Back to work today...

Upon returning from my two weeks vacation, I think I may have learned a few things without really thinking.

1. Stuff really does get done when I'm not there. So why do I need to be there at all? (I guess the paycheque is nice.)
2. It really isn't necessary to jump up to help someone who essentially only needs your help because they're being lazy.
3. Just because I'm your manager doesn't mean that your problems have to be my problems.
4. Customers actually can tell when employees don't know what they're doing. (Okay, I've actually known that one for a while now.)
5. Staying late to try to get something done just results in someone dumping some other pile of shit on your desk.

Hopefully I will maintain some of my newfound wisdom for a little bit longer than I usually do.

I never thought something would beat 'Rebel L', but this might just do it

Law and Order: Special Letters Unit


Sesame Street still kicks butt. They got Munch just right.

Feel safe and secure going to bed...

... only to be beaten regularly in the schoolyard once your classmates see those pictures on the internet.

Far be it for me to make fun of someone's religious beliefs... except for when those beliefs cause you to behave batshit nutty.

Hat tip: alt.music.rush

Travel photos

This was a billboard in the middle of nowhere. My girlfriend insisted on taking a picture of it. Honest.

The advertisement on my shirt and the contents of my godson's bottle have nothing to do with each other. Honest!

Another satisfied Ontario voter. (You'll probably have to click on it to read the signs.)

This bank branch in Whitney, Ontario has the following hours:
Monday 11:00-3:00
Tuesday CLOSED
Wednesday CLOSED
Thursday 11:00-3:00
Friday 12:00-6:00
Saturday CLOSED
Sunday CLOSED
and has no ATM. Now that's convenient!

Ordinary human beings: Go left.
Mr. Canoehead: Straight ahead.
(Well, we were in Algonquin Park.)

Our 13-year-old likes to take many "action photos" while riding in the back seat, driving down the road. This is my favourite. I think it captures the true excitement felt by a teenager riding in the back seat for hours at a time (with no stopping).

A good laugh

I happened to flip by the Yankees-Red Sox game today and was treated to Tim McCarver saying "nine times". I laughed and laughed. My stepdaughter had no idea why. (Then again, she usually just ignores me when I start laughing inexplicably).

We're off to Ottawa tomorrow morning until Tuesday. With new brakes! ("Somehow, I don't think that awful grinding noise is quite right.") Have fun without me.

Hungarian bridge update

You may or may not have heard a while back about a government ministry in Hungary conducting an internet poll to name a new bridge... and the Chuck Norris Bridge was leading the vote.

Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report picked up the story, and urged his viewers to start voting for the Stephen Colbert Bridge instead.

I can only guess that either Hungarians started to get offended by this because Hungarian names started to become the frontrunners in the voting. Either that or perhaps the ministry decided to start rigging the vote. (Scandalous!) I was rooting for Chuck, of course.

Here's an update on the voting as of today:

name / votes / %vote
1. Zrínyi / 2023736 / 13%
2. Pató Pál / 1805054 / 12%
3. Bethlen Gábor / 1684693 / 11%
4. Hunyadi Mátyás / 1440549 / 9%
5. Perl-Script / 1368774 / 9%
6. Mészáros / 1037103 / 7%
7. Batthyány Lajos /884967 / 6%
8. Szent Korona / 724841 / 5%
9. Bocskai István / 712404 / 5%
10. Szent István / 711347 / 5%
11. Kölcsey / 655550 / 4%
12. Vásárhelyi Boldizsár / 444269 / 3%
13. Stephen Colbert / 438049 / 3%
14. Chuck Norris / 360772 / 2%
15. Fülemüle / 265602 / 2%
...
49. David Hasselhoff / 225 / 0%
55. Eric Cartman / 197 / 0%
58. Kenny McCormick / 170 / 0%
93. Counter-Strike / 66 / 0%
97. Under the / 65 / 0%
101. Bob Marley / 62 / 0%

Hungarians love David Hasselhoff.

Random things clogging up the tubes of the Internets

Weird Al is damned brilliant. Toby Harrah would be proud.

The Big Snit is one of the better things that has ever been accomplished with our tax dollars. Excuse me while I go saw my furniture.

Sacha Trudeau paints a lovely portrait of dear Fidel... and Colby Cosh cuts Sasha to ribbons for his silliness.

The world now has more fat people than hungry people. So can Hollywood start donating fat collected from liposuction operations to the third world so Doctors Without Borders can start performing fat transplants? (Okay, that was insensitive.)

Gosh, I had been waiting with great anticipation to hear about Don Johnson's and Patricia Heaton's opinions on the War on Terror. Once Pauly Shore and Rob Schneider make their thoughts public, I'll really be able to sleep well at night.

Latest silly internet quiz. I guess I'm going to hell.

I guess I shouldn't expect an accurate reading from 20 nebulous questions anyway.

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 69% Existentialist 63% Postmodernist 50% Modernist 50% Romanticist 44% Idealist 25% Materialist 19% Fundamentalist 0% What is Your World View? created with QuizFarm.com

Kids these days...

This is where my stepdaughters go to school. (Well, when it's not summer holidays, anyway.) All the kids get a kick out of the current state of the sign, of course. What's odd is that it's been like that for quite some time.

Some grumpy adults (myself included) often have occasion to complain about the 'delinquent' behaviour of kids these days. However, I have noticed myself thinking as of late about how similar kids of the last few generations have been. The adults are surely different, though.

When I was a kid, if it happened that our school had lost a letter in its sign to read "Pubic School", this would have been a momentous occasion of shared hilarity among the students -- the news would have spread about town, and kids from all over would come by to see the sign and laugh. In other words, it probably would have been a much bigger deal than it is for our girls and their classmates. Also, I'm quite certain that some horrified uppity parent, teacher, or school official would have seen to it that the sign was repaired immediately.

Nobody here seems to be in a big hurry to get that capital L replaced. Is this because our community is less interested in the state of our public schools than they may have been in days gone by? Perhaps, but parents these days want the best for their kids just like every generation has. I think they're just more concerned about their kids doing drugs, getting involved in a gang, being violent, or telling them to f*** off, than they are about their kids giggling about the word 'pubic'. We all know they hear and see worse things in the movies, TV, and their day-to-day lives.

So either the parents of today are to be commended for knowing to pick the right battles, or should be criticized for letting the standards of decency slide. But whatever has changed, it sure ain't the kids' fault.

Another blog? From someone who can't write? Why?

Why indeed.

I don't know why I decided to create a blog. Time will tell if indeed I even carry on with it.

Perhaps it will give me an outlet to rant. Or write boring things about my life that no one could conceivably be interested in. The possibilities are endless!

My name is Matt. I'm a team leader in a technical support/customer service call centre in Toronto, Ontario. I commute from my home in Oshawa, Ontario. I'm originally from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Oshawa actually isn't a bad place to live at all, but like all places has a portion of its population that is... well... think 'Trailer Park Boys', but with nicer homes than trailers. Thus my better half and I like to slag Oshawa, and joke that we are "stuck in the 'Shwa".