utter cockslap

My weekend was an utter cockslap, but I am actually feeling pretty good right now. It might be the caffeine, or the bacon, or the inspiration power rock streaming from my iPhone, but whatever the cause – I’m feeling good. I will try to hang onto this feeling.

Oh, I think I know what it is. I’m out of my normal brain medication, so I took some stuff I found in the bathroom closet – expired, double strength and prescribed to someone else. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Abuse someone else’s medication in the pursuit of happiness?

I suppose I should put up a disclaimer that I’m not *really* abusing anything, except the facts don’t do me any face-saving justice – the straight truth is that these aren’t my pills, and a smarter person who didn’t spend most of their weekend alternately giddy and hating the universe would probably have made the time to get a refill. Oh well. Maybe what I needed all along was to increase my dosage. I seem to be much less dissatisfied with my life at the moment – maybe passionless and boring isn’t so bad after all!

There is a sad shriveled lemon on my desk. It is depressing me, so into the garbage it goes.

Today I am wildly erratic and irrelevant, but my shirt has a dragon on it and also some waves and flowers and a pagoda or two.

You know, it’s a good thing that I’m not planning on running for office anytime soon. If people are scandalized by mildly racy pictures, I can only image the heart attacks that would follow should I announce my intentions to seek out any sort of power. It would be kind of fun, though: I wonder how far I could get as a cleavage-baring, scooter-riding, baby-hating, drug-abusing, abortion-having, swear-happy, unphotogenic funny-looking fat girl.

death by ham

I haven’t actively watched any CSI-type murder shows in some time now, but that apparently doesn’t stop me from trying to plan the perfect murder. It’s probably not a good thing that I spent a good chunk of my morning thinking about the frozen ham I just took out of the freezer, and how it would make an awesome head-basher, then wondering if they would ever be able to trace the distinctive indentations in the skull to the frozen ham hock – especially if I cook and eat the evidence for Sunday dinner.

I could never be a criminal mastermind – I would want to tell people exactly how I pulled off this awesome crime, and then I’d go to jail where they wouldn’t let me on the internet.

Err, and it would be bad to take a life and stuff.

But mostly, I’d miss the internet.

Also, “Death by Ham” would be a great band name.

one (replacement) ring to bind them

Okay, internet – I need some suggestions.

It’s been over three months since I lost my wedding ring, and I’m beginning to feel that it will never surface again. The house has been cleaned top to bottom numerous times and I haven’t found it – normally when I misplace things, they’re found again relatively quickly because I’m really anal retentive about it. When frantic house cleaning didn’t turn up my ring, I decided to play it cool and just go about my regular business in the hopes that it would show up. No luck, and now I have no wedding band.

Sadly, I think it’s time to replace it. Since I have to get a new ring anyway, I’m thinking about getting something different. As much as I loved my original ring, I don’t want the same kind in case it shows up one day – so I’ll use this opportunity to look at different ring styles.

This is where you guys come in. I need some suggestions or recommendations of where to look – local would be nice, but I don’t mind buying online if I find something perfect. I’m looking for interesting, affordable, and something that suits my (depressing, racist) lifestyle perfectly. Any ideas?

I probably don’t need to put this disclaimer out there, but I am nothing if not paranoid: I am not racist, and I sincerely hope I am not depressing. I’ve been called both this week, and I am not so un-self-centered that it threw me for a loop (the first obviously more than the second). True to form, both things have become a running joke between me and Josh – he will say something innocent, I will accuse him of racism, and he will tell me my blog is depressing. It is all good. But I’m not racist, okay? Using adjectives is not racist. Describing an environment is not racist. Hot Topic is not punk rock. I don’t think I’ve had a truly racist thought in my entire life, let alone on the internet for everyone to see. I just don’t have time to hate.

Except for Aquaman.

Fish men are fucking dicks.

Today is Friday, so I will leave you with a hilarious cake. I am not a Twilight fan, but this made me laugh very, very hard:

this is might be better than getting optimus prime

this is might be even better than outing optimus prime

men’s sufferage my ass

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. All the signs were there – little things at first, but slowly gaining momentum. My slippers, not at the door when I came home. Having to pointedly rattle the ice cubes in my empty scotch glass several times before he brought me a refill. Take-out for dinner – take-out! I don’t slave away at the office from 9 to 5 just to be served greasy slop from a cardboard box!

Last week I had to give him a stern talking to. Not only was there a layer of dust coating the living room – a clear indicator he hadn’t been doing the housework properly; probably watching his stories and eating bon bons all day instead – but the instant I walked in the door, he started complaining about some trivial matter – needing a new vacuum cleaner or mop or something. What happened to making me comfortable? Where’s my filled pipe and cool drink; my fluffed pillows and offer to remove my shoes? I’m pretty sure it’s a written rule that you don’t greet your wife with problems or complaints the instant she walks in the door. Does he have any idea what I’ve gone through that day? I’ve been with a lot of work-weary people! My boring day needs a lift! Isn’t he supposed to be a little more gay and interesting, with a ribbon in his hair and fresh makeup?

Two nights ago he tried to steer me into a conversation about the changes happening down in Washington. “Men’s Liberation”, they call it – some baloney about equal rights for men. I snorted at the idea and went back to my newspaper. Can you imagine it? Men thinking they’re as good as women! Everyone knows men are the weaker sex; they’re just not cut out for the workforce. Men belong in the home and in the kitchen, and no new-fangled “men’s lib” will see MY husband marching the streets like a common harlot.

Well, I thought that I had made myself clear on the matter. Just because his little friends are all in a tizzy at the thought of a life outside the home doesn’t mean I approve or give my consent! He did the unthinkable – he went out and got a job. My husband, working! He says it’s his right as a proud warrior man! I ordered him to forget about this nonsense and do the laundry, but he just took off his apron, grabbed his handbag, and marched out the door. I don’t know what’s come over him, but we’ll see how he likes it when I withhold his weekly allowance. He won’t get far without money for pretty ties and face powder, and he’ll be back in the kitchen preparing delicious meals planned in advance.

This whole thing is just ridiculous. What’s next? Men having babies? Driving cars? Nellie McClung was right – nice men don’t want the vote.

.. for the first time in our relationship, Ed makes more money than me. My fragile womanly ego is having a hard time dealing with this. It’s just .. wrong.

I think I’ll go bug HR about my overdue raise.

i hate him so hard

My ride to work this morning was a little surreal. There was an accident that really fucked traffic up, and there was a large pile of snow in Stanley Park that was *not* there on the way home yesterday. I have no idea where it came from – it certainly didn’t snow last night, and there are no ice rinks nearby. It makes pretty much no sense for there to be a large, localized pile of snow in the middle of the forest next to a highway.

I had plenty of time to look around as we waited for the accident to be dealt with. After admiring the scenery and once again marveling that I actually live here, my attention fell upon the woman in the car in front of me. I had about 30 minutes to watch her as we crawled along the bridge deck, and she was simultaneously amazing and disgusting. Hey lady in the white Mercedes 530 – maybe it would have been a better idea for you to, I don’t know, DO YOUR HAIR AT HOME BEFORE YOU LEFT THE HOUSE? I rode behind this idiot and watched in horror as she used both hands to brush her hair into place, secure it with various pins, and do it all up in a tight knot with a large clip – several times, since she kept being interrupted with the whole “must move car forward” thing. She had both her rear view mirror and her side mirror pointed at her face as she did herself up all LDS-style, and wasn’t paying any attention to the road whatsoever – she was incredibly lucky that her car had excellent wheel alignment, because she would have driven right into the concrete barrier. Every time we stopped on the bridge she would start doing her hair in earnest, then not moving until I honked at her to go once traffic started flowing again. The second time I honked she stopped what she was doing to glare at me. Clearly, I am in the wrong here and the driver’s seat is the perfect place to do your hair and make up in the morning and I should be ashamed of my rudeness. Yes.

After her hair was sufficiently perfect, she started to apply mascara and then lipstick – all while driving her car. I hope the irony is not lost on her that she was doing her makeup while driving past an accident on the bridge, but I doubt it gave her anything to think about. Some people just feel entitled to endanger others, I suppose.

Also, her hair was horrible and the bright yellow cardigan she was wearing? Barf. I am amused that she almost caused several accidents to make herself look like that on purpose, but that’s pretty mean of me. Maybe I am a terrible person after all.

No time to question my own morality, though – I have a vacation to plan! Yesterday I booked a hotel in San Francisco for our road trip next month. I found a small place right in the middle of all the things I want to see for about $75 a night which is pretty reasonable. I checked a bunch of reviews and they all seem to be really positive, which is good – I didn’t want to stay in a total dive, but we’re also going to be there for 4 nights so we can’t really afford to go for fancy. Besides, I’m not there to hang out in a hotel room – as long as I have a place to plug in my laptop and shower in the morning, I am happy. We’re about a mile from Fisherman’s Wharf, 6 blocks from the crazy section of Lombard Street, close to downtown and Chinatown and Japantown and holy shit I am so excited I could just pee. VACATION! A VACATION THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE EDMONTON IN ANY WAY! YIPPEE!

Sorry.

I’m just very, very excited.

Where was I? Oh yes, being racist.

*ahem*

Fucking Aquaman.

i do not like this

I don’t know how to use eye drops.

My eyes have been watering pretty much non-stop for the past month, and I’m getting really tired of a) going through Kleenex faster than a 13-year-old boy and b) always looking like I’m crying. I did some research into watery eyes, and have come to the conclusion that I am either a) a senior citizen or b) suffering from allergies and should use eye drops to fix it.

Wait, what.

I do not understand the logic behind applying MORE liquid to my already-dripping eyeballs. It’s stupid. It goes against science. I need some kind of eyeball-friendly mop, not eye drops. Adding water to water does not make things drier. It’s just plain common sense.

It also appears to be my only option.

With nothing to lose, I stopped by the drug store today and picked up a bottle of Visine Advance Plus for Allergies. Okay, it says “tearing” on here – maybe it’ll stop my watery eye problem. I took the bottle back to my desk, and opened it up.

Um.

I don’t know how to use eye drops.

I asked around on Twitter, receiving answers varying from the sort of helpful (“stick your tongue out when doing it!”) to the typical (“anally”) to the sarcastic (“you drop it into your eye”). I was still nervous, though – I don’t necessarily have an eye-phobia but I do not like things going into my eyes – so I asked Josh. He found me a walkthrough straight from the factory, so I decided to give it a go.

I missed my eye three or four times. I think I got SOME liquid in there, but I can’t be sure – my eyes feel just as wet as they were before, and also a little weird.

I do not like eye drops.

They are not natural.

Is the return of my beloved bright green eyeshadow really worth this discomfort?

feel good video of the year

I know this is all over the internet, but if you haven’t seen it, please watch it:

I’ve watched it twice now and each time it made me sniffly. Her voice is incredible. I don’t care about the show; I want all of her dreams to come true.

*sniffle*

healthcare before (dumpster) olympics

People on the reserve have a fun new game: Dumpster Olympics.

At least twice over the weekend, a group of people have taken a dumpster from somewhere on the reserve and rolled it down the hill of their street to see it crash into parked cars that are NOT on the reserve. It is awesome. So far they’ve damaged four cars, shattering the back window of one of them. The last time was Sunday night – the dumpster hit a curb and tipped over. If it didn’t hit the curb, or hit it a couple inches further down, the huge bin would have fallen right on the Mazdabator. Hooray!

I am too weary to properly express my disgust over this. They’re destroying other people’s property for the sake of amusing themselves. Awesome. There’s nothing we can really do to protect ourselves – we can keep our assorted vehicles out of the line of dumpster fire, but that’s only good until their next bout of bored, drunken creativity. Perhaps it is time to look into vigilantism. I bet I could make myself a cape, and I have some masks I could use. I’m scary, right? I could totally intimidate drunk/high people twice my size!

I will be really fucking choked if our car gets hit. We’ve already been boot-hatted twice, AND we just paid the stupid thing off – let us enjoy the whole “no car-related debt” thing for a couple months before we have to pay to fix other people’s “fun”.

People *suck*. I feel badly for the people who got hit. I’ve heard that one of the damaged cars was brand new; less than a week old. Seriously, what drives people to do this kind of stuff? Am I missing an entire chapter from my genetic makeup; the part that would make me want to hurt others for absolutely no reason? Ugh. So much uncool.

In other news, I’m thinking of scooting to Bellingham this weekend just to see if I can.

it is 906 and you are listening to los angeles

it is 906 and you are listening to los angeles

awesome at nothing

I had three days off, and I didn’t do a single errand I had planned to tackle. I almost feel as though I should pat myself on the back for my excellent display of procrastination, except that I’m pretty annoyed at myself for wasting my Sunday in such an epic fashion – I read until 5am Sunday morning, then slept until 2. I spent what was left of my day cleaning, and while I‘m glad I can see my bedroom floor again; I would still have preferred Doing Things. Of course, it wasn’t entirely my fault – I had forgotten that all stores and countries close for Easter. Nothing was open yesterday, so I couldn’t do a damn thing regardless of my sloth-like nature.

I wanted to ride Oscar all day on Friday, but that did not happen. I went outside to clean him up a little, removing some of the older stickers that were faded and peeling and replaced them with new ones. By the time I finished the restickering of my scooter, Ed and Josh were both outside and dressed and ready to go for a ride. I put on my helmet, walked around my scooter, and .. was that large empty spot *always* there on the back of my ride?

Someone had stolen my license plate at some point in the night. What the fuck! Who steals a license plate? I mean, I’m glad they didn’t do anything ELSE to Oscar, but what the fucking hell. Any plans we had to go riding were put on the back burner because we had to deal with this immediately. We rode up to London Drugs because there’s an Autoplan Center in there, and started to deal with my missing plate. After waiting in line for a million years (or about half an hour – it was surprisingly busy for a holiday Friday), I learned that the guy behind the counter wouldn’t help me until I filed a police report. He gave me the non-emergency number and I went to call the police – except before I did that, I needed to know my license plate number.

Naturally, I did not know my license plate number. I scoured the photos on my iPhone and went through my Flickr stream, while Josh did the same thing. I called Miranda, and she had Reilly go through HIS millions of photos, trying to find a picture of the rear end of my scooter. After about 15 minutes, Josh was successful – we had my plate. I called the police, spent what felt like 4 years on hold, and filed my report. I had a case number, so now I could get a replacement plate – right?

Oh, funny. First of all, the insurance guy had to get my VIN number. He ran my plates, and .. the number was wrong. So he had to call a guy, who called a guy, who looked in a database, and eventually we got my REAL plate number which we had misread from the Flickr photo Josh found. Insurance Guy wouldn’t help me until I called the police back to correct my stolen plate report, so it was back on the phone to wait for someone to get around to answering the non-emergency line. I had to call back twice because the phone was just ringing, but eventually I got through and updated my police report. Insurance Man was happy to (slowly) help me at this point, and $23 later, I had a new license plate and a copy of my insurance papers. Now we could go for a ride!

Except it was after 3 at this point, and Josh had left us to go home and prepare for his anniversary photo shoot with Shan. I hadn’t eaten anything yet, so Ed and I went out for some fish n’ chips before stopping at the hardware store for screws and a new bathtub stopper. It was very domesticated and horrible, made all the more unbearable because it was so stupid – who steals a LICENSE PLATE?!

Ed has been under the weather lately, so he spent the evening watching hockey. Everyone else ended up at the Frog in Gastown and I was feeling antsy, so I put on some clothes and headed out on Oscar to meet up with the gang. We hung out at the bar for a bit, then went to Robson Street to go to the Japanese grocery store. We bought strange candy, stood around on the street sharing said candy, then headed back to the North Shore to turn in for the evening.

Saturday was a little better. We all slept in, then went for a late breakfast at Burgoo on Lonsdale. We had been there for fondue before but never for brunch, so it was all shiny and new and fucking awesome. After a fantastic breakfast, we split up again – I was going to Do Things before we all had to get fancy and meet up again at 5:30 for dinner downtown with our new friends, Yunn and Barry.

I did not Do Things. For some reason, I felt it would be much more awesome to spend the four hours I had doing absolutely nothing. I napped, I read, I played video games. It was very productive, as far as nothing goes – but it didn’t do a damn thing on my list. Another failure! I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though – it was time to get fancy for dinner.

Yunn suggested we check out The Refinery on Granville, so a large group of us dressed up and went for eating. It was pretty interesting – not a traditional dinner-type place, it was more a selection of tapas and meats and cheeses. It was really good, even if not totally my thing (I am not big on cheeses or thinly sliced meats). We ended up hanging out in Gastown until the wee hours of the morning, then went home sleepy.

Not sleepy enough, though, as I then read until 5am.

I wish I had taken today off. I could have done all those things I didn’t do!

Next up: How Dumpster Olympics are ruining everything.

boo hiss

I had to cancel/postpone the Lo-Fi Scooter Workshop that was scheduled for Sunday. The weather is just not cooperating – the forecast says it’s going to be 8 degrees with a 90% chance of rain, which is just unpleasant all around. I’m really disappointed that the weather is going to be such crap, because I was really looking forward to it – hopefully the revamped version (which I think may just be a general picnic/meetup somewhere that also happens to be inundated with scooters) will go off without a hitch. It’ll definitely be a lot less formal, at any rate – I fail at planning things.

I did create a flyer for the Scooter Workshop that has a bunch of information on our particular rides. You can download it here – it’s a .PDF, and it’s meant to be a three-fold brochure type thing. I had forgotten how much I enjoy desktop publishing, so I had a bit of fun with it. Check it out, if you will – I kind of love my brochure. It’s just so .. nerdy.

Today is the only good day we’re going to see out of this weekend, so I’m going to shower and dress then go outside and ride. Oscar needs some new stickers, so I’ll decorate him like an 8-year old and be on my way.

Damn you, weather.

grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloud