What, Suddenly We're all Japanese Tourists?

I was at the mall the other weekend (mistake #1 - going to a mall on the weekend) where I was continuously confronted with human oddities. There was the lady walking heel toe, heel toe, with her chin burried in her chest. There were endless gaggles of pre-teens who think they are the end all be all of coolness. There were men clearly sent on a mission by their other half who looked more out of place than a Mormon at a gospel church. And finally, there were tourists who apparently have never seen a mall before.

Why one would come to a mall while on Vacation is beyond me, but why they would bring a camera on this adventure is just a straight up mystery. What on earth could possibly be seen in a mall that would be so amazing, so foreign, so interesting, or so intriguing that a photograph would need to be taken to show and prove to friends and family back home that indeed you were there to witness this, this extraordinary event? Ah yes, of course, three boys in face-covering unitards and sneakers standing entirely still, doing and saying absolutely nothing, raising no money for no good cause, and adding nothing to anything. Yes, let me take out my Nikon D3 and forever capture this experience.

Now I understand that this entry goes against one of my previous posts regarding the "to each their own" theory because who am I to say that three boys in unitards standing still is not interesting to somebody. What if that person with the D3 was the coordinator for a massive troupe of unitarded dancers and these three boys inspired him to the point that he had the epiphany he had been waiting for for years and now his troupe could go on to international fame and success? However, as I'm pretty sure this is not the case, I think it's weird to take pictures of faceless little boys in tight fitting costumes who are not a part of any official promotional event or cause.


Color's a bit dark, but here are the three boys standing in front of the Nike store with a crowd of about 50 surrounding them

Is Left Right, or is Right all that's Left?

I always bet on the wrong horse. Grocery store lines, traffic lanes, highway exits, left or right, push or pull...whatever the choice, I choose wrong approximately all the time.

My gut is unequivocally wrong 100% of the time so really when they say 'go with your gut', it means, in my case, go the opposite of your gut. I don't know what it is. I don't know why despite knowing about this trait of mine, I continue to be the one person on the planet who actually does go with their gut.

Take today for instance. I'm driving home from work, I see that the traffic on the highway is slowing rapidly so I bail off at the first opportunity. Good choice. Definitely. Now, as I wait on the exit ramp to merge onto the city streets, I have two choices before me. I can merge left and take the route I take most nights (the most direct route) that I can clearly see is dead-stop for at least 3.4 of my journey, or I can merge right and take the less direct route I rarely go and hope for the best. Now, I know exactly how long it's gonna take me to get to my destination if I merge left. I don't know how long it would take going right, but I'm fairly certain it will be at least moving. So what do I do? I sit and debate and pull out my iPhone map and see if I can pull up the traffic lines, and hum and haw for about 8 seconds longer than I should have and BAM. Now I'm stuck behind the guard rail and am forced to merge left.

At this point, I wrestled with myself for a few minutes about which way my gut really wanted me to go. I tried to put it together like a math problem. Well if you knew Left would take X amount of time, and Right would have been somewhat of a crap-shoot amounting to roughly X - 7 minutes, your gut probably told you to go left cause it was at least defined. However, your gut also knew Left would without a doubt take longer and that right would be indirect but moving so your gut probably wanted you to go right. Does my gut err on the side of caution? Does it go for the logically tried and tested method over the gamble? Do I have a sensible gut?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions and I'm sure the next time I come to a fork in the road I'll make my choice at the last second at then wince as I feel that pinch in my stomach and wonder if it's cause I went against my gut (in the good way) or cause I went with my gut, knowing it's always wrong.

Oy, such stress over such minute aspects of life. I think it's the thought that, "I couuuuld be doing this, but instead I'm stuck in this crappy situation cause of a decision I made all by myself; I can't even blame anyone". It's the what-ifs man, they'll kill you.

Things that Make Me Happy

The following are a handful of things that which when they take place, bring a sense of satisfaction, a deep felt enjoyment, or a simple smile, to my face. Some of the below are shared by many and perhaps some are enjoyed only by myself. If that's the case, this is my blog and not yours so don't you worry about it.


- Leaving a public bathroom at the same time as someone else so I don't have to touch the door.

- Pulling up to my destination right as the song on my iPod comes to an end.

- Answering the Final Jeopardy question correctly in the allotted time.

- Sleeping in sheets fresh from the dryer.

- The sound of airplanes way over head during an afternoon nap.

- Waking up seconds before my alarm clock goes off in the morning.

- The first glug from a really cold can of Diet Coke.

- Those extra strength hand dryers that actually do what they're supposed to.

- Warming up from a cold day with a scalding hot shower.

- Putting on clean softlys after said warm-up shower and watching that perfect movie.

- That slight feeling of panic you experience when you're laughing so hard you don't know when you'll be able to take your next breath.

- Finding a few bucks in the pocket of something I wore a month ago.

- That feeling of being perfectly full after a big meal.

- That second compartment in my stomach exclusively for dessert that never fills up no matter how big dinner was.

- When the cop car that's been behind me for a while finally passes.

- Going to the gym against my own will but then having a really good workout on account of the excellent songs that played on my iPod.

- Watching a vacuum suck up a really big chunk of dust.

- Watching a vacuum suck up anything.

- Waking up to a good hair day. Like, so good you don't need to comb it or even run your fingers thru it.

- Remembering about that creaky floorboard and stepping over it.

- Keyboard shortcuts.

- Peeling the aluminum cover back from a fresh jar of peanut butter.

- Leftovers.

- Peeling the price tag off the mirror in once clean go.

- Letting go of the gas lever at just the right moment so the dollar amount is a perfectly round, whole number.

- Being early enough to a movie that I get to pick my perfect seat, not accept what's still available.

- Watching a really big window get squeegee cleaned.

- That o-zone smell that exists only for a few minutes just as it starts to rain.

- Realizing that I've found the secret to getting the knot out of my necklace chain and that it's just a matter of seconds till it's free.

- Hitting green lights all the way to my destination because of the one basically red light that I ran back in the beginning of my journey.

America is an Idiot

Now I suppose that if you gather 300 million of anybody in the world, that there are bound to be the bumbling, loud, ignorant, unwashed, crass, over-the-top, self-reichous, holier-than-thou, over-sharing, under-friendly, closed-mided, lose-lipped, buffoons that float to the surface and manage to get their opinions to count for slightly more than the rest, but America really has the jackpot mother load of them, don't they?

I could write a whole diatribe here naming instances and persons who fulfill the above mentioned qualities, but I really feel like all one needs to do is turn on the American news, or watch an American political race, or heck, even turn on prime-time American reality television. It's just out there. Everywhere. For all to see.

Now I vent: for the love people, Canada is not perma-frost. In fact, a large portion of Canada's most populated land area falls geographically below about 11 states. We have the internet, we have television, we drive cars and shop in malls. We own companies, buy and sell on the international stock market, hold political elections, trade with other countries and produce thousands of successful doctors, scientists, businessmen, actors, comedians and scholars. We don't sit in ice huts drinking maple syrup.

That's all.