New Gods

Since I was praying to the A/C gods the other day (rather unsuccesfully), I was wondering who else would make it into a modern pantheon of gods?
Some of the old ones might still be around - like gods of war, love, carousing, the harvest - but I bet if we were making up gods today there'd have to be a bunch of new ones.
There would definitely have to be a god of the Internet. A god of the automobile. A god of cities. How about a god of cellphones and modern communication. You could text your prayers to him. Or maybe that would be a her. Probably the oil companies would have their own god. That one would definitely be a he. Can't picture a goddess being that evil or corrupt.
What else am I missing?

Seasons change

I've discovered a season between Winter and Spring...Winting?...no, Spinter?...no. Let's just call it Slush. The temperature starts fluctuating between -5 and a little over 0, combined with some fresh snow from last week nad here we are. There are mountains of it at the moment.

Forget about trying to keep your car clean. Hell - forget about trying to get into or out of your car without getting the cuffs of your pants slimed by it. You track it everywhere you go, leaving little puddles that blind detectives could use to follow your movements. The mat at the entrance of every building you enter is a sodden mess that you squelch through as you go in.

Pretty much the only good thing about Slush is that at least it means that Spring is vaguely close. Close enough to glance sideways at (you don't want to look right at it or it will get scared and dissappear for another month).

Januaries

January has to be the worst month of the year. The funness of christmas is over. New Year's is done. When you finally detox yourself from the excesses of the holiday season you realize that it's still dark and freezing outside and winter is dragging on with no end in sight.

Stupid January - I'll be glad to see you die.

With that in mind - according to my horoscope, February is 'Clean Out Your Brain Month'. So if I see you before Friday, please excuse my excessive cursing. I blame January for pissing me off - plus now I have to get it out of my system.

Fucking January!

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times...

As much as I love christmas and giving presents, I hate christmas shopping for them.

Of course, I have no one to blame but myself for leaving it this late.

The malls are filled with packs of ravenous shoppers, shouldering each other aside, filling the air with christmas cheer and cursing. The reason people are so happy to be at home with their families is because even the craziest family dynamic is a breeze compared to the malls.
I think I've got three presents left to buy - I'm going to try and make a series of surgical strikes over my lunch hours this week - and pray that I'm done before the weekend.

If you see me out shopping on the last weekend before christmas with the grumpy masses, you'll know I've failed.

Stupid monkeys...

Christmas shopping

Don't start! It's only December 6th - waaaaay too early to start your christmas shopping yet.
Trust me.
I didn't take my own advice and look what it's got me. Now there's something better that I want to buy for someone I've already bought something for. Now they get two presents.
Ok - sure, this strategy works for those who are receiving the presents, but as for me - the giver of the presents - it raises the stress level.
That's why I wait till the last possible moment to go out and finish the old christmas shopping - that way all of my options are in front of me. There's no waiting for that new book or new gadget to come in next week. You have to buy that present now!
Actually - now that I think about it - if everyone followed my strategy, the stores might get a little busy when I make my trip so cancel that. The rest of you please resume your regularly scheduled shopping.

All good things must end...

It's the last official day of vacation.
It does not feel like two weeks has gone by already. Where did the time go?

I'm pretty sure Isaac Newton came up with his first law after a vacation: An object at rest tends to stay at rest.

Monday (make that Tuesday - it's a long weekend), is gonna come around WAY too fast.

Relaxathon...part deux

Vacation week two starts today.

So far so good, I've been just as lazy as week one. But can it last?
Is it possible to continue to be this lazy? Seems unlikely. I was pretty lazy last week.
But I refuse to feel bad about it at all. I was pretty exhausted and a week of nothing was just what the doctor ordered.

This next week is going to be more about having fun. I feel like I've got my energy back. It's probably time to go reintroduce myself to society. It's been a while. They've probably forgotten all about me. It's almost like a first date again.

The first step is to get out of here and go enjoy what's left of the day. Now what do you bring society on a first date?

Fortune Fraud

I got jipped by the cookie yesterday.

I always look forward to the fortune cookie at the end of my mongolie grill meal. Yesterday though, I got the exact same fortune as my friend. How could two people's future's be so intertwined? That would be unpossible! I felt that my future had in some way been cheapened. It was like discovering santa claus isn't real.

Damn you fortune cookie!

Feels like Fall

Brrrrr. It feels like fall out there today.

Its that time of year to dig through my clothes closet again, shove all of those summer shorts and shirts to the back and bring forth all of my winter gear.

It's these first couple weeks of fall when I am most disorganized. I have the right hand from three different pairs of gloves, 1 old toque and several unmatched wool socks. God only knows where I stuck my winter jacket.

I think I need a better system come next year other than shouting 'woohoo' and running out into the spring sunshine leaving a trail of winter items in my wake.

Genetic Modification

I've decided I need to go in for some kind of gene therapy modification or something.

My brain needs an off-switch.

It's midnight - I'm lying in bed. The body is tired, but the mind is wired. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some simple off-switch you could hit. But noooo - I have to lie there for an hour while all those stupid neurons continue to fire. Stupid brain.
I must try harder to destroy you with alcohol.

Fire makes it good

I was playing Bioshock the other day (a new xbox game that's been getting good reviews) and I must confess that one of the things I quite like are the ambient scenes when they have someone do the old run-flaming-into-a-room-and-then-collapse stunt.

What is it about fire that ups the fun factor of anything by 12?

Juggling? Any dum dum can juggle bowling pins, but you light those bowling pins on fire and I'll watch.
Car crashes? Who doesn't watch Nascar for the car crashes - but hey - one of those wrecks catches on fire and you've got compelling television.
Camping? Sure it's great getting outdoors and all, but until you have a campfire - it's just missing something.
Homework? Who hasn't used the excuse that their homework accidentally burned up?

My suggestion to you for the rest of the week - see where you can add fire to your own life...I guarantee a 12 point increase in the amount of fun you have.



NOTE: This blog cannot be held liable for any related damage that may occur when adding fire to anything

Question of the Day...

Today's question is brought to you by the letter 'W'

Who is more confusing to who? Are women more confusing to men or are men more confusing to women?

Last week in the big blue house

So it's the middle of the night - I'm dozing peacefully in the middle of some dream or another and then I hear my bedroom door open and slam shut - hard.
Needless to say I'm immediately awake, sitting up in bed, heart pounding a mile a minute ready to grab whatever nearby heavy object I can to bash whoever's broken into my house.
Of course, it was just the wind fucking with me - but man! I don't need that kind of stress. I sleep little enough as is.
Also needless to say, I was not back to sleep for a good long time. It did give me a chance to finish Harry Potter, though.

I sure will miss that house.

Drinking at work

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/07/26/pilots-nasa.html

Of course, I might be tempted to have a wee nip of courage if my job was to sit on top of what basically is a large flying bomb (and one with a great safety record too).

Poll of the Day

I usually listen to Sonic on my way to and from work. On occasion, they play recordings from their sonic listener line. One trend I've noticed is that a hell of a lot of the calls they play are people complaining about bad drivers.

So there's my poll question of the day - is there any where on earth that has worse drivers than Edmonton? Obviously I'm not the only person who believes this, as it appears the average sonic listener agrees.

I don't think there's a day that goes by that I don't see at least one idiot on the roads. That's always the time that I wish I had some kind of vehicular weaponry. Maybe a roof mounted rocket launcher would be nice.

Drive nice, and I won't blow you up. That might make a good bumper sticker.

Moving pains

So I've been packing off and on for about a month already. Just getting little things ready to go.
But I think I'm just realizing what the biggest pain of all will be - getting my addressed changed for all of the things that use it.
Banks, credit cards, health care, driver's licenses, power and electricity, phones, TV and a hundred other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. What a pain in the ass. How many different beaurocracies can one person deal with?

Wouldn't it be so much easier if we just had one universal address associated with each of us?
I mean, we've got all this GPS stuff now - can't they just implant some kind of chip in our brains - then all we'd have to do would be to memorize our new address and it would get beamed out to whoever needed it.
Simple, I say. What the hell have these scientists been up to? Do I have to think of everything around here?

Save the environment and swear!

Yes - profanity is good for the environment.
So stop holding it in. Out with the bad air. Sound forth a few f-bombs with all your might.
What the hell am I talking about? Anger powered energy...it's the future, baby!

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30431

Soon I can see how all of our appliances will be anger powered. Who doesn't want to pound on their computer every now and then.

Ahhh, sweet sweet anger. Now 100% more green.

Silence is better

The dangers of modern communication is the loss of context.

I'm talking about email/msn - all the different kinds of written communications that people do nowadays.

I'm always getting in trouble when people don't know whether or not I'm joking or being sarcastic or whatever. Things that work when you're actually speaking to someone can often cause 'the uncomfortable pause' when written down.

I think I'll stop typing any kind of joke or wisecrack until someone comes up with the ESP version of MSN...

Rock Names

I was flipping channels on the weekend and went passed some muchmoremusic 'listed' show.
What struck me was how many rock stars from the 80s and early 90s changed their names.
Sting, Flea, Slash, The Edge, Bono amongst others.
Is that a lost tradition? You don't hear any weird names from the guys and gals in bands these days, do you?

Are kids today just less concerned with image? Maybe that's for the best...

Oh well, guess I'll give up on my own search for a new rock name...
It was a toss up between T-Bone Warner and Keith Chaos.

Maybe that's for the best too.


And in case you were wondering about people's real names... http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/realname.html

The name game

So here at work we have 6 Andrews (plus an Andre and an Andreas), 14 Chris', 8 Dans and 11 Johns - not to mention 3 Keiths.

Growing up - it always pissed me off to come across someone else with my name. It was always like - 'what are you doing with my name, dude - you're stealing some of my individuality.'
Even worse, for some reason, was a guy who had my last name as his first name and my first name as his last.
Never liked that guy.

Then when you grow up and start dating, you always seem to go through a cycle of dating girls with the same name. That also is somehow annoying (and slightly confusing). Some of my dumber friends have even dated multiple girls with the same name at the same time. Never try to answer the phone for a friend like that - you just get in trouble...

Am I the only one that is annoyed by stolen names?