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…..

I firmly believe in the existence Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, will. Well, not so much do I believe in it as a way of life but it seems to pertain to me on many occasions. Murphy has even, in the past, been my nickname. A guy at work refers to it as my “condition”. Still, when things happen, things governed under Murphy’s Law, Im not really surprised. Well, not most of the time. So lets review how my my trip to UnSafeway^TM went on Monday. Nothing out of the ordinary happened until I attempted to leave the store, something that I have been doing with a high degree of success for quite some time. The rent-a-cop, however, decided to thwart the attempt on this occasion.

So the security rent-a-cop person accused me of shoplifting. I protested. They insisted on searching my bag (where I was said to have stashed the stolen bounty during a stroll up the aisle). I told them they had no right to do so, and that if they really wanted to, they had better call someone with the proper jurisdiction. I now regret my belligerent attitude, but the rent-a-cop was rather rude and if he had the power at the time, I would probably have been publicly hanged without a trial – right there in the UnSafeway^TM parking lot. Well, maybe not – might be bad for business. So, while waiting for the people with the proper jurisdiction, and enduring the less than amicable conversation while waiting – I asked what they thought I stole and was spiriting away in my schoolbag. Condoms. Of course! And, as is naturally the case in such circumstances, the word was used frequently, and in my opinion, in a much louder manner than the words surrounding it in the rent-a-cops “sentences”. It couldn’t have been carrots or cookies or ground beef or something could it? It had to be condoms that I was accused of stealing. I guess it could have been worse, there could have been a home enema kit involved, if such a thing even exists. So the authorities that have bag searching power under my rules, searched my bag. No condoms (you didn’t think I was guilty did you???). It was pointed out that I should probably just let the “overzealous security” search my bag next time – just to avoid the inevitable pain in the ass (unrelated to any strip search) when they call my bluff.

So I thought that was all there was to it. Nope. The damn security guard had wanted to search ME, my person, my pockets etc. Luckily, a strip search was not necessary – and even the authority in the matter of searching rejected this as a necessary option. Rent-a-cop wasn’t convinced. It should be fun next time I want to go buy carrots, cookies, or ground beef at UnSafeway^TM again…..! Hey – remember me? I’m the condom stealer – and I got AWAY WITH IT AHAHAHAAHAHA!!!

I would now like to take the opportunity at this point in time to point out that it is April Fool’s Day, and that the above scribbling was the result of an attempt to completely fake an entry. Lame, I realize, but what the hell – I actually updated the site!!!

Still, to anyone who has read this site, or know of my “condition” – it is a completely plausible story. This is the kind of thing that would happen to me, although I’d probably just let the bastards look through my damn bag to avoid the trouble and attention given to a police intervention situation.

Happy New Year. I guess. It is 2002, and Im still trying to write dates with 19….. I’ll catch up eventually right? Im not sure about this whole “New Year’s Resolution” thing. I wonder how many people actually follow through on them? If you aren’t going to do it, what is the point? Hell, I can come up with new ideas that I’ll never implement ANY time of the year, I don’t have to wait for New Years. So this year, no resolution. OK, fine, I USED to have them. In fact, I had the same one for 5 years. I finally implemented it the year before last, an event well chronicled here. Actually doing it only made me realize that it was a stupid resolution. So I’ve decided to not do as many stupid things like making resolutions. Uh oh…. that sounds like a resolution itself. DAMMIT!

I drove out to Langley the other day, and my car got hit TWICE in the rear. I was turning left, someone ran the red, and tapped me on the backside (of the car). This got my attention, especially when he drove around me and drove away! So I followed him. He showed me some of his fingers. I was hoping he would drive home so I could get his address, especially since the damn car had no license plates (never a good sign). So then he U-turned and hit me again. I decided not to provoke him further, and fled to another subdivision in order to see exactly what parts of the rear of my car were still attached. I have bounced 5 separate cars off my back bumper, and still, even after this incident, I have yet to find any damage. I like having a bumper that is made of actual metal!! Why are people so psychotic sometimes? Is it because of fast food restaurants? Is there something in the food?

I wonder why they call it “fast food”? It just lays there….

Recently, I have had several incidents with such purveyors of “food” that did not exactly fit the description of “fast”. Lets take the 25 minute wait I had at BurgerThing (names have been changed to protect the guilty) to get my hamburger and onion rings. The guy in front of me, reawakening me from my car exhaust induced stupor, threw his drink back into the take out window accompanied by a string of expletives and general consonant grunting sounds. Then he drove away. I came up to the window, wondering what manner of carnage I might find. Needless to say, the girl behind the window was a tad disgruntled, owing only in part to the recent beverage barrage. She started our particular altercation with the words “Sorry – we are out of onion rings”. I said that this “kept getting better and better” (there had been a few disagreements earlier as to what had been said through the 1920’s era speaker/microphone technology located at the ordering board). She pointed out to me that because they didn’t have them, I didn’t have to pay for them. Well DUH! I did ask why things had been so slow (I mean C’mon- 25 minutes?)… Apparently, there were only 2 people working there! 2 seems like a tad few for a whole restaurant, so I asked to see the manager (I felt like berating someone for some reason…). “OH – he’s at the Christmas party. He said that if I didn’t come in, even though I was sick, I was fired.” She gave me my meal for free – although this might have been because I didn’t throw my drink at her…..

I will almost never actually set foot in a fast food place. I tend to use the drive through. If I’m going to be lazy and go eat the swill they serve at those places, Im going to do it properly – in the laziest manner possible. The LAST time I went into BurgerThing I got into a bit of a “discussion” about the sizes of the onion rings. Rather silly actually, but before doing so I noted that there wasn’t anyone in line behind me.

Me: I’d like a small onion rings, a whopper with cheese and a medium root beer with no ice.

BurgerThing Minion: We don’t have small onion rings, just medium and large.

Me: Why isn’t there a small?

Minion: We don’t have small onion rings, just medium and large.

Me: Why don’t they have a small and a large then, with no medium (attempting to come up with a logical explanation…. to no avail…)

She again reiterated that there were no small onion rings

Me: You have small fries – why not small onion rings?

Minion: The small fries are SMALLER than the medium onion rings, this is why they are small and the rings are medium.

Me: But that doesn’t make any sense! They are still the SMALLEST onion rings!

Minion: So do you want the medium onion rings instead?

Me: Yes. Okay okay…. I want the smallest onion rings!

Minion: Sorry sir, we are OUT of onion rings!

Okay okay….. so she did not actually say that last part. Still, it would have capped off a truly interesting conversation perfectly. The fact that I had just walked around 20 kilometers through North Vancouver while waiting for my car to get fixed might have added to my tenacity (new axle – a repair that I considered somewhat important as things get bad when your wheels fall off…). Never ever try to rationalize something like that or your head might explode. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So while BurgerThing can be praised for putting roof extensions over their drive through windows, the rest of the operation needs some fine tuning. For starters, lets upgrade that 1920’s technology in the speaker/ microphone systems. Over 30 years since we sent someone to the moon, you think we’d have figured out how to make a speaker that doesn’t’ make a person’s voice sound like they ARE on the moon….

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

The “Daily” Rant – not moving anymore, well… maybe. The bureaucrats at SFU told me right after I graduated in April that my account would be good until May 24th. So – I started researching locations for the new home of the Daily Rant (anyone got any domain name ideas?). Then they never deleted the site. On November 20th I got an email that said it would be deleted on Dec 1st. Damn! I decided to try and find out what my options were for keeping this thing on the SFU servers…. even if it meant a little money. They told me – you shouldn’t have gotten that message – it should be good until May 24th – of NEXT year! Very nice of them to explain that the first time. So the Daily Rant isn’t moving anymore – well, not until May. Probably. If it inexplicably disappears one day – you know what happened.

Oh, and notice the name change. The Daily Rant is now The “Daily” Rant. So there.

A month ago or so I had a really craptacular incident at the Subaru dealer. They were to give me a tuneup, which was going to cost around 250 dollars. Expensive, but necessary. I phoned a couple of times to see how it was going, as I was walking around Richmond on foot in the rain. So when it was ready, at around 3 (I dropped it off at 8:30) – I walked back to the dealership. When I got to the dealer, and we ran through all the stuff they had done, and what it had cost, the total came to around 400!!!! Naturally, I pressed them for an explanation. What they had done was to go ahead and fix a bunch of stuff that they hadn’t asked me permission to do!!!! Those bastards! So it took me around 2 hours (no kidding) to brain wrangle with the service advisor and finally get her to admit that I should have been consulted before they went ahead with repairs to my car. THEN I talked to the manager and figured out a way to resolve it. They WANTED to take the new parts I hadn’t asked for out at MY EXPENSE!!!! &*%#$^&! I got a little (more) animated and angry at this point. I may have even raised my voice. Well, it worked out in the end, they kept the new parts in, and discounted the labour etc so that I had to pay only around 270 total. It pissed me off that they tried to get away with it! How many people don’t put up much of a fight and let them get away with it??

The excuse they used was actually quite logical and inventive. They were still ripping me off, but at least they had a creative reason for it. They said that it was their “policy” in circumstances when they take a part out to see if it is ok, that if it is broken, they automatically put in a new part. They said too many customers get mad when they put broken parts back in. Well, maybe. I asked them why they didn’t just leave the broken part out until they talked to me about replacing it? Well, they didn’t have a contingency planned for this line of questioning so I guess that was why she just retreated into the back room and came at me waving the broken part and threw it on the counter. I pointed out that I didn’t contest that the part was broken, just that they should have let ME make the decision as to whether I was prepared to pay another 100 or so to fix it. Frustration – and there are better ways to spend an afternoon!

OK – listen up. Ive wanted to address this for quite some time…. It is time that y’all learned that just because something bad happens to YOU – it isn’t because “MY” luck is rubbing off on you. Yes, I tend to have terrible luck with some things. Maybe not bad luck really, just things happen that people associate as something that would “only happen to you”…. Still, the dead battery in your rust infested flea trap of a car – the hemorrhaging hot water tank in your apartment building – the broken heater where you work – the spilt drinks during your trip to McDonalds, the candies that fall off the shelf in Wallmart – none of these things is MY fault merely because you tainted yourself with my presence!!!! So there.

In an event that was a mixed sort of blessing, I got laid off at JobLand^TM. Not just me, but a whole whack of people, so it wasn’t like I was singled out. A seniority thing, or rather, my lack of it. Still, it is better than being canned due to your apparently lack of merit. When I was called to my supervisors office, people bugged me that I was going to get laid off. It was meant as a joke, and I took it that way. I was still kind of laughing about it when I saw the letter that started with “we regret to inform you….”. DAMN! The only thing worse than working at JobLand^TM is not working anywhere. So when I walked out of the office, the same people asked what I went in for, and I told them I was laid off. They didn’t believe me. So….. when they got called into the office – well – it was a bad day.

Did I mention that I got laid off just 5 hours short of getting a raise?

So now I am frantically searching for a JobLand II^TM, and I hope it pays more than approx. 1100 per month (Canadian) that JobLand^TM paid. Yuck! I have a degree dammit!

So, for the uninitiated, let me tell you that getting laid off is definitely an experience. Sure, it may be significantly less fun than “getting laid”, or “getting off”, but it is an experience nonetheless. Its a crappy feeling, actually. Ive been told that, even if you tried to get fired, and are ultimately successful, it is still a crappy feeling when the moment of termination occurs. I think the answer is to just never get a job.

Earlier I mentioned something about having “different” luck than other people. Ive been told that strange things happen to me. I was always of the belief that these things happened to a lot of people, just that I was honest enough (perhaps just stupid) to share them, usually to get laughs. Ive explained this theory to many – and have had it explained that this simply isn’t the case. Either these things simply don’t happen to others, or they aren’t willing to admit it.

At any rate, an example of something that I would fit under this category is as follows:

I do laundry in the little room at the bottom of the stairs up to the floors above me (I live in the basement). So I was doing my laundry. Just after I put stuff into the dryer, workmen came and started tearing up the stairwell. Fine. This made a lot of noise, but I am used to it because the house is under serious renovations right now. I put ALL of my clothing, and I don’t have much of it, into the wash. So, unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing all that much. Then the workmen walked in. I was not happy about this, given my unclad position at the time. I pretty much lost it – and the guy looked genuinely sorry – he didn’t know there was a suite behind that door! When they left , they locked this door. The problem is, this was my laundry day – ALL my clothing pretty much was in the dryer behind a LOCKED door. The workmen were gone. I feared that the people upstairs, who could unlock the door, were gone for the weekend. So I sat there for a while – hoping that they would come home. While I was rescued eventually, had to sit there for quite some time. This sucked. Cmon- hasn’t this ever happened to you? I THOUGHT so!

We now return you to the year 2001, potentially in progress…..

A few weeks ago I was bitten by something that came out of one of the shipping containers at JobLand^TM. I looked down at my arm and some hairy red monster insect was plunging various parts of its face into my forearm. Naturally as I watched the creature “chow down”, my paranoia told my brain that I was about to die. As is usually the case, my paranoia was instructing my brain erroneously, and nothing of the sort has happened…yet. There has been some swelling, which is far from swell, but nothing like a fatal collapse or something. It was just another indication of my belief that it is morally wrong to have to work early in the morning on a Saturday. Mother nature was merely acting out her frustration as well. I doubt my supervisors would have seen it as the same kind of sign however. Despite my run in with the Malaysian insect, I remain alive.

One of the most evil corporations in the world has an advertising program: “There is a little McDonald’s in everyone…..”. Of course there is. There is a little DDT in everyone too, because of the way it goes through the food chain. This is why there is a little M in everyone…. its a lipophilic toxin that is highly bioavailable! So I was shopping in “Safe”way one recent evening and I managed to say something stupid. It is interesting how stupid/dumb things can come flying out of my mouth when I least suspect that they will. So I guess the poor boy behind the counter on this occasions was very sorry he mentioned many things to me, including that if I bought another cucumber I could get a special price. I’ve always hated small talk in a checkout line…. it is always the same… never goes anywhere (by definition)… and I’m terrible at it when I don’t want to be there. So when I blurted out a certain statement at the line that day… one that I usually reserve for friends as a joke… I was a little annoyed with myself. “Are you trying to seduce me”? I’m lucky they didn’t call the police.I have seen the look before…. intense concern/alarm/fear/disgust. Sometimes I attempt to get to this point on purpose, sometimes it happens by accident. It did it on purpose today to a guy at work…… ” You gots you a real puuuurdy mouth!” It had the desired effect and I know it was received as a joke, which is what it was. I’ve always been a bit strange.

Still, incidents like this always bring back to my mind the concept of a filter between my brain and my mouth. Or, as some must be thinking, the lack thereof. During the course of recent years the filter between my brain and my mouth has been in a steadily decreasing state of repair -both verbally and written. I do not know the nature of this phenomenon, but it occasionally makes for interesting situations when I do not disable it intentionally. Blurting out “are you trying to seduce me” at inappropriate times can land one in trouble regardless of whether the incident was intentional in nature or not. Certain situations can cause my filter, which as of yet I have not decided on a name for (Wernicke??), to disengage itself from the normal course of my brain’s behaviour. It gets frightened from its roost, and it scurries down somewhere near the brain stem, quietly sobbing to itself, until it is safe to come out. It always loses the battle for the brain. When it is inoperative for a significant length of time, all hell breaks loose. More than one website entry/ conversation/ email etc. have been conducted during the course of such a filter breakdown. My brain undergoes significant changes, neurotransmitter concentrations rise and fall inappropriately, cells die, and small fires may break out amid the chaos and anarchy. It’s a Japanese game show in there sometimes.

Many things can cause the filter between my brain and my mouth to scurry to its hiding place. For example…. alcohol, or waaaay too much sugar. This is most often expressed through email and does not occur nearly as frequently in person. Several vivid examples of this are in my memory, some recent but most a long time ago. Whatever the case, it always makes for a good story later. Some have been referred to for years due to the incredulity of their recipients. What the hell did you send me???!!!!

“You sent me an email entitled: ‘SNOW!!!!’. It wasn’t about snow, but, honestly, I don’t know what the hell ANY of it meant”

After a particularly bad week recently, a friend pointed out something like: “it can’t get any worse”. Ha! The next day I got home and my basement suite had flooded. Lets do some background here…. I got home from work one day and noticed that the entire roof of my house and most of the third story had been torn off and thrown onto the front lawn. This got my attention because 1) the roof is not normally found on the front lawn and 2) I was not told that this was about to happen. The rather huge blue tarp that had taken up residence in the roof’s rightful place did not ease my mind. You see, this is Vancouver, and it tends to RAIN here. Despite being worried that the “roof” might leak, I suspected that things upstairs were in good hands and that flooding would remain an intangible concept. Then, things got tangible….I walked in the door of my basement suite after a really hard day at work ( hundreds and hundreds of 60 pound boxes….). Upon opening the door, I noticed in my usual observant way that there were torrents of water coming through the ceiling and the light fixtures. I may have uttered and audible expletive. After procuring all the garbage cans, pots and pans, and improvised buckets made out of laundry baskets, boxes, and garbage bags, I decided that I should attempt to get hold of the people upstairs. They might want to know that there was a river running through their house… Problem: I didn’t know where they worked. A 45 minute survey of the neighbors didn’t yield any results either, nobody seemed to know, but most were suspicious of me because 1) they didn’t know the people next door and 2) they thought I was trying to gain illegal entry to the house (which I ended up doing anyway). I had no contact numbers or anything for the people upstairs, and so I decided to actually go to the second floor in order to try to get hold of them. The stairs down into the basement have two doors, neither of which was locked. If they had been, I might have simply gone through them anyway under the circumstances.

The second floor of this house is well furnished. It contains a great deal of stereo equipment, solid oak furniture and dining room table type things, and a big screen TV. It also has (had) the nicest hardwood floors I’ve seen. However, most of these things were contained within the ever expanding lake that I found upon going upstairs. I unplugged all the equipment I could, relocated it to the kitchen (which hadn’t begun to leak at that point) and grabbed all the towels of mine that I could find. In a particularly irrational moment, I also grabbed the quilt off of my bed to dam the second floor lake. There was a LOT of water coming through the second story ceiling, and everything was beginning to sag from the weight of the water above it (it eventually burst and a bunch of the “dry”wall has since come down.

Getting up to the remains of the third story I found that the infamous tarp had filled with water almost down to the floor, and had pulled its sides away from the edges of the wall, exposing it to the rain that had ended only an hour earlier. There was a downspout that drained the rest of the remaining roof at the back of the house. Only problem was, it was emptying right onto the floor, and was the majority of the water infiltration problems until the giant reservoir of water contained in the tarp burst onto the floor. This day was beginning to suck.

Eventually, I decided to reinitiate my idea of contacting the owners of the home. I didn’t want to start rifling through drawers or something, so I called all the numbers posted on the fridge, most of which were just people involved in construction companies. Finally, I got hold of someone who knew them, but was a bit confused as to why I wanted to contact them. Needless to say, the guy who lives upstairs was a little alarmed with what I had to tell him.

Flooding sucks.

The thing with hardwood floors is that they don’t necessarily absorb water too well, so most of the water coming through their ceiling (besides the stuff filtering through the couch) made it all the way down the air vent into my suite.

Notice in the pre-apocalyptic picture the lower part of the ceiling which seemed to be where most of the water was coming through (right onto my table). Strangely enough, I had just packed and moved my new camera from that table that very morning – so I’m glad it didn’t get wrecked even though there was no film in it. The wall behind the bookcase had a lot of water flowing out of it as well, and pretty much all of the carpet on that side of my suite (pic only shows half of it) was a puddle. In terms of monetary damage I got off easy – the only things wrecked were some of the files in the file boxes in the corner, and some of the finish on my table. The bookcase, composed of mostly particle board, has started to come apart because it absorbed a lot of water. There was this enormous…. I don’t’ know what to call it, a blister perhaps….. blister of water that started to grow out of the wall beside the bookcase. It eventually burst. I have no idea if the bookcase’s life is at an end or not. I hope it isn’t, I haven’t’ anywhere else to put all those damn books! It could have been a lot worse, the majority of the things that will need to be replaced are the drywall in the ceilings and maybe my carpet if it decides to rot and stink. If rotting does occur, the damage could be extensive, expensive, and stinky.

The pre apocalyptic room

JobLand^TM is beginning the cull the summer herd. This is done by seniority, not by quality of work or competency (competency would allow me to stay much longer). This sucks. However, it is still the busy season for a while, and JobLand^TM has hired temporary workers to do some of the less mentally “demanding” tasks. A lot of these guys try everybody’s patience. Apparently, this year, the JobLand^TM bigwigs pointed out that the temp company would only be sending its “best and brightest” this year. I never believed that this was possible, but hearing the stories of LAST years debauchery, I guess it may very well be true. Last year these temp workers got into physical fights, yelled a lot, threw things, had criminal records including manslaughter, were smoking pot in the lunchroom, and in one particularly memorable incident, one was caught masturbating (inappropriate in most work environments) in the corner. I’m surprised that such tales are not retold more often. After this, working with this years crop didn’t seem nearly as bad, although I have caught one individual indulging himself with a flask of dark rum at lunch. Thankfully, he doesn’t work in a position to hurt others, though he does drop a lot of things. He doesn’t speak English either, which makes it hard to point out grievances with his conduct directly. He does yell and waves his hands a lot though. We have begun to do the same. Life isn’t all doom and gloom. Last week I crashed a meeting for Co-op science students about how to volunteer and get experience… and I didn’t get CAUGHT!!!! This was especially great since I have never been in Co-op, and am not even a student at this point at CementLand^TM. I was recently embroiled in a discussion at JobLand^TM about the redundancy of body parts. We have two of a lot of things. Was this meant as a built in redundancy in case of the loss of one of these parts? I started it as something silly, but it blossomed into a serious discussion (for other people). Lose an arm, use the other one (makes my golf swing a little less smooth, but it is still possible). We have two eyes, but can use only one if pressed, you’ll just bump into things more often. Some people probably think I have already lost an eye…. I think most of us can do without one ear, simply because nobody listens to anybody else anyway. Those things we have only one of, THOSE are the important things. Lose one of those and you are seriously screwed (and quite possibly dead). Of course, this is the same work crowd that I utterly stumped when I pointed out that I had taken a picture of my new camera. How do you take a picture of your camera when you have only one camera? Hmmm….. We now return you to the year 2001, already in progress…

The other day I was eating at Burger King, sitting in the car at the parking lot. Usually, little birds, obviously filling the “Fast Food Parking Lot Niche”, sit on the hood of the car (pooping everywhere) and beg for whatever they can get. I don’t feed them, but I have seen a great number of people who do, which is probably why they are there in the first place (the birds). On this particular day things were a little different. I was calmly surveying my meal, serenely contemplating the culinary refuse that I was about to consume, when a blood curdling (I’m not kidding) scream filled the air. This was then filled with vigorous honking of a car horn at which point a three girls emptied out of the adjacent card and ran across the parking lot. This got my attention, but not as much as when I noticed the rather large, healthy looking RAT foraging amongst the bread crumbs on the hood of their car. I found this rather amusing. While not particularly liking rats or other vermin in the house in which I live, having them show up in parking lots can be quite interesting. Why is it that you never have your camera when a “Kodak moment” appears?

Somehow I knew that taking this job at JobLand ^TM would yield a high number of “Daily Rant” topic areas. When bad things of one nature or another happen at work, as they invariably do, I can only console myself with the fact that 1) I am getting more than minimum wage, and 2) I can update my site with tales of the carnage and aftermath of each day at work. The last few weeks have been a lot like that.

About two weeks ago I spent the first 4 hours of my shift limping around the warehouse. This wasn’t as much fun as one might expect. So, after having my fill of this, I limped off to first aid after which I was sent home because of the painful nature of one side of my right foot. So I went to my doctor the next day. We agreed that it hurt, and he said I needed to take a week off work, with which I didn’t agree (stay home = less money). At any rate, it appeared that I had a “flat foot”. No, not flat FEET, which would be “normal”, but just one flat foot. I suggested that his meant only half of me could be drafted and if this was why I was walking in circles. The doctor thought this was funny, but he was probably laughing because of how much he was getting paid to look at my feet. This flat footed feature caused my little toe to point inwards, and the joint just below it to jutt out into the side of my boot, which sucked (the situation). So, unfortunately, I found myself with over a week off of work. This introduced me to one of those mental areas that I am sure are quite damaging. While at work, I desire to be anywhere else, home even. So I was stuck away from work, noting the flatline nature of my bank account and unable to do much about it. At one point, I actually wished I was at work, a though which caused me great concern. I worried that I was on some kind of cognitive precipice which, if I were to fall over it, would cause me to actually LIKE my job. If I ever fall down in such a way, and like my job at JobLand^TM, I give you permission to shoot me. Nonfatally, of course.

The only interesting thing about this was as I was limping out of the warehouse. Seemed the rumor was that I had been hit by a forklift. How this started I wasn’t sure, but I was only mad because I hadn’t thought of starting it myself. When I returned to work on Friday of this week, the rumor had died. Sad, because I was anticipating that it might have grown to the point where I was actually killed in the valiant battle with the forklift. Oh well, glory will have to wait.

I’m also still reeling from the sheer disappointment brought on by the inaugural utilization of my employee discount (a staggering 10%). Sadly, it wasn’t the endorphin-fest that I’d expected. No, its ok, I’ll get over it.

Today I went to the podiatrist. Unfortunately, this meant another day off of work, so I lost around 70 dollars today. At any rate – I got a good quote out of the doctor. He looked at my feet, asked me to walk on then, and then said: “wow – look at that”! Not exactly a endorsement of my condition. This is the last thing you want to hear from your doctor – exclamations of surprise followed by his inviting colleagues in to look at the freak. Makes me wonder what happens during surgery when the patient is asleep. No, nothing like this happened, but it was still a humorous reaction. Then we went through the whole fun x-ray thing. Then they screwed them up and I had to have them all taken again. Good thing is that I get to spend next Tuesday off work as well, which sucks. Insert expletive here.

We now return you to the year 2001, already in progress…

I may not have a McJob according to the above definition, but its pretty close. My job at JobLand ^TM certainly is low pay, low prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, and no-future.

We were all gathering our breath after having loaded 120 pound boxed park benches for 2 hours in a shipping container that had an air temperature of 42 C (108 F). There were 650 boxes, which takes a LOT more that 2 hours to move. One of us was carrying a thermometer in his pocket (why exactly, I’m not sure, but it certainly had an application at this point). Somehow it wasn’t any sort of relief to realize that it really was hot, it was somehow psychologically more draining. Doing this kind of work in those kind of conditions makes this something I’ll call a McJob simply because of the condescending nature of the definition. Doing this kind of thing, any monetary compensation at the end of the day is sort of a moot point in my mind. I simply want to get the hell away from there. Run away… run away! Thankfully, my prayers were answered. I got to have the JobLand ^TM orientation meeting which lasted 2 hours. This basically went over the various WHMIS/MSDS information that denotes the symbols on, and handling of, dangerous materials. I wrote “very demanding” test that determined that I could indeed remember what the symbol for flammable was (I had to know four in total). Anyone who thinks this is a “very demanding” test of memory and knowledge should be lead into a university organic chemistry or calculus class and fed to the circling sharks. This was all fine and good until… uhm, “we” pissed of the lady by putting a couple of these symbols on the coffee pot. While I didn’t actually consume any of this liquid hellfire, it certainly appeared to be caustic enough to rival battery acid. The merriment once again stopped when were were told to “be serious – this is important” when we laughed at the forklift safety video. If YOU can watch forklifts spinning in a warehouse in a sychroswimming-like manner with “Danger Zone”, that Top Gun movie soundtrack tune in the background without laughing then you need help. More help.

The other exciting job related event this week was that I am once again without payment for my exciting JobLand ^TM work. Last Monday I once again need to explain to the HR people that getting the number of a bank account correct is really important. This happened last time too. Strike two.

I’ve also been introduced to exactly how much income tax sucks. Yuck!

I fully understand the concept that we are starting to run out of phone numbers. This is all due to the sheer volumes of cell phones, pagers, internet lines, etc. So the addition of a new area code and “10 digit” dialing to the Vancouver area came as no surprise. What is most annoying about it is that they have introduced the “10 digit” dialing well before the addition of the new area code. In addition, you have to dial it even within your OWN area code, which is becoming a major pain in the rump. I don’t’ understand. If I want to call Bob up the street, and Bob is in my area code, why do I have to put in the area code? If Bob was across the river, in some other area code, I completely understand. Bob is NOT – and yet I am left with having to dial 604 in front of every %$#*&^@ number I have to call. What bothers me even more is that if I forget, the call will still go through, but I have to listen to an annoying message that condescendingly berates me for not having dialed 604 in front of the number. What bothers me even MORE than this is that frequently the system fucks up and I have to listen to this message two or three times before they put the call through! New York doesn’t have to deal with this – and we are waaay better than New York! I’m thinking of suing the phone company for all my pain and suffering, but since this is Canada, it probably wouldn’t be successful. Strangely enough, it would probably work in New York, which is likely why they didn’t screw over people there. They’d be killed.

We now return you to the year 2001, already in progress…

I learned something recently. I discovered that there is something worse than not having a job, looking for a job, and barely getting enough money to pay rent: having a job! Of course, I haven’t gotten a job in my “field”. I’m currently working in a warehouse. While JobLand^TM does pay 10 dollars an hour (minimum is around 8), I’m not sure if the abuse that I am currently putting my body through is all worth it. At JobLand^TM I load boxes onto palettes from shipping containers. These containers are shipped from Korea, China, and Indonesia so occasionally my biology “training” comes into play when I am asked to come and witness the “scorpion” that has been found on one of the boxes. While reports of strange and rather poisonous insects are not strictly rumor, this one incident only resulted in the viewing of a rather squashed lizard of some kind. Many of you might know the difference between a lizard with a really long tail and a scorpion, but many of you aren’t the sort of folks who frequent warehouse work. The offending lizard is now taped to the wall and I can only presume, as a warning to others. I have no idea if this is something that is normally done to stowaways in these containers, but lets hope that it is not a policy that will be adapted for any human cargo that these containers may contain.

A coworker, a smart coworker, called the place the “Planet of the apes”. He’s pretty close there. The “cool” ID tag I get to wear doesn’t quite make up for it. It sports the big shiny words: “New Hire Employee” which was initially interpreted by the more experienced JobLand^TM inmates as “target” but now has been amended to the only slightly less annoying “scapegoat”.

Most of my friends still go to school. So if I were to ask one of them what they did today I might hear something like this: “Well, we sat in the sun for a while, we went to one class, but ended up skipping the rest of them to go somewhere very exciting”. If I were to be asked what I did today it would go something like this: “I got up at 6 to start working at 7 and then I moved roughly (and I’m not exaggerating) 36 000 pounds of boxes onto a rolling track where they were sorted. In the afternoon I moved onto HEAVY boxes.” Of course, I SHOULD say that I made 75 bucks today and leave it at that, but I’m kind of good at complaining and don’t wish to give up my favourite pastime just yet.

I also managed to educate the JobLand^TM HR department on the difference, however subtle, between a bank account number ending in 6577 and 5555. This particular data entry abomination meant I didn’t get paid when I was supposed to. This all culminated in a trip to the JobLand^TM retail outlet to get my pay in cash form rather than direct deposit to my bank account which would have been infinitely more convenient. Oh, the week long wait for this money wasn’t nice either.

I don’t normally swear out loud very often. However, I have been warned about my language TWICE by supervisors at JobLand^TM. This really sucked, especially considering the fact that the second time I was not aware of having had an audience. Craptacular! This week I fully expected to be fired. This was largely due to the fact that I had Monday off. When I got in on Tuesday I was made fully aware that I had looked at the wrong schedule and in fact I did NOT have Monday off. I still have my job, but it really looked like I was going to be terminated right then and there. This would have been somewhat of a mixed blessing. The four other guys who relied on me to look at the schedule for them were not amused either. I doubt I will be trusted with that again.

It’s not all bad. Another coworker and I were discussing the lack of intelligence (and knowledge) emanating from some of the other workers. You should see how some of these guys struggle to stack boxes so they won’t fall over. I mentioned something about a “superiority complex”. He pointed out that its not a superiority “complex” if you ARE better than the others. Hmmm…..

While I have been working at JobLand^TM I haven’t stopped looking for a biology related job. Sure, I have applied to many, but so far nothing has panned out. Lets hope I don’t find a bio job that leads me to daydream of my days at the warehouse!

Some municipalities/cities have been banning the use of lawn pesticides and other chemicals. Now, I see these sorts of products as completely useless because I do not hold the priority of a “neat and tidy” lawn as anything that we should be striving for. Sure, cut the damn stuff, but if you are truly so lazy as to want a weed free lawn, get down on your damn knees and pull the weeds out with your hands. For the uninitiated, “hands” are those things at the end of your arms that have “fingers” that can be used to grasp, touch, and point at things (not just that one finger you use in traffic). My parental units have never used pesticides or lawn fertilizers on their grass. The thing is chock full of weeds, clover, dandelions etc. This lawn never gets watered, never gets weeded. Interesting then that it never goes brown in the summer and isn’t leaching crap into the aquifer below. I really don’t understand why people hold lawns as a priority. I think my parents lawn looks better than most. Its “multicultural”. I’ve had this same argument at JobLand^TM on a few occasions. While this may not be the first place one should go for an educated opinion, I got the response of something like: “how dare you take away my right to pollute my neighbors drinking water, the environment, and poison the children so that I don’t have to look at unsightly weeds and flowers growing in my beloved “natural” green carpet thing”! Its probably something I’ll never get to, but I intend to talk about this here a little more in the future.

Oh, the Vancouver area transit strike is finally over. The government finally got off its ass after around 120 days and legistlated them back to work. For our troubles, the company will be giving three free days of transit service which Im sure everyone will agree, more than makes up for 4 months of no way to get around. Funny how when the students, the poor, and the others without cars complained, nothing was done. Now that big business has pointed out its objections, everything gets cleared up. This was a huge bag of crap, but it doesn’t surprise me.