If He Won’t Plug It, I Will

For those of you who miss Matt, and I know some of you do, I’ve got something for you. He came out of hiding and wrote a new column over on
Salty Ham
all about his feelings on the situation in the NHL and what really bothers him about it.

And before you pass it off as another know it all blathering on and on about his 7 step plan to fix the broken league, forget it, that’s not what this is. It’s actually a really good read, at least I thought so if that counts for anything.

you can read the column
here.

Oh and one more thing. To avoid another round of “what’s up with Matt” questions, yes I still talk to him, yes he’s doing well, and no I don’t know when he’ll post here again. If you want more information than that, you can feel free to
ask him yourself.

More later.

Til Booze And Furniture Do Us Part

This might just be the best wedding story ever.

Scott McKie and Victoria Anderson were looking forward to a life of wedded bliss as they tied the knot. But an hour and a half – and a series of drunken assaults – later, divorce was looming fast.

The tale of what has been billed one of Britain’s least successful marriages ever ended with 23-year-old McKie being dragged from his own wedding reception by police, newspapers reported.

According to the reports, the happy marriage lasted for all of 90 minutes before Anderson, enraged at a drunken toast to the bridesmaids by her new husband at their reception, violently hit him over the head with an ashtray.

He responded by taking a hat-stand at the pub in a suburb of Manchester, northwest England, where the party was taking place, and hurling it towards the bar “like a javelin”, according to witnesses.

Police were called and McKie headbutted one officer and punched another before being dragged to the cells, at which point 40-year-old Anderson cancelled their honeymoon and began divorce proceedings.

The sorry tale was recounted at Manchester Crown Court, where McKie pleaded guilty to a series of charges including attempted wounding and assault, receiving a community service punishment.

McKie’s lawyer told the court that everyone involved had been “very, very drunk at the time”.

“They had only been together for two or three months before the wedding,” McKie’s father told the Daily Mirror newspaper.

“It was a big mistake.”

Culinary Double Standard

Sorry about the lack of updates this week, but things have been a nice combination of busy and boring which doesn’t really work out so well when it comes to thinking up topics worth posting about. But while all of you were sitting here waiting for one of us to say something, I was out getting my Christmas shopping almost done. Yea me, not that you care. Well maybe you do, but for the life of me I’m not sure why you would. Oh well, what people like to read is a whole other post for another time. For now, let’s talk about food.

The other day when I was out at the mall, I ate at
New York Fries.
I haven’t eaten there in years and Carin had a craving for the stuff so I figured what the hell, I might as well eat there too even though fries dipped in garlic sauce isn’t your traditional first meal of the day.

So I’m sitting at the table, dipping my fries in garlic sauce and carrying on a pleasant conversation when a thought strikes me. Why is it that French fries are only a meal some of the time? Think about it. When you’re at home and you’re deciding what to have for dinner, you never decide that you’re going to cook up some fries and leave it at that. there’s always something with the fries. Sometimes it’s fish and chips, other times it’s burgers and fries or hotdogs and fries. But whatever you have with the fries, the point is that there’s something with them. the fries are never a standalone meal at home. But when you’re out somewhere and you see a chip wagon or a New York Fries, you’re more than happy to pay somebody to give you nothing but fries and call it a meal. Why is that? Why do the rules change depending on where you are? Do fries just taste better on their own when you have to pay 3 bucks for a box of them? And why only with fries? Seriously, I can’t think of another food that works that way. If you went out someplace and somebody was trying to sell you a box of green beans or a bowl of mashed potatoes you’d probably think the guy was nuts and start looking around for the nearest French fry stand so you could get a decent meal. Come on, you know you would, because so would I. We all would. And why? I don’t know, I’m still trying to come up with a good answer for that. I’m also trying to figure out how it is that I’ve managed to spend 25 years on this planet and not give serious thought to this until now, even though I’ve eaten the French fry meal a million times. And you know what? Even though it bugs me now and I think it’s really weird, I’ll probably do it a million more. I guess I just like tormenting myself or something.

Which File Extension Are You

I don’t know what frightens me more, the fact that somebody created this quiz, or the fact that I took the time to take it. Actually no, what really scares me is that it’s not really that far off.

And if you’re wondering what I am, here’s what the site has to say.

You are .doc You change from year to year, just to make things tough on your competition. Only your creator really has a handle on you.

Vive Le Québec Ivre

Ok I hope at least one person gets that joke. They probably won’t, and if they do, they’ll be pissed at me for saying it. Oh well.

I saw something on the news that just killed me. In Quebec, there’s a liquor strike. Ok, another strike. Whatever. But people are flipping out! They’re going to Ontario and New Brunswick to get their liquor, and stocking up on it as if it was water before y2k! . One guy actually said that the liquor stores should be considered an essential service! He said this on camera, without one bit of shame! And it wasn’t a joke! Ok, it’s booze. You’re not going to die without it…are you? If so, get some help, not out of province booze.

A lot of people must agree with him, because to avert the strike, they actually brought in Lucien Bouchard, ya know, used to be premier, big political man, to help with negotiations. I am not joking. It’s on the CTV site. Doesn’t M. Bouchard have better things to do than to stop the beer store people from going on strike? Apparently not.

The part that’s even funnier is they can still get some beer at the grocery stores according to CBC. But they just have to have more. What the hell? Can someone please explain this one to me?

Bell, we employ the simple

My fucking god. I am pissed. I am pissed. This is going to look like the spewings of a rabbid dog, if a dog could type that is, but I don’t fucking care. This is unbelievable.

Let’s recap. Wednesday night I was happy. Happy happy happy. Tuesday was a beautiful day and nothing could bring me down. I should not have challenged fate, because fate was game for the challenge. *snap* Out goes Carin’s phone, among other things, and that’s when I started to realize that Bell does not keep things simple, they employ the simple.

Maybe I’m just really unlucky and I just happened to meet the special ed shift, but my fucking god. First off, there’s god damn blasted piece of shit speech recognition Emily. Somebody strangle that cheery little robot before she pisses off the next Bell customer who happens to be armed. Somebody might die because of that stupid thing.
Emily: Just tell me what you want.
Frustrated customer: phone repair.
Pause
Emily: Ok, repair and technical support. Now, is it about Bell telephone, Bell mobility, or Bell Sympatico?

Ok, if I called 611, which is the Bell repair line, do you think it’s my internet, smartass? They even have a special number for sympatico, as I found out when Emily thought phone repair meant my internet’s broke. Considering I use rogers, not sympatico, sorry Emily, time to tune up those high tech ears of yours. You seem to be deaf.

Emily: Ok, Bell telephone repair. Briefly describe the problem you are having.

I’d love to watch Emily’s circuits fry if the customer’s reply was:

Well gee, I get this funny buzz beep werr thing when I pick up my phone, and sometimes I can hear my uncle bob over there fucking a goat through my handset. what do you suppose that means?

No, all she can handle are simple commands, and even then it’s chancy. The thing is they make her sound so conversational. “Just tell me.” “My name’s Emily.” No, you’re a computer. And you’re about as effective if I could just press keys rather than try to talk to you.

So finally after she figures out that my problem is too big for her pea brain, she puts me through to an agent. I think phew. Someone with some brains. No. Wrong. This woman who’s mowing through her talk at the pace of a race car tells me something about a repair tech coming the next day. But I’m in school the next day and it’s kind of important that I go cause it’s the last day. She mumbles something about outside wiring and notes on my door. After getting royally pissed at me for not understanding what in the blue christ she’s talking about, she hangs up on me. Hangs up on me! Ok, who the hell is she to hang up on someone with a broken phone who’s trying to talk to her through a cell phone on a 3-way call. Until she’s had that happen to her, the bitch has no right.

Ok, so maybe she has, but I’m sorry. That just pissed me off. Flash to the next day. I’m at school, and very happy that I have a cell phone. it rings, and it’s the Bell man. He says the problem’s inside my house, and can he get in, even if the landlord let him in. I’m like call me back and I’ll see what I can do. The landlord says it’s ok. The Bell man calls back, but 3 hours later. I’m like good, you called back. You can get in. He’s like, oh I’m long gone now.

Thanks, asshole. You’ve been ever so helpful. Thanks for listening to me so well. He’s like, oh you’ll have to call the Bell people back and reschedule. I do. And I’ll swear until the end of time that he said, they’ll be hear on Friday between noon and 6. I run home so I can be there for them. I miss a call on my cell phone. I call them back and this is what they say to me.
“Repair technician? today? We have no record of that.”

Ok, so in front of each customer service rep, what do they have? An etch a sketch? A game of let’s pretend? What the fuck? Did I talk to another person with no brain? So here I sit with a dead phone and the Bell people are oh so kind as to send someone between the hours of 8 and 5 on Saturday. 8 and 5? No, no one has plans on Saturdays at all. They just sit and wait for Bell. So I’m angry, but what am I going to do? Two hours later, knock knock knock, who’s at my door? A Bell man! The first intelligent person I’ve seen at Bell. I’m thinking, woe they realized how pissed I was and sent someone real quick as a way of apologizing. Yea Bell. He tries to fix it and realizes that the problem is so bad that I’m going to have to hope that the owner of the restaurant next door, which I swear is some kind of mob front, is real nice and isn’t a mobster for real. Cause, they’re going to have to rip apart his restaurant and lay new wire, because some numbnuts caused a bunch of old wires to touch together and short out and they can’t even tell whose wire is whose. Get this. I have my neighbour’s wires in my apartment, but my wires aren’t in my neighbours house. All the fucking connections are mislabeled down there, and the wires are spliced through some other crap.

So he leaves and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that me and my cell phone are becoming best buds real quick. Then I’m not at my house and my cell phone rings. It’s Bell! They have no record that the guy who came yesterday ever came so they don’t know why I am not home. They don’t listen to what I’m saying. Later, when I call back, I’m told that now they’re sending a whole crew to fix something the depths of which they can’t even begin to understand, and they don’t even know which technician ordered this crew. So I don’t even know if they’ve been given the right information. And, hahahahahahahahaahahahaha, let me laugh some more, hahahahahahahahahaha, they think they’ll have it fixed by 7! Hahahahahahahahahahaha my sides ache. 7? Are you out of your trees? Are you going to bring a full carpentry and roofing team too? I didn’t know Bell had such diverse employees.

And here’s the kicker. The report has been forwarded to a dispatch manager, but Joe Bell employee can’t talk to said manager because he’s not in the same building. Ok, hold the phone. He’s a dispatch manager. That means he can talk to people who are driving around and send them other places. That means that he can be talked to. Bullshit they can’t talk to him because he’s in another building. What, the *telephone* company doesn’t have telephones? Unless they can’t call out, which is dumb, for sure dispatch manager guy can be reached. Sometimes I wonder at their idea of efficiency.

So now, perhaps a crew of befuddled Bell people *may* show up at my house. Or maybe tomorrow. Who the hell knows? Whenever I call there, I get a different answer. Either way, I am so unbelievably frustrated and without a phone and with a cell phone whose battery is nearly dead. I really hope this is over soon. And if someone who’s reading this works for Bell, maybe you can explain some of this bullshit to me.