We Have to Move These Microwave Ovens

For some reason I've never cared to delve into, my wife always leaves the microwave door wide open, so the little bulb inside has burnt out. I'm not about to replace it, because why the fuck would I ever need to see inside the microwave? It's a small box. The food you put in there looks the same as the food you take out with the exception of popcorn.You're not fucking soufles bread in there. You're cooking pizza pockets. Besides, the door has that weird fucking screen on it to protect you from deadly microwaves. The only reason you'd ever need a light inside there is to see if your dinner blew the fuck up, and if it did, why would you need to see that, aside from the fact that it looks awesome? Are you magically going to go back in time and stop it from happening? It's already blown up. Let it go, America. If your food catches fire, you'll be alerted by the fact there is now black smoke coming out of your microwave when there was no black smoke before.You can write this observation down in your science journal as you work towards your degree, then get an extinguisher.
If you have a microwave with a spinning tray, you can watch as your plate of food rotates and perch your fingers together and say, "Good. Good. I can see it's spinning. I am well pleased."Otherwise, the most interesting thing to watch is the purple lightning you get when you fuck up and put something metal inside.
I think the only reason there's a window in there at all is because we're all fucking paranoid. We're afraid that some shit is going to go down if we can't see. You'll put in your pizza pocket, and when you open the door again it's asparagus. It'd break you.
What if you cooked something, and when you went back it was gone? You'd accuse your whole family, but they'd deny everything. You'd become angry and sullen towards them as you try to decipher who did it, but in time you'd have your doubts. You begin to wonder if you even put something in there at all, or if you did perhaps it was completely disintegrated. These thoughts would linger with you the rest of your life, gnawing away at you in the dark hours.
Or perhaps you put in a bowl of soup to be reheated, but when you close the door you hear scratching. Concerned, you open the door and see nothing but your soup. When you close the door again, the same sound persists, and now you hear a slight mewing like a kitten. Alarmed, you immediately open the door, but still there's only the soup. ARE YOU GOING MAD? You can hear it all the time now, whenever you're in your kitchen. You can't tell anyone because you're afraid of what they'll say. One day, you wake up in the middle of the night to make a snack, and you hear it again. You ignore it, but the sound grows louder and louder until it fills up your head. Then there's a whispering coming from inside. You tell yourself it's nothing, but you have to make sure. You open the door and it's your own head in there staring back at you! ALL BECAUSE THERE WASN'T A WINDOW IN THE MICROWAVE.

XXX-Mas 2: ‘Tits the Semenson

‘Tis the Season. At work they’re playing a radio mix of 80’s and bland Christmas music, the two most blatantly commercial genres in existence. Sometimes I wonder what would happen to all the coked-up record executives in the 80’s if internet music downloads had existed at the time. People would be flinging themselves out of windows… onto mountains of their cocaine before the Columbian drug lords could repo it all.

I’ve always wondered if in the Deep South they play non-stop Country in their stores and shopping malls, even around Christmas. Like, they’re all super-blow-up-an-abortion-clinic-Christian, but even they think Christmas music is too gay.

Do you even want to think about how much money people are making doing shitty covers of already shitty Christmas songs that everyone’s heard a million times before? Quadrillions.

How Do You Like Those Apples?

Halloween is the only time of year where you can be arrested for trying to give nutritious, fresh apples to children as treats. There’s nothing sketchier than someone giving out apples out on Halloween. You can expect to be ostracized from society after a thorough police investigation if you do. Everyone knows strangers put razors blades and syringes in apples to murder and mutilate our children. Except they don’t, and they’ve never. Every instance of a treat being poisoned or tampered with is a direct result of the parents doing it themselves. It’s an urban myth, which is easily debunked thanks to police files being linked online.

Apples were traditional treats as well, as they fit into the Fall harvest theme that use to be a part of the Halloween season. Remember apple bobbing? No one under twenty does, because of the myth, and also it wasn’t a great game to begin with. It’s like your trying to make eating an apple as unhygienic as possible by having everyone dip their faces and saliva into the same barrel. Plus you couldn’t play if you had face paint or a mask on.

If someone tried to give your kid a candy bar in his lunch, like at McDonalds, you’d start an online protest. If someone tries to give your kid an apple on Halloween, you’d burn their house to the ground like they were Freddy Krueger. How did that happen? Was it a candy company conspiracy?

Why are we only afraid of our children being poisoned by apples on Halloween? Isn’t that technically something that could happen any time, any where? How hard is it to stick a razor blade in an apple at the grocery store? You could even do it at an orchard, and no one would ever suspect until they bit into one.

Is that why whenever you see a kid’s meal with apples they’re always, always sliced? Are we that paranoid? A kid is as likely to choke to death on an apple slice as they are a whole apple. Plus you lose the core and the seeds that way, which you could have used to grow a new apple tree. Throwing an apple core on the ground isn’t garbage, it’s environmental. That apple core isn’t going to become a tree when it’s taken to the dump. If someone mushes it into the ground with their shoe, however, it’s an endlessly renewable food source. What the hell do the apple-slicing companies do with the cores anyway? Are they composting them, or something more sinister? Are they using them as a “food” source?

Tyrant

Today I realized that the only way to avoid life’s daily annoyances is to live in a totalitarian dictatorship dedicated to the eradication of your pet peeves.

I was standing in line at a check-out, and had to change lanes because the person in front of me decided to fill out a credit card application with reward points for what was soon to be a defunct department store. At the next checkout, I had to wait because the person in front of us was having a price check on an item that couldn’t have been more than ten dollars to begin with. As a general rule of thumb, if a deal on an item seems too good to be true and it’s on the wrong shelf by itself with no price tag, you should price check it before getting to the cash register. That’s why most stores have barcode scanners everywhere. The first checkout I’d been in was nearly clear by the time I went through the second one. On the way out of the store, the door alarm beeped, meaning I was expected to wait for someone to check my receipt because the cashier couldn’t be bothered to deactivate the tag. There was no one around and I decided to leave anyway. I could have avoided the checkout entirely and just walked out without paying, and the results would have been the same.

Throughout it all, I thought about how great it would be if soldiers just dragged everyone off the second they began to irritate me. I’m not necessarily saying they should be taken to concentration camps. The beauty of my idea is that the actual fate of these people is never disclosed. They’re just, “taken.” They could be going to, “Re-education centres,” or to, “Candy Mountain.” In the end, it doesn’t really matter.

I wonder if people living in Germany, or Russia, or any other of the hundreds of countries who’ve had their own concentration camps actually cared about what happens to the people who’re taken away. The Germans obviously knew something was up, but they all claimed ignorance after the war. They saluted and shrugged it off. Think of our own society and how many people are in prison right now. Sure, there’s murderers and rapists in prison, but they’re there with the drug addicts and people who’re caught shoplifting candy bars.

Back in the Day

I’ve been thinking a lot about where I came from and some of the facts don’t add up anymore.

For instance, growing up I was never allowed to have G.I. Joe toys. Guess what my favourite show was? G.I. Joe. I was six in 1986, at the absolute height of it’s popularity, and I couldn’t have them. All my friends played with G.I. Joe, though, so I’d go over to their houses all the time. We would get together in groups and everyone would bring their favourite Joes with them. I, of course, brought nothing, having nothing to bring, so they instantly hated me. I was forced to play with their least-awesome Cobra figures. I’d get maybe one toy with maybe it’s leg broken off, and all it’s accessories missing, and I’d have to pretend to fight off the entire Joe army, jet planes and battle ships and all. Needless to say, it was bullshit. That, “everyone but me,” theme followed me for the rest of my life and set the stage for many future disappointments, all foreshadowed by a $5 lump of plastic most kids end up blowing up with firecrackers.

The reason I wasn’t allowed to have G.I. Joes is because my mom said they glorified warfare, which is absolutely true. That’s the whole point of G.I. Joes. She said that because that’s what her step-dad told her, and he was a decorated war hero. He had supposedly come back from WWII with a different outlook going in as a doe-eyed youth, and had serious misgiving about his actions over his several tours of duty. He hadn’t become an anti-war proponent, but he was strictly against any future generations doing what he did.

Only, it was all bullshit. Going through his personal belongings after he died there was a very different picture of the man who bore his will down on his grandson. Firstly, there were the medals: rows of them. He’d threatened to send them back many times, mostly over alleged slights like the Queen knighting the Beatles. He kept all of them. If you were ashamed of something you’ve done, why would you keep the award recognizing you exclusively for it? Then, there was the memorabilia from his stint during the war. This included piles of documents. Some cartoons I saw amounted to little more than hateful propaganda. One image depicted a soldier bayoneting three enemy soldiers at once. He kept this around, but I wasn’t supposed to play pretend with half-snake people who shot lasers at dudes in Hawaiian shirts riding crocodiles, because it promoted violence. Then there was the souvenirs: fascist Italian flags and Nazi coins. If he’d been in Vietnam, he’d practically have a necklace of human ears. Of course he kept the other keepsakes like the binoculars and machete: who wouldn’t? A machete is a machete. Just ask Machete. Plus he was a proud member of the Eagles where he’d hang out with his war buddies every week, and he never missed a Remembrance Day where he could put on his uniform.

So if war was so bad, why was he dedicating every day of his life basically to commemorating the one he’d been in? What kind of double-talking horseshit was this?

Creep

As anyone knows, there’s more to see at your local mall than the stores. The people there are a spectacle in and of themselves. While visiting yesterday to pick up a few gifts, I saw an old man muttering to himself in the food court. It’s a testament to the progress of the 21st Century when you see a person talking to themselves and the first thing you do is look for a cell phone or bluetooth headset. Of course, people talk to themselves all the time. I do it almost constantly. On closer inspection, he wasn’t talking to himself, but rather a small baby doll he had set on the table in front of him. The doll, by itself, would be creepy, as dolls often are. A doll in the possession of an old man is creepier. An old man talking to a doll puts the creep factor through the roof. I waited to see if he was waiting for his grand-daughter, but he was sitting by himself at a table for two. Technically, he could still be waiting, even if my imaginary grand-daughter was in factually imaginary.

Then there was some freak walking around wearing what he likely thought were wankster clothes, looking strung out on something and too old to still be dressing that way. There’s a short time frame between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three when a white man-child can dress how he thinks stereotypical black people do and only look ridiculous instead of downright pathetic. That’s not the kicker, though, that’s simply an everyday observation. The strangest thing about him was he had an industrial-sized bag of Cheerios strapped to his chest like one might carry a baby in a ghetto Snuggli, and he was snacking on it like there was no tomorrow. Cheerios make a healthy snack, but you typically wouldn’t need to carry around twenty pounds of it on your person like you just finished raiding a Cheerios factory in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There was a group of teenagers at the food court wearing booty shorts that would likely get them kicked out of school and the dude walks by and practically puts his face in their asses he’s staring so hard. Then he turned around a minute later and walked back with the Pedo-smile on his face, like he was being discrete about his intentions.

Then there was some lady parked next to us in the underground lot. For some reason, as we passed her discount used car, I had a bad feeling about her, like something was off, but all she was doing was looking over her purchases. As I tried to put the baby stroller in the car she immediately stuck her head out her window and said, “I’d hate to tell you, but you just had your last night of sleep,” which sounds vaguely threatening, especially if you don’t immediately latch on to the context. It reminded me of the old lady in that terrible, terrible movie, “Legion,” that makes nice with the pregnant waitress, then tells her, “Your baby is going to fucking burn.” I don’t know why procreating and transporting your ensuing child around make people want to comment. It’s like half the people who ask about your baby have mental farts and panic when they open their mouths.

The second I pulled into the underground lot I saw the strange zombie man that walks around my town. He has some sort of defect that turns him into this hunched, limping thing. It could be that he had a stroke, or that he’s mentally disabled. As far as I can tell from a distance there’s nothing overly wrong with him, except for his entire posture and gait, but if you saw him at night you’d shoot him like he had a bag of Skittles in his pocket.

Christmas Time

I did some quick calculations, and found out that I’ve listened to approximately 1,500 hours of Christmas music in my life. Nearly 1,300 hours of that has been from the last nine years alone. This is a result of working retail where Christmas music plays constantly on a non-stop rotation from late November to late December/early January. The songs in their playlist automatically become my most listened to songs by default, as the song rotation is fairly short, and I listen to roughly 130 hours each year.. The top listened-to songs on my iPod don’t even come close in terms of time played, even combined. Christmas music comprises 1/12th of all music that reaches my ears. None of this is by choice, mind you. I have, and still listen to Christmas music by choice, but it differs greatly by content, artists, and target audience than the songs I listen to at work, or in malls and stores, and makes up a tiny fraction of total Christmas music I’ve listened to. It’s hard to gauge, but I believe I may have listened to over a hundred hours of Christmas music intentionally, be it on record, on television specials and movies, singing or instrumental, or in concerts and pageants.

My point is that I’ve mentally broken, and have long since gone insane, and am now a danger to myself and others.

Full Moon

In the past two days at work, I had a customer swear vehemently at me, I was treated like a retail slave worker by another, I had two customers break open lifts of merchandise in the overhead to get at things that didn’t really exist and argue with me all the while, and I had some dude with a shaved-head (ie. skinhead) in a 80’s acid washed jean jacket come up to me and say the following when he saw me using a pull bar, “Hey, you didn’t happen to work in the death camps in a former life, did you? I think that’s the kind of hook they used on the Jews when they took them out of the ovens.” I nearly went nuts and punched him in his meth teeth. There was that brief instant where I literally thought I would fucking do it. He made a blatantly anti-Semitic remark out of fucking nowhere, while simultaneously calling me a death camp Nazi. Nothing that person could say or do for the rest of his life would ever make up for that. All I did was clench my jaw and ask him, very pointedly, “Did you need help?” because I work in fucking retail. I never had less respect for myself than just then.

Worse thing is: I think this is the second job I’ve been in where I’ve dealt with this fucker. I don’t know what kind of shit he does for a living, but it’s not legit. Plus, I know I’m going to see him again. Seriously, even if I quit this job and get another, he’ll probably show up again. I think the first time I noticed him, he was towing around some chick like a piece of property and making very sexual remarks to other members of the staff. Classy.

I’m going to refuse to give him service next time I see him, and I’m going to let the managers know why. I honestly don’t care if I’m fired because of it.

Mind Control Agent

I noticed today that my baby’s new playtoy is a secret mind control agent issued by the C.I.A. to indoctrinate him into favouring a pro-American approach to Democracy. The toy is a plush coil with two flowers on the end and two animals hanging from it. One of them is a red elephant. The other is a a blue donkey.

Combined, they make the two most un-understandable symbols for America’s two political parties. Why animals? In Canada, the Conservatives don’t use a beaver as their mascot, and the Liberals don’t use a moose. Why do Democrats want to be represented by a jackass? Why do Republicans want to be represented by an animal indigenous to Africa, when they hate all black people?

At first I thought I was just being crazy when I noticed this. I thought the one animal was a horse, but it could very easily be a donkey. Can you tell the difference between a horse and a donkey in plush cartoon form? Plus the elephant was the red Republican colour, and the donkey a blue Democratic colour. They’re tied on a line, so one can be said to be on the left, or right, depending on how you’re facing them. It seems too spot-on to be a mere coincidence. There’s also a star and a mirror hanging from the spiral, which probably represent vanity and Texas, or some other poetic shit the Chinese child labourer making the thing thought up before having his hand cut off in a prison camp for daring to dream the American dream.

I’m now worried my child will grow up to be three hundred pounds, his fat face stuffed with McDonalds fries as he tries desperately to pull on a pair of blue jeans that will never fit him, so he can drive his S.U.V. to school and fail his geography test.

Sticky

Today, at work, I had to read over four pages of documents citing seven essential steps of using a stick, and then print my name, sign, and then date a form to certify that I am qualified to use a stick. Afterwards, my acting supervisor and manager both have to sign the document, and then it has to be filed away in my company record.

Let me assure you that this was not in response to me using the stick inappropriately. This was an official company document that anyone who wishes to use a stick must sign in order to pick up the stick.

The stick in question is similar to a metal hoe about three feet long, with a hollow metal handle that it’s welded to, and painted a garish orange colour which would make it visibly stand out in any environment except the one I work in. There are no moving parts. It probably cost about five bucks to make. It’s used only for pulling pieces of lumber forward when they’re out of reach. We previously used any sturdy wooden stick we could find with a metal hook screwed on the end. They worked fine, but they were banned when some chucklehead in the States was using one to grab something at the top of a long ladder, and fell to death. The stick and lack of training was blamed for the fatality instead of the person being a clumsy dumbass. We weren’t allowed to use stick for a total of six months until they found an alternative. Any stick found were destroyed and the people found using them were disciplined. It was akin to being caught with a firearm on a plane.

The instructions for the stick use colour photos. We’re warned to inspect the stick for damage prior to every use. Any stick found lacking must be tagged as out of service with a specified official out of service tag. When using the stick, we’re told to use a “staggered stance.” Customers or persons not certified are forbidden from using the stick at all times.

This is clearly meant to be serious business. Shit can an will go down if you don’t use the stick properly. It was like reading the instruction manual for the Wii, where about twenty pages are devoted to the awesome things you should never do with the Wii-chucks, like throw it at the TV, knock over lamps, or strangle a ninja to death.

We were warned never to write on the stick or put stickers on it. Previously, we’d broken the hoe off of a stick, and I had painted in green like a Riddler cane. Then someone came along and turned it into a Rio Carnival pimp cane. When they threw that out, a part of me died inside. A part I can never get back. Apparently, I should have been fired immediately. Now I wait in fear for THEM to come, and claim me, and I shall work no more.

Retail Hell

This morning at work I had to walk five minutes in the rain wearing just my T-shirt (and pants, of course, but imagine me pantless if it helps you get through the day) to look for an item at the side of the building, which we did not have, despite our computer system assuring me we had 190. When I came back soaking wet and miserable to tell the customers what I found, the one said, “Well that’s not very good business.”

…This is a typical day for me.

I’ve been avoiding blogging about the perils of work because:

1: It’s not good business.

2: I can be fired for it.

3: It alienates co-workers.

4: It can prevent me from finding other employment.

5: It makes me come off sounding like a whiny little bitch, which I am to some extent.

Really, though, if I’m blogging about my life as a journal, am I to be expected to leave out a giant chunk of my day? What if Anne Frank kept a journal and left out the part about hiding in an attic? I’ve had previous problems and complaints from writing about my relationships and family. One whole section of my blog is about how much I hate the town I live in, and I’ve been thinking about deleting that, for the same reasons listed above about my work. What am I left with? Even some works of complete fiction have been looked at by my friends and they’ve drawn conclusions I’m writing about them. One of the works in question was about a cartoon cat. It similar to the recent story about the author of, “The Help,” but completely ridiculous, and without the lawsuits.

It’s just the pitfalls of being a writer/blogger, and not a very good one at that. You take risks and you face consequences, no matter how overblown and undeserved. I have a very small readership, and likely always will, as this is no way a profession for me. Even so, anyone can stumble across these words and make an opinion. That’s not saying a person wouldn’t look at my blog’s other subjects and gain a negative opinion of me. People passing by on the street will judge you just the same by your clothes. The only difference is the person of the street can literally spit on you.

There’s so much material in my life to draw upon, but I often neglect it, or ignore it. For instance, at work earlier this month, I was required as a condition of my employment to watch a safety video and take a quiz on preventing terrorism. To summarize the experience, it was similar to the Smokey Bear, “Only you can prevent forest fires!” routine, but instead of fires I’m expected to stop 9/11 times a million. I’m a Canadian working for an American company. Quite frankly, the American mindset is completely alien and frightening to me. I can support ingesting Double Downs, but not the whole, “These colours don’t run!” aspect of their lifestyle. As I said, I work in retail. I’m unlikely, in the extreme, to ever come between freedom and terrorism. The video told me what mysterious items to look out for in the event of a terrorist would sneak his way through our tills. My official corporate approach to dealing with a would-be terrorist is supposed to be: call the police with a description. The criteria for suspicion is extremely vague. I’m expected to instinctively know the precise components for making a homemade bomb. If I knew how to make a bomb, would that make me a terrorist? I’m sure the C.I.A. would think so, should I try to google it. Say I did know what goes in a bomb, and someone comes by trying to buy the same things, and after factoring in the same racist xenophobic criteria airport security uses, all I can do is watch him go? What are the police going to do if I call them saying I think someone’s trying to build a bomb? They’re going to ask me why I think that. Then I have to tell them I saw a guy buy some wire and a timer, or whatever the hell he would need. They would then ask me, “And?” And I would have to reply, “’And,’ what? HE’S A TERRORIST!” The conversation would keep going like this until I mention he was brown, and then they would come and arrest him. Only, he’d be gone already, so better luck next time, freedom.

Seriously. First off, this is way too much pressure to put on someone. Second, I know terrorists are the new witches, but you’re giving people a free pass to be racist, without even having to say the word. I’ve seen Fox News by proxy through the Daily Show. We all know what a “terrorist” looks like, *wink* *wink*. The video I watched didn’t even imply that a suspected terrorist could just as likely be a suspected mobster, or gangster. Maybe he’s going to blow up some Crips? Are terrorists the only criminals who use bombs? Maybe he’s going to blow up his ex-wife. Or HER ex-wife. Think progressive, people. Blowing up rental vans isn’t just for some cartoony Middle-Eastern stereotypes anymore. Look at Blondie-Van-Blondhead in Norway. Am I supposed to be profiling people, even? How does one stop terrorism by making groundless assumptions without profiling? You hear stories about airport security patting down babies and checking the underwire bras of grandmas. Am I supposed to be doing this?

I’m just worried that some human beings are taking things this seriously. I’ve worked at other places where people are supposed to call police if they’re trying to buy the components for making meth, which is just as destructive. Obviously, if someone’s buying 50 bottles of bleach in a go, they’re up to some shit, but what about fertilizer? Am I supposed to suspect someone’s a terrorist if they want to buy a truckload of fertilizer? Am I supposed to call the cops and say, “He said he was trying to grow carrots and lettuce, buy I don’t believe that shit. He had crazy terrorist eyes!”

Fuck.

I’m not saying she’s a Goldfarmer…

Occasionally, I’ll venture into my junk e-mail folder to see if anything has fallen through the cracks, and I’ll see e-mails from this man:

Kim Jong Il. Or at least someone with the same grasp on the Engrish language.

“Der Players
You've been summoned back to Azeroth. Experience all of the new and exciting content that's been added to World of Warcraft? In the 4.2 game, Rise of the Zandalari, with 7 FREE days of game time for your account. Maybe you have experience. Simply (…) below to claim your free time... but act fast, as this limited-time offer will expire soon and friends in the game interaction.”

You see, I played WoW for a time. I wasn’t particularly good at it, and I quit. Why would I pay a monthly subscription fee when there’s so many things I could suck at for free? Still, constantly receive these e-mails from Goldfarmers trying to phish my account.

“Greetings!
When you take to the skies astride a blazing, eagle-winged lion, your comrades will know you mean business. Serious business. So saddle up, because this flying mount will travel as fast as your riding skill will take you, and it can even travel at 310% speed if you have at least one other 310% speed mount.

Once activated, this World of Warcraft in-game pet key applies to all present and future characters on a single World of Warcraft license.

we will be complimentary seat to the 5,000 players. You can log Web site application, we will be lucky players randomly.
Please click this link to apply”

Each e-mail includes a very dubious link. Should I click it, it would no doubt send me to a look-alike site where it would ask me to log in. Logging in is very crucial to their evil plan. Once they have my name and password, neither of which I can even remember anymore, they would hijack my account and then… What exactly? Like I said, I suck at Warcraft. Any gear my character has is garbage. It’d be like robbing a homeless person. I have no idea what my loot would go for in the secondary Goldfarming market, but I’m guessing it’d be less than one dollar American. Way to go, North Korea. You’re one step closer to buying that WMD.

The saddest part is how much effort they clearly try to put into making it all seem legit, and then they fuck up the grammar. I can’t tell if they’re being stupid, because a convoluted plan involving phishing into player accounts just so they can rob a virtual people and turn their in-game items into real-world money doesn’t seem entirely stupid. Seriously, if you can take virtual money and turn it into real cash, then you’re a fucking evil genius. Why do they include the bad grammar and typos, then? Is it so they can make fun of the people who do fall for these scams? Do they not spell-check their own spam? Are they already using their Engrish skill to the max, superfuntime? Or maybe there’s some poor kid in North Korea writing all these with a gun to his head, and he slips in these errors because he feels guilty about what he’s being forced to do? “Prease ret them notice my ellols,” he whispers under his breath, before his head is blown off by his cruel overseer and another boy is brought in.

A Clean Bill of Health

In the past six weeks, I’ve been to the Emergency Room, had a blood test, two cardiographs, an X-Ray, an ultra-sound, and finally a HIDA Scan to see what was wrong with me. The result? Nothing. I first had to go to the hospital due to severe chest pains. There’s no knowing what a heart attack feels like until you have one, and I haven’t had one yet, and I was worried that was the cause. Turned out it wasn’t and my heart was fine. The doctor looked at the results of my blood test and X-Ray and thought it might have been gallstones. The ultrasound showed it wasn’t that either. My gallbladder was enlarged, however, so I had to move on to a HIDA Scan to see if it was healthy. It turned out it was. So I took every test I could take at the doctor’s orders, and I still have no idea what happened. I was out of commission for a whole day with chest pain that spread into my back, until I could barely stand up, and there were times I couldn’t even so much as lie down. Did I have some sort of gallbladder attack? Is that even possible? Who knows? There’s no point in pursuing it further unless it happens again.

Thank God I live in a country where health care is free, though. I’d hate to go through all that just to learn nothing was wrong with me, and end up with an enormous bill. Worse still, I could have needed surgery, compounding my financial problem with health problems. How do people survive in those situations? I was already trying to figure out how I’d pay the bills if I had to take time off work and go on short-term disability. If you add hospital bills to the mix, then you’re looking at bankruptcy.

The turnover time was pretty good too. People complain about long waits in our health care system, but if you break down everything I had to go through, six weeks is a good time. I was tended to immediately when I went to the hospital with chest pains, and when they figured out it wasn’t really my heart, it was a relatively short period of time before I moved on to the next stage. The longest wait was for the ultrasound and HIDA scan tests to come back, which took a week each. The HIDA Scan itself was booked in a relatively short period of time.

So I guess Canada kicks a little ass. I feel bad for Americans.

Hida

I’m having some health issues, and my doctor has scheduled me an appointment to have a HIDA scan done. After much googling, I’ve learnt that this involves me being injected with a radioactive material:

And then undergo an hour of gamma radiation:

So of course, I’ll turn into this:

Now, I know it’s all perfectly safe, but the nurse telling me this will be behind a lead shield.

The Over-Reaction to the Over-Reaction

Vancouver recently rioted over the Canuck’s loss to the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. No one could have predicted that a full-scale riot would erupt over something as trivial as a hockey game, except that the exact same thing happened seventeen years ago. There was once a riot when Guns ‘N’ Roses cancelled a concert at the last minute, but no one in the media has mentioned that, because it’s not hockey related. I mention it only because it gives you a broader sense of the Vancouverite mentality.

Over 100,000 people attended an outdoor gathering to watch the game on big TV screens as the Canucks lost, and lost hard. This is after months of over-hype for the Stanley Cup playoffs. People had Stanley Cup predictions before the season even started, as they do every year. You know when you see ads for a movie everywhere you go, only to find out later that the movie sucks? That’s how this went, in the absolute extreme.

Allow me to give you some examples of the hype going on. Bear in mind, I am not a hockey fan, and I am biased as hell:

Every morning, when I’d get in my car and go to work, and turn on the Jeff O’Neil Show on C-FOX on the radio, they’d be discussing the Canucks. This wasn’t isn’t sports program, by the way: it’s about alternative rock. It didn’t matter if there was a game the night before, a game that night, or a week from the date in question, they’d be talking about the Canucks. Then people would call in and talk about the Canucks. Then someone would make a dick joke.

Every time I’d log on to facebook, I’d have to scroll through a sea of status updates about the Canucks, and everyone’s opinions on them. This would go on and on, until I realized that facebook is secretly hell, and I’d give up and leave. Meanwhile, cross-posts to facebook from my blog received comments from my “friends,” like, “Why do you post these? They’re stupid and they’re not funny.” Indeed, they’re not, and I don’t know. I just don’t know.

People would wear their jerseys to work every damn game, then drone on in the break room about the game. Customers would too. “Did you see the game?” I’d be asked, and I’d have to remind them that no, I don’t watch hockey. I don’t particularly like hockey. Please stop asking. The store would become deserted every game. People would call in sick or leave early.

With every win, the streets would be shut down as people lined up in their cars and honked loudly, creating a traffic-jam parade, so even if I didn’t watch the game, I’d still have to plan my day around it. My wife was pregnant, and there was genuine concern that if I had to get her to the hospital in a hurry, I wouldn’t be able to make it past the crowds. The Canucks won a game the day my son was born, and it seemed as if the hospital was understaffed as a result. The nurses all asked me if I was a hockey fan. My parents got stuck in the mob on the way out of the hospital after visiting us and the baby. A week later, I had to go to the emergency room with chest pains, and there was the same situation. I was trying to get a ride, but of course the game was on, so that was a no-no. My basic point is: the more the Canucks won, the greater the chance was that my wife, my unborn son, and myself would die.

Everyone had only one thing on their tiny little minds for months, and that was the Canucks. Then they lost. Riots ensued. Sports riots by themselves are nothing new. Depending on where you live, soccer can be synonymous with riots. This riot was a little unusual, mainly because of the hipster crowd, the fact that 100,000 people were basically stranded together in the city, and because of cell phone cameras. 90,000 people stood around and filmed people with their cell phones while the rest looted and rioted… while filming themselves with their phones.

Yes, people were standing on top of overturned cars, taking pictures of themselves, while other were taking pictures of them taking pictures of themselves. There’s a slim chance this riot may have been better documented than 9/11. I thought that the covers of the Province and the Sun had used the same photo of a dude jumping over a garbage fire, with the flames licking his nuts, but then I realized that the photos were from two different people likely standing shoulder-to-shoulder. There’s already been a full story done about this picture:

Which looks like one really kinky couple about to get it on in the middle of a riot, which is deserves a reward, but really it’s some dude checking to see if a chick needs medical attention. It wouldn’t have been so popular so quickly if anyone had bothered in the slightest to help out, but no. In a crowd of 100,000, only one dude bothered to help this chick. Now papers and news are running stories every day about the heroes of the riots, who either tackled looters, or told them to back off and not torch cars.

They’re trying to show the good side of the city in the outcome of the riots, but as far as I can tell, the crowd was 10% doucebags, 1% hero, and 89% indifferent. Everything was fodder for facebook, especially the aftermath.

Then there’s this dude:

Dude straight-up has some balls. And some sweet kicks. Honestly, if I were in a riot, I’d loot those off of him. Look at how wide a berth this guy has. Dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of people are watching him as he goes through the convoluted process of trying to light a cop car on fire. He’s clearly put some thought into this. Now: at any point, anyone could have stopped him. He’s seventeen. A person wouldn’t even have to necessarily have to fight him. A smack upside the head and a, “Knock it off,” could have sufficed. But no, no one did a thing, except take pictures and post them, because it’s easier to be passive aggressive on facebook than do something in real life. If you want to talk about facebook leading a social revolution: this is it. It’s basically allowed people to become so detached that it’s easier for them to react through a c became an instant pariah, and he and his family have received numerous death threat on facebook. The kid committed a major offense, but it’s not like he deserves to die for it. People demand justice.

Except they don’t really understand “justice.” An angry mob has formed over the actions of another angry mob. Bear in mind, no one died in the riots. Stuff got wrecked and stollen, and people got pushed around. That’s it. Now they want to kill a kid. He made a full public apology, and he’s still likely to face some kind of charge at some point, and then have it thrown out of court because he’s seventeen. Every day in the paper, it’s this:

People are basically responding like a mob. They’re using facebook to track down the rioters and to harass them. Even with all the photos, it’s difficult to ascertain who committed a criminal act during the riots and who was basically some douche standing around and flashing gang signs like a hipster. Then there’s people bragging about their looting. There’s no real way to tell if they’re serious or not, but they’ll be treat the same by people either way. Facebook is the number one tool in catching the rioters, but it’s leading to more crimes, namely: uttering threats. So in confronting the criminals, average citizens are becoming criminals.

Also, there’s this:

People doing graffiti on the plywood they put up to cover the broken windows. I know it’s all innocent, but GRAFFITI IS A CRIME! Think of all Vancouver’s gone through. Now it has to put up with your poor penmanship? Even the major came out to take part in this bullshit, when really the whole thing is kinda his fault. There was a lot of poor planning that went into the event, and if you’re the mayor of a place that riots after allowing drunken sports nuts to congregate in the city streets with no supervision, you should think about what went wrong. If you want to point fingers, you can’t just blame the rioters, because statistically: Yes, there was going to be a riot. The police get off Scott Free because no one died. People still love the Canucks, so it’s not their fault. So it’s basically the government at fault for thinking their dickish people wouldn’t be dicks.

With regards to people “paying the price,” today in the paper the cover said that, “Apologies aren’t enough.” In the inside cover it talks about an anarchist leader who caused over $5,000 damage during the Winter Olympics walking free without having to do so much as community service.

Moral Ambiguity

I just read this on Kotaku. “Ryan Dunn, Jackass daredevil and co-host of G4's Proving Ground,died in a Pennsylvania car crash this morning. He was 34.”
They also ran this picture:

Now in the split second between seeing the image and my eyes passing over the “car crash” text, I was hoping somehow that the person in question wasn’t  the same dude, or else this random (to me anyway) chick, because I’d just watched Jackass 3.5 a couple days ago. I know the dude, albeit in that vague, “Hey, I know that dude. That’s the dude who froze his balls to the ice horse,” sense, and hence I was wishing death on someone else. Isn’t that strange? There’s always that weird microsecond your mind takes to process bad news, and it tries intentionally to misinterpret it. For instance, my dog died at my parent’s house about three days ago, and I went through the same process where I heard the news from my wife saying, “I’ve got some bad news for you about Tekei,” and I optimistically thought that the bad news isn’t going to be the bad news. Obviously there’s the initial pessimistic wave of, “Oh shit,” inside my head, then the optimistic thought of, “Wait, let’s hear this out.” You always hope to be that person at the morgue who has to identify a loved one, only to realize, “Hey, this isn’t my wife, this is Courtney Love!”
Jackass 3.5: The Unrated Movie

The Being of Omnipresent Rage

Have you ever seriously worried that your own rage-filled emotions will physically manifest themselves and tear someone asunder?

I’m a pretty suppressed guy. Not Libyan suppressed, mind you, but emotionally suppressed. I get as stressed as the person next to me, but the person next to me is likely the one stressing me out. So I try to keep my composure like an anti-Charlie Sheen. It doesn’t work, necessarily, but it gets the lousy stinking job done. There’s situations, though, where people attack you on multiple fronts, and all that composure goes in the garbage. 
So today I was trying to make it to an appointment at the hospital for me and my wife to get a tour of the maternity ward, as our baby is due in a few months. I dropped her off at the front entrance then proceeded on my way to find a parking spot. I had been there last week so we could register with the hospital, while at the same time a nurse’s union tour bus complete with news camera crews pulled up to the front to start a protest. The parking situation was a kerfuckle (TM). For a new hospital boasting it’s size, there was no parking. Anywhere. And parking costs $2.75 an hour. People and cramming themselves in to pay $2.75 an hour. For parking. I had to leave the entire grounds to find a spot, but every side street had strict no parking signs posted, for no good reason. These were little used residential cul-de-sacs about three lanes wide with no lines on the road even. Still, they don’t want you parking there. They want you parking at the hospital, and to pay for this privilege. Only, there’s no parking there. I eventually had to park next to a “Resident Parking Only” sign and hope I didn’t get towed over the next half-hour.
That was last week. Today, as I try to pull away from the entrance, a van stops in front of me, and stays stopped. There’s no room to go around him. There’s a car behind me, so I can’t back up. I can’t honk my horn because it’s a hospital quiet zone. He stays there for about three minutes. Eventually, a half-dead man hobbles up to the side door and gets in. I exhale, and I move on my way as they leave. I circle a few stalls in the parking lot, and finally find a space. Before I can, a car opposite the space starts to back up, so I have to stop, because they’re no going to. The car pulls out between me, and the empty space, and stops, and stays stopped across two lanes. There’s no way around the car, and no explanation for what the hell it’s doing. I wait two minutes. A lady comes out of the car, and walks over to me, and taps on my window, telling me in a Scottish accent, “Excuse me. I overpaid for my time in the parking metre and told the driver in the spot next to mine that she can have my spot instead…” There’s more, but I cut her off there.
“I’m kind of in a hurry here,” I said as a single word through gritted teeth as foam rose in the back of my throat. Have you ever been so mad that you can taste foam? It’s a peculiar substance produced in the back of the throat that’s like a mixture of bile and saliva. It’s like your body is tying to spit poisonous venom, but doesn’t have the necessary organs. It’s frothy, and leaves you feeling thirsty, thirsty FOR BLOOD.
I had to wait for the woman to get back in her car. I didn’t know what to do at this point, so I put my car in reverse and backed up two inches. It’s about forty feet to leave the lane for the intersection, and I wasn’t about to do that, just because I was where I wanted to be. I stopped, waited for her to move her car, then pulled into the spot I wanted, which incidentally isn’t her spot, and is factually closer to the hospital. I looked at no one as I exited the vehicle. I wondered about how casually telling someone as you get in your car that they can have your spot and not have to pay for parking becomes a sacred pact between two fated individuals and may require you to fight and die for their honour. WHO THE FUCK DOES THIS? I know it’s a hospital and people are sick and dying everyday, and drama’s high, but I shouldn’t have to entertain the thought of jacking some old lady’s car just to move it ten feet out of my way, then flipping her the bird and tossing her the keys. What was the worse thing that could have happened? The other driver would have lost her spot and vowed a bloody vengeance on the old lady and myself? There’s a difference between being a good Samaritan and being an ass. Plus, since I probably betrayed a hint of my true vehemence, she’s was probably swearing about me under her breath as she went back to her car. She probably called one of her friends and complained about how rude I was. Then her friend, having no life of her own, would have called two of her friends and so on and so forth, until I’m on a No-Fly List somewhere. Entire websites are then devoted to my downfall and I become a meme. People spit in my burgers intentionally, instead of just randomly.
I have so little faith in humanity lately that my paranoid delusions echo as the truth. It’s hard to trust anyone. When I take my kid to the park, I have to hover around him, or else I worry someone will try to report me as a pedophile. I delisted my employer as my employer on facebook because I worry someone will rat me out over a comment I make and I’ll end up being shit-canned. The other day, I put my hand on a rail inside an elevator and it came away covered in somebody’s snot and I imagined that someone had just horked a loogie on me from above. I almost looked up, even though I know it’s a completely enclosed space and no one would possibly be up there hiding like a fucking ninja. That’s how fucked up I think the world is. I have an instant dislike of anyone I haven’t met, and hence I don’t want to meet people. It’s a problem, but it’s a problem being reinforced by everyone around me. Any situation I don’t walk away from the richer for having been in it makes me worry. So a two-minute parking lot traffic snarl in which everyone is outwardly smiling and polite can leave me infuriated and reclusive for the rest of the day. Hence: the pent-up rage, which I then use to forge blogs and explode teenagers with carelessly tossed semtex in COD

LiveJournal Tags: life

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Pluto vs. Bluto

With all the talk of illegal-immigration today, it’s easy to forget about another kind of alien. Namely: ALIENS.

My step-son received a book on space for his birthday. In it, the book claims that there’s only eight planets in our solar system, and that Pluto doesn’t count for shit. Of course, I read all about scientists giving Pluto the finger years back, but to see it actually implemented in educational books is like living in 1980 (the book/movie, not the year). The reasoning behind the decision to de-label Pluto as a planet is sound, but that’s only according to scientists. If you ask me, it’s total bullshit. When I grew up not so long ago, there were nine fucking planets, and Pluto was the Tito Jackson, but it was still fucking there. If your system of classification for a planet doesn’t include Pluto, you don’t need to re-label Pluto, you need to change your fucking system, ‘cause it’s broke.

Pluto = Planet.

But who are the people behind this decision? Who would benefit the most from this re-classifcation? Who else but: ALIENS.

Yes: aliens. The Plutonians want us to forget they exist, to make their sneak attack on this planet that much sneakier. They’ve carefully infiltrated the scientific community and brought about this change to ready us for the slaughter. No other explanation makes sense.

The same basic strategy was used during the Cold War. The the K.G.B. put their sleeper agents inside the American education system and took away any reference to the U.S.S.R. from every Atlas, globe and map. Look at any map made after 1989 and try to find the U.S.S.R. Hint: IT’S NOT FUCKING THERE. Instead, they have, “Russia,” in it’s place, land of milk and honey (assuming that by, “milk,” you mean, “vodka,” and by, “honey,” you also mean, “vodka.”). Believe me, though, the U.S.S.R. is still there, just like Pluto: lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike. (Other instances of this happening include Constantinople, the Ottoman-Hungarian Empire, and Troy.)

So what happens to our schools now? Is the word, “Pluto,” going to be crossed out with black felt marker like a government document from the Bush administration? Are dioramas of the solar system going to be burned because they include Pluto? Are kids going to fail their tests because they incorrectly answered that our solar system has nine planets?

FUCK THAT SHIT. I say it’s time to take back Pluto, both figuratively, and literally. We need to forget about a manned mission to Mars and focus on Pluto instead… with  laser cannons. When I was a kid, they said this era in history would be called the Space Age. They were fucking wrong. We need to use that idea, and get all 1950’s idealized future on Pluto’s ass. I want Master Chief on Pluto, tea-bagging defenceless Plutonians by tea-time.

Remember, if someone tells you that Pluto isn’t a planet, they’re not one of us, and they’re Plutonians oppressing your rights as a human being. It’s EXACTLY like the Pope telling Galileo that the stars revolve around the Earth, except it won’t be the Pope, but a Plutonian terrorist in disguise.

Death of a Robin

The range hood over the stove collapsed off of it’s fittings tonight while my fiancée was in the kitchen. The range hood itself is one of those peculiar appliance few ever think of, but it’s omnipresent in every kitchen. You use it sparingly at best, and usually only in dire circumstances of cooking. It’s always particularly noisy; ours in particular.

The reason it had come loose of it’s screws is hard to fathom, especially after so many years. For all I know, it could have been in place since the 80’s. A brief examination showed the four screws holding it in place had been over-tightened at bad angles. It had slipped off along the tracks, and dropped a few inches. It was spared a complete plummet by the tightness of the cupboards against which it rested and a power cord slipping up and through a hole in the drywall.

After a long search for the necessary power drill to fix it, I took the opportunity to clean some of the grease and grime that had accumulated over decades in the thin space between the range and the bottom of the cupboard above. Somehow, a few pieces of nacho chips had made their way through the razor-thin crack, though I see no earthly way of how this had happened. We had a problem with infestations in the past year, so I sought out any remnant of the insect variety, and looked for various ways in which the insects could gain access to our apartment.

What I found, when shining a flashlight into the dark recesses where the ceiling fixture could not shone, I discovered something quite shocking:

It was the preserved remains of a captive robin.

At first, I had hoped he was still alive, as his presence could have explained the sudden dislodging of the range, but such was not the case. He lay on top of a trap above the fan. His foot had become trapped between the flap of the door, and he could not escape, although he must have tried frantically. It was all to no avail. Eventually, he had to lie down to die. There was no telling how long the bird had remained in that position. I am not skilled enough in these areas to hazard a guess. It could have been weeks, it could have been months. To think of how my family and I must have breathed in the dust of his feathers without knowing he was in our apartment.

Cleaning, at this point, was very necessary, but I found a lack of garbage bags and paper towels.

I went first to the Home Depot to collect some screws and a new filter for the range. I had no idea what size I needed, but after checking a similar model I made a gamble. I could always return them if they didn’t fit. Fortunately, they were absolutely the right models. Apparently these filters are to be washed or replaced once every six months. Our had never. It went immediately in the trash.

I tried to wonder how the bird became so trapped. We live on the second floor of a three storey apartment building. It would have had to have bypassed numerous channels of ducting and who knows what else to have found it’s way into our particular exhaust. Such is not an uncommon thing, however, as I remember birds becoming trapped in our chimneys as a child, and I know some birds are attracted to smoke as a way to delouse their feathers.

It felt sad to have to throw a once living creature in the garbage. To me, it deserved better. As a young boy, I would demand of a neighbour to bury a dead bird I found lying on the side of the road. It, of course, went into the trash. Such is the fate of birds.

RANT!

My New Year’s Resolution was to flip more people off, and so far I haven’t been living up to that lofty goal, so here goes:

$50 Bills:

No one accepts $50 bills as legal tender, although it says so right on the bill. I’ve had the same fifty in my wallet for over a month. Every checkout counter I go to has the same sign posted saying they no longer accept $50s. I remember a time when $100 bills were verboten. To me, it made sense. You don’t pull out a $100 bill at a convenience store and not be met with some scepticism, but a $50? Allegedly, it’s due to counterfeits, but counterfeiting is a crime as old as money itself. People in olden days didn’t refuse legal tender when it was offered, but they still checked for fakes. Even a Victorian shoe shine boy would bite down on a gold coin to see if it was real. Are you saying today’s modern Subway sandwich “artist” is less skilled at checking for fakes? On the rare occasion you do find a shop that accepts a $50, the cashier will invariably handle your money like it holds some ancient secret of the universe. No section will go unchecked. It will be held up to the light, it will be held under the light. It will be stretched, it will be bent. It will be used to make origami. If they could taste it, they would.

Why are you stopping at $50s? Any amount of currency can be faked. I could have three fake $20 bills, and one real $50, but you’ll take the $20s? Way to go, genius.

What if a fake $50 bill slips through? What horrible things would happen? My parents once received a fake $20 from a bank. Yes, the bank distributed a fake $20. Which means, even the bank can make the mistake of accepting a counterfeits. The money itself has no real value to it: it’s just the idea of money. Which means, if you give a fake bill to a cashier, and they give that fake bill to the bank, and the bank give it back to you, nothing happens. No one loses money, because money isn’t a real thing. It’s only when someone notices that things go bad. Then the police come in, people are questioned and someone loses out.

Why even have denominations over $20 anymore if businesses are refusing to accept them as currency, which I believe may be illegal? They’ve been talking for years about getting rid of the penny, and how expensive it is. Why not $50 and $100 bills? It’s a sensible suggestion. Of course, it leads to greater numbers of bills being printed, and would likely prove more costly. So I suppose there’s no easy answer.

Assholes and Bitches:

One of general rules in my life is that a person of disreputable character should, by chance, piss me right the fuck off, I’ll likely see that person again, and again, and again. Obviously, this theory first formed in school, where whenever someone shoved me into a locker, called me a fag, etc., I’d be guaranteed to see the person again every period for twenty-four semesters, and perhaps college as well. Once I exited the educational system, I figured I’d be a free agent. No such luck. Co-workers will always be a problem for everyone, but I meet random people every day in various capacities, people too dumb to live, but endure regardless. They pop up two, three times a day. Let me explain that: some random dick-licker has pissed me off. Normally, that’d be okay, because I wouldn’t have to see that person again. A few hours pass, and I see them again. Then again. I don’t know these people. I don’t know their names. I don’t want to, but they’ve broken through the background scenery of my life.

On occasion, I’ve been pestered by customers at work. Numerous times. Every day. For years on end. I leave the job, move, etc., but for whatever reason, I meet that person again in an awkward social situation. “Oh, you’re my girlfriends school friend’s relative? Great party, huh?” Fuck you.

Aging:

As a child, I looked at the adults around me, and what they’ve been doing with their lives. Twenty years of this, fifty years of that. You know how it goes: people building mountains out of molehills, getting nowhere but getting on.

I’m an adult now, and I’m one of them. I’m at the point where I’m looking at fifty years of sweet fuck all, then old age and death, and it’s pissing me off. Day in, day out, punch in, punch out  kinda shit. Not looking forward to it.