:: Anger rising ::

I had a meeting set this morning for 9:30 a.m.; the guy I was supposed to meet with was to meet me here in our office. He sent me an email at 8:45 a.m. asking if we could "kindly reschedule to 11" because he had a doctor's appointment. No problem, I said. 

So 11 a.m. rolls by. Then 11:15. Then 11:35. I call, but there's no answer and his voicemail is conveniently full. Now angry, I email him and ask him where the hell he is, and mention that I don't have all day – I have other things to do, and my time and patience was running short.

Ten minutes later, I get an email back saying, "Oh, sorry, I just got home from the doctor's and I'd left my phone and home, and blah blah blah - can we do this by phone?"

Yes, I said, by phone will be fine. I call. No answer. I call again. No answer. 

This guy has absolutely burned my last nerve. 

For starters, he had to meet with someone else from my office yesterday at 3 p.m. He finally arrived for that meeting 10 minutes late, and then said hurriedly, "I just have to pick my daughter up from school I'll be back in 10 minutes!" and then drove off.

He reappeared 35 minutes later. 

And here's the thing: being late is one thing, but what pisses me off the most is that his two reasons for it – picking up his daughter and a doctor's appointment – are not things that just come up out of the blue. He knows when his daughter gets out of school, and presumably knows if/when he has to pick her up.

And have you tried getting a doctor or dentist appointment in the last 10 years? You have to book that shit months in advance. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning, and I've known since 2007. So why the hell would he schedule things he knew he'd be late for? 

Because he has no concept of time, or regard for other people's time, that's why. And being a person who is almost always punctual, this pisses me off some.

Eventually I did get in touch with him – 2 hours and 15 minutes after our rescheduled 11 a.m. and nearly four hours after we were first supposed to get together – and basically told him to stuff it. Told him I wasn't interested in meeting with him anymore (at least not today), and if he wanted to call me back sometime next week, that'd be fine, but I was done chasing him. 

He said he'd call by Monday afternoon.

Somehow, I doubt it.

:: This is how you make a fucking sale ::

As a frequent Craiglist browser (but never an actual buyer... yet) I'm constantly amazed at the lack of effort people put into their ads. I mean, how in the hell are you going to attract buyers with ads like "Kitchen table, $200 obo" and then provide no extra info, and worse, no photo. I mean, it's a free fucking ad, the least you can do is put some effort into it.

Today I was half-assedly browsing for a poker table, just to see if there was anything really good out there that may look good in my future basement.*

*Hat tip to my poker-enthusiast buddy Jason, who suggested Craigslist would be full of really good tables for cheap, because, like him, guys buy super expensive, nice tables in their early 20s, but then by the time they're 27 or 28, they have a wife and/or kid(s), and they're forced to dump em off (the table, not the family).

As expected, most of the for-sale tables were shitty, but there was one in particular which was homemade and quite nice. I don't think it's one I'd necessarily buy, but I could appreciate the seller's sales pitch. He clearly knows his potential audience.

Some excerpts:

"... you will need a van or truck to transport as the rail IS sturdy but could break if you try to jam it into a hatchback or tie it to a roof. "

Good tip.

"The surface fabric is treated to be stain resistant so when your tool of a friend spills his beer all over your table, as long as you get to it right away, it should come right off."

"This table is sturdy... If your 300 pound friend is too drunk to drive home after a late night poker grind and needs a place to crash this table will accommodate him... Yes, I'm sure.."

Like I said, this man knows to whom he is selling.

:: Quotes ::

In the absence of a real post, I figured I'd slack off this holiday weekend by just posting a couple quotes I've had kicking around in my Blackberry for the last week or two.

"He's so skinny he's only got two dimensions." - Christene's dad, Mo, talking about one of our fellow golfers last weekend out in Chilliwack.

"It's like a douche bomb exploded in here." - Christene, at the Cloverdale Rodeo Saloon last night. She was 100 percent accurate.

During a Canucks playoff game a few weeks ago. Christene's mom, not a hockey fan, was sick of seeing hockey on the TV every minute of every day.
Mo: Hey, you've always got a choice.
Rochelle: No I don't! It's on the TV all the time!
Mo: Well, your choices are to sit there and like it, or sit there and not like it.

:: Candy Salad ::

When I was a kid, I had what I thought at the time was a culinary creation for the ages. In retrospect, it was a pretty disgusting idea – a total Fat Guy move – but it's the kind of thing you'd expect from a pudgy 11-year-old.

My idea – which came to me while eating dinner at my grandparents' old house in South Surrey – was for a Candy Salad. What you'd do, see, is replace lettuce with chips, and all the veggies, croutons and other things you'd normally find in salad would be replaced by various delicious treats - gummy bears, chocolate chunks, Smarties, Ju-jubes, etc... And what would replace the dressing?

Well chocolate and caramel sauce, of course.

See? I told you it was a total Fat Guy move. Regardless, this was my brilliant idea. I never actually made the Candy Salad – there's probably no way in hell any parent would allow such a thing to be made, but still, I always remembered my brilliant (at the time) idea.

And I was reminded of it again this week when Christene was telling me about a surprise wedding shower that somebody threw for somebody else at her office the other day.

A lot of people brought food and goodies for the event, including one woman who channelled her inner-child and brought, you guessed it, a candy salad. (She called it a chocolate salad, but it's the same general idea)

It had the following things: chocolate almonds, chocolate raisins, Aero minis, Reece's pieces and "any other chocolate I could find."

I mean, there's no Doritos or caramel sauce, but still, she stole my fucking idea.

If I could go back in time, my pudgy 11-year-old self would totally copyright that shit.

:: This place probably sells a lot of Red Bull & vodka ::

Tonight, while we were out and about in Langley, I remembered that I needed to stop by a liquor store so I could buy enough booze for my golfing weekend, which begins early tomorrow. We were on our way back to Cloverdale, so I suggested we go to the government liquor store near Willowbrook Mall, because it's en route to home.

"Ah, not that one - that's the douchebag liquor store!" Christene complained.

This was the first time I'd heard such a complaint about this particular establishment, so at first I was skeptical of such a claim. But before we'd even parked the car, I noticed two muscled-up D-bags in Affliction-esque shirts - the mark of a douchebag - another skinny darker guy in oversized sunglasses, and another guy sitting in a jacked-up truck, not wearing a shirt, with a dog that may or may not have been a pitbull.

And inside was much of the same.

Then, after picking up and paying for my beer, we walked back out to the truck, passing many of the aforementioned douchebags as well as some new recruits. As we passed a guy waiting in a car - which had the windows rolled down - he yelled out in Christene's direction.

"Tittttaaaays!!" he called.

I didn't hear him at the time, and Christene didn't tell me what he said until we were already driving away, but man, what a fucking douche. I mean, sure, boobs are pretty great, but who actually does that?

Douchebags, that's who.

:: Repeat performance ::

For Games 3 and 4 of the Vancouver Canucks/Chicago Blackhawks series, people watched as a group at Davy and Colleen's house. As luck would have it, the good guys lost both games - and in ugly fashion, no less.

So a rule was put in place Friday night – after the Game 4 loss – that, should the Canucks win Game 5, thus staving off elimination, no one would be allowed to watch the game at Davy and Colleen's. Which is really too bad because there's usually lots of good food, but it's what had to be done for the team.

The Canucks, you may have heard, did indeed win Sunday, and tonight is another do-or-die affair. I, for one, am going to watch the game in the exact same place – the shitty, old, uncomfortable couch in our basement – where I watched Sunday's win. I am going to drink the same thing I drank last time – one Coke Zero, one beer. I may even dig out the same clothes from the laundry bin that I was wearing Sunday night.

And I advise everyone to steer clear of Davy and Colleen's. Actually, it's a demand. In fact, this what I just told my brother during a text-message conversation:

"If anybody even thinks about watching the game and Davy and Colleen's, I'm going to set fire to their cars. And quite frankly, Ian's house is a little too close (to Davy and Colleen's) for comfort. He's gonna have to watch somewhere else."

(Post-script: Chris informs me that Ian and Davy have men's league ball, so they'll be far away from their homes, which is good. What is bad is that Chris watched the last game at Ian's. The solution? Chris will have to break in to Ian's house and watch by himself. Yeah, that seems logical.)

And if we're lucky enough to have a Game 7 to watch, we're all gonna be in a dilly of a pickle – the Cannons are scheduled to play Thursday at 6:30 p.m. I'll forfeit if it means the Canucks will win, but I supposed this is why PVRs were invented. That probably makes more sense.

:: Priorities, continued ::

Christene: You know, I'm convinced that you'd miss the birth of your own child for a Canucks' playoff game.

Me: Oh, c'mon, give me a break....

Me: .... Well, what round of playoffs?

This was probably not the right answer.

:: Priorities ::

After a year and a half of "training" I finally thought I'd made some headway with regard to turning Christene into a sports fan, and more importantly, a Canucks fan. I mean, she's already professed her love for her beloved Alain Vigneault – "Vins" she calls him – and his snappy suits, and then there was the time last year where she yelled at the TV.

I'd never been prouder.

But then she goes and does something like this..... 

This morning, her brother and sister-in-law had a baby – a little girl named Veronica. So, instead of coming to Davy and Colleen's house with me to watch Game 4 of the Canucks/Blackhawks series, she has the audacity to want to see her new little niece tonight instead.

Unbelievable! I mean, I'm sure little Veronica is cute as a button – I mean, she's a little baby, of course she is – but c'mon, it's the playoffs!

Clearly, I have more work to do yet.