Friday, April 28, 2006

SPAM

SPAM is f$%^in ridiculous. Yahoo has been doing a decent job of filtering most of it into a bulk folder...but when I go to sift through it and delete, I am continuously surprised at the BS people are pushing via e-mail. The subject lines in and of themselves are amusing..just received one message "Polar Hound"..WTF? How is that supposed to entice me to open an e-mail? "What?! A Polar Hound?! I must have won some sort of snow dog of some sort, I better open this e-mail and check. Oh...shucks, it just an ad for Vi@gr-a! and some junk stock, might as well order some!"

Does this actually work? It must or else, the continued effort to flood us with it wouldn't be there. But I mean, WHO exactly is opening these things and thinking it is a good idea to investigate further?

Fresh Hounds! [to appreciate this subtle reference...one must be familiar with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the skit in which he interacts with a variety of Star Wars fans waiting in line for a premier...top drawer comedy...guaranteed to make you laugh]

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Get into This

Just discovered the Neverending White Lights...basically a studio/songwriting whiz, who has gathered a heavy team of vocalists to guest on each of his tracks. Features, Raine Maida of OLP, Nick Hexum of 311, Todd Kerns, formerly of Age of Electric and others. Some pretty ambient, moving music.

Check out the track "The Grace" ft Dallas Green of Alexisonfire.

http://www.neverendingwhitelights.com/

Monday, April 17, 2006

Peeves

1. Doubling of letters in business names to apparently make more impact, avoid copyright infringements and also to mangle the English language. For example, as seen in Montreal yesterday...JAGUARR Furniture. Not Jaguar folks....JaguaRR! The appeal is obvious...."Yeah, we're thinking of picking up a JAGUARR [couch]".

2. People who misuse LOOSE vs LOSE. ie. Ottawa better not loose in the first round of the playoffs.

3. The fact that it seems nobody in the world who is a proprietor of a restaurant can spell Caesar, as in salad, or the drink. Ok, maybe it's not the owner, but rather, the impish waif tossing cocktails who got her mitts on the dry erase marker for the sidewalk sign...but whatev. Almost everytime I see it...it is some new variation: Ceaser, Ceasre, Caezer, Seizure, etc...ad nauseum.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Old Man

Went to a workshop yesterday afternoon. Sat at a table with 3 other people. Perfect numbers for the activity which would require groups of 2. Stop. In walks this old man 20 minutes late..wanders around before finally joining our now group of 3.

Smells like an old man, unwashed clothing smell, long gnarled fingers with nails like dirty spades. Sits down...makes the simple activity more than complicated.

He spies my coffee in its styrofoam cup. Reaches over and places his dirty finger on the lip of my cup, "Where can I get one of these?", he says.

"Why not just have mine, since you put your dirty finger pretty much right in it?", I think to myself, spinning the cup around and drinking from the opposite side.

He comes back with a styrofoam cup and does a reachover on me and asks, "Can I have some of this?", reaching for my water bottle. I'm like, "There is a table full of water just over there", trying not to sound too abrupt.

THEN, during this particular ice-breaking activity, in which the other group member and I had just been "experts" on Friday night fun and weekend activities, he is assigned the role of expert on summer activities. Seems easy enough, but he then proceeds to inform us that he doesn't play sports or do much of anything besides evangelical work, spreading the gospel far and wide to children all over the area.
For us sinners who had just spoe of patio bars and happy hours, this was an obvious left turn.

Now don't get me wrong, to each his own. Evangelical work and fingers in my coffee aren't really my thing. You can imagine that during this whole episode, I was honestly doing my best not to laugh, holding my lips tight together and trying not to make eye contact with the girl in my group, who I sensed saw this entire thing as utterly hilarious.

And, just for you P Guy, I spent the whole time thinking...."What would Guy do?".

We packed up, and he left us all with brochures on the work of God in our lives, including the young man who pulled out into the road on his motorcycle and was shred to pieces by an oncoming car.