It’s amazing how quickly a little thing like attempted vehicular homicide can put a damper on your evening.

I had a work function this evening that filled me full of steak and lemonade. Sated, I made plans to meet Ed at the McDonalds on Hastings and Highway 1, as it was relatively central to his North Shore and my downtown locations. I arrived shortly before him, and we headed out to our evening destination: Coquitlam Center.

We pulled out of the parking lot and stopped for a red light. We were in the rightmost lane; an HOV lane during the day and street parking in the evening. There were cars parked in the lane ahead, but I had ample room to accelerate when the light turned green and get ahead of the cars next to me.

I did not count on two things: 1) a premature throttle twist on my part, and 2) the Chrysler full of homicidal frat boys in the lane next to me.

I tried to gun it when the light changed, but I misfired and started early. I pulled back, then had to re-rev when the light changed for real. Unfortunately, my misfire alerted the douche bags to my plan, and they decided it would be a right jolly thrill to do their damnedest to keep me from getting in.

I hit the gas, and so did they. I slowed down to let them get over themselves, and so did they. I tried to use Lola’s power and speed up to get ahead of them, but that no fat girl on a scooter is going to get ahead of the Douche Mobile – they sped up.

They were driving a Chrysler 300. It is a very large car. I tried to force my way into the lane – it was either that or hit the parked cars – but they sped up and drove right beside me in the lane, forcing me to the side. I tried again to get around them, but they would not let me. They kept revving the engine and forcing me out of their lane.

I gunned it one last time, and this is where I made my biggest mistake next to not just letting the assholes have their way – I flipped them off. I was filled with adrenaline and trying very hard not to get hit by this massive luxury car intent on pushing me into the row of parked cars. They were being complete assholes and putting me in danger for no good reason, and I was pissed off.

Apparently, douche bags in luxury cars don’t like it when fat girls on a scooters flip them off.

Previously they were just trying to keep me out of their lane; now they were actively trying to hit me. They sped up again, coming within an inch or two of me, and yelled something out the window. I felt the car brush my pant leg, but I didn’t hear their insult because I was too busy trying not to die. The other cars around us gave them a wide berth, and the 300 sped past just as a break opened in the row of parked cars. I moved over and turned right onto Boundary, all too aware that I almost fucking died a second ago.

Okay, maybe that’s a little melodramatic. For all I know, I would have been fine after being run over by an enormous 2 ton sedan.

I wanted to keep scooting, because I needed to calm myself down. Ed pulled us over though, and he called the cops. He asked if I got the plate number, to which I laughed hysterically – the car was never ahead of me until it almost killed me, and I was in no condition to memorize numbers. He passed along what information we had, and after a brief lecture at me (which I shut down; I didn’t need and couldn’t handle a scolding just then) we went to the mall as planned.

I bought a tank top and a necklace.

Then we rode home, unscathed.

I hate it when people try to murder me.

I’m dicking around with Facebook Pages, and I think I’ve created a page for my page (how meta!). I’m trying to create a fan page for Delicious Juice Dot Com that will import my posts here onto Facebook for easy readin’, and also boost my ego so I can say “look mom, I did something with my life – I totally have fans”. If you’re on Facebook and you like me and my silly words, can you click this thing and be a fan? I think if I get 100 fans I get an extra life or my own URL or something. I’m not actually sure. The help is less than helpful.

It’s a cold and gray kind of Friday, but I have sparkly purple eyeshadow named “Fairy Princess” and a bountiful bosom. I’m getting a free meal later today – the Router Project from Hell is OVER and we’re celebrating with crustaceans – and earlier I got called “brash and uncompromising” which is a polite way to say that I am completely inappropriate, and I like it.

In fact, I ordered (free) business cards that say “unapologetically inappropriate” on the bottom. I think that’s even BETTER than being an Internet Superstar.

Hey, rambling.

Be my fan! I don’t cause fan death or anything!

Actually, I suppose a little honesty is in order. I’m trying to convince a community website to bring me on as an official writer, and having a fan page could only help my cause. This is sort of a positive side effect of it; I really built the fan page because I didn’t want to document this process I’m working on – but if it’ll help me be declared official, that would be super. I like to write. You may not know this about me, but it’s true.

Besides, I would totally be a fan of you if you had a fan page.

There was an e-scooter on the Lions Gate Bridge today.

Not on the sidewalk.

On the bridge itself.

Let’s forget for a minute how much I *loathe* those stupid things, and instead focus on just the facts: there was an e-scooter on the Lions Gate Bridge today.

An electric scooter has a maximum top speed of 32km/h on a full charge. I sold my Honda Jazz that had a maximum speed of 65km/h, because it was dangerously slow on the LGB.

Oscar’s top speed was 85km/h, and at times HE was dangerously slow.

All this is bad enough, but let’s not forget that the LGB has a fairly steep incline. While my previous scooters could easily handle the speed limit on the down stroke, the real danger was in getting up there in the first place. A scooter with a top speed of 65km/h will slow down anywhere between 15 to 35km/h when going uphill, based on the incline, the rider, and the takeoff speed. On an electric scooter, I shudder at the thought of how slow it would be when getting up the bridge.

It’s dangerous and possibly illegal – I don’t know that electric scooters are allowed on main roads. He was riding off to the extreme right, but that is of little help – cars still needed to swerve around him by drifting into the left lane, and the bridge simply isn’t wide enough to allow that.

Okay, enough objectivity:

What the FUCK do you think you’re doing, asshole e-scooter rider? You are not a vehicle, you’re a plastic piece of shit that has NO business being on the road. Not only are you slowing traffic down, you’re in extreme danger of causing an accident. You’re giving the rest of us a bad name, you selfish piece of shit – your pathetic excuse for a ride goes on the SIDEWALK, where you can piss off pedestrians and cyclists alike. When THEY hit you, you won’t cause half the North Shore to come to a grinding halt and back traffic up for miles. I felt like stopping Lola and asking you what the flying fuck you thought you were doing on the road – you don’t belong there. Get the fuck back on the sidewalk where you technically don’t belong either, but you’d at least be in less danger of becoming a fucking pancake during the Thursday morning rush hour.

You want to take the environmentalism up a notch? Buy an e-bike. They don’t take up any more room than a bicycle, you still have a motor to help you up hills, you won’t look like a fucking idiot, and you can ride them easily on the sidewalk. They’re also more durable than the flimsy plastic shitbox you’re currently riding. It’s assholes that you that make people not like or trust scooters on the street – the average person can’t tell a Ruckus from a C3; how are they to know I am approximately 10 times faster than you are and can therefore keep up with traffic?

FUCK YOU, E-SCOOTER GUY.

There were several reasons for not posting this on the main page, but I don’t think I need to spell them out for you – they’ll become all to evident soon enough.

Besides, I was practically *dared* to do it.

Some of you – Brooks, ‘nee, Ian – may remember these. For the rest of you .. well, what’s a Wednesday without a little jaw-dropping hilarity and offended sensibilities?

Enjoy.

Having a bee in your bonnet is not nearly as quaint as it sounds.

I’ve been experiencing higher-than-normal bee volume lately, and I don’t know that I like it. Bees don’t really bother me – I know Ed hates them and Shan is just shy of terrified of them, but for all my anti-crawly-thing policies, I am on very good terms with bees.

That being said, I don’t want them all up in my business.

A couple weeks ago, a bug hit me while I was riding. It’s a little startling, but no big deal – we get hit by bugs all the time. I saw it just before it hit me, and had enough time to note that it was a bee before it went splat.

Unfortunately for me (but luckily for the bee), my helmet visor was up. Instead of going squish all over my helmet, the bee flew right in my face. This made me jump a little, but I assumed the bee bounced off my cheek and landed somewhere on the ground. I rode on, this time with my visor down.

And then I heard the buzzing.

I ignored it at first, because the wind makes interesting noises through my helmet. I figured someone was using a chainsaw off in the woods, and didn’t think much of it.

Then I heard the buzzing again, this time accompanied by tickling.

The bee had not, in fact, bounced off anything but rather flew directly into my helmet and into my hair. He was groggily crawling around the inside of my helmet, attempting to fly around my ear. I freaked out – I might be okay with bees to the point of almost LIKING them, but having a bewildered bee think your ear canal might lead to the outside world is NOT a comforting thought – and pulled off the side of the road, yanking my helmet off in a panic. I shook it out, ran my fingers through my hair a dozen times, and removed all the padding to make sure the bee was gone. A bee! In my helmet! This is no good at all!

There were a lot of bees on our scooters this past weekend too. At one point there were four of them hovering around Josh’s bike, prompting me to ask if he had picked up a nest somewhere in Alaska. A bee or two chased Shan around, and we left the area to enjoy the rest of our bee-free Sunday.

Monday morning: Lemon was going insane and trying to climb a living room wall. I looked up, and saw the object of his frenzy – there was a bee in the house, flying around and looking confused. I did some Bee Whispering, and tried to reason with it: it should leave through that tiny open window, because there are no flowers in here and Lemon will probably eat you. The bee was in no mood to negotiate though, and it took Ed a good 15 minutes and an entire place setting to get the bee safely outside.

I am being stalked by bees.

This morning I discovered the reason for the scooter bees. There is, in fact, a very large nest in the blackberry bushes about 3 feet from where we park. This is a warning to the North Shore crew – be careful when parking across the street; there’s an army of bees waiting for you.

What do you do about bees? They’re not on anyone’s property, and the nest is large and exposed and scary looking. The blackberries are ripening, so a lot of people poke around in those bushes – it would probably be very bad for someone to stumble into the nest and anger a whole bunch of stinging meanies. Can you call the city about this? I don’t want to bug bomb it – killing them seems unnecessary and would poison all the berries – but the damn thing is at crotch level. The last thing I need is an angry horde coming for my crotch. How do I deal with bees?!

bzzzzz

I’m cranky. I need to shake this mood very quickly, because outside of the important non-work fun I have scheduled tonight, I have a meeting with the VP in an hour and he makes me argue a lot.

What do you mean, I don’t get paid to argue with the brass? Pfft.

Plans are in place for the End-of-Summer Bubble Picnic in the Park – check your Facebook for invites and event details. For those of you who aren’t on Facebook or aren’t my friend (and if you’re not my friend why would you want to come hang out with me and my bubbles), here’s the deets:

• When: Sunday August 30, 12:30 until we’re bored
• Where: Location to be determined
• What: Optional potluck
• Bring: yourself, any awesome people you might know, food (to share or not), some sort of bubble-making device
• Why: Bubbles are awesome

I had a little too much fun at the Bubble Bash, and want to do it again with a) more bubbles, b) more friends, c) without the creepy sleeveless camera man, d) in the sunshine. I’ve been stockpiling excellent bubble tools in preparation for a BUBBLE DAY and figured I’d just open it up and make an event out of it – I can definitely have fun by myself, but it’s so much more awesome with friends.

Come out, be silly, bring bubbles.

Sorry for the short update – I’m arguing with many people at once and don’t have time to be as lengthy as I like.

It was a weekend of incredible contrasts, and by the end of it all I was more than a little worn out and falling over myself with enthusiastic yet complicated ideas.

Saturday was, of course, the day of the Zombie Walk. Shan and I gored ourselves up and went to hang with the Thrill the World group to dance and hopefully get other people to join us in the fall. We left the house at 1pm with Ed in tow, and made our way downtown to meet up at the Art Gallery.

As soon as we got downtown, we realized that the day was not going to go off without a hitch. For starters, it appeared that no one had bothered to check the VAG ground schedule – the zombies were to meet up on the north side of the gallery, which is a small park with a fountain and other assorted open spaces. Groups often gather there for all kinds of things – flash mobs, 420, annoying bicycle-related protests, etc. The grounds are also used for official events, such as pre-2010 celebrations, the National Aboriginal Day Festival in June, and the Canadian Islamic Cultural Expo.

Which was held on August 15th.

At the Art Gallery.

Where the zombies were to meet.

I don’t think “culture shock” is an accurate enough term to cover what was happening that day. So very many startled Islams (Islami? Islamics? Islamites?), and scores upon scores of confused undead. The TTW group was to meet on the east side of the gallery, so we were front and center to watch the two groups accidentally mingle. It was hilarious and so fucking weird and I really hope we didn’t offend anyone – I did see some couples in full Islamic dress having their pictures taken with some of the zombies, so maybe my fears are unfounded. At any rate, the zombies quickly changed their plans to meet at the south side of the Gallery and things proceeded as scheduled.

The Thriller dance was done three or four times to large and appreciative audiences. I got some great pictures, as did my wonderful volunteer photographers. I created a Thrill the World Vancouver 2009 group on Flickr for a communal picture dump, so if you happened to be there, please add your goods thataway. We generated a lot of interest, mostly due to the two adorable undead moppets we had dancing with us – curse their undead genes!

Sunday’s activities were just as jumbled – instead of Vancouver’s Islamic community mingling with hordes of the undead, we had the Show n’ Shine (large community motorcycle show) and a Farmer’s Market occupying the same space in Gastown. Huge choppers and Harleys and crazy street bikes and burly bikers mixed with fancy organic vegetables and hippie ethics makes for a lot of hilarity, and we explored it all before enjoying an early dinner at La Casita. We parked our scooters in with all the huge motorcycles, and I loved watching people do double takes and point at Lola’s rainbow leg warmers.

It’s good to have Josh back. We tried to ease him back into civilization by plunking him into a street festival crowded with people (but also motorcycles) and he seemed to do okay. He’s writing up the epic tale of his adventure, and I’m really looking forward to reading it and seeing his pictures. He’s already talking the rest of us into road trips to Alaska, and I’m game. I like adventure (as long as I can have a hot shower in the morning).

I’m planning a Fun Thing, tentatively scheduled for August 30th – watch your Facebook/email for invites!

faster? no. cooler? hell yes.

My Friday has thus far been a comedy of errors, but I won’t let it get me down. The week is over in less than 6 hours, it’s payday, tomorrow there will be zombies, and I am awash with green glitter. So what if sometimes my job makes me want to hurl myself out of our 16th floor windows in the hopes that I land on certain people? Life’s too short to daydream about strangling others, however satisfying it might be.

I posted my various goods on Craigslist last night at reduced prices. As much as I enjoy my massive collection of electronic things that go beep and buzz, even I think it’s getting a little out of hand (and also I need the money to pay for the things that hold my other things that go beep and buzz). I wasn’t expecting the iPhone to be such a hot item, though – within 5 minutes of posting my 8GB 3G, I had 12 emails from people willing to drive to my house that second to give me cash. Flattering, but I contacted the first person to get through to my inbox and we did the deal this morning. I sold it for $250, which I think is a very fair price for the 8GB phone in near-perfect condition (and also I undercut most of the other postings by $25 or so).

So far, I’ve received three requests to ship my EEE PC to Nigeria, at which point the buyer will give me double what I’m asking for. What a great deal! It’s almost better than the 2 size 40 wool suits I almost got last time! This could only be more legitimate if the offer was coming from the very Prince of Nigeria himself! Clearly this may be my only chance to sell, so I should start packing the boxes right away while I wait for the Western Union account numbers.

If anyone isn’t in Nigeria and is interested, my netbook is still for sale. I lowered the price to $250; the name of the game is “get rid of things”, not “make epic profit”.

I have to go cause some trouble now. Wish me luck!

.. to help me out this weekend.

The Vancouver Thrill the World dancers will be at the Zombie Walk this Saturday to dance and hopefully generate interest in the main Thrill the World event this October. I’m looking for photographers and video people to capture the group collectively shaking our undead asses so we can show everyone how incredibly awesome we are.

Thrill the World is an annual worldwide simultaneous dance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Shan and I did it last year, and this year I’m a volunteer assigned to wrangle up some pictures and videos of our dance. Last year we had 69 Vancouver zombies dancing, and we raised $1400 for the Vancouver Food Bank. This year we’re hoping for a LOT more zombies – Vancouver needs to represent – and as people around the world do the same dance at the same time, we’re hoping to set and break some World Records.

This weekend is the annual Vancouver Zombie Walk, in which people get dressed up as zombies and .. well, walk. Thrill the World Vancouver will be there doing the dance a couple times to generate interest, recruit zombies, and make spectacles of ourselves for fun.

If you can help me out by either photographing or videoing the event, here are some details:

• I’ll need you for an hour or so this Saturday afternoon (August 15th), from 2-3pm
• You’ll receive full credit for any picture of video we use
• It’ll be a great deal of fun
• I would be extremely grateful (not naked grateful though) (okay, maybe naked grateful)
• ZOMBIES!!!

Email me or leave a comment below if you want to help out!

Screw pictures, I want to DANCE

We need dancers, too. The official Thrill the World event is in October, and official rehearsals haven’t started yet (the two we’ve had were just for the Zombie Walk). If you want to dance, check out the Thrill the World Vancouver website, join us on Facebook, and come learn the moves when the rehearsal schedule is released (or start learning in advance via these videos!). You don’t need to be any sort of dancing professional to do it – the dance is very easy to learn and anyone can do it. Look at me! I’m the best example of someone who shouldn’t dance in public, yet I do anyway. If I – so painfully shy and terrified of social interaction – can do it, then you would completely rock the universe.

Come out and dance!

And if you don’t want to dance, come out and take pictures of dance!

nnnnnngh