Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
Yesterday my grandfather lost his more than two-year battle against cancer. I knew he'd been going downhill dramatically when I'd talked to my mother a few days prior. Mel & I were out when the message came in. In a shaky voice, all my mom said was "You need to call me as soon as you get this." When I heard that, I knew he was gone.

The arrangements are still being made, and I don't know which day the funeral's going to be on. Regardless I have never been so grateful that I've got 2 staffers who can easily cover my shift(s) at a moment's notice.

Labels: Don Layng

posted by Phillip at 7:51 AM

 


With the coming of snow also comes my enjoyment of those somewhat anti-Christmas Christmas movies. Right now I'm ignoring the blustery white stuff outside in favour of Batman Returns. (For those of you just tuning in to this little bit of nowhere, Michell Pfeiffer snapped.)

However, I am pleased to note that, despite all overkill attempts by Zellers and The Bay to state that Christmas has fallen upon us like a festively-dressed Serengetti lion, our mall has no Santa, no decorations and no Christmas muzzak. (Scuttlebutt has it that the guys who head up the Maintenance department absolutely refuse to put any decorations up until the week following Remembrance Day, and that is the case, good for them.)

Sadly that will change soon enough, but I'm savouring the lull for now.

In other news...there's not a lot of other news to mention, aside from the fact that I really need to knuckle down on cleaning the apartment. I've been slacking on that to the point where the mishmashed piles of brick-a-brac are starting to acquire their own intelligence. So, off to un-bricking the brac!


Today's Lesson: no two scents could be so diabolically diverse than having a child stand before you at the counter smelling of candycane peppermint, and farts.

Labels: snow is a four-letter word

posted by Phillip at 11:00 AM

 


You know, just when I think that nothing seriously strange ever happens in this town, suddenly I encounter this bizarre little article:


St. Marys street drenched in chicken blood

November 07, 2008 By Melinda Dalton
WEB EDITION
RECORD STAFF

ST. MARYS—The main drag looked like a scene from a horror flick last night after a leaky truck spilled 4.5 metric tonnes of chicken blood down Queen Street. The tanker truck, headed from Schneider’s poultry plant in St. Marys to Kitchener, was headed west down Queens Street at about 11:30 p.m. when a valve broke off.

“We got the call first from a citizen who said there was a liquid on the road,” said Const. Glen Childerly of the Perth County Ontario Provincial Police. “When we went there, we discovered it was blood. . . . There was blood everywhere and in spots it was three inches thick.

The blood trail spanned more than five kilometers through the centre of town. The driver of the truck didn’t realize his load had leaked until he got to Highway 7, police said. The Ministry of the Environment was called in along with a hazardous material team to help with the clean up. Crews worked throughout the night to sop up the slippery blood and industrial sweepers were brought to give the street a scrub.

“It’s very smelly there this morning,” Childerly said. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”

By 9 a.m., the slick blood had already caused one minor collision. The road was closed overnight, but was re-opened to traffic this morning.

The link for the article is here:
http://news.therecord.com/News/BreakingNews/article/440717


I can only imagine what that sort of damage would do to any poor bugger who has an unfinished hardwood floor.

"Hey, Bob! What's with the weird stain on the floor? You kill somebody?"

"Nah. That's just the chicken blood from last week."

"...I was joking, Bob."

Labels: does home insurance cover Act of Gizzards?

posted by Phillip at 7:56 AM

 


Just in case you happened to miss it, there was an election in the US yesterday. Mel & I stayed up with a few friends to watch it, and partake in what should have been 2 hours of politically satirical fun with Stewart & Colbert. Alas, we only got to see the first half on CTV before the station yanked things back to their "regularly scheduled" Canadian content-filled shows.

Dammit.

Though I was at least able to be entertained by the happy squeak Mel unleashed when she found out Connecticut had voted for Obama.

As for today...well, perhaps now's not a good time to talk about today. Especially since it begins about 2 days ago. At the time, Mel was playing the part of the good driver and taking in her car for its regular oil & transmission fluid change. All goes well!

...until Monday, when Mel noticed something was definitely leaking from the front of the car. Naturally, no good came of this. After a night of stressing, she spent all of Tuesday running between two or three different garages (including the one who did the initial fluid changes) in an attempt to figure out what the leak was, if there even was one. Turns out, the garage doing the initial change had managed to spill a decent amount of transmission fluid inside the car, and what looked like a leak was the excess fluid falling victim to gravity. The garage was more than amicable to hose out the car and wash away all the fluid. And all was well!

...until, two hours later, as Mel swung by the mall to pick me up. Upon leaving the mall, the car began to do worrisome things, most notably stalling whenever we went from sitting idle at a light to accelerating. Then the "service engine" light went on. Not good. That's not a good sign to have lighting up on the dashboard.

Mel spent most of the US election night stressing not about the elections outcome, but about the car, since there was a chance that this could be something that might ultimately contribute to the car's demise. Three hours of sleep later, we woke up early on my day off & went over to the local Midas garage (who have proven themselves a number of times in the past). Despite having to wait a few hours since they were short-staffed and already backlogged at 8am (a frightening thought unto itself), we were given the good/rage-inducing news.

As it turned out, we get to thank the previous garage for this one. When they spray-cleaned the front of the car, they managed to loosen up a few things that shouldn't be loose, and as an added bonus the spray packed other bits o' dirt further up into the air hoses, completely mucking up the air flow into the engine. It took Midas about a half hour to clear everything out. They didn't charge us a cent.

And finally now, all was well.

...except for the fact that, as Mel takes a much deserved de-stressing nap on the couch, I am now reading the acclaimed SF author Michael Chrichton died today.

I'd almost be inclined to exclaim, "How much more suck could be crammed into today?!" but it's not even 4pm. So let's not invite further disaster today, shall we?

Labels: today's theme: a car full of pain

posted by Phillip at 11:28 AM