Stay classy, Edmonton

Times like this, I'm so very relieved I no longer call Alberta home. Are the cops in your town a little blue these days? No problem. Gather ye porn stars while ye may, and have them flash their tits at the officers. It's bound to raise their....spirits.

Sheesh.

And what with July 1st being moving day for most of Montreal, we're going to be sans internet until Saturday. This way, we will have no distractions when we should be organizing the new place. I'll see you next week with pictures of the new apartment!

Anger, Canadian style

There's a kind of tradition in Canada where political protesters arm themselves like clowns and throw pies at the reining jackass mayor, premier or prime minister. And there's a tradition of police officers, politicians and courts getting all super fucking serious about it, and prosecuting these pie throwers to the fullest extent of some ridiculous sentiment that says a politician shouldn't have to suffer the pain and torment of momentary embarrassment.
Seriously? Remember the bullet proof glass surrounding Obama when he was inagurated? You think that was there for pies? A little bullet proof sneeze guard on the salad bar of political figures? Uh huh. And I love that the Alberta stance is that it doesn't matter how much it costs -

Robertson said Alberta Justice takes these types of cases seriously and the cost of prosecution, which is not calculated, is never a factor.

God knows it's not like they could take that pie prosecuting money and spend it hiring nursing staff for hospitals, or throw it at any of the other problems in that backwards province. Nope. Best that money goes to making sure Dave Bronconnier, Ed Stelmach, Ralph Klein and the devils other minions never again know the sweet fluffy kiss of a pie thrown in protest.

Ralph Klein, Inglorious Bastard.
No permanent damage done.

And as for claiming that there's nothing funny about it - YES. Yes, there bloody well is something funny. 1 - seeing Stephen Harper with gobs of Boston Cream Pie falling off his doucheface..why, I think that would be the BEST DAY EVER. And 2 - how delightful! When a Canadian gets really, really mad, steaming mad, I'm not going to take it anymore mad, it's the definition of funny that our weapon of choice is a pie. Shouldn't they know this? Don't all politicians go to clown college?

To dance again

Busy little bee lately, what with the packing and the cleaning that is too boring to talk about. I had a super fun time in the pit of despair this morning. Good old Wal-Mart and their post apocalyptic looking shelves. I've never been in a Wal-Mart that wasn't a complete mess, and it shouldn't surprise me that it took 3 trips around the store to find a fan. Had to do it, though. It was so hot last night that Gord and I took ice packs to bed. And I can't believe they're selling humidifiers in Montreal. Cause it's not humid enough here? By mid-afternoon, it's like breathing soup. Can't wait for that basement apartment. It's got to be cooler...

Other than that, nothing new. Jobs are good, they pay the bills. Haven't cut myself again, found a really good place for Vietnamese, a kind of meh place for Korean, and the Flames have a new head coach who might actually make them work out their power play issues. Read my first Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost, quite enjoyed it, although the ending seemed a bit abrupt after just reading David Copperfield. I love that Dickens winds up the story by telling what happened with every single character, nice and tidy like. And no matter how bad things are in the middle, there's always a happy ending. It's not true to life, but trust me, I'm not looking for a dose of reality when I reach for a book. I just want to be entertained, and forget for a minute that I work a crappy job which requires a uniform and a name tag, or that it's a billion degrees outside and everyone stinks of armpit, or that Perez Hilton is a giant whining douche who should just take his lumps and shut the hell up.

Know what else helps you forget your troubles? Tap dancing Voldemort.



If you're impatient, skip to the three minute mark and enjoy.
You can watch the entire musical on youtube, it's long but oh so funny. I love this Draco Malfoy.

Addiction

I am an addict. That's how you start at one of these meetings, right? State your name and your shame? So I have an addiction. There are a lot of mornings I can barely drag myself out of bed when the alarm goes because I was feeding my addiction all night. When I'm red eyed and out of it at work, I mumble something about "not sleeping very well", but that's a lie. The only reason I'm not sleeping is because of this damn addiction.

So here goes. All those times I don't call you back, or even come to the phone when you call, all those excuses for not going out with friends, all those bloodshot mornings..it's because I'm reading. Half the time it's not even a new book, so I don't have old 'have to know what happens' as an excuse for blowing you off, or showing up late. I'm addicted and would rather be home with a book than pretty much anywhere.

Oh, I slay me. But I was thinking about this today, because one of my coworkers is a smoker, and god love him, I don't begrudge him a smoke break, but why the special consideration for that particular addiction, while my plight goes unnoticed? Do you know how much happier I'd be at work if I could take a 10 minute read break whenever I needed to chill? I might never come home bitching again. Ok, that's a stretch, but there'd be fewer 'quit fantasies', that's for damn skippy.

I am a computer genius.

What I mean is, I successfully unscrewed one screw, removed my old video card, slid a new one in the slot and replaced the screw. The computer did not blow up, although it did beep to let me know I hadn't pushed the new video card in far enough the first time. Tough job, but I was equal to the task, and I am ridiculously proud of myself. I look at computers and cars as though they are likely to blow up in my face if I do anything out of the ordinary, so this was a big step for me. And I attempted it only because my brother still lives 3,000 miles away instead of down the street where he belongs.

And I got a 2nd job today, didn't even apply for this one, at the university bookstore. It's 10 - 3, Monday to Thursday, and I'll be able to walk to work once we move. The only way life could get better is if those 25 hours a week were enough to pay the bills and save some for school. As it is, I'll most likely be working weekends at the finger cutting job, but it will pay off if we can fly home for Christmas. And if the stars align, maybe I can pick up an old film Hasselblad cheap...people are practically giving them away in favour of digital madness. Suck it Blogger, I'm spelling 'favour' the Canadian way.

Auspicious beginning

First shift at actual place of work today - the last three weeks, I've been in 'super incompetence training'.

First task = Fail. Cut my finger, bled on sandwich. Just a little, but blood is not an acceptable condiment. Sterilize, and try again.

Mission details = I understood about 30% of what people said to me in french, which is also a fail, even in Delburne.

First level completed with help of super nice coworker.

Tomorrow's mission, should I choose to accept it, is to sleep in and enjoy my day off with Margaret Laurence, The Fire-Dwellers and an iced capp. Top off with So You Think You Can Dance, and it's back into the fray on Thursday with a new sense of where the edge of the blade is, and how not to touch it. As for language, I have decided that this is the Summer of Mime. I'm stuck in a box. And would you like a drink with that? How's your sandwich? Oh, it's windy here.

G'night, and dog bless.

This is not a mime.

The subtext of every rap song ever

If you liked that one and haven't already seen it, check out Jon Lajoie's Everyday Normal Guy. It's gotten 9 million hits on youtube, though, so chances are I'm the last to know.

PS. Amanda -just in case, this is NSFW :)

Quibbles

We're watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I actually like this show, but sometimes, it's just a bit much. Gord just explained the criteria to me: every family has a tragic death/debilitating illness, plus someone in the family has to do some selfless job, like fireman, or first grade teacher, noble work, but the pay is shit, and their house has to be a complete shit hole that is literally falling down. And I get that there's poverty and things beyond your control that you really can't take care of. But if your front door blows off in the wind, walk your ass down the road, pick it up and put it back on, fer christs sake. Cause there's no guarantee that Ty Pennington and his just hopped out of bed hair are going to roll down the road and build you a better house. Not having a front door is the equivalent of walking down the street with your zipper down. And if you can't afford the 4 or 6 screws it would take to put the door back on, "borrow" them from a neighbor. Oh, oh, right. You don't want to ask a favor of anyone. Nope. You'll just have your sad, no door house until someone famous shows up and convinces the whole damn town to build you a new house while you go on vacation. And then you'll come home and the contractor & his staff will have set your kids up with scholarships. But don't ask for a little help when you need it. I'm sure Ty will get to everyone eventually.

And the other quibble - there's community spirit busting out all over when the tv camera's are rolling, and everyone wants to help this poor family that everyone loves (and probably knew nothing about until the tv crew rolled in and explained the situation)...but where's the help when there's no tv crew around? Sure, maybe we can't all get Sears to comp us furniture, can't rebuild a house in 5 days, but there's plenty could be done before things get to such dire straits. And we've all walked past houses in our neighborhoods that look every bit as bad as the ones on this damn show. But instead of thinking, "Wow, I bet the people who live there have a sick kid, and can't pay their hospital bills, and the mom or the dad is a hard working first grade teacher who just isn't paid enough, and I wonder if there's anything I can do to help out?" Nope. We walk by and think "Probably crack heads. Ruining the neighborhood. Those sons a bitches deserve a falling down house."

And now I'll get off my high horse, because next time I walk past a condemnable house, I'm not ringing the bell and asking how I can help. Probably crack heads. And if not, well...we have health care and Mike Holmes in Canada.

I have a blog?

Oh yeah.

I think I've been interacting with so many people in the real world that when I come home, all I'm capable of is hiding in the bathtub with a book. Blessed silence. Only, I've gone and done a very stupid thing. I packed all my books in a fit of 'shit, we're moving in two weeks-edness' and now I have nothing to do but play Sims 3. (or clean the house...but you know what? Gord does that. He's a good little monkey, he is.)

My brother sent me a link to a blog, and what I thought was going to be funny (like the time my Unabomber Sim died of bathroom desperation) turned out to be kind of melancholy and eye opening as to the hardships of Simlife. And real life, I guess. You can check out the story of being homeless in Sims 3 here.

Open Letter to Joss Whedon

Hey Joss,

I just watched the last 2 episodes of Dollhouse last night, and they were awesome. Really great work you guys are doing on that show, and I'm so glad you got a second season. Bringing Wash in - awesome. Helo - still the coolest guy in the universe. Even notXander is shaping up to be quite interesting. All in all, I've only got one complaint.

The eye gouging. WTF, Joss, WTF? And why are the guys from Firefly always the eye gougers? First Mal turns Xander into a pirate, then Wash starts doing it... Seriously, is the whole crew of the Firefly coming back as evil eye gougers in your shows? Whose next? Zoe? River? Shepard!? Not Kaylee, please not Kaylee.

So here's to a great second season, where everyone comes through with eyes intact. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Sincerely,
Semi-rabid fan

PS. I think the Buffy movie remake is probably going to suck it, don't you?

Pants of lard

The french word for homebody is 'pantouflard', and I can always remember the pronunciation and meaning because it sounds like 'pants of lard', which is what I've had the last few weeks. It's been rainy and chilly, and I've wasted a lot of time playing the Sims, which has added zero value to my life and yet, I can't stop.

I'm still 'training', so I go to 'work' for 3.5 hours a day, which is just enough to mess up the day and leave me cranky. I had to restrain myself a few times from explaining to my coworkers that I am only bilingually challenged, not mentally challenged. It must be a good job, though, because most of my coworkers have been there for over a year, and the managers have 12 years between them. I think that's unusual for fast food.

Other news....nada. My Sims are doing well, I haven't killed them off yet. I haven't taken a hammer to the Wii Fit yet. I haven't finished my mom's birthday present yet. I haven't started packing yet. I haven't done laundry yet. I'm going to go get started on some of that.

Ps. Dr Phil says don't text and drive.