Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!

The old aphorism "If a tree was to fall in the forest and there was no one around to hear it, how many one-legged monkeys would it take to kick the seeds out of a watermelon?" has been on my mind a lot lately.

Of course, I like to think that I'm someone who calls 'em like I sees 'em, which can sometimes be a problem for a constantly hallucinating stutterer like myself.

Not to mention that even though I have the wisdom of Solomon, those sensationalist jerks on the news insist on referring to me as that monster who chopped all those poor children in half.

Well, enough about me.

The other night as I was crossing the train tracks on the walk to work, I saw a coyote vanishing into the scrub. The following night, I saw a seriously drunk blond with amazingly long legs coming out of a mere ruffle of a skirt attempting to give a mechanical-but-ultimately-too-difficult blowjob to an indifferent dude wearing shiny black dress shoes and knee-length formal beige shorts. Coincidence? Not in my world.

The night before last, I went to work armed with news that I knew would bug the Romanian:

"Hey man! Guess what city just had its first gay pride parade?"

"Man, Vancouver has had those fucking things for years!"

"No no no, Bucharest!"

"Bucharest? Bucharest Romania? Impossible man, they'd cut those faggots down like dogs!"

Such is the Romanian.

He wouldn't believe me at first, and then wanted to know if the people were stoned. Not as in high, but as in the tradition of death by hurled rocks. Finally, after lamenting how Romania is falling apart, he concluded that whoever took part in the parade must be foreign.

"They're from Germany man, or Czechoslavakia. The Romanian faggots know that if people find out who they are, they'll be visited by a mob looking to kill them."

Jesus!

He ranted about that for a bit, and I noticed that the justification for this extreme reaction seemed to be that he equated homosexuality to pedophilia. I pointed out that these were totally different things, which he could agree with in the abstract, but it's clear that the two are indelibly linked in his head.

I wonder if this is the same sort of thinking that prompted folks in the US to say that "Legalizing gay marriage would legalize polygamy and people marrying horses and such". Beats me, that's for sure.

Oh, and he and Buffalo Kisser managed to reach a new record for them in the slackass category on Saturday night. Zero patrols in eight hours. Zero.

Romanian watched tv most of the night, I think, and Buffalo Kisser vanished about five minutes into the shift and only returned as the Romanian was leaving and had to turn over the main radio to BK. At which point BK sat in a chair for two hours doing nothing - not reading, not sleeping, just doing... nothing.

These are heights of lazy that I didn't think were possible. :P

What's even stranger is that all of that came the night after a couple of guys removed a window (as opposed to smashing it) from one of the buildings they're supposed to patrol, and went on in to the cafeteria. Finding no money, they just strolled out the front door.

I don't know about you, but if my site had been invaded, I'd be a little more active afterwards. Maybe that's just me though.

I had an alarm last week that I'd never had before. In fact, the site has never had that particular alarm. And it was hard to know what to do. Get this:

"UPS #2 high temperature warning"

Huh?

Now, if the air conditioning breaks down in the server room, we've got protocols in place for that. And having active machines pumping out heat makes it at least easy to pinpoint where to focus your efforts. But a UPS? That's a big (in this case, about the size of two normal household fridges sitting next to each other) freaking battery. How the hell are you supposed to cool one off?

To top it off, the temperature in the server room was even a bit cooler than usual, so how can the thing be overheating? I blasted it with some fans anyway, feeling the fool for doing so, and called in a tech from the company that services our hardware.

One large fee later, and many repeats of the alarm, we had our culprit: someone had left three pieces of paper on top of a vent on the top of the UPS. Sigh.

Well, at least next time I know to get on a chair and check out the top. :P

My back hurts like a bastard, and you know what I need? For the hadith that so encrusts the Quran to be balled up and thrown away. Naskh is a good idea, but who the hell wants instructions from a self-serving cleric?

Hmmm, it appears my thoughts are fusing in odd and unexpected ways. I meant I need a massage. ;)

Last Saturday marked eight weeks to go. Ouch.

My surprising bright spot this week came from Kiblz and Kami telling me that not only was Quake 4 in the works, it would be released later this year! Enable popups and go have a peek here.

Since Quake 2 (and Red Alert) were the games that got me into lanparties, Q4 is going to come with sentimentality already attached for me. Despite Q3 leaving a taste in my mouth not unlike fetid dingo kidneys. :P

Framingo

DiceGimp is getting on my nips.

Or rather, he has been almost from the start, and it's probably not even his fault.

He reminds me of bits and pieces of lots of people I know, all rolled into one. Except that in his case, it's all the bits I find most irritating. So it's not like we have a good starting point.

Add to that that he likes to call me on the phone I use to receive alarm calls to tell me that McDonalds is open (I don't eat at McDonalds), or that he saw a bird, or other such mundane matters.

I should mention here that I loathe talking on the phone, especially cell phones. They make my head hot.

Also, he can drone on and on repeating himself as he explains each thought process that he went through in his decision to call me. That McDonalds call? That took close to fifteen minutes, and that's all it was about.

He also is moving into my general neighbourhood, and so we often end up taking the same train at night. He also waits for me after work (those bike patrol guys start packing up their junk well before their shift is over, and are often out the door before 0800 rolls around. I take longer) so we can head home together.

Call me antisocial, but I like a certain division between work and the rest of my life. I prefer to read or even possibly snatch a bit of quiet rest on the ride to work, and I definitely like to read on the way home. Can't do that when you've got someone detailing the specifics of his 1500-strong horde army of ratman from the game of Warhammer 40k. And there's no derailing him either.

He also doesn't seem to get that if he's lonely and in the front lobby, and he can't see me in my office/reception, then I'M ON PATROL AND DON'T NEED TO HEAR FROM HIM!

Seriously, most of security is a joke, but how am I supposed to be paying attention to what's going on around me if I've got a cell phone glued to my ear? Maybe if I had bionic ears and could hear an asthmatic beetle climbing the wall on level five I could properly patrol and carry on a conversation, but until that happy day.... leave me alone!

Okay, maybe the heat's making me grumpy. And speaking of grumpy...

Buffalo Kisser is pissed off at me. Has been for a couple of weeks. Nobody knows why.

He won't talk to me, he'll avoid the communal tea time, he'll constantly bombard whichever guard I'm with at tea time with radio calls from the lobby about where they are, what they're doing, don't talk so loud... etc. Just a sort of general being-a-dickness.

He's also been making puppies in a big way - lots of sleeping at work, working out in an exercise room (that'll cost his job if the client finds out), and whenever an alarm comes in, or there's someone to deal with, or phone... he'll slough it off on the Romanian, or DiceGimp. They're both getting irritated with him too, they tell me.

The site I work at has formally been transfered to the new owners. The employees finally know what's going to happen to them, right? Wrong. The day came and went with no obvious change. The following day there was a conference call that anybody could listen to where the president of the acquiring company did a little rah-rah speech, but there was no actual information. Apparently all of that will come in mid-June. Sigh.

On the other hand, all of the executives (vice presidents for the most part, and their assistants) are now gone. There were sixteen people like that altogether, and according to someone I know in the Finance section, it was worth 21 million or so. One particular VP (who was really good at what he did, I have to admit) walked away with a cool 1.6 million. That's on top of pension. Not too shabby, eh? It's been described by some of the payees as winning the lottery.

And now, for some links I've found in my list that you'll probably never click on:

Look! A cat massages a dog! How come nobody will massage me? :(

And from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the version of the roast of Dubya you probably didn't hear.

Team Toxic Bass cranks it. I think they broke some of my plates. :P

Not that everybody didn't hear all of these cliches about the men's room back when faxing sheets of jokes was all the rage, but here's a flash of the same thing.

I just caught this in passing, and haven't really followed up on it, but I dig it if it's true: New fuel cell opens way for artificial hearts. Basically it uses some unidentified (in the article) vitamine K3 substance to draw electrons away from glucose and provide a trickle of power. Science is neat!

In my heart, I dance like this. But in reality, I dance like this. :(

Sure it's tardy, but just in case you still didn't understand about the stv voting system, here's a flash that explains it. Cartoons will lead the way!

Toddler rescued from toy vending machine. Money quote: "James mother says he has done things like this before, like climbing out of his playpen, doors and even out of windows."

Do I even need to comment on that?

You know, I've got shitloads of old SoundBlasters sitting in a box somewhere. And I certainly don't have a project going on right now. Maybe I'll go MIDIbox FM with them. It's not like they're doing me much good as they are now!

Shit, my secret for reading minds is out. Ah well, maybe I can surf the forefront for a while on my years of experience before everybody catches up. ;)

Dual Core for the masses. Must...not...upgrade...needlessly...

I just heard about this the other day. Junior Allen is out on parole, after thirty-some years in prison in North Carolina. He's sixty-five. His crime?

He stole a $140 tv set from an old woman in 1970. Dear Lord.

And finally, bringing this silly list of links to an end, Cuba develops a new cholera vaccine. I bet you'll be reading from US-inspired sources that it's dangerous and causes cholera, or that the standards on production are sloppy, or some such.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head into the shower to cool off and get ready for Day 14 of work. Clearly I love my job, but not as much as the people who work at the inspiration for today's blog title. ;)

Return of the Mack (it is)

Return of the Mack (come on)
Return of the Mack (oh my God)
You know that I'll be back (here I am)
Return of the Mack (once again)
Return of the Mack (pump up the world)
Return of the Mack (watch my flow)
You know that I'll be back (here I go)

Thank you Mark Morrison - now go back to wherever it is that one-hit wonders go to when we don't listen to them anymore.

Seventeen days since my last post. I've actually had people I know ask when (if ever) I'm going to update. Mind you, most of the blogs that I read haven't updated in that time either, so I don't know why I'm getting singled out. :P

Let's see, what's happened since last time?

I've trained no less that two guys for the weekend graveyard shift. One worked for a weekend and then was no longer available. He was pretty cool.

He was young, Punjabi, and looked like he should have been modeling in the Sears periodicals for spring/summerwear. He also appeared to be pleasant and even ethical. Waheguru only knows what he was doing in security.

He also wanted to tell me about his personal ghost stories, which I mention only because the following week another guy I see at my regular site did the same thing - stopped me in a patrol for about twenty minutes to tell me about his and his family's ghostly experiences. So I gave both of them the stories I had from my time living in "the ghost house", and they seemed satisfied.

Any of you who know me have probably already heard my stories, but if you want to hear the ones from the other guys, or even mine again, toss me a comment and I'll throw them in the next entry. :P

The other guy I trained, who'll be on his second weekend by the time you read this, is in his forties and this is his first ever time in security. In fact, he'd passed his test for the license a month previously, but he'd never been on a site until Barney and I were surprised to find him arrive at ours.

I can't tell you his actual name, but it's a hilarious movie-quality Sino-Scottish collision of words, kind of like Chen MacDonald or Argyle Lee.

Anyway, he tried to show lots of interest and energy during the shift when I trained him, but despite him always seeming to know what direction north was from inside the building (he must have been counting turns, because even I need to think about it for a moment, and I've been there eight months), he was constantly getting lost when I let him lead.

So that weekend, he was all by his lonesome.

I worked all that weekend - first doing a sitting job at a hospital. That's always a boring job, as it literally involves sitting (both the baby and sedentary sense of the word) near a patient that is either dangerous or delusional or both.

Mine had vascular dementia, and would try to get out of bed. This was almost always bad, since he'd fall down and hurt himself. The guard I relieved said that the guy had been fighting a bit earlier, so I thought I'd have my hands full, but mostly he just kept waking up during the night with the same requests every two minutes, like a broken record.

By the way, this was a ten hour shift, from 0000 to 1000, and I was sitting in the dark most of the time. No reading for me! :P

I'd first see him scratching his arms (they were horribly covered with open sores - evidence he'd been clawing at himself for some time), then he'd start feeling his way up the wall, looking for the light. Never able to find it, he'd slowly start sitting up in bed at which point I'd head over to put him back down.

Him: "I don't know you!"
Me: "No you don't, but can I help you?"
Him: "Who are you?"
Me: "I'm the guy here to see you get what you need."
Him: "How did you get into this building?"
Me: "I'm supposed to be here sir, I'm here to help you."
Him: "My wife is going to have a major freakout when she sees you. Bea! Bea!"

That only went on fifteen or twenty times. Each time I managed to quiet him down and get him to lie still, but within about a minute it was a near-perfect replay of the above conversation. Then it changed.

He'd still scratch his arms and feel for the light, but this time as he started to get up he'd notice me sitting near the foot of his bed, and be staring at me the whole time. As I'd stand up to settle him down, he'd point to the tv and say "Could you turn on the light?".

After about an hour and a half of that, it transpired that he thought turning on the light would warm the place up. I got him an extra blanket, but it still took another half hour before he didn't want the light on anymore.

Of course, by that time he'd keep trying to get up because we had the roast going, and were we going to cook it all night?

When one of the duty nurses came by to check on him, he said that with her and she would quite distinctly say to him "There's no cooking - it's bedtime! GO TO SLEEP!". I started taking my cue from her, and was a little more direct when I spoke to him. Since he couldn't remember it a minute later, maybe the tone would work. And it sort of did - it was sometimes up to five minutes between episodes.

The best act from him (that only went on for three quarters of an hour) was where he would be trying to get up and I'd be trying to get him to lay back down. He would querulously demand to be told if he should get up so he could go to bed. How to answer?

"No, no need to get up to go to bed, you're already there! Just lay back and that's about all you have to do."

Over and over. But he was a sweet old guy.

There was a nurse of some description also sitting in the room, but she was monitoring another patient. After a while, she asked if I'd cover two other patients (there were four altogether in the room) and I said sure. One had dementia, the other was a suicide watch.

The suicide watch was easy - he just watched various incarnations of Star Trek all night and finally fell asleep during the upteenth Next Gen episode. The other guy...

He was awake all night, and he was a talker. I could hear the nurse dealing with him before he became my responsibility, but the reality was crazy. He was on oxygen, and the machine made a loud stuttery gurgling hiss all night. I don't blame him for staying awake.

Like the first guy, he'd always forget what he'd already said, so there was lots of repeats. But more variety with this guy too. He wanted post-it notes, he wanted his watch (he was wearing it), he wanted his walking stick, he wanted to change his clothes, he wanted to get up because he had a meeting in the morning (it was still before the hour of the wolf at this point), he wanted to check on his car (which, he was happy to explain, he'd driven here last night. Not so - he'd been brought by ambulance days ago), he wanted to check on his dog, he wanted to see his wife (she's dead, by the way), and so on.

This guy, though, would also chat. He'd talk about trains, mail, how he's number one in the army, and so on. And sometimes he'd decide to leave and get up.

Now, I'm not a bodybuilder. But I'm also not the world's tiniest guy. And I've got a monkey grip on me that would put an opposum to shame. I've also got a reasonable sense of balance and can bring my weight to bear.

That's why I was so surprised when this guy was trying to get out of bed, and bellowing that we couldn't keep him here, and I couldn't stop him!

He'd inch up, grab at the rails at the side of his bed, and make a little headway. I'd fold my arms across his chest (he was an old guy, but probably in his day you could have hitched him to the plow. And hysterical strength doesn't hurt either) and apply my weight, shifting forward to my toes.

It was like trying to hold an ocean liner back - he just kept inexorably moving more and more. And, to top it off, the buzzer for his station was out of reach regardless of which side of the bed I was on. Either I'd have to let him up to buzz it (only if he got all the way out of bed would I chance that), or I'd have to handle it myself.

Thankfully they had the alarm rigged for when x amount of weight came up off the bed, so a couple of nurses would come running and while I kicked up my force to near-maximum, they'd each pull on his arms so he'd lose his balance and I could knock him back into bed.

I know it sounds horrible, but it's what needed to be done. And since the chief doctor for that area (not on duty during the night, I might add) had specifically said "no restraints", this is how it went.

Eventually I discovered this dude was much less aggressive if I could keep his oxygen on him. So every time he pulled the mask off to cough or talk, I'd convince him to replace the mask (or do it myself). Made life much easier.

Thus passed ten hours of pure bliss. :P

The following night I took an extra assignment at a rehabilitation facility of the type that appears to be mostly for people who've lost limbs or have brain damage that renders them unable to act physically.

This place had been the target of many break and enters over the past few months, so the single regular night guard was being augmented by extras. This night, that extra was me.

On arriving, I was given a quick tour and told that I was just doing hallways in the basement and on the first level, and exterior/perimeter patrols. The regular guard would do inside all the rooms and check the levels above the first.

Good Lord, no wonder this place gets blagged! Large rambling complex, odd corners, about fifty exterior doors, large unbarred unreinforced glass windows at ground level, few exterior lights, heavy brush, and nobody living/working on the ground floor.

Did I mention no cameras and no alarms?

I counted my paces as I did the same patrols over and over again, as often as possible. I couldn't walk at full speed since then I couldn't properly check the brush and in the dark corners, but I managed eighteen kilometers of patrol that night. I love having something active to do. :)

However, at 0400 (the middle of my shift) the other guard swapped out for... the guy who trained me on my first ever day as a guard. He didn't remember me at first, but he was the same crusty old Czech he was then. But friendly enough, in his own way.

A couple of hours into his patrols, he found what appeared to be a fresh B&E that was on a level and in an area that I would patrol.

Since I could do an exterior in about fourteen minutes, and an interior in about eighteen minutes, and since the doors and windows were all secure, I was dubious about this break-in.

There was no denying the crowbar marks on the forced door, but I'd heard a couple of the regular guard talking and saying how earlier that day there'd been a robbery in that area where the thief had made off with a few hundred dollars.

I mentioned this to the guy, and he went looking for the daily reports that would back that up. Nada. Bah.

Took the cops about three hours to show up, and the officer spent all of about ten minutes there. That seemed about right.

I was all set to see Star Wars 3 on Sunday afternoon, but plans didn't work out and I didn't. The people I was going with did call me up a few hours later to see if I wanted to hit the evening show, but I needed to finish my laundry (only two uniforms for a full week's work in the summertime? Ugh!) and nap a bit more. So they went and I didn't. No biggie.

On Monday (stat holiday which I worked on anyway - w00t) I hit Science World with Kibilz, Kami, and their little Jade Elf. She was fun as a baby, and now as a four year old she's blast! I love kids when they're able to talk, and she's smarter than I am. Fortunately she's ticklish, so my lower-than-hers IQ didn't come up much. Also, she still likes to be chased. ;)

After that, since I hadn't had a day off to sleep at night, I drifted into a sort of fugue state and the week was worksleeptalkplayworksleeptalkworksleeptalkplaywork, all blended together. I wasn't sure if I was tired, alert, bored, or what. I think that's passing now.

I've had a few emails from Her, but they've been devoid of anything beyond small talk. A couple of phone calls have ended up with her still refusing to make decisions on things that really need to be decided. Except that she sometimes says she's going to do things that she doesn't want, but that everybody else says she should do.

I hate that - that's just an alternate way of saying she won't decide for herself, and will instead be swirled around by events like bark in the waves. Is this some sort of endurance test for me?

Also, because I've recently heard conflicting statements about what various people are being told, I've taken to cc'ing my emails to a trustworthy third party.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but since they come with a timestamp and properties that can be confirmed, I felt (at the time, at least) that it was a reasonable thing to do. It's not like I'm saying anything private that people don't already know anyway.

A little monologue that's been running around in my head for the past few days, remembered as a favourite from Babylon 5:

An assistant to a busy and up-and-coming powerful man who is both a patriot and an arrogant man. The assistant is meek and apparently bumbling, but at times shows a deep character and strength of conviction. The assistant has been accosted by a powerful and darkly charismatic messenger of even more powerful entities who are doing services for the powerful man, in return for seemingly minor considerations. Kind of like getting into bed with the mob. So the messenger (who has been making the rounds corrupting the influential) takes a shot at corrupting the assistant. That's the scene, here's the dialogue:

Mr. Morden: "What about you, Vir? What do you want?" (smiles charmingly)
Vir: "Oh no, there's nothing."
Mr. Morden: "There must be something. What is it?"
Vir: (considering how much he hates the influence Morden has on his employer, and the things that are being done) "I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut your head off and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favours come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this. (waves) Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Blog cut short because my fingers are tired.

Stay real! WE are all brack people.

I saw the most amazing guy this morning, as I got off the SkyTrain.

Actually, he was sitting across from me in the train, but other than a passing glance I was more interested in my book. But he was in front of me as I got off, and I followed him off the platform and down the stairs.

His hair (if not naturally red with an odd artificial red laid on top) was a carrot-raspberry colour, and sculpted into two thick ragged saw-toothed points, fore and aft.

He had on crazy checked pants that wouldn't have looked out of place on The Honeymooners, except these were baggier and had zippers up the back.

His jacket was incredible. I couldn't figure out why, since it looked like a scruffy rough jacket, until I realized that it was, in fact, fairly new and a reproduction of an old model, and then carefully gone over with some sort of abrasive to roughen it up. You could only tell this from a few spots.

The kind of care that this guy must have put (or had put) into his ensemble was astonishing. Almost as astonishing as me noticing in the first place.

And now, an excerpt from my book. I'm not sure why I chose this particular bit to share, so debate at will.

--------------------------------------------------------------

She looks up at the ceiling.

And finds herself remembering the experience of lying more or less happily, or at least pleasantly abstracted, beneath a boyfriend named Donny.

Donny had been more problematic than most other Cayce Pollard boyfriends, and she has come to believe that this had all been signaled in the first place by the fact that he was called Donny. Donny was not something, a woman friend had pointed out, that the men they went out with were usually called. Donny was of Irish-Italian extraction, from East Lansing, and had both a drinking problem and no visible means of support. But Donny was also very beautiful, and sometimes very funny, though not always intentionally, and Cayce had gone through a period of finding herself, though she never really planned to, under Donny, and Donny's big grin, in the none-too-fresh bed in his apartment on Clinton Street, between Rivingdon and Delancey.

But this final and particular time, watching him phase-shift into what she'd learned to recognize as the run-up to one of his ever-reliable orgasms, she'd for some reason stretched her arms above her head, perhaps even luxuriously, her left hand sliding accidentally under the cockroach-colored veneer of the headboard. Where it encountered something cold and hard and very precisely made. Which she brailled, shortly, into the square butt of an automatic pistol - held there, probably, with tape very similar to the tape she'd used here, this morning, to conceal the hole in her Buzz Rickson's.

Donny, she knew, was left-handed, and had so positioned this so that he could reach it conveniently as he lay in bed.

Some very basic compuational module instantly had completed the simplest of equations: if boyfriend sleeps with gun, Cayce does not share bed, or bod, with (now abruptly former) boyfriend.

And so she'd lain there, her fingertip against what she assumed was the checkered hardwood of the gun's grip, and watched Donny take his last ride on that particular pony.

Blog title from here. Cheers. ;)

Gypsy don't surf

So for the first time in two weeks, I didn't wear those ankle weights on my walk to work. It was raining, and since they're full of sand I didn't want to find out the hard way that the material wasn't waterproof, and end up with sacks of leaking mud all over my pants.

It turns out that I do, in fact, walk much faster and with a springier step than with those two five-pound buggers on my feet. Whoo hoo, progess!

Once I threaded the dealers and hopped a train, I pulled out my book and passed the time in the usual way, except that at the very next stop something in the periphery caught my eye, and I had to look.

I should mention at this point that a friend of mine just recently discovered Chris Rock's "Never Scared", and has been enjoying it. So I went back and watched it again.

And damned if this slightly over-upholstered blond with the lowcut top and the short skirt wasn't wearing clear heels. Clear heels!

My objectivity was out the window, and I tried to block out that sardonic voice echoing around in my head.

At least I didn't start performing his stuff out loud! I think I deserve a cookie. ;)

At work I managed to irritate the Romanian. I almost felt bad for him, since lately with his relentlessly excessive anti-Jewish program, he's definitely been getting on my pecks, but I notice that didn't stop me from continuing to push when I saw him withdraw and go into a slow burn.

When the usual tea/hot chocolate time came around, they phoned me to let them into the cafeteria so I finished my rounds and went down and met them.

As an aside, we all tend to talk pretty loudly at this site. When a large building is empty, it's an easy thing to do. And you tend to (unconsiously I assume) scale your hearing to accomodate that. However, as I was approaching the door, I overheard the Romanian and DiceGimp talking:

"Okay, so when he opens the door we'll start. Ready?"

"Dude, I am so ready."

Sigh. I opened the door and they immediately launched into a discussion as though they were in mid-sentence when I arrived.

"So as you can see, despite the deliberate suppression of facts and misrepresentation in the west, Hitler actually did more good for Germany, and Europe in general, than he did bad."

"Oh, I totally agree. I've been reading Mein Kamph and find that Hitler..."

You get the gist.

So after putting up with it through most of my cup of tea, I flipped it around and dug at him for being a gypsy. You might remember that last winter I made the joke that since gypsy = Romani, that Romani must equal Romanian. And he was pissed off. So I dusted that chestnut out and let fly. He was pretty good about it at first, but it was late in his shift, and late at night, and he kept mispeaking.

Even better, DiceGimp took it up (innocently, because it was funny sounding) and the Romanian started to get defensive and mispoke even more.

When he finally shrugged and said something like "I'm just how I am", with his accent it sounded like "I'm Hawaiian". So I went with it.

He then mispoke again about Romania invading Russia after the second world war, so I ended up painting this garish, ridiculous scenario of a bunch of gypsies surfing over the snow into Moscow, using their headscarves to keep the spray from beading up on their crystal balls, all the while dancing and juggling and doing acrobatics.

Man, he was in a slow burn. He was desparately trying to explain to DiceGimp that "Gypsies are a different race, they're from India! They immigrate around!"

But DiceGimp was too entertained by the rapidly expanding gypsy-surfer scenario.

The Romanian especially didn't like that I said "Hey, didn't you immigrate here? GYPSY! GYPSY!" while pointing at him accusingly.

"This is why I hate this country. Nobody here is educated on basic world facts" he said, and sat back to sulk and generally be unresponsive.

Of course, we didn't need him by that point. Kowabunga, dude!

Too bad I won't get to see him for four days - I hope I don't forget to flog him with this whenever the antisemitism starts up. ;)

Tonight though, Buffalo Kisser is on. I'll have to explain to him that the woman whose eyes freaked him out so much on the SkyTrain the other night was just because she had one squinty eye, and one glass one.

But he was horrified and fascinated. It was pretty comical, actually. Especially when I struck up a conversation with her and she turned out to be security, for the same company as all of these nuts I post about!

I would have dug to find out what her weirdism is, but my stop came up and I had to leave. Ah well.

I started writing this entry early in the afternoon, but I had a nap and then later a game with Depaxus. But just shortly before I finished, She called me.

She said hi, asked if I was busy, and said that she was just calling to let me know that she has a number that she could be reached at, and would I like to know it?

With absolutely no malice, I said "I don't know if I do."

I went on to say that since it hasn't really worked out so well when I've initiated conversations with her lately, what would she even want me to call her about? I couldn't even imagine what I'd say.

She got upset, and said "Well if that's the way you see things, forget I called." Click.

Sigh. Does it really have to be like this?

A "first Mother's Day" gift goes unopened

Bugger me, just foiled a laundry thief!

When I took my stuff down to the laundry room, he was just in the process of putting his stuff in the dryer. He wasn't taking his clothes from the machines I was using, either.

So I threw in my soap and clothes, fired up a couple of machines, and left.

Back in half an hour to throw the stuff in the dryer, and I find this same guy with both of my machine open pulling stuff out!

"Ahem!" I said, threateningly.

He spins. "Oh, hey buddy. I lost my wallet, have you seen it?"

No, all I saw was your dirty mitts in my white shirts. "Nope, sorry."

He turns to the dryer where his clothes formerly were, opens it, and from my vantage I could see it was completely empty except for his wallet, sitting neatly in the centre bottom.

"Oh, here it is. Thanks, BYE!"

He flees. Bastard.

So I followed him (not obviously) and found what floor he went to. If my shirt count is low when I go back to the dryers, I'm getting the landly and my pliers and going to work on him. :P

The Romanian was in a fine mood last night. I walked in to the foyer to start my shift and he was reading the paper. He exploded to me "Fuck, there's nothing but Jews in here! This is why I don't read the fucking Jewpaper!"

He then went through the first several pages of the A section, saying "Jew, Jew, Jew" while smacking each article. So I brought the paper home to give you the articles he took exception to the "Jewness" of.

Front page: "Surrey hospital emergency still closed", "Truckers to builders: Pay up or shut down", "B.C.'s unemployment rate lowest in 25 years". Oh yes, clearly a Zionist conspiracy.

Page 2: "Media say Nash to be named NBA MVP".

Page 3: "Author claims to have proof Chinese beat Columbus here" (okay, he hates the Chinese too), "Students hold part for time travellers", and "Premier Carole James? Well, the topic is least being discussed".

Page four: "Campaign 2005: Spending priorities set parties apart", "Four-lane highway through bluffs tighens the race", and a what do you think piece at the bottom that asks "Fish farming has emerged as a major election issue in coastal B.C. ridings. How concerned are you about the possible threat to wild salmon?"

Page five: "Liberal campaign turns negative, as truckers ambush James's bus"

On and on the pages go, until finally I find something that might have set him off. "Terrorism, rain cited as threat to summits" is about the leaders of fifty nations meeting in Russia to celebrate the end of WW2. There were Jews in that war or something, wasn't there? :P

There are another couple of articles talking about WW2 and VE-Day. Then one that has "Jews" in the title: "Memorial to all of Europe's slain Jews is Germany's first".

Then Middle East articles, Bush stuff, and something about the Pope.

Each page gets thumped and "JEWS!" gets yelled, before the page gets flipped. Finally he comes to the end and thumps it. "JEWS!"

"Uh, that entire page is an advertisement for breakfast cereal."

"Yeah, but look at the company - Post! That's a Jew company, man!"

"I'm going to do my patrol now." :P

Buffalo Kisser was in another one of his "Educate me about sex" moods. Gah, that was weird. It's like explaining the birds and the bees to an eight-year-old, only he's about thirty two.

He also (before the sex-ed talk) decided to read me something from his favorite guru. You know, the guy that I think is a joke and doesn't make any sense.

He basically read out the Kitty Genovese story, only she was an old woman in his version. When I interceded to correct some details he was angry. "This is a philosophical story, not a real one. It's more important than the real one!" Er, okay.

So he finished, and he asked "And do you know why all of the observers did nothing?" And I told him that I did, and started to explain the bystander effect.

But no, his guru decided that it was an example of people being desensitized to violence because they spend five hours per day of watching television.

This whole story and explanation took about twenty solid minutes, and it was boring as hell. At the end, he looks up expectantly and said "So what do you think of that?"

Hmmm, do I tell him that he's just once again shown me that this guru is the fraud that everybody except is devotees think he is? That he's a moron? And that Buffalo Kisser isn't the brightest crayon in the box for thinking that if Osho says it, it must be true?

"Interesting interpretation" I said, and moved along. I'm such a wuss.

Dragon Gas is gone. Apparently he just called up the office the morning of one of his shifts and said he wasn't going to be available. So I plugged that hole.

When I got to work, the guys in my company didn't know any of the details, but Dragon Gas had told the bike patrol guys that he got a better job in Toronto in a restaurant, and he took off to go do that. Weird.

When I got off the SkyTrain on my way home, the bus loop was full of crackheads. They had all the classic signs, and they were weird. Some were really aggressive:

"What the fuck do you keep looking over here for?"

"I'm looking to see if the other bus is coming, is there a problem?"

"YOU got a problem? Want to solve it right now?"

Uh, yeah. Hope that works out for you.

And one girl, as I was walking past, says to me with a Canadian-Brooklyn (I know, I know) accent "Hey man, spare a smile?"

"No," I said.

"They're free, eh." she says.

Bah.

And, She's gone again. As you can see from a couple of the more recent blog entries, life wasn't all sunshine and candy. Although I'm not sure why it had to be that way. Maybe someday someone will explain it to me.

I am a mirror of myself - seek not your answers in me.

I made an offhand remark about making a game around the security biz, and DiceGimp jumped on it. Hmph.

Now I'm thinking that shortly there'll be a D20 book out with my name on the cover and a template if you want to play Everything-Hating-Romanian. :P

And speaking of game, I got my ass handed to me in it yesterday. It was all my fault, and I'm not technically dead, but I got cleanly torped and with my current Humanity and Blood Potency, we're looking at three years before I snap out of it. Short of those remaining in my coterie (once they stop shaking their heads in disbelief) coming up with a plan. ;)

And... got to see the first episode of the new Family Guy the other day. From the teaser before they roll the theme song:

Peter: Everybody, I got bad news. We've been cancelled.

Lois: Oh no! Peter, how could they do that?

Peter: Well unfortunately Lois, there's just no room on the schedule. We've just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows, like Dark Angel, Titus, Undeclared, Action, That 80's Show, Wonder Falls, Fastlane, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Skin, Girl's Club, Cracking Up, The Pitts, Firefly, Get Real, Freaky Links, Wanda At Large, Costello, The Lone Gunmen, A Minute With Stan Hooper, Normal Ohio, Passadena, Harsh Realm, Keen Eddy, The Street, American Embassy, Cedric the Entertainer, The Tick, Louie, and Greg the Bunny.

Lois: Is there no hope?

Peter: Well, I suppose if all those shows go down the tubes we might have a shot.

Roll credits.

Isn't that great? :D

But what isn't so great:

In my blog entry of May 2, found under Titan Uranus Hong Kong, I got some comments to the effect of that 72 hours is too much to be working in a week, et cetera.

But I also got some real-life comments that baffled me, and baffle me still. I'll quote the relevent parts, and then paraphrase what was said to me about them.

Me having to work maximum overtime (I'm starting to eyeball a 72 hour per week schedule) is a labour of love, but don't think that when I come home from working and have to sleep during the middle of the day that you get to stay in our home and selfishly keep me awake because you want to visit with mom and baby. If you're not contributing, then you get considered after those of us who are.

My God! You don't want anybody to have a chance to visit with the baby? I even showed this to someone else who agreed with my interpretation!

Well, let me tell you. For those people who work during the day, pretend you're working sixteen hour shifts. From 0700 to 2300. That leaves you eight hours (during the night) for your commute to and from work, home meals, visiting with your family, any social stuff you might be able to manage, and sleep.

Would you be okay with people wanting to come by and visit the baby at three in the morning?

Of course not.

Now, check this out: I work during the night. That means that the narrow window in which I get to sleep is during the day. Five hours of sleep is typically my maximum. Is it really so outlandish of me to say that since I'm working my ass off (all those hours I'm referring to, not the difficulty of the work) that I need some time to sleep in this apartment, and that those of you just here for the visiting can find something else to do elsewhere during that time?

If you wouldn't want me at your place in the middle of the night wanting to visit and play and be entertained, have a little empathy for me when my night is in the middle of the day.

And I certainly can't see how even the original statement can be interpreted to mean that I want to isolate the baby from everybody and never have anybody visit.

Oh, and something else. Me mentioning that I'm looking at shifting to a greater number of hours per week is not an attempt to pass myself off as a martyr. I believe that immediately after I mentioned the hours thing, I also added that it's a labour of love. I'm not sure how that snuck under the radar, but anybody who thinks that I want some sympathy for something I'm doing voluntarily is off their nut.

I'm doing that because I'm worried about money (not knowing what to expect since it's not like I've had kids before) and I want to be sure that there's no deficit.

If it was just me alone, I could easily say "Sure, I'll skip a meal" or "Screw paying the electricity bill", but it's different with dependents. If baby needs eardrops, baby needs eardrops. No waiting until the next paycheque for that. I'd rather deal with potential money problems before they happen, that's all.

And if you think I want to spend all those hours away, and then get a tiny sliver of time with the little bundle of joy before having to sleep and then leave again, you'd be wrong.

And a note on that. If you're someone who's pledged to contribute something, that's all well and good. But I hope you ask us about it first, because frankly we don't have such a huge place that we need a bunch of crap that the baby can't appreciate anyway. Yes, I know you're all excited and have fun looking at all the cute baby things, but let us set the pace, m'kay?

Are you trying to insult people, by saying that their gifts and contributions are crap? What's wrong with you?!

Well, "crap" in this case (note that I say I have to shift my crap around to get at the crap I want, when talking about my own stuff) means things of dubious usefulness that consume a fair amount of space.

Everybody knows somebody who has a crib they don't use. Lots of people offer such things when someone needs them. No, we really don't need four cribs.

It doesn't mean that your crib, or even your offer of it, is crap or a bad thing, just that we don't have so much space that we can store the other three cribs. And baby doesn't care about having a different one each night.

That was also why I said "I hope you ask us about it first", because baby bathtubs, stuffed animals bigger than me, the aforementioned cribs, and myriad other things can just get to the irritation point rather than being appreciated. Also at the end of that same paragraph: "let us set the pace, m'kay?"

I thought (and think) that's reasonable.

And now problems that didn't stem from the blog:

If I don't care whether you do something or not, and you feel guilty about not doing it, that doesn't mean that I'm guilt-tripping you about it.

Specifically: if you're not working and I am, and I've many times told you you didn't have to work if you didn't want to, and you end up feeling guilty because I always buy the groceries, it doesn't mean I'm trying to make you feel guilty when I get home on Friday mornings and we head off to the supermarket.

We all have our parts to play, and they're not the same parts.

To sit and wait for happiness doesn't work. To only look for the negative and ulterior in everything doesn't work.

To feel unworthy doesn't work.

And no matter how far or how often you flee, you can't escape yourself.

Kunshan Urban Construction Comprehensive Exploitation Co.

Inner what worries to the place mine about the cover

of the nylon, is

is I, that the uniform of the heat is too full

singsong is tired, that

is I finishes due to the place mine.

Kind of like an off-kilter poem, but it's really just the Babelized translation of "My site is too hot for me to be in a nylon jacket, and I'm tired of the sheer monotony of it all." Cool, eh?

Some other highlights from titles of earlier blog posts:

"Eat curry and don't get kissed. Two day minimum waiting period."

ends up as

This with spendthrift of you you are quiet of the food is covered that
it does not take with which worries, they. Minimum the latent data of
state 2.

"That yellow bastard!"

becomes

This yellow plant of the approach!

"When I go back to Indian, I will kiss my buffalo."

magically transforms into

If I am in India, that I cover with bufalo of the mine of the water.

Okay, so I'm easily amused. I found the Babelizer a couple of years ago, but I just rediscovered it and I still find it amusing. Sue me, but only after trying it yourself at this location.

The new bike patrol guy at work - I haven't come up with a nickname for him yet. He's still on the usual behavior that people employ when they first arrive. You know, telling jokes, being fun, and new, and an interesting injection into the status quo. You need two or three weeks to see what holds up and what doesn't.

Buffalo Kisser loves him, though. Because sometimes they'll wrestle, sometimes they'll race bikes. He teaches him english like "fishy" and "goofing off".

He's a gamer.

That's not automatically a bad thing, although he did pin me in the SkyTrain station the other day to talk about the two horde armies he's making for Warhammer 40k (which I don't play), and so on.

I've done the same thing I guess, but you have to try to gauge your audience. I'm not going to give you an indepth roll-by-roll account of the time my wizard and his familiar cave bear Mappy scaled a castle and started laying out the beats on the faerie-span stone bridges that connected the towers in dubious arches over the courtyard below.

Almost as bad as fishing stories.

Anyway, he keeps saying "Yeah, I'm a geek. I say it proudly." and he got attacked by a bush on his bike rounds the other night, so I'm thinking of nicknaming him DiceGimp, but that doesn't roll out naturally, so it's just a placeholder until a better one condenses.

The sale of my site will be completed late this month, as opposed to late June or early July, so that means that by June one or so it'll be finalized. Our security contract comes up later in June.

I wonder if this is going to be a case of "Oh sure, you'll get a raise when we renegotiate the contract... PSYCH! Ask the office not to put you on hole-guarding when you ask for a new site."

Hmph.

On the bus ride today, I saw a young mother get on with her two kids. The boy was just a baby and in the carriage, and the little girl was only just big enough to be toddling. The mother looked fifteen and in first bloom of being a woman, but I think that was just good genes. But when she moved, she slinked. It was hard to tear my eyes away, since the whole scene just seemed a bit outre.

From the back of the bus, it sounded like she was prattling to the kids in Cantonese or something, but when I moved forward to get off at my stop (she got off there too, but I wasn't stalking her - HONEST!) I could hear that it was actually Italian.

When she got off, she said something to the little girl that included "Say bye!".

So this tiny little thing, in her white dress and red hat, turned to the bus driver and said "Thank you, have a good day, bye!" and trotted off on her little legs.

Awwwwwwwwwww

And the title of today's post comes from here. Or Babelized... "Progresses in most the structure of the city of the CO Kunshan." :)

Titan Uranus Hong Kong

There's yet another new guy doing bike patrol for the other company. I haven't sampled him enough to give him a descriptive name, but since I don't really have any stories about him yet, that's not a problem.

However, I found out specifically what happened to Hippie. The Romanian got a ride home from one of his managers on the weekend, and was told. Get this:

If you remember, he showed up three hours late for one shift last week, and not at all the following night. We just assumed that he was having a hard time getting used to working graveyards.

However, on the day he showed up three hours late, his story was kind of odd. And he seemed sort of stunned, which we passed off as extreme tiredness.

It turns out that on the day he didn't show up at all, he put on his uniform, biked in the opposite direction of the site over to North Vancouver, and went to some random site and started pounding on the door yelling at the top of his lungs "LET ME IN, I WANT TO WORK! I BELONG HERE, LET ME IN!"

The security company that does security there called the cops when this didn't stop, and Hippie was arrested. His company was called, and they sent someone right down... to pick up their uniform and fire him. Apparently he was just fucked right up on whatever he'd drug he'd indulged in.

Tommy Chong indeed. ;)

Also got a story from the new guy about Buffalo Kisser.

Apparently Buffalo Kisser came in to work over the weekend and said that he'd been at a bus stop where a woman started kicking him in the shin. She just kept on kicking him, and he didn't know how to respond. He asked her "Why are you doing this?", but in his opinion that made him sound weak so she kept on kicking him.

So when she headed off, he followed her. I kid you not.

Took her bus, and then followed her on the SkyTrain. His thinking, I'm told, was that he wanted to show her that he was strong and in control.

She hit the panic button on the SkyTrain, and the transit cops were waiting at the next station. They pulled off Buffalo Kisser, briefly listened to his story, and let him hop on the next train that came along.

I'm going to have to remember to tell him that stalking isn't the traditional response to being kicked in the shin. :P

And on a totally different note... this baby that's coming - everybody's excited about it. And why not? It's going to be fantastic.

But beyond people going ooh and ah, and buying ungodly numbers of teddy bears and tiny little socks, and coming to be here for when he's born... there's the practical aspect of things to consider.

It's all well and good for people to say "Oh, you should get this and this and that", but you know what? I'm the only one working here. And resources are finite.

Paying the rent is important. Proper healthy food for mom while the little guy is gestating and then nursing him is important. Diapers and laundry and all of those boringly mundane things are important.

Me having to work maximum overtime (I'm starting to eyeball a 72 hour per week schedule) is a labour of love, but don't think that when I come home from working and have to sleep during the middle of the day that you get to stay in our home and selfishly keep me awake because you want to visit with mom and baby. If you're not contributing, then you get considered after those of us who are.

And a note on that. If you're someone who's pledged to contribute something, that's all well and good. But I hope you ask us about it first, because frankly we don't have such a huge place that we need a bunch of crap that the baby can't appreciate anyway. Yes, I know you're all excited and have fun looking at all the cute baby things, but let us set the pace, m'kay?

And while all of this sounds like I'm being a downer, I don't think it makes me an asshole to say that having a baby, and even the preliminaries to having a baby, are very expensive and taxing. So enough bullshit about "waiting until later to figure out what I'm going to do". I'm doing my part, are you?

Title stolen from here.

"Yeah, so I need that body." "I wish you'd said that earlier."

So the Romanian barely talked about Jews on the Friday morning shift. However...

Buffalo Kisser asked me, in the manner he often does, "Do you have any experience with girls?"

"Some, yes."

"Tell me your conclusions about girls. Have you got any?"

Gah. This is a little vague, since whenever he approaches things like this he's looking to apply them to a specific case.

"Can you narrow this down for me a bit?"

Basically it's like this:

Boy and girl (his labels, but they're probably about 22-25 years old) have a relationship. No sex, but it's a romantic one. This goes on for about six months.

Then girl finds a new guy, and is with him (still no sex, although I'm not sure why he keeps emphasising this) now. But she keeps calling up the original boy and talking to him on the phone for hours, and sometimes even complaining about the new boy to the old boy.

And that's what Buffalo Kisser wanted to know about - why would she do that?

He also wanted to know if it's possible to be friends after you've been romantic (to him, that means "in love with") with somebody, and also if it's possible to have sex with a friend but never change their status away from friend.

Confused?

The conversation was going fairly well (albeit slowly) as I told him about the different mores here (a breath of perspective and tonic, you might say), until the Romanian showed up.

I'm not going to repeat things word for word, as it went on for literally hours, but the gist is this:

"The fucking bitch is cheating on him!"

"Who cares if she's calling - it's only so she can keep her options open to fuck him over at her convenience."

"The best thing to do is to fuck a slut, then when she starts with this (makes yapping gesture with hand), throw her away and say `Hey honey, when you learn to shut your mouth guys will want to fuck you again.' and move on to the next one."

And so on. Yikes.

I did my best to counter his venom in the fairly impressionable Buffalo Kisser, but I don't know how well that went.

I knew the Romanian had issues (duh!) with women, but he's never gone off so hatefully and for so long before. I'm hoping it's just because he was in the middle of working ten days in a row, as opposed to the three or four days in a row he's used to.

But at least the shift ended. :P

From there, Squirrel and I met my folks for breakfast and they gave me my GST cheque, which gets sent to their place. Whoo, how will I spend the riches? :P

Then, grocery shopping although for once Squirrel was caught without her list - either physical or mental - and was at a bit of a loss as to what we needed.

I usually leave the deciding of what we need up to her, since she has baby considerations and is also a bit pickier about her food than me (I can eat anything). So we got some stuff, but it was less thought out and more "Hey! I used to eat beef stew at grandma's - I'll get a can of that!" sort of shopping. ;)

Ah well, it worked out okay. Hey! Beef stew!

Game started late, so I got an extra hour's sleep! That goes a long way to making sure I don't fall asleep during game, as I can't pull a 58-hours-awake every day.

One of the characters in our coterie, Depaxus, has turned into quite the combat machine. With a combination of good attributes/skills/disciplines, and lots of good dice rolls, he blasts his way through increasingly unlikely odds.

My character, which I thought would be the brute of the group, manages to hold his own, but not like Depaxus's character does.

Of course, throw a candle at him and watch him run like a girl. ;)

And our remaining member, Squirrel's character, doesn't always do so well in a fight, but in anything else she's untouchable.

Fortunately she's not quite aware of that yet, so she doesn't dominate the game. Yet. =8^O

I should add that for a week or two, I've been looking forward to seeing Oldboy. I saw a trailer for it at some other movie a couple of months back, and I liked what I saw. Unfortunately, it's only playing at one theatre in town, but that's not a biggie since it's easily accessable.

So... didn't go last weekend, but this weekend for sure!

Except... those of us playing game started getting IMs from people who'd just seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

We were already predisposed to see the movie anyway, since we've read the books, listened to the radio plays, and said "Zarking photons, frood!" more than our share of times. We know where our towels are.

Anyway, Squirrel started leaning away from Oldboy (which she'd never heard of) towards going to HHGttG, and it was a short plunge for me too. So no Oldboy for me. :(

I'm just hoping that because it's only in one theatre, that doesn't mean it's going to vanish before I get to see it. :P

Before the movie, though, Squirrel and I headed out to wander around for the day, since that's what she likes best. By purest whim, we rode the SkyTrain to the western extreme, then took the Seabus across to North Vancouver.

She was delighted to find a Quay full of shops and things to look at there, so we spent the afternoon moseying about, and sampling various tasty things. She found a sour apple candy stick ("Hey, I had these when I was in Disneyland when I was ten!") that she liked, and I flirted with some Greek food that I don't usually get to have.

We looked at baby clothes and kid's toys, unusual board games (and met a loquacious shopkeeper who wanted to talk about buying property in New Westminster - I took that bullet for Squirrel, and she owes me for it :P) and other sundries.

Then we headed to Metrotown.

On the train, a guy slipped in behind us and was like something out of a movie. He was talking into his phone loudly, and it went something like this:

"Yo man, I needs to make me some paper, some bills, some dollars... you know what I mean? Hell yeah, I gots to get paid! I ain't even worryin' about dat, it's all about the coin, cuz I needs them bills!"

And so on. For a few stops. I was wondering where Spike Lee's cameras were.

The movie was... hmmm. I really liked the books, and there was lots of fun in the radio plays. But once again I'm forced to confront that what they can do on screen doesn't trump the kinds of pictures I can make in my head.

Still, it was fun. Although I'm curious what someone who's had no exposure to the Guide would think of it - I'd have to think it would just be a bunch of random images, silly CGI, and no story.

Coming out, there was a giant guy in front of us. He must have had close to thirty cm on me, and I'm 179. His backpack was the size of Squirrel, for that matter. He shambled out to the ticket ripper out front, and shows him his ticket. Then looks at the next theatre and says "I was supposed to be in there! How could you let me go in the wrong theatre? When does the next one start, because that movie was a piece of shit!"

What kind of person sits through a two hour movie like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when he went to see XXX: State of the Union?!

And, for those fellow geeks who play Generals with me, check out the GLA's scud storm! It's in Seoul, so I'll get my PUCs ready and you send in a carpet bomber.

Sigh. Those with maturity don't know what they're missing.