My other shirt has buttons

Not sure why this is, but I find collared shirts with buttons so uncomfortable. This would explain all those t-shirts and the impossibility of ever becoming management.

Posted via email from peterrogers's posterous

Am I going to have to illegally download this movie too? Not that I wouldŠ
just saying is allŠ

Posted via email from peterrogers's posterous

Hockey-less Night in Canada

Can't believe it. Missed the last night of shinny for the year and I
haven't turned on the tube to check the scores. It's as though with
spring, I've freed myself of hockey shackles.

Posted via email from peterrogers's posterous

Tongue Depressor

That's 144 Blue Beauties — it's come to this. Buying generic Advil in bulk.

It's been just over a week since I had my latest injection of Bleomycin into my tongue. As I've probably said a thousand times, you could set an atomic clock by the 48 hour reaction time I seem to have. Two days after the injection, the area near the injection turns white (almost like a blister you've soaked in warm water), and that skin seems to sloth off, become pink, and then begin to whiten again and so on until after about 2 weeks it goes back to (my) normal. When this happens under the tongue, it's annoying and uncomfortable but not too problematic. When the soreness persists and spreads to the top of the tongue, that's when the real fun begins. How to describe this without sounding like I'm fishing for sympathy? I just want to relate the experience. Don't pity me. It's not as though I don't get benefits from it eventually.

I'll start by saying the worst looking part isn't the most painful. The areas that have gone white feel like dull cankers (not as intense as canker sores). Strangely, the adjacent areas feel like a dull ache not too different from after you'd burnt your tongue from a hot drink. The top of the tongue that has no outward signs of change is very different. Some times it feels like you've bitten your tongue, or as though you left a very strong lozenge to dissolve there – deadened with a pins-and-needles sensation. At other times it feels more like sutures or a knife tip digging in (yes, sharply painful).

Tasting flavours is obviously corrupted. Again, it's very much like having burned your tongue. In general, you can't taste much at all. At best it can be described as metallic or like iron (though that may be a bit of blood at the site). Only the most base flavours are recognizable such as salty or fatty but sweetness and sourness are gone. Spicy or peppery things have no taste at all except for the strong stinging sensation. Strangely, I noticed anything with vinegar is extremely painful (even mild things like pickled ginger or ketchup are like mighty powerful piquant sauces).

Also, where the soreness occurs affects the experience. Pain on the underside of the tongue can be ignored as long as you don't stick your tongue out. Pain in the back (underside or top) is the worst as it is felt whenever you swallow or well, do anything really. Pain on the tip (as I have currently) isn't too bad as long as you don't plan on sneezing, coughing, brushing your teeth or talking.

After more than a week, the Bleo side-effects of nausea and light-headedness have subsided but the soreness in the tongue is settling in for awhile. If I sound surly or dour, don't worry, life isn't getting me down (though it is very capable of that), work isn't depressing me (though the less said the better) - it's just my tongue. The strongest muscle in the body — strong enough to re-arrange my teeth in my sleep. My tongue that gets me into so much trouble, is now the trouble. My tongue that I've bitten so often, has learned to bite back.

Bleo Six

Friday was my sixth bleomycin injection in my tongue and I'm thinking it will be my last. It was a strange day as Angela had some unpleasant news for me on the way home from the hospital. As I was going under anaesthetic someone else had slipped away. The rest of the day was spent recovering in the weird in-between state of wakefulness and sleep.

Now, two days later, a white blister has formed under my tongue. You could almost set your watch by it. 48 hours after the initial injection the swelling and discolouration appear.

A week of soup awaits me.

LAB Mixtapes: Episode 10

What do a Gypsy, a Spaniard and two Brazilian pop stars have in common? No, it's not a joke, it's an instrument. Namely, the guitar. Recently I was watching Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and Spanish guitar plays a small but important role in the plot which is what brought this music to mind. I mean, my God, even the names of these artists have flair — Django, Paco, Gilberto. Fair warning, if you are walking right now, you may begin to skip, if you're sitting you may begin to stand and if you're standing you may begin to dance. Don't blame me, blame the guitar.

Episode 10
Runs 12:20 mins

Links below open the iTunes Store
Introduction music - Iguazu - Gustavo Santaolalla
1. Honeysuckle Rose - Django Reinhardt
2. La Nina De Puerta Oscura - Paco De Lucía
3. Morre O Burro Fica O Homem - Gilberto Gil & Jorge Ben

Reset Monday

Downtown Toronto, Monday April 13^th

After a weekend that started with a fruitless effort to do some plastering and painting (lots of dust with few results), a non-working cell phone/iPod and finished with grotesque over-eating (a la Easter Sunday meal of roast pork, roast veg, pie, cake, cake and cake) it's nice to see the sun and try to start over again. Seems right to try to re-start/reset on Easter Monday.

Seen in March

7^th - Milk
8^th - Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
14^th - Frost/Nixon
15^th - Ratatouille
17^th - Wall-e
22^nd - Watchmen
28^th - Synecdoche, New York
29^th - The Pervert's Guide to Cinema
30^th - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Not that impressive a list really, especially considering I had already seen two of them.

I can't say I'd recommend Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It had a questionnable voice-over and was really a bit dull - though Javier Bardeem - men want to be him and the ladies want to know him. Another Spaniard star lights it up too. Penelope Cruz just demands all of your focus in every scene. Still… it just wasn't enough. Which is saying a lot for a movie in which three of the principal characters are extremely beautiful women.

Synecdoche, New York is another one that probably isn't for anyone who has other things to do (like the dishes) but if you're a huge Kauffman fan I guess it's for you.

The worst film on that list is Watchmen which is slavish to the source material to a fault. To be fair, I'm one of seven people on the planet who is a comic book fan who thinks - and I say this knowing an army of geeks may show up on my lawn with pitchforks and lit torches - the source material wasn't that good. I would go so far as to call it the single most over rated piece of fiction I've ever read. Funny that. Ten years ago I probably would have argued just the opposite. I re-read it before seeing the film and while it is a very good comic, it's just not the masterpiece many people claim it to be.

Oh look, I wonder where that angry mob is headed?

LAB Mixtapes: Episode 9

Growing up in Canada, the music of Gordon Lightfoot was as ubiquitous as the Hockey Night in Canada Theme or the Hinterland's Who's Who intro. Along with Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Ian and Sylvia Tyson, and Joni Mitchel his songs form a canon of Canadiana. Some 30 years after the release of "Sundown" you can still hear his influence in bands like Elliot Brood and The Great Lake Swimmers.

Enjoy with a glass of Canadian Rye and a piece of maple-flavored fudge.

Episode 9.
Runs 10:17 mins

Links below will launch the iTunes Music Store.
1. Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot
2. Oh Alberta - Elliot Brood
3. When it Flows - The Great Lake Swimmers

Infinite Jester

David Foster Wallace - via Consumat
Slate.com's Audio Book Club take an hour to discuss David Foster Wallace's influential door stopper, "Infinite Jest".

Hear it here (runs 59 mins): Click Here to Listen