cak

you know what's gross?  waking up to the sound of your cat barfing.

but you know what's awesome?

Yacht Rock.

i watched most of the episodes last night.  the only one i wasn't too keen on was the Jethro Tull episode, but the rest were laugh-out-loud-able.  i think the one that made me laugh the most was the one about "A bet between Loggins and McDonald takes a decade and a gangsta to settle."

these guys are pretty good at awesomeing.

i'm always the last one

how come i'm always the last one to hear about things like a city-wide transit strike?  it took almost a retarded amount of time to get to work this morning on what is the hottest day of the year so far.  the last check on the weather network shows that it's over 30 degrees (that's pushing 90 degrees for americans) and from what i can tell there was little to no advance notice.

arseholes.

there were even people standing at bus stops this morning, apparently unaware of the fact that they wouldn't be getting anywhere today.  and the only thing the TTC has to say aboot it today?

"NO TTC SERVICE TODAY

Wheel-Trans Customers:

Wheel-Trans is operating limited service only. We will provide as many trips as possible to customers for dialysis. We encourage all other customers to cancel all unnecessary trips. "

maybe they're trying to use the excuse that since it's a holiday in the states today that they should also get the day off.

and make my trip to work an hour and 15 minutes.

can't wait for the trip home.

i'm going to put a bag of dog poo on the TTC's door-step, light it on fire, ring the doorbell and run away.  it will be the most effective and original practical joke ever.

well, maybe not.  but they still suck.

i have no idea

it's like... i don't WANT to listen, but i just can't help it.

http://www.leekspin.com/

make sure you crank up the sound.  just leave it running in the background.

can't. stop. listening.

don't forget to bring a towel

okay, so i completely forgot about it being Towel Day,  but in my own defence i can't be expected to remember something before six in the morning.  it's just not feasible.

t'other day i got an amazing deal on a box of Oatmeal to Go bars at the grocery store (because oatmeal in ANY form rules).  the unfortunate thing is that i made the classic mistake of not realizing how good the deal was and only bought one box.  now when i go to the grocery store, the boxes stare at me and laugh with their $3 per box higher price tag and laugh maniacally.  they ridicule me and tell me that i'm going to have to eat inferior snacks once my box is empty because i will be far too cheap to pay the inflated price.

who am i kidding.  i'm such a consumer.  i'll totally end up paying the higher price.  and the way Oatmeal prices have been going, it's just going to get more and more expensive.  but the damn Oatmeal companies have us pinned with their profits, and of course the government's taxes on oatmeal.

once a coworker of mine laughed at the fact that i ate oatmeal and referred to it as "something that my food eats before it gets to my barbecue."

but he obviously just doesn't understand our nation's addiction to Oatmeal.

you wanna get high?

though i've never really been a big fan of Douglas Adams, i will say that i enjoyed the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy and am also a fan of making my coworkers think very odd things...

so i thank GolfWidow for this link here - Towel Day May 25.

and though i wouldn't consider myself a big enough Adams fan to celebrate this thing for his purpose, the idea of keeping a towel on my person for a day while my coworkers try to decide wether or not it's appropriate to ask about it is priceless.

hey, i just realized that's tomorrow. guess i'd better do some laundry tonight. i want to make sure that my towel's in pristine condition.

i'll take pictures and post them.

all my life i wanted to be a gangster

stumbled across a copy of GoodFellas on the weekend.  i'd been hunting for a copy of it for a while (and may still do so as the picture quality on the version i have is meh).  i saw it and loved it years ago, then read the book upon which it was based (called WiseGuy by Nicholas Pileggi) and felt i needed to see it again.  the book was an outstandingly well written tale of the life of a guy who grew up into the mafia, got too involved and eventually ratted everyone out.  one of few book-to-movie translations that actually worked quite well.  as usual you don't quite get the whole story in the movie, but how much can you really tell in two hours.

damn, i've noticed, that i use commas, way too much.

but in the meantime go buy yourself a copy of GoodFellas and pick up a copy of WiseGuy from your local library.  worth the read and the watch.

and totally off topic...

one of the things i love most about the long weekend is the list of ridiculous charges laid by police officers onto retarded drivers...

"There's lots of junkers here, the old Fred Flintstone floorboards, unsafe trailers you name it, we're finding it."

a funny thing happened on the way to work....

today a number of silly things happened on my trip to work that made me laugh out loud.

• you know those curbs there are in the middle of the road sometimes?  you know, the ones to separate left from right, sometimes they have traffic lights or street signs coming out of them?  well today some dude driving a Mazda 3 decided to drive over it.  those familiar with the Mazda 3 will understand that this is NOT the type of vehicle that should be doing such feats and will share my joy in knowing that it was STUCK and a tow truck dude was trying to help get the car off of the curb.
• there was a guy driving his minivan with NO HANDS on his steering wheel (no, not No Hands, but driving with his hands not on the wheel).  what were his hands doing?  well one was holding his cell phone, and the other was guiding his fingers into the cavernous depths of his nostrils.
• a taxi cab stalled in the middle of the road

all this in the space of the hour it took me to get to work today.

speaking of work, can i get a hell yeah for the long weekend?  i love the fact that even though we're supposed to be independent from the whole "British Monarchy" thing, we still get to celebrate holidays respecting their royalty.  let's hear it for Victoria Day weekend!  i'll raise a beer to that.

and some sunchips.  because they're awesome.  they pretend to be some sort of a healthy snack, but really?  they're chips (or crisps depending on where you're from).  just not made out of potatos.

obscure movie links part 2

okay, Die Hard is on TV tonight uncut.

and now for more obscure movie links... forget about the fact that Allan Rickman or the guy that played the father on Family Matters were in there...

• featuring the guy that played Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters II as one of the terrorist
• also grabbing another sparkling terrorist role, Ghengis Khan from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
• speaking of ghostbusters... how's about the EPA dude from the first Ghostbusters movie
• and the young Zack Lamb from Demolition man

not to mention the fact that the movie just plain old kicks ass. seriously, bruce willis blew up an entire floor of a building.

yeah.

** Edit **

and how could i have forgotten the crazy neighbour Art from The 'Burbs as Walt the city worker?

let's hear it for the inanet

in recent days i've managed to come across some wonderful movie love thanks to a little magic box...

some of the movies that i want to watch are next to impossible to track down at the library and even more ridiculous to try to find on DVD, so i've relied on the good ol' intro-net to come across some of my all time favs (these are not THE all time favourites, just some of them).

Raising Arizona - if only all Nicolas Cage movies could be this funny.  an ex-con and an ex-cop get married and decide they want a child, and the Arizona family "got more than they can handle."  brilliant supporting jobs from Holly Hunter and John Goodman as well.

CB4 - four words:  sweat of my balls. 

in case you need other reasons to see it:  Chris Rock, Allen Payne, Phil Hartman, Chris Elliot, and the more talented but less recognized of the Murphy brothers - Charlie Murphy.  tons of celebrity cameos and not-quite-stars ( one of them ended up on CSI years later) in this rapumentary.

History of the World: Part I - best Mel Brooks film ever.  better than spaceballs.  "It's good to be the king."

if you can find them in your local video shop's cheap bin, pick them up and watch them at least a few times.  they're films that i watch every so often and consistently laugh out loud while watching.

gonna have a clam bake

today we're having a staff barbecue in celebration of the fact that there are new people working for the company. at my old office it was like pulling teeth to try to get something like that to happen, here people practically leap at the opportunity to not do work.

the only downside is that it's been raining like crazy outside all day. hopefully that won't stop anyone though. i don't mind standing out in the rain to have some good ol' BBQ when i should be doing something more productive.

speaking of rain... i don't know why i even bother checking the Weather Network to try to find out what the weather will be like in the upcoming days. i've noticed that every time i check the forecast for saturday and sunday seems to alternate between rain and sun.

i think i read somewhere that if the weather didn't change then 90% of people wouldn't have anything to talk aboot.

i got a magical thing for my desk. a coffee mug warmer thingy. you know, one of those seemingly pointless things to sit your coffee mug on so that it will keep the blessed caffeinated nectar from getting cold? yeah, i gots me one of those. keeps me from dumping out a quarter of a cup of coffee every day.

shhhh. don't tell.

she doesn't really realize that the alligator is stuffed (she thinks she conquored it all by herself).

 

obscure movie links

one thing that's always struck me as a dorkily fun thing is finding obscure links between movies. not just like "oh, nicolas cage was in Valley Girl before he starred in anything (not counting Fast Times at Ridgemont High of course), but things like...

Emperor Palpatine from the new Star Wars films played the butler in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

the woman who played the reporter in CB4 was also the wife in Spawn.

or that both Ween and Pantera have had musical guest-bits on Spongebob Squarepants.

there are plenty more. i'll post more as i come across them.

cost and revenue codes

 

isn't it wonderful

sometimes it can be really nice to get to work way before anyone else does.  today just happens to be one of those days.  you know, where you come into the office and there's no noise other than the clicking of a couple of keyboards and the two other early people talking about there kids.  no arguments, no hardcore business discussion.

the only downside is that the doors are locked before 8:30 in the morning and i ALWAYS forget my building pass in the car.  so i walk all the way down from my car to the door, realize that it's locked, walk all the way back to my car, get my card, yadda yadda yadda.

it's not like i couldn't use the excercise though.  working in an office gives me a tendancy to do nothing all day.

i need to stop by the grocery store today though.  i have a craving for pretzels.  i know, it's early and it should still be considered "cereal time" but i needs me some pretzels.

in the words of the great meatwad... "wanting something is childish.  when you need something, that's a responsibility."

or something to that effect.  the point is that Aqua Teen Hunger Force rules.  and everyone should watch it.

i think that was the point anyways.  i'm not entirely sure.  sometimes i start saying something and by the end it just doesn't make any cents.

you know

i had something interesting and funny to say, but it got lost somewhere on the way to work.

that way to work where i averaged approximately 28 km/h.

on a 45 km trip.

it's far too nice outside to be stuck working in an office.  i need to get a job that keeps me outdoors during the spring time.  the groundskeeper at the building where i work has the right idea.  he's like a million years old and he just cuts the grass and trims the hedges (apparantly for about the last 20 years).  i think come wintertime it'd get pretty old though, cuz then you'd have to shovel snow and i've never really been a fan of that.

man was that dumb

i always wondered why the word dumb has a B on the end.  perhaps to weed out the people who are in fact dumb and trick them.

speaking of dumb, i bit the end of my tongue last night.  so hard that it's affected my sense of taste.  my coffee just isn't right this morning.

bollocks.

a miracle just happened

somehow the gods smiled upon me today.  a miracle of this nature hasn't been seen in thousands of years.  i'm sure that not even the POPE can lay claim to the wonderous event that just happened in my house only moments ago.

i spent less than 3 minutes on the phone with Rogers Cable.

and they fixed my problem

WHILE I WAS STILL ON THE PHONE.

it's a bloody miracle.  forget water into wine, the cable tv company actually HELPED ME.  and it didn't take an entire afternoon or a service call.

i've been blessed.

today's just the perfect day

well, almost perfect anyways. it's like 15 degrees (that's like 60 degrees for americans). i think i'm gonna spend most of the day riding my bike.

cuz it rules.

the downside is i *really* need to clean my apartment. or somebody does anyways. i have this sneaking suspicion that it's gonna be me though.

and just out of curiosity, what was Kevin Smith thinking when he did Jersey Girl. this movie is terrible. well, maybe not terrible, but certainly not what i wanted to see in a Kevin Smith film. i mean, i supposed it was a little enjoyable at times, but i guess i wanted more swearing and stupid jokes. too much sentiment if you ask me.

but now that my coffee mug is empty it must be time to ride my bike.

starting up a corporate "YES" chain

it seems to me that all too often in the corporate world when someone (i.e. me) want's to get something done that the overwhelming reply isn't "yes, let's do that right away," rather it always turns out to be "wow, what a good idea, i agree."

the unfortunate thing about this chain of b.s. emails is that it takes forever for something to get done.  i'm sort of stuck as to the reason why though.  either it's because i'm the only one that senses any urgency in the issue, or perhaps it's just that nobody else actually feels like doing their part.

i'm always amazed when i hear about how busy one person is when talking to another when i often see person A wandering around, talking to whoever may be near, keeping the coffee machine company.  but all i seem to hear is "[not really busy guy] is so busy.  he's got such an enormous workload."

no he doesn't.  i used to do that type of stuff at my old job.  he's just waiting for a file to copy.  he could be doing something else right now, but he chooses not to.

the one thing i've learned at this new company is that i have a sense of urgency that FAR outweighs that of any of my co-workers.  at my old job i learned that if i could do something today, it needed to get done today so that i could manage the rest of my workload.  here the thought seems to be "let's have one busy week, and do nothing for the rest of the month."

a very difficult concept to get accustomed to.  it's kind of bizarre to expect more of yourself than your employer expects from you.

shiiiiit

also you should check oot the PIE HOLE for a guest entry from captain awesome (aka me).

hott tour action!

have i mentioned yet that i love my new bike? because i should. it rules. it makes me go fast for a long time. i'd probably still be riding right now were it not for the fact that i've had a bit of a sore throat for the last couple of days and i don't want to push myself too hard and make myself sick. i wouldn't actually consider myself sick as of yet. anything that can be numbed by a regular dosage of halls isn't enough to consider an illness.

it's all mind over matter though. if i keep telling myself i'm getting better and just ignore signs of illness it will pass.

have i mentioned yet that i hate my neighbours? i'd say about ever 10 to 20 minutes one of the arseholes in the apartment across the hall feels the need to slam the door. and not just a regular slam, but hard enough to shake shit that hangs on my walls. everyone else in the hallway seems to get the concept that you don't need to put overwhelming force into closing your door - it's just the arsewiping cock-monkeys across the hall.

slam.

bang.

slam.

oh great, that last one woke up my retarded cat and now he feels the need to poo.

wooo! threadless sale

everybody should head over to Threadless T-Shirts and buy something.  everything's on sale for $10 till may 8th.  much of my paycheck will be dedicated to this sale.

sometimes megadeth can be cool. sometimes.

today for the first time in aboot a week the drive to work was tolerable.  i think partly it's because i slept in until nearly 8 o'clock in the morning and didn't leave until 9.  it made for a helluva drive though.  i was here in no-time.

at the last stop light before i got to the office i pulled up just as Megadeth was blaring out some good ol' Hangar 18.  the guy in the car beside me (and trust me, i use the term guy very lightly here) decided he wanted to have a stereo war.  i'm guessing 80's metal isn't cool enough for him, so he reached for the volume knob and cranked his stereo up as loud as it would go.

to the LAMEST techno-beat crap EVER.

i just laughed, shook my head, and put up my windows.  because really - i wasn't trying to compete.  and when i shut my windows i hear nothing of the outside world.

and anyone who has intentionally blared a shite-ass keyboard-heavy techno-dance beat out of their car has never been cool and will never be cool.  no matter what their mommies tell them.

memory like an elephant

i find it kind of bizarre how no matter how long it's been since you've fed a cat wet food, they can respond from anywhere in the entire apartment to the sound of a can-opener merely touching the side of a can.

even when that can is a can of soup. like that can of campbell's vegetable soup that's been staring at me for the last couple of days. i thought to myself "i'm feeling kind of lazy - i'm just gonna whip up a tin of soup for dinner."

and it was instant.

before i knew anything had happened, i've suddenly got two very-much-in-love-with-wetfood cats hovering around me, weaving figure 8's around my legs and purring, hoping that somehow that last drop of tomato soup and that letter b are somehow actually tiny morsels of wet food that will appease their over-fed bellies.

but you know what's really awesome? maple-cheddar cheese (how's that for an abrupt subject change). everything goes with it. like toast, crackers, pepperoni.

maybe not cat food though. of course, i haven't given it a chance so i can't be too sure.