New Luck In A New Year?

So As the Chinese New Year nears for some of you and is already upon the others, I rejoin the ranks of the blogging. I'm hoping that this new year of my ancestral heritage brings about a complete reversal of fortunes brought in with the new year of my adopted heritage. Let's think of it as a do over, the release of version 2.0 to make us forget that V1 ever happened.

As some of you may have or may not have noticed, I've been absent from this and all of your pages for some time. In the past, I've just been plum lazy or have been on trips where I've met up with some of you, and this time, I dearly wish that it could have been for one of those reasons... There's been bad luck and then there's been the type of shit show that's been my life for the last month. If it weren't for a trip to NY to visit with Eve and S'Mat I think I may have punched a ticket to be Britney's suitemate in Beverly Hills' Loonie Lodge.

This is by no means a sympathy plea, more so a tainted blood letting... It started about a month ago with a very nasty rumor going around my work place that I was one of the people that had for lack of better terms been falsely submitting statistics to boost my performance numbers. Now I know I had done nothing wrong, but it sucked having people from different shifts talking behind my back and hearing all the crazy versions of the stories being circulated when people were respectful enough to talk to me face to face about it. It was always fun for me to go into work, but now I was beginning to dread it. That episode came to a head when one of the top bosses came in and addressed my unit and said jobs were on the line if the investigation into the matter turned anything up... Great. A big scare tactic to motivate the troops...

That had been nagging me for a while so a road trip to New York seemed to be the perfect solution. It was fantastic and I'll write about it later. Upon my return, it got worse, much worse. The very first day of the new work week saw an innocent man shot and killed by rival gun-toting ass clowns who fired at each other with no regard for the lives around them, including that of their victim, Mr. Mao. I was the first to arrive on scene and had the very sad experience of having him take his last breath in my hands. Let me just say that it isn't anything like what you see on T.V. or film. There were also a pile of things that went wrong afterwards that drew a lot of criticism for those of us that were involved... It was the second innocent murder victim in less than a week for the city and this one stung. Mr. Mao was stacking oranges at a fruit stand and was working that evening as a favor to his boss as he had quit his post a few days previous...

So after a 17 hour work day and a short sleep, I was not exactly in the mood or frame of mind to get back to the job. I guess fate was reading my mind and took care of that for me. Let this be a lesson to you all to never help your mothers... My mother had returned home with bags of salt for the water treatment system in the house. The filter is in the furnace room of the house and as I brought one of the bags down, I noticed that it had sprung a leak at the bottom. I decided that it would be best to hoist it up to the opening of the system and just let the salt out from the cut in the bag. I hoisted it up but I didn't notice the pane of broken stained glass leaning to the immediate side of the system. I noticed it as I let the bag down. I think my exact words were, "OOOH, wow, big cut, big cut. That's no good!!!". A little bit of a bloody mess here, a trip to the hospital and three stitches there and voila, a day off work. Just what I did and didn't need to deal with the previous day's events. Just when that day couldn't get worse, my mother dropped my camera and thankfully only managed to break a lens filter. Though not the actual lens, it's now $60 I don't have.

The next few days saw some of the fall out from the homicide still sifting through the air, choking a few collars tight and fraying collective nerves altogether. As that settled we were all devastated with the news that one of our workmates had taken his own life over the weekend. There is never a good time to receive news like that, but this really stung. He was always such a pleasant person and you could always count on him to have a smile on his face and to try and put one on yours. "Hi handsome" was the trademark greeting and it's not easy turning corners in the building and not hearing that anymore. The viewing and funeral came at the end of the week and that was not an easy time either. The support in numbers that showed up for the funeral speaks to the impression he made but also to the true sense of family that comes in my line of work.

I'd love to say that was the end of it, but alas... We've recently been made to wear name tags on our clothing to make us more accessible and approachable or something like that... One night before our meeting, my partner and I switched our tags, but that move went un-noticed and we failed to get the laugh we'd set out for. We forgot about it and went about the night. At the end of the shift, another supervisor at the station noticed and got right upset about it all and threw a tizzy. He gave us shit and said he was doing us a favor by addressing the matter. So much of a favor that he had us write letters to the top boss explaining our actions... Seriously of all the things to get mad at... Having that fresh on my plate, I then proceeded to go home just to get into an accident 8 houses away from my front door... My beautiful baby isn't so beautiful right now, but she must have movie star blood in her because a little cosmetic work and she'll be back at it in short order.

To wrap it all off, a close relative on my father's side succumbed to his batter with cancer this past week and we had the funeral for him yesterday. It's never easy even with the knowledge of his illness in our back pockets going into it. So that in a conch shell has been the state of affairs that constitute my life for the past few weeks.

Now I know a lot of people in my position would have taken a dive off a spring board into an empty pool by now, but somehow I'm still plodding ahead with my head up. I don't why or how I've managed to keep at it, but I'm thankful that I have. I smiled today and I actually stopped to enjoy the moment. I was walking along in a near blinding snow storm on my way to my grandparents when it happened. I was listening to "Welcome To The Black Parade" while the wall of white enveloped me. I stopped and just let it all hit me. The song changed to a Metallica cover of "Whiskey In The Jar" and it might as well have been "Ride The Lightning" as I was stunned by a wave of blue. I thought it was a powerful camera flash, but the accompanying clap of thunder sounded otherwise... A winter thunder snow storm. I loves me a good snow fall and thunder storms are funtastic in general so having both at once was cause for a small celebration.

Hey, baby steps still get you to where you're going.

Bad Day

I know that I've been A.W.O.L. again but there's been a lot come up in my life, none of which has been good, so I'll be back someday... In the mean time, take a moment and enjoy this on me.

Excuse Me, You're Calling From Where???

So I was sitting at home a week and a bit ago watching my brother play Guitar Hero 3 when I noticed that I had missed a call on the cell. After watching him successfully rock out to another 5 star video performance, I went about listening to the message and it went a little something like this:

"Hi James, this is Olivera from Max Agency, you met one of our scouts during the Jazz Festival down in the Beaches and I was calling to set up an appointment for you to come in and meet with us. Give me a call at 416..........."

Wait, what the hell did I just hear? I wasn't quite sure I heard that right above the Guitar Hero so I played it again and yeah, it would appear as though I had received call from a modeling agency... I blinked a few times and thought to myself, where in the hell she would have gotten my phone num... !!! I shook my fist as I realized exactly who had given my phone number out...

I'd only been working with two other guys that whole weekend so it was a simple process of elimination. I called Jeremy and asked him if he'd ever heard of a Max Modeling Agency. I heard him chuckle on the other end of the line, instantly confirming my suspicion. He could only say, "I may have been around when the talent scouts were around but I can't really say how your information got passed on to them". I told him that he didn't have to explain and that I had a pretty good idea of who had given my info out.

So I sat there and thought to myself, why in the hell would he have done that? Then the obvious answer came, "because you're so fun and easy to have a laugh with (at)". *D'uh* The next question I asked myself was, what the hell are you going to do about it? So I consulted with the girlfriends and the overwhelming response was "go for it". So I thought to myself, why the hell not? What's the worst that can come of this, I get told I'm not what a modeling agency was looking for? Hell, I could have told you that before having to be asked. : P

So I called and set up an appointment for this past Monday. I was told to dress somewhat professionally, meaning no jeans or sneakers. I figured I'd do it up and wear my new shirt I that I'd bought on a spur of the moment fashion upgrade shopping trip with my friend Niki. Hell, if ever a time to show off, or at least make light of, an attempt at fashion, this was it. So I showed up for my 1230 appointment looking as dapper as I could for mid day. I figured the meeting would only take half an hour at most and I would have more than enough time to get to a far more pressing engagement, a hockey game at 1400 vs a rival station.

I arrived in the office and was greeted by a smartly dressed dude who was obviously but not flagrantly gay. He was nice and took note of the fact that I had arrived. I sat down in the office and made note of the fish tank behind the receptionist's desk. I thought there was a toy crocodile or alligator floating in the middle of it, but upon closer inspection, I found it to be real. Couple that with the odd cinematic gladiator style symphony orchestral music, it was just a touch odd, but not altogether unsettling, I began putting everything into Zoolander perspective.

Shortly after my arrival, the guy behind the desk was replaced by the actual receptionist. She had a pretty face and wore smart, and very bum friendly black dress pants and a very flattering dark apple green top which complimented her natural features. I thought, hey now, things are picking up a bit. She made little attempt to acknowledge my presence. I figured, hell she sees so many "beautiful" people coming in through the doors, what was another face to her? I was the only person in the office at the time so I settled into a 2003 issue of Men's Health.

After a short while, this pompous looking tit walked in followed by a larger, solely due to girth, tit who I assumed was his agent. Small tit had a very high forehead. Think mine but twice as high. He had long, bottom of the ear length hair which he had slicked back. He wore a tarty little green zip up and annoying slim, TAPERED, and I'm assuming $200 designer jeans with some silly criss-cross pattern on the back of the legs. His shoes were of the pointed variety which made me, for the few seconds I looked at them, want to use them to stab him in his beady eyes.

When the receptionist asked for his name, he bladed his body to the right as if at the end of a "dear God please one day land me on this" catwalk, turned his head ever so slightly to the left and said in some bastardized mutation of an English or Australian accent "Dipsy McLightLoafers", or something close to that. I couldn't help but let my left brow arch up in absolute bemusement. I quickly retreated to the mag lest he see my utter contempt. It was at this point too that I noticed what appeared to be an dirt spot on the face of the receptionist. I just found it a touch odd that said spot just happened to follow an outline of a 'stache... I knew at this point, I had a blog post coming.

As I sat and waited for my turn, a middle aged woman who was almost as snazzily dressed as yours truly walked in and took a seat almost directly across from me. She checked in and sat down and proceeded to ignore everything else, so I did likewise to her. Shortly after Ms. Middleagenoring, a younger teen girl with a little punky look to her arrived with her very middle class very white mom and her older sister who spoke with ZERO tonal or volume control. I couldn't happen but notice the troupe was quickly being filled and the big top would be in full swing very shortly.

As the latest additions to the gong show sat down, I couldn't help but notice the older sister. It quickly dawned on me that there was a Ben Stiller theme to this office as she reminded me more of Warren from "There's Something About Mary". While she wasn't wearing earphones to soothe her into the room you could tell she was out of her comfort zone. I think she must have found the whole experience as comedic as I did. We looked at each other and I smiled at her and she smiled back at me half shy and half giddy. I figured this was as "real" of an interaction I was going to experience so I continued the smile game. It was actually quite fun.

It was now pushing 1300 and I was getting a little impatient but hey, I figured this was how these industry types rolled, so I just went with it. When the receptionist finally got off the phone, she called my pal with the tapered jeans and directed him to an awaiting office. He stood up and looked to the larger tit with his smarmy vest, plastic rectangle frame glasses and annoying salt and pepper beard and pony tail and beckoned, "daddy..."... I blinked repeatedly over the same spot on the page I was reading. I then looked up and had a giant smile and giggle waiting for me.

It was getting a bit much for me and my bladder was reminding me that I had consumed a large amount of water prior to my departure for the agency so I asked for directions to the bathroom. After walking down the hall I came up to the bathrooms, but my attention was quickly diverted to the matching set of cock and balls couches in the waiting area outside the bathrooms. As you can see above, there is no other description for them. If I didn't have just cause to wonder how crazy, eccentric or gay I'd have to be to survive in this industry, I did now.

After returning to the reception area, I kindly asked Miss Stainedlip when I could expect to be seen as I had a very pressing professional engagement coming up. She told me that it would only be 5 more minutes. A figure I was amazed that she could come up with seeing as how she didn't place or receive any phone calls or messages to suggest that would be the case. As it turns out, her 5 minutes turned out to be 15 and I was more than annoyed with her.

Finally I got into the office and met with an agent who I thought was young to be in her position, but what the hell did I know. She introduced herself and she actually seemed nice enough and somewhat normal. She started into her shpiel and started asking me some questions about my background, activities, languages, abilities scars, tattoos... I had to cut her off and tell her I had absolutely no experience whatsoever and further more, that this whole thing was a bit of a joke. She looked mildly offended so I clarified explaining to her that I had been the victim of a small practical joke but was going through with it all for the sheer hell of it.

She said that she could see why I may have been signed up by my friends complimenting me on my eyes and the fact that I was really personable and easy going about it all. I just explained to her that I, for the lack of a civilized term, quite frankly didn't give a fuck and was going along with the nothing ventured, nothing gained motto and that if I wasn't what they were looking for, no big deal. When she showed me that some of the contracts they secured for their models added up to $4000 take home per day after agency fees for simple things as a print campaign, I began thinking it might just be a big deal.

We shook hands and she told she'd be in contact with me in 3 or 4 days if the agency liked me for whatever category my goofy mug fit in and we'd go from there. I left her office and quickly took one last survey of the kaleidoscope of krazy I saw before me. I duly took note of one last big grin and noticed the pink triple velcro shoes she was wearing and thought to myself, fuck those are cool. I'd love to see anyone else there try and pull that off.

Fortunately for me, the exit was on my right and my lack of ambiturning ability was hidden from the modeling world for at least another day.

Full Moon Rising

So, I was riding home on my fair Lady Limerick, when I happened across a cab full of very attractive girls on their way home from a night out on the town. As I got closer to the cab, I could see that there were three girls in the back, but I could only see the faces of two as they smiled while looking back out of the cab.

I looked closer and noticed that the third girl in the back on the passenger's side was standing up, with her skirt hiked up to her waist hanging and shaking her ass out the window for all to see. Now, Steph I instantly thought about you, and I don't know why..., when I saw this girl. I wondered, is this worthy to be labeled as a "supertard" moment? Feel free to poll the others and get back to me.

Now I've had girls do weird and sometimes very funny things in-front of me on the highway as I've passed them by on my bike after the clubs have let out. Smiling, winking, hanging and waving out the windows are par for the course but this took the (moon)cake. I couldn't help but laugh at the sheer hilarity of the situation and the girls in the back were obviously enjoying it too. I can only imagine what the cabbie was thinking. At the very least, I don't think he'd need to expect a tip after filing enough images to fill his jolly trunk for many a tosser's night.

So as I got closer as I passed, of course on the passenger side, I noticed the other girls waving me towards the cab. As I drew even, one of them made the motion for me to slap the bare ass that was hanging out the window. Now, who was I to say no to a request like that.? With a little precision riding, I managed to satisfy their request while probably scaring the crap out of the cabbie and the cars directly behind us...

I figured hell, how often does something like this happen...

Steph?

: P

Now This Is What I'm Talking About.

I've long been a fan of British culture and on occasion their women. :P This to me sums up all that is right with thems folk across the pond.

Too often we relegate our seniors to tight, forgotten quarters where they are left to their own devices to cohort with others in like circumstances about what used to be and why the rest of the world sucks. Not our problem if we don't have to deal with them right?

To me, this is the perfect solution. Ok, I may have a professional bias to this of course, but think of it in a good way. They're out getting fresh air, they're participating in socially conscious activities and they get respect from the younger, able bodies would have nothing to do with them if it weren't for such a progressive thinking social program. God bless.

You Had To See It For Yourself.

Why Planes Crash - The best free videos are right here
So hellooo from Stockholm! Tomorrow I actually leave for a quick few days in Helsinki, but first the news up until now. As is tradition for me, I was not completely prepared for this trip as I was essentially packing my ass out the door when it came time to leave for the airport. Hell, I didn't even feel as though I was even on vacation. My mind was not into it yet. I'd just that day, finished working 20 of 22 days in a row and a total of 26 out of the last 32...

In the end, it looks as though I may have over packed but oh well, I'll survive. The flight over to London was great as I had a nice girl named Chelsea sitting beside me. Too bad, or lucky for her, I spent most of the flight sleeping while she drank coffee and watched movies. We also had a stewardess serving our section of the plane who looked like she would cry if she was forced to smile. Sad but funny at the same time. Damn just wasted material for a 5 pt'er.

I had to transfer airlines and as a result terminals to catch my connector to Stockholm. After I picked up my big travel sack, adorned with very large and obvious Canadian flag, I sweated my way about 15 minutes through a labyrinth of tunnels to get to my departing terminal. Once there, it all seemed easy enough. I checked myself via the automated process and all I had to do was drop off my bag at the counter. That took much longer than it looked like it would seeing as though there were only about 15 people in front of me.

There was an English fellow about in his mid thirties who was lined in the queue just behind me. I thought I'd be nice and make some small talk about the delay. He agreed something to the like and then stood back. I was in the middle of thinking to mysel.. "wake me up before you go-go" What the f... The dude starts singing something that sounded like it was straight out Wham or Duran Duran's track list. I looked quizzically from my spot in line and was oh so close to blurting out, "easy there Simon, you should have stopped with Ordinary World (or maybe sooner) ".

The flight to Stockholm was a breeze as again, I spent most of it sleeping. When we landed in Sweden, I thought I was hallucinating because I thought I'd heard the captain say that the local temperature was 30 degrees Celsius. WTF, I just knew that couldn't be right. How ever would the reindeer make it? Sure to his word though it was. I'd heard the stereotype about gorgeous Swedish women before I arrived, but it couldn't be completely true. Well, I was wrong. All I will say is that she set a very high standard for the rest of this trip and that's saying a lot. At the baggage carousel of all places too.

I was picked up by my friend Christian whom I haven't seen for 6 years in China. It was very much like old times again. We went out the first night within a few hours and proceeded to have a night out in the posh part of town with all the beautiful people. They were tall, their hair was long and perfectly blonde, their skin was glistening and their eyes crystal blue, their looks were easily model calibre. That was just the men!!! The women were more than their equals in that department but good God were they some of the most vapid bunch of self-attributing worth whores out there. Note the distinction from attention seeking fame whores. Those we like around here. I guess that was the price of going out in that part of town. My mind hurts, but my eyes are singing.

I'll admit though that most of the ladies were doing their mother country proud. About doing their actual mothers proud, I'm not sure of that. They also have this thing with the high school graduates all getting little sailor's hats as a sign of their graduation. So it was a bit of a site seeing scores of these good looking (albeit high school) girls running around in their white outfits and their drunken male friends in tow. Yes, at times I felt dirty. Damn this getting older thing.

There is one thing though that I can not get over at all about this country. On the first night, I was sitting outside on the porch enjoying a beer with Christian when I noticed that the sun was still up. I swore to myself that I had recently looked at a clock and it had said 10PM. Turns out the sun doesn't fully go down until well past 11PM here. That was odd. Imagine my shock then when upon exiting a club at just after 3:30AM, the sun was already well on its way to coming back up! I have a picture of a clock tower just before 4AM and it's almost broad daylight!!!

The city of Stockholm itself is beautiful. I encourage you all to get out here at some point. Some of the design and architecture is grand and very eye catching along with some of the other sights. I do have to wonder though what attributes, beyond their genetically blessed looks some of these girls have to offer and what they expect from the world. There were two drop deads outside a soul and groove bar last night and Christian asked them about the white outfit one of them was wearing and if it had anything to do with graduation. Mind you they looked a bit older but it seemed within reason to ask. The blonde's response, "um, move on". Seriously. I bet there are few of you ladies who may have started swinging upon hearing that one. I thought about the old headbutt to the perfectly shaped nose, but I thought I'd be the loveable Canuck and leave it be. But seriously...

Ok, sleep needs me, or vice versa... Will catch you sexy bitches later.

You're Not That Important

There are so many reasons out there to make fun of or even dislike some Americans. For starters, their president, the other day, made a slip and almost stated to her face, that Queen Elizabeth was 230 years old... Hey they voted for him and must be sooooo proud. In some cases, I wonder if it's ignorance or hubris or some rank combination of them both.

For the purpose of this blurb, I'll take the hubristic approach. If the rest of the common sense world could act as a deity, the open defiance wrought forth by the United Shame of America could be attributed as the main reason, why they are as Greek tragedy would suggest, considered a nemesis.

At the beginning of the year, there was a situation that arose from a confidential report filed by U.S. army contractors stating they believed they had been spied on and potentially had some confidential conversations compromised by get ready for this, CANADIANS... Yes, we of the beaver, maple syrup and iglood persuasion. The contractors found suspicious coins in their rental vehicles which they believed to have embedded nano-technology that may have been used to track them... Seriously.

What they thought were spy coins were actually 25 cent pieces, just as pictured above. The nano-technology they were referring to was the textured impression in the centre of the coin and the coated layering applied to the face of the coin to preserve the colour. The coin was a commemorative piece featuring the poppy flower, Canada's symbol of tribute to its fallen soldiers.

They were so concerned with these strange coins that they filed a highly classified report detailing their concerns. Somehow, this report made it through screening and a warning concerning the open circulation of these espionage coins was actually issued by the federal department in charge with aggressively pissing off the rest of the world!

Really, why would we take the time to plant a device that could freely be mistaken and used as common currency?!?!? We're not that sinister or evil a nation to do something dastardly like that. We're Canadians for crying out loud. People love us.

And besides, what harm could a little beaver do to compromise a man? ; )

Glad I Don't Go To Middle School Anymore.

Today I read a story of a middle school principal who had been charged for flinging a piece of fecal matter at one of her students. I've heard of monkeys flinging poo, cause I guess that's just what they do. For a human being to do that is another thing. Drunken university mis-adventures aside, this isn't typical behaviour for us. For an adult to do it is bad enough, but for the head of an educational institution to do it and victimise a child is a whole other pile of...

Yeah so... It should be noted that this principal is the sister of a prominent local politician. So the citizens of spin city have been hard at work and get this... the principal has been portrayed in the local media as the VICTIM of all of this fall out. "She's gone through enough already" one of the quotes said. She has suffered enough and it has all been tragic, according to her lawyer. I wonder if her brother wasn't the deputy mayor how this all would have been played out. They say she snapped... How does a principal of a junior school get that worked up that she snaps in the first place?

Between teachers sleeping with their students and principals now flinging turds, I'm wondering if my ideal situation of finding a nice education professional to date is in need of an update.

Dear Ann Coulter...

I haven't really read much of what Ann Coulter has written, but I have heard enough out of her mouth to know that she is a very odd and dare I say, troubled woman. I feel bad that she is actually regarded by some out there as a champion of some sort of cause. In the world of common sense where a lot of my friends and family live, we can't seem to understand that cause so I will not waste any grey matter attempting to do so. Henry Rollins, if it can be believed, is far more eloquent in his face slapping and gives Ann a pretty good one here in the video above. Enjoy.

Oh and if someone wants to bet her any amount of money that Canada did not send any troops to Vietnam, she'll take it because she thinks we did. Wow.

I Think It's The One On The Right ...

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the others,
Then you're absolutely...right!

Ummm...

I really don't know what to say about this...

The possibilites are endless... So I propose to all of you out there to come up with your best caption. The winner will receive something in time.

Here's the list...

1. "c'mon how could she get upset at the blind guy"

2. "Honey, how can you see with all that gal-derned hair in your fa... oh."Jason

3. "Quaid. Start the reactor Quaid. Free Mars..." Tom