If You’re Going to Run from the Cops, Do It in the UK.

Wow. Why can’t we find a middle ground? The American government wants to take away *everyone’s* privacy, but in the UK, even a fugitive’s privacy is considered sacred. They won’t put up wanted posters with their names and faces on them because, boohoohoohoo, they might sue! So only live in the UK if you want to run from cops. Otherwise, you might live beside someone who’s wanted and not even know it. Doesn’t that make you sleep well at night?

>Just Another Manic… Tuesday

>Greeting & Salutations

I trust you all enjoyed your long weekend. Where I was, just like most of Ontario, it was bitterly cold for the unofficial “Start Of Summer”. We scrapped the cottaging/camping ideas for much better ones of staying home on the couch. I had a friend in from out of town whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time. Was great to see her.

All in all, we didn’t do too much but did venture out on Saturday night to see a movie with. We went to see RV with Robin Williams. I had been told for weeks not to bother cuz it looked terrible but I’m a big fan of most of the things he does. A friend told me Friday she had gone and loved it so I said screw it and we headed out on Saturday night.

It was hilarious. Williams always is. The story basically centres on an well-to-do family planning a trip to Hawaii. All they do is sit in their rooms with headphones on and IM each other so the father cans the trip to Hawaii and loads them all in an RV. They get stuck talkin’ to rednecks and hating each other and all sorts of comedy gold. I’d definately reccomend it. We didn’t stop laughing for more than 5 minutes through the entire thing.

After that we met up with some other people who had seen a different movie and went to Denny’s for evening nightcap milkshakes.

Last night was the Season Finale of 24. I’m so hooked on that show, it’s crazy. Just when it looks like everything is good in the world again and Jack might even be able to make nice with his astranged daughter, Kim, those damn Chinese strike again and leave one hell of a cliffhanger for Season 6. Incredible. Don’t know how I’ll get through the summer without it.

Well, back to work.

How was Everyone’s Holiday?

So, how was everyone’s holiday? Did the weather suck everywhere? I heard yesterday it was haling in Kingston and snowing in Toronto! *puke* Not what I wanted to hear! That is not supposed to be the weather on the May long weekend!

My holiday was pretty boring, but I liked it that way. After running around chasing down the people who have the power to give us this awesome apartment, being a phone zombie as I called it, it was nice to just dick around doing nothing, and I guess that’s what a lot of people would have ended up doing with this crappy weather. So since Steve is being cute and making this awesome chicken pasta, I thought I should try and be useful somehow, so I thought I’d bullshit on here for a minute.

God I hate waiting for answers. Like I said, they’ll let us know if we get into the big miracle building by Tuesday or Wednesday. I know it’s only a day or two that I have to wait, but I find the worst day of waiting is the one where an answer cannot possibly come, like on a holiday Monday, like this one. You would think that would be the easiest day. But for some reason, I’ve been ancy all day, and I’m sure I’ve driven Steve nuts by repeatedly saying, “God I hate the agony of waiting!” and things like that. My head says, shut up, there’s nothing to do, just chill. But that doesn’t stop my feet from pacing. Yep, I’m a lune. But tomorrow, we could have the news. Ah the suspense is killing me.

I saw a commercial today that made me feel like a supreme loser. All it took was the first sentence. It went something like this: “Nothing is more frightening than starting a second career at 30.” Second career at 30? Um, I’m 27 and I don’t even have my first one! God what have I let slip by? I’ve worked at a few jobs, but nothing you’d call a career by any means. God you’d hardly call them a job! I was a camp counselor, I was a U of G phone droan twice for short stints, I was a computer tester for a couple months, I was a peer helper, a very small job, for about a year and that was while I was going to school and I didn’t even get 500 bucks for it. What does that say? I sure don’t have my first career, let alone my second one.

And, while I’m on the subject of weird TV commercials, have you ever thought that the chick in the pet meds commercial seems way too keen about ordering her pet’s medications? Do you ever wonder if she’s taking some herself? Or maybe that’s just my screwed up head

I’m really starting to realize I didn’t learn those things I was supposed to learn as a kid. The reason? I was a stubborn little brat and refused to learn when people tried to teach me. Now I realize how much I missed out on.

It started very early. They tried to teach me to swim as a kid. But I refused to put my face in the water. Guess who didn’t graduate from swimming lessons and had to take them again at age 26 and can’t seem to get it as well as I probably would have if I’d just stuck my face in the water at age 4?

Then there was crafts. I hated the way glue felt. So I’d do anything to get out of gluing things. So, you can guess how many arts and crafts things I did. Not too many. I didn’t give a shit. Now, when I hang out with the kids at the shelter and they feel like doing crafts, I feel like a total fucktard.

Then there was sewing and knitting. I would sew things because they told me I had to do that for class. But I didn’t pay attention. Now I can’t even so much as sew a button. I didn’t even try and knit because I thought knitting was for grannies. Now I wish I at least knew something about it. I know, I know, I can learn. I’m sure I can make up for it. I just feel like I’m a very slow learner.

I don’t want to whine anymore. What else can I blabber about? Damn that pasta smells good. What is it with me today? I’ve been craving cheesecakes and all kinds of other desserts. What the hell? Even stupid things like that disgusting milkshake song is making me try and figure out how I can get a chocolate milkshake from somewhere. I’ve been thinking about ice cream at that cool place. All I need is another sunny day and some time and damn I’ll be in there.

It seems desserts aren’t the only thing I’ve been obsessed with lately. I had this weird dream the other day that the dude from the guide dog school I want to go to came up to do the interview thingy they do. During the interview, he put a dog in a harness and let me walk through the rest of the interview with it guiding me instead of doing the cane thing or the Juneau thing where he’s holding the other end of the harness and you give him commands, so it looks really weird. Anyway, at the end of the interview, he just left the dog with me! At first, I was like, “He’ll be back for the dog.” But after a while, I started to wonder if this was my guide dog.

So I started walking around with it, feeding it, relieving it, all that. But I wasn’t trained at that school. So I was trying to remember every command that I’d heard people from that school use with their dogs. But somehow, things were going really well with this dog. It didn’t try to eat anything, sniff anything, do anything silly. I thought, “Wow, those dogs are well-trained!”

Then I started to notice that the dog didn’t really seem to care about me. It didn’t get excited, it didn’t come over to see me, nothing. So I started to ask around, and someone told me that this wasn’t a dog at all. It was a robot dog, and it was all a trick to see how long it would take for me to figure that out. And then it ended. How weird is that?

I guess it’s as weird as the way this post is going to end. Hope you’ve enjoyed my holiday ramblings.

From the Thought Pot

I just felt like posting, so here I am. I don’t even know what’ll end up in this one, so off we go.

I think I can safely say the apartment hunt is over! In describing the adventure we’ve gone through to find a new place, Steve mentioned a kind of building called the miracle building. The building that has to be found through word of mouth, won’t cost an arm, a leg, and a few fingers and toes to live there, has all the things we need, and hasn’t been overrun by creeps. Well, yesterday, we found not one, but two of those. Would you believe we’ve actually managed to locate two buildings that haven’t found a way to profoundly suck?

Let’s call them Little Miracle Building and Big Miracle Building. Both had apartments that were a good size, both had controled entry and elevators, both had access to pools and balconies, both had comparable rent and this sweet deal where they’d actually give you money back for staying. But Big Miracle building is a bit closer to downtown, has a giant room that you can book for parties, they’re giving us a free parking space for friends to use when they come to visit since I can’t see us having a car, and a cool laundry card system. No more running to the store for lunies and quarters! Plus, they deliver your mail right to your apartment through a slot on the door, and if you get a parcel, they’ll buzz you! How fuckin cool is that? Can you guess which miracle building we’re applying for? So, we’ll know by Wednesday if we’re in, and that still gives us time to apply for little miracle building if something edges us out. But this sweet lady who’s the rental agent seems to think we’ll have no problem getting into big miracle building. So, cross your fingers for us. If all goes well, there will be no more ditzomatic stories, and hopefully, with the rent being high enough, people with crack habits won’t be able to afford it. Ah the future is bright!

For some odd reason, I kept waking up during the night, and I kept catching snippets of this infomercial for this charity called Feed the Children. The idea is that this company has boxes and boxes and boxes of food in their warehouses available as emergency food for hungry children in the States, but they can’t even move a single box of food to a single hungry family until people send them money. You even get to see kids getting asked how it feels to be hungry. That just makes me want to scream, “How do you think it would feel, you fat fuck?”

Ok, at first, that sounds like a good charity, I mean everybody needs to eat. And they do say it’s emergency food. Then you think about it and realize, they don’t really specify what emergency this is. I don’t know about you, but if I can’t feed my kids, it’s an emergency. So which starving families are thought to be in greater need of food? How do they choose? And, doesn’t that just change the problem? Think about it. Some unknown benevolent force is shoveling food at families who, for some reason or another can’t find the money to feed themselves. So, for the time being, they’re fed. What happens when that box of food is empty? What if they don’t get chosen for the next box? What do they do then? Shouldn’t the parents get some help so this shit doesn’t happen again?

Some other random things were going through my head, I guess because I’ve had to make a lot of phone calls lately. Some companies order their customer service reps to say the stupidest things. The one that kills me is, “How can I provide you with excellent service today?” Well, robo-rep, you can start by not saying that line of bullshit. The only way I’ll know if the service is excellent is if I’m smiling when I hang up the phone. Next time I get that line, I might tell them that they can provide me with excellent service by not screwing up. But…shouldn’t they know this already?

Another one they like to do is, after the call is over, they ask me to rate *their* performance. This always makes me wonder, does this rating system even work? They can write down whatever they want. I could say, “You suck, I give you a 2.” and they could write, excellent service, 9. How do I know? They do say the call *may* be taped, but what if this one isn’t and they know it? Nobody will ever know. Plus, I don’t have the guts to say to someone, “You suck.” Well, there is the guy who called me a liar when I said I was blind and laughed uproariously when I got the computer to talk in his ear, but he was a telemarketer, and I didn’t want his service anyway.

Another question that will stop your standard script-reading phone drone in its tracks is, “Why?” It doesn’t take more than that. Right after they’ve told you about all the advantages of having their platynum interest rates through the roof visa card, and you say, “Why would I want that?” You wouldn’t get any more stammering from Porky Pig. I can just hear the poor guy. “I have to think? Oh my god! My brain cells! Do I have any left? That’s not in the script. Where’s the why part?” flip flip flip flip sweat sweat. “Come on it would be easier if you just hung up!”

I have nothing against phone guys, but I know some of them are stupid, and the rest are going to get stupid if they do that job much longer, it’s mind-numbing!

And, as abruptly as it started, this ride is over! Thank you for riding the merry-go-round of Carin’s mind.

They’re Back! And Some Other Crap

After being gone for I can’t even remember how long, the Salty Ham Pay-per-view Roundtables have returned! This is surely a direct result of my overwhelming clout and worldwide internet influence, though some may try to tell you that it has everything to do with somebody offering to take the time to put them together each month because we felt like doing them again. But I want you, the loyal Vomiteers, to know that those people are…well, they’re right actually. but in any event, they’re back, and this makes me happy. If it makes you happy too, then I encourage you to click
here
and check out our picks for Judgment Day.

And to answer the 2 most common questions we get about these things, yes we’re keeping score and yes you can participate. Click above for all the details.

In completely unrelated news, it’s looking a lot like
the fucking apartment hunt
will soon be over, which makes me happier than any of you will ever understand. Ok so I’m sure Carin understands, but she knows me well and she’s quite familiar with my legendary hatred for all things moving and moving related, so she doesn’t count.

I can’t believe how hard this whole thing has been, but I guess that’s Guelph for ya. this city has changed a lot in the 5 or so years I’ve been here. When I first got here, Guelph was a place that was completely different from anywhere I’d ever lived. It had all the good things about a city, but with a kind of small town feel about it that made it a safe and fun place to be. But now it’s a city that’s trying to come to terms with the fact that it is indeed a city and yes, there are people who want to come here and take away the uniqueness and develop it into a carbon copy of every other city in the known world. And along with that, it’s also a place that’s inheriting the shitty parts of city life, like drugs and the crime that comes along with them. It’s a really sad thing to watch happen, and it’s made even worse by the fact that Guelph, as it is now, isn’t anywhere near capable of handling it, which brings me back to the apartment hunt.

Guelph seems to be made up of 3 basic types of rental property. There’s the cheap and central, the way out of our price range and central, and the stuff that would be fantastic were it not located at the corner of Middle Of Nowhere Drive and Am I Still even In Town At This Point Avenue.

Right about now you might be wondering why, if our only good option looks like cheap and central, has this whole thing been so friggin difficult? that’s a fair question. But the thing about the cheap stuff is that it’s cheap because it has to be, and the pricey stuff is pricey because it needs to be in order to avoid becoming cheap stuff in the future, even though by being pricey it ensures that good people who don’t happen to have much money can’t live there, but I digress. Remember the drugs and crime I talked about earlier? The cheap stuff is where they live, hence that’s not where we live, at least not if we can help it.

So it’s at this point that we need to start creating smaller sub-categories. I’ve started breaking the cheap stuff down like this. There’s ok but creepy, wow, what a dump, wow, what a fucking dump, did they build a criminal warehouse here and not tell us, and good God, you’re telling me peiple actually live here?

So with all of that and the occasional closed-minded prick who won’t rent to us because blind people can’t do their own yard work working against us, things get pretty difficult pretty quick, and it winds up taking a long time to find that ever so elusive 4th type of building, one I think I’ll start calling the miracle building.

The miracle building is generally the one they don’t advertize so the nare-do-wells won’t find it. The one that you have to stumble upon by chance and generally can only get into if somebody puts in a good word for you. the one where they keep the price reasonable to keep people happy so they won’t leave and will instead tell their friends that they should come and live there too. I think that finally we might have found one of those. I’m sure that one of us will keep you posted. Wish us luck, we need it.

Ok, this is getting long, so I’ll go now. It’s almost time to look at the miracle building anyway. But before I leave I would just like to say that being awake since 4:30 this morning even though I only managed to sleep for a little under 4 hours can bite my ass. thank you and good day.

The Redicuclock

Is it true the best rants are always when your day starts like shit? I don’t know if that’s the case or not – but if it is this may be the best post I’ve ever had – cuz I’m sure not happy. Unfortuantely, since I’m also not well-rested, it probably won’t be.

Our family owns a business. During the summer my sisters and myself come home and work there. It’s a construction company so everyone who works out on the crews or around the shop or complex have to be there significantly earlier than those of us who work in the office which opens at 8. The office ison the same property.

So there are 2 carpools out to the place every morning. One with my Dad because he oversees all the sites and shop stuff and needs to be there by shortly after 6, and one with my sister to the office which opens at 8. Since none of us particularly enjoy being up and showered in tiem to leave home at 5:35, we usually go with my sister since we’re all going to the office anyway. In theory, there is no problem since we’re all going from the same place, to the same place. Also, in theory, communism works.

Unfortunately things that work in theory don’t always work in real life. The 3 of us that travel with my sister on “the late bus” all get up around the same time and need to shower and whatnot. Usually not a problem but every so often it can be if someone is takign too long in the bathroom or something.

Then there is the dispute on how early you need to be there to “get ready” to work. For two of us, “getting ready” means pulling out the chair at our desk and sitting down. For the third, it involves changing from shoes to work boots to go outside. None of which takes more than a minute. For some reason this is a large source of debate considering it’s about a 20, 25 minute tops, drive and we are leaving the house at 7:08 which in some people’s minds is pointless, but in teh mid of the person who owns the car, is not. This brings us to the real problem.

The Redicuclock. We have a clock in the kitchen that is 10 minutes fast. I don’t know why. We’re not really one of those family that goes by that entire thinking of if I move my clock ahead, I’ll never be late or anything. It just is – and we’re not allowed to fix it. It’s not really that big of a deal any time except at 7:05 in the morning.

What happens at 7:05 in the morning? Well the driver swears up and down it is 7:15 because she has lived with this thing for so long and is pissed that the rest of the world doesn’t think so.

I get up at 5:55 every god damn morning I’m home(to beat anyone to the shower who is getting up at 6 cuz i’m an ass that way). I shower, shave and all that jazz before I go back to the basement where my room is. I also grab a piece of fruit. I go downstairs, put on some music or SportsCentre and start getting dressed or ready which really doesn’t take that long but I need that time in the morning before it’s a good idea for me to talk to anyone. I’m a horrablemorning person. When my clock (which is on par with the satellite dish and THE REST OF HUMANITY) says 7:00am. I head upstairs. All thats left for me to do before I go is brush my teeth, a glass of water and an apple for the road. Hardly a 15 minute job which I should have time for because, well, I’m not supposed to leave until 7:15.

However. Upstairs the driver is looking at 7:10, fully aware that the clock is wrong and not caring. I come upstairs, in no rush and carry out what’s left to do. I go throw my shoes on and am ready to go at 7:08. Unfortunately. That’s 7:18 on the Redicuclock. And we’re late. Not late for work since if we left at 7:08 we’d get to work at 7:43 at the latest and be still 17 minutes earlier than anyone else.

This thing causes the most rediculous fights. The clock is fast so I’m not really late, and even if it was that time we would still be early. I’m just as guilty as everyone but the whole thing is pointless. It’s pointless to not be allowed to touch the clock, to argue over it, to need to leave it 7:15, and especially to leave at what the rest of the world is calling 7:05.

Two days ago was a huge blow up about it and while we were fighting about being late because we’re leaving at 7:17 the god damn radio comes right out and says it’s fuckin’ 7:07. I asked if she heard that and she said it doesn’t matter. That’s the logic. It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to snap on this god damn thing.

So I finally caved. I was just going to get up in the middle of the night and fix it but I caved and changed my clock to match the Redicuclock. I am now part of the insanity. I am not part of any time zone, I live 10 minutes ahead of the rest of the world, and I’ll have to come to grips with it.

Have a wonderful day

And….. Plug!

Well nothing makes me feel more at home on the Ol’ VC than pimping shit that has nothing to do with the VC. That’s just what we do. Especially when we first got started. So I might as well do it again.

Yesterday I made mention of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay For Life and the fact that I was enterring a team. And while none of you uncreative pricks were able to offer up a name that satisfied the group… or a name at all… I was asked to put up the link to sponsor our team. So I am certainly more than willing to do that. The site’s totally secure so no worries about that. Anything you can afford is a help. Every little bit helps, as they say.

Click here to sponsor Matt!

Upon re-reading my post it strikes me I shouldn’t have called you all pricks directly before asking you for your money…. Live and Learn

What? Listening? On a Phone?

Here’s something that always puzzles me. Tell me something. If you’re looking for Nick Smith, you call what’s supposed to be Nick Smith’s number and you get an answering machine that says, “Hello. Thank you for calling Bob Jones. Leave a message.” What would you do? Would you just continue leaving a big message for Nick about how you’re wondering when he’s planning on returning your pink underwear that you left at his place and whatever happened to Stan? Or would you realize that, oops, I have the wrong number? Unless Nick’s machine routinely says that you’ve reached Bob Jones, I hope you’d do the second.

For some reason, I see a lot of the first. These are the exact words on my machine. “Hi. You’ve reached Carin. I’m not here right now, so leave a message.” I got the following message this morning at 6: “Hello, I’m looking for Casey, wondering if he’s coming to work. It’s the foreman, and it’s 6:15.” And the strange part was he didn’t even say something like, “Hmm, I don’t know if this is Casey’s number. This is the one I have for him. So if he’s here…” He seemed completely unshakable in his belief that Casey was there, and just not picking up the phone, that bastard. When the blue bloody hell did Carin start to sound like Casy? And, he’s looking for a male named Casey. Last time I checked, I didn’t sound overly manly.

The funny part is this isn’t the first time it’s happened. I’ve had people call and say they’d like to tell Becky they made it to town, I’ve had people leave messages for the Holiday Inn or Frederic Travel, and leave everything but their visa number on my machine. Hey, chief. Usually businesses don’t answer to Carin. Or, I’ll pick up the phone, and this older woman will just start talking to me. She’ll say something like, “Hey, Shellie?” Then she’ll ramble on until I manage to stop her and say, “I’m not Shellie!” Judging by her age and the friendliness she has with this Shellie person, I can pretty much guarantee I don’t sound like Shellie.

I can understand confusion on an answering machine where no name is given, or the recording is silly, or it’s just the phone number. But if there’s a name there that doesn’t match the one you’re looking for, wouldn’t that be your first clue that ya might wanna try again?

Back One Day – And Already Asking For Favours

Alright, Kids. Here’s your mission.
A group of us are walking in the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. It’s a great event. The idea, basically, is that you enter a team of 10, each of you fundraises $100 and then show up to the event and walk all night. 7pm – 7am. You, personally. do not have to be on the track the whole time as long as someone from your team is. Each team gets a little area and some people bring tents and take turns sleeping and stuff. It’s a great concept and if your town is having one, and most towns do, you should consider putting in a team. Anyway…

Each team needs a theme and a name. Since our team is largely members of my extended family and my extended family revolves around a construction company we all own, it only made sense to havethat be our theme. We’re all going to wear the yellow and orange vests and our little area will have traffic pilons and caution tape and stuff. Should be fun.

But we have no name. We don’t want to just use our family name. (i.e. The Rectumsnatch Family) as some teams are doing but can’t come up with anything good – or appropriate for the crowd.

So go to it. If you can come up with a neat name, throw it up on the board. Even if you come up with a bad one we’re getting desperate. Also, if you’d like to sponsor our team I’d be MORE than thrilled to throw up the link for people to do that by credit card. It’s a great cause.

Let’s see those creative juices flowing.