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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
smacksaw's LiveJournal:
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| Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | | 3:38 pm |
What an unreal month
Still packing the house and had the closing date extended twice. You would think that while I am busy getting jerked around at Maple Ridge Chrysler people would pack? No. So we are doing it last minute. I hate procrastination. | | Saturday, October 17th, 2009 | | 4:34 am |
Hellifornia
I think that if I didn't have my kids family in California, I would never go there. My friends should come visit me. Canada is awesome. I'll miss it while I am gone. | | Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 | | 8:19 pm |
Hmm
Taco Bell commercial: "Who ate my volcano taco?" Dude, I don't know, but I highly suggest not getting plastered at gay bars and you will never have to ask that question again. But I think the guy's name was Karl Sanchez and he was from Cleveland. | | 2:41 am |
Neck care
Back in Vancouver, the tui na guy I go to is awesome. When my neck is all jacked up, he fixes it every single time. He beats the living hell out of me. I remember the Charles Bronson film "The Mechanic" where he fiddles with wax and then shows his protege that he can break a wine glass by putting two fingers in and spreading them apart. That's strength. This guy is like that. He could crush people with his hands. Here in Montreal there's a tui na guy who is also pretty good, but not the same level. However, I think it will even out in the end. The Vancouver guy is $50 for an hour. It's about 45 minutes of deep tissue massage and then 10 minutes of cupping. I can't stand the cupping, but I know it works. Cupping is where they have globes of glass and light fire into them and put them on your back. In the absence of oxygen, it creates a vacuum and sticks to you. It leaves giant, painful hickeys. It also makes me need to piss like a racehorse, so every minute is an eternity. But it is good due to the fact that it keeps the back very tender so it won't seize up again easily for many days and has a chance to heal. The theory is that it draws the bad/diseased blood and energy out to the surface. Whether you believe the theory, it works in practise. I also like that he is strong enough to push on my sinuses and help clear my head after laying on my stomach for an hour. I am afraid he is going to rip my ears off, though. Also, I have to keep my hair cut short because I lose hair afterward. Dude is not gentle. There is absolutely nothing pleasurable about this massage. It's all business and it works. The Montreal guy is $40 for an hour, but he will run long, 70 minutes on the low end and 90 on the high end. He plays it by ear based upon how jacked up I am or not. Plus, after 7 sessions, I get a free one. So that's pretty cool. He is not as strong as the guy in Vancouver and is 20 years younger, so is missing a bit of the experience. Also, while the guy in Vancouver has a specialty in cupping, the Montreal guy does reflexology. I am not 100% on the efficacy of reflexology, but it can't hurt, so I won't complain. Generally I get about 45-60 minutes massage and then 25-30 of reflexology on the feet. I think it would be more effective with a stronger push than reflexology, but so far it's working. I can't decide which the better deal is. The guy in Vancouver will last me a good 2 weeks before I need to see him again, whereas the guy here in Montreal usually needs two tries to get me unwound. I'd say it's about $160/mo here and $100/mo back in Vancouver, but if you break it down by price per minute, it's not too bad here. In the end I still pay more and spend more time, but I guess I get more massage therapy, which is good if you enjoy that sort of thing, but I don't. I enjoy the result and that's it. Anyway, the point is that if it were a little more expensive, I could almost justify semi-frequent trips to Vancouver for tui na massotherapy and seeing my magic chiropractor. | | Monday, September 28th, 2009 | | 10:31 pm |
Microsoft Choice Guard can choose to suck my cock
Microsoft should be investigated for their latest bullshit... I installed the new Windows Live Messenger and it installed this Microsoft Choice Guard crap. Microsoft's excuse (directly from them) is that Firefox and other programs have ways to protect you from having your search engine changed, so this circumvents it. I'm so pissed. It's such a lie. It's not guarding my choice, it's raping my choice. I didn't choose to have Microsoft and their shitty Bing search engine or fucking MSN.com as my homepage when I installed Live Messenger. But guess what? It hijacked my entire computer with Bing and MSN.com as my search and homepages. Fuck that noise. Choice Guard? They fucking have the audacity to call something that raped all of my settings without my permission CHOICE GUARD? That's like some guy going out, raping women and then saying they chose to fuck him and he was protecting them from other rapists. Microsoft fucked up on search and is losing and the only way they can get customers is to steal them? Because Google is the Firefox default search engine, so they gotta protect me from Google, right? Thanks for preserving my choice, Microsoft, by choosing for me. This shit, more and more just makes me like Linux more and Windows less. I am getting sick of this garbage. Oh, and the uninstall is msiexec /x {8FFC5648-FAF8-43A3-BC8F-42BA1E275C4E} or so Microsoft says. Well when I ran it, it wouldn't finish. So I got stuck with it. I figured out how to rid myself of this bullshit spyware hijacking of my computer, but how about the average person who doesn't know? What do they do? How is this any different than some porn site or trojan changing your homepage and search to their crap? | | Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 | | 3:37 pm |
| | 6:15 am |
Yoshiie is here
I wonder if I'll get to the long version of the story or not, but here is the pertinent info. Yoshiie was born at 15:52p in Longueuil, QC on Friday, August 21st. They induced Gen at 11:30a. Apparently, she probably won't have water that ever breaks naturally. The doctor says she has a "double wall" - first I ever heard of it. But they broke her water a second time after that. Strange, no? The labour and delivery were relatively uneventful. She had an epidural and pushed for 12 minutes. We thought the birth strategy was good and was very easy/well done. The epidural came at the right time and the pushing did as well. Gen appreciated it as she was tired from not sleeping for the last few days. He's a bit of a troublemaker. He came out halfway and the doctor stopped. The cord was around his neck. While trying to undo it, he peed all over her and Gen. And right after she aspirated him as well. Hopefully he didn't inhale any pee, LOL! Other than that, things were fine. He latched and fed right away and is a strong sucker. He emptied the boobs quickly. His temperament seems nice, he's not colicky or unhappy in any way, so he must be feeling well. Seems to sleep alright. So far, so good! Keeping our fingers crossed... | | Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 | | 5:32 am |
Well, things are massively busy
Today (the 18th) is an interesting day. Had to fix ANOTHER fridge...at 0200a because it wouldn't close. The story of my life would be "The cripple that fixes appliances"...LOL Worst day for it to happen, too. I have to HOPEFULLY (what a waste of time phone tag has been) get my kids registered for high school. Also, Gen has an OBGYN appointment and she is going to ask to be induced while she still has some stamina left. It's been 100 degrees the past few days with thick humidity. Manually defrosting a freezer is not fun in this weather, I might add. But she is spent. There isn't gonna be any energy left to do anything if she doesn't have the baby now. We're 99.9999% on the name for the baby. Yoshiie, who was the brother of Yoshimitsu. Similar, but hey, you can't cheat a kid on a name because the other ones got cooler names. We're calling Yoshi by his full name now so everyone will know the difference. But some people seem amused that I nicknamed the baby Guy-Mauve (guimauve, marshmallow in French) that they are just going to call him Guy-Mauve. So who knows? Maybe he'll be Guy-Yo or something like that? Or we'll use the full names. We called Shingen "Shin" for the beginning, but then ended up just using Shingen, so...? Yoshimitsu is a long name. That's all for now. | | Monday, July 27th, 2009 | | 3:08 am |
| | Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | | 1:57 am |
Maybe...just maybe...
Maybe I get the car on Saturday. This keeps dragging on. The doctor said that Gen is going to have the baby any time now and I'm still out here dealing with car stuff. | | Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 | | 4:09 am |
Life
I am running out of time to accomplish what needs to be done while the problems I am dealing with seem to be growing and getting pushed back closer to my deadlines. I vacillate between "fuck it" and "work my ass off", because when I do get to work it seems to take over my entire day and I forget to do anything normal. | | Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | | 4:03 am |
More boonies exploration
Since I've had to be in Maple Ridge as of late, I tried to explore the diagonal opposite boonies, White Rock and South Surrey. Again, I can't imagine how people would pay so much to live so far away. No doubt, the area is beautiful. But it's too far out. I think I found some good places to go photograph, however. We'll see. The deal for the Dodge is on the precipice. Gen really laid down the law. There's four forces at work. Me, willing to deal. The dealer, wanting to sell. Gen, not wanting to deal unless she gets certain concessions. The dealer, possibly able to make concessions to save the deal or we're so far apart we'll scrap the deal. Gen could care less if we get the car. She hates Chrysler that much. The dealership does want to make a deal, but I don't think they're interested in making a bad one. I'm willing to make the deal if it's right, but I won't be sad if we don't. I think they will get something done, though I'm not sure. I'm more philosophical about this - if it gets done, it gets done. If not, it's not meant to be. Considering our 2004 Dodge Ram and our 2006 Jeep Liberty both had problems with dying in the middle of driving at high speeds and we've spent THOUSANDS of dollars out of pocket on rental cars while the problems didn't get fixed, I can see Gen's reticence to get anything Chrysler ever again. Between the Jeep and the Dodge, we've probably had them both in the shop 40 times. It's not the dealership's fault, they didn't design or break those cars. They didn't even sell them to us. But Gen is adamant that we have a 5-year warranty since we have a 5-year loan, but she is not impressed with the $2300 price tag for the warranty. I'm not sure the dealer can eat a portion of our negative equity on the Jeep AND the warranty. Personally, I hope they get something done. I guess it comes down to how much the warranty actually costs. I guess we'll see what happens. They didn't call me today to give me an update, so at least I know they're trying. | | Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | | 3:54 am |
Jeep
Well, I have a deal in principle to jettison the Jeep. I really detest Chrysler and do not want another one, but they have the ability to bury $7600 in negative equity in the piece of shit, whereas that's a tall order for a regular retail finance auto loan. I've had to drive to Maple Ridge a few times now since I'm getting it there. I've only been to Maple Ridge a handful of times and am surprised I know my way around that place. I could not imagine living there and working in say...Richmond. It's pretty out there but it's truly the boonies. They've put in this new Golden Ears toll bridge which is way overdue, except that it's a toll bridge. I'd prefer it be free, but what are you gonna do? It's funny, you can move out there to save a few bucks, but they'll get you in the end with a toll bridge. Can't win for losing. Anyway, it's a really nice looking suspension bridge. If there was a place to stop I'd get photos, but there isn't. Also, with all of the Draconian bullshit these days, you're asking for the cops to fuck with you if you take pictures of anything that Big Brother doesn't allow. I dunno. All I know is that I'm getting another Chrysler product unless we eject at the last moment and the new bridge is cool, but I am already sick of driving to Maple Ridge. Actually, let me edit this. It's a suspension bridge, but it's extradosed. It's the same as the one for the Skytrain that goes to Richmond. They are very nice looking bridges. It's free until the 16th, so take a trip and check it out for yourself. | | Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 | | 12:36 pm |
Sly guys
Some of these guys at the border think they're pretty smart detectives and that they are going to catch you in some sort of trip up by asking you questions to things that look suspicious on the surface. Today went like this: Him: Where is home for you? Me: Longueuil, Quebec. Him: Where are you going? Me: Birch Bay. I am packing the house up over the next month to move everything. Him: What do you do for work? Me: I am a stay at home father. Him: Who works? Me: My wife works. Him (slowing gaining momentum): Then who is taking care of your kids if your wife works and you're out here? Me: My two teenaged kids are taking care of the younger kids. Then he proceeds to look at me for about 2 seconds, looks at my passport (to determine my DOB), does the math in his head, looks at my face a little more closely and says "you can go." Yes, I have teenage children. Thank you. | | Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | | 4:28 pm |
ARE THERE NO RED BLOODED MALES LEFT???
Man...a room full of men blew it. Being married, I have an excuse. Yeah! I'm at the dealership today and this STUNNING East Indian girl comes in. She was just smoking hot. She says to all that her car has died and she needs jumper cables. Right there, I would have helped. But I can't manoeuvre my Jeep as I am towing a trailer. She was in an alleyway. But here is what someone should have done (she had to beg the dealership for help). "Yes, I can help you." You get her car started and say "This might happen again. You should call me if you need a jump. Your car might break down. In fact, if you wanted to go to a movie and it broke down at home, I could just drive you. In fact, now that I think about it, you should call me no matter what. This car thing could drag on for some time." Or something to that effect. I didn't see a ring on her finger. I don't get men. They'll go to a strip club and blow $500 on virtually nothing, yet for free any of them could have been a hero to this girl. You don't often get an "in" with a girl like that. Men are stupid. | | Monday, June 29th, 2009 | | 11:50 pm |
Cleaning and moving, moving and cleaning
Man, there's a like whole army of Chinese people who patrol Marpole for stuff. I'd bring things out of apartment and place them near the refuse bins, and by the time I came out again, some Chinese person was there examining and taking it. I should have just written "open house" in Cantonese and I'd be done already. It was never the same people twice, either. In the back of my mind, I wonder if these are people who are here illegally, trying to scrape by...or are they from a hard upbringing and used to scavenging or maybe both. It's interesting to think about. Now I have to unload the Jeep, drive back up and pack some more. Then I have to go back to WA, catch about 2-3 hours sleep and go back and finish closing down the place. I'm looking forward to when I can take a break. After I'm done I still have to pay the dentist and BC Hydro - we're in collections because we forwarded the mail and didn't get it. Wonderful. That's a pisser. So after I get moved out I have to go settle bills. w00t! | | Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | | 11:38 pm |
HI SMACKSAW HERE WITH SOME AIR TRAVEL TIPS
Maybe I have some inside info because my parents were both airline flight crew, but this Billy Mays death does come with a lesson. As you all may (or may not) know, for awhile there I was a bit of an air warrior, traveling for work. You can always tell the seasoned traveler from the infrequent traveler. Where to put luggage, when to use approved portable electronic devices, so on and so forth. But the more subtle difference is the frequent traveler who has had a near-miss with danger vs one who has not. Billy Mays, I would wager, was not one who ever had a close call. A few flights ago I was talking with the crew aboard the plane about the seatbelt sign. There was a person who kept ignoring it. In defence, when you gotta go, you gotta go. The reality is that when the seat belt sign is on, sit your ass down. And when you are sitting down, put on your seat belt. The sign being off doesn't mean to take the belt off, it means you can go pee. Do not mill around the cabin like a wannabe terrorist. Do your business and get back to your seat. Also, a friendly tip - when you are not using the toilet, close the lid. If there's turbulence and you fall, do you want to fall in the toilet? Do you want things from the toilet splashing up on you? No. Also, if you open the lavatory door before you flush it, you don't get depressurised. When I take off and land, I take a deep breath and pull my seat belt as tight as possible - and then yank it as hard as I can. When the US Airways flight had the tire blowout yesterday, I thought about my conversation with the flight crew and how we all agreed that you need your seat belt as tight as you can get it. You never know what can happen on a landing or even during taxi to the jetway. Enter Billy Mays. During the blowout, something happened and he hit his head. Which led to his death. I'm curious to see what happened to poor Billy. Did he have his seat raised to the full, upright position? Was he leaning back into the headrest? Was his seat belt tightened? What hit his head? | | Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | | 12:45 am |
Trip day #1
Maple Ridge caught fire for me: http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/47371342.htmlI have video I will upload later. Moral of that story: Never buy a Pontiac, especially a Grand Am, ESPECIALLY a gold one. The Mazda is having problems. Why? Because their smartass technicians think they are smarter than I am. I told those fucknuts it was the alternator. They scammed Gen into buying a new battery because she is a woman and treated her like a moron and scared her. If the Mazda won't start tomorrow, I am going to threaten to sue the dealer if they don't compensate me for trip interruption. | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | | 1:12 am |
Ah life how you mock me...
I was at my Vancouver apartment earlier today and it was fine... Actually, let me back it up. K...I live in Marpole. We are conveniently located between Oak St, Granville St, 70th and just a hop, skip and a jump away from Richmond via the Oak St or Arthur Laing bridge. Very soon we will even be a scant 5 blocks from the new Skytrain on Cambie. In Marpole there are two types of residences: Million-dollar+++, tiny-ass homes and REALLY old 3-story apartments. While I wish I lived in one of those super-pricey homes, I actually live in one of the apartments. Marpole is one of the biggest tradeoffs in the entire region because there are huge pluses and minuses. First, we all know that transit in BC pretty much sucks...except in Marpole, where it is fucking great. We have the Marpole loop, easy ways to get to the 17 or the 98 B-Line, it's a short and quick bus ride to the airport, we're 5 minutes by car to anywhere in Richmond, 15 minutes to downtown or Burnaby, 25-30 to the border, so on and so forth. We kick ourselves for not moving here sooner. Also, because the apartments are old, people were not as concerned over space and thus they are huge. Anything since the 90's is around 400-500 sq ft for a 0/1 BR apartment. I remember being told ours here in Marpole was 780 sq ft. I'm not sure if it's quite that big, but it's way bigger than our last place, which was 500 sq ft. I guess it's about half the size of the house in Birch Bay, which is 1560 sq ft. The point is that if you want a huge apartment and not have to live in a suite in someone's house, Marpole has those kinds of places. Onto the bad. We've been robbed and attempted to be robbed. Because we're close to everything, there's a lot of foot traffic. And the fact I split time between Canada and the US means my neighbours knew I was gone for a few days at a time. When we got robbed, I was sure it was a neighbour who told the robbers we were gone. Since things are old, shit is often broken or breaking. We just tolerate it. For $700/mo in Vancouver, there's a point where you don't have much of a right complaining too loudly. So yes, there are annoyances like our bathroom that is never fixed, but whatever. It comes with the territory. Even being broken into, I can rationalise that to a point. We're on the ground floor and near a street. The sliding glass door was busted, someone saw their opportunity and took it. Of course we drilled a ton of metal screws into the door and you can't even open it now...which leads to a problem in my story. And I'm getting there. I was gone for only a few hours, but when I got home I saw nothing as I entered. I thought "shit"...I got robbed just days before moving out of here for good? Seriously? I was even thinking to myself on the drive up "don't let anything bad happen God, you already screwed me with the Jeep being broken into when I got kicked out of Canada for a year for being an illegal"...yes, the day I was to leave Canada, some dickhead broke into my Jeep and robbed it. Enjoy your CD-Rs of The Cure, asshole. Turns out it wasn't the area this time, it was the age. I walk in, take off my shoes and notice my carpet is ripped. I was thinking...ok, thieves looking for buried treasure? Don't laugh, stranger things have happened in the search for weed in this province, BELIEVE ME. When we got robbed, the place smelled like pot. They way they ransacked it, they were looking for weed and drugs. I call Gen and she gives me the landlord's phone. I call her and find out that the sewage pipe broke in the next unit. I'm walking around barefoot in mine. The patio door is drilled shut. I have God knows what on my feet and the place smells. I'm supposed to be leaving for a 5-day drive in less than 8 hours. I don't want to start any Blasphemous Rumours, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour and when I die, I expect to find him...laughing So that's my evening. I was trying to make it to Montreal as fast as I can, but fuck it now. The landlord moved all of my shit. I can't even get to my bed. I had all of this stuff staged and ready to go for the trip tomorrow. I was going to load it up quickly, but now I can't. I'm just going to take my time. Was it still worth it to live in Marpole? Yes, I think so. But I'm not surprised. Old buildings break down. That's why you get the cheap rent and the big floor space, close to everything. What sucks is that had a few things turned out differently, I would have been moved out of here already, rendering this entire ordeal a moot point. | | Friday, June 5th, 2009 | | 1:33 am |
Drums
It seems as if every time I move, I do all the moving. Perhaps it's the whole "shit rolls downhill" thing or that I seem to the "here" where the "buck stops", but I am moving 2 houses this time and it's pretty rough, especially when there are two members of my family sitting around on their asses while I am working...and when they do help they do more harm than good. I'd be better off getting rid of them and just being here alone to do it. Anyway, there's a point. I had to go do some banking garbage today in Bellingham and I was listening to Alt Nation on Sirius and the new-ish Silversun Pickups song came on, Panic Switch. I was getting a little bored with it so I switched to Boneyard and Rush's Distant Early Warning came on when the juxtaposition of the two songs led to an interesting personal preference. I couldn't finish Panic Switch because the drumming bores the living fuck out of me. If you've ever known anyone in a rock band, the oft-heard phrase of "we can get another drummer" is basically a commentary on the fact that there's a handful of rock beats and just about any retarded monkey could play them. You then have Rush on the other hand. Lots of people detest progressive rock, and frankly I don't blame them. It's too difficult to listen to, too far out there. That said, I've always loved Neil Peart's drumming. He is the opposite of the stereotypical rock drummer in that he plays along in an orchestrated fashion as a lead instrument more than just a backing instrument. Don't get me wrong about Silversun Pickups. I appreciate the low-fi take on shoegaze. The problem is that it's easy to get bored. And don't get me wrong about Rush, either. I love Rush, but it's not like they're easily accessible. Listening to Rush requires effort or even tolerance. I think the key is somewhere in the middle where you have pop rock that's a bit low-fi, but has orchestrated drumming. And as I thought about it, I could not come up with ANY act that had a prog rock drummer that was not a prog rock band. Then I wondered if having a prog rock drummer is what defines a band as prog rock or not. And it's a pretty interesting question. It might be the case. For all of the music I know I can't think of a rock band that meets the criteria of having a prog rock drummer and not being a prog rock band. The only things I can think of are like alternative bands with a reggae drummer becoming ska - things like that. Something to ponder... |
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