To properly compliment the last post, which featured shockingly graphic content, the editors of Optimuscrime Halifax present you with this: A post about a kitten. A shockingly cute, and sleepy kitten!

To your left, you will find a photograph of Elliot, the Willow Street Kitten, as he appeared today on my Halifax bed. As I spent my day (or at the very least, sporadic portions of my day) cleaning my sty of a bedroom, Elliot "supervised". Although his productivity may not be up to code, his intense cute-ness, and optimal "loveability" will pretty much secure his position as House Darling, essentially unchallenged, forever.

6015 Willow Street:
Our kitten is cuter than your kitten.

After the band-aid, which had been firmly stuck to my finger-wound, finally gave and fell off the night before last, I was able to have a slightly better look, and reassess the situation. And today, one and a half days later, I have two news items to report:

1. The cut, although still horrible and disgusting, is not quite as extreme as I had first believed. There is most certainly a chunk missing from my finger, and I'm still sure that there will be permanent scarring, but the missing chunk is not quite as large as I thought. Phew. But for the record: It's still really gross.

2. After waking up two nights ago, to find that the band-aid had come off, I rose and went to the bathroom to re-dress the gash. It didn't seem wise for me to sleep with an open wound, so I wrapped it in gauze, and went back to bed. The next morning, when I went to address the finger, a startling development had occurred. The new gauze had now glued itself to the cut, and this one seems even more steadfast. After hours of trying to remove it, and lots and lots of pain, I took the initiative of trimming the stuck-gauze around the area, and then left it. It's pretty disgusting. Although the photograph to your left may not show just how gross it is.. I assure you, it's gross.

So there it is folks, in all it's glory. My horrible battle-wound, with a cute little tuft of gauze permanently holding strong on the tip. This leads me to some dangerous questions: What if my finger continues on this bloody-sticking spree? What would it mean for Willow Street? A horrible monstrous finger roaming the countryside, greedily attracting and then ensnaring masses of small, lightweight objects, gaining in size and power, until no man could overtake the bloody, packrat-juggernaut fingertip!

BEWARE!

Barreling along on the Willow Street Renovation Project, we'd decided to re-tile the linoleum in our formerly hideous, but now covetable pantry. (formally renamed the Crystal Palace, for it's white, glowing qualities.) The chosen tile is yellow and orange and brown, and.. just slightly less horrible than the former. However, it's relative condition, and it's low, low price (free) was enough to win our favour over the old.

Your lovable editor, Optimuscrime Halifax took the task of cutting tiles on sunday night, and was doing a wonderful job until disaster struck! Everything was going smoothly, there were less than 6 tiles left to cut and lay, when SLICE! The boxcutter (you know, the kind you're not allowed to bring onto airplanes) slid quickly, and cleanly, away from the tile, and through my left index finger! Panic set in, and I rushed to the bathroom, with blood gushing from my digit.

Roommate Michael Catano came swiftly to my aid, and after bringing me a cloth and ice, walked me down the front stairs (while I swayed, and tipped, almost blacking out.) and to the car. (where, once seated inside, I did black out.) We reached the emergency unit in just under five minutes, and after having my finger wrapped, we waited about an hour and a half to be called.

There was nothing that could be done for my poor finger. As the illustration clearly shows, there was no skin to be stitched shut.. just a big, gaping lack of fingertip. They wrapped it up, and gave me a tetanus shot.

Me: "Oh great, and a needle to boot!"
Nurse: "Oh come off it! It's only a needle. You got any tattoos?"
Me: "Yeah, but..."
Nurse: "Than quit whining!"

For the record, I wasn't whining. But tattoos, or no tattoos.. I think that it's reasonable to not be excited about a tetanus shot. Plus.. my finger hurt as though it was recently missing a piece off the tip.. which it was.

Three and a half hours later, we drove home from the hospital.

So now, my finger is wrapped up in a wad of white gauze, and there is a band-aid stuck to my gaping wound, which I'm too afraid to pull off, for fear of opening the floodgates (or in this case.. "bloodgates".) again. And I'm officially missing a piece of my finger. It may not all grow back. I may likely be deformed for life. (I can't figure out if that's cool or not. Reader's poll?) Plus, I'm pretty much useless with my left hand.. for who knows how long.

ie: This has taken me close to half an hour to type.

Sigh.

Once I can get the band-aid unstuck, who wants to see actual bloody photos?

fig. 1: Greg and Paul model the hot new Sharp Like Knives t-shirt, printed by ZeroBoutique.
(Available in pink and yellow, with brown printing. Sizes YM, S, M)

This is the photo that they chose to put in the Coast for the Sharp Like Knives "sure thing" featurette this week. It's not that it's a bad picture. It's more that I look like a stripey monkey. The 'article' reads fairly well though, and doesn't make us sound too stupid. (maybe a little cocky, but not stupid luckily.)

The Coast: "Hmm... who should we put as the sure thing this week?"
Readers: "What about canadian pop-punk legends Sum41, who are here this weekend to headline an enormous outdoor festival that costs a sweet and heavy $25 admittance?"
The Coast: "No. We're looking for something more... something.. you know... something that very few people will care about."
Readers: "What about Sharp Like Knives? They definitely deserve a spotlight... I mean, they've been playing shows for like... four or five months at least!"
The Coast: "Perfect!"

Team Willow, having spent 3 years building valuable mystique and notoriety, has finally cemented our reputation among neighbours as the "trashiest house on the block". After a lengthy process of moving out 3 former roommates, and moving in 3 new ones, we were left with a hell of a lot of refuse. Add to that two weeks of frantic cleaning, carpet removal, painting, and renovating, we had what amounted to an enormous pile of living, breathing, stinking trash.

We took it all out to the curb last week, thinking the worst was over. It was in fact yet to begin. The next morning when we woke up, not only was the trash pile still there, but on our doorknob hung a shiny plastic bag containing a letter from the city. We had received warning of keeping an unsightly premises. As it turned out, we had dragged all our trash to the front of the house on a compost week. And it couldn't very well sit outside again for another week, I mean, we aren't total skids.

So we dragged that trash back to the deep back yard again, and we waited. And during that week, we cooked meals, opened beverages, recycled paper, etc. etc. We made more trash, so that when monday night finally rolled around again, we had even more to look forward to.

By the time we got it all out to the curb, the trash-pile had taken on a life of it's own. It was now the size of a small pick-up truck, which we were able to verify, since a small red pick-up truck was conveniently parked next to the pile that night until early morning. We tried to organize the pile the best we could, because by this time we were feeling pretty fucking sorry for the poor trash-men who would have the lovely job of removing our terrible mountain the next morning. As the night wore on, and morning drew closer, we worried. What if it's too big? What if the garbage-men refuse to take the pile? If it wasn't gone by morning, what the hell could we possibly do with it? If I were a garbage-man, there's a fairly good chance that I would refuse to deal with a pile of that magnitude. That's not in my job description, man. Anyway, we crossed our fingers, and we went to bed.

The next morning, to our surprise, and absolute joy, the trash-men arrived promptly and skillfully hauled roughly 98% of our horrible pile into their giant truck to be carried off into the morning. We were thrilled! It was finally gone! Well, most of it. But considering what bastard-citizens we had been, we felt that the 5% of garbage-leftovers now gracing our lawn was more than fair. Michael recorded it all with his polaroid camera, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

I myself slept through the actual trash-collecting, but I was awakened by our doorbell sometime just before 10:00am this morning. After realizing that nobody else was answering, I pulled myself out of bed, threw on a pair of jeans, and ran for the door, while pulling on my shirt, and yelling "Just a minute!" Halfway down the stairs, the door opened, and a middle-aged, bald-headed man let himself into our house.

"Oh, sorry." He said, "I thought you said come in."
"No, I said 'just a minute'" said I. "Can I help you?"
"Is that your trash outside of this house?"
I looked outside, and saw the extreme absence of our former-trash-mountain. "What trash? It looks like they took just about everything."
"Well, there's still some on the lawn, and I was just wondering if it was going to be moved?"
"What time is it?" I asked, "Didn't the garbage-people just pick up the trash like, twenty minutes ago? You're here pretty early, I would say."
"Well," he said, "The neighbours have been talking. I mean, it reflects poorly on the street. It's a bit of an eyesore."
"No, it was and eyesore." I replied. "Now it's just our empty garbage bins, and a few leftovers. I'm sorry for the huge pile. We had some roommates move out, and there was a lot of leftovers, and a lot of garbage. We did the best we could do."
"Well, that's fine bro. No problem. Are you planning on moving that stuff out of sight any time soon?"
"Yes. Of course. You do know that it's still only ten a.m. don't you?"
"Yeah, ok man." he said. "Peace on that. As long as it doesn't stay all week."
"Why would it stay all week?"
"You're right. Thanks. Have a nice day." he said.
"You too." I said.

I moved the remainder of the mighty pile to the back of the house today at 2:30pm.

And so ends the tale. Peace on that.

With three beloved roommates moving out, and three more "New Guys" being welcomed in with open arms, Willow Street Manor is in for some serious re-evaluation. Two of our newest additions, Michael and Francesca, have been instrumental in getting the "renovation" ball rolling. In the 6 short days since they were officially dubbed "Roommates", they have single-handedly (double-handedly?) conquered the fearsome Ricksaur, and won the battle of the floors! With rogues like these two on board, Team Willow will surely bring Willow Street Manor swiftly into a bold, and decadent new era - an era with 30% less carpet.

Check out the shit-hot job we did today, fearlessly ripping up carpet easily ten years our senior, and plowing through layers of dust, rotting foam, linoleum tile, and ancient glue to reach the sweet, sweet wood floor beneath, which we immediately began to cover with institution-grey floor paint. If we keep up like this, we'll be living in a palace by the end of the month. A palace! And then where will you be? Not in a palace, I'll wager. Nope, probably you'll be in your regular home sobbing and pining to live with us on Willow Street. Sorry, no room left.

But you can always come and visit us and our shiny new floors.

And speaking of coming to visit... there's one more reason why you should be tying up your shoes, and heading over here (6015 Willow, you know the address, we've been here for years)...

As promised, extra cute photos of Elliot!!!