Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Volume I, Issue XXVI, Year AD MCMXCVI
Monday, December 16th, 1996
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1.      Readers' Letters
2.      Spontaneously Combusted Literature
3.      In Computers I trust
4.      Yearbook Special

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1.      Readers' Letters


Date sent:        Mon, 09 Dec 1996 08:21:59 -0500
From:             Valentino Assenza <asse0004@algonquinc.on.ca>
To:               leandro@ifront.com
Subject:          Hey there

        There is a thing I want to know, how did you get your
poetry on Capital of Nasty? just curious.

                                        
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2.      Spontaneously Combusted Literature

        While some might call it "competition", when I see others
that publish little newsletters or e-zines like we do here at CoN,
I feel a sense of brotherhood develop.  While in part CoN exist
just because we think it's neat and kind of cool, it's also a way
of expressing ones opinions and letting others hear them.  SLC
(Spontaneously Combusted Literature), written by Gard E Abrahamsen,
is much the same way.  Previously "Spontaneous Combustion List"
- changed name because there was another online magazine called
"Spontaneous Combustion"- it is part of Scriba Org, a growing non-profit
organization that is trying to (ehum) create a better world.
(Yea, yea, call us daydreamers, but it is better to try and have
_some_ influence than not doing anything at all and be the same
sleazeballs we spit at).

        SLC can be reached at http://www.scriba.org/
Take a look at it, it's worth it.  Gard E Abrahamsen can be
reached at cg841@freenet.toronto.on.ca.

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3.      In Computers I trust
                by Peter Sprokkelenburg (psprokk@wiznet.ca)

        Computers, what a marvel of technological headaches...
Don't get me wrong, computers are great and I wouldn't be caught
without one.. but sometimes they can be such a pain in the butt!

        I recently bought a second hand laptop from a good friend
of mine.  Not  a problem... beautiful little machine. I start my new
job and didn't use it for awhile. Just last weekend I when to fire
it up.  Okay the battery is dead. So I used the charger, and the ever 
soothing sound of a hard drive stepping up filled the room. I then 
get a password: prompt. So I cycle through some of my favorite 
passwords. Nothing.

        An hour later I think... There was no password. Fuck.. What
do I do now? I call Toshiba and the suggest that I try some to access
the BIOS to disable. How can I when keep get the password prompt...
He said the hold the ESC key and press the reset button. Okay...
Nothing. I'm then informed that I should take it do an authorized 
service center to have the bios re-flashed. WHAT!?

        It was not under warrenty. So I find out it will cost me
$150.00 bucks to have a techie charge me for ten minutes worth of
work. I storm out of the building fuming.

        One of my good friend suggest pulling the internal bios back
up battery. Duh!? why did I thing of that. I do it all the time to 
desktops, why not a laptop. fine. 

        I find that the batteries are located under the main battery
in the wrist rest under a thin aluminum plate. I unplug then and leave
the machine for ten minutes, plug them in and get a bios error
I reset the bios and BINGO.. password is gone!  And my overworked 
laptop is now once again operational..

THE LESSON:
huh?


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4.      Yearbook Special

I was looking through my last yearbook, from 1995.  It's incredible,
at times when I think about it, how time flew by so fast.  Especially
after I had graduated, the OAC year felt as if it was propelled by
rocket fuel.  The way I feel now, a sort of combination between
hate and love, much like a bitter and sweet taste, surprises me,
considering how much I hated the place at the time.  A lot of people
have entered my life, affected it for five long years.  Some of them
still touch it now, others disappeared in their chosen destinations,
but, good or bad, I owe them who I am today.

THE STAFF

        Surprisingly, in five years, you'd think you'd get every
teacher, but it's not so.  Of the large platoon that St. Pat's
disposed of, I seemed to always end up with the same ol'bags.

Mr. K. Bahta,
Mathematics:    Had him only once as a supply teacher for math.
He spoke something like 16 different languages, all pretty useless
outsite of Etiopia.  It was impossible to understand him when he spoke
in English, but surprisingly he spoke a good Italian, I guess because of
the Fascists colonies during the war.  The thing that surprised Richard
"PsychoChicken" Reis and me the most was that he had kids.  I'll never
forget Riccardo's exclamation of surprise when he found out:
"BAHTA HAS KIDS?!".

Mr. M. Bar,
Computer Science:       The biggest lamer that ever walked on the
surface of this planet.  He knew everything and was loved by
everyone thanks to his wonderful attitude.  Or so he thought. Truth
was that he knew nothing about computers and everyone hated him and
his stupid offensive jokes.  He retaliated by hating me when he
found out that I was hacking the school's Network.  Truth was that
since his teaching sucked, I was trying to learn by myself on the
old and antiquated Novell's network (the mainframe was a 286..).
Colin and I have many stories of our hacking attempts in that
haven of.. security.

Mr. T. Beavais,
History, Law:   Fortunately I never had him as a teacher.  Just as
a supply for my World Issues OAC class.  He never laughed.  Never
smiled.  Or so we thought: he laughed at people's final exams.
When asked to smile for the picture of the yearbook he answered:
"I am smiling".  I wonder how many bodies he has stashed in his
basement.

Ms. E. "Big Tit" Bertucci,
Mathematics:    The only person that had no idea what math was.
She used to ask the most brilliant students in her class how to
solve something.  Funny thing, she'd pass you as long as you showed
up in her class.  A lot of people couldn't add for the life of them
but for some reason managed to graduate: I'm one of them.  I was in
her class for a week, till I found an answer to the question
"What the heck am I doing here?", which was followed right after
"How can she stand with those two huge things in front of her?".

Mr. L. Bey,
Business, Computers:    Another attempt at turning the school towards
a more futuristic and technical profile was to pull teachers that had
no idea what computers were, and have them teach computers.  Miss Bey,
a pretty confused individual, if breathing required thinking, she'd
be long dead.

Ms. M. Burge-Thede (aka Bird-Seed),
Baking, Science:        I don't know how science and baking could be
taught by the same person, but I guess that the burgers we ate down
at the school's fast food joint (ran by students) were made with the
rats we disected in class.  It's called recycling, and she was one of
those freaks that doesn't eat tuna, because it's grey (grey means
there are dolphins in it).  Her passions: bird watching and training
the swimming team, in the hopes we'd arrive at least second last.

Mr. C. Carino,
History, Phys. Ed.:     Now, Carino was the nicest guy I had ever met.
Ironically "Carino" in Italian means "Cute" or "Nice guy".   "You are
one of the few smart people this school has" he would tell me.  But
that's probably because he never had me as a student and found out
how I caught up with sleep.  "Short and mean", proud of his work,
and those that passed his classes were considered more then just
lucky.

Dr. C. Clovis "Clovis is coming",
Science:        The most amazing teacher I've ever had the pleasure
to learn from.  An ex-university professor from England, moved to
Canada and found a position at St. Pats.  People in his class dropped
like flies, the little that remained hardly passed his tests.
Surprisingly the final exam made sense and we all passed with decent
marks, but that was because we had actually learned something in Bio.
He gave a shit about every single one of us.  He would call me the
"Devil's advocate" used to my questions during his long speeches.
He took over the swimming team and moved us from last place, to
somewhere near the top.  We never shaved our legs and chests like
he wanted us, though.  Loved, respected and most of all: feared.
I thought the C stood for Calvin, but it's actually Christopher.
His favorite word: "readily". "It quite readily occures", "It will
readily happen".  I would've loved to hear him say "bloody fokken' A"
when an experiment actually worked.

Mr. T. Corallo,
French:         I hated this guy, for some bizarre reason.  Maybe it
was the fact that he had a stupid hat that all it needed was a Commie's
red star.  His jokes were awful, and you could hear the groaning from
his class all the way to the fourth floor.  Always telling him off,
promising his imminent death, but he would just laugh.  When I ended
up talking to him, I realized he wasn't as bad as I had assumed.  You
could say I sort of like the guy.  According to rumors he was caught
fornicating on the stairs with the other french teacher, Mrs. Fierini.
They are happily married now.  Love is blind, or conquers all I guess,
but I still feel sorry for them both.

Ms. N. Creglia,
ESL:    Not a bad looking Italian woman.  Nice, friendly, and we both
shared the same sexual passions.  (It's a long story).

Mr. J. Cushieri,
Custodian:      The coolest custodian, with a long pony tail.
He was friendly with those that were nice with him, but if someone
did something to him that pissed him off, you'd better run.
Custodians could access your locker.  And they didn't need the combo.

Mrs. G. De Faria
Administrative Assistante:      In other words, a secretary.  A cool
one at that.  Liked me, I liked her, got away with a lot of shit thanks
to her cover ups.

Mr. G. Di Pede (DIPSHIT),
Math, Computers:        How lucky of me, each time I took math I ended
up having this guy.  If I passed, IF, I'd get a 50%.  One year got a
different teacher, and surprisingly passed with an 80%.  He didn't like
me.  He taught some of us Computers OAC: Problem Solving.  The first
part of the course was dedicated in reading 60 pages of useless shit
on how to solve a problem and write what we understood.  Between the
stupidity in the first chapters, and blurbs extracted from "Zen and
the art of motorcycle reparing" it summed up to the words: "What the..?"
The second part was to develop programs or services for students
or staff: we could've made a program that figured out the theory of
relativety or could create a plasma field for a fusion reactor, we
still would've got a 50%.  He desperately needed Head&Shoulders,
his dandruff made his desk look like "White Christmas" and his glasses
were always covered with a fine light dusty covering.  His favorite
sweater which he wore everyday, probably could've stood up by itself.
His passion for dBase, and the flashing color purple were never
understood.

Mr. M. Dotzko,
Guidance:       Some fucked up ex-RCMP officer, which didn't realize
that we were students and not Natives with shotguns.  Worse, he was
a Guidance Counsellour.  I used to think he was cool, 'till he
accused me of messing up his computer, when I wasn't even there.
The problem was, only five people knew in that school how to work a
PC and ended up fixing it for the teachers.  If something went wrong
with the PC, we'd be automatically blamed.

Ms. S. Edwards,
English:        She came from India.  I found out she was Indian when
we had the Multicultural night and she built, all by herself, the
Indian stand.  Really hard to understand a word of what she said, but
one of the few nicest people in the english department.  Unlike some
people, if she had something to say, she would say it to you, instead
of using the patented answer "nothing".

Ms. G. Fierini (MISS SUDBURY 1938),
French, Italian:        She can't speak Italian, but she's teaching it.
Go figure. Took french with her, ended up with a 86% and the only
thing I can remember her saying was "Sudbury".  I had her for ESL for
two years in a row.  All I remember in there was "Sudbury".  Couldn't
understand a word of english, and that was the only word that I could
catch, because of the sound: "yoeing theeaing SUDBURY ing oing daing..".
Sudbury, for those lucky folks that don't know, is a town up north,
were it snows even when in Toronto it's nice.  Obviously she was from
there, the place where for fun they look at the street lights
change color -- and bet on the next color.  That is all she talked
about in class.  Really had fun giving her a hard time, especially
when she looked outside the window and said "It's a nice day today"
and I would answer "it's probably shit in Sudbury".  Yet, she kept
on passing me.  She married Corallo.  I guess that all she needed
in her life was A REAL MAN.  Way to go.

Mr. J. Fraser,
Religion:       Funny belly, and that look in his eyes that just
made you wonder if for breakfast he had a coffee and some kid from
his class.  He hated my guts with the passion and would always
stop me and tell me something good for my soul.  Reminded me of
one of the guards from the "Wilkinson Centre for Boys" (Lorenzo
Carcaterra's Sleepers).  "He can't be weird, he has two wonderful
kids and teaches religion" I was told.  That's exactly what worried me.

Mr. B. Garisto,
Guidance:       A weird guy, short, stressed out, going bald, but
always smiling.  You had a question, you never knew if the answer
he gave you was the right one.  "Sir, did I pass school?"
"Yeah!  Yeah!"
"Did I fail?"
"Yeah! Yeah!"
"Sir, physically I am male, but could I pass for a sexy woman?"
"Yeah! Yeah!"
Still, not a bad guy: another one of those guys that went out of
his way to get me stuff, or pulled a few strings.

Mr. P. Glennie,
Woodworking, Drafting:  Both I and the other woodworking teacher
always stared at this 5'11" 250 pounds wonder of flesh, bones and
no brains dressed with a 70s flavour (purple tie on a yellow shirt
kind of thing).  Don't they have a screening test to remove idiots
before they hire them?  But in reality he wasn't an idiot.  He
just didn't give a damn about all of us.  All he was waiting for
was to retire and to get away from that hell of a place he was
forced to work in.  He knew his wood working stuff though.

Mrs. A. Guadagno,
French, Italian:        Seems that all the french teachers are
Italians.. hmm.  This woman was a bit on the hysterical side
until she got married and quickly spewed out a baby.  She seemed
6 feet tall, but that was because she had 1 foot tall shoes,
and 1 foot of hair on top of her haid.  In between you could see
the 4 feet creature running around with the picture of her kid.
All right, you got laid, now shut up and teach the class.

Mr. T. Gugula,
Music, English: I laughed my head off when he would hit the wrong
key in the organ when we singed in the Choir.  Couldn't understand
why, but that was until he had a liver failure.  "Oh, that was the
alcohol smell...".

Mrs. T. Hachmer,
Library:        She ended up serving in the school's library after
she had disappeared for a while.  I wonder if it was when she
freaked out on Konrad (some neo-nazi guy) and me screaming
something along the lines "Hitler was a gut man!!".  Yeah, and I'm
a chinese jet pilot.

Mr. T. Hart (aka Ned Flanders),
Science:        If you loved chemistry, you would learn to hate it.
This guy, with more hair then an amazon forest, more dandruff then
DiPede, and dressed in a style that was already not-so-cool in the 80s,
would make sure you knew for a fact that chemistry was not your field.
No matter what happened, he was always cool.  Never saw this guy
get mad.  "Leandro, pull your sword out of Resa, clean the mess,
and go down to the principals office, thanks.. okay, for our next
experiment...".  A quiz was scheduled everyday, while he would sing
this silly little tune that everyone learned to hate.  He was
paranoid about just one thing: safety.  While with Dr. Clovis we handled
acid with our bare hands, in his class we had to wear nice thick
gloves, for stuff that was as powerful as spit.  Goggles which
were so scracthed, it was impossible to see, and this oh-so-clean
aprons.

Mr. M. Hayward aka HAYstack (twice the man, twice the idiot),
Science:        The physics teacher.  A big man, taller then the
tallest basketball player of our school.  Heavier then a pocket
battleship.  He would go around saying "heh, I'm twice the man"
and we would answer "and twice the idiot".  He would tell us a
different story everytime in class: "I remember when I was a
firefighter.. blah blah blah.."
"I remember when I was a miner..blah blah and more blah"
"Did I ever tell you the time I built the Enterprise? Blah blah.."
I thought this was physics class.  He did manage at once to
explain how the Enterprise engine's worked, but that was our
lame attempt to have him talk and forget about some crucial test.
Still unsolved how come the class' hamster was found dead one
morning in one of his shoes.  Ductape anyone?
His wife was small, compared to him she looked the same way I
look beside a parked 747.  I've always wondered what she saw in
him.  Perhaps he truly was "twice the man".

Mrs. Werden (aka The Imperial Bulk Cargo Freighter)
English:        What a wonderful mass of a teacher.  She was fat.
No, I mean really fat.  Mean as well.  If she did not like you,
no matter what you did in her class, chances were that you'd fail.
Or she'd be "nice" and pass you with a good 65%, which looked really
good when you tried to apply to University.  I got scared, and took
the same final English course she tought, but in night school, passing
with a good grading.  I think the only time I looked at her and
felt she was a human being was during Father Legere's funeral.

Sister S. Kidd,
Religion, Phys. Ed.:    The NUN of the school.  Kind of a weird creature,
loved and at times hated by the school when she'd try to shove her
point of views down our throats.  The ratio was 800 students to 1
nun: she never won.  She'd be hunting us down when we tried to skip
those stupid propaganda sessions down the auditorium. Got caught once,
with a foot out the door.  Not only being caught was depressing
enough, I even had to endure a lecture about school's spirit.. please.

Mrs. M. Kovac,
Administrative Assistant:       another secretary.  This one for
some reason adored me, told Mrs. Hutton that unlike what she was
saying, I was great with my work.  I bribed her with home made
cookies, she'd sign me in when I was late but never place the
charge on my record.  Yeaaaaah, welcome to PATS!!

Mr. B. Langevin,
Woodworking, Drafting:  The other woodworking teacher.  This guy not
only looked like the GOOD cowboy in a movie, he was also the nicest
person I had met.  His first priority were his wife and kid, then
came everything else.  He worked hard because he liked his job, but
it got frustrating having to deal with students that took his course
because they had nothing better to do.  He was glad I peer-tutored
his class.  Some of his worse students weren't.

Father Ross "Padre" Legere (easy - hard),
Religion, English:      everyone that knew father, loved him.  You
just could not otherways.  He would always give you the biggest
smile and make you feel good.  He defended me against some of the
staff that wanted me dead because of my comic strips, that he
liked.  If it wasn't for him, right now I'd probably be in some
shithole of a public school (i.e. Eastern Commerce Public High School).
Father Legere died in September, and with him gone, when I go
visit St. Pats, you feel something is missing.
I owe him all my hope.

        There are many others, but the space is what it is.
Who knows, I might write about some of the students I had
to share the oxygen with eventually.. =)

        Leandro+

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