of democracy three quarters of the free world will shoot anyone who says Dubya isn't a moron. That being said, I have a problem with the Dixie Chicks and their stupid movie.
From what I understand, and please, correct me if I'm wrong (don't laugh, it'll happen one day) the actual quotation that got everybody so weird about these idiots was something along the lines of "...We think it's a travesty that our president is a man from Texas!"
Lo and behold, the Dixie Chicks career suddenly is in peril!!!!
Now, I realize country music is an institution that is not overwhelmed with Mensa members, but the insinuation that the troubles they now face actually are a result of the evil Bush People persecuting them makes me amazed they can figure out which end of the cowboy hat goes on the head.
I will not comment here on the stereotypes of Texans; suffice to say they are well-know to us all. However, the implication that the largest state has no right to install the Prez is pretty assinine... The real moronism here is the implication that other southern states, by being like Texas, are equally invalid. You know, like Tennessee... home of NASHVILLE!!!! DUH!
Really, if giving the finger to the southern states, including the whole frickin' country music recording industry, doesn't ruin their careers, that country is more screwed up than I thought.
Therefore, a message to the Dixie Chicks, and all who worked on their whining "You done me wrong" movie:
ARE YOU REALLY THAT STUPID??? I mean, you apparently play guitar and foster the impression you can write music, stand upright and dress yourselves... CAN you be THAT STUPID???
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As an aside, the whole Country music phenomenon irritates me. It's the superiority thing that does it to me- that whole "cowboys are tough, ain't nothin' like a country girl, real man, real music" thing that really grates on me, although the "rootin' tootin', honky-tonk, yee-haw" thing doesn't help.
Primarily, of course, it comes down to two real points of contention- first, the hats, and second, the weird notion that buying expensive silk shirts, developing a fake drawl and bitching about your cheatin' wife stealin' the pickup truck to run off with your favourite sheep has anything at all to do with the era of Billy the Kid 150 years ago. It's like a Star Trek convention, only it's like 30% of the globe taking part.
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Bunch o' weirdos.
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You know, I've been waiting to get that off of my chest for a long time. I feel better now. Ahhhhhhhhh.....
Ciao for a bit,
The Cathartic Lexiphage.

A Cool Brain Thing

2006-10-17T18:50:00.000-05:00

Hello, people. I've been meaning to show you a cool brain thing for some time, only I keep forgetting. Someone e-mailed it to me, and as weird as it is, it works... at least, it did for me...
All your brain needs to identify a word is the first and last letters in the right places, and the other letters to just be in there. The rest it just sort of ignores... thusly, to read the word "ignores" one can spell it "ingeors" and your brain can read it. It doesn't seem right when you just see one word, but check out this block of text:

Lsat Tuhsrady, I wnet out to a raurestnat to get smenthiog to eat. It was a cprapy rsteraaunt but a ptrety wtrsaies I konw wokrs three. I orrdeed a ham and ceeshe sndwcaih on wohle waeht wtih lcuttee and ttomao, and a dfrat beer. Tehn Doltan MGiycunt saw me hnviag a good tmie and had me soht. Waht a rip.

Weird, eh?
That was all I had to say today, just thought it was interesting.
Ciao,
The Stultified Lpxieahge.

McGuinty's Wisdom

2006-10-14T15:39:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! The Lexiphage has returned!
Hope you all missed me!
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Our freind McGuinty has been hard at work lately; for one, he has been applying his well-thought-out energy strategies to the towns of Port Colborne and Fort Erie, and is also hard at work on relations with the natives.
The two towns I mentioned were both hit with freak snowstorms recently, both getting around a foot (30 cm) of snow and losing the power grid. Naturally, McGuinty's plan to shut down the coal plants and fire up the nukes will cheer them up considerably when Pickering starts producing power again in 2021. Apparently he didn't learn his lesson from the blackouts we've been having for the last FIVE YEARS or so.
His Public Relations talents really came into the limelight, however, when some of the the Six Nations natives decided once again that a particular plot of land was theirs several hundred years ago (just like everywhere else in Canada, but who's counting?). The leaders of the Six Nations came to his goverment and ASKED THEM TO PUT A STOP TO IT. McGuinty, ever the altruist, listened politely to them, agreed that they protesters were not there legitimately, and then also agreed with the hooligans. Once again, McGuinty has angered the special interest group he was trying to placate, while angering everyone else too. Kind of reminds me of Bob Rae (who, incidentally is thinking of returning to politics under the Liberal banner, but that's another story)...
An analogy which occurs to me may illustrate how stupid this whole scenario is. Picture Muslim leaders coming to the Prime Minister's office to tip them off about a terrorist attack before it actually happens. Then the Prime Minister calls up the terrorists just to let them know he's okay with their plan, and they can blow up whatever they like. Then the PM tells the cops not to bother with the whole thing.
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I love Big Brother.
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Well, I'm getting tired of typing, so you all will have to tune in next time, when you'll hear Nurse Piggy say: "Doctor, it hurts whenever I do this!"
Ciao for now,
the Primogenitous Lexiphage.

Rabid Wolverines

2006-10-04T19:47:00.000-05:00

Okay folks, I have several important things to fill you in on.
Item #1: The Rabid Wolverine (seeing as how that's the title, I'll start there)- The Neighbour Lady's younger Smurf comes in the other day crying 'cuz she sees what she figures is a skunk and she says it's dying down by the creek. Despite her mother's and my insistence that she stay the hell away from the wounded, smelly animal, she refuses so we decide to go down and check it out. It the creek behind my house is a creature scrabbling around the rocks with about 20 kids watching it. Apparently it had been trapped under a 5 or 6 pound rock, and was walking slowly and bobbing its' head around for food or something...
I've seen many skunks in my time, and folks, that was no skunk, unless it painted over its striping and gained about 15 or 20 pounds. It wasn't a badger, 'cuz it had a bushy tail like a big squirrel, but otherwise I would've thought that... I saw a drawing of a wolverine once, and as best as I could tell, that bloody thing matched. Well, if it had been under the rock the kids had pointed out, the only thing I could say was the rock was probably in trouble. I'm well aware that southern Ontario is not the normal habitat of the little monsters, so I had a little self-doubt, but I told everyone what I thought and tried to shoo away the kids, then went home and looked up wolverines on the internet to get a picture better than a half-remembered sketch. The pics I found looked like they were this thing's family photos.
Incidentally, the info that I got were that the wolverine normally lives in BC, the Yukon and places in that area, and that they are 'rare' further east than that. The weight class appeared about right- the stats said something like 20 to 45 pounds, and this sucker would've weighed around 25 pounds or so...
Anyway, none of the kids believed that something of that size could take your arm off so they continued to poke at it until someone called the OSPCA to come check it out. I don't know what happened, but I ain't going to look.
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The Neighbour Lady and I have been lurking together in the same holes in the ground lately, so apparently the Insane Ex has been replaced. The Neighbour Lady is only crazy in ways I like, and she has this strange habit of doing nice things for me instead of kicking me in the head, making this a rather unique relationship for me... I've been finding it harder to be as grumpy as I'm used to, so I'll have to step up the efforts to bring down McGuinty and his nefarious band of skulduggerous miscreants.
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Mya's eating habits continue to improve, as does Gavin's speech capabilities... I'm starting to teach him how to write, but I've got a long way to go as I can barely get him to make a mark on the chaulkboard.
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Well, I've annoyed you all for long enough for the moment... now I will retreat to my evil laundry room where I am preparing a towel for a diabolical political scheme.
Until a future date,
The Fulminant Lexiphage

The Multiphageous Smurf

2006-09-28T18:40:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone... it is time once again for the Lexiphage! YAY!!!!!
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This week there is some nifty news... Mya, the youngest smurf in the Lexiphamily, has finally begun to eat a variety of solids. Now on the approved list are jellybeans, cupcakes, crackers (apparently- I haven't seen her eat crackers myself) and pizza. Mya treats everything solid in the same way, first licking off any sugar, glaze or icing before systematically breaking the target food into individual crumbs. Once properly sundered, she eats the crumbs one by one and licks any incidental remainders from her hands. She has also begun to tolerate many foods like Cheerios or pretzels, which she still won't eat but seems to be warming to.
It's about frickin' time!
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The Municipal elections are coming to Ontario, and so far it looks like the next mayor of my little hamlet will be an aging rich white male career politician, much to my surprise. As yet, i have not heard which of the candidates, if any, are bilingual... not that it actually matters, but experience has shown me that in order to do well in Canadian electoral politics one has to be an aging rich white male bilingual career politician from either Quebec or a part of Ontario that's within 50 miles of Quebec. This is why, no matter how well Steven Harper may do during his first term of office, whether he personally negotiates world peace, solves world hunger, eliminates the national debt and/or gives everybody in the world a big pile of cash, he will NEVER be re-elected. In the past three decades or so, every Prime Minister has fit my criteria except for Steven Harper and Joe Clark, who only lasted six months or so and both of whom had minority governments. (For those of you crying "What about Kim Campbell?" I remind you I said electoral politics, and as you may recall, Campbell was appointed by Mulroney just before he fled to the states to avoid the multitude of investigations, and was voted out at the first opportunity. Thusly, if ever I hope to rule our fair country I must single-handedly take it by brute force, or change my birth records, quit speaking English and learn French (Tabernac!).
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Little piece of information: A single pretzel has about 12 calories, weighs about 3 grams and has 1 gram of sodium and a half a gram each of carbohydrates and iron. If you eat a 1 pound bag of pretzels, you'll have eaten two and a half ounces of iron... so stay away from magnets.
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That is not precisely accurate, but it is fun, isn't it?
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Oh, well... I'm tired and irritable, so I'm going to go mail a letter to the provicial government suggesting a stupid policy change and forge 1,000 signatures, just to see if the Liberal party has any sudden policy changes.
Bye for now,
The Hagridden Lexiphage.

Pic of the Homestead

2006-09-17T18:24:00.000-05:00

Heya fans! Just thought it had been a while since I had posted a work of crayon, and I had time to spare in between knocking billy-goats off of my overpass, so...
Anyhoo, Gav had a good first week of school and Mya had a good first week of full-time daycare; both of them have already begun to show improvement in their speech and have taken the opportunity to unleash their newfound powers against me.
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I finally got the necessary documents to begin the real process of getting Mya's Birth Certificate, and filed them appropriately. Now all I require is to wait TEN MONTHS for the government to catch up, and she'll officially exist. I mentioned something about McGuinty improving the workings of government again to the helpful worker who has been guiding me through the process, but although she declined to comment (she works for him indirectly) she at least did not disagree. In the meanwhile, I also have been granted the forms necessary to apply for her temporary updated Health Card. This is, of course, not a 'real' Health Card as Mya doesn't currently exist, but in 10 months or so I can start the Health Card application process once again and hopefully get her real Health Card before the temporary one expires at the one year mark.
Of course, all this hinges on McGuinty not making any more improvements in the interim to "deal with" the backlog. If that happens, Mya has another few years to not exist (until election time, when, if there are any brain cells left in Ontario, we'll get a new Premier).
Well, I'm a busy man, so you'll have to deal with a short post.
Ciao for now,
The Impenitent Lexiphage.

The Attack of the Smurfs

2006-09-14T07:31:00.000-05:00

Salutations, gentlebeings.
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You know, I like fan mail, but am I really that entertaining?
Well, of course I am. Poor folks, going for so long without Lexiphageness... how do you survive?
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Okay, so the Smurfs have been going to an increased school curriculum recently, having started on Monday (in case the Men in Black are messing with my posting time today, that's three days ago). Gavin, the Senior Smurf, has been going to Junior Kindergarten in the afternoons and Daycare in the mornings and Mya has been going to daycare for a massive 5 1/2 hours a day. Gavin's speech is already showing improvement, so it won't be long now 'till we can discuss politics. Mya is talking pretty regularly now, mostly words like "hi" and "Dad" and "expostulatory". She sings occasionally so I'm trying to teach her "Anarchy in the UK" and "Smoking in the Boys' Room". Also of note, the Junior Smurkf has at long last started to eat solids, and rather enjoys a good cupcake or (although I haven't seen this personnally yet) a cracker. I have to start warning her about the danger of racial slurs.
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So I went up to Fiddling Granny's house on the weekend with Mr and Mrs Gryper and the Smurfs, and we had a riot discussing the merits of shuffleboard versus Bingo. The Zookeeper and her male escort swung by (the Zookeeper's offspring were avoiding me apparently) after only a few short hours of directional confusion, and they joined in the conversation and wine might have been mentioned. Of course, being, fine, upstanding citizens without a trace of irresponsibility we avoided openiong more than sixteen bottles between us over lunch. The Zookeeper liked her first experience with this beverage so much, she suggested we might enjoy making it competatively for four hours or so next year. She then went on to suggest we should get together for a corn roast, get shittered and hurl over her fence.
Gosh, my cockles got warm there.
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Well, I have to go now and put the smurfs in their classes for the day. Also, I have to put more feeding solution in the fish tank I have in my lab; my clone is nearing maturity and has quite the appetite. I figure if I can be in two places at once McGuinty will get even more confused, and let's face it, I won't be happy until he's sucking his thumb in the fetal position.
So until next time, I hope you're all happy, feeding my ego like that.
Aloha,
The Megalomaniacal Lexiphage.

An Even Longer Dry Spell

2006-09-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

Salutations, Lexiphans!
I have finally returned, escaped from a dark underground facility in Southeast Asia that makes Guatanamo Bay look like Club Fed. Everyone's favourite idiot, Mr. McGuinty, had my handlers all shot as a result, or rather he would have except he passed a law which forced all evil torture prisons to fill out 16,000 forms before sending out mail-order for bullets. Apparently 2 years into their mandate, they're only 3 years from their first order.
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So, I am no longer a criminal; the Crown Attorneys in their infinite wisdom have seen fit to stop punishing me for being threatened with a knife. As a result McGuinty must find new charges to trump up, or maybe they'll just send the Men in Black. If our wise and munificent premier has anything to do with it, no doubt they'll pick up a black woman in Kazahkstan due to a screwed up order or something, and then spend the next three years figuring out it isn't me in a disguise of some kind.
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Speaking of McGuinty, apparently now the autism therapy problem for my kids is all better; in fact despite the fact that the budget for their therapy went into General Revenue to pay for rub-and-tug massages for the provincial cabinet they had every honourable intention of spending it where they said they would despite the fact they had actually not hired any teachers or therapists or even passed the money along to someone with the power or inclination to do so... Of course it would have been rediculous to use the money to train more therapists, or research where to find more therapists, or even load the cash onto a catapult and launch it towards the nearest university so long as they promise to promote the liberal party in time for the next election. I'm not worried, though. Despite the fact that every stupid excuse imaginable has been made to say

A) The Ontario Liberals never actually wanted to cut the funding,
B) The Ontario Liberals always had the funding in place,
C) It wasn't the Ontario Liberals fault the money wasn't spent on autism programs as promised and instead was used to fix a smidge of their idiotic budget problems in a deperate attempt to make McGuinty look like his IQ is actually higher than 12
D) Despite ripping off disabled kids for extra cash it's taken them 2 years to balance the budget, and now they're sitting on a huge surplus which will no doubt vanish in some stupid accident which also won't be their fault and the kids won't get the cash back that was ripped off in the first place
and
E) The Ontario Liberals aren't really mean-spirited, corrupt or politically incorrect, they are just incompetent

despite this they've been hosing money all over everything in a desperate attempt to jury-rig their reputation into something less embarassing, and odds are sooner or later they'll accidentally hit what they said they would. Probably.
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In a quick aside, apparently the Crocodile Hunter died this past week when a sting ray accidentally stuck its poisonous barb right through his heart (Crikey!- Who'd have seen that one coming?) Goodbye Mr. Irwin, be a little more careful in the next life, eh?
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Well, I think that's just about enough damage for one day. Hopefully I won't be so distracted in the coming week and you'll hear from me a little more often.

Ciao for now,
The Inflammatory Lexiphage

The Fall of the Fortress of Anger

2006-08-20T19:25:00.000-05:00

Hello once again, and welcome to the Lair of the Lexiphage. I am your host, the Lexiphage, and tonight I will take you on a journey of self-discovery, exploration, and other crap that I won't bother to mention.
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The big news this week is that apparently I am no longer angry; my anger management course at the so-called Fortress of Anger was a smashing success (actually, not that much smashing... er... hugging?... skipping??... errrrrrr... blogging??? oh, well; nothing else seems to work. Smashing it is). And as a result I am now apparently a fully functioning member of society once again.
As Mr. Gryper mentioned in his blog, I am still apparently capable of anger, but let's not mention that to the lawyers, judges, and pitchfork-bearing unruly peasants.
Now all that follows on that front is to confront the evil coalition of lawyers in the Fortress of Law and demand they reinstate my rights as an unwitting pawn of the government... I mean citizen. This will occur on Tuesday, if all goes according to plan, and soon I will be able to walk down the street carrying a collection of blood-encrusted hatchets, jagged-edged cleavers, peanut products, hate-crime leaflets, and signs which display seditious slogans like "TOO MUCH IMMIGRATION MIGHT BE A BAD THING", or "POLITICIANS WHO STEAL $400,000 OR MORE SHOULD MAYBE BE PUNISHED IN SOME WAY".
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Yeah, I'll probably be arrested again pretty soon...
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Gavin read his third word yesterday (at least aloud; I think he's read more than that to himself), bringing his collection to "Bob", "Christina", and "Toy". He mispronounced Christina, by pronouncing the "CH", but given that he's a four year old preschooler with autism, that should probably be forgiven...
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The government has now officially accepted that my kids in fact reside with me in stead of with their Mom in the loonybin... now I am allowed to get the Baby Bonus and even am considered to have done my taxes and everything... I guess McGuinty got a new guy and hasn't explained all the rules to him yet... expect to me to recieve emmigration papers to Zaire and a traffic ticket for Mya in the mail soon.
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My work on the submission of my writing to the various publishing houses continues in the research stage; my best bet appears to be a company which is based out of Alberta and therefore is beyond McGuinty's reach. In response to my various internet, library, and phone activities (which are reported to certain authorities daily) I now recieve several threatening e-mails each day. I am, however, not discouraged, and will continue to spew out libel as fast as I can type until I disappear in the night. TRY AND STOP ME, YOU BASTARDS!!
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Well, that about wraps that up. I have to go update my security system and top up my payoff money to the people who are supposed to find me and bring me in. Until next time, stick it to the Man!
Ciao,
The Iconoclastic Lexiphage

And There Was Much Rejoicing

2006-08-15T13:31:00.000-05:00

Hello, everyone! At long last, the Lexiphage has returned!
It's been a week since my last post, and verily I say unto you, much has transpired, eh? Peruse all as you desire:
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Mr. Gryper has been conspiring to repair my laundry facilities, and after approximately a week of hard labour has succeeded admirably. In celebration I jumped up and down, giggled, filled out a census form which says I'm a middle-aged African-Canadian woman who works with textiles in Newfoundland, and ate TWO tuna sandwiches. For the next moon I plan to lurk in my subterranean lair, wreaking laundry-based havoc to all who cross my path.
Many thanks to Mr. Gryper. whose technical expertise vastly outstrips my own. I guess we all have an Achilles Heel, and appliance repair is apparently mine.
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The Smurfs are still attending their corral three times a week, and Gavin's speech, whilst still erratic, is improving in clarity. Mya has developed a new skill- pulling the stuffing out of her beloved baby doll and sucking clumps of it. Apparently she still has not entirely grasped the parent-child relationship as yet...
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The Fortress of Anger has its (supposedly) last hurrah this Thursday, and following close after that the lawyers who serve on the side of justice will attempt to screw me over and wriggle out of their part of my courtroom deal. Serves me right to deal with lawyers... anyhoo, it is theoretically possible I will be not considered a criminal in as little as eight days. What is the world coming to? If I manage to weasel out of semi-righteous retribution, I plan to send a nice thank-you letter to a certain Mr. McGuinty, detailing how his cronies must have screwed up to keep me out of prison.
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Also of note, a mere seven months after I filed my paperwork, the feds have finally figured out that I have custody of my kids, and apparently my tax issues are now dealt with, only 4 months before the end of the fiscal year. I realize it was a complex concept, and so naturally our government couldn't handle it on its own and contracted out sixteen legal experts from across Europe and Asia, and flew each of them here by way of private jets (they were all in the appropriate countries anyway as the Prime Minister sent out for doughnuts), put them up for the summer in the Royal York Hotel, and paid them consultant fees of $40,000 to $118,000 each. Between the lot of them they finally worked out the meaning of "single father" and sent me a letter pretending they'd known the answer all along.
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The Insane Ex has recently been ominously quiet... recently I found out from a freind of hers that this is because she is back in the loonybin again under lock and key, so no doubt she'll be showing up on my doorstep any minute with a rusty hatchet and a need for cash. Luckily for me, I'm still more or less broke.
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Well, I think I've treated you people (YOU PEOPLE? what did I mean by that??!!) to enough wisdom, so I'd better go before you get spoiled. Until next time, glare suspiciously over your shoulder!
Hugs and kisses,
The Obsequious Lexiphage.

The Longest Dry Period Ever

2006-08-07T12:50:00.000-05:00

Sorry computer people; apparently I haven't posted for 6 days now, the longest Lexiphage-free period in human history (except of course for before I blogged, but nobody cares about those primitive times).
As a result I have a lot to catch up on, so let's get started:
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The Fortress of Anger classes have been going well, and I only have two classes left to spend dancing through flowery gardens with sweaty Italian men singing stuff by John Lennon. I'm showing a lot of progress managing my anger because I'm saving it all up for the Crown Attorney responsible for the whole mess. Hee hee!
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My brand new used washer and dryer ran smoothly for about a month before the motors in both machines apparently burnt out. Now the washer just soaks the clothes and then leaves them in a soggy heap, then the dryer will let the clothes sit in a soggy heap while it blows a bit of warm air on it. So I guess I'll have to return to the heelish nightmare of the Laundromat. Ick!
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The Insane Ex has been relatively unbothersome and only flaunts the law to harass me on the phone about once a week now, and her Dad, who transports the Smurfs to see her and then lurks around having acid flashbacks, seems to be picking them up steadily once every two weeks or so.
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Speaking of the Smurfs, Mya sang using words for the first time this week (she sang "ock, ock" to "rock around the clock", more or less in tune) and is becoming familiar enough with the scary stairs to climb down them almost any time she has to, and even to climb upwards a step or two on special occassions. Despite their encounters with pools so far this summer, neither seems fond of the bath yet.
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Politically, I have been following two subject with some interest- the war (or whatever the Politically Correct Police are calling it this time) in the Middle East and the weather.
The weather is probably the least interesting subject under normal circumstances, but this time is an exception. Newmarket has been hit with three tornado-ish storms in the past couple of weeks, yet there has been virtually no really significant damage. The first one knocked over a half a dozen trees in different areas, and the last one knocked the roof clear off of one house without messing up much of anything else. This suggests to me that Newmarket is being used to test a James Bond style Weather Weapon- this one seems precise enough to take out a house without effecting its neighbours, or one tree out of a copse of several... I am investigating this matter thouroughly. I've been lurking on conspiracy theory websites, and yesterday I asked the guy in dark sunglasses who was following me what he knew about the Focussed Weather Weapon. He pretended he had no idea what I was talking about, but I knew better, so later I tailed him and he went to a hairdressers. A HAIRDRESSERS!!!! If that doesn't constitute proof I don't know what does.
The Middle East Conflict has been garnering my interest because of the following reasons:
1) The Liberals originally sent people to mess around in Afghanistan, but now that they are the opposition apparently Steven Harper somehow engineered the whole thing... obviously if Steven Harper can mess with intellects the likes of Dalton McGuinty and Paul Martin, he can and probably is up to far more convoluted and evil plans, like pitting the Israelis against pretty much everyone, or saving 30 cents on breakfast cereal, or maybe even daring to suggest Martin pay some taxes to Canada instead of the Cayman Islands once in a while. The bastard!
2) If someone (sorry, that should read "when") kidnapped some Canadian soldiers, (like several that are still in prisons around the world right now) the official Canadian policy as I understand it is to ask politely if we can have them back, and if that doesn't work, maybe allow the newspapers to publish a heavily edited account of their plight once or twice in an attempt to fool us into thinking somebody's doing something about it, and then maybe our ambassador with have a light lunch and freindly game of golf with that country's leader, the kidnappers, and Satan. Of course all of them would get a range of grants, subsidies and international aid and no victims would be released, but at least a lot of money would be blown and the ambassador wouldn't be out of pocket.
Isreal's response is to launch rockets at anything that a kidnapper could conceivably be hiding in, whether that be a secret bunker full of terrorists, a building full of schoolkids, or more likely, both. Interesting contrast, no?
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Well, that's enough giving away what I know for now. Anything else you want to know, you'll either have to ask me in the Comments section or find out for yourselves.
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Pip-pip, Cheerio, and all that rot,
The Recalcitrant Lexiphage.

Tha Heat

2006-08-01T17:07:00.000-05:00

ACK!!! Gasp! HOT!!!!
Too... hot... to... type... erg...
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Must... entertain... readers... aaugh (sound of head falling onto keyboard) yhjc,klbds mvsfdsl,
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I think I'm okay now... I have my head packed in a plastic bag of ice cubes. I'll be good until I run out of air.
So, this week both the rugrats were sick; I explored the joys of projectile vomit jettisonned liberally over the couch and the various methods to deal with the smell... I was overjoyed at the experience, and lemme tell ya, it just adds to the warm feeling the smurfs give me. Both of the smurfs have also battled fevers and general malaise repeatedly, and thusly are in really sociable moods with almost no shrieking in rage at everything around them for five or six minutes at a time.
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Speaking of warm, I looked out of the window today and saw my sidewalk burst into flames. Noticing the molten texture of the driveway, and the forest out back burning down, I opted to stay indoors as much as possible. Mya actually went willingly into a bath (for splash puposes only, of course... it took about a half an hour for her to warm up to the idea, despite the temperature) and hopefully her gigantic heat rash will fade a little as a result... Tomorrow I have to go out, one way or another, and walk around on what appears to be the surface of our sun; I'll have to bring a gallon or two of water and a tube of SPF 1500 in order to guarantee my survival.
I take comfort in the fact that Premier Dalton McGuinty, having been trumpeting the one-tonne-challenge instead of fixing a power plant or two, will no doubt be suffering along with me with his air conditioning shut right off in good faith. Our poor parliamentary representatives, trudging to work on foot to avoid polluting with limosine exhaust, having to lug a bag lunch with them to cut down on waste (not to mention the loose cash from their office budgets- that must weigh a tonne), all while wearing a sweltering three-piece suit (which we, as taxpayers, will no doubt have to replace due to the sweat damage). Mr. McGuinty, keep the faith, man!
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Well, I'm almost out of air, so I think I'll pass out now.
Talk atcha later, (gasp!)
The Asphyxiated Lexiphage.

Chewing on Spam

2006-07-29T09:11:00.000-05:00

Hey folks! Wuz Happeneen?
The Lexiphage has returned!!!
(pause while the applause dies down)
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Spam has come up in several forms this week. Thusly I share it with you all.
Microsoft is getting on my nerves again, attempting to get me to use their Livemail Beta nonsense. That's just what we need; already most software hits the market chock-full of bugs, errors, and planned obsolescence, now, Microsoft is going to give it to use before it's even been Beta-tested... soon we'll be paying through the nose for software they haven't even invented yet, and once they get their money they won't bother with actually doing the inventing anyway. Kind of sounds like our government...
I have a theory which relates to this.
I noticed that shortly after they started pushing their Theoretical Mail Program Which May One Day Exist on me my regular Hotmail started accepting virtually all of my junk mail as regular mail, forcing me to actually pay attention to the various offers from Viagra suppliers, people who want me to loose weight, and nice women who are so attracted to me they apparently want to have sex with me despite not knowing who the hell I am. Of course, honourable mention here must be made for those fine people who e-mail me several times a day to get me to but an inexpensive replica Rolex watch. For those of you who don't know me, I'd more likely buy a mouthful of AIDS virus than a fake Rolex. Or for that matter, a real Rolex.
My theory is that Microsoft can't push enough of their crappy pre-product on people without starting to sabotage the one which already works (REALLY sounds like our government now!) so they're giving all the spam companies free back-doors into MY e-mail. Bastards!
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The other major Spam issue this week was the trip with my Mum to the Canon Theatre to see Spamalot. For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend the experience; a high-brow, witty armchair look at history (most especially the Middle Ages), the nature of death, the effectiveness of government, and the plight of the Jews. A good time was had by all, and the audience was moved to sit and chat for a while afterwords due to the powerful, thought-provoking message.
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For those who read the above paragraph, ignore it. Spamalot was a gut-buster, and both Mum and I giggled and tittered for a fair portion of the show. SEE IT! SEE IT NOW!!!!
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Gavin was sick yesterday, and Mya got it last night and still is under the weather (as opposed to on top of it? weird expression...) so I'll probably be trapped indoors today. I'll be googling sites therefore on government-designed bio-weaponry and whether spewing a cottage cheese-like substance all over my couch can be blamed on anyone. I won't talk about it over the phone, though- I've been hearing more of those clicks on the line lately and when Paul phones up from the States I get lots of gaps in the sound which can only mean the CRTC is editing phone conversations now. No doubt soon they'll be doing the same with the web. It's okay, though. As usual they do a crappy job of that, too. It's just like **** * *** ******* **** *** ** ******* ********* *** ***** *** *** ** **** **** **** **** ***** *** **** ** ****... * ***** **** *** ***** ** *** ***** **** *** ** *** ****** * ***** **! ******, don't you think?
I'm sure it's got to be at least four.
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I'm glad I got that out in the open. As long as people put information like that into th public eye, democracy has a chance.
Well, I'll be off now...
Until next time, **** **** ***** ** *** ***!
The ************ Lexiphage.

Reasons I am Cool

2006-07-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

Hey. This is the Lexiphage. How's it hangin'?
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I thought I'd do a themed post on, quite frankly, one of the most important subjects on the political minds of today. Ready? Okay, let's get it started...

Reason #1: I recently became owner of not one, but 2 oscillationg table fans. With the windows open, they keep the house, and hence myself, pretty darn cool.

Reason #2: I'm a hardened criminal. Just ask my ex.

Reason #3: I drink lots of coffee. This has two effects on the coolosity quotient- firstly, it stimulates the body to believe it is warmer than it really is by having a direc, if negligable effect on my core temperature, in effect, fooling my body into cooling itself. Secondly, coffee is much cooler than tea (especially herbal or decaf), root beer, or Kool Ade. Think about it.

Reason #4: I have long hair, and guys with long hair are cool. Just ask me.

Reason #5: Haranguing the government. There's something which never falls out of style in Canada, and now is a good time for it because in Ontario we have a Premier with a mind like a wind-up plastic robot made in Taiwan. (I don't need to name names, do I?)

Reason #6: My kids are cool. Just ask me.

Reason #7: If you disagree that I'm cool I'll sneak into your house at night and smash all your jars of pickles to pieces. SO YOU'D BETTER AGREE!!!! I'M SERIOUS!!!!!!!
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As you can see, Anger Management is having a wonderful effect on my temperment. Also on that front, I am down to 14 cups of coffee a day, drink less than 16 ounces of Scotch per day, and have been off of the cigarettes, glue fumes, cocaine, Ecstacy, LSD, electroshock therapy, base jumping, gummi bears and speed since my last post. I'm hoping to cut down on my other stimulants like Sherlock Holmes with the Seven Percent Solution. Then I can get started with my serious problems.
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On a cheery note, my Mum and I will be attending the theatre tomorrow, where we will blend semmlessly into high society. I'll be extending my pinky finger, talking about my golf game, and pretending I have money to invest. They'll never see me coming, at least until I pull out all those bug bombs...
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Well, that's it for today. Have a kick-ass day, and I'll see ya when I see ya (there's reason #8- how I talk... cool, eh??)
Ciao, the Uber-Cool Lexiphage.

The Thing That Lives Behind the Ketchup

2006-07-22T08:22:00.000-05:00

How are ya doin', fans?
The Lexiphage once again lurks in the foggy quagmire of Internetland.
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So, the YRT bus people are messing with me now on my Fortress of Anger trips to Wood-a-Bridge; just to prove a point this past Thusday I left the bus station nearly a half-hour earlier than last week, so the bus people decide to let EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD happen on the way there- traffic jams, supervisors popping on the bus to chat, the bus driver forgetting how to hook up the wheelchair gadget, bad weather, the bus running 15 minutes late when I finally caught it and then getting LATER as they went on... I think they're just losing motivation. They don't care if they're late now, because they're just going to turn around and come back again anyway... and lastly, the ENTIRE trip there there weren't ANY attractive women to look at. What the hell? Were they trying to punish me? The only explanation I can think of is... McGuinty. He must be pulling strings again somehow. Or rather, his underlings have been instructed to bother me, because if it was him, he could never be so subtle and devious. Bastards!
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I really have to clean my fridge out. Yesterday when I opened the door I was certain I heard Spanish, a quiet "shhh!" and then silence. If there's anything speaking Spanish in my fridge, I may have a freshness problem. Unless it's just Mexican immigrants looking for free air conditioning... no, that would cause a freshness problem too...
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My daughter Mya has been really communicating lately- her vocabulary now includes "no", "hi", "Dad", "All Gone" (or maybe Al Gore... I'm not sure how interested she is in American politics). Also, my son Gavin's speech has become a lot more clear of late as his social circle increases. The Neighbour Lady says when she babysits him he's much easier to understand... Rock on!
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Trouble ahead... the Insane Ex has sent a message that she's moving to Newmarket again... Bradford was bloody close enough. Looks like I'll have to dust off the old restraining order and make sure the cattle prod is nice and fully charged.
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On the getting Mya's birth certificate front, I finally handed in the delayed Birth Registration form, hopefully putting the steel toes to the last issue the government has with the existance of my daughter. Now McGuinty will have to focus on me keeping her with me, what with my horrifying anger problem and the angelic non-crazyness of my foaming-at-the-mouth ex. Apparently she no longer thinks she's Jesus, anyway.
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I'd better go- there's a mysterious delivery van parked down the street again and I have to go outside with a crowbar to say 'hi'. Then I'll have to spend most of the day (in a comlpletely unrelated story) cleaning my crowbar. My your cereal always be both saturated in milk yet completely crunchy,
The Curmudgeonly Lexiphage

The Feindish Convocation

2006-07-16T09:40:00.000-05:00

Hello again, computer land, it is I, the Lexiphage.
There are several Big Events to report in this episode, so try to keep up.
1) The Evenden Family Reunion went off without a hitch; the smurfs and I had a good time although the smurfs- both Gavin and Mya- previously afraid of water, demanded to spend every possible minute in the pool. My socializing time was a little short as a result, but it was nice to see the kids 'swimming' in the pool (they don't actually know how to swim, so their bouyancy must be supplied by an adult). Mya even said a couple of words, and Gavin had a chat with Grandma. I saw many relatives I hadn't seen in a marmoset's age, and most of them are just as insane as they used to be. Cheryl and John put up with us with remarkable skill.
The smurfs and I got home at around 9:45 pm, nearly 2 hours after regular bed hours, and the house was kind of an oven. I left all the upstairs doors open, and in the middle of the night Gavin snuck down to the basement and slept there. Apparently he is not afraid of the dark, 'cuz there weren't any lights on down there, and ony one tiny window, in the part that's my evil laboratory. Fortunately, Gavin did not wake up Victor. The kids woke up this morning at around 10.
2) My weekly trips to the Fortress of Anger continue unabated, and I seem to have overcome the insane cabby timeclock so that 5-10 minutes now means only 20 minutes or so on a pretty reliable basis (for those who missed my previous blogs, 5-10 minutes in cabby-ese means long enough that you can wait for a car to evolve from whatever is in your area and take you to your destination before the cab will actually arrive).
3) Dalton McGuinty has been stealing my dish soap. I run out of dish soap far too fast for any other explanation to make sense. I imagine he's already run through our tax dollars paying people to decipher the entrails of birds for his next great idea, and needs a new source of revenue.
4) The Insane Ex seems to be settling down in her old age or something, and has been taking the kids every week or two (instead of every month or two) and generally talking less trash, so perhaps they have her on new brain chemicals.
5) The smurfs are doing well at their preschool; Mya really tries to communicate with the teachers there, and Gavin has at least two freinds their he hangs out with (read: follows around and studies).

Well, I think that's about it... I have a busy day today, handing off children to a few people, restocking my canned food and shotgun shells, and finding a way to log the use of dish soap. See you all in another two to five days for another samizdat, and may the sun shine upon your enemies so you can aim better.
Farewell, the Scatalogous Lexiphage.

I lost my bulk discount

2006-07-11T09:10:00.000-05:00

Hello-utations yet again, folks, the Lexiphage has once again decided to drag his rear end in front of the computer desk to brag, rant, and generally make an ass of himself.
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It has come to my attention that my posts are becoming less frequent. This may be because I am no longer purchasing my words wholesale and therefore no longer get the great discount I used to. I talked to the people at the Price Club about it, and they said that they had real work to do and I should get some help.
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Yesterday was probably the worst rainstorm in recent memory, so it was valuable for the experience when I wound up outside in it with both the kids in the stroller. I think some kind of Rain God was messing with me because it was erratic enough that I kept getting fooled. To give an example: First thing in the morning, I leave the house with the kids in the stroller to take them to their preschool program. It starts to spit a little, just after I leave, so I have to stop in mid-stride to grab the kids' jackets, but I figure, heck, a little misting never hurt anyone... once I was too far to turn around, I heard a thundercrack that sounded suspiciously like that snorting sound some people make when they try not to laugh, and then four seconds later we were all thouroughly moistened, except where the raincoats covered (except Mya, the rear half of the stroller has a canopy. Only her legs were wet). I got them to school, and while I was inside, the rain slowed down to a drizzle again, so after I dropped them off, I figured I'd do some bill-paying (my favourite activity) and so I was an appropriate distance from cover when the Rain God smote me again.
(As an aside here, I must post a disclaimer. Rain God is a well-known term and thusly the one I chose; no disrespect was meant to the Big Man Upstairs... perhaps I should have said Evil Rain Spirit, but that has less of a ring to it).
I eventually returned to the kids' school rather saturated, such that I stayed indoors whilst I drip-dried. While I was getting ready to leave once again, Gavin showed his true colours by running out into the rain repeatedly, so he was pretty soaked before we even started.
Needless to say, we eventually had to start out again, so I waited for what looked like a thinning out of the downpour, but once again it was merely a lure. We ended up getting on a bus 2 blocks away drenched right through the raincoats (except, once again, for Mya's top half).
We arrived home and fired up the hot chocolate, ditched the wet duds, and when the sun came out after that I gave the Rain God the finger and stayed indoors.
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Well, I think that about covers it. I'm gonna go inhale some caffeine. This weekend the maternal half of my ubiquitous family will swarm over my aunt's farm, and doubtless I'll have a horde of embarassing stories to regale you with then.
Since I didn't mention the Evil McGuinty in this paticular rant, he'll have to take a Parthian finger as compensation.
Au revoir,
The Contumely Lexiphage

It's been a long time, not a good time

2006-07-07T20:37:00.000-05:00

Hello Folks, once again the Lexiphage has returned!!!
Many things have happened in the past 5 days, so I'll try to remember everything.
I returned to the Fortress of Anger for Anger Management; the cabbies must have read my rants because one "5-10 minutes" was actually 5-10 minutes, and the other was only 23 minutes, so I was happier than a raccoon in a closed restaurant.
Incidentally, in case you're wondering, my anger is much improved, and now I love everybody, and am happy all the time; my anger management classmates spend our time in group hugs and dancing in flowery feilds.
Gavin and Mya are doing well; Mya has been going through one of her "I won't eat anything" phases, and therefore has been living on liquids. These usually end when I find a way to trick her into taking a spoonful of something and she remembers she likes the taste of food, so I've been pulling all the stops out in my feindish and convoluted neurons, but no luck so far.
Gavin has been whining a lot lately, I'm not sure why, but it's been driving me nuts. He'd much rather cry and wail than simply ask for a drink or something. I know it's difficult for him to talk, but he'd better shape up or I'll have to hire a proffessional caner again. On the up side, he's doing really well with learning his letters; he keeps a Thomas the Tank-Engine alphabet book hidden in his bed and pulls it out as I leave each night, so I only catch glimpses, but I'm sure he's reading it.
My biggest fan mentioned something in her last comment about the unreadability of my blog, so I'm now including larger type for all the old folks. I can hardly be critical, though... over the last few years I've noticed myself tilting books away from my eyes while I read and have realized I soon will need bifocals to go with my hearing aids and walker. If any of you young whippersnappers give me too much lip about it I'll throw my false teeth at you.
Mr. McGuinty has sent me a few more items of hate mail, altering my tax information for the forth time this year, re-issuing the census form I filled out last month, and he personally saw to it my junk mail increased by another 30 percent. I can't prove it's him, but if it wasn't it's only because he couldn't figure out how to do it and got an aide to do it for him. That's okay, Mr. M... I've got your number too...
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Well, that's enough writing for now; I have a boil that needs lancing and a pencil that I just freshly sharpened for the job. Until next time, remain vigilant and paranoid, so I know I'm not the only one they're after.
Farewell for now,
The Insidious Lexiphage

Canada Day...er... whatever

2006-07-02T07:27:00.000-05:00

Wuz up, dogs? The Lexiphage is back in the Hood.
Everyone have a good Canada Day (or, in the case of those from the previous generation, Dominion Day)?
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Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to set anything belonging to Squinty McGuinty on fire; as a consolation project I sent him a package of something I found in the back of my fridge I couldn't identify. I didn't put a return address on it, but I think he knows where it came from.
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So, I ran into my politician aunt... ooh, sorry... my aunt who maintains an interest in politics, and touched on my political veiwpoints with her. Apparently she has been stonewalled out of all the appropriate country-club dinners, golf course shenanigans, money funnelling, and CIA connections because she doesn't belong to one of the Big Three parties; I have a difficult time believing the Marajuana Party, the Communist Party, or the Christian Heritage Party are involved in the all-encompassing Circle of Evil that currently rules the world. The Green Party has recently been elevated to this coveted status, and therefore they are trying to be extra evil now to make up for the time they've missed. If they get Official Party Status, the can hook into the HRDC computer system that no longer exists but which monitors our every move, like Steven Harper is doing now to gather info on our election preferences (so he says). He hasn't been caught doing anything abysmally stupid yet, so there is a theoretical possibility he's not part of the Circle of Evil either, but if he isn't they'll be using every mind-control technique they learned when the CIA did their research in Quebec in the 1960's to convert him.
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I and my brood of miscreants spent much of the holiday lurking around the Main Street, Newmarket festivities, where it is a fine tradition for the storeowners therein to really put a foot forward to wandangle our cash from us on the pretense of a festival of some sort. It was a load of fun; we ate lots of junk (well, Gavin and I did- Mya still avoids solids and had to make to with her chocolate milk) and I spent a lot of time with the neighbour lady (one of Gavin and Mya's babysitters) and her kids. It was nice to know that if anyone was tailing me they'd have had a hard time keeping up with the crowds.
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The Two Grannies and Grandma are still off in the extreme Eastern Wilderness getting boozed up with people of Irish descent (that, to me, spells trouble) and scouting for whales and iceburgs and so on; when they return no doubt they'l have hoards of stories for us, some of which may be true.
Anyhoo, I think I've given the Big Brother computer enough information to sift through; now I shall take my leave of you and concentrate on messing up my kids' minds instead.
Shade and Sweet Water to you all,
The Munificent Lexiphage.

Sticky Heaps of Wisdom

2006-06-29T22:04:00.000-05:00

Salutations, fellow humanoids... this is once again the honest-to-goodness Lexiphage... accept no substitutions!
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Bit of Wisdom #1: As pointed out by my number 1 fan, I also have noticed the time for entries on my blogs are always off. There are several reasons for this:
1) I never bother to set the thing.
2) Probably someone set it up in a different time zone (?) and
3) The time posted is doubtless the time it goes up after approval from the government, who, as everyone knows, reads all of our personal correspondance as a matter of course. Well, they skim it. Any time they read anything too critical of their pigdog regime they arrange a disappearance... fortunately, it has to be done in an inconspicuous manner, which occasionally makes it difficult. Thus far my genius has allowed me to elude their lawful retribution, but how long will that last...?
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Bit of Wisdom #2: Never attempt to eat a handful of thumbtacks.
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Bit of Wisdom #3: Life is like warm, wet putty in the hands of God... if you're a good boy or girl he'll let you stick your finger into it and maybe lick it off...
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Bit of Wisdom #4: If you have attempted to eat a handful of thumbtacks, a glass of water will NOT help them to get down.
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Bit of Wisdom #5: Democracy was originally invented in Athens, Greece in ancient times to combat the tumult caused by every king's rule lasting only long enough to get stabbed in the back by some guy who wanted to be king. In other words, it was invented for the purpose of increasing stability; there was no point assassinating a democratic leader as someone new would be elected a short time afterwords anyway. This shining beacon of humanitarianism allowed anyone to take part, thereby keeping everyone reasonably happy (or at least less angry), again, to increase stability. Of course, only those whose opinions actually mattered were taken into account (thusly women, the lower classes, the sick & infirm, immigrants, slaves, people born outside of marriage, criminals, or people below the age of 30 or above the age of 60, or anyone who lost the fight when their neighbour wrestled their voting disc off of them, were disqualified). It is in that fine tradition that Western society does its' best to hand us a small group of people to choose from every election day, and makes sure that no one who has a decent chance of winning is worth voting for. That is why, next election, make sure you vote- a vote for one candidate is a vote AGAINST all the others.
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Bit of Wisdom #6: An inexpensive way to make a bullet-proof vest is to take a tank-top, soak it in a pot of chili, and then wear it continuously until it fossilizes.
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Well, that's probably enough wisdom for the likes of you. Don't want to overwhelm you or anything. Take a few years to absorb it and maybe I'll write another after that.
Until later then, may your mouth be free of thumbtacks, your shirt of chili, and your future of elections; signed,
The Antedeluvian Lexiphage.

Ultra-short post

2006-06-28T07:25:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone out there in Internet-land. Once again the Lexiphage has returned to make your life more fulfilled.
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Today I'm going to take the kids to daycare, have tea with my sister, talk to some government funding people from each of 3 different agencies, have some coffee, and re-wake up Mya who already fell asleep again this morning. Then I may have lunch, hang with the kids, and paint some toy soldiers. If I have any time left, I'll call a government complaints 1-800 number and leave the phone off the hook for an hour.
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Seeing as how Fiddling Granny and Gryping Granny are away and can't read this, I am obligated to say something nasty behind there backs... Nyah! Nyaaaah! Nyyyaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! You can't see this but I stuck my tongue out there too. That'll teach 'em!
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Told you this would be a short post!
Aloha!
The Superluminous Lexiphage.

Ranting to a smaller audience

2006-06-25T20:48:00.000-05:00

Bonjourno, fellow humans (and anyone else who's watching)! The Lexiphage has once again entirely filled his brain with information of dubious quality, and therefore has seen fit to make space by dumping the excess on you.
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A quick apology for my last post... (I'm not a politician, I can apologize!) my use of the word "satietous" was stretching it. "Sated" would have been a better choice (although not as fun), and when other people use a bigger word just to be pedantic, I usually foam at the mouth and swing around blindly with a goalie stick. I shall endeavour to be a mite less fraudulent in my wordosityousness forthwith.
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So, I have had a fair weekend, and for that matter a fair week. The rugrats are apparently in daycare solidly now, without men in dark glasses hanging around the classroom, so I may have pulled that off. My courtroom drama unfolds on a fairly regular basis; on Friday the Crown Attorney apparently agreed that in a couple of months when I finish the Anger Management course they bamboozled me into, they'll seriously consider maybe going through with their part of the bargain, which is maybe considering to possibly not bother to prosecute me to quite the full extent of the law because they know they would lose anyway, unless they decide to make an example of me because I'm a white male Anglo-Saxon protestant(ish) who, by reason of being alive, obviously spends all of his time oppressing everyone else.
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This week I will continue the fight to claim a new Birth Certificate for Mya, but I will have to go back to Aurora to reclaim some forms which were being held for that purpose or they'll kick my daughter out of daycare for the grevious sin of being born in a position where she has to leech off a system which by all rights should be taking care of richer children so their parents can spend more time at the country club.
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Lastly, I am hoping to have the opportunity to do some publisher research at the local library on, say, Wednesday or so, when the kids are in their thingy, so I can poison the world with my veiwpoint in hard copy, through bookstores. Here's hopin'.
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I think that's all the news I have... Apparently Fiddling Granny and Mr. Gryper will be unable to keep pace with my posts for awhile, as they're wandering the untamed wilderness for a bit, so they won't mind... Anyhoo, I'm hoping to come up with some kind of serious news for my Canada Day Blog, you know, to mark the occassion. Keep watch for something really funny to catch fire in Mr. McGuinty's garbage. Until then, keep one eye watchin' over your shoulder for the Men in Black, and one eye lookin' over the other shoulder for the government trying to lift your wallet.
Later,
The Enigmatic Lexiphage.

The Devil is a Cab Dispatcher

2006-06-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

A round of shaken hands for all, the Lexiphage is back in town.
So Mya is headed back to school tomorrow; she did her first day on Wednesday and apparently took to it quite well. The day-care professionals are less tolerant than I of chocolate milk spills, so it looks like I'll have to pack several shirts for her every day; however, she appears to be learning some communication skills; she said "Hi" to me upon my return, and appears to be speaking a little more already.
In other Mya-related news, she went for another walk with me yesterday, beating her previous record of a half a block by about 50 or 60 feet (for you young Uns, that's about 15-18 metres. I don't know what the metric equivelant of a block is).
Gavin is really starting to take to the Big Brother role, apparently running to her defence whenever she is distressed either at daycare or in the company of a babysitter... which brings me back to the subject of my anger management classes (by way of needing a babysitter while I'm gone to them... C'mon, work with me here!).
As you probably saw in the title above, the Lexiphage has a slight greivance against a certain transportation-related occupation. I don't know if this happens to you all, but it seems whenever I call a cab and ask how long the wait will be, I get the standard "5 to 10 minutes" response; however, this never actually answers the question, because in Taxi-ese, apparently "5 to 10 minutes" translates into "at least 20 minutes, but probably more. Tell you what, start walking now, and when you get where you were going, call the cab company back and ask if they bothered to send anyone." TWICE in a row now, attempting to leave the Fortress of Anger, I have called the local cab company, and guess how many times they said "5 to 10 minutes?"
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Stay with me here...
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The actual journey to where I catch the bus to return to civilization is approximately a 10 minute drive away, assuming pretty heavy, crappy traffic.
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Still with me?
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Now guess how many times it has taken me an hour and ten minutes to catch the bus.
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If you guessed two out of two, you're bang on. And going in the opposite direction, to the Fortress of Anger, the service is only slightly better- you have a 50/50 shot at either the 45 minute or the extra-quick 25 minute "5 to 10 minutes". It actually takes me approximately the same amount of time to travel BY BUS to WOODBRIDGE as is does to travel BY CAB to ANOTHER PLACE IN WOODBRIDGE, THAT'S LESS THAN 2 MILES AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know, it wouldn't bother me so much if they just said "We're really busy. It'll be 45 minutes before a cab gets there, and when he does, he'll be the guy who smells like barfed-up garlic stew and can't speak a word of English, French, or even Indostani. But we appreciate your business!"
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Next time, I'm going to call the cab company, order a pizza, eat the pizza, digest the pizza, sit and wait for the cab for a REAL 5-10 minutes, then walk the whole way myself, and then call the cab company again. Then when they tell me they're sorry for the delay but the cab will be there in 5-10 minutes, I'll call them every 5-10 minutes for the next three weeks just to let them know the time. And I'll burp into the phone really loud too, just to be a jerk.
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I also think I'll tell telemarketers from now on that my work number is the cab company's, and they should call me there.
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Well, if I start on any more subjects, I'll have to write more of these: ..., and we wouldn't want that, so I guess I'll go listen on the phone for any phone-tap clicky noises, and then I can tell the government off directly.
Until next time, stay satietous!
The Sardonic Lexiphage.

Slightly busy

2006-06-20T20:35:00.000-05:00

Hiya fans!
Thusly the Lexiphage returns, toting his trsuty measuring tape and jar of salsa!
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Had a busy day today... let's see... I finalized the paperwork (on one end, anyway) for Mya's daycare thingy and hand-delivered the papers to the other end of town; I hand delivered (by that I mean I took stuff there, not removed anyone's liver) more paperwork to Legal Aid, took the kids to McDonald's, went shopping, bought bus tickets, walked halfway across town to avoid waiting for a bus, paid a couple of bills, went shopping again, picked up a magazine from the comic shop my freind owns, took the kids to the doughnut shop for lunch, mailed a letter, returned home, made a dozen or so phone calls, made the kids a snack, and by that time I realized I'd done it all on that infuriating double stroller with the bad wheel, so when Mya went for her nap I finally fixed the wheel on the stroller then I woke Mya up, got the kids some chocolate milk, went to the bank, visited their Gramps, went shopping again, returned home (again), made the kids supper, put the kids to bed and then came down here to check my e-mail... All without a car (even my e-mail!!). I think that's more or less it...
Whew!
I was rather proud of my fix-it job on the stroller; I drilled a hole through the axle with a potato peeler (that took me an hour or so) then secured the wheel back on with a section of a cow's leg bone and glued it in place with rubber from an old pair of shoes I melted on the stove. To really make sure I used a whole bottle of superglue and a couple of nails as well. Then the wheel wouldn't turn, so I attached a ski under that corner instead. It makes a lot of scraping sounds, but it's less annoying than the rickety wheel.
Mya starts daycare tomorrow, so I have to make sure she's on time for her first day... of course I started things off well so far by getting them to bed an hour late, but I suppose that's the price I pay for productivity. On the up side, once I get through this busy streak I'll have a few hours three times a week to lounge around on the porch getting drunk on a combination of rubbing alcohol and linseed oil.
Well, I'm gonna go and have my habitual evening coffee before I fill in the last of Mya's paperwork and fall asleep on the toilet.
Bye bye all,
The Nugatory Lexiphage.

Bonus Post!!!

2006-06-19T21:15:00.000-05:00

Hello, computer nuts.

I'm insanely proud of myself 'cuz I just figured out all the nasty codey bits of this blogger thingy and reprogrammed them with my usual style, grace and record-setting good taste. A few bits are hidden so have fun finding them if you're bored at 3 a.m.

Ciao for now,
the Dauntless Lexiphage.

Crawling towards payday

2006-06-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

Salutations Lexikateers!
Were we all good this weekend? No?
Good for you! Or is it bad for you?... oh well...
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Finally after what seems a millenium of waiting, today is the day before payday. My hands are shaking with trepidation and I'm hoping all those silly rules about "jinxing" things are only as real as honesty in politics. My printer is out of ink and my mouse is getting so cantankerous it's reminding me of Mr. Gryper in an uncooperative mood. My wardrobe, and that of my offspring, is in desperate need of resupply, and the fridge is completely free of alcohol. During such a time of desolation, I sometimes nearly lose hope, until I remember the words of Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, who said... something... er... well, it was a good one, anyway. You know the one I mean. Something about a teacup and a frog. Anyway, tomorrow I will be dining on expensive things like simulated balogna, bully beef, no-name corn flakes, and the expensive kind of hard-tack, and drinking all the tapwater I want; and there will be much rejoicing.
...YAY!!!...
I had a good weekend, where my beloved gaggle of short people were removed from my presence not once but twice; they got to see their mother, which apparently they enjoy, and now that my wife isn't with me I actually heard people other than myself wish me a happy Father's Day.
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I walked all over hell's half acre this morning, having the worst bus luck I can remember having, narrowly missing three busses I think and giving up on one when my bus tranfer expired while waiting. It's a rare occassion that the busses get me where I want to go faster than if I just walked, especially during summer, but I never seem to learn...
I also made another record today; this is the longest string of consecutive days I've had since 1992 that no one has asked me for money. Even my ex-wife has given up asking, which is pretty remarkable. This of course, does not include telemarketers, who are nearly as unstoppable as gravity, taxes, or the ignorance of the masses. I'm of the opinion that the various utility companies must now be sharing my confidential information in order to expedite removing my financial posessions from me more efficiently. Perhaps they're getting their information from that huge computer system the HRDC says they don't have any more, and never used even when they did have it anyways so we should just all trust them and shut up. Not that the government ever shares that information either, because that would be illegal, and if our government started doing illegal things, there would be chaos, right? Whew!
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I have a sudden urge to go buy a golf course in Quebec and write the bill of sale on a paper napkin in pencil.
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Oh, well, enough ranting for today. Well, online anyway. You know I'm going to go hang with my son and discuss the inherent flaws of democracy with him while he watches Ice Age for the 30th time today. Then I think I'll have a nice meal of spelt flour right out of the bag. That's good eatin'!
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Have a nice life (or nice lives, I guess...),
The Vitriolic Lexiphage.

A Present for Susan

2006-06-16T20:53:00.000-05:00

Ola, every buddy. (I know that was a spelling error; it was intentional.)
I was going to wait a day or two to post but Susan appealed to my ego. To paraphrase Zaphod Beeblebrox, if there's anything more important than my ego on the web, I want it shot and killed right now.
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So, I went down to Wood-a-bridge to attend my first session of anger management, and gosh, but I feel better. There are supposed to be ten sessions in this block, and so by the end I imagine I'll be up on a cross somewhere forgiving the people who put me there. Me and around a dozen angry Italian men watched a video which brought back nostalgic memories of "Blood Flows Red on the Highway", and "Safety Circle". To make a long and uninteresting story short, four rage-happy people walked the line between conversation and bloodbath, confessing their problems with cocaine, road rage, and throwing people out of windows, after which we had a conversation about which lunatic we identified with the most. Apparently my anger type is the same as a black woman who shrieks at her son for getting a "C" on an otherwise straight "A" report card and in her spare time chokes down fistfuls of sleeping pills.
As I said, I feel better already.
Other events which occurred today included chatting with the daycare funding people so Mya and Gav can get their exposure to sane people in the real world. Flying in the face of precedence, I was more or less prepared and theoretically Mya can start next week or so.
I also chatted with Legal Aid regarding my financial situation since the lunatic kicked me to the curb; again defying precedence they were quick and efficient, so on my way out I checked to see which country's government they worked for. Apparently our Legal Aid system is run by the Swiss.
No doubt as I write this my mother and sister are doing the Coyote Ugly routine at Saint Alban's, whilst Rob belts out "Always Something There to Remind Me". I wished to attend in order to consume toxic levels of intoxicants but, alas, there was a babysitting deficiency so I lodge in the Lair and instead consume instant coffee and chicken nuggets.
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As an aside, exactly which part of the chicken is the "nugget"?
I'm betting it's a mix of neck and tongue.
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Well, that's about as much computer monitor radiation my retinae can withstand; I think I'll go upstairs and subject myself to TV radiation instead to give me time to heal. If I manifest any unusual genetic mutation over the next few days you'll know the reason. Have a funkeriffic night of funk, and I'll funkify your funkiness at another funkture.
May your path be flat, brown and comfortable to walk upon,
The Sybaritic Lexiphage.

New Developments

2006-06-14T19:44:00.000-05:00

Salutations, computer people! Once again you are in the presence of the Lexiphage. Lots of stuff happened today, so hold onto your hats.
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Today Mya, my two and a half year old autistic daughter, had several discoveries: first, she discovered her shadow, and spent several hours moving her arms, touching her head and observing the phenomenon. Secondly, Mya normall is paranoid about walking outside and normally only walks two or three steps before planting herself on her butt. Today she walked with Gav & I on the way back from picking up the mail a half a block away. Thirdly, she discovered she could push open the bathroom door and observe me on the can. I guess I have to make sure it's closed solidly from now on.
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Today Gavin (my 4-year old autistic son) went to the school he'll be attending next fall and met his teachers and classmates. It looks like a good program. He got bored and wanted to leave after a half hour or so, but that's par for the course. Also today Gav made progress towards riding his tricycle; he actually pedalled for about ten feet, but didn't actually realize he had done it. I praised the heck out of him anyway, and he knows something happened... maybe he'll catch on next time.
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Today I finally got a return call from the people I'm supposed to see about anger management, after only calling them four times over two months. Apparently if I go to anger management the Crown will agree to consider not harrassing me after only another year or so, due to the thing I didn't do that nobody in the world believes I did. That'll teach me. All they wanted me to do was rustle up a babysitter and get down to Woodbridge by 2 tomorrow afternoon. That's fair; I only gave them fifty days' notice, so they generously gave me 22 hours notice in return. (By the way, thanks to my sister Devon for once again bailing me out!) It's a good thing that I only have 2 autistic kids, no car, no money until next week and two appointments to cancel to accomidate them. It'd be a pity if one of the lawyers involved had to leave a $180 lunch or golf game 5 minutes early to come up with a reasonable solution instead.
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On the more reasonable side of things I also walked four miles or so today pushing a 100 pound stroller (including the two kids) with a wheel that fell off halfway there.
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Well, I'm going to go collapse from exhaustion. Oh, yeah... maybe I should eat something. I'll see if I can catch a bat in my teeth on my way out from under the bridge. Yummy!
Ciao for now, the Emaciated Lexiphage.

P.S.: I heard a rumour an Al Quaida terrorist plans to put a half a peanut in each public school bathroom in New York City. Authorities are beating to death anyone of middle eastern descent carrying any Planter's products. Be warned! Carry chips instead!

Screaming Peanut Death

2006-06-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

Aloha from the office of the Lexiphage!
Woah... here comes someone respectable. Quick! Pretend you're reading a celebrity gossip column! Whew. That was a close one.
Today I spent piles of time with my brood of skulduggerous munchkins, and watched more hours of 'Beauty and the Beast' than polite words can express. If anyone says "Bonjour" to me I'm gonna lose it!
Back to reality... I have a question for everyone. Is it just me, or are the public school boards run by demented lunatics? (How's that for a return to reality?) I have a problem with this peanut thing and how 998.8 kids out of every 1000 have to cut out peanut butter because the parents of the remaining 1.2 kids can't tell them DON'T EAT THE POISON. Gavin and Mya (my kids) are both preschoolers and autistic, and I have never EVEN ONCE had to tell either of them "No, kids... don't eat the power saw blade while it's running. NO!" If Gavin attempts to steal a mouthful from a beer or glass of wine from one of the grown-ups, I just say "Gav, that's a grown-up drink," and he leaves it alone. But these few kids with HORRIFYING DEADLY ALLERGIES are apparently also born with another disability- STUPID PARENTS and/or STUPID SCHOOL BOARD REPRESENTATIVES. You know what I think would be good to keep out of schools? How about FIREARMS. I'm not a devout gun-control nut, but I know I've heard of a lot more deaths in public schools from bullets than peanuts. I'm willing to bet that more kids are vulnerable to anaphalactic shock from BEING SHOT than EATING AN M&M.
Fortunately, we don't have to worry about either, because our all-knowing government has seen fit to protect us from ourselves by removing the need for us to exercise our own brain cells. And really, isn't that what our society needs?
For example, instead of worrying about nuclear waste being generated by all the new nuke plants McGuinty and his handlers are hollering about, waste that will essentially NEVER go away, and will remain horrifyingly deadly to any living thing exposed to it for millenia to come, instead let's worry about school populations being wiped out in second because a drug dealer smuggled a peanut butter cup into math class. I mean, haven't you seen the commercials? The government says nuclear energy is clean, and shows pictures of blue sky when they say it!
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Well, I'm convinced.
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Thanks for listening... er... reading. I needed to get that off of my chest. I feel much better now. I think I'll go have some peanut butter on toast.

See ya on the flipside,
The Fastidious Lexiphage.

Crazy People part 3

2006-06-11T19:40:00.000-05:00

Salutations, fellow plebians; it is I the Lexiphage.
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So I went to the infamous Granny's Cottage for a day and a half, and luckily the blackflies were under control; I can only assume that the insidious forces which constantly shadow my slightest move removed them for their own convenience prior to following me up there. Well, there may be another explanation but that's the most entertaining one. Highlights of the weekend included a campfire marshmallow roast, breakfast burritos, and various self-destructive elements of my familia leaping into water which was of a temperature clearly suitable for preserving food (assuming a clear, waterproof container, of course, but that's another story). My son Gavin had his first experience sailing, and despite his difficulties with speech managed to say "want to go on boat" the next day, in many variations.
Now, back to the 'Crazy People' storyline...
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As an aside, just because I refer to it as a storyline doesn't mean it isn't true. I do use a bit of creative license for drama's sake, but I'm writing this, so I have...er... license. Stop interrupting me!
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So I get a call from the ex's aunt, finally filling me in on the escapades of said ex (I grit my teeth at this point). Last I heard she was heading for Stouffville and out of meds... apparently now she's much more lucid and living at a group home in Bradford. How long this is supposed to last, I have no idea, but at least she apparently has an address. Theoretically she is planning to go to a shrink to get officially declared sane so she can have greater access to the kids, but in the meanwhile, her Dad taking them to see her will now theoretically resume. Theoretically.
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Forgive me if I do not hold my breath.
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Anyhoo, so there are vague possibilities things may actually work out in a relatively normal fashion, assuming God doesn't have it in for me. Regardless of how things turn out in that respect, most other aspects of my life seem to be working themselves out and with my life clearing up a little I am hoping to have more time to complain about the government and be paranoid.
Until next time,
The Sisyphean Lexiphage

Collapsed on the beach

2006-06-09T14:55:00.000-05:00

Bonjourno, folks.
Once again the Lexiphage has emerged from beneath his bed, risking his very life, to broadcast his humble messages to those whose days need brightening. Don't feel guilty; I take pleasure in the misfortunes of others as well, and have giggle cramps to prove it.
This weekend my brood of miscreant offspring and I will journey to the distant north to visit Granny in her log cabin; I am looking forward to drinking water straight off the glacier and eating bear meat straight off the bear. (A note to the wise: bears really hate this. If you're going to eat bears this way make sure you bite really hard!) We will be enjoying the journey on the roof-rack of my sister's Significant Other, Rob. (For those who don't know, Rob is a politician and entertainer, kind of like McGuinty only funny on purpose.) Once there, Granny and her wide and varied descendants will no doubt spend the weekend in competition for how many blackflies we can slay.
In reference to the above title, I plan to spend the weekend lying face down on the ground attempting to regain my breath.
Anyhoo, looks like this will be a short post, as I have to go pack my grapple-gun and bear spices. See ya on the flipside,
The Meretricious Lexiphage.
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P.S. : Granny, I'll tell you what Ptyalismic means when I get up there. 'Bye!

All hail the wise Doctorologists & Lawyerese

2006-06-08T17:42:00.000-05:00

Greetings, fellow earthlings, it is I the Lexiphage.
Many apologies for not posting these past many days; I had a few chores to do which resembled the Twelve Labours of Hercules.
Now I am past Hump Day, I feel I can breathe easy for a few microseconds and recount the interesting events of the last few days.
First, the big news. I went down to Markham-Stouffville hospital today and Gavin & Mya now have their complete diagnosis: Gavin has classic Autism, and Mya apparently has the same as well as a Global Developmental Delay. They said little about the severity or whatever, so the actual information I gleaned personally was scant, however now that the diagnosis is official I can mail copies to all of the government people whose job it is to tell me why I don't qualify for anything and tell them they are out of a job.
Mya is now the age she needs to be to attend Gavin's preschool program, and the only thing which stands in my way is actually talking to whoever is in charge of my funding to get the go-ahead. So she should be in class early next century. I went to court on Tuesday to be berated in Criminal Court; apparently the Crown does not need to provide proof in this case as I agreed (in theory) to go to this stupid anger management thing they want me to take... (ANGER MANAGEMENT? WHAT KIND OF #%!@*!^ IDIOT WOULD THINK I NEED #%!@*!^ ANGER MANAGEMENT ???)
Anyhoo, apparently I needed to have a contract signed in blood to qualify for the Crown's generous deal, but instead of allowing me to back out the judge said I'd better get one or she'll throw me upside down into the Turkish prison toilet they keep around for occasions like this.
After a short stay in the stockade where I gratefully recieved sixty lashes (not my actual punishment, just to keep me honest) I had a little chit-chat with my lawyer and on the up side he thinks he can sort out the paper I need my absentee ex-wife to sign. Without the testimony of the drooling maniac, my word & the word of OHIP. my old doctor, the hospital & so on, that Mya exists she apparently no longer does & therefore can't get a birth certificate or new health card. (I may have found a loophole in the health card thingy).
Well, that covers the major issues; the details (it's all in the details) will have to wait for another blog while I regenerate the tissue on my bloody, raw typing fingers.
So long for now,
the Ptyalismic Lexiphage

Crazy People part 2

2006-06-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

Hiya everyone! This is the Lexiphage signing in.
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So, for the third time in the past couple of weeks Jillsey is out of the hospital. Her aunt called me last night, and fills me in.
The hospital changed her meds, and she showed marked improvement, so everyone agreed she would take a couple of weeks to recover while they found her an apartment and got her set up like a sane person. Of course, they figured she was no longer a security risk...
The minute they aren't looking, she bolts; apparently now, however, the hospital figures she's all fixed up and okay to roam society at large (unlike, say, a week ago). Not that she has any meds with her or anything.
Apparently this time she headed for Stouffville, where her brothers live, and no one has heard from her since; from what I understand, not even her brothers. She has virtually nothing with her but a shiny new paycheck (I assume from ODSP, her old moneybag) and a feverish desire to spend it. I figure once she's frittered that away she'll show up wanting a stipend of some sort... her brothers won't support her, I'm certain of that.
Anyway, so if anybody sees anyone foaming at the mouth in Stouffville, you haven't seen me.
Ciao,
the Salubrious Lexiphage.

The Great Grocery Adventure

2006-06-02T15:12:00.000-05:00

Hiya to all internetites.
Here yet again.
So I was having a frustrating day today, involving a late cab with a snotty driver, hollering kids and so on, when I finally end up at the trusty doughnut shop. I order my usual assortment of kid-bait and coffee, and while they are retreiving it I realize I have no cash. I still have some in the bank, though, so I can run over and grab cash at the ATM next door. A neighbour is in the store as well, so I ask her to watch Mya, who is precariously balanced between napping and shrieking, and therefore can't be moved until the balance shifts.
I take Gavin with me next door... mistake number one. If you've ever tried to remove a 4-year old from a doughnut shop prior to his doughnut infusion, you'll have a rough idea of the volume of protest I recieved. Gavin refused to listen to my explanation and figures we must be going shopping (the ATM is outside of a grocery store) and attempts to go inside twice while I wait in line. Once the machine has my card, Gavin bolts.
Fool that I am, I assume that Gavin is within line-of-sight and howling for doughnuts, and therefore impossible to lose. During the brief moment when I am pulling my cash and card from the infernal machine, Gavin dissappears between three shopping carts; however it appears he's headed just outside the door, and someone hand-signals me something which apparently I misinterpret confirms my suspicions.
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As soon as my belongings are safely in my hand Gavin's shouting stops, and I run outside to where I THOUGHT I had seen him last. No sign... I ask a bystander if she's seen a wailing four-year-old pass by, and she is clueless. I look along the sidewalk in each direction... no Gavin. So I go into the store... no Gavin. I ask the first cashier, the one right in front of the door if she's seen him. Not a sign. I dash back and forth out of the store and around the surrounding area, looking for an apparently invisible child, seeing and hearing nothing.
Of course, Mya is still in the hands of a neighbour the next store over, but I can't return there minus a child...
In the grocery store, I and a nearby customer suddenly hear wailing and hollering again as apparently Gavin suddenly realizes I'm not behind him- in the space of maybe a minute he's on the far side of the store where a clerk who knows me is already leading him back to the entrance and myself. After a round of profuse thank-yous, I return to my other offspring who is sleeping soundly.
Gavin is so shaken by the ordeal he doesn't want the damn doughnuts any more, and instead shifts back and forth between crying, drinking chocolate milk, holding my hand, and attempting to tell me what happened.
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After all that, I really needed my coffee, so I hooked Gavin up to a chocolate milk IV and alternated between chugging caffeine and consoling the boy.

Gavin is now secured to a 6-litre engine block in the basement with six feet of cow chain. But he gets to watch Dora the Explorer from there, so we're both happy.
Have a good weekend,
the Paternal Lexiphage.

The life of a fugitive

2006-06-01T23:18:00.000-05:00

Hiya. Your freindly neighbourhood Lexiphage here doing my best to fight evil in all its forms- especially Country music (shudder).
Not a lot to report today; I spent much of my time lurking through the shadows to pay my bills for the month, avoiding the watchful eyes of lunatics at large and other common hazards. I had to deal with several evils today, including the bank, cable company and phone company. Just in case the powers-that-be have search engines trolling the Net for libel suits, I'll avoid naming names.
Had a brief respite in the doughnut shop with the kids; Mya is beginning to take her penchant for chocolate milk to extremes, and Gavin likes to lick his Timbits and put them back in the box for me to find. Ahhh, relaxation!
I ended up forgetting one bill I'll have to pay tomorrow (those Hydro people keep coming up in these blogs) and in the meantime I'll just have to watch for the dreaded Hydro mercenaries I've been hearing so much about. Apparently they use electrified nunchucks, and usually manage not to zap themselves while swinging them around.
Anyway, it's past my bed-time and I'll catch a whipping if I remain at my desk any longer. I'm going to hurl myself into my humble cot and sleep with one eye open (looking for little red lights shining in the window).
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You don't think living with a lunatic for five or six years had any lasting effect on me, do you?
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Have a squishy, cozy, fuzzy, warm and snuggly day, full of warmth, freinds, hugs, goodness, light, happiness, contentment, refined sugar, and less-toxic-than-normal food additives.
Bye-bye all,
The Obstreperous Lexiphage.

The heat

2006-05-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

Hiya everyone. The Lexiphage once again reporting live from a hole under a bridge.
I suppose everyone has mentioned this, but I just wanted to point out that it was hotter than a guatemalan jalapeno in the Devil's microwave today. My two kids and I sat in the house most of the day on a giant sponge I had to wring out every twenty minutes. Unlike everyone else, however, I have a point I'd like to make about the heat. Two points, actually.
ONE: Anyone who complains about the heat had better shut up this February. It either is a law or should be, that all citizenry of our humble oligarchy have the right to complain about only one season. So pick one and stick with it! That way you have more time to complain about the government, which brings me to my second point.
TWO: I am convinced that the heat is somehow Dalton McGuinty's fault. If you don't believe me, stop and think for a minute: since the Honourable Mr. McGuinty (oops, I'm sorry... I think a small H should have been sufficient) took office exactly what has happened in Ontario that WASN'T his fault? Essentially every profession has been on strike despite the fact that weiner boy is supposed to be of a party that kisses up to public service agencies, union bosses (mostly), big business types AND the poor (generally anyone who asks for money). To fix public health care he's dumped extra taxes on us, kicked around a bunch of nurses, told us we aren't qualified to tell an optometrist we can't see, and now he's telling pharmacists they shouldn't be allowed to make money any more. Really, if he didn't give the order to triple our production of greenhouse gasses in some weird Kyoto-like attack of quasi-logic, it's only because the Lebanese telephone psychic he gets all of his ideas from hasn't got around to that yet. Regardless of whether it really is his fault or not, why bother expending all the energy a serious investigation would require? Even if he's found with the bloddy knife in his hand like Chretien and Martin, he'll probably get away with acting stupid and issuing a vague and insincere apology anyway. Come to think of it, that kind of describes his administration already. My point is, why bother? Do what I do and play the odds. What are the chances anything ISN'T his fault?
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Besides which, if it isn't his fault it might be mine.
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Happy Sweating,
Sincerely,
The Pedantic Lexiphage.

Technical Crap

2006-05-29T09:39:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone. Bear with me, I have a screwdriver jammed in my hard drive and a couple of wires up my nose to get this to work. Behold... the Lexiphage in all his sticky glory!!!!
Now if only I can get the wires out of my sinus cavity, I'll be halfway there...

Ciao,

The Technosavantic Lexiphage

Crazy People

2006-05-29T05:41:00.000-05:00

Hiya, & welcome.
I'll just dive right in here.
So last night my foaming-at-the-mouth ex-wife escaped from lockdown in the mental hospital for the second time in a month. This time instead of scamming a cabbie apparently her and a fellow escapee ripped off someone's car.
Showing that her love for me endures, she immediately called to ask for money.
I told her a good first step would be to call someone who has money (I assumed she wouldn't want to drive up here for the family fortune of $2.97). The cops, in their usual fashion (sorry to the cop, ex-cop & cop-related people in the family) called me up to chat at 1:15 a.m, and were nice enough to give me some info, you know, in case I woke up with a couple of mental patients standing over me giggling and holding my steak knives. How thoughtful. If I go missing over the next couple of days, I leave $10 to the police foundation...
Otherwise things are peachy. Had a good weekend, where I recieved 30% fewer death threats than average. I'm hoping to survive long enough to make sure those nice people at the Hydro company get their money before I end up being roasted on a spit and served with instant mashed potatoes and Kool-aid to a bunch of hungry lunatics. The Hydro company deserves that, especially seeing as how they are always so fiscally responsible.
Hope to write again soon, assuming I still have my fingers attached by then.
Ciao!
-The Paranoid Lexiphage.

Return of the son of the Lexiphage III

2006-05-26T19:28:00.000-05:00

Greetings, all. It appears I have finally succumbed to the pressure of my familial counterparts, and begun a Blog of my own. In doing so I hope to condemn the lot of you to endless hours of peering blankly into the terminals of your infernal machines, gradually withering your once-healthy retinae to husks of their former vibrancy. Hope you enjoy it.
Let's see... today Mya was in rare form; she spent her first hour of the day shrieking, kicking and otherwise behaving as if she were on fire until I guessed she wanted chocolate milk for breakfast. When we returned home she shrieked some more for good measure (I believe because I was washing dishes) and then later on shrieked through a diaper change. When Gavin returned from school she shrieked a little, then stole his drink and proceeded to throw it in interesting directions. This was, apparently, NOT because she wanted a drink of her own, but merely for the joy of it. She was quiet when we went out for a walk, but made up for it with a bit of shrieking and a faked injury whilst I prepared supper. She took a short break to eat, and then made up for it while Gavin ate with a bit of shrieking while she stole his corn chips and threw them about the living room. Then she shrieked and giggled while watching Elmo and Baby Einstein before bed. Lastly, after I put her in bed, she shrieked a bit for a change. On the up side, I noticed the shrieking got gradually less annoyed throughout the day.
Gavin was pretty good today, and didn't shriek much at all. His favourite pastime since I started teaching him the alphabet is hollering the names of letters as loud as possible and then giggling histerically. Historically, today he drew the letter "i".
As for myself, today I was really pleased that the government has made a third error on my tax return, but this time it was in my favour and they mailed me a check. Realizing they would soon notice what they had done, I spent it on some much-needed groceries with much enthusiansm and evil cackling. When the black-suited men appeared at my door later in the evening, I pretended I wasn't home. Even now, there is a flower delivery van three doors down the street that has been sitting there for an hour and a half. It has tinted windows. I also got a threatening message on my voice mail from Dalton McGuinty... something about fraud, justice and men with truncheons.
Well, I think I've inflicted enough upon you all. Next time, I think I'll post a picture... I wanted to this time but couldn't find anything with enough malificence.
Bye-Bye now,
The Sociophobic Lexiphage.