Go ahead, make my day

This is a special shout-out to one of my best buddies in the whole wide world, SiSi. Simon and I used to work together for several years and we not only shared a similar sense of humour but we also lunched together, shared too many inside jokes to count and were annoyed by many of the same things (too many to list!) Despite not having worked together for over 4 years now, we still talk all the time and keep one another company, just like in old times. It's a stressful time for me right now at work as it's quarter end and Simon sent me a song that he promised would make my day more awesome and what do you know, it worked. I have been rocking out to Boney M's 'Gotta Go Home' all day with a stupid grin on my face all day. Thanks SiSi, you da best *hug*

HST whining

Pretty sure that this post will piss off as many people as my anti-union rant but oh well, here goes:

I am sick of seeing some of my friends on Facebook and elsewhere jumping on the ‘Down with the HST’ bandwagon. You say that it’s not fair to pay more taxes yet you have no problem soaking up everything that comes from the collection of taxpayer money: parks, trails, education, health care, etc. I hate to shove academics down ones throat but if you would open up a book once in a while and take an unbiased basic look at some basic lessons in economics, perhaps you would understand why a consumer tax such as HST is actually not all bad. However, I'll give you a quick primer anyhow seeing as I am a huge econ nerd.

When consumers have money, they buy things. This creates demand. Demand requires increased production, which requires more workers to build the products and provide the services. More workers means more hiring. More hiring means less unemployed, which means less people to choose from and thus higher wages must be offered. Higher wages means more money in consumer pockets to spend on goods and services. See the cycle here?

By replacing the PST with HST and removing an entire provincial tax collecting department, we are receiving nearly $2 billion from the federal government to make this transition. Also, they aren’t touching my income, just my spending. So I can save or invest more with the actual cash in my pocket instead of a ‘tax credit’ like in the old system. British Columbia (and Ontario as they too have HST) will now be more competitive and attract foreign businesses looking to set up shop over here which means, yep, more local jobs for all. Attracting foreign investment to BC not only brings high-quality, well-paying jobs to the province, but for our provincial government, it generates major tax revenues that help to pay for education and health care and all the things everyone expects a Canadian government to provide.

I get it, you hate Gordon Campbell and you are mad at the way that he brought in the HST, I agree, it was definitely sneaky and I don’t like it either but I do feel for the guy. He is dealing with a province full of left leaning people who don’t want to pay for leftist programs, not to mention the uneducated hordes who do not ‘get’ what supply and demand entails. And what the hell is wrong with you people? Do you not remember Vander Zalm and the chaos that he brought to this province not all that long ago? You anti-HST people are all a bit strange; I am all for argument but when you have nothing to say besides “It’s not fair, taxes suck” then please come back to me when you’ve read the Coles notes on economics 101 and actually understand the role of taxation. I would rather be taxed on what I buy/consume than on my income any day, period.

Mouse trap

I am not a fan of rodents, not even a little bit. I was enjoying a pizza night at my friend's place with 4 other girls the other night when I saw something brownish moving out of the corner of my eye. I realised that I had had a couple fairly sizable glasses of wine so I tried to ignore it seeing as no one else was seeing what I was seeing...I guess the Shiraz was affecting me differently than everyone else. I saw the movement again and realised that the ground floor patio door had been open the whole time and I was in fact seeing a mouse. I grabbed a nearly full box of pizza off of the coffee table and flung however many pieces of veggie pizza there was in there onto a full ham and pineapple pizza (sorry fellow vegetarians, but hey, I screwed myself over equally here) and I tore off down the hall chasing this mouse with a greasy pizza box. Everyone was sitting on the sofa staring at me like I had completely gone off my rocker when 'BAM' I caught the mouse with the pizza box! I kept my foot on the corner of the box for 10 minutes while the hostess called her husband who was sitting at the local pub avoiding girls night to come dispose of the mouse. Good times were had by all but I wish that it had been a clump of mascara in my lashes instead of a mouse, yuck.

** no mice were harmed in this event

Keep it classy Vancouver

So I have wanted an iPhone 4 for some time, but I am with Rogers and they had like 17 phones for the entire nation or something equally ridiculous so I could not get my hands on one. I couldn’t sleep this morning so I decided that instead of laying in bed feeling sorry for myself that I would instead drag my sorry ass out of bed and get down to the Apple Store to try and score the new iPhone. I got there at 5:15am and was person #9 in the queue, I was feeling fairly confident that a phone would be mine but I was wishing that I had brought along a portable heater like one guy did! I made friends with everyone in line near me and we made the best out of being freezing cold, waiting around for the store to open. All hell almost broke loose when a Korean girl in the line just ahead of me decided to let her friend budge into line around 7am. One of the members of my Apple line ‘gang’ informed the newcomer that we had all been there for over an hour and that she had better get to the back of the line before there was a riot. She pretended to not speak English until a Korean guy about half way down the line started screaming at her in Korean and she burst into tears and promptly moved to the back of the line (they ran out of iPhones before they got that far down the line….there is a God!) In the end, I got my iPhone and life is good but I’d like to thank the Apple line ‘gang’ for making my stay in the freezing cold a little bit more amusing and fun. Huge shout out goes to my pal Amy who saw my Facebook pleas for help about wanting coffee so she brought me hot coffee and a cookie, what a girl!

Pizzariffic!

Last night I had a dream about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In my dream they added a girl to their team and when she accepted, they shouted out “Pizzariffic!” She wore a pink mask and I can’t remember what her weapon was but I am sure that it was something cool. I have no idea what in the hell this dream symbolizes but it was highly entertaining nonetheless.

Homey don't play that

I was walking towards the train this morning at the Broadway-City Hall Station and the usual fare checks were not in place but one of the Canada Line employees in her tacky green jacket was accosting an elderly man with a bunch of trash bags full of cans. I was walking side by side with a woman who was about the same age as myself and she just happened to be Black. We both slowed down to see if the woman was going to ask to see our transit passes but she didn't so we kept walking towards the train. About 2 minutes later, the employee was huffing, puffing and all red-faced demanding to see my pass. I showed her the pass and said that perhaps if she had just asked me for it, she would not have had to 'chase me down' for it. She then came at me with total attitude, enough so that everyone was now watching this show down on the platform and I asked her "what about the girl who was walking with me, did she evade you as well?" The Skytrain lady got all fidgety and started staring at the ground which is when the girl that I was walking with piped up "Yeah, I didn't show you my pass either" and the Skytrain lady was saying, that it was fine, she didn't need to see it. The girl said really loudly "Oh I get it, it's because I'm Black and you're scared...racist!" Ha ha, nothing like a little 7am confrontation to get the day going!

Suck it Critical Mass

I seriously hate Critical Mass. If you want my sympathy for the perils of riding your bike through the mean streets of Vancouver, then you are barking up the wrong tree. I, unlike most of you cyclists, actually live in the City of Vancouver and I pay taxes here for your precious bike lanes and such. When you decide to clog traffic, drink alcohol in public, disobey signs and blow through traffic lights almost killing pedestrians in the process on a Friday afternoon after a long week of work, don't be surprised when everyone in the city turns against you. These stupid hippies ruin it for the real cyclists in the city who are just trying to commute as peacefully as possible and make it to work and back in one piece. Shove it Critical Mass.

I am so in love

...with my new hair straightening iron. I am not sure what took me so long to finally go out and buy a decent hair straightening iron but I finally bit the bullet and spent a few hard earned dollars on a kick ass iron and to say that I am thrilled would be a massive understatement. I used to go to Blo as often as I could to have them straighten my hair for me, but after them being consistently late and not taking the time to do my hair as I had requested (because they were running behind!) I decided that enough was enough and that I could do this myself. I am a happy bunny...with perfectly straight hair and zero frizz, WOOT!

Talk nerdy to me

What is with nerds and their Medieval fascination? Dungeons and dragons, role play, speaking with a fake British accent, sword play, etc. I mean, you already stand out enough, which is fine, but then you go and make things worse for yourself by playing your games in a public park and wandering up to people (like me) in your fake accent asking me if 'I'd fancy a joust.' Sorry that I spat out my coffee and laughed but seriously, come on!

Nicotine litter bugs

Hey, I don't care if you smoke, I'm not judging your habit, but why do you think that it's ok to throw your cigarette butts all over the sidewalk, in beautiful flower planters and in the parks so that curious little kids can pick them up? You don't finish your cup of coffee and just throw the cup on the sidewalk and carry on your merry way, do you? I was walking from the train station to work today and was looking around at how beautiful it is here when it's sunny when my view was ruined by a discarded cigarette butt careening past my head from a woman jumping onto a trolley bus, nice.

Get your hate on

I hate a lot of things. People are always telling me that “hate” is such a strong word and that I should say “dislike” for everyday things and save hatred for things like Hitler, genocide and people who kick puppies. Well you know what, I think that some of you need to broaden your horizons and get your hate on.

Hating things is pretty awesome. Also, it's really easy. It doesn't take any more effort to hate something than it does to be completely indifferent so why not go full hog? Besides, indifference is boring; arguably, indifference is a great indicator of a weak character if you ask me, like people who always say “I dunno, whatever you want to do” when you ask them what would they like to do today. At least hatred is passionate and not wishy washy.

Here's the thing: I'm not an optimist but I'm not a pessimist, either. I like to think of myself more as a realist, like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. In general, people who want to believe that everything is all sunshine and rainbows are ultimately going to be disappointed and hurt whereas people who want to believe that everything just plain sucks will generally find out that they are indeed right and won't be crushed when things don’t work out cause well, duh, that’s what always happens.

I wake up in the morning hating the day, mostly because I seriously HATE my alarm clock and the noises that emit from it. I hate everybody on the train and those that I pass on my commute. I hate picking out an outfit, I hate figuring out what to eat for lunch. I basically hate everything.

BUT - and this is key - BUT I stay flexible to allow myself to be pleasantly surprised when something I expected to hate turns out to be awesome. It means I end up appreciating the awesomeness of it so much more than the average sunshine and rainbows person.

Sure, of course it's totally rare that I get to be pleasantly surprised when something I hated ends up being completely awesome. Most of the time, I just keep on hating everything. Of course, then, I was right to have hated it all along. And the only thing that I enjoy more than hating everything is being right.

All Levels of Connectivity

I know, another hobo story but what can I say, I like talking to people! I was wandering up Crescent St. in Montreal earlier this evening and came across a homeless guy around my age holding a sign that stated ‘Too Ugly for Prostitution.’ I couldn’t help but laugh and I said that if he let me take a picture on my BlackBerry, that I’d give him a buck. Well he was all over that plan and happily mugged for the camera. He wanted to see the picture and he said “I look good there, can you please e-mail it to me?” Since when do homeless people have e-mail addresses?

Some People

Here’s another one for the ‘my colleagues were obviously raised by wolves file.’ I get it, my desk is the closest one to the kitchen but does that give you the right to ‘shop’ for supplies whenever you want to buy something from the office snack shop and see that there is no pen beside the IOU sheet? Not only did you swipe my favourite pen, twice, but you also helped yourself to all of my hand sanitizer (the grapefruit-smelling one, not the yucky alcohol-smelling one.) Karma is a bitch and if I smell grapefruit on your paws or see you with my much adored pen behind your ear, your ass is grass.

My Apology

Ever since Air Canada acquired my beloved Canadian Airlines, I have hated them with a level of passion perhaps only outpassioned by my love of mayonnaise (those who know me well, know that that that is a LOT.) Some of that hatred was completely justified: delayed luggage, getting bumped, being poorly compensated when stranded in amazing cities such as Winnipeg and Regina, etc. I would go out of my way to travel WestJet or any other airline and booo the Air Canada logo whenever I saw it. In the last few years I have been traveling a fair amount, mostly on US carriers. Ugly flight attendants aside, most US carriers are barely a step above a Greyhound Bus (with the exception of Horizon Air, yeah Dea!) Imagine my surprise when I boarded my Air Canada flight to Montreal today and was greeted with genuine smiles, a clean aircraft and a working entertainment system on every single seat back, incredible! Air Canada, I am sorry that I bad mouthed you for so long to so many people, I was wrong…can you ever forgive me? Let’s start over.

Tech Support Woes

Rogers Wireless has this amazing ability to make me feel stupid and I don’t like it one bit. I was having an issue with e-mail not coming to my device so I fell back on my tried and true methods and then went on-line and followed their directions to a T, to no avail. I begrudgingly called Rogers support and the guy laughed through my whole attempt to tell him what the dealio was. You asswipe, if it wasn’t for technically challenged people like me, you wouldn’t have a job. Suck it Rogers.