Category Archives: General Junk

Is it "Hear! Hear!", or is it "Here! Here!"?

My inclination is to think it’s Here! Here!, but I could see it going the other way too.

Hear! Hear!… as in "Listen to what is being said.  And by me requesting that all around hear what is being said, I am endorsing it!"

or

Here!  Here!… as in "I agree with, and endorse what was just said.  I do.  Me.  Right here.  Here." or "I endorse you, sir. Me, standing here!"

I suppose too, it could be "Hear here!"…as in "Everyone here, in the vicinity of the speaker, hear what he has to say!"

I have come to this particular post having no idea what I am going to post about.  In fact, apart from that initial line, which I thought of as I was waiting for the page to load, the rest of this is free flow, top of my head kinda stuff….so, in other words, likely pretty boring, bad stuff.
I am currently half way through the longest hour of the workday.  I always find from 3 to 4pm to be dreadfully long.  You know, I just paused and re-read those last two lines, about the time there, and I made myself sick.  Sick with the awful feeling that this could be the worst post I ever make, resorting to commenting on the time.  Holy shit!
At least it’s a sunny day, and the forecast for the weekend looks pretty good too, doesn’t it.
Oh, man, drastic action time, so here’s a joke I’m just going to make up right now.  It will not be funny, but it will be completed.

A man who has two left feet walks into a bar and orders a Banana Daquiri.  It’s a rather rough and tumble bar, and the barkeeper, in no polite terms, tells the man that they don’t serve Banana Daquiris.  The man makes a pouty face and whines "But I have two left feet.  Doesn’t that count for something?"
The barkeeper, whose very own recently departed mother had two left feet as well, suddenly felt pangs of guilt and sentimentality.  He broke down and began crying.  One of the tough guys in the bar, who was playing pool with his girlfriend, heard the crying and asked "What the shit is that crying?"
The barkeep was by this point sobbing uncontrollably, so the two-left-footed man took the initiative to answer the question.
"I could tell you the sad tale of the crying barkeep", said the man, "but to do so, I’d have to have sex with your lovely lady there."
The woman, who was sick and tired of beating her boyfriend at pool, spoke up and said "I’ll have sex with you, but first I need to call my two children and tell them I’ll be home later than usual."
The tough guy, who had often expressed to his girlfriend, his desire to participate in a threesome, didn’t interject and instead offered, "That’s okay by my, but I want to be part of the action."
All three agreed, and they decided they’d do the deed right there on the pool table.
However, before they could really get into it, the woman, who had a crippling brittle bone disease, broke in two and died.
This made the tough guy sob.  His wailing added to the still-strong sobs of the barkeep, who was now remembering the last time he spoke to his mother, and how he wished he would have told her he loved her.
Through his pain, the tough guy noticed that Two-Left Feet wasn’t crying.  "How can you not be upset over this?  The cracking in two of the woman I was about to share with you in sexual pleasure gratification?"
To whiche the two-left-footed man replied.  "I’m sorry, but I was told never to cry over split MILF."

The tough guy and the barkeep then punched the shit out of the two left footed guy.

Ugh.  I can barely bring myself to click the submit button to post this.

I have a stereotypical image of what an Islander is:  He is of slight build, with ballcap, denim jeans and denim jacket.  He holds a Tim Hortons cup almost always.

I am not of slight build, I don’t wear ball caps (not the right shaped head), only occasionally hold Tims cups (prefer Robins), and until this weekend, didn’t wear a denim jacket.  This weekend I took a major step towards looking like an Islander.  I bought a denim jacket.  In Moncton.
I had been searching for a new jacket for a few weeks now.  I wanted one that had big pockets on the lapel (big enough to carry my iPod and my digital camera), pockets in front down below (to carry car keys and coins).  Buttoned up or zippered, it didn’t matter, but I wanted it to be cotton or denim.  And it needed to be long enough for my tall frame.  I didn’t want a nylon jacket.  Any jacket I saw in Charlottetown failed in some way, so I moved to the internet and a brief search there failed too.  My only hope was a trip to Moncton.
It’s the old story:  I looked in practically every pertinent store in Moncton and hadn’t found a jacket that came close.  After mentally giving up, I went into one more store, and there it was:  the jacket.  Huge upper pockets, deep dark lower front pockets (some inner pockets too!) and it was on sale.  The only down side was that the jacket was of that type of denim that looks old and worn, kind of distressed.  I really don’t like that.  So, I had a decision to make.  Get a jacket that is perfect in almost every way except for the crappy faded look, or, succumb to my petty ideas of taste and leave empty handed.
I bought the jacket and I’m glad I did.
Now I just have to rid myself of the notion that I look like an Islander.  I am a Maritimer.  Just like those two guys in Goin’ Down The Road.
I must embrace my roots. 
I must be me.

Which File Extension are You?

With my basic Typepad subscription, I get 1gig of allotted bandwidth per month.  Usually, my usage per month hovers in the 50-75% range, so no problem.
Thursday I was at about 16% with a projected usage of 82%.  Friday I check, and all of a sudden my actual current usage is 2.2 gigs (200+%) and with still 3 weeks left, a projected usage of 7gigs for the month.  What happened?  I did post a 17MB file link on thursday (I’ve since disabled the link), but it doesn’t look like that many checked it out.  I can’t see any indication of nefarious visiting to the site.
So, what happened?  Maybe it’s just a glitch in the Typepad figuring?  Perhaps after the weekend it’ll get rectified.

In the last few months I have been steadily losing my panglossian expectations regarding the global environment and global economy.

or

You don’t want that photo critic judging your prints.  He likes to panglossian non-glossy photos.

Telephone rings.
Hello.
Good day, sir.  I’m calling from Rogers Wireless.  I’d like to tell you about a wonderful cellular phone deal–
Sorry, I’m not interested.
Oh… Do you think there might be someone else who might be?
You mean in the whole world?
(pause in which I actually hear the silent sound of confused panic)
Um..ehe ha…can you be a little more specific?
Yes.  Can you be a little more specific.
Ahee ha.  Well, we have two cellular phone–
I’m not interested.
Oh…Well you have a good day sir.
Thank you.

Can I have a half order of Fuck A Cuttlefish?   And The Rabbit Fucks The Pot, does that come with white rice?

This picture of, apparently, a poorly translasted chinese restaurant menu, well, it struck me funny.

Today, my usual Friday lunch with Dave being cancelled, I trudged off to conduct the latest round in the Great  Chicken Fingers Experiment.

Today’s results:
Five nice sized fingers
A pleasant mound of fries
And it was all free!

Yes, the guy (who some say loves me) took my order, cooked my order, gave me my order and said "here you go" and that was that.  But I didn’t pay yet!  I’m positive he knew that.  Obviously, this was a major attempt by him to tell me something. Some will say it’s love, some will say it’s something else.
Persoanlly, I choose love.
Anyway, I flatly snubbed his advance (as you all know, I learned the hard way that love and money don’t mix) by pointing out that I hadn’t paid for my meal. "Actually, I didn’t pay for this yet," I stated, emotionless. It was like a slap in the face to a scorned lover.  Quickly recovering, he gathered whatever composure he could muster and said "Oh yeah!  Seven Dollars."
Sad, brokenhearted man.
It will be interesting to see how many fingers I get next time.

One night, many years ago, I was with friends at Pats Rose & Grey, enjoying an evening.  Being introduced to strangers, and being somewhat inebriated, and assuming that the brief introduction would be my complete and total association with these strangers, I decided on a whim that I’d pretend I’m visiting from Scotland.  And so I put on my best (bad) Scottish brogue. 
Of course, the short introduction turned into us all getting a table together, so I was kind of forced to keep up the charade for quite a while.  I can’t imagine I fooled them, but they seemed to take me at my word. If they did take me at my word it was probably only because they (rightly) couldn’t imagine someone being so pathetic as to fake a scottish accent for an entire evening.  Seriously, how sad.

Since then, I’ve often thought of scnearios and lies I could tell people about me if I was in such similar situations (being introduced to strangers) and if the mood struck me.  And I’ve come up with the perfect one (I think).
Saying you’re Scottish (or anything where you have to put on a tough accent or any affectation) is dangerous because it’s tough to keep the charade up.  One needs to choose a lie which is easy to maintain yet fairly difficult to prove on the spot.  The lie also needs to be of a nature that the possibility of the truth is within grasp.  Saying you’re an astronaut is probably not going to be believed, and would be farily easy to disprove.  The lie needs to be within the realm of possibility, yet of appeal uncommon enough to be remembered.
And I have the perfect lie:

If you don’t know me, and you get introduced to me, and if I am of the right level of intoxication and if the mood strikes me, I may tell you my lie:  I am one of the writers of the little show description snippets in the TV Guide.  If pressed, I have a whole backstory ready to prove that fact.

"See that guy over there," you’d say to others.  "He writes those little blurbs about the shows in the TV Guide."

What’s your lie?