Danny's Dream-Rag Discourses

Monday, June 20, 2005

The Ukrainian Affair

May 6, 2005

A tall, muscular and strangely familiar man approaches me, pushing a stroller with a child, and has an attractive woman at his side.

Me: "Hi, welcome to Canada's Wonderland! Please stop right there and smile for a quick photo!"

Man: "No."

He continues on and I turn to try and figure out who that was and to check out the lady.

Me: "That was Alexei Ponikarovsky! Alexei Ponikarovsky rejected me!!"

Present Day

I was "roving", or taking pictures of people around the park, and my heart stopped.

He was back with his hot Russian wife. This is what happened, no word of a lie.

Me: "Excuse me, are you Alexei Ponikarovsky?"

Pony: "Yes."

I extend my hand and he shakes it.

Me: "I love you."

I walk off. It didn't occur to me that I had a pen and paper for an autograph. Or that I had a camera in my hand and I could print a picture out for free.

"I love you"?!

Danny blacked out at 6/20/2005 08:59:00 p.m.

Monday, March 28, 2005

The iPod Silhouettes

Hotness.

Let's follow Jason's MSN names, shall we?

March 8-9
Jay - awaiting the phone call...

March 10
10 AM: Jay - where the F*CK is my iPod?!?!
9 PM: Jay - haha i know where my iPod is!!! mmmmm

March 11
10 AM: Jay - my iPod is coming!!!
3 PM: Jay - my iPod is here!

March 13
On a fun-filled night in Jason's room, we decided to take pictures with his iPod and make silhouettes like the Apple ad above.

March 22
Another fun-filled night in anthropology night class and Jason finally gives me the iPod pictures and I put them on my laptop. He shows me what he's done to one of his shots with Photoshop "in 5 minutes":

Pretty spiffy. But low marks for the drawn in iPod and wires, as well as the shameless self-promotion.

Naturally, I had to try it myself. Armed with Microsoft Paint, my left thumb, right index finger, and my IBM TrackPoint, I went about doing the tedious work of creating an iPod silhouette. Anthropology that night was close to three hours long. I spent pretty much the entire time doing that. Good 'ol Polygon tool saved the day, but made the edges pretty rough. The result:

I like how I kept the real iPod and wires intact, but the text is a cheapshot, because I really like the iPod. Also, Jason's left arm kinda looks like it's growing out of his shoulder. Not bad for a first try.

March 28
I finally get my hands on Photoshop because I'm desperate to try this iPod Silhouette Tutorial.

This was my first try at Photoshop, so I was searching for tools and buttons feverishly. The result:

Ew.

Danny blacked out at 3/28/2005 11:50:00 p.m.

Monday, February 14, 2005

The Wireless Headphones

My uncle Jimmy and his family got me Sennheiser wireless headphones for Christmas. At first, I was stunned. They are expensive, plus I didn't really know what I could use them for.

So I had used them occasionally for the first month, just when around the apartment or doing laundry if I didn't want to disturb my roommates. They worked like a dandy when run from my computer.

Until today.

You see, my residence houses about seventy international students. They come from Germany, China, and more. Including France.

I put on my wireless headphones and turned them on. To my surprise, "Rocket Man" wasn't playing according to my iTunes player. But what was playing was a French man talking to his French girlfriend.

The wireless headphones had picked up on a cordless telephone conversation. I was strangely amused by the whole thing. I sat on my bed and listened. It went somewhat as follows:

Guy: "Oh bebe..."
Girl: "Mmhmm..."
Guy: *kissing noises*

Repeat. I never realized how disgusting it was to listen to a grown French man breathe and swallow in full stereo sound.

This may sound sick, but I continued listening. Not for five or ten more minutes. But for an hour and a half.

Having more knowledge of French than your average CBC, I picked up on most of the things that they talked about when not moaning. It seems that French guy was going to visit French girl in Quebec City. He didn't know what bus to take, so the girl was explaning to him what to do. That's about all they talked about for the entire time. This was the highlight of my month.

What a Valentine's Day.

Danny blacked out at 2/14/2005 09:11:00 p.m.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

The Group Hang

On Friday, I went home for once. Except I didn't really spend much time at home that day, which really was the point of going home, especially since my dad's birthday was the next day. I spent that evening and night with a friend who goes to Laurier. Let's call him "Jim".

Jim had a date that night with a girl who goes to our high school. Let's call her "Sofy". Unfortunately, Sofy's parents are kinda strict about their only daughter dating a college boy. So they had one condition: Jim could take Sofy out, but he had to take Sofy's cousin along, as well as one of Jim's friends to accompany them. Let's call Sofy's cousin "Laura".

Who ya gonna call? I wish he called the Ghostbusters.

Of course, I was reluctant to go on this blind group hang. I needed assurances. Jim got hold of a picture of Laura from Sofy.

I was in faster than you could say "vanilla".

Jim picked me up in his Camry and we headed off to Sofy's. We were greeted by the behemoth that was Sofy's dad. He was about 6'3, ASIAN, and it terrified Jim and I greatly. We introduced ourselves to Sofy's parents, I introduced myself to Sofy, and I was looking around for Laura. I looked to the staircase and there she was. She was being carried down the stairs by Sofy's dad in his arms. I furrowed my brow. Laura was placed into a wheelchair. Hm.

I greeted Laura, who was very cheerful and enthusiastic about this whole bizarre situation. I put on the nicest face I could even though I was deeply puzzled and bewildered. When the girls' backs were turned, Jim and I gave each other the widened-eyes look.

Sofy's dad led us outside and to the garage. "You'll have to take this tonight," he said. "Any of you boys ever driven a van before?" In the garage was a modified Caravan decked out with a wheelchair ramp and removable seating. Jim has an MPV at home, so he took the wheel. I went to the side and helped Laura get in the back. By helped I mean setting her on a platform, pressing a button, and slowly watching her rise into the van.

I kept on thinking in my mind about how I should approach this situation.
Do I pretend like it's not even there? Should I ask about it? Were there any Seinfeld episodes dealing with wheelchair etiquette? Wait. Kramer nearly killed the girl in the chair.

The ride to Markville was pretty uneventful. Laura was pretty cool, but I just couldn't get off the whole wheelchair idea. I felt bad.

We started walking (and rolling) around the mall. Jim and Sofy went ahead on their own, and I was pushing Laura around (in her wheelchair). In front of HMV, I ran into an old friend that went to my elementary school. Let's call him "Steffen". He wasn't always the most polite of blokes. Laura realized that we had some catching up to do, so she wheeled herself under the artificial tree as we chatted in front of HMV.

Steffen said, "Danny man, why you going out with a crip?" He meant a disabled person, not a L.A. gang member. "I'm not going out with her. I'm just keeping her company," I replied. Steffen then said, "But she's the hottest crip I've seen!" We both erupted in laughter.

As I was laughing, I turned my head to glance at Laura. Or should I say to glance at her empty wheelchair. My heart started pounding as I pushed off Steffen and started looking for Laura. I ran to her wheelchair and suddenly, I heard:

GO TO HELL YOU SONOFABITCH!

I looked up and I saw Laura sitting in the branches of the artificial tree, sobbing.

STAY AWAY FROM ME!

I asked what she meant.

I HEARD YOU LAUGHING AT ME BECAUSE I'M CRIPPLED!

She got me. Lose some physical abilties and gain some others. "I'm sorry Laura. Please, just come down and I'll take you home!" All I could think about was what Sofy's dad would do to me if something bad happened.

LEAVE ME ALONE, NOW!

At this point, Jim and Sofy stumbled upon this spectacle in front of the Second Cup. Feeling extremely embarassed and scared, I reached up and started pulling her leg, just like I'm pulling yours now.

P.S.: Thank you to Matthew Chase for inspiring this story he similarily presented in BBB4M last year.
P.P.S.: The pretty ones are always crazy, true story or not.

Danny blacked out at 1/18/2005 03:58:00 p.m.

Friday, December 17, 2004

The Japanese Club

As I was studying for my final and hardest exam of the term yesterday evening (microeconomics), my friend Tung messaged me.

;- P says:
did u see this http://koji.no-ip.org/koji5/DSC04993.html

danny - tangled up in you says:
ROFL
WHERE'D YOU FIND THIS

Explain? Okay.

The Vietnamese Restaurant

On December 2nd, it was yet another birthday celebration, this time it was Tung's 18th. The birthday boy decided to go to a Vietnamese restaurant across from the University of Waterloo.

Like the banana I am, I had never really had real Vietnamese food before. I got a quick lesson from Kevin over MSN. From what I gathered:
1. If you're scared of the menu contents, get egg rolls.
2. If you don't wanna get sick, get the meat cooked.
3. Kevin likes to say "pho sho!"

I take a look at the menu and I make my choice among the cannibalistic options: Pho... beef... well done. Nice.

During dinner, Elaine runs across a friend of hers that goes to UW. After they talk quickly, she says that she is with the Japanese Club of UW. Meh. The pho was good and I feel quite bloated because I ate and drank everything.

While we were sitting around waiting for someone to finish eating, the Japanese Club was massing after finishing their meals. They were having a jolly old time, taking photos of and with each other and loudly conversing. The only place they could take a full group shot happened to be right behind our table. The rest of our party cleared away for the camera, but since I was so lazy, I just decided to stay and blend in.

In my mind, I was thinking of how to blend in. I look Chinese, so that's one for the home team. The next thing I thought of was a huge, full-toothed smile. My reasoning was that in Japanese anime, those characters are always so happy and they have their mouths gaping open. For the finishing touch, I added the peace signs. Whenever I see Japanese people in photos, they're always doing the peace signs!

Tung happened to be bored on the day of our economics exam, so he went searching for these pictures. Genius. It turns out that they were the Konnichiwa Japan (or Konja) club, and they were having their end of term party.

After two clicks of the Sony Cybershot, I was officially part of the Konja Club of the University of Waterloo.

Danny blacked out at 12/17/2004 08:50:00 p.m.