I had the vast misfortune to wander into a WallSmart™ the other day. It was not my idea, in my own defense. As we were leaving, we noticed a sign: “No pets allowed in the store” on the INSIDE of the door. We wondered aloud about the logic of this. The old man who was probably employed as the “Im going to greet you whether you like it or not” guy… told us that it was because people walk into the store with pets. He can then point to the sign – which says no pets in the store, in order to indicate that they should not have pets inside the store. Our attempts to explain our original problem with this concept was rejected, as having the sign on the outside of the door would not give him anything to point to when this policy was violated. Sigh….

Oh, Happy 2005.

mow the lawn. I've always found this fact to be unfortunate, yet it is true. The only respite from this grass stained hell is the Winter season when the grass stops growing. HOWEVER, Winter is preceded by Fall, and the lawn is littered with natures garbage: leaves. If I learned anything in University – it is that the ground is Nature's trashcan. Rather than raking these leaves the lawnmower is the easiest solution for picking them up. So this is what I do. The leaves have to be raked out from the garden beds onto the lawn first though. This accomplished, I start the mower and proceed with my task. I notice that the mower is hitting a few small rocks. While this isn't really a big deal, some of them are bouncing off the nearby walnut tree and coming for me. So I shield my eyes. A large one, however whacks me upside the head, and lo! I am cut. There is some blood, there is some cursing, there is a quick trip to the first aid station. This didn't increase my enthusiasm, to say the very least.

So I begin ransacking the garden shed for a pair of those goggles one wears whilst using power tools, lest things get flung into one's eyes. Sadly, none is to be found. No matter! The odds of getting one in the eye are pretty slim, and even Murphy isn't that good of a shot. So I continue mowing, I bring my hand shield down to scratch my nose for just a second and…. Chunk! Fling! Thump! Sonofa#*$&! Right in the corner of my right eye. What followed was a foul mouthed tirade at rocks, lawnmowers, leaves, mother nature, George Bush and Murphy of “Murphy's Law” fame. My eye was super duper dark red for quite a while after that, and it hurt. Not a good time. Not fun for the whole family.

Today I had an exciting letter from my TelephoneCompany^TM. Aside from blathering on about how wonderful they were, they sent me something rather strange. There was this 6 inch long stick of… something. It was attached to a piece of paper that read:

What? The TelephoneCompany^TM is sending me stuff to mix into my FOOD? Is this really a good idea? I'll bet there is some kind of mind control drug in there… soon I'd be chanting how great the TelephoneCompany^TM is and how wonderful their #&#^@#&$@# honey stick was. Never-mind that the TelephoneCompany^TM has internet service that is riddled with spam, viruses cannot get at my operating system, and my OS's built in browser block popups by default. I am also allergic to honey – maybe this was an attempt on my life? Damned TelephoneCompany^TM!!!!!

Leading up to the Athens Olympics talk mostly centered upon the apparent Greek tradition of leaving stuff to the last minute. There was even an ad for Potato chips (Australian I think) where there were a bunch of workmen sitting on wheelbarrows eating the chips while the runners on the track behind them tripped over shovels and piles of dirt… falling in to holes. You know, the usual race shenanigans. As it turned out, the venues and whatnot appear to have been completed on time. Nothing like the last minute to motivate you!

I’ve always liked watching the Olympics… but never really had aspirations of someday being an Olympic athlete. My sports experiences led me in a direction most definitely away from actual athletic competition – at least on a competent level (except golf). In my high school we sampled many of the summer olympic sports, at least the track and field types….

Archery

I wasn’t half bad at archery… except the part where hitting the center of the target was necessary. My form was excellent, however. The grass behind the targets were well aerated after I was done. I sneezed once, and the arrow shot up into the air and cleared the sports field, into parts unknown.

Running

Running and I do not get along. As an adult I find it boring, as a teenager it was less boring but I wasn’t especially good at it (long distance running anyway – sprinting was cool). Right after archery we went for a run. Over the fence at the back of the field we found some Raspberry pickers in the field gathered around a post that had someone’s jacket hanging from it – with my errant arrow right through it. I quickly moved on. My running incidents as an adult are more noteworthy though. As an adult I have had incidents with running into trees, falling into ditches, and having a shoe fly off in the dark which took 10 minutes to find. There may or may not have been an incident involving a parked car….

Discus

Now this was a fun sport… twirl twirl twirl throw. Piece of cake right? So we were shown this… we lined up. People twirled, people threw, but nobody managed to get it very far. Then I stepped up.. I twirled. I threw. Even the teacher acknowledged he’d never seen ANYBODY throw a discus so far!!!! 🙂 Right into the parking lot….

And last but not least – Volleyball

I used to love volleyball – and I had an awesome jump overhand serve. It went in every time. It was very hard to return. I was also awesome at setting. Get me near the net, however, and all hell broke loose. I once went up for a spike, hit the ball hard and in bounds, but got my hand wrapped into the highest square of the net and was left hanging there by one arm. They had to take the whole net down to get me out. I do not know what was worse – the sore wrist I had for days afterwards or the 3 minutes of hanging there while others attempted to free me without collapsing the net.

I’m driving up a highway in Langley. One of those single lane each way kinds. There is a convertible driving ahead of me. I’m aware of this because I’m a bit angered that the jackass driving it is making me drink in his cigar smoke. Suddenly, the car ahead of him screeches to a halt. The older lady behind the wheel gets out of her car like there is some kind of emergency. She waves to CigarMan almost apologetically… and runs to the side of the road where she picks up… A POP CAN!!!! The runs back to the car – opens the trunk, and throws it into a bag already brimming with pop cans. She then drives away.

I don’t know what it is about strapping something to the roof of your car, but it seems to cause a great number of people to completely lose their minds. My favorite instance of this is around Christmas where I have a nearly 10 year streak of seeing people with Christmas trees on the roof of their car or minivan… backwards. Yes, with the top pointing forward. These trees are usually in an advanced state of disrepair, depending upon the highway speeds they have been subjected to. The branches are often broken or missing completely, some still valiantly hanging on but ultimately doomed to become flattened underneath the tires of the person driving behind them. Maybe its just the same guy every year? I digress…

The TransCanada Highway crosses the Fraser River between Surrey and Coquitlam via the Port Mann Bridge. I am not a fan of driving the freeway, so I tend to merge on right before the bridge, so as to avoid the highway nuts as much as possible. This time I was held up by a minivan full of people in their mid 40’s or so. People who should know better. Tied to the roof of their minivan was a rather haphazardly strapped double sized mattress. Since this person had cut me off while exiting their driveway, I know for a fact that the seemingly absent tie down devices were never deployed in the first place. All I could discern holding down this mattress was a rope tied around it, and looped through the roof rack. ONE rope, and a thin one at that.

I backed off… because I predicted what ultimately did happen next, although with more drama than I had originally anticipated. The mattress-minivan combo drove very slowly, indicating that the driver knew the inherent trouble often found while transporting mattresses strapped to roofs. Not strongly enough, however, to properly secure the damn thing in the first place. He merges onto the highway, which at that point is an 80 km/hr zone, only he is going about 50. This causes the obvious problems. He does manage to merge… albeit by once again cutting someone off. I am still trailing behind him. He is creeping over the bridge still going only about 50, causing much road rage in those around him. It is at this point, about 1/3 of the way across, that the mattress decides to start to relieve itself of its imprisoned nature. The front part fold up into the air, making it look like one of those “camperized” Volkswagen vans. As I had originally predicted, the mattress eventually gains its freedom… flies up in to the air.. and lands on the Honda Civic ahead of me (in the fast lane), completely covering the windshield. He slams on his brakes, as he likely cannot see anything, and unfortunately veers into the “slow” lane right into the path of a logging truck.

Luckily for Mr. Honda Civic, the truck doesn’t hit him, but at that point the mattress flies off of the Honda’s windshield… and lodges itself under the front bumper of the logging truck. At this point I’ve slowed down such that the truck is ahead of me. A mattress trapped at highway speeds under the front of a large truck like this one is subject to a lot of friction… and consequently catches fire. A lot of smoke billows from under the truck, and a few flames can be seen as well. Finally, it dislodges itself… and I don’t know what came of it after that, but it couldn’t have been pretty. A burning mattress jaywalking on the freeway cannot end well.

This pissed me off. Someone could have easily been killed. I endeavored to get the license plate of the minivan. This guy had been driving 50 but when he lost his mattress he obviously realized it and started driving like he was an Indy car. I was unable to catch him… as he was going well over 100 and weaving in and out of traffic like a madman. I wish for many speed traps and venereal diseases in his future.

Its times like these that I wish I had one of those James Bond cars with a rocket launcher etc mounted to the front of it. This would only work if I was the only person with a car like that. Sadly, my terminally ill Subaru did not come equipped with such things. The sunroof, however, is excellent.

I always knew that I hated weeding, but the bodily harm that it brought to me last week was beyond what I’d signed up for. I was working near a rosebush, one that I have tangled with in the past. This one likes to reach out and scratch my neck, face, arms, anything it can get hold of really. It especially likes to do so when I am mowing the lawn. This time, however, it really got me. I managed to plunge one of its large thorns into my arm, only this time into that great big vein that runs down the upper part of your forearm. It had me snagged, and I tore away, and was surprised at the volume of really dark blood coming from the resulting hole. This took quite some time to stem, and within 30 minutes my arm had swollen quite a bit. I’ve had lots of rose bites, but this was crazy.

My arm hurt for FOUR $@#$%@ days! Four!

Now, a week later, there is a green/yellow bruise extending about 5 inches on either side of ground zero. So much so that it draws people’s attention. I’ve punctured myself with lots of thorns and things in the past but never have I had an invasion of my body met with such an immune response. Guess my vein didn’t LIKE being invaded. I can’t blame it. We are thinking of suing.

Sadly, I doubt this incident will be a sound excuse for not weeding in the future.

I’ve been trying to hire a hitman, but most are afraid to work with roses. I can’t blame them there.

Tomorrow marks a ten year anniversary for me. Tomorrow it has been 10 years since I’ve had a cup of coffee.

Whaaaaaaa?

I’m sure there are those out there stunned at this revelation. No coffee? How could anybody survive without coffee? Especially someone going through University, and getting up at 5am for their job? Some of you are already throwing on a jacket to make a late day pilgrimmage to their local starbucks just to cleanse themselves of the dirty thoughts of not having coffee for so long. If the thought of not having coffee for so long scares you, give you a case of the shakes, or makes you feel sleepy… I should further rub in that it was easy for me to quit it. I don’t LIKE coffee. Hate the stuff, hate the taste, don’t like drinking hot things, etc… so the match between me and coffee was never made in the first place.

Oh, and I’ve NEVER had Kraft dinner. So there!

I used to be able to say that I’d never had KoolAid… but that distinction was destroyed a few years ago by a friend of mine. A sly, sneaky, friend of mine…

Friend: would you like something to drink?
Me: sure
Friend: juice?
Me: sure
Friend: here is your juice 😉
Me: thanks

The juice she delivered to me was in a black coffee cup… so I couldn’t really scrutinize the juice before consuming it. This was all part of the plan of my sly, sneaky, friend. The scrutiny that my cup of juice and I were undergoing before I’d consumed it had been noted by my brain, but not interpreted as anything sly or sneaky. I had failed to take a drink of my juice for several minutes and my sly, sneaky friend pointed this out:

Friend: you have failed to take a drink of your juice for several minutes!
Me: yeah

So i took a drink. It was most certainly NOT juice. I was immediately informed my my sly, sneaky, and now smirking friend that it was in fact NOT juice – it was KoolAID! And worse still, it was the purple kind.

Friend: it was in fact NOT juice – it was KoolAID! The purple kind!
Me: @#%($@^@

This still haunts me to this day. I wake up screaming in the middle of night, drenched in a purple sweat, visions of black coffee cups dancing in my head. The horror… the horror…

She has since promised to covertly introduce Kraft dinner into my diet, but if handed a black coffee cup of KD under the guise of juice, I like to think I’d be sly and sneaky enough to realize that its NOT juice. Maybe.

I shall have my revenge (eventually)!

I was on my way into town tonight to pick up some photos I’d had developed. I turned the corner, and on the side of the road in oncoming traffic was a minivan pulled over with its rear wheel on FIRE. I don’t mean smoking, this thing was burning up something fierce. There was a police car parked behind the minivan, its lights on, but apparently the officer hadn’t got out of the car yet, was finishing a donut, or didn’t have an extinguisher. The minivan occupants were milling around on the side of the road no doubt forecasting the demise of their vehicular transportation. I was turning right at the time, and on my side of the road a trucker had pulled his rig over and was attempting to cross the road with his rather large fire extinguisher. The four or five cars ahead of me, however, kept honking at him and not letting him through when he attempted to cross the road. He was rather mad about this, naturally, and had to wait for FOUR cars before I let him pass.

WHAT THE…?

A man stands on your side of the road with a fire extinguisher…
Across the road a minivan is on fire
YOU don’t let the fire extinguisher guy go in front of you because… you are in a hurry??

I swear, if I didn’t wield very strong command of my more basic instincts I’d be gunning my engine and running people down out of frustration more often.

In order to further confuse me, I managed to go get my photos, wait in line, drive all the way back to the place of the burning van and…. the fire trucks were JUST arriving. ????

Okay, rant over.

I’d still like to know why I can drive all over the place with my camera in the backseat and things like this NEVER happen then!

After you click on the linkbelow – you will see a picture of a room. There is something in the room that is out of place. Stare at the picture and see if you can find it. There are audio clues – so leave your speakers on.

Click Here……

(Hint: – stare at the table)