You paid for that.

My friend walked into the shop the other day with new microbladed eyebrows.

If you don't know what that is, basically, tattooed eyebrows. 

They were too dark and way too perfect. I tried, unsuccessfully, to avert my eyes but all I could think of was 'Angry Bird'. And me, being the asshole that I am, could not contain myself and told her so.

She eventually had to leave the shop because every time her eyebrows moved I lost my shit and could not control my laughter.

This shit costs upwards of $300, and she has to live with it.(and me)

People, a tattoo is a tattoo. Not on the face, never on the face.

I never felt more like an orphan.

We had some snow last week. Not much but a foot or so, wet and heavy. The kind that forms ice underneath. Well I was looking to order a pizza and knew that the delivery man would not come up the stairs unless they were cleared.

A dilemma, since I could not find my shovel. So out I go to clear the snow with just my feet and a hammer (for the inch of ice that is under it).

The pizza was not worth it. The next morning (around 4:30am) I am awakened by the call of nature. I roll over to get out of bed and the searing pain shoots up my spine.

I can't move, it is excruciating. I start to panic. I can't get out of bed and I don't have a phone nearby. What do I do? How long can I stay here before someone even notices that they haven't heard from me in a while? Work will call if I don't show up, but I still won't be able to get to the phone.

"I have to get out of this bed!"

After about half an hour I am finally in the bathroom. I do my business and am about to inch my way back to my bed, when it hits me. "What if I can't get out of bed the next time? What if I have to call an ambulance or something? I better take a shower while I am here." The whole 'clean underwear' thing your mamma warned you about.

An hour later I am fluffed and folded and back in bed with the cordless, the cell phone and my little laptop beside me. I have no real sense that I can recover from this injury since i have no drugs and I don't even have a hot water bottle to help ease the pain.

I look over and in the doorway are my two cats, Milo and Sammy.

They are just sitting there, side-by-side in the doorway, staring at me and I imagine the conversation between them.

MILO: "How long before you think we can start eating her face?"
SAMMY: "Dunno, lets just keep an eye on her."

At that point I start to really panic, I tried to call Nurse Darling, no answer. Bunnie has no car (it bought the farm the week before) The Boy is in school and my sister is 5 hours away in New Brunswick. I am completely alone in the world.

I am about to descend into complete despair when I think of something. I drag my laptop over and frantically email the only person I could think of, Tracey.

I cried like a baby when I saw her. She came to my rescue with a hot water bottle, some drugs and a hamburger. Because, well, everyone knows a Big Mac can cure cancer.

You really do find out who your friends are.

What kind of friend are you?

Bunnie and I were having a conversation about just that today. I was listening to this song



and I believe that that is the kind of friend I am. Not a push over, don't get me wrong, if you were to ask me for something stupid I would tell you to pound sand. But if you are ever in trouble, call and I will be there. Someone you can count on.

What I believe is that if you are not that kind of friend, then you are just an acquaintance. However, if an acquaintance asked, I would be there too. I don't seem to discriminate.

I guess when you are that kind of person, you don't have to really try to make friends, people gravitate to that, as well they should. I'm not sure if it is just our generation, but Bunnie's daughter (The Lump) does not have those kinds of friends. As proven by the ones who left her to wander drunk in the snow. Back in my day, we never left anyone behind, not even the ones we didn't particularly care for.

When asked why I was given such a great opportunity (new job), I had to say I didn't really know. I don't know what it is, but people like me. Not always with good cause, in my opinion, but they do. Maybe I give off that 'kind of friend you want' vibe, even when I am informing them that they are being idiots.

I don't know. You will have to ask them.

So, what kind of friend are you?

Tired.

This place is going to be boring as fuck for a while. I am tired as hell when I get home so I usually don't see 9pm. I am up at 5 if I am lucky but most days I wake up before the alarm.

Lenny and Pablo are a riot to travel with. The tall tales from High School seem to be the most popular topics of conversation. As with any group of aging men, they are reminiscing about their youth and these poor schmucks haven't even hit 30 yet.

When I catch up on some sleep, I will give you the highlights.

Knock it off, or I will knock it down!

The odd, well timed, inspirational, bring awareness to a problem video is all well and good.

Just keep it off my FunWall please.

I open my Facebook and prepare to smile. What embarrassing pictures did Potsie post from his weekend at the Moose & Squirrel? Who's having a birthday, gotta post some silly animated birthday card. How many old farts from high school can I track down today. HA, someone sent me a friendship turd. This is a happy place, right?

Holy Shit! 16 dead kid videos on my FunWall? WTF? When I see those videos I get enraged, I want to hunt down the asshole who hurt those children and have them sand blasted or skinned alive. Right after I find the asshole who posted this on my FunWall and punch them in the throat!

It's called a FunWall people. Not a 'depress the shit out of everyone you know wall', the name was a little wordy so they went with FUN! Ya, you cringed at the 'dead kid' reference. "Not very sensitive or PC of you Evel." But that is exactly what I mean. I sound insensitive because they have desensitized me.

It seems there are some people who do nothing but sit and watch 'dead kid' videos and post them on everyone else's wall. How fucking depressing is that?

I am not saying don't try and bring awareness to child abuse or drunk driving but there is a time and a place for everything. I am trying to cram a little fuckin' joy into my otherwise shitty life, "You're bringing me down, Man!"

Keep that shit off my FunWall......
or I swear to God I will tear that mo'fo' down!

Bump? Possibly, but definately not grind.

You know you are old when you start identifying where you are based on what used to be there 10 years ago.

"I'm just passing where the Pink Panther used to be."

or

"Take a right at the old Canadian Tire building."

I don't know why, but I am feeling my age more now. Thirty wasn't such a big deal, neither was 40 really. But that might all just be because I wasn't really around a lot of people younger than me before I started at the Undisclosed Customer Service Center™.

The last few weekends I have been invited out drinking. In my mind I think for a second, 'hey, it might be fun.' Then I really give it some thought, reality hits me and I realize that I am really not interested. The thought of watching a bunch of 20-somethings bump and grind, drinking themselves stupid makes my skin crawl. I would sooner gouge my eyes out with a melon baller.

I am, however, of the age where I could totally get behind a house party. maybe not an 'entire' house party, but what we call in the Maritimes a kitchen party. The difference? I guess a house party implies enough people to fill your house. Whereas a 'kitchen' party is much more intimate. Let me look that up in Wikipedia...Looks like there is nothing on the web, that is curious.

Ok, for those not from around here, a kitchen party is the traditional Atlantic Canadian social gathering. It usually involves someone playing a musical instrument. Definitely guitar and sometimes fiddles, harmonicas or spoons if you are lucky. These types of gatherings are always a blast. There is no bumping and definately no grinding. Unless you count Uncle Bob who has about as much rhythm as a bag of hammers.

I miss the days of the kitchen party. There were no plans, people just showed up (usually at the same kitchen every weekend) and you would sit around, drink and shoot the shit. There was food, so no one got too shit faced. You can still find them, I suppose, if you look hard enough but they are few and far between.

I think I will have to try and look a little harder since I am definately long past my bumping and grinding expiry date.

I know you are there, I can hear you breathing.

I don't know, I guess it happens to me once a year. I start to get a little discouraged.

I post and post and post and except for Kelly or Nadine I figure no one is reading it, so why bother? The odd other person will pipe up once in a while but I get the feeling I am talking to myself.

That is not to say I would stop posting. It just gets a little maddening. I can see that there are people reading it, and going to the archives and sitting in front of the computer and reading for hours sometimes. I know people are reading it, that is not the issue. The issue is, that most of my readers are lurkers.

The problem with lurkers is that they breed more lurkers. If someone comes by and sees that no one comments, then they will not comment either. It doesn't matter that they have returned 15 times in the past 2 days, they continue to not comment.

I get anywhere from 800 to 1300 unique visitors per month but only a very few ever comment. If you are one of these lurkers, I encourage you to show yourself. Gather up some courage to say hello. I don't bite, I swear to God.

Tell me a bit about yourself - who you are, where you’re from, what you do, or just say hi it really doesn't matter what you say. Hopefully, this will let you get to know some of the other lurkers and maybe give you a couple hits for your own site.

Comments from all visitors are welcome. Seriously, every comment does not have to be profound...just say hi.

Measure twice, cut once.

My friend Bunnie and I are both uneasy when it comes to going to the dentist. I was prescribed Adavan because I think my dentist was afraid I might bite him or something. This is nothing compared to Bunnie. I won't get into the particulars but yesterday, during her appointment, they had to take her blood pressure three times.

I was not even aware that they knew how to take blood pressure. Probably something they picked up after taking her on as a patient.

Anyway, Bunnie pretty much works herself up all week anticipating this appointment. After the appointment she is frozen up the ying-yang and 'starved to death' (her words) so she heads over to the Dairy Queen. She has a coupon for an Ultimate Burger. Buy one, get one free. Remember, she is frozen on one side of her face. But she believes she can get 'er done.

She pulls up in front of the DQ. Our DQ is bascially all windows in the front. The place is full and every seat has a view. So, Bunnie is sitting out front, parked with her front bumper up against the glass, coupon in hand.

She is about to get out of the car and get her Ultimate Burger when she stops. She has a problem. She is frozen, her lips are frozen, her jaw is frozen. This may cause a problem.

What to do? She wants the Ultimate Burger, but she is not sure she can manage to get her mouth open enough to accomplish the actual eating of said burger. And you don't want to waste money on a burger you can't manage to get into your pie hole, right? Just like you wouldn't buy a sofa that you couldn't fit through your front door.

But Bunnie has a solution. She looks up at the picture of the Ultimate Burger plastered on the window in front of her, fashions her hands in the form that they would take if she indeed had the burger in them and raises it to her mouth.

Now for the truly attractive part of the process. She opens her mouth as if to bite into that imaginary burger. This is when she she realizes that even taking into account the inevitable squishage of the burger, it just won't be possible to get the ultimate today. No matter how hard she tries (and she tries) her mouth will just not open that wide on its own.

With the experiment over, she gets out of the car and goes in and orders a single burger to take home. It was on the drive home that she realizes why everyone in the restaurant was smiling at her.

Crazy people make everyone smile.

More memories.

My brother sent me some more pictures he developed from a bunch of old negatives I sent him.

This is from a highschool prom. Although I don't think Kim and I were even in highschool. But our dates were. I can't believe I was ever this young.


Doug, Kim, Me, Rabbit

I remember that prom. We got to the school and Rabbit went to the bathroom and downed a quart of rum. I never saw him all night. I got one of my friends to get him out of the bathroom and into the back of the car. We went to a restaurant and then to a party at the beach. He never regained consciousness that night. But I had a ball. Every so often I would send someone to go and check if he was still breathing. Hey, I wasn�t totally heartless. I made sure the liquor pig survived the night And I deposited him on his doorstep at dawn the next morning. His mother was real impressed. We could have kept him with us until he sobered up but we figured this would be much funnier. Oh and we were nice enough to remove his nice new suit. You know, in case it got wrinkled.


This is even farther back. My father and I tending the chickens. That's me, with a bottle of Pepsi and my finger up my nose.

I'm up, I'm up!

I woke up frightfully early this morning, 7:10am. No idea why, but just couldn't get back to sleep. It is a strange wet morning, I went out for coffee and sat for a while on the porch and just listened to the rain. I check the thermometer in front of me, it�s 12 degrees Celsius. (I guess that�s about 54F)

I am restless, puttering about in the house, cleaning (yes I said cleaning) not accomplishing much but puttering about. A little cleaning here, read a few chapters in a book, take out the trash, sit on the porch, print out some pictures of the new grandbaby for the shower tomorrow.

Maybe I am just enjoying this early morning. The house is quiet (the monster sleeps) and no one in their right mind would call to ask me to do this or that. It�s now after nine and it�s still quiet, as soon as the monster wakes I think I will dig out the Christmas decorations.

My friend Tracey�s birthday is next weekend. Every year we get together at this time, I make hot wings (she loves my hot wings) and we watch Christmas movies. It has become sort of a tradition. Of course as we get older, we tend to eat more and conk out before we see too many of the movies. Tracey has a collection of Christmas movies that we add to every year. The first few years we did this it was no problem for us to stay up all night watching It�s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, Miracle on 34th Street etc, etc,. It was usually her husband who would curl up on the floor and be snoring about ten minutes into the first movie. But we are getting a bit long in the tooth, so we now pick our most favorite movies to watch first, just in case we can�t make it to them all. Although it is a bit early I like to have the Christmas decorations up by then. It just sets the mood for the evening.

So I guess my day will consist of fighting with The Boy so I can get the decorations out of the closet in his room. A closet that he has spent the entire year throwing stuff into so now it looks like we might cause an avalanche if we touch anything. Oh well it will all be worth it (keep telling yourself that Evel) once the decorations are in place and the festive season begins.

Have a great day all.