goldilocks was right to complain

this porridge is too hot... this porridge is too cold...

as whiny and selfish as that bitch (and criminal*) might have been, i'm siding with her now because i'm about to complain about something that everyone always chides me about - the weather.

the temperature is too hot... the temperature is too cold...

fuck you all. i'm complaining about the weather.

what happened to summer?
it was down right chilly this morning!
after a sweltering summer vacation in the city, it looks like summer is packing its bags and getting ready to head out.

while it was feeling like autumn overnight, i actually don't know if it's warmed up yet today... the weather network says it's like 20 out there now and projected to go up to 24 this afternoon. but instead of frolicking in the glorious sunshine, i'm sitting at my desk shivering and trying to warm myself with the glow of my computer monitor... clearly, my building's environmental controls still think the sun is set to frazzle.

don't get me wrong, i know it takes A LOT of energy and a fair amount of time to change the temperature of an entire building and yet here i am complaining... this happens every time the outside temperature changes more than infinitesimally. so really, there's nothing i can do other than whine. and demand porridge.
______________________________
* so everyone in the goldilocks story is a criminal... goldilocks can add breaking & entering to her rap sheet as well as property destruction and theft. and the bears? murder. ok, so that doesn't happen in all of the versions of the story... but if you think about it, do you think you'd escape with your life if you were sleeping in a grizzly bear's den when they came home? yeah, goldilocks getting eaten by the bears is the logical conclusion to the story - after all, they'd be hungry considering she ate all their delicious, delicious porridge.

in the end, aside from teaching children about opposites (hot-cold, hard-soft), what lessons is this story really teaching?? a little girl breaks into a house that's not hers, eats food that's not hers, breaks furniture that's (you guessed it) not hers. and then instead of doing the smart thing and getting the fuck outta dodge, she takes a nap, in plain view. if you go with the family-friendly ending, she wakes up when the bears come home and runs away. so at most, the consequence for all her criminal activity is that she gets scared.

moral of the story: do anything you want and everything will be fine so long as you don't get caught... except she DID get caught! the bears caught her sleeping in their house with porridge crust stuck in the corners of her mouth! call the fucking police!

horatio caine: when we catch this criminal, the punishment's going to be juuust right.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

getting out of the kitchen

fine, it's hot. are you happy now?

this ALWAYS happens!

and it's totally not my fault because really, who makes an assorted package of cookies and only puts one kind of good cookie in it?

technically, yes, i don't HAVE TO eat all the delicious chocolates ones in a single sitting but if i leave them in there, i run the risk of someone else getting their hands on them and me having to choke down one of the other types of "cookies" that come in the package.

how come they sell those stupid ones with the jam in them separately and none of the others?

blasphemy!

well i guess it's true.
kids these days really ARE getting stupider.
and guess what? retailers are helping!

first they go and ruin the educational value of a game like monopoly and now this:

New Scrabble to add proper names

not only are these brain-melters adding proper nouns but they also want to throw in unconnected words and words spelled backwards!

unconnected words?!? what's even the point???
people will just be laying down word on all the triple word scores right off the bat! and those squares are a privilege, not a right! you have to work for them!

luckily for us, all this madness is only happening on the other side of the pond... mattel u.k. are the crazies that are releasing this 'special' edition come the summer.

word of the day - apr 6 10

land of Nod
noun
a mythical land of sleep.

ok, so maybe i'm just a little picky but if you subscribe to a "word of the day" e-mail service, you expect to get a definition of a word daily... not a definition of a fictional place whose name is three words long. dictionary.com, you're seriously stretching today. i mean, how many words are there in the english dictionary???

better off bread

the toasted whole wheat bun my chicken salad sandwich came on today is fresher and softer than some bread i've had still warm out of the oven...

sadly, the last time i asked for something double toasted at my local tim hortons, i ended up with a charred sandwich-sized crouton.

false advertizing?

ingredients: water, glucose-fructose and/or sugar, concentrated pear juice, citric acid, natural flavours.

sounds like pear juice to me...

and yet, curiously enough, it comes with this label:
cherry? pineapple? grapes?
i don't remember any of those from the ingredient list... i suppose those are the 'natural' flavours of which they speak.

fruit punch?
well, yes, pear IS a fruit..
and technically there is no law stating fruit punch must be a combination of several different types of fruit juice...
but you know, sometime you just expect certain things.
i guess that'll teach me a thing or too about expecting!

size differential

i am completely aware than men and women are shaped differently and that overall, for our species women are generally smaller than men... (NSFW warning - genitalia after the link)

however, with obesity rates climbing as fast as blood pressures, we're all going to look pretty much the same in no time - we're going to be those people-like blobs from WALL*E!

pursuant to my post from earlier this week, here is a prime example of the different between men's and women's sizing that makes me so insane:at least they offer any form of XL for the ladies...

i guess what confuses me the most is that everyone seems obsessed with women having HUGE breasts but then they go and make shirts that couldn't possibly accommodate said breasts... weird.

a weighty issue

so i'm not what you would call a 'petite' person... i have 'curves' and am routinely self-deprecating about my weight. i'm comfortable with myself.

what i'm not comfortable with is the clothing industry progressively making women's clothing slimmer-cut and paring down the measurements on sizing... a size 8 in today's market is NOT the same as a size 8 was 10 years ago.

so yeah, i do have frustration when if comes to buying clothes sometimes... i'm big but i'm not HUGE. i'm also not poorly proportioned... i know to go for the larger sizes because they fit me better and hence make me look better. but when i can't even zip the 16, then there's something out of line... or when the largest pant size available is a 32... or when a store has done away with XL altogether and their L is now a medium in all other stores... or when a store sells up to XXXL for men and the ladies (not misses) L would be sausage-casing-esque on preteens... yeah, these kinds of situations yank my chain just a smidge.

now, i don't want to detract from what a lovely human being gabourey sidibe seems and i definitely do NOT want to ad to all the negativity that people have been stirring up concerning her weight but... when i see the following, i'm thinking to myself, "where the hell can YOU find a HURLEY sweatshirt that ZIPS UP when i can't even find one where i can get my arm in the sleeve?!?"

worst career description of the week

"wig-line-designer-turned-singer"
~ real housewives' kim zolciak

i couldn't care less about this series of 'reality' shows or the string of vapid hag muppets that they feature... this tag line just caught me as ridiculously stupid. like, lumberjack-turned-ballerina or something... WIG LINE DESIGNER? that's an actual job title?

ok, i've flustered myself with the absurdness of this to render my sentence forming ability almost completely useless... if i try an convey my feelings on this any further, i'll just end up yelling random syllables interspersed with curses at the top of my lungs.

also, fabio would like the thank the industry for awarding him a 'slashie' award for "best actor 'slash' model and not the other way around"

oh, canada...

is anyone else a little mortified to be canadian after last night's olympic closing ceremonies?

it was bad enough that they kicked off the entire show with a clown!
i should have called it quits right then... unfortunately, that would have meant missing delightful appearances by bill shatner and michael j. fox so i'm sort of glad i kept the tv on.

i think we poked a little too much fun at ourselves and we should be ashamed. if a foreign country was asked to produce a musical that reeked of canadiana, this is what would be produced... wait, was this an outsourced production?
a choreographed ballet with giant beavers and mounties?
what? no igloos?!?

and then the much anticipated and speculated over musical extravaganza... who the mother ficus was in charge of that shitstorm???

1) ok, neil young. yes, he's the canadian man in black. everyone was fine with that.

2) i don't think ANY canadian ever in the history of the world wanted us to showcase on an international stage that our country is responsible for nickelback... i think the roar of disapproval when they came on was louder than than cheers when mr. crosby scored that last goal.

3) and if you thought it couldn't get more nationally degrading than nickelback, boy were you ever wrong. the travesty continued as they let the high school dropout from napanee play not one but TWO songs!

5) alright, i'll admit. alanis looked AMAZING!

4) the show organizers get bonus marks for including k-os to bring a little diversity to the party but was he really the right note to end on?

5) apparently not because then they brought out some crazy french band literally playing garbage! i was really hoping they'd knock everyone's socks off and end with the tragically hip or the guess who... that would have been just enough to salvage the entire dreadful evening.

oh well, maybe we'll make a better showing next time we are permitted to hold the world's most prestigious sporting event... if there is a next time.

aaannnd... they panicked!

so as the white death brought its hand down upon us yesterday, people apparently stopped reading my previous post as soon as i said the word panic. then i can only assume they did the most logical thing: stopped reading and tossed their computer out the nearest window and took to their cars with the intent of finding a parking space on the highway.

it took me THREE HOURS to travel roughly 60km... and there weren't even any crashes! it was just people losing their shit because they forgot what winter was.
YOU LIVE IN SOUTHERN ONTARIO!
YOU'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE!
DEAL WITH IT!

and you thought the body scanners were bad...

"Security at Pearson more like harassment, expert says"

so this purported 'guru' of airport security doesn't like the way pearson is being run. apparently he also helped design the security system at the highly successful ben gurion airport in tel aviv. anyway, he's got all these marvelous suggestions on how to make toronto's major airport a better place to fly. the airport can be more efficient using "'security circles,' layers of surveillance that screen travellers well before they reach the security gate."

ZONE 1
electronic 'gateways' with cameras and licence plate recognition, similar to 407's electronic toll system, would be used to single out stolen cars and anyone with outstanding warrants. 'sniffing technologies' would be used to search for drugs and explosives.

what about terrorists who don't steal cars or have outstanding warrants? what about normal people with warrants for things like outstanding parking tickets? what about all those cars circling the airport waiting to pick people up? what about the fact that the 407 system is not perfect and routinely misses cars entering/exiting the highway...?

ZONE 2
at airport entrances, uniformed and undercover analysts and video cameras assess the behaviour of people entering the airport. apparently, simple things like "looking nervous or sweating" makes you a terrorist...

what about people who are nervous about flying? don't like crowds? have never been to the airport before? all these things could easily have you getting an invasive cavity search in an intimidating white room.

ZONE 3
passengers are further behaviourally analyzed as they check in at automatic kiosks. fingerprinting, face and iris recognition, typing rhythm and voice intonation will be analyzed. this airport expert guy says that "99.99% of the bad people have already been caught" by this point in the process.

yeah, 99.99% of the bad people have been caught but so have 99.99% of the normal people! anyone is bound to be nervous and display abnormal behaviour knowing that they are under so much scrutiny! i get paranoid when the people i travel with are joking about bombs, etc. at the airport! i keep telling them, "you can't use those words at an airport! they are going to come for you any minute now!"

ZONE 4
a passenger's identity, boarding and baggage information are all digitally cross-checked before they get on the plane. the expert guy says that currently "there's nothing to stop a passenger from obtaining multiple boarding passes and then deciding at the last minute what flight to board."

ok, this last step sound the most beneficial for security and the least stressful for the passengers... but what about the people who are flying standby?

i'm not saying the system at pearson isn't broken, far from it actually, but i don't think a system like this is necessarily the best idea. and i'm not even suggesting anything better... sure, maybe you'll catch 99.99% of the bad guys but you'll also mistakenly hold up the same percentage of people who are no threat at all. travelling from toronto is a hassle and does take extra time but at least you're not very likely to be detained and treated like a criminal because the airport makes you nervous.

well thank jesus!

"Beyonce Taking Break From The Music Industry"

says ms. fierce: "It's definitely time to take a break, to recharge my batteries. I'd like to take about six months and not go into the studio. I need to just live life, to be inspired by things again."

ugh... only 6 months? how about 6 decades?
it's not that she doesn't make interesting, catchy, or commercially successful music... the part that bugs me about her is that everyone treats her like she's the greatest thing since sliced bread or the second coming of jesus (him again?) or something... she can literally do no wrong. people follow her every move and fashion choice like a herd of sheep.

and i got interrupted half-way through my rant and i've lost my direction... in summary - beyonce and her marketing juggernaut make my skin crawl and i hope she stays away from the music industry (or any industry for that matter) for much longer than 6 months.

bye bye money!

i just got my lowest cell phone bill ever and i'm not impressed.
the plan i have costs me $35/month for XX minutes (i forget how many exactly... more than 200) and unlimited text/picture messages. and yet, with only $0.15 (yup, only 15 measly cents) my bill is still almost $50. ridiculous.

it's the 'other fees' category that doing it...
first, there's $0.50 911 access charge which is acceptable because if the need arises for me to require emergency assistance (knock on wood) i think 50 cents is a perfectly acceptable price.
but then there's that (as koodo would put it) pesky 'system access fee'... $6.95 a month! that's almost 20% of my original $35 plan! how can the big cell phone companies get away with continuing to charge that fee when so many other companies are throwing it out the window? ~grumble~

and then there's the stupid freaking taxes... $5.54 in taxes... stupid, stupid, stupid.

so all the offending charges (excluding 911 access) on my bill add up to $12.49 - 26% of my total bill! $12.49 doesn't really sound like a lot but that $150 a year! i could be investing that shit or something!

gah... i'll take off my complainer's hat for now but i'm still not happy about all this.

understatement of the winter season

hampers the commute, does it?
how about effs it up beyond imagination?
yeah, that sound a little better.
and i don't know what city these newsy-type people were watching but it certain wasn't the GTA because there was definitely no 'lack of snow'... and the worst part is that WE KNEW IT WAS COMING! the weather people have been warning us about the first snowmageddon of the season since the weekend. 2 days of advanced warning and still no one was prepared!
eff that noise.
eff.
that.
noise.

the definition of sad...

i've come to the conclusion that this twilight craziness is like a really strong undertow. once you're caught, there's no getting away. some people are strong enough to fight the current and keep their heads above water... but then there are those who's grasp of reality is so weak that they get sucked right down to the very bottom and drown.

shit like this makes me want to have nothing to do with the twilight phenomenon...

similar to FML, welcome to the sad, sad world of MLIT - my life is twilight. instead of saying how much their lives suck, they squeal about how much their life is like twilight... which is essentially the same as saying how much their lives suck.

here are some examples of worst drowners who really should have ended with MLISS - my life is so sad:

"Today, I decided that it is better to be single for the rest of my life than to settle for someone who is not Edward or Jacob. I'm happy with my decision. MLIT"

"Today I was a little upset. My mom keeps telling me that Edward isn't real and it was really freaking me out. What did I do? I ran straight to my room and sat next to my card board cut out of Edward and reread my favourite parts of the books. I feel so much better now! MLIT"

"Today, My mom was talking to me about marriage and I just screamed and said "I'm not getting married to anybody thats not Edward" and then she proceed to say that he doesn't exist and all i screamed was "Yes he does". MLIT"

there are SO MANY more up there that are equally sad if not more so but i was on the verge of being physically sick with embarrassment for these people that i had to stop. but not before i came to the conclusion that boyfriends/husbands that indulge their significant others' resignation from reality should be publicly castrated...

"The other day, I was laying down with my boyfriend. He put his cold feet against me and asked if he felt like Edward. I said yes. He then put his warm hands on my face and asked if I felt like Jacob. I also said yes. I have the best of both worlds. MLIT"

"My Twilight obsession has rubbed off on my husband. After taking me to the midnight showing of New Moon, he told me that if I bought him a t-shirt with "Got Bella?" on it he'd wear it to see Eclipse in June. The next morning, he told me he had a dream that he was a vampire. He's sooo my Edward!!! MLIT"

if you're caught in the current but staying above water like myself (am i ever mortified to admit that!) just keep swimming. the tide will pass and we'll make it back to the sunny shores of reality eventually. either that or an island of the bloated corpses of those who drowned will form beneath our feet and we'll be saved!

altered perception of reality

"I haven't had longer than a couple of months off ever in my life, since I was 15."
~ Beyonce on making sacrifices for her career

when was the last time any of us lowly non-celebrities got to take a whole month off?? i can't barely put together a long weekend! i only get 2 weeks of vacation a year and she's complaining that she cant take a couple of months for herself?? getting your hair done and sailing on yachts for your career must be SOOO hard. me, i just drag my ass into an office where i can't see the outdoors day after day while trying to scrape together enough credit to put a down payment on a car/house... that's nothing!

consider yourself warned

URS, you just made my list.

apparently "one of the largest engineering design services firms worldwide" is doing this little intersection reconstruction job up in markham at the corner of hwy. 7 and ninth line... now normally, something like this wouldn't concern me whatsoever but it's right smack in the middle of my daily commute.

fortune magazine's #4 engineering and construction firm (according the the URS site) can't even handle a little paving.

first, they've been at this job at least since the beginning of the summer... first they tore up all the road approaching the intersection and restored them. but then they proceeded to tear up half of that when they went to do the intersection and even more for the new turning lanes. idiots.

secondly, their site maintenance is atrocious. their traffic control measures are all over the place and obviously not checked daily. also, there is dirt and dust from the construction areas spilling out all over the road.

third, time is obviously a factor in this construction and the mild weather lately has been saving their ass in terms of productivity. if the snow had settled in like it usually does around this time of year, they would have to shut down for the season, leaving the piss-poor condition for drivers to navigate throughout the winter. anyway, they are ALWAYS working out there... through BOTH rush hours. it's not the 401 but hwy. 7 is a major commuting connection is markham from the east. and they SHOULD know the traffic volumes in the area because there was traffic counting equipment on the road in the spring before construction started. MOST road jobs have a specification that prevents the contractor from doing major works during peak times... apparently the people using the road come in a distant second here.

the straw that broke the camel's back came last night... my commute time was doubled due to the fact that THEY WERE PAVING THE INTERSECTION AT 5PM! who does that? they were in there blocking live lanes of traffic, crawling along with the paver! i couldn't believe it.

additionally, they had condensed traffic in every direction to one lane only. that's only one lane for everyone making left and right turns and going through. the left hand turners particularly fuck things up because if they can't go then no one behind them can go either. there would be lights where only 1 or 2 cars got through. and usually when it was clear of other cars to turn left, the paver would be right in the way prevent progress.

THEN, their signage was all fucked up too... back of the intersection, they had posted a sign showing that the right lane was ending. so everyone, except those ass-wads who think they're better than everyone else and go jetting up the ending lane and then tuck their car in at the last second in a space much too small, is getting into the right lane... but then as you actually get to the intersection, it's the left lane that's closed. so now EVERYONE needs to get back over and the ass-wads, because everyone is SO beneath them, aren't letting anyone in!

and more yet! this was only the base coat!
final paving still needs to be done!
i would say that i can't wait to see how they can fuck it up further but i think i will be finding an alternative (but likely slower and less direct) route home to avoid having a blood vessel burst in my brain.

a serious case of the mondays thursdays

why the hell isn't it friday yet?
(not that this day would benefit at all from being a friday. it would just give me a misplaced dislike of fridays.)
by all accounts, friday should feel sooner this week because i was off on monday! it never works that way though... short weeks are the ones that NEVER seem to end.

have you ever noticed that driver stupidity increases exponentially with disappearance of good weather? this morning i spent nearly 2 hours making a drive that normally take 50 minutes in traffic. just because it was raining! ridiculous. when the snow finally comes, i think i'd rather slam my head into a brick wall repeatedly rather than drive anywhere.

so i'm in the mississauga office of my company today and it's miserable. first, it's hell far away and through the worst of the 401 traffic. second, i may have discovered the world's least comfortable chair and am currently testing its effects on a worker's mental stability. third, all my cubicle knick-knacks that make me happy when skies are gray are not here... my visitor cube here is emptier and more drab than a prison cell. AND, office characteristics aside, my empty fuel light lit up as i was pulling into the parking lot this morning. fan-fucking-tastic. now i'm going to go waste part of my lunch hour to go to the gas station so i don't have to do it when i'm going wee-wee-wee all the way home at the end of the day.

PS – i’m pretty sure there’s a lady here wearing a taffeta skirt suit… like the stuff you make cheap prom dresses out of! i can hear her every time she walks by! and it’s this nasty olive green colour too. AND (yes, there’s more!) it’s about 4 inches ABOVE her knees. it’s like a taffeta hooker business suit. i’m trying to figure out how to get a picture without going right up to her and blinding her with the flash before running away.