God love them.

Rick Mercer does this "Thing" on This hour has 22 minutes, its a Canadian thing. He goes to the states and talks to people about things that are NOT happening in Canada, to show really that Americans have no idea what is going on North of the border. This is taken from NETcetera..... He tells people that these things happened and asks them to comment or congratulate. Too funny.

My Ten Favorite "TALKING TO AMERICANS."
by Rick Mercer (with my coments in brackets)

10) In Chicago: "Congratulations Canada on having running water in all five states."

9) In Washington, D.C.: "Congratulations Canada on your first national railroad."

8) In Washington, D.C.: "Congratulations Canada on 268 consecutive days of snow."

7) At Harvard: "Yes, I believe the seal slaughter should be stopped in Saskatchewan." (he actually had a professor saying this)

6) In Chicago: "Congratulations Canada on making Beaver Balls your national dish."

5) At Mount Rushmore: "Congratulations Canada, our Eskimo neighbours to the South, on your new Mount Mulroneyuk." (he also had most of them convinced that they were going to sculpt the ass end of all those presidents on the other side of the mountain)

4) Governor of Arkansas: "Congratulations Canada on preserving your national igloo." (my personal favorite, this one made me piss my pants, he told the Governor that our Parliment building was made of ice and with global warming we had to put a huge dome over it so it wouldn't melt.)

3) In New York: "Yes, I think Jean Chretien-Pinochet should be charged with crimes against humanity." (Jean Chretien is our PM)

2) In New York: "Yes, I think it is time to bomb Gilles Duceppe." (he's the Bloc Quebecois Leader)

1) Texas Governor George W. Bush: I'm glad to have the support of Prime Minister Jean 'Poutine.' (he caught him in the hallway heading out of a press conference, btw for those of you who don't know, poutine is a dish of french fries with gravey and cheese curds)

More links for "Talking to Americans".
Talking To Americans
Rick Mercer: Talking to Americans - CBC This Morning
CBC 4 Kids: Daily

What will they think of next?

You Americans, you crack me up.

The Amazing Race - for the presidency?

There is a special place in hell for thankless children.

My son calls me yesterday. Wants to know if I can get paid early? Someone at the skate park is selling his board for $30 and he wants it.

�You have a board.�

�Mom! My board is crap, this one is worth $100 and he�s selling it cheap.�

�I�ll see what I can do�

Well I know how much he loves skateboarding and I get all mushy inside. I go ask the boss if I can get paid early, no easy task since I spent the better part of that morning in a screaming match with him. (it was a draw)

Now I leave work, check in hand, and head to my friends house to see if she can cash it for me since the banks are closed. Half way there I realize that I am nearly out of gas, running on fumes. If she can�t cash the check I am walking home.

Twenty minutes later I am on my way back to town, bank card in hand. I get the cash and call my son on his cell phone.

�Never mind Mom, the kid sold it to someone else. Later� Click.

GOOD GRIEF! Your welcome.

I am still sore from baseball last weekend, hobbling around, dragging my old bones home at last, its 6:15pm. I walk in the door, and I want to cry. I am by no stretch of the imagination an even mediocre housekeeper, but my son lost his mind today, and quite possibly his life when he gets home.

Before me lay clothes, papers and miscellaneous sporting equipment strewn in a path from the front door through the kitchen and living room all the way back to my bedroom. I can�t believe that that kid had the nerve to ask me for money.

One hour later my son comes rushing in, �Mom, can we put that $30 in the bank so we can save for a new board?� When he says �we� he means me. �Fine� I tell him, I�ll give you the $30, you clean the house.�

That�s when he really lost his mind. He starts to rant and rave and go on. His head starts to spin and he starts spewing pea soup. (ok that isn�t exactly accurate, but pretty close)

�I have to do everything around here, I can�t clean the whole house, God, I am only 11.�

My turn to lose my mind, �What all, exactly, do you do around here?�

He looks at me, �I take the garbage out to the basement and then to the curb.� He is serious. He thinks he has won the argument.

�Ok, when you took the garbage to the curb last time, how many bags were there?�

He is not sure where I am going with this but he raises his eyes to the ceiling, thinking, counting on his fingers, �6 whole bags!� he says. He seriously believes that this is a huge number.

�Lets break this down. The garbage truck comes every two weeks, so in 14 days you have taken out 6 bags. So if you only took one bag out on any given day, you would have 8 days where you did nothing. Hmmm. If it takes you, say, 30 seconds to take the bag out of the house, and another 30 to take each bag from the basement to the curb. That�s a minute a bag. $30 for 6 bags, $5 per bag per minute?�

�Sounds right.� He doesn�t really want to do the math, so he concedes.

�At $5 per minute, you want me to pay you $300 per hour. How do I get THAT job?!!!�

He is speechless now, and I am cleaning the house myself. I finally get to the end of the papers and I turn around, I can�t believe it, he has actually dropped his coat in the middle of the living room floor.

At that moment I understood how people, who were not wise to begin with, could kill their own children.

Calmly I look at him, �Just how long do you imagine I will consent to live this life? Where I go to work each day to a job I hate, so I can feed and clothe you and buy you skateboards when the whim takes you, getting nothing but shit on in return? Hmmm?�

I leave him to ponder this as I lock myself in the bathroom, just in case the urge to kill him truly takes hold of me.

Again with the car?



Can you say............obsession?

What the hell was I thinking?

Today my son�s baseball team had their end of the season party. Someone had the bright idea of having the parents play the kids. You know, for fun. Sadly, no one informed me of this turn of events until I arrive. To make matters worse, the field had been rained on the night before and was basically a mud hole.

I am completely unprepared in my old sneakers, the ones that have the sole ready to fall off, but I just can�t part with them. Oh well, I figure I will never hit the ball, so I don�t really have to worry about running in them, right? Wrong, I forgot about balls, I was walked the first time I was up at bat.

Ok, now the kids are razzing me. You know how 11 year olds can talk trash, �Don�t worry, we�ll get her trying to run to second."

So next up is one of the fathers. First pitch is high and outside, the catcher misses it. All hell breaks loose when they realize I am actually going to steal second. The look on their faces was priceless.

Now I am on second, and the batter hits the ball just past the infield. I run to third and see that the ball is now infield. I stop. But do you think the fool behind me stops? I look back and he is half way to third and I am screaming �STOP�. He doesn�t stop, now I have to run home, half way there, the catcher gets the ball. I pivot and head back for third. The kids are going wild, �Run her down!�

I am almost back at third, I�m going to make it! That�s when my choice of footwear proves to be my undoing.

Two steps from third, the sole of my sneaker shifts in the mud. I can feel my leg going out from under me and I take a nose dive right into third base. Had I not built up so much momentum running, I may have been safe, but instead I ended up going ass over tea kettle right past the plate. I think I even took out the third baseman.

As I lay there, bruised and battered, covered in mud, I reflected on my decision to pick up that bat after 20 years. The only thought that went through my head:

�What the HELL were you thinking?�

Idiot Alert!

If you don't watch BB3, you will have no idea what the hell I am talking about.)

Ok, Jason is HOH. He nominates Marci and Amy. Marcellis is very upset over being nominated and throws a bit of a private tantrum, with only Danielle (Jason's ally) witnessing it. Now Danielle thinks that Marci is a threat to Jason, that if he stays he will come after Jason. This is the first idiotic thing Marci does.

Only two people can vote, Lisa and Danielle. With Jason casting the deciding vote in the event of a tie.

New twist, Golden Veto. You can use it to save yourself. However, this crayon is so full of himself that he can't comprehend anyone choosing Amy over him. He goes so far as to tell Danielle that if she wins it NOT to take him off the block, to just leave it.

Marci wins it. Dani and Jason are sweating now, their plan to get rid of Marcellis may go down the drain if he uses it to save himself.

Now for the really stupid thing. Quite possibly the stupidest thing anyone in the history of anything has ever done. He DOES NOT use the veto to save himself.

Dani and Lisa vote and it is a tie. Jason has to cast the deciding vote. The look on Marci's face when Jason said "I vote to evict Marcellis" was precious. I laughed my ass off. He hadn't even packed all his stuff, and had to go into the drawers and grab a bunch of his clothes and carry them out under one arm. Too Fucking Funny!

You just know his mother was at home screaming at him,

"What the Hell were you thinking?"

IMHO



I know that many people, in the wake of last years tragedy, were worrying that tighter security would mean infringements on personal freedoms.

I would much rather live in a world with restrictions on personal freedoms, than die in one that doesn't.

Oops! I said it again.

After watching BB3 24/7 for the past couple of months you really start to notice that people latch on to a word and use it till its like an old shoe with holes in the soles and missing laces. I myself have noticed after reviewing old posts that I apparently can not go more than a day or two without saying "apparently". The following is a list of the last 5 people on BB3 and the words that they beat their dead horse with.

Danielle - Dada, Dada, Da
She says this incessantly, she really hates to waste time actually saying a whole sentence and just says the first few words followed by dada, dada, da. God love her, cuz most of her stories are boring enough without hearing all the gory details.

Lisa - Totally
Lisa never does anything half way, everything is totally. Not partially, always totally. Which when you think of it, is pretty impossible. But apparently (gotta stay true to form) it�s the only three syllable word she knows. Makes her feel intellectual.

Marcellis - Intellectually
He uses this word in every single sentence to try and convince himself and others that he ever thinks of anything intellectually. He probably heard some photographer say it one day on a shoot and thought it was a really cool sounding word and decided to implement it in his daily life.

Amy - Sugar
I think that anyone who uses the word sugar as a term of endearment must do it with a southern accent. This southern belle is the master. However, after the 600th time she calls Jason sugar, it starts to grate on a persons nerves.

Jason - Amazing
This guy is perpetually amazed. He no doubt has grown up under a rock or has been keep in a cage in his parents basement for the past 20 years, cuz paint drying is �amazing� to him. Surely to God everything couldn�t possibly be amazing.

You know that the show must be getting boring if I am counting words like some sort of maniacal typing teacher. Must be the clerical background. �Hands on the home keys, ladies.� And you did it too, or suffered a crack across the knuckles with a ruler. Ah, the good old days.

Wacko.

Is anyone else surprised that Michael Jackson walks around in public?
I know people that wouldn't be caught dead going to the corner store without full makeup and this fool walks around without a nose.



This man is in serious need of a stylist. Those Sergeant Pepper outfits have got to go. And the gold shin pads, what is up with that? Who in Gods name told him that was a good idea.

I remember when he was a trend setter, now he is just sad. And to add insult to injury he is also apparently mentally ill. Exactly how do you mistake a birthday cake for an award? Read about all the pitiful details here:
Jacko's MTV 'award'

At least he has abandon the whole "get rid of the nose" thing. He went about as far as he could without scraping the back of the inside of his scull. I heard somewhere that the tip of it actually fell off. That must have been his wakeup call.



So now I guess he is going back the other way now. If he can pull another record out of his ass, and grow that nose back, I think he would deserve an award for that, don�t you?

My Car

This is my car.



And this is my Navigator.

More, Eva is

Thought I would revisit this little game.

Google Search: "Eva is"

Eva Is......Inside Her Cat (my personal favorite)
EVA is....not a superior way
EVA is ...simply net after tax income minus a cost of equity capital
EVA is ...an alternative medicinal therapy
Eva is ....the consumate songwriter
Eva is ....starting to tire
EVA is ...better than ROI (good to know)
EVA is ...old school
EVA is ...the result of a research project
EVA is ...a fancy way of saying "outside the spaceship". (new favorite)
Eva is .....a ho
Eva is ....arrested
Eva is ....a self-taught computer expert
Eva is ....a female elephant and was born in the wild (ok, not the most flattering discription, but sadly, true)
Eva is ....one hell of a climax

I could go on forever (but I won't). Try it with your own name, its quite entertaining.

Elvis has left the building.

Finally sold my car. She is gone, gone, gone! And it only took a month. JEEZ!

As soon as I was thinking about a new car, my friend told me that one of her friends was looking for a car, and wanted my old one. Well the guy phones and says he has been around to see it and he is interested. Great, that was easy. I was so wrong. I tell him that I won�t know for a week if I am getting the new one, will let him know. One week later, I run into him at the bank,

�You got your car? Great, will be over on the weekend to get the old one.�

�Great.�

Weekend comes and goes, no one shows.

The next week he calls, says he will be up at the end of the week. No show. Finally another week and the guy shows up,

�I don�t have all the money ($750) would you take a deposit and I will be up the end of next week to pay the rest?�

�Sure.� He gives me $200.

You guessed it, the end of next week comes and goes. I am getting really pissed now. Does this crayon think I am a bank?

Meanwhile, I have satellite problems, and when the guy comes to fix it, he is eyeing the car. We chat about my car selling woes and he says, �If that guy doesn�t show�.give me a call.�

By about Wednesday I am really getting stewed. Every time he doesn�t show, he also never even bothers to call and say he is not going to show. Then I hear that he told his wife that he gave me $400, and she found out he only gave me two. I think maybe she has killed him and has him stuffed in a trunk somewhere. I am sitting at work and decide, fuck it, I am calling the satellite guy. He says that he will be up at 4:30 to pick it up.

He comes, he pays, he drives away. The way God intended car selling to be. I am sitting there, I literally haven�t even put the money in my wallet when the phone rings.

�Ya, this is so and so, I just wanted to let you know that I would be over tomorrow with the rest of the money and pick up the car.�

�That might work for you, if there was a car for you to pick up. I sold it.�

�What?�

�Look, I waited and you didn�t show, someone showed up with the money in hand, and I sold it.�

�Oh, so I guess I will come up tomorrow and get my deposit�

�Oh, I am sure you will.� I sneer sarcastically. I just know he isn�t going to miss that appointment. The sarcasm is lost on him.

So, the old girl is gone. A little sad, but also a lot satisfying.

I am in total love with my new car, and am driving people crazy. Going over it with a fine tooth comb, seeing scratches and nicks, wiping off fingerprints, tossing papers out the window (fuck the environment, it messes up the car), even going so far as to freak out at the gas station attendant for slapping that dirty old squeegee on my just washed car windshield. I made him wipe it off with a paper towel.

Who washes the windshield of a car that is clearly still dripping with water from the carwash?

I am back to being a one car owner and couldn�t be happier. Hope the old girl understands, she was just too high maintenance.

Why do I even answer the phone?

The boss called tonight, he was cordial and funny and he joked around about what he had done that day. We shot the shit about the fish and the lady that had called looking for sponsorship from our company on a school trip without realizing that the boss was the older brother of the boy who had had a fender bender with her and was now paying to have her car fixed as well as paying for her to drive a rent-a-car. So, she probably is not going to get any money from us. It was a very pleasant call and I hung up smiling.

After he hung up I thought, �That was too good to be true�. And it was.

Ten minutes later he called back, he is very disappointed with me, someone very important had called, and he didn�t get a hold of him and now he will lose time and money. Generally conveying to me that I was an incompetent fuck, that should be shot at dawn, or at the very least be drawn and quartered.

The caller told me he had the boss�s pager number and so I said you should take his cell number too. That way you can also leave a voice message. The boss tells me that the man took this to mean that he should only call the cell phone. Clearly it is my fault since I should have known how important this man truly was, and apparently how daft. (being psychic and all)

First of all, I think it was unfair that the man had not identified himself as important. Then again, I should have known this, (even if clearly he didn�t) after all I am psychic. And I should have then paged the boss just in case the man on the phone was not just daft but also trying to deceive me by saying would page him, which he clearly was, since he didn�t, in fact, page him.

Then the boss tells me, I should know that in certain situations he does not check his cell messages, he relies on the pager. Again I should have telepathically known that indeed that situation was afoot. He continues on saying that I should have to accompany him on the job next week, drive in the drill rig and get dirty and bug eaten, so that I can truly appreciate the hell this poor soul goes through in order to finance my incompetent fuckness. He is serious.

�I think you should have to drive with me in the rig for 3 hours and sit around in the mud and the bugs for hours with the machine going so you can�t hear yourself think. We�ll do it next week�

�Ah��.no�

�Well then maybe you can just stay home?�

�Maybe I will.�

�We�ll talk about it later�

(oh no we won�t)

This man actually expects me to go with him on the drill rig. Like some child being punished. Indecently the rig only has a driver seat, the other seat is a upturned bucket. If he thinks for one minute that I am going���.he is in for a rude awakening.

And another thing�.

If he thinks he can fire me for not joining him on this idiotic venture, he has another think coming. I am pretty sure there are laws against that sort of thing.

Maybe I should just stay home, let him try and do my job for a week or two.

Rosie the Riveter/Biker Babe


Finally got a pic of my sister on her Harley. (not the best picture of her, sorry Adah)




When my sister does something, she goes all out. It doesn�t matter what it is, and why bother having a bike if it�s not a Harley. True to form, she (and her Hog) are decked out head to toe, front to back, in biker gear. (she usually wears the leather chaps, not in this picture)

All she needs now is a tattoo, and believe you me, she is seriously considering it. And since my sister never does anything half way, her and her husband joined a bike club and recently attended the Atlantic Hog Rally in Newfoundland where she (of course) joined the Harley Davidson Club. He of course could not join because he doesn�t drive a Hog, he drives this:




My sister went from being a hairdresser to becoming a welder. Not sure what the segue was for that particular path in life, but I think she figured that if there was money in it...how hard could it be. Well she couldn�t just be a welder, she is now on her way to becoming a welding inspector. Come big or don�t come at all.

I can�t wait to see what the next obsession is. The tattoo thing is kind of scaring me, considering her pattern, she may end up looking like this chick.

It's definitely the car.

The other night Jeanette and I are driving through town in my new car.



Windows down, tunes turned up, cool night. We were driving along, minding our own business, when all of a sudden these three young guys yell at us,

�Hey Baby!�

�What?�

�Hey baby? Are you kidding me?�

We laughed like nuts. It was hysterical. We couldn't believe that guys still do that. Did it ever work? I just figured they were yelling at her (it�s a blond thing).

Well last night I am driving through town, same scenario, only this time I am alone. I grab a coffee at Tim Hortons and just turn out onto the road, when these four guys start to cross in front of me. I let them cross and as I start to drive past they start screaming at me,

�Hey Baby! Where ya goin�?�, �Come back!�

I was really tempted to come to a screeching halt, get out and tell them.

�First of all, I am old enough to be your mother. Second I am NOT, nor will I ever be, your fuckin� baby.�

And another thing�

"The reason you are walking down the street with your 4 male friends (sans any baby whatsoever) is because you are a Neanderthal, and no woman in their right mind would walk with you while you are dragging your nasty, hairy knuckles along the pavement, screaming at perfect strangers."

But, of course, I didn�t say that. I just kept on driving. After all, I figure it�s not �the blond�, or me�..it�s the car.

What is it? Never mind, I'll take it.

I woke up this morning early. Why? I have no idea, but suddenly I was wide awake. So, I decided to go "Yard Salin".

I am totally useless when it comes to flea markets and yard sales. I buy all the junk nobody else wants. I bought a bag of romance novels (don't read very often) and a broken fan, (no idea what I was thinkin' there).

I did however come across one yard sale that had cd's and movies for $3 a piece. Very good deal, I got Back in Black, Nazareth, Steve Miller Band (shit....dating myself with those selections) and movies, I got MIB and The Saint. Then I went out to Van Derpoles, a sort of indoor flea market that is open during regular business hours, not just on Sundays. I got lucky today and managed to snag some more 78's for my collection, and a connection on where to get my record player repaired. It will be very interesting you actually "hear" all these records I have been collecting, some 200 in all.

Anyway, back to why I suck at yardsales, I buy some strange things. Mostly, if I can't identify it, I buy it.

I had these two wooden things on display in my house for at least 5 years, when someone said,

"Oh! You have fishermen in your family?"

"No, why?"

"Well you have fish net needles displayed on your mantle."

"Oh! So that's what those are? Cool."

My whole apartment looks like one big flea market. If it looks interesting, I buy it. Just as an example, these are just some of the items I have on display in my living room:

- an old pill box with jewels on top
- a sword that I think was used as a toothpick
- japanese false fingernails (at least I think they are japanese or maybe chinese)
- those fish net needles
- a donkey that shits cigarettes (don't ask).
- a manora (I am not jewish, which explains the christmas decorations)
- a brownie camera (the kind that takes 127 film and flash bulbs...it took me 6 months searching ebay to get these items, but I had to do it....I already had the camera. Of course I still can't use it because there is nowhere to get the film developed.)
- a champagne bottle from 2000
- wooden shoes
- wooden elephant bookends
- old beer bottles (the stubby kind)
- an old washboard
- a miniture saddle (my mom brought home from Alberta)
- some kind of mold (no idea what it is) If anyone can tell me, that will be just one more mystery solved.
- and last but not least, a hitching post made into an ashtray stand.

I know what you are thinking, but it makes for some interesting conversation.

Memories in color.



This is a picture of me, taken during the time I was in foster care.

There are only about a half dozen pictures of me when I was young. My mother tells me that I hated to get my picture taken. I still hate it. I know why I hate it now, I take crappy pictures. But I don�t have any idea why I didn�t like it then, I was adorable.

We had gone to a Christmas concert, I was wearing one of the �real� daughters� shoes and they were too small. I had taken one of them off and I was trying desperately to cram it back on my big fat foot, when a photographer from the paper snapped my picture. The caption read �Oh, my darn shoe�. I remember that to this day even though the actually newspaper article has been lost for years.

There is something else interesting about this photo. When I was in grade 7, our teacher decided that a fun class activity would be for the students to bring childhood photos of themselves and have the others guess who they were from those photos. When it was my turn to post my photo on the bulletin board, I looked up and there was the photo. Only it wasn�t mine, I was holding mine. Someone else had taken in the exact same photo. I showed the teacher and she was floored. The photo turned out to have been brought in by one of my friends. Heidi, she is the girl sitting on my left.

Its so funny because I can tell you everything about that little red haired girl sitting next to me, I know what color dress she was wearing, (red) and the shoes. (I couldn�t tell you a thing about what I was wearing).

I remember those shoes. They are the reason I had taken mine off. They were red suede with little bows on the top. As soon as I laid eyes on them I fell in love. I begged her to let me try them on, and of course they didn�t fit. I was so disappointed and that is why I look so sad in the photo.

Even though the photo is in black and white, I always knew that that little girl was red headed with a red dress and red shoes. My sister had always said, �you were five, you don�t remember what color dress some kid sitting next to you had on.�, but Heidi had also brought some color photos in from the same night. I was right.

Somehow that makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy, of course, that I really did remember correctly things that happened to me during that time in foster care, and sad for the exact same reason.

You never miss it......till it's gone.

I come home for lunch today to find a huge backhoe in front of my house, with the obligatory beer gutted, butt crack showing, armpit scratching, town engineers standing around discussing how to turn a 1/2 hour job into a career. They scrape their knuckles on the ground, beat their chests, and stroke their imaginary beards in contemplation. Bottom line, no water.

There has been a water leak in front of my house for the past 6 months, and they pick today to "fix" it. I use the word fix loosely.

The landlord has been trying to hook up with these guys for months, and they told him just last week that they wouldn�t be able to get to it till possibly next month.

Here�s the kicker, �they� are only digging up half of it, from the line to the connection. The landlord has to dig up from the house to the connection. Surprise, surprise, the engineers didn�t inform him that they would start today. He found out when the woman upstairs called to complain that there was no water.

So he calls me at work to inform me. Great!

�No problem� I say, �I can go a day without water, what�s the big deal�

I will tell you what the big deal is��.you need water for everything. You can�t wash your hands, do laundry, cook or even rinse out a cup so you can soothe your parched throat in this sweltering heat. Now I have to let �the boy� drink from the carton, and he back washes. YUCK! And I won�t even start about the obvious toilette flushing dilemma. The bathroom is gonna be good and ripe by tomorrow.

That old saying is so true, �you never miss it till its gone�. And let me tell you, I am missing it now.

I am sure, somehow, �the boy� will take this opportunity to have one of his power-puke/explosive-diarrhea marathons.

That is just the luck I have been having lately.

Something is .....off.

I feel really strange today. Like I am on some kind of drug. After about an hour at work I started to feel.....I don't know....weird. Dizzy, maybe a little nauseous? For a while I thought that maybe there was some unseen force, like carbon monoxide, but no one else felt it. I searched all around and couldn't find anything spilled or leaking. Perhaps I am getting sick again.

On a more cheerful note, "the boss" is G-O-N-E. He will be out of sight till Thursday. YEEEEHHHHAAAA!

That sounded cold. But "he" is the most stressful part of my job. Even when he is in a good mood, everyone is walking on eggshells wondering what little thing will set him off. But when he is gone, everyone gets a lot more work done, and it is a whole lot less stressful, even if he does call to gross you out.

It is a good week for his absence, it is just too hot to be picked on as well.

The mind is the first to go.

Just had a chat with Kimmy, and apparently my memory of the death of Elvis is slightly flawed. This is her recollection:

We were playing in my room, with some other neighborhood kids when �my� mother screamed down the hall,

�Kimmy? Elvis is dead!�

Now that I think of it, her story holds more water than mine, it sounds like something my mother would do. She wasn�t the most sensitive person on earth. Kimmy was the reason I was into Elvis, since her mother had all the records etc.

I suppose my mother knew this, so was more likely to inform Kimmy than of me.

Too hot to fish.

Sweet Jesus it�s hot!

I have spent all of today running a relay race between fans. I have one set up in every room (bathroom included).

If I get thirsty. I just have to make it into the kitchen where there is a fan beside the fridge. I make a frantic run to the living room, first leg of the race. Stop in front of the fan to catch my breath. Onward to the kitchen.

Mad dash, gasping for breath. Whew, made it!

Now I just have to make it back to the bedroom to the fan in front of the computer, with a brief stop in the living room. As soon as I step away from the fan the heat hits me, the air is thick and humid, and beads of sweat start forming before I am even half way to the living room exactly 6 feet away.

It is HOT! And there seems to be no relief in sight. I hate summer. I much rather winter, it is so much easier to keep warm than it is to stay cool. I am still researching a place that is either all fall or all spring. There must be such a place. There are places that have summer all year round and other places that have winter all year round, so there must be a place that has spring or fall all year round. Don�t you think? The government is probably keeping it under wraps because everyone in their right mind would flock to the site. It would be an immigration nightmare. If anyone knows of this wonderful mystical place, please email me.

I have at least a little peace tonight. The �boy� has gone to his fathers for the night. The only productive thing that I accomplished today was that I colored my hair. I have finally hit on the perfect color.

For the past couple of years (since the gray hair has become unbearable) I have been coloring my hair various shades of black. What I really wanted was that awesome blue-black, but could never achieve it because my hair was so dark to begin with. I even tried to remedy this (foolishly) by bleaching my hair first. Big mistake. All I accomplished was making it worse. It still didn�t turn blue-black, just black. So I decided that I am just going to work towards getting my natural color of dark brown back. Slowly the black is growing out to be replaced with brown. I know it�s boring but you can only go black for so long, and since I am not a sun person it was starting to make me look like Morticia.

So all day I have been glued to the computer, watching BigBrother3 live feeds. I realized last night that I am addicted. Truly addicted. Once I sat down and thought about it, ever since I got the live feeds it is all I am doing. In fact the only time I leave the computer is to watch the episodes on TV. I wonder if there is a 12 step program for this? If there is I hope it is online since I can�t tear myself away from the computer long enough to attend a meeting. Oh well, its only on for a finite run, then I will be on to Survivor. Thank God there are no live feeds for that, otherwise I would never get anything done.

Elvis has left the building.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, and the last couple of days on TV it has been nothing but Elvis. Elvis concerts, Elvis movies, Elvis Biographies, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis.

I guess the reason that everyone has held onto Elvis is because he was such a nice boy, loved his mother, sang like an angel, and was always the �good guy� in the movies. His fans forgive him the drug use, the divorce and the string of trashy girlfriends. He was just one of those larger than life characters.

I remember the day we heard the news that Elvis was dead. My best friend, Kimmy, and I were listening to records in her parents bedroom when her mother informed us that he had died. We were 12 years old, and we cried like babies. A few months later, when the heartbreak had subsided, her mother bought us the memorial posters, and that thing hung in my room for many years.

Kimmy and I used to stay up late and watch Elvis movies, there was one on almost every weekend, right after Charlie's Angels. Kimmy�s mother had all the records and we would listen to them and sing along. We had posters and clippings plastered all over our walls. Elvis was the King after all.

When I started to collect records this year, Elvis was one of the first ones I bought. His music still stands up. And he ain�t too hard on the eyes either.

How cool is this?

INDUSTORIOUS CLOCK

A fine kettle of fish?

Josh was voted out of the Big Brother house and Amy was voted back in.

The HOH competition consisted of all the housguests sitting in a huge bathtub in the back yard. At regular intervals Chiara was instructed to dump a bucket of mystery items into the pool. Last one out is HOH. All kinds of fun stuff like eels, squid, cod liver oil, chum, pond scum and seaweed.

The first item was the squid, and I don't think that even one hit the water before Roddy was outta there. What a whimp. Long story short. Amy is HOH.

Things should really get interesting now. Chiara and Roddys' days are numbered.

This is my Dad.



I just realized that I missed the anniversary of his death. Funny, how time slips away from ya. He died on July 21, 1989.

This is my favorite picture of him, taken the year he won $5000 on the lottery. So he looks pretty pleased with himself. He was a serious lotto player. I am sure that even with that win he, like most people, lost more than he won.

I keep this picture on the wall in my livingroom, where I can see it everyday. He has that "cat that ate the canary" look. It always makes me smile, no matter what mood I am in. It also makes me cry, because I miss him so much. I know that doesn't make sense, but even when it makes me cry, it makes me feel better at the same time.

Can't complain about the weather?

OH YES I CAN! And here is why.

This is Canada. Land of extremes.

Hot as the hinges of hell in the summer, and cold as ol' get out in the winter.
           

These two scenes are within 15 minutes, and 3 months of each other.

You�ll see me coming from a mile away.

Well, I survived the flu and have a nice big cold sore on my nose to show for it. It never fails, even though I prepare for it. I buy those expensive �lotion� tissues, just to avoid the red nose. But something always happens to sabotage it. During my runny nose day, I found myself in my car without my �lotion� tissues, and Voila! Cold sore.

Speaking of cars...I am officially the proud owner of a Red, 1997 Chevy Cavalier. And I have to say, I love it. Went out today and bought seat covers, car freshener and a paint touch up bottle. (for those small nicks in the paint) Now I am on the hunt for a bra for the front, since that seems to be where most of the nicks are, must have something to do with the sloped hood. I went to a few places in town, and they want $100 for them?

Cheese and Rice!

Luckily on eBay, they are going for about $20 US. It might take me a bit longer, but I will eventually get what I want. eBay is a great and wondrous thing, but you have to pace yourself, or you end up buying everything you see. It is quite addictive at times. But there are just so many cool things for my new car that I can get there. The coolest by far is this.

Neon *TireFly*

I must have them ;-) or these:

HYPERLED PLASMA RED

I will be so obnoxiously obvious. I even considered buying a set of those fuzzy dice. But opted for good ole Kermit hanging from the rearview mirror. I think this is going to be really fun.

I am pretty sure my mother had six children.

I have been sick as a dog all week. I am sure one of my ex friends gave it to me. I hate being sick.

Tuesday, Day 1:

I get to work after a nice long weekend, and I am nauseous. The boss sends me home.

Wednesday, Day 2:

The first real day of the flu. It was that cough. You know the one, you can feel it coming and you know that if you let it, it will never stop. It saps all your energy from you. And you want to die. I was up all night. I make it till around 1:30pm then head home. The boss is already complaining about the half day yesterday. Even though the power went off just as I was leaving and didn�t come back on until the evening. So I couldn�t have done any work anyway.

Thursday, Day 3:

The coughing isn�t so violent, but it is constant. My head feels like it will explode and my ribs hurt from the impact.

Dave is here today working on the bike. I go upstairs, in a daze, to nuke my coffee and as I walk by the counter I knock something off and it crashes behind me. I let out a �HOLY FUCK� (it scared the shit out of me) and Dave comes flying up the stairs, �Are you alright?� In my weakened state this strikes me as hilarious and I can no longer breathe I am laughing so hard. I play the damsel in distress, (back of my hand pressed dramatically across my forehead), �My hero!� segue into racking coughs.

I make it through until lunch, then have to go home. Before I leave today, I tell the boys not to use any of the spoons, since I will be licking them all before I leave, and possibly the rims of all the glasses. These special gift I reserve for the boss alone. You would be safer if you drank from the toilette.

I head over to my sisters to pick up the papers for my new car. (I am not too sick to get my car squared away)

Friday, Day 4:

I am exhausted. No sleep, I feel like I have been hit by a truck. I can�t concentrate so I have to �fake� working. The boss leaves for parts unknown, making this easier. I muddle through until 4. Take home my crappy paycheck and collapse on the couch. I look like death warmed over, I am laying on my face, I don�t have the energy to roll over so I can breathe properly.

My mother looks at me and says, �So, do you want to take me to the funeral home tonight or the funeral tomorrow?� (someone she knows has died, she is 73, so every week there is a good chance that one of her friends bought the farm) When you are an old lady, that is your social life, attending funerals.

�Mom, you DO realize that you had six children, right?�

�If you can�t take me, that�s all right.� She gives me that "you'll be sorry when I'm dead" look.

She won�t ask any of the others, because she is tired of being disappointed when they can�t seem to make it. On the other hand she has no problem asking me when I am on my deathbed.

I know my mother had six children, I have seen the pictures. But ask them to do anything, and they are nowhere to be found.

...next stop, the twilight zone.

Ok, this is just fuckin' freaky! Especially when you consider the domain name. What are the odds?

Don't Bother Me With Trifles

There actually is rest for the wicked.

I am finally done of the bookwork, I got a whole year done in just one week. Mind you I was greeting the sun every morning of this past week, but it was worth it. It means I will actually get the holiday Monday to myself. Not that I have anything drastic planned. Probably just lay around in my pj's and vegetate.

And another thing...
from August 2, 2002 (better late than never)

The bitter truth in advertising

I am sitting here slowly watching myself turn browner and browner. (is that a word?) Whodda thunkit? What a time to live up to the whole �truth in advertising� shtick.

I am not a sunbathing kinda gal. I have absolutely no patience for it. I could never commit the time it took to get a tan the �old fashioned� way. I buy mine in a tube. Over the years I have gotten quite good at it. There is a technique, you just have to get used to it and you can come up with a pretty decent tan. (as long as you don�t look too closely) I wouldn�t win any Coppertone bikini contests but at least I am no longer signaling ships with my pasty white thighs.

This year, like every other, they promised �new! Improved!� �deep dark tan���..Ya right!

I proceeded to slather it on, avoiding the knees, elbows, hairline etc. Thirty minutes later, a very nice even tan. The box says, �for a deeper tan, re-apply after one hour�. Previous years have taught me that their idea of �deeper� and mine are drastically different. So I go for it.

That done, I sit and blog for an hour or so, fighting with the ftp server to upload all those pictures. At 3am I finally finish. One trip to the can and I am off to bed. I pass the mirror and do a double take��.SHIT! �This is really dark� and as any of you who has ever used sunless tanning creams knows, it takes overnight to reach its full potential.

So much for looking sun kissed. I look like I have been baking in the sun for a week. So I am pretty sure this will not fool anyone who saw me yesterday.

Stick a fork in me�..I�m done.

Update:

In the morning I spent an hour in the shower scrubbing myself with a loofa. After tearing the first layer of my skin off, I reached the desired results of the tan. Who was it who said, �beauty is pain�?

Tell me so I can rip his heart out.

Please God! Make it stop!

The Lord has heard my prayer. Gerry has gotten HOH on Big Brother 3 and has put up the "bonehead" (Eric) and the "gross out queen" (Lisa).

90% of their time in the house is comprised of endless sessions of Eric laying back, like a big lazy dog in the afternoon sun, while Lisa goes over every inch of his body plucking hairs and popping zits.

SWEET DYING JESUS!

And to break up the monotony, every so often Chiara will join in. Then we have to listen to the complete play-by-play of them discussing in graphic detail the color and consistancy of the gore they are squeezing out of this dumb fuck.

Well at least now one of them will be gone and not soon enough for me. I have a very short gag reflex.

Yor mamma brotcha up right.

I had a great day at work today. Not only was "the boss" away, but he was also unreachable. God bless MTT for their crappy cell phone service.

And another plus, I was not alone. Most days I spend completely alone at work, not another living soul will I see all day. With the exception of "the boss" but he doesn't count.

Dave was in the house today working on the "racing bike", and it was nice to have someone to chat with.

I think the whole reason "the boss" hired Dave is because he is a bike mechanic. Considering we are a well drilling/geothermal heat pump operation, I am sure that the fact that he could work on the boss' bike was a plus in his hiring. The boss currently has 4 bikes, in various stages of repair. (One is actually in a few boxes, and you have to look really hard to figure out what exactly is in there.)

Currently we have 5 guys working, and three of them are brothers. Dave, Fraser and Peter, "the Burns Boys". They are the reason for the phrase "Yor mamma brotcha up right". Three brothers who are courteous, polite and would do anything for you.

For example, I was at work one day (out in Butt Fuck Nowhere) and one of the other boys, Harold (not Burns), calls me from the bottom of the hill.

"Just thought I would tell ya that you're getting a flat tire" click. (Asshole!)

So I call Fraser (he was out on a job) to ask if there was a jack out in the van that I could change my tire with, he said he thought there was. Before I even made it to the van, Fraser was coming up the driveway to change my tire.

"Yor mamma brotcha up right".

I have to put Richard (the last guy) into the Burns category too, but he is older and courtesy is expected from your elders.

There are 3 types of men in this situation.....you have a flat.

"Sucks to be you" --Harold

or

"I'll get someone out there for ya" --the Boss (btw he usually sends Fraser)

or

"It'll just take me a second to change it for ya." --any one of the Burns Boys

I hope their mother knows what nice boys she has raised. If she doesn't someone should direct her to this blog because, as a mother myself, I can tell you, there is no better feeling in the world than the pride you feel when someone compliments you on your children.

Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.

This is a really long winded post, I won�t be offended if you skip this one. Ok, I will be offended, but I will understand. Just be thankful that I am not posting all those found photo�s directly on this page, but have used my limited knowledge of HTML to link to them.

I love to decorate. If you ask my son, I over do it. As these pics from what I call "the bond" room will attest. I am also cheap, so none of the following cost me very much to do. I mostly used things I already had, and rigged up what I didn�t.

A little background.

My son was really into James Bond, and not just the new stuff, but he would rent the old stuff with Roger Moore and Sean Connery. He was 7, so it was a bit strange. So when he said he wanted a James Bond room, I ran with it.

I painted the border (since Wal-mart doesn't sell 007 borders) and made my own stencils from covers of all the James Bond books, and of course the logo. Then I printed all the book covers and framed them and hung them above the border. I painted his dresser and put phrases from the movies all over it. Things like "shaken not stirred". You get the idea. I copied autographs of all the actors who ever played James Bond and transferred them on one wall. Most people would stop there....but not me.

I had to do this. This is the actual size of my son at the time, made from huge stencils and transferred on the door. At this point my son said "STOP", it had been a week and he wanted his room back. I was spent anyway, the stencils for the border were the most time consuming, some of them were 4 colors, so I had to do them 4 times. I was very pleased with myself, but as luck would have it, we didn't live there for very long and I am sorry I didn't take better pictures of it.

When we moved back to town, my son picked a very easy theme (hockey) so it took me a day to do his room. But one night ....really late, I was sitting at my desk thinking �I should re-stain this thing�. This made me go and look to see if I had any left. I did, it was a stain and varnish in one, the color was pecan. I opened the can to see how much was left and spilled some. I grabbed the first thing I could find and cleaned it up. Now I had an old t-shirt full of stain, and for some reason, I rubbed it on the wall. Must have been the devil in me, but I looked at it, and it looked good. So, at 1am I started to rag roll my bedroom with this stain. I thought it looked great.

The next day, my brother walked in and said, "looks like dirt".

WHAT? Hmmmm it does look like dirt. Now I am in decorator mode. What goes with dirt? Leaves! I searched the internet and found pictures of fall leaves and made stencils. As an application for all my newly made stencils, I decided to make a canopy for my bed. (something all little girls dream of) I had a brand new set of sheets, and I proceeded to stencil fall leaves on them. What you have to understand is that this was in the wee hours of the morning, and you just can't go out and buy material, but when I get into these moods, I just use whatever is handy.

I don't always do things the right way, but I always get them done. So now I have the canopy up. Now the walls look bare. I start to stencil leaves falling off the top of window sills and door frames. I am totally out of control now.

There is also a window in my room that looks out onto the door that the upstairs tenant uses. When she forgets to turn out the light it shines right into my bedroom, keeping me from sleep. So, I put mac-tak, (that sticky shelf paper?) on the glass and stenciled leaves on that.

Now it is 3am. I am looking at the windows wondering what I am going to do for curtains. I get a brainstorm, a week before I was at a yard sale at a lumber yard and for some reason I made a weird purchase. I bought window pane frames. These are for when you have one big frame and you want the look of an older 6 or 8 pane window. I bought a whole stack of them. Why? I have no idea.

Now, I dug them out and lo and behold, they fit exactly into the window openings in my bedroom. Which is freaky, because this house is over 100 years old and you can never find anything to fit anything here. So while I watch Steel Magnolias on Showtime, I paint the frames and staple the leftover sheets to the back of them and (you guessed it) stenciled leaves on it. This is the result. I liked it so much, I did it in the living room too.

I literally did my room in two days. I was possessed. Once I start something, I can�t stop, I think it is a little of the OCD. But I have to do things, until they are finished. The next week I decided on a Friday night at 9 or so, I needed a headboard to go with my new "fall" room, so I picked up some 1x3's and made this. (notice that keeping with the theme, I also did the beadspread) This impressed even me, because I didn't wait for the right tools for the job, I just did it. I didn't even have a level, so it is a little wonky, but I think it works.

One last note, I have to show you one more thing, I saw this in a magazine and had to make them. They are book shelves. Get it?

Ok, boring story over. Continue on with your lives. I don�t think Martha Stewart needs to worry about her job�..although they may need someone to take over while she is in the pen.

A picture is worth...

I am on a mission tonight, and probably a lot of nights to come. I can't seem to find our old family photos. I know I stole confiscated appropriated.... lets just say, I was the last person to have them. When I blogged the other night about my time in foster care, I realized that there are pictures out there, and I have no idea where they are. So, I will be hunting them down, in between my day job and night job of trying to get my sisters books done. Hell, I will make time...it is driving me crazy not knowing where they are.

Men in Kilts

I just got a better pic of my brothers at the Kilted Golf Tournament, and since my ISP's ftp site is so fucking hard to get through, to I feel like I have done enough work to warrant a post here.




Kevin, David, Paul & Chris

Some good news for a change.

'We've Been Waiting,' They Say After 3 Days Underground

Back biting on BB3.

What a bunch of petty people. They sit around laughing about how gross Gerry is ��he doesn�t wash his hands�, �he doesn�t use soap when he does�, �that scum in the hot tub must be from Gerry�s hemorrhoid cream� �oh I saw him double dipping his chips� collective �EEEWWW�.

I just can�t get over it. It must be great being so perfect. I wish just one of them would pipe up and say�.�Ok, show of hands ladies. How many of you women have NEVER sucked dick�? And you are worried about Gerry not washing his hands? PULEESE! We were treated last night with Lisa instructing the other women on how to give the perfect blow job. Apparently she hasn�t got a problem with the dick directly in her mouth, but she draws the line at the man touching it and then touching her food. What a classy chick.

I have personally witnessed most of them doing something gross.

Chiara dragging her nasty ass across the kitchen counter.

Eric dropping stuff on the floor and putting it back in the fridge.

Amy sneezing into the dish towel and continuing to dry the dishes with it.

Lisa adjusting her thong and then making sandwiches. And she is constantly popping zits on Eric�s back without ever going and washing up afterwards.

Roddy farts constantly, in and out of the hot tub.

Danielle wiping her nose and then tossing salad with her hands.

Josh has gone to the can more than once and not washed his hands afterwards.

The only 2 people that are meticulous about washing before and after handling anything are Jason and Marcellus. They are also the ones who refrain from joining in on the back biting. Jason going so far as to defend Gerry saying, �we all have our quirks.� To which the group promptly tells him to shut up.

I don�t think it has as much to do with hygiene as it has with Gerry not being one of the �beautiful people�. Everyone else is obsessed with their looks. Plucking, tweezing, moisturizing and exfoliating.

And that�s just the men.

Once upon a time.

When I was 5, my father was drinking heavily, my mother had just had her last of 6 children and with no help coming from my father, she snapped.

Long story short, we all ended up in foster care, and my mother went to stay with her sister and get her head together. The social worker was very nice about it, told my mother that she would make sure we were well taken care of till she was better able to cope.

My little brother was not yet 2, I was 5 and my older sister was 8. My older brothers were, I think, 10, 11 and 12.


Obviously we could not all stay together. My little brother went one place. Me and my sister went to live with a family in town, and my brothers went to stay at a farm in the country. She was only gone for 7 months, but it effected us all differently. I don�t remember a lot about it, there are things that I remember vividly and others not so vividly.

I remember�

- My sister and I waving to our dad as he drove away, certain that he would be right back.

- Go-go boots and batons.

- Dough boys. It seemed like our foster mother made them everyday, but I am sure that is not true.

- Feeding said dough boys to the dog under the table because �she� wouldn�t let us leave the table till they were gone.

- Being dressed up in tutus and paraded in front of �her� friends.

- �Her� saying, �Aren�t they precious, the poor little things.�

- Missing my brothers.

- Visiting my brothers one day and skating on the pond. (not sure if this really happened or I just dreamed it, I do remember missing them so much.)

- Recording messages and songs for my father so he wouldn�t feel so alone.

- Begging my father to take me with him after one of his weekly visits.

- Being tricked into going to get the tapes I had made for him, while he quietly, slipped out.

- Crying all night long for my Dad. (I don�t ever remember wondering where my mother was.)

- Wearing hand me down clothes from our foster mothers �real� children.

- Getting my picture in the paper during a concert at the church.

- Going to pick up my little brother after my mother came back, and having to leave him that first time because he wouldn�t let go of the woman�s leg. He was only 2 and to him 7 months was a lifetime, he had no idea who we were.

- The look on my mothers face as we drove away leaving him behind.

- Coming back the next day with the biggest green, plastic racecar I had ever seen, to bribe him into coming home with us.

- The look of relief on my mothers face.

Even after all that, my father didn�t quit drinking. It wasn�t till I was two months shy of my 13th birthday, that he finally kicked it.

I remember him getting his first year medallion. It was about the size of a silver dollar and on the front it had AA, Easy Does It, First Things First. And on the back was his name and the day he stopped drinking. (Sept 18, 1978) I remember how proud he was that day, one year later, when he was presented with it. He and my mother got all dressed up to go to the dinner. I remember the grey tweed jacket he wore. He carried that medallion in his pocket, so when he felt like he was slipping, he could reach in and hold it and remember why it was important that he not take that drink.

Years later, when he got really sick, we were in his hospital room, and he looked at me and started to cry. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, �I love you.� and cried even harder.

He said, �I know I have never said that to you before and I�m sorry.� I told him, �Dad, you never had to say it, you always made me feel it.� He reached into his robe pocket and passed me the medallion and I cried, because I knew what it meant to him. A lot was going on in our family in those months, more than I can go into here, and he knew that I was filled with rage. He said that I should carry it with me, and when things got bad, to hold it and hopefully it would make me feel better.

It never did. I still have the rage, and whenever I look at the medallion it just makes me cry. To think that my father and mother had gone through so much, only to have it taken away in the end, by one of the people who they should have been able to count on. Those who don�t know the in�s of this story will have no idea what that last part means, but I had to put it down for myself. To put it out there, that I do not forgive and will never forget.

My mother forgave, she said that she forgave that person because it was hurting her not to. I don�t agree, I think some people do not deserve forgiveness. My father put it this way, �Don�t worry about it, everyone gets what they deserve.� That didn't help me either, I wanted them to get what they deserved now.

I don�t dwell on it, but I hope that the person I speak of doesn�t take the fact that I am not outwardly hostile to him as a sign of forgiveness. Forgiveness was not mine to give, it was my fathers, and he can�t give it now. The moment when my rage hit its peak, was the moment my father breathed his last. I was with him and he looked at me, his eyes glazed over and coughed softly and that was it. If the person of whom I speak had been there at that moment I would have strangled him with my bare hands.

I know in my heart that if my father hadn't had so much hardship at the end, he would have lived longer, the doctors said as much. My father had wanted to be "layed out" in his home, but that right was taken from him too. I will never forgive that person for robbing me of even a second of my fathers life, or from denying him his last wish.

The Campbells Win!



These are my brothers.

Every year they enter as a team in the Festival of the Tartans kilted golf tournament. They have won it more than once but this is the first time they have actually been pictured in the paper. Usually it is the country club big wigs that get mentioned. And unless said big wigs win, they don't even mention who it was that did win.

This year was no different. There were two pictures on two different pages of some of the local mucky mucks, but no mention of who actually won the tournament.

However, this year I was PMSing and I wrote an angry email to the paper asking, "who do you gotta blow to get mentioned in your publication.?"

See? Sometimes it is advantageous to have a bitch in the family.

Call display. The double edge sword.

If I was smart I would be doing bookwork right now. And I had every intention of starting tonight when �he� called. �He� is my boss.

Every time the phone rings and I look at that little grey box and see �his� name, I cringe inwardly. Do I answer it and take the crap he is dishing out or pretend I am not home and take the crap in the morning?

One of two tings could happen.

1. he gets over it. (ya like I have a hope in hell that that will happen)

or

2. the fact that he can�t vent on me will cause his irritation to escalate, until he feels the need to �discuss� his displeasure with me.

�Discussing� his displeasure is a polite way of saying he tears a fucking strip off me. Letting me know that he thinks I am a complete incompetent because I can�t reach through the phone, answer it on the other end, rifle through someone's pockets and get him the money that is owed to him.

There is a third scenario. This one is totally in my head, you understand, because there are two chances that this might happen. Slim and none.

Dream Sequence:

�Hi, I just called to let you know that you are doing a great job and I appreciate all your efforts. Why don�t you take the rest of the week off?�

SNAP OUT OF IT!

File that one away with the �what to do when I win the lottery� fantasy.

I will do ya one better. If I win the lottery, I will pay someone to go to work and quit for me.

Please, no pity party.

Ok, I want to appoligize. I am sorry if some people may have gotten the impression that I need attention. The post about eating worms was not a pitiful attempt to get people to comment. (Although I enjoy it when people do.) I was bored, noticed there were no comments and just blogged the first thing that popped into my head. Well Jon got it in his head to comment on his site and the whole thing snowballed.

I hope you don't feel like you have to comment, most of the crap I write here is not worth it. But if something tickles you or makes you go "hmmm" then by all means comment.

But please, I can't host a pity party. I haven't got a thing to wear.

Decisions, decisions.

My car is inexplicably working great. This concerns me, because as soon as I tell one person, it will no doubt break down.

So I have decided to buy another car. There are two that I am looking at, both the same price, same year, but different kilometers on them.

Today I went and picked up the first car. A '97 Hyundai Accent. Red, four door, 80,000 km. It is a far cry from my New Yorker, very small in comparison. I feel like I am driving in a bubble. But I will drive it for a while and see if I can get used to it.

I will drive it for a few days and then pick up the other, a '97 Chevy Cavalier (red, four door with 160,000km) and drive it for the weekend.

At first glance the Accent looks good, mileage wise. But the Cavalier is sooooo pretty.

I guess the real question is:

Which one I will look better standing beside as the tow truck hooks up to it.

Think I'll go eat worms.

Ok, I'm starting to get a complex. No one is commenting anymore.

I was checking YACC's today and realized that I haven't had a comment in a while and that song started running through my head.

Nobody likes me,
Everybody hates me,
Think I'll go eat worms.

Isn't it funny how things from your childhood will pop into your head? I sang it to my son and he laughed like a nut. It seems we had a lot of crazy little songs when we were young, and the kids today don't.

Anyone have a favorite they want to share?

Hmmmm....ok...I am over it. Although I am sure worms are very high in protien, I think I will take a pass.

I walk. TO THE CAR! That's it!

The concert was a complete success. The aftermath however, sucked!

The warm up band for Dr. Hook was fabulous. I can't remember their name, they played Celtic Rock and really got the place going.

When Dr. Hook finally took the stage, I think people were shocked. Although I can't imagine why.

Dr. Hook was big in the early 70's so it stands to reason that they would be really old now. The lead singer Ray Sawyer came out on stage and the only way you would know it was him was the eyepatch. He had long white hair and a long white beard. The man is 65 this year.

But once he opened his mouth? Well let me just say, I am horse now from screaming and we were so close to the stage that my ears were ringing all day.

Now after the concert was a different story. We thought we would be smart and call a cab and walk one street over to meet it. Since there were so many people standing around outside waiting for a cab. Well I guess more people had the same idea. After waiting for over an hour, the "group" decides to walk to a friends house nearby and call again.

After about a block, I lose my mind and switch to bitch mode. I am NOT a walker. I walk to the car and that is it.

"Evel, it's just one more street over."
"Listen to me people. I am 37, I own a car, I have money......I DO NOT WALK."

I think they threw themselves in front of the next cab we saw, just to shut me up.

Works for me. ;-)

Here's your coat, what's your hurry.

If you don't watch BB3, you will have no idea what I am talking about, because you aparently don't get CBS under that rock where you been livin'.

Well Lori is out of the house, thankfully, before she completely lost her mind. Not exactly the most stable person.

I really want Marcellis to win BB3. For the simple fact that it would piss Josh off to no end.

Josh is a complete slime ball. I am just waiting for one of the girls to clock him the next time he grabs their ass. Not the Bimbo's (Tanya, Lisa, Chiara) mind you, they love anything that draws attention to themselves.

But I am pretty sure that before this game is over, Danielle will tear a strip off him.

Tanya is a bimbo big time, and she works it. She treats her (fake) tits like a separate entity. She is always adjusting them or just checking to make sure they are still there. And for some reason she is under the impression that if she were to strip off butt naked that it "wouldn't make the internet". The lights are on, but nobody's home.

Lisa is a pretty dim bulb. During Chiara's little "code" discussion, it took her about 15 minutes to "get it". And I am not entirely sure she actually did in the end.

And Chiara, what a classy broad. (NOT) She has made the most objectionable comments. Like when she said to Josh (a jewish man) "dumber than Jews in Germany in the 40's". But what can you expect from a girl who not only is cheating on her boyfriend, but proceeded to tell everyone on live feeds. (of course she was speaking in code, but unless you are a head in a jar, it wasn't hard to crack)

All in all there are enough people this year to hate, so it will make for very good tv.

On the cover of the rollin' stone.

I am starting to get excited. And I am probably dating myself here, but I we are getting geared up to go see Dr. Hook Friday night. I plan on getting shitfaced and making an ass of myself. Shouldn't be too hard.

I find that (in my old age) I am getting very nostalgic. I am collecting albums now, everything that I used to listen to when I was a kid. Bay City Rollers was the first album I got off of ebay. I was so excited when I got it in the mail. I had to buy one for my friend along with Shaun Cassidy, and Elvis.

I am also getting weird with my album selections, everything from Donny Osmond (old stuff) to Meatloaf. And I have become fascinated with 78 RPM records. Mostly big band and Broadway musical stuff from the 40's and 50's. My current collection is about 200 albums.

The most interesting thing about it is that I don't own a record player. My son says "You know you can download that stuff from the internet", but there is something about vinyl albums, the feel of them. You just can't get that from cd's or downloading from the internet.

I suppose I should get myself a record player, but it isn't the listening to the music so much as the look of the albums, and the memories they invoke.

I also bought a Dr. Hook album, I wonder if it is too corny to take it with me and get an autograph? Ya, your right....way too corny.

Thank you Saint Anthony for favors recieved.

H.

Cherry, snap snap snap snap, Danger, snap snap
(translation - CODE)

Something interesting happened on BB3 today.

Chiara, Lisa and Tanya were sitting outside and Chiara decides to create a way that they could communicate in code, so "we", meaning the internet people, could not understand what they were saying.

Oh my god...I can't believe how stupid this crayon is. First of all, "we" are all sitting at our computers watching her explain how the code works. The woman is brain dead.

Anyway, here's the interesting part. After trying for 15 minutes to explain the code to (airhead) Lisa, she procedes to tell a story.

Here it is: Aparently she has been cheating on her boyfriend for the last 3 months. The man she is dating is divorced with 2 boys and is a millionaire. She lied to her family so she could go to California to be with him while he was visiting his kids. (this is where BB tracked her down to tell her she was on the show) His name is Roger, and he divorced his wife (aparently) because she was bipolar. He has a house in the hamptons, and his family holds the lease on the WTC.

Ok, anyone with half a brain would have stopped before they got to the WTC thing, but this peice of work proceded to spell out his name.

Roger Silverstein, president of Silverstein Properties, son of Larry Silverstein.

Gee, Chiara, ya think he will be waiting for you when you get out? Not Fuckin' likely. I am sure you are fine fuck material, but don't pick out your china pattern just yet.

Great job, if you can get it.

A guy I kow recently returned from being out west for many years. �Out west� is where everyone from here goes to find steady union work. Most of them return sooner or later. This guy (we�ll call him Johnny, well, cuz that�s his name) rolled into town and went straight to the unemployment office to register. He filled out all the appropriate forms and waited to see a counselor.

Government workers just look busy, when in reality it just takes them a long time to get input from every worker on every floor on a question that eventually they figure out no one knows. So, after a long wait the counselor is going over his forms in which you give your first and second choice for employment placement. His first choice was Electrician. When the counselor saw his second choice, he paused:

�It looks like your second choice is��..Senator?�

�Yes, I dropped out of school to learn the electrical trade, been doing it for 30 years, I don�t know how to do anything else.�

Counselor grins, and begins to strike out the answer, �We can just leave that one blank.�

�NO! You asked for a second choice and the only other job I am qualified for is Senator. I was going to put MP but then I realized you had to be elected so I scratched it out.� He was serious.

He was flagged as a troublemaker so his claim was pushed through. One thing government workers hate more than giving you money is dealing with troublemakers. Especially those who make a valid point.

Blah! Blah! Blah!

I just need to say �God bless the person who came up with �blah blah blah��. And God bless the wind bags who have adopted it as standard practice.

I can remember the days when you had to listen to all the gory, boring details of someone�s story. It was usually someone who thought they were much more interesting than they actually were. You couldn�t possibly interrupt them because clearly they are enjoying the telling of the story. Because of their enthusiasm, you keep thinking it must be going to get better in the very next sentence. It doesn�t.

Meet that same person now:

�How you doing?�

�Got married, couple of kids, blah blah blah, divorced. How about you?�

What about those people who haven't� embraced blah blah blah or its old standby �yadda yadda yadda�? Fear not. We now have a weapon. Another ingenious invention, its called �Anyway!�

Stops them in their tracks.

Of course I, being a complete bitch, realize that I am losing precious BigBrother watching time, when forced to listen to some long winded tale. So I have made it standard practice to just give them �the hand� and say:

�Does this story have a point? I�m growing old over here.�

Luckily, I am not the kind of person who needs a lot of friends and the ones I do have understand that I have absolutely no patience.

An all time low.

I have just reached an all time low, for me anyway. I actually paid for something.

I tried for a few days to get the BB3 feeds for free, suckin' up to all the IRC overlords and a few of the underlings, and managed to get two days of free feeds. Not continuous feeds, mind you, but feeds none the less.

Tonight, I just couldn't take another second of it, and broke down and bought the feeds. Don't ask me how, lets just say, I got it done. Now I am legit.

AND I DON'T LIKE IT ONE BIT!

I never pay for software or anything, on principle mostly, not because I can't afford it. I figure if you can get it for free...why wouldn't you?

This is a difficult pill to swallow, I may need therapy after this.

Thursday, July 11, 2002...

False Alarm!

Ok, looks like I have to lurk every night on IRC for hours before one of those selfish people give me the code for the feeds. And some of them are very upset that people are getting them for free.

One impassioned plea came from a certain southern bell who will not be named because �.well frankly I can�t remember every moron I meet in IRC�..she writes:

�PLEASE people pay for the feeds, so we can be assured there will be a BB4�

OH PLEASE! I am totally into instant gratification. I don�t give a sweet flyin� flippin� fuck about preserving the legacy for generations to come. I don�t even recycle, even though it�s the law now. I could care less if the minute after I die, the whole planet goes up in smoke. I will be dead. Right now I am alive and I want to watch Big Brother!

I don�t see what the big deal is, its not like CBS is hurtin� for the money. If you can get it for free, more power to ya. And if you are one of the lucky ones (NOT ME!) who has a credit card (long story) then you should share your good fortune with those of us less fortunate. It doesn�t cost you any more than you are already paying, and you get so much more in return.

For one thing, people will be searching you out, being nice to you and hanging on your every word. ;-) or at the very least every keystroke. And think of the power (IRC folks get off on the power) you will wield over others. Deciding who views and who suffers. And if that don�t float your boat, how�s this?

"If you really loved me you would give it to me."

Hey, it worked for the guys, I thought I would give it a shot.

Thursday, July 11, 2002...

in the wee hours of the morning.


Huston, we have video.

Thank God....after lurking on IRC for a few hours I finally got live feeds for BigBrother 3.

For the next 3 months I will be no good for nothin'. Since BB3 is on the west coast and I am on the east, I will be up all night. I get addicted to these things.

Oh well I will be sure to surface every few days to blog.

And this is where I plan to spend at least one weekend of my summer.

nova scotia whale watching,whales dolphins seals in cape breton

Peddle your bullshit somewhere else, I ain't buying.

If one more person whines to me about what a hard life they have, I am going to explode.

Recently I entered (and was eventually banned from) a chatroom, where one person was whining about losing his girlfriend and not getting the promotion he deserved and how he didn't see any point in living any longer. The rest of the {{{{{hug}}}}} briggade was patting him on the head and cooing at him that all was not lost and please don't do anything drastic.

Well I lost it! I asked him if he had enough to eat, clothes on his back and a place to sleep. (Apparently he had a house with a pool and two cars and a very successful career in one of those computer companies.)

There are children who don't have enough to eat, who are being abused and neglected and he had the nerve to complain????? Oh please, peddle your bullshit somewhere else cuz I ain't buying. If you want to off yourself, go do it and put us all out of our misery. (this was the point where I was banned)

Look, I am sure people have problems, but first of all if this guy really wanted to off himself, he wouldn't be in a chat room telling everyone. He would just do it.

I am sorry, but when you are sitting in a big house with a pool, and pounding out your suicide note on a top of the line computer with DSL, while you sip 10 year old scotch out of the shoe of some supermodel, you should count your fuckin blessings and be thankful you aren't one of the many people in this world who have to watch their children slowly starve to death for want of a bowl of rice. Or a child who is tortured by a parent, or worse killed. I could go on and on but you all know what terrible things can go on in this world, just think about it for a second.

"I complained I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet." A quote that more people should live by.

I am sure that someone out there will be offended by this post, but if you worried about everyone, you would never blog.

Buddy? Can ya hook me up, man?

Well, I am completely in a panic now. Big Brother 3 starts tomorrow night and I have yet to find the link for the free feeds.

Last year I found a site that gave you a program to hack the code to see the live feeds for free 24/7. Well I was addicted to it. And if anyone tells you it is not worth it, they didn't see the waterbed footage from BB2. When Will looked at Nichole and gave her a sheepish grin and proceded to piss himself....I thought I would lose my mind.

Anyway, if anyone knows where to get this (can't even remember what the program was called) I will do anything. And I mean anything. Wash your car, clean your house, give you my next born. Hell you can have my first born.

I feel like a junkie coming off some bad shit. Puleese!! people, ask around, whatever help you can give me......I am going into the DT's, and I don't think there is a 12 step program for this.

Don't anyone breathe.

Ok, I think I might just have a handle on this thing now.......I am backing slowly away from the keyboard.

Now...where the hell did I put those archives???

Well the obsessive compulsive thing comes in handy sometimes, I sat here all day (I broke for 20 minutes total to take my mom to church and pick her up) and finally got the new template up and running. And I am almost sure I haven't forgotten anything.

So? What do you thing?

Brain Fart

Ok, after that last post I do not blame any of you for thinking I am a complete and utter moron.

I have just (for the very first time) looked very closely at my blogger template. I now realize that it is just a basic webpage with the blogger tags inserted where the posts go.

What in the world was I thinking?

I knew this, I have been manipulating the HTML in this stupid template for months.

Sometimes I get too soft and lazy. Blogger is so easy, just pick a template and post your messages. Every so often throw in a script or two. I have spent the whole day searching the web for something that I already had.

I think I might need to get out more. But now I can't, I have to sit here and write code now that I have relieved my cranial gastritis.

I said it...but I didn't mean it.

Ok, I said that I was creative, what I meant was I have ingenuity.

If I don't have the right tools for the job, (which is pretty much all of the time) I get it done by rigging something up. Like MacGyver, remember him? Thwarts a nuclear meltdown with a wad of chewing gum and some bellybutton lint. Ok, so I am not that good, but you get the idea.

You can look at it closely and might still think it was done right, but you might never guess that that bookcase was made out of an old entertainment center and put together with a rock and a butter knife.

So I guess that isn't technically creative.

Today, as my ass formed a perfect plaster cast of my chair, I searched for a new blog template. You would think that with the growing popularity of blogging that there would be more sites dedicated to stealing borrowing obtaining decent and creative blog templates. Well, unless you like flowers or UUUGGGH Sailor Moon, you are shit out of luck.

I guess I will just have to use my OCD and learn how to make my own blog templates. Unless some real creative person wants to help me�(hint, hint).

There must be a book out on it by now. If it wasn�t for the stupid Lords Day Act, I would be able to start my obsession today. For Christ's sake, HE worked on Sunday, why can�t mall personnel? I am sure that given a choice people would rather work on Sunday, after all�.they can�t do anything, everything is closed.

Therein lies the catch-22.

And antother thing...

Ok, everyone is doing it, so I sat down and did it too.....not as easy as it looks.

100 things about me.

O� Canada.

Now that all the flag waving and fireworks are over on both sides of the border. I would like to jot down, for posterity, just a few of the reasons why I am glad I am a Canadian.

1. No one wants to blow us up.

2. Free health care.

3. The metric system.

4. Money�ok, its not worth as much but it�s pretty.

5. Clean air.

6. Clean water.

7. Gun laws�if you have one in public, you are a criminal�.there is no confusion.

8. Canadian beer�we dismiss anything under 6% as �for children and the elderly�.

9. No one gives a shit what the Prime Minister does. The closest he has ever come to an assassination is a pie in the face.

10. Americans have FBI, CIA, DEA, Secret Service�..we have RCMP (period)

11. Donairs.

12. Regulations that cap prices on prescription meds.

13. Americas Most Wanted.

14. Pizza with the cheese on top.

15. The Queen�she�s a great old broad, has her picture on the money but keeps her nose out of business.

16. Longest unprotected boarder, although I think we should tighten that up, �Captain, there�s a tidal wave coming up from the south, SHIELDS UP!�

17. Red Rose tea. �Only in Canada, you say.? Pity.�

18. Kids in the Hall.

19. When you win the lottery�.you get ALL the money.

20. Tim Horton�s Coffee.



UPDATE: Canada also has CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service) but it is so secret I never heard of it.

Too hot to fish!

Weather for Truro

28C - 62% humididty - wind 0 km/h

IT'S JUST TOO HOT TO BLOG!

I am going to go sit in the fridge.

Ciao!

ok....just had to add this.

It is so hot that when I took my hands off the keyboard, my arm had this stuff stuck to it......I realized that it was the varnish off my desk.

IT'S HOT DAMMIT!

Beam me up, Scottie! There is no intelligent life here.

Last night I watched a movie called Trekkies, not a movie so much as a documentary. All I can say is, you can love Star Trek, collect the action figures, go to the conventions. But when you dress up as a Klingon and refuse to speak English, please don't expect me to think of you as anything other than a complete nut bar.

Some of those people are completely off their nut. There was a dentist that has his office decked out like the Enterprise, with all the employees in uniform.

But the queen of all nut bars? A woman who was actually on the Whitewater jury, that wore her Starfleet uniform to court. I kid you not, she also sets up booths at the Star Trek conventions to recruit people into the Starfleet Alliance. (How the hell did this crayon get past jury selection?) Isn't that the 41st amendment? Right to be a space cadet?

God bless America, she's always good for a laugh.

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Happy 135th Birthday Canada.

I AM CANADIAN!

I am also Nova Scotian

For you "non Canadains", Fast facts about Canada.

Here are 135 reasons it is great to be Canadian!

View from the Hill Cam, Parliament Hill in our nations capital.

The Great Canada Day Quiz.

Canadian Inventions.

Tour Canada without leaving your desk.

The Canadian Resource Page

You know you're Canadian when:
You stand in "line-ups" at the movie, not lines.
You eat chocolate bars instead of candy bars.
You drink pop, not soda.
You know what it means to be on pogey.
You know that a mickey and 2-4's mean "Party at the camp, eh!"
You know that Pike is a type of fish, not some part of a highway.
You know what a Robertson screwdriver is.
You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
You dismiss all beers under 6% as "for children and the elderly".
You wonder why there isn't a 5 dollar coin yet.
You know what a toque is.

Have a good one, eh?