Mmmmm Toasty

A Quizno's opened in the building where I work. I love Quizno's. All we need now is an Arby's and a Laura Secord's and I'll never go home. With any new establishment though there are growing pains. Quizno's has one of the dumbest looking people I have ever seen in my life making the sandwiches. He's the kind of person that just makes you think of banjo music and the cast of Deliverance. The kind of person who always has his mouth open because either his brain hasn't sent the signal to close it or he's in a perpetual state of surprise. "Hey, that's a pretty bird, wow this stove is hot, I wonder if monkeys dream, where did I leave my pants?" I feel sorry for the kid, especially because the way he was wielding the knife today makes it almost certain he's not going to end the week with the same number of fingers he started with (which is probably six on each hand so losing a couple may be a blessing).

Quizno's has a sign with actual size pictures of the sandwiches on it that reads, "Size matters, sandwiches are actual size, taste is 1/4 actual taste." To me, this means that their sandwiches taste 4 times better than a cardboard sign. Not very encouraging. I'd expect the sandwiches to be at least 6 times better.

On a completely different subject I was driving with a friend yesterday (I know it's difficult to believe but I do have one friend) and she refuses to use her signal until just before she gets in the lane. I think she does this because she thinks that as soon as she turns on her signal everyone on the road will conspire to keep her from ever getting into that lane. In actuality it's probably only about 90% of the people that would conspire against her, 9% of the people have tunnel vision and wouldn't even see her signal and the other 1% may let her in depending on how their day went. She thinks if they don't know what she's planning she can sneak in when no one is looking. She puts her signal on though because she doesn't want to be rude. The signal at this point is useless. When I see a car moving into my lane it's not like I think "what the hell is that guy doing? Oh my god the world's gone mad. Wait, oh he's signalling. Nevermind."

I NEED A SAFE LIVEING SPACE PLEASE HELP

I guess in most neighbourhoods people post various flyers, notices, want-ads, etc around. We get a lot of them in Cabbagetown and I ignore most but this one caught my eye. It was typed on a crisp white sheet of paper and stuck to the hydro pole with four thumbtacks. I would think that a woman in her dire situation would want to save money but perhaps she's thinking that if somebody does offer her free accomodations she won't have to worry about the thumbtack budget. I kind of went back and forth with whether I should put this up or not. I don't want to make fun of the less fortunate. I don't find humour in the situation or the spelling and grammar errors (okay, some of the errors are a little funny). I find humour in the rants that go nowhere and her selective attitude. She did put her name and phone number on the notice but I'm leaving them off. The remainder of the entry is the text of her notice.

1. I'm living in a rental situation that is struck telly unsafe do to neglected maintenance the building has collapsibility & other hazards to worry about such as everything around and under neath the building and are dangerous.

2. there really arint any laws around hear it's a land thing they just pretend theres laws for manipulation and control tac-tic's, the cop's are worse than the kkk, there lazy creatures that get slaves to make them suits and decorate & build there hell wagons to drive around denie people the right to live they enjoy making cripples and stealing mothers children and body rights there disgusting and inhuman. I'd love to be involved with the construction group restores buildings and then rent them out. I would enjoy planning and doing the building work and the company, it's not really a sexual thing but I enjoy being around people smart enough to design, build & maintain there own houses and area that enjoy doing it. building restoration and maintance is an art it's wonderfull.

3. So I'm basicly looking for somebody in the construction industry who build a safe house (+++++++++not built on land with tunnels or gas lines underneath or larg structures that might fall or burn)>>>>>> to live in that Might rent a safe space to me or wants to help me go claim a piece of land and clear it cultivate it and start a community and make our own callander and make our own holydays. but my grand parents and my sister and her family live in south east mississuage and south west toronto so i need to stay close to them i don't drive. this person must be in my age group (I'm 24) and has a glowing personality and that i would find being around comfortable safe and amesueing yes to an extent I expect to be amused by ythe person I choose to live with so dont call me if you cant also entertain me to.

I dont want to live with a clutter bug i like open space concept breathability, gardins art and the sound of water moveing and a space with big windows lots of light i'm claustra phobic big time i hate bug's lizards & creepy crawlys and i dont want any long haird animals around or things that airnt house trained around. i dont want a high volume of visiters around or trafic around. I hate tv I'm a picky eater no meat or bird eating for me you can eat it i might evan cook it for you but I'm not eating it i do eat fish. to get me to move in you gotta convince me that you thourly checked out the land and area for safty hazords yes the pipes and wast systems around and under the house have to be safe if you think the city maintains them your wrong. there cant be any old gas stations around that might blow up so I'm willing to leave the nabour hood evan the city and come go to a nabourhood one that you and your friends already built an area thats all newly built and releveloped nothing hazordes around or underneath but I do get bord and i like entertianment. so I'm not sure what to do.
if you think we can team up I dont got much to offer but I got an intresting family and storys to tell and entertaining and creative not really talented at anything but hey i aint forceing you to awanser by add hear so.
dont be thinking I'AM going to fall in love with you eather I am in love with a construction worker james d cooper but he thinks im worthless trash and dosint want to be around me or with me so that tells you I'm not a very likeable person to start I'm disagreeable and i'm not willing to have children with any body but james but he whont come around to and if anybody eles other than him trys to get me pregnant understand I will self abort the pregnancy i'm not up for the survival of humanity and i hate people I wanted to have my offspring with hames.
my name is _________ no children age 24 canadian censis internationnell hates me.
I do smoke and I do like drinking and drugs done in moderation and with respect to the body systems. if my letter hear intrest you and you can help me figure out my houseing problame than give me a call.
after 6pm on weekday's and unlimited on weekends

HodgePodge

I just finished reading When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It by Ben Yagoda. This book has succeeded in destroying any confidence I had in my writing. Each chapter is devoted to a part of speech (noun, verb, article, conjunction) and how only weak, lazy writers ever use adverbs or adjectives (I guess I’m very weak and lazy). You should be able to find the noun or verb that expresses exactly what you are trying to say. Part of my problem is that I don’t really know what the parts of speech are. I know that a conjunction’s function is “hooking up words and phrases and clauses” (I also know that Three is a Magic Number but that’s beside the point). In a sentence like, “the acrobatic monkey did not blame the portly seal” I know that acrobat and portly are adjectives but if you get more complicated than that I’m lost. I suppose there are two options; try and learn grammar or remain blissfully ignorant of all the ways I’m butchering the language. Tough choice but me ain’t good at learnin’ me stuff.

On a completely different note, Irmgard von Stephani died on October 5th. Irmgard was Germany’s oldest person and died at the age of 112. When the oldest person in a country dies it of course means that a new person takes the crown and all the power and glory that go with it. In this case that person was Elsa Tauser. Elsa waited 111 years before she became Germany’s oldest person. Unfortunately it seems the excitement was too much and Elsa died on October 6th.

I’ve been asked to play Santa Claus at a company Christmas party again this year. I of course said yes because there is nothing more enjoyable than wearing an extremely hot, itchy suit while sticky children sit on your lap, poke your belly and tug your beard. The reason I bring this up is it reminded me of the first time I played Santa at this Christmas party about 3 years ago. The office manager, who I had never met, e-mailed me to confirm that I’d be Santa and ask what my measurements where so she could get an appropriate sized costume. Being a complete jackass I e-mailed back my measurements with a throwaway comment that I can only wear hand woven silk. I thought she may be mildly amused and make a mental note to put itching powder in the suit. What actually happened is she took the comment seriously and almost went insane trying to track down a hand woven Santa suit. I had to go into to damage control mode and confirm for her that I was only kidding and any suit would be fine. When we did meet at the Christmas party she must have been in a particularly festive mood as she was able to refrain from kicking me in the nuts which is what I’m sure any reasonable person would have done after spending half a day looking for an imaginary item.

Feeling Human Again

I took Monday & Tuesday off work and went in on Wednesday. That was a mistake. I felt like hell the whole day and ended up feeling worse than when I started. On Tuesday I made a Herculean effort and went to the drugstore. Got all the way there and realized I'd forgotten my wallet. I think I can say, without hyperbole, that returning home, getting my wallet, and going back to the drug store was the most difficult thing any human being has ever accomplished. Then I ended up picking the wrong stuff anyway. Stupid NyQuil and its similar looking packaging. I've taken enough NyQuil, DayQuil, NeoCitran and Extra Strength Tylenol in the last 4 days to kill all the horses in a mid-size stable.

Today I went to a walk-in clinic. There's one fairly close to home so I walked up there. It of course was closed and nobody else in the building had any idea what their hours were. Great. I walked home, picked up the car and drove to a clinic at Bloor and Sherbourne. I was lucky that there was only one person ahead of me. About 8 people walked in shortly after me and at the pace that clinics work I would guess at least 3 of them are still there. I wouldn't say the doctor there was the best I've ever visited. He would state symptoms and then respond skeptically when I confirmed feeling them.

"Do you have a fever?"
"Yes."
"Really? Does it hurt when people poke your face?"
"People don't poke my face that often but yes it does."
"Really?" poke, poke, poke.
"Yes."

Even if I didn't have a sinus infection that would bother me. Why do doctors do that? Aren't they supposed to ease the pain rather than cause it? "Patient complains of pain in testicles after knee to groin."

I finally got the prescription, got it filled and went back home to load up on medication. After a nap I woke up without the searing pain in my head (it was reduced to a light throb) and a nose not quite so stuffed up. Who knows what tomorrow holds. Perhaps I'll be back up to my regular eating schedule of once every 45 minutes.

Woe is Me

I feel like crap today. I have massive sinuses and they’re infected. You know what the say about a guy with big sinuses . . . when he gets a sinus infection it hurts like a mother.

Yesterday I bought a new alarm clock because the left bottom half of the numbers on my old one were no longer showing. I woke up at 71:78pm one day and freaked out; “Holy geez, I’m nearly 64 hours late for work. Today I woke up around 4:00am to the sound of beep-beep-beep-beep . . . beep-beep-beep-beep. This pissed me off for two reasons. First, I had set the alarm for 5:45am and second, I like to wake up to music. I tried to shut off the alarm, turn-off the power, flip the switch from music to beep and back again, turn the volume down, press snooze, none of these worked. My hearing in my right ear is almost non-existent, usually this is a bit of an inconvenience but in this case I was quite happy to turn over, sleep on my left ear, and block out the sound. Eventually though I had to turn back over and the beeping continued. I couldn’t find the source of the sound. I pressed my good ear to the clock and the sound got lower. A normal person would take this as a sign that the beeping was not coming from the clock. I took it as a sign that my clock had a personality and was jerking me around. It turns out that the beeping was coming from my old clock that I had unplugged but left in the bedroom. There were batteries in the old clock that retain the time if there was a power outage. These batteries were on their last legs and rather than just dying a peaceful death decided to take Dylan Thomas’s advice and not go gentle into that goodnight. So now my face aches due to the sinuses and I’m tired.