Month: September 2011

Through most of the summer I’ve been buying fresh and whole pineapples from Donald’s Market near where I live. Pineapples are one of my favourite fruits. I can sometimes eat almost half a large pineapple in one sitting. Then the acid stings my mouth but it’s worth it. The market where I buy my pineapples has been selling them during the summer with a 2 for 1 sale for $5, which is a steal for two whole pineapples. They were also Dole brand pineapples which to me, are a sign of quality. I didn’t have a single pineapple that wasn’t tasty and sweet. Man, that was good eating.

A few days ago, the market stopped having their 2 for 1 promo. It was now $4 for a single pineapple. Not only was it more expensive, they weren’t Dole brand anymore. They were Visa pineapples. At first glance, it might seem odd that a credit card company is now dabbling in pineapple distribution but it’s a different company. Biting the bullet, I bought one of these pineapples. What a disappointment that turned out to be. I don’t think I’ve ever had a pineapple where it had absolutely no taste. It wasn’t sweet, it wasn’t bitter, it wasn’t anything really. It had the same texture and juiciness of a good pineapple but it had no taste to it. It was a bland and soulless fruit. After just a few pieces, I threw the rest out. Was that a rash decision? Maybe, but the pineapple wasn’t going to get any better.

And that was my post about buying a disappointing pineapple. Man, it’s a good thing the weekend is coming up.

We’re gonna have to do something different tonight. The time I allocated for blogging is going to be used up to determine why I got charged a service fee in one of my bank accounts. You’ll be following along as I discover the truth. A few days ago, I logged onto Mint.com and discovered the service charge with one of my CIBC accounts. Usually CIBC gives me a service charge but then refunds it almost all back. I wind up paying like a dollar a month. This, however, happens at the end of the month. This service charge was in the middle of the month and I did not get a refund.

Ok, let me log onto my CIBC account to see if the charge is actually there since Mint.com sometimes gets the labels wrong.

Wait, there seems to be something weird here. Hold on…

Yep, Mint.com is totally screwed up. It somehow decided the $20 or so I spent at Boston Pizza was a bank service charge. It has also decided all my Interac purchases have been at a business called “The Point”.

Sorry folks for the anti-climatic ending.

I’m not sure why but it took me this long to hear about the term “Canadian tuxedo” for the first time. That term echoed within my ears just last week. Apparently, it was made popular in the movie Super Troopers. For those who were as lost as I was, a “Canadian tuxedo” is an outfit that consists of denim on the bottom as well as denim on top. Most commonly, this outfit is accomplished by wearing denim jeans and then a denim jacket. If you want to see what this looks like, you can visit this site or just go to your local Wal-Mart.

I’ve known for many, many years this look was a major fashion faux pas, I just didn’t know it had a name. It surprised me that it was attributed to Canadians as I’ve seen this look worn by people of many nationalities. By the way, there’s also an outfit called a “Russian tuxedo”. That consists of a track suit. Back to the Canadian version now. It really amazes me that people don’t understand the denim on denim or as I call it a “blue on blue incident” is not a good look. The first problem is it’s very difficult to get two items of denim that match in colour exactly. One of the items will darker and it just looks off. Even if you were able to get both items exactly the same colour, it leads to our second problem, too much denim. It would be like you just draped your entire body in a continuous swath of denim. I believe such outfits are acceptable if you perform in Vegas but not if you’re going to buy a pack of smokes at the 7-11.

Just today, I was walking past a bus stop where there were people lined up waiting for a bus. In said lineup, were two dudes wearing denim on denim. Maybe this is a Canadian thing after all.

I bet some of you are curious how many visitors this dog and pony show gets. Well, to be honest, not a whole lot. I do have a small number of loyal readers whom I am thankful for every day.

To give you an idea how many people visit this site, here are some stats about the number of visitors this whole site gets, which includes pages beyond just this blog. I can’t even imagine what the stats look like for Google.com for example.

I had a very boring Sunday. As evidence, the following incident was the most exciting thing to happen to me today.

I went to do some housecleaning today as my apartment is a mess. I slid open the glass patio door in my living room to get some fresh air in while I cleaned. After I was done, I went to close the door when I saw a bee had flown into my apartment and was in between one of my living room windows and the blinds. I could tell it was trying to get out because it kept flying against the glass. Since it was trying to leave and it wasn’t antagonizing me, I decided to leave it alone. It kept trying to fly through the glass though and that wasn’t really going to work. I wanted to tell him to just fly over to his left since that was where the patio door was wide open. I unfortunately don’t know how to communicate with bees, so I just had to stay silent and hope he’d figure it out on his own.

To his credit, he did stop flying into the glass. Instead, he flew in the opposite direction, through the blinds and back into my living room. I was about to bolt into the safety of my bedroom when the bee flew back towards the windows. He landed on a part of the patio door, just mere inches away from the edge where the door opening was and freedom awaited. So close, yet so far. He figured it out pretty quickly though as he found the opening and took off into the sky. I was happy for the both of us, he found freedom again and I didn’t have to worry about having him stay over for the night. I briefly worried about him bringing his buddies back to my place but that never happened.

I hope your Sunday was way better than mine.

Last but not least, this blog looks way better in 1996 (might contain music).

My back seems to have cleared itself up today as the day wore on. I wonder if it’ll get bad again tomorrow. You know what was nice to hear? People at work told me to just take a day off if I need to get it looked at.

If you’re wondering if I actually remember to buy body wash, the answer is yes. My body is fresh and cleaning smelling now, including the penis parts of my body.

It rained most of the day in Vancouver. It was grey, wet, and dreary outside. It wasn’t cold though, so I guess that’s one thing still missing from the traditional, sad Vancouver fall.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Well, I’ve managed to screw up my back somehow. On Sunday night, my back, near the middle of my shoulder blades tightened up. It didn’t affect me sleeping at all but it certainly affected my work day on Monday. In certain postures I could just feel the tightness of the muscles causing discomfort. Luckily, just sitting up perfectly straight relieved a lot of tension. A hot shower on Monday evening loosened the muscles enough for some temporary relief.

Tuesday brought a pain-free day as the muscles seemed to relax on their own. Thinking my ordeal was over, I went to sleep on Tuesday night, only to wake up this morning with a renewed tightness in my back again. Today was pretty much a repeat of Monday. I wonder what the cause is. Am I just getting old? Bad posture? Pinched nerve? Stress (I don’t feel all that stressed)? I think I may drop by the doctor’s office tomorrow to get professional opinion about this. By the way, this sorta sums up how I feel about my back.

I know I’m getting old but the reminders that’s happening never seem to stop. For the last three days, I’ve stepped into the shower and then realized I’m down to my last bit of body wash. I totally forget this when I’m out and about, say next to a drug store. Tonight, I showered with barely a drop of body wash on my poof. Yeah, I shower with a poof and I do it at night. Most of my readers know that. I’d say the odds are 50-50 that I’ll remember to buy more body wash tomorrow.

I frequently eat after midnight. I know people say that’s not good for you but I can’t help it. I’m trying to eat healthier though. This evening, I hate a plate of roasted broccoli and cauliflower past 12am. It was not bad and I know it was good for me. I did not cover them vegetables in Velveeta either. I wonder if my eating habits would be the same if I lived next to a Wendy’s that’s open until 2am.

The new Winnipeg Jets played their first pre-season game tonight. The hometown fans at the MTS Centre welcomed the second incarnation of the Jets with a three minute standing ovation, some of which you can view here. I don’t think any crowd had been that excited for a pre-season game in decades. I only hope the Jets can give their fans a decent season.

If you have five extra minutes in the day, you might want to waste them at this web site. For the record, the key that I drew was terrible but my sword looked awesome.

I recently concluded my multi-post series about my battle with bed bugs from 2004. I’ve decided to assemble the links to all the parts in this single post for easy reference. This is the first time this has been done. As technology has advanced much further since I initially wrote the posts, I’ve gone back and edited some of them to reflect a more faithful vision of what I wanted to write. As an example, in the original versions of my posts, the bed bugs bit first. You’ll have to see how that changes in these versions! Enjoy!

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part four addendum

Part five

Part six

Part seven

Part eight

Epilogue

 

My good friend Woba, I know you remain hidden in the vastness of the galaxy, most likely near the spice mines of Scarberia. I have fond memories of our adventures on Coruscant and often think about our discussions about clone armies. May the Force continue to be with you.

Patrick Oabel