The 2008 Archives

Just look at all of the great stuff that I wrote in 2008

(or move onto the literary gold from 2009 or the gems from 2007)

 

Dear little naughty Virginia...

It was 6:30AM yesterday when I sat down at the dining room table to have my breakfast, and I discovered the note left to Santa Claus by my daughter the night before. Evidently, by writing in November she is trying to get the jump on the other kids and put her reasonable demands in front of Santa a little early...

And by some early Christmas miracle, Santa responded to Ellie. By 8AM when Ellie sat down to her breakfast, this note from Santa was waiting for her - somehow written in the same crisp strokes that her own father uses:

In the end, I don't think she fell for it. When I sat down for dinner last night, this was waiting for me:

Maybe it was Santa's evil laugh...

(Some) things (my) kid(s) (might) say (sometimes...)

My 5-year-old son Nik is at that age where he says things that simply tickle me to death. For example, a week ago Patti and the kids picked me up from work in the van. As we're driving along, Nik behind me was saying, "Dad, turn around and look at me...Dad, turn around and look at me...Dad, turn around and look at me..."

So I turn and look and he's wearing an IronMan mask. I said, "Oh hey Nik, that's great; you got an IronMan costume. Is that what you going to be for Halloween?"

Nik waited half a beat then said, "Now what ELSE would I get an Iron Man costume for?!" (And I definitely caught the unspoken "Duh!")

And yesterday, Pete, Ellie, Nik, and I are watching Family Guy. I know. Family Guy invariably gets too risque about 2 minutes in and we have to switch it but during those first minutes yesterday, Stewie said something that made Ellie ask, "Dad, what's a cankle?" So I took great pains to explain properly and respectfully that with larger people, you often can't tell where the ankle end and the calf begins, and from that comes the term "cankle". There was silence for a beat while Nik digested this and then he said: "What's an ankle?"

Tour de Peterborough

What I am about to relate to you is unremittingly silly but it's also entirely true. I swear. I have not embellished what is to come in any way...

On June 24th, I rode my bicycle to work. It's a distance of between 8 and 17 kms depending on whether you believe my car's odometer or the laptop-sized 20-year-old cyclo-computer on my bike. I was pretty excited the night before while setting myself up for the ride because I used to be like *really* into long-distance cycling. Me and a buddy once did 1000kms over a 2 week period on a bike /camping trip. So thinking back on successful past trips like that one, I decided that for this little trip to work to use the same bike as from back-in-the-day - my old touring bike - a Japanese Sakai Express. I chose the Sakai over my much more modern mountain bike, reasoning that the older, lighter touring bike was designed for just such a commute...and I could use all the help I could get. My Sakai is still a great bike too. It's all "aluminum alloy this" and "molybdenum that" and even though it's over twenty years old, it's still a pleasure to ride...

I figured that even though I am fat and out of shape, I could easily sustain 16kms per hour for the entire ride and so that would make the total ride a maximum of one hour in length. But just in case of unforseen circumstances and because it is my livelihood I was biking to I decided to pad that figure with another hour. I had to be at work at 8AM so the next morning I was up at 5 sharp, had my coffee, got in the shower and bathed as the French do (hardly at all) and at 6AM had my lunch stowed away in my right saddlebag (my change of clothes I had sensibly already packed in the left saddlebag the night before. It was a beautiful morning sunny 12 degrees and the sun just coming up and just the slightest breeze. I set off for work.

The first three kilometers were uneventful; it was mostly downhill so there was a lot of coasting. But I was barely doing 11 kms an hour and to my dismay I noted that the pedaling was quite a bit harder than I remember it being 20 years ago but still it wasn't too bad. The bike was running well - well, I the chain could have used a little more oil. And my biking gloves were a size too small (or I guess my hands have gotten bigger;) I'll have to replace those. And my butt wasn't used to riding on a bike seat, even with the gel cover...Still not too bad.

Let's get this over with. Around the 3 km mark I wasn't paying attention and I hit a pothole - BANG! After that, I thought noticed a rubbing sound but I couldn't see where it was coming from. Next a slight incline came up and when I went to downshift I discovered that my front dérailleur was no longer working. Of course I was on the big cog. At kilometre 5 an old man coming the other way passed me going really fast. He said: "Good morning!" to me and I sort of gasped it back. That was a little embarrassing but I took some solace in the fact that soon I would be at his level - cycling along effortlessly while laughing inwardly at all the noobs. But for now this was turning out to be way harder than I remembered. At kilometre 6 I was already in desperate trouble. My legs were killing me, and if my butt could have literally screamed at me it would have - like this: "OOOOoooooooooooo...". Both my hands were asleep from the too-small gloves. I was soaked through with sweat and had plenty of wind tears streaming down my face, but I was also hell bent on getting at least to roughly kilometre 10 - within visual distance of the smokestack near my company before stopping for a rest. Because, when you are tightly strapped into Campagnolo toe clips, stopping and putting your feet down is not something undertaken lightly. A poorly planned stop means you will tip over...

So by kilometre 10 my cyclo-computer was showing me as doing roughly 3 kms per hour. The average person walks at 5, and people were actually walking past me at that point without trying to look too curiously at me. I don't know if I can properly describe the exhaustion I felt. I was going so slowly that I had to constantly turn my wheels left and right to avoid falling over - I was actually going so slowly I couldn't go in a straight line. I was gasping for air. Little old ladies on their cast iron Raleighs were flying past me. Finally I thought I caught a glimpse of the smokestack through my tears. I carefully twisted my left foot out of the toe clip and set the jelly that used to be my left leg down on the ground. I didn't have to stop - I was going that slowly.

With my bum thanking me profusely the whole time (like this: "OOOOoooooooooooo...") I slowly and carefully released my right foot from the clip and swung it over so I was standing on the left side of the bike - still in the middle of the road, and then I simply and carefully stood there for a few minutes, not even caring what I looked like. Finally I was ready to push the bike over to the side of the road - and the rear wheel wouldn't move. It was seized! So that explained it! It wasn't just the fat man unused to exercise. It turned out that for God knows how many kilometres, I had been forcing a seized wheel to turn! In retrospect that explains why I glided to a stop on the the downhill grades...

So with the rear wheels busted, I started walking, and even walking turned out to be hard work. That rear wheel just did not want to turn. And as I walked along, I couldn't help but wonder that in all the years I had been riding, I had never seen a seized wheel... I stopped again to take a closer look and that's when I saw that my pump had come off its mount; I guess when I hit that pothole way back at kilometre 3, it had wedged itself between the rear tire and the frame. I yanked the wrecked pump out and...the bike glided like a feather again! 5 minutes later I was cruising into work...

I sat out from of the office for 20 minutes until my breathing returned to normal and the sweat dried. The computer showed the entire trip as 8 km (it obviously needs calibration) and that it took me an hour and 15 minutes with an average speed of 6 km per hour. I also found out that the only place to change at work is the plant bathrooms, until I remembered the locked server room that only I have access to...My socks spent the day merrily drying themselves out on the rack mounted Cisco 1700 router, while my t-shirt dried nicely on the APC USP devices.

And after 8 wonderful hours of painfully adjusting and readjusting my seating position at my desk, it was time to return home. I honestly thought I would be more comfortable just riding on the seat post, but in the end I decided to use the regular bike seat like before. On the return trip I only ran out of energy twice briefly, and I was able to make the entire trip home in just 45 minutes with me going "OOOOoooooooooooo..." the entire time.

Hockey Night in Taco Bell

OK, right off even though I am Canadian, I cannot skate and I hate hockey. The skating I blame on my evil and heartless mother who years ago, as part of her perverted efforts to constantly economize would shove my always rather large feet into used, dull skates, that were two sizes too small. My earliest memories are of limping along the ice during some public skate at Nathan Phillips Square and wondering how all of the other children could possibly be having so much fun. I just couldn't wait for it to be over so I could get to the bench and pull those torture chamber pieces of garbage off my feet. Now that I am in my twilight years, my feet are a size 14 and custom size-14 skates cost something like $20,000 so I'm pretty sure I won't be picking up skating anytime soon.

As for the hockey...well, hockey just sucks. I can't follow the puck at all and the fighting is idiotic. I mean, I like fighting as much as the next guy but hockey players get mad and fight for the most absurd reasons. I can say (without a trace of shame) that I have never been to a hockey game, and have never watched a hockey game from beginning to end. I don't even understand the rules and I don't want to. Now, that's all I'm going to say on the subject because as you may know Canadians love their hockey and if I go on in this vein I risk being assassinated. Anyway, the only reason I am even telling you about the skating and the hockey is to set up what happened to me the other day.

The other day is when I managed to sneak past Patti and out of the house and over to my favourite place in the world to decompress - Taco Bell. I like Taco Bell for a few reasons. The food is conveniently predigested - have you seen the meat? - and it's always empty and they have a pile of complimentary newspapers for the customers. Well, they're Toronto Suns so they're not real newspapers but they're good enough for reading material while I drink my bathtub-sized Dr. Pepper and eat my 1/2 pound bean burrito (for $1.79!! which is like, totally awesome! Where else can you get a 1/2 pound of food for only $1.79?!)

So on this occasion, as was my wont I was happily dribbling hot sauce on my Gordita (literally and figuratively) when some friendly guy walking by my table saw my newspaper open to the front page of the sports section (because I was reading something on the facing page) and saw the big editorial headline about whether or not to trade "Sundin". He stopped, one hockey fan to another, and said to me: "Yeah, what do you think? You think Toronto should get rid of him?"

Before I go on I should say that this has happened to me before. You can't really tell from my sparkling and intelligent eyes that I know nothing about hockey, so on occasion I do get asked things like:

"You see the game last night?" (which is an easy one to answer - NO.)

or

"You think the Leafs will win the Stanley Cup this year?" (again easy - NO.)

But for the more complicated hockey questions like this one, I usually apologetically explain that I don't follow hockey and I was just trying to find out my horoscope and biorhythm for the day and then I invariably have to good-naturedly put up with some well-meaning comments questioning my nationality/sexuality/patriotism, etc. etc. ha. ha. ha.

This time I figured it would be faster if I could muddle my way past the question by providing an answer. I figured I had a 50-50 shot at it right? So I looked at him and said: "I sure hope not" and bent my head back down to appear as if I was once again deeply engrossed in the sports editorial. Despite my prayers, the man stopped dead in his tracks and said to me:

"Now, why on earth would you say that?" but actually it sounded more like: "Now-wah bow-wah...whyah you done gone n' said sumpum like dat?!"

and then he spat some "chaw" onto the floor and did a long slow wipe of his chin with the back of his hand. All conversation in the Taco Bell stopped. The disinterested teenaged staff became interested. Even though it was February a lone cricket chirped. I heard the sound of a gun cocking. It was very hot in Taco Bell all of a sudden.

I thought: "Shit! Of course! Hoppe's law states that I will always pick the wrong $#$! answer!" So I said authoritatively:

"Well, uhhh...you know...ummm..."

And the hockey fan interjected:

"If we had gotten rid of Sundin, we could have gotten four draft picks young guys...unrestricted...take-the-summer-off...sign Sundin back again in the fall...no trade clause...blah, blah, blah..."

And I was all nodding in total agreement, my head bobbing up and down with cult-like abandon blabbering on about how "that's exactly what I meant to say" and "I couldn't agree more..." and "can I wash your car for you?" and I felt like a total ass.

So, that experience taught me a lesson. The next time I get a sports question I'll just say: Mon coeur appartient à les Habs!!! ...and leave it at that.

Hurry! This won't last long!

Have you ever heard of Kijiji or Craigslist? They are essentially online classified ads and they're very popular currently. They are free to use, and unlike eBay no commission or fee is charged to place an ad or respond to an ad...no fees are charged to the buyer or the seller. Of the two sites, Craigslist has been around much longer but Kijiji is the newer and slicker little brother - Kijiji is actually owned by eBay...hopefully the eBay people don't screw up Kijiji like they did eBay...Kijiji and Craiglist now have a presence in every major city in North America as well as my minor city: Peterborough.

I'm actually a pretty heavy Kijiji user, especially since I moved recently and so have lots of crap merchandise for sale. I usually always keep at least three ads in circulation on the site and each my ads has a link to my "virtual garage sale" where I have more stuff for sale. Because of this, I tend to troll the Kijiji ads every couple of days. But so many ads on Kijiji and Craigslist just make me shake my head at the nerve and stupidity of some people. I can't be the only one who thinks these actual ads are just ridiculous:

"...we are looking for a small, lightweight 12 to 15 foot trailer. It can be in any condition; we would like it mainly as a cabin for writing. we are willing to trade poems for the trailer..."

I am going to state the obvious and say that these people have unrealistic expectations of the value of poetry. I wouldn't trade a trailer for one of Oscar Wilde's original poems, let alone a couple of hippie students who think the real world somehow resembles a university residence.

"...New Purple Sequenced (sic) Slippers - These slippers are purple with sequence as seen in pictures. They are new and never used, and still have the label on them. The cost $12.97 new. They were given to me by the mother in law, but they are too fancy for my liking..."

Just let me say that I don't want to be part of a world where purple sequins are considered "too fancy."

Personally I take pride in my ad copy. I eschew typos and am all aboot proper grammatical usements. In fact, I am responsible for such recent gems as:

"This is a bra for a Ford Escort or a very large and dominant woman. I used to own a 97 Escort Wagon. For some reason the Escort attracts stone chips like I attract terrible customer service from local retailers. So I bought the bra; the Le Bra brand..."

"This is an Arnold Palmer driver. I'm not saying it is Arnold's actual driver, I'm just saying is all. Like Arnold, it's got a graphite shaft. I'm getting rid of it because I am way too powerful for graphite; on my downswing the shaft flexes like a horseshoe for me. That and the fact that I am a terrible golfer who is giving up golf for good..."

Recently I wondered what would happen if I posted the worst bits of every bad ad I've ever seen on Kijiji into just one single ad? What if I asked for an idiotic price, typed out the ad in completely upper case, injected horrible typos, based my price on retail, was willing to only trade for something ridiculous, added stupid "urgencies" to the ad, a 6-digit phone number etc...would my item sell like a lightning bolt or would it completely bomb? (there's a question for the ages...) So I decided to create the worst possible ad that I can create.

And here it is! It's not even the worst ad I've seen on Kijiji, but I hope it will do the trick for this highly scientific experiment. It's for something I am actually selling - my son's dresser:

Now, the ad has been in for days now. To my surprise the item has not sold yet. I've received only one response:

This is a joke right? If not - then why on earth would somebody pay almost the same as you paid new for a dresser - that's totally ridiculous! I think your crappy dreser will last long (on the classifieds) I'm certainly in no hurry!
Are you on drugs?

OK, that hurt a little bit. But I think this proves that the people who sell stuff on Kijiji don't in turn ever buy stuff from Kijiji, or maybe it proves nothing at all.

Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You...

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