I hate it when you slice up a mango to take to work the next day but accidentally leave it in a tupperware container overnight and then open it up at your desk to discover a neon-orange fermenty mess that smells like mango schnapps and which co-workers who stop by sniff in confusion before running to tell your supervisor that you’re doing crazy experiments and/or getting squiffed on Grand Marnier right there in your cubicle. Sigh.

I just started reading Charles Darwin’s ‘The Voyage of the Beagle,’ a crazily-thoughtful convocation gift I received last year from a hot chick I know (sorry guys, she’s taken). The book is incredibly fascinating, full of Indian attacks and homicidal geography and rampant commas and odd vivid images, like the following description of a toad he found in a desolate area of Brazil:

“Among the batrachian reptiles, I found only one little toad (Phryniscus nigricans), which was most singular from its colour. If we imagine, first, that it had been steeped in the blackest ink, and then, when dry, allowed to crawl over a board, freshly painted with the brighest vermilion, so as to colour the soles of its feet and parts of its stomach, a good idea of its appearance will be gained. If it had been an unnamed species, surely it ought to have been called diabolicus, for it is a fit toad to preach in the ear of Eve. Instead of being nocturnal in its habits, as other toads are, and living in damp obscure recesses, it crawls during the heat of the day about the dry sand-hillocks and arid plains, where not a single drop of water can be found. It must necessarily depend on the dew for its moisture; and this probably is absorbed by the skin, for it is known, that these reptiles possess great powers of cutaneous absorption. At Maldonaldo, I found one in a situation nearly as dry as at Bahia Blanca, and thinking to give it a great treat, carried it to a pool of water; not only was the little animal unable to swim, but, I think without help it would soon have drowned.”

What a fun book, though. Seriously. He gets in the way of an army-ant attack, and he fascinates ‘backward’ natives with his compass and his Prometheus matches, and he scares the crew of the Beagle with springing beetles, and he even goes fossil-hunting. I highly recommend it. :-)

I’d like to muse for a while on a used condom I saw discarded in an alleyway downtown this morning. Seeing a used condom perks me right up for the rest of the day. Cos you know what? That’s a condom that has been used. That means there’s at least one less unwanted pregnancy, maybe one less abortion. That’s at least one less (at the very least) nasty bout of gonorrhea, for example, or one less (at the other end of the spectrum) transmission of HIV. Condoms make the world a happier place. Find a friend and use one today!

People sure get snippy in this heat, don’t they. I recommend a couple of deep breaths, a short nap mid-day, or – my personal favourite – something really obscene with a Fudgsicle.

Ooh… I hope nobody’s reading over my cubicle wall right now.

Heh heh heh… frozen treats.

Yeah, so one of our giant spruce trees blew over into our neighbour’s yard, smashing the poor bugger’s fence, hammock, and a patio table. Tragic, really. Even more tragic was my father deciding that a tree-removal service was totally out of the question, and that the Mohamed men could deal with this fallen behemoth on their own. You could practically hear the heroic music surging as they strode outside with hacksaws in hand.
An hour later, having been mercilessly pelted by eyeball-sized hail and half-drowned in the ensuing flood, they dripped inside and went to go lick their wounds. I think the second attempt at Operation Loose Spruce is scheduled for tomorrow evening. May God have pity on their souls.

This is the funniest blog comment string I’ve ever encountered, I think. And the worst part is that the whole foofaraw is over this. Sigh. I’m not sure if this says something unflattering about the state of society in general… or just Brussels.

Stayed up till almost 3 a.m. last night – or technically this morning – because I was convinced I could hear a mosquito in my room. I first heard it around 11, and went prowling around with a magazine, muttering things like, “Oooh, so you want a piece of me, eh? Eh?” Then I gave up around 1 and decided to hit the hay. And then I heard it again. Niiiiiiiiiiiii…. New strategy: I sat down on my bed and stuck my legs out in front of me, hoping to entice the little bitch my way with such a very abundant amount of flesh. No good. It got horrendously awful around 2:30, by which time my mantra (accompanied by rocking back and forth and fondling my magazine) had become “First kill… then sleep… first kill… then sleep…”
I dozed off around 3 and awoke this morning without a bite. The moral of the story is, both mosquitos and auditory hallucinations suck.

A couple of months ago I found this great book that summarized the stories of about 50 major operas. “Eww, opera,” I can hear you saying already, “blugh, talk about boring.” But actually, as some of you have realized, watching an opera is terrifically entertaining. The funny thing about opera is that there tends to not be too much in the way of plots… I haven’t found one yet that has more than about six characters. All you really need in an opera is some love, betrayal, honour, and an amusing servant.

And so, for your reading pleasure, I present the ultra-summarized version of Gounod’s ‘Faust,’ based on Goethe’s poem of the same name, based on the well-known legend of Dr. Faustus. Apparently the opera takes about three and a half to four hours to perform. I think I can do better than that. Ready?

ACT ONE (in Faust’s study)
Faust: My life sucks. In fact, I wish I were dead. Fuck you, human aspirations!
(poof)
Mephistopheles: Hallo, I am Mephistopheles, I can give you anything you want.
Faust: All I want is my youth, really.
Mephistopheles: OK, but the deal is, if I help you out in this life, after your death, I get to pimp you out.
Faust: Fine fine. (drinks elixir of life) Hooray, now I can see Marguerite every day and she won’t call me a creepy old man.

ACT TWO (in the square of a German village)
Valentin: Look after my sister Marguerite while I’m off at war, understand?
Siebel: OK. She’s hot.
Wagner: I feel like singing.
(poof)
Mephistopheles: I can sing better than you.
Faust: Quit dicking around and take me to my woman.
Siebel: You’d better not be referring to Marguerite.
Faust: I’m ignoring you because I have a pact with the devil, so ha ha on you. Hey chiquita, can I walk you home?
Marguerite: No thanks.
Faust: Oh well. I love you anyway.

ACT THREE (Marguerite’s garden/house)
Mephistopheles: I’ll just sneak these jewels into Marguerite’s house.
Marguerite: Zowie! Look at all this jewelry! They must be from Siebel.
Faust: No they’re not, they’re from me.
Marguerite: Eww, get away from me, you pervert.
Mephistopheles: The things I do for this schmuck. Sigh. (works magic on Marguerite’s heart)
Faust: Now do you love me?
Marguerite: All of a sudden, yes.

ACT FOUR (Marguerite’s room, some months later)
Marguerite: Stupid Faust knocked me up and left me here for cruel girls to sing songs outside my window. Sob sob.
Siebel: Don’t cry, it’ll be OK. Go to church and pray for Faust’s soul and that of your bastard, I mean, child.
(She goes to the church)
Marguerite: Oh God, I pray that –
(poof)
Mephistopheles: Bwaaaa-hahahaha! You are doomed! DOOMED!!
(Outside the church)
Valentin: I’m back from war and Siebel says my sister is at home, I should go say hello. He sure is acting odd these days.
Faust: Oh dear. I am in trouble now.
Valentin: Hey! You knocked up my sister, didn’t you!
(They duel and Valentin is killed because Mephistopheles is cheating for Faust.)
Marguerite: Oh no, oh Valentin! Are you all right?
Valentin: No. Bitch. (dies)

ACT FIVE (in a prison cell – Marguerite has killed her baby and is condemned to death)
Marguerite: I swear I can hear Faust’s voice. Pity I still love him.
Mephistopheles: Sigh… he wants me to help you escape, so go on, escape, here’s your chance.
Marguerite: Aagh! Urgh! Eckt! You’re Satan – I finally see now! Help, God, do something!
(Her soul gets saved, and she dies.)
Faust: This isn’t good.
Mephistopheles: Muhahaha, now I get to drag you away to your doom.
(He does.)

THE END.

Oh, and in case anyone wants to know how the world could possibly end, try here.

If you work it out, I think Mark and I spent about fifteen hours working on Immune to a Plague for every minute of actual film. If this ratio is mentioned in polite conversation, the usual response is “Boy, what a couple of try-hards.” Not so!

See, that was actually the second version of the project – the directors’ cut, as it were. The first version, screened by a handpicked committee of critics, met with such unanimous but well-veiled dislike that with one week left before the due date we immediately scrapped almost everything and practically started over.

Oh, and making what we referred to as ‘The Magazine-Headed Ones’ took about twelve hours. They were animated montages of two wacky heads composed of, unsurprisingly, magazine elements, which we intended to use as our narrators. Did I mention that we didn’t have a scanner and had to hold the magazines up in front of a video camera, capture a few seconds of film, pick out the best stills, then edit those? And then after they were panned by our committee, we never ended up using them, going with the Lizard-Headed Ones as narrators instead.

See? We weren’t try-hards, we were just… sort of… perfectionist… geeks. Yeah.