Today I wrote my last final exam of the semester. Glad it is over. Getting up at 6:00 in the morning and going to school on a Saturday to write an exam is not an experience that I particularly relish. The only good part to all this was that I got an A on my paper. Considering I wrote it the night before it was due, and I didn’t think it was at all good, I was surprised. This was a good sort of surprise though, not like when you realize that what you are melting cheese on in the oven is NOT a bagel (for example). The other day someone I (kind of) know came up to me in the hallway and asked: “When do YOUR ears get the most itchy”? Well, I was sort of confused why this was a question. Actually I answered “Piano recital”. But, since that hasn’t happened in a great number of years, I changed it to when I do dishes or an oral presentation. This was as far as the conversation went, sadly. Apparently she gets itchy ears during exams. Why I needed to know this I am still somewhat flummoxed about. Oh well, nobody said you had to understand EVERYTHING (not much danger of that for me).

Its always interesting to find out how people get to this site. My stats frequently show the search engines people use, as well as the keywords they looked for. Someone searching for “fat strippers” was the most recent interesting one. Actually, placing the one instance of the word “strippers” in here has gotten me many hits over the last while. People searching for “fat strippers (not like a paint stripper I don’t think…), “male strippers”, and “fat discrimination” have all hit my site. Don’t think they found what they were looking for, but you never know. Most of the searches usually deal with some form of “daily rant”, “rant” or “Canadian rant”. Of course, I still rely upon word of mouth for most of my hits, which is why I don’t get many, I think.

Many people read diary sites. I am not one of them. What I write here isn’t exactly a diary, nor is it supposed to be. I sort of find diary sites boring, unless they are a particularly engaging writer or I know the person. Every once in a while I run into a site that is basically a collection of “rants”. This site also doesn’t fit that category, since I do other things here as well. Some of these rants sites are funny, some are very angry, and some are simply stupid.

There are many stupid things that one can do. Take ironing clothing that you are wearing, forgetting about a bag of potatoes in your cupboard for a very long time, or slamming your car into reverse when the light turns yellow and you are in the middle of the intersection (mind numbingly stupid move). Saw that last one today, and I still maintain that my hometown has the worst drivers I have ever seen, and I have driven in many places. I guess add to that list being forced to eat dinner outdoors with my parents in the rain when it was 13 degrees celcius. Yuck. Not sure where I am going with this, so I won’t go anywhere, lest it be the wrong direction. Also, its 3:30 in the morning, I am not at my cognitive best. Still, I managed to make a killing in online jeopardy tonight. Won 15 straight games – guess i’m addicted.

Lets talk for a minute about answering machines. Once proclaimed as the savior of civilization, these message storing devices are actually going to be the catalyst for societies downfall. Answering are actually on Statistics Canada’s list of the top 50 most dangerous electrical devices in the home (No. 50 on the list).

Annoying eh?

Who wants to talk to a machine? I do that just fine when at the bank machine, and I don’t need one of those at home. When I call someone, I can accept that they aren’t home. I can live with the fact that I might have to call back. Seldom is there anything of such immediate concern that I absolutely NEED to have someone else party to my ramblings on tape. I guess I don’t want to leave behind any tangible evidence of my vocal blunders. “Hi Michael, its ——-… Oh wait.. ha ha…. Hi ——- its Michael…… so uhhhhhhhh……. call me back……………….. uhhhh bye -click-“. And those are just the wrong numbers…. This has been known to happen, the switching names around. The last thing I need is for this to be saved on tape, and it and the resultant blathering played in front of any audience. At say… a party – which has happened. Much to my dismay it put aside the excruciating minutia of that party and gave the people there a new item of discussion, if only a minute. I’ll get you back for that one day.

My answering machine refuses to play messages all the way through. I guess it thinks it has played the part I want to hear, and then no amount of coaxing, yelling, or erotic massage will get it to play the rest of the message. I think it is jealous.

When it has something to say the answering machine beeps and beeps until you give it attention. Kind of like babies, or women (I didn’t really say that… did I?). So I get home and there the little magic box is, beeping, beeping, beeping. It is just incessant until it gets the attention it demands. What kind of messages do I get? Clean your carpets for $19.99? Sign up for high speed internet. Wrong number? Chat away about how cousin Bill had his 3rd heart attack anyway!

Potential for abuse

One form of self abuse attributed to answering machine usage is the saving of old messages. Lets take a hypothetical example. So your girlfriend leaves all kinds of “interesting” messages on the machine. Long after she is gone they are still there. So you, being the slightly heartbroken obsessive type, listening to this old girlfriend’s voice going on and on about stuff and even singing songs. Over and over and over and over. Probably one of the best ways to punish yourself this side of falling down the stars on purpose. Or so I have heard and read.

There are also the messages that are actually for you, but you don’t really want. Like the crazy, psychotic raving bitch (not her biggest fan I guess) who decided to heckle me for weeks and weeks on the answering machine. It sucked. Or course, there are other deranged callers that leave a multitude of messages, only these are silly and humorous, or maybe confusing. This is fine because that is their intention and that is understood. Take the friend of mine who, on two or more occasions, left messages that mostly consisted of reciting what time it was (you know who you are…). Yes, its 7:45:46, 7:45:47, 7:45:48, 7:45:49, 7:45:50, 7:45:51, 7:45:52, 7:45:53, 7:45:54, 7:45:55, 7:45:56, 7:45:57, 7:45:58, 7:45:59, 7:46:00. You get the idea. He went on until 7:55:50. I don’t know why. If you were to ask him, I suggest that he wouldn’t either. Or the time he pretended to have the wrong number and suggested that there had been some sort of accident with “Darryl at the club”. Hmmm… I hope that really WAS a wrong number – I never decided to ask.

These and even more exciting messages at an answering machine near you!

Last Friday I had a presentation. Nervous stuff, that. An hour or two before I walked into the washroom and noticed that some other guy had managed to pop off the button of his pants right into the urinal. Obviously, he was in a bit of a quandary as to where to fish it out or not. He decided against it. Then the immensity of his problem surfaced. The zipper of his pants didn’t stay up. This kind of sucked for the poor guy. As I don’t generally converse while in the bathroom, little was said. However, the only word that he said was: “Presentation”. I felt his pain, though not quite to the same extent. The only word I said, with a sympathetic tone was : “Stapler”, suggestion some sort of solution on short notice. This of course, could be dangerous. My own presentation didn’t seem so bad after that. After all, my pants were not in a losing struggle with the force of gravity. At least not then….

Today I get a letter from my insurance company. I’m not sure if I should be disconcerted when they include a page that begins with “As the year 2000 approaches…”. Isn’t this August? This part was all about how we shouldn’t be concerned with the year 2000 bug, but if we are, and we end up being right, then we won’t be covered. Insurance for dummies.

I wonder if there are people out there somewhere wondering if it is OK to come out of their Y2K shelter, and cursing madly using run-on sentences the person who forgot to pack the can opener as they bash cans of condensed soup with rocks picked out from the wall.

So it looks like Napster got a last minute reprieve from obliteration (not exactly breaking news I know, but I wrote this on Friday – deal with it). Oh boy. The most interesting I have read about this was that everybody was bailing out last night and checking out the alternatives. This mean that many of them had unprecedented traffic to their site, something which caused a whole bunch of them (technical term) to crash. Bummer. Actually, I think that perusing music on Napster (Macster actually – which uses the same server) has caused me to buy MORE CD’s than I otherwise would have. Isn’t that interesting! You see, so many “artists” put out complete crap that I don’t really want to spend 15-20 dollars to see if the rest of the songs on the album are decent compared to what I’ve heard on the radio. Napster-like services are just one manner in which I can do this, but this way I don’t even have to get out of my chair.

If there is anyone out there in University who has ever had to suffer through something called CAPA (Computer Aided Physical Agony –> in Chemistry or Physics) then you will understand why I am happy that I have finished the last one. Ever! And I finally got 100%. So there!

Today I was “confronted” by one naked man in one of SFU’s bathrooms. One was enough. Sure, he was about to have a shower, but I still didn’t expect it.

I personally don’t find much more nauseating than those “psychic” commercials. Lets see now, how does my script and the art of bullshit apply to THIS desperate loser/caller?

Tomorrow I have an oral presentation. Considering the last one, I know that it can only be better. Last time, I repeated the middle part of the presentation twice before someone pointed it out. Damn. Lets hope that tomorrow goes better.

This morning I had a bagel for breakfast. Nobody knows that but me because its a secret. Don’t tell anyone. Sshhhhh!

I have come to the conslusion that it is stupid to break up a fight just around the corner from where you live. You get into your car, drive around the corner, and the former combatants use it (the car) for a week afterward as a forum to voice their displeasure. Thank goodness they are only children, and yet, butter and jam under my doorhandles gets annoying after the 20th time.

So I get up. Early. I am usually cantankerous in the morning for starters anyway. I got into the shower. I commenced showering. I imagined how nice it would be to write better sentences. I imagine how nice it would be to still be in bed. I got about half way through showering and realized that there was something on the wall of the shower (which is only 2×2 anyway). A 2-inch slug. Needless to say, this wasn’t something that I really needed to see about 6 inches from my leg in the shower at 7 in the morning. Arg! This isn’t a story that has exactly been a “real hit with the ladies” as a “friend” of mine would put it. I guess the damn thing crawled its slimy ass up the drainpipe (somehow). While I am not particularly phobic about slugs I can’t say that I wish to shower with them, or anything else like them. I actually managed to finish the showering procedure in its entirety before I, as they say, “slugged” him one. If the spiders in my place weren’t bad enough, now I might have to deal with large invertebrates crawling up my shower drain. Great eh? At least I didn’t slip and fall on it, that would have been a real nasty way to break a leg. ‘squip’ – thud

Today went fine except the point where I was almost hit by an ambulance. I was just about to go through an intersection when he cut right in front of me (he was turning left to go in the direction that I was coming from). No lights, no siren, no nothing, just driving like he was in an car race. On top of it all he was talking on a cellular phone. Why do I have the feeling that hitting him would have been MY fault?

I was listening to this band on the radio. Nothing special, just more of the same formula rock you hear everywhere now. Originality may be dead, stay tuned. Listening to this guys lyrics didn’t yield anything special either. All he does is bitch and complain about his childhood. I want to listen to this because….? Of course, reading about me bitching and complaining about someone else bitching and complaining might give the same response in you was well. Next thing you know, I’ll be complaining about the internet, ON the internet. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

The part where I complain about the internet

I see all kinds of things these days where people and interest groups are championing the development of the internet in places where it currently is absent. The most recent example I saw of this came out of the G-8 summit. Something about getting 3rd world countries access. Why? Many people have pointed out that perhaps a better way to help these countries is not through access to AltaVisto or Yeeha, but perhaps through financial aid, food, or forgiveness of debt. Well, duh!. Of course, our Prime Minister Cretin pointed out that since they didn’t have telephone lines – well they can just use cell phones. Lunacy! There seems to be a lot of this going around. Why is the internet considered essential or necessary? Sure its nice, and I wouldn’t want to give it up, but I don’t NEED it. I once saw a website that had words to this effect on it (and nothing else): “This is the last page in the internet. Now go outside and play.”

Exactly!

Read a book dammit!

Isn’t there this big push in the US to have every school equipped with internet access? I have heard similar things here in BC as well. Why? When I went to high school there was seldom enough in the way of text books for everybody, so some had to go without. Would the internet have solved this? Should we be spending what little education dollars we have in order to supply the internet when things like textbooks are severely lacking? People are starting to get the impression that the internet is the only way to learn, to gather information. Its occasionally good for that, but I also find mostly misinformation there too. Rarely do I ever find any information on the internet that would be usable in any academic setting. This is where I search for the frivolous, not for the important. So why the big push towards getting this into schools? Because its trendy? I don’t know, but I just don’t think that it is necessary.

This is the end of this update. Now go outside and play.

I am by no means a fashion expert, nor would I want to be, but I am always surprised at what people will wear in public. I am not talking about the days where people are in a big hurry (especially around exam time) and they just throw on some sweatpants or something. I am talking about outfits that are more frequent, and find their way into a persons regular ensemble. For example, the guy I see who wears dress shirts everyday. This in itself is not abnormal, except he is always wearing extremely tight spandex “pants”. It thought he might have an excuse if he rode his bike to school. He takes the bus. Yuck. The other day I was near the SFU gym. I saw this girl wearing a pair of shorts that had a big stop sign on the back, and a yield sign on the front. I will leave any potential misinterpretation up to you. Of course, all of these people are not bad. I recently saw a girl that was about 16 or 17 helping some older man who was having obvious problems crossing the street. Nice to see, and I will choose to ignore the fact that she was wearing a shirt that read “Fuck You!” on the back of it.

Sigh.

Of course, the transgressions are not limited to visual assaults. Frequently I am violated nasally as well. When you were a kid were you ever exposed to those scratch and sniff stickers? Some of them didn’t smell too good, likely as their payload of smell was altered by either a chemical reaction or just age. I don’t know what the hell it is, but there is this perfume out there that I have been noticing more and more often. It smells just like those stenchy (neologism) stickers of yore. What the hell are you thinking?

Last night was simply amazing. There was this spectacular (by my standards…) lightning storm that was simply unprecedented in my recollection (we don¹t get many here…). I have only seen fork lightning once before, but I must have seen 30-40 in the space of a few hours last night. I actually went out and drove in my car, following it. I sat in the parking lot of Coquitlam Center Mall (in my car) and saw lightning that rivaled the best fireworks show I have ever seen.

It also reminded me of a joke I once heard (completely rewritten…). Something like: If you are in a thunderstorm on a golf course hold your 1-iron in the air. Even God can’t hit a 1-iron.

Recently a friend’s apartment was broken into. All the usual stuff was taken, the only “interesting” thing about it was that security assumes that all the stuff is still in the same building. Personally, thinking that most of my stolen articles could be a floor or two below me would just make it worse.

Naturally, the conversation turned to what to do to prevent or capture further attempts at thievery in the future :

1. The glue trap. Put a couple of REALLY big glue traps inside of the door. Just imagine the satisfaction of coming home to see your door crow barred open, but with the culprits lying pretzel-like in the glue trap just inside the door. This was dismissed as impractical not only due to the resulting mess, accidents, and the potential for litigation.

2. The giant slingshot. If you don’t press in the new alarm code quick enough, you are ejected out the bedroom window to the parking lot below. 16 stories below. This was also dismissed as impractical, as well as potentially illegal.

3. Chemical tracking. If you had a welcome mat just inside the door that had a chemical that fluoresced under UV light or something, you could track the culprits back to their apartment. This was also dismissed as impractical because of the potential for “good” people stepping on it. Look, we have followed the criminals tracks right to….. our car. Damn.

4. The only wild idea that was actually implemented was a sign just inside the door that said : “Smile! Your on camera a-hole”!! Apparently this disturbed the guy who came to fix the door.

I think that they finally settled on a plain old alarm system. How boring.