Motors run everything. When you find a human with a big motor who may not be keeping up anymore, you don't just shut it off. No, you have it drive something else. Today is the last day of Jose Bautista's Toronto Blue Jays contract. Instead of cutting him loose to free agency or retirement, why not bring him back as a player-coach? Why not continue to use that big motor?
October 2, 2017
This guy I know comes over to our house with a backhoe on a trailer. He tells me that he had a dream last night where he was on our property and dug up a fortune in our field. He said he's come over to do some digging to see if the dream was real. What? You want to dig up our property looking for treasure you dreamed about? He said, That's pretty much it. I said, And how much of a cut do you think you deserve? And he said, 75%. It was my dream and my machine and I know precisely where to dig. Oh really. I got him down to 55-45 in our favor. Now, am I really going to let him dig up our property on this premise?
October 4, 2017
Overheard in a hotel lobby.
-- But two plus two equals four. That's how it's always been.
-- I'm not arguing with you, Denny, I'm just saying that sometimes, two plus two can equal more than four, depending on the circumstances.
-- The circumstances?
-- Yes, like if someone asks a stupid question. That is the perfect time for two plus two to equal five.
-- I see.
-- Do you?
-- No.
-- When accepted knowledge is suddenly challenged from left field, people don't know how to take it. It stops them in their tracks. Gives me the edge. That's when I take advantage.
-- Take advantage?
-- Oh, you betcha, Denny. That's the perfect time.
-- I see.
-- Do you?
-- No.
October 5, 2017
Domain registrars telling me to renew 5 months early. Halloween candy on sale in September. Telemarketers, the clueless rich, the right wing media - what's wrong with these people? The online site that continues to spam you daily with no way to unsubscribe. The whiners whining, the fools one confronts daily, the stupid and stupider out and about and in my way - what's wrong with these people?
October 6, 2017
Late yesterday afternoon I planted 11 elderberry bushes. Actually, the planting part was a breeze, it was digging the damn holes that damn near did me in. It's been a really dry summer and the ground was hard as concrete and full of rock. I had a shovel and a pick ax and I'm telling you, digging 11 holes in rock hard rocky dirt big enough and deep enough for those plants was about all I could manage. I have planted over 7,000 trees on our property and none of them were as hard as yesterday's elderberries. To the surprise of no one, I went back to the house, washed up, opened a beer and fell asleep at 9:00.
October 8, 2017
When you hate other people, cultures, countries, religions, skin colours and beliefs, remember, that's just you. That's your world view, concocted from the inside of your very own head. So all that hate is self-created, self-serving and self-immolating. Is hate so ingrained in your sense of self that without it, you'd be nothing? Because, you know, with it, you're less than nothing.
October 9, 2017
In this entire world, there is only one person you need faith in, one person you have to please, one opinion you need to always consider - you and yours. That's it. It's that simple and that hard. Talk to yourself, take advantage of your ability to make your life anything you want it to be. Wake up, people.
October 10, 2017
A community theatre dialogue coach was instructing an amateur actor in how to enunciate words.
-- No, no, no! Use your tongue!
-- I'm trying!
-- Well try harder.
-- Ok, how should I properly say it?
-- The rainnnn in Spainnnn falls mainly on the plainnnn.
-- The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
-- No! No! No! Now listen. The rrrrrrain in Spain falls mainly on the pppppplain.
-- That's not how you said it last time.
-- Just do it.
-- The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
-- What are you doing?! Trill your "r"s, trill your "p"s. Trilling is the difference between a passable actor and a great actor.
-- The r-r-r-r-r-ain in Sp-p-p-p-p-ain falls mainly on the p-p-p-p-plain.
-- Oh my god! You're stuttering, not trilling! Are you doing this on purpose to drive me crazy?! Did you hear yourself? Rrrrrrrrrrrain. Ppppppppplain. Trill, boy!
-- Maybe I'll never be a good actor.
-- Yes, you may be right.
-- But then again, this is lousy community theatre and I don't think a single person in the audience will know that trilling means you're great.
-- Sadly, you're right. Ok, one last time.
-- The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
-- I guess that'll have to do.
-- Won't it though.
October 11, 2017
What to look for in a bona fide loser:
Lying nonstop as if the world wasn't fact checking your bullshit. Check
Appointing miserable people in positions of power. Check.
Continuing ridiculous, never ending wars and baiting other unstable foreign nationals into a new nuclear one. Check.
Removing environmental, humanistic and common sense laws just because you hated that the person before you enacted them. Double check.
Possessing the complete inability to meter your thoughts before you speak and as a result, continually spew absolute garbage from your mouth and mind. Check.
Act like a common fool in front of an apoplectic nation. Check.
Become a worldwide embarrassment. Check.
Think that money in any way makes the man. Check.
Act like a 5th grader, bully like a 5th grader, tantrum like a baby whining for a teat. Check, check, and check.
Continually display an ego so damaged and needy that it's the very definition of pathetic. Check.
And there you have it. What to look for in a 100%, first class, bona fide loser. Anyone come to mind?
October 12, 2017
I'm headed out of the country this afternoon. I won't be back until Monday. That means all of you are on your own for the weekend. Should I worry? Oh dear. Later, my pretties.
October 16, 2017
I'm back. The trip was good in many ways and so so in others. I won't go into any details. I won't. Stop asking. Please, let it rest. Ok, if you insist. At one point during the weekend, as I talked to a cab driver, I learned that he had a Ph.D. in physics but that driving a cab paid him more than a faculty position so he left the university. He says he now watches The Big Bang Theory just to get a "little feel" for physics, but driving a cab is his life and he's just fine with it. "However," he let on, "my parents are mortified. My mother tells people I died so that she doesn't have to explain to them why her brilliant son with a Ph.D. is driving a taxi. Cute, huh?" Very.
October 17, 2017
More than a month ago someone told me something would happen for me within a month. But it didn't. So I got back in touch and this time she said that it would happen with the next 10 days. It still didn't. I saw no point in trying to get her to give another time frame as she had been mistaken twice and frankly, along with the misses went her credibility. But you know what? Two days later, it kinda happened. The thing she predicted sort of took place, but not the actual thing she said would happen, only a variation of it, but it really did go down. Great, so am I supposed to believe her now or what?
October 18, 2017
I was Skyping with a director I know who lives in Colorado. We hadn't seen each other in 18 months so when his camera came on, I was taken by surprise. You're so fat! I tactlessly yelped. He laughed and said it was the legal pot. He said he has the munchies all the time. He's gained a ton of weight. He's going to have to move because Colorado is making him fat. And there it was, the perfect cudgel for the we-hate-pot loonies. Instead of using the tired, disproven, marijuana-is-a-gateway-drug bullshit, little elf ball Jeffy Jeff Sessions and his anti-pot idiots should grasp onto the real issue at stake - Does America want to be even fatter?
October 19, 2017
Well, it's official. I am exactly 6 years ahead of the curve. In 2011 I created V-mail, a personal video e-mail app that was part of our larger personal video social network, but was also a standalone Android app. Now Google, in 2017, has come out with Duo, which is just V-mail. So there it is, puff puff, I am officially 6 years ahead of the curve.
October 20, 2017
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The aliens landed last night and gave me a 4,000 page manual. This is the diagram on page 17. It's as far as I've gotten.
Last year I gave out subscriptions to 6 different magazines as presents. Even though I made it explicit that each was for one year only with NO automatic renewal, every single magazine auto renewed, charging my credit card with the full bore subscription amount. I called each of the magazines and re-cancelled the subscriptions. I got all the charges removed from my credit card. But 5 of the 6 magazines never cancelled, auto renewed them again and charged my credit card again! So, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire, Oprah and The New Yorker - NEVER AGAIN. They may have been nice gifts but the time and effort I have had to put into getting my money back, as well as them being stone deaf in refusing to cancel my subscription has forced me into writing this post and calling them out for what they are - pricks.
October 23, 2017
Overheard two ladies at the post office.
-- I hate waiting in line.
-- We could come back later.
-- No, we're here already. Might as well wait. So, you hear any good gossip lately?
-- No, not really. You know about Allison and James, right?
-- Yeah. I don't see that working out but I guess time will tell.
-- Did you know he's loaded?
-- He works at a mill, how rich can he be?
-- His father was a hoarder and when he died, James found a huge stash of money in the walls of his house.
-- Then why is he still working at the mill?
-- Because Allison doesn't know about the money. He's testing her to see if she loves him for who he is rather than for the money he now has.
-- That sounds like a dumbass Adam Sandler movie. So you mean everybody knows about the money but Allison?
-- Let's face it, she was never the sharpest knife in the drawer.
-- So if she passes the test she gets James and all his money?
-- Yeah, shit - maybe she isn't so dumb after all?
October 24, 2017
Two drunk bros are passed out on the curb at 7-11. Everybody walks around them to get into the store. Somebody must say something because the manager comes out and kicks at their feet. He tells them to leave. They don't move. The store manager goes over to the outside hose and turns it on them. They jump up. One of the bros says that he wants to go in and buy a pack of cigarettes. The store manager becomes the Soup Nazi and screams, "No smokes for you!" and sprays him with even more water. The bros wander away. The manager turns off the hose and mutters how he hates this country before going back inside. That's right, my friends, other people's lives.
October 26, 2017
I'm waiting in line at a grocery checkout. The woman in front of me has her entire cart filled with bags of candy. I say to her, Ready for Halloween, eh. She looks at me, Halloween? I point toward her shopping cart. That's all for my husband, she assures me. I imagine a diabetic 400 pound porker with rotten teeth lounging on his chesterfield with his bags of candy around him and wrappers all over the floor. Not a pretty sight, I say out loud. As if she knew what I was talking about, she nods her head in agreement.
October 27, 2017
Think of all the stuff going on that you never even notice. Your heart - how is that working without you consciously doing anything? How come you have to take a breath every second of your life? Your nerve impulses, your brain waves, your thoughts themselves - how is any of that constantly, simultaneously happening without you "apparently" doing anything to facilitate them? The answer? Wake up. You are not the be all and end all. Capish?
October 28, 2017
Overheard two men at the government liquor store.
-- Seems I'm in here all the time.
-- That's 'cause you are.
-- You sayin' I'm a alcoholic?
-- How much you spend a week on booze?
-- I dunno. Couple hundred, maybe three.
-- Jesus.
-- Why, how much you spend?
-- What's a case of beer?
-- Yeah, well, I just got better taste in alcohol than you do.
-- Manny, you're in the liquor store pushing a shopping cart. If you personally drink all this in a week, you're definitely an alcoholic.
-- So what's it to you?
-- I'm just sayin'.
-- Look, Roger, I hate my job. I hate my life. My wife is a church going, god fearing, tee totalling, boring ass prude who's always on my case, and I'm barely able to tolerate the rest of this crap filled world on a day to day basis. Booze helps me forget all that. So whether I'm an alcoholic or not has precious little to do with anything.
-- It's just another label.
-- That's right. It's just another label.
October 30, 2017
It is currently 23 F. There is a robin bathing in the bird bath. It's almost November, well below freezing and this fellow should have long since left for warmer climes. Will it stick around all winter? Can a robin survive a Canadian winter? What would it eat? How would it not freeze? It's like a real life Survivor except instead of a million dollar prize, winning for this guy would be not dying.
October 31, 2017
Yeah yeah, it's Halloween. Boo. Frankly, I don't care for the dressing up part or giving out candy to the kids who never come to our door because we live on an acreage and our long driveway is super dark at night and who wants to risk their lives into the unknown for a miniature KitKat. But I do like the fact that this holiday comes at the end of October and there are pumpkins. Anyway, boo to you and yours.
