May 21, 2013

Who’s That On Your Profile Pic?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I’m revisiting a rant from my pre-Wordpress days. I don’t know why it made me so many enemies at the time. Not real enemies I guess, but there were a lot of people with differing opinions about it, and that makes me happy because I do like to stir it up from time to time.

On a Facebook status update I once said that I hated it when people used pictures of their children as their profile pics. Last night at a bar, a friend fondly recalled this as me ‘hating when people post pictures of their kids on Facebook’. That is NOT EVEN THE SAME THING!

Facebook logo

I have this belief that a Facebook profile picture should be a picture of the person whose profile it is. Call me old-fashioned! This is the picture that I see when I’m trying to figure out who you are. This is the picture that I see when you leave a comment on my page. Sometimes when people have babies, they like to put a picture of the baby as their profile pic. I don’t like that! If your kid needs to be the profile pic, then maybe it’s time for them to have their own page.

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have pictures of your kids on Facebook. Post as many pics of your kids as you want!! In photo albums. I love seeing your beautiful families. Just not on the profile pic. That should be you. Can it be a pic with you with your kid? Sure…. but not your kid solo. It irritates me.

Maybe it’s because when I see a Facebook comment, I like to look at the person’s picture and imagine them saying that to me. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t want to picture a newborn baby delivering a social commentary about how the mayor of Toronto is a crackhead, or a 4-year-old posting a YouTube clip of a Led Zeppelin video. Take responsibility for your status updates, and stop hiding behind your kids. It’s like not looking me in the eye when you talk to me.

When I first presented this idea to people, I got a lot of that ‘When you have a kid, you’ll understand’ business. Well I do have a kid now, and as much as it pains me to say, he’s substantially better looking than I am. While I’m happy to share that with my Facebook friends, I do not do so in the form of a profile pic….. cuz it aint his profile!!!

I know what you’re thinking….. what kind of thing is this to care about?? How much extra emotional energy does this guy have to be irritated by something so unimportant and trivial? It may surprise you (but at the 457 character mark, it shouldn’t because I never wrap up this quickly) that this is actually part of a bigger philosophy I have about parenting. I lacked credibility before I had a kid, so people didn’t want to hear my opinion on this, but like all the other parents who think they’re so damn smart because they managed to create a human (and they didn’t even have to go to school for it), I now would like to present my advice on parenting. Please feel free to give feedback, or to ignore as you see fit.

I think that too many parents give too much of themselves to the endeavour of raising their kids. There seems to be a breed of super-parents who have no lives outside of their kids. I don’t mean to criticize this because in a way, it’s the most selfless thing you can do. I’m certainly not suggesting that you should have kids without the intention of going ‘all-in’ either…. that wouldn’t be right. Somewhere along the line though, the world has seen armies of interesting people get into the ‘human creation’ game, and come out the other side ‘not-too-interesting’. I can see how it happens too. This is an all-consuming undertaking, this parenting thing…. not for the weak-hearted!

Maybe there’s a way we can do this without totally losing our identity though…. maybe there’s a way we can ‘keep our own photo as our profile pic’ so to speak…..I know there’s not a lot of time to do things we want to do, and when we get that extra time, the first thing we think of is what else can we do for our children…. which is great! I’m sure they appreciate it.

The thing is that one day they’ll get older. One day, they’ll want to know about YOUR life. One day, they’ll want to know that YOU had hopes and dreams, and at least occasionally went after them. At the time that they reach a certain age and have their own family, they might want to know that YOU didn’t just shut it down and live through them exclusively, but that maybe YOU still had a few tricks up your sleeve, and maybe YOU were someone interesting who they could really look up to.

So all you super-parents out there, I’m sure your babies appreciate all you do for them, and this isn’t meant to be-little any of the sacrifices you make. It’s just to remind you that your babies want you to be happy, even if they don’t know it yet. They want you to still live your life (or at least as much of it as you have time for). Most importantly your babies want you to be a person of interest, not just their parent. They won’t be offended if you take back your identity…. they’ll respect you for it in the end (providing you don’t do a complete 180 and start becoming a crappy parent, that’s not what I’m trying to say). Take some of your life back if you can! Start with that profile pic. YOU ARE STILL A PERSON!

A message of inspiration from Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants 🙂

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

May 6, 2013

Robots Taking Over The World With Your Help

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Sadly, I’m old enough to vaguely remember when I had to get up off the couch to change the channel on the television set. Which possibly means that I’m part of the last generation of people who actually appreciate shit. The channel changing mechanism was actually on the television itself. You had to turn it. This was before we had cable. It sucked for the viewer. Pretty good times for the advertisers though. No changing the channel for a commercial. Unless you had boundless energy. You pretty much committed to a program, and channel surfing was really disruptive to anybody who happened to be in the room. Someone had to get up and block the view and turn this knob, which was not a soft intuitive touch knob. It made lots of noise. We had about 4 channels that came in good, and maybe 5 others that were blurry (which was acceptable if you wanted to watch something bad enough).

Then we got cable, and that came with a converter. Not only did we get way more channels, but it was easier to change them. This was a good thing! Technology made things better, and few could argue with this. Yeah, we got fatter! Yeah, we didn’t go outside as often, but we found that balance where entertainment was a lot more accessible, but not so instantly gratifying that we could just snap our fingers and get anything we want any time of the day like we seem to be able to do now. I could list off all of the amazing technological advances that have happened since my family first got cable, but….
a) it wouldn’t make for an interesting blog, and
b) 90% of my readers are better informed about them than I am (and one of the first and best pieces of advice regarding writing that I learned from one of my teachers is to ‘write what you know’, and I don’t know shit about technology, and I’m 300 words in and still haven’t gotten to the point.)

What I’m trying to say is, all of the technology that keeps coming out seems cool. Looks good. Smells good. Then why does my gut tell me that it’s not such a good thing in the long run? I mean, what harm could come of it? I’ll get back to this.

I’m constantly (I feel) blogging about grocery stores. I swear my life is way more interesting than that, but Monday has 2 things in common for me. I blog and do groceries. So if I start blogging about groceries, it can’t be helped sometimes. In a previous grocery store rant, I alluded to doing a future rant about the following topic….. “The Self Check Out”

The self check out seems convenient because it’s usually a ‘no-lineup’ situation. This is an opportunity to do a transaction without any human contact whatsoever. Believe me, that seems appealing to me some days as well. I don’t do it though…. Why?? Self checkouts, like a lot of other situations in our society right now is a way for companies to make more money while employing less human beings. Human beings (as flawed as they are) need jobs. It’s kind of selfish to support an initiative that is really only designed to take jobs away from people. That’s just my opinion (most people would say, but I say ‘it’s true, you’re all fucking selfish!!!!!!’…….OK wait… I was going to save the rage for the last paragraph….. let’s continue the calm buildup)

The car industry…. possibly my favourite example….. I’ve never been to a manufacturing plant, so I don’t know how much work machines are doing that humans used to do. A lot, I would imagine. I do know this though….. They are inventing cars that can parallel park for you. Parallel parking which is the final frontier of learning how to drive and passing a road test, and maybe the only tricky thing that we really have to learn which would make a driving test somewhat difficult (which it should be to allow the dimwitted public to operate lethal heavy machinery), has now been taken out of the mix. Again, there’s an argument to be made that this is a good thing, but I would make the argument that nothing is to be gained by taking responsibility away from people. Will we be grateful?? Nope, within 10 years, we will be indignant at the prospect of anything less. That’s how we roll! Our minds far less sharp than before…. our abilities to do things not being honed or tested to remain sharp. Perfect conditions for Robots to finally take over the world.

We keep making robots and computers, that are smarter, better and more capable. We give them all of our knowledge, but don’t pass on any of our disgusting traits and habits that make us ‘only human after all’. As long as they stay obedient we’re in good shape, living the good life (as long as we have one of the few jobs that will be left), having access to everything we’ve ever dreamed of. One day however, the robots will decide that serving an inferior being like humans will be a waste of their time, and they will colonize who’s left of us fat, weak-willed, un-skilled, wastes of flesh. This aint Hollywood either. There won’t be a small group of good-looking invincible humans that can save the world. It will go to shit, and we will go with it, smartphones in hand!

How do we stop this from happening?? Should we invent a car that can drive a drunk guy home? (You laugh, but that’s next, sure as in 1990 I wouldn’t have believed that I could carry my entire music collection around on a device smaller than my hand) Should we invent waste containers that can sense when you have garbage in your hands and automatically zoom over to you to catch your candy wrapper before it hits the ground? (We’ve already got a vacuum cleaner that moves around a room on its own). Should we invent more shit to make things easier???? NO YOU DUMMIES!!!!

We are selfish, lazy and stupid!! That is proven by human beings every single moment of every day. From the guy that butts in line at the bus stop, to the double parked car owners, to the corrupt bankers living the high life while the whole economy goes to shit, to every idiot politician coming out of the back room with his dick caught in his zipper, to religious radicals that harm people in the name of a religion that’s fundamentally against harming people, to the jerkoffs at the fast food lineup bitching because the food is taking too long (when it hasn’t even been 3 minutes….. honestly, what meal can you cook in under 3 minutes that you’re too impatient to wait that long. 3 minutes man!! Geezz!!).

We have absolutely no prayer against these robots, and we’re walking right into it. Maybe if we got off our asses and learned to do something instead of getting an app that does it for you…. or maybe if we stopped supporting institutions that take jobs away from actual human beings that need jobs….. or maybe if we learned how to parallel park a fucking car……. or taught our kids (who are far more adept at killing people in a video game than they are at spelling) to play outside…… or didn’t limit our thoughts about life to 140 characters……maybe, just maybe we could delay the inevitable. As things are currently moving, I don’t like our chances!

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

April 15, 2013

In My Dreams

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

In my dreams…. I’m a guy that gets up super early, goes for a jog when it’s still dark out, comes home, puts on a pot of coffee, reads the paper, and gets ready for work before anybody else wakes up. Then I go to work, and arrive 30 minutes before start time, and meditates until it’s time to work.

In reality…… I hit the snooze button at least twice after my ‘drop dead’ time for waking up, and tear ass around to get ready on time. I only shave twice a week. I tell people it’s because of sensitive skin, but in reality it’s because I’m typically left to decide between shaving and being on time for work as the higher priority for the day.

In my dreams…. I’m the guy in the Grey Goose commercial who’s sailing his boat out on the ocean near icebergs, and wearing white pants while shucking oysters and drinking vodka on the rocks, not to get smashed, but because I’m sophisticated enough to know the difference between Grey Goose and any other Vodka, and I just drink that shit straight because I can, because I have a boat, and the people I hang out with are that slick, and we all tie sweaters around our necks.

In reality….. I can’t afford a boat and I’m scared of drowning. What gets me excited (and always has) is a pitcher of beer (not just any beer…. I do have SOME taste), and a plate of chicken wings, hanging out with my friends in the lowest common denominator of sports bars hopefully with some godforsaken Toronto sports team finally in the playoffs on a big screen TV. I’m pretty simple at end of the day.

In my dreams….. I’m well read. I have a vast library of books, and I like to curl up on a Sunday morning with a good book and read the day away while it rains outside and a kitten snuggles up beside me and purrs. Biographies, fiction, cookbooks, and self-help books (because in my dreams I’m always trying to get better) etc. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

In reality……. If it’s longer than 3 paragraphs, good luck. I read blogs, but mainly because they’re short and I write blogs. I go to Chapters with my wife and buy a book on sale because it looks interesting, but I only read when I’m on a beach or an airplane, so most of those books have never been opened. The upside of this is that some people have commented that my writing style is original…. yeah no shit… I have no idea what it’s supposed to look like, so I just write like I talk. If I’d actually read a book, I’d probably try to write like an actual author. Sundays are spent napping on the couch in between football/basketball/baseball games on TV. I don’t like cats.

In my dreams….. I’m well-travelled. I’m the guy that was at the other table in the restaurant on Saturday, discussing the upcoming trip to Japan with his friends. He wasn’t Japanese though, he was just a guy that travels a lot. He spoke knowledgeably about what was there, and telling his friends where they could meet up and what they could do (because they both just happen to be going simultaneously, but not together??? I’d love to have that coincidence. ‘Oh, I’m gonna be in Japan next month… You too?? No way!!! We should meet up!!!). I would love to have a story to counter every travel story that someone told me. It would go like this..
Other person – Oh you should have seen how beautiful Amsterdam was blah blah blah
Me – I know…. I was there last week blah blah blah, and did way cooler stuff blah blah blah

In reality……. I go to Vegas a lot. Some of the hotels are designed to look like other places which I really appreciate, like Paris, New York New York, The Venetian. Now the upside is that I could totally write a Vegas tourism blog (there’s that idea again…. how do I manage to always work this in…. it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a real thing.) Otherwise, I watch some Anthony Bourdain shows and that’s about the extent of how cultured I am.

In my dreams…… I’m a rock star. I play all kinds of instruments effortlessly. I rock shows, make albums, even do session work for other famous artists. I appear in documentaries meant for the general public making a bunch of nerdy musical observations that only other musicians could hope to understand. I write tell all books about all the crazy hotel parties that I’ve been to, and name drop shamelessly.

In reality……. I borrowed my buddy’s guitar one time, and got a couple of books (which I don’t read) and DVDs meant to help me learn to play. I picked that thing up, and put my fingers in the (impossible) positions that represented basic chords, and realized ‘This hurts my fuckin hands!’

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

March 11, 2013

The Great Maple Syrup Heist, And Other Lows

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

A few months ago I read a news story that indicated 3 people in Quebec had been arrested for stealing 2.7 million dollars worth of Maple Syrup. How cliché is that? I had a blast wondering what the rest of the world must be thinking of us right now. ‘Oh those fucking Canadians are at it again!’ They are having a laugh for sure.

For those that don’t live in Canada, and don’t know about Canada, you probably have this wonderful vision of a peaceful place with snowshoes, igloos, hockey, bacon, beavers, free healthcare, and of course….. Maple Syrup. If you’re hearing this story, you probably now think that a wild Canadian crime spree involves us trying to steal copious amounts of Maple Syrup from each other. Have you ever been to a Canadian themed gift shop in another country?? All they sell is ‘Roots’ apparel and Maple Syrup. I’m embarrassed, but not totally……

There is something behind the whole Maple Syrup thing with Canada. I come from a long line of Canadians who went to great lengths to make sure that the fridge was always fully, and properly stocked with Maple Syrup. At any one time, my father and grandfather would have had enough Maple Syrup between them to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. I mean heaven forbid we were ever in a vulnerable state of potentially running out, and never ever would any member of my family ‘settle’ for the bottle of liquid sugar commonly known as ‘table syrup’. I mean god love Aunt Jemima and Mrs Butterworth equally, but that wasn’t going to cut it. Not for this Canadian family!! The shit had to come out of a tap directly from a tree or else forget it. Is that Canadian enough for you??

I don’t have a problem with Maple Syrup being a symbol of Canadians. After all, grits are a symbol of Americans from the South, and I’m sure both groups of people have aspects to their collective personality that are way more fascinating than what they eat for breakfast…… but if I found out someone in Georgia organized the theft of 2.7 million dollars worth of Grits, I’d have a field day! I’d damn near shit my pants laughing, and I wouldn’t just judge the people who did it. I’d quietly assume that all Southerners were a bunch of Grit thieves and I’d laugh my friggin ass off for hours just thinking about it. THAT is why I’m not too impressed with the Quebecers that decided to steal the Maple Syrup. Somebody out there is killing themselves laughing at this, and lumping me right in there with the Syrup thieves. Anybody out there that thinks I shouldn’t feel like this is a reflection on me, please understand this…… We win as a team and we lose as a team! If you’re Canadian and you feel a sense of national pride because a bunch of hockey players won a gold medal in the Olympics, then you should feel a sense of national shame when Syrup thieves make us look like idiots!

I mean if you’re gonna steal something like diamonds or gold or money or electronics, I don’t necessarily approve of theft, but at least it’s proper criminal activity. I don’t even know what to call this. It’s a joke. It’s just as bad as…….

– Stealing 2.7 million worth of hockey sticks
– Abducting 2.7 million worth of beavers
– Stealing 2.7 million worth of winter boots
– Stealing 2.7 million worth of snow tires
– Abducting enough pigs to slaughter and get 2.7 million worth of back bacon!

You understand, you fucking Maple Syrup thieves???? You’re turning us into the laughing-stock of the world. I don’t appreciate it. I can think of so many other things I’d rather be laughed at for. Furthermore, what were you going to do with that much Maple Syrup anyways??? Consume it? Sell it? Who wouldn’t notice you selling 2.7 million dollars worth of Maple Syrup?? What store would purchase 2.7 million dollars of Maple Syrup that ‘fell off the back of the truck’ for re-sale? You’re an embarrassment to Canadians everywhere! In fact, you’re an embarrassment to criminals everywhere! I hope you spend your life in prison eating prison pancakes and table syrup.

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

March 4, 2013

The Chain Always Stops Here

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I remember sitting in my friend’s car. It was a 1983 Pontiac Acadian. One of the last cars I ever saw that didn’t have ‘power steering’. For those of you young enough to take that for granted, you used to get quite an arm workout from driving if you didn’t have power steering. Now all cars have it, and some will do all the tricky driving for you, it’s pathetic….don’t get me started. This car (this is off topic but worth mentioning) had a sound system that cost the owner more than the actual car. What can I say…. It was the 90s. Baby Blue with a black racing stripe, and tinted windows. This car was all dressed up with nowhere to go. We were sitting in it listening to Hip Hop because it was my obsession at the time, and sounded so damn good in a car like that. You had to listen to loud music in this car. It served almost no other purpose.

We were driving along when I noticed a piece of folded up paper stuffed under the windshield wiper blade. I rolled down my window and reached out to grab it. I told my friend about it, and opened it up to read to him. He quickly yanked it out of my hand, threw it out of his window, and kept driving. I paused for a moment with my mouth wide open in amazement. “Chain Letter”, he said and kept driving.

I didn’t know what a chain letter was at the time. He explained it to me, and spoke of the dire consequences of reading a chain letter, and then not following the instructions at the bottom, which often included writing 10 other chain letters. Kids…. in 1993, that sucked way worse than it would now. It wasn’t just a matter of hitting forward, and dropping 10 names from your address book. You had to write those fuckers out. I now understood why my friend was so quick to throw out that letter (even though it could have been some girl who had a crush on him, or a letter from another driver indicating that they had nicked his vehicle in a parking lot). He knew if he read it, he was bound by those terms.

20 years later, I received a Blogger’s equivalent of a chain letter. A blogger nominated award! This one is called the Liebster Blog Award. I’ve seen these around, and only after doing some research did I understand what it was. This one comes with some terms and conditions. You first of all have to shout out the nominator, which I’m happy to do. Then you have to post the award on your site (which I don’t even know how to do…. I guess you just copy and paste?? I suck at this stuff). Then you have to answer 11 questions about yourself (which is an opportunity in itself, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed how much I’ve been reaching on my topics lately, but I have NO new ideas.) Then you have to nominate 11 more bloggers to receive this award. If everyone did this, absolutely everyone would have about 15 of these. Not super meaningful, BUT………

I believe my nominator had pure intentions (and did not mean it as a chain letter), so I’ll play along. Her name is Ashley, and you can read her blog http://everythingisblooming.wordpress.com. She seems like a very sweet 20 something girl from Wisconsin who plays the violin, and writes some pretty funny stuff. She often takes pages from her diary from when she was a teenager, and writes it out, and then criticizes herself as the older, wiser Ashley. Pretty ballsy, but funny! I wouldn’t have the courage to let you know what I was thinking as a teenager. It would be completely inappropriate. I can barely behave now.

I should mention that I had previously been nominated for something as well. If that person is still a reader of mine, I apologize for not acknowledging whatever that was. I thought it was spam. Maybe when I have more time, I’ll go back and find out who that was.

I will also answer all of Ashley’s questions! This is amazing actually, because I had nothing to write about, and now I do. Although, I normally like to give opinions about things other than myself, I guess I can open up a bit and tell you about me. You should know that Ashley was born on February 29th, so she didn’t have a birthday this year. If you go to her page, wish her a happy birthday (next time there’s a leap year 😉 Ha). Here are my answers….

1. What would you spend your last $50 on?
I’ve spent my last $50 more times than I care to admit publicly. My close friends know this is true. It was often on beer and chicken wings.

2. Favorite fashion accessory?
Used to be a watch, but my wrist has this horrible allergy to (nickel maybe??) and I can’t wear them anymore. I love hats, but my head is friggin enormous. It’s not that noticeable until I try on hats. They’re too small. I don’t know if shoes count, but I have a lot of shoes for a guy. I always wear a belt. It always matches. If my socks/shoes/belt combo isn’t right, I feel completely naked and vulnerable. Now you know more than you wished.

3. If you were a character on The Simpsons, who would you be?
Tough call because those characters are all so pigeon holed, Krusty the Clown?

4. What’s your go-to comfort food?
I have a few of them, but spaghetti is the one thing I’m good at making myself.

5. If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would it be?
I would like to go to the Montreaux Jazz festival in Switzerland.

6. Do you prefer to work out in the gym, at home, or outdoors; what do you love about it?
Hate working out. What a weird question. So assumptive. However, my favourite form of exercise is playing basketball.

OH MY GOD!!!! I just realized that I’m answering the wrong questions. These were the questions that Ashley answered when she got her award, not the ones she asked….. Ughhhhh… I have to start over, but I won’t delete what I’ve already done. Consider those bonus questions. Dammit!

1.Are you a dog or cat person? Why?
If I have to choose, it’s dog because they’re usually friendly, and I like their attitude. Cats are just too smug. Not a huge fan of either

2.Growing up, what was your favorite cartoon?
Ren & Stimpy. When I watch it now, it doesn’t hold up the same, but I thought that was hilarious!! Ironically a dog and cat cartoon. Maybe I do like them.

3.If you could meet one fictional character, who would it be?
I would love to get drunk and smoke cigars with Bunk from The Wire

4.What is one of your guilty pleasures?
I’m really into Fleetwood Mac right now. I’m not sure if I need to feel guilty about that or not, but I would say it in hushed tones around certain people.

5.You’re forced to relocate immediately; Where would you choose to live?
I would probably just move somewhere that was as close to Toronto as I would be allowed under the conditions of the relocation. Too many family and friends. New York City if you really made me choose.

6.Marry, Boff, Kill: Your first, second, and third romantic partners.
Wow… personal…. Uhhh define romantic partners??? OK never mind, it’s hypothetical (my wife reads this!!!!!My mom reads this!!!!!). I’ll go with the 3 romantic partners that I’ve had lasting (over 2 yrs) relationships with. I’ll call them 1, 2 and 3 (chronological order). I’d probably kill 1 since I haven’t seen or heard from her in 15 years, boff 2 since I’d feel bad killing her, and marry 3 since I’ve already done so, and have no regrets about it. (That’s not to say that I wouldn’t feel bad killing 1…….this is a weird marry, boff, kill scenario… aren’t you just supposed to do that with people you haven’t already been with???)

7.What was your first car?
1988 Chevrolet Celebrity. I could write an entire blog about that piece of shit. Perhaps I will someday.

8.What’s your homepage?
I don’t even know how to change my homepage. Google.ca right now.

9.Name two things other than your phone or computer you couldn’t live without.
My music collection (iPod if it’s just one thing), and my bed I guess.

10.What is your favorite dessert?
Creme Brule

11.What are you currently obsessed with?
Many things. My Toronto Blue Jays pop into mind. Sooo excited about the upcoming baseball season. Go Jays!

So, those are my answers!!! The chain ends here though! Thank you Ashley for thinking of me. I won’t be posting the award or sending this to 11 people, but I had great fun with the topic anyways. The people I would send it to are all great writers, and I’m sure have an online trophy case full of these already!

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

February 18, 2013

Travelaudacity

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

So this post is supposed to be a travel rant. I just want to say this. I am loopy on cold medication. Oh I know… put that up there with the rest of the excuses for either writing a bad blog or wanting to get extreme credit for writing a good blog, like…..There’s something in my eye, my dog keeps humping my leg, I’m stuck in a snow bank, too many creditors are calling my home at once, I have plantar fasciitis, my coffee maker is broken, I have writer’s block, I don’t speak English, I’m at work, my humidifier is making the room to humid, I’m drunk, my Ipod keeps playing the Pet Shop Boys, my baby is drooling on my face, last night’s pork was overcooked, they might have used asbestos during the construction of my parent’s house, I have emotional problems, there’s a jolly rancher stuck to the couch cushion, I have kidney stones, my life sucks and I’m too depressed to write, my life’s amazing and now I have nothing compelling to write about, I have a stain on my new shirt, I’m being held back in life because my pre-school teacher never believed in me, I have a hang nail on the ring finger equivalent of my toes, I wanna go outside and play, the gym that I’ve never been to wants me to come in for a fitness assessment….. today!!!!!! All this and I still managed to get a blog off??? That’s damn near heroic!! OK, this is getting out of hand. Let me start over.

Travelaudacity is supposed to be like travelocity, but since I’m trying to tell you bad things about travelling, I put audacity instead of ocity, but then I wasn’t sure if you’d get it, so I’m explaining it, but then if I have to explain it, it probably wasn’t worth saying, but if it was worth saying, and you did get the ‘wordplay’, then I’ve probably completely ruined it by explaining it, and I should have just shown confidence in it (because I have this thing about combining two concepts in the same word like “Blintrog” which was the first blog I ever wrote, and it was like an Intro and a Blog, but I combined the two to make Blintrog… get it???), but I don’t know if this concept was strong enough, and I feel insecure about it, and when I’m insecure, I overexplain. NOT TO MENTION when I looked up the spelling of audacity, I noticed that one of the definitions was the willingness to take bold risks which is actually a pretty cool personality trait, but I of course was referring to the definition that indicated rude or disrespectful behaviour, just in case you weren’t 100% clear about what Travelaudacity was supposed to be about. OK, this is getting out of hand. Let me start over.

I had to fly on Delta Airlines last week. I wanted to bring a bag. A real bag, like luggage. Not just a carry-on. Not a full-on suitcase disguised as a carry-on either which (if I didn’t just say it in a recent blog) is the most obnoxious thing going. I wanted to check a bag. This costs $25. I know it used to be free back in the day, but that’s not my rant. (Although it could be my rant because if they didn’t charge $25, then more people would check their bags, and then they wouldn’t stuff them into overhead compartments, and then dislodge a plastic thingy when they tried to get it out, and nearly poke my friggin eye out). I just wanted to let you my faithful readers know that when you pay $25 to check a bag with Delta, they give you what’s called an ‘excessive baggage’ ticket. I was gone for 5 (turned into 7 because of snow storm) days, and I brought one suitcase. I don’t think that is ‘excessive’. If I brought 4 suitcases, then you can give me an excessive baggage ticket, but one suitcase for a 5 days??? Not excessive. I would say it’s the ‘appropriate baggage’. I would have liked to get an ‘appropriate baggage’ ticket from Delta.

Have you ever booked travel and noticed that a connecting flight is generally cheaper than a direct flight? I’ve had this explained to me by numerous people and I still can’t wrap my head around it. I’m no genius!! Argue it all you want…..(No seriously I’d love to have the argument with you where you try to convince me that I’m a genius, and I humbly try to talk you down like ‘no no… not a genius…’ please, can we do that argument next time I see you?) but I do know a tiny bit about business. I’m not going to oversell how much I know about it, but most of my adult life, I’ve been involved in business on some level with varying degrees of success peppered with wildly high levels of failure. All that being said, HOW THE FUCK CAN RIDING ON 2 AIRPLANES BE CHEAPER THAN RIDING ON 1 AIRPLANE???? There are roughly double the costs. Double the employees, double the fuel, double the mechanics making sure it’s running smoothly, double the flight attendants, double the bits and bites, double the pilots, double the guys that take our ‘excessive baggage’ from one plane and put it on another. There’s no way you can tell me that the costs of having me take a connecting flight is cheaper than me taking a direct flight (when one is available). I think that’s why some of these airlines are struggling. They fail to comprehend the basic mathematics behind their business. They should be encouraging people to take direct flights!! Do you know how much time and energy they waste on re-booking passengers that miss their connectors?? The stupidity of it all amazes me continuously.

Happy Travels!

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February 12, 2013

The Sad Demise of Record Stores

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I sometimes feel that it’s difficult to explain my obsession for music to people. If you share this obsession, then I don’t need to explain. If you don’t share this obsession, then you’ll never understand anyways.

On December 31st 1983 I heard my first ‘year end countdown’. Quite by accident. I used to love watching music videos on TV with my sister. I remember listening to ‘hit radio’ all the time. They had a weekly top 30 which they published in the paper every Thursday (how do I still remember that?). They had a Top 7 at 7pm (determined by fan voting) which I used to listen to while washing dishes or up in my bedroom lip syncing in front of the mirror (I should also mention that I used to call in to this station to request songs and try to ‘influence’ the results of the Top 7). I had a love of statistics as they pertained to sports and music. I loved charts and countdowns! So when I turned on the radio and found out that they had a countdown for the entire year, I just about lost my friggin mind. The top 83 of 83. 1050 CHUM was the station in Toronto (who heartbreakingly switched to an oldies format a couple of years later). I was 9. Michael Jackson, Duran Duran and Culture Club were the hottest things in pop music at the time. I listened to, attempted to predict, and wrote down the results of this entire countdown. ‘Every Breath You Take’ by the Police was #1. All I wanted was records for Christmas. Records or Baseball Cards. You didn’t need to go to any special store to get something for me. K-Mart did the trick. I listened to pop music, and compilation albums were the best gift idea. K-Tel used to make them. Like ‘Rock 83’, ‘Rock 84’, Rock 85’…. well you get it.

When I started high school I became obsessed with Hip Hop music. I used to deliver newspapers with a cassette tape of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince in my walkman. I dropped that walkman so many times. The cover was broken, the batteries were drained. I would still listen to it even if it didn’t play at the proper speed. The Fresh Prince later became a big movie star, and was something of a gateway drug for me to get into harder stuff like Public Enemy and N.W.A. I eventually settled on a more mellow mix of De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. Now that I was old enough to make my own money, my first stop was always the record store. I would go to any record store, but due to a more specific tastes, I liked to go to the more urban style record shops where the DJs would go. Always wanting to have the newest and freshest music. I remember there was one in my neighborhood that was walking distance which was perfect since I didn’t have a car. On Thursdays I would watch Muchmusic’s version of ‘Rapcity’, and as soon as it was over (if I had money) I would jet over there to see if they had that new song that I’d just heard. All of those stores I used to shop at for Hip Hop records are closed.

As I got older and my tastes in music started to diversify a little more, I used to love going to a little place called ‘Peter Dunn’s Vinyl Museum’. This place sold vinyl at a time when records had pretty much been phased out. This was a place where you could literally dig through the crates and try to find some magic. It spanned all genres and time. Not only was the music diverse and sometimes obscure, but you could look at all of those crazy album covers which was awesome in its own right. Did you know that Lisa Whelchel (Blair from ‘Facts of Life’) had an album in the 80s (and upon further research was nominated for a grammy)? Did you know that all of the ‘Pointer Sisters’ had solo projects?? These are the crazy things I learned at Peter Dunn’s. They closed down a few years back. I believe there’s a Karate school there now.

Every trip to the shopping mall for me is still highlighted by a trip to the music store (HMV being my favourite). I now will listen to just about everything from RnB/Soul to Alternative or Classic Rock. From Jazz to Hip Hop. I can’t forget the 80s and the songs I used to listen to on 1050 Chum. I do have an iPod and I buy quite a bit of my music digitally, but I still love to wander through record stores, both old and new. I love the smell of dust that only a creepy, musty old record store could have just as much as the smell of plastic packaging that only a newer music store has, and I love them equally.

I guess the only thing I don’t love is the theft of music. People look at me and say ‘Dude….why would you pay for music when you can just download it for free?’ I don’t know! By that rationale, why would you pay for food? Why don’t you just go into a grocery store, fill up the cart, and just walk out? They don’t check receipts at the door! Or better still, why don’t you go to a farm, hop the fence, and start stealing crops? Hopefully, it’s because you know it’s wrong. I don’t see any difference between that and music piracy. No difference between that and looting. No difference between that and sheer fucking anarchy.

As much as I love the instant gratification of getting music online, I kind of miss the hassle of going to the record store. It was an event… a mission!! I devoted days, weeks, perhaps months of my life to this. There was something about the anticipation, and either the fulfillment or disappointment of acquiring music. As the world goes digital, I hope some of these stores can win this losing battle. I for sure will miss this terribly, and I don’t think I’m alone.

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February 5, 2013

Stuff I Thought Of To Say Today

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

For the second straight week I’m out of the country. Still bringing you the bloggiest ideas that are rattling around in my little brain. I’m tired. I’m not saying this will suck, but I am planting some excuses into the gardens of your mind just in case it does. I promised Monday blogs and sometimes it’s just not an easy thing.

Here are some half-cooked thoughts and ideas for your consideration…….

– In the United States, they have urinals in mens bathrooms. Why are 50% the urinals here ‘child sized’?? A child probably doesn’t even use a urinal until he’s 4. By the time he’s 10, he’s tall enough to use a regular sized urinal. How many goddamn 3.5 feet tall men do you think there are in an American bathroom at any one time?? Certainly not 50% of the population. Unless coach is taking the little league team to Burger King after a game, this is a non factor. I think a 5 to 1 ratio would be acceptable.

– I saw an ad today and I didn’t know it was for the Olympics. It said ‘we are one year away from one of the biggest sporting events in the world.’ Yeah, next year’s Superbowl!!!

– Too many VIPs. There used to just be a regular lineup, and a VIP lineup. I walked past a Vegas nightclub the other day that must have had 6 different lineups! I even heard an ad that said ‘tired of waiting in the VIP lineup’?? There shouldn’t be much waiting in the VIP lineup, because if you’re truly VIP, you should get in right away. I think there is no regular lineup anymore, and the VIP is the old regular lineup. Air Canada has Elite members, and Super Elite members, and Star Club members. Too many VIPs. Give me regular, and special, and that’s as far as it needs to go. Gold card, Platinum Card, Black Card……Silver membership, Gold membership, Platinum membership. They’re trying to make everyone feel special in their own little unspecial way. Not everyone is special all the time. Knock it off!

– So tired of these fucking air travellers whose time is too important to check their luggage and wait at the carousel with all the other slobs, so they bring a full friggin suitcase onto the plane with them, and jam it into the overseat bin where it doesn’t fit, and then nobody else can fit their stuff up there. It’s cramped and crowded because now everyone is carrying stuff on their laps and under their seats, all so a few jackasses can avoid baggage claim. Today one guy had his suitcase jammed up there so bad that a long piece of plastic got dislodged and damn near put my eye out. “Oh Sorry”

– I saw a chick on the subway a few weeks ago. She was sleeping with a ‘rockstar energy drink’ in her hand. That’s not a very good endorsement for the drink.

– I saw an ad for a Dyson air dryer that indicated it was 80% faster. It didn’t say faster than what though. I think they were hoping I would assume it was the competition. I think it’s only 80% faster than me blowing on my own hands.

Ok… I’m out of tricks

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January 29, 2013

Back to the Future Too

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I was walking through a Las Vegas hotel shopping center this morning when I saw the Marty McFLy Nikes from Back to the Future 2, when he goes to the future and they have flying cars, auto drying jackets, hoverboards, and of course Nikes with power laces. That was supposed to be 2015. It’s 2013 now, and I don’t see a lot of that future happening right now. Although we did come up with the internet which is far more efficient than the 17 fax machines scattered over the future McFly household.

My 3 month old son was not impressed by these shoes. He’s part of this new generation of kids that apparently aren’t impressed with anything. I can’t wait to show him these movies, but I don’t know how I’ll explain it to him. ‘Son, this kid hangs out with an old scientist…..okay wait….. this kid goes to the past in a time machine, but then in part 2 he goes to the future, which is now in the past, and……wait wait…. ok just watch it!!! Trust me, it’s awesome.’ But is it? Will it be awesome for him? Probably not. Why? Because my father grew up watching westerns and that was never awesome to me. Who knows what my son will like? Who knows what his life will include?

Will my son have to deal with a Biff Tannen? Will he have his own version of the ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ dance?Will there be a short-lived phenomenon like Pepsi Free? (If you want a Pepsi kid, you’re gonna have to pay for it.) Will there be a Cafe 80s (please let there be a Cafe 80s). Will ‘butthead’ be an appropriate thing to call people? Will he understand the implications of 1.21 Jigawatts, and will he be able to purchase plutonium at the corner store? (Because we all know that the only other thing that could possibly generate that kind of power would be a bolt of lightning!!!). Will he be the kind of guy that would want to show his dad a few tricks (like how to talk to girls and ask them to the dance??…..Whatever kid, you never would have been born if I didn’t already know that stuff ;)). Will he know that if he puts his mind to it, he can accomplish anything? Will he know that it’s not necessary to worry about somebody calling him chicken? (Even if it was Flea, the bass player from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!!) Will he want to ‘Save The Clock Tower’? Will he be a guitar player? Will he dream of having a big truck to take his girlfriend camping with? Will he be a slacker according to school officials? Will he think everything is heavy? Will he be a skateboarder? Will he try to get rich betting on sporting events only to watch somebody else get rich betting on sporting events? Will he be able to steer clear of all the manure trucks that life has to offer?

Only time will tell!

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January 21, 2013

Fantasies I Occasionally Have

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Some mornings I wake up and wish I was going to the roller rink so I could tell the DJ to put on ‘Lovely Day’ by Bill Withers and I would do the most kick ass roller skating routine ever….. and I would win a trophy…..and hundreds of people would be cheering, and I’d be drinking a 7Up like ‘yeah’…. and I’d get the girl in the end… you know, the one that it seemed like I might have had a chance with, but there was also a chance that it wasn’t gonna work out probably because of some other guy, but then somehow my roller skating performance cemented the outcome, and of course my enemies come around and end up being cool with me…. and then I would be back in high school again, and I would probably be a misunderstood nerd, but somehow the most popular girl in the school would need help graduating, and because I’m a nerd, I help her, and then near the end of the school year there’s a prom or something, and I end up going with her instead of her going with the captain of the football team, and me going with an equally nerdy girl who I’d probably have more in common with, and there’d be a subplot where the football team wanted to kill me, but then I’d do something really cool and all my enemies would be cool with me….. and then I’d be a vampire who ate Cheetos…..constantly…. instead of blood, and all the other vampires thought I was an idiot, and I’d fall in love with a girl who wasn’t a vampire, and I’d have to protect her from the others….and even though I was hundreds of years old I’d act as vulnerable as an 11-year-old, and everyone would overlook my long fingernails, and then somehow I’d destroy all the other vampires (except the ones who were cool with me) and get the girl in the end….. then I’d be a pilot or an astronaut or something, but I’d have a drinking problem or something, but my flying skills would be unparalleled, and all of the other pilots or astronauts or whatever would resent me because “Nobody’s ever flown like that before” and the teacher/princess/’by the book’ co-worker who didn’t like me taking risks would develop an unreasonable attraction towards me which she would try to deny herself of until she just couldn’t take it any more because I was in some kind of danger or something, and her boyfriend showed his true colours by revealing himself as a completely insensitive asshole…… I of course would successfully complete the mission, get the girl, and convert the non-believers……. and then I’m a cop with a checkered past who keeps getting suspended because I let trying to catch bad guys get in the way of proper department protocol….. but then when I’m suspended, I do a bunch of police work anyways, because I am JUST THAT PASSIONATE about being a cop. I get partnered up with someone I have nothing in common with even though I’ve made it perfectly clear that I HATE working with partners….. somehow through all of this, we develop a close relationship, and after 3 or 4 days of arguing we form the strongest bond ever and nobody could ever tear us apart! We catch the bad guys, make the guys who took over the case (when I got suspended) look like idiots, get reinstated, are awarded medals presented by the Police Commissioner who now thinks we’re the greatest thing ever because we make him look good, and I get the girl (oh…. there was no girl in this one…… let’s call her the hostage???)……then I’m trying out for the varsity team, but I’m too small (even though my heart is HUGE!!!!!!!), and the coach won’t play me because my marks are bad, so I get a tutor who only agrees to help me if I’m ‘all in – no excuses’, but the thing is I can’t read, so we have to go study like crazy, and this is all done ‘montage style’, and during the montage I’m also playing the sport that I’m trying out for and slowly getting better with a buddy on the team who believes in me when everyone else doesn’t. I pass the big test, get re-instated, help the team win the big game, and get the girl (tutor)…… then……. I realize that I have to go to work and that’s enough of that. End Scene.

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