13.06.03
oh dude, do i need to get laid. yesterday i did a photo session with violet in my space and it was almost too much to bear. first off, let me say that miss violet is hands down, unequivocally the hottest woman i have ever personally met- a title formerly unbroken for 3 years by my ex-wife. so when a walking, talking, breathing goddess of sexual power takes off her top and her skirt and unabashedly starts strutting around in her panties and bra in one's presence, one could be forgiven for getting a little, shall we say, frisky. especially when one hasn't had sex in about a year. it was actually kind of embarrassing- here i am trying to be at least a semi-professional "photographer" but i've got this tent pole trying to bust its way out of my shorts at the same time (when you see the pictures you'll understand what i'm talking about). violet is just a person who is very open and unashamed about her body, so i hope my obvious dilemma didn't put her off her lunch. i mean after all, it's been a year- i can get turned on thinking about a hot turkey sandwich covered in gravy. i think at this point i might be in need of a mercy fuck. but i'm no stranger to dry spells- in vancouver i once went over 2 years. some people might be amazed, but i know others who have gone much longer. is it me, or is it this messed-up society we live in that isolates us all so much? i think it's a little bit of everything. i've always been a shy person but when i became a full-time pothead many years ago my shyness was exacerbated tenfold. so i just got used to not "gettin' any". but now i've been off the medication for 10 months and i'm sick of living like this. i want some hot action! donations are welcome.

08.06.03
so i went to this little get-together the other day where there were a bunch of single moms. actually, my ex was there with our son and i just went to pick him up as x had to leave. but when i arrived the hostess invited me to stay and have some coffee and cake with "the girls" so i obliged her. she is a slightly older lady, a professor at one of the universities here and a woman i find quite attractive and intriguing. i have also heard rumors that the feeling might be mutual. anyway, i stuck around for about an hour or so- partly for the cake and partly to see if i could gauge anything from the prof's behavior towards me. but i am more or less a typical guy, and guys are notoriously bad at reading the signs. at one point she was sort of kneeling on the floor and leaning on her coffee table to talk to me while giving me an ample view of her generous cleavage, but i still don't know if that was conscious or not. meanwhile, the conversation in the room turned to relationships and i came to find out that the other women there had all been more or less abandoned to parenthood by the fathers of their children. i mean their relationships hadn't worked out, which unfortunately happens, but then the fathers invariably removed themselves from their kids' lives completely or nearly completely and child support payments were few and far between. i'm certainly not trying to put myself on any kind of pedestal here, but that just seems inconceivable to me. not just the fact that you're shirking your responsibilities, which sucks, but how could you not want to be with your kid? it's really sad. i mean the ex and i went through some crazy shit when we broke up but seeing my boy was never questioned at all. in fact, he's about the only reason i pulled through that whole experience without being permanently embittered towards just about everything. anyway, i'm really not trying to pat myself on the back here, because to me it just seems like if you bring a kid into the world, at the bare minimum you make an effort to be with him and try to make his life a little easier ('cos we all know life is hard enough). anyway, back to the lonely hearts' club. there were a couple of other women at this get together who were unattached and seemed pretty nice, but it was a weird situation. i felt more like "one of the girls" and that asking any of them out after that would be untoward. i find that often happens with me, and i blame it on being surrounded by women growing up. i almost relate to them too much- maybe i'm not distant or macho enough to seem like a worthy mate. i guess i should just fake it a bit. anyway, i was on the nerve personals later that night and who did i see on there but our buxom tenured hostess. so i sent her a little note thanking her for the coffee and of course hoped that she'd write back- but it's been 2 days and nothing yet. surprised? no. disappointed? of course. but then, life is full of so many of these tiny little disappointments. it's what makes the good times that much better.

01.06.03
june is here again, but you wouldn't know it. it's freakin' cold here in the land of the bluenosers. just like last year, winter refuses to let go its icy grip and give us a half-decent spring. it's bloody depressing. if there are 2 things that have a direct impact on my mental attitude, it's my bank balance and the weather. a little cash and i'm feeling alright. a warm breeze puts a spring in my step. money in the bank on a sunny day? i'm goddamned ecstatic. i went out to the khyber club last night and had a grand old time. despite my caterwailing the last time i ventured outside my hovel, i learned that it is possible to go to a bar by myself and have fun. of course, it helped that there were people there i knew, i had plenty of beer money and the entertainment was good (bleubird with jesse dangerously and the rest of the verbals crew put on an energetic, tight set). also that i got warmed up at home beforehand- that always helps. yee haw. now a friend is coming to town this week who invariably takes me out drinking when he's here, so let the good times roll. a week from now i won't want to see another bar again for years...going through a major dry spell on the site for some reason. things were going really well, then about a week ago they started slowing down and then 3 days ago stopped entirely. these things happen from time to time, but everytime they do i invariably think "that's it, it's all over." i'll tell you one thing- it's bloody murder on the nerves. when i was working i could handle it because that was my financial safety net. but now this is it for me, and while i've been making an ok living with it it's still just a week-to-week thing. no fleet of suv's yet. so buy a shirt and feed a geek...i've come to terms with some of the hostility i was expressing towards my ex-wife last week- overtly or covertly as the case may be. i think it's because for the first time since we broke up she's with someone that she's probably going to be with for a very long time and i've come to the realization that i can't get her back. not that i want to- i don't, and that's not really the point. but i don't have the luxury of thinking "oh, i could get her back any old time" anymore. what a fucking pig, huh? i don't want you, but i want you to be available to me. anyway, i've sort of dealt with that and had to realize that it's well and truly over now. maybe before i didn't want to admit it, at least 100%, but after my surprisingly strong emotions about the whole thing last week i now feel a lot better about it. not only can i move on, i can relax a little knowing that x is being taken care of now. hey, i'm sorry to dump, but i don't have $120 an hour for a therapist so this is as close as it gets. it's my bloggy and i'll whine if i want to.

28.05.03
it's just occurred to me lately that based on some of my blog entries and the types of pictures i post on this site, some people out there may misconstrue that i'm some sort of misogynist or something. the fact that i called my ex wife a "manipulative bitch" the other day and that i have pictures of scantily clad females and even a few of myself looking at a porn mag might give some people the wrong impression. well, i just wanted to state for the record that i'm one of the least sexist people i know. i grew up surrounded by women- my mom and her 4 sisters, grandmas and 2 sisters of my own- and i have lots of respect for the female sex. maybe it's because i feel so comfortable around women (at least compared to a lot of guys) that i feel like i have some kind of license to push the envelope sometimes and engage in what might be misinterpreted as sexist behavior, but it's really tongue in cheek. i don't even look at porn (well, very rarely- i find it boring and insulting) and one of the reasons my sex life has been so spotty over the years is that i refuse to take advantage of a woman if i feel that she's doing something she's going to regret. that being said, i'm not one of these "new men" that tries to sublimate their masculinity and be every woman's sensitive dreamboat- men are men and women are women and there's nothing wrong with just acting naturally. so if i write something here that offends you, try to take it with a grain of salt- i'm trying to convey how i'm feeling in the moment and not just what i think people are going to like. once you accept that some people out there are going to consider you an asshole no matter what you do, it's actually very liberating.

22.05.03
my dad was just down for the weekend- it was nice because he usually stays with my sister and this time he stayed with me. we watched "the fast runner" which he had no patience for (and even though i liked it i had to admit that at just under 3 hours it was a little long-winded). anyway my dad's had a hard go of it over the last couple of years- he went bankrupt, developed diabetes and got this horrible infection on his foot that has refused to heal. and, well, he's not taking it all that well. in fact, he's depressed most of the time. one thing he seems to talk about a lot are his many regrets in life. shoulda, woulda, coulda. how if he had only stayed with corrections canada instead of starting his own business 25 years ago he'd be retired by now with a nice fat pension. how if he had treated mom "right" (whatever that means) she wouldn't have left him 18 years ago. and so on. "i sure have a lot of regrets" is something i've heard him say many times. which, to me, is just really sad, because for whatever reason i really have none. i decided a long time ago that you really shouldn't regret anything about your life, because it's just not healthy, and you can't change it anyway. maybe it was motorhead's rallying cry of "no remorse" that inspired this belief, but it's something i've stuck with and it's served me well over the years. all the same, there are certain moments that come back to haunt me- memories that, no matter how many times i tell myself to "just let them go", continue to dog me into my old age. like the time i discovered that poor native girl, dad's employee's girlfriend, looking at my stack of "mad" magazines in our garage. "what do you think you're doing? who said you could look at those?" what an ass. the time i locked my cousins out of our house, accusing them of using us for our swimming pool. spoiled kid. or the time i told an old girlfriend that she had a fat ass during an argument. just plain evil. there are more, and i wish i could erase them from my memory bank, but they exist as a reminder that i am a fallible human being like everyone else. i guess maybe everything really does happen for a reason...do you think it's possible to miss the sex you had with an ex in the same way some people miss an actual person? i met my ex wife the other day at the playground to pick up my son. being as it was a pretty sunny day i had my sunglasses on and so i was free to ogle her at will, and i found myself almost ready to cry from looking at her body. not from missing her- she's a manipulative bitch that i wouldn't trust with the milk money- but from the sex. the sex, the sex. the best fucking sex of my life, and who's to say i'll ever have it again? every time i see her i just marvel that i had access to that for over 2 years, and i get depressed because i think that the chances of it ever being that good in my future are pretty low. that's a pretty negative way to think, but considering my track record it's not entirely unbelievable. but hey- better to have lusted and lost than never to have lusted at all.

15.05.03
my son's birthday party was the other day- he's 3 now. it was a fairly low-key affair at the local y- a little pool party for some of his daycare chums and various extended family members. the ex and i have been apart for over 2 years now so any awkwardness has pretty much fallen by the wayside, though i have to admit when her boyfriend showed up at the end i caught a couple of "looks" from my sister and mom. i'm glad there's not as much fuss being made over coltrane anymore either- now that he's a little older there have been newer kids coming along and he's not "the baby" anymore. anyway, there was a woman at the party who has a daughter in 'trane's daycare, and my ex is trying to set us up. of course, she didn't seem to really understand me when we were together so it's not really surprising that her idea of my ideal mate would be so far from reality. "you know, you're both, like, freaky and artistic- it's perfect!" my ex wears club monaco and listens to dave matthews, so she can be forgiven if her version of "freaky and artistic" is a little more all-encompassing than mine. anyway, i talked to x after the party and told her i wasn't really interested in the woman- she was nice but there was nothing there. come to find out that another single mom that was at the party just may have a thing for me- a woman i must say i find kind of intriguing. she's got a few years on me but you wouldn't know it to see her, and she's sexy as hell. so i was kind of reflecting on all this and i suddenly realized that since christmas i have had at least 5 or 6 women express some level of interest in me. i'm not trying to brag- really i'm not- it's just that, for me, this is truly unprecedented. i had one major relationship for 4 years after which i was more or less (mostly more) alone for the next 6 years. i grew so used to being single that i essentially stopped bothering with delusions of getting a girlfriend and started focussing on improving my life in other ways. then i met my ex out of the blue and there was an instant, intense connection. yes, in retrospect it was mostly sexual, but at the time it was a godsend and i thought we were a perfect match. 5 weeks after we started dating we were pregnant- did you know that you shouldn't take antibiotics if you're on the pill? i didn't- and our light-hearted fling got a whole lot more serious very quickly. i won't go into all the whys and wherefores of why our union eventually crumbled- i got an incredible son out of the deal and i would have gone through much worse for him- but suffice to say that when it was over i was almost content to go back to thinking that i would just be single for another 6, 7, 10 or 20 years. but lately it seems like... i don't know. i'm getting noticed. or maybe i just notice that i'm getting noticed. is it an age thing? you always hear about women being more drawn to older (30+) men. i guess i'm a lot more self-confident than i was in my twenties. it could be a pot thing- as in, a lack thereof. now that i'm not getting baked all the time i can form coherent sentences at nearly any time of the day or night. or it could be an imagination thing- as in, delusions of grandeur, pride leading to a fall. i don't know. i just want a little sugar.

09.05.03
so i'm looking after the ex's cat for a couple of days while she's out of town. i thought it might be fun- i grew up around cats & dogs and i always thought they were cute. but apparently not anymore. jack is still pretty much a kitten and he is very demanding of attention and playtime. not only that, but he's constantly jumping up on my lap when i'm in the middle of something and he's got the the most demonically sharp little claws i've ever seen (or felt). my thighs and hands are now covered in scratches. and to top it off i've come to realize that i'm actually now quite allergic to cat dander- i could barely breathe last night and my eyes were unbearably red and itchy. i don't like to stereotype, but i think i may be one of those cat haters now. i do prefer dogs, but i don't think i could handle owning one of those right now either. as a parent of a 3 year old child, i have to say that pets just seem like way more work...so one of my old friends, a girl we used to call happy, keeps e-mailing me letters telling me to write her back and not understanding why i'm apparently ignoring her. the only problem is, i am writing her back, but for some reason she's not getting the e-mails. last night i got one that said "i never hear back from you and i'm getting worried that something's wrong." so since i'm pretty sure it's not an isp issue (not getting any "undeliverable" notices) i can only assume that someone is intercepting the e-mails i'm sending back to her for whatever reason and deleting them before she can see them. someone like, oh i don't know, maybe a jealous husband who thinks that just because his wife has a male friend that means he's some kind of threat to their holy union? i could be jumping to conclusions here, and i hope that i'm wrong. happy, i know you check out this site sometimes, so if you see this please give me a call at 902-425-4659. and tell hubby to stop hatin'...i just downloaded and watched "attack of the clones", the last star wars movie, and i must say that it really wasn't that bad. of course, i had severely lowered expectations after "phantom menace", which was pointless and boring, but "clones" was definitely more in the spirit of the first star wars movie- which is to say, just a really good action adventure with a little romance and human drama thrown in for good measure. some of it was genuinely cheesy and the battle scene at the end was way over the top and pretty unbelievable, but it kind of brought back the thrill i got from the first 3 movies as a child and restored my faith in the series. in my view they can never hope to top the very first one, but it will be fun watching them try. ewan mcgregor does a very convincing turn as a young alec guiness too.

04.05.03
wow, i just read my last blog entry- how bloody depressing. before any of you go calling the suicide watch hotline though, you should realize that i was a little drunk when i wrote that and booze always makes me maudlin and self-pitying. i'm not like that all the time. but bars are usually fairly depressing places and it's pretty seldom that i walk out of one feeling uplifted. so don't worry about me. besides, it's spring and this is no time to feel down. and there are enough cool things happening right here on this site to cheer anybody up. for starters, i've been getting an unprecedented amount of amazing art submissions lately and the next update, which i'm hoping to post by early june, is gong to be incredible- probably 30 new pieces including some ascii art, some all new stuff from billy blob and timothy halland some other new artists you may not have heard of yet like richard mullins. but that's not all. i recently hooked up with a new supplier and they've got some very funky colored baseball shirts and ringers that i'm hoping to have available here by may 15th. hemp t-shirts may even be in the works. add to that a whole ton of new zerokidz pictures and the usual monthly features and there should be no shortage of reasons to keep checkin' in here on a pretty regular basis...so i've been on this "high protein" diet for almost 2 weeks now and even though i don't have a scale i could swear that i've lost a few pounds. my gut just doesn't seem quite as obscenely huge as it did 2 weeks ago, though it could be wishful thinking. i'm not expecting overnight results, because i'm not doing it by the book- i'm just cutting out sweets, potatoes, breads and pasta. you wouldn't believe how many vegetables you start eating when you don't have pasta as a filler anymore- it's pretty cool. unlike many of the protein dieters, i'm not living on steak and cheese- for starters, i don't eat red meat, and secondly, i don't really want to have a heart attack at the age of 33. i'll keep you posted...i just found out that zbq wasn't accepted to be in the pool trade show this august in las vegas nevada. i think we got our application in too late, so i'll have to watch for the next one. it's too bad, because i've never been to the city of light and i was kind of looking forward to it. it would probably be the last place i would ever choose as a vacation destination, but to have an excuse to go there would be great, if only from an anthropological perspective...oh, and i don't really watch hockey anymore, but all the same: go sens! later.

01.05.03
i go to the bar, buy a beer and sit in the corner. every second is an agony- i want to leave so bad, but i'm forcing myself to stay for at least one drink in the hopes that i'll see someone i know. why do i do this to myself? because the alternative is staying home yet again, like i do almost every other night of my life. i wish i had someone to talk to- i could stay for hours with a little human interaction. how can i have lived in a city for nearly 6 years and yet know so few people? is it because pot was my best friend for so many years and i didn't really seem to need other people that much? or am i just inherently anti-social? i've been off pot for almost 9 months and i feel just as shy and awkward in public as i did when i was medicating. but maybe you can't undo 15 years worth of drug-induced conditioning in only 9 months. maybe it takes another 15 years. or maybe i'll die alone in a ditch. i don't know- other people my age say the same thing. when you're in high school and college it's just so easy to make friends- there are people all around you with similar interests and viewpoints, and the last thing on your mind is actually trying to find people to hang out with. but then you grow up and find that you have lots of acquaintances but very few, if any, actual close friends. those that do should count themselves very lucky. maybe it's true what they say- you're born alone and you die alone. only thing is, i've pretty much felt alone for most of the time in between.

25.04.03
did you ever have one of those friends that always seems to know what's best for you? i've got one of those. i've known chuck (not his real name) for about 18 years now and we've always got on pretty good. i lived with chuck for a while a few years ago and we really started getting to each other, but i moved out and we went back to being civilized and cheerful buddies. but over the last year or two i've noticed something about chuck that i never really saw before: he's got this way of telling you what to do with your life that just annoys the hell out of me. actually, most times it doesn't: i can usually take it with a grain of salt. but i'm talking to chuck on the phone the other night and, admittedly, he is a little drunk on the other end. i started out the conversation by telling him how happy i am that the business is finally self-sufficient and, knock on wood, i don't need to work part-time anymore to help with the bills. not 2 minutes later he's spewing out his all-time favorite line- "you know what you should do?"    when i hear those 6 words i know i'm in for an earful again. "you know what you should do? take a welding course. welders make good coin. oh no, i know what you should do- take a trucking course. you'd be good at that." "uh, chuck," i feebly protest, "i don't really need a job, and even if i did i don't really have time to take on a full-time career." i guess it bugs me because it reminds me of my parents and how they've never really seemed to take anything i do very seriously. but, you know, it mostly just makes me laugh. i love chuck and he's a great friend. but then he starts in trying to set me up with his girlfriend's friend again. i've told him 5 or 6 times that i'm really not interested (and, believe me, i've met the girl and i'm not interested) but he just keeps bringing it up, as if he's going to wear me down or something. i tell him my ex is pretty serious with her new man, something i'm pretty happy about, and all he can say is "that sucks. you need a woman pronto." yeah, well why is that? besides the usual biological urge to hump, i really have no desire to get entangled in another relationship for a very long time. or at least not until i have a feeling that it might have better than a snowball's chance in baghdad of going somewhere. so i tell him this in the nicest terms possible and he gets his back all up at me. "geez man, you don't have to marry the damn girl, just go out and have some fun!" chuck buddy, i don't need you to set me up with your girlfriend's desperate friends and i definitely don't need your career advice, so back up a little and let's just stick to talking about cars and the good old days, ok bud?...so the day after this little phone conversation i go to my local bicycle repair shop to pick up my bike, which has been sitting there for over a week. it's springtime, they're busy, so i can forgive the delay, even if it is 5 days after they told me intitially. these guys do good work and they're a small family shop so i can cut them some slack. now, i should preface this by saying that i really don't take very good care of my bike. i tend to let it fall to shit before i'll drop any money on getting it fixed up. hell, one time i rode around with absolutely no brakes at all for 2 months, using my feet to stop fred flintstone-style, just because i was too lazy to drop 6 or 7 bucks on brake pads and spend 5 minutes putting them on. it's just the kind of guy i am. but for some reason this guy at this bike shop has always taken the way i treat my bike kind of personally- almost as if it was his bike. he always has some little comment about it and it's never bothered me- i just laugh it off. but this day was different. "obviously i care about this bike much more than you do. i don't kow why i bother. i'd fix it up more but you're just going to let the same thing happen again. it's pretty obvious from the look of this bike that you don't really care one way or the other." it was relentless. and while it may sound like polite ribbing, trust me, it wasn't. this guy was dead serious. now, at first i kind of let it roll off my back, but then i got to thinking: why the fuck do i even bother giving this guy my business? i mean i walked out of there feeling guilty for bringing my bike in to him. i dropped well over 200 bucks in his shop in the last month alone, and not only do i not get so much as a "thank you" or a "sorry it took so long", i'm made to feel bad about the whole experience, like i just beat up a puppy or something. and this happens every single time i go in there. it's a damn bicycle, you know? if he didn't want to fix it he didn't have to. so, anyway, i won't be back there, which is a shame because a friend of mine works there and they do do good work. it just burns my ass...so maybe it seems like i'm on some kind of warpath or something, but that's really not the case at all. i just had 2 concurrent experiences where people really got on my nerves and this blog is as good a place to vent as any. i'm ok now, really...alright so call me a shallow loser but i've decided to try a scaled-down version of the low carb diet. you know, that one where you can basically live off of steak and cheese and still lose weight. i'm still about 20 pounds overweight and i'm sick of looking at this gut and owning 4 pairs of pants i can't even fit into anymore. so i'm not doing it by the book, but i am cutting out all breads, potatoes, pastas and cookies for at least a month and seeing where it gets me. 3 days in and i'm already having severe oatmeal raisin cookie withdrawl but i think i'll survive. i'll keep you posted...

17.04.03
in my family my dad's father was known as "the grump". he was generally drunk and ill-tempered when he wasn't asleep. growing up with such an unhappy man as his father was, mine was bound to inherit some of the family surliness, and he did. however, though he had a temper like a firecracker at times pop never hit his kids and has mellowed quite a bit in his old age. and now to me. growing up i guess i often kind of felt like a pushover and i often think that that's why in my late teens and early twenties i tried to make up for lost time by being a belligerent asshole. not all the time, mind you, but whenever my back was up against the wall i lashed out like a rabid mongoose. this served me well working as a bike messenger in montreal, where people lose their cool in traffic all the time and it's not uncommon to see road rage related fistfights in the street. so i guess i never thought that my explosive temper was unusual in those days- i never really took it out too hard on anyone (with a few exceptions) so i thought of it as healthy venting. it wasn't really until i moved to halifax in 1997 that i started thinking that losing my temper wasn't always a good thing. about 4 years ago i walked into my bank one day and was informed that they couldn't cash a check for me without a 30 day hold. i snatched the check from the teller's hands, told her "you people are making my life very difficult", smashed the doors open on my way out and spit on the bank's front window when i got outside. the next time i went in there i was informed that should i choose to spit on bank property again my account would be revoked. i've never really lived that down. about 2 years after that i had a good gig as an occasional cover artist for the local weekly entertainment paper. it didn't pay the greatest but it was good experience and added to my portfolio. one day i walked into a cafe where said paper was hosting an exhibit of some of its most acclaimed covers through the years. on the wall was one i had done, but not only was i not credited for it, the placard next to it seemed to suggest that someone else had created it. i wrote the editor that night and told him in no uncertain terms what i thought of this and a few other things that had been stewing on the backburner. of course, it was right to say something about the exhibit but a little restraint with the other stuff could have helped. they stopped calling me for covers after that. i would like to think that i've grown up now and it's all under control- and truth to tell, i am a lot calmer than i once was (parenthood will do that to you too). but this week i talked out of turn and very nearly blew something which has been very good to me for well over a year, and which only promises to get better. i won't go into details, but suffice to say that this latest incident made me seriously think about some kind of anger management class. it's not like i'm a rageaholic that makes life miserable for everyone around me- it's just that once in a while i lose control and i say something which not only embarrasses me but winds up hurting me. then there are times that i think that maybe we just live in an age when people are so damn scared of offending each other that any display of anger or frustration is deemed unacceptable. i think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. i don't feel guilty for getting angry sometimes- it's a perfectly natural emotion- but i don't like myself when i drag others into it. so i'm sorry already- ok?

15.04.03
how does a whole week go by without a blog entry? i'm not sure, but it's not hard. i guess it's like the old man always warned me- time really does seem to speed up as you get older. god, when you're a kid a day can last forever and a month is a lifetime. i guess it's 'cos everything is so new and interesting then, and so old and dull now... so i'll be posting an update within the next 24 to 36 hours- about 40 new zerokidz pictures and a new inri vue page. this site keeps me pretty busy, but i enjoy it. ok, now i remembered why i haven't written in over a week- i have nothing to say! let's see...went to the shopping mall the other day w/ my son. not that this is a common occurrence in my life but i needed some socks and there's a mall within walking distance of my place. plus there's a place there that makes a killer chicken souvlakia. anyway, we get there and we're sitting in the food court when this fight breaks out amongst these screaming teens. i would say none of them were any older than 16, and there were like 40 or 50 of them, mostly girls. struck me as sort of like a lab full of avril lavigne clones that had somehow escaped confinement. and i mean they were screaming obscenities, pushing each other and knocking shit over- it was quite the little spectacle of juvenilia. the rent-a-cops were doing their best to contain it, but hell hath no fury and it took a while to corral them outside so they could scratch each other's eyes out in the parking lot. it just reminded me about how we are essentially pack animals, and when we're threatened we kind of revert to that fight-or-flight instinct, choose our herd and start frothing and gnashing. evolution hasn't come that far.

07.04.03
we were only 15, what did we know? there were stories about our gym teacher having a violent temper- unsubstantiated reports of him kicking a cat so hard he broke its back and slamming a student's head into a wall in the middle of class. but hey, we were just having fun. i forget who brought all the condoms, but one thing was for sure, they wouldn't be used for their intended purpose anytime soon. so we thought it might be fun to sneak onto mr. c___'s property and hang a couple on his front door. i can't remember if we'd actually got any of the slimy latex worms affixed to his door knob or not when the front lights went on and we could hear a very agitated voice yelling from inside. we took off though the back yard and figured we were safe. but, knowing about that famous temper, we decided to duck onto a side street for a while just in case. finally talking ourselves out of it, we figured it was ok to head back out on to the main drag and start heading back to john's place to smoke cigars and listen to the clash. we'd actually made it about halfway home when we heard a car approaching from behind us. the engine was revving violently and it was driving much faster than even many of the local hicks in their nova ss's dared to go. but instead of running we decided to act aloof and pretend that we knew nothing. sure enough, it was mr. c____ in his little pontiac acadian. he pulled over, stopped and rolled down the passenger side window to lean over and talk to us. roger decided to be the brave one and went to see what he had to say. it's a good thing he didn't get too close, because mr. c____ had a long kitchen knife that he was waving around violently as he talked. "pretty fuckin' brave aren't you? i'll teach you to trespass on another man's property." roger claimed he knew nothing about what he was talking about, but our frothing gym instructor would have none of it. "and if this doesn't show you, i've got something else here that will!" "oh really?" said roger. "what do you got in there, a gun?" without answering, mr. c___ sped off into the night and we continued on our way, laughing our asses off but also genuinely scared. in our youthful bravado we talked about calling the police or even going back to his house and doing something to really get him going. but in the end we did nothing, and noone's cat got whacked. talk about anger management though, what?

04.04.03
today is the first day of our new ad on deviantART and so far it's been great- there's been more traffic on the site in the last 6 hours than we usually see in 6 days. i'd like to welcome everyone from deviant who's discovering our site for the first time. i found out about deviantART through one of our newer artists, scott everingham, and thought it would be a perfect place to advertise zeroboutique. i'm really happy to be associated with it and hope that this can continue for some time to come...seeing that ad go up was kind of a turning point for my day. up until then i was really in a pretty sour mood and just generally feeling very frustrated with life. it's just seemed as if everything this week has involved some sort of delay or screw-up, and i was losing my patience. 3 weeks ago i finally found someone to buy my color laser copier and was happy to be finally getting rid of it. i don't use it anymore and it cost me so much damn money over the last 2 years that it was a relief to see it go. only problem is, it hasn't gone yet. 3 weeks ago i got a deposit for it and since then this guy, who lives out of town, has repeatedly promised to come and get it and pay me the rest of the money for it. but he still hasn't come through. i wouldn't really care if he had said "look, i need 3 weeks to finish paying for the machine and come get it," but instead he keeps telling me he'll be over "tommorow or the next day". so i wait around at my studio all day and he doesn't show up. can someone please explain to me why so many people are so unreliable? i mean if you say you're going to do something, do it for fuck's sake, or at least have the courtesy to call and say you can't make it. anyway i called his answering machine yesterday and tried to sound as restrained as possible but it was obvious i was losing my patience. then his machine cut me off in mid-sentence- i hate when that happens, especially when you're in the middle of a righteous rant. anyway, i kind of let it go today. who cares, right? i'm not going to sweat it. if he never comes to get it, at least i already spent his deposit on crack and hookers.

30.03.03
i decided to do a quick update tonight because it had been about 2 weeks since the last content update and i get bored of looking at the same stuff every day. plus there's a lot of new stuff coming down the pipe for april so i didn't want to dump it on you all at once. so for now you have a new graf n' corruption page, some new audio mixes over at radio free zero and of course a new wutznu page, including an all-new contest. but i won't be slouching for too long. not only are there 15 new pieces very close to being added to the collection (bringing our grand total to 165, almost double what we started with a year ago), there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-100 new zerokidz pictures that will be added as well...a word to the wise: postal prices and other expenses have been going up lately and it looks like we may be raising the prices of our shirts by june or july. i've looked around the web and we have some of the best prices i've seen, so an extra buck or 2 shouldn't kill you. just think of it as helping out your favorite artist just a little bit more...some of you may recall that i had a post regarding the war on iraq on this page a few days ago, which i took down. well, i used to have a policy of "no politics" on this site, and after thinking about it for a couple of days i decided to stick to that original policy. yes, i still feel pretty strongly about it but people don't come to this site for my opinion on the war or anything else for that matter. there's so much out there already on this subject and i think you're all pretty intelligent people and can make up your own minds without my input. i just wanted you to know that i wasn't pressured to take that down or anything, it was my decision. i wrote much worse on one of my older sites without any fallout from my host (although one column was censored in australia if you can believe it)...damn i only have 3 episodes of six feet under left to watch. how will life go on? in the 6 weeks or so since i got hooked back up with a high-speed connection i've watched a downloaded show every night- first it was all the episodes of mr. show i'd never seen, then of course the sopranos and finally the amazing six feet under. i haven't had cable in years so i don't really know what the hot shows are, but i've got this thing for anna nicole smith so i may check out a couple of those (shows, that is). maybe i'll move on to movies, but they just seem like too much work, and i have such little faith left in modern filmmaking...i'll squat on your anthill later, tarzan.

25.03.03
we were together for 4 years. when you're 22 that's nearly a fifth of your whole life. when it's your first love it is your whole life. last night she called me and we spoke for the first time in about a year and a half. considering we broke up 11 years ago, it's pretty cool that we still talk and think of each other, especially since she's married with kids and lives in another city. well, she was pretty special. of course, at the time i only had a vague notion of that. i was too caught up with getting high and playing rock & roll to appreciate the fact that i was with such an amazing person- a person who truly accepted me for who i was and loved me unconditionally. what the hell did i know? how was i supposed to know how truly rare that is in this world? when we broke up i guess i thought i could just find someone else just as special. 11 years later, i'm still looking. and i find i'm missing those times. i don't really want to go back, and i don't want to be with her now, because we're different people now and that's impossible anyway. i guess talking to her just made me wish i was naive again. i know that sounds stupid, but do you know what i mean? when you're ignorant about the world you make a lot of mistakes, but it also seems like a much more magical and mysterious place. of course i'm 33 years old and in 20 years i'll probably be saying the same thing about my life now. when i was 20 i mourned for my childhood. but you know, life can't stand still. i know people who do the same things they were doing when they were 15- and what's the point of that? you can't arrest your development and stay in some twilight of youth. maybe the journey is hard and frustrating and you do want to go back from time to time, but i believe there's always something better on the other side. all the same- i miss you, jen.

22.03.03
i've found myself with a bit of free time lately so when not watching 6 feet under or reading my dostoyevsky book i've filled in some of the time by slowly nibbling away at a new art update. i wasn't really planning on doing another one until may, but i suddenly find that i have almost 15 new pieces ready to be launched, so what the hell. they will be added on or around april 1st (and that's no april fool's joke). after that's done i will be adding some more colors to the ringers and baseball shirts and tweaking a few things here and there. there will also be a lot more zerokidz pictures in the near future, including more from my personal favorite, marla...i lost my temper with my son today. i'm not proud of it, but it happens sometimes. i had about 5 bags of groceries in one hand and was trying to get coltrane home so we could eat. his mom had forgotten his stroller at daycare yesterday so it was slow going, especially when he decided it would be fun to play a little "game" where he sat on the sidewalk and refused to budge. i kept my frustration in check until he decided it would be even funnier to run away from me in the opposite direction. visions of him running out in front of a car flashing before my eyes, i yelled at him to stop and ran after him, scooping him up and telling him to never do that again. i think sometimes you have to give them a little scare just to drive the point home. well cole was having a rough day already and he started wailing, and of course i felt like dirt. but that's parenthood i guess. kids really test your patience, but they also stretch it and help you find reserves you never thought you had. i find i am much more tolerant of people in general these days and very rarely get angry with them. what's the point? it accomplishes absolutely nothing- i mean it might feel good for 5 seconds but you feel guilty about it for a lot longer than that. of course, that doesn't mean you should be a pushover but there are tactful ways to let people know you're not happy with them without biting their heads off. when it comes to inaminate objects, however, i let it all out. if i'm having a rough day and i'm sure noone's around, i have no problem throwing and breaking anything that's handy. multi-color screenprinting tends to bring out this inner savage- it can be incredibly frustrating. last week i kicked a chair in my space so hard i couldn't walk later that night and was sure i broke my foot. hey, anger is a natural emotion that shouldn't be suppressed but it's all about context, right? i had a roommate last year who had a major anger management problem. we were having a disagreement one night and he completely flipped out on me in front of my son (who was not yet 2 at the time), screaming in my face about how he was going to "kick [my] fucking teeth in." i moved out that night. i may have had some anger issues myself in the past but you don't do that shit in front of kids. besides, the guy scared me- i honestly think he's got a homicidal streak in him and i don't even think it would take that much to bring it on. context, my friend.

16.03.03
well my pogey has run out- i have been officially weaned off of the government teat. i'm surprisingly unfazed. to tell you the truth, i was starting to feel a little ashamed, but i worked for 14 years straight without ever taking more than a couple of weeks off at a time, and i've never been on unemployment insurance before (woops, sorry, in canada we call it "employment insurance" now which is, you know, supposed to motivate you to get a job or something). so what now? well, i am kind of half-assedly looking for work, but my bills are covered for the forseeable future and things are going well here at zbq world hq so i think i'm-a hold tight for a while yet. don't let anyone tell you that self-employment is a dream come true- so far, for me, it's been one of the most nerve-wracking experiences i've ever gone through. but yes, it is better than working full time...did you ever jump to a wrong conclusion and then regret it for the rest of your life? well i'm the king of that. i've done it so many times i've lost count. as soon as something goes missing, someone stole it. if someone i like doesn't call me in 24 hours, i'm scum-sucking shit that doesn't deserve to live and i will die cold and alone in a ditch. you know, that kind of thing. this week i had one of those experiences and came this close to putting not just my foot but my entire leg in my mouth over it. a business associate's girlfriend and i are working on a project together. this week i was supposed to meet her several times and we kept missing each other- crossed wires, phone tag, you know the deal. i wrote her an e-mail in which i suggested that maybe she should "come over to my place" to pick up what she needed. immediately after sending this e-mail i thought "hmmm, i wonder if that could be misconstrued as being somehow inappropriate." suddenly i didn't hear from her, her boyfriend or anyone else involved in this project for about 6 or 7 days. "that's it," i thought. "i've really blown it this time. she thnks i was coming onto her and now i've not only embarassed the hell out of myself, i've probably thrown out my meal ticket." the thing is, i do find this girl attractive, and even though i would never be so naive or stupid as to make a pass at her, i was thinking that if i lost this over something so inconsequential i wish i had at least had the chance to. anyway, i was starting to panic and was thinking that in another day or 2 i would write her and apologize for mistakenly suggesting anything untowards. but then yesterday she wrote me and it was apparent that what i'd written hadn't been an issue- i'm sure, in fact, that it didn't even register on her radar. what a fool i would have been. but that's ok- i've more than made up for that lost opportunity on many other occasions. oy vey.

06.03.03
today i did something i've been meaning to do for quite some time. i put links on the artist's bio page so that when you read about an artist you can go check out any of their pieces instantly, instead of having to weed through the whole site. i guess i kept putting it off because i thought it would take me forever, but it only took about an hour or so. hopefully that will make things easier for you if you're a fan of a particular artist on this site...ok now that i've downloaded every last episode of the sopranos and mr. show i'm on to my newest obsession: another hbo show called six feet under. if you've seen it before you know what i'm talking about. if not, i urge you to check it out. it's already in its third season but i just discovered it like a week ago, so i'll be watching an episode a night until i'm caught up. meanwhile, i'm eagerly awaiting season 5 of the sopranos: has it started yet? that last episode of season 4 was a real doozy. fuckin' tony, ah? how long does that goombah think he can away with that shit? man i love that show, but it was really starting to take over my life there for a while- i was starting to dream in mob-ese. maybe some day i'll go back to reading books. probably the day after they shut down kazaa.

02.03.03
aah, march is finally here. it's always such a relief. march is the hinge upon which spring turns, and all hope of renewal is born in the spring. winter's got me down and i need a shot in the arm. anyway i got the new wutznu page up with a new contest and everything, so you may want to check that out at some point. and oh yeah, the trucker hats are back in full effect, but they're now printed with the new "zbq" logo and not the zero logo of yore...did you ever go see a movie just because you want to go a dark theatre and eat popcorn for 2 hours? i did that last night. the choices were pretty slim so i settled on "life of david gale" with kevin spacey. i really liked him in "american beauty" and some of the other things i've seen him in so i thought it might be ok. it wasn't. while not offensively bad, "david gale" was instantly forgettable- hollywood fluff pretending to be profound, more along the lines of a made-for-tv movie. spacey was in halifax last year to film "the shipping news" and being as this is a pretty small city i heard through the grapevine that he's very stuck up and self-important- in fact, noone on the set was allowed to speak to him directly but had to do so through one of his handlers. apparently, he's also in the closet- which is fine but bugs me because it means he's dishonest. i guess knowing all that kind of colored my interpretation of the film last night, though i gave kev a fair chance and in fact think that he did do a good job with the material he was given. but what do you expect from hollywood? lowered expectations mean you don't really get too dissapointed. i'm personally waiting for the new cronenburg flick "spider" to come to halifax. latesies.

28.02.03
they did it to peanut butter burst, plain pop tarts and strawberry quik, and now they're doing it to the only magazine even worth picking up anymore. i'm speaking of an apparent conspiracy by the powers-that-be to take away or discontinue all of my favorite things. the latest, of course, being shift magazine, by far the coolest technology-oriented paper & staples magazine on the planet. and it was even canadian. why are you doing this to me? somebody rich, save this magazine quick and keep me happy...if you're reading this on friday night, i've done a partial update, which is to say a new index, graf & corruption page, some zerokidz shots of yours truly and, finally, a streaming audio page called radio free zero, but i didn't get around to doing a new wutznu page with a new contest and all that. i'll probably get to that in the next day or two. oh yeah, and a new in review page as well, though i haven't bought anything new in quite some time so i'm not sure what i'm going to review. maybe i'll fake it. some local musicians were supposed to slide me some items for review by now but you know these flaky artistic types. anyway, i'm not beating myself up about keeping things on a tight schedule, cos i've been pretty good about posting fresh content at least every couple of weeks...i'm sick of the winter. i know, so is everyone else, and those who aren't sick of the winter are sick of hearing about it from those who are. unless you live in california or something. anyway, i live in a cold country known as canada and if you think we're all just used to it up here, think again, because this is my 33rd winter in this fucking cold place and i still hate it (the cold, not the country). and judging from the number of complaints i hear on any given day, i'm not alone.

19.02.03
i'm going through one of those periods when sex doesn't really interest me that much. it's not that i stop liking it- i don't know if that's even possible- i just stop thinking about it all the time. to tell you the truth, it's kind of a relief. but i think the only reason it's happening is 'cos i ain't gettin' any. my brain from time to time grows tired of manufacturing elaborate fantasies to convince my loins that sex is imminent. either that, or my loins stop believing the utter bullshit coming from my brain. either way, it's something that usually happens around this time of year and it usually precedes the typical springtime horniness during which time it's impossible not to think about sex and related topics (humping, groping, rutting etc.). i tried looking at some online porn the other night and was astounded by how truly unsexual most of it is. i mean it's just so fake that it's laughable, and it's hard to get turned on by most of it i find. you can tell these people are acting, and that's what ruins it for me right there. not only that, but they all look the same, and after a while it's sort of like reading the same word over and over again until it completely loses its meaning. blondes, boobs, butts and blowjobs- yada yada yada. i pity most of these people, because sex for them has become a completely empty act, and for me one of life's high points is definitely getting it on. if that lost all of its allure, what would be left? it's no wonder so many porn stars are drug addicts.

14.02.03
valentine's day and i'm alone again. no biggy- i like being single. the only things i miss about having a girlfriend are the sex, the companionship, the occasional good meal, being able to go to a movie and have someone to talk about it with afterwards, and of course the sex. i went on a date last week with a girl i met through my personals ad on nerve and there was no sexual chemistry whatsoever. luckily, she agreed. but despite (or because of) that we actually got along quite well and i think we're going to hang out sometime soon. maybe we can play matchmaker for each other at some point in the future. for the most part, i'd rather be single anyway. yes it can get lonely but it's just so much easier. and as for the sex- i'm starting to think i'd almost rather pay for it. hey, in the long run it's actually cheaper...my new site grover is bitter got a link from fark.com this week and i saw the traffic go from 30 or 40 hits a day to over 18,000 in one day. yowza! wild style. i was an internet celebrity there for one hot minute. the best part were all the cool posts people sent in- it really warmed my cockles...speaking of which , it's farking cold in nova scotia this week. so far the winter hasn't really gotten to me yet. we didn't get a whole lot of snow until well after christmas anyway, but it's been making up for lost time since then. and i know better than to start looking for daffodils at this point. march is always colder than you think it'll be- at least in this part of the world...well seeing as it is cupid's day and all maybe i will head back over to nerve to troll around for some valentine's lovin' before flippin' on episode 1 of the sopranos season 4. i'll value your village later.

08.02.03
so i decided to change the home page after only about a week of the last one, and i'm going to tell you why. ever since i switched from using pictures of pretty girls on the main page to pictures of art, sales have taken a downturn. now, this is traditionally the slowest time of the year for us- who wants to spend money right now? i know i don't- but i can't help but wonder if we're losing some visitors from the get-go because they come here looking for clothes, not art. anyway, i'll let you know how the experiment goes...as of today i've now been off pot for 6 months. well, sort of. back around christmas a friend left some green sitting on my desk by mistake and after 2 days of self-righteous denial i caved in and rolled one up. and, to tell you the truth, i was actually quite surprised to find that i didn't enjoy it at all. in fact, all i could think about was how i just wanted to be sober again. besides that moment of weakness, i haven't slipped again, and i have to say that it took a while but i'm really starting to feel an improvement in my overall attitude. life's just not as heavy and serious now- i don't punish myself for every stupid mistake i make, i'm not constantly second-guessing myself as much and i just feel an overall lessening of anxiety and depression compared to when i was a daily pot smoker. why did i smoke that shit again? it's hard to remember now, because life is so much better. that being said, i still think it's a personal choice and firmly believe that it should be legalized. everyone knows their own limits, and if they don't they should be free to discover what they are for themselves. and after over 15 years of smoking weed i discovered that it was actually not really doing me any good. at least not anymore.

06.02.03
wow that update really took a lot out of me. it always does but this one was particularly grueling on my sleep schedule/mental health. after i finished i promptly backed up my hard drive and installed the new xp, which i've been dying to do for a while now. so far i like it a lot- it seems way faster to me, especially for surfing. of course i had put a new motherboard in my system recently and it was optimized to work best with xp, so that's hardly surprising. aesthetically, xp is pretty cool but i can see its ultra-modern look seeming a little dated a year or two from now. but it gives me a secret little thrill knowing i have the latest o/s. oh my god, what a geek....i also got a high-speed connection back on my machine so i've been on a download frenzy. the usual gaggle of mp3s of course but also tv shows: so far mainly season 3 of the sopranos and my favorite comedy show of all time (well ok, second only to sctv): mr. show. if you've never seen mr. show you really don't know what you're missing and if you like to laugh i urge you to check it out soon. if you have seen it you know what i'm talking about...well the thing with the clone of my ex didn't really work out. i don't know if it was the fact that i was freaked out that she had the same hair color, eye color, star sign and name of my ex-wife or just that we didn't really seem to have anything else in common, but i just think it wasn't meant to be. however, this week i was contacted by someone else through the nerve personals and she seems much more my type. it's funny how you can have an instant connection with someone (or not) through a few lines of written text on a computer monitor, but i've learned to trust my instincts. anyway, it's too early to tell anything and since i was foolish enough to give her this web site address i best be shuttin' my mouth right now...so i will be updating in review and graf n' corruption in the next couple of days- i'm sorry, but i just had to take some time off from this web site shit. if you include grover is bitter, i've spent nearly 2 months straight sitting in front of this computer for several hours a day in html-land. it's a good thing i enjoy what i do.

02.02.03
so today this site is 1 year old, and i am 33. yes, by a bizarre confluence of occurences last year, zeroboutique.com went live on the same day i did- well, 32 years later, but i got the day right. 33 doesn't faze me too badly, but 34 terrifies me. it seems like 34 is some kind of point-of-no-return into the land of the thirties. i like to tell myself that i still feel like i'm 21, and in many respects i do, but time waits for no man, and you can't fight every sign of aging. i've been watching my widow's peak slowly march up my forehead for several years now, claiming more and more cranial real estate until finally about 2 years ago i admitted defeat and settled into the "bald guy cut" for life- which is to say, shaving your head every 2 weeks. my metabolism has irrefutably slowed down and i seem unable to lose this gut (though a steady diet of kettle chips and ice cream certainly haven't helped). i find myself groaning when i get up- i haven't stretched in several years. and i am a thorough homebody- though i've always been so inclined. but in other ways i've managed to stay young- i think i'm still very open to new ideas and ways of looking at the world, and i'm far from complacent (but then these days, so few can afford to be). in the end, it's just a number based on an arbitrary system invented by humans to measure time. i certainly don't wish i was a teenager anymore, and while my twenties seem interesting in retrospect they were often no cup of tea. but talk to me next year- i'll probably get a nose ring and some baggy pants in a pathetic attempt to turn back the clock as the dreaded 34 draws closer. but 33? no sweat...i just wanted to say that normally i would post new in review and graf n' corruption pages at the start of the month, but i literally just finished the art update about an hour ago. i will be setting to the task of getting those pages up within the next few days, so stay tuned....

18.01.03
sitting in front of a computer screen for 9 hours is bad for your posture, your eyes, your ass and your pma. i've been working on the new site update and it's taken over my life again. when i do an update my entire life grinds to a halt and i become completely obsessed with it- i go to bed and dream about coding and i wake up in the middle of the night unable to stop thinking about it. it's very intensive and time-consuming and not altogether fun, but the results are worth the effort and i get this warm and fuzzy feeling when i'm done and life can get back to normal. anyway, this next update, which i'm hoping is finished in time for my 33rd birthday and the one-year anniversary of this site's launch on february 2nd, will be the best one yet: not only are there 30 new pieces, including 3 or 4 new artists, i'm bringing back tank tops, there are 3 new color combos of ringers, camouflage and pink t-shirts and some other new color combos for the ladies' and men's baseball shirts. i'm also bringing back the ccnow payment option to the site. yes, they did burn me last year but i don't think it's fair to people who don't have a paypal account to have that as the only payment option, plus things are pretty stable with paypal now and we seem to be getting enough orders through them to cover any discrepencies we might encounter from ccnow. so all in all, it's a huge update and my head is freakin' swimming right now, so i better get to bed and dream about td valigns and option values. nighty poo.

12.01.03
nearly 2 weeks since my last blog entry and i do apologize for that. i guess a lot of it has to do with the whole post-xmas ennui we're all experiencing right now. you know, that inevitable feeling of "is that all there is?" that comes no matter how hard you try to downplay the whole seasonal thing. that and the fact that my life over the last 3 weeks has been kind of consumed by going out and getting drunk, recovering from going out and getting drunk, filling orders and working on my new web site. the new site is called grover is bitter and i hope you like it. 'nuff said. it's been up for a few days now but i haven't had any feedback on it yet, so i would love to hear any comments about it pro or con, yea or nay...so yeah, i partied more in the week to 10 days surrounding christmas than i probably had in the previous 6 months combined. there's an old friend of mine who blows into town every year or two and every time he does i somehow wind up drinking way too much, and he was here, along with a bunch of other old friends. we went out on new year's eve and i met an incredibly attractive, funny and intelligent girl who seemed to think that i was an ok person. problem number 1: she's got a man. problem number 2: she lives in south korea. and we all know about problem number 3: i'm too chicken shit to do anything about it anyway. though i do have her number and she's in town for a few more days....however, would you believe i actually got a response from my personals ad on nerve.com? (head there and do a search on the nickname "rear_admiral" for a laugh). the weird thing is, she's got the same star sign as my ex-wife, she's got the same color hair and eyes as my ex-wife and i just found out she's got the same bloody name as my ex-wife. if that weren't enough, she somehow knows my name even though i didn't give it to her. but my ex-wife swears it isn't her. no, i know it isn't her- it's just her clone. maybe i'll live the last 3 years of my life over again. not.