She Calls Me Cookie

Life as a dad is rough. Not like rough rough.. but rough. Right now my daughter is going on 18 months old. She knows a lot of words. She knows Mommy, she knows Baby. She can even say the name of her older brother. She can say the name of the awesome lady at daycare. She can puzzle out Kitty if ever one of the two fell beasts come out of hiding while she’s awake.

Occasionally she calls me Daddy (as long as Mommy says: “It’s Daddy! Say Hi Daddy!”)

Most of the time she calls me Cookie.

As you can expect, this saddens me. So I wrote a song about it. And I recorded it. And here it is.

She Calls Me Cookie

She... doesn't know.. my name
she... doesn't know.. my name
she doesn't care to learn
She doesn't know my name

Chorus

She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie

She... doesn't know... my name
She... doesn't know.. my name
She doesn't care to learn
She doesn't know my name

She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
And I get her one

She calls me cookie
she calls me cookie
She calls me cookie
Cause if I didn't she wouldn't talk to me at all

She... doesn't know... My name

Technorati Tags: Cookies,Daddy,Cookie Monster

How I Gambled in Las Vegas and … (Part 2)

In part two of this not so exciting travelogue surrounding our ill-fated, yet still enjoyable, trip to Las Vegas our fearless writer (who now fears only two things Swordfish and the Burger King – stay tuned for Part 3 to find out more) discusses how he and his wife gambled on Customer Service in Las Vegas and won… big time.

Customer Service. It’s a thing that many companies talk about and strive to achieve in the eyes of the common public. Many a CEO has often been heard around the gold-plated water coolers with his buddies saying: “Doesn’t Joe Lunchpail know that we care? Doesn’t Mary J. Homemaker realize how important she is to us? It is a tragedy these common folk lack the intellect to see how we are hear to guide them… say good fellow is that a canapé?”

Sometimes it must seem to those in the customer service industry the “Satisfied Customer” is a mythical creature like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the Honest Politician.

There are precisely two times that we will pay a lot of attention to customer service.  The first is when customer service is so bad it stands out – sadly this is far more often than the next: when people go out of their way and do there dangdest to make sure that the needs of me, Jon Q Customer, are met to the nth degree.

While in Las Vegas my wife and I had many service experiences. Restaurants. Stores. Airport. The thing that stood out to me is the fact that virtually all of these people – all the waiters, cabbies, airline attendants, shopping clerks - all possessed two traits that I look for in people in those positions – first and of the utmost importance: competence. Following right behind that: manners.

There’s something about going into a restaurant here in Canada where you feel obligated to tip. The service could be horrible, the food could be garbage, yet most of us might still feel inclined to drop the gratuity bomb. I once got hung up in a Red Robin for 45 minutes trying to find a server to bring us our bill while they chased after a dine and dash (almost creating the second of the evening). The food had been horrible and the waiter had been a doofus. I didn’t tip.

I still feel guilty.

What if I deprived his kids of food? Although in hindsight, if his kids did have food they’d be waiting so long for that jackass to bring it that it would be long cold by the time they got it… but I digress. In Canada, people who work in service industries are working there until they can find something better – and they work like that. You do enough to do the job and you complain about the goofs that come in (I don’t have a problem with complaining about the goofs though – its part of the pay package for people who have to put up with goofs for a living).

In virtually every restaurant and every store we went in to, the people we interacted with were great at their jobs and seemed happy to be there. In virtually every clothing store we went shopped, we told them how the airline had lost our luggage, and in many cases the clerks went and found coupons, some of them out of date, or made up some discounts and gave us from 15-25% off.

You can’t teach that sort of customer service. You can try to teach that sort of customer service but you just get a bunch of disgruntled employees sitting in a room listening to an instructor that hasn’t served anyone since she got her degree in College.

Kudos to the chick at Westjet who almost managed to take the sting out of us losing our luggage. Kudos again to Westjet for ponying up for their mistake (though it would have been nice if they’d given us a plane). Kudos to Vanessa at the IHOP, kudos to the gals of Target, kudos to the chick at Lane Bryant who helped my wife so much (who’s name I can’t remember because I wasn’t shopping there for me) and then gave us the discount that had expired a month ago.

I gotta tell you I feel odd not complaining about it though… happily I came back to the Bread Garden near work… plenty of fodder for complaint.

How I Gambled in Las Vegas and… (Part One)

This year for our tenth wedding anniversary my wife and I decided to dump the kids off on Oma and Opa (thanks so much Oma and Opa and though it will be years before it happens again, we appreciated this one greatly) and headed to the glitteriest city in the world (unsubstantiated): Las Vegas.

That’s right, yours truly was headed off to the home of CSI, Elvis (Fat Version) and no longer the home of the singing broomstick that is Celine Dion.

Now as everyone knows Las Vegas is famous for one thing: gambling; and with this in mind here’s a multipart series of how we gambled in Las Vegas and the results of those numerous gambles.

How I gambled in Las Vegas and… Lost

Our first major gamble happened even before we boarded the plane and it involved handing our luggage over to Westjet with the assumption we would get it right back on the other side of the voyage. Well, maybe we should have checked the Vegas odds on that because when we stepped off the plane in Las Vegas our luggage was like Celine Dion in the last few years of her five year contract in Vegas (you know where she had to get Elton John to fill in for her) that is to say: a no show.

My wife, bless her heart and brains, had taken out travel insurance and sure enough it came in handy. First we talked to the representative there and she was nice and we were nice and everyone is nice; you get more flies with honey (though I didn’t want flies, I was still nice anyway) and we filed our claim and they promised to call if our wayward luggage showed its ugly face anytime soon.

The lady told us to call back tonight as there was a flight from Vancouver due in and it might make that; failing that call tomorrow as there was a chance they might have located it. Failing that there was a chance the luggage would be on the flight tomorrow afternoon and so on and so forth yea unto the 7th iteration of said daily flight from Vancouver to Las Vegas (which wouldn’t do us any good as we were to be out of Vegas by the 5th iteration of said trip).

So our first order of business upon checking into our hotel: go get some clothes for tomorrow. Now, being a guy, my care level for people seeing me in the same clothes I wore yesterday is about 22% – and that 22% is made up entirely of the fact that I’ll be wearing the  same underwear as yesterday (now normally people aren’t going to see that but keep in mind I am in Vegas and who the hell knows what can happen).

So off we went to Macy’s.

Now being a guy, and a Canadian, I don’t generally think of Macy’s when I go shopping. After having gone there, I won’t think of it again. It’s not that it’s a bad store by any stretch of the imagination – it just happens to be the typical store a guy gets dragged to on a weekend when his wife needs to go shopping (note: that was not the case here, I needed clothes too). It’s like Sears without the weekend sale (I haven’t checked, but I bet they’re having one this weekend!)

We went, we saw, we shopped. Not an ideal experience. But not a bad one, and necessary.

But we still needed things like tooth brushes and other hygienic things so we went to the Walgreens to replace the essentials.

Traveler’s note: never try and replace essential items at the Walgreens on the Strip because you will have to go to a blackjack table and hope you win big before you can afford a stick of deodorant. If you are afraid to gamble or that’s not what you’re there for and you still need a stick of deodorant or what have you, always  look on the bottom shelves down out of eye level. That’s where they put the cheap stuff, you know the stuff they test on monkeys and the FDA passes after the monkey only grows one extra arm (I haven’t read the testing rules, but I believe two extra arms are the fail).

The next day my wife followed up with the airline. She was nice. The airline lady was nice. I wasn’t on the phone with them, but I was nice anyway because I was on vacation and would go back to being a doofus upon our return. No sign of luggage. Off we went to Target.

Now being a guy, and a Canadian, I don’t generally think of Target when I think of a  positive shopping experience (note: for me a positive shopping experience is one where the wife goes shopping and takes the kids with her and I sit home and watch football). I will now think of Target as a positive shopping experience. My wife and I managed to replace a fairly large portion of our wardrobe with the assumption we would not be seeing it again as our luggage had gone the way of the Dodo bird.

I bet you didn’t know Westjet is at fault for the extinction of the Dodo bird. That’s right Westjet. I outted you. Air Canada you could believe, but not the nice smiling people at Westjet… true story.

I did the typical guy shop. I found one make of shirt that fit me well and got four different colors of it. Grabbed some pants that fit and when they got wifely approval threw them in the shopping cart. For those of you in Las Vegas – 10 o’clock on a Monday morning is a good time to go shopping.

The final item we had to pick up at Target were: suitcases. It occurred to us that if our clothes and items never showed up again, that would mean our suitcase probably wouldn’t be making an appearance either and so we purchased a couple of duffel bags that transform into suitcases (like a more mundane version of Transformers) and off we rolled down to the nearby mall.

There we bought a few more necessary items and that took up pretty much the full first day in Las Vegas. We returned to our hotel room exhausted but no longer in danger of wearing the same outfit all 5 days in Vegas.

Just to be sure when we got back to the room my wife called the lady at the insurance and at the airline again. She was nice. The ladies on the phone were nice. I was tired and hungry but didn’t see any point in being grumpy so I stayed nice.

Then on Tuesday we received a call from the airline. Our luggage had been found! Hurray! Huzzah! Wicked Awesome SuperTuesday!

So what had happened? Well apparently some Hercules baggage clerk had ripped off the handle of the suitcase, the one with the tags on it, while stacking bags and the baggage never left the airport because no one knew whose it was or where it was going. When it was identified by its contents it got to go on a side trip to Los Angeles and then met us in Vegas.

Reunited. And it felt so good.

Of course I couldn’t look at the clothes in the suitcase now. I had new ones. Better ones. That’s right I’m looking at you previously drab wardrobe.

And thus concludes the first portion of How I Gambled in Las Vegas and… the next instalment will tell you how I gambled in Las Vegas and won – on customer service. And that includes Westjet, who despite the experience did an awesome job on dealing with the situation.

James Taylor Eats Babies…

… Okay well he doesn’t (that I am aware of), but he could. And he could get away with it. I’m not sure what musical avenue you walk upon, whether you’re a metal head, rocker, opera aficionado or whatever, but chances are you’ve probably heard of James Taylor. Even if you don’t actively follow his musical styling if you’ve seen the movie Cars you’ve heard at least one of his songs.

The other night my wife and I, and a friend, got sucked into the local PBS station and they happened to be playing a Carole King/James Taylor concert. I’m not an avid fan of either, but the two of them combined have more talent than at least 57 me’s, and they sucked in our attention. We couldn’t help but watch and listen.

The thing is, looking back on that time, I can’t remember a single song that James Taylor sang. For some reason when I think about that concert I associate it with marshmallows. But I can’t tell you why (other than I may still have been a bit hungry). And Ghostbusters (but I know why that is, because I can’t think of marshmallows without thinking of Ghostbusters).

I just knew that whatever he was singing about I agreed with him, I felt slightly melancholy and wistful and I too wished to be back in that time he was talking about – even though I couldn’t figure out what it was. There’s something about the way the man plays guitar and his tone of voice that just makes you want to sit an listen and maybe, if I wasn’t dead inside, to shed a tear.

For all I know James Taylor could have been singing to me about the Feast of Babies, where he gorged himself on younglings to honour his dark god Rakadoom, Lord of the Long Dark Night. I imagine, had he been doing so, the song probably sounded something like this:

Sit down a while, across from me
We’ll talk a bit, and you will be
Longing for a night such as this again;
While we talk over open flame
We’ll talk of times when we played games
Where it helped to be just a little insane.
                And time goes by And time goes by

Grab a haunch, find a cup
Sit at the table we can sup
This is no time for hesitating maybes
How can we bring about our future
Cut out the rot and leave no suture
Unless we take part in this feast of Babies
And time goes by, his time goes by
His time goes by and its come again

Chorus:
He will be here, he’s coming soon
Live in love with Rakadoom
Lord of the Long Dark Night
Eating babies, might some wrong
But it sounds good cause its in my song
Grab yourself a newborn, it’ll be alright
And time goes by… and time goes by.

They are cute with their curly cues
Now roasting on the barbecues;
That’s not rib sauce in that chalice by the way;
All it takes for veneration
Is the blood of this future generation
And soon the Rakadoom shall again hold sway
                And time goes by, and time goes by
Chorus
Repeat “As Time Goes by” (Fade)

A song like that is something you’d expect from Ozzy Osbourne but not James Taylor which is why its fairly obvious that James Taylor is the High Priest of Rakadoom and Ozzy is probably just a sixth level acolyte.

Just to reiterate, I have no evidence that James Taylor eats babies.

Your Call Is Being Held in Priority Sequence… You Are Low Priority

Dear Solitary Reader: Right now I am on hold with Shaw Digital to hook up an HD Box. I am on hold not once, but twice… simultaneously. How you ask? How is it possible for GLOM THE  CONGLOMERATE to do this to me? Tell you in a second (your curiosity is placed in priority sequence).

I have been on hold in one form or another for over an hour now. My call is being held in priority sequence. I am low priority.

Maybe its my middle child syndrome acting up but I’m starting to get a little pissed off here; I am being ignored. I hate being ignored. I can go anywhere and being ignored. I am paying these SHAW people a fair bit of money a month here, am I paying these people to ignore me?

Apparently.

Perhaps it was an omen. When I, Robot first answered the phone it told me SHAW was experiencing higher than usual call volumes. But I ignored that. Do you know why I ignored it?

I ignored it because every time I have called SHAW they are experiencing higher than usual call volumes. Every time. For SHAW high call volumes are, apparently, normal. It’s like at work when every email management sends you is marked urgent. If everything is urgent, nothing is and I can go back to playing minesweeper. If you are experiencing higher than usual call volumes all the time, SHAW, then you need to change your definition of “usual call volume.”

And how am I on hold twice simultaneously you ask? I’ll get to that (thank you for continuing to read my blog. Your curiosity is important to me).

One of the most annoying things about the SHAW hold system is the continued breaking of the barely tolerable hold music with HARRY The HAPPY TECHIE. That’s my name for him/it, not theirs.

Harry interrupts the outdated, non-copyrighted hold music with these useful little tips – YOU CAN CHECK YOUR EMAIL ON THE INTERWEB!!! Harry sounds like he’s trying to teach 86 year olds how to use email. He talks to me like I talk to my kid. My kid’s 4.

I honestly hope HARRY runs into an EMP blast at some point and get’s fried. I … hate… Harry

Okay, so how does SHAW have me on hold two times simultaneously? Well it turns out that “Activating your digital terminal is easier than ever,” so says ANGELA THE ANNOYING ANDROID in her dead voice, and all you have to do is go to their handy dandy online activation system which puts you in contact with a representative.

So I did that, but at the same time I recalled their 1-888 number… I was on hold on the phone and on the Internet – two different avenues to exhaust my patience which was now drying up as fast as spit during high noon in the Sahara.

Well I did manage to get throw on the Interweb faster than on the phone – I think I was at the 20+ minute mark for both when I got in contact with Jeff #4503.

Now this is the thing about Shaw that I’ve found: waiting to get a hold of someone there sucks but when you finally do get around to them they’re smart and they can walk you through you’re problem fairly quickly.

I reiterate: Jeff #4503 did great.

ANGELA the ANNOYING ANDROID and HARRY the HAPPY TECH… not so much.

Cows with Moograines

Dear Solitary Reader: From the interweb today comes the shocking and demoralizing news that some cows out there are living better than I am; not only are these cows being grain fed but they are also being given a diet of red wine to wash down their highly nutritional meals.

Now all the animal rights activists are probably going to get all up in arms about this story, and in this case I think I’m going to have to agree with them. The difference  however in this case will be where they protest on an “every animal has rights” platform, I protest on a why should the cows get it for free when I have to pay for it?  

Here are some reasons I think feeding cattle red wine is a bad idea:

• Everyone knows that red wine has a certain amount of tannins in it and tannins have been known to cause migraines in some people; it’s a trigger food. It would be cruel, and certainly unusual, punishment for these animals to, on top of killing them and eating them for meat, make their last day on earth feel as if they’re heads were being squeezed by a rubber band. These will of course be called Moo-graines.
• All it takes is one surly cow with a hangover to start a stampede.
• Alcoholics may be unwittingly thrown from the wagon after sampling such a cuisine; if they start holding 12 step meetings at the Keg then we know for sure there’s a problem. These people obviously have the most at steak here… (yes, yes I did go there).
• A generation of young farmers will never have the benefit of going cow tipping ; the cows will be tipsy already and will fall over on their own.
• These cows are eventually going to start developing a palate and when that happens its going to be become prohibitively expensive as the cattle will no longer drink from the boxed Domain d’or, but only the Naked Grape. From there they’ll move on to Yellow Tail and who knows what after that?

Now, it would be unfair to present only one side of the argument. There are bound to be some positives from this story. 

• From a  consumer stand point there are abound to be some time savings – no longer will you have to waste time eating AND drinking.
• Maybe cows will now understand the humour in The Hangover.
• Maybe when you wake up naked one morning lying in the middle of a field at the old Circle Bar ranch in the middle of a crop circle that looks like Elmo being eye-balled by Bessy, instead of passing judgement she’ll just say: “Oh yeah buddy… I been there.”

Its also interesting to note that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has investigated the process to make sure there are no negative effects (hangover aside); the long term effects of feeding wine to cows has yet to be determined however BECAUSE WE KILL AND EAT THE COWS.

Stupid Canada.

Moo-graines…

Heh Heh.

The Banana Man

The Banana Man - to the tune of Piano Man by Billy Joel. Also there’s this: Man in Banana suit arrested for indecent exposure It's nine o'clock on a Wednesday The news is on the TV They tell me the story of Kohnert And I just can't see how it could be.

They say, Son you were wearing a Banana
Or that's what they said on the news
And while its not good to whip out your wood
It sure as hell does amuse

Ba ba ba be na na
Ba ba ba be na na
Sing us a song 'bout the Banana Man
Arrested for unpeeling his fruit;
He's not the only one charged
It turns out he had a recruit.

He found himself at the airport
And I guess the time it was ripe
He got drunk silly and then he freed willie
And now some young gal has a gripe

I say Bill how can you resist this one
And as you can see I just can't
The man chose this route in his banana suit
Instead of wearing some pants

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa
Sing you this song 'bout the Banana Man
That I took the time to compose
Maybe it'll get on the Internet
And like him be over-exposed

Now Tony his friend drove the vehicle
You might call it the Banana-mobile
He didn’t know see that his buddy
Would his banana- a'peel

He said Carl good Lord what you doin'
you'll make me toss up my lunch
There's no one in here, or even out there
That needs to see all your bunch

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa
Sing you this song 'bout the Banana Man
That's what you have to go do;
You can laugh at his misfortune
It's funny because its not you.

And now its all over the Internet
I bet someone call's up his Mama
Saying look what your son has gone and done
He's a banana without even pyjamas;

And the story sounds like a carnival
It's a story reeking of too much beer
He shook out his tree where somebody could see
In prison he'll have something to fear

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa
Sing you this song 'bout the Banana Man
The news reports dug up the dirt
And now he's going to prison
Where he'll get his just dessert.

oh Ba ba ba ba na na na
Ba ba ba na na naaaaaa

I Scream… From Ice Cream

Dear Solitary Reader: On a day when its hotter than the devil’s arm pit outside there is nothing more refreshing than beer; but as its only two in the afternoon hitting the suds will have to wait (but only until I’m finished this article because I wouldn’t want to slur while I’m typing).

The next best thing to beer on a hot Christmas morning is of course ice cream and with all those flavours out there ice cream is, truly, for everyone; for those of you who put hands to forehead and say “Alas! I am lactose intolerant!” I say to you first: “the world already has too much intolerance in it, shame on you! AND they have dairy digestive pills now so go pop a couple and grab y’self a blizzard.”

But with summer and ice cream comes that which steals the lustre off the ice cream bar – the ice cream truck.

Perhaps its because I grew up in Newfoundland, where communities were small and far apart, but the ice cream truck  wasn’t all that prevalent; an ice cream truck was not economically viable. The closest thing we came to having an ice cream truck show up was when Mr Higgins the milk man, or my dad according to my sister, came in October and the milk had frozen.

And so it is that my only real knowledge of the ice cream truck comes from television; and I’ll tell you something, ice cream trucks on TV (apart from the episode of The Simpsons where Homer drove one) are all driven by pedophiles and killers. If you drive an ice cream truck and aren’t one of the above then apologies; if you are one of the above then go die.

Let me see… I remember watching that animated Spawn movie, I think it was called Spawn, and the creepy pedophile killer in that movie was, you guessed it, an ice cream truck driver. Not long ago I hate to admit to it, but I watched a portion of Legion (I couldn’t make it through the whole thing cause it was smelly sock bad) and the first demon killer dude drove a … you guessed it… Honda Civic. But the second one drove an ice cream truck.

And I’m pretty sure every criminal on Law and Order: SVU drives one.

The worst thing about the ice cream truck now is that creepy ass music it plays. No longer do kids run in flocks up to the truck when that music, which to be honest sounds like the tinny music you get when you open one of those “Singing” holiday cards at the dollar store, begins to play; rather at the cautioning of their parents the children run inside and hide until the ice cream truck is gone.

It seems to me that if you’ve been put on the path of being an ice cream truck driver in this day and age then you’ve been put on a Rocky Road; and that’s probably no scoop to you. The media coverage may just be why it seems every ice cream truck driver has a mint chocolate chip on their shoulder; but hey, let’s all be Neapolitan here, I’ll lay it out for you in chocolate and vanilla: a career that seems on the surface like a Heavenly Hash is probably just gonna turn Moose “tracks”.

Note: I just googled ice cream and read about a company called Emack and Bolio’s ice cream… but for some reason my mind read Ebolio’s… sick… and sickening

The Insecurities of Our Age

Dear Solitary Reader: The other day, yesterday I guess actually, I was standing at a gas pump and it told me to do something. No not that! Get your mind out of the gutter. The instructions on the pump said: “Remove Card Rapidly” and I thought to myself: How do I know if I’m removing the card rapidly enough?

As an aging, balding, overweight male with a vague sense that I’m in the wrong career (but at least surrounded by smart people who can cover for my incompetence) I do not need any more opportunities to feel insecure about my daily life.

But they’re everywhere.  To list just a couple:

Remove Card Rapidly: Why doesn’t it just say “Remove Card" Why do I have to remove the card rapidly? Will it refuse to take my money if my carpal tunnel syndrome is acting up and I can’t withdraw the card from the slot with sufficient vigour? Should I lube up my card before I put it in that slot so I can be sure to get it out and pass the test?

Shake Well: I shake stuff but there are things that demand to be shaken well – who decides what is shaken well? If I flick my wrist a couple of times in a lacklustre fashion is Simon Cowell going to pop out of nowhere and say: “Honestly that was the most self-indulgent, lacklustre shake I’ve ever seen. To be honest, its like when you’re at a wedding and you’ve hired your cousin who did some bartending work in college to shake a martini. I’m sorry. You’ll really have to pick it up next time.” I shake with vigour. I shake with flourish. Occasionally, I even shake with rage. But do I shake well? I just can’t say.

And then there are those instructions that just assume you’re smart like stick – you know the ones:

• "Remove wrapper, open mouth, insert muffin, eat." -- Instructions on the packaging for a muffin at a 7-11.
• "Use like regular soap." -- On a bar of Dial soap.
• "Serving suggestion: Defrost." -- On a frozen dinner.

Google silly instructions and you’ll come upon droves of them, of course the sad thing about those is the company probably had to put these instructions on because some numbnuts out there did something incredibly stupid… which, in a way, does make me feel somewhat better.

After all, I’ve never had to read the instructions on a machine to know: "The appliance is switched on by setting the on/off switch to the 'on' position." Although every know and then, after I’ve been told to “Shake Well” and I”m left wondering if I have, and I encounter one of those sillier types of instructions, I can’t help but wonder… are they just talking to me?

The Mystery of Jam

Dear Solitary Reader: The other morning while sitting in at the breakfast table I heard the telltale clinking of knife upon glass that denoted the end of the another jar of jam. I wasn’t crushed because I don’t really care for jam.

You see I prefer my toast to taste like toast and my crackers to taste like salt. If I wanted a mouthful of strawberry… I’d eat strawberry. But I’m a liberal minded fellow and if you want to eat jam that’s fine with me; after all, those strawberries that are a day after their due date in the store have to go somewhere… right?

However, it seems to me, in my non-jam eating way, a jar of jam has only two states: unopened full and opened with a half-inch of jam left in the bottle so it can make that clinking sound (also known as the Jam Alarm Recording or JAR). I cannot recall in all my years of having seen a half-empty jar of jam (or even a half full one if you’re an optimist).

And at the same time there is a sort of temporal displacement which revolves a jar of jam because doesn’t it always seem like you just  bought a jar of jam two weeks ago?

Are there any Jam Eaters out there willing to disclose the secret? Is there a Jam Vortex that slowly sucks all the jam into its Cthulhu dominated space; is that also where the socks go when they don’t come back from the dryer? Is there a 4th dimension full of socks covered in jam?

Perhaps some wicked witch has found a magical way of siphoning the jam from your fridge; at this very moment your reserve of preserve is disappearing and reappearing in the vat which said witch is currently boiling Hansel and/or Gretel.

I have no answers, Solitary Reader, all I know is that come the next trip to the grocery store I’ll have to buy more jam – despite the fact that I just bought some two weeks ago…

Sorry Zynga, I Have Commitment Issues

Dear Solitary Reader: I’ve come to a realization about myself and its one of th0se epiphanies of self-discovery that is both discomfiting and liberating all at the same time. The discovery? You guessed it: I have commitment issues. But Bill, you say, how can you have commitment issues when you’re about to hit your ten year wedding anniversary? That’s a good question.

It turns out that my issues with commitment are not to do with people but with games – specifically the games made by Zynga and those of the Zynga-esque ilk. Shall I expound?

Let us wind the hands of time backward a few years or so and you’ll find me, a young impressionable user of the interweb logging on to Facebook; I, as someone who has alienated most of his friends with his cutting edge wit, couldn’t pay someone to accept a friend request – so what was I to do?

The answer presented itself in a little game called Mafia Wars. I alit down the road of mobster with a glee which bespoke of my deeply buried Italian heritage (thanks Grammy Martin); I was bustin’ kneecaps, takin’ protection money and eating pasta like nothing else. Until I hit about level 11 or so… and then I got tired of it. Neighbouring branches of ‘Da Family” honed in on my territory, but I could care less.  Suddenly forcing people’s joints to bend in ways they never had before had lost its appeal (I know, crazy huh?)

Life in the big city got to be too much for me, so I decided I needed a change of pace (also I turned state’s evidence against the don and entered the witless protection program). I needed something a little more serene. And where did I go? You guessed it – to the Farm. To be more specific, to Farmville.

I, who was pimpin’ in Mafia Wars, was now hoeing in Farmville; my crops grew and so too did my Friend database as random strangers wanted my name in their log to help expand their plot. I didn’t mind the usury though; I wanted the same. I grew all kinds of plants, gained all kinds of items. But no matter how many crops I planted there was still a big empty space – and it was in my heart.

Soon the only thing that grew was my emotional distance from my Farm. But how could I just turn and walk away, just leave it without a trace? Now I sit here taking every breath without you…. ooo… you’re the only game that really knew me at all…

… yeah, anyway…

It turned out that life on the farm was not for me; it was no longer about the farm, it had turned into an agri-business.

I told myself I’d gotten away, just not far enough. That’s when I saw the advert for a little game that promised me treasure and my very own Isle; how could I resist? Soon I set sail in my dory and ended up on this little sand spit in the middle of nowhere…

I could tell this game wasn’t going to go too well for me because within minutes it wasn’t meeting my expectations. Where was Ricardo Montalban welcoming me to Fantasy Island? Heck, Malcolm McDowell wasn’t even there! But I dug the sand for treasure like a good little monkey; I completed collections and turned them in; some fat bastard named Winston Adams took my collections and who knows what the hell he did with them…

… Finally a big gust of wind came and I told that wind to carry me over, carry me over, to MyTown.

MyTown, that was my next stop along the Zynga circuit. After all, I reasoned, Burnaby is a stupid city (what with it dropping street names and then picking up again three streets later in manner to make Tomtom weep and Google Maps dizzy) here’s my chance to do it right. And I did! For a little bit… and then I got tired of trying to please all the residents of my town.. they wanted more street lights, they wanted more bus shelters, they wanted the latest and the newest of everything and they didn’t want to pay a single cent of tax.

Finally I abandoned MyTown and the last I heard the weeds had taken over… it had turned into a Ghost Town… without my love… like a Ghost Town… I been dreamin’ of..

… And now I sit at my computer waiting… I wait for the next game that will fill the empty hours between sleeps…  until something comes along I will do what I always do to fill the gap created by boredom…

Bejewelled Blitz… this game never gets old!

Taking a WikiLeak

Dear Solitary Reader: Coursing along the silvery tubes of the interweb these days is the story of massive amounts of military intelligence, which I always thought was as real as “city planning” and “the Easter bunny,” gracing the pages of WikiLeak. *Gasp* says one side “the enemy has our battle plans from 12 years ago! This must be quashed!” “Huzzah!” says the other side. “Score one for the freedom of the press!” Or words to that effect.

And there’s me in the middle, not knowing who to listen to and not caring enough to find out; which is no big change.

I’ve always considered Freedom of the Press in this day and age to be something of a myth. While I’m sure most (okay, some) reporters care about bringing information to the public, the news corporation itself really doesn’t seem to care much for fact or presentation.

In an age where the pundits of CNN yell their news at you, trying to sell you their version of events over MSNBC’s version along with a Slap Chop and a Snuggie news doesn’t seem, to me, to be dependable. Honestly, one look at Nancy Grace and Dan Rather would roll over in his grave.*

To put it bluntly, the press is free to report what it wants but bound by the dictates of modern marketing and capitalism to report only what sells.

But there’s the other side of the coin. Should these documents have been leaked? Does the public have a right to know? Well in this case, when the public includes the side you’re at war with having the ability to find your battle strategy on the Internet, maybe not. But the positive, the green light if you will, from this is that the military just discovered a bit of a flaw in their security. It’s similar in principle, if not in fact, to a company hiring a hacker to test its Internet Security. Gubment – you gots some work to do.

Maybe the furor from the side of the politicians is that the documents could likely uncover to the public a string of lies and incompetence to the general public. That and the emperor has no clothes. News flash (Brought to you by the Fortress of Verisimilitude’s Deep Fried Ice Cream in a Can! As Cold as Ice, as Hot as Spice) government people – we don’t vote you into office because we think you’re more competent than us; we vote you into government because someone has to do the job no one else wants to do and you… are… it.

Besides, maybe hope is not lost. Maybe Osama Bin Laden is like me: if he doesn’t find the answer to his query on the first page of Google’s results he gets impatient, call’s the Internet “stupid” and just goes to his Facebook page and plays Bejewelled Blitz.
I think the US Government doesn’t have too much to worry about in all of this anyway.

I’d be willing to bet there are more people out there Googling Mel Gibson and Oksana Griegorieva (which incidentally is on the first page of Google results when you search for the answer to the math problem of what happens when one train leaves a station in LA at 60 mph on the same track as a train leaving from New York at 45 mph, where do the trains collide?**) then there are searching for US Military Strategy.

* Yes, I know Dan Rather isn’t dead, but I assume one look at the Medusa like visage of Nancy Grace would kill him. Then, after a period of mourning in which Television spent at least 6 weeks replaying Dan’s most important news stories and the shame and scandal in which he retired, they would finally bury him. About two days after that the horrible memory of Nancy Grace’s meat haunch face would force him to roll over (because you don’t want to throw up while lying on your back).
** Answer: On the Internetz

My Garage is Haunted

Dear Solitary Reader: This is my first real post since the move to the new house and there’s a good reason for it. You see, Solitary Reader, I’m fairly certain that my garage is haunted.

In a super world my garage would be haunted by the spirit of someone who knew something about cars. Then it wouldn’t have cost me so much for that transmission fluid change at Mr. Lube yesterday. I would make friends with said spirit by putting a TV in there and leaving it on all night and then inviting neighbourhood children in so that the spirit could reach through the TV and eat them. If there’s one thing I learned from watching Ghost Whisperer its that spirits like Poltergeist.

However, as its not a super world I am certain the spirit in the garage is not that of the Michelin man, not even the Fountain Tire guy, but instead this spirit is of a holiday bent. How do I know so, you might ask?

Let me recount to you then a tale of woe with a twist ending worthy of a film by M. Night Shamalan (that is to say, it starts with a good idea but ends up being poorly executed with a twist ending that doesn’t make up for the sense of disappointment in the experience).

It was a hot and sultry day in the burbs of Maple Ridge. I had just finished putting up a ceiling fan and knew the world was off because I had a) installed the fan correctly and b) had not been electrocuted , lighting myself up like a Christmas tree. I brought the dregs of my home improvement project downstairs with the intention of placing the empty box, along with the carcass of the old light fixture, in the garage. I opened the door and sensed right away the oddity.

It was cool in here, not the cool of a ground floor  garage on a hot summer day, nor even the cool of Arthur Fonzarelli, (okay, maybe it was that); my breath frosted in the air, and everything I learned watching Supernatural told me that there was a ghost in the garage – and me without my rock salt. The door swept shut behind me (not completely, we have to replace the door so that it will close all the way as they’re supposed to do, next home improvement project) and then I heard the voice.

“Frosty the snowman, was a happy jolly soul… Frosty the snowman…” In fear, I dropped the box containing the old light fixture. Being environmentally conscious I still turned off the light and I left the room.

Twist ending: I twisted my ankle on the slight step back into the house – I told you you would be disappointed.

Okay so the garage isn’t really haunted, there’s a musical Christmas card in there somewhere that sings “Frosty” whenever the wall shakes.

But here’s the true scary thing: I have no idea where that card is! Every time I go in the garage a tinny female voice will yelling “Frosty the Snowman” will welcome me… until I can find it and shut off that evil for good.

Now that’s  a twisted ending.

All Your Life Has Lead Up to This Moment…

Dear Solitary Reader: Did you ever spend hours upon hours doing something that everyone else told you was pointless but you had to do it anyway? No, I’m not talking about work.

There are these little things, these little habits, these little hobbies. These are the things that we use to whittle away on the great wooden block of life when we only have a few moments. “I don’t have time to do much, I shall just play some Bejewelled Blitz until supper” 15 minutes later the garbage still needs to be taken out and you’re frustrated because you can’t get to the frenzy level.

I remember as a kid watching The Last Starfighter. I always wanted to be like the main character who beat the game and got to go fight in an intergalactic war; but for me the game of choice as a kid was one in an entirely different vein: Tetris. I played that game for hours. Every lunch hour in the computer room I was dropping the 4 line bombs; if nerd had been street I’d be one hip gangsta doofus.  As it was I was just a doofus.

I have never lamented all those hours playing Tetris; but I never kidded myself that they had any use; but it turns out I was wrong.

For you see Solitary Reader, I am moving. Not from the Fortress, nae never that; I am taking the physical body that contains the mental mind you read before you, yea unto a new location.

Everyday we’re packing boxes and as I place this right there, and that right here, I can hear the Tetris music in my head (doo doo dooo doo, doo doo doo doo da doo doo – you know it really doesn’t look like much written down) and I can fit piece after piece in box after box. It doesn’t just stop there; as I pack box after box in to the Mazda five again I hear the music and box after box fits as snugly as a bug in a rug (tangent: time to clean the rug if it has bugs).

I’m getting so good at this I fit our 46” TV into an egg carton. True story.

So stay the course my friend. There will always be garbage, there will not always be Bejewelled Blitz (come on, we all know they’ll replace it with BB 2.0 “Kickin’ the Family Jewels”). Eventually you will realize that all the time you spent slack jawed and drooling at the computer was a form of training for something, not necessarily greater, but necessary.

Another Oil Disaster

Dear Solitary Reader:

I was going to do a touching article on how the World Cup is bringing everyone closer together in my office; well, it isn’t, so I can’t do that. The German guy almost kicked the Serbian guy in the nads when his team lost today; the English guy isn’t talking to anyone and the French guy is crying over his cheese. Shameful. International sport is NOT bringing together my office,  it’s tearing it apart!

And so, I trolled the Interweb looking for something to call news. It wasn’t long before I found it. 

Now we’re all aware of the biggest, oiliest disaster since Geraldo Rivera’s hair ruining the Gulf of Mexico; the CEO of BP obviously took a dip in the waters off the Florida coast to coat himself in that slippery crude before he went before Congress because he slid through those questions like a Pelican through the hands of a rescue worker.

But now, while surfing the Internet on a lazy Friday evening, I have found the second greatest threat to the world’s oil supply: palaeontologists.

In the news today there’s this: Alberta scientists discover largest bed of dinosaur bones. When I first saw the headline I thought they were intimating that the dinosaurs had all died in the midst of an orgy, but such apparently was not the case; these chaste little Centrosauruseseseses were, most probably, wiped out by a tropical storm.

Now if I recall my high school biology the single greatest source of oil is still the blood of a baby Smurf (which is why gas costs so much because a baby Smurf doesn’t have a lot of oil in it and the the oil goes sour in the adult Smurfs, contaminated by their rampant smoking and drinking); but the second greatest source of oil comes from the bones of dinosaurs.*

And now there’s a bunch of paleontologists running around Alberta waking up dinosaurs from their years of long rest, disturbing the ghosts of the Centrosaurus and stealing their bones.

So now not only has BP deprived the world of millions of gallons of oil by letting it get contaminated with salt water; but scientists have just stolen millions …. and millions… of barrels of oil from the future by running off with these bones.

Thanks Science. Thanks ever so much.

* In the course of researching this article I learned that oil is no longer thought to come from bones of dinosaurs, but rather a fossilized plankton ancestor – let’s call it dinosaur plankton. WAS NOTHING THEY TAUGHT ME AS A CHILD REAL? Dammit, I refuse to believe you – this new spin on the creation of oil is merely the work of the same scientists who took away the Brontosaurus – they were obviously afraid people would fear that without the Brontosaurs the world’ oil supply would diminish much faster. Despite learning this, I wrote the article anyway.

Counting Green Lights

Dear Solitary Reader: I commute pretty close to 2 hours a day and I don’t like the process.

Some people, who count themselves wise or perhaps just read it on the side of a Starbucks cup,  say its not about the destination, its about the journey but to those people I say: bean curd! The whole point of driving is to get from point A to point B as safely and quickly as possible. It’s too bad not everyone can share my opinion.

I could go into a whole host of reasons why I don’t like driving (okay, its not that I don’t like driving its that I don’t like driving with other people on the road) but that’s not what this is about. The other day I had myself a realization.

I was on the way home from work and it was one of those days where I seemed to get every red light – even the ones that are pedestrian controlled that never turn red. I tried for the most part to let it slide of me, and was fairly successful, for I have come to the realization that I can rage against the machines in front of me and get home at 4:15, or I can take it easy, relax and listen to some music and get home at quarter after four. This is not the first such day that I have felt that all the lights were against me.

But the light changed  for me yesterday when I realized that its not that all the traffic lights in my path were red; its that I only noticed the red lights and ignored the green ones. I was taking the green lights for granted and the red lights as a personal affront. This is more than just a red light green light situation, this is a realization of my own view of the world.

Where, along life’s highway, did I become so bitter that I stopped looking for the good things and appreciating them for being in my life; have I become blind to all the green lights in other areas of my life? Simply, yes.

Many people have said it in many different ways: it all amounts for being grateful for the good things you have. And its not to say the bad stuff isn’t bad – because bad stuff happens and bad stuff sucks – but its about shifting my viewpoint just a little.

And so, for the first time this morning I counted green lights on the way to work, and you know what? I WAS RIGHT I GOT ALL THE RED LIGHTS!

Heh, just kidding. Seriously, I got at least 3 times more green lights than I got red. So if you’re going through a rough period and things are getting you down a) I hope you get through it but b) take a look around and count all the little green lights life has given you. It won’t solve the problems you have, but maybe it will make you feel better.

There, that’s my motivational speech for the day. Tony Robinson has nothing to be afraid of… well except looking in a mirror… man that dude is ugly… (red light)… but he IS rich (green light!).

Every Day Danger

Dear Solitary Reader:

Today I went to work, driving my car most of the way (I portaged it about 3km up some rapids just to see how Lois & Clark might have done it – ahem, Lewis & Clark), parked in my underground lair – ahem parkade – and took the elevator. Just as I do every day. But this time there was something different.

This time when the two half doors of the elevator closed and like a good compromise, met in the middle, I perceived something sinister about the experience.

Now I can attribute this sinister feeling to any number of things.

• I’d been up for more than an hour at this point and hadn’t yet had that first sip of coffee.
• The doors gave a slight hitch just as they closed, like the last breath of a man dying from alcohol poisoning
• I drank the last of the Strawberry Kiwi juice and that stuff was really concentrated at the bottom – so who knows what the hell it was doing to me.  Maybe I didn’t even portage after all… Arrghhhhhhhhhh
• I’m just plain out of my gourd.
• etc

What, I thought watching the doors meet in the middle like a fat man’s belt, would happen if those doors wouldn’t open again? I would be stuck. Now as far as dangers go its pretty mundane – let’s face it I would be stuck in an elevator with a full travel mug of coffee and a book I had just bought. Heck… throw in a bean bag chair and I might just do that tomorrow.

But if I was stuck in there forever for some reason I could die. There wasn’t even anyone in there I could go all Alive on if I got stuck in there after I’d eaten my lunch!

All around us every day there are things that come and go and cross our paths that could kill us. It’s enough to make you paranoid. Did I make you paranoid? heh cool.

Cars – a car is a couple of thousand pounds of metal, fibreglass and death; we put people behind the wheels of cars that we would never give a gun – and they’re all over the place! Elevators. Appliances. Electricity. Segues (I don’t trust’em). Subways (the transportation). Subway (The restaurant). All of these things can kill you if you don’t watch out.

Next time you hop in an elevator watch the doors. Think about what you would do if they never opened again.

Here’s just a few of the things that could get you.

Spill Over

Dear Solitary Reader

Before I start, I’d just like to take a minute to mention all the people who felt the need to correct me on my last post – that whole 35/prime number debacle – and say the following: screw you all! You people who get your jollies pointing out the flaws in other people disgust me.

I don’t believe in math anyway. Don't try to frighten me with your sorcerous ways, Math Lover. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress... oops… sorry nerd blackout there for a moment.

Heh seriously – good catch – there’s a reason I only managed the 13th percentile in the math equivalency of my MBA test (for the record I got 99th percentile in the bullshit portion).

So anyway…

We’re now in the 50+ day of gallon upon gallon of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico; the only thing flowing faster than the oil into the gulf is the bullshit from BP. It’s been covered everywhere (the story, not the gulf although that’s getting close) and perhaps one of the most interesting facets is how everyone is blaming Barak Obama.

Now, I’ve never been a big fan of Obama – not because I liked Bush but because Obama is a politician and I don’t like politicians – but honestly, are the people of the US expecting their president to load up a Nerf Super Soaker with Dish Soap and spray’n’wash some pelicans? Or maybe he should hop on Sea Force One with a cargo load of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and start scrubbing the ocean clean?

Before the election everyone thought Obama could walk on water, maybe now that the water in the gulf is a little thicker he actually can; but one thing seems for certain, that dark smudge doesn’t just seem to be sticking to the southern US Coastline but to Obama’s reputation as well.

I think its time that Barak took a hands on approach to this situation as we’re reaching a crisis level both politically and environmentally. There’s only one thing he can do: assemble a team of today’s best, brightest and toughest and send them down in a submersible to cap that leak. You can’t just send anyone though, you have to make sure you get a team that will get the job done; with that in mind I propose the following team:

Captain Morgan Freeman: He might not know how to pilot a ship but his calm soothing voice will help to depressurize any stressful situation – hell that man’s voice is so smooth it might just depressurize the ocean and he could talk the oil into slowing down. With Roy Scheider now on his eternal Seaquest, Morgan Freeman is the only viable choice.

First Mate Bruce Willis: This man has been through for Die Hards, Demi Moore and a Fifth Element. There is nothing he can’t solve and no terrible situation he can’t endure. He’ll be the guy that gets it done if anyone will. He can just stare at the hole until it closes up itself because it knows it’s the right thing to do.

Sharon Stone: There’s no good reason to have her on the ship (or on the Earth for that matter – oooo burn) but she is contractually obligated to be on every risky underwater mission, movie or otherwise.

Steve Buscemi: We all know that on a trip like this, so far below the surface with death a possibility every nanosecond, someone is going to crack under the pressure. Having Steve Buscemi along will take the guesswork out of who is going to crack – we all know its going to be him. He will start, endure and finish the trip strapped to his bunk so he can do nothing to make the situation worse.

Plex: the magic robot from Yo Gabba Gabba – he should really be useful. Together these 5 sturdy adventurers will do the impossible and save our fractured mother earth.

And really, should the unthinkable happen and they fail worse than BP already has, they’re just actors so there’s no big loss.. well except for Morgan Freeman… and Plex.

Life With a Crawling Daughter

Dear Solitary Reader:

Well I hit 35 over the weekend and it failed to bring about the miracle of maturity that my wife was hoping for: sorry dear, maybe next year (but don’t hold your breath).

And because I’m older and wiser, here’s some numerology billshit: 3 is a prime number, 5 is a prime number and 35 is a prime number – therefore I am currently in my prime. Next year however it will be a different story as I will be divisi-Bill by 1,2,3,4,6,9,12, 18 and 36.  Ghastly. I know. 37 however should see a return to my prime.

In other, more important, news yesterday I watched my daughter crawl from the living room into the kitchen on hands and knees. For the last couple of months she’s been utilizing the army crawl and has perfected the art of falling backwards from standing to end up in the ideal belly crawl position. It’s like watching a G.I. Joe figure come to life.

All that has changed as now she has discovered the  increased mobility that comes with crawling on hands and knees, and as Ben Parker said: “With great mobility comes great responsibility – for the parent.” At least I think he said something like that.

When the boy started crawling I don’t remember the fear setting in; but my son, like his father, was a lazy kid. Oh sure, he could crawl, he just didn’t see any point in it. My daughter however has all the curiosity of a Mythbuster, but none of the responsibility to the insurance companies to keep her from exploring everything she shouldn’t be sticking her fingers in or putting in her mouth.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m happy for Daughter. Her world is opening up; blossoming into a realm of possibility where every room might hold something new and around every corner is an opportunity waiting to be explored. It’s just as a parent my wife or I now have to follow her around to make sure there isn’t a petrified Willow (cat) around the corner waiting to lash out or to make sure we didn’t leave a pair of scissors on the table (which would explain why the cat was petrified… and bald).

I propose a mathematical hypothesis: The relationship between a parent’s ability to get something done is inversely proportionate to a child’s mobility. That is to say – the more the kid can shimmy, the less time the parent has to get anything done because he or she is chasing after little Jr. who’s chasing the cat with the hedge trimmer.

The formula would look something like this:

Free Time = (Speed of Parent)(hrs of sleep)/# of children)
                                (speed of child)(proximity to nap)

I foresee this being fairly useful for day planning.

*Warning: formula has not been perfected yet. Any accidental holes in the space time continuum are entirely the fault of the user.

I Have A Suggestion for U, Facebook

Dear Solitary Reader: As I type this right now there is a little panel on the left of my Facebook home page telling me I should add some guy to my friend  list. I don’t know this person.

In fact, if you were to stand this person up next to a hole in the wall beside Bessie Smith and the boys from O-Town I wouldn’t know who the hell he was (though as I’m occasionally intelligent I may be able to puzzle it out. For instance I would start by eliminating Bessie Smith and then, reasoning that all the members of those boy bands of days gone by looked the similar I could reasonably pick who belonged in O-Town (or I would google a picture of them on my i-phone) and the person remaining would more than likely be this fellow that Facebook loves so much).

Yet Facebook is telling me that this dude should be my friend; now as I’m a friendly dude, and my humour is without parallel (thankfully),  I can see how it would be in his best interest to have me on his friend list. I mean, come on, memberships in the Fellowship of Bill comes with the access to the awesomeness that is the Fortress of Verisimilitude plus I can also cut up a shoe and a tomato (though not with the same knife).

But that’s not my point; my point, and I relish this because I so rarely have one, is that I don’t know this dude.

Everyday I log on and Facebook is suggesting that I should do something to make my life better; without any knowledge of the inner workings of my life. Facebook reminds me of a specific aunt, who without fail, tells me whenever I talk to her how to go about living my life. That’s right, Facebook is becoming that annoying relative everyone has, the one who knows everything about everything (because of the status updates) and gossips like all hell (again, thanks to those status updates). I never listened to my aunt, and I will not listen to you Facebook.

While logically it works out that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (and the enema of my enemy is his own business); it is not true that the friend of my friend is also my friend (although the enema of my friend is also his own business).

So John Kerr, I`m sure you’re awesome, and my life is a pale shadow of what it could be if I were to add you as my friend on Facebook I will not do so; to add you just because Facebook suggests it would validate that useless panel and therefore you and I shall be like two ships passing in the night… travelling on different oceans.

As for you Facebook – here’s my suggestion: take a long walk off a short pier.

Signed,

Not Yet Friends with John Kerr

Technorati Tags: Facebook,Bessie Smith,O-Town,friend,friend list

The House of Mouse Horror

So in the news today we see that Canadian scientists have ripped away the mask of the “kind, caring, polite Canadians” the world has come to know and tolerate. Fresh from the national paper The Globe and Mail comes the article: How to Torture a Mouse.

Okay as you can see the article isn’t about how to torture a mouse (because, as we all know, alls it takes is a plunger, some duct tape and a battery and they squeal like a maid in the house of Naomi Campbell). Instead this is an article that tells us that when experiencing pain, mice flinch and make other facial gestures.

The beneficial ramifications of this study are something along the lines of “we can tell that the mouse is hurting because it’s making a pain face and that’ll let us know whether other research we do is hurting the meeses.” I’m paraphrasing… just a wee bit. But really does it take a scientist to figure that one out? I can tell you’re hurting the mouse because of the electricity you’re shooting at it… and I’m not even a scientist!?!

There are two things that make this story wrong:

1) Somewhere in the article it tells us that, much like humans, the mice make pain faces when hurt. Has anyone noticed that they use mice for a lot of things because they’re just like humans? Well here’s a thing about humans – we are big on revenge. So if mice are enough alike humans to feel pain and show it, to test drugs on because they’re systems are similar then mice also probably like revenge. Rest assured some doofus is probably injecting some mice with super serum that’s going to result in a mouse that’s pissed off with humanity. You know what that’s going to look like?

Rodent of Unusual Size. Nuff Said.

2) And the other thing is: these scientists have just blown the cover of the greatest mask ever worn by a civilization. Canada for decades has been known as the nation of the polite, the home of humility, the core of caring and other such drivel. Everyone in Canada knows that’s a farce – we have our hates, our greeds, our lusts as much as the rest of the world – its coated with a thick sugar coating to disguise its evil core mind you, but its still there.

But now these scientists have, without taking it to a democratic vote, blown the cover off of our facade of kindness; but then, I guess a referendum would have been pointless because Canada hasn’t reached a decision on anything by election in decades – that’s right I’m talking about you minority government.

So world, we might as well own up to it. We’re Canadians. We’re evil. Do you know why nothing attacks Canada in the movies – why aliens will bypass our fair skies to descend upon our neighbours to the south? BECAUSE WE’RE IN LEAGUE WITH THEM. That’s right. You heard me.

And that’s not all.. if it weren’t for Canada, Coronation Street would have been cancelled long ago. WE DID THAT! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Alright that’s it. I’m out. I’ve got to go torture a mouse… I’m missing some cheese.

Technorati Tags: Mice,Torture,Pain face,naomi campbell,R.O.U.S,Coronation Street,Evil

Do You Hear that Buzz-ing?

While sitting in a state of flux, supper not quite done, kids playing outside, I turned on the hockey game in the background while I tried to catch up to my sister in Bejewelled Blitz (I will eventually, she hasn’t beat me through a week yet) and I heard an employee from Westjet offer me his Carantee.

At first I was a little discomfited because I don’t roll that way, but then I realized that this carantee he was offering was the offspring of a brief tryst between “caring” and “Guarantee” after a night of drinking cooking sherry. “No thanks” I said. But he kept talking at me anyway. Why don’t commercials listen to you?

Some old people lament about what teenagers are doing to the English language what with their texting and the lols and such; me I think the process was started long before that when some advertising execs locked their employees in a closet and told them to come up with something “clever.”

Smashing two words together to make one non-existent word and talking like its an actual world does not make it a word.

The business world is another contributing factor to the destruction of the English language; which I guess makes a sort of sense because it is the bastard cousin to the advertising industry.

Right now in my workplace we are “leveraging technologies.” Now I’m almost sure that this means we are using technologies appropriately, but I’m not sure because leveraging is an ambiguous word created by some dude who needed to update the book he wrote for bizness college because then he could say it was a new edition - he was leveraging his textbook let's say.

What does leveraging mean? Maybe it means we’re using it as the fulcrum in some sort of heavy lifting tool – but as I work on the set of Office Space I doubt that’s the case.

Back to the guy at Westjet, don’t sell me some mythological carantee – sell me a plane ticket and throw me a free f$#!king sandwich and a drink and we’ll talk caring.

The Death of the Man From Atlantis

Yes this is Patrick Duffy

Right now as you read this there are litres upon litres of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. If you’re in the US, that’s gallons upon gallons of oil (you see? I write for an international audience!) spilling into the pristine oceans Mother Nature created for us (because God told her too). This has been going on since April 20th… that’s two weeks ago. You can spill a lot of oil in two weeks.

Gas companies, sensing a more firmer excuse than “we felt like it” to continue the financial raping of the working person, have used this spillage of oil to increase prices at the pump. Life continues. That is as long as you don’t live in the oceans in the Gulf of Mexico.

Green Peace, PETA and Charlie the Tuna will all preach to you about the catastrophic effects of such a colossal spill on the sea life in the Gulf of Mexico; pessimists will tell you that the area will never recover, optimists will tell you that there’s now one less step involved in deep frying fish (what do you mean it’s not that type of oil?).

But everyone talking about the effects of that messy little leak has already overlooked the worst possible thing that has happened due to BP’s little booboo: the Death of the Man from Atlantis.

Who was the Man from Atlantis you ask? Well before MacGyver ever stepped foot on that fabled continent Patrick Duffy, also known as the Man From Atlantis, was swimming under the sea saving turtles from Japanese harpooning ships and rescuing sea horses from sharks.

Growing up I can remember sitting with my mother late at night waiting for my father to come home from his job at the bar; we’d sit and play Sorry! (she cheated mercilessly and contrary to the name of the game never did apologize) and watching old TV shows (well they’re old now, less so then).

The Man From Atlantis was always one of my favourites and I was always surprised that my mother watched it because she was never a fan of the odd sci/fi shows. GAHHHH…. I just realized she liked the show because she got to watch Patrick Duffy in a bathing suit and threw up in my brain a little.

And so it it is with sadness I present to you the obituary for the Man From Atlantis, who’s oil soaked body washed up on the shore of the Gulf Of Mexico. Doctors, who seem to be all of a sudden driving fancy sport cars that they didn’t have before the press conference, assure us that this death was due to natural causes and had nothing to do with the massive amount of BP oil clogging tMfA’s lungs.

Name: Mark Harris Weight: A svelt 185lb… soaking wet Height: Taller than a dolphin, but shorter than a shark. Life: Taken from us too early, Mark Harris, the was born in Atlanta… wait, what? oh Sorry, Mark was born in Atlantis. He lived to see his civilization sink into the ocean (well actually, it was a city under the sea so actually it sank further into the ocean).

He was a public figure for a time trying to rescue the oceans of the world from the evils of Mr. Schubert. Eventually he grew tired of life working at the university and moved to the driest place he could find, reasoning that no one would look for a man from the sea in Texas he because truly a fishman out of water.  Where did he go? Well Dallas of course.

Eventually Patrick Duff… er Mark Har.. er Namor… or… whatever his name was, like Legolas, heard the call of the sea birds and made his way to the Grey Havens. There he stepped majestically into the ocean and sought to swim back to to the ruins of his native Atlantis.

Yeah unfortunately that was on April 20th. The Man From Atlantis is survived by Flipper, the cast of Finding Nemo,  and the cast of Sea Quest with the exception of Roy Scheider and the career of Joxer the Mighty. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to your local food bank (always a good idea); but please no sea food.

God rest ye merry fishyman…

Men in Skirts and Ninjas Riding Bicycles

If you go out of your door today, here’s what you might see I hope it doesn’t happen to you, but it happened to me; There was no bear on a tricycle, but maybe it was the lunar cycle But today’s the day the ninjas ride their bicycles

Mondays are crappy days. Mondays after flex days are especially crappy. If you’re not familiar with the concept of flex days basically one works a longer work day so that on the tenth day he/she/it can rest. It’s like having a long weekend every two weeks (don’t worry though, the magic of the real long weekend is still maintained). Back to my point.

Mondays mark the first day of the week where you have to wake up to the shrieking harpy that is your alarm clock. Do the routine: get dressed, go downstairs, eat, leave and drive to work assuming none of THIS  happens to you. This morning however was a little different.  This morning I saw a couple of odd things that put a little more lustre in a Monday than might otherwise be there and the first was: a ninja, riding a bicycle.

You know how sometimes you’re driving along and see something out of the corner of your eye and you’re not quite sure what it was you saw? This wasn’t that. This guy was a ninja. And he was riding a bike. And he was a responsible ninja because he was also wearing a helmet.

So how do I know he was a ninja you ask? You didn’t ask? Well I can tell you were about to so here’s how, aside from the ninja stars sticking out of his helmet this man was dressed in full ninja regalia. He was wearing black pants, black shirt, black shoes; in short (not in shorts) he was dressed like a man whose occupation it is to skulk in the shadows and kill for hire.

Also, underneath the helmet he was wearing a black mask. All you could see were his eyes. Cold, calculating killers eyes. I knew what he was thinking… THE DRAGON’S FIRE BURNS HOT!

I drove on pretty sure that this was the weirdest thing I was going to see this morning…

If you go out of your door today, here’s what you might see
I hope it doesn’t happen to you, but it happened to me;
I saw a fellow, let’s call him Kurt whose sense of dress was inert
For today was the day that Kurt thought he should a skirt to work

In retrospect, living in Vancouver, seeing a man in a skirt isn’t all that uncommon but I think the difference here stemmed both from the fact that Kurt as a man was unattractive (at least as I judge such things, but I’m not the best judge for male attractiveness because I swing for the straight team) – Kurt as a woman didn’t just hop over the hideous line but jumped, leapt and vaulted into that level of visual distinctiveness heretofore reserved only for Rosie O’Donnell and Rita McNeil.

Now while one part of my mind is trying to merge Odetta with Detta to get the Lady of Shadows, another part of me is wondering if probably this man was in fact Kurt McCloud of the Clan McCloud. Because the only other acceptable explanation for Kurt’s choice of dress (even the fact that it may have been laundry day was no excuse) was nationality. Kurt may have been Scottish. It may have been a kilt.

I’m trying to convince myself this was the case but one thing works against accepting that explanation: Kurt’s skirt was grey with no visible signs of a tartan indicating clan. The normal mind might take this as a sign that all was as it was seen to be; but the normal mind is not what saw Kurt, and if the normal mind did see Kurt then the normal mind would not remain normal for that much longer.  So it seems obvious to me that Kurt was a member of the Clan McCloud.

The history of the Clan McCloud is one of immense ups and downs and it’s tied intimately to the Highlander series of movies. The clan experienced a massive upswing with the general populace and indeed with other clans after the first movie gained such a cult following; in fact, the clan McCloud was poised to take over the top position in the Bloody Great Men which is the street name for the Scottish underground Mafia (I’ll make ye an offerrr… ye canna rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrefuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse). But after the release of Highlander’s 2 through 4, Sean Connery, who is as God to those people, turned his face away and the clan was stripped of its tartan.

And so Kurt McCloud of the Clan McCloud walked wherever he was walking and I drove wherever I was driving and our worlds kept turning, each in its own orbit.

If you go out of your door today, here’s what you might see
I hope it doesn’t happen to you, but it happened to me;
Just keep the look off of your face
the world is a strange and frightening space
Today’s the day you’ll see strange things all over the place