I am driving through my old neighborhood in Coquitlam. Slowly. There is a cat chasing a squirrel up the middle of the street. I stop. The squirrel runs up to my car, jumps on the hood, and the up the windshield on to the top of my car. The cat does the same. At this point, their trajectories begin to differ as the squirrel manages to avoid my sunroof, while the cat does not. Gravity is a bitch. The squirrel makes a clean getaway, while the cat falls onto my head through the sunroof. The cat then scrambles over the backseat and gets a little frantic because the squirrel is disappearing from sight. What started as a sedate drive through my old neighborhood culminates in my having to pull over due to the extremely disgruntled feline in the back of my car.

I'll bet the squirrel is still telling this story to his friends. I'll bet the cat is keeping his mouth shut.{

I'm flying to Ottawa on September 11th. Im not sure this is a good idea psychologically, but it's probably actually one of the safest days to do so. Unfortunately, I'll have to go from Vancouver to Chicago first, then on to Ottawa. On American Airlines. One thing is for sure, I'm not packing any damn scissors in my carry on luggage again. In fact, I think I'll forgo the whole carry on luggage thing this time – lest I get searched in even more of a personal manner than last time….

    In what can be described as the ONLY exciting thing to happen to me while at work recently, I almost broke my leg. Managed to walk sideways into that abyss between the trailer and the warehouse door. Foot went down about 8 inches, and then I fell sideways. It was only due to my impromptu sideways left arm only pushup that I didn't break my leg. I DID manage to get a huge swollen lump on the side of my leg, bruised my foot, strained a muscle in my upper back, my shoulder, and my triceps are completely screwed. On the way down I actually had time to believe that a horrible cracking noise followed by my yelling was inevitable. Would have been one of those nasty compound fractures too, likely. Definitely something that gets one's attention. It received everyone else's attention as well, as three of the four people working around me tried to support me and actually picked me up afterwards. These guys were absolutely CONVINCED that I'd snapped my leg, which in all likelihood WOULD have happened had I plummeted deeper into the gaping maw of the abyss, or if I had failed in my spontaneous attempt at a one armed workout. Never broken one of my limbs before, and I don't plan to start now. This is not saying I haven't broken bones before. I snapped my finger on a NURF! football (you know, the SOFT ones that are supposed to be safe?) at one point, and I broke my jaw in five places once (don't try this at home). Countless toes also have been snapped in the pursuit of bipedal locomotion. Lets just say that I gained a reputation in school as being slightly accident prone. Ever plunged a pitchfork clear through your foot? I have, but this is all beside the point.

    It took a spontaneous dance routine to convince my coworkers as to the integrity of my lower leg. The ones still clinging to the idea that my leg had indeed completed all 90 degrees of the bend they claim they had witness were truly horrified at all my hopping around. Then I refused to go to first aid and returned to work. Dumb.

    An hour later, my lower leg had swelled up quite a bit, and had turned all kinds of colours. So I went to first aid, and then returned to work. The real kicker about getting hurt at work is the paperwork involved. At least they horribly massacred my the spelling of my last name….

    It wasn't until after my hour long commute home that I determined that I could barely move my left arm. Luckily, I'm right handed, but it was painful enough to keep me up all night, and to prevent me from going to work the next day. Missing a day due to work makes for even MORE paperwork, if that were even possible.

    Then came the bureaucratic hoops to jump through. Since I missed a day, I'd have to go to the doctor and get him to verify that I was injured. This even though I had ample witness and a first aid report. Whatever. The doctor charged me 10 bucks to write a silly little note about injuries that he couldn't not verify from an accident he didn't witness.

    It was all ok in the end and the injuries have healed now, a week later.

    Now I've got strep throat, apparently. Picked it up at work free of charge. Feels like I've had some kind of bad sword swallowing encounter or something. Not that I’ve had any good ones either.

    Wots the moral of this story? Don't go to work in a warehouse? I don’t know.

I'm losing my patience with the lack of personal responsibility among coffee drinkers (a gross generalization, I realize). It would seem that if you spill hot coffee on yourself, there is no one to blame but the purveyor of the coffee. Certainly not yourself.

So now there is a new coffee related lawsuit from someone who burned herself with coffee.

“She just pulled out of Tim Horton's and started to drink the coffee through the lid, and it spilled all over her …… She was burned severely because the coffee was too hot.”

I don't drink the evil bean beverage myself. However, I do realize that it is hot and isn't likely something you should be drinking WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING!! This comes from personal experience – the unfortunate incident with a very hot Hazelnut Latte from Starbucks.

To be fair, the lawsuit points out that there was some kind of defect in the lid of the cup, and that also had some hand in the coffee dam bursting all over her. If she wasn't so carefully and diligently observing the road for hazards while driving wouldn't she have noticed the defective beverage receptacle?

I've always heard complaints about COLD coffee, and not the other way around. The only people who I've heard about coffee being too hot are those who dump it in their lap when they are driving. Usually we hear about these things on the news when a lawsuit is the result of someone's coffee mismanagement. Such reports usually cite the infamous McDonald's coffee lawsuit in which events transpired much as they did above. The McDonald's incident resulted in a 3 million dollar award, which was later decreased to (only) $600,000 (US). I wonder how many people started dumping hot coffee in their laps on purpose after this point?

As someone who has dumped large numbers of beverages (both cold and hot) in their lap while driving, am I out of line to think that the blame for any resulting burns or discomfort lies with ME? Hmmm…. I guess I've been missing out on all kinds of financial windfalls!

I was at 7-11 the other day and got that horrific “brain freeze” kind of headache from a Slurpee. I'm kind of wondering if 7-11 hasn't been negligent in giving out a beverage (most likely targeted towards the CHILDREN) that is too COLD. Maybe my resulting pain and mental anguish at having a “brain freeze” headache should result in some kind of financial compensation for my hardships? Anyone know a lawyer?

Today at work my lunch was stolen. Presumably it met it's untimely demise at the hands of some miscreant coworker without the gumption to make his own. This was quite a problem last year as well – as soon as the “agency” temporary employees showed up. Last year my disappearing lunch woes were solved with a note in my lunch bag:

One of these items has something in it that will quite likely
make you sick. I know which one. Do you?

I never lost another lunch.

I have to wonder if this will solve this years problems too?

Has anyone else had problems with extraneous characters showing up after their comments left on other LJ journals? Maybe it is time to ditch my archaic version of Netscape (4.76) and embrace the Microsoft menace once and for all?

I recently flew off into the wilds of Prince George and Calgary to help some friends of mine move.

When trips like this pop up and there is air travel involved – I immediately start to wonder if there will be a rant worthy event soon to occur. This is the way I've decided to think about crappy events – a potential website topic. This time I pictured some impending lame complaint about the “Bran Crunch” cookies that I encounter on these flights. This happened, but it no longer shows up on the radar compared to the other things that happened. I'll take you through it one step at a time.

7:30 am. Day of Departure

I wake up to the screaming banshee sound coming from my clock radio. The least relaxing sound on the face of the earth, I'm convinced. I want to hijack the production of one of those whale song relaxation tapes and put that sound in at around 10 minutes. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I get up. It immediately becomes obvious that there is something terribly wrong with my right ear. It hurts like hell, and my balance is less than stellar. Dizziness. Its kind of interesting that this occurs, for the first time in many many years, on the very day I am about to fly on an airplane. The scent of Murphy's Law is strong in the air.

T he Airport

I don't mind airports, providing I'm not late or lost or some other related calamity. This time everything was going smoothly. I got through the ticket counter, paid for one of those airport improvement taxes, and was on my way. I proce eded to security. I waited in a reasonably quick and short line, and approached the checkpoint. The guy ahead of me, upon emptying his pockets, drew the attention of the security people due to several questionable items he had on his person. Most notab le was the fold out knife he had (a blade of 5 inches or so). He vehemently protested its impending siezure, but obviously didn't get to far with that one. He also had one of those lighters powered by propane or something that emits on or those blowtorch flames. Apparently – not suitable for passenger flights (duh!). I was talking to the girl next to me about him, safely out of earshot. “I mean, what do these idiots expect? To be able to bring large knives and blowtorches on a damn plane!!!??”. It was agreed, he clearly hadn't thought this thing through….

The “security” checkpoint

So I put my watch in that little basket, slide it through to the person on the other side. You see… this time – I was smart as I took all my change out and put it into my carry on bag! None of that silly fishing for change in my pocket stuff this time. I walk through with no problems. No blinking lights, sirens, or those spread your arms while I rub my magic security wand over you episodes. I walk to the other side of the security gate, pick up my backpack, and start in the direction of the domestic terminal at YVR.

This is the point where my story stops firing at others and turns the gun on itself….

Virtually tackled. Grabbed by the shoulder s and “asked” not to leave – we have to check your bag. Crap. “Oh shoot – I'd forgotten to mention my #%@^ camera was in the bag” (they like you to turn these things on). Fine, so we open up my backpack, I get out my camera – turn it on. It doesn't st op there. They start rummaging through everything. I start to get confused. I even had to take the lens caps and stuff off my zoom lens. They go through my film canisters, and the INSTRUCTION MANUAL for the camera. This is about the time that the RCM P show up. Great. Cops, and they don't want a group photo. I have a polite discussion with one of the security people about why I am protesting them opening up the back of my camera. “Hell”, I say, “I have pictures of the ECLIPSE in there”!!! A succe ssful negotiation at last. This is when they take everything out of my bag and move me to what is essentially another room.

Sequestration

My acute sense of reality notice that this is probably not a good thing.

Questions – why am I going to Pri nce George – who are you meeting there – what are their names – where are you from – when are you coming back…. etc. I may have avoided the x-ray wand – but I was FRISKED instead (after they found something buried in the seam of my backpack). It isn't as much fun as it looks. I was remarkably cooperative, since this is before the reason for all this had hit me. They were still digging through the crap in my bag. They pointed to the x-ray thingy.

Lit up, clear as day, were THREE pairs of SCISSORS silhouetted amidst the rest of the travel flotsam in my bag.!

So I pointed out where the scissors were. They held one up in the air, scrutinizing it.

This is the exact point I looked for a crowd reaction and saw the strange look that the aforementioned girl that was behind me in line was giving. Apparently, I'd become one of the idiots. I can't disagree. At this point, my own biased estimation of my IQ dropped several… many points.

I moved myself about a month and a half ago. I had this little box that I put all the loose bathroom type implements and tools into. Sadly I made the last minute decision to simply throw this into my carry on baggage on the morning of departure – instead of sorting through it selectively. A regrettable decision, in retrospect.

So they found 3 pairs of scissors in there. One of which was wedged into the lining at the bottom of my bag (my suggestion is that this is why they had to “frisk” me). Thought I'd lost that pair a few years ago – apparently not. All these items were confiscated. They also abused my pairs of nail clippers (why I had 2 I do not know). They tear off those fold out file things on them. One of the file things wouldn't come off – confiscated. 30 seconds after I learned I actually owned a thermometer, I had my thermometer confiscated. After the bag rummaging and interrogation was over, I had to shove everything back into my bag.

Denouement

At this point, still slightly grateful that I hadn't been shot and hung up as an example to others, I realized that I was about to be late for my plane! I don't know who reading this has been in the Domestic terminal of the Vancouver International Airport, but the gate I needed was at the VERY end of it. So I ran. A lot. Know those people yo u see making the frantic dash to their gates? “Tsk… they should have left earlier….” Well – that was me. The lack of the weight of objects that I lost at security probably made me go a bit faster.

I run up to the gate. Nobody was there. This was disturbing – so I ran down the hallway towards the plane. They didn't like this – some crazed passenger bolting towards the door of the plane just as they were thinking about shutting it… but at least I got on! Whew!

Then I began to wonder how my sc rewed up ear would react to cabin pressure. No worries though. It ended up being nothing more than intense pain upon landing and the sensation of someone stabbing an ice pick into my brain every time I yawned for the next two or three days.

Moving from city to city sucks and is stressful, but didn't bother me at all this time.

We now return you to the year 2002, already in progress on a planet near you…..

I have been having strange dreams lately. The simulated events that my subconscious can manufacture sometimes fool me as to their dubious levels of reality come morning. It remains the strangest feeling to wake up with memories of things you never saw, never experienced, never consciously desired… and to be confused about their reality. When I was a child I used to have recurring nightmares and learned to control them. I could change outcomes, and steer the dream into what I wanted it to be. As an adult my dreams have occasionally become about things much scarier than monsters, and I wish I could again control their outcomes. At any rate, dreaming is an interesting experience when it opens you up to new possibilities, or to merely wake up and go “wow – THAT was weird!”. I see no reason why sleep should not be a productive time as well. So I have begun, when I do not have to work the next day and nights of good sleep are not necessary, to induce dreamy nights intentionally. Sometimes when I eat too much candy before going to bed I am able to indulge in one of my most reliable and well practiced of hobbies : insomnia. However, that is becoming more and more rare, and it is a night of strange dreams that has begun to take over as the result of overindulgence in the refined sugar brand of sin. So I’ve done this on purpose. It is not difficult really, consuming candy is my one true addiction, and the yield of such a surreal result while asleep only makes it easier. I am enjoying the ride.

So at the end of May I moved out. Unbelievable the amount of mouse shit I found under my furniture. An even sadder ending to the story is that I moved back into my parents house, a move that is sure to drive me back to drinking after a 5 year absence (which wasn’t due to any particular problems with it…). Most of the reasons for me moving was due to the financial constraints of my student loan payments, and the fact that my job sucks. I remember when 1100 a month seemed like a lot….

I love driving my car but driving for 2 hours a day to get to work (used to be 20 minutes) is kind of getting me down.

Driving home. From Langley to Burnaby, the trip usually takes me an hour because I avoid the freeway whenever possible, preferring a less hectic manner of travel. Im approaching the overpass to the freeway at 232 avenue when my car makes a right turn. Without my permission. I noticed this right away (I’m pretty observant about these kinds of things). When making a right turn, I prefer to have input into the proceedings, “telling” my car when to turn and how much. This time I did not give any such input. So my car makes a right turn all on its own and so I hit the brakes. I come to a stop, on the side of the road, just before this overpass, and slightly askew due to the aforementioned unauthorized right turn. So I sit there and mull over what had just happened. The car is still running fine, and none of those “You’re SCREWED!” warning light have turned themselves on. My situational assessment completed, I attempt to drive the car again. I shoulder check, put on my ticker – and hit the gas. Nothing happened. Apparently, my car was on strike (an illegal one at that…). Sure, the RPM went up, but there was nothing of the sort of usual speeding up type behaviour that I have become accustomed to when hitting the gas. I try again. Nothing. I turn it off, put it in park – then start it and put it into drive. Nothing. It seemed I was screwed, no matter what the lack of warning lights indicated. So what to do now?

Enter one tow truck. Towed back to the parental unit’s home in Langley pending opening of car fixing place. Long weekend. 60 dollars.

Towed to car repair people in Langley. Another 60 dollars.

Why do tow truck drivers think you want to hear all the stories of the gruesome accidents and things that they have seen in the past? Why do they always pretend to know exactly what is wrong with your car? Why is that never what is wrong?

After such an experience, and not one that I particularly relished, I now know what it is like to seize the transmission in one’s car. I don’t recommend it. Seems all the differential fluid had scampered its way out of my transmission and the transmission, presumably mourning its loss, refused to move another step further. The repair place told me that they had put some more fluid in it, driven it around, and said that it only made a “little bit of noise” and that I should “try it out for a while”. I pointed out that this seemed like a completely asinine idea (I may have used different terminology here) since it had already run itself off the road once and nobody knew if this was to happen immediately again. Clearly the fluid had leaked out, but nobody knew if this was a relatively quick thing, or if it had vacated its rightful place over a period of weeks, months etc. So I refused to drive it again, a safe yet expensive solution as the only rectification of the problem at that point seemed to indicate the need for a new differential. This caused an argument with both the repair place and the parental units. Finally, I ordered a “used” one. This took well over a week. So then they had the transmission (1500 dollars later….) in the shop, but were stalling as to when they were going to put it in. Meanwhile, I was going to work on the bus, and showing up late everyday. Try and get a bus in the Vancouver area to get anywhere by 7 am. So one day, after numerous false alarms along the lines of “We’ll do it today unless we don’t”, the car appeared to be ready. I got a ride to Langley, and showed up at the dealer. Oh, sorry – it won’t be ready today!

At this point we had a “conversation”.

I got a rental car. Free. The car was fixed the next day. I have yet to have severe problems with it since, with the exception of the engine flare it keeps giving me (RPM goes up and no shifting happens – then it jerks). This has been “adjusted” and is largely gone. Im taking it in next week (under warrantee) and I hope the remaining bit of “engine flare” will disappear.

So all this happened around a month ago. Lots of other things have happened. Next I’ll write about how the mice had invaded my basement suite. Some of you might remember this is why I moved away from my old place a year ago. I think they followed me! Oh, and EVERYTHING else has gone to hell as well. Yes, I’m sorry – a cliffhanger……..

We now return you to the year 2002, already in progress on a planet near you…..

A few months ago a friend and I ventured into the untamed wilds of Burnaby, in a valiant quest for foodstuffs from UnSafeway^TM. All factors of our endeavor were going smoothly. The ingestible items destined for the evenings meal had been obtained, and a suitably short checkout lineup discovered. At this point everything went to hell. Trouble was afoot. There seemed to be a great amount of debate over the price of two bags of prawns and whether they were on sale at that point. Other clerks were called to the scene, words were exchanged, debate ensued, and the friend and myself were left languishing in line for a period of time greater than it had originally taken to obtain the foodstuffs in the first place. As is the UnSafeway’s^TM custom, the verbally disagreeable miscreants were ushered off to the customer “service” counter, likely to remove the troublemakers from the checkout line minion’s presence, but also to alleviate the growing discomfort in line behind them. The event was over, dinner was purchased, and the day unfolded in a predictable manner (except for the bathtub fiasco).

So in the sequel to the initial procurement of food items, I once again found myself in an UnSafeway^TM, albeit this time in a more northern location in Burnaby. This was the same day. The search for candy had drawn me back into it’s tempting black hole, and I was once again there to feed my addiction to sucrose – my drug of choice. Once again the items of culinary sin were obtained, and an apparently suitable line was chosen for its lack of customers, and for the historically cheery disposition of the checkout line minion. It was not to be. As sure as sugar gets me to that special place, the rabble rouser in front of my in line had a penchant for particularly vehement discourse with the checkout line minion over his attempts to purchase a box of smoked salmon. I don’t mind smoking salmon, but its too hard to light – could this have been the source of his outer turmoil and pain?

This particular lineup trouble maker wasn’t as agreeable as the perpetrators of the prawn incident earlier in the day. He was a tad angry, and was subsequently sequestered to the customer “service” counter. He was not happy at the prospect of relocation. When he got to the “service” counter – the checkout line minion phone her friend at the counter and asked to listen into the conversation there. She did – which definitely slowed up the service those like myself who were left suffering in the lineup behind the aforementioned vocal carnage. The thing that will no doubt plague me until my death will be that I never learned the nature of the smoked salmon dispute. So it ends, another horrifying tale of my time spent at UnSafeway^TM. The obituary will mention this incident as contributing to my brain aneurysm.

Its ok, you can look now – the rest isn’t as scary.

So a couple days later we went to a airport hanger style store where you need a membership. Didn’t have membership with us, so we had to ditch the items at the counter until we went and got a new one. So – got back in line, which was now the LONGEST line available. Again, there was a big argument in line ahead of us…. Waited through the whole damn line – and they didn’t hold the items like they said they would!!! So we left. Another gratifying shopping experience….I don’t know what this all proves except that nobody should ever go shopping with me ever again….

In other exciting news – I bought a new jar of Strawberry jam!!!!!! A simple thing, really, but not without its difficulties. When I got home I discovered that it wasn’t in the shopping bag as I might have expected. So searched my car – no jam to be found. I searched my place for it, lest it might have scampered its way out of the bag before I could discover the escape attempt. No dice. So gathering all the courage I could, I ventured back to UnSafeway^TM to obtain a new one since they obviously had forgotten to give me my jam. I even came armed with a receipt. In what is likely the most amazing moment of my life, I obtained my jar of jam with no fuss from the minimum wage minions whatsoever. Truly strange indeed. On the way up the cement front stairs of my place, I dropped the hard earned jar of jam and it broke. Perfect! Murphy strikes again. Utterly defeated from my jam experience, I sat down on the couch, and discovered the original jar of jam nestled between the cushions of the couch!!

Sigh…..

We now return you to the year 2002, already in progress on a planet near you…..