It’s Nice To Be Right Now And Then

Hey everybody.

Yes, I’m still alive. Just haven’t had much worth saying lately so I haven’t said anything.

Carin already talked about our
Derek Edwards trip
so I won’t spend a lot of time talking about it other than to say that it was great to finally see him live after being a fan of his for over 10 years. She’s right, he puts on a great show and you should definitely check him out if he comes to your town.

But sitting in the audience last night made me wonder about people. I know I always seem to be wondering about people, but that’s because some of the things they do are endlessly fascinating to me.

While we were waiting for the show to start last night I casually said to Carin that I wondered how many of the people in the audience actually knew why they were there. That is how many people, all of whom had paid $30 a ticket I might add, had any idea of who Derek Edwards was. After getting a reaction that sounded a lot like Scooby Doo does when he gets frightened, I finally got a chance to explain myself.

I’ve gone to a lot of comedy shows, many of which weren’t exactly cheap. I went to all of them because I’m a fan of comedy and more specifically, of the comedian doing the show. That, I’m sure you’ll agree, makes sense. But almost without fail, at every one of these shows, there’s at least 1 person who is taken completely by surprise by who and what they’re seeing. the best example of this that I’ve ever seen was the first time I went to see
Steven Wright.
The opening act came and went no problem. But then, when it was time for the main event, I actually heard the guy behind us say in a sad voice, “oh, it’s that guy.” He sounded so upset that I seriously thought that he might grab the people he came with and leave.

Carin, understandably, was completely shocked by this as was I the first time I saw it, but for some reason, she still chose not to believe that this could possibly happen. All of my attempts to explain that no, this kind of thing happens all the time fell on deaf ears. But then, oh yes then, redemption was mine when a woman sitting to our right struck up a conversation with somebody sitting behind us about the show. She asked if she had ever seen him before or if she was a fan of his work. And I kid you not, the exact words out of this woman’s mouth were “no. We just saw him in the paper and thought we should go.”

Maybe it’s just me and my failure to be stupidly rich, but who does that? I understand paying 10 bucks to go to someplace like YukYuks or maybe a bar with a local band and not knowing what to expect, but this show was in a fancy theatre and it cost 30 bucks to get in. Who drops 30 bucks on a whim to see somebody they’ve never heard of just because an ad in the paper tells them to? You can’t even see clips of the guy to figure out if he might be your style or not. If you get a recommendation from a friend who thinks you might be into it that’s one thing, but otherwise, why would you do that?

But back to Carin. Being the kind of person she is, she didn’t want to just come out and say wow, you’re right. But after watching that same conversation play itself out at least 3 more times in the next 5 minutes between 3 completely different sets of people, my point was made and she had no choice. Game, set, match. I win.

I know I know, I’m childish, but I don’t really care. It’s just nice to be right now and then.

What is a blog anyway?

Well, it appears I didn’t need to eat the news reporter for breakfast in my
post about blogging and the news.
I saw the story and it wasn’t nearly so blog-blaming as I thought. The only person who got canned because of her blogging activity deserved it. Note to self: when blogging about my job, avoid including pictures of myself with a backdrop of the company logo. Everyone agree? Thought so.

The rest was just about blogs, and brought it’s own hilarity. I can’t believe how many people don’t know what a blog is. I admit I didn’t know a few years ago, but do a google search for practically anything, and you’ll discover they’re every frickin where now. I have to admit they got some entertaining answers though. So, according to your average dude on the street, a blog is:

  • a bog,

  • a giant glitch,

  • a big log,

    • or last but not least,

  • a brain fart (“When I can’t think of something, I have a blog”).

I am relieved that a few people actually knew what a blog was, but….oh me oh my. But then again, they always seem to have dumbass radar when sent out to do street talk segments, so one can pray that that’s all it is. But maybe the guy who called blogs big glitches was on to something. Just land on some of our stuff and…well, maybe he’s right.

Derek Edwards was Fun

I almost feel like there’s not much more to say than that, but what the hell? Steve heard a while ago that Derek Edwards was coming to town, so we decided to go. At this point you’re going, who the fuck is Derek Edwards and why should I care? Well you should care because you should see him, and you should see him because he’s funny. In case you hhaven’t guessed, he’s a comedian.

I’d seen him on TV and I remembered he was funny. But you know he’s funny when before the first ten minutes of the show are over, he can make you laugh so hard you’re crying. Holy shit he’s funny. At first I thought he’d been drinking a bit before the show and thought, oh boy, we’re in for a few surprises. But he has this weird way of changing his voice from mumbly and slurry to perfectly crystal clear in the blink of an eye. And he has this really awesome way of finding the smallest things that you don’t really think about and making them completely hilarious. He even gave me a new name for someone you think is a knob. Ted! Thank you, Canadian Tire guy.

But you know tallent when the lights and mics go off and he can just go on and make a joke out of that. I was even wondering if it was part of the joke somehow. But when I came home and saw my own power had flickered, I realized it was no joke.

If Derek Edwards comes to your town, go see him! If not, then I guess I’ll have to call you Ted!

Scapegoat Fun!

I’ll admit this might be a bit premature since the news story I’m about to bash I haven’t seen yet, but the ads for it made me think this, and since I haven’t written anything in a while, my computer made a meal out of yesterday’s attempt at a post, and I’m bored right now, I figure what the hell, why not babble up here for a bit? Plus, hey, if I’m totally wrong, that’ll create more fuel for another post.

Tonight they say they’re going to have this big story on how blogs are screwing with work productivity and employers are getting pissed. I just look at that and think, aren’t employers happy to find something else to blame their problems on? Isn’t it easy to, instead of blaming the shitheads you hired who obviously don’t appreciate their jobs enough to do them properly, turn and blame a bunch of strangers who the shitheads might not even know, and companies who thought it might be nice to give people a voice? It’s not their damn fault that the shitheads don’t know that maybe they should only blog/look at blogs on break or in low times.

It’s the same damn thing as when researchers tried to blame music for kids turning to violence. Doesn’t the kid have any active part in this whole equasion? Are you trying to tell me that the kid has no control over what he does or thinks, and the music is controling him? I think the last person who said music was telling him to do stuff got taken away by men in white coats, don’t you?

The same goes for the blog shit. The blogs aren’t forcing people to go look at them. If people don’t know that maybe they should pick up that phone instead of looking at the blog, that’s not the blogger’s fault. Personal responsibility, people. If I know human nature, I’d be willing to bet that if blogging/blog-reading was banned at work, even if it could be done completely, these same people who are dragging down productivity would find other ways to slack off.

Weird Stuff Stew

I’ve been thinking about some weird things people do or weird things I’ve seen that just make me go, why? I don’t know if they’re good enough to make separate posts, so…isn’t this predictable? I decided to throw them together. Mmm…who knows what soup!

I saw an annoying Canadian Tire commercial where the dog is sniffing out everyone’s Christmas presents and figuring out what they’ve gotten. Ok it’s not nearly as annoying as the fiow-plathe one, but it does know how to grab my attention and make me go huh? At first the dog is sniffing out barbies and drills and everything. And then it gets to a remote-controled car with an mp3 hookup on it. At this point, my head spins. I’m all for technology combining, but in what evil parallel universe does that make sense? You are controling the car *remotely*. That means you’re *away* from it. What possible legitimate reason would you have to play music on it that you won’t be able to hear because you’re away from the music-playing object, and will always be away from it because you’re controling it remotely? Is it specifically designed to be an irritation tool to be used on the lucky brat’s siblings and parents?

I got thinking about Sesame street, I think because I turned on CFRU and a kids’ show was on with a clip of Bert and Earny playing. It led me to thinking about something that crossed my mind as a kid. I guess I was a pretty unimaginative and square kid, because I remember thinking. “Hmm…these guys sound old. Why do they have toys and still share the same room?” But they had a whole place. Why did they share a room? And I’ve never seen grown-ups with places have toys unless they had little ones running around. I never thought they were gay, but I remember thinking that I wanted to be out of my house and not sharing a room with my sister by the time I had a grown-up voice. Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t see the little puppet face. Maybe that was what made it odd. But it was odd for sure, and still I watched and went ha ha ha along with them. Ah the weird powers of Sesame street. Too bad it’s going to hell in a handbasket.

And speaking of kids, negligent parents, and other goodness related to kids, why in the good holy hell do some parents cart their sick children out to social events? I was at a potluck yesterday, and in walks this woman with her kid. Someone commented on how quiet her kid was. The mother responded, “Oh she’s not feeling the best, she’s been fighting this for a few weeks now.”

Ok, why in hell did you bring her? I see so many things wrong with this that…where should I begin? And, must I?

First off, she’s sick. Why isn’t she at home? If the mom can’t get a babysitter, then maybe she should do the mom thing and, um, stay home with her sick kid. And if the kids’ been fighting this for weeks, what in hell is the mom doing wasting time at a potluck? Shouldn’t they be somewhere else, like, oh, say, a doctor’s office?

Let’s take mommy and snotty-nosed child out of the mix. Why is mommy bringing snotty-nosed child into a bunch of people if she knows she’s got something she’s been dealing with for a while? Does she want to make us all sick? Do people consider others at all anymore?

Maybe I’m just noticing the selfishness of people because my neighbours are driving that point home daily. Ok, not my
cool neighbour, but the new assholes who took his place after his unfortunate death. They smash beer bottles and leave their trash on the apartment steps, they smoke inside their house even though all they’d have to do is walk out their door and out another door to smoke outside, they even smoke inside in the summer. But the thing that makes me stare in bewilderment is the noise at all hours of the day and night. It doesn’t matter if it’s noon, 4 in the afternoon, the evening or 4 o’clock in the fucking morning. Great masses of people seem to enter and exit their apartment daily, slamming, thumping and banging their way in and out the door as they make their way. First of all, what the fuck are they doing to make that much noise? I’ve tried to make noise by slamming the door, and I don’t even come close to making the racket they make on a regular basis. Second, can they learn to have some respect for their neighbours? Please? I’ve asked them to stop smoking in their house because it seaps into mine and this is not a smoking-permitted building, and they won’t stop. I’ve asked them to be more careful about the broken glass, and they don’t care. I really hope they get evicted soon, because frankly, the selfish pricks need to think of more people than no. 1 for a change. Woops, that was a little more fuming than I planned it to be. But hey I’m not taking it back.

And this latest thing that some of my friends like to do baffles me. They call me repeatedly when I’m out somewhere, saying how much they want to hear from me. Then when I call them back, expecting to hear earth-shattering news or some crazy new development in their lives, all I get is the mundane happenings of their day, and then they start watching the simpsons or playing with something nearby. Then I find out that they just called me so many times because they were bored.

Ok, I have no problem with hearing about how their day went. That’s cool, but don’t call me three times in a row, with specifications of times before which I should call, please please please, unless there’s something crazy going on. Call,, leave a message, I will call you back. And if you’re just calling me because you were bored, don’t fucking bother. I should rephrase that. Maybe it’s all in the delivery. If you call because you thought about me and felt like giving me a call, sweet. Someone’s thinking of me. That kinda brightens my day. But it really makes me feel meaningless when you say you called because there was nothing else to watch on the TV and you were bored, and then proceed to say nothing. Thanks for wasting my time as well as yours. Maybe my time couldn’t be wasted right now, but you made me feel as though I had to drop everything to call you. They do that, or they say something that could have taken five minutes and perhaps could have been left on a message if it was so important that it needed 3 attempts at catching me. But is being bored really a good enough excuse to phone/message bomb me? Am I that unreliable at returning phone calls that you feel the need to hound me for a call-back? I’m sure you can find another way to cure your boredom.

Well, wasn’t that great gobs of pleasantness? Hope you enjoyed my steam-blowing off session. I didn’t expect it to be that long.

Heavy Meditation

So I learned today that I suck at meditation. This guy was doing a thing on meditation, so since I’ve tried yoga, I figured hey why not give it a try? But I found out that it’s way harder than I thought.

First off, there are a million contradictions. They tell you to sit up straight so your feet are flat on the floor. Maybe this is relaxing for a daddy long-legs, but for this shrimp, it means sitting on the front edge of my chair and holding my back straight, not letting it rest on the back of the chair. But then they tell you to relax. I don’t know about you, but sitting bolt upright isn’t the most relaxing thing in the world. Then they tell you to clear your mind. I must be weird, because as soon as someone tells me to clear my mind, I start thinking so hard about how one clears one’s mind that it’s the furthest thing from clear. Then they tell you to let your mind wander, but then after a while, they want to have you focus it, and if it does wander, you’re to bring it back to this image of white light etc. Can they please make up their minds on what mine’s supposed to do?

And here’s the fun part. They tell you to exhale all your anger and inhale wisdom and compassion. Isn’t that the most patronizing thing you’ve ever heard? If you just push your anger out, isn’t it going to come back and bite you? And why is it going to go away just because someone tells you to send it away? If it’s that easy to get rid of, it can’t be that serious. And if one could inhale wisdom and compassion, would we need to meditate? We could all be gurus just by breathing. I know, I know, it’s a metaphor. But think about this. Our own mind is imagining breathing in wisdom, right? So our own mind is manufacturing this wisdom, right? Well then, how successful is this venture?

Maybe I’m just a closed-minded cynic, or maybe the way this guy taught meditation was weird. Either way, the whole concept is too complicated for my little brain. But maybe he’ll prove me wrong, I’ll inhale some wisdom and figure it out.

Guns For The Blind

James sent this story, which I’m sure has just about everybody in Minnesota scared shitless.

Guns for the Blind?

A Minneapolis gun shop owner thinks the blind should be able to carry guns.

So, starting in December, Koscielski’s Gun Shop will be offering a training course to the visually impaired or blind.

But is it safe?

Koscielski’s says the disabled should be allowed to protect themselves just like everyone else.

If approved, the course would help blind people qualify for a right to carry permit.

By the way, there is no Minnesota law prohibiting the blind from having a gun.

Big John

Brad sent this in, and it cracks me up.

One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops. A few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground.

He glared at the driver and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” and sat down at the back.

Did I mention that the driver was five three, thin, and basically meek? Naturally, he didn’t argue with Big John, but he wasn’t happy about it.

The next day the same thing happened. Big John got on again, made a big show of refusing to pay, and sat down. The same thing happened the next day, and the one after that, and so forth.

This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body-building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; and what’s more, he felt really good about himself.

So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, “Big John doesn’t pay!” the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed “AND WHY NOT?!?!”

With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, “Big John has a bus pass.”