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10h30: Annual check up at the doc's office downtown - height, weight, blood pressure, resting heart rate, testicle palpating (is that what they call it? or is that for reserved for breasts only?), and what I hope is not to become a regular but obligatory finger up the butt. Yes, it sucks as bad as it sounds.

11h30: Attempt to leave the Harry Hays parking lot. Machine only takes cash. Insert parking slip. You owe $9.00. Insert parking slip from 2 months ago that reads "Credit $4.00". No go. March upstairs to talk to the Commissionaires (who appear to be hired strictly for their whitehairedness and complete inability to be helpful). Sorry sir, you have to call SATAN (Impark) to figure out how to use the credit. Spend 15 minutes on hold listening to propaganda "...Impark's state of the art parking machines..." Finally speak to the operator. her: You have to fax us a copy of the ticket, and we will mail you the credit. me: Does that not seem like a stupidly 'NOT STATE OF THE ART' way of doing things?

11h45: Reattempt to leave the Harry Hays parking lot. Retrieve nine dollars from pocket. Insert parking slip. You owe $12.00. Curse you IMPARK!!

12h05: Back at office for lunch. Notice slight smear on glasses. Remove to clean with shirt. Snap spectacles in half. FFFFFFAAAAAAQQQQQQQQ!!!

And there you have it. I'm sure your "Oh I had the day from hell" can now be downgraded to mildy tolerable. Thanks, and good night.

Currently listening to: The Kills - Love is a Desserter

posted by George at 8:58 PM       Comments (0)

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I don't know if voter apathy had anything to do with it, but somehow, we managed to turn Alberta from majority Conservative rule into a COMPLETE Conservative dictatorship. The thought of 4+ more years of brilliant decisions like this one from last summer just nauseates me like a night of gin and juice.

If the other 60% of voters had turned up, do you think maybe things would've been different? I'm thinking no, because the ones who truly wanted change would've made an extra effort to get off their asses to vote against Special Ed's party.

Currently listening to: Antsy Pants - Vampire

posted by George at 10:37 PM       Comments (1)

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I was flipping through a Hong Kong magazine that Anita brought back recently, and an ad for a Swiss made watch caught my eye. It was a fairly conservative in styling, but had a pretty cool face. So we called up one of the stores in Hong Kong that was selling it to see how much it was. I almost choked when they announced it was $600,000 plus (or the equivalent of $85,000 Cdn). And I thought Anita had expensive taste.



Currently listening to: Rilo Kiley - Dreamworld

posted by George at 11:10 AM       Comments (1)

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I came down with a nasty bout of food poisoning a couple weeks ago, complete with severe stomach pain, indigestion, and diarrhea that lasted five days. A week later, I've submitted clinical samples to the lab, and yup, it's confirmed that I've got Campylobacter. Which, in itself is rather ironic - a food inspector comes down with food poisoning. But wait, it gets better. The doc calls me in to give me the report and prescribes some antibiotics, specifically Clarithromycin. And wouldn't you know it, the side effects include stomach pain, indigestion, and diarrhea! WTF?!!

Currently listening to: Dogs Die in Hot Cars - Lounger

posted by George at 6:44 PM       Comments (0)

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I read an article linked from boingboing, about a temperamental shower this guy encountered in Japan. It immediately brought to mind memories of my own harrowing shower experiences at Anita's flat in Macau. They don't have hot water tanks over there (or at least not like the ones we're used to in N. America). So Anita's bathroom had this tub, with a shower head and hose attached to the faucet. You couldn't stand up to take a shower, cause the hose didn't extend long enough, plus there was no shower curtain to prevent you from messing the rest of the bathroom. Anyways, imagine a 6 ft tall guy huddling in a small "Asian" sized tub, trying to wash his hair and take a shower. This isn't even the bad part. To get warm water, you had to play a delicate balancing game of tweaking the hot and cold knobs. So first, you would fire up the hot knob, and patiently wait for the propane heater to warm up the otherwise ice-cold water. As it got to a tolerable temperature, you had about 5 seconds to actually shower before it would get to a "burn your motherEFFING SKIN OFF" hot temperature, and you would have to completely turn OFF the hot water, and fire up the cold knob to cool it back down. And again, you would have about 5 seconds of "warm" water while it was going from extreme heat to nut sack reascending cold with which to wash. This is keeping in mind that you only had one hand free as the other was used to hold the shower hose and nozzle assembly. Repeat this futile "warm water" making cycle over and over until you were either clean, or so utterly frustrated that you would never want to shower again. For the month we were over in Asia, I missed NOTHING more than a real shower back home.

link to The Temperamental Shower


Currently listening to: Radiohead - House of Cards

posted by George at 10:50 AM       Comments (2)

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Setting up a web domain similar to the name of something else popular was once (and probably still is) a way to get some spillover traffic. Example: If www.yousuck.com were a heavily visited site, one could register www.yousuck.net and hope for some people to get the domain wrong, and end up at your otherwise inferior site. However, I had never seen a domain name purposely mispelled and then registered to capitalize on this before... until today. Ever typed facebook.com wrong? Try facbeook.com... my dyslexic fingers did it just now. It lead to somewhere, well, shall we say, not quite safe for work?

Currently listening to: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control

posted by George at 6:01 PM       Comments (0)

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As I was rounding the corner to our street tonight, I spotted an unusual amount of pedestrians loitering around the sidewalks. Slowing down to avoid hitting somebody, my gaze slowly followed the line of gawkers that curiously lead towards our house. Then I noticed the police cruiser parked by it. And then the 3 firetrucks and district fire chief van directly in front of it. Now isn't that odd, I thought. And then the lightbulb finally came on as I realized they were putting out a fire at our neighbour's house. Living in a duplex, this made the fire that much more of an immediate concern for us. Luckily, there was no blazing inferno, just a small smoky greasefire started by none other than our very trashy, not-so-likeable neighbour(who of course was wearing a wife beater and track pants). I immediately thought about all the times I've wished they would suffer some kind of horrible death. But now the old cliche of 'be careful what you wish for' has me rethinking my curse... apparently, karma has an ironic sense of humour.

Moments ago in front of the Mach household:




Currently listening to: Tool - Prison Sex

posted by George at 9:43 PM       Comments (0)

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Last Friday, we were out at Versacold, which is a federally regulated cold storage facility. As we pulled in, there was a spot designated "Government Inspector", with a nice sign posted in front of it. But you could also clearly see the handicap symbol painted on the concrete pad below the car. The respect we get is boundless...

Currently listening to: Interpol - Pioneer to the Falls

posted by George at 12:08 AM       Comments (0)

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Okay, now I'm PISSED!! Apparently, we missed a Modest Mouse show in PARIS on June 20th, which happens to be the only night we really had time to relax before we came home. DAMMMMIT!!! On top of that, they were playing at a venue called Elysees-Montmarte, which was literally a 4 minute walk from our hotel!! AAAGGGGHHHH!!!

Tip for any travellers who love live music: do your research before you go!

Currently listening to: The Good, The Bad, and The Queen - The Bunting Song

posted by George at 12:15 PM       Comments (0)

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Okay, so we're back from Paris. The trip was excellent, if a bit tiring from all the go go go sightseeing. I've posted some highlights on facebook. The Nikon worked out fantastic. I love it. I couldn't believe how big of a difference there is between a point & shoot vs. an SLR. You just have to test them both side by side to truly see. Unfortunately, facebook has a terrible compression ratio, so all the pics posted look like they were taken by a 2 yr old with Parkinson's. But seriously, if you're into photography at all, buy an SLR.

While we were at the Musee D'orsay, I discovered my new favouritest painting in the whole wide world, aptly entitled "L'origine du Monde", or Origin of the World for us Anglophones. Click here to see the pic (NSFW). I spent a few minutes trying to take a photograph of this, and am sure all the passerbys were thinking, "What a Pervert!" as I got right up good and close to it. And on another funny note, I had half a mind to seek out the Hilton hotel, just so I could say I'd been inside Paris Hilton. Then I realized how lame that was...

Currently listening to: Kings of Leon - Knocked Up

posted by George at 4:33 PM       Comments (1)