Bitch

“Hello, I’m a PC. I haven’t got much to add here because it’s Apple’s software and policies that are making my users disgruntled.”

“Hey, I’m a Mac and I’m a bitch.”

But seriously, I’ve got an issue with the iTunes store provided by Apple. The gift certificates provided by and for the iTunes Music Store are nation specific and the store will not let users shop in the foreign stores.

Let’s back up some more. I recently received a gift certificate for the iTunes Music Store (which I am very greatful for) from a resident of the United States of America. I, however, am a resident of Canada.

I followed the steps to redeem this gift certificate. The iTunes Music Store told me that the GC was only valid in the US store. Okay then, I casually strolled down to the bottom of the store page and clicked the country button. I was easily switched over to the US store. Once in the US store, I was told that my account was a Canadian account, so the program automatically switched me back to the Canadian store. Then why give me the option to change stores in the first place?

I did some reading up on the subject of iTunes Gift Certificates. They are only valid in the stores in which they are purchased. So US GCs only work in the US and Canadian GCs only work in Canada.

Meanwhile, Amazon has it all figured out. As a Canadian, Amazon encourages me to shop at Amazon.ca but does not restrict me from shopping elsewhere. Amazon.com and Amazon.ca have different products and selection. When I visit the .com, I am often confronted with a question by the website, “Would you like to shop at Amazon.ca, yes or no?” I always select “No” because if I wanted to shop at the .ca, I would have typed .ca into my address bar. But Amazon doesn’t restrict me after that point. I am free to shop to my heart’s content at the .com and I will continue to shop at Amazon. I know they like me, they keep sending me emails recommending products I should buy.

I guess, the biggest issue I have is with the ability to change stores with the click of a button even though I am not allowed to do anything in the other stores. Why give me the temptation if iTunes won’t let me act on that temptation? Who does Apple think it is? A woman.

“Hi, I’m Mac. I’m a woman. You can look all you want, but I won’t let you touch me.”

What Disgusts You?

What disgusts you? I’m not talking about slimey, oozy things. I mean things that probably shouldn’t be disgusting, but for some reason, really makes you gag. I’m talking about social things.

For me, I’m disgusted by people who have tongue studs and are always playing with it. Flicking the stud with their teeth, it makes this awful metallic high-pitched door knocker sound. The only reason I don’t grab that tongue stud and rip it out is fear of being bitten by someone who might have rabies. People who get their tongues pierced and flick them don’t often look like the sort who bathe regularly.

I’m also disgusted by underage girls who dress like whores. These little girls make me sick. Just because they’re jailbait, doesn’t mean they have to advertise that fact. Hey little girls, cover the fuck up!

Speaking of women who show to much skin. How about muffintops. I’ve got nothing against women with a bit of meat on them. I kinda like it. But you get these women who are a little bit overweight walking around in low-rider pants that are two sizes too small, then they wear those baby tees that leave their midrift showing. The tightness of the clothing forces the flab into the naked area of the lower torso. It makes the woman look like she’s wearing a flesh-coloured innertube; a picture perfect image of a spare tire.

Take a look at this photo I found from googling “muffin top” and you’ll see a good example of the flesh innertube. This woman is not huge. She didn’t just escape from a tank at Sea World. She’s just a regular woman, maybe a pound or two over her suggested weight. For all I know, she could be a very attractive woman. But here she is, walking around, looking like she’s got a floatation device wrapped around her. If she put on some proper clothes, I wouldn’t have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as the bile builds and rises.

Here are some other things that sicken me:

Light cigarettes. Me, I don’t smoke. Never have. But I can understand the appeal of tobacco smoke. Real tobacco, has an odour that is tolerable. But today, with these light cigarettes, doped up with all kinds of chemicals, they smell just God awful.

Guys who only date women under twenty. If the guy is twenty, it’s okay. But once the guy starts getting close to thirty, it becomes disgusting. It only stops being disgusting in the situation where the guy is old and rich and the woman is a gold-digging model. But at that point, the thought of an old naked man is disgusting all on its own.

So, again I ask, what disgusts you?

He had an onion in his belt, which was the style at the time.

I know you’re old and lonely, but do you think McDonalds is the place to be telling your life story.

That’s what I should have said.

Today, I went to McDonalds for a late breakfast. I had a hankering for a McMuffin. I shouldn’t have had one, but my stomach tells me what to do and when to do it.

As I entered the restaurant, an old man entered at the same time. I can be a nice guy sometimes; I purposely walked really slowly so he’d get to the counter first.

This guy, when he was served, he asked the cashier if a certain person was working today. He didn’t know the woman’s name, only had a brief description of her. The old man then began regailing the cashier about his entire life. “I live in Brantford… I had to drop off my wife… I was watching the soccer game on television…” I could tell the cashier just wanted to yell “Get to the point!” But she didn’t, she waited patiently.

It turns out the old man wanted to complain about being served the wrong item on Saturday. He ordered a sausage and egg McMuffin on Saturday but received a bacon and egg McMuffin.

The manager stepped in at the end of the story, at which point the old man began telling the story again, from the begining. and offered to give the man a meal on the house. “No, no, no. I’ll pay for my meal today. I just wanted you to know that I received the wrong order on Saturday.”

When the woman who had served him on Saturday walked by the cashier station to refill something, he began to tell her the entire story.

So, while I waited for my food, (I did get served during his second telling of the story) and ate my food, I heard this story two more times. He lives in Brantford. He had to drop his wife off. He wanted to eat his meal while watching the soccer game on television. He used the microwave to reheat his McMuffin. He was given bacon instead of sausage.

Maybe this old guy needs to get a blog. That way he can put all his long winded stories about things that don’t matter in one place and people who want to know them, can go there and read them. That’s what I do.

The Junos

What are the Junos? Well, Juno is a movie about some pregnant teenager. Juno is a Roman goddess. Juno was a beachhead assault in Normandy by Canadian forces on D-Day, a victorious one.

But the Junos are the annual awards given out to Canadian musicians by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In other words, the Canadian Grammys.

Now, I could go into a long rant about how much Avril Lavigne sucks (we all know she does) and yet she’s going to take home some hardware anyway. But I’m not going to do that. Instead I’m going to discuss the pointlessness of award ceremonies as a whole. Other than the industry using the ceremony as a marketing tool, what purpose does this whole thing really serve. If this music is art, then how can it really be graded? Music (and all art) is based on opinion. One man’s masterpiece is another man’s dung-smeared Virgin Mary. Regardless of that, the industry feels the need to annoint a handful of artists with shiny little statues stating best this or best that. I disagree whole-heartedly that there could ever be a best artist of the year or best album of the year.

Let’s take a look at this year’s nominees for Group of the Year: Arcade Fire, they’re from Quebec, do I need to say more; Blue Rodeo, yeah I like them a lot, but I don’t need some award to tell me to like them, I already do; Finger Eleven, I remember them when they were the Rainbow Butt Monkeys, ’nuff said; Hedley, I haven’t heard much of them, but from what I have heard, I wouldn’t deem them worthy of any sort of praise over the others nominated, or even those not nominated; and Kain, whom I’ve never even heard of, but judging by their bio, they’re French Canadian…

What scares me about these awards is the control they have over the lemmings who call themselves people. All these records and artists that win awards, their sales rise the day after the awards, guarenteed. There are people out there who I’m sure, their CD collection consists solely of award winning titles. I’ve worked at record stores and I’ve seen first hand people buy CDs because they won some award the night before. That scares me. It also gives me an idea. I may walk into a record store the day after the Junos and sneak Juno winner stickers on random titles throughout the store. You see that Jethro Tull album from 1974, that’s a Juno winner. How about the pilates DVD, yup, Juno winner. And the biggest winner of all, that 4-pack of Maxell AA batteries.

In conclusion, let me state that I share nothing with Avril Lavigne other than citizenship. And if I could get her’s revoked, you know I would. I feel ashamed to be Canadian everytime I hear the name Avril Lavigne. She makes me hate my native land because it’s the land that spawned her.

Weekend Recap: Easter Ramblings

This tale all begins on Thursday. Work was an absolute piece of shit on Thursday. My previous blog post mentioned Thursday sucking, but it was written Thursday morning. Thursday got worse. Thursday was one of those make a u-turn in a crowded parking structure while driving in reverse with a vehicle with no visibility out the back what-so-ever sort of days.

That day, Carmine and I had to switch vehicles. When he returned my vehicle to me, he left the lights on, so the battery was nicely drained, again. That would have been the third of fourth time he’s left the lights on and drained the battery of that vehicle.

Thursday evening, I needed a pair of new jeans to replace the pair I just destroyed. Although I knew it would be difficult finding something there I liked, I went to the largest mall in Canada. In that mall, the biggest mall in all the land, there was not a single pair of jeans that were not in the vintage look. I ALREADY HAVE OLD JEANS! I WANT A NEW PAIR OF JEANS! I settled on the least vintage looking pair I could find.

The jeans had a belt through the loops when I bought them. Okay, neat, free belt. Then I looked at the belt. Whatta crappy belt! No buckle or clasp or little pokey device. Just two metal loops. I’m sorry, but if I have to think about the belt to close it, it’s not a belt, it’s a challenge. It’s not long enough to hang myself with; I guess I’ll use to garrote people. Sure’s it’s a bit thick, but it should do the trick.

As I stumbled through the mall, I saw a lineup of children waiting to get there photo taken with somebody. It was Mr. Easter Bunny.

Wait a minute… Mr. MR!

Although I had never been told of the Easter Bunny’s gender, I had just assumed it was a woman. Think about that. The Easter Bunny delivers eggs. The last time I checked, egg production was the responsibility of the female of the species. You ever see a rooster lay an egg? Nope, I didn’t think so.

So Mr. Easter Bunny gets to go from town to town, mall to mall, meeting all kinds of wonderful people while Mrs. Easter Bunny has to stay home, plopping out chocolate eggs all day long. Somewhere in that situation, there exists a problem.

You just know that when Mr. Easter Bunny gets home, he’s going to say to the Mrs. “Hey honey, make some dinner. I’ve had a really long day.”

“I’m sick and tired of you coming home at all hours and demanding dinner. Take me out. You never take me anywhere any more.”

“Gimme me a break. I’ve just spent all day being sat on by snot-nosed little brats who just wanted to pull my ears. My goddamn ears are really goddamn sore. Just make a salad or something.”

“Make your own damn salad.”

“You’ve been home all day watching Oprah and your stories. I’ve been out, working! All I ask is one little salad.”

“That’s it Mr. I’m going to my mother’s.”

After the mall, I had to go to the grocery store. My Mother had told me she had forgot to buy an onion. An onion she needed for the Good Friday dinner. No problem I thought. I could just swing by the grocery store, pick up an onion and be in and out in two minutes.

Yeah right!

I hate going to the grocery store the day before a holiday. The place is always packed. And parents these days. They don’t discipline their children. All they do is load them up with so much sugar that the children become overstimulated and start to show symptoms of ADD. Which then causes the parents to dope the children up further with ridolin or someother mind-altering chemical. Hello, people! Make your children eat a fruit or something instead of candy, chocolate and candy-coated chocolate. There were these two kids, rolling on the floor while their mother was checking out a shopping cart full of food at the check-yourself-out express line. If this woman went to a regular line with a cashier, the cashier could scan each item and bag it and the mother could watch and discipline her horrible children. But no…

Now, where were we? Oh, yeah…the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war; the only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

…

On Friday, I didn’t have the pasta. Too much work to cook pasta for myself as I didn’t want the spaghetti my Father was making. I had some chicken instead. My Aunt gave me a dirty look while I was cooking the chicken and said “You can’t eat chicken on Good Friday.”

My response “How good can it be if I can’t eat chicken?”

“Good point.”

After dinner, my cousin wanted to show me his blog. We did the you-show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine. So, at some point he got to reading that post I wrote about ugly boobs. My cousin, of course, decides to read it aloud so that everybody, including my Mother could hear it.

Has anybody actually had to defend usage of the term ‘pizza boobs’ to their mother? Well, now I have had to live through that terrible ordeal.

“Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“Geez Mom, I dunno, maybe I get it from YOU!“

After dinner, there was a rousing game of Wizard. I won of course. Meanwhile, my Mother was watching some television program with naked ladies. Yeah, where do I come up with all this boobs-on-the-mind stuff for my blog? Where Mom? Where!

Saturday started out with a rousing burst of excitement. Yup, I went to work Saturday morning. Got suckered into that. Was back home by 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

Saturday night, I went to see Juice at his place. We did the lazy Saturday night hangout stuff. Ordered pizza, played Scrabble and watched some DVD he bought at the dollar store. Nothing says Easter weekend like The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman.

On Sunday, I called in sick. No, not for work. (Sure, I’m sick of work, but who isn’t?) My Aunt was hosting Easter lunch as usual. I don’t quite know why, but I felt like human garbage.

I stayed home, watched some documentary series on MuchMoreMusic. It was called Heavy and was all about heavy metal. All the same old same old. Clips of Nikki Sixx talking about excess and Bruce Dickinson dressing like heavy metal is the last thing on his mind. He looked like Steve Irwin during the interview clips.

Best part was when everybody was talking about how Rob Halford really started the black leather and studs look for heavy metal. All the people being interviewed had that weird look on their face as they were trying to credit Halford for developing the fashion sense without saying “He got it from the gay scene.” Eventually, Scott Ian of Anthrax broke down and said “So, he’s gay. There’s nothing wrong with that.” But by the look on his face, I’m not sure he agreed with his own statement.

I hope everybody had a great Easter weekend. And for you athiests out there. Jesus died so you could have a three day weekend (in some cases, a four day weekend), so next time you start in on the whole God-is-fake thing, remember how many days off work you get because of Him.

Friday better be real good, cuz Monday through Thursday is really sucking!

Another long weekend is approaching. This one can’t approach fast enough. This past week has sucked. Royally sucked. Even though today is only been today for seven hours or so. It already really sucks. I somehow ripped a huge hole in the leg of my pants as I put them on this morning. I just know that’s a sign of bad things abrewin’.

Friday will be like every Good Friday for me. My parents will be having people over for dinner. My Aunt, being an old school Catholic, doesn’t eat meat on Good Friday. My Father will be cooking shellfish like he does every Good Friday. I won’t eat that stuff. So that means I’ll be eating pasta or something else bland for dinner.

But at least on Friday, no work. Saturday if my boss asks me to work, I’m gonna tell him “No!” I don’t think I’ve ever needed a long weekend more than I do right now.

Sunday, I will be heading to my Aunt’s place for lunch like I do every Easter. Due to the fasting of meat on Good Friday, the Easter Sunday lunch is traditionally nothing but meat, meat and chicken soup. (She makes a really good chicken soup.)

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Last weekend, I briefly went to Walmart. Don’t quite remember why. But I do remember seeing something that was both incredibly wrong yet somehow fitting.

At the front of the store is the seasonal candy section. The current season being Easter. The section was obviously well stocked with chocolate Easter bunnies and stuff like that. However, it’s not just bunnies anymore. There are all kinds of chocolate treats shaped like various cartoon characters and what not. What really struck me was the chocolate shaped like a monster truck. Nothing says Easter like a chocolate monster truck, right? Well, this one sorta did. The chocolate was modelled after not just any monster truck, but the monster truck named Gravedigger.

Think about that for a moment or two; Gravedigger, Easter chocolate; Easter chocolate, Gravedigger.

The over-commercialization of a religious holiday has almost come back around full circle.

Weekend Recap: No Satisfaction For Young Men

Fri(ed chicken)day

‘Nuff said.

Okay, the fried chicken was Popeyes.

Saturday

Worked a bit. Did many, so many loads of laundry. I have dozens of socks, yet only two feet.

Whilst checking my emails, I was overwhelmed by the number of emails I receive with promises of penis enlargement. It seems as though I receive more and more each day. When will these spammers realize my dick is big enough. I have never received any complaints about the length, girth or stamina of my wang. I want these emails to stop.

I also starting thinking about what sort of emails women receive. I wonder if women get female versions of spam. Any ladies out there, do you receive spam emails with wild promises of breast enlargement or some sort of vaginal modification? If not, please leave your email in the comments section of this blog. Thank you very much.

I finally saw No Country For Old Men. Will somebody please explain to me why this movie is anything more than okay.

At night, a bunch of people met up at Boston’s apartment. After which we went to a bar called The Unicorn. I know what you’re thinking. Is that some gay bar or all-male dancer strip club? Knowing that this bar was Boston’s choice, I thought it was. But it wasn’t. It was just some generic pub. The service was absolutely horrible. I was standing at the bar, trying to get the attention of one of the bartenders only to see them drinking with a couple of the patrons. Three bartenders, three chances not to turn me into a big tipper. There’s plenty of bars in that part of town, maybe I should go to the Duke of Kent next time. Long story short, looking for a place to drink in Toronto’s Yonge & Eglinton area, fuck The Unicorn.

Sunday

Lazy and relaxing day. I hung out with Juice, listened to some music, drank some orange juice, ate a couple of donuts. Absolutely exciting Sunday.