A Day at the Races

Check out these amazing pictures that Elaine took at Marina and Raffi's engagement party at the track last weekend.

We bet, we cheered, we drank, we won money, we drank more, we ate pie... what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon in fall?


Most importantly - my Kentucky Derby flapper hat? Awesome.


The betrothed - all giggles and grins.


'Run Number 6! Run!' I didn't win any money on this race, but I bet Albert did!


From left, Deanna, Adriana Lima and Katie put their heads together to pick some winners.


It's too bad these two aren't more photogenic. A shame, really.


Every race is emotional, when yer the best durn gambler we had; Ether and Albert.


I like boys that wear Abercrombie and Fitch... Is it me or does Steve look like a catalogue model in this light?


Right after this photo was taken we played in the park for an hour or so.
We invented a ridiculous game about a sea captain and a aristocratic bimbo passenger. A couple of girls joined and it became a time-travelling adventure with LJ as the ultra-villain Dr. Diaper. If you can propose with a more fun way to spend time I'd like to hear it, because hey - thanks a lot for not telling me you know a roller-skating party panda.


Rounding things out - a beautiful photo of a beautiful bride-to-be.

Check out the full day of photos on the Engagement at the Track flickr site. Ain't love grand?

My Cinematic Debut!!!!

Okay, could this be any more awesome? This is the video project from the apple photos you may have seen earlier.

See me dance like a robot! See me throw myself out of a small fruit stand! See me get shoved into a truck in a scene viewers find vaguely pornographic! See it all today!

And, of course, once you're done watching it (60 or 70 times), make sure you vote for Quest.

They really deserve that million dollars, yo!

And I really deserve a million dollars for my stellar performance. And an entourage. And a professional hair and makeup team. And an assistant. And hot celebrity arm candy... I'm thinking a Timberlake or a Grenier. Hey - I'll even take a Lovitz. I ain't mad at the D-List.

I Heart Aziz Ansari

Seriously - this guy is an awesome comic who's coming up large in the 2G6 son! Also, he's almost more obsessed with R. Kelly than I am, and is one half of the hosting team for the Trapped in the Closet comedy panel screenings. Soul mate much?


Here's Aziz spraying anti-laugh spray on his audience before a show. Why? Because his comedy has superhuman strength and otherwise it's just too easy.

So the video below is funny. Real funny. It's basically, as it says in the intro, the result of a 'shittiest mixtape' contest between Aziz and friends, where the loser had to walk around New York with a large boombox playing the tape.

Now this was so clearly awesome that it inspired friends of mine to make their own mixtape, which I had the misfortune of listening to the whole way to and from Birch Bay What's weird is that a handful of songs selected by friends were the exact same ones selected by Aziz.

Makes you wonder if 'good/bad' songs are less subjective than you think. I mean seriously - any song with the following lyrics will make even a grizzly bear say 'that's wack'.

New kids on the block had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick...

I like girls that wear abercrombie and fitch
Id take her if I had one wish

More traditional funny - standup, writing, sketches etc. - available on his website: azizisbored.com.

And try the 'shittiest mixtape battle' with your friends. It's good times!

Rhy-mazing!

So I'm home sick today, drinking mad ginger ale and watching painfully bad daytime tv (today's episode: Beautiful Women, Tormented Lives) and painfully good movies that put me to sleep.

While perusing my blog, I realize that despite several posts highlighting artists/designers in Canada and beyond, I haven't mentioned a good friend - soft sculpture phenom Rhya Tamasauskas. This seems a glaring and embarassing omission, so... behold:


Rhya (on right) at the Monster Factory launch with business partners Bliss Man (best name ever) and Adam Dunn


Collaborative piece for Toronto contemporary art 'thing' Nuit Blanche entitled Curbside Getaway.


Garden Mites, one of Rhya's personal projects.


More Garden Mites.

Rhya is kind of the artist other artists would hate if she wasn't so freakishly likable. Why? Because she's achieved mad commercial success through her company Monster Factory, and she still does amazing projects the other 16 hours of the day, like making outfits for art robots, speaking at various art/fashion schools and generally rocking the Toronto indie art world.

Wanna see some of the monsters come to life? Check them out busting mad moves in Guster's video - One Man Wrecking Machine.



Okay then, my conscience is purged. Time to chug some Buckley's and go back to sleep. Being sick is the best...

Quote of the Week Archive

This is obviously going to be an ongoing post. As the weeks go, so too do the words that capture the spirit of our cherished time together.

April 13th - August 9, 2007 (maybe this isn't really a weeeeekly feature anymore...Somebody told me Cheez Whiz is like two ingredients away from garbage bags.Bernadette

March 30th - April 12th, 2007:You look a little haggard in some of the new photos on your blog.Rob, drunk at 6:30pm.

January 22nd - March 29th, 2007:I mean, it's January. At least in Canada it is, and-"

"It's January everywhere in the world."

"Well yeah, except for Australia"

"Uhhh..."
Drunken interchange outside my window.

January 15th - 22nd, 2007:
I mean, where are you going to put that?!? It's a giant shoe!
Claudia, referring to giant shoe chair dildo machine at sex show.

January 1st - 15th, 2007:
There were so many funny quotes at the insane Biltmore New Year's party. What a good sign for the year to come! Witness the following:

Man, you should wash your lips.
Guy to friend: 12:03 am.

I've got a stripper pole in my living room. Aaaand a tanning bed.
Girl with nearly invisible shirt on shocks all within earshot.

Husband? You're too foxy to have a husband!
Guy who wanted a challenge.

Chris has a hottie farm. And it's called Langley.
Teenage girl to friend in bathroom.

Yeah, my new nipple piercing is totally infected. I can only breastfeed out of this one now.
Unseen girl to friends in bathroom stall.

December 24th, 2006 - January 1, 2007:
Can I have a donkey box?
Li Yuan, asking for her cake to go.

December 17th - December 24th, 2006:
She is a sensual hurricane.
narrator of Ultimate Hollywood Blonde, on Heidi Klum.

December 3rd - December 10th, 2006:
I mean if you're around goats all the time, eventually you're going to be like 'hey - sex with goats. I wonder...'
me, talking myself into a disturbing corner during a workplace discussion of Tom Ellison

November 26th - December 3rd, 2006:
Do Canadians like champagne?
Random dude at Rebar in Seattle, about 10 minutes before we drunkenly left him waiting on the curb

November 19th - November 26th, 2006:
I am from Russia and we get so many problems with water. You get used to it. It’s not a big deal. It’s always brown in Russia.
Vladimir Burakov, Vancouver resident, on the 'boil water' terror

November 12th - November 19th, 2006:
This is Donna
And not Madonna
And I wanna wanna be
the voice of West Beverly.
Donna Martin, rhyming her audition for school DJ on 90210. Help! I'm falling into a 90210 sink-hole!

November 5th - November 12th, 2006:
Hey - you spawned it, you wrangle it.
Cam, on parents of kids at Science World

October 30th - November 5th, 2006:
People think it would be fun to be a bird because you could fly. But they forget the negative side, which is the preening.
Jack Handey [Deep Thought]

October 23th - 30th, 2006:
Did you know that Americans eat more Skittles in one day than Canadians do in a whole year?
Nathan

October 16th - 23rd, 2006:
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

October 9th - 16th, 2006:
Hey - so your boyfriend work nights a lot? It's looking good for Guillarmo!
Guillarmo: a wasted Italian guy that leapt out from behind a parked car to attempt seduction.

October 2nd - 9th, 2006:
Why are you partying so much? Are you some kind of party person? What is there to get so excited about?
My Mom

Mascots loose in Manhatten...

So Advertising Week has announced the winners of its annual icon/slogan competition.

The icon winner is one of my all-time personal favourites. You know him, you love him... it's KOOL-AID MAN!

Now most of you don't know my secret shame, but I used to have a Koolaid problem (cough cough candy raver period cough). It was a two-month phase in grade 11, ending with me snorting a line of strawberry Koolaid in the back of a chemistry class on a dare from my friend Chris Wilson, who owned fun fur pants and wore a soother. Good times. It's nice to see the figure responsible for my rock bottom get some recognition.

Anyway, I'm stumbling out of memory lane with a neon pink sinus cavity, so let's fill out this post by enjoying some of the photos from last year's 2005 Advertising Week, shall we?


Mascots take the stage. Even everyone's favourite racist joke - the California Raisins - gets a turn on the podium.


Trolling for whores... trolling for whores.


In a feat of astounding heroism, the standoffish Mr. Peanut gives chase to drunk driving Tony the Tiger. Tony's offensive yells of 'Heyyyy, suck on this, peanut! It's Grrrrrreat!' do little to stop the take-down.


McGruff the Crime Dog quietly urges Mayor Bloomburg to walk ahead, so that he can take a dump on the sidewalk with dignity.

Wait... huh? Adopt a what?

Rael with his model spacecraft, spreading his message of scientific-creationism, humanitarianism and... oh yeah... orgies.

Now some of you may know of my love for Raeliens, and so will not be surprised to find a post on their latest unbelievable project.

For those of you that don't know of this pseudo-religion, Raeliens follow the message of Rael, who was a low-rent French sports journalist until a fated, life-altering event:

On the 13th of December 1973, French journalist Rael was contacted by a visitor from another planet, and asked to establish an Embassy to welcome these people back to Earth.

The extra-terrestrial human being was a little over four feet tall, had long dark hair, almond shaped eyes, olive skin, and exuded harmony and humor. Rael recently described him by saying quite simply, "If he were to walk down a street in Japan, he would not even be noticed." In other words, they look like us, and we look like them. In fact, we were created "in their image" as explained in the Bible.

Already awesome. What is missing from the message above is the way that it plays out in practice. Because the philosophy basically means exalting science and promoting hedonism, it boils down to being a futuristic sex cult in the best sense - erotic massage meetings, secret attempts at human cloning, and talk of building an alien embassy.

I went to an outstanding presentation by the Raeliens when I was at UBC. The leader of the talk wore tight white pants, and spoke the lines 'why does your God want you to believe sex is bad? Sex is goooooood', while aggressively rubbing his thighs. The woman they had on call as a 'science expert' couldn't figure out how to orient her slide on the overhead projector. It ruled.

Okay, so back to present tense. Now the Raeliens have embarked on a new project, called, no kidding, Clitoraid, which purports to restore a sense of pleasure by somehow surgically reversing female circumcision. They invite the public to 'adopt a clitoris'.

Obviously it's a given that removing/mutilating a woman's clitoris is abhorrent, evil and a crime against humanity. But wtf are the Raeliens going to do about it? How exactly does one surgically restore a clitoris anyway? How creepy is this photo of Rael with one of the success stories?



Plus, they call the facility they're building a Pleasure Hospital. Yikes. Thanks Clitoraid. Now these poor, tortured African women can get screwed again at the hands of some cro magnon dudes. Quite literally.

Costumes = Good Times

What is a good weekend without several costume changes?

Saturday was full of them, from an afternoon spent in high Kentucky Derby gear for Marina and Raffi's engagement party at the Horse Track, [check out the photos], to the Red Party during the evening. Here are some photos of the usual suspects:


"Red card! That outfit is magenta, not crimson!"


Red hot sister duo Zoe and Carley are seeing red in their burgundy and scarlet outfits.


All red-blooded male eyes were on this fuschia suit - too bad Zoe is a single man's red herring.


You know it's a red letter day when Mika and I look like we stepped right out of the red light district. Or is that the cerise light district?

Click the link if you want more info about the colour red.

Classic comedy clips

Recovering after a pretty crazy weekend... doing the Sunday afternoon nachos and naps vs. working out debate.

Why not post some great comedy vids with a 'before they were famous' theme?

Before playing the inestimable Chloe O'Brien on 24 and a string of breakout roles in classics like Legally Blonde 2 and Dude, where's my car?, Mary Lynn Rajskub was a performance artist cum underground comic. Check this segment out - from Janeane Garofalo's short-lived 1995 Comedy Central show Comedy Product.

Or how about this? You might know David Cross from such appearances as: Tobias on Arrested Development, Rob the tech guy in Eternal Sunshine, Newton the Morgue Attendant in Men in Black (I and II), UFO expert in Waiting for Guffman and 'abrasive but well-endowed b-list celebrity' from my personal fantasy life. Well how about here, in a skit he wrote for the also short-lived Ben Stiller Show in 1992? It's really funny stuff.

This Mary Lynn Rajskub short film is also awesome - from very early in her career. Check it out. Love the funny.