The Brick and HSBC will try and screw you out of your money.

The Brick, I wonder if their store's windows are brickproof... oh the poetic justice...

Almost three years ago, my wife purchased a washer/dryer/freezer combo from The Brick (Kirkland) with an interest free promotion of 36 equal interest free payments.

The payments were supposed to be 46$/month X 36 months for a total of 1656$ and change.

Initially the payments were made, 46$/month, we never missed a payment.

At a certain point the payments went up to 60$/month as they added a 14$ monthly "Variable Credit" adjustment, my wife didn't notice and continued paying 46$/month as prescribed by the initial contract.

After a year or so, the payments went up to 74$/month, and eventually to 120$/month, which attracted her attention, lookie here lads and lasses, this might save you lots of money...

What they did is that HSBC (the credit company) that finances The Brick, added a "purchase" of something called "Privacy Protection Plan" to the contract, a "purchase" no one signed for nor wanted, the cost? 14$/month but that's not all.

The interest free promotion DOES NOT apply to the "Privacy Protection Plan" so they were charging 29.90% interest on 14$/month, and since we never paid a penny on that, the interest has been racking up for almost three years :yikes: BUT MY WIFE NOTICED SOMETHING WAS WRONG AND CALLED THEM.

Initially they claimed they had a contract stipulating she had signed for PPP, but when she asked to see it, of course, they couldn't find it.

So they had to reimburse the PPP.

BUT...

They didn't reimburse THE CREDIT on it (a whopping 234$!!!).

Of course we would only pay the 46$ monthly payments as stated in the initial 36 month interest free contract, but they wanted more so they started calling us.

8AM Saturday.
6:30PM Sunday.
a few other times when we weren't home, we noticed this weird 1-877 number on our caller ID...

Eventually I got a hold of the phone and since I sound like a girl on the phone (singing glam rock for 15 years will do that...) they thought I was my wife and I let them.

I argued with the phone operator for a little over half an hour.

He threatened to TAKE AWAY PART OF MY PAYCHECK, seize MY HOUSE, MY CAR, (oh noes) and ruin my credit (REALLY? OVER 200$? Are they THAT Desperate for credit money?) until eventually after a half hour he realized that HEY, something's wrong here.

He initially admitted that they wrongfully billed her the PPP that she didn't sign up for but he didn't see anything wrong with billing her interest on that.

Until he realized that it was, and apologized.

He gave me a phone number to call tomorrow, I will speak to a supervisor and explain to them that we will not do business with The Brick, nor HSBC, ever again.

Also that we will not pay for interest on something WE DID NOT PURCHASE.

So beware boys and girls, The Brick and HSBC are out to fuck you up the ass with no lube.

Are you gonna bend over and take it?

I didn't think so...

I will not vote for clowns.

ARGH!!!!

Earlier this month the provincial elections were also triggered here in Quebec and frankly, I've been doing what I can to ignore them.

Maybe if I don't look they'll go away?

Maybe if I don't look, the TV channels that I watch the news on will stop broadcasting news about La Castafiore and start talking about real stuff. After all, I think we can all agree that all three major political party leaders are bullshitting us on well, pretty much everything.

In fact, I suspect that those three haven't spoken any truth in a very long time.

Last week I wrote to the ADQ which admittedly used to be my least detested party, all I wanted to know was who they were going to appoint as cannon fodder in the Vaudreuil district (where I'm supposed to vote).

They didn't reply but this week-end I noticed they followed in the PLQ and PQ's footsteps and started posting signs.

Signs to the effigy of the following lady: Behold, Lucie Boudreau (poor girl, I hope she doesn't come knocking door to door one of these evenings...)

Lucie Boudreau (ADQ): Cannon fodder.

She looks harmless enough. Unfortunately for her she'll be lucky to get 1% of votes for in Vaudreuil the mentality of the voters is a bit "retro" and they're unlikely to vote for a newcomer.

This brings me to my point; this morning at the train station, the PQ's candidate himself was handing out cardboard inserts of his face with a Vote For Me sign on it. I declined to take one but I noticed a bunch of people had carried theirs into the train and when I got off the train at the second to last stop, it was littered with pictures of that guy.

Claude Turcotte (PQ): handing out cardboard paper in an effort to litter the train.

Nice.

I think was that on her photo Lucie Boudreau looks a bit overwhelmed. She looks like she's shrugging, throwing her hands up in the air with a suspicious look of "Hey, sorry, it's not my fault".

Look familiar?

Some guy that is showing the same expression as Lucie Boudreau...

The only candidate I've not seen yet except on the posters is the PLQ candidate Yvon Marcoux which is ironic. I haven't seen him around. EVER. Even though he was our elected representative for the last 10 years, we've never seen him.

Yvon Marcoux (PLQ): ghost...

Never at an inauguration.

Never at a family event.

Never at a sporting event, after all, we host one of the largest softball tournaments in Canada.

He just shows up, once every election and plasters his face on telephone poles.

So once again, as in the case of the federal elections last month, I will not go vote for I don't vote for clowns.

Krusty The Clown: Beloved Simpsons character.

Having said that, I might change my mind.

No. I doubt I will...

Autopsy of a vasectomy

I've not posted in a while, not for lack of material because frankly with the American elections, the Canadian elections, the now official Provincial elections and other stuff I could've posted 11 times or so.

Mostly it was for lack of will.

But last week I finally had a vasectomy which I had been procrastinating on for at least 6 months.

It went something like this:

My appointment at the doctor's office was for 13:30, I showed up 10 minutes early with my wife. I drove there she would later drive me back. I brought as recommended:

An ice pack (frozen peas)
Underwear with testicular support (briefs)
Courage...

Ah yes; 260$ cash only please.

The procedure went unexpectedly well, in fact I was in and out in about 12 minutes. The surgeon kept on reassuring me that everything was going well and not to worry (ok, right).

On the ceiling above my head, they had placed two photos, one photo of two penguins on an ice bank, and one photo of a moose in the middle of a small lake, surrounded by a couple loons and some mountains in the background.

As the surgeon was blotting my testicles down with iodine fluid I resolved to concentrate on the moose. I figured I would imagine myself there with it, on the lake's banks, with perhaps a fishing rod, some tackle, maybe a sandwich, and a beer...

In fact the only thing I felt after some palpating was a cold needle into my scrotum, and barely, it didn't really hurt, it felt as if someone had poked me with something cold.

Then nothing except some weight shifting around as the surgeon first extracted my left vas deferens from the scrotum, clamped it, cut it, cauterized it with a laser, then tucked it back in.

He then proceeded to the other one and it went just as smoothly.

Honestly the only discomfort I felt was at the smell because when they cauterize the vas deferens it makes a funky smell like singed hair. (yuck!)

Also as he was pulling the vas deferens from the scrotum I did feel some pulling but it was not a sharp pain. It was a weird sensation of organs shifting around.

I suppose it's normal as the testicles are sort of interconnected with, well, everything from nerve endings to your teeth...

Once he was done the surgeon said: "Off you go, no bathing for 3-4 days but you can take a shower tonight, and you can change the bandage, it's just a band aid." He then left the room.

I thanked him, pulled up my pants and left the room as well.

On the way home I had the bag of frozen peas on my testicles for the prescribed 10 minutes every half hour.

Holding any pee is complicated at first as it's painful but that resorbed itself after two days.

So to recap everything went well and for now I have no regrets.

The only pain left is when I touch my testicles too hard. They're sensitive, I suppose that will subside (I hope).

Also I've tested and everything is "fully functional".

Until next time...

Aren't we all racist?

Yesterday morning I was reading the article from La Repubblica showing how Fascism is making somewhat of a comeback in Italian soccer with banners such as "There is no such thing as a Black Italian" and flags that are clearly Fascist and it occurred to me; Aren't we all racist?



I started thinking about it on the train ride back home last night, and it was clear to me that all of us are racist up to a certain level. Sure we're not all KKK members, none of us should really go out late at night and burn crosses and tack houses however, face it; All of us, me, you, the person at the next cubicle, even our leaders, we are all racist.

It's like this; We all have our limits and tolerances, and when these limits are fucked with, we get angry and then eventually people start talking to one another and, even though the various world governments (and rightly so) keep shutting down groups of people who assemble for racist purposes, these groups are starting to thrive in the underground.

Thus the above article.

The saying is "When in Rome..." and what it really means is if you move into someone else's house you should really observe their rules and customs so, what is the difference between a government that allows groups of foreigners to assemble in ghettos and demonstrate against their "new" country, and then in turn shuts down groups of actual "born there" citizens of the same country because they are holding meeting where they discuss other cultures and how to keep them from thriving and changing our own culture into theirs.

Changing our culture into theirs...

CHANGING OUR CULTURE INTO THEIRS...

Read the sentence above, and compare it with the following one:

Making our culture theirs.

You see the difference?

Which one of the sentences above is really the racist one?

How desirable would it be if let's say here in Canada, a large group of Swedish immigrants came in, and started changing our culture into Sweden's culture? The impact would be noticeable, we might eat more fish and our ladies might start walking around with furry bikinis in the winter months, also they are mostly Atheists, like us.

Now let's change Sweden with Pakistan. Their habits and culture is so different from ours that some of their daily activities are actually illegal in most of North America. How could you justify the lapidation of women based on adultery? If we applied that in the United States half the women would be stoned to death!

How desireable a culture is that?

And then we look at our immigration. We asked our leaders why they keep letting people from such cultures in our country and do you know what they answered? They answered that we are welcoming most of those immigrants based on the fact that under their religion and law, they would be in danger in their own country.

So why is it that they go back for holidays on a semi-annual basis?

How is it also that some of their habits, and not the good ones but the bad ones like excision (granted not in Pakistan but widespread in Muslim Africa) and their own religious tribunal (and barbaric) laws, as I'm saying why is it that those ugly UGLY practices keep showing up here in North America?

Let's assume for a second that those immigrants fled their country to avoid being stoned to death or even cast out for petty things like adultery.

So once they're here why in the hell would they then go about performing these acts?

Is there a flaw in our immigration selection process?

Do the people who choose which ones get to stay as refugee immigrants not do their jobs properly?

Or worse...

Are some of them here because they are actually guilty of such barbaric acts that even in their own countries, they would be put to death?

Consider the following. Let's say an American citizen is judged guilty of murder. He is then condemned to death in the US.

Now knowing that in Canada there is no such thing as the death penalty, (bear with me there) would he not be able to simply flee to Canada and plead that he would get killed if he went back to the US?

I did say bear with me, because Canada and the US of course have an extradition treaty meaning that their penal systems are linked and someone wanted in the US would be wanted in Canada and vice-versa.

We don't have such a treaty with Haiti.

So how wrong are the people in Italy? Or are they simply the canary in the coal mine?

The problem with the upcoming election (in Canada)

In two weeks there will be a federal election in Canada, and frankly I'm stumped. I'm no politician, however I'm aware of certain things and I have a relatively good head on my shoulders.

Let me explain:

In my area, the candidates are flawed, all of them, and as follows:

Meilli Faille is flawed simply because she is presenting herself for the wrong party, she has been a terrific elected official for the last two years or so, she is ever present on the local newspapers, she does all the right appearances and has worked for us. But she is the candidate for the Bloc Quebecois, a political party which is not only fascist by its nature, but it has run out its useful life and frankly, should be disbanded or at the very least, in a marketing move, renamed.

Michael Fortier is flawed because although I was initially sympathetic to the Conservative party, I have disliked the way they insist in presenting our circonscription with people who have no link whatsoever with our community. In other words, this guy is a gringo.

Brigitte Legault is also flawed for the same reasons as her Conservative counterpart above, whe have no fucking idea who the hell she is, what she's done before and what she's likely to do for us if she's elected.

Of course the same goes for Maxime Heroux-Legault.

So we're left with the fucking green party and some Frenchie named Jean-Yves Massenet, which really means that on election day, I'll probably stay home and vote for myself, for I refuse to vote for some guy named Jean-Yves.

Really, what the fuck are they thinking? Incidentally, I really home Marc Garneau is defeated again, he's not a politician for Christ's sake, he's a fucking astronaut!

We might as well elect the Pillsbury Doughboy.

People who speed in residential areas have no dicks

Last night I was riding my bicycle home from the train station, I've explained in a previous post that my commute puts me in such a good mood that I find myself compelled to ride my bicycle twice a day, not for entertainment purposes, but for the more European (and eco-friendly) transportation purpose.

Just to set the scenario, my house is on a residential street (no really? Duh!) that turns twice, basically, as I look out my front bay window, I see the road coming down towards me, turn left (right as I look out), pass in front of the house, turn right again (absolute), and drop again out of sight below.

So last night, as I'm pedaling away, going up the hill that leads to my house, and believe me it's an impressive incline, I have two cars riding my ass, they were slowed down somewhat by the fact that there is a stop sign (that most motorists largely ignore) at the bottom of the hill.

Then as they finally passed me, at about mid-hill, did I mention it's an impressive incline?

It's not very long, although you wouldn't know it as you go UP. It's possibly 200ft, maybe a bit more, and the incline is impressive.

But I digress...

So as they finally passed me, I looked up and found another car coming my way.

Fast.

Not just fast, damn fast.

The limit on my street is 30km/h because there is a park.

When I first moved into the house the limit was 40km/h, it was not posted, but it was the municipal limit for residential areas, and I had to write the city for them to post the limit.

I also explained that since there is a park on the street, and the park is in the middle of the second part of the hill (as you go up), the same hill with an impressive incline, the limit should be lowered to 30km/h as per provincial regulation.

To my amazement, a few weeks later some Maximum 30km/h signs appeared at both ends of the street.

So here I am, riding my bicycle uphills, with a car barreling towards me FAST. I don't have a radar gun (yet) but he must have been going at least 60km/h.

He passed by me, and by then I had reached my house, and was about ready to cross over to my side of the street (the left as I come up the hill) when another vehicle appeared at the top of the hill.

A contractor pick-up truck.

I thought I had time to cross in front of it, after all, this is a residential area and he was about 300 feet away but I hadn't realized this guy was going even FASTER than the previous one.

As he turned the corner directly in front of my house, at mid-hill, he couldn't see me because his windshield pillar was hiding me so I had to scramble to avoid him.

When he finally did notice me I was quasi safely on my own front lawn.

Quasi because a few times I've had to tow vehicles, mostly minivans, out of the ditch in the winter, and occasionally, I've found my lawn had been passed on by a night time out of control vehicle like a car, or a van.

Once I collected a cyclist who had lost control and wound up (unharmed) splattered on my front door.

I'm an adult, trained driver, have been riding bicycles since I was 8, that makes it a whopping 30 years (almost) and for over 20 of those I've been driving cars, 22 years very soon actually.

What burns me is that if riding my bicycle instead of me, had it been my daughter or even my wife, that guy would've taken them out and wouldn't even have noticed them.

So now it's on.

Every afternoon, at around 5PM the "rush hour" starts.

Like in the morning between about 7:30 and 9AM, the afternoon between 16:30 and 18:00 or so, my residential street, complete with 30km/h limit post-signs and park, becomes the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I've complained to the city who promptly have done fuck-all about it and told me to complain to the SQ.

I've stopped POLICE CARS on the street to ask them to monitor my street at least once in a while to slow down traffic, they do it in the West Island, why not here? They also agreed to monitor the street but I haven't seen any police cars on the street other than the occasional traffic.

I've asked for a speed-hump to be placed at the top, and bottom of the hill to slow traffic down, even a removable one so that it doesn't hinder the normal snowplow operations, but they've largely ignored me.

But now, it's on. I have a plan.

Where's all the playing time gone?

Last night I made it home after work, had supper, prepared a few things for this morning like coffee etc, bathed and by the time I got around to relaxing on the couch in the living room, I was already pushing 10PM.

Now normally that would all be fine and dandy but then I ask myself the following questions that apply to not only me, but my family members as well, wife, daughter, etc.

Where the fuck am I supposed to find the time to play with my toys?

Face it, we live in a society that is driven by commercialism, we all have toys on different levels, be it automobiles or motorcycles, computers, television programs, video games, electronic gadgets, garden or power tools, etc.

And we all have some, regardless of what level of income or status we have, all of us have toys.

Case and point my gaming consoles and PC. There are no less than two gaming consoles, one gaming PC setup for racecar simulation complete with steering wheel and chair, an HTPC (for those who don't know, it stands for Home Theater Personal Computer, mine has a projector and 1100W 7.1 digital sound.), a high definition flat panel television complete with high definition programming from my satellite TV provider, two portable consoles, several musical instruments, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Unfortunately, considering that I've played a total of three golf games all summer, haven't touched my fishing gear other than to shuffle it around in my shed, haven't touched my swimming pool other than to clean it and add chemicals to make it available for my wife and kid (mostly the kid) to bathe in, haven't mowed the lawn with my new lawnmower (thank you little sis) since August 14th, you can bet your ass that I also haven't played any games.

Except last Sunday.

Last Sunday was rainy, it rained all day, the house was clean and in order, there was a formula 1 race in the morning (which I Tivoed and watched later in the morning than the 8AM time it was playing at) so later in the afternoon I finally got around to playing a few rounds of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2009 on the Wii. A game I've had for three weeks now. Nice and on the TV, still sealed in its original packaging.

I have a few games like that:

-God Of War
-Rock Band Track Pack vol1
-Crysis

All never used.

So that leads me to the following conclusion:

People that own and actually get to play those games, use their toys have a lot of spare time on their hands.

So what the fuck are they, unemployed?

When I was unemployed the house was spotless, the lawn was exactly 2.5" long all summer and I did bathe in the pool thank you.

Also I had time to play NHL2006 (back then) and to restore a 1991 Sidekick to working (and glorious) condition.

So where exactly has all this time gone?

I know...

COMMUTING.

I did the math this morning you see? I had plenty of time on the fucking train. I'm away from home 12 hours a day on week-days. Consider I have 8 hour shifts and that translates into a whopping four hour commute total every fucking day.

Conclusion?

I should move my job closer to where I fucking live.

No.

Let me rephrase that.

I MUST move my job closer to where I fucking live.

Elevators

Am I the only one that finds this odd? How often I'll be in an elevator and people are having a personal, very personal conversation and I'm forced to listen because after all, we are three people in a 5'x5' box...

I've decided to list some of the oddest conversations and situations I've been forced to endure.

10-People talking about a superior and bitching about her because she has a mole.

9-People comparing tans.

8-Talking about your vacations in an elevator sucks, especially in the dead of winter or (like today) when 20cm of rainfall are expected.

7-People who take half an hour to enter/exit the elevator.

6-People with baby carriages. Why would you bring a baby to work anyways?

5-Bicycle delivery men. Sweaty, smelly, hairy, and with a fucking radio/phone that keeps dispatching someone named Hal to an address in the boonies.

4-People who carry on conversations with someone outside the elevator and keep the door open. We (the rest of the elevator occupants) are happy when you do this. It's quite entertaining to listen to you carry on and on about your kids and how they get along with their new kindergarden teacher meanwhile retarding everyone including me.

3-People on the phone. Cell phones don't work very well in elevators, deal with it.

2-There is this man in my building that every time I find myself in an elevator with him, and some of his co-workers, he keeps complaining about all his other co-workers. If I picked up on this trend, do you not think his co-workers have too? Nobody likes an elevator whiner.

1-Two women in their early 20s, neither of them very attractive, both bitching about how they both hate it when their respective boyfriends spoon them in bed to then get aroused and want to have sex in the middle of the night. My thoughts on the subject are simple, first of all if your boyfriend's advances bother you he should not be your boyfriend. Furthermore, looking like you do (ugly) and with the type of personality you have (bitch) you should be happy you even have a boyfriend.

Please, when in an elevator with strangers, shut the fuck up.

All the ways to rip us off

A few months ago, the all mighty Quebec transport ministry decided to make it illegal to drive and speak on a handheld phone. People bitched and cried but nothing came of it, as usual we sheepishly accepted it and moved on, onto the store that is, to purchase hands free apparatus for use in the car.

At the same time they made it a requirement for all passenger cars registered in Quebec to be sporting winter tyres between November 15 and April 1st (I think, not too sure of the dates) so again, the people bitched and cried but nothing came of it, as usual we sheepishly accepted it and moved on, to the tyre shop this time.

Now, just yesterday on the telly they showed a bit where some police cruisers are now equipped with intelligent cameras to look at cars, analyze their license plates and immediately report an unpaid registration to the police officer, and thereby give him reason to issue a ticket (it's a 600$) ticket.

This is little more that a cash grab.

Furthermore, as of apparently this fall, they will install photo radars in unspecified spots, apparently to slow down traffic.

I'm not too sure about the slowing down traffic bit. In essence it looks like another cash grab, I mean, how else will they pay the contractors who are being commissioned to rebuild the roads, overpasses and bridges?

I drove to Ottawa yesterday, it was rainy in the morning but the weather soon cleared up and I drove back to Quebec with the soft top down, leisurely taking the time to admire the decor. The roads in Ontario are much much better overall than in Quebec. In fact I wanted to film the transition between Ontario and Quebec on the way back. It's like getting out of your driveway (Ontario) and onto an unpaved road (Quebec).

They also have a lot of cows OUTSIDE of parliament, in their proper place, the pasture. Unlike in Quebec, their cows are not elected to become ministers in charge of doing fuck-all.

It's obvious that they're spending their money properly.

Also their taxes are lower.

In Ontario, gasoline at the pump was 1.20$/l versus 1.35$/l across the Quebec border.

I didn't, but I so wanted to just go visit a clinic or a hospital, have them check out a growth I've had on my leg for the past few years. I never had it checked out by my doctor because he's a complete idiot and I'd be afraid he'd mess it up like he messed up my wife, and previous to that, my other leg.

I wonder if I shouldn't go visit their clinics when I return from my upcoming vacations in a month or so. That'll be a sight.

In the mean time, I'll take a look, just for fun, at what the employment is like. I don't want to move, but at the same time, my ass is starting to hurt from being fucked over with an open umbrella.

The itch.

For the last few days I've been having the itch.

The one that would sometimes get me into trouble, financially and emotionally.

It's unbearable, and it started when I was about 13 and my parents moved the old piano, that used to be in the living room, into my room which had just been moved to the basement, sign of the unconditional affection they had for me.

First I repaired it. Some of the keys weren't working, after all it's mechanical.

Then, much to their displeasure, I started playing, and composing, wound up writing some pretty nifty songs. Mostly adolescent love songs aimed at what later would become my wife.

At that time I begun to constantly have music playing in my mind, I could model it at will and it was sometimes great. Although of course it's hard for me to be objective, some of the best songs I wrote came out in that period from my adolescence, to when I was about 23-24.

Eventually I moved on to synthesizers and bought one, a crap Yamaha portable synthesizer with built in rhythms and speakers, which usually is indicative of a cheap-ass instrument that will never sound good enough to record.

As I got older, I got better, the agony of my first girlfriend (not my wife, we didn't date until much later), and then my second girlfriend (also not my wife), inspired some decent Goth songs, which I didn't record until much later, when I was already married and pretty much settled.

That was the major issue with me, once my life was settled, it became uninspiring, thus, the music stopped playing in my mind.

Until last week.

However, a few months ago, after realizing that I hadn't played, or even touched any of my instruments except to shuffle them around to make room for other stuff, I decided to sell them.

My Fender bass guitar went first to a young man from a local automotive forum.

Then my Korg N5 went to some older "techno-making" dude.

I later started dismantling my wiring and the studio/recording PC I had built became a download PC that I use to download and convert material from the web. Nothing more than a drone...

Last night the older of my little sisters called me up and asked me if I had heard, the CBC is having a contest where you send in a tune, and if you win they give you 100.000$ and will use the tune for Hockey Night in Canada.

She wanted me to enter.

I declined.

I can't write that kind of music. It would be fake for me. I can't justify doing it, even for 100K$.

However, I will look around for a decent, cheap ass, used synthesizer to replace the Korg because I have a feeling I might want to jot down some music and lyrics soon.

At least sooner than I thought I would.

I got the itch baby.

You Look Like Shit (take 2)

About a month and a half ago I had two classic migraines within the same week, I was feeling anxious and had trouble sleeping so I went to see my doctor: Doctor Google. (not his real name)

Really, I've seen him do it. I'll walk into his office and proclaim that I'm growing a nipple on my leg, he will look at my leg, in turn proclaim that it's not a nipple, then go to his laptop, and proceed in googling my symptoms.

I could do that too.

Really I could.

And I have.

The only problem is that of course, I cannot prescribe any drugs to myself or anyone for that matter.

But if I could, I think I could pull it off in a lot of cases, to come up with a viable solution to whatever ails me.

Also to be honest, I could probably diagnose a lot of my peers. Recently, my dear Doctor Google had prescribed some Effexor (to me) for my anxiety and after reading quite a bit about that medication on the Internet, forums etc, I decided not to take any just yet.

I looked at my anxiety instead, I analyzed it and figured out why I was feeling anxious.

Then I looked at those reasons and worked on removing them from my daily life as much as possible.

One of the reasons, I concluded, was that I wasn't sleeping well, I decided that Sunday nights were the worst and since Dr.Google had prescribed some Apo-Zopiclone (basically sleeping pills) for 14 days, I decided I wasn't going to take them for 14 days straight.

Instead, I took them exclusively on Sunday nights at bedtime, after of course refraining from any alcohol intake. That helped a lot in the sense that now that I could sleep on Sunday nights, a full night of sleep, I could then start the week on a positive foot and proceed with it.

In fact, when I returned to see Dr.Google and explained the situation to him he didn't blink.

He didn't even seem surprised although I had hoped he might be. I was going to name this post "You should've seen the look on Dr.Google's face when I told him I had gotten over my anxiety without any Effexor." but he didn't give me an inch.

So I went for the current title.

Instead of looking surprised or arguing with me about the benefits of Effexor, before I had time to finish my monologue on how I had not taken any Effexor, he had printed out and signed a new prescription for more Apo-Zopiclone with instructions to take as needed and not abuse it as it is addictive.

OK.

That was quick, I was in and out in under 10 minutes.

I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that the nurse who gave me the appointment in the first place, had omitted to enter it in the computer, so when I showed up yesterday they were not expecting me and, only after I proved to them I actually had an appointment by showing a business card from the clinic, with a handwritten date and time, in the nurse's handwriting, did they acknowledge my appointment and grant me a visit.

10 minutes later I was out of the office with a prescription for 30, potentially addictive pills.

Nice.

And they still don't allow me to prescribe myself drugs.

Why (do?) people piss me off take 2.

I've recently started taking the train and metro in order to get into work and back home. This will not only save me about 10/15 minutes per day in my commute, but it also should save me about 250$/month. As an added bonus I get to sleep an extra 10 minutes in the morning.

That's like a car payment. Really, you could buy a new Hyundai Accent (9995$) and finance it at around 10% from your bank and wind up with payments around the money I should save.

Now, I have nothing against other people, it's only natural that common transport systems like the train and metro would be at least 90% filled with commuters. However the problem I find is in how rude people are.

Most people are well mannered and behave rather nicely, they're friendly and polite and some even smell good. They'll move out of the way when you need to pass, they'll allow you plenty of room to sit or stand and most will even use the spots available for luggage to place their luggage...

Then you have the odd 1/10th of the populace. Who will not bathe if their life depended on it, and were raised in apparently, a barn.

No manners.

They will bump into you, not just once but continuously, with their backpack which they will of course not remove from their backs, and thereby take two standing spots instead of one.

Others will insist in keeping their huge bags on the seat next to them until you ask them politely to please remove them so you can fucking sit.

Others will take well over their alloted half of the common seats.

But my least favorite are the people with laptops.

You're already crammed in a train, like sardines, there is barely enough room to take your frigging hands out of your pockets, and they're sitting there, more like lounging, with a huge laptop on their laps, watching some movie or working on spreadsheets.

Which brings me to my next point.

I would not apply myself to a work related spreadsheet or power point presentation in a common transport system even if they paid me millions. Which if they did, I'd negotiate an arrangement to work out of my home... but I digress.

If your day isn't long enough to allow you to complete your work in the allotted 8 hour period, or whatever your workday is, you either aren't working efficiently during normal office hours, or you're overworked and your boss needs to hire you an assistant.

Also, for the no-life losers who sit in the train with a Dell on their laps, working on a power point presentation showing how the company you work for is going to sap the life out of existing customers while trying to gain more market shares:

Fuck You.

You don't deserve that sitting spot. In fact, I long for the day when normal 9/5 workers will revolt and spit attack you right where you sit arrogantly with your laptop on your lap.

For the other losers that need to be watching Seinfeld episodes on a fucking laptop;

What the fuck? Did you not notice how you can pick up a portable video player with up to 4Gb memory for like 100$? It would be much more portable and you'll look much less like a loser.

Still wondering why you're single? And living with your mom?

Yep.

Bye Bye Little Truck

Two days ago I placed an ad to sell my old truck. It served me well and gave me little trouble. I have a newer truck of the same model which is in better shape and honestly, if it serves me as well and gives me as little trouble as the one I sold, I'll be very very happy.



The one I sold...



I wasn't expecting to sell it that quickly. Sure, I knew it was going to sell, after all the price I was asking was more than reasonable but, for it to sell in just under 30 hours was a little surprising.

And for full asking price.

Wow...

It served me well once again.

Bye bye little truck, I hope to see you on the road one day and, thank you.

The Curse of Incompetence in the Public Works.

I've lived in a particular area for over 10 years now and on a quasi-daily basis I drive by a specific stretch of road. Along the years several accidents were recorded here, mostly because of bad driving combined with horrific road design, road signals(signs), and poor safety precautions.

Normally, when you place a barrier to prevent automobiles from driving themselves off dangerous stretches of a road like say, a cliff, you place in such a manner as to make it relatively safe to hit it with said automobile and to thereby minimize the damage done to both the car, its passengers and the barrier.

For instance, if you were to hit the first post of a road barrier, you'd likely cause yourself more damage that if you hit the barrier in a sideswiping manner right in the middle of the stretch.

However the laddies at the transport ministry, being the mildly retarded chaps that they are, insist on killing bad drivers by placing the beginning of these road barriers exactly in the spot you might hit, if you lost control of your car in a curve and drove off road.

This results in the following:



Notice the scrunched up remains of the road barrier, also notice the weird sidewalk design where the sidewalk actually DROPS like on a driveway entry, allowing the automobile to further drive itself off the road in a more efficient and quicker way. Also, this is not the first time that particular barrier winds up that way, it usually will get repaired within a month or two (although this time it's been like that for over two months), but they replace it exactly where it was before; so that the first wooden post is the immediate target of any out of control car.

The other thing I notice is the launch-ramp there is right outside of the road, you can't see it on the photo but if you were to go stand on those launch-ramps...er, hills you could see the highway directly below them. You could jump off those and land on the highway, for added fun, they also have a service road blocked off on the left outside edge so you might think of landing on the service road, to then only wind up hitting a large yellow checker-patterned metallic sign.

I wonder, has anyone ever though of starting the damned barrier 50ft ahead? I'm almost 100% certain that SIDESWIPING the barrier would cause less damage to the car and its occupants that hitting that first post head on no?

Seriously, who do we have to fuck in order to get a decent/safe road system?

The Cell Phone Ban, Yeah Right

On April 1st was introduced "The Cell Phone Ban" where drivers were now forbitten from using a cell phone while at the wheel, there was an uproar followed by a raising of shields by all kinds of people's rights defense groups and a lot of media "blah blah blah" about it. They even had experts on the television show what kind of bluetooth apparatus would be legal, and what kind would not.

Like there's a class given in CEGEP called Techniques de Legal of The Cell Phone Behind the Wheel There-La...

So now it's over a month later, people have had ample time to acquire earpieces, wired or not for their cell phones but why is it then that every single day while I'm on the road, I see at least three or four drivers using the cell phone the traditional way, by holding it up to their ears?

I'll give you the answer to that one:

It's because the SQ and La Police De Montreal (and Quebec, and Sherbrooke, and etc.) don't have the manpower to stop normal road delinquents, the REALLY dangerous ones who speed, cut in and out of lanes, pass on the right, tailgate, illegally change lanes where there is a continuous line, run stop signs, red lights, etc.

Imagine if they were going to start wasting their precious little time by stopping delinquent cell phone users.

We should've known.

Really you'd think we would've seen this coming.

All it does is aggravate people like myself for whom driving with a cell phone is not a problem because we never made a habit of it and only did it in emergency situations. Only now we see other drivers, some of who I'm sorry but clearly wouldn't know a steering wheel if it jumped up and bit them in the ass, drive around like sissies, with a cell phone in their hand, held up by their ear.

Now that it's illegal all it does is frustrate us all.

All the Transport Ministry has done with this bill, is make bad matters worse.

"You Look Like Crap!"

About six months ago I changed jobs, I got a better job. Not a higher paying job, the hours aren't even any better than my old job but it does have some perks like paid holidays and sick days as well as some medicinal coverage, etc.

I was supposed to start relaxing, enjoying life, my wife and daughter, my car, my house, my "stuff".

Instead I started getting anxious. Not that it's a particularly stressful job, well, it is rather stressful but it's nothing I'm not supposed to be able to handle, compared to my previous job this is a walk in the park.

A piece of cake.

Like taking candy from a child.

Putting toothpaste on a toothbrush.

Easy.

Like comparing a trip to Mars and getting the newspaper from the mailbox in the morning.

But still, I got anxious. Maybe it's not related to my work. Possibly, it's related to the overall stress of society and frankly, regardless of what the reasons for my anxiety are, I'm going to fight it.

Some of the effects of this anxiety is my difficulty to stay asleep.

I've always had trouble sleeping.

As a child I remember countless hours spent in bed staring at my night light, waiting to fall asleep.

As a teenager I remember complete nights spent on my computer - this is before Al Gore invented the Internet - programming or playing video games.

I also remember starting to have migraines. Awful, full blown classic migraines complete with loss of vision, speech impairment, loss of sensation and tingling of the arms and legs, vomiting, alien anal probing sensation, etc. I used to have one per year, sometimes I'd even skip one year.

Last week, I had two. I was quasi-bedridden for three days.

So this week I went to see my doctor and the first thing he tells me is: "You look like crap!"

I explained to him the extent of my problems, well at least the ones that concern him. I started a few months ago to have serious trouble sleeping. My wife - God bless her little soul and her big heart - snores a bit, ok, at times more than just a bit but still, I've lived with her for 15 years but now, all of a sudden she prevented me from sleeping.

I'd go to bed and start listening.

I'd actually pay attention to her breathing, watching for any sign of her snoring.

Then when she'd start, I'd take my pillow and my alarm, and walk over to the couch, preferably in the basement and sleep there.

Of course, sleeping one night on the couch won't change your life.

Sleeping every other night on the couch though, starts to take its toll on your morale and frankly I started growing fatigued.

This got me anxious.

Anxious to fall asleep.

I'll go to bed and start thinking, God, what if I can't sleep again?

What if she starts to snore? Do I stay in bed or go sleep elsewhere and risk alienating her?

Of course the direct effect of this is that I immediately would not fall asleep. In fact I simply sat there, listening for snores...

Then the headaches came, and when they did I made like any red-blooded man of age would;

I took to the bottle.

This had the direct effect of putting me to sleep...

...sometimes for up to three hours.

But then I'd wake up and stay awake until dawn. Sometimes, I'd fall asleep moments before my alarm went off.

So I decided to stop drinking. Which I did. I tried to completely and utterly not drink for two full weeks. Nothing, not even a beer.

Still, I'd take forever to fall asleep only to wake up 45 minutes later to the sound of my precious little wife of 85lb snoring.

I refused to elbow her or nudge her. What would be the point of that? We'd be two of us, sitting there like morons, not sleeping.

The thing about my wife is that she's so lovable, pretty, all good things, and snoring is just out of place on her, like an Australian Wombat in Alaska.

At first it made absolutely no sense to me that she, could snore that loudly.

So I took to the sofa again. (and started drinking moderately again)

This week-end I caught myself vacuuming under that sofa, opening its hide-a-bed and cleaning that as well.

Basically getting the hide-a-bed ready to be unhidden.

So back to the doctor, after listening to me for a few minutes he diagnosed me with anxiety.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder he called it.

He said lots of people have that and apparently it was supposed to make me feel better.

He prescribed two different kinds of medication:

-Something to "help me fall asleep and apparently stay asleep", not really sure what it's called.

-Something for the anxiety, called Effexor XR.

I went to the drugstore after seeing him and picked up my prescriptions.

However last night I didn't take them.

At first I figured I'd wait for the week-end so I wouldn't have to miss work, again, in the event of some weird, rare, side effect like growing a third nipple on my forehead, or a second, fully functional penis, in the palm of my hand complete with testicles and an urethra.

Also I wanted to read up on them, mostly Effexor which he told me was addictive and would need to be weened off of.

After picking those up, I went home, changed the oil on my wife's car, replaced two burned out parking lamps on it, re-adjusted the push bars, did some touch ups on her front grille and skimmed my swimming pool.

Then I cleaned both our car's soft-tops with Armor-All and wiped off the windows.

Really. I did. I do that sort of stuff. I'm a do it yourself kind of a guy.

I've got a filter and some oil ready for my own car. As well as spark plugs to replace the ones in my wife's car at the first sign of a free hour or two.

I've also got some 50lb test Spiderwire brand fishing lead ready for me to sew the convertible soft top back into shape, as it's showing signs of fatigue at some of its seams, complete with a leather sewing kit.

But I digress...

After doing that, I went in the house, emptied the clean dishes from the dishwasher, had supper - some pasta with the sauce I prepared on Sunday - along with a single beer.

Then we had a surprise (and annoying to me) visitor, although my wife enjoys her company, I took a shower while she was visiting, after which I played Rock Band with my wife and daughter for a while, then watched some HDTV documentary on the relationship between Corals and their predators in the Indian Ocean, their cross-breeding and migration patterns based on oceanic currents and how they only evolve when they reproduce sexually but not when they reproduce by cloning...

I then brushed my teeth and went to bed.

I fell asleep, the last time I looked at the time it was 10:02PM.

I woke up at precisely 10:44PM. My heart was racing and I was sweating.

I listened to my wife snore for 10 minutes or so, then made like a coral, and migrated downstairs to sleep on the unhidden hide-a-bed. I brought the luxury of two pillows with me as well as a blanket.

I fell asleep close after 11:00PM.

I woke up a minute before my alarm rang at 5:30AM, sleeping a whopping six straight hours.

Now the question is what should I do?

Should I talk to my wife? Explain to her that for a week or so I'd like to sleep in the basement.

Nothing personal, I Love her dearly. To the point of spelling I Love her with a capital L.

And to ponder what I should be doing.

However. I need to sleep and I don't want to start taking medication just because I feel guilty for not sleeping in her bed?

In the mean while I read up on Effexor and I have to say it's nothing to encourage me to take it. Gems include (for men) painful erections (!), impotence, delayed ejaculation, although after some thought on the subject that last one might be a good thing, addictiveness, anxiety (!), drowsiness, dry mouth, weight gain which might be another desirable side effect for me, and I could continue for there are dozens more.

There's even a petition to get the manufacturer to acknowledge that their drug is addictive and can be destructive in some cases.

So I'm gonna see. Although I might take that drug to "help me stay asleep" only as a test this week-end, I seriously doubt I'll be partaking in Effexor for now and until June. It's just not me.

I'm going to leave those cyber-designer drugs up to Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and their peers.

Fuck You Madonna

Every morning as I walk to work I pass the advert for Madonna's new CD: "Hard Candy". The poster looks like this:




Considering children also walk the same hallway in the metro station I'd like to take this opportunity to praise the person in charge of deciding to allow or not advertising posters based on their PG rating... but I digress.

Now, I used to like Madonna, she was popular when I was a teenager and although she was never really my cup of tea musically, I could appreciate her music videos for their choreographies among other things.

However, once you start looking like an old hag, someone at the record company should start tapping on your shoulder and say something like:"Er, hum, Madonna? How about a Swing album?" Because face it Madonna; You're 50!

Yep, that's right Madonna is fifty years old that's fifty, 5-0. Fifty.

I'm not saying every woman that's 50 is too old to be a popstar or an actress, hell I've seen a few very doable women in recent movies, Sigourney Weaver is 49 and looks fabulous, Sharon Stone is 50 and looks better than she did when she was 40 just to name a few. Bette Midler still sings on Broadway (I think) and Cindy Lauper is 55 actually and also still active.

But the thing about them is that, well, they don't sell a product based on how slutty they look.

Madonna does.

Look at the damn album cover.

It reminds me of a Saturday Night Live sketch called Old French Whore with the subtle difference that Madonna is not French.

Another thing I detest about this, is that Madonna, speaks out regularly against exploitation among other things, also she's constantly arrogant with news reporters and also towards other artists.

Plus, all she seems to be able to do live, on stage, recently, is swear and curse.

She should really consider changing her musical style, maybe aiming her product to a different audience. And by different what I really mean is "non pervert".

But then she'd have to be able to carry a tune that spans more than three fucking notes. She seems to have trouble with that. I wonder if the guy from Milli Vanilli is also overdubbing her albums.

Oh, wait, she doesn't actually sing? It's Justin Timberlake? Really? So what the fuck is she doing dressed like a whore on the CD cover?

Marketing you say?

What really burns me about the whole Madonna experience is that even at 50 she's successful. Bitch!

I'm jealous...

Eco-Nazis at it again.

This is going to be a comment about an article I read in the newspaper, they basically took 35 of the 175 ways to be 'greener' as proposed by Gill Deacon in her book; 175 Simple Eco-Ideas For Every Day.

I have to say, that some of those make sense, shutting off the water while you brush your teeth for instance makes at least some sense as does her idea to repair leaky faucets. Although in consideration that most if not all major cities, have their own water leaks in the underground water system, you might be inclined to think your own faucet makes little difference.

But as I read on, some of them made little or no sense at all, and some of them, although could be a quick way to save energy, on the long run and when looking at the bigger picture, make no sense at all and might actually be worse than just doing 'it' the old fashioned way.

For instance:

Her idea that eating less cow could somehow lower the cattle's methane emissions is absolutely frivolous. I, for one will not lower my cow intake. In fact, wherever I go, they better damn have cow for it's not only nutritious, but tasty. That's not to mention that the thought occurs, if we all ate less cow, wouldn't there be MORE of them? Gill, this makes absolutely no sense. And Gill, have you considered that cows are not only used for meat but they also produce that delicious white milky goodness known as milk? Would you have us deny milk to our children?

Do you realize, that natural herds of -say arbitrarily- buffaloes also manufacture quite a bit of methane out of their asses?

You remember buffaloes, yes?

They are part of the animal herds you eco-nazis are so willing to defend and protect. Why defend them and deny us our cow?

Also, her concept about eating fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables would be fine and dandy if we didn't live in an area of the world where it snows for six fucking months out of a year.

Eating snow is not very nutritious, in fact, the yellow snow will make you sick. Gill, please name JUST ONE vegetable or fruit that grows outdoors, without needing to use energy for heating and light, in January, in Canada. In the article they show you a picture similar to this one;


I'd like to know what kind of fucking bell peppers I can grow in my backyard next winter Gill...

Yeah, I thought not...

Another gem is the idea that using bamboo or cork as a flooring material is going to be ecological.

How exactly will that make any impact on anything and what's wrong with ceramic and marble?

In fact as far as I remember bamboo has to be imported from East Asia and most of the cork is actually made in Portugal. How green is that, considering the aforementioned tip to only consume fresh locally grown produce?

And then she continues with the weird notion that using ceiling and vertical fans will somehow save energy over using something like a heat-pump or air conditioner. Newsflash Gill; All of them use electricity but a heat pump is a few times more efficient at cooling a house than any ceiling fan ever. This actually comes across as a pretty naive idea.

She also seems to like hybrid cars. This goes to show that she knows very little about cars and has given very little thought to the subject, and that it was poorly researched.

Or maybe she only looked at the data she wanted to see.

In Ontario, near Sudbury, lies the factory that makes the battery systems for the Toyota Prius. If you ever drive along in that area, you'll notice an appalling disappearance of the natural forest around the factory. This is because of the acid rain that the factory causes.

Now, she continues on cars stating that if you don't like hybrids you should at least be driving a manual transmission car because according to her they use less gasoline. Er, Gill, this may have been true back when automatics all had three gears. Today's newer cars, and even a lot of the older ones dating back to the 1990's actually have four, five or even more automatic gears.

And some of the cars with CVTs (You may not know the term Gill so I'll post a link to an explanation about what a CVT is.) are more fuel efficient than the manual version of the same car.

Furthemore, most cars that have a manual transmission, will be geared for performance, not fuel economy.

Her final thoughts on cars is about how if you have the car washed in a car wash it will use less water and energy.

I'd like to see what poppycock study came up with that idea.

Gill, the car wash is electric, it uses quite a bit of electricity to run the air-compressor it uses, and that's not to mention all the pollutants that they use in the manufacturing of an automatic car wash, and I'm not even going to start arguing about how it will on the long run destroy your car's paint job and force you to get a new car or at least to have it repainted.

Some other luminous ideas include using -I kid you not- glass sex toys instead of plastic ones.

What if they were made from recycled plastic? Would it be more acceptable then? Also, what happens when some poor guy has a glass prop break in half right in his rectum?

All in all Gill, although some of your ideas are fine, they're far from extraordinary or innovative, in fact, someone should sue you for plagiarism because frankly, your book, from what I've seen is simply the same old list of eco-nazi self indulgent ideas repacked in a flea-market stint to make money.

Now please, don't get me wrong, I turn off the lights whenever I leave the room and I have a programmable thermostat at home, a home which is well insulated and where I don't tolerate any leaky faucets whatsoever. I don't drive hugely overpowered vehicles in fact, both my cars are considered laughably underpowered and quite efficient for the service they provide. So, no, I'm definitely not saying that it's OK to get out there and pollute.

But I'll be damned if I slow down my cow consumption unless my doctor tells me to. And being 6'/100lbs, that shouldn't be anytime soon. Also, in January, I'll buy any damn vegetables I please.

Costco and the veggies.

I think that if there's one place I'd rather not visit on any given week-end, it has to be Costco.

In fact, I'd rather be pulling teeth, shaving my head or getting a vasectomy. OK maybe not, but it's a close second.

The parking is barely adequate and it seems everyone that goes to Costco brings all their entourage complete with mom, grand-ma and the kids so minivans are abundant and filled with nervous people on caffeine.

Patrons there are known to go shopping and leave their kids to wait in line to save time, and seemingly annoy other patrons. Also the way they herd you through the registers is not only insulting and disrespectful, but also quite inefficient although, in retrospect, it actually IMPROVED in the last few years.

Why oh, why? Why did I have to go to Costco? Simple; I needed veggies and fruit.

Why go to Costco to get veggies and fruit?

Again, simple; they have platters of prepared veggies and precut fruit, ready to eat, for much cheaper than any grocery store. Also for some reason, the veggies keep longer even precut.

While I was there I decided to look around for some other stuff I needed, a 2kg pack of coffee, a pack of 11.000 condoms (or so), I think it's called the pornstar collection which brings me to my point.

How big does a Club Size pack have to be?

They'll sell you packs of 36 pairs of socks, 24 undies, 6 umbrellas, but my favorite is the plen-t-pack of vitamins. You get a jar of 1.000 vitamin tablets for about 20$.

Then when you leave the store you wind up an overcrowded DANGEROUS parking lot.

First of all, parking lots are not the Indy car Motor Speedway, it's a friggin' parking lot. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to drive over 15km/h.

Secondly, people, when will you learn to put your friggin' kids on a leash when you're in parking lots? OK, just for the love of God, hold them by their hand.

Third, people seem to forget how to park, crooked, too close to the other cars, too far, my favorite is the people who have a fetish to park backwards then complain because the car behind them didn't leave enough room for them to insert the six-pack of mattresses in their Buick's trunk.

Yeah but it's easier to get out...

Nice.

The 4" cable rant.

So there, you're at the store and you want to buy a toaster, or a microwave oven or better, a small TV like those nifty LCD panels. And you plan it all out, this goes here, that goes there, the toaster on the counter, the TV next to the microwave and then you get home.

Only to find out that those items all come with a 4" power cord!

And you realize that the reason behind this short power cord is that if the Chinese manufacturer that makes the items for whatever corporation you purchased it from, can save 5¢ over the cost of a unit, they will.

And this was their best method, shortening the cable.

A perfect example happened to me last night. I had been shopping for a unified remote control solution for my living room. Not that I have an incredibly advanced nor fancy home theater setup, or that I'm particularly lazy.

Actually, I don't mind getting up from my ass to do stuff, but to adjust the volume every time a commercial comes on I'd rather do it from my couch OK?

About those commercials, why is it that if you talk to the CRTC they tell you that broadcasters aren't allowed to boost their volume during commercial breaks yet it seems every last motherfucking channel does this. Then you contact the channel itself to complain and they basically tell you to fuck off because they don't do that.

You must have misheard.

Quite like the airport ministry. When they decided to move the major air-traffic to a smaller localized airport that also happened to be very close to residential areas, we were told not to worry, that only newer, quiet aircrafts would be allowed to take off and land during the night.

Yet every fucking night I'm rudely awaken by a jet plane.

And when you call them, or write, to complain they claim that they have no record of a plane taking off or landing at those times on those dates.

But I digress.

Last night I got home, programmed the remote control with the USB interface, this was rather easy, you simply install their CD into your PC's drive, and follow the instructions written in plain English.

Then I went to install the base, as this is a rechargeable unit which allegedly will never EVER need batteries. But it sure could use a longer cord.

WTF?

You have this real fancy rechargeable remote control that cost over 150$, has a 1.8" full color LCD display, a library of about 12 million devices it can control, and a two foot cord.

What the fuck are you supposed to do with a two foot fucking cord?

The TV's cabinet is four feet off the ground. Considering an electric outlet is, as per norm, 12" from the ground so you're left with three feet to cover with a two foot cable.

You might as well be climbing Everest with a 1 meter lifeline.

Or go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire drunk.

Or on American Idol with a faceful of pimples. Or try to popularize Oasis, soccer and pubs in the USA.

So I did what every Alpha Geek would have done. I spliced the cord with some extra cables I have lying around the basement. It's on a power adapter anyways so the power actually flowing through the cord is 6v which is pretty much harmless unless you're a goldfish.

This works well and cost me about 5¢.

But this will forever be added to my pet peeves.

Conversely that remote is absolutely amazing. The only thing it can't to is make chicken wings.

How much is TOO safe?

A-Ha, the 80's teenage band recently came up with a song titled :"Cozy Prisons". Yes, this is the same band that played Take On Me and The Sun Always Shines On TV. They seem to have bloomed into a rather good band actually.

The song in itself is a pretty, adult rock song. Something that you might hear on an FM adult relax station.

However it's the lyrics that get you thinking.

They basically amount to saying, "Please take off your kid's bicycle helmet once he's done biking and he's sitting on the porch, having low fat yogurt."

Seriously, have we, as a society gotten to the point where everything has to be 100% idiot proof? If so, then look at the message we're sending; "We're all idiots." I sure hope aliens are not out there, watching. They'd sure have a laugh.

Going back to my other post about the ministry of transport's pet-peeve against cell phone users (which by the way I keep seeing lots on the road, daily, mostly of a particular demographic but I digress...) and now, more recently and unrelatedly, when drama hit a family in the area.

Indeed, last week a young girl was found hung in her room by her bathrobe, she apparently had fallen out of the second floor of her bunk bed and, supposedly, the rope from the robe got tangled around the upper portion of the bed, and her neck. She had been alone in her room less than half an hour and she was 6. Her mother was home but, in a different room.

What were the chances of THAT happening? I can't fathom how little they must be. Consider how safe these beds have been made, combined with the constant surveillance kids are faced with nowadays, the usual marvelous timing it must have taken for this to happen just when the mom was looking the other way, etc.

Now I'm not calling them idiots far from it. My kid has the same type of bed in her room and she's had it since she was about 4. She also wears a bathrobe from time to time. No, we don't have a camera on her 24/7 although I'm sure we'd like to.

And yes, we've had to admonish our kid very recently when a friend of hers came over and they were playing "Let's jump off the top floor of the bed".

Nobody got hung.

Now, the coroner will recommend the removal of these bunk beds from the stores and they will recommend that they be removed from the reach of children.

How much is TOO safe?

Cars cost more and more, mostly because of all the idiot proofing components, safety accessories etc. Apparently over half the cost of an entry level vehicle purchased new today, is related to airbags, ABS, All-Trac, and other safety features.

Moreover, some cars have airbags that once deployed, cannot be repaired nor replaced and normally, even a smallish accident which might deploy these airbags results in an otherwise perfectly repairable car, being sent to the dump.

They have driver airbags, passenger airbags, rear airbags, side curtain airbags, Mercedes has even developed a system (get this!) that lowers one of the windows slightly when the airbags are about to go off because, the sheer amount of airbags going off simultaneously in the sealed habitacle, would result in a change in the air pressure, large enough to damage the occupant's eardrums!

That's a lot of airbags.

Now, since we've had passenger side airbags, children are not allowed to sit in the front passenger's seat because the airbag could go off and take the child's head with it.

The problem is that since people don't actually come out of the same mold, some women and smaller men also can (and have been) decapitated by these airbags so what have they done?

They removed the passenger side airbags? You wish.

No, they've embedded a scale you see? Within the passenger's seat, that allows the passenger airbag to be triggered ONLY if there is a passenger of suitable heft sitting on the seat.

Meaning that if you're silly enough to sit your three year old on your front passenger seat, the airbag will not trigger in impact.

Trouble is, someday, someone preferably an American (and their toddler) will get into a wreck. The passenger airbag will not trigger because the scale in the seat told it not to.

The toddler will be killed in the wreck, but some coroner somewhere will decide that the toddler would have been spared had the airbag actually triggered.

So what will they do? Will they develop a camera system that will monitor, in real-time, all the forces involved in the impact, and then decide whether it's suitable to trigger the airbag or not? And if so how much will THAT cost?

Can't we just place all the cars on a conveyor belt and read our papers while sitting behind the wheel, with our helmets on?

"And if you're careful, you won't get hurt,
but if you're careful all the time, then what's it worth?" -Cozy Prisons, A-Ha.

What's the worst thing that might happen?

When I turned 18, my mom and dad gave me permission to "access" some money that they had put away for me, with the help of my grand-parents. Although it didn't amount to much, it was enough for me to buy myself a car that I could use to commute to college.

Back then, it was inconceivable for my mom to allow me to rent an apartment near the school I was going to attend. I was to remain home while studying. This of course would have been fine and dandy, had I attended a college within reasonable driving distance.

I didn't. I would've liked to attend a college that would have been closer but no.

They forced me to attend a college that was a whopping 100km round trip, in horrible traffic as there was no direct route, three different highways had to be used daily, as well as two main (and very busy) bridges. (That is an entry I'll keep for next time I'm feeling particularly angry at my mom.)

As a result, I never actually attended college as much as sporadically show up once in a while.

Incredibly, I managed to maintain a decent average on both semesters I was there, and to pass, but ultimately I grew weary of the commute and quit.

College hours were from 8AM to 6PM Monday to Friday, except on Wednesdays when I had the "luxury" to start class at 11AM. This of course meant that my mom could "use" me for odd jobs around the house until 10AM because "one hour should be plenty to get you to school on time".

Yeah. If I had a jet-pack, or the Bat-mobile, or both.

That amount of traffic meant I had to be out the door on the way to college by 6:30AM, and that I would only make it back for 7:30PM. I remember my mom used to take a fit almost daily, because she thought I was gallivanting away, between 6PM and 7:30PM when I finally made it home, exhausted, only to be yelled at for being "so late". Mercifully we had no cell phones back then.

Now, in retrospect, how unreasonable was it for my parents, my mom mostly, to force me to study out of the family home when she had never been to this college and thereby never "tasted" a daily commute of that magnitude?

Quite a bit. So I quit in the middle of my third semester and went to work.

But I digress.

Back to the car. I enjoy driving on the open road, there's nothing quite as relaxing as a nice drive along the countryside with the soft top down. The problem strikes when I'm confronted with complete idiots who firmly believe that the open road is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

When I bought that first car of mine, it was a beauty. A 1981 SVO Capri. It had an inline 6 cylinder engine with a turbo and was FAST. I had little experience behind the wheel and even though I purchased the car in January, and drove it through the rest of the winter on SUMMER TYRES mounted on low profile wheels, I failed to wreck it.

Even though it was the first time I had ever driven a manual transmission with a clutch, I failed to wreck it.

Even though most of the time I had it I had barely enough money for gas (given the commute), so tyres and maintenance were spotty. I actually ran out of brakes one morning, they simply didn't work when I needed them. I miraculously managed to pull myself off the traffic without hitting anything and to drive it SLOWLY to a brake shop.

And I drove it hard. Sometimes I drove it like I had stolen it. But myself and my friends had the common sense to know when we were going to far and to pull back way before the moment, where all hell was about to break loose.

We had our limits and knew it. We respected that.

For two years I even managed not to get any tickets which was miraculous, considering some of the stunts I pulled along with some of my friends. I did eventually get an illegal right turn ticket, it happened at 6AM while I was driving my date home from HER prom, she was two years younger than I was.

Later that summer I got a ticket for driving through a yellow light which apparently is only legal if you're driving a cab, or a bus, but not if you look 20 and have a sports-car.

However, I did manage to remain out of trouble and never hit or kill anyone like the youngster did last fall in my neighborhood when he jumped a curb while he was racing a friend, plowed through a cedar fence and buried a three year old that was decorating her baby sitter's backyard for Halloween.

So I wonder, do teenagers today have no limits or do they simply have no common sense?

Why (do?) people piss me off!

I live in a Godforsaken country.

Don't get me wrong, I like this country, in itself it's innately a very nice country to live it.

The nature is mostly glorious and the conditions of living are comfortable, there is plenty of work for "the competent" although unfortunately, it also has its part of incompetent.

Did I mention incompetence is one of the things that piss me off the most?

Did I also mention how most of these incompetents manage to wind up in politics?

And then you will find me asking myself: "How does he/she manage keep his/her high-profile job???"

But I digress since this is not what I intended to talk about today. What I meant to speak about is people who piss me off.

If you don't mind I'll keep digressing for a moment or three for I might have explained myself badly a moment ago. It's not that MOST of the incompetent wind up in politics. It's actually quite backwards.

In fact, it's that most politicians are incompetent. There.

That is rather more exact.

Back on topic; On April 1st, as if it were a monumental practical joke on all of our province, our transport ministry implemented some new traffic laws. They more than doubled fines and driver's license point penalties for several offenses, such as speeding. This is fine for me as I seldom drive over the limit by a large enough margin to attract Smokey's attention.

But the other law is what really burns me for you see? They've also made it a traffic violation to be behind the wheel of a vehicle while using a cell phone.

The law is very clear about the cell phones, you're allowed to use it, as long as you don't HOLD THE CELLPHONE WHILE DRIVING.

Meaning that if the cellphone is somehow mounted on your dash like any other cockpit instrument, and you have some wired, or wireless apparatus going to your ear, you're golden.

This is where the problem is.

So in essence, we're not allowed to have a cellphone in our hands while we drive. I can imagine my conversation with the next police officer I can get a hold of:

Me: "So we cannot have the phone in our hands while driving, why?"

Him: "Because we want both hands to be free for you to drive your vehicle and having a conversation while holding a phone in your hand will distract you from actually driving the car."

Me: "What about smokers, they have to hold a cigarette in at least one of their hands, I don't recall ever seeing hands free cigarettes. Some of them have a cigarette while passengers are in their cars and they talk with them."

Him: "No, smoking is fine."

Me: "What about having a snack?"

Him: "It's still a violation but we mostly tolerate it unless there is an accident."

Me: "How about mothers that have babies in their back seats and are being distracted by them, I've seen them, they drive with one eye on the road -if that much- and the rest of their attention on their baby, some of them even jiggle toys in front of the baby to amuse it while at the same time hogging the passing lane."

Him: "No, that's fine."

Me: "What about GPS systems, some of them are handheld."

Him: "No, they're fine."

Me: "So let me make sure I understand, if I have a cell phone in my hands and I'm caught pushing a single button on it while behind the wheel, I get a 115$ fine and 3 demerit points but, I can program my destination in a GPS while I drive and this is ok?"

Him: "Yep."

Me: "How about if one of the passengers were to hold up the cell phone to my ear while I'm driving?"

Him: "h.. err.. I dunno. I'll have to ask."

Yep...

Yep...

So by now, the brighter crowd reading this, will have realized that when I mentioned the incompetent in the introduction, what I really meant to say was: "Our fucking ministry of transport is incompetent."

I'll limit my political rant by closing with the fact that if the opposition party had opposed this new law, the same way they opposed a law allowing the energy ministry to monitor and somewhat dictate what the sales price for petrol would be, they would have managed to look competent.

Instead they ignored it and it thereby passed at the parliament.

Conversely, I can't speak too proudly of drivers. It seems that nowadays, if you try to respect the speed limit people will honk, cut you off and then finish you off with a middle finger salute.

Like it's YOUR fault that the speed limit is unreasonably low.

And it's your fault that you really don't want to get a 600$ speeding ticket for driving 90km/h in a 70km/h zone, but that the bulk of the traffic navigates the same 70km/h zone in excess of 110km/h.

And that it's very rare that the police are actually out with a radar monitoring and handing tickets out. But then, it doesn't matter does it? After all, it's only illegal if you get caught no?

Well excuse me for not gambling 700$ with absolutely 0 chance of winning.

Entry level workers; REVOLT!

I have a sister who is a bit of a hopeless case against what I'm about to say here. She's held entry level jobs or "McJobs" for her entire adult life. She somehow seems to consider these jobs as being important. Like her life depended on it.

In her case, it does not.

As a matter of fact she could leave it tomorrow and still be relatively well off because she has no children and lives at home, with mom, who pays pretty much everything except the petrol she puts in her car. Her car is paid for and she has little debt.

Yet she defends her job vehemently, it's almost like she works for NASA or something.

She is a stock "person"; Meaning that her job is to open boxes of stuff the store receives, and to place this stuff on the sales racks. That's it.

Previous to that she was a stock "person" for another store, opening different boxes of stuff and placing it differently, on different sales racks. Oh and in both cases, they make her work when the store is closed, and on occasion, on holidays for inventory. Like last Christmas day and Easter Sunday.

All that for about 9$/hour.

She has a certification as some kind of loan agent or something, not that I know much about being a loan agent, but it seems to me that being a loan agent might pay more than 9$/hour.

I also suspect she might get more respect from her superiors although I might be wrong there because having a "higher level" job does not mean that the boss will have any more class than your previous boss, at McD's...

Regardless.

I keep witnessing clients, customers in various stores and under various situations abusing the clerks or the cashiers and I keep asking myself why they just stand there and take it. I'd up and leave, of course, this is why a store wouldn't hire me, in my late thirties, close to 20 years working experience etc.

They know I'd tell them to shove their McJob up their McAss at the first sign of abuse.

This morning for instance, I was at Dollorama...

Relax, I don't go there to purchase two billion dollars worth of useless crap made in China, which would encourage the Chinese in their repression of Tibetan monks blahblahblah...

I usually will drop by once or twice a week to pick up chocolate, which is made in Mississauga Ontario, or Yum Yum chips which are actually made locally here so please save your sermons about how by simply ENTERING a Dollorama, I singlehandedly encourage a foreign economy.

Dollorama incidentally is still owned by the Rossy family. Who may be foreign, but are definitely not Chinese.

Notice? I digressed...Told you I might.

At any rate, Fat Bitch who was ahead of me in line was purchasing three coffee mugs, the cashier, a young girl, early twenties, very probably in the same situation as my sister, wrapped the mugs individually in paper, rather carefully actually, then placed them in a plastic bag and handed them to Fat Bitch. Then the conversation went something like this.

Fat Bitch; "I want another bag."

Cashier; "Pardon?"

Fat Bitch; "I want another bag, over this one, in case it breaks. I have a long way to walk."

To this the cashier proceeded to giving her another bag, over her normal bag and off she was supposed to go but no, Fat Bitch had to sneer at the cashier, then look at ME of all people, and roll her eyes like her obscene obesity, facial pilosity and the resulting bitchiness were the cashier's fault.

I held my tongue. I do that a lot in real life. It sort of serves me well that I have this "blog" as an exit for my frustrations and rants, it kind of works in a perverted Freudian way. For me writing this is a bit like masturbation but with less lubricants. Again I digress...

Two bags for three fucking coffee mugs. The whole combined weight of the mugs might have been about one pound, maybe less.

I waited patiently while Fat Bitch gathered up both her mostly empty double bag and, her miniature purse, that looked even smaller as accentuated by Fat Bitch's gargantuan proportions. She then wobbled away slowly still rolling her eyes at anyone looking at her.

I gave the cashier a smile, and was rewarded with a smile from her. I genuinely felt sorry for her. Her job sucks I mean face it, she counts items, wraps them as needed, takes payment into a cash register and hands bags to customers all day long. But on top of that she needs to remain polite and friendly with the most annoying people.

For less than 9$/hour.

I wouldn't do it for twice that. It's a question of respect.

Now, in case you've not noticed, look back up at the title of this post. Notice anything?

You called it, I digressed for a full glorious whole post. Well ok, not a WHOLE post but half of one.

So this goes out to all the entry level workers, the cashiers, clerks, everyone universally who makes minimum wage and doesn't live in a town where everyone knows one another. REVOLT!

The next time some customer asks you to do something extra for them, make sure they deserve it.

If they snicker at you, or treat you disrespectfully tell them. If they don't realize they're complete tards, let them know you will not stand there and be insulted, you too are a human being, and the fact that you happen to work as a slave does not give them the right to insult you so, REVOLT!

Keep in mind here YOU have the advantage. If you were to get fired, all you have to do next time you apply for an entry level job is say you never worked there in the first place.

And if you ever decide to get a REAL job, and you manage somehow to get an interview. And your current boss, at your current McJob, buys your excuse for not being at work that day and you actually wind up going to this interview.

A word of advise; Just don't tell them you got fired four years ago, because you told Fat Bitch to keep her attitude for her Fat Kids.

Of course some people have other type of entry level jobs. Some time ago I was working the customer service phone help desk for a large computer corporation and the salary was well above 15$/hour. Yeah, I took some abuse over the phone but the department had a strict two warning policy. If you insulted me, it was ONE warning before cutting off the phone line and if things got out of hand we had a blacklist where we wouldn't serve people who had a history of abusing the "agents".

Also once we called the police because one of the guys was threatened physically by a customer.

I kept the job for almost a full year while actively looking for another one. I wasn't in a hurry and although the job sucked in more ways that I can think of, the salary was considerable and as a husband, a father and a home-owner with a mortgage, we needed it so I bit the bullet and hung on.

Boy was I happy when I left. I'm still farting rainbows now.

My second memory

Lots of people claim that a person cannot remember past a certain age, for instance some years ago, a psychiatrist on a radio talk show (no, not Fraser Crane) was arguing with a caller that there was no way she could remember what her parents did or didn't do when she was four.

I'm not really sure what the whole argument was about in her case.

I remember though, an evening when I was about five years old. The fair was in town, I lived abroad then, and the fair was similar to the ones that roam in North America. It had games and rides etc. and the evening had started off badly; my mother didn't want to go, my father wanted to take me but I don't recall any argument between them.

However, I know now that around that time, my little sister was born so clearly, it was more of an inconvenience for my mom, than for my dad, for him to take me out. Also to be honest, I suspect that my dad enjoyed getting away from my mom.

She would have to stay home with my little sister. The trouble with my mom as you will eventually see, is that she doesn't have a single maternal bone in all her body. At least she didn't when I needed it. She might have improved as a mom now, although I still cringe whenever my mother is present.

But I digress.

You might find reading this, mostly on the long run, that I will digress often. Quite often in fact.

So off we went, my father and I.

Almost immediately, the evening started getting progressively worse, as I was walking happily with my hands in my pockets* I tripped on the front gate's rail and fell face first on the concrete sidewalk. I still, to this day, am missing part of my nose. Oh, don't worry, it's nothing major or disfiguring. If anything it gives me the kind of rugged good looks that Owen Wilson gets paid to display smugly on the silver screen.

Of course he also has a full head of hair as well as scripted lines. I have neither although I can improvise relatively well when required to.

I also scraped my forehead and my chin although both to a much lesser level. They bruised but I have no visible scarring.

My father immediately took me back upstairs, cleaned my up and after some arguing with my mom, took me back out.

Later that evening, I was riding a circular ride, the type of ride that today would completely disorient me and cause me to empty my stomach in the cockpit.

It consisted of these mock up UFOs, the cabin had a stick to go up and down, with a large button embedded on top of it with which one could, if pressed at the appropriate time, "shoot down" enemy UFOs.

A free ride was awarded to the last remaining UFO.

I'm not really sure how it worked, all I remember is that I loved it.

I also remember not wanting to leave, and peeing myself in the process, much to my father's disappointment. I doubt he was upset at me, in fact I think he laughed with a sorry look on his face when it happened, the kind of laugh you give a puppy that topples over and knocks its head on the floor while playing. Not a mean laugh, there was nothing cruel in it. My dad was not a cruel person.

However, knowing my mom, I sure wouldn't have liked to be in his shoes when he brought me home that evening.

*The hands in the pocket were a consistent sign of impending doom for me as a child. I fell head first onto ceramic stairs when I was not quite four years old yet, opened my lower lip and destroyed the gums below my lower teeth in the process. Later, when my grown up teeth came out I had to get an operation to graft some skin on the gums in order to prevent the teeth from falling out forwards. It's hardly noticeable now except for the scar on my lower lip and the horrible memory of being held down by several nurses while the surgeon sowed up my lip and gums. There were no anesthetics involved.

I will never have any piercings. Ever.