Initiative

A former work colleague of mine told me a story about his 10 year old daughter today that made me proud and restored my faith in the American youth of today. P. lives in New York state and his daughter has a pen pal in Scotland. On her own initiative this weekend after hearing about the possible financial bailout and about McCain for the past several weeks, she took it upon herself to search for real estate in Scotland in the same neighbourhood as where her pen pal lives. Friggin' hilarious! What parent wouldn't be proud of that? Cracks me right up.

I am so smart, S-M-R-T!

Despite me feeling like a total dumbass, I still have to say that it's nice to know that I live in a very safe building. I went out last night to a birthday celebration. I came in pretty late and locked the deadbolt in the apartment behind me. The man got up early to go get his hair cut and said "Come here, look what you did!" Well, I had indeed turned the deadbolt but I had not shut the door first so basically the door was wide open all night/morning, nice; I suppose I had a little more to drink than I had thought! No one walked in and took anything so I have to say that I feel pretty safe in our new digs!

Living la vida National Enquirer

People who talk about the stock market, bailout plans, interest rates, etc. as if they have some sort of actual knowledge of these things are coming out of the woodwork this past week. All of a sudden everyone and their dog are speaking out about their theory on the US economy. Did y’all get an economics degree, an international banking background and a degree in US history and politics since last week when I talked to you and you did not even know what a ‘greenback’ was? That or most of you are talking out of your asses (noooo that can’t be!). Either way, it’s becoming highly annoying. Oh, and for the last time, just because it was on CNN does not make it the gospel, mmmkay???

Coach intervention

Coach had a huge sale on this week at their store on Burrard Street. It was absolute mayhem: women everywhere grabbing at anything and everything, beautiful wallets and handbags at fire sale prices, ladies following one another to make sure they were actually buying the bag and not putting it back on the shelf, etc. It was a pretty fun way to spend a lunch hour really. I went there with my fave posse from work and we helped one colleague in particular as he shopped for a handbag for his very stylish wife. He had a hideous looking denim-esque Coach bag in his hand and we all saw it from different corners of the store and rushed in to tell him that it was ugly and to put it back. It was a true intervention and it was beautiful how we all came together to make sure that P’s wife did not get an ugly looking handbag, ahhh teamwork.

Crosswalks are bad

You know who you are *chirp, chirp*; do you push the walk button over and over and over again at an intersection every damn morning all the while that chirpy sound the button makes is driving everyone at the bus stop beside you absolutely bonkers? *chirp, chirp* Notice how people tell you to friggin’ stop doing that *chirp, chirp, chirp*, that it doesn’t make the light change any faster every single day *chirp, chirp*? You wear the same pink, ill-fitting jacket everyday so you’re pretty hard to miss. *chirp, chirp, chirp* For 3 straight minutes, every single weekday, you make me and everyone else at that bus stop want to slap you silly *chirp*.

Oasis Car Wash

Is it just me or does everyone at the Oasis Car Wash in North Van look like an escaped convict? We bring Hatchy there about once a month for a wash and a wax. The men there all wear orange jump suits, look scruffy, smoke heavily and they all have scary looking tattoos and piercings. It’s kind of a freaky looking place but man they do a good job and all for only $15.

Office Etiquette 101: Speakerphone & you

People who conduct loud conference calls on speakerphone without shutting their office door…Hellooooo, I too am trying to get some work done here. We get that you are trying to make sure that we all hear just how important you are but could you please close the damn door already so the rest of us can get some work done already?

Bus Batman

I seem to be on the same time schedule as the new vigilante of the #19 Stanley Park/Metrotown bus. He has taken it upon himself to educate the masses on the proper way to disembark on a bus. The other day a woman was holding her toddlers small little hand and was stepping off the bus at her stop. A pushy woman behind her decided that they weren’t moving fast enough so she slammed into momma and toddler which sent momma on her butt on the friggin’ sidewalk. Cue Bus Batman! He came flying off the bus slamming pushy lady into a tree and screamed “are you freakin’ kidding me??”. Pushy woman gets up looking all stunned while everyone on the bus cheered and those of us who got off at the same stop all gave Bus Batman fist bumps, booyah, in your face pushy people. Learn some goddamn manners already.

Wireless Wave sucks ass

I have been a loyal customer of Wireless Wave for about 10 years now, considering how they treat me though, I have no idea why. My Sony Ericsson cellphone is a complete lemon. When people call me, the line goes dead and I cannot restart the phone for about 30 minutes or so, piece of shit, no? I brought the phone in back in May and they ‘fixed’ it saying that it was a software issue. Fine, cool. Well, it started acting up again and I bring it back for the 2nd time and the gal at the counter argues with me saying I have never brought it in before. Umm WTF? I show her the service bill from May and her jaw drops and I’m like “so are you going to apologise for calling me a liar?” and she keeps opening and closing her mouth like a guppy. Customer service licks these days. Piss me off.

I wouldn’t even line my birdcage with it

Stephen Harper is such a dipshit that it's almost beyond beating a dead horse to say so. Calling him a fucking idiot is akin to saying that water is wet. It's like, DUH! What's the point in even saying it anymore? I have now received 5 flyers mailed to my home covering the topics of: safe injection sites, car theft, crime, etc. I am not ever going to vote Conservative and it pisses me off that my tax dollars are paying for these stupid ass flyers to be delivered to me. Piss off and how about putting my money towards something useful like hospitals, childcare and highways? I don’t want your conservative propaganda and frankly, you and your powder blue sweater vests scare me.

Hooked on fonix werked fer me

I read this interesting article in Time today. I am of the camp that believes that we should not bend in order to accommodate those who cannot spell. I work and correspond with people who cannot spell simple words on a daily basis; it is truly appalling. I am not talking about those who are 25 years and younger who were lucky enough to grow up with spell check as their bitch, but I am talking about those of us who actually learned how to spell but seem to have forgotten the basic, simple rules of the English language (those who are ESL or who have a learning disability are obviously exempt from my rant!). The one line that really got me in this article though was from someone complaining about how something as trivial as spelling can lead to someone not getting a job because of an error on their CV. Ummm so it should! If you are too damn lazy to manually spell check and review your CV then what kind of employee would you make? Probably a lazy and sloppy employee at best.

False advertising at its finest

Are you sure about that Greyhound? Do you maybe wanna retract that statement? Just a bit? I for one will never, ever be taking the bus again or sleeping on a plane.

Say wha??

This weekend was Pride week here in Vancouver. After marching in the parade we hit Davie Street by storm and enjoyed plenty of gin and laughs. Every bar that we went to though eventually played that song by Katy Pary, "I kissed a girl". I get it: it's Pride, it's a woman singing about kissing another woman but there is one line of the song that goes "I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don't mind it". Um girl, have you been livin' under a rock? Apparently 99% of men dream about their woman kissing another woman *shakes head* Where have you been??

Bridezillas take note!

Wedding season is upon us and everyone and their dog is tying the knot. I cannot believe that I have to even post this but when it comes to communicating your gift preferences through invitations, it is not at all acceptable to suggest, allude to or even hint about the type that you would like (or presume that you’re getting a gift at all). Never, ever; no exceptions!

If you are registered at a particular store (as I was for my very own wedding), or if your preference is for a cash gift, tell the women in your family and let them spread the word on your behalf so that you don’t look like a greedy, selfish little brat. I was aghast with an invite that I received last week; the bottom of the invite said “Cash gifts preferred”. This is the absolutely lowest place to go and you can guarantee that I’ll be giving them something other than cash just to spite them.

Seinfeld ponderings

When I’m not mind numbingly scrutinizing the daily stock ticker, getting riled about the fuel and food shortage while panicking about the impending collapse of the U.S. economy I’m usually looking back at things that happen during the day and comparing them to a Seinfeld episode. Does anyone else do this or am I completely off my rocker? Today for instance I was on the bus and this old man shuffles on board wearing goggles. It reminded me of the episode when George has his glasses stolen at the pool and had to walk around wearing his prescription goggles; wicked.

Baby got back

I can't stop thinking about a television show that I watched last night. There is a Brit show called “How to Look Good Naked”. It is a somewhat interesting show that basically tells chubby women how to wear pants that avoid muffin tops and that Spanx are a girls best friend…screw dieting and exercise, adore your curves is basically the concept. I had to cringe though as the Americans now have their own version hosted by that uber obnoxious, not to mention annoying guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Instead of the British show where the women are ‘real’ sizes (think US sizes 14+) the American show has women who are about a size 8 complaining about how fat they are and how unattractive they feel. Are you freakin’ kidding me?? Only in America.

Annoying Elevator Habits #1456-B

Pushing the ‘door close’ button like 27 times while the elevator is running up is both pointless and obnoxious. The doors are not going to open on us while we are mid-rise and the fact that you saw people running for the elevator and did not hold it open for them even though you were only going to the second floor pisses me off royally; what the heck is wrong with you anyway?

Forever angry

There is this chick who works in our tower and she is a fairly good looking girl except for one thing: her eyebrows. I guess she has tweezed the crap out of them over the span of her lifetime so now she has to draw them on. Thing is, she draws them in really thick and pointed downward so now she always looks pissed off, it’s pretty friggin’ hilarious if you ask me.

East Van traffic light

My trainer gave me a lift downtown after a particularly brutal session this morning. We came up to the Main St. and Broadway intersection and there was this hobo standing in the middle of our lane on a green light. He had a huge garbage bag full of cans and bottles and was making zero attempt to move his ass of out traffic anytime soon. Sofie tapped her horn a bit to get him to move and he jumps up all startled and wanders over to the half open passenger window. He says “Do you have any toilet paper?” We both look at each other like ‘huh?’ He pauses and yells “Cause you scared the CRAP out of me!” He said it so matter of fact that we just cracked right up and continued on our adventure to downtown.

Offensive much?

So we’re at the Liberal Party Policy Convention this weekend and the Van Centre Mafia rolls into the Young Liberal hospitality suite a.k.a. the place with free beer. They pride themselves on being oh so edgy and they really outdid themselves this year. They had stickers made up that said: It’s a genocide, stupid. Now I know that Darfur is a huge fiasco right now but some of us found that sticker to be a wee bit over the top. So we coined a new phrase that is equally offensive and have decided that we should bust out next convention on a sticker: It’s the Holocaust, MOFO. Beauty.