January 7, 2014

Things I’d Rather Be Doing Than Feeling Stress

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

A lot of stuff has been going down at work. I’ve explained it so many times to so many people that I’m tired of thinking about it. While blogging about it may seem like a good idea, and somewhat therapeutic, I’ve decided a different kind of therapy, which is avoiding it altogether! I know you wanna-be psychologists are shaking your head. I know we’re supposed to delve deep into our problems and analyze them and talk about them, but that’s never worked for me. You know what works for me?? Thinking about Jelly Beans, or NFL Football, or stationary, or solar eclipses, or Space Shuttle launches, or Led Zeppelin, or Toffee, or lunch boxes, or hardwood flooring, or board games, or diapers, or Cheetos, or artwork, or laundry detergent, or gift cards etc…….Anything to avoid my problems!

As I was at work the other day feeling like if I was lying on the floor in a pile of my own vomit, that just may be preferable to the day I was having, I realized that there are a lot of things I would rather be feeling than stress. Some of which are desirable. Like love for example. Who wouldn’t want to feel love instead of feeling stress. That’s an absolute NO-Brainer!! The list I have compiled however, are things that aren’t so desirable, but I’d still prefer them to being stressed out all of the time. In no particular order……

– I think I would rather study the tendencies of various insects until I became the foremost expert in the world on these matters. I would really like to nerd it up in my next life. I want to win awards for this.

– I think I would rather be a night-time janitor at a school. I’ve heard that doesn’t pay too bad, and it’s unionized. Minimum supervision, and you wouldn’t have to clean up puke as it was happening because no kids would be there during your shift.

– I think I’ve fought the urge to wear a flourescent sweater long enough. It’s time for me to go where nobody should ever go before or after.

– I think I might rather pick the scabs off of elephant feet.

– I think I would rather plug-in a dot-matrix printer, and put a microphone in front of it, and print a 5 million page document right into my headphones, just to know what it’s like to be alive.

– I think I would rather work in a daycare with 4,000 babies, and my only job would be to clean up milk off the floor. I would have several TV monitors like a weird security guard, and the second milk hit the floor, I’d grab a roll of paper towels and rush off to clean it up. All day, every day! Can’t take a sick day from that job because if the milk stays on the floor for too long, it gets funky!

– I think I would rather take disbelieving people into the eye of a hurricane to prove to them that it isn’t as calm in there as they say. I’ll bet you get whipped around pretty good.

– I think I would rather be the technician inside the ‘It’s a Small World After All’ ride at Disney World, and fix those Disney puppets as needed. I know that doesn’t sound like a bad job, but I’ve had my little boat get stalled in there for a few minutes. It gets creepy after a while.

– I think I’d like to line up a few celebrity chefs to stand in a circle with me in the middle, and tell me how shitty my food is for 8 straight hours every day, making sure that they EMPHASIZE how disappointed they are and how they expected much better.

See?? That was therapeutic!!! I won’t end up doing all of those things though. I’ll just end up doing what I always do when I can’t handle the stress of work anymore….. Go to Vegas 🙂

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

January 2, 2014

OH, I’ve Had Some New Year’s Eve Moments In My Day

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

So last night was kinda cool. A little better than last year. Last year we had a baby who was about 2.5 months old. New Year’s Eve involved all three of us lying in bed watching TV, and at least 2 of us being fully asleep by the time the new year rolled in. I thought that was kind of lame, but I also feel like we deserve to not be judged during the ‘100 days of hell’ that a new child brings with. We needed our sleep more than we needed to party. This year, same kind of thing. Everyone except me is sick, and I’m totally worn out from working way too much over the last couple of weeks. I guess we could have gone out, but it would have required a baby-sitter, and it’s kind of mean to ask someone to babysit on New Year’s Eve. Last night my wife and I went to ‘The Cheese Boutique’, which is my favourite ‘Fine Foods’ store, and got some great stuff for a fun little stay in ‘wine & cheese party’ to which nobody was invited. Thanking my mom here for the gift certificate. I drank Ice Wine and ate exotic cheeses from around the world while we watched ‘Viva Las Vegas’ on TV. Actually, now that I’ve just said that out loud, I’m gonna go pour myself another glass of that Ice Wine while I finish writing this…. hang on…….ok, I’m back. Sounds kind of fun, right?? I mean, it’s not super lame, is it??

I just got to looking at Facebook, and seeing all of the great party pictures from those that went out, and kind of felt bad that I don’t go out anymore. It is a transitional time, mind you. We’ve got the young boy, and with both of us working hard at work, and at home, it’s not easy to find the energy to go out like we once did. I decided to write this post to remind the world, and mainly myself that WE ONCE DID!!

New Year’s Eves past have been some of the CRAZIEST nights of my life! I would say that there was probably a time in my life when it was my favourite day of the year. It started as a child. I guess that was the only night I was allowed to stay up until midnight for the first few years. I was an obsessive nerd for pop music in the 80’s, and on New Year’s Eve, you could always count on a radio station or a TV show counting down the top songs of the year. I don’t know how other people didn’t see it this way, but to me, that was the most important information in the world! To the point where I actually still remember some of it.

As I got older, and reached the legal drinking age, it became necessary to go to some sort of night club party which involved buying tickets ahead of time, only to pay 4 to 5 times the cover charge I would have normally paid to get into a night club. It was also necessary to have a pre-party somewhere, so we could get as much alcohol into us as possible, so we didn’t have to buy as many drinks at the club. We always had a plan to get home so nobody had to drive, but that often lead to other kinds of adventure.

I felt like I could tell a few of these stories, but the set up alone already has me at 600 words. I realize that each of these stories could be a blog post on its own. When I think back, all the memories are rushing back to me, and I can’t even believe it was all real.

In no particular order……
– I remember one year going to a club, and leaving sometime after last call only to find out the subway system had stopped running, and we had to find an all night bus which would take us home, except since we lived in the next city over, the night bus (which was packed 3 times before we got on it) only went to the edge of Toronto, so we had to cab it back to Mississauga at 6 in the morning, except it took the cabs 1.5 hours to get to the convenience store that we tried to wait inside of. I think we all got home OK.

– I remember having a girlfriend who when drunk would either puke, pass out or both. Getting her home safely was always tricky, and I know the time she barfed on the subway in front of my friends wasn’t one of my favourite moments (especially when it splashed up on my shoe).

– I remember renting a hotel room for the purposes of having a little get together for any of my friends who were downtown hitting the night clubs. This way my girlfriend (later wife) and I could hang out with some people for a while, but they would all take off and go to their respective parties, and the two of us could stay in. Until the hotel unveiled a new policy for New Year’s Eve that stated that you could not enter the building unless you had a room key. I understood why…. they wanted to avoid hotel parties, but you gotta tell me that before I give you my money!!! I planned my whole night around that. My guests were being turned away at the door. I went downstairs to yell at the hotel manager, and if I tell you good people that I’ve had less than five ‘lose my mind very publicly at extreme volume’ moments in my life, this was one of them.

– I remember at another hotel party (except this time the hotel was actually throwing the party, and we had tickets, so this was pre-party, in the room shenanigans), my buddy’s sister (who had never spent New Year’s with us before) was getting hammered and toasting EVERYTHING. The famous words of the night were ‘Guys, this is the best New Year’s EVER!!!!’ After a chat with the porcelain puke collector, she was in her bed, fast asleep at 11:15 pm. She has never lived it down.

– I remember the time we rented a cottage 3.5 hours outside of the city because it was Y2K, and all the computers were supposed to malfunction, and send the world into darkness etc. Bizarre moments include a friend falling down a flight of stairs and being so drunk that he ‘didn’t feel a thing’. Having a bottle of champagne (or sparkling wine more likely) shaken, and unloaded into my chest by a girl I had never met before, and never saw again. I remember all of these so-called ‘party animals’ were asleep with the lights off before 2 am on January 1st, 2000. I remember me being in the parking lot, and coming in to find the lights were off and the party was over, and LOSING MY FUCKING SHIT because it is unacceptable for a party to end that early on December 31st 1999 even if it was the 2nd straight day of drinking and carrying-on, I’m getting upset just typing this (This was also one of the five moments, but I’m in no way embarrassed about this outburst since it was among friends, and they had it coming). I wanted to party like it was 1999. Do you know how many times I’ve said that, but IT ACTUALLY WAS 1999!! These people were asleep!!!! I’m getting angry just thinking about it. I swear if you were with these people in their poopy little University town on a cold February night, they can stay at the bar until 3 am, make you suffer through McDonald’s drive thru, and crack beers when you get back to their residence. On the greatest party night of all time, however….. lights out at 2 am!! Sidenote #1, earlier that day as we drove to a convenience store (that was 30 minutes away…ughhh), my windshield wiper flew off into a snow bank. Not just the wiper blade…. the arm of it actually snapped off, and the whole thing flew into a fresh bank of snow, not unlike a boomerang. My friend in the back (when he stopped laughing) asked if I was going to stop the car, and I deadpanned “I’ll get it on the way back” (which he thinks to this day is the funniest thing I’ve ever said). Sidenote #2, On my way back from getting the deposit from the unmistakably weird man who rented us this cottage, my car muffler snapped off at night on the Gardiner Expressway, and I watched it in the rearview mirror as it sparked, and bounced off into the distance. Luckily it was nighttime, so nobody hit it (that I saw). So much for the deposit money.

Oh man….. I’ve got a million of them. I’ve earned a couple of sleepy New Year’s Eves I think!

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December 24, 2013

Badd New Post

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

That’s what happens when you add a B to Add New Post. I wanted to call this Random Thoughts because that’s all it is, but I probably used that before, and so did every other blogger on WordPress, Blogspot and every other site that allows us to blast the universe with our mental excrement any time we feel the need. What a universe!! Anytime I want to say something to about 200 people including about 24 that I’m absolutely positive give a shit, and 176 or so that possibly do as well, but maybe not, I can do it!! (Hmmmm, do I fix that run on sentence, or just apologize for it in parentheses?) Nothing is here to hold me back other than my own lack of energy.

Some thoughts…..

Yeah, about this blogging thing….. I don’t want to get so negative right before Christmas, but how come I only have 200 followers anyways??? A lot of the bloggers I read have like 2000 followers!! I don’t think they’re 10 times better than me. I think they are probably only marginally better than me. I need to get that exponential thing happening, otherwise….. I dunno……I’m not off on Mondays anymore, and I don’t know how much longer I can push myself to do this every week. Maybe I’ll take a break at 200 posts. That would be one post for each follower. I’m no closer to writing a book than I was when I started this. Unless it’s a book of blogs….Then I’m really close to having it done. I’m running out of blog ideas though. I’m not fishing for inspirational speeches about why I should keep going either… I’m just thinking out loud. This hurts my brain some days.

I think that trailer trash mothers need to not berate their kids so loudly while on public transit. I’m not judging people who live in trailers either. It’s just the stigma…. to be honest, I have no idea where this lady lives, but nothing her 4-year-old was doing was cutting it. ‘Hold on, sit up, stand up, do up your jacket, pick up your scarf, take off your hat, put on your gloves, don’t walk, stand still, sit down, do up your shoes, tuck in your shirt’….. and on and on and on. Dammit woman… stop micromanaging the shit out of your kid on this bus ride, and lower your voice!! Your kid is gonna hate you by the time she’s six! Plus I’m trying to listen to some music. This is my quiet time where I start to unwind from work. I’m not expecting you to be quiet, but stop with the jarring voice noises!! Nothing you’ve said is important enough to say at that volume. You’re acting like you don’t have any stains on your sweatpants, but you aren’t perfect, and all you’re doing is training somebody to be miserable like you. END THE CYCLE!!!

In complete contrast to what I just said, I have another thought which I’d like to share with you. I said this to a friend a couple of years back and he said it helped him. I didn’t remember saying it when he reminded me about it recently, but it makes sense when you think about it, and I was glad he remembered. He asked me about my time working in retail for many years, and how certain bitchy and/or unreasonable customers didn’t fill me with anger to the point of exploding every single day. He wanted to know how I avoided strangling people in these situations. My answer to this is simple. I don’t know their pain. You never know what somebody is going through in their personal life, or how they’ve been treated/mistreated. Sometimes people who’s lives are spiraling out of control can get into customer service situations, and become completely unreasonable to you or I. A lot of times it’s because they can’t control what’s going on in their life, but whatever situation is happening now seems like something they can control and/or get a win out of. I don’t take these situations personally. If somebody is completely unreasonable and un-cooperative, I know deep down that it’s probably because they have other issues outside of this that are making them act that way. I try to find a resolution, and when possible I try to show them some kindness. I try to remember that I’m very fortunate in the grand scheme of things, and I have a really good life. Not everyone is as lucky as me, and if trying to win some sort of weird customer service battle is going to bring them some happiness or satisfaction, I try to let the babies have their bottles. I won’t let it bring me down.

I hope that you can all keep that in mind over the holiday season while you’re elbowing to get to the front of a line, or jostling for a parking spot. People are crazy this time of year, but only they (and sometimes not even) know why! Don’t judge them if you don’t know their pain…… Except for that lady on the bus with her kid…. she needs to take it down a notch 😉

I won’t see you until after Christmas, so I wish all of you (24 or 200 people) a wonderful holiday season. Be good to each other!

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December 17, 2013

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer – The Sad, Twisted Tale

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

DON’T READ THIS TO YOUR KIDS…. I USE A LOT OF FOUL LANGUAGE IN THIS POST….. IF THAT MAKES YOU FEEL WEIRD, STOP READING HERE!

I would have to say that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the best Christmas song that isn’t ‘Little Drummer Boy’ or that Paul McCartney song that isn’t on Itunes. I was walking through a store listening to it with a fresh ear the other day, and a few things occurred to me. If you examine the lyrics a little closer, it is not a happy Christmas song, but rather a song about oppression and racism. Listen to the lyrics again with that in mind.

‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’….he’s not just a reindeer, he’s a ‘red-nosed’ reindeer. ‘Had a very shiny nose’……We’re already pointing out physical differences between him, and what’s considered to be a ‘normal’ reindeer. ‘And if you ever saw it, YOU would even say it glows’…….what they’re saying here is that his physical appearance is so different that EVEN YOU couldn’t be polite and non-judgemental. Even the least prejudice person in the world would HAVE to make a comment about Rudolph’s fucking nose.

‘All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games’…… Laughing and calling him names???? No reindeer games??? What the fuck is a reindeer supposed to do with his free time if they don’t let him play reindeer games?? They make this shit sound so temporary too, but do you know how old a reindeer has to be before he/she can fly a sleigh?? At least 14!! How did I figure that out, you ask? Well, I don’t know shit about reindeer, but a horse has to be at least 2 years old to race at your local racetrack, and there’s 7 dog years to a human year, so I figure Rudolph has to be at least 14 before they consider putting him on the sleigh. That’s 14 years of abuse! You can say this job is seasonal all you want, but reindeering is a lifestyle! He’s not a fucking volunteer firefighter for fuck sakes, this is his full-time job! He doesn’t work for 2 weeks a year and then fly back to Wisconsin for the rest of the year to chill. He lives at the North Pole (which is in Canada by the way ;)) all year round. A place where his nose is just so fucking red, that EVEN YOU would say it glows.

‘Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say’……Santa, the absentee landlord of the north pole. Enabler of bad reindeer behavior, who’s lost all control of the workplace, and done NOTHING to promote equality among his workers. ‘Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight’….HOW CONVENIENT that Santa just happens to have a freak of nature in his back pocket to play on a foggy night. ‘Then all the reindeer loved him, as they shouted out with glee. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, you’ll go down in history.’

The story ends happily ever after, right? Rudolph takes the high road. Saves Christmas. Proves himself useful, and earns his place among the ‘normal’ reindeer, maybe even going down in history. Maybe. There’s a part of me that always wants that song to end a little differently. Perhaps in the style of Bing Crosby or Perry Como or one of those guys that used to talk in the middle of the song a bit. There would still be a bit of music in the background, but it could turn into one of those breakdowns in the middle of a song, where they talk to each other instead of sing. It could be a conversation between Santa and Rudolph, and it would go a bit like this…..(When you do the Rudolph voice in your mind, it only works if it’s that high-pitched Rudolph voice from that TV special that used to come on every year… you know the one)

Santa: Say, Rudolph…it’s gonna be a foggy one out there tonight.

Rudolph: Yeah Santa, yeah??

Santa: You know the other reindeer just tease you cuz they like ya, right??

Rudolph: Really Santa?? Really?? You mean the last 14 years of suffering and abuse was all out of love??? Wow!!!

Santa: Yeah, and you’ve been a good sport about it too! I was thinkin….. since you’ve been such a good sport, and since you’ve got that red nose and all…….I’ve got an offer for you….. how would you like to guide my sleigh tonight??? Right in the front!!

Rudolph: Wow!! Really Santa??

Santa: Really Rudolph….. Head Reindeer in charge!

Rudolph: Santa??

Santa: Yes Rudolph….

Rudolph: I have a counter offer for you…

Santa: What might that be????

Rudolph: DROP DEAD, YOU FAT USELESS FUCK!! AND FUCK ALL YOU BLACK NOSED FUCKERS, I HOPE YOU CRASH INTO AN AIRPLANE!!!!! RUDOLPH OUT!!!

Rudolph flies to Wisconsin for a better life.

The end.

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December 12, 2013

Holiday Shopping Lineup Stream Of Consciousness

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Shit……I can’t believe I waited this long……This is a long time to lineup for Yoga Pants……Ass sculpting pants that I believe them to be……Still too long…….I would love to line up half this long, and pay half this money……Awww man it’s hot in here, should I take off my jacket?…… I think an underarm sweat just dripped down my side……gross…….it tickles…….look at this chick trying to convince her husband that she needs that jacket……just get it…….if you think he’s gonna sign off on that, you’re crazy……nobody NEEDS a $300 jacket…..he doesn’t care, he just wants to leave this store…..just buy it so he can go watch football……do you think you’re gonna feel better if he ‘buys in’??……not gonna happen, just get it…….or don’t……but put the poor guy out of his misery……I can’t believe I ate McDonald’s before getting into this lineup……I read an article last week about how it was unfit for human consumption……and I ate it less than a week later……I suck……Maybe I should do yoga again…..I sweat too much…….like a faucet……so embarrassing…….I like these inspirational quotes on the wall…….”Friends are more important than money”……. that’s hilarious coming from a store that charges this much for Yoga Pants…….”Do one thing a day that scares you”…….I ate McDonald’s before lining up at Lululemon in December……..”Dance, Sing, Floss and Travel”……These are hilarious…..Who comes up with this shit?……… I would love to get a job creating inspirational quotes….. How about this one….. “The world is your hamburger……”…..Harder than I thought……I thought I had something there……Man, this McDonald’s is affecting my mind……Who brings their kids to the mall and expects to get feedback on purchases?…… That’s dumb…..What does an 8-year-old know about fashion?……Are you trying to keep them engaged in what’s happening???? Give them a toy….. Or tell them to read the quotes on the wall……I wonder how high/drunk/sweaty Rob Ford would be if he had to line up here…..Why do so many people have Canada Goose jackets??….. So expensive…..What’s an Arctic Program??…..I wanna be a part of an Arctic Program, do I have to buy a jacket or is it ‘no purchase necessary’?…….People in the city do not need that kind of protection….. Get over yourself, you just walk from the parking lot to the office……Is it really a program, or just a badge, or are they trying to make people feel like they’re in a club so they can sell more jackets?……that’s dumb….. Why do I feel like I want to be a part of it?…..I want to be in the Arctic right now, cut a hole in the frozen lake, and have a sea otter pop out and play with me…… that would be cool…..This lineup is slow…..Are they selling warranties or something???….. I better not buy a warranty, my wife always gets mad……I wonder what the return policy is….. This gift better work out, I am not coming back here……Wow, they have menswear here??….. What self-respecting man…… who cares….. I wonder how much Santa Claus gets paid?…..He can’t be doing all this for free……I’m gonna get into the eggnog a bit more this year…… I always forget about it until Christmas Eve, but I think I should keep some in the fridge for the whole month…… I have lots of dark rum……. I wish I was doing something way more glamorous right now…… I should be in France or something…… eating pastries…….Ughhh this music is too uplifting…… It’s having the reverse effect….. I want to go on an angry rampage……that would be dumb…… I’ll continue to wait quietly….. I wish I could get paid handsomely for waiting for stuff….. I’m pretty patient, and perfect for the job I would imagine…….I would totally wait for stuff all the time if it was my job……It sucks that I’m not getting paid right now…….That’s what makes it unpleasant……Plus these shoppers are idiots….. Just get the first one you picked up…..The gut instinct is almost always right….. The shirts you’re looking at are getting uglier and uglier the longer you stay here…..Oh my god I’m near the front of the line…….I feel like I’m being rescued from a deserted island after 5 years……. this is awesome…….”that will be on credit, please!”

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December 3, 2013

Holiday Retail Pet Peeves Part 2

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The holiday shopping experience is underway for most people. Having spent a good chunk of time as a retail professional, I’ve been on both sides of this simultaneously, several times. There’s those long grinding hours on your feet trying to make everyone’s holiday wishes come true, and then if you can possibly squeeze it in on break or after work, doing the same for your own family and friends. People get stressed out over the holidays. I’ve never really understood why. I think it has to do with unrealistic expectations being set either by yourself, or by others. I think high expectations can be a good thing because it makes you strive for success, but when those expectations are too specific, it can lead to disappointment. For example, I think it’s great to say “I want to find a great gift for my mom this year.” It’s a lofty expectation, but very achievable. When you start saying “I want to find a purple blouse with pink flowers that has a 60/40 cotton/polyester blend in just the right size that will go just perfectly with those pants she loves to wear and that new scarf I bought her last year, but it needs to be from that store that she loves, and can’t be dry-clean only for my mom this year”…….. you might be setting yourself up for a bit of disappointment.

Last year I wrote part one of this blog, and was putting the consumers on blast for treating retailers like shit over the holidays while we humbly aid you in trying to make this ‘the best Christmas ever!!’ This year I will take the side of the shopper, and take aim at a few of the stores, and sales people whose ineptitude does not help us track down our purple blouses any faster. I bring you Holiday Retail Pet Peeves, Part 2.

– First of all, you don’t need to play Christmas music in November. This has gotten about as out-of-control as I ever could have imagined. I love Christmas, and I enjoy hearing Christmas music as much as the next guy, for about 2 weeks MAXIMUM! As a retail professional, I understand the psychological reasoning behind playing it as early as possible. It gets that clock ticking in people’s heads. As soon as Gene Autry’s voice starts singing ‘Here Comes Santa Claus, Here Comes Santa Claus’, all the little Santa Claus’s out there start shifting into the holiday panic mode, and if you’re a retailer, why wouldn’t you want to stretch that out for as long as possible?? It makes perfect business sense. Here’s the problem….. It’s fuckin’ tasteless!!! There is absolutely NO NEED to play Christmas music before December 1st. Even that’s early for my liking, but it’s a compromise.

– As a retailer, if you’re going to run a promo for a limited time, you had better have that promo item in stock! For your customers, and for the poor bugger on the sales floor that’s going to spend his day getting yelled at. This should never happen, but I’ve seen it happen a number of times. The last time it happened to me, I was working at a major national department store in the seasonal department (aka the Christmas Tree department). They put out an ad in print and on their website which was email blasted to their database. It was a great promotion on a particular make and model of a Christmas Tree, but it was a one-day sale. I can’t remember what the discount was, but it was substantial. When I got into work that morning, it was the first I’d heard of it. I checked to see how many of those trees we had in stock. We had none. ZIP. ZILCH. ZERO. We had already sold out of them. Now, if you run an ad like that, you’re probably smart enough to put something on the bottom that says ‘while supplies last’, and that typically gets you out of most customer service situations….. but when it’s 10:05 in the morning, and you opened at 10:00, and you have 3 or 4 customers there already asking for this tree, you’re gonna have a tough time convincing them that you sold out this morning already. Maybe at 1 pm I can make this claim, but not at 10:05. So I spent my whole day explaining to customers that we were sold out for several days leading up to this event. You get the whole ‘why wouldn’t you save some for the event?’ (Because customers of course assume that the same poor slug who’s selling them the tree is also responsible for advertising and inventory levels of a national retail chain….. I mean, wouldn’t they be???) Anyways, I spent the whole day hearing stories of how far they drove, and how much it meant to them, and their opinions on our customer service and blah blah wah wah wah. Lovely.

– Every time I turn my head, the mall hours keep getting longer and longer. A few of us were chatting the other day about when they first introduced ‘Sunday Shopping’. Malls around here used to be closed on Sundays. Man, what a world! I think I like the option of shopping on a Sunday, but they just keep creeping the hours, earlier, later, longer. Why would a mall need to be open on a Saturday night? In December I get it, but all-year-round? Maybe if there’s a movie theater in the mall, and a bunch of hip restaurants, but I would say most malls should be closed at 6 pm on a Saturday. Let mall employees have a life for crying out loud. I don’t think it brings anybody new to the mall. I don’t think there is a sub-culture of Saturday night shoppers who wouldn’t do it any other time of the day/week that we’re finally capitalizing on. People will work within the parameters you give them. We always did before.

Well, I’ll save some for next year. All the best in your holiday shopping endeavors. Be safe out there.

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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 20, 2013

What Will He Say When He Finally Talks?

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

My son is 1 year old. How do you say that? That doesn’t sound right. My son is 1 years old. 1 is not plural, and I don’t think that’s right either. Now I finally understand why people use months until the kid is 2. My son is 13 months old. He’s starting to talk quite a bit. Not any language that you or I would understand. He’s developed his own dialect. I’m quite impressed with his commitment to it. As long as he seems convinced that he’s saying something meaningful, then I don’t really care if I can understand it or not. I guess there’s a shelf life for that sentiment, but at 13 months, I’m not sweating it. It’s pretty charming actually, and it got me thinking the other day that it might even be better than when he starts to talk for real. What could he possibly have to say? Then again, who knows? Maybe the thoughts going through is head are completely fascinating. Time will tell.

I did make a list of things that I’m pretty sure he’s tried to say to me already. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait to give him this list, so he can give it a once over and let me know how accurate it is. It’s just that there have been a bunch of different occasions where I’m pretty sure I know what he was trying to say, even though he couldn’t find the right (English) words.

In no particular order, here’s my list of what I think he wanted to say………..

“Dad, I don’t want to wear a diaper today… be flexible man… I won’t poo man, don’t worry about it. I’ll give you warning if I’m gonna poo. C’mon man, be cool. Dammit!”

“This book has too many words, and not enough pictures….. I’d like you to read me this other book that has the pull-tab that makes the baby walk across the page…… I want to rip that baby’s head off.”

“I really want you to turn that ceiling fan on. Good. No, not that speed, the faster one. No, faster than that. No, slower. Now faster. Can you get that light to go on too? Perfect, now speed up the fan. Actually, slow the fan down and kill the light. Can you get it to go in between those speeds? I’m hungry.”

“Seriously, why have you put me in this high chair? Where’s the food? Why would you put me here if the food wasn’t ready? Seriously, how long for the food? Are you even working on it? What are you doing in there? Where’s my food? I’m really hungry. The thing is, I wasn’t even that hungry, but now that you’ve put me in the chair, I feel like I should be eating, but where’s the food? You’re sending me mixed messages, usually when I sit here there’s food. Where’s the food? Dad, honestly…. are you new? Mom does this faster. Oh my god! Is this a new thing where I sit here and don’t get food? Don’t pass me a toy, we’re way past that, where’s the food? Oh thank god, nom nom nom nom nom….”

“Good morning dad!! I can’t believe I just slept for 12 hours, it was awesome. I barely remember any of the high-pitched shrieking I did right before I went to bed. I totally slept that off, great sleep. Wait, where are you? Oh there you are…. you were hiding, but then you popped out!! Bwahahahaha… Hilarious, do it again! Hahahahahahahaha!! Oh that’s funny, wait…. I don’t see you….There you are! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa…. You kill me man!”

“I really like this news channel dad. I love it when the stock ticker goes across the bottom. When’s this Rob Ford thing gonna go away? I’ve spent my entire life watching this stupidity unfold. This guy doesn’t know how to act. I could totally get away with acting like that, but I don’t! I’m 13 months old, and I know better. Dad, did you vote for this bozo? Seriously, did you? It’s okay to say you did. Did mom? Well somebody must have voted for him. Seriously, did you? I won’t laugh. OK, I believe you. I’m hungry.”

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November 13, 2013

The Day I First Heard Midnight Marauders

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

ATCQMidnightMarauders

I found myself on a bus this evening. (Don’t most of my blogs start this way??). It was leaving a shopping mall and it was packed full of retail employees and shoppers alike. I had been waiting a while and was rewarded with a seat, which was a relief for my aching feet. I didn’t have my iPod, so was forced to listen to the ramblings of teenagers while reading Twitter feeds which is often exactly like listening to the ramblings of teenagers. A group of four of them were standing near the exit. Two guys and two girls. I love to watch people and speculate what their situations are. I don’t think these were couples. I think they were just either co-workers or classmates or something along those lines. This girl was speaking with a confidence you can only have as a teenager, because it’s yet to occur to you that you know virtually nothing compared to what you will eventually know. She was talking about something harmless like funny TV commercials, and doing a poor job at explaining why they were funny, but laughing hysterically anyways. One of the guys in the group was trying hard to give positive feedback to what she was saying, probably because he was interested in her, and wanted to keep a flirty dynamic going. They were just excited to be there. I don’t even know why, but I assume it’s because they were probably about 18 years old, and why wouldn’t every moment of your life be that exciting. Most 18 year olds have yet to be beaten down by responsibility, and they’ve got lots of good times ahead. I remember what it was like to ride a bus with some girls that I might have a crush on, and maybe have nothing much to do afterwards except for watch a movie, or play video games, or just getting into random mischief. That was fun.

I switched back to my phone and scrolled down on my Twitter feed to find out the following. My favourite music album of all time was released 20 years ago today. For those wondering, or not familiar enough to grab it from the blog title, it was Midnight Marauders by A Tribe Called Quest. I’ll only spend a second telling you why it’s the greatest, because this isn’t a music blog, although I think one day I will start one. All I do is talk about music, so why not just start a new blog, other than I don’t have time? A Tribe Called Quest was and is the greatest thing that ever happened to Hip Hop music. Midnight Marauders was the moment when Hip Hop achieved its true potential, and was never before and never again as pure, exciting, creative, accessible, and lets just say perfect. There will be varying opinions from Hip Hop purists, but not too many would go out of their way to refute this claim. I don’t mean to disrespect any of the great music that came out before this moment, or anything that evolved out of this moment, but on November 9, 1993 Hip Hop hit its peak in my not-so-humble opinion.

It was a Tuesday. I was an 18-year-old high school student. Probably not unlike the ones I saw on the bus. Excited just for the sake of being excited. A lot was going on in my life. I had a girlfriend, who came over to my house after school to see it for the first time. Not that she’d never come over before, but my parents had recently purchased a new house. This house was big. I’d lived in a semi-detached house my whole life leading up to this, but my parents leveraged a really poor real estate market, and got a house (that they probably couldn’t afford) in the same neighborhood, but just bigger. It had 4 bedrooms upstairs, and a swimming pool. I curse the thought of how much time and energy I’ve spent maintaining that pool vs. how much I’ve actually swam in it, but nevertheless, some of my greatest nights involved having friends over while my parents were out-of-town. A great party house! The best part of the whole thing was that there was a bedroom in the basement, which I quickly laid claim to. The basement was straight out of 1972 with its stucco, awful carpet, faux beer keg in the wall, and a small hidden bar compartment also in the wall. It was designed to be a 1972 party pad. This was 1993 however, and the rest of my family thought this basement was an eye-sore, and steered clear of it. Suited me fine. It had just the right amount of privacy an 18-year-old kid would want.

So I was showing my girlfriend around this house, and I was specifically remember that she was only there for a few minutes on her way home from school because I had a 5-close shift at my part-time job that night, which I would have to leave for shortly. I was feverishly calling around to see if anyone would take my shift because A Tribe Called Quest’s new album was coming out today, and I needed to get it…..TODAY! The amount of time that had elapsed between Tribe’s 1991 offering, (and my favourite album at the time ‘Low End Theory’), and the one that came out that day seemed like centuries. These were the days of long summers, and even longer school years! If I’m obsessive about music now as a (usually) mature adult, you can only imagine how unreasonable my longing was for this album to come out. How was I going to get it if I had to go to work? I worked through the book of co-workers phone numbers, and it became evident that I wasn’t going to get this shift covered. I called my oldest friend in the world, also a Tribe fan, and also a co-worker at this particular job to tell him of my plight. He seemed unaware that today was the magical day that ‘Midnight Marauders’ was released, and was on store shelves as we spoke. (Do people really not know about release dates?? Am I the only idiot that would know about this in advance?) In a move that I hadn’t considered, he said he wouldn’t take my shift, but that he was going to drive over to the mall and buy the album while I was at work. This sounded great, but I couldn’t believe that I would have to spend 4 hours at a job while he was in possession of something I’d waited centuries for. This was to be the longest 4 hours ever. I tried to convince him not to listen to it until I got there. He assured me that he would listen to it at least 3 times before I got there, but offered to ‘tape it for me’.

Let me explain what I mean by ‘tape it for me’. Let me start by saying I never really thought I would ever have to explain that. I believe the days have arrived where this term requires explanation. While CDs are not yet obsolete, in the fall of 1993 I was a couple of months short of acquiring my first CD player. I was relatively happy listening to my music on tapes, and sometimes vinyl. While vinyl is making a comeback, I don’t think tapes ever will. The good thing about tapes is that you could record stuff on them, and they were cheaper. So my friend was offering to buy the CD for himself, and tape it for me so I could own it for free, and have it instantly….. that is after my 4 hour shift was over. I agreed, and headed over to his house on my way home from work. I found him asleep on his couch. I asked him for the tape. He had forgotten to make the tape, and once we established that I wasn’t leaving without a tape, he said he would happily listen to the album again while I made the tape. Then he gave me what I can only describe as a ‘Bill Cosby Jell-O Pudding Smile’ and said ‘it’s really good’. I knew it would be somehow. So I started to listen. Every track was incredible. It was simply the best thing I had ever heard. Who knew that would be the last time I ever thought that. 20 years later, and it’s still the best thing I ever heard.

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

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