Gather round the trough.

I pretty much always think that KFC aka PFK aka The Colonel's chicken shack is revolting but I just want to take a minute here to talk about just one part of their operation. The Bucket.

One of their current slogans is "there's always more in the bucket." Gross! Food should never be served in a bucket and buckets should certianly never be used as a way of enticing people to eat more. What are buckets used for? My top two answers would be:

a) for mopping grimy floors.
b) for puking in when you've got a really bad flu and just can't make it to the bathroom.

Why would you want to associate buckets with food? Sure, KFC is little more than pig slop. Pig slop comes in buckets as it hurled into the Feeding Trough.

Hey kids! There are more boneless wings in the bucket! Boneless wings. Another very dodgy concept found in the Colonel's bucket.

Grade A Beef.

I was filling out an application today and discovered that I needed to include copies of my University transcripts and diplomas. Fortunately, I just happen to keep stuff like that on hand for just this kind of crisis. So after a couple of minutes of wondering where I might have stuffed them -- they don't actually come out very often anymore -- I found them wedged in a file marked MISC.

They were both there but I found I couldn't look closely at them. Sometimes I like remembering my collegial days, but I don't think I like remembering my marks. Now, I didn't do badly overall, so it's not as though I was seeing strings of Fs. It's more seeing some of the course titles makes me a little nauseous. I remember profs or people in classes or moods I was in. Like how could I not see 110-335A (20th century novel 1) and not think Pearhead in the basement of the computer building? How could I see COMS 563 (Media prod. Television) and not want to break into Greek dancing?

And yes, I see a couple of grades that really pissed me off. Like that Milton class in second year. That made me so mad! But I don't think anyone could have done well in it. The prof had recently had a bad breakup with another prof in the dept if I remember right, and was bitter. Harrumph.
Ah. This is taking me back. McGill in the Fall was nice. It looked pretty. Hanging out in the Alley that smoky (archaic...) coffee place under the McGill bar. Too many hours in the library with Helen. Apartment on Cote-des-Neiges in the hell winter of 93. All the stuff we used to do when we weren't at school.

There. I solved my own problem. Now the transcripts are just making me feel a bit nostalgic for Montreal in the Grunge era. I want to be drinking a pitcher of cheap beer,wearing my doc boots and various layers of ratty clothing now.

At least my hair is long and red again.

Three things I saw on my way to work last night

One

Two.

Three.

Dear Readers...

I know you are out there and I know you have stuff you want to say! Get posting! Get creative and make up a name for yourself so that you can post your thoughtful insights. You don't have to use your real name you know. Or email me and I'll give you one.

Halfway...but not quite

I think they are missing the point. Maybe they should give pot to the Palestinians too.

JERUSALEM - Israeli soldiers traumatized by battle with the
Palestinians have a new, unconventional weapon to exorcise
their nightmares -- marijuana.
Under an experimental program, Delta-9 tetrohydrocannabinol
(THC), the active ingredient found in the cannabis plant, will
be administered to 15 soldiers over the next several months in
an effort to fight post-traumatic stress disorder.
Raphael Mechoulam of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, the
chief researcher behind a project he described as a world
first, said the chemical could trick the brain into suppressing
unwanted memories.
For soldiers haunted by flashbacks of traumatic battle
experiences, he said, the drug, administered in liquid form,
could be the answer to hundreds of sleepless nights.

There's something in the air

For the past couple of days it has smelt like the sea in Toronto. More specifically, the sea from a beach at low tide, when all the seaweed is there.

I have been happiliy smelling the air, thinking of the ocean. Except everytime the air smells different in Toronto, it's because something weird is happening. Like the sewage system is messed up, or there's been a zebra mussel explosion in Lake Ontario, or a plague of aphids.

So I need to use caution.

If a Tree Falls

A couple of years ago, I saw a segment on Oprah about a kid who was obsessed with garbage trucks. Everyday he would run to the window and watch the garbage truck collect the trash. He particularly liked the arm contraption that would come out from the truck, grab the can and hoist it up, dumping the trash into the truck.

He could imitate all the sounds the trucks made. The garbagemen knew his name and would talk to him. The boy idolized the guys and when Oprah asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, the answer was obvious.

Things became complicated when he started school. He was devastated that he would no longer be able to see the trucks. So his parents devised a solution. They set the family camcorder to the the truck coming and going. He came to have an extensive collection of surveillance.

I recently remembered this and started thinking about obsessive behaviors of kids. We all had them. The garbage kid and I couldn't be the only ones.

I must have been about 9 when it started. Maybe I was a late bloomer. In January, after Christmas, a sad thing happens to Christmas trees. They dry up, get brown and die. Adults look at them noticing they no longer smell nice. There are pine needles all over the house. They remind them of uncomfortable holiday moments. Taking them down becomes a chore that gets put off a few times.

Finally the day comes and out the tree goes. And I come walking down Grosvenor on my way home from school. I see the tree lying dejectedly on the street, waiting for that tree chopper thing to come by and take them away. I can't bear the idea. I bring the trees home and they begin to line up in the back yard. I usually managed to collect somewhere between 15 and 20 trees. My conifers would sit happily in the garden until about March when my father would finally freak out and throw them all out.

By that time my sympathy for the trees was forgotten. I would feel a little bit of panic that my family might get in trouble from Westmount garbage pickup for putting out twenty Christmas trees in March, but we never did.

This went on for about three years.

I still can't understand why my parents let me get away with it.

Maybe they remembered the time a few years earlier when my dad decided to cut down all the snowball bushes on the front lawn to make room for some other bushes. I snuck the branches inside and stuffed them in the back of my closet. I don't think my mum found them for at least a couple of months. When she did, I explained I felt bad that they weren't loved anymore.

I was always a sensitive child.