I was in my wife's office and saw her old Windows 95 tower stashed beneath her desk and it triggered a case of PTSD. I had immediate flashbacks to countless hours working on IRQ interrupts and overflowing buffer caches. Remembering how every time I installed a piece of software, it would conflict with something else and the resolution of that would take a ridiculous numbers of hours to fix. Adapters often wouldn't work, drivers were frequently corrupted and legacy software was handled by making cludgy workarounds that made that 95 box a patchwork of bodges. I asked my wife why she kept it. She said she had fond memories of it. Say what?
August 3, 2022
I was fixing our fencing up by the road when a documentary film crew drove by and then stopped. A fellow got out, explained that they were a documentary film crew, and asked if I knew where such and such was. I told him that was one of the beaches down at the lake and I explained how to get there from here. As we were talking he kept looking over my shoulder at our property.
-- Is this your place?
-- It is.
-- How much land is here?
-- 37.5 acres.
-- Wow. You know, we're always looking for interesting locations. Can you see the lake from your field?
-- Yes.
-- Um, might we be able to shoot some B roll scenery in there?
-- What is your film about?
-- We are documenting small town Canada and the diversity of scenery and people in this amazing country. We are going to stitch together a pastiche of the geography and population north of the 49th parallel as a way to show who we are and how diverse this country really is. We hope we are making a love letter to Canada.
-- Ok, you can film in the field as long as you don't show our house, office, barn, truck or any identifying personal items.
-- No, we would just want footage of the mountains and lake from this vantage.
-- All right then, follow me.
They park their truck on the road and retrieve their equipment. I show them to a gate and they come onto our property.
-- Dude! This is amazing! From the road you have no idea what's in here! Look at these views! Randy, set the tripod up over here.
For the next hour we traipse around our property while they film the scenery. They are able to see and record several deer, a black bear, two rabbits and a floatplane landing on the lake. They seem quite happy with the footage. I walk them back to their vehicle and am thanked for the opportunity. I am again asked directions to the beach before they drove off. And that was that. As if nothing had happened, I went back to fixing the fence.
August 4, 2022
FIRST LINES WE'D LIKE TO READ
The aliens landed, said hello, and then proceeded to eliminate all the fools, hypocrites, charlatans, poseurs, grifters and dumbass politicians - your basic reprobates - damned refreshing!
August 5, 2022
Overheard three women on the sidewalk.
-- Are you going to Sherry's party?
-- I wasn't invited.
-- Really? What about you Alice, you going?
-- I wasn't invited either.
-- Why wouldn't she invite you guys? I don't get it.
-- Me neither.
-- You'd have to ask Sherry.
-- I think I will.
She pulls out her phone, dials, speaks and listens, gets a weird look on her face and hangs up.
-- Well, what did she say?
-- You guys aren't invited.
-- We already knew that! Why?
-- She said it's a private party. Just me and her.
-- What? Two people? That's not a party.
-- I think she was coming on to me. It sounded like she was planning on seducing me or something.
-- Are you serious?
-- Sherry?!
-- That nuts. She isn't even gay.
-- I'd do her.
-- She didn't invite you, Alice. What are you going to do, Marla?
-- I don't know. I'm...confused.
-- I would definitely do her.
-- So helpful, Alice.
-- I'm just sayin'.
August 6, 2022
He was leaving on a business trip but gave his wife $500 to go purchase a couch for their guest room. Next door to the couch store was a tattoo parlor. On a whim she went in, got completely swept up and asked the tattoo artist if she could get a large dragon on her back for 500 bucks. When her husband returned a week later and saw the dragon, he freaked out in the most male way possible: "Damn it, Darla, how are we supposed to do it doggy style now if I have to stare at that?!"
August 7, 2022
You have any idea how frustrating it is when the TV remote completely craps out? I'm not talking about replacing the batteries, I'm talking about a brick that no longer works. The remote is useless which means the TV is useless. With no television, that means I have to go to work instead of avoiding it all together. The television gods have abandoned me. On a Sunday no less! Oh, cruel world.
August 8, 2022
How do you get ahead in life? Well it isn't getting a better job or making more money. Getting ahead in life is not measured in dollars and cents or hours worked, it is only exhibited though personal development. It's understanding why you're doing what you're doing. It's figuring out how life works best for you. It's knowing that who you were in the past is not who you have to be in the future, that life is malleable, and that you can make it anything you want. You improving you is how to get ahead in life. Do that and the jobs and money will follow, not the other way around.
August 9, 2022
I ran into two Dutch guys who couldn't believe that marijuana is legal across Canada. One guy said it puts Amsterdam to shame; the other agreed and then added: Why is it so expensive? Taxes, silly. Store bought dope is expensive because the government is involved, and that's what they do - over regulate, over estimate and over charge. Because there was a strong underground pot culture already in existence before legalization, the stringent government regulations will eventually ease if for no other reason than to get a portion of the underground pot economy above ground. Why? Taxes, silly.
-- Nooooo. Oh my god, what are we going to do now?
-- We'll have to estimate 10 minutes.
-- Are you crazy?! Do you know how much our car costs? We can't take any chances. We'll have to do this in shifts.
-- There won't be enough time!
-- We'll have to make time. You know how serious this town is about parking.
August 12, 2022
He was yet another useless politician with no agenda except to line his own pockets. To do so, he had to fit in with his party's messed up ethos. So even though he was gay, he was vehemently anti-gay. Voted anti-gay on everything. Even though he had a trans boyfriend, he was vehemently anti-trans. Voted anti-trans on everything. He lied to the media, his constituents, his fellow politicians and himself. He would sell his soul if he had one. He knew the system was broken and that he was part of the reason why it was broken. He just didn't care.
August 13, 2022
It was midnight and he was in a strange city and needed cash. He slowly drove by an ATM scouting for loiters or vagrants who might want to rob him after he withdraws money, but there was no one around. He parked, hurriedly walked toward the ATM, put his card in, entered his pin and then heard a voice say, "I'll take it from here." He had feared this exact scenario and yet hadn't done anything to prepare for it. He castigated himself, "You're an idiot!" Naturally, the robber thought he was being called names and took a pound of flesh along with the money, proving that any idiot can make a bad situation worse.
August 15, 2022
Overheard the same three women on the sidewalk.
-- So, how was it at Sherry's?
-- Yeah, did she come on to you?
-- Yeah, did you guys make out?
-- Yeah, even though we know she's not gay and neither are you?
-- Yeah, now that you're lovers, you two talking marriage?
-- Yeah.
-- Are you guys done? You finished with your little fun?
-- Yeah, yeah, so what happened?
-- Well, I got there and she handed me a drink and we chatted about this and that and then I asked her why she invited me over.
-- What'd she say?
-- She didn't say anything. She just turned and walked into the bedroom.
-- Are you kidding me? What did you do?
-- I thought about it for a second and then I followed her.
-- You didn't?!
-- You did Sherry?
-- I did.
-- I'll never look at you the same!
-- Alice is jealous.
-- Actually, I kinda am. Sherry is hot.
-- So what, are you two girlfriends now?
-- I don't know. It just happened.
-- Wow, just wow.
-- And you think you know someone.
-- Two someones.
August 17, 2022
A courier driver dropped off a package and as we chatted (very unusual; courier drivers are always in a hurry) he mentioned that I was his last stop of the day and that he only lived a few blocks away (that explains it!). Then he said that if I get any packages in winter, he will have to leave them at the top of the drive or his truck would get stuck (our driveway is 2 football fields long and winding. In summer it's fine. In winter, well, that can be another story.) I told him if that happens to just hang onto the package, call me, and I would come pick it up at his house. We both thought that was funny. I would be picking up a package at the courier's house instead of the other way around. Reverse mambo number 9!
August 18, 2022
It's nice and cool at night so we are sleeping with the windows open. At 4:30 in the morning I am awakened by a grunt. What was that? Was I snoring and woke myself up? I hear it again. It's coming from outside. I get up and look out the window. Two bears are sleeping on the lawn below. One of them is grunting in their sleep. Ah, the rural life.
August 19, 2022
Saw the weirdest interview on TV. This high school kid managed a perfect score on the SATs and was being interviewed by a local news station. When asked what college he was going to, he said he wasn't going to college. He said he couldn't see coming out in 4 years with massive student debt. Instead, he was going to take up a life of white collar crime because the SATs showed that he was smart enough to do it and get away with it, but more importantly, he was smart enough to know when to walk away. Then, he said, he was going to retire to someplace warm and never worry about work or money again. It's the American Dream, he said without irony, as if crime was now the American Way.
August 21, 2022
the cat is sleping across keybord. certan letters not availabe. how am i evn writing this. ooh shes movng. dmn evn wrse now. impossble. cat wins.
August 23, 2022
A jet ski piloted by an underage 12 year old boy lost control and plowed straight into the side of an anchored 35 foot cabin cruiser. It shattered the front of the jet ski, catapulted the kid onto the cabin cruiser's deck and punched a hole in the side of the boat that caused it to sink within 30 minutes. It gave the kid enough time to regain his senses, discover that there was no one aboard, and to leave the scene. With behaviour like this, how long until the world comes to hate Generation Alpha?
August 24, 2022
Pop quiz!
True or false: Conservative politicians are cretinous lying tools and worse.
Ok, the votes are in.
True - 6,439
False - 2
The results were then filtered through an algorithm designed to root out conservative politicians who are already tools and may have voted, and wouldn't you know it, the 2 false answers were red flagged. Therefore, with this unanimous referendum backed by the most rigorous and powerful analytics available, one can now safely say that conservative politicians are indeed cretinous lying tools and worse. Stats don't lie, unlike conservative politicians.
August 25, 2022
Listen, you don't have to be a hero. You don't. Heroism is not for everybody. So don't feel inadequate when that situation arises where you can be an actual hero but instead you pass up the chance so that you might continue whatever it is you're doing that is so much more important (and safer) than saving the day. Just don't tell social media you opted out. They won't be so understanding.
August 27, 2022
Today is the first day it's felt like Fall. It got down to 9 degrees overnight (48F). As the rest of the world suffers heat, floods, drought, we here in the interior of British Columbia have experienced a strikingly good Summer. So why is it we're having the good stuff while others aren't? You can forget meteorology, they only forecast, but the weather, the actual stuff you experience locally, right out your front door, is created by the people literally experiencing it. People make the weather. We do it as a collective and it reflects our thoughts and attitudes, the psyche of those who live here and what we'd like that environment to be. It takes into account the obvious - geography, the time of the year, the season, but the literal local weather you experience is fluid, malleable, and created by the atmosphere of the actual humans experiencing it. Is too.
August 28, 2022
She was a damn cute baby. As a toddler she was adorable. Pre-teens were a wonderland of attention because of her delightful looks. Talent agents tried to sign her as a teenager. Magazines wanted her as a young adult. As she grew older there was never a time when her looks didn't generate interest. In adulthood, her boyfriends grew richer and more extravagant. In mid life she was still going strong and still smiled every time someone told her she looked great. Actually, things were peachy until she started to naturally age; when weight was a battle; when years of bad habits had come home to roost; when a life of seeing how far her looks could take her had finally stop taking her anywhere. When her beauty faded, only then could she look back and see past her attractiveness. And only then could she possibly make more out of her life than what she looked like.
August 29, 2022
I got asked to give a seminar at a college in the States. The pay is bupkiss plus airfare. It's a small school in a small town. No hotels within 25 miles. I would be billeting at a professor's home. I looked him up. Frankly, I didn't like what I learned. He leans pretty far right. His wife looks very Karen to me. Every room of their house had a wooden Jesus being flayed on the cross tacked onto every wall. None of it was appealing. I think I'm going to sit this one out. I suppose I could have asked to billet with someone else, but I didn't.
August 30, 2022
I was at a locksmiths getting some keys programmed. A large man hurriedly walked in and asked the clerk if they could open a safe with a time lock on it. He explained that the time lock was set for a week but he needed something that was in the safe right now, today, and that by next week his golden opportunity would be gone. Can you break the time lock? The clerk said no. He added that he could probably open it by drilling but that would ruin the safe. The guy visibly slumped, his knees faintly buckled and he gripped the counter to keep from falling. His hope was gone and apparently so was his golden opportunity. What was left was about half the man that walked in.
August 31, 2022
Now that the kids were grown and out of the house, a guy took his very religious, very conservative, tee totalling wife to an all inclusive clothing optional resort in the hopes of loosening her up and starting a new fun filled chapter in their lives. Upon arrival, when she found out where they were, what kind of place it was and digested the fact that her very own husband had dragged her to this den of iniquity, she was literally back in the taxi heading to the airport. Because the vacation was already paid for, he stayed. Whether this was the end of something or the beginning, neither of them could say.
