Blog Question Of the Day:

Please disregard for a second that the girl in the picture is actually the TV/movie actress Hayden Panettiere.



How do I get a girl to look at me like that?

Blog Question Of The Day:

Why don't animated GIFs work on my Mac?

Anyone want/need a perfectly good (if dated) inkjet printer?

Star Wars on Christmas Eve is awesome!

I finally found the GOD DAMN Shake'n'Bake in Extra Foods!!!

Its time for the annual guessing game!

We are amending the rules this year to compensate for the World Junior Hockey Championships. Tips for 2009 ended with the Blades game on Dec. 16th. That was the last event I worked, in 2009, not counting the WJHC. Thus tips for the year are considered to have ended with that event.

The WJHC will have its own guessing game, after the last game on Jan. 5.

Here are your hints:

Some insipid entertainment news program just came on and described Tiger Woods' marriage as crumbling.

Crumbingl CRUMBLING!!! The dude banged 11 whores!!!

If Tiger Woods can rescue his marriage after banging 11 whores, and then admitting it, he truly IS the greatest athlete of all time.

Blog Quote Of The Day:

Life is nothing but a series of down moments.

Everyone bitches about the price of things. Everything is too much money, and no one ever wants to pay full price. It seems like everyone is waiting, waiting, waiting for a deal.

This afternoon I came up with a brilliant idea for how to lower the cost of vehicles.

Signal lights should be optional, and not standard equipment. Think about it. If they made signal lights optional, they'd obviously grossly over-price the option, so if you wanted them, it'd be like $1000. Voila, I just lowered the price of your new automobile by a grand.

Let's face it. None of you assholes are using the damn signal lights anymore, so why the hell even have them?

Blog Song of The Day:

Because The Night by:

1. 10,000 Maniacs - MTV Unplugged
2. Bruce Springsteen - Live from Verona '93
3. Patti Smith w/ Sarah McLachlan

And only listen to the Cascada version if you actually want to go out of your way to get a headache.

I think they need to come up with a better Viagra commercial. These cheesy one's are just getting on my nerves. They need to bring the female audience in as a potential source of new customers. Consequently I've come up with what I think is the perfect slogan for selling Viagra (or Cialis, or any other erectile dysfunction drug).

"Boners taste better with Viagra"

Blog Quote Of The Day:
(bonus points if you can name the movie)

"The whole world's against us dude, I swear to God"

I have decided that, until further notice, I am going to have a 'thing' for redheads.

That is all.

Blog Quote Of The Night:

I don't think the world even makes an effort to understand my insanity.

The weird thing about Facebook is that every time you get an alert, its about someone you know.

Blog Song Of The Day:

Slipknot - Snuff

Blog Song Of The Day (Friday):

Hedley - Cha-Ching

Blog Question Of The Day:

Can someone please explain to me why Slipknot wear those bloody masks?

Here's a video for everyone that likes blonde chicks and metal music . . .



Its definitely blonde

I need someone's help. Because I clearly do not understand what goes through some people's brains sometimes.

I'm driving home tonight. I get behind this mini-van that is in the second lane from the right edge. We're coming up to a set of traffic lights. I would estimate we were maybe 100 feet from the lights. Suddenly, and without warning there is a hard brake, and a brutal left lane change. Across two lanes of traffic, and into the left most lane.

How in the HELL do you get so mixed up that you don't realize where you're going until you're 100 feet from the bloody intersection where you want to turn? Christ, that was like being in the right turn lane and slapping your forehead and saying alone 'but I want a LEFT turn!'

God help us if road conditions were typical for November. That would have been a skid, and a slide and into the intersection on two wheel pointed in the wrong direction.

One of these days I'm mounting anti-tank weapons on my hood, I swear to Christ.

This was an absolutely sickening effort of football.

Our return game sucks. Why doesn't Armstead just fair catch it?

I can't decide whether having a root canal would be more or less painful than watching this debacle called a Rider football game.

How about some touchdowns?

The single, safety, 50 yard field goal approach to coming back in this game is not working.

Okay, we have to pull our quarterback. There is NO WAY he should have thrown that ball.

Something finally went the Riders way.

Its half-time.

17 NET YARDS OFFENSE!?! What the hell!?!?!

I don't like our defensive game plan here. They let Hamilton march it 70 yards then finally get it together and stop them at the 2. Where was that back at the 35?

Do we have any offense in this game at all? Two-and-out again. Even the Argos can get a bloody first down on a fluke.

This is a very weird way to mount a comeback. I support the defensive stand and getting a two-and-out but so far we have a punt single and a Hamilton safety for 3 points. Wouldn't scoring a few touchdowns be a better approach?

Way to go Riders. Take a turnover and follow it up with a run into the line and a sack. That's quality offensive play-calling.

I'm shocked. Recovering that fumble was the first worthwhile thing the Riders have done all day.

Hey look, we scored! 17 more punts and the game will be tied.

What the hell is going on here? Are the Argos wearing Rider jerseys today? is this some kind of cost cutting measure by the Riders? Don't travel east but just hire out the game to another team!?!

Blog Revelation Of The Day:

After extensive taste testing I've decided I like Pepsi more than Coke.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Do I want to make a Mac out of a Dell 10v?

Let's be clear about something.

No one looks good with a mohawk.

I find myself in a mode of re-evaluation again. I had something said to me that, was a conclusion which I could have come to on my own. However I had not, and the frankness with which it was presented was a little startling. Now I sit here in my chair, thinking about all the ways in which things are not right.

To anyone that knows me it will not come as a surprise to hear that I hate doctors. But I've gotten myself into a conundrum where I they have become absolutely vital to my continued survival, because continuing on the course which I am on will lead only to ruin. So while I hate them, I need them, so I went to another one today. This was a new one. I had never seen this guy before and before long my distaste for medicine spilled out and this guy called me on it.

He pointed out that my bitterness and contempt with doctors may be preventing me from getting the kind of compassionate care that I desperately crave.

This points me in an awkward frame of mind. It is not the first time in recent weeks that a commentary has been made on my general negative state of mind. In fact, it is becoming something of a running theme. But for an outside observer to comment that I have lousy attitude is a far easier thing to do than for me to realize it in myself and change it. Nonetheless I have noticed that I take a dim view on life these days but that realization alone is not enough to fix the problem.

I just find it perplexing that so many people around me can notice me drowning in, whatever it is that is attempting the swallow me, and yet I can't reach up for the surface. I just sink, further and further beneath the waves of it, until light ceases to penetrate the depths and there is only the inky blackness.

Okay, this needs saying.

If you're going to be a country artist, then you need to stay true to the damn genre. Don't pussy out and pepper your show with a bunch of rock cover songs. There is no doubt they are going to play better to the audience. At the root of it, no one really likes country and given the choice they will always gravitate to the rock music. That's why you're playing the damn rock songs. You know you suck, being a up-and-coming country star. So you sprinkle your show liberally with songs people will actually recognize and try to get some buzz from the audience.

But lay off the damn AC/DC! Some things are sacred.

I mean Christ, are we really supposed to fall for this shit? Okay, I get it. The chick has no recognizable hits of her own. Yes, you're a frustrated musician, stuck playing in a support band for a no-name female country singer from back water Saskatchewan. But Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick, don't offend my sensibilities by thinking this crazy broad is gonna do a cover of Thunderstruck!

Luckily cooler heads prevailed but my point still holds true. If you wanna be a country singer, then sing your stupid, god damn country music. Leave out the rock music and have some god damn integrity, for once in your pathetic career.

I can't watch the Indianapolis Colts without thinking about Batman

Relax.

Its just the flu.

You're not going to die.

Winnipeg's new name should be:

No Left Turns

Epilogue:

I will kill every filthy bastard that I catch camcordering the television. This is my solemn pledge.

And one more thing . . .

Don't post video of you pointing a camera at the television!!!

Its just stupid. If you can't do a proper video-capture of the feed, then don't post! Christ is that annoying!!!

I'm gonna be honest about something.

It took some work but I just watched the whole Kanye West/Taylor Swift fiasco on Youtube. Every jack knob and his dog seemed to have posted a video response to the bloody ordeal. This made finding actual footage from the VMA's hard to do. But I watched the coverage from the show and you know what?

I think it was staged.

Everything just played out a little bit too nicely. It was like a puzzle where all the pieces fit together and you had a nice picture of a potted sunflower at the end. We have an ogre-ish villian. There's a sweet, angelic, young princess. Standing in the wings is a flawless queen that can come in and save the day with her almost mystical perfection.

Everyone boos the villian. We all scream for the queen. It plays out like a perfect fairy tale. The story plays out to a much too neat conclusion.

I'm gonna be disappointed if I find out they did this on purpose.

For the record. . .

Facebook is a piece of cow dung tonight.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you today about a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

I HATE doctors!

They never do anything helpful for me. Almost without exception they have abandoned me to suffer misery and torment, cold and alone in the frozen wasteland. It was to the point where I simply wouldn't go to them at all. Not even if I suffered a major injury. Who all remembers the incident with the broken foot, and the three day wait before seeking treatment??

Cut to this year. I was suffering headaches on a daily basis. And I don't mean that as hyperbole. It was near to daily. I would say 5 days out of 7 at least. Its possible it was more. I wasn't keeping precise records. Many were multi-day events where the pain never stopped. It just continued from day to day. At one point it was so miserable that I had a sore neck for six weeks from this headache pain. Every morning I would wake up with an ache in my neck that would soon become a headache once I was ambulatory again.

So I gave up my long-standing policy of flipping the bird to the medical establishment and I finally found a 'family doctor' in Saskatoon. 17 years after I moved here and was told by my first psychiatrist that I needed one. I picked a guy with an English sounding name out of the list and went to see him.

First of all, I don't think a physical should take less than 5 minutes. That doesn't seem thorough to me. Granted, I didn't want his hand up my ass, but still it didn't seem like he really did that quality of a job of checking to seeing if I was dying. I described what my most immediate concerns were and as soon as I said 'headache' he immediately jumped on the migraine bandwagon and was enthusiastic about sending me to a neurologist.

Now I have no problem with going to the neurologist. I think its something that's been due for a long time. But my point is, he didn't really check anything on his own before he ran off in this direction. He gives me these migraine pills and it was only when I asked if they counter-acted with my current psychiatric drugs that he bothered to check if it was a problem. Isn't this something that should be a matter of course??

I'm delaying myself from my point.

I've been to the neurologist and they've given me some prophylactic drug for migraine treatment. I hate it. It makes my head feel all numb. Its a very similar feeling to the one you get in your foot when you sit on it for 20 minutes. I may have told this story before. But the reason I hate doctors, and the reason I bring this up again is, I am absolutely out of options to deal with this problem.

I can't go back to the ding-bat family doctor, because I've done that once and he doesn't listen to the problem. Plus its clear he's not qualified to diagnose these problems, or suggest a solution. You can tell by the fact that he doesn't listen to you when you talk to him. And it even more clear when he matter-of-factly suggests a stupid fucking solution that I could have instituted on my own, if I wasn't coming to him for a more informed god damn idea. Cut the dose in half. Nice diagnosis Dr. Killjoy!

I called the neurologist and she's not planning to talk to me until my four month wait period is up. If we're keeping score, my four month wait period is not up yet. So I'm fat out of luck getting to talk to her. Unless of course I up and DIE, in which case she might be able to squeeze me in.

I've explained my concerns to the psychiatrist. She is at least sympathetic but, and I can't really blame her for this, she doesn't feel adequate to make medication changes on migraine pills. I suppose I can accept that. But in the mean time I have a numb damn head every time my heart rate goes up, and I feel like I'm half-asleep all the time.

If any migraine specialists are reading this post right now, I would really appreciate a diagnosis at this point. I would dearly love to stop taking Topamax, but at the same time I can't concentrate if I have to have a headache every second day or so. I need the third option.

Blog Song Of The Day:

Ashley Tisdale - What If

Blog Poll Of The Day:

Am I old?

Yes ( )
No ( )

Please vote in the Comments

Blog Question Of The Day:

Would I be able to establish a VPN across the internet with key friends, using only commercially available internet packages?

Sticking with the AC/DC theme . . .

What's wrong with people that smoke?

Okay, I'm going to concede that we are outside. And the general consensus is that if you're going to pursue that unpleasant habit then it should take place outside. But I think you're missing the heart of why its supposed to be relegated to outside. The point is for it to be inoffensive to us, the greater majority, that think its gross.

That being said, when we're packed 16 people to a square meter, that is NOT a good time for you to fire up a Marlboro and enjoy a smoke!

I'm stuck in the middle of a T-shirt line. There's a least a 100 people on all sides of me, and I'm jammed into that pack much like cattle prodded towards the slaughter of the killing floor. I can't GO anywhere. There's nothing I can do to avoid your smoking. I can't move. I can't turn away. I can't stand somewhere else. I'm just STUCK there.

So don't fucking smoke! Why is this so god damn hard for you to comprehend!?! Its sick. Just stop. If you really must pursue this nauseating habit then go hide in some god damn corner and suck in your carcinogens alone. I don't need to die along side of you.

I was actually a little deaf when it was over. That caught me by surprise because the sound was great, but I didn't feel like it had been that loud. It goes to show that if the sound is good, it can be loud and you won't necessarily notice.

The concert had been great. That doesn't really even cover the experience, and how I felt about it, but they don't make a single word superlative that I could use at the end of that sentence. I felt happy and content with myself and the world around me. 40,000 people started streaming out of Taylor Field. While our seats had been painfully hard, and galactically far from the stage, one advantage was that we were low to the ground, and first to the concrete to head out on our way home.

While getting into the stadium had been an experience that appeared to rival the grim march into a concentration camp, the exit was relatively speedy. There were no hang-ups on getting out and for the most part people moved orderly. It was only a few minutes and we were spilled onto 9th Avenue. It was a quick walk back up the street to the make-shift bus stops. It was kind of surreal to do the walk in reverse. Everything that had taken half an hour was 30 seconds in reverse. Even the apartment building with the old guy in tattoos blaring the AC/DC from the patio.

We arrive at Albert Street and its relatively uncrowded. I suppose this shouldn't have been a surprise. We were one of the first one's to exit the stadium so getting to the bus stop first wasn't that unsurprising. I'm not entirely sure why I did this but I took note of the time. After some initial confusion about where to line up for the bus, we started waiting at 11:15.

And then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The buses never came. This grand plan about getting people into and out of the concert site via bus, and saving all the hassle and confusion of thousands of cars was completely bolluxed up by the fact that

THEY DIDN'T SEND ANY BUSES!!!

We're standing there like fucking idiots and the buses never come. Five minutes because ten minutes and not a single bus arrives at the bus stop. Its marked, with a big sign on the post ouside the Humpty's 'Southland Mall' and the stupid bus never shows up. Not late, not in insufficient quantities, it just doesn't show up at all. AT ALL.

We're standing on the street, waiting for a bus, and it never shows up. Now thousands of other concert-goers are arriving behind us, but because we haven't gotten on a bus already, the mass of humanity just grows and grows. They've done nothing to diminish the numbers so it just becomes this giant mob of people. Keep in mind that most of them have been sampling from the beer stations at the concert so their manners are not at their best.

Bus after bus drives by on Albert Street, all headed (full) to the Victoria Mall and we're all standing at this Southland Mall stop waiting for a fucking bus that never shows up. Where at first there was maybe a 100 of us that wanted a bus ride, the numbers have now swell to easily more than a 1000. And no one is really in that pleasant of a mood anymore. We're miles from our vehicles, they've completely stranded us, and the damn buses are not showing up.

At 11:45 the first bus destined for the Southland Mall makes an appearance. It has to stop at a red light north of the actual bus stop and people that can read its destination mob it at the light. The driver opens the door so people that were late arriving to the bus stop are actually the first to get a ride. This does not go unnoticed.

The second bus to arrive at the Southland stop does not take passengers at the light, even though its mobbed. This driver goes passed the marked bus stop sign in front of Humpty's and starts taking passengers almost at the underpass. This also does not go unnoticed.

The next bus to arrive stops in the general vicinity of the actual bus stop in front of the Humpty's. For lack of a better word, it turns into a riot. There is pushing, and shoving, and a general melee to get onto the bus. I'm not kidding. People were fighting to get on the bus. We'd waited over half an hour for the bus to show up in the first place, watched the first one fill up with late comer's and patience for this horse shit was gone. Everyone wanted on the next bus, if it meant stepping on someone's grandma to do it.

I thought the T-shirt crowd had been rough but frankly, it was tighter in that fight to get into the bus. Thankfully it was quicker to get on the bus because I don't think I could have handled much more time in that mob. I wanted to punch someone and clear some personal space for myself. I was crushed on all sides by people wanting into the bus. I wanted in too but this was insanity.

After a great concert the whole experience was nearly ruined by the City of Regina's ill prepared plan to ferry people out of the concert site by bus.

Shame on you City of Regina!

Once I was on the grounds, the blood pressure came down a little. The intensity of the human contact came down a little. People spread out, moved in different directions and there was room to move.

We checked out the grounds. I took a couple of pictures. We scoped out our seats, noting that the knotty pine would make for a painful seating arrangement. The general consensus was that we were hungry like ass, so we checked out the food options.

Right behind the wooden stands was a Western Pizza truck that sold tasty pizza for $6 a slice, and sold bottled Coke that was semi-warm for $4. I have an issue with $4 for a warm Coke. That's just gross.

So we've had some food. We're drinking warm, highly expensive pop. We're walking around inside the walls, not really doing anything because its a LONG time before the show starts. There is a general mass of humanity in front of what we assume was the merchandise tent. We had 45 minutes before what we thought was the start of the show so why not see if we can get a T-shirt?

H-oly Sh-it was that a bad mother-fucking idea!!!



This is a view from the back of the line when we started. For some interminable period this view never changed. We just shuffled in place, wondering to ourselves, and to the people around us, if the line was ever going to move.

Truthfully, I think we made more forward progress when people gave up and left the line. I also think the very center of the pile, and the very edge of the pile, progress faster than the inner quadrants. We never seemed to move. There was almost a girl fight to our right when a young brunette, who frankly was a huge bitch, ended up ahead of a 40's era woman. The older woman looked ready to pop one but I think she was talked out of it.

Minutes turned into a half an hour. A half an hour turned into an hour. The opening band came on and frankly, we weren't appreciably closer to the merchandise tent. The opening band did not sound like a great, screaming hell and we were committed now. A greater crowd had formed behind us, so while we hadn't moved forward, leaving now would mean we'd given up considerable ground.

So we were in for the long haul. And a long haul it turned out to be.

The pace seemed to get more frantic as the opening band played. AC/DC was going on stage within the hour and all this pointless standing around on the tarmac was not going to satisfy the rabid lust that was building in the crowd. Not helping matters were the drunk bastards sneaking in around the corner of the tent and essentially cutting the line. Tempers were getting frayed and there was a lot of tension.

We finally got close enough to the front of the line to see what was the problem. But now the opening band was wrapping up their set so time was truly of the essence.

The problem appeared to be: they had no staff in the merchandise tent!!! I counted three people selling hats and T-shirts. That mob was being serviced by three people. Its not just crazy, its fucking nuts!!! Who's running this piss-poor operation.

Now that we're near the front, and time is running out, things are getting wild. People are just crushing into the tent, forcing the tables back. They are running out of all the T-shirt styles so there's frantic decision making being made. Tempers are high because people are coming in from the side, people are taking too long deciding, and simply, there isn't enough time.

People want to get out and they have to crush their way from within the crowd. Its harder to get out then get in because no one wants to give up an inch. We get to the front and its lightning fast decisions. What's left? Give me something black. Pay the money. Walk away.

Total time spent in line? 100 minutes. That is fucking bat-shit nuts!

So we step off the bus into the semi-blasted wasteland of central Regina and the first thing we encounter is a teeming horde of humanity. What the hell could this be? We're probably 5 blocks from the stadium, at the very least. Why are there so many people congregated at the bus drop?

It only took a few moments to discover that, we had to get in line for entry to the stadium grounds. A line that was approximately 5 block long! Every street and path and corridor to the stadium was blocked to traffic. The only way into or out of the site was on foot. But there was very little actual movement because everyone was grouped up in lines.

It seemed a little like the proverbial lambs to the slaughter. A twisted, crooked line extended back from the stadium, with people formed up in an unmarked line, waiting to get into the grounds. its actually a little amazing how (relatively) neat and orderly people are about standing in line to wait, when called upon. No one formed up the line, or pointed out where it should be, or corrected it for straightness. Nonetheless for 5 blocks or more it stretched up 9th Avenue, in two groups, to the East Gate and the North Gate.

It seems bizarre that we should have to go through this ordeal. And for what? To gain entry to a rock concert? I'm not sure if they gave up on security when the line got all the way to Albert Street, or if they were always that lax about it. However when I got to the front I was asked what was in my pocket. I could have had anything, and said "gum and a cell phone" and it appeared the guy would have believed me. So we wait for half an hour for zero security at all?

I got a bad feeling about how the night was going to go when we drove into the parking lot of the Southland Mall.

They absolutely hammer you on the radio and the media, take the bus to the big event! Save the hassle! Save the traffic! Just ride the bus. So you figure, I'll do the conscientious thing, stay out of everyone's way, and just take the bus. One less car near the stadium. One fewer person tying up traffic in what is sure to be a nightmare.

It was just past 5:00 when we pulled into the Southland Mall parking lot. We thought the concert started at 6:30. It actually didn't start until 7:45, so we were WAY early. Nonetheless when we got in line it was about 4 people wide, I'd estimate, and I would say at least 200 feet long.

This is 5:00.

So we waited for buses. There are literally hundreds of people waiting for the bus. One bus pulled up. 100 people run to the bus and jam it full in a manner of seconds. This still leaves hundreds behind. There's cause for concern. No other bus pulls up for the rest of us.

So we wait more. No bus. Time ticks by like the beads of sweat on the brow of a fat man in a jogging suit. No bus. Then another bus shows up. Jams full of people in seconds and pulls away. Same scenario as before. What the hell? Is this the bus loading plan they have for us?

Miraculously the next series of buses pulls up only a moment later, and its two in a row. So another mad scramble ensues to get on them. It wasn't an actual riot, but you could start to feel the rumblings of one coming due to the lack of buses. I was on the fourth so I didn't find out if they burned anything to the ground after I left. It was dark when we returned so I didn't notice anything but as far as I know, there was no riot.

But could the driver have taken a more serpentine path to the stadium? I'm not saying I'm an expert on Regina but we went through parts I never even imagined existed. Down residential streets, past mini-malls in the middle of suburbia. Roared by schools and people jogging past their houses. I know where Taylor Field is but Christ if we didn't go through Avonlea to get there.

Then we get to the site, going to the Lewvan just to come all the way back to Albert Street. That seemed like an excessively long path to take but then who am I? Surely the City of Regina and its bus drivers know routes better than me. The driver dumps us out at Albert and 9th Avenue, and like refugees dumped at the entrance to the evacuation camp, we stumbled up to the sea of humanity that was the entrance to Taylor Field on that night.

What follows will be be a series of posts about my experience at the AC/DC concert. One of these posts will include photos, just not this one because I forgot my flash drive at home this morning.


The Concert

I don't have a lot of experience with attending rock concerts. I've been to dozens, to hundreds, but I've always been in the back. I've always been an employee at these shows, and not a patron. Its not even the same experience. Yes, you still hear the music. Sure you still see the lights. But there's some intangible quality to being /in/ the crowd that changes it for you.

AC/DC is one of those bands that just transcends time. What are these guys, like 50 now? Yet they came on stage and in minutes they had the crowd. Just had us. I was into the show before the first song was done. I've been to a few shows as a patron and you had to warm into it a couple of songs. Not with this one. Bang! The show starts and you're connected with the music.

I wish I could rattle off from you the set list. I wish I could but frankly I don't have the memory for that. Its all just one melodic blur. I remember some of my favorites were played. The did 'Dirty Deeds' and 'Hells Bells'. They played 'Rock'n'Roll Train' early. Now that I think about it, I think it was first. Actually, a lot of the songs they did were from the new album. It was as if they mixed a new one with an old favorite, so you couldn't mark the difference from one's you knew by heard, from one's that weren't familiar yet.

I've never been to an open air concert. It was a little different. The sound was perfect. There wasn't a scratch to it at all. Sometimes a rock show is loud, and seems loud, and you know it. But this was loud but you didn't notice it. I wasn't even aware of how loud it was until they finally quit, and there was no more music, and I realized I was partially deaf!

It just flowed, and flowed and flowed. The whole show was seemless. Effortless. And you could tell that it was ending. All good things eventually do. But it kinda felt like the band was almost more reluctant to quit than the audience was to let them go. Before the actual encore, Angus did this guitar solo that had to have went on for 20 minutes at least. He played to the wings. He played down the center. He played onto a rising platform with strobe lights going off. It was crazy epic. Then he played to the centre of the stage, over the drums and you thought it might be over. You feared it might be over. Then a boom went off and they played more. I cheered and screamed and I had no conscious thought about doing it.

When it ended, and it had to end I guess, they let us go with a bang. We had fireworks and explosions and a fantastic send off to captivate the end of a phenomenal rock show. They'll talk about this one for awhile and I am one of the people that can say, I was there.

Did I miss a memo or something? If this is a sign that I'm getting old then honestly, I want someone to do the honorable thing and take me out behind the wood shed and put two behind my ear. I don't want to be at the point where the simple things are just going over my head.

I thought I was more or less current on the common lingo being used by your average, every-day person. But then, out of the blue, everyone started going 'FML' all the time. FML!?! FML!?!?! What the hell is FML!?!?! I am ashamed to admit it but i had to Google it to find out what the hell it meant!

So if anyone wants me to meet them out behind the wood shed, just send me a text message. Just don't ask me to bring the bullets.

The part that irritates me the most about tonight's little exchange is how blindingly damn obvious it was. This time of thing happens every day, to every one. We all get annoyed and we all move on. But when you see the hypocrisy, you just can't help but let it rile you.

I go to the bank. Somehow the Bank of Nova Scotia actually has customer friendly hours now. I take my cheques up there to cash. I've had some of them awhile, and my cousin had one even longer, but a cheque is a cheque, right? Hand it over and someone should cash it.

Apparently not, or so the stupid bitch on the other side of the counter was going to try and play. 'This cheque is stale' she tries to give me. Its older than six months so you can't cash it. I call bananas on that because its a soccer fees cheque and we haven't been playing that long for a cheque to go stale. I start to get into it with her, because really I don't need this kinda nonsense at the end of my day. There's no one else at the wickets at this time and another teller overhears. She politely, but reasonably firmly, corrects this miserable hag that I've gotten that her math is pathetically wrong and the cheque is still more than valid.

So we've cleared up that misnomer and we move on to the business of the day. Suddenly this sea hag notices my iron ring. Well now she's my best friend all of a sudden. We share something common (apparently her /whatever/ is also an engineer) so she has questions, and she interested in me, and wants to help. Where the hell was this three minutes ago when you wanted to screw me out of $136 because you can't count months without using your fingers!?!

I thought this was hilarious. Especially when she starts swearing at the end.

Red Bull

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that for the first time since Friday I don't really like I'm in pain. Yes, there is a bit of a twinge in the back of my head, from the remains of this headache but in the global scope of things, its minor.

And having been in rather excruciating pain this afternoon, to having mostly gotten rid of it now, I have to make note of how much pain plays a huge part in our lives. We fashion ourselves as tough, strong, can handle whatever the world dishes out people but when we're in pain it really slows us down. I can tell, as I sit here now, able to focus, able to do things, how much that headache was really wearing on me. I wish I could put a number on it but I really can't.

I was dull, thick-headed, and muddy all day. I was lethargic and unenthused. The snarling, whip-like tendrils of pain lashing at me from behind my right eye seemed like just another of the thousands of headaches I've had before. I would just ignore it like I have every one that has come previously. But it made me not want to do anything. It made me just want to lie down, in the dark, with a wet cloth around my head trying to numb the pain.

its now midnight and I'm going to go to bed, for my greater good. But for once in the very, very, very few instances I have shed a headache without going to sleep. And it has left me with a profound sense of how badly these things color my world, bring me down, and more or less ruin my enjoyment of life. I actually feed motivation right now, for the first time all weekend, and its midnight on Sunday.

Lord, do I hate summer.

I rush and I push to finish up a submission for someone that sent me an email last week. The closing line of the email was the usual, time is of the essence, and we're working hard to get this issue resolved quickly. I take this to heart. I fret and fuss about the fact that its dragging on and on and I haven't sent anything. Finally I get the numbers I need from my fabricator and then I spend a half an hour agonizing over the letter I send with the number, and the actual number. I stare at the number for awhile and try to decide, is this right?

Finally I send it off. 30 seconds later I get an email back.

"I am away until August 17"

I swore loudly! Why did I waste all this time trying to be quick about it if you're on vacation for the bloody week? Have a damn heart you clown and say, have it done by August 17, since I'm going to be away for the week. But no, he sends that utter nonsense about 'time is of the essence' blah, blah, blah. Time is of the essence but I'm gonna go sit on a boat and wipe my ass with your proposal. WAHAHAHAHA

Everyone's an butthole. Go plug yourself.

Complaint Number 2

Anyone wanna explain why the controls for iTunes, to which there does not appear to be a viable alternative on the Mac OS platform, have to be so infuriatingly hard to decipher if you want to do something beyond the obvious?

I really wish I didn't have this pathological need to understand. I wish I wasn't driven by this desire to grasp the forces that surround me. Maybe I could let something small like this go. But I can't, and its going to eat at me for the rest of the night.

I heard a good song on the radio today. Pure, hard rock, on Sirius Octane 20. (gag, gag)

Used - Blood On My Hands

Hey, that sounded great. I should download it. So I make a note of the title, come home, and do a search on the internet. What's 6 of the first 7 things that come up when I type in 'used blood on my hands'?

Miley Cyrus

Miley god damn Cyrus!!!

Is there no justice in the world? Can we not escape this foul urchin? Can a regular, ordinary, not interested in her hellacious, demon spawn guy not pursue his bland, inoffensive interests without being inundated by this pest? Go away Miley you beast!! Christ, I was reading a damn Giant Tiger flyer at lunch today and they had this trollop's visage plastered on tramp-wear for 11 year old's. I kid you not, it looked like slut-gear for the pre-teen set. Why can't little girl's wear rainbow's and starfish? Why does this Miley Cyrus jackass have to be plastered all over everything?

And why does she have to interrupt my search for the pure, hard rock? Go away you demon-spawn! I want nothing of your fashion shoot, or your music video. I might want your blood on my hands, but for tonight I'll settle for just the pure, hard rock of the Used rock song.

One more thing . . .

I don't know how many of you listen to satellte radio but I have a complaint. I like listening to Octane because I favor the musical selection.

However . . .

Can you PLEASE knock if off with the 'pure, hard, rock'? I mean Christ! Every second bloody phrase is 'pure, hard, rock'. I get it already, but let me tell you something. Its annoying!!! I hate the phrase. It drives me up the wall. Think of something else! You can keep using it, but spread it around. Try some other catch phrases. I like some diversity. If I hear 'pure, hard, rock' one more time I think I might impale my brain with a pencil.

In conclusion, 'pure, hard, rock' = pencil impalement


Thank you and good night

I can't help but feel melancholy tonight.

The ball hockey season has come to a close. We laid it all on the line in the final game but it just wasn't enough. No one could ever question our heart or our determination because on those counts we had plenty. But in the final analysis we simply did not have enough team skill to beat a more cohesive team. Where they could pass stick to stick, we would miss one another and would have to chase it off the boards. In the the offensive zone they would cycle it and take a point shot. We would scramble in the corner and maybe jam away at something right in front of the goal. We weren't clean, and it simply wasn't enough.

But that's not why I'm blue. I am sad because I was playing on a great team. We didn't win a lot of games but from my perspective we had a lot of fun. The team got along great, and there was good participation. The roster was 16 players and we always had 10+ for every game. Looking around the league at other teams that was pretty damn good. It was the same group of guys that came out for every game, and even though we were on the short end of most games, we still cared. Every time. They are a great bunch of guys.

I am sad because who knows what the future may bring. There are rumors of a fall league, and I am hopeful that this will prove true. I had an amazing amount of fun playing ball hockey. Even more than I could have hoped for, when I signed up for it on a whim. It would be great if the core of the same team stuck together, and we played another season. That would be amazing. But you can never tell what the future will bring. And uncertainty breeds my melancholy.

To be continued . . .

I just can't bring myself to feel bad about that game. I can bring myself to feel bad about my performance. There is a quality of lacklustre to how I am moving out there. But my team really put it on the line tonight. We threw our hearts and our souls into that game. If you wanted to base winning and losing on effort, then we win that game in a walk.

The effort was definitely there. Sometimes we sleep-walk through a game. I won't say we mail in a performance, but there have been games where our output has not matched that which was required. But that couldn't be said tonight. It was a playoff game and to a man, everyone came out to play. Our bench was a little short, but everyone played as much of a shift as they could manage. Don't get me wrong. At points guys were tired. They were walking the floor and the bodies were hurting. But when the ball came into their area, they hustled for it. When they had a chance to make a play, they tried to make a play. Not every attempt turned into a great play, but everyone tried. Every chance was chased down. Every ball was swung at. It was great to see.

We just didn't get a break. The other team, which didn't appear to resemble the team we've played four times before, was faster and stronger and more precise than us. But for all their apparent greater skill, we out hustled them. The benches on both sides were short, but when the players got tired, we still out ran them to the ball. When plays broke down in the middle, we were stealing the ball and making breaks out of it. They would get shots by setting up and cycling it around us in our end. Using precision to out-maneuver us. But when it came down to one-on-one effort, we out-shone them every time. It was pretty impressive to see.

The disappointing thing is we had to lose. I think it disheartened my team mates. We tried so hard and in the end our lack of cohesion as a team got the better of us. We were tired, and we were out manned, and we made a few rookie mistakes, that a group of guys that were used to playing with one another wouldn't make. But we're a pick-up team, and not used to playing together, and from time to time we make goofy mistakes. I made one myself tonight that cost us a goal. I ran back on defense when they had a break and got caught up defending a guy in front of our goal. Well I'm actually a winger tonight and my responsibility is to cover the point. So when I stick to the guy I shadow running back on the breakaway, I end up out of position when they set up in our end. Pass back to the point, goal for them. That's my fault.

The goal that ultimately cost us the game was the same sort of thing. We had it behind the net. Our guy is blocked to the left. He's blocked to the right. He wants to flip it high down the middle but doesn't get under it. Ends up on the stick of the opposition, right in the slot. Bang its in the net, and there's only 3 minutes of game to go. He feels awful but its just a rookie mistake that we make every game. It feels awful because we've been giving our hearts all game long.

We have another game tomorrow and this is the sudden death match. We have to win or our season is over. So if you read this, and its not 6 o'clock on August 4, 2009, come out to the Henk Ruys soccer centre in Saskatoon. We could use your support.

Go Shockers!!

I know this is against the law, wildly inappropriate, and not acceptable among any civilized society but, its reached the point where I simply can NOT take it anymore.

I am going to kill the Wrapman.

STRIKE TWO AND A HALF!!!

I am currently very pissed off at Extra Foods.

If you don't have something then just say, you don't have something. Please don't lie to me like I'm an idiot. I just wasted half an hour wandering around Extra Foods looking Shake'n'Bake. I figured, they've got to have this. Right? Right!?!

They don't.

Of course I had to go throug the painful ordeal to discover this truth. Finally I give up and ask someone who works there. Aisle 4 he tells me. Well, I spent 10 solid minutes scouring ever square inch of Aisle 4 and there ain't no god damn Shake'n'Bake in Aisle 4. I can guarantee you of that.

Finally it abject depression and defeat I just left Extra Foods in complete disgust. I couldn't take it anymore. I drove to Safeway. Inside of 15 seconds of entering the door I'd found the bloody Shake'n'Bake. It was RIGHT where it should have been. Right where I'd spent 20 minutes looks in Extra Foods. Where it hadn't been there.

Piss on you Extra Foods. May you rot in hell.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Should I be on Twitter?

I am almost certain that the modern, fast food restaurant French Fry has been specifically engineered so that, if you decide that you want your meal 'to go' that no matter how short the trip from the building, the French Fry will be cold.

Guaranteed.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Should I make a Mocking The Cat web site?

Update:

For those of you that have chided me for not enabling comments on my blog, its finally done.

All of you (and you know who you are) owe me a cookie because it required that I edit HTML code, and that's far less than my favorite thing to do in the world.

Things That Piss Me Off:

Why does Blogger insist that I have enabled Comments on my blog, but when I check any/all of my posts, there is no comments section enabled?

Then, to compound the fiasco, when I try to use the help on the Blogger website to figure out why its not working, half the pages I click links to, return saying the page doesn't exist!

So I go to a strip mall in Regina, where a Mr. Sub shares a parking lot with, among other things, a medical clinic. There's a sign in the parking that that says:

"30 Minute Customer and Patient Parking"

Now who's been able to go to a walk-in medical clinic lately and only have to stay 30 minutes? Is that even possible? It seems like the default wait is like 2 hours now. I think they make you sit for the first hour, just to test your resolve. If you stay that long, then you go on a list and they call a doctor in from the golf course, or wherever the hell they hang out when they're not in the back seeing patients like they should be.

I'm not exactly sure what to think about this:

Washing Machine Emulator

Blog Question Of The Day:

Can someone explain to me why I am so vehement about the lake being stupid?

Things That Piss Me Off:

People that put passwords on their torrents, then post some byzantine method of tracking down the password for said torrent should be dragged out into the town square by their entrails and publicly shot for the nuisance they cause.

Things That Piss Me Off:

How irritating is it when you're in the grocery store, and there's a line formed up behind someone, and they are taking forever PLUS a day because they want to dig all the way to their shoe for some damn pennies so they can pay precise change for their stupid bill.

Just whip out another $5 grandma!!!

It is my considered opinion that if you're going grocery shopping at 11:00 on a Saturday night at the bloody Shoppers Drug Mart, then you've clearly made a severe planning mistake in your life. Rather than buying loaves of bread and juice for the morning, it might be time well spent if you sat back and really considered the set of circumstances that brought you to the point that had you looking for the staples of life in a drug store at entirely the wrong part of the bloody day.

This may get me thrown out of the league but I have something to say.

What the hell was wrong with the referees in our ball hockey game tonight?

The team we were playing was clearly a skill level about us. The score was 8-0 late in the second half. The game was over. It was just a matter of time before the clock wound down to zero. The other team was shelling us and had the refs had any god damn decency they'd have shown a little mercy in their calling of the game.

There's a scramble in front of our net. The puck is under our goalies pad. Okay, I will concede that you COULD still see it. But come ON! The score was 8-0 already! Have a bloody heart. Our goalie is down and out. He's flat on his face, just lying there hoping he's covering it. One of our defense is also on the ground. Everyone is out of position. There was every reason they could have just blown the play dead and we could have had a face off.

But NO!! Because you could still see a sliver of ball they decide that its still live and they let these jackalopes dig at our goalie. Get serious! Of course there's gonna be rough stuff when that happens. People get shoved and someone lands right on the goalie's back. End result - he's injured.

I lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the guys with whistles. They could have, and should have prevented that. The score was out of hand and they had a duty to protect the players from harm not safeguard some asinine concept of 'fair play'.

PISS ON FAIR PLAY! They nearly broke our goalie!!

Okay, this needs to be said. It needs to be said because not saying it would be doing a dis-service to truth, justice and the honesty of modern society.

Going to the lake is retarded.

Why would anyone do this? Its just stupid. You are purposely, and with considered intent, giving up the conveniences of modern, and civilized living, to eke out an existence like they did 150 years ago, when they didn't have the privileges that we have now. Why is is this a good idea? Why!?!

1) Why would you give up flush toilets? Especially the privilege of your own flush toilet, that you don't have to share, won't stink of someone else's ass, and doesn't bear the imminent possibility of hepatitis?
2) Can you explain to me the allure of cold showers? How is this an appealing idea?
3) Sleeping outdoors is a good idea? Ummm, why?
4) Let's store all our food for a weekend (or longer) with only the most rudimentary of chilling technology, during the most arduous heat of our Canadian climate. That sounds like a great way (not) to avoid a stomach bacteriological infection.
5) And what the hell are you supposed to DO out there in the woods? Great, I've packed up 900 pounds worth of stuff into the back of a Nissan Versa and I drove into the northern Prince Albert forest. I set up my trailer, built a camp fire, now I'm staring across the flames at a bunch of people that also don't know what the hell we're supposed to do. What's the god damn point of this!?!
6) And another thing - do you realize you're getting completely ripped off on those 'campers' that you're all so proud of? The damn thing is balsa wood and tin. Its cheap crap and they charge you grotesque prices for them. If I hear one more person preen on about the luxuriousness of their shit-box camper I think I'm going to reflexively vomit on them.

In closing I would greatly appreciate if if you could all keep your fawning appreciation for the fiasco that is 'going to the lake' to an absolute minimum from now on. As anyone that has seen the ocean knows, going to the lake is a piss-poor substitute for the real thing. After seeing the ocean, taking a look at a little puddle of mud and algae in the middle of Saskatchewan fails to excite the senses anymore.

I have a complaint with the playing of golf lately.

We need to develop a sense of reasonability about our approach to the search for a golf ball. There are a great many of us that are going too far with the search for a lost ball.

I have just done some research on the internet and determined that a golf ball can cost anywhere from $2 to $5 for a brand new, brand name, top of the line golf ball. We are going to assume, for the purposes of this discussion, that all of you are using a top of the line ball when you are doing all this searching. Because if you're using a range ball that you dug out of the bush 3 years ago then I'm about ten times more pissed off then I already I am.

Look, I can understand the desire to find a lost ball. You hit a bad shot but you got a good look at it, and you've got a decent idea of where it is. But lets be reasonable, ok? You hit it in the bush? Its not in the fairway, or the deep grass, or some place that's easy to find. You hit it in the bloody scrub brush or the deep thicket. I know you think you know where it is, but this really is a needle-in-a-haystack scenario.

However, more aggravating are those of you that are holding up progress on the whole damn golf course to go searching for a ball that is not on your section of the course anymore. I've seen this happen. Let me give you all a rule of thumb. And its not a difficult to follow one.

1) If your ball is, out of bounds, as the rules of the course are laid out
2) Your ball is in someone else's field of play
3) It would require walking 50 yards past the out of bounds stake to get where you think your ball might be

If all of these conditions are met then you have to let the $3 golf ball go and just move on with your game. The $3 is not worth it and you're pissing off everyone else around you on the course if you keep persisting in looking for it. Just take a bloody drop and move on.

I'm going to say something. I want to put this down because it is a universal truth. There are no aberrations, justifications or deviations from this simply, inalienable truth.

Painted red nails NEVER looks good.

I saw my own death tonight. It wasn't pleasant.

It will happen in the downstairs bathroom of my house. That's a modest comfort because at least I'll die at home. But I had the sense that I'll still be alone so that's not a lot of comfort.

"Fred" will have called again, like he always does. And when I least want to speak to him. I'll be in the washroom chatting with him when it'll happen. Something is going to /pop/ in my head. It will happen on the left side, somewhere around the temple. The pain is going to be sudden and immediate. I will spasm from it, jerking me from the toilet. My body will become splayed across the bath tub that stretches in front of you, when you're seated in my downstairs bathroom. The end will come quickly and I will bleed to death. The blood with run from my ear, down the drain into the sewer.

Can someone please write an application that will swiftly and immediately block the opening of an additional browser window for PartyPoker.com?

Don't poker sites know their 15 minutes of fame are up?

I swear, if I ever find out who you are, Volkswagen driver FHE 503 I am going to strangulate you for being so stupid.

No, there was NOT enough room for you to cut in front of me.

No you did NOT signal your intentions.

You are just damn lucky I had a premonition that you were an ass-hat and somehow predicted that you were going to do something stupid. Otherwise we'd both be scheduling appointments with SGI this afternoon.

I have come to a very important conclusion.

Megan Fox WOULD be good looking if she wasn't covered in a bunch of totally unnecessary and completely unflattering ink.

Why do some people not plan ahead? I support a plan as much as the next person but if you don't think it through, its really not that much of a plan.

I was invited to lunch today, by some fellow committee members on the association of engineers. They are both from Regina, and i had never met either of them. One called me on the phone to schedule the lunch meeting about a week ago.

They chose Earl's as the location for this meeting. There were no numbers exchanged, or plans made about what to do or when. The only direction provided is that the people from Regina would arrive by 11:45, at the latest, and those of us from Saskatoon could arrive later and meet at the restaurant.

One complication . . . Earl's won't identify your table in any way. So if you're Joe Smith, here to meet Becky Wannamaker, that's hard to cheese for you, unless you can pick her out of a police line-up. When you show up at Earl's, you're welcome to wander all over the restaurant looking for your party. But the incredibly vapid girls at the front will make no attempt to help you locate your table.

So I'm here at Earl's, to meet two people from Regina that I've never seen before. I have no contact number to phone a cell phone, and I can't find them in the restaurant by looking at faces. What to do? Well, I waited 25 minutes until quarter AFTER 12 for them to find me patiently waiting by the front door. That didn't happen so I blew out of there.

Next time, but a bit more thought into your damn plan!

This is a great speech:

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commander of the armies of
the North, general of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the
true emperor Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband
to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance in this life or
the next

That was a very satisfying conclusion to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

GO BIRDS!!!

Grant's Ongoing Mustang Search:


This time its red!

Blog Quote Of The Night:

(said while standing in front of a pile of rolled $1 coins, after having asked for said $1 coins two minutes previous)

Can I have some loonies?

Its official. Sasktel has the worst corporate web site in the history of online presence.

I go to the Sasktel website because I want to look something up. Seems like a relatively simple task, right? First of all, the damn pages won't load. I wait and I wait and I wait and the bloody hour glass symbol won't go away. Presumably its still /thinking/.

Finally I give up on that and skip trying to go through the menus to get what I want. I try to use the Search box. I can't /search/ unless I pick a category of the site to search in. WTF is up with that!?! I want to search your whole, useless damn site, you twigs!!! If I knew WHERE to get what I want, I wouldn't need to SEARCH!!!

In the end, they had no spot on the site to look up phone number availability. I hate SaskTel.

Blog Question Of The Day:

My life is lacking in experiences. Should I become addicted to heroin, just to see how it feels?

And now, from the files of Captain Obvious:

Lady Gaga reveals she's bisexual

Did you ever have one of those moments where everything comes into perfect focus, and then you just screw it up?

I was playing hockey tonight. Admittedly, not my best sport but its fun, and I wanted to run around so I joined the league. I didn't set any all-star points but by the same token I would say I didn't embarass myself.

Except for one moment.

The puck is in the opponents end. He's coming out from the corner on my left. He has one guy along the boards at the same depth to pass from, or try to move it up the board. We have one guy going on the ball carrier, and one guy on the player down low. He tries to pass.

I anticipate this perfectly. Its like I could see it about to happen. I run into the middle and sure enough, the opponents pass ends up on my stick. I'm about 20 feet out from the net with no one on me.

And I freeze.

It was such a perfect moment that I wanted to take the perfect shot. So I'm trying to calm the ball on my stick so its perfect to take a shot. And I'm not shooting, and not shooting and not shooting. Its just not perfect enough yet. Finally someone runs at me, and I panic and I fire one harmlessly off the shin pads of the defender running towards me. It was infuriating. We were down two goals and I had a perfect opportunity.

I screwed it up. I can assure you I will not forget that for awhile.

That hockey game sucked!

It didn't even look like Chicago showed up. They give up the first goal short-handed, then let Detroit score with 18 seconds left in the first period. If I was in the crowd for that game I'd have left at the first intermission to beat the church crowd home on the freeway.

Through exhaustive, difficult and thorough research I have come to the following conclusion:

Girls that play guitar are hot

How in the world could people be this stupid? You can /sort of/ understand it in the winter, when the parking lot is covered in ice and snow and you can't see the lines.

But how the hell do you park in the aisle in the middle of May?

Blog Question Of The Day:

Is there a NON-carbonated lemon-line drive, similar in taste to Mountain Dew available in a pre-packaged solution?

Should I buy this?

Weirdest Natalie Portman interview of all time

Blog Question Of The Day:

Should I develop a raging meth habit?

R Kelly is my hero

Blog Question Of The Day:

Why does heat make hair curl?

I gotta be honest . . .

I was enjoying 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' right up until the ending. The last 15 minutes or so pretty much sucked.

I could rattle on, and on, for a page or more about how stupefyingly boring tonight's Leonard Cohen concert was. Or I could preach about the stupidity of the blackness imposed upon us by the show. Perhaps I could best illustrate my point about the insipid dictum that absolute silence be upheld at all times.

I could do that but I will best make my point with one example.

I am leaving the building as the show is winding to its grand finale. In another other 'concert' (and I use the term loosely in this connotation) the energy of the show would be ramping up to a crowning point, before cresting and ending abruptly, having achieved the intent of leaving the crowd with more.

As I walk towards the door, rather than hear a pulsating roar from the stage, or an intensity from a crowd that is loving the show, I can hear, from somewhere within the pitch black darkess of the side of the stage, a portable generator. My ears are not filled with the sound of the show. My senses are not sparkled by a crowd enthralled with the performance. I can hear a stupid, portable generator, cranking out electricity. Its drowning out the performance on the stage to the point that I can't hear the singing, but do hear this mechanical pulsing, as I walk towards the door.

If that doesn't signify the pathetic energy of this show any more vividly, then I'm a lousy story-teller.

Today's Pantheon to Stupidity:

(said to a person holding an opened bottle of wine, standing directly under a sign that says Wine - $6.00)

Where are they selling wine?

As of 9:02 PM this evening (April 22, 2009) I have become a Level 70 Death Knight.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Should I buy this car? Yes/no?

Purple 97 Mustang GT

"People seen on the street today, top one answer to the question . . .Is it warm enough for shorts yet!?! What's your answer?"

"We're going to go with YES!"

"Show me YES!!!"

BBBBBUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

"That would be WRONG. You all suck. For your stupidity you will now be shot summarily."

BANG!!!

Blog Question Of The Day:

If Vista is as big of a pig as we ALL know that it is . . .

Why can't you buy it for a bargain?

Okay girls, we have to talk.

That piercing, where you put a stud under your bottom lip? Yeah, that looks retarded. I know its trendy and all the girls are doing it, but its about the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Don't put shit in your face!

I can't stress this enough. No one can pull off that look. No one. At least when its the creepy goth chick you can write the decision off as part of a global failing of thought. However in the past two days I've seen two, average, ordinary, doesn't appear messed up in the head girls, with this stupid piercing under the lip.

Don't put shit in your face!

I can't stress this enough. The examples from this weekend were average, cut girls in the early/mid twenties range. They looked like your typical, girl-next-door, type. Except for this asinine piercing under the lip.

Look, let me tell you what that looks like, from a third-party persepective. I think we're supposed to be fooled into thinking its a beauty mark but ladies, that's not working.

It looks like a wart, or some kind of abnormal growth.

It might be a piece of food that you don't notice is there, but makes you look like a pig or a slob.

Perhaps its a highly unattractive cold sore, which isn't making anyone think you're pretty.

Or it could be a pimple that you're not taking care of, thus ruining your, girl-next-door appeal.

No matter what it is mistaken for, it is never mistaken for something pretty, attractive or a decision that in some way enhances your looks. It makes you look like a retard, moron or buffoon.

Please knock it off.

If anyone is looking to give me a photograph, I'm looking for three in the landscape orientation to fill up the picture frame I got for Christmas.

I finally went to the doctor this morning for my physical. Its only about 17 years now since a doctor in Saskatoon told me I needed a family doctor. That's about par for the course in how I approach the medical profession.

What a disaster the trip turned out to be. That office is a complete nightmare. How they do anything successfully I will never understand. I think they'd actually lost my appointment. It was an appointment I had to schedule 6 weeks ago because they simply had no spaces available any sooner. She looked at that chart for a long time but didn't say anything. If I go on what the doctor said, it sounds like they called him in from a day off. I heard two other people say they were there to see the same doctor. I have to assume he was called in to see patients the office staff had been booked, when he thought he was free.

To compound their uselessness, the nurse/receptionist puts me in the little examining room but doen't include any of the documentation of my file. So the doctor had to leave for what must have been 10 minutes, to find the results of tests that he'd had me do, and the notes he'd written last time.

The whole experience was a gong-show nightmare. I think he left the room about 5 times, to look something up or get more information. Each trek away was at least 5 minutes of waiting. Meanwhile I'm sitting there in my shorts, and nothing else, because that's what the nurse woman said to do. He's supposed to be giving me a physical, right? All he did for examing was look in my throat, my right ear, and do some listening with the stethesope. Now admittedly, I'm probably in pretty good health. Nevertheless, I did all this blasted waiting for that much interest in how I am?

Anyway, we get to the point of what I'm concerned about, and I tell him the problems I'm having. Lots of diarrhea, bad headaches, neck pain, dizzy spells. At the very least he did hone in on the damn headaches and we investigated that for a few minutes. (oh yeah, he also examined my feet, for reasons that are not clear to me) Sounds like migraines, he says to me. At least you got that right! So he offers me some migraine medication and promises to book me in to see a neurologist. So maybe we're going to get somewhere with the headaches.

But he gives me these migraine pills and I ask, is there anything wrong with taking these with my other medications? He doesn't know (obviously) and thus we had another long trip out of the room. Well golly gee shit, turns out the migraine pills ARE contra-indicated for people taking Prozac. It is possible to get something called 'serotonin syndrome'. I ask if that's bad and he says yeah, it could kill you. So he put exactly that much thought into prescribing me a medication, given the medical history I'd now told him about twice.

I hate CryptLoad.

Blog Quote Of The Night:

(while staring at someone holding a 1" water line in their hand)

Why is there no water?

Dear Oilers Ownership:

Please fire Kevin Lowe.

Thank you.

Were you ever just sitting around, kinda bored, and you got an idea into your head? Nothing bizarre or strange, just something that seemed like a good idea? But it got stuck there and you couldn't get it out until you satisfied the notion?

That happened to me today. I was sitting in French class and I got hungry. Which led me to think, I'd like one of those wrap sandwiches like I've had before. This necessitated a trip to Subway.

Did you ever go to Subway, later in the night, privately expecting it to be a quick and painless experience? Then you see a line and you're secretly disappointed and a little bit annoyed? That also happened to me today.

But, as I opened this post, I had a craving in me for a wrap from Subway so just walking away wasn't an option. Nevertheless it was one of the most painful Subway experiences of my life.

Is this what we've degenerated to? Is this all we have left for staff to work at Subway? I don't fault the poor woman who was trying to make all these subs. She's an immigrant. She's just trying to do the best she can. But who is the BLOODY asshole that stranded this woman alone in the Subway? She clearly couldn't handle working by herself. This was painfully obvious. It took me 5 minutes to get my sandwich AFTER I got to the front of the line. I probably stood in line for 20 minutes before I made it to the counter.

And it wasn't that busy. There was 4 people in front of me. That's assuming you count the smug, fur trading little bitches that were at the front of the line as one group. I have a lot of choice words for those two rug munching little whores. Let's leave it at, they deserved to have their designer haute cuisine Subway SANDWICHES jammed straight up the v-notch and left to cause a nasty yeast infection.

Back to the line. Its like watching a train wreck. You don't wanna look but you can't help yourself. Everything is moving so slowly that all you can do is watch the carnage. And that's what it was. This poor, immigrant woman is trying her very best to make a half dozen sandwiches. Either she's new to this, hasn't been well trained, or this just isn't her calling in life. Nevertheless she was slow on a glacial scale. And everyone is getting pissed. But you can't do anything to help her because she's the only Subway employee and we're just hungry sandwich eaters. It just so, bloody SAD.

So here's to you manager of Subway. I hope you choke on your blood sausage tonight. Your staffing decision is inexcusable.

Check this out!!

Lemonade is a very subtle flavor.

When I was flying home last week, I had my Playstation Portable in my coat pocket. I was playing football in the terminal and I didn’t finish the game, so I just put the PSP in my pocket so I could get on the plane, get seated, and finish the game. Well I had Row 2 so there was no, beneath the seat ahead of you, spot and I had to put my backpack in the overhead bin. The consequence of all this is, when I finished my game of football, the only place I had to store my PSP was back in my coat pocket.

The problem with this is, I don’t have deep pockets on that coat. When the plane took off, and banked up hard, all the stuff in my pockets fell out, including my phone and PSP. The PSP ended up three rows back and towards the aisle, so it made quite the trek just falling out of my pocket.

I mention all of this because, in falling out of my pocket and skidding across the plane, one of the little buttons on it fell off and was irretrievably lost. My PSP is fine, and I can play all the games okay. It’s just missing this button.

Cut to today, when I drove around Saskatoon trying to find a store that could sell me a replacement for this button that I could just, stick on, and go back to playing as if the airplane incident never happened. I went to EB Games, which I thought was my best bet. No luck. I went to the Sony Store. He said I was SOL and should try calling Sony and he gave me the number. I went to Toys’R’Us too and asked there, because I was buying my nephew a birthday present anyway. The guy sympathized but couldn’t help either.

So I call Sony. First of all I went through automated phone service HELL. Eventually I get a service guy. I explain to him my problem. I lost the little button that goes on the joystick of my PSP. How can I get a new one?

He asks me a bunch of questions, is anything broken off, is the PSP damaged, and so on. I answer no to everything. I just lost the little button on my PSP. Can I please have any another one?

He puts me on hold for a minute. When he comes back he tells me:

They can not send me a replacement for this little button. I would have to send the WHOLE unit in for service. They don’t have replacement buttons for people to buy. My PSP would have to be discarded, and I would be issued a full replacement unit. To do all of this would cost $79.95 plus GST for a grand total of $82.95.

$83 to replace the stupid button on my PSP. Oh, and he got the province that I live in wrong THREE damn times!!

Blog Poll Of The Day:

Should I swear more, or less?

Things That Piss Me Off

Why do windshield wipers have to come in 1500 different sizes/types/variations? What possible purpose does it serve to make me stand in front of a wall filled with windshield wiper replacement blades and have NO BLOODY CLUE which one I should buy?

I mean honestly, can't we pare this down a bit? Is it REALLY necessary to have them available in lengths from 12" to 28" with every possible increment in between? I swear I saw some that were at half inch increments. What purpose does this serve?

In 100+ years of automotive innovation, no one has thought to standardize the size of the damn windshield wipers? I find this bordering on farcical. I have a shredded windshield wiper. I would like to buy a replacement. Why do I have to study a book larger than the text for an introductory physics class to figure out which one I need?

And on that note, why can't they even standardize on one size for a particular model of vehicle? What the hell is this need to know the year of my vehicle too!?! Okay, I'm a jackass and didn't research this ahead of time. I have to consult the book. I try and look something up in this infernal, blasted thing and I have to know about 96 god damn configuration options for my vehicle, just to buy damn wipers. What the hell is this garbage!?!

I gave up. It was just too annoying. I'll sit down, do the doctoral thesis worth of research required to buy wiper blades, from home tonight. I'm sure this will require a computer, Google searches, and probably reference to an arcane auto parts site I'll find in a deep, dark corner of the internet, visited only by porn crawling bots and men of dubious morality.

Title: Laying An Egg
Author: 2008-2009 Saskatoon Blades
Theme: The more things change, the more they stay the same

Why does this keep happening? I think its time to step back and have a serious, introspective look at what is going on with this hockey franchise. We make it to the playoffs and its all the same story over again. The Blades breeze into the playoffs with a great record, playing solid hockey and they meet a team that is much worse than they are, and the Blades lay a big, fat egg.

Why?

At this point I think we have to contemplate the idea that something is fundamentally wrong with the franchise. Is this not the flagship franchise of the WHL? If its not, then shouldn't it be? Its a big city (WHL wise) and major-junior hockey is the only game in town here. The Blades can't draw 3,000 fans to a regular season game consistently and when they finally get a decent (but not a full house) crowd for a playoff game, they drop a load in their collective drawers.

Why does this happen?

Over and over again, the Blades continue to fall on their swords. For every gain that they make, they stumble over themselves to screw it up. The faces keep changing (this is junior hockey) but we keep seeing the same story. When the Blades can make the playoffs (something sorely missing over the last decade) they choose to flame out in the first round.

They can't drop an egg in round one. It can't happen. They just finally pulled it together enough to make the playoffs in the first place, and then they lose to a 7th place team. Get ready for a lot of echo in the building next season, when we've got 15,000 seats, and we can't get 20% of them full for a game against Prince Albert.

Things have got to change.

Blog Quote Of The Night:

(standing in front of a gleaming white, 20 gallon pail full of ice)

Do we have any more ice?

Blog Quote Of The Day:

William Strannix: I got tired of coming up with last-minute desperate solutions to impossible problems created by other fucking people.

Casey Ryback: All of your ridiculous pitiful antics aren't gonna change a thing. You and me, we're *puppets* in the same sick game. We serve the same master, and he's a lunatic and he's ungrateful. But there's nothing we can do about it. You and me, we're the same.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Do you think any of these women curlers score groupies during the Scott Tournament of Hearts?

I have just listened to something that proports itself to be a Metallica version of the Imperial March from Star Wars.

I like it!

If you get a chance, look it up on YouTube. Its all over the place. Just search for 'Metallica Imperial March'

I want to warn you ahead of time, this is not for the faint of heart. The language and content of this video is highly explicit.

However, if you can get past that, this is the singularly most outrageously funny thing I have heard in quite some time. If you can handle some frank language, get ready for a powerful laugh.

Squeal Happy Whores

For the record . . .

I do NOT want to know what the god damn wind chill is. That doesn't tell me anything. I want to know what the TEMPERATURE is!!! Just tell me the damn air temperature. What is the weather outside.

Wind chill is NOT the temperature! Its some stupid, made up nonsense number that I don't give a rat's ass about. Who cares about the wind chill? In an ordinary day, do I walk any significant distance? Do YOU!?! I thought not.

So just tell me the bloody, god damn air temperature. Then I can decide if its actually cold out, or if you stupid assholes are just trying to scare us with your ultra-low 'wind chill' number.

Piss off and die.

Thank you.

Blog Question Of The Day:

Is it a bad sign when you start referring to yourself in the third person?

Candace hates my Denis Grebeshkov song.

Blog Quote Of The Day:

"How much is ten beer, if one is $5.75?

For the Record:

Sasktel's website sucks monkey junk.

I wish I could write songs.

Do you sometimes get the feeling that the news is just a self-fulfilling prophesy?

U.S. economy in meltdown

Global climate change worse than expected

Teen commits vicious crime against cat

Where were these stories even five years ago when times were (relatively speaking) good? Okay, maybe five years is a bad example because Bush the idiot had already invaded countries and was doing his level best to destroy the world. How about we go back ten years ago? Everyone seemed more upbeat about things.

Perhaps, and this is just pie-in-the-sky thinking, if we focused on how to fix the problems, instead of screaming like Chicken Little and insisting that the world was going to end, maybe it would all be alright?

I dunno. Its just a thought.

Somehow I can't see how spending another $700 billion is gonna fix a problem where the people involved have already spent more than they have.

I miss Tara.

Blog Question Of The Day:

If one was to pick up a street hooker, when she got into your car, would she put on a seat belt?

Blog Poll Of The Day?

Are you sick of Valentine's Day propoganda?

Here is something I wrote while I was on vacation. I said it happened last night, but it was actually about two weeks ago now.

It felt pretty real because the dream was a lot like my actual working life is. In fact, I dreamt that I was at work.

The first part I remember clearly I was on a job site. To be specific, it was a mine. There was lot of dirt piled all over the place, and a huge pile of minerals off in the distance. What was kinda strange is that the part of the mine I was on seemed very new, and rather sparse. Usually mine sites have building crammed together (sort of) with not a lot of wasted space. Where I was there was only one huge building, built a lot like your average farm shop.

I went inside and there were guys working. A big guy, almost too big to be real, came over to me and started talking. They had a water treatment issue (obviously, or why would I be there) and they wanted to know what I could do for them.

What wasn’t so strange is that they were looking to me for help because my bosses (real one’s) had gotten in touch with these guys and said that we could work miracles. That’s not such an unusual thing. What made it weird is when I found out what they expected to do.

I didn’t really get the point of the problem at first. They explained that they wanted to run the mine waste through the water treatment equipment before discharging it. That’s not such an usual thing to suggest. However they kept going on about how difficult this was proving to be, and how other people had failed at the attempt before. At one point the big guy stopped in explaining the problem, and went into this story about a previous supplier that came in with these HUGE tanks, and absolutely massive pipes to connect to the feed system. Everything was in steel. He was talking about pipes that an ordinary man could walk inside. Now this was strange because the scale of things that I’m commonly doing is in the 4 inch or 6 inch as the largest pipe size. I’ve designed something with 12 inch pipe but we won’t be building it.

So the story goes on and everything seems more and more weird. They are talking about weird temperatures and absurdly small pressures and I start to get the feeling, is this ultra-filtration? Then they show me a piece of equipment that a previous supplier left behind and it looks a lot like an ultra-filtration module from GE Water. Or at least that’s what’s stamped on it, and its blue in color.
Then the big guy starts talking about temperatures of 3000 Kelvin and I almost dropped my lunch. That’s preposterous! You don’t treat water at that temperature. Its not even water then. They don’t want to treat water, he tells me, but molten potassium sulphate. Apparently the whole building I’m in is built over a storage pit where they have a massive amount of potassium sulphate, all in molten form at 3000 K. I honestly know next to nothing about potassium sulphate but this big guy assures me that if potassium sulphate is not kept under pressure, it immediately changes to a molten form that exists at 3000 K. I’m starting to get the idea that this is a dream now.

But for some strange reason I still make plans like I can treat this like water. The whole thing is getting clear now. They want me to put potassium sulphate, at 3000 K, through a reverse osmosis membrane, extract the water, so that they have pure potassium sulphate they can sell. But the craziest thing about this hare brained scheme is, I’m actually buying into it. I start thinking I can do this!
So I’m doing a bunch of research and looking up different membranes. I’m trying to find something that would be resistant to the temperatures they are talking about, or coming up with a way to re-pressurize the molten potassium sulphate.

The last thing I remember is the floor to the building starts to come away from the foundation and I see this molten potassium sulphate burbling in the reservoir under the building. I’m shocked about this but no one else seems to even worry about it. I drive away still thinking of ways to treat this scenario, while the building collapses into the reservoir.

All it takes to realize that Miley Cyrus has no talent and deserves to go no where, is to have her try to perform a duet with Taylor Swift.

Funny picture!

I think I am musically schizophrenic. In the past 90 minutes I have heard, and enjoyed (in this order, but not consecutively):

AC/DC - Its A Long Way To The Top . . .
Alice In Chains - Rooster
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You

Does anyone know where it is I go to apply to become Jennifer Love Hewitt's new boyfriend?

Having a 'Student Driver' sticker on the rear of your car does NOT entitle you to drive only 2/3 of the speed limit, when conditions are fine, and traffic is moderately heavy.

Put your damn foot down and drive with the rest of us!

Why does everything have to be so difficult?

I have an MP3 player. Its actually a very good one. It can play videos, in addition to music. Its got a nice interface, even if the touch bar is a little sensitive. I get a little frustrated with it sometimes, because its so touchy, but the output from it is stellar.

The trouble is, its not brand new anymore. And being not brand new anymore means that NOTHING wants to work with it. As you will note from the time stamp on this post, I am awake at 2:30 in the morning as I struggle to make this work. I've finally gotten my computer to recognize the damn thing but I've basically blown off sleeping now.

Why can't stuff just work? I say this about ten times a day but why can't things JUST . . . EFFING . . . WORK!?!?!?!

Blog Song Of The Day:

Perfect Circle - Judith

I have decided, after a long and arduous decision making process, that I do not like fluted drinking glasses.

Shopping carts do not belong in the express lane.

I swear these people were too stupid to live. I actually put most of the blame on the woman because she looked like she was a heinous bitch and the husband was just doing whatever he could not to be in public anymore.

They were in the express lane, but they had a shopping cart.

But first, more stupidity.

There is a long line for the express lane. I think there was 8 people in it. The line was VERY obviously turned to the right because of its length. Nevertheless miss 'I'm Too Important to Wait In Line' cuts ahead of three people and just lines up behind the person most directly straight out from the counter. At least 45 seconds of dirty looks got her to go to the back of the line.

Then I stopped to truly examine this situation. There was two of them and they had four items. They were, and I note:

- one small beef roast
- 1 L container of milk
- bag of apples
- bag of indeterminate vegetables

For this they needed a shopping cart. For two of them. Not a hand basket. This was the full, four wheels, can hold $1000 worth of groceries. Four four items and one serious bad attitude.

Why is it we can't exterminate stupid people on sight!?!

Let me just run a scenario by you. Tell me what you think.

For the sake of argument, let's just say we all started driving electric cars tomorrow. No more gasoline/diesel engines on the road anymore. They are all gone.

However our electrical power generation didn't change its complexity at the same time. We still manufactured most of our electricity from coal.

Wouldn't that mean that we were essentially driving coal powered cars?

Think about it.

Should I download the Windows 7 Beta release?

Blog Question Of The Day:

Should I re-write the script to Star Wars, and shoot an alternate version that had coarse language on par with your average Samuel L. Jackson movie?

Blog Question Of The Day:

Is there any box in this pile that I should keep?




Blog Question Of The Day: