My New Friend (REVISED)

After accidentally hitting "F" instead of "D" on the keyboard during my last blog, and laughing EVERY time, i thought id "improve" the blog and post it again with all the "ducks" replaced with "fucks". Enjoy.

Today I woke up to a tapping at my window. I feel like Edgar Allan Poe. Initially, I wrote off the tapping as raindrops being blown off the roof and landing on my window, seeing as there were only five or six taps at a time. But after a few more taps it struck me that the tapping was in the same spot every time. Well, this called for investigation. Expecting to see a tree branch or squirrel at my window, I pulled apart my curtains and jumped back in shock from what I saw…a fuck. A fuck had been tapping on my window all morning. Did it want something? Was it lost? I don’t know, but as soon as I made eye contact with the fuck, who was equally as surprised as I was, it started slowly waddling backwards, almost as though to say, “Whoa dude. My bad, wrong house…”

Anyways, after coming to my senses I ran to the kitchen for bread so that I could feed my unexpected guest. I grabbed a slice of bread off. It was an end piece because nobody in my family likes that part, thus making it the most expendable. When I returned, however, I couldn’t see the fuck anywhere. It had left, just like that. Im not sure if it had to do with the bugs bunny plushie laying on my bed or the fucks natural disposition towards rabbits…and there hunting season, but either way, the fuck was gone. Regardless, I opened my window and threw out some torn up pieces of bread in hopes that it would return. It still hasn’t, but tomorrow is another day so heres hoping.

I cant explain why im so excited about this fuck, but I really want it to come back. I think about making friends with it by slowly earning its trust with small food offerings and eventually building a friendship. I told my friend ana how I felt about the fuck and she said it was just sad, which is true, but ill explain my feelings anyways. See, life’s been getting me down lately. Work sucks so every time I finish im left in a bad mood, but I don’t have any friends to go to cause theyre all tied up with school, and its not like I have a girlfriend cause im too busy with other things like…lego and shit…anyways, all of this has left me feeling lonely and depressed lately.  But then, out of nowhere, heres this fuck that just comes tapping into my life…and…I don’t know…I guess I just feel like life would be a little bit better if I knew that this fuck was looking forward to seeing me everyday because being able to make this fuck happy and knowing that im important to someone would make me happy…so if youre reading this…please come back to my window tomorrow. It’s the bottom left one with the Buddha statuette in it. Ill be waiting with an entire loaf of bread…

My New Friend

Today I woke up to a tapping at my window. I feel like Edgar Allan Poe. Initially, I wrote off the tapping as raindrops being blown off the roof and landing on my window, seeing as there were only five or six taps at a time. But after a few more taps it struck me that the tapping was in the same spot every time. Well, this called for investigation. Expecting to see a tree branch or squirrel at my window, I pulled apart my curtains and jumped back in shock from what I saw…a duck. A duck had been tapping on my window all morning. Did it want something? Was it lost? I don’t know, but as soon as I made eye contact with the duck, who was equally as surprised as I was, it started slowly waddling backwards, almost as though to say, “Whoa dude. My bad, wrong house…”

Anyways, after coming to my senses I ran to the kitchen for bread so that I could feed my unexpected guest. I grabbed a slice of bread off. It was an end piece because nobody in my family likes that part, thus making it the most expendable. When I returned, however, I couldn’t see the duck anywhere. It had left, just like that. Im not sure if it had to do with the bugs bunny plushie laying on my bed or the ducks natural disposition towards rabbits…and there hunting season, but either way, the duck was gone. Regardless, I opened my window and threw out some torn up pieces of bread in hopes that it would return. It still hasn’t, but tomorrow is another day so heres hoping.

I cant explain why im so excited about this duck, but I really want it to come back. I think about making friends with it by slowly earning its trust with small food offerings and eventually building a friendship. I told my friend ana how I felt about the duck and she said it was just sad, which is true, but ill explain my feelings anyways. See, life’s been getting me down lately. Work sucks so every time I finish im left in a bad mood, but I don’t have any friends to go to cause theyre all tied up with school, and its not like I have a girlfriend cause im too busy with other things like…lego and shit…anyways, all of this has left me feeling lonely and depressed lately.  But then, out of nowhere, heres this duck that just comes tapping into my life…and…I don’t know…I guess I just feel like life would be a little bit better if I knew that this duck was looking forward to seeing me everyday because being able to make this duck happy and knowing that im important to someone would make me happy…so if youre reading this…please come back to my window tomorrow. It’s the bottom left one with the Buddha statuettein it. Ill be waiting with an entire loaf of bread…

Knife Safety With Alex

Part I

The Restaurant

I cut my finger open recently at work. It was a Saturday night, super busy.  I remember I was supposed to leave about fifty times that day. I started at 9am and every time I was about to leave, somebody would run out of something and I would have to make it. 

6pm: “Alex! Were out of stuffed mushrooms!”

6:30pm:”Alex! We need more Hawaiian Rib Eye Marinade!”

            7pm: “Alex! This stuffed mushrooms and rib eye marinade tastes like shit make it again!”

Just as im finishing up and about to leave, the salad guy runs out of crumbled blue cheese. Well, fuck, Im a block of blue cheese away from going home. My initial instinct is to put together the grating machine which quickly and SAFELY crumbles the blue cheese. But as I begin to assemble the machine, my then kitchen manager approached me with a revolutionary concept. Why not… get ready for it…crumble the blue cheese….WITH A KNIFE! At the time, his method seemed as logical as painting a wall with a fork, so I couldn’t help but ask for clarification. It remained just as logical. My clarification was a hand gesture of what I should do with the knife…this is the extent of my works training. I imagine his safety course consisted of a hand puppet telling workers that if at any point during the day they see blood on the cutting board, they should stay where they are and wait for an adult to come find them. But I digress, this is subject for another blog…or legal statement, whichever comes first. So I begin trying to cut the slick, greasy, round edge of the blue cheese wheel. Slicing the blue cheese thin enough to crumble was one obstacle, but holding the wheel in place so that it didn’t slide around was another problem. In order to safely cut anything, your one hand needs to always be out of dangers way. However, in order to hold the blue cheese in place, I ended up having to put my hand directly IN dangers way, and danger, as fate would have it, was determined not to let anything get in its way.  

                The knife went along my finger and sliced it open with the ease of a lightsaber through a confederate droid. My immediate reaction wasn’t anger but instead amazement at the sight of a wound similar to those in 300 and Gladiator. I took a moment to re-enact my favourite scene, then it was off to seek first aid. Armed with a tiny alcoholic swab and a bandage, I went to the bathroom and and started rinsing off my cut. I realized when the bandage wouldn’t stick to my finger cause of all the blood that I might need something else. Back to the first aid box I went. At this point, I was standing there with one arm under my armpit and another rummaging through the equipment looking for something that looked like a med kit from Call of Duty. I grabbed a few things and went back to the bathroom to try them out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find an application for any of it, though, in retrospect the eye wash bottle was a wasted attempt. By this point I had dripped blood all over the floor and sink and pretty much everything else in the bathroom, and managed to leave a pretty solid trail of blood leading to the first aid box as well. My friend Jason saw this and decided to investigate, and, it just so happens I forgot to lock the bathroom door. So Jason opens the door and bears witness to a room covered in blood and me frantically trying to bandage myself up with pretty much the most useless medical equipment I could have grabbed. He saw the cut and said, “Bro, bro…you gotta go to the hospital bro.” So I wrapped some paper towel around my finger and discreetly walked up to my manager who was in the middle of…pretty much preparing and sending out thirty plates of food on the busiest night of the week and said, “James, are you busy” This turned out to be a bad choice of words so I reworded my statement. “When you get a mo’ I kinda need to see you in the back” And with all the subtly in the world, he yelled out “WHAT DID YOU DO!? DID YOU CUT YOURSELF!? SON OF A BITCH!” Everyone knowing about my injury really didn’t help but at least he got the message. So we go to the back and he wraps my finger up and gives me forty bucks for a cab to the hospital. I got my stuff and was leaving the restaurant when he yelled out one last thing, “Make SURE you get a receipt from the taxi!” His concern for my well being was heart warming and almost had me in tears. Just like that I was off to spend my Saturday night in the emergency waiting room. Who knows what evil lurks in the dark dank of Scarborough General Hospital…

Conversations With Francesco

Alexander Varoutas says
lets go to mcdonals
i want pie
nao

Francesco Lo Presti says
brah i'm tired

Alexander Varoutas says
i know me too
...lets go

Francesco Lo Presti says
k but gimme a bit i wanna be sure my dads slepping before i take the carz0r

Alexander Varoutas says
kk
*grabs hammer*

Alex Tries Mixed Martial Arts

My initial blog was supposed to be about trying mixed martial arts the other day but i realized two paragraphs in that i didnt laugh once and instead just shuddered every time i tried to put in words how uncomfortable i was while being man handled by guys i didnt know from all angles while pinned against the floor struggling for air away from the PERSPIRATION OH GOD THE HORROR!
Anyways, instead im going to write about the recent change of heart ive had about my job.
I recently got promoted to prep cook at my job. Im working full time hours preparing the food in the restaurant. i was never sure that i wanted to work in a kitchen but i thought i could try it and see where it takes me. After all, if my career in writing fell through, culinary was always my back up. I now know that it isnt my back up, and that i would sooner beg for change than work as a cook in the food service industry. Now this might now be entirely because of the cooking cause i still like cooking a meal. But its not the same in a restaurant. When you make dinner for a girl, its something special cause youve poured effort in to something and toiled over it for at least a few hours, and you get to enjoy the benefits later that night because of it. But in a restaurant, the customers are SO opposed to you asking for sex even though YOU made their meal. That was the first time i had ever been written up.
But its not even the absence of sex with the customers that bugs me the most. The part that bugs me the most about my job is that i suck at it...like...SO bad. SO bad it hurts. Literally. My fingers are all burnt and cut up cause i suck at this job so much. And worse than that is that i was promoted so i cant quit or ask to move cause then i would just seem like an ungrateful prick. So now im stuck doing this job, full time, until September when i go back to school. Now, you might be thinking "Oh alex, just tough it out till then, its not like you have anything to lose"
But thats not the way i see it. See, this was the first job i have ever had where i felt like i had the slightest iota of respect from my co-workers, and i always felt that was because i was doing well and always trying hard. But now, im doing something i suck at, everyones talking about it, and im constantly bitching about how much i hate the job, which leads me to believe that im slowly losing the respect of everyone i work with. If this is true, then by September i should hate this job as much every other job ive ever had, and eventually lose my ambition for life. THIS will in turn affect the way i perform in school, ill drop out of school, take up drugs and be homeless. This is what i imagine will happen if i dont find a way out of this new job position.
Of course, i could always try harder but then im scared instead of just burning and pricking my fingers, ill cut them off all together or end up cutting off somebody elses, which seems much more difficult but i wouldnt put it past me.