In light of Christene's excellent 101 Things List, I decided I needed to come up with a new list of my own (I've already done the 101 Things). Now, this list is definitely not going to reach the century mark, but I figured 10 was a good place to start.
So, here I present to you, a list of things that continually baffle me – in no specific order.
1. Vegas vs. Vancouver
For some suburban-types, a night – or a weekend – on the town in Vancouver is a fun thing to do. Maybe you go to a concert or some kind of event or casino, grab some dinner, then go for some drinks. Then maybe you stay at a downtown hotel. Seems fun, right? Well, Vegas – the city I'd call the undisputed champion of fun – is gonna hurt the bank account no worse than that, and maybe even less. (Assuming, of course, that you don't bet your mortgage on the wrong colour while playing roulette).
Forgetting for the moment the cost of whatever show/event you've chosen to see downtown, the cost of a room at a hotel in Vancouver is going to run you about $200 a night, sometimes more. So for a weekend, you're lookin' at $400 right there. Factor in a night of drinking for two people (well over $120 if you're any good at it) and two dinners dinner (another $150 at least), and you're suddenly at $670 without entertainment.
Conversely, to fly to Las Vegas (out of Bellingham) on a Friday evening and stay at a middle-of-the-road hotel right on the strip, then fly home Sunday night, is only about $300-$350 a person. Sure, you need gambling money and everything, but if you hit up a Vancouver casino on your big night out, it's no different.
Basically, my point is this: Even if Vegas is maybe $100 more expensive, what would you rather do on your weekend? The fact that the prices between the two are so close absolutely astounds me, considering Plan A includes a 45-minute jaunt on a SkyTrain that likely smells like urine, whereas Plan B includes flying 2,255 km into another country and staying at a nice hotel.
I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it's weird.
2. Women
I think this one is one the list for pretty obvious reasons.
3. Work productivity
Now, I don't want to jinx anything here, but for the last few years it's always amazed me how I can waste so much of my work day without getting noticed. There are more than a few days where I go into work knowing that I have very little to do and that I'm going to have to occupy my time by any of the following: making multiple coffee runs, checking Facebook, browsing Deadspin and the numerous other blogs and websites at left, and, you know, writing blogs.
I've thought about it, and I think the reason I'm so bored and the reason I'm never caught is the same thing: I'm very productive. I get more work done than most – and quickly. Therefore, my work ethic is never, ever questioned, and in the past, it's actually been applauded. However, like the super smart kid in elementary school who works too fast and then becomes a disruption because he's bored, I find myself with time to kill.
Now, I could understand if nobody noticed this situation for a week or two, maybe a month. But this has been the case now for a very long time. Just now, for example, about six people have walked behind me and, I assume, seen me typing this on the screen. Not a single person asked me what I was doing, or even offered a glance in my direction.
Therefore, if they don't care, I refuse to feel guilty about it. (Besides, is it considered slacking if I still get all my work done?)
Where does a kid that age get so much money? And where the hell are his parents while he is puking and/or squandering the family fortune on penny stocks? And in that one commercial, how did that one black baby get there? Public transit? So many plot holes.
6. Fort McMurray
More specifically, I don't understand people's facination with it as some sort of get-out-of-jail free, pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow kind of place. But I've complained and argued this point many times before, so I digress. Still makes my list though.
7. Parsley
There was some in my fridge last month. I can't remember what recipe called for it, but I can guarantee to you that it didn't make a difference. There's a reason it only costs 42 cents a bushel – because it's pointless.
8. Major League Baseball's Gold Glove Awards
By now, the problems with this award have been well documented by people smarter than I, but how nothing ever changes is beyond me. They're becoming a bigger joke than the Oscars (I still stand by my long-held view that American Beauty is among the world's most terrible movies ever made).
9. The legions of teenage Twi-Hards.
My head nearly explodes when I try to wrap my brain around how fans of Twilight think, act and conduct themselves. I get so aggravated by them that I cannot properly express my true thoughts – which are a combination of anger, annoyance, and overall bafflement (and an urge to kill). These fans are this generation's Dungeons and Dragons' kids – huge, huge nerds. For further proof, go to YouTube and do a search for a user named Megster1992. I dare ya.
10. How people afford houses
This is right at the top of my list these days, as I make vain attempts to figure out how I'll ever be able to live in a real house – by real I mean one that has a yard and no strata. I have probably $75,000 in equity in my townhouse and make a mildly-above-average salary; Christene makes decent money, too – and has two jobs. Yet I still can't make the numbers work.
Yes, I could complain – and do – about how real estate in this city costs way, way, way too much, but other people I know, in similar situations, seem to make it work. I just imagine going to the bank and them saying I can't have any money, because that seems to be what happens to me in such meetings. I just don't know how some folks make it happen. If you have any secrets, lemme know. (Please).
As any longtime reader of this blog knows, I've spent many a month (or six) trying to drop some pounds and get in shape, with varying degrees of effort and success. I know I've written about this plenty, and I'd link to those accounts if I could find 'em - I took a quick look, but I'm busy watching the Lions/Ti-Cats game, and I don't feel like putting any more effort into it.
Let me break it down for you: When I was 19, I decided to lose some weight. I was going to Kwantlen at the time, and also working a couple days a week. I still lived at home, so every day on my way home from school/work, I met my dad at the gym. I also watched what I ate pretty closely, and by Christmas of that first year I was down to 223 pounds - it was the lightest I've ever been in my adult life.
It went down hill after that, however. When I moved to Kamloops, I was busy with school, adjusting to a new town, and also adjusting to having to cook for myself. I also drank a few beers. As such, my perogy/beer/nacho/Wendy's diet did very little for my waist line, and this similar trend continued during my 9-month sojourn in Alberta (although you'd have to substitute A&W for Wendy's).
So when I moved home from Alberta six years ago (six years already... Jesus Christ!) I weighed a solid 285 pounds. At the time, when I first weighed myself, I was shocked - I had no idea I had gained that much weight. And I must've hid it well, because still to this day nobody believes me when I tell 'em I weighed that much. But I did.
The moment when I saw that number on the scale is still among the crappiest moments of my life.
For the next 8 months, I stopped eating fast food altogether, drank less and went to the gym 5 days a week. Eventually, I got down to 240, which I was pretty proud of - I mean, 45 pounds is pretty good for a guy who never really had a lot of willpower with regard to being in shape.
And that's pretty much the same place my weight has sat ever since - although I've yo-yo'ed up to about 250-255 from time to time. But by and large, 240-242 has been about average (or so I've assumed, because my clothes always fit. I actually stopped weighing myself years ago).
In the last three-four years I've tried many a ways to get that number down even more. On two occasions, I gave up beer for between 2-5 months. I didn't quit drinking though (I mean, c'mon!) - all this did was introduce my friends to Drinking-Wine-Straight-From-The-Bottle Nick, and Let's-Drink-Some-Gin-and-Black-the-Fuck-Out Nick.
And once there was also Drink-A-Bottle-of-Captain-Morgan-And-Puke-On Derrick's-Floor Nick. (Full disclosure: I don't remember this night at all. I also blacked out, and only heard of the puking story later that week. Apparently Katie cleaned it up - Sorry Kate.)
I also tried running - at the gym and outside - and I also did the no-carbs thing for 2 months, which didn't bring with it great returns.
Nothing worked. Until about 6 weeks ago, when I tried again, with a new program and plan. Over the past month or so, I noticed my clothes getting looser, and more than a few people have commented on how skinny my face looks. So, because of this, I decided for the first time in years, to step on the scale and see what I really weighed. I was pretty shocked at the number.
It was good.
In the two weeks since then, I've knocked the number down a little bit more, and yesterday, the scale displayed a number I had not seen since I was 20 years old.
With a nod to the Kurtenbloggers, who mentioned it on their TEAM 1040 appearance Wednesday, I present to you an easy, last-minute Halloween costume for your party tomorrow:
Go as John Gosselin.
All you need to do is wear an Ed Hardy shirt and leave your kids at home.
Mr. Grotti: I'll have the linguini, red sauce on the side. If the sauce does not come on the side, I will send it back. I want garlic bread. Toasted. Not burnt. If it comes burnt, I will send it back.
Michael Scott:I will have the spaghetti. With a side salad.
Waitress: OK.
Michael Scott:If the salad is on top, I send it back.
- The Office, season 5 "Mafia" episode
It's often hard to tell because I'm such a sarcastic asshole most of the time, but the truth is that I really don't like confrontation – especially in restaurants, or places of that ilk.
I hate returning things to the mall, for one example, and this dislike for confrontation is also one of the main reasons I won't go out for a meal with a certain friend of mine – because he (his whole family, really) ends up having problems with everything, making a big scene, and eventually demanding free food etc... Through the years, we've stormed out of more than a few restaurants – him in a huff, me just trailing behind.
If I get a subpar meal at a restaurant, I'm more apt to just suck it up, shrug my shoulders and tell myself, "Well, they can't all be good." Because it's true – throughout your lifetime, it's next to impossible that every single meal you ever eat is going to be perfect. This doesn't mean I won't complain about said meal for days after – because trust me, you'll hear about it until you wished I'd choked and died trying to eat whatever it is I'm whining about – but I just don't waste time demanding that my meal be re-cooked/free/served to me with complimentary bread/dessert/appetizer/sports car.
It's just not worth it.
But earlier this week, I hit my breaking point.
After work the other day, I went to Subway to pick up some dinner. I ordered a foot-long roasted chicken sub, on white bread. For starters, the woman behind the counter grabbed a loaf of the parmesan oregano bread – apparently she just didn't listen at all, because the two types of bread do not sound remotely alike – and I had to correct her. No big deal, I guess, but I should have known it was foreshadowing what was to come.
Next, she cut open the correct bread with the skill and precision of a six-year-old, essentially tearing the bread in half, rather than cutting it. And again, I let it slide.
But then it began. She put tomatoes on it when I never asked for any – so she had to remove them. Then she put peppers on it, which I also didn't ask for – so she had to remove them. Then came time for "a little bit of mustard and a bit of ranch, please." (Notice, I was still polite at this point).
She then proceeded to empty nearly the entire damn mustard container on the sandwich, followed by so much ranch dressing that it looked like somebody jacked off an elephant onto my dinner (Nice visual? You're welcome). This was the last straw.
"Oh c'mom, I asked for a little of each. That's waaaay too much. You wanna scrape some of that off, or something?" I asked.
I got a baffled look, followed by a lame attempt to scrape the sauces off with a paring knife, which ended up a) tearing the bread some more and b) smearing a lovely mustard and ranch combination all over the outside of the bread.
"You know what? You've ruined the whole damn thing. Just start over, I want a new one."
This did not sit well with the person behind the counter, and she seemed bewildered at such a request. Her co-worker, who came over, was also reluctant.
"It's fine," the co-worker said. "What's wrong with it? We can't make a new one, unless you want to order two."
It was at this point that I informed said employee that since I hadn't yet paid for the first one, they'd better restart the process – and not fuck it up – or else I'd just walk out altogether, paying for nothing.
"Either way, you're gonna be out the cost of at least one sandwich," I said.
I should also mention that, by now, there were a few people behind me in line, no doubt wondering what the hell my problem was. Normally, I would have resorted to my usual "Aw, shucks" mentality (see above), but this is not the first time this Subway has fucked up my sandwich. In fact, more often than not, the employees at this particular location have ruined, in some way, my meal.
Now, you may wonder why I continue to return if they suck so bad, and my answer is two-fold. First, it's close to my house and convenient. And second, I always go back with the assumption that "It can't be that bad again, right?"
I would have likely also given this woman a break if she had a trainee sticker on, like many there often do. Hey, she's new, she's learning. That's cool – I get it. But I've seen this woman there before many times. And for somebody dubbed a "Sandwich Artist" you'd think you wouldn't suck so hard at it.
I mean, seriously, your only job is to make sandwiches. If you can't do that, maybe look into a new line of work. I mean, if I am a bad writer, I probably don't get to keep the job I have. If Bucholtz was a dangerously incompetent subpar electrician, he wouldn't be one. If Jeremy couldn't plumb, he wouldn't be a plumber, and if Kelsey didn't do... whatever the hell it is that she does, well she'd probably run away to Fort McMurray try something else.
In the end, you'll be happy to know that I got what I wanted – a remade footlong, roasted chicken sub, on white bread.
And the best part was, they couldn't even spit it in – such is the benefit of having them make it right in front of you. I'm sure they wanted to, though.
Just in case any of you were wondering, calling my office and beginning a phone conversation with the phrase, "I'm not going to leave you my name or my number because this information will get me killed," is a surefire way – and I mean 100% lock – to ensure that whatever you have to tell me will not be taken seriously, nor will it probably ever appear in print.
Such action does, however, provide me with an afternoon's worth of good stories to tell co-workers (and blog-readers, apparently).
:: I'm thankful for hot wings, high-def TV and cheap flights to Vegas :: Since it's Thanksgiving here in Canada (which means the official end of our prolonged summer... it was 2 degrees at 9 a.m. today), and everyone and their blog seems to be posting about what they're thankful for, I figured I'd follow suit with a holiday-themed post.
This was the first year in...well, ever, that I was prepared for the dual-holiday feasts - the usual one at my parents' house, and also this year, at Christene's (which is tonight...my third in a row). However, in addition to the second dinner, it was also decided this year to have a "Friends-style" Thanksgiving on Saturday. About 15 of us were there for dinner (minus those at work - Chris, Ian and Sean) and while there was no football game in a random New York park, and nobody tried to put the turkey on their head, it was still quite a night.
We ate too much, drank waaaay too much (I drank about 16 beers and Jeremy drank three bottles of wine, just for a couple examples), and it all culminated with Kyle passing out before we even ate pumpkin pie (he was loaded when he showed up), rousing games of flippy cup and Guesstures, and me getting a mysterious cut over my eye that nearly required a stitch. In fact, I've been woozy for the last day and a half, so a mild concussion isn't out of the question...how I incurred this injury is still beyond me.
Anyways, here is the Turkey-Day recap in quote form, leading with T.O.'s heartfelt, touching, Thanksgiving toast....
"I'd just like to say that I'm thankful for good friends, for our health... and for Budweiser finally coming out with 8-packs, and 20-packs too. So thanks to Katie and Jeremy for having us all here tonight, together...Go Cannons!" - T.O.
And now for the rest:
"This song just makes me want to get on a plane and fly to Colombia... who wants to do some drugs?!" - T.O., who liked a particular song which I now forget.
"This song makes me want to do drugs too... so I can kill myself." - T.O. again, not liking the next song, obviously.
Buchs: I'm way better than Terry Fox. Jeremy: What?! What are you going to do in your life that is even half as good as what Terry Fox did? Buchs: Live past 23. (editor's note: awesome)
Dan: My babysitter let me touch her boob once. Somebody: What? How'd that happen? Dan: I just asked.
When Buchs showed up loaded... Me: What the hell were you doing all day, drinking by yourself? Buchs: I think it's pretty obvious that I was.
After Kyle passed out before dessert... Me: Shotgun on Kyle's pie! Jer: Hey dude, that's my sister!
"Alright, pants-off dance-off!" - T.O. enters the room.
:: It's okay, I'll just eat a sugar packet or two ::
It's just after noon right now, and I am starving.
However, going into the lunchroom to retrieve my lunch from the refrigerator is a difficult task, as two of the most notorious talkers are currently in there, eating lunch. I have, as you've probably guessed, absolutely zero inclination to speak with either or them – especially one, because the conversation always ends up being about her somehow.
Also, once any type of food is put on display – my lunch, for example – the conversation with inevitably turn to one of the following topics: how said person only eats organic food, how she ate just the most marvelous tomato from a hillside market on her recent trip to Central America, or the local farmers' market.
She's a self-proclaimed "foodie" (chief ingredient: pretentiousness!). Meanwhile, I'll be microwaving a panini sandwich that came frozen in a cardboard box (From Wal-Mart no less, which is really nothing more than a global farmers' market, when you think about it).
Had I brought a sandwich or something similar to work, I would likely be able to swoop in while the two were engrossed in conversation, and slink out without being noticed. But unfortunately my lunch today, as mentioned, is of the microwave variety, and there is absolutely zero chance that I can prepare it, wait for it to cook, and run away without getting trapped into a conversation about the healing power of asparagus, or how smart it is to cook 7 meals on a Sunday afternoon, then freeze them, thus freeing up your evenings for the rest of the week.
Thankfully, I've been eating far less the last few weeks as part of my latest weight-loss infatuation ("Hi, you may remember me from failed fitness regimes such as"Carb-free January 2007" and "Yo-Yo dieting attempts 1 through 6.").
And as such, my body has gotten used to always being at least a little bit hungry. My willpower is at an all-time high, which is why I am content (sort of) to wait out "the talkers" in the lunchroom, even if it means eating lunch way later than I'd like to.
My appetite is no match for my hatred for awkward, boring conversations.
There is very little work-related banter that I enjoy. That's not to say that I don't like talking with the people I work with – because I usually do – but I just despise the usual, cliched workplace topics of conversations (ie: My rant in an earlier post about people complaining that it's Monday).
And aside from that whole Monday thing, there are few things I hate more than somebody who greets you with a "Working hard or hardly working?" After which, they almost always chuckle to themselves with glee. Now, I admit that the phrase was probably funny the very first time somebody said it – Oohhh, I see what you did there, you flipped the words around! – but that was probably some time ago, in the 1950s.
I imagine that soon after that, the hilarity died considerably. And now, three-quarters of the way through 2009, the phrase is essentially Michael Jackson.
Dead.*
Anyways, the reason for all this is because, about 20 minutes ago while meandering through Wal-Mart across the street from the office (I was, during this time, "hardly working" for those of you keeping track), I overheard a guy talking on his cell phone.
And how he greeted the voice on the other end of the line was, essentially, a re-working of the "hardly working" question:
"Killin' time or is time killing you?"
Uhhh, what?
After I gathered my thoughts – my initial one being that this guy was the world's biggest idiot – I began to dissect this ridiculous phrase.
First off, it has absolutely no meaning. How does time kill you? How is that possible. After careful consideration, the only two ways in which I think that time could in fact be murderous in nature are 1) Dying of old age, and 2) People who are so busy they say that "There aren't enough hours in the day."
As for Way #1, it's pretty self-explanatory. You're old. You've been alive for a long time, and when that time is up, you die. Technically, it's time that kills you.
As for #2, well, these people are apparently so busy that they are being "killed" – figuratively speaking – by having a limited amount of time in which to complete a number of required tasks.
I get it, and I'm pretty sure that's what the intention of the "is time killing you?" line is all about. However, that does not make the sentence any less stupid, nor the speaker any less retarded.
It's no different that the original phrase – which is lame to begin with, as I said – and by trying to make a new version of said phrase, he just looks like a huge douche. You can usually get away with spouting lame cliches – Hell, athletes who are always taking it one game at a time and giving 110% do it every day – but who is this guy to try and coin a new phrase?
He's just some wahoo shopping at Wal-Mart in the middle of a work day and therefore likely unemployed**. And while it can be argued – pretty easily, I might add – that I, too, was in the exact same situation, there was one big difference: I wasn't coming up with asinine new twists on old phrases, thus making myself appear totally unhip and out of touch.
Nope, I was just killing time before it killed me.
*Yeah, I went there.
**A crass generalization, perhaps, but that's what why I'm considering changing this blog's title to Classic Times: Judging books by their cover since 1981.
"The woman with the peg leg got to dance more than I did!!" - Christene's mom, who was unhappy with Christene's dad for not dancing with her at a a recent wedding they attended.
"I won't stop until all the computer are mine!" - Christene, menacingly, after winning another computer in an office raffle draw. (Every few months when the company gets new computers, they raffle the old ones off. She won one earlier this summer, too.)
"I'm so bored all the time now, during the week. I mean, yesterday I actually called Jeremy just to talk." - Ian, living the single life to the fullest.
In life, there are only a handful of non-breakfast foods (for lack of a better term) which can acceptably be eaten for breakfast. For example, any type of dessert – pie, cake, whatever – are usually delicious if eaten before 10 a.m. Also, traditional leftovers such as cold pizza or cold KFC are staples of the It's-Saturday-morning-and-I'm-hungover-as-fuck diet.
But, as I alluded to, most of these foods are consumed for breakfast when one is in a hangover state, usually on a weekend. It's a desperation breakfast borne out of laziness, essentially.
Which is why I had to look twice this morning when I arrived at work, walked into the lunchroom, and saw a colleague of mine – a woman in her late 50s – sitting at the table, scarfing down cold, rubbery-looking tempura prawns out of a Chinese take-out box, along with her morning coffee.
At 8:15 a.m. on a Tuesday.
I mean, find a bagel or something for Christ's sake.
:: I'm too lazy for a real post, so here's a bunch of links :: I'm too tired and lazy right now to write anything of substance, but rather than disappoint you with no post at all, I figured I'd liven up your lazy Sunday afternoon with some stuff I've found on the Interweb of late which amused me.
1. A guy - clearly a genius - is unhappy with the service at his local bank, so he has decided to sue them for... wait for it... more than a "trillion billion dollars." This is so fucking rad I don't even know where to begin. I mean, you're unhappy with customer service? Welcome to the club buddy, it's called Everyone.
But on the other hand, if you're fucking crazy or angry (likely both) to sue for something like bad service, then why not go completely batshit, balls-out fucking wacked and request that much money - which of course, is so much that it's essentially a fictional number, even for the biggest bank in the United States. I mean, those Nigerian Kings in those e-mail scams don't even have that much scratch.
The sad thing is, there's a lawyer out there who will likely take this case - hopefully though, it's because said lawyer wants to make a few bucks in fees, and not because he actually believes he'll win. I mean, Gordon Bombay couldn't even win this one.
I don't have anything witty or hilarious to say here, I just like the fact that, hundreds of years after people started scouring the earth for signs of life, and cataloguing the world's millions (maybe even trillion billions!) of species, they are still finding more. It just sort of amazes me, because by now you just assume that every single inch of the planet has been explored (and likely has a Starbucks on it, too). I mean, where are they finding that cool frog with the fangs - did they just flip over one last rock on their way out of the jungle?
And, while on the subject, I wonder how the scientists even know they've found a new species? I mean, there's millions - how do they know it's new? Do they have every possible type of critter stored in their brains? Makes me wonder if I've ever discovered a new kind of insect without even knowing it.
If I have, I probably stepped on it, so I guess it's a moot point.
And, on a similar topic, some other sciency expert has decided that Panda bears should just be left alone until they become extinct. This is bound to piss people off, mainly because people like panda bears. If somebody said the three-toed sloth should be killed off, or the Pittsburgh Pirates, I don't think people would be nearly as upset.
I don't have much of an opinion here either, except it makes me wonder why so many scientists spend their lives - and lots of money, too, I'm sure - discovering new creatures like the fanged frog, when there's some other douchebag scientist on another continent essentially saying, "Pffft, that's not that important. Let's kill it."
I wonder if there are ever any backroom scientist rumbles over things like the longterm fate of panda bears or frogs with fangs, that's all.
I like to think that there is.
And lastly, I'll leave you with this video of a French Bulldog puppy who can't rollover, no matter how hard he tries. My favourite part is at about the 13 second-mark, when he just appears to give up, resigned to the fact that he'll spend the rest of his life upside down.
