output :[

I've been meaning to post this for ages... but between visiting relatives, mortal MTB injuries, and general crazy shit happening in my life, it hasn't happened.

Ow!

So a couple of months back, as fall was approaching, I decided to actually get a fall coat, since I only really have bulky winter coats. A trip to Barney's Co-op revealed many nice coats, but naturally many are made with wool.

Surface to Air had some pretty cool jackets, including this bomber made from a waxed canvas.

The coat I settled on however was a rather smashing Chinook cotton moleskin coat.

You can see some of their other coats here.

It's vegan mofo... no, before you get all uppity about my language, this isn't about some film starring Samuel L. Jackson as some animal rights vigilante bad-ass, it's vegan MOnth of FOod! Orright? Anyway, I haven't written anything! Something quick, something easy... Pizza! Is there anyone who doesn't love it? No! Put delicious thingies on a hot bready base, and... mmmmmmm. Vegan pizzas usually raise an eyebrow or two, naturally, since pizzas these days seem to be all about cheese. Anyway, you can use soy/rice/liquefied tire cheese if you want to... but I like my pizzas without.

So today, I write about my "Vegan Mo'Fo' Pizza"... you read that right, suckers, mofo does not mean month of food this time.

When I was a kid, my favourite pizza was pepperoni pizza. With extra pepperoni. And extra onion. And double anchovies. Yep, I'd smell for a good 24 hours after one of those, slowly excreting fishy, salty, onion-flavoured sausage juice from my pores. Yech. But to me pizza is all about FLAVOR COUNTRY. My better half likes minimal pizzas, where the ingredients make their own statement. Not me - pile it on, I say! Less is more? No... MORE IS MORE! If you would like to visit flavor country too, I recommend at least one, or preferably ALL of the following:

• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Marinated artichokes
• Capers - the saltier, the better!
• Marinated jalapeños
• Italian-style vegan sausage
• Basil paste
• Some tasty extra virgin olive oil

Here's the story in pictures.

Pita bread. Add tomato paste.

Basil paste! The secret foundation of the flavor country landscape. Make sure you get basil paste, and not pesto, which often contains cheese.

Red onion, peppers (capsicum!), jalapeños.

Portabello mushroom, eggplant (aubergine!), diced zucchini (courgette!), or whatever's in the fridge...

Now for the good stuff!

Then GOOD olive oil. How much? You can never have too much olive oil!

Cook for twenty minutes, then gobble to your greedy little heart's content! Okay, so my pizza wouldn't have won any beauty awards - it's not meant to - it's a taste MONSTER! And yes, piling this much stuff on without cementing it in place with cheese inevitably results in some fallout. To me, it's part of the challenge. It wouldn't be as fun any other way. Pizza is an easy way to use up the decaying vegetable matter in your fridge, without needing any strict ingredients to make a recipe.

Cripes... those jalapeños where hot! Better chase it down with some Turtle Mountain coconut milk ice-cream.

The following week, when left home alone, I was excited to make a much better pizza, since I now had some Tofurky Italian Style Sausage in the fridge... Yummy! I made the pizza and was halfway cooking the thing when I realized I totally forgot to put the damn sausage on!

No worries, i chopped some up, bunged it on the stove for a bit....

Flavor. Country. Mm, with asparagus!

Mofurky. Bloody yum-bo.

Vegans are a minority group, and as such, are a target for ridicule and insults (funny, unjustified, or otherwise). I get it a lot at work. I'm not a witty person, nor funny, and have very little in way of zinging powers. One of my favourite Seinfeld episodes is "The Comeback", where George Constanza burns up because he is ridiculed at work when stuffing his face: "Hey George, the ocean called; they're running out of shrimp." There is nothing worse than, like George, coming back with a real zinger hours after being insulted, when it's too late! I thought it would be handy to have a little bag of quips. If you have some better than my lame efforts, please share!

"Don't hate me because I'm better than you."

"Hey, I'm just trying to save the world for your fat, lazy kids."

"Wait, so now it's cool to hate the environment!? Why didn't someone tell me sooner!?"

"I suppose you hate Jews and gays too?"

If all else fails, fall back on Kramer's line:

"Yeah? Well, I had sex with your wife!"

Once upon a time, way back in the 90's, I had a pair of Dr Marten's 10 hole steel cap boots. And what marvelous boots they were. They saw me through thick and thin. I wore them to uni, wore them out, and wore them through my career stocking supermarket shelves through the night. They looked the biz, and I loved 'em. After probably a good eight abuse-filled years of faithful service, they finally got retired to the back yard as flowerpots. Having an upcoming vacation to London, I thought there could be no better place to buy my replacement bovver boots. I bought a new pair - 10 holes, steel caps - same size as my old pair. But I noticed they were now 'fashion' boots according to the label, no longer meeting the ANSI standards guaranteeing that you could safely stand in 500 degree steaming hydrochloric acid while a truck drives back and forth repeatedly over your caps. Sadly, this was era where Dr Marten's had outsourced their shoe making to remain competitive, no longer made in England, which also saw the discontinuation of their vegetarian shoe line. These boots were uncomfortable, the sole split numerous times... these were nothing of my old boots. Boo hoo....

So you could say I've been searching for a decent replacement ever since. Earlier this year, I went and tried on some of the Palladium 'Baggy' boots. Not bad, they where okay, but lacked of attitude. Perhaps I'll get them when I need some boots to match my pyjamas...

My search ironically came about after the death of another pair of shoes - my Adidas 'Chile's - which I used to commute to and from work in. A suitable vegan replacement was heralded in the Adbusters Blackspot sneaker. Ironically, this was all happening around the time my girlfriend's brother was trying to get us to buy some Nike Air Jordan six rings, or something. As you probably know, some poor exploited villager subsists on a couple of bucks a week for slaving away in a toxic Nike factory while fat-ass CEO's get fatter and Tiger Woods gets paid a jillion dollars for poncing about in a fucking Nike hat.... FUCK THAT SHIT!! Nike have been cited numerous times for turning a blind eye to deplorable human rights issues, and continue to do so!

Deep breath... okay.. where were we? Shoes... so they stock 'em at Moo Shoes. Ripper! So off I pedal. The sneakers were out of stock, but on the shelf, right next to them, the V2 'Unswooshers' sneer at me with a suitable amount of punky angst. Trying them on reveals that finally, I have found a vegan boot worthy of being worn, worn with pride, and worn with some kick yo ass attitude! Fuk yeh...

The boots sport the anti-logo, and the hand-painted red sweet spot, for kicking corporate brand sluts square in the coit. Completely vegan, bio-degradable, made in a union-shop, and designed by bootmeister extraordinaire - John Fluevog!

Buying a pair of Blackspots sees you with a shareholder certificate, designed to let you participate in future Blackspot enterprises. There is also a little booklet detailing just how we lost our community generated culture to the new culture spoon fed to us by the controllers behind the mega brands. The Blackspot 'brand' is open-source - meaning anyone is free to participate and contribute. Make your own Blackspots by blotting out the logo on them, and paint the red spot if you like!

If you plan to buy online, I found the size generous enough. I about an 8.5 U.S. with my shoes ranging from size 8 to 9. The size 8 unswooshers fit me pretty well.

More details here, or check 'em on Moo Shoes site. Also note, the newer ones seem to be black in color, while the older ones where grey.

So it's become apparent to me, that two types of people use toilets - shitters and sitters.

It's amazing how often I walk into a dead quiet bathroom, have no option but to use the cubicle next to someone else (don't you hate that?), go about my biz, and leave, with nary a sound, nor movement, coming from the dude next door... Is he awake? Is he even alive? It's hard to tell. I know not everyone is a goodie goodie vegan, but holy shit, eat some damned fibre Mr. Poopie-a-no-go!