What Would Joan Jetta Do?

Joan Jetta would totally smash into the back of your truck if you don't yield the right of way, bitches!
I may have mentioned to a few of you that I was thinking of rolling Joanie off a cliff to put her out of her misery. Well, the mountain came to Mohamed. Joanie smashed into a truck last night and man, she is banged up worse than the paparazzi when they messed with Tobey Maguire.

Long-story-short, I was traveling northbound on King Street in Waterloo and some kid who was traveling southbound did not notice the steady stream of oncoming traffic cruising through the green light and decided that he should make a very dangerous left-hand turn. Clearly not the best decision he would make in his short 20-year stint of time here at this gig called "Earth".

Luckily, I saw the guy in the truck start to turn left when it was clearly unsafe to do so, so I had time to brace myself against the steering wheel so that I wouldn't go face first into the steering wheel or get whiplash. No one was hurt, thank goodness.

See pics below:

The point of impact - the other side was pretty smashed up too. It's hard to see from the picture, but the front plane of the car is no longer bumper and grill and hood, it's a vertical plane of bumpergrillhood. I think that the VW symbol on the front of my car vaporized on impact. I couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe that was Joanie's soul and it's now in heaven with Tercela (my first car)?



Both airbags blew and my whole car was shrouded in this mystical airbag mist that will probably give me cancer of the miscelaneous body part. The windshield was smashed, but didn't shatter into pieces (thank goodness). I prefer my eyes to not be filled with shards of glass. I know, I know. I'm a total princess.



Check out the insides of my bitchin' stereo!! I wonder if this is a safety feature of some sort...the stereo/radio is a designated crumple point to absorb impact.



I truly loved my Joanie, but I'm afraid she's not going to be salvageable, except by salvagers who will strip her down and sell her for parts, kind of like that new Paris Hilton movie, which looks like a garbage pile in a failure bowl (starring none other than Giles from Buffy - note, I'm on a Buffy kick right now).

I'm now driving a rented Kia Rio, and because I name all my cars, she has been dubbed "Rosie", and no - it's not because the car is cheap and it's had sex with Tom Arnold. At first I was calling her Kia Farrow, which then led to Rosemary's Baby and now it's just Rosie. If you need a name for your car, just let me know. Previous car names have included:

Joseph Stallin'
Michigan J. Frog
Stally Jesse Raphael
Tercela the Tercel
Paul Walker's Scrotum

Ok - that last one wasn't a name I made up for a car. It's a name I made up for Paul Walker's scrotum.

When I got home last night, I had to call Economical insurance to make my claim. I'm not sure if their system was overloaded or if it was just not working right, but I kept on getting cut off when I was on hold waiting for an agent, so I had to call back a few times. At least I had a nice song to keep me occupied and calm while I was waiting to get service (or waiting to get cut off again). Please excuse my poor song lyrics recall in this video. I was still a bit shaken up from the accident.



Every time I called in, Africa was the waiting music. I wonder if that's how Economical measures their customer service? Instead of dropped calls or customer satisfaction rates, they measure how many Africas the customer has to listen to before they get the service they were calling in for.

Boss: Bradley - could you come into my office for a minute?
Bradley: Sure thing, Mr Corriander.
Boss: Bradley, I'd like to talk to you about your call response times. Our metrics tell us that your customers listen to at least one and a half Africas before their calls are answered. This is far longer than service excellence objective of answering all calls before the lead singer of Toto stops the old man and asks for some old forgotten words or ancient melodies. What do you have to say for yourself?
Bradley: I'll try harder from now on.
Boss: Well I hope that next time you take some time to do the things you never had.

Grammar, Toto. Grammar!!

Did you know...

...that the head vampire from the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is no other than...
Da-da-da-da!
The mean and yelly dad from the Twisted Sister videos!



The first minute of this is pure, twisted familial gold.

If you liked "We're Not Gonna Take It", you'll like this too.



I remember being so excited when these videos graced the TV screen when I was a kid. I not-so-secretly wished that the next time I was bullied, I'd say the magic words ("I wanna rock") and my comrades and I would suddenly turn into the love children of Jem & the Holograms and Guns 'n' Roses. That's a shock and awe tactic unto itself.

Juns & the Rosograms also had another famous child

"Creeeeeeeole lady mama-lahhhhhd"

The mean, yelly dad from the Twisted Sister videos is actually named Mark Metcalf and he's kind of like Ron Howard's brother. You know him from lots of things, but do you really know him? Do you know that he owns a restaurant in Milwaukee? Do you know that his wife's name is Libby? Do you know that he wrote a poem about AIDS? Well, he did. And he put it on the internet. You should stop taking from the internet and start giving to the internet like me, Mark Metcalf and one of our other gifts from God, Tina Chen. I highly recommend you listen to her song about Missouri, the state she lives in (that God created) and "Not Like Any Other" which gets really awesome, really early in the song. If you prefer electronic music to a Capella, I suggest you listen to the version of "Missouri" in the link below. This has inspired me to write a song about my state, Ontario.

While you're waiting for the internet debut of my song about Ontario, here's Robo's latest contribution to the Internet. I traveled to Seattle for work last week and Robo decided to have one of his famous wee-hours shrieking matches with one of the neighborhood cats. How cute! Especially because I had to be up at 330 to catch a 4am limo. By the time I got to him, the shrieking had stopped, but there was still some howling to be done. He's so cute, but he's equal parts cute and disruptive.

This Apology is Brought to You By Joe Camel

I received an anonymous comment on one of my posts (The Ladybug's Picnic Totally Sucked - posted 2008/10/26). I am truly sorry if any offense was taken regarding my comments about baby formula. My comments were not meant to be a slight against those who use baby formula (parents and babies alike) or formula itself, but instead was meant to draw attention to the absurdity and duplicity of the ad campaign featuring Ty Pennington. Once again, my apologies if any offense was taken.

I've outlined my point a little better below. This is not meant to be in defense of any comments that were offensive. If you were offended, that's that. I offended someone. I won't try to un-offend you or try to convince you that you shouldn't have been offended. That in itself is offensive. It's just a better explanation of where the motivation for my comments was coming from.

From my point of view, Ty Pennington is to Similac baby formula as Joe Camel was to Camel Cigarettes. A highly attractive character sent to prey on our human tendencies to gravitate toward that which is attractive or desired. Ad campaigns of this nature usually have little to do with the product itself, it has to do with getting closer to a lifestyle or something/someone that is highly desirable, hence the popularity and effectiveness of celebrity endorsements. The reality is that the product is no better or worse just because a celebrity endorses it. I've fallen prey to this...everyone has. That's why celebrity endorsements prevail. The problem in the case of Ty Pennington and Similac is that there is a mismatch between the endorser, the endorsed and the target market.



Baby formula is something that could mean the difference between a healthy baby and failure to thrive. Who could argue with that?

Nobody.

Do I think they could have picked a more credible spokesperson to make their product seem more desirable than its competitors' products?

Yes.

Do I think that Similac will lose credibility due to this ad campaign?

Yes.

That's the explicit version of the judgment I was making.

So now while I'm on the topic of judgment, I'll judge hard on the cigarette companies by posting the pictures/ads below. This is directed toward the cigarette companies, not the smokers out there. I know it's a complex issue and that the taxes from cigarettes are a revenue stream for our government and I know they sponsor the arts, etc, etc, but you have to admit...these ads are a bit over the top.

This one says "Now Taste America" in Czech


Wow - a lady-doctor. What were they thinking in 1946? If you get out your magnifying glass and you can make out what they're saying about the "T-zone" in the bottom of the ad, it's worth the squinting.


"I can't quit you..."


I think this is my fave. In the one on the left, is the mother going to scold the baby for its bad taste in hats?

Hoose

It's official. We bought a house in Thunder Bay - the land of Mooseburger Trees and the fabled Moonicorn (the one-antlered moose, who incidentally has many chiropractic issues). Look - here's a picture of a mooseburger tree sprouting in the rocky tundra. Magical, isn't it?




Here are some pictures of our new place.

Front of the house. The tree in front of the window has got to go.


Back of the house. Deck with seats built in!!


This is where the magic happens.




Living room - yes - that is a wood-burning fire place



Two people independently asked if we get to keep the pineapple mirror, but sadly, I don't think it will be included in the deal.



Dining area



Kitchen - Over the range microwave. Hollllaaaa!!



Master bedroom ensuite - two sinks!!



Area off the kitchen/dining area



Bedroom 1



Bedroom 2



Bedroom 3



Bathroom for regular people - one sink



Nursery



Check out what I turned up while searching (fruitlessly, I must add) for some pictures of the Moonicorn. For some yet-to-be-explained-to-me reason, some dude painted two paintings of Barack Obama on a unicorn. Did I mention that he's naked in both? I was hesitant about putting these on the blog, because I'm afraid that these are actually offensive and I just don't know the meaning behind them. Well, the second part of that sentence is definitely true - I have no idea what these mean, even after searching the web for answers. If the former part of the sentence is also true, will someone let me know? I don't want to be that one member of the cyber-neighborhood that doesn't know it's inappropriate to have a statue of a little boy of a certain skin colour fishing off the front porch.



The artist who did these also does portraits of other political leaders and celebrities with pancakes on their heads (complete with a lovely pat of melting butter). Once again, not sure if they are in celebration of the absurd or whether they have a meaning that no web search can uncover.

The Ladybug's Picnic Totally Sucked!!

Before I publish a new post, I always read over my last post to make sure that I wrap up any cliffhangers that my readership (ha...I'm having some delusions of grandeur today) is waiting with baited breath to find resolution to. What I've found after reading my last post is that the ladybug's picnic totally sucked. I think that song was written to help kids learn how to manage the crushing disappointments in their lives. Here's a breakdown of the picnic:
- The sacks from their sack race broke, so they resorted to telling knock-knock jokes
- Their jumprope snapped and that resulted in them falling on their backs and faces
- They end up talking around a campfire about the high price of furniture, rugs and fire insurance for ladybugs (boring) and all the while their campfire is growing larger and larger. Then a fire truck puts out their fire

Poor ladybugs. NOW GET OUT OF MY WINDOWSILLS BEFORE I SPRAY INSECTICIDE ON YOU!! That would really ruin a picnic. Being exterminated en masse.

The cliffhanger from my last post was about buying/selling our house(s), but we're still not in a locked and loaded position for those yet (Inspector Electrical Gadget didn't show up on Friday), so you'll have to wait a little longer for the details.

Since this post is not action packed, here are two very different cops and robbers chases for you:

Remember when they tried to ban this video because it was too violent? By "they" I mean "The Man"



I think the OPP uses this as one of their training videos:



Thanks to everyone who made it to my Halloween party. It was great to see y'all in your costumes. I was especially impressed by Dan's "Conservative Supporter" costume, complete with hair combed in a nerdy fashion.

On a totally unrelated and irrelevant note, I think Ty Pennington of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition- and Trading Spaces-fame is on a runaway train that is barreling straight toward suicide. I bought the latest edition of Real Simple and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos to prepare for an evening of early Bernie Mac episodes (seriously, they're hilarious) and posting halloween pictures on facebook. As I was leafing through the pages, my thumb automatically slipped to a full page, card stock fold-out ad for Similac baby formula hawking their redesigned container (I think the formula used to be called "Breastmilk" and the container was called a "breast" before the redesign). And who is the celeb who is pushing (or being paid to push) the formula? Mr Ty Pennington.



Pardon my french, but WTF? Did the co-op student at the ad agency who wanted to get their boss fired make this decision? I'm not even a mother and I find this to be totally ridiculous. If having children means that you will become part of a demographic that, on the whole, loves Ty Pennington so much that you would honour his endorsement of baby formula, I would prefer my eggs scrambled rather than fertilized (and most of you know how I feel about eggs). Click here to see the online version of the ad.
Ty's ad reminds me of that SNL commercial where Stevie Wonder endorses the Kannon AE-1 camera. "So easy, even Stevie Wonder can use it". Next it will be Mike Holmes signature Tampax Tampons, Huey Lewis & The News Hydraulic Fluid Supplies or High School Musical Patient Transfer Slings.

Ding Dong, Ringy Gone

Last weekend I traveled to the mighty metropolis of Toronto to get my engagement ring resized. The sheer weight of the diamond was stretching the ring to the point that it was all sloppy floppy on my finger. I've been without my ring for about a week now and I'm still feeling quite naked. There's nothing to fiddle with during boring conversations, traffic and/or meetings at work. I never thought I could fall in love with a piece of jewelery, but I did. Sean - I'm leaving you for our ring.

While I was in Toronto, I looked at wedding bands as well. The jeweler is making a wax mock-up for mine since I have an unusual (yet amazing) engagement ring so it needs an unusual (yet amazing) wedding band to maintain its awesomeness. I chose a plain white gold band (matte finish) for Sean. It was so easy to choose a ring for Sean. Sean...never change. I felt kind of cold-hearted or lazy after it took only moments to find a ring for Sean, but it is what it is...there's not a lot of variables to insert into a basic men's wedding ring for a basic man who likes basic things (except when it comes to food).

Speaking of food...the cats are cranky, cranky, cranky. I didn't buy enough prescription food for them while they were on "holiday" at the grandparents house, so the grandparents did what any grandparents do...they fed their grandkids junk food because that's what they sell at the grocery store. The cats were in heaven. It was like giving a kid a bowls of Smarties for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you feed kids nothing but Smarties they just get fat, but when you feed my cats the equivalent to nothing but Smarties, they get crystals in their urine. Sorry kids...back to health food for you! Switching back to their regular food was like that show, "Honey! We're Killing The Kids" where really unhealthy families try to get healthy. The cats whined and complained. Snoopers even ran away briefly today - I have no idea how that tub-o-lard escaped the back yard. In the end, they've settled back into their bland routine and said "I love you, Mom".

On Saturday morning, I had the pleasure of accompanying Graham Dunn and Dr. X to Kindermusic. It was Wunderbar! It made me want to become a musical therapist. I'd get to sing songs to kids and make them laugh and teach them how to love music.
There were only 3 kids at the session and 7 adults - the adult team totally dominated. We were way better at Kindermusic than the kids were. We didn't put the instruments in our mouths, which was the first step toward success. Maybe kids have a special ability to taste music that wears off over time.
Here's Xander, doing what he does best...ooze cuteness.



Xander is really fond of pointing these days, which leads me to believe that Kindermusic needs more Pointer Sisters content. I think all kids have a natural ability to do "The Neutron Dance". What kid wouldn't benefit from a little P. Sisters in their life?



Actually, the one of the sister's skirt was obscenely short in that clip, so maybe the Pointer Sisters aren't as kid-appropriate as I had originally thought. She needed two hairdoos to wear that dress. Funny story...when I played that song for my brother (yes...it was my favourite song about 3 or 4 years ago), he was shocked to hear that the singer was a woman.

As per usual, this blog post is about to turn tangential. According to the internet, the pinball counting song from Sesame Street was performed by the Pointer Sisters. Who knew? Without hyperbole, this song plays in my head whenever anyone counts out loud. It's hard-wired into my brain and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only 30-something that has been similarly influenced by a bunch of puppets.

I found a couple other Sesame Street favourites that are never far from my mind.

Ladybug's Picnic


The Alligator King


Oh...and we sold our house. And pretty much bought one too. More on that next post...

Took Off From the Great White North

It's the weekend after Thanksgiving and my Northern adventure has drawn to a close. Sean and I had a nice visit and it was good to see the in-laws and the in-dog.
I arrived late on Thursday night to find Sean and his car enveloped in a cloud of second-hand cigarette smoke, but smooching him was as sweet as a mule eating an apple despite the offensive odor.

I worked all day on Friday, which was a little taste of the telecommuter life I will have once I move to T Bay. It went well. I spoke to most of the people that I normally speak to on the phone in any given day and then had lots of quiet time to "work" rather than "talk". You see, most of my desk time usually gets eaten up by people who see that my door is open and so they come to talk to me. 99% of the time it's about work and we solve "work" problems while we're speaking, but I usually have some more traditional "work" to do during that time (ie: reading reports, composing a communication, putting the finishing touches on my plan to take over the company and rename it SeylerCorp 9000, LLC - we would manufacture more Seyler's for the world through cybernetic generation, not breeding farms. It's part of my larger plan to take over the world). I actually got to do some work, so that was nice. I think I'm going to be one of those people who ends up being more productive when they work at home. Yay for independent decision-making!

On Friday evening, Sean and I ventured to a place called United States (you may have heard of it) to pick up some jazz we bought on the Interweb (another place you may have heard of). We had a little bit of static at the border because we didn't have receipts for everything, but luckily the border guard was a kind soul and she let us go with a stern warning to bring receipts next time. I think that it helped that she was a 20-something girl who seemed to be of a similar demographic to us (hipster wannabe in funky clothes beneath her flak jacket). I wonder if things would have been different if we were smelly, toothless truckers that said "hello, little lady. I'd pick you up from the side of the road if you were hitch-hiking".

A great sign that we saw on the way into the US.
I see an apple and something citrusey (fruit and/or veggie), a plant (plants), a ham and some sausages (meat), but where does the parrot fit into this picture? Is a parrot considered a recommended source of meat in Minnesota?


Once we got back into cell coverage (there is none for about 50 miles outside of Thunder Bay), we received good e-news that our conditional house sale had firmed up on Friday afternoon. There's one condition that we need to take care of before the end of November but the sale is final unless Sean and I fail to uphold our end of the bargain. Woot. Now we just need to find a place in Thunder Bay.

On Saturday, we went for a hike in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park which is about an hour away from Thunder Bay. We hiked with some of the people from the medical school and one of their friends. It was a great day for a hike - mix of sun and cloud and a bit cool. My new hiking boots held up quite nicely and were comfy the whole way. We ate lunch by the lake and then hiked back out. Check out the picture below for some stereotype-enrichment. This is a photo of me being SWARMED by bugs. Oddly enough, I was the only person in our group to be of such interest to the bugs. Perhaps they too are attracted to the smell of Toronto?



On our way home, we stopped at Thunder Bay lookout, which provides a beautiful view of Thunder Bay. The lookout has a platform that hangs out over the edge of the cliff. It's kind of scary. It reminded me of the time I went up the CN Tower and stood on the glass floor. You know nothing's going to happen, or will it? Will you plunge to your death? Will that 8 year old who is jumping on the glass cause it to break? The only way to find out is to walk to the edge. Here's a picture of Sean and I both looking unnatural because we're not used to hanging over a cliff...more specifically, I'm not used to sharing the platform that hangs over the cliff with a 300lb man.


Sunday we ate too much and then on Monday, we slept it off. I left early in the morning on Tuesday :(

In all seriousness, Thunder Bay is different from anywhere I lived before, with the exception of the fact that there are few parallel roads (sound familiar, K-Wers?). There are so many bungalows. So many. It's like Nanabosho (aka The Sleeping Giant) planted a whole bunch of house seeds and in the 1950s-1970s they all germinated and bloomed into beautiful, one-storey houses that "show beautifully" and "have lots of updates". Unfortunately, neither Sean or I want to live in a bungalow. Oh Nanabosho...can't you help us find suitable housing like you helped the Ojibwai find silver in your hills oh so many years ago?



Now for your weekly dose of Robo. I heard the unmistakable sign of the toilet tank lid clanking, so I grabbed my camera because I knew something funny was going on. Robo chased his tail for a good two minutes of video. The only real action happens in the first 20 seconds or so when he bonks his head on the toilet. The rest is just mindless spinning. He's so close to falling off on many occasions, but he defies gravity.