This Is Not How I Wanted To Start My Long Weekend

I swear to you people right now if the guy at the desk beside me doesn’t stop dropping these silent, stinking, lingering bombs I’m going to snap.

And dammit, man. Stop looking around as if you’re trying to find the guilty party when the full magnitude of what you’ve done hits you two and you realize I’m going to notice. We’re the only 2 in this area and so you’re probably not going to fool me in to think it was, in fact, me.

Dammit!

Some People Need Work Instilling Confidence

I had a bit of an argument with a bus driver today on my way home from the radio station. Well maybe it wasn’t exactly an argument, but he thought I was lying about something and me and another guy had to prove him wrong so I’ll call it an argument anyway. The funny thing is that it was an argument that he should have easily been able to win considering that his job is driving. the conversation went something like this.

Steve: “Can you let me know when we get to Water Street?”
Driver: “Where?”
Steve: “Water Street.”
Driver: Where is that?”
Steve: “You don’t know where Water street is?”
Driver: “Never heard of it, are you sure you’ve got the name right?”
Steve: “Yeah, I either get on or off of a bus there several times a week.”
Driver: “Well I’ve never heard of that…”
Random Other Guy: “He’s right, it’s down by the river.”
Driver: “No, that street is called something else.”
Steve and Some Random Other guy at the same time: “No it isn’t!”

The conversation ends there until we get to the spot I wanted at which point I hear something I was hoping I wouldn’t.

Driver: “Hey, this is your stop, but wait, I’m curious about what the name of the street is.”
Driver looks around thoughtfully while Steve stands there waiting for him to say something.
Driver: “Wow, I guess it is Water Street. I never realized that there was a street there before.”

Steve exits the bus, cholking on a combination of laughter and terror.

He didn’t realize there was a street there? How can you not realize that there’s a street there, it has it’s own stoplight for crying out loud! And if he’s capable of being oblivious to an entire street, what else is he missing? I’m glad I got off that bus when I did, that’s for sure.

But as I was walking the rest of the way home I had another thought. Maybe all of those people that I see wandering aimlessly around the city all the time aren’t really homeless at all, they’re just lost thanks to the directions of some accident waiting to happen bus driver.

Tragic

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been around much in the last while, it’s because I’ve been dealing with the tragic loss of a dear friend and at the same time allowing the full impact of a very important life lesson to sink in.

In all seriousness folks, I don’t like to use this space to talk about things like this, but sometimes it just has to be done so I hope you don’t mind letting me get something off my chest in the form of a little bit of advice to you all.

Whatever you do, don’t listen to condom companies when they say that their products will keep you safe. It’s not true. In fact, that’s one of the biggest bullshit claims going, right up there with “I’ll pull out in time honey, I promise.” Trust me, I know what I’m talking about here. Remember the tragic loss I mentioned earlier? It was directly related to what I just said.

You see, the other day my dear friend Jim was out walking in the city where he lived as he did a great deal of the time. It was one of his favourite things to do. As it happened he was wearing a condom at the time, but yet, when he crossed the street, he still managed to get hit by a bus and die.

So like I said, don’t trust condoms or the companies who make them. Those things aren’t as safe as they appear.

I Love This Joke

A dinner speaker was in such a hurry to get to his engagement that when he arrived and sat down at the head table, he suddenly realized that he had forgotten his false teeth.

Turning to the man next to him he said, “I forgot my teeth!”

The man said, “No problem.” With that he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of false teeth.

“Try these,” he said.

The speaker tried them.

“Thanks, but they’re too loose,” he said.

The man then said, “I have another pair…try these.”

The speaker tried them and responded, “Too tight.”

The man was not taken back at all. He then said, “I have one more pair… try them.”

The speaker said, “They fit perfectly!”

With that he ate his meal and gave his address.

After the dinner meeting was over, the speaker went over to thank the man who had helped him.

“I want to thank you for coming to my aid. Where is your office? I’ve been looking for a good dentist.”

The man replied, “Oh I’m not a dentist. I work at the morgue…”

Some VomitComet Landmarks

So last night I was excpetionally bored and, well, had a calculator near by so I did some random math to predict some facts about everyone’s favourite blog. Karine’s!!! Then I did some about ours.

At the rate that we are going right now, the VomitComet will reach it’s 1 millionth hit in 20 thousand days. Can you believe it, I’m excited already.

So I hope to see you all hear on October 19, 2058 for the biggest damn blog-blowout of all time!!!

In other math news, at Steve’s current chalory intake rate, combined with his rate of body mass expansion, he’ll be dead long before our party ever happens. Hell, I’ll be surprised if he’s around to host another New Years Party to welcome 2007.

But we’ll think of him in 54 years when I can simply blog by thinking what I want posted.

Something To Be Proud Of

I was sitting around eating supper and watching “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” earlier tonight when I heard one of those things that just made me stop dead and go “huh?”

During a break in the action the host was talking to the contestant, going over some of that biographical info they make all of the contestants on gameshows submit because for some reason they think somebody outside of the person doing the talking and maybe 1 or 2 people from that person’s family will care about when they got to a fact that I couldn’t help but overhear. It seems that one of this woman’s proudest moments, [and I’m assuming it’s a proud moment because it was high enough on the list to make the bio card,] was that she had recently won a dog/owner look-alike contest.

Now like most of you, at least I hope like most of you I had never heard of one of these competitions before. So since I’m putting faith in you people that up to this point you haven’t the faintest clue what I’m talking about, I’ll explain what that means. The long and the short of it is that this woman looked enough like her pet dog to convince a group of judges to award her first place out of a line-up of similarly facially disadvantaged people.

I’m not even going to ask the obvious question of why do they have contests for this in the first place, they have competitions for everything these days so nothing surprises me anymore. But what I am wondering is why you would publicize the fact that you not only entered one of them, but that you won. It’s not something that would really do wonders for the old self-esteem, or for the dating prospects. Then again this was on TV so maybe she figured that everybody would have figured it out anyway even though her dog was sight unseen through the whole conversation.

And while I’m asking questions, here’s another one. I wonder if since they look so much alike whether the dog ever gets confused and thinks he’s masturbating when he’s actually humping her leg.

I’ll leave you all to chew on that one for awhile while I go to bed and try to get that horrible mental picture out of my mind.

So…. Pop-Ups Bother Me

Today I had to use a computer for a while that is not my usual one. So I was working without a Pop-Up blocker and I had gotten so used to not having to deal with them that it has sent me in to a rage today.

All I want to do is read something online and I get 14 different windows opening with people wanting to help me win a car, pay off my mortgage or grow a bigger penis. Now, while at some point in my life I may appreciate all of those things… it sure as hell isn’t while I’m trying to check the weater for this coming weekend! PISS OFF!!

The VERY LAST THING that I want to do after getting one of these irritating things on my screen is see what they’re offering and support them with my money and time. I get frustrated and close them as quickly as possible. I don’t understand how these people think it’s good advertising when all you’re doing is pissing me off. I don’t know. Are their people out there innocently playing a game on Yahoo and getting a pop-up and dropping everything to see what this ad is all about and signing up? Maybe there is. I don’t know. Please tell me. But if I know people as well as I’d like to think that I do, I know that the majority of them are sharing my thoughts on at least this topic. it’s irritating and the last thing that I would do after you interrupt me is buy your product.

I’m sure everyone who’s ever written anything on the net has written about this but it just pisses me off so much. All I want to do is see what my favourite band is saying in their new song and I get 14 offers for crap I couldn’t possibly want. All that you’ve advertised to me is that you’re too ignorant and cheap to take up a more conventional way to screw people so you just choose to bother me. That’s not good advertising. Even if I needed your product down the road sometime, I would not get it from you.

Stay the hell off my screen!

Fuck Sympatico

I meant to post this earlier but I never got around to it and it’s still something that pisses me off every time that I think about it.

Last week I received a bill from Bell Sympatico (a Canadian Internet Provider for you outta towners) for $380.39. WTF??? Here’s why this pisses me off so badly. (ignoring the obvious fact that I’m cheap)

I don’t use Sympatico at home. I’m on a different provider. My Bell Sympatioc account was in a different city from when I was living away from home for college last year. It was 26 bucks a month or something like that. It wasn’t the greatest connection in the world but it was cheap and it was college so whatever.

THAT WAS LAST YEAR!!!

On my last day at the college, I phoned Bell Canada to disconnect my phone line. Bell also runs the Sympatico internet provider so when they went to disconnect it, they mentioned that there was an internet account set up at this number as well and asked if I’d like to cancel it. I expected I’d have to call Sympatico seperately to do so but when they offered to do it there, I said “sure.” and everything was fine. They would send my final phone bill to my home that I was returning to.

Something didn’t sit right after that mainly because I’m cheap and I like to make sure things are done correctly when it comes to my money. So I figured there was no harm in phoning Sympatico directly to make sure that the account had been cancelled. I phoned the right extension and told the service dude that I wanted to cancel my account and gave him all my information. He then informed that it appeared someone had already disconnected that accout earlier that day. That was all I needed to hear. it had been done correctly with the other operator. I thanked him and thought nothing more of it FOR A YEAR!!!

Then last week I get a bill from Sympatico for almost $400 claiming that I havne’t paid my bill in a year and if it is not paid off in 2 weeks it will be placed on the credit card that you have to give them for confirmation of who you are (and obviously for reasons like this.)

So what originally was “Fuck that, I ain’t paying them for shit I ain’t used in a year” turned to “I got no choice cuz it will be on my credit card.” Then you have to pay that off or it fucks with my credit rating and all that.

The thing that pisses me off more than anything else is that they waited a full YEAR to send me a bill when before I was getting them every month and could object to shit I didn’t like or cancel it. So if in May or June of last year if I had gotten a bill for that month or two that I didn’t use it I could have phoned and cleared it all up and paid off that month if I needed to and ben done with it but they wait a year to send me a bill with a years worth of back-payment to be delt with. That’s horse shit!! I would have cancelled it long before now if I would have known I was still getting billed. Man this hole thing pisses me off.

Fuck Sympatico

I Feel Like I Should Say Something…. But What?

So in the last 2 weeks I’ve barely posted anything. Some of that is due to my own reasons, and a lot of it is due to my own laziness. So, we’re going to try one of these “just start typing and see what happens” kinda things. Sometimes these ones generate the most interest, other times they’re complete crap. I will assume the latter to be the case today, but we’ll see.

I bought 2 new CD’s this weekend. The first one is Alexisonfire. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s certainly not a bad CD but it’s not something that you’re really left wanting more of or anything either. I’ve only listened to it start to finish twice and other than that it’s been just a track here and there as I leave my CD player set on random and there are 5 other albums in there too.

The second one is the one I wanted more and for some reason, I haven’t even taken it out of the packaging yet. It’s a punk compilation album called “Rock Against Bush”. The name is pretty self-explainatory but it’s pretty much just artists coming together to “freely express” their dislike for George Bush and the things he’s done during his time in office. The bands involved was a pretty stacked listing ranging from Pennywise to Anti-Flag to NOFX to the Offspring to even Sum 41 (Canadians??). It looks like it should be a great album but I don’t know why I haven’t opened it up yet considering my excitement when I found it. An album like that, maybe I just want to be able to sit down and really listen to it without much distraction and I guess I just haven’t had the time for that lately.

I’m loving the hockey playoffs right now. I’ve never seen a team that works as hard as the Flames do. They’re as quick as anyone in the league bur rather than use that to play a run and gun style like Tampa does, they use it to get in fast and forecheck hard and hit. It’s amazing. Normally when you think quick team, you think of a team that stays away from the physical side of the game. Not Calgary. They use their speed to make their physical game stronger. I really hope they can get in to the Cup final. I think that whoever wins the East will be the favourite, but it would still be great to see Calgary go for the cup. It’s kinda funny. The biggest hopes for a Canadian team to get this far really sat with Ottawa, Toronto and even Vancouver to a lesser extent. I don’t think anyone thought it would be Calgary. But good for them.

I watched some of the World Hockey Championship and it was kinda neat. Granted, no one had their best line-ups out there since a lot of top guys are still competing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs but the European teams definitely have an easier time getting the stars to come play after they’re eliminated. I mean Sweden, the team Canada played in the final, added Peter Forsberg and Niklas Lidstrom to an already strong team after their teams were eliminated. Canada doesn’t really get that. Our biggest “stars” at the tournament I guess you’d say were Ryan Smyth, Dany Heatley and Roberto Luongo. Those are good players, but I take Forsberg or Lidstrom over any of them on any day. Yet, Canada still pulled out the gold medal. I think it’s great to see that even with what many would call an “undermanned” team we can still pull it out thanks to that good old Canadian grit and will to win. I know everyone else will say that the other teams were undermanned as well, but you’ll never convince me that they were to the same extent we were. I mean come on…

Sweden had Nylander, Forsberg, Lidstrom and Alfredsson.
The Czechs had Jagr and Elias
the Slovaks had Satan (not our regular commenter), Damitra and Sykora

Hell, there are some top NHL guys there. The only team that has a harder time convincing our top guys to come to this tournament than us is the Americans and they still managed to pull out a bronze. (whatever) but I think it just goes to show that it’s all about desire and that’s something that the Canaidan teams will always have the edge in. This all bodes pretty well for the World Cup of Hockey I would think. Sure, the other teams will load up with their top guys, as will Canada, but we’re on a roll baby after 2 strait World Championships and an Olympic Gold. Canadian hockey is in pretty good shape.

Well, I dunno what else to say. I may come back later. We’ll see.

RAW Is Steve

Sorry for not being around over the last few days, but I’ve been busy.

Among the things I’ve been doing are visiting family, getting my nuts stomped on by my little cousin, lots and lots of working, and recapping RAW for Salty Ham.

“Stop right there,” I hear you say. “Roland G does that and you’re a crappy writer. Why would he hand his column over to you?”

And I say to you, fair points my friends, but he did, so I took him up on it and it’s now ready for your consumption.

Roland did all of his regular features that we’ve all come to expect and I handled recapping duties. If you want to see how that turned out,
click here.

Hopefully I’ll be back later with something, but I pulled an 18 hour day yesterday so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m not, at least not today. Keep checking back though because I just might surprise you and who knows what Matt is thinking?