2004-05-04

They really did save Hitler�s brain. And Rupert Murdoch bought it. Then he rigged it up to some sort of Reality-TV-premise-generating device, because there is no other logical explanation for this. This show is sick and wrong in ways that can only be properly listed in blood, on the pages of a book bound in human skin. Fox: You blow my mind. Like a five-dollar whore.

And now for something that�s also freakish and bizarre, but in an entirely good and wholesome way: remember Air Raid Guy? For those too catatonically slothful to click the link, he�s a local wacko who rides around Ottawa on his bike, wearing a decorated surgical mask and blowing a slide whistle that sounds like a bomb falling. He�s one of my favourite nutters, and he�s recently undergone an upgrade: instead of a bike, he now jets about town on a very stylish motorized cart. He is also now accompanied by his dog, who rides in a trailer behind the cart, barking enthusiastically along with the whistle; and � perhaps best of all � the cart sports a set of hand-made vanity plates reading �DR MASK,� which rules in ways hitherto unfathomable. Every time he scoots past me on the street, mask on, whistle blaring, dog barking, I seriously have to repress an urge to cheer. I [heart] Dr Mask. I�m thinking of posting up some signs reading �Dr Mask for Mayor.�

Yesterday I took the day off work (yay!) so I could go to a gynaecologist appointment (boo!). The office is located in a rat-maze of identical housing developments deep in the bowels of an industrial wasteland with no street signs: one of those neighbourhoods that�s supposed to be upscale and welcoming but somehow comes off as obliquely sinister, like a ReMax brochure illustrated by De Chirico. Anyway, I got to wander around, completely lost, out in the STILL NOT WARM AT ALL, THANK YOU weather, all for the privilege of having a total stranger prod the one remaining warm spot on my body with a cold metal implement AND THEN send me off to have blood drawn. Every time I go to the doctor they want fifteen goddamn vials of my blood, which they do mysterious tests on before referring me to another doctor. I think Ontario Health is really a front for an organized ring of lesbian vampires. You think I�m paranoid, but that would account for all the blood-drawing and crotch-prodding, no?

The overly-cheerful nurse assigned to perform the latest sanguinary withdrawal gave me a play-by-play of the process � the first attempt to tap my desiccated vein didn�t work, apparently, because �Oops! Your vein rolled! I tried to put the needle in, but it just rolled under my finger!� Gaaargh. You know, lady, I have a very laissez-faire attitude towards anything that takes place under my own skin, and if my veins want to roll around, I�m just as happy not to know about it. Just button your lip and try to keep the extraneous stabbing to a minimum, OK, Little Miss Mengele? Thank you. This is not an audition for the next Fox reality series.