wow.

i'm at work listening to Janine Stoll

simply beautiful.

oh gosh, i had to really sucky days. nothing major really, but i'm used to everything just pulling together in the end and this time, well, that did not quite happen. it's mostly little nagging things that just make me want to go home, read my newspaper cook a bit and not do much.

to reverse that tendency, i've decided to jot down amusing tidbits of my past fews days, because they are worth the entertainment value.

- on my way back from work, i usually avoid the busy henri-bourassa boulevard and opt for the back alley. there is this apartment building close to the metro where the renters have set up this really elaborate garden, complete with (hang on to your hat!) all the characters from the bible. not life sized but close. i swear to god, they had something new every week. recently, they connected the garden hose to a shower head and hung it on a pole. one of the renters was showering out doors, in public and was spraying water at every girl who passed by. i guess he was trying to lure them to shower with him with, uh, no success. the day before, he serenaded the latin lady on the second floor lip-syncing to a tacky america redux of a spanish song. oh so lovely.

- quite a few of my neighbors have decided to hold garage sales every week. one woman in particular set ups her stall in front of the jean coutu. a couple of her friends come over to supervise the operations. one of them had brought over a box full of plastic lizzards and she said, as she pulled one out : 'look, i swear these things are worth 5 or 6 $ each.' the other one replied, without a blink, 'are you nuts? they sell them at the dollar store.' echoing my own thoughts as i was walking by. her only reply was, 'oh no, not these ones.' cute.

- in a clothing store a couple of weeks back, this mother was shopping with her two daughters. 'mama, what's your size?' one of them asked. 'i'm a size six' (which, in french, you'd really call six year old.) the younger of the two daughters raised her eyebrows and said, surprised: 'oh! that's just like me!'

hmm... that's all i can remember for now!

i am floored. call me stupid but i expected more in general from intellectuals with enough honorary degrees to make a wall collapse if you hung them all up at once.


quote of the day (if not week, year, or man, lifetime)

John R. Bolton, current ambassador of the USA at the United Nations:

"I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts," he added, while defending as "self-defense" Israel's military action, which has had "the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths".

in other words, we as citizens have to be on the look-out for potential troublemakers inside our borders. because we will be seen as responsible for the actions of a small number of people that we've probably never come in contact with should they decide to perpetrate terrorist acts abroad. and, thankfully, should consciouness ever come to trouble the pilot flying that f16 over our heads he will be allowed to bask in the blissful mindfuck that allows people to see others as just a little shy of being human.


and here is where i beg to differ from those who will want to convince you that sex, age, skin color, land of origin, religion, sexual orientation matter, i will teach you an equation that is as simple as it is true:

a human life = a human life

do not let anyone try to tell you otherwise.

i personally think that the media should stop using 'canada' to refer to declarations made by stephen harper. as in 'canada is ambivalent about deploying an international peace force in the middle east.'

i'm sure stephen harper has stopped representing the point of view of a large number of us a long while ago.

that is, if he even represented us in the first place.

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reading the paper this morning, i learned that our great country will only help its citizens evacuate lebanon. permanent residents left off to fend for themselves.

funny how a piece of paper can make a person's life worth something.

or not.

Job strategy for girls: Please keep your clothes on

Wang Yanlin

2006-07-13

Source: Shanghai Daily - http://english.news365.com.cn/

TO lure employers in a tough job market, one job seeker surnamed Zhu assembled a portfolio of sexy photos. She wore a miniskirt and spaghetti-strap top.

Bad choice, though her credentials were good. Zhu was up to par academically: An undergraduate with a major in marketing. The sexy photos made her resume stand out, but they didn't help her - they hurt.

To Zhu's disappointment, she got no job offers. One company in the beauty industry, which must be avant-garde in Zhu's opinion, declined her, saying Zhu's personality did not accord with its corporate culture.

What she failed to recognize was that she had presented too much of herself, including ignorance of rules in the workplace. Her attire in the photos revealed that she was quite "free"- not well disciplined.

For job seekers, using tricks to make their resumes noticed is necessary. But such a trick - being overtly sexy - should be the last trick.


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What could one say after reading this, really?

i was hoping to do this in a somewhat chronological (or at least logical!) manner but i have to face the truth: my brain just does not seem to work that way.

anyhow.

musings (a few days late) :

• leaving food out on a table while camping is often hazardous. not so much because of bears, but because of overly friendly deer with a soft spot for salty snacks.
• corollary of the aforementioned lesson: everything you do to mother nature she will give you pay back for, often sooner than expected.

of course, there is an anecdote related to this that can be summarized as follows: j. sees a bunch of frat boys whose campsite is by the group fire pit. first thing that comes to mind: 'oh oh trouble'. around dinner time, as m. & j. are trying to make melted cheese and apples on the fire, they notice that the frat boys have taken to playing a game called 'throwing a machete at young trees to see if it will stick to it'. then eventually migrated away from their site, enjoying a newly discovered game: 'hitting strangers' tents with a frisbee'... until a deer came around and did some quality control over the wide variety of snacks they brought. with the way the dear was licking his lips, we could tell he gave snacks two paws up!

• the rockies are, as their name suggests, really really big rocks. i can not find a more clever way to put it.
• canada (or, well, the part i got to drive through) has an awfull lot of small mining towns who have unfortunately become something like ghost towns after the mines shut down. stores and motels that are still opened pay tribute to this once glorious past: gold digger RV and campground & gold pan coffee house.
• thanks to draft dodgers, hippies (and probably organic pot growers!), other smalltowns have developed thriving micro-economies where buying local and thinking global can be easily done on a daily basis.
• extended thank yous to japanese tourists who make sure that the tourism industry can make record profits year after year. and that the attractions are also well maintained. i do, however, hope they do not discover the joys of camping. i do not think i could stand to see my every move recorded on video camera as i stumble out of my tent at 7 in the morning.
• the concept of riding ferries to go everywhere is really appealing to me. although i am sure the effect probably does wear off with time. i like standing at the front, with my eyes partially opened pretending that i am navigating on an old wooden boat towards unknown lands. in a more elaborate reverie, i also pretend to shout instructions to my loyal crew members.
• after visiting vancouver and victoria, i wonder why anyone would want to live in toronto, hamilton and maybe even the cute little city of ottawa.

and now for the more mundane lessons:

• the sun sets at different times, according to your location. i was probably told during geography class, but i guess it had slipped by me until now.
• my heart goes out to the people of creston who live at the limit of the mountain and pacific time zones. they thus have to take calculate time differences before giving a call to friends in neighboring towns. what is even trickier, things change when daylight saving time comes around. i would clearly not have enough brain power to understand any of this.
• really big sunglasses can be worn over regular reading glasses, apparently. you can thus avoid having to buy two pairs. you might also scare the hell out of a few people that way.
• although i originally made a big deal out of this, i guess i did not mind too much wearing a temporary tatoo of a maple leaf on canada day. besides, you have to admire a country that will let its citizen host a drag ball game (the queens against the kings) on its national day.

hmm… i guess that’s it for now. until next year when i explore foreign lands again providing i am blessed enough to get a chance to do. which means unless i screw up and get my precious a$$ fired.

things that go through your mind after riding a truck, a boat, a bus, a train, your two skinny legs, a car, a plane and another car and ending up on your door step (abreviated version):

"gee, the light in the kitchen doesn't work."
"oh! where did the dog's hair go? wait, is it you?"
(then double-checking as he responds to my french greetings. "good, it really is schweppes.")

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final note (and an important one at that):

thank you to my two west coast girls.