daily dose of listalgia

old journals can be depressing. they can also be awesome:



i can't really believe that the pursuit of happiness was ever so popular i would have had to qualify, but whatever. the band, i mean, not the ideal.

things to do on the internet (when you're bored of the internet)

i mean, you can only amuse yourself with lolcats and facebook stalking for so long, right?

1. i can pass a lot of time looking at cute clothes and shoes on ebay. but when that gets boring, i try to find the most expensive and ridiculous auctions that i can. just choose a category and type in $100,000 as the starting price in advanced search, and then see what fun stuff comes up. for instance, right now you can buy a coke bottle with a handle in it for $5 million USD. or an origami v8 engine for $21 million USD (oh, but he'll consider any offers over $5,000 USD. cause that's close enough.)
2. even regular internet shopping can sometimes lose its charm. but h&m has this really cool feature on their website where you can make a model that looks like you and dress it up in cute outfits (you can even upload a picture of yourself to make your model look even more like you, but after a bad experience with tiger woods 09 photo game face, i'm not going to try it). you can even make your model say things when you scroll over them, and there are lots of different awesome backgrounds to choose from, so you can completely capture the many different facets of your personality, as i have done here:
   
   
   
   before you get all excited and run over there i'll save you some time: no, you can't make the models get naked, and yes, of course i tried.
   
3. i also enjoy a good peruse through craigslist missed connections. not cause, um, i'm looking to see if someone's looking for me (although i have it on good authority that this does sometimes actually work), but to read all the threads where people respond to people they don't know calling them out about how lame they are for looking for someone they don't know. and, well, if i find someone looking for me, well that's just like syrup on a pancake.
4. for someone who doesn't really cook, i am pretty obsessed with food porn. i spend enough time looking at pictures of food on the internet that i could probably write a whole other list about it. but i don't really have much imagination when it comes to looking up recipes. sometimes i like to just type in random foods that i have in my cupboard into a site like allrecipes (where you can also search by ingredient) and see what kind of awesome things i could make. you know, if i actually owned any cooking utensils.
5. everyone knows that imdb is great for helping you win arguments. but did you also know that it's a great place to play six degrees of kevin bacon by yourself? you can even play it with different actors (we called this deniro. mess up, get a letter. spell deniro and you're out. i was really, really good at it) see how many steps it takes you to get from dame judi dench to one of the chicks from the facts of life.

top ten things to do with a paper cup (other than trying to stuff it into an overflowing garbage bin)

i'm sad for toronto. it smells bad. walking down bloor street the other day, i was tempted to try to hold my breath the entire way from emerson to bathurst (although some people might argue that i might want to hold my breath walking down bloor street at the best of times, i used to love it: all those different restaurants and fruit and vegetable stands and flower sellers and hotdog vendors... mmm... hot dogs...). most amazing to me is how people keep trying to shove just one more piece of garbage into those poor, overflowing bins on the sidewalk. so, in honour of the city i love, here are some suggestions (however futile, cause yeah, i know it's just one little cup in an ocean of garbage) for that timmy's cup you're not sure what to do with.

1. you know all those pennies you throw on your dresser? use your cup to keep them in! bonus: if you keep the lid, too, you'll have a safe and secure way to transport them to your local coinstar when it's full.
   
2. use it to plant that garlic bulb that's been sprouting on your counter for the past couple of weeks (come on, i know i'm not the only one who buys garlic armed only with good intentions and no real cooking skills...)
3. while you're planting things, i seem to vaguely remember something about sprouting beans in some damp, wadded up paper towel. you could start a whole little tim horton's garden!
4. if you're a compulsive, two-cups-or-more-a-day coffee drinker, you can make your own set of stacking cups in no time, and with a little practice (hell, you're going to be up all night anyway) you might even get as good as this kid.
5. if starbucks is more your style, use your cup to make ze brunovich.
6. three words: paper cup crafts. now, i'm not really the crafty type, but there are people out there on the internet who are, and you can tap their imaginations with a simple google search. might i suggest these paper cup maracas? or, if you're one of those annoyingly organized people who are already thinking christmas presents, maybe your aunt cathy would like a paper cup reindeer? (particularly suited, i think, to the tim horton's cup, already being brown and all). and then there's my favourite, mainly due to its sheer awesomeness: the paper cup sheep, pictured above (yes, those are fingers sticking out the bottom! this is not creepy at all.)
7. get two of them, attach them together with string through the bottom, and play telephone with your bff. imagine all the money you'll save on your telus bill!
   
8. i always find it handy to have extra paper cups lying around in case of gross-bug-emergencies (living in a basement apartment, i have more than a few of them). stick a paper cup over said gross bug, then slide a piece of paper underneath, and then take the whole thing outside and leave it there, peeking at it out the window periodically, until the wind or a squirrel or something knocks it over and the gross bug goes free and you can retrieve your cup. paper cups are way better suited to this technique, given their lightweight construction and the fact that you won't have to drink out of them again after they've had gross bug crawling all over them...
9. some of you might remember the great butter toss championship of the mid-2000s. the winner was crowned with a belt constructed with a becel lid and duct tape. might i suggest a paper cup trophy for your own made-up sporting event?
   
10. if none of these ideas appeal to you, what can i say? consider investing in a reusable mug. then you can use it for, well, drinking out of.
    

a list of things related to this photograph

1. this is a spongebob-themed roller coaster that really has nothing to do with spongebob.
2. this is an ingenious way to pack a lot of roller coaster into a very small space: just make it go straight up, and then straight back down. there's a really awesome moment on the way up when you think you're going to go right through the glass ceiling.
   
3. if you show up to the mall of america on school day (or whatever they call that hellish day in which they bus every kid in the state to minneapolis to ride all the same rides you want to ride at the exact same time you want to ride them), just wait until about 2pm and they'll start to bus them back.
4. once the kids have all left, if you ask really, really nicely, the surly theme park employee will let you stay in your car for a couple of rides in a row, rather than making you walk all the way out the exit and back in through the entrance.
5. it is way more advisable to just ride this roller coaster over and over again, rather than taking a break and going on, say, the ghost blasterz ride, which sounds like it might be really fun (being a little car that drives through a haunted house and lets you shoot at ghosts) but actually really, really sucks... especially if your ride companion ends up shooting five times as many ghosts as you do, and then gloating about it for the rest of the day.
6. if you're wondering where my obsession with roller coasters comes from, i made a list for the tnq e-newsletter that will hopefully explain it all to you.
7. this roller coaster is 100% worth the drive through minneapolis. and even worth bypassing the frederick's of hollywood, two victoria's secret stores, and a ginormous dsw. at least for a little while.
   

top ten greatest dance movies* of all time

1. dirty dancing
   
2. strictly ballroom
   
3. save the last dance
4. centre stage
5. step up
6. girls just wanna have fun
7. flashdance
8. step up 2: the streets
9. footloose
10. bring it on (okay, i know it's not a dance movie, but i couldn't have an entire category just for cheerleading movies... could i!?)

* "dance movie" referring to movies about dancing and dancers, not movies, such as musicals, featuring dance but not explicitly about dancing and the drama that ensues when, say, a technically brilliant yet extremely rigid and uptight ballerina meets a rebellious, self-taught street dancer with a gruff exterior and a heart of gold, and subsequently learns that true dancing comes from within oneself, and cannot be taught in any classroom, and it is this combination of skill and heart that will end up winning the big dance competition/getting them into julliard/proving everyone wrong about them at the end of the movie.

don't judge a book by its cover...

... judge it by its opening line. or lines, in the case of a short story collection. such as, uh, i don't know, mine (*cough* what boys like, to be published by biblioasis in september, 2009, *cough*)

• the night alex met leah, he had been drinking with his boss, yousef, on board yousef's boat.
• it is hot, stick hot like the whole world is inside a steamed-up bathroom.
• after hours of thinking and walking, walking and thinking, miriam townsend has made up her mind.
• not many people know how a cemetery looks in the dark.
• julia's little sister joey disappeared on the same night kurt cobain died.
• under sephie's arms there are red marks where the crutches have rubbed against her armpit skin.
• you promised things weren't going to change between us, but they did.
• jenny comes home on a saturday.
• audrey knows he has a girlfriend.
• jax hatt was born in a toilet.
• now that you think about it, yeah.
• on sunday mornings, tom and susannah can hear everyone in their building having sex.
• if you had been born, natalie, you would sit in the chair in the corner where the cats now sit and eat peaches, your favourite fruit.
• even the day bennett briggs kidnapped me, i thought he was beautiful.
• it is christmas day, and we are driving to the place off the 103 where my brother gavin died in a car accident five months ago.
• there is nothing more unseemly than a pregnant widow at a funeral.
  

daily dose of listalgia

my mother found this while cleaning out her basement a few months ago. carbon-dating puts it around 1992. remember when you were young and idealistic, and thought you would always stay that way? yeah...

top ten other amy joneses (in order of google relevance)

so yeah, i admit it, i google myself (quite often, and let me tell you, it sometimes leads to some startling revelations). amazingly enough, with a name like mine, i'm still number one and number two, and how proud of this am i? proud enough to want to take revenge on these ten other amy joneses, all standing between me and complete and total internet domination:

1. amy jones, tv movie actress. i've seen this link a million times, and until i clicked on it just now, i assumed it would take me to the imdb site for amy holden jones, director and screenwriter of such gems as slumber party massacre, and beethoven (and beethoven's 2nd, and 3rd, and 4th...). i had this whole story about how i remembered being 10 or 11 and walking into the local corner store to buy nerds or fun dip or big league chew or something equally 80s and nostalgic, and there being a poster for maid to order on the door, and me coming face to face with my own name in the bottom credits, and how it was the first time i had ever encountered someone with the same name as me, etc. but it's not her! how did this chick, whose claim to fame is some voice work in a japanese movie from the 80s called grave of the fireflies, and a tv movie about jessica lynch (remember her? the young, attractive american soldier held as a pow in iraq?), get listed above the woman who gave us mystic pizza? i'm indignant for you, amy holden jones.
2. amy jones, real estate agent. her website claims "it's like working with your best friend!" directly beneath that, a cheery little icon blares: "have a question? chat unavailable." so i guess it's more like working with your best friend after you've gotten drunk, hit on her boyfriend, and then told her it might be time for her to join jenny craig.
3. amy jones, singer/songwriter. amy and her sister karen form the group "the jones girls," which i'm pretty sure me and my sister erin have basically trademarked. back away quietly, imposters, or i will go all litigious on your sorry asses.
4. amy jones, video game developer. really? really? you get my name, my spot on google, and you're a fucking video game developer? i think maybe she should give one of these up.
5. amy jones, writer/director. well, finally.
6. amy jones, artist. 1899-1968. she died before the internet was even invented. although i guess it's nice, in the afterlife, to be able to fire up god's computer and see what your watercolours are selling for these days, i don't think she'd really mind moving down a couple of spots. (this makes me wonder whether god uses a mac or a pc. i'm guessing that even the big guy isn't immune to the charms of justin long).
7. amy jones, large-breasted animated female wrestler. i'm letting her stay, just because this is possibly the most awesome thing i've seen on the internet since david after the dentist.
8. amy jones, radio dj. amy presents the best continuous q music for your weekend. what is q music, you ask? if you were cooler, you probably wouldn't. from going through their "track of the day" section, it's music that's way too hip for me to make fun of here without prompting angry emails from all my obscure-music-loving friends about how i need to broaden my musical horizons and stop listening to kanye west. never, bitchesssss!
   
9. amy jones, singer/songwriter. poor amy. she's just one lonely jones girl, pimping her music on something called ning. get a sister and a myspace, amy, and then we'll talk.
10. amy jones, cpa. by far the least artsy of the list (what is that, btw?), so maybe i'll keep her around. because complete and total internet domination usually comes with vast monetary rewards which i will inevitably need to hire someone to handle. right? guys?
    

places to drink outside in halifax

in honour of my short story, "places to drink outside in halifax," being published in maisonneuve, i'll let you in on a few of my favourites:

1. the rooftop patio at the thirsty duck. although the last time i was there, i simultaneously had a hornet fly up my skirt and my cell phone start vibrating in my pocket, which is a way more traumatic and unfortunate series of events than one might think.
2. the keith's monument at the camp hill cemetery (which i always thought was called the robie street cemetery until i googled it, just now), but only if you're in high school, and only on october 5th. and only if you're a character in one of my stories, cause i don't even know if people really do that any more...
3. the rock, possibly better known as "that weird path at the end of robie street" (or, in my family, "the backyard"). but again, only if you're in high school, or a smu student looking to escape your wacko roommate, and only if you have some sort of death wish, or some weird disorder that makes you think becoming sloppily inebriated around steep cliffs and fast-moving trains is a good idea (also known as being a teenager, i guess). bonus plug: for those of you who've read my story, "the church of latter day peaches", in this month's tnq, you know that this is where georgia white first meets marty peach. and for those of you who haven't, well, why not?! yeesh.
   
4. any waterfront beer garden during any waterfront festival. except buskerfest. and the tall ships. and...
   
5. outside at tom's little havana. it's a weird little terrace, overlooking nothing but a quiet street and a candy store, but it's tom's. it's where you go.
6. it's not exactly in halifax, but my mom's cottage is pretty much the best place ever to start a big bonfire, crack a beer, and watch people throw things on said bonfire.
7. i guess my dad's cottage is pretty good too, if you like sitting under propane patio heaters watching lovely sunsets over picturesque little coves, drinking caesars and listening to james taylor while you're waiting for your steak to finish barbecuing...
   
8. the patio at the economy shoe shop. you can eat yummy nachos, people watch, and make obscene gestures at the harbour hopper all at the same time.
9. citadel hill, but only during licensed events, such as the concert on the hill, and only in specially designated areas. of course. And seeing how this year, it appears to be nickelback, i'm pretty sure you're going to need that beer.
10. sitting on an old, ratty couch on your front porch, with your dog and maybe a few friends, preferably at least one of whom can play guitar (or at least a couple of hip songs, which you can all sing along to, late into the night, until your neighbours finally get sick of hearing you trying to drunkenly harmonize on "wheat kings" and call the cops on you).
    

my top three reasons for starting this blog

1. to promote my forthcoming collection of short stories, what boys like.
   
2. to engage with the cultural zeitgeist
3. internet superstardom