I tweaked my back. Humans are always having back problems. So why do we walk upright? Why are we the only ones who do so? Obviously, spines work best in the horizontal position because that's how it is for every other animal on this planet and you sure don't see them needingchiropractors, so whose bright idea was it to ever stand up? Wait a minute... are we blindly adhering to some Neanderthal's crazy stunt 100,000 years ago? Look Gar! I stand! And now we have back problems? Sheesh...what if we go back down to all 4s? Come on, who's with me!?
September 2, 2016
For some, the best smell is that of a new puppy, or a favorite perfume, for others it's barbecue brisket, that new car smell, baby powder, or even burning rubber. For moi, the best smell I've ever smelled was when I worked the night shift at a piano and organ warehouse that was right across the street from a commercial bakery. All through the night and early morning the sublime smell of fresh baked bread and glazed donuts was so fabulous and overpowering that nightly I was compelled to walk across the street and buy straight off the line a dozen glazed donuts, still warm. Had I not been moving around 1200 pound pianos, I would have looked like Homer Simpson by the end of that job. Mmmm donuts.
September 3, 2016
And we freak out if a kid on a bicycle isn't wearing a helmet.
Bloody hell, he's even got a switch in one hand to make the horse go faster.
Can you imagine what folks back then would think of our nanny state today?
Did they even have the word 'wuss' back then?
September 5, 2016
At a bus stop on a city street a mother is spanking her child's bottom. The kid is crying, the mother is yelling at it not to do whatever it is it just did; it's a scene. The bus pulls up, the mother starts to manhandle the screaming kid on board when the driver says, "Uh uh lady, I ain't driving in city traffic with no screaming baby pitchin' a fit. Next bus is in 7 minutes." He shuts the doors and drives off. The mother is livid, abandons the crying child on the curb and is now running after the receding bus yelling for the driver's name and number... Other people's lives.
September 6, 2016
Overheard at a cafe.
-- I've been catfishing my daughter.
-- What? What's catfishing?
-- You know, when you pretend to be somebody else online to lure someone into a relationship.
-- With your own daughter? That's gross. Good god man, your own daughter?!
-- I'm not trying to date her, I'm teaching her a lesson about how to protect herself in the online world. She is too trusting. She needs to learn that people are not who they say they are on the Internet.
-- So how's it going?
-- Poorly. I think she's in love with me.
-- Jesus Christ!
-- I'm gonna break it off soon. I'll have to crush her spirit, but in the end she'll learn a valuable lesson.
-- You're just a bad parent all the way around.
September 7, 2016
I've worn the same ring for I don't know how long. Literally, I don't remember a time I didn't have it. I don't even know how I got it. That's something mystical. And get this, I cannot wear it on any finger other than the one I wear it on. If I try and put it on any of the other 9 digits, I get physically nervous and very uncomfortable, and in fact, will not allow myself to push the ring past the knuckle of the wrong finger. I'm pretty sure it's where my superpowers come from.
September 8, 2016
Overheard two women at the grocery.
-- $6.98 for a can of spaghetti!
-- That's because spaghetti isn't supposed to come in a can. They're charging you for being lazy and not making it yourself.
-- I'm not paying 7 bucks for that.
-- Rejecting that overpriced can of spaghetti shows you're a wise and wily consumer.
-- You know that lead in the cans is what killed all those guys on the Franklin expedition.
-- I know.
-- Franklin died because of canned spaghetti.
-- And yet they're still selling the stuff today. Go figure.
September 9, 2016
An Australian director was in town scouting locations. I was mowing up by the road when he stopped his car to ask some directions. I knew where he was trying to go, but it didn't strike me as one of the better places in the Shuswap to shoot. I told him I was a screenwriter and asked if he would explain the scenes to be shot at this place. When he finished describing what he wanted, I immediately knew a much better spot that would fit the bill. I told him where it was and how to get there. He drove off and I went back to mowing knowing that my suggestion would make his movie just that little bit better.
You're tired. You've been in the library studying all day. Maybe just a quick nap.
September 13, 2016
Been offline for a couple of days. Some maintenance crew cut the cable to our place and it has taken multiple days to get it back. In the meantime, no phone, no TV and no Internet. Who's modern now?
September 14, 2016
Why would you think anybody except you is in charge of your life? It's god's will, god told me to do it, god favoured me and smote my enemy - nonsense. That's just you saying that. Take responsibility for your thoughts and actions and you will blossom; keep blaming your fortunes on some god or devil and you will never understand that you are that god or devil.
September 15, 2016
Overheard at a repair shop.
-- You people must think I'm stupid! I bring my car in for one fix and you think you can soak me for extraneous repairs I never authorized. Well I'm not paying!
-- Fine. Julio, take his car back into the garage and unrepair the stuff we just fixed.
-- You're not taking my car anywhere!
-- Ok. Julio, go out to the parking lot and smash all the stuff we just fixed on this asshole's car.
-- I'm calling the cops on you crooks!
-- Fine. Julio, get out there and do some damage before the cops haul this ungrateful consumer away for non payment, then impound his broken up, sorry ass car which will cost him way more to get out of impound and then repair the damage than if he just paid me what he owes me and walks out of here with his car already fixed. But you know, some people are just idiots.
-- You guys are scumbags!
-- Get going Julio, and don't be delicate about it.
-- All right, all right, I'll pay you but I'm gonna sue your company for negligence!
-- Fine. Credit card or debit?
September 16, 2016
He was 17. He played football. Got a concussion. Sat out one game. Next game he got rocked again. Sat out two games. Final game of the season got concussed for the third time in 6 weeks. 3 months later his speech was different. He couldn't concentrate. His head throbbed. Late Summer he signed a letter of intent to play football at a top American college. His family beamed and started dreaming of the NFL. His head throbbed.
September 18, 2016
Your new girlfriend is pretty, but your new girlfriend is sneaky. You know that when you're sleeping, she gets up to check your Internet history and paw through your computer because she's not savvy enough to erase her own Internet history after looking at yours. She also keeps asking for your phone's password "for emergency purposes". You have found drawers rifled through and pictures plundered. Your new girlfriend is pretty, but she's also insecure, jealous, sneaky and not to be trusted. So, is being pretty enough?
September 19, 2016
Yesterday was a disappointing day. When I woke up this morning, the disappointment had passed. Thank you sleep.
September 20, 2016
With the help of a friend who is a professional baker, I shall be attempting (for the first time ever) to make a lovely, complicated, chocolate triple layer cake for my wife's upcoming birthday. Be it a bold move or foolhardy gambit, this sort of thing is obviously an all or nothing proposition - it will turn out well or it will turn out blech; we will be eating chocolate cake for her birthday or we will be staring at it in the trash can.
September 21, 2016
I was in the big city and saw a fellow wearing a blue Future Farmers of America jacket. I couldn't decide if he had it on because he was a hipster and thought it was cool, or he found it at a vintage clothing store and thought it was cool, or whether he was actually an FFA member off the farm and in the big city, which would make wearing the jacket kinda uncool.
September 23, 2016
The big nasty reality of this reality? You have to eat others to live here. Every item in the grocery store was once a thriving plant or a breathing, living animal. That is nasty.
September 25, 2016
As you can tell from its absence, my triple layer chocolate birthday cake didn't turn out so well. On to Plan B.
Walking down the road I get passed by two kids riding a large displacement motorcycle. Neither has on a helmet or is over the age of twelve. Either their legs were too short to shift or they had no idea how to get it out of first because that engine was over revving something awful. As they disappeared down the street I wondered how long it would take before this accident waiting to happen happened.
September 27, 2016
There is no such thing as time. It is an artificial construct created to show you when The Simpsons are on.
September 28, 2016
The Royals Will and Kate were in Kelowna yesterday. So was I. Did we get together? Did we have drinks on the veranda and laugh about silly brother Harry? Did we go 10 pin bowling, jet skiing on the lake or take a balloon ride over the Okanagan? No, no we did not. Am I bitter about the snub? Perhaps.
