yeah baby, yeah.

now zee dishez, zey shall wash demselfs

got my fingers crossed

today i'm waiting patiently for the dishwasher-fixer-guy to come to my place to install the new dishwasher. the thing i can't stand is that they give you this window of time that they will arrive - kind of like the cable guy...

"I'll be there sometime between 10 and 2"

okay... so i have to take the day off for this then? great.

also, because my landlord is a total asswipe, i figured i'd call down to the front office of the building to see if she managed to summon up enough common sense to notify them that a large new appliance was going to be delievered to the building.

bet you didn't guess that she didn't call.

it shouldn't have surprised me. even though building policies are very clearly defined and somewhat logical, she still can't seem to get it right.

"i've got condos in 2 buildings i manage, so i've got a lot to do" she said to me once. i believe my response was something to the effect of "i have two jobs, work 14-16 hours a day and spend nearly 3 hours a day commuting - i know what busy is like"

somehow, i doubt she detected the sarcasm in that statement.

so keep your fingers crossed and hope that the dishwasher shows up today within the expected 4 hour window

so what did YOU do on saturday night?

so at two in the morning, is this considered saturday night or sunday morning?

and does the fact that i woke up at 1 am affect the answer to that question? or how about the fact that i'm at the office?

we've got a big upgrade of our application being rolled out this weekend and i got "volunteered" to contribute for our team based largely on the fact that my coworker has been the only other representative and was getting tired of having to do this role. it's gonna be a heck of a day today because i'm due at the other job at 10am too.

the only cool thing about coming to work at this time in the morning is that there's no traffic. it literally only took me about 22 minutes to get here this morning including my stop for coffee.

the things that suck about coming to work before 2 in the morning:

• the aforementioned stop for coffee did not include donuts because they were all out.
• a serious case of lead-foot almost got me a speeding ticket (thank goodness for the drunk guy who went whipping past the cop following me).
• the case of lead-foot also got me to work significantly earlier than i had hoped.
• this is going to seriously fuck up my sleeping pattern. but that's alright because my sleeping pattern is seriously fucked up anyways (thank you poppy and truck).

shoulda brought my laptop to watch movies while i'm doing this crap.

something stinks and it's not me

i woke up this morning with a start. a single bark echoed through the apartment at a near ear-piercing volume, emanating from from a four pound dog sitting on my pillow.

promptly, i informed this dog that he should perhaps lower the tone of his voice. after all, it was five o'clock in the morning and the neighbours are trying to sleep.

"SHUT YOUR CAKE HOLE, DOG!" were the exact words to come from my mouth as i turned over and tried to focus my attention back on my primary goal. this was, of course, sleeping.

as i made my effort to drift out of consciousness again, i couldn't help but notice an odd fragrance. "what in the hell IS that smell?" i muttered to myself. try as i might, i couldn't shake whatever it was - the smell wasn't going away any time soon.

i turned on the light to reveal that there, lying on the pillow, was the dog's chew treat - one of those stinky-ass Greenies. good for the dog, but stinky as hell. for some reason senior popp-o-matic loves putting his chew toys in bed where they'll either end up getting stuck to my face or jab into my back. he's probably just trying to share so that i can experience the same joy he does when he's sitting there stinking up his mouth with one of those things so i have to remember that he's not trying to be bad - his english skills are just lacking.

commuting: how do i love thee, let me count the ways

traffic was nonsense this morning. there was some sort of armed robbery that resulted in a high-speed police chase along highway 401 this morning which resulted in the west-bound lanes being shut down for several hours as the police searched for evidence.

why then must the people in the east bound lanes slow down to look? the chase ended hours ago, so all you'll see if you slow down to look is police cars and the occasional officer out of the car?

this turns my 45 minute 6am commute into an hour and fifteen minute commute.

and how was it that when i asked for my coffee this morning - the same coffee i ask for all the time, quite clearly: large coffee with milk - that i get a double-double? i generally hate sugar in my coffee unless the coffee has some sort of chocolaty flavour added to it as well and the milk-fat content in cream makes me sick. the good news is that i caught it before i left the counter.

the guy put the coffee in front of me and says "large double-double."

to which i replied "sorry buddy, i said large with milk."

"no, you said double-double"

at first i think to myself ... i suppose nobody has ever told you that the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. not to mention the fact that i KNOW double-double will make me sick ...

"dude, i WOULD NEVER order a double-double. i need a large coffee with milk."

not a difficult concept right?

he insisted again, then i insisted once more urging that he should just make my god damn coffee and stop arguing with me because i'm sure that someone in this universe would be in the Tim Horton's in the next 2 minutes to buy that fucking coffee he so wrongly made.

a brief blank stare and some words in another language to his coworker (which i'm sure translated into something like "stupid fucking asshole" or whatever) and i got my coffee. i made sure to watch him make it so he didn't try to hork in it or something.

all of that over a coffee worth $1.45

my dilemma

here's a minor predicament that hopefully can be solved. this week in the office my workload is pretty much at an all time low. there's a new application release coming next week which means this week all of my work is in testing. aside from a few minor bug fixes, i don't actually foresee myself having anything to do work-wise. since i still have to come in for the full day regardless, which of the following makes more sense:

a.) get up really early so i can come in for an early morning shift so that i can leave early
... or ...
b.) come in for a late shift so that i can sleep in

it's kind of an odd situation to be in. i know that most people in the office opt to sleep in when there's no work, but it would be nice to have the afternoon to play my new video game (which is completely awesome by the way. i love that you can play as Venom).

Ultimate Thumb Pain!

i've never considered myself anywhere close to a hard-core video-gamer. not even remotely close. i do enjoy playing video games quite a bit, but with a couple of jobs and the ridiculous amount of movies i watch eating up most of my time there just isn't enough awake time to dedicate to a life of gaming.

i do, however, own several video game consoles. most of them were bought past their prime on account of me not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on a console. one of my favourite consoles is my Nintendo GameCube. it's a really brilliant little piece of machinery. about the size of a Mac Mini, the GameCube packs a ton of power and graphics processing abilities into a small package. the mistake that Nintendo made in putting this into the american market is that it uses mini-DVDs for it's games. since mini-DVDs cannot be bought in spindles of 100 for next to nothing, it leaves pirating GC games pretty much out of the question and as much as anyone may want to argue to the contrary, this will hurt sales in north america. pirating of Xbox and PS2 games runs rampant which results in massive console sales for Microsoft and Sony respectively. Nintendo relies solely on the quality of their games - and with Mario on their side quality always abounds.

but my day hasn't been spent playing Mario games. today i bought a copy of Ultimate Spiderman for GameCube. it's been a while since i bought a game, but i have a pretty open weekend this weekend and thought i'd give it a go. i've always been a fan of the various Spiderman comic books, though i have not been a fan of the recent Spiderman movies (i'm sorry, i just couldn't watch it. i promise i will some day). this game is based on the comic book of the same name, and i'd have to say that one of the things i love most about this game is that the entire game is animated to look like the comic book. there are comic book cut-scenes and videos. anyone who comes from the old-school comic book era would appreciate that i think. on top of it, the controls seem reasonably intuitive and the game starts out simply enough that someone who likes to play video games but doesn't get much of a chance can jump right in and get started.

the game isn't anywhere close to new. i *think* it's been around for over a year. long enough to get on most consoles' "Best Seller" type lists. it only cost me $20, and in my opinion was very worth all twenty of those dollars. give it a try. lots of fun. if you're a hardcore gamer it's probably only worth renting and playing through a couple of times, but if you're just a once-in-a-whiler like myself just buy it.

rio grande blood

a while back my little sister surprised me with free ministry tickets. i've been a fan of the band for many years - way back to early highschool days, but hadn't listened to the last couple of albums they released.

not too long after the show i scored a copy of their latest release Rio Grande Blood which i would have to say is probably one of the best heavy metal albums that has been released in years. there aren't a whole lot of bands out there that could even think to be considered metal (even though they do). you think Korn rocks hard or Slipknot is hardcore? ain't got NOTHING on this album. it reminds me of the way metal should be and not the way it's become. for a while in the late 80s and early 90s there were a bunch of bands that made loud music and didn't care about album sales. Al Jourgensen takes a look a the state of the country, its leader and the real reasons that the US is involved in the war in the middle east. the title track probably rocks the hardest. it throws together fast, furious music along with some well-done GWB mix-ups to make a solid political statement.

essentially, the album is awesome from front to back. worth actually picking up at the local music shop rather than just hitting the free download. hell yeah for Al Jourgensen's latest musical effort. i've been listening to it for several days straight and have to say that it's been a looong time since i enjoyed an album that much that wasn't a mixed-cd.

busted ass

so i stayed home from work today eh? the dishwasher-fixer-dude was supposed to come to fix our dishwasher at some point between noon and two in the afternoon.

the dishwasher-fixer-dude did in fact come - just before 1pm - but he did not fix the dishwasher. why? because the dishwasher water pump is broken and not worth a piece of crap. he mentioned that in order to fix it he would have to dismantle the entire dishwasher and the cost of parts/labour/etc wouldn't really be worth it when you could get a new one for a little bit more and it would come with a warranty.

and now because i had high hopes of having a functional dishwasher, i must spend the rest of the afternoon washing the dishes i've been neglecting for the last several days.

so who wants to come by for a dishwashing party?

geek-tard invades

so i'm debating as to whether i should experiment with a windows to linux switch on some of my home computers. i ran some tests using Ubuntu on my laptop with somewhat favourable results, except that the wireless network card did not work. rumour has it that this may be fixed in the next release and there are workarounds, but we'll have to see. i'm also considering experimenting a dual-boot with Windows XP and some linux distribution (probably Ubuntu) on my desktop to see if i can keep rocking the massive music collection with a minimum of administrative effort. the dual boot would allow me to keep all the important info i already have, but still experiment with the dork-shit and (hopefully) not screw anything important up.

and how bad does it suck that the dishwasher in my new place isn't working properly? in theory, i could just wash all the dishes by hand but that would just be lame. i pay for a place with a dishwasher, so the bloody thing should work. now i have to phone my douche-bag landlord again to get this fixed. i called her on sunday but she still hasn't returned my calls. i'll give her another half hour before i start escalating to her boss. maybe if i don't wait and just escalate it will help in the effort to get her bitch-ass fired. we'll see.

and if you haven't yet, go see Borat. it is quite offensively funny and that's quite rare anymore. many people and movies don't have the guts to do that kind of funny. i'll do my best not to ruin anything for you other than to say that the fight scene is ... ummm ... jaw-dropping and brilliant. definitely worth seeing in the theatre. i didn't even mind too much that the place was packed, and usually that's a pretty good deterrent for me.

number 1 in the hood G!

finally, my lifelong dream has been realized.

and by lifelong dream, i mean something i thought would be funny if it happened since i've been writing on this blog here.

when you hit google and search for Professional Welfare Bum - who do you think comes up?

me motherfucker!

people need to know where to go when hunting down the one true professional welfare master, and that would be me.

rock ass.

a great bad guy

rest in peace Jack Palance.

i think i'd have to say that one of my favourite roles of his was crime boss Carl Grissom in Batman.

and Curly in City Slickers of course...

"Hey Curly, kill anyone today?"

"The day ain't over yet..."

we fight for freedom wherevere there's trouble

this morning i was listening to the news only to hear about yet another "terrorism" plot uncovered by the british secret spy service Mi5. apparently they've linked a number of these terrorists back to Al Quaeda which leads me to wonder - is this the real life version of Cobra? it seems as though just about every terrorist plot somehow links back to Al Quaeda, but maybe that's the point?

i knew all those years of watching cartoons and reading comic books would eventually serve a purpose. now, if i studied that information properly, i will be prepared when Osama (Cobra Commander) leads his attack. bizarre soldiers with near-super-powers and bizarre nicknames will save me.

great stinking jihad

after what seemed like 4 hours i FINALLY got the computer desks set up, all of the computers running and connected and can finally get on top of the ol' inanet.

well, i suppose that it seemed like 4 hours because it kind of was.

but in my own defense, it seems as though my ISP had some sort of weird outage when i was trying to connect. i'd type in Google.com and it wouldn't work, but for some reason Microsoft.com would.

let the conspiracy theories begin.

i also re-discovered some essential learnings when hooking up the TV to the dvd players, surround sound, vcr, etc: input from one device will NOT work properly if plugged into the input of another device. that's what we like to call "stupid-wrong" in the electronics world.

not that i've ever been to the electronics world, though i have been to the electronics boutique.

i hide my crack in my ass

i loves the news...

a naked man was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. i guess when you don't have any pockets your only option is to stuff your weapon up your arse.


televangelist Ted Haggard admitted to doing meth and getting a massage from a gay male prostitute, but denies allegations of sex with him. somehow drugs and a massage must me a little less gay than sex? not that there's anything wrong with that.

totally off topic, over the last couple of days it's really occurred to me that the new place that we've moved into is actually quite smaller than our old place despite statements assuring the opposite from my landlord. but then again, my landlord is a total douche bag so i suppose it really shouldn't surprise me all that much.

and because i'm a movie and tv nerd, i love WikiQuote. look for your favourite show and quote away.

it's either friday, or i'm retarded

or maybe it's friday AND i'm retarded.

i was the first one into the office today, which means that it was my responsibility to shut off the security system and turn on all the lights in the office. see, all of this stuff happens automatically at 8:30 every morning, but if you want to get here early like the cool kids at 6:30 then you gots to do it yourself.

remembering my security code wasn't too bad. i had my hands full - coffee, muffin, a work day worth of cds to listen to. only slight coffee-to-clean-shirt connections were made in the attempt to find the sticker on the back of my driver's license with my rarely-used 7 digit security number and i gained access. the next step was the more difficult one: where the hell is the light switch.

i searched frantically. checked almost every wall, behind the office administrator's desk and around corners before i decided to put all my crap down on my desk to resume the search unburdened with hot spillable drinks.

four more minutes of searching (without hot coffee in my hand) lead me to find exactly where this mysterious light switch was hidden.

beside the door i just came in.

the tricky thing is that the switch was installed sideways for some reason. perhaps to draw attention to its sideways nature, perhaps to remove it from my immediate perception as an object that's supposed to be there. perhaps this light switch is someone else's problem?

and today's dinosaur comic is about monks and oatmeal. you should read it eh.

where the cheese at?

so i've moved eh. up 15 floors in the same building. longest 2 days of my life, but finally it's done.

well, the moving part is done. now for the unpacking. i need for the world to transform into a Jetsons like reality full of helper robots and moving sidewalks. it would have been SO helpful considering the new place is at the end of a very long hallway and when you're toting a box stuffed with several computers, cables and computer-like accessories with one hand and a couple of garbage bags of clothes with the other.

i'm actually quite amazed at how much stuff i've managed to collect over the years and have made a commitment to start getting rid of stuff as soon as i can find it under the stacks of boxes. sometime over the next couple of months i will be eBay-ing large quantities of hockey and baseball cards from the 70s, 80s and early 90s and lots of HotWheels cars from the early 80s to late 90s

you want pictures? too bad. camera's packed yo.

and the place is in such a state that it's actually quite common to say to ourselves "where's the cat?" and know that he will have disappeared within the apartment for several hours, leaving no trace of where he may be or may have been.

so far the casualties of the move have been few in number, but large in cost. we finally decided to trash the old couch (sofa, whatchamacallit) and the old bed, substituting the bed for the much more comfortable air mattress temporarily.

and now (rather than work) i shall begin calling all of the companies that want money from me in order to change my address with them.