>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 38 – June 29, 2003

Now Playing: “American Girl” by Cindy Alexander

The average e-zine lasts about 10 issues before the author gives up and goes back to being a coke mule. Text-Heavy is on volume 38, with no end in sight. And here's what happened this week:

-I never thought I'd be writing a column about the weather. It's usually indicative of a writer who's out of ideas. Not so. In fact, I've got plenty of ideas on what to write about, I just can't organize these ideas properly because all I can think about is how hot it is. Maybe I should write my newsletters from a cooler, more moderate location, like the Sahara desert, or the center of the sun.

-Alright, for those of you who don't know, let me give you the rundown: I'm from Ottawa, Canada, which is famous for being the coldest capital city in the world. We get more snow than Moscow. In the winter, it is not uncommon for people standing outside waiting for a bus to be forced to eat their own parka linings in a desperate attempt to keep the insides of their stomachs from freezing over. For about 8 months of the year this city is a desolate frozen tundra, and it blows like a bulimic at Christmas dinner. I'm not screwing around here, the weather channel actually uses the Kelvin scale. The summer, however, is not so much ‘cold' as it is ‘not cold', but because we usually get only a week or so of nice weather we don't bother with air conditioning. This is the silliness that brought me to write this column.

-As I write this, it is approximately 800 bajillion degrees outside, and it's worse in my house. The problem is, it's been like this for two weeks, with no end in sight. A lot of my friends think it's a good thing, because people are walking around wearing very skimpy, revealing clothing. Unfortunately, we're not talking about attractive people here. The only people I've seen who are ‘skimpy' or ‘revealing' are either beached whales that have somehow taken on human form, or they're four years old. And either way, if you're getting turned on you should probably seek some kind of therapy. Pervert.

-I hate the newspaper. Every day the newspaper runs this story about how hot it is, and there's always this picture of an insipid little boy person or girl person in their undies playing in their sprinkler, or swimming in the neighbourhood pool, laughing and smiling their faces off. The insipid child will always have a vaguely surprised look on his or her face, as though some photographer snuck into the yard and took a picture while the parents' backs were turned. And sometimes they get their captions confused, so underneath the smiling toddler will read “Heatstroke Kills Six”. Damn you paparazzi! Does your evil reign of terror know no end?

-You know what's annoying besides pedophilic newspaper employees? People who say shit like “It's not the heat that's bad, it's the humidity”. Has ‘humiditystroke' ever killed anyone? Have they named a basketball team from Florida the ‘Miami Humidity'? Has humidity ever made me break into Sears late at night to steal an air conditioner? The answers to these questions are ‘no', ‘no', and ‘not as far as you know'. Nobody even understands the fucking ‘Humidex'. Is 73% high? Who knows? Who cares? Sorry if I sound cranky, it's just that the humidity is getting to me.

-I haven't really offered up much in the way of advice on ways to ‘beat the heat'. That's because there really aren't any. Suffering this weather is as unavoidable as the third installment to that crappy-ass Lord of the Rings movie that was over 16 hours long. You know, the one that millions upon millions of salivating nerds are already so upset about me mocking that they can't keep their hands from quivering long enough to write me hate mail. My God, those movies were terrible. And long. I actually had to pause my DVD halfway through because I had to go and shave.

-ANYWAY, getting back to the matter at hand, some people will suggest that you go to the beach to cool down. Now, this may be a good idea where you live (see Ottawa, Anywhere But). Over here, the water is so polluted that on the off-chance that you can avoid the poison ivy and used hypodermic needles on the sand, you will probably get some kind of infectious illness that was long since thought eradicated. Like Polio. Anyone remember Polio? Ottawa beach-goers sure do. Seriously, swimmers have been known to sprout extra toes before they even leave the water. On their face.

-Quote of the Moment: I saw a hate group walking downtown with a sign that said “The Jews Are Controlling The Weather” or some mutated spelling thereof. I don't know if what they're saying is true (I don't get invited to Jewish events or council meetings) but if it pisses off the hate groups, I think I can live with this heat a little while longer. Go Jews!

-One thing I don't understand are people who go to tanning salons in the summer. Hey, look! It's a tanning salon that's free! It's called ‘Outside'! (Sorry, that was the Jewish part of me talking. That's what we do when we're not busy controlling the weather.)

-Well, I guess it's about time to wrap up this week's edition before my computer melts in an act of self-sacrifice not unlike the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. What was up with her? Was she actually made of sugar? Because that leaves a lot more questions than answers. Questions such as ‘How does sugar talk?' and some other ones that I can't think of at the moment, but rest assured that when I do, they'll be really, really funny. I'll just leave you with this final thought, like Jerry Springer does: If someone tells you it's hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of a car, and you decide to put this idea to the test, don't use your neighbour's Aston Martin for the experiment. And if you do, don't cover the car in butter and flour when you're done, in a frantic attempt to cover up your mess. You'll only make it worse. Use your neighbour's Kia instead. And stay away from the beach.

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