Fear and Emotions

I get the impression that people are mostly governed by fear. It is an extremely effective emotion that causes people to do all sorts of fucked up things. For example, I am amazed how people are constantly edgy. I was biking home from work tonight, on the sidewalk, and there was a lady in front of me walking her dog. I usually just pass at nearly full speed on the grass, yet several times the women have actually screamed out loud at the surprise of my bike. The other option that I have would be to ring the bell in order to get them to move over a bit. This causes an equally funny problem. People have reaction times that are far too slow, and it simply causes confusion. For example, whenever I have done this, the person will usually turn around, take a second or so to react and figure out what they have to do, and THEN awkwardly move over. By this time, of course, my front wheel is straight up their ass, and their dog's leg is contorted in my gears.

Fear is especially important in politics and television. The media constantly plays the fear card in order to get people nervous or excited about things which they really shouldn't give a shit about in the first place. Political strategists will arouse emotions of fear in order to gain support or compliance. One needs to look no further than the justification for the Iraq war in order to understand how the public complied. Even today, the steady erosion of civil liberties in the name of security is being justified through the fear of invisible enemies and hypothetical situations. What is most scary, and the general population does not understand, is that the erosion of liberties occurs at such a gradual pace that each small step does not seem especially important. However, if we are to look back at the ground that has been lost at the end of a year, the score can be devastating. This is certainly the case with the totalitarian policies that the US government has implemented over the past few years.

Head of the House

No matter what is said, women still do not have social equality with men. It's quite interesting to see how we pretend that there is no discrimination of any kind, and yet there are a number of gender-related behaviours that are very easy to spot in everyday situations. For example, in my house, and in the house of most people that I know, the male head of the household sits at the end of the table when eating meals. This is especially true when guests are over, and so the seating arrangement has 6 or maybe 8 people. If there are two couples, the men will usually sit opposite each other at the ends of the table.

Whether this is all a conscious decision remains unclear to me. I would in fact be quite interested to find out what the thought process behind all this is. Why do women put up with this chauvinism? They are always subjugated to the supporting role of assistant, sitting at the side of their husband as an adviser of sorts, but never taking the lead. If you look at seating arrangements in business meetings, the person with most seniority will usually sit at the end of the table as a position of honour and distinction. Who decided that this was the standard seating position at home? I look forward to seeing a day when two women will sit at the table ends just to throw things off. Ironically enough, that would take great balls, as they say.

Relatives

Some people just can't tell that they go from being welcomed to being annoying. Some relatives of mine come up from Mexico every year or so (no, I'm not Mexican, for reference). I always start off by welcoming them and all, but soon they begin to push my buttons. First off, they set up their base camp here as if it was the national emergency preparedness centre or something. Calls from friends come in and out, and they sit down to do business from here. Since we have no guest bedroom, my mom asked if I would give up my room for two nights. At first this annoyed me because I've seen it happen before, but I remembered that I had not yet tried my new Sierra Designs sleeping bag, so I made it my mission to camp out in the basement. Of course, I forgot this bag goes to -9, so I was pretty damn hot the first night in the basement.

What annoys me the most, however, is that I have to wait in line more or less to take a shower because they've set up a base camp in there. They carry a ridiculous amount of pharmaceutical products around, and feel free to take over my bathroom counter with 50 bottles of I-don't-know-what facial cleansers. Second of all, they are not light travellers. Even for two nights, they completely take over my room as if they were ants building a colony. Papers litter my desk. Clothes that don't belong to me hang in the closet. These are infectious people.

My point is that, while they are family members and my parents feel obliged to have them sleep here when they are in town (as it is so infrequent, etc.), I'd suggest they should get themselves a freakin' hotel room. I will pretend that it's ok with me that they can take over my room, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they're going too far. I know I would feel extremely awkward going to someone else's house, being offered a room, and making it up as if it were mine for the duration of my stay. It would be awkward enough just accepting in the first place as I would not want to feel as though I were imposing. Then... there are some who are blind.

Two Gay Mounties

As I was watching CTV News tonight, one of the most ridiculous stories I've seen in a long time was aired. The "news" item involves two gay mounties that will be marrying in a short while. Supposedly, this is notable news because they are the first gay mounties to marry. I fail to see the interest in this. Shall we have news stories for the first gay doctors, politicians, janitors, teachers, etc.?

The piece starts off with some footage of old Hollywood movies showing the typical mountie stereotype. This leads in to footage of these gay mounties in uniform, which is somehow supposed to draw a parallel to the "old mounties" or something. The commentator mentions that a gay mountie back then was one who was very happy, but the times have changed. Cut to the gay mounties holding hands, walking around in uniform, etc. They are interviewed and asked their opinions, as well as fishermen and other workers from the small New Brunswick town they grew up in.

Can we all fucking get a grip of ourselves. There are thousands of people who die from famine, AIDS, wars, etc. every single day around the world. There are important political issues. The best news item is about two fucking gay mounties. How silly and pathetic this is. As a society, we value this type of quasi-news more than any type of international news. We will watch American Idol before we watch a documentary of any sorts. We will watch Entertainment Tonight before even this regular half-assed news. How sad that two gay mounties is considered newsworthy. Maybe I'll walk around downtown tomorrow in a clown outfit while carrying a chainsaw. No doubt it would be the top story on the news. Can we collectively fall any lower than this?

The many valid reasons to have kids

I'm happy to work at a family orientated videostore. I see plenty of varieties of parenting. I also see why certain people decided to have kids. Some decided to get kids because they didn't become famous soccer players, others, because they never bullied others.

I say all reasons are valid to have kids. The world's full of idiots already, why not add a few? No one will notice: Except I, of course. Unhappy looking parents tend to have unhappy children with several issues. I keep noticing ugly fat women walking in with ugly fat kids, these women were never loved so they scream at their kids at the slightest movement they make. The uglier, nastier the parent treat the kids, the harder the parent has at figuring out how the machine works. They obviously don't take their time, they rush into everything, get mad and complain for no reason. Their kid often suggests solutions, and before they can finish talking they are yelled at. I'd have to say most kids have the right solutions in the first place, but no adult want to listen.

The children who are the best have parents who listen, and are interested in their kids. Some parents downright ignore the kids, and often the children acts in a hyper active A.D.D. fashion. It's completely different in children who get the attention and respect (especially respect) they deserve. I often spend time with one kid who walks into my store. I showed him the machine and how things worked. He spoke a lot and moved around a lot but was eager to see how things worked. The woman in charge of him (I believe she made alusions to her running a daycare so I'm not sure of parental relations) often interacts with him and I. She respects him, but obviously limits him for fear of him getting hurt, but the kid wants to learn and is extremely curious.

So I say go ahead people and have kids. Treat them like shit. Get revenge on them for how the world treated you. I want to see suicide rates grow. I want to see horrid acts performed and unhappy people continue to ruin television with horrible Fox shows, soap operas and reality shows.

A history of violence

David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" is somewhat a blend of mainstream and independent. On the one hand, I've used the movie and recommended it to many people in the hopes that it will spark some form or another of thought. Given it's mainstream elements, it should keep the "Holly shit his fucking chest blew up!" people entertained while maybe keeping them thinking.

While I was watching the documentaries attached to the DVD a thought came up. The last chapter is entitled "Hope" and is based on the hope we have of changing our ways and evolving beyond the violent apes we are. The hope that criminals can be reformed and brought back into society. The hope that some day we do grow older, wiser and smarter then our former selves.

There is yet another hope that came to mind. The hope that we can get rid of religious cancer. That thousands of years of unjustified violence, intolerance and limitations of the human mind might finally come to an end. After all, the movie does mirror what religion is doing to this day. The horrible acts commited over so many years are asked to be overlooked and forgotten, yet the ways are still unchanged, the ideas unmodified and the message old fashionned. In the movie though, the character is completely changed. It didn't take so many screenwriters to come up with the idea that if the character was to have the audience's sympathy, it was going to take change. How many people wrote the Bible?

The only reasons I'm happy the idea of God is still present are:
- Oh my God!
- Holly shit!
- For God's sakes
- God Damnit!
- Fucking God
- "Fucking you is like a Godly experience"
- "Want to feel like God? Get a few people to kill a few people"

I don't know what I'd do without those expressions.

Call Waiting

Call Waiting has to be one of the most insulting technological inventions. There is no justified use for it whatsoever. If the line is busy and the call is important, the person will leave a message or call back. There's no need to insult the person who you're putting on hold because you're so fucking important.

Today I get a call from someone. About 30 seconds into the call, the person says: "Oh, I have another line, just a minute". So I wait and wait. After several minutes go by, I just decide to hang up. Listen, you fucking called me, and you're wasting MY time with your bullshit call waiting. If the other call is so important have the courtesy to tell me so that I can go on to do more important things.

The other thing I want to comment on is answering machines. For whatever reason I never felt comfortable with them whatsoever. It seems like you would have to talk to yourself often in order to feel comfortable. To me it simply feels like the most awkward thing in the world, from a psychological perspective. We're trying to pretend as if we're talking directly to the person that we're leaving a message for, but it doesn't quite seem to work. Generally, about halfway through the message, I become aware of how ridiculous the situation is. The other strange thing is there's this whole anticipation for the *beep*, as if you have to start talking the second the fuckin thing beeps. So during the greeting, you mentally prepare yourself to start talking when the beep has sounded, all while not jumping the gun. There has to be a more efficient way of doing this.

Newspapers

The quality of Canadian newspapers is quite appalling. I'm not sure if people are simply uninterested in hard news or, for that matter, international news, but Canadian newspapers have so much fluff and garbage in them. On my trip to Europe, I read several newspapers (from Paris, London, etc.) and it seemed to me that the breadth of coverage was far more interesting. Furthermore, the quality of writing was better, and the articles went more in-depth. In essence, they are more like daily magazines than the Canadian crap I wish I could wipe my ass with.

The Globe and Mail claims that it's a national newspaper, and it is indeed the best daily newspaper for Canadian affairs. However, it's riddled with ads, like all Canadian newspapers (far less of this overseas), and it's extremely Toronto-centric, as if it were the capital of the world. It's almost a joke to call this a national newspaper because there is zero coverage of major happenings outside of Ontario.

The Canwest papers are the absolute worst of them all. The Montreal Gazette is a piece of Jewish shit. I have nothing specifically against Jews, but this constant pro-Israel bias is unhealthy in any form of public discourse. The Aspyrs and Co. have constantly placed a heavy hand in the affairs of their papers, from this Israel bias to the "national editorials" that they tried to pull not long ago. They also fired numerous journalists who refused to toe the line. The National Post is just a Conservative puppet it seems, but then all newspapers (especially Canwest) have been praising Harper as if he had sucked their collective dicks and was the seventh son of Jesus or something.

As I was perusing through the Ottawa Citizen yesterday morning, I couldn't help but chuckle at the editorial that they decided to print. The best thing that they could talk about was the nature of swear words in Quebec. They argued that most people in Quebec take the nature of swear words (church-related) very lightly, and many don't know what they mean because they no longer go to church and the Roman Catholic boys' club doesn't have the influence over the State that it once did. The editorial was written in this extremely condescending tone which seemed to mock the whole of Quebec society and its swearing. It wasn't explicit, but this appeared to be the only purpose for publishing the editorial in the first place. Essentially, the Roman Catholic church is running some kind of advertising thing to sensitize Quebekers to the nature of the words they swear with. I wouldn't say that they praised this move, but the conclusion of the piece was that it was nice to see the Roman Catholic church taking some tough action with a bit of humour involved. Tabarnak caulisse...

Is there a sexual pattern for ugly people?

Alright, I'm pretty much throwing this one into the ring. It isn't a clever, smart and even educated observation, but I do wonder; Is there a sexual pattern for ugly people? This came to mind when some clients walked in, obviously 2 sisters and one was the boyfriend of one of the sisters. I couldn't stop thinking how I'd seen similar ugly women in my life. The type that has a nose like some horrible bird out of Looney Tunes. The hooked-typed nose, with the flat and long forehead and an arrow-shaped jaw. If these are common uglies, then there must be some common sexuality to them.

I'm not saying I'm good looking before somebody calls me pretencious , but I have to admit something. I consider most people, probably up to 90%, to be quite decent looking. Not too pleasing to my eyes, but definetly far from being disgusting to stare at. A good 5% are really pleasing, and the other 5 is the unmentionned disgusting waste of human body parts. If you believe in God, these individuals should change your mind.

So is it possible that ugliness holds som form of sexuality? I was merily observing the body, because the face already made me want to dip my eyes in vinegar. She had no attraction whatsoever, nothing remarkable about her body: Small tits, wide ass and thighs. Her personality didn't look very promising either given her bitch of a look.

Yet, this type of ugliness has been floating around for generations. So what gives?

Get rid of Handlex and AirTransAT

I thought I caught a break last week when AirTransat gave me a call and asked me to go work for them as a bordind agent. I was kind of thrilled and excited to get to work at the airport and see how the big wheels of traveling works.

As it turns out, I got the biggest insult of 2006. The training is a period of 3 days, the third day being rivision and examination day. I can't go into details as to how the third day goes, because I quit before that.

You see, working at the airport requires a lot more then common sense and a good attitude towards clients, it requires a big effort and a lot of know-how. The airport language is complicated and long to remember. It's something you've got to want to do, or else it won't work. So I came into my course, fully expecting this challenge and happily learning all that needed to be learnt and as it turns out, the only thing that was ever tested was my patience.

The first day consisted of a disgusting tour of the head offices in cote-vertu and a horrendus, not to mention useless, tour of the airport. The 'teacher' actually had organized nothing and the whole day turned into a waiting game. We were led around and had to wait so that the teacher could disturb the 'hard working' employees to see if it was ok for us to enter their domain. At the end of the day, I had no better clue of what my job would have consisted of. And that means I only had 1 day to remember everything from the language and the weights required and authorized for luggage.

They opened for business in YVR (Vancouver airport) so the staff was quite low. For a company that required over 50 employees ASAP, very little were present on the day of the training and very little were interested in meeting, seeing and teaching the potential new employees.

The second day was followed by an actual in-class-learning day. Except the teacher didn't prepare, so she passed out papers in random fashion, and had a powerpoint presentation she had never seen before to work with. She simply read, and then got bored so she made the students read. She showed no interest in teaching us anything, she would even text message on her cellphone while students asked her questions. She would get up and go outside while people talked because the people she was messaging were there.

I've got to hand it to those people, they sure know how to make a business run. She spent a serious amount of time telling us who to blame is things wen't awry. She made the company sound like a scapegoat hunt and actually had the nerve to say that blaming the passenger was a good course of action.

Sure glad I won't work for such a comapany.

"I have to make an effort?"

I love working at Videoself. I take care of the store over the weekends. The concept is an interesting one, note that it isn't perfect but it's got potential. On the one part, it illiminates awkwardness in renting movies and turns the experience to a somewhat personal level. For more information, visit their web-site at www.videoself.ca.

What makes my job interesting, besides fixing the machine of course, is seeing the thought process people go through when it comes to technology. I have never been more annoyed, and happy to teach people how to use the machine. To a certain extent, I can safely say that most people are not willing to make any effort to understand the system on their own. I tested this out by sometimes only explaining how to take out their movies once they've reserved it. Easily, 9 times out of 10 the client will come back to me explaining that the machine hasn't given them their movies. It's easy, you put your card in the dispenser. They don't do that. They cross their arms, and look around and get fed up after some time. I've had people believing the system was total shit simply because it wouldn't take out the movie as they thought.

It's also happened more then once that people encounter a slight problem and quickly jump to the conclusion that something in the system is fucked. On more then one occasion, I'm stuck re-explaining or displaying the proper procedures to renting out films. The funny part is that it isn't hard. In the matter of 3hrs, I had to figure out how the system works, how the registration system works, how the filing system works, and how the machine works. I had no issue doing so, it took but a few moments to fully understand the system and all of its crevaces.

The way business' should seriously operate in my mind is this:
"I offer a service. You don't like it, then go somewhere else you miserable piece of shit and find a system that'll suit your needs."

I hate to say it, but the high school I went to actually had a similar sentence written in the agenda as part of the binding contracts between students and administration. I still think the school was ridiculously handled, but at least they understood business.

64% of Canadians are still really stupid

Statistics Canada released an interesting survey today pertaining to the religious affiliations of Canadians. There are a number of points worth noting. First of all, 64% of Canadians are either moderately or strongly religious, meaning that they go to church on a regular or semi-regular basis, or they indulge in some kind of religious practises at home. This same 64% was also said to believe in little green leprechauns that grant wishes, but that may or may not have been in this study. 33% of Canadians go to church/mosque/dungeon on a regular basis, forming the dumbest and most indoctrinated part of the population. Here are a few conclusions that the study came to, along with my comments:

-Young adults are the least religious group. This is encouraging news. Difficult to say if it stems from a rebellious attitude, apathy, or an actual lack of religious conviction. From what I have seen, young people tend to be more sceptical about these things.

-The proportion of people who attend services or engage in other religious activities at home increases with age. This is to be expected. As people get older and are confronted with death, they tend to clutch on to ridiculous concepts which make them feel all warm and fuzzy. Religion is comforting, and this is why people believe in it. It distracts old people from the harsh realities of life. Better to believe in the afterlife than to face the fact that you wasted your whole fucking life.

-Men are less religious than women. Again, this is not too surprising. Women tend to be governed by emotions more than men in terms of the decisions they make. Since religion plays on the emotional instead of the rational, it makes sense that women would be more religious than men.

-Immigrants are more religious than people born in Canada. I have no real evidence to back this up, but I suspect this might have something to do with education. The study also showed that immigrants from South Asia were also more religious than European and Japanese migrants. The only factor that would be in play is education, considering that the systems in these countries is far less rigorous. There have been countless studies in the past also linking religiosity to education level, and this seems like a logical conclusion to draw in this case.

The last component of the study looked at children and their association to their parents' religious views. It showed that children who have parents that share the same religious association were extremely likely to be indoctrinated into believing the same thing their parents do. On the flip side, parents who were atheists had children which also tended to be non-believers. This is extremely interesting because it demonstrates that children who are not exposed to religious propaganda do not tend to gravitate toward religion out of some kind of rational thought later in life. On the contrary, of parents who were religious, there tended to be a much higher percentage of children who would end up rejecting these views. Only about 10% of children from non-religious parents would practise some form of religious belief later in life.

My question to you is: Are you a part of the 64%?

A Few Things To Resolve

Let's settle a few things. I have mentioned some in the past, but they need to be articulated over and over because it's so ridiculous.

1. If you tell me that you like "most music except rap and country", this doesn't tell me a single thing. Am I to understand that you listen to both Fred Penner and Celine Dion ad nauseum? This is the all too standard response to the favourite bands question. It seems like a cop out, and the desire is to demonstrate something positive about yourself (I'm open minded, look at me....except country!). The result, however, is that you come off as being someone with no interest whatsoever in music, completely apathetic, and simply listen to what happens to be playing. This is a total cop out.

2. If your favourite book or movie was released in the past three years, this doesn't tell me that you're hip or with the times. Instead, it tells me that you've probably read 3 books in your life, and they all just so happened to be Harry Potter books. If you tell me your favourite movies are "MI:III and Old School", this tells me that you're a fucking moron.

Thanks for listening.