Art of Dying

http://www.artofdyingmusic.com/

Finally, after almost 2 years of asking when?? I am happy to say that Vancouver based band Art of Dying are coming to the East coast of Canada & more importantly MONCTON.

Opening for Disturbed, AOD will be the first of 4 (I hope I got that right!) bands playing Moncton Coliseum on May 29th (Check the AOD website for confirmation on the date!).

Vocalist Jonny Hetherington will have no trouble holding your attention for the AOD set. He is (in my opinion) an incredibly talented lyricist & has an absolutely fabulous voice.

See you there!!

Tampon commercials

WHY??

Most woman of childbearing age in Canada (& indeed the Western world) are well aware that they have periods, menstruate, call it what you will & buy tampons & sanitary towels with a frequency and precision that almost equals the purchase of coffee each morning!

Why then do producers of these necessary products insist upon ramming them down our throats (not literally I hope you understand) during out TV dinners, while we are watching a movie with our children & while Mike Holmes is taking a break from whacking his wood!!

My friend & bridesmaid once wrote a letter to the then English labour govt. demanding Tampons be made FREE. Irrelevant to a point, but it would have eradicated the need for such advertisements!

Tattoo man cringes at such advertisements, as I would imagine do most men.
To them these small, white, expanding wads of cotton are nothing more than an inconvenience, nasty & messy to boot.
They cause blocked toilets & endless hours of plunging, sticking your hand down the lav & wanking!

They do of course serve a purpose while out with friends in the bar, not only are they a serious cause for amusement once dropped into your buddy's nice cold pint (much on a level with dentures), but they sop up spill more rapidly than Bounty could ever hope to!
You can wear them over your ears as jewelry & wow, look how far they fly once sopping wet, not to mention how well they stick to the ceiling & for how long!!

OK, so I may be a little off the point here, but now it's gone too far.
Tena underwear for men??
I'm sure middle aged (& above) men with bladder issues will have already been made aware that there are products out there for incontinence (the wives & Dr's have precedence here boys) & will be sending the little lady off to the drugstore on the QT to purchase them!!

I did once witness a commercial for a Douche in the US many years ago........SERIOUSLY

I am no prude (far, far from it) but let's keep things in perspective, no one wants to watch this while they are drinking a nice cold one or eating a delicious rare steak fresh from the grill!!

We are all grown ups & we all go shopping, if we need it we will ask, if it has wings it says so on the packaging .............
& if you leak unnecessarily consult your GP!!!!

You need an upgrade......

Imagine if you will a deaf English man (& I'm talking hearing aids here people) & a young lady who's first language is NOT English, having a telephone conversation, on a cell with bad reception (out of work hours in at least one case) about how best to upgrade a computer system after the computer has been moved from one location to another!!

So, the first time this scenario occurred it was a little after 7.30pm.
Well after working hours in Atlantic Canada, obviously not in Texas.

Don't they have watches in Texas?? I always thought they had 3 more of everything & it was much bigger & could operate at thrice the speed..... I must be mistaken.

OK, so the instructions on this particular call are simple, if a little misheard at at least one end of the call & a little mis-pronounced at the other!!
It is important that the transferred PC (good job said English Chap is working late at the office today folks, because he has access to both PCs, were he at home that would not be the case!)) & the one already in place are both powered up while the upgrade & transfer of files is occurring. Easy............

Seeing this to be a total failure prompts call #2... during (but only just) working hours this time, reception not great, but hey, we'll give it a shot!

What you really need to do is just leave the transferred computer running.Simple........

Yet another fucked up attempt to get this thing running & here comes call #3.
Way beyond a frigging joke this time I'm guessing.

NCIS is on & I have just opened a very nice bottle of Chilean Red, buy a fucking watch & leave us alone!!

I can hear the tension rising at this end of the call.

I am not in my office.....I left them both on the first time, then you changed your mind, so I just left one (I'm loosing the signal & it's 8pm) switched on the second time, I have to (I'm losing you again, can you speak up & a little more clearly, I'm having trouble hearing you) just leave them both on again....is that what you are telling me???

Look I'm not in the office now, yes but we have already tried to do that, can you say that again..... I really can't hear what you are saying, no I don't have access to either of them, I'm NOT in my office, I will call your office first thing on Monday.......

Now, add some pacing, tapping of fingers on kitchen counters & a shit load of eye rolling to that mental image if you will, then repeat the whole conversation for 10 minutes.........
Get the idea yet??

MONDAY
# is dialled........ answer is : I'm sorry we do not recognise the # as dialled please hang up & try again!!!!!!!

I don't have the conclusion to this story.......
I just laughed my ass off at the image of it all.......... apart, you understand, from the NCIS interruption.
Way beyond necessary!!

Thespian........lesbian

Driving back from Shakka's Theatre group on Saturday morning, Tattoo man, Shakka & I were discussing the group.

I happened to say a some point (while sitting at a set of never changing lights & pondering Fish & Chips) that Shakka was indeed a Thespian.....

Quick as a flash & totally serious the voice in the back (cheap seats) of the SUV thundered, "that's not to be confused with Lesbian".........

Let's consider this voice belongs to a 9 year old!!

OK , there were a few seconds of silence followed by hysterical laughter & then my counter.
Lindsay Lohan (possibly not the best choice for a first answer, but current & relevant) is a Thespian, she is also a Lesbian.
Ellen DeGeneres, too. Then there's Rosie O'Donnell.
I have no recollection of how the conversation ended & I'm still asking myself 'why?'

Quotes from Shakka have a tendency to have me rolling in fits of laughter, she's way beyond her 9 years in thought, but I sometimes wish she wouldn't think out loud.

Later on that day we rolled into the parking lot of Kent, home hardware.
Whitesnakes 'Slide it in' is playing in the background.
Of course having heard it so many times I am quite happy to sing along & make no attempt to analyze the lyrics. Not so, Shakka!!
"Hmmm", she pondered, "that's a rather racy song." My reply was that I thought it was quite the perfect driving song. Here she comes again "I thought it was more Penisfect actually Mom"

HELP

When in Grade 2, Shakka was a lot less organised than of late, however showing signs of great mental ability.
As I discussed this with her teacher (Mrs Maher you are great) one afternoon at school end, we got to comparing Shakka with Einstein, scruffy in appearance & possibly not greatly organized, but intelligent, however, before we could finish the conversation, Shakka, standing within earshot, piped up "is that Frank Einstein".....end of conversation, hysterics!!

At the age of 5 (we had recently immigrated) Shakka accompanied me to the local printers to look through some brochures for address cards. At this point she was able to write, not very neatly, but legible. As I browsed, she wrote.
The result of this is as follows

'The sun fills my heart with joy, but sometimes my heart does not unfold'.

The printer shop owner couldn't believe her eyes & I'm still gobsmacked.
Just as recently as 1 month ago the next line was written, in the same manner, out of the blue.
Shakka walked through the kitchen asking for her 'poem' & announced she was going to write the next line.

At least I know that she can write great pieces whilst holding on to her fabulous & ever developing sense of humor.

Life with this child is somewhat frustrating at times, great fun & never fails to surprise me.
I just wish she would learn NOT think out loud!!

Bathroom reno

Laugh..... ? I nearly bloody electrocuted myself !!

SO, on Wednesday of last week, we got the bathtub refinished, it looked fabulous in all it's shiny new whiteness.......... (in a former life it was cream/beige)

But hold up, the baby shit brown paint, cream toilet & mock Gothic fittings (which looked like cock to begin with, which were now inducing mouth vomit even more frequently) remained.

NOTE: The decor was in place when we purchased the house & was not of my/our doing!!

Enough was enough, so Tattoo Man, Shakka n me headed off to Home Depot to purchase the necessary, paint, rollers, tape............. chocolate bars........

At this point work was due to commence on Tuesday, after Easter long weekend, when everyone else was back in school & the office!!

Oh how wrong was I??

We had hardly got through the door (Saturday am) when Tattoo Man started unwrapping & screwing !!!! Conjures up a bright pic don't you think!!

Of course being the anal bitch that I am I couldn't handle the mess & off to work I went, all brush, roller & white paint!! (He had planned that!!)

I am chief decorator in our house, since the spare room underpants happening in Kilmarnock. You REALLY had to be there!!

Did I tell you about my orange kitchen cabinets??? Well, not now, that's a whole different 8 week fuck up!

By end of play Saturday I had all the cutting in up to speed & one coat on most surfaces.

Sunday I was back at her. Shakka & Tattoo Man decided to go watch a movie at this point, leaving me to slog over the bathroom sink.

Coated in a fresh, gleaming coat of white, self priming, latex (what an absolute bastard to apply, but worth the results) paint, the job was almost complete.

Several hours went by whilst we waited for the top coat to dry & then off we went.

Drill & screwdriver in hand we successfully fitted the medicine cabinet quite quickly & with an ease that lured us into the biggest false sense of security, just in time for the electrical!!

Of course we were losing daylight by this point, but it had to be done....& NOW!!!

I'm thinking Tattoo Man had made a return visit to the hardware store at this point to purchase a white toilet, which was installed during the course of the afternoon, following his viewing of Monsters V Aliens!!

The first 'flash bang' occurred on the premier attempt to attach the light fitting. Just that one little bastard wire that had wiggled loose prior to switching the power back on. This wouldn't have happened had we realized the face plate was removable!!! I say we, I wasn't fitting this particular item, but I was in the room. That said, I would have read the instructions first!

Light fitting installed correctly, we trudged on to the switches. These turned out to be fiddly little fuckers, which once again provided us with a veritable fireworks display, resulting in a scorched (well, the size of a pin head) counter top & a case of the shakes & knocking knees for me.

Too close for comfort this time. An experience that almost proved the expression "I'm shitting myself" to be a truth, an absolute truth & nothing but the truth, mlud!!

I'm not sure how many trips to the basement to switch the power on/off had been made at this point, but it was too many, we had NO daylight & an outlet still to wire up.

Flashlights in hand we trudged on. Eventually12.10 am we wrapped up & patted ourselves on the back. All was fine & dandy. I had completed a 15 hour day, which had also included cooking supper & 2 loads of laundry & I was well & truly buggered, knacked, fucked!!

After a well deserved shower (the next morning, I didn't have the energy even to do that after all the palaver) I plugged in the hairdryer with the intention of styling my barnet.......but alas, we had wired the outlet wrong & it was not forthcoming with even the slightest amount of power!

Back to the drawing board for me then. At least this time I was able to see what I was doing, I had read the instructions & I wasn't so dog tired that I couldn't think!!

The end result is fabulous, even down to the Mike Holmes anal grout.

A bathroom worthy of any prospective purchaser. Of course it would have been put off even longer were we not selling & I would still be baulking at the baby shit brown!!

For those of you in England............................

(or driving there through Europe en route, where I have no doubt you will experience at least 1 day of rain!!)basking in glorious sunshine, here is a small taste of what the Canadian skies decided to dump on us in Moncton, New Brunswick, CANADA over the course of Monday March 30th & Tuesday March 31st 2009.

The previous weekend we had seen a considerable melt of the already existing snow, only to be plunged right back into the depths of hell when this little lot arrived.

When I say little, I may be slightly out of touch...................................

32Cm's of the white shit settled if I am to believe reports.

Tattoo man & I had been discussing barbecues & beer on the deck just the previous day......so obviously it was going to snow again!

Of course it is forecast to rain for the next few days, so that idea can once again shove itself right up it's own arse!

Fortunately we are once again experiencing temperatures above freezing & the sun is making a more frequent appearance, therefore melting said white stuff quite rapidly.

Unfortunately we had just washed the car on Sunday so it once again looks as if it has been used as the lav by a water buffalo with stomach flu!!!

Possibly made worse by my ABSOLUTE refusal to shovel any more than half of the driveway, making it SO much easier for snowplough residue to once again attach itself to the fabulousness that is my (well OK ,our Santa Fe)

Back to the car wash again then!

At least while it is raining this weekend it will be helping eradicate the now turning brown, white stuff.

A little ditty........... Frosty the Snowman, he's a BIG pain in the arse

He dumps himself in my driveway, it really is a farce......

As usual, I could go on, but really, why bother. It's a waste of time & creativeness & everyone is already WELL aware of how I NEVER want to see any more snow AGAIN.....EVER!!!

Drive through dilema

You may think that the drive-through should be idiot proof, you order your food, drive through, pay & collect........but in my experience NOT SO!!!

Many are the times I have arrived home after ordering at the drive-through of McDonald's, A&W, Wendy's or the 'Great' Tim Horton's (I could name more but these particular culprits are repeat offenders!) to find I have been provided with a short order, I'm missing a bagel, my nuggets are invisible or my baked potato is naked......not loaded!!

This seldom happens these days, because I am that bastard sitting in the car in front (& fuck you asshole, don't be so impatient, I know damned well that you will do the exact same thing) who checks my order before leaving the parking lot!!

In light of this, I have decided to throw a MASSIVE wrench in the works.

Tattoo man (yes he is once again partly responsible for the content of this blog) & I were discussing what would happen if we were to order a medium 'double' on our next combined trip through the glory hole that is the Timmies drive-through.

My first thought (actually it was more of a vision) was the absolute look of horror (not that I would be able to see it, but you get the idea), confusion & panic on the face of the teenage dropout receiving said order..... (OK I could have used, single teen mother with no life skills, politics student or wannabee rock star/ goth in that description, but I didn't want to pick on too many people).

Now the question lies how (if ever) will their brain figure this one out............

Will I get no response & just find the regular old large double double on exit?

How do I check without sipping & contaminating?? hmm difficult, yet another dilemma!!

Perhaps I will have handed to me a small coffee with 2 creams, perhaps I will become the proud owner of a large coffee with two sugars............

Is there a fleeting chance that the person was actually paying attention to what I requested & will actually ask for an order confirmation (possibility .5%) whilst still attempting to filter the previous information through her less than fully functional brain.

NOTE: I know it's sexist of me to use females as an example, but it is rare to see a post pubescent male in such a position, due to the fact that they are usually out getting high with their Buddy's, playing hockey, making use of their fake ID & getting hammered in the bar, or impregnating witless teenage girls in the back of Moms new BMW !!

I do know for a fact that several employees of Timmies in & around the Greater Moncton area are not fully aware of what they are doing when attempting to process similar requests (& this could be due in part to the fact that the 'Nine Inch Nails' track they are listening to through their 'free' ear, which is actually filled with an ipod earphone, is perhaps streaming a tad TOO LOUD)......

EG: Tattoo man drives up to the microphone & asks for a large black coffee, no sugar...only to be answered with "would you like cream in that ?"

On another occasion (only last week) he ordered the very same with a plain donut.

He was asked if that was a medium coffee, did he want cream & was asked again what type of donut??

His reply (& had I been there I would have no doubt pissed myself) was along the lines of "one with a fucking hole in it & a LARGE BLACK coffee!!!!"

OK, so I do know that these establishments also employ decent hardworking & smart people, but it gets harder & harder to tolerate the numpties who really couldn't care less, each & every time something like this happens.

Little wonder wages are minimum in such establishments, really, some of these imbeciles are not worth $2.00 an hour never mind $8.25 (or whatever min wage is in NB)

Not only are they 5 donuts short of a bakers dozen (that's 13 - 5 = 8 FYI), but some have them really could use some lessons on personal hygiene & an etiquette class or two & at times a swift kick up the arse!

I am under absolutely NO illusions regarding the former.

I am well aware that drive-through as we know it is not going to change, I am forever doomed to check my order after repeating myself several times, & that's why I fully intend to follow through with my plan & order my double.

Meanwhile I will continue to hope that these half wit morons wake up & smell the coffee!!!

Have a nice day now..........................................................