Category Archives: Rants

November 28, 2013

What’s On My Mind Grapes

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

This is the Wednesdayist Monday blog you’ll ever read from me! That’s if I get it in in the next 26 minutes, for then my friends, it will be Thursday. I was struggling to think about what to write, and then the ideas I had seemed vaguely familiar. Like ‘I already wrote that blog’ kind of familiar. So I will bring my self down to the lowest common denominator of randomness which I like to call ‘Bullet Points’.

– When looking through previous blogs, it disturbs me that the Rob Ford thing has been going on this long. Everybody within 50 miles of that sucks! They’ve now stripped him of most of his powers, and he’s now mayor in name only, as well as going out into the world and doing some ‘mayor’ appearances. WAIT A MINUTE…….. Isn’t that the part of the job that he sucks at? The part of being mayor and going out in public? If anything, they should have stripped him of his ability to be mayor and go to these events!! He can embarrass the city just as easily with these limited powers. He still has the power to leave a shit smear across Toronto, and there isn’t money in the new budget to buy enough toilet paper to clean that up!

– Somebody showed me an app today. Just to be clear, I don’t have apps. I don’t know why. I just don’t feel like getting them. I’m sure they’re free and easy. I’m free and easy most of the time, but I’m just not interested. The app that a co-worker was showing me today told you exactly what time a bus was going to arrive. Not by it’s scheduled time, but by the GPS it has installed. So fucking exact!! Then she had an app that would call a cab for you. These things are handy! It provided a moment for me where I thought ‘man…. humans are so close to being redundant, it’s not even funny… and we’ll be the last to know’. Which led me to almost write a blog about robots taking over the world. Then I realized that I already wrote that blog a few months ago. I should take the opportunity to post a link to it here. I don’t know how. I’m sure it’s free and easy.

– I’m gonna make pulled pork tomorrow while I stay home with my 1 year old son who’s sick for the 3rd out of the last 4 Thursdays. He always knows when I have a day off, and he gets sick every time. I’m kind of flattered to be honest. The vomitting, the fevers, the sniffles, the over all sickness….. all of that so he can stay home and chill with his old man on a Thursday. He must know that tomorrow is American Thanksgiving which is cool for Americans because they get the weekend off, but cool for me because I can watch football all day tomorrow instead of whatever nonsense daytime TV programming has to offer. I hope he feels better. He’s too cute to suffer. Can babies eat pulled pork?? How do you make pulled pork? Never mind, I’ll probably just make spaghetti

– I’m eating fish oil pills these days. I don’t know if it’s helping, but it is providing me with and opportunity to almost choke to death at least once a day. After I fight those babies down, I get a feeling of achievement that I can only imagine is like trying to swim across a lake. When you get to the other side, a lot of water has probably gone down the wrong way, and you probably feel a bit like crying, but YOU DID IT!

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants

November 5, 2013

Crack, Alcohol, Dishonesty With A Twist Of Ignorance – A Mayor’s Cocktail

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I wish this were reality TV. The thing I like about reality TV is that I don’t have to watch it. I can change the channel, or just not watch TV. If I want to watch the News, or listen to the News, or read about the News, I cannot escape the reality TV that is the Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s life. When someone says to me that the Kardashian TV shows are stupid, I’m always quick to say that I wouldn’t know, because I don’t have time for that bullshit, and neither should they. I want to say the same thing about the Rob Ford saga. I really don’t have time for this bullshit. The only problem is that THIS is the News. I DO have a choice to not watch the news, but it’s a choice to be misinformed, unlike the choice to not watch the Kardashians….. a choice which made properly, I believe salvages some of my intelligence. Rob Ford is in my living room every day. He’s in my living room drunk, belligerent, defensive, dishonest, stammering, mumbling, and that’s just when he’s not allegedly on crack. There isn’t a day that goes by when this isn’t a huge story. I’m really tired of it.

I’m well past the point of caring if this man smoked crack or not. He either did or he didn’t. If he wasn’t representing our city, I wouldn’t even have a problem with it. It’s his life. It’s not about politics either. He could be doing a good job at City Hall for all I know. He says he’s doing a good job, and that must be enough for most of his supporters. A strong group of which don’t seem to care that he’s a walking embarrassment for the city. They were obviously the ones that voted him in. A surprising number of them are still really strong supporters of him too. They feel he’s being picked on. If anything, I think it’s making them relate to him more. I think it’s because there’s the whole Right Wing vs. Left Wing at play here. Of course individuals HAVE to be one or the other (God forbid we actually just voted for whoever we thought was the right person). Everybody LOVES to be on a team. This team is called Ford Nation! Yes, they actually have a team name. He repeatedly claims to be saving money for tax payers, but I don’t think you can save me enough money to compensate for the humiliation I feel when a hack like Jay Leno can make jokes at our expense.

The problem for me is that if there’s one person that truly represents a city, it’s the Mayor. Ours can’t stay out of trouble for more than 30 seconds. He’s only been in office for 3 years and at least 2 years and 11 months have been a shit show. So much so that the rest of the world has taken notice. For the EXTREMELY IGNORANT people who say ‘any press is good press’, let me remind you that he’s not an actor or a singer. He’s the Mayor. Bad press is bad press. It makes us look bad. We don’t need bad attention. The incidents that have occurred both major and minor are increasing in number. Where does he find the time to get into all this shit? It takes a lot of time to get into this much trouble! How does he do it?

I want a Mayor that can look people in the eye. I want a Mayor that can talk like an educated person. I want a Mayor that doesn’t get super hammered in public (just for the small percentage of his life that he happens to be Mayor, but if he wants to get smashed every other St. Patty’s day for the rest of his life, then fuck it, why not?). I want a Mayor that doesn’t smoke crack. I want a Mayor that handles adversity with grace, rather than getting into grade five-esque shouting matches with reporters. I want a Mayor who after causing a city such a heaping amount of embarrassment would have the good sense to step down. Most of all, I just want to be able to watch the news in the morning without having to see this moron, and his ridiculous shenanigans taking up precious valuable space in what’s left of my brain.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

October 8, 2013

What Else Can Drake Fix?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Toronto cracks me up sometimes. It’s arguably one of the greatest cities in the world. When I say ‘arguably’ I also mean that if that was your argument, you would totally win. Torontonians on the other hand are sometimes just a little too sensitive for my liking. Maybe its just the media, but I don’t think so. When I watch television, and have the opportunity to see famous people being interviewed by the Toronto media, I’m always kind of embarrassed by it. These are usually actors or musicians that are in town on the business of promoting some sort of project that they’re working on. Sometimes it’s athletes playing a game in town. Most media members of course will offer the obligatory questions surrounding whatever they’re plugging, plus any juicy, gossipy relationship questions depending on how interesting they think the answer will be. Finally they HAVE to ask “What do you think of Toronto?” Seems harmless enough, right?

Here’s what I hate about this. Why do we as Torontonians care what anyone thinks of us or our city? Our city is awesome! I know this, and I personally don’t need to hear it from anyone else to know that it’s true. Our media however, has this goofy tendency to constantly ask famous foreigners for affirmation regarding this. An American actor who probably just got into town 2 hours earlier, and has only seen the inside of a Starbucks shouldn’t have to make a whole city feel warm and fuzzy. That’s not his/her job. It’s like we’re unsure of ourselves and our place in the world and we need to know what the rest of the world thinks, when we should really be confident and just KNOW we’re awesome, and not worry about it. The people in this city suffer such insecurity. It’s sad. I once heard an interview with Gene Simmons from KISS who was in town for something, and somebody asked him if he liked (either Toronto or Canada), and you could tell from his reaction that he’d already been asked that about 10 times. This is not a direct quote, but he basically said ‘okay okay, we like you, relax’. I was a bit embarrassed for us when I saw that, but I remember thinking that finally somebody came out and said it. If you are from here and you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch for it next time you see a celebrity being interviewed on TV. They ask every time, it’s uncanny.

So in keeping with that theme, we had an announcement last week that Toronto Rapper ‘Drake’ is joining the Toronto Raptors (NBA Basketball) as a ‘Global Ambassador’………………….(cue tumbleweed)………I’m going to say that again………………Drake is joining the Toronto Raptors as a ‘Global Ambassador’. That’s a job. They gave it to a rapper. In Toronto.

Let me give you some context. The Toronto Raptors are an NBA basketball team. In terms of winning basketball games they are a poor team. In terms of fan interest, and ticket sales, they do quite well. They’re the only team in Canada which helps because they draw their fan base from the whole country. As abysmal as their performance on the basketball court is on a pretty consistent basis, they don’t have any problem selling tickets. Recently, they were awarded the 2016 All-Star Game which means there will be a great party, and it’s great for the city. They have a President who has been doing the job for 6 months, and even though the only real flaw with this franchise is their on-court performance, they have chosen to bring in Drake to fix all of their (non) problems.

Now I like Drake. You could say that at various points in my life, I have been a rabid Hip-Hop fan, and while now wouldn’t be one of those points, Drake is one of my favourites (spelled the Canadian way this time). He’s a good Rapper, and believe it or not, I’m a guy that would know the difference. As far as his credentials to “help reinvigorate the fortunes of a stagnant franchise” (quote courtesy of the Globe and Mail)…… I just don’t see it. Unless of course you want to go with the precedent of Jay-Z joining the New Jersey Nets (as an owner, not a Global Ambassador….. meaning he had to pay). The Nets were awful, and have since moved to Brooklyn, and become mediocre.

Here’s what I think is happening. Toronto has once again sold itself short. Here we are, hosting the NBA All-Star Game in a couple of years, selling all kinds of tickets to games even though we aren’t that good (and that isn’t easy), and just being awesome in general terms….. but we think that somebody famous is going to come in and ‘turn it all around’. Turn what around??? Do you think that people won’t come to the All-Star Game if Drake isn’t an employee of the Raptors? Everyone goes to the NBA All Star Game, including Drake, no matter where it is! What’s he gonna do?? Mention the Raptors in his Rap lyrics?? Is he going to wear a Raptors Jersey at his shows?? Are you suggesting that the Raptors marketing staff that are (hopefully) loaded with sports marketing professionals, know less about marketing a sports team than a Rapper?

Or is Drake just good at fixing things??? If so, can we get him to end the American Government shutdown?? Maybe he can go to the Middle East and resolve all the conflicts. Maybe he can negotiate the release of all the hostages being held around the world. Maybe he could visit the Anne Frank house, and piss in a mop bucket to take some of the heat off Justin Beiber. Here’s the best part…. Who can we blame if it doesn’t all go down like it should?? Can we actually blame Drake if he does a bad job as our Global Ambassador??

I have 3 messages regarding this
1. Toronto…. you are awesome, you don’t suck….. why do you care what famous people think about you?? Stop seeking approval. You’re like a teenager. Grow up.
2. Toronto Raptors…… you do suck…… have you ever asked yourself why the Boston Celtics have the same uniform that they’ve been wearing for the last 50 years?? For 50 years, they’ve played basketball…. and played it well…. they have a tradition of winning basketball games. All the publicity stunts, jersey/colour changes, Rappers and Global Ambassadors can’t make up for winning basketball games. Stop embarrassing yourselves.
3. Drake….. This actually isn’t your mess, I would totally take that job too. I hope you can Rap us all the way to an NBA championship!

13 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

September 24, 2013

Not Hot Beach Bodies?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

There’s nothing like going to the grocery store to inspire me to write a Monday rant. There’s so much wrong with the world, and most of it in some way is going on at the grocery store. Could it be that the grocery store is a microcosm of our society? Shit, I could explain what I think I mean by that, but I don’t have a good explanation at the moment, and this post isn’t about grocery stores anyways, so I’m bailing on that concept. You deep thinkers out there can decide for yourselves. It’s 10:46 pm as I’m typing this. I gotta keep it simple or else I’ll get sleepy and won’t finish.

What went on at the grocery store today that could inspire a rant you say? Same thing that goes on at the grocery store everyday, but I usually don’t take notice. Perhaps I do, but maybe don’t always find it as offensive as I did today. To say its offensive is not to say that I’m specifically offended. I don’t offend that easily. I’m offended on behalf of society.

Why am I offended on behalf of society you say? I’m offended in general by gossip magazines. They’re always at the check-out in grocery stores. I’ve never purchased one, but I (like any other weak-minded soul) will check out the cover. There is a lot of information about celebrity weight fluctuation, marriage troubles, and not much else as far as I can tell. I don’t support this industry. I’m not saying that I’m better than anyone else for it. I’m sure there are industries that I do support that are worse than this. That said, I will look at the cover. I’m in the lineup at the grocery store, what else am I going to look at, chocolate bars??? We all know how that ends.

Today I got offended by one particular gossip magazine that I saw at the grocery store. It’s called Star Magazine. If you run out right now and get one, you’ll see the cover features “Best & Worst Beach Bodies”. This is certainly enough to pique someone’s interest. I almost don’t even have a problem with ‘Best Beach Bodies’ other than it being an invasion of privacy. At least there’s some positivity associated with compiling their best pictures of famous people at the beach. Do we really need ‘Worst Beach Bodies’???? I’ll give an example. They have a picture of Bruce Jenner’s son, and beside it, bold letters that read ‘HOT’. Beside that there’s a picture of Bruce Jenner, and beside it, bold letters that read ‘NOT’. Sooooo Bruce Jenner doesn’t have a hot beach body?? Bruce Jenner is 63 years old! Why would he have a hot beach body? More importantly who cares?? Even more importantly, does this mean that if you’re famous, and you don’t have a ‘hot beach body’, that you have to stop going to the beach?? Apparently it does! No wonder these poor buggers are always getting plastic surgery. No matter how washed up they get, there’s always the potential of them ending up on the COVER of a magazine in their bathing suit??? I think I would have been fine with a picture of his son, and a collection of other good pictures of ‘hot beach bodies’, but is there a new thing where you get ridiculed for going to the beach without a ‘hot beach body’? I would suggest that MOST PEOPLE do not have what would classically be regarded as ‘hot beach bodies’, does that mean none of them should go to the beach? That doesn’t seem right to me.

I know society doesn’t have too much sympathy for the rich & famous, and perhaps that’s why these particular magazines seem to be as successful as they are. I’m not too familiar with Bruce Jenner outside of his athletic notoriety. My understanding is that he’s the Kardashian kids’ stepfather. I’ve never watched that show (another industry I won’t support), so I have no idea how goofy this guy might be, but I don’t think it’s right for him or anyone else featured in that magazine to be ridiculed for what they might look like in a bathing suit. I also think that it sucks that they can’t just go hang out without being photographed. We’re the ones that buy the magazines, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves. It’s a bit disturbing to me, that’s all.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

September 3, 2013

Fan Of The Game

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

An Open Letter To The Drunk Guy At The Football Game……..

Dear Friend,

Yes I say friend, because after watching you make an idiot of yourself for the last hour and a half, I feel like I know you. Also, after your persistent attempts to interact with every single person in the stadium, I feel like you know me too. You probably know me as a quiet enough guy, who eats a pizza slice, and has a beer or two while watching the football game. I know you as a complete shit-show of drunk, trying to be a stand up comedian a few rows in front of me.

I shouldn’t be surprised that I saw you here tonight. It seems I see a different you, every time I go to a game, or a movie, or some sort of live performance. It’s the same role played by a different performer each time. This version of you is wearing a Calgary Stampeders jersey, so I already know you’re in my town cheering for the wrong team. Which is cool. I respect a fan that will travel to see an out-of-town game. You’ve got your sidekick with you too who is also wearing a jersey, also drunk, but only 75% as loud as you. Yeah, you’re the ringleader. The man with the plan.

Your style of experience disruption is probably my favourite one. You’re the guy that stands up every time something good happens to your team (it helps that you’re cheering for the wrong team, otherwise you wouldn’t stand out, and nobody would pay attention to you), and instead of facing the field, and clapping/yelling/cheering or some other fan-related reaction, you’re facing the fans behind you, and looking them in the face. Somewhere between the 3rd and 4th beer, you started to see warmth in their smiles. They started hanging on your every comment instead of looking at you with contempt or indifference. Even the females in the crowd started paying attention to you! Your team is even up by two touchdowns. Tonight’s your night bro! Now instead of standing up every 5 minutes to say something dumb, you just aren’t going to bother sitting back down because you are in such high demand…. people are dying to know what next bit of hilarity will escape your soul. You should be paid a commission for the amount of entertainment you add to the whole fan experience (You mean I get to watch a football game AND listen to this doorknob all night? Double bonus for me!!). If only I could be in the same row as you so I could have beer spilled on my head as you walk by. It would be so excellent if I could be close enough to give you a handshake or a high-five every time you said something awesome (which is always). I can only sit several rows back and quietly pray for MORE WITTY BANTER!!

Less Football, More You!

Yours Truly
Thoughtsandrantsinjoggingpants

The highlight of the night came when security finally came down to talk to this guy. I think everyone was dying to see him get booted, but when he saw security come, he fell in line and was quiet and remorseful. Then I heard a guy a few rows back yell ‘You’re sittin’ down now, eh Jackass??’

Is hilarity a word?

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

August 26, 2013

People Disappoint Me….. As They Should!

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

When I was a kid I was vaguely aware that a lot of other kids were a bunch of whiny assholes. I probably was one as well, to be fair. The funny thing is that I always had this sense that the situation would improve as I got older. I don’t know if it was me being optimistic, or just having faith in the theory of people maturing as time moved on. I suppose there are a lot more examples of people growing up, then not, but it’s the ones where they don’t that stick out in my mind. I’m not going to list off all the times that I thought grown adults acted like 6-year-olds. That would take forever, and I just don’t have that kind of time or attention span. I just want to say that as an adult, I’m disappointed when I see other adults behaving like they just started going to school for the ‘full-day classes’. That said, who am I to judge? What did I think was going to happen? We’re the same exact people that we were when we were 6. Just older. Most of us evolved some, but when the pressure’s on, sometimes that ‘inner 6-year-old’ has to take over and weigh in with his/her opinions and antics. It’s probably too much to expect that we could have completely gotten to a point where that doesn’t come out anymore. Could a world full of mature people even exist? What would that be like? It could be awesome, but maybe it would have its own share of problems that I can’t quite foresee. So…. I guess it’s OK?

Politics is my favorite example. When you read about it in the paper, they use fancy words like conjecture, posturing, and semantics. That’s because there are intelligent people writing about a non-intelligent situation. When you watch some coverage of them operating on TV, and these people are some of the most immature we have in society. The way they argue with each other, airing out their pissy little grievances with their selfish little agendas….. forming their little cliques and alliances….these are the people we depend on to run our towns/cities/provinces/states/countries! It’s disappointing. I don’t normally follow politics for this reason. Every time I feel like I might be interested, there’s some display of foolishness and incompetence that I’d rather just not know about, which drives me away. You know what though? They’re people. Not unlike the people in the first paragraph. Except these people are more interested in power, and they want to be shot callers! Oh sure, there are a few martyrs out there too that just give and give and give themselves for the betterment of society (if that’s what you choose to believe), but at the root of it all, none of these people would have had any interest in politics if it weren’t at least somewhat in their nature to want to be shot-callers. You put a bunch of shot-callers in the same room all day, and make the stakes incredibly high, and what do you get?? Conjecture, posturing, and semantics….. all fucking day! What did we expect?

Finally, there’s a story in Toronto about a police officer who shot a suspect carrying a knife 8 times (on 9 shots) and killed him. I feel like this news story plays different in Canada than it would in the States, but the media is all over the police department for excessive violence. As they should be. There has to be a better way to take down a suspect. The way this has all played out in the media has been totally one-sided though. What happened to a person taking some responsibility for being there with a knife in the first place? Also not dropping it when the police told him to? I don’t know the whole back story, and very little has been mentioned about what was really happening at the time the police arrived, but the victim at very least made a decision to carry a knife that day, and the rest isn’t that important to me. I can’t give him advice now, but I will say this to any of you out there that might get into some shit. If you are wielding a knife, and a bunch of cops are there asking you to put it down, you might not be expecting to die at that moment, but you HAVE to respect the fact that it could happen. That’s just common sense. Right or wrong, police are human beings, and it’s not an automatic that you will just get tasered or shot in the leg. If you make them mad, there’s always a chance that you could get lit up. I want to believe that the police are generally good people. I want to believe that they don’t get into situations like that on purpose. They are just people though. Who knows if you got them into a corner, or underneath their skin enough? Everyone has a breaking point. They carry guns. I have a theory that most cops have violent tendencies. I would think that it’s a bit of a requirement for their job. If you are hoping to never be in any type of altercation, than you aren’t likely to try to become a police officer. There has to be something in your personality which suggests that you wouldn’t mind walking around with a gun, and if push came to shove, you wouldn’t mind using it. If this wasn’t the case, why would you become a cop? Oh, I’m sure just as in the above paragraph that there are some absolute saints who become cops just because they want to help clean up the city. For every one of those, there have to be at least one or two tough guys that would love to carry a gun and be an authority figure. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as they’re out there fighting the good fight, but I certainly wouldn’t wave a knife at one of them.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

August 20, 2013

Do We Really Need It?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I was watching a TV commercial the other day. If I knew I’d be blogging about it, I would have tried to remember what product they were selling. It could have been a phone, but not necessarily. There was a 3 second clip of a girl’s hand reaching out from behind the shower curtain and changing which song was playing on her phone…… Now as someone who takes the music I listen to very seriously, I have to ask….. How long is your friggin shower that you can’t sort out a 3 or 4 song playlist, or that you don’t have the attention span to get through it without reaching for your phone to put on a different ‘shower song’? We ARE a society that needs our phones, I get it, but do we need them SO badly that they have to be in the shower with us?

What about hashtags??? Not being a huge Twitter guy, this was explained to me as a way to organize your thoughts or connect with other people. From where I’m standing, it’s a corny punchline opportunity at the end of your status update. Have we really organized our statuses, and went back and looked through them? Have we gotten a bunch of new followers? Or have we just #triedtogetacheaplaughattheendofourstatusupdate?
It’s kind of dumb. Let’s stop.

Do we really need to know what’s going on in Lindsay Lohan’s life? I haven’t seen any of her movies. I don’t want to downplay her accomplishments, but she’s spent way more time on TV for partying too hard, then she has for being an actress. My personal opinion is that what someone does things on their own time, it’s their own business, but at least if the Gossip Mag taste-makers decide who they’re going to follow around, and report every move they make as news…..make it someone I’ve heard of.

Light Peanut Butter. Give me a break guys…. I’m all for making healthy changes, but with 25% less fat, it doesn’t even taste like peanut butter. The graininess of it chafing my throat on the way down. It’s so awful, what a horrible invention. Nobody’s getting fat from peanut butter. Get over it. We don’t need this product. It looks too much like the regular one. Sometimes we buy it by accident. Just get it off the shelves. Also, I’m pretty sure whole wheat bread hasn’t saved all the lives you think it has.

Swag is either short for swagger or its free shit. Make up your mind. It’s a dumb word for either if you ask me. Swagger is probably the easiest two-syllable word to say in the English language, it doesn’t need a short form. Swag?? Free shit?? I don’t get it. According to Urbandictionary.com it’s an acronym for ‘secretly we are gay’. Who knew?

Speed bumps are popping up everywhere. I understand they serve a purpose sometimes, but I hate going over them. It just pisses me off when they are in unnecessary locations. Especially traffic calming zones. How much did you assholes pay for your house that we have to drive slow on your street, but fast everywhere else? It makes me want to ‘accidentally’ smash my car into the tree on someone’s front yard just to prove that they don’t work. Give me a break.

Pre-season Football. I love the NFL, but pre-season sucks. None of the good players play. It’s too long. None of the information from pre-season ever helps me with my fantasy team. It’s just a waste of time. Start the season already!!!

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

July 30, 2013

Cond-woes

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I live in a Condo and I love it! In Toronto, it snows a lot in the winter. Shovelling snow sucks, but not if you live in a condo. Removing a foot of snow from the top of your car before you go to work sucks, but not if your car is in a parking garage. In the summer, mowing the lawn sucks, but not if you don’t have a lawn. The final kicker as a lot of Torontonians just found out, that you can’t get a flooded basement in a condo. These are some convincing arguments as to why I enjoy the condo life.

There are a few things about it that drive me crazy. Before anybody lectures me about these being ‘first world problems’, I’ll point out that you can always choose to mind your own business 😉 If bloggers didn’t bitch about stuff like this, how interesting would the first world be? I’ll stick to one major pet peeve, because after all, I’m a fan of the condo lifestyle.

The thing that drives me absolutely nutty is our security team’s lack of competence using the intercom. They do fire alarm testing all the time. I guess it’s a good thing that they want to make sure the alarm works in case of emergencies. When there is an emergency, or an emergency alarm has sounded, our security team springs into action to announce over the intercom, every possible fucking detail of their emergency response. TWICE! This is policy I’m sure. Better to over communicate than under communicate, and I sort of appreciate that too. If they are going to say it twice though…. and bear in mind that this is almost always happening in the middle of the night…… I wish they would just say the whole sentence once, and then repeat it. They don’t communicate like this. THEY think that it’s clearer for everybody if they chop the sentence up, and just repeat fragments of the sentence.

For example, INSTEAD of saying……..
“May I have your attention please. The Fire Alarm has sounded. The Fire Department is on its way. Please stay in your units and await further instruction…….. May I have your attention please. The Fire Alarm has sounded. The Fire Department is on its way. Please stay in your units and await further instruction”

THEY SAY
“May I have your attention please…. I repeat… may I have your attention please……the fire alarm has sounded….. I repeat….. the fire alarm has sounded…….The Fire Department is on its way…..I repeat (now imagine it’s the middle of the night and you have a mute button which you can press so the fire alarm isn’t so loud while you, your wife, and perhaps even a new-born baby who may not have even been that easy to put asleep to begin with, are now trying to sleep, but you have to wait for them to stop talking before the mute button will work) The Fire Department is on its way……..Please stay in your units and await further instruction……. I repeat…….. Please stay in your units and await further instruction. (now imagine that you have finally waited out this announcement that could have been communicated in a fraction of the time, and these jokers don’t know how to turn the mic off, so you hear at least 10-15 seconds of fuzz/background noise/murmuring, which feels like 10-15 minutes, and then finally click, and then the alarm sounds, and only now can you press the mute button, and guess what???? You’re wide fucking awake!!)

So the fire department arrives, and it’s almost always a false alarm. They get all of this sorted out just as your falling back asleep and then suddenly you hear….
Cackle Cackle cackle fuzz fuzz fuzz cackle background talking fuzz….. “May I have your attention please…..May I have your attention please………(then a huge pause…..C’MON MAN!!!!!!! Then he starts over) May I have your attention please…… May I have your attention please…….The Fire Department has completed their investigation…… I repeat……. The Fire Department has completed their investigation………There is no emergency…….. I repeat….. There is no emergency (SHUT THE HELL UP, DAMN YOU!!!!!!!!!)….. Thank you for your co-operation

Now I love my security guys. I’m also willing to accept that they didn’t write the script. You need to understand, however, that at 2:30 in the fucking morning, I don’t have the patience for you to read that slowly, not only that, but what’s with all the dead air??? It sounds like someone pocket dialed from a cell phone. If it was the first time you’ve used the intercom, I could understand, but some of you fuckers have been working here for 5 years. HOW FUCKING COMPLICATED COULD IT POSSIBLY BE TO TURN A MICROPHONE ON AND START TALKING???? I CAN HEAR YOU AS SOON AS YOU PRESS THE BUTTON!!!! EVERYONE IN 2 BUILDINGS CAN HEAR YOU EVERY TIME YOU PRESS THE BUTTON, SO IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT AT 2:30 IN THE FUCKING MORNING, THAT YOU GET A FUCKING CLUE AS TO WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY BEFORE YOU PRESS A BUTTON THAT BROADCASTS EVERY SOUND YOU MAKE, FROM CLEARING YOUR THROAT, TO NERVOUS INDECISION, TO SCRATCHING YOUR HEAD. UNLESS THIS IS AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY, AND YOUR DESK IS ON FIRE, THERE’S PRECIOUS LITTLE THAT I WILL ACCEPT AS AN EXCUSE FOR YOU NOT HAVING THE FOGGIEST IDEA HOW TO DO THIS SMALL PORTION OF YOUR JOB AFTER 5 LONG YEARS!! THE LEARNING CURVE FOR THIS PARTICULAR EXERCISE IS NOT THAT STEEP!! IT’S NOT THAT STEEP!!!! MUST YOU WAKE EVERY BABY IN THIS BUILDING???? FUCK!!!!!

Was that harsh? Should I dial it back? 😉

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

July 23, 2013

Bitching About Royals

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I’m not saying I don’t like Royal Babies. I just prefer regular babies. See what I did there? I didn’t even capitalize regular babies. The difference in how they’re being treated has started already. I’m obviously part of the problem.

I come from a family that’s FASCINATED by the British Royal Family (see how I capitalize??? I swear I’m not doing this on purpose). I’m really not though. Some of the longest days of my life have been spent watching coverage of either Royal Weddings or Royal Tragedies. I always seem to be stuck somewhere remote when these things happen, and there’s only one TV, and I’m not in charge of it, but I’m super bored, because as a kid, I was not into all of the Pomp and Circumstance (I wanted so badly to use that phrase, but rarely get the opportunity…… when I’m not sure about a phrase/word and whether I should use it in a blog or not, I like to look it up in some internet dictionary just to make sure it means what I think it means….. in this case according to Dictionary.com it means ‘splendid celebration with ceremony and fuss’ which is almost a better phrase than Pomp and Circumstance….. in fact, I really think you need to re-read the sentence again and substitute, and let me know which one you like better…..I will be equally satisfied with both of your choices), and as an adult, not much has changed, and I just feel trapped and manipulated all day.

The thing I hate the most about these celebration/tragedies is the coverage. You can’t just watch it once and be done with it. It goes on and on and on like the OJ trial. Let’s show it again and again. Let’s break down every aspect through detailed analysis. This isn’t football!! I know you kids are like, ‘so what, watch something on your phone or laptop if you’re bored.’ THERE WERE NO PHONE AND LAPTOPS!!!!!! JUST BOREDOM!!! Now that I’m older, it doesn’t matter too much anymore because I can easily escape a situation where there is lots of Royal Coverage. I have a car, a bus pass, and 2 televisions, 2 computers and a cell phone. Damn, when I say it like that it sounds like I’m very well established. This might just be my ‘I HAVE ARRIVED’ moment!! My personal identity and how I define my freedom has now become deeply intertwined with my ability to dodge watching TV coverage of the British Royals.

I really don’t want to bitch too much about the Royals. To be perfectly honest, I have nothing against them. I only hear about them when they marry or breed or take pictures of their dicks. I really just wanted a) to have a blog topic which is getting harder every week, and b) to sit on my high horse and say some very judgemental things about the rest of you peasants.

1) Don’t be so fascinated by Royalty or famous people. They don’t care about you. This is a one way street. I’m sure everyone is interested to see the Royal Baby, but what about the Non-Royal babies? They need your attention too! Are the people in your life getting the ‘Royal Treatment’? If the world cared about each other the way they seem to care about what these people name their baby….. well you know the rest. The world wins!

2) When I refer to Royal Tragedy, you know which one I’m talking about. Princess Diana dies in a car accident because her and her new man were in a high-speed chase with Paparazzi. I remember thinking at the time that we were all to blame for supporting the gossip industry. I remember thinking ‘I’ll bet people will think twice before going out and buying another gossip magazine to see exclusive pictures of their favorite celebrities’………… Wrong again, as I always am when I give humanity the benefit of the doubt. Nothing changed, nothing solved, same old bullshit.

3) I really wanted to have a third thing, because 2 just isn’t worth listing off numerically. As you can see, I’m out of things to complain about. I will try to stretch this out a bit though, as I’m sure some bloggers are just skimming to the bottom anyways, so they can click the ‘like’ button and make me believe that they read the whole thing. Come on man….. we’ve all done it! Especially some of those long-winded ones. Those people will be blissfully unaware that I couldn’t come up with a third thing to finish my trifecta of Royalty Ramblings.

I hope the Royal Baby gets an appropriate name, and is happy and healthy, but more importantly I wish the same for all your Non-Royal Babies too!

12 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

July 16, 2013

Mom’s Choice

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

There are a few products around my home for babies. Anyone that’s had a baby in their home knows that there will be baby products around the home too. A lot of them. I often wonder about marketing as it pertains to babies and their preferences. My baby is almost 9 months old. He’s male, and like every other male in his family tree for as many generations back as I can intelligently vouch for, he’ll eat whatever you put in front of him. Maybe this isn’t the same for all babies. Sometimes my wife and I will be in an aisle of the grocery store, and she’ll wonder aloud ‘Which one do you think he’ll like better?’ I always find this funny because I have received zero feedback from my son regarding food, the entire time he’s been alive. He seems to like everything. That isn’t the commitment to an answer that my wife is looking for when she asks me a question. We’ve been together long enough that I know this, so my answer is very much influenced by how happy the baby looks in the picture. This goes for food, toys, furniture or any other baby related product. As far as I’m concerned, if the baby is happier on the cover of one product than they are on the other, then it’s a slam dunk as to what I’m going to decide is the right product for my baby. Marketers take note!! I’m quite certain that my son doesn’t give a shit as long as he’s comfortable. If he’s not comfortable, he might wiggle around a bit or possibly cry, but with so many outside factors at play, I’ll be damned if I can pinpoint whether it was the mango or the pineapple he didn’t like, or if he’s just tired, or he pooped. He has never told me what he thinks about his crib mattress (although I agonized over the decision), his outfits, the music we play or anything. The key to all purchases, and I’m yet to be proven wrong, is the perceived happiness of the actor baby on the packaging. It’s never steered me wrong (that I’m aware of).

I also find some of the branding interesting. The one I saw today (which prompted the blog, because God knows I don’t come up with ideas much before I actually start typing) was ‘Mom’s Choice’. Mom’s Choice is the obvious choice isn’t it? I would buy that. I mean after all, Mom sampled all of these products and narrowed it down. She did all the work for me, right? How does a company get to be ‘Mom’s Choice?’ Is there a rigorous selection process that all of these products go through? Is this a government regulated thing, or can anybody slap ‘Mom’s Choice’ on the label?

More importantly, whose Mom? My Mom? The baby’s Mom? Everyone has/had a Mom. Which one of them made the call on this? Was there a panel of expert moms that got together on this? A secret society of taste-making moms that run the baby food game? Is there a criteria for Moms that get to be on the ‘Mom’s Choice’ selection committee? Do they need to have more than one kid to qualify? Or are they teenage Moms (Who most recently were eating baby food themselves)? Or an even number of Moms from each age group to properly represent the spectrum of Moms. Are all the different ethnic cultures represented in this Mom group? Or does it depend on the ethnicity of the baby on the cover (What??? We all eat different shit as adults, does a baby’s cultural background not matter at ‘Mom’s Choice’?).

What if you started a company called Dad’s Choice? Why does nobody in the baby food industry care what Dad thinks. Dad probably eats more than Mom. He should be more of an expert. What if all those names were taken, could you just take another member of society and have them vouch for the taste of baby food?

Bartender’s Choice
Raquetball Coach’s Choice
Zookeeper’s Cousin’s Choice
Necktie Designer’s Choice
Zipline Technician’s Choice
Stamp Collector’s Choice
Librarian’s Choice
Assistant Manager Of The Meat Department At The Grocery Store’s Choice

These are all fresh ideas, but let’s face it. Mom knows best, although I don’t believe in the legitimacy of the representative amount of Moms, endorsing and quality checking ‘Mom’s Choice’ food, I do think it’s clever advertising. It found its way into my home so clearly, at least one of us fell for it.

I just want to go on record as saying that I don’t think there were any Moms involved in the choosing of ‘Mom’s Choice’. I also don’t think that being a Mom qualifies you to know the first thing about what baby food tastes like, or how it should taste. I’m no expert, but in my short stint as a parent I’ve learned that if your baby is hungry enough, they will eat anything, whether it’s ‘Mom’s Choice’ or ‘Macaroni Necklace Sales Representative’s Choice’, or their shoe.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized