The Free Thinker

I'd have to say "vice" is among my favourite words. Not only is it the name of a very entertaining magazine, it's the name of the only non-drug-oriented gay bar in Toronto where the music is tolerable and the clientele isn't repulsive. But most of all, vice is a state of mind. A way of looking at the world and saying "fuck you societal norms, I'm going to have a good time!"

Today I'm proud to say that I'm completely vice-ridden. It's very liberating. Embracing vice means not only engaging in taboo behavior, but it means refusing to feel guilty or hide it.

For example, the weekend before last I had to drag a friend who'd gone overboard at the club back to my place. He couldn't even stay awake. Thank god there were three of us to carry his ass up to my apartment. Someone in the elevator was like "It's 7 PM!" To which I replied "Yeah but he's been going since last night. He's just had too much GHB."

Cue shocked faces. The rest of the elevator ride was pretty quiet. Neighbours meet reality. Reality, meet neighbours. There goes my nomination for the tenant association.

So, obviously, my usual vice is drugs and partying. However, I'm starting to notice an interesting trend. Whenever I take a break, I revert back to a much older vice of mine: promiscuity.

***TMI ALERT! FAMILY MEMBERS MAY NOT WANT TO READ BEYOND THIS POINT***

This first became apparent back in January, during my first big break since I moved here. I hadn't gotten laid since the move in September. I'd had some encounters, but no full-on intercourse. Then I took some time off of partying and I ended up laying three guys in a week. Yeah. Way to make up for lost time, Adam!

Not to be outdone by January Adam, I managed to line up two guys last weekend. Thank god Mr. Sunday was a bottom, because I was still sore from Mr. Saturday.

Just like I refuse to be ashamed of my partying, I will not be ashamed of my promiscuity. It's very Toronto to go around pretending to be chaste while you lay the whole city, or to just be an all-around cock-tease. Not this guy. I go for the prize, I don't play games, and once I've "won" I don't keep it under wraps.

I'm planning on taking two more weekends off of partying, so who knows what the next 17 days will hold. Then it'll be time for another vice-swap and you can all look forward to reading about more of my weekly club disasters.

Judge me if you want. I'm too busy having fun to care.

Image courtesy of ! SamuraiGhost.

Forget the witty intro. I'll let the picture speak for itself:


Not only are these lovely Elvis busts readily available one block from my building, it's a 24 hour convenience store. It's stuff like this that makes the big Toronto move worthwhile. After all, where else can you get your jailhouse rocks off at 3 AM, along with a pack of cigarettes and some porno mags? That's right, nowhere.

Me? I'm holding out for a Gavin Rossdale bust. In my mind it will always be 1995.

For those of you living under a rock, last night the Oscars were on. And you'd have to be living under a rock, because I have absolutely no interest in the celebrity circle-jerk, and I still got slapped in the face with the thing several times.

It's kind of funny, actually. I take no more interest in the Academy Awards than I do the Super Bowl. In both cases, I found out incidentally the day of that the event was on. In both cases I was apathetic and found something better do. If given a choice, believe it or not, I'd probably pick the Super Bowl. Wouldn't Dad be proud.

As usual, some movies I've never heard of won a bunch of awards. The only movie I've seen in the last year is An Inconvenient Truth, and believe it or not, Al Gore did a better job of holding my interest than most Hollywood blockbusters do.

I just don't like movies. You have to sit there for like two hours, staring at a screen and absorbing. There's a dearth of interaction that just ruins the appeal for me. TV has a similar problem but the time investment is a lot lower. And even then, I watch very very little TV.

If I want an engrossing story, I'll read a book. Quite frankly, I think movies suck as a storytelling medium. They're good with visual things, but for character and plot development I'd rather have the author speak directly to me.

The funny thing is, I can screw around online for hours on end. but at least then I feel like I'm contributing in some minor way.

And honestly I think movies make for a crummy social experience. I would never, ever take a date to a movie. Isn't a date supposed to be about getting to know somebody? How the hell am I supposed to do that when I'm staring at a screen for two hours?! If I'm going to spend two hours not talking to a guy, it should be because he's got...erm...something in his mouth.

Same deal with friends. I don't have a huge amount of time to spend with my friends. I'd rather spend it conversing. There are lots of activities, like shopping, playing games, and, of course, clubbing, that let you be social at the same time. So why resort to sit-and-stare? There's no excuse unless you've got nothing left to say. And those of you who know me know that's not likely to be an issue anytime soon.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia. I love you Wikipedia.

My dear friend Sarah O is quite the whiz with the camera. Honestly, I've been puttering around with my camera phone and it just doesn't cut it. It takes decent pictures, but I don't get to do all that artsy stuff the "real" photogs do, with exposures and shutter speeds. I'm trembling at the very thought!

Anyways, until I can find a sugar daddy to buy me a digital SLR, check out Sarah's unbelievably amusing cat vs. squirrel photos. This might have been a bloodbath if there hadn't been that glass between them. But luckily it was, and hilarity ensued.

I think there's good money to be made in constructing a large box with glass in the middle, buying a bunch of animals, trying different pairs, and YouTubing the results. Anybody want to offer me some venture capital? First up: poodle vs. a dozen iguanas.

Every so often at work I have to pretend it's 1989 and saunter up to the fax machine. As I approached the discoloured piece of arcane technology yesterday I leafed through the small stack of junk faxes, as I often do.

Honestly, why are people bothering to send this 20th century version of spam? Do people trust some random ad they get through their fax machine. I mean, at least with email you can reach millions of people pretty quickly. With a fax you can send, at most, one per minute per phone line. Wow.

Anyways, as I was idly perusing the junk yesterday, I spotted something a little more entertaining than the usual vacation packages and Nigerian scams. Take a look at this (click to open full-size):


I don't even know where to begin poking holes in this thing. But let's give it a shot.

They increase their odds of winning by playing "intelligent numbers"...umm, what? As in some numbers are more likely than others? That's fundamentally not how the lottery works. They're all equally likely, stupid. The only way to beat the lottery is to rig it, or get unbelievably lucky. It's not a charity, folks.

It's said that the lottery is for people who suck it math. I say this is for people who suck at life.

They're pretty smart about the way they present it though.

WE HAVE ONLY 20 POSITIONS LEFT !!!!
YES! OVER 80% ARE FILLED
DON'T LOSE OUT FOR EVER

See the whole limited-time offer thing is smart. Creating a sense of urgency makes people act before they think.

Now the problem is thus: It costs $10,000! I would really like to meet the person who has $10,000 yet is stupid enough to fall for this half-assed scam. If you have ten grand in the bank and you can't see through this, you don't deserve that $10,000.

In fact, I'm not even going to condemn the scammers, because the holes in this are so obvious that anyone who falls for it must be blinded by greed or incredibly stupid. I bet if they made it $1,000 to enter they'd get a lot more takers.

Regardless, it's nice to see some home-grown Toronto scams for once. At least the money's staying right here, am I right? That's gotta be good for the local economy!

One final word to anybody thinking about contributing to this "plan." If you're going to flush $10,000 down the toilet, at least do it in style. Rent some hookers, order some blow, and take it all on a flight to Luxembourg. Go on a bender to end all benders. Then you can look at your empty bank account and say "I may have wasted a ton of money, but at least I can't remember a fucking thing!"

That's right, now it's time for you to do something for me. You didn't think all this compelling prose and smarmy social commentary came without a price, did you buddy? Wrong! Now get your ass in gear!

I think things over here at The Free Thinker are going well. I should probably try to curb the gratuitous use of italics, and the words "gem" and "whack," but beyond that it's all gravy.

Except for this template. Sure, it was alright when I was just starting out. Really, at first I just wanted to focus on content. Now that I've got that down the presentation needs some work. Using one of the templates that comes with Blogger just screams "amateur," don't you think?

Can anybody suggest a nice template for me? Something a little flashy would be nice, although I'd consider something more simple if it was eye-catching. Double points if it comes in a three-column version. Also remember that a lot of the templates out there were made for the Old Blogger™, and won't very well with the fancy New Blogger.

As an example of my taste here's one I really like. Unfortunately it's for Old Blogger. Even a link to a decent template site would be appreciated. Googling mostly found older stuff or small sites with 2-5 templates at most.

While I'm soliciting feedback, is there anything else about the blog that could use a change? Sick of me throwing random Flickr images next to each post? Should I change my picture to one with my freaking shirt on? Let me know!

Completely superfluous image courtesy of lu6fpj.

From the Puritanism-is-alive-and-well file, we have news that librarians are freaking out over this year's Newbery medal winner. Why? Because it has the word "scrotum."

I'll wait a few seconds so you can recover from this ghastly noun........

Ready? Okay. Anyways, isn't it about time we got over this societal obsession with teaching children "cute" names for their naughty bits, rather than the actual word? Is it honestly going to damage a child to call it a penis, rather than a ding-dong, peter, or whatever?

But of course this is just the beginning of the repression that continues when we're taught that sex is a very serious matter that leads to strong emotional connections, and that promiscuity is something we should be ashamed of. Now it's not quite as bad as "abstinence only" programs south of the border, but there's still a lot of cultural taboo against casual sex, even though a lot of us (and the vast majority of we fags) practice it at some point in our lives.

This is a sitatuion that makes the Toronto gay community particularly annoying, because all the sluts try to pretend they're chaste. You ain't fooling anyone paco.

So I guess what I'm saying is, start teaching kids to call it a penis, scrotum, clit, vagina etc. and future Toronto homosexuals will be able to sleep around with ever-so-slightly-less hassle. If global warming doesn't kill everyone off by then.

Image courtesy of Storeyland.