In Chapter 3 We’re Reduced To Petty Vandalism. Story Cont’d

OK, OK, so I buggered off yesterday and never finished the story. I’m sure you weren’t that torn apart by it.

When last we visited with our friends, we were meeting up with our prematurely evacuated friends outside the Dome.

So we all piled back in to our limo where we tied back in to the beers we had brought with us – at this point in the evenign the fact that they were warm would not have dampened our spirits. We were certainly not ready to call it a night. It was only 10:30, we had a limo and in were in downtown T.O. having the time of our lives. So we asked the driver for a good bar for food and cheer. He suggested this place that I would recommend to all of you if you’re ever in town. Murphy’s Law. It’s a pub not too far from the Rogers Centre that has all kinds of great European beers and your typical Canadian ones. My buddy’s and I had been hankering for a Tennants. It’s a Scottish beer that I had got them hooked on in Waterloo back in the fall. It’s awesome.

So we went in and there was like a side little room right beside the front door for like 10 people that we quickly took over. We ordered up a couple hundred wings and several pitchers and went to work. The wings didn’t last long and thep itchers were coming pretty quickly when my buddy Shane noticed an awesome sign that he thought would look great in our house in Belleville. Was a nicely framed Guinness sign. He tapped on the side of it to see if it was just on one nail and would swing or was stuck right to the wall. Unfortunately, it was stuck right in to the wood wall. We continued to share some laughs when Aaron returned to the room from the bathroom and said “Wow, sweet sign!”. Appanrelty still filled with aggression, he walked over and, seemingly effortlessly, tore it off the wall. He stood therein amazement with the sign in his hand and said “Whoa!”. There were still 6 nails in the back and pieces of wood and drywall stuck to those. He quickly pulled it down behind a chair and askedme to run interferance.

Just outside the door to the little room to the left was the door to outside, but to the right was all the tables and bar and such. He just wanted me to make sure no one was coming and block view of him as he went out the door to the limo witht he sign. So I walked out first and almost ran right in to a waiter coming in. The only thing I could think to do was put my arm around him and spin him around and walk away from the room and ask him some stupid question about the bar that I can’t even remember now. He just laughed and wasn’t suspicious since I was clearly wasted. Aaron got out successfully and the sign was put in the car. Our driver just shook his head.

I was back in the room when Aaron came back in and without saying a word or hesitating for a second he walked over and just tore another sign clean off the wall. Unfortunately when he went to pull it down to his side he knocked a glass over and it shattered. This of course brought waiters running to clean it up. He quickly put it on the floor behind him against the wall and leaned against it while my buddy George stood half in front of him trying to be all apologetic to keep the focus on the spilled beer. They cleaned up and as they walked out, Aaron actually used THEM as cover to walk out with the other sign.

We all finished out beers and when we went to leave we noticed 2 spots on the wall far brighter than the rest of the wall where the pictures had hung and where the paint hadn’t faded from the light. We thought it was pretty funny and left a note in one of the spots that said “Belleville was here.”

Well that’s good for now I guess. The next chapter has nakedness and an awesome incident with our new found signs. Stay tuned.

Fun In Toronto (Cont’d)

When last we left our heroes, they were entering the Rogers Centre in Toronto for the Blue Jays home opener… and heavily intoxicated.

So we were pushing it for time when we arrived and by the time we got to the 5th deck it was pretty loud in the buiding but we couldn’t go to our seats without stopping to grab another beer. Which we gladly did. We got there in time to see the National Anthem and Tom Cheak’s wife (Tom having recently passed away from a fight with cancer) throw out the ceremonial first pitch – receiving a stnading ovation.

The tone was set early as we began chanting right away afterwards for the Jays and a woman asked my friend “Are you planning to be this loud through the entire game?” to which he gave the only honest answer he could “Probably, yes.” We soon learned we were in the wrong seats and were 2 rows ahead of where we were supposed to be. The people who’s seats we were in were not to kind about resolving the situation as we were more than willing to move – just apparently not quick enough for them. Keep these people in mind. They play heavily in to the story later.

So we moved up 2 rows and continued our party. We were surround by many people our age who we talked to and generally had a good time with. The beers continued to flow and the evening was going perfectly… Until.

My buddy, Aaron, the friendly fellow that he is decided to shwo some love to the crowd that we were talking to. He just randomly started pointing at people in the crowd and saying “I like this guy.” Ya it was stupid and he was drunk but people were liking him back and there were no real issues. He continued this for a while until he pointed to the lead dick that had been so rude in asking us to move 2 rows in from of us – and then said “but not this guy.” and just laughed, as did most of the section and a couple of this guy’s buddy’s. Unfortunately… he didn’t laugh.

He jumped out of his seat and spun around and in the most faked gangster voice you could possibly imagine yelled “What the fuck you say, bitch?”. Aaron just laughed thinking the guy was kidding around. Apparently laughing at him wasn’t what this guy wanted as he went to the aisle and started heading up to our row. He came down it and started getting in Aaron’s face so obviously we all stood up to make sure things weren’t gonna get out of hand. He tried to tell him that he was just kidding around and everything was cool until… out of nowhere… this guy HEAD BUTTS my buddy! he head butts him? Who does that?

So Aaron shoved him and fists started flying and his buddy’s and us all jumped in and the thing was gettin’ out of hand. My friend Melissa who is no more than 115lbs (totally wasted like the rest of us) starts trying to get involved and punching this guy in the back. It was all starting to get calmed down until this point when the guy turned around and nailed her with an elbow and we all lost it again and it all blew up in to another fight. Eventually some under cover cops in the crowd and SkyDome security came and broke it up and took the guy who came to our row down for questionning. A few minutes later they came back up and said they wanted to talk to Aaron, and a few minutes after that my friend Chris who had been the first guy to jump in after the headbutt.

Some time went by and I eventually just barely heard my phone ring, I answered it, barely able to hear anything over the crowd. It was Aaron. “Ya … uhh… we got kicked out”. I laughed and told everyone else. They were gonna go to the limo, drink more and listen to the game on the radio. We stayed for the rest of the game which was an amazing game that the Jays won and headed out of the dome as wasted as when we entered chanting “Let’s Go Jays’ with 50,000 other people. When we got to the spot to meet the limo, my buddy Chris was tanked and telling people to pay this drummer who always plays outside the Dome.

they told us they didn’t feel bad about getting kicked out of the game becauseon their way out they saw the guy who started the whole thing in Medical getting stiched up and the blood cleaned off of his jacket while his buddy’s waited for him. So at least they won.

Well. should do some more work. Still lots more to this evening. I’ll try and get it up a little later on.

A Rainy Day Story

Well excitement and action seem to have come to a stop around here for the lasst 2 little bit, so I figured I’d tell a story I made mention of a few days ago. It’s a long and drunken one so settle in. Also, for the record. It’s not raining.

Our story begins sometime in September when the Jays played their last game of last season. They missed the playoffs and we were all sad. We said that we should all still go to the Blue Jays home opener in April. Many agreed but the core group of us knew half would backout and we’d get down to a reasonable number. Over the course of the off-season the Jays began adding big name after big name and we got really excited. Over the coarse of a couple of months the team went from a nothing, to a contender. The Home Opener party was going to be huge!

We bought the cheap tickets ($9) to sit in the 500 level where all the poor partying college kids always sit and since we had gotten the tickets cheap, we had money to spare to rent a limo to go down, take us bar to bar afterwards and bring us home. It was gonna be perfect. Plus my buddy, also from Oshawa, had worked for a limo place in Oshawa when he was younger and got us a sweet deal!

So the group from school drove down to Oshawa on the day of. It was beautiful in Belleville when we started out. Sun out, not a cloud in the sky. This was early April and as you’ll all remember it had been warm for a few weeks. As we got closer to Oshawa, only about an hour trip, the clouds set in, it began to rain a little, then a little harder until by the time we were in my buddy’s driveway IT WAS SNOWING! The ground was covered and it was still comming down hard. It was unreal.

Nothing was going to dampen our spirts though. The 8 of us piled in to the limo in his driveway and we were ready to go. I”ll explain the logic here a bit. We did drive an hour to meet a limo in another town, but that’s because 3 of us were from that town and could house everyone for the night after the game at our parents places so no one would have to drive from Oshawa back to Belleville – and a limo all the way from Belleville would be much more expensive.

So everyone had brough their own booze or beer for the car ride. But there was a bottle of “low-quality” champagne in the car which I believe is standard. We’re poor college kids out for a party, we weren’t picky. The lid was popped on the champagne before we were even out of my buddy’s driveway. Everyone grabbed a glass and the first drink of the afternoon was down to the toast of “GO JAYS GO!”

So as we head for Toronto everyone is tyin’ in to their beers or whiskey or coolers or whatever else was loaded up in that car. There were 7 guys and one girl so the beer/cooler ratio was slightly off but it was all good. From time to time throughout the trip the car would break out in a “Let’s Go Blue Jays!” chant and they seemed to get louder and more frequent the closer we got to the Rogers Centre. We were yellin’ it out the windows to people on the street who appeared to be Jays fans or have ears.

By the time we got there everyone was already nicely liquored. I left my beer in the car almost certain it would be confiscated at the door but I did put one in my backpack so i’d have it if I got through and could buy a beer, then when that was gone pour mine in to the cup but if it was taken I was only out one beer. Melissa asked if she could put her drink in there too which I said okay but that I would not put up a fight for it if they tried to take it when searching backpacks.

So we stumbled up to our gate still yelling and mingling with the other people who were nice enough to tollerate us and ignoring the nasty looks that the family crowds were giving us. When I got in I was directed to a table where they’d search my bag. I was asked to open it. Now I always take the same backpack to these things because this one has 2 large pockets and they usually only search the “main” one so I can keep shit I’m sneaking in in the other one and 9 out of 10 times it works. So he asks me to open my bag and, in a drunken haze, I begin to open the win the the beer and booze in it. I stop, look at him, and say “oh sorry. wrong pocket.”. close it, open the other one where he sees my sweater and camera and the stuff it’s okay to take. he knods and says go ahead. What an idiot. Still drunk I walk probably only 4 feet from the table and yell to my friends “I got it in!” but I was not called back.

Well I gotta get some work done. but the best parts of the story are still to come. There are fist fights and strip clubs ahead so check back later.

If You’re Going to Run from the Cops, Do It in the UK.

Wow. Why can’t we find a middle ground? The American government wants to take away *everyone’s* privacy, but in the UK, even a fugitive’s privacy is considered sacred. They won’t put up wanted posters with their names and faces on them because, boohoohoohoo, they might sue! So only live in the UK if you want to run from cops. Otherwise, you might live beside someone who’s wanted and not even know it. Doesn’t that make you sleep well at night?

Just Another Manic… Tuesday

Greeting & Salutations

I trust you all enjoyed your long weekend. Where I was, just like most of Ontario, it was bitterly cold for the unofficial “Start Of Summer”. We scrapped the cottaging/camping ideas for much better ones of staying home on the couch. I had a friend in from out of town whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time. Was great to see her.

All in all, we didn’t do too much but did venture out on Saturday night to see a movie with. We went to see RV with Robin Williams. I had been told for weeks not to bother cuz it looked terrible but I’m a big fan of most of the things he does. A friend told me Friday she had gone and loved it so I said screw it and we headed out on Saturday night.

It was hilarious. Williams always is. The story basically centres on an well-to-do family planning a trip to Hawaii. All they do is sit in their rooms with headphones on and IM each other so the father cans the trip to Hawaii and loads them all in an RV. They get stuck talkin’ to rednecks and hating each other and all sorts of comedy gold. I’d definately reccomend it. We didn’t stop laughing for more than 5 minutes through the entire thing.

After that we met up with some other people who had seen a different movie and went to Denny’s for evening nightcap milkshakes.

Last night was the Season Finale of 24. I’m so hooked on that show, it’s crazy. Just when it looks like everything is good in the world again and Jack might even be able to make nice with his astranged daughter, Kim, those damn Chinese strike again and leave one hell of a cliffhanger for Season 6. Incredible. Don’t know how I’ll get through the summer without it.

Well, back to work.

How was Everyone’s Holiday?

So, how was everyone’s holiday? Did the weather suck everywhere? I heard yesterday it was haling in Kingston and snowing in Toronto! *puke* Not what I wanted to hear! That is not supposed to be the weather on the May long weekend!

My holiday was pretty boring, but I liked it that way. After running around chasing down the people who have the power to give us this awesome apartment, being a phone zombie as I called it, it was nice to just dick around doing nothing, and I guess that’s what a lot of people would have ended up doing with this crappy weather. So since Steve is being cute and making this awesome chicken pasta, I thought I should try and be useful somehow, so I thought I’d bullshit on here for a minute.

God I hate waiting for answers. Like I said, they’ll let us know if we get into the big miracle building by Tuesday or Wednesday. I know it’s only a day or two that I have to wait, but I find the worst day of waiting is the one where an answer cannot possibly come, like on a holiday Monday, like this one. You would think that would be the easiest day. But for some reason, I’ve been ancy all day, and I’m sure I’ve driven Steve nuts by repeatedly saying, “God I hate the agony of waiting!” and things like that. My head says, shut up, there’s nothing to do, just chill. But that doesn’t stop my feet from pacing. Yep, I’m a lune. But tomorrow, we could have the news. Ah the suspense is killing me.

I saw a commercial today that made me feel like a supreme loser. All it took was the first sentence. It went something like this: “Nothing is more frightening than starting a second career at 30.” Second career at 30? Um, I’m 27 and I don’t even have my first one! God what have I let slip by? I’ve worked at a few jobs, but nothing you’d call a career by any means. God you’d hardly call them a job! I was a camp counselor, I was a U of G phone droan twice for short stints, I was a computer tester for a couple months, I was a peer helper, a very small job, for about a year and that was while I was going to school and I didn’t even get 500 bucks for it. What does that say? I sure don’t have my first career, let alone my second one.

And, while I’m on the subject of weird TV commercials, have you ever thought that the chick in the pet meds commercial seems way too keen about ordering her pet’s medications? Do you ever wonder if she’s taking some herself? Or maybe that’s just my screwed up head

I’m really starting to realize I didn’t learn those things I was supposed to learn as a kid. The reason? I was a stubborn little brat and refused to learn when people tried to teach me. Now I realize how much I missed out on.

It started very early. They tried to teach me to swim as a kid. But I refused to put my face in the water. Guess who didn’t graduate from swimming lessons and had to take them again at age 26 and can’t seem to get it as well as I probably would have if I’d just stuck my face in the water at age 4?

Then there was crafts. I hated the way glue felt. So I’d do anything to get out of gluing things. So, you can guess how many arts and crafts things I did. Not too many. I didn’t give a shit. Now, when I hang out with the kids at the shelter and they feel like doing crafts, I feel like a total fucktard.

Then there was sewing and knitting. I would sew things because they told me I had to do that for class. But I didn’t pay attention. Now I can’t even so much as sew a button. I didn’t even try and knit because I thought knitting was for grannies. Now I wish I at least knew something about it. I know, I know, I can learn. I’m sure I can make up for it. I just feel like I’m a very slow learner.

I don’t want to whine anymore. What else can I blabber about? Damn that pasta smells good. What is it with me today? I’ve been craving cheesecakes and all kinds of other desserts. What the hell? Even stupid things like that disgusting milkshake song is making me try and figure out how I can get a chocolate milkshake from somewhere. I’ve been thinking about ice cream at that cool place. All I need is another sunny day and some time and damn I’ll be in there.

It seems desserts aren’t the only thing I’ve been obsessed with lately. I had this weird dream the other day that the dude from the guide dog school I want to go to came up to do the interview thingy they do. During the interview, he put a dog in a harness and let me walk through the rest of the interview with it guiding me instead of doing the cane thing or the Juneau thing where he’s holding the other end of the harness and you give him commands, so it looks really weird. Anyway, at the end of the interview, he just left the dog with me! At first, I was like, “He’ll be back for the dog.” But after a while, I started to wonder if this was my guide dog.

So I started walking around with it, feeding it, relieving it, all that. But I wasn’t trained at that school. So I was trying to remember every command that I’d heard people from that school use with their dogs. But somehow, things were going really well with this dog. It didn’t try to eat anything, sniff anything, do anything silly. I thought, “Wow, those dogs are well-trained!”

Then I started to notice that the dog didn’t really seem to care about me. It didn’t get excited, it didn’t come over to see me, nothing. So I started to ask around, and someone told me that this wasn’t a dog at all. It was a robot dog, and it was all a trick to see how long it would take for me to figure that out. And then it ended. How weird is that?

I guess it’s as weird as the way this post is going to end. Hope you’ve enjoyed my holiday ramblings.

From the Thought Pot

I just felt like posting, so here I am. I don’t even know what’ll end up in this one, so off we go.

I think I can safely say the apartment hunt is over! In describing the adventure we’ve gone through to find a new place, Steve mentioned a kind of building called the miracle building. The building that has to be found through word of mouth, won’t cost an arm, a leg, and a few fingers and toes to live there, has all the things we need, and hasn’t been overrun by creeps. Well, yesterday, we found not one, but two of those. Would you believe we’ve actually managed to locate two buildings that haven’t found a way to profoundly suck?

Let’s call them Little Miracle Building and Big Miracle Building. Both had apartments that were a good size, both had controled entry and elevators, both had access to pools and balconies, both had comparable rent and this sweet deal where they’d actually give you money back for staying. But Big Miracle building is a bit closer to downtown, has a giant room that you can book for parties, they’re giving us a free parking space for friends to use when they come to visit since I can’t see us having a car, and a cool laundry card system. No more running to the store for lunies and quarters! Plus, they deliver your mail right to your apartment through a slot on the door, and if you get a parcel, they’ll buzz you! How fuckin cool is that? Can you guess which miracle building we’re applying for? So, we’ll know by Wednesday if we’re in, and that still gives us time to apply for little miracle building if something edges us out. But this sweet lady who’s the rental agent seems to think we’ll have no problem getting into big miracle building. So, cross your fingers for us. If all goes well, there will be no more ditzomatic stories, and hopefully, with the rent being high enough, people with crack habits won’t be able to afford it. Ah the future is bright!

For some odd reason, I kept waking up during the night, and I kept catching snippets of this infomercial for this charity called Feed the Children. The idea is that this company has boxes and boxes and boxes of food in their warehouses available as emergency food for hungry children in the States, but they can’t even move a single box of food to a single hungry family until people send them money. You even get to see kids getting asked how it feels to be hungry. That just makes me want to scream, “How do you think it would feel, you fat fuck?”

Ok, at first, that sounds like a good charity, I mean everybody needs to eat. And they do say it’s emergency food. Then you think about it and realize, they don’t really specify what emergency this is. I don’t know about you, but if I can’t feed my kids, it’s an emergency. So which starving families are thought to be in greater need of food? How do they choose? And, doesn’t that just change the problem? Think about it. Some unknown benevolent force is shoveling food at families who, for some reason or another can’t find the money to feed themselves. So, for the time being, they’re fed. What happens when that box of food is empty? What if they don’t get chosen for the next box? What do they do then? Shouldn’t the parents get some help so this shit doesn’t happen again?

Some other random things were going through my head, I guess because I’ve had to make a lot of phone calls lately. Some companies order their customer service reps to say the stupidest things. The one that kills me is, “How can I provide you with excellent service today?” Well, robo-rep, you can start by not saying that line of bullshit. The only way I’ll know if the service is excellent is if I’m smiling when I hang up the phone. Next time I get that line, I might tell them that they can provide me with excellent service by not screwing up. But…shouldn’t they know this already?

Another one they like to do is, after the call is over, they ask me to rate *their* performance. This always makes me wonder, does this rating system even work? They can write down whatever they want. I could say, “You suck, I give you a 2.” and they could write, excellent service, 9. How do I know? They do say the call *may* be taped, but what if this one isn’t and they know it? Nobody will ever know. Plus, I don’t have the guts to say to someone, “You suck.” Well, there is the guy who called me a liar when I said I was blind and laughed uproariously when I got the computer to talk in his ear, but he was a telemarketer, and I didn’t want his service anyway.

Another question that will stop your standard script-reading phone drone in its tracks is, “Why?” It doesn’t take more than that. Right after they’ve told you about all the advantages of having their platynum interest rates through the roof visa card, and you say, “Why would I want that?” You wouldn’t get any more stammering from Porky Pig. I can just hear the poor guy. “I have to think? Oh my god! My brain cells! Do I have any left? That’s not in the script. Where’s the why part?” flip flip flip flip sweat sweat. “Come on it would be easier if you just hung up!”

I have nothing against phone guys, but I know some of them are stupid, and the rest are going to get stupid if they do that job much longer, it’s mind-numbing!

And, as abruptly as it started, this ride is over! Thank you for riding the merry-go-round of Carin’s mind.

They’re Back! And Some Other Crap

After being gone for I can’t even remember how long, the Salty Ham Pay-per-view Roundtables have returned! This is surely a direct result of my overwhelming clout and worldwide internet influence, though some may try to tell you that it has everything to do with somebody offering to take the time to put them together each month because we felt like doing them again. But I want you, the loyal Vomiteers, to know that those people are…well, they’re right actually. but in any event, they’re back, and this makes me happy. If it makes you happy too, then I encourage you to click
here
and check out our picks for Judgment Day.

And to answer the 2 most common questions we get about these things, yes we’re keeping score and yes you can participate. Click above for all the details.

In completely unrelated news, it’s looking a lot like
the fucking apartment hunt
will soon be over, which makes me happier than any of you will ever understand. Ok so I’m sure Carin understands, but she knows me well and she’s quite familiar with my legendary hatred for all things moving and moving related, so she doesn’t count.

I can’t believe how hard this whole thing has been, but I guess that’s Guelph for ya. this city has changed a lot in the 5 or so years I’ve been here. When I first got here, Guelph was a place that was completely different from anywhere I’d ever lived. It had all the good things about a city, but with a kind of small town feel about it that made it a safe and fun place to be. But now it’s a city that’s trying to come to terms with the fact that it is indeed a city and yes, there are people who want to come here and take away the uniqueness and develop it into a carbon copy of every other city in the known world. And along with that, it’s also a place that’s inheriting the shitty parts of city life, like drugs and the crime that comes along with them. It’s a really sad thing to watch happen, and it’s made even worse by the fact that Guelph, as it is now, isn’t anywhere near capable of handling it, which brings me back to the apartment hunt.

Guelph seems to be made up of 3 basic types of rental property. There’s the cheap and central, the way out of our price range and central, and the stuff that would be fantastic were it not located at the corner of Middle Of Nowhere Drive and Am I Still even In Town At This Point Avenue.

Right about now you might be wondering why, if our only good option looks like cheap and central, has this whole thing been so friggin difficult? that’s a fair question. But the thing about the cheap stuff is that it’s cheap because it has to be, and the pricey stuff is pricey because it needs to be in order to avoid becoming cheap stuff in the future, even though by being pricey it ensures that good people who don’t happen to have much money can’t live there, but I digress. Remember the drugs and crime I talked about earlier? The cheap stuff is where they live, hence that’s not where we live, at least not if we can help it.

So it’s at this point that we need to start creating smaller sub-categories. I’ve started breaking the cheap stuff down like this. There’s ok but creepy, wow, what a dump, wow, what a fucking dump, did they build a criminal warehouse here and not tell us, and good God, you’re telling me peiple actually live here?

So with all of that and the occasional closed-minded prick who won’t rent to us because blind people can’t do their own yard work working against us, things get pretty difficult pretty quick, and it winds up taking a long time to find that ever so elusive 4th type of building, one I think I’ll start calling the miracle building.

The miracle building is generally the one they don’t advertize so the nare-do-wells won’t find it. The one that you have to stumble upon by chance and generally can only get into if somebody puts in a good word for you. the one where they keep the price reasonable to keep people happy so they won’t leave and will instead tell their friends that they should come and live there too. I think that finally we might have found one of those. I’m sure that one of us will keep you posted. Wish us luck, we need it.

Ok, this is getting long, so I’ll go now. It’s almost time to look at the miracle building anyway. But before I leave I would just like to say that being awake since 4:30 this morning even though I only managed to sleep for a little under 4 hours can bite my ass. thank you and good day.

The Redicuclock

Is it true the best rants are always when your day starts like shit? I don’t know if that’s the case or not – but if it is this may be the best post I’ve ever had – cuz I’m sure not happy. Unfortuantely, since I’m also not well-rested, it probably won’t be.

Our family owns a business. During the summer my sisters and myself come home and work there. It’s a construction company so everyone who works out on the crews or around the shop or complex have to be there significantly earlier than those of us who work in the office which opens at 8. The office ison the same property.

So there are 2 carpools out to the place every morning. One with my Dad because he oversees all the sites and shop stuff and needs to be there by shortly after 6, and one with my sister to the office which opens at 8. Since none of us particularly enjoy being up and showered in tiem to leave home at 5:35, we usually go with my sister since we’re all going to the office anyway. In theory, there is no problem since we’re all going from the same place, to the same place. Also, in theory, communism works.

Unfortunately things that work in theory don’t always work in real life. The 3 of us that travel with my sister on “the late bus” all get up around the same time and need to shower and whatnot. Usually not a problem but every so often it can be if someone is takign too long in the bathroom or something.

Then there is the dispute on how early you need to be there to “get ready” to work. For two of us, “getting ready” means pulling out the chair at our desk and sitting down. For the third, it involves changing from shoes to work boots to go outside. None of which takes more than a minute. For some reason this is a large source of debate considering it’s about a 20, 25 minute tops, drive and we are leaving the house at 7:08 which in some people’s minds is pointless, but in teh mid of the person who owns the car, is not. This brings us to the real problem.

The Redicuclock. We have a clock in the kitchen that is 10 minutes fast. I don’t know why. We’re not really one of those family that goes by that entire thinking of if I move my clock ahead, I’ll never be late or anything. It just is – and we’re not allowed to fix it. It’s not really that big of a deal any time except at 7:05 in the morning.

What happens at 7:05 in the morning? Well the driver swears up and down it is 7:15 because she has lived with this thing for so long and is pissed that the rest of the world doesn’t think so.

I get up at 5:55 every god damn morning I’m home(to beat anyone to the shower who is getting up at 6 cuz i’m an ass that way). I shower, shave and all that jazz before I go back to the basement where my room is. I also grab a piece of fruit. I go downstairs, put on some music or SportsCentre and start getting dressed or ready which really doesn’t take that long but I need that time in the morning before it’s a good idea for me to talk to anyone. I’m a horrablemorning person. When my clock (which is on par with the satellite dish and THE REST OF HUMANITY) says 7:00am. I head upstairs. All thats left for me to do before I go is brush my teeth, a glass of water and an apple for the road. Hardly a 15 minute job which I should have time for because, well, I’m not supposed to leave until 7:15.

However. Upstairs the driver is looking at 7:10, fully aware that the clock is wrong and not caring. I come upstairs, in no rush and carry out what’s left to do. I go throw my shoes on and am ready to go at 7:08. Unfortunately. That’s 7:18 on the Redicuclock. And we’re late. Not late for work since if we left at 7:08 we’d get to work at 7:43 at the latest and be still 17 minutes earlier than anyone else.

This thing causes the most rediculous fights. The clock is fast so I’m not really late, and even if it was that time we would still be early. I’m just as guilty as everyone but the whole thing is pointless. It’s pointless to not be allowed to touch the clock, to argue over it, to need to leave it 7:15, and especially to leave at what the rest of the world is calling 7:05.

Two days ago was a huge blow up about it and while we were fighting about being late because we’re leaving at 7:17 the god damn radio comes right out and says it’s fuckin’ 7:07. I asked if she heard that and she said it doesn’t matter. That’s the logic. It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to snap on this god damn thing.

So I finally caved. I was just going to get up in the middle of the night and fix it but I caved and changed my clock to match the Redicuclock. I am now part of the insanity. I am not part of any time zone, I live 10 minutes ahead of the rest of the world, and I’ll have to come to grips with it.

Have a wonderful day

And….. Plug!

Well nothing makes me feel more at home on the Ol’ VC than pimping shit that has nothing to do with the VC. That’s just what we do. Especially when we first got started. So I might as well do it again.

Yesterday I made mention of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay For Life and the fact that I was enterring a team. And while none of you uncreative pricks were able to offer up a name that satisfied the group… or a name at all… I was asked to put up the link to sponsor our team. So I am certainly more than willing to do that. The site’s totally secure so no worries about that. Anything you can afford is a help. Every little bit helps, as they say.

Click here to sponsor Matt!

Upon re-reading my post it strikes me I shouldn’t have called you all pricks directly before asking you for your money…. Live and Learn