The Steve’s Mind Clearing House

Over the last day or 2 in our apartment building they’ve been trying to fix some water damage that was caused when somebody’s pipe burst and flooded out a bunch of other apartments. Because of this, they keep turning our water on and off. I don’t mind that, because I know that they’re going to have to do that a few times to find the problem and fix it. What I do mind is what happens when they turn it back on. Thing is that since we’ve got no idea when they’re going to shut it off, we have no idea when they’re going to turn it back on either. So here’s what happens. Say I want to fill our water jug for the fridge or wash my hands. Both perfectly innocent activities I’m sure you’d agree. Now keep in mind that the water has been turned off previous to me deciding to do either of these things. While it’s been off, air has had time to build up inside the pipes, air that has to go somewhere when the force of the water trying to get through to me hits it. So where does it go you might be asking yourselves. Well, all over me, that’s where. What happens is that every time I turn on the taps now I always have to jump back a step to make sure that I’m not going to get hit by the giant wattery air bubble of certain death that splashes cold watter all over me. Here’s the rub, I never make it, because I always forget to move since I’m not used to having to get out of the way of flying cold water. I hope they fix things soon.

I just read about a study in the news that found that 66 percent of the time children don’t listen to their parents. I can’t say I’m surprised, especially if they studied parents who are like most of the ones I’ve seen. You know, the kind that will tell you that they’re only going to say something once but then yell at you for the same things over and over again, Or the kind that will tell you it’s not nice to hit other people while they’re hitting you. “DON’T! HIT! YOUR! LITTLE! BROTHER!” Kids aren’t disobedient, they’re just confused.

And while we’re talking about parents, how about the ones who have ever said something as stupid as “if you don’t quit crying, I’m going to give you something to cry about.”

Another thing I read in the news today was that they’ve cleared our Sea King helicopters to fly again. Now if you’re not up on the Canadian military’s fleet of world class choppers, they’re about 40 years old and you hear about one of them crashing about as frequently as you hear that rain is coming. There’s actually a joke floating around that the reason they call them Sea Kings is because they’re always Sea King The ground. One of those that you might have to read out loud a couple times before it makes sense. Anyway, back to my point. They’ve cleared them to fly again but one of the rules that has been set down is that they can’t conduct hovering drills over a non-paved area. That doesn’t make sense to me. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I know that if I was going to fall out of the sky it would probably be better to land on something soft rather than cement. Maybe that’s just me.

Take The Bus With Me

Well happy Wednesday to you all, unless you live in one of those weird time zones where it either isn’t Wednesday yet or has been already. Or maybe you’re seeing this days into the future while finding the site for the first time and skimming the archives, or you haven’t been here in a few days and you have to catch up… So many possibilities, so little care to actually figure out what they all are. Maybe wishing you people anything but a happy birthday is just too complicated seeing as the internet is a global village and all. How about this. Happy whatever it is where you happen to be to everybody no matter where or when you are reading these words. Yeah, that should keep the little bastards happy. Oops, I think I typed that out loud. I’ve really gotta stop that.

The other day I was on a bus going somewhere and I saw something that just freaked me out, not to mention pissed me off.

Picture your average day, an average group of people traveling someplace, going about their daily lives, the only thing that they all happen to have in common is their choice of transit, they’re all on a city bus bound for the same place. Now picture the driver sitting up front, piloting who knows how many thousand pounds of people and vehicle down the busy streets of a mid-sized city, deftly avoiding cyclists and pedestrians with the greatest of skill and ease that is possessed by a well-trained public transit opperator. As the bus travels onward, speeding quickly toward it’s destination a ringing is heard. It is the ringing of a cell phone, a sound not foreign to bus commuters. But this ringing is not coming from one of the passengers on the standing room only bus, oh no, this ringing is coming from the front of the bus and is answered by the driver who commences a very jovial private conversation with lord only knows who. I’m sitting pretty close to the front of the bus and can hear every word he’s saying. He’s joking about how he’s in his office right now conducting business. Yes, I think to myself, the business of not getting me killed, get off the fucking phone, idiot! He doesn’t.

So the bus roles on and the driver, with all the skill and grace of a robot stops at every corner to let more people on, even though the bus resembles a goddamn sardine can at this point. It’s so bad in fact that I’m starting to think that a few people who wanted off missed their stops simply because they couldn’t fucking move. Our hero the driver however seems completely oblivious to this and keeps yammering away to whomever is on the phone in his hand.

Finally, we get to the final destination and people start to pile off. Now I’m not sure about other cities, but in mine, it’s customary to say thanks to the driver when you leave a bus and wish him a good day. He in turn, does the same to you. Not this prick. He’s so engrossed in whatever he’s talking about on the phone that he completely ignores everybody getting off and getting on.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen the situation I just described and even more sadly, it won’t be the last time either. I have no problem with cell phones in general, I want to make that clear. I own one, and they really can be quite useful. What I do have a problem with is the use of those phones by people I’m paying to get me somewhere safely, IE cabbies and bus drivers. I don’t own a car so unless I walk everywhere, I have to rely on these people to get me from point A to point B in one piece, and I have to pay them to do so. And since a fair number of these people are prone to driving like maniacs to begin with, I think there should be an outright ban on the use of cell phones by professional drivers while they’re on duty, meaning that whenever they’re taking somebody somewhere, the phone is off. If you’re in the break room or parked under a tree, chat away but don’t do it when you’re taking me somewhere. It’s just disrespectful. In fact, I think the next time somebody does that to me, he’s not getting paid. You don’t pay for shitty service anywhere else, so why should I in this case, when not only the lives of the people in the vehicle are involved, but the lives of those outside of it? Just something to think about.

Steve

BEST! RESULTS! REPORT! EVER!

So I’m sitting here at my computer eating some soup after a fairly long day, reading some email and catching up on my wrestling news when I find
this
posted on an otherwise high quality website. I’m not going to reproduce this in full, just the funniest part. How the webmaster, who is responsible for the content of the site could look at this and then decide to post it is beyond me. Maybe that was the only report they got but if that’s the case, just take somebody else’s and credit them, that would have been better than what you are about to read.

Hey, I just got home from Raw at the Gund Arena in Cleveland, and I thought I would write to you guys. First off the crowd wasn’t really into it the whole
time, just during certain times. There was alot of “boring” chants.

Dark Matches
A Guy with purple tights vs a guy in white tights.
The guy in purple tights had a cape on when he walked into the ring. The guy in white was from a near by city. The fans where behind the guy in white. People
called him Shaker cause he was from Shaker Heights. Guy in white won.

Two Huge Guys vs Two Wimpy looking geeks.
The wimpy guys got crushed by this team of big guys. One of the big guys looked like Goldberg, but he had tattoos all over his back and arms. The two wimps
where from Cleveland but the fans didn’t care, they where behind the big fellas.
———-
Isn’t that just ever so enlightening? And more than a little frightening?

I Won’t Be Mad If You Don’t Read This

Well good day, all. I’ll warn you all right now I have nothing of any importance to say at this point in the day and I’m really only posting cuz I haven’t done fuck all around here to help Steve out and he’s been doing an admirable job. And to avoid infighting I figured I would throw some stuff up here too. Let’s begin.

First. I would suggest that you all go and check out CrazyFads.com if you’re really bored. I say that because while it is humourous and neat to see… it really isn’t something to time out of a busy day to do. I mean I found it by going to Bored.com so I mean it must be there for a reason. The more I think about it you people must not have very busy days if you’re able to come here and read crap like this… but we thank you.

Saturday night I ate at Planet Hollywood for the first time in a few years. You remember how huge the concept was and you would wait hours and hours to get in because it was “the place to be”? Uh huh. Well not now. No line-up, empty restaurant, and sub-par fries. Now I suppose it could have just been this particular restaurant but I was less than excited while I was in there. When these places were huge a while back it was because you believed that when you went in there was a good chance you may an actual celeb. It didn’t have to be a huge name, but you’d probably see someone. Well we sat beside a cardboard cut-out of Richard Simmons. YA!!!!!. I’ll tell ya somethin’ else too. It’s hard to eat looking at that! Anyway, it was a neat idea while it lasted but it seems that the trend has warn off and is really nothing more than just another theme restaurant. I was kinda hoping I’d see this site’s resident celeb, Karine, there but no such luck. Oh sure. You may not know her too well right now but I would say within months you won’t be able to turn around without seeing Karine’s picture on billboards everywhere. You just wait.

Tonight the Leafs will host the Mario-less Penguins at the ACC. I admire what Mario is trying to do by keeping the team in Pittsburgh but honestly pal, it’s time to hang’em up. If you’re no longer able to play every game than it’s not fair to the rest of the team you’re trying to save cuz they never have any idea what their roster will look like. Also not fair to the fans of Pittsburgh and around the league. While Mario is trying his hardest to keep a team there for the Penguin fans to cheer, he’s also kinda screwing with their heads. When the season schedule came out I looked ahead to see when Mario would be coming to T.O. because I figured this would be his last season and I’d never seen him live before. For one reason or another I never bought the tickets and now I’m glad I did. I know I’m not the only hockey fan who would pick the Pittsburgh game over another “high powered team” to go to just to get to see Mario. The guy’s a superstar but for those who did book the tickets, they’re now stuck with a ticket to see possibly the worst team in the Eastern Conference with its only superstar out of the line-up. It’s one thing when a guy gets hurt. It’s quite another when the guy has no intention of playing every game. It just kinda bugs me.

Well, that’s probably good for now. I won’t sign this one with “More Later” like I did yesterday as yesterday I never ended up writing anything else.

ONe last thing, quickly. Yesterday was our second highest day in terms of hits and there are a lot of people who keep returning. We’re glad you’re enjoying it and thanks for supporting us. Make sure you check out the links over there on the right as some of them lead to others who are helping us out to. Much love to those people.

Keep Hope Alive

How Normal Are You?

Thanks to
Karine
for this one that she left on the comment board.

Head on over to
Bathroom Life
and take the survey. Once you get to the main site, just click on survey and answer the questions. You don’t have to give your name or anything, which is a good thing. When you’re finished you’ll get to see the results as averaged out among all of the people who have answered the questions. A very interesting look into the bathrooms of your fellow humans to say the least.

As for me, I wasn’t in the majority as much as I was expecting and the whole thing left me confused about those around me and even a bit disturbed by them. The fact that only 47 percent of people say that they always wash their hands after going to the can is especially frightening. I was also surprised to find out that more women had taken the test than men, maybe I underestimate you girls sometimes. But anyway, head on over there and take the test, it’s fun.

I Hate That

I think one of the worst things in the world to have happen to you is to be cleaning out your fridge and happen upon something that you forgot you had. God it’s terrible when that happens. I think it would have to be right up there with cleaning up somebody else’s vomit or shitting your pants. You know you have to get right in there and take care of the situation but you just get such a feeling of dread and your gag reflex kicks in something fierce and it’s next to impossible sometimes.

The puke thing is bad but at least you know what you’re getting into once you have time to assess the situation. Opening containers in the fridge is a whole different ballgame though. It’s kind of like a mind game between you and whatever horror lies within. On the one hand you’re thinking “ok, this can’t be that bad, it hasn’t been there that long, has it? I’m such a puss, I should just open it.” But on the other you’ve got that voice of reason saying things like “I don’t remember the last time I used that tupperware for anything, maybe we should leave this for the girlfriend to find.” Some sort of mystical rancid forces are trying to turn your left and right brains against each other but inevitably you strike a balance between fearlessness and caution and decide to investigate…in the slowest manner possible.

So there you are, container in hand wondering if there’s any last minute garbage that needs to be taken out or if you should call your Mom just to say hello. But no, you are a fighter and damnit, you can get through this! Slowly you reach for the lid, all the while cursing yourself for not getting rid of things once a week. If only you were more vigilant, none of this would be happening. Then it happens, the top comes off. Sometimes it’s not so bad. It’s not so good mind you, but it was better than you were expecting it to be, nothing jumps out at you. But sometimes, like today for instance, you are greeted by something so vile and disgusting that you question the whole practice of eating food in the first place. Man, I hate Thanksgiving.

Symba 42! Symba 42! Set! Hut Hut!

Well good Monday Morning to you all! I hope the weekend fount you well. It certainly did me and left me with lots to talk about.

I spent a good portion of the weekend in Toronto with some friends. On Saturday afternoon seeing the much acclaimed Lion King Musical and then visited Planet Hollywood for dinner. Sunday the same group went back to Toronto to see the Toronto Argonauts dispose of the B.C. Lions in the CFL East Division Semi-finals. But we’ll get to that in a second. First, Lion King.

We ended up with absolulety great seats. We had a balcony that overlooked the stage very nicely. In the opening scene where Symba is presented to the other animals we actually had an actor in our balcony with us who sang for a few moments. It was pretty neat to be right in the middle of the performance.

The story follows almost the exact story of the movie with a few added scens and obviously a lot of added songs. As I say though, there are a few scenes added like a kind of creepy interaction between Scar and Nala where Scar tries to make her his queen. Come on. the guy’s old enough to be Symba’s uncle yet he’s tryin’ to get with Symba’s childhood best friend and future wife…. that was a bit creepy but I digress.

The production is filled with lots and lots of humour, some great songs not heard in the movie, some unbelievable singing voices (Nala to me having the best voice, though my friends will argue Rafiki) and even some pretty cool stunt scenes like Mufassa’s death and Scar’s fall from Pride Rock at the end of the production. The 2 actors who played Nala and Symba as children were only 9 years old and did work far beyond their years both with the dramatic aspect, as well as their singing.

If you ever have the chance to get in and see this I would STRONGLY reccomend you do so. Whether you be a music fan, a Disney fan, or both you will definitely enjoy it. It’s easy to see why people have raved about it for so long.

Sunday as I said we went to see the Argo playoff game. Was the first time any of us had been to CFL game and it was great. I feel bad for the boys who play on the Argo teams. They actually draw decent crowds, right in around league average but since they play in the SkyDome (a 60 000 seat stadium for those of you who don’t know) it always looks empty and the crowd seems silent because of the room the sound has to cover. Montreal may play in a small stadium but it’s one that opposing teams fear because the crowd just seems that much louder. Anyway…. the crowd was great yesterday and was very in to the game.

Many will say that the Argo’s only got through yesterday because of the fact that Dickenson did not play for B.C.! To that I’ll say shut the hell up because you must have not watched the game. The Argo’s were not going to be beaten by B.C. yesterday. Allen played a great game at QB for T.O. and the defense was very strong not letting B.C. get any momentum. The Toronto defense sacked the Lions QB’s at least 4 times yesterday. it simply didnt’ matter who was playing for B.C., Toronto was going to move on. They’re in tough against Montreal next weekend though. As much as I’d like to see the Argo’s move on I believe the Allouette’s will prove to be too much. Fingers crossed though.

On a friendly little side note. It’s $3.75 for a Coke, $12.00 for a beer and $150.00 for a souvenire CFL football. It’s not a cheap day out, but fun nonetheless.

Lastly, thanks to Steve for keeping the posts coming this weekend as I simply had no time. He did a great job and I’ve read some of his stuff. If you haven’t scrolled down yet to see what he posted this weekend, I suggest you do so.

More later.

Straight Out Of Left Field

This is kind of a weird one. I was talking to my girlfriend about names and somehow we got thinking about guys named Lynn. I think it started out as a conversation about guys with girly names and how weird it is. We were trying to think of girly named guys either famous or otherwise but we’re both completely stuck for Lynns, other than some guy on a listserve.

I did a search with the exact term “guys named Lynn” and found out that there are actually quite a few guys named Lynn, at least in America circa the 1970’s. A scan of
the top 1000 most popular names of the 1970’s
shows that Lynn was the 169th most popular girls name in that decade appearing in the sample 869 times, and the 539th most used name among baby boys appearing 121 times. There were 876,690 men in the sample taken to make the list. Granted that doesn’t average out to be all that many Lynns, but considering that this is only 1 decade in 1 country and that there were 461 names less popular than that I’m thinking that quite a few Lynns are out there, and that it’s entirely possible that more than 1 of them could be reading this idiotic rambling at this exact moment. Thing is, I can’t name a single one of you, which is why I’m even bothering to post this in the first place. So if you know any men named Lynn, or if you happen to be one, please let me know so next time this comes up I’ll be able to win by firing off Lynns like a mofo.

By the way, just for the sake of keeping you all informed, the most popular names of the 1970’s are Michael for boys, appearing in the sample 35226 times, and Jennifer for girls, 29070 times. On the other end of the scale we have Darby for the guys, showing up 37 times and Roxanna for the ladies coming in with 67 entries. For the sake of accuracy, the list actually goes beyond 1000 even though it wasn’t supposed to, not sure why that is. For the sake of what we were doing here I just used the top 1000. If you want to see the rest hit the link above. You can also find the same info for other decades if you feel the need. But hey, do that after you find me some Lynns!