geekent’s stuff’n things

I was just the 52,901st customer of the Flavia machine on the 5th floor. Nearly 53,000 of these stupid little drink packages have wound up in the landfill from this one machine alone. Progress is bitter, unless you add sugar, and cream, and then stir it, with a little plastic stir stick.

Clothes only fit when you’re fat

In the opposite of ladies fashion where the clothes are made for slim, thirteen-year-old gangly boy shaped, breastless women, men’s fashion seems geared towards the pot and/or beer-bellied gentleman, if not the outright girthy. The roommate has a GQ magazine from months’ past (with Jake Gyllenhaal looking so sexy and bored on the cover) resting beside the upstairs komode, and within its pages, amongst the scratch and sniff ads for liquor and past the awesome interview with Sarah Silverman (Jimmy Kimmel, you’re a lucky dude, but then so am I so what of it), there’s an article which isn’t so much an “article” as four pages of photographs of a dude with different button-down, long-sleeve shirts on: kinda casual, kinda dressy. Anyway, the point of this photo-essay is to alert men (”metrosexuals”) to the nasty appearance of their button-downs when tucked in. Most shirts offer too much room, thus poofing or bunching around the waist and making the slim look… not so slim.
This I too have noticed and am also not a fan of. Button-down shirts, the more affordable ones which I appear to come across, seem made for the gutted, the type of man who Borat would find himself wrestling naked with, the kind of man whose stomach drapes over his privates. If I take some of my shirts - the one’s whose label states “medium” (yes, fashionistas, my tags generally don’t state the collar size) - and I put them on and button them up, I can usually grab the bottom button and pull it a good 6 to 8 inches away from my belly button. This is not a shirt that fits me. Oh, it’s square enough on my shoulders, but it’s meant for someone with more notches on his belt buckle (and I’m not talking sexual conquests… perhaps kegger conquests, yes).
So far I’ve not found a lot of “slim fit” clothing. H&M has a good selection of leaner wardrobe fodder, with “slim fit” specifically labelled on the tag, as does Point Zero (but there’s less of this going around). I’m interested to hear of any other chains or boutiques in Toronto that have shirts which cater to the slim-fitted gentleperson, ones that are wash and wear and also won’t break your wallet.

Gitcher groove on

Speaking of H&M… I resisted going there for a while, but now I am a devotee, if for one reason only: underwear. H&M have the perfect boxer-brief, made of 95% cotton, 5% lycra, it has a bounceback factor which doesn’t lose it shape like FOTL or other department store brands. And it has a comfort zone up front (I dubbed it the “cock pocket”) which keeps the boys front and center, snugly resting like a banana arching over two apples. I love these things, they fit well, they look good, and they feel good.
(And yes, Joany, I did buy a pair of the Superman undies (aka Underoos for Adults) that you alerted me to, unfortunately the briefs have a tendency to ride up and I wasn’t as keen on the design on the boxer-briefs.)

Oooh, I didn’t like yesterday very much at all, no-ho, uh uh.
I was tired. Not certain why because I’ve been going to bed much earlier than I ever have (but also getting up earlier as well), but tired I was, and cranky… a total Grumpleupagus, a term my friend Ry (to be, finally, discharged from hospital today, hopefully) coined to describe his ex-girlfriend. Think a snippy version of Snuffleupagus and you get the idea. I always think a Grumpleupagus is hairy like Snuffy, but purple like Grimace, for some reason. And Grimace is weird, because to grimace kind of strikes me as a reflex-like action in response to something distasteful, like eating McDonalds… it’s like wincing (answers.com states: A sharp contortion of the face expressive of pain, contempt, or disgust, which perfectly describes my reaction to the Taint [the Taint is what McDonalds is referred to in Douglas Coupland's book "jPod" and isn't referring, here, to the part between a man's scrotum and the anus, aka the perineum {aren't you learning lots today kids?}, the slang popularized by Mr. Show with Bob and David]). So then why is that purple f*cker so happy? Is it because nothing can kill him?
Ahenneewhay, today is a better day than yesterday, although yesterday wound up being better after work ended for the most part, mostly because work ended. There was a weird 7-streetcar backup on Spadina after work, but the lovely lady and I foraged out to Dufferin Mall where I found me a lovely new jumper and she picked up some gifts for the wee one’s 5th birthday (which is coincidentally my father’s 57th birthday, and that’s kinda awesome). I also found a store which had a reservoir of my favourite headphones (discontinued by Sony two years ago) and so I bought two pair, because I loves them… I loves them so much.
Anyway. Today. Today isn’t the greatest day ev’ar, but it’s all right, y’dig and I’m enjoying myself, and I think I am liking it so much because it’s sunny and the skylight overhead casts a halo-like glow atop of me, signifying my divine providence and establishing my lordship over my workspace domain (what?). Yea. 5 red cars in a row, it’s a good day.
Comics. Lunch. Work. Cake.
All is good.

Yeah, it’s cold, a cold that reminds me of home.
Thunder Bay.
This -14 (-22 with wind chill) was average winter temperature growing up.
I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now.
Waking up to CBC radio and hearing the forecast doesn’t make me want to leap out of bed any quicker and make that half hour walk into work.
But, I know from living through these conditions over a much longer period that they are perfectly habitable and you can easily trudge along the sidewalks for a half hour without worry, you just have to bundle up appropriately.
Layers and some winter smart clothing (a hefty scarf, a toque, mitts rather than gloves, boots) are all part of the action. In fact, I was a little too warm with my brisk walk into work this morning (sweating in the cold can be dangerous if you cool down and catch a chill).
I’m not exactly built for this kind of temperature, but I’m certainly not as afraid of it nor as unprepared for it as others I know.
Still, not looking forward to that walk home.

My brain likes to play with words, often just looking at a sign will send it off on a field trip full of revelry and mental shenanigans. Recently:
On Queen Street sits the “Silver Snail”, which is a landmark for any geek visiting the city.
Down the street and around the corner (okay, a couple dozen blocks away) is the nail salon dubbed “Silver Nail”… strange business expansion or mere coincidence?
Meanwhile, I’m thinking of opening a hardware store which also offers comics and manicures and autographed photos of cinematic character actor Ron Silver. It shall be dubbed “Silver’s Nails”
Tucked away on McCaul is the costume and dance wardrobe suppliers “Malabar”. I was curious what they would think if I opened up a flexible undergarment store called “Malabra”. Items for sale would include the moldable brazier, silly putty pasties, the plasticine panty and the gelatinous gitch. Meanwhile, “Malabar” should not be confuse with the booze-’n'-boys funtime place “Malébar”. If they were interested in expanding their line of decadent, minimal-use clothing, perhaps they would consider attracting a transvestite crowd with a new wing called “Shemalabar”.
Tucked just off of Yonge and Dundas is the great “BMV” (”Books, Magazines, Video” I believe it stands for), which is a refuge for discounted and used comics, books, magazines videotapes and DVDs. Treasures can always be found. Across the street, on Yonge, is “HMV” (which stands for Humvee, I think, but that would be odd considering the lack of city tanks and the plethora of CDs and DVDs). I was considering the possibility of having a whole alphabet of “(blank)MV” storefronts in the area… well, at least enough to close the gap between B and H:
CMV - “Country Music & Video”, they pump their audio wares out into the street and have big television displays in their windows. They cause the real estate market in the area to depreciate.
DMV - well, “Department of Motor Vehicles” is an American term (we have the “MTO” - Ministry of Transportation of Ontario” here), but for the purposes of humour, a DMV branch opens here so we can learn to drive like Americans, with their “imperial” system of “Miles” (rather than the proper Metric of Kilo-meters), their fuel gage that goes from “N” to “Y” (rather than our Empty to Full monitors here), and their clocks which tell time using letters instead of numbers.
EMV - “Electro-Magnetic Voles”… very limited use, not likely to survive in the area as high product turnaround is needed to make money and afford the cost of rent. Replaced by “Electro-Magnetic Vulvae” which is a perverted store which you don’t want to enter.
FMV - a new radio station on the FM dial…or a video production office of For Him (aka “FHM”) Magazine, as they branch out into multimedia
GMV - the “Good Moves” company, perhaps a gym or an erotic dance training school, either case, likely on the second floor in that area.