More proof that my parents are horrible human beings: the Mohamed clan is heading to Toronto in August for a family wedding. So far so hoopy, right? After the SARS travel advisory was lifted a while back, there were all sorts of airline deals being slung around to lure people back to the big T-dot. But now, prices are back to normal - i.e. too high for my mother’s liking. She actually exulted when four more people got SARS in Toronto. “Look, Prem! Maybe flight prices will come back down now!” “Jesus Christ, Mom, these people are in critical condition. They might die!” “So long as I get a cheaper flight, who cares?” Gasp gasp. What is this world coming to.

Random quotes heard over the past couple of days and aimed in my direction, with genuine expectations of a response:
“I bet the Pope’s never even kissed a girl. What do you think?”
“I was thinking of giving this long-term relationship thing a shot. Like… longer than a month.”
“And when I woke up, this naked guy was answering his celphone right in front of me!”
“Emus. Cool. I bet you could have a lot of fun with a trained emu.”
“I’ve heard that if you microwave a bar of soap, it does some pretty neat things.”

And I’ll leave it up to you highly-intelligent readers to figure out who said what. Sigh… I think I need new friends.

“There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge a formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”

I was just getting ready to write an amusing post about how the Mohamed clan has been living off birthday cake and Mother’s Day cupcakes for the past seventy-two hours, but I’m afraid that has been pre-empted in order for me to bring you this special report: I just got bitten by a spider. I don’t have any further information on the species or genus, since all that’s left of it now is an unrecognizable smear. (Before I killed it, I quickly looked around for an appropriate book, like Douglas Adams’ ‘Mostly Harmless’ or perhaps Ellis’ ‘American Psycho,’ but the spider was too fast to look for long. I hate it when I miss an opportunity to do something ironic.) At any rate, the little bugger is good and dead, but one burning question remains… can spiders give you rabies?

This weather is getting people down more than I had given it credit for. A couple of days ago (i.e. when it was still pouring snow), I was downtown in that double-level pedway in City Centre, and I happened to look down at the corner across the street, and I saw the greatest of all great things on a day when I was just beginning to believe I’d never see the sun again: a fire-juggler in a nook next to the Holt Renfrew’s entrance. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I think I may even have laughed out loud - this guy, juggling three lit torches, in a blizzard, outside of Holt’s!
But you know what? Nobody stopped to look. I could understand, more or less, people not stopping to give him change, because this is Edmonton, after all. But nobody stopping to look? It was lunchtime and all the pretty office people were streaming past on both sides, and no one gave him a second glance. I was crushed. I tried to find him later to give him some money and tell him he’d made my day, but he was gone. One of those ‘Dammit dammit, I wish I had a digital camera’ moments again. They seem to be getting more frequent. I wonder if I should just suck it up and buy one.

If I ever get a dog, I’m naming him ‘Penguin.’

It’s 10:46 and I’m not expected to be anywhere or do anything till at least noon, so I’ve spent the morning researching the following: bull shark physiology, self-trephination (a lot more common than you’d think), and animal attacks. This is one of my favourites:
“Friday 26 February 1999

By Christopher Munnion in Johannesburg
THE man who shot and wounded Max, the South African gorilla who has become a legend, described to a court yesterday how he fought for his life with the animal after jumping into its pen at Johannesburg Zoo.
Isaac Mofokeng, who jumped into Max’s enclosure while running away from police officers, said: “I thought my last day had come. The first thing the gorilla did was rip my jeans and bite me on the buttocks.”
He told the Johannesburg magistrate: “He slammed me against the wall until I became semi-conscious. I thought it would be better to kill myself than be torn apart by the gorilla. At one stage, I put the gun to my own head and thought of pulling the trigger.”
Instead, Mofokeng shot Max. He said: “It was not malicious. I was fighting for my life.” Mofokeng has pleaded not guilty to robbery, rape, house-breaking, escaping from police custody and “malicious damage to property” - the charge relating to the shooting of Max.
Earlier, the police officers who had chased Mofokeng told how they had been attacked by Max as they tried to arrest the gunman. At one stage, the wounded and bleeding gorilla had a policeman under each arm.
Mofokeng said the incident arose from a “misunderstanding” when he went to a house to show the owner a gun he had found. He said: “They thought I was there to rob them so I ran into the zoo and jumped over this wall thinking I would be safe. I did not know it was the gorilla pen.”
Max underwent surgery and recovered to be proclaimed a “national hero”. Donations for his welfare came from all over the world.
The trial continues.”

Good Lord. “Uh, yeah… I, err, went to his house to, uh, show him this gun I had… umm… found.” Is that really the best he could do?! Serves him right to get attacked by a gorilla. Go Max!