Traffic Piss-offs

I may grippe in real life about all that pisses me off, but I've never considered a blog the appropriate place. However, It has come to my attention:

1)I happen to get pissed off at least once a day

2)Maybe too many people bite their tongues

I remember my father telling me, ages upon AGES ago, that if I didn't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. For all intents and purposes, I'm going to toss that right out the window.

Morning Commute Drivers of the St. John's Area:

Stop mother f*cking hitting me with your cars. See that cross walk? Usually, there is a giant white "X" about 50 feet before it, as well as a sign indicating a pedestrian crossing. In the past two years, I have been struck* by just as many cars, and had about 15 close calls. Sure you can blame it on weather, snow clearing, ice, whatever. The fact is, drivers are careless (Oh yes, I just did say that. No apologies here, I press the buttons and pause and look, don't jaywalk, and really, I'm not the ton of steel and rubber going 60km down a residential street). Last week, I waited at a crosswalk around Rawlin's Cross, 4 cars zoomed by, not even stopping or yielding, only looking one way to check for other traffic. One car finally stops, looks both ways, remains stopped... I venture out only to be greeted by his front bumper. Swallowing my heart attack, I give him the finger and proceed. Seconds later he rolls down his window and shouts at my back, "And a f*cking good morning to you too!". Needless to say, I signed at him again and went about my day. Last time before that, it was a large minivan who didn't see myself or the STOP sign. After jumping back from his hood, I kicked his van and swore loudly, he rolled down his window to ask me if I was OK. I said I was, and walked off.

Honestly, most folks are decent enough, they just want to leave their house, drop their kids off at school or daycare and get to work. There is certain amount of leeway for caffeine deprived, rushed, stressed, and otherwise non-morning people, except when you're in a car - this combines morning stupidity with reckless endangerment of your fellow citizens. Oh, and this is no idle rant. Next time this happens, if I'm not seriously injured that is, I'll be snapping colourful pictures of your licence plates.

Taxi Companies of the St. John's Area:

Although I deeply sympathize with all/any unfortunate events that happen to your drivers/businesses, I have a few suggestions:

1) You should have mandatory driving certification from an accredited driving school for all drivers

2)You should have mandatory snow tires during the winter months

And don't think for one second that regular metro-area drivers don't notice that you guys get away with almost every driving offence that is offendable. Speeding to running red lights and stop signs. Oh yeah, and talking on their cell phones, without a hands-free head set. If your business is about driving people to their destinations, you guys should have to do it safely. Getting a cab ride in St. John's is like riding the caged ferris wheel in Thomas Amusements; only it's more than 5 tickets and you didn't bargain for the fear of god.

* Literally, tapped (i.e. close calls)

Phylum-Kingdom-Domain-Life

Someone once told me you could breed a cat and a rabbit together and make a cabbit. I entertained the idea, cause it's cool as shit. But entirely untrue. Alas, cross-breeding is limited wolves and dogs, fishermen with fish (resulting in merpeople), zebras and donkeys, kling-ons and humans, geeks and nerds, and cattle... with other cattle. It's a bad idea to breed a bull and a Greek, but it's okay to breed people with goats and horses.

We're bound by this odd sense of humour called compatibility. It rules much more than just inter species procreation, it damn near controls life. For instance, I have numerous SD and Micro SD cards, only one of which with be read in my laptop.

I have a T.V. which must have been built in Iceland about 65 million years ago because you cannot hook-up any cables or cords to it. It just plugs in. Honest. My digital camera is only compatible with $23 batteries - thank the stars for camera phones. Ah, speaking of which, my phone is built with like ficsher price bumpers cause I have dropped it on almost every surface known to man, and it still works. (i.e. delayed individuals with habitual dependence on coffee and less dexterity than a peanut should buy LG phones.)

Then there's compatibility when making food. Does the roast cabbit go well with rosemary? Can I add black beans to a curry shrimp wrap? Garlic however, Is compatible with pretty much anything. It's a lover of tomato, potato, egg, shrimp and peppers. It does not play well with muffins and pancakes.

Some colours are incompatible. This becomes blurred with personal opinion, but when we consider aesthetics, brown and navy still do not go together. Also, yellow lettering on a white back round is not compatible. In fact it's damned near painful to try to decipher it. Does someone decide these things? Who said you could breed a Lion and a Tiger (resulting in either a Tigon or a Liger) but not an Albatross and an Ostrich (resulting in a massive scary bird with an enormous wing span of 23 feet which could fly in the stratosphere). Where is the justice?

At times there can be strange reactions to compatibility. Especially when you force it.

For example:

. Napkins do not work in fax machines, the result is a broken fax machine.

. Rats cannot drink beer, the result is a rat who cannot burp, and a scary few hours of back patting.

. If it's movie night and you rent an adult movie, snacks are not appropriate, the result varies.

. Towels cannot be washed with dry-clean only garments, the result is worse than washing just dry-clean only garments.

Listing personal incompatibilities is fun. I am incompatible with hot weather, fax machines, techno music, young children, liver, celery, high heels, tank-tops, dogs and rpg gamers. I am compatible with fall weather, computers, hummus, peppers, DVS skate sneakers, hoodies, cats and word searches.

The vain child in me wishes that one could really mingle some frog DNA with dinosaur DNA and create little mini dinosaurs for house pets. I always wanted an Ankylosaurus. Feck. I wanted a mini velicoraptor too.

Grab the bully by the horns

I've got a bone to pick, or more precisely, I'm putting on the table a bone I've been gnawing at for some 22 years of my life. Bullying. It is the most despicable form of harassment and violence I have experienced. Around St. John's it's been getting media attention from parents and students alike and I say, about F*ing time.
When I was growing up I was picked on, harassed, attacked and accosted on a daily basis*. Where I grew up it was more minor, I had few friends, kids would call me fat, etc. It bothered me and I would cry, at times I wouldn't want to go to school, but more often than not, I would just read books. In Nova Scotia it was absolutely the most horrible experience of my life. I went from overweight to poor, white, fat and, I became a Newfoundlander.
Kids would pick on me and threaten me, tell me I had to do their homework or they'd beat the shit out me. They would make fun of my clothes, and they would insult my family. Three black girls started picking on me and would push me down in the halls, in full view of teachers. It scared me and I went to the principal. She accused me of being racist.
I was invited to a sleepover where the other girls made prank calls; weeks later they had police show up at the door because someone they pranked reported them. I had nothing to do with the call, but everyone there said it was me. They told me not to say anything and take the blame. I did, and there is no pride in not being a snitch. To this day I still think my mom thinks it was me.
A boy in my grade eight class pushed me as our class walked to the library and called my family a bunch of stupid inbred hick newfies. I pushed him back and punched him, and threw him against the lockers. When our teacher broke it up he sent to boy on to the library and gave me a bag of popcorn. He told me to go sit in the staff lounge room and calm down.
In grade ten we went to a bigger high school that had problems before with "race riots" and the lunch hours were divided to avoid fighting. The only thing that these separate lunch hours did was give me two lunch hours out of five with my only friend, leaving me with three per week completely alone. When we moved back to Newfoundland it was better. I still got the usual jeers and taunts, but I survived.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not crying over this stuff anymore. It happened. But it begs the question, What would I have been like if none of it happened?
Now in the midst of these claims, I feel compelled to state my own questions and comments.
1) Bullying is a band-aid term for violence, assault and harassment.
2) Reporting an incident that occurs on school grounds does nothing because the person in question gets suspended and comes back three days later more angry.
A major point I have to make is the fact that these students are creating a group called "the other" (Click that link). These are a majority people from within a society that form a base and often are comprised of varying minorities. (i.e. In Canada that would be First Nations peoples, Newfoundlanders, anyone below the poverty line, women, etc.) It can be argued that this is a natural process of being able to identify as an individual, or as belonging to a particular group. I don't debate it, however, one really needs to ask why these children, youths or teens need to destroy and humiliate others in order to feel control and power. Where do they get this from? Who is even qualified to help them? What happens if you let it go? Does the aggressor become a model citizen or a bank robber? Does the victim learn to love the institutions of this country, or do they don trench coats and retaliate with machine guns?
What I can say for certain is that a bit of media coverage and a rally IS NOT enough. It is a tip of an iceberg, merely 2 seconds into a 160 page inquest into the feelings and consequences of today's youth. I can only suggest that the parents stop talking and start listening to their children, ask them what it's like to be in school and to be their age.


*Yes, daily.

Twinkle pulsar and rattle constellation

I haven't blogged now for well over a month. Why? I have a pocket full of excuses: Exams, final projects, full-time work, moving. Notice that drinking and staying out late aren't included. Ah, time, that distinct "wooshing" noise as summer flys by, and that crumpled list of things you wanted to do during the summer... found in the lint trap in the dryer.

Evan and I are getting settled in nicely to the new apartment. We have fancy new microfiber couches, plastic smelling shower curtains, a smoke alarm which considers itself witty, and a part-time dog. Pictures should be coming along shortly, at the moment though, my camera refuses to operate, even with new batteries. School went well, considering my attendance was scant I'm bewildered that I boosted my GPA. I'm sure a particular final project which included the help of every lady in my family was the helping push. :) Thank-you again.

I highly recommend everyone with Google Earth to take advantage of it's new space features. You can look at the moon, constellations, nebula's and stars. Download it HERE if you don't have it. It is the shit. I love it. Here are some pictures of things you can "discover":

Crab Nebula Horse head Nebula

U.S.S. Enterprise

Some of you had to be expecting that last one. And now, in signing off, I'm going to leave you guys with excellent links. For my sisters or their babies, or anyone who just needs to be saved from boredom and commercialism: My coveted collection of T.V. and movie viewing links.

1) alluc.org - Sports, Cartoons, Documentaries, Movies, Shows. This is my fave, and the first I discovered

2)pazoena - Almost the best, really, alot of show series have seasons under both DivX and something like tudou or youtube

3)tv-links - Almost exactly like pazoena, only Star Trek TNG only works on one of them

4)free-tv-video - This one is used mostly for The Simpsons and Family Guy

5)family guy now - This is JUST family guy, season one to five are down the right and they have episode descriptions

I love Family Guy. I do not think children or sensitive people, or religious people, or basically anyone that can't take highly inappropriate jokes should watch this. It warps the social conditioning we've been taught. On a lighter note, alluc.org does have Fraggle Rock episodes, somewhere in these links are the old She-Ra and He-Man movies, Astroboy, the Thundercats series and movies, etc. Check out "Drawn Together" if you think family Guy is mild.

love love.

Tomato Soup Cake

So this weekend marked my older sisters 28th year! We celebrated with tomato soup cake and bright blue dinosaur cake, roasted slabs of steak, beers and fireworks (the herbivores had halibut and veggie dogs). The whole gang was up, Mom and John hosting, Evan and I, Auddie and Kevin, Mark and Erin made a fashionably late entrance after "getting lost" in Mobile.

My photos of the fireworks didn't come out well. Sadly, neither did my pathetic camcorder attempts. John was brave enough to run out and set them up in the driveway, while smoking a cigarette and examining them, Mark helped with an oddly perfect 2x4 he pulled from his Tracker. Good show all together, and a mighty thanks to Kevin for haulin' em all up.

After drinking, Aud opening her wicked awesome gifts, eating more and playing video games, we slept.

Then.

Evan and I made breakfast.

Evans secret special scrambled eggs and my spicy roast tatties. Served with a loaf of bread, toasted and placed in front our birthday girl (in hopeful distraction from the roasted potatoes, on my part). Evan was gung ho about the bacon and cast iron frying pans, I think he'd wage war against Teflon if he an army.

Ev and I drove back earlier and stopped by La Manche Park, Witless Bay Beach and Kelligrews (Pictures included).

By the way, the Peter's Pizza in CBS (owned by Peter who is also the owner of Venice and The Italian Pizza Market and all the Peters Pizza's) is the best place almost ever to get both slovaki AND fish and chips. Their dining room is huge and clean and service is wonderful. My slovaki was hot, fresh and the chunks of chicken were perfect AND plentiful. Even better than at his other places. As a note, Ev and I will be writing our own amateur reviews of all the places we go to eat, mine to be posted here so as to add some depth and munch ideas for any readers.

NEXT BLOG: The 20 minute baked quesadilla, complete with pictures.

Bugs

Mom likes to tell me that when I was kid, I used to collect every insect known to the backyard and call them my pets. She especially likes to tell me when other people are around to hear. I don't deny it, although it's not completely true - I only liked Hard-backs and Carpenters. I still don't like things that wiggle for transportation purposes, or those bastards that sting.

Speaking of which, sister Audrey brought this wonderful Hinterland clip to my attention several weeks ago. It's on Youtube and a MUST SEE. Now, Enough of the bugs.

I have questions!

1. What ever happened to Turkey Tuesdays?

2. Were the Power Rangers cool or was I a dork?

3. Can I still give macaroni cards as presents?

4. Melissa, how doI post Youtube thingys?

It begins

In a desperate attempt to flee the enticement of Facebook and get my loving friends off my rear about it, I have created a blog. I shall update this weekly* and post pictures of my travels. From the scenic Southern Shore to downtown St. John's, including the "hole in the wall" and the west end. First picture up is one taken of my loving boyfriend Evan, while he screws around with his new camera.

Enjoy, and be appeased.

*When I remember