15 posts from 2008

When I was a young lad about the age of 12 or 13 something very important happened in my life. Now, one can  speculate that it was some epic life altering event like a death or big move but that would be way off. The life altering event to which I am referring is my family's accuasition of a "Black Box". What a "Black Box" did was give us free access to all the cable channels including Pay Per View. Now why is this life altering you ask? Well if you remember once the sun went down and the clock struck 11:00 PM PPV entered what was called "After Dark". To put it simply "After Dark" meant porn aplenty. So my families acquisition of a "Black Box" introduced me to the wonderful world of porn.

During the "Black Box's" heyday it was not uncommon for me to get extremely excited upon hearing that my parents would be out for the evening. I'm sure that I could also be heard sneaking down the stairs late a night from time to time to satisfy my ..... umm well let's call it "curiosity". My favourite part was when I would be laying in my bed late at night and begin to hear moans of pleasure and ecstasy coming from the basement*. Yup that's right! Dad was watching porn. Oh how I used to laugh myself to sleep.

So today I went out my parents place to celebrate my sister turning 23. As my family and I were sitting at the dinner table conversation eventually turned to my fathers new (illegal) satellite system. So there  he is telling me about all the movie channels and American stations he gets for free. A coy smile began to curl across my face and I asked "Dad what about the porno" Without hesitation he looks me square in the face and says "Tim......I have 18 channels of porn". Upon further investigation I found that not only are there 18 channels of porn but they run 24/7 and vary in subject matter. This I leaned from a follow up conversation with my mom who professed to having no aversion to transsexual people but couldn't really understand how someone would find transsexual porn appealing.

Maybe she should ask Dad?

*Editor's note: I meant to infer that the sounds of pleasure were coming from the TV not my Dad.

Couldn't sleep last night so I figured I'd bitch about the Olympics.

Ok first off China sucks! Now I don't mean that people from China suck or anything Chinese sucks I just mean that as far as countries go they have some pretty shady stuff going on. I find it odd that for a country that claims to be Communist and a "friend of the worker" they have an awful lot of sweatshops around. It's no secret that China has a long history of human rights abuses but what country doesn't these days. I hear that those global torture summits are just off the hook. Let's not forget about our friends in Tibet and Hong Kong and their issues with the Chinese government. Oh yeah! Did I mention that China is the piracy capital of the world? Another title where Canada is only second best. For all these reasons and more I can't think of any better place to host the Olympic games.

A reporter once asked the Prim Minister if Canadian athletes would be staying home from Beijing, Stephen Harper responded and I quote "When a boycott takes place only the Athletes lose". Well I got news for you Stevie. You didn't keep our athletes home and they're still losing. At last check we are 17th in the medal count behind such Summer Olympic power houses like Jamaica and Belarus. So not only did Canada miss a huge opportunity to stand up for the rights of the down trodden and oppressed but we're not even kicking some trampoline or rowing ass. Another win on the global stage for our robotic Prime Minister.

Finally I pose a question to you my friends. How much coverage of the Beijing games have you actually watched? Personally I'm sitting at zero but that's due to a conscious decision of mine made prior to the games but what about all of you?

I noticed something interesting about the Toronto subway the other day. Like any other mass transit system there are advertisements everywhere. In the cars, on the platforms and by the doors as you enter the train. What I noticed is that about 90% of the ads in the subway are for the same type of product; cell phones. Now I understand that cell phones are marketed towards commuters. So on that level it makes sense to put ads on vehicles on which commuters travel,

My problem with having cell phone ads on the subway is that cell phones will not work while in the TTC system. Sure once you get north of Eglington Ave. the subway ceases being underground and becomes more of a "way". Once you are riding the train above ground you may be able to get some sort of service but it's sketchy at best. More often then not once you are above ground your cell will pick up to much interference from the train itself to work.

I just found it rather odd that Bell, Rogers, Telus, Koodo, Virgin and all the other cell phone providers would advertise to such an extent in locations where their products are all but useless.
 
Pro Tip: Try making a cell phone that will work on the subway and the advertise accordingly.
    

It has been absolutely forever since I last blogged. I am out of practice and need to come back with a vengeance. I offer nothing but 100% more Comma and 300% more error. Stay tuned.

Full disclosure: I'm a holiday hater, Christmas, Halloween, hell I even have a problem with Thanksgiving. Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against the "familiness" of holidays; my problem is normally with the commercialization associated with celebrations placed throughout the year. Today my target is April Fool's Day.  Today is just another occasion where brainwashed consumers go out and force feed the economy with money. Money for whoopee cushions, fake vomit and silly string. Damn you practical joke industry! NO JOKES FOR PROFITS!

So today instead of contributing to the corporate joke machine with another ink gum purchase maybe just buy your coworker a cup of coffee? Unless of course the idea of a humble Colombian farmer working for slave wages bothers you? In which case try a nice cup of nails because at least those are made by Union labour right here in North America.
 

Went into work Tuesday morning. I showed up at the usual time ate my bagel and began to work. At about 8:45am I received an email invitation to a meeting with my director at 9:00am. I find that anytime a supervisor wants to speak to me that it's never good news. Today was no exception, she began with "Tim it's time for us to have a difficult conversation." At this point I've already checked out. After about 20 minuets of discussion I stood up shook her hand and thanked her for the opportunity. I must say that I was pretty elated at the fact of losing my job. Elated because to be honest, I was bored as shit!

I had spent the last 2 weeks pouring over laser toner POS data. Basically my job involved staring at a monitor and clicking a lot. It felt a bit like Diablo but not being a fan of such grindy grind fests, yeah I was bored. I know it sounds trite but I'm really taking this as an opportunity.

I'm super excited to hit the ground running again and begin searching  for a job I might actually like.

While I was getting the "You're fired speech" my boss pretty much told me that I'm way too creative for a job in an operations capacity. Which my brain interpreted as "You should be writing dummy". So it's time to search for that ever elusive full-time writing job, I've already applied for one at Capcom and am still looking for other opportunities, I might even try to get two or 3 part time or blogging gigs. Who knows?

After two jobs that started great and then became boring as all hell, it's time to stop settling. It's time to make this happen.

Over the weekend I admitted my feelings to a girl that I have fallen in love with. Much to my astonishment she reciprocated. Both of us being bloggers we talked about how to best express our feelings to the inter-tubes.  So after a couple of days thinking about the situation and absorbing my new found happy feelings I was ready to write. Last night I wrote up a nice little piece only to have it destroyed by IE7. At first I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to let the world and of course the object of my affection see what I had put together. I was put at ease when the subject at hand gave it a nice perspective. She felt that since I had lost the post in a freak accident it just wasn't meant to be shared with the world. And you know what? She was right. More passion, emotion and feeling can be conveyed by a look of endearment or that one magical kiss.

First_sunset_08

Well hello there Mr. Sunset, long time no see. Oh wait! Don't go, please I wish to talk. How is your wife Sunrise?........

Ladies and gentlemen, the Sun has gone down.

Too bad I missed him. For the last 4 months Sunset and I have had kind of a Poke-A-Roo relationship. I always seem to just miss him. On weekday mornings I normally leave my house for work at about 6:15am. I don't need to tell you that during the winter months it is pitch black outside at such an hour. Last week I noticed something while waiting for the bus... The street lights turned off. It made me smile a bit inside, smile because of the thought that spring would soon come. However, the copious amount of snow on the ground were indicating otherwise.

This past weekend was daylight savings time. I can't remember if it was the end or the beginning but I don't think anyone can. The only thing people are meant to know about daylight savings time is that it is "Spring forward, fall back" and to change the batteries in our smoke detectors. Prior to this past weekend I had been enjoying some bountiful early light when "stupid farming saving time" comes along snatches it away. A shame, it made me sad. At least until my ride home today.  Where after a long day of work I was treated to the lovely sunset pictured above. It was a nice compensation for losing that first blush.

I know my crappy camera/phone doesn't do the sunset justice and for that I apologize for it was the most brilliant red. So bright yet slightly hidden by the clouds it was a shame it had to disappear beyond the horizon. I'm sure I'll see Mr. Sunset again but his appearance today more so than the streetlights last week, made me smile inside.

RCSS_Store

Would they have different products there? Might one find tools of revolution?Other like minded individuals who wish to overthrow the Harper Government? Or maybe just a bunch of American flags.

I ponder this question after my family made 3 trips to the grocery store in as many days. That seems like a lot but every time we ended up leaving with different products. Well, except me of course. I'm only ever tagging along to buy more Ginger Ale and candy so I can make sugar fuelled blog posts like this one.

Going to the grocery store with your parents can teach you a lot. For instance on these particular trips I learnt two things about my Dad. I mention this as significant because my father is very quite. It's really hard to learn anything about him actually. The best way to do so I find is to observe him. He acts much more candidly when he assumes no one is paying attention.

So the two things I leaned; first and foremost I found out that my Dad really likes raisin bread. I mean REALLY likes Raisin Bread. When we got to the store yesterday all he could talk about for the first 20 minutes was raisin bread and how he needed to get some.

Raisin_bread

At some point Dad wanders off and disappears, I assume it's procure a loaf of raisin bread. Upon his return I politely ask "Did you get your raisin bread?" His facial expression said it all; they were out of raisin bread. Then my Dad starts to muse about the reasons why there is no raisin bread.

According to him "It's all in the back" and they're going to bring it out as soon as he leaves. So he suggests asking on of the many stock boys milling around the store. Little did I know that even with mentioning this idea he had no intention on following through. Which brings me to the second thing I learnt about my dad.

My Dad is afraid to ask anyone for help. Still longing for his raisin bread he lets stock boy after stock boy walks right on by while he remains bread-less. I ask him "Dad why don't you ask one of those dudes?" Silence....."I'm sure they've bread in the back" More silence. At that moment I realized that he didn't want raisin bread anymore. He would not accept any bread if he had to depend on someone else to get it.

That little exchange right there explains more to me about my father than any heart-to-heart talk or other cliché "male bonding excursion ever could.

*UPDATE On the 3rd trip to the grocery store Dad finally got his rasin bread. 

**What? Did you think I was kidding about "Adventures in Grocery Shopping"?