What I Did On Saturday, Plus There Might Be A Free T-Shirt At The End If I Like Your Idea

Not to sound insensitive or anything, but death is a real bummer, so I'm going to switch gears and tell you what I did on Saturday.

Shanan and I went to the University of Regina Theatre Department's costume sale, where we tried on many ridiculous things from medieval wench costumes to skin-tight, fuzzy, blue bear costumes to fluffy hats:



I walked around in this princess outfit for a while until I realized that I looked like an artsy member of the KKK:



I couldn't leave empty-handed, though, so I bought three, yes THREE, of these The Disciples of James Dean jackets:



Then, we went to the farmers' market, where we hmmmed over produce.



I got ripped off by this one vendor again. He's this one particular Hutterite farmer. He'll tell you that it's four dollars for the carrots and five for the corn, and then after you talk to him for a while longer, he'll ask for ten. I give it to him because I like the way his accent turns the word hope into hoop.

Then, Shanan and I went for coffee at Tangerine, and it wasn't one of those namby pamby coffees where we talk about work and hobbies, no. We talked about atheism and the afterlife and the evils of dairy:



I love coffees like that. Something about getting older seems to rob us of the willingness to throw it all out there. We have so many guarded conversations where we talk about everything we agree on, whether it's how nice such and such is or how crappy such and such is, and it's delicious to dig into stuff that, although we want to preface it with you might think I'm crazy, but..., we put it out there anyway.



We're safer than we think we are.



Then, we hit Value Village, where we wondered at what might possess someone to buy a platter commemorating Bridlington:



Not that I've ever been to Bridlington, mind you, and it might be a city worth remembering through pictorial platters. I shouldn't judge just because I don't get the allure of commemorative platters.

I do, though. I'm a jerk sometimes.

And then, because we were trying to go everywhere in one afternoon, we stopped at the Golden Willow to buy buttons for the fantastic vintage coat that fit Shanan and not me because the universe is a sick place that doesn't give me what I want, except for when I find grapefruit jujube slices for free at the till. Then, the universe is less sick and more delicious.



So, in short, Saturday's purchases were, in no particular order: Creamo half & half, Starbucks ground coffee, DayQuil, three ceramic doll heads with two arms, a bag of potatoes, a bag of corn, four bags of carrots, and three The Disciples of James Dean jackets:



I'm not sure what the jackets are for. One just barely fits me, and then there are two smaller ones, so I think I need a small gang of small people who, if they don't hate James Dean, can at least pretend that they like James Dean. And red silk jackets. Bonus points if they can sculpt their hair into pompadours. Motherbumper?

And, because there is no tidy way to wrap this up, BAM! Here's my morning face:



PS. I am getting about ten free t-shirts, and I get to print whatever I want on them. What should I put on them? I'm at a loss. I thought about putting my head on them, only with Mr. T hair, with the line "Quit your jibba jabba!" underneath, but then I worried that his lines mights be trademarked or something.

So, help me out. If I like one of your ideas, you get a free shirt!

T-Shirts, Canned Food, And Typewriters

On my bus to work yesterday, there was this young university student who was wearing a red t-shirt with those blue, fuzzy, iron-on letters across his chest. The letters started out large and descended over four lines to very small letters like an optometrist’s eye chart. The t-shirt read: “I see dumb people reading my t-shirt.” He saw me reading it, and then he saw me smirking about it, and then he gave me the sullen look of someone who cannot share his humour with outsiders. Poor, sullen university student. It made me want to muss up his carefully crafted, product-laden curls.

I like these photographs.

I do not collect anything myself yet, but I am fascinated by the stuff other people that I have never met collect, such as typewriter ribbon tins. Personally, I am excited by canned food labels whenever I go grocery shopping. My favourite can label has got to be the one for a certain brand of corned beef. The can’s shape is unique, because it is trapezoidal, and the label has this style that could have come out of the 1950s. It’s other great feature is that it has a front-and-centre picture of a cow chewing grass, which is weird, because any tins containing meat do not usually have pictures of the animal of origin on the front. For instance, spam does not have a pig adorning its label, and tins of tuna do not have pictures of ugly, live tuna fish on them. I did start a canned food collection with this particular brand of canned corned beef, but the Fiery One ate the contents, and once the tin was opened, my love for it was gone. I will have to go grocery shopping soon to replace my missing collection of one.

Typewriter Facts and Links:
* If you’ve ever wondered about metaphase typewriters, read this.
* Mark Twain, the American novelist, was the first known author to submit a typed manuscript. He was supposed to have typed his most famous story, Tom Sawyer, but it is more likely to have been Life on the Mississippi. Twain’s typewriter was a Remington No.1.
* The original layout of letters on the typewriter was in an ABC format, but Christopher Sholes, an inventor of the first commercially successful machine, found this continually jammed his typewriters. To solve the problem, he asked his brother-in-law, a mathematician, to work out an arrangement that would prevent the bars from clashing. Sholes later claimed that this was a highly 'scientific arrangement'. It is from this that the QWERTY layout idea was evolved in 1873, and it persists to this day.
* The Classic Typewriter Page.
* This is for the font nerds out there.
* Mrs. Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon is the world’s fastest typist. She can maintain a speed of 150 words per minute (wpm) for 50 minutes (37,500 key strokes) and can attain a speed of 170 wpm using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) system. Compare that to the average workplace typist who reaches about 50 to 60 words per minute. At an even lower rater, is your average web surfer - around 30 words per minute, at a peak.
* The longest word that may be typed on the top row of letters on a typewriter is 'typewriter' (or so my source tells me, but I am too lazy to work on that one today).