See, I lied, I'm here today...

I shamelessly poached this from Malnurtured Snay ... (whose blog, by the way, is highly entertaining.)

“Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishesfor an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, and gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the traditions of the religious or secular practices or traditions of your choice or, if none, without regard to any religious or secular practices or traditions at all. We wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically healthy generally accepted calendar year 2007 with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. The foregoing does not imply in any way that America is greater than any other country, that the United States is the only America in the Western Hemisphere, or that the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of cultures who have helped make other countries great is inferior. By accepting these greetings you are accepting the following terms. These greetings are subject to clarification and withdrawal at any time and imply no promise by the wisher to the wishee to implement any of the wishes herein. These greetings are freely transferable on the express condition that there be no alteration of the original greetings. These greeting are void where prohibited by law and are revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. These greetings have no guarantee or warranty of any kind. These greetings are valid for a period not to exceed one year or until the issuance of subsequent greetings or until clarification or withdrawal of these greetings pursuant to the terms of these greetings, whichever comes first. The sole remedy for any dissatisfaction of the wishee is, after service of written notice on the wisher by the wishee, clarification or withdrawal of these greetings or issuance of new greetings, at the sole discretion of the wisher.”

Blogging and bloggers

I’ve noticed that my links are in dire need of an update. But damn. If I add all the blogs I read, the list’ll be longer than my arm.

Because people, I stand before you now to admit it. I, Jazz, am a blog whore.

Besides those that are already on the list, there are many many others. In the past week alone I have discovered at least four really good blogs. I need to quit my job and plug in full time in order to keep up with everyone. It is a sad state of affairs indeed, when you know more about virtual people’s lives than about your own – and realize that, damn, theirs are so much more interesting than yours. Ever ever so much more.

Is it my inner mémère*? I never knew I had such an aspect to my personality. I mean, hell, the other day someone at the office asked me what I thought about K-Fed and I thought she was speaking about a new dog food or some esoteric branch of the U.S. Government. Which shows just how disconnected I really am.

But I can tell you all about ChooChoo's life in Hellhole, Jocelyn's problems with orientation and yoga, Blue Poppy's dogs (Ah, Henry!)and house in the mountains, Paula's latest illustrations, Ticknart's habit of locking himself out of his home and Steve's… um… Steve’s total and incontrovertible insanity. Jill has a thing for (against?) needles and her sweetie Slag fires pottery between hilarious (really!) prostate exams. Toast puts bus shelters in front of people’s houses and goes to 3 concerts a weekend.

Then there are all the others… These are interesting, quirky, people whose existence I never would have soupçonné** without blogging.

I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to get them all into the same room, with wine and vodka galore. How quickly would it degenerate, how many of us are exactly what we appear to be on our blogs (me, pretty much, I can assure you. Total spaz and curmudgeon in the making – I’ve been using that word a lot in the past month. I love that word. Hmmm there’s a blog entry: words I love).

This is probably my last entry of the year as I won't have internet access after tomorrow. I really need to buy myself a computer. See y'all in the new year, and please don't write too much, I don't want to have to spend days and days catching up. Best wishes and happy whatever it is you celebrate. Me, I'm off to find myself a Festivus pole.

* Translation: inner gossip
** I seem to be losing my English today… Soupçonner = Suspect. But that’s not the word in English is it? You don’t suspect someone’s existence… Well, you do in French. And that's today's quicky French lesson.

Curb your 24

I just finished watching Season 5 (oops, Day 5) of 24 on DVD.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that Jack Bauer is not the superhero here. Chloe O’Brien is. Because without Chloe, Jack is nothing.

He can yell at terrorists all he wants. He can beat them, shoot them, interrogate them, scare the living crap out of them. But without Chloe?

Nada.

‘Cause Chloe gets him where he wants to be, walks him through everything, and protects him from the unimportant bad guys.

She illegally gets him where no man has gone and gets him out alive.

Without women, men are nothing – and no, I have no idea why I came up with that generalization, but I’m too lazy to change it now and meh, let’s face it, it often is the case – but I don’t want to turn this into a feminist rant.

Chloe is omniscient, she protects him, she cheats and lies to get him what he wants, and yet…support staff are so underrated. I’ll tell you all about that sometime.

So now I’m all up to date on 24. Nothing to look forward to until the next season comes out on DVD. Watching it on TV must totally drain this show of any suspense. Bauer catches up to evil terrorist and… don’t squeeze the Charmin. Nah, don’t think so.

I’m going to have to get started on Season 3 of Curb Your Enthusiasm Now there’s a hilarious, abeit cringe-inducing show.

Edited to add: After reading Jocelyn's comment: If you have any really good TV series to recommend on DVD, let me know please. Might be something to do over the Xmas hols since I won't be blogging...

(Pic from www.tvfodder.com)

______________________________________________________

Later: Totally off topic, but I just learned that, this week, we finally paid off the Olympic stadium in Montreal. Amazing. You gotta remember the Olympics were held in Montreal in 1976. Of course now the roof is falling in, but that's a whole other story for another day.

Women and hair

I’ve pretty much decided to grow the colour out of my hair and go, well, grey I suppose. Mostly out of curiosity to find out how much grey is actually in there after all these years of colour. Plus a good friend who is about 40 and completely grey and looks totally awesome so I figure, why not give it a shot?

The reactions I’ve had are really interesting. Mr. Jazz has no problem with it, he says I’ll look really good, but then he’d say the same thing if I came home with my hair purple and green one day, cause Mr. Jazz? Sorta biased he is. In general men just seem to not give much of a damn one way or another.

But women? Whoa. Most everyone has said (in come cases screeched):

YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!!

Me: Um, yeah, I can, I just have to not dump more stinking chemicals on my head. If I don’t like it, I can start up again with the dye.

Them*: But you’ll look older!

Me: Yeah, I’ll probably look 45. No biggie, I am.

Them: Or even older!!!

Me: And if I think so, I can colour again.

Them: But by then people will KNOW you’re greying!!!**

Me: Um, I’m 45, it surely can’t be that big a surprise for anyone…

And the conversation goes round and round, never getting anywhere. What the hell is wrong with looking your age? I find it somewhat paradoxical that women bitch and moan about how they are obliged to look a particular way, wear a certain size, look no older than 19, and that society expects so damn much of them physically and yadda yadda yadda, but if a woman actually goes ahead and steps out of the mould, she gets blasted*** for it.

I'm really beginning to think that all in all women quite like their "hell" and despite bitching and moaning about it, are really quite happy to live there.



* Them because pretty much every woman has the same reaction

** Notice the exclamation marks. I’ve kept it down to three, but usually it sounds more like 10.

*** But I also got told by someone that I was incredibly courageous. Courageous? Too low maintenance to be bothered perhaps, but where the hell does courage come into it? Will people throw stones at me in the street ya think?

In keeping with the season

Last year I bitched about Rudolph.

This year I bring you a new look at the Night Before Christmas *

'Twas the night before Christmas, Old Santa was pissed.
He cussed out the elves and threw down his list.
Miserable little brats, ungrateful little jerks.
I have a good mind toscrap the whole works!
I've busted my ass for damn near a year,
Instead of "Thanks Santa", what do I hear?

The old lady bitches ‘cause I work late at night.
The elves want more money. The reindeer all fight.
Rudolph got drunk and goosed all the maids.
Donner is pregnant and Vixen has AIDS.
And just when I thought that things would get better
Those assholes from the IRS sent me a letter,
They say I owe taxes! If that ain't funny
Who the hell ever sent Santa Claus money?

And the kids these days; they all are the pits
They want the impossible, those mean little shits
I spent a whole year making wagons and sleds
Assembling dolls...Their arms, legs and heads
I made a ton of yo-yos, no request for them
They want computers and robots...they think I'm IBM!
Flying through the air...dodging the trees
Falling down chimneys and skinning my knees
I'm quitting this job there's just no enjoyment
I'll sit on my fat ass and draw unemployment.

There's no Christmas this year now you know the reason,
I found me a blonde.
I'm going SOUTH for the season


*Author unknown, but I thank him/her for the laugh

Random bits

As you might have guessed, I’m very easily annoyed these days – except by curmudgeonly old ladies, obviously. I’m a great believer in respecting our elders, personally I think they are given nowhere near enough respect in our society and yet they have so much to offer. Except those who are totally demented and drool all over the place. Them I can do without. Do I think that because I’ll be joining them in the not so distant future? That is indeed something to think about. However, rudeness annoys the fuck out o f me wherever it comes from. When I’m about to step on the bus and you push ahead of me, I don’t care how much of a little old lady you are, it’s just plain rude. (And this woman must not have been that old, maybe 65-70 or so, which doesn’t quite qualify her as a little old lady. Funny how when you reach 40+, 70 doesn’t seem so old anymore.) If you stand there, I’ll no doubt let you pass, however if you barrel past me, forget being nice, it just makes me want to trip you and watch you fall flat on your face. I’m evil that way.

It’s 8C in Montreal today (mid-40sF). It’s also 10 days before Christmas. Now, much as I like not floundering about in slush up to my knees, this whole balmy weather thing freaks me right the fuck out. Vancouver, who should be having this weather, is getting 20 inch snow storms and freaky-ass wind storms. Weird weird weird.

I’m going to the cottage this weekend for the first time in a month. It came to me that maybe the lack of unstructured cottage time might be partly responsible for my shitty mood (that and the fact that November was the sunlessest November in 50 years and that December seems to be vying for the same distinction). I'm used to going up every weekend so this is a first for me. I miss my birdies, I gotta feed my birdies, I must spend numerous hours mesmerized by the window watching the birdies do... well, watching them eat and shit basically. Jebus, I need a life. But this is not blog discussion. Posts about my moods are surely not that high on your to-read list.

I really have to get into the habit of jotting down blog ideas somewhere (so long as it’s not on post-its obviously). Yesterday I wrote a perfect blog entry in my little head on the way home from work. It was edited half a million times until it was at the point of bloggy perfection. When will you have access to this small masterpiece? Never. Cuz it’s gone because I was too damn stupid to write down what it was all about. See, I told you my mood sucks. I rarely tell myself I’m stupid anymore, except in this past month, and I'm making up for lost time.


Shaddap Jazz, go away, you're annoying me.

And now, for something completely different

Today I thought I'd bring you an important news story. Important news stories always go over really well. So here, from the Weekly World News, purveyors of fine news since… oh, who knows, is the gist of the story (I was gonna reproduce it in full for y'all, but apparently that would violate copyright laws and the WWN could sue me for everything I'm worth and I'd end up living in a sewer under the city, breeding with aliens and in a bizarre twist of fate, eventually, I'd be the headliner in one of their issues).


So, the planchette from a ouija board went crazy recently. No seriously! It did!!! C'mon, this is serious, five people were actually injured, one seriously... (note the copious use of the word serious in order to denote just how serious this is!)

See, what happened was, two kids using a ouija board - to their eventual dismay - channelled the spirit of a deceased English teacher. At the end of an independent clause the spirit went insane, ripped the planchette out of their hands, through the window and went tearing down the interestate, pursued by police, 'cause them cops? they have our safety at heart and rogue ouija board planchettes? Them's dangerous stuff. The planchette/spirit, as it turns out, was in search of....

A semicolon!*

Eventually the plastic thingy settled onto a copy of the World Weekly News** someone was reading in a coffee shop (thank god for WWN and its grammatical use of semicolons!) and finished it's sentence. Unfortunately, no one was there to read it since the reader, poor woman, ended up with third degree burns because the planchette upset her coffee all over her lap.***

If you want to read this article, with all the details and suspense here's a link to the story .

All in all, being something of a grammar whore, I can totally sympathise with the planchette.



* 'Cause dude, you need a semicolon at the end of an independant clause. You knew that. Didn't you?

** Surprise, surprise!

*** Well obviously if youre coffee is that hot, you're going to need to read the World Weekly News until it cools down!

It's the cows!

To those who say global warming is not for real, that it’s myth, I invite you to Montreal, where any snow we had is gone and it’ll be 7C (45F) today. It’s December 13. This is not normal Montreal weather. Course I’m not broken up about the lack of snow and cold, but I’m evil that way…

However, I’ll sleep much better knowing (as stated on the front page of newspapers last week) that it’s not my fault. It’s not the fact that I (and several million others) have cars that pollute and it’s not industry’s fault. Nope. It’s cows. Apparently cows are the single biggest producers of greenhouse gasses. And they degrade land tremendously. Whew it ain’t my fault! Bad cows!

Never mind that if humans polluted a lot less, and if the idea of sustainable development was actually ever taken seriously on a large scale, even the cows probably couldn’t fart enough to bring on global warming. Never mind the fact that the reason there are so many cows is that we “need” need (I need my 3 lb. steak and my leather couch!). It’s no biggie because apparently scientists are working on a way to recycle various bovine gas emissions to produce power.*

Or something.

Until then, I guess I’ll just watch the rain fall.


* Please note that even though it’s no laughing matter I choose to be facetious. Tearing out of hair and wringing of hands will not a better post make. Still, we’re heading for a helluva problem as evidenced here

More petty annoyances and kudos

Dear Cell phone girl on the bus,

I know your life is amazing and stellar and brilliant, but last night’s date? I don’t much want to hear about it high volume at 7:30 in the morning. Honestly, your life isn’t that interesting at all.

Please remember that if you keep this up every day, I might have to kill you, and then you’ll have no life

Worst regards,

Jazz


Dear people walking in packs on the sidewalk,

I know it’s yours. I know your tax dollars paid for it. But is it really too much to ask that you move over just a tad when you meet someone coming the other way? I know I’m not the skinniest thing alive, but I’m doing my best to keep out of your way. If I move one more millimeter I will fall into the street. So what the hell am I supposed to do? Climb on parked cars to get out of your way.

Asshats.

Pissed offedly,

Jazz


Dear girl at the food fair,

A faux fur (long faux fur) purse does not look wonderfully stylish. It looks like you killed a dirty, long haired alley cat, gutted it and slung it over your shoulder.

Seriously, lose the bag. You gotta learn that just because it’s in a store doesn’t mean it isn’t utterly ridiculous. Thankfully, you’re still young enough to learn.

Hopefully,

Jazz



Dear little old lady,

Little old ladies are supposed to be lovely. Little old ladies are supposed to be sweet. Little old ladies bake gingerbread cookies.

I’m sure you’ve never baked a gingerbread cookie in your life. You are a sarcastic, curmudgeonly old thing. You are me in 35 years. You rock! Take ‘em down another notch or two, they deserve it!

Admiringly,

Jazz

Monday Monday....

I had all these blog subjects bouncing around in my head yesterday.

I had lots of blog subjects bouncing around in my head when I woke up this morning. One of which was a bizarre dream, wherein my brother would stow his waterbed in my fridge so that it would be cool when he went to bed. I mean, what the fuck?

Now, well, all blog subjects have deserted me. They ran screaming from the room, tearing their hair out, when I arrived.

I am alone. Sitting on this chair, wondering where the hell everyone at the party went.

Damn, I hate Mondays, 'cause people? I ain't got nothing else for you. The best you're gonna get today is me sitting on this chair, wondering where all those witty blog entries ran off to.

Winter has struck

Geez. December already. Montreal is under the snow now. Seems like it’s for real and for a long long time. It also seems like about a week ago it was summer. I’m not liking this “time flies” thing, because the older I get, the more it’s flying. Except winter of course. Winter never flies. It drags, it digs in its heels, it refuses to fly, but rather it trudges along, annoying everyone except those weirdos who love the winter sports thing – you know the ones. They insist that stepping on two spindly boards and throwing yourself down a mountain, inducing frostbite and chattering teeth along the way is fun fun fun.

Much as I’m not liking the “time flies” thing, I’m liking the winter thing even less. People, I dread winter – which is not a good thing when you live in Quebec. Nope, not a good thing at all.

There’s the never-ending cold, the knee deep slush, the dark when you wake up in the morning, the dark when you leave work at night, the seeming hours it takes to dress, what with the coats, and boots, and scarves and hats and mittens… Bleh bleh bleh. And no, I don’t want to look at the bright side. Drinking good wine in front of crackling fires is all very well and good, but not how I spend most of the winter. And the "oh, you'll like winter if you do winter sports" thing? Been there, done that and I really don't see the great times in standing on two sticks and throwing myself off a mountain, inducing frostbitten extremities, brain freeze and chattering teeth in the process.

I might have been born here, and I suppose I should be used to it, but my birth was obviously a genetic fluke, I was born to be a southerner, drinking mint juleps on the veranda.

Could anybody from down there please adopt me?

Just one of those days

People annoy me. I think I could happily live in a cyberworld where all interaction is electronic and I never ever have to face a human being again.

At this point my ideal world would comprise my apartment and/or the cottage. All the books I haven’t yet read and want to. Tons of collage materials. Numerous DVDs and CDs. Enough food to last me forever.

I want nothing to do with a human being ever again, and I haven’t even begun the weekend. A weekend where I’ll be working, locked up with a bunch of people taking the minutes of their meeting. Nonexistant except as pertains to “what exactly was that motion?” Efficient. Indispensible. Invisible. Privy to lots more knowledge than I want to have. And yet not even there. Knowledge isn’t always power, sometimes it’s mere slavery.

The weekend isn’t even here and already I hate all of humanity. I shudder to think of what Mr. Jazz will have to go through when I get back Sunday night.

Most of the time I don’t loathe my job. Most of the time it doesn’t suck out my soul. But then there are those times where not only do I not see the point, but where I'd be happy to run away and join the circus. I'd rather shovel elephant shit than the proverbial bullshit. At least it's the real thing.

Today's incoherent spam

And I quote:

"And guess what you are worth living a life filled with fun, laughter, energy and love. Andres and colleagues point out that incorrect . You think they were not rejected? I'll let them introduce themselves, should they decide to oblige me. So, completely spoiled by instant, funny, inventive feedback, I'm going to start trying to post again. How did you learn to drive a car ? When l first started this my kids though I had finally lost all my marbles. Imagine for a second if Walt Disney had given up on his dream?And guess what you are worth living a life filled with fun, laughter, energy and love.to the island, locate the site using a forensic geology and anthropology"

Now, they're not trying to sell me anything, obviously. It ain't no rich African prince trying to move his father's ill gotten gains out of the country. It's not one of those "Buy this stock now for pennies and become filthy rich in 10 days" spams.

It's... well, who the fuck knows what it is? It sounds like a collaboration between two foreigners using the 50 words of english they know between them to write the next bestselling novel.

Taking in the Toronto Sights

There are things one should never ever be forced to see. Even on a weekend spent in Toronto.

Especially on a Saturday morning. Even more especially on the way to the St. Lawrence Market, orgasmic land of foodie happiness.

For some things there is no excuse. None. Under any circumstances. Ever.

You know how you regularly see women in way too tight jeans and they have the camel toe thing going on? Nasty, eh?

It was worse. It was beyond nasty. It was vile.

Picture it. 10:00 am. You’re walking along the street, the sun is piercing through the fog; the weather is warm… You’re with one of your best friends and your own Mr. Jazz equivalent. Life is fine. No, life is lovely!

And then you see it…

I searched the internet high and low to find a picture that could convey the horror of the sight but, luckily perhaps, none was to be found. Your imagination will have to serve.

Picture a man. Tallish, short of non-descript. Oh so phallic CN tower reaching for the sky in the background. Short jacket and tight, tight leggings. Yes, you saw right – tight leggings, and obviously no underwear… Strutting his stuff with the jewels outlined. In 3-fuckin’-D!

Every. Damn. Detail.

The image is forever seared into my brain. And not in a good way.
Vile I tell you. There is no excuse for imposing that visual on everyone he met.

You’d figure that at least he’d be hung well enough to make the site impressive. But no. Not impressive. A tiny little slug all curled up and sleeping. And the weather was balmy. Shrinkage à la Costanza could not be invoked.

The HORROR!!!



*photo of the CN Tower from Sauna.org

The ubiquitous Thanksgiving post (and I ain't even in the US!)

It’s Turkey day in the US. Day of canned cranberry jelly wobbling in a plate (God, I hate that stuff. Much as I like cranberries, I can hardly force myself to eat that goo, especially when it’s sitting there with the can still imprinted on it. – insert dramatic shudder here – Actually I’m not big on aspics or Jell-o in general).

Our Thanksgiving was long ago, the second weekend in October, and it’s never as big a thing as in the US, well in Quebec at least, I don’t know about the rest of Canada.

The big thing for typtophanatics in Quebec is Christmas. Same meal: turkey, stuffing, cranberry goo. Throw in a ham, change around the desserts and you have the same food coma except there’s a tree in the living room and no football to watch.

But at least the holiday madness starts a bit later. Thankfully. I’m very much the Scrooge sort when it comes to the hols. If I could simply disappear as soon as they start, I’d be a happy, or at any rate happier, person. It’s the cynic in me. It seems the older I get, the more annoying the whole thing becomes.

Where did the magic go?

I guess growing up and having to provide the damn magic yourself makes it that much less magical.

I’m going nowhere with this, right?

For the record, I hate Thanksgiving. Blogs are there for my entertainment. A good portion of those I read are American. The American blogosphere is in a food coma today, so I am sorely lacking in entertainment.

Y’all better have horrible tales of Thanksgiving madness for me in the days to come or I will be very very angry.

Post-Its and Black Holes

I had this purty little yellow Post-It with a couple of “must blog about” ideas on it.

It was a very nice Post-It. Very yellow, very bright.

Very “don’t forget this cause it’s good”.

Very, “Oh goody, two different blog posts on one pretty bright yellow Post-It”.

And now, very gone. I stuck it somewhere for safekeeping. So safe and so kept I have no idea whatsoever where it’s gone. None. I’ve drawn a blank. My Post-It has been sucked into the Black Hole of Forgotten Reminders, no doubt never to be seen again. What’s the point of the things if they always disappear?

No, that’s wrong, it will turn up eventually, probably when I’m 96 and will be totally incapable of remembering my own name, much less what the Post-It was about.

Thus, I have nothing to gibber on about today. Some (many) might say this is a good thing.

Since I'm totally inspiration free today...

I'm just copying. Some snappy come backs for people who annoy he hell out of you.

• Ok, Ok! I take it back, Unfuck you!
• You say I'm a bitch like it's a bad thing.
• How many times to I have to flush before you go away?
• Well, this day was a total waste of makeup.
• Well aren't we a bloody ray of sunshine!
• Don't bother me, I'm living happily ever after
• Do I look like a fucking people person?
• This isn't an office. It's hell with fluorescent lighting (my personal favourite)
• I started with nothing and I have most of it left
• I pretend to work, they pretend to pay me
• You! Off my planet!
• Therapy is expensive. Popping bubble plastic is cheap. You choose
• Practice random acts of intelligence and senseless acts of self control.
• Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.
• And your cry-baby, whiney-ass opinion would be?
• I'm not crazy, I've just been in a bad mood for the past 30 years.
• Sarcasm is just one more service I offer. (that was obviously written for me!)
• Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
• Do they ever shut up on your planet?
• I'm not your type, I'm not inflatable
• Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven't gone to sleep yet.
• Back off! You're standing on my aura.
• Don't worry, I forgot your name too.
• I just want revenge, is that so wrong?
• I work 45 hours a week to be this poor.
• Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
• Not all men are annoying; some are dead.
• Wait... I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.
• Chaos, panic and disorder... my work here is done.
• Ambivalent? Well, yes and no.
• You look like shit, is that the style now?
• Earth is full. Go home
• Aw, did I just step on your itty bitty ego?
• I'm not tense, I'm just terribly terribly alert (this one's for ChooChoo)
• A hard-on doesn't count as personal growth.
• You are depriving some village of its idiot.

Easy entry

Evidence that I am totally, absolutely and completely bored: I can't even be bothered to write an entry.

So instead, a couple of quotes which, apply very well to the would be "King of the World" just south of us. Poor Dubbya really must be made to realize that ChooChoo is actually Supreme Emperess of the universe, known and unknown. And me? I'm her evil sidekick. I'll be doing the dirty work, ridding the world of likes of Dubbya & Co. Ltd.

Oh, yeah, right, maybe that actually qualifies as good works. But "nice* sidekick" just doesn't quite cut it, does it?



Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. - Russell Baker

We need a president who's fluent in at least one language. - Buck Henry


* It's hard being Canadian!

4 things

OK, enuff already! Chooch harassement has been stepped up, so here’s the 4 things meme… I might have forgotten some, but this is all you get.

4 jobs I’ve had

I worked for the Quebec Winter Carnival in the middle of summer. We had to conceive of, and build, a kiosk at the Old Port in Quebec City for the Tall Ships in 1984. The Tall Ships tanked, and I spent the most boring summer of my life there. And when the Tall Ships actually came to Quebec City, it was a scorcher of a day and people came to watch in our air conditioned kiosk. And let their annoying little kids run around while expecting me to babysit them. I didn’t have much choice as they would’ve torn the fucking place apart if I hadn’t clamped down.

Years later, Mr. Jazz and I realized that we had to have seen each other there, since he was working at a fast food place where I regularly ate. And since there was virtually no one on site....

I worked as a receptionist at a collection agency. With people calling to cry that they couldn’t afford to pay for the TV and such stuff. It was my first job in the big city, my first “on my own” job, my welcome into the world of the office. Annoying as hell it was.

I worked at IBM as a temp during the layoffs in the 90s. I was about the only one around who didn’t walk around with my head between my shoulders, hoping against hope to remain unnoticed, hoping against hope the axe wouldn’t fall. Not a fun atmosphere to work in, but a 6 month contract stretched to over a year.

I worked a total of 1.5 days in a clothing store. Didn’t work out because I loathe being harassed by salespeople when I go into a store and I loathed doing it to people. For minimum wage yet? I think not.

4 shows I watch

Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paquin – Probably no one that reads this except maybe my sister knows this; it’s a French show on Radio Canada. The story of a woman who owns a talent agency. On the eve of giving birth, her boyfriend leaves her for her best friend, opens his own agency and poaches most of her clients. She has the kid, turns out he’s black – the product of a one night stand in New York. This show is hysterical.

Survivor – I’m a junkie. Mr. Jazz forced me to start watching it in the second season. ‘Nuff said. Probst is nice eye candy though.

Lost – except of course when it’s not on which is most of the damn season. I don’t know why I bother. Oh, yes I do. Naveen Andrews.
24 – But only on DVD. It must be so annoying to wait a week for stuff to happen. I wanna be Jack Bauer when I grow up.

4 places I’ve lived:

Boring, but nevertheless:

Greenwood, Nova Scotia – An airforce base in the Annapolis Valley. Yep, I’m an air force brat.

Chicoutimi, Quebec – Cause that’s close to Bagotville, where there’s another base.

Quebec City – Nice place to visit, but I so wouldn’t want to live there again. Very white, very French…

Montreal – The place I’m meant to be. Very multicultural, great restaurants, all sorts of things going on all the time. Even if I don’t hop around bars and cultural events all that much (seeing all the time spent at the cottage), it’s nice to know they’re there.

4 foods:

Mr. Jazz’s BBQ chicken, stuffed with lemons and onions, and jerked to perfection.

I love Tortellini Gigi – the pancetta in the creamy rosé sauce… my mouth waters just at the thought of it.

Otherwise, I’m pretty open so generally:

Vietnamese food - Love love love it.

Indian – Mahli (in Montreal) makes the best damn Channa Samosa in the world.


4 movies I’d watch over and over

Off the top of my head I can’t really think of any. Pretty much anything by Charlie Chaplin though. And maybe Blade Runner.

4 places I’d rather be

- At the ocean, listening to the waves
- Vietnam
- At the cottage
- Taking a nap

(or on the edge of the ocean in Vietnam or at the cottage taking a nap. It's all good)

4 people I'm tagging

It's evil to tag people, but what the hell, it's not like I'll harass them to death, hmmm ChooChoo?

So:

Ticknart

Paula

Jill

Em

Tagged

I've been tagged. ChooChoo said I have to do it. Now, knowing ChooChoo, and since I value my life, I will do it. I just didn't have any time at all today to breathe, much less blog.

Work is highly overrated I think. I was born for a life of leisure, but no one is willing to "keep" me.

Damn.

Have a good weekend, I'm outta here!

Reasonable accomodation

I hesitated for quite a while before posting this, thinking I might be accused of racism, intolerance, or whatever. Then I figured that hell, if I can't say what I think in an anonymous** blog, where can I? Let it be said right here and now that I am not a racist, that I am not intolerant and that basically, I’m probably more tolerant than I often should be about all sorts of things.

Here in Quebec, land of tolerance and live-and-let-live, we have a, principle I guess you’d call it, whereby people can invoke – often in court – something called “reasonable accommodation”. Now lets just say that I’m probably not a reasonably accommodating person, I’m more along the lines over overly accommodating (read: I’m a total wuss and you can walk all over me, then stomp me in the face and I’ll say thanks).

However, recently (over the past couple of years) the concept has been invoked regularly, and depending on the issue, I've been on one side or the other.

There was an incident, way back when, in the town I live, where people were banned from sunbathing in bathing suits in a park near my house because Hassidic Jews passed through and were exposed to the sight. This being said, being exposed to a fat guy in a Speedo slowly baking himself to lobster status is not a fit sight for anyone in my humble opinion. It is a shudder-invoking sight, to say the least. On the other hand, there were all those hot guys... um, ok moving on.

A school in Montreal banned Muslim girls from wearing hijabs. The Muslim community was up in arms, and eventually, the headscarves stayed. Personally, I didn’t see the problem. They want to wear a scarf? Whatever floats your boat. Teenage girls around here walk around with their thongs showing, is that really any less offensive?

Then, it was the Sikh boys who weren’t allowed to wear their kirpans to school. Again, since it was a religious symbol, and after the cause had its day in court, Sikh boys were allowed to wear their ceremonial daggers. The pro side, argued that it was ceremonial, and is never used. Those against argued that, “Damn people, it’s a dagger, it’s a weapon. HELLO!!!” I tended to side with the “um, well, it could be used as a weapon” side of the argument, not necessarily by the Sikh boy, but by someone who might actually take it from him. In these days of taxing in the schoolyard, is that so hard to conceive of?

Then there was the “well we have to wash our feet to pray” controversy, where students at the university (don’t remember which one) were washing their feet in the bathroom washbasins, which, by the standards of those waiting to wash their hands a prayer time was just a little over the top.

And the “we need our own room and not a common non-denominational room to pray in” thing, after which a room was found.

There was incident when Muslim girls had to have the school pool to themselves, with all possibility of seeing into the pool area blocked off, because they couldn't be seen by men.

As an aside, it seems to me that if men are so superior to women, they would be capable of controlling themselves if they see a woman who isn't veiled. I mean, since they're veiling their women to protect them from mens "needs". Do Muslim men so underestimate their capacity for self control? If so, how sad.

This week, it’s the Mile End YMCA. There’s an alleyway between the Y and a Hassidic synagogue and social centre. The yoga and pilates rooms look out onto the alleyway. Kids play in the alleyway while there parents are at the synagogue. The synagogue asked repeatedly that the windows looking out onto the alley be replaced by frosted windows so the children wouldn’t be subjected to the sight of women in shorts and other assorted workout clothes. The windows were replaced (to their credit, the synagogue paid for all labour and materials). People are furious because, among other things, they get no more light…

Now, personally, I’m all for accommodating the other guy. But, is it me or is it getting out of hand? If I emigrate to a Muslim country I’ll wear a hijab, or whatever else I have to wear. They won’t change their laws because I’m not too big on the whole burqua thing. So why, when people move to a secular country, to North America for pete sake, from whence all things nasty and despicable come (though apparently the good life trumps the contemptible aspects of our lifestyle), are we, the offensive and loathsome inhabitants, expected to bend over backwards to accomodate them?

It seems to me that this is going beyond reasonable. Would it be so wrong to put our collective foot down and say: You’re here, this is our society, this is how it works, deal with it?

Just sayin’, ya know?

** Anonymous except for, oh, about 20 friends and close family members.

Rant

I’m sick of sex. Wait, let me rephrase that… I’m sick of the “sexification” of our society.

I’m sick of 12 year olds dressed like hookers.

I’m sick of underboobage. Seriously, what the fuck is up with that? Tops so high the bottom of your boobs show? Why? What’s the point.

I’m sick of looking at girls in low rise jeans so low pubic hair is not an option. At all. And I’m sick of seeing their butt cracks when I’m walking behind them.

I’m sick of hearing about 10 year olds giving blow jobs to boys hardly older than themselves.

I’m sick of billboards with practically naked nubile teenage girls selling everything from hacksaws to winter coats.

I’m sick that society is seemingly geared to making testosterone laden sixteen year olds come in their pants.

Whatever happened to sex appeal? You know, sexy without necessarily flaunting it all, sexy without butt cracks, sexy with, oh, I dunno, a bit of mystery? A bit of “what’s hiding behind there”? Sexy with allure…

There’s nothing erotic about what we’re seeing. Porn chic is just as tiresome as heroine chic was when all the models looked half dead on their feet. ‘Course they still do, but that’s besides the point.

There is nothing chic about porn. Watching porn can be fun between consenting adults, but google Christina Aguillera or Britney Spears and lots of their official photos look like shots from a porn site. Not so much porn chic as skank chic.

Paris Hilton and the latest Vogue cover? Not so much.

Britney Spears and Christina Aguillera with their boobs barely, if at all contained? Not so much either. I mean, c'mon, can you look at the skirt and tell me, seriously that this look is sexy?

It seems to me that if it’s all you see, sex becomes much less, erotic, less titillating, less interesting even. I can’t imagine growing up in such an atmosphere.

I’m really showing my age here, aren’t i?

I’m not advocating going back to a time before pre-marital sex, or back room abortions, a time where sex was a bad thing and had to be hidden away all the time. It just seems to me that it would be refreshing to actually have some of its skankier manifestations under wraps. Add back a bit of mystery.

But what do I know, I’m not 20 anymore…

This and that

Seen in the window of a pet store: *Brand Name*: A healthy dessert for your dog.

What the fuck is that? We’re talking about dogs here. Those animals, which, in the wild, hunt and kill their own food. And eat it raw. And probably sometimes not quite dead when they start on it. These are the animals you want to feed a “healthy dessert” to?

Newsflash. They’re dogs, they don’t need dessert. They’re happy to eat raw bloody meat. Dessert isn’t even on their radar. People, they’re dogs* not people.


For that matter people don’t need dessert either. But that’s a whole other thing.

And healthy dessert? Doesn’t that sort of, I don’t know, negate the whole point of dessert?

Whole other topic: (I really need to find an elegant way to segue into new topics...)

If Mr. Jazz weren’t around to organize my social life, I’d be a hermit. Living deep in a dark, dank cave. Thank god for his social butterfly tendencies.

* No, I don't hate dogs, I love 'em. As well as cats and bunnies and other assorted non human life forms. Actually I probably like 'em much more than human life forms.

A post about nothing.

Once upon a time there was Seinfeld, the show about nothing. Today there is this: a post about nothing, because it’s my blog and I’ll post if I want to, even if I have nothing to say that could even be remotely construed as interesting – so there.

A new month. Again. Already. Time flies (clichés have become clichés for a reason you know) and it’s beautiful in Montreal today, blue blue skies (that deep autumn blue), cool and crisp, with that green, slightly decaying, smell you get in the late fall. Green on the way to dead. Or something.

So, November and we’re that much closer to winter. Is there any way I can actually describe my loathing of winter without this post eventually needing a may-not-be-suitable-for-all-viewers disclaimer? Nope. No way. None at all, so I’ll just shush about that particular topic.

I’m feeling sort of bleh today, but I decided a long time ago that this blog was not the place to roll out and display all my états-d’âme** (because a- it's way outside my comfort zone and b- it's not really interesting at all - I'm no Virgina Woolfe or Sylvia Plath) so I’m not going to do it today. I think y'all pretty much have enough of your own états-d’âme without others throwing theirs in your face. Unless of course you’re a shrink, in which case it’s your job to have crap thrown at you and you are well and highly paid for it so I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.
Talk about an entry going nowhere! Fast. I don’t know why I’m even bothering, except that I feel like writing something. I just didn’t expect it to be quite this horrifically bad. It’s just zipping along the highway towards the proverbial cliff which it will no doubt shortly meet the bottom of (à la Wile E. Coyote) with a decisive…

SPLAT.

**What’s the word in English? Mood is just about it, but the nuance is not quite there; literally it means the state of one’s soul – ain’t that a pretty term

Three Things

While standing naked next to the gym shower this morning, waiting for hot water to arrive from the third circle of hell where the old Forum* seems to keep its boiler (about 5 minutes if you’re the first to shower in the morning), I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I was doing there. Still, somehow it seemed a little easier (just a tad, just a hair’s breadth) than yesterday. I’m not insane enough to believe that eventually I’ll actually like it (the getting up part, not the gym part since I’m probably one of the only people in the known universe who actually likes the gym), but maybe, just maybe getting up before six will go from absolute torture to relative torture. That would be good.

When I was a child, lo these many years ago I never, ever had a Mr. Potato Head. Did he not exist in my time, or were my parents just evil evil people bent on screwing up my childhood by depriving me of him?** Whatever it was, I developed a passion for the spud. Mr Jazz has given me a few, I have Mr. P and his car courtesy of the JazzSis, as well as assorted baby spuds. Today I would like you to meet the latest addition to my menagerie (vegetable stand?) given to my by a friend: Darth Tater. Here he is sitting on the TV at the cottage. How cool is that?

Saw a great movie last night. I had heard very good things about it. I had also heard that it was basically porn (because the actors don’t simulate sex in the movie, it’s the real thing). I guess it’s a matter of point of view. The movie is Shortbus and it’s wonderful and it’s nowhere near porn. Of course, if you have problems with watching real sex on the big screen, you might be better to abstain. I’d also advocate not going with your mom – but I guess that would depend on your relationship with your mom. Most people I know however, well, not so much with the mom.

* The gym is in what used to be the Montreal Forum, home of the Habs and various assorted ghosts. Not that I believe in ghosts, but hey, it’s Hallow’een. The hockey team has moved to the Bell Centre and either the ghosts went with the team or got lost somewhere along the 2-3 km move. The Forum is now the home of my gym, a Cineplex and various restaurants that seem to go under with stunning regularity, only to be replaced my more restos that will go under soon. You’d think they’d learn. Or maybe the ghosts don’t like restaurants.


**I was also deprived of the game Perfection which I wanted so bad. I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had had that game. I'd probably be less of a spazz or, on the contrary, I'd be a twitching slobbering mess, the explosion of Perfection pieces every 45 seconds having traumatized me forever.

Early morning gym sessions

I would like to be one of those fabled morning people. I would also like to be Jack Bauer, ‘cause damn, his life is never boring but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

So, as wishes go, let’s get back to being a morning person. What brought this on? I went back to the gym this morning. To get back to the gym I had to get up at 5:45. Let me tell you, those extra 35 minutes I get when I don’t go to the gym make all the difference in the world. When I get up at 6:20, I’m only useless. At 5:45 I’m basically a zombie.

There’s also the problem of sleep deprivation. Mr. Jazz, he’s the type to manage quite well thank you very much on six hours of sleep. Seven is my bare minimum. At six I can’t even function. Meaning that if I’m to be up at that hour every morning of the week, theoretically I should be in bed – sleeping !!!! – at 10:00 pm. In bed at 10:00, not so much of a problem. Asleep? Much more of a problem.

I suppose one gets used to sleep deprivation. Look at all those bleary eyed parents wandering around. It can be done. I feel it necessary to point out here that I have no children, and the idea of habitual sleep deprivation might be part of the reason.

But I have to get back into shape. The whole asthma thing is apparently much less of a problem if you’re in decent shape. Right now I’m probably in the worst shape I have ever been... and liking it when faced with the alternative of a 5:45 wake up call.

After work at the gym is not an option. After work at the gym is the despised gym bunny hour. These women and their spandex and makeup scare the hell out of me. I’m not sure they’re human. And they descend on the gym in hoards at 5:00 pm. Plus a 5:00 pm gym call means I’m not home before 7:30 at the earliest. Bleh.

So early morning gym session it is. Is there any way to graft happy-early-morning-riser genes onto myself?

More stories of the fifth floor washroom...

The washrooms on our floor are bizarre. We’re talking office washrooms here. How can a lone sock end up on the counter? How can you lose a sock in an office bathroom in October of all months? Wouldn’t you notice it when you get outside?

Then there’s the mystery of the disappearing soap. The building supplies soap in the bathrooms, obviously, but it’s that fluorescent-pink-as-an-alternate-you-can-use-it-to-refinish-your-living-room-floor stuff. Plus it really doesn’t smell that good. So someone from our office brought in a bottle of hand soap. Your ordinary run of the mill Jergens Soft Soap. Nothing fancy. Not Aveda, not Crabtree and Evelyn, not Body Shop. Jergens soft soap at two bucks a bottle. Two days later it was gone. Stolen. Who the hell would steal a two buck bottle of soap? Plus, damn, we were being nice. We left it there so everyone could use it, even the nutjobs from the sixth floor who sneak down to our washroom.

Idjits.

I have rarely, if ever, talked directly about my job here, but today, I gotta tell you, I hate numbers. I hate working with numbers, I hate trying to puzzle out what they mean. They’re just squiggles on a page for me. Numbers make me feel stupid. More to the point numbers make me look stupid. Even more to the point, after a few hours, numbers actually make me stupid.

They don’t talk to me. They turn their backs on me. They are out to get me. Not the best when you work in an engineering firm.

Gimme a new language and I’ll absorb it pretty easily, give me numbers and they’ll wrestle me down, beat me over the head and make me bleed.

Anniversaries

Well, here it is. The moment. Today is my first anniversary on Blogger. No bells and whistles. No fireworks. Wassup with that? I thought blogger would host a huge party or something.

No such luck. I guess I’m spoiled because my birthday coincides with a holiday here in Quebec, so at least I’m always off that day. So I expect something special…

Seriously though, I didn’t think I’d last this long. Really. I thought after a few months I’d get it out of my system and it would just fade away. To my surprise, it’s grown on me. Like all bad habits I suppose.

I also didn’t think I’d end up making such a totally dull entry for my “anniversary”. Geez. Coochoo’s guest blog below is much better. I love that I can nag her into doing stuff for me**.

I’ve been asked to write Jazz’s I’ve-been-on-blogger-for-a-year-post (although she does have a sordid past on Open Diary). I suppose we might also call it a this-is-what-Jazz-gets-paid-to-do-post.

I don’t really have the brainpower to write this right now, but I’m doing it anyway. This is partly because Jazz is my good friend (well, she might be more psychotic than she is good…), but mostly because she nagged me into it, and I’m afraid she’ll turn up on my doorstep if I don’t.

What can I say about Jazz, I wonder? Well, she likes knives. After having divulged all the juicy (gory, blood-splattered, sticky) details on how she almost took her finger off with one on Friday, she goes right onto telling us all about her cleaver on Tuesday, which she is obviously disturbingly proud off, since she’s contemplating bringing it when she visits her friends.

And now Jazz has been a blogger-blogger for a whole year. Who ever thought she’d live this long?

There. All done.




And now back to our regular programming.

Mr. Jazz and I have gotten our hands on seasons 3 and 4 of 24. Yay! So far, in season 3, Jack Bauer has not killed so many people, though he did start a riot in a prison. But I guess you can excuse the low numbers of dead and dying, the guy is, after all, trying to save the world while in heroine withdrawal. ‘Cause Jack? He's going cold turkey. Jack? He’s a mensch.

And on the way home from a cocktail yesterday (me and the Mr. at a cocktail – somehow that just doesn’t quite compute in my head), we passed by the Cinéma l'Amour, Montreal’s last porno movie house. Tuesdays are free for couples. There is definitely a Wednesday blog entry coming up soon on that one.


** After reading this she complained that I can only nag her into doing stuff if she's braindead at that particular moment. I stand corrected.

Cleavers and Beavers

Mr. Jazz and I had dinner with friends last week and at one point one of our hosts (lets call him M) was cutting through a chicken breast. I told him had I known I would have brought my cleaver, which would have made the job that much easier. Plus the thing would actually get some use. It was a gift and I’ve never actually used it, since I don’t often have chickens or rabbits to hack apart.

Actually maybe I should get a rabbit or other furry dead thing to try it on. Cause as it stands, it’s just there. Waiting. Waiting for that madman to break in, at which point I’ll take the cleaver and whack him with it, splitting open his head and the cops will arrest me and I’ll end up in jail and spend the rest my life as Big Bertha’s bitch. While there’s something to be said for being lodged, clothed and fed, being Big Bertha’s bitch… meh, not so much.

Who me? An overactive imagination???

Segue back to the cleaver conversation with M. Because me? I digress.

Once upon a time when television was a young and awesome medium with a bright future, someone invented the sitcom. One sitcom in particular interests us here: Leave It To Beaver.

A quintessential late fifties American family, the Cleavers (hence the tie-in with the knife – I seem obsessed with those lately, but again, I digress). Dad (Ward) goes to work every day doing who knows what. Mom (June) stays home and vacuums in full makeup, heels and pearls, coffee always on, smile plastered on her face, the woman was probably on Librium, or whatever happy pill used to be the norm back then. Then there’s the older brother, Wally, who’s just there for… well, no one knows too much why Wally is around, probably as a sidekick to , the show’s namesake, his little brother Theodore, aka Beaver.

Beaver. Beaver Cleaver. As M pointed out, either they were clueless or the show’s writers had an evil sense of humour putting a name like that on TV in the late 50s. I tend to go with the second possibility. Because Beaver Cleaver? That can't be accidental.

It was a toss up...

... between Bert and Oscar. I was sure it would be one or the other, and Bert won out. For the record, I'm not extremely serious, far from a total neat freak, and more than a little evil.

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Just sayin'

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor. - Neil Gaiman (whoever he is/was)

I found the pic at Elms Puzzles. They make custom wooden jigsaw puzzles. This is from a series by an artist called Gwen Connelly. Ain't it loverly?

Kinves and superstition

The whole knife thing got me wondering about knife superstitions since I knew there was something about how f you receive a gift of knives you have to pay the giver 0.01$ per knife so that the knife doesn’t “cut” your friendship.

Here’s what I found:

- The dropping of a knife foretells the visit of a man friend in the near future.

- And a variation on that one: Dropping silverwear will make company come. Drop a spoon and the company will be female, drop a fork and the company will be male. Dropping a knife will break the spell.

- A knife placed under the bed during childbirth will ease the pain of labor.

- Never give a knife as a housewarming present, or your new neighbor will become an enemy.

- It’s bad luck to make a present of a knife or any other sharp instrument unless you receive something in exchange.

- Never say thank you when handed a knife or you’ll cut yourself.

- Do not use knives or scissors on New Year's Day as this may cut off fortune

And finally:

- A knife as a gift from a lover means that the love will soon end.

That last one is a bit unfortunate since Mr. Jazz gave me the infamous Sanelli slicer. And as of yesterday we have been together 19 years. Good thing I’m not superstitious or I’d have to say, well, it was fun while it lasted.

Things I learned since the weekend

It’s hard to type when you don’t have use of your left index finger

A professionally done dressing on a wound makes it look much worse than it really is.

Six Band-Aids on a wound make it look much less worse than it actually is.

Band-Aids don’t soak up very much blood.

Blood and gore are actually fascinate me. I shoulda been a surgeon. Or a butcher.

It’s annoying to type when you don’t have use of your left index finger. (I think I mentioned that).

It's a good idea to keep your fingers out of harm's way when you're chopping vegetables. Which is why chefs do that fingers curled under thing when they're cutting. Well duh! (yes, go ahead y'all, roll your eyes...)

Sanelli knives are really very very sharp. They have no problem whatsoever slicing through misplaced fingers. Or at any rate slicing off 25% of the nail of an index finger along with assorted skin under and around said nail... is this TMI?

But they’re really great looking with their green and orange handles.

I love me my knives. And this one? It's brilliant, truly it is.

Bus drivers and denial

Something strange has been happening to Montreal bus drivers. It seems the toads with beer bellies have morphed into handsome princes. I’m not exactly sure when this happened, but damn, this morning on my way to work I ended up with two hot bus drivers. Hot young bus drivers. Seriously. Look, when a guy is hot enough to make me take a second look at 7:10 in the morning, he is definitely exceedingly sizzling.

Seems to me bus drivers were all the oldish guys with beer bellies, now they’re getting younger and younger. Hell, soon they’ll be plucking them right out of high school.

What? Whachoo sayin’ ? It’s not them getting younger it’s me getting older? I don’t think so… No, really, I’m not… Who, me? Denial?? Well, ok, um… Hot young bus drivers. OMG! Ewwww! Ewwww! Ewwww! I’ve turned into one of those dirty old men…um ladies… leering at the young ‘uns. Christ, someone shoot me now!


Speaking of denial…

DeNile, it has often been said, is not just a river in Egypt. I stand here before you and confirm that. Every year, towards the end of summer I’m struck by a huge dose of the stuff. Because me? I refuse to admit that summer has ended. It. Must. Go. On.

Forever.

But today, finally, I snapped out of it. No more sandals, no more flirty little skirts. The summer, she is gone. Vamoosed. Off to better climes. It was 4 degrees this morning (that’s 39 for those of you who haven’t joined the rest of the universe in metric). Yesterday it snowed in London (Ontario of course).

And to think it’s gonna get a helluva lot worse before it gets any better… Idiot explorers, you’d think they’d have had the wits to veer South.

Actually I’m sure the first people they met told ‘em, “Um, guys, you might want to take your asses South. You’re not gonna appreciate it here in the next few months.”

Of course the explorers (in our case, Jacques Cartier, a French dude, an obviously very suspicious French dude) must have said, “Ah, zey want us to leave! Zey must have somesing wort stealing”.

So they stayed.

And the rest, as they say is history.

Two things…

How come now that we have all these “time saving” gadgets, cell phones, blackberries, and other such thingies, we have much less time than we used to?

Seems like the only people who actually have time on their hands are those who have eschewed those same gadgets.

Just a thought.



The Journal de Montréal, Montreal’s very own tabloid carried a series of articles yesterday on anorexia and the media’s role in “promoting” it. How young women develop anorexia because they see too many emaciated models in magazines, etc. etc. And no, I don’t want to get into that debate.

However, the Quebec Minister of Health has announced today that this obsession with thinness must stop. He will apparently be going to modeling agencies and such to speak to them about it.

Yep, you heard it here first. Anorexia will stop because Couillard is gonna take matters into his chubby capable hands. I can’t help but wonder what measures he can actually take? Anyone with a BMI under normal will be whisked away and force fed until they’re nice and curvy? Will he institute a ban on fashion magazines with skinny models? Will models have to go underground?

Don’t ya just love it when the government, because of an outcry over a few sensationalistic articles in a tabloid, jumps on the bandwagon, fists waving and hopping up and down in righteous indignation?

And we’re supposed to have total respect for these people. Media whores, all of ‘em.

Inane observations from a dumbed down brain

At least I have an excuse; I was on vacation all last week. Now my brain is numb from the misery of being back in the office. Not that I loathe my job mind you, it’s more a case of I’m “just not that into you” on the first day back. And now:

- The area where I work smells of poo today. The chi-chi area of town. It smells like poo. Go figure…

- The ladies who lunch, still lunch and are still annoying as hell.

- I can’t help but find it totally surreal that the nuclear powers of the world are screaming about the non-proliferation of nuclear arms now that Korea has it. “No more nuclear arms! You have no right to have them!” I don’t hear any of them saying they’ll get rid of their own though. Is it just me or is there a certain irony there?

Not that our friend Kimmy should actually have nuclear arms. The man is a fucking lunatic. But what are more sanctions gonna do? Simply make North Koreans’ lives even more difficult. Kimmy? He’s not gonna feel the pain. At. All.

- While we were gone, road tripping on those wonderful American roads, an overpass collapsed in Montreal, killing five. A few weeks earlier, the government was saying how Quebec roads were in great shape – obviously these people don’t drive from place to place, they fly. This is the second overpass to collapse in the past 5-7 years in the Montreal area. You’d think we live in a fuckin’ third world country. Roads disappear all the time in Nepal – but that’s because mountains sorta slip onto them… (OK, well blogger refuses to add a picture here - but I'm sure you can imagine what a collapsed overpass looks like)

- Montana is beautiful. I could live there. Lots of space, very few people. Huge sky, way more horses than people. Did I mention very few people? I’d have no trouble living in a place where six horses live in my neighbour’s yard. Look at this! I rest my case.

Of course, once I got a hankering for the city I'd no doubt be miserable, but there you go. I'm an idiot that way.

- For all those who think me a cynic, I recently read somewhere that a cynic is simply a disillusioned idealist. Just sayin’.

Literary musings

I have a problem with books. They cause me no end of frustration. A couple of months ago, I got rid of eight boxes of books, you know, those big boxes paper comes in for offices? You can stuff a good number of books in one of those.

Eight boxes. Yep. ‘Cause the Jazzer? She needed space on her shelves – which cover two walls of the front room, floor to ceiling. Lots of shelf space. Lots of full shelf space. So I emptied eight boxes worth. And I gotta tell you, if there is a hell, for me it will be spending all eternity getting rid of some of my books. In sub-zero temperatures. Naked.

The shelves? They’re overflowing again. Hence the frustration. I’m sure my books are fornicating and making baby books in the deep dark of night. (History + novel = historical novel) Or something. ‘Cause me? I dunno where they’re coming from. They mutliply like some evil mutant virus that will take over the world. Or at any rate my living space.

It has gotten to the point where I’ve decided to set them free. Soon as I finish one that I don’t feel compelled to keep, I leave it somewhere for someone else to pick up. Let them take over someone else's space for a change...

I left one at a food fair last week and the next day I saw someone in that same food fair reading it. So maybe this is working. Maybe I’ll be able to get rid of those spawns of literary fornication soon after they arrive. I mean, what else can I do, I can’t really go to the lake and drown them like kittens. I just don’t have the heart. Despite their evil mutant status.



Today is my last day before a well deserved vacation. Well I think so anyway; others might beg to differ but I don’t much care about that. Going out west for a week to see family in Seattle and Montana. I can’t wait!

Hopefully no books will smuggle themselves into my baggage on the way back.

Ohmygawwwd!

As I did my weekly perusal of the brilliantly funny What not to knit blog, brought ot us by the same people responsible for What not to crochet, I came upon this link:

Mohair Knitter

This seriously begs the question, why, I ask, would you want to wear fuzzy mohair leggings, or shorts, or a mohair catsuit... or a fushia mohair balaclava that makes you look like nothing so much as Chewbacca with a bad dye job?


And then there's this:

This is a "Fuzzy Mohair Willy Warmer" I'm all for a warm willy, I would love for Mr. Jazz to be able to always keep his willy warm, but wouldn't this be terribly itchy on those delicate boy parts? Just sayin', ya know?

These items are for sale on Ebay. Do people actually buy them? As gifts, as jokes? I'm sure this has to be a joke... I mean, seriously, a willy warmer?

I guess I'm setting myself up for a nasty comment if the knitter in question googles herself, as happened here with Marjorie. But hey, you put stuff like that on the net, you expose yourself.

Obsevation and irritations

Observation:

Over the past few months I’ve noticed** something while following links from blog to blog.

There are a lot of funny, intelligent blogs out there. Of those funny, intelligent blogs I’ve noticed that those belonging to men, tend to attract female commenters much more than other men. Hoards of female commenters. Perhaps simply because women are more comfortable commenting.

Come to think of it, the funny, intelligent blogs belonging to women also attract female commentors.

The interesting thing is the tone of the comments. Comments on women’s blogs, tend to sound "girlfriend to girlfriend-ish" (for want of a better term).

When women comment on the men’s blogs, however, the comments often have a whole different, almost fawning tone; very “highschool girlish”. It’s totally bizarre, as if they’re out to impress the boys and stroke their egos. Takes me waaaaaay back. Shudderingly far back.

It’s as if they're competing, jockeying for position, out to prove they are smarter and wittier than the others, and more worthy of attention.

This is especially stange when the same person comments on two different blogs, one written by a guy and one by a woman…

It’s a whole different world. Totally surreal.

Irritations:

For the record :
- you know it’s gonna be a bad day when you WAKE IUP with a tension headache.
- Christmas decorations have no freaking business in stores yet. It’s not even October for chrissake. I can almost understand Hallow’een stuff, but Christmas? Geez!


** ChooChoo and I were discussing this phenomenon just this morning.

Pre-dawn wakeup calls

Today, for the first time in four months, I went to the gym. I hadn’t stayed away out of boredom or the need to sleep that extra hour or so (well, maybe there was a bit of the sleep is nice thing), but rather because of health issues, namely that I developed asthma. Any shortness of breath led to a coughing fit that lasted a minimum of five minutes, not good when you actually like to breathe. Asthma. At middle age. What the hell is with that? Seriously, how do you develop asthma at this age? But I digress. Again. It seems like I spend half my time digressing from my chosen subject. But at least I can say: But I digress. I love that phrase. OK shaddap Jazz…

Moving on.

So this morning at the break of dawn (or before?), at any rate around 5:30, I rolled myself out of bed and stood up. Interesting feeling being vertical at that time of day (night?), well no, actually not that interesing, but different. Yep, definitely different. Notice I don’t say awake. Awake was so not part of the equation. At. All. I stumbled to the kitchen to mumble mornin’ to Mr. Jazz (or was that a hallucination?) and get a glass of juice. Torture seems a little less pointless if you have a tall glass of OJ first. Tropicana. And no, they're not paying me to plug their product. Not like the Sopranos where in one episode Tony and Carmela stood in the driveway arguing because she got Tropicana with (or was it without? who cares) pulp. That was so wrong, so very very obvious, so totally out of context and character... oops. Say it with me folks: BUT I DIGRESS!

After four months away from the gym, I realized I have lost everything I had gained in that place over the past 6-7 years of regular, if not religious attendance. Fitness-ly speaking I have become a blob. Blob doesn’t even begin to cover it, actually. What is even less fit than a blob?

It’s sad, but it’s gone. All gone. Any smidgeon of fitness has disappeared from my life. A corpse is probably fitter than me at this point.

After five minutes I was huffing, after 10 I was puffing, at 15, I basically would’ve loved to become the aforementioned corpse. After 30 minutes ellipticating I was a shaky, sweaty mess.

But there were no coughing fits. Damn, I love drugs!

You know....

... when you have absolutely nothing to say?




OK, well that about covers it for right now.

Whoa!

This is the coolest video!

Giant Puppet

As I'm from Mtl - 3 guesses as to what this is about

By now everyone knows about the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal yesterday. I imagine 99.7% of Montreal bloggers have talked about it. Of course that’s all anyone is talking about today – at least in the area I work in which is a stone’s throw from Dawson. Never one to buck the trends, here’s my take on it, for what little it’s worth.

What has struck me the most about this whole thing is, of course, media coverage. Yes, I know I’m a cynic, but this is beyond cynicism. On the way home, I was listening to the news and I’d say 90% of it wasn’t news. It was gossip, it was speculation, it was let’s call people who were involved in the Polytechnique attack in 1989 and interview them… What the fuck? That they lived through something like this almost 20 years ago makes them experts on what was going through the killer’s head this time? And is it really necessary to dredge that up again?

Back home, on TV it was the same type of coverage. I was thinking that maybe it was because I was listening to talk radio, and talk radio being what it is, you can expect that kind of behaviour. The same images over and over again, nothing more to say, but let’s show the blood again, lets keep beating the dead dog, who knows, maybe it’ll get up and bite.

I’ve been feeling a distinct unease. The media coverage of “disasters” is always somewhat distasteful to me. I get the feeling that… I dunno, I can’t help but feel that the line between genuine interest and news is very quickly crossed into voyeurism, plain and simple. We need a story. Let’s get a story.

And this one will be milked for all it’s worth. And we’ll be hearing “news” that is much more detailed and gruesome than what anyone needs to know. But definitely not beyond what people want to know.

I realize the media are simply giving people what they want, but what people want is sick. Do they thrive on this type of thing as a sort of talisman against it happening to them?

Apparently the killer was of Sri Lankan descent, or maybe not. Anyway he was born here but his parents emigrated. Mark my words, within a few days you’ll have the whole You-let-these-immigrants-in-and-look-what-they-do debate. Actually from what Mr. Jazz overheard, it already has. Which is incredibly stupid, but there you go. Always look outside yourself for what’s wrong with the world.

On the bright side, we made it onto CNN, the network for which no world exists outside the US. I think that's pretty damn good of us... ok, well I can't not be cynical at ALL in a post. Gimme a break! I tried.



PS: I’m really not happy with this entry – things are still rather muddled in this old head. Give me your opinions on this please.

PPS: This also explains why I mostly ignore the news - unless it's totally impossible.

Yay!

One good thing to say for fall: Rick Mercer* is back to blogging! My day just got infinitely better.

Rick Mercer's blog/


* You might have to be Canadian to understand the bliss which is Mercer...

Tsk tsk Mr. Gore

Well, this is interesting. An article in yesterday's USA today denouncing Al Gore and his carbon-neutral lifestyle thing. He's really great at promoting his movie about the apocalyptic end of the world if we keep living like we do, but apparently, the man isn't big into practicing what he preaches. Not that I'm all that surprised.

Now, I'm not saying the's right or wrong about the global warming thing, but here's the USA today article and link...

I love when holier than thou politicians (which is bascially all of them) are exposed as the frauds they are - no matter what side of the political spectrum they are on...


LINK TO THE ARTICLE

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe

Updated 8/10/2006 10:44 AM ET

By Peter Schweizer

Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin."

Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.

For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.)

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.

Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, "Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence." The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has "tried to move people to act." Yet, astoundingly, Gore's persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee.

Maybe our very existence isn't threatened.

Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas.

Living carbon-neutral apparently doesn't mean living oil-stock free. Nor does it necessarily mean giving up a mining royalty either.

Humanity might be "sitting on a ticking time bomb," but Gore's home in Carthage is sitting on a zinc mine. Gore receives $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc, which operates a zinc concession on his property. Tennessee has cited the company for adding large quantities of barium, iron and zinc to the nearby Caney Fork River.

The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life? Giving up the zinc mine or one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

Lunchtime observations

Wow, it’s actually really warm today. Summer warm and sunny. But they’re predicting crappy weather for the weekend. Good thing, ‘cause I don’t know if I could actually deal with a weekend of good weather after all this time.

A shrug is not a good piece of clothing at the best of times. How the shrug became a fad is totally beyond me. No one looks good in a shrug. It’s a sweater that was never completed. Now, when you’re wearing a shrug and your middle is bigger than your top and, to make things worse, you’re wearing a big studded belt around your middle just to emphasize it more, well, um, how to put this delicately… ok, it can’t be put delicately. It looks horrendous. Shrugs are evil. ‘Nuff said.

Why to teenagers screech? Well, teenage girls screech. Teenage boys scream at the top of their lungs. All of them. All. The.Time. What’s up with that?

Was I like that? All in all it’s a good thing I’m not a parent ‘cause most of the time I just wanna bitch slap ‘em and tell them to shut the fuck up already.

I know, I’m a bitch; what's more, I'm an intolerant bitch.

Blogging Meme

I found this on Toast's blog, and decided to become the next “victim”. Besides, it’s way easier than actually coming up with something on my own.

1) Are you happy/satisfied with your blog’s content and look?

I’m obviously ok with the he content, since I’m the one putting it there. It would be really dumb of me to blog about stuff I don’t like to blog about. As for the look, sure – again I chose it. I’m sure it would be different if I had my own URL – but I’m too cheap to pay to blog – but if I did have my own, my niece would be the designer. I would like to add more pics to it, but I’m just way too lazy (bringing pics to photoshop, linking them... besides I don't have a digital camera so that implies scanning – I simply can't be bothered).

2) Does your family know about your blog?

My sister and brother do, as do their kids I think. I even got my brother blogging (and get your ass moving on that big brother). Only problem is, now that I blog, my sister told me once that she feels she knows what’s going on with me on a daily basis, so I think we actually call each other less often (which is in great part my own damn fault, cause I hate phoning people).

3) Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?

I have a journal for private stuff. I decided when I began to blog that I wouldn’t be sharing my life in detail – because a) it’s really not that interesting and b) I wouldn’t want stuff I might be embarrassed about floating around the Net.

I’m perfectly capable of totally embarrassing myself in front of my friends in real time, thank you very much.

4) Did blogging cause positive changes in your thoughts?

I’ve never thought about it. I find myself observing stuff more though, because things going on around me have become fodder for blogging.

5) Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or do you love to go and discover more by yourself?

I’m not one of those bloggers with a following. I know the people who comment and obviously I read their blogs. Comments from people I don’t know are few and far between. I love to follow links on blogs to other blogs and have discovered lots of really cool ones that way.

6) What does a visitor counter mean to you? Do you like having one on your blog?

I saw one on Toast’s blog and installed one, but it doesn’t really mean anything to me. I recently discovered that you can actually get statistics from them. But again, I don’t have a following and I don’t much care who visits and how often. You like reading it, fine. If you don’t it really makes no difference to me.

7) Did you try to imagine your fellow bloggers and give them real pictures?

Some of them. And funny enough when I see a picture and they’re not at all what I imagined, I just basically ignore the picture and stay with how I had seen them in my mind. I've never posted a picture of myself on my blog though.

8) Admit it. Do you think there is any real benefit in blogging?

Real benefit? There might be for some, but not for me.

One blog I read is by an illustrator and it's on her professional website, so for her it can be professionally beneficial. 'Course I suppose it also limits what she can say to a certain extent.

I guess blogging helps some people articulate stuff and keep in contact with friends and family.

For me… it amuses me. Sometimes it gets me thinking about stuff, reading other's blogs is interesting - I'm a voyeur that way. I guess the biggest benefit for me is that I’ve become more observant of the world around me, and I'm writing more.

9) Do you think that blogger’s society is isolated from the real world or interaction with events?

I have no idea. I would imagine it depends on the blogger. It doesn’t isolate me from the real world – gives me a break from it sometimes perhaps, but that’s about the extent of it.

I suppose it depends how seriously one takes one’s blogging.

10) Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing?

I guess it might if the criticism was bitchy just for the sake of bitchiness. Nobody wants to be told that their blog sucks. But at the same time, whatever, you know? Criticism is absolutely normal to the extent that you are putting a blog out in cyberspace where millions of people can actually see it. You can't be all things to all people.

Early this week I had a comment on an old entry. The person in question was very pissed off about the comment I had made. This person had obviously googled her name to see what was out there about her. She didn’t like what I said about her book. If it’s public, whether it’s a book or a blog, it’s open to criticism, good or bad. If you let every little comment get to you, whether in life or on a blog, life is gonna be hard hard hard. It's just a blog, who cares what people think.

11) Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?

No. I avoid political stuff in general, not just in the blogging world, not out of fear, but rather out of boredom.

12) Were you shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?

Bloggers were arrested?!?!?! What on earth for?!??

13) What do you think will happen to your blog after you die?

Um, it’ll die with me obviously, unless there is life after death and blogging is possible from there. And frankly, again, who cares. I won't be around to be bothered by it.

14) What song do you like to hear? What song would you like to link to on your blog?

No idea. Something by Marillion probably.

15) The next “victims”?

Whoever wants to do it… I dare ya!