Someone Got a Job!!!

Hey, adoring fans! I know it's been a while, but I finally have something to share. I am finally being paid to make people laugh! Well, technically, I am reviewing other people who try to make us laugh. Oh, just click on the link and read my shitty reviews!

Against medical orders...

Suck it, Ashram. I'm getting the YikeBike irregardless of my artificial hand.

Bad Fiction Contest

Here is the first entry we have received for the 5th Annual Bad Fiction Contest. Please to enjoy and don't forget to submit your own bad fiction... TODAY! Voting ends June 12th!

Jupiter’s Daydream
by Ange F.

Like the celestial orb she was named after, Charon’s image danced and perambulated across my mind as I laid in bed trying to fall asleep after a day when I danced and perambulated across the busy diner floor that I call my job. Charon like so many of my friends was a lawyer. I had known her since we were at the elementary school together as young children. Her desk was next to mine.

If I only knew how close her body would be next to mine when we got older?

I awoke to the anxious sun winking it’s cheerful morning message of pride like a beacon of light pulsating in the Sky. I scrambled across the floor of my loft stumbling on the Greek yoghurt containers and PBR cans that lay assembled at my feet like dead soldiers in the killing fields awaiting there orders. A ladybug caught my eye and I stubbed my toe on the IKEA television stand. I would be late for work again.

I was to meet Charon at the library after my shift. I had remembered to bring my long overdue books. If Terry Fox was the Olympic champion of running, than I was the Olympics of overdue books.

To passerbys I must of looked like I was lost in thought. But I was only sidetracked by my internal recollections. As a child I had longer to be like Terry Fox, the canadian juggernaut had perambulated his way across a nation’s hearts as he criss-crossed the nation on his amputated leg. As a child, I thought of blind people and their heightened senses as a result of their deprived one – sight. What has Terry heightened on account of his missing limb? Did roses sound more lovely in the fading tendrils of the summer light? Did fish swim faster in the black asphault of the icy lagoon?

As I turned the corner I espied Charon gently rotating around like some kind of lunar satellite and I knew then what it would feel like as my heart was swatted out of the air by the meaty paw of the mighty polar bear as it hunted for salmon on the banks of the Nile.

“Hey, chica!” she intoned.

…don’t blow this. Can I take your order? Burger… fries… Be right back with that.

I was distracted momentarily by the loud screech of tires on pavement. SCREEEEEEEECH! EEEEEEEEEEERK!

I looked up to see A troupe of tennagers on the prowl.

Oh! Hi. It’s been a long time… Charon, right?

Charon raised and then lowered her eyebrows. “Hey, chica. Let’s get down to the library and return these books.” Charon always returned her books on time. After we returned the books we stopped by the sporting goods store and bought some racquetball balls and made a date to play requetball later that day. I showed up but she didn’t.

No. It’s on the house. What? I get off at eight o’clock. Sure. Why not? That was six years ago.

I never saw her again.

Ask Olive!

Hey, Olive.

I'm a long time fan, first time writer. Your absence has been sorely missed (or something). Where have you been? What is happening with you? I can't go on without knowing if you're ever coming back or not!!! Please write back soon. The men in suits have been following me for days. I fear they may [Editor's Note: This letter abruptly ended and is reprinted here in it's entirety.]

Dear 'I fear they may',

Why don't you read my older posts before you ask your dumb-ass questions. I have been in medical school. I did well, but I hate it. Therefore, I have decided to take a year off to count my large inheritance, attend every classical music concert I can, make fun of Mum, and return to service as an iReporter and cultural watch dog.

In the next several weeks, I will be posting several examples of bad short-fiction for your enjoyment. Please to enjoy.

Yours,

Olive D.

OH MY FUDGING GOD!!!

I, Olive Duster, the Queen of Underachievement, passed every exam "with distinction"!!! In lieu of gifts, please send pictures of your knees (kissing the dirt in deference to me) to my P.O. box.

Suck it, Ashram!

P.S. I still might quit.

Oka Dokey!

Lately, I've been preoccupied with the unfortunate period in our nation's history known as the Oka Crisis. Now, it's no secret that I love golf (what amputee wouldn't) and that I love sacred Mohawk burial grounds, but I never would have thought of combining these two hobbies of mine. But, then again, I am not from Quebec... Seriously, what the fudge? What was that committee meeting like? I think it may have gone something...like this:

"...Our next item is the Niobium mine near the monastery. We have a proposal to expand that mine from Jende Corp..."

[That goes on for 5-10 minutes and it is resolved to allow Jende Corp. to complete their safety study and to have engineers from the town to inspect the premises before giving them the okay.]

"Finally, let's dig up those old Indian bones and build us a real Par 5, instead of that spray-on condom we have now! All in favor?"

[Lots of hooting and boot stomping ensues; an incoherent mob leaves the Town Hall with hoes, rakes, and torches and marches down past the shitty little Par 4 (250 meters? Get real) and begins raping the Mohawks once more.

I need some sleep...

And remember - It's all about me.

O.D.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu*k yooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuu!

if my god damn biochemistry professor asks, "how are we today?" one more fudging time, i swear to god i am going to purposefully unplug the autoclaves.

eye hate med school

there is nothing worse than "doing the eyes" in anatomy...

What's for dinner?

OMG, last night at dinner, Drunk Bernard was in rare form. "I'm a G&T man, myself..." And he loves to pepper his monologues with fancy words. All I kept thinking was, "If you use the word 'abeyance' once more time, I'm going to dump my veal cutlet with radish reduction, lentils, and celery root on your three piece Oxxxford."

It's funny how whenever I agree to a fine dining experience with Mother and DB, I just end up wanting to eat my own head.

Yes We Kan-anaskis!

After this morning, I told Mother to think of my room as a smaller version of Kananskis, Alberta. As many of you know, Kananaskis is an "improvement district" whose number one priority is watershed protection. Maybe future tragedies like the one below could be averted.

______________

After Mother careened into her bedroom following a night on the town with Drunk Bernard, I noticed my iPhone peeking out of her Prada handbag. The next morning she stumbled into the kitchen wearing my Pixies t-shirt and Freudian slippers (don't ask).

"So how was [Radu] Lupu?"

"Oh, Olive," she swooned. "He was... I know everyone was there to hear the Beethoven, but halfway through Symphonic Dances, I thought I was going to burst!"

[That's what happens when DB makes you drink too many Mud Slides during intermission.]

"Oh, you'll never guess who was there with his bottle-blond wife of his!"

[Um... That could describe most of your horrible friends.]

"That lovely Asian doctor - Ashram. He said you missed your last appointment."

"Oh?"

"I mentioned you had been so busy with medical school. Honestly, Olive, the poor man looked like he had swallowed a ladybug!"

[I bet you looked like you had swallowed a litre of Kahlua.]

"Oh, I took your iThingy for the show. I think it's broken, dear. Bernard couldn't switch it off for the performance so I had to leave it with the coat check gal. Poor thing said it cut her off in the middle of a call!"

STAY OUT OF MY ROOM!

the new mii

as promised, here is the code to download the mii i created of myself on olive's battered wii:

5590-6146-0760

if you download me, alls i asks is that you let me know about it so i can feel famous for a day.

all my best,

o.d.

...all the way home!

So med school may have been a failed experiment. Turns out I don't like touching people, talking to people, debating with people, or being with people. I'll give it one more semester and then we'll see. I am enjoying biochemistry...

Anyhoo, I took a few days off to just laze about... Mother and Bernard are part of this local consortium to attract (trick) high profile classical musicians to our city. BTW, they come here already so I don't know what the consortium actually does. Okay, I know. They get drunk at expensive restaurants and gossip about Qian Zhou's hairstyle.

So, all alone in the flat and what do I see? Mums bought Olive a Wii for Christmas and he never took it home. With my one real hand and my one robotic hand, however, I couldn't get the fudger out of the box. So with my keen medical mind I decided to take off my iLimb and reattach my old prosthetic hook and then I went medieval on that mofo. The end result is pictured here.

I got a 135 my first time bowling, which I'm sure no one has ever come close to matching.

I did make a Mii and I will post it here later so my fans can feel like they're part of the O.D. experience. I will not think twice about you, however, except when I am in Anatomy class.

I am cold and scared,

Olive

Olive the Other Reindeer

Christmas dinner with Mother and Drunk Bernard. What a nice affair it was. We had it catered by Apples and Pears. The food was great as usual. My favorite was the truffle smashed potatoes. My dining companions, well, they were creepy and unsettling as usual. Drunk Bernard made his annual peace offering to me. He gave me a Flip Mino HD camcorder, which I pretended to not like even though I like it very much indeed (feigning disinterest is the most assured way of getting increasingly expensive gifts year after year from D.B.). The best gift he gave me though was these rubber key thingies called Keytars.

Quick Quiz:

1. I chose the British flag Keytar because:
a) I am forever loyal to the Queen - Long live the Queen!
b) I am an Anglophile (and I believe we each have a pair of Anglos on our shoulders recording our every thought, hope, and deed).
c) Because when Mother attempted to attach the other 4 Keytars first, they split down the middle like so much low-quality fruit leather.

Here's a fun fact: As an amputee, I am unable to take keys on and off of key rings.
Fun Fact #2: Mother has her two original hands (as of this posting) and yet she, too, struggles greatly with removing, affixing Keytars, and replacing them onto the key ring, thereby needlessly mutilating the Keytar I actually wanted on my key ring ("Mother, you don't need a screwdriver to get the key off!!! You're ripping it!!!").

2. Eating fruit leather is like having sex because:
a) When it's good, it's great, and when it's bad... it's still pretty good.
b) In less than ideal circumstances, they both have the potential to result in awkward trips to the Emergency Room (or oddly shaped mouth sores).
c) They both involve massive amounts of fruit leather.

3. My brother couldn't make it to dinner because his girlfriend's kid had to go to the ER because he cut his hand on the Christmas tree stand (er something). Oliver's girlfriend, Jackie, is a slut because:
a) She is the only person I know who has had two kids by three different fathers.
b) Actually, she just has two different kids by two different baseball teams (one of which was semi-pro - impressive).
c) She isn't a slut, but I just don't like her and when two women don't like each other very much, they tell everyone else that that person is a slut. And when one of those women is trying to be clever, they camouflauge their disdain for the other woman by using a Quick Quiz format (very clever indeed).

Holiday Tips!

With the Canadian government in complete chaos and economic hardships spreading throughout the land, people are looking for simple solutions to stretch their holiday budgets. Here at Standing in Line to Diet Soap, we have found the solution - fractals. Using fractal geometry, we were able to save money by maximizing the surface area of this common serving platter to fit all of our deviled eggs at our recent holiday celebration. And, no one ate any! They were too busy hitting on the new intern.

Merry Christmas!

xxxxxxxx

Olive

uh-member me?

dear legion of admirers:

i am sorry for my recent absence from the web. here are two clues to explain this misfortune:

1) i recently started medical school; and
2) i may have made a very large mistake.

please keep me in your thoughts. please don't pray for me. no god can save me now.

xxoo

O.D.

Around the World with Olive!

For a long time, I've resisted numerous offers to write a travelogue of sorts. An open postcard, if you will, to share my vast knowledge of the many splendors this crazy blue marble has to offer. Well, I'm weak. I just signed on with a reputable on-line entity to do just that. But, rather than prostitute myself and promote their website, I will simply re-print my essays and lists here so that you too may benefit from my sojourns. First up - the good ol' USA!!!

A United States of Mind
By Olive Duster
*title added by editor who is known in the office as "the brooch lady" on account of all of her colorful and whimsical brooches that she wears, mostly of angels doing unexpected things, like using their halos as hula hoops, or an angel whose halo is in the shape of a jack-o'-lantern.

So, you've decided to visit the States! Wow, you're in store for quite a treat. They are approaching their presidential election between John W. McCain and Barry Obama (middle name is Husssein, in case you weren't scared enough yet). If you're lucky, you might just get swept up in the "Get Out the Vote" mayhem that has the country in it's icy grip.

But, if politics isn't your game, you'll be pleased to learn that a plethora of global revolutions have emerged from the "country on the hill"; there is something for every kind of afficianado. Did you know that the automobile was created in the United States by a man named George Washington Carver, yet he is most well-known for his love of peanut butter? Consult your favourite travel experts for a more comprehensive list of fun facts and exciting destinations in this "melting pod" of a country!

But be forewarned. With democracy comes great personal peril. Here are some not-so-fun-facts-about-America:

1) Did you know that every 6 weeks, some unfortunate is actually shot with a bullet from what American citizens refer to as "personal firearms"?

2) People pay good money to watch other people drive cars real fast in a circle. These people have strong opinions about who drives which car the best. It's a sport there.

3) Some people can actually see Russia from America, and Russia is scary.

4) Nebraska is part of the US of A, yet no one seems to know dick about Nebraska. Why is that, Senator Nelson? Maybe so we don't all see your plans to open foreign markets to your cattle your so damn proud of? Isn't Nebraska where they filmed Children of the Corn, Part IV - The Shucking?

5) Mariah Carey and Celine Dion are there.

That's all. Don't forget to bring plenty of bug spray and try to avoid raising the ire of the locals (they have personal firearms there).

Happy travels,

O.D.

Ask Olive!

My chief adversary and confidant, Gail Horning, former dancing great, writes me three or four brief queries a week, not to mention numerous call-in questions that often go unanswered. However, once in a while, I will allow my followers to partake in the deliciousness of her insanity. Here goes:

Dear Olive,

I'm really worried about the economic crisis and how it might affect retirees like myself down here in Boca Raton, Florida, USA. What are your thoughts?

Your former dance teacher,

Gail "Former Dancing Great" Horning

_____________

Dear Gail,

There is no such thing as an economic crisis. We must look at times such as these as "oppor-tuna-ties" and not "panic-ities."

Look, remember Harry Browne? In 1974 he released his classic and prescient tome, You Can Profit from a Monetary Crisis. Read it, live it, and turn panic into profit. Or you can read his lesser known book, You Can Profit from a Monastery Crisis, a not-so-prescient book in which the prominent Libertarian foretold of a world without monks and robots controlled the opium drug trade out of Afghanistan.

Either way, please stop calling.

Your pepperpot,

Olive Duster

Saved by lithium

Remember how in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children Saleem's telepathic powers were eradicated when his "father" tricked him into getting sinus surgery? If I recall, Ahmed Sinai loaded his wife, Saleem, and his sister, "The Monkey", into the Land Rover with a story of going to the beach for a picnic with just a quick stop en route.

Here's the thing. In my clandestine post a couple of months ago, I informed you, my own personal conference attendees, that Kieran, my thought-field therapist, had me beeping, bopping, tapping, boffing to the Nine Gamut and avoiding computer access (and cell phone access, and access to my friends and family), as this was the likely root cause of all of my psychological afflictions.

I admit that the adventure across Western Canada was fun. For example, in Alberta (where we spent 2 long weeks in local camp grounds), we attended the Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association Finals, all four days of it. I got my face painted (Kieran paid - how sweet). Then we treked all over rural Canada. Kieran wouldn't stop singing Animal in Your Care by Wolf Parade ("It's in this language that I found..."). All the while, I dutifilly tapped and hummed, feeling weird, but exhilirated that someone finally got me (or brainwashed me).

Here's the thing. We had been gone so long that I had forgotten to replace the lithium ion battery what powers my prosthetic hand. So when that died, I couldn't do the tapping routine carefully set out by Kieran. He tried to get me to do it with the other hand (he tried to get me to a lot of things with the other hand), but I couldn't get into it. Once I stopped the therapy, I slowly realised - this guy is a fudging nut-job! And it is in that sense that I am like Saleem Sinai and in that regard that I was saved by lithium.

Love to you all. I am back home and ready to blog.

Tapped out

I have been negligent in my posting and I am only writing now in secrecy. For the last 3 months I have been traveling throughout Western Canada with my thought field therapist, Kieran. He told me that the repetitive tapping and clacking of my fingers on the keyboard may actually be responsible for my personality disorder. Apparently, constant typing, particularly with the index finger of the left hand, can cause a blockage of my Qi. He has had me on a steady diet of the "nine gamut." It makes me look like I have a tic disorder, but I think it's working. Plus, I think he's been hitting on me, rubbing my back and whispering Robert Frost poems in my ear while I roll my eyes, hum, and tap my stomach over and over again. He says it's all part of the therapy. I keep wondering when he's going to tell me about the spaceship hiding behind the comet waiting to receive us at the end of the decade. Plus it's costing a fudging fortune. But he says it's worth every penny.

I'll write more after Alberta.

Olive The Musical!

You know how when a musical note is sounded at, let's say 120 Hz? You know how all of the overtones are multiple integers of the fundamental tone of 120 Hz so that the overtones would be at 240 Hz, 360 Hz, 480 Hz etc.? Well, did you also know that if a synthesizer is programmed to play just the overtones without the fundamental tone, your brain would artificially register the missing tone? This is referred to as the "restoration of the missing fundamental." Well, it turns out the same thing happens at parties...

Cunty: That housewarming was a riot.
Dum Dum: I know. I think I had like 4 mojitos.
Cunty: You're so lucky you're not pregnant anymore.
Dum Dum: I know. Olive, you were so funny with that doorman. I thought I was gonna pee
my pants.
Cunty: Olive gets so freaked when people say shit about her hand. I thought you were
gonna deck that guy. Did you guys see John's suede couch? What the hell was that
about? Should we order some poppers?
Olive: Uh... I didn't go, remember?