Hey, TiVo! Suggest this!

THIS BLOG HAS JUST BEEN POCUSED!*

Muhuhuhuhahahaha....

Nachos

My bad. I should have given a little more detail. This is a Futurama reference. Bender discovers how different he would be if he were human in the Season 4 episode Anthology of Interest II

So I'm the Bad Guy

See, here's the thing...

Many people blog for many different reasons. I do it to vent, let off steam, say things online that need to be said without starting arguments with people I know - KNOW! will never ever change their positions.

When people I knew in the real world learned about this site I had mixed feelings: hey I want this stuff to be read - why else would I put it on the net? However, a lot of the stuff I write is personal and I don't want to have to explain my site content every time I have a drink with somebody I know, or have someone start griping if I didn't report their words exactly the way they thought that they had said them. Everyone will always interpret an event based on their point of view and usually remember things to their advantage - that's human nature.

And that's why I don't sign my last name to every post, the way many bloggers do. A little bit of privacy (and my last name is quite distinctive) can go a long way in helping me attempt to write. And it also helps me to try and seperate me online from me offline, if there is any true seperation.

So a month ago I vented, as I felt I had been sucker-punched in public about my personal finances, a topic I consider more private than sex, politics and religion put together.

I knew the person mentioned would see it.

I knew the person mentioned would probably not like it.

But hey, at least it's better than causing a scene at his house in front of his other friends, and honestly, this space is mine and mine alone to vent. I pay the bills, this isn't public property.

I don't have to be fair.

I don't have to be balanced.

I don't have to give equal time to opposing viewpoints (though it's fun to do so.)

My friend decided that he objected to my post. And has decided that I'm not worth talking to. In a response to one of my emails wanting to go for a drink, he asked if my motivation was to "get more fodder for your blog" and talked about how "busy" he was. I haven't heard from him since. So much for 12 years of friendship. And in his mind he thinks I'm the bad guy for calling him on his nosy bullshit.

So be it.

Message received and right back at ya, pal.

You crossed the line first. I'll not censor myself just because you're pissed off that you come off in a non-flattering light. Maybe if you'd keep your nose out of other people's business, it wouldn't get chopped off.

As for you being fodder for this blog, sorry pal, but you're just not that interesting after this post.

I want...

...one of these.



I haven't been sailing much at all these last few years. That will have to be fixed for 2005.

Employment

I start my new job tomorrow. My commute is about the same as it was in Toronto, but the view is a hell of a lot better.

Falling for Fall

I'd forgotten how hot the sun could be in the Okanagan Valley in late September. It makes it hard to decide whether to wear a jacket or not.

It'd be nice to remember the simple times when all you cared about was getting as much time on the playground as possible before being called back home.

I'll try to remember that as I get set to watch the U.S. Presidential debates tonight.

Here's a shot of my oldest Princess Boo Boo ignoring her mother and me at City Park, pretending that she's there all alone and taking a break from cruising the 2 and 3 year olds hanging out on the slides.

Fatherhood

I guess fat people and new fathers are the last safe prejudices.

Why do I say this? Well, since becoming a father almost three years ago I have been inundated with stupid comments, mostly from women, that in one way or another disparage my abilities, suitability, or desire to take care of my children.

Because I'm a man.

The stereotype is that I can't be trusted to not bash my baby's head against a wall accidentally or change a diaper without smearing me, the baby and several rooms of my house with excrement.

How many times in an office environment do you see young mothers trucking their one or two month old newborns around to show off to their co-workers, to universal acclaim and much cooing from cubicle-dwellers pleased to have another interruption taking them away from their meaningless tasks? But when I do it the clucking hens all tsk tsk about how my wife shouldn't let me out with the baby because men don't know what they're doing. The implication being that my wife is somehow irresponsible for leaving her child with dunder-head daddy.

They all say that they're "joking", of course, and then pat my arm with an "I'm sure that you know what you're doing" condescending smirk, using the same tone that people used a hundred years ago when talking about the one-or-two "intelligent negroes" that they were sure existed somewhere on the planet...

It doesn't get any better as your child grows either.

Yesterday I took my princesses to the beach where almost three-year old Boo discovered the magic of the giant slide and 15-month old Poupouni happily watched as I carried her around on my shoulders. I struck up a conversation with another father who had his slightly older kids playing on the same slide. We talked for awhile about kids and sports and powerboats, meanwhile making sure that our kids were in sight and not killing each other.

A woman shows up with her two daughters, eyeing us carefully. Within a couple seconds she pipes up snarkily: "Mom's day off, huh?" and then stalks over to where one of her daughters has decided to eat sand. The other father and I stare at each other knowingly: obviously this is a shared experience.

Yes there are some fathers who are deadbeats, who are hopeless around children, who don't know what part of the kid the diaper goes on...but honestly can the ability of a father to take care of his child be so readily dismissed with ugly stereotypes?

You know what? I do want to take my kids to the park and watch them play. I can change diapers easily and feed them and comfort them when they fall down and hurt themselves. I will be there for the dance recitals and the ballet lessons and the soccer games because I WANT to be there.

Fatherhood isn't a chore. And the next person that utters a boorish, stereotypical crack is gonna get an earful from me about it.

Rubber Band Gatling Gun

Just the thing to defend the homestead:



That'll show that damn nosy dog whose yard it is!

I'll probably need two on my deck to sweep the front and rear yards.



Heh heh heh.



Hmmm. Got to take that into account during engagements. Remember backup water grenades...



I could cover the front walk, too. I wonder if there's any way to invite Jehovah's Witnesses to come at a specific time...

What ever happened to Discretion?

I'm kind of seething at the moment.

We Germans have a term called Schadenfreude:



Someone today had the gall and poor taste to question me about my financial situation - unprompted and completely blindsiding me in what was, up until that point, a friendly social occasion - because I've been on parental leave, moved my family to B.C. and managed to balance everything without having a job yet.

This is not a nosy relative. This is not someone I've signed contractual papers with or taken a loan out from (which would justify a bit of nosiness.) This was not the RCMfuckingP or Revenue and fucking Taxation Canada. This is a friend I thought until that moment had a bit of tact and judgement.

How does one deal with the question? "Mind your own fucking business" is too little, too late, because at this point the jolly happy little gang will start to whisper about how "stressed" you seem, and how "concerned" they are for your "welfare," all the while doing secret calculations about how much your wife's dead father left her, what you sold your house for, what you earned for how many years minus the appearance of new vehicles in your driveway, etc. etc. Once the question is out there from a close friend, the damage is done.

The only motivation to ask such a question would be to see if I had any "problems." Hence my suspicion of Schadenfreude.

Why the fuck do you need to know? How the hell does this make your life ANY better? Do you realize how uncouth this question is and how such a question asked in such a way DIMINISHES you in my eyes? For it has, my friend. It has.

From my wife's collection of choice Italian that explains my feelings about this and you.



Am I making my point here?

I am Barton Fink

I first saw the movie Barton Fink after watching and loving Raising Arizona also by the same writer/director combo Joel and Ethan Coen.

I hated it. It made me uncomfortable. I didn't get it, nor did any of the descriptions handed to me by various critics make my suffering any less as their explanations failed to find the mark with me.

What the hell was this movie about? And then a short time after that a friend told me the simple secret that unlocked the meaning of this movie for me...

It's about writer's block.

It was written by two guys who were suffering from writer's block on another project (my favourite gangster movie, Miller's Crossing) and provides as convincing a vision of Writer's Block Hell I think I'll ever see.

You see, I am Barton Fink. Metaphorically, of course.

It's getting harder and harder to come up with anything original to say. It's getting harder and harder to get mad at things I can't change, which was one of the reasons I wanted this site in the first place.

I find that I'm reading quite a few good blogs out there with entertaining, intelligent ORIGINAL content, and a truckload of other crap sites that are imitating the hell out of them, badly, I might add. I wonder what people think of this site when they pass through when something they were interested in turns up on the search result.

Does that mean I'm shutting it down, packing it in, taking my ball and going home? No...but I do have some thinking about what I want to do with this site, what I want it to be...

There are many blogs that do news better than mainstream media.

There are some bloggers who are more scathing than any foul-mouth stand-up comic that I've ever heard.

I have to figure out what I have to offer you, gentle reader to want to be here reading this site, and whether I have what it takes to provide it.



Then again, maybe something will make me mad tomorrow...

Harry Potter

I have this rebellious streak - no I didn't do drugs or challenge authority as a teenager - I learned the rules and used them to my advantage. No, my rebellious streak jumps out of me when somebody tells me I just HAVE TO see this movie, watch this TV show, like this book, eat this freaking weird food fusion etc. etc.

I hate it when somebody imposes their personal likes on me. I don't know why, but I have an instant motivation to HATE whatever they're pushing. My room-mate Dominic pushed Law and Order on me in the early 90's so I didn't start watching them until 2001 when A&E was running them every four hours. My next room-mate Greg started pushing Tolkien and all the other sword and sorcery books. I avoided them. (No I wasn't sure he wasn't a virgin...)

So, of course, as soon as the Harry Potter books started getting some press, oh, about a MILLION years ago, I vowed to avoid them like the plague, too.

I was wrong. They're bloody brilliant. I've just devoured the first three books in less than two weeks and now I'm hungry for the next ones...

The only thing I seem to have gotten the jump on was the Master and Commander series from Patrick O'Brian. I was in to him before anyone else I knew had even heard of him, although I doubt that series of books will ever be as popular as some of the other things I've shown my disdain for.