the road is tough

it's such a pain in the ass when the city in which you live has decided that in order to save money, they must wait until absolutely necessary to send out the snow plows. it took me 20 minutes to drive one block today, but strangely the same amount of time to turn around and go to work on a different road.

at my company, nobody can leave voicemails it seems. it's so bizarre. one of our corporate standards is that we're supposed to change our voicemail message every day (several times in a day if you've got meetings), but rather than leave a message for someone, people in this place just call around to other people and ask if the missing person is in the office.

heck, if you call in to the office main line, the receptionist is supposed to page out to someone who doesn't answer their extension right away and then ask the caller if they don't mind being put through to their voicemail.

i guess the idea is that it helps gain us customer service points, but i think it's almost getting a bit ridiculous. there's no reason i should get a phone call from someone asking if my supervisor is in the office when they can just leave him a bloody voicemail.

a magnet of awesome

so for the second time this year, i was hit by a car.

 

luckily for me this time, i was in my car when the other car hit me from behind.  and really, it wasn't a car, it was a van.  i wish i could say that nobody was at fault, but really - it was him.  when you hit someone from behind it's generally because you're following them too closely.  i managed to stop for the guy that cut me off - i would think that the guy following me should be able to return the favour.  it took every ounce of my energy to not shout at the guy and say words that would even get censored on canadian television.  i left it at "you were following too close and driving too fast - that's why you hit me.  get me your insurance papers NOW!"

 

and what's with people hitting me with their automobiles?  this happened to me a couple of years ago in my other car too.  it's not like i have a "Kick Me" sign taped to my back or something.  i even checked for that in the mirror.

 

there's not much damage to the car.  minor scrapes and the like, but i'm still filing an insurance claim.  i'll be damned if i get stuck paying for this when i have to return my car at the end of the lease.  the insurance people told me that despite the fact that there were no charges laid that they would still hold the other driver's insurance responsible for paying for the damages.  pure awesome in my opinion.  also, it's best that a proper mechanic make the decision rather than me.  last time this happened i would have gotten stuck with a $900 bill for the replacement of the entire bumper assembly if i'd listened to myself and said "aah, the damage isn't THAT bad."

 

still - there's more proof for you as to why insurance rates are so stupidly high in the GTA - because people who can barely speak or even read english are allowed to pass driving tests and drive however they want.  i seriously question how this person should be allowed to drive.  i actually had to help him spell the word "white" on the collision report when describing the colour of his van.  and on top of that, i also had to write out the story of what happened for him because he could not do it.  in fact, the majority of the collision report was beyond his level of english comprehension.  if someone who has that poor a grasp on the language that we speak here can pass a written test to drive a car, then perhaps things need to change a bit.  it could just be that he didn't understand the part of the driving book that says "don't drive fast really close to the car in front of you". 

 

don't get me wrong.  i understand that everyone who originally settled this country has faced this type of issue at one point or another, but perhaps a little more time should be spent on educating people as to the rules and regulations that accompany potentially life threatening situations - like driving an automobile.  and anyone who says that driving an automobile is not a life threatening situation should remember that people with cars kill more than people with guns in north america.

four shalt thou NOT count

four days. that's it.

i've been training my replacement at job number one for the last while, and although i'm not quite convinced he's 100% ready, he'll have to do. i am far too excited about the fact that my trip to work will no longer be ridiculous like it was this morning.

it took me more than 90 minutes to get gas and drive the 45 km from door to frickin door. I've also estimated that based on the current price of gas that it's going to cost me between $44 and $50 this week to get to and from job number one. when taking multiple transit systems becomes more cost effective than driving to work, you know you've got a problem.

but that problem will be short lived. only a couple more days to go. i'm looking forward to being able to ride my bike to work on a regular basis. i've literally put less than 100 km on my bike since the start of the warm weather because of the commute and 2 job thing and am going to need to get some major riding in to be able to finish the 75 km in the Ride for Heart on June 1st (Martini - you should totally switch and do the 75 km instead of the 50 - all the cool kids are doing it. and by all i mean me).

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a busy couple of weeks ahead

but really, does it matter if the next two weeks are busy if i only have 2 more weeks with 2 jobs?

the answer is no. i wish i could start my new job now, then it wouldn't have taken me an hour to get to work this morning. no, i could have ridden my bike for 15 minutes to get there and stopped for a coffee at the Tim Horton's across the street.

Iron Man is now out in theatres, and although I wasn't happy with the stance that he took in the comic books when it came to the Civil War, someone had to be the bad guy.

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sometimes wednesday just sneaks up on you eh?

yup. that's my bamboo plant alright.


at job one my company has recently invested in some new tools for me to do my reporting duties because i create awesome reports about stuff. the only problem is that although this product makes neat charts and graphs and stuff, you unfortunately have to make a decision of whether you want it to look good on the web or look good on paper. apparently you can't have both which is bloody inconvenient.

and you know what else is inconvenient? people that drive BMW's. if i had a nickel for every time some jackass in a BMW tried to take off my front bumper with his "superior" car... well, i'd have a lot of nickels - so many that i'd have to roll them up and take them to the bank to exchange them for dollars and shit. sometimes i wish i could mount a snow plow or some push bars on the front of my toyota and just drive through those fuckers. then i'd say "geez, that german engineering doesn't hold up so well with a snow plow shoved up its ass."

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bamboo wednesday! part 19! and damned canadian weather!

okay, so technically it isn't wednesday. the weather was terrible yesterday so i opted to stay at home instead...



and if you read Studioloo Magazine, you'd know that this technically isn't bamboo either, but a reasonable facsimile. oh well, i'm going to keep calling it bamboo because i feel like it.

also, what's with all the retarded traffic on the day AFTER a snow storm? i mean seriously, it should not have taken me nearly two hours to get to work this morning. it snowed YESTERDAY. today is sunny. crapheads.

and also, the new Iron Man movie is coming this spring (some time in may i think). Marvel has released some new trailers that look awesome-tastic.

twice in one day

how is it fair that i had to shovel the snow in my driveway twice today? well, i suppose it's better to have to shovel snow twice than to actually drive into the office. i didn't even bother trying to get to work today, i just decided first thing to stay and "work from home".

my boss HATES when people work from home.

and the great thing is that at least 4 other people decided to do the same thing. one can only hope that their productivity was as amazing as mine.

i was so productive, i shoveled twice!

oh yeah, i already said that.

i also sent a bunch of emails, and watched some Spongebob Squarepants.

something not right this morning, eh?

this morning the dogs somehow managed to allow me to sleep until 8:15 am. this is a very strange thing. usually they're up and aboot somewhere around the six o'clock hour with the requirements of eating and pooping. from what i understand, most dogs like to eat and poop at about six in the morning, though usually not at the exact same time.

a quick search of the house proved that there were no "accidents" so i went on with the feeding of the dogs which was followed shortly thereafter by the pooping of the dogs.

i noticed while outside that there was nobody out there except for the really (really) old guy who delivers newspapers and flyers from door to door in my new neighbourhood.

with the puppies in their crate and the cat fed, i decided it was time to go to work. since i still haven't done a proper grocery shopping since we moved into the new place, i figured a quick bite to eat at tim horton's would be the right thing to do. i AM canadian, i'm pretty sure it's my duty to go there at least every once in a while.

the drive to the tim horton's was uninterrupted by stop lights. as a matter of fact i managed not to stop at all until i pulled into the drive-thru.

and there was only ONE other car in the drive through. at 8:45 am. on a saturday. wtf mate?

so this morning i somehow managed to feed and walk the dogs, feed the cat, clean myself and get dressed, go to a tim horton's drive through AND manage to get to work within an hour of my waking up.

well, i suppose i can put up with things being "not right" as long as these things work in my favour.

the morning bike ride to work

well, the morning bike ride to job #2 anyways. haven't quite gotten myself up to the point where i can ride to job #1 yet becuase it's more than three times as far, but here's some of the details:

• Total Distance: 12.969 km
• Max Speed: 39.7 km/h
• Avg Speed: 20.7 km/h
• Total Time: 37 mins 36 seconds
• Calories Burned: 374.7

so by the time i go home, i will have burned approximately 750 calories. by my count, that's a medium oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen with some room to spare. If i was choosing to eat something healthy, i could eat 13 apples instead of the 1 blizzard, but that wouldn't come anywhere close to filling my ice cream needs.

sometimes i go crazy, sometimes i get crazy

okay, a 90 minute drive to work when you leave at seven in the morning is NOT COOL. don't let anyone try to persuade you otherwise. there is absolutely nothing awesome about sitting in your car behind a lineup of ten thousand other people waiting for some dipshit to clear a smashed car off of the road because some other arsewipe was too stupid to pay attention while changing lanes.

even the site of commuters picking their noses and inspecting their green for gold loses its funny after an hour or so.

and all of this to get to an office where i will continue to sit on my ass for another 8 hours or so. i'm beginning to find the office world tremendously uncool.

i think i'm going to spend the weekend avoiding my car at all costs.

a kitty shouldn't smell like cigarettes, it should smell like a kitty

by the way, if you haven't already seen the Trailer Park Boys movie, you should get your arse to the video store to go watch it. if you're ready for a movie with an abundance of bad language, drinking, drugs and rampant ridiculosity - that's what you'll get. for anyone who's not familiar with the Showcase series, it will give you enough introduction that you could easily start following the show without having to track down key episodes of the series in order to trace any character development. and the great thing is that for anyone who may not have the good fortune to be able to catch the series on television, most of the seasons are available on DVD.

totally off topic, i've been stuck in traffic for much of the last few days. we had a hella snow/freezing rain/ice storm on thursday that retarded the highway drivers, causing me to have a 3+ hour drive home. it did enough damage to the city that friday i could warrant working at home even though the weather was much nicer.

and what the hell is up with the gasoline situation? is it the same in the US with gas prices skyrocketing and supplies being ridiculously low, or is it only us canadians that are getting anally violated at the gas pumps? thank god i bought a Toyota Yaris. i'm lucky enough that even with all of the insane gas prices ($1.02 per litre this morning - that's about $3.30 per gallon for americans) i can get away with just topping up a small amount in the ol' gas tank and still be able to get myself around. it is pretty awful though that 5 out of the 10 gas stations between my home and my office are completely out of gas. most people are pretty much at the point that they just fill up whenever they see a station has gas. hopefully by the time my lease is up on this car, the alternative fuel engines will be much more popular. i'm personally cheering for the hydrogen fuel cells, but i think the hybrid technology's going to win out first.

time to bring out your retards!

is it still PC to say retards?



we're getting the first "real" snowfall of the season right now in the GTA. that officially means that if this snow carries on until tomorrow morning that my morning commute will be littered with the wrecked and battered skeletons of the cars whose drivers forgot that snow makes the road slippery.

"black ice" will be a phrase thrown around muchly on the radio tomorrow morning, though if you ask my opinion black ice is just a term people invented to hide the fact that they were driving too fast to account for the weather conditions. is the road wet or shiny looking? slow down. is there snow anywhere within 10 feet of you? slow down. is it -5 and raining out? slow down. all very simple.

but then again, if people slowed down and drove normally then the insurance industry wouldn't be able to make any money right?

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

yes, in fact i HAVE had enough with the traffic

there's something about near 2 hr drives to work that make me want to start shooting people.  and that something is that these 2 hour commutes lick clown-hole.  oh yeah, it's the fact that if i had gotten out of bed on time this morning i would have been able to bike the distance.  actually, now that i think about it, i wouldn't have needed to get up any earlier - two hours is two hours.

i watched Doom last night.  what this movie lacks in acting talent and script it more than makes up with violence and sillyness.  there definitely is no chance of any of the actors involved with this movie winning an academy award (come on The Rock, prove me wrong), but if you have ever played the video game you will definitely appreciate the climax point of the movie which remains very true to it.  go ahead and watch it, but put all ideas and thought away and just enjoy some good violence.  come on, it's a video-game based movie.

didn't your mom ever tell you to wash up?

even the hubble telescope can see the dark spot on your anus.  or was that Uranus?

today's effort in combatting traffic involved me sleeping until 8 in the morning.  i woke up initially around six to the sound of my neighbour sticking his head out the window and shouting down to his idiot construction co-workers waiting in the van 7 floors below and noticed that his shouting was accompanied by very heavy rain, thunder and lightning.

that particular combination (rain, thunder, lightning, idiots shouting at each other) means terrible traffic in the GTA.  i consulted the dog and the cat that live in my apartment and they agreed - two more hours of sleep should solve all of my problems.

so i leisurely woke up at 4 minutes to eight, showered, ate breakfast and drank some chocolate milk (an essential part to any healthy breakfast) and started on my way to work.

traffic still licked dirty giraffe balls, but at least it moved at a steady pace - averaging 28 km/h today.

some time in between 5pm last night and 10am this morning, somebody left 7 cents on my desk in the form of a nickel and two pennies.  pope B XVI told me once way back before he became pope, that someone had done this to him at the vatican.  seven cents in canadian coins waiting patiently for him as he arrived one morning. 

he never really got into too much detail as to what he was doing in the vatican before he became pope, but needless to say it wasn't long afterwards that ol' JP2 started getting pretty sick and a new emperor... er... pope was elected.

screw the rain and the people who love crashing their cars in it

here's a bizarre little addition to this morning's statistics: this morning in my car it took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to work, making my average speed roughly 23 km/h. this means that if i was was in better shape that i probably could have rode my bike to work faster today than i could have driven.

and since work is dreadfully slow today (just like the drive to work), here are some fun things to do on the inanet:

• have a look at Area 51 on Google Maps
• find out the answer to life, the universe and everything
• look at pictures of hamsters

** edit - i just noticed that the second link didn't work properly, so it's been fixed

quick facts

here's some of the quick facts aboot yesterday's experimental ride to work as told by the little neat-o schwinn cycling computer on my bike:

• motal round-trip distance of 76 km
• max speed of 41.3 km/h (the best i've managed ever was 49.8 km/h)
• avg speed 17 km/h (i was certain i could average 20)
• total calories burned 2197.6 (should have gone around the block one more time to push it up to 2200)
• grams of fat burned 189.3
• min speed of about 8 km/h (this is not logged in the computer thingy, but was observed by myself as i trekked up a few nasty hills)
  

my brother (the cycling fanatic) assured me that i did quite well speed and time-wise for that distance carrying a load of stuff on my back. i figured as long as i survived, that's all that counts. it cost me an extra 1.5 to 2 hrs of commuting time, but saved me from burning nearly 7 litres (nearly 2 gallons) of gas.

i'll probably do this again, but not likely again this fall. it was very cold yesterday morning (aboot 8 degrees) and starting to get dark on the ride home.

for any bike geek out there who may be considering purchasing a Trek 7.3 FX - i'd recommend it for trips like that with a few minor adjustments:

• get some bar-end attachments so you can put your hands in different positions
• different grips would be nice (but not necessary if you're buying gloves)
• you may want to upgrade the front derailleur. should cost aboot 50 dollars extra or so if they give you credit on the take-off parts, but i've got to take my bike in to have the front derailleur serviced (again) cuz it's clicking. everything else is golden

it's a fast, solid and rugged bike. not overly heavy as it may appear at first, but certainly no superlight. definitely something that works just fine right out of the store. it's the perfect bike for someone who wants to start getting into cycling, but isn't sure that shelling out more than a grand is the right thing for them to do.