I had to perform the second least favorite part of any manager’s job today: hand out a letter of reprimand. He had it coming though and I was tired of everyone making excuses for his behaviour: “Oh is he working tonight? Glasses will be backed up…better get prepared.” or “Is he on tonight? We’ll be here longer to clean up.” or even the classic comment from the other manager: “You know if he ever calls in sick or wants to change from when I manage, I have no arguement.” Why are we making excuses for this dick? Today he didnt even show up for his shift. He was partying too hard the night before and he knew he had to open the bar at noon. He wound up calling at 2:15pm to apologize. I informed him that he was written up and that we needed to talk face to face, could he come in and see me within the hour? Sure. He swans in at 7pm. Im about to explode. He looks like a hounddog with a thorn in his foot. “There’s nothing I can say!” he says (after he said ‘Im sorry’ of course). I handed him the letter, bitched him out and made him sign it. Bitching him out was threatening him with immediate dismissal if he ever shows up to the bar drunk or stoned like he was last week and that he better consider what his job means to him if he’s going to jeapordize it for himself and the rest of us (he had left out some bottles from the night before as well as skivving off from his shift–effectively putting the bar’s licence on the line if we were ever spot inspected). I could feel my anger rising and I was getting scared. Like Bruce Banner scared. Like “holy shit Im gonna lose it in front of this guy”. The other manager could hear it in my voice. I finished the converstaion with “Get the fuck out of my face.” I think I was harsh but the other manager said I was far too nice. After, a second employee asked if I was ok, to which I said “Im ok. Not too sure about him, though,” meaning the slacker employee. “Oh well then, do you want some mushrooms?” he asked. I nearly lost it. I said calmly, “I have to work tomorrow,” and I walked away. Christ. I dont condone drug use…I condone stupidity and poor choices.

And so it was passed that new images of stupidity and bored fire play were uploaded to this site.

Enjoy!

I’m standing on the subway escalator going up when I’m passed by a 16 yr old school girl: 5’4″, 120, shoulder-blade length blonde hair, white dress shirt playfully not tucked into her ultra-mini plaid skirt.

Ultra mini being an understatement.

When she gets 5 steps ahead of me on the escalator, *woofp* a wind comes along and flips up her skirt.

I see thong. Buried deep within very visible girl parts and ass cheeks.

Not once, but three times her skirt flipped up. Yes. It is a red-pink thong. Yes. She shaves.

I look back to see if anyone else on the escalator can see this. A woman about ten steps behind is not paying attention.

I know now that I am truly gay because it did nothing for me other than make me laugh.

Here are the Pride at the Point pics, here on the day that Canada becomes the gayest country in the western hemisphere.

Soulpepper has a new actor on their stage tonight: my brother, Michael Healey adapted Ferenc Molnár’s comedy, Olympia for this Toronto run. Michael also appears as Count Albert. I wonder if he’s nervous with this double threat?

He tells me that updating the play has been a challenge but exciting. I hope he does well!

UPDATE: From the Toronto Star (four point five stars out of five):

Michael Healey’s adaptation is a major bonus, keeping the dryly witty tone intact while shading it with just enough contemporary resonance to make it interesting.

Yeah baby!

I’ve been waking up all week with a bit of a sore throat and this morning I really didn’t want to go to work. I walked Sharkboy to his office and then wandered over to the Subway where all bedlam was breaking loose.

I went down to the northbound platform, passed the yelling TTC guard: “All Southbound trains from Eglinton to Bloor are not in operation!!” When I get down there another guard is yelling “All Northbound trains from Bloor to Eglinton are not running!”

I wander out onto the street where the busses are to pick up us stranded travellers. I swear there were close to 400 people waiting for busses that weren’t there.

I sigh. I find a payphone and call work and white lie about my throat and the trains and my supervisor, blessherheart, says “Riiiight! See you tomorrow!” and hangs up.

I’m in my underwear, working freelance and I’m making ice cream right now with my new Salton machine I got for my birthday. I so want to start working at home these days…

WEEEE!!!

I’m starting to close off the Comments after two weeks from posting. The Galleries will have sporatic comment availablility. I’m starting to get comment spam and I’m not gonna spend the rest of my life pressing Antispam buttons. Sorry kids. That’s the way the internet works I guess.

I offer up to the Interweb these print/web comic ideas since I have no time to get them started. Feel free to develop them to your liking, just make sure you put “Created by Dead Robot!” (yes, with exclamation point). Some skate close to pre-copywritten things but you can cry “fair use” to weasle out.

Space 1998
A year before the tragic nuclear accident that blasts the Moon away from Earth’s orbit has the construction crew building Moonbase Alpha run up against:

• bad budget choices (we can only afford zippers long enough for shoulder access into these jumpsuits)
• a time travelling Maya, who is actually responsible for the toxic waste build up that shoots the moon towards her planet – she was bored and wanted to get away from her over-bearing father
• interpersonal relationship arcs (one worker is obsessed with Commander John Koenig but on the day he takes over the base, she’s relocated back to Earth)

Manky Kitty Estates
Taken from a tossed away line from Corination Street, MKE is about the life of British 20somethings living in a decrepid council flat:

• characters include a hypochondriac who firmly believes in Hemography, a gym obsessed woman who is determined to steal David Beckham away from Posh Spice, a completely unfunny comedian and the straight laced, unfunny one
• Story arcs include: the flat is suspected to be haunted; a council member tries to get it on with one (or all) of the flatmates; renovation day (!); a Door to door evangelist goes missing making everyone suspect each other…
• the flat eventually will be demolished for a Tescos

B.E.: Life under the Psychlos
Human characters from Battlefield Earth outwit and outsmart the Psychlos in this remix of Hogan’s Heros.

I’ve spent a total of 27++ hours in a car this weekend in a return trip to Sharkboy’s sister’s house in Vermont (via a quick pick up/drop off of his parents and aunt just south of Montreal). I still can’t believe I only took one picture. One picture!

The trip was good. It was nice to get out of the city and see his family again but I was on the tail end of a cold and all I was in the mood for was soup, a blanket and brainless TV. When we got there, we dumped our luggage, grabbed Sharkboy’s nefew, Shawn and spent two hours in Best Buy rummaging around the DVDs and doo dahs. I picked up the Oblong Complete Series DVD, which I think isn’t available in Canada yet. Also a cable to start burining all my 1980’s English import records to CD and a set of reflective headphones for my iPod. We then wandered a grocery store and lectured Shawn on how lame Canadian food shopping is. But in retrospect I like Canadian grocery stores because it’s not in-your-face, olestra-is-good, or completely desperately capitalistic, like American food shopping is. It’s almost like Canada is eating to survive and Americans are (toot ta ta tooot!) EATING! I can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe its because Ontario doesn’t sell liquor beside Gatorade.

I think we also spent a great amount of time in front of TV screens that were the size of one of The Bluenose’s sails (how’s that for Canadian content?). Sharkboy’s brother-in-law has a video rental distribution business and therefore has two large TVs to sample his product. In one of his storage closets in his basement, he has many, many 60L rubbermaids full of movies. At random I pulled out a DVD called VOLCANO DISASTER which had “Disaster” in such small letters it was obvious that bored, drunk or blind Vermontians looking for a disaster film would have picked it up thinking it was Tommy Lee Jones’ Volcano. It was like DVD store phishing!

Coming home was rough. We stopped in Montreal on Monday morning to grab some petit dejeuner and we were treated to seeing all the Black and Blue sketchies walking down Sainte-Catherine, shivering heavily in their skintight wet tees in the 13C morning air. Ha! After that we hit the highway and for some reason, all weekend, I had bad car-narcolepsy. If I wasn’t driving, I was nodding off, no matter how loud the stereo was. I think it was a combo of the cold medicine and accumulated lack of sleep the week before. Poor Sharkboy. So on the last leg (Montreal to Toronto) I drove. Now, I know that the 401 is a major highway but I have never experienced stop-n-go traffic from Kingston to Toronto. Seriously. It wasnt even raining all that hard to make the traffic to slow so much. It was pure volume. Spooky how much traffic there was.

We came home and dumped the luggage and went out to Big Momma’s Boy on Parliament. I think I was a bit short to the owner because she was proudly announcing how gluten free and organic everything on the menu was and I said “We just spent 10 hours in a car from Montreal” and she aburptly stopped her sales pitch. The food was delish and I would go back in a second but I was so tired that I don’t think I completely enjoyed the actual taste of it.

At home, we got into bed by 9pm and I swear, I could still feel the vibration of the car on my backside.

That was my weekend. How was yours?

Easy! Wear a wig that makes you 7ft tall, a half-faced cat mask including pointy kitty ears, a furry jumpsuit, furry gloves and army boots. Plus carry a Mickey Mouse bag for accent.

Its amazing how people will avoid looking at you when you aren’t dressed the norm. One out of ten would avert their gaze in seconds of acknowledging that you’re wearing something… different. The usual pattern of “I’m not looking, really!” went like this:

1. Look to the face
2. Look at the clothes
3. Look back to the face
4. Look at own shoes, sky, shop window, shoes again, stare straight ahead.

All of this takes exactly 2 seconds. At Yonge and Bloor a poor woman raced the doors and wound up sitting right next to me. She collected herself, went through the above mentioned list of where to look and then gave up and moved. Poor dear. Booo! Boooo! I’m the ghost of your long dead youth, you overly mature office worker drone.

Poor Sharkboy is the only one dressed up in his office. He’s dressed up as a hobo-dog, bless him.

Expect pictures later after this evening. Church St is closing off traffic and its always a good time.